Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [62]
Peter didn’t answer, unable to think of any retort that could do anything but make his position worse than it already was. Instead he finished divesting himself of his edible goods, carefully placing each one on the floor, on top of his cloak. Then he unlimbered Frost’s case from around his shoulder and removed the bone white flute, handling it with care and reverence.
“Now there’s a treasure I think I’d like my share of,” Hagan said, in a whispered aside to the king and queen.
Peter placed the flute to his lips and began to play.
He selected a soft, slow lovers’ song that he’d last played for a bride and groom on their wedding day. And as he played, for the second time since he’d come into ownership of the magic instrument, he devoutly wished that the danger would pass him by. As the melody increased in cadence and volume, members of the audience couldn’t help but start tapping and clapping along with the tune’s merry rhythm.
He ended with a flourish, and as he lowered the flute he noticed that there were tears in the queen’s eyes.
“We can’t deprive this artist of his hand,” she said, her voice catching on pent-up emotions she tried, and failed, to conceal. “Not when he can do such wondrous things when he still has both of them.”
“True,” the king said, in a hushed and awed tone. “I thought I’d heard music many times before, but in truth I never did. Not before today.”
Peter replaced Frost in its case, and then wiped two trickles of blood away from either side of his mouth, where Frost had again cut him.
“Your hand is given back to you,” the king said, “as reasonable and just payment for your second job among us. For, in addition to joining our Brotherhood as a fellow cutpurse, you’re appointed Royal Troubadour to this august court.”
And that’s how Peter Piper became a thief in earnest, far exceeding in every respect his long lost brother’s most adamant accusation.
In which Max
lives well, then not so
well, encounters three
knights and a witch,
and receives a gift
beyond price.
MAX PIPER STAYED IN HIS COZY COTTAGE for several months, clear through the harsh winter, eating his fill every day and keeping warm by the crackling fire. Having gone hungry for an extended period of time, exposed all the while to the bitter elements, warmth, comfort and enough to eat became the sum total of Max’s ambitions. It’s entirely possible that he’d never have wanted to leave, if not for the deceit and low actions of Mr. and Mrs. Schoep, the cottage’s previous owners.
At first Max had planned to simply kill anyone living in the home, going so far as to unsheathe Frost Taker for instant action, as he pounded boldly on the cottage’s single door. But when the door finally opened, he saw that a timid old fat man and his old fat wife were the dwelling’s sole occupants. He reconsidered the need for murder. Neither looked as if they could possibly offer him any harm. Better to question them first, at least long enough to find out how far away the nearest neighbors might be, and what dangers might lurk in this neck of the woods.
“Who are you?” Max shouted into the old man’s face. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed past the fellow and entered the little home’s single room.
“I’m Gerwulf Schoep,” the old man said, “and this is Claudia, my good wife.” Palpable fright was evident in Gerwulf’s voice. Max recognized the tone as one of instantaneous and complete surrender. He’d have no trouble with these two — assuming there were only two of them.
“Who else lives here?” he demanded.
“No one. We’re all alone,” Claudia said. She’d been sitting in a wingback, densely upholstered chair by the fire. There was a bowl full of potatoes in her lap, which she’d been peeling with a paring knife. When Max burst in she seemed to shrink farther into the chair’s cushions, as though hoping to flee by disappearing into them. “Our daughter from town visits us once a week to see that we’re still well,” she continued. “At least she used to, but she hasn’t come in three weeks now.”
“She was probably killed