L. Frank Baum - Oz 40

by Merry Go Round In Oz

  “Very well, begin,” the Prince said inflexibly.

  Fess ventured to fetch a stool for the little knight-though after a glance at the Prince’s frowning face, he made sure it was a hard one-and the others eagerly drew up their chairs and prepared to listen.

  Chapter 20

  WELL,” said Sir Greves sadly, “it all begins with my character. I was born of a great and noble family, as Your Highness knows, and was intended from babyhood to be a knight like my forebears, but my true nature-” he heaved a guilty sigh “is that of a homebody. I confess it freely. I love to sit on my front porch and rock. I love to eat apples and read. I love to work in my beds of fleur-de~lys and trefoils and roses. Most of all I love to cook! Yes, it’s true, I will conceal nothing from Your Highness. Cookery is my true talent, and my secret

  passion.” Sir Greves rolled his round blue eyes mournfully. “Naturally, I had to keep it secret. Why, most knights wouldn’t be caught dead in a kitchen. And if I’d been caught alive in one-and actually enjoying it-well, I’d have been disgraced forever, and so would all my brothers and cousins and uncles and ancestors. So I had to sneak around-cook in the middle of the night. I ended by firing most of the servants, so they wouldn’t find out. Oh, I didn’t fire them all at once-somebody would have started wondering why, you know! I just fired them one by one. I was very clever about it. Oh, I’ve been learning stealthy ways for years!”

  Sir Greves sighed, blew his nose, and went on brokenly, “Take my recipes. I’ve been collecting recipes for years, in the most underhanded ways. By now, I venture to say my collection rivals any woman’s in the kingdom, if it doesn’t surpass them all. I have every one of the 539 best recipes in Halidom, as well as seventy-four from Troth-and that includes the Blue-Armor-Plate Special that Queen Paty always makes for King Armo on his birthday. I’ve even invented fifty-two of my own. One is a new way to make martlet pudding using cinnamon instead of salt. It’s lovely.” The little knight sniffed, and his eyes refilled. “I know how to use marshmallows to sweeten rose-applesauce, too-and how to take rings off tables with quatrefoil bulbs soaked in vinegar.

  “Why, that’s my method!” cried Queen Farthingale, sitting

  up with a start. “My own private and exclusive method! I’ve told nobody in all the world except my butler and Lady Mace!”

  “But Lady Mace told her butler, too,” Sir Greves explained apologetically. “And he told the upstairs maid, and the maid told her nephew, who happens to be my page-and the page told me. I sent my formula for armor-polish in return-via the same grapevine. The formula using mulberry seeds and sand.”

  “Oh,” said the Queen, blinking. “Well, it’s very good,” she added honestly.

  “I got it from the Duchess of Bezanty,” Sir Greves confessed. “I’ve swapped household hints with all the good housewives of the kingdom-and the ladies never knew I was doing it. My spies are everywhere-in all the best kitchens and
  “Now how on earth did you do that?” King Herald said in astonishment.

  “Organization,” Sir Greves said simply. “Plus a dreadful talent I have discovered in myself for accomplishing things by devious and roundabout methods.”

  The Prince, whose stern expression had begun to relax somewhat as he listened, scowled again at the word “roundabout,” and Sir Greves blushed dismally arid hurried on.

  “Well-anyway, you can see why I have always evaded my duty in the matter ofjousting with Sir Gauntlet. I simply hate to fight! I’m scared to fight! Fighting is not in my nature, any

  more than it is in any housewife’s. I know I should uphold the honor of my family’s traditions, but I just can’t do it!”

  “Get on to the Circlet part,” Prince Gules said curtly. He was beginning to feel sorry for Sir Greves, and he didn’t want to.

  “I am on to it,” the fat little knight sighed. “It’s all mixed up with these other things-cooking, and spies, and being scared to joust, and the family honor, and my conscience. Especially my conscience. All these things led up to it, but my final downfall came about through the peddler, Roundelay. I presume you’ve-met Roundelay by now?” Sir Greves faltered, glancing at the Prince. “Er-yes. I thought you might have. Well, I have long been acquainted with this-this man. I began by buying biscuit cutters from him, and soon discovered he was quite willing to smuggle recipes in and out of Halidom for me. He was ideal for my purpose, because he was always traveling, and could pass through the Crenelated Wall whenever he pleased. I didn’t realize that I was ideal for his purpose too. I didn’t even know he had a purpose,” Sir Greves said gloomily.

  “Well, one day-months ago, it was-when Roundelay brought me my regular supply of doughnut-holes and a couple of smuggled recipes, he brought me something else, too. It was a piece of Pi.” Sir Greves paused, clasped his chubby hands, and closed his eyes in a manner more eloquent than words. “Oh, Your Highness! If you had ever tasted Pi-”

  “I have,” said the Prince.

  The knight’s eyes flew open. “Oh. Yes, of course, in Roundabout, I presume. Well?” he threw out both arms dramatically. “I appeal to you-to your palate-to your every taste-bud! Isn’t it simply scrumptious?”

  “Yes,” the Prince admitted.

  “Never had I tasted such delectability! I was completely bowled over by it. I lost my heart to it! In fact, I lost my head over it. From that moment, my life was ruled by one obsession-to obtain the recipe for Pi. Naturally, since Pi is the Ro national dish, the recipe is secret. And no matter how I begged Roundelay would not reveal it. However, he often sold me a Pi or two, and in the privacy of my kitchen I have frequently worked far, far into the night, trying to figure out the ingredients and their proportions, by experimenting and tasting. As Your Highness can see, I have grown quite fat from my long and devoted research on this problem-my armor doesn’t even fit me very well any more. But it was all to no avail. I could not discover the secret of the recipe.

  “Meanwhile, Roundelay and I had become old cronies. He had never told on me, not once, about my cooking, and I trusted him completely. Besides, he was the only living soul I could talk to about the subjects nearest to my heart. Recipes. Seasonings. Pi. I didn’t know he was a scoundrel!” Sir Greves sniffed broken-heartedly, then bravely controlled himself and went on.

  “And so, last Tuesday, I confided my other problem to him I told him I was a failure-as a knight and an upholder of family

  tradition. I confessed that I was afraid to fight Sir Gauntlet-as well as a good deal too fat, now. I told him the whole awful story. It made me feel a whole lot better. And it must have be he lust the chance the scoundrel was waiting for! He told me he had in his pack that minute a potion that would make any man brave and unconquerable-and that he would give it to me, in exchange for a small favor. The favor was … well, It was to help him get into the King’s castle some night, for just five minutes.”

  “And you agreed?” Prince Gules cried, leaping to his feet.

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, Your Highness mustn’t think that of me!” babbled Sir Greves. “I refused! Oh, I refused staunchly and indignantly! I informed him that courage, invincibility, even the restored honor of my family was too low a price to offer for my integrity!”

  “Oh. So what happened then?” said the Prince sitting down

  again.

  “He raised the price,” the knight said piteously. “He told me he’d throw in the recipe for Pi. And I-I capitulated.”

  There was a grieved silence in the Throne Room for a moment. Finally the little knight fetched an enormous sigh, and gloomily took up the story again.

  “I simply could not resist. Besides, I told myself-quite truthfully, you must admit-that there was nothing valuable left in the castle anyhow, except the last Golden Circlet, and that was

  guarded day and night by the Wyver. I didn’t see how Roundelay could do any harm in just five minutes. I didn�
�t even suppose he wanted to. I thought being only a peddler, you know, he’d probably never been inside a castle in his life, and just wanted to take a quick look around. It even touched me, rather. I have a very kind heart. Well-I let him in. I had my key to the Knights’ Chess-and-Checker Room, of course. And what did he use his five minutes for? To drug the Wyver and s-steal the C-Circlet!”

  Sir Greves choked up, and for a few moments was busy wiping his eyes and blowing his reddened nose.

  Fess said thoughtfully, “No wonder you fainted next morning, when I told you the news.

  “Oh, it was dreadful! Dreadful! To wake up on a nice sunshiny morning, with the Tourney all arranged at last, and the family honor about to be vindicated, and my blue rosebush just coming into bloom-and find out I was a traitor!” Sir Greves burst into a fresh flood of tears. “And I’ll tell you the bitterest blow of all!” he sobbed. “That potion never. did me a bit of good! I drank it, all right, but with the Circlet gone, there couldn’t be any Tourney anyhow. Neither Sir Gauntlet nor I could so much as lift a lance!”

  “Oh, I say, old fellow, don’t cry so hard,” King Herald said uncomfortably. Even the floor around Sir Greve’s stool had become quite damp, and his collar was simply soaked. “Now that the Circlet’s found, maybe you can fight your Tourney bravely after all. Or has the potion worn off?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m too miserable to care,” replied the knight. Stumbling to his feet, he flung out both arms toward the Prince. “I’ve been miserable ever since the Circlet was taken, and I’ll go right on being miserable until I’m punished! I insist that I be exiled immediately to the Sandbar Sinister-without so much as a f-frying pan to comfort me-and left there for the rest of my natural life!”

  “You have certainly behaved very badly,” the Prince agreed in as forbidding a voice as he could summon. “As for your punishment, I will have to think the matter over. Pellets, take him into some other room to wait.”

  After the door had closed behind Sir Greves, the entire company sat in gloomy silence for some moments. The fact was, they were all terribly sorry for Sir Greves, in spite of the trouble he had caused-and finally Dorothy ventured to say so.

  “After all, it’s not his fault he likes to cook,” she pointed out. “If people had just let him do it openly, without making him think it was something disgraceful, he’d never had begun all that sneaking around and smuggling. Maybe he’d never even have got acquainted with Roundelay!”

  “It’s not his fault he’s a coward, either,” said the Cowardly Lion moodily. He cast an embarrassed glance at the Prince. “I suppose he shouldn’t have sidestepped that joust, but I can’t help sympathizing-family tradition or no family tradition.”

  “Well, that family tradition is just silly!” Dorothy said.

  “Oh, my dear, I think so too!” exclaimed Queen Farthingale, leaning toward her confidentially. “Of coursel I never liked to say so-but really! For a couple of good friends like him and Sir Gauntlet to go rushing at each other with lances when they aren’t even annoyed-!”

  “By Jove! It does seem a bit nit-witted, eh? When you put it like that,” exclaimed King Herald, much struck.

  “Yes-but he should have put a stop to the tradition,” said the Prince. “Instead, he kept avoiding the jousts and then feeling guilty about it-and look what a mess that got him into! What’s more, he’s committed treason against his king and country, whether k was exactly his fault or not. And treason’s a bad crime, and it must be punished, and our laws say it must be punished with exile. I can’t see any way out of doing just what he asked, and sending him to the Sandbar Sinister.”

  “Oh, poor Sir Greves!” Flitter burst out.

  “He now perceives The webs he weaves When he deceives! Oh, poor Sir Greves! He’s now bereft With nothing left But guilt for theft! Oh, poor Sir… Greft!”

  He finished distractedly. “Oh, what a mess! Isn’t it, Fess?”

  “Yes,” sighed Fess, causing the Cowardly Lion to look at them both in some alarm, and hope the rhyming habit wasn’t catching.

  “It’s an awful mess!” the Prince said crossly. “Because I feel sorry for him too, and I don’t want to exile him. And that makes me feel sorry for myself!”

  “I even feel sorry for the Roundheads,” Robin said.

  He had spoken in his usual quiet voice, and had more or less assumed he was talking to himself, since people seldom heard him unless he shouted. Therefore he turned a little pink when everybody stared at him.

  “You feel sorry for the Roundheads?” Prince Gules repeated. “But they were the true thieves!”

  “No, they weren’t-Roundelay was!” Robin said stubbornly. “Roundelay’s the only sly one in the whole bunch. The others are ever so nice and jolly, and not a bit wicked, are they Merry? And they were so happy, and now everything’s ruined for them, and they’ll have to go back to being peddlers again. All they ever wanted was to stay home like other folks, and have something grand to be proud of. That’s what they need most of all, l think. A nice, grand king to be proud of.”

  “And a new National Magic Possession?” Dorothy added doubtfully.

  “Roundelay was the only one who cared a pin about that!”

  Robin declared. “They need a new National Occupation a lot worse. They can’t sell their wheels and balls and things any more, you see, because everybody’s old ones are still good. Seems to me they’ve got to find something else to sell.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Dorothy said thoughtfully.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” exclaimed King Herald. “Boy’s got a head on his shoulders, eh, Gulie?”

  “Yes, well…” Prince Gules sighed and waved a hand. “Very well, I feel sorry for the Roundheads too. But I can’t solve everybody’s problems, Papa. I still have plenty of my own. Sir Greves must be sent to the Sandbar Sinister, because I don’t know what else to do with him. He can’t be a knight after this, and he wouldn’t be happy in Pax-on-Argent now anyhow. As for the last Circlet, I shall start on another Quest for it tomorrow morn-mg, and I shall search until I find it. If I don’t, the people will never recover their skills, and Halidom will be no more prosperous than Roundabout.”

  There was a short silence while everybody glumly contemplated the prospect of another Quest.

  “Well, you don’t need to start until tomorrow night, Prince dear,” Flitter squeaked comfortingly. “You know-‘go by night and return by day.’”

  “That pesky Oracle again!” Fess groaned.

  Prince Gules smiled crookedly and propped his chin on his hand. “I’d just managed to forget it. I suppose I should try once more to figure out the verse that’s left. Somebody read it to me.”

  Flitter, Dorothy, Fess and the Cowardly Lion all recited it

  wearily:

  “Circlet Three, a tiny thing,

  Is in the hands of a future king.

  Go by night, return by day,

  The Circlet find in a roundabout way.”

  “Oh, is that one of the Oracle’s verses?” inquired King Herald in an interested tone. “But what does it mean, Gulie?”

  “If we only knew!” retorted the Prince.

  “Well, my dear boy!” exclaimed Queen Farthingale. “Flitter’s quite right! That one line obviously means that you should start the journey at night and come home by day!”

  “Or else it just means we’ve already done that,” the Prince pointed out. “When we first left here, you know, we went secretly, at night. And we came back by daylight, today.”

  “It’s always telling us to do something we’ve already done,” the Cowardly Lion grumbled.

  “And everything it tells us might mean something else!” Dorothy added in exasperation. “‘Roundabout way’! We were sure that meant the roundabout road through the forest. Then we were sure it meant the city of Roundabout! Now we know it didn’t mean either one, because it was Circlet Two we found in the Tower, not Circlet Three.”

  ‘T~ getting awfully confused,” murmured the Q
ueen faintly.

  “You’ll get more and more so, the better you know this Oracle,” Fess assured her. “Take that ‘future king’, for instance. How is anybody going to identify a king when he’s not a king

  yet?”

  “Oh, I say! I say!” King Herald burst out. “Gulie is a future

  king!”

  “But Papa, the Circlet isn’t in my hands!” the Prince said patiently. “It can’t mean me.”

  Robin giggled suddenly. “Maybe it means me. I’m a past king now, but I was a future king for a while there, I suppose. It would have taken an Oracle to know it, too, because I certainly didn’t look like one!”

  The others smiled, and Dorothy opened her mouth to say something, then instead turned slowly and studied Robin. “When did they crown you king of Roundabout?” she asked in a thoughtful voice.

  “Well-just yesterday morning, wasn’t it, Merry?” Robin answered in surprise. So much had happened since then that it seemed at least a month ago.

  “Yesterday morning,” the Prince repeated. He, too, straightened to peer speculatively at Robin. “And we found the Oracle the day before that. So you were still a future king then .

  “But-but I don’t have the Circlet!” Robin stammered. They were all peering at him so intently that his ears began to feel quite hot. “Where would I carry anything like that?” he protested, pointing to the Circlets on the Prince’s head and arm.

  “Circlet Three isn’t like that,” said the Prince. “The verse is right, it’s tiny-just big enough to fit around my thumb.” “It’s a finger ring..” Fess explained.