Brimstone smiled at him benignly. ‘Oh, I’m not panicking, Jasper. It’s not in my nature.’ Besides, George could handle any trouble that might arise.
The flyer set down a short distance from their ouklo and an attractive young woman climbed out. ‘Thank Gods you’re here!’ exclaimed Chalkhill loudly. ‘We have no idea how these unfortunate people come to be in such dire straits, but they seem to have suffered some sort of an accident through no fault of ours and we landed in the hope that we might be of some assistance and now it appears they might be the very persons of Her Imperial Majesty our gracious Queen Blue and her honoured Consort Henry and – good grief, it’s you!’
With his heightened perception, Brimstone had spotted Madame Cardui at once, even though the old bat had obviously undergone a head peel. He smothered a snigger. This was going to be interesting. Chalkhill was terrified of Cardui, and with good reason. He’d once betrayed her while he was working as a double agent. Now he’d kidnapped the Queen. So their enmity was both political and personal.
Cardui ignored Chalkhill and signalled to three further flyers circling overhead. Within moments, the entire rocky apron was swarming with Imperial troops, while Chalkhill continued to babble. ‘Saw them from the air… our duty as citizens… no idea it was our majestic Queen and King… everything we could do to help… afraid the Queen… actions probably saved his life…’
‘Don’t suppose there might be a reward?’ called Brimstone as the motionless body of the Queen and the far-from-motionless body of her raving – meep, meep – Consort were loaded on to Cardui’s flyer. ‘Few goldies for two loyal citizens who took time out to help the royals in distress?
Madame Cardui gave him a withering look. ‘I must obviously get Their Majesties to a healer as quickly as possible,’ she said quietly, ‘but I shall investigate this incident thoroughly and should it come to light that either of you had anything, anything whatsoever, to do with their condition, I shall hunt you down and I shall catch you and I shall punish you. Personally. Severely. Do we understand one another?’
‘Madame Cardui,’ spluttered Chalkhill, ‘I can assure you we had absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with -’
But she was already climbing into the flyer. She ignored Chalkhill, signalled to her escort troops and all four craft took off in good order. Chalkhill glared at Brimstone. ‘Another fine mess you’ve got me into,’ he said.
Thirty-Six
Henry opened his eyes. There was someone bending over him and as the face swam into focus, he realised it was Pyrgus. ‘Blue?’ Henry whispered. There was a young woman standing behind Pyrgus, but she wasn’t Blue.
‘She’s fine,’ Pyrgus said. ‘She’s going to be fine.’
‘Which is it?’ Henry croaked. The inside of his mouth was cold, his tongue felt twice its normal size and his throat was parched.
Pyrgus repeated, ‘She’s going to be fine.’
Henry struggled to sit up. ‘She was dead. Did someone do a resurrection?’ He felt suddenly chill. Resurrection spells were a very recent development and not always successful. Sometimes they left the person brain damaged.
‘She wasn’t dead,’ Pyrgus insisted.
‘Tell me the truth, Pyrgus,’ Henry said tiredly. ‘I know she died out there on the Broads. The prickleweed got her.’
But Pyrgus grinned at him. ‘Prickleweed toxin has an effect almost identical to a stasis spell. Everything stops, including your personal time field. If the weed doesn’t eat you, you’re usually fine once it wears off. She’s still in bed recovering, but her death was strictly temporary. Had us worried for a while, though.’
The young woman – Henry suddenly realised it was Madame Cardui with her head peeled – said, ‘She’s had treatment, deeah. The healers tell me she’s now sleeping normally.’
‘I want to see her,’ Henry said.
‘Yes, of course: as soon as she wakes up. But the healers haven’t given us clearance on you yet.’
‘I’m fine,’ Henry told him stolidly. ‘I’m in rude good health.’ Then curiosity got the better of him and he added, ‘What happened to me?’
‘Border Redcap attack. The spores produce a state of temporary insanity.’ Pyrgus grinned at him. ‘I’m surprised anybody noticed.’
This was the old, jokey Pyrgus. For the first time, it struck Henry that everything actually was fine. ‘Is Blue really all right?’
‘She just needs rest; and so, apparently, do you. There may be some minor flashbacks, but they’ve flushed most of the spores out of your system. Although…’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘… if you’re feeling up to it, there’s something we need to discuss with you.’
‘I’m feeling up to it.’ Henry started to climb out of bed, but Pyrgus placed a hand on his shoulder to restrain him.
‘We should really be talking to Blue,’ Pyrgus said, ‘but the healers say it’s best not to wake her yet, and there’s a certain urgency about the situation…’
‘Is it Mella?’ Henry asked, suddenly remembering.
‘Mella’s part of it, deeah.’ Madame Cardui pulled a chair to his bedside and sat down. ‘But not the only part.’
‘Is she still missing?’
‘I’m afraid so, deeah, but at least now we know where she is.’
‘Where?’ Henry demanded. When she got back, she’d be grounded for a month. Six months, if he had anything to do with it.
Pyrgus said, ‘She’s in Haleklind.’
Henry stared at him blankly. ‘What’s she doing in Haleklind?’
‘Being held by the Table of Seven, apparently,’ Pyrgus said.
‘Being held by the Table of -?’ Henry made another attempt to get out of bed and this time Pyrgus let him. Madame Cardui handed him a dressing gown. As he pulled it on, Henry said, ‘The last thing Blue and I knew for sure was that she was in the Analogue World. She had a mad notion to visit my mother, then somehow managed to blow up her house. We thought she’d probably come back to the Realm, but why Haleklind? And what do you mean, being held by the Table of Seven? She’s their guest?’
‘Or their prisoner,’ Madame Cardui said quietly.
Henry looked from one to the other. ‘Back up a little. What did she do in Haleklind that made them throw her into prison?’ His daughter was nearly as wild as her mother, but this was way beyond anything he’d have expected.
‘That’s the whole point, Henry,’ Madame Cardui said. ‘So far as we can gather, she did nothing. The motivation appears to be political.’
‘Political? How political? Why political? Haleklind’s a friendly country. Bit paranoid, but we’re not at war with them or anything.’
‘Yet,’ Pyrgus said.
Henry ignored him. ‘OK, why do they say they’re holding her? You must have had our ambassador ask them.’
‘They’re claiming no knowledge of her whatsoever, denying the whole thing.’
‘So we think they have her and they say they haven’t?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘We’ll soon know the truth of it,’ Madame Cardui chipped in. ‘There’s a sleeper in the ruling council. I’m expecting clarification from him soon.’
‘There’s something else,’ said Pyrgus.
His tone seized Henry’s attention. ‘Go on.’
‘We think Haleklind may be preparing for war.’
Henry frowned. ‘Who with?’
‘I’m afraid it’s with us, deeah,’ Madame Cardui told him.
Henry looked from one to the other with the expression of one who wonders if he’s missed a joke. ‘They can’t go to war with us,’ he said at last. ‘They don’t have the manpower.’ Haleklind was an important country – and a wealthy one – because of its age-old speciality in magic. But while it had an extensive geographical spread, it was grossly under-populated. It had a well-trained standing army, but nothing to match the Empire forces. A thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘They haven’t developed a magical super-weapon, have they?’ He was thinking of something like an H-bomb. The Faerie Realm was mercifully free from atomic weapons, but the wizards were quite capable of coming up with something just as nasty. Next to consumer magic, Haleklind’s second largest source of national income was its weapons industry. So far the wizards had concentrated on improving traditional armaments – bows that fired themselves, heat-seeking spears, clubs that struck with giant strength – but sooner or later they were bound to start thinking of weapons of mass destruction.