The Secret Kingdom Read online

  ‘No,’ Timoken said firmly.

  ‘She’s opened her eyes!’ cried Edern.

  All at once, Isabelle sat bolt upright. Long strands of damp hair clung to her face, and she looked wildly about her, not understanding where she was or how she got there. ‘Oooooh!’ she moaned, leaning across the mattress.

  The others backed even further away as Isabelle retched, and a familiar green liquid spilled on to the floor.

  ‘What has happened to me?’ cried the poor girl.

  Ignoring the small demons dying at his feet, Timoken crouched beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You were poisoned,’ he said gently. ‘But now you are better. You are with your friends.’

  Isabelle looked up. A broad smile lit her face and she said, ‘You are the boy who rescued us. We thought you were lost.’

  ‘No. Not lost,’ said Timoken. ‘I am never lost.’ He stood up and the other children crowded around Isabelle, exclaiming with joy and relief. She got to her feet and lifted the web, gazing at the glittering patterns.

  ‘It’s magic,’ Henri told her. ‘It saved us. I’m sorry, Isabelle. It was all my fault.’

  While the French children chattered eagerly to one another, the Britons were searching for food. They had already eaten a loaf of bread they had found on the table.

  ‘I am going to the big house,’ Timoken told them. ‘The villagers may have gone there.’

  ‘No!’ One of the boys swung around. He was older than the others, taller and broader. His hair was not even blond; it was a rich brown. Perhaps he had been stolen for the colour of his eyes, which were a very pale blue.

  ‘Why should we not go there, Mabon?’ asked Edern.

  ‘It is … it is full of dead people,’ Mabon said gravely. ‘We went there first, thinking that only a village elder would live in such a grand house.’

  ‘All dead?’ murmured Timoken.

  ‘All,’ said Mabon.

  ‘They probably went there for help when the sickness came upon them,’ said Peredur.

  Timoken lowered his head. It suddenly felt very heavy. ‘I was too late,’ he mumbled.

  The children had found some dried beans and a few vegetables. There would be enough food for everyone, but there was nothing to drink, and they dared not fill the cooking pot with water from the pump.

  ‘It is going to rain,’ said Timoken. ‘Bring every jug, every bowl and tankard outside. We will soon have water.’

  The children stared at Timoken suspiciously, but before any questions could be asked, Edern said, ‘Come on, everyone. You heard what Timoken said. It is going to rain.’

  There was a moment of silence, and then everyone was grabbing a container of some sort. They followed Timoken outside and, holding up their jugs and pots and tankards, watched, astonished, as the African whirled the moon cloak above his head, and rain tumbled out of the dark sky in never-ending bucketfuls. While it was still raining, Timoken ran into some of the other houses and brought out more bowls and jugs. Eventually, he found what he was looking for – a huge cauldron. He dragged it to the entrance of a stable and called to Gabar.

  ‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ the camel grumbled as he came pounding over to the stable.

  ‘Quickly, get inside,’ Timoken ordered. ‘Next, you’ll be blaming me for soaking you. When the cauldron is full of water, you only have to poke out your head to take a drink.’

  ‘It is all very well,’ Gabar muttered, easing himself under the low roof. ‘But thank you, Family.’

  When Timoken returned to the house, he found that the children had filled the cooking pot hanging in the fireplace. As he approached them it came to him that these children knew almost everything about him now and he remembered his sister’s warning. Yet how could he have kept his secrets? What would you have done, Zobayda? he wondered. A sharp pain travelled through his ringed finger, up his arm and into his very heart. Only one of the children noticed that he was shaking.

  ‘What is it, Timoken?’ asked the girl from the cage. ‘Are you in pain?’

  In a second the pain had gone, and Timoken was able to answer truthfully, ‘It is nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She touched his arm. In the candlelit room her eyes looked a deep violet blue. She was still a child, but Timoken saw that she was already beautiful. The ribbons in her hair were made of fine silk, he noticed, and her dress was edged with gold lace. She must, indeed, be very special, he thought. He was about to ask her name when she said, ‘I am called Beri.’

  When the thick soup was cooked, the children ladled it into bowls and then squeezed together on the benches at either side of the table. Some were beginning to gobble it up even before they had sat down.

  ‘What was that?’ Gereint looked at the door.

  Timoken had heard it, too. A soft, shuffling sound. It was followed by a kind of scratching. Slowly, the latch was lifted and the door creaked open.

  An ancient face appeared, so wrinkled and bony it was difficult to know if it was a man or a woman, but as the figure moved into the room, they saw that it must be a woman. Beneath her grey shawl her back was bent, and her garments hung loosely on her scrawny frame. The hem of her dress was torn and ragged from being dragged through the mud and stepped upon.

  ‘Children!’ she croaked. ‘Dead or ghosts?’

  ‘We are not dead.’ Timoken stood up.

  The old woman stared at him in horror. ‘It’s you!’ she cried. ‘You are the one he was looking for!’

  Timoken shuddered under the accusing gaze of the old woman. ‘Who is looking for me?’ he asked in a small voice.

  The dry, wrinkled lips worked furiously, trying to utter a word. At last she managed it. ‘The sorcerer!’ The word came out in a wheezy gasp as she crumpled to the ground.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Sorcerer

  Mabon and Peredur carried the old woman over to the mattress and laid her down. Her eyelids fluttered and she drew a deep, rasping breath.

  Timoken knelt beside her. ‘Madame, who is this sorcerer?’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Who knows?’ Her next breath brought on a coughing fit, and when she had recovered, she said, ‘I saw it all, but then I went to sleep, and so it was too late to warn them.’

  When she began to cough again, Marie brought her a tankard of water. The girl was smaller than the others, only six or seven years old. The old woman cried, ‘Poison!’ and struck Marie’s hand, sending the tankard crashing to the floor.

  ‘It is pure rainwater,’ said Timoken.

  ‘Oh?’ The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘We have been drinking it, and, as you can see –’ Timoken spread out his hands and looked at the others – ‘we are all still alive.’

  The old woman uttered a wary ‘Hm!’ And then she said, ‘They all died, you know. The others. When I woke up I could hear moanings and groanings from the other houses. I saw men and women and little children staggering, retching, up to Monsieur Clement’s house. He is a physician, and his potions have cured many ailments. Not this time. Monsieur Clement was dead already.’ She began to cough again, and this time she accepted the water that Marie offered her.

  Timoken watched her drain the tankard. He wanted to know more about the sorcerer but did not like to press her. The water seemed to revive her and she sat up, wiping her whiskery chin. Edern brought her a bowl of soup, and she slurped it down greedily, smacking her lips between every sip.

  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.