I didn’t stir. I kept my eyes squinted so that they looked shut to someone looking at me, but I could still see. At the same time I slid my hand under my pillow to take hold of my knife. I needn’t have worried though, as it was the orphan returning from outside and bolting the door after him. I suppose that he had stepped out to answer nature’s call. I started to return to slumber when something about the orphan stopped me.
I continued to watch him as there was something different about him. It took me several moments to realize what it was, but then it hit me. I was seeing my companion for the first time without his cap. Where before his head had been covered by a ratty wool creation, it was now covered by long, golden locks, held down with braided strands around the temples. And on either side of his head was a long slender pointed ear, pierced three or four times by thick silver rings. He was a girl! He was a girl and he was an elf! This was quite a strange development and I didn’t know what to do about it, so I did nothing. I simply went back to sleep.
The next morning the orphan was waiting for me when I woke. His long golden hair and his long pointed ears were now carefully tucked under the cap. I suppose at this point in my story, I should probably begin calling the orphan she instead of he. Truth be known, I still think of her sometimes as a boy. It just goes to show that my poor old mother was right. First impressions are important.
“It’s about time you woke,” said she.
“Did I have some specific reason to rise early?” I wondered. “Do I have an appointment at the apothecary? Is the Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight, waiting to give me an audience?”
“No need for sarcasm,” said she. “I merely point out that the sun has been up for some time. I’ve gone through the larder of the poor human… I mean the poor man who lived here and found some food not spoiled by goblins. We have a jar of crabapples, a jar of pickles, and a few bits of dried meat. There are also bags of coffee, flour, and dried beans that you can take with you.”
“Why didn’t you whip up a pot of coffee for us?” I asked. “Especially as you are so concerned about the hour. It would have woken me up earlier.”
“Um, I don’t know how to make coffee.”
“Really? Oh well.”
We ate our bit of dried meat and crabapples for breakfast and saved the pickles for later. I put them, along with the coffee, flour, and dried beans in my pack, then loaded the pack and the saddle onto Hysteria. And though she and I were both loath to leave the relative warmth of the cabin to return to the snowy outside, we did. The frosty overnight weather had frozen the bodies of human and goblin alike to the ground, so that I would have had to wait until they thawed a bit before I could give them a proper burial, even if I had been so inclined. I wasn’t. So, hoisting the orphan back up behind me, which is to say, upon Hysteria’s haunches, we started off again down the road.
Chapter Eleven: Wherein we start to get down to the truth of things.
We rode in silence for most of the morning. I don’t know precisely what the orphan was thinking, but I was thinking on him, or rather her. I am well aware that one is just as likely to come upon a female orphan as a male one, but the more I thought on it, the more I realized that if my young friend had lied about being a boy, then it was just as likely that she had lied about being an orphan.
It was just about time for elevenses when I spied two snowshoe hares sitting beside the road munching on a few sprigs of green which poked out of the snow.
“Hop down,” I told the orphan.
“Why?”
“I want you to get a rock and bean one of those hares,” said I. “If you can kill it, we can eat.”
“I don’t know that I can hit it.”
“It can’t be more than thirty feet away. Any boy could hit it with a rock from this distance.”
“I don’t know…”
“Come on boy.”
The child slid to the ground and then picked up a likely looking stone from a small pile not too far from her feet and hefting it back, launched it in the general direction of the hares. She didn’t have much heft, and with the lob she put on the rock, if it had hit the hare, it would have done nothing more than make it angry. Of course there was no chance of that, since the course of the missile was off to the right by a good thirty degrees. The hares started and took off over the snow, disappearing among the trees.
I dropped down to the ground and pointed my finger accusingly. With my finger pointed and my back stiff, I cut an intimidating figure. One can often get what one wants simply by being intimidating. I know of a few warriors, warriors of great renown mind you, who in truth had never done much warrioring at all. They simply struck an intimidating pose when the time was ripe and their reputations were made. Now that I think about it, I quite possibly could have avoided fighting the goblins the previous night, by just striking my intimidating pose, finger out and back straight. I mean of course, the first goblins, the ones on the road, as the second group of goblins, the ones in the cabin, were in quite a rush to get out the door and had I simply stood in an intimidating pose, they quite probably would have run me over.
“What are you doing now?” asked the orphan.
“I am thinking about intimidating poses.”
“Well, you certainly have managed an intimidating pose there.”
“Thank you. I put a lot of work into it.”
“Well it shows.”
“Thank you. It’s nice to have one’s work appreciated.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And don’t change the subject,” said I.
“And just what subject was that?”
“You are a girl.”
“Um, no.”
“Um yes. And not only that, you are an elfish girl.”
“An elven girl.”
“So you admit it.”
“Um, no.”
“Um yes. I saw you without your cap.”
“Oh.”
“Besides,” said I. “You throw like a girl.”
“Well what do you expect?” the girl asked. “I’ve never thrown a rock before.”
“Oh-ho!”
“Oh-ho yourself,” said she. “All right I’m a girl. That doesn’t change anything. I still need your help to get home.”
“It changes quite a bit,” I said accusingly. “For one thing, you are a liar. You told me that you were a boy. If you lied about that, what else have you lied about?”
“I never actually said I was a boy.”
“You most certainly did. I said ‘I see that you are a sturdy boy, despite your condition…’ and you said ‘Yes, I am a sturdy boy...”
“Who would have guessed that you had such a perfect memory?” grumbled the child, folding her arms over her chest.
“So,” I said, again striking my intimidating pose. “What else have you lied about? I will wager your name is not really Orphan.”
“I never said my name was Orphan, you bloody great buffoon! I said my name was Galfrid. You just keep calling me orphan.”
“Is your name Galfrid?”
“No.”
“You see? Liar!”
“It wasn’t a lie. It was a disguise.”
“You were disguised as an orphan named Galfrid?”
“Yes.”
“Are you an orphan then?”
“Not really.”
“Liar!”
“I’m more of an orphan that you are,” she said sullenly.
“How can you be more of an orphan than I am?” I asked.
“Why couldn’t I be,” said she. “If anyone could be, I could be.”
“I mean, what makes you more of an orphan than me.”
“My mother died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was taken aback. “My condolences on your loss.”
“That’s all right. It happened a long time ago.”
“How long ago?” I wondered.
The girl looked up into the sky as she counted the years in her head.
“Sixty five years! How old are you?”
“Seventy nine.”
“An old woman and only half an orphan,” said I.
“Hold on now,” said she. “The natural life of an elf is close enough to a thousand years as not to matter. I’m only seventy-nine. I’m scarce out of puberty.”
“So not-Galfrid, what is your story?”
“I don’t think I want to tell you,” said she. “You won’t believe me anyway. You think I’m a liar, so why bother explaining.”
“I don’t think you are a liar,” I replied. “I know you are one. And now that I think about it, maybe I don’t care to hear your story. Maybe you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Really? What about Eaglethump Boxcrate, friend to those who are need of a friend and a protector to those who are in need of a protector and a guardian to those who are in need of a guardian?”
She had me there. It is well known that Eaglethump… Eaglethorpe Buxton is a friend to the friendless and all those other things. So I had little choice but to help the old lady out.
“Well,” I took a deep breath. “What is your name?”
“Princess Jholeira.”
Chapter Twelve: Wherein I hear the story of a Princess of the Elves.
Not having a hare to cook for our morning meal, and in truth I never really expected there to be one, I didn’t bother building a fire. We shared cold pickles and Hysteria ate the last of her oats. The sun was high in the sky and even though we were eating our meager meal amid large drifts of snow, as long as we stayed in the sun, it was pleasant enough. As you can imagine, my mind was reeling at the possibility that my orphan boy was not only a girl and an elf, but quite possibly a seventy-nine year old half-orphan princess. My mind was so awash in the news that I scarcely paid any attention to the pickles I was eating. It was a real shame, because I enjoy a good pickle. My poor old mother made some of the best pickles ever.”
“What are you doing now?” asked the half-orphan princess.
“I’m attempting to ponder pickles.”
“That figures,” said she.
“But I find myself unable to.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because of you, my very own little liar.”
“Stop calling me a liar. I didn’t lie. Everything I’ve told you is the truth… except for the part about being a boy and being called Galfrid and being an orphan.”
“And now you claim to be a princess.”
“I am a princess,” she argued. “My father is Jholhard of the wood elves.”
“Come,” I said, wiping the pickle juice off my fingers. “Let’s get going and you can tell me your woeful tale as we ride.”
We remounted my noble steed, which is to say Hysteria, and started off once again down the road. The mood was subdued. At least the mood was subdued between myself and the half-orphan princess. Hysteria seemed quite jovial, and threatened to break into a trot on several occasions. I can only assume that she was happy to have had oats for elevenses. I am sure she didn’t realize that we had no more.
“It is just like in your story of the Queen of Aerithraine when she was trapped in Fall City,” Jholeira said at last.
“What is?”
“Being a princess. It’s like being in jail.”
“You were locked away?”
“Well, not really. I had the run of the entire wood. It’s just that I didn’t realize just how small a world that wood really was until I left.”
“Now we come to the first plot element,” said I. “Why did you leave?”
“I ran away,” she said. “I ran away because my father was going to force me to marry.”
“Well that’s hardly worth running away over,” said I. “I mean, fathers all across the world are busy arranging marriages for their daughters. What was wrong with the fellow? Wasn’t he tall enough? Was he bald? Did he have a wooden eye? It was a wooden eye, wasn’t it?”
“He didn’t have a wooden eye.”
“If he didn’t have a wooden eye, then what was wrong with him?” I wondered. “Maybe you are just being too picky.”
“There was nothing wrong with him. I just didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone.”
“That seems a bit obstinate to me,” said I.
“Don’t berate me about it now,” she sulked. “I have paid dearly for running away. I was captured by slavers and taken halfway to Lyrria. I only escaped them when they were attacked by bandits. The bandits took me captive and carried me away to their camp in the mountains. I was taken from the bandit camp when it was attacked by trolls. The trolls took me into the woods. Then I was stolen away from the trolls by ogres, who put me in a cage and took me to their horrible city. There things got even worse when I was captured from the ogres by a band of wererats.”
“Hold on.” I counted them off on my fingers. “Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats… If this were my story, then next would come… harpies.”
“Pixies.”
“Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Pixies are little.”
“Evil pixies.”
“Still. Little.”
“Evil pixies from hell.”
“Ah. But at least you got away from them.”
“I managed to escape.”
“Because they’re little, right?”
“Um, yes. But then I was captured by pirates.”
“Pirates in the middle of North Lyrria? By the Ogre Mountains? Far away from the ocean?”
“They were on holiday.”
“Pirates on holiday?”
“Yes.”
“All right. And how did you get away from them?” I asked.
“One of the pirates, a woman named Prudence released me. I think she was jealous that the pirate captain might fancy me instead of her.”
“Prudence? Prudence the pirate?”
“That’s right.”
“And you say she was jealous?”
“Yes.”
I ran through the details in my mind. Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats. Then came the pixies, but I would change them to harpies. Finally there was Prudence the pirate. Prudence who was jealous. Possessive! Possessive Prudence the pirate. Or Prudence the possessive pirate. Yes, I quite like the sound of that. Prudence the Possessive Pirate—that had to be a half-crown story if ever I heard one. I could take a title like that, work it into something, take it to every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune. Of course I would send the half-orphan elf girl a percentage. On the other hand, she said she was a princess. Princesses are rich. She probably doesn’t need the paltry amount made from the sale of a story. She might be insulted if I tried to pay her.
“Now I’ve had more than enough,” said she.
“You don’t want any money?”
“No. I’ve had more than enough adventure and I want to go home,” she replied. “Are you carrying on some other conversation in your head about how you are going to take my story to every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune, and not pay me anything for it?”
“Of course not,” I replied. “You want to go home. And besides, I am a firm believer in maintaining all the appropriate copyrights.”
Chapter Thirteen: Wherein I run into an old friend unexpectedly.
Princess Jholeira and I, and of course Hysteria, made our way east, following the road which is called the East Road, which is only appropriate, as it goes east… and it is a road. I had pretty much accepted that the girl thought she was a princess. She was convincing enough as she told me of life growing up among the royalty of the elven wood. I listened to her descriptions, because you can never have too much local color to throw into a story, but I didn’t commit much to memory as far as the events of her life were concerned. There just wasn’t much of a plot there. But to return to the point, generally speaking, if someone thinks they are a princess, I have found that it doesn’t much matter whether anyone else thinks they are
or not.
At tea time we stopped and I made a fire, brewing some coffee and whipping up a pan full of biscuits. These were not like biscuits in Aerithraine. There biscuits are crunchy little sweet things—what my poor old father called “cookies” though you bake them instead of cooking them. These were what they call biscuits in Lyrria—something in the sort of a soft scone made with flour, salt, and animal lard. If we had only had a bit of honey they would have been quite good, but alas I had no honey. They filled us up though and both Jholeira and I were glad for them. Hysteria didn’t think very much of them though and she was mopey again for the rest of the day.
We traveled until dark was starting to settle. I had just decided that it was time to look for a campsite when my little orphan princess spotted the lights of houses some distance away. We continued and arrived at a thorpe, which is to say a hamlet or a small village. It was very small too, having only a single inn and half a dozen farm houses. The inside of the inn was warm and inviting. We were greeted at a large counter just inside by a husky innkeeper with arms like tree trunks and hands like hams. He had thick whiskers on either side of his face and when he smiled he revealed that both front teeth were gone.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“We would like a room.”
“Two rooms,” said the girl. “And stabling for our horse.”
“Ixnay on the ootay oomsray,” said I. “I don’t have the money to pay for the one. I was hoping I might pay for it with my storytelling…”
“Is that the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton I see?” called a voice from the doorway beyond.
While the proprietor squinted at me as if to see if it truly were the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton in front of him and not a good-for-something mathematically fluent version, I turned to see my accuser. There in the doorway was my oldest and dearest friend—Ellwood Cyrene. He had a mug of ale in his hand and a smile on his face. He looked quite at home having left his armor and swords off as he relaxed, though I could see the two daggers he kept in his belt, the one he kept up his right sleeve, and the one inside his back collar, as well as his knife in his right boot and the throwing stars in his left.
Many Adventures of Eaglethorpe Buxton Page 4