The Music of Zombies

by Vivian French

  Albion began to smile, and Marley waited expectantly. “Excellent,” the prince agreed. “Tell him I’ll see him today. He can play me a tune or two. If I like him, I’ll give him a chance.” He drew himself up to his full height of four foot ten. “He can play a tune called . . . called ‘An Air for Prince Albion’!”

  “Erm . . .” Marley was flummoxed, but the shadow was purring in his ear.

  “Well done, Mr. Bagsmith. My master will be delighted.” His voice changed to a deeper note. “Once the prince has heard the sweet tunes of my master, all will be arranged to his advantage. Riches will be heaped upon him. Kings and queens will open their doors to him and beg him to come in . . . so my master tells me.” The shadow shook its head as if to clear it, then went on in his usual whisper. “He will be welcomed into the royal family, feted, celebrated, raised to a position of magnificence.”

  Marley gulped. He had no idea of Fiddleduster’s aspirations, but he had no doubt that as soon as the prince heard the first notes of “The Hammering of the Slug,” the fiddle player would be dismissed from the royal presence forever. And he himself, he reflected gloomily, would probably be thrown out of Cockenzie Rood for introducing him.

  “Invitation!” The shadow was hissing again. “My master must be invited! There must be a written invitation, or he cannot cross the border!”

  Albion, never the most perceptive, was looking at Marley with some curiosity. “Are you all right, Bill? You look a bit odd. And you keep talking to yourself. Can hear you muttering.”

  “No, no, Your Highness.” Marley did his best to smile. “I’ll make sure it’s all arranged. Erm . . . he’ll need an invitation from you, of course.” He coughed. “Mr. Squint wouldn’t dream of bothering you, splendid as you are, without a written invitation.”

  “Oh.” Albion considered this. “Very proper. But you can tell your Mr. Squint it’s OK. He can just pop up to the palace this afternoon, play a tune or two, and we’ll all be hunky-dory. Easy-peasy. You tell him, and then you can be on your way.”

  Marley looked blank. Was he being thrown out of Cockenzie Rood already? “On my way where, Your Highness?”

  The prince frowned. “Dear me, Bill. Thought spies were clever chaps. You’re going to the House of the Ancient Crones, of course!”

  The shadow was pressing hard against Marley’s throat. He coughed again. “But, Your Highness —”

  “Not another word!” Albion stamped his foot. “Are you my spy, or aren’t you?”

  The unhappy Marley nodded.

  “Well, then! Off you go! Quick smart! And make sure the musician — what’s his name again? Squiddle? — is here by three. Otherwise I’ll do without him.” And the prince turned to stomp off. As he turned, his foot struck the iron ladle left there by Marley the day before. “What’s this? A ladle? Tidy it up, Bill. Now, this minute! Can’t have rubbish lying around. Certainly not!”

  The pressure on Marley’s throat was agonizing. He was also beginning to feel angry. Albion might be a prince, but he was, when all was said and done, only a boy. What right did he have to be so overbearing?

  “Just a minute,” Marley began, and his tone was not conciliatory.

  Albion swung around. “What is it now?” he asked crossly, his expression that of a fractious baby.

  Marley opened his mouth to resign his position, to refuse to be a spy a moment longer, to say he was going home to bed and was going to stay there for a week — but he was forestalled. The shadow suddenly loosened its hold, and Marley blinked. Could he really see Fiddleduster Squint? A strange, translucent, shimmering Fiddleduster, with a furious expression on his cadaverous face?

  I’m hallucinating! Marley thought. As he rubbed his eyes, the apparition seized the iron ladle, grunted, and hit Prince Albion fairly and squarely on the back of his head. Then it was gone. As the prince collapsed, Fiddleduster’s shadow danced around him, waving its arms in glee.

  “What’s he done?” Marley was appalled. “He’ll be thrown into the dungeons! He’ll be there for life!”

  The shadow quivered in front of him. “Not my master, Mr. Bagsmith. Not Fiddleduster Squint. Why, he wasn’t even here! I called on his strength to help me, called on my master to lend me the power of his muscle and bone. And think about it, Mr. Bagsmith, think about it. Whose fingerprints will they find on that ladle? Why, yours! Yours, of course. Who was alone with the prince when he was hit? Why, you! You, and you alone!”

  Marley went very pale. “But it wasn’t me,” he began. “It was you —”

  “Me? You think you can say it was me?” the shadow mocked. “And who can catch a shadow? Nobody. So take him to the Howling Arms before anybody sees the terrible deed that you have done.”

  “But what . . . where . . . what will he do there?” Marley was finding it difficult to speak.

  The shadow looked at him as if he was deranged. “He’ll hear my master play. Then all will be well. Now, hurry! Hurry!” It circled Marley as if to encourage him. In doing so, it came closer to the shed, and for a moment the anxiously watching Gracie thought the shadow had seen her, as it made a sudden sharp zigzag away. It made no comment, however. Instead it continued to urge Marley to hurry, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  “Phew! I thought that horrible thing had spotted me,” she whispered.

  Marlon made a faint noise of disagreement. “Knows you’re here, kid,” he said. “At least, it felt something. Blast of Trueheart, maybe. Better get out sharpish.”

  Gracie was watching Marley manhandle the comatose form of Prince Albion into a wheelbarrow. He then looked around, evidently wondering how best to hide the prince, but instead of searching in the shed, he settled for his own coat and a selection of cabbages. A moment later he was wheeling the barrow away in as nonchalant a fashion as he could manage.

  “Okey-dokey, kiddo,” Marlon said. “Now’s your chance to make a run for it!”

  “Make a run for it?” Gracie was pulling on a pair of mismatched rubber boots from a pile heaped in a corner. “Make a run for it?” She sounded astonished. “I can’t do that. I’ve got to follow them and make sure Albion’s all right. That shadowy thing is evil. Really evil.” She shivered. “I can feel it.”

  “Told you, kiddo. You felt it, and it felt you.” Marlon flew a swift circle. “Sure you want to follow it?” He saw Gracie’s face and chuckled. “That’s my girl. Trueheart through and through. I’d better be offski —”

  “Off?” Gracie was startled. “Off where?”

  “Fetch young Marcus. See you, kiddo . . .” And Marlon looped out of the window and was gone.

  Gracie looked after him. She was conscious of a feeling of relief, but butterflies had suddenly appeared in her stomach. “Don’t be stupid, Gracie Gillypot,” she told herself. “Marcus loves adventures, and it doesn’t matter a bit what he thinks about me. Marlon’s quite right. I need him. I can’t cope with Prince Albion on my own . . .”

  Auntie Vera fluttered down beside her. “Don’t you worry, dearie,” she said. “I’ll come with you. I may be an ancient old bat, but I can take a message if you need me to. And that nephew of mine’ll be back with your young man in no time at all.”

  “He’s not . . .” Gracie began, and then stopped. Was Marcus her young man? She stood up and took a long deep breath. “It doesn’t matter,” she decided. “It doesn’t matter at all right now. What matters is finding out what’s happening to poor Albion!” And she opened the shed door and stepped outside.

  The earth was shaking. Rocks and stones tumbled in all directions, and rabbits skittered for the safety of their holes. Trees rocked and lurched, and bushes were uprooted and flung to one side as if they were nothing more than wastepaper.

  “OUT,” rumbled a voice. “OUT. MEGGYMOULD, ARE YOU THERE?”

  “ON MY WAY.” The answer was somewhat muffled, and a flurry of dead leaves was flung high into the sky. “LEAVES IN MY MOWF. HOOOF! THERE. DAT’S CLEARED DEM.” There was another landslide from the far side of the hol
low, and a giant slowly emerged wiping his mouth. Slowly and creakily, he pulled himself up to his full height, stretched his arms, and gave a wheezy groan. “STIFF, I AM. DE OLD BONES IS ACHING. HOW IS YOU?”

  A second giant was rolling himself out from under a counterpane of green turf studded with astonished daisies. “I IS GOOD. OOOF! SUN IS VERY BRIGHT! WHERE LOVELY TRUNKLY?”

  “I HERE TOO,” said a third voice, and the last hillock fell into a scumble of loose stones as a giantess sat up. “HAPPY HUNDREDS, GREATOVER. HAPPY HUNDREDS, MEGGYMOULD. IS I AS PRETTY AS WHEN I WENT TO SLEEPY-BYES?”

  “YOU IS MORE PRETTIER THAN EVER,” Greatover told her. “UMPH! HAVE A RUMBLY IN MY TUMBLY!”

  “ME TOO,” Meggymould agreed. He looked around, rubbing the soil off his enormous arms. “WHAT DINNER SHALL HAVE?”

  Trunkly was helping Greatover extract a gorse bush from his beard. “EGGSIES!” she said. “TRUNKLY WANTS EGGSIES FOR HER DINNER!”

  Meggymould took a couple of tentative steps first one way, then the other. “MY FEETS IS PINS AND NEEDLING.”

  “YOU NEEDS DANCING,” Trunkly told him. “LIKE THIS!” She flung out her arms and stamped around in a circle.

  The rabbits shook in their burrows, and thousands of birds flew up from the trembling trees of the forest. The waters of a nearby pond swirled and splashed, and far away in the House of the Ancient Crones, Val clutched at her teacup as it rattled in its saucer. “Whatever’s happening?” she gasped. “Is it an earthquake?”

  The Ancient One watched her plate quiver in front of her. “Possibly. But I think it’s much more likely that the giants are awake. Trunkly’s still young, and she likes to dance. Better make sure the china’s stacked properly for the next few weeks.”

  Even as she spoke, a large jug jiggled its way to the edge of a shelf, hesitated, then crashed to the floor.

  “Bother,” Edna said. “I was fond of that jug. It belonged to my mother. Oh, well. Better sweep it up. Have you finished your breakfast, Val?”

  Val was still staring at the tidal waves in her cup of tea. “How far away are they?” She sounded nervous. “The giants, I mean?”

  Edna laughed. “At least ten miles. Maybe farther. I don’t know exactly where they settled for their last hibernation.”

  “And how long will they dance for?”

  “Not long. They’re too big. Just walking wears them out. That’s why they spend so much time asleep.” Edna picked up a broom and began sweeping away the broken bits of china. “It’s sad, really. There used to be hundreds of giants, and they were never any trouble. They just wandered about, then slept, then wandered again. But with the coming of the Five Kingdoms, their traditional paths were interrupted, and they lost heart. They’re the simplest of creatures, you know. They can’t understand why the people of the Five Kingdoms don’t welcome them and love them, but they’ve gradually accepted that they must stay away.”

  Val looked scandalized. “But they’d destroy the kingdoms if they came anywhere near! Look at your jug! All the buildings would collapse!” She glanced up at the ceiling, where the spiders were rapidly reinforcing their webs. “And what about our house? We’re ever so much nearer!”

  The Ancient One put down her broom. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the house moves about such a lot? Why the doors are always sliding up and down the corridor, and the mailbox is sometimes on the roof? It’s so we can withstand any amount of Trunkly’s dancing.”

  “Oh.” Val did not sound particularly reassured, but as the tea in her cup had now calmed, she finished it quickly. “How many of them are there?”

  “Only three.” Edna’s voice was sad. “Meggymould, Trunkly, and Greatover. And when they go, there’ll be no more. They’ll be mountained, like all the old ones.”

  Val stared. “What do you mean?”

  “The bigger they grow, the slower they get,” Edna explained. “And eventually they get so enormous, they can’t move at all. So they go to sleep, as usual, but instead of waking up every hundred years, they go on sleeping . . . and eventually they turn into hills or even mountains.” She pulled a hankie out of her pocket and wiped her eye. “Umbleton didn’t wake up last time, and he was a good friend of mine. We used to talk about the old days — the days before the Five Kingdoms. There aren’t many of us left who remember.”

  “Hmm.” Val remained unconvinced. “Well, as long as they don’t decide to go thumping about too near here, I suppose it’s all right. How long until they go back to sleep again?”

  Edna began tidying up the breakfast things. “It depends. Maybe a week, maybe a month. They need to eat, and they need to find another comfortable resting place.” She saw the expression on the Youngest’s face. “It’s nothing to be frightened of, Val. They eat leaves and birds’ eggs and berries, not humans. And they’ll probably wander even farther away this time.”

  “If you say so.” Val got up from the table and yawned. “I’d better go back to the looms. Only three more cloaks to go, thank heavens. Although one of the finished ones does look as if someone’s been eating toast all over it.”

  “That’ll be Foyce,” Edna said. “I’ll have a look at it. Did Alf go off all right this morning?”

  Val nodded. “Bright as a button. Dying to see Gracie again.” She gave a sentimental sigh. “They do love our Gracie, those bats.”

  “Hardly surprising,” the Ancient One said. “Now, we’d better get busy. Elsie’s been working at the web for hours. She’ll be needing her breakfast. And so will her chickens.” She led the way to room seventeen. “Here we are, Elsie! I’ve left the kettle on for you. How’s the web looking?”

  Elsie slid off her stool and stretched. “Much as before,” she reported. “Rather more lumps and bumps, perhaps, but they’re a long way off. Nothing suspicious, I’d say. Oh, and Foyce isn’t up yet. Do you want me to call her?”

  The Ancient One shook her head. “Let her sleep a little longer. She’s been doing better recently. We’ll make a crone of her yet.”

  Val snorted. “Hmm. She’s always picking on Gracie.”

  “Of course she does,” Edna said calmly. “She’s got years and years of unpleasantness and wickedness to be undone, and she’s hardly been here five minutes. Look how long it took you, Val dear.”

  Val sat herself down at the loom without another word. Her previous life as thief, liar, and all-around criminal was not something she liked to be reminded of. She picked up the shuttle loaded with red wool and got on with her weaving.

  Breakfast in the Royal Palace of Gorebreath had not been a happy meal. King Frank had glowered at Marcus from behind his newspaper, and Queen Mildred’s attempts to broker some kind of truce had fallen on deaf ears. She had now taken the king away to get ready for a visit to Dreghorn, leaving Prince Arioso to try and cheer Marcus up.

  “Come on,” he cajoled. “Come and visit Nina-Rose with me.” He blushed. “She’s pretty enough to make any chap feel better. And her sisters will be there too. It’ll be splendid fun! I know Father’s looking a bit glum, but he’d be delighted if you came with us.” He gave his twin brother a sideways look. “Father really likes Marigold, you know.”

  “Marigold?” Marcus was appalled. “But she’s GHASTLY! She hasn’t got a brain in her head! Besides, isn’t she best friends with Vincent? They’re about as daft as each other.” He pulled irritably at a button on his jacket, and it fell on the floor. “And what do you mean — Father would be delighted?”

  Arry picked up the button and tidied it neatly into Marcus’s pocket. “Well . . .” He hesitated. “I think he thinks it might be rather nice if . . . I mean, there’s me and Nina-Rose. We’re practically engaged. Wouldn’t it be fun if you and Marigold got together as well?” Arry gazed into space, a fatuous smile spreading across his handsome-but-somewhat-vacant face. “I say! Maybe we could even have a double wedding one day . . .”

  “WHAT?” Marcus sprang to his feet. “Marry Marigold? I’d rather marry a . . . a . . . a bluebottle! It’d have more sense
, that’s for sure. Besides, what about Gracie? I like her a million trillion times better than any other girl I know. If I have to marry anyone, I’ll marry her.” He stopped, surprised at his own words. Did he mean what he had said? He found that he did. In fact, he was pleased that he did.

  His brother picked up a spoon and put it down again. “I’m sure Gracie Gillypot’s a splendid girl, but . . .” He did his best to be tactful. “But do you think she’d fit in with darling Nina-Rose? And Mother and Father? Isn’t she a bit . . . different?”

  Marcus scowled. “Yes,” he said. “She is different. That’s exactly why I like her. Honestly, bro, surely you know by now how much I hate all this royal puffing and huffing and speechifying.”

  Arry looked at Marcus, trying to understand his frustration. He was not a clever young man, but he was genuinely fond of his twin. At last, with a most unusual flash of intuition, he said, “You know what? I know why you like Gracie! It’s because you’re different too.” He nodded, pleased with himself. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Phew.” Marcus smiled for the first time that morning. “Well done, bro. Yes. You’re right . . . but what do I do about it? Nobody ever listens to me or takes any notice of what I want. Father’s mad at me for ruining your day yesterday, and I’m really sorry about that, but it just shows the sort of guy I am. Useless at being royal. And now I’m stuck here when I really want to go and get Glee from the House of the Ancient Crones, and I ought to see Gracie to . . . to sort out a few things.” He paused and rubbed at his already-untidy hair. “I think she might be a bit fed up with me, actually.”

  Arry, who suffered regularly at the hands of the highly demanding Nina-Rose, looked wise. “Girls are like that, you know. Tell you what! Take her some flowers. Works like a charm.” A recent confrontation with his beloved floated into his mind. “Of course, diamonds work best of all. Why don’t you take her a pretty bracelet? Or a brooch?”