The Improbable Adventures of Scar and Potbelly: Ice Terraces of Crystal Crag (35 page)

Chad saw Bart motioning for him to hurry and join him. He hurried over and Bart indicated for him to keep the door closed.

Bang!

Rupert struck the door from the inside and Chad almost failed to keep it closed. “Let me out!” he hollered.

Chad looked to Bart who was now on his knees before the door and looked to be sliding something between the door jamb and the door about a third of the way up from the ground.

Bang!

Again Rupert hit the door and the force of the blow knocked out whatever Bart had been sliding into place. Picking it up off the ground, he again worked to get it into place.

“Help!” yelled Rupert. “I’m being attacked!”

Then all of a sudden, Bart stood up. In the moonlight Chad could see he was holding a string that was attached to whatever it was he placed within the crack between the door and the door jamb.

“Come on,” Bart whispered as he began moving away from the jakes.

Bang!

As they hurried to the side of the courtyard that was deep in shadows, Rupert again hit the door in an attempt to get out. And to Chad’s amazement, the door held.

Bart brought them to a stop as soon as the string he held had reached its end. They stood there in the darkness as Rupert continued hollering for help and trying to break his way out. Fortunately the music within the dining area of the inn was loud enough to drown out his cries.

They waited for at least five minutes before another person left the inn on their way to the jakes. When Bart saw the man leaving the inn, he pulled the string. The wedge he had keeping the door to the jakes’ closed came free and the door swung open.

Chad about laughed when Rupert came stumbling out and crashed down into the dirt before the jakes. The man who was leaving the inn rushed over to help him but Rupert knocked away his hand and got to his feet. What he said to the man couldn’t be heard, but they saw the way he stalked back to the inn.

The following morning when Chad was at the mill working the giant grinding stones that turned grain into flour, his younger brother Eryl came running in all excited. “Did you hear?” he asked his brother.

“Hear what?” replied Chad.

“Last night at the Sterling Sheep…” his brother began but was forced to stop and catch his breath. Obviously he felt that what he had to say was so good that he ran the whole way to tell him. By this time their father had moved closer to hear.

“The magistrate and his son Rupert were dining with Freya and her father,” he continued. “Apparently Rupert had gone out back and dallied with some girl.” He turned to his father. “And with his betrothed there waiting for his return.” His eyes gleamed, every kid in Quillim hated Rupert and any story that showed him in a bad light was like gold.

“He claimed someone locked him in the jakes,” Eryl said in a tone that said he didn’t believe it. “But when he returned to the inn, there was rouge on his neck that people say looked just like a woman kissed him.” He laughed. “As it turned out, Freya wasn’t wearing any that night.”

Their father smiled as he too didn’t care much for Rupert. He did feel sorry for Freya though, it must have been a humiliation.

“Rupert is still saying he didn’t do anything and is sticking to his story,” Eryl explained. “But really papa, who is going to believe such a story?”

Chad grinned to himself as the grinding wheel continued to turn grain into flour. Who indeed? Bart had explained to him last night after they left the vicinity of the Sterling Sheep how he had put rouge on his hand in the shape of a girl’s lips. So that when he grabbed Rupert by the neck and threw him in the jakes, it would come off and leave the tell-tale mark.

“Are they still betrothed?” asked Chad.

“I hadn’t heard,” his brother replied. “But her father took it hard.”

“I can imagine,” their father said. Then to Eryl he added, “Don’t you have chores at home you should be doing?”

“Yes papa,” he replied and turned to head out the door.

“Another hour or two and the flour will be ready,” Chad’s father said before he too left.

Chad nodded in reply. The rest of the afternoon was spent in grinding flour. How he hated doing this. Last night when he and Bart were, as Bart said ‘making Rupert’s life a merry hell’, he had felt more alive than ever before. But all in all, he’d rather be doing this than be in Rupert’s shoes right about now.