Pelean's Jewel, Part III

"BOY!" bellowed the cook in charge of pastries, a surly ogre who could make a pie crust so light only the fruit filling kept it from floating off into the wilderness. Tallow, who had been carefully cracking eggs into a bowl, jumped and dropped the egg he had been holding. He faced the furious cook with yolk spattered over his shoes.

"Sir?" Tallow squeaked.

"Don't know what you've done, but it must be bad," the ogre rumbled. "Captain of Knights himself wants to see you. Now. His office."

"I haven't done anything!"

"Humph. Tell it to the Captain, if that's your story. Off with you, now! Don't keep him waiting!" The cook shooed Tallow out of the kitchens.

The fields where the knights honed their skills lay just behind the palace, next to the stables and a stately blue stone building where the unmarried knights made their homes in peacetime, and where all knights would live should the kingdom be at war. Just inside the front door was a small office with a large window overlooking the jousting field, and inside the office was Sir Brennan.

He sat at his desk signing orders for supplies like wooden practice swords and new saddles. Knights destroy an astonishing number of things on a daily basis as they prepare to destroy other people should the need arise, so Sir Brennan spent nearly as much time with a pen in his hand as he did with a sword. (In addition to war, illness and death, Faerie also suffers the curse of paperwork. They do not, however, have celebrities or fast food, and are much happier for it.) When the kitchen-boy appeared in the doorway, he was glad to set down the pen and put the papers aside for a while.

"Sir Brennan, Captain, sir," Tallow babbled. "You wanted to see me? Has something happened? I didn't do anything, I swear!"

"I didn't think you had," the captain replied. He smiled reassuringly and beckoned the boy forward. "Come in, come in. You are not in any trouble."

Tallow inched forward and Sir Brennan stood, striding around the boy to shut the door. He turned and looked down at Tallow, who craned his neck to look up at the captain.

Nobles are tall, as a rule—tall and slender, supple and unbreakable as reeds. They have fine, even features, pointed ears, pleasing voices and eyes like gemstones in the moonlight. If you were to meet them, you would probably call them elves. I would advise you not to do so aloud, however. They would be insulted and might turn you into something slimy and unpleasant. In Faerie they are called nobles, or fair folk, and that is all.

Sir Brennan was tall, even for a noble. His hair was the color of ripe wheat, his face browned by the sun. His eyes were the color of garnets, his hands scarred from a thousand small training injuries. He was one of the younger knights, but he was captain because the queen believed—and she was not alone in this—that he was the bravest of them all. Tallow believed it, too. He had been a tiny child when it all happened, but the story was already legend in Sanmeara.

Sir Brennan was only seventeen that summer. He had been a knight for less than a year when the king and queen returned from a diplomatic visit to a neighboring kingdom, bringing with them the Captain of Knights, four other knights, and, though they did not yet know it, the fever that would kill them.

One of the knights was the first to fall ill, then another, then the king, the captain, the queen and finally the other two knights. Two servants who tended the royal couple became sick within days, as did the royal physician. The king ordered himself and all the others who were ill to be removed from the palace, to prevent the fever from spreading farther. It was the last order he would ever give; he died hours after being moved.

One of the knights died the next day, followed by both the royal physician and a servant in the night. The physicians and healers who had been caring for the sick fled in fear of their own lives. One of the two knights guarding the doors to the sick-house helped the doctors leave and slipped away himself when no one was looking.

There are as many kinds of bravery as there are kinds of honor, or duty, or love. It is one thing to face an enemy with a sword, another to face an enemy hanging invisible in the very air you breathe.

Standing guard at the front, unaware of the exodus which had taken place through the back door, young Sir Brennan did not at first respond to the cries for water that reached his ears through the open windows. The healers would take care of them, he thought. But the pleas continued and, his suspicions raised, he entered that house of illness and death to find no one but the sick.

The physicians and healers would not return, and no others could be persuaded to take their places. New guards were found for the doors, but only Sir Brennan was willing to enter the house. For the next week he tended the sick as best he could, giving them water and broth and putting cold cloths on their heated brows. The Captain of Knights died, as did one of his remaining men.

One of the healers who had fled was brought back after contracting the fever. He lived, as did the only other knight and the servant. The queen closed her eyes late one afternoon and never opened them again. She had asked him to make sure her daughter received the jewel if she should die, so Sir Brennan personally took it from about her neck and put it in a kettle of boiling water for an hour before having it sent back to the palace for the little princess.

When it became clear that the danger had passed, he left the sick-house expecting to be hated for having allowed the queen to die. Instead, he was surprised to find himself hailed as a hero.

Lilias was only ten and had been queen for less than a week when she rewarded his bravery by making him Captain of Knights. In the five years since, she had never had cause to regret it. Most days, he did not regret it, either. He hoped he would not come to regret this day.

He lowered himself into a crouch so the poor child wouldn't snap his neck from bending it back so far. "Tallow, isn't it? I have seen you at our drills."

"I keep out of the way, Captain, sir," Tallow defended himself.

"Yes, you do. But I thought that if you enjoy watching us so much, maybe you would be willing to help us? We need a shifter to do something that none of us can."

"Anything, sir!" His eyes were as wide as saucers.

Sir Brennan laughed. "Always know what you are being asked before you agree. That is something a knight told me when I was only a squire." He glanced out the window, toward the palace. "You have heard about the queen's lost jewel, I assume?"

"Yes, Captain, sir. The water-dragon took it, and now it's hiding in a cave because it's afraid of you."

"Hmm. I wonder if it is. There are many things I wonder about that dragon, Tallow, but I can't find out for myself."

"Why not?" Tallow wondered, amazed that brave Sir Brennan might find anything impossible.

"Because I cannot talk to the other creatures that live in the stream, and ask them about the dragon," Sir Brennan confided.

"But I can!" Tallow exclaimed.

"Yes, you can. Would you be willing to help me? I only want you to find out about the dragon—what its habits are, whether it is afraid of anything, maybe even where it keeps the jewel."

"If I find out where the jewel is, maybe I can go there as a fish and steal it back!"

"No!" Sir Brennan said sharply, and the boy jumped. He forced himself to speak more kindly. "I need information, in order to discover how best to handle this dragon. I do not want anyone, not you, not me, not my men, going anywhere near that creature until we understand it better."

Always in his thoughts was the queen's desire that no one be hurt in seeking her jewel. That was why she had called off the search, but Sir Brennan still hoped to find a way to get it back.

Tallow thought about that. "That makes sense. I guess I was just hoping for something more exciting than talking to fish," he confessed.

"I will tell you a secret." He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Most of the time, beign a knight is just doing drills and polishing your armor. Talking to fish sounds pretty interesting to me."

"Can you let me be a knight?" Tallow asked. "You're the Captain, can't you just say it's so?"

Sir Brennan shook his head. "No. I'm sorry, but you are not one of us. There are many common folk in the army," he offered, "and even a few in the palace guard. If it's a military career you have in mind, I can help you into either of those."

"I'm not sure what I want to do if I can't be a knight," he admitted. "But I know I don't want to work in the kitchens."

"Help me now, and you will not have to go back. We can put you to work in the stables while you decide what you want to do," Sir Brennan offered.

Tallow smiled. "Deal."


© 2007 by the author. All rights reserved.

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Pelean's Jewel, Part II

Her advisors were all talking at once, as they often did, trying to reassure her that she would have her jewel by nightfall, or possibly the next morning, at the very latest. Queen Lilias did not seem very reassured, which only made them talk louder and faster, competing with each other to be the one to say just the right thing that would make her smile again.

"Oh, do be quiet for once, all of you!" she said after several moments of this, and the tone of her voice was unkind. They did all stop talking, for she had never spoken to them like that before. They stopped talking and they stared at her as if she had grown another head.

Lilias knew she had been impolite, and she knew she should be sorry for it, but she was not. She had lost the most precious thing her mother had left her, and all she wanted was a bit of silence in which to be sad for it. (It would probably also be fair to say that the rude way in which her advisors treated each other was a bad influence on her.)

"Leave me," she said. "I do not wish to be disturbed until my knights return."

"But, Your Majesty—" one of the advisors began.

"Leave," she insisted, and they left.

Lilias pulled a large and comfortable chair over to her chamber window and curled up in it, watching the gate for her knights' return. It was many hours before they came, trotting into the torch-lit courtyard with their heads bowed in defeat. Slowly she stood and left her chambers.

She met them in the throne room. They set up a great clatter in their armor, dropping to kneel before her as she walked to her throne. Once she was seated, the captain of the knights stood and came forward.

"You did not find it, Sir Brennan," she said softly as he approached.

"No, Your Majesty," he said. "We found the dragon quickly, but when we attacked it swam into the middle of the stream, where the water was too deep for our horses to go. It swam toward the mountain, and we followed on the bank, but the stream is very deep so close to its source, and the dragon never strayed into the shallows where we might have fought it. It disappeared into the mountain itself.

"I took off my armor and followed. Soon I found myself in a great underwater cave. I could not hold my breath long enough to explore even the hundredth part of it, Your Majesty. And had I found the dragon, I would not have been able to fight it, weighed down with water as I was. I have left five good men there to watch the entrance to the cave from the safety of the shore, and to follow the dragon if it should emerge. The rest I brought back here to receive your command," he concluded, and knelt once more.

Queen Lilias sat back in her throne, her fingers curled around the gilded knobs at the ends of its arms, looking thoughtful. An advisor opened his mouth to speak, but she glanced at him with a warning clear in the royal eyes and he thought better of it. He shut his mouth and shuffled his feet awkwardly. A rare, complete silence fell over her court.

Minutes passed before she spoke. "It is only a thing," she said as if she didn't really believe it, but felt she ought. "It is not worth risking lives over. Bring your knights home, Sir Brennan. The jewel is lost. I have others."

"But none so fine, Your Majesty," Sir Brennan said gently. "Nor so full of memories. We would seek it for you, gladly."

She tried to smile at him, but could not quite manage it. "I know you would. But I say you shall not."

"As Your Majesty wishes."

"Little this day has been as I would wish," she murmured to herself, so softly that only Sir Brennan heard. He closed his eyes for a moment, ashamed to have failed.

The young queen stood and faced her knights. "Thank you for your service," she said graciously. "Good night."

With that, she left her court abruptly, hurrying to the privacy of her own chambers and dismissing her maids the instant she set foot through the doorway. Her mother had once told her that a queen must never be seen to cry in front of her subjects, not even the servants. She flung herself onto the high bed, weeping into the silk coverlet until sleep stole her away.

Sir Brennan dispatched a rider to summon the five home from the mouth of the stream, and saw to it that his knights were well-fed and their horses cared for. Then he climbed the five hundred stairs to the top of the highest tower and looked out over the kingdom he was sworn to protect. It was late at night by then, and Sanmeara slept, her rolling hills which were so smooth and pleasing to the eye in the daytime had become strange lumps in the darkness, broken only by the occasional candle in a cottage window and the will-o-the-wisps dancing on the moors to the west.

He stood atop the tower and leaned his forearms on the low wall and thought. He thought of the dragon, the jewel, the young queen and the kingdom. One by one he made plans to recover the jewel, and one by one he discarded them as impractical or unlikely. He thought until dawn sent its bright tendrils creeping along the edge of the world, and he thought as he descended the long flights of stairs on legs stiff from standing through the night.

He thought as he ate his breakfast. He thought during early morning swordfighting exercises, midmorning jousting practice, and late morning tracking drills. Once, he thought he had a solution that would work, until he realized that he had no way of keeping a frost giant properly chilled all the way from the mountains of Kethelor and back again.

He thought through lunch, and during early afternoon quarterstaff sparring he thought so hard he nearly gave the little kitchen-boy, who always sat on the fence to watch them during his own lunchtime, a whack on the skull by accident. He thought while he exercised his horse in midafternoon, while he polished his armor before dinner, and while he sharpened his sword after dinner. (He took a break from thinking during dinner because they were served roast chard with scallions in bergamot sauce and really, who can focus on anything but their own immediate survival when Cook is feeling experimental?)

He thought as he crawled, exhausted, into his bed and fell almost instantly asleep. He must have been thinking in his sleep, too, for when he woke up in the morning he knew why he hadn't been able to find a solution, and what was required to change that.


© 2007 by the author. All rights reserved.

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Pelean's Jewel, Part I

for Conan, Jakob, Corbin, Shaun, Kallan and Dashiell

The faerie queen's amethyst castle stood in the curve of a stream which was clear and sweet and which burbled over the smooth and luminous rocks of its bed in the most charming manner. This stream was home to all sorts of marvelous fish and water flowers and dragonflies and the occasional enchanted frog. It flowed from deep underneath the great grey snow-capped mountain behind the palace, so its waters were deliciously cool in summer and delightfully warm in winter.

(Yes, there is winter in Faerie, but the snow is not white. It is very faintly green, like the ghost of a new spring leaf, and it is always just heavy enough to make perfect snowballs.)

The queen's name was Lilias, but no one called her by it. They addressed her as "Your Majesty", and referred to her as "Her Majesty" or simply "the Queen". She was very young, hardly more than a child, and was only just beginning to realize that it is a difficult thing to have a perfectly good name and never hear it used. Should we use it to tell this story, do you think? It is a very pretty name. I think we should.

Queen Lilias had hair as black as midnight and eyes as green and bright as emeralds. She was still growing and could at times be awkward, yet she had an inborn grace that would serve her well when she was older. When she laughed (which did not happen as often as it ought) it sounded like little crystal bells rolling against each other.

Her kingdom was neither large nor small. Its greatest claim to fame was a sort of general prosperity which ensured that even the lowliest peasant had plenty of food and good sturdy clothes and regular holidays. The land was at peace and the people content. Her subjects were pleased with her, though to say they loved her would not be strictly true. They did not know her; queens and subjects do not mix in the normal course of things.

She was rarely alone, even for a moment. She had dukes and duchesses, earls and countesses, barons and ladies competing for her attention and her favor. She had brave knights who must be allowed to look upon her from time to time, that they might know for whom they could be asked to risk their lives. She had wise and learned advisors who filled her head with conflicting advice, each according to his own particular interests and beliefs.

If that were not enough, the palace was filled with servants, privileged members of the common races of faerie who were fortunate enough to live and work so close to the nobles. Most of those servants considered it part of their duty to protect their monarch from any unpleasantness, be it a smudged spoon or a persistent petitioner. An ordinary person had a better chance of dancing on the moon than of speaking with the queen.

One of the palace servants was a boy named Tallow. He was a kitchen-boy; he scrubbed pots and peeled potatoes and generally made himself useful to the small army of palace cooks. If he worked hard and paid attention, he could look forward to being a cook himself in ten or twenty years.

Tallow was seven years old, sturdy and restless, with walnut-colored hair that would stand on end no matter how carefully he brushed it. He was a shifter, a faerie who could turn into any animal he pleased. Some very gifted shifters could even turn into plants or insects, but he had not gotten the hang of that at all.

He wanted, rather desperately, to be a knight when he grew up. The problem was, knights were always nobles, and shifters are not nobles. He spent many an hour up to his elbows in suds, scouring pans and trying to think of a way around that particular rule, but so far he hadn't hit upon a solution. If he could not be a knight he definitely, most assuredly, wanted to be something more interesting than a kitchen-boy or a cook.

But let us leave Tallow there for a moment, in the great sprawling kitchens with his pots and potatoes, and return to Queen Lilias.

On the day she was born, not so very many years before our tale begins, the sun shone brightly over the kingdom, which by the way is called Sanmeara. When the sun shines that brightly in Faerie, the sky is the bluest blue that could ever be, and when Lilias was born a wizard used his magic to trap a bit of that astonishing blue inside a smooth round jewel the size of a plump cherry. He gave the jewel to the queen, Lilias's mother, and a few years later when the king and queen died, the jewel and the crown both came to Lilias.

Oh, did you think there was no sickness or death in Faerie? I am sorry to say that there is. It is not quite so extraordinary a place as to have escaped those troubles.

By the time Lilias received it, the jewel had been set into a necklace. The young queen wore it often, for it reminded her of her mother and of course it was very beautiful in its own right. One day—and this is where our story truly begins—she was taking a stroll outside the palace with several of her advisors. While they argued among themselves over some fine point of inter-kingdom relations which Lilias did not find at all interesting, she thought her own thoughts and, as she often did, stroked the jewel hanging on its delicate chain about her neck.

They were crossing a bridge over the stream when the jewel suddenly moved under her finger. Fearing it was coming out of its setting, she stopped there at the crest of the bridge and held it up to see if it really was loose. She nudged it ever so lightly with a fingertip.

That last careful touch, alas, is what knocked it free. It tumbled out of its setting, bounced once upon the railing, and dropped into the water with a tiny splash.

"Oh!" Queen Lilias cried when this happened. A second later she said it again as a sleek, silvery shape darted out from underneath the bridge, scooped the jewel up in its mouth, lifted its barbed and gleaming tail out of the water and wiggled it in a manner that looked very much like a cheerful wave. Having done so it swam away, quick as you please.

"What was that?" she exclaimed.

"It was the water dragon, Your Majesty," one of the advisors said. "It has lived in the stream as long as anyone can remember."

"That water dragon has my jewel! We must get it back!"

"It shall be done, Your Majesty," another advisor said, shoving the first aside.

The first advisor shoved back. "Do not give it another thought, my queen. You shall have your jewel again before you know it."

Soon after, the knights in their gold and silver armor mounted their horses and thundered through the palace courtyard in pursuit of the dragon. The queen stood on a balcony and watched them go until all she could see was a little cloud of dust following the stream northward as it disappeared into the hills at the foot of the mountain.


© 2007 by the author. All rights reserved.

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Bats Afire

Minnesota 32, Chicago 14

That, ladies, gentlemen and Yankee fans, is not a Vikings/Bears score. It is the cumulative score of yesterdays' not-so-split doubleheader between the Twins and the Whine Sox.

In game 1, Scott Baker gave up seven runs in five innings, but added a shiny new "W" to his record because Chicago's Jon Garland, being the competetive sort, had to one-up him by allowing 12 in 3 1/3. The Chicago bullpen got in on the fun by coughing up 8 more, with the Twins bullpen close behind at 7.

Is it any wonder the game lasted 3 hours and 42 minutes?

In the game, the two teams combined for 5 homers, nine doubles, and a triple. The Twins chalked up 21 hits and 1 error, the Whine Sox 18 hits and 5 errors. (Wow, is that a record? Actually, no, but Chicago does own the record, along with Detroit: 12. Detroit committed 12 in a game against Chicago in 1901, and Chicago returned the favor against Detroit in 1903.)

Game 1 homer roll call:
3rd: Hunter, MIN, solo
4th: Kubel, MIN, grand slam
5th: Konerko, CWS, two-run
7th: Fields, CWS, solo
8th: Thome, CWS, solo

In the second game, Ron Gardenhire's worst nightmare came true--the starting catcher (Mr. Redmond) was injured after being hit in the head with a bat on the backswing, in the first inning no less. Meanwhile the backup (Mr. Mauer) was DHing, and there was no third catcher on the roster, thus creating the necessity for the pitcher (Mr. Garza, making his first start of the season) to bat for the remainder of the game. Garza was, you may be interested to know, the first pitcher to bat in an AL game since 1989. Despite not having batted in a game since high school, Garza laid down a sacrifice bunt in one of his three plate appearances.

Contrary to Gardy's expectations, the world did not end, the sky did not fall, and the Twins did not lose. (Although Redmond did need some stitches.) Indeed, with their pitchers batting the Twins romped to a 12-0 win.

Adding to the abundance of joy, Justin "Boom Boom Stick" Morneau hit three homers in game 2, the first time a Twin has done that since TBL was but a mewling infant. (Stop calculating TBL's age, that's rude.) The first of those homers was career longball #100 for everyone's favorite first baseman, and the game marked Gardenhire's 500th win as a major league manager.

(Also, props to MLB.com for using "thrice" in a headline. Literacy is a wonderful thing.)

Game 2 homer roll call:
1st: Morneau, MIN, three-run
3rd: Morneau, MIN, solo
Hunter, MIN, solo
7th: Morneau, MIN, two-run

Today, "You Can't Handle The" Boof Bonser goes up against Mark Buehrle at 2:55. TBL will miss most of the game on account of attending a wedding. (Stupid love, interfering with the important things.)

And finally, TBL will be running a special weeklong non-baseball event here on Third Base Line starting tomorrow.

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BOOM

This is for all of you trapped at work with no radio.

If there's one team TBL hates nearly as much as the Bankees (and there is) it's the Whine Sox. Which is why it gives TBL great pleasure to announce that in the top of the fourth in Chicago, just minutes ago, Jon Garland intentionally walked Torii "GIDP" Hunter to load the bases and get to Jason Kubel.

Kubel went yard.

Twins 12, Whiners 4.

So far.

---

Update, 4:55 pm: After an epic three hours and 40 minutes, the game ended at Twins 20, Whiners 14.

Good grief. Maybe the Twins should play the football season instead of the Vikings.

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Twins 6, Satan 2

Unless this is one of your first reads here at Third Base Line, you are aware that TBL thinks the world would be a much better place if a flying saucer swept up the Yankees for a bit of festive probing and accidentally deposited them on a planet with an inhospitable atmosphere afterwards. (If they could grab the Executive Branch while they're down here, that would be keen. But TBL digresses.)

So if there's one thing better than beating the Yankees, it's beating the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, where every freakin' call goes their way. Suffice it to say that TBL firmly believes that the player salaries aren't the only big bucks Georgie-Porgie is flinging about. Beating them courtesy of home runs by a guy with no knees and a utility infielder who has only a passing acquaintance with the Mendoza line is particularly sweet.

For those of you who missed Monday's game, while the Bankees were up by several runs a certain Bankee whose name rhymes with PayRod shoved Justin Morneau (who only days before had been coughing up blood after a collision at the plate) in the back as he fielded a throw, knocking Justin onto his keister at great risk of re-injuring him and getting the safe call for himself. Mr. Sportsmanship then proceeded to wail about a tweaked hammy and get himself escorted off the field to the sounds of solemn applause. (Only if you have a very, VERY strong stomach should you read this.)

TBL regrets to report that one of her cats still has not come out from under the bed after the swearing and throwing of objects which this dastardly display engendered. On the other hand, TBL is extremely pleased to report that Justin is fine (no thanks to He Who Shall One Day Reap What He Has Sown), and that CyTana shut the jackass down yesterday.

Also, Pat Neshek struck out the Smirking Bastard (Bankee shortstop), which was both hilarious and deeply satisfying. Did you see the look on his face? Eat your heart out, MasterCard--THAT was priceless!

This afternoon, Kevin Slowey faces Kei Igawa as the Twins go for the split. TBL is not normally the praying type, but Young Master Slowey will be receiving whatever sort of holy vibes she can muster.

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Do Not Disturb

Well. It appears TBL was overly optimistic last week in declaring that the insane busy-ness was nearing an end. It has merely changed flavor.

Some of you are already aware that TBL has been known to write things that do not get posted to this blog, and also that she hopes to someday reclaim her soul from her corporate masters and write for a living. So when the Muse says, "Yoo hoo! Over here!", TBL drops everything that does not help her pay rent. Yes, dear readers, even the baseball. ("Inattentive" would be a kind description of her game-watching habits of late.)

Regular blogging will resume when it resumes. One presumes it won't be too terribly long, for the Muse, she is fickle and drives TBL bonkers.

If you are interested, the project of the moment is a short story tentatively titled "Pelean's Jewel", and it is going just swimmingly. It is about an old dragon, a young queen, a knight, a kitchen-boy, and a lost jewel.

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