The Faeman Quest

Twenty-Nine

Chalkhill seemed to know his way around Lord Hairstreak’s Keep, Brimstone thought. He was certainly recognised by the securities, otherwise they’d both have been dead by now. But recognised didn’t necessarily mean welcome, as they discovered when they reached His Lordship himself.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Hairstreak demanded with obvious irritation.

Brimstone glared at him suspiciously. There was something wrong here. Chalkhill had told him His Lordship was a disembodied head now, but clearly Chalkhill had lied. Hairstreak was very much embodied, quite his old self in every way, fit and positively glowing with rude good health. He even looked as if he might have grown an inch or two, although that was probably just Brimstone’s faulty memory. Which was obviously what Chalkhill was relying on. He was probably counting on Brimstone having forgotten what he’d said about a disembodied head. Obviously Lord Hairstreak and Chalkhill had hatched some dastardly plot together to murder Brimstone. It was just the sort of thing they’d do. Not that Brimstone was worried: he had George to protect him now. A bluebottle flew in through Hairstreak’s window. Brimstone caught it expertly and dropped it into his pocket as a snack for later.

‘He’s helping me with my enquiries,’ Chalkhill told Hairstreak shortly.

Hairstreak dismissed the information with a shrug. He stretched luxuriously, walked to the window and looked out through the spell-driven rain to the high cliffs and rugged rocks battered by a raging sea. ‘I almost died once on those rocks,’ he remarked inconsequentially. Then he turned back, eyes glittering. ‘Where is the girl?’

‘We don’t have her,’ Chalkhill said, then added quickly, ‘yet.’

‘Clock’s ticking,’ Hairstreak growled.

Chalkhill nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Then what in Hael are you doing here?’ Hairstreak shouted suddenly. ‘Wasting my time and your own! Why aren’t you out there looking for her? You really really think I’m paying your outrageous fees so you can pop into my home every five minutes for a cup of tea?’

‘No, sir,’ Chalkhill said and Brimstone suddenly realised that for all his bluster, Chalkhill was still afraid of the little turd; or big turd, as he seemed to be now.

‘Then what,’ spat Hairstreak, ‘are you doing here?’

‘There have been developments,’ said Chalkhill stiffly.

‘Oooooh – developments! ’ Lord Hairstreak exclaimed. He did a little dance and spread his arms through the air in a high, sweeping movement. Brimstone watched him with fascination. Perhaps, Brimstone thought, Chalkhill hadn’t been lying about the disembodied head. Hairstreak was certainly behaving like someone who found a body a novelty. He’d hardly stood still for more than a moment since they walked through his door. But where had he got the new one? ‘And, pray tell me,’ Hairstreak said, spreading his hands like a pedlar and tapping his right foot, ‘to what developments do you refer?’

Chalkhill gave a taught, triumphant smile. ‘We have Queen Blue and King Consort Henry.’

There was absolute silence in the reception chamber and for once Lord Hairstreak stood stock still. He stared at Chalkhill as if he was unable to believe his ears. (His new ears, Brimstone wondered briefly, but then realised that if Hairstreak had been a disembodied head recently reembodied, then the ears would be his old ears. Probably.)

‘You… have… who? ’ Lord Hairstreak asked.

Chalkhill, who was always a fool, never spotted subtle signals – or even not so subtle, come to that – allowed his smile to spread like a grinflower all over his face. ‘Queen Blue and King Consort Henry,’ he repeated. ‘We have seized them both. We’re holding them in my villa. As we speak.’

Hairstreak took a pace or two back into the room and picked up an ornamental marble egg from a side table. He weighed it gently in his palm, his eyes fixed on Chalkhill. ‘You are holding the Queen and her Consort in your villa? Under lock and key?’

Still smiling like an idiot, Chalkhill shook his head. ‘Oh, no, they have the run of the villa. Like honoured guests. They can’t escape – it’s in the middle of the Wildmoor Broads.’ He obviously caught Hairstreak’s expression, for he added, ‘If they tried to leave the prickleweed would get them.’

‘Prickleweed…’ Hairstreak echoed.

‘Yes, sir,’ Chalkhill said enthusiastically. ‘It’s a carnivorous plant that grows wild all across the Broads. The only way you can reach my villa -’

‘- is by air,’ Hairstreak finished for him. He was speaking very, very quietly. ‘And while our Queen and her Consort are given the run of your villa “like honoured guests” – even though the prickleweed will flay them should they try to leave – you are doubtless demanding a ransom from the current Gatekeeper?’ He frowned. ‘Who is it now – I’m so very out of touch? Ah, yes, it’s one of Madame Cardui’s functions these days, isn’t it? Accepting ransom notes. That and hunting down the man who sent them, since she’s also Head of State Security. I do hope you didn’t mention where you were holding them. That would make her job a lot less fun.’

Brimstone, who admired sarcasm, moved away from Chalkhill in case His Lordship decided to replace it with a physical attack, and took up a comfortable position beside the fireplace. Whatever developed – and something was certainly in the process of developing – was between Hairstreak and Chalkhill. Kidnapping the Queen and King had been Chalkhill’s idea – nothing to do with Brimstone.

‘Actually,’ Chalkhill said (and you could practically hear the sound of spade on earth as he dug his grave deeper), ‘I haven’t sent a ransom note. To anybody.’ That smile again. That glittering, spell-encrusted, sparkling smile Chalkhill was directing so vacantly towards Hairstreak. With his heightened sensitivities, Brimstone could almost feel the effect of it in his own body. Hairstreak was now poised like a coiled spring ready to mix metaphors in an uncontrolled explosion.

‘You haven’t?’ Hairstreak asked, feigning surprise.

And Chalkhill still didn’t spot the signs! ‘Actually,’ he said again, ‘I thought you might like to have them.’ Don’t offer them for sale, Brimstone thought, don’t offer them for sale. ‘For a small consideration, of course,’ Chalkhill concluded.

There was a sound like a pistol crack. It took Brimstone a moment to realise that Lord Hairstreak had gripped the marble egg so tightly that it shattered. A stream of powdered marble trickled through his fingers. ‘How about,’ Lord Hairstreak suggested, his eyes on Chalkhill, ‘the small consideration is that I allow you to live another few weeks of your miserable life?’

Chalkhill blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Let them go, you cretin!’ Hairstreak screamed. His face turned bright red and a vein began to pulse on his forehead. ‘Get out of here at once and let them go!’

Chalkhill’s jaw dropped. ‘Don’t you want them? You could ransom them for much more than I’d charge you.’

‘Imbecile! Tort-feasor! Idiot! Goonberry! Crumpmuckler! Your stupidity could ruin all my plans! Get back to your villa and release them. Release them at once!’

‘But if you don’t want them, I could ransom them myse-’

‘No ransom!’ Hairstreak shrieked. ‘Let them go! Apologise! Grovel! Tell them you made a terrible mistake! Make up some story. Fly them out! Fly them home! Fly them anywhere they want to go!’

‘But, Your Lordship, what will I -’

Hairstreak’s small reserves of patience collapsed completely. Brimstone, who could see the trouble coming half a mile away, moved discreetly from the fireplace to take shelter behind a couch. He signalled George to keep clear and watched while Hairstreak hurled himself across the room to grip the lapels of Chalkhill’s designer jacket. To Brimstone’s surprise, he lifted Chalkhill bodily off the ground and slammed him against a wall, something which would have been quite beyond His (littler, shorter) Lordship in the old days.

Something weird happened. Afterwards, Brimstone decided Chalkhill must have overdone his ninja training and acted on reflex without thought of consequences. As Hairstreak held him, Chalkhill unleashed a rain of lethal blows, moving almost faster than the eye could follow, striking Hairstreak with fists, hands, elbows, knees and feet.

‘Eeeeyah!’ Chalkhill shouted.

Nothing happened.

‘Fly them home,’ Lord Hairstreak demanded. ‘Then bring me Culmella.’

It was fascinating. Brimstone could tell Chalkhill was still acting on instinct as he produced a long, serrated knife and plunged it deep into Lord Hairstreak’s heart.

Nothing happened.

Lord Hairstreak relaxed his grip so that Chalkhill slid slowly down the wall. ‘Bring me Culmella.’ Hairstreak gripped the knife and drew it slowly from his heart with a repulsive sucking sound. He smiled into Chalkhill’s face. ‘Otherwise I shall come after you. ’

‘That could have gone better,’ Brimstone remarked in the ouklo.

Chalkhill glared at him, but said nothing.

‘Now you’ve antagonised the Queen of the Realm and her King Consort and Lord Hairstreak. Powerful enemies.’

Chalkhill glared at him, but said nothing.

‘And you don’t know where to find Princess Mella,’ Brimstone reminded him. ‘So there’s no way of getting back into Hairstreak’s good books.’

Chalkhill glared at him, but said nothing. George was sitting on the seat beside him, his knees drawn up nearly to his chest because his legs were too long even for a stretch carriage. Not that Chalkhill noticed.

‘And then,’ said Brimstone cheerfully, ‘there’s the problem of getting away after you release Queen Blue. She knows who kidnapped her, of course – she must have seen you clearly before I cracked the spell cone; and besides she knows your house. No talking your way out of this one, is there? Once she gets back to the Purple Palace, she’ll have every guard, soldier and policeman in the kingdom looking for you. Still, there’s one consolation…’

‘What’s that?’ Chalkhill asked, breaking his silence for the first time since they’d left Lord Hairstreak’s Keep.

‘Things can’t get any worse!’ Brimstone cackled.

But he was wrong. When they reached Chalkhill’s villa, they discovered Queen Blue and King Consort Henry were no longer there.