Long Live the Queen

by Gerry Swallow

  “Fine,” said Winkie. “What did you have in mind? Food?”

  “What I had in mind,” said Elspeth, “is you.”

  “What?” gasped Dumpty. “You’re suggesting we use the king as bait?”

  “It’s okay,” said Winkie. “If it’ll get Farrah back, I’m happy to be the one to draw Mary Mary into the snare. Go on, Elspeth.”

  “Sometimes the best traps are the simple ones,” said Elspeth. “First, you need to get her attention. Tell her you’ve got something invaluable to offer. Like Krool said, entice her with the promise of unbridled power. A seat upon the throne.”

  “And once she’s out of the shack?” said Dumpty. “How then do we manage to chop her head off without being turned to ashes, or into pink armadillos?”

  “I’m thinking a four-pronged assault is the way to go,” said Elspeth, taking a knee on the soggy path. She plunged Gene into the mud to a depth that he could stand on his own.

  “Hey,” Gene protested. “What’s the deal?”

  Elspeth ignored Gene and continued. “Let’s say Gene is the tree.”

  “Let’s say I’m the stick who does not appreciate being shoved into the mud,” said Gene.

  “Would you prefer I stuck you in headfirst?” snapped Elspeth.

  “Okay,” said Gene. “Let’s say I’m the tree.”

  “Good,” said Elspeth, who then plucked a few small rocks from beneath a bush and placed one of them a few inches from Gene. “I noticed a log several feet from the tree. King William will position himself upon it here.”

  She placed another rock behind Gene and one each to the left and to the right of the rock representing Winkie. “Rory, Cory, and Maury,” she said. “One of you behind the tree, the others hiding in the bushes here and here, with your swords drawn, ready to attack.”

  “That’s three prongs,” said Bo-Peep. “May I assume I’m the fourth?”

  “You’ll be here,” said Elspeth, placing a rock behind Winkie’s. “Lying alongside the log. If King William can entice her here, she’ll end up in zugzwang.”

  “Zugzwang,” said Gene. “What is that, a type of sausage?”

  “It’s a chess term,” said Elspeth. “It means that any move she makes will weaken her position. When I give the signal, the first thing we’ll do is a bit of castling. King William will drop down behind the log while Bo-Peep, our trusty rook, leaps up and charges forward. With Mary Mary’s focus on her, the brothers will move in for the kill.”

  When she looked at Cory, Rory, and Maury, she was hoping not to see such looks of uncertainty.

  “What if we miss?” asked Cory.

  “Don’t,” said Elspeth. “And remember. You can do this.”

  While Rory and Cory looked hesitant yet resigned, Maury, the youngest of the three, was suddenly a trembling mess. “I-I can’t,” he stammered. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.” He sat on a log and buried his face in his sweaty palms.

  “Fine,” said Krool. “I would be delighted to take your place.” He extended his open hand and Maury could only stare at it.

  “If you think we’re going to give you a sword, you’re crazy,” said Winkie.

  “You’d be crazy not to,” said Krool. “I’m quite handy with one, I assure you. And when I’ve finished with it you have my word as a gentleman that I shall return it as good as new, though perhaps a bit on the messy side. Well? What do you say?”

  Winkie looked for Elspeth for guidance.

  “Give him the sword,” she instructed Maury.

  The young man sighed and made no effort to hide his shame as he stood and unbuckled his belt and handed it over, sword and all. Not nearly as fit as Maury, Krool was forced to expand the belt by a couple of notches before it would rest comfortably around his middle.

  “Okay,” said Elspeth. “Remember, when you attack, do it quickly. Even the slightest hesitation could be the death of us all.”

  Elspeth reached into her jacket pocket, removed her set of apartment keys, and handed them to Winkie.

  “What’s this?”

  “The keys to the kingdom.”

  At the very moment that Elspeth handed those keys to Winkie, back in Banbury Cross, Jill was fishing her own house keys from her pocket as she made her way up the walk after a long day at work. She entered the tiny cottage and instantly found the quiet inside troubling. As a garbage collector, Jack always finished his work earlier and, without fail, met his wife at the door with a kiss and a freshly brewed cup of tea.

  “Jack?” she called out. When her voice was met with silence, she walked first to the bedroom and poked her head in, only to find it every bit as unpopulated as the living room. Resigned to making her own tea this day, she walked to the kitchen and that’s where she saw the note, folded in half and propped up like a pup tent upon the countertop. Slowly, she opened the note and read.

  “My deerest wife,” began the message, written by a man with a fourth-grade education. “I’m sory I had to do this to you, but reguardless of my own sircumstances, I’m just not abel to sit around and do nothing while Elspeth may be in grave danger. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Your loving husband, Jack.”

  Jill wasted only a few short moments staring out the kitchen window before silently cursing her husband, then hurrying out of the house, up the hill on her way to the castle.

  One might think that as the mother of a local heroine, Jill would be granted unlimited access to the royal palace, but this was not the case. She, like everyone not officially within the king’s inner circle, was stopped cold at the gate.

  “Pardon me,” she said to the sentries flanking the entryway on either side. “I’m Jill Jillson.”

  “Yes,” said the guard on the right, in the same tone that one would say, “And?”

  “Elspeth Pule’s mother,” Jill clarified.

  “I know who you are,” said the guard, a man with a startling lack of facial expression. “What do you want?”

  “Please,” she begged. “I must see Sir Fergus immediately.”

  “And to what is it pertaining?” replied the guard on the left, a thin, dark man with a short, choppy way of speaking.

  “I can’t say,” Jill stammered in return.

  “Then I can’t let you in,” said the guard.

  “But it’s a matter of great importance.”

  “Sir Fergus is a very busy owl,” said the guard on the right. “Everything he does is of great importance.”

  Jill might have given up right there if Georgie, on his way to the village to purchase a belated wedding gift for the Dish and the Spoon, hadn’t walked out of the castle courtyard and across the drawbridge at that very moment.

  “Georgie,” Jill said, taking him by the forearm. “You’ve got to help me.”

  “But of course, Jill,” Georgie replied. “Anything. What is it?”

  “I need to speak to Sir Fergus right away.”

  Georgie immediately decided that purchasing monogrammed dish towels for the newlyweds could wait until later, and he personally escorted Jill into the castle and through the narrow halls to the office of Sir Fergus, which looked far more like a library than anything else. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered two walls, and several stacks of books sat upon the large wooden desk. Fergus stood on the desk amid the books as he finished dictating a letter to his personal assistant, a stout, red-bearded Welshman by the name of Taffy, who sat in a chair, trying to scribble every bit as fast as Fergus could speak.

  “And furthermore,” Fergus intoned with a sense of great indignation, “may I remind you, Mr. Chairman, that the scientific community is in clear agreement that there is no basis for the assertion that little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails and that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. As such, I respectfully decline your request that such teachings be added to the biology curriculum of the Banbury Cross public school system. Sincerely, Sir Fergus, Minister of Education.” He waited for Taffy to catch up before adding, “Now read
that back to me, please.”

  Taffy placed a fist over his bearded mouth and cleared his throat, then read it back. Fergus wasn’t sure. “Too nice, I think. Don’t you?”

  “Agreed,” said Taffy. “Too nice, considering.”

  “Why do these lunatics insist upon teaching our children these ridiculous fairy tales?” said Fergus.

  Before Taffy could answer, the door to the office opened just enough to allow Georgie’s head to poke in. “Sorry to bother you, Sir Fergus,” he said. “Jill Jillson is here to see you. She says it’s a matter of great importance.”

  “Well, by all means, send her in,” Fergus replied.

  Georgie swung the door aside, and Jill entered the room with purpose. “Jill,” said Fergus at the sight of her. “I heard the horrible news. Let me say that I have no doubt that Jack is fully innocent of the charges leveled against him.”

  “Thank you,” said Jill. “It’s been quite an ordeal.”

  “Tell me,” said Fergus. “What can I do for you?”

  Jill looked at Taffy, and then at Georgie with hesitance.

  Fergus immediately picked up on her discomfort. “Gentlemen,” he said. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all, sir,” said Taffy and he and Georgie quickly and quietly left the room, closing the door behind them.

  “What is it, Jill?” asked Fergus, keeping his voice low. “What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s Jack,” she replied. “He’s jumped bail.”

  “Jumped bail?”

  “He’s gone off to the Thick to find Elspeth.”

  “Oh dear,” said Fergus. “You do realize that if this gets out they’ll send the bounty hunters after him. Good gracious, what was he thinking?”

  “He wasn’t, I’m afraid,” said Jill. “Truth is, he’s been sick with guilt and worry since she left.”

  Fergus nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been quite worried myself, so I can only imagine what it must be like as the girl’s parent. So, tell me. What can I do to help you?”

  Jill walked to the window and looked down into the courtyard at the statue of Elspeth. “Stress and worry have clouded his thinking. I’m afraid it’ll cause him to get careless. I would go after him if I could, but he’s got a half-day’s head start on me. I was just thinking that if someone—”

  “Yes, I see,” said Fergus. “I’ll do it. I’ll go after him.”

  “Thank you,” said Jill, her shoulders slumping in sudden relief. “I’m sorry to trouble you, with your injury and all. I would ask someone else, but there’s no one I trust.”

  “Shh,” said Fergus, raising a single feather to his beak. “Not another word about it. I will find your husband. But if I know him as I do, convincing him to turn around and come back will be another matter altogether.”

  Jack be troubled,

  Jack be sick,

  Jack jumped bail

  and ran off to the Thick.

  Chapter

  18

  Mary Mary held up the completed first wall of the new cage and admired her handiwork. In fact, she was so pleased with herself that she might not have noticed the tiny voice calling her name at all if Farrah hadn’t sat up suddenly and gasped, “William!”

  The witch turned her ear toward the open window, and there it was again, faint but insistent. Her black lips curled into something resembling a smile. “He’s come for you,” she said. “And sooner than I thought. You may have to share a cage for the first day or two until I can finish my work.” She set the sticks aside, stood, and walked to the door.

  With her limited eyesight, it took a moment for Mary Mary to pick Winkie out of the landscape. When she finally saw him standing on that log, shouting her name, she grinned and let out a breath that smelled and looked like smoke and fire.

  From her position upon a nearby hill, with Gene in her hand and Dumpty at her side, Elspeth crouched and peered through the leaves of the ground cover at the witch in her vaulted position. At Elspeth’s other side was Maury, humiliated yet thankful to have been relieved of duty.

  Hiding in their assigned spots, Cory, Rory, and Krool held tightly to their swords and Bo-Peep lay motionless behind the log as Winkie shouted, “I have a proposal I think you will find most interesting.”

  “Your friends,” said the witch, slowly surveying the area. “What’s become of them?”

  “They’ve abandoned me,” said Winkie, doing a poor job of selling it. Elspeth thought the king could desperately use some acting lessons. “Cowards, the lot of them.”

  The witch took a moment to decide whether she believed King William. At the end of it, she still wasn’t sure, though it didn’t seem to matter that much to her either way. “You said something about a proposal,” she shouted down.

  “Yes,” said Winkie. “But first I must know that the queen is alive and well.”

  “She is,” said Mary Mary, leaving Winkie desperate for more.

  “Forgive my cynicism, but I would like visual proof of that,” he said, trying to strike a tone that was both assertive and deferential.

  Should she be agreeable or not? Mary Mary seemed to consider these two options before finally turning and walking back into the shack while Winkie tried very hard to keep from hyperventilating. A moment later, the witch reappeared, holding the tiny cage.

  “Farrah!” Winkie cried. And though at this distance and with the spaces between the wooden bars being so narrow, he could not actually see the queen, he knew in his heart she must be inside it. And when she slipped a slender arm between the bars, reaching in vain for her husband, and simply uttered his name, the king felt as though his heart might burst. “Are you okay, my dear?”

  “I’m okay,” came the voice, weaker than Winkie had ever known it.

  “So?” said the witch. “What am I bid for this lovely specimen?”

  “Everything,” said Winkie.

  “Everything?”

  From behind his back, Winkie produced the set of keys. “The kingdom. It’s all yours if you will only let her go.”

  The witch looked at the keys then at the cage and thought that such a lopsided exchange must surely come with some kind of a catch. The very idea that someone would give up his entire kingdom to save the life of one person, beloved wife or otherwise, seemed ludicrous.

  “And I would be queen?” the witch asked skeptically.

  “You would be queen,” Winkie confirmed.

  “And all would bow down before me?”

  “If you so command them.”

  “Well, of course I would,” said the witch. “What’s the point of lording over others if you can’t make them worship you?”

  Mary Mary had no way of knowing that she was speaking to a man who was, despite his tiny stature, above such things. In all his years upon the throne, Winkie had never had any desire to be worshiped, praised, or venerated in any way. And while forcing others to grovel at one’s feet held no interest for most, to others, like Krool and Mary Mary, such a thing was pure catnip.

  “I agree,” said Winkie, his acting skills having improved a little over the last few exchanges. “There’s nothing quite like being worshiped. You’re going to love it.”

  “There will be a ceremony,” said the witch. “A coronation, in which you will place the crown upon my head and declare me ruler of the land of Mary-Maryville.”

  Just as Winkie allowed himself to think that the witch had fallen for the scheme, Farrah shouted, “William, you mustn’t.”

  The witch glared at the cage and for a moment seemed to be on the verge of tossing it from the platform to the ground, too far below for Farrah to survive such a fall.

  “Keep quiet in there,” she said. “You can choose to be a live peasant or a dead queen.”

  “Please, Farrah,” said Winkie. “Say no more. I happily give up the throne for your safety.”

  “But the people. You can’t do this to the people.”

  Winkie began to panic. He hadn’t counted on this. If the witch’s vision were b
etter, she would have noticed Winkie’s eyes moving up to the hill where Elspeth hid. Elspeth glared urgently from behind the leaves, and the king’s eyes moved back to the cage.

  “We will make the exchange now,” he said.

  “Very well,” said Mary Mary. “But do not forget that I command the beasts of the Thick. To double-cross me would result in both you and your bride being torn to shreds by the likes of the Great Spiny Gleekin.”

  “I understand,” said Winkie. “Now let’s get on with it.”

  As the witch, with cage in hand, began to slowly descend from the tree, Cory removed his hand from his sword just long enough to wipe his sweaty palm on the leg of his pants.

  Elspeth watched intently, gauging and scrutinizing the witch’s every move. To give the order to attack too soon or too late could bear very bad results.

  Mary Mary now stood at the base of the tree, and for a moment Elspeth thought that maybe she would give the order early after all, with Cory being so very close.

  “Toss them here,” said the witch.

  “No,” replied Winkie. “You must bring Farrah to me.”

  “I think you’d agree that you’re in no position to make such demands,” said the witch.

  “Perhaps not. But I must insist.”

  The witch took one last look around with her limited vision then walked slowly toward Winkie. The keys jingled like wind chimes as the king’s hand began to shake more rapidly with each step the witch took in his direction. When she was just a few feet away, she lowered the cage to the ground, then held out her hand for the keys.

  Winkie reached out and leaned forward and the witch did the same. Elspeth inhaled slowly and deeply, and when the witch’s fingers touched the trembling keys, Elspeth shouted, “Now!”

  Instantly, Winkie dropped down behind the log while Bo-Peep jumped up and charged. The witch’s index finger shot out, and from it raced a bolt of white light. The charge, aimed at Bo-Peep’s heart, met instead with her wooden staff. Sparks flew as the stick splintered upon impact, the force knocking Bo-Peep to the ground, unarmed and helpless.

  The witch lowered her finger and took aim again, but before she could fire, she heard the cracking of a twig and turned to see Rory lumbering toward her from the right, his sword raised high.