Two Women and Some Books
#87: Christmas
Ah. Christmas the time of cheery carollers, sleigh bells, and happy families. Or, looking at it less romantically, the time of burnt dinners, family fights, and divorce.
That first Christmas together. That’s the one that sets the pattern for all the others. Do not go to his mother’s. Or yours. Ideally, see no one and do a lot of sex.
Given that that isn’t happening, here are a few ground rules.
1. Do not be cozened into buying them tins of mixed sweeties. There will be at least two thirds that nobody likes. You will be reduced to feeding them to the dog in August.
2. Booze. Do not buy eggy stuff. It looks like snot and it tastes like snot, and nobody will drink it. If granny likes a Snowball. Buy a couple of ready made ones in pouches. She will only go to sleep with her face in the sprouts if you give her proper booze.
3. The Turkey. You do not need something the size of a Shetland Pony to feed you, your husband, and granny. Small is beautiful. After all nobody really likes turkey anyway.
4. Cooking. There’s a lot of rot talked about Christmas dinner. Do plenty of roast potatoes and a ton of them little sausages wrapped in bacon, because that’s all anybody eats.
5 Most importantly. The Punch. It should be very strong. And to begin with it should taste nice. After The Queen’s Speech it pretty much stops mattering. By that time people will drink meths.
And that is the secret of Christmas in a nutshell (NB do not buy nuts somebody – usually your new husband’s cousin from Reading – will inevitably display the symptoms of anaphylactic shock if you do).
Granny’s Punch
1 litre brandy
1 litre vodka
1 bottle ginger wine
1 litre pineapple juice
1 litre ginger ale
1 net of baby oranges
1 large tin pineapple chunks
Loads of glacé cherries
Punch bowl/clean plastic bucket/WHY
Ice
Cut the oranges in halves, then throw everything in the punch bowl. Drink much of it yourself.
It was just about dusk on Christmas Eve when an army of cleaners, decorators and caterers moved out of the old farmhouse on the edge of Exmoor. They piled into their respective vans and headed home. As it turned out, they were not a moment too early. The nose of a silver Bentley poked its way onto the slightly rutted drive as the last white Ford Transit pulled out.
The woman in the passenger seat of the big car pulled a sour face.
‘I hope that was the last of them, they had strict instructions to be gone before we were due to arrive.’
Her companion patted her leg. ‘We are early, darling’ he said consolingly.
She shut her mouth with a snap, and anyone less infatuated might have seen a resemblance to a rat trap in the way her even white teeth closed together.
The Bentley rounded a bend in the drive and the occupants could see the long, low house. Every window was picked out with lights, a big tree in the front garden stood garlanded with sparkling icicles, and the smoking chimneys betokened traditional welcome. The driver held his breath for a second, before his passenger made a small sound of satisfaction rather like a pleased cat.
‘Oh yes’ she purred ‘it’s perfect isn’t it. Our American friends will be so impressed, won’t they?’
The man was bright enough to recognise a rhetorical question when he heard one, and contented himself with a covert study of her perfect profile.
As the car slid to a halt, the woman leapt out tripped up the steps, and put her hand on the big oak front door. She pushed it wide and walked into a massive flagstoned entrance hall. Inhaling deeply, she could smell cloves, cinnamon, ginger and the subtle scent of the evergreen garlands twined around the beams. She turned to face her husband as he came into the house.
‘Aren’t I a clever girl’ she gloated.
‘Oh. You are. Shall we look at the rest of the place?’
They wandered from room to room, admiring the decorations and the carefully prepared welcome. If the man swallowed uncomfortably when he saw his ex-wife’s treasured family heirlooms tastefully arranged on the huge Christmas tree, he said nothing.
As the house came without staff, the kitchen had to be visited – fortunately all was carefully arranged in readiness, even down to a punchbowl and glasses, which awaited the mulled wine sitting warming gently on the back of the Aga, and a folder of neatly typed instructions ensured that all would go without a hitch.
The man’s phone bleeped and his companion removed it from his pocket. She looked at the readout, and deleted the call with a flick of one perfectly manicured finger. He wondered briefly who he wasn’t to be allowed to speak to, but his young wife inhaled deeply and the creamy slopes of her breasts distracted his attention. He put a hand on her ass, and she smacked it away pettishly.
‘Not now….’ Her phone jingled festively and she looked at the screen.
‘Our guests have left Exeter. They will be here in just over an hour.’
She smiled, a smile of completely self-absorbed satisfaction, before turning her attention back to her spouse. He didn’t smile back, resentful that she had slapped away his questing hand. Catching on quickly, she patted his jowly and slightly pouting face before running the tip of a pink tongue over a pair of plump and glossy lips.
‘That gives us just enough time…’ she breathed.
Taking the end of his tie in one dainty hand, she led him towards the master bedroom: a fatuously smiling lamb to the slaughter.
By the time a luxurious minibus full of American visitors rolled up the drive it was full dark, and every window of the long low house blazed a welcome. The front door stood open, and the six occupants of the bus climbed out onto the centuries old cobbles.
One of the women spoke. ‘Gee, this is some place.’
‘Ain’t it just, honey.’
Their hostess came down the two worn steps to greet them.
‘Come in. Come in. We have mulled wine and mince pies to thaw you out.’
The Americans dropped their coats on an oak settle in the passage and followed their hostess’ undulating buttocks into a sitting room where a log fire blazed in an enormous inglenook fireplace and a sparkling Christmas tree reached to the ceiling.
‘Oh, isn’t this just quaint.’
The sound of wheels on flagstones announced the arrival of their host, pushing a trolley with a bowl of steaming mulled wine and a big dish of mince pies. When everyone was served, the men took station in front of the big log fire while the women poked around the room. The quartet stopped in front of the Christmas tree.
‘Gee. Those trimmings are real unusual.’
‘They are mostly Victorian, heirlooms in my husband’s family. We treasure them. The string of soldiers is handmade from wooden clothespins, the baubles are all hand-blown glass, the silver bird candle holders came from Asprey’s just before the turn of the century, and the angel has a porcelain head, and real feather wings.’
‘Isn’t that just lovely.’
As the women wandered back towards the fire, anyone who was bothering to notice might have seen that their host suddenly looked uncomfortable and shuffled his feet. But nobody looked, and nobody cared. A fat man in his middle fifties who actually marries the twenty-three-year-old ‘glamour model’ who has been warming his bed forfeits the right to be noticed – except as an object of derision.
An hour later hunger called, and the members of the house party were all bundled into coats and boots, and ready to tramp along the footpath leading to the village with its welcoming pub. Behind them the farmhouse remained ablaze with festive lights.
In the sitting room a gruff voice spoke from somewhere in the vicinity of the Christmas tree. It was one of the clothespin soldiers.
‘It ain’t right.’
‘What ain’t right?’ His left-hand neighbour asked.
‘Heirlooms in my husband’s family’ the voice was scornful. ‘Since when did we belong to that fat bastard or the overpainted tart?’
‘Since never.’
The soldiers grumbled amongst themselves for some time before they were interrupted by an ice-cold cut-glass voice from the apex of the tree.
‘This place displeases me. Why are we here?’
Nobody spoke for a while, then one of the silver birds found its voice. ‘We awoke once, to find ourselves lifted in the claws of that female. We thought she was about to dash us to the ground when another human spoke. It told her we were too valuable to destroy. Then it said if she wanted to cause hurt to our own lady she should keep us.’
There was another silence then a strangely echoing voice piped in.
‘Permission to speak ma’am?’
‘We do not know your voice. Who are you?’
‘We are the silver stars around your feet. We have seen this before. The fat male has repudiated your lady and taken the plastic one as his mate. In this world they call it a divorce.’
The angel hissed.
‘This is unsupportable.’
‘It is, ma’am’ the others spoke as one.
‘What are we prepared to do about it?’
‘Whatever it takes.’
‘Be silent then, and let me think.’
There was a pregnant silence, then the angel spoke again.
‘Are there candles in your claws, silver birds?’
‘Yes ma’am. There are.’
‘Very well. Wait.’
It was late, exceedingly late, when eight humans, in various states of inebriation, returned to the old house and rolled into bed. Nobody switched out the Christmas lights, and nobody bothered to put a guard around the blazing logs in the inglenook.
In a very short time the household was silent once more, except for a couple of very sonorous snores. Outside, the frost sparkled on the grass and the house lights blazed against the dark sky.
The cold cut-glass tones from the treetop spoke one word and the soldiers set to work.
Three hours later the frost still sparkled on the grass, but the lights that blazed against the sky now were the blue flashing lights on the roofs of fire engines.
A man in a yellow helmet shook his head sorrowfully.
‘No survivors?’
His colleague nodded.
‘None.’
Those with very sharp ears, and open minds, might have heard derisive laughter in crystal clear tones, high, wild bird song, and marching feet in perfect unison. But the firefighters were too busy to hear, and nobody else cared…
© jane jago 2016
I dream this night
Of snowflakes white
And frost that bites
I smell the smell
Of pine as well
Whereat I dwell
In my mind’s eye
The Christmas pie
Goes dancing by
I dream today
Of games to play
And words to say
Oh Christmas Muse
Whose shiny shoes
Give one the blues
I dream of thee
Incessantly
Along with Street of Quality.
Dear Reader Who Writes,
It is that time of year again when tinsel and fake snow are seen liberally strewn over windows and every house in the neighbourhood is illuminated by thousands of watts worth of multicoloured flashing bulbs. Giant inflatable Santas bend at the waist as they slowly prolapse onto the lawn and herds of plastic reindeer can be found grazing on every municipal greensward.
Ah yes, Christmas!
The time every writer remembers the magic as a child of seeing the Christmas tree lit up after hearing swearing coming from the front room for an hour. Or the apparently endless amounts of food on a groaning board, whilst relatives are sitting, groaning, bored and picking fights for the sake of it. Or the sound of carols through the shopping-mall loudspeakers being interrupted by non-sequitur advertisements and announcements. Or the excitement of unwrapping presents so quickly replaced by the despair as another Christmas jumper hand knitted by Great Aunt Tracey is revealed beneath the gaudy paper or a pair of thermal, odour-reducing socks in vibrant tartan from Mumsie.
This, dear RWW, is the very magic you need to ensure you capture on the tip of your quill and then spread in decorative loops and swirls of language to fill the pages of that essential for every aspiring author – the Seasonal Short.
To be honest, a wise beginner will start with the lesser festivals of the writing calendar. Maybe a little romantic flash fiction for Valentine’s, working through to a Halloween Horror so that by the time you reach the height of over-played, sentimentalism that is Christmas literature, you will have the technique somewhat practised.
But fear not, mes petites, even if you have not been preparing, even if you have never set pen to paper or finger to keyboard in a literary endeavour afore this moment, follow my three golden rules and you will be in with as much of a chance as the most famous author.
Do not stop at soppy and sentimental, instead toboggan through the more flaccid emotions and pitch straight into the point where Merry marries Melancholy and keeps up an affair on the side with Nostalgia.
This is Christmas. Your reader will be well sozzled, exhausted from family rows and trying to avoid the Queen’s speech. Their attention span will not be long. A novella is too long.
Use lots of words like ‘sparkle’, ‘glitter’, ‘glow,’ ‘luminescence’, ‘coruscation’, ‘shimmer’, ‘gleam’ and ‘twinkle’.
So there, in a Nutcracker Suite, dear Reader Who Writes, is my Christmas gift to you. Use it wisely and every future festive season will bring you joyous prosperity from your literary endeavours.
Happy Christmas.
Queen Ingonida having been in the arms of her ancestors for more than a year, parliament decided that the King’s Majesty needed a new wife. King Armand himself was less than keen, but, as his ministers held the purse strings, he found it politic to acquiesce.
Accordingly, proclamations were sent to all the surrounding kingdoms, which process resulted in a dozen offers of eligible brides. As was the custom, each candidate was represented by a portrait painted by her country’s foremost artist, and a letter written in the hand of the princess herself.
Once the portraits and letters had been gathered together, they were delivered to an apartment in the north tower of the palace and the King was summoned.
The Prime Minister spoke: “Your Majesty. There are twelve candidates for your hand. The choice is yours.”
The king stared at him.
“When we leave this room, you will read the letters and study the pictures. From that information you will make your decision. However, you will not leave this place until your decision is made.”
With that the members of the Royal Council turned on their heels and progressed with studied dignity out of the suite of rooms. The king picked up a small stool and hurled it at their departing backs, which at least served to dissipate their dignity. Then the door closed behind them.
The king opened the door by which his ministers had exited, to find himself faced by a couple of men at arms who shuffled their feet and looked a bit embarrassed.
“You are all right, lads” His Majesty said genially. “I’m not going to be awkward. I was just curious. And I could do with a snack. Bread, cheese and beer.”
“Ain’t there wine and stuff in there?”
“There is, but there’s no bread or cheese or beer.”
The brighter of the two guards grinned a gap-toothed grin.
“I’m on it.” And he scooted to the end of the corridor from whence he could be heard bawling for a servant in truly stentorian tones.
His Majesty grinned appreciatively and went to sit in front of the fire in the room with the twelve portraits. It wasn’t long before his snack arrived and as he munched he ruminated on the task before him.
“What do I do now?” he mused aloud.
“Well you could try talking to us.”
His head snapped around as if it was on a spring.
“Talk to who?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
The voice was female and sarcastic.
“Maybe he really don’t know…” another less angry woman.
“Ingonida” the first voice snarled.
King Armand was nothing if not quick on the uptake.
“Is that portraits talking?”
“Don’t play the innocent with us. You must have chosen your first wife in this room.”
He laughed sardonically. “You think I chose Ingonida?”
“Why not? She was beautiful and wealthy.”
“And cold and miserable” he said bitterly. “I’d have traded twenty Ingonidas for a plain face and a merry heart.”
“So why did you pick her portrait then?” The first voice was less angry now.
“I keep telling you I didn’t pick anything. I got up on the morning of my fourteenth birthday to be shoved in a white satin doublet and frogmarched to the cathedral. I was married before I even had my breakfast.”
“Oh. But why didn’t you get the Choice?”
“Think about it woman” it was the man’s turn to snarl. “The fourth son? The third spare heir? I was lucky to get hand-me-downs and my father could never bother to remember my name.”
A third female voice chimed in. “And that will teach you to jump to conclusions Araminta.” Then the tone of that voice changed from mild censure to genuine curiosity. “Did nobody explain the Choice to you my liege?”
“Nobody explained anything. I wasn’t supposed to be king. You can add it to the list of things I have had to make up as I went along.”
The first voice made a sound of disgust deep in her throat.
“Bloody Ingonida could have told you…”
“Bloody Ingonida never told me nothing in twenty years of marriage. So maybe one of you would be kind enough to explain.”
First voice actually sounded conciliatory.
“Very well. This is how it works. The portraits and the letters are brought to this apartment, which is only ever used for this purpose, and the ancient magic that resides within the walls links us to our portraits so that we can both see you and speak to you.”
“I don’t know that I like the sound of that. It seems to me as if you are being manipulated without your consent.”
“Oh we are. And as far as I know you are the first of your line to recognise that. Makes you a much more interesting human being. But we digress. It would be good if you cut the numbers down a bit, twelve egos over here is a bit crowded.”
“Okay. I’m thirty-four and I’ve been the young half of a lopsided marriage. I didn’t like it. So. Anybody under twenty?”
“Six of us are.”
“Who? And how do I go about cutting down the numbers?”
“If you decide a princess isn’t for you, just take her picture down from the wall. Those who are under twenty will show up red.”
“I see.”
He stood up and looked towards the portraits, six of which were now tinged with blush red. The first five left the wall gracefully and with almost a feeling of gratitude, but the last one adhered to his fingers.
“What lady?” he asked gently.
“I would stay longer if I may. I am close to my twentieth birthday and in all that time I have never heard a male gentleman of a royal household even consider the feelings of a woman.”
He thought for a moment then bowed his head.
“Very well lady. You shall have your wish. It ill behoves me to ignore your wishes if I am not to be as bad as all the other men you have known.”
“Thank you.”
“And then there were seven” the first voice purred.
“Behave Araminta” the third voice was gently chiding.
Armand laughed. “My next question is this. How many of you have a man you love, who you might even have been allowed to marry if this stupid contest for my hand hadn’t cropped up?”
Three pictures blushed red and he lifted them gently down from the wall.
“And now there are four. Would you mind introducing yourselves?”
He moved to stand in front of the first remaining portrait.
“My name is Araminta. I am twenty-five years old. On the shelf even.” She laughed a bit nervously. “I’m not usually this aggressive, and this is how I really look.”
The picture changed subtly, the girl was still pretty but her face was rounder and her figure less slender.
“Thank you.”
One by one the girls introduced themselves and the pictures changed to reflect the true appearance of the princesses. The last girl was the young one who had pleaded to keep her place, and her picture was the one that changed the most dramatically. The elf-slim beauty was replaced by a plain faced girl with broad hips and a quantity of mouse-brown curls.
“The picture” she explained softly “is my older sister, who is already promised to the crown prince of a neighbouring country. My father sought to cheat you. But I do have a merry heart.”
Armand was impressed by how she had taken on board what he said, but he felt it was too soon to single out one of the remaining quartet.
He carried on talking to the four, but time and again he found his eyes returning to the picture of the plain, dumpy girl with the engaging giggle.
In the end the other three grew quieter and quieter until the first voice spoke without a trace of its former abrasiveness.
“I have a feeling that three of us are wasting our time. Maybe you really do want a plain face and a merry heart. And I can vouch for the fact that Lyonette does have that merry heart, even living in a household where she is less regarded than the kitchen maid.”
Armand bowed his head, then removed three pictures from the wall leaving only the image of Lyonette de Bouchard.
“My lady, will you do me the honour?’
© jane Jago 2017
Cornelius slowed his six-legged stride as he entered the cavern. The soft moss lining the floor informed him that he had arrived. The praying mantis twisted his triangular head as he tried to find Clyde in the darkness. ‘Great Leader?’ he called out.
A shape moved at the far end. ‘Goleuadau!’ Clyde ordered. The glow-worms lining the roof responded. Cold blue light shimmered over the snail shark’s shell and glinted on his eyespots. He slithered from the raised platform and flowed up to the mantis.
Although they were nearly the same size, Cornelius still felt his antennae twist nervously. ‘Great Leader, sorry to disturb you and all. Did you eat well?’
The snail’s belly split open, revealing jaws lined with jagged teeth.
‘Birds good.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ If Clyde had a full stomach, he was less likely to snack on a thin insect. ‘Great Leader, some of the trainee soldiers have begged an audience. You know what they’re like, these younguns, as curious as a duck in a hen house. And there’s some lemmings too.’
‘Lemmings,’ Clyde repeated thoughtfully, a small trail of drool pooling at his foot.
Cornelius took a cautious step backwards. ‘These lemmings help to train your army, Great Leader. Please don’t eat them.’
Flashes of red and orange coloured the snail’s grey body. But aloud he said, ‘Okay.’
‘Will you be seeing them?’
‘Yes. Now.’
The mantis left the cave, and gave word to one of the guards. A few minutes later, a half dozen snail pups and an equal number of lemmings crowded into the corridor. As they swirled around Cornelius’ legs, he whispered, ‘Now, y’all remember that the Great Leader’s busier than a one legged cat in a sandbox. Three questions only, right?’
Clyde had returned to his raised platform when Cornelius guided the visitors into the cavern. Peaceful blues and greens pulsed through the snail, and Cornelius breathed more easily. ‘Your citizens, Great Leader. Who has the first question?’
A small snail shark, only six inches high, slid forwards. Colours swirled through her tentacles. Cornelius interpreted her question for the lemmings.
‘She’s asked, “How does the Great Leader spend his day?”’
Clyde reared up, and in a tenor voice sang, ‘“Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve; Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”’
‘Yes, Great Leader, there’s much work to be done all day long,’
Cornelius said quickly. ‘But perhaps you can tell the younguns what you did yesterday.’
Various colours surged through the Clyde’s body. Cornelius explained to the lemmings, ‘He started his morning with eating a couple of birds. Then he met with the General to discuss the army. In the afternoon, he visited the relics of the Eternal Leaders.’
‘Eternal Leaders,’ the lemmings repeated, their voices low and reverential.
‘Later that evening, he met with the guardians of the breeding pens. Egg production is up, but still no snail has hatched who could be a mate for the Great Leader. Only snails with spirals on the right.’
Browns and greys traced down the bodies of all the snails. The lemmings’ whiskers twitched in sympathy. ‘Lonely?’ asked one white furred rodent.
Clyde’s body shimmered with blue and purple as he sang, ‘“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.”’
Cornelius clicked his forelegs. Fortunately, none of the others present seemed to realise who this ‘Lord’ was. ‘The Great Leader is comforted by the love of his citizens,’ he said quickly. ‘Last question?’
A lemming rose onto his hind legs. ‘Favourite person?’
‘“Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?”’ Clyde paused, then added, ‘Penny.’ His body streamed colours so quickly that, despite the many months he had spent with the snail sharks, the praying mantis struggled to keep up.
‘He says that Penny White is his best friend,’ Cornelius said. ‘When the Great Leader’s mother, the Noble Leader, was killed in circumstances which we still don’t understand, Penny took him in. She gave him shelter, and a hunting ground, and has always defended him.’
‘Human?’ one of the snails managed to say.
‘Yes,’ Cornelius answered. ‘But from what I’ve seen, she’s as fine as a frog’s hair split four ways. Okay, questions done. Bow to the Eternal Leaders.’
Snails and lemmings lined up, then bent low to honour the images of flying snails which had been carved into the rock walls. As the group filed out, the mantis glanced back at the Great Leader. Clyde’s body was still rainbowed with a final message which Cornelius had not tried to translate.
There was no point. No one in the nation ruled by the Great Leader would understand the phrase, ‘I love her.’
Clyde is the creation of Chrys Cymri and features in all the Penny White Books to date. We meet him in The Temptation of Dragons, which is the first book in the series. He is the special star of the latest book in the series The Vengeance of Snails (Penny White Book 4).
‘You’ve gone barking mad. Positively, absolutely, barking mad.’
Morey stood on the small table in my study, glaring at the snail pup on the other side of the glass. This was the first he’d seen of the new addition to the household. After the last of the snail sharks had been rounded up, he’d stayed behind to confer with the other gryphons, and made his own way back to the vicarage. So, I’d been alone when I dropped into a pet shop to buy a terrarium.
‘Oh, really?’ I asked. ‘The pup looks quite happy.’
The snail zoomed across the compost, through the plastic tunnel, and then out again. He returned to look up at Morey, and waved tentacles in my direction. ‘Fy mam.’
‘No, she’s not,’ Morey said crossly. ‘Nid dy fam. Mae dy fam wedi—’
‘He’s staying with us,’ I cut in. I had the feeling that the gryphon was about to remind the pup that his mother was dead, and I was trying to avoid that guilt.
‘And what are you going to feed him?’ Morey flew to the top of the tank to bring our eyes level. ‘They don’t eat carrion. Do you want me to catch blue tits for him?’
‘I bought live crickets from the pet store.’ I pointed at the container resting next to the terrarium. ‘He seems to have liked them so far.’
‘So you’re going to let this cardotyn live with us for how long?’
‘I don’t know. And his name is Clyde.’
‘Clyde?’
I nodded. ‘I wanted to continue the Sherlock Holmes theme. Moriarty, meet Clyde. Clyde, meet Moriarty.’
The gryphon growled. ‘Watson, maybe. Or Hudson. Where does Clyde come from?’
I turned to point at the DVD shelf, which also enabled me to hide my smile. Never mind the reasons I’d brought the snail home, annoying Morey was proving to be an unexpected bonus. ‘Third shelf down. Elementary. It’s a modern take on Sherlock
Holmes.’
‘I can see that.’ Morey’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the contents. ‘Clyde is a tortoise.’
‘And this Clyde is a snail. But they both have shells.’
Despite my best efforts, a trickle of laughter had undercut my last sentence. There was a moment of silence. Then Morey asked, ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
Priest by day, writer at odd times of the day and night, Chrys Cymri lives with a small green parrot called Tilly because the upkeep for a dragon is beyond her current budget. Plus she's responsible for making good any flame damage to church property. She loves 'Doctor Who', landscape photography, single malt whisky, and her job, in no particular order. When she's not looking after a small parish church in the Midlands (England) she likes to go on far flung adventures to places like Peru, New Zealand, and North Korea. You can read about her travels here. You can find Chrys on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. Listen to her reading from her books on YouTube and sign up to her newsletter and receive a free eBook on her website.
An extract from 'The Silver Horn' by Ricardo Victoria. This story won first place in the Literary Creation Contest in the Fantasy Short Story category, sponsored by the IMJUVE and the Tolkienlindi Society, México in 2003. It is one of the stories in Tales from the Tower from Inklings Press.
During those times lost in the mists of the ancient legends of incongruent events, there was a folk tale about a journey of certain legendary status. Now, these kind of stories are a well-known set-up for inspirational tales about courage, friendship and heroism. But, those only work if the heroes portrayed are charismatic and ooze epicness with a single glance. Those kind of heroes were the shiny beacons of hope for despairing lands. And telling a story like that would be fine. Of those, there are plenty and they are more expensive and expansive.
But not this time, not in this case. While this is a story about a journey involving a mystic item (another cursory element in such tales), the heroes are hardly charismatic and far from being paragons of anything. The only shiny thing coming from them were their false, golden teeth. If you met any of them in a bright alley, you would run away. Because for every epic hero with good public relations, there is also a poorer, run-down version, equally worthy of praise, but not as marketable (so no movie deals for these folks, centuries later when their stories were rediscovered). Fraog was one these run-down folks on a mission. He had scruffy hair, languid features and a disproportionately tall height for a regular 18-year-old who wore tattered clothes and worn leather boots. His face was full of freckles and he had a few crooked teeth.
In fact, the only sign of having a quality beyond the rest of his peers was his bright green eyes that gave him an eerie, almost feylike visage during the nights. He had been living at the monastery since he was a newborn after his mother passed away in a cruel winter outside the nearby village, her origin or name unknown. He got his name from a dog-tag tied to his tiny hands (now hanging from his neck) that the monks suspected, were from his father, though the name wasn’t recognized in the region by anyone. It was almost as if he just appeared one day next to a dead body, like those old nursery rhymes that talked about lost princes. However, one thing was sure: Fraog wasn’t a lost prince, because he could sleep soundly, no matter how many peas were placed under his bed.
On his eighteenth birthday, instead of receiving a gift that marked his inclusion into the not-so-responsible adult world, he got a mission. He had been tasked by the Archpriest of the monastery where he was an inmate, as many orphan often were, to carry the neither-so-fabled nor well-known Silver Horn to That Place, located deep into the Humbagoos rainforest, before the next lunar eclipse.
Fraog was chosen because everybody in the monastery and the nearby village knew he wasn’t going to fail. And they were so sure because he was more stubborn than a mule with authority issues. That was the main reason behind the Archpriest’s decision to send Fraog… well, that and the barely mentioned fact that he was eating too much food, especially the abbot’s favorite chocolate dessert and needed an excuse to get rid of him, and while the mission was really important, the abbot was a lazy man that preferred to spend his time reading magazines instead of you know, carrying out the Archpriest’s mission.
In all honesty, Fraog didn’t have any remarkable magical ability and he was a lousy warrior to be fair. But his stubbornness reached level of mythic proportions, to the point that his own body refused to acknowledge any injury so it simply healed it as fast as it happened.
Fraog was surrounded by his own legends among his peers because of this. For example, the other orphans used to scare each other telling the tale of their older ‘brother’ who once grew back his left pinky finger that he cut off while practicing with a rusty sword as if he were a legendary warrior of the ancient times. In hindsight, his ability was certainly useful, since the road to the rainforest was plagued with dangers, wastelands, evil towns of inbred mutants, cannibal deli restaurants and every single non-touristic spot any travel guide worth travel writer would actually go there and verify the entry cost to the local attractions).
Other than that, Fraog was a simple boy with simple dreams: travel around, meet a lovely girl of the sorcerous kind, have a lot of sex and a couple of kids and a castle, you know, the whole Grenadian Dream often dreamt by boys in monasteries.
Fraog had been traveling for several weeks now, as he lost his transport early on when he traded his donkey for a bag of magical potatoes that had the properties of always pointing to the place you didn’t want to go in first place and of looking like the faces of a popular folk band of itinerant bards. Not very useful indeed, but Fraog, although a good person, was as naïve as they come and the donkey ended in the hands of a poor married couple that were trying to get to some old farm where the wife would give birth to a legendary once and future king as prophesized. But that is other story and you paid only for this one.
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#847: Planning Christmas Dinner
Menu:
Prawn cocktail
Roast turkey, sausagemeat and apricot stuffing, chestnut stuffing, sage and onion stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, roast parsnips, mashed swede, Vichy carrots, braised red cabbage, ratatouille, leeks au gratin, cauliflower cheese, Brussels sprouts with bacon and walnuts, peas, gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, apple and orange sauce.
Christmas pudding with brandy butter, custard and clotted cream
I would be willing to wager a good portion of my pension that this approximates what at least some of you young things think you need to provide.
Well I’m here to tell you it’s unnecessary.
Simplify.
One: You. Do. Not. Need. A. Starter. Half of your guests will be too pissed to handle anything delicate, and none of them need their appetites blunting. We don’t want to be eating turkey until Valentine’s Day.
Two: Only serve what people will eat. Thus. Small helpings of turkey (breast meat only), a good handful of roast potatoes, twelve peas, as many pigs in blankets as will fit on the rest of the plate. Some gravy. The only exception to this being if you have guests from the colonies who will eat mashed potatoes.
Three: Nobody. Eats. Christmas. Pudding. Give them vanilla ice cream with a generous dollop of dried fruit you have soaked overnight in rum.
This will push even those who are not quite pissed yet over the edge and with only average luck they will fall asleep at the table, leaving the prosecco and mint chocs for you.
Result
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