Chapter Thirteen: Wherein I run into an old friend unexpectedly.

Princess Jholeira and I, and of course Hysteria, made our way east, following the road which is called the East Road, which is only appropriate, as it goes east… and it is a road. I had pretty much accepted that the girl thought she was a princess. She was convincing enough as she told me of life growing up among the royalty of the elven wood. I listened to her descriptions, because you can never have too much local color to throw into a story, but I didn’t commit much to memory as far as the events of her life were concerned. There just wasn’t much of a plot there. But to return to the point, generally speaking, if someone thinks they are a princess, I have found that it doesn’t much matter whether anyone else thinks they are or not.

At teatime we stopped and I made a fire, brewing some coffee and whipping up a pan full of biscuits. These were not like biscuits in Aerithraine. There biscuits are crunchy little sweet things—what my poor old father called “cookies” though you bake them instead of cooking them. These were what they call biscuits in Lyrria—something in the sort of a soft scone made with flour, salt, and animal lard. If we had only had a bit of honey they would have been quite good, but alas I had no honey. They filled us up though and both Jholeira and I were glad for them. Hysteria didn’t think very much of them though and she was mopey again for the rest of the day.

We traveled until dark was starting to settle. I had just decided that it was time to look for a campsite when my little orphan princess spotted the lights of houses some distance away. We continued and arrived at a thorpe, which is to say a hamlet or a small village. It was very small too, having only a single inn and half a dozen farmhouses. The inside of the inn was warm and inviting. We were greeted at a large counter just inside, by a husky innkeeper with arms like tree trunks and hands like hams. He had thick whiskers on either side of his face and when he smiled he revealed that both front teeth were gone.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“We would like a room.”

“Two rooms,” said the girl. “And stabling for our horse.”

“Ixnay on the ootay oomsray,” said I. “I don’t have the money to pay for the one. I was hoping I might pay for it with my storytelling…”

“Is that the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton I see?” called a voice from the doorway beyond.

While the proprietor squinted at me as if to see if it truly were the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton in front of him and not a good-for-something mathematically fluent version, I turned to see my accuser. There in the doorway was my oldest and dearest friend—Ellwood Cyrene. He had a mug of ale in his hand and a smile on his face. He looked quite at home having left his armor and swords off as he relaxed, though I could see the two daggers he kept in his belt, the one he kept up his right sleeve, and the one inside his back collar, as well as his knife in his right boot and the throwing stars in his left.

“That cannot be Ellwood Cyrene,” said I, “walking around defenseless and drunk.”

He stepped forward and we embraced. It was a manly embrace. He held onto me a bit too long, but what of that? He was a bit tipsy no doubt. No one could ever doubt the manliness of Ellwood Cyrene.

“This is for two rooms and stabling,” said Ellwood, tossing the innkeeper a big gold coin. “No doubt Eaglethorpe will want to pay for his supper with story-telling.”

The proprietor’s face lit up. “It has been a long while since we’ve had a storyteller.”

“And it will continue to be a long while,” said Ellwood, punching me in a very manly way on the shoulder. “I said Eaglethorpe wanted to pay for his supper with story-telling. I didn’t say that he could. Come my friend, let me buy you a mug of the muddy liquid that passes for ale in these parts.”

And throwing his arm around my shoulder, in a very manly way, he led me into the common room of the inn. The orphan princess followed. We sat at a rough-hewn table and Ellwood waved for the serving wench. She was attractive, though not as plump as I like, and she didn’t have any of the buttons on her blouse undone, and it didn’t matter anyway because she had eyes only for Ellwood, who gave her a wink in return.

“Ale for my good friend,” he said. “And… when did you get a pet boy?”

“She’s a girl and an elf,” I whispered to him. “But I want to keep it quiet. You know how much trouble women can cause.”

He nodded sagely, and then smiled at the wench. “A glass of milk for this poor pathetic ragamuffin.”

Jholeira playfully stuck out her tongue at him and the serving wench let loose with a peel of musical laughter as she went to get our order. Ellwood bought round after round as we sat talking of our service in the Great Goblin War and about our many adventures together. At some point, when neither of us was paying attention, the wench brought us a loaf of bread and a joint of beef and we ate like kings.

We had almost finished our supper, when Ellwood left to answer nature’s call. I had gotten up several times by that point, but Ellwood is renowned for his large bladder. As he walked away, my little elf girl leaned over to me.

“Have you ever noticed what a pretty man your friend Ellwood is?”

“Yes. I mean no,” I answered. “Absolutely not. How, why, how would I notice something like that?”

Chapter Twelve: Wherein I hear the story of a Princess of the Elves.

Not having a hare to cook for our morning meal, and in truth I never really expected there to be one, I didn’t bother building a fire. We shared cold pickles and Hysteria ate the last of her oats. The sun was high in the sky and even though we were eating our meager meal amid large drifts of snow, as long as we stayed in the sun, it was pleasant enough. As you can imagine, my mind was reeling at the possibility that my orphan boy was not only a girl and an elf, but quite possibly a seventy-nine year old half-orphan princess. My mind was so awash in the news that I scarcely paid any attention to the pickles I was eating. It was a real shame, because I enjoy a good pickle. My poor old mother made some of the best pickles ever. Did you know that pickles don’t have to come from cucumbers? You can pickle just about anything.

“What are you doing now?” asked the half-orphan princess.

“I’m attempting to ponder pickles.”

“That figures,” said she.

“But I find myself unable to.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because of you, my very own little liar.”

“Stop calling me a liar. I didn’t lie. Everything I’ve told you is the truth… except for the part about being a boy and being called Galfrid and being an orphan.”

“And now you claim to be a princess.”

“I am a princess,” she argued. “My father is Jholhard of the wood elves.”

“Come,” I said, wiping the pickle juice off my fingers. “Let’s get going and you can tell me your woeful tale as we ride.”

We remounted my noble steed, which is to say Hysteria, and started off once again down the road. The mood was subdued. At least the mood was subdued between myself and the half-orphan princess. Hysteria seemed quite jovial, and threatened to break into a trot on several occasions. I can only assume that she was happy to have had oats for elevenses. I am sure she didn’t realize that we had no more.

“It is just like in your story of the Queen of Aerithraine when she was trapped in Fall City,” Jholeira said at last.

“What is?”

“Being a princess. It’s like being in jail.”

“You were locked away?”

“Well, not really. I had the run of the entire wood. It’s just that I didn’t realize just how small a world that wood really was until I left.”

“Now we come to the first plot element,” said I. “Why did you leave?”

“I ran away,” she said. “I ran away because my father was going to force me to marry.”

“Well that’s hardly worth running away over,” said I. “I mean, fathers all across the world are busy arranging marriages for their daughters. What was wrong with the fellow? Wasn’t he tall enough? Was he bald? Did he have a wooden eye? It was a wooden eye, wasn’t it?”

“He didn’t have a wooden eye.”

“If he didn’t have a wooden eye, then what was wrong with him?” I wondered. “Maybe you are just being too picky.”

“There was nothing wrong with him. I just didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone.”

“That seems a bit obstinate to me,” said I.

“Don’t berate me about it now,” she sulked. “I have paid dearly for running away. I was captured by slavers and taken halfway to Lyrria. I only escaped them when bandits attacked them. The bandits took me captive and carried me away to their camp in the mountains. I was taken from the bandit camp when trolls attacked it. The trolls took me into the woods. Then I was stolen away from the trolls by ogres, who put me in a cage and took me to their horrible city. There things got even worse when I was captured from the ogres by a band of wererats.”

“Hold on.” I counted them off on my fingers. “Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats… If this were my story, then next would come… harpies.”

“Pixies.”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Pixies are little.”

“Evil pixies.”

“Still. Little.”

“Evil pixies from hell.”

“Ah. But at least you got away from them.”

“I managed to escape.”

“Because they’re little, right?”

“Um, yes. But then I was captured by pirates.”

“Pirates in the middle of North Lyrria? By the Ogre Mountains? Far away from the ocean?”

“They were on holiday.”

“Pirates on holiday?”

“Yes.”

“All right. And how did you get away from them?” I asked.

“One of the pirates, a woman named Prudence released me. I think she was jealous that the pirate captain might fancy me instead of her.”

“Prudence? Prudence the pirate?”

“That’s right.”

“And you say she was jealous?”

“Yes.”

I ran through the details in my mind. Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats. Then came the pixies, but I would change them to harpies. Finally there was Prudence the pirate. Prudence who was jealous. Possessive! Possessive Prudence the pirate. Or Prudence the possessive pirate. Yes, I quite like the sound of that. Prudence the Possessive Pirate—that had to be a half-crown story if ever I heard one. I could take a title like that, work it into something, take it to every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune. Of course I would send the half-orphan elf girl a percentage. On the other hand, she said she was a princess. Princesses are rich. She probably doesn’t need the paltry amount made from the sale of a story. She might be insulted if I tried to pay her.

“Now I’ve had more than enough,” said she.

“You don’t want any money?”

“No. I’ve had more than enough adventure and I want to go home,” she replied. “Are you carrying on some other conversation in your head about how you are going to take my story to every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune, and not pay me anything for it?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “You want to go home. And besides, I am a firm believer in maintaining all the appropriate copyrights.”

Chapter Ten: Wherein I discover the true nature of my companion.

I never did find out what the man who owned that cabin did for a living.  I didn’t examine his body closely enough to see if he was old enough to have retired from somewhere else to settle in the country.  I didn’t see if he had any outbuildings where he could have carried on a trade.  I don’t know if he was a good man or a bad one. And to tell the truth, I didn’t notice much about him physically.  I do know this… he had a very fine bed.  It had been nearly three weeks since I had slept in a bed and this one was at least as good as that one had been.  Before you ask, the other one was in the second floor of an in an inn called the Lonesome Hedgehog, where incidentally a nice, plump serving wench with the top two buttons of her blouse undone had brought me a very nice mutton stew.  No pie though.

What with all the adventures that had come upon me of late, and what with not having slept on a bed in a fortnight and a half, as you can imagine, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.  I had brushed down my noble steed, which is to say Hysteria.  Then I had taken off my boots and wiggled my toes. Then I put my knife under my pillow. When my head touched lightly on the pillow, I was dreaming.  I don’t remember exactly what I dreamed about.  Only that it had something to do with my cousin Gervil, and that for some reason he was chopping onions.  I never found out why he was chopping onions, because I was awakened by the sound of the cabin door opening.

I didn’t stir.  I kept my eyes squinted so that they looked shut to someone looking at me, but I could still see.  At the same time I slid my hand under my pillow to take hold of my knife.  I needn’t have worried though, as it was the orphan returning from outside and bolting the door after him.  I suppose that he had stepped out to answer nature’s call.  I started to return to slumber when something about the orphan stopped me.

I continued to watch him as there was something different about him.  It took me several moments to realize what it was, but then it hit me.  I was seeing my companion for the first time without his cap.  Where before his head had been covered by a ratty wool creation, it was now covered by long, golden locks, held down with braided strands around the temples.  And on either side of his head was a long slender pointed ear, pierced three or four times by thick silver rings.  He was a girl!  He was a girl and he was an elf!  This was quite a strange development and I didn’t know what to do about it, so I did nothing.  I simply went back to sleep.

The next morning the orphan was waiting for me when I woke.  His long golden hair and his long pointed ears were now carefully tucked under the cap.  I suppose at this point in my story, I should probably begin calling the orphan she instead of he.  Truth be known, I still think of her sometimes as a boy.  It just goes to show that my poor old mother was right.  First impressions are important.

“It’s about time you woke,” said she.

“Did I have some specific reason to rise early?” I wondered.  “Do I have an appointment at the apothecary?  Is the Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight, waiting to give me an audience?”

“No need for sarcasm,” said she.  “I merely point out that the sun has been up for some time.  I’ve gone through the larder of the poor human… I mean the poor man who lived here and found some food not spoiled by goblins. We have a jar of crabapples, a jar of pickles, and a few bits of dried meat.  There are also bags of coffee, flour, and dried beans that you can take with you.”

“Why didn’t you whip up a pot of coffee for us?” I asked.  “Especially as you are so concerned about the hour.  It would have woken me up earlier.”

“Um, I don’t know how to make coffee.”

“Really?  Oh well.”

We ate our bit of dried meat and crabapples for breakfast and saved the pickles for later.  I put them, along with the coffee, flour, and dried beans in my pack, and then loaded the pack and the saddle onto Hysteria.  And though she and I were both loath to leave the relative warmth of the cabin to return to the snowy outside, we did.  The frosty overnight weather had frozen the bodies of human and goblin alike to the ground, so that I would have had to wait until they thawed a bit before I could give them a proper burial, even if I had been so inclined.  I wasn’t.  So, hoisting the orphan back up behind me, which is to say upon Hysteria’s haunches, we started off again down the road.

Chapter Nine: Wherein I demonstrate the value of a classical education.

“Do you think they are the same goblins that we saw earlier?” asked the orphan, at my shoulder, peering into the window.

I could only shrug, for in truth one goblin looks much the same as another to me.  Though I had relatively close contact with three of the creatures earlier that evening, which is to say having kicked two and poked one in the head with my knife, I can’t say that I had become familiar enough with any of the three to distinguish them from any other of their race.  That being said, I was relatively sure that the one I had poked in the head with my knife was not among those now in the little cabin.  These goblins were singing or drinking or dancing or doing some combination of the afore-mentioned, all of which are extremely difficult if not impossible to do when one is dead.

“What are you going to do?” wondered the orphan.

“Why do you suppose I should do anything?” I wondered.

“Shouldn’t you avenge the poor man lying on the floor?  After all, he is a human being killed by foul goblins, and you are a… I mean we are human beings too.”

“Aye, it is true that we are human beings.”

“And he was killed by goblins.”

“I do hate goblins.”

Hysteria knickered.  She hated goblins too, probably because they stand so low to the ground and as I have pointed out before, she dislikes anything too near her feet.

“And I am frozen,” the orphan continued.  “I would love to spend the night inside of doors and near a warm fire.”

“Now you make a compelling argument,” said I.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Have you ever heard of Brementown?”

“Uh…no.  Why?”

“There is a story told there of a group of musician animals.”

The orphan rolled his eyes.  I explained my plan, devised on a variation of the Brementown story.  Turning Hysteria so that her rear end was pointed toward the wall of the cabin, I left her with the orphan while I went back to the front and took a position by the door.  Pulling out my knife, I placed my fingers in my mouth and whistled, which was the prearranged signal for both my noble steed and the orphan.

At the signal, Hysteria began kicking the wall of the cabin with both hind feet and the orphan commenced to making all manner of strange noises.  I was so surprised by the cacophony of sounds, which is to say noises that came out of the youngster’s mouth that I almost forgot my own part of the plan.  I am aware that boys are well-versed in the creation of creative noises as well as all kinds of mimicry, having been a boy myself once.  But this orphan was a true artist.  He belted out the yowls of a wildcat, the braying of a donkey, the barking of a dog, the screech of harpy, and the gurgling growl of a frog-bear. Not to be outdone, Hysteria let loose with the squeal of an angry equine, which is to say a horse.

It was scant seconds before the door burst open and the goblins began pouring out into the snow, their shrieks clearly indicating that they were frightened out of their tiny little minds.  The first two who came out were quickly dispatched with my knife.  After that I decided that it was too strenuous to keep bending down to kill them, as they are so low to the ground and I had been riding all night long, which under the best of conditions can give one a sore back.  Thereafter, I reverted to my now well-practiced maneuver of using their heads as makeshift kickballs, which is to say I kicked them on their kickball-shaped heads.

In the space of twenty seconds, I managed to get rid of all the goblins, which turned out to be seven.  I can’t swear that all of the goblins were dead, as five had been sent in long arcs through the air into the darkness of the woods.  They were gone though.  Scant moments later, the orphan, Hysteria, and I were inside the cabin.  I put Hysteria in the corner furthest from the fireplace and directed the boy to stoke the fire, while I pulled the body of the unfortunate former owner out into the snow next to two of his apparent murderers. Thereafter, I went back inside and bolted the door.

“That was a wonderful plan,” said the orphan.

“Indeed it was.”

“I’m surprised you thought of it.”

“Just one of the benefits of a classical education,” said I.  “If I did not know the story of the Musicians of Brementown, I would not have known what to do.  And as I recall, you looked noticeably unimpressed when I mentioned my knowledge of this particular bit of culture.”

“I do admit I thought it a waste of time, um… at the time,” admitted he.  “I offer you my apologies.”

“I suppose I will have to accept them,” said I.  “What with you being a poor, ignorant orphan.”

“Your magnanimity is wonderful to behold,” said he.  “In any case, I think I would like to hear the story of the Musicians of Brementown.”

“Oh no!” cried I.  “You still owe me a shiny penny for the story of Queen Elleena of Aerithraine.”

“But you didn’t finish it.”

“Of course I did.”

“No.  You didn’t. When you stopped, she wasn’t even Queen yet.  She was stuck in the temple in Fall City.”

“When she turned fourteen, she returned to the capital in Illustria and was crowned Queen by the Pope, after which she took control and banishing him back to Fall City.”

“How did she do that?”

“No one knows.”

“Gah!” he cried.  “You are the worst storyteller ever!”

“What would a poor, ignorant orphan know about it?”

“I know you’re not getting my penny!”

“Go to sleep,” I ordered him.  “You sleep on the rug by the fire.  I will take the bed, after I give Hysteria a good rub-down.”

Chapter Eight: Wherein I return to my story of the Queen of Aerithraine.

I put away my knife and then climbed back into the saddle.  The orphan had regained his feet and I reached down, took his hand, and lifted him back into his spot behind me.  He reached around my waist and held on tight.

“Thank you,” he said.

“All is well,” said I.  “A few goblins are no match for a trained warrior.”

“Then how did they manage to prevent Prince Jared from becoming the King of Aerithraine? Did they catch him asleep and murder him?”

“One might have supposed that, under ordinary circumstances.”  I continued my story.  “These times were not ordinary.  Goblins are not only small and stupid and smelly; they are disorganized. But every once and so often, there comes along a goblin who is big enough and just smart enough to unite the goblin tribes and lead them on the warpath against the civilized lands of humans.”

“I had always heard that none of the human lands were truly civilized,” said he.

“What an odd and unorphanish thing to say.”

“Um… oh. I’m just discombobulated from the incident with the goblins.”

“Even so,” I agreed.  “Well, at the time my story takes place, there was one such goblin king, who came to power by killing and eating his many rivals.  And as happens when the goblins become unified in such a way, they experienced a population explosion.  The mountains of the Goblineld were teaming with the little blighters.  When the mountains could no longer contain them, they swept out across the southern third of the Kingdom of Aerithraine, destroying everything in their path.”

“Frightening,” said the orphan.

“Quite frightening.”

“Still…”

“Still what?”

“Humans are so large and goblins are so small.  You vanquished three pairs of goblins, and did it quite handily too.”

“Thank you.”

“And you don’t seem particularly skilled or particularly bright.”

“What?”

“I just wonder that an entire human kingdom could not put together an army to destroy even a large horde of goblins,” said the orphan.  “I would imagine that even a well-trained militia could do the job.  I once heard the story of the Calille Lowain who held off five thousand goblins at Greer Drift.”

“I don’t know that story,” said I.

“Perhaps I will tell it to you sometime,” said he.  “But what about it?  Couldn’t the humans defeat the goblins?”

“There were tens of thousands of them.  Hundreds of thousands.  Thousands of thousands.  But you are right.  In other times, such hordes were sent packing, back to their mines and tunnels in the Goblineld.  This time though, the goblins had a hidden ally.  Far to the east, the Witch King of Thulla-Zor, who is always looking for ways to cause destruction and chaos, saw this as an opportunity.  He supplied the goblin king with magic and weapons, and sent trolls and ogres to strengthen his ranks.  None of these facts were known to King Justin when he rode forth with the Dragon Knights to meet them.

“King Justin, his three younger sons, and all of the Dragon Knights were slaughtered—to a man. Prince Jared, who had been in the north fighting sea raiders, hurried his forces south, only to meet a similar fate. The goblins were waiting for him. The entire southern third of the kingdom fell— and remained in the goblins’ filthy little hands for almost twenty years.  And the Goblin King feasted on the spoils of war, sitting on his throne far below the surface of the mountains, drinking his disgusting goblin wine from a cup made from the skull of King Justin.”

“How horrible,” murmured the orphan.

“Yes indeed,” I continued.  “And I think the worse part of the story is what happened to Queen Beatrix.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died. She died of a broken heart.  And her unborn child almost died with her.

“Unborn child? It didn’t die?”

“No, the court physician cut the child from the Queen’s belly.  It was a tiny baby girl.”

“Queen Elleena!” snapped the orphan.

“She should have been,” said I.

“What do you mean?”

“She should have been Queen the moment she was birthed, but that wasn’t to be.  There were too many competing interests at court. Too many nobles wanted the throne for themselves.  And in the chaos that followed the fall of the south lands, they might have done it, had it not been for the church.  Little Princess Elleena Postuma was whisked off to the temple in Fall City, where she stayed for the next fourteen years, and Pope Bartholomew became the regent of the kingdom.”

“Did they keep Elleena prisoner in the temple?” wondered the orphan.

“Of course they didn’t,” said I.  “Though I will wager she sometimes felt that she was in a prison.  She could go anywhere she wanted to as long as she stayed in Fall City and under constant protective guard.  In the meantime she was given all the training and education that was necessary for one who would one day rule.”

“It is like prison,” said the orphan.

“Neither you nor I will ever really know the truth of that.”

At that moment, I spied a light in the distance.  The story, or at least this chapter of the story over, conversation ceased. I urged Hysteria forward, which is to say I encouraged her onward toward the distant light, which turned out to be a small cabin on the side of the road.  Yellow light spilled from its tiny windows onto the snow.

Not having had the best of luck so far that night with regard to welcomes, which is to say that I had been attacked three times already that night, two times of which I have already described for you here, I dismounted and crept around to the side of the cabin to the window and peered inside. Lying on the floor in a pool of blood was a man in common work clothes.  The single room of the little cabin had been ransacked.  And dancing around, or sitting and singing, or drinking were more of the little, round-headed blighters, which is to say goblins.