Igraine the Brave (7 page)

“Sisyphus, go and fetch our parents!” Igraine whispered. “Quick! They’re still in the stables.”

Sisyphus shot away as if a pack of wolves were after him.

“What do you bet it’s our new neighbor, little sister?” asked Albert in a low voice.

Igraine didn’t answer.

For where but Darkrock could the horsemen be coming from? There were a great many of them, so many that Igraine soon lost count. A fat man in a black cloak rode at the head of the troop, with a gigantic knight following him. The strange banner that Igraine had seen flying from the towers of Darkrock was fluttering from his lance.

“A visit from the neighbors?” Igraine’s father was badly out of breath after climbing the steep steps to the battlements on his piggy legs.

“Goodness me, this looks like trouble, my dear,” said Melisande, pushing her snout above the wall. Sisyphus jumped up on the battlements, his tail raised high, and hissed at the visitors below.

The horsemen were coming closer and closer. The cold morning air was filled with the clanking of their weapons and armor. They were hardly a horse’s length from the castle moat when their stout leader reined in his mount and raised his gloved hand. His men swarmed forward, taking their horses up to the moat until they surrounded it like a wall, leaving only a space in front of the drawbridge for their master and the knight with the lance. The knight’s armor looked exactly as Bertram had described it; it was covered from his neck to his greaves with iron spikes. Even his helmet was as prickly as a sweet chestnut husk.

When Osmund (for who else could the leader be?) took up his position in front of the drawbridge, the Spiky Knight followed and planted his lance on the ground between himself and his master.

The lions were still roaring, but when Albert snapped his fingers they stopped.

“Hide!” Igraine whispered urgently to the two pigs. Her parents hesitated, but finally stuck their heads under Albert’s magic coat. Meanwhile Igraine climbed up on the battlements. Luckily she’d put on her new armor when she got up that morning.

“Who are you?” she called down as loudly as she could. “And what do you want?”

The Spiky Knight opened his visor and looked up at her. His face was white as snow.

“I am the castellan of Osmund the Magnificent!” he called across the marshy water. “Osmund is the new master of Darkrock Castle, and he presents his compliments to his neighbors at Pimpernel.”

“How kind!” Igraine called down. “Same to him. And now you can all ride home again.”

“Hush, Igraine!” hissed Albert. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”

Igraine pressed her lips together and kept quiet, hard as that was.

The horses were snorting uneasily. They could scent the water snakes. But the Spiky Knight forced his own mount closer to the moat.

“The noble Osmund didn’t come to bandy words with children!” he called up to Igraine. “Especially not with an impertinent minx like you. Take a look at that!” he told his men. “Here’s a castle where they put little girls in armor. They really scare us, don’t they?”

The horsemen gave such a loud roar of laughter that the water snakes lifted their heads out of the water. Whinnying, the horses reared. Five men fell headfirst into the moat and disappeared beneath the water lilies. The Spiky Knight angrily signaled to his men to pull them out, but however hard they looked, their companions had disappeared, armor, swords, pennants, and all.

“The moat magic still works all right!” whispered Albert.

“That’s good news!” the Fair Melisande whispered back. “The sheer nastiness of this Osmund and his castellan is getting up my nose like the stink of sulphur!”

“Hey, you down there, you can save yourselves the trouble of searching!” Igraine put her hands on her hips. “Anyone who falls into our moat turns into a fish. But don’t worry, I’ve already fed the water snakes today.”

Osmund’s men were getting restless. But when their master cast a menacing glance all around, they fell perfectly silent again.

“That’s enough silly children’s talk!” cried Osmund. His voice sounded like the growling of a fat tomcat, and his black cloak billowed out in the wind. “Where are the enchantress Melisande and her husband, Lamorak? Is this your idea of hospitality, turning brave men into fish?”

“Talks big, doesn’t he?” murmured Albert. “I don’t think I like him one little bit.”

“Can’t you turn him into a wood louse or a fat frog?” whispered Igraine, without taking her eyes off Osmund.

“Answer the noble Osmund, you little toad in armor!” bellowed the Spiky Knight. “Where are your parents, the enchanters Melisande and Lamorak?”

“Not at home!” Igraine shouted back. “But you can always come back next week and try again.”

Osmund obviously didn’t care for this information at all. “Listen to me, little girl!” he called back menacingly. “I don’t care where your parents are. Tell them that I want their Singing Books of Magic! I’m ready to pay whatever you and your skinny beanpole of a brother weigh in gold. But if they turn down this extremely generous offer,” he added, drawing his sword and laying it across his knees, “I’ll be back with an army, to tear down this miserable castle stone by stone. And no magic in the world will prevent me from taking the books by force. Will you tell them that?”

Igraine started trembling with rage.

“I want an answer by noon tomorrow!” cried Osmund. “I shall send my castellan to hear it as soon as the sun stands above that ridiculously wonky castle tower of yours.”

“You can have your answer now, you puffed-up toad!” Igraine shouted down. “You —”

But she got no further. Albert grabbed her from behind, put his hand over her mouth, and pulled her down from the wall. “Are you crazy?” he hissed in her ear. “Have you forgotten that our parents can’t work magic at the moment? And it isn’t as easy as you think to turn them all into wood lice! We have to play for time. Only that can save us!”

He let go of Igraine and climbed up on the battlements himself. His magic coat fluttered around his tall, thin figure, and the mice hid in his sleeves.

“Forgive my little sister, noble Osmund!” cried Albert, bowing low. “She’s only just twelve, and she’s heard minstrels tell too many tales of chivalry. I am Albert of Pimpernel, eldest son of noble Sir Lamorak and the Fair Melisande. I will inform my parents of your generous offer as soon as they get back from their journey. But we’re not expecting them for another two weeks. So I must ask you not to expect an answer any sooner than that.”

Igraine could almost have bitten off her tongue with fury when she heard her brother talk like that. But Albert was right. They needed time — time to go and get the giant’s hairs. Time to turn their parents back into human form. Otherwise they were finished.

“Oh, I could bite my curly tail with rage!” grunted her father beside her. “Why does that fellow have to show up just now? I’d turn him straight into a slug if I weren’t stuck in this stupid itchy pigskin, I’d turn him into a stinkhorn, I’d turn him into the backside of an ape….”

“Shhh!” hissed the Fair Melisande, listening with bated breath for an answer from below.

None came for an agonizingly long time. Then they heard Osmund’s voice again. “Oho! So your parents have gone away, have they? For two weeks. Leaving their children all alone in a crumbling castle like this for two whole weeks?” Some of his men laughed. “Hmm. All alone with their lovely Books of Magic. Well, well. Two weeks, that’s really quite a while. But I’ll wait for the answer, my boy. After all, I’m a man of honor, aren’t I?”

Igraine clenched her fists with fury. But Osmund smiled mockingly at his castellan.

The Spiky Knight raised his lance, and Osmund’s men turned their horses and rode away with their master. Only the Spiky Knight lingered by the castle moat for another moment, motionless. He looked up at the walls, examined the gargoyles, the drawbridge, and the leaning tower that rose above the battlements. Then he bent forward, spat into the moat where the water snakes were writhing, swung his horse around, and galloped away.

8

“N
ow what? You can bet Osmund won’t wait two weeks to come back,” said Albert.

He and Igraine were sitting side by side on the carpet in the magic workshop. The Singing Books were sitting on their shelves, looking depressed, and Sir Lamorak and the Fair Melisande were trotting restlessly about among their items of magic equipment.

“No, he certainly won’t,” sighed Melisande. “In fact, he’ll be back very soon, because he thinks it’s going to be easy for him.”

“And he’s probably right,” said Albert gloomily. “Perhaps we ought to take the books and all hide in the Whispering Woods, before he throws me and Igraine into Darkrock’s dungeon and turns you two into roast pork.”

“No, no, we most definitely ought not!” cried Sir Lamorak, stamping his trotter. “We’re not done for yet. You’re already a good magician, Albert, and the books can help you.”

A worried muttering was heard up on the shelves.

“But he’s only passed Grade Three of the magic exams!” said one of the fatter books.

“That’s right!” agreed a very slim volume. “We can’t possibly work with such a beginner. He doesn’t even know how to read our writing properly.”

Albert jumped up. “Of course I do!” he said in an injured tone. “And I know the page numbers of almost all your magic songs. Even my mice practically know them by heart, I’ve said those numbers out loud to myself so often!”

“But that … that …!” The books were whispering to each other. “That’s an insult!” one of them squawked.

“Oh, don’t make such a fuss!” said Igraine, taking her brother’s side. “We’re good enough to dust you, right? But when it comes to working magic …”

“Hush, hush, hush, my dears!” grunted Sir Lamorak, nudging his children gently with his snout. “This really isn’t the time to quarrel.”

“Dear books, believe me, you wouldn’t like living with that Osmund,” said Melisande.

“He wouldn’t dust you every other day!” said Igraine crossly. “And I bet he wouldn’t give you nice padded shelves.”

“He’d chain you up, the way the King chains up his valuable books,” said Albert. “The chains would be just long enough to let you be taken off the shelves. And you’d have to sing until your voices sounded like toads croaking and your pages fell out like an old man’s hair!”

The books looked at each other in dismay.