The Unburied (45 page)

Some hours later, at about midnight, he suddenly found himself in a great clearing and now that the light of the moon and stars shone down without hindrance, he found he could see almost as if by day. He smelt a hideous stench and at that moment he saw that the ground was strewn with dismembered human bodies. Every one of the princes who had entered the forest before him lay here scattered about: arms, legs and heads. And to his dismay he perceived that the limbs and bones were half-chewed. Then he noticed that at the far edge of the clearing there was something moving. It was a creature with its back to him which, as he drew nearer, he saw was gnawing on a shinbone. He instantly plucked his scarf from around his neck and tied it tightly around his eyes. As he stood there with his heart thumping, he became aware that the horrible stench – the odour of blood and rotting corpses and some ancient uncleanliness – was growing stronger and knew that the monster was approaching.

He heard its tread and then its rasping breath which stank unendurably and in a moment he was seized by arms that seemed to him cold and scaly. He felt its hands around his neck and he found himself pushed to the ground with the creature on top of him as its grip began to tighten. Remembering what the old woman had said, however, he forced himself to thrust his face towards it and, as his lips touched cold flesh, to plant a kiss.

Instantly the monster uttered a howl of grief and agony, and let go of him. The prince heard it moving further off and the dreadful smell grew less. He lifted the blindfold and was just in time to see the monster at the edge of the clearing as it dragged itself with a hobbling movement into the darkness of the surrounding forest.

With a last horrified glance around the clearing, the prince hastened into the forest again to continue his journey. By now it was nearly dawn and as the sun rose he sighted a glint of water and a moment later saw the castle standing high on its rock above the glittering river with the town below it.

He announced himself at the gate and was immediately welcomed as a hero since he was the first prince who had ever managed to pass through the forest. He was ushered into the presence of the king, who threw himself upon his neck and wept with gratitude at the deliverance of his daughter from the enchantment. The king was overjoyed to find that his daughter’s bridegroom, and his own heir, was such a handsome and gracious young prince as well as a courageous one.

The princess was sent for and when she entered the chamber, the prince saw that she was young and lovely even beyond his dreams. Her eyes were astonishingly beautiful and as soon as he looked into them he was utterly lost in his love for her and could not stop looking at her. She was graceful and modest, and she smiled with charming shyness and in every way he was delighted with her. The king feasted him and meanwhile summoned the whole of his court and then, to the prince’s joy, announced that the marriage would be celebrated that very evening.

The proclamation was made in the castle and in the town, and a great banquet was ordained and all the lords and ladies came hurrying there in their best finery. The king, whose queen had died of grief when the princess was placed under the enchantment all those many years ago, gave away his daughter in marriage to the prince and all the ladies of the court wept in the way that was expected and appropriate. The feasting began and while it was at its height, the prince and his bride stole away to the bedchamber appointed for them at the top of one of the towers high over the river.

The princess had a maidservant who, she explained, had served her faithfully since she was a baby, and while the prince waited in the great bed with the curtains drawn back, the woman undressed her mistress before the window through which the moonlight flooded. First the maidservant removed her necklaces and bracelets, then she plucked off her shoes, then she let down her golden tresses, then she unfastened her girdle and let her bodice float to the ground, and all the while the prince gazed in mounting excitement at the beauties that were being revealed. Then finally the maidservant pulled the shift over the head of the young princess and she stood before her new husband in all her unadorned beauty. Imagine his feelings as his gaze travelled slowly and longingly down her body from her slender neck to her plump breasts to her smooth belly until, low on her body, he found the burn-mark in the shape of his own lips.

He sprang from the bed and stood with his back against the door, more frightened now than he had been even when he waited blindfolded in the clearing for the monster to approach him.

Distressed by his alarm, the princess explained that she had been put under an enchantment by a wicked witch and condemned to haunt the forest, killing and devouring those who came in quest of her hand. By overcoming her with a burning kiss, the prince had broken the spell. She loved him, she insisted, because he had rescued her and because he was young and handsome and brave.

The prince stood speechless with horror and surprise and so now the maidservant spoke and revealed to him that she had been the old woman whom he had met on the way through the forest. Her task had been to encounter all the suitors as they approached the clearing and find out if they were worthy of being given assistance. All of them, with the exception of the prince himself, had proved themselves undeserving by seizing the food and drink from her with threats of violence. All of them had trusted to their youth and strength and weapons against the monster, and all of them had been defeated. To him alone had she confided the secret of how to overcome the enchantment and he had possessed enough courage to follow her advice. By blindfolding himself he had avoided being rendered immobile by the loveliness of the princess, and above all by the beauty of her eyes, as she came towards him naked and reeking of corpses.

The maidservant concluded by saying that by his honesty and his courage he had lifted the enchantment placed upon the princess and he should now accept her as his bride. The prince remained horrified and at last managed to say that he could not. He could not accept as his wife someone who had killed and eaten men. Opening the door behind him, the prince said he was going to raise the alarm and tell everyone in the castle that their princess had been the monster who had haunted the forest for so long.

The maidservant laughed and told him that no purpose would be served by his action since everyone in the castle knew the truth. They were now celebrating the lifting of the hideous curse under which the whole kingdom had suffered for so long.

The prince stopped, unable to decide what to do. And at that moment the princess, who had been gazing at him longingly all this while, told him that the maidservant had lied to him. She was none other than the witch who had enchanted her and forced her to kill her suitors. The prince had not yet broken the enchantment fully but if he would truly accept her as his wife knowing what she had done, the last traces of the enchantment would be overcome. If he rejected her, she would fall under the power of the witch once again and go back to haunting the forest. As she spoke those last words, and still with nothing to cover her but her long golden tresses, she began to advance slowly towards the prince.

He raised one hand to ward her away. The maidservant smiled and said that the princess was telling the truth. ‘I am the witch who enchanted her,’ she said. ‘And the reason why your kiss inflicted such pain was that it was a reminder of the human love that the princess was denied while she dwelt in the forest and fed on dead men’s bodies. You must decide now whether you are going to accept the princess as your bride or reject her.’

The prince found he still could not speak but he shook his head.

The witch laughed and said: ‘Then do you wish me to give you back the weapons I made you give me in the forest?’

‘Yes,’ the prince cried.

Instantly he heard a peal of laughter from the maidservant and in that instant the women and the room began to fade away. As the castle disappeared he felt himself fall through the air until he landed on a soft floor of leaves and found that he was back in the forest. In the moonlight he saw that he was wearing his suit of chain-mail and that his sword and his dagger were restored to him and that his shield was lying beside him. And when he looked round he saw his hawk and hound nearby and his horse standing a few paces away, tossing its head and blowing nervously through its nostrils. For then the young prince noticed the smell that was frightening his steed and realized that he was in the great clearing that was strewn with parts of bodies, and at that moment, as he peered towards the distant line of trees in the faint moonlight, he saw that something was approaching from the forest.

I was born in Hyderabad where my father was an officer in the Indian Army. When I had just turned twelve my parents decided to send me back to England to board at school, not merely because the climate was healthier and the education supposed to be better, but also because of certain difficulties at home. One of the consequences of these circumstances was that they were not well off and because I had some – though, as it turned out, not much – musical ability, and because of the financial advantages of my tuition and board being paid for, it was decided that I should become a chorister.

The usual age for entry to the school was seven or eight and so by the time boys had reached twelve, alliances and friendships had formed from which I, as a late arrival, was necessarily excluded. With my Indian ways and the premature habit of introspection which the domestic problems had encouraged, I suppose I was an odd little boy. I had been an only child – at least since the death from yellow fever of a younger sister of three, which occurred when I was eight. I had adored her, and her loss and the other family difficulties which I had experienced had added to my melancholy cast of mind a precocious solemnity, with the result that I found it hard to join in and care about the childish concerns of my fellows. Arriving halfway through Trinity term I found that cricket was the great issue of the day and I had neither aptitude for nor interest in the game. Perhaps because I was shunned, unhappy and shy, I developed a severe stammer. (At least, I don’t know whether I had it before and if I did nobody remarked upon it in India where I chattered away to my ayah in Hindustani.) Since this fuelled the contempt of the other boys, I retreated increasingly into silence and spent as much time as I was able to on my own. It became something of a pastime when there were no flies to torment or cats to chase, to hunt me down and goad me into a fury when my stammer made my attempts to defend myself highly amusing.

Disliked by the other boys, I was the object of disapproval on the part of the Headmaster even though I never tried to be naughty or to break the rules. But I seemed to get into trouble more often than any other boy and I suppose that was because I lived in a day-dream which meant that I didn’t notice that I was late or forgot things. The world I was imagining was more pleasant and more interesting than the one I was required to live in and I believe it enraged the Headmaster to see me lost in an invented realm.

The Headmaster – as he was called, rather grandly since there were only two other full-time masters in addition to the assistant-organist who taught music – would fly into sudden rages during which he would hit us savagely and repeatedly. This was usually done without the ceremony of a cane on the hand or buttocks, but with the flat of his hand across our heads. The punishment for a serious offence, however, was to be formally caned by him on the buttocks. At that time his rages were inexplicable and no more to be investigated than the reason why it rained one day and the sun shone the next. When I was an adult I understood his bitterness, his frustration at his ambitions and hopes ending in the headship of a small and very undistinguished choir school in a distant provincial town. I later realized, too, that there were many occasions when his irascibility and unpredictability were due to his having taken intoxicating spirits.

We learnt very little, partly because we were worked so hard as choristers. We had Evensong every day – except for Saturdays when there were no sung services. And we had Practice every day for an hour before breakfast and again for half an hour before Evensong. I was not gifted musically and so I was terrified of the choirmaster, a young man who was determined to raise the reputation of the choir and who had a particularly harsh way of dealing with us. Music at the Cathedral had fallen into a decline because of the prolonged ill-health of the elderly organist who for many years had had sole responsibility for the singing. (The Precentor was also old and had taken little interest for a long time.) And so in the hope of improving things, the Foundation had, some seven or eight years before my arrival, appointed an assistant-organist – a man who seemed quite old to us but was not forty at the time I am writing of. The appointment was temporary but had been periodically renewed because of the continued incapacity of the organist – at least, that was the reason that was given out. As well as playing for services and teaching us music, he was supposed to take over most of the old man’s responsibility for the choir, but he was lazy and preferred to spend his time slovening in the town’s taverns. Though he never hit us or did anything else, there was something about him with his queer slouching gait, his dishevelled dress, his crooked smile, and his sarcastic remarks that made us recoil from him and fear him more than we feared even the choirmaster.

This more recent addition to the staff of the Cathedral had been employed only at about the time I myself began at the school, at the moment when the canons had finally acknowledged that the appointment of the assistant-organist had done nothing to raise the standard of singing. The choirmaster had therefore not selected me to be in the choir. He told me several times that I was not good enough to be a chorister. I did not disagree with him on that point, but although I disliked everything to do with the choir, at least there was the consolation that I did not stammer when I sang. That was not enough to save me, and the choirmaster used to humiliate and occasionally beat me at Evensong if he believed I had sung off-key or had sung softly in the hope that he would not hear. He did this to the other boys, too, but I believed he made a particular butt of me, singling me out because of my poor musicianship and my stammer. And that was why I used sometimes to cut Evensong even though I knew the punishment that would follow. The choirmaster would report my absence to the Headmaster and he would hunt me down and cane me. But at least I would have respite for a few hours and the bruises from a flogging gave me a certain status among my fellows. A beating was sometimes preferable to being shown up and laughed at.