Dancing Jax

by Robin Jarvis

  The reflection of the apple grew larger as she held it higher. Ironheart’s great handsome face swung near and the lips extended to take it from her palm.

  The nostrils trembled. He sensed something was wrong. That tantalising sweetness masked something else. With a whinny, he shied away and turned about sharply. His flank knocked into her and Jill was thrown off balance. Stepping on the hem of her cloak, she tripped awkwardly and fell backwards. Her head hit the wall and she dropped to the ground. The lantern clattered down next to her and the straw caught light.

  In the yard, Jack was winning. Sir Darksilver’s sword was lodged deep in a wooden post and he was struggling to wrench it free. The boy was demanding he yield when he heard Ironheart’s frightened neighing.

  Jack whirled round and suddenly cries of “Fire!” broke out among the crowd.

  Forgetting everything else, Jack rushed to the stable. A sheet of flames already barred the entrance and thick smoke was pouring through the eaves. Jack tried to jump through the doorway, but sensible hands grabbed and pulled him back.

  “Ironheart!” he yelled, when he caught a glimpse of the horse rearing in the fire. “I must save him!”

  “You cannot go in there, Your Royal Highness!” anxious nobles warned.

  The air was filled with noise. Across the yard the other horses were screaming in their stalls and the hounds were barking frantically. Barred inside his den, Mauger roared.

  Suddenly the side of the stable burst apart. The most powerful hooves in Mooncaster kicked the wooden wall to pieces. Then Ironheart came charging out. His coat was smouldering and his mane was singed. The whites of his eyes were showing. Whinnying in fear and panic, he tossed his head and galloped through the gawping onlookers.

  Jack was overjoyed and called his name, but the horse would not stop. He thundered away, under the gatehouse, over the drawbridge and out across the dark fields.

  “Come back!” the boy cried. “Come back!”

  Ironheart disappeared into the night and Jack knew he would never see him again. He felt as though he had been knifed through the heart.

  “There’s someone in there!” a shout went up. “In the stable – look!”

  Through the shattered wall, beneath the billowing smoke, they saw a figure lying in the flames.

  This time Jack would not be held back. Snatching the cloak from someone’s shoulders, he dunked it in a rain barrel then covered himself with it and rushed into the fire. Moments later, he was dragging out the Jill of Spades. The girl’s clothes were aflame and Jack smothered them with the steaming cloak. He only just made it in time. Behind him, the stable collapsed.

  Everyone gazed down at the Jill of Spades. She was badly burned. Her mother, the Under Queen, had been watching the drama unfold with the aloof detachment she was famed for, but, when she saw her daughter pulled from the blaze, the ice thawed in her veins.

  “What is this?” she uttered, looking down on the scorched face in horror and disbelief. “How is my princess here?”

  Kneeling, she threw the tatters of a green cloak aside to comfort her daughter. A small silver pot went rolling over the ground.

  The young page who fetched it back knocked the lid off accidentally and a brown powder puffed up into his face. The page staggered and dropped like a stone. The Queen of Spades stared at him, then at the pot, and the lid bearing the badge of the House of Hearts.

  But now the fire had spread. It had jumped across the roofs and the main stable block was burning. Grooms ran to rescue the horses. Everywhere was tinder dry and floating cinders ignited fresh fires across the castle.

  Grabbing as many buckets as they could find, they formed a chain from the well and threw water over the flames, but it was a hopeless cause. Only rain or magick or both could aid them now and they called for the Ismus to aid them.

  In billowing black robes, the Holy Enchanter appeared on the top of the Keep, silver wand in hand. He raised his arms and stirred the heavens. Clouds gathered to blot out the stars and, rising into the air, he swirled them round.

  Presently a deluge poured from the sky above the castle and the flames were doused. The crowds cheered him, then turned to one another and the feuding began.

  High on the Keep, the Ismus gazed out over the land. Another fire was blazing in the trysting field. The jilted Kit had seen the smoke rise from the castle and that gave him an idea to frighten Dulcie and teach her a lesson. Crazed with jealousy, he ran through the field and set light to every stook. But they burned more greedily than he expected and the flames spread out across the parched stubble. Soon the whole field was afire and he was trapped, along with everyone else who had remained after the Bogey Boys had caused them to quarrel.

  From his vantage point, the Ismus heard the distant screams and flew as swiftly as his powers could carry him. The rain he summoned this time would not save them all.

  Riding over the drawbridge, the King of Diamonds finally returned after a long and bothersome day hunting. When he saw the smoke coiling up from the battlements, he had spurred his horse on and now he came splashing through the puddles and stared around at the sodden, dripping spectacle of the ruined stable yard with knights and nobles of his own house brawling in it.

  “What is this?” the Under King demanded. “I am absent for but one day and this is what greets me on my homecoming.”

  Angry voices shouted their reasons, but he held up his hand for calm.

  “I will hear no excuses!” he said sternly. “Fortunately I am in a honeyed temper. The day went ill and every beast we sighted evaded us, but, even as we returned hither, we espied the most ravishing beast in the whole of Mooncaster. Behold what I brought down, with but one true arrow through the side. Did you ever see such a marvellous beast? I will have the hide preserved and the head mounted upon the wall in my chambers.”

  His servants brought the horse carrying the kill into the yard and removed the covering blanket.

  The crowd shrieked and the ladies screamed.

  The King of Diamonds blinked in confusion and turned to see what had dismayed them so. Then he too uttered a fearful wail.

  Lying naked across the horse, her luxurious tresses hanging loose and her once sultry eyes staring, was the Jill of Hearts.

  Soon the White Castle rang with the wrathful clashing of many swords, as battles to the death between the four Royal Houses erupted.

  Lee rode through the darkness. He knew in which part of the distant forest the Forbidden Tower lay. His horse galloped unhappily over the fields. Lee was a clumsy and inelegant horseman, but it was an intelligent, good-natured beast and obeyed as well as it could, while doing its best to keep the boy on its back.

  When the shadowy sprawl of the forest drew closer, the horse slowed and Lee gazed ahead. A faint, putrid green glow was glimmering in the distance, over the tops of the trees. It was the Forbidden Tower.

  For the first time, the boy felt a pang of fear. He was looking at the deadliest place in the whole Kingdom, and his only defence was a big knife and a smart mouth. But he couldn’t let his doubts get control. He had to push them aside and keep focused. He’d do this somehow.

  “I shouldn’t venture much further if I were you,” a voice advised suddenly.

  Lee jumped in surprise and looked around. He could see no one.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Just a friendly word of caution,” the voice told him. “You’ll find this forest filled with all manner of nasty beasties. Haxxentrot has been frightfully busy of late. Time was when you could cut through the fringes of her estate with ease, but not any longer. One daren’t sit down for fear of a viper sinking its teeth into one’s posterior.”

  Lee peered in the direction of that suave, cultured voice. There were only the shadows of rocks, not large enough to conceal a person.

  “You a goblin thing or somethin’?” he asked.

  A velvety chuckle answered.

  “No, not a goblin thing.”

  “What then? Do the roc
ks talk here too now?”

  There was a vague sigh of irritation and two golden eyes opened fully. Then a long-legged, thin, dog-like shape slunk out of the shadows and climbed on to the tallest rock, curling his brush round him.

  “The talking fox,” Lee declared, to the animal’s chagrin. These humans always said the same thing when they encountered him for the first time.

  “Wondered if I’d ever run into you,” the boy added.

  “And I should be a very dull fellow indeed if I did not know the Castle Creeper when I saw his saturnine face. I have to say, you are the worst addition to a horse I have ever seen. It must take practice to be so bad.”

  “Yeah, well, you ain’t nuthin’. I seen plenty of your dumb relatives raiding the bins back home.”

  “What vulgar vulpines,” the fox said sniffily. “One cannot be responsible for the loutish behaviour of one’s distant, common cousins. I assure you I do not raid bins – an open window in a pantry or a henhouse however…”

  “So what you doing so far out here in this bad neighbourhood?”

  “My affairs take me all over the Realm and beyond. Of more pressing interest to me is what brings you, clumping your way like a blindfold, three-legged donkey, to this evil place.”

  “I got me some business with the witch up there.”

  “And you have the effrontery to label my cousins dumb? Such ambrosial irony.”

  “I don’t need no attitude from you, rabies breath.”

  The fox’s ears twitched and his brush swished.

  “Then what do you need, I wonder? Perhaps knowledge of the whereabouts of a certain pernicious herdsman?”

  Lee straightened. “You know where the Bad Shepherd is?”

  “Would such information be of value?”

  “Friend,” Lee said, “you tell where he is and you can have all the family buckets of finger-lickin’ good stuff you can handle.”

  The fox’s ears perked up. “I know not what that means, but it sounds appealing.”

  “So where is he?”

  “What of your visit to Haxxentrot?”

  “The crabby old girl can wait. She ain’t goin’ nowhere. It’s the shepherd guy I really wanna see.”

  The fox jumped from the rock and ran into the trees on the right.

  “Hey, wait up!” Lee called. “Where is he?”

  The golden eyes gleamed back at him.

  “Follow me, Creeper,” the fox told him. “I shall be your guide this night.”

  “So where we goin’?”

  “To the cave of the Cinnamon Bear; if we make haste, we shall be there by sunrise. Enough talk, now follow!”

  Lee urged his horse after the white tip of the fox’s tail as it darted ahead of them. This was it. He was going to do what he’d come here for. The final meeting with the Bad Shepherd of Dancing Jax. Lee’s hand strayed to the hilt of his long knife in anticipation, and his expression became as hard as stone. Nothing else mattered now.

  19

  ANOTHER CHRISTMAS SONG played over the speakers and Maggie gave a frustrated yell.

  “Most wonderful time of the year?” she raged when she heard the lyrics. “Up your rancid bumhole it is! Talk about wrong!”

  “Sit down,” Esther moaned. “You’re getting on everyone’s nerves.”

  “On their nerves?” Maggie shouted. “On their nerves? Really? Me walking from that wall to them bars is getting on their nerves? Not the fact we’ve been stuck down here for two days with only a bucket in the corner to piddle in? Not the fact we’ve only got till tomorrow night when we’re for the chop? You need to get your priorities in order, you daft cow.”

  “And you need to stop your whinging!” Esther sniped back. “You make it worse for everyone you do. Why can’t you shut your fat gob for a change?”

  Maggie glared at her then shook her head. It wasn’t worth wasting her breath.

  “It’s not a fat gob any more,” was her only response to that as she stepped away, kicking at the straw on the floor.

  “You didn’t lose any blubber from inside your head!” Esther called after her. “You’re still a two-ton lardy upstairs.”

  Maggie stomped to the bars and rested her brows between them. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. Not of Esther, she was just irritating, like a small, yappy dog. No, Maggie’s eternal optimism had taken a severe battering that she hadn’t rallied from. She still believed Gerald was dead, Spencer too probably, and she had no idea where Lee was; maybe he was dead too. She was sure they would be next. It was the manner of their impending deaths that frightened her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to guess what the Ismus had planned, but it was certain to be messy and drawn out.

  The refugees from the mountain base had been divided into two groups and locked in adjoining cells. Martin was in the one next door and she called to him, but received no answer. If she was despairing then heaven knows where his head was at. He hadn’t uttered one word during the trip here. She’d never seen him like this. He’d totally given up. She wasn’t even sure if he actually understood her awful news about Gerald. Nothing seemed to register.

  “Martin?” she called again. “You still there?”

  “Course he’s still there!” Esther told her. “Where else do you think he’d be, stupid?”

  “Yes, he’s here,” another voice answered from Martin’s cell. Maggie recognised it as belonging to the lad called Drew. “He’s not moved and isn’t saying anything.”

  “Come on, Martin!” Maggie shouted with a forced jollity that she didn’t feel. “You can’t shut down just yet. Still one more shopping day till Chrimble.”

  “Give it a rest,” Esther said irritably. “He’s lost it and had a breakdown. Any idiot can see that. I’ve seen it coming on for ages.”

  “Liar,” one of Charm’s girls told her.

  Maggie closed her eyes. She almost wished she could join Martin in whatever place his psyche had dipped into. But at the back of her mind she recalled Gerald’s words to her, out on the terrace of the mountain base that foggy morning.

  “We’re not at home to Mr Despair,” she repeated to herself and tried her best to believe it.

  The journey from the mountain base had been uneventful. They were loaded on to a military helicopter, then flown to an airstrip in South Korea where a jet was waiting to bring them to England. They landed in darkness and were herded into the back of a lorry, like cattle. The last leg of the journey took less than an hour, but they couldn’t see where they were being taken.

  When the lorry doors were opened, they found they were in a high-walled, cobbled courtyard and discovered, to their horror, familiar faces waiting to meet them.

  Captain Swazzle and the other Punchinello Guards from the aberrant camp greeted their former prisoners with merciless grins and the firing of semi-automatic pistols into the air. They were wearing the same costumes as before. Yikker was still clothed as a Catholic priest, Bezuel was a gangsta rapper and their Captain was a squat version of Al Capone. But their outfits had never been cleaned since the first day they put them on and were covered in grime, dried vomit and their own filth.

  With dismay, Maggie and the others noticed that their ranks had been augmented by more Punchinellos and those too wore bizarre costumes. There was a Roman centurion, a Kaiser Wilhelm, with medals, cape and spike-tipped helmet, a Mexican bandit; there was a Mao Zedong with a Little Red Book filled with obscene scrawls, a colonial big-game hunter in khaki shorts and pith helmet, a pirate, a Cossack, Genghis Khan and – perhaps most eccentric of all – one dressed in the away strip of the English football team. They were all chomping on fat cigars and reeked of whisky.

  Swazzle and his crew drove the new arrivals through an arched doorway, cursing and goading and spitting at them. Maggie was prodded roughly with a gun barrel and Martin was kicked. Some of the others felt the lash against their legs and Nicholas was hit in the face by a rifle butt when he tried to protect Esther from Bezuel’s lascivious hands.

  Then t
hey were driven down a steep flight of winding steps to a spacious vaulted chamber lit by flaming torches. The youngest cried out when they realised it was a fully equipped medieval dungeon and the Punchinellos squawked with glee as they showed off the many and varied instruments of torture. But the Jockey had come tripping down after them and scolded the hunchbacked guards, telling them they would have to wait for their fun.

  And so the refugees were marched through the dungeon to the cells and had remained there ever since, with only stale bread and water – and a basket of the disgusting minchet fruit.

  This was all they had seen of the replica of the White Castle from Dancing Jax, but it was enough to tell them it was a faithful copy of the drawings in the book. The attention to detail and commitment to authenticity was astonishing. This wasn’t a Disneyfied fibreglass amusement park attraction. This was solid and real. The walls were made of genuine stone blocks and the bars were iron. Only the crispness of its lines betrayed its recent construction – that and the speakers and cameras that were positioned at frequent intervals.

  In the other cell, Martin was crouched in a shadowy corner, chin on his knees. He heard Maggie’s voice calling to him, but what was the point of answering? What was the point of anything now? Everything he had tried to do had failed and, looking back, just what had he actually achieved? He should have surrendered long ago, instead of fleeing from country to country, trying to warn them of the danger. Not enough had listened and those that did listened far too late. Then there were the betrayals. The resistance group he had organised in Uruguay almost seemed to be getting somewhere; they had organised quickly and bookshops had been torched before Dancing Jax had got too strong a hold on the populace. Then one of their unaffected group had sold them out and their base in Montevideo had been attacked by Jaxers from Argentina. Martin and Gerald had scarcely managed to escape with their lives and many of the friends they had made there were shot helping them evade capture.