The Knot Impossible

by Barbara Else

  “The mine exploded,” said Hodie. “If I’d known you were…thank the stars nobody was killed. But look at the state of you.”

  “And look at you.” The Queen glanced at his hair. “I didn’t know you at all.”

  Hodie’s hands clenched, and he spoke as if his heart hurt. “I recognized you the second I saw you lying for dead. In that boat with the kids.”

  “That is love,” Lu’nedda said.

  “It is not,” snapped the Queen.

  “Utter rubbish!” said Hodie at once.

  Lu’nedda patted the top of her splattered boilersuit. “Ah, always remember these heady days of early romance.”

  The day room went into an interesting stillness. Hodie and the Queen looked at each other under lowered brows.

  “She didn’t recognize you at Jovial River either…” Blast. Rufkin had meant to keep quiet. They were both scowling at him now.

  Despite himself he prattled on. “But she might not have seen you. She was dizzy. And Vosco grabbed her hand and dragged her with him…” Lord Hodie’s fists clenched and loosened. “And you’d tried to drown him.”

  It was probably the most dangerous thing Rufkin had ever said. Hodie had looked grim before. Now he looked terrifying.

  “I deliberately dropped the three of you very carefully to keep you away from Madam Butterly.”

  “Why?” asked Murgott.

  “All right. Listen,” Lord Hodie said.

  “First, children can play. Outside,” said Lu’nedda. “Little ones, choose balls.”

  The little kids scrambled around the toy box. Pipsqueak ran in with spare sneakers for Vosco and helped put them on. Then they were all out on the grass near the deck chairs, beyond the tree.

  Rufkin glanced at Nissy. They stayed where they were.

  Hodie began. “Madam Butterly knows the mine is causing pollution but she hasn’t admitted it. She’s also bribing Mayor Jolliman to speed up deliveries of iron ore from the mines in the hills behind Port Feather. Her zirbonium refinery is working non-stop.”

  “For goodness’ sake. If this were true, I would have known.” In her armchair Calleena dabbed a finger to her eyes.

  “You might not be aware of it.” Hodie still seemed suspicious of her. “I couldn’t find proof. But I’m sure it’s true. I understand why she would be doing it—pure greed for more money. What I don’t understand is to do with these three.” He pointed outside at Vosco, then turned around till he found Nissy and Rufkin. He gave Rufkin a dark look, then continued.

  “Vida Butterly is interested in finding a child. It seems to be just any child. But it’s as important to her as the Lazy River mine and making zirbonium, as important as making her millions. Maybe a child is even more important. Calleena has dodged any of my questions. But you—” he pointed at Calleena— “Goodabod and Thunderhead were desperate to gather these kids. So was I when I realised Vosco was one of them.”

  He glared at Rufkin again. “I was about to drop down to the launch myself and do my best to keep you safe. Then I recognized Sibilla…” He threw such a frown at the Queen that Rufkin reckoned an old-fashioned monarch would shout, Chain him at once and swallow the key!

  Calleena let out a brave little gasp. “And the waterspouts arrived and you couldn’t reach her. You never told me that the Queen was involved. I suppose a spy would keep that to himself. As for Madam Butterly, it’s not at all strange. It’s truly sad. She has no child of her own and longs to adopt one. These three seemed spare.” Calleena waved her hand again.

  But now Rufkin didn’t trust that pretty gesture. It was the wave of Missie Cute-Fox sending chickens to safety, ha ha, really into her lair.

  Vosco and Pipsqueak ran in again to the toy box.

  Rufkin’s mouth opened. “Well, Madam Butterly can’t have me. I’ve gone totally off her. She can’t have Vosco. And Nissy’s mam probably wouldn’t let her have Nissy till she’s old enough to be a real apprentice.”

  “Ee-ow,” Vosco said, a green ball in his hand.

  “Right,” said Rufkin. “Madam Butterly’s got a cat. She could just get another.”

  All the grown-ups stared as if he was nuts. So did Nissy.

  “But Your Majesty, I think we forgot to tell them yet,” he continued. “How she’s had herself made to look like a second Lady Gall.”

  Rufkin expected some attention now. But there was silence, except that Vosco and Pipsqueak zoomed outside again.

  “So that’s what Doctor Goodabod’s been up to,” said Lord Hodie at last.

  “The elastic surgeon?” Murgott fell back in his chair. “Little Queen, if Vida Butterly wants to look like Lady Gall, she’s as warped as a nest of vipers.”

  “This is crazy!” Calleena pulled a handkerchief out of her bag and dabbed her face.

  Lord Hodie shook his tangle of hair and turned to the Queen. “Sibilla, I told you—”

  “Have you learned nothing from me?” Murgott demanded. “You don’t tell a monarch anything. You politely suggest.”

  “Pardon me for shouting,” said Lord Hodie calmly. Then he shouted, “If you don’t tell a monarch anything, why have we set up a Council of Wisdom?”

  “For the sake of democracy.” Lu’nedda spoke like an utter Empress. “But look at the youngest royal child playing with Pipsqueak, his little cousin—so sharing with toys. By the time we agree, Vosco and Pipsqueak both be very old men. That is problem with Council of Wisdom. It takes too long to make suggestions. It argues but does not act.”

  Lord Hodie dragged a hand though his hair. “We’re in the middle of a national disaster. There’s no time to wait.”

  “You won’t defeat anyone with that horrible hairstyle,” said the Queen. “Sorry. That was petty but I couldn’t resist. It really is an awful perm.”

  “I’ll grow it out at once, Ma’am,” Lord Hodie said in an excellent Tone-ironic.

  Actually Rufkin didn’t think the curls were so terrible, they just didn’t suit Hodie. But he managed to bite his lips together.

  A group of adventurers appeared from the winery to wash soot off themselves. A few others, already clean, wheeled trolleys heaped with food in from the kitchen. Swan came in and ladled soup for himself from a vast tureen.

  Calleena must be starving but she was still sitting there, watching and listening. So was Nissy, head going back and forth as if she was watching a play. The smell of the soup was tempting but Rufkin didn’t want to miss a word either. Things didn’t feel right.

  Murgott drew the Queen, Hodie, and the ex-Empress into a huddle. If he meant to be confidential, he should have whispered. “The situation is urgent. In this room are a dozen of the best brains in Fontania. Most of them are old but that’s an advantage. They’re crammed with experience. I count my own brain, in regard to tactics. No pirate won by blasting into a fight without a rock-solid plan.”

  “You told me you did,” said Lu’nedda.

  “That was luck,” said Murgott. “But an army has never won by marching off willy-nilly. Well, hardly ever.”

  “But how to fix this end-of-days?” Lu’nedda asked. “Hodie, what is use of spying if you find no proof of a badness or plot? Wanting to look like Lady Gall is maybe big mental problem only.”

  “Actually, I might have proof,” Nissy said.

  The grown-ups stared, Calleena especially.

  The Queen beckoned Nissy.

  Before she went closer Nissy combed her hair with her fingers and rubbed at her face. “Madam Butterly said to stay alert and take risks. So I did. I wrote some actual information in my notebook. But I lost it.”

  “Here.” Rufkin fished out the book at last.

  “Ew,” said Nissy. “It’s been down your front?”

  “You’d already dribbled on it,” he said. “It got soggy in Jovial River. When the corners stopped digging in, I mostly forgot it.” He held it out, smiling.

  But she stuck her hands behind her back. “Ew,” she said. “Double ew!”

  The grown-ups peered at t
he notebook but didn’t touch either.

  “You open it,” Lu’nedda said to him.

  Rufkin wanted to chuck it on the floor and march out. But he didn’t dare refuse an order from an ex-Empress. He wouldn’t have refused an order from Lu’nedda whatever she’d been. She was pretty fearsome. He eased back the cover.

  “Nissy Symore,” read Lu’nedda over his shoulder.

  “Me,” said Nissy.

  Rufkin turned another page.

  “It is in code,” said Lu’nedda.

  Nissy frowned. “I hope I can remember it.”

  “You can’t remember your own code?” asked Rufkin.

  Nissy straightened her shoulders. “The first pages are how much money I could make if I sold cave-lizard nuggets. If I was lucky, it would have been fifty-nine dolleros and twenty cents for about thirty bucketsful.”

  He turned more pages.

  “Ew,” she muttered again.

  He came to the last pages she’d scribbled on.

  “Yes,” she said. “Madam Butterly was bringing in metal from Um’Binnia, made in the old ways, not with lazulite.”

  “You’re all crazy,” Calleena said. “You believe the notes of a child? What she thinks she remembered?”

  Queen Sibilla lifted a hand. “Let Nissy speak.”

  “Madam Butterly was smuggling, probably.” Nissy gave Lord Hodie a blink. “You suspected it, didn’t you? Well, I wrote down exactly what I remembered from her notebook.” She frowned at a tidy set of columns much neater than Rufkin’s printing, and set a finger on the first one.

  “This is iron, and that sign is what gets added to it to make regular steel. In other words, it’s old metal. But this column is iron with lazulite added, so it’s zirbonium. Now look at these dates. I think that three years ago she began buying up old metal at cheap prices, and at the same time she started selling the new stuff at a higher price.”

  Queen Sibilla’s hands pressed together. “Nearly three years ago Vida Butterly suggested she would sit on the Council of Wisdom when it was created. She suggested taxes on imported metal—that’s on metal without lazulite. But if she was smuggling, she avoided paying taxes on it herself.”

  “And almost exactly three years ago she had that trouble at the mine,” said Hodie. “When the miners refused to go in.”

  Calleena started to protest again, but Murgott and Lu’nedda both glared at her.

  Nissy set a finger on the last date. “And that was underlined three times and marked deadline.”

  Hodie’s brows pulled together. “That’s the day after tomorrow.”

  Murgott flung up his arms. “But what does it mean?”

  “It didn’t say.” Nissy chewed her lip for a moment. “But Madam Butterly had drawn lots of gleeful faces and spiky things in the margin.”

  “Show.” Lu’nedda passed her a pencil. Nissy scribbled an example in her own margin.

  Lu’nedda pulled a face. “Doodling shows personality. Very nasty.”

  “Where is Madam Butterly now?” asked Murgott.

  “I have no idea,” said Calleena in a sharp voice. “I really haven’t.”

  Rufkin had better say something. “I saw the Sea Honey first thing this morning. Just before Swan found us.”

  “Swan?” called Murgott. “Where did you find them?”

  “Near the mouth of Simmering River,” Swan called back from the table.

  “Would she be heading upriver?” Murgott asked. Rufkin almost saw his thoughts marching along. “The channel is deep enough—ah, no need to worry. Vida Butterly can’t harm us.”

  Calleena, expressionless now, held on to her bag.

  “Just a minute, Murgott,” Lord Hodie said. “The Sea Honey’s crew would be a match for you and me. There are eight of them. Including one ogre. The captain would give anyone a tough run for their dollero. And the yacht’s got a swivel gun on a solid old turntable. It’s disguised as a telescope.” He flashed a glance at Calleena. “Yes, I spotted it. There’s also a loudspeaker system, very elaborate. Thunderhead was testing it out. It seems to me Madam Butterly has some unusual plans. Murgott, what weapons do you have on the property?”

  Murgott’s eyebrows came together in the frown Rufkin’s dad had used in The Aim is Victory. His nostrils flared as if he smelled danger.

  The Queen rested her forehead on her hand and old Doctor Maisie came and took her arm. “Too much talk and not enough rest. We must clean you up and give proper nourishment. Come along to the hospital wing.” She and tiny Delilah helped the Queen leave.

  Lord Hodie, with his own terrible frown, watched them go, then gave Calleena another glance.

  Outside, one of the orphans was in shrieks of tears again. In the next second it turned to laughter. An orange ball bounced into a deck chair. A red one bounced into the tree and down the path. Vosco went running after it. He tried to pick it up but the trumpet got in his way. It would be much easier if he put the darn thing down now and then.

  A hee-haw came from behind the house. Tiger, the donkey. The horses that Hodie and Calleena had left down by the gate gave a few snickers. They might need water. The day was overcast but it was hot.

  Rufkin heard a familiar sound again—very heavy footsteps, a crunch on the path.

  His breath sort of whispered back down his throat. He prickled all over.

  ~

  Through the window, Rufkin saw the orphans wheel around on the grass and look at the path. They backed off and squeaked a bit. All the balls bounced to a stop. Vosco pushed the beanie up so he could see better and went very still.

  Doctor Goodabod stepped into sight. “What is here? Outstanding surprise! Excellent specimen!” His huge hands whisked up Vosco as if he weighed nothing.

  The orphans ran screaming from view. Murgott and Hodie made for the door, Lu’nedda with them. Rufkin dashed out as well, but skidded to a stop just before he bumped into her on the veranda.

  Captain Thunderhead stood on the path beside Goodabod. Behind them were four sailors in yellow and black jerseys, rifles over their shoulders in a casual attitude.

  Murgott stayed halfway down the veranda steps. ‘Did you have a booking?’

  Thunderhead’s grin nearly split that sea-pickled face. “What a welcome. Harry the apprentice is already here. I see Calleena too, there at the window. We think alike in Butterly Ventures. All roads led to Adventurers’ Rest.”

  For a moment Rufkin thought it had all been a mix-up. Madam Butterly and her crew wanted a night at the lodge. He started to smile.

  “And tiddlers again.” Thunderhead rubbed his hands. “So many tiddlers when we only need one.”

  “Goodabod, you’re scaring the boy,” Hodie said. “Put him down.”

  The ogre tucked Vosco under one arm like a rolled-up blanket. “I do no harm.”

  “Help,” whispered Vosco.

  Rufkin pushed past Lu’nedda to the top of the steps. “Put him down!”

  “Take you instead?” A wheeze of laughter from Thunderhead. “You’d be too much trouble.”

  “Please to put child down,” Lu’nedda said. “What do you want?”

  Captain Thunderhead’s head reared back a bit. “What Harry and Calleena came for. Any spare orphan. But a spare royal child will suit better. Madam Butterly will be a happy woman, richer than ever.”

  Lord Hodie’s shoulders had widened with anger but he spoke softly. “Put the boy down, Goodabod. You can’t…”

  Thunderhead had whisked a hand to his belt and brought out a pistol. Rufkin heard the click of the safety catch. The sailors unshouldered their rifles.

  “Time’s short,” said Thunderhead. “You’re in it for money or you’re out. I’ll just take your resignation back to Madam Butterly. No place for kind hearts in Butterly Ventures.”

  With his ogre-size hand clamped over Vosco’s mouth, Goodabod backed past an open window. The white-haired troll leapt from it and tried to bowl Goodabod—Hodie dived at Thunderhead—the pistol went flying—

  “St
op!” came Calleena’s voice. Something hard pressed into Rufkin’s head, and sharp fingers had clutched his shoulder. “Mistress Murgott, stand well back, thank you. Mister Murgott too, stand well away.”

  The pressure left Rufkin’s head and he stumbled. Beside him, Calleena, red bag over her shoulder, held a sleek silver pistol. In the doorway, Nissy looked stunned.

  “Thunderhead, his name isn’t Harry. He is a spy. It’s Lord Hodie.” Calleena aimed at Hodie now. “I’d shoot him, but the sound might bring out some tough old folk. The Queen’s here too, but she can’t do anything. Thank the stars you thought to come here. Now, quick. We have three days.”

  Calleena turned to Nissy and tugged her hair. “Madam Butterly liked you. This is your chance. Come along.”

  Nissy kicked Calleena and burst into sobs.

  “Stupid girl,” muttered Calleena.

  “Cover us,” Thunderhead barked to the Sea Honey crew.

  The sailors formed a shield of rifles.

  Calleena and Thunderhead strode away down the crunching path. The ogre lumbered after them for the gate, Vosco still under his arm. The trumpet dangled from the little kid’s neck.

  The moment they’d gone, Murgott dived up the steps into the house. “Weapons!” he roared.

  “Nissy, go comfort orphans,” said Lu’nedda. “Rufkin, fetch help from winery.”

  Even before he reached it adventurers were pouring out with their brooms, mops, and shovels. They ran faster and more steadily than most people younger would have managed. By the time he’d gathered them all together, Murgott and Hodie were ahead already, each with a pistol. Rufkin caught up at the gate by the twisted trees.

  Goodabod was far down the road. Thunderhead and Calleena were just behind him. The sailors still formed a shield. There past the bridge was the wharf and the old wooden ship Rufkin had seen only this morning. There was a small launch and a couple of dinghies.

  And there was the Sea Honey too. A crewman—it was Sammo—stood on the wharf, guarding the gangway.

  “Keep under cover,” muttered Murgott.

  Rufkin, through blood beating in his ears, heard Vosco—Help help.