Chapter 4: This Woman That Kills

Oh. My. Goodness! You will never believe what the word on the street is! Apparently in this small town called Bridgeside, a little girl died when her older sister snatched a tiara off her head! This is brilliant! Not, of course, for the little girl or her family. But what if this tiara is one of the Crowns? Think of the possibilities! This could start the trail to the other Crowns! And then the Keepers of the Crowns would be successful! We’d win! And I have used an awful lot of exclamation marks! But I don’t care, because this is all so exciting! In fact, I may break traditional grammatical guidelines and use multiple exclamation marks! How fantastic!!! (I think three exclamation marks is quite enough.) I need a drink.

Right. I have calmed myself down now. Took me five glasses of water and one of whiskey. And now I need the toilet.

There we go. Much better. So I am going to travel to this town of Bridgeside and investigate. No doubt there will be some Crowners there too. Hopefully I will be able to beat them there. I plan to leave within the next few hours once I’ve packed a bag and left my accommodation in a reasonable state. I can’t stand coming home to an untidy house. 

I have given some thought as to which Crown this could be. The other two Keepers of the Crown and I have managed to produce a shortlist of the abilities we believe the Crowns have been embellished with by looking at the myths and legends. Having consulted my copy of this list, I believe this Crown to grant the wearer immortal life. 

Below is a story that I discovered that concerns such a crown. I have rewritten it to include information from the other sources that I found regarding the original series of events:

There was a group of outlaws - thieves and robbers. They had managed to steal a lot of treasure over the period of their existence. However, someone had told the authorities of their whereabouts, so they had to make a quick getaway. They grabbed as much treasure as they could, stuffing their pockets with coins, putting rings on their fingers, necklaces round their necks, crowns on their heads. And then they ran. 

They rested in a barn many miles away from their hideaway. But in the middle of the night, one of the men, Caleb, was woken by another talking. At first, he supposed he was sleep-talking, murmuring in his sleep. But as Caleb’s eyes focused he saw that the man was wide awake and chatting away to an absence. There was nothing in the space he was talking to. The man was still wearing a crown that he had put on in the rush to escape. Caleb called over to the talking man, whose name was Nikolire. “Hey! Shut up!” Nikolire looked over, but ignored him and carried on talking. His voice was too low for Caleb to hear anything. “You deaf or something? Shut up, I said!” But Nikolire did not even look over this time. Caleb got up. “And why are you still wearing that crown? All the treasure’s being kept in the bags. You’d better not be thinking of running off with it.”

Nikolire turned to him again. “If I take it off, I won’t see her again. If I keep it on, I shall always see her. Always. For eternity.”

“See who? There’s no one there.”

“You’re not special enough to see her.”

“What?”

“She only appears to those she wants!” Nikolire said, childishly. “And you’re not special enough!”

“Well you’re plenty special, aren’t you! Schizo…” he added under his breath.

Nikolire jumped to his feet. “Say that to my face!” he shouted, and then to the empty space “He is worth it.”

Caleb got to his feet and then lunged at Nikolire, who hopelessly failed to standi his ground and the pair tumbled to the floor. The force of the impact knocked the crown from Nikolire’s head and Nikolire died. Caleb got back up and looked down at Nikolire. “Get up,” he ordered, before realizing that he was dead.

The robbers blamed Caleb for Nikolire’s death for they had awoken when Nikolire had shouted. They rose to see Caleb ordering the dead body to get up. Caleb claimed over and over again that it wasn’t him and it must have been something else. He claimed he had not hit Nikolire with that strong a force. He was not believed.

The authorities found Caleb’s body hanged from the barn’s rafters. It was only later, when another outlaw who had worn the crown died, did they recognise the truth of Caleb’s story. The crown was declared as cursed and thrown into a river so that it may never found again.

I have started my travels now. I have walked all day, and about twenty miles. But now I am resting. I have set up a small shelter and am quite cosy. Here is another tale regarding immortality and diadems.

June was the daughter of the miller and she worked in all areas of the mill, from the grinding of the wheat to the baking of the dough to the selling of the bread. She was well-liked and doted upon by the men in her village. But by none more than William, the son of the local chandler. He, above all others, treated June with more presents and gifts than all the rest.

And so it came to be that William plucked up the courage to propose to June and ask for her hand in marriage. He bought a ring and some flowers and made his way to the mill where they lived. 

He knocked on the front door and waited. The door was opened by the miller, who had a very grave face, and the doctor, who looked very apologetic and serious. The doctor bade good day to the miller and then left. “Can I help you, William?” the miller asked.

“Yes, sir. I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“Your timing is most inconvenient. She has just been diagnosed with a fatal illness. She cannot be saved.” William’s heart broke that day, and he wandered home very sad indeed.

The next morning, William visited the village shop. He said to the shop-keeper “Please sir, I need a potion that will cure my love of her fatal illness.” The shop-keeper understood and smiled. “Try this medicine on your girl, it’s instant miracles will make your hair curl!” he said. For an unexplained reason, the shop-keeper spoke in rhyme. William bought the potion and hurried to the mill to see if he could heal June. William gave the potion to the miller who administered it to June. But the medicine did not work.

Next, William next went to the warlock who lived in the caves outside the village. William said to the warlock “Please sir, I need an enchantment that will dispel a fatal illness from the girl I love.” The warlock understood and smiled. “I know of a spell, it’s effects are great. It will remove the sickness she has had of late,” he said. For an unexplained reason, the warlock spoke in rhyme. The warlock whispered the spell into William’s ear, and William hurried to the mill to see if he could heal June. William told the spell to the miller, who went and cast it upon June. But the spell did not work.

William was very sad now, so, the next day he visited the witch who lived in the woods outside the village. She made potions and remedies and sold an assortment of random objects, all of which had amazing stories behind them, many of which were false. Williams said to the witch “Please ma’am, I need a potion that can mend my broken heart.”

It so happened that the witch knew the source of his broken heart, and she presented him with a crown. “This crown,” she said to William, “is no ordinary crown. It is a crown that brings immortal life for the wearer. But only if the crown is never removed. As soon as the crown leaves the wearer’s head, they will die. Give it to June. Make her wear it for all time and you shall live together.” For an unexplained reason, the witch did not speak in rhyme. William happily bought the crown. As he was leaving, the witch called after him: “Remember! The crown must always be worn if you want your love to live.”

William gave the crown to the miller who went and placed it upon June’s head, and she was healed! The pair married within the month and lived together for many years and had many children, and June always wore the crown.

And when William died one summer’s afternoon, June removed the crown from her head so that they could walk to the afterlife together.

I love this story! It’s so happy. It makes something as grim as death seem wonderful and romantic. And I can only dream of such romance. It’s a lonely life, that of a druid. You have been warned. 

I have spent a lot of time trying to work out the journey that this Crown has taken. So we start off in Kingdom Faithful when the Crowns were made and where the children of Hunn unsuccessfully crashed the party.

The outlaws I believe to be a criminal gang known as the Avengers, a group who believed that they were victims of society and made it their duty to screw society over as best they could. Their manifesto, however, comes across as much more political than their actions were. In reality, the Avengers were little more than petty thieves stealing what they could from the rich and poor alike, although they were very bureaucratic. They accounted for everything they owned and sold, they had a membership list. Very thorough for a petty criminal gang.

The Avengers existed about forty years after Hunn’s children were arrested. I’ve just thought: this event needs a proper name. A title. The Something. The Great Something. The Great Failure? Hunn’s Epic Failure? Hunn’s Epic Crown Fail? Yes, I like that. Hunn’s Epic Crown Fail. So in that forty year period, the Crown of Immortality fell into the hands of the Avengers. A question that I have been scouring history books for an answer to is what spilt up the Crowns. Why is the Crown of Immortality the only one that the Avengers had? There were no other reports in their papers of crowns with magical abilities. What happened to the other Crowns? 

Anyway, so one hundred years later and we come to William and June’s story. The village that the couple lived in is Humbleby in the Kingdom of Thripp, neighbouring Kingdom Faithful at its south-eastern border (that is Faithful’s south-eastern border, not Thripp’s). The kingdoms are connected by the River Trust, and the village of Humbleby rests not two miles from the river. I suspect that the Avengers cast the Crown into the River Trust, which then travelled downriver where it was washed up in Thripp. I suspect it was either found by the witch or by someone else who went on to sell it to the witch. How the witch identified its magical properties, I don’t know. It is possible that she sensed the dark magic within the Crown, and maybe a weary traveller went ‘missing’ in the area at the time, falling awry to the witch’s morally ambiguous ethical code and tried the Crown on, only to die as it was removed confirming the witch’s suspicions. Another mystery. Another vaguely irrelevant mystery, but I love the irrelevant mysteries! They make the past so much more real. Less linear, more of a web of connections. So I apologise if you find all of this very tedious! 

The Crown of Immortality vanishes from history at this point. What happened to it once June removed it is another mystery, but a very relevant mystery this time. Because somehow it ended up back in Kingdom Faithful and in this town of Bridgeside. 

Another enigma surrounding the Crown of Immortality is the Spirit of the Crown, as I like to call it. Nikolire was talking to an area of nothingness. But he treated the space as occupied. I hardly believe he was schizophrenic. The figure he saw was female, reportedly. And kindly too, it seems. Well, kindly or very deceptive. After all, it is this woman that kills these poor souls. 

With any hope, these mysteries will be solved when I arrive in Bridgeside. Fingers crossed, eh!