Stories for Another Day
Just after Bede turned seventeen, her mother said to her, “Bede, now that you’re old enough, I have something extraordinary to show you. It’s this.” She took a piece of dirty, ragged cloth out of her pocket, and laid it in front of Bede.
“What is it?” Bede asked, unimpressed.
Her mother said, “It may not look like much,” Bede had to agree with her – it didn’t look like anything at all but a dirty rag, “but it has been handed down in our family for generations, and now it is your turn to become its custodian. It’s a cloak of invisibility.”
“A cloak of invisibility?” Bede said, astonished. “How could something like this belong to our family?” Bede had always been the most ordinary person she knew, living in an ordinary house in a perfectly ordinary village.
Her mother said, “It was my great-great-grandfather who actually made it – or perhaps my great-great-great, I can’t remember. His name was Bishop, and there is a legend that he saved an entire town. His son, Vickery, used it to rescue a princess, and save the whole of the seventh kingdom.”
Bede was very impressed. She ventured to touch the cloth with her finger. “It doesn’t look like much,” she said doubtfully.
Her mother said, “It’s old now, and it’s been through many hands. Once it was sliced in half by a sword, and it has been dragged through dirt and snow and sand, through forests and jungles, up mountains of ice and through pits of vipers. There’s not much of it left, but what there is, is yours.”
She gave it to Bede solemnly. It was about the size of a handkerchief, frayed and worn thin.
“What should I do with it?” Bede asked.
“You must use it as you see fit,” her mother said. “But you must only use it for good.”
Bede folded it carefully and put it in her pocket. She couldn’t imagine what a cloak of invisibility the size of a pocket handkerchief could be useful for, but if ever there was a need, she would be prepared. That was how she came to have it in her pocket the day she saw a mouse being attacked by a malicious cat in the marketplace. Mice in the marketplace were very common, I’m sorry to say, but the way the cat arched its back and hissed triumphantly, ready to kill the mouse and eat it, stirred something in Bede.
“Stop! Don’t!” she shouted. The cat turned its head long enough for Bede to notice that the cat was wearing a jewelled collar, and long enough for her to toss the cloak of invisibility over the mouse. At once the mouse and the cloak disappeared.
The cat was astounded. Where there had been a tasty mouse a second before, now there was nothing but empty air. It walked around in a circle sniffing, then it stalked away embarrassed, pretending that it had not the slightest interest in mice.
Bede carefully slipped the mouse and the cloak into her pocket. At home in the safety of her room she lifted out the mouse and took off the cloak. He sat quietly on her hand, gazing at her with eyes like shiny black beads. “Aren’t you a handsome little fellow?” Bede said admiringly. The mouse was black, with satiny fur from the tip of his nose to the very end of his tail, which he held between his paws. “I know! You’re a fancy mouse!” she exclaimed.
Then the most extraordinary thing happened. The mouse bowed low and said, “I must thank you for saving my life.”
Bede almost dropped him in fright. “You’re a talking mouse?” she said.
“I am not a mouse at all,” he said.
“Wait! Don’t tell me – you’re an enchanted prince!” Bede said.
“How did you guess?” the mouse said. “I am Prince Locran, rightful heir to the throne. My half-brother, Raymis, put me under this enchantment when our father died, six months ago. He expected I would be caught in a trap or killed and eaten, and then the throne would be his. But for you, he would have succeeded.”
Bede remembered the sadness that had been felt throughout the kingdom when the old king died. It had been made even worse when the heir to the throne, Prince Locran, had disappeared. “But your brother, Prince Raymis, has search parties out looking for you everywhere across the seven kingdoms!” she said.
“He pretends to wish for my return, but in reality he plots to have me killed,” the mouse said, in his high, squeaky voice. “If I do not return within a year, he will be crowned king. That is all he has ever wished for. That, and the hand of the Princess Amabel, our beautiful cousin.”
“I’ll take you back to the palace at once,” Bede said. “But can a mouse, even a fancy mouse, be crowned king?”
“If I return to the palace like this, Raymis will have me in his power, and he will not hesitate to put an end to my life, even under the heel of his own boot!” the mouse squeaked.
“Then we must break the enchantment,” Bede said firmly. “But how?”
“It is almost impossible,” Locran said. “Raymis wears a precious jewel, a rare black carbuncle, on a chain around his neck, day and night. It is the source of his power over me. The only way I can be freed is for the carbuncle to be destroyed.”
They both sat in silence. Locran nibbled on a sunflower seed he had found, and Bede absently stroked his silky back with her finger. “At least we have six months to come up with a plan,” she said.
“Six months of this!” Locran threw up his paws. “Eating whatever crumbs I can find, running for my life, danger around every corner!”
“You will be safe with me,” Bede said. “Wherever I go, you can be in my pocket, and at night I will make you a bed of straw in a safe place.”
Locran was thinking hard. “Do you have any extraordinary skill, or talent?”
Bede said sadly, “No, unfortunately I am the most ordinary, talent-less person I know. All I have is this ragged cloak of invisibility.”
“You can’t spin straw into gold?” he asked. Bede shook her head. “Knit shirts out of thistles?”
“No,” Bede said. “All I can do is tap-dance a little.”
“Tap-dance?” said Locran. His tiny black eyes shone and he clapped his paws together. “It is true, then, as they say, that fate brings all things together at the right time and the right place for those who wish to do good!” And he told her his plan.
Bede was more than reluctant, she was positively unwilling. But as Locran said, there seemed to be no other way, and the coming together of herself and Locran and the cloak of invisibility just at the right moment had to be more than mere chance. “It will take extraordinary timing and all the courage you can muster,” Locran said, and Bede agreed with him. In spite of all her misgivings, she began to practise her tap-dancing, for hours a day.
Exactly twelve months to the day that the old king had died, the court and the people of the seventh kingdom gathered to see Prince Raymis crowned as the new king. Bede was there, in a startling red skirt with golden bells and a matching red jacket. The little black mouse was hidden in her pocket with a supply of sunflower seeds, just as he had been for the past six months, going everywhere with her. To her family and friends Locran was her pet mouse, so tame that he would sit on her palm or her shoulder, even nibbling at her ear as if he were whispering to her. But Bede never forgot that he was the crown prince, and his life and the future of the kingdom were in her hands.
Bede had used the remains of the cloak of invisibility to make a small pouch, just big enough to hold a mouse. Now she slipped the mouse out of her pocket and into the pouch, with a couple of sunflower seeds, and hung it around her neck. When they entered the room there was a sharp hissing and a “Mreowr!” A cat wearing a jewelled collar leapt towards Bede, yowling. Bede managed to push it away, and with the help of a servant, put it, hissing and spitting, into a cage.
Prince Raymis, tall and handsome with curly golden hair and noble bearing, sat on the coronation chair while the archbishop in charge of coronations intoned the blessings and prayers. He raised the crown over Raymis’s head, ready to crown him king. Raymis smiled confidently.
“Wait!” yelled Bede, stepping forward, with her bells jangling. The archbishop stopped with the crown in mid-air.
Deeply embarrassed, Bede said, “I beg your pardon, your Highness, but on such occasions, I believe it’s customary to have an anthem, or an ode, or least a sonnet, to show the people’s joy.” Red from her ears to her toes, she went on, “I have written a song to mark this auspicious occasion. May I sing it for your Highness?”
Raymis flapped his hands and said, “Yes, thank you, but keep it short and to the point.” The archbishop put the crown down, and the people gave a small cheer.
Bede stepped forward in front of the prince. Clearing her throat she began to sing and tap-dance at the same time.
“O Prince Raymis who can blame us
if we sing because you’re famous?
For there’s no-one who’s the same as
you, incredible Prince Raymis!”
She was not a good singer, and everyone realised that very quickly, but it was a holiday and there was going to be cake and ale afterwards, so they listened good-humouredly. Prince Raymis liked it very much, except for the tap-dancing which went on longer than he thought was necessary.
“Thankyou, that will do!” he said. The crowd clapped kindly. Bede made the curtsy that she had practised over and over and managed to step even closer to the coronation chair where Raymis was sitting. As she straightened up, she suddenly pointed at the chair and screamed, “Look! A mouse!”
“Where?” Raymis screeched, springing to his feet. Bede pulled the invisible pouch over her head and threw it as hard as she could. It flew through the air and landed on the coronation chair. The mouse scrambled out, suddenly visible.
“Got you!” shouted the archbishop, bringing the crown down smartly on top of the mouse, for in his day, before he became archbishop, he had been known as the best rat-catcher in his village.
Bede launched herself at Raymis and snatched the carbuncle from around his neck. She dropped it on the floor and tap-danced all over it, shattering it into a million pieces.
Immediately a shortish young man with smooth dark hair, rose from the coronation chair, with the crown on his head. “Your Majesty,” cried the archbishop, sinking on one knee. “King Locran!” The crowd, seeing the rightful king rightfully crowned, although they didn’t understand in the least how it had happened and supposed it was some kind of magic show arranged for their benefit, gave three enormous cheers. Then they sank on their knees too.
“So, you have won,” Prince Raymis said bitterly. “Defeated by a mouse!”
“A mouse and a courageous young woman,” King Locran said.
“So now the throne is yours, and the hand of Princess Amabel, just as you always wanted,” Raymis said heavily.
In the corner of the room. a high-pitched screaming was coming from the cat’s cage. The princess Amabel, who was squashed into the cage with her fingers and toes poking out through the gaps, was screaming, “Let me out of here!” The servants quickly opened the cage and she climbed out, smoothing down her hair.
Bede recognised the pretty jewelled necklace she was wearing, and said, “You! You were the cat who tried to kill Prince Locran in the marketplace!”
“A smelly little mouse!” hissed Amabel. “I begged Raymis to tun me into a cat so I could take care of the little rodent, but you got in my way! However, that is all in the past.” She took Locran’s hand with a smirk.
The king put her hand into his brother’s hand. “She’s all yours, Raymis,” he said, “so long as you both find somewhere to live far away from me and my true queen.” He took Bede’s hand, smiling. “If she will have a mere mouse.”
So Bede and Locran were married and ruled wisely and well. It is said that it was under their rule that the growing of sunflowers and the making of cheese in the seventh kingdom became what they are today, the best and most successful in all the secluded kingdoms. What remained of the cloak of invisibility stayed in the royal treasury for a long time, until a time came when the kingdom was in great need again, but that is a story for another day.
A Wombat Named Benson 