The boy was not quite so desperate for food after the apple, so he munched the bread and cheese in smaller bites while replying: “Oh, he had to take the oxen. They’re all he had to offer up after the last time. But kids ain’t allowed to go into the candy house. My father said that she turns away anyone who tries to bring one in, ’cause it’s no fit place for children.”
“Whereas the Dark Woods is quite the ideal place to leave a child alone.” Sir Hanson’s mouth tightened. “The candy house, you say? Odd. That sounds very much like the place where my father and auntie once met a woodland witch.”
“A witch, that’s right!” The boy bobbed his head happily, licking crumbs from his lips. “That’s her, the one my father’s gone to see; a witch top to toe, he says.”
Sir Hanson liked what he was hearing less and less. His hands began to twitch, as though they dreamed their own dextrous dreams of what they would do to this child’s father once the formal introductions were over. “Boy, which way did your father go?” he asked.
“Down this path,” the boy said, pointing in the direction made obvious by the wagon ruts. Then he paused, a worried look in his eyes. “Are you going to leave me, too?”
For answer, Sir Hanson picked up the boy and plunked him down astraddle Bessie’s rump, then remounted. “I am called Sir Hanson the Hawk-eyed. Let’s find this errant father of yours, lad,” he said with a backward glance.
“Bardric,” the boy said.
“All right, your father Bardric. I’m sure we can—”
“My father’s name is Wulfram the goldsmith,” the boy cut in. “My name is Bardric. Or were you going to call me ‘lad’ and ‘boy’ and ‘hey, you’ all the time?”
As Sir Hanson and his newfound companion trotted on down the road, they passed more and more abandoned carts. The graveyard of derelict vehicles presented a more chilling tableau than any set piece of gnarled and sinister trees, their bare branches like black claws, their lightning-blasted limbs home to birds of ill- or somewhat-under-the-weather omen.
“This likes me not,” said Sir Hanson. Bessie stopped dead in her tracks, turned, and gave him one of those equine Oh, please! looks such as she always dispensed whenever he assumed the mantle of pretentious parlance so dear to his blue-blooded paladin peers. “What I mean to say”—Sir Hanson gave the sarcastic steed a killing look—“is this smells funny.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Bardric said, his nose twitching like a squirrel’s. “It smells like gingerbread.”
Indeed it did, and after navigating her way through an especially nasty bottleneck of forsaken carts, Bessie brought Sir Hanson and the boy out of the Dark Woods and into a bright clearing whose centerpiece was a wonderful cottage made all of gingerbread and decorated with lashings of sweetmeats and candy.
“Wow!” Sir Hanson exclaimed in astonishment. Unluckily, Bessie took “Wow!” for “Whoa!” and pulled up short. The surprise of this sudden stop sent the unready knight toppling from the saddle, landing flat on his back on the ground.
The ground was lumpy. The ground was talkative.
“Hey! Get offa me, you big clod! I’m workin’ here!”
Sir Hanson rolled himself over quickly and pushed himself up on his forearms, then stared in astonishment at the wee goblin who’d broken his fall. The creature wore a crisp peppermint-striped tunic emblazoned with an embroidered badge bearing the name Drogo. Beneath it was a brass pin with the words Employee of the Month.
Sir Hanson stood up and bowed to the goblin. “My apologies, good monsterling. It was an accident.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” The goblin clambered to his feet and brushed loam off his livery. “ ‘Specially the cheapskates what leave their carts parked back in the woods so’s they won’t hafta tip a poor, honest, hard-workin’ goblin.” He spat to emphasize his contempt for such niggardly highpockets. “So you want I should take care of the horse or you wanna stand there yapping all day? No skin off my scales, either way.” Then he glanced up and caught sight of the boy, still holding on to Bessie’s back. A cloud crossed Drogo’s grotesque visage. “Hey, wassa matter, you don’t know the regs? No kids allowed!”
Sir Hanson calmly drew his sword and leveled it at the goblin’s wrinkled throat. “That, sir, is no child. That is Malagendron, the most puissant wizard in seven kingdoms. He has taken a fancy to view the world through a child’s eyes, and who am I to argue with a sorcerer who has the capability to summon up a legion of fiends at the drop of a hat? Goblin-eating fiends,” he clarified.
Drogo gave “Malagendron” a dubious look, but between Sir Hanson’s persuasive steel-edged argument and the cardinal rule of You-never-can-tell-with-wizards, he decided to err on the side of cowardice.
“Oooookay, buddy, he’s a wizard, have it your way.” He cut a brief bow to “Malagendron,” then turned back to Sir Hanson and said, “So you want valet parking or not?”
“Wow,” said Bardric, his eyes growing wide and wider as he took in the scene that burst upon his senses the instant he and Sir Hanson passed through the gingerbread cottage’s door. “This is—It doesn’t make sense that—It’s impossible for—” He gave up trying to put his astonishment into words and merely whistled, low and long.
Sir Hanson agreed with him on all counts, including that whistle. “This is beyond belief. How can a simple woodland cottage hold a hall like this, clearly at least three stories high and the length of ten such huts? How could it contain so many people making so much noise, yet we heard not one hint of this commotion on that side of the door?” He made a sweeping gesture, wishing to indicate the humble pastry portal.
The door was gone, and in its place there stood a woman of surpassing allure, clad in a gown of rich carmine velvet. She must have paid a pretty penny for it, though a shrewd consumer would point out that she’d been short-changed as far as upper body coverage. The neckline swooped so low that for all intents she wore a skirt with sleeves.
Sir Hanson’s dramatic gesture wound up lodged warmly between her bared bosoms. He gasped and jerked back his hand, blushing. The woman gave him a smile that dripped piquant knowledge.
“Have we met?” she purred, fingers playing idly with her thick black curls.
“Er, no,” Sir Hanson managed to say. “I’m new.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be used?”
“I beg your pardon?”
The lady laughed. “Never mind. Welcome, good sir knight. I am Bezique the enchantress. Your pleasure is my sole concern, however—” She cast a sidelong look at Bardric. The boy was gazing rapturously at her cleavage with the single-mindedness of a cat regarding an unattended anchovy. “Hmm. I was about to say that we do not permit children on the premises, but given the way this one’s staring—”
“He’s not a child, he’s a wizard, and we’re only staying long enough to find his father,” a flustered Sir Hanson blurted.
Bezique lifted one shapely eyebrow. “Do tell. Very well, then. Welcome, O mighty wizard.” She curtsied low before Bardric, who almost choked on his own tongue as a result of the view. “What name do men employ who speak of thee?”
Poor Bardric uttered a series of hormone-hampered squeaks and gurgles before managing to gasp: “’S Murgedandron—Rhododendron—Didjamindron—Bob!”
“Oh, ho, ho, my powerful wizard, you jest with the lady,” Sir Hanson cried in haste, slapping Bardric on the back. Grinning stiffly at Bezique he added: “This is Malagendron, just as we told that likely little goblin out there who parked my horse Bess—Barbelindo.”
“I see.” The enchantress laid a finger to her soft lips. “And who are you, apart from being the third-handsomest knight I’ve ever seen?”
“I am called Sir Hanson the Hawk-eyed,” he replied.
“Sir Hanson . . .” Bezique looked pensive. “There’s something about you that reminds me of—No matter: You didn’t come here to chat with me, much as I’d like that. The games await, and I’m certain that Lady Luck perches on your shoulder, eager to show you t
hat you’re her special darling. What would you prefer to play, good sir?”
“Er, what do you offer?” Sir Hanson hedged.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The lady’s throaty laugh made the ruby necklace resting on her bosoms bounce, which sent poor Bardric rocketing into puberty on the spot.
Shortly thereafter, her hands resting on her guests’ shoulders, Bezique guided the newcomers on a grand tour of the gingerbread cottage’s many attractions.
“Now over there you have the card tables—your choice of Dragon’s Grandma, Sixty-two Ogres, Over-Under-Up-Me-Jerkin, and of course everyone’s favorite, The Dwarf’s Drawers. And there we have the dicing tables, if you fancy a game of Fewmets instead. You’ll notice that our older customers prefer the one-armed brigands, over by the far wall—”
“Oooh! I wanna try that!” Bardric tugged on Bezique’s arm and pointed to where many men were gathered around a long table with a large wheel in the center. “It looks like fun!”
As the boy spoke, the ogre in charge of the game gave the wheel a forceful spin, then reached into the cage at his elbow, plucked out a hamster, and tossed it onto the reeling wheel. The little creature’s cry was midway between terror and delight as it went whirling and bouncing around and around before falling into one of the many numbered hollows on the wheel’s perimeter.
“My apologies, great Malagendron,” Bezique said smoothly. “The Great Wheel is off-limits to wizards. All of our equipment is proof against any magical attempts at cheating, but the hamsters themselves are susceptible to sorcerous influence.” She steered them away, toward a different part of the hall.
The heady reek of ale and stronger waters made Sir Hanson’s head spin as Bezique conducted him and Bardric up to the bar. The tapster, a troll of dour aspect, leaned one warty elbow on the sleek mahogany counter-top and rumbled, “What’ll it be?”
“Give these men whatever they like, Thrombo,” Bezique said.
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly—” Sir Hanson began.
“Shurrup’n drink!” the troll roared, slamming down a monstrously huge tankard. “The first one’s always free.”
With the cool assurance of one who knows nothing of alcohol, but has heard it being ordered just so, time after time, by the grown-ups in his life, young Bardric rapped out: “I’ll have a Wyvern’s Revenge, straight up, with a twist, and don’t bruise the gin.”
“You’ll do no such thing!”
A big-bellied, broad-shouldered man came charging up to the bar, grabbed Bardric by the back of his tunic, and hoisted him off his feet. “What are you doing here when I told you to stay there? And who told you that you could drink, scamp?” he bawled in the boy’s face while Bardric kicked wildly and impotently. “At your age? Your mother would have my skin if she found out that—Argh!”
The man’s tirade was brought to an unexpected halt by Sir Hanson’s brawny hand closing on the back of his tunic and jerking him backward so hard that he dropped Bardric. “And what part of your pathetic anatomy do you think that good woman would have if she found out you deserted the lad there, in the middle of the Dark Woods?” The knight gave his captive a brusque shake to emphasize his point, then let him go.
The man staggered a few steps off, turned, and assumed an air of wounded dignity. “How dare you, sir rah!” he huffed. “Do you know who I am?”
“Apart from a bad father?” Sir Hanson replied. “You’re Wulfram the goldsmith, and a ‘special’ friend of Good King Donald’s, unless I miss my guess.”
“That’s Master Wulfram to you, O Sir Paltry of Penniless,” the goldsmith thundered. “And how do you know of the favor our beloved king has given me?”
“Because, Master Wulfram,” Sir Hanson said coldly, “I am the one whom our beloved king saddled with the quest of finding out what became of you and a dozen or so more of His Majesty’s most generous ‘friends.’ ” He cast a look over the varied delights of the enchanted cottage, recognizing more than a few of the missing merchants at the bar and the gaming tables. “Now I know.”
“By my broomstick!” Bezique exclaimed, staring at Sir Hanson. “And now I know where I’ve seen such a prissy, self-righteous face before! You’ve a father named Hansel, perchance? And an Aunt Gretel, too?”
Sir Hanson gave the enchantress a somewhat baffled look. “Even so, m’lady. How did you—?” It came to him. “You’re that witch?” He gave her a closer look. “I must say, you’ve aged well, for a dead crone.”
Bezique slapped his face with dispassionate competence. “So hale, so handsome, so hearty, and yet—so hamheaded. Pity. Did you ever stop to think that I might have had a mother? Or that I’d consult my crystal to conjure up a vision of her doom?”
“Very resourceful of you m’lady,” Sir Hanson said. “And much as I apologize for my father and aunt having killed your mother”—(Here he drew his sword.)—“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t force me to do the same to you.”
He did not hold the sword like a man who means business, for he acted most reluctantly. Though he found Bezique both charming and attractive, he had his knightly duty to perform.
“I am sent here to return these men to the bosoms of their loving families,” he declared. “Clearly your spells are both the vile lure and the unsavory bond keeping them tethered here. On peril of your life, release them from your toils, O sorceress!”
Bezique, the troll barkeep, Master Wulfram, and every other merchant and employee in the general vicinity stared at Sir Hanson for about three heartbeats. Then they all burst out laughing.
Only little Bardric refrained from shaming his rescuer with such raucous mockery. The boy gazed up at the knight, gently touched his swordarm, and said: “There’s no spells to break, Sir Hanson. They come here ’cause they want to.”
“Have you fallen under some enchantment while I wasn’t looking?” Sir Hanson demanded of the lad. “What power on earth would compel sensible, prosperous men to dare the heart of the Dark Woods, abandoning carts, kine, and kids en route? What power if not the blackest magic?”
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else here,” Master Wulfram spoke up. “But I had to come back and try to break even. If the wife finds out I lost all my gold and trade-goods again, plus another pair of oxen, she’ll kill me.”
Sir Hanson’s mouth hung open like a dropped draw-bridge. “You all came here because you wanted to?”
“Who wouldn’t?” one of the other merchants spoke up. “There’s gold to be won by easier means than our daily toil.”
“The one-armed brigand I played this morning just spewed out five hundred silver pieces!” another man announced, to loud cheers. Neither he nor his audience considered the fact that he’d fed the machine over five thousand of those same bits of silver.
“The hamsters love me!” a third merchant shouted from his place beside the Great Wheel.
Bezique laid her graceful hands upon Sir Hanson’s arm and gently coaxed him to resheath his sword, then steered the stunned knight to a small table in the most intimate corner of the bar. A buxom wood sprite clad in a pair of maple-seed pasties and a whisper of ivy-trimmed panties set two glasses and a pitcher of something green between them before flying off again.
“You see, after Mother died—” Bezique began.
“I can’t beg your forgiveness for that enough, m’lady,” Sir Hanson broke in. “I vow upon my honor as a knight, I will make full restitution for every coin my father and aunt stole from her!”
Bezique waved away his impassioned offer. “Water under the troll-infested bridge,” she said. “Mother knew the risks of the profession. It was her own fault for letting her gambling addiction get the better of her.” She absent mindedly dug two huge chunks of spicy cake out of the wall beside her and passed him one. “Here. On the house.”
Between bites of gingerbread, she continued: “Some years after Mother died, I took over this location. The other woodland witches were very helpful when it came to reconstructing the old place. Did you know that
with gingerbread cottages you need permits from the Building Inspector and a reputable baker? But alas, soon after that, your dear King Donald built that blasted Dark Woods Bypass.”
“I understand your feelings, m’lady, but understand ours,” Sir Hanson said. “The Dark Woods teems with anthropophagous perils. A worthy king must look to the welfare of his subjects.”
Bezique sipped her drink languidly. “And building a road that charges ruinous tolls that go straight into the Royal Treasury is so magnanimous,” she drawled.
As little as he personally cared for Good King Donald, Sir Hanson felt impelled by his oath of knighthood to defend his sovereign. “All good citizens of this realm must stand ready to make sacrifices in the name of security,” he intoned. “If the king had not built the Dark Woods Bypass, toll road or no, the child-devouring witches would have already won.”
Bezique laughed. “Do you believe everything you’re told? Eat children? Gah! Do you have any idea how hard they are to clean? To say nothing of the calories, or choosing the proper wine. And don’t you dare mention Chianti!”
“You can’t mean to say you exist on gingerbread,” Sir Hanson protested.
“We almost existed on nothing, thanks to your precious king,” Bezique shot back. “Do you know how badly his stupid toll road impacted the local economy? When you call something a bypass, simple folk presume it’s shielding them from something they should pass by! No more moony swains and lasses came to see us for love potions, no more harried husbands sought cures for their wives’ peevish fits, nor peeved wives sought something to make their less-than-lusty mates a bit more manly, if you follow me.”
Sir Hanson wore the look of one who has awakened from a bad dream into a substandard reality. “Is that all you did?” he asked. “Sell potions to the peasants?”
“Peasants?” Bezique showed her teeth in a feral grin. “Just ask Good Queen Ivana why it took her ten years to produce the crown prince, and then only after she made a trip into the Dark Woods.”
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