The Puppeteer's Apprentice

by Love, D. Anne

  “The one who wins my hand must first prove himself worthy,” Bridget said.

  It was time for the smoke box. Mouse opened the lid and released the swirling gray cloud the smoldering twigs had made. At that moment the sorcerer appeared and, with a wave of his newly carved arm, conjured the fiery dragon.

  The crowd hissed at the fearsome creature, then clapped as Sir Alfred, playing the part of St. George, faced his foe.

  Step by menacing step, the dragon stalked the knight. Sir Alfred raised his sword and began to parry and thrust. The dragon roared. Sir Alfred fell and lay still.

  “Ohhh!” cried the crowd. Princess Bridget rose from her chair and rushed to the side of the fallen knight, her skirt billowing in the spring breeze like a green sail.

  The dragon reared. Closer and closer he came to the knight and the princess.

  Mouse saw that the priest standing closest to the stage was chewing his nails. The milkmaids hid their faces.

  The crowd seemed to know what came next. They fell silent and craned their necks, intent upon the story unfolding in front of them. It was so miraculous that Mouse could no longer bear to be left out of it, despite the puppeteer’s warnings. She seized Sir Alfred’s strings and jerked him to his feet. His head fell heavily to one side. Mouse quickly released one string and pulled another one. Sir Alfred’s leg crumpled. The crowd tittered.

  The puppeteer’s eye widened, and she gave a frantic shake of her head. Mouse yanked the strings again, and Sir Alfred lurched toward the dragon. The spell was broken; the crowd hissed and hooted.

  “Whoever ’eard of a knight comin’ back from the dead?” one of the goat boys jeered.

  “He is not dead, ye addle brain! He is St. George. He will slay the dragon yet!”

  “This play ’as got it all wrong!” someone yelled.

  “Poor sod walks like he had too much ale, if ye ask me!”

  Red-faced and stiff with shame, Mouse tried desperately to right her puppet, but Sir Alfred collapsed atop the dragon’s back, a graceless tangle of arms and legs and fiercely bobbing head.

  “Ach!” cried a fishwife. “Now he rides the dragon like a horse!”

  Then a hail of raw eggs and rotten turnips pelted the stage. A turnip smashed into the dragon and rolled across the floor till it came to rest at Mouse’s feet. Princess Bridget’s new gown was stained yellow with broken eggs. The puppeteer jerked the cord, and the curtain closed. The jeering crowd moved away.

  “Well?” the puppeteer demanded furiously. “What have you to say for yourself this time, Mouse?”

  “I beg you, forgive me,” Mouse said tearfully. “I meant to obey you, but the play was so wondrous, I forgot.”

  “You forgot. Mayhap you will remember this: Because of you we have not a single coin for food. What is worse, word will spread that we are but amateurs and the play worthless. I may as well hitch the wagon and move along. There will be nothing for me now.”

  Mouse stood in miserable silence, trying not to show the fear rising up in her at the thought of being abandoned yet again. But she knew it was what she deserved.

  The puppeteer was a whirlwind, packing up the puppets, putting away the props. “By all the saints in heaven! Stupidity hangs upon you like a disease. You may as well go back from whence you came, for there is naught I can teach a girl like you.”

  “If you will give me another chance, I promise to obey.”

  “Another chance, Mouse? How many chances does one person deserve? Have I not already forgiven you for stealing aboard my wagon and for breaking Sir Alfred’s wire? I have done my best to teach you what you wish to learn, but my words pass through your ears like water through a sieve.”

  “I know I am addlebrained and willful,” Mouse said. “But there is naught I want in life except to be a puppeteer. And I dare not go back to Dunston now.”

  “That is your problem. Leave me now. I am tired, and my belly wants a good meal, though it may as well not, since we are without a single farthing and our cupboard is bare.”

  Mouse turned and ran, her thoughts racing faster than her feet. There was naught she could do now about the ruined play, but the puppeteer would not go hungry on her account. She crossed the road and turned down a narrow alley that ran behind the alehouse and toward the center of the village till she came to the courtyard of a fine house. Following her nose to the kitchen, she peered through the window.

  The almoner had not yet arrived to remove the remains of the last meal; the table was laden with half-eaten loaves of bread, slabs of meat, a quince tart. Mouse crept closer and pressed her ear to the door. All seemed quiet, so she slowly lifted the latch. It opened with a tiny click and the door swung wide.

  As quick and quiet as her namesake, Mouse scooped all she could carry into her tunic and ran out, closing the door silently behind her. As she passed the alehouse, she heard heavy footsteps close behind her. “Zounds!” she muttered. Had the almoner spied her pilfering the kitchen after all? She darted into the darkened alley and hid in the shadows as the footsteps quickened, then halted abruptly.

  Pressed tightly against the damp stone wall, Mouse held still. Whoever was following her was now so close she could hear his breathing. She wanted to scream, but fear closed her throat and stole her breath.

  Suddenly the alehouse door opened. Three men stumbled out and set off together down the alley. Light spilled onto the silent, empty street.

  Mouse leaned against the wall, waiting for her pulse to slow. Nothing stirred, save a cat slinking through the shadows. She peered into the darkness. Who would want to harm her? It had seemed real, but mayhap it was nothing more than a trick of her imagination. With another glance down the deserted alley, she hurried to the wagon.

  The puppeteer was inside. Mouse hurriedly kindled a fire, heated the meat, and toasted the bread. Then she knocked on the door. There was no answer, nothing but a muffled snuffling sound. Mouse ran to the window and peered in. On the trunk sat the puppeteer, holding fast to the sorcerer and weeping as if her heart would never mend. Mouse stared, trying to make sense of it. Had the sorcerer’s arm broken again? Never had she seen the puppeteer in tears. She opened the door.

  “What do you want now?” the puppeteer asked, hastily wiping her eye.

  “I have brought your supper.”

  “A jest, Mouse, after all you have done to vex me?”

  “I took it from a kitchen in the village. They will never miss it.” Mouse perched on the edge of the trunk. “I thought it would be easy to make Sir Alfred slay the dragon, but you were right. I am not ready. Mayhap I am good for naught but skinning hares and peeling turnips, but when I talk to Sir Alfred, it seems—” She stopped, shamed at looking even more foolish in the puppeteer’s eyes.

  To her surprise, the puppeteer nodded, as if talking to puppets were the most natural thing in the world. “The sorcerer is the one who listens to all my troubles.”

  “You talk to them too?”

  “Since I was a child. They are good listeners, are they not? When I feel afraid, I pretend the sorcerer has cast a spell to take away all my fears. And truth to tell, Mouse, we could use a bit of magic.”

  “Why are you afraid?” Mouse asked.

  “It will do no good to dwell on it.” The puppeteer set the sorcerer aside. “I hope you were not joking about my supper, for I am hollow all the way to my toes.”

  Mouse took the puppeteer’s hand and led her outside. “See? There is bread and meat and a quince tart with only a single bite missing.”

  “I would not encourage you to become a thief, but since you have gone to so much trouble, I suppose I must eat it.”

  She sat upon her stool and broke off a hunk of bread. Mouse swallowed and tried not to feel the rumblings in her own empty belly. The puppeteer chewed slowly, whether in enjoyment of the unexpected repast or deep in thought, Mouse could not say. After a while the puppeteer brought out her knife and cut the tart neatly in two.

  “The look on your face shames me, girl. Eat thi
s and quit your pitiful staring.”

  Mouse quickly devoured the tart and licked her fingers clean. The puppeteer said, “That was a goodly feast, though one of your roasted hares is more to my liking.” She smiled. “For all your faults, and they are legion, you have wormed your way into my affections. We are more alike than I imagined.”

  She tossed more wood onto the fire, sending a shower of bright sparks spiraling into the darkness. Then, leaning on the sturdy branch she used to poke the fire, she said, “Tell me, Mouse. How did you get that scar?”

  Mouse related her story: how the almoner had caught her eating scraps at Dunston Manor and how Cook had raked his flesh hook across her face. How Simon and Alice and Claire had taken her to York, only to abandon her there. “So you see,” she finished, “I cannot go back to Dunston.”

  “No, I suppose not. Still, there must be a better life for you than this.”

  “Mayhap that is so, but I cannot imagine it,” Mouse said. “We go where we please, and when the summer fairs begin, our plays will make us rich as the king himself.”

  The puppeteer laughed. “If that is your plan, you will be sorely disappointed. Do you not know how reviled we are? Obscene, some folks say, and it is true some puppeteers use language unfit for gentle ears, though I myself take care never to offend.” Taking her seat again, she said, “I have lost count of the number of times I have been run out of town, robbed, pelted with rotten fruit, all because I tried to tell a story and earn a few coins in the bargain. In Dover once I was offered a coin and a bed for the night in exchange for a promise not to perform. Mark my words, little one. You will never become rich as a puppeteer, though you be the best in all the realm.”

  “But you have capes and turbans, a goodly wagon, and the puppets.”

  “They once belonged to my father. God rest him.”

  “Then he was a puppeteer! What happened to him?”

  Standing to poke the fire once again, the puppeteer said, “No more questions. We must be away early on the morrow.”

  Relieved that she would not be left behind again, Mouse watered the horse and banked the fire for the night, then went inside the wagon. From his perch on the trunk, the black-eyed sorcerer watched her every move.

  “If it please you,” she whispered, “cast a spell to make me smart instead of an addle brain.”

  Then she asked Sir Alfred, “What troubles my puppeteer so sorely that she weeps?”

  She held the knight tightly, listening intently for his reply. But there was only the sound of the horse cropping grass and the distant notes of a shepherd’s flute drifting on the wind.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Goose Woman’s Tale

  The coin box was empty, and they had long since used the last of the flour and salt. As May warmed into June, all that remained of their meager stores was a tin of barley, half a jar of honey, and a few wormy apples. The puppeteer said there was money to be made at the fair in Reedham, but that was still a fortnight away.

  They were camped in a wild glade thick with birch and oak trees. Nearby was a narrow stream that provided fresh water and the occasional trout for their supper. Mouse had grown adept at snaring game. Usually, it was a hare she roasted on the spit or made into soup flavored with wild roots, but once she trapped a pheasant, and the puppeteer had been so pleased, she danced around the fire. Mouse gathered the wild berries ripening along the stream, and they ate them by the handful.

  Mouse practiced her carving on a small block of ash wood kept in her pocket and continued working with the puppets. After their chores were finished, the puppeteer would bring out the sorcerer or the princess or Sir Alfred.

  “Make him kneel,” she might say. And then she would watch, head tilted to one side in concentration, hands on her hips, while Mouse moved the strings ever so carefully till the knight was resting gracefully on one knee.

  “Show me sadness,” said the puppeteer one afternoon while they were practicing the story of King Arthur and Guinevere. Mouse pulled the wire. Bridget’s head drooped.

  “That will not do at all,” the puppeteer said. “Our princess looks more sleepy than sad. Try again.”

  Mouse pulled another string to make the puppet’s hands cover her eyes.

  “Think, Mouse!” the puppeteer directed. “Think of the worst thing you can possibly imagine. Then show me how it would make you feel, were it actually to happen.”

  Mouse considered this. She had been sad to say good-bye to Alice, sad when Claire and Simon had left her in York, and sadder still when the puppeteer had left her on the road to Marlingford. But the worst thing? That was not hard to imagine. If she lost her puppeteer, if something happened to her puppets, she could not live. The thought of it opened up a black hole inside her.

  She moved Bridget’s strings till the princess’s shoulders sagged and the puppet collapsed inward with a grief that seemed to fill the very air around them.

  “Just so,” the puppeteer murmured. “Very good, Mouse. That is precisely how it feels.”

  She shook her head as if to dislodge an unwanted thought. “Enough. We must repair our dragon’s tail. It is beginning to look most undragonly.”

  “Yes,” Mouse said, setting Bridget carefully inside the trunk. “He said as much to me only yestermorn.”

  The puppeteer laughed. “It is a good thing no one can hear us in this wood, for they would surely think us mad, speaking of our puppets as though they live.”

  “They are alive to me,” Mouse said simply.

  “Yes. And it pleases me that you love them so. But you are growing up, Mouse. You should consider another kind of life. One with a family of flesh and blood instead of wood and wool.”

  “The puppets are enough family for you.” Mouse closed the trunk. “If it please you, I must ask a question.”

  The puppeteer took out her needle and thread. “What do you wish to know?”

  “Why must you hide the fact you are a woman? Is the eye patch naught but a part of your disguise? When I am a puppeteer, must I bind my hair and travel as a man?”

  “That is three questions, by my reckoning.” The puppeteer smiled ruefully. “I know of no law that forbids us the practice of our art.”

  “Then why—?”

  “My reasons are best left unspoken. Bring the dragon here, will you, Mouse? Then fetch some water.”

  While the puppeteer worked on the dragon’s tail, Mouse filled the bucket at the stream and returned to the wagon. Seating herself next to the puppeteer, she took out her carving and continued shaping a tiny likeness of Princess Bridget. Soon they heard voices. Two men were approaching from the westerly road. The puppeteer quickly drew her hood around her face and picked up her sword.

  “Halloo!” one of the men called. He was a greasy, dirty man with small round eyes and a thin white scar trailing along one cheek. His companion wore a tattered cloak and a tangled gray beard that reminded Mouse of a rat’s nest. Their shifty manner made Mouse uneasy. She slipped her hand into the puppeteer’s.

  The two men dropped their packs on the ground. The scar-faced one said, “I can tell from your wagon you are a pair who appreciate good entertainment. And we happen to be the best musicians in all of England. Normally, we perform only in the finest halls, but as it happens, we are on our way to a celebration in Wick-ham, and since we are here, we are prepared to make an exception. For the reasonable price of ten shillings, we will make you an evening of song and merriment you will never forget. What say you?”

  “As you say, we are entertainers and well able to amuse ourselves,” the puppeteer said.

  “Five shillings. You may never have this chance again.”

  “If the fates are kind,” the puppeteer muttered. “Go along. Leave us be.”

  “Upon my word!” the bearded man exclaimed, spying the little carving in Mouse’s hand. “What is that?”

  “It is only for practice,” Mouse said.

  “If it please you, may I see it?”

  Mouse looked at the p
uppeteer, who shrugged and tightened her grip on the sword. Mouse handed him the miniature of Princess Bridget.

  “A cunning little thing!” the man said, turning it over in his hand. “Quite charming. Just the thing for my young daughter. I will give you a ha’penny for it.”

  Mouse was tempted, for they needed any coin, no matter how small. But she shook her head.

  “A penny, then.”

  “Surely your daughter is worth more than that,” Mouse said boldly. “As you say, it is a charming thing. Normally, I charge ten shillings, but since you are a fellow entertainer, I am prepared to make an exception. Five shillings.”

  The puppeteer’s eye went wide.

  “Three shillings,” the man countered.

  “Four. You will never have another chance to buy so fine a piece. Think of your daughter’s happiness. You cannot put a price on that.”

  “Done.”

  He handed Mouse the coins and said to the puppeteer, “Last chance to hear the sweetest tunes this side of heaven.”

  She shook her head again. The man tucked the carving inside his scuffed leather pouch. “Then we bid you good evening, sir.”

  When the two men were out of earshot, the puppeteer laughed till she was breathless. “Oh, Mouse, you are clever! ‘Normally, I charge ten shillings.’ Whatever made you think of that?”

  “I gave him a dose of his own medicine!” Mouse declared. “And we need the money.”

  “Indeed we do. I had planned to rent the theater for our shows in Reedham. Folks there seem to like their entertainment indoors. And we can give ten shows a day no matter what the weather. But tell me, where did you learn to be so shrewd a bargainer?”

  “At Dunston I listened to Cook bargaining with the peddlers,” Mouse said with a grin. “Fenn said Cook never paid a goodly price for anything.”

  “You are a clever girl,” the puppeteer said again, tucking the coins away. “Now, I am hungry. What will we have for our supper?”