Author(s): Christopher William Hill

Fiction (8 - 12 years)

When Bertold, a young pastry chef, escapes Emete Talbor's reign of terror in Schwartzgarten through the city's sewers, he is flushed out into the surging River Schwartz. Only by clinging to a floating wooden crate does Bertold avoid drowning. Swept many miles down river, Bertold washes ashore below the mountain castle of the exiled Prince Alberto. Anxious not to be arrested as a spy from Schwartzgarten, Bertold pretends that he has lost his memory - and so he is given the name Kalvitas (the name stamped on the wooden crate he still clutches in his hands). Bertold is taken into the palace, where he excels as a pastry chef in Prince Alberto's kitchens. But war hovers on the horizon, and when Prince Alberto is assassinated, he is succeeded by his battle-shy son, the hypochondriac Prince Eugene. When Emete Talbor declares war against Prince Eugene, Bertold is sent to the battlefields outside Schwartzgarten to set up a field canteen for the troops. In his efforts to protect Good Prince Eugene, Bertold is thrust into the very midst of battle. But when the heroic pastry chef is accused of spying by a double-crossing imperial ambassador, it seems that his dreams of liberating Schwartzgarten and finally returning home have been ruined.