The Unresolved Duel
The Unresolved Duel of the Cobbler and the King
By Josie Mitchell
The kingdom is in disarray.
It has been for years, it is said. The citizens cannot send word of their own story, most of them dare not write, but visitors have told what they’ve seen. Pure disarray, the visitors say. It was a thriving kingdom in the old days, if the books are to be believed. Neatly and strictly run by a stern king, it was just as a kingdom should be. Well, besides the literacy rates being high. The king liked to write and required an audience that could read but, otherwise, he did everything right. The economy boomed; the people produced all they could, and their profits lined the palace walls with gold. Everyone did as they were told.
What happened, you may wonder? Well, it depends on who you ask. Some believe it was treason; the rest are treasonists themselves. There is, however, a common story that unifies every single citizen, whether they be monarchist or treasonist, and it is this: the king made a decree, and the cobbler disagreed.
In early May of the year 1618, the king of the kingdom made his three-hundredth decree. Criers cried from the roofs, pages handed out papers in the streets. From the mouth of every crying crier, from the ink on every page-delivered paper, every citizen absorbed the same words: The use of the letter C is now prohibited, from this day until forever. The letter K shall, in every example wherein it would be korrect to do so, be used instead. (The letter S may, when required, obviously be used as a replasement as well).
It was to honor the king, it was generally assumed. The K would remind the citizens of the king’s importance, his might, and perhaps his ability to make them do whatever he pleased. Even their right to the alphabet could be seized. The decree caused a frenzy, as it was bound to have done. The scribes went most of two years without seeing the sun, and the booksellers
bought ink to deface their own stock. New documents were issued from the palace at a reasonably hefty price. To celebrate his own genius, the king rewarded himself with a new crown, twice.
Before that day in 1618, the cobbler worked nearly nonstop in his shop. Despite the evidently booming economy, only the king could afford shoemaker-made shoes. For everyone else, the cobbler did what he could. He cobbled the shoes worn on every citizen’s feet, protecting them from the grimy ground and hard cobbled streets. The sign that hung, and still hangs, above the cobbler’s shop door is double-sided and painted by hand. One side is a malformed depiction of a shoe and the other, in big white letters visible from afar, reads C-O-B-B-L-E-R. What else would it say? Well the king had, and still has to this day, another idea. It’s why the kingdom’s in disarray.
The cobbler and his family were eating supper, consisting of bread and more bread because they were poor, when they heard a knock on the front and only door. The cobbler saw that the king’s messengers had finally arrived, just as he’d known they would. He stood and opened the door, not letting them in.
“Your sign goes against the regulations outlined in the king’s three-hundredth decree,” the messengers proclaimed. “By order of the king, you will have to have it replaced.” Then came the cobbler’s famous declaration: “No,” he said.
“But you have to replace it,” the messengers said again.
“I have eight children; I can’t afford new paint.”
“As clearly stated in the the king’s three-”
The cobbler bid them good day and shut the door in their faces.
Upon hearing what his messengers had to say, the king was exceptionally angry, as kings tend to be. To console himself, he imagined a multitude of morbid murder methods for the cobbler and, for good measure, reduced all of the servants' wages.
Whispers of the cobbler’s defiance trickled throughout the kingdom. The king had never been so humiliated in his life, as far as he knew. He would do whatever he had to do to quell the horrid rebellion against his authority. The first step, he was sure, was to punish the treasonous cobbler, and he would do so without pity. He went to the commander who commanded his army.
“I will not tolerate this behavior; the people cannot disagree with my decrees. You must use any force necessary to capture and kill the cobbler before he continues to defy me,” demanded the king.
The commander’s mood was already sour. Three days before the king banned the use of the letter C, the commander’s wife had given birth to a new baby daughter. They’d named her Carlotta Camille, after the commander’s great-grandmother. At three days old, Carlotta Camille’s birth certificate, required by law under the king’s forty-fifth decree, had become invalid, and the commander had gone into debt ordering another. So, by the time the king arrived requesting a murder, the commander was already not the monarchy’s biggest supporter.
“Kill the cobbler?” The barracks rattled with the commander’s laughter. He was becoming less obedient by the hour.
“Kill the cobbler!” the king insisted.
“I won’t,” replied the commander.
The king fired him on the spot, and the ex-commander happily left to spend time with his tiny daughter.
“The cobbler has to die!” the king yelled at his commanderless army.
As is the case with most armies of the world, the soldiers were not, in reality, loyal to the king, or even the kingdom itself. The soldiers cared far more about their families and each other, and, most of all, they were devoted to their recently fired commander.
The soldiers whispered together before giving the king their consensus: “Kill him yourself,” they said.
Then they all went home, high on freedom and spite. The army disbanded and has never since been restored. There has, to the citizens’ delight, been far less war.
The king was furious with his soldiers, but they’d given him an idea. To prove his authority and to demonstrate his might, he had to be the one to end the cobbler’s life. Treason was an unforgivable crime, and the cobbler had to be made into an example. He had to; it was time.
In his shop that doubled as his home, the cobbler was cobbling shoes while his wife cooked a measly amount of gruel. The king didn’t knock; he went straight in through their door.
“You haven’t replaced your sign,” the king accused.
The cobbler stood. “I haven’t, and I won’t.”
“Then I have no choice, cobbler. I’ll have to kill you.”
“You can try,” replied the cobbler. “I challenge you to a duel.”
The king had no choice but to accept, of course. He could try to murder the cobbler right then and there, in his home, but the king’s image was already dangerously poor. Besides, the cobbler had a wife and eight children, and a fight between one person and ten just wouldn’t be fair. A duel would make the king seem reasonable and brave, like the distinguished, respected kings of yore. It was just what he needed to get the kingdom back under his control.
The next morning, the cobbler’s children cried as he prepared for the duel. “Don’t go, please don’t!” all eight of them wailed.
The cobbler kissed them each on the head, gave his wife a similar goodbye, and left for the field. The king had insisted on swords rather than guns but, given that the cobbler had none of either, he took a woodcutting axe and a few sharp cobbling tools to wield.
The king had no one to cry for him as he left the palace, though there were many citizens in the kingdom who wouldn’t wish for him to die. He dressed with the help of an unenthusiastic servant, polished his most ornate sword to a shine, and left without eating because the breakfast cook was on strike. As he rode in his carriage, he tried to not think of the rampant disloyalty or his possible demise. He was the king; everything was going to be fine.
The king and the cobbler met at the designated dueling field at a quarter past nine. By the laws of dueling, they were both meant to bow. They were both too proud. “I don’t bow to peasants,” said the king.
“I don’t bow to tyrants,” responded the cobbler.
The king’s sword was heavier than he’d expected when he swung to attack, making him slow, and the cobbler had plenty of time to jump back. The cobbler, who hadn’t chopped wood since his first child turned ten, attacked with equally lacking skill. They charged at each other again and again, but neither drew blood, though both aimed to kill, because neither could fight. The king was too weak, as kings are bound to be, and the poor cobbler had never been shown how.
“All this can end,” the king promised, “if you simply follow my decrees.” “Your decrees are ridiculous!” argued the cobbler. “We have a right to use C’s.”
The king whacked the cobbler with the flat side of his sword which, with a distinct lack of power, hardly succeeded in bruising the cobbler’s arm. The cobbler’s retaliations brought the king similar amounts of harm. The duel continued into the night, and the citizens gathered slowly to watch the fight. Their interest was rather short-lived, however, when it became evident that no one could win. The king and the cobbler were both too stubborn to give into the demands of the other. Day after day, night after night, the duel between the cobbler and the king continued without progress. It dragged on so long that they are still fighting to this day. It’s why the kingdom’s in disarray, all the visitors say.
With the king and the cobbler too preoccupied to attend to their professions, the kingdom has seen many major transformations. Though their gold is no longer stolen for the king’s personal use, the people in the kingdom still cannot afford shoe-maker-made shoes. The people all go barefoot now and generally don’t mind, but there are yearly cases of frostbite when the weather turns cold. Since the king has been distracted, the citizens have also become far more lawless. The adults work fewer hours and the children play in the palace gardens, picking the king’s flowers and climbing the king’s towers. The kingdom is not at all what a proper kingdom should be, though several of the citizens have quietly admitted to feeling more at peace.
The citizens are still divided on the usage of C’s. A few passionate people on either side have tried exclusively writing with or without, to show their dedication, but most are too afraid of retaliation. Anyone caught using C’s is still considered a treasonist by half the population, and many of the passionate people call for treasonists to be hanged. On the other hand, anyone who exclusively uses K’s is undoubtedly a monarchist, and the other half of the population calls for monarchists to be drowned. Writing really is not all that necessary, most of the citizens have found.
Even the cobbler’s wife walks without shoes on her feet. To make up for her husband’s lost income, she now sells cobblers and other similar treats. It was the only thing she could think of selling, since she couldn’t afford new paint to change the sign. When asked by visitors for her opinion on the duel situation, the cobbler’s wife says the same thing.
“People say the kingdom is in disarray,” she says, “but I think our problems before were greater. The issue was not the letters we chose to write with or the cobbler, perhaps, being a traitor. The issue was the king. So, though I miss my husband, I believe what he’s doing is right. The king was an awful dictator, and I cannot wait until he dies.”
Her baked goods are displayed in the cobbler’s shop window, behind a little label that always, despite the fact that some flavors are seasonally unavailable, reads: For Sale: Blueberry Cobblers, Coffee Cakes, Coconut Tarts, and Cherry Pies
