by Barbara Else
The Princessa looked at the false moustache in her hand as if she didn’t know what to do with it. Then she stuffed it deep in the red hold-all and began striding up the stairway.
Hodie’s heart thudded. This might be when he met his mother. She might be at the top. He had no idea what he was going to say, or what to expect. If she was Fontanian, she was a traitor. And his Um’Binnian father must be a spy. Why should this happen to him, to Hodie?
He trudged up more stairs. Well, he supposed one thing was that nobody could choose their parents – their mother or their father. If they turned out to be a spy, a traitor or just a really bad parent, nobody could unchoose them either. But even if Hodie himself was safe with the mother he hadn’t even known he had, would she and the Princessa toss Murgott and Sibilla into prison just because they were Fontanian?
Up another flight of stairs they hurried, along a narrow corridor, then up another flight of stairs. The hold-all bumped on Lu’nedda’s back. Hodie still didn’t know for sure if his mother’s bag (or any other bag) was inside that hold-all, and (if it was) whether it would still hold the old cup, the long thin spanner, and the beads or pebbles (could they be jewels for hats or slippers?) – or Murgott’s notebook.
The little squirrel hoisted up step after step till Hodie lifted it and carried it in his arms. The wound on Hodie’s leg beat like a drum. On a landing with an open window, he stopped for air. There was no breeze at all, of course, just a whiff like last week’s cooking and unwashed Um’Binnians (they smelled exactly as if they were unwashed Fontanians).
The stairs seemed to rise forever. The higher they climbed, the hotter it grew. Everything natural was crushed in this place. There was nothing to lift Hodie’s heart and tug his mouth into a grin. He climbed, and huffed, tried to catch glimpses into the work chambers as they passed. Absolutely everyone there, whether Um’Binnian, dwarf, ogre or whatever else, looked frazzled and sweaty.
When Hodie glanced back he also saw drops of sweat among the freckles on Murgott’s bald patch. The Corporal was helping Sibilla and carrying his duffel bag, which included that slipper he’d found back at the Depot. Would he hand it over to Lu’nedda? No – Murgott probably did plan to sell it, or at least sell the emeralds and the mountain dove’s chin-fluff.
Hodie was pleased that by now he was not thinking about his mother. Not at all. He wouldn’t recognise her anyway. She would definitely not know him, because she hadn’t seen him since he was two or three. She hadn’t wanted him. She’d sent him and his father away. Why should he want or need a mother now? Anyway, he wasn’t thinking about her. He was just climbing, lugging a squirrel.
At last Lu’nedda’s boots stopped clomping. She opened a door.
Murgott’s big hand (sort-of gently) shoved Hodie in.
~
It was a large chamber with a long couch under a window where pale light flickered from the street far below. There was a table and chairs, and another soft couch. Hodie looked at everything – the cupboards and shelves, the yellow and blue rug on the floor, the lamps around the walls, anywhere except at the woman who stood up from a work table when they entered. At the same time, he could have described every detail about her from the tiny moment he saw her before he turned to everything else like the lamps and the table, the rug, the cupboards and shelves.
His mother was older than Lu’nedda, about the same age as Lady Helen. She was short. Her hair was curls of light brown. Her pleated green dress had a lacy collar and a bright green belt. She wore lacy half-mittens. Her stockings were green with yellow flowers, and her yellow shoes had tiny green heels. She wasn’t smiling, but Hodie knew that when she did, the smile went crooked as if she had so much to tell you the words crowded on her tongue to be first out. Her grey eyes stared at him. She hadn’t glanced once at Sibilla or Murgott. Hodie knew that even though his mother hadn’t seen him since he was so small his head kept bumping the corner of the table, she knew exactly who he was.
At last he made himself look at her properly. She had her head a little to one side. Her lips had parted. One hand still held a pot of glue, the other a hat with jewelled butterflies clustering around the brim. The squirrel clambered on the bench beside her and pawed a knife. She glanced away from Hodie as if it hurt her eyes to do so, and held the squirrel steady. Just like a mother with a squirming child. She looked back at Hodie.
“Lu’nedda?” said his mother in a husky voice. “Who … who is this boy?”
The Princessa slung her coat and red bag over a chair, and wriggled a hand as if she had a sticky insect on her fingers. “Good morning, Allana. I promised to bring news of your boy. Maybe this is better – maybe not. Instead of news, I bring your boy himself.”
Allana – Hodie’s mother – steadied herself against the table, then took a step towards him. Her hands came up, her arms started to reach out. Hodie stepped back and kept his arms tight at his sides.
Silence. But he could tell that everyone had a hundred things they’d like to say.
The Princessa sat down, thrust her hands into her black ringlets, and gave them a tug. They didn’t come off, so they weren’t false like the moustache. Sibilla was leaning on Murgott again. The Corporal eased her onto a chair beside the one where Lu’nedda had slung the hold-all. Sibilla brushed her eyes with a hand, and gave a shiver.
Lu’nedda spoke into the silence. “I recognise your boy on last day in Fontania. He has lived like lowest servant.”
His mother had started trembling. The silence continued. Maybe it was up to Hodie. He gave a little nod at his mother. He cleared his throat.
“Hello.” (The first word had to be something.) “I hope you are well.” (The first sentence had to be something too.) “I didn’t think I remembered you at all.”
“But you do remember,” said the woman – Allana – his mother. She was still trembling. Hodie had expected he would shake too, but not even his voice had wobbled when he spoke. He wasn’t going to say anything else, though. Not a word. Not till his mother explained why she’d sent him and Dardy away for so many years, and they’d had to wear ragged clothes and live in a lean-to, while in the Imperial Palace of Um’Binnia she wore pretty yellow shoes and lacy mittens. And he wasn’t going to ask where Dardy was.
There was another silence, except for Murgott shuffling his boots and a tck-tck from the squirrel.
“Well!” Sibilla gave a wavery smile, which was pretty funny with her face so grubby underneath that boy’s cap – if you had time for a chuckle and, very strangely, Hodie felt one bump into his throat. She stood up and crossed her legs. “Please, do you ’ave a bathroom? It’s been hours.”
“Good idea.” The Princessa pointed to a door.
“Fank you.” Sibilla went in and closed it. Murgott gave a polite cough, and sort-of propped himself against the wall near the bathroom with his eyes closed.
Hodie’s mother fumbled for the chair behind her and sat down as if her yellow shoes would not do the job of holding her steady any longer. “My boy,” she whispered, still staring at him.
“They call him Hodie.” Lu’nedda’s voice was gruff and choked. “When I recognise him, I am not exactly sure that I am right. I find where he sleep, to have good look at him. I tuck him in tight. Then your boy turn up again in huge gale at Shattered Rock. What else can I do but bring him to you?”
Hodie’s mother didn’t move. It looked as if she was trying hard to work out what Lu’nedda had said. “He was at the Grand Palace? A servant?”
Lu’nedda continued. “Indeed. Gree’sle followed me to your boy’s hut. That hut is only place in whole Grand Palace where skinny Gree’sle and his officers had not thought to search. It take one minute to look at everything the boy has – he does not have much. Gree’sle grab old bag off hook and sneak it away. When we are starting to hurry home, he show bag to my father, and my father is very pleased with him indeed. So when I pretend to be kidnapped, I
decide to sneak bag away myself. It will show my father that Gree’sle is not so clever after all. Allana, look inside. What do you think?” Lu’nedda reached out and patted the red hold-all.
Hodie’s mother gave the squirrel’s neck a last rub – Hodie could tell it was in love with her by now – and walked over to the hold-all. She pulled out the slipper the rebels had argued about and set it on the floor. She reached in again and pulled out the drawstring bag (the false moustache was sort of hitched up on the string, most likely because of its glue). Her shoulders seemed to slump the least little bit.
“It is right one?” Lu’nedda asked.
Allana – Hodie’s mother – straightened her shoulders. She eased the top of the old bag open, peered in and seemed puzzled. “I don’t remember a book … but it’s been a long time.” Fingers shaking, she tightened the drawstring again, and Hodie saw the moustache end up caught inside. “I have to get over one shock before I can begin to think about another.”
“Best friends should not lie to each other,” said the Princessa.
Hodie’s mother rested the bag on her work table. She sat down, folded her hands and spoke in a soft but firm voice. “Years ago, Lu’nedda, you were a child and I was a young woman new to Um’Binnia. You needed a friend very badly. But you always knew my wish was to return to Fontania one day. When I had my little boy, you knew I still hoped to return home. I never lied to you. I just kept a promise and a secret for another very dear friend.” She glanced up. “Lu’nedda, this very minute I cannot swear that the bag holds what your father – and other people – have been searching for.”
Lu’nedda clapped her hands together. “Anyway, I have no time for chatter about trinkets. I have had a big adventure. My father thinks I am in great danger. He must be very worried. Yes?”
“Oh … yes, he must,” said Hodie’s mother. But Hodie heard her tone really say, Good grief, poor silly girl, do you really expect him to have changed?
Lu’nedda’s ringlets quivered. “My father will be very pleased to see me, especially when I take stolen bag to him. He will not suspect that I myself have become chief rebel.”
Murgott’s eyes were still closed, but Hodie thought his ears were working overtime. Hodie knew the feeling – his own were working double-overtime.
Allana didn’t look at Hodie, though he could see she almost did. “What made Gree’sle so sure this is the bag?”
“First, why else is it in hut with your boy?” Lu’nedda said. “Answer, because Dardy always obeyed your orders and waited for you. Second, I look inside and signs say to me, maybe this is right bag, but only maybe. Third, I will give bag to my father, which will make him pleased with me and angry with Gree’sle, so I do not care if it is right bag or not. But my father will order scientists to work hard. They will examine bag, and say if The Ties of Fontania are here. If they are, very good. If they are not, Gree’sle will be in big trouble and I will not have to keep promise to marry him.”
Hodie felt as if something hit him several times under the chin. The Ties of Fontania. The missing Ties, in that shabby old bag? Under his bed for years, gathering cobwebs? Why would his mother ever have had The Ties? His mother must be a spy too – but what sort of spies could his parents be (besides obviously not being very good ones)?
“Please, Lu’nedda.” Allana’s voice was huskier now. “Don’t tell your father yet. Wait till I can think, look again and try to remember.”
The Princessa shrugged and pressed a button on the wall. The apartment door opened. Two ogres lumbered in.
Lu’nedda pointed at Murgott. “Handcuffs for that one.”
“Oi!” said Murgott, but an ogre clamped a hand over his big mouth. The second ogre grabbed Murgott’s wrists and manacled them behind his back.
“We should have clapped earmuffs on him too!” Lu’nedda said.
Murgott wrested his head away from the ogre’s hand. “I heard every word, ma’am. But I understood none.”
If Hodie believed that, he would also believe that the White Squirrel slipped half a dollero in your shoe each time you lost one of your teeth.
Allana looked very tense. One of her hands, hidden from Lu’nedda, gestured to Hodie: Wait, please wait. He didn’t want to do anything she asked, but there wasn’t much choice. At least she’d got over wanting to hug him.
Lu’nedda clicked her fingers. The ogres saluted. “Find out where my father is. Tell him I am safely home. He will want happy reunion in Great Throne Room.”
One of the ogres bowed and left the apartment. Murgott growled, but the huge hand of the other ogre muffled him again.
“One more yell and you are in prison,” Lu’nedda said.
The ogre slowly took his hand away. Murgott twisted his head and rubbed his mouth on the shoulder of his jacket. “Princessa, you don’t need to cuff me. I used to be a pirate. Such men are usually bought easily.”
“If that is true or not, why should I trust you?” snapped the Princessa. “No more than I would trust deserter from Fontanian Army! Yes, I recognise you all along, Corporal Murgott. You desert your army and travel with such ragamuffin boys.”
Murgott looked pleased and aghast all at once. It was a comical expression, though Hodie didn’t dare laugh. He had to think fast. Lu’nedda still hadn’t recognised Sibilla – the little Queen must escape from Um’Binnia as soon she could.
“Princessa, you can trust Murgott,” Hodie said. “Um … he’s admired you since he first saw you. He wrote a poem the third day you were at the Grand Palace. I sneaked a look.”
A blush spread over Lu’nedda’s face. She seemed really pretty for a moment. Murgott blushed too and even he looked rather sweet, though upset that Hodie should have read his notebook.
“Besides, pirates always side with the winner, and you’ve definitely won,” Hodie continued.
Lu’nedda nodded at the ogre. There was a click as the manacles came off the Corporal.
Hodie’s leg was hurting – not much, but it still made a good excuse. He needed to say something only Murgott would hear. He let himself slide sort-of sideways, and leaned on Murgott. His mother was watching but he avoided her gaze. “My leg’s sore,” he said quietly to the Corporal. “But I really want to say, I trust you.” It was actually true.
“I haven’t been the nicest of men to you, boy.” Something like kindness showed in Murgott’s eyes.
Hodie’s own eyes hadn’t worked properly for hours, not since he’d seen the sketch on the napkin in the canteen. But the sketch was right – the drawstring bag had been in Ogg’ward’s hold-all. Now it lay on his mother’s table, within Hodie’s reach, and was supposed to hold The Ties.
Allana stood up as if she was going to come and see if Hodie was all right.
“And we’re the only ones who can save the Queen,” he whispered quickly to Murgott. “And maybe save magic. If magic exists. Of course it doesn’t, and the Queen doesn’t think so either.”
“I’ve seen it at work, boy. The Queen is on the brink of it. I’ll believe in it for you as well as me. Now,” Murgott said. “Think tactics. Tactics is a recipe for success. I want you to faint.”
Hodie kept his head turned away from his mother. “My leg got sliced on the Bridge of Teeth.”
“Good,” muttered Murgott, “if you understand me. It will mean the ladies don’t take too much notice of you-know-who still in the bathroom. And it will take the ladies’ minds right off that bag.”
All of a sudden he grabbed Hodie’s shoulders. “Shiver me timbers! The boy’s collapsing.”
So, tactics at work. Hodie let himself slide out of Murgott’s hands and down to the floor. His mother rushed to his side.
“Good lad,” he heard Murgott mutter.
~
21
choosing a suitable rear end
Murgott lugged Hodie to the sofa and laid him flat. “What’s this?
Look at the boy’s leg! Disinfectant! Bandages!”
Eyes shut, Hodie heard Allana knock on the bathroom door.
“I haven’t finished yet!” shouted Sibilla like a cross little boy.
Allana ordered an ogre to fetch a medical kit.
“He should’a told me earlier about this cut,” grumbled the Corporal, mopping gently at Hodie’s calf. “But I’ve seen worse things by far at sea. I’ve seen worse things in a kitchen too.”
Hodie felt someone with slim fingers – his mother – take his boots off and make angry exclamations about how full of holes they were. Well, whose fault was that?
“Listen,” hissed Murgott in his ear. “What you heard about The Ties – do not mention it to the Queen unless you’re absolutely sure not a soul can overhear. She might do something reckless. I’d make bets on it. Orright?”
Hodie nodded. He heard the bathroom door at last, and opened his eyes. His mother, looking ferocious, was hovering about with a bandage. Sibilla – cleaner in the face and with her cap on tight – peered down at his leg.
“Yucky! Blood!” she said with a small boy’s relish.
Hodie’s mother and Murgott finished bandaging his leg. He did feel better after the lie-down. He refused to meet his mother’s eye, though, and eventually she sat back at her work table, hand on her forehead. Murgott went and spoke quietly with her. She’d be trying to tell Murgott she wasn’t a spy. Lu’nedda went for her turn in the bathroom, probably scrubbing off the remains of glue from the false moustache.
Sibilla took her own bag into a corner and rummaged out the bits of Jasper’s bird. She fitted part of it together, frowned, and showed Hodie.
“Borrow Murgott’s pocket-knife,” he whispered.