PRINCE WILLIAM AND THE
BLUEBERRY QUEEN
Prince William Sound is the body of water in Alaska where I used to live. It was named for the second son of King George III of
 |
| The was the theater. |
--Tim
A sound is a noise like waves crashing on a beach. A sound also can be a large, protected body of water, a place where waves don't crash against a beach. This is a story about the second kind of sound, only one so long ago and so far away, you can't hear it any more.
In its beginning, this sound was not protected. It presented a wide-open mouth to an expanse of northern ocean whose weather drove storm after storm over the water against the mountains that rimmed the sound. Darks clouds stopped by the mountains always hung over the sound and precipitated a constant shower of rain into the bays and coves. The mountains around the sound always stood dark, black with trees that were bent by the constant winds that failed to blow away the clouds that delivered the rain. No one ever saw the tops of those mountains because they were always hidden by the clouds. As a matter of fact no one ever saw much of the sound at all for it was a dark and cold forbidding place. How cold and how dark no one knew for even the bravest of mariners avoided the sound. The sailors who plied the northern waters stayed away from it for it was said an evil giant inhabited the sound and those unfortunate ships that entered seeking shelter from a storm were never heard from again. Few did enter, for besides the stories of the giant, the sound offered little in the way of shelter without some land mass to cover the opening as a buffer to the weather.
To the east and west of this sound lay two small kingdoms. These kingdoms existed peacefully with each other, but the sailors from each competed in the ocean for the same fish and there were occasions when one king would send an angry reprimand to the other over conflicts on the fishing grounds. With no shelter between the kingdoms when the great northern storms blew, often the fishermen from one kingdom would seek safe anchorage in the harbors of the other. Although the harboring would be allowed, the outland mariners would be made to feel they were unwanted and their welcome ended with the storm they were hiding from. There were too many arguments over the fishing for the fishermen to be welcomed into the other's port.
The kings, seeing the conflicts growing and fearing their subjects would make more trouble, began sending emissaries back and forth with suggestions for resolving the issue. Eventually, as they neared agreement, the court of the Eastern king made plans to journey to the west to complete the accord and celebrate with a feast.
The Eastern king took with him many of his advisors and in an attempt to broaden the world of his son, William, took him as well. In three ships they sailed for the Western kingdom. It was an easy voyage for no storms blew and their passage was a safe one. As they crossed the mouth of the dark sound, Prince William asked his father about the forbidding wilderness. His father told him about the sound and when he'd finished, as if to prove what the king had said, way off deep within the sound they heard roars and loud splashes.
"They say the rain drives the giant insane," said old king Hinchinbrook, "and he goes into a bay and rips massive boulders from the cliffs and hurls them far out into the water or, sometimes, back into the mountains."
Prince William listened intently to his father and to the sounds from the sound and thought long about the dark place. But, as they passed into the sunshine of the western kingdom and new sights and sounds, his thoughts of the dark world faded. The three ships entered the harbor of the capital of the Western King and were welcomed with great fanfare for the Western King had hopes as great as his eastern counterpart for an accord. At a state dinner that evening Prince William was introduced to the western king's daughter, the beautiful Princess Virginia. During the days that followed, while the two kings and their advisors met in endless conferences, the Princess Virginia became guide and escort to Prince William, showing him her western land while he, in turn, entertained her with stories of his eastern homeland. As days turned to weeks, their daily trips became less guided tours and more in the style of time spent together. As time passed their talk turned to subjects beyond the homelands, and they found themselves growing into a fondness that with their first kiss blossomed into love. Where at first the meetings had been just a courtesy, they now became an obsession and they plotted to see each other. Their plots worked, for seldom was either seen in public without the other. Though the princess always had to have her chaperone, still, the two found ways to sneak away for their precious moments alone in sunlit glades, holding hands walking in the forests and dreaming the dreams of young lovers.
But, while the friendship grew into love for the two youngsters, their fathers and their advisors were growing farther apart. Where an accord had seemed so close at the start, as each day passed, the two sides seemed further apart. By the end of the second fortnight the Eastern king and his advisors decided no treaty could be reached and they had just as well prepare to return to their homeland. Plans were made and Prince William informed. When he heard the news, the young prince felt a deep sadness. With a fear in his heart, he ran to the garden beneath his beloved's window. She came to her balcony when he called and listened with tears in her eyes as he delivered the news of the coming parting. Also listening from another balcony, unseen by either of them, was the Princess Virginia's father King Montague. The message was double for Montague as he had been so busy with the talks he'd failed to notice the growing affection between his daughter and the Eastern Prince. With this also his first news of the Eastern delegation's abrupt departure, he rushed to his daughter's room where he burst onto the balcony and pulled her back into her chamber.
"I will love your forever," Prince William called after the princess before her father could slam the balcony doors.
"We will be together," the princess shouted back despite her father's efforts to silence her.
A morose Prince William boarded his father's ship the next day for the long trip home. He stood in the stern watching as the castle and then the city and harbor and finally the kingdom, all of which were home to his beloved princess, disappeared in the wake and with them faded the vision of the beautiful Virginia. Through the long passage home he walked the decks alone, barely even taking notice of the dark sound which had piqued his curiosity on the outbound voyage. Inconsolable he returned to his homeland and nothing his parents or friends could do would drag him out of his sadness. He shared his secret with no one, and even the king's funniest jesters could not raise the hint of a smile from him.
The Prince had made a mistake. He hadn't properly heard the princess's call as her father pulled her from the balcony. In the words, Prince William had only heard a plaintive call of love, but the princess Virginia had called out a promise, and even before Prince William departed her city, she was making her plans to fulfill that promise. She first consulted with her chaperone who had been her governess in childhood. They had loved each other very much and the princess had come to depend on her as a friend. The governess was the one who suggested a plan and called for her fisherman husband. To them both Princess Virginia explained her predicament and pleaded with the old fisherman to take her in his boat to the Eastern kingdom to be with Prince William. The two heard her tale and the husband knew of the fondness between the princess and his wife and how well he and his wife had been treated at the castle. Although fearing the king's wrath should he discover who had taken his daughter, the fisherman agreed to make the voyage and plans were made to leave on the early morning tide. There would be a great ball at the castle that night and the king could be expected to sleep well past noon the next day so they would have many hours behind them before anyone knew the princess was missing. She would make her appearance at the ball and then slip away in the darkness to the boat and await dawn and the tide.
This she was able to do easily and the little fishing boat with the princess on board slipped out of the harbor unnoticed and caught a fair wind to the east. The Princess Virginia did not look back as the Prince had done, but stood in the bows facing the direction of the harbor she sought.
As they sailed the ocean, the fair breeze freshened, propelling the boat faster and faster. The breeze grew into a wind as black clouds marched toward them from the horizon. The fisherman knew the signs and watched the storm grow, but the princess stared only eastward toward the love she sought to regain. Blue sky turned to gray and gray turned to black. As the waves began splashing over the sides, wetting her clothing, the growing danger began to intrude against her all-consuming goal. The fisherman fought the storm but to little avail as huge waves began tossing the little boat, carrying it ever closer to the dark sound. As the blackness deepened, fear finally encroached into Virginia’s thoughts.
The fisherman knew the tales about the sound well and feared the darkness as he fought to keep the boat on course, but one wave after another carried them closer and closer. Then they flew atop a wave through the mouth into the dark sound. In fear the princess turned to the man at the helm, but before she could utter a word the boat and the two of them were plucked from the waves by a huge hairy hand. High out of the water they rose until, quaking with fear, they looked into an immense face to be examined by eyes as large as the sun but as dark as the new moon. The giant studied his prizes for some time until he picked the princess from the boat and then flung the boat and the fisherman far out to sea. The quivering, fearful princess he held tightly in his hand while he looked her over curiously. He spoke no words, only grunts, and his foul breath engulfed the princess, making her choke. After an eternity he turned and strode, wading, deeper into the bay until he came to a cave which he crawled into. There he put the princess into a stout cage. For a time he teased her with a stick he thrust between the bars. Then he tired of his game and grabbed a bone that had some meat hanging from it. From the bone he tore a piece of raw meat and tossed it to the princess as he would to a dog.
The princess ducked away from the flying meat. She stood defiant, wavering between demanding anger and quivering fear. As her hours of entrapment grew into days, she brought her emotions under control. She attempted escape; she actually got out of the cage once but the giant caught her quickly and fixed the hole she'd made. She determined to keep her courage though her plight left her in desperation. No one knew she was gone from her home and if by now they had found out, no one knew where she was. The old fisherman was dead no doubt, and she was a prisoner not knowing what her fate might be. In front of the giant she maintained her dignity as a princess. But she knew better than to raise his anger. She couldn't know what the giant had planned for her, if there was a plan at all, but she assumed angering him would not help her, so she gave the appearance of accepting her fate and all the time schemed a way to escape.
After her first attempt to escape, the giant no longer trusted her alone. When he left to make his rounds of the sound he took her along, tied into his shirt pocket in a sack with only her head showing. And there, under the giant's beard where he could not see her, she rode as he walked through his dark realm. She saw and felt his rage when he faced into the rain and tried to brush or even claw the water from his eyes. His roar would deepen and he grasped huge boulders and hurled them against the mountainsides. When his rage would subside he'd move out of the bay where the rocks were loose and search for food, but little game showed in an area so full of hate and fear and anger. Now and then the giant would catch an unsuspecting deer or bear that ventured out of the forest, or maybe a porpoise or salmon that swam too close to land. When he did he immediately bit off the victim's head, laughing as he did, and then devoured the animal whole, saving only shreds and bones for the princess who refused to eat them despite her hunger. Instead she gave the giant a haughty face when he teased her with the meat. She was a princess, after all, and resolved to show courage and grace in the face of such despicable evil.
But when she was in the pocket out of sight the princess's bearing and defiance broke down and she wept uncontrollably at her fate. All the time the giant walked the princess wept the tears of terror and hopelessness, and her tears fell everywhere on the shores of the dark sound.
The princess Virginia had not been forgotten. Once the Western king learned his daughter was missing he immediately suspected the truth, that she had run or been spirited away to join the Eastern Prince. The king dispatched his most important emissarial potentate to the eastern court to demand the return of the princess and threatened the direst of consequences if she were not. But news of the princess preceded the potentate, for the fisherman whom the giant had cast into the water to die had regained his boat. Fearing reprisals from his own king for aiding the runaway princess, he had continued his voyage to the east until he fetched that capital. Wet and bedraggled, he had been cast before the king on the supposition he had been poaching fish in the eastern waters. He told his story to the king and had just finished when the western emissarial potentate was announced to the court. The emissary reiterated King Montague's demands and threats and then King Hinchinbrook asked the fisherman to repeat his story. The potentate listened, then demanded a search party and army be organized to rescue the princess. He also demanded the fisherman be handed into his custody for punishment at home. This Hinchinbrook refused to do extending instead his personal protection to the fisherman.
The king issued a call for volunteers to join the rescue effort, refusing to send any of his subjects into the dark sound against their will. No one responded; no one would go into the dark sound unless they had to, because it meant certain death. The king directed the visiting potentate to return to his own country and attempt to raise a party there.
In the meantime, Prince William had sequestered himself with the old fisherman, barraging him with questions about the princess, the giant and the sound. When he learned all the fisherman knew, he went to the wharves, to the boats and to the inns and taverns where the nation's mariners spent their time. Of all he asked for information about the dark sound, but the western fisherman was the only man anyone knew of who had returned from that dark place and even the eldest of seamen could add only the slightest to what the prince already had learned. As he listened to the mariners, two realizations became apparent to the young prince. The first had nothing to do with the sailors. He knew now that the princess's words had been a promise and not an idle call. He now knew, also, that it had fallen to him to fulfill that promise and he would have to do it alone.
Not only would he have to do it alone, he would have to venture into uncharted dangerous waters where none had gone before, at least none who had lived. As he came to understand his quest, his questions turned to boats and he asked after the fastest, most maneuverable boat available. Upon the advice of several sailors, he found the perfect boat. Then he approached his father. He, as heir to the throne, had trained as an officer in the king's small navy and this his father took into account as he pondered his son's request.
On reaching his decision Hinchinbrook said, "This, my son, is something you must do and no ruling from a father can stop you. This I can see. Go with my blessing, but be not afraid to turn back, for no man would call another a coward who had turned back from the dark sound. You go just more than a boy. Acquit yourself well and come back a man."
With this the king ordered the palace stores opened to the prince and the stocking of William's small, fast craft began. The king's own chandlers prepared stores for the long voyage and packed them for stowage aboard the small boat.
The king's shipwrights worked on the boat, fixing what needed fixing, making a new suit of sails from black fabric, painting the hull and decks black and cleaning what needed cleaning. The black boat would hide in its own darkness from the giant's watchful eyes.
The king's astronomers worked with naval navigators to plan the times and places and courses the prince should use on this most dangerous of voyages. Even the magicians of the kingdom offered him potions and incantations, and though the prince thought little of them, he took everything that might give him an advantage over the immense power of the giant.
Finally the day came for the prince to set sail on his perilous voyage. The navigators went over the plans one more time and the chandlers took a final stock of their stores. All the weapons were placed aboard carefully, and with great fanfare the Prince was ready to depart safe harbor to rescue the fair Princess Virginia.
As William began to cast off his lines, the old fisherman who had first taken the princess into the dark sound rushed down the wharf with his sea bag slung over his shoulder. Despite his age and the weight of the bag, he leaped nimbly aboard the Prince's ship and said: "Name's Blinker, sir. You never asked. And you never asked me to go with you, but I took 'er in there and it's only right I should be goin' along to bring 'er out. If you'll 'ave me, sire."
The prince welcomed Blinker aboard and together they cast off the rest of the lines. Once they passed out of the harbor and had trimmed the sails for their course to the entrance of the sound, the prince fell back into his thoughts. The voyage was timed so they would arrive at the entrance just before nightfall and could enter and find a hiding place, they hoped, without detection before daylight could betray them. Now the full weight of his mission fell over the prince and he wondered how the princess fared in the hands of the giant, if she were still alive, even. His fear was not for himself, but for her.
For her part, the princess refused, at least outwardly, to yield to the terror of the evil giant. She met his evil with defiance and in those times when she was out of his sight she began making herself a weapon, just a pointed stick to be sure, but she kept sharpening it as she could against rocks and other sticks and then she'd hide it in her petticoats before the giant could see her. She knew not when she might use it or if it wasn't a wasteful project, but it gave her something to do and something she might be able to employ at the right moment. Still, at times her plight became overwhelming and silently, riding in the giant's pocket, she wept.
Prince William and Blinker reached the outer entrance to the dark sound just as the sun dove in behind the western mountains, leaving a dark, moonless night. Even the stars hid from view over this darkest of waters. With only the slightest of twilight left to guide them, they sailed the boat into a small anchorage and set the anchor. They were in the sound now and the plan was to begin exploring for the giant's hideaway at the first hint of dawn. If they hugged the shoreline and moved slowly, Prince William thought they could go a long way without being detected. While Blinker slept, the prince spent a restless night. He would lie down, toss, turn, get up and pace the decks, then go back to his bunk, but there would be no sleep for the prince this night.
At last a morning halo of light rose over the eastern mountains, ending the prince's long night. Prince William and Blinker hoisted their black sails and made for the entrance of their anchor cove.
All day they sailed through the sound, hugging the shoreline, watching for some sign of the evil giant and the princess. By late afternoon the prince was beginning to think all the talk about the giant was just talk, but he had to remember old Blinker had seen him. They were nearing the mouth of a large bay at the end of a long fjord when they realized they finally had come close to the giant. First they heard a low, rumbling roar. Then came gigantic splashes and waves came rolling out of the bay.
William and Blinker quickly sought shelter in a cove just outside the bay and there the prince went ashore. He climbed a short ridge over white granite rocks until he could see into the bay. About a quarter of a mile away he saw the giant, a horrible creature with shaggy hair sticking out from his head everywhere. A big, bulbous nose hung out over a mouth full of broken teeth. The giant's clothing hung in rags. He stood knee deep in the sea, digging rainwater out of his reddened eyes, and then he'd grab huge boulders in his rage and hurl them out into the bay water. Prince William marveled at the power of the giant, but refused to be intimidated and as he watched he began to form a plan to subdue the beast. Also as he watched, he began to discern the cause of the giant's rage, for the constant water in his eyes was bothering the prince, too. He pulled the visor of his black battle helmet down to shelter his eyes from the rain.
Prince William returned to the boat where he told Blinker what he had seen and the two worked late into the night making a plan for the next day.
The plan they made was a simple one. Prince William would circle the bay on foot until he was close to the giant. After a time, Blinker would sail the boat across the mouth of the bay to divert the giant's attention and when the time was right, Prince William would shoot the giant with an arrow tipped with a potion given to him by one of the king's sorcerers. The potion, he was told, would put a whole regiment to sleep and surely would be enough for one giant. Once the giant had fallen, William planned to tie him to the ground, then search for the princess and hope for escape before the giant could awaken and threaten them again.
All the preparations were made and again at first light the prince began moving. He had three hours to reach the giant, for in three hours' time Blinker was to sail the boat across the mouth of the bay to catch the giant's attention.
Prince William had seen the section of shore where the giant snatched his boulders and that was where he intended to go.
William scrambled and fought his way over rocks and through thick brambles working his way to the giant's lair. But he was taking too long and he knew it. Blinker would be sailing before he reached the spot he wanted. Fearing he would expose himself if he rushed, he could hurry no more than he was doing already. Still he moved as fast as he could through the bushes and over the boulders. He kept watching the giant and the bay mouth hoping Blinker would hold off, but, too soon, the prince saw the black bows of the boat emerge from behind the rocks guarding the bay mouth. When Prince William saw this he took a chance and sprinted across a clearing to bring himself within firing range of the giant. In this momentary exposure his motion was spotted, not by the giant, but by the princess Virginia. Riding in the giant's pocket, the princess saw William as he raced across the clearing. From then she kept a watch, following his progress as he scrambled toward them.
The giant saw the boat first and his reaction was to grab a boulder to fling at it. When he did, the prince was not yet in position to stop the giant from throwing and the first boulder almost swamped the boat.
Fortunately Blinker had the boat up to speed and sailed past the opening before the giant could reach for another boulder. As the giant turned to rip another rock from the shore, he spotted Prince William scrambling through the brush toward him. The prince had climbed to a ridge almost at the giant's eye level and was concentrating on where to place his feet on the uneven ground. He didn't even know the giant had spotted him. But, the princess in the pocket sensed the direction the giant's body and head had moved and realized he was staring right at the Prince. In desperation, not knowing how much good it would do, she pulled out her sharpened stick and drove it as deeply as she could through the shirt and into the skin of the giant's chest. The giant yelped, not so much in pain as in surprise, for the stab could have had little more effect than a bee's sting. Still, it diverted the giant's attention just long enough to give Prince William an instant to raise his bow and let an arrow fly. The giant's neck was bent as he searched for the source of the sting on his chest and the Prince's arrow struck the exposed neck just under the giant's ear.
Now a second bee had stung the giant and he reached for the new pain, but even as he did, his hand and arm slowed as the potion worked through his body. He blinked, looked at his hand that wouldn't go to his neck, and then sat down dumbly, his eyes falling out of focus. As his eyes began to close he fell over backwards, crushing several boulders into pebbles as he did.
Prince William scampered down the slope in front of him, ran around the boulders and climbed up onto the giant's chest. There he found the Princess Virginia just crawling out of the giant's pocket.
They met, standing knee deep in the giant's chest hair, and embraced. As they did, the joy of their reunited love coursed through their veins as if beaten by a single heart and they became one. And, as they stood there on the giant's chest, the rain increased. Water beat against their faces and their clothing soaking both of them, though they hardly noticed. The rain pounded the boulders and the trees and the mountainsides. It drove harder until sheets washed down the mountains and gullies and valleys and through the bushes. But as the water rushed on, it drove the darkness before it. This sudden rush of water drove away the darkness and with it the anger and both washed away into the waters of the sound, spreading and weakening until there was no more anger left in the dark sound.
Once the rain had cleansed the sky and the earth, the sun broke through, lighting the sound as it had never been before. Where there had been gray in the sky, now there was blue. White peaks of mountains split by blue glaciers towered over bright green forests. The water took on a brilliant green reflected from the mountainsides and the ocean sent happy little white-crested riffles to splash against the beaches. The ground where the giant slept turned white from the granite pebbles and made almost a sand beach where the two reunited lovers now walked to the water line to greet Blinker, who had seen the giant fall andwas bringing the boat toward shore.
Their path took them a short way through bushes and there they discovered a miracle in a small clearing. It was a place the giant had stood often and a place, as may be guessed, where the princess had shed many tears. Now, everywhere a tear had fallen, a blueberry grew. And, everywhere across the sound where the giant had carried the weeping princess, now a blueberry bush sprouted. The Prince saw this and said, "You are indeed the Blueberry princess. Be my Blueberry Queen and we will forge our lives together here and it will never again be known as the dark sound."
To this the princess said, "Yes, and if I am to be the Blueberry Queen, let this place be known as Prince William's Sound."
"Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah for the Blueberry Queen and Prince William's Sound!" cried Blinker, who had come up on them without their noticing. "Long live the good Prince William and the good Princess Virginia!
"'Twill be a fine place, sire," Blinker called. "Done right it could be safe harbor and solve the fishing dispute between our nations."
"Excellent, Blinker," the prince said. The princess added, "For your fine thinking, you shall be prime minister and chief potentate and your first task will be to work out the details. Also, we must send for your wife. She also shall have a position of great responsibility."
Said Prince William, "We shall have to find a way to shelter the mouth of the sound to make safe harbor."
"I've an idea, sire," Blinker said. "'Tis true the heavy rain washed away the anger." Blinker walked over and sat down on the giant's chest. He sat for some time until the giant began to stir from his sleep. Prince William prepared another arrow just in case some of the anger remained.
The giant began to show some alertness and as he did, Blinker smiled. The giant smiled. Blinker spoke a few words the prince and princess could not understand and the giant responded. Blinker came over to the William and Virginia, winked, and said, "The anger is truly gone, washed away. No water in the eyes." Then the giant rose with Blinker on his shoulder and waded to the mouth of the sound. Before long Blinker had the giant piling huge rocks in the water and within a few hours, they'd built two islands that stopped the ocean swells and calmed the waters of the sound.
The prince and princess stood at the water's edge and watched and saw that their new realm would be a good and peaceful one. "We shall name the islands after our families. The one to the east will be Hinchinbrook and the one to the west Montague," they agreed.
Before they could go on to live happily ever after in Prince William's Sound, the prince turned to Virginia and said, "I love you my Blueberry Queen."
Happy Birthday
ReplyDelete