'Er . . . no, don't be ridiculous, it's just a trick. I couldn't possibly—'
'Guards!' shouted King Septimus. 'Hold him!'
Before Sebastian could make a move, two brawny soldiers had run onto the stage and grabbed his arms. He struggled helplessly in their grasp.
'Your majesty,' he gasped. 'I can explain!'
'I don't think there's any need to explain,' snarled King Septimus. 'You told me, in front of all these witnesses, that you would send the princess away to some magical world and it would seem you have done exactly that. Now I demand that you return her at once.'
'I . . . I can't,' cried Sebastian. 'I don't know where she's gone!'
At this, there was an outcry in the room. Everyone was up out of their seats and shouting at the tops of their voices. Among the cries Sebastian heard several voices yelling for the king to 'burn the witch'! He glanced hopefully around the room, thinking that somebody must have realized that Magda was involved; but then he realized that they were actually shouting about him.
'But . . . I'm no witch!' he protested. 'This is ridiculous. You've got to let me explain—'
'Take him to the dungeons!' roared King Septimus. 'We'll see if the palace torturers can discover the truth.'
Sebastian tried to protest but the two brawny soldiers began to drag him away through the crowd. As he was propelled along, people stepped forward to spit at him or launch blows at his helpless figure. He realized with a dull sense of shock that it was all over for him. In the space of a few hours he had gone from hero to zero – and worse still, with Cornelius away on a mission and Max shut up in the royal stables, there was nobody here to help him.
Just before the soldiers dragged him out of the door, he saw Magda standing watching him, a satisfied smile on her ugly face. He opened his mouth to shout at her but a huge fist struck him in the forehead, stunning him, and by the time he had recovered himself, the soldiers were already dragging him down the stairs towards the gloom of the dungeons.
CHAPTER 21
THE AWFUL TRUTH
Phantom sped along beneath the stars, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. Cornelius was hunched forward in his saddle, his teeth gritted against the terrible pain in his shoulder. He still had a good distance to cover and would have given anything to stop and rest for a while.
But he was sure now that something was terribly wrong and was determined not to stop until he was back in Keelson. He slapped the reins against the pony's flanks, willing her on to even greater efforts, as her nimble hooves ate up the distance between her and Sebastian.
Princess Kerin seemed to be rising slowly up from deep below the surface of a pool of warm water. Her head broke the surface and she opened her eyes, but at first everything was a blur. Then her surroundings came sharply into focus and she realized that she was sitting on a chair in a deserted cellar room.
No – not deserted. Somebody was sitting a short distance away from her, a dirty, brutish man with a stubbled chin and a shock of greasy black hair. She recognized him as Golon, the master of the king's dungeons. She tried to get up out of the chair but realized that she was tied into it, and she fell back with a gasp of frustration. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the last threads of sleep and struggled against the rough cords that bound her arms to the chair. Golon noticed her and gave her an oily, gap-toothed grin.
'Calm down, Princess,' he told her. 'No need to get all excited. You just sit quiet and wait.'
'What . . . what's going on?' she asked him. 'Why am I tied like this?'
'Just following orders, your highness. It's nothing personal.'
Now she realized that she was wearing a filthy, ragged dress, the kind of thing that a servant girl might wear.
The full indignity of what had happened hit her like a clenched fist. 'How dare you!' she cried. 'Release me at once! When my uncle learns of this outrage, he'll—'
'Your highness, it was your uncle who issued the orders,' said Golon bluntly. 'He also gave me permission to keep you quiet by any means I choose.' He leaned threateningly towards her, his expression grim, his big fists clenched. 'So I would shut up if I were you. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to wear a gag.'
Princess Kerin opened her mouth to reply, but after a moment's hesitation she closed it again. Her eyes filled with tears of indignation. She could do nothing for the moment but sit there and watch as Golon strutted around the cell, enjoying his power over her. She realized with a dull sense of shock that Sebastian had been right to question her uncle's motives.
After what seemed an age, the door opened and two figures entered the room. Uncle Septimus strode in first, a sardonic smile on his face. Behind him walked a huge, cruel-looking man with a shaven head and a long drooping moustache. He wore the fur robes and animal-hide trousers of a Brigand and he was looking down at Princess Kerin with a malevolent grin on his face.
'Uncle Septimus!' cried the princess, still trying to convince herself that this was some kind of ghastly mistake. 'What's going on? Golon says that this has been done on your orders.'
'That is correct,' said King Septimus coldly.
'But . . . why?'
'Why?' King Septimus threw back his head and gave a mocking laugh. T should have thought that would be perfectly apparent, even to a dull-witted creature like you. Did you really think that I was going to hand over the keys to the kingdom to a brat such as yourself? That I would happily trade in the power and might of a monarch and go back to being your official wet-nurse?'
'But . . . it was always understood . . . that I would be Queen.'
'Understood . . . but not accepted. It has always been my destiny to rule Keladon. And I will not allow anything or anyone to stand in my way.'
'But . . . I'm your niece! Surely you would not harm a member of your own family?'
King Septimus gave her a silky smile. 'Why not? It hasn't stopped me before, has it?'
Princess Kerin's eyes widened in realization. 'My parents!' she gasped. 'You were behind their deaths!'
King Septimus gave her a mocking bow. 'Oh, the croat finally drops!' he said. 'You poor little fool. You must have been the only person in the kingdom who didn't suspect me. But yes, I arranged for their . . . removal.'
'But why? Your own brother and his wife—'
'Because he was a weakling!' snapped King Septimus. 'He was so completely under your mother's influence, he forgot to think and act like a king. He didn't have the first idea what being a monarch was about and he would have steered Keladon into oblivion. Did you know he was thinking of scrapping the system where everybody pays towards the upkeep of the palace? A few years of that and we'd all be living in poverty. So I took steps to remove him; and since your mother would have been quite miserable without him, I made sure that she accompanied him into the next world.'
Anger blossomed in Princess Kerin's chest, a great surge of heat that made it hard for her to find the breath to make her reply. 'You . . . you plunged our kingdom into a war . . . that lasted for years!' she shrieked. 'Thousands of people . . . died because of what you did!'
King Septimus shrugged. 'What do I care about people?' he snarled. 'I became King. Nothing else mattered. And I intend to remain King, whatever the price.'
Princess Kerin felt as though she had been wearing a blind?fold for years and somebody had just removed it. 'Sebastian tried to warn me about you,' she said bitterly. 'And I dismissed his notions. I couldn't see through your lies, but he could.'
'Really? Then isn't it a good job that the elfling will be executed at dawn?'
Princess Kerin shook her head. 'No! You mustn't harm him! What has he done to deserve such a fate?'
'What has he done? What has he done?' King Septimus paced around the cell for a moment, as though mulling the question over. 'I'll tell you what he's done. He interrupted a carefully laid plan to have you captured by Brigands, that's what. He brought you safely back to the palace when I had fervently hoped to learn of your death!'
Fresh tears t
rickled down Princess Kerin's face. 'You must hate me,' she gasped.
'Princess, you have no idea how much,' said King Septimus. 'All these years of having to pretend to be the loving uncle – always smiling, bestowing gifts, granting favours. When what I really wanted was to throttle the very life out of you.'
'But what did I ever do to you?'
The king spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, as if he'd had no choice in the matter. 'You were born,' he said. 'And that made you one more obstacle in my path to power. But now you are completely at my mercy. That wicked jester has used some kind of dark witchcraft to send you into another realm, a world from which you shall never escape. Nobody will ever see you again, Princess. At least, nobody in Keladon.'
'You . . . you are going to kill me?'
The king shook his head. 'That would be too easy on you,' he said. 'A brief moment of pain and then it would all be over. But you see, Princess, such is the enormity of my hatred for you that I want you to suffer. I want you to go on living for years, waking up every morning to the realization of all you have lost. I want you to experience the pain and ignominy of life in the gutter, a world from which your only escape will indeed be death. You will notice that you are dressed for just such an occasion. Allow me to introduce somebody.' He gestured to the big shaven-headed man, who stepped forward with an evil grin. 'This is Kasim, a trader from the slave markets of Brigandia. He specializes in selling human flesh to the highest bidder. I have paid him in advance and told him that you are to enjoy no special privileges. He will put you on the selling platform as some?one of lowly birth, a commoner. This should ensure that whoever purchases you will extract every last bit of work that's in your pampered body. You may last for years like that, washing, cleaning, scrubbing, working your privileged fingers to the bone.'
Kasim nodded. 'She looks strong enough,' he observed. 'And she's not bad looking. I think there will be many who will wish to bid for her.'
Princess Kerin shook her head. 'I . . . I will tell whoever buys me who I really am!' she protested. 'I will offer them a reward if they return me to Keladon.'
'Tell them,' said the king gleefully. 'Offer away! Do you think that anybody in Brigandia will believe you? Particularly when Kasim has warned the buyer that you are a simpleton, given to strange fancies and notions.'
'You . . . you evil brute!' shrieked Princess Kerin. 'You won't get away with this. The people love me – they won't allow this to happen!'
King Septimus gestured to Golon. 'She's beginning to bore me,' he said. 'Send her back to sleep and prepare her for the journey to Brigandia.' He seemed to remember something. 'Oh, one last thing.' He moved closer to her and gave her a mocking grin. 'Happy birthday,' he purred. Then he turned away, laughing.
'No, wait . . .' gasped Princess Kerin. 'Please, I—'
But then Golon's brawny arms came around her shoulders and one hand was clamping the foul-smelling cloth over her nose and mouth. She held her breath as long as she could, but in the end she had no choice but to breathe in the awful fumes. The strange, shuddering emptiness filled her head and she was sinking into the depths for the second time that night.
Slumped dejectedly on a wooden bench in the deepest, dark?est cell in the palace dungeons, Sebastian reflected on his fortunes. It occurred to him that the positive letter he had sent to his mother would not even be a third of the way on its journey yet, and already it was hopelessly incorrect.
His tenancy as resident jester to King Septimus had been woefully short-lived. He hadn't even lasted one full performance, thanks to the wiles of that hideous old crone Magda. If he ever got his hands around her skinny throat, he would ensure that she never tricked another victim as she had tricked him. He thought about how Max had tried to warn him about her and how he had dismissed the buffalope's comments as malicious gossip. But Max had been absolutely right to mistrust her.
And it was blindingly obvious now what King Septimus was up to. As far as the lords and ladies of the court were concerned, he, Sebastian Darke, had used witchcraft to dispose of Princess Kerin. They had seen it happen with their own eyes. It would be useless to protest his innocence and shout that King Septimus had actually kidnapped his own niece. Nobody would believe him for a moment; and it didn't take a genius to work out that he wouldn't be around long enough to do much protesting. The palace executioner was probably already sharpening his axe.
Sebastian swallowed. What was he to do? It was apparent now that Cornelius had been sent away on his 'secret mission' simply to ensure that he was out of the way. Who knew what fate might have befallen him? And off in the luxury of the royal stables, Max had no way of knowing what had happened to his master.
There was nothing to do but sit here and await his fate. He felt like crying, and might have done just that if he hadn't been interrupted by the clanging of an iron door somewhere out of sight. He heard the clumping of feet descending the stone steps from the entrance door, and looking up he saw Golon, the big, brutish dungeon master leading the thin figure of Malthus towards him. The two men exchanged words and the dungeon master turned back, while Malthus approached the bars of Sebastian's cell. He stood there, looking in at Sebastian, a glum expression on his face.
'Well,' he said at length, 'that was quite a debut.'
Sebastian spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. 'What can I say?' he said. 'If you're going to go out, you may as well do it in a blaze of glory.'
'But the things you said! It's as though you had a death wish.'
'Yes, well, that was because I drank some wine that Magda gave me. It must have been drugged.'
Malthus grimaced. 'I wouldn't touch anything that she'd been near,' he observed. 'She's pure evil, that one.'
'A pity you didn't warn me about her earlier.'
Malthus moved closer to the bars and lowered his voice. 'So . . . what did you do with the princess?' he asked.
'I didn't do anything with her! King Septimus obviously had her kidnapped. He must have had somebody hiding behind the curtain.'
Malthus nodded. 'Well, I didn't think you'd really made her vanish,' he said. 'And it isn't exactly a mystery why he'd want her out of the way, is it? Let's face it, when you're the all-powerful ruler of a place like Keladon, you're not going to want to hand it over to a mere girl.'
Sebastian stared at him in surprise. 'Then you . . . you believe me?' he gasped. 'I didn't think you would!'
'Of course I do. I've worked around King Septimus long enough to know that he's an evil and absolutely ruthless man, who'd stop at nothing to get his own way'
Then . . . you'll help me?' asked Sebastian hopefully.
Malthus gave him a sour look. 'Absolutely not. I've no wish to join you tomorrow morning.'
'Tomorrow morning?' Sebastian felt his stomach lurch. 'Why, what's happening tomorrow morning?'
'You'll be making your final appearance, I'm afraid. A double act with Luther, the Royal Executioner. It's what's known in these parts as a touch of the Percivals.'
'I see,' said Sebastian mournfully. He swallowed hard. 'Oh well, I can't pretend I'm surprised.'
'The king is going to have your head displayed at the palace gates as a warning to anyone who dares to oppose him.'
'Yes, well, thanks for—'
T hate it when he does that. The birds come flapping down and peck away at the eyeballs—'
'Yes, yes, that's too much information!' Sebastian gave Malthus a hard look. T can't believe you're just going to walk away and leave me to my fate. I mean, you know I'm innocent . . .'
'Yes, and I'm innocent too. It doesn't mean that the king wouldn't have me boiled in oil if I displeased him. You have to understand, Sebastian, I'm a . . . now, what's the word?' He thought for a moment. 'Yes, that's it. A coward. And I intend to go on living for a while longer yet.'
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools Page 17