Clubhouse Magazine

Stefan sprinted, cradling four eggs in his tattered tunic. The farmer gave chase, red-faced and bellowing. The boy darted into a thicket of pines as the man stumbled after him. Stefan skirted a mossy boulder.

Stefan was small and knew these woods well. His pursuer did not. Yet the farmer sloshed through the mud behind him.

The man lunged. Stefan’s foot caught in a vine, and the eggs smashed onto the path. The boy scooped yolks and dirt into his mouth and rolled away as the farmer crashed into the brush. Stefan left him sitting in the briars, roaring curses.

But Stefan was still hungry. Everything pinched. The cold air pinched his cheeks; the rags he’d tied round his feet pinched his toes. His stomach pinched most of all. His was the emptiest stomach in all Bohemia — he was sure of it.

He had only vague memories of Mother and Father: someone spooning soup into his mouth, a pair of burly arms wrapped around him. By the scars on his own face, he thought perhaps a pox had settled on his family and taken them away.

Stefan shook off such sentimental thoughts. He was clever and spry; he needed no one. He sank onto a log and breathed on his chapped fingers. He dared not sleep here unprotected against wolves. A stolen spot in a barn was safer, but he could not move another step.

And then — a smell! Something dizzyingly delicious. It drew him to his feet, and he staggered down the path. In a clearing two men sat by a fire. Rich men, judging by their fine horses. A fat hare was roasting.

To take food from the rich was fitting. They had what they needed and more to spare. Stefan’s mouth watered. He picked up a forked stick and threw a handful of stones to distract the men. Then, with a surge of new strength, he rushed into their camp, skewered the rabbit and scampered into the trees. He zigzagged through ferns and stinging nettles and, jubilant, dropped beneath an oak with his prize.

In a flash the meat was swept from his lap. One of the men leered above him, holding the food aloft at the point of a sword. Stefan flung himself at the man, jumping and scrabbling. But the meat was out of reach. The man lifted Stefan by his tunic.

“You’d do well to submit to your betters,” he snarled. “Do you know whose food you are stealing?” He gave Stefan a shake. “I am Boleslav, Prince of Bohemia!”

“Hold, Brother!” The other man alighted from his horse. For the first time, Stefan saw the golden breastplate that covered his chest. These were not just rich men he had stolen from. He had stolen from Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia! Now he was in the grip of the duke’s younger brother.

Stefan’s belly filled with cold dread. His hunger had made him too bold. Surely stealing from the duke would bring a punishment more terrible than he could imagine.

With a shout, he wrenched away from Prince Boleslav. He tried to run, but his legs were heavy. The forest swirled; Stefan crumpled to the ground.

He woke to water splashing into his mouth from a flask. He sat up, choking. The prince didn’t have him now; he was lying in the lap of Duke Wenceslas!

Stefan wanted to resist, but all the struggle had gone out of him. He feebly turned his head and saw he was back in the men’s camp. Prince Boleslav tossed a stone into the fire.

“Our journey is long, Brother,” he said. “Perhaps we should not waste time on this creature.”

Duke Wenceslas held the flask to Stefan’s lips once more. “He is only a child, Brother. In serving him, I serve the child king.”

Stefan tightened. What could they mean? Were they taking him to another kingdom to be imprisoned? A kingdom with special punishment for child thieves?

The nobleman touched Stefan’s cheek. He had a bit of meat between his fingers. “Try to eat slowly,” he said.

But Stefan gobbled, too hungry to marvel. If he was going to the dungeons, he would arrive with a full belly.

He looked more closely at the duke’s breastplate. Its jewels framed a picture of a mother holding a baby. A golden crown rested upon the baby’s head. Stefan touched the small face with his fingertip.

Stefan snatched back his hand. He must think about gathering the strength to run, not about golden baby kings.

Wenceslas smiled. “This was a gift from my grandmother, the Duchess Ludmila. Here is the story she told me about it.”

“There is a King,” the duke began, “who reigns over every castle and every forest. He holds nobles and nations in His great hand. He is the High King of heaven.”

Duke Wenceslas went on. “Now the High King of Heaven came down into the world.”

Wenceslas ignored his brother and fed Stefan another bit of meat. “The King came down,” he went on, “to show His love for His servants.”

“Oh yes,” Boleslav scoffed, “and He rode a fine horse and wore His jeweled crown!”

“The High King of Heaven became a peasant boy?” Stefan sank back. The story was meant as a joke, then.

But the duke was not laughing. “A peasant boy, a pauper, a wanderer with no pillow for His head. That is what the King became,” he said quietly. He looked at Stefan with his face full of tenderness.

Stefan felt warm and sleepy. There was something familiar about being cradled this way. It caused a stirring in him, a longing he had not allowed himself. For just a moment, he remembered his father, fresh from the fields, tucking him into bed.

Wenceslas stood. He gently laid Stefan across the back of his horse. “You are quick and clever,” the duke said. “Will you come and serve me as my page?”

“Oh, sir!” Stefan felt something break inside him. He turned his face away so the duke would not see his tears.

Prince Boleslav kicked dirt into the fire. “A child born in a stable?” he laughed. “It is a very weak king you serve, Wenceslas.”

“The power of love is stronger than the mightiest sword, Brother,” he said. “I pray you may one day learn that.”

Stefan stepped in the duke’s footprints as he followed him through the woods. It was the second day of Christmas, and his weeks at the castle had filled him with good things. The sun had not yet risen, and moonlight lay on the snow like a beacon.

He stopped and knocked on the door of a farmhouse. The farmer peered out in surprise. His cheeks were so hollow — as hollow as Stefan’s had once been. The farmer looked down at Stefan, but did not recognize him. Nervously Stefan held out the basket: meat, cheese, bread and drink.

“Happy Christmas,” said the duke’s page, his joy spilling into the open doorway. “We come in the name of Jesus, the child king.”

“Good King Wenceslas,” sung about in the famous Christmas carol, was not really a king but a duke. Born around the year 907 in what is now the Czech Republic, Wenceslas attended a Christian school at the insistence of his grandmother, Ludmila. Wenceslas grew up to rule Bohemia in the name of Christ. He helped people in need and especially cared for children. He even bought some children out of slavery.

Not everyone in Bohemia was happy about the duke’s faith. Wenceslas’s own mother tried to stamp out Christians. In 935, Wenceslas’s angry brother Boleslav, along with a group of nobles, killed Wenceslas on the church steps.

“Good King Wenceslas” was written in 1853 by a clergyman named John Mason Neale. The story in the song is made up, but it reminds us of the real person: Wenceslas, whose love for others is still commemorated more than 1,000 years later.

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