The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter (22 page)

“I think,” said Robin, “that you hold your own life in higher regard than theirs.”

Stephen looked at Dog.  Dog thumped his tail.  It wouldn’t be a bad life for a magical dog, living in these woods, hunting with this man.  And Robin was right: Stephen held his own skin above all others and above his work.  It would be stupid and useless to die for some noble gesture. 

But if he had to be a coward, he’d be the cleverest coward that ever lived—and, hopefully, kept on living.

“Dog,” he said, “would, I believe, be willing to transfer his loyalty to you—if I instructed him to.”

“Excellent,” said Robin.  “Do so, and you may depart, alive and intact.”

“I haven’t finished.  If I am going to hand over an incredibly valuable magical being on which I spent many weeks labor, I want more in return than the ability to walk out a door.  Those woods are perilous, and I have no reason to believe I would survive them on my own.  I require the release of my companions, and also guaranteed safe passage through these woods to the north.”

Robin clicked his tongue.  “Now the deal is uneven on your side!  Don’t you know that greed is a vice?  This exchange concerns you, me, and the dog—not your companions.  I will, however, guide you and you alone safely through these woods.”

“Normally,” said Stephen, “that would be enough.  But I, alas, owe the Jolly Executioner a life debt, and must barter for his safety too.”

“The Jolly Executioner—that is he in the ridiculous hood?”

Stephen nodded.

“I thought he must be.  Is he very important?”

“He thinks so.”

“Very well, I shall make a second concession.  Not his safety—that does not interest me (I do have a reputation to maintain), but a chance at life.  Would that fulfill your debt?”

“Close enough.”

“Understand, I make this concession only because I, too, have felt the onus of debt, and have grown to despise it.  Hope, Enchanter, that the Jolly Executioner does not live—only then shall you be free.”

“Under the terms of the debt,” said Stephen, “I don’t think I’m allowed to hope that.  What chance at life do you mean?  A chance for the whole company?”

“Yes, why not?  It will make the chase all the more interesting.  Instead of hunting your companions one at a time, I will release the lot at once, and grant them half-an-hour’s head start.  With that many running, one or two might escape.  In fact, I shall make it a point not to kill one of them—although the woods may get them anyway.  Yes; I like that idea more and more.  It gives such beautiful chance to the game.  And so many—I have never hunted nine at once.  It will be a fine opportunity to test Dog.”

In some ways, Stephen thought, Robin was rather too like the Jolly Executioner.  And then he thought: nine?  Who else was dead?  Miss Ironfist?  Youngster?  Not the Jolly Executioner; Robin would have said.

Wouldn’t he?

“You’ll agree to this arrangement?” Robin asked.

“It seems reasonable,” Stephen said, and did not add,
to the criminally insane.

“Excellent!  But that can wait; I have been neglecting my duties as host.  Come, you must be hungry—I am!  This way.”

And Stephen had thought he was getting a grip on Robin’s personality.

The second room in Robin’s house was as tidy and airy as the first had been crammed and cramped.  At one end were a sturdy little table and two chairs; at the other was a small but functional kitchen.  If the other room had boasted of Robin the hunter, scholar, and warrior, here was Robin the cook, housekeeper, and host.

What side of Robin did the company’s prison show?

Robin, all cordiality, offered Stephen a chair and began arranging a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and fresh bread.  Everything smelled glorious, the chairs were comfortable, and Dog lay at Stephen’s feet—but Stephen wished he were back in the other room.  This one reeked of iron.

There was iron everywhere.  Iron pots, knives, kettle, poker, horseshoes, pegs—iron pressing in on him, washing him with its cold aura.

“Why not steel?” Stephen asked, “or bronze?”

“It’s not because of you,” Robin assured him, flipping the bacon.

“You said that you made a deal with the Fairy Queen—and yet you fill your house with iron.”

“I’ve learned the value of it.”

Stephen knew its value, its inimical nature.  He could feel its oppressing dullness.  Unbound, he had only felt this way once before—in a smithy.  This was a place with iron in its soul.

Robin set plates on the table and sat opposite Stephen.  “Tomorrow,” he said, “I will guide you through the woods.  Today, you are my guest.  As your host, I would like to learn what adventures led you here.  In return, I will tell you my own story.”

“Why would you want to tell me that?”

“Tradition, I suppose.  This is the sort of thing that people in fairytales do.”

Stephen rolled his eyes.

“No?  Then I do it out of loneliness.  Telling and listening to stories helps relieve this long solitude.”

Stephen stared at the ceiling, as if it would offer him answers.

Robin gave in.  “Fine.  It gives me egotistical satisfaction to watch people gasp in astonishment and horror at my deeds.”

Stephen nodded.  “All right,” he said.  “You go first.  I’m listening.”

Methinks the beings that have three heads—

Ogres, hydras, and Hades’ dogs—

Must have a hard time, when their heads do not agree.

And their heads never agree.

Robin’s Narrative:

Thirty-seven years ago, on August the twelfth, I was born in the village you know as Robin’s Haven.  My family was fairly well off—we never worked on Sundays and we had meat three nights a week.  I was the youngest of three sons and, although we sometimes fought, we loved one another dearly.

Then, the summer I was sixteen, tragedy struck.  A vicious thunderstorm cracked the willow in our back yard, and it fell across the house, crushing our parents.

Dressed all in mourning, my brothers and I buried our parents.  On the third day after their funeral, we approached the family lawyer to hear the will.  To my eldest brother was left all our land, including the house and smithy.  To my second brother was left a good horse and letter of introduction to the army.  To me was left a snatch of a song, written on my mother’s perfumed paper.  You may have heard the song:

Tell me, good robin,

What makes you sigh?

I’d not be crying

If I’d learned to fly.

I knew the song.  My mother had been exceedingly fond of it.  When I was young, she would sing me to sleep with it.  She used to say she had been singing it when she met my father.

I was not angry about my pitiful inheritance—most fathers leave nothing to third sons—but I could not live off a song.

“I cannot stay here,” I told myself, “and no one will hire me without a letter of introduction.  There is only one option left to me: I must set out on a quest and make my name through heroic deeds.  When legends are told of Robin the Brave, I will return and extract my reward.”

I borrowed a little money from my elder brother, packed my possessions, and set out.  I hunted in the woods and labored for farmers in return for bed and supper.  As time passed, I learned to live off my wits and the provisions of nature.

While hunting in the woods, I discovered a quest I thought would make me famous.  There was a man who lived alone in a cabin—this cabin, in fact—who begged me to help him.  Wicked fairies had stolen his daughter, and he was too old and weary to journey after her.

I immediately agreed to help him.  He presented me with a picture of his daughter and a ring with which to prove my identity to her, and bid me farewell.

I traveled rapidly north, through the borderlands and into Faerie.  There, I sought high and low and was eventually directed to the Fairy Queen’s court.  The girl was being kept prisoner there.

“Why do you detain her?” I asked the Fairy Queen.  “What wrong has she done to deserve this?  Behold—I come to claim her.  I bear the ring of her father, who has sent me.”

“Then you shall take her,” said the Queen, “but remember you this!  Nothing comes from nothing and a price must be paid.  Take you this most magic of bows and return to the woods south of here.  Shoot the first living creature you see and bring me its head.  If you do this, I shall release the girl.  But know you this!  If you betray my instruction, the arrow you shoot shall pierce your own heart!”

Graciously thanking the Fairy Queen, I took the bow and returned to the woods.  But alas—the first living thing I saw therein was the old man, who awaited news of his daughter. 

Horrified, I told the old man my dilemma.  He was greatly saddened, but agreed to exchange his life for his daughter’s.

I strung the bow and shot him.  He died immediately.  I cut off his head, buried the body, and returned to the Fairy Queen.

“Excellent,” said she, when I presented her with the head.  “You will be greatly rewarded.”  She gave me not only the girl, but also as many jewels as I could carry, and the gift of bedazzlement.

I brought the girl home and told her of her father’s death.  She did not blame me, but could find no peace in her father’s house.  I understood perfectly, and conveyed her to my hometown.  Using the jewels the Fairy Queen had given me, I remade the town and made it safe.  In their gratitude, the citizens renamed it Robin’s Haven.

“There you have it,” said Robin.  “It is time for your story.”

“Not,” said Stephen, “until you have told me yours.”

“I have!”

“You have told me
a
story, true—but not
your
story.”

Robin laughed and began again.

Forty-nine years ago, on November the third, I was born in the town that is currently called Robin’s Haven.  Back then, it was the very opposite of its current safe, prosperous, bustling self.  The woods bordering the north and west teemed with monsters of the vilest sort, come down from Faerie in search of easy prey.  Hardly a day passed when something wasn’t stolen and devoured: chickens, pigs, children, and any adult stupid enough to enter the woods unarmed.

Life was nothing more than subsistence, and often not that.  Frightened and starving, the town turned upon itself.  Gangs formed; riots broke out; people fought over everything and nothing, and the street ran with the blood of neighbors and family.

My parents were killed on the same day: first my mother, who had gone to buy flour; then my father, who went to avenge her.

I was only fourteen.

My brothers and I snuck out in the early morning and buried our parents to the south, away from the ravenous beasts and scavenging villagers equally—but most of all, from men run so mad with hunger that they ate their own dead.

We returned to the relative safety of our hovel to read the will.

To my eldest brother was left our home, including the rotting wooden loom in the basement.  To my second brother was left the ancient, faithful nag and a letter begging the army to take him.  To me was left a song scrawled on an old shopping list in a stranger’s handwriting.  You may have heard the song.  It goes:

Robin, oh robin, prepare to die;

Your wings are clipped, you cannot fly;

The devil is coming ’round by and by

And when he does, your end is nigh.

I knew the song; when I was younger, the other children would join hands and dance rings around me and sing all the verses, which concern the robin’s futile attempts to stay alive.

They found it hilarious.

Left with only these memories of mockery for comfort, I pleaded with my eldest brother for help—for a little food or money.  My brother refused, and cast me out into the street.

Until that day, I had respected my mother’s wishes and—amid poverty and violence—had obeyed the law.  But my mother was dead and I was alone and the evening was already cold.  The night roaches had not yet emerged, but I could feel their greedy eyes peering out at me from behind filthy shutters, and knew my time was short.

I broke into my brother’s house and stole my own meager possessions, along with what food, money, and weaponry I could find.

There was only one place I could go where my brother wouldn’t hunt me down: the woods.

I stumbled on for days, hopelessly lost, supplies dwindling, growing too weak to fend off the monsters.  I was at Death’s door when I chanced upon a cabin—this cabin, in fact.

There was an old man living inside and, in exchange for all my money, he allowed me to sleep by the fire.  In exchange for my story, he fed me a little bread.  I told him my tale and, as he listened, his face grew quiet and thoughtful.  The next morning, I learned why.

The old man was a master of woodcraft but had a certain weakness for gambling.  In order to pay his debts, his daughter had agreed to marry a rich man in a far-off city.  His daughter, he assured me, was exceedingly beautiful and had a voice like a nightingale.

Unfortunately, some fairies had heard her sing and, wanting her for themselves—or perhaps struck by jealousy, for who can divine the motives of fairies?—had spirited her away.

The old man swore he regretted his gambling and his daughter’s rash engagement.  If only I got her back for him, he would never gamble again, and the three of us would live in the woods in peace.  And, in two or three years, he would give me his daughter in marriage.

I agreed readily.  Over the next few days, as I gathered my strength, the man taught me woodcraft.  I learned swiftly—that sort of thing has always come naturally to me—and after ten days, I was pronounced ready.

I traveled north and spent many long months searching Faerie.  Monsters beset me, fairies mocked me, illusions misled me.  But at last, I came upon the court of the Fairy Queen.

The queen cares little for the affairs of humans, and I was more than a year in her service before she granted me an audience.

“I am generous,” said she, when she had heard my case, “and I will allow you to take the woman.  But nothing comes without a price.  Take this magic bow and return to the woods.  While you stand at their outskirts, close your eyes and fire a single arrow.  Cut off the head of whatever the arrow strikes and bring it to me.”

How was I to know that the man had faithfully watched the borders of the woods for two years, waiting for sign of his daughter?  My arrow struck his shoulder and he died in my arms.

Swearing his death would not be in vain, I cut off his head and brought it to the Fairy Queen.

“I have done as you required,” I said, “and it has cost me dearly.”

“As I meant it to.  You have earned your reward—and never let it be said that the Fairy Queen does not honor her bargains.”

A guard showed me to the girl’s room, in which she had been kept.  She was dead; she had used her sheets to hang herself, and her body had been left to rot for days, even weeks.

When I protested the girl’s condition, the Fairy Queen grew angry.  I was certain I had doomed myself, but the Fairy Queen had other plans.  “Too many humans,” she said, “traverse the woods and invade my country.  Return to the old man’s cabin and live there, killing all who venture past the first bridge.”

“Live there all alone?”

“There will be compensations.  I will give you a gift.”  And she bestowed upon me the ability to bedazzle.

So here I am, the miserable slave of the capricious Fairy Queen.

“Now,” said Robin, “tell me your story.”

“You must first tell me yours,” said Stephen.  “I have heard two stories, but neither is the right one.”

Robin laughed and began a third time.

Forty-three years ago on the thirteenth of April, I was born in the town now known as Robin’s Haven.  My parents were scholars specializing in the identification and classification of fairy creatures—which was why they had moved to that town.

In those days, traffic between this kingdom and Faerie was heavy, and fairies of all sorts were a common sight.  They brought fairy animals with them—some of them monsters, some of them not, but none ordinary.

Even for experts, studying fairykind is dangerous.  When my brothers and I were very young, our parents would hire brawny men from the village to accompany them into the woods and protect them.  By the time I was eight, I went instead.  My skill at setting traps and shooting arrows had by that time outstripped my competition—and was brute strength is of no use against fairy creatures.

My brothers sneered at me for hunting instead of pursuing my studies.  I ignored them.  Mathematics and philosophy were all fine, but my vocation was to become the greatest huntsman who ever lived.