The Woman Without a Name

    After several days of journeying, he urged his horse up a rocky mountain slope. The man was gentle, but the horse was tired. When a snake lifted its head from behind a rock, the horse reared from fright and bolted, throwing its rider by the wayside among the trees.

     The man leapt to his feet, but it was too late to catch his horse, which had fled further up the mountain. His fist clenched by his side, but he knew that anger would gain him nothing. Turning to see where he had landed, he was startled to see a narrow valley opening at his feet among the trees. The setting sun behind him glinted on water in the valley far below. Tired and thirsty, and dreading the mountain climb without his horse, the man began to find his way down into the valley.

     He came at length to the valley’s foot, and followed a murmuring stream deeper into the vale. And so it was that he came with the rays of the dying sun to the shores of a small blue lake, surrounded by purple lupines, where the clearest air he had ever breathed filled his lungs. The evening sunlight danced over the water and gleamed in the golden hair of a woman standing beside the lake.

     The woman, perhaps hearing a sound he had made, or sensing his presence, turned around, and the man stood as if changed to stone, for her beauty was incomparable.

     She, on her part, stared for what seemed an infinity. The face of the armored man standing in the trees was gentle, and handsome, and yet lined with care and the weight of a heavy burden.

     For a moment, or an hour, who can tell, they looked at one another, and then, without a sound, the woman silently fled, disappearing among the trees bordering the lake. The man shook his head, as if waking from a dream, and without a moment’s thought followed her. There was no decision in the action; his entire being was suddenly set on her.

     She led him among the trees, moving without a sound. When she came to a small cottage and vanished inside, he stopped abruptly. The house was set among pines, with bushes in bloom on either side of it, tucked against the side of the mountain, the lakeshore sloping down before it. It seemed somehow wrong to go up to the door and knock, and so the man turned towards the lake instead.

     It was then that he saw for the first time an old man standing, gazing out over the water, a staff in his hand. With his back still towards the house and the visitor, the old man said, “You have come a long way, sire.”

     There was silence in the valley for a long, charged moment. And then the young king, for that is who he was, asked, “How do you know who I am?”

     The elderly man turned slowly, leaning on his staff, and the king saw that his white beard fell nearly to his bare feet. His eyes were the clear blue of a spring sky. “I did not need to see your face to know you, my son.” He gazed long and hard at him. “You have come a long way, and your soul is weary.”

     “Yes,” the king said quietly. He offered no further comment, and the old man did not ask for one.

     “Sit,” he invited, gesturing to a boulder on the sandy shore. The king approached and sank to a seat, bowing his head into his hands for a long moment.

     “Running away?” the old man asked at last, and the king lifted his head.

     “I suppose I am.”

     “You cannot run from the kingdom, my son. This task is yours and yours alone.”

     “The kingdom is broken,” the king said shortly.

     “The kingdom,” the old man said, “needs renewing. And you alone can do that.”

     “That,” said the king, “is precisely the problem. It is a task I cannot do alone, and I have no one to aid me.”

     Silence settled over them, warm and heavy, as the golden daylight began to fade from the surface of the lake. Dusk was falling quickly.

     “Sleep here tonight, sire, and in the morning we will see what must be done.” The old man turned towards the cottage. “My ward will bring you food.”

     “Your ward? She is not your daughter?”

     “No. I found her many years ago, a babe, here in this valley. I have raised her as my own, but she is not mine.”

     The king called after him, “And her name?”

     The old man paused at the door of the cottage and looked back. “It was not my place to give her one.”

     Dusk had fallen by the time the maiden brought a basket of food to the man at the lakeshore. It was simple fare, bread and cheese, fruit and honey. He took the basket as she offered it to him, his eyes fixed on her face.

     “Have you no name?” he asked her.

     She raised her eyes to his. “None, sir.” She handed him a blanket. “May your sleep be sweet. And fear not. Evil things do not come into this valley.”

     Morning broke in an outflung banner of splendor. The king greeted it with new eyes, looking out across the lake as it turned rosy with the dawn. He heard footsteps approaching, and without turning he said a name, quietly. The steps stopped abruptly, and he turned to see the maiden looking at him with startled eyes.

     “Forgive me,” he said. “The name came to mind when I heard you coming.”

     “It is what I have always thought of as my name, but I never told a living soul,” she whispered, looking at him with wonder in her eyes.

      “Will you,” he asked gently, “come be my queen and help me renew the kingdom?”

      “I will,” she said, and a grin broke across his face, answered by a smile that lit up her entire being. He held out his hand, and she took it.

     And so, with the old man’s blessing, the king left the valley with his new queen and returned to the kingdom he had forsaken in a moment of weakness. With her by his side, he was complete, able now to be the ruler his people needed. Their rule was long and radiant, and their lineage lasted for countless generations after them. Stories were written of their devotion to each other, and songs were composed to tell the depth of their love. Seldom have any two people ever been so completely one.

The End