The Whipping Boy (3 page)

Cutwater rummaged around in a black oak chest of stolen goods. Handkerchiefs flew out like soiled white doves, worn shoes, ladies' combs, a cowbell—a junk heap. They've had lean pickings, this raggedy pair of highwaymen, Jemmy thought. And maybe not as smart and clever as the song sellers made out.

"Here's a scrap of paper, Billy," said Cutwater, finding it in the pocket of a stolen coat. "But how are we going to do the scribblement? We can't write."

"I've seen it done. Sharpen us a hawk's feather, Cutwater."

"I'm
hungry,
" complained the prince. "I'll have a veal pie, sir!"

Hold-Your-Nose Billy ignored him. He poked around for a beet root and squeezed out the juice with his bare hand. It dripped like blood onto a China plate. "There's ink for you, Prince. Take the hawk's feather and scratch out our message."

Prince Brat folded his arms. "I don't take orders from curs and villains."

"Think of your pa," said Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "He'll be ever so much obliged to know you're safe and hearty."

"I told you I'm hungry!"

"You won't eat a bean till you do us the document."

"But I can't write!" blurted out Prince Brat.

"And crows can't fly!" erupted the big outlaw with a blast of garlicky breath. "You're a prince! Kings and such-like are learned to write and read soon as they tumble out of the cradle. Don't think you can pull the wool over our eyes. Hop to it!"

"But I can't so much as scratch my own name!"

Jemmy shot a calculating glance at Prince Brat. His pesky hide hardly seemed worth saving, but a scheme had leaped into his head. He might be able to trick these mangy outlaws into letting the prince go. And Jemmy would be rid of Prince Brat once and for all.

"Give
me
the hawk's quill. I'll write the words," he announced.

"That's right," Prince Brat chimed in. "My whipping boy knows his letters. Fall to, Jemmy-From-The-Streets."

"Hold on," said Hold-Your-Nose Billy, his sharp gaze flicking from one boy to the other. "This ignorant whipping boy knows his letters—and the royal prince can't sign his own name. Something's amiss here."

"What you thinking, Billy?" asked Cutwater.

"I'm thinking these lads have mixed themselves up to flummox us."

Jemmy lifted his chin arrogantly and tried to look as princelike as possible. "Nonsense! I'm a mere whipping boy."

The big man rumbled up a laugh, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth. "You take us for bedrock numskulls? Certain as eggs is eggs—you're the prince. The genuine, straight-up-and-down Royal Highness!"

Prince Brat's face turned red as hot iron. "That ratty street orphan?" he bellowed. "That lowborn—"

"Silence!" Jemmy commanded. "Can't you see the game is up? They're on to us. Hold your tongue!"

"But
I'm
His Royal Highness!"

Gaw! Jemmy thought. This haughty prince didn't have the sense of a gnat. Couldn't he see a plan afoot? "Save your breath!" snapped Jemmy. "Stop giving yourself airs, you witless servant boy!"

"Servant boy! Dare you address me—" "Bag your head," snapped Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "Give him a kick, Cutwater, if we hear another peep out of him."

"Hand me the hawk's feather," said Jemmy. "I'll write my papa, the king."

Hold-Your-Nose Billy tilted the princely crown on his head. "What have you writ down so far?"

Jemmy glanced up from the sheet of paper. "'To the King's Most Sacred Majesty. Dear Papa.'"

"Aye. That sounds proper respectful. What else?"

"'Our captors are loyal subjects, but scoundrels by trade. Don't cross them.'"

"Make that a mite stronger," said the outlaw, beginning to pace. "Tell him we're shameful mean, and rough as a sackful of nails. Warn him we fear no gallows!"

Jemmy dipped the quill in beet juice and continued scribbling. "I'll tell him you've got reserved seats in Hell."

"Aye! That's the ticket!"

Cutwater had begun gnawing away at a roasted pheasant, and his cheek swelled out as if he had a monstrous toothache. "What about the king's soldiers, Billy? Now the fog's lifted, they'll be followin' the lad like a trail of ants. Puts my spine a-shiver."

"Faw!" exclaimed Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "Even rabbits get muxxed up and lost in this forest. We're well hid, Cutwater."

"I'll warn Papa," Jemmy offered generously, "that if you spy out a single uniform, you'll crack my neck like a chicken's."

Prince Brat sat sullenly on a pile of moldy bed straw. He glared icily at the whipping boy who had seized his royal title.

"And don't forget the reward, Billy," said Cutwater. "We want the prince's weight in gold bangers, right?"

"Tell the king that," directed Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "In big letters. Now let me reckon out a safe spot to deliver the loot."

Jemmy dipped the quill, but then paused. Gaw, he thought, it's not enough to choose my words as

if I were a prince. Show some high and mighty, Jemmy.
Think
like a prince.

"Dimwits!" he flared up. "Catchpenny rogues! I will not be exchanged for such a trifle. My mere weight? A paltry treasure you could carry on a shoulder? How dare you insult me!"

Hold-Your-Nose Billy's red eyebrows shot up in bewildered surprise. "Insult you? A trifle?"

"A prince is worth a prince's ransom!"

The eyebrows lowered as quickly as they had risen. "No offense meant, lad. How would you calculate a proper ransom?"

"A wagonload of gold at the very least. And jewels mixed in."

"As I'm alive! A wagonload?"

Cutwater gulped down the wad of fowl in his mouth. "We did forget about jewels, Billy."

"A wagonload it is, then!" exclaimed the hairy outlaw.

Prince Brat's mouth fell wide open at the whipping boy's nervy mischief.

Hold-Your-Nose Billy stood over Jemmy's shoulder and watched the words being scratched out. Finally, he said, "Have you made your sign yet?"

"About to," replied Jemmy.

With as much flourish as he could manage, he wrote:

Your Obedient Son.

Prince Horace

Hold-Your-Nose Billy popped a clove of garlic into his mouth, ground it between his yellow teeth, and helped himself to a veal pie. "Nothing like garlic to clear the head and fend off the plague. Cutwater, give the lads a ration of breakfast."

The scrawny outlaw sliced off two thick pieces of coarse bread. He draped a salt herring across each slice. "Eat hearty, little fellers."

"This smelly stuff!" Prince Brat glared at the bread and herring. "It's not fit for flies!"

"Why, we eat it regular, worms and all," said Cutwater, picking the bones of the pheasant.

"I'll starve first!"

"Suit yourself," Cutwater snickered. "This is the first time we've feasted off the king's own table, and there's hardly enough for me and Billy."

Jemmy sat on the bed straw beside the prince and contemplated his breakfast. He examined the bread closely, hunting for varmints. The prince, he knew, had never been starved enough to pick out wildlife from his grub.

"Eat," he whispered. "I can't find any crawly things in it."

"The bread's stale," grumbled the prince.

"Stale enough to patch a roof, but I've scoffed down worse."

The prince began to nibble around the edges. Hold-Your-Nose Billy glanced over and grinned. "Take a chaw of garlic, whipping boy. It'll improve the taste considerable."

Cutwater wiped his thin, greasy lips with the back of his hand. "Billy, how do we know the prince ain't laid a trap for us in that message? He could have said one thing and wrote another. Where'll we find someone to read it off to us?"

Jemmy lifted his chin to a regal height. "You doubt the word and honor of your prince? Insolent oafs! Curs! I'll have you horsewhipped."

Cutwater yanked Jemmy to his feet. "Who you calling them names? I'll flog your hide pink as a salmon!"

Hold-Your-Nose Billy pushed him aside. "Keep your wits. It's worse'n common murder to lay hands on a prince. No need to break any more of the king's laws than we have to. If it comes to a flogging, there's his whipping boy."

The prince's eyes widened and his face blanched white. The prospect of taking a whipping himself had never occurred to him. "But, sir, it wasn't me who called you names!"

Cutwater gave a sudden cackle. "'Sir,' is it now? That's more like it. But tell the prince here to keep a civil tongue in his head."

Prince Brat shot Jemmy a poisonous look.

The garlicky outlaw was leaning closer to Jemmy. "See here, Prince, it's not that we doubt your word and honesty. Not a bit! But all the same—let's hear you read off the message."

Jemmy turned away from the man's breath and began to read.

"No, no, lad. Let's have it from bottom to top. Read it
backwards.
I do hope for your whipping boy's sake you don't stumble and trip as if the real words ain't on paper."

Jemmy shrugged. "It says ... 'Son Obedient Your.'"

'"Your Obedient Son/" said Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "Keep at it."

'"Jewels and gold of cart full a of ransom a demand they."

'"They demand a ransom ... of a cart ... a full ...'" The outlaw himself began to stumble and trip over the words. "Aye, that's the ticket."

Jemmy read the message through backward. And then a second time before the hairy outlaw was satisfied.

"Now then," he said. "All we got to do is get the message to the king without getting nabbed in the act."

"Simple," declared Jemmy. "Send it to the castle in the hands of my whipping boy."

Hold-Your-Nose Billy clapped a leery eye on the rat-catcher's son. "Prince, do you take me for a precious fool? Send your whipping boy! To blab out where we're hid, eh? The king will come chopping down every tree if he finds out we're nested in the forest."

Jemmy assumed a princely air of indifference. "Then tote the message yourself. It's no skin off my ear if you never get back alive." He filled his mouth with bread and herring. "I declare, this is tasty."