by Jane Yolen
“IF YOU MEAN TO EAT ME,” she shouted, “DO IT! JUST DON’T POKE!”
Master Geck looked taken aback, as if thinking, Here is a wee speck of a girl who should be shaking in terror and is instead shouting furiously at me.
Ha! thought Snail. He doesn’t like surprises. She wondered if that was what Mistress Softhands meant about being unsubtle.
But the ogre looked even more taken aback when, with a groaning scrape and a few thumps and bangs, a back door to the room suddenly opened, and the prince Snail had spilled drinks on just that morning rolled across the floor to fetch up against their feet, a sputtering torch in his hand and a pack on his back. He didn’t seem to notice the giant ogre. Instead, he gazed dazedly up at Snail.
“You!” he said, sounding more confused than angry.
“Who?” Master Geck said, sounding only confused.
That’s when the prince looked behind him and, noticing the ogre for the first time, gulped.
“Are you?” the prince said, as if completing the ogre’s question. Standing quickly, he held the torch aloft. “Who . . . Are . . . You?”
Snail thought he was trying to use the Princely Voice, the voice that was used to make servants move faster. But it squeaked a little too much to impress her, let alone the ogre.
The prince and the ogre began circling each other, shouting “Who?” and “Who” back and forth like a couple of demented owls, almost as if they were playing catch-’em with words instead of the usual chaff-stuffed balls.
None of it made any sense to Snail. She was much more angry than scared now, and she didn’t care how or why the prince was here, only grateful—in a furious sort of way—for the escape, even if it was only momentary. She certainly didn’t want to get eaten or beaten or otherwise abused. The only thing that mattered, she decided, was that for the first time since she came into the room, the ogre’s attention was elsewhere.
Grabbing the stool with both hands, she reached up as high as she could and slammed Master Geck in the back of his head, where his neck and shoulders met. The force of it ran down both her arms. She hoped it would fell him.
The stool shattered and Snail felt a sting as a splinter from the broken stool jabbed her palm.
The ogre grunted in pain, staggered, but didn’t fall. When he turned to face Snail, one hand on the back of his neck, he squinted down at her, his piggy eyes half shut. She hoped it was from pain.
Then he laughed. “Now I am going to eat you for certain.”
She believed him, and—in her terror—glared.
The ogre took one step toward her and his piggy eyes suddenly glazed over, like one of Master Bonetooth’s finest fygeye confections. Then, he spun around, grunted “Why?” turned completely grey, and fell forward, a mountain crumbling.
Snail stared at the ogre’s lower back, at the knife jammed in it, as if it had grown there on its own.
The princeling must be a lot tougher than he looks, she thought. And faster, too. She hadn’t even seen him move behind the dungeon master in all their circling.
“Thank you, sir,” she said to the princeling, but he seemed dazed.
“For what?” he asked.
“For that,” she said pointing to the downed ogre.
“Oh, Puck!” he said.
Seemed an odd reaction to his kill, but Snail didn’t have time to think about it. She reached for the knife and yanked it out with two hands. It was an elegant thing, looking much too thin and much too pretty to kill something as big and ugly as Master Geck. She dropped it, point first into her apron pocket, then grabbed the prince’s hand and pulled him toward the now-gaping back door of the cell through which he’d so recently fallen.
“I’m getting out of here,” she said, before suddenly remembering her manners, and adding, “Your Serenity. And I apologize for touching you. But I suggest you come with me.”
“Oh, Puck!” he said again, wiping his hand on a silk handkerchief that seemed to have been stuffed up a sleeve. But he followed her as she stepped around the fallen ogre. The prince’s still-guttering torch illuminated the door he’d just fallen through.
As if suddenly awakening, the prince said, “We cannot go that way. There are . . . creatures up there waiting. We need to go that way.” He gestured toward the front of the cell.
“No getting out that way,” she told him, working hard to keep her voice low and sensible when really she just wanted to scream like Yarrow. “Too many guards.” And cells and skellies, she thought, but didn’t say that, not knowing what princes were sensitive about—except about being touched. And splattered. “We’re going up your new stairs.”
“No!” he said, using the Princely Voice again, that hard, low command that all royalty was born with. It didn’t squeak this time.
I guess it’s easier to use the Prince Voice on an unarmed midwife’s apprentice than on a giant ogre with a belt full of knives. Then she remembered the knife she’d popped into her apron. Well, not unarmed anymore, I suppose, but certainly not an ogre.
“No!” the prince said again, using the Voice.
As a lowly apprentice, she had no way of disagreeing further, and simply followed him to the cell door. Since it was only locked, not bespelled, he opened it with a single wave of his hand and went through.
I wish an apprentice’s life was that easy, she thought, going after him. Or an escape.
Aspen Spies Skellies and Cells
I cannot believe she touched me, Aspen thought. The cheek of the girl!
Back home her kind were not even allowed to be regular house servants. They were the lowest of the low, fit for only the tannery or the mill or any of a dozen other filthy jobs that Aspen had but a vague knowledge of.
Of course it seems I am in dire need of allies at the moment. So needs must. Even if her people are . . . He shuddered and stopped himself. She seems capable enough. She might be useful, if only as a hostage, something to trade if I have to. He held back a giggle: A hostage for the Hostage Prince!
He thought of her whipping her knife out of the ogre’s back and popping it into her apron pocket, pretty as you please.
Where did she have it hidden? Surely they searched her apron before putting her in a cell. And how did she get it out and stab the ogre so quickly? And why did she first hit him with the stool?
He shook his head. So many questions and no time to answer them. The only thing he was certain of: she was not going to lead him. Especially not up the stairs he had bounced down. That led directly into the arms of the two boggarts. He was the prince; he had to be the leader.
“This way,” he said, petulantly turning left—the no-exit way, according to the girl. But if she had not been that way before, how could she know?
“But,” she said, “there’s no door out that end.”
“Follow!” he hissed. She had been obeying his kind her whole life and did so now, quick-stepping after him. But he could feel her glare between his shoulder blades.
For some reason, it made him smile.
His torch finally guttered out, leaving them in a gloomy hall. Only a single flickering candle lit the narrow hallway as they walked three dozen paces past rows of cells occupied by only the skeletons of long-dead prisoners. Probably left there to intimidate the weak-minded underclasses. He refused to let them intimidate him. Much.
“Oh!” the girl behind him suddenly cried. “Thank you, Your Serenity!”
Then she charged past him muttering something, and rattled the door of a cell that was actually inhabited by live prisoners.
“Mistress Softhands!” she called.
Aspen peered through the gloom into the cell. Three squat old midwives—as alike as toads—as well as one sylph-like assistant, who would be pretty if someone gave her a bath, all clambered to the bars squawking and squeaking at once. The only word Aspen understood was when the girl said, “Quiet!” in th
e same tone he had used on her just moments before.
She is certainly a quick study, he thought, almost in admiration. But simply saying the word in that tone does not make her a princess. She was born without magic and with an ability only to serve.
Still the women quieted—a little.
But when they spotted him, they began gasping, curtsying, and saying, “Your Serenity!” all at the same time.
It wasn’t an improvement. And it was much too loud. They will have the guards back in a minute, he thought, and that will not do any of us any good.
“Come,” he said to the girl. “We do not have time for this.” He looked again at the awkward mass of bowing servantry. “Whatever this is.”
The girl whipped her head around to glare at him, then with a visible effort turned the glare into a friendly smile. It puffed her cheeks and thickened her face. Made her look less fey.
It wasn’t an improvement either.
“But, Your Serenity, we have to free them,” she said. “They’re my friends.”
The other girl—by her apron and striped hose, an apprentice as well—shot his girl a look that did not seem all that friendly to Aspen. Not my girl, he quickly reminded himself. He would have to find out her name. Knowing something’s name made it the more biddable.
“No!” the caged girl shouted. “We’re not going anywhere with you!” Folding her arms, she backed away from the cell door. “You’re the reason we’re in here. You’re just trying to get us into more trouble.”
Aspen was not sure how much more trouble they could get in. Did they not see all the skeletons on the way in? It was obvious that few folks ever left the dungeons alive.
Two of the midwives looked as if they agreed with the pretty apprentice, taking up positions next to her on the back wall, arms folded angrily across their ample chests.
“Mistress Softhands?” the knife girl said to the last midwife at the cell bars.
The old toad turned her wrinkled brown face up and looked at the girl with what Aspen assumed was a kindly expression. He could not really tell through the wrinkles and the gloom, nor with the miles of social strata between them.
Reaching through the bars, the midwife patted the girl on the cheek.
“Go, Snail,” she said. “There’s blood on your apron and yon former hostage prince carries a traveling pack.”
“Hostage prince?” The girl turned and stared at him. Or glared. It was hard to distinguish in the little bit of hallway light.
The old midwife added, “I don’t think leaving with you two will do much to improve my lot.”
“It might?” the girl said, turning it into a question, as if even she didn’t believe it.
The midwife didn’t answer the question, but said, “Go,” again, and then changed her cheek pat to a fairly sharp cuff on the girl’s ear. “And quickly, too! Be a rabbit today, Snail!”
The girl backed away rubbing at her ear. “Yes, mistress,” she said quietly.
Well, that was a waste of time, Aspen thought, before realizing he now had the girl’s name. Snail. She had best be faster than that! He grabbed her by the wrist—far more suitable than her grabbing him—and dragged her down the increasingly dark hall. On the way, he had another thought. Now she knows I’m the Hostage Prince. She could trade me as quickly as I could trade her. Perhaps she was a dangerous person to travel with after all.
They didn’t get far. As the girl had predicted, the hallway ended in a very short distance at a plain wall with a final sconce holding an unlit torch.
“See,” she snarled. Then, remembering her station, she quickly changed it to, “I believe I informed you thusly, Your Serenity.” And gave a bow that Aspen felt wasn’t nearly deep enough.
He did not deign to answer her. Instead, he stomped over to the sconce and pulled the unlit torch out. Smirking haughtily at the girl, he pulled down on the now-empty sconce.
It didn’t budge.
Frowning, he pulled it harder.
Nothing.
Turning to face the sconce completely, he dropped the unlit torch and pulled hard with both hands. When that didn’t work, he tried shoving the sconce from side to side.
It shifted ever so slightly in the stones, but no secret passage appeared to lead them to freedom.
He looked down at the torch as if the fault lay with that piece of wood, hay, and pitch. Then he looked at the girl. She was staring at him almost with pity, which was much worse than the smile. And infinitely worse than the glare.
She opened her mouth to speak.
“I know,” he interrupted, “you have informed me thusly.” He pointed down the hall. “Back.”
The midwives and their assistant looked at them strangely as they strode past a second time, but none dared to say anything to the prince, escaping hostage or no.
I’m sure they will be more than happy to tell the next noble who stops by all about the two of us, Aspen thought. An underling’s freedom had been bought for far less. He realized, having both a knife and a sword, he could easily silence them all, but he would not buy his freedom that dearly. Not slaying three old women and two girls. That might be an Unseelie thing to do, but—he had no doubt of it now—he was still Seelie at the core.
During the three dozen paces back to the cell that held the dead ogre and the stairs, Aspen thought about whether or not he should pass it by and try to go out the easier way, past the guard station.
But there might be too many guards at the station and Puck knows how many soldiers at the top of the stairs, he thought. They were just going to have to risk the two boggarts that had been stalking him down the halls. Maybe he could bluff his way by. Or maybe he and the girl could dispatch them with sword, dagger, and some noble magic. She was mighty quick with her knife.
Still, he was not hopeful. The two at the top of the secret stairs had been hunters, assassins. They would be expecting trouble. The ogre, for all his bulk, had been slow and unsuspecting. And as everybody knows, they are not, he reminded himself, a subtle race.
And further, he admitted to himself dismally, I have not had really proper sword training since I was seven. Certainly not enough to best trained soldiers in a small setting. He had spells, of course, but the dungeon was surely warded against all major spellcraft, and though the girl was gifted with that dagger, there were two creatures—not just one—waiting above.
But his worries about the two creatures were suddenly swept aside, swamping all that he knew, much like a mighty bore in a river overturning even the most balanced boat, for when they reached the ogre’s interrogation cell, just outside the door, Aspen all but tripped over two bodies stretched out in the hall. Even in the small light thrown by the cell’s candle, he could see that their throats had been savagely cut and they were still bleeding into the rough dungeon floor. It had been so quietly and efficiently done, he had heard nothing.
Grabbing the candle, he knelt down, and held the light close to the boggarts’ faces, noted they were hairy, pointy-nosed, and very dead.
“Boggarts!” came a voice at his ear. “What are they doing down here? They surely weren’t there when we came out.” It was the girl, Snail.
He did not say it aloud, but he was certain they were the two assassins who had been after him. He smiled and everything inside of him seemed to let go. Nothing to worry about anymore, he thought.
Keeping his voice steady, he said, “Never mind them. We do not know them. They mean nothing. We will go in, circumvent the dead ogre, and head up the secret stairs.”
Surprisingly, she interrupted him. “Circumvent? What’s that mean?”
“It means,” he said, “to go around.”
“Then say go around,” she muttered, adding a bit more loudly, “if it pleases Your Serenity.”
He thought the addition of the politeness at the end hardly excused her tone in the beginning, but
he also felt that they were running out of time.
I will try to correct her behavior later. Looking at the boggart bodies, he couldn’t help adding to himself, If there is a later. To Snail he said, “I know the way out from the top of the stairs.” He used his strongest Princely Voice, as if going out that way had always been his intention. And it was true. Well at least it had been true before the assassins had arrived. And now it was true again. The rest—well, it was bluff. He knew it. The girl might know it, too. But since she was of the underclass, he was certain she would never say any such thought aloud. “So, are you ready to stop arguing and—”
“Who killed them?” Snail asked, interrupting again. “And why?” She looked up at him with a kind of childlike puzzlement, as if this were a maze she could not think her way through.
“Why should I care?”
“Because someone is quite the dab hand with quiet butchery,” she said. “And we don’t know which side he’s on.”
Aspen wanted to ignore her. She was only a midwife’s apprentice, after all. But his hand holding the candle obviously felt differently, because it suddenly began trembling, sending bouncing shadows across the stone walls.
He realized that now they had a brand-new worry. Who—indeed—had killed the assassins? And why? The girl had put her finger on the open wound and had not flinched. On the other hand, he had closed his eyes and tried to ignore it.
This, he thought, is possibly a worse worry than the others combined.
“Let us get out of here and into the light,” he said. Surely I have been traipsing around in these dungeons long enough for dawn to be near. “Everything looks better there.” It was something his father used to say.
And maybe—he hoped—it is true. After all, nothing could look any worse. Of that he was now sure.
SNAIL’S FIGHT
Into the light. That suddenly sounded like the best idea in the world.
Following the prince—because that was what her class was trained to do since birth—Snail thought about what she’d just witnessed. As the prince had checked out the two dead boggarts, she’d stared at them over his shoulder.
