All the King's Clocks

THE CHIMBAN CHRONICLES

1. ALL THE KING'S CLOCKS



Ben watched the width of the main Palace entrance fill with the broad shape of a glowering, pink-faced royal governess, her curly mousy brown hair billowing gloriously in the wind, tamed only by a delicate red silk ribbon that bundled her fierce curls into a bouncy, scruffy bun.

He’d lost track of time whilst riding out in the Enchanted Woods with Cynthia, his beloved shiny white unicorn.

Molly, clasping her flowery red and white dress with a fist, swivelled through the entrance and marched down the draughty corridor, Ben jogging behind. At her study door she turned the handle, flung open the door and summoned the cowering twelve year old boy-King to his desk.

Dipping the quill into the inkpot, Ben began reading Molly’s questions, all perfectly handwritten. Soon he was filling the answer-sheet with awkward blotchy sentences, crossing them out and then writing over them again in ever thicker layers of ink.

Molly was away from her desk, ensconced in her rocking chair by the fireplace, rocking vigorously back and forth, engrossed in a book.

Eventually the little copper clock that hung around Ben’s neck read ten o’clock. He began to stand up.

With a waft of dust, Molly’s book swung to a thudding close. It was no good. Ben sat down again, and made up for the fifteen minutes he’d lost off the start of class.


*


Wandering around the Palace Gardens, Ben caught sight of Fizz’s beaming little freckly face peeking out from between two floppy green leaves in the frogberry bush, his moppy ginger hair all over the place.

‘What have you got there?’ he asked as Fizz’s tiny long-fingered hands dipped teasingly into this pocket.

‘Guess,’ Fizz challenged, looking up at Ben. Fizz was little over three feet tall.

‘Something from the Enchanted Woods?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘You found a Fortune Eggs outside in the Woods?’

‘Under a bush.’

‘I wonder how it got there.’

‘I put it there. To see if it would disappear when I wasn’t looking, but it didn’t.’

‘You put it there?’ Ben groaned, realising perhaps Fizz hadn’t really found a Fortune Egg in the Woods. Fortune Eggs were always being found in the Palace, and Ben had a great ambition to find one somewhere else.

‘After I found it on the second-highest branch of the third secret apple tree,’ Fizz replied with theatrical indifference.

Ben clapped his hands.

‘A Fortune Egg in the Woods! At last!’

Fizz jumped up and down, cart-wheeling around the frogberry bush before falling into the cushion of its springy green leaves.

‘But you didn’t put the egg on the branch did you?’ Ben asked, thinking through what he’d heard. ‘You found it there?’

‘Yes,’ grinned Fizz.

Fizz un-cupped his hand to reveal six shiny little egg-shaped objects. They were like crystals but softer and bouncier. If you held one in your hand for long enough, you got the feeling it was alive. Ben swore he could sense them throbbing.

‘So how many ya got?’ Fizz challenged. Fizz and Ben often held competitions to see who had the most Fortune Eggs.

Ben emptied his pockets. He had only five. This morning, before he’d come back to class, he’d had seven.

‘I’ve got six, six, six, six, six’ chanted Fizz, hopping around in a circle.

Molly strode towards them from between some frogberry bushes. A single frogberry – a spotty, green berry that looks a bit like a strawberry – tumbled off the bush and transformed into a tiny green frog as it landed on her toes.

Molly yelped hysterically, swinging her foot so high up in the air as to propel herself off her feet. Ribbeting in terror, the frog was catapulted high up into the air, when to Ben’s silent astonishment, it sprouted a gorgeous pair of large crimson butterfly wings and flew off before Molly saw anything.

‘Eggs!’ Molly smarted, now upright. ‘You two are always leaving them all over the place.’

‘Two of Ben’s have disappeared,’ began Fizz.

Molly clasped her hands jovially around Fizz’s neck and pretended to strangle him.

‘Those eggs do not disappear’, she insisted, poking Fizz unpredictably in different parts of his chest with each word, and turning to Ben, continued, ‘they are only lost!’

Molly would never understand about the Fortune Eggs, Ben thought.

A splendidly lucid voice filled the air, then dissipated like a gush of wind: ‘Gargoyle Goulash, and bring Fizz!’

Milly, the Palace Cook, amongst other things, had a funny way of throwing her voice across distances. She could be a hundred yards away and sound like she was standing next to you.


*


‘Sit down, sit down,’ welcomed Milly, ushering Molly and Ben through the kitchen and into the dining room before they could assess the condition of the kitchen worktops.

Molly and Milly had long hoped that sitting down at a dinner table might instil some sense of order into Fizz’s chaotic existence, but he had by now, Ben knew, run off in pursuit of a certain flying frog.

Ben gazed dreamily into the highly-polished, pentagonal dining table, failing to recall what it was made of, except it was one of those trees Molly didn’t believe existed.

‘Milly, we will need an extra spoon and fork,’ Molly called out to Milly, over the sound of much clunking around in the kitchen.

Instead of a fork, Ben had a spanner, whilst Molly had a tea-strainer instead of a spoon.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Milly’s voice spat at Molly, inches from her face.

‘And I think you’ve given us custard instead of pepper again,’ Molly went on, quite used to this.

Actually it was granules made from centaur’s nails. These can be extracted from the bark of the Cinnamon Tree in the Enchanted Woods, which centaurs are fond of chewing on. ‘Centaurionella’ is its name. To those who had not been initiated into its delights, like Molly, it appeared and tasted like a familiar (though not always expected!) substance.

Ben looked again at the dining table. At the moment it was being normal, reflecting his thick dark tousled brown hair and the little piggy nose he hated.

A terrible wail reverberated out of the kitchen, followed by a loud thumping noise.

‘Tsk,’ Milly grumbled somewhere between the kitchen and the ceiling of the dining room.

After several minutes, Ben saw Milly’s long, grey dress gliding into the room. It was smirched with all sorts of stains, and in some places parts of it looked like they’d been sewn onto the original material. If you looked really carefully at Milly’s dress, the greyness was an optical illusion. A whole spectrum of colours had been poured into.

Milly’s face was old and crinkled, with fantastic green eyes flared out of well-worn sockets, illuminating her face with a supernatural energy. Her fingers were long, and the arms that peered out of her blouse looked unnaturally bony and pale. The dress fell almost to her feet, where you could see, for reasons Molly could never work out, a huge pair of green Wellington boots.

‘Gargoyle Goulash is served,’ Milly sang, her bony figure rushing in and out of the kitchen with three plates and planting them on the table mats. ‘I went out and got an ancient stone gargoyle out in the Woods. Fresh cat’s blood meatified it nicely, though the timing was a squiffle out.’

Molly tried to stab something on her plate with a fork.

Ben noticed something squishy-looking on his plate, and sprinkling it with Centaurionella, scooped it up with his spoon and swallowed it.

Molly glared at Milly. Her reflection in the dining table stayed still for a moment and then glared back at her with the nostrils heaving open and shut and the ears swishing around like an elephant’s.

Ben, whose stomach muscles had been revolting against him with churning force, began to giggle, causing him to cough and splutter in horrid discomfort.

Molly slapped Ben vigorously on the back, forcing whatever-it-was to hurtle out of his mouth and land splat on Milly’s dress, where he expected it would remain forever.


*


Ben swung his little copper clock angrily around his head by its string. The Big Race had started at two o’clock and not three, as he had thought. Sitting in their seats at Chimwick Village Stadium, Ben and Fizz were watching everybody leave.

All the sounds of stadium suddenly quieted, and a tinny voice rasped, ‘Make it two and not three.’

It seemed to have come from his copper clock, which was now hung around his neck again. Ben vaguely remembered finding it in the Old Room, a long abandoned part of the Palace where Molly didn’t like him going.

Breathing in deeply, Ben turned the hour dial of the clock backwards an hour, then bellowed as loud as he could, ‘I command it to be two o’clock, and the Big Race shall begin again.’

Ben shuddered as he realised how loud, clear and commanding – in fact, how very Kingly – his voice had echoed around the astonished, silenced stadium. ‘Why did I do that?’ he thought, ‘And why was that clock talking?’


*


Molly had told Ben all about blue trolls. They are only about five foot tall, though broad and strong. Schools employed them to keep an eye on pupils wandering Scholar’s Bridge. They did other things too, like holding detentions; or being school cooks, nurses and physical education instructors. One or two were known to have taken classes like mathematics, history, science and geography, but the teaching professions and most of the parent bodies frowned upon this. Rumour has it that the headmaster of the Academy of Select Girls is a troll, but nobody can confirm this as he always walks around covered in a cloak from head to foot. Molly thought blue-grey trolls were hard done by in Chimba.

Ben and Fizz had just spotted a blue-grey troll on the turning between Chimwick Avenue, and Scholar’s Bridge - where most of Chimba’s schools and universities stood. They’d been strolling lazily down Chimwick Avenue for some time since coming out of the Stadium.

Ben summoned the troll with a lavish flick of the wrist, a gesture trolls were trained to understand, and instructed it, in the name of the King, to adjust the time of all the school’s clocks from 3.15pm to 4.15pm, and rearrange classes accordingly.

Six minutes later, by now some way further down Chimwick Avenue, Ben and Fizz were thrilled to hear the first delirious cries of delight as the school gates flung open early, and the trolls did nothing to force the pupils back inside. Fizz spotted some children swimming in ‘The Puddle’, the great lake crossed by Scholar’s Bridge. He wanted to join them, but Ben needed to get back to the Palace.


*


‘I am the King and I say that it is twenty-five past three.’

Molly’s lower lip quivered. Ben had arrived twenty minutes late for her class and had just adjusted the time on his copper clock to twenty-five minutes past three, when really it was a quarter to four.

She began to speak but was interrupted by a tap on the door.

‘Chancellor Grunwald,’ greeted Ben, with the full air of a King receiving his most senior minister.

A tall slim man, decaying into the final stages of middle age, swept into the room, immaculately dressed in a dark blue suit, a purple bow tie and a silver waistcoat studded with jewels.

‘Your majesty,’ he intoned smoothly in his clipped, well-spoken style, ‘We have some problems.’

Molly began to speak but Grunwald’s eyes rested firmly on Ben.

‘Your excursion to the Big Race today,’ he continued.

An elaborate series of raps assaulted the door.

‘Sir Jolly!’ Ben cheered as Sir Jolly pranced into the room, as if jousting with an invisible sword. Despite the faint beginnings of a general’s belly, Sir Jolly cut an impressive athletic figure, with his blonde hair, youthful hawkish face, distinctive curly moustache and many-coloured uniform.

‘Ben, your Majesty,’ greeted Sir Jolly warmly, clasping both of Ben’s hands tightly.

‘So glad I’ve found you, Mr. Chancellor,’ said Sir Jolly, turning to Grunwald. ‘Trouble all day. D’you know, earlier today we were right about to round up this big group of Gurglers when,’ and he turned to Ben, gesticulating incredulously, ‘would you believe it your majesty, those damned trolls just got up, downed tools. At three-thirty sharp – their finishing time – they go off home!’

Sir Jolly, Ben knew, was referring to the larger of the two types of troll that live in Chimba: the green troll.

Grunwald’s face tilted sympathetically.

‘Trolls are worthy warriors all right,’ Sir Jolly continued, ‘but no brains, no sense of the bigger picture of things!’

‘I am the King,’ answered Ben, ‘and I declare it to be two o’clock. The trolls shall go back to work and round up the Gurglers.’

‘I’ll leave at once and wake up those lazy trolls. In fact, Fizz – you’re faster than me – go to the Barracks Quarters and tell the trolls that the King has ordered the clocks back to two o’clock, and they’ve got to go and get the Gurglers they lost.’

Fizz rushed off.

‘Now hold on,’ protested Grunwald. His face trembled then froze, fixing on Ben.

Sir Jolly had by now slipped out.

Grunwald frowned mildly at where Sir Jolly had been standing.

‘Ben,’ Grunwald soothed, ‘I have spoken to some unhappy people today.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Molly.

‘The officials at Chimwick Town Stadium have complained that you forced them to re-run the Big Race today at three o’clock, when they’d already run at two o’clock. Some of the athletes fainted or became ill from exhaustion.’

‘Oh Ben, you shouldn’t have!’ Molly chided. ‘You know what those races are like!’

‘Also, a number of headmasters and headmistresses have complained that their schools were forced to close early, losing valuable class time. Afterwards the less-disciplined pupils ran amok along Chimwick Avenue, throwing oranges at passers-by and generally causing a fracas. I have received complaints from shopkeepers and from a number of shoppers who were passing along the Avenue at that time.’

‘Ben, you should never, ever have interfered with the schools,’ reprimanded Molly.

‘In addition, there was an unfortunate incident at “The Puddle”. A pupil pretended to be drowning, and in doing so lured one of the trolls into the water. Not being able to swim, the troll drowned whilst a gang of pupils peered over the bridge laughing.’

Ben sank into his chair, gazing at the floor. Molly closed her eyes. He glanced upwards on the sound of a thud, preceded by the door squeakily pushing forwards.

Fizz was on the floor, badly bruised and soaking in foul-smelling liquids.

‘Fizz!’ Ben gasped, rushing towards his companion.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Molly panicked, rushing behind him. ‘Ben, fetch Milly at once.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Fizz cheerily, suddenly squat-jumping up and down.

This was Fizz. Nothing hurt him for long.

‘Those trolls didn’t fancy going back to work,’ he explained.

There was a silence. Ben knew Molly disapproved of the Palace employing green trolls.

Grunwald’s long figure slid to the centre of the study and slinked onto Ben’s desk, opposite the chair Ben was seated in. Molly never let Ben sit like that.

‘Ben,’ he pleaded gently, ‘Leave the time as it is: it’s better all around.’

‘Yes,’ Molly enthused, ‘as long as anyone knows, people have set their clocks by the Palace Tower Clock. It’s the tallest tower in the Kingdom, and you can see it from anywhere in Chimba.’

‘But I am the King,’ Ben stated, ‘and the time is surely what I say it is.’

Four loud dongs from the Palace Tower Clock interrupted the conversation.

‘Those four dongs,’ Molly teased, ‘say it’s four o’clock.’

‘I say it’s not. I say – why? – I say it’s twelve noon!

Grunwald let out a false, exasperated laugh.

‘The Palace Tower Clock shall be changed,’ announced Ben.

Grunwald warned slowly, ‘Nobody has ever done that’.



*


Molly kept repeating that the key to the door was lost and they should forget about the matter. Fizz proposed setting the door on fire. Ben wanted to summon Sir Jolly to bulldoze the door down. Molly thought Sir Jolly was too busy to do that, and Grunwald hinted that he’d be too scared.

Nothing was happening. The door, only a couple of dozen steps down the corridor from Molly’s study, remained closed. Ben was about to give up when a voice whispered, ‘Tell the door to open.’

Glancing in turn at Molly, Grunwald and Fizz, Ben could swear the voice had been heard by him alone. It was the same voice he’d heard at the stadium. He turned to the door.

‘I command you to open.’

Molly’s trembling fingers slipped onto Ben’s shoulders, urging him away from the door. Fizz leapt around exuberantly, pretending to be a soldier under enemy fire in a battle.

‘Fizz!’ reproved Molly.

A crashing sound startled them all as the door shot violently forwards and smashed against the floor.

Ben darted through the entrance. Ascending what must have been a near pitch-dark spiral staircase, he ignored the surreal voices of Grunwald and Molly pleading desperately for him to come back down.

Dreamily stepping and stepping, round and round, higher and higher, there was a monotonous, contemplative satisfaction in treading each step.

Then he stopped.

Pain seized his head like a thousand migraines feasting on his skull at once. He could feel, really feel, their voice: ‘Move, move, move, move, move, move.’

Ben lifted the copper clock off from around his neck and hurled it into the darkness, up the twisting staircase.

Eerily, sleepily he fell backwards.

Later he remembered recovering in bed, with Molly besides him. He told her everything that had happened. Then he fell asleep again, and couldn’t remember whether he’d told her everything or not, but decided he didn’t want to talk about it again. Over the coming months his memory became more confused about things that had happened or not happened, and when they’d happened or not happened. It was a blur, the first of many blurs he’d later remember of his childhood at the Palace.