The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4

by Isabella Fontaine

  “Just be cool.” I grabbed his arm, squeezing his clammy skin. “He’s not looking. I think we’re safe.”

  “Barkeep,” Sam said. “I need mules for a short journey to Castle White. Might I borrow some?”

  “For a price,” the bartender growled. I looked down at the floor, pretending to rub my forehead to hide at least part of my face. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. What was worse here: being recognized by the bartender I’d killed or the demon creature I’d killed?

  “I have socks I could live without,” Sam offered. “I don’t suppose cotton is in short supply here?”

  The bartender snorted a wet, mucus-laden snort. “Got enough cotton to use for toilet paper. But what about that tie?”

  The demon creature sipped from his mug of beer, then turned his head.

  “Look down,” I ordered. I blew out a breath and inhaled through my mouth. The noxious stench of the pub was getting harder to tolerate with the demon’s eyes on me. I didn’t like this place. The hooting game players to my right made it hard to hear. I had my back to the angry bartender and couldn’t make eye contact with the demon creature sitting in the corner. This has “bad setting” written all over it. “OK,” I whispered to Seth, “the good news is he totally asked me to kill him. So maybe he’s not Corrupted.”

  “This tie,” Sam said, “is silk. Cashmere and silk. It’s worth more than your life.”

  “It’s worth enough to rent those mules,” the bartender snapped.

  “Throw in two beers and you’ve got a deal,” Flick added sternly.

  For a moment, the room was silent. Even the chess players were quiet, contemplating their next move and sipping gingerly at their beers. I risked a look up. The demon creature was still sitting, his eyes now on the dust-encrusted window.

  “Fine,” the bartender said. “Two beers. Now hand over the tie. You … girl. I recognize that outfit. Who are you? What’s your story?”

  I winced, shaking my head.

  “She’s not your concern,” Sam said in his cool, professional tone. “Our deal is done and we’re leaving.” His hand pressed against my back, urging me forward. I gladly went, keeping the demon creature in the corner of my vision. The chess players erupted in laughter, causing me to flinch and turn my head in their direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the bartender’s curious face.

  We were about halfway to the door when a fat hand grabbed my arm. The bartender spun me around so quickly that I didn’t even put up a fight. I was a deer in headlights.

  So was he.

  Flick reached out and gave the bartender a strong push. He stumbled back a few steps, eyes big as dinner plates, big lower lip quivering. “Y-you …”

  “Yup,” said Flick. “You’d best be running, bartender. Run fast and hard and think twice about showing off those tepid manners of yours again.”

  He turned and bolted, hopping right over the bar and landing behind it with a thud. I spun back to the demon creature. He was still sitting, still staring at the window and sipping his beer.

  “Let’s go,” Seth said. “Come on. Hurry. Our time in the weird bar is over.”

  Outside, we grabbed the mules and hopped on. Seth led the way and I took up the rear, ensuring that Sam’s and Flick’s critters didn’t stray from the center of the road. We made our way up the winding road that led toward the castle, passing not just men and women dressed in simple clothes but also young children and soldiers too, each soldier wearing metal chest plates and bright blue undergarments—it was evident in the dark stains near the cuffs of their shirts and the light stains near the elbows. They clutched terrifying-looking ceremonial pikes with long knife-shaped blades at the tip. Chainmail hoods covered their heads.

  One soldier I recognized: The bassist from that infernal band that played in the Corrupted bar in Minneapolis. He was standing with another young man beside one of the lantern posts, his weapon resting lazily against his shoulder. Great … how long before the bartender finds him and lets him know that the hero is here?

  “You know, they could probably do away with these fancy weapons,” Seth said in his not-so-indoor voice.

  “Explain,” Sam said.

  Seth shrugged. “All it takes is one good smack with any sharp weapon to create one of those sparks. So why not give everyone a simple sword that’s easy to swing? Those pikes are probably too heavy to swing well. I’ve read tons of war books, and I don’t remember reading too often about victories involving a bunch of guys swinging heavy weapons.”

  “Crossbows might be better,” Sam said. He glanced over his shoulder, studying the soldiers we’d just passed. Calculating.

  Good. Let him figure a way to stop Agnim. Less pressure on me.

  The orange sun dipped behind the castle. It cast a heavy shadow over the town and the people, sensing something unseen and unheard, each took a moment to look warily up at the sky. What are you searching for? What’s out there? No one seemed all that interested in lingering. They picked up their paces, walking hurriedly and with a sense of purpose. We guided our mules past them, following the winding road up the hill to the castle.

  “Seth,” I said, pulling up beside him. “You don’t have to do this with us.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  I looked down at the top of my mule’s head, shrugging. “I just … you know, saving this world with the help of Sam … what he did to you …”

  “Dudette.” He turned to me. “You have to let all that go. What’s done is done.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Remember how bad my ma used to be?” he asked. “How I’d always sleep over at your place when we were little kids because my mom was drinking a lot?”

  “Kinda.” We’d been young. I hadn’t fully understood. All I knew was that my best friend Seth was coming over to watch movies all night.

  “My ma got better. It took a couple years, but she quit drinking alcohol. I never forgot how hard it was before, but I learned to recognize that once she quit drinking, she was a different person. I learned to see her for who she is, not who she was.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Those dwarfs aren’t the same as they were on earth. Yeah, maybe they’re still a little greedy, but deep down they’re decent. And I’m going to help them stay that way.”

  I smiled. “You never cease to amaze me.”

  He responded with a big, goofy grin.

  The castle’s gate was up, but two more guards stood in front of it, halting us by crossing the blades of their pikes. Both wore steel helmets with nose guards. Neither looked familiar, thankfully. The last thing we needed were these two armored soldiers thinking a hero had come to kill their queen.

  Sam carefully brought his mule beside Seth, tugging on the reins to keep the stubborn thing from walking right into the soldiers. “We demand an audience with Snow White.”

  “The queen takes visitors in the morning,” one of the soldiers said.

  Flick looked at me, smiling. “I always thought she’d make a nice ruler.”

  “Tell her Sam and Flick Grayle have come to visit,” Sam said. He was using his authoritative tone, sitting straight up in his saddle. As straight as he could while sitting on a stubborn ass.

  The soldiers were silent for a moment. Wind whipped past my ears. I turned, glancing at the town below and the hills beyond. The valley was beautiful. Pastures spread out in every direction, dotted with sheep and cows. A handful of horses playfully galloped near the river, turning and making their way toward a small brick barn with a thatch roof. A small ship was following the river south, its sails furled while the current did the work.

  “Apologies,” said one of the soldiers. He pulled his pike back and his companion did the same. They stepped aside. “She’ll no doubt make time for you, my lord.”

  Sam and Flick exchanged a look.

  “Just go,” I murmured, “before they change their minds.”

  We passed under the gate, through the curtain wall and into the royal
courtyard. There was a small stable to our left with ten stalls, eight empty, all of them looking like they could use a cleaning. Trampled hay littered the dirt ground; flies hovered over the dirty hay, no doubt encouraged by the stench. Two young boys wearing dirty blue t-shirts met us and helped us off the mules, guiding each one into a stall that smelled like it could use a cleaning.

  “It burns the nostrils, doesn’t it?” Seth asked with a smile. I laughed and pushed him away, nearly knocking him into a pile of horse apples.

  Sam watched the exchange like a stern parent. He kept pace with me as we crossed the manicured courtyard, making our way around two apple trees whose branches were weighed down with ripe red apples. The grass was green and short, the kind that screamed for you to walk across barefoot.

  “Those boys,” Sam said, motioning over his left shoulder. “I don’t recognize them. Do you, brother?”

  “Nope.”

  “So what?” I asked.

  “It begs the question: are they children from a fairy tale, or is it possible …?” He let the rest of the question hang in the air.

  “Are you thinking of starting a family?” I asked, unable to contain the opportunity for snark.

  “It would be helpful to have a census of the population,” Sam said with contained annoyance. Very barely contained annoyance. “Is it impossible for a couple to conceive a child? Or have these characters been procreating since the moment they got here? How many of them have been Corrupted and how many haven’t?”

  “You’re worried about Agnim’s numbers.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’m worried about Agnim’s army.”

  “Look at that,” Seth said, pointing up. Hanging over the massive wooden doors to the keep were two blue banners, each one embroidered with the image of an apple. The banners flapped in the breeze.

  “Mighty beautiful,” Flick said. “Although I remember a time on earth when we happened upon a castle of similar size. Thought we’d be safe there from one of Napoleon’s armies, but guess what? The French brought cannons. They made short work of the castle walls and nearly had me dead to rights. Luckily, I’m a little tougher than most.”

  “You take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, right?” Seth asked.

  Sam sighed. “What my brother means is that he threw an axe at a French soldier and then jumped off the castle wall, landing in the river two hundred feet below. And before you let out your trademark ‘coooool,’ let me just state how awful it was for me to spend the next three months mending his wounds.”

  Flick turned to me, smiling. “He made me sausage soup every day. And occasionally, Snow White visited with fresh fruit. Good times!”

  We walked to the double-door palace entrance, passing two more guards who hesitated before looking down and seeing the dwarfs. They stepped aside, letting us walk inside a large room with stone floors and a massive red rug adorned with roses. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, outfitted with about a gazillion light bulbs, each one adorned with little crystals. The bulbs were dim, lit just enough to cast light on the rows and rows of swords and shields and pikes hanging on the stone walls.

  “Huh,” Seth said, looking around. “I mean, the swords are cool, but I was expecting a little more splendor.”

  “It’s a practical room,” Sam said, leading us around the massive table sitting underneath the chandelier. “The soldiers eat here, and before they leave the keep they grab their weapons.”

  “Still looks like a dump.”

  “That’s probably because you’re picturing a Hollywood castle,” Sam said. He waved his arms around. “This is not a movie set. This is a room fit for soldiers to eat and store their weapons when not in use.”

  There were half a dozen doors, most of them closed save for one on the other side of the table. It was open a crack, and I peered inside as we passed. The room was small and cramped, decorated with a beautiful wooden desk and a chair with a red cushion. In one corner was a stone statue of a beautiful woman—Snow White? Could she be so vain?—and hanging from one wall was a painting of a white unicorn, framed in gold. On the other wall was a bookcase filled with stacks and stacks of papers, each bundle held by a tightly tied string. More papers littered the desk. A couple had blown off as a breeze slipped in through the open window.

  “The accountant’s office,” Sam said. “Useful for keeping tabs on soldiers and royal funds. Best not to let a relative in the position or you’ll see your wealth decline rather quickly. This way.”

  “How do you know where you’re going?” I asked, helping him push open the thick wooden door in the far corner. The floors in this next room had been lined with wood panels, and the tap-tapping of my shoes echoed down a long hallway. Old paintings of pastures and rolling hills lined the walls. Some had cherry trees in full bloom. Others depicted the land covered in a thick layer of beautiful white snow, untouched except for a few animal tracks leading down toward the down. They’re all paintings of this valley. And look: a path carved out of the snow leading northeast out of the valley, slipping between a gap in the mountain range.

  Thick wooden beams held up little brass light fixtures, each with a single dim bulb, lighting our way.

  “I’ve been here before,” Sam said. “Well, not here. A place very much like this on earth. It was destroyed by Napoleon’s army while his armies surged through Europe. The castle—our home—was expendable.”

  We went through the door at the end of the hall. Now it was time to marvel. The next room opened up into a tall room with curved ceilings that were painted with an elaborate scene of a picturesque mountain range, the tips of each mountain covered in snow. It took up the entire ceiling, and at the corners of each wall were silver leaves that crawled upward on a silver vine. Bookshelves lined the walls, each shelf filled with books with leather jackets. Two windows overlooked the town below, letting in enough of the setting sunlight that the single gas lamp on the desk near the far wall didn’t need to be lit.

  A man sat at the massive desk, which was positioned next to a set of closed double-doors. He looked fiftyish, with a white mustache and a frilly brown suit with a black vest. He looked up from his papers, giving me less than a second’s glance before turning to the dwarfs.

  “Ah! Master Samuel and Flick.” He clasped his hands together, interlocking his pudgy wrinkled fingers. “So you’ve arrived at last. Eh, I suspected it would be some time, given your intellectual stamina. But, eh, that murderous hero gets us all in the end I suppose.”

  Sam bowed low. “Always nice to see you again, Hans.”

  “And who is this?” the man asked, narrowing one eye to study me.

  “Her?” Sam smiled. “Why, she’s a hero.”

  The color drained from Hans’s face. “Eh … you’re here to kill me again, I suppose?”

  “Oh. No! No.” I held out my hands in surrender but that only caused him to flinch and recoil in his seat. “I’m just hanging out. You know. Chilling.”

  “What she means to say is we are here to see Snow White,” Sam said. He smiled. “But if you make her wait, who’s to say what she might do?”

  At that, Hans hopped out of his seat, pushing open one of the double doors. “Please,” he said, motioning to us. “The queen will, eh, no doubt be happy to see you, Samuel.”

  We entered another large room, this one even more intricately designed. Again, the ceiling was fully painted, only instead of a mountain range this one was packed with puffy white clouds and fat little naked cherubs. The floor was marble, glossy, cut into big diamonds. There were four arched windows along one wall, and a line of eleven beautiful princesses standing opposite. They were each wearing a beautiful different-colored dress. Each dress was sleeveless, low-cut, the loose skirts barely covering their muscular calves. Their hands were folded in front of them, their expressions … well, they looked more than a little bored.

  A well-dressed young man stood in front of the throne at the far end of the room. The throne was made of wood, carved so that the ends of the armrest
s curled into little feathered wings. Snow White sat in the throne, her fingers drumming on the armrests. She wore the same bored expression on her pale face, which looked older than I’d expected it. She had lines. She had bags under her eyes. She looked a bit like my mom when she woke up, only a little prettier—and that’s no offense to my mom, either. Snow White just looked a little old. She was wearing a white dress with fluffy shoulders and a high neckline and long silver earrings dangling from each ear. Her black hair was pulled back behind her shoulders, her crown hanging from the finial—the little wooden post—on the back of the throne.

  There was more. Oh, so much more. Beautiful marble pillars on either side of the throne held up the ceiling, and two sets of double-doors stood beside the pillars, and then two more marble pillars stood in the corners, and behind the princesses: two big paintings of unicorns—boy, was this lady ever into the unicorns. Above the paintings it was more of the same … a beam of beautiful white marble and carved into the marble—yup—more unicorns. Coming right at you. 3-D unicorns.

  Seth made a low whistle, marveling first at the silver leaves running along the wall behind the throne and then at the princesses.

  “Quiet, boy,” whispered Flick. “Let’s see what this is about.”

  “… And if you’ll just check the scroll I provided to your servant,” the well-dressed man was saying, “you’ll see that my land values are quite high, and while my castle is by no means as beautiful as yours, it is more than fitting for a princess. A marriage would also strengthen our respective houses and bind us together.”

  “The threat of Agnim should bind us like siblings,” Snow White responded in a cool voice.

  “Well … more so.”

  Snow White yawned. “Thank you so much for the detailed account of your wealth, your highness. I’m sure you’ve made quite a name for yourself since you’ve arrived … tell me, how long has it been since your vanquishing?”

  The man shifted feet. He was wearing shiny black shoes and downright tight tights. Or pantaloons. Or whatever you’d call tight pants royalty used to wear for the sole purpose of looking ridiculous. He was like a fancy-shmancy Robin Hood, right down to his neck-length blond hair. “I have lived here for seventy years, my queen. My castle lays to the south, on fertile land with a good, small population of servants and subjects.”