Work Text:
The consistent metallic pang grew louder, echoing betwixt the high granite mountains and muffled through the ancient trees, filling the gap in the broken rhythm of his destrier’s hooves. The Prince stopped to allow the stallion to rest once again, patting his sweaty haunch as he bent to lift the hoof once more. The offending iron had become bent and misplaced by a stone in the road and was clearly causing pain, but he could not remove it, the prongs still held it fast.
The metallic pang continued its steady, unrelenting rhythm as he glanced up the path in the woods.
“Perhaps we are yet in luck, my dear,” he told the horse, stroking his velvety nose. He hummed a song he had heard, somewhere within the woods, so many days ago now. He couldn’t remember all the words.
“Mmm-hm-hm-hm-hmmmm hm,
People make mistakes,
Holding to their own,
Thinking they’re alone.”
The Prince lead his mount slowly onward. Surely he had traveled far outside of his kingdom now. Perhaps his Court would be concerned. He did not particularly care. His Princess was gone. There must be other maidens to pursue, somewhere.
Around a bend in the path, he came to a secluded Glade nestled within wood and mountain, alight with the fiery gold of the sunset. And within it, he finally discovered the source of the sound. A hut, built right against the mountainside, and a smithy, the forge burning hot as a cleft in the very earth. Therein was a Blacksmith before his anvil, pounding on a red-hot slab of iron.
The Prince brought his steed up to the hitch with a heavy sigh, “I feel as if I have walked between Heaven and Hell.”
“I very much doubt you have done so, Your Highness,” said the Blacksmith between strikes of the iron. He did not look up, nor even pause.
“Why do you not take a knee, sir?” said the Prince, “If you know me thus?”
The Blacksmith continued his hammering, “I have met the Kings of the two greatest Kingdoms, sire. You are but a man.”
The Prince was struck by such callousness, but allowed it to pass. After all, he was far beyond his own kingdom now, and every king called his own realm great.
“I would ask of you a favor, Blacksmith,” he said, “My steed has thrown a shoe.”
“I do not shoe horses,” said the Blacksmith, still pounding his iron.
“But if you would—”
“And neither will I make you young.”
“Wait, what?” gawked the Prince. “Am I not… Am I not still young and vital?” How long had he been walking in these cursed woods? He reached a hand to his chin. It was somewhat scruffed.
The Blacksmith struck the iron hard, thrice more, and then stopped and finally turned to face the Prince, who propped one fine boot on the fence and stood proudly in hopes of displaying his bearing.
The Blacksmith himself was as the mountain beyond, his chest broad and glistening with sweat, hair black as soot. His visage was as granite, coarse and thickly bearded, and his arms strong from swinging the great hammer. His eyes met those of the Prince as dark glowing embers might meet a pool of a pristine water. Clearly not finely bred like myself, the Prince thought, but he is a specimen of a man.
“You are…quite vital, sire,” said the Blacksmith, after a hesitation. “Forgive me, I forget myself sometimes.”
“As do I,” said the Prince, “What do you do, then, Blacksmith, if you do not shoe horses?”
“I strike the iron.”
“Into what?”
The Blacksmith looked back at his anvil, seemingly ashamed. “Nothing.”
This perplexed the Prince. “How, then, do you make your fare?”
“I do not make a fare.”
“I would pay you to shoe my horse,” said the Prince, then lifting a purse of gold from his belt, “Handsomely.” He gave his most charming smile.
“Sire, your money is of no use to me,” answered the Blacksmith, “I do not shoe horses.”
The Prince put a gentle hand on his destrier’s neck, “Sir, my steed has been limping for some time, I fear it will put him to pasture.”
“He is a very fine horse indeed,” said the Blacksmith, “But I cannot do it.”
“Why not?” asked the Prince curiously. Peasants were so odd, so intriguing in their strange ways. He was reminded of the Baker Woman he had met in the woods, so many days past. So conflicted, she was, and yet so lovely.
The Blacksmith sighed, “I have failed to master the new technique.”
“What was wrong with the old technique?” asked the Prince. “Were you a master at that?” He knew nothing of the skills of farriery, of course. He was royalty.
“Yes,” The Blacksmith lifted his chin with some remnants of pride, “I was called Master of All Masters at my trade, once. Unchallenged, until another came up that road you strode in upon, with a new way of shoeing horses,” his voice went bitter, “And I could not do it.”
The Prince strode closer, leaning over the fence in conspiratorially, “Sir, if you will shoe my horse in a manner old or new, then I shall call you Master ever after. You shall have work from far and wide.”
The Blacksmith narrowed his eyes at the Prince, “You beguile me in another form, Sire, but I believe I know you already.”
Confused, the Prince shrugged, distracted by a tree beyond the Smith’s broad shoulder, “Is that a pear tree? I’ve never been so famished.” He strode over and plucked a perfect golden fruit from the branches. “What say you, Blacksmith?” he asked as he bit into the fruit, its sweet juices running down his chin.
The Blacksmith swallowed wearily, staring at the bitten pear. “I will shoe your horse,” he said, “But… you must promise to stay here while the work is done.”
“Certainly, I promise,” the Prince said. It could not take so very long to shoe a horse, after all. Likely it could be done before he had filled his stomach. “These pears are delicious!”
“You may eat as many as you like,” said the Blacksmith, his ember eyes alit once again.
The Blacksmith led the stallion to the smithy, where he removed the offending shoe. “The hoof is badly bruised, Your Highness,” he said. “It will take some time to heal.”
“All right,” agreed the Prince. “But it’s getting late, and I am quite exhausted.”
“Come,” said the Blacksmith, hanging up his leathers and his hammer. He turned the horse free into the meadow of the Golden Glade, and showed the Prince into his hovel, which went into the mountain, the walls as a cave.
It was simple, but warm. It smelled of fire and leather and good things to eat. The hearth was spread with thick furs. The Prince spotted a plush easy chair beside the cheerfully burning fire, and fell into it with a happy sigh.
The Blacksmith washed himself at a basin, cleaning the soot and sweat from his hairy, muscular body as methodically as he did work at his anvil. There were many burns and scars about his arms, legs and hands, presumably from his labors. The Prince watched, growing very sleepy.
“I feel as if I could rest here forever,” he mumbled as his eyes drifted shut.
He dreamed the Blacksmith came close, brushing the Prince’s cheek with a calloused knuckle. “You may rest as long as you wish, my Prince.”
The Prince awoke to the sound of the Blacksmith’s hammer, once again rhythmically striking the iron. He stretched and went out into the golden morn.
“Have you finished?” he asked, seeing his steed munching at the sweet grass in the meadow.
“I’m afraid not, Your Highness,” said the Blacksmith. “The hoof may need some days to heal, and this iron is so hard, it takes much time to work. You may continue to rest, if you wish.”
The Prince plucked another pear from the tree to break his fast. He had no particular place to be, after all. His Princess had left him, and he did not wish to return to the castle to answer for it. And the woman in the woods had been so taken with her Baker, their tryst had come and gone.
So he watched the Blacksmith, a strong, strangely intriguing sort of man, as he pounded at the iron with his hammer.
Each morning, the Blacksmith rose with the sun, stoked his forge and worked the iron. The Prince awoke at his leisure, ate pears, and tended his horse in the meadow and asked if the work was yet done. The Blacksmith said no, for the stallion’s hoof needed to heal, and the iron was so terribly, terribly hard. The Prince accepted this answer, for he had promised to stay until the work was done, and he had nowhere else to be. As the sun fell each evening, they retreated to the warm hut, washed, and the Prince fell deeply asleep in the Blacksmith’s comfortable chair, while the Blacksmith slept in the furs before the hearth.
The Golden Glade was always warm, and the stallion frolicked in the sunlit wildflowers, and the rhythm of the hammer striking the iron sounded as long as the sun painted the sky over the woods.
The Prince observed this routine for some time before a query struck him. “Why do you not make things?”
“I work the iron,” said the Blacksmith.
“Yes, I know, I’ve watched you. Each day, you work the iron,” said the Prince. “You heat an ingot red-hot, bang on it with so much gusto, then cool it in the water. And then you heat it again, red-hot, and bang on it.”
“What then should be the point, Sire?” asked the Blacksmith, with something like anger and shame furrowing his dark heavy brow.
It was Peasants who made things, this the Prince knew. Peasants made all the things. The Bakers made breads and pies, the Tailors made fine clothes… “Does a Blacksmith not make horse’s shoes and buckles and pans?”
“And what do you know of the iron, Prince? Do you know when it has been hastily or ill worked, when it will break, or when it will remain strong?”
For this, the Prince had no answer. “I confess, I do not.”
“Indeed, for you are a Prince, and not a Blacksmith.”
Time seemed not to pass in this place, but there were signs that it did. The sun traversed the sky, and the moon and stars followed. The Prince had grown a thick beard, though he found it uncomfortable in the perpetual warmth. It was as if the Golden Glade was heated by the Blacksmith’s forge, or perhaps by the Blacksmith himself, who wore none but his leather apron over commoner’s trousers. The Prince eventually saw fit to shed layers, as there was no ceremony to stand on here, and it was too warm to wear both jerkin and doublet.
“I do so long for a shave,” the Prince complained one evening, catching sight of himself in in the reflection of the washbasin looking quite haggard. He turned to find the Blacksmith watching him as he washed, his own jaw replete with thick scraggly black hair. “Don’t you?”
The Blacksmith frowned, “I have not seen a need.”
“Surely a fair maiden would not balk at your advances, if you were to bare your face,” the Prince smirked, raising a brow himself. “I have known many maidens who swoon at a strapping man with a jaw like an anvil, like myself.”
“Like yourself?” For the first time, this brought a laugh from the Blacksmith, his ember eyes glowing in the firelight. “Well then, perhaps a shave is necessary.”
“Wonderful!” said the Prince, “Have you a fine blade?”
“I do not.”
The Prince frowned, dropping into the easy chair where he slept. “Then how will it be done?”
“On the morrow, my Prince,” said the Blacksmith, with a smile. “Rest, now.”
When the Prince arose, the Blacksmith was again hard at work. This day, however, he worked the iron differently. He heated and shaped a smaller ingot, hammering it with smaller mallets, until it was as small and thin as a feather. By the day’s end, he held the edge of it to a whetstone until it shone as brightly as a mirror.
The Prince was eager to try it, but the sun was low, and the Blacksmith bade him to rest.
He woke in the morning to a familiar but quite different face at the anvil. Outside in the sun was the washbasin, filled with fresh clean water from the spring, and beside it lay the newly struck fine blade. The Blacksmith struck the iron as ever, but his jaw was shorn smooth, his lips unhidden and plush as a maid’s.
“Blacksmith,” said the Prince, wryly, “Have you seen a large black bear in this Glade? It dwells in the cave, or so I thought.”
“I have not,” replied the Blacksmith, one side of his mouth lifting, “But I have been bothered by a scraggled brown bear of late. I wonder if I should add his pelt to my hearth.”
The Prince laughed, took up the blade and used it to scrape his own jaw clean.
“It works a treat,” he said, now smooth-faced, setting the blade on the Blacksmith’s table. “So you can make things, after all. I see no reason why you do not make so many other fine things, and go out to the Towns to sell your wares.”
The Blacksmith frowned, “I cannot.”
“But why?”
“Surely the Towns all have blacksmiths, Prince,” said the Blacksmith, “I doubt they will take kindly to another.”
“Perhaps for friendly competition?”
The Blacksmith merely frowned, and went back to his banging.
But the Prince had grown restless. It was in his nature, after all. He lived for the pursuit, to see what might lay beyond the next rise. Each day, he tried to coax the Blacksmith from the Golden Glade.
Said the Prince: “Come! Let us go hunting!”
“There are pears aplenty,” replied the Blacksmith.
Said the Prince: “What is beyond that mountain?”
“Another mountain,” replied the Blacksmith.
“Come, stop your banging for once. Why don’t we go to the Towns? We could find an ale house,” prodded the Prince another day, smiling encouragingly as he ate his fruit, “There may be fair maidens, one for each of us, or more!”
The Blacksmith shook his head, “I have no interest in such company.”
“No?” smirked the Prince, “Then perhaps you have not met the right one.”
The Blacksmith gave that a small smile, “I very much doubt there is any maiden for me out there, my Prince.”
“I once searched the entire kingdom for the perfect maiden fair. We danced at the festival in my honor, but each night when the clock struck midnight, she ran away,” said the Prince, “All I had of her was a golden slipper.”
“Did you find her?”
“Yes! Our marriage was celebrated far and wide!”
The Blacksmith’s face fell, “Then she must be missing you dearly.”
“No,” the Prince looked contrite under the Blacksmith’s gaze. “No. She was the one who always ran away. And I let her go.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” the Prince frowned, “I had never thought a maid required more than my attention to be happy, but she was not content.”
The Blacksmith laughed, full-throated and long.
“What? Why do you laugh?”
“Oh, my foolish Prince,” said the Blacksmith, “You are so vain. And your fair maiden was blessed with foresight.”
“What does that mean?”
“The attention of such a handsome Prince can be intoxicating, truly. Especially one who searches his whole kingdom to take her hand in matrimony. But tell me, what did you do once you had it?”
The Prince shrugged, tossing his core to the ground.
“You left her, still seeking a chase. She wasn’t enough for you once captured and bedded,” said the Blacksmith. “And so the clever maiden decided that was not enough for her. To be won, and then so easily discarded, like the spent core of that pear.”
“But I don’t understand,” frowned the Prince. “Is it not the goal of maidens, to be won and wed by a Prince such as myself?”
The Blacksmith shook his head. “What you see as the finish, Prince, is in truth only the beginning. There is your flaw.”
“How do you know this, Blacksmith?” he frowned, “You, who never leave this place.”
“I have walked this world far longer than you, Prince,” he replied. And he took up his iron again to thrust it into the coals.
“Why do you never leave this Glade?” asked the Prince, another day.
The Blacksmith scowled down at the iron.
“Come, you told me you have done so before, why not again?”
“The same man who came here and shod a horse in the new way, he also forged an old woman anew,” said the Blacksmith, looking at the hot, burning forge. “He placed her on the coals, and with my hammer and anvil, he beat out every wrinkle, straightened her withered back, slimmed her rheumy knuckles, and so made her into a young, beautiful maiden again.”
“How wonderful!” grinned the Prince lasciviously. “Where is she?”
The Blacksmith sneered at him, “She was my mother.”
The Prince sobered right up, “Oh.”
“So when another old woman came here begging for a blacksmith, I believed I could do the same for her, because I was the Master of All Masters. But… it went wrongly,” said the Blacksmith, hanging his head in anguish, “I could not do it. Just as I could not shoe a horse in the new way.”
The Prince thought a moment until it dawned on him, horribly, what this meant. “You killed her. You… you burned her alive.”
“And I must pay for it. I did not repent then, for I was terribly prideful, and I was terribly afraid,” said the Blacksmith, “But that was long, long ago now. And so I must work each day at the anvil, until I feel the pain in my body that surely the old woman must have felt by my hand.”
Shamefully, the Blacksmith took up his hammer again with his burn scarred hands, and began striking the red-hot iron. They did not speak again that day.
The Prince spent the next day with his stallion, brushing away the dust until his ebony coat shone, untangling the wildflowers which never wilted from his mane and tail. He thought about what the Blacksmith had told him.
When he returned to the cave at day’s end, the Blacksmith was at the washbasin, scrubbing the soot from his body. The Prince removed his jerkin and approached to do the same.
“Do you not fear me, Prince, now that you know I am a murderer?” asked the Blacksmith.
“Do you think I should be afraid?” he replied. “What did your mother say?”
“She left this place,” the Blacksmith hung his head, “She left to live another lifetime, and disowned me for my sins.”
“I don’t understand.” The Prince frowned, pausing to take the Blacksmith’s hands, to gently touch the many hardened scars from hot coals. “I don’t believe yours was a crime of passion, it was one of deception. Not by you, but of that man who peddled tricks of new ways to shoe horses or make the old young again. If that were true, there would be no elderly suffering, no death.”
“Perhaps,” said the Blacksmith, his eyes wandering over the Prince’s naked chest, “Yet, I am no stranger to crimes of passion,” he lifted his scarred hands to the Prince’s face, “Those for which I do not repent.”
“Nor I. I have been adulterous,” said the Prince. “And I would do so again, it has been so damnably long.”
“Not nearly as long for you as for me,” rumbled the Blacksmith, his ember eyes almost afire as he stepped closer still.
The Blacksmith was as a forge, burning against the Prince’s flesh, and he was surprised by the strength of his own lust in return.
And so they fell into the thick furs of the Blacksmith’s hearth.
Later, the firelight crackled over warm and sweaty skin.
“I’ve never done it that way before,” the Prince confessed in the afterglow, resting in the crook of the Blacksmith’s burly arm. He was perhaps a little sore, as if he’d spent many days in the saddle. But it had been enjoyable, as a fine end to a long hunt.
“Hmmm, there are many other ways I could show you,” replied the Blacksmith.
“I’m sure there are,” he crossed his arms over the Blacksmith’s furry chest, the hair there softer than he would have imagined. “Now I wonder other things. What of your life before all this?”
“There is nothing to tell,” said the Blacksmith evasively, “It was long ago and I was young and naïve.”
“Weren’t we all?” asked the Prince, “There are many people whose offenses are well known. I know it myself.”
“You princes have always been granted leeway for sins of the flesh,” answered the Blacksmith, “But, the world outside does not accept this, My Prince, a man who lies with men, anymore than they will tolerate a murderer amongst them.”
“Well, you need not announce it on a placard,” said the Prince, gesturing an imaginary signposting, “Master Of All Masters, And Also A Sodomist And Murderer.”
“People will gossip,” said the Blacksmith, “I was driven from the Towns for my ways long before I committed the greater crime. They would not have me back.”
“Perhaps things have changed. You don’t know, because you remain here, pounding away at your iron all day.”
The Blacksmith reached down to grab the Prince’s round buttocks, wryly saying, “You’ve had no complaint about my iron or my pounding thus far.”
“I have no complaint now,” The Prince leant to kiss his Blacksmith’s plush lips, “But I wonder what has become of things. Surely my steed’s foot is healed now.”
“You taste of pears,” rumbled the Blacksmith.
“You never eat anything,” said the Prince. “Your hut smells of delicious roasted foods, but I am sated by your pears, and then I sleep like the dead until the morning. Your Glade sees no winter, no rain, it is always warm here. I have told you my story, but I feel I know so little of you.”
The Blacksmith took a deep breath, his calloused hands stroking at the Prince’s chestnut hair, “You already know the very worst of me.”
“I do,” said the Prince, “So why not the better?”
“When you came upon the road,” he murmured softly, “I thought perhaps you were Him, or one of his minions, come to tempt me again.”
“Who?”
“But you couldn’t be,” said the Blacksmith, now stroking the Prince’s cheek, “And you cannot be from the Other either. You are far too wicked. Anyway, neither kingdom will have me, so here I shall remain, in this Glade, until the end of time.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the Prince.
“The King of Heaven,” said the Blacksmith. “T’was He who broke my pride in my craft. He disallowed me entrance to Heaven, for I had made a pact with the Devil to be what I am, the Master of All Masters. And the Devil I frightened away from this place forever, when he came to claim my soul. When I grew tired, I walked from one kingdom to the other, to the Gates of Heaven and the Gates of Hell, and neither would take me in.
“So I work the iron. It is all I can do with the time. It has been so for a thousand years, and will be so for a thousand more. There is no better of me than this, my Love. But now you are here with me.”
The Prince sat upright in the furs abruptly. “I think I should go.”
“You cannot.”
“It has been a long time, and my Court will be wondering where I am.” He rose to find his clothes.
“You made a vow to stay with me,” said the Blacksmith, sitting up.
“Until the work was done!” said the Prince. He stepped back into his velveteen trousers. “I have been here forever, listening to you bang on that anvil. I tire of it.”
“Perhaps you were sent by the Devil after all,” sneered the Blacksmith, “Sent to charm and taunt me with all that the world out there doesn’t allow. Can I have nothing true?”
The Prince laced up his shirt, lifting his arms in a shrug, “I was raised to be charming, not sincere.”
“Your great sin is Greed, Prince!” the Blacksmith snarled, “Always searching for more, whilst casting aside that which is freely given to you! You do not see this Glade for what it is—enough.”
“Out there is the world, Blacksmith!” countered the Prince. “Out there is conquest, excitement, adventure!”
“But here, there is warmth and safety… and love.”
The Prince looked away. “Is my horse healed or not?”
The Blacksmith set his jaw. He rose from the furs and reached for his leathers. Outside, he caught the stallion and took it to the smithy, stoked the fire, and heated the irons.
The Prince watched as the Blacksmith shaped the shoes, turned up the ends and nailed them to the destrier’s hooves, clenching down the points. He then saddled the steed and handed him the reins.
“Do you truly believe you will find what you seek out there?” asked the Blacksmith. “Will you never tire of chasing your maidens? Will you never wish for contentment?”
“I have been content here,” The Prince looked around the Golden Glade, “But there is so much more out there, Blacksmith,” he answered. “Come with me. Let me show you.”
“I cannot,” the Blacksmith seemed for the first time to shrink and be vulnerable. “I have walked that world an outcast. I will never belong there.”
The Prince mounted his horse, then remembered his promise. He untied and held out his pouch of gold as payment.
“I have no need of your gold,” said the Blacksmith, his ember eyes gone dark and cold.
The Prince nudged his steed with his heels, galloping out for the road without a backward look.
And thus the Blacksmith fell to his knees with a sob, remembering a song his Prince had once sung.
“Who out there could love you more than I?
What out there that I cannot supply?
Stay with me.”
The kingdom to which the Prince returned was in shambles. His father the King had died, and in his own absence, a tyrannical Regent had been installed. The Prince’s return and subsequent crowning was celebrated widely. Truly it must be a miracle, the people exclaimed, for he hadn’t aged a day! The Prince was shocked to discover he had been missing for a score and eleven years.
But the happiness at his return was fleeting, for there had been many troubles.
The Regent had driven the kingdom to near ruin, bullying the citizens with impossible taxes and making war with neighboring kingdoms. Even after he was beheaded, the reparations required to make amends to the people and regain his allies were immense. It took much negotiation and hard work.
The Prince, now the King, often said to his astonished advisors, “A kingdom is as a lump of iron. ’Tis but a heavy, dull rock, until it’s heated and worked and polished. Into what? Perhaps a knife or a sword, and we’ve seen what that has done here. Perhaps instead, we forge it into a key, to open a door. It is the same lump of iron. It must be given new purpose.”
So with much time and much work, the kingdom again flourished under his leadership, but somehow, his castle always felt cold.
The King looked in the mirror now to find a weary man. Long gone were his days of pursuing maidens. Another score of years had past, and the King became known as the Great King Greybeard, for now, his years had begun to show.
But as ever in times of plenty, he grew restless and bored. He decided to visit the people of his kingdom, and found they were all full of song.
He found the boy Jack was now a man and a father, who thanked him for reparations, with which he ran a dairy of very fine cows and sold cheese and butter in the Town Market Square. He was content. “I never thought I would be so happy,” he sang. “But I wish my pails weren’t so rusted!”
He found Red Riding Hood, who thanked him for his reparations, with which she made and sold capes in the Town Market Square. She was content. “I never thought I would be so happy!” she sang, “But I wish I could find buckles fashionably silver encrusted!”
He then visited the Baker, and there he found his wayward Princess Cinderella! And they were content, adopted parents to Jack and Red and a fine strapping son, and with so many grandchildren besides. Their bakery was filled with warmth and good smells and song. They thanked him for his reparations. “We never thought we would be so happy, not an inconvenient moment since!” But they wished for new bread pans and and bun tins, for they had twice the work now that the kingdom had again became so prosperous, and people returned to live in the Town. “We have never been so happy, but we need more pans to bake the mince!”
“Why can the people not find the pails and buckles and pans they require?” he asked.
“Why, my King,” said his Advisor, “The Town’s blacksmith has died, five years gone now, and it is many week’s journey through the Woods to find another. But with the horses unshod, the way is too treacherous.”
In an instant, the Great King’s thoughts flew back to his Blacksmith in the Golden Glade. He could nearly hear the sound of the hammer striking iron, taste the sweetness of pears, see his old horse frolicking in the golden meadow. He could feel the intense heat of his Blacksmith’s skin within the thick furs of the hearth, and the longing held all these many years within him, yearning to go back to something so simple and easy.
“Agony, what an idiot I’ve been,” he softly sang to himself with a self-deprecating laugh.
“Sire?” asked his perplexed Advisor.
“He was gruff and uncouth
Perhaps long in the tooth
And his hobbies so grim,” sang the King.
“He was strong as a bear
How I long for his pears!
Oh what has become of him?”
He strode out to the Town’s Square, and the Townsfolk came out to see what their Great King Greybeard was singing about.
“Alone in the Glade
I left him so dismayed
How could I run from him? Aah-aah-ah-aahhaaaaa!”
“Sire?” cried the Advisor, “Have you gone mad?”
The Great King leapt upon a nearby wagon with his chest puffed out,
“Agony!
No desire so keen!
When the one thing you miss
Is a sandpaper kiss
And his ways libertine!
One swing of his hammer
And I swoon!
I’m enamored
Oh, what can it mean?"
“It means you’re in love, you bonehead!” cried his wayward Princess Cinderella.
“Not soft like a maid
And his hair needs pomade
But somehow I fell for him.”
“Who?” cried the Townsfolk.
“Agony! A forge like the sun!
To the Glade I must run!“
And he leapt from the wagon and ran, with the cheers of his people rallied behind him, into the Woods.
The King walked and walked in the Woods, with the Townsfolk in his wake. For days and nights they travelled, searching with the King for the elusive Golden Glade, which could be found on no map. The Baker cooked, and Jack brought a cow for milk, and Red had sewn everyone a cape for warmth, and the people were quite cheerful.
All but the King, who sat alone.
Cinderella came to bring him bread to eat, and sat with him on the log. “This Blacksmith,” she said, “He must be something, to have captured your heart so truly.”
“Yes,” said the King. “He made me realize what I had long been so afraid of,” He looked at her with sadness. “I’m sorry I didn’t know myself sooner. I never have forgotten the Maid Who Ran Away.”
“You loved the chase, not me. But it’s fine,” She rested her head on his shoulder, her hair now streaked in grey, “I’m content now.”
“With your Baker?” he smiled, looking back at the cheerful, round man who made sure everyone was warm and fed.
“He is kind and good, and treats me well, and I am never alone.”
“Then he is a better man than I,” he said, “You are a Queen and should have always been treated as such.”
Each day when the sun rose, the journey continued, the Townsfolk chatting as they walked behind their King, until he stopped fast in the path.
“Quiet!” he shushed them, “Do you hear that sound?”
They hushed, listening. And there it was, muffled in the distance–the steady, rhythmic metallic pang. The King ran towards it, the rest following through the Wood, until they finally came to a warm Golden Glade betwixt the mountains.
“Take care, my people!” cried the King loudly, with a wide grin as he saw the glowing forge in the smithy, and a man as granite before the anvil, hammer in hand, “There is a fearsome black bear living in this Glade.”
The Blacksmith stopped his hammering, straightened and turned, shock clear in his wild ember eyes, “It cannot be… My Prince?”
“It’s King now,” he answered, striding up, and spreading his arms, “It has been far too long, Blacksmith.”
The King embraced him, then pushed him back to look again, at how he was haggard and dirty and heavily bearded, once again, “You look like shit.”
The Blacksmith scowled, but the King only laughed. “I have missed you terribly. And I need you. You must come with me, to the Town,” he gestured to the Townsfolk behind him, “My people have great need of you.”
“I cannot go there,” said the Blacksmith, “I cannot.”
“Why? We need you so dearly,” asked the King, clasping the Blacksmith’s calloused and burned hands, “I need you so dearly.”
“I am no Master. I cannot forge in the new way as it is done now,” said the Blacksmith. “I cannot do it.”
“You were tricked, my Darling, don’t you see? There is no new way,” said the King, “The old ways have worked just fine all these years, and you are a Master of All Masters in those. I know you are.”
“Blacksmith,” called the Baker, “We need pans for our bread!”
“And buckles for our capes!” called Red.
“And pails for our milk!” called Jack.
“And they will need nails for their houses, and shoes for their horses,” said the King, “They have money to pay your fare. You will be welcomed!”
The Blacksmith cowered in fear, whispering to the King, “But what of my crime? What would they say if they knew what I have done?”
The King turned to his people, looking at each face in the crowd. “This man committed a crime, now many years gone past. None of you alive will ever remember it, but it was committed, nonetheless.”
“What crime?” they asked.
“Murder,” said the King, and a gasp went through the people, staring at the Blacksmith, who shrank in fear from them.
“Was it in passion?” asked Red. “This murder?”
“No!” cried the Blacksmith. “It was a trick, I did not mean to do it! I only meant to help an old woman!”
“Do you repent?” asked the Baker.
“Yes, a thousand times in a thousand years!” said the Blacksmith. “I am truly sorry!”
The Townsfolk looked at one another.
Said Jack: “I climbed the Beanstalk that brought the Giant, and killed him and brought his Giant Wife. People died. I did not mean to do it. I know things now.”
Said Red: “I strayed from the path and found the Wolf who ate my grandmother. I know things now.”
Said the Baker: “And I helped the Witch get the things she wanted for a Son, but at the loss of my beloved Wife. I know things now.”
“And I left many loves behind, out of fear of not knowing what else could be out there,” said the Prince. “But had I stayed here in this Golden Glade, I never would have returned to help these people, my Kingdom. I know things now. And I know we need a Blacksmith.”
“Yes,” said the Townsfolk.
“You have grown old and grey out there, my Love,” said the Blacksmith, “If I leave the Glade, I too will age. But neither Heaven nor Hell will take me in, I am banished from those Kingdoms. What will I do when I am old, and any memory of you has gone from me?” The Blacksmith’s face was anguished. “I could not bear it.”
The King grew determined, “If the King of Heaven did not stop you from a crime when it was His trick caused you to kill, then the fault lies with Him, not you. You did not repent then, but you do now.
“People make mistakes,” sang the King.
“Holding to their own,
Thinking they're alone.”
“People make mistakes”, sang Red,
“Honor their mistakes,
Fight for their mistakes.”
“Everybody makes,” sang Cinderella,
“One another's terrible mistakes.”
“Witches can be right, giants can be good,” sang Jack.
“You decide what's right,” sang the Baker, “You decide what's good.”
“Yes,” said the Blacksmith. “But I also lie with men, and I will not repent for that.”
“Then don’t,” said the King, taking the Blacksmith’s face in his gentle hands, “For I will not either. We shall come back here and be together forever.”
“But I am tired,” said the Blacksmith, drooping against the King’s shoulder. “I want to be with you for a lifetime, and then I want no more pain. I am so very tired.”
“I shall vouch for my King, and the Blacksmith, when I reach Saint Peter’s Gates,” said the Baker. “I am old now, it will not be so long for me.”
“Yes, so shall I,” said Cinderella.
“And so shall I,” said Red.
“And so shall I,” said Jack.
“If they won’t have you, they won’t have us either,” said the Townsfolk, all singing,
“Just remember
Someone is on your side,
Someone else is not,
While we're seeing our side,
Maybe we forgot, they are not alone.”
“No one is alone,
Someone is on your side,” sang the King,
“No one is alone.”
And so the Blacksmith left the Golden Glade to go with his King and the Townsfolk.
Each day, he worked to provide them with all the pans and pails and buckles and horseshoes and nails they needed. They thanked him mostly graciously, but he still refused to take a fare. For each night, the Blacksmith retired to the castle to be with his King, who loved him and was finally content.
And when the time came, when both the Blacksmith and the King had grown quite old and tired, they made their way to the Pearly Gates of Saint Peter.
Reader, this time, they opened in welcome.