by Wendy Mass
I can’t help but lean over and hug him. He may be bony, but I can feel the strength in his arms as well. He had to be strong — and flexible — to get up and down that rope so quickly. I would not like to be the prisoner trying to run past him. Perhaps I won’t have to be.
“So you will let me go?”
“Sorry, dear child, but I cannot.”
“Yes, you could,” I insist. “You could just lift me up on that rope, and I can climb down the staircase from your attic room. You could come WITH me! We would be far from here before she would even notice!”
He shakes his head adamantly. “I am in her service until my debt is paid off. I must fulfill the terms of my job.”
“How long is your service, then?”
His brows furrow. He picks a piece of lint off the rug before answering. “As long as I live. Or else young Stevie will die.”
I swallow. This witch is surely the most horrid creature in this kingdom or any other. “Then why do you risk her wrath by bringing me gifts?”
His expression lifts a bit at the mention of the gifts. “The witch shows up so rarely, I figure she will not notice. I could not bear to see you so unhappy.”
Poor, brave Steven. Risking so much for someone he doesn’t even know. I doubt I would be brave enough to do something like that.
Sir Kitty walks up and, as if she understands the situation, rubs her face against Steven’s leg and purrs loudly. Steven smiles and picks her up.
“I was so pleased when I saw how much you liked the cat,” he says, scratching her belly. “I worried she might make you sneeze.”
My eyes widen. “Sir Kitty was a gift from you? I thought she was here before I arrived.”
Steven shakes his head. “I found her in the bushes beneath the tower and knew you could use the company.”
“But the witch saw her! You could have gotten caught.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, placing Sir Kitty back on the rug. “Your quick thinking saved me. The witch probably believes the kitten got carried in along with the straw for your bed.”
“As did I,” I tell him, smiling. “You are very sneaky, Master Steven.”
“Stop,” he says, “you are making me blush.”
I cannot help wondering what color blushing cheeks would be on someone who is the color of a lima bean, but I do not want to be rude and peer too closely. “So what do we do? Just stay the witch’s prisoners forever?”
“But I am not her prisoner,” he reminds me. “Although I can see how it would appear that way. I shall continue to bring you things to make your life here more bearable. And even while you sleep, I am protecting you, although you are unaware.”
“But I was aware,” I tell him, suddenly realizing what I should have figured out before. “The breathing that lulls me to sleep — that comes from you.”
“You can hear my breathing?”
I nod. “I thought it must be a ghost.”
He smiles. “My dear wife, Katherine, always tells me I am a heavy breather. Worse than the fluttering of a noble lady’s fan, she used to say.” His smile slowly fades and he looks sad.
I hope he isn’t going to cry again! To cheer him up, I suggest we play a game. I am quite good at chess but, of course, we do not have a set.
“I must decline your kind offer,” Steven says, springing up from the rug, looping his arm around the rope, and grasping it with both hands.
Truly, the man (I cannot call him a creature now that we are friends) moves like the acrobat I saw perform once in Market Square.
Steven twists his legs around the end of the rope and says, “It is almost morn, and one never knows when the witch will darken my door.”
“When shall I see you again?” I call after him as he slithers up the rope at a speed I would have previously thought quite impossible. By the time I finish my question, he is already closing the trapdoor.
“I am always here when you need me,” he calls down as he pulls the door shut. Those hinges certainly are greased with magic oil, because they do not make even a whisper. The tower seems smaller, somehow, now that I am alone again. With a sigh, I blow out the wick and climb onto the “bed.” I strain my ears until I can hear Steven’s rhythmic, steady breathing. I feel myself drifting off to that place where everything is fuzzy but you know you are not yet asleep. Something is nagging at me. It is as though the answer to a riddle is right around the corner of my brain, yet I cannot reach it. I am not even sure what the riddle is, but I know it is vital that I figure it out.
Father has called Elkin and me down to the sitting room to go over the rules for the hunt. It is cool for a summer eve, and the three of us are seated in high-back leather chairs in front of the fireplace. Mum and Annabelle are here, too. Mum is busy embroidering gems onto a new dress. (Although she has a large staff to assemble her considerable wardrobe, she says sewing relaxes her. I think Mum and I have more in common in terms of our artistic creativity then she will admit). Annabelle is pretending to play with her collection of tiny wooden dolls, but whenever Mum isn’t looking, she throws one of them into the fire. I worry about that child.
Father begins the lecture by talking about the virtues of the longbow versus the crossbow, how one can fire off many more arrows per minute with the longbow, thereby increasing one’s chances of successfully reaching one’s target. When he moves on to how to keep an animal in your line of sight, I stop listening. I will not be shooting any arrows. Well, unless my tomato assault fails. Even then, I do not think one can vanquish a troll with a bow and arrow. Certainly I cannot. While Father speaks, I go over Andrew’s map in my head. I figure the better I know the path ahead of time, the swifter I will reach the cave without being missed by the hunting party.
“Benjamin,” Father rumbles, “are you listening to me?”
The forest vanishes and I’m back in front of the fire. Elkin is smirking. He’d better be careful or his face will have a permanent smirk and then his soon-to-be wife will not like him (although chances are high that she won’t, anyway). “Er, yes, Father,” I say, glaring at Elkin.
“Now, due to your recent head-bobbing injury —”
Elkin chuckles and Father does not reprimand him. Nice to stand up for one’s own son! His ONLY son and heir, I might add. Although if I fail to vanquish the troll and the troll vanquishes me instead, perhaps Father will decide to adopt Elkin. The horror of it!
“As I was saying, due to your, er, accident, you missed practicing with the royal archers yesterday. Elkin did very well and hit all his targets. He is being given a chance to prove he can indeed be a good influence on you, and he will be your guide in the hunt. I want you to stick closely by him. The rest of us will be too busy to watch over you.”
Father’s words sink in. My plans are ruined! I cannot let this happen. I jump to my feet in protest. “I’ll be fine on my own, Father. You know I am a strong rider. Elkin doesn’t need me to shadow him. I would just be in his way.”
Elkin adds, “Truly he would, uncle. I cannot wait to bag my supper, and what if Benjamin scares the animal off?”
Father shakes his head. “On a young man’s first hunt, it is traditional for an older brother or cousin to ride with a younger. In this case, Elkin, you are the elder, so you two shall ride together. I will hear no more about it.”
I look pleadingly at Mum. She is engrossed in her sewing and shows no signs of even following the conversation. I slump back into my seat and stare at the fire. I refuse even to glance at Elkin, who I can tell is pouting in that special way of his where he sticks out his lower lip and turns down the corners of his mouth.
“Burn burn burn!” Annabelle squeals gleefully and tosses the last of her dolls into the flames. Mum finally notices what Annabelle has been doing for the past half hour and lunges out of her chair. The dress slips to the floor and the tiny gems fly off her lap and scatter. They appear very bright against the white stone. We all watch in horror as Mum actually reaches her hand into the fire and snatches out the closest
doll.
The sleeve of her gown is in flames! She gasps and drops the doll, which unfortunately falls right back into the fire. Annabelle begins to wail and grabs at Mum’s skirts. Father reaches Mum first and plunges her arm into the pitcher of water that one of the servants had placed on his desk only moments ago. When she pulls it out, her sleeve is in tatters, but her hand is only slightly pink.
Father wraps his big arms around her and leads her from the room. Annabelle follows, wailing as she goes. In silence, Elkin and I bend down to pick up the gems that have settled into tiny crevices in the floor. We stuff them back into Mum’s sewing basket along with the robe. Finally Elkin turns to me and says, “I am not fond of this arrangement any more than you are. I was looking forward to being on my own in the forest.”
“So was I.” That is an understatement.
“If you prove your skill and come home with supper slung over your back,” he says, “I am sure you will no longer need a guide.”
I mumble something that is a cross between “not likely” and “good night” and set out to find Andrew. We have a plan to revise.
LATER
“Oh, this is bad,” Andrew says, pacing the floor of my bedchamber. He is swinging a twenty-pound anvil with each arm as he walks, building up his strength for his squire test. His muscles are already quite large, but he says the competition is stiff and every muscle counts.
“I suppose the treasure will have to wait till I am allowed to go on the hunt without needing to be watched like a child.”
“I fear that Elkin was correct. You will have to prove yourself first. Are you up for bagging a small fox perhaps? Or a hare?”
“Absolutely not! I dislike the very IDEA of hunting.”
“Okay, okay, don’t bust a gut, we will think of something else.”
I sit on my bed, fingering the edges of the map, watching him pace. I have the path to the cave memorized. A fat lot of good that will do me now.
Finally he stops pacing and rests the anvils on the floor. With a deep sigh of resignation, he says, “You’ll just have to bring Elkin with you.”
“What? Have you drunk too much ale? You know what he’s like. He will ruin the whole plan. He will try to keep all the treasure for himself!”
“I am not certain of that,” Andrew replies. “Elkin may be unpleasant and rude, but I do not think he is a thief. Further, you are forgetting one important thing.”
“And what might that be?”
“The troll! Once Elkin sees the creature, no doubt he will take off at a gallop in the opposite direction, leaving the treasure to you and, later, Other Benjamin.”
“But he may not even agree to go with me. Perhaps he’ll insist on staying with the hunting party or — worse yet — on telling Father.” I wring my hands. “Are there no other options but to involve him?”
Andrew shrugs. “We can wait for the opportunity to present itself again. Of course, Elkin will be leaving in a few weeks, and the only reason you are going on the hunt in the first place is because your father is training him in the ways of being a king.”
I jerk my head up. “Truly?”
Andrew’s eyebrows rise. “You did not know? Your formal training was not set to begin for another year. So in a way, you owe Elkin for the fact that you are being allowed into the forest at all.”
I shake my head sadly. That figures. “Okay. I’ll alert him to the plan and hope for the best.”
“Hope for the best, but plan for the worst,” Andrew says, grasping my shoulder. “That is a knight’s motto.”
“Great motto,” I mumble. “And, ow, that hurt.”
“Sorry — don’t know my own strength.”
I rub my sore shoulder. And I thought the troll would be the worst part of this venture. But no, it’s my froglike cousin!
There has got to be a way to break the witch’s hold over Steven, and I shall find it. I shall not eat or sleep until I do. I pin up my hair (a job that takes longer and longer each morn) and pace the room, sticking close to the walls. At first this makes me dizzy, but soon I adjust and can almost do it with my eyes closed. I say almost because I tried and walked straight into the wall. My nose is now scraped and there is a spot on my chin that will not stop bleeding. The one positive thing to come out of the experience is that when I looked in the mirror to check my wounds, I learned that my pimple is gone.
For the first time, Steven does not wait for me either to sleep or to stand by the window before he brings me my meal. He swoops down on his rope, with the tray balanced on the tips of his fingers. Before I can even say good afternoon, he places the tray on my table and slithers back up the rope. Before meeting him, I did not know that anything other than a snake could slither. I shall add that to the list of things I used to think were impossible. It is getting to be quite a long list.
While the cold duck and potato soup is inviting, I turn my back on it. I am serious about not eating until I come up with a solution that will lead to our freedom. Hunger sharpens the mind.
MIDDAY
Contrary to my previously held belief, hunger does NOT, in fact, sharpen the mind. What it does is make your belly growl and your senses dull. As the hours creep by, I can no longer smell the food. As a result of my refusal to eat, Sir Kitty ate more than her share and I was forced to use one of my precious pieces of vellum to clean up the mess when her stomach lost its contents. After that, I was no longer hungry.
EVENING
Besides my ban on eating and sleeping today, I have not allowed myself to gaze out the window, nor to use my soap. As a result, by the time the sun disappears in the west, I am feeling woozy, bored, hot, and smelly. I am no closer to figuring out a plan than I was when I awoke this morn.
“Why are you not eating?” Steven asks me, jarring me out of my haze. That man can really sneak up on a person! “Was the food not to your liking?” His face is crinkled in concern.
“No, it’s not the food,” I assure him. “I am simply directing all of my energy to finding a way for us to escape.”
Steven shakes his head at me. “Do not waste your time,” he says. “What will happen will happen.” With a flick of his wrist he lights a match and holds it to the lamp wick until it catches. He picks up my tray and is about to say good-bye when he sees my bleeding chin. He lifts the lamp from the table and holds it up to get a better look. “What happened to your face? You are all scratched and bleeding. Was it the cat?” His brows furrow as he looks around for Sir Kitty as though she might still have the blood under her nails.
“Of course not,” I tell him. “I merely had an accident with the wall.”
His face relaxes again and I can see the twitches of a smile on his lips. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Truly, no.”
“All right, then. Let me put some of your ointment on it, and that will curtail the bleeding.” I hand him the tin and he applies a thick layer of ointment to my chin. His touch is surprisingly gentle. For a moment, my eyes water as I remember Mother and Father bandaging a knee or elbow. It feels so long since I was hugged good night or tucked into bed with a kiss on my forehead for sweet dreams. I blink away the tears before they can fall.
“Remember,” Steven says as he replaces the lid of the ointment, “what will happen will happen. One must accept one’s fate.” With that, he slithers up the rope and is gone.
He is correct. What will happen WILL happen. But that does not mean that I cannot MAKE it happen. I do not believe in fate. Father told me we all make our own destinies, and I plan on having one that does NOT include growing old inside this tower.
Holding on to the walls with my left hand, I continue to circle the room as I think and ponder and question. I discard one plan after another. My best one involves getting Steven to eat some of my food with the sleeping powder in it, then dragging him down the stairs to freedom. But even if I could possibly achieve the first part, that still does not explain how I would get up to the attic in the first place. I could never climb f
arther than a few feet on that rope, and I certainly could not do it while carrying Steven over my shoulder. All of this thinking gives me a headache and I lean my forehead against the cool wall and close my eyes for a few minutes. When I get out of here, I shall do nothing but gaze at lovely daisies and orchids all day long. I shall eat nothing but almond pies with jelly.
I may be starting to hallucinate because of the hunger, but after a few more circles around the room, I gradually become aware of a wooden bathtub in the center of the rug, with a white towel folded next to it. I stagger up to it and rap on the side with my knuckles. It truly IS a wooden bathtub! I reach over the top and slowly lower my hand, hoping against hope. YES!! There is warm water in there! Steven must have been heating water for this all day!
I tilt my head back and call up to the ceiling, “Thank you, Steven!” I don’t get a response, but I don’t expect to. I fish around the trunk and pull out the bag with the soap in it. In one fluid move, I pull off my dress, toss it on the floor, and climb into the tub with the soap. Ahhhh. I lean back and close my eyes. At home, Mother rushes me in and out of the tub so everyone can have a turn. But I finally have found something positive about being the only person in the room — the tub is ALL MINE. I can feel my muscles relaxing in the warm water, soaking the day’s troubles away. The soap is bubbling up around me. My brain is finally starting to wind down after all the pacing and thinking. I even catch myself humming a tune Mother and I used to sing sometimes as we scrubbed the plates after supper. I splash the water in tune and begin to sing:
Oh, she was a lovely lass, don’t ya know,
With a round plump face and a rosy glow,
And wherever she went the gents went, too,
For she always said, why marry one when you can marry a few?
Mother said Grandmother taught her that song and many others when she was a girl. They were not as well off as we are, and Grandmother said that singing always cheered her up, no matter how bad the situation. This song was Mother’s favorite, even though she said that any woman who wanted more than one husband had ale head, for one husband to look after was more than enough.