There was a small kingdom, ages ago and far away, that had been ruled
for years by its queen. Her rule was strong, and under her watch the
country prospered for years, but behind all the apparent prosperity
were fearful whispers and widespread paranoia, for although the queen
had been a strong ruler, her rise to power left many asking how it was
that she was able to so quickly rise in station.
She had married into the royal family after being raised in one of
the courts of the King’s own lords. Her beauty and intelligence were
unmatched, and she had successfully captured the King’s eye with equal
shares of both. After their marriage, both of them had ruled over the
kingdom, and although the prosperity of their people was not as so
widespread then as it was later, the people were happy.
Then, in the course of a single night, everything changed. The king
disappeared; not only was there no sign of foul play, but there was no
sign of him ever having exited his bed chambers after retiring behind
closed doors. The strange affair was covered to some extent when the
queen furiously dismissed all of the guards that had watched the
chamber that night, but whispers still echoed about what might have
happened to the king that night. Since no one else was in the room at
the time, those whispers often spoke of foul play by the queen, even
though none would speak openly of their suspicions.
The unfortunate king left behind an infant daughter, and for the next
twenty years she was raised in the palace, attended hand and foot by
maids and footmen ready and willing to see to her every need. While
the fairytales would like to hope that this method of childcare always
produces a prim and proper lady, the young princess instead turned out
to be quite the spoiled woman as she grew to adulthood. Her servants
would often be dismissed from the palace, only to turn up soon
afterwards in a bar somewhere, telling horror stories of the
princess’s temper to anyone that would listen to their drunken babble.
The princess was the princess, however, and no one could feel certain
that their critical remarks would not be heard by the royal family and
result in some sort of discipline, and so the populace stayed mostly
silent. After all, they still had their good queen, and perhaps now
that the young princess had come of age, her mother’s influence would
finally be seen in her daughter’s life.
Alas, it was as early as the princess’s twenty-first year that the
queen, although still quite young, took ill. The doctors did not seem
to think anything of it at first, but as the queen steadily declined,
their diagnoses grew more and more outlandish, their treatments more
expensive, and the queen’s health more unstable. In the end, despite
the attempts of the doctors to save her, she died after only a few
weeks of illness, leaving only her daughter to rule the kingdom.
Her advisors told her that she should seek a good man to marry so
that her subjects could once more have a king. She laughed; if her
mother had ruled alone for so many years, why was it that she could
not do the same? And so, while the lords finally did convince her to
hold a ball in the palace to present her with the sons of the nearby
lords, she announced the day before the proceedings were to begin that
she was going to be spending all of the festivities in the winter
palace. No one would openly speak of how much of any insult this was
to her lords, but everyone knew. It was the middle of summer, and the
path to the winter palace at this time was almost a deathtrap. Still,
the princess had spoken, and no one would attempt to move against her.
The princess watched that day as her entourage of guards gathered the
supplies for their journey. She would not think of lending a hand
herself, but it amused her to see more base people than herself
performing their duties. She enjoyed power, which, at its most basic,
was the entire reason for her decision to leave during the ball.
Anything that forced the nobles to do as she said regardless of their
obvious distaste for it amused her.
As she watched the hubbub, however, she noticed one young guard that
she constantly caught looking in her direction. She had seen that
look in others before; he fancied himself in love with her, stricken
by cupid’s arrow somehow. She chuckled quietly. There were ways of
dealing with such unwanted distractions. Her mother had showed her
how she had done it so many years ago, and so many others had fallen
into the trap that she was assured of its continued success.
The next time she caught him looking in her direction, she signaled
for him to approach before he could act like he wasn’t looking at her.
He looked somewhat awkward, but he approached her as his duty
demanded, bowing before her before standing at attention in her
presence.
“Milady, is there something you require?” he asked. His voice showed
that he had many years of experience speaking to people better than
himself, but he still showed more nervousness than a man in his
situation should.
“Yes, sir knight. I have noticed your glances towards me. If I were
any other young lady, I would think that you fancied me.” She made
sure to keep her voice positive as possible, trying to lure him into a
false sense of security.
He took a moment to work up his nerve, but she could tell that she
had successfully drawn him into confessing his feelings even before he
spoke. “Yes, milady.” He hesitated again. “My apologies, I know it
is not right for one of my station to seek the favor of one so exalted
as your highness.”
“Think nothing of it, sir. If anything, I am flattered. Since we
have never spoken before, I can tell that it is my beauty that has won
you, and that speaks highly of my appearance.” Her boast clearly
struck him as odd, but he said nothing. “Well, sir, I personally have
no issue with a hard-working man such as yourself seeking my favor. I
wonder, though, how far are you willing to go?”
“Milady?”
The princess drew from the seat beside her a satchel. She kept it
with her at all times, and everyone in the palace had seen it at one
point or another. Few, however, knew what was within the simple
pouch. As the young man watched, however, she drew out a strong
leather halter.
“When I was younger, my mother gave this to me as a gift. She told
me that the man that would be my husband would be willing to wear this
halter as a symbol of his loyalty.” She turned it over in her hands a
few times, smiling at the guard who was now clearly confused. “This
halter is imbued with magic from an ancient land. Any man who takes
this bit in his teeth will find himself changed into a common ass.
Only the man who is worthy of being my husband will be willing to
suffer this halter willingly for three days without complaint.” She
held the implement up in front of him, offering it to him.
“Milady? I do not know if I understand.”
The princess had to struggle to keep from yelling at him for being
the insolent fool that he was, but she was practiced in deceiving
people with honeyed words. “It is a test of your true character,” she
explained. “A man may be strong and chivalrous when he can stand tall
before others in his regalia; or in your case, in your armor.
However, a man shows his true colors when he is forced to walk on four
hooves as a beast of burden. If he can show chivalry even in so harsh
a condition, then he is worthy of even the highest station of the
land.”
The young man took the harness in his hands, feeling the leather
straps in his hands for a moment. He was not sure what she meant.
Perhaps it was simply a test of his loyalty, to see if he was willing
to humiliate himself before his fellows for nothing more than the hope
of her favor. He was uncertain that her claims of ancient magic were
true, but then he could not be certain that, in wearing the halter, he
would not find himself suddenly on four hooves. While magic had not
been seen in the kingdom for years, tales of magic from old times
still colored the speech of many men, even those who sought to be
taken seriously. He had to be certain that he was willing to be an
ass for three days before he risked it.
The princess watched him with an innocent smile on her face, but
inside she was anticipating the man’s decision. She knew he would
wear the halter for her, and when he did he would be sealing his fate.
The story she had told him was partially true, in that the man would
have to wear the halter for three days. What she had not told him,
however, was that the end of the third day would not mean that he
would be allowed to marry her. It meant that he would no longer need
the halter to be a donkey, and his mind would be entirely replaced by
that of a common animal.
Her anticipation proved correct in the next moment, as the young man,
slowly but surely, raised the straps to his face, arranging them
awkwardly about his human visage and then cautiously inserting the bit
between his teeth. In a moment, where a young guard had been standing
a moment before, a strong, stocky donkey stood, his shaggy coat
shaking as he tried to come to terms with the sudden shift of
perspective. Even if he wished to remove the halter now, his hooves
would not allow him to do so.
No one nearby seemed to notice; it was an effect of the spell
surrounding the halter. No one would notice that the donkey should
not have been there. In fact, everyone would proceed as though he had
always been a donkey. Four other times she had done this to a man,
and now four more jacks lived on various farms throughout the kingdom.
She before long, the men had loaded her things onto the donkey’s
back, not even thinking that it was strange for the pack animal to
have come from nowhere. As they prepared to begin their journey to
the winter palace, however, the donkey began to gently pull on the
packs of the man around him. It took them a little while to realize
what he was doing, but when they understood, the men all laughed.
Soon, all of them had strapped their bags to the donkeys back. It
never even so much as brayed in protest, and soon it was carrying a
truly ridiculous load towards the winter palace while the guards and
the princess road regal horses, not burdened in the slightest.
For two days the procession continued in high spirits. The princess
was amused by something, and so all of her guards were at ease around
her. The donkey continued to plod along under its heavy burden,
offering no complaint despite carrying the heaviest load of any of the
animals.
It never occurred to the princess that perhaps he was doing this to
show that he could be chivalrous as she had asked. It didn’t occur to
her either that he was perhaps confused as the instincts of the ass
became more and more his own. It only amused her that another man who
would have loved to seek her hand now walked on all fours and appeared
as nothing better than a common beast. Before long, he would be
exactly as he appeared.
The third day brought the party to a river crossing that signaled to
them that they were within a day of the winter palace. The river
would usually be no more than a trickle in the winter months, but
spring had melted the snow and the current was far stronger than any
in the party had seen before. The guards were discussing if they
should take extra time to ensure their safety, but the princess would
hear nothing of it.
“Was this bridge not built by the Queen’s Own Engineers?” she asked,
gesturing to the wooden construct crossing the river. “If so, then we
have nothing to fear.”
The guards were clearly uncomfortable with the idea, but they were
not interested in defying their sovereign’s wishes. They took a few
moments to prepare, but they were on the way across the river before
any of them were ready.
The princess somehow ended up beside the pack donkey, and so she
could look across at him. His eyes told the entire story; there was
confusion there, and the light of intelligence was fast fading. He
acknowledged her in his own way, but as time went by he was finding it
ever harder to think.
The bridge shook a bit as the company crossed. Somehow, the princess
felt she was invincible. Her guards were less convinced, and there
were many worried glances back and forth as the bridge swayed. It
wasn’t until a crack, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the
water below, sounded out behind them that even the princess began to
feel uncomfortable. By then, however, it was too late for her to
react. The bridge pitched to the side as one of the supports was
ruined, and the princess, who had been so relaxed that she had not
even taken hold of her reins, found herself slipping over the railing,
with her fingers unable to find purchase even as she pitched over the
brink. The water was at least mercifully deep and caught her, but
even though she caught a brief grip on a nearby rock, that purchase
was short lived. As she was swept further downriver she cried out,
even as another, larger splash sounded behind her.
She had been swept underneath the bridge when she suddenly landed
against something else. She supposed it was a rock, but as she braced
against it and regained her footing, she could feel it heaving back
and forth. Through blurred vision she could see that she had landed
against the side of the donkey that had, until a few days ago, been
one of her guards. His eyes were rolling, showing their whites, but
he stood solid in the rushing torrent, giving her something to brace
against to keep her from being washed downriver. He took a short step
forward, then another, and slowly but surely made his way towards a
cluster of rock on the far bank. As they arrived, he stood still
while the princess climbed up onto the rocks. She turned back to him
and tried to help him up, but as she gripped the reins attached to his
halter, she could feel how much he was trembling. He still had the
weight of all of their luggage on his back, and he was struggling to
stay where he was. Even as she tried to pull him back, she was forced
to watch in horror as his hooves slipped, and the current took him
downstream, out of her line of sight.
She ran down the bank of the river after he disappeared, trying to
stay safe while at the same time desperately hoping that he was
somehow still alive. Above her, unable to do anything, the guards
called out for her to wait as they tried to find a safe path down to
the river bank. The princess didn’t mind them. For the first time in
her life, she felt dread at the thought of losing someone. She had
never met anyone who would risk themselves that much to save her, and
this man had done it, even as the instincts were changing his mind
slowly and steadily to a more feral form.
She finally found him, with the packs that were tied to his back
tangled in the rocks, in water just barely shallow enough that he
could keep his head above water with some effort. Unfortunately, it
was clear that the effort was already taxing him.
The princess managed to work her way towards him across the rocks,
until she could finally reach him. She had no way of removing the
packs from his back, but she knew how to release him. She managed to
unlatch the halter from his muzzle and pulled it free. It took a
great effort, but she managed to fight the current that tried to drag
him away once he slipped free of the binding ropes. Another few
moments of effort, and she finally collapsed beside him on the far
shore.
His eyes flicked a bit, but as he tried to speak, all that emerged
was a quiet braying sound. The instincts were already very well
ingrained in his mind, and the princess could not be certain that he
would ever fully regain his human mind. Somehow, it didn’t matter to
her anymore. She had to get him to safety.
* * *
The preparations had just finished at the winter palace when several
panicked guardsmen returned, crying for he servants to ready all
available horsemen to search for the princess. She had been swept
down the river after the bridge had failed, only to be saved by the
pack animal that had jumped in after her like a loyal dog. Since she
ran away down the river after the animal, however, no one had been
able to find her, and it sent the guards and servants alike into a
frenzy.
Almost unnoticed amid the chaos, a weary jenny staggered up to the
palace gates, carrying a half-drowned guard on her back. No one could
say if the jenny was the same creature that had been swept down the
river a day before; all anyone knew was that the guard had been
missing since before the princess had left on her way to her winter
abode.
As the princess rested that night, she did so in the stables, head
held low as she considered what lay before her. The only people who
could remove the halter from her were those that knew what she really
was, and the only person who she could count on for that was the guard
she had deceived. Even if he recovered, it was likely he would not
come to her in time. As she thought, however, she came to one
conclusion despite all the chaos in her thoughts.
It was worth it.
By the time the next day had passed, she had trouble concentrating,
and found herself chewing oats from the trough without a second
though. By now, she had resigned herself to life as a common animal.
No matter; she deserved no better. As she watched the rising moon,
however, she saw a silhouette in the doorway. She recognized the
guard before he even stepped into the light.
They stood opposite one another, the guard and the ass, sharing a
silent moment. Finally, after what felt to her like an eternity, the
man stepped forward and brushed a lock of rough mane from between her
eyes. He looked at her for a moment, and gave a smile. He took the
straps in his hands and watched her for a moment. After that moment,
however, he said three words that made her heart leap.
“I forgive you.”
And pulled the halter free.
