The Brave Apprentice

by P. W. Catanese

  “And yet, though they seem invulnerable to our attack, there are also instances of trolls simply dropping dead for reasons that are not understood. One spring about twenty years ago, a troll that was secretly observed suddenly went berserk, running in circles and slapping at his head. Then he simply fell to the ground, dead as a stone.”

  Milo sat, pursing his lips. He seemed about to speak when the doors to the hall opened and another knight came in, pulling off his gloves as he hurried across the floor.

  “Ludowick,” Milo called, with a hint of discontent in his tone. “I wondered where you had been.”

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” Ludowick said, bowing and then slumping into the sole remaining chair. “I was detained—you see, something has happened. The trolls again.”

  “Now what?” Mannon turned to Gosling and griped.

  “I am afraid,” Ludowick said to Milo, “that one of your wagons was intercepted. With many casks of your wine.”

  “Surely you’re not so downcast over a few gallons of wine,” Milo said. Then, looking closer at Ludowick’s ashen face, he asked, “What is it, Ludowick?”

  “Constancius was on the wagon, sire. He was proud of the wine. He wanted to deliver it personally.”

  “Constancius,” Milo repeated quietly. “A good, good man. Ludowick, you must tell us what happened.”

  Basilus the steward appeared at Ludowick’s shoulder and with great care placed a goblet in front of him. Ludowick paused for a moment, staring mournfully at the wine. Then he raised the goblet high. “First, a toast. To Constancius. Winemaker to the king.”

  “To Constancius,” voices echoed around the table, and goblets clashed.

  Ludowick wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “I was on my way here along the western road when I caught up with old Constancius, driving the wagon himself with a dozen casks or more. I rode beside him awhile, while he went on about his grapes and what this awful winter will do to next year’s vintage. Finally, just when we were passing Lake Deop, I realized I was going to be late to Dartham, so I said good-bye and hurried ahead. But before I got far, I heard a fearsome noise behind me—horses screaming, and some grunts and howls that sent shivers down my sine. I turned around and went back—against my horse’s better instincts, I must say—and there were trolls, ten or more, swarming the wagon. I won’t tell you about Constancius or the horses. Perhaps if I never speak of what I saw, it will not forever haunt my dreams. The filthy beasts just ate, and laughed, and cracked open every cask and guzzled down every drop of your wine, my king.” Ludowick bowed his head. “Sire, I am so sorry I was unable to prevent this from happening. I beg your forgiveness.”

  “You don’t need to be forgiven, Ludowick. There was nothing you could do;” Milo replied.

  “There was one thing I could do, sire,” Ludowick said, lifting his head. There was fire in his eyes. “I tied my horse to a tree and followed the devils. I know where they live. In a hole in a hillside, not far from where the road passes Lake Deop.”

  “I know that place!” Basilus exclaimed. The knights turned to look at the steward. “I beg your pardon, sire,” he said, staring at the floor. “But I grew up on the shore of the lake. That hole leads into a cavern, which is quite large. Even twenty trolls could live there.”

  “Yes,” Ludowick said. “I got as close as I dared and spied on them for a while, to learn what I could. But soon two of them came out, sniffing the air and looking about. I cursed my carelessness—the wind was at my back, carrying my scent toward the trolls. They began to creep toward me, searching. I could either stay in hiding, or run and show myself before they got too close. I chose to flee. I could hear their steps thumping behind me, and every time I dared to turn around, they were getting closer. I ran for my horse—but I had doomed the poor beast to an awful death when I tied him to that tree, for another troll was there feasting on him. And when that troll saw me, he too began to chase me.”

  “Good heavens, man! How did you escape?” Milo cried.

  “The lake, sire. I ran through the trees, past a little fisherman’s house, and out onto the ice. The trolls would not follow me there. Too bad they did not, because Lake Deop is well named—it drops off to a great depth only a few steps from shore, and the devils might have broken through the ice and drowned. But they stayed on the shore by that house, laughing and taunting and waving at me to come back. I cursed them and walked to Dartham, arriving just now with this unhappy story.”

  When Ludowick finished, Patch heard the men around the table inhaling deeply. Like him, many had forgotten to breathe as Ludowick told his tale.

  Mannon growled and slammed his fist on the table. “Is there anything we can do to such creatures? They kill our people, feast on our livestock, tear our villages apart. We can’t burn them. We can’t pierce them with arrows. How do we fight them?”

  “Could we roll stones into the opening of that cave and trap them inside?” Gosling offered.

  Griswold shook his head. “They are cave dwellers, great diggers and tunnelers. They would be out in a moment.”

  “Our catapults—could they launch something large enough to crush them?” someone asked.

  “You presume the trolls will stand still for us to target them. And even if we hit one, that would leave ten or more to slay,” said Addison.

  “This is a plight,” the king said, shaking his head. “One troll wandering down to hunt is a dangerous pest. But a dozen, banded together—how can we deny such a force? Is there no weakness, Griswold?”

  “They are not very clever. And their eyesight is said to be weak, my king. But apart from that …,” Griswold replied, shrugging.

  The king turned to look at the old white-bearded man sitting by the fire. “If only our friend was having one of his moments of clarity. He would have an idea for us, the clever one.” Milo called out, “Can you hear me, Will? Are you listening?” But the old man did not stir.

  Patch suddenly understood who it was in that chair by the fire: Will Sweeting, the Giant Killer. The Brave Little Tailor. A commoner like himself, a tailor even, who had risen up to become the greatest hero the kingdom had known. And look at you now, Patch thought sadly, so frail and gray. He barely heard the next thing the king said, or even realized that it was directed at him.

  “But wait—I have almost forgotten. One among us has killed a troll. Perhaps he knows a way to slay a dozen. What do you say, young Patch?”

  Every head turned Patch’s way. In truth, an idea had been taking shape inside his mind while listening to Griswold. He hadn’t thought it through or considered its drawbacks. But the king was asking for his opinion—why not offer it? As he started to speak, he saw Addison’s eyes darken and narrow.

  “Well, Your Majesty. I wondered—that is, I thought—we might poison them.”

  “Poison?” Mannon snorted. “And how do you plan to get them to take it?”

  “What good would it do to poison one or two of them?” someone at the far end of the table said.

  “We would poison them all,” said Patch.

  “Ridiculous,” said another knight, while others murmured.

  “Quiet, all of you,” said the king. “Young tailor, how could we poison them all?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Mannon grumbled under his breath.

  Patch looked around at the staring faces. Even the steward was hovering close, listening curiously. Addison raised one eyebrow, as if to say, I warned you not to speak.

  Patch cleared his throat, which had gone dry. “Well, I was thinking about how the trolls attacked the wagon with the king’s wine. And how they all broke open the casks and drank it on the spot. We could send another wagon down the same road. But this time, the wine would be poisoned.”

  The men around the table looked at one another and turned to see how the king would respond. Milo leaned back slowly in his chair and scratched at his temple with one finger. Ludowick nodded and gently rapped the table with the knuckles of one fist. Addison had a distan
t look in his eyes.

  “What if poison doesn’t work on trolls?” asked Mannon.

  Ludowick responded before Patch could speak. “Then the devils will never be the wiser.”

  “Fine, but what if it just makes them sick?”

  “If they were all sick at once, they might be vulnerable to an attack,” Ludowick said, his voice quickening.

  “Yes,” the king said. “Yes.”

  There was a long moment of silence, until Gosling spoke.

  “It’s not a noble plan, is it?”

  “It’s a nasty trick,” agreed Mannon. “Should we stoop so low?”

  Milo stood up slowly, pushing against the plush arms of his chair. He looked left and right, meeting the eye of everyone at the table. “Gentlemen. Stay in your seats, all of you. Allow me a moment alone to consider this.” The king clasped his hands behind his back and walked, with his head bowed, around the curtain that was hung behind the great table.

  The knights muttered quietly to one another. Gosling leaned close to Patch and whispered. “Seen this before. Takes a walk to clear his thoughts when there is a great decision to ponder. He’ll have his mind made up in a moment.”

  Sure enough, Milo emerged a few minutes later. He stood in front of his chair, made fists of his hands, and pressed them against the tabletop.

  “Desperate days call for dark deeds,” the king said at last. The troll skull had been set on the table before him; he reached out and spun it to look into the face, all gaping eye sockets and thorny teeth. “I would never consider this way against a human enemy. But we poison mad dogs and rats, don’t we? If we can find or brew the quantity of poison this plan requires, we will try it.”

  “I’ll gladly drive that wagon,” said Ludowick.

  “Then I have a bit of advice for you, Ludowick,” Griswold said. “Take a dog with you. Dogs make excellent sentries; they sniff out the presence of trolls before we can.”

  Patch tried to smile at Mannon, but the knight simply glared at the ceiling. He looked to Addison instead, and when he saw the cold stare that the nobleman had fixed on him, he shrank down in his seat.

  When the meeting ended, the knights walked out of the great hall, discussing what they had heard. Patch stayed alone at the table, admiring the arching space over his head, so high he wouldn’t have been surprised to see clouds drifting along.

  “Clues,” said a weak, rasping voice behind him. Patch turned. Will Sweeting, still sitting in his chair by the fire, was looking at him with clear, sharp eyes.

  “What—what do you mean, sir?” Patch said, walking over to him.

  The ancient man held out a trembling hand, and Patch took it. It was colder than it ought to have been, so near to the fire. “I heard clues,” Sweeting said.

  “You were listening!” Patch said. “But I don’t understand….”

  Sweeting brought Patch’s hand close to his face. “Good hands, nimble fingers,” he said hoarsely, laboring to bring forth every word. “But nimble minds are needed more. Remember what Griswold said. Don’t ask why they’re here … ask why they never came before. What kept them away?”

  Patch looked back where Griswold had stood. Sweeting was right. Just before Ludowick arrived with his sorry tale, Patch had been getting the feeling that there was a riddle to be solved.

  “I think you’re right. I feel it too. But what were the clues?” he asked.

  The sound of rustling fabric caught his attention. There was a curtain behind the table, and the figure of a woman emerged from behind it. She was lovely, small and slender, with a river of glistening black hair that flowed down her back. She looked at Patch from the corner of her eye and smiled. A moment later she slipped through an archway. Patch did not doubt that this was the woman he’d seen on the balcony the night before; was it the queen?

  When he looked back at Will Sweeting, the old man had slipped away again, staring at nothing and rocking gently in his chair. He did not respond when Patch called his name or took his hand.

  Patch walked around the curtain behind the great table. There was a simple chair there, unoccupied. He went to it and put his hand on the wooden seat, feeling the warmth under his palm. A person could have sat there unseen, during this or any other council, and heard every word.

  h was enough poison. Indeed, many eyebrows were raised and glances exchanged when the multitude of toxins was brought before the king and his court the next morning. There was aconite, belladonna, thorn-apple, henbane, hemlock, bittersweet, arsenic, and mercury. There were lethal extracts from laurel berries, mushrooms, tares seeds, bitter almonds, and the pits of apricots and cherries. The physicians and apothecaries hastened to explain that these were used (in only the smallest quantities, of course) for the valid treatment of various maladies, for the control of insects, the disposal of mad animals, and other perfectly legitimate practices.

  “Make certain the effect of the poison is delayed,” Milo commanded, “so all the trolls may drink before any fall sick.”

  The physicians and apothecaries huddled together. After a loud and vigorous debate, they agreed on a formula and mixed the poisons into the wine. “Perhaps the strongest, deadliest potion ever brewed,” one white-haired physician said when the work was done, wiping his hands over and over with a damp cloth.

  Within an hour the twelve casks were loaded on the wagon, and Ludowick climbed aboard to drive it. Patch and the others followed on foot, staying out of sight in the forest by the road. They had left their horses farther back, with a group of soldiers who waited, spears and axes in hand. If the poison only sickened the trolls, Mannon would signal the fighters with the hunter’s horn that was slung across his shoulder, and they would come to help finish the task.

  “Ludowick’s putting his neck on the line for this plan of yours, tailor boy,” Mannon grumbled. Patch wanted to tell him, tell everyone, that it wasn’t a plan at all. It was only something that had occurred to him just before Milo asked for his thoughts, and he wasn’t sure in the least that it was a good idea. But things were in motion now, and he thought it would be better not to respond. Nothing he said would please Mannon, anyway.

  “Don’t worry, Mannon,” said Gosling. “Ludowick’s got a dog with him. He’ll have plenty of warning if the trolls are near.” He winked at Patch.

  “The trolls cavern is just up that hill,” Addison said, gesturing at the opposite side of the road. “And this is where the winemaker was attacked.” Patch looked to his right and saw the place that Ludowick had run to escape the trolls the day before. Past a scattering of evergreen trees, there was a wide flat beach where a tiny fisherman’s house stood. A boat was pulled on shore and turned upside down, waiting for warmer days when it might be useful again. Just beyond that sprawled the snow-swept ice of Lake Deop.

  It was only a moment later that the hound at Ludowick’s side leaped out of the wagon and ran, whining, into the forest. Ludowick pulled back on the reins and the single ox that was hauling the wagon slowed and stopped. Ludowick stood up, peering at the hillside.

  “Get out of there,” Mannon whispered. As if hearing him, Ludowick vaulted over the side of the wagon and dashed into the forest. “Over here,” Addison called, just loud enough to be heard, and Ludowick joined them, finding his own tree to hide behind. “They’re coming,” Ludowick said. It was another cold day, but Patch noticed sweat trickling down the knight’s temples.

  Patch saw shapes moving through the trees on the hillside, dark against the thin crust of frozen snow that remained on the ground. A group of the trolls stalked onto the road. Hurgoth, the massive troll they’d encountered at the river, was among them—easy to spot with his pale, chalky skin and the small pack strapped to his back. He strode toward the ox, his spiked club in his hand. Patch closed his eyes as the club rose.

  “Wait—what about the ox?” he’d said an hour before, when he realized his plan meant doom for the animal that hauled the poisoned wine. “There must be sacrifices,” Addison had replied. “Or hadn’t you cons
idered that?”

  The sound came, a terrible crack of wood on bone. When Patch looked up again, Hurgoth had picked up the ox in one hand—one hand!—and tossed it to another troll.

  “Go on, fellows, have some wine,” Gosling urged.

  The trolls surrounded the wagon and laughed, pleased with their prize. A particularly fat troll lifted one of the casks and began to pry at the spigot. Hurgoth snarled at the troll, then turned to say something to the rest. The trolls lifted the dozen casks out of the wagon and carried them back up the hill.

  “Didn’t they drink the wine on the spot yesterday?” Addison said to Ludowick. Ludowick nodded, frowning.

  “Maybe they’re saving it to wash down the ox,” said Gosling.

  Addison stared up the hill at the retreating trolls. “Then we shall have to follow them.”

  Addison led the way to a ridge that overlooked the lair of the trolls. They lay on their stomachs and crawled to the edge to peer over. Below them, in a bowl-shaped depression in the hill, they could see the trolls milling around the gaping black mouth of their cave. The ox had been skewered and was suspended over a fire, and the casks of wine were in a pile, unopened.

  “What do you suppose they’re doing?” Mannon wondered, scratching the back of his neck.

  “And where’s Hurgoth?” Gosling asked.

  As if to answer the question, Hurgoth emerged from the cave, trailing a rope behind him. He tugged at the rope, and a man came stumbling behind, with the other end of the rope knotted around his waist. The man was gangly and loose-limbed, with unkempt, straw-colored hair and—strangely—a loopy, happy grin.

  When Patch saw him, his mouth dropped open, and he gulped in a lungful of ice-cold air.

  “I’ve seen that fellow before,” Mannon muttered, pointing.

  “It’s Simon,” Patch groaned. “The fool from Shorham.” He remembered Simon skipping off across the lake in search of a friendlier audience—unwittingly heading for the western shore, near this very place.

  “What on earth are they doing with him?” said Ludowick.