Victoria
had never felt angrier or more upset. After
she had realised that Lily and Erik had gone she had forced Otto to send a
large force of his troops to sweep the area to look for them, but all to no
avail – they had disappeared without trace.
At first she blamed herself, deeply
regretting that she hadn’t kept a better eye on them. After that she blamed Hardacre, who she very briefly
suspected of kidnapping them. However when she considered this a bit more
carefully she realised that she had no reason to doubt his truthfulness: why would
a Hybitor spy set on a secret mission kidnap two random princelings? So, if it wasn’t
Hardacre then perhaps it was Erik, who was such a strange boy. Who knows what
odd ideas he might have put into silly Lily’s head? On the other hand, however,
he didn’t seem like a very assertive person and certainly not the kind who
could persuade a wilful soul to run away. In the absence of a really good
culprit all she could do was blame the person closest by and so she took it all
out on Otto.
‘Your security is unbelievably bad’ she
yelled at him when they had looked everywhere that they could think of, ‘how
could you let two foolish children out of your sight?’
Otto stood by their coach and smarted from
her attack. Since she had come back into his life his world seemed to have
swung back and forth from sunlight to darkness.
‘I’m so sorry Vicky’ he said, his lips
wrinkled into a line, ‘I thought that they were in the coach with you…’
‘Well’ said Victoria, glaring at him, ‘they
obviously weren’t, were they… I asked you to do this simple job…’
Otto suddenly realised that they were
surrounded by his knights: this was embarrassing and uncomfortable.
‘Perhaps we could have this talk in the
coach…’ he half-pleaded, looking round at the gathering group of his men most
of whom had found something really important to do near where they were standing.
Victoria’s face darkened with storm clouds.
‘No we cannot have this talk in the coach,
grandmaster, I think that it would be useful for your knights to see the extent
to which you default on your promises’
‘You are not being entirely fair, Miss
Jenkins’ he said, now aware that he had to put on a show., ‘I simply promised
to take you to Amansk, I cannot be held entirely responsible for their
disappearance. It seems that the Ethian witch has fooled us all and spirited
them away’
‘So, you’re blaming Mr Hardacre, are you?’
said Victoria, with a measured softness, ‘I suppose this horde of Formish
soldiers were unable to deal with the deadly threat of a man servant with a
tree shrew’
‘He’s a witch’ said Otto, forlornly, ‘he has
all sorts of powers…’
Victoria shook her head and for a second Otto
worried that she was about to wag her finger at him and send him to his room.
Her head was still shaking when Gerard came running up to them.
Gerard had been searching by the lake shore. He had examined the trails in the sand carefully
and had come to his own conclusions. However, he wasn’t planning to give his
findings up before he was ready.
‘Have you found any sign of them?’ asked
Victoria
‘They went down to the lakeside – I followed
their tracks down there – after that it isn’t very clear what happened’
Victoria felt her stomach churn. She really
needed to know what had happened – but she dreaded to find out the truth.
‘What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!’
‘There are three sets of tracks in the sand
there. One of them was smaller than the
other two. They all lead to a place where something was lying on the ground, I
think – then they seem to stop. It’s hard to tell though; the bigger footprints
are all over the place ’
‘Are you a tracker?’ asked Otto, ‘do you really
know how to interpret such vague marks on the ground?’
Gerard and Victoria ignored him. Once again
he felt like a naughty boy. How was this happening? He was grandmaster. He had fasted and meditated, learned how to withstand
extremes of heat and cold, and now he commanded an elite force of highly
trained knights. How could this all be to no avail? How could he have got to
this place? How did he get to a place where he was being snubbed by a mercenary
scoundrel?
Victoria had more pressing things to worry
than Otto’s state of mind. She thought that she could interpret what Gerard had
seen.
‘I think they must have teleported away with
Hardacre – but if so then he must have done it deliberately. But why would he
have teleported them away?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Gerard, smiling,
‘he’s a kidnapper, just like me…’
Victoria didn’t believe this for a second.
Wasn’t it obvious to everyone that Hardacre was a completely honourable man?
‘I
very much doubt that’ she said, ‘and anyway, how did he get them down to the
beach?’
‘Well, he is a witch…’ murmured Otto, ‘they
can force people to do all sorts of things, I’m sure…’
Victoria shot him a scornful glance.
‘I’m going to assume that they went
voluntarily’ she said, now looking entirely at Gerard, ‘until I get compelling
evidence otherwise’
Gerard grinned and bowed slightly. He looked
straight into Victoria’s eyes, unblinking.
‘You are a fine judge of character, Miss
Jenkins’ he acknowledged, ‘and I think you are right. Erik and Lily were hiding
in some trees – I think that they must have been watching whatever Hardacre was
doing. After that, judging the tracks, I’d say that they ran over to him’
‘How does that make sense?’ mused Victoria,
‘If he’d seen them hiding and then called them over, they wouldn’t have run
would they?’
‘Perhaps he ordered them to run to him?’
suggested Otto very softly. He was desperate to be involved, particularly as it
hurt him physically to see Gerard staring so intently into Victoria’s
eyes.
‘Or perhaps they teleported with him but without
his permission…’ said Victoria, seeing no real point in not telling the truth,
‘and maybe that happened when Boo blinked away’
‘What?’ both men cried out simultaneously.
‘Hardacre has a magical animal that is
tracking some powerful mage or witch. She can follow a scent through space by
teleporting… apparently’
‘What?’ repeated Otto, a little more softly
this time. Gerard waited for more explanation.
‘I know it sounds mad but it seems to be how
Mr Hardacre got to the Castle in the first place – following the magical
creature. They call it Boo’
‘Who
are “they”?’ asked Gerard, with a glint in his eye.
‘Hardacre’s employers…’ said Victoria,
beginning to regret her candour.
‘Oh really…’ said Gerard, ‘now that’s very
interesting. Are his employers witches as well?’
‘That’s not relevant’ barked Victoria, ‘the
main important thing is that we have established that the princelings are with
Hardacre, and that he probably didn’t want them to come. So, we have to work
out where Hardacre might have gone and try to follow him’
Victoria pulled herself away from Gerard’s
cobra gaze and looked directly at Otto.
‘Otto, do you have any idea who the powerful
witch was who was staying recently at Castle Uberwald?’
Otto looked bemused. He was completely at
sea.
‘I don’t know of any such person. Why would a
witch be at the castle?’
‘Well…’ sighed Victoria, ‘I wouldn’t know,
will I. I’ve been locked up for the last several weeks…’
Otto
looked pained. He really would have liked to have a useful answer to this question.
‘I’m sorry, Vick… Miss Jenkins, I really
don’t know…’
Victoria raised her hands up in despair.
‘But aren’t you meant to be the Baron’s
equal? Don’t you share his counsel?’
‘Up to a point…’ said Otto, ‘but we didn’t
discuss magic’
‘Well, is von Eisen a powerful witch?’ asked
Victoria, impatiently.
‘I don’t… think… so’ said Otto, trying hard
to stop himself staring down at the floor.
‘Well, who is it then?’ demanded Victoria
Otto looked blank. Despite himself his gaze wandered
down to the floor. He could feel his face flushing.
‘I know’ said Gerard.
Everyone there turned to look at him. Otto
had a brief mental vision of a peacock.
There was a theatrical beat.
‘And I’m very happy to tell you’ Gerard
continued.
‘Who is it then?’ asked Victoria, rubbing her
temple with her fingers. She could feel a
splitting headache coming. Gerard tilted
his head slightly, in mock sympathy.
‘Ah,
yes, but all information comes at a price’ he said ‘shall we say twenty
elfrounds?’
Victoria took a step towards Gerard and he
thought for a moment that she was considering throttling him, but then she drew
away. She really was a refreshingly strong woman.
‘You know that I don’t have twenty
elfrounds…’ she said
‘Well, of course you don’t’ said Gerard, kindly,
‘but your boyfriend does’
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