Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [30]
“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