After...

Whatever happened to...

Gringe, the Gatekeeper

Gringe remained the North Gate Gatekeeper throughout all the upheavals at the Castle. Although he would rather have jumped into a vat of boiling oil than admit it, Gringe loved his job, and it gave his family a secure home in the gatehouse after many years of living rough under the Castle walls. The day that Marcia had given him a half crown turned out to be an important day for Gringe. That day, for the first and only time ever, Gringe kept some of the bridge money - Marcia's half crown, to be exact. There was something about the thick, solid silver disk lying warm and heavy in the palm of his hand that made Gringe reluctant to put it into the toll box. So he slipped it into his pocket, telling himself he would add it to the day's takings that night. But Gringe could not bring himself to part with the half crown. And so the half crown sat in his pocket for many months until Gringe began to consider it his own.

And there the half crown would have stayed had it not been for a notice Gringe found nailed up on the North Gate one cold morning almost a year later:

YOUNG ARMY CONSCRIPTION EDICT

ALL BOYS AGED ELEVEN TO SIXTEEN

YEARS WHO ARE NOT APPRENTICED TO

A RECOGNIZED TRADE ARE TO REPORT

TO THE YOUNG ARMY BARRACKS

AT 0600 HOURS TOMORROW

Gringe felt sick. His son, Rupert, had celebrated his eleventh birthday the previous day. Mrs. Gringe was hysterical when she saw the notice. Gringe felt hysterical too, but when he saw Rupert, white-faced, reading the notice, he decided he had to stay calm. He shoved his hands in his pockets and thought. And when, out of habit, his hand closed around Marcia's half crown, Gringe knew he had the answer.

As soon as the boatyard was open that morning, they had a new apprentice: Rupert Gringe, whose father had just secured a seven-year apprenticeship with Jannit Maarten, a herring-boat builder, for the substantial down payment of a half crown.

The Matron Midwife

After the Matron Midwife was arrested, she was taken to the Castle Asylum for Deluded and Distressed Persons due to her distraught state of mind and preoccupation with baby-snatching, which was not considered to be a healthy preoccupation for a Midwife to have. After spending a few years there she was allowed to leave because the Asylum was becoming overcrowded. There had been a huge increase in deluded and distressed people since the Supreme Custodian had taken over the Castle, and the Matron Midwife was now neither deluded nor distressed enough to merit a place. And so Agnes Meredith, former Matron Midwife, now unemployed bag lady, packed her many bags and set off to search for her lost son, Merrin.

The Night Servant

The Supreme Custodian's Night Servant was thrown into a dungeon after dropping the Crown and adding another dent to it. He was released a week later by mistake and went to work in the Palace kitchens as an undercook peeling potatoes, which he was good at, and soon progressed to be chief potato-peeler. He enjoyed his job. No one minded if he dropped a potato.

Judge Alice Nettles

Alice Nettles first met Alther Mella when she was a trainee advocate at the Castle Court. Alther had yet to become DomDaniel's Apprentice, but Alice could tell that Alther was special. Even after Alther became the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and was much talked about as "that awful Apprentice who pushed his Master from the Tower," Alice kept seeing him. She knew that Alther was incapable of killing anything, even an irritating ant. Shortly after Alther became ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Alice achieved her ambition of becoming a judge. Soon their separate careers began to keep Alther and Alice increasingly busy, and they never saw as much of each other as they would have liked to, something that Alice always regretted.

It was a terrible double blow to Alice when, in the space of a few days, the Custodians not only killed the dearest friend she had ever had but also took away her life's work when they banned women from the Courthouse. Alice left the Castle and went to stay with her brother in the Port. After some time she recovered enough from Alther's death to take a job as legal advisor to the Customs House.

It was after a long day dealing with a tricky problem involving a smuggled camel and a traveling circus that Alice repaired to the Blue Anchor Tavern before she returned to her brother's house. It was there, to her delight, that she finally met the ghost of Alther Mella.

The Assassin

The Assassin suffered complete memory loss after being hit by Marcia's Thunderflash. She was also quite badly burned. When the Hunter had collected the pistol from the Assassin, he had left her lying where he found her, unconscious on Marcia's carpet. DomDaniel had had her thrown out into the snow, but she was found by the night street sweepers and taken to the Nuns' Hospice. She eventually recovered and stayed on at the Hospice, working as a helper. Luckily for her, her memory never returned.

Linda Lane

Linda Lane was given a new identity and moved into some luxurious rooms overlooking the river to reward her for finding the Princess. However, some months later she was recognized by the family of one of her previous victims, and late one night as she sat on her balcony with a glass of her favorite wine supplied by the Supreme Custodian, Linda Lane was pushed off and fell into the fast-flowing river. She was never found.

The Youngest Kitchen Maid

After the youngest Kitchen Maid started having nightmares about wolves, her sleep became so badly disturbed that she often fell asleep at work. One day she dozed off while she was meant to be turning the spit and a whole sheep went up in flames; it was only the prompt action of the chief potato-peeler that saved her from the same fate as the sheep. The youngest Kitchen Maid was demoted to assistant potato-peeler, but three weeks later she ran away with the chief potato-peeler to start a better life in the Port.

The Five Northern Traders

After their hurried exit from Sally Mullin's Tea and Ale House, the five Northern Traders spent the night on their ship, stowing away their wares and preparing to leave on the early morning high tide. They had been caught up in unpleasant changes of government before and had no wish to stay around and see what happened this time. In the Traders' experience it was always a nasty business. As they sailed past the smoldering remains of Sally Mullin's Tea and Ale House the next morning, they knew they were right. But they gave little thought to Sally as they set off down the river, planning their voyage south to escape the Big Freeze and looking forward to the warmer climes of the Far Countries. The Northern Traders had seen it all before, and did not doubt they would see it all again.

The Washing-Up Boy

The Washing-up Boy employed by Sally Mullin was convinced that it was his fault the Tea and Ale House burned down. He was sure he must have left the tea towels drying too close to the fire just as he had done before. But he was not one to let these things trouble him for long. The Washing-Up Boy believed that every setback was an opportunity in disguise. And so he built a small hut on wheels and every day he trundled it down to the Custodian Guard barracks and sold meat pies and sausages to the Guards. The contents of his pies and sausages varied and depended on what the Washing-Up Boy could get hold of, but he worked hard, making the pies late into the night, and did a brisk trade all day. If people began to notice that their cats and dogs were disappearing at an alarming rate, no one thought to link it with the sudden appearance of the Washing-Up Boy's meat pie hut. And, when the ranks of the Custodian Guards were devastated by food poisoning, it was the barracks' Canteen Cook who was blamed. The Washing-Up Boy prospered and never, ever, ate one of his own meat pies or sausages.

Rupert Gringe

Rupert Gringe was the best apprentice Jannit Maarten had ever had. Jannit built shallow-draught herring boats, which could fish the waters near the shore and trap the shoals of herring by running them up against the sand banks just outside the Port. Any herring fisherman in possession of a Jannit Maarten boat was sure of a good living, and it soon became known that if Rupert Gringe had worked on the boat, you were lucky - the boat would sit well in the water and run fast with the wind. Jannit recognized talent when she saw it, and she soon trusted Rupert to work on his own. The first boat Rupert built entirely by himself was Muriel. He painted her a dark green like the depths of the river and gave her deep red sails like the late summer sunsets over the sea.

Lucy Gringe

Lucy Gringe had met Simon Heap at a dance class for young ladies and gentlemen when they were both fourteen. Mrs. Gringe had sent Lucy along to keep her out of trouble for the summer. (Simon had gone to the class by mistake. Silas, who had some trouble with reading and often got his letters mixed up, had thought it was a Trance class and had made the mistake of mentioning it to Sarah one evening. Simon overheard, and after much pestering, Silas had enrolled him in the class.)

Lucy loved the way Simon was determined to be the best dancer in the class, just as Simon was always determined to be the best at everything. And she liked his green Wizard eyes and his curly blond hair too. Simon had no idea why he liked a girl all of a sudden, but for some reason he found he could not stop thinking about Lucy. Lucy and Simon continued to see each other whenever they could, but kept their meetings secret. They knew neither of their families would approve.

The day Lucy ran away to get married to Simon Heap was the best and worst day of her life. It was the best day right up until the Guards burst into the Chapel and took him away. After that Lucy didn't care what happened to her. Gringe came and took her home. He locked her up at the top of the gatehouse tower to stop her running away and begged her to forget about Simon Heap. Lucy refused and would not speak to her father at all. Gringe was heartbroken. He had only done what he thought best for his daughter.

Jenna's Shield Bug

When the ex-millipede fell off DomDaniel it bounced and ended up on top of a barrel. The barrel was washed overboard as the Vengeance was pulled down into the Quake Ooze. It floated off to the Port where it fetched up on the town beach. The Shield Bug dried out its wings and flew off to a nearby field where a traveling circus had just arrived. For some reason it took a particular dislike to an inoffensive buffoon, and it caused great amusement to the audience every night as the bug chased the buffoon around the ring.

The Swimmers and the Chicken Boat

The two swimmers who were thrown from the Vengeance were lucky to survive. Jake and Barry Parfitt, whose mother had insisted on teaching them to swim before they became seafarers, were not particularly strong swimmers, and it was all they could do to keep their heads above water as the Storm raged around them. They were beginning to give up hope when Barry saw a fishing boat coming toward them. Although there appeared to be no one on board the fishing boat, there was an unusual gangplank hanging down from the deck. With their last ounce of strength Jake and Barry pulled themselves up onto the gangplank and collapsed onto the deck, where they found themselves surrounded by chickens. But they didn't care what they were surrounded by as long as it wasn't water. When the waters eventually ebbed from the Marram Marshes, Jake, Barry and the chickens came to rest on one of the marsh islands. They decided to stay put, out of the way of DomDaniel, and soon there was a thriving chicken farm some miles away from DraggenIsland.

The Message Rat

Stanley was eventually rescued from his prison under the floorboards of the Ladies' Washroom by one of the old Rat Office rats who had heard what had happened to him. He spent some time recovering at the rat's nest at the top of the East Gate gatehouse tower, where Lucy Gringe took to feeding him biscuits and confiding her troubles to him. In Stanley's opinion, Lucy Gringe had had a lucky escape. If anyone had ever asked Stanley, he would have told them that Wizards in general, and Wizards called Heap in particular, were nothing but trouble. But no one ever did ask.

The End