Bronwyn's Bane

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  “Dolts! Dunderheads!” a familiar voice said. “Do not think to impede me! After what I have been through today, you are no more than overgrown horseflies!”

  Anastasia batted at the horses with her wings as if they were exactly what she said, then circled the courtyard like a hawk. Bronwyn jumped up and began waving wildly. The bird spotted her and exclaimed. “Bronwyn! Whatever are you doing down there, my dear? I have been flying since last evening looking for you all across this dreary stretch of sand. You are simply the only one who has any sense at all and you must come back immediately and help me rescue the others.”

  The swan swooped down, making a perfect landing in the pool. Mashkent’s servants discreetly vanished.

  Bronwyn couldn’t think how to tell the swan about the pool or the battle or to let her know that they needed to go home right away, even if it meant keeping the curse.

  Anastasia wouldn’t have heard what she was saying anyway. She was trumpeting insistently before she hit the ground. “Come now, we must fly to the aid of our comrades immediately. Time is of the essence! Why, I myself barely escaped with my life from an entire army of monsters, and then only because that brave little gypsy lad opened the door and endangered himself to distract my persecutors from me.”

  “But—”

  “But me no buts, my dear child. Have I not said the situation is grave? Lady Rusty was the first to be seized, and now Carole, Jack and that handsome young madman have joined them. All have been spirited away and I fear greatly for their safety. Naturally I came to you,” the swan said, fixing Bronwyn with a beady and disapproving stare. “I flew through snow and braved more monsters to reach this place where I was first bound in servitude and hoped never to see again to reach you, Bronwyn. I really think you might show more interest and enthusiasm.”

  The djinn servant popped out from behind an arch and bowed three times to Bronwyn again. “Is this beast annoying you, high born? Shall I have it cooked?”

  “Try it,” Anastasia hissed. “Bronwyn, you have fallen under the influence of cheats, liars, and profit-mongers. I urge you to fly with me now. If you will not, then I must return alone, to try to seek the help of the Emperor, though it means exposing myself as an enchanted creature.”

  Bronwyn looked longingly again at the horses, then sighed deeply, pulled on the seven-league boots, which had been newly polished by one of the servant girls, and started for the door. It was no good trying to go back home without the others, anyway, even if it weren’t her duty as a representative of their government to protect them, which it was. While she tried to think of brave things to say about how she would rush off single-handed to rescue her father and save Argonia, she knew with a sudden sick certainty that there was nothing she could do alone and unaided that would be of any importance.

  She was so distracted that she forgot the special properties of seven-league boots. She never saw the door at all, but stepped over the courtyard and six and a half leagues of desert before Anastasia could leave the ground. “Wait!” the swan cried, almost in unison with Mashkent and Mirza, who dangled a charm between them.

  But all the merchants saw was her shadow and all they felt was the wind of her passing, and that of the great black bird in her wake. Mirza wrung his hands. “She’s gone!”

  The djinn wafted through the shop and out into the street, bowing the required number of bows in front of Mashkent, who fumed at him. “Fool! Bad buy! You were charged with her entertainment and you’ve allowed her to vanish, still an unsatisfied and uncommitted customer! Did I not say she was special?” But as the older man lifted his hand to strike the djinn on his bald black head, the servant drifted back, shaking a be-ringed finger at his employer.

  “A cuff will cost you extra, oh master.”

  Mashkent thriftily withdrew his hand, and the djinn continued, grinning through his strong white teeth, “I report the successful completion of my commission, master. I know what it is the illustrious lady desires and thereby that with which she can be purchased.” And as he explained, Mashkent’s disgruntlement was transformed to joy.

  “Hasten, oh nephew,” he said to Mirza when the djinn had revealed his knowledge and received a fat bonus in return. “We have but to make a few preparations to complete this transaction Profitably!”

  * * *

  Anastasia flapped furiously toward Bronwyn while the Princess dug her magic toes in the sand and waited. “I beg your pardon,” Bronwyn said through teeth she was studiously not grinding with impatience. “Perhaps my impression that we are in a hurry was mistaken.”

  “We are in a hurry, Bronwyn dear, but you can hardly expect me to fly seven leagues in the length of time it takes you to take one step. I fear you shall have to go on without me, and even then we may not be in time. I overheard the mercenary giving instructions to his creatures relative to some wickedness he has planned for tonight. Flying the very shortest possible way, it still took me most of the night and half the day to reach you.”

  Bronwyn shrugged, only half listening. “It didn’t take me nearly that long.”

  “Did it not?” the swan asked, then, with a flash of inspiration. “I mean to say, did it? How did you go? Oh, never mind. You are unable to explain, I realize. However, since my flight is so much slower than your boots, and it took me the same length of time to arrive at Miragenia as it took you, I must conclude that we did not pursue the same route. Perhaps if you could carry me along with you I could direct you—”

  The image of herself carrying a swan who was half as large as she jolted Bronwyn out of her preoccupied state. “No problem,” she said drily. “You can perch on my finger like a budgie.”

  “Yes, I see your point. Well, I need not actually ride upon you, just so I am attached to your person so the magic of the boots will work on me as well as you. Much as I loathe being harnessed to anyone again, perhaps we can make a lead for me out of your bodice lacings.”

  With fingers fumbling in haste, Bronwyn untied the leather lacing that held her gown close to her chest and tied one end around her wrist and the other around Anastasia’s neck, allowing her gown to flow loosely around her calves. Then with a high heart she stepped forward, and heard a gagging behind, and quickly back-stepped to retrieve a strangling Anastasia.

  “Perhaps around my legs as well as my neck,” the swan suggested when she had regained her breath. But even at this, Anastasia lagged so far behind that the lacing cut cruelly.

  “I can tell already we’re saving time,” Bronwyn growled.

  “I know,” Anastasia said. “And the deaths of our dear friends will be on our heads. Wait! Our heads! Oh, Bronwyn, that is the answer. Bronwyn, stand still a moment.”

  And before Bronwyn could ask a confusing question or try to move, Anastasia had flown up and anchored her webbed feet in Bronwyn’s hair.

  “Ouch!” the Princess cried, bracing her neck. “You’re light as a feather.”

  “Wait. Bear up,” the swan said, and began to fan her wings in a way that relieved both the pressure and the heat of the day. “Now then, if you turn a bit to your right, I think you’ll find there is a short cut across the desert.”

  Bronwyn set off again, and this time both she and the swan found their traveling arrangements bearable. Anastasia’s wings raised such a wind that Bronwyn found she was propelled forward at double time, like a ship under sail.

  * * *

  For a time after Droughtsea left, while the memory of torchlight in Carole’s eyes dimmed and the noise of Loefrig’s specious bathtub scraping back into place faded to be replaced by the thump of her own heart in her ears, no one said or did anything. She felt only the chill of the icy sweat from the cavern wall seeping into the back of her tunic, and heard little but an occasional cough, the subdued muttering growls of the monsters, the spring whispering past, and the conspiratorial drip on one side of the cavern answered by a stealthy drip-drop on the other side. Then, abruptly, a long exasperated sigh.

  “Well, really,” Mistress Raspberry
said in a voice so expressive that Carole could almost see her rolling her eyes. “What an absolute unmitigated ass that man is!”

  “I don’t know about that,” Kilgilles’ voice said. “Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps this coup of his will work out for the best. Things could be worse, after all. At least he seems to mean us no harm.”

  “Do be serious. You surely can’t propose that we concur with his idiotic plans and act as pawns for him in his overthrow of the current government?”

  “It seems to me matters have been taken out of our hands, which is just as well. I don’t see what you’re making such a fuss about. I confess I’m rather disappointed in your naive clinging to the status quo, particularly when it isn’t even your status quo. I had thought you a more logical, intelligent woman than that. This isn’t Argonia after all and I don’t see what possible difference who sits on the Frostingdungian throne can make to you.”

  “It can make considerable difference since, as you would know had you been listening with the intelligence you question in me, Droughtsea plans to keep us in Frostingdung to aid him. Quite aside from that, there’s the alliance to consider. Argonia needs help—”

  “And is just as likely to get it from Droughtsea as from Loefwin. Droughtsea is a professional soldier. He enjoys war and its profits. If your King can guarantee him these, your alliance should be in no jeopardy. If you think Loefwin will aid you simply out of the goodness of his heart, think again. My father, Baron Kilgilles—” Here he paused and his voice roughened and deepened to interrupt him. “Your mother’s rapist, puppy. Kilgilles was your mother’s rapist. I am your father.”

  The voice changed back, not bothering to reply to its counterpart. “My father served Loefwin from before the time I was born until he died, but I’ve never been unaware of Loefwin’s cruelty, of his lack of foresight in destroying what he sought to conquer, in obliterating what he couldn’t control, or of his brutal oppression of the native peoples of the six conquered nations. Droughtsea has been his man until now, and I for one am content to allow that the less than valorous deeds the fellow has committed have been for Loefwin’s sake, and not of his own volition. The man is intelligent, professional, and knows the value of a sound economy. Not particularly likable, but one needn’t like one’s ruler to serve him. And at least Droughtsea admits the existence of and is willing to make use of magic to rehabilitate the country.” His voice had risen gradually as he became more and more excited by his own argument. As his volume increased, so did the growls and snarls beyond him.

  “Shh,” Mistress Raspberry said. “You’re upsetting the monsters.” When both Gilles and the monsters had subsided, she continued in a quiet voice harder to hear than a whisper.

  “Has it occurred to you that he may conclude that the use of magic, both his and ours, is legitimate in his hands but no one else’s? Men of power do tend to be snobbish in that regard. At least Loefwin’s rules applied across the board, though the man you represent as his professional and trusted servant has chosen to disobey those rules.”

  Carole heard the beginnings of a protest from Kilgilles but Mistress Raspberry cut smoothly through. “Not that I find your cynicism less than understandable in view of your circumstances. I simply do not share it. I have reasons of my own to believe that Loefwin has undergone a sincere reformation of personality and truly means to improve the conditions in this country. You see, I happen to know why he has, as several of your countrymen have so astutely put it, ‘softened’ since his return from Argonia. I was all but on the scene of the event which changed him.”

  “Truly? Madam, you amaze me.” Kilgilles obviously was trying to sound unamazed, but wasn’t quite succeeding.

  “I’d have spoken before now but the event is connected with something of a state secret. But I suppose that the secret really only concerns what came later—not the bit about Loefwin—so perhaps I won’t be betraying a trust by mentioning this. When Loefwin was gravely wounded in a battle not far from my girlhood home, he was healed by a treatment of unicorn-blessed water, which, it seems, has the property—or was found to have on other subjects treated rather later—I’m traveling dangerously near to what I mustn’t tell—of curing shall we say spiritual wounds and maladies as it cures physical ones.”

  Carole, who had been listening with intense personal interest, piped up, “That’s true. My mother has a unicorn friend she sees sometimes. He watches over our river, or has one of his family do it. He’s—well, if Loefwin was cured by Moonshine, I say he’s all right and I wish if you grown-ups are going to run things you’d think of a way to spring us from this hole so we can help him.”

  “A plan,” Jack added, his voice trembling with cold, “which is safe for defenseless children and will guarantee success. “

  “You don’t want much, do you?” Mistress Raspberry asked. She sounded amused, and Carole thought that next she was going to say something like ‘but I happen to have just such a plan.’ Instead she said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I’ve never been kept anywhere against my will before. I was rather relying on your experience in this instance, and on yours, Carole. I may have some small contribution, but right now I’m tired, both of arguing and from lack of sleep. Since we are in a currently impossible situation, my only suggestion is that we wait until our host deprives us of at least a portion of our opposition, and until then, that we replenish our strength with slumber.”

  She proceeded to demonstrate by refusing to say another word. Her plan was, if not immediately helpful, at least easy to follow, and for an undeterminable number of hours Carole followed it, despite the noises of the monsters, which would have given her nightmares except that she was too tired to dream.

  A sudden light, a rasping followed by shuffling paws and a gamey smell woke her. She sat up, disoriented, stiff, and sore from being curled into a tight ball. Both her hands and feet were numb. The light shone from above, where Droughtsea knelt over the hole with a torch, beckoning to the shuffling beasts, which were beginning to climb a ladder. He waggled his fingers cheerfully at his prisoners, and withdrew the light as the first beast neared the top. When the last fork-tailed and spike-humped back cleared the lip of the hole, there was a brief groaning sound and more scuffling overhead, and Droughtsea reappeared to pull up the ladder again. As he started to replace the tub across the opening, Jack jumped to his feet.

  “Your Grace, wait! If you go forth into battle against the Emperor, will you not require our help as well as that of those unreliable animals?”

  “I think not, young Count,” Droughtsea answered. He was in the high good humor of a dog that knows it has a carcass waiting in the woods. “But I hardly need to worry about guarding my flank from my own people. I’m understaffed as it is. Your zeal will have plenty of opportunity to be tested later. Meanwhile, you won’t be lonely. I’ve left you several companions, though you may not be able to see them,” and with that he swung the tub over the hole again dousing the light.

  “W—where are they?” Jack asked, sitting down again and scooting as far back as he could.

  Carole felt for him in the dark, and edged over to him, ostensibly to comfort him but also because she could use his body heat to warm herself. “Buck up, Jack. I can handle a few hidebehinds if they get rowdy. And we have the shield. They can’t get past that either. If only we had a light—”

  “But we do!” he said, patting himself, and with a slight clacking sound withdrawing something from his clothing. “My tinder and flint—”

  “Isn’t it wonderful what naps will do for children?” Mistress Raspberry asked. “I was quite sure you’d think of something.”

  “But we haven’t really,” Carole said. “We can control the hidebehinds if we have to but we’ve no way to escape from here.”

  “Haven’t we? I wonder why Droughtsea bothers to post a guard on us if we couldn’t escape otherwise.”

  “Is it really a guard?” Kilgilles asked. “I got the impression he was just billeting his extra troop
s down here until they—and we—were wanted.”

  “Perhaps. But that little stream may lead us out of the cavern. It’s worth a try, wouldn’t you say? Come on now, why don’t you have a go, Carole? There’s a good girl.”

  Wishing Rusty wouldn’t treat her quite so much like a child when she was using her talent to save them from very adult dangers, Carole began whistling a jig, but had to stop almost immediately. Since she didn’t know where the hidebehinds were, she couldn’t focus on them, so the jig affected everyone but herself, and the others were slipping and sliding on the wet floor. When she stopped, she felt the hidebehinds closing in, menacing her from every side. They not only didn’t like to dance; they also didn’t like to see their charges hopping so energetically around the cavern.