The Purple Emperor

CHAPTER NINETY SIX

'Beg pardon, sir,' said Clutterbuck, 'but there's people to see you. I told them you had company.'

They'd given him back his old cell, but despite the comfortable bed, Chalkhill couldn't sleep. He'd been lying looking at the ceiling and talking to Cyril. 'I don't have company,' he said.

'Liar!' the wyrm whispered inside his mind.

Clutterbuck looked around. 'So you don't, sir -thought I heard you talking to somebody,' he said easily. 'Shall I show them in?'

Chalkhill pushed himself upright. 'Who is it?' he asked.

'Princess Blue and Gatekeeper Fogarty.'

Chalkhill was on guard at once. It could be his release, but it could just as easily be trouble. He'd have to play this very cautiously indeed.

'Yes, show them in,' he said.

Blue eyed Jasper Chalkhill with distaste. He'd lost a little weight, but apart from that he was the same obnoxious, painted piece of slime he'd always been. 'I've come to ask you a question,' she said without preliminary.

Chalkhill smiled at her. Even in jail he'd managed to get hold of his ghastly magical mouth paste so that his teeth flashed and sparkled like tinsel. 'Yes, of course, my dear.'

She bit back the urge to tell him not to call her my dear. This was a difficult, delicate mission and there was no sense in antagonising him. 'Dismiss your Trinian,' she said bluntly.

'Clutterbuck is here to protect me in case of attack,' Chalkhill protested.

'Who do you think is going to attack you, Mr Chalkhill? Me?'

Chalkhill's eyes wandered over to Mr Fogarty, who was standing with his back against the door.

Blue said, 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' She turned to Mr Fogarty. 'Would you leave us, Gatekeeper – I'll be fine.'

Mr Fogarty nodded. 'I'll be just outside if you need me.'

Chalkhill's smile returned and this time it actually reached his eyes, which glittered with a sort of pleased malevolence. 'You can go, Clutterbuck,' he said.

As soon as they were alone, Blue said, 'The chances are you'll be a guest of Asloght for a long time, Mr Chalkhill, perhaps even for the rest of your life. But if I were to have a word with my brother, it's possible your term of sentence might be shortened. Do we understand one another, Mr Chalkhill?'

'Perfectly, Serenity,' Chalkhill said with a peculiar flash in his eye. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Just tell me what happened in the operating theatre.'

Chalkhill looked at her blankly.

'Why were you there and what happened -' she hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, '- what happened to my father?'

'Ah,' Chalkhill said.

After a moment, Blue said, 'Well…?'

Chalkhill licked his lips. 'This, ah, reduction of my sentence… You say you would be willing to speak to your brother – your brother Pyrgus – about it?'

'Yes.'

'Do you think he would be… sympathetic?'

'I can't give you guarantees, but I think he might.'

'What happens if he isn't?'

Blue turned and knocked on the door. 'I'm ready to leave!' she called.

'No, just a minute,' Chalkhill said quickly. 'There's no need to be like that. Of course I'll tell you. Why wouldn't I? If I can be of any help, any help at all, to any member of our illustrious royal -'

'Get on with it,' Blue warned.

He seemed to come to a decision. 'Very well. The operation. Lord Hairstreak found he could not control your father as effectively as he wished. The Purple Emperor was – is – was a man of strong and noble will. Even in death he was too much for Lord Hairstreak. The operation was an attempt to increase the level of control by interfering with your father's brain.'

'How?'

Chalkhill licked his lips. 'He was going to – he tried to – to reconnect the neural pathways in a different order.'

Blue stared at him with distaste. 'Why did he cut my father's head off?'

'That was a mistake,' Chalkhill said. 'Entirely a mistake – a ghastly mistake. Lord Hairstreak hired this… primitive to carry out the operation. Mountain Clouded Yellow. Can you imagine a more ridiculous name? Dreadful man, but a very powerful psychic surgeon. I gather he came well recommended, despite his failings. The trouble was, he had too high an opinion of himself – too cocky by half. The most important connections were at the brain stem and he decided to access them through the neck. He believed he could reconnect the head afterwards.' Chalkhill's face took on a sorrowful expression. 'But he couldn't. Lord Hairstreak would have killed him, if your people hadn't done it first.'

'So it was this… this Mountain Clouded Yellow who cut my father's head off?'

'Yes.'

'No one else?'

'No, Serenity, of course not. Who would want to?'

Blue said, 'One final question. What was your part in the operation? Why were you there, Mr Chalkhill?'

'Blood donor,' Chalkhill told her promptly. 'I happen to be the same blood type as your illustrious father. I was on hand simply in case of an emergency; and delighted to be of any possible help to your father, of course.' He looked at Blue earnestly. 'But in the event he was beyond my help.'

Blue stared at him for a moment, then said, 'Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chalkhill. You've been… helpful.' She knocked behind her on the door and it opened at once.

As she moved to leave, Chalkhill called out, 'You'll tell your brother what I said, won't you? You'll tell him exactly?'

He was lying. She was certain of it. The question was why? Except she had a feeling she already knew the answer – or at least knew somebody who knew the answer.

Mr Fogarty asked curtly, 'Satisfactory?'

'In a way,' Blue said.

'Where are we going now?'

'Back to the palace,' Blue said. 'I want to talk to Pyrgus.'