Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess (5 page)

The next morning the orphan was waiting for
me when I woke. His long golden hair and his long pointed ears were
now carefully tucked under the cap. I suppose at this point in my
story, I should probably begin calling the orphan she instead of
he. Truth be known, I still think of her sometimes as a boy. It
just goes to show that my poor old mother was right. First
impressions are important.

“It’s about time you woke,” said she.

“Did I have some specific reason to rise
early?” I wondered. “Do I have an appointment at the apothecary? Is
the Queen of Aerithraine, with whom I once had the pleasure of
spending a fortnight, waiting to give me an audience?”

“No need for sarcasm,” said she. “I merely
point out that the sun has been up for some time. I’ve gone through
the larder of the poor human… I mean the poor man who lived here
and found some food not spoiled by goblins. We have a jar of
crabapples, a jar of pickles, and a few bits of dried meat. There
are also bags of coffee, flour, and dried beans that you can take
with you.”

“Why didn’t you whip up a pot of coffee for
us?” I asked. “Especially as you are so concerned about the hour.
It would have woken me up earlier.”

“Um, I don’t know how to make coffee.”

“Really? Oh well.”

We ate our bit of dried meat and crabapples
for breakfast and saved the pickles for later. I put them, along
with the coffee, flour, and dried beans in my pack, then loaded the
pack and the saddle onto Hysteria. And though she and I were both
loath to leave the relative warmth of the cabin to return to the
snowy outside, we did. The frosty overnight weather had frozen the
bodies of human and goblin alike to the ground, so that I would
have had to wait until they thawed a bit before I could give them a
proper burial, even if I had been so inclined. I wasn’t. So,
hoisting the orphan back up behind me, which is to say, upon
Hysteria’s haunches, we started off again down the road.

We rode in silence for most of the morning.
I don’t know precisely what the orphan was thinking, but I was
thinking on him, or rather her. I am well aware that one is just as
likely to come upon a female orphan as a male one, but the more I
thought on it, the more I realized that if my young friend had lied
about being a boy, then it was just as likely that she had lied
about being an orphan.

It was just about time for elevenses when I
spied two snowshoe hares sitting beside the road munching on a few
sprigs of green which poked out of the snow.

“Hop down,” I told the orphan.

“Why?”

“I want you to get a rock and bean one of
those hares,” said I. “If you can kill it, we can eat.”

“I don’t know that I can hit it.”

“It can’t be more than thirty feet away. Any
boy could hit it with a rock from this distance.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on boy.”

The child slid to the ground and then picked
up a likely looking stone from a small pile not too far from her
feet and hefting it back, launched it in the general direction of
the hares. She didn’t have much heft, and with the lob she put on
the rock, if it had hit the hare, it would have done nothing more
than make it angry. Of course there was no chance of that, since
the course of the missile was off to the right by a good thirty
degrees. The hares started and took off over the snow, disappearing
among the trees.

I dropped down to the ground and pointed my
finger accusingly. With my finger pointed and my back stiff, I cut
an intimidating figure. One can often get what one wants simply by
being intimidating. I know of a few warriors, warriors of great
renown mind you, who in truth had never done much warrioring at
all. They simply struck an intimidating pose when the time was ripe
and their reputations were made. Now that I think about it, I quite
possibly could have avoided fighting the goblins the previous
night, by just striking my intimidating pose, finger out and back
straight. I mean of course, the first goblins, the ones on the
road, as the second group of goblins, the ones in the cabin, were
in quite a rush to get out the door and had I simply stood in an
intimidating pose, they quite probably would have run me over.

“What are you doing now?” asked the
orphan.

“I am thinking about intimidating
poses.”

“Well, you certainly have managed an
intimidating pose there.”

“Thank you. I put a lot of work into
it.”

“Well it shows.”

“Thank you. It’s nice to have one’s work
appreciated.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And don’t change the subject,” said I.

“And just what subject was that?”

“You are a girl.”

“Um, no.”

“Um yes. And not only that, you are an
elfish girl.”

“An elven girl.”

“So you admit it.”

“Um, no.”

“Um yes. I saw you without your cap.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” said I. “You throw like a
girl.”

“Well what do you expect?” the girl asked.
“I’ve never thrown a rock before.”

“Oh-ho!”

“Oh-ho yourself,” said she. “Alright I’m a
girl. That doesn’t change anything. I still need your help to get
home.”

“It changes quite a bit,” I said accusingly.
“For one thing, you are a liar. You told me that you were a boy. If
you lied about that, what else have you lied about?”

“I never actually said I was a boy.”

“You most certainly did. I said ‘I see that
you are a sturdy boy, despite your condition…’ and you said ‘Yes, I
am a sturdy boy...”

“Who would have guessed that you had such a
perfect memory?” grumbled the child, folding her arms over her
chest.

“So,” I said, again striking my intimidating
pose. “What else have you lied about? I will wager your name is not
really Orphan.”

“I never said my name was Orphan, you bloody
great buffoon! I said my name was Galfrid. You just keep calling me
orphan.”

“Is your name Galfrid?”

“No.”

“You see? Liar!”

“It wasn’t a lie. It was a disguise.”

“You were disguised as an orphan named
Galfrid?”

“Yes.”

“Are you an orphan then?”

“Not really.”

“Liar!”

“I’m more of an orphan that you are,” she
said sullenly.

“How can you be more of an orphan than I
am?” I asked.

“Why couldn’t I be,” said she. “If anyone
could be, I could be.”

“I mean, what makes you more of an orphan
than me.”

“My mother died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was taken aback.
“My condolences on your loss.”

“That’s all right. It happened a long time
ago.”

“How long ago?” I wondered.

The girl looked up into the sky as she
counted the years in her head.

“Sixty five years ago.”

“Sixty five years! How old are you?”

“Seventy nine.”

“An old woman and only half an orphan,” said
I.

“Hold on now,” said she. “The natural life
of an elf is close enough to a thousand years as not to matter. I’m
only seventy nine. I’m scarce out of puberty.”

“So not-Galfrid, what is your story?”

“I don’t think I want to tell you,” said
she. “You won’t believe me anyway. You think I’m a liar, so why
bother explaining.”

“I don’t think you are a liar,” I replied.
“I know you are one. And now that I think about it, maybe I don’t
care to hear your story. Maybe you’re more trouble than you’re
worth.”

“Really? What about Eaglethump Boxcrate,
friend to those who are need of a friend and a protector to those
who are in need of a protector and a guardian to those who are in
need of a guardian?”

She had me there. It is well known that
Eaglethump… Eaglethorpe Buxton is a friend to the friendless and
all those other things. So I had little choice but to help the old
lady out.

“Well,” I took a deep breath. “What is your
name?”

“Princess Jholeira.”

Not having a hare to cook for our morning
meal, and in truth I never really expected there to be one, I
didn’t bother building a fire. We shared cold pickles and Hysteria
ate the last of her oats. The sun was high in the sky and even
though we were eating our meager meal amid large drifts of snow, as
long as we stayed in the sun, it was pleasant enough. As you can
imagine, my mind was reeling at the possibility that my orphan boy
was not only a girl and an elf, but quite possibly a seventy-nine
year old half-orphan princess. My mind was so awash in the news
that I scarcely paid any attention to the pickles I was eating. It
was a real shame, because I enjoy a good pickle. My poor old mother
made some of the best pickles ever.”

“What are you doing now?” asked the
half-orphan princess.

“I’m attempting to ponder pickles.”

“That figures,” said she.

“But I find myself unable to.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because of you, my very own little
liar.”

“Stop calling me a liar. I didn’t lie.
Everything I’ve told you is the truth… except for the part about
being a boy and being called Galfrid and being an orphan.”

“And now you claim to be a princess.”

“I am a princess,” she argued. “My father is
Jholhard of the wood elves.”

“Come,” I said, wiping the pickle juice off
my fingers. “Let’s get going and you can tell me your woeful tale
as we ride.”

We remounted my noble steed, which is to say
Hysteria, and started off once again down the road. The mood was
subdued. At least the mood was subdued between myself and the
half-orphan princess. Hysteria seemed quite jovial, and threatened
to break into a trot on several occasions. I can only assume that
she was happy to have had oats for elevenses. I am sure she didn’t
realize that we had no more.

“It is just like in your story of the Queen
of Aerithraine when she was trapped in Fall City,” Jholeira said at
last.

“What is?”

“Being a princess. It’s like being in
jail.”

“You were locked away?”

“Well, not really. I had the run of the
entire wood. It’s just that I didn’t realize just how small a world
that wood really was until I left.”

“Now we come to the first plot element,”
said I. “Why did you leave?”

“I ran away,” she said. “I ran away because
my father was going to force me to marry.”

“Well that’s hardly worth running away
over,” said I. “I mean, fathers all across the world are busy
arranging marriages for their daughters. What was wrong with the
fellow? Wasn’t he tall enough? Was he bald? Did he have a wooden
eye? It was a wooden eye, wasn’t it?”

“He didn’t have a wooden eye.”

“If he didn’t have a wooden eye, then what
was wrong with him?” I wondered. “Maybe you are just being too
picky.”

“There was nothing wrong with him. I just
didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone.”

“That seems a bit obstinate to me,” said
I.

“Don’t berate me about it now,” she sulked.
“I have paid dearly for running away. I was captured by slavers and
taken halfway to Lyria. I only escaped them when they were attacked
by bandits. The bandits took me captive and carried me away to
their camp in the mountains. I was taken from the bandit camp when
it was attacked by trolls. The trolls took me into the woods. Then
I was stolen away from the trolls by ogres, who put me in a cage
and took me to their horrible city. There things got even worse
when I was captured from the ogres by a band of wererats.”

“Hold on.” I counted them off on my fingers.
“Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats… If this were my
story, then next would come… harpies.”

“Pixies.”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Pixies
are little.”

“Evil pixies.”

“Still. Little.”

“Evil pixies from hell.”

“Ah. But at least you got away from
them.”

“I managed to escape.”

“Because they’re little, right?”

“Um, yes. But then I was captured by
pirates.”

“Pirates in the middle of North Lyria? By
the Ogre Mountains? Far away from the ocean?”

“They were on holiday.”

“Pirates on holiday?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. And how did you get away from
them?” I asked.

“One of the pirates, a woman named Prudence
released me. I think she was jealous that the pirate captain might
fancy me instead of her.”

“Prudence? Prudence the pirate?”

“That’s right.”

“And you say she was jealous?”

“Yes.”

I ran through the details in my mind.
Slavers, bandits, trolls, ogres, and wererats. Then came the
pixies, but I would change them to harpies. Finally there was
Prudence the pirate. Prudence who was jealous. Possessive!
Possessive Prudence the pirate. Or Prudence the possessive pirate.
Yes, I quite like the sound of that. Prudence the Possessive
Pirate—that had to be a half-crown story if ever I heard one. I
could take a title like that, work it into something, take it to
every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune. Of course I
would send the half-orphan elf girl a percentage. On the other
hand, she said she was a princess. Princesses are rich. She
probably doesn’t need the paltry amount made from the sale of a
story. She might be insulted if I tried to pay her.

“Now I’ve had more than enough,” said
she.

“You don’t want any money?”

“No. I’ve had more than enough adventure and
I want to go home,” she replied. “Are you carrying on some other
conversation in your head about how you are going to take my story
to every pub and inn in Illustria, and make a fortune, and not pay
me anything for it?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “You want to go
home. And besides, I am a firm believer in maintaining all the
appropriate copyrights.”