And all this time, there had been a sister.
Why had his sister been hidden from him? Why had she hidden herself? And why was she indulging in this masquerade?
He left his hiding-place and wandered the grounds, ignoring the rising fog; he knew the gardens full well enough to navigate them without danger. But he had scarcely begun to turn over this new information before he realised that it availed him little. True, he now had some confirmation of his earlier suspicions, but what did that achieve? He had partially answered the most pressing of his questions, but in no fashion that could help him. He had expected to recognise some member of his own Court; some friend or enemy or colleague; someone whose character was known to him, and whose goals he might be able to guess. But such was not the case. He needed a vast deal more than a knowledge of his fetch’s true face to proceed.
This realisation brought a renewal of frustration. He had to get closer to this sister of his, but how? Her knowledge of his movements and actions suggested that she had him closely under watch, by some means or other. It would not be long before she was informed of his return to Hyde Place. How could he disguise himself successfully enough to deceive her? And how, then, to gain her trust enough to learn of her intentions?
He had not long ruminated upon these points when he became aware of a tugging sensation, as though some invisible force sought to extract some internal organ. It was an unpleasant feeling, but a familiar one. One of his trusted retainers sought him through the Darkways. He fixed his attention upon the strange sensation, and pulled. A gaping, dark hole blossomed in the pallid fog, and a small figure tumbled through it to land neatly on his feet.
‘Gaustin,’ said Drig, and swept him a bow.
Grunewald blinked down at his henchman in growing anger. ‘I left you with a task, I thought?’
‘Indeed you did, my Gent: Stay with Bess. I have not forgotten.’ Drig inserted his pipe into his mouth and sucked thoughtfully upon it, his hands tucked into the pockets of his waistcoat. A lone crimson bubble drifted from the bowl.
‘And?’ Grunewald prompted.
‘I tried that, but she is a tricksy maid to be sure. She has wandered off.’
‘She is gone?’ he said sharply. ‘How?’
Drig stared up at his master, his dark eyes unreadable. ‘She had a mad, capersome plan to go dancing off after your impersonator. She wanted me to take her into England – a request I could not, altogether, refuse. I thought, this is madness and my Gent will be vastly angered. But at least I will be able to render her whatever assistance is within my power.’ He took another puff upon his pipe, and Grunewald had to stifle a desire to choke him until he came to the point. ‘Only, I did not receive the opportunity to be of use in any degree, for she is gone without me.’
‘How?’ Grunewald repeated. ‘Bess has no way to travel, save on foot, and I can hardly suppose she jaunted out of the palace alone. Or that you could not easily have caught up with her, if she had.’
‘No, indeed,’ Drig agreed. ‘She met you.’
‘She did no such thing!’
‘I know it, my Gent. She encountered your impersonator, and I imagine nothing could have pleased her more. She is gone with him.’
Grunewald experienced an uncomfortable sensation as of his heart contracting with sudden, fierce tension. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Couldn’t be more so. Hidenory was there.’
Hidenory. Had she encouraged this madness? He would put nothing past her. But what was Bessie about? She had wanted to find the imposter? Wretched baggage! She had been a step ahead of him, and had positioned herself so as to do precisely what he could not – get to know the person who wore his face.
‘She must be here,’ Grunewald said, and he contrived to control his voice such that it barely shook at all. ‘I will retrieve her.’
Drig tapped his pipe, and a second crimson bubble squeezed itself lazily from the bowl. ‘I sent word to Balligumph,’ he said, apparently at random, ‘about her plans – and again when she dashed off with the fetch. He is gone to Somerdale, and wants you to go there.’
‘Not until I have reclaimed Bess.’ He set off towards the house at a rapid pace, heedless of the obscuring fog.
Drig trotted alongside. ‘He also says as how it’s likely she’s at Hyde Place, but not to disturb her.’
‘Mister Balligumph may keep his opinions to himself,’ said Grunewald shortly. ‘I require none of his interference, or anyone else’s.’
Drig made no reply, though he kept pace with his master. ‘There is quite the gathering assembling at Somerdale,’ he said conversationally, as though embarking upon a wholly new topic.
Grunewald was not deceived. ‘Good,’ he said roughly. ‘I shall deliver Bess there.’
He had almost reached the house when the pounding ruckus of galloping hooves reached his ears, surging without warning from the muffling fog. He spun about, just in time to catch a glimpse of a vast, dark equine shadow of Tatterfoal bearing down upon him, its rider bent forward over the horse’s back and reaching for him.
He had not time to react. He was seized by a pair of strong, bruising hands and hauled aboard the charging steed. Then they were away, blazing through the night. Grunewald was tossed over Tatterfoal’s neck like a sack of grain, a posture he found so undignified as to engender in him the most violent rage he could ever remember experiencing. He roared his fury, but so engulfed was he by his temper that he could form no words; he merely spluttered incoherent expressions of inarticulate anger, the more so when his abductor entered the woods and his head came into painful contact with a profusion of narrow, whipping branches.
Silence, brother, said a dark voice in his mind. So shocked was he that he fell silent indeed, and at once. Had the words truly resounded in his mind? Such arts were the province of sorcerers, and rare indeed.
And he had been named as brother.
‘Let me up,’ he snarled.
I think not, my dear, purred the voice. I have questions to put to you.
‘I can hardly hold a conversation with you under such circumstances as this!’ Grunewald roared, though his face was pressed against Tatterfoal’s hide and he could not imagine much of it had been intelligible to his sister. He attempted to reach Tatterfoal, but found the horse’s inclinations set against him. Even his own steed was more inclined to credit this imposter as the true Goblin King than he.
We will manage, she said. Her voice in his mind felt icy-cool and insinuating, and it resounded with two emotions Grunewald could recognise: a hint of smugness, and a bizarre merriment. Twice you have looked upon me of late. Did you imagine I would not observe you?
‘I gave myself away, on the first occasion,’ Grunewald spluttered, remembering how he had lost his temper and gone galloping after Tatterfoal. He struggled to right himself, but her hand upon his back pinned him in a fiercely strong grip, and he could not move. Her other hand roamed over his coat, dipping into his pockets and searching the folds of his clothes; she searched for something, but he could scarce imagine what. A weapon?
I can sense you, she purred happily. Blood knows blood. Does it not?
‘I sense nothing of yours,’ he retorted. But he lied. Somewhere beneath the rage, he felt a sensation of shocked recognition. Something about her felt familiar to him, in a fundamental and undeniable way; as his father had done, and his mother.
I also know it when you lie.
Grunewald gathered himself, and with a supreme effort of strength and will, he hauled himself upright, throwing off her grip. His first impulse had been to hurl himself from the horse and vanish into the night, but he no longer wished to do so. Not just yet. Instead, he stabilised himself upon the stallion’s neck and twisted to look at his captor.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked. It was merely one of a thousand questions he wished to put to her, and he could not have said why it was the first that spilled from his lips.
The Torpor took me.
The Torpor. Like dying, insof
ar as the one claimed vanished from the earth. But it more nearly resembled sleep, and those who fell into it could return.
Still, it was uncommon, in the ordinary way of things. After the Times of Trial, as the Kostigern’s war had been known, those who had lost too much and given too freely had sunk into it out of pure exhaustion.
But others… the Queen-at-Mirramay had shown both mercy and ruthlessness in her treatment of those who had aided the one who sought to usurp her power. All of the Traitor’s known supporters had been condemned to the Torpor, and as yet, none had been known to have emerged from it.
‘Supported the wrong side, did you?’ Grunewald almost spat the words into her face. ‘And using my visage! How obliged I am to you, sister dear! You knew, I suppose, that the Goblin King has been remembered by history as a turncoat?’
He could see little of his sister’s face in the darkness, but he heard her laugh, aloud and delightedly. Such was my aim, and how well I carried out the plan! It is my gift to you, brother dear.
That puzzled him, and some of his anger faded in favour of confusion. ‘You hate me. But you know nothing of me; we have never met.’
The Goblin King, she whispered in his mind, laughing. She said nothing else, as though this ought to be answer enough. But Grunewald could make no sense of it at all.
He felt such a conflict of feelings, he scarce knew where to begin. On the one hand, here was one who had sought to destroy Anthelaena, and she repented it not at all. That alone was reason enough for Grunewald to hate her in his turn. And she had done more. She had, with deliberate malice, implicated her own brother in her machinations, thus damaging his reputation abroad for a century and more. There were those who, to this day, mistrusted the Goblin King as a trickster, a turncoat, and a fraud.
But she was also his sister. His sister.
‘I would not have us enemies,’ he said, though the words threatened to choke him as he uttered them.
We can be nothing else. His sister rode Tatterfoal with blithe disregard for the darkness of the night, or the penetrating thickness of the fog. She sat tall and straight, radiating an arrogant pride and a ruthless confidence which could not help but impress Grunewald.
But her next words renewed all his desire to throttle the life out of her.
The little human maidservant. She is to your taste. How like our father, in that.
Grunewald blinked. ‘What.’
She is in my care, she continued with terrible satisfaction, and her approximation of Grunewald’s own mouth curled up into a delighted smile. She will be perfectly well, provided you do not interfere with my endeavours.
Grunewald’s lip curled. ‘How brave indeed, to threaten such a one.’
I am what you made me, she responded. All of you.
Grunewald growled deep in his throat. ‘Is that why you arranged for this charming conversation?’
No. You wished to know who had stolen your face, your steed and the trust of your people? Now you know.
Grunewald had no opportunity to reply, for she administered a swift, sharp tug to the back of his coat, and he was dragged helplessly sideways. He fell hard, landing in the half-frozen earth with a grunt of pain. Tatterfoal vanished into the fog, and Grunewald was left to pull himself painfully to his feet, spit the dirt from his mouth and wait for his dizziness to dissipate.
The moment he felt stable, he reached for the Darkways and pulled.
Nothing happened.
Grunewald stood frozen in horror. He took a deep, calming breath and tried again, with the same appalling result. The path into the Darks was there; he could feel it. But no matter how he strained to bend it to his will, it evaded him. He could not draw himself into the Goblin Roads; they denied him.
What had his sister contrived to do to him? By what sorcerous arts had she barred him from the routes he knew as well as he knew his own face? He was the Goblin King! He owned those pathways!
Fear, anger and disgust warred within him as he looked around, searching futilely for some identifying sign that might enable him to discover where he had been deposited. He saw naught but the looming, indistinct silhouettes of nearby trees and the same blank white mist he was growing heartily tired of.
Disgust won, and with it he began to feel weary. He was far too old for this. He chose a direction at random and began to trudge, tucking his hands into his pockets against the chill night air.
He had barely travelled twenty paces when he heard a vaguely familiar voice calling through the night. ‘Show yerself!’ said the speaker – a male voice, and with an intonation he thought he recognised. ‘I can hear ye clear enough, though I cannot see a thing in this dratted—’
‘Tal!’ Grunewald bellowed. ‘The Ferryman! Damn, man, but I am glad to hear you!’
Silence for a few heartbeats. ‘Grunewald?’
‘Yes! And before you ask, I am the real Grunewald. I will gladly prove it, if you will only extract me from this thrice-cursed fog and take me somewhere warm.’
The dark shape of a tall, slender man clad in an enshrouding great-coat blossomed out of the mist, and then Tal stood before him. Isabel’s husband – once the pilot of the Ferry they had used to deliver the ointment – looked him over with grim suspicion.
‘Ye’ll forgive me, but I cannot help askin’ meself what the real Grunewald would be doin’ blunderin’ about in the woods o’ Somerdale when he could ha’ simply walked up t’ the front door.’
‘Am I in truth near Somerdale? Tatterfoal grows, if anything, swifter with age.’ Grunewald took hold of the third button of his great-coat and tapped it, whereupon it came off in his hand, and transformed into Isabel’s jar of fairy ointment. He showed this to Tal. ‘You brought this to me yesterday. Isabel, bless her loyal heart, had probably stayed awake three nights in succession in the making of it.’
Tal sighed and gripped Grunewald’s arm. ‘Put that away. Ye look unsteady on yer feet. Are ye altogether well?’
‘Not altogether. Take me somewhere warm, ply me with drink and for the love of Gadrahst, feed me. I will explain all.’
Drig had spoken truly, for Somerdale bustled with company. Isabel was the first to greet Grunewald when he entered her house, and she was as full of solicitude and concern as he would have expected. She soon had him wrapped in dry clothing, ensconced upon the most comfortable chair before the drawing-room fire and plied with all the food and drink he could desire. Her aunt, Eliza Grey, was also present; a knowing, cunning woman whom Grunewald did not much like, for he always received the impression that she understood more of his thoughts than he would wish, and found them amusing. He found the presence of Sophy and Aubranael more to his taste – and Drig, who had apparently returned directly to Somerdale upon Grunewald’s abrupt disappearance and raised the alarm. Some strange, half-heard noises in the night had sent Tal and a few of the estate’s manservants out into the grounds, though they had not expected to find Grunewald returned by that route.
Neither had Grunewald. He wondered whether his sister had intentionally delivered him to Somerdale, for some inscrutable purpose of her own, or whether it had been mere chance. Either way, he was both frustrated and grateful for it in equal measure. Grateful, because he had the peace and comfort to think as he needed to do, and comforts enough to quell the distractions of hunger, weariness and cold that had begun to plague him; frustrated, because he had fallen in with the blasted troll’s plan against his will, and Bess was left to all the amusement and danger of unimpeded interference.
These thoughts whirled through his mind even as he related the evening’s events, in between bites of the cold meat pie and sips of steaming tea he had been given. ‘I must return to Hyde Place at once,’ he concluded, when all was told and all was eaten. ‘I haven’t a notion what can have prompted the wretch to entangle herself in this rotten affair, but she must not be left in my sister’s power much longer.’
‘No notion, indeed?’ said Isabel, with a strange look at Grunewald that he had no idea how to inter
pret.
‘None,’ he said with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Not that it is of any moment whatsoever, for the present. My focus must be on retrieving her from it. But I will… require help.’ This last was spoken with distaste, for he was unaccustomed to needing anyone’s assistance and had no desire to become so. But with his access to the Darkways taken from him and his steed stolen, he had no effective means of rapidly removing Bess from his house. ‘Tal, I must entreat you to lend me a horse.’
Tal favoured Grunewald with a considering look, but he made no response.
A different voice spoke from the doorway, and Grunewald sighed inwardly. ‘Hold yer horses, yer Majesty! We are as concerned fer Bess’s well-bein’ as ever ye can be, but I am persuaded that yer sister’s got some nefarious plot in mind.’ Balligumph stooped to fit through the doorway and stood just inside it, the top of his head almost touching the ceiling. Grunewald merely cast him a sour look.
‘’Tis a trap, Grunewald,’ said Tal flatly. ‘Surely, ye must see that.’
‘She cannot trap me.’ Grunewald’s lip curled at the very idea.
‘And yet, she appears to have barred you from the Goblin Roads,’ said Eliza Grey. Wretched woman. ‘Her power to affect you is not so insignificant as you imagine.’
Grunewald could not but admit the justice of these remarks, though it galled him. ‘What is it you suggest, then, my fine folk? Shall I leave the thrice-cursed baggage in my sister’s power?’
Bessie Bell and the Goblin King Page 16
