The contest was just about to begin when they arrived. The servants at the castle had never seen anything like this fine gentleman who carried a cat and a dog with him and rode his stallion without a bridle. He wore his hat low over his face, shadowing most of it. He rode right up to the garden, where all the other young men of the kingdom were lined up next to their horses.
Princess Valerie had not been showing signs of interest until the newcomer, in his bright red suit, appeared. “Who’s that last one, Daddy?” she asked. “I’ve never seen him before.”
King James shrugged. “I don’t know, but look at his clothes, and that fine breed of horse. He must be a nobleman from a distant country.”
Peter ignored the buzz surrounding him. He had no eyes for anyone but Princess Valerie. She wore a gown that matched her shining blue eyes, trimmed with lace and satin ribbons. A golden crown with blue jewels topped her glistening red hair. *She’s even more beautiful in person,* Peter thought. *I’d give anything to be the winner and marry her, or even just to spend a day with her and tell her how I feel.*
Valerie wasn’t the only person who was intrigued by the newcomer. “Who IS he, Father?” Ronald asked Lord Henry. “I wish I could see under that darn hat!”
“I can’t tell,” Lord Henry complained. “He stays in the shadows and his face is covered. The Princess sure seems to like him, though.”
Valerie turned to group before her, standing in front of a huge hedge maze. “Hello, good nobles and warriors. As you all know, you are participating in a contest for my hand in marriage.” She smiled and held up a golden apple that glistened in the sun. “You must find the King’s golden apple tree in the center of this maze and bring it back to me in an hour. The first to return with one of the apples will be the winner.”
Ronald smirked. “Did you get the bottle for me, Father?”
Lord Henry handed his son a dark green bottle. “This’ll take care of the competition. They’ll only need a whiff of this before they fall asleep. It won’t hurt them, just knock them out long enough for you to get that apple.”
Lord Henry didn’t realize he was being watched. Two people in a pair of dark cloaks stood nearby, listening to every word he and Ronald said. The smaller of the pair let out an angry cry when Lord Henry mentioned drugging the contestants, but the other gently but firmly took hold of their arm.
Peter went over to his animals. “King James says we’re not allowed to bring horses for this contest,” he admitted sadly. “I’m sorry you can’t come.” Sir Nesmith frowned as well as a horse could. However, the moment Peter turned his back, the dog and the cat sprang out of the saddlebag and followed their friend, determined to help.
Valerie watched as the men entered the maze. Her eyes never left the man in the red suit. *There’s something about him that’s different,* she thought. *I don’t think he’s just any old nobleman. Oh, how I wish I could see his full face!*
Peter wandered through the hedges. There seemed to be no end to it. There was nothing but greenery on either side of him. He stopped for a moment, trying to figure out where he was. He grinned, a wide, crazy grin that wasn’t his. “Man, I wish I had a chemistry set. I really have this urge to blow up this hedge and walk straight through.”
Peter heard footsteps behind him. He ducked around the corner of a hedge as his brother walked past him, holding a dark green bottle in one hand. “I should be well ahead of everyone now,” he chuckled. “I think this is the per...per...p...” Ronald sneezed before he could get the cork out of the bottle. “Perfect place to pull this out. It’ll create a mist that will knock out the other contestants, and I’ll be the only one who gets to that apple!”
Ronald never got a chance. A brown, curly streak leaped on his back, while a smaller brown streak ran under his legs, knocking him over. He dropped the bottle and fell face-first into the hedge. Peter jumped out of his hiding place as the two animals sprinted towards him. “Sir Jones? Sir Dolenz?” He gathered the pair in his arms. “What are you doing here?”
Sir Dolenz grinned and indicated Ronald with his paw. “You saw Ronald and you wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt me.” He hugged the pair hard. “You’re two of the best friends anyone ever had.”
Ronald flailed helplessly in the bush. “Get me outta here! What was that? I thought no animals were allowed in this contest!”
Peter grinned and spoke in a slightly higher tenor with words that didn’t seem quite like his. “Now now, that wasn’t nice. You were gonna cheat. Normally I’d feel bad, but my friends did the right thing.” He grinned. “This is a nice look for you. You always did look something like a tiny fish on the end of really big hook.” He held two fingers together. “Little joke, about that big.”
Ronald’s only reply was a sneeze.
Peter sighed. “I’d help you out, but you’d probably use that potion on me.” Sir Dolenz trotted over to Peter with the bottle in his mouth. Peter took it from him. “Good idea.” He grinned wickedly and threw the bottle at the hole in the hedge. It cracked on the ground, and a green mist enveloped Ronald. “Have a nice sleep! I’ll see you at the exit!”
Peter and the animals took off down the corridor. Sir Jones put his nose to the ground, trying to sniff out the tree. Sir Dolenz climbed Peter’s leg and indicated his sword. “What is it? I’d love to whack these hedges, but I don’t think the King’s gardener would appreciate my blazing new territory.”
Sir Dolenz tugged at the sword. “All right, all right. I don’t know what good it’ll do besides cutting down the apple for me.”
He pulled the sword from it’s scabbard. The moment it did, it lit up in a soft red glow. “Whoa!” The sword seemed to push forward on it’s own, almost yanking Peter off his feet! He held onto it as it dragged him around corners and down long pathways. The cat and the dog ran ahead, keeping an eye on the corridors in case Ronald awoke and came after them.
The pair finally came to a stop within a wide opening. Peter found himself in a beautiful garden, with a lovely fountain and rows of sweet-smelling flowers. Three young men had already made it there, and stood under the huge golden apple tree, trying to hack down its fruit with axes or swords. No matter how hard they sawed away, the apples remained stubbornly attached to the tree.
Peter frowned. “How am I going to get an apple if real knights can’t even do it?” he asked his animal friends softly. Sir Dolenz pushed slightly at his sword with his paws and meowed. “The sword? Well, it got us here.” He grinned that odd, wicked grin again. “Let’s see what else this baby can do.”
The animals ducked into the corridor and watched from around the corner as Peter strutted into the garden, making his way past the increasingly frustrated knights. The sword turned red again as he lifted it to the tree. It cut the apple easily on the first try, as if it was a regular soft fruit, rather than metal. He grinned and waved at the other knights, who all glared at him at once, then hurried out before they could attempt to grab his sword and use it themselves.
Peter followed his sword to the entrance. He thought he imagined it, but he could have sworn he saw two hooded figures, one taller than the other, watching him intently as the sword dragged him around corners and through forks in the hedge. He went right past Ronald, who was just starting to come to, but didn’t have the time to stop to say hello.
Princess Valerie and her father stood anxiously at the entrance to the hedge with the rest of the court. Valerie looked nervously up at the sky. The hour was almost up, and none of the men had returned yet. “I told you this one was too hard, Daddy! No one can cut down the golden apples! That tree is only there for decoration, not fruit-picking.”
Finally, a shadow loomed over the entrance. Everyone cheered as the mysterious young man in the red suit stumbled out of the maze, his sword in one hand and the gold apple in the other. No one noticed two small animals scramble out from under one of the hedges and jump back into the pouch on the black horse’s side.
The only thing visible from under the young man’s wide-brimmed hat was his huge, cheeky grin. He tossed the apple to King James. “Here you go, Your Royalness! An golden apple a day keeps the poorhouse away!” He grinned even wider and saluted Valerie...though no one could see his quickly reddening cheeks under his hat.
Valerie though she saw a quick glimpse of shiny dark gold hair under the hat as he turned his head to the rapidly lowering sun. “Oh man, I gotta make tracks!” he squawked. “I have to clean the...uh, I gotta go.” He grinned one more time at Valerie. “See ya at the next challenge, babe!” The black horse pulled him by his red coat and tugged him on. They charged out of the garden before anyone could stop them, dodging guards and servants as the young man laughed.
“What a peculiar fellow,” King James commented. “He never even took his hat off in front of royalty!”
Valerie just sighed. “I wonder what he looks like under that hat? He’s certainly fun to be around, and he’s smart. He figured out the maze in record time. Even I have trouble in the maze, and I’ve lived here my whole life!” She frowned thoughtfully. “The only person I know who could get through the maze that quickly was my friend Sir George Dolenz. He loved the maze. He was so silly and clever. Come to think of it, he always wore red, too. AND he called me ‘babe.’”
King James shook his head. “It wasn’t George. I saw a bit of blond hair under that hat, and he was too short to be him. George is six feet tall and pretty skinny for a knight.”
“No, it couldn’t have been him,” she admitted. Ronald stumbled out as the sun fully set on the garden. He presented Valerie with an apple, but she ignored him, her mind on the mysterious young man who had appeared and disappeared so dramatically.
The two figures in the robes watched Sir Herny, who narrowed his eyes at the daydreaming princess who ignored his son. The smaller figure started towards him, but the taller one pulled her away from Henry and out of the garden instead.
There was something about that young man and his sword that struck Henry as familiar...even moreso when Ronald told him what happened in the maze. “I was attacked by some kind of animal. It must have been a huge cat! It had nasty claws that dug into my back! I must look like I was horsewhipped! Then that guy in red came up and turned the bottle on me! I was lucky I got up when I did, or I would have never gotten out of there! He’s some kind of magician or something!”
“No, he isn’t.” Henry turned to his son. “Didn’t something about that kid seem weird?”
Henry made a face. “His jokes were almost as bad as Sir Dolenz’s.”
“Did you get a look at his sword?”
“No, I was too busy taking a nap in the hedge.”
Lord Henry rolled his eyes. “That was Dolenz’s sword he had! He found the knight’s swords!”
“I thought you said the hiding place in the woods was foolproof.”
“Obviously, we’re going to have to do something to protect that place better.” He turned his horse from the road to the valley to the road to the woods. “Come on. Let’s make sure that guy won’t be able to play King Arthur a second time.”
Peter just barely managed to get home by the time it was fully dark. He was now dressed in his ordinary peasant clothing again, and feeling more like his old self...but better. He felt good that he’d been able to do something wonderful and see Princess Valerie, even though he couldn’t tell her who he was. It was fun to laugh and be silly and tease his brother. He NEVER got to tease Ronald at home!
That was when he remembered his chores. He groaned. “I’ll never get it done now. It’s almost midnight! I have to get up early to help Cook prepare breakfast and do my morning chores. It’ll take me all night to finish.”
Peter and the animals recieved quite a surprise when they arrived at the barn. It had been scrubbed from top to bottom. The boards glimmered dully in the moonlight. There was brand-new hay in the loft and in Sir Nesmith’s stall. All of the horses had been watered and fed, and their tacks, saddles, and bridles hung in neat rows. Even Peter’s guitar had been repaired and polished, and there was new bedding over the hay in his sleeping loft, with plenty leftover for Dolenz and Jones, too.
The animals were as surprised as their master. Dolenz curled up in the loft and fell asleep the moment his fuzzy head touched the hay. Peter turned to the remaining two. “Do you know anything about this? I certainly didn’t do it, and all of the other farm hands leave at dusk.” The two animals just shook their heads.
Peter yawned. “I guess what’s done is done. Everything seems to be all right. Let’s hit the hay.” Nesmith raised an eyebrow, Jones laughed, and he chuckled. “So to speak.”
Peter and his three pets were fast asleep when Lord Henry and Ronald came home. “See Father? He’s passed out. That couldn’t have been him. He probably spent the whole night raking hay.”
Lord Henry shook his head. “That voice was so familiar, and I know darn well that horse looked like Nesmith. It had to be him.”
Ronald yawned. “Why don’t we figure it out in the morning? I’ve had a long night, and I want to get fresh start to prepare for the next challenge.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Come on, boy. We’re going to make sure you win that second test...and no one else.” The two snickered right into the main house, never noticing the cloaked figures in the moonlight. The smaller one rolled up it’s cloak, showing a tiny but fairly strong fist. The other just barely managed to grab the first back and make both disappear before they could attack the scheming pair.
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
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