The Palace of Glimt
If Christopher stood on the palace steps at sunrise, he could hear the cacophony of waking things – the whinny of the longma with the uneven wings, the baby roc chirping in the ballroom, the tortoise-shelled terasque clattering hungrily down the hallways lit by chandeliers.
The palace was the property of Fidens Nighthand, Berserker.
He had inherited the whole islet, its greenhouses and small forest and orchard, and with Irian Guinne he had transformed it into a haven of safety and of learning.
For it was not just a refuge; it was a place through which news and scholarship travelled.
The library of Glimt was stocked with ancient texts, and men and women came to visit from afar.
‘But they don’t come for the books,’ said Nighthand. ‘They come for Irian.’
That was true, Christopher knew. The reputation of Irian Guinne, the scholar with nereid blood, had spread far in the past year.
She welcomed all who came: members of the Flying Senate, powerful diplomats and careful-faced politicians and, once, a man who Nighthand claimed was a sorcerer.
‘We must share the old knowledge,’ she would say.
‘It will be needed. One day the Immortal child will be old enough to tell us some of what he knows. Our task is to make ready.’
Every morning Christopher and Anya had lessons in the library from Irian and from Gallia, the old gagana bird.
They learned the history of the Archipelago, the mathematics of the stars, the science of the waters.
Gallia insisted that they memorise the legal systems for each of the thirty-four islands, reciting: ‘Freondell: mostly lawless, pirates common, stay away.’ Each afternoon they worked in the palace and grounds.
They dressed wounds, fed, watered, mucked out, bathed, consoled, restrained and coaxed the creatures.
It was sweaty, often dangerous work, and Christopher had never loved anything so much in his life.
Irian worked alongside them. It was difficult to trouble or flummox her. When, for instance, a bonnacon had arrived on the island the week before, it was Irian who herded him into the orchard. He was the size of a bull, with horns that curled in towards his sad face.
‘Christopher, come here, you must see him! Add him to your Bestiary. Their horns turn inwards, and so they’ve developed a fantastic self-defence mechanism; it’s all excrement-based. A fart can knock an adult unconscious for an hour; its diarrhoea can burn the skin off your bones.’
The bonnacon crouched under the shade of a pear tree and farted. The stench was staggering. Christopher gagged. Nighthand took a deep breath in, like a flatulence connoisseur.
‘Formidable,’ said Irian, her hand over her nose and mouth. ‘We could call him Cacafuego.’
There was a crash. Nighthand had fainted.
In these last weeks, though, Christopher had seen Irian more and more often down at the edge of the island where the garden met the sea, speaking with a herd of nereids. When she returned, her face would be creased with unease.
‘What is it?’ he had asked.
But she had smiled at him, and shaken her head. ‘Just news.’
Back in his bedroom, Christopher swiftly washed and dressed in clothes that did not smell of the miracle of birth, which was, he reflected, more odorous than most people admitted.
He opened his bedroom door and yelped. ‘By the Immortal! Could you not do that?’
The young chimaera was in the corridor, with all three of its heads – goat, lion and snake – attempting to peer through his keyhole.
‘We were looking for you,’ said the goat.
‘You’re not supposed to be inside,’ said Christopher.
‘We want,’ said the lion, ‘to play ball.’
‘I can’t,’ said Christopher, with entirely fake regret. The chimaera got too excited when it played and tended to maul its opponents. ‘It’s the Midsummer Feast tonight. I’m helping in the kitchen.’
‘Then Princess Anya must play with us,’ said the goat head.
‘She has to help too,’ said Christopher.
‘And she does not like to be called Princess!’ said the lion.
Anya Argen had been born the Princess of Dousha.
She had been, technically, a perfect princess: she had learned to dance, albeit unwillingly, and to sing, and to make every variety of polite conversation.
And just three months ago she had solved a murder, rescued her father from death and renounced her throne.
She still had nightmares about her uncle, who had tried to kill her – Christopher could hear her, sometimes, though their rooms were several doors apart.
Once or twice he had gone to her in the night and woken her, and she had tried to laugh, and they had talked about everyday, solid things until she fell asleep again.
Anya wasn’t restful, as friends went. She was his age, but small and angular, with scars all the way up her forearms from the gagana birds, who still slept above her bed each night.
Her resting expression was sharp and knitted in the eyebrows, so that her face always looked like it was insisting on something.
But she was infinitely gentle with the birds, and she could whistle with a beauty and range that still startled him, even though he heard it every day.
‘I heard the princesss in the garden yesssterday,’ said the snake.
‘She was talking to that little bird who sssits on her shoulder. She ssaid she doessn’t know any more who she isss.
For her whole life she was a princesss, and she didn’t like it, but at least she knew the rulessss.
And now that she isss free to do what she wantsss, she doesssn’t know what that iss. ’
The lion growled. ‘You shouldn’t admit to eavesdropping.’
‘You were there too,’ said the snake. ‘Obviousssly.’
‘She is a brave creature,’ said the goat. ‘She will find her way, however hard.’
Anya came bursting out of her room. ‘Why are all three of you looking so guilty?’ She scratched the chimaera’s three heads. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ said all three heads in chorus.
Nighthand’s bellow came up the stairs. ‘Christopher! Anya! Where are you? I need my assistant chefs!’
Preparations for the Midsummer Feast had been going on for weeks.
All the menus had been planned by Fidens Nighthand.
Ratwin, the green squirrel-like ratatoska, had spent days perched on a kitchen stool, stirring sauces with her horn.
They had made soups and stews, dragon-toasted toffee apples and sugar batrachomyomachian mice.
Christopher had successfully persuaded Nighthand away from some of his more inventive ideas: candied tuna, for instance, or sugar rolls topped with cabbage.
‘Everything has to be perfect,’ Nighthand had barked. ‘This is not just any Midsummer – this is the most important Midsummer of my life!’
‘Why?’ Anya had asked, but he had only threatened to bake her in pastry if she asked questions. Christopher, though, had seen him show Ratwin a ring, a golden band with a row of sea-blue sapphires.
That Midsummer Day they were making the centrepiece of the feast – the cakes.
For the humans, a vanilla and berry gateau as tall as Anya, thick with cream and cherries.
For the ratatoskas, a seed cake of carrot, nutmeg and almonds.
For the naiads and mermaids, who have no taste for sugar, a huge crab cake.
And finally, at Nighthand’s insistence, an exquisitely beautiful chocolate cake, with an icing of creamed beef, topped with strawberries and fricasseed chicken gizzards, and dusted in white sugar.
Nighthand was a Berserker. Berserkers do not feel fear, which makes them impressive and frankly alarming cooks.
Christopher choked as it came out of the oven. ‘It smells like the toilet blocks in my old school, Nighthand. It smells like Cacafuego. Nobody will want to eat it.’
‘I will,’ said Nighthand. ‘I will enjoy it heartily.’
‘As shall I,’ said Jacques. ‘I find it enticing.’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher. ‘But, Jacques, you eat people, with their clothes still on – or so you claim – so you’re hardly fussy.’