The Mirror's Tale

by P. W. Catanese

  “Two more greats, I think. Listen, Will, those Dwergh might have saved her from the Witch-Queen. But they didn’t do it for her, they did it for themselves. They probably made her promise to give them all the jewels at The Crags in exchange for protecting her.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Will said. He rubbed the back of his head. “Do you really think the Dwergh are back?”

  “I hope so. It’s so boring around here, guarding a border when the enemy’s been hiding inside mountains for fifty years. Why wait? We should just go after them. What a fight that would be!”

  “Bert, don’t you ever read the stuff I show you? You can’t just march into their mountains. It’s bad strategy. First off, they’ve already got the high ground. And how are you going to supply your army? You can’t even—”

  “Oh please,” Bert interrupted, waving his hand. “You and those translations. It’s stupid, all that stuff about strategies and deception. You have to charge right at them, that’s what Father would do” Bert frowned, wondering why the map was suddenly so much easier to read. A flickering orange glow had flooded the room. Will gasped, and Bert’s head jerked up, and his eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

  The candle that Bert pushed to the back of the table had ignited the map just above it, and the flames leaped eagerly to the other parchments.

  “Let’s get out of here!” cried Bert.

  “No, we have to put it out!” Will said.

  “What? Right!” said Bert. He pulled the candle away from the pigeonholes and swatted at the flames with his open palm. “Ouch!” Bits of burning paper floated about, and a few more maps began to smolder. A dense cloud of smoke gathered in the chamber’s rounded ceiling. “Will, get the water bucket by the hearth!”

  Will’s grimace nearly stretched from one ear to the other as he ran into the great hall, where the day’s fire had settled into a sputtering gray heap. He lifted the iron bucket with a grunt and waddled awkwardly back to the chamber with the pail swinging between his legs. By the time he got back, Bert had stripped off his nightshirt and was batting the flaming ends of the parchments. “Put the bucket on the table!” he said, trying not to shout.

  Bert grabbed the parchments and stuck the burning ends into the bucket, where they hissed like snakes. When the last of the maps had been extinguished, he and Will crammed them back into the holes. They stepped back and looked at the result. Soggy, blackened parchments stuck out at all angles with a third of their lengths burned away by the fire. Will shook his head and groaned. “Maybe they won’t notice.”

  “Right. Now let’s get out of here,” Bert said, picking up his charred nightshirt. “You’d better put the bucket back”

  Will lifted the pail. When he turned and saw Edward blocking the archway and staring at them, he dropped it again. The bucket tipped over, and the water sloshed out into a puddle that engulfed Edward’s feet.

  The boys froze. Edward sniffed the air and looked at the cloud of smoke still trapped overhead. His eyebrows rose as he glanced at the ruined maps, and then at Bert standing naked with a strand of smoke still drifting up from the nightshirt he held bunched against his waist.

  “We didn’t do it,” Bert ventured.

  Edward snorted.

  “You won’t tell, will you?” Will asked in a strangled voice.

  “Let’s see,” Edward said. “I could say nothing, then have your father use me for an archery target when he finds out I lied. Or I could say something, and you two ruffians could get what you deserve. Dear me, what should I do?”

  Will closed his eyes and shivered, thinking about the look on his mother’s face when Edward led her to the map chamber. When she ordered them to their room, it was with a colder fury than he’d ever seen before. Starting that fire wasn’t the worst thing they’d ever done, but something about her expression told Will they’d made one mistake too many. “What do you think they’re going to do.”

  “Dunno. Maybe Father will have us beheaded,” Bert replied. He was at the window, staring into the black sky. “Hush for a minute,” he said. He stuck his head out and cocked his ear toward the left. Will got out of bed and leaned out with him. Their parents were talking in the room next door, and their voices were rising.

  “Can’t quite hear what they’re saying,” Will said. “Doesn’t sound promising, though.”

  “It doesn’t,” Bert agreed. “I wish they didn’t lock us in. Otherwise we could just sneak out and listen at their door.” His expression brightened. He ran to his bed, reached underneath it, and pulled out a coiled rope from the clutter of objects that was crammed into the narrow space.

  “Bert, I don’t think that’s a good—”

  “They’re talking about us!” Bert said. “Don’t you want to know what the punishment will be?” He knotted one end of the rope around his waist and threw the rest of the coil to his brother. “Tie this end to something, in case I slip. Although death might be better than what they’re planning.”

  “You’re crazy,” Will said wearily. He knelt to tie the rope to the foot of his bed.

  “Not crazy,” Bert replied, grinning. “Just terribly brave” He stuck his legs out the window and lowered himself on his stomach until his elbows rested on the sill. He probed with his toes until he found a narrow ledge of stone, an inch or so wide, that ran just below the second story of the castle. He and Will had spent countless hours edging their way along the walls of the keep—but always on the first floor, where a slip would only send them a few feet to the ground. Here, the courtyard was at least twenty feet below. Bert didn’t see any of the night watchmen down there. And that was good. To them he would look like an assassin creeping toward the baron’s room.

  He edged away from the window, looked for tiny cracks between the stones that he could use as finger-holds, and slid his feet along the ledge, an inch at a time. Will watched his slow progress and fed the rope out, ready to hold on tight if his brother lost his balance.

  By the time Bert was halfway to his parent’s window, he could hear their conversation clearly.

  “They’ll never change, you know,” his mother said.

  “Hellions, both of them,” his father replied. “And punishment only makes them more rebellious.”

  “But why do they do this, Walter? It’s almost as if they are trying to upset me. To get back at me for something.”

  “But what have you … what have we ever done to them to deserve all this?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure. But they’re wild and unruly, and something must be done. What if they’d burned themselves to death? What would the king’s court say about us then?”

  Thanks, Mother, Bert thought. There was a long silence that was somehow worse than their words. He managed to creep to the very edge of the window before his mother spoke again, much more softly.

  “Walter, do you remember the story of your grandfather’s assault on the Northmen? How he won the day?”

  “Of course,” said the baron. He sounded relieved to change the topic. “The armies faced each other across a wide plain. Grandfather concentrated his forces on the center of the Northmen’s line and attacked there, splitting the army into two.”

  “Just so.”

  There was another long silence. Somewhere in the dark courtyard below, a dog growled. It occurred to Bert that the topic had not changed at all Inside the room the same thing occurred to his father.

  “You think we should separate the boys.”

  “Yes! Send one to live with your brother at The Crags. Not forever, only for the summer. And keep one with us. It may be the only way to tame them.”

  No, Bert thought. His brain faltered, and his knees went limp. He tightened his grip on the edge of the windowsill and turned to look back at Will, who leaned out the window with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Separate the boys,” the baron said again, as if he was trying to get used to the idea.

  “They lead each other into trouble. Bertram leads William into trouble, to be more
exact.”

  “But they’ve always been together. From the day they were born. I can hardly remember seeing one without the other.”

  “That’s the problem, don’t you see?” she said. Bert leaned closer. His parents were so close to the window that he could hear the rustle of fabric as his mother drew nearer to his father. Bert could picture what was happening inside. He’d seen it before. When his mother really wanted his father to agree to something, she’d slide up beside him and lock her hands around his waist. “It will be a shock, but a shock is what they need,” she said. “Honestly, Walter, there have been times when I wonder if I even love them, they are so troublesome. I know you feel the same way, you don’t even have to say it. We must do something. You need to name your successor before long, and how can you even choose between them now? Ones a monster, the other’s a … a mouse.”

  There was another pause, the longest yet. Bert realized that he was trembling, down to the tips of his fingers and toes. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t do it, Father, he thought. Don’t listen to her. Well be good, I promise. I’ll stop getting Will into trouble, I swear it.

  His fathers voice again drifted out into the night. “Which would we send?”

  “Will, I suppose,” his mother said. “He won’t misbehave and embarrass us the way Bert would. Will’s clever enough, but he’s as meek as a lamb without his brother to follow.”

  Bert swallowed hard and felt a lump in his throat the size of a paving stone. He looked back toward Will, who couldn’t hear any of this. His brother waved his hand in a mad circle, urging him to come back. But Bert couldn’t go yet. He had to hear what his father would say. Send Will to The Crags? They couldn’t—didn’t they know how scared Will got whenever he left the castle grounds? Bert leaned even closer to the window. Father, please…

  “No,” his father said at last. Bert let out a long, grateful sigh. His mother began to protest, but his father cut her off. “But that was the last act of foolishness I will tolerate. Tomorrow I’ll tell them they have one final chance. And if they misstep one more time, I will do exactly what you propose.”

  A wide smile flowered on Bert’s face, and he straightened up, ready to return to his room. He was dizzy with relief. That was a near miss, he thought. Will’s going to faint when he finds out. For a moment their world had been like a crystal bowl teetering on the edge of a shelf, about to shatter into a million pieces. It seemed safe once more until a harsh voice called out from below.

  “You there! What are you up to?”

  It was a watchman in the courtyard. Bert’s chest was against the wall, and he twisted his torso to look down at the fellow, hoping the man would shut up once he saw it was only the baron’s son. He tapped his forefinger against his lips. And then his father’s head popped out of the window, like a jack-in-the-box, just a foot from his face.

  The baron screamed. Bert yelped, and the fingers of his other hand slipped out of the crack that he was holding onto. His father tried to grab Bert’s arm as he toppled away from the wall, but only caught Bert’s sleeve, which tore and slipped through his fingers. Bert looked with wild eyes toward his brother who gritted his teeth and tightly gripped the rope in his fists. Bert fell, and when the rope went taut between them, Will was tugged neatly out the window as if he was diving into a pond. Bert tried to scream again, but said only “Ooof!” as the knot around his waist bit into his stomach. He swung like a pendulum toward a point somewhere under his own room, bouncing and bumping along the rugged face of the wall. Will held the rope long enough to flip himself upright again, but lost his grip and slid down the cords length until he straddled Bert’s shoulders. Above them Bert could hear Will’s bed scrape across the stone floor, and they sank a few more feet until they nearly reached the courtyard, where the watchman approached them with his sword in his hand and a bemused expression on his face.

  Bert had the urge to laugh until he heard the furious voice bellow down. “Spying? On your own father? That was the last straw! You hear me? The very last straw!”

  “It’s only for a few months,” the baron said, when the wailing quieted to the point where he might be heard.

  “No!” the boys shouted. They were standing against a wall when their father broke the news, but in their shock they slid down and hunched on the cold stone floor.

  The baron glared at them. “Enough of your insolence. This decision will not be undone. I’ve sent word ahead to your uncle Hugh that Will is coming.”

  Bert looked at his brother, who’d gone paler than he thought possible. “But why Will? Why not me?”

  “I’ll go,” Will said. He sounded as if he was about to be sick.

  “No!” shouted Bert. He stared at his father with fierce, round eyes. “You can’t send Will to that awful place. Don’t you know how frightened he gets?”

  The baron palmed his forehead and groaned. “Bert. For the last time, there is nothing to fear at The Crags. The stories are nonsense. There are no witches, no beasts. Your uncle and aunt live there, for heaven’s sake. And if Will is so easily frightened, why is he never afraid to break my rules?”

  “Because I talk him into everything, He’s more afraid of me leaving him alone than he is of breaking your stupid rules,” Bert said, “Don’t you see, I’m the one who causes all the trouble! It was my idea to sneak down to the map chamber, my idea to spy on you and Mother. All the bad ideas are mine—but you never talk to us except to scold us, so you’d never know that!”

  The baron opened his mouth to speak, but the words spilled from Bert, like wine from a shattered cask. “And all Mother ever does is tell us we’re too disobedient, or too lazy, or too dirty, or we’re not fit to be heirs to the barony, because she’s just like you and she doesn’t really care—”

  “Enough!” the baron roared, Bert fell silent. He and Will hung their heads as their father loomed over them. The baron stabbed at the air with a fat finger to punctuate his words. “This decision is final. Blame no one but yourselves. The carriage leaves this afternoon, and Will shall be on it.” Bert raised his face and stared back defiantly. “And if you say another word,” the baron said, almost growling, “I’ll have you whipped like a common thief”

  The boys climbed the last few steps to the watchtower on the inner wall, a round room of stone with a spire at the top and three windows shaped like narrow, inverted shields. It was deserted, as always. Since the outer wall had been constructed decades before, there was no need for anyone to come here. So it was the perfect place to meet—usually to hide or play or hatch devious plans, but this time to mourn. Will sat on the floor, picking up clay marbles and letting them roll off his hand into the pile of sand. Bert stared out the window at the landscape that surrounded the castle.

  Ambercrest sat imperiously on a tall mound of earth. The land sloped away in every direction, so that even though the outer walls were built taller, the inner walls sat higher, and the old watchtower offered a splendid view of the countryside.

  Beyond the outer wall the humble cottages and barns made the castle seem that much grander. It was early summer, and the distant forest had bloomed into its full green glory. Roads stretched in four directions, as if the castle itself was the center of a compass. Bert gazed along the northern road: the one that would take away Will He turned to his brother. Will had his knees tucked against his chest and his arms around his legs. Bert thought he might be trembling.

  “It’ll be all right,” Bert said.

  “It won’t,” Will said. “Bert, you know me. I don’t like leaving the castle. When we go past the walls, I can hardly breathe.”

  “But you and I have snuck out there a couple of times.”

  “I know—when you’re with me, I can just barely manage it. It’s as if … I don’t know. As if you’re my courage. Because you’ve got enough for both of us.”

  Bert sighed deeply. He sat cross-legged in front of his brother and rested his chin on his cupped hands. It was true about Will; the thought of leaving home always se
nt him into a panic. Once, when they were very young, their family went to The Crags for the wedding of Uncle Hugh to Lady Elaine. It was one of Bert’s oldest memories. Will cried the whole way there. It made their parents turn red with shame. And when they finally arrived at that grim, foreboding place in the shadow of the mountains, Wills histrionics only grew worse.

  “I wish it was me they were sending,” Bert said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing The Crags again. That’s even closer to the Dwergh. Maybe Uncle Hugh would let me go out on the patrols. If there’s a fight with those tunnel rats, it’ll start there.”

  Will had tucked his face between his knees. Bert heard him sniffing. He rolled his eyes. His brother was his best friend, but he could be a baby at times. How could his father even think of sending Will to The Crags?

  “It should be me that goes,” Bert said. Wait, he thought. “It can be me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Will’s head rose. He rubbed a sleeve under his nose.

  Bert chuckled. He was smiling again. “It’s so obvious! I’ll go in your place. It’ll be easy to fool them; they can hardly tell us apart as it is! Here’s what we’re going to do….”

  “Good-bye, Bert,” said Bert.

  “Good-bye, Will,” replied Will.

  They’d said their real farewell an hour before. This one was just for show. They hugged and thumped each other on the back.

  “You’ll write to me, won’t you?” whispered Will. “Parley says he’ll be going to The Crags soon.”

  “I’ll write, and so will you,” said Bert into his brother’s ear. He straightened up, winked at Will, and walked over to the carriage where his father and mother waited. It was a small carriage with broad wheels, drawn by a pair of horses. Four people could have fit inside, but the only passenger for this journey would be him.

  The driver, Matthias, was occupied with the reins. A small escort of four mounted soldiers waited nearby. Their horses tossed their heads and pawed at the ground.