‘Indeed I do,’ said the man finally, in a sharp though gentle voice that Allessia instantly found pleasurable. ‘Even the elements recognise you and celebrate your arrival. Just as surely as the Royal Honeybees will do, when I give them leave.’
The man moved away from the doorway and with several long strides came closer.
‘Do you know of my honeybees?’ asked Allessia urgently. ‘For I had to send them away from the cold.’
‘They are safe, My Lady, as now are you. And no one shall ever take you from them again.’
Allessia felt a shiver pass through her and she moved away from the window. How she wished that Lady Camellia was with her still, for she would have known what to do. The tall man before her was clearly a most important person, and there was something compelling about him, something that attracted her in a way she had not felt before. But there was also something about him that cried a warning into her more rational consciousness.
‘Why have I been brought here?’ she asked.
‘From the moment you were given to this world, have you not known your destiny? For I see before you a golden future, waiting only for recognition.’
Allessia stared at the man. ‘I am beginning to get very tired of people telling me who I am, and how wonderful everything will be. I am also getting tired of people not taking any care to answer my questions at all. And I do have them, you know. In fact, I have lots of them. So perhaps I can ask…who are you?’
‘I am Lord Hardknot, the 967th Keeper of the Royal Honeybees, High Lord of the Hives, and the Oneness of All.’
Allessia remembered the day that Camellia had explained to her why they must run away from the Castell Florret. ‘I have been blind, Allessia,’ she had said, ‘but now I see.’ And then she had heard the name of Lord Hardknot, a name that seemed to strike fear into the very air that carried it. But standing here now before the imposing figure, she did not feel afraid. In some strange way, she felt as if she belonged.
‘And what is your name?’ asked Hardknot, to Allessia’s surprise.
‘You do not know my name? And yet you speak to me as if you know who I am? Well, it is no secret. My name is Allessia, and I am the daughter of the noble family Rumball. And before you laugh and tell me they are not my real parents, whatever they may be, they are as close to me as ever parents could be.’
A deafening crash filled the room once more as a lightning strike hit a nearby spire.
‘The Rumballs?’ said Hardknot, with a faint hint of a smile.
‘You know them?’ asked Allessia urgently.
‘I met them once. But I must inform you, they are no longer to be found in this time and place.’
The certainty of her parent’s death fell over Allessia with far greater force than she would have imagined. Though she tried to hide them, tears began to swell in her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
‘What…happened to them?’ she asked.
‘Only that which happens to us all, Allessia, when the time is right. They have gone to a far better place; this I promise you.’ He looked over her head at the storm, as if very far away in his thoughts.
‘There is so much I do not understand,’ said Allessia, fighting to retain her composure.
‘Soon you will know all that there is to know,’ said Hardknot, returning his eyes to her. ‘But for now you must rest. Tomorrow, you will see your Royal Honeybees again. They miss you, as you will have missed them.’
Allessia looked up into Hardknot’s steel-grey eyes, and as she stared she saw distant stars spinning through an infinity of space and time. A part of her wanted to go deeper, to connect fully with the mind within, but something held her back from falling over the precipice.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ said Hardknot, moving closer. ‘No cause in this realm can defeat your purpose. No action can harm you. For your future has already been promised to me, Allessia, and you shall be my Queen.’ And with this he leant forward and kissed her gently on the lips, a gesture taking her by such surprise that she neither accepted nor rejected it.
Hardknot turned and walked away to disappear the way he had come, and when he was gone and the room was empty once more, and despite all that had happened to her, the only thing Allessia could think on was his kiss, and the way it had made her feel.
Chapter 36
By the time Lord Hardknot returned to the Hivedom, the storm had passed. The blackness of a starless night enveloped the City. The Zenjos were waiting for him once more by the light of several torches, a troop of Hivecarls with axes in hand, watching the strange visitors once more for any sign of treachery. Hardknot paid them in gold, the only currency they understood, but as they went to leave he stopped them with a single word. ‘Wait,’ he said, and the small troop turned to face him.
He had not planned the words that began to fall from his lips, but the anxiety still growing unchecked within him, demanded they be said.
‘I sense a hidden danger yet to be recognised,’ he said. ‘I feel it is not of the Church, nor of the Nobility. But neither is its heritage low born.’
‘How then, we know such a danger?’ grunted the chieftain.
Hardknot stared at the Zenjo, perplexed too that one such as he should be concerning himself with such vagueness. But there was no mistaking the feeling circling in the pit of his stomach like a grublite in mud. He saw the surface move, the tell-tale sign of life beneath the glistening goo, but still the offspring would not reveal its heritage. Maybe later, when She came to him, he could learn more, but best not to delay. Now was the time to take action in the temporal sphere.
‘Danger can sometimes defy reason,’ said Hardknot. ‘A threat overlooked, may deliver the final blow.’
‘Maybe,’ answered the Zenjo, plainly unimpressed.
‘Go to those areas of the City close to the City Walls. Seek danger in the shadows. Something tells me you will find it there.’
‘Same price,’ said the Zenjo, already turning as if to leave, and Hardknot nodded.
Hardknot watched the troop depart, his Hivecarls still alert to their every move, and when they had cleared the Hivedom’s gates he gave orders that they be sealed for the night. He had planned to return to the Palace, but on this occasion, something warned him not to do so. His Queen to be would be safe; no threat lay riding in the air for Allessia. But somewhere within the fabric of life that surrounded the very core of his being, he felt exposed. Best to be safe within his own domain until the Zenjos returned with their prey.
Chapter 37
The Shufflers who had made the capture stood quietly in the smoky shadows of Central Mound, watching Ramuth-Pro with sharp-eyed intensity. News of the wealth that had recently been heaped onto one low-born gutterscraper called Shad-Grit, still caused much banter around the fires, but no one knew what the spindly person they had found wandering a muddy track outside the City would be worth, even though it was more than clear from his dress that this was of a person of some nobility.
‘Pencille,’ said High Commander Sideswipe, with obvious disgust, and Ramuth-Pro nodded. Pooter meanwhile stared with some consternation at the slight figure, bound and gagged, shivering from cold, and darting his eyes this way and that with obvious fear. He felt sorry for them, but it was clear that this emotion was in no way shared by his companions. It was the Pencilles that had brought Ramuth-Pro’s family to ruin, and that being the case, Pooter feared for the man’s safety.
Ramuth-Pro walked forward and stared hard into two small pinkish-yellow eyes that became fixed upon him.
‘I shall remove your gag,’ he said slowly, and then he lifted back his cloak and slid from its hiding place his curved selenite blade, ‘but when I have done so, if you utter a single word that displeases me, this shall be your reward. Do I make myself clear?’
Pencille’s eyes blinked and his head nodded several times rapidly.
‘Then, let it be so,’ Ramuth-Pro said, and with that a lightning flash of his blade sliced clean through the gag, a tiny scratch glisteni
ng red where the tip had nicked the pale trembling skin beneath.
‘Well, well,’ said Ramuth-Pro, looking at the wound with some surprise. ‘I am in need of practice.’ He turned to Sideswipe and smiled.
‘I would say your blade has missed its mark, my friend’ said Sideswipe, with a fearful lopsided grin. ‘For he stands before you still, and with his head upon his shoulders.’
Pencille’s eyes darted to Sideswipe then back to the more immediate threat.
‘My name is Wellbourne,’ Ramuth-Pro said, turning his attention to the figure once more. ‘Does this name meaning anything to you?’
Pencille nodded his head earnestly. ‘And I am….a true noble too, sir’ he said, in a shaking voice. ‘And one that has been cwuelly dwagged to this place….’
The words were stopped in an instant as the blade swished through the air once more to come to a stop a hair’s breadth from a thin wobbling throat.
‘You are a Pencille,’ said Ramuth-Pro. ‘The name that destroyed all I held dear.’
There was silence, Ramuth-Pro seeming to fight an instinct to deliver a swift vengeance and Pencille fidgeting nervously before him.
‘Doubtless you live still within the stinking pile of Pencille Manor?’ continued Ramuth-Pro.
Pencille winced, but managed to nod his head.
‘Then you can tell us all that you know of recent events in the City. But take care to speak only the truth. If you speak any words that contradict our own certain intelligence, they will be your last.’
And so Baron Fopley Pencille began to speak as if an awful child dropping his friends into trouble, his face filled with relief as all his pent up frustration at last found a place to go. Words tumbled forth about the ‘monstwous Oblong’ and his ‘wetched plans’ and much ‘evil tweachewy,’ on and on in a stream of invective that even Pooter began to find more than odious.
‘And when did you last see Lord Hardknot?’ Sideswipe demanded at last.
‘By the dead King, and he was as awwogant a man as ever stwode awound. And he plans to steal the Cwown! The Cwown meant for me! He, with his awful bees evwywhere, and his sickly honey. He should be put into a pot and slowly…’
‘The Crown?’ demanded Sideswipe.
‘It is twue!’ cried Pencille, pleased to have a reaction. ‘He will be King Hardknot! He has alweady burnt evewy noble who would have complained, and would have burnt me too. But, hah, he didn’t get the name Pencille added to his dweadful list, for I wan away!’
Pencille’s eyes darted ever more frantically from face to face, even once directly at Pooter.
‘We must discuss this development alone,’ said Sideswipe in a low voice, turning to his companions. ‘For I would not trust this man with any further information.’
‘Twust!’ cried Pencille, unable to contain himself. ‘Who are you to talk to me of twust?’
At this Ramuth-Pro swept his sword back to Pencille’s throat. ‘You shall remain my captive,’ he said, ‘until I have decided what to do with you.’
The gag was replaced, and with his cries of protest muffled, Baron Pencille was dragged from the room.
Both men looked at Pooter, but he remained silent, his face heavy with the gravity of the situation. The young girl, Allessia, was by now certainly a captive of Lord Hardknot, and now the news of his ambition to be King. What could it all possibly mean? He thought on his books and how columns added to single totals, and totals gave forth irrefutable conclusions. If one was accurate, there was no room for error. But before him now lay a situation devoid of figures and correct answers. It was an affair which turned his mind back in on itself, as if a snake biting its own tail.
‘I had been charged by Lord Rootsby of preventing this girl, Allessia, from falling into the hands of Lord Hardknot,’ he said at length. ‘In this, I have failed.’
Sideswipe went to speak, but then did not do so.
‘He warned me that the greatest dangers would await the Kingdom were this to happen,’ Pooter continued, ‘but what these dangers are, or what we might do to overcome them, I have no idea.
‘We must rescue her,’ said Sideswipe, ‘and we must move quickly. With every hour that passes, the task will surely only grow in danger before us. But those that have taken Lord Hardknot’s evil into their souls, will not be easily overcome whilst such a demon breathes. If we are to succeed, we must find a way to destroy him first.’
Ramuth-Pro stared at his friend and then nodded his agreement. ‘Soonest is best,’ he said. ‘Let us make ready and leave.’
Pooter looked at his companions as they gathered what they might need, and what they could carry, for such a hazardous mission; powerful warriors indeed, but so few in number. He looked down at the mud that still filled the lines of his hands and found himself smiling. Somehow it was a relief to know that direct action was to be taken, no matter what the outcome might be. Anything was better than endlessly worrying what was the best thing to do. And if he could only just get back into the City, then after seeing his family once more, surely Lord Rootsby would be waiting to see him too?
They left within the hour, the countless stars that roamed the heavens shielded behind dense clouds and the night as black as a cave. No rain fell, and not even a gentle breeze could be detected carrying the air. The atmosphere lay so heavy that Pooter felt as if unseen hands were pushing him into the ground. Minutes took hours, or that is how it seemed.
Eventually, and from the protection of a clump of rocks, Mr Pooter, High Commander Sideswipe, and Ramuth-Pro, stared at the City walls. Occasionally a vague silhouette could be seen patrolling a battlement, but not a sound could be heard.
‘The ancient Shuffler entrance they have missed is hidden behind deep brambles,’ whispered Ramuth-Pro. ‘If we move slowly and keep our faces turned to the ground, we will not be seen.’
Pooter felt for the edge of the heavy black cloak that each man wore, and wrapped it tightly about him. The aroma of smoke and goose fat clinging to it, seemed oddly comforting, but even that did not stop the myriad of butterflies that took flight as soon as they stepped into open ground. Ahead of him he could just make out the shadow of Ramuth-Pro leading the way. Behind him he knew that the powerful figure of High Commander Sideswipe would be tracking his own steps, followed by six hand-picked Holy Guards. At length, they reached their objective, the cover of dense foliage allowing Pooter to catch his breath and attempt to regain control of his hammering heartbeat.
‘Wait here, Mr Pooter,’ whispered Sideswipe in his ear. ‘Once we have secured the entrance into the City, I will call you to my side.’
Pooter watched as Ramuth-Pro led Sideswipe and the Holy Guards through an opening in the undergrowth and into a narrow tunnel, and then he was alone.
He strained his ears for any sound that might indicate the small group had been discovered, but all remained still and silent. The sky began to clear, the light from billions of stars now adding perspective to Pooter’s more than surreal situation. Quite suddenly his eyes were drawn to a line of shadows moving swiftly along the walls high above him. They were dressed in dark black capes with hoods covering their heads. Even from a distance, it felt to Pooter that he could see bright green eyes staring down like hawks upon a prey, and crossbows primed with vicious barbed bolts. As if in an instant a wave of death was unleashed, and moments later Pooter heard the awful thud of metal against flesh and bone as the projectiles found a mark. Within but a second a further volley of bolts was unleased, and then another, followed by cries of anguish echoing down the tunnel before him.
‘Fall back!’ Pooter heard Sideswipe cry, and as the survivors of the attack thundered by, he saw a bolt buried deep into the High Commanders shoulder. They raced back over the open ground, and when they reached the cover of a small copse, Sideswipe fell to his knees.
‘Zenjo sons of whores!’ he gasped, and one of his huge hands reached for the bolt and pulled it free, the razor-sharp barb extracting a terrible price for such impatience. ‘A curse upon them
!’ he spat, his mouth filling with blood. A Holy Guard immediately set to work to try and stitch the wound, Sideswipe’s curses filling the air, but it was clear to Pooter that the mighty warrior had suffered a terrible injury.
Pooter looked at the men around him. Ramuth-Pro was nowhere to be seen, whilst only three of the six Holy Guards had made it back to safety. He stared back at the thicket, clearly visible in the growing light, but could not detect any movement. Strangely, the City walls were now also completely deserted.
‘I must go on,’ he said on an impulse, and then turned to look at Sideswipe once more.
‘You must, Mr Pooter,’ rasped Sideswipe, through gritted teeth, ‘for more reasons than I know. But I can do…no more to help you.’
‘You have done more than enough, sir,’ said Pooter.
Sideswipe lay back, the pain and loss of blood sapping him of consciousness.
‘You will not lose him,’ said Pooter to the Holy Guard who was tending the wound.
‘I shall do all that is possible,’ replied the guard. ‘But the wound is deep and bleeds within him.’
‘You must find a way!’ snapped Pooter angrily, and the man bowed and went to work once more.
When Pooter arrived back at the thicket, the silence was deafening. The entrance to the City lay through a similar tunnel to the one that he had used to escape, and he bent double to enter its dank embrace. The foul water was deeper and ran faster than before, and it required an effort to wade through it. When at last he hauled himself through an open drain cover and into the City once more, bedraggled, tired, and almost beyond caring as to what might befall him next, he saw the bodies of three Holy Guards, each bristling with bolts. But there was no sign of Ramuth-Pro.
His eyes roamed the deserted streets in the first green light of dawn, searching for movement. The atmosphere was the same familiar City aroma he had known all his life, but this time accompanied by the fear of being alone and in such dangerous circumstances. Every shadow and edge of wall seemed certain to conceal a threat.
The Lords of Blood and Honey (The Kingdom of Honey) Page 28