Part 12 (1/2)

Forgetting his sulks, he imparted this information in a tone of condescension.

'Oh, what fustian!' exclaimed the captain irritably. 'He is not really dwelling here, I collect?'

'O' course he ain't! But a good few o' the townspeople believe he is, an' that suits the queen's book an' keeps them contented. Every month or so she buys another set o' flutes or some wool and a crochet-hook ”Just to keep His Majesty diverted during his illness.” That's what all that clobber is in the other rooms.'

'The jailors know it's not so.'

'Ay, but they're all dumb.'

'Why does she keep up the pretence?' asked the captain, s.h.i.+vering despite himself. 'Does she really believe it herself?'

'Not that he is here. Oh, who knows what she believes?' said Mr Brandywinde morosely. 'But, whether she believes it herself or not, the rumour that he's in here is enough to keep King Mabon, or Ccaed-mon of Hy Brasil, from invading and snapping up New c.u.mbria for themselves. A sick king is better than none.'

'Oh. Ha. Hum. I see. Why the deuce didn't you tell me all this on the Thrush?' demanded the captain.

'Eh? Oh well; I never thought you'd get as far as Bath Regis,' Mr Brandywinde said evasively. 'And -and about to set sail myself; preoccupied with plans for departure -'

'So why did you not embark? Why are you here in prison? And where are your wife and child?'

At these questions, to Captain Hughes's horror, his companion began to whimper distressingly. Tears coursed down his cheeks; he rocked himself to and fro.

'Oh, I am a wicked wretch!' he lamented in a thin reedy voice. 'I did wrong dreadfully wrong and now I'm being punished for it; and what's worst of all, I didn't even benefit from my wrongdoing. On the contrary! Oh, my hands! My poor hands!'

'Why, what the devil did you do?' inquired the captain without much sympathy.

'I sold that child of yours, Twitkin, Tweetkin, whatever the name is, to Lady Ettarde, for our pa.s.sage money. Five hundred gold bezants.'

'Sold Miss Twite to Lady Ettarde?' exclaimed the captain in wrath and astonishment. 'As a slave, do you mean? How can you have sold her? She was not yours to sell!'

'Oh, I shouldn't have done it, I know!' blubbered Brandywinde. 'And anyway it didn't do me a particle of good because those two cursed witches, Morgan and Vavasour, swore they never got their hands on the brat the little monster escaped they wouldn't give me the ready after all the cheating harridans! So the boat sailed without us, and my wife and child are lost forever, and worst of all '

'What became of your wife and child?'

But at this question Mr Brandywinde went wholly to pieces, rocking, gulping and gibbering. The only words Captain Hughes could distinguish among those he gasped out were, 'Hunted to death to death!'

A grisly thought flashed into the captain's mind.

'Hunted? Good G.o.d, you can't mean that hunt in the forest -?'

'If she can't get 'em by other means, she'll send her h.e.l.l-hounds after them!'

Captain Hughes shuddered. He said, uncertainly, 'Do, pray, man, pull yourself together.' He had not the heart to ask any more questions; the subject was too dreadful; and no more sense could be got from Mr Brandywinde for the time; the little Agent wept and trembled and s.h.i.+vered, moaned that he wished he were dead, and then in the next breath voiced a longing to get his hands round the throat of Lady Ettarde and strangle her. 'Only how could I?' he wailed. 'My hands don't work any more!'

'How do you mean?' demanded the captain, exasperated after an hour or so of these continual lamentations. 'Your hands do not appear to be injured or crippled? I can see nothing amiss with them.'

'But there is! She overlooked them. She was angry -said she would teach me to cheat her not that I had any intention of cheating her, indeed, indeed I didn't! She blew on my fingers, she said, ”From now on they will be as soft as paint-brushes, that will teach you not to bamboozle me,” and they are, they are, look at them. I cannot even tie my cravat.'

'Oh, fiddlestick, man. This must be moons.h.i.+ne! A mere disorder of the senses. Let me see you tie your neckcloth.'

But if it was a delusion, it was a very deep-seated one. Mr Brandywinde fumbled limply and hopelessly with the linen neckpiece, as if his fingers had lost the power of obeying his will; and, later, when one of the guards opened the door and thrust a basin of thin soup into the room, Captain Hughes was obliged, with disgusted reluctance, to feed his fellow captive like a baby, while Mr Brandywinde whimpered and sobbed and snuffled, repeating that he was a wicked wicked wretch and he wished that he were dead.

Early next morning Mr Windward was informed that a letter had come from Her Mercy for Miss Dido Twite.

'Fancy her remembering my name!' said Dido, impressed, and she opened the note. It was an engraved card, bidding her present herself at the palace between the hours of four and five that afternoon.

'Humph!' said Windward suspiciously. 'I hope there isn't anything skimble-skamble about this. What do you think Dido had best do?' he said to the others. They were all a.s.sembled, s.h.i.+vering, in the cactus-gardens behind the Sydney Hotel.

'Tell you one thing; if I go, I ain't a-going to put on that fancy court rig again,' said Dido. 'I was peris.h.i.+ng well frozen in it yesterday, except jist in the Palace, an' it's turned a lot colder today, and I felt a fool in it. I'll jist wear my breeks and duffel jacket.'

'Multiple and I had best come with you.'

Somehow, without further discussion, it had been accepted by all of them that Dido had better keep the appointment. Lieutenant Windward went on, 'Plum and Gusset can stay to keep an eye on poor Holystone.'

'Let's take a dekko at that big map of c.u.mbria that hangs in the hotel lobby,' said Dido. Try and see how long it'll take us to get to King Mabon's place, if we go.'

'What about the Grand Inquisitor, though?' said Mr Multiple. 'You say he didn't want us to go to Mabon.'

'I don't trust him,' said Lieutenant Windward. 'He looked about as straightforward as an adder. I reckon he has his own axe to grind.'

'So we diddle him too? Pretend we're just pretending to visit Mabon?'

'Just so's we don't get into a mux ourselves, about what we're a-going to do,' said Dido.

'I think maybe we should visit Mabon,' said Mr Multiple. 'Maybe he's a right 'un. There must be some good coves somewhere in these frampold parts. All we know about Mabon is, he took the lake because he had his daughter stole. You can't blame him for that.'

The trio that set out for the palace that afternoon (they went by street-car, in order to save money) were in very poor spirits. Dido was worried about Mr Holystone, whose fever had somewhat abated, but who remained alarmingly pale and comatose. The other two were troubled about the fate of the captain. And who was to say that this unpredictable queen might not today take offence and throw the rest of them into jail?

Moreover the air, as evening approached in this upland region, became icily, bitterly cold, and thinner than ever, so that they were continually obliged to gasp for breath, as they crossed the Palace yard; Mr Multiple could not stop coughing, and Dido had a st.i.tch in her side. They stopped in the middle of the big cobbled square while she clutched her chest with both hands, panting like a flounder. A black-cloaked wooden-legged man, observing their predicament, advised Mr Multiple to buy some rumirumi lilies. 'Cavendo tutus,' he remarked.

'What the blazes are rumirumis?' coughed Multiple, drawing a long, difficult breath.

Without replying, the lame man (who wore such a high stack of hats pulled low over his brow that his face was invisible) went to one of a row of flower-stalls along the side of the square and purchased a handful of long-stalked large dark-pink trumpet-shaped blossoms with deeper splotches of colour in the calyx, and fibrous spiny leaves. 'You sniff those,' he said, returning to the three travellers, 'you soon better, sic itur ad cura.'

His remedy, indeed, proved remarkably efficacious. After sniffing at the big velvety potently-scented trumpets for a few minutes, all three gringos found themselves able to breathe more easily.

'Must have oxygen in 'em,' remarked the lieutenant. 'Mighty useful kind of plant. Best take some with us up the mountains. Thank you, indeed, sir,' he said to the c.u.mbrian, who had started to limp away. 'Pray allow me to reimburse you.'

'It is nothing, nihil, nihil,' the man called back. 'Mens sana in corpore sano!' His voice sounded familiar to Dido, who suddenly exclaimed, 'I do believe it was that Bran again! Did you notice a white bird peering out o' one of his hats?'

But Bran, if it were he, had already vanished down a side-street.

The gla.s.sy palace shone green and iridescent in the cold evening light. The sun was about to set behind the black cone of Mount Damyake, and the palace, slowly revolving on its islet, caught the last flash of the descending orb.

Lieutenant Windward, who had been studying Mr Multiple's guidebook, informed them, 'The palace is properly known as Caer Sisi.'

'That just means Spinning Castle,' said Mr Multiple, who had studied the book too.

They had to wait for a complete revolution of the palace to get in, and were half frozen by the time that the bronze door with its whirling panels came round to face them.

'Quick!' said Windward, and they all hurled themselves through.