Little Irene threw her arms around his neck.
“Do not talk like this! Do not be so distressed!” she said, with tears in her eyes. “It is no fault of yours that you do not know how to read and write!”
“Until this moment,” the Prince went on, “I had never felt the need to learn anything. I would spend my days on the terrace, gazing at the sky and the valley, or going down the slope to shoot targets with my sling, my only concern being how to escape the eternal squabbles and the petty miseries of the palace… Now, however, since I came down from our mountain and have been amongst our people, I see, feel the need to learn… And I shall learn,” he went on with fervour. “I shall go to the schoolmaster, I shall toil day and night, and I shall learn! Otherwise I will never be able to accomplish my purpose.”
Brother and sister walked on thus for some while.
Loneliness pervaded everything. Not a single soul did they meet, neither in the fields, nor in the woods, to ask whither the jester had gone.
As they came out of the forest, they went past a small, solitary house. Its owner sat by the doorway, his head bandaged, smoking his pipe.
The Prince recognized him, and stopped to bid him good morning.
“How is your head, Miserlix?”
The man rose from his chair, grasped the boy’s hand and kissed it.
“May God keep you well, my good lad,” he said, choking with emotion. “I shall never forget the debt I owe you.”
And noticing Little Irene, he asked:
“Is the young lass your sister?”
“Yes!”
“Come, be welcome in my poor home, sit down and rest.”
“I do not have time to stop,” said the Prince. “I am chasing a man who runs before me; he has a good head start, and I must catch up with him at all costs.”
“If you are chasing someone the likes of you and me, then mayhap you could gain on him. But if you are running after some palace courtier, you would need to have the jester’s horse to catch him.”
“A horse? The jester has a horse? Where did you see him?”
“He went past this way at daybreak. He was making the horse gallop as if it had been stung by the devil himself…”
“But how came he by the horse?” asked the Prince.
Miserlix laughed.
“Those palace men come by anything they want, don’t you worry,” he said. “Faintheart was on horseback too, when he went past this way yesterday, under cover of night.”
“They took the same road?”
“Yes! And as he passed by this morning, the dwarf shouted to me, asking whether I had any greetings to send to Master Faintheart, because he would be seeing him again, as he said, very soon.” And looking keenly at the Prince, who stood crestfallen and with his arms crossed: “Don’t let it break your heart, my lad,” he went on. “Do come inside, you and your sister. You chase him in vain — you will never catch up with him now!”
Once inside, Miserlix’s daughter brewed coffee, served it in iron cups, and placed these before them on an iron tray.
The Prince noticed that all the furnishings were also made of iron, and asked why.
“And how would it be otherwise? Mine is the blacksmith’s craft, my lad,” replied Miserlix. “Once upon a time, I was the one who forged all the swords, arrow tips and suits of armour in the kingdom, it was I who would clad the mighty ships with iron, ships which filled the river and spread terror to every neighbour. But the good years are now gone, the ships are lost, as are the weapons, and the palace does not order new ones; my hands hang worthless, useless. What iron was left in my storehouse I used to make furniture, just so I would have something to busy myself with, and not sit around doing nothing. I have no iron left, however. And so, here I sit, idling away the time, smoking my pipe, while my daughter sells her needlework to bring some bread into the house. Everything has been turned upside down, my lad!”
The Prince’s eyes flashed with the new hopes that were being born in his heart.
“And long ago, at the time when the palace still commissioned swords, where did you buy the iron?”
“I did not buy it. The palace provided me with it.”
“And where did the palace get it from?”
“Ah, my boy, those were the days when everyone prospered here. Many were the young men and the families who owed their livelihood to the State mines and quarries. You could see them going down the pits every day, like armies of ants, extracting the stones, and as many more would be busy in the workshops, where they would separate the ore from the rock. I was then managing one hundred hard-working craftsmen, we earned our bread lavishly, and there wasn’t a soul left without his beef stew or his roast chicken on a Sunday. Those days are gone and vanished, never to return!” said Miserlix with a sigh.
“And why couldn’t the good days come back, I wonder?” said the Prince eagerly. “Why might not the work begin anew, with miners extracting iron, so you could make again arrow tips and spearheads?”
Miserlix smiled.
“And who would be paying for all the hard-toiling labourers? The King is up to his ears in debt. He does not even have food to eat.”
The Prince bowed his head at this, heavy as lead with dark sadness. He needed florins! Where could he find florins?
He remembered the lost treasure, and his heart felt quashed, strangled by an iron grip. He rose to take his leave of Miserlix and his daughter.
“Come,” he said to Little Irene. “Let us go to the schoolmaster straight away.” But they had no time to go to his house, for they met him on their way.
“Good greetings to you, my children,” said the schoolmaster, recognizing the two siblings. “Where are you going?”
“I was coming to find you,” said the Prince. “I have a favour to ask, and I was heading towards your house.”
“What a pity!” said the schoolmaster. “I was just now going to town, to see my brother who lives there. Could you perhaps explain while we walk?”
“Why not? I too must go back to the capital with my sister, so we can talk on the way there. I have a proposition for you. I want to learn how to read and write. Will you teach me?”
“Well done! But how much will you pay me? You know I am a poor man. I cannot teach for nothing—”
“I have no money to give you, nor anything else of value,” interrupted the Prince, “but I propose the following arrangement. You only have some wild greens to live on, which the children cultivate on your behalf—”
“Not wild greens, just tubers,” interrupted the schoolmaster. “I grow nothing but carrots, onions and the like now, plants whose yield cannot be seen. Otherwise, all is stolen from me.”
“Well then. What I propose is to bring you a fowl or a hare or a rabbit or any other game I might kill for every lesson you give me. Do you accept?”
“Do I? And how!” said the schoolmaster, overjoyed. “So many years has it been since I last ate meat that I have near forgotten what it tastes like.”
They were walking through the woods.
The schoolmaster took a thick dry branch, cut it and trimmed it into small squares, and scratched on each a letter of the alphabet. Then he sat down at the root of a tree, and spread them before him.
“Come,” he said, “and I shall first teach you the letters and the sounds.”
The schoolmaster had good patience, and the students were eager and keen to learn. And so, when the sun set, the three of them were still sitting beneath the tree, shuffling the wooden squares and sorting them out again, to form syllables and words.