“What have you done to him?” a young voice pressed. “We agreed never to use those chains.”
“S-s-sorry, Your Majesty! We tried to tie him up like you wanted, but he just kept slipping out of the ropes!” This second voice sounded husky, as if the speaker were fighting back tears. Peter was fairly sure they were both girls.
“Scrape,” the first girl chided. “I thought you said he was unconscious when you brought him down?”
“He was unconscious!” a boy voice responded. “But every time we cinched a knot, he’d just twitch his arm and the whole thing’d come undone. Like escaping came natural as breathing to him. It was creepy.” They had caught Peter performing the Drowsy Dodger. The Drowsy Dodger was an old trick some passing sea-gypsies had taught him years earlier; it involves training your fingers to untie knots in your sleep. Because practicing requires unconsciousness, the skill is notoriously difficult to master. Peter grinned underneath his hood—apparently, he was pretty good at it.
The one named Scrape went on. “We finally had to give up and just use our old shackles. I know we weren’t supposed to, Your Majesty, but we didn’t have nothing else!”
Peter found himself puzzled by the conversation. His captors all sounded very young and a little bit frightened. Stranger still, one of the girls was being called “Your Majesty.”
“You gotta believe us, Your Majesty!” the tearful girl said. “We wouldn’t of used the chains ’less we really had to. Remember how Pickle said the stranger knew a secret to open all their locks—he must know the king’s magic.”
Scrape stepped closer. “If he’s with the king, then we should kill him now!” Peter took a sharp breath as he heard the sound of a knife being unsheathed. “This is what comes of traitors—”
“Do not harm him, Scrape!” someone commanded, moving between them. Peter hadn’t noticed this person before; the voice sounded gritty and old. He relaxed a bit when he heard Scrape’s knife slide back into its sheath. The wise voice went on. “I have known a great many traitors in my life, and I do not believe this child is one.”
“Simon is right,” Your Majesty said. “We should keep him alive at least until we can learn more about why he’s come . . . and what he was doing with that note.”
The note. That meant that whoever captured Peter also had his burgle-sack. And if they had his burgle-sack . . . then they probably had Sir Tode! The boy’s heart swelled as he realized there still might be a chance he could save his lost friend. He unlocked another manacle, redoubling his efforts to break free.
“Justice shall reveal the truth to us soon enough,” Simon said. “Have you inspected the box he was carrying?”
“We couldn’t open it. There’s some kind of lock on the front,” one of them answered.
The one called Your Majesty sighed. “Very well. Simon and I will see if we can’t swipe a pickaxe from the mines. The rest of you stay with the prisoner. Alert me when he wakes.” With that, Your Majesty and Simon left the chamber.
Simon? Peter thought to himself. Where have I heard that name before? It sounded familiar, but his head hurt too much to do any quality thinking. The bag was also preventing his ears and nose from working as well as usual. All he could do was continue to pick the locks. If he was lucky, the guards would feel chatty and fill him in on the situation.
“You two heard about Crumpet Sparrow?” one of them asked, feeling chatty. “She never showed up with the others. Her sisters ain’t seen so much as a feather since she was freed.”
“That poor little bird!” another said. “Y-y-you don’t think . . . ?”
“Aw, don’t be such a baby. She’ll turn up, all right.”
It sounded like they were talking about the sparrows Peter had freed. He remembered one of the voices mentioning Pickle a moment before. What was the connection between those birds and his captors?
“I wonder where the strangers came from,” one of the girl-voices spoke again. “Did you learn anything from the other one?”
“Nope. Scrape and me tried everything we could think of to make the stupid thing spill his guts, but all we could get out of him was that we’d never get nothin’ out of him.”
Could that other stranger possibly be Sir Tode? Peter sure hoped so. His locks were taking a bit longer to open on account of the rust. He had only managed to free one arm so far. Luckily, because of all the chains wrapped around his body, he was able to move that arm without being detected.
“Yeah, that cat’s a mean one. I asked him about his friend here and he nearly bit my piggy-toe clean off—”
“Ewww!” the girl-voices shouted. “Don’t show us!”
It was Sir Tode! Peter smiled, imagining the catastrophic interrogation. How could he ever have doubted his friend’s ability? Still, it would be best to intervene before they could molest the knight further.
“We gotta find out what these strangers know.” Scrape was now pacing in front of Peter. “If they figured out that riddle, we could be in serious danger.”
“M-m-maybe he’s not a spy?” one of the girls said hopefully. “Maybe it’s him that’s come to—?”
“Don’t even say it!” Scrape cut her off. “We can’t afford to get our hopes up like that. Besides, he’s just a kid.”
The throbbing in Peter’s head had finally eased, and he was starting to get used to listening through burlap. He could now clearly count four voices in the room. He knew he could handle a group of this size, but he would definitely need a weapon or distraction of some kind. He could tell from the echoes of their footsteps that they were underground. There must be tunnels running underneath the palace, the boy thought to himself. That’s probably how they were able to sneak into Mrs. Molasses’s yard and kidnap Sir Tode. But why did they do it? And what was “Your Majesty” planning next?
Scrape squatted down in front of the prisoner. “Supposin’ we get a little rough with Mister Stranger here?” Peter tensed as the boy drew his knife once more. “Maybe then he’ll give us some answers?”
Just at that moment, Peter heard what sounded like a small pony gallop in. “You shall do no such thing, little fiends!” Peter almost swallowed his tongue—apparently, Sir Tode had managed a daring escape of his own. “I demand you release my companion at once! And while I’m at it, you brats owe me a personal apology!”
Peter heard shuffling as the four captors scrambled together. “Call Peg!” one of them yelled. “The rest of you—bag him!”
“Once was enough, thank you!” With a fierce growl Sir Tode pounced on his assailants. Peter struggled with his shackles, trying his best to keep an ear on the battle. From what he could make out, it sounded like Sir Tode was managing just fine on his own. The knight tore through the scrum, battering them with insults and hooves.
“En garde, villain!”
“Owww!”
“Take that, you ruffian!”
“Arghhh!”
“Prepare to—”
“Gotcha!” one of them shouted. Peter recognized the voice as the boy named Scrape.
“Drop me this instant, you cowardly tail-grabber!” Peter deduced that Sir Tode had indeed been caught up by his tail. “It’s dirty fighting, that’s what it is!”
“Oh, I’ll show you dirty fighting,” Scrape said. “Someone fetch me some rocks and a funnel. We’ll see how smart this cat is with a belly full of—”
“TOUCH HIM AND DIE!”
Everyone in the room spun around to find Peter standing behind them, shaking the rusted chains from his body. He had Scrape’s dagger, which he had swiped during the distraction. Uncertain how to properly hold the weapon, Peter settled on tossing the blade back and forth between his two hands.
“Peter!” the knight panted, craning his neck. “So glad to see you again!”
The four kidnappers stared at the boy. “Um, you guys?” one of the girls said nervously. “How’d he get out of those chains?”
“And why’s he still got the bag on his head?”
Scrape snort
ed, tossing Sir Tode aside. “He’s no killer. He can’t even hold a knife right.” He rolled up both sleeves and lunged toward Peter.
Scrape was strong and clearly an experienced fighter. But what Peter lacked in strength, he made up in speed. Within seconds, he had bested his opponent and imprisoned the whole group in their own shackles. As it turned out, the guards—Trouble, Scrape, Giggle, and Marbles—were a gang of children not much older than Peter himself.
The great thief pulled the flour sack from his head and paced around his young captives. “Now, we have some questions of our own. And we will do whatever it takes to find the answers.” For added effect, he stomped on the foot of the one named Scrape, who had spoken particularly ill of Sir Tode. “If you don’t give us answers, my friend and I will slit your throats wide open and . . . and drink your blood!”
Sir Tode wavered on this last threat. “A touch grim, don’t you think, Peter?”
It was at this moment that a strange thing happened. One by one, the group began to cry. These were not the sorrowful tears of Professor Cake mourning the dead. Nor were they the pathetic tears of Old Scabbs begging a lemon. No, these were the uncomplicated tears of pure, childlike terror. “P-p-please, mister!” Giggle begged through a bubble of snot in her nose. “Don’t drink our blood!”
“We didn’t mean it,” the boy named Trouble said. “Don’t send us to the monsters!” Peter was confused. He was used to dealing with bloodthirsty thieves and nasty beggarmongers, not sniveling children.
Before he could think of what to say, someone else ran into the room. Peter spun around, blade held high. “One more step, and I kill them all!” He only hoped that the threat didn’t sound as hollow as it felt.
“Forget about us!” Scrape strained against his binds. “Run away, Your Majesty!”
Peter hesitated. “Your Majesty?” he repeated. “Are you with the king?”
“Hardly,” Your Majesty said. Peter could now tell for certain that this voice belonged to a girl. She turned to someone standing just behind her. “Simon, disarm him.”
Before Peter could respond, Simon swept across the room and grabbed him by the throat. The boy fell to the ground, choking, as eight sharp claws dug into his flesh. “You will kindly put your weapon down,” a gravelly voice spoke in his ear. Peter opened his hand and let the dagger fall.
The next moment, Simon was back beside Your Majesty. Peter massaged his throat and rose to his feet. He could tell that Simon was some kind of bird—a very deadly one—but could not quite identify the breed. “What are you?” he asked.
“I am Her Majesty’s loyal guard.” The creature spoke in a garbled voice. “Your last question leads me to believe you were not sent here by the king. Is that correct?”
“I told you we don’t know any blasted king!” Sir Tode blustered.
Peter placed a hand on his friend to calm him. Though common sense might say not to trust one’s persecutors, the boy felt a small voice inside of him—his thief’s voice—telling him to be honest with these strangers. “We’ve come here to . . . we’re looking for someone,” he started. “But we’re not sure where, or even who they are . . . all we know is they need our help.”
Your Majesty pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket. “You’re speaking of this note?” she said with amusement.
“It is no laughing matter, I assure you,” Sir Tode said. “Whoever wrote that message is in grave danger, and we were on our way to help them—that is, before you so rudely kidnapped us.”
A great silence came over the room. Though Peter could not see it, all the children’s eyes were locked on Your Majesty, waiting for the girl to speak. She unfolded the paper and read aloud:
Only a stranger may bring relief,
But darkness will reign, unless he’s . . . a thief.
“A thief!” Sir Tode stomped a hoof. “By golly, Peter, I think the girl’s cracked the riddle!”
“Of course I did.” She returned the note to her pocket. “After all, I wrote it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AN UNLIKELY HERO
Peter and Sir Tode sat in a small, musty room deep below the Perfect Palace. They were chewing mushroom stems and sipping from tin cups of stale water. Crouched around them were five children and a bird. A single candle stub flickered on the dirt floor, providing the only light for the entire chamber. The darkness did not much bother Peter, because he was blind. The other children could see well enough, because they had not been in proper daylight for over ten years. Sir Tode, however, was nervous and jumpy. He kept close to Peter, huddling against the boy any time a strange noise echoed through the tunnels.
The leader of the group introduced herself as Princess Peg. She was a tall girl about the same age as Peter. Like the other children, she wore rags and no shoes. Every inch of her body was covered in the same stale grime that masked each of their scents. It was only when she spoke that Peter could catch the faintest indication of her regal lineage. “It seems so long since I sent that message,” she said, setting down her cup. “You can understand how I lost hope of it reaching anyone.”
Peter couldn’t help but feel skeptical. “If you’re really a princess, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be up in a tower somewhere, braiding hair and riding ponies?”
“Maybe,” she said with some bitterness. “But instead, I grew up underground, a prisoner of the king.”
“That sounds miserable,” Peter said. He thought about how even Mr. Seamus let him out once in a while for errands. “But why would your own father keep you prisoner?”
Her Majesty gave the sigh of someone who does not like explaining the obvious. “The king is my uncle. He stole the throne from my father after I was born. When he took over, he had me and the others locked up.”
“There’s loads more than just us,” the girl named Giggle said.
“Hundreds!” Marbles added. “The king keeps ’em all chained up for his slaves. He forces them to do chores for the whole kingdom.”
“S’why the dumb place is so clean,” Trouble said, wiping a finger on his trousers leg. “Every night the monsters drag them through the palace and make them scrub every speck.”
Monsters? It sounded to Peter like these children were talking about the apes he had encountered. “You mean the Night Patrol,” he said.
The princess shrugged. “You call them the Night Patrol, but for us they are simply monsters. When you have seen enough of your friends eaten whole, you put aside all formalities.”
Peter was trying his best to follow their story, but he still couldn’t fit all the pieces together. “So there’s an impostor king who has taken over the kingdom and forced a bunch of people to be his slaves . . . How did you five escape?”
“Simon saved us,” Peg answered. “He was my father’s Royal Guard.”
“We ravens used to be many,” the bird said gravely. “Now I am all that remains.”
A raven. Peter’s entire body tensed up as he realized the bird not an arm’s length away was from the same tribe that had murdered Old Scabbs.
“After the princess was taken underground,” Simon continued, “I sought her out and pecked her locks apart. I did the same for the other children, until my beak would peck no more.” The old bird knew something of how blind people could “see” with their hands, and so he hopped closer for Peter to touch him. The boy recoiled but then slowly reached out toward him. Where a beak should have been, Peter found only a mangled stump, snapped off at the base. He thought of how difficult it must be for such a proud creature to be so maimed—it would be like losing his fingers. “It’s not so bad,” Simon said. “I only wish I had been able to free all of the children.”
“Wait, all of the prisoners are children?” Peter said.
“Every last one,” Peg answered. “It’s the first thing my uncle did when he took over the kingdom.”
The Missing Ones. Everything the sparrow had told Peter in the Eating Hall was starting to make sense. Pickle had asked him what the one thi
ng missing in this palace was. At the time, he hadn’t been able to answer, but now he knew. “There were no children anywhere,” he said. “That’s what was bugging me so much at supper. Everything was so clean and neat and polite—it was all too perfect.”
“Forgive me for sounding dense,” Sir Tode asked, “but why would a king be afraid of little children?”
“That’s easy,” Scrape said. “It’s ’cause we don’t like being bossed around none!”
Simon gave an amused cluck. “You are closer to the truth than you realize, Scrape. King Incarnadine recognized at once the threat that you and your kind posed to his plans. While adults can be intimidated and deceived, a child’s constitution is made from far stronger stuff. He knew that a kingdom full of children would never accept a fraudulent ruler.” The raven could not have been more right. As you know, children (unlike grown-ups) are far too clever to be tricked by impostors—a fact that goes a long way toward explaining their distrust of wicked stepmothers and substitute teachers.
Simon’s words put Peter in mind of a story he had once overheard about a child and a naked emperor. He could not remember all the details, but recalled it was quite hilarious, and quite true. Adults can often be fooled where children cannot. Hearing a grown-up, even a feathered one, speak of children with such high regard reminded Peter of Professor Cake. The boy hated to admit it, but deep down his instincts told him that Simon was just as worthy of Peter’s trust . . . even if he was a raven.
Giggle sighed. “Pretty soon, our parents forgot who we ever was. The king took away everyone’s names so they couldn’t remember what he done . . . that’s the reason us kids are all named after whatever we are.”
“Except for the princess,” Scrape said with a touch of awe. “She held on to her real name—that’s why she’s still a princess.”
If Peter could see, he would have caught Peg blushing. “I’m a fugitive, just like the rest of you,” she said. “After Simon freed us, we started hatching a plan to rescue the rest of the children. Other than the king, we knew of just one kind of person who might be able to open those locks: a thief. It was our only option. I threw the note into the giant pit surrounding the palace, hoping it would find its way to one of the surviving prisoners in the Just Deserts.” She hesitated, and here Peter caught a distinct note of disappointment. “But I guess it found you instead.”