“No, indeed, you should not have come,” Master Joris agreed. “We have almost reached an arrangement here. The king and princess have decided to leave the kingdom for a time. They will return in the future, we’ve resolved. Say, a hundred years or so from now?”
Bee gave a squawk of outrage. “That’s ridiculous! People don’t live that long!”
The mage raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say. But that’s precisely the point, my dear. Or are you not as perceptive as you seem? You appear to have some bit of magic yourself, I’ve noticed. Such delicious pastries you make, all flavored with helpfulness and love.” He managed to make the words helpfulness and love sound like curses. Bee’s temper flared.
“Of course they wouldn’t work on you,” Bee said, her face growing red. “You’re so full of bile and nastiness and … and—”
“Acrimony,” Anika suggested.
“Spite,” Wil said.
“Rancor,” said Bartholomew. They turned to King Crispin.
“Bitterness. Vindictiveness. Malevolence,” the king offered. “You are nothing but a vessel of ill will, Joris. And we were not agreeing to go away, not at all. That was entirely your fantasy. We were simply allowing you to blather on until we found a way to silence you.”
Master Joris gritted his teeth. “If you will not go, then I will have to bring the baker up from the dungeons and kill him. And his little apprentice here. And this hedge wizard, and whoever this impertinent boy is. Do you think I will not do it?” The mage’s voice quivered with outrage. His hands were in tight fists, and sparks flew as he stamped his foot on the ground.
“I think you will not do it,” Bartholomew said.
The mage looked startled. “What did you say?”
“You will not do it. You are finished here.”
Bee wondered if she’d heard him right. Was this the same hedge wizard who had smacked himself in the forehead with a mallet on board the Egg-Hen?
“How dare you? Why, you …” Master Joris was sputtering with fury. It reminded Bee of his wild anger when she and Wil had run away with Anika. He wasn’t used to being crossed. He stamped his foot again, like an angry child.
But the hedge wizard did not back down. It was clear to Bee that his magical success had given him confidence.
“You have done enough harm here,” Bartholomew said evenly. “You very nearly destroyed this kingdom. You deprived the Aradysh people of their king for a dozen years. And you caused the shipwreck that killed my wife—Bee’s mother. You are a liar and a thief. You are a murderer.”
Anika put a comforting arm around Bee’s shoulder, but Bee barely felt it. It was a shock to hear it said, though she’d known it was true. She’d known Master Joris caused the wreck of King Crispin’s ship. She’d known her mother was on board that same ship, that she drowned when it sank. It may not have been his intention, but the mage had killed Bee’s mother.
“You are nothing but a hedge wizard,” Master Joris hissed. “I forbid you to speak to me that way!” A third time the mage stamped his foot in wrath, and when he did the ground beneath all their feet trembled as if in an earthquake. Bee staggered, and Anika tried to steady her, but the trembling continued, and they both fell to their knees.
From the spot where Master Joris’s foot had struck the earth, a crack appeared. It spread in two directions, both toward the palace and away, with the speed of a ship blown by a heavy wind. The crack in the ground became a cleft and then a crevice, and it widened with every passing second. When it came to the wall surrounding the garden, the wall itself cracked, and pieces of brickwork crumbled and fell to the ground.
Through the gap in the wall, Bee watched, openmouthed, as the crack in the earth moved ever closer to the edge of the lake. When the fissure reached the shore, it seemed at first that nothing more would happen, but a moment later there was a roar, and water poured into it, rushing back toward the garden.
“Get back!” Wil shouted, pushing Bee away from the crack, which was now nearly a yard wide. The lake water rushed toward them and then past, heading for the palace. Everyone turned to watch. The water pushed along the crack, widening it still further, curving and opening a path through the maze and flowing toward the palace. The path ran directly under the palace, and as the water surged through, the palace walls appeared to wobble just a little.
“Master Bouts!” Bee cried. The baker was trapped in the dungeons. And the cook, Hadewig, was still inside, and the butler. Bricks dropped off the tallest of the palace towers, and the towers themselves swayed as if in a heavy wind. And then, without warning, the whole building crumpled and folded in on itself with a great crash and tumble. A moment later, a dust-filled wind blew past the watchers in the garden. There was nothing left of the palace but a heap of debris that was slowly being engulfed by a rising lake of water. Bee covered her face with her hands and wept.
A muddy river now flowed through the garden, its waters churning at Bee’s feet. She was on one side of the crevice with Wil and Bartholomew. Anika, her father, and Master Joris were on the other side. Master Joris looked back at the palace, his expression alarmed. Bee could tell that he had not expected his tantrum to have such a devastating effect. His uncontrollable rage had unleashed a frenzy of magic.
Anika helped her father, knocked down by the force of the quaking earth, to stand. “I think you have done enough,” King Crispin said to the mage. But Master Joris recovered quickly.
“You have seen just a taste of my power,” he replied loftily. “If you do not depart as we have agreed, I will do the same to all of Zeewal. I will reduce the town to rubble. I will turn you and your daughter to dust yourselves!”
“Stop him!” Bee begged Bartholomew.
Bartholomew pointed a finger at Master Joris and said incomprehensible words. Something shot out from his fingertip—a wind, or another unseen force, Bee couldn’t tell. Unprepared for this sudden attack, the mage sat down hard on the ground. Quickly he stood again, and now he held something in his hand, something he’d picked up when he fell. He opened his palm and showed it to Anika.
“Pepin!” the princess cried, reaching for him.
The mage smiled at Anika, showing his teeth. Then, almost idly, he tossed the hedgehog into the air. Up the creature soared, spinning like a ball, and then down, down … into the muddy water of the newly formed river. Without a moment’s hesitation, Anika leaped in after him.
“Stop!” Bee called out, but it was too late. Anika couldn’t swim.
“Anika, no!” Wil shouted, and he too jumped into the brown froth. Bee stood as close to the edge as she dared, clinging to Bartholomew. Anika had disappeared under the water, and Wil dove for her, but he came up empty-handed. He dove again, staying down so long that Bee began to whimper with fear.
At last Wil surfaced with the princess, her body limp but her fist closed tightly around her hedgehog. He swam to the edge with Anika, and Bartholomew and Bee pulled as he pushed her up out of the river. She rolled onto her back and lay unmoving on the ground. Her red hair, thick with mud, framed a face as pale as risen cream. She was utterly still.
Anika wasn’t breathing.
CHAPTER 25
Bee gave herself up to despair. She didn’t notice the warlike cries that sounded as the pirates, no longer in their shrubby disguises, clambered through and over the broken garden wall. Unseeing, unhearing, she knelt and stroked Anika’s face, mourning the dearness of the friend she’d known for so short a time. When someone shoved Bee rudely aside, tumbling her onto her back, she was utterly disoriented.
“Turn ’er!” Bee heard, but she didn’t understand. She sat up and stared blankly as Haleem lifted the princess as if she were a feather and then laid her on her stomach. She blinked, uncomprehending, as Captain Zay raised her clenched hands and then brought them down hard, twice, between Anika’s shoulder blades. But when Anika jerked and coughed and spewed a fountain of w
ater onto the ground, Bee let out a cry of joy.
“My mens is often requiring resuscitation,” Captain Zay confided to King Crispin, who looked as dazed as Bee felt. “I recommend a brisk thump upon the back.” Then she looked around, her gaze landing on Master Joris, who hadn’t moved since tossing the hedgehog. “This one is quite wicked,” she said to Haleem. “Tie ’im up.”
Master Joris, realizing she referred to him, scrambled backward. He just missed stepping on Pepin, who had made his waddling way from Anika’s grasp over to the wizard. The hedgehog hissed, then raised himself up and bit the mage hard on the leg.
Master Joris let out a shout and tried to shake Pepin off, but he hung on, his sharp teeth embedded in the mage’s calf. Dancing wildly at the edge of the river, Master Joris tried to dislodge the hedgehog—and then his foot slipped. His arms windmilled wildly as he tried to regain his balance, but the ravine bank was now steep and slick with mud. Pepin let go and rolled away from the muddy bank to safety. The mage fell into the water with a great splash.
The current was no longer flowing strongly toward the remains of the palace, so Master Joris began swimming in the other direction as hard as he could, toward the lake and the canal. Haleem tried to grab him, but the river had become too wide.
As the mage reached the lake, he slowed down. His robes were heavy, making it hard for him to move. It was clear he was getting tired, and he aimed himself toward the shore. There were trees along this bank. Instinctively, the mage reached for their overhanging roots to pull himself up, but it seemed almost as if the roots shrank away from his grasping hands. Bee turned questioning eyes to Bartholomew. He nodded as if to say, Watch.
Then one tall tree—an oak, like the one in the town square—with thick, twisted roots allowed Master Joris to take hold of it. He dragged himself partway out of the water onto the slick bank and lay there panting. After a minute, he tried to stand, but the oak’s roots tripped him, and he fell. As Bee watched in disbelief, the gnarled roots wound themselves around the mage’s torso. Another tree—a maple, Bee thought—reached out its thinner roots and grasped his legs, and the roots of a third, with a tall, silvery trunk, seized his arms.
The mage let out a shriek of terror and tried to kick and twist free. But the roots held him tight as he struggled. Slowly they pulled him downward into the mire. In a moment he was gone, sucked into the mud of the lakeshore as if he had never existed.
Horrified, Bee turned toward Bartholomew, and he hugged her to him. The look on Master Joris’s face—oh, she would never forget that expression of malice and dread! It was too awful to think about. Her nose was running, and she hiccupped as Bartholomew patted her back awkwardly. “It will be all right,” he said. “Dear me, dear me, it will be all right.”
“But Master Bouts,” Bee sobbed.
“I know,” Bartholomew said. “I am sorry.”
Suddenly, one of the pirates let out a shout. “Ship ahoy!” he yelled.
“What?” Bee said, muffled in Bartholomew’s shoulder.
Another pirate took up the call. “Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!”
Bee raised her head. The pirates all pointed toward the palace ruins, now more of a rough lake crowded with debris. Bobbing amid the rubbish was a raft of sorts, a flat vessel. A figure lay on top of it. Two others floated alongside, gripping the edges.
Bee cried out and began to run. As fast as she could, she flew along the river’s edge until she could see the raft clearly. It was barely longer and wider than the form atop it, and that form was clearly Master Bouts. The two in the water were Hadewig and the butler, Master van Campen, paddling with their free arms and pushing the float toward shore.
The pirates helped pull the raft to land, and Hadewig and the butler clambered out, dripping and looking highly irritated. But Master Bouts didn’t move. He lay, eyes closed, atop the raft, which Bee could see now was a wooden door. Were his lungs filled with water, as Anika’s had been? But no, his round stomach rose and fell with his breath.
“Master Bouts!” Bee said.
At the sound of her voice, the baker opened his eyes. “Have we reached dry land?” he asked.
Captain Zay stepped up to the shore and bowed, the feather in her hat nearly sweeping the ground. “Ah, Master Baker!” she exclaimed. “You have survived the voyage all of a piece and have come safely in to port. Allow me the pleasure to escort you from your vessel.” She held out a hand, and the baker sat up cautiously, flinching when his door-raft rocked in the water. He took Captain Zay’s hand and climbed off the raft onto land, where he stood looking rather pale and shaky.
“I am a little afraid of the water,” he said apologetically to everyone, and Bee launched herself into his arms, which encircled her.
“I thought you were dead,” she said in a small voice.
He replied, “I very nearly was, my girl. If my cell door had been made of iron instead of wood, I’d have drowned or been crushed by falling bricks, I am sure. But the hinges gave out, and the door popped right to the surface. Luckily I managed to climb on board.” He kissed Bee on the top of her head.
“Luckily for you. There was no room for us,” the butler said sourly, his piglike nose twitching with annoyance.
Master Bouts released Bee, and she saw Bartholomew looking at them. His expression was glad, his smile nearly as huge as hers. He had a big heart, her father did. Both of her fathers did.
Down the canal, a line of townspeople had begun to make their way toward the palace, drawn by the sight and sound of the palace collapsing. At the head of the line were the Weatherwaxes, Wil’s parents carrying the little ones. Just behind them was a wavery figure whom Bee realized was Ying-tao. She hadn’t seen the moss maiden since she’d baked the bibingka the afternoon before.
Ying-tao glided past Bee and the baker to the spot where King Crispin knelt beside his daughter at the edge of the river. Anika was sitting up now, her color back in her cheeks, her hedgehog safely curled in her damp lap. Wil sat next to her, rubbing her hands to warm them.
“Your Majesty,” Ying-tao said. The king looked up and slowly got to his feet.
“Is it time?” he said.
“It is.”
“Can I not convince you to stay?” The king’s voice was sorrowful, and Bee looked more closely at the two.
“You know I cannot stay,” Ying-tao said simply. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against the king’s cheek. He reached out for her hands, but she moved away from him, her eyes on the cherry tree that now stood on the bank of the new river. She held her arms out to the tree, and it almost seemed that the tree’s branches stretched out toward her in return. There was a moment when Bee blinked, and when her eyes opened again, she saw only the tree, its curved branches reminiscent of Ying-tao’s graceful figure.
The king sighed and straightened up, helping Anika to stand. As the rest of the townspeople took in the sight of the ruined palace, their eyes wide with amazement, Master Bouts turned to Bee.
“It seems that strange things have happened,” the baker said. “I am sure there is a tale to be told here—but there are also buns to be baked. Did you set the dough to rise in the bakery this morning, child?”
Bee shook her head.
“No matter,” said Master Bouts. “We will get a new batch ready together. Buns wait for no man, and this crowd must have their bread!”
The king, Anika, and Bartholomew stayed where they were, to try to explain to the townspeople what had happened, and Master Bouts and Bee started back toward the town and their bakery. Behind them, Captain Zay stood and watched them go, her eyes shining.
“That is a venerable baker, to be sure!” she said, shaking her head in wonder and admiration. “A man with such honorable priorities is a man truly to esteem.”
CHAPTER 26
A second batch of Bouts Buns was in the oven, as the first had sold out in minutes. Bee had dared to tr
y improving on the original recipe as she had on the Egg-Hen, flavoring the buns with cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkling the top with toasted walnuts. The shop was thick with delightful smells and crowded with folk come to gossip and chatter about the goings-on up at the palace. The mage, dead and gone—and so very gruesomely! Their own king, returned! The princess, in love with the blacksmith’s son! It was all as delicious as the pastries on the shelves.
“But he will not be a blacksmith,” Bee pointed out to Mistress de Vos, who couldn’t help snorting at the thought of a common boy and a princess together. “The king said Wil would be the first Minister of Trees.” Master Weatherwax had had a few choice words to say about that, but between them, Wil and his brother Geert had almost convinced him that it was a good idea.
“Humph.” Mistress de Vos rolled her eyes. “It seems to me that blacksmithy is a far more useful occupation. What does a Minister of Trees do, for goodness’ sake? Why do we even need all these trees?” She shook her head in disapproval, and then said, “Aren’t those buns ready yet? And don’t give me any of those newfangled nuts or spices. I want my buns as they’ve always been.”
In the last two days, Bee had already made several recipes from Master Bouts’s ancient Booke of Baking, using the bounty from the trees. Most people were eager to try the new tastes—the citrus fruits, apples, cherries, and figs, the allspice and nutmeg, the pecans and pine nuts and almonds. But secretly, as much as it vexed her to do so, Bee had to agree with Mistress de Vos: Master Bouts’s original buns were still best.
Certain things had been decided quickly. The king and Anika were staying with Wil’s family, while a royal dwelling was being built along the river, between the old lake and the newly formed second lake that now lapped gently where the palace had once stood. When the new residence was finished, Bartholomew would move in with the king and princess as the mage of Aradyn, despite his inability to control his power perfectly.
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