She had even been in two fights. Roderick had to dispatch the first guy for her. The second one she killed in self-defense then cried and threw up while her brother held her. He was so great. He always gave her the bed when there was one, and when there wasn’t they slept with all three swords between them just to be safe. And the best of all, he had been sober for two months.
The first month was bad for both of them. He got angry a lot and had horrific nightmares. But no matter how late or early, he woke up screaming, Evangeline would listen to him, make him talk it out. His problem was that he had no one to speak to after his mother had died. He bottled everything up inside. He said it was because men weren’t supposed to cry or complain. They were supposed to be stalwart, unflinching, and hard as stone.
“You must think me so unmanly,” he told her once while wiping his eyes.
“What was so manly about being slumped over a moldy table or laying with a woman whose name you don’t know? Or for that matter, leaving children fatherless while you gallivant around the countryside like our father did?” Evangeline had asked him. “A manly man is loyal and has a good heart. As far as I know you are the manliest man I ever met, Roderick of Sobraleen.”
She made him smile. She told him things she had not even told her mother. She explained to Roderick how it felt not to have a father like other girls. There was no one to tell her how pretty she was, or make her feel special, or boost her confidence. She had said yes to the first buck-toothed Cobbler’s boy who asked for her hand in marriage because she was afraid she’d never get any other offers. She didn’t even like the boy. Evangeline made Roderick swear he would marry a nice girl and stay faithful to her and their kids, or else she’d get him good. He made her promise not to wed until she was madly head over heels.
As Evangeline took the scenic route home, she felt very different from the angry young woman who had left all those long months ago. She glanced up at her handsome brother. She felt... she felt so much like she was being watched by thirty or so gossips sitting by a river doing their laundry. The women had all stopped washing to stare at her and Roderick as they walked past on the road. Evangeline knew them all. They were the worst and quickest tale-bearers in Eldrica. They would run and tell the cobbler everything they saw. He would draw and quarter her. She would have to move away with her mother to a new town.
Evangeline stood frozen in horror. It was bad enough for her to run away on her wedding day, but to return in the company of a man? Oh god, what to do? What to do? She’d have to kill them. That was the only answer, the only way to stop them. She pulled her sword. No, no, no. She couldn’t. It was wrong. She had to think of another way and fast.
“What’s wrong?” Roderick asked, seeing her brandishing her sword. He looked around as if he were expecting seven black knights to pop out at them from the woods. Instead, he saw the little old ladies. He waved to them.
Shocked, Evageline grabbed his hand and started shouting, projecting her voice as loudly as she could as they walked past the group of watching women, “Thank you, my long lost brother, Roderick, for escorting me on my journey to visit our father’s grave. It was so good of you to guard my honor with our father’s blade the whole time and assure that I remain an untouched flower.”
“Uhhh...sure, no problem,” Roderick shrugged.
Evangeline grabbed his arm then hurried him along through back alleys to her mother’s house.
“Nice place,” he croaked as she pushed him inside and slammed the door. Evangeline peered through the window. No angry mob of cobblers yet.
“Mum! Mum?” she called.
Her mother, still pepper-haired and round, rushed out of the kitchen, dropped a dish cloth on the floor, and pulled her into her fat arms. “Oh, Evangeline, I was so worried!”
“I missed you too, Mum! I’m so glad I’m home.” And she really was.
“Where have you been? I found your letter, but I couldn’t believe it. Did you see it? The grave? Is he really dead?”
Evangeline nodded, and her mother lowered her eyes.
“But look here, Mum, this is Roderick, his son!”
Evangeline’s mother turned to smile sadly at him.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said.
“I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, Mi’lady.”
Evangeline’s mother made Roderick feel at home. She waited on him hand and foot, seating him beside Evangeline on a bench. She fed him tea and cake, then lunch. And only when she was sure he was properly stuffed did she take a seat across from them.
“I wanted to thank you, again, Mi’lady,” Roderick said, standing and bowing to her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a real home-cooked meal. I didn’t know how much I missed them.”
“Call me Bronwyn,” she said, bidding him to take his seat again. “Now, tell me, how did the two of you meet?”
Evangeline and Roderick looked at one another and began laughing, then they told their tale. Roderick was a gentleman as usual, while Evangeline interjected, interrupted and over-talked him the whole time. Then she ended by taking the sword from its hiding place in the bed roll and showing it off. Her mother shook her head in disbelief at the whole thing.
“You certainly are a lot like your father,” Bronwyn said.
“Isn’t he just the spitting image?” Evangeline exclaimed.
Her mother smiled then frowned as she studied Roderick’s face. “He looks a bit like him. I guess.”
“A bit?” Evangeline squealed. This was going so well. She had saved her brother, gotten home in one piece and her mother was adopting Roderick just as she planned. “He’s the water-reflection of Garron Longshanks.”
She dug the picture from her pocket and showed it to her mother.
“Who’s Garron Longshanks?” Roderick asked.
“That isn’t your father,” Bronwyn told her.
“What?” Evangeline spat.
The others reiterated what they had said then looked at each other. The sword and the drawing slipped from Evangeline’s hands. The green hilt shattered like glass on the floor. Stunned, they sat in silence for some time. Then suddenly everything became so clear.
“That filthy old badger,” Evangeline said, thinking immediately of the monk. He’d tricked her. He wasn’t dead. It was all a trick. Roderick wasn’t even her brother. He was.... She turned slowly toward him, feeling his gaze. Their eyes met. Evangeline leapt across the bench and pressed her mouth to his even as he ran his hands over her.
“Oh, thank God. Thank God,” she cried.
She didn’t even notice when her mother got up quietly and left the room.
Evangeline stared at the hanging gray deluge above her, felt the cold patter of rain against her skin. She let the drops race down her cheeks. She straightened her back, focused her eyes on the horizon, then raised her sword. It flashed like lightning in the sky. She swung the blade over her head, her wrists and arms gyrating, smooth like wool on a spindle.
“You’ll catch your death,” the old monk said stepping up beside her. Then he recognized her. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yeah, Dad, it’s me,” she said and punched him in the face. He fell flat over the grave. She pointed her sword at him while Roderick stepped out of from behind a tree. “And this is my husband. You know him? He’s the one you sent me to kill.”
The old man stared up at her, holding his bleeding lip. His cowl had fallen back, revealing sharp, emerald-colored eyes.
“I just want to know why you did it. Not that it matters,” Evangeline told him. “I can’t be more disappointed in you than I already am. You know, I asked around and found out you got your hands broken for stealing an old lady’s donkey. Her only donkey. But let’s forget that for now. Just tell me why you did it.”
The old man looked around shiftily, but there was nowhere to go, so he started talking. “He deserved it. That no good bastard stole my look, my stories, even called himself Margon the Longshank
ed. It’s identity theft, for Christ’s sake. I told the magistrate, but he only laughed at me. I had to scam for years to get enough money to buy my sword. His wasn’t even made of a real emerald. It was just green glass. A toy. I told him to stop imitating me. I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He said my time was over. I showed him.”
“That’s it? This was a territorial conflict between two crazy old bums?” Evangeline stammered. “So. . . so you. . . you’re hiding out here, and see me, and just decide it would be fun to send me on a quest to clean up your loose ends?”
“But my father fell and hit is head. It was an accident,” Roderick blinked.
Garron looked away. It took Roderick one more blink to turn purple with understanding and lunge.
“You murdering dog,” he shouted. “You poisoned my father!”
“Roderick, no!” Evangeline cried, blocking his way. Her husband stopped, stood panting in front of her. He showed how much he loved her by lowering his sword. Evangeline touched his cheek. “He’s my father. I should kill him.”
She raised her weapon, but Roderick caught and held her arms. “He isn’t worth it.”
“Maybe not,” she said, looking down at her father, “but his sword is.”
“My sword?” Garron blanched.
“You mean my mother’s sword? The one she and grandpa paid for when you were supposed to be kidnapped? Yeah! Give it up!”
Her father laughed. He got to his feet, clapping his hands. “Oh, I didn’t think it was possible, but you are truly worthy to be called my child. So smart. You figured it all out. Well, everything I said before was a lie. I was just testing you to see what you were made of. You are the only one I have found worthy to be my heir and carry on my legacy. I will now go and get your reward.”
Evangeline shook her head at him.
“I’ll never tell,” he shrieked.
She shook her head again and bent over the grave.
“We’ve been watching you for days,” she told him. “We know where you keep it.”
She pushed her hand into the soil and felt the shaft of the sword. She pulled it up with difficulty, brought it into the light. It looked exactly like the other one but it was real.
Her father hurtled toward her. “It’s mine. It’s my own. It’s my precious!” His groin met Evangeline’s armored knee. He crumpled into the fetal position and lay quiet and still.
“Well, he’s not having any more children,” Roderick winced.
“Who cares?” Evangeline waved the sword. She let it glint in the light. Roderick grinned. They did a little dance together.
“We’re going to be so rich. There are about a million carats in that thing,” he giggled.
Older now and wiser, Evangeline took out a jeweler’s glass and looked the hilt over.
“Actually, dear, there are only a few hundred,” she corrected, then giddily added, “but that’s more than enough for us to live happily ever after!”
“Give us a kiss,” Roderick said, grabbing her and swinging her around.
“Anytime, Brother. Anytime.”
Acrea
Can a heartless Princess learn to love?
Acrea was the fairest daughter of King Soon. Her eyes were a blue darkness in themselves, and those men who saw her and went mad with love proclaimed that there were stars in them brighter than the night’s. These stars, they said, augured their fate. Each man saw a different constellation and a different doom. Doom because Acrea of the starlit eyes had a heart that did not understand love.
She understood that she was a great beauty and that the moon grew still when she passed. She understood that with the passing of each season this thing called beauty that was a part of her grew more terrible, but why it was anyone else’s concern but her own, she did not understand.
Acrea cared only for two things, her garden and her aged father. Her garden was a place of delight and peace, for there the suitors dared not come. There she played with her maidens, and her beauty was a natural thing. She was one with the awesome grandeur of trees in flower, the sound of a waterfall at the break of winter, or the sight of the ocean on moonless nights. There she was like and akin and not alone. There, curious beasts came to her and became her friends. She was visited by a golden deer that trembled at her touch, a blue rabbit who was healed in her arms, and a purple bird that sang to her. Her life was simple joy.
Her aged father had the garden created when he was yet a youthful man, but time and sorrow had bent him low. He had lost his wife in childbed and his sons to war, and now his only joy was in Acrea. It was his secret triumph that she loved no one. She, unlike the others, had not left him. When suitors came, he dutifully sent for her.
She took her time. She brushed her silver hair and put on her robes before going to the throne room. Before she could take her place in the throne beside her father’s, the besotted prince would have inevitably flung himself at her feet with the question he had traversed oceans or deserts to ask hanging trembling at his lips. She always waited patiently for him to speak. When the man finally managed to utter his request of her hand in marriage with a thousand apologies breaking in—he was unworthy though he was the son of such and such King, who owned this many kingdoms, in whose defense he had slain that many dragons and sundry beasts—she would look at him with kindness and a type of curious wonder.
“Is that all?” Acrea would ask after a moment.
The Princes always looked up, surprised but still hopeful.
“Then I am sorry, but no,” she would say right before she returned to her garden. The princes inevitably tried to appeal to her father with sudden tears in their eyes, though they had never wept since the day they were born.
The King would shake his great head and sigh, “She is young yet. Give her time.”
Time passed, but nothing moved Acrea’s heart toward love. His arrows broke at her beauty. He too seemed to fall powerless at her feet like every other male. But there were those who had great power who were not so kind or docile. There was a suitor who came with a robe of many colors, like a whirlwind. He came to the old king and froze his blood.
“Great King,” the suitor said upon entering the throne room, “I have come to marry your daughter. I am a king’s son, but I am greater than any king living and have power to bring back your sons and wife from the embrace of death.”
With a wave of the wizard’s arms the shades of the king’s dead appeared before him with beckoning arms. “They will be made flesh for an hour if Acrea becomes my wife. I will take her to a palace a thousand times better than yours or any king’s, and she will live in comfort all her days. Besides this, I will fill your treasuries and conquer all the surrounding kingdoms for you. What do you say?”
The king stared long at his dead, and tears fell from his aching eyes as they settled on his wife. But Acrea was so much like her in face and form that he knew what his wife would have wanted him to say. He opened his lips:
“Wizard, I think you try too hard.”
“You will see how hard I am willing to press to get my way,” the wizard snarled, closing his fist on the air and dispelling the ghosts. “I have waited long and suffered much. I am not a man made for suffering, nor am I thwarted easily. I have come to you honorably. I could have taken Acrea anytime without your feeble consent!”
“Then why have you not?” The king asked him.
The wizard quieted in his robes, and his threats and anger left him. “Because I want her consent. Because I love her more than anything in the world, more than I can bear. She must accept me. I am not a man that takes rejection well. It would be best if you went to her and told her this for all our sakes.”
“Tell her yourself, for here she comes.”
Acrea entered, wearing her whitest robes. She stared at the hooded man standing before her father. And as her eyes fell on him he began to tremble. He bowed to her as she passed. She took her seat at her father’s right hand.
“Here is another suitor for you,” the king said.
The wizard stood up straight, tossed his cloak over his shoulder.
“He is a wizard,” the king added, his voice full of derision.
“I am not just a wizard, my lady,” the suitor said quickly. “I am the Wizard King. Ask anything of me as your husband, and I will grant it.”
Acrea stared at him but said nothing. Only a small wrinkle disturbed the calm of her brow. There was something so very familiar about this Wizard King.
“Ask anything of me now as proof, and it is yours,” the wizard stammered. “Does my lady want the ice gem of Torvol to adorn her breasts, or the twin emeralds of the Goddess of the Trees for her ears, or a dress made for the daughter of the Sun?”
“I want you to become a deer,” she said, thoughtfully.
The wizard shuffled in his robes. “Is there nothing else my lady would ask? It is such a cheap trick, not worthy of you. Any ogre can do it. Ask me to prove myself, to make all your trees bear gem fruit or turn a mountain into a castle of gold before the day is out.”
“No,” she said, coloring. “I want to see the cheap trick.”
He sighed and became a deer white as snow, with gold dapples.
“You are very much like a deer I knew, which somehow managed to overleap my garden walls, which are too high for birds to fly past.”
The wizard resumed his form. “I am the deer and the lame blue rabbit, and the purple bird that sang your name.”
Acrea’s breath came in and out her like a wind. Her cheeks blushed at the betrayal, and she felt anger for the first time in her life.
“I have been all those things to you, princess,” the wizard confessed, kneeling. “You loved me then. You told me so many times. Love me now as I love you and accept my hand in marriage.”
Fairy Tales For Sale Page 5
