Faerie Wars 02 - The Purple Emperor (4 page)

'When is it - the Coronation?' he asked.

'Two weeks - it's a Saturday here. The celebrations last three days, but you'll need to come on the Friday for a rehearsal.'

Henry's excitement popped like a balloon. He might get away from his mum overnight, arrange with his friend Charlie to pretend he was staying there for the night, but four days was out of the question. 'I can't get away for four days.'

'You doing something, or just worried about your parents?'

'No, I'm not doing anything. I mean, if I was I'd put it off. It's my parents - well, just Mum, actually. I don't see that much of Dad.' He realised suddenly that with being away so much Mr. Fogarty wouldn't know his circumstances. 'I'm just living with Mum now - Dad has his own place. She'd want to know where I was if I disappeared for four days.'

Fogarty shrugged. 'No problem - we'll use a lethe.'

Henry blinked. 'What's a lethe?'

'Makes you forget. You just swan off when you need to, crack a cone under her nose and she won't even remember she has a son until you come back. Anybody else in the house?'

'My sister Aisling,' Henry said, his eyes wide. He'd seen spells worked in the Faerie Realm, but it had never occurred to him he might actually use one himself.

'I'll get you a box: never know when they come in handy. You'll have to use one for each of them. Just be sure to hold your breath until you're out of the room.'

'Thank you,' Henry said. There was a warm feeling in his stomach at the thought of hexing his sister.

'So I tell Pyrgus you're coming?'

Henry nodded enthusiastically. 'Yes.'

Fogarty said, 'OK. The second thing is, I've decided to stay on permanently.'

'Here?' Henry asked. He had mixed feelings, but overall it was mostly relief. Since Pyrgus had made Mr. Fogarty Gatekeeper of the Faerie Realm - hard to believe that was only a few weeks ago - the old man had split his time between the Purple Palace and his own home. While he was away, Henry kept an eye on the house and fed Hodge. But lately, Mr. Fogarty had taken to spending longer and longer periods in the Realm and Henry didn't know how he was going to manage when he went back to school in September. As it was, things were tricky enough: his mum didn't approve of Mr. Fogarty.

Fogarty shook his head. 'No, in the Realm. Like I said, everything's fine on the surface, but nothing's changed underneath. Hairstreak still has his own agenda, however much he talks about building bridges. Pyrgus isn't any good at politics - doesn't have the interest. And he's a trusting soul. Thinks if somebody tells him something it's usually the truth. If he's going to survive as Emperor, he needs me to look after him. Far as I can see, that's going to be a full-time job.'

'Yes ... ' Henry nodded thoughtfully. Mr. Fogarty was probably right. Apart from anything else, Pyrgus was terribly young to be an Emperor - much the same age as Henry, in fact. Then he caught Mr. Fogarty's expression and said, 'There's something else, isn't there?'

Fogarty sniffed. 'Not as stupid as you look, are you, Henry?' He sighed. 'Yes, there is. I'm not getting any younger. If it's really three score years and ten, I'm well past my sell-by date. I've arthritis in my knuckles and I couldn't run fifteen yards from a copper without getting winded these days. Been thinking I might last another five years, maybe ten if I'm lucky, but I found out they've got treatments in the Faerie Realm that could give me thirty - and get rid of the damn arthritis. Except they don't work if I keep popping back and forth. Differences in the two environments, or something. Thing is, once you start the treatments your tolerance to this world drops. I've started the treatments. Longer I'm here, the more dangerous it is for me. So, when I go back this time, I'm staying.'

Henry said, 'But what are you going to do about the house, Mr. Fogarty?'

Fogarty looked thoughtful. 'That's what I came back to sort out.'

For some reason, the gown helped Blue put things in perspective. Although she'd taken it off now and was wearing her familiar blouse and britches, she was no longer feeling nearly so frantic about the Coronation arrangements. Admittedly there was still a lot to do, but there were still two weeks to do it in. And it wasn't really fair to say Pyrgus didn't care. It was just that the whole thing upset him. He'd never wanted to be Emperor and he didn't want to be Emperor now, so he avoided thinking about it. And maybe that was all to the good - Pyrgus was capable of making a mess of nearly anything. Better to leave the arrangements to her - she was good at organisation. It wasn't as if she didn't have as much help as she needed. There were -

She turned a corner of the corridor and walked into her half-brother, Comma. There was something on his lips, something he'd been eating, that had turned them bright scarlet. He'd put on weight quite noticeably since their father died.

'Sorry,' Comma muttered. He glanced behind him as if afraid he was being followed, then gave Blue a forced half-smile. 'You're in a hurry, Sweet Sister,' he said.

She hated it when he called her 'Sweet Sister' and her annoyance made her sharp. 'I've a lot to do.' Comma had been no help at all with the arrangements, and while she was prepared to forgive Pyrgus, all Comma did was make her furious.

'There's somebody waiting for you in your bedroom,' Comma said.

Blue blinked. 'How do you know?' What she really wanted to ask was, What were you doing in my bedroom?

Comma shrugged infuriatingly and started to walk on.

'Who is it?' Blue demanded.

He waved to her without looking back. 'I expect it's one of your clever spies,' he said.

'What have you been eating?' Blue shouted. 'What were you doing in my -' But it was too late. He was already turning down a side corridor.

Seething, Blue stamped off towards her quarters.

There was no one in her bedroom except her cleaning maid. She turned to leave, swearing vengeance on Comma for wasting her time, when a tickling in her mind caused her to pause. Blue's eyes flickered round the room and a tingle of fear crawled down her spine. There was something wrong. For a moment she had no idea what, except it felt like something was out of place.

She mentally checked the furnishings. Nothing seemed to have been moved. She looked across at her dressing table. Everything was neatly in its place. Except for the jewel case that held her psychotronic spider which she'd slipped into a drawer, as she always did before the maid came in to clean - Princess Royal or not, psychotronic spiders were illegal, and fearfully dangerous. They could carry your mind so far from your body that you never got it back again.

So nothing different about the dressing table. Blue let her gaze travel around the walls, checking the pictures, lingering on the portrait of her father, feeling the well-spring of sorrow as she looked into the painted eyes. But nothing had been moved. Nothing had changed at all.

And yet something was out of place ...

Suddenly she had it. The antique chair that sat beside her bed had disappeared. Blue stared for a moment, then said quietly to the maid, 'I'd like you to finish off some other time, Anna.'

'Yes, Your Royal Highness.' The girl dropped a curtsey and hurried out.

Blue moved cautiously towards her dressing table. There was a dagger in one of the drawers. Not that she was likely to need it. There were always guards close by in these troubled times. But close or not, they would take time to reach her and it was always as well to take responsibility for your own protection.

'You can show yourself now,' she said aloud.

There was a shimmering beyond the bed and Blue's chair reappeared. An extraordinary woman was sitting in it.

'Madame Cynthia!' Blue exclaimed.

'My deeah, you must forgive the invisibility - so ill-mannered of me. But I felt it best not to show myself while the servant remained.'

'Yes, of course,' Blue nodded. Cynthia Cardui, the Realm's famous Painted Lady, was a major contact in Blue's private espionage network, but it was astonishing to see her here in the palace. Madame Cynthia was elderly now, long retired from the stage, and seldom ventured far from her Cheapside apartments. 'Are you alone?'

'I fear so. Kitterick is visiting his relatives, otherwise I might have entrusted him with the mission. He's back tomorrow, but I decided I must undertake it myself. The matter is urgent.'

'Urgent?' Blue echoed. She felt an uncomfortable chill.

'My deeah,' said Madame Cardui, 'you must steel yourself. There is a plot afoot.'

Blue walked across and sat on the edge of the bed. She trusted Madame Cardui more than almost anyone else in the world. The old woman was snobbish and eccentric, but her contacts were legendary and her loyalty absolute. If she said something was going on, Blue was prepared to believe it.

'A brutal conspiracy, my deeah,' Madame Cardui went on. 'One would imagine with Lord Hairstreak routed, Brimstone in hiding and that dreadful creature Chalkhill behind bars, one would have nothing to worry about.' She sighed theatrically. 'Alas, no. I have received information of a plan to kill a member of the royal household.'

The unease Blue had felt since she saw Madame Cardui flowered into chill fear. But she held her voice steady. 'Which member?' she asked.

A look of distress crossed the Painted Lady's face. 'That's the problem, I'm afraid - we don't know.'

It was bone gruel again.

Brimstone stared into the cracked bowl and felt his lips dry out. The liquid had the consistency of dishwater, a thin, greyish fluid curdled with lumps of corpse-white gristle that smelled worse than the open sewer outside his window. He looked up at the toothless old crone and scowled.

'It's good for you,' Widow Mormo cackled. 'Keeps your strength up - my late husband swore by it.' She set a dirty spoon beside the bowl and a wedge of rough brown bread beside the spoon. A cockroach scuttled across the rickety table and Brimstone squashed it with his thumb.

'Your late husband probably died from it,' he muttered sourly.

'No need to be like that,' Widow Mormo said sharply. 'I'm a poor woman and I does the best I can on the pittance you pay me.'

Brimstone was paying her a groat a day, which was indeed a pittance, but meals were extra and bone gruel gave him diarrhoea. He'd planned to lay low in these miserable lodgings for at least six months, but now he was wondering if he could survive another six days. Even the threat of a demon prince paled beside Widow Mormo's bone gruel.

The old sow muttered something he didn't catch. 'What?' Brimstone demanded crossly. 'What?' Without a spell to reinforce it, his hearing was going. But the spell he needed was one of the ones he'd been forced to leave behind and he didn't dare go out and buy another. A magical supply shop was the first place Beleth would think of looking for him. Probably had every one in the city staked out by now. A demon prince had huge resources.

The trouble was, it wouldn't end with loss of hearing. Brimstone was ninety-eight years old. Without magical reinforcement, his body would soon start to fall apart. Even with it, he knew he looked his age.

'I said there might be a way to make things a bit more comfortable for you,' Widow Mormo repeated slyly. 'Better food as well.'

'I'm not paying any more,' Brimstone told her promptly. These might be cheap lodgings, but most of his cash fortune had been stolen and all of his assets were beyond his reach. He had a substantial amount of gold about his person, but he'd no idea how long it might have to last. Demons had long memories. He might have to stay in hiding for years.

To his intense discomfort, the old bag pulled up a chair and sat beside him. He wrinkled his nose. She seemed to be wearing some hideous perfume, but she still smelled mainly of pee.

Brimstone shifted his own chair backwards. 'Widow Mormo -' he began.