The Little Secret (17 page)

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Jane would remember it afterwards as the most magical ride of her life. The summer breezes stroked her face. The moonlit landscape was eerily beautiful. Fatilda hummed serenely. Jane felt that the bee had decided to trust her. They rode over woods and fields and hills. They passed over villages and farmhouses. Every so often, Staffa called directions into her ear.

They were flying towards the mountains. Jane recognised these black shapes as the mountains she had seen on the painted box. The scenery became wilder, and more desolate. A cool wind began to whip around them. Fatilda flew higher and higher, over mountain lakes and snowy crags. The two girls shivered with cold.

At last, they saw it — a black fortress built into the rock, with tiny lights blinking in its towers like mean little eyes. It was a terrible place.

“Mother's so-called hunting lodge,” Staffa said.

Jane pulled the reins so that Fatilda hovered in midair (this was an odd and not unpleasant feeling, like sitting on a stationary lawn mower). “What do we do now? How do we get inside?”

“We don't,” Staffa said. “There are too many guards. I'm afraid we have to fly around the tops of the towers to find Quarley — without being seen.”

“But that's impossible! Oh, all right — at least we can die trying!” Jane nudged Fatilda with her toes. The bee rose higher in the air, and they sailed over the top of the great black fortress.

As slowly and quietly as possible, they rode around the high, bleak towers, daring to look in at every lighted window. They glimpsed some very awful things — rooms stacked with skeletons, rooms filled with evil-looking knives and guns, a prisoner being whipped. They also saw a card game and some sort of dancing lesson, but there was not a sign of Quarley.

Staffa was worried. “I do hope Mother hasn't sent him somewhere else! I don't think she'll have killed him yet — but you never can tell with Mother.”

Finally, at the very top of the highest tower, they looked in at a window, and Jane gasped, “There!”

She reined in Fatilda. There was the young king. He was sitting at a wooden table, reading a book by the light of a candle. There was a large metal collar around his neck.

Staffa hissed, “Quarley!”

Quarley nearly jumped out of his skin, but he had the sense not to make any noise. He crept across the room towards them. “Staffa! Jane! What's going on? Where's the man from the Norahs?”

“Hi Quarley,” whispered Jane. “Never mind about all that — someone's going to spot us in a minute. You'd better climb out of the window. I'll try to hold her steady.”

He shook his head. “I can't — Mother had me chained to the wall.” (Jane saw now that he was holding up a thick metal chain, to prevent it from dragging on the floor and making a noise.) “You'll have to get the keys from the guard!”

“Where is he?”

“On his break,” Quarley said, “in the Guards' Social Club, at the very bottom of this tower.”

Fatilda was getting restless. Jane stroked her head more firmly. “Easy, Fatty!”

Staffa asked, “How do we recognize your guard?”

“His name's Speevens, and he has a long red beard, which he wears in two braids. The keys will be hanging in a bunch on his back pocket — but it's too dangerous!”

“I think it's a bit late to worry about that,” Staffa said grimly. “Let's get down there, Jane. We can work out what to do when we're there.”

Jane made the two digs with her heels, and Fatilda plummeted towards the ground so suddenly that Jane's stomach had that left-behind feeling you get in elevators. They landed in a dark yard, closely shuttered, with one small door in the stone wall. Jane and Staffa slid to the ground.

“Ouch!” Jane whispered. “My legs are so stiff!”

She hitched Fatilda to one of the shutters and noticed that her buzz had begun to sputter, like a faulty engine.

“She's tired,” Jane said. “It'll do her good to rest for a minute.” As if she had understood, Fatilda folded her wings in tightly and toned her buzz down to a sleepy murmur.

From behind the door in the stone wall, they could hear shouts and bursts of laughter and glasses clinking, and — more distantly — the sound of singing. Jane suddenly thought of the pub at home, where Dad worked, and swallowed a pang of homesickness so strong that it almost made her dizzy. She had to forget about home, and concentrate on finding Quarley's guard.

She grabbed Staffa's cold hand. “Come on!”

They ran across the yard, and opened the heavy wooden door a couple of inches. There was nothing on the other side except an empty corridor. The two girls crept inside. Two doors stood open. The pub noises, and the singing, were louder now.

Jane dared to look through the nearest door. She saw a big, smoky room full of guards in black uniforms. They sat around rough wooden tables, and serving maids brought them plates of food and big mugs of foaming stuff that looked a little like beer.

“This is impossible!” Staffa whispered crossly. “There's dozens of them!”

Jane whispered, “Just concentrate on the ones with beards.”

There were several men with red beards, and one man with a braided beard, but no one with both. Quickly, knowing that time was running out, Jane and Staffa peeped into the room next door — the room with the singing. A notice on the door said:
CHOIR PRACTICE IN PROGRESS
.

The choir, all prison guards, sat in a group holding their music books. They were singing a song that Jane had heard before.

“The Ballad of Batsindo!” whispered Staffa.

“And he fell down the plughole — so hairy and wide!” roared the choir.

“STOP!” screeched the conductor. “This is supposed to be SAD! Tenors, where were you? Start again, from the top of verse nineteen!”

“Look!” Staffa suddenly nudged Jane. “In the middle of the front row!”

It had to be Speevens. His beard was redder than Jane's hair, and woven into two long braids. He was singing very loudly and seriously.

“I think I can see his keys,” whispered Jane. “What do we do now?”

Staffa frowned. “We can't do anything now — it would be sheer madness. We'll simply have to wait until this choir practice is over, and follow him. Two of us should be able to handle him.”

“He's very big,” Jane said doubtfully. “Should we get heavy candlesticks or something, like people do in the movies?”

“Candlesticks? Whatever for?”

“Well — to hit him over the head.”

“But he's too tall! We won't be able to reach his head!”

Both of them broke into nervous giggles. Jane had to bite the insides of her cheeks to shut herself up. This kind of illegal laughing is amazingly hard to stop, even when you know that it will get you into trouble.

“This is what we'll do,” Staffa said, in a low and steady voice. “Are you listening?”

Jane nodded.

“I can see a flight of stairs — through that little archway thing at the end of this corridor. There appears to be a sort of cupboard under the stairs. We might be able to hide there.”

Jane whispered, “What if it's locked?”

“My dear Jane,” Staffa said, “I am quite prepared to kill anyone who gets in my way. Do you really think I'd worry about breaking a lock?”

“N-no —”

“Come on!” Staffa pulled her towards the archway, and the shadowy flight of spiral stairs. As Staffa had seen, there was a cupboard at the foot of these stairs. It was not locked. Staffa and Jane hastily bundled themselves into a tiny, damp-smelling space. Staffa kept the door open a crack so that she could watch for Speevens when the choir practice was over.

The singing went on for about another ten minutes, which seemed like ages to the two girls. The cupboard was full of mops and buckets. They sat down on two upturned buckets.

Jane asked, “Would you really kill someone?”

“Only if I absolutely had to,” Staffa said. “But I'm not like Mother — I wouldn't do it for fun.”

Jane was very afraid. She didn't think she had ever been so afraid in her life. She whispered, “Will we have to kill that Speevens man?”

In the dusty darkness, Staffa felt for Jane's hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Of course not. Do you remember that day at the Boy Garden, when we ambushed Jon?”

“Yes.” Jane winced with homesickness. “The day he stole my chewing gum. We put my hoodie over his head and wrestled him to the ground — What're you doing?”

“Taking off my jacket,” Staffa said. “Because we're going to do exactly the same thing to Mr. Speevens. We got the chewing gum, and we'll get those keys. We make a great team, you and I.”

Jane immediately felt warmer, and braver. It was true, she thought — she and Staffa made a fantastic team. And if Staffa could keep a cool head, so could she.

The singing stopped. Distantly, they heard the conductor saying, “Thank you, everyone. Same time tomorrow!” And the choir practice was over. Staffa put her eye to the crack in the door, to watch for the braided red beard of Quarley's jailer.

Jane waited impatiently — suppose Staffa missed him in the crowd? She heard the voices and trampling feet of guards passing them in the corridor.

“Here he comes!” hissed Staffa. “He's coming right this way!”

They heard him pause beside the door. They heard his feet climbing the stairs above them, and the ringing of his keys.

“Ready?” whispered Staffa.

“Ready!” whispered Jane.

As quietly and quickly as they could, they ran after Speevens. Staffa threw her jacket over his head, and the tall guard was so shocked that he fell over — just as Jon had done on the day of the chewing gum. Staffa tied his arms, using both their belts (which made Jane's trousers feel rather worryingly loose). Speevens was too dazed to do more than moan, and Jane was rather glad — she didn't really fancy knocking anyone unconscious.

“I've got them!” Staffa waved the bunch of keys. “Back to Fatilda!”

Jane had never run so fast in her life. With her heart in her mouth, she pelted down the winding stairs and along the shadowy corridor, past the door of the guards' pub and out into the yard.

Fatilda lay on the cobbles, a sleeping velvet hump.

“Quick!” Jane said. “Jump on her back while she's crouching!”

Staffa was still not sure about Fatilda. “She's not going to like being woken up!”

The two girls scrambled onto the back of the slumbering bee. Jane saw that the rest had done Fatilda good — she woke with a loud, healthy buzz and flew into the air at the lightest touch of Jane's toes.

Quarley was waiting at the window of his cell. When he saw them, he gasped with relief. “I was sure you'd been caught! What held you up?”

“Choir practice,” said Staffa. “I'm throwing in the keys.”

She threw the keys through the window. Jane, working to keep Fatilda steady, saw Quarley take the keys to the table, to look at them by the light of the candle. She wanted to snap at him to hurry — he was being pretty casual about this, when their lives were hanging in the balance — but he went on calmly searching through the bunch of keys.

“Girls,” he said, “you're both heroines! But why have they sent you into such danger? Where's Gad?”

“Gad's been arrested,” Staffa said. “Jane was the only one who could ride a bee.”

Quarley laughed softly. “When I saw you two out there, I nearly had a heart attack!” He did not look sad anymore, but full of energy and excitement. “Got it!” He unlocked his metal collar and sprang across to the window. “I'll take the bee from here. We're going to the bee farm. You two get behind me, and hold on as tight as you can — we'll be riding like the wind!”

THE BEE FARM

This time, the beeback ride was not so pleasant. Quarley rode Fatilda very fast, through bitter winds, over a stony wasteland. Jane's hands, clutching the back of Quarley's belt, became numb with cold. She was very tired, and very hungry, and her legs were sore with the effort of staying upright in the saddle.

Fatilda suddenly dived down towards a cluster of lights. Jane saw a high fence, and big buildings like aircraft hangars.

Quarley jumped down briskly and helped down the two girls. He tied Fatilda to a wooden post. Jane's legs were so stiff that she could hardly walk.

“It's the king!” a shrill voice cried. “Hurrah! They've done it!” Light poured out of an open door. “Come in out of this wind!”

“Hello, Pippock,” said Quarley. “How are you?”

The sister of Twilly and Narcas bustled out to meet them — this was the sister who worked as the bee farm cook and was engaged to the owner of Fatilda. Pippock's hair was in neat curls under a snow-white cap. She was a very neat person and looked a lot like Mam.

“Oh, Your Majesty — we're all in an uproar! Narcas sent a post fly to warn us! They've all been taken to prison — Mam and Dad and Narcas, and my poor Gad!”