The Pinhoe Egg (7 page)

They could see the woods they were making for, tantalizingly only two hills away, a spill of dark green trees with already one or two dashes of pure, sunlit yellow that signaled autumn coming. Every time Cat looked—usually while he was at the top of a hill waiting for Roger—those trees seemed farther and farther off, and more away to the left, and
still
two hills away. Cat began to think they had missed a turning, or perhaps even taken the wrong road to start with.

When Roger caught up next time, with his face beyond raspberry into strawberry color, Cat said, “We ought to take the next left turn.”

Roger was too much out of breath to do anything but nod. So Cat took the lead and swung
Syracuse into a nice broad road leading away left.
SHALLOWHELM,
the signpost said.
UPHELM
.

About half a mile later, when he could speak, Roger said, “This road can't be right. It should take us back to the Castle.”

Cat could still see the wood, still in the same place, so he kept on. The road bent about, among nothing but empty countryside for what seemed miles, up and down, until Roger was more the color of a peony than anything else. Then it swung round a corner and went up a truly enormous hill.

Roger let out a wail at the sight of it. “I
can't
! I'll have to get off and push.”

“No, don't,” Cat said. “Let me give you a tow.”

He used the same spell he had used to keep Julia from falling off Syracuse and flung it round Roger's bicycle. They went on, fast at first, because Syracuse still regarded every hill as a challenge to gallop, then slower—even when Cat allowed Syracuse to try to gallop—and then slower still. Halfway up, when Syracuse's front hooves were digging and digging and his back ones were scrambling, it dawned on Syracuse what was going on. He looked across at Roger
and the bicycle, so uncannily keeping beside him. Then he threw Cat in the ditch and scrambled through the hedge into the stubble field beyond.

Roger only just saved himself and the bicycle from falling in the ditch too. “That horse,” he said, kneeling in the grass beside his spinning front wheel, “is too clever by half. Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Cat said, but he stayed sitting in the squashy weeds at the bottom of the ditch. It was not so much the fall. It was that Syracuse had broken the spell quite violently. This had never happened to Cat before. He discovered that it hurt. “In a moment,” he added.

Roger looked anxiously from Cat's white face to Syracuse pounding happily about in the field above them. “I wish I was old enough to drive a car,” he said. “Or I wish that there was some way of moving this bike without having to pedal.”

“Couldn't you invent a way?” Cat asked, to take his mind off hurting.

They were both sitting thinking about this, when a boy on a bicycle came past them up the hill. He was riding an ordinary bike, but he was humming smoothly upward at a good speed, and
he was not pedaling at all. Roger and Cat stared after him with their mouths open. Cat was so amazed that it took him several seconds to recognize Joe Pinhoe. Roger was simply amazed. They both began shouting at once.

“Hey, Joe!” Cat shouted.

“Hey, you!” Roger shouted.

And they both yelled in chorus, “Can you stop a moment? Please!”

For a moment, it looked as if Joe was not going to stop. He had hummed his way about twenty yards uphill before he seemed to change his mind. He shrugged a bit. Then his hand went down to a box on his crossbar, where he appeared to move a switch of some kind, after which he turned in a smooth curve and came coasting back down the hill to them.

“What's the matter?” he asked, propping himself on the bank with one boot. “Want me to help catch the horse?” He nodded at Syracuse, who was now watching them across the hedge with great interest.

“No, no!” Cat and Roger said at once. “It's not the horse,” Cat added.

Roger said, “We wanted to know how you
make your bike go uphill without pedaling like that. It's
brilliant
!”

Joe was clearly very gratified. He grinned. But, being Joe, he also hung his head and looked sulky. “I only use it on hills,” he said guardedly.

“That's what's so brilliant,” Roger said. “How do you
do
it?”

Joe hesitated.

Roger could see Joe was very proud of his device, whatever it was, and was itching to show it off, really. He asked coaxingly, “Did you invent it yourself?”

Joe nodded, grinning his sulky grin again.

“Then you must be a brilliant inventor,” Roger said. “I like inventing things too, but I've never come up with anything
this
useful. I'm Roger, by the way. Don't you work in the Castle? I know I've seen you there.”

“Boot boy,” said Joe. “I'm Joe.” He nodded at Cat. “I've met him.”

“Jason Yeldham used to be boot boy there too,” Roger said. “It must go with brilliance.”

“Herbs, I know,” Joe said. “It's machines I like, really. But this box—it's more of a dwimmer-thing, see.” His hand went out to the box on his
crossbar, and stopped. “What's in it for me, if I do show you?” he asked suspiciously.

Roger was commercially minded too. He sympathized with Joe completely. The problem was that he had no money on him and he knew Cat had none either. And Joe could be offended at being offered money anyway. “I wouldn't tell anyone else about it,” he said while he thought. “And Cat won't either. I tell you what—when we get back to the Castle, I'll give you the address of the Magics Patent Office. You register your invention with them, and everyone has to pay you if they want to use it too.”

Joe's face gleamed with cautious greed. “Don't I have to be grown up to do that?”

“No,” said Roger. “I sent for the forms when I invented a magic mirror game last year, and they don't ask your age at all. They ask for a fifty-pound fee, though.”

Cat wondered whether to point out that he, and not Roger, had invented the mirror game by accident. But he said nothing, because he was quite as interested in the box as Roger was.

Joe had a distant, calculating look. “I
could
be earning that much this summer,” he decided.
“They pay quite well at the Castle. All right. I'll show you.”

Grinning his sulky grin, Joe carefully unhooked the small latch that held the box on his crossbar shut. The hinged lid dropped downward to show—Cat craned out of the ditch and then recoiled—of all things, a stuffed ferret! The bent yellow body had bits of wire and twisted stalks of plants leading from its head and its paws to the place where the box met the crossbar.

“Metal to metal,” Joe explained, pointing to the join. “That's machinery, see. The dwimmer part is to use the right herbs for life. You have to use something that has once been alive, see. Then you can get the life power running through the frame and turning the wheels.”

“Brilliant!” Roger said reverently, peering in at the ferret. Its glass eyes seemed to glare sharply back at him. “But how do you get the life power to flow? Is that a spell, or what?”

“It's some old words we sometimes use in the woods,” Joe said. “But the trick is the herbs that go with the wires. Took me ages to find the right ones. You got to
blend
them, see.”

Roger bent even closer. “Oh, I see. Clever.”

Cat got up out of the ditch and went to catch Syracuse. He knew, now he had seen the box, that he could almost certainly make Roger one this evening, probably without needing a stuffed ferret. But he knew Roger would hate that. Cat's kind of magic made some things too easy. Roger would be wanting to make a box by himself, however long it took. As Cat pushed his way through the hedge, he wondered exactly what Joe's word “dwimmer” meant. Was it an old word for magic? It sounded more specialized than that. It must mean a special
sort
of magic, probably.

Syracuse was not very hard to catch. He was quite tired after hauling Roger uphill, and a little bored by now in the wide, empty stubble field. But when Cat finally had the reins in his hands again, he discovered that Syracuse only had three shoes. One shoe must have torn off while Syracuse was plunging through the hedge.

Finding the shoe was not a problem. Cat simply held his hand out and
asked
. The missing horseshoe whirled up out of a clump of grass, where no one would have found it for years in the ordinary way, and slapped itself into Cat's hand. The real problem was that Cat knew Joss Callow
would be outraged if Cat tried sticking the shoe back on by magic. It was bound to go on wrong somehow. And Joss would be truly angry if Cat tried to ride Syracuse with one uneven foot. Cat sighed. He was going to have to levitate Syracuse all the way home, or conjure him along in short bursts, or—knowing how much Syracuse hated magic—most likely just walk. Bother.

He found a gate and led Syracuse out through it and down the hill, where Joe and Roger were sitting side by side on the bank, talking eagerly. Cat could see they were now fast friends. Well, they clearly had a lot in common.

“That's
women's
work, a machine for washing dishes,” Joe was saying. “We can do better than that. If you get any good notions, you better come and tell me. I get in trouble if I wander round the Castle. You can find me in the boot room.” He looked up as he heard Syracuse's uneven footfalls. “I have to be going,” he said. “I've an errand to run for our Gammer, down in Helm St. Mary.” He got up off the bank and picked up his bicycle. “And you'll never guess what it is,” he said. “Take a look.” He pulled a large glass jar with a lid on out of the basket on the front of his bicycle and
held it up. “I'm to tip this in their village pond there,” he said.

Cat and Roger leaned to look at the murky, greenish water in the jar. A few fat black things with tails were wiggling slowly around in it.

“Tadpoles?” said Roger. “A bit late in the year, isn't it?”

“Quite big ones,” Cat said.

“I know,” Joe said. “I could only find six, and some of those have their legs already. Know what they're for?” They shook their heads. “This is not a jar of tadpoles,” Joe said. “It's a declaration of war, this is.” He put the jar back in his basket and got astride his bike.

“Wait a moment,” Cat said. “Do you know how far it is to Chrestomanci Castle?”

Joe shot him a slightly guilty look. “You can see it from the top of this hill,” he said. “Got turned around, didn't you? Not my fault. But the Farleighs don't like people wandering around in their country, so they do this to the roads. See you.”

He switched the toggle at the side of his box and went purring smoothly away up the hill.

N
ot surprisingly, Cat got back to the Castle a long time after Joe or Roger did. Syracuse resisted Cat's attempt to levitate him and started to stamp and panic at the mere hint of teleportation. Cat was too much afraid he would split the unshod hoof to try either spell more than just the once. He could hardly bear to think of what Joss Callow would say if he brought Syracuse in with an injury. So he was reduced to plodding along by the grass verge, with Syracuse breathing playfully on his hair, happy that Cat was not trying to use magic anymore. That wizard who sold Syracuse, Cat thought glumly, must have frightened the horse badly by slamming spells on him. Cat would
have liked to slam a few spells back on the wizard.

After a while, however, Syracuse's happiness made Cat cheerful too. He began to notice things in that special way Syracuse seemed to be training him to do. He sniffed the smells of the grass, the ditches, and the hedges, and the dustier smell of the crops standing in the fields. He looked up to see birds teeming across the sky to roost for the night; and, like Syracuse, he jumped and then peered at a rustling in the hedge that was certainly a weasel. They both glimpsed the tiny, brown, almost snakelike body. They both raised their heads to see rabbits bounce away from the danger in the pasture on the other side of the hedge.

But Syracuse was puzzled, because there should have been
more
than just these smells and sights. Cat knew what Syracuse meant. There was an emptiness to the countryside, where it should have been full—though quite what should have filled it, neither Cat nor Syracuse knew. It reminded Cat a little of that time in Home Wood, where the distance was so strangely missing. Things were not here, where they should have been joyful and busy. Even so, it was peaceful. They plodded on, quietly enjoying the walk, until
they topped the hill and turned the long corner, and there was Chrestomanci Castle in the distance on the next hill.

Oh dear, Cat thought. Walking was so
slow
. He was going to miss supper.

In fact, it was still only early evening when they reached the stableyard gates. When Cat pushed one gate open and led Syracuse through, the yard was full of long golden light, with two long shadows stretching across it. Unfortunately, these shadows belonged to Chrestomanci and Joss Callow. They were waiting side by side to meet him, looking as unlike as two men more or less the same height could look. Where Chrestomanci was rake thin, Joss was wide and heavy. Where Chrestomanci was dark, Joss was ruddy. Chrestomanci was wearing a narrow gray silk suit, while Joss was in his usual rough leather and green shirt. But they both looked powerful and they both looked far from pleased. Cat could hardly tell which of them he wanted less to meet.

“At last,” Chrestomanci said. “As I understand it, you had no business to be out alone on this horse at all. What kept you?”

Joss Callow simply ran his hand down Syracuse's leg and picked up the shoeless foot. The look he gave Cat across it made Cat's stomach hurt. He could think of nothing else to do but hold the missing horseshoe out to Joss.

“How come?” Joss said.

“He threw me off and went through a hedge,” Cat said, “but it was my fault.”

“Is he lame?” Chrestomanci asked.

“No more than you would be, walking with one bare foot,” Joss said. “The hoof's sound, by some kind of a miracle. I'll take him to the stable now, if you don't mind, sir.”

“By all means,” Chrestomanci said.

Cat watched Joss lead Syracuse off. Syracuse drooped his head as if he felt as much to blame as Cat. From Syracuse's point of view this was probably true, Cat thought. Syracuse had
loved
their illegal outing.

“I am going to ask Joss to exercise that wretched horse himself for a while,” Chrestomanci said. “I haven't decided yet if it's for a week or a month or a year. I'll let you know. But you are not to ride him until I say so, Cat. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Cat said miserably.

Chrestomanci turned round and started to walk away. Cat was relieved at first. Then he realized there was something he ought to tell Chrestomanci and ran after him.

“Did Roger tell you about the roads?”

Chrestomanci turned back. He did not look pleased. “Roger seems to be keeping out of my way. What about the roads?”

This made Cat see that, unless he was very careful, he would get not only Roger but Joe too into trouble. Joe should have been in the Castle, not riding about with a jar of tadpoles. He said, thinking about every word, “Well, Roger was with me on his bike—”

“And it jumped a hedge as well and perhaps lost a wheel?” Chrestomanci said.

“No, no,” Cat said. Chrestomanci always confused him when he got sarcastic. “No, he's fine. But we were trying to get to Ulverscote Woods and we couldn't. The roads kept turning us back toward the Castle all the time.”

Chrestomanci dropped his sarcastic look at once. His head came up, like Syracuse when he heard Cat coming. “Really? A misdirection spell, you think?”

“Something like that—but it was one I didn't know,” Cat said.

“I'll check,” Chrestomanci said. “Meanwhile, you are in disgrace, Cat, and so is Roger, when I find him.”

Roger of course knew he was likely to be in trouble. He met Cat on his way down to the very formal supper they always had at the Castle. “Is he very angry?” he asked, nervously straightening his smart velvet jacket.

“Yes,” Cat said.

Roger shivered a little. “Then I'll go on keeping out of his way,” he said. “Oh, and keep out of the girls' way too.”

“Why?” said Cat.

“They're being a
pain
,” Roger said. “Particularly Janet.”

The girls were already there, when Roger and Cat went into the anteroom where Chrestomanci, Millie, and all the wizards and sorcerers who made up the Castle staff were gathered before supper. Janet and Julia were pale and quiet but not particularly painful as far as Cat could see. Roger at once slid off along the walls, trying to keep a wizard or a sorceress always
between himself and his father. It did not work. Wherever Roger slid, Chrestomanci turned and fixed him with a stare from those bright black eyes of his. At supper, it was worse. Roger had to be in plain view then, sitting at the table, since, being Roger, he seriously wanted to eat. Chrestomanci's vague, sarcastic look was on him most of the time. Jason Yeldham, for some reason, was not there that evening, so there was no one to distract Chrestomanci. Roger squirmed in his chair. He kept his head down. He pretended to look out of the long windows at the sunset over the gardens, but, whatever he did, that stare kept meeting his eyes.

“Oh
blast
it!” Roger muttered to Cat. “Anyone would think I'd murdered someone!”

As soon as supper was over, Roger jumped from his chair and rushed off. So too did Julia and Janet. Chrestomanci raised one of his eyebrows at Cat. “Aren't you going to run away as well?” he said.

“Not really. But I think I'll go,” Cat said, getting up.

“Are you quite sure you won't join us for nuts and coffee?” Chrestomanci asked politely.

“You always talk about things I don't understand,”
Cat explained. “And I need to see Janet.”

Whatever Roger said, Cat found this was one of the times when he felt a little responsible for Janet. She had been looking very pale. And she was only here in this world of Twelve A because Cat's sister Gwendolen had worked a thoroughly selfish spell and stranded Janet here. He knew there were still times when strangeness and loneliness overwhelmed Janet.

He thought, when he went into the playroom, that this was one of those times. Janet was sitting sobbing on the battered sofa. Julia had both arms round her.

“What is it?” Cat said.

Julia looked up, and Cat saw she was almost as woebegone as Janet. “Jason's
married
!” Julia said tragically. “He got married in London before he came here.”

“So?” said Cat.

Janet flung herself round on the sofa. “You don't
understand
!” she said sobbingly. “I was planning to marry him myself in about four years' time!”

“So was I,” Julia put in. “But I think Janet's more in love with him than I am.”

“I know I shall hate his wife!” Janet wept. “
Irene!
What an
awful
name!”

Julia said, judicious and gloomy, “She
was
Miss Irene Pinhoe, but at least Irene Yeldham makes a better name. He probably married her out of kindness.”

“And,” Janet wailed, “he's gone to fetch her
here
, so that they can look at houses. They'll be here for
ages
, and I know I won't be able to go near her!”

Julia added disgustedly, “She's an
artist
, you see. The house they buy is going to have to be just right.”

Cat knew by now exactly what Roger had meant. He began backing out of the playroom.

“That's right! Slide away!” Janet shouted after him. “You've no more feelings than a—than a chair leg!”

Cat was quite hurt that Janet should say that. He knew he was full of feelings. He was wretched already at being forbidden to ride Syracuse.

The next day, he missed Syracuse more than ever. What made it worse was that he could feel Syracuse, turned out into the paddock, missing Cat too, and sad and puzzled when Cat did not
appear. Cat moped about, avoiding Janet and Julia and not being able to see much of Roger either. Roger, possibly as a way of avoiding Chrestomanci, was spending most of his time with Joe. Whenever Joe was not working—which seemed to be more than half the day—he and Roger were to be found with their heads together, talking machinery in the old garden shed behind the stables. At least, Cat could find them, being an enchanter, but nobody much else could. They had a surprisingly strong “Don't Notice” spell out around the shed. But Cat was bored by machinery and only went there once.

The day after that, Jason Yeldham's small blue car thundered up to the front door of Chrestomanci Castle. This time, Janet and Julia refused to go near it. But Millie rushed through the hall to meet it and Cat went with her out of boredom. Jason sprang out of the car in his usual energetic way and ran around it to open the other door and help Irene climb out.

As Irene stood up and smiled—just a little nervously—at Millie and Cat, Cat's instant thought was, Janet and Julia can't possibly hate
her
! Irene was slender and dark, with that proud,
pale kind of profile that Cat always thought of as belonging to the Ancient Egyptians. On Irene, it was somehow very beautiful. Her eyes, like those of the wives of the Pharoahs, were huge and slanted and almond shaped, so that it came as quite a shock when Irene looked at Cat and he saw that her eyes were a deep, shining blue. Those eyes seemed to recognize Cat, and know him, and to take him in and warm to him, like a friend's. Millie's eyes had the same knack, now Cat came to think of it.

He did not blame Jason for smiling so proudly as he led Irene up the steps and into the hall, where Irene looked at the huge pentacle inlaid in the marble floor, and up into the glass dome where the chandelier hung, and round at the great clock over the library door. “Goodness gracious!” she said.

Jason laughed. “I told you it was grand,” he said.

By this time, all the wizards and sorceresses of Chrestomanci's staff were streaming down the marble stairs to meet Irene. Chrestomanci himself came behind them. As usual at that hour of the morning, he was wearing a dressing gown. This
one was bronzy gold and green and blue, and seemed to be made of peacock feathers. Irene blinked a little when she saw it, but held out her hand to him almost calmly. As Chrestomanci took it and shook it, Cat could tell that Chrestomanci liked Irene. He felt relieved about that.

Julia and Janet appeared at the top of the stairs, behind everyone's backs as they crowded round Irene. Janet took one look and rushed away, crying bitterly. But Julia stayed, watching Irene with a slight, interested smile. Cat was relieved about that, too.

Altogether, the arrival of Irene made Cat's separation from Syracuse easier to bear. She was as natural and warm as if she had known Cat for years. Jason allowed Cat to show her round the Castle—although he insisted on showing Irene the gardens himself—and Irene strolled beside Cat, marveling at the ridiculous size of the main rooms, at the miles of green carpeted corridors, and at the battered state of the schoolroom. She was so interested that Cat even showed her his own round room up in the turret.

Irene much admired it. “I've always wanted a tower room like this myself,” she said. “You must
love it up here. Do you think there's a house in the neighborhood that's big enough to have a tower like this one?”

Cat was quite ashamed to say he didn't know.

“Never mind,” said Irene. “Jason's found several for sale that I might like. You see, it's got to be quite a big house. My father left me money when he died, but he left me his two old servants as well. We have to have room for them to live with us without being cramped. Jane James insists she doesn't mind where we live or how much room we have—but I know that's not true. She's a very particular person. And Adams has set his heart on living in the country and I simply can't disappoint him. If you knew him, you'd understand.”

Later, Irene sat in the vast Small Saloon and showed Cat a portfolio of her drawings. Cat was surprised to find that they were more like patterns than drawings. They were all in neatly ruled shapes, long strips and elegant diamonds. The strips had designs of ferns and honeysuckle inside them and the diamonds had fronds of graceful leaves. There were plaits of wild roses and panels of delicately drawn irises. It was a further surprise to Cat to find that each pattern sent out its own
small, fragrant breath of magic. Each was full of a strange, gentle joy. Cat had had no idea that drawings could do this.