Faithful Johannes
There were once two parents who loved their newborn son so much that they decided to gift him with one of the most beautiful names in all of history: Johannes Sebastian Salieri Ala Burg Van Smythe. Although they had little money, they had once heard a traveling musician play a beautiful piece of music that they later learned was a composition by the Baroque genius Johann Bach. And thus was the inspiration born.
This brief story takes place in the early 1800s, which was approximately 125 years after Messieur Bach made his magic, and around 800 years after the whole Red Riding incident, to which this story bears a surprising connection. We’re going to skip ahead a bit. Johannes is older. He’s a strapping lad now, and he’s gotten a bit of a reputation for a positive character trait, which has led to his nickname: Faithful Johannes.
I’m going to call him simply ‘Johannes’ from here on out, but just know that his nickname is ‘Faithful.’ So Johannes has been faithfully serving the king. The king is a decent fellow, and he’s dying. He knows Johannes is faithful and loyal, so calls him over to ask one little favor:
“Please look after my son,” the King croaks.
“And make sure he learns all about beautiful things like music and art, but don’t ever let him look at the painting of the Princess of the Golden Roof. Okay?”
“Umm, okay?”
Johannes said.
“Why is that?”
“Because,”
The king mumbled.
“If he sees her portrait, he’ll fall in love with her. And then he’ll faint.”
“Oh no!”
Exclaimed Johannes.
“I don’t want that to happen! Why is that?”
“The reason why…”
The king tried to talk, but he was drooling.
“The reason why is that…”
“It’s okay Sir!”
Said Jo.
“Just tell me where the portrait is so I can make sure he never sees it!”
“It’s…”
The king tried to say…
But couldn’t finish, and he died.
This is not the end. Of course it’s the end of the story for the king, but since he’s not our protagonist, it’s not the end of our story today.
A new king
Fast forward through the sad rituals of saying goodbye to a king. We’re through all that and the new ruler sits on the throne. He’s got enough sense to know that he needs some continuity and some people he can trust. He knows Johann has been around a while, so he asks him to show him the ropes and get him acquainted with all the kingly stuff he didn’t get to see when he was merely the king’s son. Johannes agrees. They go on a castle tour. Everything is awesome, all kinds of cool dazzling stuff, and then they come a room several flights up, and there’s a big thick door, and on it is a beautifully-crafted sign that reads Do Not Enter: Secret Entrance to the Chamber of Underground Secrets.
“That makes no sense,”
Johannes mutters.
“This is closer to the attic than the dungeon. Why is it talking about underground secrets?”
“I don’t know,”
Said the king.
“Aren’t you supposed to know everything about this castle?”
“Sort of,”
Johannes replied.
“Except there’s some secrets I’m not supposed to share with you, and I think this might be one of them, but I don’t know for sure.”
“What secrets are you not supposed to tell me?” asked King.
“Oh, nothing too interesting,” said Johannes. “The main important one is the secret about not letting you see the portrait of the Princess of the Golden Roof. I’m guessing it’s definitely not in there though. My intuition tells me it’s not.”
“Let’s go in.” Says the new king.
Johannes enters first, followed by King Elliott.
“Whoa,” Johannes says, glancing at the far wall in darkened room lit by a single window. “She’s got pizazz.”
Thud.
Johannes looks behind him. King Elliott is on the floor. Johannes squats beside him and reads a coloring book. Finally, King awakens.
“What happened?”King says.
“You fainted,” Johannes says.
“Oh,” King says. “I’m in love.”
They both slowly turn around and gaze at the portrait at the far end of the room. A slant of light illuminates part of the portrait; a portrait of a woman with a small, wry smile and eyes that seem to be dancing off the paint.
“Oh.” Johannes says. “To each his own.”
Fast forward a bit. King is obsessed. Fixated. I gotta marry this woman. I gotta gotta gotta. Johannes doesn’t get it. But he’s faithful, so he agrees to help.
Through a series of events which appears to be unimportant here, Johannes learns that she is super into gold. He and King devise a plan to create a massive trinket out of gold. So that’s what they do: melt a bunch of little gold items down to make one giant gold blob. A beautiful blob of gold.
The voyage.
Johannes sets sail with the gold. Eventually he arrives at her country. He is granted entry to the court, and three lesser servants stagger in with a giant crate containing the gold. On the outside of the crate is stamped the letters “AU.”
He steps forward. “Greetings, my name is Johannes, and I come on behalf of Elliott. Of course you already know what country he’s king of.”
The Princess of the Golden Roof looks up heavenward as the sunlight shafts through the open portal of the palace atrium, and she claps her hands together gleefully.
“That’s a lovely name,” she says.
“I will convey your compliment of his name,” Johannes says gravely.
“I wasn’t talking about his name,” Princess says. “So what have we here, in this crate with the ‘AU’ markings?!”
Quickly the crate is uncrated in her presence and finally the treasure is unveiled and rolled out and…
...her face falls. “Thank you…” she whispers. “For the...gold.”
Johannes watches her face closely. “Excuse me,” he says. “My understanding is that you are obsessed with gold. Your countenance leads me to believe that you are not...altogether pleased?”
“Oh, it’s quite nice,” she says.“Gold just isn’t really my thing.”
“It’s not?”Johannes says.
She looks up, past him, at the broken crate. “I think I know what happened.”
He has no idea what’s going on.
She continues. “The crate says “AU,” which is the abbreviation for “gold” on the Periodic Table of Elements. “AU” is also the abbreviation for my favourite country that I’m so obsessed with and have been wanting to visit since I was very young.”
Johannes slowly began to understand. “So you’re not into gold, you’re into…”
They finished the sentence together: “...Australia.”
She continued.
“I love everything I know about Australia and I thought it might be an Australian hat, or a kangaroo, or something Australian, when I saw the “AU” on the outside. But I don’t mean to be rude. Of course gold is nice too, I suppose.”
She looked at Johannes.
“Are you alright?”
“No,” he murmured, tears running down one side of his cheek (there was a blocked duct on the other).
“You see...I love Australia too, and I have since I was a little lad.”
“You have?!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” he looked up. “Of course I know that ‘AU’ is the abbreviation for Australia. I just didn’t think anyone else did because everyone is so obsessed with gold, so when I was doing research for King Elliott about you then I discovered that you like the colour yellow and that you have the letters “AU” embroidered or painted on a lot of your accessories and clothes. So I thought you were super into gold.”
“Oh my no…” she laughed. “I want to travel, but I can’t get anybody to go with me. I don’t really care about gold. No offense.
“No offense taken,” he said, and bowed as he backed up. “I’ll convey your interest in Australia to King Elliott. That, by the way,” he said, looking up, “is the reason I’m here. Because the king, Elliott, saw your magical portrait and fell in love with you.”
“No he didn’t.”
She said.
“Yes, he did.” Johannes said.
“No, he didn’t,”
She repeated.
“What do you mean?” Johannes asked.
“He couldn’t fall in love with a picture of me! He doesn’t even know me! I know that occasionally our countries experience bouts of magic and spells and potions and such, but the idea of him falling in love with a two-dimensional representation of me in real life is ridiculous. He doesn’t love me.”
“Oh.” Said Johannes.
“That’s very interesting how you said that. You are a very fascinating person.”
“So are you,” Said Princess.“Even though you just used the word ‘very’ in two consecutive sentences.
“Sorry,” said Johannes.
“Stop saying sorry!” Princess said, stepping down and towards him until she stopped directly in front. “I command you! Stop saying ‘sorry!’ And my name is ‘Mabel.’ Call me Mabel.”
“Okay, sorry Princess,” Johannes mumbled.
“JOHANNES!” Princess Mabel thundered. I order you to stop apologising! And I have a question for you.”
One of Johannes’s fellow servants stepped forward and whispered something in his ear. Princess Mabel stepped toward them.
“What did you say?”
Johannes and the other servant looked at her, then at each other, then at her again.
“Umm, Gilke was telling me that we ought to all head back home now.”
“What do you mean, ‘all of us?’” Mabel asked.
“Well, I was supposed to come make you fall in love with King Elliott by bringing a bunch of gold, and then you’d come back and marry him, and possibly fall in love.”
“WHAT?!” she shrieked. “Why would I fall in love with him because you brought a bunch of gold?! I am not going back to try and fall in love with King Elliott. However…”
She said….
“However what?” Johannes asked.
“However, I am interested in you.”
she said.
“You are?” Faithful Johannes asked.
“Yes.”
She said firmly.
“I find you fascinating. I’m not in love with you, but I rather enjoy you and might even like you.”
“Thank you, your highness Mabel,” Johannes said. “I rather like you.”
“You know,” Mabel said, “I’ve always liked the name Johannes. I’ve known a few. There was, of course Johannes Merrywood a while back, but my two favourite Johanneses are definitely Johannes Gutenburg and Johannes - “
Johannes interrupted and they finished the sentence together: “- Sebastian Bach!”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I have long loved his lively and lilting concertos, and those Goldberg Variations are…”
“...sublime,” they sighed together.
“I was named after both of them,” he said. “My full name is Johannes Sebastian Salieri Ala Burg Van Smythe.”
“I love, oh how I love your name so dearly,” she said. “My step-parents didn’t educate me about them as a child so
I had to learn about them on my own. The only Johannes I knew about was from the horrible children’s tale my nursemaid Belle would tell every night.”
“Is that the one,” Johannes asked, “where there’s a guy named Johannes who helps a king kidnap this woman he thinks he’s in love with, and they have kids, and - “
She interrupts. “Yes, and then the king thinks he’s being disloyal or something but really he’s trying to save the king’s life and Johannes gets turned to stone and eventually the king is sorry but the only way he can bring Johannes back is by chopping these little children’s heads off and so he does, and -”
Johannes interrupts her. “And then everything magically works out where Johannes is turned human again and the kids miraculously get their heads back and the Queen that the King originally kidnapped is somehow okay about everything and everyone is happy?”
She nods vigorously. “Don’t you just grow so weary of fake happy endings?”
He nods.
“How about,” she says. “How about you and me go explore Australia?”
Gilke, the other servant steps forward with a loud throat-clearing. “Might I remind, you Johannes, that your duty is to your King, and also, your nickname is Faithful Johannes.”
Johannes cleared his throat. “Two things, my friend. Second, people always say my nickname is ‘Faithful Johannes.’ It’s not. It’s just my actual name with the word ‘Faithful’ in front of it. It’s not a nickname I ever asked for. And first, I liked Elliott’s dad, he was a good king, for being king and all. But my position is minimum wage and I am on duty seven days a week with no benefits my entire life, so my loyalty - and faithfulness - has come to an end.”
“Do you,”
Asked Princess Mabel, stepping forward, grabbing Johannes, and swooping him into her arms with a giant kiss,
“Promise to be faithful for the next three months and try super hard to like me as we explore Australia?”
“I do.” he said.
And he did.
The End.