That morning, the sun peered into King Leopold’s bedchamber with particular lack of ceremony. It glided over velvet and gold leaf, striking right into the mirror before which the King stood. Mirrors, it must be said, are honest folk, and at times quite cruel; they do not know how to flatter, even if a monarch stands before them.
Leopold was lathering his cheek with fragrant foam when suddenly his hand froze. Amidst his thick hair — dark as a raven’s wing — glistened a treacherous silver thread. The first gray hair.
“Winter,” the King said softly to his reflection. “Winter is coming to my head, yet spring has still not arrived in my house.”
He set down his razor and looked out the window. The kingdom was in bloom, shepherds drove their flocks, and children laughed in the city streets. But within the castle itself, there was silence — that distinct, ringing silence found only where there is no childish laughter and the patter of little feet. Leopold realized that his throne, that magnificent chair upholstered in silk, was in truth the loneliest thing in the world. To whom would he pass the orb and scepter? Who would wear the crown when his head finally turned white as snow?
He summoned the doctors. Oh, how importantly they puffed out their cheeks! They brought mixtures bitter as wormwood and sweet as honey. Sages arrived with thick books in which the dust of ages lay thicker than wisdom. Priests came, raising their hands to the heavens. But the heavens remained silent, and the cradle remained empty. The King felt fear — cold and clammy as a swamp fog — filling his heart. A kingdom without an heir is a tree without roots; the first storm will topple it.
And then one day, when hope had nearly melted away like wax on a stove, a strange man appeared at the castle gates. His name was Malvus. No one saw where he came from; it seemed he had woven himself out of road dust and evening shadows.
Malvus did not ask for a room at the inn. Right beneath the walls of the royal castle, there where the wild rose bloomed, he pitched his tent. Though one could hardly call it a tent: it was a strange, pointed little tower of motley cloth, topped with a weathervane that spun even in the stillness.
“Be gone!” the guards shouted at him, banging their halberds. “This is no place for vagabonds!”
But Malvus only smiled, and in that smile was something that made the brave soldiers feel ill at ease.
“I need to see the King,” he said in a voice like the creaking of an old tree. “And the King will want to see me.”
The guard tried to drive him away, but every time they approached the tent, their legs turned to cotton and their spears became heavier than mountains. They were forced to report to Leopold. The King, who was now clutching at straws, ordered the wanderer to be let in.
Malvus entered the throne room without bowing, as if he were an equal among equals. His cloak was threadbare, but his eyes burned with a young and frightening fire.
“I know your sorrow, Sire,” the mage said, wasting no time on empty greetings. “You fear that your name will vanish like a footprint in the sand.”
