I'm getting a lot of reading done lately. I've read Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and then The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Which was brilliant, by the way. Warrants a book review, soon). Like I wrote in my last post I got a bit into Diana Wynne-Jones before that, reading her Chrestomanci series, the first of which was Charmed Life which I then followed with the Lives of Christopher Chant. She is brilliant as a fantasy writer, especially when dabbling with magic. I could detect certain details that are parallel to some in the Harry Potter series, whose author, J.K. Rowling once shared that she was insipred by Diana's work. Below is a storylet, which I suppose falls into the category of fan fiction that is based on a scene in Charmed Life where the magical children bring some toy soldiers to life.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or story elements referenced to the works of Diana Wynne-Jones "Charmed Life" or any other book in the Chrestomanci series. This was made with no intention of copyright infringement or profit-making.
Brave-Hearted Soldier
Life as a tin soldier was, in a word, uneventful. Being inanimate played a huge role in that but living in Chrestomanci Castle never left them that way for long.
The battalion of soldiers was kept in a mahogany cupboard with ivy borders and panes of glass that puts its contents out for display. They were made of special metal, one that could never crack or break and were dressed with the softest of paints. Black paint covered the rounded tops that sat on their cream-colored heads. Their uniforms were red with dots of gold for the buttons and chains and a layer of navy blue formed the slacks. Brown and shined pewter shoes kept them upright and held in their meticulously crafted hands were a soldier’s badge of skill and courage — a miniature black rifle.
Though the soldiers were uniform in size and design, and cut from the same mould, there was one soldier that stood out from the rest. He was dropped in a fireplace, by its previous owner, and melted slightly by the remaining ambers of a fire extinguished. It only singed its right arm, leaving a frozen clump of sludge that ended abruptly by the elbow. It was a disadvantage on the battle field and frequently threw of its balance. It was perceived by its comrades as a disability, though it was something it had guessed from their expressions because even if they were granted the ability to fight and move, they could not speak.
But the soldier knew, deep inside that the stub of arm was also the one thing that made it different, made it unique.
It was that small fact that made the soldier think differently. And when Roger Chant once commented on another collective detail for the batch of toys — an engraved letter “B” on the right foot of every soldier — it got the idea that it needed an identity. A name to distinguish itself by, even though it could not share the name with anyone or hear itself addressed that way.
The tin soldier pondered for days on what that name should be, reflecting on who it was and who it wanted to be.
In the end it chose the name Braveheart.
* * * * *
Roger and Julia Chant, son and daughter of the great Chrestomanci came into the playroom often to send the soldiers into battle. Roger flung the cupboard doors open and scooped a handful of them and set them up into neat battle formations on the stained carpet of the playroom floor.
“Come on, Julia!” He throws an irritated glance at his sister who absent-mindedly fell onto one of the armchairs, her thoughts absorbed in a story, the prose pouring out of a book that floated in front of her eyes, pages turning of their own accord. “You said you wanted to play soldiers.”
Julia sets the book down on the arm of the chair and sighs heavily, muttering a weary “Alright, alright” as she pulls out a handkerchief from seemingly out of nowhere and starts tying the ends of it a knot.
One by one, the remaining tin soldiers in the cupboard started to blink and move their metal lips, stiffly at first but growing more fluid with every motion. Roger mimicked the action, using his own magic to make his soldiers come to life.
The soldiers face each other, once in their suited positions, rifles at the ready and poised to attack. Roger and Julia give each other a defiant look and after a wordless consensus, they simultaneously yell, “Charge!”
The little crafted people from metal take heed and the battle begins.
In one of Julia’s droves, placed on a low shelf of a bookcase and tasked with burden of firing matching tin cannons to provide support, a soldier that calls itself Braveheart pushes a cannon as best as it can with its one good arm.
Roger’s soldiers are quick and daring, charging headfirst into the line of fire and although some fall they take down many of Julia’s men beforehand, and a surprise attack from a battalion that snuck upon them from the right leaves Julia with little chance of victory.
Braveheart watches his fellow fighters fall from the sidelines and a part of him is itching to jump down and save them, plunge headfirst into the battle.
But Julia, the commander, pouts once she realizes she is losing against her brother and after tying another knot in her handkerchief, the hearts of the standing soldiers she has left start to fill with fear and they run away out of the danger, scrambling under the dusty cupboard.
“Hey!” Roger clambers to his feet, indignant. “That’s no fun, Julia! Don’t make them run away!”
Julia merely sticks his tongue out at him, unknots her handkerchief before sitting back on the armchair and returning to her book.
Just before the magic seeps out of the tin soldiers causing them to fall dead onto the carpet, Braveheart fleetingly wonders whether he has any bravery at all.
* * * * *
The news of new arrivals into Chrestomanci Castle reaches the ears of the soldiers one day, when Roger and Julia speak of them over a battle. “That Gwendolyn is an insolent pig!” Julia screams, the rage practically lighting her up in flames. “The way she flicked the marmalade all over my face, I very well lost my appetite!”
Roger who wasn’t paying much attention to their battle, seeing how his soldiers were winning so easily, reacts to the lost appetite comment with raised eyebrows, perfectly aware of how they both love marmalade, even though they weren’t allowed to eat it often. “Daddy seemed very upset about her tricks as well. I’m not sure what he’ll do if she keeps it up.”
“He better punish her,” Julia suggested sourly. “Can you imagine having her as a sister? That Eric boy seemed somewhat nice, a bit stand-offish but he follows her everywhere.”
Braveheart, who was manning the cannons in Julia’s army (for some strange reason he always ended up under her control), perked up at the mention of the boy. The Gwendolyn they referred to sounded like a horrendous person, and a little too old to play with tin soldiers. The boy however, was the children’s age and might just happen to find Braveheart in his army and give it the courage it so much desired.
So it was excitement that bubbled up inside its little tin body when the boy they called Eric but prefers to go by Cat, stumbles into the playroom a few days later. Roger and Julia turn to him, embarrassed and slightly guilty as they were caught in the act for using magic in the Castle unsupervised.
“You won’t mention this, will you?” said Julia and Braveheart is afraid the secrecy of the act might scare Cat away so it even more hopeful when Roger asks:
“Would you like to come and play too?”
The hopeful notion is shattered when a hasty “Oh, no thanks” comes as the reply.
But Braveheart bounces back quickly. Maybe he just needs to be patient. Maybe his courage needs to be earned.
* * * * *
It was raining that Saturday afternoon when Roger managed to convince Cat to come into the playroom. Julia was busy reading again, but was adamant this time that she wasn’t going to play soldiers. The tin men could actively think once the Chants were in the playroom, the mere residual magic that exuded from their beings enough to bring them slightly alive.
Braveheart was left on his side by the door and heard ever word between Roger and Cat.
“Julia won’t play soldiers,” he says to Cat when he bumps into him outside. “Will you?”
“But I can’t — not like you do.”
“It doesn’t matter. Honestly.”
When Roger said that he was simply being nice, but Cat’s inability to do any magic made a huge difference in the battle. Braveheart was on Cat’s army, which made it ecstatic at first but then disappointed since Cat could not make it move. Roger’s mobile soldiers overtook Cat’s easily, even though Cat was quick to manipulate the, by hand with the aid of the lid of the tin soldiers’ box.
In desperation Roger turned to his sister with a request. “Can you make Cat’s soldiers move for him?”
“I’m reading,” said Julia as sucks on a lollipop. “One of them’s got lost and they think he’s perished miserably.”
“Be a sport,” Roger tries to convince her then threatens to spoil the book for her if she doesn’t.
Julia retorts with a half-hearted threat of her own, but in the end concedes. Braveheart springs to life and scrambles to his feet as quickly as he can with his only arm but instantly recognizes the feeling in his veins when his legs start moving of their own accord, once the scales tip in Roger’s favor, and it along with the other soldiers turn around and flee.
“Julia’s soldiers always run away!” Roger exclaims in exasperation.
“Because that’s just what I would do,” the sister in question explains. “I can’t think why all soldiers don’t.”
Her remark sparks an angry thought in Braveheart’s mind. That’s because soldiers are supposed to be brave!
Braveheart cowers behind an armchair cushion with the rest of his fleet, while Roger’s own continues to fire with their rifles and slash at the air with bayonets, bringing down the tin men on the main carpeted battlefield. Roger tries to persuade Julia to make Cat’s army braver when Gwendolyn suddenly barges in search of her brother.
While this happens, a soldier is shot and falls to the ground near the cushion, close enough for Braveheart to rescue. But the fear that stems deep within his heart roots Braveheart to its hiding spot.
“I need him.” The soldier hears Gwendolyn demand for Cat.
Julia draws a luminous cross appears in the air with a knitting needle she had been using as bookmark and a stubborn Gwendolyn at the door finds that she cannot enter, and like a vampire unpermitted entry, she walks away. Perhaps it is the shift of magic in the air, or the shift of Julia’s focus but a weight lifts off of Braveheart’s shoulders and finds that he can move of his own volition. It can still feel the fear that lingers from Julia’s compulsion but sees the fallen comrade on the carpet and is driven into action.
The adrenaline pulses through it and Braveheart rushes over to the soldier and carries him to his feet, holding onto him with his left arm and places him down behind the cover of the cushion. The soldiers do not speak, not being given the ability so by their owners, but the wounded man communicates a heartfelt thanks with the look in its painted black eyes.
Even before Julia directs the needle from the cross to Cat’s soldiers and says “Carry on. I’ve filled their hearts with courage” the disabled tin soldier realizes that it has had it in its heart all along.
