Ruler of the Realm

by Herbie Brennan

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Hairstreak snapped. ‘None of them is dead. The question is, what did your people think they were trying to do?’

  Blue ignored him. Now she looked more closely, Pyrgus was breathing. So was Henry. But Pyrgus had a massive red stain oozing from his side and Henry’s hair was matted with blood. She couldn’t see the extent of Kitterick’s injuries because of the way Pyrgus had been thrown on top of him, but from what she knew of the dwarf he was probably worse off than the other two. He always fought like a demon to avoid capture.

  She forced herself to her feet and turned to face Lord Hairstreak, her eyes blazing. ‘What have you done to them?’ she demanded. If Pyrgus died or Henry died she would have Hairstreak hanged and to Hael with the political consequences.

  ‘I have done nothing to them,’ Hairstreak said impatiently. ‘Your brother and his friends were sneaking about in my grounds, clearly intent on espionage or sabotage. They were detected and neutralised by my automatic security system.’ His lip curled into a sneer. ‘I cannot imagine they took action without your knowledge, Majesty.’

  He doesn’t know Pyrgus, Blue thought. But she was too concerned to let herself be bullied. ‘Security system?’ she snapped. ‘Your security system may have killed them!’

  ‘Oh, nonsense!’ Hairstreak shook his head shortly. ‘They’re merely in a coma. The system uses a derivative of Trinian toxin.’ He looked down at Kitterick with distaste. ‘Ironically.’

  ‘Trinian toxin is lethal,’ Blue gasped, suddenly frightened again.

  ‘A derivative, I said,’ Hairstreak shouted, no longer even attempting politeness. ‘The worst it does is send them asleep for a while.’

  ‘He’s telling the truth,’ Flapwazzle murmured from the level of her belly.

  Even after the endolg’s reassurance, Blue felt murderous. ‘They’re injured!’ she shouted at Hairstreak.

  ‘Pelidne, fetch the staff physician,’ Hairstreak ordered over his shoulder. To Blue he said hotly, ‘That damn dwarf broke four of my trackers, if we’re starting to apportion blame.’

  Blue didn’t know what a tracker was, but assumed it must be a part of the security system. Hairstreak had a real cheek bringing that up. Like blaming somebody for making your sword bloody after you stuck it in him. All the same, now her initial panic was dying down, she could see he had a point. What was Pyrgus doing here? And where had Henry come from? Chances were they’d some romantic idea about rescuing her. Now, as usual, she was going to have to rescue them.

  A fat, balding little man with a mandrake embroidered on his tunic came bustling from the bowels of the house. He looked like someone wakened from a nap.

  ‘Fix them,’ Hairstreak said shortly, nodding towards the bodies on the floor. ‘Report to me when you’ve finished.’ Without further preamble, he gripped Blue’s arm again. ‘Come with me, Niece – you have some explaining to – yipes!’ He jerked his hand away as Flapwazzle bit him.

  ‘Touching the royal person is forbidden,’ Flapwazzle said from his position wrapped around the royal stomach.

  Pelidne moved towards them and the way he moved was frightening in its speed and grace. But Hairstreak waved him away.

  ‘The creature is quite right – I forgot myself.’ He glared soberly at Blue. ‘Nonetheless, Your Majesty, it is clear we need to talk, if Your Majesty will condescend to accompany me …?’

  ‘Of course, Uncle,’ Blue said lightly. Despite his new-found manners, she knew she had no option.

  He led her back to the room they’d occupied before and closed the door carefully. Then he turned towards her. ‘Well?’

  It was exactly the tone her father had used when she’d irritated him, usually accompanied by the words ‘young lady’. Now it was her uncle who was angry and, while she was furious herself, she knew very well her situation was delicate. Pyrgus, Henry and Kitterick had no right to trespass on the Hairstreak Estate, let alone go creeping around in the bushes, looking for God knew what. (She had no doubt that what Hairstreak had told her was true – it was exactly the sort of thing Pyrgus would do … and drag poor Henry along with him.)

  Blue didn’t think for a moment they were up to anything sinister, and all three had paid heavily for their silliness – their wounds looked horrible – but none of that changed the fact they were basically in the wrong … or that Realm politics had hit a critical time. Would this stop the treaty? Probably not, but it would certainly give Hairstreak an advantage in the negotiations she’d much rather he didn’t have. What she needed now was damage limitation.

  ‘They were not here by my order, Uncle,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘Whose order were they here on?’ Hairstreak asked coldly.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Queen’s telling the truth,’ said Flapwazzle, in the process of sliding back down to the floor.

  ‘Then you would have no objection to my questioning them?’

  Blue took a deep breath. She had no intention of turning anybody over to Lord Hairstreak for questioning: his methods were notorious. But there was no doubt the three idiots needed to be questioned.

  She said firmly, ‘Let them go. I’ll question them myself.’

  Hairstreak shook his head. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is not acceptable.’

  The argument began in earnest then. They’d resolved nothing when the door opened silently.

  Thirty-seven

  Pyrgus opened his eyes to find a balding little man leaning over him. He shut them again. His head felt as if somebody had sandpapered the surface of his brain. But that was nothing to his stomach. It had turned into a churning, curdled sea that threatened to spew out of his mouth in an endless flood. (He wondered briefly if the little man would manage to get out of the way.) There was a pain in his side worse than anything he’d ever known, so deep and penetrating that he half thought somebody had left a knife in there.

  He groaned. His mind moved like molasses and his body refused to move at all. The worst of it was, he had no idea what had happened. It occurred to him it might be best if he simply lay there and died quietly.

  From somewhere he heard the familiar snap and fizz of a spell cone.

  ‘What …?’ Pyrgus whispered with enormous effort. An acrid scent flooded his nostrils and made him cough, which made his head ache worse than ever. It reminded him of the time he’d been poisoned. They’d told him afterwards that if Blue hadn’t given him the antidote when she did, his skull would have exploded. It felt much like that now. He wished Blue were here to give him the antidote again.

  Then, quite suddenly, he started feeling better.

  Pyrgus opened his eyes again. The little bald man was still there. ‘That should help,’ he said briskly. ‘Now let me have a look at that side.’

  Although his mind was clearer and his stomach had stopped churning, Pyrgus found he was helpless to resist as the little man pulled back his jacket and prodded at the wound in his side. The pain flared briefly, then died back to a dull ache.

  ‘Looks worse than it is,’ the little man muttered, half to himself. ‘You’ve lost a bit of blood, but I expect you’ll live. The worst of it will be the bruising. That’s going to hurt like Hael for a while. What happened to you, anyway?’

  It was a very good question and Pyrgus wasn’t sure he knew how to answer it. One minute he’d been sneaking through the bushes at Hairstreak’s mansion, the next he was here, feeling like a bear’s intestines and probably looking even worse. What bridged the gap, he had no idea.

  Henry and Kitterick!

  He pushed himself painfully into a sitting position. ‘My friends –?’ he gasped.

  ‘Your friends are in better shape than you are,’ the little man said. ‘The other boy has some bruising to his shoulder and a small cut on his head, but that’s about all. He even seems to have been quite resistant to the poison – first one of you to wake up. The Trinian has a broken arm, but that’s already started to knit – you know how it
is with Trinians. You were the only one I was really worried about.’

  Pyrgus looked around. ‘Where are they?’ He noticed his voice was getting stronger and his body felt a lot less weak. He thought he’d try standing up and, to his surprise, managed it without too much difficulty.

  The little balding man – he had the insignia of the Physician’s Guild on his jacket – watched him with interest. When Pyrgus was on his feet (panting a little and leaning against one wall) he said, ‘They’re cleaning up in the washroom.’ He nodded towards a door. ‘You’d better do the same – you’re about to go visiting.’

  They were in a smallish hallway furnished with barbarian antiques. ‘Visiting?’ Pyrgus echoed. ‘Where?’

  ‘Lord Hairstreak wants to see you,’ the doctor said.

  In the washroom, Pyrgus found Kitterick cleaning the blood off Henry’s head with a towel. Neither of them looked too much the worse for wear.

  ‘We’re being taken to Hairstreak,’ Pyrgus said without preamble. ‘We’d better get our stories straight.’

  Kitterick stepped back to admire his handiwork and threw the towel aside. He smiled briefly at Henry then said to Pyrgus, ‘I suggest, sir, we had an urgent personal message for Her Majesty.’

  ‘Nice one, Kitterick,’ Pyrgus said admiringly. ‘Why were we skulking in the bushes?’

  ‘Skulking, sir? Hardly. We were making our way along the driveway as legitimate representatives of Her Majesty and the Purple Palace when we were set upon by mechanical devices governed by a faulty security system.’

  Pyrgus frowned. ‘Weren’t we found in the bushes?’

  ‘Indeed, sir, in all probability we were. At exactly the spot where we were driven by the mechanical devices.’

  ‘You think he’ll buy that?’ Henry asked. He had a strange expression on his face.

  ‘Of course not, sir, but he will be hard put to prove otherwise.’

  ‘And it throws the blame on his stupid security system,’ Pyrgus said, smiling suddenly.

  Kitterick smiled back smugly. ‘An added bonus.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Pyrgus exclaimed. ‘You happy with that, Henry?’

  Henry shrugged and turned away as if their story was no concern of his.

  ‘OK,’ Pyrgus said briskly. ‘Let’s go see my dear uncle.’ He pushed through the washroom door and stopped. The little doctor had been joined by a man Pyrgus had never seen before. He was young and tall and thin and blond.

  His skin was very pale.

  Thirty-eight

  They came in together in a tight bunch, a wary look in every eye.

  ‘Pyrgus!’ Blue squealed. She made to run to him, then stopped. Hairstreak’s vampire was standing directly behind her brother, one slim hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

  Blue backed off a step. From behind her Flapwazzle gave a low, threatening growl. Henry and Kitterick were beside Pyrgus. None of them looked injured any more and there were no signs of ill-treatment.

  Blue said quietly, ‘Are you all right, Henry?’

  Henry’s face was expressionless. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pyrgus?’

  Pyrgus said, ‘We have a confidential message for you, Blue.’ He rolled his eyes in a peculiar way as if trying to signal something to her.

  ‘Kitterick?’

  ‘Never better, Madam. In the peak of my health, one might say.’

  Hairstreak said, ‘Now we have the niceties out of the way, Your Majesty, perhaps your people would care to tell us why they were trespassing on my land, and what –’

  ‘We have a confidential message for Her Majesty,’ Pyrgus said loudly, interrupting him. ‘We were proceeding along –’

  ‘Shut up, Pyrgus,’ Blue said, interrupting him. She had no idea what sort of cock and bull story Pyrgus had dreamed up to explain his presence here, but the situation was far too delicate to let him come barging in with hobnailed boots on. What she needed was to take control. She needed to stop Pyrgus saying anything that might make things worse. She needed to change her uncle’s mind about questioning them. Everything was already in a bit of a mess, but she’d got what she came for. The Nighter offer was genuine and Hairstreak had the backing to make it stick. The thing now was to get back to the Purple Palace as quickly as possible and without provoking Lord Hairstreak any further. An idea occurred to her and she turned to her uncle.

  ‘Lord Hairstreak,’ she said formally. ‘Perhaps if we –’

  Henry detached himself from the little group by the door. ‘It’s time we left, Blue,’ he said quietly, taking her arm. She stared at him in astonishment as he began to lead her from the room.

  ‘Pelidne,’ Hairstreak said sharply.

  Pelidne stepped smoothly between them and the door. Henry moved with such superhuman speed that his arm blurred. Blue didn’t even see the blow. But as Henry stepped back she saw Pelidne staring down with horror at the wooden stake protruding from his chest. He stumbled forward, eyes wide. Blood abruptly fountained from the wound, then just as abruptly turned to clouds of choking dust. Pelidne’s handsome features wrinkled, turning in a heartbeat to those of an old, old man. His nose caved in, his lips thinned, then shrivelled over pointed, rotting teeth. Suddenly he was falling, crumbling on the inside of his clothes. A pungent smell of decay flooded the room.

  ‘What –?’ Blue gasped.

  Henry had her arm again and was dragging her towards the door. Hairstreak looked stunned, but still produced a stiletto from a secret pocket of his jerkin. Pyrgus, mouth open, actually took a step backwards. Even Kitterick looked surprised.

  Blue found her voice. ‘No, Henry!’ she shouted. This was a disaster. Her uncle’s servant had been killed. In one brief instant the potential for a treaty lay tattered on the floor. She tried to jerk her arm away, but Henry’s hand gripped her like a vice. ‘Let me go!’ she demanded.

  Lord Hairstreak was already halfway across the room when Pyrgus recovered from his shock. He began to move towards Henry as well, but Kitterick was a pace ahead of him.

  Then suddenly Blue and Henry were no longer there.

  Thirty-nine

  ‘What do you mean, no longer there?’

  This was Madame Cardui as Pyrgus had never seen her before. He hadn’t even realised she had an office in the Purple Palace until he went looking for her. But here he was, not simply in an office, but in a suite; and one that was all business. There was no sign of the mad colour schemes she had in her city apartment, or the lavish use of spells. Here everything was sharp, businesslike, functional. And while Madame Cardui was still the Painted Lady – purple hair, flowing gown, spandals that caressed her feet and smiled at you benignly if you looked at them – she had a hard edge now. No wonder Blue appointed her head of the Imperial Espionage Service.

  ‘Just … not there,’ Pyrgus said feebly.

  ‘You mean invisible? He used an invisibility spell?’

  Pyrgus shook his head. ‘No. You know the way you vanish with an invisibility spell – you sort of fade a bit and crumble and then dissolve into sparks? Well, there was none of that. I don’t think it was invisibility. It didn’t look like invisibility. Besides, Hairstreak’s vampire thing closed the door when we came in. We’d have seen it open if they went out that way, invisible or not.’

  ‘There was no other way out of the room?’

  ‘Not even a window,’ Pyrgus said. ‘It was a privacy chamber.’

  ‘What about some form of transportation?’ Madame Cardui asked. ‘Alan’s been going on about his portable transporter modification – could it have been something like that?’

  Pyrgus had been wondering the same thing. Where was Mr Fogarty, anyway? He hadn’t been in the palace when they got back, or at his lodge. It was Kitterick who suggested they find Madame Cardui.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’ Unless, of course, it was Mr Fogarty who transported them. Seemed too much of a coincidence that somebody else would have developed exactly the same technology at the same time. Unless it was s
tolen. The possibilities were confusing. ‘You’ll have to ask Mr Fogarty.’

  ‘Yes, I will, as soon as I can find him. But you think it’s possible?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pyrgus said again, frowning. ‘I suppose it might be.’ The problem was he didn’t know what you looked like when Mr Fogarty zapped you. Maybe you simply weren’t there like Blue and Henry. Maybe you faded away like an invisibility spell. He just didn’t know.

  ‘I think Alan would have mentioned it if he’d planned to rescue them by transporter,’ Madame Cardui said. Then, echoing an earlier thought of Pyrgus, she added, ‘I can’t imagine Hairstreak could have stolen it already.’

  ‘You think Hairstreak is behind this?’ Pyrgus asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Madame Cardui said. ‘Why would he want to abduct them if he already had them in his power?’ Her eyes drifted towards Pyrgus. ‘I was just thinking aloud. How could Henry kill a vampire?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Pyrgus frowned.

  ‘They’re notoriously difficult to kill. Difficult and dangerous. I like Henry – he’s a sweet boy – but he’s hardly the action-hero type. Tell me exactly what happened.’

  Pyrgus had already told her exactly what happened, but he told her again. There wasn’t much to tell. The speed Henry moved at was impossible (and where did he find a wooden stake when he needed one?) and the way Henry disappeared with Blue was impossible as well.

  Madame Cardui stared at him thoughtfully for a long time, then suddenly snapped her head round.

  ‘Kitterick, were you recording?’

  Kitterick was grooming her translucent cat, which was stretched in a louche manner on its cushions. He glanced round. ‘Of course, Madame.’

  Madame Cardui stood up. ‘I think it’s time we replayed this whole incident.’

  Pyrgus followed them into a windowless room off the main office. It was filled with projection equipment and, as they entered, a reality globe expanded in the middle of the floor.

  ‘I didn’t know about this place,’ Pyrgus said, looking around in awe.