Clocks

In a land of large castles and larger than life kings, there once was a small castle ruled by a perfectly average King and his wife, a fair and beautiful Queen whose greatest desire in all the world was to have a child to call her own. But though they longed and yearned, years went by, and no child came. To fill the hollow in her heart, the Queen turned her attention upon those little household items she could maintain and care for, namely, the clocks. The castle was simply filled with them. There were clocks that hung on the walls and clocks that stood in the halls, and it was her duty alone to see that they all kept their time and honored it. Not one second was allowed to waste, not one minute was allowed to run out ahead of the others or tag along behind. In reward for her tender care, they smiled at her with their shining faces and sang to her their cheerful melodies, they marked her life and its accomplishments in chimes and bells and bongs and pretty songs.

If the Queen loved any one thing more than she loved her clocks, it was the son of her elder brother, who sometimes came to to play in the castle’s rooms and corridors, in its gardens and avenues. The dear Nephew was as near a child to her as any child that was not her own could be.

In time, that which was marked by clocks that hung on the walls and clocks that stood in the halls, the Queen fell very ill, her life perhaps shortened by the disappointment and sorrow that her clocks, as much as she loved them, could not entirely assuage. Upon realizing she would not recover, she sent her young nephew a parting gift of a small and beautifully engraved watch, a token by which he might remember her long after she was gone.

When the Ogre of Death came to take the Queen’s final breath, the King pleaded with him to leave him behind something more to remember her by than his unreliable memory, which must fade and alter with time, as all memories do. As the master of the lock that opened the door of mortality, the Ogre could grant certain requests … for a price.

The Ogre, sated with the elixir of the Queen’s last breath, removed himself from dead Queen’s bedside and crouched before the King in the way that Ogres are known to do, at once meek in their wretchedness but arrogant in their power.

“I will make a bargain with you,” the Ogre said. “Name your wish, and I will tell you my price.”

The King thought long and hard. He would not ask for the life of his wife returned, for the price of a life is always a life. But the price of a dream, what is that?

“I wish,” said the King at last, “since my waking days must be filled with the absence of my sweet wife, to dream of her at night, to dance with her in my arms and to live in this dreamland as if it were real. Please, Sir Ogre, grant me my wish and tell me your price.”

“I will grant you your wish and, in return, I will take from your castle the precious clocks, those which hang on your walls and those which stand in your halls, all their hours and minutes and seconds, each one, grain by grain and drop by drop.”

The King considered this. His darling wife gone and her precious clocks, too? But oh, to think of having her in his nighttime hours, while he slept and slumbered, otherwise all alone and miserable!

“It is a deal!” the King said, desperate for any consolation and at almost any price.

With the bargain struck, the Ogre of Death set about his task of draining the clocks, drop by drop, of their precious essence until the clocks that hung on the walls and they which stood in the halls were rendered as silent as the Queen who had once tended them.

But these were not the only clocks the castle possessed. There were others, as well, which ticked and chimed and reminded the King, every second, every minute, every hour, of every day, the loss he had suffered. At night, however, he had his Queen once more, or a dream of her, at any rate.

For a time, the King lived in his dreamland, almost happy until he was forced to wake by the sun’s cruel rays and by the demands of his kingdom and his people. As time drew on, time unmarked by clocks on walls or clocks in halls, he grew jaded in his dreaming, for his dreams only reminded him of what he did not have, and while he was happy in his slumbers, upon awaking he was wretched once more. And so those other clocks, the watches and the pocket watches and the desk clocks and the mantle clocks, he had locked up in the treasury.

Though the King grew older, he was not so old that he might not marry again, and, in time, he did. The new Queen was every bit as beautiful as the last, and, like the former Queen, yearned for a child to love and care for. To please his fair wife, and hoping the fulfillment of such a wish would ensure a longer life for her than the previous Queen had enjoyed, the King adopted an orphan child from a poor and warring neighboring kingdom. Apart from the sum he paid for her, the adoption of the little girl came with a condition that, should she be orphaned a second time, she, now a Princess, might return to the kingdom of her birth and rule and reign there.

The Queen was overjoyed upon receiving her new daughter, and though she understood the reason why the clocks stood silent, she yet felt it necessary to mark the accomplishments of the fair young Princess and to honor each hour and minute and second she was blessed to share with her. And so the maternal Queen directed the installation of a series of sundials to be placed in the gardens that surrounded the castle. Inside, sandglasses were placed on every mantle and table top.

The Princess grew and blossomed, thriving in her small castle home and in the castle gardens.

It remains a truth universally understood that the luxury of time is not measured out equally for everyone under its rule. The Queen’s life was no exception. She fell mortally ill, and the King took up his lonesome vigil once again as he waited for the Ogre to return. At last his mud-sodden footsteps could be heard upon the castle stairs. He tread slowly, studying the walls and the halls for that which he might plunder next. The clocks were silent, but he could sense time’s presence, nevertheless. Having reached the room where the Queen lay, the Ogre entered and approached the bed of the dying Queen.

“Oh, please, no,” the despondent King begged of him. “Do not take my precious wife from me. Not again!”

“I am not the determiner of life and death,” the Ogre reminded him, “only the keeper of the lock of the door between the two realms.”

The wearied King hung his head in despair, as the Ogre took his place beside the dying Queen. When her time came, he drank in the elixir of her final breath and, when he had done, he returned to crouch before the King in the way that Ogres are known to do, at once meek in their wretchedness but arrogant in their power.

“Name your wish,” the Ogre said, “and I will tell you my price.”

“I wish,” the King said at last, “since my waking days must be filled with the absence of my sweet wife, to dream of her at night, to dance with her in my arms and to live in this dreamland as if it were real. Please, Sir Ogre, grant me my wish and tell me your price.”

“I will grant you your wish twice-wretched King,” said the Ogre. “In return, I will take from you your precious sundials and sandglasses, all their hours and minutes and seconds, each one, grain by grain and drop by drop, and leave you with the wretched void of their shadowed faces and empty glasses.”

The King considered this. His darling wife gone, and her precious sundials and sandglasses, too? But oh, to think of having her in his nighttime hours, while he slept and slumbered otherwise all alone and miserable! And though he knew that it was only a temporary respite, that, indeed, he would eventually grow tired and jaded of his dreaming, in the desperation of his grief he felt that any reprieve at all would be better than his present broken-hearted existence.

“It is a deal,” the miserable King said, desperate for any consolation and at almost any price.

With the bargain struck, the Ogre of Death sauntered slowly through the castle, draining the sandglasses, grain by grain, of their essence until they stood quite empty and barren. The Ogre next visited the gardens, where he draped the sundials in chill shade and took their dials for good measure.

As time drew on, time unmarked by clocks on walls or clocks in halls, or by sundials or sandglasses, the aging King grew jaded as before, for his dreams only reminded him of what he did not have, and he woke each morning more wretched in his grief than the day before.

His only joy was in his fair young daughter, in whom he delighted, but, as his wife had done, he saw the necessity of marking the accomplishments of the fair young Princess and of honoring each hour and minute and second they were blessed to share together. To remedy the necessity, he taught the Princess how to tell the months by their seasons and the hours by the position of the sun and the stars.

But time, whether it is measured by clocks on walls or clocks in halls, or by sundials and sandglasses, or by seasons and stars, marches on, and s the Princess grew into womanhood, the King grew old, his life perhaps shortened by sorrow and heartbreak, until, it seemed, his life had drawn to a close.

The Princess sat weeping at her father’s bedside when the Ogre came for him. She hung her head low as his mud-sodden footsteps sounded upon the castle stairs. He tread slowly, studying the walls and the halls for that which he might plunder next. The clocks were silent, the sandglasses stood empty, but he could sense time’s presence, nevertheless.

Having reached the room where the King lay, the Ogre entered and approached the bed of the dying King. The Princess hung her head in despair, as the Ogre took his position at the bedside. When the time came, he drank in the elixir of the King’s final breath. And when he had done, he returned to crouch before the Princess, the way that Ogres are known to do, at once meek in their wretchedness but arrogant in their power.

“Tell me your wish,” said the Ogre, “and I will tell you my price.”

The Princess was reluctant to make a bargain with the Ogre, for she had seen how his trickery had made her dear father all the more wretched. And yet, she was not without desires of her own.

“If there is anything I want in this wide world over,” she said to the Ogre, “it is to remain here in my castle home. I am an orphan now, and as an unmarried maid cannot inherit my father’s kingdom. I must return to my people. They are poor and bloodthirsty, and I do not belong there. I belong here in my childhood home, with the ghosts and memories of they who loved me. That is my only wish.”

“I deal not in the possessions of men,” the Ogre said. “Only in time. I can delay the arrival of the Queen’s Nephew until you have found a husband.”

“Yes!” she answered him. “I will accept that bargain. And what will be your price?”

“My price is all the time pieces, the watches, the pocket watches, the desk clocks and mantle clocks, that are secreted and hidden within these castle walls.”

“There are none that I know of,” she answered him honestly.

But the Ogre knew better. “The King, locked them away when his first wife died. They fill the treasury now. If you wish for the chance to keep your home, you must give them to me, every one!”

The Princess, desperate to remain in her beloved home, took the Ogre to the castle treasury. Upon unsealing the vault, the Ogre descended upon the hoard, hungrily, draining from each timepiece its essence, the hours and minutes and seconds, grain by grain and drop by drop. When he had finished, he sat upon his haunches and looked around him. He had drained each precious item dry, and yet he sensed time’s presence, nevertheless.

“There is one missing,” he said.

“I know of none other save what is here,” she answered him.

“There is one missing! I can feel it!” The Ogre cried. “All of the watches and all of the clocks, that was our deal! You will search the castle from top to bottom, and I will return tomorrow to collect it. If you do not turn it over to me, our bargain will be off!” And before she could protest, he scrambled up the stairs and out of the castle.

With the Ogre gone and soon to return, the Princess scoured the castle for the missing timepiece. She searched high and low and still could not find the missing item. In the evening, the Ogre returned and demanded the missing timepiece. When she failed to produce it, he gnashed and wailed, and though he had threatened to break their bargain, he wanted the item so badly he was willing to give her another chance. And so, day after day, the forlorn Princess searched, and night after night, the Ogre returned.

In time, that unmarked by clocks on walls or clocks in halls, or by sundials or sandglasses, or by watches and pocket watches and desk clocks and mantel clocks, the Queen’s Nephew arrived.

“It is too late!” the Ogre gnashed and wailed. “You will be cast out now and returned to the bloodthirsty kingdom from which you came!”

The Princess despaired. She welcomed the Queen’s Nephew to the castle and pleaded with him to have mercy upon her, and though he owned more castles than this—larger castles, stronger castles, prettier castles—he wanted this one to add to his collection and was utterly unconcerned with the Princesses’ fate. She would inherit her own kingdom, he knew, however war-torn and bloodthirsty, and so what had she to complain of, after all?

In despair, she went out into the garden and sat beside a barren spot of shaded grass, beside the shaded face of a broken sundial. She wept for the dead King, and for the impending loss of her home, and for her imminent return to a land of poverty and war.

It was here she was discovered by a visiting Knight, a slayer of dragons and half-brother of the Queen’s Nephew. Upon finding the Princess weeping, he knelt before her and begged her to tell him her woes. Upon hearing the tale of the lost timepiece, he recognized it at once as which had been given the Queen’s nephew by the Queen herself, that which he had kept, not as a souvenir to remember the Queen, but as a reminder of all he would gain when she and her husband were dead.

The valiant Knight entered the castle and greeted the Queen’s Nephew, but he did not congratulate him. Instead, he offered everything he owned, his own castles and lands, his horses and treasures, all to have this little castle and an engraven pocket watch, and, just perhaps, the hand of the fair and forlorn Princess.

The Queen’s Nephew, astounded, agreed and promptly left the castle to claim his new fortune, so much more vast and glorious now for his half-brother’s foolishness.

With the fall of night, the Ogre returned, demanding the pocket watch. But the Princess no longer needed the Ogre’s bargain. She needed neither time to delay the inevitable departure from her beloved home nor a kind husband to grant her the right to stay, for he had found her without the Ogre’s help.

The Ogre ranted and gnashed, raved and yelled and groaned. At last the fair Princess was persuaded to make one last bargain with him.

“I will give you the timepiece you so desire,” she said at last, “under one condition and one condition alone.”

“Anything!” the Ogre answered, now desperate to have the item.

“You must leave this castle and never return to it again, until our time is spent and we have passed the rest of our lives and our youth in happiness and, in our old age, are prepared to lay down peacefully in our graves. Only then will you come to unlock the door of mortality.”

The Ogre eyed the pocket watch as it dangled from the Princess’s fingers. It was a tough bargain, but he had hungered for this piece more than he had hungered for any other before it. He snatched it from the fair Princess and ran away with it to enjoy its essence in peace, and he never plagued the small castle, nor the its happy inhabitants ever again.

And the Knight and the Princess lived happily ever after, of course.

The End