THE FROG AND THE GROG
by
Christopher Stasheff
Copyright 2010
Cadavan didn't need to hear any more. He leaped and landed squarely on Aelwyn's belly.
"Whuf!" Aelwyn woke and sat up, spilling Cadavan onto dead leaves—but he had to catch his breath before he could talk, and by the time he had caught his breath, he had heard the thrashing and cursing in the underbrush. He nodded to Cadavan, then went to Ned, silent as a cat. He laid a hand over the boy's mouth and gave his shoulder a shake. Ned came awake on the instant, staring up. Aelwyn laid a finger across his lips. Ned saw. His eyes flicked over toward the rough whispering in the underbrush. His gaze came back to Aelwyn; he nodded.
The minstrel lifted his hand from Ned's mouth. He stood up without making a sound and tucked his lute into the branches above him, then beckoned to Ned, pointing up above the lute. Ned understood and climbed the tree, making surprisingly little noise for a boy who had always lived in a castle.
The boy and the lute were safe. Still cat-footed, Aelwyn steered his way down toward the riverbank.
Cadavan wondered whether the minstrel was being considerate of his frog friend or simply knew the chances of finding an open path were better by the stream—not that it mattered; he followed Aelwyn toward the sound of ripples.
They nearly made it; they were almost to the stream before a thick-muscled arm snagged Aelwyn's throat and a voice bellowed, "Caught him! Here he... ungh!"
The soldier folded over a pain in his belly. Cadavan had no idea how Aelwyn had managed it, but it was enough that his friend was free. He turned to the campfire and croaked, "Explode! Explode!"
When a wizard said it, the fire listened. Flames shot high with a bang and sparks flew up into the trees. Burning leaves showered down, and the attackers pulled back with a curse. There was enough light for Cadavan to see that they wore uniforms—dirty and stained, but uniforms nonetheless. They were soldiers.
Aelwyn took advantage of the diversion to catch up Ned in his arms, step over to a thicket, and set the boy down, hissing, "Hide and lie still till they've gone!" He turned away to spring across the clearing.
Ned made himself into as small a lump as he could, peering through the twigs to see Aelwyn leading the soldiers away from him. Cadavan started to hop toward a soldier, but Aelwyn caught him up and tossed him into the stream. "Swim for your life!"
The soldier recovered enough for a quick punch. Aelwyn staggered but came back low with punches of his own, then leaped back—straight into the arms of another soldier, who came up shouting with glee. "Caught him! Caught him! Here, take him down!"
The first soldier came in for revenge, snarling. Aelwyn lashed out with a heel and caught him in the chin. The soldier went down and the one holding him, in a rage, bellowed as he threw the minstrel against a tree.
How Aelwyn could take an impact like that and come up running, Cadavan didn't know—but he did, lighting out along the river bank. The soldier bellowed and plunged after him, tripped on a root, and scrambled up to run again.
The sounds of shouts and crashing came up ahead; the third soldier seemed to have gone downstream somehow. Aelwyn slowed, not wanting to be headed off, glanced back but saw the pursuer coming up.
Cadavan sprang from the stream straight under the man's feet.
The soldier tripped and fell, cursing. Aelwyn ran back, catching up a piece of fallen branch, and knocked the man soundly on the head; the soldier went limp.
"Thanks, friend," Aelwyn panted. "Are you all right?"
"Jus'fine Jus'fine." Actually, Cadavan's ribs and abdomen were hurting, but he wasn't about to admit it in the middle of a fight.
"Good. Back in the water with you!" Aelwyn tossed the frog into the stream again—and turned just in time to see the first soldier looming over him to crack his skull with a club. Aelwyn stiffened, then fell, limp.
Cadavan croaked with horror as he leaped out to help.
"Think about what you're doing!" a voice demanded.
The soldier whirled, staring up. There stood a glowing being, finger pointing, admonishing. "What has that minstrel done, that you should break his head?"
No, not glowing—Cadavan could see that Musa had chosen her spot well, standing in the single ray of moonlight that penetrated the forest roof—but it certainly made her seem supernatural.
Which, of course, she was.
"There is no good reason to kill this man," she told the soldier.
The soldier swallowed, then protested, "Orders. Just following orders."
"And never asked if your commander ordered you to do something wrong? Think! What has this minstrel done to deserve death?"
"Spoken against the king?"
"Not at all! He has only uncovered a lie and told the truth about the people of Azure. Do you execute a man for honesty?"
The soldier opened his mouth to answer, but Musa rode right over him. "Of course not. As Aristotle says in his Nicomachean Ethics..."
The soldiers howled in dismay and turned to run, crashing away through the nighttime forest.
"Blast!" Musa clenched her fists in exasperation. "I barely begin the good part when they run away."
"And very grateful I am, that they did." Aelwyn turned to Cadavan. "Good thing you warned me off of the inn, old fellow. I wouldn't have stood a chance of escape in there."
"'S'okay S'okay," Cadavan assured him.
"All right, lad, you can come out now." Aelwyn inspected Ned as he crawled out of the thicket. "None the worse for wear?"
"Not really," the boy answered, "but you, Aelwyn!"
"A few bruises and lump on the head, nothing more—but thanks for your concern." Aelwyn turned back to Musa. "Thank you for coming to our aid, genius."
Musa made a small dismissive gesture with one hand. "The curse of the teaching spirit—never being able to resist an opportunity to impart knowledge."
"But you were doing more than that," Aelwyn said. "You were trying to persuade him to think."
"Well, of course!" Musa said in surprise. "What good is knowledge if you cannot use it to understand the world about you, or enjoy your life more fully?"
"You won't find many listeners if you try to make them do that," Aelwyn said with a grin. "Thinking makes us admit things we don't like—about ourselves and our neighbors, and the world around us. Not too many of us enjoy that."
"You do."
"Well, yes," Aelwyn admitted, "but minstrels are different. We have to understand at least a little of the world if we're going to sing about what happens in it."
"And people listen to you." Musa cocked her head to the side. "How do you do it?"
"Oh, we sing about things they want to hear," Aelwyn said, "battles and love and murders, that sort of thing."
Musa's shoulders slumped. "Difficult to manage when you're trying to persuade them to pay attention to the affairs of the land and what their king is doing."
"You mean ethics has something to do with war?"
"Well, of course!" Musa said in surprise. "Everyone must be aware of that."
"How, if nobody tells them?" Aelwyn asked. "Surely there's much to learn about love, too—whenever I meet a pretty girl, I'm sure I've only begun."
"And are very eager to learn, eh?" Musa said with mild scorn. "Such matters are not in my curriculum."
"Maybe they should be—then people wouldn't hurt one another so much," Aelwyn returned. "Be honest—you were really trying to teach that soldier that it isn't always right to follow orders blindly."
Musa gave him a penetrating stare. "You are sharper than most, minstrel."
"Or simply the one who would have suffered the most from those orders," Aelwyn said with a grin. "But I'll get my own back. After all, if those soldiers' commands involved murder, they should make a good song, don't you think?"
"Yes—and a song that might teach people something." Musa drifted closer. "Perhaps we could make common cause, minstrel."
Then began a conversation that turned into Aelwyn telling Musa about songs as Musa told him about teaching. Somewhere in the middle of it, Cadavan fell asleep—with relief, if it must be known.
They heard the furor while they were still a hundred yards from the village.
"Whatever can have the peasants so upset?" Aelwyn asked. "First, no folk at work in the fields, and now a hubbub from the village."
"Let's see. Let's see," Cadavan croaked.
"Let's see, shall we, old fellow?" Aelwyn had no idea how the words had come to mind. He opened his pack as he knelt; Cadavan hopped in. Aelwyn looked down at Ned with a grin. "Shall we go?"
"Yes, let's!" The king may have been a boy, but he was still concerned about his subjects.
It was hot and dry inside the pack, but a frog could poke his nose into the gap under the flap and find some air. He could also see the cottages pass by—and notice that the black mist had risen here too, but must have kept on rising, for it was almost up to people's knees. Couldn't they see it? Ned could—he noticed the boy's anxious glances, all toward the ground, and the way he pushed closer to the minstrel. But couldn't Aelwyn see it? He'd certainly seen the Shadow, and its substance had been the same as this.
Apparently not— Aelwyn sauntered into the village square, and Cadavan felt the jolt as the minstrel elbowed a villager. "Ho there, countryman! What's the stir?"
"You haven't heard?" The villager turned to stare at him. "And you a minstrel! Azure sent a spy to blow up our lords' house!"
Aelwyn stared in shock. Then he recovered enough to ask, "'Our?'"
"Of course it's ours!" said another villager. "They're our lords, aren't they? So their hall is ours, all of ours! Well… was, now."
"So it really is destroyed, then?"
"Has to be, doesn't it?" asked another villager. "Put a dozen barrels of gunpowder under it, of course it will fall down!"
"Yes, if someone lights the fuse." Aelwyn frowned, as much at what he didn't hear as at what he did—confirmation that the gunpowder plot had succeeded.
"Those Azureans are scum, all of them!" a third villager bellowed. "Death to Azure!"
"Death to Azure!" most of the crowd cried.
Several of them, though, were very quiet, even grim. Most were women old enough to have grown sons. Others, men and women alike, turned away to their homes and shut the doors behind them. Aelwyn noticed where they went, thinking of talking with them later.
If he was here later. He had the distinct notion that this wasn't a good time for strangers in this particular village.
"Let's march to the King's Town and join his army!" a man called.
"Yes! Let's go! Let's go!" came from all sides.
Then, suddenly, Musa was there, saying, "You can't blame all the Azureans for the deeds of a handful!"
"Oh, can't we, though!" the first man roared.
"Of course not," Musa turned to him. "Most of them are good, hard-working people like yourselves."
The man stared at her, aghast. Then he asked, "Who are you who dares speak for the people of Azure?"
"She's one of them!" an old woman cried.
"No, good woman." Musa turned to her. "I am a genius, a teaching spirit born of people's need to learn. Did you know that the people of Ustared are, all of you, kin to the people of Azure?"
"Never say it!" The old woman blanched.
"Your ancestors were a tribe of wanderers who came from the East," Musa told her. "Some liked the forests of Azure and settled there. The rest went on and found the plains of Ustared a more pleasant home."
The old woman regained a bit of color. "That was long ago, woman!"
"I am no woman, but a spirit," Musa reminded her gently. "You are correct—it was hundreds of years ago. Still, their blood courses in the veins of the folk of both nations, for you are all, indeed, one people."
"Don't believe her!"
"How dare you say that!"
"Away from our village! Now!"
"But, good people..." Musa spread her hands. "You must not condemn a whole nation for the acts of...."
"We said GO!" Someone caught up a clod and threw it.
It struck Musa's hairless head and broke apart, raining down about her. "There is no sense to this!" she protested.
But her words were drowned under a chorus of shouts. More clods flew, and rotten vegetables, eggs, anything that came to hand as the villagers joined in pelting her in their enthusiasm.
"Show's over!" Aelwyn caught her hand and pulled her away. Finally, she gave up and ran with him, though she reached down to catch Ned's hand and slowed to match her stride to his.
The rain of offal pursued them until they were back in among the trees. Even then, Aelwyn wouldn't let them rest until the shouting had faded behind them and the noises of the woodland rose all about them. Then Musa collapsed against a tree, asking in a tearful voice, "What did I do wrong?"
"Only... told them..." Aelwyn leaned hunched over against a tree, gasping for breath. "...told them... what they... didn't want to hear."
Wide-eyed, the rightful king listened. How could he tell his people the truth?
"It's what they must know!"
"They won't be willing to listen until the first spate of anger has passed." Aelwyn took off his tunic and shook the dirt out of it. "Come on, there's a stream here. Let's sluice this garbage off us."
Musa, of course, had only to disappear in order to become clean, but Aelwyn had to strip and wash out his tunic and leggings as well as himself. A few rotten eggs and vegetables had hit Ned too, so he joined Aelwyn in the stream. Cadavan took the opportunity for a swim—frogs do need water, and his skin had been feeling dry lately.
Then he smelled something odd.
Frogs have a much better sense of smell than people, especially since, in human form, Cadavan had always been prone to stuffy noses. He hopped up on the bank and sniffed around. The scent seemed like that of an unwashed human, but it was strangely overlaid with some other rank smell, something like a dog's but more gamey.
It was definitely coming from the woods. Cadavan hopped out into the clearing, to its center, where anything that tried to pounce on him could be seen as soon as it broke cover—but surely, if the creature meant harm, it would have attacked already. Carefully keeping Musa and Aelwyn in sight, Cadavan turned about slowly, sniffing the breeze, trying for direction.
There! The scent was coming from an oak tree three feet wide—no, from a bush at its foot, for there, Cadavan saw two clear blue eyes. What else there was of the head was too deeply in shadow to be seen, but the eyes looked quite human.
They also looked lonely and miserable, and Cadavan's heart went out to whatever poor creature hid there. "'Sawright, 'sawright." He tried to sound sympathetic. "We help. We help."
Ned was still enjoying himself, splashing about in the brook. Watching him, Cadavan realized he had never seen the boy having fun before, and felt quite sorry for him.
Aelwyn climbed out of the stream, wringing the water from his garments and spreading them on some rocks to dry, then lay in the sun to dry himself. Musa appeared and said, "I still do not understand your kind."
"Yahh!" Aelwyn snatched up his tunic and draped it over his body. "Give a fellow a bit of warning, genius!"
"Oh, that?" Musa waved at his body with a bit of contempt. "It means nothing. You forget, I'm not human."
"What does that matter, when you're female?"
Ned seemed to think so, too; he sank down so that only his head showed and watched Musa warily.
Whatever the hidden creature was, Cadavan guessed, it was frightened of them, but fascinated. Were people so rare here? Or did it watch everyone who came to the woods as avidly as it was watching now? Facing the oak, Cadavan croaked, "No fear. No fear."
The eyes in the bush widened as though the creature understood him.
Covered now, Aelwyn propped himself against a tree. "If you can't understand my kind, why do you bother with us?"
"Because for me, to live is to teach, and people like you are the only students at hand."
"And we generally don't want to learn." Aelwyn nodded. "We like to think we already know all we need, and we don't welcome anyone telling us otherwise."
"Then how can you ever be taught?"
"Nice guys, nice guys," Cadavan told the blue eyes. "Buddies, buddies, could be, could be."
The eyes blinked and seemed to grow watery, as though the creature wanted to believe.
Aelwyn shrugged. "Tell people something amusing, genius, and work what you're trying to teach in with the humor."
Ned's face lit up in astonishment, Cadavan looked up with interest; perhaps the question applied to the creature in hiding as well as it did to an audience or a student. He glanced back at the blue eyes, and once again croaked, "'Sawright, 'sawright. We help, we help."
Strangely, though, the blue eyes showed alarm. Then the brush rustled, and the creature was gone.
Cadavan sat still a minute longer, contemplating the event. Surely that rank-smelling canine couldn't have thought his croaks were threatening! It probably hadn't even understood him!
Or could his croaks have frightened it because it did understand him?
Certainly it needed to be taught that they could be its friends. He hopped up to Aelwyn and croaked, "Bonehead. Bonehead."
Aelwyn sighed and shook his head. "I keep thinking this frog is trying to tell me something, but I can't understand a single croak."
"He said, 'bonehead,'" Musa supplied.
Aelwyn looked up in surprise. "You can understand him?"
"That's the other side of teaching," Musa said. "Spirits of my sort have an unquenchable desire to learn—everything and anything. It did not take me long to discern the frog's words. Their meaning is entirely another matter. What do you suppose he means by 'bonehead?'"
"Only that most folk are so thick-skulled that you have to tell them something truly striking to gain their attention," Aelwyn said.
"Such as reminding a man he's a fool to lie about unclothed where a bandit might find him?" said a deep gravelly voice.
They spun about, but Aelwyn didn't rise. His hand did close about a rock, though.
Ned noticed, and sank silently from view to look for a stone that fit his hand.
"You left a trail a mile wide." The owner of the voice wore a steel cap and a breastplate over his tunic and hose. He came toward them, grinning. "I am the reeve of this shire, and it's your bad fortune that I came by in time to hear the hue and cry—and to see you dash into this woodland. You made yourselves easy to find, once the villagers told me you were talking against the king."
"Not true," Aelwyn said. "I only told them that not all Azureans are villains."
"Dangerous words, when half a dozen of them tried to blow up the Lords' Hall," the reeve said.
"They never managed to light the gunpowder," Aelwyn protested, "and they weren't from Azure."
"We'll let the king's judge decide that, won't we?"
Ned surfaced in time to hear that question, and debated revealing that he was the king in question—or would it be better to throw the stone?
"On your feet, with your clothes on," the reeve told Aelwyn, "and hold out your hands to be bound!"
"I haven't broken the law!"
"As I said, we'll let the king's judge decide that." The reeve bent down to catch Aelwyn by the neck.
The minstrel swung his rock so fast it blurred.
It struck the reeve's helmet with a sound like a gong. He staggered backward, cursing.
Aelwyn pulled on his tunic and picked up another rock.
The reeve bumped into a tree and braced himself against it. Balance regained, he started forward, huge fists rising.
Ned decided on the stone. He cocked his fist, ready to throw.
Musa clapped her hands in delight. "So that's what it takes to gain their attention."
The reeve slowed, turning a scowl on her as though suddenly realizing she was there. "Who're you, Baldy?"
"I am Musa," she said, "a teaching spirit—and the minstrel is correct: the people who set the barrels of gunpowder weren't Azureans."
"Who cares what they were?" the reeve snarled, and swung a fist at her.
Musa shrank backward, protesting, "This doesn't make sense!"
The reeve spat an oath and followed, swinging again.
Aelwyn stepped between them, fist cutting upward, but the reeve's blow connected first, and he went tumbling. The reeve laughed and came after him.
A howl, a growl, and a lump of fur landed atop the reeve's shoulders, a lump of fur with teeth that tore and claws that raked.
|
|
show counter |
|