The Snowy Tower (21 page)

‘Is that you, Roana? I’m so used to seeing you look like a boy that I can hardly recognise you,’ Lily laughed. ‘Your hair has grown quite a bit over the last few weeks, and it’s almost back to its old colour. It suits you.’

‘Welcome back, your highness,’ teased Ethan. ‘You are definitely moving up in the world.’

When everyone was ready they gathered in the guardroom – Fox, Willem, George, Ethan, Lily,
Saxon, Roana, Caspar and the rebels disguised as Sedah soldiers.

‘Now remember your cover stories if we are stopped and questioned,’ Fox reminded them. ‘Let’s go and let Albert and the other rebels in at the palace gates.’

Cautiously and quietly they climbed up the circular steps that led into the bottom of the southwest tower. The great courtyard was bathed in silver moonlight. The nearly full moon was rising in the sky, illuminating the white towers of Tira in a silvery glow.

The group slid through the shadows with Aisha at their heels. At the palace gates they found a group of sentries fast asleep. The guards were quickly stripped, bound with rope and locked in the guardhouse. Fox unlocked the gate and hooted loudly like his ship’s namesake. The owl cry was repeated twice. An answering hoot came from the other side of the park. A few minutes later Albert Drummond appeared with a force of two hundred armed rebels, who crept quietly into the palace.

Sniffer woke suddenly from his nightmare, drenched in sweat. The cheeky faces of four Tiregian children and that dog hovered in his mind. In his dream, the children were together on a toboggan, with the dog and the cat, hurtling straight down the mountain of snow, laughing back at him. The scent of them wafted back to him tauntingly. He was on a toboggan only metres behind them, but no matter how fast he chased them, they were always tantalisingly just out of reach.

He rubbed his eyes, longing for a deep, long sleep. His leg throbbed and his head ached. But those children would not leave him alone, even in his dreams. A deep feeling of foreboding coursed through his body. He must warn Governor Lazlac, even if it was his wedding night. Reluctantly Sniffer climbed out of his bunk, pulled on his boots and hobbled across the central courtyard.

No-one challenged him as he passed. The palace seemed deserted, with nearly everyone congregated in the Great Hall for the feast. Sniffer walked faster.
The children are here
, he thought, hope racing through his blood.
I know they are somewhere very near.

In the Great Hall, King Lazlac was not feeling his best. His head ached and he felt slightly nauseous. A strong cramp clenched his stomach. He glanced around the hall and realised that quite a few of his colleagues were looking a trifle pale. A number had stumbled off to the latrines, gripped with stomach cramps and nausea. Most of them did not come back. A dreadful smell wafted through the hall. King Lazlac felt an overpowering urge to visit the latrines himself, but he was firmly bound with crimson ribbon to his new queen.

King Lazlac suddenly felt bile rise in his throat and he started to vomit, covering himself in regurgitated wild toadstool soup and minced Adder’s Tongue. His gorgeous red velvet wedding clothes were soiled, his satin slippers splattered and his ornate crown dislodged. Queen Ashana glared at him in disgust, holding herself as far from her new consort as possible.

King Lazlac tried to rise but his head was muzzy and his vision blurred.

The herbs that Cookie had chopped into the soup included poisonous wild toadstools, not enough to kill but enough to make the consumer hallucinate, and Adder’s Tongue – a strong emetic and cathartic herb that induces vomiting and
diarrhoea. Another powerful stomach spasm bent the new king almost double.

It was for this reason that he did not notice a number of soldiers dressed in Sedah uniforms who slipped into the Great Hall, each one with a crimson ribbon tied around his left arm. The new soldiers solicitously helped some of the incapacitated revellers away to recover. It was only later the revellers discovered they had been relieved of their weapons and locked inside the antechamber.

Sniffer slipped into the Great Hall. Something was not quite right. He smelled the pervading odour of vomit and latrines with a slight underlay of fear. His delicate nostrils caught another whiff, a very familiar cocktail of children and dog and a faint hint of lavender. Sniffer started to run towards the new king on his magnificent throne.

‘Governor Lazlac,’ Sniffer shouted. ‘I must warn you.’

When King Lazlac lifted his head at the shout, he realised a group of young servants and black-clad soldiers had gathered behind him. He raised his face imperiously.

‘Clean up this mess at once,’ King Lazlac ordered, a trifle shakily. Queen Ashana stared at him with huge eyes, her gaze darting to the crazed, stooped
figure who was running towards them, then back to the servants behind her.

‘My pleasure,’ answered one of the servant girls, who had scandalously short hair. From somewhere she lifted a massive sword, flashing with reflected light, which she swung down menacingly. King Lazlac yelped in dismay. He stared at the sword. It looked terrifyingly, horrifyingly familiar. His heart nearly stopped beating in shock. This was impossible. He must be hallucinating.

‘They’re here,’ shouted Sniffer as a burly soldier in a Sedah uniform, with a crimson ribbon on his left arm, grasped him firmly with both arms. ‘The children are here already.’ All eyes turned to the wedding table.

The great sword descended, almost in slow motion. But the servant girl did not strike the newly crowned king, she merely used the blade to strike through the crimson ribbon that bound King Lazlac to Queen Ashana.

‘With this blade I sunder the false marriage of this vermin to my mother,’ cried Princess Roana, her eyes blazing with rage. ‘And with this blade I sunder your false claim to my father’s crown.’ Princess Roana used the sword to knock the gold crown from Lord Lazlac’s head down into the pile of vomit on the table.

‘In the name of the Sun Sword I claim Tiregian back for the Tiregians,’ Roana thundered.

The sword flashed and gleamed in the lamplight, its jewels dazzling.

Lord Lazlac was not giving up his crown without a fight. He screamed for his guards, grabbed up his befouled crown and rammed it back on his head, turning to the soldiers behind him.

‘Seize her, guards,’ King Lazlac shrieked. ‘Tear her limb by limb – I want her head cut from her body before my eyes.’

The guards, who were actually disguised Tiregian rebels, instead seized Lord Lazlac by the arms and relieved him of his ceremonial sword and dagger. Queen Ashana rose to her feet and flung herself towards Roana, standing behind her.

‘Look, Mama,’ Roana cried. ‘We brought Caspar home.’

Lily stepped forward from the back of the group, leading the pale and shaken Prince Caspar by the hand.

‘Caspar,’ cried Queen Ashana, her voice hoarse with tears. ‘My darling boy. Are you all right?’

Prince Caspar stepped forward tentatively, then ran as fast as he could right into his mother’s arms. Queen Ashana hugged him as though she would
never let him go. When at last she stepped back to check his face, her red silk wedding dress was splattered with both their tears.

Meanwhile a battle raged around them. Most of the real Sedah soldiers were in a very sorry state, gripped by vomiting and diarrhoea, stomach cramps and dizzy heads. But of course many of them resisted, fighting back with cutlass and dagger. Albert Drummond was wounded by an enemy spear hurled across the room that buried itself in his thigh.

Candles and lanterns were knocked over, flames seared, blood spurted and crockery smashed. One of the long tables caught fire, blazing fiercely. On a side table was a large ice sculpture of the palace, surrounded by a fake ocean of seafood and shellfish. It was slowly dripping in the heat. A Sedah soldier tripped, sending the ice sculpture flying into smithereens, spilling slippery shellfish and ice splinters over the floor. Burgis ran to help his lord and sprawled metres across the floor, sliding on the sharp oyster shells and ice shards, where he was rescued by a Tiregian rebel.

Lieutenant Foulash had eaten little of the soup, as it was too spicy for him. He drew his cutlass and clambered onto the bridal table, racing to rescue his commander. Fox drew his own sword and leapt in
front of him, gracefully sidestepping fine bone china soup bowls, empty tureens, knocked over goblets and pools of vomit. Lieutenant Foulash gave a roar of indignation and galloped for Fox, swiping for his neck.

Mia jumped from Fox’s shoulder and swung up Lily’s arm onto her head, jabbering in rage. Fox answered Foulash’s challenge by glissading forward, as graceful as a dancer. His blue eyes glittered with battle fervour as he parried and feinted, thrusted and blocked, his red ponytail swinging. Around the hall, other pairs of soldiers were fighting and screaming, amid the spot fires. Fox and Lieutenant Foulash seemed evenly matched, and the duel flashed back and forth for many long minutes. Lieutenant Foulash fought strongly, sweating and panting in the heat.

Ethan and Saxon watched fearfully from beside the table, anxious to help Fox but not wanting to get in his way.

At last, Fox seemed to hesitate and was forced backwards. Lieutenant Foulash gave a scream of triumph and lunged forward. He drove his cutlass towards Fox’s chest, slicing Fox’s black shirt, and releasing a torrent of crimson blood. Lily screamed. Lieutenant Foulash grinned his triumph, for a brief
moment balancing on just his front foot. Fox hooked one boot around his opponent’s leg and jerked him right off his feet, jabbing his sword at the fallen man’s throat.

‘A swordsman should always glide – you must keep both feet on the ground at all times,’ instructed Fox, ignoring the flow of blood trickling down his front. ‘Shouldn’t you, Sax?’

‘Always,’ grinned Saxon.

Mia jumped up and down on the fallen Sedah soldier, chattering with excitement. Lieutenant Foulash moaned with shock.

‘If you’ve quite finished, Fox,’ scolded Jess, ‘do you think we could bind up that wound for you, before you bleed to death?’

At last the remaining Sedah soldiers were subdued and, along with their leader, the dethroned King Lazlac, taken down in chains to be locked in the dungeons. There was no time to rest or celebrate. Groups of rebels were despatched to every gate in the city, the port and the garrison. The Tiregian uprising was such a surprise and the preparation so meticulous that there was surprisingly little bloodshed.

By late afternoon the next day, all of the Sedah soldiers in Tiregian had either surrendered or been conquered. The dungeons under the palace were full once more, but this time with the foreign invaders.

It was Midsummer’s Day, the day of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, when the last Sedah soldier was despatched. Once more true ruler of her realm, Queen Ashana gave orders for a great victory celebration to be held that night, throughout the land – with traditional midsummer bonfires, music, feasts, singing and dancing.

Cookie was beside herself having to prepare a second feast so close to the other ruined wedding banquet. Queen Ashana assured her there was no need for such a lavish spread.