The Princess and the Promise

by Joseph D. DiLella

Once upon a time in a land hopelessly encircled by three enemy states, the royal leaders discussed the only option they believed they had to thwart the advances of territorial encroachment upon their kingdom.

“But my king, must we do the unspeakable? Isn’t there another way to save our people?” asked the queen to her loving husband of twenty-one years.

Looking out his castle window, the proud but savvy military tactician neither spoke nor moved even an inch as he examined the layout of the world around him. Though the wife wanted to comfort him, she knew not to touch the man who wanted more than anything to be king. Birthright aside, the people of the kingdom had been fortunate to have a natural-born leader who had won battles with his mind more than his might for so many years.

“I would never do such a thing if it were not our last stand at freedom, my love.” The man in his forties with a long, graying beard spoke as he kept looking out beyond the boundaries of his land for inspiration.

Oddly, the form of inspiration came in the size of a tiny brown and purple Gwynn imp, the ones that were spoken of only in fairy tales. Smiling as though he had won the hand of the queen herself, the gargoyle figure buzzed about the head of the startled king like a busy bee about to impale an unsuspecting victim.

“Your time is at hand, no?” asked the drooling and multi-horned figure as it nearly touched nose to nose with the greatest ruler the Kingdom of Ire ever had. “The promise of your father must be kept, or all of this will crumble at your feet,” the Gywnn whispered into the ear of the king.

“My dear, what is wrong?” asked the queen who could not see the imp but only her husband’s hands trembling as he braced himself on the lower edge of the stone aperture.

“It is nothing, just a bit of indigestion from last night’s venison. Would you please call for a fresh canister of water from the spring?” he asked, hoping to hide the small guest with his chest until his wife left the stately room.

“But of course, my king. I will call on our servant,” she said as she made her way towards the heavy wooden door. “I will return after I am dressed.”

“Good, we are alone,” responded the little man who now buzzed about the quarters and zoomed straight for the fruit basket. He picked up a fresh red apple that had grown in the very courtyard where the prince was crowned many years earlier. The king viewed the unwanted guest with his most evil eye.

“I knew time was at hand, but I did not realize you would be so bold as to impose yourself in front of my queen at dawn,” he said as he walked in a determined manner with a concealed knife. And as he moved toward the ravenous creature, the thing spat out seeds at the king’s feet.

“If you think you can kill me, sire, try your best,” shouted the little monster as it avoided a sudden stabbing motion of the king.

Though he swung wildly about like a town drunk, the mortal could not come close to a supernatural being. Sitting on air like an angel on a cloud, the Gwynn dropped the apple core on the king’s head, a final insult to the royal leader. “As they say in your land, pay the price of the piper, or you will face the hell of your worst nightmare,” said the debt collector as he pointed in the direction of the heirs of the kingdom in the next room before vanishing to whence he had come that morning.

Though the king ran towards the window he knew he had no chance at killing the imp or running away from the promise his father had made long before the first time the crown rested upon his head.

* * *

At dinner that night, the royal family ate with none of the vigor or zest they had had just days before, when the holiday of the saints graced the countryside. Though foot upon foot of wet snow had finally set down upon most of the country and the children of the land played in it, the family sensed that the joy they had experienced with the commoners days before was soon to end.

“I have made my decision,” the husky-voiced head of the long table said as he stood next to his seated wife.

“And what would that be, my lord?” asked the Sheriff of Ire, who wiped his chin of drink and looked toward the other men of rank seated around the table.

“We will give the hands of my three beautiful daughters to the sons of the families who threaten us.”

“No father — you cannot!” shouted the most outspoken of the three fair maidens. Though she stood up in anger, defiant as possible, no one at the table took her side, not even the two older siblings who simply bowed their heads as if not to witness a town execution of a common thief.

“Sit down my dear,” begged the mother as she pulled at her daughter’s wrist. “Our king has made up his mind and we shall not go against him.”

“Maybe you have decided on my fate my lord, but I have not,” she said in an angry voice as she stormed away from the feast.

“It is done,” said the king as he walked away from the table and the muffled sobbing of the remaining, seated females of his family.

Amidst the flood of tears, there was one young man who had his eye on the proud princess from afar and knew that he must do whatever it took to save her from the clutches of the princes who knew nothing of love but only the power of sovereignty.

* * *

“Please forgive me, mother and father, but I would rather die than sacrifice my future,” said the headstrong princess as she inched her reluctant chestnut stallion towards the edge of the mountain cliff in the wee hours past midnight.

“You do not need to do this, princess,” said a childlike voice from above, an evil sound that frightened the horse into a near gallop until the princess forced the steed to stop fifty paces from its original position near the mountain edge.

“Who is that?” the redhead asked as she threw off the hood of the black cape she had used to hide her identity that night.

“It is I, a family friend.” He giggled as he bowed in front of the teenager. “I’ve watched you and your sisters from afar for years.”

The royal heir looked down upon the creature, smiled herself, and urged the horse to step violently upon the ant-like figure.

But before the equine could come down full force upon the demon, the imp shot up towards the heavens until it rested upon the shoulder of the princess, frightening her into a tumble from the horse.

“Why is it that no one likes me?” he asked as he flew back and forth in front of the disheveled but uninjured teenager. “I, a most benevolent being, am the one who made you who you are today,” he said as he pointed to the stars. “See it for yourself,” he said as the lights themselves disappeared into blackness.

The princess refocused her eyes to see a vision of her father and brother as mere children near a well. Looking closer she saw the older boy kneeling on the edge of the abyss petting a calico kitten.

In a few moments, an older canine with teeth as fierce as any dragon launched itself from the arms of the younger boy and jumped towards the brother who was protecting the feline with his life.

When the attack was over, the cat, the dog and the eldest sibling were dead at the bottom of the well. As the sky’s brightness returned, the daughter of the king wept for a moment.

“It could have easily been your father at the bottom of that pit,” said the imp as it fluttered around the princess’ head. “But I had made a promise to his father that only the greater ruler would survive that day... And you do know that your father loved little kitty cats when he was a boy?”

“What does that have to do with me, you mean-spirited Gwynn,” she shouted with the courage of a knight.

“It is the deal with the Devil himself, my lovely one, that you and your sisters will marry men in other kingdoms. It is a pact made in blood.” He laughed as he breathed the final word.

“I do not believe that you or the Devil himself could take my family away from me,” she said as she looked for a piece of branch to break over the head of the laughing creature.

“Oh, believe it my dear — there is a God and a Devil. It is only when your time is at hand do you ever see them in their true form. And I, as a messenger of the one below, am here to make sure you do not spoil my master’s contract with your father.”

Sensing that her death could break the spell and save her family, the teenager ran toward the cliff. But even after she threw herself off, the imp snapped his fingers and stopped her in mid-flight over the chasm. In a moment he brought her back to the safety of mother earth.

“No, no, no — that is forbidden!” he shouted. “Not before the weddings.”

“And what will the marriages do for your master?” she cried out, pinned down to ground by evil forces.

“Your marriage itself is a means to an end,” he snarled back. “With the union, your people and those in surrounding kingdoms will soon find themselves under the tyrannical rule of monstrous people like my master.

“You see, my dear, you will join with men who have no souls or conscience. You and your sisters will give birth to children who will continue the cycle of madmen who will rule with false piety and bravado.

“So many others will die in war and poverty that my master will dance for centuries,” he said as he sat again on the physically restricted bride-to-be. “Is it too much to ask that you sacrifice yourself for such an honor?”

“Then there is nothing for me to do to prevent this?” she asked, sounding resigned to her fate.

“There is only one thing, but it is too late for that event to take place,’ he replied as he licked the ear of the girl. “No one would do so for you—”

Before he could finish his thought, a young man appeared from the forest glen. “But I will,” said the servant lad who had followed his true love to the forest that night.

“Ha!” cried out the Gwynn as he let go of the princess and made a beeline towards the boy. “Who are you to say what can and cannot be done?”

“I am the one who will stop this madness once and for all,” he screamed back and swiped at the imp with a golden sword taken from the king’s bravest knight.

And this time, though the creature had tried to stop the blade in mid-air, he was unable to do so before the newly sharpened edge lopped off one of his wings, sending the demon tumbling to the ground.

“But... this is impossible!” the Gywnn shouted out as he crawled for a rabbit hole.

“Not if there is true love involved,” whispered an angel who tugged at the imp’s feet, preventing the demon from crawling to safety.

And before the Gywnn could answer, his throat was severed.

The princess, now free to move, ran towards her savior. “You saved me, but why, boy?”

“I have served you and your family since I was a mere child. I have seen your strength and beauty evolve,” he replied on bent knee, his sword pointed in the soft ground.

“And much like your father, this young man’s role was determined centuries ago,” said the angel who looked like the imp, but with a glow and smile that radiated into the heavens itself.

As the being moved between the two, it said, “There is always a battle of good and evil, my children. You, a commoner my son, and you a royal princess, will leave the Kingdom of Ire, marry, and become rulers of a great land.”

“My family... what will become of them?” the teenager asked as she now held the hand of her future husband.

“Theirs is not your concern, for your lives are what humanity rests its hope and dream upon.”

The two young star-struck lovers mounted their horses and followed the angel through the woods towards the land beyond their kingdom with the belief that love, in fact, did conquer all, in a world that always posed evil against good for all eternity.