Chervil - 1. Chervil

Once upon a time there lived a man. The man, through much hard work, had risen from his peasant birth to own a fine property with servants of his own. Having reached such a satisfying position in life, he decided it was time he marry. He set out to find a wife, starting his quest in the local villages around his home. But though he found many pretty maids, any one of which would gladly have accepted his hand and would have made him a good wife and presented him with many strong, healthy children, he felt he should—and could--look higher for a bride. He was a handsome man with a fine figure, and he had educated himself so that there was no trace of the field in his speech. He would take a wife from the social class to which he aspired and further better himself and the lives of his children.

He traveled far in his quest to find the perfect bride, but find her he did, in the lush French countryside. She was a beautiful young girl with hair the color of an autumn sunset and eyes that shone like emeralds. Her family was of an old, distinguished line but they had come to hard times. They were quite pleased by the generous bride price offered by the man and in a very short time, the man and the young girl were wed.

The man fell deeply in love with his bride and there was nothing he would not do to please her. But she was as temperamental as she was beautiful—and she was also very young. She missed her home and her family and regularly pined for them. The man despaired of his situation—for he loved his wife and wanted her to be happy--but was convinced by other husbands of other wives that once his young bride had a child of her own, she would be more content with her life.

After a short time and a great deal of concentrated effort (though pleasurable effort it most certainly was!), the wife was with child. But once she was with child, she seemed to pine even more for her home and her family. She would lie about and sigh and soon she began to hide herself away in a room of her own and do nothing but stare out the window. The window overlooked a beautiful garden. All year round it was resplendent with the most beautiful and exotic blooms, those that did not grow anywhere else. This was not surprising, however, since the garden belonged to a witch.

One day the husband visited his wife in her room and he heard her sigh. When he asked her the reason for her sigh, she replied, “Oh husband, can you not smell the aroma? Can you not just taste it?”

Her husband sniffed the air, inhaling as deeply as possible. “My wife, I can only smell the flowers that bloom in the garden below. Their blossoms are sweet, but I can taste none of them upon my tongue.”

His young wife sighed again. “It is the young leaves of chervil that grow along that wall.” She pointed to a row of plants with curly dark leaves. “It reminds me of my home. Ma chère mere would pinch off the youngest, most tender leaves and the kitchen would be filled with their aroma. Oh, and how delicious were the omelettes she would make for us in the morning, and the fine stews!”

She looked at her husband and her eyes were pleading. “Oh, husband, I must have some fresh chervil, I must! Can you fetch me some from the village?”

The husband immediately rose from his seat and bowed over her hand. “Of course, my beloved wife. I can deny you nothing you desire, for such is my love for you.”

But upon reaching the village he was disappointed to find that no one knew of the herb. Wringing his hands, he wondered how his good but temperamental wife would react to being denied the one thing she wished.

“There is none in the village who has heard of chervil?” she cried in amazement. “Are they such peasants then? Oh, why did I leave my home and ma chère mère?” She glared at her husband. “I must have chervil, for I vow there is no food that may pass my lips that has not been flavored by the sweet herb.” She looked out the window and gestured to the far wall of the garden next door. “There! It grows THERE, husband. Can you not go to the garden next door and fetch me enough to flavor tonight’s soup?”

“But the garden belongs to a witch and…” the husband began reasonably.

“Do you not love me?” She clasped her hands over her swollen belly. “Do you not love the child within me that I carry for you? Would you have us both starve to death?”

Of course he would not have that. So as the sun sank on the horizon and cast the garden in shadows, the husband found a way into the witch’s garden. In great haste he grabbed a handful of the youngest, most tender leaves, for his good but temperamental wife had insisted she would accept none other. He was not caught and his heart swelled with happiness as he watched his beloved dine heartily on the chervil seasoned soup. His happiness faded just a little, however, when his wife spoke.

“Good husband, I must have more chervil for my morning eggs. I must have it, husband, for now that I have once again tasted its sweetness, I know with absolute certainty that no food may pass my lips that has not been seasoned by the sweet herb.”

“But my love,” the man entreated, “I was fortunate to escape the witch’s garden unobserved this time, but I may not be so fortunate the next.”

Again she railed at him and accused him of wanting her and their child to starve. So once again, he crept into the garden and again came away with a handful of the stolen herb. And each time his good but temperamental wife would say she must have more chervil—for the soup, for the eggs, for the chicken…and on and on and on. The devoted husband could not refuse her and continued, day after day, night after night, to sneak into the witch’s garden and harvest the youngest, most tender leaves of the sweet chervil (which, quite frankly, he found less appealing than the common parsley which could be found in everyone’s garden).

But one evening as the sun sank below the horizon and cast the witch’s garden into shadows, the devoted husband was searching for the youngest, most tender leaves (which were becoming scarce as he had picked nearly all of them and the plants were looking bare and unhealthy), when he felt a hand upon his shoulder and heard an angry voice close to his ear.

“I have caught you, thief! You have stolen from my garden! You have stripped my fine plants of all their youngest, most tender leaves and have left them to wither and now they will die! For that you must pay most dearly!”

The husband fell to his knees and wept. “Please, my wife is with child and has a sore craving for the herb—for it grew in the garden of her mama’s house. Please, she will not let any food that has not been seasoned with this herb pass her lips, for so she has sworn. I would be no husband if I were to allow her and my child yet to be born to starve to death.”

The hand that had gripped his shoulder as the talons of a great bird grip its prey softened and he heard the witch sigh. “You are a good husband to be so concerned for your wife that you risk your own death to please her. But still, you have taken from me and must repay me in kind.”

The husband dared to look up and his breath immediately caught in his throat, for his eyes beheld what was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Were not witches supposed to be ugly old hags?

As if reading his thoughts, the witch laughed, and her laugh was deep and soft and made his skin tingle. “Believe not all the stories you were told as a child. Evil is not always ugly, just as good is not always beautiful.”

Her eyes darkened and her lips smiled the most unpleasant smile he had ever beheld, so unpleasant it might have belonged to the devil himself. “Be not fooled, thief. I am indeed a witch and will not hesitate to take what I want, no matter what the cost or the harm. You have taken the young and tender shoots of my beloved plants. You must pay me in kind if you will spare your life. The child that grows inside your wife is like the young, tender shoots of your vine. When it is born, you must pick it from the arms of its mother and deliver it unto me. And thus shall your debt be paid.”

The husband was torn between his love for his good but temperamental wife and their unborn child and his love for his own life. Away from the gaze of the beautiful witch, he would not have hesitated to offer his own life for his wife and child. But as his love for his wife took from him his sense and turned him into a thief, the fear and lust (though he was ashamed to even admit that feeling to himself) that the beautiful witch inspired in him took from him his better nature, and he agreed to the witch’s bargain.

Once the husband had shaken her hand and the deal was set, the witch laughed again, less pleasantly this time. She waved her hand and the withering and dying plants were instantly restored to full health and bloom. “You have sold your unborn child for your own life. How foolish and weak you are and how quick to fall for a beautiful face—even when it belongs to a witch! In truth, your good wife would be better rid of you. Now return to her and take enough chervil with you tonight and every night to keep her satisfied, for it is my child who grows within her now and I will not have my child starved.”

With a heavy heart, the husband gathered the youngest, most tender leaves and returned to his beloved wife. The words of the witch echoed in his head.

“Do not deny me what is now mine, or I will use your blood and the blood of your good wife to fertilize my garden!”

It came to pass that the wife delivered to her husband a beautiful son. The light in his mother’s eyes as she gazed upon him cast the sun into shadow.

“Oh husband, I am truly happy now, for we have a beautiful boy and we are a family!”

That night, as the happy but exhausted mother slept, the heartbroken husband slipped the baby from her arms and delivered him to the witch.

The witch laughed in delight as she took the baby in her arms. “A beautiful boy! He shall be called Chervil, after the herb that caused him to be brought to me.”

The witch took the baby into her house and the husband returned to his wife. It is not known what fate befell the couple as their importance to the story ends here.

* * * * *

The witch had always wanted a child of her own, but being a witch, even an incredibly beautiful one, had its own set of difficulties. For just as a pig will be a pig and may never be a cat and a crow will be a crow and may never be a swan, a witch will always be a witch and may never be anything but. Suitors by the dozens had she known, but beautiful though she undoubtedly was, and though her smile and soft voice lured many a young man to approach her bed, there was something in her eyes that betrayed her for what she was. “The eyes are the windows of the soul,” so are we all taught to believe. And hers betrayed the cold emptiness of her witch’s soul. None could look into her eyes without knowing her for what she was, and no man wanted to consort with a witch—not even the most beautiful one.

So when the inspiration came to her in the garden that evening, she had been delighted. She would have a baby to rear as her own, without having to bother with finding a mate. But as she held the infant boy in her arms, she realized she still did not have what she truly wanted. To be sure, the boy was a treasure beyond price, but no matter how she tried, she could not love him as a mother loves a son because he was not of her blood. That might have caused any other woman to suffer from feelings of guilt and despair—for who could not love a beautiful baby boy simply because there was no blood relation?—but she was (it must be remembered) a witch and not prone to the kinder, gentler human emotions.

“You are not of my blood and nothing can change that, my beautiful Chervil,” she said as she smiled upon the boy. “But that will serve me just as well, for I shall raise you to be my consort.”

“No one will poison your mind with tales of evil witches. No one will tell you that a witch’s eyes betray her lack of a soul. I will be the only woman you will ever see, the only person you will ever see. And when you have grown to manhood, I will still be young and beautiful and you will know no other but me.” The witch thought those words as she stroked the soft chestnut hair that even now grew in curls upon the infant’s head and did not speak them aloud, for she knew a baby’s mind was like a sponge and she was determined to raise the boy to love her—and only her.

And that was why one night when little Chervil slept peacefully, she whisked him away into the forest, far away from any man or woman who might corrupt him, and with a wave of her hand caused a great tower to be formed from the very earth itself. It rose upwards around the two until it was tall enough to please the witch. At the very top she caused a window to be opened, large enough so that she could sit in it and gaze upon the forest around her, and high enough so that no one would be able to climb up to it or down from it.

She was every bit as imprisoned in the tower as young Chervil, but this was a small price to pay for the isolation that would bring her what she desired. And being a very skillful witch, her powers were such that she could conjure just about anything she required. If she could not conjure it, she would cast a spell on one of the birds who lived in the surrounding trees and the bird would bring her whatever she commanded.

As Chervil grew, the soft chestnut curls he had as an infant grew longer, thicker and stronger. The witch would brush his hair carefully every night and it would seem to grow in her hands as she brushed. By the time the boy was 10 years old, it was long enough to form a braid that would wrap 7 times around Chervil’s waist. “You have such beautiful hair, my Chervil,” she would say as she stroked the soft tresses.

Chervil would rub the end of his braid against her cheek and smile. “I grow it to please you, my lady,” for that was what he had been taught to call her. And in truth, if he had control over such things, he would have grown it to please her for he loved her. She had cared for him since he could remember and she loved him. Had she not raised this tower so that no harm could ever come to him?

“My lady,” he would ask from time to time as he, and his hair, continued to grow, “do you not miss what lies beyond these walls?” He had always lived where he was and knowing nothing beyond, he did not yearn for anything else. But he noticed how his beautiful lady often sat in the window and looked out into the distance, as if she wanted to see something beyond what was visible from their window.

The witch did, indeed, miss the life she had left behind, but she had resigned herself to her state. It would not be long before her Chervil would be of an age to become her consort and then she would have what she so longed for.

“No, my dear Chervil, I am content to be with you. I made this tower to keep you safe and there is no way to climb up to or down from the window.”

“Could you not command the birds to carry you?” he asked, for he had seen how she commanded the birds to bring things from time to time.

She cupped his chin in her hand—and noticed the beginnings of a stubble. It would not be long… “No, my dear, for there are no birds large and strong enough to carry me.”

Chervil would press his lips against her palm and sigh. “I will find a way. I wish only to please you, my lady.”

The witch smiled because she knew that to be true.

One night there was a great storm and the thunder shook the tower. When Chervil was a young boy, he would cling to the witch when a storm came and bury his face against her breast when the lightning flashed. But on this night, the boy—who had now lived 16 years and was closer to being a man than he had ever been—put his arms protectively around his lady. It was this, even more than the changes showing on Chervil’s body, that told the witch that the time had arrived. That night she took him to her own bed and taught him how he could truly please her.

In the morning, Chervil was filled with the aftermath of his first sexual experience. He felt as if the sun rose for the first time, as if birds sang for the first time, as if everything in the world was new and more beautiful than he had ever known it to be before. Wanting to take a deep breath of the air that had never smelled as fresh as it did now, Chervil stuck his head out of the window and inhaled. As he did so, the braid of his hair slipped out the window and down the side of the tower wall. He looked down and was surprised to see that it nearly touched the ground. The idea came to him in a flash as bright as the lightning of the previous night.

“My lady, my lady! Come see!” he cried.

The witch stretched languidly, a satisfied smile upon her lips—for she was truly more satisfied than she had ever been—and rose from her bed. Reaching the window she brushed against Chervil’s bare shoulder as her eyes followed the direction of his gaze.

“See, my lady? My hair reaches nearly to the ground. Surely you could use it to climb on? You will be free to come and go as it pleases you!” He was very excited, for to please his beautiful lady was his only desire.

The witch saw. As she led him back to her bed, she told him what a brilliant boy he was and told him how much he pleased her—and allowed him to please her again.

From that day on, the witch would leave the tower every morning and go wherever it was she went. After the first unsuccessful attempt—which had Chervil screaming in pain as the witch pulled on his hair with her full body weight—she had attached an iron hook to the window frame. Chervil would wrap his braid around it three times before letting the braid slip out the window and down the wall. It shortened the “rope” by about a foot, but it was still a simple matter for the witch to climb down.

When, as darkness fell, she returned, she would call up, “Chervil, my sweet Chervil, let down your braid to me.” Chervil would wrap his braid three times around the hook and let it slip out the window and down the tower wall and the witch would climb up.

Since the witch took Chervil to her bed every night upon her return, she had every reason to expect that it was only a matter of time before Chervil would plant his seed within her. But as time went on, her monthly cycles (for even a witch had to suffer through such things) came and went and still no seed grew within her. She was at a loss to account for the state she was not in and she grew more and more impatient with Chervil.

“Are you a man or are you still a boy? You do a man’s work, but I get paid a boy’s wage!”

Chervil did not know what to do to please his lady. In truth, he didn’t quite know what it was she wanted, for she had never said. She had only thrown out words that seemed to hint at his failure—even though every night she would moan her pleasure at his touch. Though to be honest, as much as he loved his beautiful lady, pleasing her did not seem to give him as much pleasure as it had at first. Perhaps that was the failure she was implying. Perhaps she sensed his pleasure was less than hers.

The thought filled him with guilt and every day, once his beautiful lady had climbed down and disappeared from sight, he would sit in the window and sing. He sang as the birds do, with no words, for no words could speak his pain. But his voice was soft and sweet and sad and the birds in the trees would suspend their song to listen. Even the animals scurrying about in the forest below paused to listen, and some would even shed a tear.

On one such day the son of a king happened to ride into the forest. His father had sent him forth to seek a bride and he was commanded not to return without one. He had visited every village and every castle between here and there and though he had met many great beauties, none had caught his interest nor stirred his senses enough to take as a bride. He had been away from his home so long that he had begun to believe he would never return. He had been away from his home so long that he had begun to consider whether never returning would be as bad a thing as it might be. Surely it would be better to live alone than to live with someone he could not love. Surely he must be right in this.

It was while he was thinking that thought that he heard it. It was a melody, sad and lonely, sung by a voice so soft that it felt like a caress—one that seemed to brush against his loins as much as his ears. He followed the sound of the sad, sweet song, closing his eyes more often than not so that he could concentrate on what he heard rather than what he saw, for the forest was thick and dark even when the sun was high in the sky.

He soon found himself in sight of a small clearing, in the center of which stood a tall tower. In the tower, high up—too high for anyone to climb up to or down from—was a window. In that window he could see a shoulder, pale as the moon, and a face turned away into the shadows so that all he could see was the chestnut hair that framed it.

“Surely such a voice must belong to an angel,” he said as much to himself as to his horse. “That is the one I will marry.” He was thus convinced because though he had visited every village and every castle between here and there and had met many great beauties, none had stirred his senses as did the one whose voice caressed his ears—and his loins. No, he was certain—this was the one for him.

The prince was not by nature a shy man, for he knew full well his worth, both as the son of a king and as a man fair of face and fine of form. But he had never been so stirred before and all the doubts that plagued every potential suitor of a great beauty plagued him. Would his suit be met with disdain? Surely one who was as beautiful as the one in the tower could be very selective. Would he have to compete for the hand of this angel? While he was suitably fit from long days spent in the saddle, he had been in that saddle so long that it was quite possible that his skill with a sword might be just a bit rusty from lack of practice.

Then there was the matter of finding a way to actually meet the angel whose voice stroked his loins. One did not just ride up to a tower in the middle of a forest and shout up a greeting. Common sense, of which he was possessed (even though his father had often stated otherwise), told him that surprising occupants of tall towers might result in arrows issuing forth from said tower—and one did not wear armor when riding off into the world to seek a mate. He had no desire to gaze once upon his true love’s face and then expire at the base of the tower, an arrow piercing his heart.

He became lost in his thoughts and sat there upon his horse until night began to fall. The unmistakable crunching sound of feet on the forest floor roused him from his thoughts and he looked up to see someone coming out of the forest on the other side of the tower.

“Chervil, my sweet Chervil, let down your braid to me.”

The prince watched as slowly a long chestnut braid slid through the window and down the side of the tower, reaching almost to the ground. Then, in amazement, the prince watched the figure—who appeared to be a woman, a very beautiful woman—climb slowly up the braid and through the window. Not quite sure what to make of that, the prince dismounted his horse and sat down to lean against a tree to think some more. But without the soft, sweet sounds of the sad song to hold his attention, he found himself feeling tired. In a short time, he fell asleep.

He awoke when the sun rose in the sky. Remembering the day before, he looked toward the tower, hoping to see the one who sang such a beautiful song. And for a moment, he did. He caught a glimpse of a shoulder—pale as the moon—and the hint of a profile as a long chestnut braid slipped slowly out the window and down the side of the tower wall. A moment later a figure climbed out of the window and down the braid. A moment later, that figure—who was indeed a VERY beautiful woman—disappeared into the forest on the other side of the tower. And yet a moment later, he felt his ears tingle—a tingling that traveled down his spine and into his loins—as the voice of an angel began once more to sing.

He was transfixed. He was aroused. He was determined to find a way into that tower. As quietly as he could, he approached the tower and examined it all around. The only way into the tower appeared to be that window, and there appeared to be only one way into that window.

Being so close to the object of his newfound desire clouded his reason and prompted the prince to desperate measures. In a voice he hoped matched as closely as possible the voice of the beautiful woman, he called out, “Chervil, my sweet Chervil, let down your braid to me.”

He didn’t think he had managed it very well, because really, he had a manly voice as befitted a manly man. But to his surprise, as he looked up a chestnut braid slowly slid out the window and down the tower wall. He hesitated because it was not every day that one climbed a braid, and he was quite a bit larger than the beautiful woman. He had a momentary vision of the owner of the braid (or more horrifically, the braid attached only to bits of a bloody scalp) tumbling headlong (minus the head in the one instance) out of the window as he climbed.

But the aching in his loins quickly banished all thoughts but one, and he climbed up the braid and through the window.

“You’re not my lady!” exclaimed the owner of the chestnut braid.

The prince was thinking much the same thing as he stared at the boy before him. Even though the voice that had just spoken was not singing, the prince had no difficulty recognizing it as belonging to the one who had sung so softly.

“Well, this is an interesting situation,” he said and could not help laughing just a little, perhaps a little nervously.

The boy—whose completely unclothed state revealed him to be at that point in life when one is more than a boy but slightly less than a man--stared at the prince, his mouth dropping open slightly.

“Who…what…are you?” he asked, taking a step closer, a mixture of fear and curiosity on his beautiful face (for it was, indeed beautiful, not handsome, and might even be classed as pretty).

It must be remembered at this point that Chervil had seen no one but the witch from the moment he had been delivered into her arms. What is more, he did not even have a mirror in which he could see himself fully. Thus it should not be a surprise that the sight of the one who stood before him would cause him no little confusion.

Chervil’s eyes traveled over the stranger from top to bottom and back up again. The stranger was clothed oddly, in garments far different from those worn by his lady. They clung to the legs—and to the area between his legs—in a most interesting fashion, and Chervil found his eyes lingering there. Without even realizing what he was doing, his hand stroked that area between his own legs as he wondered what the stranger’s garments concealed.

The prince blushed as he observed the boy’s gaze. He blushed deeper as he noticed the boy’s hand stroking his member.

“I-I’m Matthias, son of Vincent of Tallenshall.” He figured, as much as he could figure anything at the moment—so enthralled was he as he watched the boy’s long, slender fingers caress himself--that he had covered both the who and the what of the boy’s question.

“Matthias, son of…” Chervil recognized the words, for his lady had oft referred to him as the son of a besotted fool. “So you are a…boy? Like me?”

The prince frowned slightly. “I’m a man, not a boy. But yes…”

Chervil dropped his eyes in shame. His lady had said he did a man’s work… So this was a man. This was what he was supposed to be but was not. He looked down at himself and saw that his member was swollen, as his lady required it to be before giving her pleasure. Yet apparently there was something different about a man, something better, something he lacked.

He looked up at the man who stood before him. “My lady says I am a boy, not a man and that difference displeases her.” He took a step closer to the man. “I wish to know what is different.” He almost added “so I might please my lady,” but as he continued to stroke himself, he found that he had no thoughts of pleasing his lady.

He stood very close to the prince and laid his hand upon the prince’s chest, his fingers undoing one of the buttons of the man’s strange garments. “Will you show me?”

The boy looked up at the prince and the prince saw how long his dark lashes were and how smooth the curve of his cheek was and how soft his rose-red lips looked. His breeches had become uncomfortably tight and the warmth from the boys hand was making his nipples want to pierce the fabric of his tunic. The prince laid his hands on the boys shoulders—pale as the moon—and slid one hand down the boy’s back to let it rest upon his soft, firm buttocks. “I’ll show you what is different, and I will show you what is the same—for I am coming to believe that we will find there is much pleasure to be derived from things that are the same.”

And so there was. The prince spent the rest of the morning and part of afternoon showing Chervil—and in truth discovering for himself, for he had never touched one of his own sex in such ways—the pleasures they might give to and receive from each other.

As they lay in each others arms, basking in the glow of discovery, Chervil told the prince of his life with his lady from the first moment he could remember to the last moment before the prince had climbed through the window. As he listened to the boy’s tale, the prince grew worried.

“Your lady is a witch, my Chervil. For who but a witch could raise such a tower? Who but a witch could conjure from nothing the things you need to live? Who but a witch could cause the birds in the trees to be her willing servants and bring her things she may not provide for herself?”

He shook his head. “It is not wise to consort with a witch,” he cautioned, for Chervil had told him the ways he had given pleasure to his lady. “No good can come of it, for a witch has little heart and no soul, no matter how beautiful she may be.”

Chervil could not see evil in his lady, for had she not kept him safe all these years?

“She has not kept you safe, my sweet Chervil, she has kept you imprisoned.” The prince could not but admire the boy’s loyalty, but it was misplaced. He felt a sudden great need to protect his newfound love from all the evils of the world and he tightened his arms around the boy and pressed his lips against his soft chestnut braid. “I will find a way to carry you from this tower and will take you home to my father’s kingdom where we will live out our lives happily surrounded by safety and riches,” he promised, his voice deep and husky with heartfelt emotion.

Though even as he spoke, he wondered which would be more difficult: getting Chervil out of the tower or getting his father to accept that his only son had sworn his love and his life to a boy—a beautiful, wonderful, enchanting boy, but a boy nonetheless.

The prince explained to Chervil that he would find a way to get him out of the tower, but in the meantime he must act as if nothing had changed. He must not let the witch…his lady…know of anything that had transpired between them.

“But, my dear, sweet Chervil, love of my heart and my body, until the day I take you away from this tower and off to my father’s kingdom, each day I will come to you and love you.”

Chervil agreed to go on as if nothing had changed, and in a short while he wrapped his braid three times around the hook at the window and after a long, slow, deep kiss that left them both breathless, he bid his love farewell as he climbed down the braid and disappeared into the forest.

And so the days and the nights passed. During the day Chervil and the prince would lie together and make love and talk of how things would be when the two of them could be together forever. During the night, Chervil would lie with his lady and try to please her the way she wanted to be pleased. But as the days and nights went on, Chervil found himself less and less able to find pleasure in “the man’s work” that he did, and the witch’s impatience turned to frustration and anger.

“Have I not raised you, cared for you, given you everything you could wish for?” she demanded, rising from her bed and wrapping her robe around her voluptuous curves.

Chervil turned away from her, feeling his usual guilt at not being able to please his lady—but also feeling his own frustration at not being able to find any pleasure of his own.

She didn’t wait for him to respond. “And what do I ask from you in return? Do I ask that you labor for me in the fields or toil in the forest all day long? No, all I ask of you is that you share my bed and fill my belly with the seed of your loins. Is that too much to ask of you?”

In truth, Chervil did not know what to say for this was the very first time his lady had given voice to exactly what it was she wanted from him. But it was as if he saw his lady for the first time, for what she was. And he saw himself for what—in the eyes of his lady—he was.

“So you have raised me to be nothing more than your stud colt? My only use to you is to plant my seed within you? Is that how it is then?” Not loved, not cherished, not protected as she had claimed all these years. Instead, he had been used, imprisoned, just as his love had said.

The witch laughed. “So I have raised you, but you may as well be a gelding, for all the use you have been to me. You give me nothing of your seed and even less than nothing of pleasure!” She pointed at him and sneered. “Why look for yourself, you are as soft as a lump of dough and as wilted as a dying flower. You are neither man nor even boy—you are nothing!”

Chervil was enough of a man to be made angry by any criticism of his manhood. He turned his head and raised his eyes to the witch and snapped at her. “I am more of a man than you deserve, witch! You entrap me in this tower because you can find no other to lie with you. But it is not your soulless eyes nor your empty heart that strikes me soft—it is the repulsiveness of your soft, female body that prevents me from becoming suitably aroused to please you! I have no difficulty giving pleasure to my beloved Matthias, nor do I have any difficulty receiving such pleasure from him!”

As soon as the words were through his lips, Chervil realized what he had done.

“You have betrayed me with a…a man?” her voice was so loud and piercing that cracks appeared in the tower walls. “I should have known better than to take the son of a peasant to my bed! It is that way with all of your kind! If you are left to your own, you will lie with the beasts in the field as quickly as you will lie with a beautiful woman! But you…you forsake even the beasts in the field to lie with another man!”

The witch was so angry that she reached out and grabbed Chervil’s shoulder with a grip like the talons of a great, evil bird and flung him through the window.

He would most certainly have fallen to his death had his long chestnut braid not caught upon the hook at the window. So instead of lying broken and bleeding on the ground below, Chervil hung by his hair, his feet a scarce nine inches from the ground. He might have hung there forever as one dead (for though it broke his fall, the pain of being caught by his hair was so great as to render him instantly and deeply unconscious) had not the birds in the trees—the same ones often commanded by the witch—taken pity on the one who sang such a sweet, sad song. They pecked at his braid until at last it broke and Chervil fell to the ground. They continued to peck gently at his forehead until he opened his eyes. As his senses returned to him, he hastily rose to his feet and ran off into the forest.

The witch flung herself on her bed and wept. Tears of frustration and shame fell upon her pillow. She had spent the better part of her life raising the boy to be her consort, to give her the child she so desired. And he had chosen another…another man over her! How humiliating! And it wasn’t as if she could simply try again with another boy, for she would be old before the boy would be man enough to perform his task.

“You have stolen from me, young Chervil,” she spoke the words softly, yet there was venom in them. “You have taken from me what I most desired, and you shall pay me in kind.”

She rose from her bed and muttered some strange-sounding words. In a moment she had transformed herself from a beautiful woman into a beautiful young man with a long chestnut braid. “I will take from you what you most desire.” Her voice was soft and low and sweet—exactly like the voice of Chervil, himself. “I will take from you your Matthias.”

When morning came, the witch sat in the window and sang the song she had heard Chervil sing so many times. True to his word, the prince soon appeared at the foot of the great tower and called to his love, “Chervil, my sweet Chervil, let down your braid to me.”

He looked up expectantly and, as always, a chestnut braid slowly slid out the window and down the tower wall. Without hesitation—for he was now experienced at climbing the strong but soft braid—he climbed up and through the window and embraced his love.

The witch was surprised to find Matthias so attractive and even more surprised when she discovered—through their post-passion conversation—that he was the son of a king (for he had more than once referred to “his father’s kingdom”). She decided that she could do worse than to keep him as her consort.

It was not a difficult matter to bewitch the young prince into thinking he was making love to a man—in the way a man makes love to another man—when in truth he was making love to a woman—in the way a man makes love to a woman. As the days and nights passed, the prince was true to his word to his love and returned each morning to lie in the arms of his beloved Chervil—who was really the witch in disguise.

Scarcely one cycle of the moon had passed when the witch—to her delight—realized that she was with child. That morning, when the prince climbed up the braid and through the window and reached out his arms to embrace his love, he found—to his horror—that it was the witch who stood before him.

She laughed, and if he had not known she was a witch, the tone of her laugh and the look on her face would have betrayed her for who and what she was. “Chervil stole from me what I most desired—the child he did not give me. So I took from him what he most desired—you. And you, you stole from me my Chervil, so I stole your Chervil from you—for he has been cast out, gone naked and alone into the forest this past month and is likely dead by now.”

The prince fell to his knees in anguish and buried his face in his hands. The horror was too much for him to bear. His beloved Chervil, gone, most likely dead—and he had been consorting with a witch!

The witch, who was truly delighting in the taste of vengeance, reached down and pinched the prince’s chin and raised his face to hers. “And do you know what is the sweetest, most satisfying thing of all? YOU have given me the child Chervil could not give me. Your seed grows within me now, dear Matthias, my prince! My child shall one day possess a kingdom, your father’s kingdom, for he will be the son of a prince!”

That was too much for the prince to bear. His love was gone, he had consorted with a witch and that witch would—through her son, their son—one day reign over his father’s kingdom. With a cry so full of anguish and despair that all the animals in the forest and the birds in the trees immediately fell silent—and some wept—the prince flung himself through the window and fell to the ground below.

The witch leaned out the window and spat on the broken body of the prince. “And now you are dead, which is fitting as you are no longer of use to me.” With a laugh that was as much of a cackle as a laugh, she stood in the center of the tower room and whirled around and around and around until the tower began to creak and moan and shudder—until it finally turned into a column of smoke which was carried away on the wind.

It is not known what fate befell the witch and the child growing within her as their importance to the story ends here.

* * * * *

He did not know how long he had lain there, but when he opened his eyes the darkness was all around him and he was shivering with cold. He tried to rise but he found he could not—for the pain in his legs was too great. “They are surely broken and I will surely die from lying here in the cold,” he sighed—though there was no self-pity in his voice for death was welcome to him. He had lost his love—nothing else, not even having lain with a witch—mattered to him. His dear Chervil was gone, likely dead, and that left nothing for him to live for.

So Matthias, son of Vincent, king of Tallenshall, closed his eyes and waited for death to take him. As his eyes closed once more, he was unaware of the sound of hundreds of birds flying overhead—and equally unaware of the feeling of those same birds landing upon him and spreading their wings to form a blanket of feathers, many layers thick, that covered him from his neck to his toes and shielded him from the cold.

* * * * *

Chervil ran into the forest, heedless of where he was going. He only knew that the witch had cast him through the window, intending to kill him. And he feared that if she knew he was still alive, she would follow him and find him and he would be dead. When his breath was short and he could run no more, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands and wept. He had betrayed his beloved prince, his Matthias. Surely the witch would kill him when he came to the tower in the morning. How could he live knowing he was responsible for the death of his beloved?

He continued to weep until there were no tears left to fall. Then he sighed and rose to his feet. The answer was simple: he couldn’t. There would be no purpose to his life if his love no longer lived.

Chervil vowed in that moment to return to the tower to warn his lover and in doing so, face whatever fate the witch had in store for him. But which way was it to the tower? The forest was dark, oppressively so, even when the sun was high in the sky. And he had run blindly through the trees in panic and had no way to retrace his steps. In despair, he set off in a random direction, hoping it would lead him back to the tower.

After a day and a night had passed—though it was difficult to tell one from the other in the depths of the forest—he realized it would be too late to save his love. By now the witch would certainly have killed him out of revenge. With a sigh, he continued on his quest to find the tower, though his heart was heavy with grief. He would find the tower—and the witch—and join his love in death.

He did not know how many days he wandered through the forest, for as previously observed, the forest was as dark as night even in the day; but he noticed both the days and nights were getting colder. The witch had never provided him with any clothing for there had been no need of such things in the tower, which was always a perfect temperature even when the snow fell outside. So even though his love had always come to him fully clothed (a circumstance which was remedied almost immediately upon his arrival), Chervil felt completely comfortable in his natural state and gave it no notice. But he was feeling uncomfortable now, often finding himself wrapping his arms around himself as he walked, trying to warm himself against the growing cold.

His situation was grave as he had no means available to him to clothe himself. He had neither a knife to kill and skin any forest animals, nor the knowledge of how to go about doing so even if he had. He might have found a way to use the many feathers that lay upon the forest floor to fashion a protective covering for his skin using mud or tree sap, had he an inkling that such a thing were possible. But it must be remembered that young Chervil was raised naked in a tower by a witch to serve only one purpose: to pleasure her and render her with child. Even the most basic practical skills were unknown to him.

It was fortunate, therefore, that Chervil had, over the years, become beloved of the birds that sang in the trees in the forest around the tower. Many a day they had sat among the branches in silence, suspending their own song so that they might listen to his (for such was the beauty of his voice). Birds have ways unknown to mankind and communicate amongst themselves most effectively. Thus it was that at the very moment hundreds of birds had swept down from the trees to warm and protect the fallen prince, an equal number flew off into the forest to find Chervil and lead him back to his love.

Chervil fell back in fear as the flock of birds swept down upon him, for he had never seen so many birds in one place at one time. But it took only moments for the birds to convince him—through their inoffensive behavior—that they meant him no harm. It took a little while longer for him to understand that the birds wanted him to follow them, for no human is capable of understanding the complex language of the birds. But after many attempts at different things, the birds assembled themselves on the forest floor into the shape of an arrow and began to move—very uncharacteristically on foot—in the direction they wished him to go. After a few hundred yards the birds, finally convinced of Chervil’s understanding, took flight once more and continued to lead him in the direction of his fallen love.

A short time later Chervil found himself in a small clearing that he recognized—even though the tower no longer stood in its center. At first, Chervil saw nothing more than a flock of birds on the ground; but as he approached, the birds suddenly swept upwards into the sky, revealing the body of his beloved Matthias. Chervil rushed to his side and fell to his knees. Tears streamed down his face for he knew at once that his love was dead.

In his grief, he laid his hand upon the chest of his dead prince and his head upon his shoulder. “My love, my Matthias, it is I who have killed you with my careless words born of pride.” He brushed his lips softly against his lover’s neck. “I dare not ask for your forgiveness, my dear and only love, for such I do not deserve. I ask only that you allow me to join you in death, that we may lie together until the end of time.”

The prince, feeling the warmth of his lover’s hand upon his chest and the softness of his lover’s lips upon his neck took a deep breath, as deep as the first breath of a newborn baby, and raised his hand to stroke the cheek of his Chervil. “Chervil, my sweet Chervil, I will gladly allow you to join me in death when that death finds me, for eternity would be empty without you. But for now, let us both just spend our lives together in each others arms, for I cannot bear ever to be parted from you again.”

So happy was Chervil upon finding that his love still lived that he jumped to his feet and wept tears of heartfelt joy. As it happened, some of those tears fell upon the prince’s legs and immediately the prince found the pain in his legs had gone and he could move them once more. He did not mention to Chervil that his legs had been injured and were now repaired, for it occurred to him that it was not exactly normal for tears to heal wounds, even tears shed for love. Perhaps the many years spent in the company of and consorting with a witch had left a mark on his love. If it had, it could not be helped and it would not do to disturb the boy unnecessarily.

It was that same thought—that he not disturb his beloved Chervil unnecessarily—that made him refrain from telling him of his own consorting in Chervil’s absence, or the fact that his consorting had resulted in the witch becoming with child. Such information would only upset his love. It also occurred to him that his father would likely be more pleased by the arrival of a beautiful witch bearing his heir than the arrival of his son with a beautiful young boy. So when Matthias mounted his horse and lifted Chervil up into the saddle in front of him and they rode off into the forest, quite in the opposite direction of his father’s kingdom, he merely said that he had no need for riches since he had the one true love of his heart, body and soul in his arms forever.

And in truth, as things are wont to do in tales such as these, everything worked out nicely in the end.