The 10th Kingdom

by Kathryn Wesley

  Oh, he wasn’t going to survive this.

  “Look at those sheep,” he mumbled. “Trollops. It shouldn’t be allowed.”

  Virginia was watching him quizzically.

  One of the shepherdesses saw him look at them. She giggled at him. Her blouse was straining at her chest, and she had the most lovely eyes, the most beautiful skin.

  She came toward him, a smile on her stunning face. “Mor-nin’. My name is Sally Peep. I’m a shepherdess.”

  “No question about it,” Wolf said to himself.

  The other shepherdesses apparently saw her, and followed. They climbed over a nearby gate so that they could see him. He caught a glimpse of leg, of well-turned ankles, of soft flesh....

  “My, what hairy, strong arms you’ve got,” said Sally Peep. “If my door wasn’t locked, I’d be scared you’d come into my house and huff and puff and blow my clothes off.”

  “Where do you live?” Wolf asked.

  “Come on,” Virginia said, pulling him away. Apparently her amusement had left her. Wolf looked at the shepherdesses behind him and longed for the missed opportunity. But part of him—the sane part—was glad that Virginia had pulled him away.

  They went around a corner and found themselves inside Little Lamb Village. It was made up of white cottages and looked entirely too wholesome. The Peeps seemed to own everything. Wolf saw signs that listed a Bill Peep as a butcher, a Gordon Peep as a grocer, and a Felicity Peep as a florist before he stopped reading signs.

  People were leading sheep around on leashes as if they were dogs. Wolf bit his lower lip, trying to restrain himself. Letting sheep loose in the village like that should have been a crime.

  Couldn’t they see the temptation it caused? It just wasn’t healthy.

  Virginia kept a firm grip on his arm. She was smiling at people as they passed, returning their cheery little greetings. Such friendliness wasn’t healthy either. Such niceness should be outlawed.

  All these sheep were obscene.

  Wolf bit down on his knuckle to hold himself back. He made himself focus on a banner overhead that announced the Annual Little Lamb Village Competition.

  For what? he wondered. The tastiest sheep?

  Virginia managed to drag him to the center of the village. There were tables set up, but Wolf didn’t know why. Instead, he focused on the small well. Someone had built a roof over it, and there was a bar for holding a rope to help lower buckets.

  Beside the well was the only strange-looking person in the entire village. He was lumpish and he had a stupid expression on his face.

  “Is there someone in charge around here?” Tony asked. He pulled Wendell close behind him.

  “I am the village idiot, and I am in charge of the wishing well.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “What, are we carrying magnets or something? How do we attract these people?”

  If Wolf had been feeling better, he might actually have tried to answer that.

  “Nice dog you got there,” the village idiot said, petting Prince on the head. “He reminds me of someone.”

  At that moment, several villagers went by. They wheeled a cart with a cloak in it that had to be twenty feet long. It was made of pure lamb’s wool. Wolf could smell it. He started salivating. He turned away so that no one would see.

  “What’s that for?” Tony asked.

  “The village’s gift for Prince Wendell,” the village idiot said. “It be his coronation cloak, made out of finest lamb’s wool.”

  Tony looked down at the golden dog. “Let’s hope he likes

  it.”

  “Are you going to make a wish, then?” the village idiot asked. “It’s very bad luck to pass without making a wish.”

  Virginia reached into their savings and pulled out a coin for Tony and for Wolf. Of course she would. She believed anything. Wolf believed it too, only not quite as much.

  “This is money we shouldn’t be wasting,” Virginia said.

  “You are very prim,” Wolf said. “But my wish will change all that.”

  He grinned wolfishly. He wasn’t sure if he was going to wish for that or for help getting through the full moon tonight. Virginia closed her eyes. She squinched up her face, and Wolf got the sense that her wish was very important to her. Then she tossed her coin.

  Tony tossed his at the same time and he had a similar look on his face. His eyes were closed too.

  Wolf closed his and wished—hard—then tossed the coin. He opened his eyes as it flew through the air. At that moment, the others landed with a dull clump. His landed a minute later, making the same tinkling sound.

  “It don’t work,” the village idiot said. “It used to be a real magic wishing well, and folks traveled from all over the kingdoms to have things blessed in it. But it’s all dried up now. It hasn’t flowed in years. I have made it my life’s work—”

  “Thrilling though your story is,” Tony said, “what we’re really interested in is a mirror.”

  Wolf was glad Tony interrupted because Wolf was about to make the village idiot the former village idiot. On good days, Wolf didn’t suffer fools gladly. This was not a good day.

  “The mirror,” Tony was saying, “is about so big and black. We were told someone in the village bought it off Acorn.”

  “I have made it my life’s work to wait by this well until it fills up again. What do you think of that?” The village idiot grinned. It seemed as if he hadn’t heard Tony at all.

  Wolf clenched his fists as Tony turned to face him. “We have a problem here,” Tony said. “This man is a complete idiot.”

  “If only,” the village idiot said. “My father was a complete idiot, but I am still a half-wit.”

  They’d searched all afternoon and found no one who’d seen the mirror. Virginia was feeling tired and discouraged. Her father was reduced to talking to the golden Wendell. And Wolf—well, Wolf was acting strange.

  Virginia had taken it upon herself to find a place to sleep that night. No one seemed to have rooms. The annual competition, whatever it was, seemed to have filled the village. Finally she met Fidelity, one of the farm wives, and Fidelity claimed to have something for them.

  Fidelity led them to a small bam. Wolf’s eyes seemed to glow. Virginia wasn’t sure she liked that. Fidelity didn’t even seem to notice.

  “You can stay here if you like,” Fidelity said. “Might not be posh like what you’re used to.”

  “This place smells of pigs,” Tony said.

  Her father was never satisfied. They ’ d stayed in worse places on this trip.

  “It’s great,” Virginia said to the woman. “Thanks.”

  Fidelity nodded. She was amazingly cheery. She had the rosy-cheeked look Virginia had previously associated only with Mrs. Santa Claus.

  She was about to leave when Virginia said, “You don’t know if anyone’s bought a mirror from a traveling trader recently?”

  “You’ll want to talk to the local judge. He bought a load of things off that dwarf for prizes for the competition. You’ll find him across the road in the inn. They do lovely food there, too. Well, that’s the understatement of the year.” Fidelity smiled. In fact, she’d been smiling all along. She waved happily at them and closed the bam door.

  “It’s like the Stepford Wives,” Virginia’s father muttered.

  Wolf moaned and clutched his stomach. He had turned frighteningly pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Virginia asked.

  “Cramps,” Wolf said. “I have to go to bed. I need to lie down immediately.” He collapsed on a bed of straw, groaning. He looked awful.

  Virginia crouched beside him and put her hand on his forehead. “You’re running a terrible temperature.”

  “Stop fussing over me!” Wolf snapped. “You’re not my mother. Stop mothering and smothering and cupboard loving everybody like a little dwarf housewife. Go out! Leave me alone!”

  Virginia took her hand off his forehead in surprise.

  “Don’t you talk to my daughter like that
,” her father said. He looked ready for a fight. Virginia was about to calm him-— she had a hunch she knew what Wolf was going through— when there was a scream outside.

  “There’s a wolf!” a woman yelled. “Wolf!”

  Wolf buried his head in the straw. Virginia and Tony ran outside.

  “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

  They rounded a corner and stopped in the center of town. Apparently, as part of the festivities, a game was going on. A local man wore a wolf’s head and was knocking on doors. Women peered out the window and screamed. Virginia recognized some of them who had smiled so provocatively at Wolf that morning. Had they known who he was?

  Other village men arrived on the other side of the street. They were carrying pitchforks, and were searching for the wolf. The wolf continued down the street and there was laughter and more shouting in the distance.

  Virginia looked at her father. He shook his head. She glanced over her shoulder toward the bam. Wolf had said he wanted to be alone. She’d leave him for a while. Maybe he could sleep.

  Across the street was a local pub. It was called, of all things,

  The Baa-Bar, and it listed Barbara Peep as the manager. In there, perhaps, they might find word of the mirror.

  Her father seemed to have the same idea. He led her across the street and into the bar. It was loud and smelled of milk and beer, and fried food. The bar had a lot of tables, but most everyone was crowded around the barstools.

  Virginia had never seen so many middle-aged farmers who all had the same look. Their wives were not just pleasingly plump like some of the younger women in the village, but verging on fat. Young men with the same dull look as the farmers wore their shirts open to the navel, rather like young Jethro in The Beverly Hillbillies. And there were certainly enough shepherdesses and milkmaids to go about.

  Virginia half expected her father to start in on some joke about the farmer’s daughter, and was glad he didn’t.

  She turned toward him and, for the first time, realized that through all the commotion, he’d dragged Prince Wendell with him.

  “Are you going everywhere with Prince?” Virginia asked.

  Her father looked slightly embarrassed. “He’s gold. I can’t leave him around. Anyway, it’s good to keep him moving, you know, like coma patients. Keep turning them over and playing their favorite records.”

  He stopped in front of a sign. “Look,” he said, “here’s tomorrow’s events.”

  Virginia peered at the information written in chalk on a blackboard. One listing caught her eye.

  11:00 a.m. Beautiful Sheep and Shepherdess Competition.

  PRIZE: Full-Length Mirror.

  She was about to say something when she realized her father had waded into the crowd and was leaning across the bar.

  “Excuse me,” he said. His voice carried. Virginia hurried toward him. “Is the Judge about?”

  The bartender, who could only be Barbara Peep, said, “Judge will be in for his dinner, eight o’clock on the dot. Take a seat. Your food will be with you in a jiffy.”

  “We haven’t ordered any food,” Virginia said.

  Her father shushed her and led her to an empty table. The commotion from the bar sounded fainter here. She could actually hear her own thoughts.

  She settled back in her chair, but her father was looking at the couple beside them. They seemed fairly typical of the group inside the bar. The man had that same round face all the others had, and his wife had passed pleasing several meals ago. The man was reading a newspaper, the first Virginia had seen since she came through the mirror. It was called The Fourth Kingdom Gazette.

  The man looked up, apparently sensing their interest. “They’re saying the Trolls have claimed the whole of the southwest region.”

  Oh, dear, Virginia thought. She wondered how much of that was connected to them. Still, she had learned in New York that talking about politics with strangers was dangerous.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Virginia said politely.

  “We’re not very political,” her father said.

  The couple didn’t seem to notice the brush-off. “I heard the Queen’s escaped,” the farmer’s wife said, “and she’s behind it all, and they’re talking about all-out war between the Nine Kingdoms.”

  “Where’s Wendell, I say?” the farmer shouted. “If he’s not careful, he’s going to lose his kingdom.”

  Virginia tried not to look at the golden dog, but her father put his hand on Prince Wendell’s head. Her father was hiding his face, but Virginia recognized his expression.

  It was one of deep and profound guilt.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Judge was a somber man who liked his food. Virginia understood why. In the Baa-Bar, she’d just had the most fantastic meal of her life.

  She and her father hadn’t ordered, not really. They’d just been waiting for the Judge as Barbara Peep had instructed them to do. But Barbara Peep had brought them food—the most incredible food Virginia had ever eaten. And it was plain: potatoes, lamb, squash, and cider. Her father had had too much of the cider, but Virginia couldn’t blame him. It had all tasted so good.

  The one she could blame was Wolf. He wasn’t looking well, but he had left the barn anyway and joined them. He’d eaten like an absolute pig. He’d gone through racks of lamb like a sheering machine, and he had more bones on his plate than Virginia and her father combined—and they’d been in the bar much longer than he had.

  In fact, Wolf had continued eating even after the Judge had come in. Virginia and her father had gone to the Judge’s side, intent on talking him out of the mirror. But the man focused on his food.

  The Peeps grew the food, and they all seemed quite proud of it. Virginia finally understood why the older women were so heavy and everyone had such a healthy glow. They ate better here than most people in the fancy restaurants in Manhattan. She almost didn’t believe it.

  Almost.

  She’d seen too many strange things already to discount any of them.

  But now her attention had to be on the Judge. Virginia explained as best she could the entire story of the mirror. She had to speak loudly because people were singing and yodeling on the other side of the bar.

  Through it all, the Judge kept eating.

  “So you see,” she finished, “in a way, that mirror really belongs to us.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” the Judge said. “I bought it fair and square. I buy a whole batch of things every year for the village prizes.”

  “I know how these things work, Your Honor,” Tony said. “What about if we slip you a few gold coins?”

  “I’m a Judge and I don’t like people trying to bribe me,” the Judge said. “Now not another word or I’ll have you thrown out of the village.”

  He turned them away from his table. Virginia stood and started back for her own to see if Wolf had any ideas. But he was no longer sitting there. She cast about anxiously—he’d been so sick—and finally she saw him, watching a pair of yodeling milkmaids.

  Virginia walked toward him. He still looked sick. His skin was pale and sweaty, his eyes almost beady. He was standing too close to the milkmaids, watching them, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

  Sally Peep, the buxom shepherdess who had approached Wolf that morning, brushed against him. Virginia clenched a fist. She didn’t like how she felt when other women got too close to Wolf.

  But she also didn’t like this Peep girl. She was too forward, and she was too interested in Wolf.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?” Sally said as she touched Wolf’s arm. She handed him ajar of candy. “I can’t get these sherbet dips undone. Could you help me, Mr. ... ?”

  Wolf swallowed, apparently unable to answer. His gaze met

  Virginia’s for just a moment. She wasn’t going to help him with this.

  Another buxom Peep girl sidled up to him. Didn’t they ever get strange men in this town? They were all acting like Wolf was fresh meat.

  “Wh
at is your name?” the second girl asked.

  “Uh, Wolfson is my name,” Wolf said.

  That was lame, Virginia thought. And possibly dangerous.

  “Wolfson?” Sally asked.

  “Warren Wolfson,” Wolf said.

  The Peep girls didn’t seem to see anything wrong with the name. Virginia crossed her arms and leaned against a nearby table, watching and trying to swallow the anger that was building inside her. These girls—women, actually—were pressing every possible body part against Wolf.

  “It’s my eighteenth birthday today,” Sally said. “Bet you don’t know what’s going to happen to me tonight?”

  Virginia’s eyes widened. If she’d talked like that at eighteen, her father would have put her in a cage.

  The other girl shushed Sally, but it seemed to do no good.

  “Is it the bumps?” Wolf asked.

  Sally paused and ran a hand along Wolf’s back. Virginia nearly went over to her and threw her aside. What was wrong with her anyway? She’d never acted like that over a man.

  “What’s that sticking out of the back of your trousers?” Sally asked. “It’s quite a bulge.”

  Wolf moved out of her reach. He almost seemed embarrassed. “I must get back,” he said. “I think I left a chop on my plate.”

  Suddenly, two of the big-chested young men grabbed Wolf by the arms and slammed him against the wall. Virginia put a hand over her mouth, but it was partly to cover a smile. He deserved a bit of shoving around.

  “No outsiders mess with Peep girls, you understand?” one big guy said.

  “What are you doing around here, anyway, Mr. Wolfson?” the second asked.

  “Let’s take him out back and ask him properly,” the first said.

  They were going to do some serious damage. Virginia telt the smile leave her face. The men had Wolf by the arms and were going to drag him outside. For all the flirting he’d done, he didn’t deserve being beaten into a bloody pulp.

  Unless it was by her.

  Virginia walked behind the men and tapped one on the shoulder. “What are you doing with my husband?” she asked.

  “Your husband?” The big guy sounded surprised. Wolf was grinning at her.