Smoke Hole by Martin Shaw

Author:Martin Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

THE BEWITCHED PRINCESS

THERE WAS ONCE A LAD CALLED Peter. Not a king or a lord, just a man from a hut that he lived in with his father. Peter was bored. He didn’t have any great plan, just a sense that he needed to get out into the world, see a few things. He spoke to his father who understood such a longing, and the old man gave him his inheritance and watched his son take the lonely road from their settlement.

It was thirty pieces of silver that Peter now had in his pocket. He loved to feel the weight of them, the bulge. More money than he’d ever seen. That early morning, he walked beyond the world he knew and out towards whatever his destiny was. He may have fantasized about meeting a lover, or wrestling a dragon, but he had no wondering at all for what actually transpired. He came across a corpse lying by the side of the road. Maybe a man like him, from humble beginnings. He stared at the body for a bit, noticed the crows starting to circle, picked up the body and staggered with it to the next village. He called out to the villagers that this man deserved a proper burial, but no one seemed to recognize him. Peter had seen this kind of thing before. He took out his purse of silver and offered to pay for the funeral. It was the funniest thing – a miracle – suddenly the entire village remembered the dead man – in fact, remembered him going out to work the fields just that morning. Remembered they loved him, and if Peter just relinquished his purse, they’d see to the funeral. Well Peter did, and it was quite the send-off, with an extended and bounteous wake.

The next day, Peter set off on the road out of town, penniless and a little hungover. After a time, a man walked out from a field in the early-morning mist and started keeping step with him. Peter barely looked to his left, as he knew it was the dead man.

Some hours into hard walking and unable to shake his new companion, Peter arrived at a town. He’d rarely seen a settlement that big, and its appearance was even more unsettling. Everything was black. The tavern sign was black, the ice on the pond was black, even the pale children wore black clothes. A shroud had been flung over the place.

When he asked about it, Peter was told that town was in mourning; that their princess was bewitched by a mountain spirit who lived up behind the houses. That he was her lover and had possessed her. He used her as a rag doll for his desire, which was the death of young men. The way that was achieved was like this: the princess would give three riddles to potential suitors; if they could answer, none of them were executed. Nine of the brightest men in the area were already dead. You went into the princess’s castle and never came out.

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