Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘That’s been increased again,’ said Bith.

  ‘So it has. And what with the new taxes, never mind the stoking of the forges — Well,’ said Culdub, unexpectedly finding the drift of his sentence again, ‘well, we thought we’d better accept. We thought we’d get the very best prices we could.’

  ‘The Gruagach will be getting the very best workmanship, of course,’ put in one whose name was Flaherty.

  ‘So they will, isn’t that the way of it?’ chorused the others.

  ‘And so,’ said Bith, who appeared to be taking part in the conversation again, ‘and so, we’re off to Tara, to consult with the Court about the designs.’

  ‘I wore my best boots,’ said one of the younger gnomes.

  Several of the other gnomes said they had worn their best boots as well, and one of them had bought a new neckerchief.

  ‘And if,’ said Bith, ‘if you were minded to just show us the road, sir — ’

  ‘Or better still, walk along with us,’ put in Culdub hopefully,

  ‘ — we’d get there a sight faster,’ finished Bith, and everyone nodded and looked at Caspar hopefully.

  Caspar hesitated. He was supposed to be out looking for Humans from the Angry Sun, or from anywhere else if it came to that, and it would not go down very well if he returned empty-handed.

  But, on the other hand, he was not going to roam the countryside in the dark for giants or anyone else and, anyway, Goibniu would be so pleased to see the gnomes that nobody would be asking questions. Also, he was still turning over in his mind various plans about getting Floy and Fenella and Snodgrass out.

  So he said, quite amiably, that he would walk along to Tara with the gnomes and be pleased to. At which the gnomes beamed and said there was nothing like a walk, to be sure there was not, and all of them well used to an hour or two’s march.

  ‘For,’ said Bith, ‘why were we given feet, if not to march with?’

  ‘Feet, to be sure, ah, there’s the thing, feet,’ cried his companions, delightedly, and slapped their boots admiringly and said there was nothing like a foot, unless it might be two feet, because you didn’t get very far with only one foot. They looked pleased at this display of wit and remembered that they had donned their best boots and said, didn’t it go to show that you never knew.

  ‘It’s no more than a half hour’s walk,’ said Caspar and the gnomes beamed and said half an hour, wasn’t that the thing, even if you got lost a couple of times there was nothing like half an hour, and would they be singing a bit of a song to help them on their way?

  ‘So long as we’re there in time for breakfast,’ said Culdub Oakapple, picking up his spade with an air of determination.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Floy and Fenella and Snodgrass had passed an almost totally sleepless night. Floy had spent several hours in deep discussion with Snodgrass and, between them, they had made an attempt to sketch out the layout of Tara, so that they could see if there were any weak areas they might make use of.

  ‘But I think it is a pointless exercise,’ said Floy, somewhere towards morning, a thin, cold light filtering in through the windows to where he sat at a great desk, his black hair tumbled, hollows in his cheeks, his face white with fatigue. ‘For one thing we’ve hardly seen Tara and, for another, we don’t know what kind of spells and enchantments they might have strewn about.’

  Snodgrass, who had studied more sketches and impressions of the lost castles and palaces of Earth than he could remember, said he thought that nothing like Tara had ever existed anywhere in any world.

  ‘Didn’t someone in the Wolfwood say it was partly raised by sorcerers?’ he said. ‘That’ll be it, mark my words. You’re almost sure to be right about the spells and enchantments. Difficult. It’ll be the kind of place you might walk out of as brisk and easy as a knife cutting butter, or you might very well wander about for days, well, weeks even, without finding a proper door. It’s always the same with enchanted castles,’ said Snodgrass, as if, thought Fenella, only vaguely listening, enchantments were the sort of thing you met up with every day.

  Fenella had not heard all of the discussion. She had curled up in the deep old window seat, the velvet coverlet from the bed wrapped about her for warmth, and had drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. Of course they would escape and of course they would outwit the Gruagach, thought Fenella, her mind tumbling with images, fighting to stay awake in case she could help Floy and Snodgrass. Of course they would escape and they would rescue Nuadu. It was important not to remember how Nuadu had looked in those last moments, defiant and unafraid, his head thrown back as the Robemaker had dragged him forward by the vicious crimson rope-lights. I won’t remember it, thought Fenella, leaning her flushed cheek against the cold window. I’ll remember how he looked at me just before the Robemaker took him and how he called me ‘Lady’. And I’ll remember, as well, those strange fragments of memory I had when we arrived, because they certainly weren’t anything from my memory.

  But it was probably better not to think about Nuadu at all. Fenella pulled the velvet folds of the cover about her and tried to sleep and not to think about what would happen and whether they would be let out of these rooms and what stories she might have to tell the Gruagach about Star People and the Fire Court and the other fictional places they were supposed to have travelled to. Her mind swam in and out of sleep and the fire burned lower.

  And then, quite suddenly, it was full morning and the sun was slanting across the floor of the rooms. Floy was sleeping where he sat, his head resting on his folded arms, a look of such exhaustion on his face, that Fenella almost wished to be back on Renascia fighting Quilp and the Council and trying to plan to outwit the Dark Lodestar.

  But it is morning, thought Fenella, washing her hands and face in the water from the brass ewers, liking the thick, fluffy towels left for them. It is morning and it is sunny and there is a world to be explored. And surely, oh surely, we shall be able to go after Nuadu, and surely the giants are friendly and last night was only a bad dream. And, said Fenella, very firmly indeed, I will not believe that any of us are in danger.

  They were taken to breakfast by Caspar, who unlocked the doors, and regarded them rather shamefacedly.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Floy, as if nothing had happened and Caspar, who looked uneasily over his shoulder, then said, in an urgent whisper, ‘I didn’t like locking you in, you know, but I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘I don’t think we expected anything else,’ said Floy, with complete courtesy and Caspar hunched his shoulders crossly and said, ‘There might be a plan. Could you be ready and keep your wits about you, do you think?’

  ‘Of course.’ Floy did not say: even though we do not really trust you, but Fenella and Snodgrass both felt him think it. Fenella thought that it was a pity that Caspar was so scared of the giants, because he knew so much about Tara that he might have been of considerable help. He certainly knew the whereabouts of the Robemaker’s Workshops. But he had locked them in last night and he had done so on orders from the Gruagach so they did not dare rely on him. They would do much better to rely just on their three selves.

  ‘I’m quite hungry for some breakfast,’ said Snodgrass, as they followed Caspar along the galleries and down the staircases and through huge, high-ceilinged chambers.

  ‘It’s always very plentiful,’ said Caspar seriously. ‘And His Majesty has particularly requested your presence.’

  ‘How very good of him,’ said Floy, blandly. Caspar shot him a suspicious look.

  ‘I suppose you don’t trust me after I locked you in,’ he said.

  ‘Quite right. We don’t.’

  ‘I suppose I can’t blame you,’ said Caspar, morosely. ‘I wouldn’t trust me, either. But you’ll see. I shall come up with something. I’m supposed to be guarding you, but I shan’t. Only we’ll have to make it look as if I am. In here. If you could try to look as if you’re being guarded, it would go a long way. But don’t worry too much about it, because they w
on’t notice very much. They’re not morning people, the Gruagach.’

  Breakfast was served in a long, low-ceilinged room, with a deep fireplace, on which were roasting several animals which Snodgrass said, in an awed whisper to Fenella, were oxen. There were barrelsful of butter and platters of fruit and great sides of bacon and ham and sizzling sausages. The giants washed their breakfasts down with immense tankards of mead and ale and grunted and were inclined to be morose, which seemed to bear out Caspar’s remarks about them not being morning people.

  The Gnomes of Gallan sat together at the far end of the table. They were presented to Floy and Fenella and Snodgrass by Caspar and they had all swept bows (Bith’s hat had fallen off) and been charmed to meet travellers like this. But then, wasn’t Tara the place for travellers, they said. Hadn’t it always been known as the centre of the Western World? They were rather pleased with themselves for saying this, because it was something the Gruagach would find quite flattering and, also, it had not referred to the Wolfkings, which would have been extremely discourteous, not to say disastrous. They sat together, in the small-sized chairs brought up by Balor, and ate their breakfasts and told one another wasn’t this the finest meal ever and would they all look at the roasting oxen, because it was a long time, well it was years, really, since any of them had seen such a sight. Bith took off his hat, which was a polite thing to be doing, and Culdub Oakapple tucked his yellow neckerchief into his collar by way of table napkin.

  Fenella, who rather liked the look of the Gnomes, thought they were a bit like careful children, diligently remembering their manners, sprinkling their conversation with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and with things like, ‘I’ll trouble you for the jam pot, your honour’, or ‘after you with the tomato chutney, your worship’. They polished off most of the sausages, which they seemed greatly to enjoy, and Bith of the Bog-Hat and Flaherty shared a firkin of the giants’ ale, which Balor had brought up from the cellars.

  But after they had finished eating (which seemed to the travellers to take for ever), Goibniu sent the other giants out of the room, because he had important business to discuss.

  ‘You’ll be told in good time,’ he said and would not listen when Goll the Gorm said, crossly, as they trooped out, that it was always the same; they were not told what was going on and it was a disgrace and a scandal and there’d be a revolution at Tara before much longer, if there wouldn’t be an outright war.

  ‘Now,’ said Goibniu, resting his elbows on the table rather vulgarly and eyeing Fenella greedily, ‘now, my guests, we have a little proposition to put to you.’

  Floy, who had been cutting himself a slice of ham, looked up, because there was a lick of anticipatory pleasure in Goibniu’s tone. He exchanged a look with Fenella and saw that she was watching Goibniu quite politely, but that there was a wariness in her eyes.

  But Goibniu was smooth and courteous; he was very nearly urbane. He paid a brief homage to the Gnomes, who had journeyed all the way from the Gallan Mountains to bring their ideas for the new Queen’s Crown Jewels and did not refer to the fact that they were four days late on account of getting lost on the way. He said they would all be wanting to study the designs the minute Balor had cleared away breakfast and Bith at once reached for the knapsacks, and said he hoped Flaherty had not spilled jam on the drawing of the four-pronged diadem and Flaherty, injured, said indeed he had not and it the best damson jam he had ever tasted.

  ‘And if there’s a bite more, I won’t refuse, your prominence.’

  Goibniu remembered that Gnomes were reportedly extremely greedy, but said they would take a look at the designs now, if the Gnomes were quite ready, thus galvanising the Gnomes into anxious industry, resulting in much unpacking of knapsacks and unrolling of parchments and remarks such as, ‘Who’s got the plan of the turquoise bracelet?’ and ‘Why did we bring along four sketches for the everyday silver tiara?’ and ‘Flaherty’s sitting on the Coronation sceptre!’

  But, at length, the drawings and sketches were laid out and the plans for Flaherty’s new steam-powered melting pot which had unaccountably been packed by mistake put away again. Weights were placed at all the corners of the sketches to stop them springing back into tight rolls.

  ‘And there it is, your throneships,’ said Bith, beaming, because when all was said and done, hadn’t they produced the finest old sketches ever heard of and wasn’t there good reason for them to feel proud?

  Goibniu was pleased with the designs. The Gnomes had gone to considerable trouble; Culdub and Bith had sat up long hours and consulted books and chronicles and there had been much burning of late candles and worried scurryings to and fro between the Gnomes’ houses in the little mountain village. Flaherty and MacKnobb had produced thin gold and silver and emerald paint with which they had coloured the fine charcoal designs and the end result was really rather good. The Gnomes sat together at the end of the breakfast table and waited anxiously for the verdict. They thought that Goibniu was looking happy (although it was always difficult to tell with giants) and thought, wasn’t it a fine old thing to see how well the designs were being received and wasn’t it great, altogether, to see how well received the Oakapple’s sketches were, because hadn’t he been the guiding light behind most of the work?

  Goibniu studied the parchments for some time, seeing that there was an elaborate circlet of gold for Flame if she became Inchbad’s Queen, studded with firestones which would be mined from Fael-Inis’s Fire Mountains. There was a corresponding Crown for Inchbad, of course, and the Gnomes had cleverly managed to make these subtly similar. There were ornate neck circles with chippings of moonstones and slender, silver anklets engraved with the tree symbols of fertility and great chunks of raw gold somehow veined with amber which would be used as Coronation accessories. And there were silver amulets studded with turquoise, bearing the insignia of the Gruagach and also the insignia of Flame’s ancestry. This had been quite difficult and the Gnomes had scratched their heads a good deal, because, although people did not openly refer to it, everyone knew that Flame’s father was Fael-Inis and it had meant a lot of worrisome discussions as to whether this fact ought to be openly acknowledged, or whether it might be discourteous to draw attention to it.

  Goibniu thought it all looked very nice. He did not refer to anything so vulgar as payment, of course, because the Gnomes would not expect it. But he said they would present the designs to Reflection, these very sketches, and there would be a great deal of acclaim given to the Gnomes as a result.

  Culdub Oakapple opened his mouth to say that acclaim was all very well in its way, but they had been hoping for something a bit more financial than that, but the two Gnomes on each side of him trod on his foot to stop him, because you could not always trust the Oakapple to be tactful. They could not be offending the Gruagach, and they especially could not be offending Goibniu the Greediguzzler. Bith remembered a nearly forgotten, seldom-told belief that, although Gnome was an acquired taste amongst giants, they would occasionally serve it at very special occasions. If Inchbad married Flame, it would be a very special occasion indeed; it might be just the occasion when they would want a dish or two of roast Gnome and, more to the point, it would get the Gruagach out of paying for the new Crown Jewels.

  Fenella and Floy and Snodgrass had sat quietly at the other side of the table, not eating very much, listening carefully to everything that was said. Floy had been interested in the Gnomes’ sketches; like Fenella, he found the Gnomes rather attractive, friendly people and he thought their designs were clever and subtle and beautifully drawn. Snodgrass embarked on a story about a very famous jewel called the Koh-i-noor, which he thought had once adorned a great King’s State Crown and explained how it had been so rare and so heavy that it had had to be kept locked away behind bars and guards, so that nobody could steal it.

  The Gnomes were very interested in this; as Flaherty said, you could not know too much about these things, although it was a pig’s pity that such a jewel couldn’t be worn by th
e King of the day when he went about his reigning, because wasn’t that the purpose of crowns and jewels anyway?

  ‘But,’ said Flaherty, ‘it’s all for your exaltednesses to say.’

  ‘We thought,’ put in Bith, who was feeling a bit bolder now that Goibniu had approved their ideas, ‘we thought that the lady — that is Reflection’s daughter — might like to see the designs before we put them to the forge, your honour.’ He looked wise and solemn when he said this, because he knew that ladies — even sorceress’s daughters — had their own ideas about what they ought to wear and it was not to be supposed that Flame would be any different. ‘Colours,’ said Bith rather vaguely. ‘It’d be nice for her to be given the chance to make a suggestion or two.’

  Flaherty asked who was to take the sketches to the Fire Court and the Gnomes at once looked alarmed, because hadn’t they already travelled all the way from Gallan and it a terrible long journey, never mind getting lost twice, as well as the Robemaker’s Workshops and the Cruachan Cavern being on the route.

  ‘But of course,’ said Bith firmly, ‘if your honourships were wanting it, then we’d go and be pleased to.’

  And the Gnomes looked at Goibniu worriedly and waited.

  Goibniu was still studying the drawings and thinking that Reflection, greedy creature, would surely not be able to resist them and that it mightn’t be a bad idea to revive the ancient traditional dish of roast Gnome for the wedding feast, which would save them having to pay the Gnomes anything. But he smiled rather overpoweringly at the Gnomes, and said that: no, they would not dream of asking them to make such a journey, so hard on the heels of their march in from Gallan.

  ‘We are hoping that our two new friends will assist us by acting as emissaries to the Court,’ said Goibniu and, turning his head, smiled at Floy.