No way to find out but to try. She laid about with her fists and her feet, knocking away the creatures who attempted to swarm up her skirts, and ran for the door.
She fumbled with the catch. To her irritation, her hands were shaking too much to easily unlatch it, and she was set upon from behind by at least three of the wretched goblins. Hands grabbed at her hair again, and a swift, sharp pain told her that they had succeeded in parting her from some of her hair.
Fury rose in a choking surge, and she abandoned her attempts to open the door by civilised means. She began to kick it instead, and though she sorely hurt her feet, she finally succeeded in breaking the latch.
But the door blew violently open before she had chance to capitalise upon her success. On the other side stood Drig. He had lost all semblance of charming friendliness; his face was dark with malevolent rage, and he positively crackled with a fierce and disturbing energy.
The goblins clinging to Bess's dress fell away at once, babbling something incomprehensible. Drig spoke a single word by way of reply, a revolting syllable evocative of dark places and vile, crawling things, and a chorus of pained shrieks went up behind her.
Drig grabbed Bessie's hand and pulled. Either she shrank for a moment or the door enlarged; she could not tell which, only that she slipped through it easily and found herself restored to the bustling crowds of Gorrotop's market.
She turned, but saw only throngs of shoppers; of the caravan there was no sign.
Drig looked her over in silence, the malevolent look gradually fading from his face.
'Unscathed, I think,' he finally said.
Bessie dusted off her gown, taking a moment to collect herself. She was badly shaken by the experience, though she would never admit to it. Grunewald's attitude might have been cavalier and dictatorial, but he had not been wrong to question her safety.
'All well wi' me,' she said to Drig, once she had properly composed herself.
He flashed her a swift, fierce grin, and she knew that he saw everything she wanted to conceal. But he merely bowed with a tip of his hat, and sauntered off. 'Homeward we go,' he called over his shoulder.
Bessie gladly followed in his wake.
Bessie woke upon the morrow feeling largely refreshed, though she remained a little unnerved. The hair vendors had been disturbing, but she had little doubt that there was worse to be found at the market. It was galling to have to acknowledge, even to herself, that she needed Drig's protection.
When breakfast was over, Drig led Bess out of the rear door of the Motley. Stationed outside was a neat open carriage with space for two passengers. Its seats were upholstered in green velvet and its frame was painted a rich maroon; this looked far too fine to Bess’s eye, but Drig clambered aboard with scarcely a glance at the velvet, and stuck his booted feet up on the seat with blithe unconcern.
The carriage was drawn by a pair of ponies, or something like. They resembled Tatterfoal more than a little, which intrigued Bess more than it alarmed her, for they seemed docile enough. They were barely of a size to carry Bess, had she chosen to ride one; their coats were thundercloud-grey darkening to black, and their manes and tails were bright white. As Bess took her seat in the carriage, one of them tossed its head. At once, a flurry of incorporeal, bone-white moths erupted into the air and flew frantically away. Its mate snorted impatiently and pawed the ground, and a jet of stormy cloud-wisp streamed from its nostrils.
Drig had taken a seat with his back to the horses, but Bess was not left to wonder long how the carriage was to be guided without a driver. As soon as she was settled, Drig called out, ‘Hogwend, dear ponies,’ and the horses stepped instantly into motion. Bess had nothing to do but sit at her ease while the neat vehicle wound its way slowly through the streets of Gorrotop – for though the sun had not yet fully risen, the roads were crowded with carriages and shoppers afoot – and at last cleared the town. The horses picked up their pace as soon as they reached the open countryside, and Bess made the most of her opportunity to see a little more of Gadrahst.
The environs did not appear especially prepossessing, she was forced to admit. In the thin, dawning light, she could not see much. The weather was not disposed to show her the best of the Goblin Lands, for the sky was heavily overcast and the air filled with a sodden mist. On either side of the road, Bess saw fields, bare and dark at this season. The one feature of the landscape which pleased her eager eye was the row of trees lining one side of the wide dirt road they were travelling upon. The trees were as varied as the buildings in Gorrotop, and no two were alike. Some were but a few feet tall, others of a towering height. Though some had shed most of their foliage in the manner of the trees of England, others bore a full crop of leaves, and in rather more colours than the shades of green, russet and yellow Bess would expect to see in the autumn.
She amused herself in examining each tree as closely as she could, for Drig did not seem inclined to talk. He sat sprawled with the party hat over his eyes, sucking idly upon the stem of his bubble pipe. In this fashion the journey to Hogwend passed, and fairly quickly. Bess saw the town on the horizon, a huddle of buildings adding colour and life to the grey sky. It, too, was decked in the glittering streamers which adorned Gorrotop, and Bess’s heart lifted at the sight.
Drig spoke. ‘I have a notion we may be seeing the Gaustin sometime this morning.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
Drig’s mouth stretched into a lazy grin. ‘Goblins have ways.’
‘I enjoy nothin’ so much as your mysterious pronouncements, I assure you. It adds such a delightful zest to the mornin’.’
Drig snickered. ‘Well, I might have been summoned.’ He tapped one of the jewels that decorated his long ears: a dull grey disc inset with a large purple gem.
‘Aye?’ she said. ‘Somethin’ happens to the jewellery when his Maje—the Gaustin wants you?’
Drig lifted the brim of his hat to look at her, his darkling eyes glinting with amusement. ‘Too quick on the uptake, my dear Bess. Yes, indeed. The gem glows.’
Bess nodded wisely. ‘A glow! Mighty useful. Especially when you are the one wearin’ it, and it happens to be positioned quite out of your sight.’ His ears were long enough that she doubted he could see the gem at all.
Drig blew a stream of blood-coloured bubbles at her. ‘It grows warm, too, if I am slow to answer.’
It occurred to Bess that the flesh around the jewel appeared disordered. She leaned closer to improve her view, and noted signs of blistering. ‘Warm, eh?’
Drig shrugged. ‘I was asleep at the time.’
Clearly the Gaustin was in a hurry. Bess was unsure what to make of this mark of Grunewald’s impatience. ‘We had best get you some salve,’ she said firmly.
Drig laughed at that, and thrust a hand into a deep pocket fixed to the front of his trousers. He withdrew a large ointment-pot, took off the lid and applied some of the pale green contents to his ear. ‘As you see, I am well supplied.’
From this, Bess concluded that the damage to Drig’s ear was by no means unusual. But the carriage drew up and stopped, preventing her from pursuing the topic, and Drig jumped down with a lively energy at odds with the lethargy he had hitherto displayed. ‘He’ll be somewhere about,’ he announced. ‘I can feel it. Not close yet, but soon.’
‘That’s a function of your ear-ring, too?’ said Bess as she descended to the street.
Drig nodded once. ‘And now, to shop!’ he said grandly. ‘For fairy ointment, and mushrooms! The Gaustin will have emptied his supply of the boletes by now, and will also require the parasols.’
Some of Bess’s zeal for shopping had worn off over the course of the previous day, but she fell to her task with largely unimpaired enthusiasm. Hogwend resembled Gorrotop in most particulars, and certainly in the eagerness with which its citizens participated in the Market. After some two hours’ searching, Bess’s thoroughness was rewarded when she spotted a scant handful of the snow-white mushrooms Drig had described, almost buried in t
he midst of a pile of velvet gloves. They bore the scattering of silver motes which marked them as snowfoot boletes, and Bess was quick in securing them. She tucked them into a pocket of her skirt, handling them with great care, for they were delicate.
She had just completed this transaction when she heard a low, cultured voice speak from directly behind her. ‘I would know that shabby excuse for a cloak anywhere, and the hair ̶ ! The locks of some wild creature, I make no doubt! Come, baggage, turn about.’
Bess turned to find Grunewald standing barely two feet away, his pose nonchalant and his hands buried in his pockets. He was dressed differently from the last time she had seen him: he wore long dark trousers and tall top-boots, his creamy cravat stark against a black shirt. His wine-red velvet coat was of no fashion she had ever seen in England, though it was sumptuous indeed, its hem sweeping the floor. A row of buttons adorned the front, though they insisted upon changing their configuration every few moments; Bess saw gilded buttons shaped to resemble roses, and then half of them adopted the appearance of coiled snakes painted in stripes. They were purple moths, and then white gems; the neat, smoky-hued caps of mushrooms, and then fiery stars. This fascinating changeability threatened to mesmerise Bess; she blinked, and forced herself to look into Grunewald’s face instead.
He stood staring down at her with an amused smile, though she thought she detected signs of annoyance as well. ‘Good mornin’, your Maj—I mean, Gaustin,’ she said, and bobbed a curtsey. ‘Mr. Drig said nothin’ about me?’
‘Mr. Drig appears to have said very little to the purpose,’ he said coolly. His eyes narrowed. ‘At least to me. But he appears to be keeping you remarkably well informed.’
‘Not at all!’ said Bess brightly. ‘Nothin’ could be more mysterious. I beg you will not trouble yerself with the idea that he might be tellin’ me anythin’ useful. Besides, there was nothin’ much to be said. An infant could ha’ put the pieces together.’
‘You underrate yourself, baggage,’ said Grunewald – or the King of the Goblins, as she was now certain was his true title. ‘Most people are frighteningly self-absorbed.’
‘How cynical.’
‘No doubt. I am entitled to a little cynicism, however. Do you have any notion at all what manner of life it is? See these energetic shoppers, now.’ He nodded at the streams of people passing them by upon either side. ‘This guise is well enough known, and if any of them were paying the smallest attention they would know that their liege-lord walks amongst them. But see how they pass me by!’
Even this speech failed to attract the attention of any among the crowds. Bess watched as several goblins, a pair of brownies, an Aylir and other creatures she could not name swept past without pausing. ‘You are disappointed to be denied your fair share of worship!’ she said, struck with a keen sense of the tragedy of his plight. ‘I can understand it! It must be terrible to stand for three minutes together without bein’ so much as bowed to. Here, I will do my little part.’ She offered him a low curtsey, her head lowered with becoming humility.
Grunewald tangled a hand in her hair as she rose and pulled back her head, gently but firmly. He scrutinised her face, his expression unreadable. ‘You are impertinent. And disobedient.’
‘No, no,’ Bess demurred. ‘Well, perhaps a mite. Shall it be another curtsey, to make up for it?’ She could not have said what moved her to speak so to him; only that if king he was, he contrived to be the strangest monarch she had ever heard of. There was naught of majesty about him, naught of grandeur, and nothing of superiority either. Irritable he might sometimes be, but he spoke to her as an equal, and had done so since the moment he had taken her up in his carriage.
‘Heavens preserve us! No,’ he said, releasing her hair. ‘I have scarce seen such a graceless curtsey in the whole course of my life.’
‘Tis these cursed garments. ‘Tis hard to be a lady in grace, when I am weighed about wi’ such rags! Your Gentship has the right of it.’
‘Put you in silks and jewels and you would still be an infernal baggage. Indeed, it has been soundly proved already. What made you decide to discount all my warnings?’
Bess inclined her head. ‘Tis an honour to be thought so. And, as you see, I am still all in one piece.’
Grunewald’s head tilted. ‘I think you are displeased with me.’
That surprised Bess. He gave off an appearance of lazy inattention, not unlike Drig’s; she had not thought he could discern so much of the feelings she had not consciously displayed. ‘A little,’ she admitted.
‘It is because I would not bring you with me? You appear to have contrived marvellously in spite of my churlishness.’
‘Tis not that. I would have asked Mrs. Aylfendeane, if Drig had not found me. One way or another I was comin’ here.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘You’ve hurt Drig’s ear. More’n once.’
Grunewald’s eyes narrowed once more. ‘He has complained of it, has he?’
‘Not in the least! Nothin’ could exceed his nonchalance in walkin’ about wi’ a blistered ear. He is quite used to it. I am to imagine he’s left in such a state tolerably often.’
Grunewald’s eyebrows rose. ‘If Idriggal does not feel himself to be ill-used, why should it trouble you?’
‘Drig’s feelin’s change nothin’ about right and wrong,’ said Bess firmly. ‘Speakin’ as one who is used to a fair amount of ill treatment meself, I cannot help standin’ up for your retainers.’
Grunewald folded his arms and stared at her, his eyes hard. Bess could not but admit that the effect was intimidating, but she refused to be cowed. She folded her own arms and drew herself up, giving him stare for stare until he finally spoke.
‘If you mean to class me with the likes of that family…!’
By that family, she supposed he meant the Adairs. ‘Not so much,’ she said, obliged to be fair. ‘But I ain’t lookin’ forward to the day when I find out that you are of a type wi’ them after all.’
She allowed that to sink in, watching his face closely. His expression did not change. She judged she had pushed her luck as far as was reasonable, and sought another subject. Delving into her skirt pocket, she produced the bundle of mushrooms and held them out to him.
His eyes lit up. ‘You have found it?’
‘Not the ointment,’ she cautioned. ‘Just a few mushrooms.’
He unwrapped the bundle enough to observe the frail, dried boletes that lay within, and nodded. ‘Thank you, baggage. That is of some little use to me.’
‘We’d best get on, if we have the whole of Gadrahst to search.’
One of his brows went up at that. ‘We?’
‘Aye. Seein’ as I am not urgently occupied at the moment, I can offer you my services as shoppin’ assistant.’
His mouth twitched, but he did not smile. ‘We do not, in fact, have to search every corner of Gadrahst. That has been done.’
She blinked. ‘Already?’
‘Do you imagine I have naught but Drig to assist me?’
Bess imagined no such thing; the Goblin King must have retainers without number. ‘Well then, I will be on my way,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It was nice seein’ you, my Gent.’ She curtseyed.
Grunewald’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. ‘Not just yet, baggage. You’ll come with me a while.’
‘You do have work for me! And no wonder. Retainers I am sure you have aplenty, but none of them are quite like me after all.’
His eyes glinted with amusement. ‘I am increasingly persuaded that there is no creature alive quite like you. Come.’
Bess allowed herself to be led. She resented the grip Grunewald retained on her wrist, for a little while, but the crush of the crowds was such that she soon adjusted her ideas. If he had not maintained a link with her, she would in all likelihood have been swept away in the rush of market-goers.
Drig joined them, looking cross. His face registered a flicker of alarm upon seeing Grunewald with Bess, but he quickly hid
it. He offered no word of greeting to his master; instead he held up his bubble pipe in his hands, in two pieces. ‘Smashed,’ he grumbled as he fell into step beside them. ‘Some great, lumbering oaf of an ogre. Impossible to avoid! So trying!’
Grunewald let go of Bess long enough to snatch the pieces from Drig’s hands. She could not see what it was that he did to the chunks of glass, but moments later he was able to restore the pipe to his retainer, whole once more. If he was angry with Drig for conveying Bessie into Gadrahst, he said naught of it.
All of this apparently surprised Drig as much as it astonished Bess, for he gaped at his healed pipe in amazement before he remembered to thank his liege lord. Grunewald’s hand immediately closed around Bess’s wrist once more, and she was obliged to trot to keep up as he strode faster through the crush, people melting out of his path. His posture was rigid, and he made no reply to Drig’s gratitude. It was as though he was annoyed by the kindness of his own gesture, and wished to have it forgotten as speedily as possible.
‘Here we are,’ he said some little time later, and halted before a particularly large stall selling, as far as Bess could tell, nothing but jars. Great, weighty things they were, wide at the base and securely stoppered with wedges of dull grey metal. But as she looked, something shifted in the nearest jar, and she discerned coils of roiling mist contained within the clear glass. A moment’s scrutiny revealed that every jar contained a similar complement of vapour. It was fog, she swiftly realised, for she had seen more than enough of late to recognise it. Some of the jars contained the thick, white fog with which she was familiar; others housed mists in shades of rain, storm and wind, and even in rainbow.
All of this was fascinating, but Bess could imagine no reason whatsoever why Grunewald would desire to bring her here.
But he had not. He had stopped not in front of the fog vendor, but a little to the left. In between the jars of fog and another stall selling, according to the impressions of Bessie’s nose, scents, there was another stall. It was tiny, barely four feet in width; wedged as it was in between two such large, dominating shop fronts, Bessie had missed it altogether. It was covered over with an awning of patchwork leather in shades of fenberry and moss, which looked handsome indeed, but it did not appear to house any goods. Bess looked an enquiry at Grunewald.
Bessie Bell and the Goblin King Page 10
