Big Brother Rupert II

“Quickly, my prince, we must go quickly if we’re to send you away before they find us.”

The nanny’s voice was hushed, barely more than a whisper, yet each word seemed to echo, reverberating around the utterly silent halls of the castle. Every footstep felt heavy and loud, and Prince Rupert’s eyes fought to adjust in the darkness, their path lit only by the soft white light of the moon as it streamed in through the windows that lined the hallway.

“Where are we going?” Rupert asked, his gaze locked on the nanny ahead of him. She clutched in her arms his infant sister, little Princess Regina, and he was doing all he could to keep up with her as she masterfully made her way through the halls, rounding corners and ascending staircases seemingly at random.

“To the top of the Northern Tower,” the nanny answered him, and Rupert could feel the colour draining from his face.

The Northern Tower carried a reputation in their castle. None dared visit it. It was said that, many years ago, one of the castle’s princes had taken a beautiful young woman – a noblewoman, the daughter of another kingdom’s duke – up to the top of the tower, and he had killed her there. This prince never became the kingdom’s ruler, of course, so Rupert was not descended from this monster, but the idea that somebody in their family, in their very castle, could do such dastardly deeds… Rupert shuddered at the very thought.

“Isn’t that-“

“There’s no time to explain, my prince,” said the nanny, shaking her head as she spoke.

Rupert was confused at this point, but he trusted the nanny and feared for his sister, so he continued to follow. He had thought that the empty guest room would be the site of whatever strange spell or ritual the nanny had planned to save him and his sister. The sigil on the floor and the locking of the door had indicated as much, but the nanny had seemingly panicked upon hearing voices in the hallway. She’d frozen, as had the prince, clinging to his baby sister and praying she’d not make a sound. Had the nanny been spooked enough by the passing night guards that she would risk going into a place as taboo as the Northern Tower for the sake of privacy and security?

The heavy wooden door to the Northern Tower now stood up ahead as they rounded the last corner between themselves and the tower. Rupert had passed the door countless times over the years, and it had always stood sturdy, locked, and dusty. He didn’t think that people ever used it. He’d always assumed that, if anyone were to try, the door might not even budge.

When the nanny flung the massive door open with ease, though, those beliefs were shattered.

“The door-“

“It’s not as abandoned as it appears, my prince,” the nanny answered, her voice still low as she began to make her way up the seemingly endless spiral stairs in the tower. Rupert followed, taking the steps two at a time in his effort to keep up with her. “The tales about what happened here, they are simply that: tales. Nobody was murdered in this tower. The stories were fabricated to keep people away.”

“Why?”

“This tower is where the castle witch performs her spells,” the nanny said.

“The castle witch?”

The nanny sighed at Rupert’s seemingly endless questions. “Yes, your highness. You’d learn about this yourself sooner or later, but when a new ruler is appointed, a castle witch is also appointed to watch over him. The witch usually takes on a different role within the castle so as to blend in – she might be a servant, or a cook…”

“Or a nanny…?”

She gave a nod at his words. “You understand me, then,” she said.

“So, then, you are the witch who aids my father? What is it that you do?” Rupert asked.

“Sadly, not much,” she said. “Your father has little use for my aid, and unless I had the power to manifest wealth and riches, I’d be of little use to your family even if he wanted my help. What I can do, though, is set you and your sister free.”

“That’s all we want,” Rupert said.

“I know,” she answered, nodding.

The top of the spiral staircase revealed the tower’s uppermost room, and its décor seemed to confirm everything the nanny had said. A simple cot sat against the wall, and that was by far the simplest and most easily recognizable item here. Countless crystals of varying sizes and colours sat upon a wooden shelf. A dazzling crystal ball sat resting upon a pedestal by the wall. An endless row of bookshelves overflowing with heavy leatherbound tomes wrapped around the edges of the room. There was even a table with a number of plants and flowers growing in pots, and those were just the things in the room that Rupert could identify. Countless items – knick-knacks and trinkets, mainly – were scattered around the room, unidentifiable to the young prince but, presumably, used in the art of witchcraft.

“Wow,” Rupert breathed, astounded by the sight before him. “A real witch’s lair.”

“We don’t call it a lair, dear boy,” the nanny-witch sighed as she set baby Regina down on the surface of the bed. Regina seemed quite content despite having been rushed through the halls of the castle, and she cooed a little as she was laid down. The nanny-witch then grabbed a book from a shelf without bothering to check the title on the spine, and she hastily began to flip through the weathered, yellowing pages. “Would you do me the favour of lighting up that lamp by the window?”

Rupert hurried to do as he was told, fumbling around in the darkness until he found the matches. He struck one up and it burst into vibrant orange flame, and within moments the lamp was casting that same orange light across the room. It wasn’t the brightest of lights, not like the light of the sun through the window would be, but it was sufficient.

“Here it is,” the nanny-witch murmured, tapping one finger against the book. “We have no time to waste, so I will need your help.”

Rupert looked down at Regina. Her dark eyes seemed almost darker in the dim lighting, like pools of deep black into which he could drown. She was gazing at him almost as if she expected something of him, as if she was waiting for him to make his move. Everything he did tonight, he did for her. He couldn’t bear to part ways with her, couldn’t bear to see her taken away by some other king to be raised apart from her family.

“Anything that you need of me, I will do,” Rupert told the nanny-witch.

Already, the nanny had leapt into motion. She was clipping lengths of twine from a roll, and when she heard Rupert’s words, she nodded. “Very good,” she said. “In the chest of drawers by the window, fetch me two little leather pouches – the smallest ones, they should be in the top drawer – and two sprigs of rosemary.”

“Rosemary. Understood,” Rupert said as he hurried to the chest of drawers, beginning to fumble around for the pouches. They were small as she had said, and each could likely carry nothing more than a chestnut. Next, he opened the rest of the drawers until he located jars of what appeared to be dried herbs, the sort that might be used in the kitchens to enhance the flavours of the food. He rushed the pouches and the jar labeled ‘ROSEMARY’ over to the nanny-witch.

Somehow, in the mere moments it had taken him to rifle around in the drawers, she had already started brewing some concoction in a little black cauldron. Spindling plumes of white smoke rose up from the bowl of the cauldron, despite the fact that no discernible heat source was present, and as Rupert approached her, she plucked a leaf from one of her potted plants and dropped it into the cauldron.

“Here,” Rupert said, holding out the items she had requested.

“Very good,” she said, taking them from him. As the nanny-witch continued her work, Rupert seated himself on the cot and scooped his sister up into his arms, though his gaze never left the cauldron and the nimble hands that worked over it. He watched as she dropped the sprigs of rosemary into each of the leather pouches, along with a single acorn and a sprinkle of some strange golden dust. She tied the long cuts of twine tightly around the tops of the pouches to seal them, and then she tied the ends of the twine together to create something that almost resembled a necklace.

Then, suddenly, the nanny-witch froze.

“They’re coming.”

She spoke in a whisper, and her eyes had gone wide with horror. Sure enough, little more than a moment passed before Rupert could hear the sound of the heavy wooden door groaning at the base of the stairs.

“What do we do?” he asked.

The nanny-witch said nothing to Rupert. She murmured some soft and unrecognizable words, dipping the pouches into the steaming liquid in the cauldron, and then she held them above the cauldron until they stopped dripping. Heavy footsteps could be heard running up the spiral staircase, and Rupert’s leg was shaking.

“What do we do?” he asked her once again.

In his arms, Regina let out a little whimper. He wasn’t sure whether it was unfortunate timing or whether she was picking up on the anxious feelings around her, but he tried his best to rock her gently, hushing her until the nanny turned his way.

“Put these on your necks,” she said, all but throwing the pouches to him. He caught them in one hand, flinging one around his sister’s neck and standing as he looped the other around his own neck. While he fumbled with the pouches, the nanny rushed to the single window of the tower.

She spoke a few more unrecognizable words, waving her arm in front of the window, and then she unlatched it and flung it open. Where the outside should have been, where they should have been able to look outwards and see the moonlit northern stretches of the kingdom for many miles, there was only a heavy white mist.

“Listen to me closely, Rupert, there’s no time,” the nanny-witch said, grabbing him by his shoulders and looking straight into his eyes. The footsteps drew ever nearer. Every second counted. “You need to say the word ‘Marovari’ and then leap through the window with Regina.”

“Leap thro – what??”

“There’s no time! Do you trust me?”

The time for hushed whispers had ended. They’d been found, and in mere moments, the heavy footsteps that clunked their way up the stairs would reach the top. The guards would seize them, stop this ritual, and send Regina away. Rupert couldn’t bear for that to happen.

“I trust you,” he said.

“I’ll hold them off. You must do as I say. When you reach the other side, find Fatima. She is a friend, and she will help you. Quickly, now!”

“Halt!”

Rupert looked over his shoulder at the sound of the deep shout from behind him. Sure enough, two guards had reached the top of the stairs, accompanied by Rupert’s father. A stern look was on his face, an infuriated ire that Rupert had never before seen.

“Rupert, stop!”

“Rupert, now!”

Rupert was trembling as he turned to face the window. His heart pounded so hard that he was certain everybody around him could hear it.

“M-Mar… Marovi?”

His voice shook and he stammered, but it seemed that his words did as they were meant to do. The white fog flashed as if lit by a strike of lightning, and suddenly the mist shifted from white to a deep umber colour. This was his only chance.

“Go, Rupert, go!”

There was no time to look back. There was no time to see how the nanny-witch intended to hold back the two armed guards in addition to her king. There wasn’t even time to utter a simple ‘Thank you’ to the woman who had risked everything to ensure that he and Regina would be safe and free.

There was time enough only to jump and, so, he did.