Abigaila And The Wolf Prince - David Littlewood

Abigaila And The Wolf Prince by David Littlewood

Book excerpt

Chapter 1: The Orphans

In the land of Helvakia lived a young prince and princess named Andron and Abigaila. At the time we begin our story, Andron was just thirteen years old and his sister three years older. Their lives had been short but also sad because they had lost both their par-ents just a few months before.

Their father and mother, until recently, had been king and queen of Helvakia. The king was wise and handsome and the queen beautiful and caring. So, they were much loved in the land and there had been great rejoicing when first a daughter, Abigaila, then a son, Andron, was born to them. Although there was no in-ternet or even newspapers in those days, word of the royal births spread rapidly from mouth to mouth among the people, and soon everyone was anticipating a long and prosperous rule by their much-loved royal family.

There was, however, just one member of the royal family who the people were not sure about: the king’s brother, Duke Wilhelm. Well, Wilhelm was said to be their king’s brother, but no one was quite sure just how he came to be a member of the royal family. Some claimed he was actually the king’s half-brother, and others said he had been somehow adopted by the king’s father after be-ing found wandering in the woods as a boy.

Whatever, Duke Wilhelm was quite unlike the king both in looks and in ways. Although he was quite good looking in a dark, swarthy sort of way, he always seemed to have a shifty glint in his eye that made people wonder just what he was up to. And behind the smooth talking, friendly exterior, there seemed to be a dark se-cret lurking.

Not that the king appeared to suspect anything. No, he trusted his brother and actually made him chancellor of the land of Helvakia, despite the queen expressing doubts to the king about Wilhelm’s honesty. Even when Wilhelm went on a visit to the land of Salvakia and came back with a wife named Lukicia, the king—despite the outrage of the court at such a breach of royal custom—stood by his brother.

“It almost seems as if that brother of his has got a spell on him,” whispered the courtiers.

And even the queen, loyal as she was to her husband, just couldn’t understand how he allowed Wilhelm to wrap him round his little finger like he did. “You need to talk to him, dear,” she’d tell the king. “I don’t trust that new wife of his at all.”

“Oh come, my love,” said the king. “Lukicia comes from the best family in her country.”

“So she says,” responded the queen, “but we only have her word for it. No one has actually met them.”

“I can’t believe she’d deceive us,” said the king. “And certainly not Wilhelm.”

“I think you trust him far too much,” she said. “I just hate to think what they are plotting together.”

“Oh come, my dear,” said her husband. “You surely cannot believe my own brother would be guilty of any such thing?”

Seeing the king was getting upset, the queen decided to drop the subject for the time being. However, she wasn’t the only one who had suspicions about Lukicia. In fact, the whole court had been disturbed by her sudden arrival at court. True, everyone agreed she was a very beautiful lady, with long black hair and a slim, elegant figure to match, but there seemed something about her—her glances and the look in her eyes—that honest people just didn’t trust.

Not that they had much time to get used to her before tragedy struck. One night, when everyone was asleep, a terrible storm broke over the palace. The king and queen were wakened by the storm but before they could move, a huge bolt of lightning struck the wing of the palace where their room was. Fire erupted and the great oak ceiling collapsed from the shock of the lightning bolt.

Horrified, the palace staff frantically fought the fire with buck-ets of water, then moved the rubble with their bare hands, but to no avail—their beloved king and queen were found dead in each oth-er’s arms.

Thankfully, Andron and Abigaila had rooms across the corri-dor, so although they were woken by the blast and badly fright-ened, they were unhurt. But they were, of course, dreadfully upset at what had happened to their parents, as was the whole land. That is, apart from two people: Wilhelm and Lukicia. Of course, both put on sad faces, but when they thought people weren’t looking, they appeared rather smug about what everyone was calling ‘the terrible accident’ that had overtaken their king and queen.

In the wake of the tragedy, the whole country put on black and went into mourning and everyone was very sorry for the young prince and princess. They naturally assumed that Andron would take the throne after his father but Wilhelm, the chancellor, told the court and the people that the prince was too young to take the throne and that till the prince came of age he, Wilhelm, would act as regent.

Now, in case you don’t know what a ‘regent’ is, it is someone who acts in the place of a king when the king is either too young or too old or too ill to rule for themselves. It works OK if the regent is a good man, but there have been cases in history where the regent has turned out to be a real bad lot and wanted to get the crown for himself. This is, I’m afraid, is what appeared to be the case with Wilhelm.

And not just Wilhelm. Because behind Wilhelm and manipu-lating almost his every move was his scheming wife, Lukicia. Hid-den behind those dazzling good looks and the winning smile was a cold and calculating mind which had but one ambition: to take the power of the land for herself. And to do so she would not stop at using every bit of her fiendish witchcraft and magic that was at her disposal.

For unbeknown to everyone, including her husband who had come under her spell, Lukicia was a sorceress descended from the Dark Lands. If she could gain the throne of Helvakia, then the country and its wealth would come under the rule of the Dark Lands, and they would have another inroad into the continent of Universaria. That was her mission, and she was determined to ac-complish it with all the diabolical skills at her disposal.

So, it happened one day that the prince and princess were walking by the river that ran near the palace walls, being watched by one of the archers who stood lazily at the top of one of the tur-rets. The palace was being repaired after the fire and so, as it was a fine day, the prince and princess had been let out early from their classes. The sun was shining, and the birds were singing, but it didn’t do much to relieve their sadness after what had happened to their parents.

Suddenly, however, out of nowhere a dark mist descended on the pair, blotting out the sun. Neither of the children could see any-thing in front of them; it was almost like a blindness it was so terri-fying. They grabbed each other’s hands. Suddenly, Abigaila no longer felt her brother’s hand. It seemed to have disappeared. What she felt was something warm and furry beside her leg, some-thing that whined and growled.

The mist cleared as abruptly as it had come, and there she was, face to face with what appeared to be a young wolf! Abigaila screamed—a scream that brought the attention of the soldier on the palace ramparts. He saw the terrified princess backing from the wolf-like creature. A skilled archer, he put an arrow in his bow and shot at it. The fact that the princess was so near the wolf—and the archer didn’t want to risk hitting her—probably saved the wolf’s life, for the arrow landed just in front of the creature, startling it, and causing it to draw back.

Suddenly a voice came from behind the princess. “A wolf! Save the princess! Shoot it at once!”

Abigaila recognised the voice as that of Lukicia. She glanced round and there she was, running towards her with a couple of sol-diers. Just why Lukicia happened to appear just then, Abigaila didn’t know. The wolf appeared to look at her pleadingly, then took off and jumped into the river just as a hail of arrows sailed after it.