Keeping that imperious look on her face, perhaps because she was incapable of any other expression, Infanta Anathea turned to the Duke and snarled, ‘You started dinner without me?’
Everyone stopped talking. The room reverberated with clunks and clangs as they put their cutlery down. A flash of silver caught Shambles’s eye – he turned to see someone dropping a small fish knife into a clutch bag and clicking the top closed. Shambles snuck over to the patent-leather bag. It was so shiny he could see his furry reflection in it.
The Duke rose from his chair. ‘Dear sister. Dinner is at seven sharp. Just as it always is. Your seat is waiting.’
‘You’re so rude,’ the Infanta said.
Shambles used the distraction to his advantage, the Infanta’s voice drowning out the quiet ‘snick’ as he opened the clutch bag. He grabbed the stolen knife with his teeth and brought it to an empty spot under the table, well clear of anyone’s feet.
At that moment the Infanta’s little dog spotted Shambles under the table. The dog wriggled and spasmed like he’d been struck with an electric prod.
‘No, Biscuit,’30 the Infanta said, attempting to calm her pet.
Biscuit paid the Infanta no mind. With a bloodcurdling ‘ru-ru-ru-ru’ the white hairy thing launched itself into the air. He landed on the ground and charged for Shambles.
‘Biscuit! Heel!’ the Infanta commanded, but Biscuit had another master – blood lust!
For a terrifying quarter of a second Shambles considered transforming into a human to gain an advantage over the dog. Panic surged through his furry body as he looked up to see Old Col’s worried face. With a lunge he shot up the leg of the chair, but his claws tangled on the hem of Col’s skirt.
‘Ru-ru-ru-ru,’ Biscuit barked.31
Quick as a flash, Old Col’s hands grabbed Shambles around the middle to pull him to safety. Biscuit hurled himself into the air, his mouth open, white teeth and red gums bared.
The pretty white dog sank his fangs into Shambles’s ferrety neck and chomped down hard.
27 Invented by those gourmets the French. An ‘aperitif’ is a pre-dinner alcoholic drink, designed to get the appetite going.
28 At the risk of turning this into a manual on Brugel’s unusual grammar, ‘fenudging’ is a common adverb describing the flickety fidgety movements of people who otherwise ought to be sitting still.
29 Quite frankly he deserved a medal. Next time you do something mild like stub your toe or get a paper cut, see if you can remain completely silent.
30 Biscuit’s real title is Cardrona King Ivanovich, five times Best Breed, twice Best in Show, Venzelemma Ducal Dog Show.
31 He snarled too, but the Brugelish spelling of dog snarls is too complicated to print here.
Chapter Eight
Being neither a witch nor a woman possessed of supernatural powers to see into rooms without being in them at the time, Ondine remained oblivious to Shambles’s current plight. To her credit, she had realised her presence in the Duke’s dining room during the evening meal had been a huge mistake. She knew Hamish and Old Col would be at the dinner, but she couldn’t refuse Draguta’s request to take the towels in. Guilt spread through her at the huge amounts of pain it must have caused Hamish for her to appear like that and make him transform. It didn’t help that Vincent had been there too. Thankfully he only gave her a greasy look and had kept his mouth shut. The moment she’d done her job, Ondine had nodded to the Duke and Duchess and quickly scarpered out of there. Her assumption being that Hamish would revert to ferret form and remain safe and undetected, if a little green around the gills.
Not knowing Hamish was bleeding from the neck after Biscuit’s attack, Ondine followed Draguta to the staff lounge and ate a bowl of vegetable soup and a multi-grain dinner roll. Unaware that the Infanta was screaming profusely at Old Col about the chance ‘that revolting thing’ had given her champion rabies,32 Ondine accepted a second bowl of soup.
She was also completely insensible to the next development, where Old Col made an incantation to the powers of the earth, stars and moon, at which point Biscuit’s teeth fell out.33
The Infanta’s high-pitched screams that could open a can? Ondine heard them loud and clear. Just about everyone in the palechia heard them. They ripped through the halls and the thin plaster walls like daggers of foul temper. The piercing noise reached the staff lounge, where Ondine’s second bread roll beckoned, but ultimately lay untouched.
In a heartbeat Ondine took flight and ran towards the horrible sounds of chaos and terror.
Only to find herself face to face with her worst nightmare. OK, her second worst nightmare. Her first worst nightmare was being separated from Hamish. But her second worst nightmare was Lord Vincent.
He was standing right in front of her. His eyes glinted with anger as he scraped his blond hair back from his forehead. A gleam of satisfaction stole through her as she saw remnants of a blue stain on his hand, left over from the night they’d caught him robbing the family hotel. Did he not wash, or was it sheer guilt keeping the stain there? Not for the first time, Ondine wondered what she’d ever seen in him. He might have been handsome if he weren’t so ugly on the inside.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked straight back. ‘And don’t stand there like an idiot. Bow to your betters.’
Just because you’ve got a title it doesn’t mean you’re better than me, Ondine thought. The memory of the night he slapped her hard on the face came flooding back.34 In defiance, she kept her back ramrod straight. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Fort Kluff?’
‘It didn’t take.’ He examined a fingernail and said, ‘Why are you here?’
‘I’m working.’
Vincent mimicked, ‘I’m working.’ He made no sideways movement to let her pass.
Frustration surged through Ondine. ‘May I pass?’
Silently he stepped to the side and made room. Ondine took a step but something smacked her hard in the shins. A lurching, falling sensation lasted all of half a second before she hit the floor with a thud. She looked up and saw a smirk on his face.
‘Not quite a bow, but it will do.’
Picking herself up, Ondine brushed away the hurt in her palms. ‘You’re a –’
‘Tut tut! When I’m Duke, you’ll show me more respect.’
‘When you’re Duke I’ll emigrate to Slaegal!’35 Ondine stomped off as best she could, head high, limping slightly, but all the same savouring the victory of getting the last word in.
Just as she turned the corner Vincent yelled out, ‘Witch!’
His tone carried such a sting, it was the first time Ondine heard someone use that word in a derogatory sense. Indignation on behalf of her great aunt surged through her. A retort sprang to her lips just as Old Col arrived, carrying a prone Shambles in her arms. Around his neck she’d wrapped a white linen napkin. Correction, some of it was white but mostly it was covered in deep burgundy stains.
‘Shambles!’ Ondine cried.
Lurch. Ondine’s stomach did that horrible sinking-with-fear thing as she looked at him. Then lurch again as another nagging, awful, this-is-not-right feeling took hold. She was standing right next to him, close enough for her to touch his head and say, ‘Oh, you poor darling.’
So why hadn’t he changed back into a man now that they were close again? Did he not want to? Gasp. Was he too injured?
‘Quick, let’s get to my room,’ Old Col said. They ran up the stairs and rushed down the hall, and shut the door behind them for privacy.
Ondine grabbed a couple of towels and placed them on the bed, so they could lie Shambles down without staining the duvet.
With a waver in her voice, Ondine asked, ‘How did it happen?’ All the while she gently stroked Shambles’s soft ferrety head and even kissed him twice. Did his eyelids flutter open? Did he mutter even one saucy comment about kisses? No.
Which made Ondine worry even more.
‘Jupiter
’s moons, he’s dying.’
‘He’s not dying,’ Old Col said, unwrapping the cloth to reveal Shambles’s matted wet neck.
His furry body gently rose and fell with his breathing.
‘But there’s so much blood,’ Ondine said.
‘That there is. Fortunately, most of it belonged to Biscuit. That’s the Infanta’s crazy dog, by the way. Thank goodness the dog bite missed anything vital, otherwise Shambles would have bled to death.’
Fresh pain seared Ondine and her tummy curdled like lemon juice in milk. She felt like she might stop breathing. Her strapping, handsome lad was simply lying there in his fragile ferrety state and there was nothing she could do about it.
Old Col related the entire sorry tale to Ondine. About how the champion show dog had gone the full-berserker on Shambles and how she had used ancient magic and ripped the little mutt’s teeth out. Every last one of them.
Old Col looked ashamed. ‘In the panic of the moment, I wanted Biscuit’s teeth out of Shambles. I must have said the spell not quite right. Maybe I had a senior moment?’
Hope surged in Ondine. If that nasty dog had no teeth left, Shambles would be safe from future attacks. ‘Will he make a full recovery?’
‘Undoubtedly. He’s sleeping it off. When the dog attacked, Shambles was about to let fly with enough profanities to strip the wallpaper. There wasn’t time to think. I cast a spell to make him appear dead, so that I could get him out of the dining room.’
Relief washed over Ondine like a tidal wave. But there was one more unknown factor in the sorry adventure, not counting all the unknown unknowns.36
‘Aunt Col, why is he still a ferret?’
Col shook her head, pursed her lips as if in deep thought and said, ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’
Waiting is awful. There’s the waiting for a meal to arrive when you can smell it cooking, and your stomach is saying ‘hurry up’. There’s the butterflies-in-the-tummy waiting for a gymnastics score from the fussy judges who are not sure if they should deduct half a point or a whole point for stepping outside the white lines. Then there’s the hopeless I-feel-completely-sick kind of waiting, as a young girl looks upon the hopeless shape of an injured ferret waiting to see if he’ll ever become handsomely human again.
An hour dragged by. When Ondine looked at Old Col’s watch, it lied and said only eight minutes had passed. Fifteen more of Ondine’s hours passed over the next two real hours. There was no change from Shambles at all, just the rise and fall of his furry little tummy as he breathed in and out. Every now and then his paws twitched. At one point, his eyelids flickered and seemed ready to spring open, but it was just his eyes quivering. Dreaming.
‘You need sleep yourself, you’ve got school in the morning,’ Old Col said.
‘But it’s got no roof.’
‘Pyotr told me they’ll make do with one of the barns.’
‘Do I have to go?’
‘Of course you do. If you don’t, the Duke will send you home. By the way, your parents are furious with me for letting you stay and work here.’
Gulp. Shambles had taken up so much of her head space she hadn’t given a thought to her parents. ‘It didn’t go down well?’
‘You should have heard your mother scream when I phoned her and told her where we were. They wanted you to go home immediately. I told them you’d get a better education here. So you’d better prove me right or we’re all in strife. And another thing, make sure you call them every now and then, just so they know you’re safe and well.’37
Rubbing her eyes and finding gritty things in the corners, Ondine agreed to return to her room. Some people have worried so much about another’s fate they have lain awake all night with the stress of it. Ondine was not such a person. Yes, she fully planned to worry all night about Shambles and whether he would ever be Hamish again. The new bed felt strange and cold; a recipe for further fretting. Her body, however, had other ideas and she fell asleep two pico-seconds after pulling the covers up.
Tasting a mouthful of dust, Ondine half-woke and prised her eyes open. It was dark – hardly surprising as it must have been the middle of the night. The true surprise was trying to swallow. Her tongue felt dry enough to leave splinters in her cheeks.
I must have fallen asleep with my mouth open, she thought. Quickly followed by another important thought: I need a drink.
Eyes adjusting to the low light, Ondine saw no refreshing glass of water on her side table. She attempted to swallow again and felt the ash-dry results. Wincing at the night chill, Ondine pulled her top blanket over her shoulders and did her best to be as quiet as possible so she didn’t wake Draguta the laundry boss, who was asleep in the bed beside hers. She closed the door with a soft click and made her way to the kitchen.
At this time of night, she expected to be alone. No such luck. There in the kitchen, standing at the central galley bench, was a woman dressed in a shimmery satiny nightgown, with a whimpering fluffy white dog. A white dog with soft red gums, full of gouges where his teeth used to be.
The Infanta! Ondine tried to work out the correct form of address to use. Your Grace? My Lady? Her father would have known, but he wasn’t here to help.
‘Your Highness.’ Ondine quickly dropped into a curtsey. In any case, she couldn’t say much more because her mouth was as dry as week-old bread. The woman smiled and Ondine felt a surge of relief at getting it right.38
At first Ondine thought she’d surprised the woman, judging by the Infanta’s shocked expression, but after a while it became obvious the woman’s eyebrows sat up like that permanently.
‘Were you sent to the kitchens at this late hour, child?’
Croak, rasp. ‘No one sent me. I need a drink of water, Your Highness.’
The Infanta nodded her head towards the taps and put a spoon in the dog’s mouth. For the smallest moment Ondine felt sorry for Biscuit. Straight after that she thought the dog deserved everything he got for attacking her beloved Shambles.
Glass of water safely in hand, Ondine decided to get out of there before she said anything stupid. When she turned around, she saw the Infanta make a quick movement away from the large stockpot bubbling over a low flame.
‘What?’ The Infanta’s gaze bored into her.
Ondine was hardly going to say she thought the Infanta had put something in the soup. A queef of disgust39 spread through her at the thought that the Infanta was feeding the dog with the soup spoon. Or was the soup just for the dog? In which case it would be all right, if a little unconventional. However, if it was the communal soup, she should probably warn everyone it had Biscuit slobber in it.
Hot on the heels of that internal soliloquy, Ondine had another thought that pushed disgust aside and let fear in. Maybe the Infanta didn’t put the spoon back in the soup. Maybe she put something else in the soup?
‘Sorry, I just . . . my eyes are still half shut. Please excuse me, Your Highness, I must get back to bed.’
Those imperious raised eyebrows made Ondine uneasy. Somehow, Ondine felt sure the Infanta had put something in the soup and she had to tell Old Col the moment she got the chance.
‘What are you named, child?’
‘Ondine, Your Highness.’
‘And what did you see, Ondine, hmm?’
‘I . . .’ She took a gulp of water and thought desperately for something convincing to say.
The dog provided inspiration as it licked the offered spoon. ‘I’m so sorry to stare, but I saw that your puppy has no teeth. I really wasn’t expecting that.’
No change at all in the Infanta’s expression. It was hard to know if this was deliberate. ‘No. Earlier this evening I wasn’t expecting my dog to be mauled either,’ she said. ‘It was my baby brother’s new friend who did it. This had better be set to rights or there’ll be trouble.’
Something else Ondine wasn’t expecting – the Infanta paid no attention to her audience and put that licked doggy spoon back in the soup, confirming her earlier guess at the slurry of d
og bacteria swilling in the pot.
Ondine’s face must have betrayed her disgust, because the Infanta said, ‘He has a better pedigree than anyone else under this roof.’
Yes, but his mouth is still teeming with germs, Ondine thought. How unfair that the Duke had set the health inspector on her parents’ hotel, when all along he should have been paying closer attention to his own kitchen!40
Again and again, the Infanta spooned soup from the pot to the dog. The dog stood on the galley bench, licking away. A few drops of soup landed on the bench, right where the kitchen staff would be preparing food in the morning. The dog licked that up as well.
The Infanta stopped spooning and looked at Ondine. ‘You are new here, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Far too many people are being hired of late. I don’t approve, but the Duke won’t listen to me. Work hard and keep out of trouble. Plenty of people think they know what is going on but they don’t. You think you might know something, so you go and tell the Duke. Save yourself the bother. He isn’t interested. If you see anything or hear something strange and you want to know what it means, you come to me instead, you hear?’
Ondine gulped and gave a meek, ‘Yes.’
32 Rabies is a particularly nasty virus transmitted via bites from infected animals. The virus attacks the victim’s central nervous system and sends them completely mad. In later stages of infection, the victim foams at the mouth as their body produces copious amounts of saliva. If not treated quickly, it is almost always fatal.
In an attempt to placate nervous tourists, Brugel declared itself rabies free in 2005. However, neighbouring countries Slaegal and Craviç make no such claims. As everyone knows, wild dogs and bats (which are the main carriers) cannot read, and frequently walk or fly straight past the signposts advising them to keep out.
The Autumn Palace Page 5
