He grimaced. Chance was evidently not going to help him much tonight. Resuming his sneaking tactics, he crept up into the doorway and hoped her croaking would cover some of the noise he made as he mounted the steps leading inside. In case it had not, once inside he leapt immediately for her neck again, very nearly seriously injuring himself on the second best family sword as he did so.
The gold and silver tumbled from a tower to a heap. “Xenobia,” Colin said, “this is getting monotonous. Really, I don’t like bullying women.” He cast about for something with which to gag her. Her eyes rolled back and her mouth worked furiously as the movement he made in his search increased the pressure on her windpipe. He lay the sword down long enough to grab first his guitar, then his fiddle, and pull them back to him. He seemed to lack sufficient appendages to do everything. Finally, he snatched her own blanket up from under her, almost upsetting them both, and wrapped this encumbrance around her, all the while maintaining his stranglehold with the other arm.
In desperation, he finally picked up the sword and braced it, point against her back, and released her neck, saying, “One word and you’re spitted. Now then, take off your stockings and hand them back here.”
“Stupid! I’m a gypsy. I don’t wear stockings. I go barefoot.”
“Well, um, I’ll wager the Lady Amberwine had stockings. Give me hers, then.” He felt absolutely brilliant for thinking of that. He was complimenting himself on his quick wit as she handed the stockings to him after pulling them from a remote corner of the wagon.
Unfortunately, the sword had plopped down against her blankets when she moved forward to get the stockings. Colin rebraced it.
“Before I gag you, ma’am, you can also tell me where you’ve got your son’s heart hidden. You can just hand it to me if it’s close by.”
“Now, how did you hear about that?” she asked, sounding discouragingly uncowed by his fierceness.
“Never mind that,” he growled.
“Have pity on a poor woman, young man. My baby’s heart was stolen from me.”
“A likely story. Who has it then, if not you?”
“The sorcerer took it. He holds it to insure my cooperation in helping him with his plans.”
“Now that’s smart,” Colin said. “Where does he live?”
“At Dragon Bay. But you’ll never get that far!” she shrieked the last as she bent forward, ridding herself of the sword. Colin had carelessly shown that both of his hands were occupied with stocking as he leaned over to gag her. Taking advantage of her freedom, she yelled for help in a voice piercing enough to be heard in Queenston.
Colin, fiddle, guitar, and sword were out the back of the wagon and clattering toward the horse before help reached Xenobia at the front of the wagon. He ran headlong into Zorah, who was bent over, unhobbling the last of the horses.
As she picked herself up from the ground, Colin thrust his instruments into her arms. She clutched them to her and ran toward his horse just before her kinsmen came howling around the wagon yelling and screaming what Colin assumed to be uncomplimentary and disparaging remarks in their gypsy language. They were brandishing knives, clubs, and a mace left over surely from the Second Rebellion, as well as several other miscellaneous implements designed for incising and slicing, and quite a few blunt objects. Backing slowly away, Obtruncator hoisted before him, Colin faced the invading horde at first with a tentative thrust here and there. As they collectively perceived that he was no master with the weapon, they jostled each other to strike the first telling blow, crowding him back against a wagon. Colin did the only thing he was capable of doing at that point, and started whacking and banging the sword around himself as furiously as he was able to wield the cumbersome object. He hoped to create a wall of such unpredictable destruction between himself and his attackers that perhaps sheer indecision as to where they should attack would delay his opponents in dispensing with him.
The gypsies did back off in the face of his assault. The first brave soul who attempted to storm his bastions got a fearful clout on the head, which would have surely scalped him had it been from the blade rather than the flat of the sword. As it was, he fell to the ground, insensible. Another belligerent fellow, the possessor of a staff, brought the staff up to block the Obtruncator, which obtruncated it on the spot.
Whirling a sword that was taller than he was and at least a tenth part as heavy did begin to tell on Colin’s strength after a time. His arms, tireless at playing fiddle or guitar, quickly wearied with the labor of bashing the sword about. He wondered, as he wearied, who exactly had originated the term swordplay. Undoubtedly one of Rowan’s frost giant ancestors. Someone sidled in then to take advantage of his waning strength, and Colin was saddened to see his fellow-fiddler, Cheese-nose, flashing his dagger in confusing convolutions.
He was also extremely worried, as Cheese-nose evidently knew his way around daggers as well as he did around fiddles. While trying to determine what the other man would do next, he saw a glint of metal from his other side. One of the worst things about this night fighting was that, in spite of the full moon, it was difficult to see in all the confusion and darkness who was doing what.
Colin switched his attention from Cheese-nose to the sneak-attacker, whipping Obtruncator to where he had seen the metallic flash, nearly beheading three people in the sword’s path.
He didn’t hear the barking and yapping until Ching dashed between his legs and a blur of dog knocked Cheese-nose aside. Colin regained his balance, and thrust to drive off the attacker on his right side, while he avoided the recovering Cheese-nose on his left. The right-hand attacker tripped over the dog and stepped heavily backward, grinding his heel into Ching’s tail. Swords were forgotten as the dog growled and snarled at all and sundry, trying to get at Ching, who now made of himself a hairpiece and muffler for the right-hand attacker, who was no longer attacking but screaming in agony. The new hairpiece was anchored firmly to his head by four sets of claws.
Although the animals created a diversion that gave Colin time to inhale, he knew he would be cut down as soon as the first gypsy returned his attention to the battle. But then the bear came lumbering into the fray.
Colin didn’t stick around to see his enemies scatter, as he was too busy scattering himself. He bolted for his horse, leaping into the saddle as though he’d sprouted wings. Ching made a corresponding leap from the head of the gypsy he’d been riding, and transferred to Colin’s shoulder instead. Then somehow they were on the horse and off through the open meadow. Colin was shaking so hard he nearly dropped the sword before he could return it to its scabbard.
As he galloped across the space between the circle of wagons and the wood, he saw Davey, muscles rippling magnificently in the moonlight as he sprinted at full speed toward the camp. Colin resisted an impulse to run him down, but held him at bay with the horse’s nervous pawing hooves. “Where’s Maggie?” he demanded.
The gypsy looked genuinely confused. “She’s not with you?”
“No.”
“Then she must have thought you were killed in all that noise, and run away. I let her go a long time ago.” He appeared unconcerned by Colin’s threatening air and shrugged impatiently, starting to walk in a wide circle around the frenzied horse. “Look after your own women. I’ve enough problem keeping up with mine.”
Watching the gypsy walk blithely away from him and back to the camp, Colin saw one more thing before he fled into the woods. Zorah, visible to him but not from the camp, popped out from under one of the wagons and waved wildly for a moment before disappearing again.
12
Colin’s terrible screams had come to a shuddering climax long before Maggie reached the portion of the woods that would enable her to reach the bear’s wagon undetected. For a long time after that she stood staring dry-eyed at the circle of wagons, unable to believe the evidence of her own ears. She wandered further into the woods, to the upstream end of the camp, her stomach heaving and body trembling with shock and fury.
/> She had to control an almost unbearable urge to fly into the gypsy camp and dismantle it and everybody in it with her bare hands. She didn’t have even her dagger now, though, and if she met the same end as Colin, who would there be to help Amberwine? She envisioned plagues both magical and mundane that she would cause to infest the gypsies if it took the rest of her life. Suddenly the sounds of a furious battle erupted from the camp—the clanging of swords, the screams of combatants, and the neighing of horses.
By the time she found a vantage point from which to observe the melee, the other noises were joined by Ching’s yowl of pain and indignation, a dog’s frantic yapping, the coarse shouts of the gypsies, more fearful roaring from the bear, and the thunderous thudding of unshod hooves galloping over the grass.
All she was really able to see were confusing shapes flitting about in the diffuse light of the moon, but she did finally see a streak of pale hair as Colin, on the opposite side of the camp from where she now stood, rode away across the meadow, stopping only long enough to threaten Gypsy Davey. The gypsy appeared to talk his way out of the situation, and, before Maggie could cross the meadow to join Colin, he had ridden off into the woods. Her own cry for him to wait was drowned out by the bellowing of the gypsies pursuing their horses, who were for some reason scattered all across the meadow.
She fled back into the woods and ran until she reached the part of the meadow where she had left her horse and package of belongings. Now it seemed almost a game to elude the gypsies. She was giddy with relief that Colin had escaped, and fairly skipped through the damp, clinging meadow grass as she ran to the stream. As she had anticipated, her horse and pack were gone, undoubtedly the current property of some enterprising used horse dealer. There was, of course, a good possibility that her horse was one of those trotting over the meadow just ahead of a cajoling gypsy, but she was not about to take the time to look for him, or to try to catch any of the horses and persuade one to allow her to mount.
Snatching her hidden cache of clothing from beside the stream, she heard the callings and neighings come rapidly closer to where she knelt, until the noise and thundering shadows were all around her. She had to dodge several rocketing horses to reach the safety of the willows at the edge of the wood.
When she felt she was safely concealed, she changed out of the bright clothing she’d made from her underwear and into her brown skirt and tunic. She pocketed her medicine pouch and took the remaining phial of love potion from her hair, dropping that into her pocket as well. She wadded the bright gypsy dress so that only the green showed and wouldn’t betray her by its color.
Of the wildflowers that had graced her hair that night, only one remained after her tussle with Davey, and that had wilted. She could detect no vestiges of the love-philter perfume on her skin. Taking the flower from her hair, she tied her kerchief around her head instead. It was then that she heard a horse breaking through the underbrush nearby, the voice of its pursuer close behind. With her dark skin and clothing she melted into the forest as though she were an animated tree trunk.
By the time she could no longer hear voices, neither could she find a path underfoot. The sun had risen, and as she searched it came from oblivion to reach mid-point in the warm spring sky. The leaves overhead glimmered feverishly, their tops glazed with a citrusy hue, and all around her were mosses, tall grass, fallen leaves, and the trunks of dead trees underfoot. The path had completely disappeared. She had blended into the forest a little too successfully, and realized that she was lost.
Wandering, she came at last to the bank of another stream. Although willows and other taller bushes grew close by the bank in many places, at one point they receded into a clearing, and in this spot the stream was lined with a field of berries.
She picked great handfuls, and ate them that way, having nothing to make a more fanciful concoction, and not possessing the strength or inclination for cooking, magical or otherwise, just then, anyway. They were very good as they were, if a bit tart. She continued gathering after she’d eaten her fill, and tied them into her kerchief, leaving her hair to string down, hot and sticky, against her neck.
Her exhilaration over Colin’s escape and her own began to fade, and she sat down on a log to think. She was tired, having been up the whole night, and now that she knew he was safe she was annoyed that Colin was not there to keep her company and help her continue their journey. Presumably Ching was with him now, and she missed the cat too.
She would have liked to discuss with Colin what Davey had told her, and plan how to get her sister away from Hugo, who she now felt sure was taking her sister to the sorcerer, if he hadn’t already killed her. Although she badly wished to see Colin again, she just as fervently hoped he would continue on his way when he found she was not in the section of the wood for which he had been headed.
Still, Ching might have cheered her with his sarcasm, and not incidentally with the game he could catch and share with her. It would be nice to stroke his fur while she thought, too, instead of watching her hands turn blue from the berries. A tear of self-pity slid down one of her brown cheeks.
She was about to brush it aside when she heard the rustling in the bushes and a peculiar snuffling, whuffling sound. The leaves of the willows shook. A brown, furry nose poked out of the shrubbery.
She froze. A bear, perhaps the one from the gypsy camp. Now she really did miss Ching, and even the minstrel, who might have at least tried to do as her father had suggested and sing the bear a lullaby. She could always TRY to turn the creature into a rug. It was better than being eaten.
The bear emerged fully from the bushes and stood on his hind legs, blinking his small eyes and looking around. Maggie sat back so abruptly when he stood up that she almost fell into the stream. Before it occurred to her that getting wet would have been a safer course of action than to attract the bear’s attention, she flailed around trying to avoid a soaking.
The bear growled.
Maggie righted herself abruptly, sitting up so quickly that the kerchief-tied bundle of berries rolled out of her lap and onto the ground beside her foot. She nudged the berries toward the bear with her toes.
To her surprise, he picked them up and carefully unknotted the kerchief before devouring the berries in two pawfuls.
“Thanks, m’dear. These are excellent.”
She shook her head sharply and pounded above her ear with the heel of her hand. “Excuse me. Did you say something?”
“Yes—the berries—very good indeed. I say, you wouldn’t have a little honey about, would you? Since I’ve been in this form I’ve had such a great craving for it, but of course, Xenobia would never let anyone give me any.”
“No, I’m sorry. Perhaps I can go find some—” Seeing a chance to escape, she tensed herself for flight, then hesitated. He seemed completely uninterested in eating her, at least so long as berries were available. “Excuse me, bear. How is it you—or rather, I—I mean, how can we understand each other?”
“You young folks broke part of the spell. Didn’t you know?”
“Spell?”
“Yes, indeed. Xenobia’s spell specifically stated that if I were released by—say—a magic cat—and my son’s own true love, that I should once more be able to talk and act as a man. Of course, I can’t look like myself again unless I’m able to recover young David’s ticker.” His little bear eyes looked at her shrewdly. “I trust I’m not incorrect in assuming you’re part of that group—with the charming animal and the clumsy young chap who screams so beautifully? I know Xenobia’s folk, of course, and you have a different look than the townspeople.”
“Oh, yes, those are my friends, Colin the minstrel and Chingachgook, my grandmother’s familiar. But if you’re not really a bear, then who are you?”
“I am Prince H. David Worthyman, formerly known at home and abroad as Prince Worthyman the Worthy, heir to the throne of Ablemarle. I suppose now my brother, known in my day as Prince Worthyman the Worthless, has been kind enough to fill the vacancy le
ft in the crown princedom since my bearship.”
Maggie nodded. “We don’t get much political news up where I live, but Dad did say that since the death of your late father, King Worthyman the Worthy, things have really deteriorated over there.” She was silent for a moment while His Highness, having finished the berries in her kerchief, shoveled them off the bushes into his muzzle with both front paws.
“Excuse me, though, Prince Worthyman. How did you come to be enchanted, if that’s not too personal a question? My aunt says Xenobia’s a charlatan, not a proper witch at all…”
“Your aunt is absolutely correct, m’dear. She’s not a witch, of course. She custom-ordered the spell from her patron sorcerer.”
Maggie snorted. “That fellow has caused a great deal of trouble!”
“Aye, he has indeed.” He turned a berry-stained snout to her, then dropped down onto all four paws and settled himself beside the stream for a drink. “I’ll tell you, gurrrl,” he said, shaking the water from his snout when he had finished, “If you’ll be kind enough to scratch behind my ears and along the top of my nose—ahhhh, yes, that’s good—I’ll tell you all about it.”
The Account of His Royal Highness
Prince David H. Worthyman,
Also Called The Enchanted Bear
“I suppose you can’t really be too hard on Xenobia for a lot of the things she’s done. I didn’t realize at the time what a sensitive girl she was or I shouldn’t have—er—loved her and left her, as they say.
“But I was just a young sprout then, and if the girls didn’t like me quite as well as they like young Davey, they liked me enough so that I soon grew bored with them and their fickle fan-fluttering flatteries and I preferred to go huntin’ instead.
“We were sheltered up to the castle, you know, and I’d never seen a gypsy wench before. But I saw a great deal of Xenobia that first time, for she was bathin’ in the river. She was so pretty then, with that golden skin and those snappin’ black eyes—oh, yes, I was considerably smitten. To give m’self-credit, she didn’t take much persuading. I visited her several times while her caravan was in the area and then, being gypsies, they left.
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