Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  Madog covered his face with a whimper and toppled into the straw.

  “So when shall we commence this entertainment, Mother?”

  “Why, it's your call dear.”

  ***

  Demonica's keep had two great towers at opposite ends of the front wall of the castle proper. One of them housed Razzorbauch's great library. The other one served as her private lookout over the vast Orin Ocean to the far off horizons in three directions. In good weather she was fond of having supper on its uppermost storey under a tile roof held aloft by open Gothic arches on all sides. On this particular evening, she and Ugleeuh sat across from each other in their crimson dresses, listening to the booming of the surf as the breeze ran ripples along the skirt of their linen tablecloth. She forked two more steaming slices of duck roast onto her plate of sour cabbage from the duck's cavity and looked up at Ugleeuh. “Is something the matter, dear?” she said as she licked her fingertips.

  “How do you eat like that after...?” said Ugleeuh, waving aside her own comment with a shake of her head. “Oh, never mind.”

  “You don't find that a good torture session increases your appetite?”

  “Well, Minuet and Bethan were the one who always dressed the chickens...”

  Well. You do look right peaked, now that you call my attention to it, dear. Do Minuet and Bethan lose their appetites for chicken on the days they cut up fryers?”

  “Well no...”

  “Of course not. They've learnt that what's in the skillet is important enough that gory feathers are of no consequence at all. And the blood on a torture table doesn't matter, either. What counts is that heady sense of power. Madog was on his way to see to your undoing. Now Leeuh, surely you're not about to tell me that the mess in the dungeon overshadowed the orchestration of his deserving end, are you?”

  “No Mother,” she said with an especially pale swallow. “I rather enjoyed myself. It's quite something how long he lasted...”

  “And that's the entertaining part,” she said with a happy wave of her knife. “What good would it be if he died first thing?”

  “I did enjoy myself, Mother,” she said as she picked up her bread to butter. “Could you pass the duck? I'd like some cabbage and some more bird.”

  “Splendid,” she said, picking up the platter. “I believe your appetite is better already.”

  “Oh it is. And I did have fun. But what does torture have to do with sorcery?”

  “Oh, not so much with sorcery as it has to do with power. One must enjoy power in order to wield it.”

  “So now that we're relaxed and powerful, when will you teach me to be a sorceress?”

  “Well sorcery does include power,” said Demonica as she spread some cabbage onto her bread. “But no more today, dear. Let's just talk and get to know each other.”

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, what did Princess Branwen do to make you go to all that trouble to get rid of her?”

  Ugleeuh laughed, rocking back and forth to swallow. “Not a thing,” she said. “She was just in the way.”

  “Of what?”

  “She was betrothed to Prince Hebraun.”

  “So?”

  “So I've my own plans for Hebraun, if you must,” said Ugleeuh with a sullen toss of her raven mane.

  “Why you look vexed. I'm only curious about you.”

  “Yea? Well it would be easier to take, had you any curiosity about me while I was growing up,” she said, glaring as she wiped her mouth. “So here you be after skipping my life entirely up to now, pushing at me for a cozy little chat. My appetite's gone. I'm going to bed.” And with that, she threw her napkin onto her plate and stood up.

  “Touchy, are we?” said Demonica as Ugleeuh reached the stairs.

  Ugleeuh slowed as her back stiffened, taking the first step down.

  ***

  The receiving room in Demonica's keep looked like a throne room belonging to any royal sovereign. It was as cavernous as any great hall in a castle. It even had an elevated dais with a carpeted runner which ran from the arched doorway to the feet of a great chair sitting before the banners cascading down the far wall. What was unusual was that everything in the room was snow white: the carpet, the walls, the trusses overhead, all of the furniture and the banners, and the cat. Only the runner and the drapes and the cushions on the chairs were deep scarlet, as was her kirtle on most days.

  Today, Demonica was dressed in black as she paced about in front of Ugleeuh, who sat sullenly on a stool in the middle of the room, listening to the cold rain streaking the leaded purple glass windows. “I hate to be blunt, dear,” she said, abruptly planting her feet, “but your mind is wandering. If you're to master any of this, you'll simply have to pay attention.”

  Across the room, a log in one of the fireplaces gave an echoing pop. “Yea?” said Ugleeuh, looking up. “Well you'll have to keep my interest. I've been here a month and we just do the same stupid things over and over.”

  “You hadn't the faintest idea how to cast an illusion or glamour when you came...”

  “Big deal, mother. I want to turn people into bugs or rocks with a wave of my hand.”

  “That is indeed where we're going with this, dear. But you'll have to perfect the elementary details before...”

  “You put me to sleep. I need to get back to Niarg in time to see that the king and queen marry Hebraun to me instead of to some stupid princess. So if you're not going to teach me what I need to know first, I'm leaving.”

  “Well then. Say hello to your father for me, dear.”

  Ugleeuh looked stunned for a moment before suddenly seeing how it all was. She lunged off her stool and gave a furious slap to a delicate terra cotta vase that Demonica had just managed to turn to solid stone. With a howl of pain through her clenched teeth, she tramped into the corridor cradling her hand as she made straight for her room.

  She was cramming her nightgown into a satchel on her bed when there came a knock on her door. “Beat it, witch!” she shouted.

  Slowly the door came open just enough for a hired girl to stick her head in. “Pardon me, Mistress Dewin,” she said, “but Mistress Demonica sent me to see to your packing.”

  “Good!” she shouted as she picked up her mirror with a furious fling, bouncing it off the girl's head to shatter in the hallway behind her. “You can start with my looking glass.”

  The door slammed shut at once.

  Ugleeuh finished cramming her things into her two satchels and slung them onto her shoulder. She took up her new staff, called up an image of Peach Knob in her scrying ball and recited her traveling spell. When she decided to shift her bags to her other shoulder, she found herself in her room at Peach Knob. Suddenly she was reeling dizzy, steadying herself by the bedpost to keep from vomiting. Soon it was passing. She pitched her things onto her bed and dashed into the hallway to find her family.

  Ugleeuh came to Razzmorten's door and opened it. A pungent smell of old paper whirled through the room on a rush of air from the window, bright with yellow maple leaves. “Oh, he's busy with his stupid still,” she said. She skipped down the hallway to Minuet's room and peered in. “No Minny-Min,” she said, clasping her hands together. “She's off somewhere, busy at being just too, too.” She stopped short at the sight of Hubba Hubba on his perch by the bed. “But the stinking popinjay's sure here.”

  Hubba Hubba went skinny as she crossed the room.

  “Hold still, popinjay,” she said as she crept up to the perch. “It's high time we drowned you, don't you think?”

  He stood upright with wide orange eyes, leaning back away from her as she drew near. The moment she grabbed for him, he bit the web of her hand and flew away into the hallway, screaming: “Minuet! Minuet! Minuet!”

  “I'm not done with you, stinker!” shouted Ugleeuh as she grabbed her bleeding hand. “How about spending eternity as a crow?”

  Suddenly Minuet stepped into the doorway, out of breath.

  “Minny-Min!” c
ried Ugleeuh, as if she'd just stepped out of a coach. “I'm home!”

  Chapter 18

  Minuet stood inside the doorway catching her breath, as a whir of wings flew 'round the corner from the hallway. She held up her finger to collect the landing flurry of feathers without taking her eyes off Ugleeuh.

  “Minuet!” shrieked Hubba Hubba between pants. “Bad bear witch!”

  “Well you certainly excited Hubba Hubba, Leeuh,” said Minuet. “What happened? Did Uncle Razzorbauch disappoint you, or did you disappoint him?”

  “Bad!” growled Hubba Hubba.

  “No, no sweetness,” said Ugleeuh with a pampered tone. “You disappoint me. You failed as big sister. I've tried and tried so hard as little sister, but you're just too, too.”

  “Bad witch!” growled Hubba Hubba.

  “Do you really expect a warm welcome after the way you left? You didn't even tell Father.”

  “Right!” she scoffed as she brushed passed Minuet on her way to the door. “As if I owed him. He's hardly been a father. What would he care? Always trying to make me to fit the goody-goody mould, just like big sister. He's the one who owes me.”

  “Do you hear what you're saying?”

  Ugleeuh stopped suddenly, turning about in the doorway for a moment. “I know what I can do to him, Minny-Min,” she said with a buoyant gasp. “I'll go tell him I'm going to be here for a good long while.” And with that, she vanished into the hallway.”

  “Ha, ha!” cried Hubba Hubba as Minuet returned him to his perch. “I bit her good. Bad bear witch.”

  “Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta...” sang Ugleeuh as she skipped the length of the hallway. “Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta...” She hiked her skirts and skipped down the broad stairway. “Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta...” She gave a leap, “Whee!” and skipped merrily into the middle of the parlour, “Pretty raven princess... Ta ta-ta, ta-ta...” Suddenly she stopped short, agape and wide eyed amongst an equally startled Razzmorten, Bethan, Gastro... and Prince Hebraun. “There you are,” she said in a wee voice as she dropped her skirts and steadied herself against a three legged chair. And before anyone had the wits to speak, she gave a tottering curtsey.

  “Mistress Dewin,” said Hebraun with the faintest hint of a twinkle in his eye as he rose at once to take her hand and give a gracious bow.

  “If you're amused,” she thought as she took a seat, “you'll owe me after we're wed.”

  “I see that I've arrived at the wrong time,” he said, turning to Razzmorten. “I'll call 'round again tomorrow at this time, if it's not too soon.”

  “Of course,” said Razzmorten, rising at once, “We'd be delighted. I'll tell Minuet.”

  “Please convey my adoration to her,” said Hebraun. “I am indeed looking forward to tomorrow.” And with that, he stepped out.

  Gastro rose at once and bowed to Ugleeuh. “I'm right pleased to meet you, Mistress Dewin,” he said in his deep voice. “I'm Gastro, son of the late Wizard Gastron, at your service.”

  Ugleeuh stayed seated, staring at him for a moment as if he were a toad, and then ignored him altogether.

  Gastro shifted from foot to foot briefly, looking as though he would like very much to say something, but instead shared a glance with Razzmorten and scurried out of the parlour to his room. By his eye, Ugleeuh was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and the mere thought of her made his heart race. On the other hand, he would discover that she was also the most outrageously rude and demeaning woman he had ever met. Merely the treatment she had just given him was enough to make his heart ache.

  “Why didn't you stop Hebraun, Father?” said Ugleeuh, while Gastro's footsteps still echoed in the hallway. “I wanted to talk to him. Who knows when I'll get to again.”

  “Then you weren't paying attention, I'm afraid,” said Razzmorten, “since we just now arranged for his return tomorrow.”

  Bethan rose and stepped quietly out of the parlour with a deep breath and a wide-eyed look for Minuet, who was just coming in.

  “You'll soon have all sorts of opportunity, Leeuh,” said Minuet as she took a chair beside Ugleeuh, “for the day this horrible plague is over, Prince Hebraun and I are to be wed.”

  Ugleeuh shot to her feet with her fists in the air. “You back stabbing witch!” she shrieked.

  “Ugleeuh!” boomed Razzmorten, stepping in to block her pounce. “That will be quite enough.”

  “I'm no longer a child at your beck and call, old man,” she snarled as she tried to step around him.

  “Then you'll stop acting like one and have a seat so that we can discuss this like the adult you say you are,” he said, stepping in front of her again. “Either that, or you can go back to wherever it is that you've been all this time.”

  Ugleeuh hesitated, looking as though she had been slapped.

  “This is still my house, Leeuh,” he said. “And if you're in my house, you'll be fit for my house, or you'll go elsewhere.”

  “You'd actually throw out your own flesh and blood, wouldn't you?”

  “Absolutely, if you force me. So you need to decide this minute, how it's going to be.”

  After a last hateful glance at Minuet, Ugleeuh took a seat with a deep stiff sigh. She stared away into the distance while Razzmorten drug up a chair. “I can't believe you're engaged to Prince Hebraun, Minny-Min,” she said, the moment he was seated.

  “King Henry rewarded me for curing the plague,” he said, “by making me wizard to the crown and sealing it with a betrothal between his house and mine.”

  “And had I been here, it would have been me instead of her,” she said quietly. Suddenly she brightened up. “Father! It's not too late. Just tell King Henry that you really wanted to marry me, but I was gone. But now I'm back, so you want to trade. He'll understand.”

  Minuet dropped her jaw in shock.

  “No, Leeuh,” said Razzmorten with a shake of his head. The betrothal was strictly for Minuet. Hebraun was already taken with her and would have no other before I ever heard about it.”

  “How could anyone choose her?” she said. “Everyone knows I'm the beautiful one. There must be some mistake. Hebraun must have thought that I was already spoken for...”

  Minuet and Razzmorten exchanged an astonished look in spite of sitting right in front of her.

  “Well it's true!” shouted Ugleeuh.

  Minuet was on her feet at once. “Excuse me Father, but I've never heard such ranting conceit, even from her. Must I stay?”

  Razzmorten sighed and shook his head, as Minuet pecked him on the cheek and hurried out.

  “Well,” said Ugleeuh, standing up to watch her go. “She always was jealous of me, but I thought she'd know by now that she could never compete with me.”

  Razzmorten looked up at her wearily. “Leeuh, you simply go too far and you've probably driven a wedge between you and your sister that will never be mended,” he said.

  “If you came home merely to sew strife and discord, then I'm sorry, but you're no longer welcome in this house.”

  Ugleeuh worked her jaw. “You don't mean that,” she said at last.

  “Oh but I do, Leeuh. And before you say another word, you should go to your room and think about whether you can live in this household. We expect kindness and respect here. Minuet has spent her life caring for you and trying to help you face the world with no mother. Now, you thank her by trying to steal away her happiness. Prince Hebraun and Minuet are in love, Leeuh. You can't change that, so accept it and move on with your life. If you try to take Hebraun, it will only cause heartache and strife for everyone.” Razzmorten looked down at the backs of his hands for a moment. When he looked up, she was nowhere in sight, but he could hear her angry footfalls, going down the hall to her room, upstairs. With a weary sigh, he rose and went to the kitchen to see if Bethan had any hot water in the teakettle.

  ***

  Ugleeuh ripped the bolster from her bed with a grating screech and flung it at her pitcher and basin, smashing them in a racing sheet of water across the floor. “You go
ody-goody vamp!” she shouted as she grabbed up a pillow to hurl it at the vase on her tea table, missing it altogether. That would never do. She ran at the table, hoping to kick the vase, but kicked the corner of the table instead, sitting down hard on the floor with a howl to rock to and fro, cradling her ankle. “You back stabbing strumpet!” she snarled as she shot to her feet to fling the tea table upside down with a bug-eyed heave that crushed the vase. “And Father!” she cried, kicking the legs out from under a chair. “Doddering fool! Weakling! Mother might throw me out, but him?” She stopped short and sat on her bed with a bounce and stared out the window at the rattling yellow leaves, listening to the cries of jays. “So, what's he doing?” she murmured as she began brushing her hair. “Ha! It's all a setup to shame me into mending my ways, that's what. All right. So be it. I'll play along until I figure out what to do about Minny-Min.” She stopped brushing and gave a thoughtful nod. “Actually, this stupid betrothal has Hebraun coming here,” she thought, “and that will give me access to him away from Castle Niarg. I wondered how I was going to manage to do that. This may just work out, after all. When he can have me, why would he ever want Minny-Butt?” She rolled over with a secret little giggle and drummed the bed with her fists. “Oh, I know exactly what to do.”

  ***

  When Minuet was a little girl, Razzmorten amused himself by building a whitewashed lath lattice-work arch in the grape arbor which held a broad swing. The first summer that the vines shaded the swing, Bethan brought her out to sit with her and shell peas. “Oh honey dewdrop,” she said, giving her a little squeeze, “someday a wonderful prince will come to court you in this swing.”

  Minuet raked her bare feet through the cool dust under the swing passing back and forth, as she listened to the breezy whistles of sparrows scratching in the fallen leaves. “How in the world did she know, Hubba Hubba?” she said. “Hebraun sat with me, right here, the very last time he came.”

  Hubba steadied himself on her apron as he fluffed up and sorted through the feathers of one of his wings.

  “Oh, Hubba Hubba. Why did Ugleeuh have to choose now to return and spoil everything?”