Читать книгу Freax and Rejex - Robin Jarvis - Страница 9

THE YOUNG CAMERAMAN smiled shyly, the lids of his glassy eyes blinking sleepily. Then he tore another impassioned bite from the grey, slimy fruit in his hand. The livid juices had already stained his chin.

“Here’s the book, Sam,” the Ismus said. “It’s time for Miss Kryzewski to join us in the Realm of the Dawn Prince.”

Sam shoved the rest of the minchet in his mouth and chewed it urgently. Then he wiped his hands and took hold of Dancing Jax.

“Don’t do it, Sam!” Kate pleaded. “Please don’t.”

The fair-haired man swallowed the fibrous lumps in his mouth and grinned. “It’s all right, Kate,” he assured her. “It’s just like they said. We were dead wrong. This place, this crap – it isn’t real. We belong in Mooncaster. You’ll see.”

He lowered his eyes and began to read.

“Beyond the Silvering Sea, within thirteen green, girdling hills…”

The assembled crowd muttered along with him, following the words as he read them aloud. The Jacks and Jills came to join them and everyone began to nod their heads in time to the rhythm of the sentences.

Kate Kryzewski felt the day darken around her. The sunlight dimmed and a faint buzzing sounded in her head. She tried to think of something else, anything – it didn’t matter what.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and the skin crept on her scalp as something drew close to her.

She blotted out Sam’s voice and flooded her mind with her most vivid memories: a child searching the rubble of Haiti for her mother, the smoking wreck of a bus after a suicide bomb in Gaza, a rocket attack over Baghdad that made the night bright as day, pouring a glass of Merlot over Harlon Webber’s hair plugs when he made a pass at her at the Emmys, the crooked smile of the Ismus…

Frantically she shook that last image out of her head. Sam’s voice filled her ears. She couldn’t blot it out any more. She couldn’t fight any longer. She had to listen. There was nothing else.

Before the darkness rushed in, one final thought of her own flickered briefly.

“Poppa, I’m so sorry!” she cried.

The Ismus’s stark white face reared in her mind. His lean, hungry features were triumphant and she felt her will, her spirit, everything she was, spiralling out of her – till there was nothing left. She threw back her head and her eyes fluttered open. The tall white towers of a magnificent castle stood against the bright blue sky. She gasped in amazement. Then the Black Face Dames let go of her arms and she sprawled on the ground. The grass tickled her hands like feathers.

Columbine looked up from the goose on her lap and wiped her brow, leaving a faint smear of blood behind. Her fingers returned to the dead bird and she continued to mechanically rip the snowy feathers from its body. The goose’s head dangled and jerked to the motion of her hands.

The kitchen was unusually quiet that wintry afternoon. Mistress Slab was in the slaughterhouse across the courtyard, elbow deep in a basin brimming with a bloody mixture. That pink, sticky mash of minced pork, breadcrumbs and herbs would soon be fed into empty lengths of pig intestine. The Mooncaster cook would not permit anyone else to learn the secret recipe of her sausages and always barred the slaughterhouse door when she was busy at this task.

Ned and Beetle, the kitchen boys, were in the village, bringing fresh loaves from the miller’s wife in a barrow. Columbine was completely alone.

It was a huge kitchen, much larger than the four others that prepared the meals of the Royal Houses. It was kept at a constant summer heat by two great fires. Their flames shone in every copper pot that hung on the limewashed walls and sweat splashes were an ingredient in every dish that Mistress Slab prepared.

Columbine was used to the fires by now and she dressed in loose, ragged garments, patched and mended with more squares of cloth than a quilt. She was a young, red-haired girl whose face was only clean on high days or when the pranking kitchen boys carried her to the horse trough and threw her in. She went about her endless chores barefoot, for it was good to feel the cool flagstones under her soles and trail her grubby toes through the straw or cinders.

She never complained when Mistress Slab beat her with the largest wooden spoon if she found her idling. The girl knew how privileged she was to work in the castle and in rare free moments she would creep up the kitchen stairs and peep out at the finely dressed courtiers going by in the Great Hall. What a feast for the eyes they were, so sumptuously dressed and lordly. During the revels, when the music came filtering down into the kitchen, she would close her eyes and twirl in time to the dance, imagining herself draped in the finest gowns wearing slippers of golden silk.

But Mistress Slab’s bear-like voice would always summon her from those reveries: the onions needed peeling or the grates needed sweeping or the spit needed turning or peas needed shelling or the butter needed churning.

When the goose was plucked naked, and looked faintly embarrassed to be in such a state, the girl sat back on the stool. She reached for the second bird she had been instructed to denude before the cook returned.

High above, on the battlements, a trumpet sounded. Down in the kitchen, Columbine heard and knew it heralded the return to Mooncaster of the Jack of Clubs from the day’s hunt.

A delighted smile flashed over the girl’s dirty face. She leaped from the stool and raced up the stairs to the passageway that linked to the Great Hall.

At the end of the passage a carved wooden screen hid the entrance from view of the nobles within. Columbine waited there, peering eagerly through the fretwork. Lords and their ladies came sweeping by, speaking of the day’s adventure and how the Jack of Clubs had the almond hind in his sights at least twice, but refrained from loosing his bow. The Jill of Spades was most scornful. His love of beast and bird was well known, but such displays of mercy were foolishness.

Hearing their chatter, the girl grinned and moistened her lips. The Jack of Clubs always took a long time to enter the Great Hall, for he would not suffer any groom to stable Ironheart, his splendid horse. He did the work himself, speaking to it like a lover, and often slept in the stall for it was the last of the untameable steeds and there was no finer beast in the land.

Columbine stroked the back of the screen with her rough fingertips, impatient for a sight of the handsome youth. He was the pride of Mooncaster, the hero of many hearts, and his golden hair and steadfast voice were always capering through her dreams when she was away from this place.

The gossip of the Court fell to a hush and the Jack of Clubs came striding through the main doors. He laughed with the Jill of Hearts, who stepped forward to try and capture him with her beauty, and shared a pleasantry with his father, the King of Clubs.

Columbine drank in every detail: his curling hair that was likened to a ram’s fleece bathed in the sunset, the soft, wispy moustache that curled at the ends and heightened his beguiling smile. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up past the elbow and she clasped herself in her own grubby arms, breathless with imaginings. She closed her eyes and shivered with secret pleasure.

Suddenly a real hand closed tightly round her arm. She gasped in fright as a tall, portly man came sidling further behind the screen.

“Haw haw haw,” he chuckled softly.

It was the Jockey, the one courtier whom everyone in Mooncaster feared. He played unpleasant tricks and games on them, always seeking to cause mischief and strife between friend and neighbour. Even the Ismus found his presence unsettling and ungovernable.

He brought his stout bulk closer and the caramel-coloured leather of his tightly buttoned outfit creaked and strained. Columbine tried to pull away, but his grip was fierce.

“You set your eyes on too high a trophy,” he told her. “But what eyes they are, as green as the stone in the head of a wishing toad. How they flash and glare at me. Such hate, such pride in one so low.”

“My arm!” she protested. “You hurt, my Lord.”

“Haw haw haw,” he laughed. “No bruise will show through the filth on your flesh!”

“I shall cry out.”

“Then do so. None shall attend. The Jockey’s ways are never questioned.”

Columbine pushed at his paunch and his fingers loosed on her arm. She spun around and darted back along the passage and down into the kitchen.

The creaks and squeaks of the Jockey’s costume followed her. He came tippy-toeing down the stairs.

The girl ran to her place and the heap of goose feathers whirled up into the air.

“And where is Mistress Slab?” he asked, stealing closer. “Why is she not broiling over her pots?”

“She is in the slaughterhouse,” the frightened girl replied.

The Jockey laughed. “Ah, yes, ’tis sausage day. How the Punchinello Guards adore them. How readily they accept them as bribes. Would that you were so easy, my dirty scullion. Still, now we are quite alone, with only dead geese for witness and they shall not honk any secrets.”

“Keep back,” Columbine begged, reaching for a knife. “Else there will be one more fat pig stuck this day.”

The man hesitated. Yes, she would dare do it and that inflamed him even more.

“My glance has oft been your shadow ere today,” he said as he paced warily from side to side. “Your hands are coarse as an ox’s tongue and your smudges and smuts rival only the midden-man. And yet… I have observed you long and I am enamoured and enslaved by you. The dirtier you are, the more like a queen you appear. A celestial goddess, come down amongst us, disguised in rags and ashes. My Lord, the Ismus, would bring you to his bed only if you were soaped and scrubbed by the tiring women till you shone like a shield. But I… I would have you as you are, all grimy from your base toil, with mutton grease and straw in your hair, soot etched in every cranny and aglow with sweat that smells of pepper and freshly sliced onions. I would tongue-bathe every inch of your fire-bronzed skin, baste you with the juices of my mouth and rip those rags from your shoulders and hips, as you have torn the feathers from that goose. You are a banquet I intend to gorge on and my appetite will never be sated.”

“No closer,” she warned, brandishing the knife.

“You have already pierced my heart, my pretty slattern. Bitter steel would only relieve me of that keen pain. Jab away, prick me, fillet me – shred my being even more than your grubby beauty already has.”

He lunged forward. She struck out. The blade sliced into his reaching palm. He yelled in anger, slapped her with the back of his other meaty fist and smacked the weapon from her grasp. It went clattering across the flagstones.

Then his strong fingers were around her throat and she was pushed against the table. He leaned in and licked the sweat trickling down her cheek. The cut on his palm dragged a vivid scarlet wake over her skin.

“The Jockey rides everyone at Court in the end,” he hissed into her ear as she struggled. “One way or another. You must give him his due.”

His frenzied paws snatched at her rags and tore them. Her bare shoulders glistened in the firelight and he buried his florid face into her dirty neck as his bloody fingers went roving.

“My Lord Jockey!” a voice called suddenly.

The man snarled and glared round at the stairs. The small, dumpy figure of the Lockpick was standing at the top of them.

“What business have you here, Jangler?” the Jockey demanded angrily.

Jangler bowed. “His Highness, the Lord Ismus, would speak with you,” he said.

“His Highness can wait.”

“On a matter most urgent.”

The Jockey ground his teeth. His eyes shone as fiercely as the fire in the grates. Then, reluctantly, he stepped away from the girl.

“Do not think I am done here,” he told her, clenching a fist till the blood squeezed between his fingers. “I shall be back; the Jockey will have his sport.”

Columbine watched his stout figure go skipping up the stairs after the Lockpick. Then, shaking, she covered herself with the tatters of her clothes and sank down on to the feather-strewn floor where she sobbed quietly. What was she to do? There was no escaping the whims and fancies of the Jockey and she was now the next game he was determined to play. Who could she turn to for protection? Nobody would dare stand against him. If she tried to run away from the castle, he would surely loose the hounds and hunt her down like an animal.

Lifting her face, she saw the glint of the knife he had knocked from her hand.

“Next time I shall not fail,” she told herself. “Before he lays another greedy finger upon me, I shall let out every last gill of his blood. There must be a whole hogshead’s worth swilling in his veins.”

At that moment, a gentle but insistent tapping sounded upon the kitchen door. Columbine wiped her eyes before answering. She did not want Mistress Slab, Ned or Beetle to see she had been crying.

A draught of sharp, wintry air came biting in when she opened the stout oak door. Standing upon the frost-glittering step was the bent figure of an old woman, wrapped in a thin shawl that was no defence against the icy wind. A large wicker basket sat heavily on her crooked back and the wide brim of a black straw bonnet hid her downcast face. In her cold, pinched hands she carried another basket. When the door swung inward, she lifted it in greeting.

“Chestnuts,” her cracked and weary voice said. “And apples, as sweet and juicy as last autumn when they was picked off the bough.”

Columbine did not recognise her, but there were many strange folk who dwelt in the woods and forests. She wondered how far the woman had walked that day. Even the effort of lifting the basket seemed too much. For a moment, she forgot her own predicament and pitied her.

“I cannot buy your wares,” the girl answered apologetically. “I have no purse and my mistress is busy. She would box my ears if I disturbed her. Have you called on the lesser kitchens in the castle? Or down in the village?”

The old woman’s shoulders sagged even more.

“Slammed doors and curt words are the only blessings Granny Oakwright has been given this bitter day,” she said unhappily. “I must return to my hut in the Haunted Wood, where no fire, no crust and no cheer await me.”

She turned to leave, looking more hunched and feeble with each shambling step. Columbine could not bear it.

“Wait!” she called. “I haven’t any pennies, but there are no warmer hearths in all Mooncaster than here. Come you in, old dame, and thaw yourself.”

The woman shuffled about and entered the kitchen, muttering her thanks. Columbine guided her to the stool by the largest fire where she eased herself down and removed the basket from her back.

“Oh – my old bones!” Granny Oakwright exclaimed, holding her mittened hands towards the leaping flames. “Granny can feel her chilblains resurrecting! What a tingling in her knobby fingers!”

Columbine smiled then ran to the larder, returning with a thick slice of mutton pie and a wedge of cheese. She knew Mistress Slab would beat her for this charity, but what did that matter?

“Here,” she said kindly. “’Tis a meal fit for the Lord Ismus’s table and you shall have hot spiced ale to wash it down.”

The old woman gasped in astonishment and clapped her hands at the sight of such princely fare.

“What a virtuous, generous child you are!” she cried, with her mouth full. “The most unselfish heart in the whole Realm – and a pretty face to match.”

Columbine busied herself with adding cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to a mug of the best October ale. Then she plunged a glowing fire iron into it, causing a ribbon of fragrant steam to hiss upwards as it bubbled and foamed over the sides.

When she handed the hot brew over, the old woman had already finished the pie and cheese and was dabbing at the crumbs on her shabby kirtle.

“I could wrap more cheese in a scrap of muslin for you to take home,” the girl suggested. “If we had any bread, you’d be welcome to that too, but the kitchen boys are fetching it from the miller’s even now.”

Nursing the steaming mug in both hands, her guest took appreciative sips whilst regarding her keenly. Two dark little eyes, webbed with age, shone out from the shade of the bonnet’s wide brim.

“I would rather eat poisoned snake livers than the finest table loaf baked by Gristabel Smallrynd, the miller’s wife,” she said with sudden vehemence. “Threatened to set her wall-eyed dog on me this day she did and swung a stick at Granny’s head… but she’ll come to rue that.”

Her warty chin moved from side to side as she glugged the ale down. Then, with a contented sigh, she said, “I will take no cheese. Though I thank you for the offer of it. You have been open-handed enough already – and with such victuals that will be missed, which I wager you’ll be punished for. No other in Mooncaster would show such tenderness to a wizened, friendless crone such as I.”

“I could not see you hobble from this door, on so cold a day as this, tired and hungry.”

“Then I must repay you, child. Is there aught you would ask of a grateful forest hag? Granny is in your debt and that must be settled at once.”

Columbine almost laughed, but checked herself in time so as not to bruise the old woman’s feelings. What could one so steeped in poverty afford to give her?

“I wish for nothing,” she said.

The old woman leaned forward and her dark eyes glinted.

“Yet your face tells a different tale,” she said. “Tears leave loud tracks upon cheeks smirched with soot and ashes. And there are bloody stains of violence upon you. How came ye by such gory daubs? What troubles you so sorely? Tell Granny your woe; she may find a way of easing your burden.”

And so Columbine told her what had happened, how the Jockey had caught her, peeping out at the Jack of Clubs, and his unwanted attention afterwards.

“He has sworn to return later,” she said. “But I will not surrender unto him. He or I will die.”

To her surprise, the crone began to chuckle. It was the last reaction she had expected.

“I mean it!” Columbine cried. “I would rather jig a deserving dance at the gibbet than have that fat villain steal my maidenhead.”

Granny Oakwright slapped her bony knees and laughed all the louder.

“I see no merriment in this!” the girl shouted angrily. “My plight is most hopeless and grim. Is this how you reward my kindness? Be still and silent, old dame! How can you laugh so cruelly?”

The woman’s mirth eased and she fixed the girl with a glare so powerful that Columbine caught her breath and took a step back.

“Large in heart thou mayest be, child,” Granny Oakwright said, her voice now harsh. “But thy wits are shrivelled for balance. Let this be an end to play-acting. No more pretence, no more poor old grateful Granny.”

“I do not understand…”

The old woman’s face became sour and severe. “Dost thou truly believe any aged dweller of the forest would brave this deadly frost and tramp the many leagues from their squalid hovel to beg at this door? Hestia Slab is renowned for her parsimony. She is too mean to bait the traps. I can hear a mouse even now, over by the salt sack. No empty-bellied wretch would come a-knocking here.”

“Then…?”

“I am no peasant!” the stranger proclaimed. “I am no starveling, scratching a life in the wild wood. I am she whose name is whispered with awe and dread, with powers enough to challenge even the Holy Enchanter.”

Columbine gasped. “Malinda!” she blurted. “Malinda – the Fairy Godmother!”

“Malinda?” the crone shrieked with indignation. “Malinda of the clipped wings and mangled wand? Idiot girl! Malinda is no more than a mere dabbler and a faded one at that! That spangle-dusted amateur gave up knocking on doors and granting hearts’ desires to silly young maidens many years ago. I am not she!”

“Then who are you?”

“I am Haxxentrot!” the old woman announced and, when she spoke her name, the nearby hearth roared and the flames blazed violet, shooting high up the chimney.

“The witch of the Forbidden Tower!” Columbine uttered fearfully. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“To see with mine own eyes how the peoples of Mooncaster are faring,” the witch replied. “Though I own many spies, it pleases me to walk amongst the village folk from time to time and relearn why I despise them so. When I have toppled the Holy Enchanter and the White Castle is a smoking ruin, there is not one whose wretched life I shall spare.”

She tapped her foot irritably on the flagged floor.

“Thus I must be in no one’s debt!” she told the girl as she took two chestnuts from her basket and spat on both. “Place these as nigh to the fire as ye dare. Consider this one to be thine own self and this… he is the Jack of Clubs. If the scorching heats cause them to burst and fly into a thousand pieces, thy secret yearning will ne’er blossom and bear fruit. Yet if they ignite and burn together with steady flame then ye shalt become lovers and remain constant evermore.”

Columbine obeyed. She had heard many stories of the fearsome old witch who hated the Ismus and the inhabitants of Mooncaster. Haxxentrot was always seeking new ways to bedevil and inflict pain upon them. Warily the girl put the chestnuts as close to the fire as she could manage. Haxxentrot muttered some words under her breath and they waited.

Presently the two chestnuts began to smoulder. Then they both crackled and were wrapped in a pinkish flame.

“Behold!” the witch declared with a satisfied, matter-of-fact nod. “Thy future is clear. Great love ’twixt thee and the Knave of Clubs shalt surely come to pass.”

She took up the straps of the other basket and prepared to haul it on to her shoulders once more.

Columbine stared at the burning chestnuts in disbelief. An overwhelming sense of disappointment took hold of her.

“Wait!” she cried. “Is that it? Is that all?”

“All?” the witch repeated. “What more could there be? Hast thou not lain awake, many nights, aching for his embrace? Now thou knowest it will surely happen.”

Columbine felt so cheated she could barely speak. Then her resentment found its voice and any fear she had of the witch was swept aside.

“What sort of magickal reward is that?” she demanded. “Was that the best you can do? This is not how kind deeds are repaid in old tales. Where are the wishes? Where are the magickal gifts? The gown of gold, made with cloth so fine it fits into a walnut shell! Where are the enchanted slippers to make the wearer the daintiest dancer in the Realm? Where is the jug of moon dew that bestows shining beauty on whoever bathes in it? Where is the potion to make he who drinks it fall into a stupor of love for me? Where is the mirror that shows any view I desire?”

“Ye modern maidens expect too much,” the witch observed with a sniff.

“I expect more than two musty old nuts and a bundle of hollow pledges! You call that a debt repaid? You’re naught but a hoodwinker. Hoaxxentrot should be your name!”

The witch rounded on her.

“A morsel of hard cheese and a slice of day-old mutton pie are not equal to a feat of high magick!” she snapped. “That pastry was like elm bark and what meagre specks of mutton it housed were a chewing chore of fat and gristle. Witchery is no exchange for a hard seat with no cushion and a night of griping gut-groan.”

Before Columbine could think of a fitting retort, the kitchen door flew open. The sudden draught gusted through the goose feathers, driving a ticklish blizzard against the girl’s face. She spat out the ones that had blown into her mouth and wafted the rest aside. Then she saw. Standing on the step was none other than the Jack of Clubs.

Surprise, excitement, wonder, adoration, hope and fear played equal parts in the confusion that seized her in that startling instant. Haxxentrot turned her face away and sat down quietly on the stool.

Jack looked even more handsome than before. Silhouetted against the bleak winter light, he seemed no ordinary being. Here was a hero of legend, made flesh and living.

Columbine gazed on him. How fine he was, how noble and fair, how strong. Why was he here? Princes of the Royal Houses never visited the kitchen. Perhaps he was seeking Mistress Slab on a matter of oats for his fabulous steed? Only the best would suffice for that beast. Or perhaps he wanted Ned or Beetle to help the grooms? Or perhaps…? Columbine could feel her heart thumping. No, she must not allow herself to think such fanciful things in his presence. She clasped a hand to her bosom. Surely he too could hear the mighty pounding of her heart? It was louder than the steady, rhythmic clamour of the smithy, only here she was the anvil and the Knave’s unwavering glance was the hammer. Into what shape would this dreamed-of moment be fashioned?

The Jack of Clubs said nothing. His blue eyes stared back at her. With long, purposeful strides he entered and approached. The servant girl stood as still as stone. Her own eyes grew increasingly wider until the pride of Mooncaster stood before her. The corners of his mouth lifted and the gentle smile made him even more charming and adorable. Then he pointed a toe and made the most perfect, courteous bow.

Columbine felt faint as she dipped into the answering curtsy. Here was her every desire, unfolding right in front of her at last.

“M…my Lord!” she finally managed to stutter.

He reached out and placed a fingertip against her lips. This was not a time for words. Taking her dirty hands in his, he held her close. From somewhere, maybe it was merely inside her own head, Columbine thought she heard music. Clasped in each other’s arms, the prince and the kitchen maid began a slow dance. The cool flagstones beneath her feet might have turned to clouds for all she could feel of them. Around and around they danced. His eyes locked on hers and the air almost sparked between them. She would embed this beautiful moment in her memory forever more. Her jubilant heart flew up through the ceiling, up through the beams and stones of the castle and up into the clear sky.

Still lost in the devoted stare of her prince, a movement in the corner of her eyes caused them to flick aside. There was Haxxentrot, perched on the stool, hugging herself in amusement. In the shock and joy of what was happening, Columbine had completely forgotten about the witch. And there was something else…

She looked across the kitchen, over Jack’s athletic shoulders, to where the copper pots and pans gleamed on the walls. The rippling reflections that glided over polished lids and swollen curves made her frown. Those imperfect, broken echoes of she and her gallant knave were twisted, molten likenesses that flowed from one surface to another. It was difficult to recognise the fractured, merging figures and she began to peer at them intently, to try and untangle them. Yes, there was her own revolving form, with arms held out. But Jack’s shape looked so odd, even the colour of his velvet jerkin was wrong. She could see no scarlet or gold in those copper surfaces. What was that teetering tower of four white globes that followed her wherever she twirled? Columbine could not decipher it until finally, in a lightning flash of comprehension, her mind unpuzzled what she saw.

The girl shrieked and leaped away.

Standing on one another’s shoulders, four Bogey Boys sniggered and mocked her. The illusion was broken. Here was no Jack of Clubs, just these ugly creatures of Haxxentrot. They were her stunted servants, with large, white, wobbly heads and mouths crammed with baby teeth. Their yellow eyes were ringed with ginger lashes and their noses were upturned. The one at the top had an adder coiled around his brow. The one beneath wore a necklace of living spiders. Below him was a wig of rats’ tails. The Bogey Boy at the bottom was the fattest of the four and had powdered his shiny cheeks with green pigment and blackened his thin lips with ink.

Their hideous appearance, coupled with their snaky laughter, revolted Columbine and she snatched up a ladle to smite them and knock them down.

“Jub! Crik! Hak! Rott!” Haxxentrot commanded. “Enough!”

The creatures stopped sniggering and leaped from each other’s shoulders. The witch lifted the lid of the larger basket. Leering at the girl and making insulting gestures, they hopped inside. Haxxentrot closed the lid and patted it.

“Now is pie and cheese repaid in full,” she stated flatly.

“Repaid?” Columbine objected.

“Thou hast experienced thy heart’s great dream! Thou canst not deny thou had much joy of it. I saw thy rapture.”

“It wasn’t real! It was false and ugly.”

“Love is always thus,” the hag observed with a dismissive shrug.

“It isn’t good enough!” Columbine protested. “I gave you food and warmth and all you do is trick and deceive!”

“The food was not thine to give!”

“The bruises I’ll get from Mistress Slab will pay for it and more! Malinda would not have treated me so…”

“I am not Malinda!!” the witch reminded her hotly. “The lover’s heart is a region unmapped by me! I do not deal in longings and gladful ever-afters. Seek out that wingless Fairy Godmother in her cottage, deep in Hunter’s Chase, if thou wouldst procure a philtre to turn a prince’s head, but ask it not of me! Venom and curses and ill deeds are all I know.”

She was about to lift the basket on to her back again when she paused and gave Columbine a sidelong look.

“And yet,” she murmured, “there is one gift I could grant unto thee. A present more useful than the way to a Jack’s heart.”

“What could you give me?” the girl asked sceptically.

Haxxentrot tapped the wicker lid. It creaked open and a Bogey Boy’s white face appeared beneath.

“Jub,” the witch ordered. “Fetch me the timbrel.”

The face vanished and the lid closed once more. A moment later, a small hand appeared, clasping a tambourine. Haxxentrot took it and rattled it in front of her with a flourish.

“What use is that?” Columbine asked.

“Patience provides every answer,” the witch answered tetchily. She placed the tambourine on the table then sorted through a leather pouch hanging at her waist.

“Here,” she said, removing a small velvet bag and emptying it.

Columbine uttered a cry of disgust at the thing that fell on to the instrument’s circle of taut parchment. It was a human ear, dried and blackened and scabbed with old blood.

“What horror is this?” the girl demanded.

Haxxentrot’s crabbed mouth broke into a depraved grin. “’Tis the only relic of Sir Lucius Pandemian left above ground or uneaten by wolf, gore toad, marsh snake and battle crow,” she explained. “A valiant questing knight was he. Most courageous in Mooncaster.”

“I’ve never heard tell of him.”

“Hast thou not? How easy the denizens of Mooncaster forget. How my hatred festers for them anew. ’Twas many long years past, when the Dawn Prince’s exile was still fresh in mind. The Realm was plagued by countless terrors, dreader fiends than they who abide in the dark forests today. One such was the Lamia. She harried cattle and carried off infants in her claws, devouring them in the ivy-choked ruins of the Black Keep, nigh to mine own tower.”

Haxxentrot snorted with displeasure and her face became more twisted with rancour than usual.

“A noisesome neighbour was she,” she grumbled. “Entry to the vault, wherein she slept during the hours of day, was granted only by the tolling of a great bronze bell high above. This bell couldst not ring lest she commanded it. Three deafening clangs and the marble cover stone would slide aside. Then out she would fly – on webbed wings. Never was so deafening a clamour as that bell heard in the land. Deathknelly the peasants named it, in their usual vulgar fashion. When its fearsome voice shook the night clouds, they would flee to their homes, cowering till they heard it resound again ere dawn when all was clear.”

Columbine cleared her throat and held up her hand to interrupt. “How does that lead to this foul object?” she asked, grimacing at the severed ear.

“’Twas Sir Lucius who pursued the Lamia back to the forest one rain-lashed night,” Haxxentrot said. “His spear pierced her side and she did drop the latest child victim from her claws. Bellowing in pain and fury, she swooped upon the knight, seizing his horse by the head and bearing both beast and he aloft. Over field and treetop she carried them and all the while he hewed and grappled with her, fending off her blows and fangs till his shield shattered. And so he raised his sword for one final thrust, but she cast his mount from her grasp and horse and rider fell from the sky. At the very entrance to the Black Keep they came crashing. The steed burst on the forest floor, but he fared a little better. Though one eye was torn from his head and his body was slashed by twig and talon, still he lived. He saw the Lamia come screeching down to rend his limbs and feed on his noble flesh, but luck had not yet deserted Sir Lucius. In that very instant, as his death seemed writ and certain, the sun pushed above the eastern hills. The Lamia screamed and rushed to the safe darkness of her lair. The mighty bell clanged direct over the brave knight’s head and his ears bled. Marble grated back in place and the vault was closed. Then Sir Lucius knew what must be done.”

The witch paused and regarded the blackened lump of skin with almost tender eyes.

“Wounded, ripped and broken, driven half mad by the bone-jarring sound, he climbed the ruined keep – up to the lofty pillars where the monstrous bell did hang. Without its voice, the tomb could ne’er open again so he reached into Deathknelly’s mouth and removed its tongue. Yet the thing was so grievous heavy and he so beaten, he could not bear the weight and so he toppled.”

Haxxentrot took up the ear and held it close as she inspected and stroked it.

“I found him there, late that day, crushed ’neath the bronze bell tongue. Already the forest creatures had been at him. They are such busy, eager workers. This I took in token of a brave man, the best in this putrid Kingdom. He had rid me of a rival scourge and for that I was grateful. The Lamia has ne’er been heard of since. The sealed vault became her tomb.”

Her voice faltered and she stared at the gruesome souvenir intently.

Columbine shuddered. “And you think I would want that as a gift?” she muttered incredulously. “Are you as mad as you are ugly?”

The witch did not answer, but put the hideous thing to her withered lips and kissed it. Then, before Columbine could prevent her, the crone lunged forward, pressed the ear against the girl’s shoulder and rolled it in the Jockey’s still glistening blood. She called out strange words, picked up the tambourine and slammed the two together.

At once the hearths erupted. Torrents of green and purple fire exploded into the kitchen. The flames whooshed and roared about Haxxentrot and Columbine and fiery stars went zinging about the room, ricocheting off pots and plates. One struck a large glazed jug and it shattered into dust. Another shot into the salt sack and the precious grains came streaming out. The air screamed. The witch spun around shrieking an incantation. Columbine yelled for her life. The coppers shivered on their hooks. Tables juddered across the floor as the flagstones trembled beneath them and the big basket quaked as the Bogey Boys rocked with wild laughter within.

Then, abruptly, it was over. The fireplaces crackled cheerfully once more and the kitchen was as normal as ever.

Shaken and afraid, Columbine stumbled away from the witch.

“Begone, foul hag!” she cried. “Leave now, before I call the Punchinello Guards.”

Haxxentrot gave a throaty cackle. “I am done here, my pretty pie-giver,” she said. “Here is the magickal gift thou didst demand of Haxxentrot.”

She held out her aged hands and presented the tambourine. Columbine stared down at it.

“It cannot be!” the girl exclaimed.

“And yet thine own eyes say it is so,” the witch replied. “They tell no lies this time.”

In the centre of the drumhead, where moments ago there had been only blank parchment, there was now a human ear. The two were fused together, with no visible seam. The ear was no longer black and shrivelled, but the same hue as the stretched skin to which it had been joined.

“What have you done?” Columbine breathed. “And why?”

“Sir Lucius Pandemian was the last to hear Deathknelly’s strident voice,” Haxxentrot told her. “Just as the final image is retained in the eyes after death, so the din of the great bell was locked inside his ears.”

She waggled the tambourine experimentally and looked very pleased with herself. “To thee and me, ’tis but a harmless jingle,” she said. “But shake this timbrel when the Jockey comes a-leching and the thunderous voice of Deathknelly shalt awake and resound in his head, for it is bonded to him by blood. One shake will send him reeling and yowling from thy presence. Another will cause his own ears to gush as freely as the fountains in the Queen of Hearts’ garden. One more and his oafish head will crack like a hen’s egg and the yoke of his brains shalt bubble forth. So, child, is this not a most marvellous recompense for pie and cheese? What say thou? Art thou not most adequately repaid for thy kindness to Granny Oakwright?”

Columbine received the instrument in amazement. She was too stunned to know what to say.

Haxxentrot nodded with pride and rubbed her bony hands together.

“You have saved me,” the girl cried at last. “He will never get close enough to touch me again!”

She was so delighted she capered around, smacking the tambourine against her hips and over her head.

“Be certain to keep the timbrel with thee always,” the witch cautioned. “Do not let it stray out of arm’s reach or thou shalt suffer the consequences.”

Columbine swore she would carry it with her wherever she went.

“Let me help you on with your pack,” the girl offered.

Haxxentrot refused. “No more kindnesses!” she said. “Or I shalt be obliged to thee for another gift, ye greedy girl. Dost thou truly…”

Her voice trailed off. She was staring into the far corner, where the salt had leaked freely over the floor.

“Mistress Slab will be in such a rage!” Columbine cried when she saw the mess. “Its value is great! I must sweep it into another sack and hope she…”

The witch grabbed at her arm. “Hold, child!” she snapped. “Canst thou not see? What marks are those?”

Then Columbine noticed the shapes sunken into the spilt salt.

“They are footprints,” she murmured in astonishment.

“Just so,” Haxxentrot said. “Yet neither of us hath ventured thither this whole while.”

The girl turned a frightened face to her. “Then what made them?” she asked.

“’Twould seem the mouse I heard was no mouse. There is an eavesdropper here. A trespasser who veils himself from our eyes.”

“But who in Mooncaster can do such a thing? Is this some new torment of the Bad Shepherd? Is he here now? Are we to be butchered and slain?”

“That is what I shalt discover!” the witch declared. “Jub! Crik! Rott! Hak! Jump out! Hunt down the unseen spy!”

The lid of the basket flew up and the four Bogey Boys leaped out.

“Arm thyselves with knife and skewer!” the witch commanded. “Sniff out the shadow-wrapped sneak. Bring it down! Kill it!”

The Bogey Boys gave frenzied yells and dashed about the kitchen, snatching up weapons. Then they began questing the air and, one by one, their yellow eyes turned towards the pantry door.

“The skulker is cornered!” Haxxentrot shouted. “Hack it into invisible collops!”

The four creatures shrieked shrilly and raced towards the pantry, brandishing their cleavers, pokers, slotted spoons and knives.

A chair suddenly lifted into the air and was hurled at the attacking Bogey Boys. They yowled and dived out of the way. Then pewter dishes came sailing from the shelves and went spinning at them. One struck Jub on the forehead. He screeched and somersaulted backwards, losing his rat-tail wig. There was the sound of footsteps, running towards the kitchen door. Crik, Hak and Rott whirled around and went charging after. The door yanked itself open and the footsteps went echoing out into the courtyard.

The Bogey Boys flung their weapons after them in frustration. Jub sat up and uttered a string of curses as he jammed the wig back on to his shiny white head. Haxxentrot rubbed her warty chin.

“Well, now,” she said, sucking her gums. “Mooncaster hath a new terror to dread. One to make the Holy Enchanter’s head ache most grievously. Yea, and the rest of us also – it hath entered the Kingdom at last.”

“What manner of fearsome monster is it?” Columbine murmured in dismay.

The witch narrowed her eyes and answered gravely, “Ye shalt find out soon enough, aye – soon enough…”

Kate Kryzewski heaved a sharp, gulping breath, as if surfacing from deep water. She stared about her in shock. The vibrancy and colour was gone. The sunlight was pale and weak and her pupils dilated to compensate. How flat and grey this world was. Already she ached to return to Mooncaster.

“I am the Two of Hearts,” she exulted, rolling back on the grass. “I am Columbine! Praise to the Holy Enchanter and the glory of Mooncaster! I am Columbine! Blessed be this day!”

The crowd around the SUV cheered and applauded and Sam came rushing over to help her off the ground. The reporter jumped up and hugged him. Then she turned to the Ismus and lowered her gaze respectfully as she curtsied.

“My Lord,” she said in a worshipful whisper. “Your commands are my joys. Bid me and I will obey. The report to the network shall be just as you wish.”

The Ismus was barely aware of her. He was gazing distractedly at the copies of Dancing Jax in everyone’s hands and for once his gaunt features looked troubled.

“Another manifestation,” he muttered to himself. “Another trespass. It is happening ever more frequently.”

He cast a shrewd glance back across the heath. Doubt and uncertainty moved over his face. His thin lips pressed together and the shadows deepened beneath his brows. A dark, speckling blemish appeared on his forehead.

His devoted followers shifted uneasily. They had never seen him in this humour before. The Harlequin Priests pointed to the blue patches on their motley robes and the Black Face Dames did not know what to do. The Jacks and Jills drew close to one another. No one understood what ailed their Lord.

Then, abruptly, the Ismus tossed his head back. The crooked smile returned and the blemish faded.

“Why do we delay here?” he announced, casting off the disconcerting mood. “We should be giving those precious children a rousing welcome. We must make their stay here one they will never forget… for as long as they live.”