A tale of a prince

This is a free version from the children’s tale “King & King” written by Linda De Haan and illustrated by Stern Nijland, published in 2000

Once upon a time there was a beautiful, large kingdom reigned by a couple of great sovereigns: King Nicholas and Queen Caroline. They had been married for over 30 years and were the proud parents of a young, brave and strong prince. Prince Charles was a clever, highly educated man with a big deal of ideas to make his land into an even better one.

It was about the beginning of the spring and the twenty-first birthday of Prince Charles was close. As indicated by tradition it was the moment for the Prince to deal with the search for an appropriate woman to marry with. Apparently the King and the Queen themselves were more excited about this special event than what their royal heir was. Queen Caroline had been already embarked on the tough activity of finding the perfect daughter in law, dedicating her time and skills to this crucial search, and she was not going to give up until total success. Many of the subjects at the castle had abandoned their regular chores to help in the mating process. The Queen had sent several royal messengers to near and far lands, looking for noble families and their lovely daughters. Now it was a matter of time and a wait like this could take months. However, Prince Charles was not very fond of tradition, especially the one that would eventually force him to get married.

So weeks went by and the first written responses began to arrive to the castle. As different as their lands of origin were, the entire letters were pretty much the same. They were all very thankful and accepting of such an important business: to arrange a special event to allow the given young lady to meet Prince Charles. On the other hand Charles did not show any interest in any of the replies from far away. For him, as he had thought through and actually expressed to his mother, this was a pointless matter as love would come at the least expected moment and in the most uncommon shape.

Anyway the good Queen did not pay too much of attention to her son and started to make the necessary arrangements to invite the most appealing, interesting –as well as interested, ladies. Charles did not agree with such enthusiastic manners in his mother, and they even had a little squabble. The bright Prince insisted about the importance of love, the Queen defended the importance that choosing a good woman had for the future of their kingdom and convinced Charles to deem about the matter.

About two weeks went by and the first female visitor announced his arrival. Preparations were made and Prince Charles was taken to the throne room to meet this potential wife. And there she was, Princess Violet. She had certainly a lanky figure, and when the expected conversation between the young couple began Charles could notice at once that Violet was as boring as annoying. Amid all kind of protocol excuses she was dismissed and sent back home.

Next in the list of candidates was Princess Ludmila, a young, easy going woman. Or so they said. As soon as she saw Charles, started to cry and in a twinkle explained that she was having an affair with one of the knights of her father’s court. The poor woman was stun and very sorry for her behaviour, so ashamed she felt that the Princess and her retinue left the castle in the middle of the night before they would be ousted.

As time passed Prince Charles had the opportunity to meet many princesses. He was already tired of the whole process. It was not like Charles had something against these women. In fact most of them were interesting in some way and likely to be good wives, but all of them lacked of a special quality Charles was looking for, or so he replied back to his mother’s complains. The problem was that not even Charles knew what this special quality was about.

The King and the Queen were almost hopeless about their parental task. Anyway the Queen was determined to keep on trying. The autumn had practically begun and the Prince had not found a royal bride. Nonetheless, Charles was as staid as usual despite the constant bemoaning of his mother. He understood the interest of his parents in getting a nice woman as his bride, but actually he felt to be unseemly for him to get married in the next years.

Then in a beautiful morning of a very special day, after a terrible time in which Charles stayed up all night trough, a special retinue arrived to the castle. Obviously Charles was not excited at all about it, but his parents were. When Prince Charles went to meet the new visitors he could not believe his eyes, his mind was baffled and he could barely gulp. Before him was a strong presence, an admirable figure. Princess Mary was a beautiful woman, indeed, with long black hair, deep dark eyes and an exotic coloured skin –probably because of too much basking–. More importantly her speech was clear, intelligent and genuine. But far more importantly, next to her was a gorgeous, young, and real charming person. Charles had definitely fallen for Mary’s younger brother.