Physik (Septimus Heap #3) 0

Two Palace Guards had just come off duty and were making their way toward the kitchens, where one of their wives worked as a Stewer of Meates and the other as a Keeper of the Gravie Boate. The smaller guard, a chubby man with a stretched, shiny face and little piggy eyes, had been discussing exactly how many kidneys should go into a steak and kidney pie. His thinner, rather ratty companion, who was beginning to feel queasy, almost stepped on a dazed Jenna as she stumbled out of the UnderCooks' coat cupboard. In a moment she found herself grabbed by her arms.

"Well, well, well, what be here?" asked the piggy-eyed guard, whose eyesight was none too good in the dim light of the lower reaches of the Palace. "Where be thy Palace livery, my girl?"

Jenna stared at the guard. She had the oddest feeling that she almost understood what he had said.

"Thou'rt a Stranger here," the piggy man growled. "A trespasser upon the Royal Ground. 'Tis a grave offense. Thou wilt have to answer for this."

Jenna had the distinct feeling that it was better not to say anything just then. She was aware of the ratty guard staring at her. She glanced up at him and saw a look of panic in his eyes.

"Let her loose, Will. Do you not see she wears the garb of a Royal Princess?"

The piggy guard peered at Jenna so intently that his eyes became little slits in the rolls of fat in his face. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, and he let go of Jenna's tunic as if he had just had an electric shock. "Why didst thou not say?" he hissed angrily to the ratty one.

"Forsooth, I have said. If thou didst not prate on so with Kidneys and Stewes and Gravies until my stomach revolts against me and my mouth fills with bile, then thou wouldst have seen with thine own tiny eyes."

Jenna's head was spinning. What were they saying? She had heard Royal Princess and she had an uncomfortable feeling that she had been recognized. She found herself taken firmly, but this time respectfully, by each elbow and propelled along the passageway.

Jenna listened to the guards' excited talk, catching some of the words and trying to make sense of it.

"There will surely be a reward for us, Will. To have found our lost Princess will be truly marveled at."

"This true, John. And what a great joy for the Queen, to be reunited with the daughter she had feared drowned. Perchance we might see a queenly smile once more."

"Maybe. Though I do not know that we did ever see a queenly smile, Will, if truth be told."

Will grunted in agreement and Jenna was respectfully asked to climb the stairs, if she pleased, up to parts of the Palace "more Fitt for her Royal Person."

Soon they emerged into the Long Walk and it was only then that Jenna became sure that the Glass had not only transported her back to the Palace, but back through time as well. The Long Walk was just as Sir Hereward, one particularly talkative evening, had once described to her. It was full of ancient treasures - not the strange, exotic finds that Milo Banda had strewn along the Long Walk, but a rich array of history that belonged in the Palace and told its story. There were beautiful tapestries, finely detailed paintings of Princesses and their nurses, Palace dogs, visiting Magicians and Soothsayers, even a great bronze of a rare blue dragon, which had a look in its eye that reminded Jenna of Spit Fyre. The Palace was not the quiet, hushed place that Jenna was used to; it was buzzing with activity. The Long Walk reminded Jenna of rush hour at The Ramblings. Hundreds of Palace servants - all immaculate in their Palace livery of a gray tunic or dress with a deep red stripe around the hem - were bustling to and fro on important business. Some were carrying trays of small covered silver dishes; some had stacks of documents. Many were clutching Palace message bags, which were small red folders with the Palace crest stamped upon them in gold. But the strangest thing was that the air was filled with the tinkling of bells, for outside every room a small bell was poised, ready to be rung by a higher servant to summon a passing lower servant to do their bidding. The bells rang incessantly, and generally their only effect was to cause the nearest servants to rush past and pretend not to notice.

Jenna's progress was slow. As each servant realized who was walking between the guards they stopped in surprise, causing others to bump into them. Some gasped in shock, others curtseyed or bowed, and many smiled and quickened their pace, anxious to be the first to tell the news that the drowned Princess was Returned.

It was some time later when the guards finally made it to their destination: the Throne Room. The Throne Room was the one room in the Palace that Jenna had never been in, and had no wish to go into either, for it was the room where her mother and Alther had been assassinated, and the room where she too had nearly lost her life - and would have done so had not Marcia Overstrand taken her to safety. When Jenna had returned to live at the Palace, she had decided that she wanted the Throne Room locked, and Alther, who had no love for the place either, had readily agreed.

At the sight of the drowned Princess, the two door pages' eyes widened in shock, and the smaller boy squeaked in surprise. Both pages bowed low, and in a well-practiced maneuver, they pushed open the great doors to the Throne Room and ushered Jenna in. The Knight of the Day, a rotund, friendly faced man who was the Queen's personal knight for that day, looked astonished at the sight of Jenna, then made a low and extremely elaborate bow, which involved a lot of arm waving and hat doffing.

While this was going on, Jenna's attention wandered to the Throne Room itself. The Throne Room was huge. It was the second biggest room in the Palace and took up the front five windows of the building, which looked out over the Palace Gate and straight down the old Alchemie Way. To the left was Wizard Way and in the distance, behind the Great Arch, Jenna could see the WizardTower soaring into the pinkish late-afternoon sky. The golden Pyramid at the top was almost lost to view in what Jenna recognized as a Magykal haze, which was drifting out the windows of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard's rooms and swirling up into the sky.

The Knight of the Day, having finally finished his bow, had been a little put out to find that the person it had been directed at was staring out the window. He gave a discreet cough. Jenna's attention snapped back to the Throne Room. It was richly hung with thick tapestries depicting the lives and adventures of various Queens. At one end, a blazing fire roared in the huge fireplace; at the other, on an ornate golden throne, sewing her tapestry with short, vicious stabs of her needle, sat the living, breathing, greatly disapproving Queen Etheldredda.

"Oh, no," gasped Jenna.

The Knight of the Day stepped forward and addressed the Queen, who had still not bothered to look up. "Your Majesty," said the Knight, who took hours to say what most people said in minutes, if they bothered to say it all. "Your most Gracious and Royal Majesty, may I present a Joy to Your Heart, a Succor to Your Mother's Grief, a Great Returning, the Wondrous Thing for which we all Hoped but yet did Fear may never come?"

"Oh, get on with it, man," snapped Queen Etheldredda, breaking a thread with her teeth and crossly tying a complicated knot.

"Your own drowned daughter, Your Highness," the Knight continued, allowing what Jenna thought was a slight air of disapproval to color his words. "Your very own Flesh and Blood, Madam. That Delicate Rose for whom the Castle has Pined these long months gone, those dark months of Grief and Pain are now but a painful Memorie - "

Queen Etheldredda flung her tapestry to the floor in peration. "Oh, for goodness' sake, man, cease your brainless wittering, else I will have your head perched upon the Palace Gate this nightfall." The Knight of the Day turned ashen and subsided into a fit of coughing. "And cease your foul splutterings - what is this?" Queen Etheldredda had at last seen Jenna.

"I-It is your lost daughter, Your Majesty," the Knight of the Day ventured timidly, unsure whether this would be considered brainless wittering or not.

"I can see that," said Etheldredda sourly, peering down the length of the Throne Room, seeming for once almost lost for words. "But ... how?"

"These two fine guards, Your Majesty" - the Knight of the Day waved an expansive arm at the two Palace Guards who were now standing respectfully to attention on either side of Jenna - "found your Heart's Delight a-wandering, lost and a-wailing in the depths of the Palace."

Jenna was annoyed but said nothing. She most definitely had not been wailing.

"Then take them away to the dungeon!" Etheldredda barked. Two burly soldiers stepped from the shadows and grabbed the two guards. Before they had time to catch their breath, they were frog-marched from the Queen's presence, whisked down to the Palace basement and thrown into the dungeon - a nasty damp pit below the offal kitchens, dripping with rancid fat and filthy water from the wash-up overflow.

Without the strangely reassuring presence of Will and John, Jenna suddenly felt very alone. The physical presence of Queen Etheldredda as flesh and blood was horribly intimidating in a way that her ghost had not been. And the snake-tailed creature that clung to the Queen's skirts, staring at Jenna with its malevolent red eyes while it clicked its retractable single tooth in and out of its pointy jaw, made her want to turn and run. But there was no escape. Jenna could feel the meaty breath of the Knight of the Day on the back of her neck.

"And you," said Queen Etheldredda, addressing the anxious Knight, "you can take Esmeralda to her room and lock her in until suppertime tomorrow. She will know not to run away from her mama in the future."

The Knight of the Day bowed to the Queen; then he gently took Jenna by the arm, murmuring, "Allow me, Princess, to accompany you to your Chamber. I will instruct the Cooke to provide you well with victuals." Jenna had no choice but to let the Knight of the Day escort her along the corridor and take the familiar route to her own room.

The ghost of Sir Hereward was leaning against the wall gazing into space, looking bored and listless. At the sight of Jenna he looked amazed. He snapped to attention, bowed respectfully and then, smiling broadly, said, "Welcome home, Esmeralda. 'Tis a most Happy Outcome, for we did Fear thee Drowned. Now, I have some merriment for thee, for thou seemest to mine eyes a little pale and distressed. What, pray, be the difference betwixt the Griffin and the Pomegranate?"

"I don't know, Sir Hereward. What is the difference between a Griffin and a Pomegranate?" Jenna smiled.

"Ah, I shall not send tbee forth upon my marketing. Hur hur!"

"Oh. Oh, I see. Very funny, Sir Hereward."

As the Knight of the Day ushered Jenna into her room, Sir Hereward peered at her. "Thou art changed, Esmeralda. Changed in thy speech. 'Tis the shock, no doubt. Rest well, Princess. I shall guard thee from harm. Thy mama shall not enter." The ghost bowed, the Knight of the Day closed the great doors to Jenna's room, and Jenna found herself alone in her room - or rather, alone in the drowned Esmeralda's room.

Princess Esmeralda's room had a creepy feeling to it. Not only was it cold, damp and growing interesting crops of furry green spots in various places, but there was a miserable, even malevolent, atmosphere about the place. Jenna wandered around the room, which was surprisingly decrepit for a Princess's bedchamber. The floors were rough and bare, with splintery pieces of wood coming off the boards. The meager curtains were threadbare and did not even reach to the bottom of the tall windows. Great chunks of plaster were missing from the ceiling. There was only one small candle beside the bed, and of course there was no fire in the grate.

Jenna shivered - and not just from the deep chill in the musty air. She sat on what she thought of as her bed, and discovered that it felt nothing at all like her own bed. But Jenna hardly noticed the lumps; she was too busy thinking about Septimus. How was she going to find him? She had somehow expected him to be waiting for her as soon as she had come through the Glass, but now she saw how foolish that had been. She was in a whole new world and Septimus could be anywhere in it, anywhere at all. He could even be much older - so much older that she would not recognize him. In fact, he could even be ... dead. Jenna shook her head to try to get rid of such pointless thoughts. Alther had been quite clear about this - the Glass she had Gone Through was completed one hundred and sixty-nine days after the Glass that Septimus had Gone Through. One hundred and sixty-nine was an important Alchemical number, being thirteen times thirteen. Jenna was good at math and soon she had worked out that Septimus would already have been in this Time for about five and a half months - if Alther was right. But where was he?

She lay back on the bed and tried to figure out how to find Septimus while she watched a large spider rappel down one of the bedposts. Being the true Princess that she was, Jenna was quick to feel something sharp digging into her back, and she wondered how Princess Esmeralda had ever got any sleep at all in such a lumpy bed. What could possibly be causing it? Exasperated, Jenna tipped the mattress up to see if she could find the problem.

Underneath the damp old feather mattress, which smelled strongly of chickens, there was a large leather-bound book with sharp metal corners. On the cover was written: THE VERIE PRIVATE AND PERSONALLE DIARIE OF PRINCESS ESMERALDA. NOT TO BE OPENED OR READE BY ANY PERSON. ESPECIALLY MAMA.

Jenna picked up the diary and let the mattress go with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust and mold spores. "Atchoo!" she sneezed. "Atchoo, atchoo, atchoo!" Eyes streaming, Jenna sat down on the now considerably less lumpy bed and, ignoring the instructions on the cover, began to read Princess Esmeralda's diary.