Briar and Rose and Jack

by Katherine Coville

  Jack can see that the giant is still busy chopping wood, and it’s obvious from the curses he’s muttering that he is in quite a bad temper. Jack knows he’s been lucky so far, and that his luck may run out. Part of him wants to turn and run while he still can, but another part wants to wait and observe whether the woman will come to the door. It is while he’s deciding that the giant suddenly roars, “Ugh! What is that stench?”

  Jack sinks down and freezes, suddenly afraid that the wind may have changed. He raises his head just enough to reconnoiter and then begins to crawl back toward the mountaintop on hands and knees. This is difficult in the soft surface of the cloud, but at least he can count on the mist to obscure him. Far behind him he hears the giant again, yelling, “Skunk! That’s what it is! Phew! How did it get up here?”

  Terrified, Jack realizes that he is trembling. He gets to his feet and, back bent over, breaks into a kind of ungainly run, his feet sinking slightly at each step. He proceeds this way as fast as he is able, listening for sounds of pursuit. Finally, he hears the giant exclaim, “It’s out there somewhere! I’ll take care of the stinking thing!”

  Jack dares not lift his head to see where the giant is, but he hears strange, squishy thuds that he thinks must be the giant’s footsteps, and then a louder WHAM-splat, with the giant shouting, “There! Take that!” This happens again and again: thud thud thud thud . . . WHAM-splat!

  “Where are you, you blasted rat?” the giant bellows. Thud thud thud . . . WHAM-splat!

  Jack knows that the next blow of the ax could be the end of him. Silently he repeats the only prayer he knows: Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat— Then he realizes that he may be the food that’s eaten, and he chokes. He hears the giant coming closer—but then getting farther away. Then closer, then farther away again, as if he is just wandering randomly. Jack feels a flicker of hope. Maybe he’s still downwind after all.

  As he hears the giant get farther away again, Jack lifts his head for a few seconds to take his bearings, then quickly resumes his awkward, bent-over run. This goes on for what seems like an eternity, with his muscles screaming their objection and the thudding and whamming and bellowing always behind him. He tries to remember how long he traveled to get to the giant’s house from the mountain, and then he faintly hears a woman’s voice call out, “Master, your supper’s ready! It’s getting cold!”

  Jack risks putting his head up once more to see if he can observe the female, and there is, indeed, a figure standing at the door, though he is far away now and can barely make her out. She looks to be a giant too, but much shorter than the giant.

  “Bah!” growls the giant. “Can’t find the putrid thing anyway!” His rampage is over as suddenly as it began. Jack watches, disbelieving, as the giant stomps back to his house, dragging his ax behind him.

  Still shaking, Jack turns to the west and scans the mountaintop for the rock formation he memorized when he first arrived. Spotting it, he heads straight for it with hope in his heart. After what seems like an eternity, the mist rises higher and higher over his head, and once again he becomes lost in the cloud, with no sense of direction.

  Finally, he calls out for Baxter and hears the horse’s faint whinny somewhere ahead. Repeating this periodically, he follows the sound until the mist begins to disperse somewhat and he can make out a path and feel solid earth under his feet. And there, away down the path, he can dimly see Baxter. Nothing has ever looked so good to him. With a final burst of strength, he runs the rest of the way and gives the surprised horse a hug.

  * * *

  Briar is at the top of the watchtower, keeping a lookout for Jack. She breathes in the cool, crisp air. The landscape spreads out before her: the long, thin strips of fields, empty now after the harvest; the forests saturated in orange, red, green, and gold; the stream winding its way through the woods. She looks up at the clouds surrounding the mountaintop and wonders once again what lies above them and whether Jack is safe, wherever he is. She turns to Jerold, the lone soldier stationed at the top of the tower, and asks, “Do you see anything out there?”

  Jerold, who has the sharpest eyes in the kingdom, peers out at the countryside for several minutes; then, pointing toward the farthest field, he says, “Look over there! Something’s moving just a bit, maybe a person, maybe a horse—can’t tell at this distance. It’s heading toward the castle—still a long way off.”

  “Oh, Jerold!” Briar cries. “I love you!” And she kisses him on the cheek, then rushes off down the two hundred stairs. In no time at all she is across the courtyard and into the gatehouse, while Jerold is still rubbing his cheek and laughing.

  As Briar runs past Durwin, he calls out to her with a smile, “Where are you off to in such a hurry, my fine lady?”

  “To meet a friend!” she replies, barely slowing. While she rushes through the town, several children silently drop what they are doing and follow, picking up others as they go, until half the children in the village are quietly hurrying toward the farthest field. The adults look after them, mystified. Ignoring the stitch in her side, Briar pumps her legs, making her way steadily onward until she arrives at the edge of the far field, where she meets up with Dudley and Jarrett, the two boys whose turn it is to keep watch.

  “I think he’s coming!” she gasps. “I saw something from the tower.”

  The other village children soon catch up, and they all wait, straining to see in the direction of the mountain, passing the time until at last they spy someone on a horse coming around a bend in the road. They all run to meet him. Jack, not knowing what to make of this, slides down from the horse’s back and waits for them. Only as they approach him do the children smell the awful skunk scent. They all come to a sudden halt, some of them actually backing away but still calling out his name. “Jack! You’ve come back!” and at the same time, “Jack, what is that terrible smell?”

  Jack, suddenly realizing that this is a welcoming party, grins widely. He apologizes for the foul odor. Turning toward the nearby stream, he asks if someone could bring him some lye soap, an item that nobody thought to provide for his return trip, and some clean clothes. Briar goes at once to Mother Mudge to deliver the news that Jack is back and to pass on his requests. Half an hour later, he has bathed, delivered his report to Briar and the village Giant Killers, and returned to his mother’s open arms.

  “Jack, Jack!” she cries. “Don’t ever scare me like that again!” But Jack can’t make such a promise.

  Briar finds Lord Henry and advises him that his horse is back, safe and sound, and Henry goes to the edge of the far field to retrieve him, making himself a hero with the horse marshal. Indeed, his whole circle of friends is so impressed by his supposed deed of horsemanship and skill in finding the lost horse, he quite begins to think of himself as a kind of hero and almost forgets that Baxter was never really lost.

  * * *

  Later on, when the castle members of the Giant Killers’ club convene in the tack room, Jack, who still has a bit of skunk odor about him, recounts his story to Rose, Lord Henry, Lady Arabella, Elizabeth, and Jane.

  “I’m afraid there’s no way into the giant’s house,” he says dolefully, “and it’s quite a long run from the house back west to the mountaintop. It was just luck that kept me downwind of the giant. If he had had my scent, I’d never have been able to outrun him! I’m afraid it would be impossible to get at him in his house. Not and live to tell about it. Not without help. We’ll have to think of something else.”

  “It’s too bad I couldn’t have gone,” Lord Henry repines. “I’m sure I could have found something.” Then, seeing the looks of censure on his fellow Giant Killers’ faces, he adds, “But I suppose you did the best you could.”

  “Yes,” Jack answers quietly, “I did.”

  “Of course, you couldn’t have done it without my horse.”

  “Baxter’s a fine horse. I was most grateful for him.”

  Henry, having established his superiority—at least in h
is own mind—favors them all with his mature opinion. “This whole thing gets more ridiculous by the day!”

  Briar challenges him. “Ridiculous to get rid of the giant?”

  “Ridiculous to think we can do it ourselves!” says Henry. “It would take an army—a big one—to bring him down, and maybe even they couldn’t do it.”

  “If that’s what you believe, then you’ve broken the oath of the Giant Killers and besmirched our code of honor.”

  “Oh, grow up! We’ve been meeting like this for years, and what have we accomplished? It’s just a lot of daydreams.”

  “We’ve only just started,” Briar says. “At least we know where the giant lives now—and that there’s a giant woman there too. That’s progress.”

  “Not much,” Henry says, heading for the door. “Tell me when you’ve got something more impressive to share! And forget about using my horse for any more of your useless schemes!”

  Lord Henry leaves. Lady Arabella, Elizabeth, and Jane soon make their excuses and follow him, leaving Briar, Rose, and Jack to make what they can of the situation.

  “They think it’s hopeless,” Briar says. “They’ve given up.”

  “But you never know what will work,” Jack says, “and there are still all the other Giant Killers in the village. They won’t give up hope. It’s all they’ve got! They’re all practicing with slingshots, just waiting for the chance to get the giant between the eyes! They’ll never give up. And I won’t either. Someday I’ll find another way to go back to the giant’s house, and I’ll think of something!”

  “Maybe,” Rose says. “You never can tell.”

  “There’s got to be a way—” chokes Briar. “There’s just got to be!”

  * * *

  By the next day, the excitement over Jack’s return has died down. Briar and Rose have escaped the confines of the castle and retreated to their little thicket by the stream. They sit side by side on a low branch of their favorite tree. It is the ancient oak, gnarled and crooked and perfect for climbing. They are surrounded by curtains of spectacular fall foliage swaying and rustling in the chilly breeze, while below them lies a fragrant carpet of fallen leaves. They are discussing Great Philosophical Questions. They have discussed them often before, but not so frequently now as they once did.

  “I don’t know . . .” Briar trails off. “I can be good when good things are happening, but I want to be bad when bad things are happening. Like when people are mean to me, I think of really bad things to do or say. Do you suppose it counts if you think bad thoughts when people are being mean to you?”

  “Bishop Simon would say so,” replies Rose, “but he’s evil himself. What if everything he says is a lie? Would you still want to be good? What if there’s no reward?”

  “I still would. Just so I wouldn’t be like him.”

  “But what if everybody else was evil?”

  “I’d go off by myself and just be normal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like mostly good but sometimes evil, but just by myself so it wouldn’t matter.”

  “So it wouldn’t matter if you were evil by yourself?”

  “No, because nobody else would be affected by it.”

  “But what about you? Would you be affected?”

  “Who would care?”

  “I would care.”

  “But you wouldn’t be there.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Don’t be silly. If I’m alone, you can’t be there.”

  “I would be with you in spirit, and I would care.”

  “Well, then I’d try harder to be good.”

  “So would I.”

  “Well, that’s settled,” says Briar. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

  The girls agree to go and get something to eat. On their way through the village they stop at a street market and buy some bread and some fresh-picked apples from a vendor—and an extra one for Durwin at the gatehouse. At twelve, they are not forbidden to leave the castle unaccompanied. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be nice to the porter, just in case they might want to stay out late sometime, playing with the village children.

  Rose does not participate in these games as often as Briar does, as she increasingly spends her free time playing chess or backgammon or dice in the great hall with Lady Arabella and the other girls. Lady Arabella has slowly but surely won her way into Rose’s confidence. Rose finds that she actually enjoys the time she spends with the older girl, and even with Elizabeth and Jane, all of whom treat her like a princess. Besides, it is a relief not to have Lady Beatrice nagging her over the company she keeps. And who else is there for her to keep company with while Briar goes off on her own, as she increasingly does? Rose knows what horror Lady Beatrice and the other castle ladies would express if she were found to be spending time with the peasants, as Briar is free to do. Rose would never hear the end of it.

  Briar, however, as time goes on, feels herself to be ever more distant from Lady Arabella and Elizabeth and Jane. They sometimes make a perfunctory effort to include her, but she feels the falsity of it. She feels that they are judging her. She knows they think her inferior, and even waspish, having regularly fallen prey to her sharp wit. At the same time, she is judging them, finding them shallow and self-centered. For her it is easier to go out and be with Jack and her friends in the village or to go into the forest or to her secret place by the waterfall and be alone.

  And so it is that the girls part company at the castle keep, with Rose going in to be with Lady Arabella and her friends. Briar goes on to the kitchen, where Hilde, upon Briar’s request, has ordered a basket of food prepared for the girl to take to Arley and Bridget’s distressed family in the village.

  Briar cheerfully retraces her tracks to deliver the heavy basket to their cottage. She knocks on the door, then starts to leave the basket there, intending to depart quickly before they can thank her. But she is observed by Bridget’s mother, who answers the door and invites her in. The woman smothers Briar in an embrace, crying, “You dear, good child! You couldn’t have come at a better time! Come in! Come in and share with us!” She picks up the basket in both hands and leads Briar into the small home. It is much like Jack’s home, but more crowded. There is a straw mat in one corner, upon which the father of the family lies, coughing feebly. A number of children cluster around their mother, including Jack’s friend Arley and young Bridget, who both know Briar well from meetings of the secret club. Their big, round eyes are riveted hungrily on the overflowing basket, but they hang back politely.

  Bridget, doing her best to observe the niceties, says, “Briar, this is my mum. And that’s my pa in the corner. He’s very sick. And you know Arley. And this is my brother James, and this is Silas, and this is my sister Edwina and my other sisters, Flora and Kate, and this is baby Jenny.”

  Briar smiles shyly. “I’m very pleased to meet you all. I just thought you might be able to use this, with your pa so ill. It’s nothing really.”

  She begins to unpack the basket, passing around several loaves of bread first, which everyone takes a bit of and shares. Then she brings forth a whole feast of cold mutton and cheese, followed by a goodly supply of fresh vegetables and even a few pieces of fruit. The children ooh and ahh at each new gift to come out of the basket. Bridget’s mother instructs them all to sit down while she parcels out some of the food. She immediately sets a pot of water to boil for a stew, adding vegetables and a small amount of the precious meat.

  From the bottom of the basket Briar takes a small flask. “This is for your da,” Briar says, handing it to Bridget. “It’s a special tonic my godmother makes to help sick people get stronger.”

  Bridget takes the flask, tears coming to her eyes. “Oh, tell your godmother thank you! Pa, look what you’ve got!” she cries, and her father brightens up a bit and says, “Bless you, child!”

  Briar stays for a little while, enjoying watching the children’s happy faces and their parents’ even happier ones. She is treated as a friend, a
nd no one seems to bother about her appearance.

  As time goes on, deeds like this become Briar’s regular habit, with Mother Mudge always letting her know about certain families in the village with illness or injury and Briar bringing baskets of food to them, being welcomed into their homes, and getting to know the families. And none of them seem to care how she looks, and none of them ever forget the kindness.

  * * *

  Rose sits impatiently posing for her portrait while Master Olyver tries to capture her delicate gradations of peach-pink and white skin. A hint of dragon’s blood red, a dab of king’s yellow, mixed in with titanium white for the highlights and the barest touch of green for the shadows. He pats the brush on the canvas with such a featherlight touch that no brushstrokes are visible. So intent is he on his work that he keeps Rose in position long after her time is over, an unforgivable breach of conduct to Rose’s mind. She deliberately breaks her pose and makes a silly face, bringing the session to an end.

  “Isn’t it time for my lesson?” she insists.

  Lady Beatrice, who is always nearby, helps her roll up her sleeves, and Master Olyver sits down with the girl and begins to teach her the rules of perspective, how to give the appearance of depth to a flat drawing. To begin with, he teaches her to place the horizon at eye level, find the principal vanishing point, and draw receding lines from an object in the foreground to that vanishing point.

  “Any parallel lines in nature will appear to meet at one and the same point on the horizon,” says the master. “Lan will demonstrate this for you and guide you in making your own drawings of a three-dimensional box, as examples, from different heights and positions.”

  Lan shyly takes Rose aside to a worktable and shows her how it’s done. For a long time they confer with their heads together while Lan sneaks admiring looks at her and she barrages him with questions. In answer, he covers her hand with his own and guides it to make the drawings. Rose finds it suddenly difficult to concentrate. She thinks of pulling her hand away, but doesn’t really want to. She watches his lips move as he carefully explains each step, but the words seem to be in some unknown language. She is suddenly fascinated by the way his dark hair falls down over one eye.