Chapter Sixteen The Tale of the Duchess’s Challenge
Chapter Sixteen
The Tale of the Duchess’s Challenge
Once upon a time, etc., etc., brokenhearted man, identical duplicates, windmills, snowstorm, castle that looked like a big toad…and there we are.
“My brothers shall not go with you,” the duchess avouched. “But I will make you this offer instead—if one of you can beat me in a footrace, you shall leave with as great a reward as the strongest among you can carry. If you fail, however, I’ll cut off your heads.”
“We agree to your terms!” Jack affirmed, for he had already conceived of yet another ridiculous plan.
It was decided that the first to bring water back from a distant well would be declared the winner. A crowd gathered to watch the race. Jack slapped Harry on the back and announced, “You’re up.”
“Harry…that’s Detachable Leg, right?” It had been over a week since I’d traveled with the huntsmen, and I’d started to lose track.
“That’s the one.”
“Got it. Please, go on.”
The duchess picked up a pitcher, and Harry fastened his leg on and grabbed one as well.
They commenced the race at the very same moment, but a mere eyeblink later, Harry could no longer be seen.
He ran so fast that to the crowd, it seemed as if the wind had rushed past them.
The duchess was only a little way along when he made it to the well, filled up his pitcher, and started his return journey.
He’d run very far by then, and when he was halfway back, he was overcome with exhaustion.
Feeling assured of his victory, he put down his pitcher, took off his leg, and stretched out for a nap.
But he was fearful he might oversleep and lose the race, so he decided to make himself an uncomfortable pillow out of a horse’s skull that was lying close by.
My forehead wrinkled. “A horse’s skull.”
“It’s what he used.”
“He rested his head on a convenient…horse’s skull.”
“This is the part of the story you find unbelievable?”
“I’m familiar with bloodthirsty nobles and death races. Horse-skull pillows are weird.”
Meanwhile, the duchess, who was a speedy woman herself—easily as fast as the fastest of ordinary people—was rushing back from the well. When she noticed her opponent lying there asleep, she cackled, overturned his pitcher, and ran on.
“Soon their heads will decorate my wall,” she chortled. “Six identical heads at one go—what a coup! I will be the envy of all the other head-collecting duchesses.”
All would have been lost had Clem not positioned himself at the top of the castle’s tallest tower for the best view of the race.
With his keen eyesight, he’d seen everything that had passed.
Taking careful aim with his bow, he shot the horse skull out from under Harry’s noggin without so much as severing a single one of the runner’s hairs. Harry woke with a start.
“Oh, my goodness!” Harry yelped, realizing his water had been spilled. “I must hurry, or I shall lose both the race and my head!”
Quick as a wink, he whisked on his leg, sprinted to the well, refilled the pitcher, and made it to the finish line the moment before the duchess stepped across.
“I’m glad I made an effort at the end there!” he trumpeted as the crowd cheered him. “What I was doing in the beginning could hardly be called running at all.”
The duchess stamped her feet in rage over her loss and began plotting to renege on her promise. “How wonderful that you have defeated me,” she grated out through clenched teeth. “We must celebrate your victory. Come with me, so you may eat and drink your fill!”
She brought the six of them to a room that had an iron floor, and iron doors, and windows set with iron bars. In the middle of a room was an iron table groaning under the weight of iron platters full of delicious food. “Go on in. Have as much as you like,” the duchess encouraged them.
While the six men were tucking into their meal—
“You went into a room with an iron floor and bars across the windows? That didn’t make you suspicious?”
“Did you miss the part about the delicious food?”
“Is that all it takes for you to traipse right into an obvious death trap?”
“I am highly motivated by delicious food.”
While the six men were tucking into their meal, the duchess shut and locked the doors, then stomped downstairs to the kitchen to see her cook.
“Those wretched men tricked me!” she fulminated. “Light as great a fire as you can beneath the iron floor. Soon they shall see I never, ever lose a bet.”
The cook complied, and the iron room began to grow warm. At first the men took little notice, placing the blame on the blazing summer sun striking the castle walls and the spiciness of the food upon their plates—
“Yes, because both of those things are likely to make the floor heat up.”
“I generally don’t assume that people have a murder room installed above the kitchen,” Sam replied. “Who does that?”
“I would guess not very many,” I admitted. To be fair, the murder room in my stepmother’s palace was underneath the catacombs, nowhere near the kitchen at all. It didn’t see a lot of use; no one dared to make assassination attempts on her anymore.
After a short time, the room was hot indeed. Becoming uncomfortable, the men tried to get out, only to find the doors locked and windows bolted shut. They soon realized that the duchess had concocted an evil plan and meant to do them harm.
“What can we do?” moaned Harry. “I cannot run through a locked door.”
“An’ ah cannae shoot aff an iron snib wi’ an arrow,” confessed Clem.
“Nor will a strong wind cool the room nearly enough,” lamented Kit, for by that time the heat was unbearable, and it was clear they would not survive much longer.
“But I can cause a frost so deep the fire itself will freeze!” And with that declaration, Max whipped off his hat.
“Wait,” I said. “If you have the strength to carry six trees, couldn’t you have just broken down the door instead?”
“I let Max have his moment; I’m generous that way. Also, I was still eating.”
The temperature dropped as frost fought flame.
But soon it was clear the fire was losing the battle.
Within five minutes, the air had cooled from broiling to roasting.
Within ten minutes, it was merely sultry.
Within twenty, it had become brisk. After half an hour, the room was so cold that the soup on the table froze solid in the bowls, rather to the dismay of the one among them who hadn’t finished his meal yet.
At this point, the duchess flung open the door, only for her jaw to drop when she saw that her unwelcome guests had failed to perish.
“I must say your hospitality is appalling,” Max complained, jamming his hat back down over his ear. “It’s freezing in here! You might at least have warmed the place up.”
By this time, the duchess wanted nothing more than to get rid of them. “You’ve had your meal,” she grumbled. “Now be on your way!”
“Ah, but what of our reward? You promised as much as the strongest among us could carry,” Jack reminded her.
“Fine!” the duchess snarled. “Take what you wish and be gone!”
And once she had said that, Sam strode toward the duchess’s brothers, who had been observing the proceedings from the hallway.
He scooped them up, three under each arm, enacting the final part of the plan Jack had conceived that morning.
And our heroes walked out the castle gate with a chorus of cheerful farewells.
“And what did the six brothers have to say about that?”
“Believe me, they were only too glad to get out from under the thumb of the murder duchess.”
The duchess was outraged, and in her fury she gathered together her troops in the courtyard. “Bring me my brothers!” she commanded. “And the thieves!”
The travelers had not gone far when they were overtaken by two regiments of cavalry. “You can have no chance against us,” their commander observed. “Give over the brothers of the duchess, and surrender.”
“Surrender?” bellowed Kit. “Never! Instead, you shall dance about in the air!”
He put his hand to his nose, closed one nostril, and blew a long breath out through the other.
The horses were tossed neighing to the sky; the soldiers were blown through the air like dandelion seeds.
They were flung hither and yon, some to the mountains, some to the valleys, and some to the plains.
A sergeant, suffering from nine wounds, begged for mercy—
“The sergeant received nine wounds from the wind?”
“There might have been a running pitched battle across the whole of Ecossia before the final stand, but I’m cutting things short. It’s nearly dawn; the hunt will be starting soon.”
The sergeant begged for mercy. As he seemed like a reasonable fellow who did not deserve death merely for obeying his mistress, Kit let him land without further injury.
“Now return to your duchess,” Jack ordered, “and inform her that her brothers are quite content to wear masks, and dress alike, and follow me around all the time for deeply mysterious reasons which I shall not divulge.”
I stuck out my lower lip in what I hoped was an appealing pout. “You still won’t tell me?”
“Maybe another time,” Sam said. “When we’re not about to be interrupted.”
The sergeant ran back to tell the duchess what had passed, warning her that if she sent any more troops, they would likely find themselves tossed about through the air as well.
“I can see there is no defeating these great heroes,” she griped, “especially the one called Sam, with his mighty and admirable posture. My brothers are out of my clutches forevermore. Let us be finished with this business and be content!”
And so the twelve men passed out of Ecossia and into another tale.