The Tale of Despereaux (9 page)

He looked back.

And he saw that the princess was glaring at him. Her eyes were filled with disgust and anger.

“Go back to the dungeon” was what the look she gave him said. “Go back into the darkness where you belong.”

This look, reader, broke Roscuro’s heart.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell.

But, reader, he did look.

ROSCURO HURRIED from the banquet hall.

“A rat,” he said. He put a paw over his heart. “I am a rat. And there is no light for rats. There will be no light for me.”

The king’s men were still bent over the queen. The king was still shouting, “Save her! Save her!” And the queen was still dead, of course, when Roscuro encountered the queen’s royal soupspoon lying on the floor.

“I will have something beautiful,” he said aloud. “I am a rat, but I will have something beautiful. I will have a crown of my own.” He picked up the spoon. He put it on his head.

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “I will have something beautiful. And I will have revenge. Both things. Somehow.”

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.

“Where is the rat?” shouted the king. “Find that rat!”

“If you want me,” muttered Roscuro as he left the banquet hall, “I will be in the dungeon, in the darkness.”

THERE WERE, OF COURSE, dire consequences of Roscuro’s behavior. Every action, reader, no matter how small, has a consequence. For instance, the young Roscuro gnawed on Gregory the jailer’s rope, and because he gnawed on the rope, a match was lit in his face, and because a match was lit in his face, his soul was set afire.

The rat’s soul was set afire, and because of this, he journeyed upstairs, seeking the light. Upstairs, in the banquet hall, the Princess Pea spotted him and called out the word “rat,” and because of this Roscuro fell into the queen’s soup. And because the rat fell into the queen’s soup, the queen died. You can see, can’t you, how everything is related to everything else? You can see, quite clearly, how every action has a consequence.

For instance (if, reader, you will indulge me, and allow me to continue this meditation on consequences), because the queen died while eating soup, the heartbroken king outlawed soup; and because soup was outlawed, so were all the instruments involved in the making and eating of soup: spoons and bowls and kettles. These things were collected from all the people of the Kingdom of Dor, and they were piled in the dungeon.

And because Roscuro was dazzled by the light of one match and journeyed upstairs and fell into the queen’s soup and the queen died, the king ordered the death of every rat in the land.

The king’s men went bravely into the dungeon to kill the rats. But the thing about killing a rat is that you must first
find
a rat. And if a rat does not want to be found, reader, he will not be found.

The king’s men succeeded only in getting lost in the dungeon’s tortuous mazes. Some of them, in fact, did not ever find their way out again and died there in the dark heart of the castle. And so, the killing of all rats was not successful. And in desperation, King Phillip declared that rats were illegal. He declared them outlaws.

This, of course, was a ridiculous law, as rats are outlaws to begin with. How can you outlaw an outlaw? It is a waste of time and energy. But still, the king officially decreed that all rats in the Kingdom of Dor were outlaws and should be treated as such. When you are a king, you may make as many ridiculous laws as you like. That is what being a king is all about.

But, reader, we must not forget that King Phillip loved the queen and that without her, he was lost. This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying. Making soup illegal, outlawing rats, these things soothed the poor king’s heart. And so we must forgive him.

And what of the outlawed rats? What of one outlawed rat in particular?

What of Chiaroscuro?

In the darkness of the dungeon, he sat in his nest with the spoon atop his head. He set to work fashioning for himself a kingly cape made out of a scrap of the red tablecloth. And as he worked, old one-eared Botticelli Remorso sat next to him swinging his locket back and forth, back and forth, saying, “You see what comes from a rat going upstairs? I hope that you have learned your lesson. Your job in this world is to make others suffer.”

“Yes,” muttered Roscuro. “Yes. That is exactly what I intend to do. I will make the princess suffer for how she looked at me.”

And as Roscuro worked and planned, the jailer Gregory held tight to his rope and made his own way through the darkness, and in a dank cell, the prisoner who had once had a red tablecloth and now had nothing, spent his days and nights weeping quietly.

High above the dungeon, upstairs, in the castle, a small mouse stood alone one evening as his brothers and sisters sniffed for crumbs. He stood with his head cocked to one side, listening to a sweet sound he did not yet have a name for. There would be consequences of the mouse’s love for music. You, reader, know already some of those consequences. Because of the music, the mouse would find his way to a princess. He would fall in love.

And speaking of consequences, the same evening that Despereaux stood inside the castle hearing music for the first time, outside the castle, in the gloom of dusk, more consequences drew near. A wagon driven by a king’s soldier and piled high with spoons and bowls and kettles was making its way to the castle. And beside the soldier there sat a young girl with ears that looked like nothing so much as pieces of cauliflower stuck on either side of her head.

The girl’s name, reader, was Miggery Sow. And though she did not yet know it, she would be instrumental in helping the rat work his revenge.

End of the Second Book

AGAIN, READER, we must go backward before we can go forward. With that said, here begins a short history of the life and times of Miggery Sow, a girl born into this world many years before the mouse Despereaux and the rat Chiaroscuro, a girl born far from the castle, a girl named for her father’s favorite prize-winning pig.

Miggery Sow was six years old when her mother, holding on to Mig’s hand and staring directly into Mig’s eyes, died.

“Ma?” said Mig. “Ma, couldn’t you stay here with me?”

“Oh,” said her mother. “Who is that? Who is that holding my hand?”

“It’s me, Ma, Miggery Sow.”

“Ah, child, let me go.”

“But I want you to stay here,” said Mig, wiping first at her runny nose and then at her runny eyes.

“You want,” said her mother.

“Yes,” said Mig, “I want.”

“Ah, child, and what does it matter what you are wanting?” said her mother. She squeezed Mig’s hand once, twice, and then she died, leaving Mig alone with her father, who, on a market day in spring soon after his wife’s death, sold his daughter into service for a handful of cigarettes, a red tablecloth, and a hen.

“Papa?” said Mig, when her father was walking away from her with the hen in his arms, a cigarette in his mouth, and the red tablecloth draped across his shoulders like a cape.

“Go on, Mig,” he said. “You belong to that man now.”

“But I don’t want to, Papa,” she said. “I want to go with you.” She took hold of the red tablecloth and tugged on it.

“Lord, child,” her father said, “and who is asking you what you want? Go on now.” He untangled her fingers from the cloth and turned her in the direction of the man who had bought her.

Mig watched her father walk away, the red tablecloth billowing out behind him. He left his daughter. And, reader, as you already know, he did not look back. Not even once.

Can you imagine it? Can you imagine your father selling you for a tablecloth, a hen, and a handful of cigarettes? Close your eyes, please, and consider it for just a moment.

Done?

I hope that the hair on the back of your neck stood up as you thought of Mig’s fate and how it would be if it were your own.

Poor Mig. What will become of her? You must, frightened though you may be, read on and see for yourself.

Reader, it is your duty.