by Jack Heckel
No, he thought grimly. We are worse than common travelers. We will be seen as either brigands or beggars. If only I could make him believe that sometimes, just sometimes, clothes do make the man.
“Charming!” Will shouted from somewhere ahead. “A road, and it goes north! While we still have the sun, onward!”
Charming emerged onto the road to see Will riding south. “Other north, Your Majesty.”
Will reined his horse in and, without comment, turned about and headed the opposite direction. Charming followed, muttering darkly about mad kings and the fools that followed them, a topic he found was rich with poetic possibilities. It had been a long time since he had used couplet.
He was trying to decide which was more euphonious, insane and fame or inflamed and brain when Will interrupted his train of thought. “What are you mumbling about, Charming?”
“Nothing, Your Majesty. I was just trying to determine how to put our journey into verse.”
Will’s response was utterly unprintable.
Will’s idea of “having the sun” was extremely liberal as they continued to ride long after the sun had set. Suddenly, Charming had the strongest feeling that the road was going to make a bend ahead and go between two large oaks, and it did. A little later, Charming knew that the road would take a sharp dip, and it did that also. Either he had developed the Sight—a distinct possibility as he had always considered himself peculiarly sensitive—or he had recently been along this section of road, which, given the distance they’d traveled, seemed improbable.
Finally, the eerie and continuous sense of déjà vu became overwhelming, and he felt he had to say something. “Will.”
“If this is about stopping, poetry, or fashion, I am not in the mood,” Will barked back over his shoulder.
Charming glared at Will’s back, and said with barely contained disdain, “I thought you should know that I think I have been in this forest before.”
Will drew his horse to a stop so that Charming could catch up. “Do you actually know where we are?”
Before he could reply, he heard someone coming fast along the path, then a voice yelled, “Run!”
Charming swiftly drew his blade and rode in front of Will.
Three terrified men came into sight running down the road. They wore ill-fitting dark green and brown clothes that had enormous rips and tears in them. All of them were badly injured and sported blackened eyes and bloody gashes along their faces and bodies.
“You can tell from their clothes that they are desperate men, Your Majesty,” Charming said, as the men continued to approach. “Let me handle them.”
Will waved his consent. “Just don’t let this delay us any longer than necessary, Charming. We will soon lose the light.”
“What light?” Charming asked under his breath, looking up at the stars that filled the now-night sky.
Will made a show of ignoring him.
Charming moved slightly forward and into the middle of the road to block the fleeing men’s path. As they came nearer he boomed in his most authoritative voice, “Halt!”
Charming raised his hand and positioned his blade so that somehow, the edge caught the light of the moon as it filtered through the trees, causing the steel to gleam. The men froze on the path.
“Oh, Lor’ bless us, it’s robbers,” one of the men said, and held up his arms in surrender.
The others followed his example, and one said, “I told you that going it alone as outlaws was too dangerous. We should have stayed with the Heinous Hooligans.”
“Don’t you mean the Boisterous Brigands?” the third countered.
“I don’t know,” shrugged the second. “I could never remember what the Violet Varlet wanted to call us!”
“Don’t you mean the Green Phantom?” the first asked.
“No,” the third said confidently, then, as though reciting something he had memorized, continued, “If you recall he gave up the title Green Phantom because it didn’t have the proper ‘all-it-er-ative im-pri-matur.’ ” He pronounced these last two words as though they might be dangerous if said incorrectly.
“The proper what?” asked the other two.
“I don’t know, that’s what the Scarlet Scoundrel said last time he was on about the subject, ‘all-it-er-ative im-pri-matur.’ ”
“Alliterative imprimatur,” Charming interjected to startled glances from the men, who had clearly forgotten he was there. “That would be a first-consonant rhyming scheme that would serve to give the name additional gravitas, like the Daring Duke or the Dread Dragon. I have never been one to subscribe to such cheap poetic flourishes, but there are those that find them useful.”
“Oh,” said the men.
Will moved his horse forward. “Can we get on with this, Charming? We are wasting time.”
Charming cleared his throat and pointed his sword at the men. “Why have you accosted the King? Answer or forfeit your lives to his just doom.”
The men dropped their hands and squinted their eyes in the feeble light. One of them, Will wasn’t sure which, said, “That’s never the King then. Look at his clothes.”
Another of the men said, “Yeah, what do you take us for, fools? No respectable king would be caught dead in that.”
Charming dropped his sword to his side and sighed piteously. “I warned you this would happen, Your Majesty. And, how can I argue. They are both proper and correct, no king would be caught dead in that outfit.”
“Never mind all that,” Will said to Charming, then growled. “I am your King, and if you do not move aside, I will order my man to cut you down where you stand!”
The men scattered to the edge of the road, and Will began to spur his horse forward.
“Wait!” Charming said sharply enough that Will hesitated. “What were you men running from? What attacked you? What is ahead on this road?”
“A witch!” said one.
“A demon!” countered the other.
“A werewolf!” replied the third.
“A monster!” all three shouted together, with one of them adding, “Of an undetermined nature.”
Charming sighed and turned to Will to tell him that he thought they were lying, but there was a mad eagerness in Will’s face.
“Could the monster have been a dragon?” Will asked
“That’s it!” they all cried in ready agreement. “It was definitely a dragon!”
Will rose in his stirrups and pulled his sword from his scabbard. “Where is this dragon? Tell me now!”
“Back at the house!” said the first, pointing behind them.
“It’s just off the road!” said the second, following the man’s gesture with one of his own.
“In a clearing in the woods!” said the third, repeating the first two men’s gestures just in case there was any confusion as to direction.
“We were trying to rob . . .” the first started to say, but a sharp elbow in the ribs cut his confession short.
Will didn’t notice the slip, but spurred his horse past the men, screaming, “Give me Elle, you monster!”
Charming paused for a moment trying to decide what to do with the men. They were clearly criminals, but it was just as clear that Will could not be trusted not to get himself killed. He shrugged. “You have my leave to continue running for your lives, but if I ever catch you around here again . . .”
“You won’t!” the men shouted.
“Good,” Charming said sheathing his sword. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have to save the King.”
The men scattered, and Charming urged his own horse after Will. By galloping hard, he managed to reach the clearing in time to see Will, sword drawn, marching resolutely toward a moonlit cottage nestled quaintly in the trees, an orange glow flickering warmly from behind curtained windows. The sight of the clearing
and the cottage froze Charming. This was not just any cottage or any clearing, but one utterly familiar to Charming. It was utterly familiar because it was the one he and Liz lived in. He was home.
Several thoughts struck him at once and with enough violence to send his head momentarily spinning. First, that they had just spent a week traveling in a big circle, which meant both that he had a terrible sense of direction and was not clairvoyant. Second, that King William was about to batter down the door of his home to kill a dragon that could not possibly be inside. Third, that if those brigands on the road had been telling the truth, then someone or something dangerous was in his house. And lastly, that if Liz was in there, then she was in there with someone or something dangerous.
Charming sprang from his horse before this last thought had even had time to fully form. Somewhere between the saddle and the ground, he drew his sword, then sprinted to catch up to Will. He watched as Will reared back his foot to kick open the door.
“Will, stop” he cried.
It was too late. The door broke inward under Will’s assault, and the man disappeared into the cottage, a guttural cry of challenge on his lips. A terrible, inhuman noise issue from within, followed by the sound of a mighty struggle as furniture crashed, crockery shattered, metal rang, and bodies fell. Will’s scream of rage was transformed into a bellow of pain. Perhaps there was a monster. Charming put on a burst of speed and launched himself through the door.
What he saw by the flickering light of the fire would have been enough to cause even the most inveterate of drunks to swear off booze. The room was in chaos. Furniture and odds and ends were strewn about. In the middle of the destruction lay Will. He was breathing, snoring actually, and seemed uninjured with the exception of some scratches and bruises to his face and forehead. Over him stood a swayback donkey with a long gray beard, a thick-bodied black-and-brown dog with a squashed face, a rather chubby orange cat with white stripes down its sides and white circles around its eyes, and a scrawny, red-feathered rooster with an inordinately long, skinny neck. The rooster was actually standing atop Will’s chest.
This scene would have been extraordinary in and of itself, and for the ordinary man might have frozen him into inaction, but Charming was trained for the extraordinary, and so the presence of the animals and Will’s state of unconsciousness actually didn’t bother him in the least. What did bother him, what froze his blood in his veins, was that Liz was nowhere to be seen.
Charming’s paralysis lasted long enough for the animals to turn their gazes on him, and for the donkey to say in a drawling bray, “Not another burglar. Man! This neighborhood is going downhill. Let’s get him, guys!”
The animals moved toward him as one. The donkey lowered his head and charged, the dog leapt over a broken cabinet, teeth snapping, the cat launched itself from the back of a chair toward Charming’s chest, with its claws outstretched, and the rooster took flight in a flurry of wings and talons.
There are many things you can say about Edward Charming. He is vain, conceited, and often an ass, but it is also true that he is accounted the best swordsman of his generation, and some say of all time. On this day, at this moment, his skill was augmented by a towering rage, and the results were terrifying.
Charming took two long strides across the room, meeting the animals’ charge with his own. Then, in one fluid movement, he dodged out of the way of the charging donkey so that it barreled past him to slam into a bookshelf, kicked the dog squarely in the ribs and pinned it to the floor with his foot, pivoted his body so that the flat of his sword knocked the leaping cat back, sending it flying across the room to smash into the far wall, while at the same moment he plucked the rooster out of the air by the neck with his off hand. By this time the donkey had recovered and was turning to charge again, but Charming had reversed the grip on his sword and lunged so that the tip of his sword came to rest against the donkey’s throat.
Everything froze, then the donkey, whose rolling eyes were fixed on the blade touching his neck, asked, “Can we help you, man?”
“Yes, you can,” Charming said with icy calm. “You can answer a question for me.”
“Okay,” said the donkey, “but could you ease up on Rooster there, he’s turning blue, man.”
“I’ll consider it,” Charming said coldly, “depending on how you answer my question.”
“What happens if I don’t give you the right answer?” the donkey asked.
Charming said nothing but instead shifted his weight forward so that the sword tip now dug into the skin on the donkey’s throat, and the dog under his foot gave a yelp of pain.
“I swear we don’t have anything against you or your friend,” the donkey pleaded. “We were just afraid he was a robber like the last cats that came in here. Dig?”
Charming did not respond but tightened his grip on the rooster so that the bird squawked in pain.
“Okay, man,” the donkey brayed in alarm. “Ask your question. I’ll try to answer.”
“Normally,” said Charming, and his hard eyes bore into the donkey’s, “I would care about my friend, and normally I would be asking why you are in my house, but this isn’t normally. My question, and answer very, very carefully, donkey, is . . . where is my wife?”
*In a marketing effort that had some questioning his sanity, the owner of the Cooked Goose had, at this time, officially changed the name of his inn to the Infamous Cooked Goose. No records are available to confirm or deny whether the new name was successful in bringing in any more customers, but as only a few years later the inn was demolished by the local council to make way for a pigsty, a move everyone agrees to have been a major improvement for the district, this author assumes that it did not work out. The more charitable among my readers dispute this inference and have even suggested that the owner might have had the inn demolished out of concern for the public health. All the author can say is that if you believe that, you really don’t know the owner of the Cooked Goose.
**Historians say that some good has come of the dense and indecipherable nature of Royaume’s roads. One, possibly apocryphal, tale that is a favorite in many of the disturbingly named pubs mentioned in this chapter recounts how in the reign of King Durward the Uncurious, Royaume was actually invaded by a nearby kingdom. The army that was led into Royaume was enormous and would have easily crushed King Durward’s own army, the King never having had much interest in either raising an army or figuring out what to do with the bit of one he had. However, on their way to attack Castle White, the invading army got lost in the Northern Forest and spent the next several years trying to find its way back out. It is said that many of the towns in the north of Royaume were actually founded by members of the invading force who got tired of trying to find their way back home and simply settled down.
CHAPTER 5
DINNER FOR TWO
When reading fairy tales, it is never a good idea to think too much about the realities of a damsel’s distress. Sleeping Beauty sleeps, but it is a mystical sleep, and so she can wake fresh as a daisy kissing her prince after one hundred years without brushing her teeth. Cinderella sweeps, but despite all the time she spends on her hands and knees scrubbing dishes and cleaning out hearths and how callused and bruised those same hands and knees must have been, all she really needs is a new dress and a pair of pretty shoes to make her a princess. And, should we even discuss what state Ms. Riding Hood and her grandmother would have been in after having been extracted from the guts of a wolf via a woodman’s axe?
Rapunzel actually had a bit of experience with the pain and inconvenience of being a fairy-tale damsel. The stories she could tell about how much time and effort it took to maintain her hair were, well, hair-raising. But the trials she’d had detangling her hair and preventing split ends were as nothing compared to the sheer discomfort of being abducted by a dragon and its wolf henchman, or henchwolf, and flown up to a barren cave in the
mountains at the end of winter in nothing but a nightgown.
At first, Elle was far too nervous to complain. When your jailers are a distraught dragon and its deranged and constantly hungry pet wolf, being the squeaky wheel might get you eaten. However, in the end, she decided that she would not survive long if she did not complain, and so complain she did.
She complained about the cold, and the dragon used its flaming breath to heat the rocks of the cave until they fairly glowed with heat. She complained about her state of undress and about sleeping on the rock-hard ground, and so the dragon and the wolf raided several noblemen’s estates and brought back wardrobes full of dresses (this took some time as neither the wolf nor the dragon had any concept of sizing, cut, or color). They also brought back a beautiful canopied bed that she swore she’d seen in the Duchess of South Southingham’s boudoir. She complained about the food, what there was of it was all raw meat, and so the wolf was sent to fetch all the pots and pans and dishes and implements necessary for a proper meal. He was also later sent to fetch some spices when Elle complained of the blandness of the fare, and some lovely spring vegetables to serve as an accompaniment. The wolf balked briefly when, later still, the dragon, on its own initiative, suggested that for Elle to really appreciate the fresh game properly, she would need a nice wine, but when the dragon reminded the wolf, quite forcefully, that its continued existence depended entirely on the dragon’s good humor, it grudgingly agreed.
So on this particular night, Elle was seated at a lovely polished dining table (slightly marred from where one of the dragon’s claws had grazed it as the creature was liberating it from Lady Greenleaf’s castle) beneath the glow of two silver candelabra (both slightly askew from being clutched in the wolf’s teeth as he carried them back from one of his most recent raids) eating a delicious meal of roast venison with smoked eggplant on china (mostly unchipped), which from the gold-plated crest looked to have come from Lord Easterly’s formerly famous collection. She lifted a crystal goblet and took a sip of a wonderful Chardonnay the dragon had recommended, and sighed contentedly.