Bronwyn's Bane

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  “But these are lovely things,” Carole said indignantly, fully justifying with her acquisitive gaze the Prince’s estimation of her as greedy.

  “Bah! Not one chair or bed gives comfort to these brittle bones nor rest to this aching head. Not one shirt or pair of pants is easy to wear or fits properly. No, most of them are for looks only. Can’t use them or they break or tear. Worthless.” And he spat at a priceless inlaid urn.

  “You mentioned you have dogs,” Jack said, trying for a less controversial topic. “They must be good company for you. Do you hunt with them?”

  The old man wheezed with such lung-searing bitterness he started coughing and had to wait until his breath returned to ask, “Hunt where? Hunt what? Shall I hunt the weeds around the keep or shall I venture into the Disenchanted Forest and hunt things that hunt me more skillfully than I can hope to hunt them? How did you come to be here without seeing that there’s nothing, nothing at all, to hunt? All dried up, withered away, given up and gone. Give us another year or so and we’ll be gone too.”

  “If it’s so bad, why do you stay? Why don’t you go back to court?” Carole asked.

  “What? Back to that madhouse? That’d be even worse. Oh, it used to be jolly, when the three of us were trying to see who could be King, you know, but there was never any question, not really, but that it would be Loefwin. And frankly, he can have it. What’s the good of all that so-called power? You tell people what to do and have fatiguing fights with them trying to get them to do it, and when they don’t you kill them and they still won’t do it, so what’s the point? I was going to be a great magistrate, run the legal branch. That was the deal Fwin and I made when I gave the dinner party. Now I ask you, how’s a man supposed to make a career of the law once he’s done in every wrong-doer and potential wrong-doer on the continent in one evening? Frankly, I rather miss all those chaps, tossing their balls of power around the room, raising the dead, that sort of thing. Entertaining, at least. But we couldn’t have it, you see, them carrying on with something they had and we didn’t. It wouldn’t do. We had to fix it so nobody had as much as we did, so that no one was more interesting than we were.” He blinked around the shambles of a room, and spat again at the hapless urn. “We succeeded.”

  No one said anything for a moment and pretty soon he stirred himself again and said, “So. If you’ve come to keep me up all night with your childish prattle, you might at least tell me why I’ve been invaded. Or do orphans commonly wear fur-lined cloaks these days?”

  Bronwyn had a fantastic tale ready but Carole cut in quickly, deciding forthrightness was the proper approach. “The pomegranate. We’ve come for the pomegranate. Your brother, the Emperor, said we might have it and you were to give it to us.”

  “What do you want with that? Going to a potluck supper, are you?” he asked with a barking laugh ending in another fit of agonized wheezing.

  Bronwyn wasn’t about to put her bracelet back on and waste some of its precious power to tell the old miscreant anything concerning the war or the bargain with the Miragenians. She felt sure if Loefric knew how much depended on the pomegranate, he’d not only refuse to help them, but would probably do something beastly that would make everything worse. Quickly she said, “It is for my sake that we seek the pomegranate, sir. Because I am cursed to tell only the truth, no matter to whom or of what I speak. I’m told only a smidgen of the pomegranate rubbed judiciously into the scalp over the truth centers of the brain daily for a fortnight will relieve me of the onerous burden that is mine.”

  He sucked in his lips and said, “Hmph. I’d rather hear that my brother is intending to plant an orchard, but since he isn’t, I suppose your reason is as good as any. But make no mistake, that pomegranate and this keep are mine, not Fwin’s. I stole ’em fair and square. High point of my career, as a matter of fact. This garbage is all I have to show for it and I don’t mean to have you mucking it about, raising dust and making a lot of ruckus for nothing.” The mention of dust set him wheezing again. When the seizure passed, he appeared more composed, though his torch-lit complexion had faded from gray-yellow to paste-white and his voice quavered more than before, so that it barely emerged in a sly whisper when he said, “I’ll have to sleep on it. You whelps can’t just barge into a man’s keep and rush him about so.”

  That seemed fair enough, especially since the guests were at least as much in need of sleep as their host, and what with the storm and the dark there seemed little that could be done immediately anyway. Still, as Jack was later fond of saying, had their mission been less urgent and had it not been hailing outdoors he would gladly have refilled his pockets and bade the creepy old chap farewell. He had thought from the beginning that this entire pomegranate business was fishier than Carole’s ancestry.

  So the children made the best of things. They polished off some of the bread and cheese they had brought with them, though it was hard to remember one’s appetite in an atmosphere so stinkingly filthy and cold. The fumes from the torchlight hung in the stale air, making their eyes burn and their throats sting. Hail struck the roof and the sound ricocheted off the stone walls as loudly as the roar of an avalanche. The wind shrieked ear-splitting banshee cries and circled the keep, like a hungry monster looking for a way in.

  The prince sat in his chair and ignored them while he slurped at gruel that must have been cold since the torches provided the only fire. Carole, who’d been drilled in manners, especially to those who were her elders or who outranked her, no matter how rank they were, offered him a share of her food. He declined everything by ignoring it, except for her entire loaf of bread, which he snatched up and began using to sop his gruel, which predictably dribbled into his beard in a disgusting manner. After that, he pushed his bowl toward the other dishes, and fell asleep slouched in his chair.

  The children made themselves as comfortable as possible on the floor and the last thing Jack heard was Bronwyn saying, “It’s all very well for him to talk of sleep, but as for me, I shan’t sleep a wink,” and her lusty snores.

  Chapter 11

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Loefric’s voice crackled. Carole jumped straight up, scattering a cask of jewels and bumping her head on the out-thrust leg of a throne.

  “I was−uh−just looking around.”

  Jack and Bronwyn, who were also looking, stopped and came to stand beside Carole.

  “Did I say you could look yet?” They exchanged nervous, guilty glances and he grunted in a satisfied way. “Well, you can’t. Not till I’m finished with you. You brats always think you can get something for nothing.”

  “But the Emperor said—” Carole began indignantly.

  “And I said what he says doesn’t count. But never mind. I’m going to let you have the damned thing, and welcome to it, if you can find it. I’ve got no use for it, but I don’t rightly recall where it is and I’ve no intention of wasting my valuable time searching. And I’m not going to have you mucking about in here, raising dust and making noise for nothing either.” He let his breath out along with the spurt of vitality that had been animating him. After grumbling to himself he glanced irritably around the room. It was lighter than it had been at night thanks to the hail, which had enlarged a hole in the roof. Wan sunlight peeked timidly through. “I suppose if you have to look, you have to look, but I’ll not have you messing the place up and breaking things. You, girl,” he aimed a spray of spittle at Carole and she stepped back, crunching fine craftsmanship under her heels. “You think all this trash is so wonderful, you can clean it up as you go. Polish everything, put it in its proper place. It’ll partly pay me back for putting you up. Besides,” he said and smirked toothlessly, “you’ll never get downstairs to look through the rest of the castle if you don’t. And no dilly-dallying, you understand. I’m tired of this mess you brats made. Everything must be cleaned and put away by sunset whether you find the fruit or not, or out you go. Now then, get started. I have to go below and pull the garden and beat the dogs, but remember, sunse
t.”

  He shuffled off, his footsteps retreating and descending beyond the bejewelled junk.

  “Sunset!” Carole wailed after him, “But how can I—” He had gone by then and she turned indignantly to the others. “Well of all the nerve. After he’s spent probably most of his life making this mess, he blames us and wants me to clean it up by sunset!”

  “But is it not as well that we find the pomegranate as quickly as possible so we may return in time to aid the King?” Jack asked soothingly. “I for one intend to diminish this pile with great dispatch.” This time, when he filled his pockets, no one objected.

  Unfortunately, if all three of them had filled every pocket of every garment, it would still not have been enough to make the mountains of treasure seem one bit smaller. Now by the watery light from the hole in the roof, they could see that riches did indeed fill every nook and cranny of the room, almost to the ceiling, and only the narrowest of pathways allowed access to the door. Even if the pathway were filled, it could hold perhaps only one thin layer from the top of the heaps, and they couldn’t reach the top of the heaps yet.

  If there was anything gypsies knew as much about as traveling, animals, and stealing, it was moving things, and Jack, after a perfunctory inspection of the situation, announced, “It is hopeless. There is absolutely no way we can do this. I guess you will simply have to do without the pomegranate, my Princess.”

  “Where’s Anastasia’s feather?” she asked.

  He searched his pockets and found the feather crumpled between an emerald necklace and a carnelian-studded gold belt.

  She took it and picked her way back to the door. They set flame to feather indoors, to keep the wind from dousing the spark Jack made, then Bronwyn rushed outside with it.

  A thin greasy smoke spiraled into the gray sky. As the flame burned down the quill to Bronwyn’s fingers, Anastasia swooped to earth.

  “Ah, you have completed your task quickly,” she said. “I must confess I am glad. A tarn is not a desirable abode during a hailstorm. It is beginning to ice around the rim. I shall be most pleased not to have to spend another night there.”

  “Well,” Bronwyn began, unsure of how to proceed.

  Carole helped her. “We’re in a pickle, Anastasia the Alluring. It seems the Prince has been a very sloppy tenant in your ancestral mansion. He has oodles of simply scrumptious treasures all in that one room and they’re all jumbled together and there’s no way in the world to put them in order, but if we don’t do it by sundown he’s going to kick us out without giving us the pomegranate. He says he doesn’t know where it is, but I think he’s just being mean. That place is hopeless!”

  “Hmm,” the swan said, preening in a quick picky way that meant she was thinking hard. “Perhaps not.”

  “But you should see it!” Carole insisted.

  “I have no doubt the accursed man is an atrocious housekeeper. However, your plight is not entirely desperate if you can locate my hope chest. You may use it to hold the extraneous furnishings.”

  “There are,” Carole said, “a lot of things.”

  “My dear child, my hope chest is capable of holding a lot of things. My entire dowry was to be contained within it, including a castle, stable, mews, and all the accouterments.”

  “Oh,” Carole said. “You mean it was magic.”

  “Is,” the swan affirmed, arching her neck imperiously.

  “Still, do you think? I mean, that fruit took all the magic out of the people and—and from the looks of it, from everything else.”

  “My hope chest was not in the habit of devouring fruit,” the swan said. “I very much doubt it made contact with the disastrous stuff.”

  “Well, then, all we have to do is find it. Which will be at least as easy as finding the pomegranate.”

  “I suppose it is back to work, then,” Jack said in a mournful voice, and took several deep breaths of crisp cold air to fortify himself against the miasma of the keep.

  Bronwyn started dutifully to lift the broken door aside again when Anastasia said, “Perhaps Carole could use her craft in this matter.”

  “A giant with a shovel using his craft would be more like it,” Jack said.

  “Possibly so, but I feel that my chest, being a hope chest, will respond to magic in a spirit of fellowship, whereas it may remain hidden from more mundane attempts to locate it.”

  So, with Bronwyn at the door to haul things into the open, Jack scrambled agilely up the mounds, scuffing gilt and dislodging gems and handing piece after piece of priceless bric-a-brac down to Carole, who in turn handed everything out to Bronwyn.

  The wind stopped blowing and the sun grew warm enough that soon all of them were perspiring. Anastasia rested beside Bronwyn, and remarked occasionally on the origin of a piece with a comment or two about previous owners. The chest was not, of course, on the top layer, although a lute of rare woods and broken strings, tapestries of silken and gold thread with mouse-holes chewed in the fabric, a cradle with a stained spot on its velvet mattress as a legacy from a previous occupant, and no end of jeweled casks, small throne chairs and other lighter-weight trifles, were. In time, the piles outside grew so high that they too were developing a top layer. Anastasia excused herself when she saw her mother’s jewelry case containing a delicate crystal crown spring open and spill its cargo onto the rocky ground.

  “Have another feather,” the swan said before she left, “and call me if you need me again. It is more than I can bear to see my kingdom’s wealth treated like pillage.” And with that she winged back to her refuge.

  As the morning wore on, Bronwyn and Jack grumbled as they hauled, lifted, dragged, and pushed, enduring the imprints of gem facets on their hides and splinters of rare woods in their hands, but Carole, confident she could meet her deadline with the help of Anastasia’s chest and her own magic, wanted to inspect each beautiful object. A jeweled box that she would have deemed the most wondrous thing she had ever seen paled in comparison with a gold scapular with intricate tracery, and that was nothing compared to a carved throne with butterflies whose sapphire eyes and enameled wings were so lifelike she expected them to fly away.

  Bronwyn glared furiously at her when she took the time to remove the necklaces and bracelets she had piled onto her neck and arms and replaced them with others, but Carole ignored her. The jewels probably did slow her down, since the beads and chains around her neck kept getting caught when she lifted things and the rings and bracelets cut into her flesh when she carried something heavy. Still, they were no more cumbersome than the lumps in Jack’s clothing that changed his outline to resemble that of a craggy boulder, and she liked them. In answer to Bronwyn’s exasperated glare, Carole took extra care admiring the next handful of baubles Jack flung down at her. A ring with a stone as large as a goose’s egg was among the other trinkets, and Carole put it on a finger that bore only three other rings and spread her fingers to see how it looked.

  “For pity’s sake, Carole—” Bronwyn began and Jack, still standing on the pile, turned to frown down at them.

  “I would think, Carole, that if you care more about jewels than about finding the pomegranate, you would at least pick something pretty. That is not a jewel of quality.”

  “Of course I care about the pomegranate,” she said defensively, rubbing the ring on her skirt before holding it out again. “But a person can only work so fast. Anyway, I think those merchants tricked Bronwyn with their silly pool, just to get us to do as they want. We can’t be losing the war! Why, King Roari is probably—oh, dear. I guess he’s not at that.”

  The ring must have belonged to one of Loefric’s dinner guests, for it certainly was no ordinary ornament. Perhaps its power responded to being on the hand of a real magician again, Carole thought, or perhaps polishing it against her skirt activated it, but for whatever reason the cloudiness which had marred the stone cleared, and myriad shapes and colors shifted across its facets, forming miniature, seemingly living, images, people clustered tightly together on
a small island in the midst of a pounding sea. Prominent among these was a bedraggled red-haired giant, hunched over a half-drenched campfire, several of his equally bedraggled lieutenants surrounding him.

  Jack jumped nimbly down from the pile. He followed Carole’s gaze into the ring, and expressions of dismay and relief washed across his face in succession. “There, on the King’s left. That is my father. And that one, like the great gray bear, that is my grandfather. They do not look at all well, but they seem to be in one piece.”

  Bronwyn was too overcome at seeing her own father to remark on the fact that Jack’s grandfather looked startlingly like Worthyman the Worthless, the King she had seen standing on the bow of the flagship beside the weather wizard. She half reached out to touch the ring, then drew her hand away as within it, Roari Rowan rose quickly, his back to them, his stiff posture and the slight turning of his head indicating that he was watching the sky. Boiling black clouds were ripped apart by lightning bolts. Soon a massive crimson and gold dragon flew low in towards the back of the island, behind the group around the fire. The men moved aside to reveal two other dragons huddled together. The big red dragon, Grimley, dropped to a landing and huddled protectively over his mate, who was already huddled over their half-grown get, the dragonet, Grippledice. No sooner had the dragon left the sky than a bolt of lightning homed in on one of the men standing on the outskirts of the island and struck him down. Grimley raised himself wearily and shot a retaliatory flame back. Though the surface of the ring was too small to show how far the flame extended, it seemed to Bronwyn that the dragon’s range of fire was less than usual and that the flame had faded somewhat. As the image of the dragon fire died, so did the rest of the scene, and the stone looked as it had before, a dull gray rock set incongruously in fancy fretwork.

  “Get it back!” Jack said. “Rub the stone again, Carole.”