Chapter 5
Five
The sunlight had nearly disappeared behind the trees when the young man entered again, his tunic wet from doing the laundry.
Makellos could barely see it hanging on a clothes line outside in the fading light.
He lifted up the lid from the cauldron, hand wrapped in a rag, giving the soup a stir.
The young man inhaled greedily, and Makellos could practically see his mouth water.
He laughed. “When can we expect everyone to return?”
The young man blinked, then cocked his head to the side, as if listening.
After a moment, he pointed out the open door, a large smile splitting his face.
Makellos listened too. At first, he heard nothing.
Then, slowly in the distance, he heard the tramp of feet through the forest, crunching leaves and evergreen needles underfoot, and the soft murmur of voices.
He turned to the redheaded young man. “Is that them?”
The young man nodded, giving him a hopeful smile.
Makellos took a deep breath. If these new people didn’t want him to stay in their house, he would soon have to brave the forest again.
The voices were getting louder and clearer now, and then a group of people broke through the tree line.
They were all bunched together but formed a single-file line as they approached the house.
The redhead made a motion for Makellos to stay where he was before stepping around him to stand in the cottage’s doorway.
He waved his hands and made a few gestures toward the voices.
“Someone’s here?” he heard a voice say, followed by an unclear babble of voices behind it. The redhead stepped aside.
Someone entered the hut, then stopped short, causing the others behind him to collide with him in a heap on the doorstep. There were several shouts and a few curses from the group, and a shove that sent the man in front inside several more steps.
The gathering at the door was unlike any Makellos had ever seen.
There were six men, of various ages and shapes.
He was sure he was staring at them as much as they were staring at him.
He could almost hear the scolding from his mother and his tutors that it was rude to gape, but he could hardly help himself.
The six men were of varying heights, but heights that he had only ever seen in children.
The tallest one, the one who had stopped short in the doorway, was at least a foot shorter than Makellos, not even reaching his shoulder.
He had a pair of round glass spectacles balanced a little precariously on his slightly wide nose, his bushy muttonchops quivering slightly.
Behind the man with the glasses were two men about the same height as each other who looked like they were probably brothers.
Each had slicked back chestnut-colored hair and thick eyebrows over identical hazel eyes, though one had a pointed goatee and the other only had a few days of stubble on his cheeks.
Makellos gave them a polite smile and a small bow. “Hello.”
“You’re the prince.” The warm voice came from a man just behind the spectacled one, with a thick beard but no moustache. When he stepped out, Makellos could see that his body was quite rotund, but his head seemed larger, and his arms and legs were much smaller in proportion to the rest of him.
Whispers and murmurs ran through the group, and Makellos gave a small nod. “Yes, I am,” he said softly.
“Prince Makellos?” asked another voice. It took a moment for him to find the speaker, for he was the smallest person Makellos had ever seen.
The top of his head only reached as far as Makellos’ waist. He had a large forehead, brown eyes peering out from beneath it.
Makellos might have mistaken him for a child if it wasn’t for the fact that he was balding and had a thick, fluffy moustache and beard, all of which were streaked with gray.
“What are you doing here?” demanded a different voice.
The chestnut-haired brothers parted to let through another man whose arms seemed too long for his blocky torso.
His voice was as sharp as the salt-and-pepper beard on his chin, his dark brown eyes boring into Makellos like an auger into a tree, despite the fact that he only came up to Makellos’ elbow.
Makellos gave them another small bow. “I’m so very sorry to intrude on your home.”
“We don’t know why he’s here,” said the sharp man, turning to the others around him as if Makellos had not spoken at all. “Find out what he’s doing in our house.”
“Oh, uh, yes, what are you and who are you doing?” asked the bespectacled man, turning back to Makellos as he tried to sound huffy and stern, chest puffed up like a rooster. The two chestnut-haired men behind him laughed heartily, and Makellos’ lips curved into a smile.
The one with the pointed beard rubbed his eyes with his hand, as if in pain, before shooting the spectacled man a pointed look. “Tell him he ain’t welcome here, Der.”
The man called Der looked at the sharp man with confusion. “Why would he not be welcome?”
“You think the son of Her Majesty,” the man said the words so sarcastically that Makellos could feel the sourness in his own mouth, “is here because of something good for all of us?”
Though he didn’t know why, Makellos had a feeling that these men were no friend to his family. But they already knew who he was and had not attacked him or thrown him out yet, which was certainly a good first step.
“Please,” he said softly, bowing his head. “My mother, the Queen, tried to have me killed. I ran away, and I need a place to stay.”
There were quiet gasps all around. “Why?” asked the brother with the stubbled cheeks.
Makellos didn’t have it in his heart to make up a lie. “My mother has always been the fairest in the kingdom, up until now. But she has deemed me to be more fair than she, and she cannot abide that.”
He lifted his head to see a few of the short men blushing and realized they were all assessing his features. That felt rather strange, to know that one was being stared at only for their fairness, but he hoped that it might help them understand his predicament.
“You are very fair,” said the rotund man.
“Thank you,” Makellos said with a sweet smile. “Might I know your names?”
The dark-eyed man with the pointed beard let out a ha-rumph, but everyone else in the room ignored him.
“My name is Der,” said the bespectacled man. “You’ve already met Dagobert.” He nodded to the red-haired young man that Makellos had been working with all afternoon.
“Ah. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Herr Dagobert,” Makellos said, giving him a polite bow. Dagobert’s cheeks went pink, and he dipped his head slightly in return.
“This is Hardwic,” Der said, motioning to the round man with the shorter limbs.
“Hello, I’m Hardwic!” the man sang out cheerfully, his nearly all-white beard bobbing. “Happy to meet you, your highness.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Makellos said, his heart warming at the brightness from the man.
“And Sigurd, and Sigmund.” Der pointed to the two men with the chestnut hair.
“I’m the older one,” said Sigurd, the one with the stubble on his cheeks.
“He was the trial run. I got all the improvements,” said Sigmund with a smirk on his bearded face.
Makellos laughed as Sigurd gave his brother a punch on the arm. “I’m two inches taller than you.”
“Yes, because those extra two inches went somewhere else on me,” Sigmund said with an equally smug look. Makellos felt his cheeks go red, and he pressed his lips together to keep from laughing aloud.
“Now now,” scolded Der, his bushy brows knitting together like he was scolding two unruly schoolboys. “Let’s be appropriate in front of the prince.”
“Sorry,” Sigurd grumbled.
“He’s sorry,” Sigmund said, giving his older brother an elbow to the ribs.
Der rolled his eyes, then motioned to the shortest member of their group. “This is Bernhardt.”
The little man with the balding head nodded politely. He seemed to be entirely proportionate other than a slightly larger forehead, though he was only half the size of the men Makellos had known.
Der turned to the last person in their group, the man with the sharp beard and dark eyes. “And Grimwald.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Makellos said, giving the man a bow.
Grimwald just glared back at him. They were the strangest bunch of people he had ever seen.
The tallest of them, Der with the spectacles, only stood as tall as his biceps, down to the smallest one, Bernhardt, who didn’t even come up to his waist. The only people he had ever seen at such heights were children, but these were definitely not children, even Dagobert who was obviously the youngest one of the group.
A few of them were more proportional, but some of them had heads that seemed a little too big, limbs that seemed a bit too long or a bit too short, or torsos that were blockier than what he was used to seeing.
Most of them seemed of older middle age, with gray at their temples or in their facial hair, though he thought Dagobert to be less than thirty winters old.
“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,” Makellos said, giving them all one more bow.
It was better to be overly polite than to accidentally be rude.
A sudden waft of scent came over him, and he could tell the others smelled it too; the comforting aroma of the soup in the cauldron.
“I hope you do not mind that I borrowed your kitchen. The soup should be ready.”
“You made us soup?” cried out Hardwic in excitement. “It smells delightful, your highness!”
“Oh, please, call me Makellos,” the prince said, holding up his hands with a sheepish smile. “No need to stand on ceremony when I am the one seeking your favor.”
“Aw, he’s so cute, let’s keep him,” said the brother with the beard on his chin.
“He’s not a pet, Sigmund,” scolded Bernhardt.