People—Fort, Lucas and Gretchen, Borin—come by to say hello—so they claim; they're checking up on him. At first, Morraine comes by most evenings to read to him, but her mother needs her at home and so the visits slack off. She openly admits it's hard for her to be in Bae's house without Bae being there. Everything in the house holds a memory.
On the seventeenth day there's a letter. A messenger traveling from Avonlea to Midas' kingdom stops to rest overnight in the village, which now is large enough, King Maurice wagers, to bear a name: Ramsgate. He bears important news: a phalanx of ogres, having demolished most of Maurice's southern seaboard, is moving northward, in the direction of the most populated areas of the Kingdom of Aramore. The messenger carries a letter pleading for Midas' military assistance. The messenger has agreed to carry letters home for castle staff and soldiers whose families happen to live in the villages through which he will ride.
The letter is much too short and grows no longer in the re-reading of it to Morraine, then to her parents, then to Fort, and at last to the cat. There's barely two pages and both of them are full of details pertaining to Bae's daily life in the barracks. Rumple finds every detail fascinating.
"The cooks remember me from when we came here to sell our thread," he writes, "and so on my first evening here, they invited me into the kitchen for a little supper. As I ate—pheasant, Papa! That the King shot with his own arrow. As I ate, a beautiful Lady came galloping down the back stairs like a filly in the meadow on the first day of spring. I'm learning a lot about horses, Papa. Every guardsman is assigned one and I take care of Fendral's, a blood bay with a white stocking. Anyway, the Lady—if I didn't know from how she was dressed that she was a Lady, I would have known by the way the cooks curtseyed to her, but after that they chattered away with her like they'd known her all her life and they probably do. I knew I'd seen her before. It took me a minute to remember, but then I did: it was Princess Belle from the harvest festival. Remember, Papa? She gave the Livestock of the Year award to Midnight. And there she was, sitting down at the table across from me, and eating the same chicken pie I was, and talking to me like she was a regular person.
"She had a dress much too fine for outdoors but there was mud on her boots and she admitted she'd been out riding and now she was famished. They prepared her a plate but warned her not to spoil her dinner because His Majesty had ordered supper to be served at eight. While we ate, the Lady talked and talked with the cooks and she asked me who I was and how did I like my job and the castle and such. I told her I liked it fine as much as I could see of it, which was just the kitchen because I'm just a squire. She laughed and said if a person could see only one room in the castle, the kitchen would be the second-best one to see, but the best would be the library. She told me the shelves stretch all the way to the ceiling and her family has been collecting books for more than a hundred years, and when she said 'My family' I knew who she was, not just a lady-in-waiting or something like that. She's the princess, Papa! So beautiful and kind. She asked if I could read and before I could answer she said everyone should, she's made a school at the castle for all the kids here to learn their numbers and their letters. I said I could already read, and she said well then, you must see the library sometime and you can borrow a book. Then she ran off because she had to dress for dinner. Isn't that nice? I can't wait to see the library.
"Don't forget I'll be home at the end of the month for two days.
"Love, Baelfire"
As nighttime falls, Rumple stirs, suddenly realizing that he hasn't spun in hours and, in fact, the cat has sneaked up into his lap and fallen asleep. He chastises himself; he has a few vices, but sloth has never been one. He's fallen behind in his chores quite a lot lately, distracted by strangers galloping through town—they seldom stop; they're headed for larger towns—and by the faint scent of burning flesh that occasionally blows in on strong northerly winds.
He seldom sleeps these days, just stumbles about in an exhausted stupor until his body can't hold up any more and he lapses into a floating numbness as he's spinning or writing a contract or washing dishes. This war has been going on for as long as he can remember, but it's coming closer. He worries that Bae will be pulled from the home guard and sent off to the front, even though he's just fourteen.
The cat suddenly leaps from his lap and ambles over to her personal door, but she doesn't pass through it; she seats herself there, her tail wrapped neatly around her body, her nose elevated. She's frozen there for nearly an hour before Rumple hears running footfalls thudding along the road, then a shout: "Papa! Papa, I'm—" The voice drops to a loud whisper as Bae realizes he's waking the neighbors. The door flies open and the greeting concludes, "Home."
Bae tosses his knapsack aside and opens his arms as his father sweeps into them and his cat rubs against his boots. Bae clears his throat when the hug goes on too long. Rumple reluctantly breaks it off but keeps his hands on the boy's shoulders as he draws back to inspect Bae for injuries. "Papa," Bae says in a cautionary tone, "it's only been a month."
"Feels like years," Rumple mumbles in embarrassment.
"Me too," Bae admits. He breaks the sentimental moment by wandering to the hearth and peering in the cookpot. "Mmm, I'm starved." As Rumple brings a bowl down from the cupboard, Bae adds, least his father misinterpret the comment, "Not that they don't feed us. We eat great. Papa, they feed us beef! The castle has its own herd of cattle."
"Cattle?" Rumple recalls seeing the beasts in a distant meadow during one of his visits to Avonlea, but he's never seen one close up, let alone tasted their meat. No one in this county ever has.
"Yeah!" Bae accepts the filled bowl and flops down at the table. "Story goes that Queen Colette introduced 'em to the Enchanted Forest. They were part of her dowry when she married Maurice." Bae stuffs a spoonful of carrot into his mouth but continues to chatter and Rumple doesn't correct his manners. "I seen—saw—her a couple of times. Never talked to her yet, but she seems nice. She's always got a book in her hand, sometimes two. And the King, he comes out to the field to watch us train. We see him a couple times a week. His father was a general—took the throne through war—so Maurice has a lot of respect for us, though he's never been to battle himself. Calls us his 'fighting men.'" Bae's chest puffs. "When we stop to rest and clean our swords, he comes over and talks to us. Tells us stories about the great battles of history. And he always compliments us and tells us how proud he is to have the finest guard in all the realm."
Rumple has been preparing a mug of tea for Bae, but pauses in mid-pour. "What do you mean, 'watch us train'? Oh, Bae, they haven't made you a soldier—"
"No." Bae makes a mouth, annoyed to be caught in an exaggeration. "I mean. . . no, I'm still just a squire. But it's how we talk. It's 'we,' 'cause we're all in this together, you know? And when I'm eighteen, they'll let me join the army." He catches the worry rising in his father's eyes—given their living circumstances, Bae learned from infancy to pay close attention to his father's eyes—and he changes the subject. "Anyway, Maurice is this big guy, bigger than any of the generals." Bae stands and stretches his arm over his head to suggest a great height, then he sits down and spoons up another mouthful of stew. "Biggest man I ever saw, bigger than Fort and all his sons. I don't know why he never led the army. He knows all about weaponry and military history and stuff. Fendral says it's probably because his father was already king when he was born, and being an only son, he was kinda sheltered. Anyway, we—I mean the whole army—we love him and if he said 'March to the moon,' that's what we'd do."
"You don't refer to him as 'Maurice' in his presence, surely?"
"Naw, of course not. But we kinda feel like we could. Can I have more stew?" He hands the well-scraped bowl to Rumple, who fills it to the brim. "All the guardsmen are good guys—well, almost, except for this one. He came from King George's army and he thinks he's better than us. He used to slap his squire around, says that's how to keep us boys in line, but the general put him in prison for two weeks for doing that so he stopped. But he's still mean. He called me a 'backwater boob' until Fendral threatened to duel him for it. But everyone else is good, 'specially Fendral. He wants all his equipment to be perfect, but he taught me what to do, and he doesn't mind it when I read after I finish my chores. He says our King is proof of the value of book learning."
"I'm glad you have a good master," Rumple says.
"I saved the best one for last." This person is so important in Bae's mind that he sets his spoon down and swallows before describing her. "You remember the Princess? Princess Belle, I mean. There are two others, her younger sisters, but they don't live around here. They're married to foreign princes."
"Belle." Rumple's voice softens and his eyes glaze as he remembers the best night of his life.
"I see her around the castle a lot. In fact, she asked me to help her teach the kids to read—she wants all the kids in the kingdom to go to school, but for now it's just the ones who live on the castle grounds. I help her two times a week. Papa, they let me go into the castle! Not the private quarters, of course, or the throne room, but I can go anywhere on the ground floor, and that's where Princess Belle has her school. Oh, and she lets me go into the library—that's on the second floor—any time I want and borrow any of the books I want, for as long as I want. But I never take more than one because I don't want to maybe lose one. I have one in my pack—when I told her you taught me to read, she said I could pick out a book to bring back to you, to borrow as long as you like."
"That's very generous. What's she like?" Rumple can't squelch his smile.
"She's not princessy, except when she's doing princess stuff, you know? In her school, she's patient with the slow kids but she can get mad when the older kids tease the little guys and then she grabs them by the ear and puts them in the corner. Even if they're bigger than her—she's pretty short. It's when she's in the kitchen, though, that I like her best. When it's just us—me and her and the cooks and the scullery maids—she takes off her shoes and sits by the fire with her feet propped up on a stool and she talks to us like we're friends. The head cook calls her 'my sweet girl' and bakes special pastries for her. I get to call her 'Belle.' She said so. Well, just when we're in the kitchen, 'cause, you know, out there we got to show respect."
"I know you always show respect for women," Rumple says.
"Yeah, but I mean, decorum. We talk about all kinds of stuff: the school and books and people at the castle, but she wants to know about you and Morraine and Borin and Midnight and everybody here. She's real curious, Belle is, especially about people. Oh! And she says she remembers you from the festival. She says you seemed like a good father. She says you have kind eyes."
Rumple blushes. Even though the compliment comes by proxy, it flusters him; it's been many years since a woman perceived him as a man, instead of a father or a neighbor. For just a moment, he misses Milah. He shakes himself out of the reverie. "What else?"
Bae's eyes sparkle. "She cusses."
"What?"
"Yeah. Not in public, but in the kitchen, when she's talking about some of the princes that are courting her—she says they're either money grubbers or bully boys and she despises them all. Or when she's talking about the war, especially because her father can't get the other kings to work together. She says if they would, they could defeat the ogres, but they're all like turtles, hiding their heads in their shells. But Midas did send some troops to join ours at the front, so that's a good first step." Bae shakes his head thoughtfully. "She's smart, Belle is. Not just book smart. People smart."
"The kingdom has much to look forward to. She'll make a good ruler."
"Papa, can I tell you a secret?"
Rumple leans forward. His son is still his friend, despite the distance between them caused by the changes Bae is going through. "Sure."
"When I'm grown up, I want to be the Captain of the Guard, so I can look out for her."
"I don't blame you a bit, son."
Bae and Morraine are just fourteen, so Rumple and Lucas keep an eye on them from a distance as the young couple walk hand in hand through the woods, picking berries for a pie. Just fourteen going on forty, Rumple thinks as he walks a pace behind them, the cat on his shoulder, when they escort Bae to the crossroads at the end of his visit. Rumple permits the couple to kiss goodbye, a quick brush of lips. He permits it because the war is creeping closer and who can see the future?
Bae still walks home once a month, faithfully, to visit his father, his friends and his cat. He brings a borrowed book every time to leave with Rumple and takes back to the castle the previous borrowing. He also brings treats from the castle cook, widely acknowledged to be the finest baker in Misthaven. He brings stories of his adventures and the people he's met, and as the months go on, he brings small messages from the Princess to the spinner/scribe. At first the messages are brief, straightforward, impersonal but informal; Rumple can almost hear her voice in them. "Papa, Belle says hello, she hopes you're well and that you liked the book she sent last. She would like to know what you thought of it. And if you liked that one, you'll really like this one."
"Papa, I told Belle about your garden and she sent this book about medicinal herbs."
"Papa, the King of Agrabah visited the castle last month, and he brought a bunch of gifts. Belle thought you might like to have that roving; it comes from llamas—they're kind of like big sheep that live in the mountains."
"Papa, I told Belle you sometimes write contracts and deeds, so she sent this book about laws. She said you could keep it because the castle has another copy."
"Papa, Belle was asking me that since you taught me and Morraine to read, she wonders if you had any ideas on how to help this one kid at the school. His family says he's cursed because the letters get all jumbled up in his head. So Belle was asking me to ask you—here, she wrote you a letter to explain it. She's hoping you'll write back to her."
Rumple spends the entire weekend writing and rewriting his answer. He wants the letter to be respectful, not too personal, but warm, because she's been so helpful to his son and so kind to himself, though the Stiltskin men certainly don't merit such attentions from a royal. He wants to be informative; in recent years, he's come across people with the "reading curse," Fort being one. He has no solution, but he can offer encouragement.
More than anything, he wants his letter to the Princess to inspire her to write back. Once Bae has gone back to Avonlea with the letter tucked into his pack (shielded by a scarf that Rumple has made from the llama wool, a gift for the Princess to thank her for the book loans), Rumple is tempted to run after him, take the letter back for one more revision. She is, after all, a Princess, and though her own handwriting is busily messy and her spelling sometimes—well, unconventional, she deserves perfection.
He learns on Bae's next visit he needn't have worried. This time Bae brings a seven-page letter from the Princess, who signs herself simply as "Belle."
Letters go back and forth from the Princess to the spinner—and eventually, from "your friend Belle" to "Rumple." Rumple weaves a little basket to keep the letters in, and he likes to sit beside the fire, with the cat on his lap, to reread them when he feels lonely or. . . it takes a long time for him to identify the emotion; it's been so long since he felt it last. . . when he feels romantic.
The cat, who still enjoys sitting on top of anything that Rumple is trying to read, doesn't disturb these letters.
In front of the Hog's Head sandwich board (now decorated with fancy lettering to accompany the grimacing hog) Rumple hesitates, every slap and sneer, every insult and indignity he's ever received flooding his memory at once. It'll probably be like that the rest of his life: Certain sights, sounds or smells will trigger those memories. But he thinks the dread he's always felt in reaction to those triggers will lessen as time goes by.
A hand drops on his shoulder. "Well? Whatcha waitin' for?" The hand leaves his shoulder to open the tavern door. "I dunno about you, but I'm thirsty."
Rumple smiles at his companion. "I'm buying."
It's a chilly evening a few days after harvest, so the Hog's Head is filled with talkative men with coins jangling in their pockets. Most don't bother to glance at the newcomers, but they do shove aside to make room at the bar. "Hey, Fort," a few call out. And "Hey, Rum. How's the squire?"
The barkeeper delivers two sloshing tankards their way in answer to Fort's signal. He grunts in Rumple's direction but refrains from further comment. A coward's a coward, but money is money.
"Good harvest," says one of the men at the bar.
Fort nods and raises his tankard in a toast, everyone at the bar following suit. "And to a easy winter."
They drink. The previous speaker adds, "Them cats are part of it. Mine have chased away every rat and mouse in my barns." He raises his tankard in Rumple's direction. He may not be ready yet to socialize with the village coward, but he has enough good grace to acknowledge him. "To the cats."
Rumple laughs into his ale. "To the cats."
Morraine turns fifteen. Rumple weaves a shawl for her and he begins to prepare for Bae's birthday, which will soon follow. Gretchen invites him to Morraine's birthday supper, and the girl gives him a hasty hug before running off with her friends. Rumple sits on the lawn with Gretchen and Lucas and they reminisce about the diaper days.
It's a sweet time, the reward for Lucas' and Gretchen's years of parenting. "We did good," Lucas says, reaching for his wife's hand. "You did very good," Rumple agrees. "She's a fine young lady."
Except the Duke doesn't seem to agree. A week after the birthday, three catchpoles (including the one Rumple remembers from the festival; the knave's name is Hordor) hired by the Duke to drag in "volunteers" for the army appear in town. When there are no healthy young men to "recruit," the catchpoles take childless young women; when there are no young women, the catchpoles take teenagers. They claim the Duke has authorized a lowering of the age of conscription to fourteen, though they have no papers to prove it, as the town learns when Rumple dares to ask. The town knows the truth: the catchpoles are paid by the head. Strangely, they don't take Fort or his remaining two healthy sons—but Fort spits on the tavern floor and explains his theory: "They're scared of us. That's why they're takin' boys and girls."
"Let's get 'em, Pa," Jarrin clenches his fist. "They're sleepin' upstairs. Let's get 'em now before they take the kids away."
"No," Rumple interrupts. "The Duke will just send others. Maybe send men to kill you in your sleep."
"Rumple's right, damn it," Fort agrees. "We got to think of something else."
"Maybe we could bribe them?" Tarrin suggests.
"And get put in jail for bribery?" Fort brushes the idea aside.
"They're gonna take the kids if we don't do nothin'. They'll be gone in a week." For the time being, the catchpoles are enjoying the hospitality of the Buckaneer's Bodice tavern on the nicer end of town—free housing, free meals, free beer and free strumpets, all in tribute to the Duke.
"I hear that certain men have bought their way out of the draft," the barkeeper throws in. "The going rate is five gold pieces, which is what the catchpoles get for each head they bring in."
"Should we raise the gold to buy out Morraine's conscription?" Tarrin wonders. "If we shake down the whole town, we still won't have enough to buy out the other kids."
"Can't believe the King would allow this," Rumple says thoughtfully. "I understand he's a good man."
"Maybe he don't," Fort suggests. "Maybe he don't know about it."
"Yeah," Rumple says. "Maybe he should. Fort, does Rowntree still own that saddlehorse?"
"Think so. Rowntree don't ride any more, but he's got a kid that works for him that rides good."
Rumple fishes a copper from his pouch and pays for his beer. "Jarrin, go fetch this kid and the horse, would you? Send him to my house."
"What're you gonna do, Rum?" Fort asks.
"Write a letter to a friend."