The Sword of Straw

by Amanda Hemingway

  “Your mother, too—a forceful parent, on occasion—has shown an extraordinary degree of moderation. The Hackforths tell me she has rejected any form of compensation.”

  “Mum isn’t very materialistic,” Nathan said, and then realized he was passing the responsibility for Christian spirit on to Annie, which was nearly as bad as accepting it himself. “The thing is, we—we didn’t feel it was really Damon’s fault.”

  “No? Curious.”

  There was an expectant silence. Nathan could hold out against physical torture, but not that. The abbot could do expectant silence with a patience and implacability that became, eventually, irresistible.

  “He—he wasn’t himself.” Nathan struggled into speech. “When he kidnapped me—when he did those things to me—it was like he was—sort of—mad. Possessed. Not actually possessed, of course, but something like that. My uncle thought he must have been infected—influenced by someone.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Uncle Barty. It was his house Damon wanted to rob.” He didn’t know if the abbot had heard about the Grail, and hesitated to mention it.

  “Ah, yes. Mr.—Goodman, I believe.” Father Crowley appeared to consult a note on a pad at his elbow. “I didn’t realize he was a relative.”

  “He’s not really,” Nathan said. “I just call him Uncle. He’s, like, a very special family friend. I’ve known him all my life.”

  “I see. And he said Damon was—possessed? Of course, there are those in the church who still believe in the possibility of demonic possession, but it’s hardly in line with modern thought. Your uncle was naturally very upset; however—”

  “Oh no.” In haste to prevent misunderstanding, Nathan interrupted rather brusquely. “Uncle Barty isn’t like that. He’s kind of unflappable. And he didn’t say possession, exactly. He says there are these spiritual bacteria, which can invade your mind, and—like—warp your whole personality. Someone like Hitler could do it to huge crowds of people while they listened to his speeches. These bacteria would get into their heads and stop them thinking clearly. Uncle Barty said that’s what happened with Damon.”

  “Indeed. A most interesting theory. Did he talk to Damon much?”

  “Yes, he—Yes.”

  “Did he attempt to exorcise these—bacteria? Forgive me, I don’t know if I have the correct terminology. You wouldn’t exorcise bacteria, would you? Did he administer a spiritual antibiotic?”

  “He wanted to help Damon,” Nathan said awkwardly.

  “We all want that. Well, this has been quite fascinating, but I’m sure you have classes to attend. Amid all your other preoccupations, I trust you still find time for schoolwork. And…continue to exercise self-restraint, if you can. I must say, if you go on like this you may miss being a teenager altogether and emerge overnight into instant adulthood. Like Athene springing fully armed from the brain of Zeus.”

  Nathan, slightly baffled by the gentle mockery in the abbot’s voice, was unsure if he was teasing or taunting. He stood up to leave, wondering if he had gotten off lightly, and having to remind himself that actually he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  As if sensing his confusion, Father Crowley put out his hand. “Well done,” he said. “I mean it. The school has cause to be proud of you.”

  It’s exactly like Harry Potter, whispered an imp at the back of Nathan’s mind. With the abbot as Dumbledore…

  “I should like to meet your uncle sometime,” the abbot added.

  Although there was no particular emphasis in his tone, Nathan had a feeling it was the most significant remark he had made.

  IT FELT like an age since he had met the princess, though in reality it was less than a fortnight. Term’s over soon, Nathan thought, then it’ll be easier. He wouldn’t have to worry about arousing suspicion in the dormitory, and Annie, though she might get worked up about school bullying, had tended to accept his adventures in other worlds. Possibly she felt they were outside her remit.

  Children had wandered into the past and explored the dimensions of magic since the days of E. Nesbitt and Puck of Pook’s Hill, or so Annie reasoned: it was a vital part of their experience. Children who stayed in the real world, smoking cigarettes and swearing and mimicking the grown-ups—they were the sad ones, deprived of imagination and the potential to grow. Of course, Nathan was hardly a child anymore, and his extracurricular activities were both more tangible, and more hazardous, than those of his predecessors. But it was better than shoplifting or binge drinking, or taking drugs or…the list of possibilities was endless. Annie had decided long before that alternative universes were a phenomenon she could take in her stride, if she had to, provided Nathan always told her—or Bartlemy—what was going on. And with that thought came the prickle of her conscience, the not-quite-comfortable reminder that she had a secret of her own, a secret she wouldn’t share. As always, she began to argue with herself, saying he didn’t have to know about his paternity, it would unsettle him, he needed security and stability—winning the debate but not the conflict. Her conscience still niggled her, in the small dark hours, murmuring, accusing. You’re afraid, she told herself, and she knew it was true. She was afraid of the power from beyond death that had used and abused her, afraid of its legacy in Nathan, of the doom she sensed or imagined lying ahead of him—the destiny that Bartlemy had said he was born to fulfill. If he didn’t know about it, it couldn’t happen—that was the questionable logic behind her thinking. And now he had met a princess. Well, a princess should be a nice girl, Annie thought, rather doubtfully. She reviewed the track record of various princesses, in fact and fiction, and was not particularly reassured. Still, every boy met a princess, sooner or later. It was inevitable.

  At school, despite the risks, Nathan dreamed. His desire to see Nell was too strong, suborning his sleep; it couldn’t wait for the weekend or the holidays. The dream plucked him away out of his dormitory bed and deposited him in the kitchen at Carboneck. Daylight came through the windows, showing the smoke stains on the ceiling and the general drabness and grubbiness of everything. The princess was sitting at the table shelling peas. She started, dropping a couple of the peas, which rolled across the floor.

  “It’s you,” she said, on an accusatory note. And then, rather tartly: “Nice of you to drop in.”

  He had bent to retrieve the peas, which, in the way of dropped peas, had completely disappeared.

  “I shouldn’t bother,” she said. “There are lots more. You’ll find them when you step on them.”

  He grinned, pulled up a chair, and sat down beside her, joining in her task.

  “I didn’t say you could do that,” she said, after a minute.

  “I didn’t ask. Anyway, you should thank me. I’m helping you.”

  “I don’t want your help!”

  “Why are you so prickly?” he asked, studying her face, which was all little tensions and suppressed feeling. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly last time. That’s just the way it works. I don’t have a choice.”

  She bit her lip—then emotion took over. “You’ve been gone so long! I’ve been bursting to talk to you—waiting and waiting—and you didn’t come, and you didn’t come—”

  “It’s been less than two weeks.”

  “Six!”

  “Oh Lord, I forgot. Our time zones aren’t cotangent—”

  “Aren’t what?”

  “Time moves at a different pace in different worlds. I wanted to come sooner, but the dreams just happen. I don’t have much influence.” She was counting, he thought. She was counting the weeks. “I really am sorry.”

  The princess digested this, evidently trying to find fault with it. To distract her, Nathan said: “Where did you get the peas? I thought you didn’t have much decent food here.”

  “Granny Cleep grows them in her garden. They’re early early season. We don’t really know how she does it—nothing much grows here—but Frim says she has a magic touch.”

  “Green fingers,” Nathan said, nodding. “Like my
uncle. You know, in my world we have a story about a princess and a pea. She goes to bed on a huge pile of mattresses, with a single pea underneath, and she’s so delicate and princessly she can still feel it, so she can’t sleep properly.”

  “Like I said,” Nell averred. “You find them when you tread on them. Or lie on them.”

  “It’s a test,” Nathan explained. “To prove she’s a true princess.”

  “Are you saying I’m not?”

  “Don’t be idiotic,” Nathan said. “It’s just a story.”

  “If I was that sensitive I’d never sleep at all,” the princess snapped. “My mattress has lumps, not peas. And the whole bed creaks every time I turn over. This palace is falling to bits.”

  “I can see that.” Pointedly, Nathan glanced around the kitchen. “Still, you could at least clean up a bit.”

  “We can’t get the staff.”

  “You could do it yourself.” It was deliberate provocation, and he knew it.

  “Prenders says princesses don’t do housework,” Nell said frostily. “However, you may have noticed I am shelling peas—”

  “You’ve eaten half of them.”

  “—so have you—and I also scrub floors, and wash clothes, and darn sheets. You try cleaning this kitchen. By the time you’ve gotten to the end of it, the beginning is dirty again. Prenders and I just gave up. For your information, being a true princess isn’t about bossing the servants, or having insomnia because there’s a vegetable under the bed. It’s about—about—”

  “Staying here when it would be easier to leave?” Nathan suggested. “Standing by your subjects, and the people you love? Punching some poor twerp because he dares to kiss you?”

  The anger fled from her face; a smile flickered in its stead. “I do my best,” she said, half deprecating, half defiant.

  “So tell me about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Everything. Growing up here—the Urdemons—your father. If I’m going to help you fix things, I need to know more about what we have to fix.”

  “Are we going to fix things?” the princess asked.

  “We’ll try.”

  “There’s a legend,” she said, “it’s in several books, but Frim says it’s older than the books, as old as the sword itself. One day a mysterious stranger will come—a prince, or a knight—and his heart will be so pure he’ll heal the king at a touch, and end the curse, and he’ll be the one man who can lift the sword and subdue the evil in it. Of course, we don’t know if my father’s the king in the legend. Most of his ancestors tried to wield the sword at some point in their lives, and it attacked them. Men never learn. Kings in Wilderslee have always been pretty unhealthy. Each one must’ve hoped the legend referred to him. But the curse has gotten much worse lately, with the demons and everything, so…”

  “This prince,” Nathan said, “does he get to marry the princess as well?”

  “Naturally.”

  “It figures.”

  “Are you—are you pure in heart?” she inquired doubtfully.

  “No. I’m not a prince or a knight, either. I can’t heal your father at a touch and we’re going to have real problems with the sword. Apart from that—”

  “You’re a mysterious stranger,” the princess pointed out. “One out of four isn’t bad. And mysterious strangers are in short supply around here.”

  “I think we’d better forget about the legend,” Nathan decided. “We haven’t got the cast.”

  “I must say,” Nell remarked, “you’re not dressed very…heroically.”

  Nathan glanced down. Pajamas. “Night clothing,” he explained briefly. “I’m dreaming: remember? Never mind about that. You were going to tell me more about yourself—and Wilderslee.”

  No girl—not even a true princess—can resist it when a boy she likes urges her to talk about herself. The peas were long shelled and still they sat talking while Nell, cautious at first, then more at ease, poured out feelings she didn’t know she had, all the turbulence and anger of her youth, the fears she tried to hide, the obstinacy that compelled her to hold on. She told Nathan about the mother she couldn’t remember (“My father died, too”), and how the king had wanted to marry again, a woman called Agnis famed for her black hair. “I must have liked her,” Nell said. “She was pretty, and kind to me. I didn’t have Prenders then; she came later. Anyway, there was another man who was in love with Agnis, some baron, and he insulted my father, and there was a quarrel, and that was when Papa picked up the sword. Afterward, Agnis still wished to marry him but he sent her away, he said he would come to her when he was cured. Only of course, he never was. I don’t know what happened to her. I was so little, I can’t remember any of it very well, but I know I cried and cried when she had gone. It must have been a couple of months later when Prenders arrived. Before, I’d gone around with the other children. Not just the Twymoors and the Yngleveres: there were lots of children in those days, running in and out of the palace. It was all different—bright-colored paintings, and toys to play with, and ice cream on special occasions. The icehouse is still there, but it hasn’t been used for years. The marsh was smaller, too, and in summer we would go on picnics, all the way to the woods.” She looked so wistful for a moment that it touched Nathan like a physical pain. “The Deepwoods are beautiful—the most beautiful in the world.” The glimmer of her smile came and went. “Perhaps in all worlds. I’d give anything to go there again.”

  “Could we?” Nathan asked.

  “It’s too dangerous. The marsh has spread—and there are the Urdemons.”

  “Perhaps—I could manage something,” Nathan said, suddenly determined. He had transported Kwanji Ley from the prison pits, after all—even if she had ended up in the wrong place. And he had saved Eric, pulling him from Eos into his own world. Maybe, if he concentrated, he could take the princess to the woods her heart craved. He closed his eyes, retreating into his mind, pushing at the walls of thought. He had forgotten how unstable was his tenure in that universe. Too late, he felt the dream receding—heard an exclamation from the princess, anger or shock. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were weighted, and sleep engulfed him like a wave.

  JUST WHEN things are really bad, Hazel reflected, that’s when you know they’re about to get worse. That week at school, they got worse. Jonas was now ranged on the side of the enemy, and Ellen and the Sniggerers put a bag of crumpled Band-Aids in her desk, smeared with red and brown stains that might—or might not—have been felt-tip pen. The next day, the bag contained toilet paper, also stained, with a note: From J. Fizz, the Chief Sniggerer, leaned across to her in class and whispered: “That’s what he thinks of you. You’re just toilet slime. How does that feel, lover girl?” And then, to a friend: “Oh look, she’s crying! Her poor little heart is broken…”

  “I’m not crying,” Hazel muttered. “It’s just, that disgusting scent you’re wearing makes my eyes water.”

  “Actually, this is Vampiressa. It’s really exclusive—Ellen got it for me from her mum. She’s at the makeup counter in Boots in Crowford. What do you use—essence of piss?”

  “If that’s supposed to be wit,” Hazel retorted, “keep trying.”

  She was fighting her corner as best she could, but that afternoon someone stuffed a bottle of yellow fluid in her bag, labeled PERFUME—JUST FOR YOU. As she took it out, she heard the sniggers, stuttering behind her like grapeshot. Heh—heh—heh—heh…

  On her way home she ran into Annie.

  “Sorry—I wasn’t looking. Sorry—”

  “That’s all right. You know, you ought to get your hair cut. Not short, just…different. You’ve got a pretty face but you never show it.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks so.”

  “Problem with the boys? Or is it school?” Hazel shrugged. “You and Nathan both. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? Tell me all about it—or not, if you don’t want to.”

  Hazel shook her head, saying something vague about homework and he
r mother. The little kindness warmed her, but it also made her horribly conscious of her own treachery. Of course, the spell hadn’t worked properly with Jonas—lust didn’t count as love—and Ellen was still everyone’s center of attention, so maybe nothing would happen with Nathan, either. But she couldn’t face Annie—Annie who’d always been so nice to her—not after what she’d done. She couldn’t face anyone anymore. At home she crawled into her bedroom as into a burrow, and deadened her brain with her personal stereo, and watched Carrie on the computer.

  On Wednesday, Ellen had the pimple.

  Most teenagers have pimples from time to time, it goes with the territory, but not Ellen Carver. She had the kind of prettiness that’s based less on bone structure and shapeliness of feature than accessories like perfect skin and shiny hair—her skin being particularly good, with the smoothness and finish of a rose petal and the glow of a heroine in a California soap. But on Wednesday there it was, beside her nose, a tiny blister of greenish pus with a fleck of black in the center like an atom of caviar. The Sniggerers didn’t waver in their loyalty, though Fizz, who had several zits of her own, was seen to look at Ellen once or twice with a lingering smugness in her face. Hazel, largely oblivious to the finer points of Ellen’s physiognomy, noticed her peering anxiously in a hand mirror during history—a mistake, since the teacher also noticed it, and gave her a detention. Ellen, catching Hazel’s eye, glared at her as if she was to blame. A couple of the Sniggerers tagged after her on her way home from school, calling insults and giggling together, and alone in her lair Hazel warmed herself on the thought of Ellen’s pimple, saying viciously: “I hope she gets lots of them.”

  The next morning, she did. Arriving in the classroom Hazel saw Ellen’s henchwomen surrounding her desk as though screening it from view. For once, there was no sniggering; in fact, they ignored Hazel completely. Only when the teacher arrived and they were forced to draw back could she see the cause. Ellen’s face had become a bubbling landscape of miniature volcanoes, some heaving and swelling, others exploded into craters that seemed, even at a distance, to be oozing mucus. As the class watched in fascinated horror another one burst and a small white wriggle emerged and dropped onto her desk, where it squirmed into a crack and disappeared. The teacher approached, concerned yet hesitant, evidently worried about catching something. The whispers started. As the day progressed, sinister rumors flew around the school: Hazel overheard someone insisting it was a new strain of sexually transmitted acne. Jonas was seen leaving a room when Ellen entered. The ranks of the Sniggerers thinned. Hazel, observing covertly, thought it was the best day she had had in ages—until the doubts slipped in. Supposing it wasn’t simply an aggressive case of acne? After all, acne didn’t give you maggots. Supposing it was magic…I don’t care if it is, Hazel told herself. It serves her right, the spiteful cow. But she wasn’t as happy about it as she wanted to be, and on Friday, when she got to school, she was nervous. Acne came and went, but with magic, anything could happen.