Briar and Rose and Jack

by Katherine Coville

  Suddenly the air is split asunder by the loud, frantic clanging of a bell. The children and the bishop look up in alarm, as if the cause is written on the ceiling, and then there is the sound of running in the passageway outside, and a page thrusts his head in at the door and cries, “It’s the giant’s bell! He’s coming down from the mountain! Get to the shelter!”

  Bishop Simon forgets about Briar in an instant. In fact, he wastes no time on his pupils at all, but immediately begins gathering up the golden candlesticks and crucifix from the altar, along with every other loose valuable the chapel contains, while the class descends into chaos. Rose grabs Briar, and they rush away, along with the rest of the students. But while the others storm down the tower stairs toward the shelter of the cellars, Briar and Rose shrink back into a dark corner, first gasping at the timely reprieve and then stifling their laughter at the sudden opportunity. They have waited and planned for this moment, and they won’t be huddling in the cellars. They will see the giant for themselves this day or suffer the indignity of breaking a sacred spit promise.

  They wait until the rest of the class and Bishop Simon have all gone, and then they make their way down to the courtyard. Sprinting through the crowds of panicking people and livestock, they arrive at the foot of the bell tower and begin the long climb. The alarm bell sounds louder and louder to them as they labor up the two hundred steps toward the top, stopping several times to peer out the narrow windows to see what they can see and to give Rose a rest. When at last they reach the top, the sound is deafening. They cover their ears and nod to Jerold as he strains with his whole body to pull the thick bell rope. He tries to yell to them but cannot make himself heard, and Briar and Rose ignore him anyway.

  They rush to the side facing the mountain to look past the crenelations and get their first glimpse of the giant. Peering into the distance, at first they see only the vast forest and the blue, cloud-topped mountain. Then Briar spots a movement, still very far off, a human form the size of a tree, pushing everything out of his way and heading toward them. She points it out to Rose, and they watch, engrossed, as the faraway form of the giant progresses. Then they look down and watch the tiny figures scurrying about in the courtyard below.

  They can see the villagers streaming through the gates into the castle with their livestock, and Briar wonders whether Jack and his mother are in that melee. Coming from the farthest edge of town, they would probably be among the latecomers who would find no room left in the cellars. They would be forced to remain aboveground with the animals and the palace guard while the royals and nobles took shelter below. They might be safe enough within the castle walls, but no one really knows what the giant might be capable of doing.

  Finally, Jerold stops ringing the bell, though the sound still reverberates in his ears, making him deaf. “What do you two think you are about?” he yells. “You should be down in the shelters.”

  “But Jerold,” Rose responds, smiling her most appealing smile, blue eyes flashing, “we just came up to see how you were doing . . . and maybe see the giant too.”

  “Eh?” says Jerold. “See the giant? You’ll see him all right! He’s headed straight for us, he is, and you may wish you was down in the cellars right soon!”

  “But we’ll be safe up here, Jerold, won’t we?” Rose asks sweetly. “We’ll just peek over the edge and be very quiet and he won’t even know we are here. We’ve never seen the giant before!”

  “You two will be the death of me,” moans Jerold, sitting down on the stairs and holding his head in his hands. “I cannot leave you here! If anything happens to you, it’s my neck, sure enough!”

  “Poor Jerold,” Briar says, patting his back. “Just stay with us. We won’t let you get in trouble. We’ll tell everyone that you stayed here to guard us!”

  Jerold only groans, and the girls go back to the opposite side of the tower roof and look out for the giant. Only the motion of many branches is visible now as he pushes through a forest of tall trees on the far side of the carefully plowed fields. The girls’ attention is riveted, their eyes growing larger as the giant emerges from the forest and stomps across the fields, leaving deep footprints longer than the girls are tall. Soon he is approaching the castle wall, dragging a huge tree trunk behind him, each step making a resounding thump, like a drumbeat. He strides up to his ankles in the moat and stops. Though he is not as tall as the castle wall, he lifts the enormous tree trunk easily and holds it over his head as if he were about to knock the wall down. Rose and Briar quickly squat to hide behind the battlements, peering cautiously out through the crenels, both of them suddenly having second thoughts about this adventure.

  The giant makes an indelible impression on Briar and Rose, not only with his huge proportions—five times the size of a tall man—but with his immense air of power and privilege. He carries himself like a jaded old despot, lazy but lethal. Though his head is gray and balding and his belly bloated, he is trussed up in rich clothing and wears an expression of careless cruelty.

  “He’s so nasty!” Rose whispers.

  “Look, he’s sneering, see?” answers Briar. “His mouth is all crooked on one side like when the dogs snarl at one another.”

  “Perhaps we’d better go down after all?” Rose suggests, eyeing the opening to the stairway. But before there can be any discussion, the giant opens his mouth and roars, “Bring me treasure! Bring me your harvests and your cattle! And be quick about it, or I’ll smash this wall into rubble!” Rose and Briar experience a thrill of terror, yet they can’t look away. Rose wonders if her father will come out to parley with the giant. She sees a small contingent of robed figures ascending the stone stairway to the wall walk inside the battlements. They are too distant for her to make out their features, but she sees a flash of gold among them and thinks it is her father’s crown.

  It is indeed King Warrick, and he finds, as he is inexorably herded toward the giant by his bullying counselors, that the crown weighs heavily upon his head. Though he has been called upon to plead with the giant many times before, it still unnerves him to get close to someone whose grasping fingers can reach right up to the top of the castle wall. As the giant stands there with his tree trunk held overhead, even an accidental sneeze from such a titan could have terrible consequences. And it is unnerving to have to yell to be heard. What is the point? he wonders, despairing. The giant will do what he likes. Resistance would only make him angry. He will have his way in the end. The king lifts a hollow horn and yells through it for amplification. “Hello, friend Giant!” he calls out disingenuously. “We wait to serve you, as usual! Please give us a little time to gather our offerings . . .”

  Briar and Rose can barely hear the king’s speech, but they can make out enough of it to hear the desperation in his voice. Rose is shaken. She has always believed that there was no situation her father could not master with a few royal decrees. She wants to close her eyes but cannot tear them away from the spectacle. Briar sees the giant throw his purse over the wall on the end of one rope and a large empty sack on the end of another.

  “Fill them!” he thunders, and the girls look on as the king turns nervously to consult with his counselors, only to find that they have backed well away. It is all up to him now, so he lifts his horn again to give the order to bring forth the offerings for the giant, and the courtyard becomes a hive of activity as soldiers run to the treasury vault, the larder, and the storage cellars to collect the goods. Soon they return with overflowing carts and wheelbarrows, lining up to unload them into the giant’s bag. At least, the king congratulates himself, he has his own hoard of food and drink hidden deep below the castle, along with his own load of treasure. There is no danger that his nobles will ever go hungry, though the peasants grow sickly and thin. The king looks on as his men heap the fruits of the villagers’ labor into the giant’s big bag. For a moment, he spares a thought for his hungry subjects whose food is being stolen, then tells himself that there is nothing else he can do.

  Across the c
ourtyard, Jack and his mother also observe, shaking their heads sadly. They’d had no breakfast that morning, and their stomachs growl as they watch the food being shoveled into the giant’s bag.

  From the top of the bell tower, Briar and Rose can see a pair of soldiers struggling to carry a heavy chest across the courtyard and two more chests being carried behind them in the same manner. These are hauled to the edge of the giant’s purse and emptied into it in cascades of gold and silver. The giant’s cruel laughter rings out as he brings the tree trunk down on the castle wall, fracturing the stonework. “What goes on in there?” he growls. “Hurry! More! More!”

  At this King Warrick finally protests, calling out to him, “Please, Your Honor, sir, we barely have enough to live on now! Paltry as it is, sir, we’re giving you all our best! If we give you any more, we’ll perish of starvation!”

  “That’s none of my business, now is it?” the giant roars. “Bring me cattle! I want three head of cattle! See to it!” The king gives a signal, and a group of soldiers rushes to commandeer three prime specimens from among the cattle, which had been driven into the castle for protection. Amid the wails of protest from their owners, they are herded out through the gatehouse and around the castle to where the giant stands. Not nearly satisfied with this, the giant draws up the rope with his purse on it and peers inside.

  “Not much gold in there!” he growls. Then, looking at the king, he seems to have an inspiration. “That crown on your head is gold,” he says pointedly. “Pitch it in here!”

  King Warrick is appalled! How can he give up the symbol of his authority, the very crown that has been passed on from his own father and his father’s father before him? Would his people lose all respect for him? He desperately racks his brain to think of something—anything—that might switch the giant’s interest from the crown. There is one thing he can come up with. Though he has managed to save it from the giant so far, surely it is not too great a price to pay to hold on to his royal crown. He calls to a young soldier and tells him quietly what he wants, then turns to bargain with the giant. “Your Honor, sir, my puny little crown would do you no good. You couldn’t wear it. Please allow me to show you something else that will entertain and delight you for years to come! So exquisite and cunning! You’ll never guess!”

  “I don’t like guessing games!” the giant objects, but the desperate king keeps giving him tantalizing hints until the soldier arrives with a large bundle wrapped up in fine cloth. The king gently unwraps it, revealing a finely made harp with the head and arms of a woman.

  “Not the harp!” Rose cries. She has listened, rapt, to the harp’s lovely music many an evening of her young life, but her protest is borne away on the wind. Her father commands the harp to play, and so the hands pluck on the strings while the harp woman sings a hauntingly beautiful song. The giant is mesmerized, nodding his head to the rhythm of the music, and he waits until the end of the song to speak.

  “I will have it!” he declares without ceremony. The giant’s hand reaches up, and the harp screeches, “No! No! Master, save me!” Ignoring her cries, the giant grasps the harp with surprising delicacy and places it in his purse. Then, hauling up his bag of plunder, he announces to the king and all who listen, “Just remember, you and all your lazy peasants, this land and everything in it belongs to me. I allow you to live on it only as long as you make it worth my while!” With that, the giant picks up the tree trunk and slams it down on the wall with great force, ten feet from where the king is standing. Huge stones and rubble rain down into the courtyard, where several guards are injured and one lies very still. Then the giant attaches the purse to his belt, grabs the cows’ ropes with one hand, and slings the bag of plunder over his shoulder with the other. He turns and stalks away through the village. Over his shoulder he calls out, “I never said I wouldn’t knock the wall down, now did I?” and he sets off toward the cloud-topped mountain, laughing obscenely.

  Briar and Rose watch him go, trembling with relief. Rose’s legs will no longer support her, and she sits down abruptly, leaning her back against the battlements. Briar watches the giant’s retreat, not quite trusting that he won’t come back and wreak more havoc. She looks down into the courtyard, where the castle guard is already swarming to repair the breach in the wall, and she wonders where Jack and his mother are.

  Jerold begins to ring the all clear, and the girls collect themselves and make a hasty departure down the two hundred stairs. They reach the bottom and find that all is chaos within the crowded courtyard. People are calling out to find one another, and animals are bleating, honking, and barking in the confusion. The girls see this as a great opportunity to lose themselves, hiding from grownups who might compel them to join the women in the stuffy confines of the solar. Now all the villagers and their livestock are thronging out through the gatehouse and across the drawbridge, heading back to their homes, or what is left of them. Amid the noise and turmoil, Briar and Rose hold tightly to each other’s hand to keep from being separated.

  Suddenly they hear Lady Arabella’s voice behind them, full of assumed authority. “You’d better come with us, you two, before you get lost in the crowd!”

  Rose turns to face her. “Get lost in the crowd?” she repeats, looking around her with exaggerated fear and then at Briar. “Oh no! Lost? Whatever shall we do?”

  “Oh no! I feel myself getting lost!” Briar cries, her hands gripping her throat as she backs away from Lady Arabella and her cohorts, Elizabeth and Jane. Rose grabs her own throat, making choking noises, and follows Briar into the crowd.

  “How rude!” Jane remarks.

  “I’m telling!” Elizabeth calls after them.

  Rose and Briar spot several of the queen’s ladies in waiting trying to weave their way through the melee, but the girls dart behind a nearby cart before they can be seen. They make for the stables, intending to spend the afternoon in the more congenial company of the horses, when Briar spots Mother Mudge and Jack and calls out to them. Jack hears her call and looks for her face among the many others. Seeing the girls, he turns to his mother and pulls her sleeve to tell her something. A minute later Jack has caught up with Briar and Rose, and they motion for him to follow them. Keeping their heads down, they arrive at the stables unimpeded.

  The horse marshal is nowhere in sight, and the grooms, along with every other able-bodied servant, have been called away to work on repairing the breach in the castle wall. Rose leads the way past the stalls to a small tack room. Making sure no one is around to see them, they dart inside and make themselves comfortable sitting cross-legged on the floor. Away from the noise of the throng, Briar breathlessly asks Jack, “Did you see him? Did you see the giant?”

  “We did!” Rose says. “We watched the whole thing from the top of the bell tower!”

  “Aw, you did not,” counters Jack.

  “We did too!” Briar declares. “We saw him, clear as day! He could reach as high as the castle wall, and he was all dressed up in fine clothes, like a king! And his face looked totally evil, like the Prince of Darkness himself!”

  Jack, now convinced, is duly impressed, his eyes widening accordingly. “I couldn’t see nothing,” he laments. “I was minding the cows. We were the last to come in, so we were in back of the rest when the soldiers came around collecting cattle for the giant. Lucky for us, they passed right by! We’d likely starve without Lulu and Bess!”

  “Why don’t you buy some more cows?” Rose asks innocently.

  Jack just stares at her blankly, struggling for words. Briar elbows her companion, but Rose looks back at her in surprise. “What?” she says.

  “It’s just—” Briar begins. “It’s just—”

  “We be poor people, miss,” Jack says. “Not like you grand ladies.”

  “Why do you call us grand ladies?” Rose asks, jealously guarding the freedom her anonymity gives her.

  “Me ma said you were. I sure hope I didn’t give no offense to you the other day. I didn’t know—I thought we were all
just play-acting. I never looked to be above myself.”

  “Never mind all that,” says Briar. “Just call me Briar.”

  “Yes, Lady Briar.”

  “No, just Briar.”

  “All right. Just Lady Briar, and Princess Ro—”

  “Just call me Rose!” says Rose. “And don’t go telling everyone we’re grand ladies. It would spoil our fun.”

  “I’ll keep mum, then. You can trust me. Honesty’s about all I got, but you can’t buy a cow with that. My ma’s got to turn over half our silver pennies for the king to give to the giant, and we got none to spare. Nor does any of the folk I know of. They be hungry and barefoot, and some are sickly too.”

  “Well, that’s terrible!” Rose responds. “That giant is a murdering swine!”

  “He is! And a blackguard!” Jack agrees.

  “He’s a bloodsucking fiend!” Briar adds. “Someone ought to stop him! But what can we do?”

  “Nothing,” Rose says quietly. “Even my father can’t do anything. He can’t afford an army. He just gives the giant everything he wants.”

  “Well o’ course he does,” Jack points out. “The giant could smash the whole castle if he didn’t, and everyone in it.”

  “But it’s not right,” Briar says. “We shouldn’t give in. It’s not right to give in to a great big bully like that. It’s letting evil prevail. It’s not honorable.”

  “Even the bravest knights could not hope to defeat him!” Rose objects. “What can we possibly do?”

  The children look at one another, afraid to think about an answer to her question.

  Finally, Briar says, “We are not knights, but we are pure in heart, aren’t we? Hilde told me that sometimes the pure in heart can work miracles. I don’t know what to do either, but surely we must do something. For our kingdom, and for our honor. I mean us. The three of us.”

  Jack and Rose stare at Briar, their mouths open.