Victoria
herded them all inside the apartment, hoping that no-one had seen their
unexpected guest. She took them into the dining room, the room buried furthest
into the middle of their living space. She placed Lily at the exact opposite end of
the room from Hardacre and then stood directly in front of him with her arms
folded.
‘If you know my sister so well, Mr Hardacre,
tell me something about her’
Hardacre controlled his facial muscles. He
had really felt like frowning, but it was vital that he won Victoria over.
‘Her given name is Elizabeth, she lives in
Eth City, and she works for the High Lord. She is a special advisor to his
court. She looks very like a slightly older version of you, Miss Jenkins and
she shares your assertive characteristics…’
Victoria shook her head and refused to yield.
‘So, you live in Eth City do you? Is that how
you know Liz?’
Hardacre allowed himself a very small smile -
he couldn’t imagine anyone calling Councillor Jenkins ‘Liz’.
‘No, I do not live in Eth City’ he explained,
‘I live in Kinspit in Southern Paror’
Victoria narrowed her eyes and frowned. She
looked around at Lily as if expecting that Hardacre might have cast a spell on
her. Satisfied that she had not been transformed into any kind of amphibian,
she turned back to Hardacre.
‘Kinspit? That’s on the other side of the
world’ she spluttered, ‘how can you have ever met her?’
‘She is a member of a special committee that
I serve as part of my duties’
‘Duties?’ asked Victoria, aware that she
risked getting distracted, ‘what duties are they?’
‘I am a gentleman’s servant, a valet’
Victoria laughed, snorting as she did so. She
looked quizzically at the small ball of fur that was now asleep in Lily’s arms.
‘I really don’t think that you are, Mr
Hardacre’ she said, ‘valets rarely carry teleporting magical mammals…’
Hardacre nodded his agreement of the
strangeness of what was happening.
‘I am also a reluctant diplomat and general
factotum. I help out where I can’
Victoria was determined to refocus the
conversation.
‘What committee?’ she asked, ‘what possible
committee could you and my sister have ever met on. It seems
inconceivable…’
Then the truth began to dawn. There was one
shadowy committee that they could have met on, one that she knew about from her
days working for the government, but that she knew very little about otherwise.
It was also one that Elizabeth would kill, possibly literally, to be sit on.
‘Is this committee thirteen strong, by any chance,
Mr Hardacre?’
A ripple of disquiet slowly made its way
across Hardacre’s face. It soon disappeared. He surrendered to circumstance.
‘Yes, Miss Jenkins, it is’
Victoria was about to blurt out everything
that she knew about the Hybitor, express her astonishment at her sister’s
elevation to the council, and generally spew out an extraordinariness of
information. But then she caught Hardacre’s eye again – he was giving her that
look that she had not seen for decades, the look that said ‘need to know’.
Without any warning an ancient, almost forgotten, reflex triggered in her mind.
Her mouth shut tight and she knew that this was something that she should keep
secret. There was no need for these two young royal people to know about the
internal workings of the Ethian state, no reason at all. Without fully realising it, Victoria had
begun to think like a spy again.
‘What
are you two talking about?’ asked Lily, sounding exasperated.
Victoria walked over to her and gave her a
reassuring pat on the arm.
‘My sister and Mr Hardacre are both on the
ancient monument committee in Eth. It’s an extraordinary coincidence. ‘
Lily yawned.
‘It sounds fascinating, miss!’ she paused for
a second, ‘however… can we escape now?’
Victoria
sank into one of the dining room chairs and nodded for everyone else to do the
same. Hardacre sat down looking mildly surprised but not unpleased; Erik fell
onto his seat and started drumming his fingers on the table; and Lily collapsed
into an arm chair close to where she had been standing.
‘I think it’s time to find out what is going
on’ said Victoria, ‘Mr Hardacre, perhaps you’d tell us what you’re doing
teleporting around the place with a mutant rodent…’
Hardacre looked over at the tupaia on Lily’s
lap, thinking that he would bring her to show the others, but then he thought
better of it. She was fast asleep and very comfortable.
‘She’s not a rodent, I’m told’ Hardacre said,
‘she’s a tree shrew of some sort’
Victoria looked at him as if this was a
seriously bad example of splitting hairs.
‘More importantly’ he continued, ‘she seems
to feed from the energy radiated by users of magic and has an extraordinary
ability to track down a really powerful emanation from any distance. We have no
idea whether this ability is natural or whether Boo was trained to do it by
someone’
‘Boo?’ asked Lily.
Hardacre coughed to cover up this little
slip.
‘We call her Boo’
Lily smiled.
‘What a great name! Why do you call her
that?’
‘Because
she’s quite easy to frighten, I think’ said Hardacre, looking uncomfortable, ‘I
didn’t name her’
‘And you, Mr Hardacre’ said Victoria sternly,
‘you seem to be very easy to distract…’
‘I do
apologise’ said Hardacre, ‘to continue – Boo appeared suddenly in the middle of
the night to one of my colleagues. She was woken up by the creatures buzzing on
her chest; a rather odd way to be interrupted in your sleep, as I am sure you
can imagine’
‘Sounds like a nice way to me’ said Lily
‘So, are there others of her kind?’ asked
Erik, making a face at Lily, ‘have you examined their internal anatomy?’
‘Erik! Don’t be so vile’ squeaked Lily
‘We have no idea’ replied Hardacre, carefully
answering the first part of Erik’s question only, ‘she is the only one of her
kind that we have ever found; and I can tell you, we have looked far and wide’
‘Tree shrews are usually found in tropical
rain forests’ said Erik, ‘you should look there’
Hardacre nodded.
‘We have, I’m sure’
‘Who are ‘we’, then?’ asked Lily, a note of
suspicion in her voice, ‘the ancient monument people?’
Hardacre ignored her and tried to plough on
with his story.
‘We now use Boo as a tracking creature’ he
explained, ‘if you hold her next to a device or object that has been recently
enchanted by someone of high magical ability then she will pick up the magical
‘scent’ and pursue them vigorously; in fact, through large volumes of space,
however distant. She may be able to go straight to a magical signal if it’s strong
enough...’
Victoria looked intensely sceptical.
‘How is that possible?’ she asked
Hardacre decided that this wasn’t really the
time to start explaining about thaumic traces, so a little grey lie seemed most
prudent.
‘We don’t yet know yet, but we’re working on
it. But that fact that I’m here provides some good empirical evidence of what
she can do, I would say’
Victoria frowned.
‘You might have come from two villages
away….’
Hardacre
smiled politely.
‘I came from Paror’ he explained
Victoria’s face was a mask of doubt, but she
kept quiet and let him continue.
‘So, that’s why I’m here. I am on the trail
of an evil witch or mage of considerable power, whose experiments are causing a
lot of trouble; and, he or she was clearly here fairly recently and may have
been staying in the apartment that Boo blinked into’
Everyone looked towards Erik. He sat upright
in his chair looking very confused.
‘Erik’ said Victoria very carefully, ‘do you
know who was in that apartment recently?’
Erik looked even more bemused; it was as if
he was trying to remember a very difficult memory puzzle.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Erik, ‘I don’t really
notice that sort of thing. My uncle has lots of visitors; any one of them could
be a powerful evil witch, I suppose…’
‘Really?’ said Lily, ‘how cool is that!’
Victoria gave her a hard stare. Lily giggled briefly
and then shut up.
‘So,’ said Victoria, ‘when the creature
teleports, you can follow her?’
‘Using a special… err… trick, yes’ confirmed
Hardacre, distressed, as usual, by the need to talk about magic, ‘but it’s a
very powerful and exceptionally tiring… trick. I can only…umm… effect it about
once a day’
‘You mean it’s a spell?’ asked Lily, eagerly,
‘is that what you mean?’
Hardacre face was expressionless: if they
couldn’t work out what he was talking about then he wasn’t going to give them
any more help.
‘I was planning to follow the lead again once
I was rested, but that will have to wait until we can get out of this castle’
The others murmured their grateful assent,
even Erik. Hardacre looked up at him, puzzled.
‘Prince Erik?’
Erik smiled and nodded.
‘Are you a captive here as well?’
‘He’s
no captive’ said Victoria, ‘he’s here to woo Lily; and he’s making a complete
pig’s ear of it…’
Lily giggled.
‘Miss Jenkins is right; he’s absolutely no
use at all’
Erik looked mildly stung, but not fatally
wounded.
‘He’s about the most ineligible suitor I have
ever met!’ continued Lily, ‘just look at his silly face!’
Erik nodded in complete agreement. He’d
obviously given this subject a lot of thought.
‘Well, I like Lily but I wouldn’t want to marry
her’ he murmured, ‘I’ve got too many other things to do’.
Lily stood up and glared stony-faced at him.
Tears began to form on her cheeks.
‘That’s not what you’re meant to say!’ she
sobbed, ‘I’m allowed to tease you, but you are
not allowed to say that about
me! I’m pretty and I’m a princess! Of course
you want to marry me!’
She stood up, handing Boo to Hardacre. Then
she stormed off out of the room, throwing looks of implicit command at both
Victoria and Erik as she went. Victoria chose to ignore her but Erik was up on
his feet immediately.
‘Lily’ he implored, as he ran after her, ‘I
don’t understand - you are very pretty. I thought you just said that I was a
useless suitor…’
The sounds of their voices faded down the
corridor.
Victoria
and Hardacre sat opposite each other across the dining room table. It was time
to come clean.
‘So,
you work for the Hybitor, Mr Hardacre?’
‘Yes, I do; and you haven’t always been a
governess, have you, Miss Jenkins?’
‘That’s true; I was in the diplomatic corps
under High Lord Ecclestone, twenty years ago’
‘So, you were a spy?’
‘Yes, Mr Hardacre, I was a diplomatic spy’
Victoria glanced up at the door to check that
neither of the teenagers were on their way back.
‘We represent natural allies, then, Miss
Jenkins’
Victoria smiled, she hadn’t had a
conversation like this for years and she’d be lying to herself if she pretended
that she wasn’t enjoying it.
‘Perhaps we are, but first we have to get out
of this castle’
Hardacre considered this.
‘Well, given your background, I wondered if
you’d developed any plans yourself?’
Victoria smiled; her eyes were bright.
‘Not really’ she said, ‘I thought I’d wait
for you to turn up...’
Hardacre was momentarily confused. ‘But, we’ve
never met before...’ he began, but then realised she was joking. Victoria’s
smile broadened.
‘...and
I must say,’ she continued, ‘you’ve really taken your time’
No comments:
Post a Comment