The day was glorious, and the two seven-year-old boys used some of their rare free time to explore the woods outside Chateau de Saint-Germain en Laye, one of the numerous summer castles of the French king, Louis XIII.
Pierre Tonnelier and his best friend, Guy Bagot, spent their precious two free hours playacting as cavaliers, rescuing fair damsels, and slaying dragons with their sticks turned into righteous swords. Their laughter and high jinx could be heard through the trees from quite a distance.
Pierre was running back toward the village with Guy in hot pursuit when he simply disappeared from sight. Guy stopped just in time to prevent himself from falling into the same hole Pierre had stumbled into.
Pierre dropped like a stone through the branches and layers of leaves that had covered and partially filled the hole. Luckily, those same branches and leaves broke his fall, preventing him from seriously injuring himself.
Guy fell to his knees beside the hole in a panic, certain that his best friend was dead. He shuddered at the thought of having to tell Pierre’s father that Pierre was lying at the bottom of a giant hole full of fierce beasts and snakes.
Pierre groaned as he rolled over on his stomach to push himself up. Guy screamed his name at the top of his lungs from above. “Mon dieu! Pierre, Pierre, is ye dead?”
“Non, I am not dead,” Pierre assured his friend as he brushed off dirt and leaves and pulled sticky cobwebs out of his thick, jet-black hair. He would have to take out his ponytail to remove them all. The boy looked up.
“Zut alors! Guy, do not just stand there, find a branch or something to help me out!”
Guy ran back to the tree line searching for a long enough, strong enough branch to push into the hole for Pierre to grab ahold of.
While he waited for Guy to return, Pierre explored his temporary prison. The thin peasant lad pulled vines and roots away from the recesses of the fissure to find four perfectly-formed rectangles cut into the sides of the hole in which he was currently trapped. Two were on top, and two beneath, and each space was long enough and deep enough for an adult to lie in comfortably. They nearly looked like places to sleep, or very deep shelves. Pierre was contemplating their use when a rather large branch came crashing into the hole just behind him, narrowly missing his head.
“Guy! What are ye trying to do, help me or kill me?”
“Sorry, I lost me grip. Can ye climb it?”
Pierre sighed and grabbed the lower branches to begin his climb. He had made three or four rungs when something caught his eye in the upper opening. He climbed back down again to see what it was.
Guy was not happy. “What did ye git off for? I’m trying to rescue ye and ye ain’t helping much!”
“Oh, be quiet,” Pierre admonished Guy as he piled up branches to stand on so he could see into the long rectangle. He reached in and grabbed the item before falling back into the hole again.
The young boy turned the object around in his hands a couple of times to examine it closely. It was slightly curved, about the size of a man’s full palm, but rectangular in shape. It had dainty chains about ten inches long attached to two corners. What could it be? he wondered.
Guy’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Come on Pierre, we are late already and ye needn’t be dawdling in that hole!”
Pierre sighed and shoved the object in his waistband. Guy was right. His father would not be pleased that he was returning home so late. André Tonnelier was the village cooper, and Pierre was his only child and sole apprentice. There was work to be done, and his father only allowed Pierre a couple of hours away from the shop on Sundays. Guy’s father and mother, Gustave and Violette, owned the shop next door to the cooperage, and made cheese for the village and chateau.
Right now all he had on his mind was climbing out of this dirty hole. He scampered up the branch, and then he and Guy ran home as fast as their young legs could carry them. While running, Pierre brushed as much of the dirt off of him as possible, but he was certain his father would still make him take a bath. Pierre hated baths.
After the evening meal of bread, cheese, and a vegetable stew, Guy and Pierre took the mysterious object Pierre had found to the river and washed it thoroughly. Neither of them had ever seen anything like it. It was silver in color but not as heavy as the silver money they had seen. The workmanship was finer than anything the craftsmen in the village could produce, the metal thin but very strong. It had beautiful scrollwork etched on the front. Neither of the boys could read, so the writing on it remained a mystery.
In the middle of the elaborate metal plate was a jewel of some sort. It was large and oval, about the size of a small egg. The stone almost seemed magical, for it appeared to float in a hole in the metal plate. Try as they might, the boys could not find anything that connected the stone to the rest of the object. But when they touched it, the stone spun freely inside the hole.
The stone’s color was also unusual. Depending on how it caught the light, it appeared green, blue, pink, or white. The center had a smoky quality to it, which almost seemed to move.
All in all, it was the most interesting thing either boy had ever seen. They finally concluded that it must be a woman’s necklace, even though it was rather bulky. It would cover a good portion of her chest just below her neck and above her cleavage, but they could not figure out any other use for it.
“What are ye gonna do with it, Pierre?” asked Guy, running his fingers through his wavy, brown hair.
“Keep it a secret.”
“Mon dieu! Why? I betcha it’s worth a lot of money. This could make ye very rich.” Guy was already dreaming of the possibilities. He and Pierre could travel and be somebodies in the world instead of being stuck in the village outside Chateau de Saint-Germain en Laye forever. Guy did not want to spend the rest of his life slaving away as a cheese maker. It would be much more exciting being a squire or even a knight on a quest to the Holy Land.
“Something tells me I may need it for something important someday,” Pierre replied solemnly. “So ye need to swear ye will never tell another living soul about it. Swear?”
Guy reluctantly promised. He knew Pierre was right; seven years old was a mite young for adventure, so saving the necklace for when they were old enough to leave the village was probably a smart idea.
The boys went to sleep that night dreaming of the adventures the necklace would someday buy.
Shield of the Palidine Description:
What happens when you throw a spoiled French princess and a stinky peasant boy into the world of Greek Mythology? Chaos, intrigue, adventure, and love.
Shield of the Palidine:
A NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE® BOOK AWARDS FINALIST 2015
A READER’S FAVORITE® 2015 AWARDS FINALIST
Accidently discovering a portal between Earth and Amorgos, Pierre and Elise find themselves surrounded by frightful creatures from beyond their imagination.
Princess Elise d’Orleans, niece to King Louis XIII, is a spoiled brat used to having everyone cater to her every need. She hates Amorgos, hates the races of people populating Amorgos, and hates the fact that everyone believes she is their Redeemer, the One to free them from enslavement of their common enemy, the Asmodai. But most of all, she hates the fact that the only other human in Amorgos is a stinky peasant that doesn’t kowtow to her every whim.
Pierre Tonnelier, the village’s journeyman cooper, found an extraordinary necklace in the woods outside Chateau de Saint-Germain en Laye, a castle in the French countryside. He is forced to sell this unusual piece to pay off his father’s debts. What he didn’t contend with was it taking him on a strange journey with an egotistical royal pain in the derriere.
Shield of the Palidine chronicles the journey of Elise to the true Redeemer, of Pierre to a warrior of immense abilities, and their unbridled love, despite all the tensions of class, bigotry, and intolerance.
