Blackfoot

by W. R. Gingell

  “Let’s put it this way,” Melchior told him, with an entirely sardonic twist to his lips, “with the castle in ruins again, I’m certain at least that it won’t enable Mordion to take over in order to kill us all. Shall we go, children?”

  He didn’t give them a chance to respond: he simply caught Peter by the much-misused collar, Annabel by the wrist, and pulled them after him through silent darkness that opened into light, bright bustle.

  They were on the sidewalk of a paved street that positively seethed with wheeled traffic, and around them was the push and pull of so many pedestrians that it didn’t really surprise Annabel that no one seemed to notice them arrive, even though they made a brief, black patch in the wall that ran alongside the road.

  Peter looked around him in growing excitement. “We really are in the Capital! That didn’t take anywhere near as long as I thought it would! Is it because you used the castle? It must be. Ann, there are street vendors here!”

  “Go get yourself some food, then,” said Melchior, with a weary, avuncular air. He patted his pocket and produced a few thin, folded pieces of paper. Annabel, who was only used to seeing the older, coin-style money, took a little while to realise that it was paper money. Peter obviously had no difficulty in recognising it: he took it with alacrity.

  “There was food in the castle,” Annabel mumbled. “It’s probably going to go bad, now.”

  “I don’t see why you’re so cross, Ann. Look, I’ll buy us all something nice to eat: you’ll like that. Where should we meet, anyway?”

  Melchior pointed to a small office-front across the busy road. “We’ll be in there. Don’t bother to buy breakfast for us: Mr Pennicott will feed Annabel as soon as he knows who she is, and I won’t be around for long enough to eat. Mr. Pennicott will find a place for you both to stay for the time being, too, so there’s no need to worry that you’ll starve.”

  Peter grinned. “I was only larking around about that. I didn’t really think you’d let me starve. Where are you going to go, then?”

  “There’s someone I want to see,” said Melchior, and pulled a reluctant Annabel with him into the terrifying throng of horses, carts and pedestrians. Navigating that successfully, he hove them both through the door he had pointed at. It was a small, orderly office with white-painted windows that let in the light, and small, orderly, white-painted furniture. It looked entirely ordinary. The little clerk looked ordinary, too; he was neither fat nor thin, with no particular features worth remembering.

  Annabel looked at him in dislike and mumbled, “S’prised they didn’t paint you white, too.”

  She didn’t think she’d spoken loudly enough for him to hear, but he looked first surprised and then perhaps amused. “Can I help you, sir? Miss?”

  “Yes,” said Melchior, treading on Annabel’s foot as a warning.

  “Ow,” said Annabel, not quietly. “You stood on my foot!”

  This time the clerk was definitely amused.

  Melchior gave a pained sigh. “I did. It was a vain attempt at subtlety.”

  Annabel sank into the most sullen, blank-faced look she could manage, and stared him down. Somewhere during the transition from castle to outside, or perhaps from outside to Capital, the sticky, burning ball of anger that sat at the back of her throat had turned to an even hotter, stickier misery. She could have dealt with the anger, but the longer that sticky misery sat at the back of her throat, the closer she came to tears. If she could hide behind her most solidly stupid face for just long enough, perhaps she didn’t need to cry.

  “Don’t give me that,” Melchior said. He gave her the nice smile that reminded her of Blackfoot’s purr, but Annabel was now well caught up in her own misery and only stared him down. The smile vanished and Melchior opened his mouth just as Peter crashed into the tiny office, making it far too small simply with the force of his entry.

  “All set?” He looked from Annabel to Melchior, and his brows rose. “No? What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I was just trying to find out,” said Melchior, as Annabel said shortly: “Nothing.”

  She turned her back on them both and sat on one of the white chairs, clutching her fingers together in her lap and staring straight ahead. She could feel scalding tears piling up at the back of her eyes. They made her cheeks too hot, and she could see her reflection in the glass pane across the office; sullen, red and silent. It was useless to try and stop them now, but she could try to hold onto them just a little longer until Peter and Melchior left.

  “Hurry up and go away,” she said to them, watching as her window-double did the same. “You said you were going to go see someone.”

  “We want to see Mr. Pennicott,” Melchior said quietly to the clerk.

  “Mr. Pennicott?” said the clerk, faintly puzzled. “The name is not familiar, sir.”

  “Tell him it’s Melchior,” said Melchior. “I’m sure that will be enough to jog memories.” He left Peter standing by the desk and sauntered over to Annabel. “What’s wrong, Nan?”

  The tears had already started, gliding swiftly in a hot stream down her cheeks. Annabel said in a tight little voice: “There’s nothing wrong. Go away.”

  “You’ve done it now,” said Peter. “She’s not going to stop.”

  His hazel eyes just a little narrower, Melchior asked again: “What’s wrong, Nan?”

  “Go away! You’re going to go away anyway! Leave me alone!”

  “I’m only going for an hour or two,” Melchior said in surprise, “not going away entirely. Not just yet, at any rate. There’s quite a lot to do before you become Queen, of course, so naturally you won’t see as much of me once we’re at the Capital, but I’ll be there just the same.”

  “I don’t want to be Queen!” sobbed Annabel, abandoning all hope of pretending nothing was wrong. “I don’t want to be in the Capital! I don’t want Mr. Pennicott and I don’t want lessons and I don’t want you! I want Blackfoot!”

  Melchior kneeled by the chair, one hand on his leg and the other hovering uncertainly in the air. “Nan–”

  “Go away!”

  “There’s no need to shout, Nan.”

  “Yes, there is! Why did you have to come back? Why couldn’t I keep Blackfoot?”

  “You silly chump, he is Blackfoot!” protested Peter.

  “You,” said Melchior, very quietly and chillingly, “Out!”

  “But you are!”

  “If I have to repeat myself just once more–!”

  “All right, all right, I’m going!” Peter backed away placatingly with his hands up, and exited by the front door to the tinkle of the bell and a protest from the vanilla clerk that all parties should remain in the waiting room and not lollygag in the street.

  Melchior, crouched at Annabel’s feet in an achingly familiar way, said to her sobs: “Nan, it’s still me. I was me when I was in that body just as much as I am now.”

  “No, you’re not!” wailed Annabel, unable even to speak quietly now. “Blackfoot wouldn’t have made me be Queen! He wouldn’t have lied to me and tricked me and left me in the Capital like a parcel of clothes someone ordered!”

  “I’m not going to leave you, Nan.”

  “You will,” Annabel hiccoughed. “You’ll get your next directive and then you’ll go away and find someone else to lie to.”

  Melchior made a small huffing noise that was almost a laugh. “I suppose that’s a not-too-inaccurate description of my life thus far, after all. There’s something you haven’t yet grasped, however: finding the heir and reinstating the monarchy was my last directive– my last. There will be no more directives.”

  Annabel knew much better than that. She said: “They’ll offer you something interesting and twisty and devious, and you won’t be able to say no. And I’ll be stuck in the Capital, or at the castle, being the Queen while you’re being sneaky without me.”

  “What do you want me to do, Nan?”

  “I wanted you to ask me that this morning,” Annabel said. “But you didn’t
. You just brought me here without asking, and looked all top-lofty and wise about knowing what was best for me.”

  Melchior gazed at her for rather a long time, his face impossible to read. At last he said: “I see.”

  Annabel wiped her wet face in the crook of her arm, blotting her swollen face. It felt scratchy and sore, and the tears began leaking again straight away. She would have liked to ask Melchior exactly what it was that he saw, but Peter set the bell on the front door ringing again as he ducked back in.

  “Thought you might like to know,” he said. “Something really quiet is going on at the back of the office.”

  Annabel stared at him in swollen, wet-faced incomprehension, but Melchior rose swiftly.

  “Quiet, you say?”

  Peter nodded. “It’s not strong magic or anything like that, but everything else, all the magic things around it– they’re getting out of the way.”

  “Then we’d best go.”

  “Go?” Annabel looked up at him in sudden hope.

  “Too late now,” said Peter gloomily. “Whoever it is, they’re coming out.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Melchior, seizing Annabel by her grimy, tear-wet hand, and Peter by the equally grimy collar. At the clerk, he said: “Tell Mr. Pennicott that Mordion is disposed of.”

  Then the wall beside them seemed to open, or soften, or perhaps twist, and Annabel found herself looking into the welcome blackness of one of Melchior’s tricky little tunnels…

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Pennicott, blinking at the empty front office. He turned to look at the clerk, who was still gazing bemusedly at the empty space in front of him, and the now-whole wall. “I’m quite sure someone sent for me to tell me that Melchior was back. I’m also quite sure I gave instructions to seal up the office until I could get here.”

  “Sir,” said the clerk, “the wall– it– well, it wasn’t there, and now it’s back again.”

  Mr. Pennicott sighed. “That’s a shame. Did he say when he’d be back? I can’t help feeling that it would be a distinct relief to be able to debrief him.”

  “No, sir. But, sir–”

  “Yes, Campion?”

  “That was really Melchior? The real Melchior?”

  “Well, Campion, since he was gone before I got here–”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Oh! Before he went, he said to tell you that Mordion was disposed of.”

  Mr. Pennicott’s mild eyebrows rose just a little. “How interesting,” he said thoughtfully. “There are a lot of people who will be very glad to hear that. Was that why you sent for me?”

  “No sir,” said Campion. “I’d heard about the Council debacle, of course, but anyone could have said that if they were trying to wriggle in to see you. It’s just that when he was asking me to get you, he used the code word for the Crown–”

  “I see,” said Mr. Pennicott. “Did he, perhaps, have anyone with him?”

  “A sulky little girl and a grubby little boy, sir.”

  “There wasn’t a Caliphan with them, by any chance? Tall, with shifty eyes?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, well,” said Mr. Pennicott. “So Melchior has completed all of his directives at last. I wonder when he’ll come back?”

  “Do you want me to put someone onto finding him, sir?”

  “I shouldn’t bother,” Mr. Pennicott said. “If he’s gone where I think he’s gone, it won’t do any good. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

  “But isn’t he one of ours, sir?”

  Mr. Pennicott smiled primly. “In a manner of speaking, Campion; in a manner of speaking. Let me know when he comes back, won’t you?”

  17

  In the darkness, Annabel heard her tear-snubbed voice mutter: “I can walk by myself.”

  “Of course!” came Melchior’s voice, with great affability. “But perhaps I should point out that one of the last people who ran through one of these without me ended up in two pieces?”

  “Oh.”

  “Stop sulking, Ann,” said Peter’s voice. “I don’t know what you’re making a fuss about. What’s wrong with being Queen?”

  “You be Queen, then!” flashed Annabel. “I don’t want to be! I didn’t ask for a stupid pencil to pick me!”

  “It’s not a pencil, it’s–”

  “I know what it is! Where are you taking us now?”

  “Somewhere pleasant,” said Melchior. “I thought you didn’t want to be in the Capital? Very well, you’re not. Aren’t I nice?”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “That’s rude, Nan.”

  “It’s true, though,” said Peter. “Actually. You lied to us the whole time.”

  “You didn’t even believe I could talk,” said Melchior coolly. “I couldn’t have lied to you if I’d tried.”

  “You–”

  “Do try not to be tedious, Peter,” Melchior sighed. “Nan, if you will tug away from me like that, I’m going to have to end the tunnel spell.”

  Annabel, ignoring him, continued to drag herself determinedly ahead despite the fingers that grasped just as determinedly around her wrist.

  “Very well,” Melchior said, and they stumbled into bright light as the triad blinked startlingly into existence. “We’ll walk the rest of the way. Are you satisfied?”

  This time when Annabel tugged ferociously at the grasp around her wrist, Melchior let her go. Rather more annoyed but no less biting than usual, he said: “I would like to know, Nan, if you’re planning on ignoring me for the rest of the day?”

  “Yes,” said Annabel, and continued to stomp ahead.

  There was a stifled giggle from Peter. “You can’t tell him you’re not talking to him, Ann!”

  “Yes, I can,” said Annabel. “I can do anything I want to do. I’m the Queen. And I didn’t give you permission to speak.”

  “Any more of that and I’ll rub your face in the dirt,” retorted Peter. “You’re not too old to fight, you know!”

  Melchior interrupted Annabel’s heated reply to say even more bitingly: “If you imagine that I’ll stand by while you rub Nan’s face in the dirt, you’re even more ignorant than I’d come to expect.”

  “There’s no need to be so annoyed about it,” muttered Peter, flushing red. “We’d been rubbing each others’ faces in the dirt long before she met you, you know.”

  Annabel cut in on both of them to say coldly: “I didn’t give you permission to speak, either! And you can call me your majesty, if it comes to that!”

  “Nan–” began Melchior, and then said in some wrath: “I’ll rub your face in the dirt. What do you mean by telling me how to address you?”

  Annabel turned and glared at them. From the soft, grassy earth, she scraped up two handfuls of dirt and quite deliberately smeared them on her own cheeks. “There!” she said. “I’ve done it myself! Happy? Shut up and leave me alone!”

  She stomped away again, trying to ignore Peter, who was giggling helplessly behind her as he followed. She was quite sure that Melchior was laughing, too, so she was gloomily unsurprised when he said a little later, in a voice that was suspiciously even: “You’re not your majesty until you’re officially crowned, Nan: your highness is the correct terminology.”

  This time, Annabel didn’t try to reply. Years with both Peter and Blackfoot had taught her that she wasn’t capable of beating them when it came to a war of words: her time in the castle had taught her that she didn’t have to engage to win without words. Rorkin had taught her many things, not the least of which was that silence could also be a weapon.

  So she was silent when Melchior asked, loudly enough to be overheard, if Annabel had always given the silent treatment to those who angered her, and Peter said, both coolly and amusedly: “I don’t know. I’ve never annoyed her this much.” She was silent when Melchior wondered, also pointedly aloud, if she had any idea of where she was going; silent when he resorted to his old trick of calling: “Nan. Nan. Oh, Nan!” after her, as he had done as Blackfoot.

&nbs
p; Before long, Melchior ceased to tease, and behind Annabel a silence grew that felt fully as dangerous as her own. She had begun to feel, in fact, that her choice of weapon was as unfortunate as if she had chosen words, when Melchior overtook her on his long legs and stood in her way.

  “I’m curious, Nan,” he said, and Annabel was taken aback at the anger she heard in his voice. Very little of it showed in his face, unless she counted the thinning of his already thin lips, and that was rather off-putting. “Rorkin imprisoned you in the castle ruins and ran rings around you—kidnapped your best friend, let the castle be taken over bit by bit, allowed you to run into very real danger in pursuance of his plans for you—and you’ve forgiven him with the sunniest of attitudes. May I ask why the same consideration doesn’t extend to me?”

  Annabel stared at him for quite some time. At last, she said: “Your feelings are hurt?”

  “A little, yes. You parted from Rorkin on the best of terms: as a matter of fact, I’ve never seen you kiss someone before. What did I do to you that he didn’t do, worse?”

  “He didn’t comfort me when I was lonely and look after me when there was no one else to look after me,” said Annabel. “He didn’t make fun of me, or shame me into doing things I should do. He didn’t sleep on my pillow for five years and never stop talking at the back of my mind so that– Anyway, he did what he did when he didn’t know me. I trusted you. And it’s no good,” she added, when she saw his mouth open, “it’s no good talking to me about it. I’m angry and there’s nothing you can say, anyway.”

  “I see,” said Melchior again. She couldn’t read the expression on his face. She wasn’t sure about the tone of his voice either, but Rorkin had said that sometimes she wouldn’t know, so that was all right. “Well, I certainly hope you won’t give up talking to me altogether. It will be rather difficult to set up your household staff and parliament if you’re refusing to talk to me the entire time.”

  “I’m not going to be Queen, either,” Annabel said. Rorkin had said there were always choices, and Annabel had already made a third choice where only two were given to her. She hadn’t given up hope that somewhere in all this, she could make another one of those third choices.