Miro seemed to have an endless supply of stories. Blazen was up against some impossible task, Blazen almost died, Blazen triumphed and was called a hero. It was the same plot. Every single time.
‘It’s going to get dark soon,’ said the prince. ‘This will have to be the last inn for today.’ Imogen peeped through the grubby window of the Hounyarch. Candlelight was just about visible on the other side.
‘Fine by me,’ she said.
Inside the inn it smelled of warm bodies and beer. Imogen ducked under elbows and squeezed between bellies. The top of the bar was level with her eyeballs. To her left, frothy ale sloshed and glasses clinked. To her right, money changed hands between quick-fingered card players. Above, the heads of badly stuffed animals looked on: a fox with one glass eye bigger than the other, a pigeon with a very long neck and a bear with a strangely human expression.
‘Excuse me,’ said Miro, standing on tiptoes. The barmaid didn’t respond. She was shouting at an old man who was face down on the bar.
What an odd place to sleep, thought Imogen.
‘This is useless,’ said Miro. ‘They’re all drunk.’
‘You did say he might be out hunting …’ said Imogen.
‘But it’s getting late. Even the bravest hunter returns from the Kolsaney Forests before dark.’
‘And is he? The bravest hunter, I mean? Are you sure it’s not just stories?’
‘Oh yes. They’ve made statues of him. And he’s in all the songs: Blazen Bilbetz knows no fear, Blazen makes the ladies swoon, Blazen Bilbetz saves the day, Blazen brings the monster’s ruin.’
Miro was interrupted by the barmaid. She was shouting at him. No – at something behind him. Imogen turned to see a gigantic, bearded man climb on to a table. In one hand, he carried a sack with pipes hanging off it. In the other, he brandished a beer. He roared as he mounted his stage. The men round the table cheered. The barmaid screamed, ‘Get down!’
The man took a gulp of his drink and put his lips to the instrument’s mouthpiece. The sack inflated. The sound that followed was like nothing Imogen had ever heard. A low, loud honk. A cow with a megaphone. There was no sensible way to describe it.
Every head turned and, after that first blast, the man was off: fingers running up and down the pipes, elbow squeezing the sack, filling the room with a wild melody and uneven rhythm. He alternated between singing, blowing into the instrument and drinking. Sometimes he got the three mixed up and beer got into the mouthpiece. But his audience didn’t mind – they loved it and they loved him. They were stamping their feet and singing along.
Imogen turned to Miro. He was grinning. ‘What are you so happy about?’ she demanded.
‘That,’ he shouted over the noise, ‘is our man!’
‘Him?’
Miro nodded.
‘With the bagpipes?’ asked Imogen.
‘Zpevnakrava,’ corrected Miro.
‘Huh?’
The city bells tolled, hardly audible over the music. ‘Did you hear that?’ said Imogen. ‘We need to leave!’
But Miro wasn’t listening. He was working his way closer to Blazen.
Imogen looked at the door. There were a lot of bodies between her and the exit. Even worse, instead of leaving, people were battening down the hatches. Shutters closed. Fire out. Door bolted.
One song swung into the next. The piper’s cheeks puffed in and out, turning his face a ferocious shade of red. Why wasn’t Miro doing something to get the man’s attention?
The bells stopped tolling. The skret were in Yaroslav.
Imogen groaned. She was stuck in the Hounyarch for the night.
Someone splashed beer on the back of Imogen’s neck. Cold foam ran down her spine and suddenly she’d had enough. Enough trawling round the city in the rain. Enough waiting while grown-ups did stupid grown-up things. She wasn’t here for the music. She wasn’t here to have a good time. She was here because Miro had promised that Blazen Bilbetz would help her get home.
She walked up to Miro and gave him a jab in the ribs. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be asking that man to help us?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Miro. ‘After the next song.’
But, as one song ended and another began, Miro just clapped along.
Imogen decided to take matters into her own hands. She reached up to the table and prodded the giant man’s leg. He didn’t react. She grabbed his calf and gave it a shake. He looked down and flicked his foot, as though he’d stepped in something nasty, sending her tripping backwards.
Things were going to have to step up a notch. There was a knife on the side of the bar. It didn’t look razor-sharp, but it would probably do the job. Imogen forced her way through the crowd, grabbed the knife and went back to the hunter.
She climbed on to the table, reached up to the instrument’s sack and pierced the skin. It deflated at speed, making a terrible wheezing sound. Beer trickled out of the hole. The people closest covered their ears and howled.
Blazen Bilbetz stopped blowing into the mouthpiece and looked down a pipe. ‘That’s funny,’ he boomed. ‘It’s never done that before.’ Then he saw Imogen crouched by his feet. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I … I wanted to get your attention,’ said Imogen, suddenly feeling very small.
‘Well, you’ve got it all right. I’ll skin you alive, you little hovinko!’
Enormous hands lifted Imogen up by her arms. She wriggled and kicked, but the giant’s grip only tightened. ‘Put me down!’ she shouted.
‘What do you think?’ said the man, giving her a shake that made her ribcage rattle. ‘Shall we have her stuffed and mounted on the wall?’ The crowd laughed. ‘Do you know who I am, peasant? Do you know whose zpevnakrava you’ve vandalised?’ His eyes, wide and bloodshot, didn’t look to Imogen for the answer, but to his fans below.
‘I am the man that killed one hundred bears, seduced the Queen of Mikuluka, rode across the Nameless Mountains wearing nothing but a squirrel skin. Yes, it’s all true.’ He paused for dramatic effect.
‘It was I who slayed Zlo the Wolf with my bare hands. I who single-handedly protected the Pochybovaci Cathedral and its nuns from the excesses of five hundred marauding Yezdetz. Why … I’ve even delivered a baby behind that bar. I cut the cord with my teeth and wrapped the child in a hanky.’
‘Get on with it!’ – a heckler.
‘I am Blazen Bilbetz,’ said the giant as he drew himself up to his full height. ‘Who are you to come here and interrupt my merrymaking?’ He breathed beer into Imogen’s face, but didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Whoever you are, you’re going to have to pay for what you’ve broken.’
‘Then you owe me for all the tankards you’ve thrown!’ – the barmaid.
Blazen rolled his eyes. ‘Cough up, girlie,’ he said to Imogen. ‘My zpevnakrava is worth a fair bit.’
Imogen felt like all the air was being squeezed out of her. ‘I haven’t got any money,’ she gasped.
‘That’s a shame, isn’t it!’ cried the giant. ‘Perhaps you think someone else should pay for your mistakes?’
‘I’ll pay!’ – Miro this time.
‘Who said that?’ Blazen looked around.
‘Down here. I’ll give you your money, but first put her down.’
‘Oh, look, a knight in shining armour.’ Blazen chuckled.
‘Me? I thought you were supposed to be the hero,’ said Miro. ‘That’s what everyone says. Blazen the Brave. Blazen the beast-killer. But look at you! You’re nothing but a big bully.’
The room fell silent.
‘You can’t pay,’ said Blazen, sounding a little less sure of himself. ‘You haven’t got twenty crowns. You haven’t even got two crowns!’
But the crowd had turned. ‘That’s enough, Blazen!’ someone yelled from the back of the room.
‘You’ve had your fun,’ said another. Faces turned back to the bar and the normal hum of talk resumed.
‘All right,’ said Blazen to Miro. ‘Twenty-five crowns
and you’ve got yourself a deal.’
‘Done,’ said Miro.
Blazen released Imogen, tossed his punctured zpevnakrava aside and climbed down from the table. He turned to Miro with greedy eyes. ‘Right, hand it over.’
‘I’ve got another idea,’ said Miro. ‘How do you fancy earning one hundred crowns?’
‘You haven’t got that kind of money,’ said the hunter, suspicious.
Miro placed a small bag on the table. Blazen seemed to recognise the sound. The soft tinkle of gold on gold.
‘You have my attention,’ he said slowly.
Imogen sat at the edge of the table, rubbing her sore arms. ‘We want you to take us into the forest,’ she said.
‘Is that so?’ Blazen’s eyes were still fixed on the bag.
‘We’re looking for a door in a tree.’
‘A door to where?’ said the giant.
Imogen took a deep breath. ‘A door to another world.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ said Blazen.
‘One hundred crowns says you’re wrong,’ said Miro, pushing the bag across the table.
Blazen’s head stayed still, but his eyes followed the money. ‘That’s a lot of ground to cover, searching for something that doesn’t exist. I’d need my men with me.’
‘One hundred crowns now and one hundred crowns when it’s done,’ said the prince.
Blazen held out his shovel-sized hand. Miro shook it.
‘We’ll start at first light,’ said the hunter. ‘After the bells have tolled.’
‘What are we supposed to do until then?’ asked Miro. Blazen grinned, displaying yellow, gold and missing teeth.
‘Why, drink, of course!’
And he did. He drank beer, he drank liquor, he drank some cloudy green stuff that smelled like aniseed sweets. He drank with the card players, the barmaid, the inn’s cat. He drank until every surface was strewn with bodies, like the scene after a battle. And then, realising he was the last warrior standing, he allowed himself to sink to the ground. Cradling a half-empty bottle of grog, he closed his eyes.
‘How do we wake him?’ said Miro.
‘I don’t know. Give him a pinch,’ said Imogen.
The prince did as instructed. ‘Well, that didn’t work.’
‘Harder,’ said Imogen.
‘You do it,’ said Miro.
‘Water. Fetch some water. That’s how they do it in films.’
‘In what?’
‘Just try it,’ said Imogen.
Splash!
For a few seconds, Blazen fought wildly, thrashing about on the floor, waving his legs and arms like an upturned beetle. ‘I’m drowning!’ he cried. He smashed his grog bottle and held up the sharp end. ‘What do you want, you little hovinko?’ It wasn’t really a question.
Miro looked down at the giant. ‘We want you to do as you promised.’ Blazen belched. ‘We want you to take us to the Kolsaney Forests.’
‘Fine,’ said the hunter. ‘But first I need my morning beer.’
Imogen had a bad feeling about this.
As the sun began to set that evening, Imogen and Miro returned to the second tallest tower. They were not in good spirits. Miro was two hundred crowns poorer and they were both completely exhausted.
Their search through the forests had been unsuccessful. They’d travelled in the direction that Imogen thought was correct and they’d seen thousands of trees, but not a single door.
Marie was curled up in one of the big seats by the fire. Imogen could see that she’d been crying.
‘I thought you’d be back last night,’ said Marie. ‘I was worried.’
‘So did we,’ said Imogen, collapsing on the bed. ‘We spent the night stuck in an inn, and the day searching the forests. Did you get my note?’
Imogen looked round for the scrap of paper she’d left by the bed. It had been a hastily scribbled message telling Marie not to leave the tower and that they’d be back soon. Marie glared at the fire and Imogen understood. She’d burned it. What a baby.
‘Marie, you know I had to leave you behind. You would have been afraid in the forests.’
‘I would not!’ said Marie, her voice shrill.
‘You would too,’ said Imogen. She removed her cloak and let it fall off the edge of the bed. ‘Anyway, we didn’t find the door. It was a wasted journey.’
‘But it must be there somewhere,’ said Marie. ‘Perhaps we should go back and look for it tomorrow.’
‘There’s no point,’ said Miro. ‘If Blazen Bilbetz can’t hunt it down, there’s no way we’d spot it on our own. It’s like the door doesn’t want to be found.’
Over the next few days, Imogen tried everything she could think of to get home. She asked Miro if she could send her mum a letter, but there was no postal service and Imogen didn’t know how a postman would find the door in the tree.
She asked about sending a text, but there were no phones. She’d have had her own if Mum had got her one for her birthday, but Mum was always going on about phones not being good for you.
Miro hadn’t even heard of the internet. He said he didn’t believe in magic. The grown-ups Imogen spoke to had never heard of a door in a tree. They didn’t believe in magic either.
At night, when Imogen was lying in the four-poster bed, her worry creatures began to reappear. They waited until Miro and Marie had drifted off, then they’d crawl across the covers and hold Imogen’s eyes open. They hissed bad thoughts in her ears. You’ll never make it home. Your mum doesn’t even want you back.
‘What do you expect me to do?’ Imogen whispered. ‘I’ve tried everything I can!’
She shook the quilt, throwing the worry creatures to the floor. If she was lucky, they’d creep away after that, slinking off into the darkness. If she was unlucky, it could be hours before they’d let her sleep.
In the morning, Imogen would check under the quilt. No worry creatures there. She’d peep behind the curtains. No worry creatures there either.
Looking out of the window at the bright blue sky and the cheerful red roofs of Yaroslav, Imogen felt sure that everything would be okay. The worry creatures were wrong. She’d find her way home eventually.
In the meantime, why shouldn’t she have a little fun? After all, this was a place with no school, no chores and no bossy grown-ups.
A nneshka’s visit to Castle Yaroslav was going well. King Drakomor expressed his sadness that her parents weren’t able to join them, but Anneshka could see that he was secretly glad to have her all to himself.
The king gave her a tour of the castle, pointing out the favourite bits of his collection. Yeedarsh, the old servant, followed them from room to room. He poured them mead and fetched them apricot-filled doughnuts, but Anneshka didn’t like his presence. She could feel his eyes on her, even when he was supposed to be stoking the fire. He was too sharp, too observant.
On the third day of her visit, the king sent Yeedarsh away and showed Anneshka into his study. He helped her squeeze past an enormous orange jewel and held her hand as she stepped daintily over a row of exotic lizard eggs. When she got her skirts caught on the teeth of a stuffed wildcat, King Drakomor bent down to set her free.
In the middle of the study there was a desk. Behind the desk there were bookshelves filled with precious stones. They glinted and glimmered in the low light.
‘What do you think?’ said the king.
‘It’s magnificent,’ said Anneshka. ‘Really, I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘I brought you here because I want to speak in private.’
Anneshka kept her face still. This was it. Just as the stars had promised.
‘Since we first met …’ King Drakomor groped for the right words. ‘From the very first moment …’ He held on to the corner of the desk to steady himself.
‘Go on,’ said Anneshka.
‘I intend to make you my wife,’ he blurted.
Anneshka moved a hand to her mouth. ‘Your Majesty!’ She hoped she sounded sufficiently surp
rised. ‘Your Majesty, I had no idea …’
‘Of course, I had intended to firm things up with your father first—’
‘He’ll be delighted,’ she said, rushing forward and taking the king’s hand. ‘And so am I.’
The king smiled and Anneshka could see her outline reflected in his eyes.
He took a black box out of a drawer in the desk. ‘This used to belong to my brother,’ he said, removing a gold ring from the box. ‘And this one belonged to his wife.’ He showed her a smaller ring. ‘I would like them to become ours – from one king and queen to the next.’
‘They’re lovely,’ said Anneshka.
‘I’ll send them off to be polished, get them looking as good as new. We’ll need to think carefully about how we make the announcement. Once we’ve told the people, they’ll expect the wedding within a matter of days and I would prefer it if we could take our time … We’ll need to speak to the prince when we’re ready.’
‘The prince?’ She couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her voice.
‘Miroslav, my brother’s son.’
‘Oh … I assumed that you’d sent him away.’
‘No. He’s somewhere in the castle with his friends … Peasants, I gather. The boy’s running quite wild.’
Anneshka would have to choose her words carefully. ‘And what does he mean for our future,’ she asked, ‘if we are to get married?’
‘What do you mean?’ The king looked confused. ‘You don’t have to mother him, not if you don’t want to … although it might do him some good.’
‘Never mind, láska. That’s not what I meant, but there’s no rush to deal with the boy. Especially if we’re not announcing the wedding yet. I just wanted to get you thinking … to set the cogs in motion as it were.’
Time flew by. At least that was what the girls would have said if someone had asked. The truth was Imogen and Marie had stopped thinking about time altogether. They no longer knew how many days had passed since they’d walked into the Haberdash Gardens. They didn’t even know what day of the week it was.
A Clock of Stars Page 6
