The Golden Children

The waves broke and scattered before the stony shore. The sea rose up in the distance shining green and white before pouring forward. The castle looked down on the sea in the morning light. It’s towers and spires spread right along the coast. A few flags fluttered in the early morning breeze and smoke rose from one or two chimneys. A soldier stood on the battlements looking out across the bay. He was the first to see them.

Seaweed twisted in a green mass beside the rocks. The sun shone on the slippery rocks where tiny crabs crawled out of rock pools. Here and there a sea gull landed on the craggy rocks hoping to find something tasty to eat. The sea gulls were very white against the green seaweed covered rocks. Then something appeared that had a different and distinct colour. They stepped one by one onto the shore as the sun shone and the gulls flew overhead. They glistened with an incredible golden hue. When the sun shone directly onto their surfaces it looked as if a fire was burning there in the open air.

A fisherman bobbing on the waves saw them and thought he must be looking at treasure of something. A soldier in the high tower observed them from a distance and thought a series of bonfires had been lit on the shore. The gulls watched them with fascination. Only the crabs ignored them and went about their business as usual.

The soldiers came running from the castle gate across the hills and the sand dunes. They brought their swords and axes as if ready for a fight. Was this an invasion of golden armoured pirates? The soldiers ran and ran until they were close by. Then they stopped and stared in disbelief.

The group of figures on the beach glowed in a golden, shimmering light. They were motionless standing at the edge of the splashing waves. The soldiers approached cautiously swords at their sides.

They stared and stared as the waves broke and the sea birds screeched overhead.

 Then they ran back to the castle. Within an hour the Queen’s own First Minister came to the beach. He wore long dark robes and held a silver stick. Next to him came the Cardinal with his servants dressed in white and a Captain of the Guard in silvery armour. They all stared at the group standing on the shore unmoving.

“Are they children?” asked the Cardinal in a hushed voice.

“Yes “replied the Captain after a long silence.

“Golden Children” whispered the Queen’s First Minister.

“What should we do with them “asked the Captain.

“Shall I arrest them?”

“What crime have they committed?” said the First Minister.

Neither the Captain or the Cardinal nor even the First Minister could take their eyes from the figures.

They glowed in such a perfect golden light. They were children dressed in simple clothes standing in the sea. They seemed like statues standing there unmoving. They shone with a full, vivid glare of light. Their eyes stared straight ahead and their arms were pressed to their sides. In all there were six children standing beside the sea.  As the day grew older more and more people came to stare at the wonder. Peasants and Courtiers alike came to see the ‘Golden Children ‘.

‘What could have brought them here?’ asked a nurse to her friend.

‘How do they shine so beautifully?’ asked a boy to his Mother.

‘Are they real or made of gold?’ asked a market trader to his brother.

It was this last consideration that brought the Queen’s Treasurer to the beach.

‘We must take them back to the castle he decided ‘they could be very valuable indeed’.

So with great efforts the six golden children were placed on a cart and slowly taken back to the castle. They were heavy and it was hard work. The shadows of twilight crowded around the assembly of soldiers who helped push the cart toward the castle.

The Queen who was a very elderly lady who rarely left her bed told her First Minister to bring the treasure to her own chamber. She wanted to claim the golden figures as her own.

At last with torches burning in the night air the soldiers brought the golden children into the castle’s main square. The wind began to blow around the old castle when the gate was finally closed. The sea began to rise up in bigger and bigger waves all along the coast. The sky darkened and crackled with lightning and a heavy rain drenched the beach. Everyone escaped the rain and ran for cover.

The soldiers ran to the towers, the Cardinal moved quickly in his ornate garments to the chapel and the First Minister scurried back to the Royal Chambers. The golden children stood in the centre of the castle square as the rain poured down. Great waves smashed onto the beach that night and the wind howled.

Sea birds flew for cover on the faraway cliffs and the rocks faced wave after wave of pounding, frenzied water.

The Old Queen lay in her bed listening to the storm get worse and worse. She was frightened of the lightning and pulled the sheets up over her head. Her thin bony hands trembled under the sheets.

In the morning the storm had blown itself out. Gulls returned to the shore line screeching and calling and once again the crabs scuttled about on the rocks. When the first people returned to the court yard to see what had happened to the golden children they were in for a shock. There was no sign of them whatsoever! Soldiers and peasants, traders and nurses all ran through the corridors of the castle searching for the children. They were nowhere to be found! Rumours and gossip spread everywhere that the First Minister had taken the treasure for himself. Others said that the Cardinal had taken the figures to decorate his Chapel. Others whispered that the Captain had melted the figures to build more cannons on the castle defences.

 The sun rose and gleamed down on the castle. The First Minister nervously went to the Queen to give her the astonishing news. The Cardinal stayed inside the Chapel praying for some answer to be found to the mystery. The Captain ordered search parties to set out immediately to scour the coast.

The Queen sat up in bed and coughed. She shook her old head and said in a weary voice,

“You must take the blame for this loss Minister.”

He bowed his head and stepped back slowly out of the room.

The new First Minister was hurriedly sworn in and addressed a crowd outside the Royal Chambers.

“I assure you that we will find these golden treasures and in so doing we will add to the wealth of our great kingdom “This was generally well received and a great popular surge of support rose for the New First Minister.

The soldiers searched in the sand dunes and beyond in the woods that spread across the hills. They even sent a fishing boat along the coast to see if the golden children had washed out to sea. They searched the forests and the cliffs and yet found nothing. They were on the verge of giving up when one young soldier suggested trying the caves far beyond the beach. As a boy he had played there and he surmised that if they were children the golden group might want to play here too.

Twilight had filtered down from the sky as the two soldiers approached the old caves. They walked carefully up the sandy dunes that led to the open mouth of the cave face.

As the soldiers stepped into the shadows they thought they could hear distant laughing. At first they weren’t sure. Were they imagining the sounds? As they slowly moved deeper into the cave they could hear the laughter more and more clearly. The sound of children laughing filled their ears!

They searched the ancient caves holding a small torch of fire to light the way. The shadows danced around them on the craggy walls of the caves. As they searched every part of the huge caverns the flame lit up the stones and rocks. Still the sound of laughter came and went. The younger soldier stopped to rest for a second and as he did so he felt a hand brush his face gently. He jumped back and looked around. There was no one in sight. Again the hand touched his face. Before he could react a sudden burst of golden light was directed at him. It broke out of the dark without warning blinding him for a second. He stumbled and dropped the torch. A child’s voice called out to him.

“Come and play again as you did as children”

The soldier span around in the cave and fell to the rocky ground. For a split second he thought he saw his own face stare back at him out of the dark. The face seemed to be the face of a child but somehow it was his own face too. It glowed with a vivid golden light that shone throughout the cave.

 He turned and ran out of the cave toward the beach. His comrade turned too at the sight of him running and sped out behind him. They ran for the castle and still the laughter seemed to follow them on the air.

When they got back to the castle the Captain of the Guard was furious. He shouted and shouted for the whole guard to assemble in the court yard. He told that they had to revert to shock tactics to scare the strange figures in submission. He called on the guard to build a fighting machine to confront the strangers. Immediately soldiers ran in every direction to fetch planks of wood and nails and rope. The work began at once with banging and shouting echoing all around the castle. Shields were pulled up by ropes and mounted on planks; wheels were attached to barrels that were nailed into place. After a day of crashing and banging an odd looking device stood in the courtyard. It looked like something between a siege tower on wheels and a cart covered in shields and ropes.

The wind rocked it gently as it stood ready for inspection. The Captain looked it up and down.

Then the Captain proclaimed grandly ‘Place the flag on the top!’

The soldiers were a little confused.

‘Which bit is the top? ‘One soldier whispered to his friend.

They dragged the weapon out onto the beach. With a whine and a lurch it headed across the beach. The flag fluttered at the head of the wooden tower and as the wheels rolled they clanked against the line of shields. Soldiers marched behind the weapon toward the caves. The weapon creaked and groaned as it crossed the sand and neared the caves. It rolled forward and gulls began to fly around it. As it got to the cave it shuddered .A huge tremor ran through the ground. A sparkling dust started to leave the mouth of the cave. It glistened and glittered in the air. A sparkling mist began to surround the weapon. The nails creaked in their sockets. The wood groaned and the wheels seem to buckle. In a moment the huge structure wobbled and trembled and then slowly fell back toward the sea. The mist rose up into the air shining and gleaming like a golden fog. In a second the weapon had crashed into the waves. It broke into countless pieces and drifted out to sea.

The New First Minister felt anxious about the failure of the search parties. He paced in his office back and forth under the portrait of The Queen. From time to time he threw a nervous glance at the portrait and winced. Outside in the courtyard a group of peasants were debating whether or not the golden children had been the descendants of Lords or workers like themselves. These debates were continuing amongst the poor all over the castle and the First Minister did not like the tone of them at all. A newspaper had been circulated with an artist’s impression of the ‘Golden Children’. The illustrator had curiously had added wings and haloes to their appearance. This had incensed the Cardinal who found the drawing faintly blasphemous. The Queen had been taken ill again and this meant that no further action could really be taken for the time being.

‘What action can we possibly take anyway’ thought the First Minister.

The clock chimed in his office and with a puzzled expression he looked at the hands of the timepiece. As he looked the hands of the clock began to turn slowly backwards. The First Minister frowned and watched as the hands of the clock began to accelerate spinning backwards.

The Cardinal was deep in prayer. He was troubled by the memory of the golden children. He closed his eyes and began to chant the sacred words of his faith. As he did so the words suddenly slipped away from him. He tried again. Carefully he spoke in a whisper the words of prayer. He stopped and touched his lips. What was he saying? He frowned. As he tried to pray the words had changed. Everyone time that he prayed new words came from his lips. He shook his head. One last time he chanted and as he did so a little boy was listening at the back of the chapel. He was hiding here because it was warmer than his home. The boy smiled as he listened to the Cardinal.

‘These were such beautiful words’ thought the boy.

The Cardinal could no longer control the words in his prayer. As he chanted his voice came to fill the Chapel:

‘We must all live in justice and peace, we must celebrate the wealth that is shared, the peasants are the closest to God and we must make this castle a haven for the needy.’

The Queen lay deep in sleep. Her mind moved to and from many memories of days past. She thought of the castle as it had been when she was a girl, the old sea lapping at the nearby beach. She remembered the silver rings and emerald necklaces that she had adored when she was a young woman. She dreamt of the moon high above the castle shining in a pale, crystal light. Then as she looked up at the moon of her dreams it began to change colour slowly. In her dream she watched the old moon fade from white to amber and then slowly, slowly to gold. A gold moon! Who had heard of such a thing! The old Queen’s dreams blurred and drifted as the gold moon shone. She saw a horse running along the beach splashing the edges of the morning waves. Yet this horse shone gold, bright as a flame. The horse ran and ran toward the distant horizon. The morning seemed to light up with the radiance of the gold colour. The Queen twitched and snored. She rolled to one side to stop the dream but she could not. As she watched in her dream the gold horse ran further and further until it reached the horizon. It ran and ran until there was no more room in the world for it to cross so it jumped up into the sky and ran there. The gold horse ran along the white clouds and crossed the sky. As the horse ran the old castle became young again and the turrets and battlements shone with a pure beauty. The laws of the castle changed to in the gold light. The laws were just and peaceful and the greed of the present day was forgotten.

The peasant children in the castle slept in cold rooms. These children were usually hungry and tired and sleep was hard for them. One child called Lisa could not sleep and walked out onto one of the corridors of the huge castle. As she walked the empty corridors she thought she saw a figure fleetingly pass by in another staircase. She followed the figure and suddenly she heard a crying sound. It must be one of the youngsters she thought. She looked and looked for the crying child. She was about to give up when a strange light shone along the stairs. She approached the light and heard a child cry. A gold voice spoke to her.

“Return to your room there is food and comfort for you there”.

The voice stunned her with its beauty. She hesitated and then ran back to her family’s room. When she opened the door the room was unrecognisable. A fire burnt brightly in the fireplace where before an empty pile of black ashes stood. Blankets covered each and every child and adult. On the rickety wooden table a huge breakfast was laid out under a misty gold glow. Lisa grinned from ear to ear and let out a yelp of pleasure and surprise.

The castle woke to a series of shocked and pleased cries. Many of the poorest peasants had woken to find new clothes and victuals waiting for them beside their beds. The Queen herself woke and for the first time in living memory got out of bed and prepared herself in the chamber’s mirror. She looked bright and alert in a way she had not been for ages and ages. She decided to find a new minister from amongst the poor and deprived. She wanted to hear songs and see colour in the old castle. She wanted to see horses run on the beach. She wanted to see the sky bright with hope for all those who lived in the castle.

The caves were silent except for the lap of the sea’s early waves. From the shadows of the cave came a golden figure. She stood looking across the sea. She watched the gulls flying and the waves breaking. She glanced across at the castle. She remembered so many things, so many days and so many names. Her friends came too now and all six children stood together. They shone gold in the morning light. They linked hands and formed in to a circle there on the beach. One by one they began to dance slowly around and around. As they danced and sang sweetly the waves crashed and fell in white and emerald surges. The sky stretched away in pale beauty above the hills and forests. The world was shining. The children shone like dreams. They were children of the waves, children of peace.

Story By Chris Bird