'No thank you,' Blue said quickly.
'Quite right,' said Chalkhill. He belted on a towelling dressing-gown. 'We shall go inside and Raul shall bring us iced tea with lots of sugar.' He smiled and his teeth sparkled and glinted. 'Then you can tell me who you are and why I have the pleasure of your company today.'
Blue glanced at Kitterick and found he was examining his fingernails. It looked as if she was on her own. They followed Chalkhill into a room dominated by a pink piano and several off-white singing chairs. 'Mr Chalkhill,' she said. 'I am Sluce Ragetus and this is Mr Kitterick. We represent Panjandrum Products, the well-known cosmetic manufacturers. The reason we are here is that our wizards have developed an astonishing new skin cream based on natural tachyons that generate a field capable of permanently reversing time.' She drew a deep breath and launched into her fake sales pitch.
Chalkhill sat entranced, twittering with delight and giving trills of pure excitement as she outlined the benefits of her imaginary cream. She had two sample jars, made mainly from suet, in case he asked to see the miracle, but he did not. 'This cream,' he said. 'It's not just for my face?'
'Oh, no,' Blue nodded brightly as Raul returned with a tray of iced tea. He set it down on a little table in front of Chalkhill and a strange look passed between them.
'Well,' said Chalkhill as Raul left again, 'aren't you the practised little liar.'
Blue blinked. 'I'm sorry?' But Chalkhill was changing before her eyes. He still looked the same man in his ludicrous bathing costume and fluffy white robe, but he seemed straighter somehow, taller, and his eyes had taken on a steely glint.
'You're not – what was it? Sluce Ragetus? You're not even a boy, however prettily you dress. Unless I'm very much mistaken, you are Her Serene Highness Holly Blue Iris, the Princess Royal, out on one of her famous slumming jaunts. Oh, don't look so surprised. I may not have recognised your reclusive brother, but it's well known that you like mixing with hoi polloi in various ridiculous disguises. Don't tell me you believed your subjects were too stupid to recognise you?' He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and smiled broadly. 'My dear, in certain quarters you are positively a laughing stock.' The smile died abruptly as a Halek knife emerged from the folds of his robe. Tell your dwarf to sit still, Serenity. I'm perfectly well aware what it means to be bitten by a toxic trinian. Oh, and in case you feel I would hesitate to use this, let me tell you this is a reinforced blade. It cost me a king's ransom, but the Halek guarantee it never shatters. The ultimate weapon, you might say.'
Kitterick looked as if he might be prepared to risk it, but sat back warily at Blue's warning glance. 'Mr Chalkhill – ' she began.
'What now?' Chalkhill asked. 'Try to persuade me I'm mistaken? Oh, no, Serenity, this game is well and truly over. You know, it will be something of a relief to finish with this pose.'
'Pose?' Blue echoed.
'The fool with more money than sense. Here is a riddle for you, Princess Holly Blue: if a fool and his money are soon parted, how did he get it in the first place? You've seen my home. You'd have to be blind to believe it didn't cost. Where do you think I found it?' He stared at her, his eyes a piercing blue.
Blue decided to drop her pretence. 'I was told you poisoned your aunt,' she said coldly.
Chalkhill smiled and now his teeth no longer fizzed and sparkled. 'Ah, poor Matilda – she was like a mother to me. But then you should have seen my mother. Indeed I did poison my aunt – how word gets around – but that was not the source of my income. She only left me a small property. Everything else was provided by Lord Hairstreak.'
'Hairstreak!' Blue breathed. She felt a sudden chill crawl up her spine. 'Why would Black Hairstreak give you money?'
'Because,' Chalkhill said proudly, Tm something you could never be, despite your amateurish bunglings. I am Lord Hairstreak's most valued secret agent.'
It was Kitterick who broke the silence that followed. 'Past tense, surely, now you've told us.'
'I think not, trinian,' said Chalkhill. 'And I plan to tell you more.' He turned his attention back to Blue. 'You see, Serenity, I've always claimed a deep and lasting friendship with Lord Hairstreak. Of course nobody believed me. It was the perfect cover. People were always so busy laughing they never thought to suspect the truth.'
'A cover for what?' Blue asked contemptuously. 'Your interest in a glue factory?'
Chalkhill looked genuinely surprised. 'You of all people ask me that? I assume you're here because of your poor, dear, missing brother?'
After a long moment, Blue said, 'What do you know about Pyrgus?'
'What do I know? What do I know? Let's see…' He glanced upwards as if lost in cheerful thought. 'I know he's next in line for the throne. I know that if anyone planned to overthrow the Purple Emperor and, let's say, replace him, it would make things tidier if the immediate heir was eliminated as well. I know – '
'You're planning to overthrow my father?'
'Not me, Your Serene Highness – Lord Hairstreak.'
She stared at him, unable to speak. It was all beginning to make a horrid sort of sense – the negotiations that had turned sour, the threat of war, Pyrgus's disappearance…
But Chalkhill was talking again. 'You look surprised. I'm glad. You would not believe the care we took to hide what was really going on. Do you know, our first plan was to have my fool of a partner kill your brother? Dear old Brimstone, always playing with his demons. He thinks he controls them, but they've been leading him a merry dance for years – especially the ones in Lord Hairstreak's pay. Anyway, I arranged for some thugs to chase Prince Pyrgus down Seething Lane. Do you know the area by any chance?'
'Yes,' Blue said stonily, without bothering to explain.
'Then you'll know that when you reach the bottom, the only place to go is into the factory. Cunning, eh? I forced Pyrgus to trespass on our premises. He stole some glue kittens as well, but that was a bonus. Once he was in the factory, it was only a matter of time before our security people caught him and delivered him to me.'
'Is there a point to any of this?' Kitterick asked.
Chalkhill ignored him. 'I, in turn, delivered him to Brimstone. Lord Hairstreak had already primed one of his demon friends to ask for a human sacrifice. The idea was Brimstone would murder Pyrgus in one of his revolting rituals, then we – well, I really – would denounce Brimstone. What a show trial that would have been. It would have taken everybody's attention off what we were really up to.' He spread his hands sadly and sighed in a parody of his former self. 'But Brimstone messed it up. I'm afraid the old boy's well past his sell-by date. Some of your father's guards arrived on the scene and he panicked.'
Blue kept her face expressionless, but she was chill inside. She'd been the one who'd insisted the guards start looking for Pyrgus, but until now she'd had no idea how close a call it had been when he was rescued.
Typical of Pyrgus not to mention how much trouble he'd been in. She fought down her own surge of panic and said, 'So you sabotaged the portal and poisoned him?'
Chalkhill shrugged. 'I don't know about poison, but we certainly sabotaged the portal. What else could we do? And now he's out of the way, we can get on with the really important business of assassinating your father.'
'And you don't think we'll warn him?' Blue asked.
Chalkhill pushed himself to his feet and smiled. 'You disappoint me, my dear. I would have thought you'd have worked out by now that you're in no position to warn anybody. I shall kill your trinian at once, of course.' He shuddered. 'I loathe dwarves – they're so small. But I plan to keep you safe, Princess, at least for a while…'
Blue flushed, but before she could reply, Kitterick said quietly, 'You won't get near me, even with a Halek knife.'