Date: 2017-01-01 08:00:00+00:00
Rights: All rights reserved (#303437796511872)

The Princess and the Vampire
A Cautionary Tale

Jeff Chapman

The Princess and the Vampire

Jeff Chapman

Copyright 2010,2017 by Jeff Chapman. All rights reserved.

“The Princess and the Vampire” originally appeared in The Midnight Diner, Volume 3, September 2010.

This eBook or any portion of it may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author—except for brief quotations in reviews.

The story contained within this eBook is a work of fiction. All material is either the product of the author's imagination or is used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) or to actual events is entirely coincidental.

Cover: Detail from The Nightmare (1781) by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

Contents

The Princess and the Vampire

About the Author

Acknowledgements

The Princess and the Vampire

The Chief Councilor and the Court Fool were walking down a road scarcely wide enough to accommodate a coach. Young pines crowded the road's edge, while their forebears, tall and ancient, stood behind. Amber pine needles carpeted both sides of the lane before thinning out to nothing across the crown at the road's center. With the rising sun at their backs, the pair's bobbing shadows stretched in front of them, an advance guard racing ahead. The Chief Councilor trudged like a man going to beg forgiveness for his back taxes, while the Fool bounced, swaying side to side like a man going to meet his betrothed for a secluded stroll in the woods.

“I say,” said the Fool, “I don't think I've ever been down this stretch. Doesn't look like anybody else has either.”

“No, it's not a well-traveled path, at least not by the living,” the Chief Councilor mumbled.

“So where are we going?”

The Chief Councilor smiled, knowing the Fool had not listened to the most important detail. “To deliver a message from the Princess.”

“Oh, hmm. I hope they offer us some breakfast when we get there.”

“I wouldn't count on it.” The Chief Councilor fingered the brass cross hanging under his cloak as he added more prayers that they wouldn't be breakfast. You're only the messenger, he told himself, absolved from all guilt and responsibility, but he didn't believe it. He wondered how long he should keep the Fool in the dark.

“It's not Christian to offer a guest no breakfast in the morning. And why do we have to be up so early anyway? Don't these people sleep?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“They must go to bed awfully early.”

The Chief Councilor chuckled. “Here's a riddle for you. What do you get a spoiled princess who has everything she could possibly want?”

“The Princess will have your head for that.”

“She would have yours for far less. Do you give up?”

“A new castle. We're going to look at a new castle.”

“Nope.”

“Wait. Don't tell me. A new horse.”

“If only it were so simple. The Princess has more horses than she can ride in a month. Give up?”

The Fool shrugged his shoulders.

“A vampire lover.”

The Fool stopped. “A vampire? This ... this isn't the road to that castle?”

The Chief Councilor nodded. “Come on. I want to get there and back before I lose my nerve.”

“What do you need me for?”

“You can hide in the woods and take word back if anything bad happens.”

“Oh. How do I know if something bad happens?”

“I'm afraid you'll have to use your wits. No one else would agree to come.”

Turning a bend in the road brought the pair into a long-deserted village where the doors had been scavenged and the thatched roofs had collapsed. The Fool eyed the cemetery, where weathered crosses made of branches and rope stood defiantly against the sapling evergreens that led the charge to reclaim the land.

“I don't think they'll do us any harm,” said the Chief Councilor.

“Vampire victims?”

“Most, I suspect.”

No one lived near the vampires' castle. For five miles in each direction, the forest knew nothing of men's boots or children's laughter. For those living just beyond the dead zone, including the Princess and all her subjects, an uneasy, informal truce had developed. The resident vampires--a man and his sister--no longer preyed on the local populace but the hanging of garlic and crucifixes across shuttered windows punctuated everyone's nightly routine.

Rumor said the vampire and his sister possessed ageless beauty, having been frozen in time at the prime of their aristocratic youth, and since pale skin and deep red lips were the rage among the fashionable elite, the pair were well-poised to impress on appearance alone.

An ancient portrait of the brother and sister, painted before their lusts turned to blood, hung in the long gallery of the castle in which the Princess lived with her father, an aged king slipping into dementia. In the portrait, the brother stood behind his sister, who reclined on an ottoman as she reached toward her brother to touch his hand. Many times the Chief Councilor had seen the Princess entranced beneath that portrait, reaching up to touch that very hand.

Advising the King was so much easier than pampering the Princess. The King asked for nothing but fruit pies and then ignored them while he babbled on and on about the tapestries adorning his bedchamber.

Coming around a sharp bend in the road, the Chief Councilor and the Fool came to a curtain wall. Splotches of green and red lichens dotted the wall's gray stones. The path ended at a pair of black, oak doors that barred entry through an archway. Centuries of rain had effaced a family crest etched in the capstone. At the wall's edge, sunk in the soil like megaliths, lay fallen stones from the moldering battlements above. The Chief Councilor surveyed the wall, wondering if the stress on the ancient hinges would dislodge an avalanche. To the right of the doors, pines encroached to the wall's edge.

The Chief Councilor leaned toward the Fool. “You hide in the trees and if something happens to me, take word to the castle.”

The Fool nodded before diving under the trees like a rabbit.

After withdrawing a scrolled parchment from beneath his cloak, the Chief Councilor approached the doors. An iron knocker, the size of a man's fist, hung from the door on the right. He grasped it, grimacing at the screeching of the ancient hinge, and beat it against the door. Nothing stirred inside, at least nothing that he could hear. Again he pounded the knocker against the wood, but still no sound came from the other side.

“Have you lost your way?” asked a female voice.

The Chief Councilor spun around, falling against the door. The owner of that sweet, languid voice eyed him with a mixture of humor and curiosity. Her ruby lips, all the more crimson against her ivory skin, smiled, and when they parted, the sharp points of two white fangs emerged.

“I thought this was the main gate but apparently there's another door.”

“Oh no. You struck the mark with your first guess. But why use a door when one can just as easily climb the wall?”

“Yes,” he said, eying the sheer stone wall. “I see your point.”

The woman giggled. The Chief Councilor relaxed, growing comfortable in her presence. The twinkle in her dark eyes seduced him. Only the points of the two daggers concealed behind her lips reminded him that her bewitching charms were insidious.

“I have a message, well, more of a proposal, for your brother from her highness the Princess. Would you be so kind as to deliver it?”

The Vampiress extended an exquisitely proportioned hand, and when their fingers touched, a sliver of cold stung him, as if he had touched a rock frozen over with ice.

~~~

“She assured me it would be delivered,” said the Chief Councilor to the Princess. The pair faced one another in the throne room. The Chief Councilor sat on a three-legged stool at the base of the dais from which the throne commanded the room.

The Princess fidgeted, seeking comfort in the confines of the ancient, oak chair. “When I command this kingdom, this chair will have cushions.”

“As you wish, my Lady.”

“Did you see her climb the wall?”

“I didn't tarry to watch, but I did catch a glimpse of a black form mounting the battlements when I turned at the bend in the road.”

“Extraordinary.” The Princess stared over the Chief Councilor's head. With her left hand, she rubbed the jeweled handle of a dagger sheathed at her waist. A gift from her father when she came of age, she carried the dagger always.

“The Fool was already running down the road, nearly falling over himself,” said the Chief Councilor.

“A coward. You should have him flogged, at least twenty lashes.”

“He didn't volunteer.”

“If he had left me, I would have his head boiled.”

The Chief Councilor nodded as he sighed. This business wearied him like no other. “I believe my position as chief adviser requires me to warn you that this infatuation with the Vampire is not healthy. Give me three days and I will gather a hundred princes for you to meet.”

“They bore me.” The Princess leaned forward. “Now tell me, was she as beautiful, as exotic as depicted in her portrait?”

“Certainly more exotic.”

The Princess waited with raised eyebrows.

“And the painting certainly does her justice, but she exuded a sense of profound evil that....”

The Princess held up her hand. “You have rendered me a great service councilor. I am much pleased with you and I will not forget this.”

The Chief Councilor thanked her, all the while wishing he could forget his encounter with the Vampiress and her icy fingers.

“Now I must.... I must stroll for a bit outside,” said the Princess. “You're dismissed.”

The Chief Councilor bowed three times as he backed away and then left the room. Fatigued from the early morning trip, he stopped to rest on a bench in a recess. The Princess hurried past, oblivious to his presence, following the hallway to the long gallery.

~~~

The Vampire swirled his goblet of blood, watching bits of coagulate drift to the bottom in the light from a candelabra while the Vampiress perused the proposal from the Princess.

She smirked then tossed the scrolled parchment onto the table. “So what will you do?”

The Vampire sipped some blood. “After all these years, I keep forgetting that with blood, younger is better.”

“You always were the best judge of wines.”

“What would you have me do with the Princess?” asked the Vampire.

“Maybe, if you wait, she'll agree to come here.”

“She does sound desperate, but I don't want her entourage traipsing through our home and making a mess.”

“You're not seriously considering staying in her castle?” asked the Vampiress. “Agreeing to these conditions?”

“It might be fun, and I'll wager she's delectable.”

“I wouldn't trust them.”

“They forbid me to bring any weapons or wear any armor and they agree not to decapitate me or drive a stake through my heart.” The Vampire laughed. “They've thought of everything.”

“It's a trap,” said the Vampiress. “Revenge for the Princess's mother.”

“Perhaps. How long did it take that chipped fang of yours to grow back?”

“A year or two.” Her mouth fell open. “You'd sacrifice your fangs?”

“But what a prize she'll be. This is the stuff of legends.”

“And what will you use without teeth?”

“Something will come to hand. Some broken glass perhaps.”

“You're as obsessed as she is.”

“Not likely I'll be able to bring any back for you,” said the Vampire.

“I'll wager she's sour.”

“You're jealous.”

“I've aged beyond that emotion.”

The Vampire laughed then drained his goblet. “Want to help with my response?”

The Vampiress stood up to leave. “I won't impinge on your fun. And don't expect me to hunt for you when you're toothless.”

The Vampire watched his sister glide across the floor and disappear in the darkness of a passageway. “You are jealous,” he whispered.

~~~

The Chief Councilor sat on a three-legged stool in the throne room, watching the Princess read the Vampire's response, a single sheet of rolled parchment found nailed to the castle's front gate in the early morning. A red, tasseled pillow cushioned the throne, and the Princess toyed with one of the tassels as she read the message for the umpteenth time. The Chief Councilor had lost count.

“You did well to wake me,” said the Princess. “He has agreed to all our terms and conditions.”

“Yes, but I find that a cause for concern rather than celebration.”

“Ah, you don't trust him. I know he's a fiend at heart, but that's why you're going to remove his fangs. What's a vampire without fangs? A pretty toy for me to play with.”

“With all due respect, my Lady, I don't believe that removing his fangs will render him harmless.”

The Princess sighed. “Chief Councilor, we have already discussed this ad nauseam. Your persistence on this matter is becoming tiresome. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

The Princess smiled. “Do you think he wrote this himself? Is it in his own hand?”

“I doubt they employ servants.”

“Look at these flourishes. And such strong lines. Only a firm and cultured hand could have written this.”

The Chief Councilor leapt to his feet, knocking the stool backward. “Princess. For the sake of your life and the kingdom, I cannot abide this folly any longer.”

The Princess stared at her adviser. “Arrange a carriage to fetch him. Remove his fangs. Then deliver him to me. You are dismissed.”

The Chief Councilor plodded toward the door.

“And Chief Councilor?”

“Yes, my Lady?”

“Thank you for your concern. Your sincerity has spared you a flogging.”

~~~

The Chief Councilor accompanied the coach as an ambassador, a sign of good faith, though his thoughts were scheming in the opposite direction. He thanked all the saints that the Vampire had not requested a hostage. Was that a good or bad omen? This business had shattered his wits. He sat with the driver both ways. No one dared sit inside. The driver's white knuckles threatened to burst his skin as he squeezed the reins, holding back the horses who threatened to break into a panicked gallop the closer they approached the castle. To hold them in check while the Vampire climbed into the coach required all the driver's skill. The Vampire smiled at the Chief Councilor, who nodded in return. Was it a smile of acknowledgment, courtesy, or a smirk? As the horses galloped, foam gathering at their bits then sliding down their necks, the Chief Councilor reviewed his plan to drive a wedge between the Princess and her self-destruction.

A crowd lined the thoroughfare from the town gate to the castle gatehouse. Castle gossip was alive and well. The horses never slowed their pace and in the blur of faces, the Chief Councilor saw peasants, craftsmen, merchants, women, and children, everyone in the kingdom it seemed though none exhibited cheer at the spectacle, only dull resignation.

The Barber, a rotund man with a jolly disposition, awaited them in a barracks facing the courtyard before the keep. He motioned the Vampire toward a straight-backed chair built from stout timbers. Holding his shoulders and head high as if the earth and its doings concerned him not at all, the Vampire stepped forward and surveyed the room before sitting down.

The Chief Councilor raised his eyebrows at the Fool, who sat on a stool in a corner. The Fool nodded. All was in place.

The Vampire objected when the Barber looped a rope around his chest to lash him to the chair but after assurances from the Barber and the Chief Councilor that this merely provided leverage for the extractions, he relented. The Barber pulled a two-headed brass instrument from his apron pocket.

“What is that?” asked the Vampire.

“It's called a pelican,” said the Barber. “See how it's shaped like the bird's beak? It's the newest implement in dental extractions. Just bought it a couple weeks ago, but I couldn't do without it now.”

“I see. I suppose you want me to open wide.”

“I can't see those teeth if you don't open your mouth.”

The Vampire complied, stretching his mouth until it gaped like a viper's unhinged jaws, exposing his fangs, the daggers that had brought death to so many.

“This may hurt a bit but it'll be over quick.” The Barber clamped the instrument around the base of a fang. Grasping the chair for leverage, he pulled with all his strength. His face flushed crimson. Sweat beaded on his cheeks and forehead. The veins in his neck throbbed. The chair creaked then shrieked as it snapped. After three broken chairs, the Barber sat on the floor, his neck and arms limp. “It's no use,” he said between deep breaths. “The roots run too deep.”

The Vampire twisted his head from side to side, igniting a series of pops from his neck. The Chief Councilor rubbed his bearded chin, considering his strategy, which assumed a vampire weakened from blood loss during the extractions.

“I've an idea,” said the Fool. “What we need is horse power.”

The Barber and the Fool tied the Vampire and his chair to a beam and secured his head with a leather strap across his forehead. From ropes, they fashioned a harness that crisscrossed the Barber's torso and then secured the ropes to the harnesses of two draft horses in the courtyard, where a hostler stood ready with a whip. The Barber clamped the pelican on the first fang. The hostler whipped the horses. The ropes stretched taut. The Vampire moaned in pain. Just as the Chief Councilor's hopes rose, the Barber flew backwards across the room, rattled through the door frame, and then bounced across the courtyard on his prodigious backside in the dusty wake of the runaway horses.

The Chief Councilor sent the Fool to fetch the Master Carpenter, who arrived carrying a chisel and a wooden mallet.

“I think,” said the Chief Councilor to the Vampire, “that we can amend the agreement to remove the points of the fangs rather than extracting them all together.”

“As you wish,” said the Vampire. “It makes little difference to me as long as the Princess will still have me.”

“I can assure you of that.” The Chief Councilor turned to the Carpenter and whispered. “As much of the teeth as possible.”

With two taps for each fang, the Master Carpenter sheared off the teeth flush with the gum line. The Vampire grimaced from the pain in the stumps of his fangs as chill air shocked the exposed nerves. A mortal would have fainted.

His hands behind his back, the Chief Councilor approached the Vampire who remained secured in his chair. The Chief Councilor felt no remorse for his trickery, no dishonor, for he saw the Vampire as the devil incarnate, and there could be no sin in the obliteration of absolute evil.

He sprang toward his victim, drawing a stake and a mallet from behind his back. Jabbing the stake against the Vampire's chest, he struck it with the mallet, thrusting all of his frustration with the Princess into his effort. The Vampire gasped. His eyes flew open. But the stake did not pierce the skin.

The Chief Councilor looked askance at the Vampire, who broke into laughter as he snapped the ropes that bound his arms and then tore open his shirt to reveal a hauberk. Its conventionality, interlocking rings of rusting iron, mocked the Chief Councilor.

“I knew this old piece of junk would be good for something someday.” He slapped the Chief Councilor on the shoulder. “It appears mistrust is contagious. Take me to the Princess.”

~~~

Wearing only her night dress, the Princess sat on a cushioned stool before a dressing table carved with swirls and flowers, brushing her hair. The Vampire sat across the room, watching her.

“Tell me about yourself,” said the Princess.

“That's a very, very long story.”

“Cut out the boring parts.”

“I remember your mother,” said the Vampire. “She was older but just as ravishing.”

The Princess stopped brushing. “What could you know of my mother? She died of a fever.”

“Perhaps we should clean our teeth between meals.”

“What could your dirty teeth....” Her voice trailed off as she imagined the Vampire feasting on a sick commoner, perhaps a vagrant lying unconscious in a filthy alley, and then mixing the blood with her mother's as she lay sleeping in the castle. “You despicable fiend. Have you no respect?” The Princess slammed her brush on the table. “Get out,” she cried.

“I've only just arrived. And I had my teeth chiseled off.”

“Leave at once or I'll call the guards.”

“You told them to go away, under threat of death wasn't it?” The Vampire smiled.

The Princess bolted for the door, but the undead are quick. The Vampire clasped her around the waist.

~~~

In the throne room, the Chief Councilor spent the night watching the moon journey from dusk to dawn. He sat on the three-legged stool. He paced. He lay on the hardwood floor, using the cushion from the throne as a pillow. As the moon fell, so did his hopes. What more could he have done? What other argument or plea advanced?

When a red smudge tinged the eastern horizon, like blood seeping through a bandage, he could wait no longer. He flung open the door and stumbled over the outstretched legs of the Fool, who lay sleeping in the hall.

“What are you doing here?”

“Who can sleep in their bed with that Vampire loose?”

“Come along,” growled the Chief Councilor. He strode to the guard house, with the Fool in tow, where he roused the Captain of the Guard, who assembled a platoon. The soldiers followed the Chief Councilor and the Fool to the Princess's bed chamber.

All was quiet as a winter's night under heavy snow. The Chief Councilor pressed his ear against the door, carved with flowers and swirls. For a moment he remembered the little girl who clapped her hands and wanted to paint the flowers when the Master Carpenter hung the door. The Chief Councilor tapped with his knuckles. He called the Princess by name. No reply. He tried the door. Locked. He pounded on the door. Nothing.

“Force it,” he commanded the guards.

“But, it's the Princess,” said the Captain.

“Force it,” shouted the Chief Councilor.

Two of the burliest guards charged the door, crashing into it with their shoulders. On the third attempt, the door gave way and the Chief Councilor rushed in after them.

The Princess lay on her back on her brilliant white sheets, her pale form lost in their whiteness. The edges of her torn night dress lay on either side of her naked breasts, and sitting astride her hips, his naked belly swollen like a tick, was the Vampire, who growled and hissed at the Chief Councilor. A crumpled shirt and hauberk lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. A rosy hue, formerly enjoyed by the Princess, colored the Vampire's countenance. Above the Princess's left breast, a deep gash told the story of her demise.

The Vampire waved a dagger with a jeweled handle. Hopping like a toad, he backed toward a window. As he lowered the dagger to sheath it at his waist, he nicked his protruding stomach and snarled in anger as a geyser of scarlet bloodied the sheets. From the open window, he jumped.

The Chief Councilor hurried to the casement. He saw a large bat flying toward the Vampire's castle, trailing the blood of the Princess's folly across her kingdom. On the floor beneath the window lay the dagger where the Vampire had dropped it. The Chief Councilor nudged the weapon with his boot, loath to pick it up, yet compelled to do something with it.

Staring at the dead Princess, the Fool rubbed his chin then asked, “Who would have thought a Vampire would use a dagger?”

The Chief Councilor rolled his eyes.

Thank you for reading “The Princess and the Vampire.” I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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About the Author

Jeff Chapman writes software by day and speculative fiction when he should be sleeping. His tales range from fantasy to horror and they don’t all end badly. He lives with his wife, children, and cats in a house with more books than bookshelf space.

You can find me on twitter @JeffChpmnWriter, on my Amazon Author Page, on my Goodreads Author Page, on Facebook, or check out my musings on words and fiction at jeffchapmanbooks.com.

Want to receive two free short stories and stay up to date on new titles and special offers? Consider subscribing to my Very Important Reader List.

Click here to get started: jeffchapmanbooks.com.

Want more stories and books? Go here jeffchapmanbooks.com/books.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone who read all or parts of this manuscript or listened to me talk about it. Your feedback was invaluable. And thanks to the editors at The Midnight Diner for publishing the story and offering suggestions for improvement.