A Fate Worse Than Dragons

by Moore, John

  “It always was the harshest part of the original plan,” Gloria admitted. “But Miligras is a good lawyer. I remember I once sat in on a case where he argued that up was down. When the jury let out, half of them took the wrong stairs.”

  “What are you doing?” said Roland. “What is that?”

  “It’s a toasting fork,” Alison said, holding it up proudly. “I invented it. It’s for toasting sliced bread.”

  Roland made a face, but before he could say anything, Terry picked up the thread again. “Your family disowned you? Why? Surely they understand that it wasn’t your fault?”

  “They were furious. They were counting heavily on me marrying into the royal family. They said I didn’t try hard enough. They said I should have killed the gryphon myself. Even my father was mad.”

  “My own father has many faults,” said Alison, “but I must admit he never asked me to kill monsters.” She switched her attention to Gloria. “Did you bring butter and jam?”

  “In the small pots.”

  “Dad said it was nothing to be afraid of,” Roland continued. “It’s just a giant bird with claws, he said. I don’t think he really took a good look at it.”

  “Maybe they’ll calm down after a while.”

  Roland shook his head. “To hell with them. Alison and I talked it over and decided we will make it on our own. I’m not too proud to work. And I have a gentleman’s education. I can get some sort of clerical job. We don’t need a lot of money to be happy.”

  “Right,” said Alison, waving a freshly browned piece of toast for emphasis. “I’ll go back to work, too. We’ll get by. And you know, without Count Bussard putting the screws to us all the time, eventually the debt on my father’s estate will be paid off.”

  “Of course we’ll be old and gray by then,” said Roland.

  “So we’ll have a nice place to retire to.”

  Terry exchanged looks with Gloria, trying to decide if he should speak first. She gave him a nod, so he said, “Roland? Alison?” He cleared his throat. “Um, we kind of expected that something like that might happen, so Gloria has a plan.”

  “We have a plan,” Gloria corrected him.

  “Right. We have a plan, but I’ll let Gloria tell you about it.”

  “It turned out there was a bounty for killing the gryphon,” said Gloria. “It falls into the classification of ‘marauding varmint.’ It isn’t a great deal of money, but Terry and I decided that the four of us will split it, since the whole pursuit was a group effort.”

  “That’s very generous of you both,” Roland began. “But we don’t need . . .”

  “There’s a need for a new baker in Middleton,” continued Gloria. “We’re going to be moving there. The old baker told us he wants to retire. He’s putting his place up for sale. So we thought, why don’t we all use the bounty money for a down payment on the bakery. Then you and Alison could bake there.”

  “We should check this out, Roland.” Alison carefully spread a pat of butter across her toast. “I’ve often thought that the workers should own the means of production.”

  “You can make anything you want,” added Gloria. “You could make that bread with the seeds.”

  “I like the rye bread with seeds,” said Terry.

  “What are you eating?” asked Roland.

  Alison had to chew and swallow before she could answer. “Toasted bread with butter and jam. Do you want some?” She held the piece up to Roland. He took it and looked at it carefully.

  “You put butter and jam on toasted bread?”

  Alison nodded. “It’s something we started doing at the inn. People think that toasted bread is safer to eat, but the problem is that toasting the bread makes it dry. So we started putting butter on it, and then we added jam for breakfast and tea. Everyone loves it.

  Roland took a bite of the toast. He chewed it slowly and thoughtfully. His eyes got wide. He took another bite.

  “See, I noticed that people were dipping their toast in their tea. Also their coffee. So I tried spraying it with water, using a plant mister. But the customers complained that they didn’t want soggy toast, even though they made it soggy when they dunked it. Go figure. Anyway, the butter and jam was a big hit. We sell pots of it every morning. It was my idea,” Alison finished proudly.

  “Mmmph,” said Roland. He swallowed. “Alison,” he said, quietly and seriously. He knelt next to her chair. “I want you think carefully about your next answer. Are you absolutely certain that you thought of this all by yourself?”

  “Oh yes,” said Alison. “Everyone thinks it’s a crazy idea until they try it for the first time. It only works with sliced bread, too. If you try it with broken bread, it won’t toast evenly.”

  “And,” said Roland, still outwardly calm, “did you think to patent the idea?”

  “Well, no. It’s just a simple recipe. Kind of silly, really.”

  “Patent it!” said Roland. He stood up abruptly. “Tomorrow! We’ll draw up the patent today, and you can file it first thing tomorrow. Yes!” He snapped his fingers. “Toasted bread with butter and jam.” He turned to Gloria and Terry. “We’ll need some of that bounty money for the filing fees.”

  “No problem,” said Gloria.

  Roland began pacing back and forth, brainstorming out loud, waving the toast around as he spoke. “Jam. We’ll need jam. No. We don’t buy the jam. We’ll buy options on future jam production. Someone take notes.” Terry scrambled to find ink and a quill. “Strawberry,” Roland said. “Grape. Raspberry, blackberry, and apple. And that other stuff. Not apple jelly, the brown stuff.”

  “Apple butter!” said Alison, getting caught up in Roland’s excitement. “Marmalade!”

  “Right. Apple butter. Anything that can be spread on toasted bread.”

  “Yeast paste,” offered Gloria.

  “Say what?” said Terry.

  “That stuff from the bottom of brewers’ vats.”

  “Who would eat that? It tastes like burned grease”

  “It’s good for you,” Gloria insisted.

  “Write it down,” said Roland. “We’ll patent the toasting fork also. Of course at first we’ll just give them away.”

  “We will not!” Alison clutched her fork. “I invented this.”

  “It’s called a loss leader, my love,” said Roland. “It will help build the market for toasted bread with jam.” He ate the rest of the toast while he thought. “We’ll take out two patents. One specifically for the toasting fork, and then another general patent to try to cover all possible bread-toasting equipment—the toasting fork, the toasting knife, the toasting spoon, the toasting corkscrew. Whatever you can think of.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll develop a business plan, then we’ll get to work rounding up investors. They won’t be a problem.” He picked Alison out of her chair, spun her around, and hugged her. “When word gets out that we’re partnered with a princess and a knight, people will be flocking to invest with us.”

  Gloria and Terry looked at each other. Simultaneously, they both shrugged. “I’m in,” said Gloria.

  “Me too,” said Terry.

  “Roland,” said Alison. “Do you really think this will work?”

  “Toasted bread with butter and jam,” said Roland. He kissed her. “Darling, this is going to be big.”