“Yes.”
“Then we must run, friend Bill, we must run now!”
#
Right now, Chortley was regretting that he'd never learned how to flit. In fact he’d spent his entire life making as much noise as possible since it generally ensured that he got his own way quickly. In the good old days – when his father was alive – Chortley's arrival on the scene would be presaged by an expanding sonic boom of pomposity and arrogance and self-centred assuredness. Natural selection had seen to it that the servants working at the Fitzmichael residence were finely attuned to this with the result that they often seemed to provide what Chortley needed before he'd even thought of it.
All of this was of little comfort as he crept through the corridors of his former home, shadowed by McGuff and Clegg who, as strangers to the back passages of nobility, were making even more noise than he was as they collided with random precious objects. It was a miracle they hadn't already been discovered and Chortley made a mental note that if he survived to become count in his own right he'd find household guards with ears.
He slid along the outside wall of what he knew to be the chamber of the lord of the county and where, logically, his sister would be sleeping. Nudging forward, he peered around the corner before, at glacial pace, he edged back and turned to McGuff.
"Two guards," he whispered. "You two take the nearer one and I'll get the other."
He could just make out the nodding head of McGuff. "Yes sir."
"Oh, and do it quietly. We don't want the entire house to wake up, not until we've got her."
Chortley’s blade flashed in the moonlight as he drew it from his belt and crept to the corner. Taking a deep breath he rushed past the nearer guard and threw himself at the one on the other side of the door. Taken by surprise, the man emerged from whatever meditative state he’d been in to find himself pinned beneath sixteen stone of enraged former nobleman. Chortley twisted the knife in front of the guard’s eyes and, message received, fished a sock out of his pocket and shoved it in his prisoner’s mouth before flipping him onto his front, tying his hands and legs together and getting up. He turned around just in time to see the other guard hit the floor with a thud. McGuff put the cudgel back inside his jacket and nodded to Chortley as if he’d just executed the most stealthy of manoeuvres. Chortley rolled his eyes, then pointed at Clegg. “Watch them,” he said, before pressing his ear against the ivory door behind which his sister slept. Hopefully.
On balance, he decided that speed was now needed more than subtlety so he wrenched at the door handle and sprang into the room, followed by McGuff. He reached his sister just as she sat up in bed. Her eyes widened when she saw him and he was only just in time to clamp his hand over her mouth as she went to scream.
After a few panicked moments, Aggrapella seemed to recognise him and ever so slightly to relax. Through a combination of facial expressions and fraternal telepathy, Chortley communicated the likely consequences of Aggrapella screaming once he'd taken his hands away from her face. She nodded suddenly exhibiting a calmness that was so untypical of her that it freaked Chortley more than anything else about the situation.
He lowered his hand. "I reckon you're in trouble, sister," he whispered. "And, believe it or not, I'm here to help if I can."
"What makes you think I need your help, brother dear?" she hissed. "And even if I did, what do you imagine you and your… Associate would be able to do about it?"
Chortley sighed. He hadn't expected this to be easy. "I know about the hobgoblin. In fact, I know a lot more about that creature than you do, and about his master."
Aggrapella's eyes darted left and right as if she expected someone to leap out of a dark corner. "If you are referring to my trusty counsellor," she said, her voice, then her expression. "Then you are quite mistaken. He knows his place, and his advice has always been most welcome and useful. But I rule here, not him."
"So you ordered the imprisonment of loyal soldiers? You ordered the burning down of the farmhouses of loyal subjects? You ordered that every woman with a wart on her face was to be rounded up and, if they were lucky, thrown in jail? You did all these things did you? I always knew you were sadistic, sister," he said, "but I didn't know you were a fool. And I don't believe even now that you would destroy your own birthright."
Aggrapella was silent for a moment, clearly considering how best to respond while trapped between the twin perils of admitting her weakness or her stupidity. She opened her mouth to speak, but was saved by the sudden eruption of the door inwards.
Chortley twisted round, his knife still in his hand, but it was hopeless. Within moments the room was full of extremely alert, extremely capable-looking guards with extremely sharp weapons.
Nothing was said but after a few moments Chortley could see the rear rank opening as someone strode through until he emerged, staff in hand and smile on his face.
"Ah, the Chortley boy," he said. "My mistress said you would come, eventually. And my master very much looks forward to meeting you again."
Chapter 29
THE LORD HIGH CHIEF OF the D'Isordly clan had, in a long career as senior barbarian, dealt with many difficult situations. There had been that time when the red coated soldiers of Aangerland had invaded his lands and he'd sent them back north with their bayonets up their arses. He’d survived multiple civil wars, outlasting every single relative that had opposed him over the years. There had even been that unfortunate incident with the dragon. He'd come away from all of these crises with little more than the odd bruise, the occasional cut or singed body part. All this experience, however, had not prepared him for what he was facing now.
Duncan D'Isordly sat on the other side of the campfire trying, in vain, to keep the flame between him and the fierce old woman. When he’d first spotted her and her group tramping across his land, he’d thought he might be in for a little enrichment, but he'd known, as soon as she'd opened her mouth that he was actually in for something rather less pleasant. And matters got no better when he told her that the portal she was seeking was still as sealed as it had ever been and that there was no chance of a faerie army emerging into the Brightworld by that means.
The woman had gone quiet when he told her that, but now had simply decided not to believe him and although Duncan had a host of clansmen at his command, he knew that he was outmatched by this old woman and her companions. Even the beautiful one with the dark hair looked as though she had hidden powers. For all his bravado and bluff machismo, Duncan was, in truth, sensitive to the power of women – you tended to get that way when you had three wives. He’d considered himself a moderniser when he’d become chief and had fully intended to settle for one, chosen, wife but old traditions die hard and he’d been informed that, while he was indeed the chief man of the clan, he couldn't use that as an excuse to enjoy himself so two new wives had been found for him to balance up the one he had chosen for himself. Since then he'd spent not a single day unsupervised, but if he thought his life was already as complicated as it could possibly be, he was discovering just how wrong that assumption was.
"All I'm saying," Jessie Hemlock said for the umpteenth time, "is that if you're so sure your portal is closed, why can't you show us?"
Duncan drew his filthy fur-lined arm across his eyes wearily. "And all I'm saying is that the portal lies in our most sacred place, guarded by the holy sword-wielding virgins for whom it is sacrilege to even meet an unholy person."
"Who are you calling unholy? There's nothing unholy about me!" Gramma protested. "I mean to say, I always says me prayer at bedtime to whatever goddesses might be listening and always puts a copper in the plate at t’temple."
Velicity leaned in so she could talk directly into Gramma's ears. "I don't think he means that kind of holy," she said. "I think he means that only people who haven't, you know, been with a boy are allowed in their holy place."
"Well, who hasn't been with a boy?" Gramma asked "I mean, they're pretty hard to avoid ain’t they?"
"No, I mean been with a boy like a husband is with his wife," Velicity said.
Gramma shrugged. "Well, I can't see the point of that. We've all been with our husbands, they sort of has a habit of following us around. Though I do miss my Pa," she said wistfully before subsiding.
"Enough of all this," said Jessie. "There is at least one of us what qualifies to visit your holy place, ain't that true daughter?"
Brianna, her face as red as an apple said, "Yes, of course mother. Naturally you’d assume that I had never been with a man. After all, what man would want me?"
"I seem to recall a lad what wants you. And we needs to get this over with before we can head back and help him. Now are you…qualified?"
Brianna could almost feel her mother's eyes burning as she stared. "Yes, mother," she said.
#
At this exact moment, Bill, who was just as inexperienced as Brianna and had, in fact, intended to become less inexperienced in her presence, was hiding in a cave, listening for the sound of a passing dragon. They say that the loss of one sense enhances another, but the corollary of that is that the overwhelming stench of rotten lizard shit that was currently assaulting Bill’s nasal cavities made it bloody difficult to concentrate on listening.
Beryl had spent the best part of two days incinerating the landscape and anyone who happened to be occupying it. Bill had been flitting from hedge to ditch to copse, desperately trying to keep out of sight of the dragon. At the last, however, she’d spotted him and he’d only escaped by diving sideways into the hole he now occupied, landing squarely in its smelly payload.
As it happened, it was probably the reptilian excrement that had saved him. Beryl’s eyesight, it seemed, was pretty poor after several hundred years underground, so she relied on her sense of smell and had, it seemed, become very familiar with Bill’s natural odour (the sort of odour you accrete after several days without a wash). But, however much he might have reeked before jumping into the cave, his new smell completely overwhelmed it and the trail went cold.
“Meester Bill,” Sebaceous said, his head popping around the cave entrance as he spoke into the miasma while breathing the fresher air outside. “I think she has gone, we mussst make haste.” The little lizard turned to go and then, as Bill moved in the darkness, he looked back, pinched his nose and said, “But first we must find you a river.”
And so it was that a wet but relatively fragrant Bill Strike spluttered his way out of the icy cold torrent that flowed, it seemed, directly out of a glacier. His naked skin was blue at the edges and he had ostrich bumps all over.
“Bloody hell, Sebaceous,” he stammered, “I thought I was going to lose my wedding tackle entirely.”
Sebaceous shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about friend Bill, but you sure smell sweeter.”
Bill hauled his wet, but lizard-shit free, clothes from the river and slapped them against a rock.
“What is you doing?” Sebaceous asked.
“Drying them out, I’ve seen women do it so it must work.”
Sebaceous watched as Bill wrung his trousers out and held them in front of his legs. “I doesn’t think they’re dry, friend Bill.”
“Thanks a lot,” Bill grumbled, “if you’ve got any better ideas, I’m all ears.”
“Begging your pardon, but what is your hindquarters to do with it?”
Bill paused for a moment as he rewound the conversation. “Not arse, ears! It means I’ll listen to your clever ideas for drying my clothes.”
“Well, I isn’t sure it’s a clever idea in sparticular,” Sebaceous said, shrugging, “but you could trying warming them with fire.”
“Oh, very smart. And how exactly do you suggest we build a fire?” Bill said before stopping still, standing up straight and looking back at the lizard. “Ah.”
Bill cringed as he pulled the freezing, soaked clothes on. Once this was done, he closed his eyes and focused on drawing heat from the ground, through his feet and then out through his torso and limbs. Sebaceous watched as, after a few moments, his friend began to steam.
“Now, we must hurry,” the little lizard announced when Bill had finished roasting himself, “our friends wait for us, but nowhere is safe now.”
“Right, let’s go,” said Bill, his clothes creaking like a rusty hinge as he bent his legs and arms.
Chapter 30
"TRAITOR!" CHORTLEY SNARLED. "WHAT HAVE you done to our country?"
Aggrapella sneered at her half-brother. "If we are to talk of traitors, what shall we say of you? Outlaw, vagabond and murderer of our father?"
"You know I didn't kill our father”, Chortley said. He was sitting in a heavy wooden chair, his hands chained to its arms, looking up at the dias on which sat the throne occupied by his sister. Behind the throne, peering around it hungrily, was the hobgoblin. The chair in which Chortley sat was positioned in the centre of the great Hall of Audience, the place where he'd seen so many petitioners come to beg his father's mercy, but he knew that he stood even less chance than they had of receiving justice. His fate was already determined.
Aggrapella shifted as she sat on the throne as if simply being there was uncomfortable to her. "Your guilt has already been established, brother. Your dagger was used to kill the count, it was found at the scene and you had mysteriously vanished. You have been tried, convicted and sentenced. Soon enough, you will die."
"I can see him whispering in your ear, sister," Chortley said, keeping his voice level and calm." How long has it been since you last made a decision on your own account? How long has it been since you've been imprisoned in your own rooms at night; brought out to parade in front of the people as if you're still in control. And yet you're not, are you? The decisions are made by the scumbag standing behind you."
Chortley reeled as one of the guards stepped forward out of the darkness and smashed his fist into Chortley's face leaving it bleeding and pockmarked with the impression of chainmail. Chortley looked up at the man who'd struck him with such venom that the guard stepped back, mentally planning an escape in the unlikely event that Chortley was ever freed.
"I command here!" bellowed Aggrapella as she jumped to her feet and, before the shocked Bently could stop her, ran down the steps, drawing her dagger as she went.
Aggrapella brought the dagger's wicked edge up to the level of Chortley's eyes and twisted it to and fro so that it caught the light from the embrasures lining the hall. "Now we'll see who gives the orders around here," she screamed and, with obvious relish drew the blade across Chortley's cheek, cutting a deep gash.
Chortley cried in agony, feeling warm liquid flowing down his face. She was so close now that her breath played across his wound and he was tempted to try to bite her. In all the noise and the chaos as the guards and Bently converged on them, he almost missed the words that were whispered as she drew away. "Help me."
#
Brianna edged her way along the narrow, mist shrouded, bridge, feeling the edge of the rotten planks with her naked toes. She could hear the brook slopping along beneath her feet and tried not to think about how deep, and cold, it was. She’d been told that the bridge ended on an islet in the middle of the river and that it was here that the portal was to be found. Naturally, the bridge and island were hidden beneath a bank of fog on this windless morning and so it was that, with infinite care, she crossed.
It didn’t help her dignity that she’d been forced to wear a white woollen shift and no underwear. It wasn’t easy to concentrate on not falling into the water when every part of you itched - even bits that had no right to. She was furious. Not so much with the chief - Duncan was only following tradition, although he was showing rather too much relish for Brianna’s comfort. No, it was her mother. Jessie Hemlock could have put a stop to this whole affair. If she’d insisted her daughter was not to be humiliated in this fashion, then Duncan would have caved in. Three wives, a priesthood and a thousand years of tradition would be as useful as a chocolate pickaxe when pitted against the granite subst
ance of Mother Hemlock’s will. But no, humiliation was part of the job description for the relatives of Jessie.
“Who goes there?”
A voice swam through the mist from, presumably, the other side of the bridge. It was a husky, high-pitched voice. The sort of voice that might belong to someone who’s not had to use those words very often and isn’t entirely sure which is the business end of a spear. But then, the island is guarded by virgins, Brianna thought, a job that can only be ceremonial. I mean I’d be pretty effective with a pointy weapon right now, she continued, but she imagined most girls in her condition would be as likely to keep a determined man away as a barrel with the words “free beer” painted on the side.
“I said, who goes there?” the voice repeated in an even higher timbre.
Brianna ignored the call and continued stepping forward. An almost imperceptible changing of the wind suggested she was approaching the island and, sure enough, the ghostly outline of an archway appeared out of the gloom. She passed carefully through the arch and down a ramp onto solid mud. A shape emerged from the fog, its spear waving nervously in the general direction of her chest.
“Oh, you’re a girl!” the voice said.
Brianna squinted and rubbed her eyes before replying. “Oh, you’re a boy! But I thought the guards of the portal were all virg…” Her voice trailed away as the shape resolved itself into a fat, spotty-faced young man with a wispy moustache and sideburns. And spectacles.
“Ah,” Brianna said.
The young man, whose eyes had become fixed on Brianna’s chest, straightened up. “What are you doing here?”
“I am Brianna Hemlock and I have been sent to inspect the portal. Who are you?”
“My name’s Cevin,” said the fat boy, “and over yonder that’s Nijel and Roopert.”
Out of the mist waddled two other youths. Nijel was a squat boy with thick curly hair that stuck out more at the sides than on top giving the impression of a walking toadstool, whereas Roopert was tall and gangly with a nose so large it looked as though his centre of gravity was several feet behind him. All three wore armour of a sort - the sort that is generally made of cardboard and found adorning the local amateur dramatics troupe. Their silverish breastplates were set off by flouncy white sleeves and outrageous sword pommels. Brianna was willing to bet that the only metal on the island was to be found in the form of the blunt spear points currently being waved around ineffectually.
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