The Princelings of the East Read online

  Chapter 8: Food for Thought

  In which Hugo gets into a Lather and Fred takes a Philosophical View

  Fred was gazing from a window once more. Behind the sheer drapes, the window looked onto the whole world, or so it seemed. Whereas the other arches looked over the courtyard garden, these looked from the highest side of Buckmore Crags. They had excellent views both back to the river crossing and the other way to the mountains, now bathed by the late afternoon sun. Some movement on the other side of the distant bridge caught his eye. He called to Baden, who was sitting drinking tea and doing his crossword again. They agreed the carriage was returning, and set off back to the plaza near the entrance.

  It had been an exhausting afternoon. After an hour or so of hard Thinking, Lady Nimrod had called them back together to exchange ideas. They had not thought of any useful, concrete solutions, but they generally agreed that the Energy Drain had to be connected with Wozna Cola, and it was possible that the delivery of cola was intimately linked with the Drain. How to test this they had no idea.

  They had more success discussing what Hugo knew about it. If he did know about the connection, was it was deliberate or unintentional sabotage of their energy system? In either case, what would he do about it?

  The big question was whether it was possible to discuss the issue with Hugo if they had not proven that the two really were connected.

  “There are sufficient lines of co-incidence, surely,” Baden said.

  “It still could just be co-incidence, though,” said Fred.

  “I agree,” said Lady Nimrod. “It might be an effect, but is it the cause?” She looked around at them. “Well, what shall we do about it?”

  They finally agreed that Lady Nimrod would speak to Prince Lupin and together they would tackle Hugo about the co-incidence, and perhaps see if he had noticed anything on his travels that could account for it.

  Now Fred and Baden stood in the plaza listening to the carriage making its manoeuvre up the passageway.

  “It looked very much like the carriage we came in,” observed Fred as they waited.

  “It is the same one,” said Baden. “I sent it back for them to change into at Castle Powell, where they would have stopped for a late lunch. My animals aren’t up to such a long journey, and they’re much slower than Lupin’s anyway. It looks much better if he arrives in his own coach as well!” he added with a grin.

  The carriage emerged from the darkness, and first Prince Lupin, and then Hugo emerged from the carriage. Prince Lupin looked immaculate as always and greeted the people around him in a friendly manner. All were very pleased to see him. Hugo, in contrast, looked rather less than well groomed, although he did his best to look suave and sophisticated as usual. He had a slightly fractious air about him.

  “Welcome back,” said Baden to Prince Lupin.

  “Thanks for thinking of sending the carriage back,” he replied with a grin. “We would have taken hours more with those slowcoaches of yours. Ah, Fred, you made it ok, then. How’s your day been?”

  “Very good, thank you, sir,” Fred responded. He noticed Hugo give him a very odd look. He wondered what Hugo had thought when he woke up and found Fred missing.

  “Baden, would you show Hugo through to his rooms? I think we’d both like to freshen up before dinner.” As Baden led Hugo off, the Prince turned to Fred and bade him walk beside him.

  “I think Lady Nimrod would like to talk to you, sir,” Fred said, checking that no-one was close enough to hear him.

  “Yes, let’s go there,” Lupin replied. “And tell me what you two have been thinking today. I hope it got you somewhere.”

  “We have a plan, sir,” he said, and with encouragement that the lady would not mind him explaining, Fred told the Prince of their conclusions as they walked.

  They entered Nimrod’s apartments and Fred watched an affectionate greeting. He wondered what the relationship was: were they friends, siblings, cousins, lovers? He couldn’t tell. It was affection between two caring people who had known each other a long time.

  “Now, let me tell you some curious things that happened after you left the inn,” Lupin said to both of them. “I had been up before dawn as arranged, since one of my people wanted me to check something about Baden’s carriage. Hugo appeared from a tunnel, running towards the inn. He saw me and proceeded to do some stretching exercises as if he’d been out for a run.”

  “Sorry I’m late, your highness,” he had said, “lost track of time a bit.”

  “I told him we were ready to leave and checked whether he needed anything from his room. He said he’d got everything with him, but could do with freshening up, so I passed him a towel from the stack my people have and we settled down in the carriage. He was very quiet for a long time, and I dozed a bit. A while later, we’d passed the halfway point, I think, Hugo came out of what was obviously a solid piece of thinking, and asked where Fred was.”

  “Don’t say the stupid lad has overslept!” he said.

  “I reassured him that you’d been up early, Fred,” Lupin said, nodding to him, “and so I’d sent you on with one of my princelings. Which of course is true, except that Baden isn’t exactly my princeling,” he laughed. “Other than that, the journey was uneventful. The breakfast basket was much appreciated, especially by Hugo, and lunch at Castle Powell fulfilled its excellent reputation.

  “The questions are,” said Lupin, “why did Hugo go out for a run, which doesn’t seem to be the style I expect from him, and why such a long one as he was covered in sweat? And why didn’t he notice that Fred had already gone from the room when he went for his run?”

  “Maybe he crept out quietly so as not to wake me,” said Fred.

  “This may sound strange, but was he really there when you left?”

  Fred paused, thinking back. “I heard him snoring, very quietly though.”

  “Ah,” said Lupin, disappointed. “And do you think he could have gone past your bed without realising it was empty?”

  Fred tried to remember the exact layout of the small, dim room. Although he could slip out easily, he was not so sure Hugo would not have stepped on him as he had when they retired to bed. Fred had kept quiet about it, and he didn’t know whether Hugo had noticed. Maybe he wouldn’t have noticed not stepping on him either. Lupin sighed as Fred explained this.

  “Inconclusive, then.”

  Nimrod looked up and smiled at him. “It seems that everything our Hugo is involved with is plagued with coincidences. But if he had been out for a run even of an hour or so, surely he would have remembered Fred was with him before ... when did you say he asked about him?”

  “About halfway to Castle Powell, so about 11 o’clock.”

  “That’s an awfully long time to forget a companion,” commented Nimrod.

  It is a good point, thought Fred, “but I’d only been a companion since the previous, well, night or two, since the first was in the tunnel,” he said.

  “In my experience, Hugo has an eye for detail, and an excellent memory,” said Lupin. “No, I think he forgot about you, and nothing immediately before this ‘run’ gave him cause to remember you. Something is on his mind. I wonder whether we can find out if he received any sort of message when he was at the inn.”

  “The innkeeper never mentioned a message when he was with me,” said Fred, thinking carefully. “I don’t think anyone passed him one, either.”

  Lupin sighed again. “But when he was with me any one of those scoundrels that mix with the genuine hangers-on could have slipped him a note or whispered something and none of us would have noticed.”

  “If they did, he hadn’t read it or thought about it,” said Fred. “He was perfectly well-tempered and very generous all evening.”

  “That is a very good point,” exclaimed Lupin. “That is what is different! Something has happened since he went to bed and he came back to the inn this morning. He must have gone somewhere to
find something out. Where did he go, and what did he do? And what was it that has ruffled his hair so much?”

  “And how do we find out,” added Baden, who had been listening at the back after showing Hugo to his rooms.

  “Does this change our plan for Lupin and myself to discuss these coincidences with him, boys?” asked Lady Nimrod, referring to the plans hatched after their Thinking that afternoon.

  They sat and Thought for a few minutes. In the distance, a bell rang, echoing through the corridors and courtyards.

  “We need a quick decision,” said Lupin, standing up, as Lady Nimrod moved to her dressing room dusting down her robe. “That is the bell for dinner. Wash hands, brush up, young Fred, we need to be on our way. Take your lead on this from me, everybody, please.”

  They hurried down to the dining room. A hundred candles provided a gentle glow for a relaxed yet formal dinner. Hugo waited for them at the entrance, looking his usual urbane self. Prince Lupin greeted him warmly and guided him to sit between Lady Nimrod and himself. Fred took the other place next to Lady Nimrod, much to his pleasure, and Baden sat on his other side.

  Dinner proceeded in the manner of a slightly grander celebratory dinner at Castle Marsh where he and George were required to be present, with the exceptions that George wasn’t there (and Fred felt his absence acutely by now) and the company was much more enjoyable. Even though Lady Nimrod spent most of her time attending to Hugo, Fred felt relaxed with the situation. He listened to their interchanges as well as chatting to Baden ,when Baden wasn’t engaged in deep conversation with a lovely young lady at his other side.

  Hugo’s charm had returned. He agreed with Lady Nimrod on the issue of the coincidences of the Energy Drain and Wozna deliveries, but suggested that the delivery vehicles had been fully charged at the depot and could have no influence on local power supplies. He turned to relating amusing stories, so Fred’s mind turned to the question of his ‘run’ this morning.

  He agreed with Prince Lupin that exercise was unlikely to have been Hugo’s purpose. He was undoubtedly fit, but they had engaged in a fourteen-hour journey the day before. An hour’s run down that tunnel was hardly likely to have been just for exercise.

  It gradually dawned on Fred that as far as he could remember, apart from a couple of alcoves where they had rested for a few moments, there were no side tunnels and nothing else along that route. Either Hugo had gone back to the area he had met him, or he had gone to Castle Marsh. And he had done so, there and back, within a period of roughly seven hours. It was impossible.

  Fred thought again. He had been tired near the end, so could he have missed something within the last three hours of their trek into the Inn of the Seventh Happiness? He tucked into the fourth course to have been set before him that evening, a delightful compote of strawberries garnished with mint leaves, and thought carefully. No, he concluded, there really hadn’t been anything else because he had been looking for an excuse to stop. Hugo must have been to the place where he met him, or to Castle Marsh, in around three hours each way. That was surely impossible unless Hugo had some sort of time machine!

  The candlelight reflected on the lavender sorbet, which now replaced the empty compote dishes. The memory of a strange light flickered into Fred’s mind from the overworked memory. Maybe he did, he thought, astonished, and looked around him wide-eyed, remembering just in time not to look in Lady Nimrod’s or Hugo’s direction but instead concentrate on Baden’s side.

  “Are you all right old chap?” murmured Baden.

  “I’ve just had a breakthrough,” he responded, just as quietly. “Give me a little while longer to think about it.”

  “We’re on the last course,” said Baden, “so carry on while the sweetmeats do the rounds and then move over to the balcony when we disperse. Tell me then.”

  Fred nodded, then caught himself wondering once more who to trust. If only he had George to talk to! Meanwhile, what were the implications of a time machine? He’d read a book or two that involved time machines in the Castle library. They were very tricky things. Answers came flooding into his mind as he walked slowly over towards the balcony.

  A time machine would require huge amounts of energy.

  A time machine could mean Hugo was from the future - and probably so was Wozna Cola.

  A time machine was an impossibility… wasn’t it?

  But if it wasn’t….

  Maybe it wasn’t a case of where was George, but when was George - and was he in danger from Hugo?

  “Urr, hi, old chap,” said a smooth voice behind him. “What happened to you this morning, then?”