A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

Tony looked at the hysterical pair for a moment, then turned to the house, beckoning to Wolf.

“You can’t let him walk around free, not after this! He’s a rapist and a killer!” Hardleather argued.

“Whatever happened to guilty until proven innocent?” Tony snapped back.

“What are you babbling about?” Hardleather scoffed.

“What are you going to do about that animal?” Edwina insisted.

Wolf curled a lip at her. “Do something about her! She’s mixed up in this, I’m sure of it!”

“Everyone, be quiet!” A stunned silence broke out after Tony’s shout, except for Dell, who started to cry. Wolf ached to comfort his child as Tony bounced him. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know who to trust. So y’know what? You two are going into protective custody. I’ll sort you out after I’ve saved my daughter.” His finger stabbed at both servants. “Captain Carew, take both of them to jail. And I want them in separate cells, and you, Governor, to go with them. Make sure there’s no talking. You’ll be safe and I won’t be distracted.”

“Take them,” Hardleather told Captain Carew, “But that Wolf is my prisoner and I’m not letting him out of my sight.”

“I’m not your anything!” Wolf protested.

“You can’t let him in there! He just wants to make sure he can silence Virginia forever!” Edwina shouted.

“Not while I’m watching,” Hardleather growled.

Tony gestured to the troops. “Take these two women away and guard them. No matter what happened to them, they’re also witnesses.” Betty went willingly, still crying, but Edwina fought all the way as she was picked up and galloped off to jail.

The moment they were gone, Lord Anthony obviously dismissed them from his mind. “Okay,” he said, slapping the front door open. “Here goes nothing.”

Wolf trembled at the deathly lack of sound. There was another guard posted at the bedroom door, who snapped to attention when he saw them coming. “No change, sir. No one has come in.”

“Good. Hold him.” Lord Anthony handed Dell to the guard and tried to get to the bed, but Wolf got there first, followed a split second later by Sebastian.

“Careful, there’s still troll dust on the blanket,” Sebastian warned.

Wolf didn’t care about the blankets, he was worried about his mate. “What’s this mark on her neck?”

Everyone craned to see it. “It looks like someone pulled the chain on her necklace,” Sebastian said.

“If someone pulled that chain, it would break,” Hardleather pointed out.

“I’ll ask the ring, it was a witness, it can tell us all what happened,” Wolf said, picking up Virginia’s left hand. But the ring, the only thing that could clear him, was dead, its little eyes open and staring, its mouth slack. He shook her hand a little bit, but the ring didn’t revive. “That must be what she meant by having nothing left over for the ring. She couldn’t spare any magic to save it.”

“What kills magic?” Sebastian asked.

“More magic,” Wolf answered fearfully. Was Cinderella’s godmother’s magic strong enough to fight off whatever could kill a magic ring? He gently fished the pendant out from under Virginia’s nightie. It was flashing with a weak, golden light.

“It’s going out,” Lord Anthony said, wringing his hands.

Wolf tenderly moved Virginia’s head from side to side, examining her neck. “It pulled all the way around. Like it was choking her. Why would a good luck charm choke someone?”

“To keep them from breathing?” Sebastian guessed. “Maybe to keep her from breathing in the troll dust?”

“Nah, troll dust doesn’t hurt anyone.” It had to be something else, something that it was stopping her from doing. It wasn’t trying to knock her out, it wasn’t trying to smother her, why else constrict a throat? Throats carried air… blood… food! To keep her from swallowing something! Wolf squeezed at Virginia’s jaw, prying her mouth open. There was the faintest of scents on her breath… “I smell something!” A deeper breath confirmed it. “I smell apples!”

“Snow White’s tree?” Anthony asked.

“I’m betting,” Wolf said grimly.

“Well, dig them out!”

Wolf had opened her mouth further, turning her head to the light. “If I push a finger in there, I’ll stick it down her throat, and then nothing will get the poison out of her system. Snow White only survived because she didn’t swallow.”

“You can’t just leave her like that!”

“I won’t!” Wolf gave them all a grim, feral smile. “Here’s a nifty trick they taught me in the Tenth Kingdom.” As gently as he could, he lifted Virginia, wrestling her into a kneeling position, then wrapping his arms low around her chest. One squeeze, two... and something shot out of her mouth.

There was a quiet clink and a dead, withered seed and two pieces of glass fell onto his hands. Nobody else noticed, they were too busy staring at Virginia.

Who coughed, struggled, and, with her eyes still closed, started to scream.

Wendell had intended to ride off to check the border as soon as he heard the news; he was still living down Prince The Dog’s seeming unconcern about the earlier Troll War. But it would be several day’s riding to get to Troll Gate Garrison, and as the network poured in reports all morning, he wasn’t sure where his duty lay.

So now he was sitting in his office, hands buried in his curls, secretly wishing he could just rip them out in frustration. But that wouldn’t be very royal of him.

“Let me get this straight,” he told Lord Rupert hopelessly. “Trolls broke through in two places on the border. The wolves beat them back. So the wolves are the good guys. Wolf-the Wolf, the one who traveled with me-has been arrested for eating his child-only he didn’t-and now is accused of raping his servant and putting his wife under a spell. So wolves are the bad guys, since if we can’t trust the one who got the pardon, we can’t trust any of them. All of this news is being sent very quickly to me by wolves-good-but now the anti-wolf people think that they’re just spreading propaganda to aid themselves because wolves are bad. Nobody can tell me why wolves telling me bad things about Wolf is propaganda. And if I didn’t have enough to worry about, now Queen Riding Hood has attacked without warning and kidnapped six of my subjects-only they’re all wolves, and if Griswold has his way, I will tear up the pardon, so that wolves won’t be subjects anymore, so he doesn’t think we should try to rescue them.”

Rupert had been ticking off points on his fingertips. “Yes, I think that’s right,” he said cautiously.

Wendell groaned.

“And I’m to tell you that Chancellor Griswold wishes to speak with you.”

“He’s been yelling at me all morning and I’m tired of it!” Wendell slammed a fist onto his desk, then winced as the noise just added to his headache. “Oh, fine, send him in, let’s get this over with.”

He sat back up, to find Rupert looking at him worriedly. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Griswold strode in the moment the door opened, a scroll clutched in his fist. “I’ve brought your copy of the pardon. Do you want to write an order rescinding it or just rip it up?”

“Neither. I will do nothing until I know exactly what has happened.”

“What’s happened is that the wolves have turned, just like everybody knew they would! Surely you see how ridiculous it is to keep that misguided pardon now that we know that Wolf is a criminal after all!”

“Chancellor Griswold, listen to yourself! The pardon is no longer all about Wolf. To take away the citizenship of all the wolves is to take away the garrisons, the network-even our stability. Can you imagine what would happen to the other citizens of my kingdom if there were suddenly mobs of disenfranchised, unhappy wolves within our borders? It would be suicide for us all!”

“But the citizens only trusted the other wolves because Wolf was a hero. If it turns out that he’s a villain after all...”

“He’s not. I’m sure of that.”

“How nice for you. Now what are you going to do to make the rest of us trust him?” Griswold crossed his arms, scowling.

“I shall go conduct his trial myself.”

“If he’s found guilty, you look like an idiot for trusting him. If he’s found innocent, everyone will think that you just kicked the truth under the rug and pardoned him because you like him.”

“And what’s so wrong if I do? It’s my royal prerogative!”

“What’s wrong is that everybody else in the kingdom will think that you’re biased! That friends of the king can get away with anything, while there’s no justice for the common man!”

“What about justice for the common wolf?” Royal Windhowler stood in the doorway behind Griswold, glaring in with yellow eyes. “We always knew there would be a time when the humans would find a way to turn on us.”

“You mean, protect ourselves!” Griswold shouted. “Who is protecting Wolf?” Windhowler asked. “What will prevent a mob from killing him now, with or without a trial, and calling it justice? Even if they have a trial, what is to make us think that it is fair? Think of the last time he was tried, your majesty, in Little Lamb Village. Was that fair? Was that justice?”

Wendell tried not to shudder. It hadn’t been all that long ago when he had told Wolf to his face that he was sorry he’d rescued him from burning after that mock trial. That he was disgusted that Wolf remained one of the travelling party. Wolf had never known, since Anthony had wisely refrained from passing the message on, but Wendell remembered it. Occasionally he dreamed that Wolf had died on that pyre. Those were the nightmares that always ended with him a still a dog and his stepmother on the throne.

Wendell sighed from the tip of his toes. What to do? How to be fair? “It seems to me that everyone has already decided if Wolf is guilty or innocent. Soon it won’t matter what the truth is; everyone will be irrevocably fixed in whatever they believe.”

“There will have to be a trial. A fair, public, immediate trial,” Rupert said.

“I agree. I shall judge.” Wendell lifted a finger in warning to cut off Griswold’s objection. “I shall be one judge. I shall ask Cinderella to be another-it’s fitting that one of the Five Great Women be trusted with the fate of one of the Four Who Saved the Nine Kingdoms.”

“Neither one of you are above suspicion in this,” Griswold pointed out. “He saved her life at the coronation too. People will still say that no one will ever know the real truth.”

“Yes, they will.” Wendell turned to Lord Rupert. “Go get my carriage and retinue ready, then send someone to the Throne Room to crate up the Mirror of Truth.”

The citizens of the First Kingdom were the first to get the news in the Evening Shoe. WOLF-HERO OR ZERO? OUR QUEEN TO HELP DECIDE announced the paper.

The few Fourth Kingdom citizens who didn’t know the wolf howls had to wait until morning to see the headline ANIMALS OR CITIZENS? WENDELL SAYS HE’LL SETTLE WOLF STATUS ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Leaffall believed in economy of words, so TRIAL OF THE CENTURY covered the entire first page of the Elven Glade.

The Second Kingdom Banner was equally succinct-WOLF REVERTS TO TYPE.

And under Dragon Mountain, the dwarves were all abuzz at the headline KING WENDELL RECKLESSLY MOVES VALUABLE MAGIC MIRROR.