Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
– Mother Goose
I knew it had gotten bad when the King requested that the royal horses be brought out in an attempt to put Humpty back together. Frankly, it was a lost cause before the King’s men even started, but soldiers don’t resist royal orders, especially from a grieving father. In stark contrast, the townsfolk were rejoicing.
You see, Prince Humphrey, or Humpty as the king affectionately called him, was quite spoiled. He would request elaborate dishes that he wouldn’t consume, proclaiming them not even fit for a cur when they arrived hot and fresh to his room. He would demand that fires be stoked to crackling flames of concerning height and then complain the room was stifling and uninhabitable and that he be safely moved to a more desirable location. He would often sneak into the royal gardens and pluck apples not yet ripe, take a bite and then toss it to the ground in disgust, leaving rotting apples strewn throughout for the gardeners to deal with. Worse, he would traipse through the plots of land on the edge of town, stealing whatever growing food struck his fancy. Of course, as the Prince, no one dared to question his behavior. All they could do was pray they still had enough food left to both pay their royal taxes and still be able to eat through the winter. All this to say that the townspeople had no fondness for their Prince.
So, how did Prince Humphrey end up dead? What was the impetus that took this roiling, steaming resentment and brought it to a crescendo? In most cases it would be hard to pick a moment, but in this case, it’s easy to pin it on the king’s unfortunate choice to force Humpty into practicing his future kingly duty of resolving disputes. This would turn out to be a decision the king forever regretted.
That midsummer day had already started hot and humid, so by the time it was early afternoon Prince Humphrey was sweaty and in a foul mood. While all Kings are human, and therefore subject to bias when it comes to resolving complaints, our King was decent enough when it came to solving town disputes. There was no such hope with Prince Humphrey.
The first person in the door was an older looking man. He was wringing his hands and clearly nervous to see the prince seated in the main throne while King Brennus looked on from the lesser throne chair offset to the prince’s right hand side. Humphrey was clearly bored and wanted everyone to know. His lips were pinched together in a pout and his eyebrows had nearly knit together in an angry scowl. This had the expected effect of making the older man noticeably more nervous, beads of sweat from the heat and his nerves pierced the skin of his brow and darkened his sideburns. The prince looked down at him.
“Speak your piece and be done with it.”
The man opened his mouth and only damp air came out. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a suckling babe, before he could get his throat to form words.
“Honorable Prince Humphrey, I am here to beg for an extension on my royal taxes. My most recent crop of barley has been ravaged by disease. Please, I beg of you this small mercy if you see fit in all of your wise and generous council.”
It was clear from the man’s rapid blinking that he didn’t expect Prince Humphrey’s decision to be wise or generous, all he had left was hope. You could see the prince take a moment to think. A hopeful man might believe that this meant he was taking the matter seriously. I knew that Humphrey was just thinking of a way he could actually make things interesting for himself. A smile crossed his face. He was warming to the idea that this could be fun after all.
“No, I think not,” he drawled. “In fact I think you owe twice as much for this month’s taxes for wasting my time.”
The man opened his mouth, as if to protest, but quickly closed it. Even a fool could see that to speak now would only incite Prince Humphrey to think up a worse punishment. The man walked back out the royal doors, absolutely defeated.
The next to be seen that day was a young man and woman. Simple but clean clothing suggested they lived in town rather than on one of the farms. The woman held a bundle of cloth in her arms. As they approached the Prince and the King, a chubby fist thrust its way out of the bundle, punching back the cloth to reveal the face of a baby. Someone, possibly one of the guards, let out a gasp and an awkward hush fell across the room. The child’s face was swollen and mottled with purple and red splotches. As if in solidarity, the mother’s eyes were crimson and puffy, an unwanted trophy earned from relentless tears. The father had a tight look about his face, deep shadows under his eyes. I watched as the prince leaned forward to look at the newborn, disgust and fascination plain on his face.
“What is this thing,” he asked.
“Our newborn, sire,” said the man. He took a deep breath.
“As anyone can plainly see, it has been cursed. We’ve come to set things right. The woman responsible for this, a witch in the guise of a midwife, must be kept from doing harm to other children. We seek justice for ourselves and protection for all the future newborns of this kingdom.”
The man seemed spent after his lengthy proclamation as if his rehearsed speech had taken all the energy he had left in his exhausted body. I couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind. This was a heated and controversial accusation at the best of times, even with King Brennus’ steady council. For this man to find himself confronted with the reality that Prince Humphrey was to decide his case… well, it must have been downright frightening.
No one could have predicted what happened next. Without a word Prince Humphrey stood up, walked down the throne steps, and scooped the babe out of the woman’s arms and into his own. No one in the room moved or made a sound. No one even blinked. He took that misshapen child into his arms and stared down into its silver blue eyes, its mottled skin like the shiny coat of a horse. Then he walked out of the room. No one stopped him. No one said a word. I don’t know how long we waited for something to happen. I don’t know how long we held our collective breath, the air in the room thick and heavy, the moment in a storm right before the thunder rumbles and the lightning sears across the sky, every atom charged with potential energy.
Finally, it was the mother who brought us back. She sunk to her knees, onto that hard stone floor, and let out a scream of pure anguish. I heard that the room was chaos after that. I heard that the father charged the King and was brutally injured by the guards as they held him back so the King could escape. I heard the couple were thrown out of the castle gates. I do not know where they are now. I learned all of this later because, before the woman’s scream even ended in rib cracking sobs, I had fled the room, chasing after the Prince, knowing that no matter what I did it was too late.
I searched through most of the castle, but I shouldn’t have, it was a waste of time. He was where I knew he would be, in our spot on top of the stone wall by the weeping willow tree. I let out a soft sigh, hitched up my dress, and slipped off my shoes so my bare toes could grip the rough stones.
When I got to the top of the wall Humpty was eating an apple, no doubt stolen from the gardens, and staring out at the sun setting across the field beyond the wall.
“Where’s the child, Humphrey,” I whispered. He paused a long moment.
“I saw its face and all I could do was wonder, is this what our child would have looked like… If it had lived.”
I watched my breath leave me like a ghost. I focused on the repetitive drum beat of my heart caged in my chest, working hard to keep me alive. I was afraid to look at Humphrey, afraid to see his soul reflected in his eyes.
It was a mistake, like all things that hurt the most. Watching our mother slowly waste away had united us in a bitterness against the world. Her death united us in a way we didn’t expect, in a way we didn’t plan. I could say that her death made us lose our minds, but I don’t think that’s true. I think we were looking to stem the pain with another feeling, to override our grief. And, of course, it worked, like a wish granted by a jinn. It is a fact that there is no room for grief when your body is filled with shame.
Maybe that shame was our saving grace. Maybe that shame also left no room for our child to grow. And yet, Humphrey didn’t look relieved when I told him the news. He had almost looked sad.
I made sure I was never alone in a room with him again after that day. I know, deep down in my dark, clotted heart, that my avoidance of him is what turned him into the monster he is now. In his moment of need, after we had lost our mother, I made him lose me too.
And so it came as no surprise to me that the moment after he said, “I love you Liliana,” he threw himself off that wall. It was no surprise when, later, all the king’s men couldn’t save Humpty. I saw his soul leave the moment he hit the ground, a shattered stained glass windowpane of an angel. What did surprise me was the moment I reached my hand out to catch him from his fall, loose shale clattering down the wall as I almost joined him in flight. But my fingers only grazed the tips of his as I stared back at the relief etched in his eyes. It was then, I realized, I wasn’t the only one who had thought I wouldn’t move a muscle.
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