Charlie Bone And The Red Knight (Children Of The Red King, Book 8) (15 page)

Charlie grabbed the postcard and dropped into an armchair by the stove. There was a low grunt behind him, and Blessed eased himself out from the back of the chair and tumbled onto the floor, landing in an untidy heap.

"Sorry, Blessed. Didn't see you," Charlie muttered as he quickly scanned the writing on the back of the card. "It makes no sense," he complained after reading the card a second, then a third time.

"Why's that?" asked Cook. "It makes perfect sense to me. Your parents are safe, Charlie."

"Are they? Are they really? This card might have been posted before the storms, by someone on a ship that passed them."

The card was from Charlie's mother, and it read: "We're on our way home. Not long now. We've missed you so much. But soon, we'll all be together. Your father says you mustn't look for the box. We love you. Mom xxxx."

"So what don't you understand?" asked Cook, handing Charlie a cup of cocoa.

"The box," said Charlie. "It's such a puzzle. How did they know I was looking for a box, and why did my dad tell me to stop looking for it?"

"Probably because he knows where it is," Cook replied.

Charlie sipped his cocoa. "But how... ," he began. "I just don't understand. Has he suddenly remembered where he put it? Or has he always known? And... and where is it?"

"Best not to know," said Cook in her warm, wise voice.

Charlie gazed at the comforting red glow in Cook's stove. "I don't know why Dad went away when the city got so dangerous," he murmured. "And sometimes I've felt angry with him and kind of disappointed. But he must have had a reason, mustn't he?"

"Of course," Cook agreed.

"A very, very good reason. And even if I never find out, I'll never believe that he ... he didn't care about me, or any of this."

Cook smiled. "Charlie, you're wise beyond your years."

No one had ever said that to Charlie. In fact they usually said the opposite. He felt rather pleased.

"Now tell me what's been going on," said Cook, "although I've already made a few good guesses."

While he slowly drained his cup of deliciously sweet cocoa, Charlie related everything that had happened. By the time he had finished, his eyes were beginning to close, and Cook had to give him a little shake to wake him up. "Charlie," she said gently. "Can you bring Billy back to me? I miss him so much."

She looked at the old dog. "And Blessed is so depressed. I try to talk to him, but it's not the same. Billy can speak his language."

Charlie rubbed his eyes. "I'll try," he said. "But first I've got to find the painting of Badlock. It's my only way in. Actually, I'd really like to see Matilda again."

Cook shook her head. "The enchanter's granddaughter? Forget her, Charlie. She's from another world. I'll see what I can find out about the painting. Now, you'd better get back to bed before you're missed."

Charlie reluctantly dragged himself away from Cook's warm stove and stepped into the closet.

"You take care now, Charlie," Cook whispered as she closed the door behind him.

As before, the hall was deserted and Charlie slipped up the stairs to his dormitory without being seen. He was unaware that the staff had all decided to keep well away from the west wing that night. In fact, most of them had gone to bed earlier than usual rather than face any of the people who were, at that moment, insulting each other in the ballroom.

Old Ezekiel couldn't believe what had happened. "That lovely globe," he wailed, wheeling himself around and around the ballroom as if his endless rotation might somehow conjure up the Sea Globe. "Did he drown them, did he, did he?" he demanded.

"I've told you, yes!" shouted Manfred. "He must have. You should have seen those waves."

"So you saw it all and didn't do a thing about that boy's spirit ancestors!" Ezekiel shrieked. "You coward. You lily-livered milksop."

"I'd like to see you try and stop a hundred spirits with spears and torches and... and everything," Manfred shouted back.

"You didn't have to attack them," argued Ezekiel. "You could just have given Lysander Sage a bang on the head."

"Couldn't!" Manfred kicked at the pool of water lying in the center of the ballroom, all that remained of the Sea Globe, as far as he knew. He hadn't seen the tiny sphere that Dagbert now possessed. An unpleasant fishy smell wafted from the pool of water, and Manfred kicked it again. "Anyway, Lyell Bone has been drowned, so he won't be coming home to rake up that box."

"What about me?" screeched Mrs. Tilpin, swaying at the edge of the pool. "My little boy has been injured, my swordsman has been... sent back. And Lord Grimwald promised me a castle, servants, money. All gone. Poof! Just like that. I'll strangle someone. I'll do worse. I'll turn them into toads."

"As if... ," muttered Manfred.

"Stop it!" Dr. Bloor bellowed from a chair at the end of the room. "There's nothing to be gained by endless bickering. If we are to achieve anything, we must pull together."

The headmaster's commanding voice managed to silence everyone. Mrs. Tilpin gazed into the murky pool; Manfred tapped his wet foot quietly at the edge; and Ezekiel wheeled himself to a standstill.

"Nothing's changed," Mrs. Tilpin said at last. Her tone was soft and sly, and they looked at her uneasily. "Because he's coming. Harken, the shadow, the enchanter. His people are here already and there'll soon be more. So you can keep your precious school." She flung out her arms and danced around the pool, her glinting black skirt sweeping through the water, sending little ripples across the surface. "And then Charlie Bone and Billy Raven and Lysander Sage and his spirit ancestors will all be a distant memory."

"What about the Red Knight?" asked Manfred.

"Ah, the Red Knight," said Mrs. Tilpin, and she stopped dancing.

15

FOG!

Billy's bed was now a bale of prickly straw, his light a thin candle that always burned through before nightfall. Not that Billy would have noticed when night began and ended. There were no windows in his chilly cell. At least he had Rembrandt to talk to. Luckily, the countess hadn't carried out her threat to kill the rat, believing that he would die anyway unless Billy shared his meager allowance of black bread.

But Rembrandt didn't die. He thrived. He had found a friend: a small brown-coated, green-eyed rat he called Gloria. Billy could see the attraction. Gloria was very pretty; she was also helpful. Being two sizes smaller than Rembrandt, she could squeeze through a tiny hole in Billy's cell and she would bring Rembrandt delicious tidbits from the kitchen waste bucket. So Rembrandt didn't need Billy's black bread, and instead of fading away, he grew fatter and fatter.

Count Harken and his wife were the only people in Badlock ever to have seen a rat before Rembrandt arrived. They had brought a pair of rats back from the Red King's city many years ago. But the rats had vanished and the count assumed they had been eaten by a greedy servant (though they all swore they had never set eyes on a rat). In fact, the clever pair had burrowed deep into the mountain and raised a family. Gloria was their last surviving great-great grandchild.

Sometimes Rembrandt and Gloria would go off for a whole day. They would wait until Billy's guard was having his meal in the kitchen and then slip through the bars of the cell and leap up the steep stone steps into the palace. Rembrandt would return with stories of their wonderful adventures, and eventually, Billy would fall asleep while his rat's gentle voice squeaked on and on and on. Without those stories, Billy figured, he would never have slept at all.

A troll named Oddthumb guarded Billy's cell. He was a squat, ugly being with a grotesque thumb as big as his hand. He hated everyone and everything from Billy's world, especially Charlie Bone, who had once managed to slip in and out of Badlock without being caught. Charlie had also managed to rescue his ancestor, the giant Otus Yewbeam, right under Oddthumb's nose.

Billy had refused to be rescued by Charlie. He thought life would be better in Badlock. He would have a home with plenty of animals to talk to and a friend, Matilda. How Billy regretted that decision. A week in the dreadful dungeons had broken Billy's spirit. He now longed for home as much as Rembrandt did. But he knew there was little hope of Charlie making the dangerous journey a second time.

"Billy! Billy!"

The soft voice didn't wake Billy, who had fallen into a deep sleep after one of Rembrandt's stories. He lay with his head snuggled against the rat's soft back, his glasses folded neatly on the floor beside his mattress.

"Billy! Billy!"

This time the voice broke through Billy's dreams. He reached for his glasses, pushed them onto his nose, and sat up. Candlelight flickered in the room outside his cell. Billy blinked and tried to focus. The candle was raised and he saw a girl's face framed in long, black curls.

"Matilda?" Billy whispered.

"I'm going to make you a key," Matilda said softly. She showed Billy the big iron key that usually hung around Oddthumb's neck. "I've given your guard one of my grandmother's sleeping potions. I slipped it into his mug of ale before the servant brought it down here. So Oddthumb won't wake before I can get this key back to him."

"Matilda!" called Billy, as she began to mount the steps. "Why can't you let me out now?"

She looked back, her face in the candlelight shadowed with regret. "Where would you go, Billy? They'd find you and then things would only get worse. We must wait until Charlie comes."

Billy clutched the iron bars of his cell. "Do you think he'll come back, then?"

"I'm doing my best," she said mysteriously.

When Matilda left the dungeons, she climbed a long, winding stair to a small room at the top of the palace. Here, Billy's faithful attendant, Dorgo, awaited her. Dorgo was one of the beings who had inhabited Badlock long before the enchanter invaded and turned their world into the fearful, barren place it had become. There were many beings like Dorgo in the palace. They were all servants of one sort or another, and they all looked alike: their bodies short, square, and lumpy, their faces without eyebrows, their hair (if they had any) hidden in woolen caps.

And they shared one characteristic: Once they had befriended a master, they were loyal unto death.

Dorgo was a blacksmith of sorts. In the little room that Matilda had found for him, he had set up a modest furnace and, in a wooden tray, molded enough soft clay to take the imprint of a key. Liquid metal was waiting in a bowl hanging from a beam above the furnace.

"Got it, Dorgo!" said Matilda as she leaped through the door. "How long will it take?"

Dorgo never said very much. He took the key from Matilda and, pressing it into the clay, murmured, "Short!"

It was difficult to guess how many minutes went into "short." But Dorgo didn't deal in minutes, so it was no use asking him for a precise time. Matilda wasn't too sure about time anyway. The enchanter had a clock, a magical contraption that showed constellations and clouds as well as hours and minutes, and Matilda had learned that there were five hours between each meal. Her stomach told her that there were probably two hours to go before dinner, but she would have to get the key back to Oddthumb sooner than that.

"See you in an hour," Matilda told Dorgo, and leaving his makeshift smithy, she went down to the room where Count Harken kept his paintings. The enchanter was an excellent artist, but how much was skill and how much enchantment, Matilda couldn't guess. She was interested in only one painting anyway. Among the brightly colored landscapes and the pictures of incredible animals, there was a painting of Billy's city.

Matilda had spent many hours gazing at this city. Billy had told her where Bloor's Academy stood, close to the ruins of a great castle built by the Red King. The king who was her great-grandfather and also Billy's ancestor.

Sometimes, when she heard someone coming, Matilda would hide among the big canvases. She had never been forbidden to look in this room, but something made her afraid to be found there. One day while she was hiding, she had heard a woman's voice coming from the painting of Billy's city. The enchanter had replied to it. And that's how Matilda had found out about the woman named Titania, who was trying to help Count Harken to get back into the city. Why he found it so difficult, Matilda couldn't imagine.

The painting was beautiful, in its way. It was as if the count had painted it from a cloud, for you could see all the streets and buildings laid out in a great pattern, and yet the angle of the houses was not so steep that you couldn't see walls and doors and windows slanting away from the gray slate roofs.

Matilda would stare at the buildings, trying to guess what was happening behind their dark windows, and often she would hear a snatch of music, a dog barking, someone singing, or a hoot from one of the extraordinary-looking machines that filled the streets: cars, Billy called them. But most of all, Matilda liked to watch the house with a big tree in front of it, for this was where a boy named Charlie Bone lived, a boy who'd be brave enough to venture into Badlock, a boy who lived nine hundred years away. Could she get to Charlie's world, Matilda wondered. Could she?

Matilda put her hand on the painting. Her fingers touched a high window, just above the tree outside number nine Filbert Street. "Can I?" she whispered. "Can I? Charlie, are you there?"

On Friday, Alice Angel decided to tidy up the spare room on the top floor. Maisie never seemed to have the time. The shelves lining two walls were crammed with suitcases, old clothes, sets of china, books, newspapers, and boxes of goodness-knows-what. The floor space was occupied by long rolls of cloth, chairs in need of recaning, the occasional table, an ancient treadle sewing machine, and an old rocking chair. Alice pushed the rocker up to the window and sat down. "Hmmm. Windows need a wash," she observed, running her hand over the grimy pane.

A curious tingle shot through Alice's fingers. If she hadn't been who she was, she might have thought the surface of the glass had been electrified. But being Alice, she thought nothing of the sort. And being Alice, she wasn't too surprised when a distant yet sweet, clear voice said, "Charlie, are you there?"

"Charlie's not here right now, my dear," said Alice, lightly touching the windowpane. "Try again later."

"Thank you," said the voice.

Alice smiled to herself. She wondered how far the voice had traveled? How many years?

"When shall I see him again?"

Alice didn't know how to reply. This time the voice sounded wistful and slightly hesitant. Alice had always found it impossible to lie. She could only tell the truth. "I don't know, my dear." She knew the girl had gone as soon as she had spoken.

"I wonder... ," Alice said to herself. She couldn't sit still any longer and so she continued to tidy up, dusting the books and stacking them neatly on the shelves.

It began to rain. Alice looked at the window, hoping another storm wasn't brewing. The last one had been ferocious. She knew who had brought it about, of course. Alice was well aware that Lord Grimwald was in the city, and she knew that he was trying to drown Lyell Bone. She made it her business to know these things. Intuition told her that Lord Grimwald wasn't around anymore. But on rare occasions, intuition had let her down. She couldn't be absolutely sure.

The rain was now falling very heavily. It was extraordinary rain, the drops as large as cupfuls of water. The cupfuls soon became bucketfuls.
Whoosh! Splash!
Cars hooted; birds flew for cover.

Looking down into the street, Alice saw a solitary pedestrian in a brown raincoat and a wide-brimmed waterproof hat. He was striding along, swinging an old-fashioned doctor's bag, and didn't seem at all concerned about the rain. He stopped at number nine and rang the bell.

The front door was opened and, from the hall far below, a little scream echoed up the stairwell. Alice dropped the book she had been dusting and ran down the two flights of stairs. When she got to the kitchen, she found the person in the waterproof hat, sitting at the table with the bag in front of him. The hat dripped, the raincoat dripped, and the man's large brown mustache dripped.

"Maisie!" cried Alice, staring at the stranger. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, yes." Maisie frowned at the little pools of water forming on her freshly cleaned floor. "I'm just not used to seeing this young man with a mustache."

Tancred put a hand up to his mustache, and Maisie said, "No, no, don't take it off. Grandma Bone might see you."

Pressing his mustache firmly to his upper lip, Tancred said, "Sorry about the mess, Mrs. Jones. I've been practicing."

"Thought as much," muttered Maisie, reaching for the mop. "Alice, this is Tancred Torsson, a friend of Charlie's. Calls himself a storm boy."

"Ah, the rain!" Alice glanced at the window. "Not at school, then," she commented.

"I'm supposed to be dead," Tancred said gloomily. "A boy named Dagbert Endless drowned me -- almost."

"I see." Alice understood immediately.

"I'm so bored," Tancred went on. "There's no one to talk to during the week. I've no idea what's going on at school, and I just feel so out of it. I live miles away, you see. Up in the --" He suddenly stopped and frowned at Alice as if he was worried he'd said too much. "Excuse me," he said, "but who are you?"

"I'm Olivia Vertigo's godmother," said Alice. "Olivia is in trouble. That's why I'm here."

"Really?" Tancred leaned forward eagerly. "That's just it, you see. I never know anything now. What sort of trouble has Olivia gotten herself into?"

"She didn't get herself into it," Alice said reprovingly. "She was trapped by my opposite's power."

Tancred sat back and digested this. "Ah," he said at last. "You must mean Mrs. Tilpin."

Alice sighed. "I fear so." All at once she looked over her shoulder. "Someone's coming. Tancred, be prepared."

Tancred sat up very straight and laid a hand on his bag. The door opened and Grandma Bone came in. She was wearing her bathrobe and looked very sleepy. "Tea?" she asked with a yawn. "Is it teatime?"

"Yes, I think it is, Grizelda," said Maisie, putting the kettle on.

Grandma Bone turned and stared at Alice and Tancred. "You don't live here," she said.

"I'm staying for a while." Alice gave Grandma Bone a radiant smile. "I'm Alice Angel, remember?"

"I suppose I do." Grandma Bone yawned again. "And who are you?" she asked Tancred.

Tancred sprang to his feet and opened his bag.

It was full of broken china halfheartedly wrapped in tissue paper. Tancred had gathered up all the broken china his mother had put aside, ready for gluing. Poor Mrs. Torsson now used only plastic cups and saucers, her husband and son having broken every single piece with the violent weather they produced.

"So?" Grandma Bone poked at the china with her bony finger. "Are you trying to sell this stuff? It looks broken."

"Exactly, madam," said Tancred in an odd, gravelly voice. "I'm mending it. Do you have any broken china?"

Grandma Bone stared glumly at Tancred. "No. And I wouldn't give it to you if I had."

Tancred chewed his lip and sat down.

"Here you are, Grizelda," said Maisie. "I've popped two cookies on the saucer."

Grandma Bone took her tea and cookies and left the room without another word.

"Is Mrs. Bone all right?" asked Tancred in a low voice. "She doesn't seem to be all there."

Maisie laughed. "She's been like that ever since Alice came. I think you've cast a spell on her, Alice."

Alice regarded her long, elegant fingers and said, "I probably have. Oh, look, the rain has stopped."

Tancred grinned sheepishly and stood up. "I was going to wait for Charlie," he said, "but I don't suppose he'll be back for another hour, so I'll head off. Tell him I'll see him tomorrow, maybe at the bookstore."