Fleshed Out, Part 4

(Chapter IV) The Queen of Virtues

The meeting with the old man had not been very instructive for the prince, or so he believed.

Before he left, the old man had however provided him with an indication of a place where a root could be found which would be helpful in his quest.

He had returned thoughtfully this very evening. As he had suspected, his wife had worried to find him gone, and everyone greeted him with relief. He barely tasted the evening meals, and left the guests to go in his apartments, feeling overwhelmed by a great lassitude.

This time, when he awoke in his familiar dream, he was standing near the muddy waters of the large marsh next to the castle —the very place that the old man had indicated to him. He did not really know what to seek, and was about to return to the castle, when the Archmagus appeared, fully in the flesh at this time.

“But what am I doing here? “ wondered the disconcerted writer.

“ I thought that you were going to explain it to me “ wondered the prince…

“Well, I think… that I am here to find how to end… or rather, to begin this story… “ said the thoughtful writer.

“ Of which story are you speaking? “

“But yours, of course, this incredible story of statues… I am responsible of your predicament, obviously, and I do not know how to help you overcome it”

“So I was right, you did petrify all these people!” said the prince as he was unsheathing his sword.

At this moment, the writer understood that the prince was right. He was the malevolent wizard who had petrified the statues, and who had tried to hide since the beginning of the history.

But at the same time as he was this wizard, he was simultaneously the prince himself, like him in search of answers to this situation.

And were he to succeed, he would be also the prince, living happy with many children.

For that, he was afraid that he had to agree to be killed (symbolically of course, he hastened to say to reassure himself) for the curse to be lifted.

“Wait” he said.

The writer was in this strange dream, where all was of a pristine and limpid clearness and as he had understood, he was a link in the chain of events. Moreover, the name which he had chosen in this dream indicated it. He had believed at first that Tomos (as Thomas) meant twin, double… the double of the prince. But in actuality, Tomos (τόμος ) also meant the cut piece, the volume or tome of a book.

The writer thus did not have any other choice than to assume his role in his own story.

This tale was also intended to its writer, because it was a simple yet powerful representation of his own conflicts, which could be interpreted in various ways.

The dark kingdom was the empty hole where he has been for years now, trying, without really believing it, to make the illuminating inspiration spring forth.

That was sad to say, but until now, he had not been very emotionally implied in this creation, only giving the spark of his own life, but no more.

So that was why he had come to unconsciously represent his conflicts, hoping that the prince would solve it for him, and that a future joy would override his sadness solidified in time…

At the same time as these gusts of emotions flooded him, he remembered the reason why he had refused the too simple expediency of an adversary on which to put the blame.

Because the prince wrote his own history, and that the very deepest desire of the prince was to learn something new, and not to simply chop a head off a dragon.

The writer himself wanted that as well. And as the prince wrote the history, so was he at this moment! A realm of possibilities was open, and it was not necessary for him to have his head chopped off… he just had to lift the magic spell.

But for that, he had to find (or remember!) a plausible explanation which could justify his acts, if he did not want to butt against the limits which he had imposed on the experiment.

“Listen,” the writer Tomos [«Take on your role» a voice was saying] told the prince “You are right, I am the one responsible for this; I do not know yet why I did that, but we will find it together.

Because you are also responsible, for I was only responding to your wishes. You are someone of impetuous, and adventurous character. You sought a search sufficiently heroic to give you more maturity, and I granted you your wish. I thus gave you this enigma, as you did ask. And I must say that up to now you did more than well. Proof be that you uncovered me, without my even expecting it!”

The anger of the prince faltered, because the eyes in front of him were his own, or at least, so familiar that he felt he knew them as his own.

“Then put the magic spell to an end!” the prince answered back “Immediately! Return my wife, my friends to their lives. And give me back my own. I know that the old man is right, my dreams are real, and this life does not have a meaning without the other”

“But… You do not understand, it is so easy, yet so difficult at the same time…”

“Why are you refusing to do it? You need something to undo the magic spell, don’t you? The old man in the shack told me about a root…”

“A root? I am not a herbalist…”

At this moment, a cawing resounded in the marsh, and a crow of majestic proportions flew away not far from them. Without hesitating, the prince ran to the place were the crow had left and out of sheer surprise stopped in his tracks in front of the plant that was growing here.

It looked like all these weeds which he had already seen growing in such damp places, with its broad green leaves, and its slim stems full of small pink flowers, but it was quite simply enormous. So large that the leaves were as large as himself.

Tomos, who had arrived behind him, froze as well when he saw the plant.

“Yes, of course” thought the writer, “I know this plant. It grew in our gardens, and my grandparents usually collected their roots. They brewed it into a “reinvigorating drink” just before winter.”

The thought of his grandparents, and of the joy that he had had with them during his summer holidays, the memories of harvests in the fields, and of all these happy moments where nothing mattered but the moment, gave him the feeling to swell in waves of warmth at each breath he took. Tears beaded in his eyes — were they even real?— and his throat was tied…

This plant, his grandparents named it “dogue“, a word from the Normand patois stemming from the old Norse of the Vikings… which had also given (broadleaf) “dock” in English.

Interesting that the docks are also a place where one unloads heavy cargoes in harbors, he told himself without really knowing why.

In any case, he knew how to prepare the taproot of broadleaf dock to brew a potion that would surely be able to make a change.

“What’s the matter?” asked the prince. “It is this root, is it not?”

“Indeed,” Tomos answered. “One of the names of this plant (in French) is “patience”. To extract a root of this size, you will need a great deal. The good news is that you will not need the leaves, unless you want to poison somebody. So we know what to do now…”

The prince, thanks to his sword, skilfully cut down the leaves, which fell one by one to the ground; then he undertook to cut out a circle in the ground around the base of the root, which was as broad as his thigh.

Tomos thought that a simple piece of the root would be enough, but the taproot was well anchored, sinking straight into the ground, and was so robust and flexible that it resisted any attempt to cut it. He and the prince had to renounce, and try to extract it entirely.

They patiently dug the ground around the plant with their hands for hours. Night started to recede, and the hole was almost as deep as the prince was tall. The end of the root was not very far, so both of them went up on the surface, and bent on the root, drawing with all their might. At the second time, they felt that the root had moved, so they redoubled their efforts. And little by little, the root left the wet ground. They propped themselves again, and started again to draw, draw… and all in a sudden found themselves down on the ground, the root finally in their hands.

They went up the brook which flowed into the marsh and which led to the castle, and there they cleaned the root, still full of mud, inside the current.

They arrived at the castle of the statues, and at the request of Tomos, in the hearth of the large hall where large pieces of meat usually roasted, the prince placed a cauldron he had found in the kitchens.

He folded up the root inside, while the Archmagus lit a fire.

While the prince was taking care of the cauldron, the Archmagus had found the ingredients that he needed in the kitchens.

There was a jar of red wine, some bays of juniper, a clove, three stars of star anise. Of course, he had not found caster sugar which he traditionally used to sweeten the mixture, but he had found even better: root of liquorice.

He placed all the ingredients in the cauldron, and let the mixture gently simmer.

After one hour, during which the mixture had reduced considerably, they withdrew the cauldron off the fire, and put it on the flagstones of the castle.

They filtered the ruby mixture which had cooled down, then decanted it into a crystal carafe.

The prince still did not rely completely on the Archmagus, so he asked him to drink from the elixir first. Tomos took two glasses, filled them, then drank the first.

The liquid had a rough taste, hardly sweetened by the other ingredients, but it was quickly replaced by the soft warmth of the wine, which was spreading quickly in his throat, and soon warmed him entirely.

All around him, it was like the statues became animated, but he thought that it was perhaps the effect of the wine, even if alcohol should have been all evaporated.

So he approached the royal throne, where King Godfried and Queen Mathilde were seated. Both seemed stopped in the middle of a joyful conversation.

When he saw them, the writer, who coexisted with Archmagus Tomos (although that sometimes seemed difficult to him to distinguish one from the other) saw the features of his own grandparents, superimposed on the features of the royal couple, beaming at him.

It was more and more difficult to repel the memories that this meeting brought forth. King Godfried was his grandfather who was deceased a few years before.

Whereas for the Archmagus, he was the King whom he had served faithfully, and who was responsible for his exile sentence.

The feeling of treason that he had felt at this time explained him why all was frozen in this past. The death of the grandfather had caused the family to break apart, due to rancors that no one had dared to express while the patriarch was still alive. His grandfather had never been deceived by the appearances, and for this, he begrudged him, making him responsible for this feeling of insulation, of forlorn distance.

But his grandmother was still living in this world, and she was now looking at him with eyes full of kindness. She had lived all the events with a fortitude concerned about unimportant details, without ever hinting at her distress, and still now, she asked others nothing but to live fully for each of the days left to her, without her being frozen in a sterile past.

And even this past still wanted to live, and to be used as fertile ground for events to come. To go through it like this revived it little by little.

“What happens?” the anxious prince said, distraught to see the Archmagus breaking down in front of the statues of the royal couple.

“Nothing. I trust that everything will go well now.

I was the Archmagus of this kingdom, and for years, I faithfully served the King and his family. I was an oracle, adviser, strategist, healer.

Since hundreds of years, the kingdoms of the ancestors of your father and those of King Godfried had been fighting, without one being able to override the other, so a truce had been decided. This truce had lasted for twelve generations, and nothing justified any longer the fact that the two kingdoms lived in the inherited reciprocal fear passed down by the generations.

One day —you were only a child— I rode to your kingdom to meet your father there. I wanted to arrange a meeting to reconcile the two kingdoms. Your father was in favor of this idea.

When I came back, King Godfried appeared worried. He did say nothing at first, but I quickly understood that he did not want such a reunion of the kingdoms. I suspected his reaction had to do with his fear that his people would prefer the sunny hills of the Eternal Summer to the valleys of the Eternal Winter, and that he would end alone. So he considered my act as a treason, and condemned me to be exiled.

I was furious to be misunderstood, and even more about his considering me a traitor. That is why I cast this spell on the castle. Then I drank a potion to forget everything and have wandered since.

But thanks to you, I realize that I have only punished myself, and that the magic spell can now be lifted. Perhaps the task to reconcile the two kingdoms will rest on your shoulders, but that will have to be done in its time.

For the moment, it is enough for you to drink the rest of the potion, and all will be done.”

“But if that is enough to cure my hand, there will not be enough left for all these people.” the prince retorted.

“You will see that that it matters not” answered the Archmagus “Have trust.”

So the prince drank the glass full of the crimson liquid, and almost dropped the glass out of surprise. He could now feel cold in his left hand, where the stone had now disappeared. And his hand could move again. His chest was fiery, and he saw that he loved these people, who all were so familiar, and that he wished to pursue his life here, and to appreciate all the nooks of this place. He, who had lived in the two kingdoms, could convince his future father-in-law that it was useless for him to imprison his subjects by fear, and that perhaps they would become, himself and Rosa-Anna, King and Queen of the Kingdom of a Thousand Seasons.

When he awoke in the large hall, Tomos had disappeared, even if he felt that his presence was in every wall of the castle. And the hall buzzed of life, just like when he had awaken here the first time.

But this time, it was a new future and a new past which he was writing.

Epilogue

When the writer woke up, he was surprised. He had finished his tale in his dream, and all elements he had sought, he had finally found.

He opened the dresser of the kitchen, and behind lines of old bottles found there what he was looking for: a bottle on which half-erased letters indicated “Wine of Patience – October 94”. Thus, this bottle that his grandmother had offered him at the time of his last visit had become like a Hindu prasād, an offering at the same time simple and sacred which, imbued of divine grace, became capable of miracles.

Could he make the memory of his ancestors live again? He doubted it. Neither did he have the capacity to reconcile his family; and that was perhaps well like that, things could not be precipitated. But he could understand and accept the choices of each one of them, and to accept them was the most difficult part.

The quiet example of his dear grandmother who had served, simply, without never imposing anything, and who seemed able to accept everything, even the unacceptable, could surely help him to reach that.

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