by Hal Bodner
Rapunzel said the sorceress came by everyday to supply her with food (and ample wine) and accessed her room via her hair, which she was forbidden to cut. This pained her, as she wanted to be free of this tower. All she had to do was wait for her Prince Charming. They drank heavily into the night, and B.B. vowed to help her escape the next day.
The next morning, light streamed in through the window. B.B.’s eyes opened blearily. His head throbbed like a thousand ox-drawn carts were racing in there, and his mouth tasted like something foul had curled up and died. As with every morning, he set into a coughing fit, loud and hoarse.
His drinking partner, Rapunzel, was stretched out on her pallet, half-naked and covered in vomit. What in the realm happened last night? B.B. thought. As he tried to recollect the night’s proceedings, he heard a voice call out. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”
B.B. struggled to his feet, and was still half-drunk. “Uh, one moment!” he called out in his best female voice, which ended up sounding more like an old hag who liked the pipe a bit too much.
He shook Rapunzel, forcing down the urge to vomit himself as her stench reached his sensitive nose. She wasn’t responding. He shook her more, but her limp form drooped like a rag doll. He listened close to her mouth and gasped. She wasn’t breathing. She had drunk herself to death!
B.B. panicked and crept over to the window. Down below, in the forest clearing, was a young, handsome man dress in colorful finery, mounted on the most impressive stallion B.B. had ever seen. “You there, good wolf!” the man called up. “Would you be as good as to rouse the fair maiden, Rapunzel, and inform her Prince Charming has arrived to bid her to let down her golden locks so I might effect her rescue?”
“Uh … she’s not here,” B.B. lied.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. She’s gone out.”
“Gone out?” the Prince said incredulously. “I was under the impression she was trapped in this tower, awaiting a handsome Prince to free her and take her hand in marriage.”
“She was, but she’s run out of milk and just popped down the village to get some,” B.B. said. “If you come back tomorrow, I’ll make sure she’s here. Thanks for stopping by though. I’ll let her know you dropped ’round.” He pulled away from the window and ducked out of sight.
The minutes ticked by and eventually he heard the retreating trotting of the Prince’s horse and breathed a sigh of relief. Poor Rapunzel! What an untimely demise, which he felt slightly responsible for. He did remember a drinking game they played with a deck of cards, which caused them to both get roaring drunk. But to die by choking on her own vomit was an ugly way to go.
With sorrow in his heart, he let himself down from the window of the tower with her hair, leaving it there for whoever called on her next. Keen to get away without being spotted and wrongly (or rightly) accused of foul play, he slinked back into the forest and found the main road once more.
***
He walked through the shade the dense foliage provided, through shafts of thin light shooting through the gaps between trees. Lost in a daydream, and considering his next action to attract good karma, he sensed trotting behind him. He veered to the side of the road so the horses may pass.
“Make way for the Prince!” came the call from a royal herald as the trotting came closer. He heard the sound of a carriage being pulled, its large wooden wheels crunching on the rocky road. He stopped and waited. It was expected even the King’s animals would show courtesy to the royals as they passed.
The royal banner men came first, mounted on impressive stallions. They carried long poles that bore the banner of King Cole, protector and liege of their lands. A second banner showed it wasn’t the King traveling, but the Prince. Unlike Prince Charming, his half-brother, Prince Gerald, was as opposite his father as could be. He had the face of a God, the body of a warrior and dozens of bards sang of his braveness and nobility.
As B.B. watched the procession go by, the carriage came to a halt beside him. A curtain on the window drew aside, revealing the Prince himself. “Hail, King’s wolf. Would you like to travel with us? We’re heading for the next village.”
Without hesitation, B.B. climbed into the carriage, where he found the Prince dressed to the nines. He had an easy smile about him, deep set blue eyes and an affable manner. B.B. knew why all the women of the realm swooned over him. Cradled in his hand was a delicate golden slipper.
“Shoemaking, your Grace?” enquired the wolf.
The Prince laughed heartily. “I am to marry the maiden whom this shoe fits. We only met briefly at my ball, but she captured my heart and I cannot rest until I find the owner of this shoe.”
“So you’re going to marry a barefoot strumpet?”
“If their foot fits this shoe, I will marry them,” the Prince said.
The Prince offered it to B.B., who took it and looked over it carefully. “That doesn’t really narrow it down much, does it?”
“Oh?” the Prince said, perplexed. “Explain your meaning, wolf.”
“Well, there are going to be dozens of women with this size foot. You realize that, don’t you, your Grace?”
“Yes, well …”
“And how well do you remember that night?” B.B. reasoned, handing the shoe back. “It was dark … you probably had a bit to drink. She probably did too, if she’s leaving shoes all about the place. Any old harlot could claim this is their shoe.”
“I suppose, but I need to find her.”
“This is not the way,” B.B. said. “If you do this, you’ll probably get some washer woman or maid saying that she is the one you’re looking for, not a woman befitting your status, sire.”
“That would be preposterous!”
“Indeed, your Grace.”
“Good wolf, thank you for your assistance and helping me see the folly of my ways. You have saved me much potential heartache. I still intend on taking you to the next village, if you’ll accept.” The Prince flashed him one of his smiles which made him the most popular member of the royal family.
“I would be most grateful, your Grace,” B.B. said.
It felt good to help people.
***
On the outskirts of the village, B.B. watched as the royal procession did an about face and went back the way they came. He coughed, thumped his chest and spat off the side of the road.
In the distance, he spotted a dotted form on the uppermost rungs of a ladder leaned against a hut. B.B. knew helping someone with their house would have to generate some good karma, so he set off towards it.
As he got closer, he noted the hut was attended to by a stoutish pig, straining to weave long strands of straw into the thatching on the roof. His trotters teetered dangerously on the top run, threatening to slip off at any moment. “Good day!” B.B. said.
The pig, unaware of B.B.’s presence, panicked and slipped from the ladder and fell onto the stack of straw on the ground. “Curses, a wolf!”
“Settle, swine. I’ve not come to hurt you,” B.B. said, raising his paws unthreateningly. “What are you constructing here?”
The pig picked himself off the ground and used his trotters to brush some of the dried straw from his clothes. “What does it look like to you? A snowman?” the pig replied shortly. “It’s a blimmin’ house, that is.”
“I thought as much,” B.B. said. “I’m willing to help in its construction, if you’ll let me. I’m somewhat taller than you and would be able to reach the higher places on the roof.”
“I’m wise to you, wolf,” the pig said. “I’m not falling for your ruse. You mean to blow my house down and eat me, you do.”
“Eat you? Why would I want to eat you?”
“Because even wolves enjoy bacon and ham. Not to mention pork chops.”
B.B. nodded in concession. He made a good point. “It is true the Gods made you out of such tasty meats, but I am not here to eat you.”
“You are,” the pig accused, unswayed. “You’re going to blow
my house down and have me for dinner.”
“Why would I even need to blow your house down? I could eat you regardless if you home is standing or not,” B.B. countered. “Besides, if you’re worried about your house’s structural integrity against my breath, why do you build it from straw?”
“Straw is cheap,” the pig said. “And plentiful.”
“And flimsy, too. I doubt I’d even need to blow it down. One decent storm and it’d be destroyed,” B.B. said and picked a handful of straw off the ground. He crushed it in his paw to demonstrate its frailty. Some of the crushed straw particles tickled his long snout. “Ah … ah … atchoo!”
The unfinished straw house exploded into thousands of pieces, raining down a shower of straw and dirt. The pig squealed in the way that only pigs can, and bolted from the scene, his coiled tail bouncing behind him as he ran.
The wolf took off in pursuit, sneezing as he did. His cough was brought on by the sneezes too, so as he loped in chase, he had to fight through the sneezing and the coughing. “I—I’m sorry!” he called as he ran. “I can rebuild it for you!” The pig didn’t look back and B.B. could see he was running towards another small hut, this one made from wood.
“Brother, brother,” Straw Pig cried breathlessly as he got close. “Help, there is a wolf chasing me!” B.B. saw another pig wearing a leather apron. One trotter held a fearsome hammer and the other held a collection of iron tacks. A large pile of wooden planks lay at his feet. House renovation on this day was a family activity.
Wood Pig clearly had a bigger pair than his straw brother. “Back off, wolf, or I’ll drive a nail through your skull!”
B.B. came to a halt at the hut. “I shall overlook your threat for a moment and implore you to believe this is a grave misunderstanding.”
“He wants to eat me, he does,” cried Straw Pig to his brother. “And he huffed and he puffed and he blew my house in.”
“Go inside, brother,” said Wood Pig, dropping the nails and passing the hammer from trotter to trotter. “I’ll deal with the wolf.”
The promise of good karma was tempting, but he was still a wolf, and in the woods there was a definite predator-prey relationship and wolves were rarely the latter. B.B. tried to be patient, but this pork roll was really starting to get his goat. “I mean to apologize and offer my services to you,” B.B. said. “Please—little pig, little pig, let me in.”
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin,” the Wood Pig growled through gritted swine-teeth.
“You’re a pig, you don’t have a chin,” B.B. said.
Wood Pig had enough talk, and ran at B.B., his hammer held high. B.B. fell to all four legs, and growled at the pig. Good karma be damned, he thought. This morning I feast on bacon.
He dodged the first swing, dancing to the side away from the pig, who arced his swing back up. B.B. ducked under it and placed himself behind the pig. The hammer swung around again, the pig placing his considerable bulk behind it. It caught B.B. unawares, and he only just moved out of the way. The pig over swung, lost his balance, and stumbled, giving B.B. the opportunity to attack. His instincts took over, and he leapt at the pig, his jaws clamping over his fore trotter.
The pig shrieked, somewhere between a squeal and a blood curdling scream. B.B. pulled away, and the pig’s trotter came with it, ripping from the socket with a sickening schlock! B.B. took the trotter from his mouth and beat the pig with it, each strike leaving cartilage, gore, and blood in its wake.
Whether from a loss of blood, the shock of the situation, or from being beaten with his own limb, the Wood Pig lapsed into unconsciousness. B.B. picked up the limp body and threw it into the wooden house. It struck the supports and the house collapsed with a great crash of wood and nails. The Straw Pig, crazed with grief and fear, bust forth from the wood and was once again on the run.
This time B.B. wasn’t sorry. He was hungry and suddenly he knew why his bigger brother found it so satisfying. This was natural. He was the wolf. He was the predator, and this was the way nature intended it. He tore off after the pig, driven by bloodlust. “Get over here, swine. You’re dead!”
Pigs, not known for their speed or alacrity, have little chance against a wolf at full tilt. B.B. ran down the pig in a matter of moments, and knocked him onto his back. A moment later, he buried his muzzle in the pig’s fleshy neck and pulled out his throat, the blood and gore sending him into frenzy. Claws sliced open the pig’s belly, and he relished in pulling out the entrails, feasting on whatever he could cram into his mouth. This was primal.
Finished with gorging on the craven Straw Pig, B.B. raised his eyes and considered the brick house up ahead. He could see the third, considerably smarter pig cowering in the window, witnessing the slaughter of his brothers. B.B. briefly considered forcing entry into the brick house and putting more pork on his fork, but couldn’t muster the energy. He was full, and all he wanted to do was find a nice, warm spot in the sun and take a nap.
***
Some hours later, his own coughing fit woke him. The cold fingers of sickness were slowly taking his life. It wouldn’t be long now. He felt it inside. It was unfortunate it had taken him this long to realize what he was capable of. He had always considered his brother the rogue of the family. His brother’s notoriety painted him as something to be feared in this area, but B.B. doubted he had ever committed double homicide. I’m one up on you there, brother.
Humpty’s story came to him, that of Rumplestiltskin and his quest for betterment. He died in the end, so what did it matter? Whether he did good or evil, there was no salvation for him. If his actions during life are judged upon his death, and he is sentenced to torment, he would make his captors pay for it so much they’ll send him back for fear of him taking over. He was here for a good time, not a long time and now would make every moment count and serve his basic instincts.
He continued through the woods, heading toward the next village. When he was there he would feast again, on whichever poor souls were foolish enough to cross his path. He had a taste for blood now, and he liked it.
The sun dipped in the west as he continued, heralding the evening. Birds twittered as they hunkered down for the night and he spied the lights of the village ahead, complete with steady plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys. He stalked on, his mouth salivating for the delights he would behold.
B.B. was rushed from the side, a red shape busting from the bushes as he passed. He was tackled to the ground, rolling over and over. Wrenching free, he sprung to his feet, ready to attack.
The figure was clad in a billowing red cloak, and flipped to its feet. There was just enough light remaining in the day to see it was just a little girl. Barely in her teens, the girl was caked with dirt, and had a murderous gleam in her eye.
“My lady, you picked the wrong wolf on the wrong day,” B.B. said, stalking back and forth across her path.
She pulled a sword from a scabbard on her belt, sharpened steel gleaming in the fading sun. “I’ll make you sorry you ever crossed me that day, wolf.”
“You’re Red Riding-Cap?”
“The same,” the girl said. “I’ve waited for you to return this way and have vowed I would have my revenge. That day is at hand.”
“You’re mistaken, girl. I was not the one to accost you. That was my brother.”
“Then, I will take a member of his kin as a trophy in compensation.”
“You can try,” B.B. growled and crouched low, ready for the attack.
The girl in red cart-wheeled into the attack. Claws extended, B.B. turned away the attack, and ducked the follow up strike with her short sword. The blade flashed, carving the air and B.B. dodged left and right, avoiding the blade.
The red-clad girl was proficient with the blade and showed considerable skill in her attacks with each movement precise and calculated. B.B. found a break in her attack and countered, claws slashing and jaws snapping forcing her back against a tree. B.B. swiped at her throat, but she ducked at the last moment, and his claws emb
edded themselves in the trunk. He pulled free, spraying wood splinters.
Her continued evasiveness frustrated him. She showed great dexterity with acrobatic, swift moves. She flipped, vaulted and somersaulted, jumping like a court jester, ever evading his attacks. Being new to this kind of vicious fighting, his attacks took a lot out of him and he began to slow.
She was tiring too. Her hood down, B.B. spotted slick perspiration beading on her forehead and she drew ragged breaths. Still, they battled on, a dance back and forth as the sky darkened. Red Riding Cap with her sword, and B.B. with sharpened teeth and claws.
The physicality of the encounter had taken its toll. B.B. suddenly doubled over in a coughing fit. Unable to defend himself, the girl in red slid the cold steel into his stomach. He collapsed with labored breaths, his eyes fixed on Red Riding-Cap’s.
She wiped the blood from her blade on her red cloak and returned the sword to its oiled scabbard. “And so the tale ends,” she said quietly.
“What … do you mean?” B.B. struggled to say.
“Our last meeting was unresolved. It could not go on without an ending.”
“But it wasn’t me,” he said with a rasped voice. “It won’t be complete until it ends with my brother.”
“Any wolf would do,” she said. “It is the victors that make the history and tell the tales.”
B.B. was fading and he knew it. It would not be long until it was all over, his life no more than a fading dream, recorded incorrectly in the tomes of legends and history. At least the sickness didn’t get him directly. “It … it’s not the truth,” B.B. managed with his final, dying breath.
Red Riding-Cap pulled her hood up once more and set upon the path back towards the village. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”