“Really,” he said. “There’s no need for that, son.”
Though Krool’s hands were securely bound and in spite of the fact that he was no match for the three brothers physically speaking, the sound of his voice nonetheless would have managed to raise the hair on the backs of their respective necks if those necks hadn’t been shaved clean.
“Go on,” said Cory, swallowing the lump in his throat that he hoped Krool hadn’t noticed. “Get moving.”
“Is this any way to treat your former king?” said Krool, asking a question for which he neither expected nor received an answer.
Down the dim corridor the brothers escorted their prisoner, who was practically giddy in anticipation of feeling the sun on his pallid, devilish face for the first time in years. “It’s the little things you miss when you’re in prison,” he said to the highly disinterested brothers. “A walk along the beach in the moonlight, for instance. Kicking a small child or a puppy. You know, the simple pleasures in life.”
They passed through the final door, which took them to the castle courtyard and into the early morning shadow of Elspeth’s statue, where Winkie and his team had already assembled.
Krool winced in the natural light and, once his eyes had adjusted to it, he surveyed the group with a squinty smile.
“Well, how nice of you all to be here for my coming-out party,” he said. “You all look just as I remember you. Haven’t changed a bit. Well, you, Elspeth my dear, look exhausted. Tell me, did the screaming of the lambs keep you up again?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Elspeth, shooting Krool the dirtiest look she could muster.
“Come on. You know,” said Krool with one eye trained on Bo-Peep. “A baa-baa here. A baa-baa there. Here a baa. There a baa. Everywhere a baa-baa.”
“That’s enough out of you, sir,” said Dumpty, stepping closer to Krool while fighting the urge to slap the prisoner across his smug, handsome face. And though it would be a gesture aimed at defending Bo-Peep’s honor, the woman herself was a master in the art of Shaolin stick fighting and certainly needed no one to act on her behalf.
“Oh, how brave of you,” said Krool. “Threatening a man whose hands are tied behind his back.”
“Then perhaps we should untie them and settle a few things right here and now,” said Dumpty, reflexively clenching his fists.
“Please, it’s okay,” said Bo-Peep with a quick twirl of her staff. “He’ll get his one of these days.”
“I’ll get mine, all right.” Krool smiled. “To the tune of one million sixpence. I’ll be sure to send you all a nice postcard from the southern isles. Now, shall we get going?”
Winkie did not like to admit seeing eye to eye with Krool on anything, but he had to agree that, considering Mary Mary’s looming deadline, they had better make haste. He clapped twice in quick succession. The stable door across the courtyard opened and eight stablemen led eight horses to where the nine travelers stood. Each would have his own horse while Gene would ride with Elspeth.
Despite the fact that his vertigo troubled him no more, Dumpty, with his oval body and disproportionately small legs and arms, still required a great deal of help from the stablemen to get onto the horse’s back.
“Whoa! Easy, lads,” he said as he wobbled several times before finally settling into the saddle.
The only other one to have any trouble was the prisoner with his hands shackled behind his back. When the stablemen hoisted Krool up onto the mount, they overshot their mark and the rider nearly fell off the other side.
“This is ridiculous,” said Krool. “And barbaric. You can’t expect me to ride cross-country with my hands bound like this.”
“If you think we’re stupid enough to unlock those cuffs, you’ve got another thing coming,” said Gene.
“Suppose I fall off and break my neck?” said Krool. “Then what?”
“Then a parade to celebrate the occasion, I would imagine,” said Bo-Peep.
Krool displayed a rigid smile. “Yes, I’m sure there are those who would relish something baaaaaad happening to me,” he said with a chuckle. “The problem is that without me, there’s no money. And with no money, there’s no Farrah. And with no Farrah, poor King William will have to find another little dolly to play with.”
Krool turned to find Winkie, sitting atop his horse, glaring right back. “How dare you speak of the queen in such a manner,” he said.
“The truth is often unpleasant,” replied Krool. “Doesn’t make it any less true. Now, be a good little king and tell your boys to remove these ridiculous shackles.”
Winkie seethed in silence, his hatred for Krool and his love for Farrah battling ferociously within the pit of his stomach. As much as he despised Krool, the rancor could not match the affection he felt for his wife. He nodded to Cory. “Remove the cuffs. But if he tries to escape, kill him.”
As Cory executed the command, Elspeth could feel Gene bristling beneath her grip. “Come on,” he whispered. “Just let me give him one good smack to the back of the head.”
“I thought you were a pacifist,” Elspeth whispered back.
“Oh, right,” said Gene. “How about if you smack him on the head? With a stick. A stick like me, for instance.”
When all were in position upon their mounts, Winkie looked to Krool once more. “Well?” he said. “Which way to the money?”
“South,” said Krool. “In the direction of St. Ives. I’ll provide further instructions once we get a little closer. And don’t worry. I have no intention of attempting an escape. Say what you will about me, but I am a man of my word. I do what I say I will do. And don’t ever forget that.”
Needles and pins, needles and pins,
When Krool’s involved, the trouble begins.
Chapter
10
The drawbridge came down, and the horses, four pairs, side by side, carried their riders across the plank and into the town square where a crowd was gathering in response to a circulating rumor that Krool had been released from prison. The thought of such a thing was so confounding and so unthinkable that it had to be seen to be believed.
The villagers rushed from the cottages and the shops that stood outside the castle walls. They gasped, booed, and hissed upon seeing Krool’s self-satisfied and well-fed face. Cory, Rory, and Maury’s mother, known as the Old Woman who lived in a shoe, threw a normal-size shoe at that very face, and Krool ducked just in time to avoid it. The shoe continued on and, instead, found the side of Dumpty’s head.
“Pardon me, madam,” said the indignant egg.
“Sorry,” the woman called out.
Little Jack Horner gave Krool a long, loud raspberry and a double thumbs-down with thumbs that had been badly mangled by Krool’s henchmen.
It wasn’t long before the murmuring and grumbling turned to shouts of anger.
“What in migration is going on here?” cried Goosey Goosey Gander, a goose with a nervous tic and a serious flatulence problem, attributed to eating too many breadcrumbs at the park. “You can’t let him go. He’s evil. Honk! Sorry. Pardon me.”
“He’s a monster,” screamed Little Miss Muffet so loudly that she burped up a small bit of whey.
“He’s a murderer,” hollered Young Mother Hubbard, whose own mother was one of the many who was alleged to have died at Krool’s hands.
Elspeth soon became aware that Jack and Jill were among the crowd when they managed to push their way to the front.
“Elspeth, dear,” said Jill, walking alongside Elspeth’s horse. “You’re not going to the Thick?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she answered.
“You promised you were here only to advise,” said Jack.
“I’m sorry,” said Elspeth. “But King William asked me to go, and I couldn’t let him down in his time of need. You understand.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jack. “And I don’t see why they’ve had to let Krool out of prison.”
“I know it’
s horrible,” admitted Elspeth. “But it was the only way.”
“But he took you from us,” said Jack. He limped along behind his wife on that bad foot, the result of an encounter with a lava-filled sinkhole in Torcano Alley. “And he threw you down a well. And now they’re just going to let him go?”
“Proof that our justice system does work,” said Krool with a slimy smile, though his eyes remained forward as if the lowly peasants were unworthy of his gaze.
“Why, you,” said Jack with his teeth and fists equally clenched. “I ought to pull you down from there and show you a thing or two about how things work.”
It was immediately evident that there were plenty among the group who felt it would be an excellent idea to pull Krool from his mount and deliver a dose of vigilante justice, an act that would place the queen’s life at serious risk.
“Pardon me, Your Majesty,” Dumpty shouted over the rumble. “But don’t you think it might be a good idea to address their concerns?”
“I suppose you’re right,” the king agreed.
He ordered the procession stopped, and he stood upon his horse’s saddle, a move that would have had more impact were he not the size of a garden gnome.
“Listen, everyone,” the pint-size king spoke with arms outstretched. “May I have your attention please?”
Despite their respect for and allegiance to their king, the people seemed to have collectively decided that, no, he could not have their attention. They continued to express their anger by tossing insults and the odd shoe in Krool’s direction while Winkie pleaded for order.
“I demand order,” Winkie shouted to little effect.
“You’re being too polite,” said Gene. “Allow me. Quiet, peasants!”
It wasn’t exactly a hush that fell over the crowd, but the sudden reduction in noise was certainly an improvement. It was now almost quiet enough that Winkie could be heard.
“King William has something important to say,” Gene continued. “So listen up or get smacked in the back of the head! Got it? Good.”
“Thank you, noble stick,” said Winkie.
“The name is Gene, remember? There’s a statue of me in the courtyard.”
“Right, of course,” Winkie said with no sign of recognition. He turned his focus back to the unruly masses. “Okay, now listen. I know everyone is quite upset to learn that we’ve been forced to make certain concessions, as it were, regarding one of our prisoners.”
“He’s not just any prisoner,” shouted Simple Simon. “He’s a barbarian.”
“He killed my mother,” said Young Mother Hubbard.
“He broke my thumbs,” yelled Jack Horner.
“He tipped me over and poured me out,” cried a teapot named Veronica.
“Yes, yes,” Winkie agreed, trying desperately to talk above the grousing that crescendoed with each passing second. “I am well aware of the countless crimes this man has committed. And I know how much you despise him and his mother for having given birth to such a wicked, cowardly, slimy, worthless, lowdown—”
“Okay, I think you’ve sold it well enough,” said Krool, rolling his eyes.
“Filthy, evil degenerate,” Winkie finished. “But the fact of the matter is that this evil degenerate has access to money. Money that he siphoned from the royal treasury and hid away. As difficult as it may be to come to terms with, we have no choice but to use that money to pay Mary Mary the ransom she’s demanded and bring Queen Farrah back safe and sound.”
If Winkie thought this would be enough to bring order he was sadly mistaken, for all it managed to do was strike a nerve of a different sort among the peasant class.
“So that’s it,” said Simple Simon. “The rich always find a way to beat the system. Same old thing.”
This resulted in a very vocal show of agreement that soon drowned out the king’s attempts at appeasement.
“I say we should let him go,” said Little Boy Blue. “Right after we draw and quarter him!”
The mob cheered and surged toward Krool, a move that spooked the horses. Bo-Peep’s reared up on its hind legs and, were she not an expert equestrian, would have thrown her to the ground.
Rory, Cory, and Maury moved their horses in position to form a protective wall around the man who had all but ruined their childhood. And though secretly they would have enjoyed nothing more than to see Krool torn limb from limb, they knew the importance of keeping him alive. For now. Once they got the money, that would be a different story.
“Quiet!” Gene shouted, once more bringing temporary order to the situation.
“Thank you, helpful stick,” said Winkie.
“Again, the name is Gene.”
“Yes, of course,” Winkie replied dismissively. “Now look. I want everyone to know that the Crown does not look lightly upon the serious offenses committed by this prisoner. Indeed we have all suffered at his hands, either directly or indirectly, and I would be happy to see him drawn and quartered. But we can’t do that, because if we do the only other way to get the ransom money would be with a bake sale capable of raising one million sixpence in the next three days. Which is an especially unlikely occurrence now that the Muffin Man is dead.”
“The Muffin Man?” gasped Goosey Goosey Gander. “Who lived on Drury Lane?”
“He still lives on Drury Lane,” said Winkie.
“But you said he was dead,” griped the goose. “Make up your mind. Honk! Sorry. Pardon me.”
“He is dead,” said Winkie, quickly losing patience. “I’m talking about the other Muffin Man. Larry, I believe, was his name.”
Apparently this muffin man was the far less popular of the two because this bit of information resulted in a collective shrug of indifference from all but Gene. “Great,” the easily offended stick sneered. “You remember the name of some random cupcake maker but not the guy who no-handedly restored you to the throne. Nice. Real nice.”
“Give it a rest, Gene,” said Elspeth sternly.
“So you see what we’re up against here,” said Winkie. “We have no choice but to let Krool go. But as part of the deal, he has agreed to never set foot in Banbury Cross again.”
“And what if he does?” shouted Simple Simon.
“Then you can draw and quarter him,” said Winkie.
This seemed to provide enough assurance to the protesters. They finally stepped aside and allowed the procession to continue.
As the horses clopped onward, leaving distance between the travelers and the townspeople, Jack called out, “Don’t take your eyes off him, Elspeth. Remember. He’s tried twice now to kill you.”
And though Elspeth turned and offered Jack and Jill a reassuring nod, she was secretly quite unnerved by the entire situation. And the closer they got to the edge of town and to the wide-open countryside, the more Elspeth feared that at any moment they might fall victim to an ambush. By whom, she didn’t know. But apparently the others shared her concern, because as they passed through the city wall the traveling party was tense, hushed, and on high alert. Even Gene seemed to have nothing he deemed worth saying.
After all, the murder of Larry the Muffin Man seemed to be proof positive that Krool still had friends as well as enemies on the outside. But what Elspeth and the others did not realize as they made their way toward St. Ives, was that at that very moment, Detective Cheese was paying a little visit to the Lower East Side of Banbury Cross, also known as the Baking District, to interview witnesses to that murder. And what those witnesses saw would turn out to be nothing short of astounding.
The itsy bitsy rider stood up to hush the crowd.
The crowd went insane and drowned the rider out.
Out came the stick and called for some restraint.
And the itsy bitsy rider addressed the crowd again.
Chapter
11
With Elspeth well on her way to pick up Krool’s stolen loot, the Cheese would have to continue his investigation without her help. He rolled along the cracked and garbage-strewn sidewalks c
ast in shadow from the old brick buildings, well covered with graffiti, some of it obscene, some of it nonsensical, all of it perfectly rhymed.
He spun his way past a shop painted with the words, “They’re all going to St. Ives, with a man who’s ruined lives.”
The Baking District, famous for its mouth-watering pies, tarts, and hot cross buns, was also quite well known for something far less savory. It had become, in recent years, a hotbed of crime and black-market trading. It was said you could find anything you were looking for in the Baking District, so long as you had enough money and a certain lack of regard for your physical safety. And Detective Cheese was looking for answers.
He rolled past Larry the Muffin Man’s place, still cordoned off with yellow police tape as his forensics team continued to search for fingerprints, hair samples, and anything else that might help solve the case.
Next door to the muffin shop was another bakery, this one specializing in cakes, pies, and donuts. Detective Cheese entered through the open door unnoticed by the Baker’s Man, who was busy plying his trade. He was a very sweaty and incredibly hairy man. For a moment, the Cheese quietly surveyed the room. The captivating smells of maple bars and donuts were almost too much for the detective, and his stomach rumbled audibly in the cramped and dingy kitchen. Finally, he cleared his throat.
“Excuse me. I’m Detective Rodney Cheese, BCPD,” he said. “I’m looking for some information about the murder last night.”
The Baker’s Man looked up from his work. “Sorry, I don’t know nothin’,” he said. He continued to go about his business as he spoke, rolling out a round of crust for a plum pie. He worked earnestly as if the pie were every bit as important as the murder investigation.
“Is that right?” said the Cheese. “Well, I know a few things. For instance, I’ve been here for all of two minutes and I’ve already spotted over fifteen health and safety violations. You know you’re supposed to refrigerate eggs, right?”
Long Live the Queen Page 7