Bagatelles

It seemed like a smart idea when the contract was being drawn up...

The goblin crept swiftly through the forest, in the direction of the castle. 'It is time!' he cackled, over and over. 'It is time, it is time!'

To look at his body – twisted, misshapen – you would think he must be a clumsy creature indeed, yet he moved forward rapidly and dexterously, and and with such stealth that he would soon have escaped the watch of even the most careful onlooker.

When he reached the clearing, the moon shone full down on him, and had anyone been there to see, the furious sneer on his ugly little face as he gazed upon the castle walls would have instilled a terror in them that left them quaking. It was a strange, inhuman expression. Was it rage, or was it glee? Or to a creature this horrid, were these two emotions perhaps one and the same?

'It is time!' he said.

How he gained egress to the castle need not concern us. Suffice it to say that walls, made as they are of stone and mortar, may be very effective against mere people, but there are some things that cannot be kept out. Fate is one, evil another, and on this night the goblin was the embodiment of both.

Inside the castle, there was the sound of a baby crying. The castle was huge and labyrinthine, and had it not been for this sound, perhaps the goblin would not have known where he should head. Perhaps he would have searched and searched and finally given up. Probably not, but perhaps...

The sound guided him as surely as a beacon, and within short moments he was within the queen's chamber.

The queen was sitting up in her chair though the hour was late. The child was sat on the floor screaming and beating a viol to bits with a rattle. Fragments of wood surrounded him on the floor.

The goblin watched the scene for a little while, and then said, softly: 'So this is what a human child looks like.'. The queen gave a little gasp and looked up. She had not noticed when this embodiment of malignity enter into her vicinity; people rarely do.

'Perhaps you thought I would not come. Perhaps you thought I had forgotten,' said the goblin. But then he looked closely at the queen's face – the candlelight was dim, but he could see well enough in the dark – and said: 'No. By tiredness in your face and the hollowness in your eyes, I see that you did not.'

'No,' said the queen. 'I have always known you would come. When I first gave birth, the king and the servants could not understand why I was so distressed to look upon his dear face. They did not know of the deal we had made. They did not know that you would come and take him away, and the fact that I alone knew what was to happen only added to the torment.'

'And you have been living with this torment for nigh on two years now,' said the goblin, and he did not try to disguise the pleasure which this thought gave him.

'The king rarely comes to my chamber these days,' lamented the queen. Even the servants seldom come. Most days from the dawn until the noontime, and up until the night falls, he is my only companion.'

'And I am here to take him away. He will be my companion, and he will live the rest of his days with me in my gloomy home underneath the forest, never seeing the sun.'

The boy, who could not have understood what was being said, nonetheless screamed and threw his rattle at the hideous figure by the door. The queen covered her face in her hands, for she did not wish the goblin to see the emotion that had quite overcome her.

The goblin opened his mouth to speak, but the child was screaming still, and he waited for it to finish. After a little while, it became apparent that the child was not going to stop, so when he spoke he had to raise his voice. 'Of course, you have one chance to prevent this,' he said.