Chapter Seven: Wherein my story is interrupted by goblins, thereby explaining why it might not seem as good as it really was.

Goblins are nasty little blighters.  They remind me of my cousin Gervil’s friend called Rupert.  His name was Sally, which explains why he was called Rupert.  But like goblins, he was short and had a big, round head.  I don’t know why goblins have such large heads for their little bodies. Of course I don’t know why Rupert did either.  There doesn’t seem to be much advantage in it.  On the other hand, goblins have excellent night vision, making it very easy to sneak up on people in the dark.  And they have abnormally large mouths with an abnormally large number of teeth in them. This was very unlike Rupert, which is to say Sally, who as I recall had only five or six teeth, though he made up for that by having an extra toe.  In addition to which I don’t believe his night vision was all that it might have been, for once he kicked me in the head when he was on his way to the outhouse. Of course that could have been on purpose.  Rupert was a bit of a nasty blighter too.

“What are you doing?” asked the orphan, as Hysteria took a step back.

“Thinking about a fellow called Rupert,” said I.

“Well stop it, and get us away.”

I said that Hysteria took a step back, but I should have said that she took two steps back, one on each side.  I could tell she didn’t want the foul little creatures around her feet. She’s very particular about her feet, as most horses are wont to be.  As they approached still nearer, she reared up a bit—not enough to bother me, but just enough for the orphan to slip off her haunches and land with a poof on his seat in the snow.  The goblins cackled grotesquely and I’m sure that they thought they had secured for themselves a snack.  They stopped laughing though when I kicked my leg over Hysteria’s shoulder and dropped lightly to the ground.

With a quick motion, I pulled my knife, still stained red from crabapple pie, from my boot.  It was a small enough weapon to face off six attackers and I would have much rather had a sword, but I had been forced to sell my sword in order to get a fellow out of prison.  I didn’t really know him, but he was the beloved of a poor but beautiful farm girl. In retrospect it would have been better if he had not turned out to be a werewolf, but that is another story.  If I ever write this down, maybe I’ll say that I sold it to get the poor but beautiful farm girl out of prison and that I slew the werewolf.  Yes, that’s a much better story.

“What are you doing?” asked the orphan.

“Recalling the time I slew a werewolf,” said I.

“Finally something useful!” he exclaimed.

The two foremost goblins looked at one another.  While six or seven goblins might sneak up on a man when he was asleep, or might chase down a maiden who was alone and defenseless, they would have to be extraordinary members of their species to take on a seasoned warrior with a weapon.

“That’s right potato head!” shouted the orphan, jumping to his feet. “Werewolves, vampires, giants; he’s killed them all.

“Gree yard?” said the first goblin.

“Grock tor,” said the second goblin.

“I don’t think they understand us,” said I.

The first began to skirt around me to the right and the second began to skirt around me to the left.  The others were following along.  I don’t know whether their intention was to surround me so that they could attack from all sides at once, or to get by me and get at the boy, but I wasn’t going to let either of those things happen.  I took a quick step to the right and kicked the big round head of the first goblin, which flew almost as far as the kickball I kicked as a child, and of course the rest of the goblin went right along with his head.

As a child, kickball was one of my favorite pastimes.  We had our own little team and I was almost always the bowler. Sally and Gervil and several other boys made up the outfield.  Tuki played first, second, and third base.

“Look out for the other one!” the orphan cried, interrupting my fond memories.

I twisted around to my left and kicked the head of the second goblin, sending it in a lovely arc off into the forest.  If my first kick had scored a double, which is to say a trip to second base, then this kick must surely have been a triple.  And I would dare Tuki to say that either of those goblin’s heads went out of bounds.

“Look out!” the orphan shouted again.

I turned to give him a dirty look and saw a third goblin who was attempting to use the distraction of his fellows, which is to say their current use as substitute kickballs, to slice my Achilles tendon with a rusty old razor.  With a quick jab, I thrust the point of my knife into his head and he dropped to the ground—dead.  When I looked back around, the other goblins had wisely run away.

Chapter Six: Wherein I begin to tell the story of the Queen of Aerithraine.

Hysteria clomped along slowly down the snow-covered road for some time.  The orphan was so quiet that for a while I thought he must have fallen asleep.  But at last he stirred and shifted a bit in his seat, which is to say upon Hysteria’s flank.  I myself had been quiet as I remembered the events of that horrible night.

“What are you thinking about?” asked the orphan.

“I’m thinking about that horrible night,” I replied.

“Did you never find your family?”

“No, though I searched for weeks.  My mother was to make me a blueberry pie that night, and I not only have never seen my mother since, I did not get to eat that pie either.”

“I’m sorry I brought up such a painful memory,” he said, and then paused. “Do you suppose that the purple drops on the floor could have been from your blueberry pie?”

“Fiends!” said I.  “To rob a man of his mother and his pie in the same night!”

“Perhaps it were best that we think on something else,” said he.

“Perhaps,” I agreed.

“If you are really such a great storyteller…”

“The greatest in the world.”

“And if the story of the Queen of Aerithraine is a great story…”

“Wonderful.  Exciting. True.  Profound.”

“Well, maybe you could tell me the story.”

“I get half a crown for that story in Illustria,” said I.

“I have a shiny penny,” said he.

“The story begins in Aerithraine, far to the west, along the coast of the great ocean sea.  From storied Illustria, its capital, to Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills in River County, Aerithraine has been a great and powerful country for some seven hundred years more or less.  By more or less, I mean that it has been more or less seven hundred years that Aerithraine has been a country and that it has been more or less great and more or less powerful during those seven hundred years.  But about fifty years ago, it was less.  That was when the old king died, and as is the way of kings, a new one was crowned.  He was King Julian the Rectifier.

“He was called Julian the Rectifier because he was chiefly interested in rectifying.  He spent most of his time rectifying.  He rectified all over the place.  And he was good at it.  He rectified like nobody else.”

“It means setting things to right,” said the orphan.

“Of course it does and that is just what he did.  Under his reign, the kingdom was prosperous and wealthy.  And, as he wasn’t so interested in warring as in rectifying, there was peace throughout the land.  King Julian had only one son, and he passed to that son the strongest and wealthiest kingdom in all of Duaron, and if it had only remained so, Elleena would have become nothing more than a minor princess perhaps.”

“Which would not have made a half-crown story,” pointed out the orphan.

“That is so.”

“Carry on then.”

“King Justin was the son of Julian.  I hear tell that he was once called Justin the Good and Justin the Wise, though now when storytellers refer to him, they usually call him Justin the Weak or Justin the Unready.”

“What do you call him?”

“I just call him King Justin,” said I.  “Though I truly believe he may deserve the title Justin the Brave, it is not what the listeners want to hear.”

“Go on.”

“King Justin married a princess from the faraway land of Goth.  The Arch-Dukes of Goth, which is to say the rulers of that land, have for generations, maintained power through a tightly woven web of treaties with its mighty neighbors.  Their chief barter in this endeavor is the marriage of the many female members of the family.  I hear the current Arch-Duke has but four daughters at least as of yet, but his father who was Arch-Duke before him had seventeen, and his father, which is to say the grandfather of the current Arch-Duke had nineteen.”

“That hurts just thinking about it.”

“What?”

“Nothing.  Go on.”

“It must have been quite a coup of diplomacy for the Arch-Duke of Goth to make a match with the King of Aerithraine, but he did, marrying to the King his daughter Beatrix.  And though I hear that the women of that country wear too much make-up, she was nevertheless accounted a great beauty.  She had pale white skin, raven hair, smoldering eyes, and a gold ring in her nose, as is the fashion in the east.

“King Justin and Queen Beatrix had four strong sons, the eldest of whom was Prince Jared.  He was particularly beloved of the people.  I saw him once when I was a child of four or five, sitting on my poor old father’s shoulders as the Dragon Knights passed on their tall white steeds. That is to say, I was seated on my father’s shoulders and the Prince was not.  Neither were the Dragon Knights nor their steeds.  I don’t remember why the Prince and the knights were in River County. It was too long ago.  He would have grown to be King upon his father’s death if it was not for…”

“Goblins!”

“Yes, that’s right.  You didn’t say you had heard the story before, though I’ll warrant it wasn’t told as well…”

“No!” screamed the orphan.  “Goblins! Right there!”

He pointed straight ahead, and sure enough, stepping out of the shadows and into the moonlight were a half dozen creepy little man-things. They were no more than three feet tall, their over-sized round heads, glowing eyes, and gaping maws giving away their identity.  As they came closer those mouths widened into grins filled with jagged little teeth, looking far too much like the teeth on the blade of a cross-cut saw for my taste. They brandished what weapons they had, mostly things they had picked up from the ground—a stick, a length of cord with a knot in it.  But a couple of them carried old, discarded straight razors.

Chapter Five: Wherein I reveal the mystery of my family.

“You said that you do not live far from here,” I mentioned, once we had finished the pies.  One might say the purloined pies, but I would not.  I would instead insist that they rightly belonged to us in recompense for our unjust confinement.

“That is correct,” said he.

“The pies rightfully belong to us?”

“No.  I live not far from here.  Are you carrying on some other conversation in your head about the pies?”

“Of course not,” I replied.  “You are an orphan.”

“I am well aware of that fact.  There is no need to keep rubbing it in my face.”

“What I mean is you don’t have a proper home anymore now that you are an orphan.”

“Even an orphan may have extended family,” he explained.  “Perhaps I live with them.”

“Do you?”

“One might suppose that I do.”

“One might suppose a great many things,” said I.  “But would it not be better to base our future activities less on supposition than on actual remembrances?”

“One might suppose we should,” said he.

“You have an odd way of talking,” I commented.  “You don’t quite sound orphanish at all.”

“Really?  How many orphans have you known?”

“Quite a few actually,” I revealed.  “The Queen of Aerithraine…”

“With whom you once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight.”

“Indeed it is so.  The Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had… well, she has a soft spot for orphans. Some years back she opened an orphanage called Elleena’s House.”

“Is that because her name is Elleena?”

“Why would her name cause her to have a soft spot for orphans?”  I wondered.  “No, I believe it is because she was an orphan herself.”

“No.  Is it called Elleena’s House because her name is Elleena?  And how could a queen be an orphan?  Doesn’t she have to be a princess?  Or did the King find her in an orphanage and come to sweep her off her feet? That would be a lovely story.”

“Well, there is no king,” said I.

“Gah!” he exclaimed.  “You are the worst storyteller in the world.  You are messing everything up and making me confused.”

“Forsooth!  I am the best storyteller in the world.  I do not expect you to know so, as you are an unfortunate orphan without any knowledge of the world.”  I looked over my shoulder at his pinched little face.  “In truth I was not trying to tell you the story of the Queen of Aerithraine.  If I had, you would be filled with wonder and excitement.  I have made half my fortune from that story, and a better story, a truer story, a more profound story; you are not likely to hear in all the days of your life.  But I was not trying to tell that story.  I was trying to explain that the Queen of Aerithraine has a soft spot for orphans. In fact, I suppose that I do so myself, as I am almost an orphan.”

“You are almost an orphan?”

“Indeed.”

“How can you be almost an orphan?”

“Why couldn’t I be?” I demanded.  “If anyone can be, I could be.”

“What I mean is…”  He took a deep breath.  “How can one be almost an orphan?”

“Oh.  Well, it’s only that my parents aren’t dead.”

“I see,” said he.

“But they were kidnapped,” I confided.

“Are you sure they didn’t just run away?” he asked.

“It was a stormy night and I had been away from my parents’ home, which is to say my former home, which is to say Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills, and I was returning for a visit.  As I approached I heard a disturbance, though at first I attributed it to the sounds of the storm.  Then I looked up at the cottage window to see figures silhouetted on the shade, locked in a grim struggle.”

“What did you do?”

“Why, I rushed forward to aid my poor old mother, who as I recall smells of warm pie, and my poor old father, and my sister Celia, and my aunt Oregana, and my cousin Gervil, and my other cousin Tuki, who is a girl cousin, which is to say a cousin who is a girl, which makes sense, because whoever heard of a boy named Tuki.”

“They were all struggling by the window?”

“They may all have been struggling by the window, or some of them may have been, or perhaps only one of them was struggling by the window.  I don’t know, because when I burst in through the front door, they were all gone.  The back door was open wide and the rain was splashing in.”

“What happened to them?”

“I know not.”

“Were there any clues?”

“Indeed there were.”

“What were they?”

“The table had been set for nine, which was two places too many.”

“Three places!” said the orphan triumphantly.  “You thought I wasn’t paying attention.  There was your father, mother, sister, aunt, and two cousins. That makes six.”

“They would also have set a place for Geneva.”

“Of course they would have.  Who is she?”

“She’s my other cousin, which is to say Gervil’s sister, only she’s imaginary, but she wasn’t always imaginary, which is to say she died, but Gervil still sees her, so Aunt Oregana always sets a place for her.”

“What other clues?”

I listed them off.  “There was a knife stuck in Gervil’s bed.  Floorboards had been loosened in several rooms.  There were drops of purple liquid leading out the back door.  And someone had hung bunches of onions from the rafters of the dining room.  Most mysterious of all was the fact that the tracks led away from the house only fifty feet and then disappeared entirely.”

The orphan gripped me around the waist and squeezed.  “How terrible,” he said, in a tiny voice.

Chapter Four: Wherein we make decisions about our supper.

When we were not two hundred yards down the road, I let Hysteria drop to a trot, for in truth I did not expect anyone to follow us into the night, daring wild animals, bandits, or hobgoblins, regardless of how fine a piesmith Mistress Gaston was reported to be.  A few hundred yards beyond that, my horse dropped of her own accord to a walk and I expect she was beginning to feel a bit mopey because of the slap the orphan had dealt her.  At that moment I was less interested in her mental condition than my own physical one though, because I was holding a cast pie pan in each hand and they were both heavy and still quite warm.

“Here.”  I turned in the saddle and handed one pie to the orphan.  “We can eat while we ride.  If we wait until we find a campsite, the pies will be cold.”

“Do you have a fork?” the boy asked.

I mused that this seemed an unlikely request from any boy, most of whom I have found uninterested in tableware on the best occasion, and especially from an orphan whom one might have supposed to have been forced by necessity to dig into all manner of food scraps with his hands.  However it was not a question to which I needed reply in the negative, for I always carry my fork in the inner left breast pocket of my coat, which I call my fork pocket.  I gave the orphan my fork and pulled my knife from my boot to use on the remaining pie.

“This is a very nice fork,” said the orphan.

“Of course it is,” said I.  “That fork came from the table of the Queen of Aerithraine herself.”

“You stole this fork from a Queen?”

“Impudent whelp!” cried I.  “That fine fork was a gift from the queen, with whom I once had the pleasure of spending a fortnight.”

“What kind of queen gives a man a fork?”

“A kind and gracious one.”

That apparently satisfied the boy’s curiosity for the moment and for the next few minutes we concentrated upon the pies.  I am not one to mourn a lost pie and that is well, for the pie that was lost to me on that night, as I have previously mentioned, was a pie for the ages. A fine pie.  A beautiful pie.  A wonderful pie.  This new pie was almost as good though.  It was a crabapple pie, which was a common pie to come upon in winter in those parts, which is to say Brest, as cooks used the crabapples they had put up the previous fall.  This pie was an uncommonly good pie, with nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves and butter. I had more than a few bites by the time the boy spoke again.

“What kind of pie is that?”

“Crabapple,” I replied.  “What pie do you have?”

“It is a meat pie.”

“A meat pie,” I mused, as I thought back upon how long it had been since I had eaten any other meat than venison.  I had eaten a sausage a week before, but it had been a fortnight and half again since I had eaten mutton stew with potatoes and black bread in Hammlintown.  That had been a fine stew and the serving wench who brought it to me had been nice and plump with the top two buttons of her blouse undone, and she had smiled quite fetchingly when she had set down the tray.  Stew is a wonderful food and even when it is not served by a nice, plump serving wench with the top two buttons of her blouse undone.  It always seems to give me the same feeling when I eat it that a nice, plump serving wench with the top two buttons of her blouse undone gives me when I see her.

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

“Pondering stew,” said I.

“Well stop it.  Rather ponder this instead.  You eat half of your crabapple pie and I will eat half of my meat pie.  Then we can trade and eat the other halves of each others pies.”

“All right,” I agreed.  “But this will mean that I have to eat my dessert first and my supper after.”

“Just pretend that the meat pie is your dessert and the crabapple pie is your supper.”

“A crabapple pie could be a fine supper.  In fact I have been to countries where the most common part of a supper is crabapple pie.”

“Fine then.”

“But a meat pie is in no country a dessert.”

“Then trade me now.”

“How much have you eaten?” I asked.

“About a fourth.  How much have you eaten?”

“About a fifth.”

“Then eat another twentieth,” said he.  “Then we will trade pies and each eat two thirds of what remains and then trade them back.  At that point, we will each eat what remains of the pie we originally started with. That way you can think of the first portion of the crabapple pie as an appetizer, the portion you eat of the meat pie as your supper, and the final portion of the crabapple pie as your dessert.”

“You are a fine mathematician for an orphan,” said I, “but it suits me. Will it not bother you that your appetizer and your dessert are of meat pie and your supper is of crabapple pie?”

“I have decided that I will make this sacrifice,” said he, “since it was you that provided the meal.”

Chapter Three: Wherein I escape and lay my retribution upon my captors.

I pulled the boy out through the hole that I had created and into the deep snow that had formed in a drift beside the shack.  He almost disappeared, as he couldn’t have been more than four foot ten.

“Grab the back of my belt,” said I.  “I will guide you.  The first thing we must do is find my noble steed.”

“The stable is on the other side of the inn, just beyond the cart path.”

“Very good. Come along.  I am sure that the noise of our escape was heard and any moment I may have to fight off a dozen or so angry villagers with pitchforks and such.”

“Do you have a weapon?” asked the boy.

“I have a knife in my boot, but I would be loath to stick it into a person over such a thing as this.”

“They deserve it,” said the boy, now trailing along behind me as I negotiated my way around the buildings in the gloomy night.  “If my father was here, he’d lay waste to this town.”

“Quite the fierce cobbler was he?”

“Um… yes. Before he died…leaving me an orphan.”

I trudged through the snow, around the large building that I now knew was the inn, and crossed the cart path, distinguishable from the rest of the landscape by two parallel ruts in which the snow was not quite as deep as everywhere else.  I perceived no danger from any direction and indeed could still hear the voices of men and women singing in the inn.  The stable, which I would have recognized even without the orphan’s help, was dark and silent.  The pleasant aroma of horse dung enveloped me as the slight breeze turned in my direction. I crept up to the large double door and pulled one side open slightly.

“Hysteria,” I called in a whisper and was answered by a gentle knicker, which is to say the sound that horses make when they are neither angry nor excited nor otherwise engaged.

Inside the stable was pitch black, and I cast around for a lantern, but the lad needed no such artifice.

“I see your horse in the last stall,” said he.

“You have very good night vision, orphan,” said I.

The little ragamuffin guided me by the hand to the far stall and by the time we arrived there I could make out the more prominent shapes, including that of Hysteria, which is to say my horse, who tossed her head in greeting.

“Poor girl,” said I, running my hands over her.  “They didn’t even bother to unsaddle you or remove your bit and bridle.”

“All the better for us and our escape,” said the boy.

I led Hysteria out of the stall, through the dark of the stable, and into the lesser dark of the night.  It was in fact, quite a good night for traveling, at least as far as light was concerned.  The moon was reflected off the white snow, and though the ghostly illumination created monsters of the many gaunt and gnarled trees, they were easily negotiated through.  This put me in mind of a number of similar nights, when the moon was shining upon the snow.  It seems somehow unfair that I more than most find myself sneaking in or out of town on cold, dark nights.  I am not one to complain about my lot in life though.  Then at that moment, as if to remind me that the lot of others was worse than my own, the boy tugged at my sleeve.

“What are you doing?” said he.

“I am pondering life,” I replied.

“Can you ponder life once we’ve made our escape from this wretched town?”

“Quite so,” said I, placing my foot in the stirrup.  Once I was in the saddle, I reached down for my charge.  “Come along orphan.”

“In some circles it might be considered rude to keep calling me an orphan,” he opined.

“Your parents are dead and so you are an orphan,” said I, lifting him up to sit behind me.  “If I call you something else, your parents will still be dead.”

“Even so,” he agreed.  “Let us get out of here.”

“Not until we make this town pay for its injustice and our indignities,” said I.

I spurred Hysteria forward, though truth be told I did not spur her precisely because I do not wear spurs.  Spurs seem unnecessarily mean and pointed and Hysteria is possessed of something of a fragile ego.  If one speaks harshly too her, she is likely to go into a mope for weeks on end, and jabbing her haunches or belly with pointy metal objects could send her into a serious downward spiral of depression.  It would be a sad thing to see.  So I encouraged her forward.  I urged her forward.  I coaxed her forward.  I asked her to go forward and she went forward, which now that I think about it, is the direction that she is usually most likely to go.

I guided her through the snow, across the cart path, and around the corner of the inn to the spot where upon I had first been laid hold of.  I fully expected that the pie I had originally seen would, by now, be gone.  As cold as the weather was, the pie would have gone from hot to warm to cool to quite cold in the time that I had spent escaping from the shack and rescuing my valiant steed, which is to say Hysteria.  I was not wrong.  The pie was gone.  But Ho! There were now two new pies sitting on the very same window ledge.

Sitting astride Hysteria as I was, the pies were now at a level between my shoulder and my waist, and I could easily look inside the window.  A fat woman with red cheeks and red hair and wearing a white apron was rolling out dough with a rolling pin.  She was too busy to notice me.  That was not the case with the stout fellow who at that moment entered from the common room beyond.  He caught sight of me and let out a yell that could have, and in fact did, summon everyone in the place.  The sounds of singing stopped as others rushed to see the source of his consternation.

“Let this be a lesson to you not to waylay innocent travelers!” I shouted, scooping up the pies, one in each hand.  I urged Hysteria onward, but no doubt feeling the warm air exiting the window, she was loath to move.  The orphan fixed that by slapping her on the backside, her fragile ego notwithstanding.  She jumped and shot around to the front of the inn just as the gang of toughs from inside came out the front door.  They were just in time to watch us race off into the darkness with two warm and steamy pies.

Chapter Two: Wherein I become the sole guardian and protector of an orphan.

“I am not a pie thief,” said I, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the limited light of the little room.  “If anything, I am a procurer of pies to be paid for at a later time, which is to say an eater of pies on account.”

“I don’t judge you,” said the little voice from the dark corner. “After all, am I not incarcerated for the same crime?  It may well have been the same pie that I attempted to steal earlier in the evening that you tried to…”

“Check for doneness,” I interrupted.

“Steal.”

“Taste test.”

“Steal.”

“Borrow.”

“Steal.”

“For someone who doesn’t judge, you seem quite judgmental to me,” I opined. “And if self control did escape me for a moment, could I be blamed?  Here am I, a cold and weary traveler from a far land, cold to the bone and hungry. And there sits a pie, and not just any pie, but a pie for the ages, sitting as if waiting especially for me, on the window ledge.”

“Mistress Gaston is an excellent piesmith.”

“I shall have to take your word for that,” said I, starting to make out the form of a child.  “And what is it they call you, lad?”

“I am called Galfrid.”

“Come out of the corner and let me have a look at you.”

“Promise me that you won’t hurt me,” said he.

“All the country knows the name of Eaglethorpe Buxton and it knows that he is not one to harm children or ladies, nor old people or the infirm.  Rather he is a friend to those who are in need of a friend and a protector to those who are in need of a protector and a guardian to those who are in need of a guardian.”

“So long as it is not a pie that needs guarding,” said he.

“Pies are something altogether unique.  Pies are special, which is to say they are wonderful, but not rare.  No, indeed they are common, but that does not make them worthless.  Quite the contrary.  Life is quite like a pie, at least in-so-much-as a life lived well is like a pie—warm and delicious on the inside with a protective crust on the outside. There are places in the world where pies are worshiped.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“There is no place in the world where pies are worshipped.”

“That is not worshipped, but revered as one might revere the saints.”

“No.”

“Far to the east of here, in the city of Bertold, in the land of Holland, they revere pies.”

“No.  There is no city of Bertold in Holland and nowhere east of here do they revere pies.”

“You are a saucy child,” said I.  “And if they do not revere pies east of here, then I should not like to travel in that direction.”

“So are you implying that you are this Englethorpe Boxcar and that I therefore have nothing to fear from you?”

“Eaglethorpe, with an A instead of an N, and Buxton, with an X and a ton, and yes, I am he and you have nothing to fear.  Though to be sure there are plenty who would claim the name of Eaglethorpe Buxton, with and E not an N and an X and a ton, because greatness will ever have its imitators.”

“So you might well be an imposter,” said he.

“You may rest assured that I am not,” said I.

“But if you were an imposter, would you not insist that you were not an imposter?”

“You may be sure that I would.”

“Then how can I trust that you are the real Englethorpe Boxcar?”

“Just look at me!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms out and giving him a good look.

“Swear that you will not harm me,” said he.  “And furthermore, swear that you will be my protector and guardian until I can return to my home?”

“How far away do you live?”

“Not far.”

“I swear to be your protector and guardian until you reach your home, though it be on the far side of creation,” said I.  “Now come closer and let me get the measure of you.”

The lad crept forward until he stepped into a beam of moonlight shining through a space between the boards of the shack wall.  He was a slight little ragamuffin, with a build that suggested he had not eaten in some time.  He had a dirty face and wool cap pulled down to his eyes.  His clothes were dirty and torn, but I immediately noticed that his shoes while dirty, seemed too fine for a ragamuffin such as this.  I asked upon them.

“You see, Sir Boxcar, my parents were, um… cobblers… but they died, leaving me a destitute and lonely orphan child.  These shoes were the only things they left me.”

“May they rest in peace,” said I, whipping off my cap, which is only proper courtesy to offer, even if one is only offering it to an orphan.  “But on to the situation at hand.  I see that you are a sturdy boy, despite your condition.  Why did you not bust out of this shack?  It looks as though it would take no more than a couple of kicks.”

The lad stared at me with his mouth open, obviously chagrined that he had not thought of this means of escape himself.  “Yes,” he said at last.  “I am a sturdy… boy…. but I think you will find the shack is better built than it looks. It is hammered together with iron nails.”

I turned and leveled a kick at the side wall through which crack I had but a moment before been peering.  One of the boards flew off, landing in the snow six or seven feet away and leaving an opening almost big enough for the boy to pass through.  I kicked a second board off the side of the structure and I was outside in a jiffy.  Turning around, I reached through to aid my companion’s escape.

“Come along, orphan,” said I.

Chapter One: Wherein I do not steal a pie, but pay a price nonetheless.

There was a pie.  There was a pie cooling on the window ledge.  Steam was rising up into the frosty air, illuminated by the flickering candlelight coming from within the building.  Is there a more welcoming sight?  Is there a more welcoming sight for a traveler from a far land, trudging through the cold, dark forest on a cold, dark night, waist deep in snow, frozen to the bone, than the sight of a pie cooling on the window ledge with steam rising up into the frosty air?  You don’t have to wonder.  I can tell you.  There is no more welcoming sight than such a pie.  On this night there were sights and sounds and smells, all nearly as welcoming, and they were arrayed around this particular pie like the elements of a fine meal might be arrayed around a very nicely roasted chicken breast. Candlelight flickering through the shutters casting shadows on the snow, smoke rising from the chimneys in a quaint small town, the smell of burning wood and the smell horses just overpowering the smell of pine, the sounds of men and women singing; all welcoming but not as welcoming as pie.  I was as happy to see that pie as I was to see the little town in which it cooled on the window ledge.

I should stop and introduce myself.  I am Eaglethorpe Buxton, famed world traveler and storyteller.  Of course you have heard of me, for my tales of the great heroes and their adventures have been repeated far and wide across the land.  Yes, I am sad to say that many of my stories have been told without the benefit of my name being attached to them.  This is unfortunate as my appellation, which is to say the name of Buxton and of Eaglethorpe would add a certain something to the verisimilitude of a story, which is to say the truthfulness or the believability of the story.  But such is the jealousy of other storytellers that they cannot bear to have my name overshadow theirs.  In truth I am probably better known in any case as an adventurer in my own right than as a teller of the adventures of others.  But in any case, there was a pie.

I had been traveling for days through the snowy forests of Brest, which of course one might associate with a nicely roasted breast of chicken, but that is not necessarily the case.  To be sure I have had one or two nicely roasted chickens during my travels in this dark, cold country, as I traveled from one little hamlet to the next.  I would say though that I’ve eaten far more mutton and beef stew than roasted chicken breast.  I suppose this has to do with the fact that eggs are dear, though I’ve seldom found an inn that didn’t offer a scrambled egg on porridge of morning. In fact, in distant Aerithraine, where I was once privileged to spend a fortnight with the Queen, I have had some of the finest breast of chicken dinners that any man has ever enjoyed. But notwithstanding this, there was a pie.

I had trudged through the snow for days, forced to lead my poor horse Hysteria who had taken lame with a stone, through drifts as high as my belt.  So I was cold and I was tired.  More than this though, I was hungry.  And above the smell of pine and frost and people and horses and smoke, there was the smell of that pie.  It smelled so very good.  It smelled of warmth and happiness and home and my dear old mother.  It was a pie for the ages.

I would not steal a pie.  I did not steal this pie.  Though I have been most unfairly accused of being a thief on one or two or sixteen occasions, I have never been convicted of such a heinous crime, except in Theen where the courts are most unfairly in control of the guilds, and in Breeria which is ruled by a tyrant, and one time in Aerithraine when the witnesses were all liars.  So as you can see, I am not one to steal a pie.  But being concerned that the pie might be getting too cold, I reached up to check the temperature.  It was at this moment that I was laid upon by at least two pairs of rough hands.

“This is a fine welcome for a stranger to your town,” said I.

They called me varlet and scoundrel and dastard and pie thief and tossed me bodily into the confines of a small shack just out behind the structure in which the pie had rested on the window ledge.  I looked around in the darkness.  It was not true darkness to be sure, because the shack was poorly put together, with wide gaps through which the cold and frosty air entered with impunity. It struck me immediately that it would not be too hard work to bust out of this prison, but I waited and put my eye to one of the cracks to see if my attackers had left and to see if I could spot what they intended for Hysteria my valiant steed, which is to say my horse.

The two ruffians who had attacked me were making their way back to the front of the nearest building and just beyond them I could see one short fellow attempting to lead Hysteria away, though she tossed her head unhappily and pulled at the reigns.  I sighed, and could see the steam from my breath forming a little cloud just beyond the confines of the little shack.

“So,” said a small voice, and I turned to peer into the darkened corner of the shack.  “They have caught another pie thief.”