Faerie Wars

He pushed open another door in the bedroom, vaguely imagining it might be a second built-in wardrobe, and discovered it was a little windowless study, which lighted itself mysteriously when the door opened. There was a desk and a chair and walls lined with books. It occurred to him he might learn a lot about Pyrgus's world from those books if he took the time. But he would probably learn a lot more if he explored the palace.

Henry went back to the main living room, opened the door into the corridor and looked out.

'Ah, there you are,' said Goodwife Umber, making Henry jump out of his skin. She seemed to have been standing in the corridor waiting for him. 'You'll be wanting something to eat now, I'll be bound. If you follow me, I'll get you something in the kitchens.' She looked at him approvingly as he emerged. 'Green suits you.'

'Thank you,' Henry said. The palace kitchens would be as good a place to start as any. Besides, against all odds, he was feeling peckish.

The heat of the kitchens, generated by two huge cooking ranges, met him like a wall. As he stepped inside, he had the feeling of walking into a period movie, something from Dickens or even earlier. Everything had an old-fashioned look, from the scrubbed pine tables to the haunches of meat hanging from hooks in the ceiling. He imagined the place would be a hive of activity at mealtimes. Even now there were twenty or thirty people lounging about chatting and drinking cups of something while they waited for the rush to start.

Goodwife Umber led him over to a fat woman in a cook's uniform cutting vegetables into an enormous pot. 'This is Head Cook Lattice Brown,' she whispered.

'You be nice to her or else she'll poison you.' She grinned to show she was joking, then said loudly, 'Any chance of something to eat for a starving boy, Lattice? Friend of Princess Blue.'

Lattice set down the knife and wiped her hands on a cloth. Every move was made with great deliberation. She looked at Henry from underneath her eyebrows. 'Friend of Princess Blue, is it? And does this friend have a name?'

Henry opened his mouth to answer, but Goodwife Umber beat him to it. 'He's called Henry, Lattice. Named for the Duke of Burgundy, but loyal Lighter not a Nighter, eh?'

'Duke of Burgundy's not called Henry,' Lattice said.

Goodwife Umber frowned. 'Yes he is. Henry Lucina.'

'No he isn't. It's Hamearis. You're not called Hamearis, are you?' The question was directed at Henry.

Henry shook his head. 'No, Ma'am – Henry.'

Lattice Brown grinned delightedly. 'Hear that, Goodie Lanta? Ma'am! What a nice polite young man. You just leave him here with me and I'll see he's well fed. Expect there might be a couple of kitchen maids'll want to keep him company as well, handsome lad like that.' She winked at Henry, who blushed.

Minutes later he was sitting at one of the pine tables spooning stew from a bowl, with a thick wedge of crusty bread on a plate beside it – 'for dipping,' Cook Lattice said. To his relief, no kitchen maids had joined him and, after a few curious stares, the rest of the staff quickly settled back to what they had been doing, which was mainly gossiping. Henry kept his head down and listened. Predictably, the main topic was the Emperor's murder.

'Head completely gone – '

'What, all of it?'

'So Bert told me and he's a guard. Just the stump of a neck left, but no blood. Gatekeeper reckons it was a slicer beam – only thing that cauterises as it cuts.'

'Not what I heard at all. Head wasn't cut off, just sort of bashed in. Some sort of new Nighter weapon.'

'Aye, it'll be the Nighters all right, ruddy trouble the whole bunch of them.'

'Wasn't Nighters. You know it wasn't Nighters.'

'Who's running the realm, that's what I want to know. Emperor gone, Crown Prince missing…'

'Could be the end of House Iris.' This was from a gloomy old boy staring into a pottery goblet. Two women and Cook Lattice rounded on him.

'Want to watch your mouth, Luigi.'

'It's House Iris pays your wages. Ours too.'

'There's Prince Comma – '

'Little weasel!'

'Mind your manners, girl.' This from Lattice. 'Even if he is a little weasel, he's still the Emperor's son.'

'Aye, and if you had a mother like that – '

'Shhh!' Cook Lattice looked around as if worried about being overheard.

'Why should I shush? Everybody knows the truth. No wonder poor little Comma is the way he is – blood will out, I always say.'

A woman Henry gathered was called Nell said, 'They can't make him Emperor anyway – he's too young.'

'Prince Pyrgus will turn up,' said Lattice confidently.

'But if he don't, it'll be Comma. The Gatekeeper will be his regent until he's of age. That's the way they do it. But Pyrgus will turn up, mark my words.'

'What's happened to Prince Pyrgus?' Henry asked. He'd been a bit worried about attracting any more attention to himself, but if he was to find anything out he had to ask questions.

'Nobody knows,' Lattice said. 'Sent him off through one of those silly portals and he never came back. Or if he did come back, they don't know where he's got to. Never held with them myself. Wouldn't find me trotting off to some weird world full of idiots and giants and dandruff. People there have six fingers and bright blue skin, did you know that?'

'No,' Henry said.

'Larry told me,' Cook Lattice said, without explaining who Larry was.

Nell said, 'The one who killed the Emperor didn't have blue skin.' Her face took on a smug expression. 'My Tom told me that and he was there.'

'He was there, why didn't he stop him doing it?' Luigi asked sourly.

'Well, he wasn't there when it happened,' Nell said. 'No guards at all there when it happened. But Tom was the first in afterwards. One of the first anyway. Said the old man looked just like you or me. Five fingers, ordinary skin, no dandruff. Bald, though.'

Henry felt a sudden tightness in his chest. 'You mean it was somebody from – ' what on earth had Pyrgus called it? ' – from the Analogue World who killed the Emperor?'

'Didn't you know? Old boy called Mist, Misty something like that. Emperor went to the other world to find Prince Pyrgus and brought back this old boy with him for some reason. Cook Lattice's right – nothing good ever came out of the other world. Be safer with demons, you ask me.'

'It wasn't Mist, it was Fog; well, Fogary actually,' Luigi said. 'Had some wicked weapon with him. You wonder what they were thinking of, letting him bring it through.'

'Far too trusting, the Emperor. Far too soft-hearted.'

'Won't be trusting anybody now, God rest him.'

'God rest him!' everybody chorused, then fell silent.

After a moment, Henry said tightly, 'Fogary or Fogarty?'

'That's right,' said Luigi. 'Fogarty. The one who killed the Emperor. His name was Fogarty. They're holding him in the palace dungeons.'

'Where are these dungeons exactly?' Henry asked innocently.

The last time Henry had felt this scared was when Mr Fogarty had sent him off to rob his school. Except now was even worse. His heart was pounding so badly it sounded like a military drum. His legs felt weak and he couldn't seem to take deep enough breaths. He forced himself to walk down the steep steps to the palace dungeons.

It was a surprise when he reached the bottom. He'd been expecting something old-fashioned, like the kitchens – dark, stone-lined cells with fettered prisoners and moisture running down the walls. But the reality was something else. The stairs ended in a bright reception area that even had a pale blue carpet. He could see some cell doors off the corridor beyond, one of which lay open. The empty cell had bunk beds, a desk and chairs, much like the modern prisons he'd seen in police series on TV.