Splendid by Rebecca Hahn

William was a prince. He was a splendid prince in many ways: he clothed his sculpted body in red and purple velvet, he out-rode the master of hounds in every hunt, and he was never, ever at a loss for courtly love-words with a lady. But in one respect he was lacking. He had one undeniable character flaw, hindering his perfection: he was in love with bugs.

As his father, a true king with a bellow for his subjects and a grunt for his wife, pardoned the just and condemned the wicked in court, William watched the beetles scurry across the shale floor. When Lady Alice shrieked and fainted at a large black cockroach, he left her limp body to the footman and conveyed the insect to the grass outdoors, and safety. He had jars of worms and dirt-filled bowls of ants, and his bed was home to fleas and ticks and moths.

“You will never be married!” the queen would say. “You will live and grow old and die and never marry, and the country will dissolve into civil war.”

William would pet a centipede as it measured his finger or offer his arm to a mosquito for lunch or smile at a butterfly, perched on his nose. “I do not see why my darlings are a problem,” he would say. “They have nothing to do with politics or war.”

His mother would clasp her hands together until her fingernails were white. “Bugs are not for a prince,” she would say. “If you were cruel – that could be useful in battle. Arrogant: more strength in your decisions. Murderous, stupid, silly: there have been hundreds of these princes before. But this obsession!” She would stare at his newest friend in disbelief. “No princess will marry a man who is less than a prince!” But he would only continue humming a lullaby to the sleeping gnat in his pocket.

His parents tried their best. They sent out proposals to all the best princesses, and many of these maidens came to visit. But not a one would marry William.

“Prince Harry, Prince David, Prince George,” the queen was telling the king as they sat down to breakfast one morning. “They are all married. But not ours. Not our William.” She turned accusing eyes on their son.

“Sara was nice,” he said, cutting his ham.

“Sara dislikes being bitten,” said the queen. “Anne is afraid of spiders. Elizabeth is allergic to bees. But all that is secondary, because not one of them would marry you anyway. They are all true princesses and bugs are not for princes!” She turned and grasped her husband’s arm, her red curls bouncing. “Tell him; you’re a king! Tell him what he has to be.”

The king grunted behind his newspaper. “Says here that little princess Katherine went and got herself stuck in a tower. Guarded by a dragon, no door in, the whole deal.”

The queen snatched the paper out of his hands. The king’s black eyes snapped; he let out a thunderous snort and then bellowed to the servants for more coffee.

“No need to yell,” the queen said absently. “Oh, yes! Yes, here it is. This is your chance, William!”

“What?” said William, startled out of refereeing a termite race through the four-inch oak table. There were hundreds of holes all down its length.

“You can go save Katherine,” said his mother. “She will have to marry you once you rescue her: that should be prince-like enough for anyone.” She threw the paper onto the table and attacked a piece of toast with butter.

“I will rescue the princess?” said William.

“Yes, of course,” said the queen, “and marry her. Go on!” He went.

In many ways, William was a splendid prince. That same morning, he strapped on his sword, saddled his horse, and had galloped through a forest, two deserts and a village before noon. After an ant-blessed picnic, he listened to the warnings of three old men (“Take a left at the second turning!” – “Beware the talking fish!” – “Watch out for poison ivy!”), helped three withering crones carry water (“I grant you courage!” – “I grant you strength!” – “I can carry that myself, thank you very much”), and was squared to do battle with the dragon as the sun began to set.

The dragon was a ferocious orange beast, but William had courage and strength and chivalry on his side. As Katherine looked on from her high tower window, squealing at appropriate moments, William stuck his sword through the dragon’s chin and into his brain and stepped aside as the monster fell to the ground.

“Thank you!” shouted Katherine. At least that’s what he thought she said. Her face was a vague peachy spot against the bleached stone, haloed in gold.

“I’ll be right up!” he shouted back. She waved a speck of white dust and disappeared. William took some maggots from his belt and bent to show them the dragon’s bloody head. “Eat up,” he said. They wiggled off his hand, into the dragon’s tunnels of nostrils. William straightened, surveying the tower.

He had expected to find it in a forest clearing, shining through the murky leaves like a firefly in the night. At the very least, it should have topped a rocky crag, embedded into the stone as if it were a natural extension of sediment, stretching for the sky. But the tower William had de-dragoned, though as pure white and polished as any, was in a marsh. The trees were grass-green and the ground was bark-brown, and the sun lit the scene rather moistly. The tower must have been built on one of the few sturdy spots: the dragon, now that its wings no longer helped to hold its weight, was steadily vanishing beneath mud and cattails and marsh-weed. No sun-dried bones would stand testimony to this rescue. William grabbed his sword from the dragon’s head, avoiding the poison ivy surrounding the blade. There was nothing to wipe it off on, so he carried it bare in his hand.

He walked around the tower twice in knee-deep muck, knowing that there would be no door, then took a left and saw the talking fish. “Yes?” he said.

It looked at him with yellow-lidded eyes. “You want the tower?” it said.

“No, I want to enter the tower,” said William.

“Tower,” said the fish. William nodded. “You who want the tower,” said the fish, “never knock. You kiss the blue stone. Kiss. Do not knock. Blue stone of tower.”

“Thank you,” said William. He walked over to the blue stone, about chest height on the eastern tower wall.

“Kiss,” the fish insisted. William nodded again and knocked. As the door opened into the tower, the fish screamed, “You knock!” and turned into a lily pad, complete with a yellow blossom. William entered the tower.

After that, there was little left to do but ascend five flights of stairs, around and around, and arrive triumphant in the doorway of the princess’ room with cape flung back and boots pointed dramatically.

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Katherine was a splendid princess in almost every way. Her hair regularly blinded suitors with its golden shine; her eyes drowned the sturdiest prince and the ablest sailor; and her voice was as sweet as nectar. As William arrived to claim her, she put down her harp by her silver stool and glided over to his side. “You have saved me,” she murmured.

“To do less would be a monstrosity,” said William. They smiled, understanding each other perfectly, and turned toward the doorway, ready to gallop all the way home.

And they would have made it – they would have married and ruled and lived forever, happy in their love and perfections – if only William’s flies had resisted the fresh dragon blood on his dirty sword. They would have made it, if the marsh sun had only glinted a bit less brilliantly on the black-spotted blade. There is no question that they would have made it, but Katherine, elegant eyebrows bowing to one another, said, “Your sword!” and revealed her one undeniable imperfection.

“Hopper!” she called, looking over her shoulder. “Lunch!”

From under the stool, a frog emerged. He caught sight of the fly-smothered sword and launched himself into the air. Five bugs died in that first attack. By the time William had moved his blade, the rest were buzzing around the room. Katherine quickly closed the window shutters. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll get the rest.”

“Hopper,” said William. He looked from the frog, now leaping from wall to wall, snatching a life with each jump, to the lovely Katherine and back.

“Yes,” said Katherine. “My parents knew that a princess should not love a frog; they said that no true prince would ever marry me. So they put me in this tower to make me seem like a princess.” She said this very sweetly; behind her, the frog croaked as it missed a target.

“I see,” said William. He did. He saw the charming Katherine and the lethal Hopper and his flies, being massacred. He saw the sharpness of his sword.

“I’m supposed to marry you,” he said.

“Yes, I think so,” said Katherine.

“Because you are a princess.”

“In many ways,” she said.

“And you are the only princess who would ever marry…” He lowered the sword. He looked at it, the dirty steel threatening the polished marble floor. A lone mosquito lapped at its bloody tip.

“You are no true princess,” said William slowly.

“No.” Katherine frowned exquisitely, then smiled again. “But you are a splendid prince!”

“Not quite,” said William. “Not yet.” He forced his fingers to open; the sword clanged upon the floor. Before Hopper could eat the final frantic fly, William had turned and started down the stairs.

Out the door, past the yellow lily. He did not sprint or lag. He advanced. To his horse, tethered on a bit of dry land. He rode home at a trot, through forest and desert and village, past old men and withering crones and children in distress. In the castle moat, he stripped and swam, shaking off beetles and inchworms and centipedes, moths and ants and ticks. There were no flies. He swam until there was nothing left of him but hard muscle and smooth skin and red curls.

Then, dripping wet, he led his horse across the bridge to clean new clothes and home. In the morning, there would be nothing in the moat but turtles, fish and mud.

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William was in all ways a splendid prince. He wore hole-less velvet and judged wisely in court and never failed to catch a lady in a faint. He wooed only the best princesses, and in time was married to Rebecca. She had night-dark hair and star-bright eyes and a voice as rich as chocolate. There was not one part of her less than a princess.

Eventually, William became king. His breakfasts were uninterrupted by termite races; his meetings were run without the scuttle of a beetle. Rebecca did not have to put up with fleas in her bed or ticks in her hair. William did not even stoop to caressing the wings of a gnat. He was a true king.

One day his black-eyed son, running back from a fishing trip in the moat, brought him a captured toad. William looked at the animal, shaking, eyes wide and moist. “Let it go,” he said, his voice rough.

“Why?” said the boy. He stroked the animal’s back. It quivered under his touch. He showed the toad a tulip leaf, where a ladybug was feeding. “Look,” he said. “Lunch.”

William quickly took the toad out of his hands and set it hopping back across the gardens. “No!” said the king. “You cannot. You are a prince! You are a prince, and true princes never, ever –!” He drew in a choking breath.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Rebecca, the queen, was there to take her child in hand. “You must never bring home another one,” she said to the boy. “You are very precious to your father, and so you must at all times behave like a prince, a very splendid prince, like he was once. Splendid princes do not capture toads.”

“A prince!” said her son. He held himself straight, chin up.

“Yes, just like that!” said the queen. They walked indoors. William, after straightening his jerkin and running a hand over his unbitten scalp, followed.

Behind him, on the abandoned leaf of the flower, the ladybug had finished eating. She stretched her brittle wings and flew away, buzzing up and up, into the burning face of the sun.