Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

“We’ve rescued a princess or two from certain doom. And besides, we have to at least try.”

“I don’t know why it’s your problem,” Roland 2 grunted. “You three don’t seem like anybody special in particular. I’ve sure never heard of you. Why’s it your job to get involved in this mess?”

I sighed. “That’s a good question. I wish I had an answer for you. Somebody’s got to do it, though, and so here we are.”

Roland 2 shook his head. “Bunch a loonies is what you are. But still, I suppose I’m glad someone came along. There isn’t much seven dwarves can do on their own, but with a Prince’s army behind them? We might stand a chance of rescuing Snow after all.”

“I certainly hope so, Roland 2.”

“What did you call me?”

“Nothing. Come on, let’s go see how close we are to the encampment.”

According to Roland 1, it was only over the next hill, and in just a few short minutes, the task of convincing a Prince to go to war with a Sorceress would be ours.

*******************************************************************************

When we finally climbed to the top of the hill, we could see the Prince’s encampment below us in the valley as plain as day.

Though I had known it wasn’t going to be, I still couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment when I saw it was far from a prepped, standing army ready to go to war with the Evil Queen. Still, the mediocre sized party was far better than the rag tag group of ten we currently had, so who was I to complain?

“I hope the three of you are ready,” Roland said, turning to Jack, Ezu and I. “I can’t say how cooperative the Prince will be to your proposal. This is not a common situation, you understand.”

“Technically, we don’t need him to be cooperative, so much as not openly hostile,” Jack replied.

“Always the optimist,” Ezu grunted.

“Well there’s no point in standing around here all day yammering on like a bunch of ninnies,” Klaus the dwarf sniffed, and he began marching doggedly down the hillside, his six brothers following.

“Are you ready for this?” Ezu whispered to me.

“Not in the slightest. Do you really think your ambush plan will work?” I hissed back.

“Not in the slightest. But it’s better than no plan at all.”

“Are we going to die, guys?” Jack whispered, edging himself neatly into the conversation and bringing the mood down a notch further.

“Not today,” I replied firmly, rolling up my sleeves. “Maybe tomorrow, but definitely not today. We’ve got a job to do.”

The boys, Roland, and I followed to dwarves, heading towards the small grouping of tents and tethered horses below.

As you can imagine, the appearance of our ragtag band of would-be-heroes caused quite the stir in the Prince’s encampment. The men who gathered as we marched into camp all knew Roland, and were more than a little curious as to what he was doing back so soon, and accompanied by the likes of us.

“Roland,” one solider called out as we passed. “What’s going on? Why are you back? And are those... dwarves?”

“We’re just going to see the Prince,” Roland called back, but without stopping. In fact, he sped up his pace a little, causing the dwarves to grumble as they tried to keep up. “These good fellows have requested an audience with him, and it is still my solemn duty to serve our Lord when and wherever I can.”

“Request an audience?” the other soldier repeated, surprise written all over his face and rushing to catch back up. “These fellows? You know the Prince doesn’t take audiences-”

“It’s complicated, Stephen,” Roland said sternly, evidently trying to indicate that this conversation was finished. Stephen stopped chasing after us, and watched out little party march off, shaking his head as we went.

“What did he mean the Prince doesn’t take audiences?” I whispered to Roland, glancing nervously back at the other soldier.

“Don’t worry about it,” Roland said back in an undertone.

“Too late,” I replied, frowning.

“He just... the Prince feels that sitting and listening to the petty problems of his subjects is a job for the King. He feels a Prince is better suited to action, to preemptive strikes rather than reactive solutions.”

“Our problem is far from petty,” I said heatedly, but Roland spoke over me.

“Exactly,” he said firmly. “And that’s why I’m taking you to him. He might just listen to you. At least, I hope. Ah, this is it.” Roland drew up short before the largest and most elaborate of the tents. “The Prince’s private quarters.” He sounded a little nervous, which was not an inspiring thought. “I suppose I’d better go in first, let him know you request an audience with him.”

“Good luck,” Jack said, offering a weak salute.

“It’s not me who needs the luck, hope for yourselves, my friends,” Roland replied. He steeled himself for a moment, and then parted the tent flaps and entered calling out for the Prince’s Adviser as he went.

Jack, Ezu, the Dwarves, and I waited awkwardly just outside. Even more awkwardly, half of the soldiers in the camp had followed us curiously, and now stood a little ways away, making little or no effort to keep their voices down as they speculated, hypothesized, and scoffed at our presence.

“Have I mentioned I really, really hated soldiers?” Ezu muttered to me, under his breath. I glanced over at him. He certainly seemed more tense than usual, which was already pretty tense to begin with. I patted him reassuringly on the arm.

“Just keep your mouth shut, and I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I said.

“Forgive me for not being tremendously reassured,” he grumbled.

“Hush now, Roland is coming back out,” I hissed. Roland pushed back the tent flaps and approached our little group. The expression on his face wasn’t terribly reassuring. “That didn’t take very long. Well? What’s the word?” I asked in an undertone.

“Erm, well...” Roland cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Perhaps... perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned you were a gang of ten, including dwarves and... and girls, right off,” he said. I groaned. “I couldn’t really get him to take me seriously after that. I’m terribly sorry, I don’t think he’s going to concede to an audience with you.”

A long moment of terse silence passed.

“Would you just give us a mo’, please?” I asked sweetly, and beckoned Jack, Ezu, and the Dwarves into a tight huddle.

“Well it didn’t take very long for things to get colossally cocked up this time, did it?” Ezu whispered.

“We’re not down and out just yet,” Jack replied, thinking hard.

“I don’t know, that seemed pretty final to me,” Klaus the dwarf grunted. “He refuses to hear out a couple of ragtag dwarves and a silly woman. He’s a prince, we can’t exactly just go marching in there and demand he change his mind.”

Ezu was the first to spot the expression on my face.

“Oh, oh no, Rikki, don’t you even think about-” he began.

“Alright then, it’s decided,” I cut him off, standing up straight and clapping my hands together. “Follow me. Excuse me, Roland.” I pushed right past Roland and ducked into the tent too quickly for anyone to stop me, really hoping that someone was following me, so I wasn’t storming the Prince’s Quarters all on my lonesome.

“Hey,” I called loudly as I found myself in the first part of the tent, which had been set up like a general’s war room. The tent itself was huge, and allowed for multiple makeshift rooms separated by curtains. Only one person was in the part that I was in, and I took him to be the adviser, since he was about fifty years old and wore some ridiculous hat no self respecting Prince would be caught dead in.

“What in the Lord’s name-” he began, so surprised by my sudden appearance that his silly hat almost fell off.

“You,” I said in as commanding a tone as I could muster, pointing imperiously. “Go fetch the Prince, I have pressing business to conduct with him and I’ll not suffer such indignities!”

“What--but you--you can’t--if you’re--you’re a--who are...?” the adviser spluttered. I hoped he was simply taken by surprise, and that my rashness hadn’t given him a seizure.

“Useless, the lot of you!” I scoffed. “Prince? Your Highness! Sir, I demand you speak to me at once!” I shouted, hoping that the Prince was in fact hiding out somewhere in this tent and hadn’t slipped off, or had never been there all along. Behind me, Ezu came stumbling into the tent, sword drawn and eyes darting this way and that as if he expected an ambush.

“Rikki, you idiot,” he hissed, “What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to get us killed!”

“I’m going to get us an audience with the Prince,” I replied coolly. “And if I have made a grave miscalculation here, it’s only myself who will be getting killed. You guys can still carry on without me.”

“Oh no, I’m not letting you go and die by yourself,” Ezu growled. “I’d never hear the end of it then. I’m dying right here beside you, thank you very much.”

It was at that moment that Jack came bursting into the little room, and moments after all seven of the Dwarves, with the knight Roland on their tail, looking as if he sincerely regretting getting mixed up with the likes of us. The Adviser almost had a heart attack right then and there.

I mean he actually almost did, I think. He clutched at his right arm, and called out in a shaky voice, with a pained expression on his face, “My... my lord, you have visitors,” before collapsing in a chair and heaving for breath. I don’t think he had ever seen such indignities in all his life.

Prince, his face beet red from fury, threw back the curtain separating this planning room from his sleep quarters, and was very surprised to find his tent much more crowded than it really had any right to be. Credit to him, though, he quickly gathered his wits about him and went right back to be furiously indignant with little more than a mental stumble.

“I don’t know who you all think you are or what madness you want from me, but I am having none of it!” he roared. “I’ve better things to do with my time than listen to the insane ramblings of dwarves and women and the sort of men who travel with the likes of the above!”

“You mean better things like fending off the Witch’s Army?” I shot back angrily. “And how exactly is that going for you?”

Ezu made the pathetic sound of someone who can see the train barreling down on them but knows they don’t have enough time to get out of the way. Jack gasped and clapped his hand over my mouth.

“For the love of--Rikki, he’s a Prince, he can have us... you know!” he hissed, miming being hung by a rope from the neck. The dwarves, on the other hand, seemed to agree with my outburst.

“She is right, your, erm, highness,” Konrad the dwarf spoke up, taking a step forwards. “My brothers and I live in the forest, on the edge of this kingdom, and we have seen the Witch Queen pushing further and further into your territory with every passing day. She grows bolder as her army grows stronger.”

“And what,” the prince snarled through clenched teeth, “Do dwarves and damsels know of the art of war?”

“If you’ll forgive me my lord, I do know a thing or two about war,” Roland said in a tiny voice, from the very back of the tent. His face was ashen but his expression set. He was determined to stick up for us, even though he knew how unwise a move he was making.

“Ah, yes, you, Sir Roland,” the Prince said coldly. “The loyal knight I trusted with my life and set free to find his fortune, suddenly back again with this band of raggedy fools trailing in on your coattails? Please, do tell me what it is they said to convince someone such as yourself into joining their misguided quest?”

“Sire, with all my love and respect for you and the crown and country, they do have a few good points,” Roland forged ahead, as brave as anything. “For one, they say they have a plan of ambush, so that your army can take the Queen’s castle by surprise and cut off the head of the snake without even having to cross paths with her own forces. And secondly... My lord, they say that the Princess, Snow White, daughter to the late King and true Heir to the Throne the Sorceress has stolen, is still alive, just being held prisoner.”

This little gold nugget of information mad the Prince stop seething.

“What? Still alive? How do you know?” he said, looking suspiciously at us.

“We’ve got a spy,” Ezu said quickly.

“Yes, an inside source,” Jack picked up. “Working in the Queen’s castle, under her own nose.”

“And where is this spy?” the Prince asked, still not sounding entirely convinced.

“He’s... dead?” I suggested, and then decided just to go for it full steam. “Poor, darling Rodrick, he really was the noblest man I’ve ever met! Engaged, we were, I didn’t want him to go, but he insisted that it was for the good of all! We’d started this meager rebellion, you see, hoping to loosen the Queen’s cruel grasp upon the land. Our fields yield nothing but hard dirt, and our animals and bone thin, and produce no milk. She taxes the land so terribly, that many of the peasants have been forced to sell their own children into the Queen’s army, hoping that at least there they might not starve to death. My darling Rodrick, he knew that to learn the Queen’s weakness we must have knowledge of the Castle, and of the evil woman herself! Rodrick always had a talent for styling a fine coif, and he was able to earn a place as one of the Queen’s three dozen personal hair dressers. He was able to scout most of the Castle and the surrounding land for us, reporting back for bi-monthly updates, and discovered from the talk of soldiers and servants alike that Snow White lay captive in the dungeons, trapped, but not dead. But my poor Rodrick was discovered not a week ago today and slain by the queen’s guard, but not before he was able to kill the guard before he could alert the Queen of the treachery, and on his dying breath brave Rodrick sent word on a dove to us that he had fallen, and that now was the time to act!”

I finished my speech passionately, feeling as though I had appropriately captured the fairy tale vibe in my spiel in a believable manner.

The Prince stared at me, his mouth hanging slightly open in an expression of distaste.

“Is she for reals?” he said, flabbergasted.

“No no, your highness,” his adviser said, having calmed down considerably and now looking at me in a new light. “That sounded legitimate to me. I think we can trust them.”

“I...” the Prince looked confused.

“Oh yes,” Jack nodded eagerly. “Poor, dear Rodrick. Talking doves and all that. He died a hero.”

“Plus, we just came from The Next Kingdom Over,” Ezu pointed out with a loud cough. “We’re still right on the border, they’re only like a day’s ride there and back, you could easily send a rider to prove it. We were just knighted there. Saved the day, hooked their Prince up with a hot piece of... princess, if you know what I mean,” and he winked at the Prince.

The poor Prince. He, unlike the others we had met so far, wasn’t stupid. But the magic of this place was beginning to take effect, and Ezu’s testimony certainly didn’t hurt.

“I... I... yes, yes, I think I remember hearing something about that,” he said, his brow furrowing. He shook his head, like a dog trying to dislodge a flea. “And if the Princess can be rescued, then... But how can we hope to defeat the Witch Queen? We have been fighting her for years, to no avail. She’s far too powerful, and has too much magic and men who don’t fear death. How could you, a group of ten individuals consisting of seven dwarfs, two commoners, and a woman hope to achieve what an entire army could not?”

“We have knowledge,” Jack said, casting me a look that clearly said that he hoped I had something substantial to back him up. I thought about the Book in my pack. It should have just enough to get us into the castle, I thought. After that, we would likely be on our own, but we would cross that bridge when we came to it. “We can stage an ambush. We could take the Queen hostage, and rescue the Princess.”

“My lord, think of what that would mean for our Kingdoms,” the Prince’s adviser whispered. The Prince nodded, slowly.

“Yes... the Princess if supposed to be very beautiful.” He fell quiet, apparently thinking hard. “Alright,” he said after a long moment. “Alright, I’ll hear you out. But you better have one damn good plan.”