House of Many Ways (20 page)

“My goodness!” said the King. “So
that’s
where it all went, Hilda! There’s one puzzle solved at any rate.
Thank you,
my dear.”

Prince Ludovic said disgustedly, “Why are you so pleased? Didn’t you
listen
to me?” He turned to the colorless gentleman. “He’ll be offering us all crumpets next! Get on and work your spell. Get me out of here.”

The colorless gentleman nodded and spread his faintly purple hands out in front of him. But that was the moment when Sim shuffled in with the gold brick in his arms. He shuffled swiftly across to the colorless gentleman and dropped the gold brick on the gentleman’s toe.

After that, a lot of things happened very quickly.

As the gentleman, now purple with agony, hopped about yelling, Morgan seemed to arrive at his last gasp. His arms waved in a strange, convulsive pattern. And Prince Ludovic found himself trying to carry a tall, full-grown man in an elegant blue satin suit. He dropped the man, who promptly turned round and hit the Prince in the face.

“How
dare
you do that!” the Prince screamed. “I’m not
used
to it!”

“Bad luck,” said Wizard Howl, and hit him
again. This time Prince Ludovic caught his foot in the wig and sat down with a thump. “Only language a lubbockin understands,” the wizard remarked over his shoulder to the King. “Had enough, Ludy old boy?”

At the same time, Morgan, who seemed to be wearing Twinkle’s blue velvet suit, very crumpled and much too big for him, rushed at the wizard, booming, “Dad—
Dad
—DAD!”

Oh, I see! Charmain thought. They changed places somehow. That’s pretty good magic. I’d like to learn how you do that. She wondered, while she watched the wizard carefully keeping Morgan away from the Prince, why Howl had wanted to be prettier than he was. He was most people’s idea of a very handsome man, although, she thought, his hair was perhaps a little unreal. It fell over his blue satin shoulders in improbably beautiful flaxen curls.

But, also at the same time, Sim stood back—while the colorless gentleman hopped about in front of him—and seemed to be trying to make a formal announcement of some kind. But Morgan
was raising such a clamor and Waif was barking so hard that all anyone could hear was “Your Majesty” and “Royal Highness.”

While Sim was speaking, Wizard Howl looked across at the fireplace and nodded. There was something that happened then, between the wizard and Calcifer, that was not exactly a flash of light and not exactly a flash of invisible light either. While Charmain was still trying to describe it to herself, Prince Ludovic humped into himself and vanished downward. So did the colorless gentleman. In their places were two rabbits.

Wizard Howl looked at them and then at Calcifer. “Why rabbits?” he asked, swinging Morgan up into his arms. Morgan at once stopped yelling and there was a moment of silence.

“All that hopping about,” Calcifer said. “It put me in mind of rabbits.”

The colorless gentleman was still hopping about, but he was now hopping as a large white rabbit with bulging purple eyes. Prince Ludovic, who was a pale fawn color with even bigger purple eyes, seemed too
astonished to move. He twitched his ears and wobbled his nose—

This was when Waif attacked.

Meanwhile, the visitors Sim had been trying to announce were already in the room. Waif killed the fawn-colored rabbit almost under the runners of the kobolds’ painted sled chair, which was being pushed by the Witch of Montalbino. Great-Uncle William, rather pale and thin but evidently much better, was propped on a pile of blue cushions inside the chair. He, and the Witch, and Timminz, who was standing on the cushions, all leaned over the chair’s carved blue side to watch Waif give a tiny snarl and toss the fawn-colored rabbit sideways by its neck and then, with another miniature snarl, hurl it across her back to land with a
flump,
dead, on the carpet.

“Good gracious!” said Wizard Norland, the King, Sophie, and Charmain. “I’d have thought Waif was too small to
do
that!”

Princess Hilda waited for the rabbit to land and sailed across to the sled chair. She ignored, grandly, the frantic rushing and scrambling as Waif chased
the white rabbit round and round the room. “My dear Princess Matilda,” the Princess said, holding both hands out to Peter’s mother. “What a long time it is since we’ve seen you here. I do hope you mean to make us a long visit.”

“That depends,” the Witch said dryly.

“My daughter’s second cousin,” the King explained to Charmain and Sophie. “Prefers to be called the Witch of Somewhere usually. Always gets irritated if anyone calls her Princess Matilda. My daughter makes a point of it, of course. Hilda doesn’t hold with inverted snobbery.”

By this time, Wizard Howl had hoisted Morgan up onto his shoulders so that they could both watch as Waif cornered the white rabbit behind the fifth rocking horse along. There was some more tiny snarling. Presently the white rabbit’s corpse came flying out across the rockers, dead and limp.

“Hooray!” Morgan boomed, beating his fists on his father’s flaxen head.

Howl rather hastily hoisted Morgan down and handed him on to Sophie. “Have you told
them about the gold yet?” he asked her.

“Not yet. The evidence got dropped on someone’s foot,” Sophie said, taking firm charge of Morgan.

“Tell them now,” Howl said. “There’s something else that’s strange here.” He bent down and caught Waif as she trotted back to Charmain. Waif squirmed and whined and craned and did everything she could to make it clear that it was
Charmain
she wanted to go to. “Shortly, shortly,” Howl said, turning Waif around in a puzzled way. Eventually he carried her over to the sled chair, where the King was jovially shaking Wizard Norland’s hand while Sophie showed the gold ingot to them. The Witch and Timminz and Princess Hilda all crowded round Sophie, staring and demanding to know where Sophie had found the gold.

Charmain stood in the middle of the room feeling quite left out. I know I’m being quite unreasonable, she thought. I’m just the same as I always was. But I want Waif
back.
I want to take her with me when they send me back home to Mother. It was
obvious to her that Peter’s mother was going to look after Great-Uncle William now, and where did that leave Charmain?

There was a terrific crash.

The walls shook, causing Calcifer to shoot out of the fireplace and hover over Charmain’s head. Then, in very slow motion, a large hole opened in the wall beside the fireplace. The wallpaper peeled away first, followed by the plaster underneath it. Then the dark stones behind the plaster crumbled away and vanished, until nothing was left but a dark space. Finally, not in slow motion at all, Peter shot backward through the hole and landed lying in front of Charmain.

“Hole!” boomed Morgan, pointing.

“I think you’re right,” Calcifer agreed.

Peter did not seem in the least put out. He looked up at Calcifer and said, “So you’re not dead, then. I
knew
she was making a stupid fuss. She’s never sensible about things.”

“Oh, thank you, Peter!” Charmain said. “And when have
you
ever been sensible? Where have you
been
?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Witch of Montalbino. “I’d like to know that too.” She pushed the sled chair right up to Peter, so that Great-Uncle William and Timminz were gazing down on Peter, along with everyone else, except for Princess Hilda. Princess Hilda was looking ruefully at the hole in the wall.

Peter did not seem worried at all. He sat up. “Hallo, Mum,” he said cheerfully. “Why aren’t you in Ingary?”

“Because Wizard Howl is here,” said his mother. “And you?”

“I’ve been in Wizard Norland’s workshop,” Peter said. “I went there as soon as I gave Charmain the slip.” He waved his hands with the rainbow of strings tied round his fingers to show how he got there. But he gave Wizard Norland a slightly anxious look. “I’ve been very careful in there, sir. Really.”

“Have you indeed?” said Great-Uncle William, looking at the hole in the wall. It seemed to be slowly healing up. The dark stones were closing gently in toward the middle of it and the plaster was
growing across after the stones. “And what were you doing there for a whole day and a night, may I ask?”

“Divining spells,” Peter explained. “They take ages. It was lucky you had all those food spells in there, sir, or I’d have been really hungry by now. And I used your camp bed. I hope you don’t mind.” By the look on Great-Uncle William’s face, it was clear that he
did
mind. Peter added hurriedly, “But the spells worked, sir. The Royal Treasure must be
here,
where we all are, because I told the spell to take me to wherever it was.”

“And so it is,” said his mother. “Wizard Howl has already found it.”

“Oh,” said Peter. He looked very cast down. But then he brightened up. “I did a spell that worked, then!”

Everyone looked at the slowly healing hole. The wallpaper was now moving softly in across the plaster, but it was obvious that the wall would never be quite the same again. It had a soggy, wrinkled look.

“I’m sure this is a great comfort to you, young
man,” Princess Hilda said bitterly. Peter looked at her blankly, obviously wondering who she was.

His mother sighed. “Peter, this is Her Highness Princess Hilda of High Norland. Perhaps you would be good enough to get up and bow to her and to her father the King. They are, after all, near relations of ours.”

“How come?” Peter asked. But he scrambled to his feet and bowed in a very mannerly way.

“My son, Peter,” said the Witch, “who is now most probably heir to your throne, Sire.”

“Pleased to meet you, my boy,” the King said. “This has all become very confusing. Won’t somebody give me an explanation?”

“I will give you one, Sire,” the Witch said.

“Perhaps we should all sit down,” the Princess suggested. “Sim, be good enough to remove these two…er…dead rabbits, please.”

“Very good, ma’am,” Sim said. He shuffled rapidly about the room, gathering up the two corpses. He was clearly so anxious not to miss whatever the Witch was going to say, that Charmain was sure he
simply dumped the rabbits outside the door. By the time he hurried back into the room, everyone had settled onto the grand but faded sofas, except for Great-Uncle William, who lay back on his cushions looking thin and weary, and Timminz, who sat himself on a cushion beside Great-Uncle William’s ear. Calcifer went back to roost in the grate. Sophie took Morgan on her knee, where Morgan put his thumb in his mouth and went to sleep. And Wizard Howl at last handed Waif back to Charmain. He did it with such a dazzlingly apologetic smile that Charmain felt quite flustered.

I like him much better as a grown-up man, she thought. No wonder Sophie was so annoyed with Twinkle! Waif meanwhile squeaked and bounced and put her paws on Charmain’s dangling glasses in order to lick her chin. Charmain rubbed Waif’s ears and stroked the frayed hair on the top of Waif’s head while she listened to what Peter’s mother had to say.

“As you may know,” the Witch said, “I married my cousin Hans Nicholas, who was at that time
third in succession to the throne of High Norland. I was fifth, but as a woman I didn’t really count, and besides, the only thing I wanted in the world was to be a professional witch. Hans was not interested in being King either. His passion was for climbing mountains and discovering caves and new passes among the glaciers. We were quite content to leave our cousin Ludovic to be heir to the throne. Neither of us
liked
him, and Hans always said Ludovic was the most selfish and unfeeling person he knew, but we both thought that if we went away and showed we had no interest in the throne, he wouldn’t bother us.

“So we moved to Montalbino, where I took up office as Witch and Hans became a mountain guide; and we were very happy until just after Peter was born, when it became dreadfully plain that our other cousins were dying like flies. And not only dying, but also said to be wicked and dying because of their wickedness. When my cousin Isolla Matilda, who was the kindest and gentlest of girls, was killed while apparently attempting to murder someone, Hans became positive that Ludovic was doing it.
‘Systematically killing off all the other heirs to the throne,’ he said. ‘And giving us all a bad name while he does it.’

“I became simply terrified for Hans and for Peter. By that time Hans was next heir after Ludovic and Peter came after that. So I got out my broomstick, put Peter into a sling on my back, and flew all the way down to Ingary to consult Mrs. Pentstemmon, who had trained me as a witch. I believe,” the Witch said, turning to Howl, “that she trained you too, Wizard Howl.”

Howl gave her one of his scintillating smiles. “That was much later. I was her very last pupil.”

“Then you know that she was the best,” said the Witch of Montalbino. “You agree?” Howl nodded. “You could trust everything she told you,” the Witch went on. “She was always
right.”
Sophie nodded too at this, a little ruefully. “But when I consulted her,” said the Witch, “she was not sure that there was anything I could do except take Peter and go very far away. Inhico, she thought. I said, ‘But what about Hans?’ and she agreed I was right to be
worried. ‘Give me half a day,’ she said, ‘to find an answer for you,’ and she went and shut herself into her workroom. Less than half a day later, she came out almost in a panic. I’d never seen her so upset before. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘your cousin Ludovic is a vile creature called a lubbockin, offspring of a lubbock that roams the hills between High Norland and Montalbino, and he is doing just what your Hans suspected he was doing, no doubt with the help of that lubbock. You must hurry home to Montalbino at once! Let us pray you get there in time. And on no account tell anyone who this little lad of yours is—don’t tell him or anyone else, or the lubbock will try to kill him too!’”

“Oh, is that why you never told me all this before?” Peter said. “You should have done. I can look after myself.”

“That,” said his mother, “is exactly what poor Hans thought too. I should have made him come to Ingary with us. Don’t interrupt, Peter. You nearly made me forget the last thing Mrs. Pentstemmon said to me, which was, ‘There
is
an answer, my dear.
In your native land, there is, or was, something called the Elfgift belonging to the royal family, which has the power to keep the King safe and the whole country with him. Go and ask the King of High Norland to lend this Elfgift to Peter. It will keep him safe.’ So I thanked her and put Peter on my back again and flew as fast as I could to Montalbino. I meant to ask Hans to come with me to High Norland to ask for the Elfgift, but when I got home they told me Hans was up in the Gretterhorns with the mountain rescue team. I had the most horrible premonition then. I flew straight on up into the mountains, with Peter still on my back. He was crying with hunger by then, but I didn’t dare stop. And I just got there in time to see the lubbock start the avalanche that killed Hans.”