The cute serving wench was at our table before we even sat down. She wiped down the table, giving us a wonderful view down the top of her blouse. She had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, which is a fashion style of which I am always in hearty agreement. She gave Ellwood’s side of the table an extra rub with her rag, while she leaned forward to give him an extra view.
“What can I get two handsome men today?” asked she.
“I don’t know what they might want,” said Ellwood. “But Eaglethorpe and I will have chicken pie and beer.”
She gave him a wink and scurried off to see to our order.
“What are we going to do about the foul plot?” I asked in a low voice, leaning across the table.
“She’s getting our chicken now,” said he.
“Foul, not fowl.”
“All right,” said he. “Tell me about it.”
I relayed to him what I had seen of the two plotters, fat and ugly respectively. I told him about the woman from the palace and the dangerous man she was meeting and the poison and the four men who would attack them.
“You worry too much,” said he. “This alleged assassination isn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow. We shall be here and ready. I already have a room upstairs.”
“You do? What a coincident that is.”
The wench returned with two large pewter steins brimming with sudsy beer. It was a good beer. I have had beer in Lyrria, bitters in Goth, ale in Lythia, and that which passes for beer among the elves, but I can tell you that few hold a candle to the fine dark beers of Aerithraine. They are thick and smooth, really more of a meal than a drink. I was still thinking about how good it was when the serving wench returned again, which is to say returned for the second time, this time with our chicken pie. The chicken pie was very good too, and I had eaten almost half of it before I returned my attention to the matter at hand.
“So what are we to do?” I asked Ellwood.
“About what?”
“About the foul plot.”
“The pie not to your liking?”
“Foul, not fowl.”
“Say!” said he, in a loud voice. “Are you not the famous story-teller Englewood Boxo’nuts?”
“No,” said I. “I am the famous adventurer and story-teller Eaglethorpe Boxcar… Buxton.”
“Tell us a story!” called someone from across the room.
“Buxton!” shouted someone else.
Soon everyone took up the chant. “Buxton! Buxton! Buxton!”
“That’s not right,” said Ellwood.
“What?”
“They are shouting ‘Boxcar! Boxcar! Boxcar!’ and it’s your own fault too.”
“How do you know what I am thinking?” I wondered. “Do you have some foul sorcery?”
“More chicken?”
“Foul, not fowl.”
“You’re narrating your own life under your breath,” said he. “And you’re doing it incorrectly.”
“Mayhaps I am, but you shouldn’t interrupt,” said I. “It destroys the readers’ suspension of disbelief.”
“What reader? You, and as much as it pains me, I, are the only one paying attention to you.”
“Writing is a mysterious craft,” said I. “Just stay out of it.”
“Tell us a story!” called someone from across the room.
“Buxton!” shouted someone else.
Soon everyone took up the chant. “Buxton! Buxton! Buxton!”
I stood up and gave a bow.
“I shall tell you the story of how I saved the princess of the sky people and stopped a war between them and the cloud giants…”
“That’s not right either,” said Ellwood. “You didn’t save the sky princess. I did. And you didn’t stop the war between the sky people and the cloud giants. You started it when you stabbed that cloud giant in the shin, when all he was trying to do was deliver a birthday card to the sky king.”
“I remember it differently,” said I.
“I shall tell you the story of how I saved the princess of the sky people,” I continued. “And stopped a war between them and the cloud giants.” I whipped out my fork. “With this fork!”
“You didn’t whip out your fork. You already have it out,” said Ellwood. “You were eating a chicken pot pie.”
“Stop ruining my story!”
“Fine. Fine. But this chapter was too short.”
Chapter Seven: Wherein I am summoned by the Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight.
I spent the rest of the day at The Tumbling Stone: eating, drinking, and telling stories. I also played several games of darts, during which no one of importance was accidentally stabbed. I would have preferred to have found a room upstairs from the pub, but there wasn’t one available. In fact, by the time I stumbled out of the establishment, which is to say walked out of the pub while leaning precariously to one side, it was too late to find lodging anywhere. Thus I ended up sleeping in the hay loft at the stable in which I had placed my valiant steed, which is to say my horse Hysteria.
“Wake up,” said a voice, even as an object prodded me in the side.
“What do you want?” I asked, opening my eyes to see a girl poking me with a pitchfork.
A pitchfork makes a passable good weapon, especially when wielded with anger by a fat farmer’s wife. I have seen entire militias outfitted with nothing more than pitchforks, and seen them defeat an armed band of goblins too. I myself, armed with only a pitchfork, once killed half a dozen hobgoblins who snuck up on me in the middle of the night, and I didn’t feel bad about it either. I did feel a bit bad later, when I discovered that they were in fact just fat elves who were on their way home from a meeting of The Secret Brotherhood of Sylvan Overeaters. Fortunately, the girl in the hay loft was poking me with the handle end of the pitchfork, which is to say the end with the handle and not the end with three tines, which are what they call those poking things on pitchforks and regular forks.
“What do you want?” said I.
“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 Secret Brotherhood of Sylvan Overeaters? 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. “It’s time for me to feed hay to the horses and you’re laying in it.”
“I am not,” said I. “I am lying in it. Lay requires a direct object and lie does not. One might lay something in the hay, but I was not laying something in the hay. I was lying in the hay, without a direct object of any kind.”
She turned the pitchfork around and poked me with the end with three tines and not the end with the handle.
“Hey!” I shouted “Lay your pitchfork down.”
“Get out. I don’t want a grammar lesson.”
“So you inferred when you poked me,” said I.
“I didn’t infer anything,” said she. “I implied. The listener infers. The speaker implies.”
“Don’t presume to teach grammar to me…”
“Get out,” said she. “Else I will summon the city watch.”
I quickly gathered my things together and climbed down from the hay loft. I paused long enough to see that my valiant steed Hysteria had a plentiful supply of water and oats, and I promised her that I would bring her a carrot on the morrow for being such a good and a brave and a forthright horse. I made a mental note not to forget and another mental note to remind myself, because Hysteria was a horse to hold a grudge when one did not fulfill his promises.
I had only just stepped outside when I ran into two men dressed in the shining steel armor and purple cloaks of Her Majesty’s Royal Guard. I figuratively ran into them, which is to say that I didn’t really run into them at all, but stopped a good two feet before I bumped into them, which would have been literally running into them.
“Hold,” said one of t
hem. He reached out a hand to actually hold onto me, which is not really what most people mean when they say ‘hold.’ Usually, they just mean stop. They just say ‘hold,’ as in ‘hold on a minute, I want you to stop.’
“You’re coming with us,” said the other, which completely confused me, because now I didn’t know if they wanted me to stop or to go.
“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, lifting my chin and striking an intimidating pose.
“The Queen of Aerithraine is waiting to give you an audience?
“You’re kidding,” said I.
“You are Eagleskin Turnbuckle, are you not?”
“No. I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, with a thorpe instead of a skin and a whole different last name altogether.”
The two of them looked at each other. They both shrugged.
“Close enough.”
I wondered what Ellwood Cyrene would say about this chapter. He would probably complain that it was shorter even than the last one. When telling a story, there are natural ups and downs, places to speed up and places to slow down, places where your character is visiting an outhouse that you should skip over, and places where your character is hanging from a cliff where you should stop for a short break. When you write a story down as a book though, this can leave you with some chapters far longer than other chapters, and this tends to make scribes and copiers cranky.”
“What are you thinking about?” asked the first Royal Guardsmen
“I’m thinking about my friend Ellwood,” said I.
“Well stop it and come along,” he ordered.
Chapter Eight: Wherein I have a secret meeting.
I wasn’t taken to the throne room, which is too bad. If you are taken to the throne room, you have it made. Everyone sees you if you are taken to the throne room. They see you and they see how famous and important and really, really impressive you are and you have it made. From that point on, you are twice as famous and twice as important and sixteen times as impressive and at least forty two percent more enormous than you were before. People treat you with courtesy and respect and sometimes fear, but mostly with courtesy and respect. But I wasn’t taken to the throne room. I was taken to a small room on the side of the palace. It was nice. It had pretty blue curtains and a nice blue rug. It was no throne room, I can tell you that.
The guardsmen left and I waited there, alone, for about two hours. There were no chairs and there wasn’t anything at all to do. About two hours. They didn’t even give me a book to read. No chairs. The only thing in the room besides me was a small table with a fancy bottle filled with brandy and two crystal glasses, which is to say the bottle filled with brandy and the two glasses were sitting side by side and not that the glasses were in the bottle with the brandy. There was only brandy in the bottle, but it was passably good brandy. It was not the best brandy that I had ever had, but it was far from the worst. Just when I thought I would go out of my mind with boredom, the door opened and she walked in.
It was she, Elleena Posthuma, Queen of Aerithraine, Guardian of the Faithful, and Protector of the Realm. She wore a beautiful dress, low cut over her bosoms, which blossomed from her waist into a long train; which is to say that the dress blossomed out from her waist into long train and not her bosoms, which were actually on the small side, and were only blossoming in the loosest sense of that word. Her bosoms stayed right where they were supposed to. She had a white ruff around her neck and a small tiara in her short but carefully arranged blond hair.
“Master Buxton,” she said.
“Your Majesty,” I replied bowing very low. She wore a lovely pair of blue slippers.
“Are you looking at my feet?”
“Of course not, Your Majesty.”
“Then get up.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” said I, rising.
“I have heard much of your recent exploits,” said she, and then she smiled. “It has been a long time since we had the pleasure of spending a fortnight together.”
“I am surprised that you remember that, Your Majesty.”
“How could I forget you, Master Buxton?”
“It is only natural that I, being a humble friend to those who are in need of a friend and a humble protector to those who are in need of a protector and a humble guardian to those who are in need of a guardian, would naturally remember you, a Queen, better than you, being a queen, would remember me, a humble friend…”
“Humble. Guardian. Protector. Got it.”
“For instance, Majesty,” said I. “I was watching as you passed on the Avenue of Spires yesterday, but you didn’t notice me.”
“Oh, I saw you, Master Buxton,” said Her Majesty. “But if I acknowledged you, then I would have to acknowledge everyone and I simply haven’t the time.”
“That is very gratifying to know,” said I.
“I called you here for a reason, Master Buxton,” she said, walking over to the small table. “Oh. I had intended to pour us a brandy, but it seems that the staff left only an empty bottle.”
“It is hard to get good help nowadays,” said I.
“As I said,” she continued. “I did call you here for a reason.”
“I feel I should remind Your Majesty that you are a married woman,” said I.
“That is not the reason.”
“Of course your husband has been gone for several years.”
“That was not the reason.”
“And you barely had a chance to get to know him.”
“That wasn’t it.”
“It was really just a political marriage after-all.”
“Master Buxton.”
“To be fair, he was nowhere near as handsome as I am either, at least not when I last saw him, and I doubt he has grown handsomer, while I have to admit that my own looks have done nothing but improve with age.”
“Master Buxton?”
“Yes?” quoth I.
“That was not the reason I called for you.”
“Oh… well, I suppose that’s for the best, as you are a married woman.”
“But I did call you here for a reason,” said she.
“And what would that reason be, Your Majesty?”
“I have always heard that one should not start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but,” said she.
“Is there some kind of grammar emergency? I asked. “If there is, I am your man.”
“No,” said she. “I simply found it interesting that we used two sentences that began with the very words with which one is supposed to not begin sentences.”
“Those rules are for beginners,” said I.
“And?”
“And I am a skilled writer and do not need such precautions.”
“But…”
“But you are a queen and may disregard any rules you choose.”
“So, again, the reason I called you,” said she, stepping very close.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Oh, I did forget the reason I wanted you,” said she.
She then took my face in her hands, molded her body to mine, and kissed me. In my life, I have been kissed many times, and I could have ranked the five best kisses in my life up until that point. Number five would have been the kiss given to me by Jholeira, the elven princess. I would have placed the kiss of Princess Aurora of the sky people at number four. The kiss given to me by the lovely actress Megara Fennec, as I lay dying just outside of Antriador, would have been number three. The first kiss ever given to me by a girl, which is to say my cousin Tuki, I would have rated at number two. Number one would have been the time Ellwood Cyrene kissed me as I lay pretending to be asleep one night on our way west from Lyrria. This kiss by Queen Elleena put all those kisses to shame. No great king or hero has ever received such a kiss, no matter how many dragons and evil wizards he has put down. The gods themselves could not have given and have never received such a kiss. Time stopped. The universe died and returned to life. Birds started singing. Fireworks exploded. Children laughed. Flowers bloomed.
&
nbsp; “I love you, Eaglethorpe,” said she.
“Flur flurb flurb?” said I.
“You are drooling,” said she. “But I still love you.”
“You love me, Your Majesty? But I thought that was not the reason you called me here.”
“No, that was not the reason I called you here. I called you here not for the physical expression of my love, but I find I cannot help but give you the verbal expression of my love. I love you Eaglethorpe, but we can never be together. We may never be able to even see each other after today.”
“Why is that?” I wondered.
“I am Queen and must attend my duty,” said she. “And you are…”
“I am an adventurer and cannot be forced to settle down,” I offered.
“Exactly.”
“You are right, Your Majesty,” said I. “Know this though. No other woman will ever have the place in my heart reserved for you.”
“Nor any man?”
“No, no man neither.”
She kissed me again, and if anything, this kiss was even more sublime, more sincere, and more perfect than was the last.
“I will kiss you one more time and then you must leave,” said she. “But I will ask one tiny little favor of you.”
Then she kissed me for the third and last time and this kiss made the first two kisses look like steaming dog crap lying in the middle of the street, like a leprous hermit with festering sores all over his face, or like that lemon pie I had in the Kingdom of Theen with way too much salt.
“I will do whatever you ask,” said I.
“Good.” She smiled. “Kill Ellwood Cyrene.”
Many Adventures of Eaglethorpe Buxton Page 13