The Brave Apprentice

by P. W. Catanese

  “Go to the devil, Giles Addison!” shouted an anonymous soldier near the far end of the wall.

  Giles smiled. “And I will surely remember those who stand against me.”

  pushed the door of the chapel open and looked inside. Nobody seemed to be there, except for the cold body of Will Sweeting, laid out on a table near the altar. Patch stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind him. It closed as silently as it had opened.

  He glanced around the room, its walls paneled with wood, lovely colored glass in the windows, and a high ceiling that rose to a point overhead. With a heavy heart, he walked between the rows of benches to where Sweeting lay and looked down at the old man. Sweeting’s breath had been so weak, so shallow near the end. Patch supposed it had slowed and slowed until it finally just stopped, like a clock winding down. He was reminded of seeing his friend Osbert after he died.

  A lock of gray hair lay across Sweeting’s face. Patch brushed it to the side and smoothed it. “Will Sweeting. I wish we could talk one last time. I know the answer is there. I’ve thought about it, but I just can’t figure it out.”

  “Do you know what I can’t figure out?” A deep voice boomed out behind Patch. Startled, he spun around and fell backward against Sweeting’s body. It was Mannon; he had been lying down on one of the benches, hidden between the tall backs until he sat up. Mannon leaned forward and looked at Patch from under those heavy black eyebrows. “Why you’re still here. Wait—don’t tell me, I can guess. You’re waiting for a reward from the king. Like old Will Sweeting there earned. You’re hoping to do something heroic, so Milo will grant you some scrap of land or a barony. Or a little sack of gold at the very least, eh?”

  Patch felt his face grow warm and turned away from Mannon. Is that the truth? he wondered. In the back of his mind, had he expected that all this would eventually mean a gift from the king, some wealth or a title?

  “Of course that’s it.” Mannon leaned back on the bench. “Well, apprentice, that man behind you was a giant killer. He actually solved problems. And that’s the difference between you and him. It seems to me that every time you get an idea, it creates a problem. First Gosling dies. And now, though you’ve exposed the mastermind of this plan, you made Giles so furious that all of us in this castle may be dead soon. Humph.”

  Mannon hawked up something from the back of his throat and turned as if to spit. Then he realized where he was and swallowed it back down, grimacing. “Seems to me that if you’ve earned anything, it’s a whipping. So here’s an idea. Why don’t you sneak away and go back to your worthless old master in your insignificant village? You’re good at running, right?”

  Addison’s voice came from the far end of the room, by the door. “That is enough, Mannon.” Mannon turned to argue but snapped his mouth shut when he saw Milo beside Addison. He shot a poisonous sideways look at Patch as he rose to his feet.

  “Enough indeed,” Milo said. “Don’t blame the apprentice for our predicament. If you need to blame someone, you can blame me.”

  Mannon lowered his head. “Blame you? Never, my king.”

  “Oh, but this is all my doing.” Milo sat down on one of the center benches and stared out through the colored glass in the windows. “Who do you think sent Giles to explore the Barren Gray to begin with? I knew he was dangerous, that he had his eyes on the throne. And my queen, for that matter. I thought it would be better to remove him from the things he coveted so badly.” Milo smiled sadly at Patch. “And then I heard the story of a tailor’s apprentice, slaying a troll on the bridge in Crossfield, and I had the sudden inspiration: Send Giles off to the Barren Gray! To map the land and investigate the threat of the trolls!”

  Patch suddenly felt unsteady on his feet, listening to the king. He got the idea from me? All this is because of me?

  Addison had one eyebrow lifted in a rare expression of surprise. “So you sent Giles on a dangerous expedition. Hoping the trolls would solve the problem for you.”

  The king winced. “Mainly I wanted him out of the way for a while. But I admit: The thought occurred to me that if Giles somehow didn’t make it back … it might be the best outcome for all concerned. Addison, I must apologize. I know this is your brother we’re talking about.”

  Addison shook his head. “I need no apology, Your Highness. Giles has proved your point—he is every bit as ambitious and wicked as you supposed. And as for our predicament, you could not have guessed that Giles would somehow learn to command the trolls. Who could have?”

  “No one. But here they are. And Giles knows what I was up to. So his incentive is doubled now. He’s here for the throne and revenge … Patch, my boy, are you all right?”

  Patch had slumped to the floor, his chin resting on his knees and his hands folded over his head. “It’s all because of me, Your Majesty,” he said. “None of this would have happened if Osbert and I had gone to the other bridge. Or if I hadn’t fought the troll. You’d never have gotten the idea. I started everything.”

  “So you did,” Mannon muttered. “Tell us, apprentice, were there ill omens the day you were born? Did a shadow cross the moon, or was a calf born with two heads?”

  “Enough, Mannon!” Milo snapped. “Leave us!” Mannon stormed down the aisle and slammed the chapel door behind him.

  Milo walked over to Patch. “Don’t give it another thought, lad. I for one am glad we met. You do remind me of this old, old friend of mine.” The king reached out and touched Will Sweeting’s clasped hands;“Good-bye, Will. I had already begun to miss you, even before you were gone. There won’t be time for a proper burial; I hope you’ll forgive us that.” Milo kissed Will’s cold forehead and left the chapel.

  Patch shut his eyes and stayed on the floor with his hands over his head. His heart felt weak and his brain felt numb. He heard a noise beside him and opened his eyes to see Addison sitting there, leaning on one hand and looking steadily at him with those dark eyes. There was a softness in his expression that Patch had not seen before, as if his features were ice under the first rays of sun.

  “Patch, what do you think about our king?” Addison asked.

  Patch took his hands off his head and folded them in his lap. He considered the question for a long moment. “I like him, Lord Addison. I think he’s a decent man.”

  “Decent. That’s the very word. I like him too, Patch. I’m glad he’s our king. You can talk to him like any other man. He’s actually an ordinary fellow. And that makes him almost extraordinary.

  “You see, Patch, becoming a monarch usually does something to a person. A regular man can have a simple, harmless fault. But make him a king, and that fault grows wider and deeper, and it becomes a vast, gaping flaw that brings suffering and ruin to all his people.

  “A greedy man is just a nuisance, like that innkeeper Bernard; but a greedy king gathers all the wealth for himself while his people go hungry. A violent man brawls with his neighbors until someone throws him in jail; but a violent king wages unjust wars, even against his own people. A suspicious man doubts his brothers and mutters against strangers; but a suspicious king sends even his loyal friends to the gallows. Do you wonder why I’m telling you this?”

  “You want me to know why your brother must not become king.”

  “Yes. It’s more important than you can imagine. Giles Addison is all those things. He is greedy, violent, and suspicious. Worse yet, he has a wounded heart, which a man like Giles cannot abide. You see, he was spurned by Cecilia three years ago, when she chose to marry Milo. Of course, she disappointed many a man that day,” Addison said. He scratched at the corner of his eye and paused for a while before speaking again. “When I heard that Giles was dead, killed by the trolls, I mourned like any brother. But inwardly I was relieved. I thought we had averted a crisis. Instead we created one far worse. Giles absolutely must not become king. But at the moment I can’t think of any way to stop him.”

  Addison leaned back against the leg of the table. “Of course, I have flaws of my own. Arrogance, for o
ne. An overabundance of reserve. And others I’m sure you could point out.” A little breath puffed out of Addison’s nostrils; it was the closest he’d come to a laugh. “I have not treated you well, Patch. I should have recognized your talent. Because Milo was right about one thing—you are clever. So if you have any more ideas, I should like to hear them.”

  Patch shook his head. “I don’t know, my lord. I keep wondering how your brother is getting those monsters to do his will. I believe he discovered something about the trolls, something they don’t want anyone to know. I said that to Giles, and you should have seen the look he gave me. It made me sure that I was right.”

  Addison nodded. “It was probably the same look he would give our father when we were boys and my father confronted Giles with the truth.”

  “Will Sweeting said we should ask ourselves why the trolls have never come before. And he was right—if they are so invincible, why have they stayed in the Barren Gray? There must be something that keeps them away.”

  Patch reminded Addison about the things that Griswold had told them, the things that felt like clues ready to piece together. Addison listened with his brow wrinkled, then shrugged. “I don’t know what it might be, Patch. But keep thinking. We don’t have much time.” He stood and tugged at his garments to smooth them. “It is amazing to me that the life of a simple apprentice has become so intertwined with the fate of our kingdom. Perhaps you are meant to solve this puzzle.”

  Or maybe I was meant to bring disaster down on us all, Patch thought, like the first rolling stone that triggers a landslide. They remained there for a while, Patch trying to push that notion out of his head and Addison lost in his own thoughts, until men began shouting outside in the courtyard. The nobleman lifted his head. “What now?” he asked wearily. Patch followed him out of the chapel.

  The courtyard was crowded with the refugees from the village, but it was easy to find the source of the noise. Near the gatehouse a group of men stood in a circle, surrounding Mannon and a soldier whom Patch did not recognize. The fight was over by the time Patch got there. Mannon stood over the other man, putting his boot on the wrist that held the sword and bringing his own blade to the soldier’s neck.

  Addison pushed his way across the courtyard. “Mannon! Don’t harm that man—what are you doing?”

  Mannon turned, his chest heaving up and down, and shouted back. “I heard him talking to the others, trying to convince them to surrender the king and take Giles’s side!”

  Addison stood directly over the soldier and stared down. The softening of his features was long gone—it was the same stony face Patch had always known. “Is this true?” Addison asked.

  The soldier was on his back, his eyes darting among Addison, Mannon, and the sword at his neck. “What choice do we have? We can’t fight the trolls. I heard what they did at Half! Arrows don’t kill them. Fire doesn’t burn them. We have to give them Milo—and that apprentice!”

  “Lock him away,” Addison said, jabbing his chin toward a tower at the corner of the castle. A group of men came over, lifted the fellow by the arms, and dragged him off. He screamed over his shoulder at them, nearly in tears, “It’s madness to fight! We’ll be slaughtered! And I’m not the only one who thinks so!” The frenzied voice died away as the soldier was pulled inside the tower.

  Addison turned to face the growing crowd. “Perhaps it is true,” he said. “Some of you may think it is hopeless to fight this enemy. Perhaps you think we should bind up our king and that boy”—here Addison pointed toward Patch—“and hand them over to Giles.” As he spoke, Addison looked at each man in turn. Some met his glance, others looked at the snowy ground, and others stared nervously at the walls as if the trolls might burst through at any moment.

  “I will tell you this,” Addison said. “Giles is my brother; no one knows him better than I do. And for my part, I would rather die fighting those trolls tonight than live one day in a kingdom ruled by my brother. By my false, pitiless, diabolical brother.”

  Addison pointed toward the prison tower. “Who was that man?”

  “Doggett,” someone replied.

  “Doggett, then. Doggett is in the dungeon now. But consider this—he will be quite lonely in there. Because Milo is not a king who imprisons people for the least offense. How many of you have been treated unjustly? How many have been jailed or whipped without cause? Or seen your friends hang from the gallows, or had every last penny taken from you by the kings taxmen? What, none of you? Well, I can promise you something—if Giles is king, you can expect all of those things. With a king like Giles, Doggett would be in a dungeon so thick with the king’s enemies that none could lie down to sleep.

  “And this is why I tell you, no! We will not surrender Milo. We will not surrender the apprentice. And anyone who desires otherwise will have to pass through me first.”

  “And me,” said Ludowick.

  “And me as well,” growled Mannon, shouldering his way through to join them.

  “And me,” shouted a frail, ancient man in the crowd. He was a farmer, sitting in a two-wheeled cart. A few in the crowd shouted their approval.

  Addison grabbed Patch’s arm and tugged him along as he climbed onto the cart and stood on the bench next to the farmer. “Do you see this boy?” Addison cried out to the buzzing throng. “He is not a soldier. He is not a knight. He is not a lord or a baron. This is Patch, the tailor’s apprentice from a town so small you’ve never heard its name. He stood on a bridge over a fallen friend and killed one of those beasts. By himself!” The crowd gasped. Patch gaped out at them, without the smallest idea of how to react. “So the king summoned him to Dartham—and now the mightiest troll lies drowned in the muck at the bottom of the lake! If one boy can fight them, why can’t we fight them as well?”

  The people crowded in close, soldiers and villagers alike. They cheered and shouted Patch’s name and reached out to touch his feet.

  “We can fight them!” Addison shouted on. “With our swords, our spears, our axes, our lances. With our rakes and pitchforks, if we must. Let them come! Well drop stones on their ugly heads. Let them try! We’ll rain boiling oil on their shoulders from the walls. They say a troll at Half took a hundred arrows and survived? Let us see one take two hundred arrows and live!”

  The people in the crowd shouted and hopped about with their fists in the air. Some swarmed up the sides of the cart, clapping Patch on the shoulders, tugging at his garments. He smiled as best he could and tried to look brave. Over the heads and arms of the crowd, he saw Simon dancing happily and slapping his hands together high over his head.

  Only when the clamor died away a bit did they hear the urgent voice of the constable calling from the top of the wall, “Lord Addison! Lord Addison! Here, sir, you must come here!”

  Two of the trolls were tearing one of the low buildings outside of Dartham apart. The sharp cracks of breaking wood drifted up to the walls of Dartham, muffled by the gathering mist that rose from the snow.

  “See there—they are pulling out the largest timbers and leaving the rest,” the constable said, pointing. The trolls, each with a dozen heavy beams across his arms, added them to a growing pile. “I don’t think they’re for burning. Or they’d have brought them to their fire.”

  “Do you know what they’re doing, Lord Addison?” Patch asked. Addison did not answer. He looked at Ludowick, who frowned back at him and took a heavy breath.

  “Where is Giles, that snake?” Mannon wondered.

  “Haven’t seen him since the mist got so thick,” the constable said. “He’s out there somewhere, though, beyond the range of our arrows. With three of his gang around for protection, I’m sure. Hold on—over there, that Murok is coming.”

  The marble-skinned troll lumbered out of the mist with an unlit torch in his hand and walked over to the roaring fire the trolls had built. He touched the end of the torch to the flames to light it and strode toward the gatehouse, stopping on the far side of the ditch, across from the raised drawbridge.<
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  Murok glared up at the men through the narrow slits of his helmet, and a long, low, murderous purr rolled up from his throat. He drove the sharp bottom of the torch handle through the snow and ground it into the soil. Then he straightened up and began to speak. It made the men grimace and wince to hear his rusty, grating voice. “You have until this stops burning. Then you will surrender the king and the boy and leave the castle. Remember—the queen stays. Lash her to the throne.” Murok began to walk away, then pointed at the torch again. “Until it goes out. Then the walls come down.”

  He growled something at the two trolls who had collected the timber. They grabbed the heavy wooden beams and came toward the walls.

  “Archers!” Addison called, raising one hand high. Three dozen men stepped to the edge of the wall and pointed their arrows at the approaching beasts.

  The trolls stopped on the far side of the moat that surrounded the walls of Dartham, ten feet deep with a bottom of frozen mud. They hissed up at the men along the wall and heaved their timbers into the ditch.

  “Do not move, or we will fire,” Addison warned. The trolls grinned at one another and leaped into the ditch. “Now!” Addison shouted, and a flock of arrows flew shrilly down.

  The trolls were crouched with their backs facing the men, and the arrows clanged off the thick armor that covered their backs and heads. The creatures began to claw at the side of the ditch nearest the castle. Every hard, triangular nail on their huge, dense hands was like a shovel. With fearsome strength, they punched and gouged at the frozen earth, throwing chunks of soil and rock behind them. Another volley of arrows whistled down, seconds after the first. Most clattered off the trolls’ armor in random directions, but some stuck in the skin of their arms and legs. The trolls ignored the wounds. They went on clawing and digging, and soon had nearly disappeared into the ground, tunneling quickly toward the walls where the men stood.