CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

Much to Trinket’s exasperation, Jane was in no state to respond to Trinket’s change of plans. Jane was sitting upright on the back of the horse, swaying. Her eyes were glassy and opened too wide. Her left leg ran with blood, from just above the knee all the way into her sock. There was a jagged canyon of missing flesh where the silent girl’s teeth had sunk.

Trinket stepped close and put a hand up to Jane’s hip to support her as she came down off the horse. Jane raised her right leg and laid it across the back of the horse. She was weak from blood loss. As soon as Jane’s feet were on the ground she collapsed.

Trinket whistled between her teeth, and said, ‘You are worse than I thought.’

Laying on the limestone floor, Jane murmured nonsense words as her energy ran away with the bleeding. Trinket squatted beside Jane and leaned down to speak.

‘I will have you back on your feet in a speck.’

Tom slipped from the horse and stood beside Trinket.

‘Give me a percentage,’ he said.

‘Give you a what?’ Trinket asked. She reached into her cloak and brought out the small vial with the picture of Elion on the outside, the vial that held the yellow syrup.

‘Give me a percentage for the likelihood of Jane’s recovery.’

Blood streamed from Jane’s leg and ran onto the stone. Her breathing had slowed and become shallow. Tom was interested as to how far down the path to death Jane had travelled. He wondered if she was going to make it back.

The thrip princess hummed while uncorking the vial of whatever.

‘I don’t know what you mean about percentages, but you will be amazed at Jane’s recovery,’ she said.

Trinket balanced on the front of her feet and inspected the nail scratches and the bite mark. She regarded the gushing stream of blood. She swayed on her feet and brought herself closer to Jane, then tipped up the little vial over the wounds. Yellow syrup poured. Vapour whispered up around the pour. When the syrup hit Jane’s leg there came a sizzling sound.

Tom crossed his arms and thrust a foot forward and lowered his eyebrows. He watched Trinket with a gruesome interest.

‘What is the active ingredient in the jungle juice you are pouring?’

‘Who knows,’ said Trinket, offhandedly.

The syrup bubbled.

Jane lay silently with her eyes opened too wide, like those of a deer that had just been shot. Her breathing vibrated. As the yellow syrup got drawn into her wounds she began to twitch. A sigh leaked from her nose. Trinket kept pouring. Life tipped back into Jane’s eyes.

After slipping the vial of yellow syrup back into her cloak, Trinket bandaged Jane’s legs with two strips of fabric that she had torn from her own undershirt. Within seconds the bandage became damp with red and yellow fluid.

‘The bleeding will stop in a moment,’ Trinket said to Jane.

Tom almost seemed disappointed that everything had been resolved so easily. He took a step backward and changed the subject.

‘Why are cannibal children living inside a mountain, playing in the snow?’

Trinket didn’t answer immediately. Finally she looked up at him and said, ‘What now?’

Tom repeated, ‘What is with the children in the snow? What is their story?’

‘They are old … very very old. They play because they have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.’

Incredulous, Tom shook his head. Even with everything that had happened this seemed too much to believe.

‘I don’t understand how they can be old … they are just children. Why do the authorities of Paris allow these savage little children to live? Why doesn’t one of the administrations eliminate them?’

‘The children are troublesome,’ said Trinket.

‘Well eliminate them,’ said Tom, almost sounding impatient.

Jane was getting better in an unnatural way. Her breathing had normalised. She shut her eyes and her face softened. She moved her leg, the one that had been bitten by the silent child. Her muscles flexed and contracted, and the pain was only minimal.

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Trinket leaned back on her haunches and admired her work.

Jane raised her leg, and bent her knee, and brought her knee up, almost to her chin. She did the same with her other leg, the one that had been bandaged. It came up to her chin, miraculously easily. She opened her eyes.

‘Thankyou Trinket.’

It was hard to thank Trinket who acted only out of self interest. Trinket only helped Jane to help Tom (Elion), Trinket only helped Tom to help Trinket.

Jane said, ‘That was the most evil, horrible thing that has ever happened to me.’

Impatient, Tom said to Trinket, ‘Tell us the plan?’

‘The plan is to enter the palace.’

‘That was always the plan … but what is the change of plans?’

A switch flicked. Trinket straightened and brought her shoulders back, and immediately she looked like a princess, and an archer, and a soldier, and a maker of plans.

‘Coronet is now under attack. An hour ago Gibor’s army would have commenced an attack on the city of Coronet from a position across the river. This will have drawn the palace soldiers and the palace guards to the walls.’

‘How did this happen?’

‘Because of you,’ said Trinket. ‘When Gibor learned that Elion was back in Paris he was eager to play his part in getting rid of the Empire. I gave him a promise that you would assist his ambition of becoming the King of Coronet when you take a seat inside the machine.’

‘How will I have the power to accomplish that?’

‘The machine gives you the power.’

‘How?’

‘I don't know.’

Trinket put a hand under Jane’s elbow, and dug her fingers around the knob. She applied pressure and Jane came up into a sitting position. Jane rubbed her eyes. She said, ‘What is the change of plans?’

‘We were going to access the palace through the needle gate, just a short ride from here, but I have decided that that is a bad idea.’

‘Why?’

‘The Emperor and his guards will be waiting at the needle gate.’

‘Is that why you mentioned the key to the captain, to entice the Emperor up to the gate?’

‘Yes.’

‘But won’t the Emperor be distracted by Gibor’s attack from the river?’

‘Elion and the key will be far more important to him.’

‘So why have you changed your mind? Did you realise that it was a stupid idea mentioning the key?’

Trinket had put up with Jane not treating her like a princess because of the circumstances under which they had met, but she wasn’t going to tolerate the disrespect much longer.

‘Jane, you must understand. I am working at a higher level. I see things in a way that it is impossible for you to see them.’

Jane had a microexpression of distaste, as though she had just taken a sip of the sour wine that the wild grape growers were pressing down in the south of England.

Trinket continued, ‘The Emperor will have an advantage if we meet him at the needle gate. He will have arrived before us with a cohort of palace guards, and will have had time to prepare to meet us under his term. I think it is better that we sneak in another way and lure him to us where we have the advantage.’

Tom said, ’So if we aren’t going through the needle gate, how are we getting into the palace?’

‘We will go in through the air vents.’

‘Where are the vents?’

‘There is one right there.’

Trinket pointed at a stone shelf.

‘The palace is vented into the catacombs, so that air flows from the gardens beside the river up through the palace.’

Tom motioned around the chamber they had stopped in. It was dimly litten by recessed torches, thirty feet apart. Stones and rocky outcrops ran wavering shadows over the top of each other.

‘Where is the vent?’

‘You cannot go first.’

As she spoke, Trinket brought the yellow syrup back out from its place inside her cloak, and she held it in Jane’s general direction.

‘After Jane has some yellow syrup and gets a boost of energy, she will go first.’

Jane paused in her stretching and looked at the small vial for a moment. She took it from Trinket and put it to her lips. She upended the vial and took a large, delicious swig of yellow syrup. Immediately the fire of the syrup went down her throat and lit up her belly. Her face relaxed and a smile tickled her cheeks. The lines along her forehead turned to jelly.

‘Why does Jane have to go first?’ said Tom.

He had stepped around a boulder that had a stalactite growing from its top up to the ceiling. He was running his hands along the cave walls. Suddenly he stopped. He had found the vent. It was a rectangular opening, with a vertical channel going down about ten feet. The rectangle was as long as Tom was tall, and the same width as an apple box.

‘I want Jane to go first in case there is someone waiting, she can alert us.’

‘So you want Jane to go down as a canary to check for poison.’

‘Yes.’

Trinket took the vial of yellow syrup away from Jane.

Jane had shut her eyes again and was smiling as though she had just taken a bite of a nice piece of pie. She was having a moment of bliss, her mind riding up into cloudland.

Trinket took hold of Jane’s arm and rubbed her green nails up Jane’s white skin.

‘When you are ready I will help you to stand.’

‘When I am ready,’ Jane murmured.

‘I think you are ready now,’ said Trinket, and she gripped Jane around the elbow again.

‘I am not going to leave the horses,’ said Jane.

Irritated, Trinket said, ‘Who cares so much about horses?’

‘I do,’ Jane murmured. ‘I care about horses.’

‘When we have got Elion into the machine and you have got the Wyld book and the Emperor has been dealt with … I will come back for the horses.’

Jane was about to answer when Tom’s voice came from the bottom of the air vent. While Trinket and Jane had been distracted by the concern (and lack of concern) for horses, Tom had shimmied down the ventilation shaft, bracing himself between the stone walls. Now he called up from the bottom.

‘Um, Trinket. We have a problem,’