The Purple Emperor Read online

  ‘No you don’t,’ Henry said. ‘At least not this month.’ There was a sudden excitement flowering in him. ‘How’s Pyrgus? How’s the Realm?’ He tried to sound nonchalant. ‘How’s, ah, Princess Blue?’

  Fogarty bent down to open the cupboard underneath the sink. He extracted a tin and searched the kitchen drawer for an opener—the tin was so old it didn’t even have a ring-pull. ‘Pyrgus is a mess. Kid doesn’t live in the real world, so how do you expect him to run an Empire? The Realm—well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.’ He caught Henry’s expression and added, ‘Your little girlfriend’s fine.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Henry said, flushing.

  Fogarty ignored him. He took a small knife from the drawer and used it to transfer globules of grey slime from the tin into Hodge’s metal dish. Hodge, now recovered from his fright, had returned to the kitchen and was watching with beady interest. Fogarty said, ‘It’s all fine on the surface. Nighters are generally behaving themselves. Hairstreak’s gone quiet. There are rumours the Hael Realm’s collapsed—don’t believe it myself, but the portals are certainly closed, so the demons aren’t giving any trouble. Lot of talk about hands of friendship, doves of peace, all that sort of crap. Trouble is, nothing’s really changed.’

  He set the dish on the floor and waited. Hodge trotted across, sniffed it once, then walked away and sat down with his back to them. ‘What did I say?’ Fogarty exclaimed triumphantly. ‘That’s an addiction! He won’t touch normal food—he wants his fix.’

  ‘Mr Fogarty, he doesn’t like that cat food,’ Henry said. ‘It smells awful and it looks like — ’

  ‘Always ate it for me,’ Fogarty cut in airily. ‘’Specially when he was hungry.’ He stared intently at Henry and sniffed. ‘Might as well give him the pouch now—you’ve turned him into a junkie.’

  Henry decided he wasn’t going to get into all this. He binned the puke food, rinsed the dish and squeezed pouch Whiskas into it. Hodge’s tail went up and he began to eat at once.

  Fogarty pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Couple of things. Before I forget, Pyrgus wants you to translate for his Coronation.’ Henry looked at him blankly, thinking of his last language exam, then remembered translate was the word Pyrgus used for travelling to the Faerie Realm. ‘There’s something called "Male Companion",’ Fogarty went on. ‘Sort of like best man at a wedding. He wants you to be it. Involves dressing up like a prat.’

  Henry glanced at Mr Fogarty’s own attire, but said nothing. There was a grin spreading over his face. He wanted nothing more than an excuse to go back to the Faerie Realm. It was such a brilliant place to be. I mean, he was a sort of a hero in the Faerie Realm. He’d been on adventures, saved Pyrgus from Hell. Be nice to see Pyrgus again. And Blue. Especially Blue. Not in the bath, of course. Not like he’d come across her before. But it would only be polite to call on Blue. Male Companion, eh? Mr Fogarty’s idea of dressing like a prat probably meant something colourful and heroic, so Blue would see him really at his best, not wearing the sort of rubbish he’d had on the last time they met.

  ‘When is it—the Coronation?’ he asked.

  ‘Two weeks—it’s a Saturday here. The celebrations last three days, but you’ll need to come on the Friday for a rehearsal.’

  Henry’s excitement popped like a balloon. He might get away from his mum overnight, arrange with his friend Charlie to pretend he was staying there for the night, but four days was out of the question. ‘I can’t get away for four days.’

  ‘You doing something, or just worried about your parents?’

  ‘No, I’m not doing anything. I mean, if I was I’d put it off. It’s my parents—well, just Mum, actually. I don’t see that much of Dad.’ He realised suddenly that with being away so much Mr Fogarty wouldn’t know his circumstances. ‘I’m just living with Mum now—Dad has his own place. She’d want to know where I was if I disappeared for four days.’

  Fogarty shrugged. ‘No problem—we’ll use a lethe.’

  Henry blinked. ‘What’s a lethe?’

  ‘Makes you forget. You just swan off when you need to, crack a cone under her nose and she won’t even remember she has a son until you come back. Anybody else in the house?’

  ‘My sister Aisling,’ Henry said, his eyes wide. He’d seen spells worked in the Faerie Realm, but it had never occurred to him he might actually use one himself.

  ‘I’ll get you a box: never know when they come in handy. You’ll have to use one for each of them. Just be sure to hold your breath until you’re out of the room.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Henry said. There was a warm feeling in his stomach at the thought of hexing his sister.

  ‘So I tell Pyrgus you’re coming?’

  Henry nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes.’

  Fogarty said, ‘OK. The second thing is, I’ve decided to stay on permanently.’

  ‘Here?’ Henry asked. He had mixed feelings, but overall it was mostly relief. Since Pyrgus had made Mr Fogarty Gatekeeper of the Faerie Realm—hard to believe that was only a few weeks ago—the old man had split his time between the Purple Palace and his own home. While he was away, Henry kept an eye on the house and fed Hodge. But lately, Mr Fogarty had taken to spending longer and longer periods in the Realm and Henry didn’t know how he was going to manage when he went back to school in September. As it was, things were tricky enough: his mum didn’t approve of Mr Fogarty.

  Fogarty shook his head. ‘No, in the Realm. Like I said, everything’s fine on the surface, but nothing’s changed underneath. Hairstreak still has his own agenda, however much he talks about building bridges. Pyrgus isn’t any good at politics—doesn’t have the interest. And he’s a trusting soul. Thinks if somebody tells him something it’s usually the truth. If he’s going to survive as Emperor, he needs me to look after him. Far as I can see, that’s going to be a full-time job.’

  ‘Yes … ‘ Henry nodded thoughtfully. Mr Fogarty was probably right. Apart from anything else, Pyrgus was terribly young to be an Emperor—much the same age as Henry, in fact. Then he caught Mr Fogarty’s expression and said, ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  Fogarty sniffed. ‘Not as stupid as you look, are you, Henry?’ He sighed. ‘Yes, there is. I’m not getting any younger. If it’s really three score years and ten, I’m well past my sell-by date. I’ve arthritis in my knuckles and I couldn’t run fifteen yards from a copper without getting winded these days. Been thinking I might last another five years, maybe ten if I’m lucky, but I found out they’ve got treatments in the Faerie Realm that could give me thirty—and get rid of the damn arthritis. Except they don’t work if I keep popping back and forth. Differences in the two environments, or something. Thing is, once you start the treatments your tolerance to this world drops. I’ve started the treatments. Longer I’m here, the more dangerous it is for me. So, when I go back this time, I’m staying.’

  Henry said, ‘But what are you going to do about the house, Mr Fogarty?’

  Fogarty looked thoughtful. ‘That’s what I came back to sort out.’

  Four

  For some reason, the gown helped Blue put things in perspective. Although she’d taken it off now and was wearing her familiar blouse and britches, she was no longer feeling nearly so frantic about the Coronation arrangements. Admittedly there was still a lot to do, but there were still two weeks to do it in. And it wasn’t really fair to say Pyrgus didn’t care. It was just that the whole thing upset him. He’d never wanted to be Emperor and he didn’t want to be Emperor now, so he avoided thinking about it. And maybe that was all to the good—Pyrgus was capable of making a mess of nearly anything. Better to leave the arrangements to her—she was good at organisation. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have as much help as she needed. There were —

  She turned a corner of the corridor and walked into her half-brother, Comma. There was something on his lips, something he’d been eating, that had turned them bright scarlet. He’d put on weight quite notice
ably since their father died.

  ‘Sorry,’ Comma muttered. He glanced behind him as if afraid he was being followed, then gave Blue a forced half-smile. ‘You’re in a hurry, Sweet Sister,’ he said.

  She hated it when he called her ‘Sweet Sister’ and her annoyance made her sharp. ‘I’ve a lot to do.’ Comma had been no help at all with the arrangements, and while she was prepared to forgive Pyrgus, all Comma did was make her furious.

  ‘There’s somebody waiting for you in your bedroom,’ Comma said.

  Blue blinked. ‘How do you know?’ What she really wanted to ask was, What were you doing in my bedroom?

  Comma shrugged infuriatingly and started to walk on.

  ‘Who is it?’ Blue demanded.

  He waved to her without looking back. ‘I expect it’s one of your clever spies,’ he said.

  ‘What have you been eating?’ Blue shouted. ‘What were you doing in my—’ But it was too late. He was already turning down a side corridor.

  Seething, Blue stamped off towards her quarters.

  There was no one in her bedroom except her cleaning maid. She turned to leave, swearing vengeance on Comma for wasting her time, when a tickling in her mind caused her to pause. Blue’s eyes flickered round the room and a tingle of fear crawled down her spine. There was something wrong. For a moment she had no idea what, except it felt like something was out of place.

  She mentally checked the furnishings. Nothing seemed to have been moved. She looked across at her dressing table. Everything was neatly in its place. Except for the jewel case that held her psychotronic spider which she’d slipped into a drawer, as she always did before the maid came in to clean—Princess Royal or not, psychotronic spiders were illegal, and fearfully dangerous. They could carry your mind so far from your body that you never got it back again.

  So nothing different about the dressing table. Blue let her gaze travel around the walls, checking the pictures, lingering on the portrait of her father, feeling the wellspring of sorrow as she looked into the painted eyes. But nothing had been moved. Nothing had changed at all.

  And yet something was out of place ...

  Suddenly she had it. The antique chair that sat beside her bed had disappeared. Blue stared for a moment, then said quietly to the maid, ‘I’d like you to finish off some other time, Anna.’

  ‘Yes, Your Royal Highness.’ The girl dropped a curtsey and hurried out.

  Blue moved cautiously towards her dressing table. There was a dagger in one of the drawers. Not that she was likely to need it. There were always guards close by in these troubled times. But close or not, they would take time to reach her and it was always as well to take responsibility for your own protection.

  ‘You can show yourself now,’ she said aloud.

  There was a shimmering beyond the bed and Blue’s chair reappeared. An extraordinary woman was sitting in it.

  ‘Madame Cynthia!’ Blue exclaimed.

  ‘My deeah, you must forgive the invisibility—so ill-mannered of me. But I felt it best not to show myself while the servant remained.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Blue nodded. Cynthia Cardui, the Realm’s famous Painted Lady, was a major contact in Blue’s private espionage network, but it was astonishing to see her here in the palace. Madame Cynthia was elderly now, long retired from the stage, and seldom ventured far from her Cheapside apartments. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘I fear so. Kitterick is visiting his relatives, otherwise I might have entrusted him with the mission. He’s back tomorrow, but I decided I must undertake it myself. The matter is urgent.’

  ‘Urgent?’ Blue echoed. She felt an uncomfortable chill.

  ‘My deeah,’ said Madame Cardui, ‘you must steel yourself. There is a plot afoot.’

  Blue walked across and sat on the edge of the bed. She trusted Madame Cardui more than almost anyone else in the world. The old woman was snobbish and eccentric, but her contacts were legendary and her loyalty absolute. If she said something was going on, Blue was prepared to believe it.

  ‘A brutal conspiracy, my deeah,’ Madame Cardui went on. ‘One would imagine with Lord Hairstreak routed, Brimstone in hiding and that dreadful creature Chalkhill behind bars, one would have nothing to worry about.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Alas, no. I have received information of a plan to kill a member of the royal household.’

  The unease Blue had felt since she saw Madame Cardui flowered into chill fear. But she held her voice steady. ‘Which member?’ she asked.

  A look of distress crossed the Painted Lady’s face. ‘That’s the problem, I’m afraid—we don’t know.’

  Five

  It was bone gruel again.

  Brimstone stared into the cracked bowl and felt his lips dry out. The liquid had the consistency of dishwater, a thin, greyish fluid curdled with lumps of corpse-white gristle that smelled worse than the open sewer outside his window. He looked up at the toothless old crone and scowled.

  ‘It’s good for you,’ Widow Mormo cackled. ‘Keeps your strength up—my late husband swore by it.’ She set a dirty spoon beside the bowl and a wedge of rough brown bread beside the spoon. A cockroach scuttled across the rickety table and Brimstone squashed it with his thumb.

  ‘Your late husband probably died from it,’ he muttered sourly.

  ‘No need to be like that,’ Widow Mormo said sharply. ‘I’m a poor woman and I does the best I can on the pittance you pay me.’

  Brimstone was paying her a groat a day, which was indeed a pittance, but meals were extra and bone gruel gave him diarrhoea. He’d planned to lay low in these miserable lodgings for at least six months, but now he was wondering if he could survive another six days. Even the threat of a demon prince paled beside Widow Mormo’s bone gruel.

  The old sow muttered something he didn’t catch. ‘What?’ Brimstone demanded crossly. ‘What?’ Without a spell to reinforce it, his hearing was going. But the spell he needed was one of the ones he’d been forced to leave behind and he didn’t dare go out and buy another. A magical supply shop was the first place Beleth would think of looking for him. Probably had every one in the city staked out by now. A demon prince had huge resources.

  The trouble was, it wouldn’t end with loss of hearing. Brimstone was ninety-eight years old. Without magical reinforcement, his body would soon start to fall apart. Even with it, he knew he looked his age.

  ‘I said there might be a way to make things a bit more comfortable for you,’ Widow Mormo repeated slyly. ‘Better food as well.’

  ‘I’m not paying any more,’ Brimstone told her promptly. These might be cheap lodgings, but most of his cash fortune had been stolen and all of his assets were beyond his reach. He had a substantial amount of gold about his person, but he’d no idea how long it might have to last. Demons had long memories. He might have to stay in hiding for years.

  To his intense discomfort, the old bag pulled up a chair and sat beside him. He wrinkled his nose. She seemed to be wearing some hideous perfume, but she still smelled mainly of pee.

  Brimstone shifted his own chair backwards. ‘Widow Mormo—’ he began.

  ‘Maura,’ said the old bag. ‘Call me Maura.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘And I shall call you Silas.’

  ‘You’ll call me nothing of the sort,’ Brimstone snapped. Lower classes never knew their place when you were short of cash.

  ‘What I was thinking of, Silas,’ said Widow Mormo, not at all put out, ‘was a little … arrangement.’

  ‘What sort of arrangement?’ he asked suspiciously. Anything that got him better food without paying more had to be worth listening to. But she’d want something in return, of course—people always did. Probably his help with an illegal spell. He’d told her nothing, but he knew he had the scent of sulphur about him and she was as shrewd as she was hideous. Chances were she’d put him down for a sorcerer the minute he’d walked through the door. It’d be an illegal spell all right. But how bad could that be? He’d dealt with demons all his life and his last contract with B
eleth had called for human sacrifice. Nothing the crone came up with was likely to be in the same league.

  ‘I’m a widow woman, Silas,’ she said softly. ‘Have been since my Stanley died.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Brimstone snapped.

  ‘Thought we might get married,’ Widow Mormo told him coyly.

  Brimstone stared at the old bat in astonishment. Even in her younger days she must have been the ugliest woman in the country. Now, without teeth, warty, wrinkled, rheumy, balding, smelly, dirty, badly-dressed and flatulent, she’d have been more appealing as a corpse.

  ‘You want me to marry you?’ he said.

  ‘Get you out of here,’ Widow Mormo sniffed. ‘I got a place of my own in the woods—log cabin with mod cons, a full cabinet of spells and a nice comfortable double bed. Keep my money underneath the mattress. Nobody ever goes there. Nobody even knows about it.’ She smiled seductively and gummily. ‘We could slip away for our honeymoon.’

  Brimstone frowned. A nice isolated log cabin could be just the thing he needed. Not to mention Widow Mormo’s money and the spells in her magic cabinet. He cracked a wintery smile. He could cut her throat when they got there and bury her body in the woods.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said brightly.

  Six

  The Great Keep of Asloght was an imposing sight as it rose against the stark backdrop of the Nikure Barrens, but most of its structure was actually underground. The eighteen-hundred-year-old fort was built with a warren of subterranean chambers for food storage. Now prisoners were the only things that rotted in the gloomy cells. For more than three centuries, Asloght had been the Realm’s main jail for recalcitrant criminals and political dissidents.

  Harold Dingy was having trouble with the Governor of the Keep.

  ‘I’m not saying these papers aren’t genuine,’ the Governor said. ‘I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying the sealing wax is red, and in my experience it should be pink.’