Chapter 1: Toll Policy

Grubb the troll lived beneath Stonebridge, and he was, by every account, the worst troll in the kingdom.

Trolls were supposed to demand gold. Or sheep, or firstborn children, or at the very least a riddle answered correctly. Grubb charged one smile per traveler. If someone grumbled, he waived the fee entirely and offered them a biscuit.

"This is why we are poor," said his wife, Mildred, sweeping the damp stone floor of their bridge-house. "The Hargrove clan up the river has a gold-plated toll booth."

"The Hargroves are rude," said Grubb mildly.

"They are rich!"

Grubb sighed. He loved his job. He loved the peddlers with their creaking carts, the nervous brides on their way to weddings, the old pilgrims who stopped to tell him about the weather. He could not bring himself to frighten any of them.

One drizzly morning, the ground began to tremble. Over the hill rolled an army: a hundred soldiers, three siege engines, and a king in a golden carriage, all heading for the border.

"Halt!" Grubb called, stepping onto the bridge with his usual dignity. "The toll is one smile each."

The king's captain laughed. "Out of the way, troll. We are at war."

"Then I will need two smiles," said Grubb. "The bridge is old, and I should like to know you are happy to cross it."

The soldiers looked at one another. Someone snickered. Someone else stifled a grin. Within a minute, the entire army was giggling helplessly, and the king, red-faced and furious, stood up in his carriage to demand order.

"I have not smiled in thirty years," he snapped.

"Then it is a long overdue payment," said Grubb, and handed him a biscuit.

The king glared. He took a bite. A faint, astonished curl appeared at the corner of his mouth, and the army cheered so loudly that a flock of crows fled from the pines.

The war, as it turned out, was over a misunderstanding about a goat. By nightfall the king and his enemy had sat down to tea in Grubb's tiny kitchen, and Mildred, scarlet with embarrassment, was serving cake.

By autumn, Stonebridge had become the most famous peace-making spot in the realm. Travelers paid in gold, in jewels, in grateful gifts.

Grubb, of course, still charged only a smile, and Mildred pretended not to mind.