I crush six juniper berries, add them to clear brandy, and so mix the aroma of forest night – its mystery and its touch of frost – with the brandy’s low flames. As I raise the glass to my lips, a tapping, meek as milk, sounds at my door.
“Ah! A customer!”
I set the glass on my black walnut sideboard, rise and open my door wide. There stands a young man of the gentry, prosperous, perhaps a younger son. He wears a royal blue tunic over a yellow blouse, brown leather pantaloons, soft riding boots with silver spurs, and a cloak of fine wool, forest green. A sword rides his belt on his left-hand side and is balanced by a dagger on his right. He’s not a bravo but favors the look of one. A thin moustache has crawled to rest beneath his strong nose, and the beginnings of a beard, fine as baby’s hair, rise like a maiden’s blush on his chin.
Absolute deference is indicated! I bow and sweep the air before him with my right arm. “Please, come in!”
He hesitates. All young men hesitate when confronted with age and the prospect of an illicit experience. Then to hide his hesitation, he steps swiftly past me.
“Sit here.” I pull a chair from beneath the table and gesture to its deep, plush cushions.
He sits. I bustle to my side of the table and seat myself facing him. “Your name, young sir, if you please?”
“Thomas.” His voice is hoarse with tension. “You may call me Thomas.”
“Now, Thomas, have you come to be entertained or diverted? To be enchanted?” I wink. “Perhaps to be enhanced?”
“I’ve come merely for help on . . . a personal matter.”
“You’ve come to the right place! I am Sebastian–storyteller, advisor and conjuror at need! My usual fee is five silvers, but–for a fine gentleman such as you–only two silver pennies will open the totality of my wisdom.”
He pulls his purse, fat as a baker’s bottom, from a pocket in his tunic and removes a silver penny. “I shall add another to this one penny - if I am pleased.”
I sweep my right hand high in a gesture of complacence while I depress a lever on the table’s edge with my left. “It is for you to decide. Now, as to the nature of your problem?”
“Lady Elsbeth . . .”
I throw up both hands. “Say no more! I offer infallible solutions to all matters of the heart! A charm, a potion,” I snap my fingers. “Nothing is simpler, but first, I offer wisdom! I shall tell you a tale from my fabled past.”
“You’re going to tell me a story?”
“While I speak, you may relax and clearly frame the outcome you wish.”
He leans forward doubtfully. “I think I might tell now quite easily.”
“Don’t be hasty, young sir! Much may come into your mind while I speak.”
He frowns. “Speak on.”
“Were you in a different mood, I might offer you diversion, adventure. I could speak of the forest, the endless taiga and its endless mysteries, its beast of beasts? Or of the great sea beyond Kamchat? Or the ice desert - the knives in its winds and its white serpents?”
Thomas shifts impatiently in his seat, and his hand wanders near the silver penny.
“But something erotic is more pertinent. You have heard of Latifah the dancer?”
“Uh . . . ”
My door crashes open. A hideous woman steps into my front room. Warts ring her face and are ruled by the queen of warts upon her king of all noses. She grins a three-toothed grin and, hairy knuckles crooked, motions with her right hand.
Manacles spring from the arms and legs of my second best chair and clamp Thomas’s arms and legs before he can move. The woman moves close to him and chucks his chin with a fingernail blacker than midnight.
“Sweet boy, you’re mine.”
“Who – who are you?”
The woman’s finger travels along his jaw to his left ear and strokes its lobe. “I am the curse your father’s worst enemy laid upon you on the day you were born. I followed you here, for today is the day that curse comes due.”
“My father never said anything!”
“Why would he?” Her wandering finger travels to his left eyebrow. “Such beautiful eyes, just like your mother’s. I will pluck them out, of course, but later. First, you must see what is done to you.”
Thomas swallows several times. “I’ll pay. You don’t need to do this.”
“But I do.”
I rise from my chair. “Unhand him, you witch! This minute!”
Black eyes glitter at me. “Be silent, old man, or you will share his pain.”
I lower my eyes, nod.
“Now, I need vinegar for the small cuts, salt for the larger ones. Where are they?”
“The cupboard next to the stove.”
She walks across the room. I pluck up the silver penny and lean close to Thomas. “Silver acts against a witch’s spells.” I rub these manacles with his penny and they spring open. “You have silver in your purse?”
Thomas nods. “Lots!”
“Give me the purse.”
He hands it to me. I open it and fill my hand with silver. “These coins will burn her like the very fires of hell. When I fling them, run!”
He nods.
The witch turns, holding my jug of vinegar. I tug and scream, “Now!” Thomas leaps, turning the chair over in his frenzy. The witch bounds for me like a panther. She snarls and clouts me with the vinegar jug before I can throw the money. I collapse on the floor.
Eyes starting, mouth gaping, Thomas flounders across the room and out the door. Fresh air offers him hope of safety. He catches his balance and begins to run. Long, inspired strides eat up the path and carry him out of sight.
I raise my head.
Maggie the witch grins at me. “I think he forgot about Lady Elsbeth.”
“He paid well enough for his advice, however.” I heft the purse. “Ten silvers and a gold for you?”
“You’re a tight one and no mistake, Sebastian. That rusty bell you’ve put in my hut makes no more noise than a moth’s whisper, too.”
“Well, you came, Maggie, my dear. You must have heard it.”
A tap-tapping at the door.
“Another customer! Out the back!”
Maggie curses.
“Might you entertain a visit when the moon is down?”
Maggie glances slyly at me. “You’re a goat, Sebastian, and no mistake.”
“We should celebrate our success. Shall I bring a skin of my second-best wine?”
Her eyes gleam. “You do that.” She turns toward my back door. “I suppose an old woman must make do with goats if she’s not to be alone in the night. But then, all men are goats. Bah! What we suffer!” The door closes behind her.
I crush six juniper berries, add them to my clear brandy and so mix in the aroma of forest night – its mystery and its touch of frost.
*
“Sebastian, I curse you for the money-grubbing, cheese-paring pinchpenny you are!”
I raise myself upon an elbow and something crunches in the mattress below me — a crunch worth investigating when Maggie visits the jakes. “Pardon me, dear?”
“Not likely.” Head bent so her chin touches her chest, she holds her face in her hands. “Second best indeed! That wine tasted like my Uncle Herman’s unwashed socks.”
“I may have plucked up the wrong bottle in my haste to reach your side,” I pat her hand.
“Don’t touch me!”
A timorous knock shivers Maggie’s door. “What was that?”
“Someone’s knocking, fool. See who it is.”
I open the door and find a skinny boy, pale, wide-eyed and trembling. I tilt my chin upwards, “Well?”
The boy stammers, “He’s been took, sir.”
“Who?”
“My master, Lord Thomas.”
Maggie steps to my side, “Who took him?”
His lower lip trembles, “A woman, ma’am.”
“Big?”
“Very big. And ugly.”
“How ugly?” I ask.
“Warts and boogers ain’t in it, sir.
A shiver runs down my spine. I look at Maggie.
Maggie points to the door, “Get home and raise the alarm. Have your master’s father gather a dozen men and arm them to the teeth. We’ll meet them here after we’ve scouted out where she’s taken him.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The boy knuckles his brow and turns to do her bidding.
“Big woman, ugly as boogers?” I ask.
She sighs, “That could only be Olga.”
“Olga the Ogress?”
“Right . . .” she crosses her front room, flings open a trunk, and rummages.
“What are you doing?”
Maggie looks over her shoulder, “We’re going after him.”
“Why?”
“If we don’t save his sorry hide, that’s the end of our business in these parts. His father will make sure of it.”
I nod in reluctant agreement. “What’s in the trunk?”
“We’ll need weapons.” She grips something heavy and straightens.
“Not your war hammer?”
She hefts the hammer, its outsized iron head black and brutal. A cruel spike grows out of its thick, oaken handle. “What else? This will be a war.”
“Bosh,” I quaver, “we needn’t bother. Young Thomas is likely dead already.”
Maggie hands me a short sword and shakes her head. “Olga likes to play with her food.”
*
Ancient oaks, branches spread like menacing arms above us, trail veils of moss from spidery twig-fingers. “You didn’t mention that Olga lives in the Grimpenwald.”
“She lives in a cave on the far side of the forest,” Maggie sniffs. “This is where she plays.”
A ragged clearing lies before us. On its far side, a stone house stretches like a reclining wolf. Its thatched roof is torn and tumbled at one end, but light gleams in the front window. “You think she has Thomas in there?”
“Where else?” Maggie steps forward, “Come on.”
I walk a few paces behind her. Shards of white pick at my eyes — gnawed bones, some human. I swallow, “She doesn’t bother with a midden, does she?”
“The whole yard is a midden.” Maggie puts a finger to her lips, “Quiet, now.”
We sidle up to the window, lean in and peek. Thomas lies dazed and bloody on an oversized kitchen table. Above him looms the largest, ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. Her robe is a patchwork of castoff jackets and shirts loosely stitched together. Her seamed face is twisted with an evil leer - if a mouth possessing only half a dozen teeth can leer. Tufts of gray hair sprout at random intervals from her scabby scalp. She has only one eye, right above her bulbous nose.
“Is there something you haven’t told me, Maggie?” I whisper.
“You’ve never seen Olga before?”
I shake my head.
“Her mama was a cyclops.”
“Obviously.”
Olga runs a crooked finger across Thomas’s brow and gloats, “Ah, sweet boy, in the morning, I shall squeeze the jelly from your eyeballs and spread it on my toast – better than blueberry jam!” She raises a wickedly sharp boning knife. “Hold still.”
“Front door,” Maggie shoves me, “now!”
“What about waiting for our re-enforcements, the dozen armed men?”
“He’ll be dead if we wait.”
“What do I do?”
“You have a sword. Distract her with it! I’ll come in the back when I see you and grab Thomas.”
I study my sword critically, finding it none too sharp, though its point does look prickly. “Then what?”
“Idiot! We run for our lives!”
Right.
“Give me a minute,” she turns and creeps toward the corner of the house.
I glance through the window. A minute? I don’t think Thomas has a minute. Olga has decided to insert her knife below his chin. As the point draws a drop of blood, I crash through the door, waving my sword and shouting, “Stop, vile monster!”
Olga straightens in surprise. Most importantly, the knife-tip moves far from Thomas. “Who are you?”
“Your doom, ogress!”
A smile exposes her yellowed tusks, “My dessert, more like.” She takes a step toward me.
I wave my sword more vigorously. Her hand flashes out, and swats it from my grasp. “Drat!”
She grips a handful of my jacket and lifts me into the air, bringing me close to her appalling face. “Ha!” she exclaims, her fetid breath engulfing me.
“Unhand me, or you’ll be sorry!” I splutter.
She laughs aloud, spattering my cheeks with ogress saliva. I hear a thumping crunch from below. Olga’s eyebrow arches, her mouth opens wide in shock, and she drops me.
I glimpse Maggie as I fall, hammer raised and mouth grim.
Olga utters a foghorn howl of agony and begins hopping ponderously around the room on one foot, gripping the other in both hands. The tangential thought that it’s fortunate for me that ogresses never wear shoes flashes through my mind. Maggie skips forward, taking a swing at the uninjured foot, but misses. Olga – no slouch she — grabs her by the hair.
“Oh, no! Sword, sword, sword,” I mutter as I scrabble across the floor. I find it stuck in a grain sack, pluck it out, and turn.
Olga, standing on both feet now, holds Maggie at arm’s length, right fist drawn back. That fist, the size of a serving platter, will surely deliver a lethal blow to my friend. The ogress has her back to me, giving me some hope of surviving an attack. I point the sword straight at her right buttock, close my eyes, and thrust home!
A foghorn howl, even louder than the first, rewards my swordsmanship. Maggie tumbles to the floor and rolls out of danger.
Olga’s eye, flashing baleful fire, fixes on me. Staring at me the whole while, she tugs it free from her posterior. I see Maggie pull Thomas to his feet and drag him out the back door. Olga snarls, a sound that gurgles with venom.
It’s definitely time to run for my life. I leap to the front door and through it. The ogress flings my bloody sword after me, but it clatters against the door frame. I’m down the steps and across the yard in two heartbeats.
Olga steps through the door, sees me, and, with another roar, follows.
If I have an athletic gift, it is flight from pursuit. Never has my agility been more tested than tonight’s dash through Grimpenwald. I’ve jogged and jigged around trees and thickets at speed. Olga, however, crashes through them like a rolling boulder. She hasn’t caught up, nor have I lengthened my lead. She’s still close. I hear her.
Then the sour smell of vast decay halts my flight. Scum, muck and water of dubious depth stretch before me and into the gloom on either side. A slender log arches over the bog. That shall be my path.
I’ve always been blessed with a dancer’s balance, so I step onto the log with confidence. It sags beneath me and twists. I leap, toes touching bark, a patch of moss, a solid branch and — voila! — I prance to solid ground. I feel like bowing to my audience.
My audience, catching sight of me for the first time in many minutes, surges forward with a guttural growl. Olga fears no bog and eschews my bendy log, striding fearlessly into the mire. One step, knee-deep; two steps, thigh-deep; three steps; waist-deep — there are no more steps. She’s stuck! Well and truly stuck!
Thrashing and splashing, the ogress howls her displeasure to the unseen stars above.
“Dear Olga,” I shout, “If you grip the log to your left and pull, you may escape the goop in a week or two.” I bow to her and take my leave.
*
“Well, that’s that.” Maggie rubs her hands together with satisfaction.
“You think so?”
She shrugs, “I left Thomas on his doorstep with that skinny weasel of a valet. What he eventually tells his father is none of our affair.”
“What about Olga?”
“What about her?”
I look sideways at my sometimes lover. “Won’t she hold a grudge? Seek revenge on us?”
Maggie shakes her head, “Nope.”
“You gave her a big bash on the toe. I stuck her in an inconvenient place with my sword. Then I left her stranded in goo up to her waist. She must, at least, feel discommoded.”
Maggie nods. “I agree, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Did you note the size of her head?”
“Hmmm — quite tiny compared to her brawny arms, her tree-trunk legs and her voluminous bosom. So?”
“Tiny brain! She’s stupid!” Maggie barks an uproarious laugh and slaps her thigh, “She’s forgotten us already. And, unless you feel like having a picnic in Grimpenwald, she’ll never see us again to remind her of tonight’s misadventures.”
“Perhaps,” I nod in grudging agreement, “I detest picnics, as you know.”
Maggie arches an eyebrow, “Care to toast our victory?”
I smile, “Only my best bottle will do.”
“If it’s truly good,” she pokes me in the ribs, “perhaps we can have another snuggle.”
“Of course!” I sigh inwardly. I’d planned to keep the Chateau Margaux LaFite Gaboni for myself, but needs must. “To my rooms, dearest!”
Robert Walton is a retired middle school teacher, rock climber and mountaineer with ascents in Yosemite and Pinnacles National Park. Walton is an experienced writer. His novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. His “Joaquin’s Gold,” a collection of Joaquin Murrieta tales, was published on Amazon last year. Most recently, "Quarry," a novella, was published by Alien Buddha Press.
His website: http://chaosgatebook.wordpress.com/