Chapter sixty-six

The Proconsul’s Garden: Ortia

 

Boo scampered over to the centre of the garden and stopped by the central sundial and ornamental fountain. She jumped up on to the edge of the fountain surround and began lapping up the water. She no idea of the desperation she had engendered in her pursuers.   

Lily spotted her first, ‘she’s here’ she shouted, running full tilt towards the little creature. Hardacre, who was heading towards the other end of the substantial garden, shouted out ‘don’t spook her!’, and turned on the spot to run back towards Lily. In another part of the garden Erik had run into a pyracantha thorn bush and was desperately trying to extricate himself. Marthian stood, arms folded, watching them.  She sensed that any interruption might just make things worse.

Boo had finished drinking and she began to buzz loudly. Her wings unfolded from nothing to fill the air behind her. She shivered slightly and prepared for take-off.

Hardacre was now just a few feet in front of her and he let out a very small cry of distress, almost too small to be audible. He stopped and lifted his hands up as if to grab the creature, but he knew that it was too late.  

‘I don’t think that I can go with her – it’s too risky…’ he said to no-one in particular and everyone in earshot, ‘but if I lose Boo… all our plans will fail’

It was now or never. Boo’s wings were fully open and the wormhole was beginning to form, pink and grey and hazy.

‘Canlyn’ whispered Hardacre, stress etched in his face, wondering whether his teleport would work.  Lily appeared in front of him, apparently out of nowhere.  She grabbed his left arm.

‘Maybe I can help’ she whispered. Very softly she murmured ‘arkesis’

Much to Hardacre’s astonished there was the familiar sense of attachment and assistance that he always felt when another magical spirit lent him some energy. It wasn’t very much, but it was something, and maybe just enough. It was too late to stop now, anyway – he was primed by Lily’s aid-spell and the accumulated energy would now have to be dissipated somehow. An experienced witch would have no trouble grounding the magical charge, but Hardacre had no way of knowing whether aborting the spell might cause Lily serious damage; he could certainly sense that she was very inexperienced.  All he could do now was hope for the best.

Boo disappeared and, just half of a second later, Hardacre and Lily were pulled through after her. There was a high ‘pop’ and they were gone.  

 

Marthian and Erik stared for a very long time at the space where the disappeared people had been. The sunlight on the garden began to harden and grow cold.

‘Who on earth are you?’ asked Marthian, in Ethian, her face as dark as the winter sky.

Erik’s eyes opened very wide and his breath was laboured. He looked down at his ruined shirt and then at Marthian.

‘Well, for that matter, who are you?’ asked Erik.

‘I am the Proconsul of Ortia – and I’m the one who gets to ask the questions in my own palace’

‘Well then, I am Prince Erik, youngest son of Albert, King of Formor’ he said, a tremor of fear wavering his voice.

If Erik had expected Marthian to be impressed, then he was sorely disappointed. She looked as if steam was about to come out of her ears.

‘Oh no, you must be jesting with me’ she spluttered, her voice getting louder as she spoke,’ Prince of Formor… no… no! What am I meant to do with you? ’

 Erik blanched, and he could think of nothing to say. In his desperate search for a topic he stared up at a plant with huge waxy green leaves growing up from its base.

‘Is that a Heliconia?’ he asked, completely distracted from what had gone before.

Marthian stopped and looked up at what Erik was staring at. She felt like she had been a log careering downstream that had suddenly been pulled into calm waters by an unexpected eddy.

‘Well…’ she said cautiously, ‘it is, yes… how do you know that?’

‘I’m the curator of the Castle Uberwald Natural History Collection’ he said, proudly, ‘And we have both volumes of Arcadius’s On Tropical Plants…’  

‘What’s that?’ asked Marthian, despite herself.  

‘The best ever work on tropical plants with really impressive flowers’ he said, ‘do you not know it?’

 Marthian shook her head, she assumed that it had been published in the last nine hundred years and so was unknown to her.

‘I’ll get my father to order you one from VUP. I have an allowance for books’

‘Vyrnia University Press?’ Marthian guessed

‘Yes, of course’

‘They have the best printing in the two continents there, you know…’

‘I didn’t know that. We’ve been isolated for a long time, you know’

Erik’s eyes greedily lapped up the wonders of the Proconsul’s garden. Marthian’s eyes were briefly dragged in the same direction: it really was a marvellous hortarium. By an effort of will she snapped out of her reverie.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded

Erik seemed to find it hard to focus on anything but the garden. He frowned and shook himself.

‘Lily and I are on an adventure’ he said, ‘and now Lily has gone on without me’

‘Was that Lily with Mr Hardacre?’ asked Marthian

‘Yes’ said Erik, ‘Princess Lily of Amansk’

‘Right’, said Marthian, ‘I should have known that you royals would travel around in groups’   

‘No – we don’t usually – she’s the first princess that I’ve ever met, in fact, and I never do anything with my brothers’

Marthian shook her head very slowly. She couldn’t believe that he was here. He was a walking diplomatic incident. But now that she had calmed down she realised that she would have to act with extreme caution. As far as she knew the Empire was at peace with Formor and the Crimson Knights were enough foes to be going on with.

‘Prince Erik – there has obviously been some dreadful accident that has brought you here’ she said, ‘but I assure you that we will get you home as soon as possible’

But Erik was only half listening. He had begun to wander towards an Opuntia cactus, shaped like a spikey ‘y’. You could see that he was itching to ask what it was, indeed, what everything was.

‘Get me home?’ he said, ‘why would you do that?’

Marthian had no idea how to deal with this strange young man.

‘Because your father will want you back?’ she suggested, frowning.

 Erik smiled and looked back at her.

‘Oh no – I’m sure he won’t’

Marthian had run out of things to say, so she just waited for Erik to explain what he meant.

‘Anyway – why would I want to leave?’ he said, standing in the succulent bed and testing the strength of the Opuntia’s spines on the pad of his thumb, ‘This is the most wonderful place I’ve ever seen!’