The Accidental Highwayman

by Ben Tripp

  He hadn’t reckoned on the general anxiety I felt for my own welfare, however. Rather than tumble to the road as intended, I threw out my hands and caught Mr. Bufo’s silver-bullion collar in the midst of my flight. His wig flew into my face. My boot-toes scraped along the road as I hung from the man’s neck, and his limbs were so thick and overmuscled, he could not reach back to disengage me while maintaining his hold on one of the handles at the back of the cabin.

  The coach rumbled to a halt, and I released my grip, alighting on the road. I fumbled one of my pistols out, cocked it, and raised it in time for Mr. Bufo to wrest it from my grasp.

  “Have at you,” I cried, and drew my sword. The handle flamed yellow again, and I fancied the footman showed a little hesitation, at last. But then a dark blur whistled out of the darkness above the coach, and the sword was torn from my fingers. It sang through the air and was lost. My hand stung as if burned. Mr. Scratch mounted the roof of the coach, recoiling his bullwhip for a second stroke. Now I saw what had happened, but it was too late to devise another defense.

  Sometimes, in the midst of turmoil and crisis, we catch a glimpse of the reward for struggling on, and it renews our determination with hope. So it was, with the murderous whip seething through the air, that I was rewarded by a vision. The door on my side of the coach peeped open and a slim figure emerged. It was a lady, dressed in some dark stuff. Our eyes met. She seemed to give off her own light, a portrait in a stained-glass window.

  Time slowed until the world was drowned in honey; every second was an eternity. At first I saw only her eyes, green as gemstones, fringed with black lashes in a pale olive face. Her dark hair sparkled. Then it was as if I had tumbled into her eyes, and I was surrounded by scenes of strange pageantry, heard glorious songs in languages beyond comprehension, and marveled at purple oceans arching through a star-cast sky, tossed by scented winds upon which rode strange winged creatures. I saw a castle clad in silver that hung in empty darkness with its curving ramparts thrust upward and downward alike, floating like a cloud. And somehow I knew these things had been witnessed by the lady herself. Once again I saw her glimmering face. She half smiled, threw a cloak about her, and fairly vanished before my eyes.

  At that moment, with time still passing sluggishly, I had occasion to reflect: This, surely, was the woman I had been entreated to rescue. With her flight from the coach, my debt to master and witch was paid. Events gathered speed around me, and I was enough renewed to fling myself out of the way of the whip-stroke into the dark beside the road. There, with time running again at its usual pace, I collided with a tombstone in the overgrown churchyard.

  I had hurled myself in the opposite direction to that which the lady had taken. Mr. Bufo was already trundling after me, and I had little fight in me to make good my escape. But then, for the third time, a ring of sparkling green flame appeared around me. The footman was dazzled sightless for a few precious seconds, and Mr. Scratch fell altogether off the roof of the coach. There was a drumming of hooves, and Midnight came galloping into the circle of light. I threw myself bodily into the saddle as he surged past.

  Whether the servants pursued me farther, or whether they discovered their passenger had fled, I did not learn at that time; instead, I rode as fast as Midnight could take me, hysterical with fear, until neither myself nor the horse could go another step.

  We were in an area miles distant from the scenes of horror I’d witnessed before, with small shadowed hills and stony brooks chuckling between them, when at last we stopped. The moon was down and the prosperous town in the dell below us showed only a few dim lights. I guided the poor shivering horse along a track that ran away from the road, and when we found a tumbledown barn, we made our beds in it. I set Midnight’s sweat-soaked tack to dry, rubbed his flanks down with straw, and then we both lay in a pile of rotten hay, too spent to move even if an entire regiment were marching our way.

  I was well on the road to sleep when I heard whispering.

  It was the tiny voices again. As you can imagine, I was instantly awake. But I did not stir so much as a finger, instead lying there in the darkness with my eyes closed, listening. The voices were moving in a straight line above me, as if the speakers were walking along a rafter. They spake in such small tones I could hear but the occasional word.

  At length, they seemed to be directly above my head, and I heard one of them say, “Then I’ll do it,” and there was a papery clatter. I opened my eyes and looked up into the inky darkness, my fingers closing around the grip of my remaining pistol.

  There was another clatter, and the entire barn lit up with a bright green glow like sunlight through spring grass.

  There, at the very source of the light, was a tiny man. Or rather, an insect shaped like a man, for he fluttered on quick transparent wings. I must have cried out, because no sooner had the light come up than it went out again.

  “Who goes there?” I shouted in a high-pitched voice.

  “Don’t shoot, Whistling Jack,” the small voice said. It was the same one that had spoken into my ear up in the old oak tree.

  “Show your light again,” said I.

  The tiny insect-man lit up again, this time near the roof, revealing great holes in the thatch. “You won’t shoot?”

  “I won’t shoot,” said I, because truly I could not hit so small a target. “Come down here.”

  It had been such a day that I was not intimidated by the sight of a miniature flying man. Why would there not be a miniature flying man? There had been everything else.

  The little fellow flitted downward, following a wobbling trajectory like a large beetle. He was about as tall as my hand. He alighted on a wooden hayrack fixed to the wall; his light cast long shadows like prison bars through the staves of the rack. It was then I realized the light was coming from his bottom, which lit up like a firefly’s. His britches seemed to possess a flap for that very purpose.

  “I’m that nervous,” he said. “Such a thrill to meet you.”

  “Me?” said I, bewildered.

  “Whistling Jack the Highwayman? Word’s already gotten about: You rescued HRH Princess Morgana and fought off half a dozen highwaymen for the privilege.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I protested. “You know that—you were there.” And then, as I realized what he’d said: “Wait. Princess?”

  “The Faerie King’s daughter,” said the tiny man, now seating himself comfortably on the top bar of the hayrack, bare feet crossed. “Didn’t you know?”

  “I don’t know anything,” said I, with feeling.

  The wee creature still looked nervous, his doll-size eyes darting about. “I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I shouldn’t be telling you anything at all, for the matter of that. Never done such a thing in all my puff. It’s in the Eldritch Law, eighth verse of the tenth chapter, ‘Be not seen nor heard nor ever known by mortal man.’”

  “Nor cast your comprimaunts before them,” said a second voice. This one had a broad country accent. The speaker did not reveal himself.

  “I did cast my comprimaunts before him, didn’t I,” the little man said with regret. “Anyway, I’m Willum, leader of the rebel Faerie army, and him up there in the shadows is Gruntle.”

  “And who’s Gruntle?” I asked.

  “He’s the rebel Faerie army.”

  “I see,” said I, seeing nothing but a tiny man with light streaming out of his backside. “What, pray, is a comprimaunt?”

  Willum became concerned, his light flickering uncertainly. “Didn’t Magda tell you all this?”

  “She may have told my master,” said I, “but she told me nothing at all. I’m merely a servant, you see, in Master Rattle’s house. And he is, or was, for he has met his maker, also the highwayman called Whistling Jack—as I discovered but yesterday.”

  Willum shook his wings with alarm. “But your costume—your horse!”

  “They belong to my master.”

  “So you have taken up the highwayman’s mantle in his pla
ce! Brilliant!” The little man clapped his hands together.

  I shook my head. “It was not my choice. As soon as I find some different clothes, I shall bury this highwayman’s stuff beneath a stone and live a quiet life somewhere far away.” It felt very strange to be talking to this small person with an illuminated posterior, overheard by his secretive friend in the hayloft, but I was—to my horror—rapidly becoming accustomed to it.

  “You can’t be finished,” Willum said, and his light grew dim. “This is the beginning of the revolution, I tell you. You’re the secret to our success.”

  I stood up and brushed damp straw off myself. Midnight bent his neck around to watch what was happening. He didn’t seem at all put out by the tiny apparition.

  “I’m Kit,” said I. “Christopher Bristol, indentured servant to Master James Rattle, and before that indentured to Fortescue Trombonio, impresario. Why I’m dressed like this and how I came to be tangled in this business with the Princess I can hardly explain, for I hardly understand it. That’s my entire story. Now, what is yours?”

  Chapter 9

  A ROYAL WEDDING FORETOLD

  “IT’S LIKE this,” said Willum. “Gruntle and myself are feyín*, which is a type of Faerie. All magical creatures are Faeries. We are now in the First Realm, that being the human world. But we are from the Middle Kingdom, which regulates the natural part of the First Realm. On the other side there’s the Realm Beyond, which is where the Elden are, and we have no more to do with that dark world than manlings have to do with ours.”

  “But I have to do with your world!” I exclaimed. “I was surrounded by goblings and so forth, and met that witch, and now you.”

  “No, that all happened here in your world. We only pop in and out for periods of time. Except Magda. She dwells here. It’s her what coordinated the rescue mission. She’d like to get back, you see, and she’s most unhappy with the king. Elgeron, he is. King of Faerie. We planned the whole thing by bee.”

  I dwelled upon these words for a while, my thoughts illuminated by bottom-light.

  “Allow me to summarize,” said I. “Please correct me on any point. Faeries include you lot with the glowing bums along with other, different creatures. Goblings and trolls and whatnot. That old witch hired my master to rescue the Princess, but he died, so I had to rescue the Princess instead to fulfill his bargain, which I did.”

  “Exactly,” said Willum, and brightened up quite literally.

  “Why did I have to rescue the Princess?”

  “Well, she’s Princess Morgana ne Dé Danann Trolkvinde Arian yn Gadael ou Elgeron-Smith, she is. Lady of the Realm, Keeper of the Silver Leaves, Duchess of Springtime, daughter and only heir of King Elgeron. And her father arranged a marriage for her. She’s supposed to get hitched to some hapless Hanoverian halfwit from the human herd to cement a political alliance.”

  “Are you telling me,” I said, “that George William Frederick, grandson of King George II*, is to marry a Faerie princess?”

  “It’s absurd, isn’t it?”

  Absurd was hardly a strong enough word. “Why, though?” I asked. “Why would a human royal marry such a—”

  “Such a what,” Willum said, springing to his feet, ready to take offense. He put up raisin-sized fists.

  “—Such a dream of beauty?” I concluded. And I meant it. She was a vision plucked from a reverie on a warm moonlit night. “After all,” I added, “human kings and princes and so forth are the most worldly men alive. There’s not a drop of magic in ’em, I should think.”

  “Ah,” Willum said, mollified. “And I see you’re a fellow of quick insight. You have touched the very root of the source of the wellspring of our rebellion. Our King would see us turn our comprimaunts—that’s our magical abilities—over to human endeavors, like manufacturing and agriculture.”

  “And war-making,” Gruntle added, from a hiding place somewhat closer than before. “Manlings love war. I just like the unionforms.”

  “I see,” I lied. “And you and Magda the witch plan to put a stop to all that, by rescuing the Princess.”

  “That’s just the first step,” Willum said. “But we need your help. You might not think of yourself as a highwayman, but you’ve got talent.”

  I ignored this, and asked, “Was it you that made the rings of green fire around me?”

  “It was ’im,” Gruntle said, and stepped into the light from a small gap between two boards.

  Gruntle was clad in homespun and a shapeless cap; his wings stuck out to the sides, like those of a dragonfly. “’E broke eighth verse of chapter thingummy, did ’e. Cast witchfire all about you on no fewer than more than one occasion. And now I’ve broke the law as well by revealin’ meself, and we’ll both have our wings plucked for it.”

  “If it wasn’t for my quick thinking back there he’d be dead, or worse,” Willum said. “Some army you turned out to be, cowering in the bushes.”

  “Pleased to meet you at last,” I said to Gruntle. He shyly tipped his hat.

  “Princess Morgana didn’t like our plan,” Willum said, resuming his narrative. “She thought your master was the lowest kind of scoundrel, may his soul find the moon. But nobody else could do the job so well. Then someone—her father the King, I’ll be bound—hired rival bandits to see your master never went through with it. That’s when the Princess told us to watch out for him. She might not like rogues, but she’s got a conscience. Apparently too late, for we watched out for you, instead. It’s a rum go.”

  I wholeheartedly agreed. “In any case, your Princess is free. The task is done, and I’m finished with it. Thank you for saving my life.”

  Willum smote his open palm. “You’re just what the Princess needs! An honest criminal, if I may be so bold. We must get her out of England before our King finds her and marries her off!”

  “Nonsense,” said I, and meant it. “Lots of people marry someone they don’t much like. Whose business is that but their own? They’re only a woman and a man after all, regardless of their royal blood!” Then I added, because I was getting worked up, “Besides, she’s no Faerie. She hasn’t got wings. She’s not very tall, but she’s as human as I am.”

  Willum looked around him as if he was about to say something quite tasteless. Then he whispered, loudly, “You’re half right. Her mother was a human woman, you see, hence the ‘Smith.’ King Elgeron himself took a mortal wife, and she died in childbirth. But he got the Princess out of the bargain. Halfsies* can’t fly nor cast many comprimaunts, but they sometimes have the deeper magic that comes from the Realm Beyond.”

  “That will do,” said I. “Not another word.”

  “You’re right, I’ve been telling shameful tales about our beloved Princess,” Willum said, and removed his tiny cocked hat, the better to hang his head.

  I decided not to explain it wasn’t propriety bade me stop him: it was confusion. He was telling me gossip about a world that somehow lapped over my own, and secret engagements between royal persons, and besides he had wings. I felt certain I would be found in the morning, stark mad, bleating like a sheep. It was time to conclude this bizarre interview.

  “It’s been lovely talking with you,” I said. “But it is time for me to sleep, and after daybreak I must go into the town and determine how far from this place I can go on the money I have. My role in your revolution has ended. Thank you very much for explaining things to me, and safe travels to the Princess. Best of luck with the revolution. Never speak to me again.”

  With that, I lay down in the straw once more, and put my hat over my eyes. The last thing I saw from beneath the brim was the pair of Faeries sitting side by side on the hayrack, looking absolutely dejected. Willum’s light went out.

  * * *

  I hadn’t meant to sleep; at first I was only pretending, to keep them from bothering me any more. But at some point genuine sleep took me, and I did not awake until Midnight nuzzled me out of a chaotic dream of flying kings. He was standing in a beam of morning sunlight that streaked
in through a hole in the barn wall. I stood up, stiff as a leg of mutton. My stomach growled at the thought of mutton. It was time to disguise myself somehow and see what news there was, and plan my escape.

  Ordinary, nonmagical luck was with me. Propped in a dry corner of the barn I discovered a pair of scarecrows on poles, dressed in ragged old clothes. Although the garments were worn and shapeless, brown with dirt, I was able to assemble shirt, weskit, and trousers between the two. The trousers were of the sailor type, and fell over the red turndowns of my boots. Following a thick application of mud, the lower parts of the boots did not appear out of place on a peasant’s feet.

  I concealed all of Whistling Jack’s gear beneath the hay, tied Midnight to a railing so that he would not wander off, and emerged from the barn looking for all the world like an impoverished tatterdemalion* living rough in the countryside. Which is precisely what I was, except for the poverty—I had fifty gold pieces concealed in my shirt. Thus prepared, I walked into the town I’d seen the previous night.

  There were a few people on the road, most of them going to work in the fields or at a nearby felt-fullery. It was a blessed relief to see no soldiers about. I found a bakery in the street, and purchased a day-old loaf for a penny. My pennies were worth more than gold, in this particular situation: It would be very difficult for one who looked as poor as me to pass a gold coin without raising suspicion. That was why I bought the loaf day-old, as well—a pauper wouldn’t buy new bread. I knew a good deal about poverty, having spent only two years out of it.

  There was a peculiar incident when I got the penny from my pocket: What should I find beside it, but the old witch’s tooth? It was a horrible yellow fang; there could be no mistaking it. How it got there I did not know, but as I left the bakery I threw the foul bone over the roof of the shop.

  I ate the entire loaf of bread at one go, cramming fistfuls of it into my mouth and then dashing water down my throat from the river that ran past the town. Profoundly refreshed, I ventured deeper into the street and found a post-tavern named the Bull & Crown. There they would have newspapers and all the unprinted rumors, because post-taverns were where the mail coaches stopped, and so they served as informal hubs of information along their routes. And the name of the place—was this what the sketch by Master Rattle had meant? It might have been fate that drew me here, if I went in for that sort of thing.