Boy Soldier

by Brad Beals

  Part II

  The Road

  The journey was longer than any he'd taken before, and the road was lonely. He was in the middle of one of the many long stretches between farms and villages, where he might go an entire day without seeing another person, when Miriam stopped to nibble crab apples from a stumpy tree. This was a common thing for Miriam who nibbled at anything within reach, and since Joshua knew that she would not move until she was finished, he lay down in a patch of clover at the roadside.

  He had just dozed off when he was surprised out of his napping by the sound of a child singing. It came from the thick woods across the road. So he tied Miriam to the tree, left the road, and began his way toward the singing, pushing through an undergrowth of saplings and vines, and finally into a little clearing on which stood a small, neat cottage. And on the porch of the cottage, sweeping and singing, and doing both with great energy, was a girl. Joshua began walking toward the house and was still a stone's throw away when the girl stopped suddenly and turned. Then she leaned on her broom and looked curiously at the boy soldier.

  "Who are you?" she asked with a laugh. "And what are you saving me from?"

  "I am Joshua, son of...of..." He was shaken a little at her laughing, "And why are you laughing?"

  The girl stepped off the porch. "I'm laughing because I've never seen such a sight. Are you playing a game with your friends?"

  'What do you mean?"

  "Like dress-up. When I was little I used to dress up in my mother's clothes. You know, for fun. It was a game. Is that what you're doing? Are there others with you running through the woods playing soldier too?"

  Joshua's face turned red, and he clenched his jaw so tight that had something clever to say presented itself just then he would not have been able to speak it.

  "Uh-oh," said the girl, who was only laughing with her eyes now, but that was just as bad. "You're not playing dress-up, are you? You really are going off to war. Oh, I’m a silly fool. I just assumed that you'd put on your father's helmet, made a shield out of a saddle, and forged an old wagon spring into a sword.

  Joshua's face went redder still. And he had to actually bite his tongue to keep from sputtering.

  Though the girl was an inch or two taller than he, she looked to Joshua like she was just about his age. She had the dark eyes of the people who lived in this part of the kingdom, and had he seen her under other circumstances, he might have thought her to be pretty.

  She did not look pretty to him just now.

  "Oh dear, where are my manners? Have I made you angry?"

  Joshua took a deep breath through his nose and said, "I'll have you know this sword is not an old wagon spring, it's a real sword." Josh didn't mention the helmet or shield, of course. "It's real. And it's killed real enemies of the King."

  "Not in your hand, it hasn't," said the girl. "Here. I'll show you." And before the boy could move, she hit him with the handle-end of the broom, a swat to the shoulder that nearly knocked him over.

  "Ow! What'd you do that for?" "You look like you could use the practice," said the girl circling him now and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You’re going to war, after all."

  The girl gave a little laugh and then hit him again, this time on the helmet, spinning it half-way round his head. It was a little big for him.

  "Stop it! I can't see!" He had shouted this into his backward facing helmet, so he sounded as though he were in a bucket.

  "Is that what you'll say to the king's enemies on the battlefield?" asked the girl, jumping behind him. "But maybe they'll be polite barbarians and let you adjust yourself before they take your head." Then she whacked him with the broom stick again, squarely on top of the helmet.

  Josh set the palms of his hands against the bottom of the helmet and heaved it into the air. Then he spun to face the girl who was now sweeping the porch steps and smiling and still laughing with her eyes. "Your helmet is too big," she said politely.

  Josh blinked hard and wiped the sweat from his face. He was breathing deeply and each word came out after an exhale. "I...am...a...soldier!"

  "Well, I never said you weren't," replied the girl with a sigh. "Though you're not much good for playing. Far too serious." As she finished the last step, she turned to go into the house and said over her shoulder, " There's a well on this side of the house and a pear tree on the other. You're welcome to both."

  Josh looked toward the road, then at the helmet lying on the ground and the well just beyond it. Suddenly he felt small again, and ashamed, and nothing at all like a soldier. "No thanks," he muttered quickly and made straight for the road, leaving behind the helmet, the little cottage, and the fearsome girl with the broomstick.

  The road wound on for miles, so Joshua had much time to think about what had happened. He thought of a hundred witty things to say, clever things that would have put the girl in her place as easy as pie. Of course, they were too late now. They always came too late.

  The helmet had been too big, no doubt of that, but it was the only one he had. What else was he to do when the King's summons said to come prepared? Joshua's fingers worked the handle of the shield. "At least this is made for someone my size," he said to Miriam. "And my sword, though it's not very pretty, is as sharp and as strong as a sword can be." This made him feel a little better. "Maybe it was good that I lost the helmet. If the girl had been an ogre or—God help me—a troll, I might have lost my head."

  Joshua pulled the sword from his belt. It was a fine sword. It was not engraved like William's or Father's, and it was as tarnished as an old penny, but it would do what was asked of it. And putting an edge on it had taken off some of the weight, so it felt as though it had been fashioned just for him. Joshua held the sword up to let the sunlight catch it, but there was no reflection. He would clean it properly the first chance he got. The thought of this had just about done the trick, and the shame of having been bested by a girl with a broomstick slipped farther and farther behind him with each mile.

  It was some days later that Joshua came through a gap that overlooked a wide and wooded valley. The sun was just then breaking over the eastern hills, and he could see their shadow move toward him as fast as a walking horse. It was then that he spotted the thin ribbon of smoke rising up through the dark trees.

  "How about that?" he said to Miriam, who only twitched her ears. "Maybe someone's got breakfast for us."

  The two walked the road, but because the hillside was steep, the road was cut along the hill rather than down it, so the going was slow. But as they descended into the valley, Josh began to wonder about the forest that came nearer with each turn in the road. From up high, it had looked like any other, perhaps even more inviting than it should have as it lay under the bright sun. But now, he was not so sure, for beneath the sunny treetops, the forest had an eerie darkness to it.

  The road met up with a stream that came into the valley from the east, and though the road turned and continued into the forest, the stream seemed to spread out and all but disappear in a reedy marshland that looked more and more like a swamp as it stretched deeper into the woods. In fact, Joshua soon found that the road was raised above the level of the forest floor, as though it were built on top of a dyke, and that the stream had in fact become swamp, swamp as far as he could see. They walked on for some hours in the gloom. Here and there, shafts of sunlight reached the ground, but most of the forest seemed to be in twilight.

  It gave Joshua the chills.

  The wisp of smoke they'd seen earlier had been miles away, but from such a high hill everything in the valley had looked close enough to throw stones at. So it was nearer to lunch time that the two rounded a turn and saw in the middle of the road the smoldering remains of the campfire. But more interesting than this was what lay just a ways beyond it. For stretched across the entire width of the road was an enormous rock.

  "Now how do you think that got to be there?" Joshua asked Miriam. But he was too hungry just then to think much about it—he had skipped breakfa
st, you remember. Joshua poked at the embers with his sword until he had a little pile of red coals. In the coals he set several small stones and over these he laid his lunch—a piece of dried pork, a slice of old bread. And while they warmed, he looked at the boulder again. It was a queer looking rock. And now as Joshua looked closely at it he could see that it was not one rock but several lying closely together—the largest in the middle, a moss-covered one to the left of it, and two, no, make that three to the right. A pile of big rocks on the only road leading through a swampy forest.

  Joshua scratched his head. "I'm going to have a look," he said to Miriam. But just as he took a step in that direction, Miriam gave out a snort and nipped Joshua on the shoulder.

  "Hey!" he cried. "What's gotten into you?" Miriam snorted again and threw her head up and down and then side to side. Then she looked past Joshua to the rocks in the road.

  They were moving. And not in typical rock fashion, such as tumbling, but in a breathing sort-of way.

  Joshua had never seen a real one before, but he'd heard enough about trolls to know that he was looking at one now. He glanced back down the road they'd come. He could take Miriam and quietly walk back out of the forest. But that would mean going around the valley by walking along mountainsides. He looked at the troll, back to Miriam, into the treetops, and then back at the troll. Finally, he took his lunch from the coals, took Miriam's halter and very quietly, very wisely, turned back down the road they'd just come.

  But as he faced in this new direction, Joshua couldn't help but let his mind wander ahead, up the road, out of the valley, and west, and he soon found himself thinking of the girl. Now, pride can be a difficult thing to manage. Untamable say some. It does not always sit when you tell it to sit, or stay where you want it to stay. And just when you think you've got a grip on matters, just as you're about to do the best and wisest thing, along it comes like a loud and uninvited guest.

  "No," said Joshua through clenched teeth. "I will not run away." And with that, he turned around and pulled his sword from his belt.

  The thought of running the beast through while he slept had certainly crossed the boy's mind. But there was something ugly in the idea of winning a fight that way, and when he imagined his father and brother— even his children some day—saying, "Tell us about the time you slayed the troll," he put the idea aside and readied himself.

  So with the shield firmly on his arm, and with his sword at his side, he shouted out in his best warrior holler.

  "Come and fight!"

  The great lump shifted a little, then rocked a bit, then rolled slowly over and onto its back. Then it sat up. Joshua could see its fat, ugly face now, though it had not yet looked toward him. Its eyes were small and set deep in his head. His nose was as big as a country fair yam and covered thick with warts, and a tangled wad of green hair, which Joshua had taken to be moss, sat atop its stony head.

  Suddenly, the troll lifted itself from the road where it was napping and rubbed its eyes. "WHO THERE?" it shouted and its voice rumbled like boulders rolling downhill.

  "I am Joshua! Son of Timothy!" He was using his bravest voice. "And soldier to the High King!"

  It turned to look at Joshua and Miriam and then squinted. "SOLDIER? ME SEE FLEA LEADING DOG, BUT NO SOLDIER." And then he laughed. This, apparently, was a troll with a sense of humor. "AND DID ME HEAR WORD FIGHT OR IS ME STILL DREAMING?"

  The troll reached down and picked something up from off the ground. At first, Josh thought it to be a tree trunk with a great clod of earth stuck to one end. But on closer look he saw that it was an enormous battleaxe. The troll swung it round over its head, and Joshua could hear it swoosh through the air.

  Step, parry, thrust. He knew the moves without thinking about them. He'd practiced them with his father and brother since he’d been able to walk. But still, it felt good to whisper the words to himself. Step, parry, thrust. The troll was not using a sword, but the strategy was still the same: let the shield take the blow and strike before it gets back into position.

  Joshua took a deep breath, said a prayer, then ran toward the troll, who was just now beginning to walk toward him. He stopped just out of range of the axe, and the two circled each other once. The troll yawned and then stopped to rub its eyes again.

  There would be no better time, so Joshua attacked. He swung his sword hard, a slashing blow that hit the troll on the thigh. But it did little damage other than to shock Joshua's bones as though he really had struck a rock. It also got the troll's attention. It lifted the battleaxe over its head and swung it straight down. Joshua leaped out of the way as the axe buried itself in the road. And as the troll worked it free, Joshua made another slashing blow, this time at the enormous forearm.

  He'd planned to take advantage of the troll's slow movement, so he was very much surprised when one of the enormous feet swung out and took his legs out from under him.

  "YOU KNOW WHAT ME DREAM WHILE SLEEPING?" it asked as it raised the axe again. "ROAST BOY. ME SMELLED YOU COMIN'."

  The axe came down, and Joshua, still on the ground, lifted his shield. Once, while shoeing an irritable plow horse, Joshua had been kicked clear across the barn. That was the memory that flashed before him as the axe drove the shield into him and squeezed the air from his lungs.

  The troll shifted the axe to its other hand. The shield was still in one piece, but Joshua could feel that the oak plank inside the leather had split. He scrambled backward as the troll took a long, slow step toward him. It held the axe in both hands now, working it in its grip like a batter stepping up to the plate. Joshua was crawling backward on his hands and feet, crab-like, never taking his eyes off the monster.

  Now trolls are known for their strength, not so much for their speed, and not at all for their brains. Joshua knew most of this, and before the axe fell again, he shouted out these words: "A wager!" What Joshua did not know—and some might call this luck—was that gambling was a particular weakness among the trolls.

  "WAGER?" asked the troll as it put its axe down.

  "That's right." Joshua stood quickly and began to think even quicker. "I'll bet you..." He looked up the road toward the city. "I'll bet you my life..." He looked back at the troll, to the shield on his arm, and down the road he'd come.

  "YEAH? GO ON NOW. WHAT YOU BET? YOU BET YOUR LIFE WHAT?"

  "I'll wager," said Joshua in a steadier voice, "that I can throw this shield farther than you can. If you win, I'll give myself up as your dinner, but if I win, you let me and the donkey go." The troll, being quite the troll, did not think about the fact that it could simply eat the boy with or without a wager, and it agreed quickly to this intriguing bet.

  “I’ll go first,” said Joshua.

  "NO NO,” said the troll. “ME NO DUMMY. ME GO FIRST,"

  Joshua shook his head at the troll’s shrewdness and said, "All right then, you can go first.” He handed the shield to the troll.. Then Joshua drew a line in the road with his boot heel and then crossing his arms he looked down the road toward the west, away from the city. "Whenever you're ready," he said over his shoulder.

  The troll chuckled, switched the shield from hand to hand feeling its weight, then, when it seemed to be satisfied with its grip, it launched the shield like a discus. Up, up, up it soared, well above the treetops and when it did come down, a little poof of dust on the road in the distance was all either Joshua or the troll could see of it.

  Joshua whistled at the effort. "Wow," he said. "That was good. That was really very good. Now, you pace off the distance. Count slowly and clearly, nice and loud—no funny business—and I'll throw next."

  So the troll began to count and to walk slowly down the road toward the shield. But counting is not a strength with trolls, and walking at the same time proved such a challenge for this one that he had to stop often to clear his thoughts or to remember which number came next. And by the time it had reached 15, the boy and donkey were miles away, out of the swamp, and already looking for a good place to stop for dinner
and a nap.

  He'd been foolish back there, and he knew it. "What was I thinking?" He was talking to himself, but Miriam seemed to be listening and that helped. "I could have been squashed. And now I've lost my shield too." He gripped the sword at his waist. "Well, I can tell you one thing—it's going to take a fight to the death for me to give up this." Miriam shook her head suddenly. The hot sun was bringing out the flies.

  For three days, they walked a good road through low rolling hills, and for three days the sky was blue and the breeze warm. It was not until the fourth day after meeting the troll that Joshua lost his sword.

  They had just come round a sharp turn in the road, when Joshua spotted an old, decrepit wagon—a kind of shack on wheels— sitting under a sycamore tree. Not far from this was a satyr. He sat upon a small stool at the edge of the river. In his hands he held a large chisel, the bit of which he sharpened on a large, flat, smooth river stone that had been oiled for the purpose. Next to him lay a variety of implements and instruments, tools and utensils, all apparently waiting in line for their own turn at the stone.

  "If that's a sword at your hip," said the Satyr, "I'd be keen to put a new edge on it." Then the satyr laughed, "Did you catch that? Keen to put an edge on it? Keen to sharpen your sword?"

  "That's funny. That's a good one," said Joshua, but regrets of losing his helmet and shield had made up most of the day's walking and he was in no mood for humor.

  The satyr sprang from his little stool like a rabbit and landed squarely in front of Joshua. "Jest is the name. Jest Satyr. Jest, son of Mirth Satyr, son of Folly, son of Gambol, son of Lark, son of Mischief, who, being formed of snow, falsehood, and a little wine was son of none. Jest Satyr, honer of knives and all manner of sharp edges, at your service." It held out a small, hairy hand. Joshua shook it because he was polite, though he couldn't help but look at this strange creature with his head cocked just a little. He thought that he had heard something about satyrs but he could not remember exactly what it was.

  Before we go any further, let's answer the question you're probably asking: What is a satyr? Well, a satyr is a type of creature that we often encounter in mythic literature—a halfling. Centaurs are halflings as are fauns (You might be familiar with the faun Tumnus, that Mr. Tumnus of Narnia fame. If you are not, then I suggest that be your very next reading). Well, like a faun, a satyr has human form, meaning that it stands upright like a person does, has its limbs roughly where a person's would be, and has a face that can be friendly or not. But where a faun shares some of its features with goats, a satyr like ours here has the ears, tail, and legs of a small horse. And—more importantly for our story—where fauns are generally harmless, satyrs are...well... satyrs are best avoided.

  As I was saying, Joshua shook the satyr's hand.

  "Off to see the King, I presume?" asked the satyr.

  "That's right," said Joshua.

  The satyr put his other hairy hand on his chin and rubbed it thoughtfully. His eyes were on the sword slung from Joshua's belt, but he did not hide the fact that he was looking there.

  "Do I see ogre blood?" asked the satyr with lifted eyebrows.

  Joshua looked down at the sword. There were two tiny smudges of reddish brown where the blade had struck the troll.

  "Troll," answered Joshua.

  "Troll blood? Oh, that's even worse. That'll stain for sure. And is it made of..." and now the satyr reached out a finger and rubbed it along the flat of the sword. "Is it made of iron?"

  "Of course not!" said Joshua, appalled at the notion. "It's the finest steel."

  "Do forgive me. My mistake. The rust and corrosion and those horrible splotchy marks led me, naturally, to believe it was iron."

  "I was in a hurry! There wasn't time to polish it."

  "Of course there wasn't," replied the satyr as though he were comforting a four-year-old. "The King called, and you answered. No shame in that, no shame at all. But forgive my manners. Come, sit, have a glass with me and be refreshed, and I'll tell you about the time I visited the King's court." The satyr took the stopper from a flagon of wine that sat next to the stool, then he filled two clay tumblers and handed one to the boy. "It was on a royal invitation, mind you, back in the year 12, or was it 11?, no, no, it was 12, I'm quite sure..." And now the satyr—whose nimbleness with hands and feet did not compare with that of his tongue—painted in words a portrait of the King's palace.

  He began by describing the elegance and graceful beauty of the castle, paying particular attention to its shining, brilliant cleanliness. He then moved on to the glittering pageantry that comes from a thousand generations of custom and tradition. And finally—but oh-so subtlety—the satyr placed into this picture Joshua, the filthy boy with the dull, tarnished, blood-stained sword.

  The satyr was quiet now, letting his words do the work. He picked up a dagger. "I'll just put the finishing touches on this while we talk." He passed the knife lightly over a smaller stone, a dozen strokes per side, and then rubbed it vigorously with an old cloth. "There," he said, holding it up in the sun. Joshua looked at it catching the light from both the sky and off the water. It was dazzling.

  "This dagger was worse off than your sword not an hour ago. It's amazing what a little oil and river silt will do." The satyr set the dagger on the ground in front of Joshua, who had yet to take his eyes off of it.

  Joshua let his breath out in a long sigh. "What's the charge?" he asked.

  "The charge?" said the satyr looking truly puzzled.

  "For cleaning and sharpening a sword."

  "Oh, yes, well, for a sword like yours. It is long now that I look at it. For a sword such as that...I'll tell you what, for you, for the good of the kingdom, for today only, I'll provide my services—I can't believe I'm doing this; my generosity will undo me some day—I'll clean and sharpen your sword for...a measly sovereign."

  That would be half of all the money Joshua had brought for the journey, but the satyr had done his job so well that it seemed to the boy just then that were he to pass up the offer at any price, he would regret it forever. Joshua pulled the sword from the loop in his belt and handed it to the satyr. "I am in a bit of a hurry, so if you could be quick about it." Then he pulled a gold sovereign from his pocket and set it on the stone.

  "Nimble is my middle name, and that's no jest. Jest Nimble Satyr, at your service." And with that, the satyr plucked the coin from the stone, gave it a bite with his eye teeth, and with a great kick of his powerful legs leapt clear across the river. And before Joshua could utter a word, the strange creature, with the sovereign in one hand and the sword in the other, was gone.

  He'd been staring across the river at the spot where the satyr had disappeared—a dark opening through the tresses of a willow tree— he’d been staring for some minutes, in fact, when he heard a voice behind him.

  "Ye there!” said the voice.

  Joshua turned to see a very small, very old man holding a pike which was pointed very near to Joshua's belly. "Excuse me?" said Joshua, too upset with himself to be concerned much about old men with pikes.

  "State yar business," said the old man. "And ye might begin by explainin' what yer doin pokin about me wares?"

  "Your wares? These are yours?" Joshua motioned to the pile of things waiting to be sharpened.

  "And whose else mightn't they be but the one residin’ in that there residence?" The old man jabbed toward the wagon.

  Joshua sat down heavily on the stool and said sadly, "I'm not after your things, Sir. I'm just a traveler on his way to the city of the King, though I wonder why I'm even bothering." Joshua looked up, though it took every bit of will in him to do even that. "You wouldn't happen to have a helmet, shield, and sword in that wagon?"

  "Wouldn't have much use for those. I'm a bit ripe for soldierin'" replied the old man, who was now leaning on the pike the way the girl had leaned on the broom. "Answerin' the King's summons, I take?"

  Joshua nodded.

  "I've run across a number of you these past
weeks, fathers, sons, brothers off for glory. Indeed, I'll be followin' soon. War makes for dull blades and brisk business, you know."

  "Sir, did you notice if...well...did they carry swords or spears? Did they wear armor or ride horses? Did they look like soldiers prepared for war?"

  "I suppose yes to all your askins. For the most part they were all fitted out with something in the fightin' fashion—swords long and short, pikes, shields, helmets, breast plates, thigh plates, shin plates, standards and now that I think on it, there was even a trumpet or two in the lot."

  Joshua sank even lower on the stool, his shoulders slumped over and his fingers dangling to the ground. "I've lost it all. Everything. I was too ashamed to wear my helmet, too foolish to keep my shield, and now too vain to hold on to the most important thing of all, my sword! I've lost my sword! The girl was right. I am just a boy playing dress up."

  Joshua straightened himself, stood suddenly, and then took long, angry strides to Miriam. He grabbed her halter. "UP!" he shouted. "We're going home." Miriam obeyed, and with that, the two turned to walk back the way they'd come. But they hadn't taken a few steps when the old man spoke up. "Hold there, lad!" he called out. "Just hold on there!"

  Joshua stopped and turned around. "Summoned by the King, say you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Called by the King himself, say you?"

  "Yes, but the call did not go out to everyone," Joshua was trying to head off the old man’s thinking, that a summons answered could not then be ignored, not honorably anyway. "If the peddler hadn't walked my road," he reasoned as much to himself as to the man, "I may never have heard it. And I wish I never had!"

  "Ay, that's all true. But he did, and ye did, and there's no wishing any of it away."

  The man took a step closer to Joshua, and then another. They stood so close that their noses nearly touched. Then the old man narrowed his eyes and said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "You be careful of what you do with this here callin'. Turn your back now and it might not come again, you see?"

  "But he said to be prepared," Joshua said weakly.

  "Carryin a sword don't prepare ye for nothin'," the old man answered.

  "And I've no helmet or shield," said Joshua.

  "If you're goin t' worry, worry that you'll have less than these if ye to turn back now," said the old man.

  Joshua was stuck. He wanted to give up, to go home, but there was something about the old man's look and the way he spoke that made him want to listen.

  "Why do you care what I do?" asked Joshua when he felt he simply couldn't decide.

  "Because I've answered such a call," said the old man, "And from this very king. And through all the battles, lost and won, and through all the wounds and hunger and thirst and long marches and cold nights—because mind ye, these are what await—through all that the enemy could muster and all that the King ever asked of this old body, I've ne'er regretted. Not once. And if I had it to do all again, and if me sword were a twig, me shield a pie plate, and me helmet a bonnet with pink ribbons, I'd be runnin' to the city and not man nor angel could hinder."

  Now if Joshua wanted an answer that would push him one way or the other, the old man had given it, and then some. Seeing this, Joshua shook his hand warmly and said, "Thank you, sir. Those were just the words I needed."

  "Good luck to ye, then. And when ye do find yer sword, you'll know just where to have it honed keen. And by the by, Lad, ye might want to reserve an eye for satyrs; they're said to haunt these parts."

  Joshua smiled at the old man and said with a nod, "I'll be sure to do that."