“Black Nell,” Tybalt interrupted darkly. “Wife of Bigbeard Daggersharp.” The most famous pirate couple in the cosmos, so no surprise Lirabel hadn’t heard of them. “The point of the story is that they were all women who were important, so everyone tried to rescue them. Profit-scoundrels, pirates, princes—dozens of them tried and failed.”
“But then this young pirate called Touchstone had a magic rock that killed the god and it was a happy ending!” Lirabel said excitedly.
Tybalt looked outraged. He stood up suddenly and tossed some moss on the fire, damping it down. “We should get some sleep.”
“He was only called Touchstone after the god was defeated,” I told Lirabel. “Because his ‘magic rock’ was a touchstone. It made him invisible to gods, it didn’t kill anyone.”
“Whatever,” Lirabel said dismissively. “It was like a hundred years ago.”
I looked at her in amazement. “It was fifteen years ago! In living memory of everyone here except Mr Recently-Constructed-Out-Of-Bronze.”
“Whatever,” Lirabel sighed. “I’m sleepy.”
Doc slept that night, or at least pretended to. I suppose it would be disquieting if he sat there with his eyes open all night. Lirabel slept too, after the obligatory half hour of describing her lovely soft feather bed at home, and how horrible it was to sleep on the ground. I lay awake for ages, trying to remember exactly how that Touchstone story went anyway. Just as I thought I had figured it out, darling Tybalt climbed on to my bedroll and stuck his tongue in my mouth.
What with all the adventures and travels, it had been a while since I had been properly kissed, so I went along with it for a moment. His mouth was hot and heavy, and he seemed to know what to do with it. “What are you playing at, Theta?” he whispered. “Or is it Mandra, or Delta this week.”
Too late, I remembered that he thought he knew me. I strategically removed his hands from various curvy bits of my body and stuck out my hand for him to shake. It bounced off his firm chest. “Mostly I go by the name Delta. I think you’re mistaking me for my evil twin sister?”
He stared at me in horror and then threw himself back, putting some much needed personal space between us. “You’re Dee.”
“DV, short for Delta Void.” I hate being called Dee.
“What happened to Theta?”
I took a deep breath. “She seems to have spent some quality time with you, and then to have lured our friend Lirabel into a glass coffin in an underground cave, which would count as a great service to humankind if my pal Doc hadn’t rescued the dear child. Other than that, she could be anywhere doing anything. But nothing good.”
“Up to some scheme again,” he muttered. “I thought she’d changed.”
I laughed at him. “You thought the love of a good man would turn Theta Void into a productive member of society? That’s unreasonably optimistic. Now, I have some sleep to catch up on. So, good night.”
He crawled back to his own bedroll, grumbling to himself.
I lay back down and stared up at the murky night sky. It really was too bad my sister had got to him first. He was a hell of a kisser.
–§–§–§–§–§–
We travelled on in the morning, on track to arrive at lunchtime, which is the best time to arrive anywhere. Tybalt was sulking, occasionally shooting a grumpy look in my direction.
Doc was back to his old tricks, flirting happily away. Luckily, it wasn’t with me. Lirabel was the lucky girl in question. She flirted right back in a loud, obvious kind of way, but the effect was spoiled every time she looked around to see how jealous Tybalt was. (He wasn’t.)
Since Tybalt was the only sensible person in the group, I decided it was time to make friends. I sidled up to him. “Can you think of a good reason why Lord Rynehart would send a flirting robot to the new Jarl? Doc says he’s programmed to fall in love, and I can’t see what use that’s going to be to Prince Thorfried.”
“Svenhilda,” Tybalt said shortly, not looking at me.
“Sorry?”
“Princess Svenhilda is going to be the new Jarl, not Thorfried.”
“Since when?”
“Since Thorfried died of alcohol poisoning during a celebratory beer-drinking competition two weeks ago. He’s the last of Jarl Erik’s sons, which leaves his sister Svenhilda. The next Jarl of Axgaard is going to be a girl.”
So Lord Rynehart had sent a walking, flirting clockwork man to a female Jarl. Nope, still didn’t make sense. “Svenhilda. Where have I heard that name before?”
“I know!” exclaimed Lirabel, proving she wasn’t entirely self-absorbed. “Svenhilda was the little girl in the story.”
“The Touchstone ballad,” I agreed, snapping my fingers.
“She’s all grown up now,” scowled Tybalt, moving away from me.
“Hang on,” I said, grabbing his sleeve. “One more question before you go back to honing your sulking skills. Do you expect my sister to be at the coronation?”
“I don’t know what to expect from your sister,” Tybalt said. He started walking more quickly, putting distance between us.
Now I was worried. Not because my mission didn’t make sense—they rarely do. I was starting to get one of those feelings of dread that I always get when my sister is involved in something dodgy, which she almost always is.
–§–§–§–§–§–
The first thing you see of Axgaard is a big wooden wall. Usually you hear the city before you see it, what with the shouting and the screaming and the clashing of swords. Not today, though. Today, all we could hear was music.
“That doesn’t sound like Axgaard music,” I said. “Axgaard music is all thumps and crashes and ballads about glorious battle. Songs you can sing along to with a lot of beer inside you. This is—dancing music.”
“Oh, goody,” said Lirabel. “I hoped there would be dancing!”
Tybalt was smiling, for the first time since I first ran into him. “Good old Svenny. I thought she’d give it a try.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked him.
“Svenhilda’s a modern girl. Spent a lot of time outside the wooden walls. She told me once that if she was in charge, she would turn Axgaard into a proper centre of civilisation.”
I blinked. “Civilisation? You mean, not setting fire to people who know about table manners?”
“That sort of thing. I never thought she’d go through with it. Mind you, I never thought she’d be Jarl. No one did. Even when she started running out of brothers.” He shook his head. “Old Jarl Erik would be turning in his grave if he knew he was being succeeded by a girl.”
“Lord Rynehart didn’t seem too happy either,” I said, remembering the Lordling’s comment about how he didn’t approve of the new Jarl. That made sense if he knew she was a girl. Rynehart was like Erik, a bloke of the old school. Female Lordlings in Mocklore were rare enough without conspiracies keeping daughter out of the succession!
I was feeling vaguely empowered by this whole thing.
Tybalt led the way through the Town Square, which was usually full of bearded warriors competing to see who could drink the most beer and throw the greatest number of axes at live targets. The children would be doing much the same but with smaller axes. The only decoration you would expect to see at a special event would be severed heads on spikes, with a bit of gore dripping down for colour.
Today, the rough, tough Axgaard populace prepared for a different kind of party. Grim warriors hung yellow streamers from the rooftops, and others nailed flower arrangements to anything that moved. Women with long braids manoeuvred a huge, sizzling roast beast from the spit and hacked it into small, dainty pieces that they threaded on cocktail sticks along with pineapple chunks. A group of small, bearded children went through the motions of a Maypole dance, weaving ribbons in and out as they skipped through the jolly little steps and whistled the jolly little tune. Only two of them got knifed in the process.
“Whose nightmare is this?” I muttered.
�
�Theirs,” said Tybalt. “Look at the expressions on their faces! If she keeps on with this, she’ll have a revolt on her hands.”
“I’m revolted already. Where is this princess of yours?”
Tybalt surveyed the square, and pointed.
A group of ladies (not a term usually applied to Axgaard women, believe you me) sat on a dais, threading flowers into each other’s braids. A pretty, pastoral scene. Sure, they were also braiding in thistles, nettles and the occasional root vegetable, but they were new at the whole ‘lady-in-waiting’ gig. Svenhilda, next Jarl of Axgaard, sat on a velvet stool in their midst.
She was a large, buxom lass with solid curves in all directions. Her braids were a bright flaxen blonde, woven with roses, ribbons and something from the parsnip family. She wore a crown. It had obviously started out as the traditional Axgaard crown—a small wooden helmet with two enormous horns nailed to it—but having been through the same process as everything else in the square, it was painted gold and glued all over with shiny stones. A third horn, pale pink, had been jammed in the middle of the hat. A long veil of gauze draped prettily from it. Several large rhododendrons, visibly wilting, had been nailed to the crown as had what looked like a dead possum.
When she saw Tybalt, Svenhilda’s face broke into the widest grin I have ever seen. She tossed several ladies-in-waiting to one side, bounded powerfully across the dented cobbles and threw her arms around him. “Touchstone!” she declared in a powerful, theatrical voice. “It’s good to see you!”
“You too, Svenny,” he said cheerfully.
She kissed him in a noisy, lip-smacking manner. “Wait until you see what I’ve done with the place!”
“I can see it from here!” he said, in a better mood than he had been for our whole journey.
Lirabel, looking put out, came forward to hang possessively to Tybalt’s arm. I tugged at his other arm, whispered quickly in his ear. “Touchstone?”
He shot me a grin, peeled himself away from Lirabel and went off with Svenhilda as she pointed out the improvements she had made to the place.
“Well!” exclaimed Lirabel, pouting.
I looked around for Doc, and found him hiding behind a large marble pillar. Don’t ask me why a marble pillar was there, since it wasn’t holding anything up. “What are you doing?”
“I am a surprise gift. The Jarl must not see me before the coronation ceremony.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “We’ve got some time to kill before this evening. Why don’t we go find something to eat?”
“I do not eat,” Doc reminded me.
“Well, we’ll find someone to give you a wax and polish instead.” I eyed Lirabel, who was staring after Tybalt and Svenhilda, utterly unable to accept that she had been ditched. “Let’s go quickly and quietly shall we?” I suggested to Doc. I didn’t want to be around when the damsel started wailing.
–§–§–§–§–§–
The pre-coronation party was surprisingly good. Even the most stoic of the Axgaard warriors had got the hang of swing dancing. I had switched to Laria, a slinky blonde persona who loves to dance, even with scary bearded men. The music had a good beat, the things on sticks were tasty and the drinks were plentiful. Sure, it was mostly beer, but they served it in dainty glasses. The town square was full of merrymakers and not a single axe had been drawn.
The ceremony was due to start in ten minutes and I couldn’t find Doc. I climbed some dodgy steps to get a better view of the crowd, but he was nowhere in sight. I switched back to DV and surveyed the scene again. How did one lose track of a shiny man made out of bronze?
Something glinted in a side street and I took off after it, glad to be back in my natural body with its sensible shoes. I stopped in the shadows and listened.
“That’s right,” said a soft, female voice. “Then you dip me low, still maintaining eye contact, and bring me up slowly. It’s very important that when you kiss her, you gaze into her eyes until the very last moment.”
“Yes, Theta,” said the obedient voice of my friend Doc.
I stepped into the alleyway. “Nice to see you taking such a personal interest in things, Thetes.”
Theta Void, my evil twin sister, was still in the ‘dip’ position of the dance lesson. She stared at me in shock, let go of Doc’s arms and promptly landed flat on her back. “Dee!” she said in astonishment.
“Don’t act surprised. You must have known I was the one escorting Doc to the ceremony, since the two of you are so close.”
“I didn’t, actually,” she said, standing up with the aid of Doc’s gentlemanly arm. She glared at him. “He didn’t mention it.”
“You did not ask, Theta,” Doc replied smoothly.
Theta and I stared at him with what I suspect were identical looks of suspicion. “So what’s going on?” I asked my beloved sister. “You provided Doc for Lord Rynehart, didn’t you? You got Uncle Imago to build him.”
“Maybe,” she said defensively. “Lord Rynehart wanted to send the new Jarl a clockwork bodyguard, since she’s a weak defenseless girlie, and I knew Uncle Imago had been working on that sort of thing. It all dovetailed nicely.”
“And did Lord Rynehart order Doc to be capable of flirting and falling in love?” I still couldn’t see where we were going with this, but I pressed on regardless.
“I call him Sebastian,” Theta said huffily. “Doc is a silly name. So what if I added a few extra functions? It’s not a crime.”
“If you did it, it’s almost certainly a crime,” I shot back. “Why?”
Theta scowled. “To distract that pushy bitch who’s going to be Jarl. You should hear her, Touchstone this, Touchstone that, Touchstone rescued me from an evil god fifteen years ago, blah blah blah. That braided heifer is after my boyfriend.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You went to all this trouble to keep Svenhilda away from Tybalt? I suppose that’s why you locked Lirabel in the coffin as well, to keep her away from him. What is it with this guy?” You know, apart from his amazing kissing skills. “Never mind,” I said hastily as Theta opened her mouth to start telling me why darling Tybalt was worth all this trouble. “I don’t want to know. It sounds like the ceremony’s starting. Once I’ve presented Doc, my job is over. I can go home and forget any of this ever happened. Okay?”
“Fine with me,” Theta snapped. She turned, brushing a little travel dust from Doc and buffing up his lips with her handkerchief. “Go out there and be dazzling, Sebastian.”
“Yes, Theta,” said Doc obediently.
I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him after me. “Try not to ravish the Jarl until after the ceremony, okay, Doc?”
“Yes, Delta.”
“See you, sis,” called Theta from behind us.
“Not if I see you first!”
–§–§–§–§–§–
As we got back to the square, the music was starting—real Axgaard music, all drums and screeches and thumpy choruses. I suppose Svenhilda wasn’t able to throw out all the local traditions in one day. A parade was starting. I found Tybalt somewhere in the middle of the throng, Lirabel securely attached to his arm again. He looked uncomfortable.
“My sister’s here,” I told him helpfully as Doc and I approached.
Tybalt stared at me. “Really?”
“Back in that side street,” I told him, pointing.
He extracted himself from Lirabel and hurried off in that direction. Lirabel pouted. “I didn’t know you had a sister,” she said huffily.
“Oh, yes. Theta looks just like me—hair a little lighter, that’s all.”
“Theta,” she mused. “That sounds familiar.”
“It should do. She’s the witch who locked you in the glass coffin, remember?”
“Oh, yes. It’s funny, really.”
Svenhilda had reached the big galumphing throne, and a long line of Axgaard warriors dedicated their axes and swords to her, laying them in a big pile at her feet.
Lirabel was still talking. “I’m not sure why
she went so nasty, we were practically the best of friends at first. She even introduced me to darling Tybalt. He’s just as handsome as she described, and fourth in line to the Zibrian throne!”
I stared at her. “Theta introduced you two?”
“Not exactly introduced, but she told me all about him and brought me to the party where I met him. She told me that she thought darling Tybalt was going to be my true love. And she was right! And now it turns out that he’s also the hero from that Touchstone story. It’s so romantic!”
“When did all this happen?” I interrupted. “When did Theta tell you about Tybalt?”
“Twelve days ago,” said Lirabel firmly.
“Are you sure? You could have been asleep in that coffin for any length of time.”
“I know I was in the coffin for exactly eight days because I missed morning tea at Matilda’s and the fancy-dress picnic, but not the Axgaard coronation and I know it was twelve days ago that Theta took me to that party where I met darling Tybalt because it was just after Bettina’s ball, and that was the day after the Spring Festival.”
Interesting. The girl’s head only gave the impression of being empty because it was packed with a full party calendar.
Theta wasn’t trying to push women away from Tybalt, she was throwing them in his path. She had introduced Lirabel to him soon after the death of Prince Thorfried. Why?
A large, bearded warrior stood up and boomed that it was time for ambassadors from the various city-states of Mocklore to greet the new Jarl of Axgaard. Svenhilda nudged him and announced that from now on she would be referred to as ‘Baron’ rather than ‘Jarl,’ since it was more modern. Several of the warriors around Svenhilda (mostly the ones with ribbons in their beards) promptly tried to kill her.
Doc leaped into the fray with the casual elegance of a warrior who knows no fear. He slashed, slapped and pushed all the attacking warriors away from Svenhilda. Not one of them got close, although at least twenty tried. It was all very impressive.
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 103
