Peter & Max: A Fables Novel Page 7

  “They killed them!” she cried. “All my little lambs! Gerta, and funny Apfelkauph! And Peter too!” She’d gone through the list many times, over and over again. Sometimes she’d be able to name every one of them — Max gathered that there were seven or eight in all — and at other times she’d only be able to get out two or three, before the sobs claimed her again. She’d been at it for quite a while, resting between loud bouts of misery to regather her strength before starting again. Father promised Max he’d be along soon, but so far they’d been here for hours, waiting to learn their fate.

  True to his word, Max took it upon himself to be the strong and steadfast leader of his father’s wishes and his own fanciful imagination, whose resolutely unflappable example kept panic from spreading to the troops. Max pictured himself a solid rock of calm assurance in the storm. He circulated time and again, throughout the large room, going from one cluster of people to another, imploring them to refrain from fear, and assuring them that his father and Squire Peep would come in no time to explain everything. The trouble was that Max wasn’t actually all that calm himself. His voice betrayed considerable worry, and there was a wild and unsettled look in his eyes. And since, while making his rounds, he also tried to recall and report the grim things he’d overheard in the kitchen, which were anything but reassuring, he was generally more successful at reigniting fears than at settling them.

  From time to time they could hear the muted sounds of the activities outside, as the detachment of the human officers and their goblin troops — for such were the green-skinned monsters called — which had broken off from the main column and fanned out over the property, corralled animals and put them to the sword (or the axe, or club, or whatever other weapon happened to be most handy). In one truly horrifying moment they heard the pleading voices of the estate’s talking animals, begging not to be killed.

  “They’ve gotten into the Talking Stable!” Hans Kruft cried. He was the chief stable master and therefore the one in charge of the so-called Talking Stable, where those magical animals with human language were lovingly housed and cared for. “Why would they kill them, too?”

  “They’re all just meat on the hoof to goblins,” young Manfred said, his voice unusually bitter. “I saw a few gobs off a ship once, back when my family lived at the far seaport of Land’s End. Makes no difference to a goblin if a beast can talk or not. Into the stewpot they go. And not just talking beasts. Did you happen to see early this morning, when Big Jurgen and Tiny Jurgen were both cut down in the fields? None of us quite knew what was occurring yet and they just naturally resisted — you know how those two can get. Well, you can bet your last mark that they’ve also been stripped of their meat by now. Nothing but a few bones and red stain left of those two, because gobs take everything — the meat and guts both. Gobs will eat anything that was once alive. Even their own fallen comrades.”

  “Bonny Lumpen!” Peter cried from across the room. His eyes were filling with tears building enough weight to go streaming down his face.

  “Your old mule’s dead now, boy,” Manfred said. “Sliced and hanging in the gob cook’s larder, ripening for mess.”

  “Manfred Jakob Walder, you must stop that kind of talk this instant!” Mrs. Peep was suddenly on her feet and as red-faced as anyone had ever seen her before. “Can’t you see you’re scaring us all over again? Think of the children!”

  Manfred had his mouth open, about to say something else, but he shut it with a loud wet smack of his lips and sat down abruptly, embarrassed and beginning to turn as red as Mrs. Peep.

  “Everyone should be quiet now, until Father and the squire arrive,” Max called out. It was very good advice, and might have been heeded, if Max had been older than his mere fourteen years, hadn’t been so trembling of voice, or had even a portion of the authoritative qualities he desperately imagined in himself.

  “You’ve been bleating that same tune for three or more hours, boy,” another of the field hands said. His name was Wilhelm and he was a big fellow with a pudgy belly, but arms thick with real muscle. He had a long ragged scar under one eye. “Put a stopper in it, before I do a little slicing of my own.” In one hand Wilhelm held up an open jar of pickled vegetables he’d been passing around among a few of the men. Certainly he didn’t plan to slice anyone with that, did he? But then Max noticed Wilhelm’s other hand, where he’d drawn his personal dining knife from his belt and held it down near his leg — not precisely hiding it, but not brandishing it either, the way some do who’re hoping to avoid any actual knife-play by making an opponent back down. Those who’re serious about their deadly intentions don’t need to make a big show of it. The knife’s blade was only five or six inches long, but in Max’s eyes it looked as bright and deadly as the biggest sword.

  Max was suddenly quite afraid, and it wasn’t just the general fear he’d felt all day, when any of a hundred different unspecified dooms could have befallen him. This was a very particular sort of fear, in response to a specific and immediate threat, from a grown man right in front of him. All heroic fantasies vanished in an instant. Max wanted nothing so dearly as to run from the room, or worse, even more humiliating, into his mother’s arms. And the shame of this immediate and fully potent fear hit him hard. The entire room could see him wilt like a flower. At that very moment his spirit was on the threshold of being crushed for all time.

  And then, when it seemed there could be no greater humiliation than this, it suddenly increased tenfold.

  “You leave my brother alone!” Peter cried. He barged forward into the middle of the room and faced the large, scary Wilhelm as if he were ready to fight him on the spot. It was a comical sight, this small boy standing up to such a big man. First Wilhelm gaped at the surprising scene, and then he laughed a great roaring laugh, and soon nearly everyone in the room joined in.

  “You’re quite the fierce young wolf!” Wilhelm said, a broad grin splitting his scarred face. “A warrior among men. Here, son, have a true man’s treat. See if you have a taste for tough vittles.” He held out the open jar to Peter, who just stood, quivering, but otherwise not doing anything in response.

  “Go on. Try one, boy.” The jar stayed there, suspended in front of Peter, looking less to Max like a peace offering and more like some sort of mysteriously renewed threat every second. “It’ll grow you some hair down there.” Even Max understood that this was now a challenge his little brother must meet. Peter hesitated and then started to reach for the jar, ready to pull his hand back at an instant.

  “Hurry up, little warrior. Pick something. It won’t bite. Well, it will, but not until you bite first, which seems only fair now, doesn’t it?” More laughter, but quieter now, pensive as all waited to see what the little boy would do.

  All at once, he seemed to screw up his courage. Peter picked a pickled pepper. He bit it hard and fast, and suddenly his eyes mushroomed with new tears and his nose blossomed bright red. His face scrunched into a mask of anxiety and regret. And then he began coughing and sputtering. Tears flowed freely and snot ran down his lip. Wilhelm and his mates exploded with renewed laughter.

  “And look at that!” Wilhelm shouted, “He didn’t even spit it out!” Which was true. Peter grimly chewed the pepper and swallowed it, his face a study in agony all the while. “You’re a better man than I am, young hero! Even I don’t eat the little red ones. We call them dragon’s warts for good reason. They keep too much of their fire. I just eat around those.” Wilhelm gave weeping, coughing Peter a huge slap on his back — the kind that said, “You’re our friend now and equal to any of us,” and that broke the last remnants of the spell of danger in the room.

  Max had stood to one side during this tableau, quite forgotten by all in the chamber, which was a blessing, considering what might have happened before his little brother bravely intervened. But if so, it was a miserable blessing indeed. Once again Peter was the hero and Max was nothing at all.

  But one thing saved him. Before he could sink into that final abyss of de
spair, the one so deep that no man could ever fully escape, Max noticed something that made him angry — very angry indeed. He’d missed it at first, because as usual, Peter was dressed in a shirt and breeches of simple brown homespun, whose color almost exactly matched the shade of the thing hanging across his back. It was a narrow tube of hard leather, just over a foot long, and attached to a strap at both ends, which was looped crosswise over Peter’s back, over one shoulder and under the other. Once he actually saw the thing, Max recognized it instantly.

  Peter was carrying Frost!

  “Give that here!” Max shouted, startling all into stunned silence. Peter faced him, as did everyone else in the room.

  “Max?” Peter said, an authentically worried expression on his tear-stained face, his eyes still watering from the harsh pepper. “What’s the matter?”

  “You’re carrying Father’s flute. That’s not right. If Father doesn’t have it, then I should be the one to hold it for him. You can’t keep it safe. I’m the oldest, and he put me in charge.” Max’s face was twisted with anger, as if Peter had done something personally to hurt him. He held out one hand. “So give it to me.”

  “No, Max, you don’t understand. It isn’t Father’s flute anymore. Last night he gave Frost to me.”

  “Liar!” Max screamed.

  “He did,” Peter said. “I know you wanted it, and I always thought you’d be the one to get it, but Father decided otherwise.”

  “He wouldn’t do that! I’m the oldest! I’m the one who gets Frost and not you! You’re just a big fat liar and a thief!”

  “But, Max …”

  “You are! You’ve always been a thief and you always will be! You steal everything from me and take everything that should be mine! But you won’t get away with it this time! Give Frost back to me!”

  Max threw himself at Peter and hit him, first once and then again. Peter staggered back, shocked into immobility. Like all brothers, Peter and Max had had their squabbles, but it had never before turned violent. Max had never hit Peter in the past, and he could hardly believe he was doing it now. Some detached part of Max realized he was out of control, but he couldn’t help it. His face was a contorted mask of rage and there was madness in his eyes. He lunged at Peter wildly, hitting, scratching and clawing at him, screaming “Give it back” all the while. Peter fell to the floor, curling up and covering his face with his arms. Max dropped on top of him, continuing to claw and scratch and now also biting. He bit Peter in the fleshy part of one arm, and when he moved it out of danger, Max tried to bite Peter’s newly exposed face and neck. By now Max’s screams had degenerated into an incoherent wailing of pure agony.

  And then, all at once, Max felt himself levitating into the air, still flailing madly, but no longer able to reach Peter. Big Wilhelm had lifted Max off his brother. Wilhelm held Max suspended in one huge hand, preventing him from doing anything but striking and clawing at the empty air and wail his frustration. Mother Piper was also standing there, looking angry and hurt.

  “What are you doing, you daft child?” Mother said. “Are you insane that you’d start a fight in the middle of an invasion, where any sort of trouble is liable to inspire goblin monsters to come in here to chop us dead?”

  Max only answered her with continued wailing.

  “He’s not a rational creature no more,” Wilhelm said. And then he shook Max vigorously, still up in the air, trying to shake all of the fight and struggle out of him. “I think his mind’s broken. I’ve seen it happen to others like this, back in my army days. They just get too afraid and something snaps inside them.” Max continued to struggle in Wilhelm’s arms, but weaker than before. Wilhelm shook him again, as a terrier will shake a rat caught in its mouth, to snap its neck, or at least shake the fight out of it.

  “That’s enough, I think,” Mother said. “Please set my son down.” Max no longer looked mad, just stunned and confused.

  “I don’t know, Ma’am. He might still have some wildness in him.”

  “Do as she says, Wilhelm,” Mrs. Peep said. Sometime during the ugly spectacle, she’d also stepped up to the front ranks of the ring of spectators surrounding Max, Peter and Wilhelm. The other daughters were there beside her, dumbstruck by the scene, except Bo who knelt by Peter, still lying on the floor.

  “Are you hurt, Peter?” Bo said. And she looked genuinely concerned.

  With a grunt of disgust, Wilhelm tossed Max away from him, which wasn’t quite what Mrs. Peep ordered, but which was more compliance than he desired to give. Without quite getting up off the floor, Max scuttled over to sit against one wall, where he curled in on himself, still not quite sure what had happened — how he’d let himself lose control as he had. He sat and brooded and wondered at the profound injustice of this incident. Peter had clearly caused it, but Max would surely be the one who was blamed.

  “My intention,” Mr. Peep said, in a booming voice, “and I believe my instructions bore this out, was that you would all assemble in this hall and wait quietly, giving our new visitors no provocation to do further harm. And now here we find you whining and squabbling like schoolboys during recess?” Radulf Peep had arrived sometime while everyone’s attention was diverted by the fight. Johannes Piper was with him, looking as disappointed as the squire.

  “Peter stole Frost,” Max said, from over against the wall. He sat with his knees up and his arms across them, so that only his eyes and his tangled mop of hair peeked out from within his wall of protection. He sulked and steeped in the certainty of his unwarranted suffering. The entire world conspired in these terrible betrayals against Max.

  “We’ll talk of that later,” Johannes said. “For now we’ve more urgent worries to attend to. Everyone here should listen to the squire.”

  And they did. Much of the stress and concern that had filled the room just moments before, and which had manifested itself into fights and bullying japes and angry snapping at each other, faded because here was someone who’d always commanded their respect and who could possibly provide answers, where only terrible fears occupied their minds. Bo Peep sat in the middle of the floor, comforting Peter, petting him in fact as though he were one of her lost lambs.

  “It seems we’ve fallen under the dominion of a great and brutal empire,” Radulf Peep said. “But I for one don’t enjoy the prospect of spending the rest of my life in bondage to a foreign dictator. Do you?” There were a few mumbles of agreement here and there, but most in the room seemed to realize it was a rhetorical question.

  “Most of the army has moved on, marching towards Winsen Town,” Peep continued, “And I believe the immediate danger has moved on with them. This humble estate was not the main target of their intentions today. But a few have been left behind, no doubt to insure that we adapt quickly and meekly to our new lives.

  “But almost due west of us, as the crow flies, is the River Weser and on that river is Hamelin Town, which is walled like a great fortress and garrisoned with many companies of the king’s good men. We can bet that mighty Hamelin Town hasn’t fallen to these scoundrels, who seem content to march along these lesser roads and take smaller, unfortified towns like Winsen.

  “I don’t know what you plan to do, but Johannes Piper and I have decided to take our families out of here tonight, when our new guards are asleep and make our way to Hamelin.”

  “How?” Someone said. “The roads will certainly be watched.”

  “We won’t be taking the roads. We’re going to cut across country.”

  “Enter the Black Forest at night?” another field hand said. “That’s madness.”

  “Yes, it’s a foolish act. Only the mad or truly desperate would venture into the greater haunted depths of the wood, far off the safe paths that we’ve managed to carve out and tame over the generations, with our patrols of armed men and spells of warding. But who’s more desperate than we, who have a choice between the woods tonight, or more of this army tomorrow?

  “Would you like to know how we’re going to do it?” Ther
e were immediate nods and grunts of assent. “Arianne, watch that door,” Peep said to one of his daughters while pointing to one of the sets of doors leading out of the room. “And Dorthe, you watch the other one. Just crack them open enough to peer out and make sure no soldiers are lurking within earshot.”

  And then Squire Peep spoke for a long time, and slowly a bold plan took shape, and it began to dawn on Max that their daring scheme would afford him many opportunities to set a few things aright.

  In which Peter has a visit

  with a beast and a witch,

  but doesn’t stay for tea.

  IN PAST YEARS, ONCE EVERY YEAR, PETER WOULD travel down to the city to play in the Remembrance Day orchestra. Remembrance Day was Fabletown’s biggest holiday of the year, bigger than Christmas and New Year’s combined — which actually isn’t all that important to Fables, since the mundy world’s new year didn’t match up with any of the calendars they’d used in the hundred-plus worlds they’d come from. Remembrance Day was the one time of year when all of the refugee Fables, the world over, paused to lift a cup to the lands and the kingdoms and the homes they’d left behind, and to renew their promise to win them back someday. The main gala in Fabletown was a formal affair, at which there was much drinking and dancing, and for which Peter always helped provide the music. Other than that, he’d shown scant interest in either New York or Fabletown.