Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

man’s ear. The King’s expression changed. First he looked puzzled, and then his face broke into a radiant smile.

“Of course!” he cried. “Of course! Now why didn’t I think of that before?”

The next day, when the King did not return to his palace of marble and gold, his servants went to look for him. They sought him, but did not find him; called him, but he did not reply. Only his Chancellor thought he saw a beggar by the side of the road who slightly resembled the missing King. But, the Chancellor knew it could not be so; for this man was mad, and had blinded himself with a sharpened reed, and had cut off his ears so as not to hear, and so the Chancellor was sure that he could not be the missing King.

And so he and the rest of the servants went back to the palace of marble and gold, and flung open the gates to the folk outside. While, far behind them, on the road, the madman cried in a broken voice:

“Pity the blind! Pity the blind!”

29

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ASH

During the reign of the Clockwork Princess, there was a young Commander who was as handsome as he was vain and mean-spirited. All the men admired him; all the women dreamed that one day, he would choose them to be his bride. But the Commander despised the company of women, preferring his entourage of men; eager and adoring.

“Love me,” he would say to them. “Worship me, and we shall be kings!”

And his followers—peasants, and merchants, and men who had been disappointed in love, and men who felt that their destiny was to be something greater—all bowed to the handsome Commander and tried to be just like him.

The Princess never spoke a word, but watched the Commander in silence. With his blue sash of office and his golden hair, he looked as regal as a prince—and in fact, he secretly believed that he would become king someday. To his followers, who had no idea that the Princess was only clockwork, he hinted that he was her son, and that it was just a matter of time before she would acknowledge him. To the Princess, he was all flattery, although she seemed as unmoved by his sycophancy as by his ambition. She simply listened in silence from her carved and cushioned throne, until the Commander reminded himself that she was only clockwork, and probably couldn’t understand him anyway.

The thought made him bold. To his followers, he grew even more boastful, bragging of his influence, his power and his wealth. To women, he was arrogant, expecting them to serve him and cater to his every need. Some of the women accepted this, perhaps still hoping he would notice them. Others spoke against him, saying:

“What right do you have to speak to us thus? Who gave you this authority?”

To which the Commander always replied, “The Princess gives me authority. See how alike we are, she and I. We have the same regal deportment. The same flawless complexion. The same golden hair and elegant demeanour. And see here, my blue Commander’s sash, given to me by the Princess herself. Who could doubt my superiority over you other poor mortals? One day, I shall rule you all, and all my followers will be kings.”

The men of his retinue applauded this with great enthusiasm. They began to ape his mannerisms; his speech; even his golden hair. Like him, they looked down on the womenfolk and the ladies of the court, criticising their clothes, their speech, scorning and ridiculing them as he did. They laughed at the fat palace housekeeper; they took liberties with the housemaids. Some even grew bold enough to throw stones at the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting as they passed, and although the Commander pretended to deplore this kind of action, he was well-pleased with his success.

“Everyone wants to be me,” he said. “What a fellow I am, to be sure!”

Finally, the ladies-in-waiting came to complain to Her Majesty. They found the Princess in her chamber, her mechanism almost at rest. But she listened to the ladies’ complaint, and when they had finished telling their woes, she very slowly lifted her hand and beckoned to them to come closer.

It had been months since the Clockwork Princess had done anything so strenuous. The ladies-in-waiting moved closer, and the Clockwork Princess whispered her orders in her rusty, dying voice.

“Take. His. Sash Away,” she said. “Take. His. Blue. Commander’s. Sash.”

And at that she closed her blown-glass eyes and fell into a deep, deep sleep, from which not even her favourite musicians were able to rouse her. But the ladies-in-waiting had understood the final message of the Princess. As the Commander slept, they took his blue Commander’s sash from its place by his bedside and burnt it in the kitchen fire.

When the Commander awoke the next day and found his sash missing, he was enraged. “Where is my blue sash?” he demanded of the maid, who had come in to clean the room.

But the maid simply shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps the housekeeper can help.”

“Return my blue sash immediately!” said the Commander to the housekeeper.

But the housekeeper simply shook her head and said, “Maybe the ladies-in-waiting…?”

In growing fury, the young man sought out the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting. “I know you’ve taken my blue sash. Return it at once!” He stamped his foot.

The ladies looked at him and smiled. “Our orders come from the Princess,” they told him. “Why don’t you ask her for your sash?”

And so the Commander went to the Princess, who was asleep in her chamber. Not a sound came from her mechanism; not a flicker from her eyes. For almost an hour he pleaded, he raged, he questioned, and he shouted. He demanded the return of his sash; spoke of persecution; and finally, in a fit of pique, vowed to overthrow the Princess and seize the kingdom for himself.

But none of this moved the Clockwork Princess. Her mechanism finally at