The Wombanditos

by Andrew Einspruch

  Lorch let the cart go, but his face remained neutral and his eyes on her until BdB rounded a corner and the castle gate was no longer in sight.

  Eloise’s stomach tightened. Would he rush off and tell someone? Would there suddenly be a squadron of guards ready to haul her home? She hoped not. She was really looking forward to a day out. But if a retrieval crew showed up, well, so be it.

  They rolled past the town walls and out into the countryside, following the Queen’s Roadway for a few strong lengths before turning off onto a smaller road toward Mooondale and Lower Glenth. BB and BdB kept up a steady flow of amiable conversation. It had been BdB’s first trip to Brague, and the horse’s chatter revealed a gossipy fascination with the castle and town, especially with its equine goings-on. “Did you know, BB, did you know, did you know there are establishments in Brague that are just for horses? Horses only, BB.” The horse trotted, neck crooked, keeping one eye on the road while the other looked up at BB in the driver’s seat.

  “Actually, I had, indeed, heard such things, yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell me beforehand? You left me to figure that out on my own?”

  BB wiped a hand across his face. “Never occurred to me to say anything. Sorry. But it’s not like you asked, either.”

  “How am I to know to ask you about something that I don’t know exists?”

  “Fair point.”

  “Do you know what goes on in those places?” BdB looked scandalized. “Can you guess?”

  “I’m guessing that one might have something to nibble and something to drink. And one might enjoy the company of other horses.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course, there’s that. But gambling, BB! Gambling! They gamble using oats for wagers!”

  “BdB, are you telling me that there is gambling taking place right under the nose of our fair queen?”

  “Under her nose? No, she wasn’t there. Not that I saw.”

  “Figure of speech, BdB.”

  “Oh. Sorry, I can’t always tell. There was one Percheron there, a huge stallion who wore something that made him smell of flowers.”

  “Flowers?”

  “Flowers, BB. A stallion who smelled of flowers. Like wisteria and frangipani. I smelled it with my own nose. He had a Hanoverian mare on one side and an Arabian mare on the other. He called them his ‘good luck charms’. Colt, oh, colt, they were pretty. Anyway, the Percheron was wagering bushels at a time. Bushels, BB! Of oats!”

  “Is that a fact, BdB?”

  “It is! It is! I saw it with my own eyes, BB.”

  “Well, that’s something. What were they gambling on? Cards? Dice?”

  “Humans! They were gambling on humans running foot races! They had this circle, and humans raced around it.”

  “You don’t say, BdB.”

  “I do say, BB. I say it very much. Humans!”

  “Why would anyone wager perfectly good oats on a bunch of humans running in a circle?”

  “That is the salient question, BB, I daresay. Made no sense to me at all. No sense at all.”

  Eloise had never heard of such entertainment in Brague. She caught Jerome’s eye and gave a questioning shake of her head. Jerome shook his back. It made her wonder what else went on that she was ignorant of.

  “So?” asked BB.

  “So what?”

  “So, did you place a wager, BdB?”

  The horse stopped talking, although the cart kept moving. The pause stretched. Suddenly, Böyden let loose the deepest laugh Eloise had ever heard. “Why, Basilio de Bardigiano, you bet on a human!” His guffaws were infectious, and Eloise found she could hardly keep from laughing herself.

  If horses could blush, BdB would have looked like a beetroot.

  “Did you… Did you…” BB could barely get the words out through his laughter.

  “Did I what?” The horse sounded indignant. He held his chin up and trotted down the road without looking left or right.

  “Did you… Did you win?”

  Another long pause.

  BB howled with laughter, tears trickling from his eyes. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna…”

  BdB stopped and turned his neck all the way around, so he was looking straight at his business partner. “Don’t.”

  “I’m gonna, I’m gonna tell your missus!”

  “Please, BdB. Please, don’t. She wouldn’t understand.”

  “She wouldn’t understand? I don’t understand. You wasted perfectly good oats wagering on humans running around from nowhere to nowhere. Ludicrous! I thought you had more sense than that, BdB.”

  The horse hung his head, ashamed. “Apparently I don’t,” he whispered. “I thought it would be fun.”

  “Was it?” BB’s laughter faded.

  “No. I felt sorry for the humans, being forced to run around like that. Poor bloody things. I wanted to take them all home with me.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. Some humans like racing around.”

  “They didn’t look fine, BB. They looked sad. And they didn’t look like they had much choice about being there.”

  That stopped the laughter. It wasn’t such a fun or funny idea if someone treated the people badly, or forced them to participate in something exploitative.

  The cart rolled down the road for a dozen strong lengths in silence. Eloise thought this might be something she should take up with her mother when she returned.

  4

  Waft! An Autumnal Festival

  They wound their way through the autumn morning, the cart rolling past a village called Quaint, which it wasn’t, and through Working, where there was no sign that anyone did so. Eloise relaxed into the journey, even dozing a little, just long enough to miss an entire tri-village area once settled by mystics and retired scholars—the hamlets of Inner Knowledge, Outer Knowledge, and Cluelessness. The crisp autumn sky was sun-kissed and breeze-caressed, and soft flurries of leaves were visible from half a strong length away. Stands of ash, maple, and silver birch practically screamed at Eloise to enjoy their colors.

  “This is beautiful, Jeriffic,” Eloise said. “I’m glad you suggested it.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet. Mooondale makes this look like a hellscape.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, it must be something, then.”

  “I look forward to you seeing it. I think you might like it.”

  Eloise reached over and took his paw. “I’m sure I will.”

  Around mid-morning they came upon a rough-hewn wooden road sign with an “M” painted on it. Below this, someone had hammered another sign, which read “Waft! An Autumnal Festival”. Both signs pointed in the same direction.

  “There we go,” said BdB. He turned their cart left onto a side road.

  It was the grandest avenue Eloise had ever seen. Trees formed a canopy of fall splendor that towered above them, exploding russet and yellow. Of course, Eloise had seen autumn foliage before. There were plenty of deciduous trees in and around the castle grounds. But never anything so majestic or picturesque as this. From the even spacing and repeated pattern of mountain ash, claret ash, and liquidambar, it was clear that someone, decades if not centuries before, had planted this corridor with exactly this result in mind. Eloise sent that unknown person a silent thank you.

  Two strong lengths from the turnoff, the road crested a steep rise, then opened out onto a snug valley filled with more color than Eloise had thought possible. From above, it looked like a painter’s palette, ready to splash color on a canvas.

  “Wow. Just, wow,” said Eloise.

  “I know, right?” Jerome smiled. “Maybe my mother brought me here a little later in the season. This is even more dazzling than I remember.”

  BB called to them from the front of the cart. “You folks still OK back there?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Eloise. “It’s been very pleasant.”

  “That’s good to hear. Is it OK if we drop you at the edge of town? It’ll be packed, and hard to drive th
rough.”

  “And we have pears we need to get home,” said BdB.

  “Of course, of course,” said Jerome.

  BdB turned the cart around at the first building they came to, and Eloise and Jerome hopped off.

  “You folks take care,” said the horse.

  “Have a good time,” said Böyden.

  “I’m sure we will,” said Eloise. “Thank you again.”

  BB gave her a little salute. Moments later, the radish transporters had slipped away into the cover of falling leaves.

  Calling Waft! An Autumnal Festival “packed” was an understatement. It was shop-to-shop, inn-to-inn, park bench-to-gazebo full of hundreds of people from dozens of species. A party of goats strolled from tree to tree, nibbling the leaves on the ground below each and commenting on their flavors. A nest of python snakelets slithered around in the leaves, laughing at the rustling sound they made, while their parents flicked out their tongues, tasting the crisp air. In a corner of the public square, a group of children, chimps, and chinchillas piled up leaves then took turns jumping into them. Sweet mongers sold candies in the shape and color of leaves, and face painters decorated faces in a camouflage of autumn colors.

  On one street corner, an aging bard busking with a lute croaked out old seasonal standards like “The Falling Leaves of Yore,” “Your Falling Leaves,” “You’re Falling, Leaves,” and the always popular “Never Leaf Me Alone”. Twenty lengths away, another bard with a wispy beard, a black lute, and a raspy voice busked more modernist autumnal entertainment, including “The Leaves are Falling Like Your Nanna With a Bad Hip”, “The Colors of the Season Remind Me of You(r Skin Rash)”, and “It’s Autumn, and Soon a Lot of You Will Be Dead, or At Least Hibernating”.

  And the food! Eloise and Jerome wandered through a forest of market stalls offering harvest riches. Yams, gourds, and squash vied for attention with cranberries, brunchberries, and huckleberries. Eloise counted 43 distinct varieties of pumpkin, 22 sorts of beets (including one long-storing variety the farmer called The Beet Goes On), and dozens of apple varieties. And that was just the raw produce. The prepared foods went much, much farther. Eloise got Jerome to buy her a 52-ingredient pumpkin pie, which the stallholder promised would have some pumpkin in it, an acorn alfredo linguini, a slice of deep dish caramel apple pie, a parcel of orange maple sesame balls, a punnet of brunchberries, an apple and cranberry warmer to drink, all followed by an autumn spice haggleberry tea. They shared all of it, except the tea, which Jerome declared a blasphemy against haggleberries everywhere.

  Beyond the food, there was plenty of opportunity to take in the beauty of the trees. The people of Mooondale did not dress up in costume, and beyond a few handbills and leaf collages, they let all the attention go to the trees, allowing the autumn colors to speak for themselves. And speak they did, to the glory of all that was natural and great.

  They strolled through forest tracks, sometimes with groups of other sightseers, sometimes on their own. Eloise lowered the brunchberry punnet so Jerome could take another. “It’s possible that brunchberries are my favorite fruit.”

  “They wouldn’t be a bad choice.” Jerome had to eat them carefully—each berry was a third the size of his head, and an errant spray of juice could soak him.

  They stopped at a particularly large and colorful cedar. Eloise took a long, deep breath of crisp fall air, and slowly turned in a full circle, taking in the whole area. “This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Thank you, Jerome. I’ll never forget this.”

  Jerome smiled. “I’m pleased, Princess Eloise. Really pleased.”

  They walked back to the village for a last look at the main square. It was coming on mid-afternoon. “It’s time we started making our way back to Brague,” said Jerome, paying for a hot chocolate. “I’ll go arrange something.”

  “I can come, if you’d like.”

  “No need. I’ll meet you back here.”

  Eloise settled in to mind their cushion and blankets, and enjoyed some people watching. A lot of people later—more than she would have expected—Jerome returned. From the droop of his whiskers, she could tell the news was not good.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Zip. Zero.”

  “No?”

  “Carts are still arriving, but none are leaving. Tonight is the festival dance, the Waft! An Autumnal Festival Wingding. Everyone’s going. It appears there was a flaw in my planning.”

  “Could we hire transport? Like a horse or donkey with a cart?”

  Jerome shook his head. “I’m sorry, El. I really am. I checked all our options. We can either find a place to spend the night, and hope that it’s alright in the morning—that’s assuming the inns aren’t booked out, which they probably are—or we can hike back up to the turnoff and see if we can catch a lift with passing traffic. If there is any. It’s only a couple of strong lengths back.”

  Eloise pictured her mother, annoyed or angry, perhaps, but definitely more than concerned when she found Eloise absent. And then there was Odmilla. She’d lied to her by omission. If anyone was questioned, it would be Odmilla. Would she try to cover for Eloise, or would she raise an alarm? She’d do whatever she thought was in Eloise’s best interests.

  Eloise did not like the uncertainty of chancing a ride, but she liked the idea of being a no-show for dinner even less. “Let’s try to get home,” she said. “It’s early enough still. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

  5

  Wombanditos

  They found the road they came in on. To save time, Eloise put Jerome on her shoulder, tucked their cushion and blankets under her arm, and started jogging back through the avenue of trees.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve ridden up here,” said Jerome. “We used to do this constantly.”

  “Yes, we were always in a hurry to get to the next thing.”

  “Not always. We might have hurried to Engineering and Constructions class, or Weapons and Stratagems. I don’t remember rushing to Rotes and Recitations, though.”

  “Or Protocols and Procedures. We were more likely to rush in the other direction.”

  They made it to the “M” sign before the sun had moved appreciably in the sky, running past carts, horses, donkeys and scores of travelers on foot. The Waft! An Autumnal Festival Wingding would either be a hoot or a riot, given the number of people of all species heading for it. The road toward Brague was empty, but the traffic coming from the Lower Glenth direction was steady.

  “Looks promising,” said Eloise.

  “I hope so. We don’t have a lot of wait time built into our schedule.”

  “True, but we aren’t desperate yet.”

  “No, we’re not. Let’s stand a little ways up the road, so we don’t mistakenly flag down someone going to Mooondale.”

  They moved to where they had a good view in both directions, set down the cushion and blankets, and prepared to catch the next ride.

  Fifteen minutes stretched to 30, and then an hour. Standing ready to hop on a cart or carriage became sitting and waiting patiently, which slid into tossing pebbles and waiting impatiently. The turnoff to Mooondale was exceptionally popular. The road going on to Brague, on the other hand, was as lively as the architectural design for a despot’s crypt. The only person going to Brague was a Çalahtist monk, a meerkat on foot who was sworn to silence. Not much help.

  Two hours into their wait, Eloise was feeling peckish and antsy (a phrase offensive to ants, she knew). She stood up and said, “I need a private moment.”

  “Of course. I’ll give a yell if someone comes.”

  “When someone comes?”

  “Right. When.”

  Eloise walked 20 lengths into the forest, decided it was still too close to the road, and walked another 30.

  There, she found it—the largest stand of brunchberries she’d ever seen. It was half again as tall as she was, untouched, and the berries hung ripe and ready to pick
. Normally she’d insist that any fruit was washed carefully before she’d touch it, but they looked so large and ripe that she picked one and popped it straight into her mouth without even wiping it on her sleeve.

  Çalaht slurping succotash, it was divine. It was like cherubim came down from on high and sang to her tongue.

  She plucked a few more, carefully avoiding the vines’ many thorns and ignoring the berry juice staining her hands. She ate a handful all at once. Maybe it was the tiredness of a long day, but Eloise was sure she’d never tasted anything so good in her life. And there were so many. An abundance of brunchberries worthy of a celebration as grand as Waft! An Autumnal Festival. She ran back to where Jerome sat waiting.

  “Brunchberries, Jerome! Brunchberries!”

  Jerome’s eyes went wide. “Really? Where?”

  Eloise pointed vaguely in the direction she had come from. “Back there. A ways back.” She grabbed the cushion, took it out of its cover, and left the cushion with Jerome. “Won’t be a minute.” Eloise dashed back to fill the cover with berries. If she didn’t eat too many while she was at it, they’d have a cover full of berries for the ride home.

  She lost herself in picking, carefully maintaining a 10:1 ratio of berries in the cover to those in her mouth. A quarter hour later, the case was heavy with staining fruit and as full as she could get it without damaging the berries. Eloise sighed, contented, and turned to go back to the road.

  That’s when she saw them. They had surrounding her. Squint-eyed, hairy nosed, barrel-bodied, and looking tough, unkempt, and ornery.

  Wombats. Two dozen ill-clad wombats all pointing swords.

  She decided to pretend they weren’t threatening her. “G’mid-afternoon to you.”

  The biggest, squintiest of them moved slowly toward her, sniffing the air. “Well, well, well. What have we here?” He sniffed again. “And she be picking brunchberries for us.”