The Secret Kingdom (13 page)

The children watched in silence, waiting for the old woman to speak again. At length she handed Edern the empty bowl and sat back against the wall, folding her arms across her chest.

‘Please, Madame …’ Timoken began.

‘Grüner,’ she snapped. ‘Adele Grüner.’

‘Can you tell us what happened here?’ asked Timoken.

‘Don’t stare at me,’ Madame Grüner complained. ‘Go and sit down, all of you.’

Timoken motioned to the others to sit. He told them that Madame Grüner might be persuaded to describe what had happened.

Some children clustered around the table, while others sat cross-legged on the floor. Beri came and knelt beside Timoken.

Madame Grüner began to talk. She mumbled and wheezed her way through the events that led up to the death of her village, while Timoken translated her words for Beri and the Britons. Within a few seconds he had mastered this process so well that the others hardly noticed it. His words reached them in one seamless story.

The old woman lived at the far end of the village. Three days ago she was collecting sticks in the wood behind her house, when five horsemen rode up. They were leading another horse, a huge black beast that snorted fire and whose great hooves made the earth tremble as he passed. ‘Four of the strangers had a green
look about them,’ she said. ‘Their limbs were long and appeared to have no joints. No knees, no wrists, no elbows. They wore fine clothes and their green cloaks were lined with fur, but their faces … their faces …’ Madame Grüner stopped speaking and rubbed her eyes. It was as though she were trying to rub away the memory. All at once her hands dropped to her sides and she said, ‘Their faces were not right.’

The fifth horseman was not much older than Timoken. He had brown-gold hair and eyes the colour of dark green olives. Madam Grüner knew this because he stopped and spoke to her. He asked if she had seen an African boy on a camel. She had laughed at him because she had only heard of such things but never seen them, and would not expect to in her lifetime. Her laughter annoyed the boy and, without warning, he pulled out a whip and struck her hands. She cried out in pain, dropping the bundle of sticks. The boy merely smiled. Leaning from his horse he said coldly, ‘Old woman, this is not a joke.’ Then he turned his horse and led the group into the village.

‘And now I have seen things that I never thought I would,’ murmured Madame Grüner. ‘A camel in our stable and an African wearing a crown.’

Timoken awkwardly touched his head. He had forgotten to wear his hood. ‘How did they die, Madame Grüner, all those people?’

She took another sip of water and went on, ‘When I got back to the village, I saw Monsieur Clement talking to the strangers. The boy was shouting, and my neighbour told me that there had been an argument. The boy sorcerer said that an African on a camel was on his way to the village.’ She pointed a bony finger at Timoken. ‘You!’

Timoken frowned. Without a doubt she was right. He twisted the ring, remembering the forest-jinni’s warning. A viridee had become human. Timoken knew what he wanted: the moon cloak. And he would kill to get it. ‘I hope I was not the cause of all those deaths.’ Timoken’s voice was so low, only the girl beside him heard it.

‘Monsieur Clement was a brave man.’ The old woman’s watery eyes spilled tears down her furrowed cheeks. ‘My neighbour told me that when the boy commanded that the African should be caught and imprisoned, Monsieur Clement refused. He was adamant. Visitors would always be welcome in the village, he said, unless their intentions were evil. It was his duty to offer hospitality, not harm.
And he looked at the crowd and asked, ‘Am I not right, my friends?’ And they all agreed, very loudly, whereupon the boy shouted a curse at him. When he and his companions rode off, I heard him call out that we had made the wrong choice.’

‘And they came back,’ said Timoken.

Madame Grüner nodded. Her hands plucked at her skirt and she began to mumble incoherently. Timoken took one of her hands. He only meant to calm her, but when he touched her dry skin and looked into her faded grey eyes, he began to see what she had seen three nights ago. It was dark, but a lamp burned outside Monsieur Clement’s house. A boy stood beside the pump. He dropped a stone into the water trough, a shining stone that gave the water an eerie gleam. The boy began to speak. His language was harsh and ugly, his voice too deep for a boy. A
spell
, thought Timoken. Before he left, the boy put his fingers on the pump, and for a few seconds the handle glowed like a hot poker. And the boy smiled.

Timoken heard Beri’s voice, very close, saying, ‘How can you make sense of all that babbling?’ And he realised that he had not been listening to Madame Grüner, but describing a scene that was in her head.

‘I was with her,’ he said, and, beside him, he felt Beri shiver slightly.

Madame Grüner continued to talk, and once more the things that she saw began to swim before Timoken’s eyes.

It was the morning after the boy had thrown the stone. The sun had not yet risen and no one had come to the pump. But Madame Grüner was still awake, and she heard the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones. Two monks rode into the village. They dismounted and looked about them. Seeing a stable, they walked stealthily towards it. Their movements were furtive, their faces guilty. Horse thieves, no doubt. Before Madame Grüner could cry a warning, the boy sorcerer appeared, and she was afraid.

The boy spoke to the monks and they replied. Madame Grüner was too far away to hear them, but Timoken watched their lips and understood. The monks were looking for a horse to pull their wagon. The boy offered them an animal that was stronger than any horse on earth. But there was a condition. They must capture an African who rode a camel.

‘And then what?’ asked one of the monks. ‘In three
days we have to deliver certain goods to a trader in the city of St Fleur.’

The boy shrugged. ‘Make your delivery. And then bring me the African. The horse will find me, wherever I am. He is a beast of my own making.’

The monks frowned, not quite believing the boy. He disappeared from view, and when he returned he was leading a great black horse. The monks looked incredulous. Before the boy handed the horse over he spoke to it, all the while stroking the beast’s nose. He passed the reins to one of the monks, and warned them not to drink the water from the pump. As he said this, he looked directly at Madame Grüner’s window. An icy light streamed from his green eyes. Its touch was so painful that she had to cover her face. She dropped to the floor and fell into a deep sleep. When she woke up everyone else in the village was dying or dead.

Madame Grüner’s head drooped. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep.

Timoken released the old woman’s hand. He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his shoulders. He felt so tired, he wanted to lay his head beside the old woman’s and sleep. ‘Did you hear all that?’ he asked the others.

‘We heard,’ said Edern. ‘The black horse was possessed, as we thought. Why does the sorcerer want you, Timoken?’

‘It is not me that he wants.’ Timoken lifted the moon cloak from the mattress where Isabelle had dropped it. ‘It is this. And perhaps something that I no longer have.’

They waited for him to say more and so, reluctantly, he told them about the Alixir that had been lost in the river. He told them about the secret kingdom and the way that his father and mother had died. He told them about the viridees and, last of all, about his sister, Zobayda. When he had finished the only sound in the room came from the old woman, who was quietly snoring.

Timoken’s arm had begun to throb again. And again there was a light tug at his heart. ‘I think we should sleep now,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we will decide what to do.’

He could feel the children’s eyes on him, but still no one spoke. What could they say after such a story?
I have said it all, now
, thought Timoken,
or nearly all.
For nearly two hundred years he had carried his story alone, but now children that he trusted knew it, too, and he felt lighter and happier for having shared it. The only thing that he had kept to himself was his age, his and Gabar’s.

They set about preparing for bed. They would all
sleep in the one room, they decided. It would be safer that way. The horses were brought in from the woods and stabled close to the house. There was plenty of hay for them, and enough left over to take into the house for pillows. Timoken hung the moon cloak across the door as a protection against the false monks, who might return. The candles were doused and one by one the children curled up on the floor and went to sleep. Once again, the only sound in the room was Madame Grüner’s quiet snoring.

Timoken had slept for only a few minutes before he found himself awake again. He had forgotten something.

Stepping carefully over the others, he unlatched the door and crept out.

Gabar was resting on the stable floor, but he was not asleep. Timoken removed the saddle and the heavy bags from his back. Finding some dried fruit in one of the bags, he laid it before the camel.

Gabar grunted his approval and ate the food.

‘We have come a long way, you and I,’ said Timoken, crouching beside the camel. ‘And now we are going to grow old together.’

Gabar said nothing, but when Timoken got up to
leave, he grunted, ‘Family, please stay with me.’

Timoken thought of the moon cloak, out of his reach now. But what did it matter? It would keep the children safe. He sank into the straw and, resting his head against the camel’s warm body, fell asleep.

When Timoken entered the house next morning a serious discussion was taking place. What was to be done with Madame Grüner? That was the question that worried everyone. The old woman was still asleep, and they did not want to frighten her awake.

Eventually, their noisy chatter woke her. For a moment, she scowled at them from under her heavy brows, and then she remembered what had happened and began to rock back and forth, moaning constantly.

‘Madame, how can we help you?’ asked Timoken.

The old woman stopped rocking. Frowning up at Timoken, she told him that she could not stay in a dead village. She would go to her cousin, who lived only a day’s ride away. But there was a problem. Although the villagers’ horses had not been given the poisoned water, she could no longer ride. Her hands were too frail to hold the reins, and she found it hard to sit upright.

‘We will take you,’ said Timoken.

Martin, one of the French boys, offered to share his horse with Madame Grüner. He promised to hold her very tight, and to keep his horse under control so that she did not fall off.

It was quite a business, lifting the old woman up into the saddle. She caught her feet in her long skirt, twisted her hands in the reins and protested loudly when Martin squeezed in behind her. But realising it was the only way she was going to reach her cousin’s village, she calmed down and, muttering directions, allowed Martin to lead the way out of the village.

They had found six extra horses, and so everyone had their own mount. The girls were very pleased about this. They looked different today. They had found clothes in the deserted houses and were now dressed as boys. Their hair was tucked into hoods attached to their short tunics. Having discarded their long dresses, they now wore woollen stockings, so their legs were free and they did not have to ride sidesaddle, which they found annoying and uncomfortable.

As the group approached a small village, half-hidden in the woods, Henri began to look around him, studying
the ancient trees. He twisted in the saddle, staring up at a towering pine and, with mounting surprise, declared that he thought he recognised the place, and that it was not so far from his home.

This caused a lot of excitement among the other French children. All at once their own homes seemed closer, and the possibility of seeing their parents before very long made some of them whoop with joy.

‘Shush!’ Madame Grüner commanded. ‘You will frighten everyone, and they will bar their doors.’

And so they entered the village in silence, until Madame Grüner saw her cousin peeping out of a window. With a joyful cry, the old woman half-slid and half-tumbled off the horse and fell to the ground, while her cousin, a woman much younger than herself, rushed out and clasped her in her arms.

There followed such a babble of frantic conversation between the two, even the French children could not understand them.

Other people began to emerge from their houses. They stared in amazement at the camel. None of them had seen such a creature. But, at length, they motioned for the children to dismount and, climbing off their
horses, the children stood grinning at the villagers, who all grinned back.

The cousin, Madame Magnier, invited everyone into her house, while the horses were taken to be fed and watered. Gabar, however, was left well alone.

‘Well, Gabar,’ Timoken grunted softly. ‘I think you had better let me down, because I do not intend to fly.’

He heard a woman say, ‘The African can only speak in grunts.’

‘On the contrary, Madame,’ said Timoken. ‘I can speak many languages. I was merely instructing my camel.’

The woman gasped. When Gabar knelt, she suddenly saw Timoken’s crown. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, blushing. ‘I am a foolish woman.’

Timoken smiled. ‘You made a common mistake, Madame.’

Soon the whole village knew the story of the boy sorcerer and the fatal poisonings. When they heard that all the children, except Timoken, had been kidnapped, they clutched their own children protectively, agreeing never to let them out of their sight.

That evening the visitors were given a grand meal in the village meeting house. While they ate, the villagers pressed them to tell their stories.

The children’s accounts were listened to with outrage and horror. Several mothers stood up and piled even more food on their plates.

Madame Magnier’s husband was a soldier, but after being wounded in battle he had returned home for good. He walked with a limp, but declared that his sword arm was still good, and he offered to accompany the French children to the castle where Henri lived with his family.