Belle looked at Waif. Her face melted into a smile. “What a sweet little creature! But you know what your dad thinks of dogs coming in here. Better leave her in the shop for Timmy to look after. You’ll take care of her, won’t you, Timmy?”
The apprentice made a grudging noise and glowered at Charmain.
“But I warn you, Charmain,” Belle continued in her usual chatty way, “they’re very busy through there. There’s an order on for a special cake. So you won’t stay long, will you? Put your little dog down here and she’ll be quite safe. And, Timmy, I want those shelves cleaned down properly this time, or I’ll have words to say to you tomorrow. Ta-ra, night-night!”
Belle swept out of the shop and Charmain swept past her into it. Charmain did have thoughts of sweeping onward into the bake house with Waif, but she knew Waif’s record with food was not good. So she deposited Waif beside the counter, gave Timmy a cold nod—And he’ll hate me for the rest of his life, she thought—and stalked on alone past the empty glass cases and the cool marble shelves and the clusters of white tables and chairs, where the citizens of High Norland were accustomed to sit for coffee and rich cakes. Waif gave a desperate whine as Charmain pushed open the bake house door, but Charmain hardened her heart and pushed the door shut behind herself.
It was busy as a hive in there, and tropically hot, and full of scents that would certainly have driven Waif mad with greed. There was the smell of new dough and dough cooking, the sweet scent of buns and tarts and waffles, overlaid with savory smells from pasties and quiches, which were all overlaid in turn by strong odors of cream and flavored icing from the large, many-layered cake that several people were decorating on the table nearest the door. Rosewater! Charmain thought, inhaling those scents. Lemon, strawberry, almonds from south Ingary, cherries, and peaches!
Mr. Baker was striding from worker to worker, instructing, encouraging, and inspecting as he went. “Jake, you have to put your back into kneading that dough,” Charmain heard him saying as she came in. And a moment later, “A light hand with that pastry, Nancy. Don’t hammer it, or it’ll be like a rock.” A moment after that, he was off down to the baking ovens at the other end, telling the young man there which oven to use. And wherever he went, he got instant attention and obedience.
Her father, Charmain knew, was a King in his bake house—more of a King than the real King in the Royal Mansion, she thought. His white hat sat on his head like a crown. It suited him too, Charmain thought. He was thin-faced and ginger-haired like she was herself, though much more freckly.
She ran him down by the stoves, where he was tasting a savory meat filling and telling the girl making it that there was too much spice in it.
“It tastes good, though!” the girl protested.
“Maybe,” said Mr. Baker, “but there’s a world of difference between a good taste and a perfect one, Lorna. You cut along and help them with the cake, or they’ll be at it all night, and I’ll have a go rescuing this filling.” He took the saucepan off the flames as Lorna hurried off, looking mightily relieved. He turned round with it and saw Charmain. “Hallo, sweetheart! I wasn’t expecting you!” A slight doubt came over him. “Did your mother send you?”
“No,” Charmain said. “I came by myself. I’m looking after Great-Uncle William’s house. Remember?”
“Oh, so you are,” her father said. “What can I do for you?”
“Er…,” Charmain said. This was hard to say now that she had been reminded what an expert her father was.
He said, “Just a moment,” and turned to search through rows of powdered herbs and spices on a shelf beside the stoves. He selected a jar, uncapped it, and shook just a sprinkle of something into the saucepan. He stirred the mixture, tasted it, and nodded. “That’ll do now,” he said, putting the saucepan down to cool. Then he looked questioningly at Charmain.
“I don’t know how to cook, Dad,” she blurted out, “and the food for the evening comes raw in Great-Uncle William’s house. You don’t happen to have any instructions written down, do you? For apprentices or something?”
Mr. Baker pulled at his freckly chin with his clean, clean hand, thinking. “I always told your mother you’d need to know some of those things,” he said. “Respectable or not. Let’s see. Most of what I’ve got will be a bit advanced for you. Patisserie and gourmet sauces and such. I expect my apprentices to come to me knowing the basics, these days. But I think I still may have some of the elementary, simple notes from back when I started. Let’s go and see, shall we?”
He led the way across the bake house, among the thronging, busy cooks, to the far wall. There were a few rickety shelves there, piled higgledy-piggledy with notebooks, pieces of paper with jam stains on them, and fat files covered with floury fingerprints. “Wait a moment,” Mr. Baker said, pausing by the leftovers table beside these shelves. “I’d better give you some food to go on with, while you’re reading up on it, hadn’t I?”
Charmain knew this table well. Waif would have loved it. On it were any pieces of baking that had not turned out quite perfect: broken tarts, lopsided buns, and cracked pasties, together with all the things from the shop that had not been sold that day. The bake house workers were allowed to carry these home if they wanted. Mr. Baker picked up one of the sacking bags the workers used and began swiftly filling it. A whole cream cake went in at the bottom, followed by a layer of pasties, then buns, doughnuts, and finally a large cheese flan. He left the bulging bag on the table while he searched about on the shelves.
“Here we are,” he said, pulling forth a floppy brown notebook, dark with old grease. “I thought I still had it! This was from when I started as a lad in the restaurant on Market Place. I was as ignorant as you are then, so it should be just what you need. Do you want the spells that go with the recipes?”
“Spells!” said Charmain. “But, Dad—!”
Mr. Baker looked as guilty as Charmain had ever seen him. His freckles, for a moment, were drowned in redness. “I know, I know, Charmain. Your mother would have seventy fits. She will insist that magic is low, vulgar stuff. But I was born a magic user and I can’t help myself, not when I’m cooking. We use magic all the time, here in the bake house. Be a good, kind girl and don’t let your mother know. Please?” He pulled a thin yellow notebook off the shelves and flapped it wistfully. “These, in here, are all plain, simple spells that work. Do you want this?”
“Yes, please!” Charmain said. “And of course I won’t say a word to Mother. I know what she’s like as well as you do.”
“Good girl!” said Mr. Baker. He swiftly slid both notebooks down into the bag beside the cheese flan and passed Charmain the bag. They grinned at one another like conspirators. “Happy eating,” Mr. Baker said. “Good luck.”
“You too,” Charmain said. “And thank you, Dad!” She stretched up and kissed him on his floury, freckled cheek, just below the cook’s hat, and then made her way out of the bake house.
“You lucky thing!” Lorna called out to her while Charmain was pushing open the door. “I had my eye on that cream cake he gave you.”
“There were two of them,” Charmain called over her shoulder, as she went through into the shop.
There, to her surprise, she found Timmy sitting on the glass-and-marble counter with Waif in his arms. He explained, rather defensively, “She was really upset when you left her. Started howling her head off.”
Perhaps we won’t be lifelong enemies after all! Charmain thought, as Waif leaped out of Timmy’s arms, shrieking with delight. She danced about Charmain’s ankles and generally made such a noise that Timmy evidently did not hear Charmain thank him. Charmain made sure to give a great smile and to nod at him as she went out into the street, with Waif frisking and squeaking round her feet.
The shop and bake house were on the other side of the town from the river and the embankment. Charmain could have cut across to there, but it was shorter—with Waif having to walk, because Charmain was carrying the bulging bag—to go along High Street inste
ad. High Street, although it was one of the main streets, was far from seeming that way. It was twisting and narrow, with no sidewalks, but the shops on either side were some of the best. Charmain walked slowly along, looking into shops to give Waif time to keep up, dodging late shoppers and people just strolling before supper, and thinking. Her thoughts were divided between satisfaction—Peter has no excuse now for making any more horrible food—and amazement. Dad is a magic user! He always has been. Up until then, Charmain had felt a lot of hidden guilt at the way she had experimented with The Boke of Palimpsest, but she found that had gone now. I think I may have inherited Dad’s magic! Oh, great! Then I know I can do spells. But why does Dad always do what Mother says? He insists on me being respectable as much as Mother does. Honestly, parents! Charmain found she was feeling very jolly altogether about this.
At this point there was a tremendous clatter of horse hooves coming up behind her, mixed with rumbling and deep shouts of “Clear the way! Clear the way!”
Charmain glanced round and found riders in some kind of uniform filling the street, coming so fast that they were almost on top of her already. People on foot were flattening themselves against shops and walls on either side of the street. Charmain whirled round, reaching for Waif. She tripped over someone’s doorstep and half-knelt on the bag of food, but she got Waif and managed not to drop the bag. Holding Waif and the bag in both arms, she backed against the nearest wall, while horses’ legs and men’s feet in stirrups pounded past in front of her nose. Those were followed by a whole string more of galloping horses, shining black ones in long leather traces and a whip cracking across their backs. After them a great colorful coach thundered by, glinting with gold and glass and painted shields, with two men in feathered hats swaying on the back of it. This was followed by yet more uniforms on horses, galloping deafeningly.
Then they were gone, away down the street and round the next bend. Waif whimpered. Charmain sagged against the wall. “What on earth was that?” she said to the person flattened against the wall beside her.
“That,” said the woman, “was Crown Prince Ludovic. On his way to visit the King, I suppose.” She was a fair and slightly fierce-looking lady, who reminded Charmain just a little of Sophie Pendragon. She was clutching a small boy, who might have reminded Charmain of Morgan, except that he was not making any noise at all. He looked to be shocked white, rather the way Charmain felt herself.
“He ought to know better than to go that fast in a narrow street like this!” Charmain said angrily. “Someone could have been hurt!” She looked into her bag and discovered that the flan had broken in half and folded up, which made her angrier than ever. “Why couldn’t he have gone down the embankment, where it’s wide?” she said. “Doesn’t he care?”
“Not a lot,” said the woman.
“Then I shudder to think what he’ll be like when he’s King!” Charmain said. “He’s going to be dreadful!”
The woman gave her a strange, meaningful stare. “I didn’t hear you say that,” she said.
“Why?” asked Charmain.
“Ludovic doesn’t like criticism,” the woman said. “He has lubbockins to enforce his feelings. Lubbockins, you hear, girl! Let’s hope I was the only one who heard what you said.” She heaved the little boy higher in her arms and walked away.
Charmain thought about this as she trudged through the town with Waif under one arm and the bag pulling at the other. She found herself hoping hard that her King, Adolphus X, would go on living for a very long time. Or I might have to start a revolution, she thought. And, my goodness, it feels a long way to Great-Uncle William’s house today!
She got there in the end, however, and put Waif down thankfully on the garden path. Indoors, Peter was in the kitchen, sitting on one of the ten bags of laundry, staring moodily at a big red slab of meat on the table. Beside it were three onions and two carrots.
“I don’t know how to cook these,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” Charmain said, dumping her bag on the table. “I went to see my father this evening. And here,” she added, fishing out the two notebooks, “are recipes and the spells that go with them.” Both notebooks were rather the worse for flan. Charmain wiped them on her skirt and handed them over.
Peter brightened up wonderfully and jumped off the laundry bag. “That’s really useful!” he said. “And a bag of food is better.”
Charmain unpacked bent flan, broken pasties, and squashed buns. The cream cake at the bottom had a knee-shaped dent in it, and it had oozed into some of the pasties. This made her angry with Prince Ludovic all over again. She told Peter all about it while she tried to reassemble the pasties.
“Yes, my mother says he’s got the makings of a real tyrant,” Peter said, a little absently, because he was flipping through the notebooks. “She says that’s why she left this country. Do I do these spells while I cook the food, or before, or after, do you know?”
“Dad didn’t say. You’ll have to work it out,” Charmain said and went away to Great-Uncle William’s study to find a soothing book to read. The Twelve-Branched Wand was interesting, but it made her feel as though her mind had broken into a hundred little pieces. Each branch of the Wand had twelve more branches growing out of it, and twelve more from each of those. Much more, and I’d turn into a tree, Charmain thought as she searched the shelves. She chose a book called The Magician’s Journey, which she hoped would be an adventure story. And it was, in a way, but she very soon realized that it was also a step-by-step account of how a magician learned his skills.
This set her thinking again of how Dad had turned out to be a magic user. And I know I’ve inherited it, she thought. I learned to fly and I mended the pipes in the bathroom, all in no time. But I ought to learn how to do it smoothly and quietly, instead of shouting and bullying things. She was still sitting, pondering this, when Peter yelled to her to come and eat.
“I used the spells,” he said. He was very proud of himself. He had warmed up the pasties and made a truly tasty mixture of the onions and carrots. “And,” he added, “I was quite tired after a day of exploring.”
“Looking for gold?” Charmain said.
“It’s the natural thing to do,” Peter said. “We know it’s somewhere in this house. But what I found instead was the place where the kobolds live. It’s like a huge cave, and they were all in there making things. Cuckoo clocks mostly, but some of them were making teapots, and some more were making something like a sofa near the entrance. I didn’t speak to them—I didn’t know if they were in the past or nowadays, so I just smiled and watched. I didn’t want them angry again. What did you do today?”
“Oh, goodness!” Charmain said. “It was quite a day. It started with Twinkle out on the roof. I was so scared!” And she told him all the rest.
Peter frowned. “This Twinkle,” he said, “and this Sophie—are you quite sure they’re not up to something sinister? Wizard Norland said fire demons were dangerous beings, you know.”
“I did wonder,” Charmain admitted. “But I think they’re all right. It looks as if Princess Hilda has called them in to help. I wish I knew how to find what the King is looking for. He got so excited when I found that family tree. Did you know that Prince Ludovic has eight second cousins, mostly called Hans and Isolla, and nearly all of them have met with sticky ends?”
“Because they were all bad lots,” Peter said. “My mother says that Hans the cruel was poisoned by Isolla the murderess, and she was killed by Hans the drunkard when he was drunk. Then that Hans fell downstairs and broke his neck. His sister Isolla was hanged over in Strangia for trying to kill the lord she married there—How many am I up to?”
“Five,” said Charmain, quite fascinated. “Three to go.”
“Those are two Matildas and another Hans,” Peter said. “Hans Nicholas, that one was, and I don’t know how he died, except that he was somewhere abroad when he did. One of the Matildas was burned when her manor house caught fire, and they say the other one is such a d
angerous witch that Prince Ludovic has her shut up in an attic in Castel Joie. Nobody dares go near her, not even Prince Ludovic. She kills people just by looking at them. Is it all right that I gave Waif that lump of meat?”
“Probably,” said Charmain. “If she didn’t choke. How do you know all about these cousins? I’d never heard of them before today.”
“That’s because I come from Montalbino,” Peter said. “Everyone at my school knows all about the Nine Bad Cousins of High Norland. But I suppose that in this country neither the King nor Prince Ludovic want it to get about that their relatives were so vile. They say Prince Ludovic is as bad as the rest too.”
“And we’re such a nice country, really!” Charmain protested. She felt quite hurt that her own High Norland should have given birth to nine such awful people. It seemed hard on the King, as well.
Chapter Twelve
CONCERNS LAUNDRY AND LUBBOCK EGGS
Charmain woke early the following day, because Waif stuck her small cold nose into Charmain’s ear, obviously thinking they needed to go to the Royal Mansion as usual.
“No, I don’t need to go!” Charmain said crossly. “The King has to look after Prince Ludovic today. Go away, Waif, or I may turn into an Isolla and poison you! Or a Matilda and do evil magic at you. Just go!”
Waif pattered sadly away, but Charmain was awake by then. Before long she got up, soothing her crossness by promising herself that she would spend a fine, lazy day reading The Magician’s Journey.
Peter was up too and he had other ideas. “We’re going to do some of this laundry today,” he said. “Have you noticed that there are ten bags of it in here now and ten more in Wizard Norland’s bedroom? I think there may be ten in the pantry as well.”
Charmain glowered at the laundry bags. She could not deny that they filled the kitchen up, rather. “Let’s not bother,” she said. “It must be those kobolds doing it.”
“No, it isn’t,” Peter said. “My mother says that laundry breeds if you don’t wash it.”
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