Henry had no idea what to do. He wasn't a Peeping Tom. He knew it was unfair to the girl to look at her like this, knew he should turn and walk away (quietly, so she wouldn't know some ghastly pervy boy had seen her with her clothes off). That's what he knew he should do, but somehow his legs wouldn't work.
He had to do something. He couldn't stay standing here, looking and looking. It wasn't fair on her, whoever she was. He had to stop looking and go away.
Henry groaned.
One of the girls looked up and saw him.
'What do you make of it?' asked Apatura Iris, the Purple Emperor.
'Strictly speaking, Majesty,' Tithonus said, 'Her Serene Highness was within her rights to commandeer a contingent of palace commandos. As Princess Royal she is their Commander-in-Chief. Purely an honorary title, of course, but – '
The Purple Emperor waved a dismissive hand. 'I'm not talking about the commandos,' he said. 'To be honest, if she must make these ridiculous jaunts, I'd rather she had protection. I was wondering what you thought about the story she brought back.'
The alleged assassination attempt?'
'Alleged? You don't think it's true then?'
Tithonus sighed. 'I don't think Jasper Chalkhill is the most reliable of sources.'
'He made the claims of his own accord,' Apatura said. 'Unless you disbelieve my daughter.'
'Oh, I believe Princess Blue, sire,' Tithonus said. 'She may be a little fanciful, but she was never a liar. Besides, we have corroboration from the trinian. It's Chalkhill I'm less sure about.'
'You don't think he's one of Hairstreak's agents?'
'Actually I do,' Tithonus said. 'Our espionage people have had their suspicions about him for some time now. Nothing they could prove, but – ' He shrugged, then went on, 'It's just that this whole idea of replacing you as Emperor…' He spread his hands helplessly and shook his head.
'But we know there was an attempt on Pyrgus's life. And it may yet be successful – we still haven't found him.'
'That's true, Majesty, but that's also a weakness in the story Chalkhill told Blue. As I understand it, he claimed the reason Lord Hairstreak wanted Pyrgus killed was so there would be no legal claimant to the throne after your supposed assassination. But there are two further claimants to the throne should you and Pyrgus both be killed.'
The Purple Emperor looked at him thoughtfully. 'Comma and Blue.'
'Exactly, sire – Prince Comma, then Princess Blue. The moment Pyrgus should die, Comma becomes Crown Prince. The moment you should die, the Crown Prince becomes Emperor. If Lord Hairstreak really wished to clear a road to the throne, he would have had to assassinate Comma and Blue along with Pyrgus and yourself. There has been no indication of that happening and nothing in Chalkhill's story to suggest it was planned. I'm frankly suspicious the whole thing may be a fabrication.'
'For what purpose?'
Tithonus shrugged again. 'Possibly to sow confusion – these are troubled times. Or possibly the whole thing is a fantasy of Chalkhill's to make himself appear important. He may be one of Hairstreak's agents, but he is still a very unstable character.'
'So you don't believe any additional security measures are required?'
'Not at this time,' Tithonus said. 'At least not until Chalkhill has been properly interrogated. Which is something that has already begun, of course. We will find out the truth quickly enough.'
They were together in the Emperor's quarters, protected as always by the silence spell. Apatura walked to the window and looked out thoughtfully. After a while he turned back and said, 'I think you may be right, Gatekeeper. Additional security precautions at this time might be interpreted as a sign of weakness. You were correct not to put them in place when my daughter urged it and I agree it may be better to take no further action in this area unless something else emerges from Chalkhill's interrogation.'
'Thank you, Your Majesty,' Tithonus said. 'Now, perhaps if you'll excuse – '
He was interrupted by a loud knock on the door.
'I gave orders we were not to be disturbed.' The Emperor's voice betrayed his irritation.
'It may be news of Pyrgus,' Tithonus said. He unlocked the door and opened it.
Mr Fogarty pushed past him rudely. His eyes were glazed and he was carrying his pump-action shotgun.
The guards were rough, but not brutal. They marched Henry down flights of stairs and locked him in a room that seemed to be used as a temporary store. After a moment he righted a wooden chair and sat down, staring miserably at the door. He felt deeply ashamed; and not just for getting caught. He'd done a dreadful thing and he didn't know how to undo it.
He didn't feel guilty about coming across her. That had been completely innocent – he'd just gone in the direction of the laughter. He wasn't to know it was a girl having a bath. And what was she doing having a bath right there in the open anyway? When you had a bath, you went into the bathroom and closed the door.
All the same, when he did see her, he should have turned away. He should have turned away at once, not just stood there and stared. The thing was, it wasn't fair. Charlie once said, How would you like it if some of the girls were looking at you and giggling when you were in the showers? Henry wasn't sure, but he didn't think he would like it; certainly he wouldn't like the giggling and he wouldn't like it at all if he had spots.
He hadn't noticed any spots on the auburn-haired girl he'd stared at.
The trouble was he could still see her in his mind's eye. And that made it worse somehow. It was as if he'd taken photographs and was sneakily looking at them now. The girl would have hated it if he'd really taken photographs, but what was the difference?
To distract himself, he got up and wandered around the room. It wasn't very large and there was a lot of stuff in it, bric-a-brac and packing cases pushed against one wall. There was a small window high up. He wondered what was outside, through the window.
It wasn't that he wanted to escape or anything, but he did want to see what was outside. He pulled a case over to the wall and found a stool which he put on top. He shook the stool and it seemed stable, so he climbed on to the case and on to the stool to look out through the window. He couldn't see much except a sweep of well-kept lawn so he clung to the windowsill and pushed himself up on tiptoes.
'What do you think you're doing?' asked a voice behind him.
Henry stopped himself from falling, but only just. He turned awkwardly, fighting to keep his balance. A girl had entered the room. For a fraction of a second, Henry didn't recognise her, then he realised it was the girl he'd seen in the bath. She was dressed now, which was a huge relief. All the same Henry felt himself flush crimson.
'Come down!' she told him sharply. 'Come down at once!'
Henry climbed down slowly from the stool, wishing he were dead.
Twenty-nine
Pyrgus felt the last remnants of the demon's influence fall from his mind and a fierce, dark anger flared inside him. How dare this creature talk so calmly about killing an emperor? How dare he threaten the Realm of Faerie? Pyrgus wanted to hurl himself upon Beleth and strangle the demon with his bare hands. Instead, he examined his cage for some possibility of escape.
The thing was designed like the cage that held the cat and her kittens in the glue factory, except larger. But not so large that Pyrgus could stand upright. He crouched behind the bars, glaring down on a frightening, hellish scene.
His cage was suspended from a chain attached to a mechanism in the roof of a cavern underneath Beleth's metal mansion. Directly below a pool of molten brimstone cast a red glow. Some thirty or more of Beleth's followers were working in the cavern, their skins scaled and armoured against the heat, their bodies muscular and bloated to allow them to handle the hot metal they were crafting into a monstrous missile beside the pool. Beleth himself had reverted to the fearsome form he had used to appear in Brimstone's Triangle of Art. A lantern hung from one huge curling horn.