The Little Prince & The Lamb

The Little Prince & The Lamb

It was not long into spring when the little red mark appeared upon the left leg of the little prince’s white cotton leggings. What was ominous about the mark was that it formed a meticulous little circle, unmistakably symmetrical. The gravity of what the mark signified was realised when, in its place, there appeared a purple mark identical in shape and size with an intensity of colour which could not be dulled by water either from well or river, impervious to the scrubs of maidens both fair and seasoned. The matter was grave but not incurable, such a malady had been cured in the past.

  The prince’s grandfather had displayed such a mark when he was a boy and had gone on to lead a long tempestuous bloodstained reign, dying in his old age, in his sleep, dreaming of battle and glory. To cure the boy the court’s surgeon organised a grand ceremony to be called The Ceremony of Innocent Blood in which distinguished guests from all four corners of the kingdom, dressed in the finest cloths of the land, gathered in the palace’s grandest hall to witness the boy play with the first lamb of spring before the animal was slain and the boy’s mark, then blue almost tipping over into black, was bathed in the blood which had once flowed through the young animal’s veins. It was observed that the boy’s mark disappeared instantaneously. Thus it was ordained that the same ceremony was to be held to cure the prince.

  The prince’s Ceremony of Innocent Blood was organised as swiftly as possible in order to limit any progress his condition may have been making. There were a few problems which arose but the counsel to the crown resolved these matters over a night’s discussion to prevent any hiatus in the proceedings. On the day itself distinguished guests from all four corners of the kingdom filled the hall, wearing garments of sapphire, ruby and emerald, clad in cloths of orange and plum. The hall itself was fitted with a woollen carpet dyed magenta to foreshadow the events of the ceremony, emanating what looked like red smoke in the afternoon’s sunlight beaming through the high windows. The king sat upon a throne upholstered in silk shimmering the colours of a lake in the sunlight wearing rich brown robes. The queen sat next to him on an identical but smaller throne wearing a dress which looked as though it had been woven out of gold. The prince was placed in the middle of the grand hall’s large floor wearing a white night dress.

  For a long time the prince sat there under the strange silent stare of distinguished guests from all four corners of the kingdom, feeling abandoned to it. Silence filled the air deafeningly, flooding into the prince’s ears as though it were water. He sat unable to move, shrinking into the silence. The silent stare’s spell was finally broken by a small bleat echoing off of each of the hall’s four walls as the lamb was led into the hall. It echoed last within the lad’s heart. Unlike, as with, the previous Ceremony of Innocent Blood, the lamb was black rather than white but because it was the first lamb of the spring the counsel to the crown had decided it were the one to be slain. On seeing the prince the lamb rubbed its head against the lad’s face imbuing his cheek with a trace of redness which had been wholly absent since the mark appeared on his leg. Some of its black hair touched the lad’s brown curls.

  “Now for the slitting of the animal’s throat” announced the court surgeon.

  “So be it” decreed the king as two court hands grabbed the lamb causing it to shriek out a startled, terrified small bleat, again echoing off of each of the hall’s four walls. Again, echoing last in the lad’s heart. 

  “Wait!” cried the prince.

  The hall plunged into silence once more.

  “The mark has gone, I felt it leave just now” he said to his father.

  “Is this true my lad?”

  “It is” he said, showing his father a leg unblemished by any mark.

  “So it is,” exclaimed the king, adding, “yet, let us not be too hasty my lad. Let us finish the ceremony to ensure thy treatment is complete.”

  “No father,” pleaded the prince, saying without a lie, “for if you kill this lamb I shall die. In my heart, I know, I shall die.”

  “So be it,” decreed the king, “as long as my lad, the little prince, lives, so too shall this lamb.”

  So it was that the lamb was allowed to live and the events of that day came to be known as the Ceremony of Unspilt Blood. Only the prince’s sister, the princess, dressed in a dress the colour of a rain, noticed that her brother had shown their father his right leg.

  In the days that followed the Ceremony of Unspilt Blood the prince would go to visit the lamb each afternoon. He would sit and watch it frolic with the same kind of energy that he himself used to exhume before the mark appeared on his leg. This was how he came to behold the joys of spring that year. On the fifth day of making his afternoon visits the prince hugged the lamb by his neck.

  “You look like coal but feel like a cloud” he said before leaving for his chambers.

  The princess had been looking in on her brother each evening ever since seeing him show their father his right leg and for the first four nights she had left feeling quite content, though never fully so, at seeing the lad in his sleep and dreams. However, on the fifth night her brother stirred heavily in his sleep and dreams as though he were drowning beneath the heavy burgundy bedsheets he lay under. With a foreboding dread she entered the bedchamber. Examining her brother’s left leg, now clad in black cotton leggings at his request, she saw a black mark forming where the red mark had appeared, almost shining in its deep blackness, dulling, in comparison, the blackness of the black cotton leggings. No sooner had she seen this black mark begin to form did the prince jolt up, his eyes open, though he were still asleep with a brow overflowing with sweat and mouth agape, staring with abject terror at something she could sense but not see right before him.

  “O brother,” cried the princess, “what is the matter?”

  But the prince did not answer. In despair the princess clasped her arms around her brother. Feeling his sister’s head against his cheek and her black hair touch his brown curls the prince’s consciousness returned to the room and he returned her embrace. His eyes cried warm tears onto her shoulder, shading the crushed velvet of her dress from pink to red where they fell.

  “O sister,” he said patting her black hair, the look of terror dissolving from his eyes as his body relaxed except for a frantically shaking left leg, “such dreams I have been having. I was being swallowed by a black ghost. Such pain my leg is in, too much to bear.”

  “Let me get father” said the princess.

  “No,” cried the prince, “I do not wish it so. He understands me not as a boy but as a prince. No sister, I know my fate. It is too much to bear and too late. One death would feel as though a release as though a passing of a cloud, whereas to die on any other's terms feel as though doom. Not that this may make any difference after the fact but for now one outcome I wish for more than anything whilst the other scares me stiff.”

  Her heart abashed as though it had been struck, the princess touched her brother’s cheek. For a touch between two people who share a history which has become inexclusive to either one of them, entwined, can express the feeling of a moment in a way that no words can and she did not know what to say.

  “Lay your head down,” she said, “and allow me to place a cloud upon your face” as she softly pressed her brother's silk pillow onto his face.

  Lifting the pillow from her brother’s face the princess regarded his calm, relieved expression for a while before checking his left leg. The mark had vanished entirely, leaving no trace on either the black cotton leggings or his skin. Feeling herself caught in between a state of loss and contentment the princess sat at the foot of her brother’s bed and cried awhile, tears forming little red marks all down her dress.

  To mark the occasion of his son's death the king ordered for the black lamb of The Ceremony of Unspilt Blood to be publicly slaughtered in the palace's grandest hall where the distinguished guests from all four corners of the kingdom, wearing the finest garments of the land, finally got to see the blood which once ran through the young creature's veins.