by Jenni James
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, and places, and all dialogue and events portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination.
Cover design copyright © 2018 by Jenni James
Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except for brief quotations for critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Serenity Brooke Press.
First Edition Published 2017
ISBN (pb)
Table of Contents
The Stone Hammer Apprentice
The Princess with the Golden Touch
The Golden Bird
The Four Skillful Brothers
The Iron Cage
Peter And The Lost Boy
Bird Hat
The Pied Pipers of Ham Bone Inn
Foreword
NS Writer’s Group is excited to bring you another collection of fairy tales—this time with some fables added to the mix. A few new authors have joined our ranks and we are excited for their contributions. We are also pleased that all of our previous authors have remained with us.
We have enjoyed learning and growing together while creating a masterpiece for you to enjoy. Our backgrounds vary from busy parents, to full-time employees, to grandparents, to just plain crazy-busy people. Some writers are seasoned while others are only beginning their journey as authors. This group and our compiled stories have helped us all grow in our abilities and our friendships.
These stories have delighted us as we have written them and worked together to compile them. We know they will enchant you, too.
Turn the page…and enjoy!
The Stone Hammer Apprentice
By A. Shepherd
This story is dedicated to Terry Brooks,
who gave the world (and subsequently, me)
Nest, John Ross, Two Bears and Pick.
“White man has many ways that I do not understand.
I do not understand why he robs the Earth.
I do not understand
Why he has taken from Her more than he needs
And leaves nothing in return.
White man is a thief.
He will take and leave nothing.
Never take and leave nothing in its place.”
-Chief Heavy Hawk
Chapter 1
Y ou!” the old woman croaked, “Horse-face!”
Robin knew that meant her. The old slophouse croan hovered in the doorway, loamy, half-dead eyes searching the kitchen for the servant girl.
“Another one blown, child. Dead on its feet. The call comes to you.” The wrinkled face and shielded eyes blinked once then turned and left.
As fast as her bare feet could carry her, Robin was away from the shouts of the manor’s kitchen staff.
The stables were still sodden from the last rainfall, the sharp, sweet incense of horse manure wafted up to her. Waiting within
the shade of a hay loft was a man in dark, expensive clothing. A ridiculous feathered hat sat on his head.
Sir Armie Farthen.
Greth the stable master blubbered an angry epithet at the girl as she came in, pushing past her and bowing to the knight. He reeked of cheap wine.
Sir Farthen removed his hat and tucked it beneath his arm. “Little Robin, my horse is in need of your care.” This was the fifth time he had blown a mount and she wondered if he had been riding his horses to death simply for the fun of it.
“I’m no lady, Sir.” She said to him with a sarcastic curtsy, “How far have you come?”
“Far. Your master needed company for supper. I couldn’t deny him my presence.” He sniffed, bored with the exchange.
Gritting her teeth, she grumbled, “Heaven behold, another friend of his gold.”
Greth stepped toward her with his hand raised, “Watch your tongue, wench! You’re speaking to a knight, you filthy -”
Sir Farthen clapped the stable master on the shoulder, nearly pitching him to his knees and said laughingly, “She’s right of it, dung-master. I haven’t cared a whit for my mount’s health when the promise of food and wine and possible remuneration stand chance. Care for the horse if you can. If not…” He shrugged, a gesture so unfeeling it brought bile to the back of Robin’s throat.
She went quietly to the open pen just beyond the loft. Lathered, gagging, frothing at the seams and shuddering, Sir Farthen’s horse stood in the baking heat. Its eyes were wide but the poor thing couldn’t seem to even hold up its head.
“Water.” She demanded, turning to Greth who had followed her out. “He needs warm water. From the well.”
Greth muttered but hunched drunkenly to the well for a bucket. Sir Farthen strode from the barn and yawned, “I’ll need a fresh mount. See that it can get me to the tavern without dying. I need to wet my own throat before giving your master my -” he paused, sneering, “My attentions.”
Biting her tongue, Robin nodded, knowing not even her master’s ‘companions’ could tolerate his presence without deadening their intelligences first.
Master Townsend was a pig of a man; fat, mean and sickeningly wealthy. Thus his ‘companions’ were equally measured in traits.
Greth hobbled back with a bucket, half of its contents having sloshed out. She took it from him but stopped before offering it to the horse. “Are you blind as well as drunk? Is the water sullied?” Reaching into the bucket, she pulled out a drowned crow.
Greth’s lips turned to speak but stopped as soon as the crow began to shiver then shriek to life. It dropped, floundering in the dirt for a moment before finding its legs and cawing resentfully.
“Devil bird! Dark wings!” Greth kicked at it, sending a flower of dust and pebbles at Robin’s feet. Without thinking she stooped, shielding it. He sneered, finding a fresh mound of horse turds and kicked it in her face, “Devil child! Caressing the devil’s rook!”
Before she could respond, the horse gave a terrible scream behind her and pitched over, thumping the ground, legs stiff. Its eyes rolled back into its head and a final shiver ended Sir Farthen’s expended ride. Still coddling the drowned crow, she went to the horse. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, running a hand down its neck. “I couldn’t help you.”
Greth chuckled behind her, “Horsemeat for the spits tonight, Sir. The Inn down the fly road thanks ye.” Without warning the bucket of water was tossed over Robin’s head. “Stupid wench. Cryin’ o’er the filthy garron. Get up and tell that boy Flop from the Inn they has meat. Go on!”
Soaked and trembling with fury, she stood and left the stables, hearing laughter behind her. The crow was silent as she walked, shaking itself several times, its tiny claws leaving welts in the palms of her hands. As she neared the kitchens it hopped up to her shoulder.
She didn’t want to think about how they would butcher the horse but she did. “Head first,” she said to the crow. “Then the shoulders. Then the rump. The hair will go to some proud knight’s warrior helm, the ears to slavering dogs.” She grabbed the ends of her hair and squeezed the water and dung from it. “They’ll eat tonight. Starving children and hungry hands will have meat. That’s what matters. Isn’t it, little crow? Isn’t that what will matter of its death?”
Haaa! The crow agreed.
She stuffed a hand in her pocket. Grasping along the seams she pried out a small handful of breadcrumbs. “There always seem to be crumbs in my pocket from the kitchens. Here. Eat.” She offered it to the crow who pecked at her palm, missing the crumbs en
tirely. She laughed, “Water in your head still?” The crow managed a feeble beakful of crumbs and tossed its head back to swallow, losing half of them in the trying.
“You’re not very good at that, are you?”
The crow made a queer sound. It sounded like laughter.
She stopped before going back into the manor. “You’d best behave yourself in the kitchen if you want to stay with me. Flop will be happy to hear of the horsemeat but he isn’t shy of eating crows, either.”
When she retired to her blanket on the stone floor that night, feeling bone-weary and beaten, she made a decision. “I think I’ll run away.” Taking a breath she added quickly, “I’m Robin, not that it matters to a crow. I’m not Horse-Face or Fly Bait or whatever horrible names they have given me. My name is Robin. Maybe somewhere we’re cousins, little crow. Maybe somewhere else I could fly, too.”
Settled by the nub of her burnt candle, the drowned crow closed its eyes to sleep. As if speaking to an old friend she whispered, “I can do more than scrub laundry and tend to beaten horses. I am going to be free of this place.” She sighed, turning to the long, drafty slit between stones that served as her window. “No moon tonight.” Studying the sleeping bird, she said, “Sweet dreams, then. If crows dream at all.” The flame guttered and went out with her breath.
Chapter 2
T he Parish Church of Croydon stood on low ground, a breath or two from the river Wandle and never far from the adjoining, muddied roads that led to Waddon. It was a striking structure, built uniform in the Early Perpendicular style, consisting of a nave with aisles, north and south porches, three chancels, a vestry and a massive western tower with eight bells.
Beneath these great bells stood an interior doorway and spiral stair, at the end of which was a small forgotten room that ultimately led out onto the roof.
On the roof, in the dim of a new moon’s absence, a man.
Ihoke Tsutsute; Slippery Fox.
He is from another world, or so it would seem, of the great people known as Hidatsa, from what they call the Americas.
He was a boy when his grandmother saw in the stars and the fire what was to become of their people. She sent him away, hoping to save him of such fates.
Many years of wandering and travel found him across the wide ocean and there, of all places, living quietly like a recluse in a room no one visits.
He has lived in the shadow of the great bells for years. Living in shadow is not so hard. Living with bells is. When he is not with them, he hears them inside his head.
Still, the bells are better than stinking, soggy, haunted London.
Much of what London used to be is gone. It was not unlike his home with the Hidatsa; lush, dense forests. Rabbit, fox, wolf, owl, even their strange deer, the stag. This was gone now. Beneath the cobblestones, bricked paths, iron rails and rutted roadways of London the soul of these things still lived. Still breathed.
He left London and her haunted earth for Croyden. Here the forests were hewn back but not entirely gone. Here wheat was still trussed up in standing bundles and left afield until gathered. He could hunt, if needed. Or, as he had come to prefer, he could pilfer nearly everything he needed from the great manor across the sloping field from the church.
This manor was owned by a man so fat he had to be waddled to his carriage on the shoulders of his servants.
Imagine that, a man who had forgotten how to walk.
Ihoke Tsutsute never used doors to get into the manor. They were well guarded by many eyes. However, those eyes belonged to men who wore heavy boots and dulled their senses with drink. They seemed to believe windows were impervious. He could slip in and out through windows as gracefully as a spring zephyr.
In the night, using master skills he had learned as a child, the slippery fox Ihoke visited the great house.
The master had lovely gardens surrounding the great stone edifice on all sides but one. He used these for shadow as it pleased him. The stout, flowering trees also provided excellent shadows and access to even the mullioned windows on the second and third stories.
In the stables were many fine horses whom he moved among like friends. Some were bulging, exhausted carthorses wanting for open sky and grass. Some were high bred and skinny, wanting for a meal. If the circulating guards could have counted legs, many nights of pillaging their master would have been spoiled, as well as his favorite place to wait while they staggered through their rounds. Blinded by torches, the guards couldn’t see him crouched at their heels or leaning just so as they passed.
There was always bread in the kitchen and pungent onion. For the fat man and his many visitors, meals were diced and made pretty. For his servants, moldy stew and crumbly cakes filled with uncooked grain. There was a large pewter tray with a half-eaten pheasant, dripping sweet sauces and decorated with a sprig of something green, all left to the flies as servants were forbidden from eating off the master’s finery.
He had stolen many knives from that kitchen, having no use of plates or cups.
This night he took candles and wick, satchels of smoked pig, apples, tough bread.Another knife.
Open torches are easily smothered by wet sand or a damp cloth. As he moved through the manor, he left shadow in his wake.
The fat master’s rooms were on the third story. He slept on a divan of feathered pillows, propped against them like a pregnant sow being swallowed by goose down. The guard at his door slept just as well, making a terrible rattle inside his mouth. Ihoke knew even if the thick-necked, muscle-bound guard were to wake, he would drown in his chain mail before catching the lithe, unsleeved shoulder of the Hidatsa.
He relieved the man of several items as he snored, placing a piece of oilcloth over his face to temper some of the awful sound.
Beside the kitchens was a darkened stairwell that led into the ever-dripping dampness of the cellars. The burden of heavy food stuffs avoided, he crept out of the cellar rooms and toward the torchlight of a semi-hidden hallway in the back.
Pacing down the arched walkway that led to the armory, another foot guard stood watch.
Ihoke Tsutsute never killed the guards.
That was something he was not willing to take for it was something he could never give back. His wise grandmother would stir the wind against him if he dared take such a thing without cause. Thus far, in the years living with the bells and taking from the fat man, he had been given no cause.
A flash of movement stirred the torchlight of the walkway into a cascade of fluttering shadows. The guard seemed to stagger to life, grasping the hilt of a long knife at his hip. Crouched against a jutted stonework balcony just outside the light, Ihoke waited.
The guard saw the owl then, perched on an unlit sconce against the doorway. Thinking it was nothing more than a lost bird causing the disturbance, he relaxed. Silent Feathers swooped again, sending the torched hallway into a jitter of moving light. Turning his back to the shadows, the guard followed the owl’s movement.
There is depression at the back of the skull that, when impacted, immediately renders the skull’s owner immobile. Utilizing this knowledge, Ihoke quietly laid the guard out with a swift thrust of his knuckles. Placing the guard inside the doorway of the armory, Ihoke hoped he would simply wake in an hour or so and think only that he had fallen asleep.
The owl was suddenly on Ihoke’s shoulder, talons drawing blood as it steadied itself against his movement. He moved quickly down the rows of weaponry, shunning the display of old, heavy swords and moving toward the tables of brightly fletched arrows.
With the invention of metal weaponry and foul, ear-splitting cannons and guns, the more practical, quiet defenses were slipping into the shadows of the past.
Exactly where a Hidatsa thief needed them.
He packed away several handfuls of arrows into a leather quiver, hastily slinging it across his back, dislodging Silent Feathers who fluttered noiselessly back into the hallway.
Upon entering the kitchens again, he could see the faintest light cre
eping into the air. Morning was coming fast. Shouldering his night’s work, he gathered himself up and perched inside the wide kitchen window that dropped out into the garden.
In front of him, leaving a dark smear in his path, a cloaked figure sprang from the undergrowth against the wall and darted into the dying night.
Dropping noiselessly behind a large, newly sprouted shrubbery, he watched the figure stumble, heard a sharp cry then gaped as the cloaked person ran headlong into a circulating guard.
With a spring, the hooded person was overtop the guard, cape billowing, feet churning toward the stables.
Shouting, the guard woke the manor grounds as an offended bee may wake a hive of angrier bees. Perturbed at his loss of an easy escape, Ihoke waited for several trampling foot guards to bypass his shadowy hideaway before creeping out. He traveled in a hunch along a grove of low bushes that let out near the horse pastures.
Whispering a comforting greeting to his friends as they grazed, he peered over top their backs at the swarm of guards circling the stables, torches dripping fiery spittle as they shouted and surrounded the open stalls.
“They aren’t looking for you,” a voice hissed out of the darkness, catching him like the stinging slap of a hand.
Reflexively, he squatted, hand grasping the wickedly pointed dagger strapped to his thigh and leveling it before his nose, ready to strike.
Walking forward carefully, the hooded figure ran delicate fingers across the horses’ backs, seeming to know them as well, “You are the strangest man I have ever seen,” It was a small voice, that of a young woman, “Why are you naked?”
He stood to his full height, seeming to tower over the hooded girl. There was enough light now in the Eastern sky that she could see he was covered, although not modest to her people’s standards.