The fire is crackling, the tent is pitched and the night has put the day to rest. Goldeye sits by the pot, dropping in another pinch of salt into the bubbling stew. The girl is snapping sticks and tossing them into a pile of firewood. It’s a warm evening, the big man hasn’t even reached for his cloak yet, and the night air is suffused with the hearty notes of venison, onion and the dry cedar that cracks and spits beneath the pot.
Goldeye takes in a big breath and sighs out in contentment. Lost in his comfort, it takes him a moment to notice something is off.
‘Where’s the prince?’ he says to Hawk That Runs.
The girl, helpfully, shrugs.
‘Watch the stew.’ Goldeye stands. ‘I’ll go find him.’
‘What’s the stew going to do?’
‘Overboil.’
Before any more clever observations can be thrown his way, Goldeye is stepping between the giant trees that enclosed them. Away from the light of the fire, he feels his envelopment in their deep, ancient shadows grow and with it, his sense of wonder. For how long have they stood here, watching over the world? Their boughs rock and their leaves whisper, as if in response to his unspoken question.
The prince is not hard to find. The boy stands at the edge of a clearing, his plump figure outlined by the silver trace of moonlight, facing the long grasses, made copper green by the night, swaying like a gentle sea before him. Goldeye makes no noise on his approach and stands back a moment, watching the prince.
The boy’s head is turned to the sky, his hands clasped together as if afraid of a big question in his heart.
‘See anything?’
‘Gah!’ The poor lad jumps out of his skin.
‘It’s just me,’ Goldeye steps out of the shadows of the trees. ‘What’re you looking for?’
The prince stares at him, wide-eyed, then blinks, his lips tight together.
Goldeye frowns. ‘It’s alright. Out with it.’
‘It’s just so…’ the prince swallows and looks up at the sky. ‘Big.’
‘The sky?’
‘The night.’
‘Hm.’ Goldeye looks up. Above, the heavens have arranged themselves into a sweeping ballet of twinkling stars and glittering gradients of colour, stretching from blue to pink to purple. Indeed, a clustered line of starlight divides the night above them, so large that Goldeye has to crane his neck to see it all. High above, the moon and her big face dip everything in silver.
Only when he is looking straight up, as he so often neglects to do, does he truly see how vast the world above is, how grand its rotations and how unfathomably small we must seem to such colossal forces and he realises that the boy is right. It’s a wonder we don’t spend all our hours looking at it, thinks Goldeye.
‘Aye,’ says Goldeye. ‘It’s pretty big.’
‘I have never noticed it before,’ the prince says, hurt clinging to every word.
Then Goldeye sees it. The high walls of the castle, it’s marble towers and silver trimmings. The golden fastenings on the window were little better than a cage. And though he once slept on top of the world, this prince has never had a night alone to stare at the stars.
So Goldeye gives him one.
‘Stew's almost done,’ says Goldeye. ‘Come back when you’re hungry.’
‘Shouldn’t I-’ the prince moves to go with him, but Goldeye holds out a palm.
‘Just scream if something tries to take a chunk out of ye.’
Back at the camp, Hawk That Runs is crouched over the pot, that now sits on the mossy forest floor beside the fire.
Goldeye narrows his eyes at the sheepish girl. ‘Did you watch the stew?’
‘I, uh, watched it overboil.’
Paddy Dobson
8th November 2020