THE TERRIBLE FOUL ODOR of the dungeon did not bother Mig. Perhaps that is because, sometimes, when Uncle was giving her a good clout to the ear, he missed his mark and delivered a good clout to Mig’s nose instead. This happened often enough that it interrupted the proper workings of Mig’s olfactory senses. And so it was that the overwhelming stench of despair and hopelessness and evil was not at all discernible to her, and she went happily down the twisting and turning stairs.

“Gor!” she shouted. “It’s dark, ain’t it?”

“Yes, it is Mig,” she answered herself, “but if I was a princess, I would be so glittery lightlike, there wouldn’t be a place in the world that was dark to me.”

At this point, Miggery Sow broke into a little song that went something like this:

Mig, as you can imagine, wasn’t much of a singer, more of a bellower, really. But in her little song, there was, to the rightly tuned ear, a certain kind of music. And as Mig went singing down the stairs of the dungeon, there appeared from the shadows a rat wrapped in a cloak of red and wearing a spoon on his head.

“Yes, yes,” whispered the rat, “a lovely song. Just the song I have been waiting to hear.”

And Roscuro quietly fell in step beside Miggery Sow.

At the bottom of the stairs, Mig shouted out into the darkness, “Gor, it’s me, Miggery Sow, most calls me Mig, delivering your food! Come and get it, Mr. Deep Downs!”

There was no response.

The dungeon was quiet, but it was not quiet in a good way. It was quiet in an ominous way; it was quiet in the way of small, frightening sounds. There was the snail-like slither of water oozing down the walls and from around a darkened corner there came the low moan of someone in pain. And then, too, there was the noise of the rats going about their business, their sharp nails hitting the stones of the dungeon and their long tails dragging behind them, through the blood and muck.

Listener, if you were standing in the dungeon, you would certainly hear all of these disturbing and ominous sounds.

If I were standing in the dungeon, I would hear these sounds.

If we were standing together in the dungeon, we would hear these sounds and we would be very frightened; we would cling to each other in our fear.

But what did Miggery Sow hear?

That’s right.

Absolutely nothing.

And so she was not afraid at all, not in the least.

She held the tray up higher, and the candle shed its weak light on the towering pile of spoons and bowls and kettles. “Gor,” said Mig, “look at them things. I ain’t never imagined there could be so many spoons in the whole wide world.”

“There is more to this world than anyone could imagine,” said a booming voice from the darkness.

“True, true,” whispered Roscuro. “The old jailer speaks true.”

“Gor,” said Mig. “Who said that?” And she turned in the direction of the jailer’s voice.

 

THE CANDLELIGHT on Mig’s tray revealed Gregory limping toward her, the thick rope tied around his ankle, his hands outstretched.

“You, Gregory presumes, have brought food for the jailer.”

“Gor,” said Mig. She took a step backward.

“Give it here,” said Gregory, and he took the tray from Mig and sat down on an overturned kettle that had rolled free from the tower. He balanced the tray on his knees and stared at the covered plate.

“Gregory assumes that today, again, there is no soup.”

“Eh?” said Mig.

“Soup!” shouted Gregory.

“Illegal!” shouted Mig back.

“Most foolish,” muttered Gregory as he lifted the cover off the plate, “too foolish to be borne, a world without soup.” He picked up a drumstick and put the whole of it in his mouth and chewed and swallowed.

“Here,” said Mig, staring hard at him, “you forgot the bones.”

“Not forgotten. Chewed.”

“Gor,” said Mig, staring at Gregory with respect. “You eats the bones. You are most ferocious.”

Gregory ate another piece of chicken, a wing, bones and all. And then another. Mig watched him admiringly.

“Someday,” she said, moved suddenly to tell this man her deepest wish, “I will be a princess.”

At this pronouncement, Chiaroscuro, who was still at Mig’s side, did a small, deliberate jig of joy; in the light of the one candle, his dancing shadow was large and fearsome indeed.

“Gregory sees you,” Gregory said to the rat’s shadow.

Roscuro ceased his dance. He moved to hide beneath Mig’s skirts.

“Eh?” shouted Mig. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” said Gregory. “So you aim to be a princess. Well, everyone has a foolish dream. Gregory, for instance, dreams of a world where soup is legal. And that rat, Gregory is sure, has some foolish dream, too.”

“If only you knew,” whispered Roscuro.

“What?” shouted Mig.

Gregory said nothing more. Instead, he reached into his pocket and then held his napkin up to his face and sneezed into it, once, twice, three times.

“Bless you!” shouted Mig. “Bless you, bless you.”

“Back to the world of light,” Gregory whispered. And then he balled the napkin up and placed it on the tray.

“Gregory is done,” he said. And he held the tray out to Mig.

“Done are you? Then the tray goes back upstairs. Cook says it must. You take the tray to the deep downs, you wait for the old man to eat, and then you bring the tray back. Them’s my instructions.”

“Did they instruct you, too, to beware of the rats?”

“The what?”

“The rats.”

“What about ’em?”

“Beware of them,” shouted Gregory.

“Right,” said Mig. “Beware the rats.”

Roscuro, hidden beneath Mig’s skirts, rubbed his front paws together. “Warn her all you like, old man,” he whispered. “My hour has arrived. The time is now and your rope must break. No nib-nib-nibbling this time, rather a serious chew that will break it in two. Yes, it is all coming clear. Revenge is at hand.”

 

MIG HAD CLIMBED the dungeon stairs and was preparing to open the door to the kitchen, when the rat spoke to her.

“May I detain you for a moment?”

Mig looked to her left and then to her right.

“Down here,” said Roscuro.

Mig looked at the floor.

“Gor,” she said, “but you’re a rat, ain’t you? And didn’t the old man just warn me of such? ‘Beware the rats,’ he said.” She held the tray up higher so that the light from the candle shone directly on Roscuro and the golden spoon on his head and the blood-red cloak around his neck.

“There is no need to panic, none at all,” said Roscuro. As he talked, he reached behind his back and, using the handle, he raised the soupspoon off his head, much in the manner of a man lifting his hat to a lady.

“Gor,” said Mig, “a rat with manners.”

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “How do you do?”

“My papa had him some cloth much like yours, Mr. Rat,” said Mig. “Red like that. He traded me for it.”

“Ah,” said Roscuro, and he smiled a large, knowing smile. “Ah, did he really? That is a terrible story, a tragic story.”

Listener, if you will pardon me, we must pause for a moment to consider a great and unusual thing, a portentous thing. That great, unusual, portentous thing is this: Roscuro’s voice was pitched perfectly to make its way through the tortuous path of Mig’s broken-down, cauliflower ears. That is to say, dear listener, Miggery Sow heard, perfect and true, every single word the rat Roscuro uttered.

“You have known your share of tragedy,” said Roscuro to Mig. “Perhaps it is time for you to make the acquaintance of triumph and glory.”

“Triumph?” said Mig. “Glory?”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” said Roscuro. “I am Chiaroscuro. Friends call me Roscuro. And your name is Miggery Sow. And it is true, is it not, that most people call you simply Mig?”

“Ain’t that the thing?” shouted Mig. “A rat who knows my name!”

“Miss Miggery, my dear, I do not want to appear too forward so early in our acquaintance, but may I inquire, am I right in ascertaining that you have aspirations?”

“What do ye mean ‘aspirations’?” shouted Mig.

“Miss Miggery, there is no need to shout. None at all. As you can hear me, so I can hear you. We two are perfectly suited, each to the other.” Roscuro smiled again, displaying a mouthful of sharp yellow teeth. “ ‘Aspirations,’ my dear, are those things that would make a serving girl wish to be a princess.”

“Gor,” agreed Mig, “a princess is exactly what I want to be.”

“There is, my dear, a way to make that happen. I believe that there is a way to make that dream come true.”

“You mean that I could be the Princess Pea?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said Roscuro. And he swept the spoon off his head and bowed deeply at the waist. “Yes, your most royal Princess Pea.”

“Gor!” said Mig.

“May I tell you my plan? May I illustrate for you how we can make your dream of becoming a princess a reality?”

“Yes,” said Mig, “yes.”

“It begins,” said Roscuro, “with yours truly, and the chewing of a rope.”

Mig held the tray with the one small candle burning bright, and she listened as the rat went on, speaking directly to the wish in her heart. So passionately did Roscuro speak and so intently did the serving girl listen that neither noticed as the napkin on the tray moved.

Nor did they hear the small mouselike noises of disbelief and outrage that issued from the napkin as Roscuro went on unfolding, step by step, his diabolical plan to bring the princess to darkness.

End of the Third Book

 

Book the fourth - recalled to the light

LISTENER, you did not forget about our small mouse, did you?

“Back to the light,” that was what Gregory whispered to him when he wrapped Despereaux in his napkin and placed him on the tray. And then Mig, after her conversation with Roscuro, carried the tray into the kitchen, and when she saw Cook, she shouted, “It’s me, Miggery Sow, back from the deep downs.”

“Ah, lovely,” said Cook. “And ain’t we all relieved?”

Mig put the tray on the counter.

“Here, here,” said Cook, “your duties ain’t done. You must clear it.”

“How’s that?” shouted Mig.

“You must clear the tray!” shouted Cook. She reached over and took hold of the napkin and gave it a good shake, and Despereaux tumbled out of the napkin and landed right directly, plop, in a measuring cup full of oil.

“Acccck,” said Cook, “a mouse in my kitchen, in my cooking oil, in my measuring cup. You, Mig, kill him directly.”

Mig bent her head and looked at the mouse slowly sinking to the bottom of the glass cup.

“Poor little meecy,” she said. And she stuck her hand into the oil and pulled him out by his tail.

Despereaux, gasping and coughing and blinking at the bright light, could have wept with joy at his rescue. But he was not given time to cry.

“Kill him!” shouted Cook.

“Gor!” said Mig. “All right.” Holding Despereaux by the tail, she went to get the kitchen knife. But the mouse tail, covered as it was in oil, was slick and difficult to hold on to and Mig, in reaching for the knife, loosened her grip, and Despereaux fell to the floor.

Mig looked down at the little bundle of brown fur.

“Gor,” she said, “that killed him for sure.”

“Kill him even if he’s already dead,” shouted Cook. “That’s my philosophy with mice. If they’re alive, kill them. If they’re dead, kill them. That way you can be certain of having yourself a dead mouse, which is the only kind of mouse to have.”

“That’s some good sophosy, that is, kill ’em, even if they’s already dead.”

“Hurry, you cauliflower-eared fool!” shouted Cook. “Hurry!”

Despereaux lifted his head from the floor. The afternoon sun was shining through the large kitchen window. He had time to think how miraculous the light was and then it disappeared and Mig’s face loomed into view. She studied him, breathing through her mouth.

“Little meecy,” she said, “ain’t you going to skedaddle?”

Despereaux looked for a long moment into Mig’s small, concerned eyes and then there came a blinding flash and the sound of metal moving through air as Mig brought the kitchen knife down, down, down.

Despereaux felt a very intense pain in his hindquarters. He leapt up and into action. Listener, he scurried. He scurried like a professional mouse. He zigged to the left. He zagged to the right.

“Gor!” shouted Mig. “Missed him.”

“Ain’t that a surprise?” said Cook just as Despereaux scurried under a crack in the pantry door.

“I got the little meecy’s tail, though,” said Mig. She bent over and picked up Despereaux’s tail and held it up, proudly displaying it to Cook.

“So?” shouted Cook. “What good will that do us when the rest of him has disappeared into the pantry?”

“I don’t know,” said Mig. And she braced herself as Cook advanced upon her, intending to give her a good clout to the ear. “I don’t know.”

 

DESPEREAUX WAS PONDERING the reverse of that question. He was wondering not what he would do with his tail, but what he would do without it. He was sitting on a bag of flour high atop a shelf in the pantry, crying for what he had lost.

The pain in his hindquarters was intense and he wept because of it. But he also cried because he was happy. He was out of the dungeon; he had been recalled to life. His rescue had happened just in time for him to save the Princess Pea from the terrible fate that the rat had planned for her.

So Despereaux wept with joy and with pain and with gratitude. He wept with exhaustion and despair and hope. He wept with all the emotions a young, small mouse who has been sent to his death and then been delivered from it in time to save his beloved can feel.

Listener, the mouse wept.

And then he lay down on the sack of flour and slept. Outside the castle, the sun set and the stars came out one by one and then they disappeared and gave way to the rising sun and still Despereaux slept. And while he slept, he dreamt.

He dreamt of the stained-glass windows and the dark of the dungeon. In Despereaux’s dream, the light came to life, brilliant and glorious, in the shape of a knight swinging a sword. The knight fought the dark.

And the dark took many shapes. First the dark was his mother, uttering phrases in French. And then the dark became his father beating the drum. The dark was Furlough wearing a black hood and shaking his head no. And the dark became a huge rat smiling a smile that was evil and sharp.

“The dark,” Despereaux cried, turning his head to the left.

“The light,” he murmured, turning his head to the right.

He called out to the knight. He shouted, “Who are you? Will you save me?”

But the knight did not answer him.

“Tell me who you are!” Despereaux shouted.

The knight stopped swinging his sword. He looked at Despereaux. “You know me,” he said.

“No,” said Despereaux, “I don’t.”

“You do,” said the knight. He slowly took the armor off his head and revealed . . . nothing, no one. The suit of armor was empty.

“No, oh no,” said Despereaux. “There is no knight in shining armor; it’s all just make-believe, like happily ever after.”

And in his sleep, listener, the small mouse began to cry.

 

AND WHILE THE MOUSE SLEPT, Roscuro put his terrible plan into effect. Would you like to hear, listener, how it all unfolded? The story is not a pretty one. There is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always be sweetness and light.

Listen. This is how it happened. First, the rat finished, once and for all, the job he had started long ago: He chewed through Gregory’s rope, all the way through it, so that the jailer became lost in the maze of the dungeon. Late at night, when the castle was dark, the serving girl Miggery Sow climbed the stairs to the princess’s room.

In her hand, she carried a candle. And in the pockets of her apron were two very ominous things. In the right pocket, hidden in case they should encounter anyone on the stairs, was a rat with a spoon on his head and a cloak of red around his shoulders. In the left pocket was a kitchen knife, the same knife that Miggery Sow had used to cut off the tail of a certain mouse. These were the things, a rat and a knife and a candle, that Mig carried with her as she climbed up, up, up the stairs.

“Gor!” she shouted to the rat. “It’s dark, ain’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” whispered Roscuro from her pocket. “It is quite dark, my dear.”

“When I’m princess . . .,” began Mig.

“Shhhh,” said Roscuro, “may I suggest that you keep your glorious plans for the future to yourself? And may I further suggest that you keep your voice down to a whisper? We are, after all, on a covert mission. Do you know how to whisper, my dear?”

“I do!” shouted Mig.

“Then, please,” said Roscuro, “please institute this knowledge immediately.”

“Gor,” whispered Mig, “all right.”

“Thank you,” said Roscuro. “Do I need to review with you again our plan of action?”

“I got it all straight right here in my head,” whispered Mig. And she tapped the side of her head with one finger.

“How comforting,” said Roscuro. “Perhaps, my dear, we should go over it again. One more time, just to be sure.”

“Well,” said Mig, “we go into the princess’s room and she will be sleeping and snoozing and snoring, and I will wake her up and show her the knife and say, ‘If you does not want to get hurt, Princess, you must come with me.’”

“And you will not hurt her,” said Roscuro.

“No, I won’t. Because I want her to live so that she can be my lady in waiting when I become the princess.”

“Exactly,” said Roscuro. “That will be her divine comeuppance.”

“Gor,” whispered Mig. “Yes. Her divine comeuppance.”

Mig had, of course, no idea what the phrase “divine comeuppance” meant, but she very much liked the sound of it, and she repeated it over and over to herself until Roscuro said, “And then?”

“And then,” continued Mig, “I tells her to get out of her princess bed and come with me on a little journey.”

“Ha,” said Roscuro, “a little journey. That is right. Ha. I love the understatement of that phrase. A little journey. Oh, it will be a little journey. Indeed, it will.”

“And then,” said Mig, who was now coming to her favorite part of the plan, “we take her to the deep downs and we gives her some long lessons in how to be a serving girl and we gives me some short lessons in how to be a princess and when we is all done studying up, we switch places. I gets to be the princess and she gets to be the maid. Gor!”

Listener, this is the very plan that Roscuro presented to Mig when he first met her. It was, of course, a ridiculous plan.

No one would ever, not for one blind minute, mistake Mig for the princess or the princess for Mig. But Miggery Sow, as I pointed out to you before, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And, listener, too, she wanted so desperately to become a princess. She wanted, oh, how she wanted. And it was because of this terrible wanting that she was able to believe in Roscuro’s plan with every ounce of her heart.

The rat’s real plan was, in a way, more simple and more terrible. He intended to take the princess to the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon. He intended to have Mig put chains on the princess’s hands and her feet, and he intended to keep the glittering, glowing, laughing princess there in the dark.

Forever.