Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [35]
escape from the army
and a terrible thing
happens in the woods.
THE WOODS WERE HAUNTED WITH EVERY SORT of malign creature. It was an evil place fit only for ghosts, bogeys and fell spirits. Of this Max was becoming more certain by the minute.
A few hours after nightfall on the previous evening, the Pipers, the Peeps and all of their servants and hired hands slipped into the woods. Not one of them elected to stay behind and take a chance with the invaders. They’d divided into three smaller groups in order to better negotiate the woods which were too thick and tangled to permit the passage of a larger company. The Pipers joined with the Peep family to form one group. The household staff formed another, and the field hands and other outside workers formed the third. Each person carried a similar bundle containing only the essentials to survive the forest: some food, salvaged from the estate’s larders, warm clothes or a blanket to endure the cold of night, a weapon if they had one, and a small bag of shiny gold marks, divided equally from Squire Peep’s entire cache of ready money, which had been hidden well enough that the invaders never discovered it. Peep had decided that each individual should carry his own purse, so that even if they became separated, everyone who survived the forest to eventually win through to Hamelin had an equal chance not to have to live from there on as a penniless beggar.
Throughout the remainder of the previous day, after Peep had outlined his plan, household servants plied the few soldiers left behind with wine and beer and strong spirits, which they still had in plenty, since the officers loudly refused to allow any of it to be confiscated with the other goods. It seemed they wouldn’t risk an army of drunken soldiers when marching on a town to take it by force of arms.
Even after the guards had consumed their fill, grateful to be refreshed against the hot day, the house maids urged more on them, saying, “This is the season when dire infirmities are staved off only by stiff drink and plenty of it.” Knowing no better in a strange land, the soldiers drank more and then more again. True to their scheme, all of the guards fell asleep even as the night fell, and the escape was under way.
The first group had set off with Squire Peep in the lead. They’d moved slowly, more slowly than the other two groups, who quickly outdistanced them to become lost from sight, because the woods were thick, and Mr. Peep was fat and old and couldn’t do better. Plus the entire gaggle of Peep daughters seemed intent on tripping and stumbling or becoming entangled in one thorny stand of undergrowth after another. They cried and complained so often that Max nearly forgot how pretty they were, even in their rough, durable work clothes, and how, in the previous afternoon, three or four of them had already played a part in his private imaginings of how this escape might turn out. In each case he’d bravely rescued one of them from some fierce creature of the deep woods, killing the beast, or driving it off with his sword. Then the girl in question had shown her gratitude, flinging herself into his arms and madly covering him with unending kisses, as well as rewarding him in other ways that Max couldn’t quite conjure in his mind, but knew were among the secret doings of grown men and women.
Max had his sword now, a real one this time, and not just some flimsy object mounted for display. Mr. Peep had given it to him on the very edge of the woods, just before they ventured inside. “You’re one of the three men in this group,” Peep whispered to him, “so we’ll need you armed, like your father and me.”
I’m one of the men, Max thought. That’s what fat old Mr. Peep called me and it was true. He’d experienced a heady sense of elation then, which was only improved when he saw that they hadn’t armed Peter in a similar fashion. I’m one of the men now and Peter isn’t. Max belted the sheathed blade around his hips and decided — no, it was more of a solemn vow than a simple decision — that his true life had only