The Queen and the Nobody Boy (18 page)

Hodie walked around the wind-car and tapped the panels of its sides. They seemed sound, though they might be damaged underneath. Anyway, his spark of energy was back.

The squirrel chittered again, high in the tree. Hodie glanced up the mountain. Broken trees showed the path the wind-car had tumbled. Something glinted high up. If it was Um'Binnian soldiers climbing down to find them, with luck they'd stuff their boots in rabbit holes and trip.

There was rustling in the bushes, and a shout. The soldiers! Hodie spun round, but the man who stumbled into the clearing was Corporal Murgott with his duffel bag and a coil of rope over his shoulders. He was bruised, tattered, scratched (and bare-headed, of course). His eyes were fierce. Sibilla looked as if she only just stopped herself running over to kiss him hello. (Hodie would have liked to hug him too but didn't let on, though he couldn't stop grinning.)

Lu'nedda glanced at Murgott, went very red and turned her royal nose away. After the fuss she'd been making, Hodie would have expected her to welcome the Corporal with a kind word or royal nod.

Murgott staggered to Hodie and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Boy, I'd like to say don't worry, but that's for a young man to decide for himself. What I can say is an hour ago your mother was alive, but Prowdd'on had her. As for Dardy – I'm sorry, boy. A loyal servant. A hero. He was as good a father to you as he knew how. He had faith in you, boy.”

Hodie didn't trust his voice to stay steady, but he nodded and patted his hand on top of Murgott's.

The Corporal turned to salute Sibilla. She made a queenly gesture for him to sit, and he sank down at once. He blinked at Lu'nedda's one slipper, drew in a breath and thrust a hand in his duffel bag. “Princessa,” he mumbled. “For your use.”

Hodie expected him to bring out the emerald slipper from the Depot (though it might have been for the wrong foot). But Murgott offered the Princessa his best boots, restored to the highest gloss.

Lu'nedda's eyebrows pulled together as if they needed to lean on each other for some support. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” (Which made one
oh
for each boot.) She blushed right down her neck, accepted the boots and tried them on. They looked surprisingly good with her pink dress. “Good workmanship. Perfect fit.” She took a few steps. “Thank you, Corporal Murgott.”

“Happy to be of service, ma'am.” Murgott tried to stand and salute again, but collapsed to the ground. “That's record time for scalin' down a mountain. I have never been so wrecked in all my days.”

Birds flew shrieking across the clearing.

“We can't sit about,” Sibilla said. “Hodie's had a good idea.”

How did she know? He hadn't said anything. “I know that look of yours,” she said. (Again, Hodie hadn't said a word.)

He cleared his throat. “First, Corporal, do you know anything about the waters in these parts? I mean, is there a channel to the open sea?”

Murgott gave a cautious nod. Hodie felt a stronger huff of energy.

“Then, Princessa, we put the wind-car in the Moat,” he said. “It was windtight, so it might be watertight. There are no holes that I can see after the crash, except for the windows. I think it will float. Anyway, it's the only idea I've had.”

“My father's royal wind-car! In salt water!” The Princessa stood stock still in the clean polished boots. “Brilliant idea.”

“Sweaty work,” Murgott said. “But I'm up for it.”

“It also rather depends on the Princessa,” Hodie muttered. “She could be waiting for the moment to signal the Emperor.”

“Ask me why I fling myself into wind-car at last moment,” said Lu'nedda. “Ask me why I try to save your life, and Queen Sibilla.”

“Let's just get working.” Hodie began pulling down vines to lash the broken wings together to make stout sails.

“I tell you anyway,” said Lu'nedda. “I have three wishes. One wish is to have no war. Second wish is to save life of my best friend's son. Third wish is not to have husband.” She tipped her head a little, and frowned. “Correction – not to have stupid husband.”

“But you also want your father the Emperor to be proud of you,” said Hodie.

“Parents make things complicated,” Lu'nedda answered. “I will be Empress of Um'Binnia one day. Until then I must mostly be daughter – when I am not secretly being chief rebel.”

“Lu'nedda,” said Sibilla, “whether you want war or not, at the moment you are actually an official enemy. You don't have to help.” The little Queen began to coil the vines that Hodie tore down.

Lu'nedda strode over and reached higher up the tree for some good tough creepers. Sibilla bowed. “Thank you, Princessa.”

“You are welcome.” Lu'nedda bowed back, then yanked another length of vine.

It was sweaty work indeed. The squirrel slunk down a branch to watch. Gnats and other nibbly flying things didn't seem to bite Sibilla much, but thoroughly bothered Hodie. Murgott came out with some interesting words for flying pests, and they'd be very hard to spell.

Murgott and Hodie hopped onto the top of the wind-car. They began piecing the broken wings together, lashing them with the vines and Murgott's rope.

Hodie peered up the mountain. Was that glint the soldiers of Um'Binnia coming closer?

“Sibilla, remember that you and I are sisters in royalty.” Lu'nedda spoke with a piece of creeper between her teeth (which meant rather a lot of saliva). “But my father is sure to arrive soon. He will make me explain why I help you escape this far. I think up probable answers.”

“We could say we captured you.” Sibilla mopped her forehead and took off Murgott's jacket. A label across the back of her dressing gown read,
Property of Biggest Research Institute of Um'Binnia.

“Of course, I love my father.” Lu'nedda's voice wobbled as if she'd choked on a crust of emotion. “But that does not mean I approve of all he does. I do not approve of selfish royalty, though I am sure he started out with good intention.” She tied a very tight knot, and glanced at Murgott. He was gazing with unmistakable admiration. “I am not saying I would be better ruler than my father. But I would have people around me to say their honest opinion.” She cleared more emotion from her throat. “I would begin by listening to other people. Disloyal people like rebels, who just want their voices heard. Honest and brave people, like various I have met in last few days.”

The Princessa brushed her hands on the bright pink skirt and looked at the smashed toe of her ruby slipper, buried under the wind-car. She strode over to the other slipper, picked it up and tossed it in the bushes. Then she stood up straight.

“Now, how to shift vehicle down to the beach?”

Hodie felt a little sorry for her, and also impressed. But it wasn't his business to say anything. He just got on with the job. They picked broken glass out of the wind-car very carefully, then used muscle (Murgott and the Princessa), loud and cross exclamation (all four of them), and lots of sweat (ditto). They tripped over many tree roots. They nearly tripped over the squirrel. Hodie felt the wind sneak under the belly of the wind-car to lighten the load with shoves and nudges. Birds called from the forest, the sky and the shore.

In light that shivered through the leaves of the last few trees, the wind-car slid over bumpy tufts of grass, then crunched the pebbles of the beach and nosed the waves.

Sibilla turned to the Princessa. “Thank you. I hope you'll be all right till your father arrives.”

“You think I am staying?” cried the Princessa. “I am in trouble whatever I do now. This adventure delays probable punishment of being stuck in beautiful apartment till my father dies.” She tucked up her skirt and helped Sibilla scramble in the wind-car with the squirrel (
tck-tck
!
), which meant she got Murgott's best boots thoroughly soaked.

Hodie's first new boots ever were soaked too. Cold water splashed to his waist. He bunched his cloak around the satchel to help keep it dry, and hoisted it on his shoulder.

Faint shouts floated down the mountain.

“One last heave, boy, then hop in.” Murgott set his back to the wind-car.

Waves tumbled over the pebbles, and helped the wind-car – now a wind-ship – push further from shore. In the breeze, Hodie thought he heard the swish of a (proper) wind-car. Without question, the Great Emperor was on the hunt.

~

Murgott's previous life as a pirate was a blessing. Now that water was under the wind-ship's belly he gained confidence about using the controls to tilt the sails and catch the wind. He also roared orders.

“Hodie, keep that blasted squirrel off my head. Princessa, keep your blasted weight in the middle of the vessel, pardon me, Princessa. Excuse me, Your Majesty, but shut the blasted windows tight.”

“Most of them are broken,” said Sibilla. “But I will if you like.”

In a luggage rack, again the squirrel shivered and ground its teeth.

“Do you wish you'd had a chance to bite Prowdd'on harder?” Hodie murmured.

Its tail lashed.

“Right.” Murgott grabbed Hodie by the scruff and set him at the controls. “Keep it steady.”

Hodie's stomach was a pit of fright, but he felt his face split with a grin. He stood with the waves beneath, the wind above – this was as good a magic as a boy could wish for.

“Safety gear. Catch, Your Majesty!” Murgott threw seat cushions to the little Queen. “See if you can turn them into life-jackets.”

What? Cushions would fill with water and drown them all at once –

“They'd be death-jackets!” Sibilla cried, as if again she'd heard what Hodie thought.

“Blast,” said Murgott.

“An easy mistake to make,” murmured Lu'nedda. She was definitely sweet on Corporal Murgott, but still Hodie did not entirely trust her. He had thought her more reliable when she was Ogg'ward behind that moustache.

The wind-ship had sped out from shore, but now Murgott grabbed back the controls. “I'm heading no further till the little Queen has a life-jacket!” he shouted. “Do any of you own a brain that thinks?”

Lu'nedda flung open a gold cupboard, rummaged, and started hauling out bottles –
Um'Binnian Roar-juice
. “It is best that dolleros can buy.” She popped a cork – there was a strong smell of cabbage, and something so sweet and minty it was horrible.

“Ugh! Wormwood!” cried Lu'nedda, and tipped the contents through a window.

“Oi!” said Murgott.

“Life-jackets,” said Lu'nedda. “Empty them out, cork them tight and tie them round our waists.”

“We'll float and clink.” Sibilla gave the first smile Hodie had seen from her in ages. “It would be musical.”

“We can use cords from the window blinds to lash them together,” Hodie said. He was trying to be helpful, though he could see that if he put on a life-jacket, he'd have to hoist the satchel higher on his shoulder.

Sibilla was at a window already. “Murgott, please start sailing while we're working?”

The Corporal grumbled at the Queen's polite request, but he set the wind-ship off towards the east. The squirrel clambered down to sniff an emptied bottle of Roar-juice. It licked the top – and its round black eyes looked everywhere at once.
Koff! Ptha! Ptha-ah!

There was a splintering sound from the controls. Murgott held up a broken lever and said something that small children should never hear. Small metal nuts had rattled to the floor. Hodie fished in his satchel, into the drawstring bag, pulled out the spanner and fixed the lever tight in half a minute. He thrust the spanner back in the bag. Sibilla gave it a puzzled look but she said nothing.

The wind-ship caught the breeze and raced along. By now, the Princessa was knotting cords around the bottles. Sibilla began to figure aloud how many it would take to support each person. “Eight for Murgott. Four for Hodie or maybe six …?”

Overhead was a long swishing sound. A small sleek wind-car zoomed in front of them and circled back. “Military wind-car!” cried Lu'nedda.

“Stop in name of Emperor!” boomed a voice through a megaphone. The wind-car zoomed off and back again. Guns pointed out along its sides. “Stop! By order of Great Prowdd'on!”

“There is no need for fright.” Lu'nedda didn't look as if she believed her own words. “Wind-vehicles cannot hover so they cannot aim.”

Well … Fontanian soldiers would only need a moment to aim and shoot. Hodie was pretty sure Um'Binnians would be the same.

Boom!
The wind-ship jerked. Something shattered up top.

“Just one thing,” Murgott said through gritted teeth. “We don't have an anchor.”

“Don't worry about anchors now!” Sibilla cried.

“Just one other thing,” Murgott replied, “we need a steady wind.”

Sibilla turned to Hodie, eyes hopeful. The squirrel darted to the rear of the vessel and chittered like mad.

Then Hodie found himself at the back window too, gazing high into the sky. There were strands of cloud behind the mountain. A Force Six wind, Strong Breeze, would do the job – his thought was clear and determined.

Within a second, the gusts were boisterous. Sibilla looked extremely pleased. Hodie felt afraid and very excited – this must be what it was like to have a link with magic. Was the little Queen doing this through him – calling the wind just as the dragon-eagle said? He was not at all sure that he liked it, but the squirrel
tck-tcked!

Gusts pushed the wind-ship on. Upper currents of wind buffeted the Um'Binnians back and forth, but the military wind-car zoomed overhead again.

Lu'nedda leaned out a window. “Stop at once! I am Princessa!”

Scraps of megaphone voice came on the wind. “It is orders … Great Prowdd'on!”

There was a flash, another
boom!
The wind-ship jolted.

“They're aiming at the sails,” said Murgott. “Clever blokes, that's what I'd do.”

If the sails ripped and splintered, waves would drive the wind-ship back to the rocks and stony beaches of Um'Binnia. Murgott tacked to catch the wind. The wind-car approached time and again, firing its guns, but the wind-ship's sails still held.

Though the military wind-car swooped past very close, the soldiers must have used up all their bullets. They waved in a jeering way, then the wind-car lifted and headed back towards the mountain.

Hodie studied the sky ahead, the wisps of cloud, the flight of birds – to the east he glimpsed dark jagged shapes that might be headlands.

“Is the tide coming in or going out?” he called. “Will it take us through the channel?”

“No idea!” called Murgott. “I never dared be a pirate in these parts.”

“Because my father is so powerful,” said Lu'nedda.

Don't mention the Toads
, Hodie thought,
don't mention
…

Murgott touched a finger to his cap. “No, ma'am. I never dared because of the Toads.”

Lu'nedda screamed and banged the window shut. (Not much use. By now it was the only one not broken.) The Corporal wrestled with the controls and kept glancing at the waves of the Great Salt Moat.

“Toads,” Murgott repeated, “spit poison. With that poison, they blind you. If it gets you in the ear, it deafens you. And if it gets you on your tongue, it's a big good-night.”

“Believe him.” Lu'nedda's ringlets were in tatters. “When I was little, my father told me bedtime stories about Ocean Toads. I never slept well.”

“Y'poor little brat!” Murgott exclaimed, then looked abashed.

“No, no.” The Princessa shook her tangled ringlets. “It is what Emperor should do, tell scary stories to teach daughter to be brave. That is why I am brave now. It means I will be strong Empress when my time comes.”

She yanked another cork from another bottle and stood as far from a broken window as she could while pouring out Roar-juice.

~

Waves billowed. So did the clouds. Murgott taught Hodie a bit about how to judge waves and manage sails, and even patted his back instead of pounding it when he got something right. So the next half hour was rather less painful.

The squirrel looked more green than grey, probably due to its lick of Roar-juice. In a cupboard by the royal chair, Hodie found a can labelled “Big & Best Peanuts” which he offered the squirrel. It turned its face to the wall with a pitiful squeak. He tried one himself – stale, small, only just better than nothing – and shared the rest out.

Sibilla and Lu'nedda finished four life-jackets (eight bottles each for Lu'nedda and Murgott, four for Hodie, two for Sibilla, and two miniature ones for the squirrel). Lu'nedda joined Murgott at the controls, where they seemed to get on shyly.

Sibilla began to help Hodie into his life-jacket. “You're fatter than I thought. I measured wrong.”

He looked down. He did seem plumper on one side, under the cloak. Somehow the satchel seemed heavier. He put a hand to it, and it was definitely bigger. Something was happening in the bag, inside the satchel.

“Come on,” he whispered. “You should have a look.”

They climbed on the seat behind the golden throne where there was a little privacy. Hodie slipped the satchel off. Nerves fluttering, he eased out the drawstring bag and opened it just a bit.

Inside was a mass of pale fronds, hiding the spanner and notebook. They felt silky, like a caress.

“It's seedlings,” Sibilla murmured. “One corner of the satchel's damp – it must have happened when you launched the wind-ship.”

The beads or pebbles were really seeds? Hodie examined more closely. The pouch of brown things had burst open. Most of them still lay inside like little stones. But three others had tiny shoots. The tangle they made was pulsing as if it tried to reach the light and was already tinged with green.

“What about the other stuff?” he whispered.

Sibilla held her pendant tight and shook her head. “Close the bag. Buckle it away again. Please, keep it hidden!” She looked worried, said nothing more, and took Lu'nedda's and Murgott's jackets over to them.

Hodie felt helpless. Whether The Ties were magical or rubbish, it couldn't be his job to carry them. But he didn't object in case Lu'nedda overheard. He began to push the bag back in the satchel, then noticed that part of the bag's lining had come away. He hadn't even known it had a lining.

Carefully, so the fronds didn't bruise, he eased his fingers through the frayed stitching – a piece of paper? He couldn't stop himself from looking further.

There, in the lining of the bag, was a secret pocket and the corner of a sheet of softest silver. The pocket folded down easily, as if it wanted to show what it had protected for so many years. Prickles of fear traced Hodie's spine.

He didn't dare touch the sheet of silver. But the warmth from his hand was like a breeze that brought the sheet to life. The silver shimmered, curving lines appeared … words… tiny etched symbols. A map – the one Prow'ddon asked about in the Grand Imperial Hall. Yes, it must be.

The silver map, with its faint glow, was so beautiful that all he wanted to do was gaze … there was the Eastern Isle where the dragon-eagles dwelt for most of each year, the islands of Old Ocean, the City of Spires. There, behind the City, were the Stones of Beyond. There was the Great Salt Moat around the Mountain of Um'Binnia. At the top of the map were more mountains, so rugged that Hodie felt exhausted at how hard they'd be to climb.

This might be magic, or it could be just science –
Whatever it is, it shouldn't be happening to me
, he thought.
This should be seen only by the King or Queen. I'm nobody – this is not right.

The wind-ship tilted. Swiftly Hodie folded the pocket back up over the map, tightened the drawstring and tucked the bag into the satchel against his side. He closed his eyes, and it seemed that the wind chimed with the anxious sound of silver feathers as if a great creature shifted while it hoped for the arrival of a Queen who would know how to save it.

~