Free The Pitchfork of Destiny by Jack Heckel Page A

her second cup of chamomile, after she had settled her stomach and confirmed that indeed two horses were missing from the barn, that a second reason for being angry suddenly occurred to her. Charming had lied. He had looked her in the eyes and agreed to help her stop Will from leaving. This realization led to a storm of profanity that turned an entire flock of bluebirds red from blushing and also led to her dashing the entire tea set against the fireplace, one satisfying piece at a time.
    It was while waiting for a new pot of tea, literally a new pot as the old one had been smashed to bits, to steep properly that the third and final reason for her anger was revealed. She had been sweeping up the fragments of her tantrum from the hearth when she found Charming’s note, standing on the mantelpiece and tucked discreetly behind a little ornament of a cheeky dwarf, or as the dwarves had called them when they gave her a set of these figures, “merchandising.” She read Charming’s brief letter and gave a cry of frustration and anger. From the tone of his writing, it appeared that Charming knew full well that Will was out of his senses, that his desire to hunt down the dragon was both ill considered and ill conceived, and yet he had still been fool enough to follow her mad little brother. This was the last straw. What was left of her self-­control broke.
    It was during the resulting invective-­laced tirade against her absent sibling and husband that Charming’s old squire, Tomas, arrived. She had just snatched up a particularly smug figurine of her dwarf friend/tormentor Grady and was going to hurl it against the wall when she saw the man, scruffy and misshapen as ever, staring at her through the open door of the cottage, with the biggest grin she had ever seen him wear stretched across his face.
    â€œDon’t mind me,” he said in his characteristic rasp. “I was just taking notes for the next time I need to talk to my local clergy.” He chuckled, a deep and throaty laugh, at his own joke.
    Liz had never been happier to be laughed at in her life. She put the statuette of Grady down, rushed across the room, and, throwing her arms around Tomas’s neck, began sobbing violently.
    â€œThere, there, Lady Charming, no need for all that,” he said while thumping her back solidly like he was trying to burp her.
    â€œBut . . . but . . .” she said gasping for air, “but Edward has left me.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,” Tomas said in a gentle growl. “He was never that smart, but he couldn’t be that much of a fool. I mean look at you . . .” He pulled her away from him and cast his eyes up and down. “You may have put on a ­couple of pounds, but your figure is still fine. I ask you, what more could a man need?”
    The cheekiness of this comment was shocking enough that it gave Liz a chance to gain the upper hand on her emotions. Clucking her tongue in indignation, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the tears from her eyes.
    Dignity somewhat restored, she said, “No, you old fool, he and my idiot brother have gone off to track down this dragon.”
    Tomas glowered at this news. “I was afraid of that. I told Alain as soon as the King gave us the slip that we should’ve come straight here, but he wanted to follow ‘procedure.’ Bah!”
    â€œSo you didn’t meet him . . .” she started to ask, but then stopped and exclaimed with wide-­eyed disbelief, “Wait, Alain has a ‘procedure’ for this? How often do you lose kings anyway?”
    Tomas went red in the face and muttered something about “affairs of state” and “complicated,” but quickly lapsed into silence under Liz’s glare.
    They stood a moment without speaking, both frowning, lost in whatever dark thoughts their minds had constructed. Liz recovered first. A sly gleam crept into her