He pointed to the bird, which had most intelligently taken off from the rock and was now making a graceful curve upward before winging its way toward the sea.
Umberto squinted at the sky. He couldn’t see much because he was very shortsighted but he had got the message.
“White bird,” he repeated dopily. And then, “Can’t marry a bird. Wouldn’t do.”
“No. You can’t marry her. But you can go and tell her parents how happy Mirella is. How she has got exactly what she wanted. Maybe they’ll give you a reward for bringing them such lovely news.”
Umberto smiled. One word had got through to him.
“Reward,” he said. “Pay the tailor… pay the bookies… pay everyone…”
“That’s right,” said Ivo. “Now let’s see if we can catch your horse.”
The horse had been at liberty for long enough. He wanted his stable, and he let himself be caught and mounted by the prince.
“Here, you can have my sandwich,” said Ivo, feeling in his pocket. “Now you know where to go — over the hill and through that copse and then straight out the way you came. And remember how pleased they’ll be when you tell them about Mirella.”
“Reward,” said Umberto, smiling his foolish smile, and Ivo watched as the prince rode away and out of sight.
CHAPTER 24
The Aunts Arrive
I suppose it might have been worse,” said Ivo. “I mean they might have eaten people, like Germania used to. After all they are ogresses.”
But not much worse, because the aunts were thoroughly nasty. They had arrived the day before, stomping into the castle on their great feet — and immediately started giving orders.
“You there,” said the Aunt-with-the-Ears, pointing to the Hag. “I suppose you’re the cook. I eat five times a day and my meals must be on the table the moment I appear.”
“I shall dig up my own meals,” said the Aunt-with-the-Nose, “but I want my shoes cleaned with special polish — and the polish must NOT SMELL, do you understand,” she said, addressing the troll.
“You can carry my bag up to my room,” said the Aunt-with-the-Eyes, glaring at the wizard. “But I will not be waited on by servants who have specks of dust on their clothes. Clean yourself up before I see you again.”
Then they handed the trolley over to Ivo and said, “You and that girl there will look after Clarence. He must not get chilled.” She scowled at Charlie. “And if that dog doesn’t stop barking it’ll be the worse for him.”
And as they stomped off to find the ogre, their loud voices carried back to the rescuers.
“The first thing I’m going to do when I inherit the castle is get rid of those useless servants,” said the Aunt-with-the-Nose. “I’ve never seen such a sorry-looking bunch.”
“What makes you think you’re going to inherit the castle?” said the Aunt-with-the-Ears. She put her hands over the sides of her face. “Those spiders are making a quite unnecessary racket,” she muttered angrily. “It’s perfectly possible to spin a web without making a noise. The whole place is an inferno — I must find my earplugs. When I inherit I’m getting the place cleared.”
The Aunt-with-the-Eyes was peering disgustedly at the cracks in the flagstones. “Full of dirt, full of dust. I can’t live in a place like this. It must be scoured and scrubbed from top to toe before I move in.”
The ogre was waiting for them in his room and when they saw him all three aunts stopped dead.
“What are you doing out of bed?” asked the Aunt-with-the-Nose angrily. “You said you were ill.”
“I hope we haven’t come all this way for nothing,” said the Aunt-with-the-Ears.
“You do not seem to me to be dying,” said the Aunt-with-the-Eyes. “I hope you haven’t been playing a trick on us.”
The ogre was wearing a rather elegant dressing gown, and underneath, though the aunts could not see this, was a pair of shorts which he had been trying on because he thought they would look good to wear on the deck of the cruise ship. He was a little bit hurt that the aunts were not pleased that he had recovered, but he quickly reassured them.
“No, no. Not at all. I’ve decided to go away for a very long time. On a cruise. Germania thinks it would do me good. But altogether I don’t want to own things anymore. I want to lead a free and roaming life until it’s time to get into the mound, so I’m definitely going to leave the castle to one of you. I thought you might like to have a week to look around the place and then come and tell me what you would do with it — and the person who comes up with the best idea shall have it.”
What was strange was that though the ogre’s aunts were so unpleasant, Clarence was different.
“There’s something really nice about him,” said Mirella, stroking his mottled shell.
“You feel that when he does hatch he’ll have been worth waiting for,” said Ivo.
The animals, too, had the same feeling about Clar-ence. He was a good egg and much easier to look after than a baby with all those diapers and screaming and fuss — and Charlie seemed to agree, for when the children moved away from Clarence, he sat and guarded him.
But time was a running out for the rescuers. If they had hoped that there might be one aunt who was less awful than the others, their hopes were unfulfilled. Whichever aunt inherited the castle, it would be equally bad for them, and they were determined to get away on the day the ogre left his home. They would have left earlier, but the ogre had promised to send word to the boatman who had brought them that they needed to be fetched.
He himself had decided to leave in the hearse.
“Pity to waste it,” he said, “and it’ll make quite a stir when I get to the harbor.”
The hearse had turned out very well. Ulf had painted it black and, though the gnu had offered to pull it, Brod’s cousin, the one who took messages, had a spare horse which he said they could borrow.
“Will you be all right in Whipple Road?” Ivo had asked Mirella. “After all, you used to be a princess and it’s not very exciting.”
“Of course I’ll be all right,” said Mirella.
But nobody felt all right during those last days. You can think you’re prepared for something, but when it comes it can take you by the throat. The thought of leaving the castle, the gardens they had tended, and the beautiful countryside was almost more than they could bear. Worst of all was the knowledge that they would never see their animal friends again — and the animals were taking it just as hard.
“I like being a gnu,” said the antelope. “I’m glad to be a gnu — but I didn’t expect that a gnu could feel such sorrow. It’ll be a desert without you.”
The aye-aye was becoming very shivery and nervous again.
“It’s as bad as when I was supposed to be Miss Universe with bananas on my head,” she said.
And she kept bringing presents down for them from the high trees: interesting feathers, bright berries, and unusual twigs.
Bessie didn’t say much, but every so often she gave great spluttery sighs and shook her head.
And at night Ivo hugged Charlie and thought that if he had to go back to the Home he would die.
The adults felt it just as keenly. The Hag sat on her stone in the Dribble when she could get away and cried a little, because it was hard to believe that she should find her Paradise so late in life, only to have it snatched away. The troll leaned his back against the five-hundred-year-old oak in his forest and tried to get used to the idea that soon he would again be trundling trolleys down the stuffy corridors of the hospital — and the wizard cooked in a frenzy, knowing that when he got back he would be trapped in his workshop trying to make useless things like gold which nobody could eat.