Chapter Text
ALDRIC’S LETTER BRIGADE - The Golden Apple
ACT II - How High Sheriff Zephaniah managed to capture Aldric the Bastard, have dinner with him, and inadvertently start another fire.
Here is a good opportunity to identify a few members of Aldric’s Letter Brigade by name. Zephaniah was correct in assuming Aldric had replaced the original members. Their Cambridge friends had parted amicably not long after arriving in Saint-Flora, each excited to begin his own life, but Aldric didn’t start recruiting new members until a couple of years later.
Without his school chums, Aldric took a trip eastward to Asia. He touched base with his mother’s roots and reflected on life, but it wasn’t long before he was ready to return to Saint-Flora. He had taken a liking to the Enchanted Forest and missed it very much. Besides, Zephaniah was in the west.
Aldric made friends wherever he went, so it was hardly a surprise that he persuaded many like-minded people to join him on his way back.
It was in what is modern-day Gibraltar that he met Ciceron, the youth with the black ringlets of hair. Little is known about Ciceron before the Letter Brigade, except that his name used to be Maryam, and he followed Aldric for a fresh start in Jardinia. Ciceron was cheeky with a prankster’s heart, so they got along splendidly. He was also the one who rescued Aldric, and he stole Zephaniah’s hat in the process.
“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t do things out of spite,” said Lizi, who wandered for years along the southern coasts of Asia after a jealous rival burned down his lover’s silkworm farm. Records indicate that he met Aldric on a boat to India. Like Ciceron, Lizi abandoned his old name and reputation and would not answer questions about his past.
“Then, shall we return to the sheriff his hat?” asked the longbowman with dark skin. His name was Garrick, and he was actually born in Jardinia. His parents, however, were merchants from Tripoli who had enjoyed Saint-Flora’s gentle climate enough to stay. He led a book club that convened after the first full moon of every month.
(Zephaniah would become a member of the book club in due time, despite not rejoining the Letter Brigade, much to Aldric’s extreme confusion.)
Garrick was also the single advocate of the Letter Brigade’s democracy during times when Aldric wanted to be a tyrant.
And Aldric wanted to be a tyrant.
The show of hands indicated that they should keep the sheriff’s hat, but Aldric said, “Zephaniah needs it. The sun will hurt his eyes and give him a headache.”
Everyone looked outside, at the rain falling in sheets, before turning back to Aldric. All wore expressions of dubiety, judgment, or—in Garrick’s case—pity.
But Aldric merely smiled. He plucked the hat off Ciceron’s head and flung open the front door to their treehouse.
Thunder crackled.
Instantly soaked, Aldric put on the hat and began his journey.
His friends decided he would be safe enough within the forest and settled down to divide the golden apple that Garrick had won. It was the only apple they’d won after Aldric threw the contest to see the look of bewilderment on Zephaniah’s face.
-
According to Aldric’s accounts of the Enchanted Forest, there was nothing to fear if you meant it no harm. Sometimes, it was aggravating, and every step would be sabotaged by a root or a rock. Most times, however, Aldric found the forest gentle and nurturing. He never got lost, and he always found what he needed.
He found Truffles first. The horse, not the food.
Zephaniah always took great pains to brush Truffles, and the large stallion looked proud and regal with its long mane still done up in tight button braids. Aldric knew it respected Zephaniah in return, as much as a horse could. It nipped the hell out of strangers, though. Aldric still had the scar to prove it.
Fortunately for today, Truffles recognized Aldric, or at least Zephaniah’s hat and white ribbon. It accepted Aldric’s lead in their search, but the rain proved to be an obstacle.
The forest wanted to drown Zephaniah and bury him. It didn’t like men of the military, nor their offspring. Too much iron and blood on their hands.
But Aldric was patient.
He listened and coaxed until, like their professors at school, the forest had mercy on Zephaniah Gallanthus.
Aldric found him between three flowering oaks. Zephaniah walked like a man bewitched, blinded by the only patch of sunlight in the entire forest. He stumbled in circles until Aldric called to him, “Zeph, be careful! You’ll slip down the hill!”
Sure enough, Zephaniah fell out of sight.
Aldric dropped the reins and ran after him. He pushed aside branches that swooped between them until he found Zephaniah sitting in a little brook, soaked to the bone.
The rain let up, but the forest remained dark.
Aldric waded in to rescue him. “My poor Snow Fox.”
Perhaps the fall cleared Zephaniah’s mind, or maybe it was the nickname, but Zephaniah’s eyes were sharp when he said, “It doesn’t make sense for you to call me that anymore, does it?”
Aldric tilted his head like a songbird. “Do you really hate it?”
“I just thought we were through.”
“If you’d only leave your post and return to the Letter Brigade,” Aldric began, but Zephaniah splashed him.
“It is always the Letter Brigade with you!” said Zephaniah. “You think it justifies everything you do, and you leave me to clean your messes.”
Aldric wilted at that. He’d started the Letter Brigade for Zephaniah’s sake, so he couldn’t conceive of returning it to its Golden Age without his Snow Fox by his side. And although he had always been able to convince Zephaniah to take a leap of faith, however big it was, now Zephaniah would not even go rogue for him. Aldric wasn’t used to getting ‘no’ for an answer, but he supposed if anyone would give him that, it would be this stupid man sitting in a stream.
“Then, I don’t know why you’re here,” said Aldric. He held out Zephaniah’s hat and ribbon. It took a while for Zephaniah to accept them, but Aldric was patient.
At last, Zephaniah said, “Will you walk me to the main road?”
Aldric nodded. “I will.”
Now, dear readers, we return to the blue-black flower: the one known as Zephaniah’s Hat. Legends hold that it had wondrously restorative properties for mild ailments. It even cured a singular case of bubonic plague, if we credit two unreliable accounts.
Most importantly for Aldric and Zephaniah, though, there was a feral strain that dotted the Enchanted Forest of Mists like a weed, and it glowed in the dark.
“But we should get you back before it gets too dark,” Aldric said as he guided his companion by flowerlight. “Strange magic comes about by the moon.”
Zephaniah sighed from his mount and gazed up at the thick canopy above them. It was likely the first time he’d ever angered the fae, though he had a good track record of crossing nigh everyone else. “Why do they not hex you? The fairies, I mean.”
Aldric laughed. “Half my blood is not from this continent. Garrick says they don’t know what to make of us here.”
“So, that’s why you switched out the Letter Brigade with a bunch of foreigners. They are unaffected as well?”
“A happy coincidence. The forest was making our old friends sick, so I couldn’t ask them to stay here. My new friends, I met while traveling,” said Aldric. “Perhaps you will let me introduce you to them?”
“I cannot fathom why they’d want to meet me,” said Zephaniah just as they reached the pebbly main road, but he didn’t say no because Aldric had perked up at the idea.
Zephaniah could smell the ocean again.
Later, he would describe a weight lifting off him. He felt like a horse without its blinders, whereas before, it was only Aldric in his sight. Aldric had been his lifeline in the forest, so it was difficult to reconcile what he would do next.
While Aldric was distracted by horsemen galloping down the road, Zephaniah dismounted and pulled rope from Truffles’ pack. Aldric didn’t know what was going on until his wrists were tied together and Zephaniah’s constables had them encircled.
By the time Aldric was ready to fight in earnest, Zephaniah already had him on the ground with a knee in his back.
“Zeph, what are you doing?” said Aldric, but his voice was too hurt to be confused.
“I’m arresting you for your crimes,” Zephaniah replied, “and tomorrow, I will hang you.”
-
Zephaniah sent a messenger to the princess’ keep in the city of Ranun. The rest of the party returned to Saint-Flora. They arrived in town just as the sun disappeared over the horizon.
Word spread like wildfire that Aldric had been captured, so the townspeople gathered. It was light enough to confirm that Aldric was indeed tied atop Zephaniah’s steed, so when it got dark enough, they began to hurl rotten vegetables at the constables.
Zephaniah weathered the abuse, for he knew he deserved it. Aldric was nothing if not beloved, and Zephaniah did decide to play the villain after all.
Pity Aldric was an annoying hero.
Once he’d recovered from his initial shock, Aldric began heckling his former schoolmates in Zephaniah’s guard, “If it isn’t Wilton—I’d ask if your taste in leadership has improved somewhat, but I see you’re still following dear Zeph. Hold on, is that Sylvester? And Yves! Did you know I always had a trick to telling you twins apart? Sylvester’s the ugly one—or was it Yves? Who do you think it is now?”
“Ignore him,” Zephaniah reminded his men, constantly, until they reached the fortress.
There, Zephaniah led Aldric up three flights of stairs, to Aldric’s great bemusement. He looked around the cozy little study, from the desk to the bed along the wall, and he turned to face Zephaniah. “I suppose you haven’t been here long. Shall I show you where the dungeon is?”
“I think you’ve been thrown in enough times to know where all the secret exits are,” Zephaniah said as he tossed his cape over a chair. He took a seat. “So, I put you in my room, in the highest tower, where I can keep an eye on you all night long.”
“A bold decision,” said Aldric, running to the window. Zephaniah let him. There was no ivy he could climb down, and the stones were still slippery from the rain.
“Rest easy,” said Zephaniah. “If you manage to get past me, there are armed guards at my door, down the hall, down the stairs, and at every turn you might make.”
Aldric seemed mildly put off by the news. He tested the ropes around his wrists, found them still secure, and sat across the small table from Zephaniah.
“I won’t run, but I expect you to thoroughly entertain me tonight,” he said. “Get me a change of clothes. I’m wet and hungry. There is only one bed, you know. Don’t I get a last meal?”
Zephaniah snapped his fingers, and a guard entered the room. Aldric lit up in recognition.
“Hello, Oliver,” he said. “We haven’t spoken since Professor Wilgins’ lecture on Rome. How is your mother?”
“She’s fine,” Oliver said with awkwardness, as if prepared for another barb. Aldric had said something particularly mean about his knees earlier. “Shall I tell the cook to make him a plate?”
“I want the breast of a phoenix roasted to a char, drizzled with honey from the Promised Land, with a side of ambrosia. Oh, and also mead from Thor’s goat.”
Oliver looked to Zephaniah in dismay, and Zephaniah smirked. “I’ll have the same.”
(“Some things never change,” Oliver would go on to record in his journal.)
Dinner should have been a grim and quiet affair, considering the circumstances, but Aldric and Zephaniah spent it catching up on old times while their clothes hung to dry.
“I will say Oliver looks well these days,” Aldric said as Zephaniah cut his chicken for him. He was wearing one of Zephaniah’s spare shirts, and his hands were tied, so he must have felt some satisfaction in making Zephaniah serve him. “Did you cure him of his picky eating?”
“Between you and me: I got the cook specifically for Oliver, but the man still prefers barley bread and water,” Zephaniah complained. “Remember back in Cambridge, when we all thought it was because he was a pious ascetic? And he played along, that prick. I copied his theology notes for a whole semester, and I could not fathom why I was failing!”
Aldric laughed. “Thank goodness Hollis saved all of us with his divine note-taking skills. He is surely the next prophet.”
“How is Hollis these days?”
“He’s a fisherman. I see him all the time at the market, and his wife is expecting,” Aldric said with a smile.
Back and forth, they exchanged updates about their old friends, until they had nothing more to talk about over empty dinner plates. Nothing, except themselves.
“Why did you return to Jardinia after the Letter Brigade disbanded?” asked Zephaniah. “I thought for sure you’d gone back to your mother’s country.”
“‘Back,’ Snow Fox? I’m a Jardinian, through and through. I did venture east to escort her to her family home,” Aldric said, watching the candle flicker between them, “but I found it wasn’t my home. They wanted me to stay, but I spoke the language like a child and looked too much like my father to fit in.”
“Yet you look too much like your mother to fit in Jardinia,” said Zephaniah, and Aldric nodded.
“There were places I passed through where I could blend into the crowd, but it’s not the same.” Aldric shrugged. “Home is not only the place and its people, but also the people in your heart.”
“Seems like you had no trouble finding friends along the way to fill your heart,” Zephaniah pointed out, a little enviously.
Aldric laughed again at that, his cheeks rosy with wine. “You don’t feel left out if you’re merely one in a whole company of outsiders.”
“Hmm. Well.”
Zephaniah knew this because he, too, used to be a part of Aldric’s Letter Brigade. Perhaps he missed it.
Perhaps they left many things unsaid that night because at some point, Aldric smiled his dazzling smile and said, “Tell me, Snow Fox. What are we really doing here?”
Zephaniah leaned in and rested his chin on steepled fingers. “It’s complicated, this,” he sighed.
“We were always complicated,” said Aldric.
-
Zephaniah would hang Aldric at noon, and that’s exactly where our story began.
Most of the structures from the archery contest remained standing, so Zephaniah’s men built a simple hangman’s scaffold on the sturdiest platform. They kept the colorful banners draped around the sides. Aldric nodded approvingly.
“Mm-hmm! Festive way to block out the sight of my corpse dangling under the trapdoor.”
“No, no. You’ll be visible above it,” Zephaniah corrected Aldric as he led him to the gallows. “Kick a little. Put on a show for the princess.”
“I could recite poetry instead of being hanged.”
“She’s hanged men for being poets.”
Princess Celandine arrived in the early afternoon. She took the seat where the sheriff had been sitting the previous day. Zephaniah had met her in the past, and he recognized her by her auburn-blonde mane.
She was beautiful with perilous green eyes, but she was an arrogant thing. Zephaniah didn’t like arrogant women, especially the ones given principalities from their royal fathers. He may have also feared her a little, for no reason other than instinct.
“If you keep looking at her, you will make me jealous,” Aldric said, resting his chin in the loop of the noose.
“I’m sorry, shall I tighten this for you?” said Zephaniah, and Aldric made a face at him.
“The rope is too short,” he replied, “and you’ve tied it wrong. Are you sure the lever for the trapdoor works? It’d be awfully embarrassing for you if it jammed, wouldn’t it?”
Zephaniah finished fitting the noose around Aldric’s neck. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve embarrassed me.”
Aldric winced theatrically. “There are surely better ways to make a name for yourself that don’t involve hanging your dear old friend.”
“Yes,” said Zephaniah. He weighed his next sentence on his tongue, but no matter how he shifted the words, they were heavy and unbearably cruel: “Capturing you was the easiest.”
Aldric fell silent.
Then, with his voice a murmur, he asked, “Will you cover my eyes?”
“Why?” said Zephaniah.
“I don’t want to see your ugly face, that’s why.”
Zephaniah snorted but complied. As he tied his white ribbon over Aldric’s eyes, he whispered in Aldric’s ear, “Any last words?”
Aldric said nothing, sullen. He waited until Zephaniah had turned his back and walked three paces before he spat, “‘Twas I who ate your tart at the midsummer festival!”
“Alas,” said Zephaniah, “I fucking knew it.”
And he pulled the lever.
It’s said that Zephaniah watched Aldric kick at air for a solid minute. Some sources say shorter; some say longer. He didn’t look away in any version of the story, and every single one of them agreed that three remarkable things happened in rapid succession:
First, the crowd erupted.
The denizens of Saint-Flora knew Aldric to be a trickster and had come by the dozens to see how their Outlaw King would make his daring escape. When it became clear that Aldric would not meet expectations, they were understandably distressed.
That is to say, if Zephaniah thought the townspeople fussed over the capture of Aldric, he was unprepared for the full brunt of hysteria he unleashed with Aldric’s hanging. They were led by the former members of Aldric’s Letter Brigade—their friends from Cambridge who had made comfortable lives within the walls of Saint-Flora. Zephaniah recognized Hollis immediately, and then the others:
“Zephaniah, have you gone mad?”
“What are you doing? That’s Aldric —that’s our Aldric!”
“I always thought you were a creepy son of a bitch!”
The second remarkable thing manifested in the form of an arrow. It flew through the air and severed the rope above Aldric’s head. Ciceron would claim it when they retold the story, though most credible sources attribute the shot to Garrick.
Aldric fell through the hole in the platform with a yelp, and that leads us to the third decisive moment: when Zephaniah jumped in after him.
The Letter Brigade, both old and new, surged forward from the crowd to save their Aldric. Princess Celandine sent her own soldiers to quell them. Zephaniah’s guards acted as a buffer between the two factions, all the while blocking the gallows for as long as they could. They knew their sheriff had a plan, and they had faith in that it was salvageable.
Aldric’s men crashed through the drapery first, their blades drawn for a fight, and they were promptly bewildered by the sight of Aldric cradled in Zephaniah’s arms, eating a golden apple. The men hastened to surround the two, blocking them from view of the townspeople and the princess’ men.
“The golden apple,” said Lizi in wonder. He was always the first to comment on discrepancies. “But we gave away the last slice to cure Blind Barley of his winter cough.”
“Obviously, I brought two,” Zephaniah sneered, as if golden apples grew on trees.
(They did, but not like regular apples.)
“Snow Fox, you’ve committed treason,” Aldric said in delight between munches. “The princess will execute you. You might as well retire and rejoin the Letter Brigade.”
“Shut up and keep eating. I’ve fulfilled my duty to hang you, without harm, all the while following the law to the letter,” Zephaniah said proudly. “Not so artless after all, am I? Apologize for what you said at Cambridge.”
“No, learn to let things go,” Aldric replied. “And you promised to hang me to the death, so I think you failed—”
Zephaniah shoved the precious apple back into Aldric’s mouth because they were running out of time, and also because he really hated being proven wrong.
“I will tell her the Letter Brigade fought me to retrieve your corpse,” said Zephaniah. “Bounty hunters will no longer chase you, now that you are a dead man. You are free from the laws that have hounded you. Aldric, you can start a new life!”
“You came to Saint-Flora to save me from my own reputation,” Aldric understood at last. He was angry. “I didn’t want that. I was never afraid to be an outlaw.”
“Yes, you are fearless to a fault because I was foolish enough to bail you out each time,” Zephaniah snapped. “And so, it is now! Run along and play dead, or the princess will hang me in your stead.”
“But Zeph—”
“And I shall curse you with my dying breath.”
Aldric looked at Zephaniah in grief, but he nodded and said, “I understand what I must do.”
Quickly, Aldric’s friends hid him amongst themselves and made their way into the pandemonium outside. Small fires had ignited the remaining structures. It was quite the mess.
Zephaniah expected Aldric to disappear into the crowd, but the bastard reappeared in a flash of orange-red, his tunic like another flame in the crowd. He ran straight for the royal box.
And he’d found a bow and arrows.
Zephaniah’s blood ran cold.
“No!” he shouted as Aldric readied his shot, for he knew if Aldric committed regicide, then neither of them would ever know peace in Jardinia.
Zephaniah got on Truffles. Garrick and Ciceron were already riding in disguise to collect their wayward leader. Garrick pulled Aldric onto their wooden cart, but just as Zephaniah neared, Aldric’s aim swerved.
His arrow struck Zephaniah down from his horse, and down Zephaniah went. He slammed onto the steps of the royal box, at Princess Celandine’s feet.
Aldric nocked a second arrow and declared, “Enough, Princess! You’ll not live to send another bloodhound after me!”
But Garrick drove the horses forward, and Aldric lost his balance as well as his chance to strike.
Or, perhaps he never meant to kill her anyway, and it was all for show. Aldric loved a spectacle, and he did owe Zephaniah an arrow to the shoulder for nearly hanging him that day. Only he knew what he was doing at that moment, but it didn’t matter to Celandine.
Without so much as a word, the princess took a bow from one of her guards and aimed an arrow.
It hit Aldric in the chest.
Garrick shouted. The rest of their men took their cue and beat a swift retreat. They outrode Celandine’s soldiers and disappeared back into the forest.
Zephaniah almost forgot to breathe.
As he stared up at his princess in shock, she smiled at him. The sun shined bright through her golden-fire hair, and for a delirious, agonizing second, she looked to him like an angel guarding Eden.
“Rise, Sheriff,” she said. “I expect you to have Saint-Flora under control by sunset.”
Then, Princess Celandine and her entourage picked up their things and hit the road, leaving the town in chaos.
(Unbeknownst to Zephaniah at the time, the Jardinian king had given Celandine the Principality of Chelidonia expressly in hopes that it would sate her ambition to rule. It did not, and she would go on to seize the Jardinian throne in a bloodstained coup d’état. That would be sometime after she met her lover, the English Privateer, and her dragon Daffodil. Both are stories for another time.)
-
The fire brigades arrived quickly, for flames had begun to spread toward town. Once the usual town brawlers had been separated from their scuffles, Zephaniah soon found his efforts best put to passing along water in bucket chains with his men.
Later, he would learn that the Letter Brigade usually helped out in such situations but had chosen to abstain for obvious reasons that night.
It was nighttime before Zephaniah made it back to the fortress, worn and covered in soot. By then, his hastily wrapped bandages had soaked through red.
Sylvester and Yves carried him to a chair in the dining hall while the others fretted around him. They were used to Zephaniah giving orders, but he was muddled with fever and could barely keep his balance. They’d only ever seen him like this once before, and that had been back when Aldric was around to take over in command. A little redundancy in leadership really went a long way.
“We need cold water! And hot water!” cried Oliver. “And to redress the wound—and medicine! Surely, there is something for Zephaniah here!”
“We’re fresh out!” said the steward, a local named Turnip. “There’s not even willow bark to spare. Go to the forest! We can make a poultice of the flower that glows, the one that looks like Zephaniah’s hat!”
“I’ve got Zephaniah’s hat for comparison!” shouted Wilton, and off they went to the Enchanted Forest.
Annoyed by the commotion and exhausted by the day, Zephaniah teetered onto his feet and made his way to the stairs.
“They’re going to lose my hat,” he said morosely, with certainty, as he climbed. “And I shall have to find another in the morning, if I am to ride back into town. God forbid, an ugly one… I have lost everything...”
“Forget the hat! You cannot go straight to work in the morning! You are not well!” Turnip scolded, but Zephaniah hissed and crawled to the third floor on his hands and knees. He was a proud and headstrong man, even at death’s door.
And he wanted to be alone while he wept over Aldric.
Zephaniah blamed himself for being so preoccupied with his own plan that he had given Princess Celandine the opportunity to kill Aldric. And she’d taken it.
How foolish he’d been to underestimate her. He’d thought her the type of royal who shirked from getting her hands dirty because she was a princess, and a beautiful one at that. He vowed to never again make that mistake.
Not that it mattered, now that Aldric was gone.
Gone.
Aldric was gone, and he’d taken a fraction of Zephaniah’s years with him. If Aldric was sweet summer, then Zephaniah was surely winter. And no one hated the cold more than Zephaniah.
“Oh, Aldric. Dear, stupid Aldric,” he sniffed, with his door closed behind him. “After I’d finally found you again...”
It was when he collapsed onto the bed, however, that he realized something was amiss.
“Who’s there?” he whispered.
“‘Tis I,” Aldric replied, his voice muffled by the covers.
Zephaniah rolled over and threw aside the blankets. Had he been in better health, he would have made that day’s third attempt on Aldric’s life. But his vision was tunneling, so he just groaned, “I mourned you all evening, and you spent it on my pillow?”
“I figured nobody would look for the mouse in the cat’s bed,” Aldric yawned and stretched. “Especially after I worked so hard to convince the princess that you were utterly beneath my regard.”
Of course, there were many angry things Zephaniah wished to say to that, but he held his peace. Mostly.
“I mourned you,” he repeated, outraged, “I mourned your death and everything that we were and could’ve been, had you not been such a stubborn, suicidal arse.”
“So dramatic,” Aldric chuckled and moved on: “I actually did not think I would survive. That spare apple you had really was a lifesaver. To think, it saved mine twice in one day!”
Zephaniah sighed. “Well, I suppose I can die in peace now.”
Aldric rolled his eyes. “Zephaniah Gallanthus admitting to weakness? Well, pigs must fly someday. At least you’re here now.” Aldric reached into his own shirt. “I saved this for you.”
He dangled the core of the golden apple above Zephaniah’s face. It was fresh as the moment Aldric bit into it, its flesh still white as snow. It smelled divine.
“It was a bit mealy,” said Aldric, “and I don’t know if I feel any younger, so I’d accuse you of false advertisement—”
Zephaniah grabbed Aldric’s wrist.
Aldric let go as soon as he realized his fingers were in danger, for Zephaniah snapped up the apple with the ferocity of a starving hound: stem, seeds, and all.
Oh, Zephaniah ate.
The cold rushed out of him, his vision returned, and the blue of his lips and nails gave way to a healthy pink. The wound that Aldric dealt him still stung, but it no longer throbbed with his heartbeat.
Zephaniah breathed in and sighed, relieved. He would live another day.
Aldric smiled sheepishly. “Again, I would’ve left you with more apple, had the princess’ aim not been so… true.”
“I thought she killed you,” said Zephaniah, bitterly. He turned to face the window.
It was a clear night, and he could see the parts of town where people had gathered for their usual rituals, despite the earlier commotion. Dying embers glowed along the field where they’d had their archery competition and failed execution. He would be smelling smoke for days.
“I was so angry at you for not doing as I said,” he continued, “and for dying at someone else’s hands…”
Aldric shook him gently. “But I didn’t—”
“Did you climb up the wall?” Zephaniah wouldn’t look at him. His voice was thick. “How? The stone is as smooth as ice.”
Aldric let him change the subject. He got out of bed and walked to the window. “I threw magic beans down there last night. You should pick them soon, or else they’ll fall and grow more shoots. They are delicious.”
Zephaniah followed him and was astonished to find a large green beanstalk crawling up the wall to his window. Zephaniah looked at Aldric in dismay. Aldric grinned back.
“Aldric,” Zephaniah pleaded, “do as I say for once and lie low. Be good and play dead. Start a new life.”
“No!” Aldric crowed, “I shall wait three days and then return from the dead, as Christ did. Let’s see how the princess handles that.”
“You’re going to be the death of me,” Zephaniah said, dazed. He had to sit down on the windowsill to rethink his life choices.
Aldric waited patiently for him to think up a better retort.
“Call me dramatic,” Zephaniah said at last, “but you are the one who has to make a show out of everything.”
“As if you wouldn’t delight in shaking your fist at me before a crowd,” Aldric said cheerily. “Let us have a legendary confrontation in three, no, four days! In the meantime, I’ll have my men drop by with medicinal flowers. Adieu!”
“Wait—!” As Aldric prepared to climb back down the beanstalk, Zephaniah stopped him. He had to ask a question that had been bothering him all day. A terrible question he thought would haunt him with no answer for the rest of his life, but now that Aldric was alive, he could get the truth: “Why did you ask me to cover your eyes? Tell me the real reason.”
“Oh.” Aldric suddenly looked ashamed. He fidgeted with a ripe bean pod and flicked it at Zephaniah. “You should’ve told me your plan the moment you tied me up. I wouldn’t have said such awful things to Oliver. Or to you, I suppose.”
“Your cruelty to us was vital in selling our mortal enmity to a crowd,” said Zephaniah, and he flicked the pod right back, “but Oliver could do with an apology.”
“Ah, yes. My cruelty,” said Aldric with a grave sigh. “Zeph, I was truly cruel to you in our last year at Cambridge... I was afraid to see satisfaction on your face as you watched me die.”
“But I thought you knew I botched the noose on purpose. You said so yourself.”
“A condemned man’s bluff. I couldn’t tell.” Aldric swung his other leg out the window. “But I promised myself that if I was to ever die by your hand, then I would not go quietly.” He laughed at Zephaniah’s look of consternation and added, “No need to apologize. I’ll forgive you if you rejoin the Letter Brigade.”
“Why? So that the sheriff who replaces me can hunt us both? At least I can protect you in my position here,” said Zephaniah. “Besides, I cannot defect without tarnishing my family name. I am the sheriff now. It’s final.”
But it seemed Aldric knew him better than that. “You can pretend to yourself but not to your Aldric. You came after me for the sake of your own ambition. You said so yourself: capturing me was the easiest way into Princess Celandine’s good graces.” Aldric heaved another theatrical sigh. “Why else would you search for a titleless bastard such as me?”
“Because I missed you,” Zephaniah said angrily, and Aldric wavered.
After all these years, Zephaniah could still shut him up with nothing more than earnestness laid bare from his overbearing pride and pretenses. How artfully artless. In that moment, for whichever reason it was—for there were many—Aldric relented.
“I expect you’ll be an improvement from the last sheriff. He never thought to act so heroically as to put out fires,” Aldric said, sniffing the smoke on Zephaniah’s clothes. He smirked. “But you’d do anything for the sake of your precious reputation, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, it’s taken a beating, considering what foolishness I displayed to find you,” Zephaniah said, reddening, “even becoming one of the princess’ dogs, as you put it...”
“Oh, but you are not hers, Zephaniah, for you have always been my Snow Fox,” Aldric said, suddenly stern. He took Zephaniah’s hand in his own. “And if you declare me your enemy, I swear I’ll make you mine. What will you do then?”
Zephaniah just looked very tired. “My dear Red Fox, we are past such nonsense.” He withdrew his hand and slammed the window shut in Aldric’s face.
As for Aldric, well, he laughed and drew a fox on the glass. He would see it again the next time he visited Zephaniah’s window. And the time after that as well.