The Tale of the Three Glass Eyes

 Once upon a time, a young, valiant nobleman rode swiftly through the countryside on a mighty steed. If you had been there and seen them, you would have thought that he had been fleeing from something or someone. Then you would ask yourself, how could such a noble young man like that run from anything?

The nobleman and his horse traveled on and on in this manner, until the rider, having pity for the horse, slackened the speed and came to a stop. He ran a hand along the sweaty neck of the horse and whispered comforting words into his ear. Then he dismounted and led the horse off the path he had been following in search of a brook and a tree to rest under. He had not wandered far into the treeline when he picked up the sweet sound of a sad tune. Drawn to it, the nobleman led the horse deeper into the forest. 

If he had not been so mesmerized by the sound of singing, he would have noticed the still, heavy air that hung around him. The branches of the trees reached out like fingers grasping at each other, and the nobleman found that to proceed any further he would have to pull out his sword to cut a path. This was hot work, and it was not long before our young nobleman despaired of finding the singer of the song that sounded so sad to his ear. 

It was at the moment that the nobleman would have given up that he spied a path that led deeper into the forest. It appeared to be well trodden, and it led in the direction of the voice. He whistled to his horse, and they both set off down the path.

It was not long before they reached a clearing. It was not the tower in all its grandeur and ancient stonework that first arrested the attention of the nobleman, but the ground around it. The ground was covered in armor and shields bearing the crest of knights, as well as bones that looked as though the creatures of the forest had feasted upon them. The nobleman took a step closer to one, recognizing the crest as a knight who had gone missing from the court some months ago. As he continued walking through the graveyard of armor, the singing stopped. This caused him to look up at the tower.

Standing behind a barred window halfway up the tower surrounded by vines and honeysuckle, stood a maiden fair. She had golden hair, skin as fair as a lily, and eyes as blue as the sky. 

“Sir nobleman, have you come to free me from my tower? For I am cursed to spend all my days here and marry a man I do not love. I was taken from my parents who could not pay Baron de Ros’ taxes, so he took me instead to make me his wife as soon as he returned from foreign lands. He returns tomorrow evening, and my time grows short to escape,” the lady’s voice sang out over the deathly silence of the woods.

“If it is freeing from this tower that you desire, then free you I shall,” the young nobleman called up to her, his eyes struck by her beauty and grace.

“Tell me, what is the name of my rescuer?”

“Antonio,” he said with a flourishing bow, “And what might be fair maiden’s name?”

“Helen,” she said with a slight nod to Antonio.

“Then, my lady Helen, I will free you from this place.” 

With that, Antonio headed over to the door of the tower which stood on the opposite side from the fair maidens window. Here he was met by a burly fellow who stood almost seven feet high dressed in black armor. But it was not the size, the matted black hair, or the hideous face of the man that caught Antonio’s attention, but the gleaming red jewel that was set into the glass eye of the man before him.

“Who goes there?” boomed the man in black armor as he drew his sword.

“A weary adventurer who would be happy for a bit of company whilst he rested.”

“You cannot rest here, unless you want to end up like the rest of them,” the black knight motioned with his thumb over his shoulder to the piles of armor and bones scattered about the yard. 

“Come now, you will not even have a cool drink with me on this hot day?” Antonio motioned to the sun that now stood high in the sky.

The black knight wet his lips with his thick tongue as though imagining the cold liquid running over his parched lips.

“I am sure your armor must feel heavy and like a blacksmiths forge.” Antonio said as he pulled two gold goblets from his saddlebag as well as a bottle of wine from his pack. 

The black knight narrowed his eyes as he tilted his head and mentally weighed the man before him.

“One drink,” the black knight said at last.

“That is all I ask,” Antonio said with a flourishing bow. He then proceeded to fill each cup with wine, and set one before the knight on a small, but tall table that stood near the tower door. It was covered in fowl carcasses, some several days old, and flies buzzed around making a meal out of the meat left on them. 

Before long, the entire bottle of wine had been finished, and a new one produced, though this time it was from the black knight's stash that he kept hidden behind some loose stone in the wall of the tower.

“I cannot help but wonder about your eye,” Antonio said as he stood leaning against the tower in the shade. 

The black knight, no longer suspicious of the easy going nobleman that he had been having such pleasant conversation with, smiled and set down his empty glass with a heavy hand on the table that he now sat next to in the single chair that had been provided to relieve the weary guard when he tired. 

“It is a key,” his voice boomed.

“A key? It seems like an inconvenient place to keep a key. What is it for?” Antonio questioned.

“It is for the tower.”

Antonio’s hand that held his goblet stopped halfway up to his mouth, and his eyebrows raised in surprise. “The tower? So in order to open it you will have to pluck out your eye? Sounds dreadful. Why would you have ever agreed to have your eye removed and replaced by a glass one that was a key?”

The black knight laughed. It was a booming laugh that seemed to shake the air and sent chills running down Antonio’s spine. “I did it because the Baron de Ros commanded it. Me and my two brothers. You cannot get into the tower without the three of us popping out our eyes to open it.”

Antonio shifted his weight uneasily as he thought of what it must have felt like to have one's eye plucked out. “So there are three of you? And where are your other two brothers? Do they not help guard the tower?”

“We take turns guarding. I will be relieved by one of my brothers at dusk, just as I relieved my older brother at dusk yesterday,” the man explained.

“So you have been here all night long guarding this tower. You must be rather tired.”

Something about this last remark and the look in Antonio’s eye did not sit well with the black knight, and he cast a suspicious glance in his direction. He then stood and began to unsheathe his sword. “I think it’s about time you were leaving.”

“I would leave, but you see, I cannot go without taking the fair maiden with me that you hold prisoner in the tower. I will need your eye, and those of your brothers too.” There was a flash of steel and Antonio held his rapier in hand. “Though I do not relish the thought of having to pluck them out of your heads.”

The black knight, in rage, knocked the table over into Antonio and leaped towards him with his sword raised high in the air, bringing it down with a crushing blow. But he only managed to hit the ground, for Antonio, being much more agile than the intoxicated knight, had easily moved out of the way in time. The black knight, red with rage, began wildly swinging his sword through the air at Antonio, Antonio dodging every time. Then, when the right opportunity arose, Antonio made a calculated strike and stabbed the knight through one of the gaps in his armor. This caused the knight to drop his sword as he clutched his bleeding side, which allowed Antonio to drive the hilt of his sword into the knight and knock him off his feet. He then knocked the knight’s sword out of reach with his foot, and held his blade to the knight’s throat. 

“Now, my friend,” Antonio began, pressing his blade into the knight’s throat until it drew blood, “I do not want to kill you, for you are just doing your job however wrong it may be, but if you will not give me your eye willingly, then I shall have to take it from you.”

The black knight snarled up at Antonio, “Over my dead body.”

“Well, then this will be most unpleasant for both of us.” With that, Antonio brought the butt of his sword down into the head of the knight and knocked him unconscious.

He then pulled out a knife from his belt and knelt beside the fallen man. The thought of prying out the eyes made his stomach turn. Surely there had to be another way into the tower. There was just one window and it was barred, so that would not be an option. He would examine the door first. It was made from solid wood, and try as he might, he could not open it. The thought of the poor girl trapped in the tower made him turn from the door and proceed with the unpleasant business. 

Once he had procured the eye, he approached the door and examined the lock.  The eye fit perfectly into one of three round slots. Now he needed the other two eyes. For that he would have to wait until dusk. He pulled the glass eye out again and wrapped it in a silken handkerchief before pocketing it. Then he pulled the body of the unconscious man into the forest and there gagged and tied him to a tree. 

Antonio approached the window of the tower where he had previously spoken with the young maiden, and called out to her. She immediately appeared at the window, her white hands grasping the bars.

“You are alive!” she joyously exclaimed. “I thought you had died like all the others.”

“I have the first of three keys that hold you captive, for the others I shall have to wait until dusk. Until then, I will keep you company here.” 

As dusk neared, Antonio looked about for the best place to conceal himself that would give him the best fighting advantage. He finally settled on a tree near the well-trodden path leading into the clearing. It was the only one about, so it felt safe to assume the three brothers used it when coming and going to the tower. Up the tree he climbed, and there he sat awaiting the change of guard. 

The sound of rustling caught Antonio’s ear, and he sat up from where he had been reclining on his branch. As the rustling grew closer, it was accompanied by the sound of two voices in disagreement. Soon two men came into view, both as big as the black knight. It was hard to make out in the fading light, but Antonio felt sure that these two men had matching glass eyes, though the gem set in them were both of different colors. 

It was a turn of luck that both brothers had turned up on the same evening. Antonio felt as though Najm must have been smiling on him. He quickly took in the situation. One of the brothers had come dressed in black armor and carried a rather large war hammer at his side. The other brother had come without armor or a weapon. He would be the easier target.

As the two men passed under the tree Antonio sat in, he jumped down onto the unarmed brother. The impact caused the man’s knees to buckle, and both he and Antonio went crashing into the ground. Then the struggle began. Though the man was twice the size of Antonio, the element of surprise played in Antonio’s favor, and it was not long before the man lay motionless on the ground.

Antonio barely had time to catch his breath when he felt the blow of a war hammer at his side. He could hear the snapping of ribs as they gave way under the blow and he stood there stunned  with the air knocked out of him. The blow had come from the last of the brothers who now stood, hammer raised for another blow with his jagged smile and gleaming eye peering down at Antonio, hungry for the kill. 

“I will grind you into the ground and feed your carcass to the buzzards!” The black knight shouted as he brought his hammer down again. But Antonio seemed to regain his strength and stepped lightly to the side out of harm's way. 

“I do not think I shall be able to oblige you today, for you see, I must set fair-maiden in yonder tower free,” Antonio said with a slight tilt of the head towards the tower.

A loud crack filled the air as Antonio’s whip snapped about the wrist of the black knight and he was able to pull him forward and off his footing, making him lose his grasp on the hammer. But then the black knight managed to get a hold with his free hand on the whip and began pulling it towards him, Antonio fighting back to keep his hold on the whip, which he then realized he could let go of and send the black knight falling back. And that is what he did. The knight now lying flat on the ground gave Antonio the advantage once again, and he was able to finish the last of the three brothers off and collect the two other eyes. 

With his hand at his throbbing side, Antonio made his way to the tower and placed the three eyes in the lock. The door now open, he called into the tower, “Helen! You are free!”

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room, he saw that the place had been littered with treasure. It would seem that the Baron de Ros locked up more than pretty girls here. Helen came running down the stairs and joyously threw her arms around Antonio.

“You have saved me!”

Antonio winced. “It was nothing, really. I will take you back to your parents now. Though I do not think it would be such a bad idea to take a little something to compensate for the year you spent locked in this tower. Then you will never lack the money to pay the baron’s taxes ever again.”

With that, the fair Helen was returned to her parents safe and sound, and Antonio went the way of all young heroes. That is to say, he rode off into the sunset leaving a young heart behind him who would dream of him every night.

The End