Igraine the Brave (3 page)

“Quiet now!” she whispered as she crept over the bridge, her knees still all spidery-weak. “No mewing, no hissing, no purring, nothing. You know Albert has ears like a bat.”

The cat just gave her a scornful look as she put him down outside the tower door. Of course. He could prowl around much more quietly than she could, but Igraine did her best. A few startled bats fluttered to meet them when she climbed the endless staircase on tiptoe — there were hundreds up in the rafters — and Albert’s tame mice sat on almost every step, but Sisyphus acted as if he didn’t even see them.

The heavy oak door of the workshop was painted with magical signs, and the door handle was a small brass serpent that liked to bite strangers’ hands.

Igraine cautiously put her ear to the door and listened. She could hear the Books of Magic singing very indistinctly in their high voices. Sisyphus rubbed against her legs and purred. He wanted his breakfast.

“What did I tell you?” whispered Igraine with irritation, pushing him away. “Be quiet!”

But at that moment the door opened. Just a crack, just wide enough for Albert to put his head out.

“I might have known!” he said, smiling his what-a-silly-little-sister smile. His nose was smudged with wood ash, and there were two mice in his hair.

“I was passing here entirely by chance,” Igraine snapped at him. “I just wanted to ask when we’re finally going to have breakfast.”

Albert’s smile widened. “You won’t find out what you really want to know!” he said. “Your birthday present has always been a surprise, and it’s going to be a surprise this time, too. Go and feed the snakes.”

Igraine stood on tiptoe so that she could at least steal a glance into the room over his shoulder, but Albert pushed her back.

“Go away and play knights in armor, little sister!” he said. “I’ll ring the bell for breakfast when we’re ready.”

“Good morning, honey!” Igraine heard her mother call inside the magic workshop.

“Good morning!” called her father, Sir Lamorak.

Igraine didn’t answer. She stuck her tongue out at Albert and climbed down all those stairs again with her head held high.

2

T
he water snakes’ food was in the kitchen, and half a dozen of Albert’s mice scurried off the table as Igraine came in. They’d been at the cheese again, and when Sisyphus pushed his way past Igraine’s legs, they trotted past him as calmly as if he were stuffed.
One of these days I’ll catch them,
thought Igraine,
even if Albert does turn me into a spider for it. Albert! What use are brothers? Especially big brothers …

“The same old whispering every year, the same old hush-hush stuff,” she said crossly, putting a saucepan over the nibbled cheese to cover it. “But they’re really going too far this time! They’ve been up there working magic for five days now. Are they giving me an elephant or what?”

She poured some milk and water into Sisyphus’s bowl, took the bucket of magic leftovers out of the oven, where her mother always left it to hide it from the mice, and carried it into the castle courtyard. Sisyphus followed her, with milk on his whiskers.

The great drawbridge squealed horribly when Igraine let it down. Of course. All this magic, but it never even occurred to anyone to oil the chain. Sisyphus brushed past her legs and put his head over the side of the bridge, looking for his breakfast. The fish in the large outer moat weren’t under Albert’s protection, and the cat was very fond of fish. It was little short of a miracle that there were still shoals of them left. Igraine took a couple of blue-shelled eggs out of the bucket of magic leftovers and threw them in among the water lilies.

The water around the flowers began moving at once, as five snakes reached their shimmering heads up to Igraine, tongues darting in and out.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, leaning down to them, “but it’s Albert’s dry biscuits and blue eggs again today.”

The entire bucket was full of them. Even Igraine had to admit that Albert was quite a talented magician for someone his age, but as soon as he tried to conjure up something edible, he produced only blue eggs and dry biscuits. However, water snakes aren’t choosy, and as usual they devoured Albert’s magical failures with the utmost relish. Meanwhile Igraine wandered to the far end of the bridge and looked across the marshy meadows beyond the castle. Apart from a few rabbits hopping through the grass, nothing stirred in the morning sunlight. Igraine sighed.

“Feeding the snakes every morning,” she muttered, “dusting the Books of Magic on Wednesdays and Saturdays, scraping moss off the stone lions’ manes once a week, and once a year a tournament at Darkrock Castle! Nothing exciting ever happens here, Sisyphus. Never ever!” Sighing, she sat down on the side of the bridge next to the cat, and Sisyphus rubbed his gray head against her knee.

“I’m going to be twelve tomorrow, Sisyphus!” Igraine went on. “Twelve! And I haven’t had a single real adventure. How will I ever get to be a famous knight? Saving rabbits from the fox, rescuing squirrels from pine martens?”

“No, saving fish from me,” purred Sisyphus, dipping his claws in the water, but this time his scaly prey got away from him.

Igraine looked up at the stone gargoyles. Some of them were yawning, and the rest were squinting crossly at the fat flies that liked to bask on their noses in the sun.

“I mean, look at that. Even the gargoyles are bored,” she said. “I bet they’d like to crunch a few arrows or swallow a cannonball for a change.”

Sisyphus just shook his head, and went on staring patiently at the dark water.

“Yes, I know! It’s silly to wish for that kind of thing.” Igraine jumped up so suddenly that the cat hissed at her angrily.

“You’ll scare the fish away!”

“All you ever think about is food!” she snapped, reaching for the empty bucket. “I’m going to die of boredom, you wait and see! Maybe not overnight, but definitely before my next birthday!”

Sisyphus dipped his paw into the water, and this time he threw a flapping fish up onto the bridge. “Learn to work some magic!” he growled.

“I’m not interested in magic, you know that very well,” Igraine said. Gloomily she wandered back to the castle gate. “Magic!” she muttered. “Learning the ingredients for potions by heart, magic spells, magic symbols; no, thanks, not for me.”

“Pull the drawbridge up again!” mewed Sisyphus as he dragged his fish past her.

“What for?” she said. “There’s no one coming anyway. Twelve years old!” she murmured as she made for the armory to the right of the gateway. “My great-grandfather was a squire in a royal tournament when he was seven!” The door of the armory was always well oiled; Igraine saw to that. Even if her parents didn’t think much of weapons and armor (they thought their magic was much better protection), the armory of Pimpernel Castle was still full of swords and suits of armor, shields and lances from the days of her great-grandfather Pelleas. He had been an enthusiastic knight but a terrible horseman, and never won a single tournament because he always fell off his horse before his opponent had so much as leveled his lance. Igraine often passed the time cleaning rust off his old swords, or polishing the shields that bore his coat of arms until they shone.

“I was born at the wrong time, that’s all,” she muttered as she picked up one of his dented shields. “Yes, that’s what it is.” Her parents didn’t like her to use the real swords, but very likely they’d be shut up in their workshop for some time yet, so Igraine chose a blade that looked fairly like the play sword her father had made her by magic, stuck it in her belt, and put a helmet with a crest like a silver bird on her head. Unfortunately it was too big for her, but it looked good all the same. Then she took the magical leather dummy off his stand. Albert and her parents had conjured him up for her eighth birthday.

When Igraine blew three times into the dummy’s face, he stood upright, adjusted his sword belt, and stalked into the courtyard after her. Sisyphus put his ears back and hissed as the leathery creature marched out of the armory.

“Oh, come on!” Igraine told him. “You know he’s not going to hurt you. And it’s not as if I can practice fencing with you!” The leather man, limbs creaking, followed her up the stairs leading to the battlements above the castle gate. Sisyphus gloomily dropped a well-gnawed fish bone and leaped up the stairs after them.

While the cat made himself comfortable on the warm wall, the leather dummy leaned against the battlements, waiting. But Igraine clambered up on top of the wall and looked around. The sky was as blue as forget-me-nots. Only a few white clouds were drifting toward her from the Whispering Woods. It was such a clear day that if you looked west you could see all the way to the lands of the One-Eyed Duke, who was said to hunt dragons and unicorns all day, every day. The nearest village lay on one of the hills to the south. It was a long ride to get there, but on days like this you could see the cottage rooftops between the trees. To the east, however, the five round towers of Darkrock Castle rose to the sky. Darkrock was ten times bigger than Pimpernel, and its mistress the old Baroness loved just two things in life: horses and spicy mead.

“Nothing to do,” murmured Igraine. “Nothing at all. This is really more than I can stand.” She leaned forward. “Hello! Looks like the Baroness has a new banner. What coat of arms is that? Oh, well, it probably just shows a barrel of spicy mead.” With a sigh, she jumped down from the wall and put the point of her sword to the leather dummy’s chest.

“En
garde,
Leather Knight!” she cried, closing her visor. “You sawed off my unicorn’s horn, and you’ll pay dearly for it!”

The leather man drew his sword and planted himself squarely in front of her. As usual, he parried her sword strokes with the utmost elegance, and soon Igraine was so hot in her chain mail that she ran down to the well in the courtyard. She was just pouring a bucket of water over her head when the stone lions above the gate began to roar.