King of the House Elves - Chapter 35

The way now being open to the outside world, King Kerfinror made the decision to send a messenger to The Dagda to tell of the victory against the redcaps. It was a painful choice for he knew that word must also be given of the escape of the prisoner and he feared The Dagda’s reaction.

A messenger from The Dagda arrived within a week, bringing in his wake traders eager to barter with the inhabitants of the palace.

Aira came down to breakfast one morning to find Boroden’s toast steaming untouched whilst he talked to one of the fairy carpenters. Before them spread plans for a beautiful throne of oak inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli.

‘And for the cushions,’ the carpenter was saying, holding out squares of sumptuous fabric.

Aira pointed to some blue velvet that rippled like water. ‘I like that.’

‘As do I. I’ll have that,’ Boroden agreed. ‘My new throne for Novgorad. Now I’m to be King I must keep up standards,’ he explained to her.

‘It must cost a fortune.’ Klaufi ogled at the plans, wiping his nose on a handkerchief that had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

‘Stop sniffing over me, Spadefoot.’ Boroden pityingly handed him a sample square of silk for a handkerchief and went on, ‘I’m fond of large, elegant purchases.’

‘Is this big enough for you?’ Caillie asked. Fennec sniggered. They carried in a box the size of a pony, helped by a leprechaun shoemaker wearing a green coat with gold lace, a leather apron and high heeled buckled shoes.

‘Whoa, your boots are a little on the large side,’ Hëkitarka chuckled, peeking inside.

The leprechaun gave a sprightly bow, his long beard brushing the ground. ‘Your order.’

Boroden looked aghast. ‘Nay, there must be some mistake. I’m no giant but Boroden, King of the House Elves.’

‘Folk are definitely going to hear you coming wearing these!’ Hëkitarka exclaimed, having got Torden and Caillie to haul out a massive ironshod boot.

Boroden laughed and grabbed Klaufi. ‘Here, Spadefoot. You said you liked big boots. Try one on.’

Klaufi was whisked off his feet and swallowed inside the vast boot. Boroden folded its fur cuff over him, laughing. ‘Good. He can’t sniff all over me in there.’

‘Let’s hope the giant doesn’t come and try his boot on now,’ Fennec sniggered.

The arrival of a sleigh load of parcels interrupted them. Boroden’s eyes sparkled and he basked in the choruses of happy words as the brownies unwrapped their gifts. ‘Life’s too short not to enjoy,’ Boroden explained. Queen Alwilda had rewarded him generously from the palace coffers for defeating the redcaps and Boroden wanted to share his good fortune.

Having always lived a frugal life, it was with a mixture of delight and guilty disbelief that Aira found Boroden handing her parcels containing boots, leggings and gloves.

‘I said you’d look nice in a doll’s dress,’ he said, holding a floral gown against her.

‘It’s lovely,’ Aira said, unwrapping her last gift; a bottle of whisker oil shaped like a faceted gem.

‘I think he’s trying to tell you something.’ Caillie joked, holding his nose in jest.

Seeing Boroden look crestfallen, Aira clouted Caillie and told Boroden, ‘it smells beautiful.’

Queen Alwilda gave Boroden a meaningful look as she paused at the door on her way to the counsel chamber in the wake of her husband. The messenger wanted to discuss plans for recapturing Leanan Sídhe.

‘It looks as though I’m needed. I’ll be back soon,’ Boroden told Aira.

Harfan was hauling Klaufi free from the boot. Fennec sniggered at his ungainly struggles.

‘I suppose Boroden thinks that’s funny? I almost suffocated and he totally forgot I was there. Not that I’m surprised. Other folks only count when they serve him, then they can be forgotten about. Look at the way he treats you; a little doll to be dressed up when it amuses him and set aside when he pleases,’ Klaufi muttered to Aira.

Aira turned away, surprised by Klaufi’s venom. The episode with the skriker had amplified Boroden’s annoyance with Klaufi and, unlike his friendship with Aira, the rift between Boroden and Klaufi was not so easily mended. Klaufi’s words did not hurt her. She knew that Boroden respected her quiet, calm strength. She had only to see his warm, generous smile to know her worth in Boroden’s eyes. She saw what many did not; the complexity and fragility beneath his princely exterior.

The messenger left promising that Leanan Sídhe should be hunted down and a safer stronghold found for her. This was a glad resolution and everyone in the palace went to bed relieved. Boroden told the brownies that they should soon be on their way again.

Aira could not wait to be up. She was sure that their requests at the Seelie Court would be favourably received and they would return in triumph to Novgorad. The thought of Boroden’s kingdom in Novgorad, of her new life there, made her heart flutter with excitement.

She dressed and went to join Boroden and her cousins. Before she had chance to speak to them, Carnelian appeared and told Boroden, ‘King Kerfinror wants to see you.’

‘What can he want calling us so early? Why’s Carnelian looking worried?’ Hëkitarka fretted.

‘I don’t know,’ Harfan responded, smoothing down his tunic and making to follow Boroden.

Once in the counsel chamber, Boroden made a courteous roll on the floor before King Kerfinror. ‘I hope nothing is amiss? The redcaps have not returned?’

King Kerfinror’s milky eyes fixed stonily on Boroden. ‘One of our guards flew out shortly after the sídhe messenger left us and saw the redcap troops massing at the head of the next valley. An urgent request for aid was sent to the Seelie sídhe but there’s been no reply. They will not help us. With the sídhe it is all words; they are too mighty to truly care for us humbler faeries. It will not be long before the redcaps come again. They are too many and we are too weak. Why prolong the wait?’

‘What do you mean? You want us to go out and hunt them down?’ Boroden asked uneasily.

‘You don’t understand what I’m saying. The redcaps are coming. The sídhe will do nothing. We can do nothing. I’ve had enough of suffering.’ King Kerfinror’s emptied look and the way he sat so still as if he had become part of his throne horrified Boroden. He guessed the king’s meaning with dread.

‘You may think so, but I tell you do not relinquish hope.’

‘I’ve striven on too long. At last I see there is no hope.’

‘Decide as you will for yourself, not for any of us who still have the will to live.’ Boroden turned on his heel and left. He was glad to find Queen Alwilda waiting anxiously in the corridor, cooling herself with a fan made from dragonfly wings. It was reassuring to find that she had the sense to go against her husband’s wishes and plot how she and the fairies might escape the castle.

‘We must leave before nightfall. Pack all you can and meet us at the palace gate,’ Boroden told Fostolf, poking his head into the outhouse where herbs hung to dry in bunches from the rafters. Aira was helping the brownie physician making tinctures.

‘The fairies are coming too?’ Aira asked in surprise, seeing a throng of fairies packing bags and fetching carts.

‘All that have the will to.’ Boroden was aghast to see Bresil enter the outhouse and begin to stow some herbs into his pack. From its weight and the numerous flasks and crucibles hung from his belt it looked as if he planned to accompany them.

Queen Alwilda anticipated Boroden’s objection. ‘Bresil knows the way best. He’s the only one to have set foot outside of the palace for decades. His magic can protect us.’

‘If you insist. But there is no place for him in Novgorad.’

‘He may have made mistakes, but we owe him a great deal.’

‘That does not cancel out his mistakes in my mind,’ Boroden growled under his breath. Their conversation stopped as Bresil spotted them and drew them into making plans for the journey.

The mood was generally jubilant. The fairies welcomed the opportunity to leave the palace and the brownies were glad to be on the road again. Queen Alwilda had sworn the guard who had spotted the redcaps to silence and ordered that not a word was to be spread about the impending danger. They were optimistic about reaching the Seelie Court in good time and making a satisfactory resolution over Novgorad.

Boroden, however, had a heavy heart especially when he looked at Myfanwy, so jolly over the supposed adventure. Boroden supposed that Myfanwy thought him grim for not smiling like the rest, which hurt him as she would one day be his cousin’s bride. Try as he might, Boroden failed to fake a cheerful look.

King Kerfinror remained on his throne and did not come to see them off. He sent his steward to them laden with gifts in addition to the provisions and ponies that he had given them. The gifts included vials of the potion that Bresil had used to transform them into animals.

Aira was decked out regally in a flowing snowy cloak with a swansdown collar and given tiaras and necklaces, as well as several lengths of brocade, silk and velvet. These she hardly dared to cut to pattern, let alone wear. Though everyone kept reminding her that she was a noblewoman, a lifetime of clogs and aprons left her uneasy with anything finer, despite its dazzle. She accepted the gifts mostly for the sake of Boroden who praised her new grander style of dress.

To the delight of Harfan and Hëkitarka, their ponies had been found grazing the wood near where they had fled from the skrikers. Except for those tending laden carts, the fairies had no ponies. Aira soon realised why. A flock of fairies had gathered on the battlements and spread their wings, soaring high as the gates opened.

Myfanwy grinned at Harfan and Hëkitarka. ‘Race you.’ She plummeted off the battlements. For a terrifying moment she thought that her wings had grown too weak to carry her. Her fear did not help matters, for she flapped uncoordinated. Yet soon Myfanwy found her strength and set her wings to rise high. Not since she was young had she flown like this. With the redcaps camped outside she had been forbidden from flying higher than the garden wall.

‘I won.’ Myfanwy giggled breathlessly, jumping out in front of Hëkitarka as he cantered up the slope. She narrowed her eyes, looking back to the distant palace. ‘What’s that?’

A black cloud, like the noxious smoke of wet logs, moved high up. Its direction changed, and it began to drop, aiming at the palace.

‘We carry on into the forest,’ Boroden said, coming upon Myfanwy and his cousins paused at the brink of the hill. His voice sounded commanding but Aira sensed in it the careful constraining of his emotions. That did not bode well.

Myfanwy was not listening. She realised what the cloud was. Bats. Even from here they looked huge. An eagle would have met its match in a fight with one. They had taken to the wing from the dark caverns of the Unseelie Court. Now they headed for the palace. Myfanwy’s grandfather was there, and the retainers who wished to stay with him.

‘Stop!’ Boroden cried as Myfanwy tore heedlessly downhill. Fright seized the fairies. Most, seeing that a rescue attempt was futile, tried to save their own skins and get beneath the cloak of the forest before the bats spotted them. ‘Go after her. Do something to stop your granddaughter before she gets killed,’ Boroden implored Queen Alwilda in between trying to calm the panicking fairies before their clamour did exactly what they did not intend and alerted the bats.

‘Harfan!’ Quentillian called to the prince who was galloping after Myfanwy.

Myfanwy clutched at a tree trunk to steady herself, a stitch goring her side. The bats circled the palace as thickly as a canopy in full leaf. The pompous blare of a battle horn made her jump. Redcaps marched towards the palace gates, pulling battering rams.

A hand took hers comfortingly. She looked into Harfan’s eyes and saw he understood her anguish.

Boroden waited for them at the forest fringe. He had seen too many sorrows. This would be the last one he promised himself. In Novgorad they would be safe.