Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  It was a blindingly elegant garden party. Crustless sandwiches were served on silver salvers, scones were presented on intricate lace doilies, and the constant sound of chinking wine glasses filled the afternoon.

  The West Parlour was a large garden enclosed within walls which had once been adorned with gilt and jewels, but had been picked clean over the years. Only the extraordinary murals depicting deeds of past Emperors remained, scrawled around the window frames in acrylic pictograms. A huge domed ceiling kept the rain away from the assembled guests and large red carpets had been spread out on the grass. The guest list was very select, consisting only of the Lordlings who officially ran the city-states of Mocklore, the bureaucratic and politically-minded fellows who really ran the city-states of Mocklore, and a handful of pretty fops and ladies-in-waiting to fill up the numbers, all hoping to be noticed by the gossip minstrels.

  Leonardes of Skullcap was dancing with Queen Hwenhyfar, who blushed like an embarrassed radish. She had never had occasion to blush before visiting Mocklore, but now it appeared to have become a persistent character trait.

  King Durraldo was gliding across the dance floor with the Lady Emperor, doing something halfway between a tango and a pavane.

  Reed Cooper, his black eye sticking out like a sore thumb, was surrounded by three blonde ladies-in-waiting who giggled and swooned at everything he said, from, “Good afternoon, ladies,” to, “Just go away, will you?”

  Griffin son of Camelot was stationed at the door as bouncer and Chief Herald. “Baron Humpty of the Middens!” he called through cupped hands, as a pudgy Lordling with an extraordinary coloured moustache waddled into the Parlour, removing his cloak and hat. Wrinkling his nose at the distinctive odour of old porridge, Griffin put these items on the hat stand which was already groaning under the weight of a few dozen skink stoles, several ostrich-feathered hats and one bronze umbrella which Griffin could not remember putting there for the life of him.

  “Humpty!” cried Vice-Chancellor Bertie from the buffet table. “Come over here, old man, get some bubbles into you! What a splendid moustache, how did you get it that colour?”

  “Walked into a Glimmer, old chap,” said Baron Humpty, twirling the colourful ends of his facial hair. “Still, mustn’t grumble. It does look rather good, doesn’t it?”

  A little jester with spectacles and a brand-new humorous hat passed unnoticed through the crowd with a plate of aristocratic nibbles. A hand reached out from a curtained alcove and hauled him into the shadowy depths.

  “I’m starving,” said Daggar. “What did you bring us?”

  “I fail to see the reason for crashing a party if we spend all the time hidden in here,” said Aragon.

  Kassa stood at the very edge of the alcove, craning her neck to get a look at the Lady Emperor, whom she had never actually seen. “You’re the one who is most likely to be be recognised,” she reminded him. “We’re here for a quick look, and nothing more.”

  “They cut the crusts off!” announced Daggar in an injured voice. He was looking particularly smart tonight, in a velvety black surcote over white satin robes. The others were equally well-dressed because Kassa had insisted that Daggar sell a few items of silver for exchangeable currency. She herself was garbed in a swishingly fashionable emerald silk gown and a long black wig. Aragon, at her insistence, was disguised with a false beard and robes befitting a foreign nobleman. There was no need to disguise Tippett, as no one ever noticed an extra jester.

  “Ey, let’s move about,” said Daggar. “He hasn’t brought nearly enough sausage.”

  “Just a minute,” said Kassa, finally spying the back of a golden head with a towering coronet perched on perfect hair. “Is that her? The infamous Lady Emperor?”

  Aragon followed her gaze. “Oh, yes.”

  “She doesn’t look anything special,” said Kassa snippily, just as Griffin announced, “Lord Marmaduc, Sultan of Zibria,” and the Lady Emperor turned her head towards her new guest.

  Seeing the Lady Emperor’s face for the first time, Kassa went very pale.

  “You didn’t eat one of them pickled eggs, did you?” said Daggar. “I knew they smelled funny…” Aragon’s hand clamped over his mouth. He was busy watching Kassa, and wanted no interruptions.

  “Marmie!” cried the Lady Emperor of Mocklore. She dropped the King of Anglorachnis like a hot brick and glided towards this new arrival with undignified haste.

  “Toadface!” he replied with equal warmth, scooping her up in a tremendously familiar hug.

  In the alcove, Aragon was not aware of Kassa’s movement until she already had a firm grip on his throat. “Why,” she said in a hoarse, half-strangled voice. “Did you fail to mention that Talle was the Lady Emperor?”

  “You didn’t know her name?” he managed to say as he struggled for breath. “Does it make a difference?”

  Kassa released him and stalked out of the alcove with a snap of her heels.

  Aragon rubbed his throat sorely. “Is there a problem?” he asked with supreme calm as Kassa pushed her way through the crowd.

  “They were at school together,” said Daggar grimly.

  Aragon assimilated this knowledge. “Grab her,” he said. “Before she—”

  24

  Breaking Things

  The sound of breaking glass filled the room. All the startled guests swiveled towards the source of noise. What they saw was so extraordinary that they just kept staring. Eventually, even Lady Talle turned around to see what all the fuss was about.

  A woman stood on the buffet table. Her emerald silk skirts billowed around her legs, her blood-coloured hair was being shaken free from a long black wig and she was wielding a translucent gentleman’s rapier.

  It was at this point that Aragon realised that his sword was missing.

  “Talle,” said the red-haired woman with a certain tone of menace in her voice. “I want a word with you.”

  “Kassa Daggersharp,” said Lady Talle with a snakish smile. “How nice. Here we are. I am the Emperor, and you are the outlaw. Interesting, when you consider which of us was head prefect.”

  The crowd of nobles and underlings watched the scene entranced, all thinking this was the promised theatrical entertainment.

  “Come a little closer, Talle,” said Kassa Daggersharp dangerously. “You’ve been sending assassins after me, and I don’t like that. If you don’t come a little closer, maybe I’ll come closer to you.” The bunting which encircled the Parlour was draped above the buffet table. Kassa seized two handfuls and swung forward.

  Daggar emerged from the alcove, running. “Not the chandelier, Kassa…” There was a sharp tinkling sound. Daggar’s face went deliberately blank and he muttered something like, “Never seen her before in my life,” before vanishing back into the thrilled crowd.

  Kassa Daggersharp swung from the chandelier. A change seemed to have come over her. Her hair had a life of its own, writhing and twisting like a nest of attractively silky serpents. Her eyes flashed, her teeth glinted, her lips moistened and she wielded the sword like a natural. The blade sparkled with the freezing light of the ice-sprites and it glittered wildly as she swung it back and forth.

  The crowd were so busy oohing and aahing at the amazing display of theatrics that no one noticed the little jester-poet who perched on the edge of a buffet table, scribbling furiously. His luck was in, and his work would be famous. This was a Pirate of Note.

  A foreign potentate with a false beard strode out of an alcove, his face furious. “Kassa, stop this spectacle right now!” he ordered.

  The Pirate Queen let go of the chandelier and dropped like a stone. Four enthusiastic fops broke her fall, and drew her to her feet. Moving as swiftly as silk, she darted towards the Lady Emperor. The Blackguards, all out of practice due to their recent stint as mummers, did not get there in time. Even Reed Cooper, pushing his way through an unhelpful crowd, couldn’t make it in time.

  Kassa Daggersharp pressed the transparent silver-steel blade against the
throat of the Lady Emperor. She paused for a moment, flickers of thought disturbing her natural impulse to strike. Pirates are ruthless, Pirates of Note doubly so. Witches don’t kill, they just break things.

  “Just so you know,” whispered Kassa Daggersharp, finally removing the sword from Lady Talle’s throat. “Just so you know,” she repeated softly. “I could have won right here and now.”

  The motley group left the garden party. Kassa took the opportunity to smash a crystal vase as she swaggered grandly away. The disguised potentate, who had not been recognised as Aragon Silversword, followed her. Daggar scuttled after them, hoping no one would notice he was a member of this group. The little jester-poet was still scribbling notes frantically as he also made his exit.

  Surprisingly, no one thought to stop them.

  Lady Talle stood very still, white-faced, outraged. “The performance,” she hissed between perfectly clenched teeth. “Tell those damned mummers to start the theatrical performance now!”

  The recently-restored mummers cowered behind the curtain of the little makeshift stage in a corner of the Parlour, darting worried glances at each other. They knew they had just witnessed an impossible act to follow.

  “So that’s what it’s like,” said Kassa Daggersharp. “To be a pirate, I mean. I really quite enjoyed it!”

  “Well, don’t do it again,” said Aragon Silversword. “Just keep walking.”

  “It was wonderful,” Kassa enthused, her eyes glowing eerily. “It felt so right.”

  “It felt bloody terrifying to me,” Daggar grumbled, keeping his head down. “Where did you learn all that stuff?”

  “I didn’t,” replied Kassa in stunned amazement. “It just came into my head. Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve just made the most amazing discovery. I like being a pirate. I really, really, really want to be a pirate. Maybe I can work the whole witching thing into it as well. I have finally made up my mind!”

  “We’re happy for you,” said Aragon. “Keep moving.”

  “But I was good, wasn’t I?” she insisted, hoping for some word of encouragement.

  Aragon stopped in the middle of the street, and turned to look straight into her eyes. “You were extraordinary,” he told her.

  Kassa was so pleased that she almost blushed. “Aragon, that is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” he growled, resuming a brisk walking pace.

  “What do we do now?” broke in Tippett, eager for another ballad-worthy scene in the near future.

  “Well,” said Kassa thoughtfully, “I have decided that I enjoy crashing parties. So what we are going to do next is buy Aragon a horse.”

  “More money,” groaned Daggar, who had spent most of the day watching Kassa spend his fortune.

  Aragon looked at Kassa incredulously. “You are going to allow me to enter the tourney tomorrow, after everything you said on the subject?”

  Kassa laughed in her melodic voice. “I was always going to let you enter, Silversword, but I can’t let you take these things for granted.”

  The anti-climactic theatrical performance impressed nobody very much. The astoundingly original musical score drowned out most of the dialogue, and nobody seemed to notice the post-modern twist in the anti-historical costumes. It was supposed to be a play contest, but the enthusiastic ex-Blackguards of Dreadnought had been the only entrants. Still, they were presented with a gold cup full of Zibrian Delight at the end, and the audience clapped politely enough.

  More than anything, the audience had enjoyed the intermission, which gave them an opportunity to gossip wildly. Many and varied subjects filled the air. There was the Glimmer, of course, and the interesting changes it had wrought during its brief but cataclysmic visitation. There was the surprising evidence that the Anglorachnis queen might be a witch, owing to her fondness for wearing a pointy headdress. Speculation ran riot about the non-attendance of Lordling Rorey who was rumoured to be adventuring somewhere with his warlock, hunting pirates or some such thing. Reed Cooper, the dashingly handsome ambassador with the fresh black eye, came under scrutiny by many of the prominent ladies of the court, particularly Baron Svenhilda of Axgaard who was the only female Lordling.

  Surprisingly enough, the Lady Emperor herself barely qualified as a gossip subject, except when her intimacy with the Sultan of Zibria was speculated upon. Her role as the first female Emperor had ceased to become a novelty—it was old news. Lady Talle was such a smooth hostess that many people had forgotten that someone else had been Emperor barely a moon ago, and someone else two moons before that.

  Despite everything, she had won. It would take more than an industrial-sized earthquake to dislodge Talle from her throne now. Where international espionage and grand politics had barely affected her position, trays of champagne cocktails and nibbly things on biscuits had succeeded beyond all expectation.

  Kassa was sewing a banner for Aragon to carry into the tourney. It showed her own coat of arms: three drops of black blood on a field of poppies.

  “I suppose you would not consider me carrying my own banner?” suggested Aragon dryly, not really expecting an answer.

  Kassa obliged his expectations by completely ignoring him.

  Tippett was doing the washing. He struggled under a huge basket filled with muddy clothes, blood-stained shirts and dirty underwear. He yelped and dropped it all over the deck when an insistent chirping came from within the bundle. “What is that?”

  Kassa looked up, just in time to see the sacred bauble of Chiantrio leaping free of the bundle of dirty washing. It made a sound like, “Yipppeeeee!”

  Kassa looked at Aragon. “Didn’t you give that thing to me?”

  “I may have done,” said Aragon.

  “Well?”

  He sighed. He had preferred the days when he had been fully intending to murder her. This whole bond-servant routine did not suit him at all. “If you must know, it belonged to the Lady Emperor. It latched on to me for some reason. She never did tell me what it was for.”

  Kassa caught hold of the tiny trinket and tied it securely to a length of silver embroidery thread. Then she tucked it back into her bodice for safekeeping.

  Daggar emerged from the undergrowth behind the ghost-ship, running hard. “Heeeellllpppp!” he wailed. Three large winged things glowing with a strange, glimmery light appeared to be chasing him.

  “So the plague isn’t completely buried,” commented Aragon, watching Daggar run laps around the ship away from the winged things.

  “What did you expect, a miracle?” said Kassa. “I’m only a witch. Anyway, rain wouldn’t have affected the water magic so there’s probably plenty of that waiting to come out of the woodwork.”

  As if they had heard her, several small glints burst out of a purple tree nearby. They headed straight for Daggar.

  “Aaarrgghh!” he yelled accusingly. “Do something! Witch it!”

  And Kassa did. She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue and threw her spare needle in the direction of Daggar’s supernatural pursuers. In the instant before it missed them completely, she sang a single note. The needle swung around, pointing due North, and sped off in that direction. As if compelled, the glints and the flying things swung around and followed the silvery point until they had all vanished over the horizon.

  “You witched it!” said Daggar in astonishment.

  “You owe me a needle,” replied Kassa, and she continued to work on her banner.

  “I suppose it didn’t occur to you to do something lasting about those glints,” suggested Aragon, “Rather than washing them away for someone else to deal with.”

  “That’s rich, coming from someone who keeps urging me to walk away from the problem!” Kassa retorted. “I repeat, I’m only a witch! An untrained witch, who doesn’t actually know how to do all this stuff.”

  Aragon looked faintly disturbed by this revelation. “You mean, all the magic you have been doing…”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently. “I have be
en making it up as I go along! And making quite a lot of mistakes, I might add. You may quote me,” she added generously to Tippett.

  Inside Kassa’s bodice, the sacred bauble of Chiantrio burbled slightly and went back to sleep.

  Elsewhere in the Skullcap Forest, Fredgic the warlock was bored, tired and hungry. “I really don’t think there are any pirates,” he mumbled drowsily as he trudged beside the golden carriage.

  “Hmm, nonsense dear boy!” exclaimed Lordling Rorey, who was still as bright as a button despite the weeks of living on tinned cabbage and gathered berries. “I can practic’ly smell them, don’t you know!”

  “I think that’s the goats, my Lord,” said Fredgic wearily. “Perhaps if we are looking for pirates, we should try…the sea?”

  “Hmm, stuff and rubbish!” announced the Lordling abrasively. “We’ll find those piratical fellows if it’s the last thing we do. Onward!”

  Fredgic sighed and continued down the rocky path, followed by the smelly mutant mountain goats and the comfy golden carriage. All of the mummers and dancing bears had escaped by now, and the Lordling’s pet jester had run away to find something more interesting to write epic-poetry about. Fredgic was alone with a mad Lordling and a mission. To find pirates.

  “Here, pirey pirey pirates,” he called dismally.

  “Louder!” demanded the Lordling. “Hmm, and try to sound enticing, Fudgecake. Lure them out of their holes!”

  “I don’t think pirates live in holes, Lord.”

  “Hmm, what would you know, warlock? Just get me some pirates!”

  It wouldn’t be so bad, mused Fredgic as he trudged dismally onwards, if he wasn’t completely and utterly certain that the Lordling had forgotten what he actually wanted the pirates for.

  “Hmm, ha har my maties!” cried the Lordling in sudden triumph. “I see them! Over there!”

  Fredgic turned with little enthusiasm in the direction in his Lordling’s enthusiastic finger was gesturing. “I believe that is a gorgon, lord,” he said patiently. “A woman with snakes for hair tending the wounds of a giant gargoyle with a sheep in his lap.” It took perhaps three seconds for Fredgic’s own observations to seep into his brain. He screamed with horror and dove headfirst into the golden carriage, just as the Lordling stepped out.