‘And Henry is there too, held by the serpent?’ She wasn’t sure she believed any of this, but the Purlisa had been able to describe Henry on the basis of his vision and the description was completely accurate. Besides, she had no other clue to Henry’s whereabouts.
From the corner of her eye she saw the Abbot give the Purlisa what looked like a warning glance. But the Purlisa only nodded and said, ‘Yes.’
They were standing at the head of the small party of monks who had escorted them this far. A wiry pack animal of a breed Blue did not recognise carried minimal supplies, including her designated weapon. Blue said, ‘What happens now?’
The Purlisa looked at her but said nothing.
Blue said, ‘Will you help me?’
The Purlisa still said nothing. Beside him, the Abbot looked away, embarrassed.
Blue turned to stare into the mountains, ‘I go up there alone?’
‘Yes.’ The Purlisa stretched out a hand to pat the pack animal. ‘You can take the charno. He will carry your weapon.’
‘Won’t you need him?’ Blue asked. ‘For your supplies?’
‘The supplies will remain with you,’ said the Purlisa. ‘As monks, we are used to deprivation.’
‘The journey back is not long,’ the Abbot added. He still looked embarrassed.
‘How can I be sure of finding the right cave?’ Blue asked.
‘It is your destiny,’ the Purlisa told her simply. He handed her the reins of the charno.
After a long moment, Blue turned and led the beast away. The monks stood silent, watching, until she disappeared into the foothills.
Sixty-Six
The charno was an odd-looking creature, with enormous feet and long drooping ears, that squatted on two powerful hind legs like a giant hare. They were high in the foothills before Blue realised it could talk.
‘You know they’ve conned you,’ it said suddenly.
Blue blinked.
‘The Abbot and that midget,’ said the charno. ‘Conned you.’ It had a rough, scraping voice, the sort some men developed through drinking too much spirits of grain.
‘I didn’t know you could talk,’ Blue said foolishly.
‘Don’t have much to say usually,’ the charno told her.
‘What do you mean, conned me?’ Blue asked.
‘Got their own agenda. Your boyfriend’s not up there yet.’
Blue stared at the creature. The strange thing was she believed it, at least about the monks’ agenda. There’d been too many peculiar little glances between the Abbot and the Purlisa. But she wasn’t sure they were actually lying to her. Especially not the Purlisa, who was probably the sweetest man she’d ever met. After a moment she said, ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Charno,’ said the charno.
‘I meant a personal name.’
‘You can call me Charno with a capital "C",’ said the charno. ‘That’s how we do things,’ he added without specifying who he meant by we.
‘How do you know Henry’s not up there, Charno?’ Blue asked.
The charno tapped the side of his nose with a forepaw. ‘Got my sources,’ he said. He turned a toothy head to look pointedly up the mountain. Blue followed the direction of his gaze and discovered he was looking at a cave mouth. "Sides,’ he added, ‘I eavesdrop.’
‘Why do the Abbot and the Purlisa want me to go up there?’
‘Abbot doesn’t. It comes down to the mad midget.’ He reached up with one huge hind foot to scratch behind his ear.
‘You don’t think there’s a serpent up there?’
‘Something up there,’ said the charno. ‘Serpent. Dragon. Oompatherium. Dunno. Just know it hasn’t started munching on your boy, ‘cause he’s not there yet.’
‘Yet?’ echoed Blue.
‘He’s not there.’
‘You said yet.’
‘No I didn’t,’ said the charno quickly.
‘Yes, you did – twice.’
‘Didn’t mean to. He’s not there. Henry. Not there.’ He looked away furtively.
‘You’re not telling me the truth,’ Blue said.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Then why won’t you meet my eye?’
‘I’m an inferior species,’ said the charno.
Blue snorted, a sound that reminded her of the Abbot. ‘Look here, Charno,’ she said firmly, ‘we can do without this nonsense. The Abbot and the Purlisa aren’t the only ones with an agenda, are they?’
The charno stared down at the claws of his huge feet. ‘No,’ he admitted sheepishly.
‘You don’t want to go up there, do you?’
‘Would you want to go up to a cavern full of man-eating serpent? Well, you would, but I wouldn’t. I don’t have a boyfriend up there.’ It was the longest speech the charno had yet made, probably showing the measure of his upset.
But Blue pounced on his last sentence. ‘So Henry is up there?’
‘No,’ said the charno. ‘No. I told the truth about that.’
‘But he will be here?’
‘Might,’ said the charno. He stared innocently up into the sunwashed blue of the sky.
Blue reached out to take his reins. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re going up.’ For a moment she thought he might resist, like a stubborn donkey, but he climbed to his feet and plodded obediently after her.
‘Hope you won’t regret this,’ he said.
Sixty-Seven
There was a rocky apron outside the cave mouth. Blue stopped when they reached it. ‘You don’t have to come in,’ she said.
‘Humph,’ said the charno cynically.
‘What humph?’ Blue asked crossly. ‘Why humph?’
‘You’ll need the hammer.’
Blue looked at him blankly, then remembered. ‘Oh, the war hammer! Yes, I will.’ The Purlisa had insisted a hammer was the only effective weapon against the Midgard Serpent and the Abbot had produced an antique used in ancient battles. It was an odd thing to have in a monastery and another reason why she was suspicious about their whole story.
‘Can’t carry that yourself,’ the charno said.
‘Of course I can,’ Blue told him.
‘Tried, have you?’
In point of fact she hadn’t. The Abbot, or his monks, or somebody had loaded up the charno. She’d hardly done more than glimpse the hammer. It looked quite large, but she assumed if she was meant to use it against some monster, they wouldn’t give her something too heavy to carry.
It occurred to her suddenly how mad this whole thing was. If there really was a serpent in the mountain, she was about to face it like a mythic warrior, armed with an ancient weapon supplied by men she’d only met a day before. But she wasn’t a mythic warrior, wasn’t any sort of warrior at all. She was only a princess – she still thought of herself as a princess, even now they’d made her Queen – and in the myths it was the princess who was rescued, not the other way around.
She realised two things then. The first was that she didn’t entirely believe the Purlisa’s story about the serpent, however much she liked the little man. The second was that she would do anything for Henry, anything at all. She would fight a serpent for him if there really was a serpent. She would cross a desert for him. She would follow any clue, however slight, in the hope of finding him. That had to be love, hadn’t it?
‘No, I haven’t,’ she said, answering the charno’s question.
The charno reached round and flipped open the catch on his backpack. He drew out a bulky bundle, undid the linen wrappings and revealed the war hammer the Abbot had supplied. It was a substantial weapon with an ornately carved oak shaft and the sort of battering that comes with ancient battles. The charno handed it across to her.
Blue took the weapon and immediately dropped it to the ground. The thing weighed a ton! Although the charno handled it as if it were a feather, it was literally too heavy for her to lift.
‘See?’ the charno said.
There was a simmering anger in Blue that had nothing at all to do with the charno, but she took it out on him just the same. ‘What’s the point of that?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the point of giving me a weapon I can’t use? Are they trying to kill me?’
It was a rhetorical question but the charno said soberly, ‘Told you they were conning you.’