The Six Crowns: Trundle's Quest

by Allan Jones

  The sounds of the slave line faded away into the general discord of the town.

  Trundle shook his head, wishing he were a real hero, a creature brave and strong and noble enough to help those poor prisoners.

  “Something like that would probably be useful,” he said, pointing toward a dingy, dusty, murky window on the other side of the alley, through which the outline of a sword could dimly be seen. “Not that I’d know how to use it.”

  Three brass balls hung above the shop door, and there was a dirty sign over it that read:

  Honesty Skank’s

  Gold Star Pawnshop

  We Buy Anything from Anyone

  Step Inside and Do a Deal

  “Oh, well,” he said. “No good wishing for things we can’t have.” He turned and walked along the alley, assuming Esmeralda would come with him.

  She didn’t. She stood as stiff and still as a startled starfish, staring round-eyed through the window of the pawnshop.

  Trundle waited a few moments, then walked back to where she was standing.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “The sword!” she said, in a trembling, choking voice. “Look at the sword!”

  He stepped up close to the window and looked. The sword was clearly old; it had notches in the blade and looked in need of a good polish.

  “Yes?” he said. “So?”

  Esmeralda whipped out the Badger Block and brandished it in front of his snout, showing him the Lamplighter picture. “See?” she said, with hardly contained excitement. “It’s exactly the same!”

  Trundle looked from the real sword to the picture of the sword in the carved Lamplighter’s hand. “They are quite similar,” he admitted.

  “Similar?” Esmeralda raged. “They’re the same in every detail. That’s why the Fates brought us here—to get this sword! It all makes sense now!”

  Trundle brought his snout up to the dirty glass. “It has a price tag on the handle,” he said. “Twenty sunders.” He frowned. “That’s quite a lot of money. I don’t have a single sunder on me. How about you?”

  Esmeralda shook her head, but Trundle could see her mind was working.

  “We need to get money fast,” she said. “Tell you what—let’s find a quiet, out-of-the-way place. I’ll hide while you go up to the first person who happens along. Ask him the way to Slitherslops Street, or some such, and while he’s not looking, I’ll sneak up behind and whack him over the head with a brick. Then before he comes around, we’ll swipe his wallet, and hey presto—we buy the sword.” She paused and frowned at him. “You’ve got an expression on your face like a warthog chewing a bumblebee,” she said. “What’s the problem?”

  Trundle hardly knew where to start. “We can’t attack people and steal their money!” he gasped.

  Her eyebrows rose. “We can’t?”

  “No! Not at all. Never. No how! It’s just wrong!”

  Esmeralda shrugged. “Oh, all right, Mr. Scruples,” she said, a little sulkily. “If you say so. Come on then, let’s hear your plan for making money.”

  “Couldn’t we get a job of some sort?” he suggested. “Um . . . cleaning windows, or sweeping the streets, or something like that?”

  “Does Rathanger look like the kind of place where they pay people to clean their windows and sweep the streets?” Esmeralda asked. “But still, if you’re determined not to go along with my perfectly reasonable plan, I suppose we’ll have to come up with something.” She narrowed her eyes and tapped at her front teeth with her claws. “Yes!” she said after a few moments. “I think I know what to do.” She turned on her heel and strode off, Trundle trotting along to keep up with her. “Mugging is easier, but if you insist on being awkward, we’ll probably be able to make some quick money clearing glasses or serving drinks in a pub.”

  She pointed to the crude illustration of a stoat being throttled that hung above the open door they had recently passed. “In that pub, to be exact.”

  “It looks a little . . . um . . . rough,” Trundle pointed out.

  “We could go back to plan A,” Esmeralda sug-gested, miming clouting someone with a brick.

  “No,” Trundle said firmly. “We’ll try in there.”

  They pushed their way into the fuggy, stinky, crowded inn, squeezing between the seedy clientele, heading for the long, stained, and dripping bar.

  Esmeralda led Trundle behind the bar, where the floor was awash with spilled ale and the stench was strong enough to fell an ox. She tugged at the apron of a portly rat with a ruddy face, a crooked snout, and a mouthful of broken teeth. “Are you the landlord?” she shouted above the noise.

  “What if I am?” boomed the rat.

  “We’re looking for work,” Esmeralda yelled. “Anything will do. Bar work, kitchen work—you name it.”

  The landlord looked them up and down. “You look too puny,” he declared.

  “We’re stronger than you might think,” said Esmeralda. “I work out regularly, and my friend here is the all-in urchin-weight wrestling champion of Shiverstones.” She looked meaningfully at Trundle. “Aren’t you?”

  Trundle adopted what he hoped looked like an aggressive, muscular pose.

  “I certainly am!” he growled.

  Punchly Backbreaker roared with laughter. “If you say so,” he gurgled. “Get into the kitchens with you, then—there’s plenty of dishes needing to be washed. Half a sunder an hour. Take it or leave it.”

  Esmeralda held out a paw. “One sunder in advance, for good faith,” she said.

  “Done!” Punchly Backbreaker fished a wet sunder out of his apron pocket and dropped it into her paw.

  “Thank you very much, sir,” said Trundle. “We won’t let you down, I promise.”

  “All-in wrestling champion!” hooted Punchly, and he howled with laughter again.

  They were about to go through the door that led to the kitchens when a loud, grating voice rang out above the noise. “Tap your finest ale, landlord! Bring on the dancing girls! Clear the poker tables! The Iron Pig has just made landfall, and Captain Grizzletusk and his crew have a powerful thirst on them!”

  “Lawks!” exclaimed Esmeralda, grabbing Trundle and yanking him through the doorway and into the foul-smelling kitchen. Her eyes were filled with unease. “Are they on our trail? Do they know we’re here? Are they already lying in wait for us?” She clutched at her neck, as though she could already feel the sting of a jagged blade across her windpipe.

  “It’s probably just a coincidence,” Trundle said hopefully. “So long as we keep out of sight, we should be fine.” He looked around the kitchen. It was unspeakably filthy, with thick grease on every surface and squashed food all over the floor. Punchly Backbreaker had not been wrong about the washing up: plates and bowls and cutlery and mugs and cups were stacked almost ceiling high around the low butler’s sink.

  “It looks as if no one’s done any washing up for ten years!” gasped Esmeralda, peering into the scummy water in the sink.

  “Which means there’s enough work to earn us the money we need,” Trundle said, trying to look on the bright side. “And if the pirates come in here, we can nip out the back way.” He pointed to the glass-paneled back door, through which outside walls were visible.

  “Hmmm,” said Esmeralda. She walked gingerly across the slithery floor and pressed her ear to the wooden panels of another door, set in the side wall. “Hmmm,” she said again. “Interesting.”

  “What?” asked Trundle.

  “Voices,” said Esmeralda. A grin spread across her face, and she spun the landlord’s sunder in the air. “You start working,” she said, turning the handle and pulling the side door open a crack. “I shan’t be long.”

  “Hey, hold on—”

  “Gentlemen,” Trundle heard her say as she slipped through the door and let it swing behind her, “how delightful to meet you! May I join you in your game of chance? I don’t have very much experience with poker, but I would love to learn.”

  The door
clicked shut. Trundle glared expressively at the cracked panels for a few moments. Then he turned to the washing up. Drat the girl, he thought, staring up at the teetering towers of filthy crocks. Typical of her to avoid the hard work! Still, there was nothing to be gained by fuming. He rolled up his sleeves and got busy, concentrating on the money that his labors would provide.

  It wasn’t long before he was sick of the sight of putrid plates and dirty dishes and nasty knives and filthy forks. Every now and then he would glance angrily toward the closed door. What was that dratted Roamany girl doing in there?

  Suddenly he became aware of a rumpus coming from beyond the door: furious yelling and the thud of furniture overturning. A split second later, the door sprang open and Esmeralda appeared, looking triumphant but somewhat flustered. She slammed the door and pressed her back against it, panting.

  “I’ve got the money we need,” she gasped. “But I think I may have gotten us into a spot of trouble!”

  Trundle stared at her in alarm. He could hear creatures shouting and pounding on the door. Clearly, Esmeralda had done something to make them very angry indeed, and the way the door was bulging inward, he guessed it wouldn’t be long before they smashed their way through, to take their revenge.

  Chapter 6

  The Perils of Cheating at Cards

  “What did you do in there?” wailed Trundle, as the door reverberated to the thumps and kicks of far too many furious fists and feet.

  “No time for explanations!” cried Esmeralda. “Quickly! Hand me a knife!”

  Trundle snatched a knife out of the washing- up water and ran over to her. Was she planning on fighting? If so, what should he do? Attack with his dish mop?

  She jammed the knife under the door, wedging it shut—for the moment!

  “Come on!” she yelled, grabbing Trundle’s hand and towing him to the back door. “We need to skedaddle!” She waved a bunch of paper sunders at him. “We can afford the sword now!”

  They plunged through the back door and found themselves in a dimly lit back alley.

  “How did you get the money?” gasped Trundle as they ran over cobbles.

  “I won it fair and square at poker,” Esmeralda explained breathlessly. “But they caught me cheating, curse them for suspicious swine!” She laughed. “They’ll never find us now, Trundle, my lad! We’re home free!”

  At that moment, the back door of the kitchen burst open and a gang of disreputable-looking rats came pouring out into the alley.

  “There she is!” screamed one of them, pointing a claw. “Get her, boys! We’ll show her how we deal with card sharps in this town!”

  “Oh, lummy!” gasped Esmeralda. “Run, Trundle! Run!”

  But Trundle didn’t need telling. He was already running.

  They dived around a zigzag bend, pursued by the yelling mob of irate gamblers. Trundle quickly lost all sense of direction as they raced up and down and to and fro and hither and thither through the winding, twisting, turning tangle of passageways and lanes and alleys of Rathanger. And always, their pursuers were only half a street away from them, wielding sticks and cudgels and bludgeons, and yelling terrible threats.

  At one point, Esmeralda paused for a moment to pick up a loose cobblestone. For a horrible moment, Trundle thought she was going to stand and fight the rats, but she just carried on running, her skirts flying.

  Suddenly Trundle realized where they were. Their mad chase had brought them right back to where they had started—in the same alley as the entrance to the Strangled Stoat. Esmeralda came to a skidding halt, leaning back and hefting the cobblestone. She let it fly. There was a chime and clash of smashing glass, and almost before Trundle knew what was going on, she had reached in through the broken window of Honesty Skank’s Gold Star Pawnshop and had grabbed hold of the sword.

  A shrill alarm bell began to clang from inside the shop.

  Esmeralda pushed the sword into Trundle’s hands. “Yours, I think,” she panted. “I should have thought of this from the start! It would have saved us a lot of bother!”

  “But we can’t—”

  A ferocious ferret appeared at the shop door, armed with an ax. “Gertcha, you spiny stealers!” he snarled. “I’ll have your paws for earmuffs!”

  At the same moment the mob of angry gamblers came scooting around the corner.

  “Aha!” they cried.

  “Oho!” growled Honesty Skank, stepping into the alley with his ax held high.

  “Leg it!” yelled Esmeralda.

  Clutching the sword to his chest with both arms, Trundle legged it.

  Should I stand and fight now that I’m armed? he asked himself as he hurtled along at Esmeralda’s side. Not unless I want to be beaten to a pulp and then carved up into mincemeat, he advised himself.

  It was a compelling argument.

  He carried on running.

  They were footing it at top speed along a particularly skinny alleyway that ran between tall brick walls studded with doors. One door hung partly open on a single hinge. Esmeralda zipped through, Trundle right behind her. They found themselves in some kind of backyard, filled with all manner of debris.

  “Block the door!” gasped Esmeralda. Trundle slipped the sword into his belt and, working furiously alongside Esmeralda, helped heap against the doorway every piece of rubble he could lay his paws on.

  “They went through here!” shouted a voice from the alley.

  “Let’s go!” said Trundle.

  Hand in hand, they scrambled over the rubbish in the yard to the foot of a rusty iron spiral staircase. Up they went, like a pair of squirrels in a tree, racing round and round till Trundle was dizzy. Just as he was about to fall over, they came to a balcony with an open doorway and stumbled inside.

  “Hey! Who are you?” demanded a huge female rat, standing at a bubbling cauldron and stirring the contents with a big ladle. All around her, child rats were clamoring and yowling and holding up food bowls.

  “Hovel inspectors, ma’am,” said Esmeralda. “Don’t panic, we’re just passing through.”

  They waded through the braying rat brats, trying to avoid being bitten and clawed and hit with bowls while the mother yelled and swung at them with her ladle.

  Trundle came to an inner doorway, Esmeralda just one pace behind. “Nice hovel!” she called back. “Enjoy your slops.”

  The ladle whizzed past her ear as Trundle hauled her into the corridor. Behind them, they heard a renewed hubbub from the rat kitchen, accompanied by yelps as the pursuing gamblers encountered Mrs. Rat and her hungry family.

  Trundle pushed open the nearest door. A large, stout, elderly rat was standing stark naked in a tub of steaming water, attacking his hard-to-reach parts with a foaming scrub brush.

  “Oops! Beg pardon!” said Trundle, backing out and slamming the door.

  They carried on down the corridor. Trundle could hear Esmeralda giggling, and soon he was laughing as well.

  “I didn’t even know rats took baths,” she gurgled.

  “By the look of him, they don’t very often,” chuckled Trundle.

  The next doorway took them out into the open again. They ran across a curving wooden bridge, horribly aware of its boards creaking and cracking under them. There was a platform at the far end of the bridge, offering several options: stairways and doorways and even a ladder that led to a hatchway up above.

  “Stop! Thieves!”

  They stared back. Their angry pursuers were at the other side of the bridge, wielding their clubs and cudgels.

  “Up!” said Esmeralda.

  “The ladder doesn’t look very safe,” Trundle worried.

  “Exactly!”

  She swarmed up the ladder. Trundle took one look at the angry mob about to cross the bridge and decided to risk it.

  The ladder swayed and wobbled alarmingly as the two animals ascended. The climb was made even more tricky for Trundle because the point of his sword kept getting caught between the rungs. He had half a mind to pull the awkward thing o
ut of his belt and let it drop, except that he couldn’t spare a paw to do so. Besides, he knew Esmeralda would probably throw him down the ladder if he arrived at the top without the precious sword.

  With a scramble and a scrabble and a nasty moment when the handle of the sword got wedged, Trundle eventually hauled himself up through the trapdoor, to emerge in a storeroom heaped with sacks of flour.

  “Can’t . . . run . . . much . . . farther. . . .” he gasped, tottering to his feet, his legs feeling very feeble under him. “Maybe we could slow them down by pelting them with flour sacks?”

  “Possibly,” said Esmeralda, kneeling on the floor and leaning out over the hatchway. “Or maybe we could do this!” She grabbed hold of the top of the ladder and tried to twist it. “Help me out here, Trundle!”

  He got down beside her. The first few gamblers had already started climbing the ladder, were on their way up, and looked pretty murderous.

  Trundle added his paws to Esmeralda’s on the ladder, and they both hauled at it.

  “Hoy!” came an alarmed cry from below. “Don’t do that!”

  “Good-bye, boys, it was nice knowing you,” Esmeralda called down as the two of them gave the ladder a final hefty wrench. Suddenly it spun out of their paws. It teetered for a few moments, standing unsupported in the air with five yelling rats clinging to it. Then, quite slowly at first, it began to tip over backward.

  Esmeralda stood up and slammed the hatch shut on the howling and crashing from below. “Nice work!” she said, smacking her paws together. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I hope they weren’t hurt too badly,” said Trundle, as he followed her out of the storeroom.

  “I hope they were,” said Esmeralda.

  “But they were only chasing us because you cheated them,” Trundle pointed out.

  Esmeralda turned and placed a paw on each of his shoulders. “Trundle, you have to get your priorities right,” she said. “Are we on an important quest, or are we not?”