‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I noticed it too. And when clairvoyants get nervous, so do I.’
The Princess came back in, holding a roll of loo paper.
‘Do I fold it or crumple it before I … you know?’
Tiger and I looked at one another.
‘Don’t give me your silent-pity claptrap,’ said the Princess crossly, ‘it is a huge sacrifice to live without servants, a burden that you pinheads know nothing about. What’s more, this body is covered with unsightly red rashes and I think I may be dying. My stomach has a sort of gnawing feeling inside.’
‘Have you had it long?’
‘Since I’ve been in this hideous body.’
‘You’re hungry,’ I said simply. ‘Never felt that before?’
‘Me, a princess? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You’re going to have to trust that body when it starts telling you things. Let me have a look at the rash. Growing up in an orphanage tends to make you an expert on skin complaints.’
She made what I can only describe as a ‘hurrumph’ noise and I led her off grumbling in the direction of the Ladies.
Fortunately for the Princess and for Laura Scrubb, the rash was not bad and likely the result of sleeping on damp hay. After instructing her – and not assisting her – on the loo-paper problem, I took her down to the Kazam kitchens and introduced her to our cook, who was known by everyone as Unstable Mabel, but not to her face.
‘Where did you find this poor wee bairn?’ said Mabel, ladling out a large portion of leftover stew and handing it to the Princess. ‘She looks as though she has been half starved and treated with uncommon brutality. From the palace, is she?’
‘That’s an outrageous slur against a fine employer,’ said the Princess, shovelling down the stew. ‘I’ll have you know that the Royal Family are warm and generous people who treat their servants with the greatest of respect and only rarely leave them out in the rain for fun.’
Unstable Mabel, whose insanity did not stretch so far for her to be totally without lucid moments, looked at me and arched her eyebrow.
‘She’s the Princess, isn’t she?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
The Princess stopped mid-gulp, her manners apparently forgotten in her hunger.
‘How does everyone know it’s me?’
‘Because,’ said Mabel, who was always direct in speech and manner, ‘you’re well known in the Kingdom as a spoilt, conniving, cruel, bullying little brat.’
‘Right,’ said the Princess, getting out her piece of paper, ‘you’re going on the list too. Everyone on it will be flogged due to the disrespectful manner in which I have been treated. Name?’
‘Mabel … Spartacus.’
The Princess started to write, then stopped as she realised the ongoing Spartacus gag was doubtless a leg-pull.
‘You’re only making it worse for yourself,’ she scolded. ‘I hate every single one of you and can’t wait for the moment when I leave.’
And she gave us both a pouty glare and folded her arms. Mabel turned to me.
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ she said.
‘Yes, please.’
‘Take her down to the orphan labour pool and have her allocated to sewer cleaning duties for twenty-four hours. She’ll have to live outside for a couple of days afterwards due to the stench that no amount of scrubbing will remove, but it might teach her some humility.’
‘I hate all of you,’ said the Princess. ‘I hate your lack of consideration, lack of compassion and the meagre respect you show your obvious betters. If you don’t take me home right now I will hold my breath until I turn blue, and then you’ll be sorry.’
I stared at her for a moment.
‘No need for that,’ I said with a sigh, taking my car keys from my pocket. ‘I’ll just apologise to the King and the Queen and tell them their daughter is beyond my help, and probably anyone else’s. You can live out your spoilt life without effort, secure in the depths of your own supreme ignorance, and die as you lived, without purpose, true fulfilment or any discernibly useful function.’
She opened her mouth but shut it again and said nothing. I carried on:
‘You don’t need me to drive you home, Princess. You know where the door is and you can walk out of it any time you want – but I’d like you to appreciate that Laura Scrubb, the orphan with whom you are not even worthy to share skin disorders, cannot walk out of a door to anywhere until she’s eighteen, and even then it’s to a life of grinding poverty, disappointment, back-breaking toil and an early death, if she’s lucky.’
The Princess was silent for a moment, then pulled up a sleeve and looked at Laura’s rash.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’m staying. But only because I choose to do so for educational reasons, and not because any of your words meant anything to me, which they didn’t.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘and you’ll choose to do what I tell you rather than endlessly complaining and putting people on your list?’
The Princess shrugged.
‘I might choose to do that, yes.’
I stared at her and she lowered her eyes, took the list out of her pocket and tore it into tiny pieces.
‘Pointless anyway,’ she grumbled, ‘what with everyone called Spartacus.’
And she chuckled at the joke. It showed she had a sense of humour. Perhaps she might become bearable, given time.
‘Okay, then,’ I said, ‘let’s get you into some clean clothes and out of that terrible maid’s outfit.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, with a resigned sigh, ‘I’d like that.’
I led her up to my bedroom, found some clothes about the right size and told her not to come down until she had showered and washed her hair.
She fumbled with the buttons on her blouse uselessly until I helped her.
‘Hell’s teeth, Princess, did you not do anything for yourself at the palace?’
‘I did my own sleeping,’ she said after a moment’s thought, ‘usually.’
I gathered up her tatty clothes as she took them off, then chucked them in the recycling. As I left to alert everyone to the Sorcerers’ Conclave I heard her scream as she mishandled the mixer on the shower.
Sorcerers’ Conclave
The sorcerers were all convened in the Kazam main offices an hour later. Wizard Moobin was there, as was Lady Mawgon, Full and Half Price, Perkins, Prince Nasil, Dame Corby ‘She whom the ants obey’ and Kevin Zipp, who was busy scribbling notes on the back of an envelope.
They all listened to what I had to say, from D’argento’s appearance to Shandar’s offer of a deal. Find the Eye of Zoltar, or he’d kill the Dragons, and us too if we tried to stop him. I didn’t tell them about the Princess as they’d all guess soon enough.
‘Zoltar?’ said Perkins when I mentioned it. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘Zoltar was the sorcerer to His Tyrannical Majesty Amenemhat V,’ said Moobin, ‘and was ranked about third most powerful on the planet at the time. He turned to the dark Mystical Arts for cash, as we understand it, and was killed in an unspeakably unpleasant way not long after Amenemhat V himself.’
‘And the Eye?’ I asked. ‘I’m thinking it wasn’t a real one.’
‘It was a jewel,’ said Dame Corby, reading from the Codex Magicalis. ‘It says that Zoltar liked to use a staff, the top of which was adorned “with a mighty ruby the size of a goose egg”. Cut with over a thousand facets and said to dance with inner fire, the ruby was always warm to the touch, even on the coldest night. It is said that the Eye worked as a lens to magnify Zoltar’s huge power. After Zoltar’s death the Eye changed hands many time but not without mishap – lesser wizards “were changed into lead” when they attempted to harness its huge power.’