Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) Read online

  “Yes,” said Luck thoughtfully, tilting the lid to gaze more closely at it. Poly wasn’t sure whether his assent was to Margaret’s indignant question or her own statement. “Poly, take your glove off.”

  “One day,” said Poly, tugging once again at the laces of her glove; “One day you’ll say please, and I’ll probably faint with shock.”

  Over the chocolate box lid, Luck gave her a brilliant, dreamy smile that made Poly blink in surprise, and said: “Be a darling, Poly.”

  There was a stifled giggle from Margaret, and while Poly was still startled into immovability, Luck peeled the glove from her hand and tugged her forward.

  “You shouldn’t smile at people like that,” Poly told him, becoming more or less coherent again. “Good grief, no wonder the redhead was peppering me with questions!”

  This time, Luck’s smile was more smug than breathtaking, but all he said was: “Poke about, Poly. See if there’s anything there to dismantle.”

  Poly did so, her fingers running nimbly over the smooth surface of coloured cardboard in search of any traces of magic.

  “Nothing,” she said, at last. “Nothing magic, anyway.”

  “Huh,” said Luck, unsurprised. “Didn’t think so. Clever. He’s filled the chocolates with poison: nothing magic to trace.”

  Poly pulled her glove back on, shrugging away disappointment and a slight quiver of fear. “We’ve no way to find him?”

  “Oh no, I can find him,” Luck assured her. Since he followed this assurance by disappearing into the library with the chocolate box and one of the gremlins, Poly felt distinctly unconvinced. When she tried to follow him, she found to her indignation that he had somehow closed the library against her. She stomped back into the kitchen with something less than the fellow-feeling she’d had toward Luck that morning.

  “He’s going to cut up that gremlin, you know,” Margaret said, grimly scrubbing the kitchen table.

  Poly whisked away the remaining dead gremlins, but there seemed to be nowhere appropriate to put them, so she lined them up in the garden outside, decently out of sight behind the butterflowers. She hoped that Onepiece wouldn’t take it into his head to explore the garden as a puppy– in which form she had a feeling he would be more than capable of chewing on and then burying the gremlins.

  The garden reminded her of Annie’s front garden, hollowed out to serve as a tiny field for strawberries, and another source of ire against Luck raised its head.

  “Does Luck ever actually remember to help anyone?” she asked Margaret irritably, working the kitchen pump vigorously to wash her hands. She could still feel the tiny, stiffening limbs against her fingers, and the gremlins had left a sticky scum on her hands.

  “Not unless you keep prodding him,” said Margaret sympathetically. “Or if it’s interesting. If it’s interesting, just you try keeping him away.”

  “Yes. I’ve already discovered that.”

  “Did he really put a spell on you and leave you out as bait?”

  “Well, it wasn’t so much a spell as an experiment,” Poly admitted, fighting off the desire to thoroughly berate Luck. “But yes. I suppose I’m just lucky that Ronin came along when he did.”

  Margaret snorted. “If you call that lucky. Don’t let Ronin hang on your apron strings, Poly: you’ll end up with the wrong kind of reputation.”

  “Oh,” said Poly blankly. “Really? But he seems so nice!”

  “Tell me he didn’t murmur a word or two about Miss Margaret being ‘a trifle overblown’, or warn you that I’d scratch your eyes out? Just in passing, of course, and in the nicest way.”

  Poly grimaced. “Something like that.”

  “Well, I hope you didn’t listen to him!” said Margaret, scooping up soap foam with a damp cloth. She shot a sideways look at Poly and burst out laughing. “You did! You thought I’d be upset that you’re here and turning the head of every boy from one end of the village to the other!”

  “You were a bit standoffish at first!” Poly protested, but Margaret’s laughter was infectious, and she couldn’t help her lips twitching.

  “Yes, but that’s because– oh, never mind! I decided you couldn’t help it, so there was no use being upset, after all.”

  “Couldn’t help what?” said Poly, bewildered; because Margaret had gone off into another peal of laughter.

  “That’s exactly it!” she said, and refused to explain any further. “Never you mind! As to the beaux, well, it’s nice to have a bit of space every now and then! Only don’t get attached Michael, will you? He breaks hearts every which way.”

  “I’ll take care,” Poly said dryly. Now that she was thinking of it, she seemed to remember a remark or two that Ronin had made–one to her and another about her–that made her wonder why she hadn’t been more careful with him in the first place. “My skills have gotten rather rusty.”

  “Skills? Oooh, do tell, Poly! Do you have delicious castle secrets to reveal?”

  “There was a time when I could tell a scheming courtier at a glance,” said Poly, irritated with herself. “How annoying! I shall have to learn it all over again!”

  “Well, don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Margaret soothingly. “Dad had to pay Ronin a visit a few years ago, back when I thought he was rather nice. That was before the rumours started, of course. I still don’t know if he thrashed Ronin or just threatened to do it, but it was all very archaic and lovely of him. Michael always said Ronin was a rotten apple,” she added reflectively.

  Poly nodded, remembering Mordion and the unsuspecting Mary Massey. “He reminds me of someone I used to know.”

  “They do say history repeats itself,” nodded Margaret wisely.

  And Poly, appalled, said: “Oh, I hope not!”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning there were almost no villagers lined up. No serious ones, anyway, Poly thought. There were the few assorted females draped about the place in various sultry and elegant poses, but Luck seemed willing to let them wait. He was working on something quite different when Poly made her way into the library after convincing Onepiece to use the water-chamber and not the backyard for his morning toilet run.

  The smell hit her as soon as she stepped through the wall.

  “Oh! Oh! Luck, what is that?”

  “Our gremlin’s stomach contents,” said Luck cheerfully. “Chalk, cheese, poison, half a rusted tea kettle– actually, it’s quite possible that the poison didn’t kill it.”

  Poly, feeling her stomach about to revolt, said hastily: “Luck, you will call on Annie today, won’t you? They need to plant in the next few days.”

  “Annie,” murmured Luck. “Oh yes, I’m due there at noon. It’s a very boring problem, Poly.”

  “Not to them,” Poly said grimly. “Do you need me for anything?”

  Luck looked hopeful. “You can’t get rid of a few of those girls, can you? No? Well, it was worth a try. Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking Onepiece down to the mill stream for a paddle.”

  Luck nodded, his attention already straying back to the dead, spread-eagled gremlin that was displaying its stomach contents to the room. He did say: “Take Margaret with you. And a stout stick or a good spell,” but by the time she was stepping through the library wall, he had already picked up a small glass tube with a soft bulb at one end, and was applying it to the gremlin’s open torso.

  Poly repressed a shudder and found herself grateful to be in the open sunshine with Onepiece and Margaret, who sniffed and said: “He’s there with his knives and tubers, isn’t he? I can smell it.”

  “So can I,” Poly said grimly, hoping the smell wouldn’t linger much longer. Her breakfast was already precariously uneasy.

  They collected a few stray children as they walked, much to Poly’s satisfaction. They were barefoot, happy, and a little wild, and didn’t seem to find Onepiece’s lack of vocabulary an odd thing. They danced and skipped, and threw inconsequential and entirely disconnected questions at the other lit
tle boy until his gruff voice could be heard almost as often as theirs, speaking in short, rough bursts to their bird-like tones.

  Poly, watching them, felt guiltily that she’d spent far too much time on her own social activities without trying to find Onepiece some of the same. Sensing a weakness, the children clamoured for ices at the sweet store– and got them. Really, it was Luck paying for them, but Poly, watching Onepiece’s fascination with the frozen treat, couldn’t find it in herself to feel guilty about that.

  Margaret, watching shrewdly, said: “You’ll never get rid of ‘em now. No, you little beast, I won’t have you dripping melted ice all over my skirt! Hold Poly’s hand.”

  The child in question did so, provoking an indignant response from Onepiece, who evidently hadn’t been taught to share and had no intention of so learning.

  “My Poly!” he said irritably, tugging at the other child’s fingers. “Off, off, off!”

  “I have two hands,” said Poly peaceably, wiggling her free fingers at him, but this didn’t please him either, and he spent the remainder of the walk to the stream in clinging fiercely to Poly’s hand and glaring at anyone else who dared to approach her other hand.

  He continued to hover suspiciously at the stream, but fortunately the mill wheel was new and exciting enough to capture his attention, and although he paddled close to her Onepiece seemed content to allow the other children to do so also. Poly, for her part, enjoyed the paddling as thoroughly as any of the children, and scandalised Margaret by kilting her skirts to the knee in order to join them in the deepest part of the stream. The big mill wheel slapped at the water with heavy paddles, plopping huge, sulky drops of water into the stream to disappear with the current, and although the stream was sparklingly cold the sun was hot, and they splashed each other until they were too wet and too hungry to continue.

  By the time they waded ponderously from the water to eat their lunch, Onepiece was thoroughly wet from an almost accidental ducking, and Poly had ceased to tuck her skirts, since they were as wet as Onepiece. The plunge to rescue Onepiece had seen her waist-deep in the water before she knew it, with one skinny ankle seized unceremoniously in her gloved hand. In her further efforts to set him once more on his still shaky feet, both sleeves had also seen a good deal more of the stream than she intended. Onepiece clutched and gasped and laughed, and all in all clung so effectively to her that in the end she was as wet as he was, though considerably more rueful at the fact.

  Margaret laughed at her without sympathy, declaring that it was her own fault for paddling with the children, but Poly felt that she’d rather have been there to catch Onepiece than see him disappear beneath what now seemed to her a rather sinister paddle wheel. Ridiculous to think so, of course: the stream was barely deeper than Onepiece’s waist at its deepest. Still, Poly found herself shivering, and when the dripping boy insisted on sitting on her lap to eat his picnic lunch, soaking her bodice (the only piece of dry cloth to her dress), she didn’t argue. He drummed his heels on her shins as he ate, sprinkling crumbs with abandon and making the occasional dart at a butterfly that wandered too close to be resisted.

  Margaret, noticing Poly’s occasional wince as Onepiece’s bony rear wiggled and bounced, said with a grin: “You’ll have to fatten him up, Poly.”

  “Yah,” said Onepiece, nodding vigorously into his sandwich. “Shoc’lat!”

  “No chocolate for little boys who can’t sit still,” Poly told him, attempting a stern tone. Onepiece giggled and gave her a jammy kiss.

  “Lots of shoc’lat!” he said.

  Luck passed them by some time later, crossing the bridge on his way to Annie’s house. Poly smiled and waved gaily at him, relief putting a decided sparkle in her eyes; and to her surprise, Luck waved back. He also walked into the bridge balustrade, which made both Margaret and Onepiece giggle, but continued, Luck-like, without really noticing.

  “Do you know, I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” said Margaret, with dawning respect. “How did you manage it, Poly?”

  The idea that Luck could be managed by anyone made Poly giggle rather more than Margaret’s disapproving face suggested was welcome.

  “Well, there’s no need to be smug!” she said, with a touch of indignation.

  “Oh no, it’s not that! What do you think I did about it? I only reminded him.”

  “I’m sure I’ve never seen him listen to anyone else before,” sniffed Margaret, mollified. “He just looks through you, or around you; or–or, Poly–he changes the subject without notice. He’s a horrible, horrible man. I can’t think why I– oh, never mind that. Michael will be happy, at any rate.”

  Poly, considering ruefully that in that case, she should have accepted the merit for Luck’s unusual dedication to duty, said: “Annie, too.” It would be distinctly embarrassing if Margaret thought she’d reminded Luck with only Michael in view. “She was seeding her front garden just in case Luck didn’t come around.”

  Margaret’s eyebrow quirked. “That bad, is it? I wonder why Michael didn’t tell me.”

  “You’re good friends,” Poly said slowly, wondering if she had misread both Margaret’s pert dismissals and Michael’s lofty disregard. She would have to watch them more closely next time they were together.

  “Oh, we’ve been complaining about our Mums to each other for as long as I can remember. That, and scraping knees and throwing stones– not to mention the pranks we played. You wouldn’t think it from the nonsense he spouts, but he’s even better than Dad at taking a spell apart and putting it back together differently.”

  “Why would you put a spell back together differently?”

  “Well, that’s the game. I thought you’d seen Dad and Luck playing: it’s a sort of clear shimmer in the air with figures to represent the two spells. You take it apart and use the parts to make as many different spells as you can. The more spells, the more points, and you subtract any leftover spell bits from your final tally.”

  “Picky-pecky,” said Onepiece unexpectedly, his face sharp and interested. Poly looked at him questioningly, and he said again: “Picky-pecky!” making vigorous pincer movements with his fingers.

  Margaret, with a narrow look, tossed him a tiny brooch-spell. Onepiece fumblingly caught it, chuckling in his rough little voice, and said once more, this time gleefully: “Picky-pecky!”

  The brooch-spell remained in his lap, but his thin fingers made rapid dashes and pinches in the air above it. The spell went from soft pink to red, and then to brilliant orange. At his last pinch, Poly saw the colour jump in intensity, and even Margaret, who couldn’t directly see the effects of Onepiece’s effort, said: “Yow! What was that?”

  “Tippin’!” said Onepiece, with a gratified look.

  “It’s topping,” Margaret corrected him, but her eyebrows said she was impressed. “Poly, has he made this into three different spells?”

  “Four,” Poly told her, feeling absurdly proud. “There’s nothing left behind, either. What was it before?”

  “Just a tiny windbreak– something to stop my hair blowing about when I’ve just brushed it. What has he done to it?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I think he’s turned it into four tiny spells that work together to make another, bigger one.” Poly gazed at the thing in fascination, following the flow of power until it stopped at the centre in one, pulsing, ready mass. “It looks like the first one somehow catches the wind, which the second one funnels somewhere, but I don’t know where. The third has something to do with making things steady; equilibrium, I think. The fourth is– oh!”

  “What, what?” demanded Margaret impatiently.

  Poly giggled. “I think it might be a flying spell!”

  “Whoosh!” agreed Onepiece. He breathed once on the brooch, and to his own delight, the spell harnessed enough power to lift him gently above Poly’s head.

  “Boys and their spells!” sighed Margaret. “That was the first thing Michael tried to do, too! Come to think of it, that was with one of my spe
lls as well. He’s going to love this.”

  “So will Luck,” Poly murmured. She wondered if Luck knew that Onepiece could alter spells with little more than a few hand gestures and a few moments.

  “Let’s go show him off,” Margaret suggested, her eyes dancing. “Oh, won’t Michael be jealous!”

  Since Poly wasn’t averse to demonstrating Onepiece’s prowess, they left the urchin children paddling noisily by the mill, and took the scraps of their picnic with them to the edges of the village, where Annie’s cottage stood forlorn. It was the only dwelling in the rambling street with bare dirt for a front garden.

  “I don’t see Luck,” Poly said dubiously. “Perhaps they’re at the field?”

  “Annie’s probably trying to fatten him up,” said Margaret. She pushed cheerfully through the front door with Poly close behind, secure in her welcome.

  Poly, who knew by a combination of sensory magic and sheer aggravation whenever Luck was in the vicinity, said: “No, he’s not here.”

  “I can’t stop to chat today, love,” said Annie’s voice, floating from the kitchen. “Oh, hallo, Poly: you too? I’ve just this minute stopped to wash up and have a quick bite to eat.”

  Poly and Margaret, together taking in Annie’s discarded, dirt-encrusted apron, said as one: “Hasn’t Luck arrived yet?”

  Annie brightened momentarily. “Oh, was he planning to call?”

  “He passed us an hour or two ago,” said Poly. A creeping anger began to steal over her.

  Some of the anger must have shown on her face, because Margaret said hastily: “You were probably right, Poly: he must have gone straight to the field.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Poly curtly. She had let her eyes glaze slightly to focus on the magical traces that ran through the village, and perhaps it was her annoyance at Luck that made his particular signature jump out at her. In any case, the location of the signature was unmistakable. “He’s over by the forest. Someone’s stables, I think.”

  Annie looked impressed and a little amused: Margaret seemed nervous.