Godmother Death (Continued)
by Jane Yolen
In a few short years, Haden became known throughout his small village. A few more years and his reputation had spread through the country. A few more and he was known in the kingdom. If he said a patient would live, that patient would rise up singing. If he said one would die, even though the illness seemed but slight, then that patient would die. It seemed uncanny, but he was always right. He was more than a doctor. He was — some said — a seer.
Word came at last to the king himself.
Ah — now you think I have been lying to you, that this is only a story. It has a king in it. And while a story with Death might be true, a story with a king in it is always a fairy tale. But remember, this comes from a time when kings were common as corn. Plant a field and you got corn. Plant a kingdom and you got a king. It is that simple.
The king had a beautiful daughter. Nothing breeds as well as money, except power. Of course a king's child would be beautiful.
She was also dangerously ill, so ill in fact that the king promised his kingdom — not half but all — to anyone who could save her. The promise included marriage, for how else could he hand the kingdom off. She was his only child, and he would not beggar her to save her life. That was worse than death.
Haden heard of the offer and rode three days and three nights, trading horses at each inn. When he came to the king's palace he was, himself, thin and weary from travel; there was dirt under his fingernails. His hair was ill kempt. But his reputation had preceded him.
"Can she be cured?" asked the king. He had no time for temper or formalities.
"Take me to her room," Haden said.
So the king and the queen together led him into the room.
The princess's room was dark with grief and damp with crying. The long velvet drapes were pulled close against the light. The place smelled of Death's perfume, that soft, musky odor. The tapers at the door scarcely lent any light.
"I cannot see," Haden said, taking one of the tapers.
Bending over the bed, he peered down at the princess and a bit of hot wax fell on her cheek. She opened her eyes and they were the color of late wine, a deep plum. Haden gasped at her beauty.
"Open the drapes," he commanded, and the king himself drew the curtains aside.
Then Haden saw that Death was sitting at the foot of the great four–poster bed, buffing her nails. She was wearing a black shift, cut entirely too low in the front. Her hair fell across her shoulders in black waves. The light in the windows shone through her and she paid no attention to what was happening in the room, intent on her nails.
Haden put his finger to his lips and summoned four servingmen to him. Without a word, instructing them only with his hands, he told them to turn the bed around quickly. And such was his reputation, they did as he bade.
Then he walked to the bed's head, where Death was finishing her final nail. He was so close, he might have touched her. But instead, he lifted the princess's head and helped her sit up. She smiled, not at him but through him, as if he were as transparent as Death.
"She will live, sire," Haden said.
Both Death and the maiden looked at Haden straight on, startled, Death because she had been fooled, and the princess because she had not noticed him before. Only then did the princess smile at Haden, as she would to a footman, a servingman, a cook. She smiled at him, but Death did not.
"A trick will not save her," said Death. "I will have all in the end." She shook her head. "I do not say this as a boast. Nor as a promise. It simply is what it is."
"I know," Haden said.
"What do you know?" asked the king, for he could not see or hear Death.
Haden looked at the king and smiled a bit sadly. "I know she will live and that if you let me, I will take care of her the rest of her life."
The king did not smile. A peasant's son, even though he is a doctor, even though he is famous throughout the kingdom, does not marry a princess. In a story, perhaps. Not in the real world. Unlike Death, kings do not have to keep bargains. He had Haden thrown into the dungeon.
There Haden spent three miserable days. On the fourth he woke to find Godmother Death sitting at his bedfoot. She was dressed as if for a ball, her hair in three braids that were caught up on the top of her head with a jeweled pin. Her dress, of some white silken stuff, was demurely pleated and there were rosettes at each shoulder. She looked sixteen or sixteen hundred. She looked ageless.
"I see you at my bedfoot," Haden said. "I suppose that means that today I die."
She nodded.
"And there is no hope for me?"
"I can be tricked only once," Death said. "The king will hang you at noon."
"And the princess?"
"Oh, I am going to her wedding," Death said, standing and pirouetting gracefully so that Haden could see how pretty the dress was, front and back.
"Then I shall see her in the hereafter," Haden said. "She did not look well at all. Ah — then I am content to die."
Death, who was a kind godmother after all, did not tell him that it was not the princess who was to die that day. Nor was the king to die, either. It was just some old auntie for whom the excitement of the wedding would prove fatal. Death would never lie to her godson, but she did not always tell the entire truth. Like her brother, Sleep, she liked to say things on the slant. Even Death can be excused just one weakness.
At least, that is what she told me, and I have no reason to doubt the truth of it. She was sitting at my bedfoot, and — sitting there — what need would she have to lie?
