“Gor,” said Mig, “I ain’t going to do it. You can’t make me do it.
“If you have any sense at all,” said Roscuro, “and I heartily doubt that you do, you will not use that instrument on me. Without me, you will never find your way out of the dungeon, and you will starve to death here, or worse.”
“Gor,” said Mig, “then lead us out now, or I will chop you up into little rat bits.”
“No,” said Roscuro. “The princess shall stay here in the darkness. And you, Mig, will stay with her.”
“But I want to go upstairs,” said Mig.
“I’m afraid that we are stuck here, Mig,” shouted the princess, “unless the rat has a change of heart and decides to lead us out.”
“There will be no changes of heart,” said Roscuro. “None.”
“Gor,” said Mig. She lowered the knife.
And so, the rat and the princess and the serving girl sat together in the dungeon as, outside the castle, the sun rose and moved through the sky and sank to the earth again and night fell. They sat together until the candle had burned out and another one had to be lit. They sat together in the dungeon. They sat. And sat.
And, reader, truthfully, they might be sitting there still, if a mouse had not arrived.
50
“PRINCESS!” Despereaux shouted. “Princess, I have come to save you.”
The Princess Pea heard her name. She looked up.
“Despereaux,” she whispered.
And then she shouted it, “Despereaux!”
Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.
Nothing.
For Despereaux, the sound was worth everything: his lost tail, his trip to the dungeon, and back out of it and back into it again.
He ran toward the princess.
But Roscuro, baring his teeth, blocked the mouse’s way.
The princess cried, “Oh no, rat, please. Don’t hurt him. He is my friend.”
Mig said, “Don’t worry, Princess. I will save the meecy.”
She took the kitchen knife. She aimed to cut off the rat’s head, but she missed her mark.
“Whoopsie,” said Miggery Sow.
51
“OWWWWWWWW!” screamed Roscuro.
He turned to look at where his tail had been, and as he did, Despereaux drew his needle and placed the sharp tip of it right where the rat’s heart should be.
“Don’t move,” said Despereaux. “I will kill you.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” Botticelli laughed from the sidelines. “Exactly.” He slapped his tail on the floor in approval. “Absolutely delightful. A mouse is going to kill a rat. Oh, all of this is much better than I anticipated. I love it when mice come to the dungeon.”
“Let me see,” said the other rats, pushing and shoving.
“Stand back,” Botticelli told them, still laughing. “Let the mouse do his work.”
Despereaux held the trembling needle against Roscuro’s heart. The mouse knew that as a knight, it was his duty to protect the princess. But would killing the rat really make the darkness go away?
Despereaux bowed his head ever so slightly. And as he did so, his whiskers brushed against the rat’s nose.
Roscuro sniffed.
“What . . . is that smell?” he asked.
“Mousie blood!” shouted one rat.
“Blood and bones!” shouted another.
“You’re smelling tears,” said Botticelli. “Tears and thwarted love.”
“Exactly,” said Roscuro. “And yet . . . there’s something else.”
He sniffed again.
And the smell of soup crashed through his soul like a great wave, bringing with it the memory of light, the chandelier, the music, the laughter, everything, all the things that were not, would never, could never be available to him as a rat.
“
And he began to cry.
“Booooooo!” shouted Botticelli.
“
“Kill me,” said Roscuro. He fell down before Despereaux. “It will never work. All I wanted was some light. That is why I brought the princess here, really, just for some beauty . . . some light of my own.”
“Please,” shouted Botticelli, “do kill him! He is a miserable excuse for a rat.”
“No, Despereaux,” said the princess. “Don’t kill him.”
Despereaux lowered his needle. He turned and looked at the Pea.
“Boooo!” shouted Botticelli again. “Kill him! Kill him. All this goodness is making me sick. I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Gor!” shouted Mig, waving her knife. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, wait,” said the princess. “Roscuro,” she said to the rat.
“What?” he said. Tears were falling out of his eyes and creeping down his whiskers and dripping onto the dungeon floor.
And then the princess took a deep breath and put a hand on her heart.
I think, reader, that she was feeling the same thing that Despereaux had felt when he was faced with his father begging him for forgiveness. That is, Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would never like the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart.
And so, here are the words that the princess spoke to her enemy.
She said, “Roscuro, would you like some soup?”
The rat sniffed. “Don’t torment me,” he said.
“I promise you,” said the princess, “that if you lead us out of here, I will get Cook to make you some soup. And you can eat it in the banquet hall.”
“Speaking of eating,” shouted one of the rats, “give us the mousie!”
“Yeah,” shouted another, “hand over the mouse!”
“Who would want him now?” said Botticelli. “The flavor of him will be ruined. All that forgiveness and goodness. Blech. I, for one, am leaving.”
“Soup in the banquet hall?” Roscuro asked the princess.
“Yes,” said the Pea.
“Really?”
