Peter & Max: A Fables Novel

by Bill Willingham

  “It doesn’t matter if he is or not,” Josef said. “It’s time.”

  They opened the door and ushered Peter in to see the king.

  In which Peter closes in.

  THE LUFTHANSA JET TOUCHED DOWN AT Frankfurt am Main airport just after ten a.m., in the pouring rain. The time in flight was just right for Peter to finish his mystery story, a real page-turner featuring a spunky young female detective operating out of Las Vegas. By the time they started their final approach into Germany’s busiest airport, the detective had identified the killer. While they taxied towards the gate, she’d smartly listed all of the clues that led her to the thrilling denouement. In hindsight Peter realized he should’ve seen it all along. This being a fair-play mystery, all of the clues had been there for him to recognize. Peter was vaguely disturbed that he hadn’t been able to solve the murder. He silently hoped it wasn’t an ill omen for the success of his mission.

  When they arrived at the gate, he stood up and took Frost’s hard plastic case out of the overhead compartment. He also took the paperback with him when he left the plane, even though he’d finished it. Bo will want to read this one, he thought. She’s always able to put the clues together.

  He walked directly to the baggage claim area where, after not too long a wait, he was able to retrieve his single suitcase. Then, with both cases in hand, he followed the signs that read “Zoll duane,” directing him to Customs. The grey-uniformed Customs officer asked him a few perfunctory questions about the nature and duration of his stay. Then he asked Peter to open the smaller case, which Peter did, revealing Frost.

  “Is this an antique?” the officer asked. Peter recognized the German language, and mostly understood it, as it was close to the Hessian tongue which he’d spoken back in the lost and ancient world of the Hesse, and which he still spoke with Bo in their current home at the Farm.

  “Yes,” Peter said, in a rough approximation of the German language. “But not so old that I don’t still play it. I’m a musician, and this is the instrument I play to make my living.”

  “You’ll be performing here?”

  “Yes, in Hamelin. For their autumn festival and concert celebrating the Pied Piper. As you can see, I’ll be playing the Piper.”

  “Ah. Well then, I hope you brought bright clothes.”

  “Actually, someone else is bringing the costumes.”

  “That’s fine then,” the officer said. “As long as you aren’t attempting to smuggle museum treasures.” The officer then waved Peter through the line, after wishing him a pleasant stay in Germany.

  Peter breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the Customs official hadn’t requested to search his larger bag, which contained all of the deadly devices that he couldn’t bring aboard the plane in his carry-on luggage. Of course, they weren’t just dropped willy-nilly into the open bag. Each weapon was secreted in hidden pockets, behind a false bottom. Anyone who found his weapons would have to have been already suspicious enough to conduct much more than the standard random search.

  Before leaving the terminal, Peter went down a flight of stairs to the ground level automobile rental kiosks, where he rented a car. His false documentation included a current international driver’s license. Then he collected his car and drove into the city, getting turned around once or twice in the crowded urban traffic.

  After finally making it through the city, he drove on into the nearby Rheingau Region, where he found his hotel, the opulent five-star Schloss Reinhartshausen, situated directly on the Rhine River. Since I’m likely to die in the next few days, he thought, I might as well try my best to live it up in the meantime.

  He ate dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening, where his waiter suggested the house specialty. “It’s a hunter’s stew,” the waiter said, “though it also includes lamb, which is hardly a creature one need hunt.” He laughed at his own comment.

  “No, thank you,” Peter said. “I lost my appetite for any sort of stew long ago. I think I’ll try the rouladen.”

  “A fine choice,” the waiter said. “We make that exceptionally well here.”

  And it was good. So good in fact that Peter not only ate the rolls of tender spiced beef, but the pickles at the center of each roll, which were, strictly speaking, only intended to flavor the beef as it cooked, and not meant to be consumed themselves.

  Later in his room, before retiring for the night, Peter retrieved the many weapons from their secret locations in his suitcase, and installed them into their secret locations in the suit he would be wearing the next day, for the long drive to Hamelin.

  In which

  Peter plays

  for a king.

  THE INTERIOR OF THE FORMER CHURCH WAS large and drafty. The room was circular, with vaulting archways at several stations in the curving wall, leading off to other sections of the building. Fluted columns lined the curved walls, bracing the first indented cornice overhead. Then there was another eight or nine feet of wall above that, elaborately decorated with intricate moldings and relief sculptures, depicting scenes Peter couldn’t begin to interpret. A second level of cornices supported the high domed roof, the interior of which was carved into rectangular coffers with stepped frameworks. Peter had played in many churches in the past, always with an appropriate sense of awe at being allowed inside such places.

  Three or four dozen people were gathered into this chamber, which wasn’t nearly enough to fill it up. Most of them were boys, some younger even than Peter, some older, while a few were young men. There were some girls too, but not many. They stood here and there, in no discernible organization. Any seats or benches that may have once been present in the chamber had long since been removed. There were only two plain, wooden chairs in the room, both of which were occupied. A man sat in one and a woman in the other. They were two of the only three full adults present.

  Carl and Josef escorted Peter to the room’s center, to stand before the two people who were seated.

  “Can you stand on your own?” Carl whispered into his ear. “No, don’t answer. Whether you can or you can’t, you have to, so do it. The good news is, one way or another, this won’t take long.”

  Carl and Josef released Peter and stepped back a few paces. Peter was wobbly on his feet, but was able to remain upright.

  “Let’s begin,” the seated man said. “I don’t like having this many of us gathered here all in one place.” Peter couldn’t begin to guess how old the man was. He could have been twenty or sixty. He was thin, but beginning to get a belly. He had dark hair, darker eyes and a short beard in good trim. An old scar slanted down one of his cheeks. He wore rough homespun, like the rest of them. His were dyed in green and ochre.

  “This boy is called Peter,” Carl said, turning this way and that as he spoke to address the entire assembly. “He’s accused of unsanctioned thieving. Now he stands trial before Erwin, unchallenged King of all Thieves in the Town of Hamelin and its environs. Here also is Gisela, his advisor and his queen, and Hagan of the Lowenbrucke, Master of the Touch, and also a trusted advisor to the king.” Carl’s gesture indicated the other grown man standing in the room, among all of the children and young men. He wasn’t tall, but was nearly as thin as Peter’s lost brother Max. What hair Hagan had was also dark, but it was just a fringe circling around his ears and the back of his neck. He had bright green eyes that were fixed on Peter, seeming to pierce him, looking past his rude flesh and plunging deeply into his most private thoughts.

  Gisela, the queen, seated beside King Erwin on his right, had reddish hair like Carl’s. In fact she resembled him so closely she could’ve been his elder sister. She wore a brown dress of wool and a tan-colored blouse made of the only bit of linen evident in the room. She was pretty, but had a severe look on her face.

  “Carl tells us he caught you stealing in my town,” Erwin said to Peter, indicating that the few formalities had concluded and the actual trial had begun. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” Peter said. He didn’t know if he should call
the man ‘sir,’ or ‘king,’ or any other form of polite address.

  “And does anyone here recognize this boy as our brother?”

  No one spoke.

  “All right then. He’s guilty of thieving without my permission, for which the punishment is death. Carl, since you caught him, you can kill him. Your prize is whatever he has — yours alone in this case, with no need to share it among us.”

  And with that, the trial seemed to be over. The king of thieves brushed his hands on his knees and began to rise, but he was interrupted when the queen leaned over from her seat and whispered in his ear. He abruptly sat down again.

  “Hold on a moment,” the king said. “My lovely bride reminds me that I skipped a step. Does anyone assembled here wish to speak for this boy?”

  “I will,” Carl said. Peter noticed that Carl hadn’t tried to speak up, or hadn’t even looked at all distressed, when the king had pronounced his quick judgment and started to leave.

  “My young brother-in-law wishes to delight us again with his gifted tongue,” the king said, proving that Carl was indeed related to the queen. “What do you have to add, Carl?”

  “Two things, King. First, Peter didn’t know he was breaking the laws of our Brotherhood.”

  “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the king said, “as our current oppressors are so fond of reminding us.”

  “True, King, so then to my second observation,” Carl said. “Peter proved to be a careful and inventive thief. I believe he can be trained to make a clever and useful addition to our society.”

  “He wasn’t so clever as to avoid being captured by you,” Hagan said, speaking for the first time.

  “True, honored Master of Thieves,” Carl said, “but no one can avoid my notice, or ever outwit me. I’m simply too skilled to be held up as an example to measure others against. Otherwise, no one here, not even the gloried king himself, could pass muster in our fine company.” That brought a short round of snorts and chuckles from the gallery of young thieves in the room.

  Hagan looked slightly vexed by the remark, but curiously the king didn’t. Instead he smiled for the first time.

  “Peter,” the king said, “is what Carl tells us true? Are you fit to join our Brotherhood, knowing that it commits you to a life spent among us, sharing your wealth and marrying your sacred honor to us for all time?”

  “Yes, King,” was all that Peter said, knowing that he had no choice. The life as a thief, in the company of same, had to be better than the alternative. Peter correctly guessed that saying as much would do him no good, so he refrained from pointing out so obvious a fact.

  “Then I’ll defer my mortal judgment until we see if you can indeed impress us,” the king said. “But you still have to pay for your crime, so, not only will you have to perfect your art quick and sure, you’ll have to do it with only a single hand. My new decision is that you have to lose one hand as just payment for your previous misdeeds. Carl, be sure to find out which limb he favors, so we don’t deprive him of his better thieving hand.”

  Once again the king started to rise. This time it was Peter who interrupted him, surprising all in the room at his temerity, Peter included.

  “But, King, I’m not actually a —” Peter began, but then reconsidered his words, knowing it was a time to be most careful. “What I mean to say is, in addition to being a skilled thief, I’m also an accomplished player of the pipes. With only one hand I won’t be able to do that any longer.”

  “So? What’s that to me?”

  “I’d like to request an entirely undeserved favor, King Erwin.”

  “This child has no right to ask favors from the king,” Hagan said.

  “Of course not,” Carl jumped in. “Who does? I believe that’s why it’s called a favor and not an obligation.” There were more soft titters of laughter in the room.

  “What is it you’d like to ask?” the king said. “Maybe I’ll consider it.”

  “Since I’m about to lose one hand,” Peter said, “and will never thereafter be able to play, I’d like your permission to play my flute for you one last time, here in front of this company, before your fair sentence is inflicted on me.”

  The king considered for a long time, a frown creasing his face. No one dared speak while he did so, until the queen, his wife, grew weary of the protracted silence and unrelieved tension.

  “Oh, let the boy play,” she said aloud. And a smile touched her face for the first time, brightening it considerably. “It’s been too long since we’ve heard any music in this dull town.”

  “Because it’s been forbidden, dear Queen,” Hagan offered.

  “So what if it is?” she said. “Aren’t we criminals? What’s the use in breaking the law at all, if not to enrich our dull lives? A little flute music isn’t likely to pierce these thick walls and betray us to the gobs. If they’re close enough to hear that much, then they’ve already got us surrounded for other reasons. Play on, young Peter, and show us what you can do.”

  “I believe my queen just gave you a command, boy,” the king said, settling back into his chair with a look that said, “you’d better impress me.”

  Which is exactly what Peter did.

  First he removed his cloak and let it fall on the floor beside him. Then he began removing the various market items he’d stolen, beginning with the thick slab of bacon, which had been stuffed down the front of his jacket. He followed that by digging out the onions and potatoes from his various pockets and makeshift caches. As he did this, laughter began to build once again in the chamber.

  “So, is it to be music and a juggling act as well?” the king said, laughing along with the others.

  Peter didn’t answer, unable to think of any retort that could do anything but make his position worse than it already was. Instead he finished divesting himself of his edible goods, carefully placing each one on the floor, on top of his cloak. Then he unlimbered Frost’s case from around his shoulder and removed the bone white flute, handling it with care and reverence.

  “Now there’s a treasure I think I’d like my share of,” Hagan said, in a whispered aside to the king and queen.

  Peter placed the flute to his lips and began to play.

  He selected a soft, slow lovers’ song that he’d last played for a bride and groom on their wedding day. And as he played, for the second time since he’d come into ownership of the magic instrument, he devoutly wished that the danger would pass him by. As the melody increased in cadence and volume, members of the audience couldn’t help but start tapping and clapping along with the tune’s merry rhythm.

  He ended with a flourish, and as he lowered the flute he noticed that there were tears in the queen’s eyes.

  “We can’t deprive this artist of his hand,” she said, her voice catching on pent-up emotions she tried, and failed, to conceal. “Not when he can do such wondrous things when he still has both of them.”

  “True,” the king said, in a hushed and awed tone. “I thought I’d heard music many times before, but in truth I never did. Not before today.”

  Peter replaced Frost in its case, and then wiped two trickles of blood away from either side of his mouth, where Frost had again cut him.

  “Your hand is given back to you,” the king said, “as reasonable and just payment for your second job among us. For, in addition to joining our Brotherhood as a fellow cutpurse, you’re appointed Royal Troubadour to this august court.”

  And that’s how Peter Piper became a thief in earnest, far exceeding in every respect his long lost brother’s most adamant accusation.

  In which Max

  lives well, then not so

  well, encounters three

  knights and a witch,

  and receives a gift

  beyond price.

  MAX PIPER STAYED IN HIS COZY COTTAGE for several months, clear through the harsh winter, eating his fill every day and keeping warm by the crackling fire. Having gone hungry for an extended period of time, exposed all the while t
o the bitter elements, warmth, comfort and enough to eat became the sum total of Max’s ambitions. It’s entirely possible that he’d never have wanted to leave, if not for the deceit and low actions of Mr. and Mrs. Schoep, the cottage’s previous owners.

  At first Max had planned to simply kill anyone living in the home, going so far as to unsheathe Frost Taker for instant action, as he pounded boldly on the cottage’s single door. But when the door finally opened, he saw that a timid old fat man and his old fat wife were the dwelling’s sole occupants. He reconsidered the need for murder. Neither looked as if they could possibly offer him any harm. Better to question them first, at least long enough to find out how far away the nearest neighbors might be, and what dangers might lurk in this neck of the woods.

  “Who are you?” Max shouted into the old man’s face. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed past the fellow and entered the little home’s single room.

  “I’m Gerwulf Schoep,” the old man said, “and this is Claudia, my good wife.” Palpable fright was evident in Gerwulf’s voice. Max recognized the tone as one of instantaneous and complete surrender. He’d have no trouble with these two — assuming there were only two of them.

  “Who else lives here?” he demanded.

  “No one. We’re all alone,” Claudia said. She’d been sitting in a wingback, densely upholstered chair by the fire. There was a bowl full of potatoes in her lap, which she’d been peeling with a paring knife. When Max burst in she seemed to shrink farther into the chair’s cushions, as though hoping to flee by disappearing into them. “Our daughter from town visits us once a week to see that we’re still well,” she continued. “At least she used to, but she hasn’t come in three weeks now.”