(Loosely based on Andersen’s The Evil Prince)
History books are full of names and dates. They are full of stories about great lords and ladies and about the things that men do in the world, and some of these stories may even be true to a degree. Much the same can be said for little stories such as this one, except little stories like this are usually much more accurate than any history book. This is a tale with roots that run deep into the folds and the valleys of the country, a story from a time before enlightenment brought its own challenges to the people of this dark land.
The world is a very big place, with room enough for everyone and room besides for all of their differences. Unfortunately some people prefer a world that bends to one particular will rather than a world that reflects the views of the many. There was once just such a person. He was, at the outset, an ordinary man, whose only thought was to make a world more comfortable for him and his own kind. We shall call him a prince, for every story should have a prince.
Our prince began life in a humble way, growing into and learning some of the methods of the world common to his people. He sought their approval, promising them much and delivering on some of his promises. In short, he was no better, but no worse, than any other prince. He strived for the public good, especially when it coincided with his own interests, and took thanks in as many ways as such thanks became available to him. He tried to face the dangers and the troubles of his people as well as he might, until, faced one day by a strange and threatening combination of events from the far side of the then known world, he decided that this confluence of opportunity and challenge was his moment of destiny.
Our prince was skilled in many ways, not least in his powers of persuasion. Faced by something that he did not really understand, he listened to advice and sought out experts, and he found himself having to make a choice. Should he open his heart to the world or should he seek protection from it? He made his choice.
He convinced his people, his courtiers and his councils that the only way to secure peace was by striking fear into the hearts of his enemies. One by one he sent his armies out to the far corners of the wide, wide world bearing fire and sharp edged blades. His soldiers trampled down the grains in the fields and set mills and workshops and cities ablaze with red fire. He looked on as the fruits of one civilisation after another charred and burned on the branch. Everywhere mothers hid with their babes behind smoke drenched walls, but the soldiers marched on, rooting these potential assassins out for their pleasure.
Wherever his soldiers ranged, the prince's name became fear and dread, and his power grew and grew. He sucked wealth and might from every conquered land and city. His treasuries overflowed and his warehouses filled with every luxury and every loaf. At no time and in no other place had anyone amassed so many of the riches of the world.
Mindful of his place in the history books, our prince used his vast wealth to build huge palaces, monuments and castles. He commissioned epic poems and stirring stories about his ferocious deeds and he employed the cleverest scholars to write true accounts of his great crusades. All who saw the wonders in stone that he erected and all who read the towering texts that carried his name beyond the clouds were moved to say, "What a truly magnificent prince".
Nowhere was the suffering of others ever mentioned. The prince's own people did not, could not, would not, hear the sighs and the laments rising from the scorched fields and the ash filled streets in foreign lands.
After many years the prince surveyed his realm. He looked at his piles of gold, at his huge and glorious palaces and at his subject peoples, and he thought, "This is good. This is as it should be. I am, indeed, a great prince".
But even after such unprecedented success he still felt the emptiness of the great world around him. He decided there and then that he must bring order to the chaos surrounding his perfect world; he must ensure that there were no powers equal to his own, much less any power greater.
The prince marshalled his forces, made plans and waged wars against every neighbour and every enemy and, one way or another, he conquered them all. Each one of these vanquished kings, queens and princes were bound and gagged and shown at trials, where their unworthy souls were metaphorically flogged. They were chained like dogs, made to lie down at the prince's feet and made to beg for scraps of food from his table.
With the world at his command, with his own men running the cities and the fields and the seas of the world, the prince had reason to be well satisfied. He raised new statues in every square, he made proclamations in every place of congregation and he sent orders to his priests and to the holy souls of the realm that his likeness should stand shoulder to shoulder with the highest of their many Gods.
As one the priests and the holy souls said, "You are a mighty prince, but our Gods are surely mightier. We cannot do what you ask".
The prince considered this. He asked himself if such a thing could, indeed, be true.
"Of course not", said a voice. "You are one of us. We have chosen you to command the earth and to rule the sky. Hear our voice, for we are legion, and know that what we say is true".
The prince was dumbfounded when he first heard the voices of the Gods speaking with him personally, but he quickly came to realise that this was as it should be. He was a most powerful prince and it was only to be expected that the Gods would side with him. And so, with the voices of the Gods in his left ear, it took but a little time to extend his dominion to every soul and across every inch of the earth.
And this too was good for a while. With new palaces raised and with statues and books exalting the prince and his friends, the world and the heavens were joined as one. But, even in such a time of plenty, the prince was not satisfied. He filled the earth with his name, but still he felt the emptiness of the skies.
"Why", he asked himself, "should I share this. What have these Gods done but talk. It is I who has struggled and fought for truth and glory all of my life".
The prince called his peoples together. He called his lords, his ladies and his priests to him and announced, "I am your Lord. I am the greatest prince ever known. Now I will conquer the Gods".
The riches and the resources, the minerals and the great minds of the earth were assembled and the prince built a great fleet of ships to carry him far into the heavens to meet these Gods face to face. Each ship was as black as a heart and bristled with a thousand blades, but each blade was a missile that the prince could fire into the soul of the universe. Great, steaming engines spewed out fire and heat as the ships rose from the ground, climbing higher and higher until all of the prince's dominions lay beneath his feet like a map. Every art and every science was employed to fashion this vast fleet. His soldiers and his sailors searched the heavens, scoured the stars, bombarded every comet and fired cannonades into every asteroid in their path.
But the Gods did not wish to be found.
And so it was, with a vengeful wrath building in his heart that the prince returned to his own world. He was determined to expunge the Gods completely. He wanted to obliterate their names and their memory.
The Gods watched as the days unfurled. They decided that enough was enough. They sent forth a single virus, complex in its own way, but no match, on paper at least, for the science and for the technology employed by the prince. The virus had no firepower with which it could outgun the armies of the world of men. The virus was nothing but a carrier of the common cold, no more, no less.
The virus twisted and turned, flew somersaults in the air and made men cough and sneeze. It changed and modified itself, becoming more virulent, more invasive, and with every infection its strength grew until it became a killer of flesh. The virus waxed and multiplied, infecting the young and the old, the rich and the poor, and the strong and the weak without mercy or allowance for wealth and status.
At last the chains that bound our prince to the world were yanked tight. Standing at the head of his armies, surrounded by his vast wealth and his walls of science, he came face to face with the Gods. There were no bullets capable of shooting the virus, no speech could influence it, no rhetoric could inflame the mob to protect him from it and no history book could provide a vaccine against the virus.
He was vanquished. Our prince, who commanded the riches of the earth, sneezed once, retired to his bed in terror, and there he died, sniveling and delirious just a day or two later. He was extinguished and, if not forgotten, he was certainly relegated over time to the pages of fairy stories like this one, which is where, as I said at the very beginning of this story, the truth is often found.