The Triple Goddess (166 page)

‘No, it’s Bucket, the sweat from a murderer’s brow. I have to be careful not to kick Bucket over, I can’t tell you how long it took to collect. There’s been a dearth of murderers round here over the last hundred years, they’ve all gone south; bring back the good old days, say I. Now that one is an oddity; see if you can identify it.’

Hanging from a hook on the wall was a hank of hair, very long and tousled and greasy. ‘Goodness, I’ve no idea,’ said Jenny, ‘it doesn’t look human. Could it be the scalp of the wild man of Borneo, perhaps? Oh. Or, er, someone’s wig?’

‘I’ll give you a clue,’ said B.J. He reached into a plastic bag, took out a lump of bloody meat, and held it closely in front of the object. Nothing happened for a moment; and then the hair parted and the meat disappeared. B.J. wiped his hands on a cloth.

‘Aha!’ said Jenny. ‘Since we’re amongst the Esoterica, I’d say it was a rump-fed ronyon.’

‘Well done,’ said B.J. ‘A word of caution, don’t try what I just did. The ronyon’s very fast on its follicles and has a painful snatch.’

Jenny shuddered. ‘I won’t.’

The doctor nodded at a ring on the wall, at a safe distance from the rump-fed ronyon, from which was drooping what looked like a burst balloon on a stick. ‘We end with Fallflat the Fool, or jester, about whom there’s nothing to say, except that his quips are even worse than Hecate’s. He told one just before you arrived, but it’s too painful to pass on. That’s the jester’s signature pig’s bladder for striking people with.’

‘I can tell the joke didn’t strike you as funny,’ said Jenny; ‘he’s deflated.’

‘I’d heard it dozens of times, we all have, because Fallflat the Fool has a very small repertoire, and it’s difficult to muster even a polite snicker any more. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the chorus of groans from below. But Fallflat’s got a thick skin, he has to have, and don’t be deceived by his appearance. He’s already trying to remember another hoary chestnut, and when he does he’ll fill up with air.’

‘B.J., can everyone here understand each other, including you?’

‘More or less, by way of different sounds and signals. Some are better communicators than others, and have greater vocabulary. Their grammar sucks. Stingless the slow-worm makes no effort because he’s not interested in anything that goes on around him, and has nothing to say. My ability to get through to Sharkey is limited, because Shark is a complicated language that I’ve never had time to master. Dogfish are small sharks, you may know. But we manage fairly well all things considered, cover a wide range of subjects in our discussions, and even get into heated debates.

‘Well, Jenny, that completes the Cook’s tour of all the Ingredients we have in stock at present, so let’s sit down again.’ As they did, B.J. added, ‘I say “at present”: except for the staples that we always have on hand, the collection varies from week to week, depending on what spells have been commissioned that call for fresh ingredients. Regular deliveries are Mondays and Thursdays, and special orders can come in at any time. I can’t keep everything I need up here, only the ones I have to keep an eye on, and the shelves and cupboards and drawers downstairs are full to bursting with dried and pickled goods.’

Jenny couldn’t refrain from voicing her concern any longer. ‘So you actually do...dispose of them…these, the ones in here.’

‘Of course,’ said B.J.; ‘they’re ingredients, what else are they good for? I’ve no particular affinity for flying fish, or baboons, and a bucket of murderer’s sweat isn’t my first choice of companion. The rump-fed ronyon is a perennial: its mop regrows as often as I need to trim it. That’s a good thing, because Hecate says she hasn’t seen a ronyon in the wild for nigh on a thousand years, and it was just the one and practically bald. This chap fortunately has an excellent head of hair. Wort the liver also has tenure, in that it renews itself as long as it doesn’t drink too much.’

‘It wasn’t so much the Esoterica I was thinking of, B.J., as the rest...they seem more like friends or colleagues than Ingredients. Being together all day in a turret, you can’t help but form an attachment. You give them names.’

B.J. made an expression of acknowledgement. ‘One does develop a certain fondness; but business is business, upkeep is expensive, space is limited, and they all know full well what they’re here for. The tradition goes back a very long way, and they’re proud of it. They get treated well for the duration of their stays, because if they’re not kept in prime condition—everything we use has to be certified Grade A by the Guild’s inspectors, who are here every week—it compromises the effectiveness of the spells Hecate makes with them. Though usually if something goes wrong it’s the customer who’s at fault in her spell-casting, you can’t convince the witch of that; if she thinks she got less than the desired result, she complains to the Guild.

‘Fortunately the onus of proof against us is on the witch.

‘The Esoterica, I’m glad to say, don’t require sustenance, except for the rump-fed ronyon, who eats better than I do.’ B.J. glanced at the waste-paper basket that contained the remains of his fish and chips. ‘Although Dogtongue maintains he still has meal-memory, so I give him a peppermint to lick once in a while. All the Ingredients have their own dietary quirks of food and drink, and have to be fed at different times and intervals. They’re a finicky lot, and make no end of a stink, literally, if everything isn’t just so. Some food has to be served raw, and some cooked for the right time at an exact temperature.

‘That’s not the end of it. In addition to the exercise they get at night, and the conversation I provide to keep their minds active, Ingredients can’t be too hot or too cold, and there are medicines to administer when they’re sick. Metabolisms, biorhythms, everything has to be regulated if results are to be guaranteed. The pens, cages, hutches, tanks, and bowls don’t clean themselves, worse luck, and I swear that ten times more comes out of a bat than goes in, often over me. As for the ordure that Volumnia, who scarfs down all the trimmings and offal, produces...’

Dead on cue, as if to confirm the impossibility of her ever being considered as an Ingredient, the vulture did what she was best at, front and rear.

Leaning forward and whispering, Jenny said, ‘Do you put them to sleep first?’

B.J. did not lower his voice. ‘No, it would spoil the spell, they have to go out the old-fashioned way. But I make it quick: hatchet, strangling noose...the way it’s been done for centuries.’

Jenny was aghast. ‘B.J., why can’t you just have Hecate wave her arms and do it painlessly by magic?’

‘Firstly, Hecate never waves her arms unless she’s shouting at me. Second, you can’t spell a spell. I’d make placebos out of flour and water if I could get away with it, which I probably could as often as a witch botches the job without help from me. But we have to buy malpractice coverage from WICCA, the Witches’ Insurance Cooperative & Care Association. It’s administered by the Guild; and Wanda Empiria, whose eye is on every bottom line except her own, expects an annual net loss ratio of no higher than forty per cent, or she starts laying off staff.

‘When Hecate was in charge, and I use the term loosely, you could mistakenly send long-life coals to the Newcastle chapter—as Hec did—instead of to the Lapland one where they were supposed to go, for keeping the Lapp chapter warm and cosy in its covens on the tundra permafrost; and get a cheque by return in full, i.e. subject to no deductible or excess, advance payment for another delivery of coals to Lapland, plus the extra shipping costs, plus an indemnification to the Lapps for the medical cost of treating their frostbite and chilblains, so that they did not have to claim under the third party section of their own insurance policy, plus a goodwill payment for their inconvenience; and still not have our own premium increased a penny upon renewal.

‘Now, owing to Empiria’s strict accountability and enforcement rules, which she had rewritten after Hec’s Viking fiasco downstairs, we’re on thin ice, rather than permafrost, of our own and in permanent danger of being frosted out of business. If WICCA cancelled our policy we’d be finished, because you can’t keep a business licence without proof of insurance. In which case I might as well myself jump, blaspheming liver and all, into the pot on Dragonburgh’s blasted heath, where the witches gather to try and come up with their own spells as a way of saving money.

‘Though what sort of spell I’d be good for I shudder to think.’

A silence was tempered by a faint snoring from Curly Swinekill’s cage.

B.J.’s eyes brightened. ‘One of the benefits of looking after Wort the liver, is that I allow it a dram of whisky on Saturday nights, while I hang on to the bottle and sing music hall songs. In my job I get no time off for bad behaviour, and it’s nice to let my metaphorical hair down once in a while.’

”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said B.J., smacking his forehead; ‘would you like to see a dragon?’

Jenny’s jaw dropped. ‘A dragon, a real dragon? Surely not. Isn’t it...dangerous? Hecate told me a lot about dragons that made them sound...not nice to be around. Where would we have to go?’

‘Oh, nowhere, it’s a miniature dragon, a
Parvus esmeralda
. A she. Very decorative but no use for teeth; she has them of course, but they’re too small to be ground for powdered dragon tooth, the most important of our spell ingredients. Hec probably told you about the stuff.’

‘She did, it was very interesting.’

‘Miniatures are extremely rare, and it’s illegal to harvest their teeth. Although, when they fall out they’re useful as styluses for record-players, and an alternative to pavé-set diamonds. I found this little chap as a baby, while I was collecting sulphur for the laboratory from inside the crater of a volcano. She’d been deserted by the mother, which is most unusual amongst the
Parvi
, and makes it likely that the parent had been killed by a
Humungus Armada
.

‘I was nervous because the volcano was still active—in the event of an eruption my heavy asbestos suit wasn’t going to be much use—and there was a possibility of falling into a nest of
Humungi
. I’m a pharmacist and a coward, not a St George. I had no confidence in the DragonZapper I was carrying, which is supposed to emit a sound that the Humunguses dislike but is inaudible to humans; nor my spray bottle of super-concentrated mace.

‘The
Parvus
was alone on a ledge halfway down the crater, and I wrapped her in foil to keep her warm and brought her back here. Hec wasn’t sure it was a good idea at first, but she agreed to let me raise her so long as it didn’t interfere with my other duties. So I gave the little dragon the necessary vaccination shots, and named her Hotscale.’

B.J. got up from his stool, opened a drawer and took out an elbow-length oven glove, put it on, and went to the stove in the middle of the room. Bending to pick up the riddling iron from the brick surround, he knelt, hooked it in the door on the side of the stove and opened it. A blast of heat filled the room and Jenny felt a prickling of perspiration on her forehead.

B.J. seemed unaffected by the increase in temperature. ‘There she is.’ As he pointed inside with the riddling iron, Jenny crouched behind him, using him as a shield.

‘I can’t see anything,’ said Jenny; ‘it’s white-hot in there and too bright.’

B.J. patted his pockets. ‘Put these on, I don’t need them.’ He gave her a pair of sunglasses with very dark lenses, and Jenny held them up in front of her eyes. This time she could make out tongues of flame.

‘Better, but still nothing.’

‘Keep looking,’ said B.J., ‘it might take a moment. She’s very shy.’ He crooned into the stove. ‘Hotty, come here, dear, there’s someone to see you. Who’s a cutie little Hooty? You are, yes you are, you’re a little cutie Hooty.’ If it hadn’t been so hot Jenny would have blushed with embarrassment.

As the flames in an evening hearthside fire assume protean forms in one’s imagination, an outline formed like a large piece of golden holly, about ten inches high. The shape began to fill in with intense sparkles of colour, until it resembled a seahorse brooch studded with emeralds, diamonds, and rubies.

There she was, the little dragon Hotscale, perfect in every detail and looking pleased at the attention she was receiving.

‘Oh,’ cried Jenny; ‘she’s adorable.’ Hotscale fanned the scalloped panels of her wings and looked modestly down her nose over carbuncled nostrils. B.J. moved aside and Jenny came closer; involuntarily she held out her hand towards the dragon, and then withdrew it hastily from the heat.

‘Here, give her a few of these,’ said B.J., reaching into his other pocket. ‘Just toss them in. Diamonds are a dragon’s as well as a girl’s best friend, along with every other kind of precious jewel, but today all I have are pearls. Hold out your hand.’

He poured the milky-white pearls into her palm, and Jenny stared. ‘These can’t be real.’

‘Certainly they are, I wouldn’t give Hotty anything less than the best.’

‘She doesn’t eat them, does she?’

‘You’ll see. Throw them in one after another, and don’t worry, she won’t drop them.’

Jenny hesitated and looked from her hand to B.J. to see if he was serious; which, judging from his expression he was, so she did as he asked.

Hotscale caught each pearl deftly on her snout, and rolled it around as if she were performing a party trick, before tossing it up and catching it in her mouth. She did this seven or eight times until Jenny’s hand was empty. Then, when the little dragon was sure that there were no more pearls coming, she began preening herself.