The Brave Apprentice Read Free Page A

these bloody horses, you worthless toad!”
    At last the entire party had dismounted and disappeared into the inn, practically shoved by Bernard, leaving the horses and the wagon to the hapless stable boy.
    The tailor and his apprentice went back into the warmth of the shop, shaking their heads and chuckling. Patch tried to return to his work but found himself wandering to the window again and again to look down the road toward the inn.
    “Master, do you suppose …”
    “Oh, go on, Patch, find out what’s going on over there. And see if any of them needs a little tailoring while you’re at it, eh? A torn sleeve, a frayed cuff, a missing button …”
    Patch got up to run, but John had one more thing to say. “Patch—just a bit of advice before you go. You might wantto keep quiet. I know you, you’re never shy about speaking up, but you haven’t been around these noble types much. They like us common folk to know our place.”
    Patch grinned, tapped a finger against his lips, and dashed outside.
    Seconds later he arrived at the inn. Even as he opened the door and stepped inside, he could hear Bernard’s voice, unhappy and blustering. “But Lord Addison, you can’t take them. I mean of course you
can,
a noble gent like yourself can do whatever he wants. But it simply isn’t fair! A man has a right to his livelihood, don’t he now?”
    Patch stepped into a dark corner by the door, watching. Inside the inn, in the big room full of long tables where meals and ale were served, the tall man was speaking to Bernard.
    “I would hope,” Lord Addison said evenly, “that for the good of the kingdom you would gladly part with these bones. But whether you would part with them happily or unhappily is beside the point.”
    At these words Bernard’s shoulders drooped and he hung his shaggy head.
    “However,” Addison said, producing a small pouch from his pocket, “a certain compensation might be appropriate, were you to have the remains loaded onto our cart by sunrise.”
    Bernard dropped to one knee and held his hands out to accept the pouch. “Thank you, your lordship!” He smiled crookedly at Addison through his bushy beard.Patch noticed his fingers greedily working the pouch, trying to guess how many coins might be nestled inside. “I thank you kindly. It was my honor and duty to help rid the kingdom of this scourge.”
    Addison put one leg up to rest on a bench. “Indeed? Did you slay the creature? We were told by many people that a young tailor struck it down by himself, with only a shepherd’s staff for a weapon.”
    Bernard’s knees popped and crackled as he got to his feet. “Well, your lordship, Patch, that’s the little tailor’s name—an apprentice, actually, not a real tailor—he
was
on the bridge when the troll lost its balance and stumbled into the river. But it was me who hauled the troll out with a team of horses and hacked it to pieces before the beast could come back to its senses. Why, with one blow of my axe …”
    Patch, standing in the shadows, gasped so loudly at this lie that one of Addison’s men, a younger knight with a pleasant, handsome face, turned to see who was there. “Hello, boy. When did you sneak in?”
    Bernard’s eyes widened in a sudden flash of panic when he spotted Patch, and he began to babble. “Why here’s the little apprentice now, my good sirs! Of course, when I said the troll lost its balance, I meant that Patch here
caused
it to lose its balance, because as you so wisely pointed out, he did strike the troll with a shepherd’s crook—the blind troll, did I mention that the troll was blind? Fell right off the bridge, the sightless oaf. But in away, I suppose Patch did—” Bernard stopped talking abruptly as Addison held up a gloved hand.
    Another of Addison’s knights, a burly man with a sprawling black beard, stepped forward for a closer look at Patch. “Him? This little pup killed the troll? Slew the beast in that box? I find that hard to