Mute, the boy stretched out imploring
But she had looked. A fleeting glance, but it troubled her. As the ponderous proceedings played out, designed—she knew—to veneer her whim with legitimacy, a bubble of horror swelled in her breast. She wished she could stamp her foot and demand an end to the charade. She wished she could shout, “Stop! He disappointed me, and for that his life is forfeit. That is all.” But she also knew if she said that, the king and his courtiers would, with all pomp and deference, crush the life out of her. “Your Highness’ dignity is a matter of state,” they would aver. The mechanism of justice would grind on, slow and fine. But she had stolen a glance at the boy’s eyes—the same eyes as the swan’s—and had seen life. And that was the cause of her disquiet. Not the boy’s life, she thought, but what she began to fear she might see reflected in those mirror-dark pupils should she gaze more deeply. She thought she might see herself. A butterfly in a net. Destined for the killing jar. To be pinned to a card, her gorgeous colors on display. An exhibit in the museum run by her father’s servile functionaries. For the benefit of their commerce. Not hers. In her breast horror swelled and wept, all through the slow afternoon, as the mechanism ground inevitably to its verdict: the boy would hang at dawn. The sentence brought her no relief. Instead, as night drew in, her horror festered—the horror of her own capture and imprisonment—and, in the lonely darkness, restless on her bed, its toxin poisoned her thoughts. She imagined the cobwebbed dungeon in which she lay, its only light a faint moonbeam entering through a high and narrow embrasure.
arms. She gathered her skirts and ran. He chased her. The sounds of the night—the babble of a brook, the chirp of crickets—hitherto soothing, now pursued her, and the night air, no longer soft, rasped her throat. Even the silver moon betrayed her, slashing the ground with uneven shadows. Stumbling, she fell to her knee. And ruined her satin skirts! But also snatched a glimpse of her hunter’s eyes and fancied that they glowed. “Nooo,” she shrieked, up again and running for her life, the monster’s footfalls following soft behind. Ahead, a glimmer of yellow light. Closer, the slats of a shuttered window. Wailing, she hammered at the cottage door. An elderly drover opened. “Murder!” she gasped, pointing behind. “He’s going to murder me.” The drover and his sons arrested the boy. Wordless still, he did not resist. With clumsy deference, they returned the princess and her captive to the palace. There she clung to her father. In terror, cried, “He abducted me.” With towering indignation, insisted, “He outraged me.” But offered no evidence, nor any explanation None was required of her. The boy stood trial for his life and when the judge—with all delicacy and a perfusion of airs and graces—called her to testify, she damned him. Then, her anger appeased, she made the mistake of noticing his eyes, still tender beneath the grime that streaked his face. She should not have looked. Her father had told her, “Don’t look into the eyes of the stag before you shoot.”
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