Floods 3 (6 page)

‘But …' Nerlin began. He had been given the standard Dirt People education about babies, where they came from (a Special Shop), how to
decide if you wanted a boy or a girl (wear red or blue socks), and how long it all took (more than boiling an egg, but less than going to Belgium and buying a cardigan). ‘When did you go to the Special Shop?'

‘My darling, I'm a witch and a princess, remember?' Mordonna explained. ‘I don't have to go to the Special Shop and I don't have to waste lots of time being sick in the morning and having backache. I just used the Special Princess-Witch Hurry-Up Spell so the whole thing only takes twenty-four hours.'

‘Right,' said the Queen, taking charge. ‘We need towels and hot water.'

‘We're in the remotest part of the Himalayas,' said Nerlin, lifting Mordonna onto George's back. ‘I'm guessing it's not a big towel and hot water area.'

‘Follow me,' said Vessel, walking down the valley.

‘Where?' said Nerlin.

‘There's a stable just round the next corner
with a very comfortable manger and hot food and even soft hay for the ungrateful donkey,' Vessel's voice said out of the mist.

‘What?' said Nerlin, running after the equery. ‘You've got to be kidding.'

‘I am not without some considerable magical powers myself, you know,' said Vessel. ‘And it's your wife who is “kidding”, as she is just about to have a kid, ha, ha.'

They rounded a massive block of ice and there, exactly as Vessel had predicted, was a stable, complete with a comfy manger, a full kettle boiling away on the stove, a huge pile of soft fluffy towels and a table groaning with food, though the coffee and blood were only instant and not fresh as everyone would have preferred.

‘The manger's a bit small,' said Mordonna, who was entitled to complain because she was about to have a baby any minute. ‘I'll never fit in it and it looks like it'll fall off the wall.'

‘It's for the baby, not you,' the Queen explained.

‘Oh,' said Mordonna.

Everyone used the boiling water to have a cup of instant coffee.

Five minutes later Mordonna said, ‘So what are we going to call him?'

‘How do you know it's a boy?' said Nerlin.

‘Well, look,' Mordonna replied, holding up what appeared to be a large wrinkled prune with very white skin. ‘Say hello to your son.'

‘Er, hello,' said Nerlin.

‘Hello, Daddy,' said the baby.

Normal babies don't speak until they are a lot older than several minutes, but this was not a normal baby. This baby was not even a normal wizard. This baby was the child of a powerful princess-witch and a direct descendant of the great Merlin. He wasn't about to waste several years wetting nappies, throwing up over his mother's shoulder and grinning inanely at stuffed toys with googly eyes.

Vessel handed Mordonna some swaddling cloths. She wrapped the baby up and placed him in the manger, where they all gazed adoringly at him and argued over what he should be named. Everyone had their favourites. Parsnip wanted to name him Turnip after his father. Nerlin wanted to call him Walter and George thought they should call him George.

In the end they took the only book they had, which Nerlin had found covered in cobwebs in a derelict bookcase. It was a road atlas of Australia.

Nerlin closed his eyes, stuck his finger between the pages and opened the book.

‘Valla,' he said. ‘We shall call him Valla.'

‘I like it,' said Valla. Everyone agreed except George, who let them know he didn't like it.

‘Valla's probably hungry,' said Nerlin, trying to be a responsible dad.

‘Yes, of course, brilliant idea, darling. What do you think he'd like?' Mordonna asked.

‘Well, er, milk, of course,' said Nerlin. ‘Isn't that what all newborn babies have?'

‘Not necessarily,' said the Queen. ‘You must remember this baby is a wizard and wizards often eat different things to humans.'

They tried milk, then strawberry jam, then melted Tim Tams, but Valla spat them all out. They tried a banana, but the baby clamped his mouth shut before they could get near him. Mordonna started peeling an apple. As she did, she cut her finger. Three drops of blood splashed into baby Valla's mouth and he roared with delight. His eyes sparkled and his tongue licked round his lips to get every last drop.

‘Now you're talking,' said Valla. ‘More blood, Mum!'

‘Blood, of course!' said the Queen. ‘I should have known … he takes after his great-grandfather. The similarity is uncanny, the black rings round the dark sunken eyes and skin so white that it's almost transparent. He may only be a baby but he's Great-Grandfather Formaldehyde to a T. He'll have the girls falling at his feet.'
²⁵

Later on when everyone was asleep, the Queen whispered in Vessel's ear, ‘I've never seen a bookcase in a stable before.'

‘No, my lady, neither have I,' said Vessel. ‘Strange, isn't it?'

‘You cunning old fox,' said the Queen. ‘And what a strange choice of book.'

She moved closer to the equery. ‘It's very cold in here, isn't it?' she whispered so as not to wake Mordonna and Nerlin.

‘Yes, my lady.'

‘I imagine we would both feel warmer if we sat closer to each other.'

‘Undoubtedly, my lady,' said Vessel feeling excited, scared, lightheaded, giddy, wobbly, woozy, shaky and happy all at the same time.

He leaned his staff against the wall and put his arm round the Queen's bony shoulder. He was happier than he had ever been in his whole life.

‘And how strange that all the pages in the book were stuck together except that particular one,' murmured the Queen.

‘Indeed.'

‘And even stranger that all the place names were blotted out except the one – Valla.'

‘Strange doesn't even come close,' said Vessel.

‘There's more to you than meets the eye, Vessel. By the way, what's your first name?' asked the Queen.

‘I don't know,' said Vessel. ‘I have two initials but no one ever told me what they stood for.'

‘Initials?'

‘Yes. M.T. My father always called me M.T. Vessel.'

‘Then I shall call you M, but you must call me Scratchie, though in public we should probably keep calling each other “Vessel” and “Your Majesty”, at least for the moment,' said the Queen. ‘Now, M, your queen orders you to kiss her.'

Vessel's false teeth fell out into the straw and he fainted.

Parsnip, in his nest leaning against the wall, cursed under his breath. Where was the love of
his
life, then? No one ever thought of him, did they? He made up his mind that as soon as they got somewhere warmer, he was off. He'd told himself a million times before that he would leave, but when
it had come to it he hadn't been able to. After all, Vessel was the closest thing he had ever had to a mum or dad. Vessel had rescued him as an egg from the wreckage of his parents' nest and had incubated him under his left armpit.

Not many crows could say that.

After King Quatorze had exploded for the fifth time that day he reassembled himself and sent for his secret, secret agent.

An indistinct figure emerged from the oak panelling that lined the room. It was the general shape and size of a person, but it shimmered like a mirage, a dark mirage you could kind of see through like smoke. It was hard to imagine it was a living creature.

The Hearse Whisperer was a seriously nasty piece of work. If sneering was in the Olympics, she would have won gold every single time. She looked down her nose at everything and everyone.
She had had her own parents locked up in jail for being too kind to her, which she claimed in court had threatened her future survival.

‘How can I be expected to get on in life if I am nice to people?' she had said to the judge. ‘Look at my parents, two disgustingly nice laid-back hippies, and see where being nice has got them.'

‘Where?' asked the judge.

‘Nowhere,' sneered the Hearse Whisperer. ‘They drive a kombi van with rainbows painted on the doors and they share their bedroom with chickens.'

‘You're absolutely right,' the judge agreed, and for their excessive kindness he sentenced the Hearse Whisperer's parents to a lifetime in Transylvania Waters' maximum security jail, Howlcatraz, which was on an island in Lake Tarnish.
²⁶

If you had been able to see the Hearse Whisperer clearly, you would have noticed that every part of her was pointed. Her nose, which she poked into everything, could break glass, and if she had been any thinner she could have got a job as a bookmark. She was known around town as the stick insect, and although no one ever dared call her that to her face, she knew. She had seen the graffiti.

People said that underneath her mean, sarcastic exterior, there was just a little girl looking for love, but there wasn't. Underneath her mean, sarcastic exterior, there was something far worse, something too foul to survive in daylight.

‘I have a mission for you,' said the King. ‘A mission that will require all your cunning and deceit and all your brilliant body-changing magic.'

‘You want me to find the princess,' said the Hearse Whisperer in a voice that sounded like three rough rocks tied to a bit of string being pulled down the throat of a very, very old man.

‘Exactly. Once again you have read my thoughts.'

Not too difficult,
thought the secret, secret agent.
I could read your whole pathetic little mind in fifteen seconds and still have time to make a cup of tea.

The Hearse Whisperer occupied a unique place in the King's household. Apart from the Queen, she was the only person who the King had never threatened to have killed. This was because
she always got the results he wanted and was totally devoted to the King. At least, that's what he told himself. The truth was that he was scared of her, same as he was scared of the Queen.

Not only was the Hearse Whisperer a secret, secret agent, but her life itself was a secret secret. No one knew when or where she would appear and in what form, or where she went at night, or what went on inside her head or which one of the Skeletals was her favourite.
²⁷
She was the King's favourite secret agent because she never asked him for any wages. She just did it from the sheer love of causing distress to as many people as possible.
²⁸

‘As you know I hired our country's top spies – Cliché, Stain and Ooze – to follow the princess and her abductor.'

‘I do, sire,' said the Hearse Whisperer, well aware how useless the three spies were. ‘I know too that the Queen, her vile servant and her stupid donkey have fled with them.'

‘Exactly. And I suspect that foul Sheman has confused the path through the forest so the three spies keep ending up back here in town,' said the King. ‘I want you to undo this magic and guide them through the forest, but make sure they don't know you're there because I want you to follow them, and when they have led you to my daughter I want you to kill them, and all the others except my daughter. And as a reward you can kill them in the most painful way you can think of.'

‘And the Queen?'

‘Kill her too,' said the King, rubbing his chubby fingers together. ‘It's time I got a new one.'

‘No problem,' said the Hearse Whisperer, turning into a pigeon.

‘Report back to me with any news,' said the King. ‘I suspect those spies will sell their services to the highest bidder.'

‘Perhaps, sire, you should have given them more than three sovereigns' deposit,' said the Hearse Whisperer.

‘How did you know that?'

‘You probably did not notice the small slug crawling up the fifteenth leaf of the deadly nightshade plant in the flowerpot on the windowsill in Cliché, Stain and Ooze's office,' the Hearse Whisperer explained. ‘That was me.'

‘What were you doing there?' asked the King.

‘As always, sire, I was protecting you,' said the Hearse Whisperer and flew out of the window.

She floated over the rooftops towards the forest, setting the odd line of washing on fire just to keep her hand in. This was no mean feat considering the perpetual dampness everywhere.
²⁹

Unseen by anyone below, she drifted over the forest. She was in no hurry. Time was on her side – though if time had realised just how deeply evil she was, it would have had nothing to do with her. As it was, it simply stood still for her, allowing her to remain the same for century after century. The Hearse Whisperer had served the King's father and his grandfather and back until the first of the line had risen up and driven Nerlin's ancestors into the
drains to live as the wretched Dirt People. She had played no small part in that revolution, though most people were completely unaware of her existence. Most people thought the Hearse Whisperer was a legend, an invention parents could use to scare their children when they were being naughty.

When she found Cliché, Stain and Ooze, they were walking in such small circles that they were following themselves. The Hearse Whisperer ignored them. They would eventually make their way into the Valley of the Sages and Other Herbs but, by the time they did, Nerlin and Mordonna would probably be grandparents. A black budgie was circling the spies, squawking swear words at them.

‘Ah, the Sheman's little helper. Come here, tasty morsel,' the Hearse Whisperer whispered. She set the bird's feathers alight and it flew straight into a tree trunk at the edge of the forest, where the Hearse Whisperer was waiting for it. She picked it up, put out its burning wings and held it close to her face.

‘Tell me, little snack food … tell me where they are.'

‘Drop dead,' said Cassandra, for it was she, and not her partner, Clint.

‘Wrong answer,' said the Hearse Whisperer, resisting the urge to fry the budgie to a crisp.
³⁰
‘Tell me or I will clip your wings.'

‘Never,' said Cassandra.

‘I don't mean clip your wings,' said the Hearse Whisperer, correcting herself. ‘I mean clip your wings
off
.'

In her cave, the Sheman sensed the presence of the Hearse Whisperer and knew that one of her two budgies was in trouble. She knew that if she sent Clint out to see what was happening, the Hearse Whisperer would take him too. She sat cross-legged on the ground and sent her mind out into Cassandra's.

‘Ah, your mistress has decided to join us,' said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘So we meet again, Sheman.
Last time we met you caught me off-guard because I was so jealous of your staggering beauty, but now we are enemies. This time I shall destroy you.'