Igraine the Brave (15 page)

Albert took Garleff’s hairs out of the bag and bent down to show them to the books. “There you are. But for heaven’s sake, stop making all that racket.”

“Yes, yes, they really are giant’s hairs, red hairs from a giant!” squealed the books in their shrill little voices. “Fresh, too! Top quality! Thicker than the quill of a feather, red as a fox’s coat. Ooh, the magic you can do with those! Come on, come on!” They tugged at Albert’s magic coat and hung on to its hem. “Soak them, soak them! Their power grows less with every passing hour.”

But as they tried to haul Albert off with them, Igraine barred their way. “Wait a minute!” she said. “First there’s someone I have to introduce to you all!” She turned and led the Sorrowful Knight into the room.

“This,” she said, “is the Sorrowful Knight of the Mount of Tears. He’s a friend of the giant Garleff, and he very kindly escorted me home. And these,” she added, pointing to Albert and the two pigs, “are my big brother, Albert, and my parents. My parents don’t usually look like that, but I think they’re still nice this way, don’t you?”

The knight took his helmet off and bowed low to Albert and the two pigs, while the books, full of curiosity, immediately surrounded him.

“A genuine knight, take a look at that, will you?” said one in its reedy voice.

“His armor is rather dented,” whispered another book. “Almost as bad as the dents old Pelleas got from falling off his horse all the time.”

“That helmet could do with a dusting,” commented a third book.

Rather embarrassed, the Sorrowful Knight cleared his throat.

“Shut up, will you?” said Igraine, so angrily that the books flinched away. “We haven’t been sitting around on a nice upholstered shelf like you. We’ve rescued a dragon, fought the One-Eyed Duke, and outwitted Osmund’s guards.”

“Oh, dear me!” groaned the Fair Melisande. “That sounds terrible, honey. And I am very grateful indeed to this noble knight for seeing you safely home.”

“Yes, to be sure,” snorted Sir Lamorak, pricking up his piggy ears. “That was very kind of you, Sir Sorrowful Knight of … er, the Mount of Tears.”

The Sorrowful Knight bowed again. “It was an honor,” he replied. “And a pleasure. Your daughter is brave and fearless, and of a most chivalrous cast of mind, even if she and I sometimes don’t see the rules of chivalry in quite the same way.”

Pleased, Lamorak and Melisande lowered their snouts. “My dear … er, Sorrowful Knight, it makes us very happy to hear that,” said Sir Lamorak, much moved.

Igraine deeply regretted having taken her helmet off because now, unfortunately, everyone could see her blushing to the roots of her hair. “Bertram told me that Albert’s been foiling all Osmund’s magic tricks,” she quickly said.

Albert’s expression was one of deliberate modesty. “Well, admittedly I didn’t do badly,” he said.

“How about the food?” Igraine couldn’t resist. Albert was looking so terribly self-satisfied.

“Yes, all right, I still have to work on that a bit,” he muttered. “But now I’m going to grate the hairs and then soak them.”

“Use the condensed dragon’s vapor, my boy!” Sir Lamorak called after him. “It works even better than water-snake saliva. I think we still have a small jar left.”

The books followed Albert in a long procession as he disappeared into the back room of the workshop — the stirring and boiling room, as Igraine called it.

Her father put his pink front trotters up on the windowsill and looked out at the night. “I’m really looking forward to turning that Osmund into a shape that suits him better,” he said. “What do you think, honey, would a cockroach fit the bill, or would one of those fish that wallow in the mud be better?”

“I’ll have to think about that,” said Igraine. “But first I want to hear what’s been going on here while I was away.”

“Oh, nothing much,” replied her mother, nudging her lovingly with her snout. “Osmund is a terrible bore with his threats and his rather second-rate magic, and he’s spoiling our view with all those tents. The noise is rather a nuisance at times, too. Yesterday he tried making the castle fall down by rather inexpertly casting an earthquake spell. The tower wobbled a bit, and four gargoyles lost their noses, but otherwise nothing happened. The man’s a fool. He’d do terrible damage with our books.”

“He certainly would,” agreed Sir Lamorak. “And your brother is acquitting himself bravely, but it’s high time we got our own magic powers back so that we can put an end to all this tail-curling nonsense.”

“I’m really sorry that you are our guest at Pimpernel at such a difficult time,” Melisande continued to the Sorrowful Knight, who was still standing by the door looking uncertain of himself. “This is a small castle, but we always have a couple of rooms ready for unexpected guests. So if you’d like to stay in spite of the racket that man Osmund is kicking up …”

“My thanks to you,” said the Sorrowful Knight. “I would be happy to stay. But if you will allow me to, I’ll sleep up on the wall behind the battlements. Only under the stars am I free from my sorrowful dreams.”

“Well, just as you like,” said the Fair Melisande, looking thoughtfully at the knight. “But my special tea is good for sorrowful dreams, too. I’ll ask one of the books to take a mug of it up to you on the wall, with a plate of Albert’s biscuits. Although,” she added, giving the knight an enchanting piggy smile, “they really are rather dry even for my palate, piggy as it is at present.”

19

O
smund attacked the next morning as soon as the sun had risen. Igraine fell out of bed in alarm when the noise started. Sleepy, and still feeling grubby from her journey, she clambered into her armor, gave Sisyphus his milk in the kitchen, and then went out into the courtyard. Albert and the Sorrowful Knight were already up on the battlements.

“The moat will be brimming over with fish if any more of Osmund’s half-witted knights fall in,” said Albert as Igraine pushed in between them.

She looked anxiously down at the moat. “Oh, dear. Sisyphus can’t tell real fish from knight-fish,” she said. “And what else is he going to eat? We don’t have much choice for him. Except those mice, of course.”

“Just let him try it!” said Albert menacingly. “That cat’s too fat, anyway. Give him biscuits. After all, that’s what we’re eating ourselves. Though Bertram is in the kitchen at this very minute trying to rustle up something else.”

The tents outside the castle were turning red in the light of the rising sun. The bank of the moat was swarming with archers, catapults, and soldiers trying to build wooden bridges across the water. The gargoyles smacked their lips and belched as they swallowed fiery arrows and iron cannonballs. The stone lions crouched above the gateway, roaring and using their paws to deflect any missiles that flew their way.

“This whole thing is getting monotonous,” sighed Albert, settling down between two crenellations. He took a small Book of Magic out of his coat pocket and placed it on his lap. It began humming quietly.

Down below, some of Osmund’s men were loading up the great catapults with bundles of burning brushwood. Albert looked at them, shaking his head.

“Take a look at that, will you?” he said. “They’re trying to smoke us out now. I call it really clever to go burning a castle down when you want to steal the books in it. A brain wave.” He wrinkled his nose in derision. “Page 23,” he told the book, “and then page 77 right after that.”

The little Book of Magic opened itself and warbled a tune that sounded very much like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Albert turned up the sleeves of his magic coat, and was just in time to catch two mice that fell out. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in the magic workshop?” he scolded as he put them back in his pocket. Then he raised his hands in the air.

As Osmund’s men prepared to fire the catapults, Albert scrutinized them with disdain, snapped his fingers, and called:

Little birds fly round about!
All the flames will fizzle out.
Mix with Albert and his magic
And the ending will be tragic.
Your fingers you will burn today
As you turn to run away.

The bundles of brushwood exploded with a mighty bang, and the wheels dropped off the catapults and rolled away at top speed. Fountains of colored light shot high in the air; sparks fell into the water lilies and rained down on Osmund’s men. Cursing, they ran about in confusion to get away from the jets of fire. But the knights commanding them drove the men back to the moat with their swords and made them scoop up water to put out the flames.

“Who cares if they bail out the whole moat?” said Albert as the Book of Magic shut itself with a self-satisfied sigh.

“Those catapults are finished. I wrecked half a dozen others yesterday. Look at those fools slopping water all over their hands. They’ll have webbed fingers by noon.” He turned to Igraine and the Sorrowful Knight with a pleased smile. “How did you like my fireworks show? First-rate magic, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, definitely first-rate,” Igraine agreed. “But you’d better take a look down there now. They’ve nearly finished building their wooden bridges.”

“So they have. Busy, busy little bees,” commented Albert, looking bored. “Why don’t you call in the snakes to deal with that, little sister? They’re happier to obey you than me. Hey, what’s going on there?” He snapped his fingers, and a hail of burning arrows shot by Osmund’s archers to set fire to the drawbridge turned above the moat in an elegant curve. Albert snapped his fingers a second time, and the arrows hissed back toward the startled archers, leaving a fiery tail behind them. Terrified, the men raised their shields, but the arrows
buzzed
around them like giant dragonflies all aflame and attacked the archers from behind. Soon every arrow was chasing an archer through the camp.

Igraine would have loved to watch the rest of the show, but Albert was right — it was time to call in the snakes. Presumably they were down on the bed of the moat, hiding from the unaccustomed noise that Osmund’s men were kicking up, but Igraine knew they would hear her all the same. A sharp hiss through her teeth, a dozen of Albert’s biscuits, and next moment the water around the water lilies was rippling, and three snakes raised their heads from the moat.

Osmund’s soldiers were so busy laying their footbridges across the enchanted water that they never even noticed the snakes. But the snakes had noticed them. They shot through the water, hissing angrily, coiled around the bridges, and squeezed them until the wood splintered. Five bridge builders fell into the moat in their fright, adding a few more fish to it.

Igraine shook her head at their clumsiness. “I thought this man Osmund could work magic?” she inquired. “We haven’t seen much of that yet. Oh, my word, Sisyphus!” she exclaimed, as the tomcat dropped a long fish bone in her lap, shimmering and suspiciously silvery. “Have you gone and eaten another of those knight-fish? I’m afraid I’ll have to shut you in somewhere.”

Sisyphus showed his contempt by catching a buzzing fly and consuming it with a loud smack of his lips.

“Oh, let him alone.” Albert came to his help, shooing his mice back as they raised their heads from his coat pocket and stuck their tiny tongues out at Sisyphus. “That’s all the knights deserve!”

But the Sorrowful Knight shook his head. “Show mercy to the men down below, noble Albert,” he said. “I know they have designs on your life and the lives of your family, but many of them aren’t doing it of their own free will. Osmund’s knights have dragged them away from their fields and their homes and brought them here. Where else would all these soldiers come from? Half of them probably don’t even know why Osmund is laying siege to Pimpernel.”

“Did you hear that, Sisyphus?” Igraine turned to her sulky cat with a stern expression. “No more of those silver fish, however good they taste. Otherwise I’ll let Albert turn you into a dog after all.”

“We’re not friends anymore,” growled the tomcat.

“But I’d turn you into a nice dog, Sisyphus,” said Albert, feeding the mice in his pocket with a few biscuit crumbs. “Osmund could never do that. His magic powers really aren’t anything special. Yesterday he was trying harder than today, but some spells don’t even occur to him. Even if he had the books, our friend Osmund would never be a great magician. I’d say he’s passed Grade Five at the very most.” And with a conspiratorial smile, he bent down to the little Book of Magic that sat sleepily on his lap, blinking as the sun slowly rose higher in the sky. “We showed him some real magic between us, right?”