Herbie Brennan - The Purple Emperor

'It was Pyrgus the second time,' Comma said in an oddly singsong voice. 'He thought I wasn't watching and he cut off father's head.'

'That's it!' Blue said. 'Get out!'

'All right, I'm going,' Comma told her hurriedly. He leaped from the bed and scuttled across the room, but paused at the door. 'You ask the other man,' he said. 'He saw it too.' Then he was gone.

Blue lay in bed, fuming. Whatever happened, however bad, you could always rely on Comma to make it worse somehow.

There was no question of sleep now, so she climbed out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown. Why did he do it? Why? Why make up stories at all, let alone in the middle of the night? Their father was already dead when they had reached that ghastly operating room. His stomach was open and his head – his head -

Actually she couldn't remember noticing his head was severed, but it must have been. There was certainly that hideous open wound on his stomach. Hairstreak must have – must have -

All the same, Comma was pure evil. Or mad like his mother. Why else would he make up a story about Pyrgus? The thing was, he always messed up on the detail. Ask the other man, he said. But there wasn't any other man. Nymphalis had killed everybody else in the room except Hairstreak, and Hairstreak had run. There was just Comma and Pyrgus and the bod- There was Chalkhill. They'd left him strapped to the other operating table. They'd walked out and left him hurling abuse, demanding they come back, threatening… Threatening what? Blue couldn't remember, but it had nothing to do with Pyrgus or her father. Just threatening, that's all – the sort of thing people like Chalkhill did when they couldn't have their own way.

She wondered what had happened to Chalkhill when the Forest Faerie had demolished Hairstreak's mansion.

If Mr Fogarty was surprised to see Blue in the middle of the night, he didn't show it. He stood, dressed in a weird nightcap and gown, looking, she thought, more like a wizard than the wizards of the Realm.

'Yes,' he said in answer to her question. 'The Forest Faerie found him. They released him to my custody and I sent him back to Asloght.'

'The jail?'

'He has the rest of his sentence to serve. Lord Hairstreak sprung him on a ruse.'

She'd never heard the term sprung him, but decided it must mean that Hairstreak had released Chalkhill illegally. 'I need to see him.'

'Now?'

'Yes.' She waited for him to point out it was the middle of the night.

'Let me get some clothes on and I'll take you,' Mr Fogarty said.

'Beg pardon, sir,' said Clutterbuck, 'but there's people to see you. I told them you had company.'

They'd given him back his old cell, but despite the comfortable bed, Chalkhill couldn't sleep. He'd been lying looking at the ceiling and talking to Cyril. 'I don't have company,' he said.

'Liar!' the wyrm whispered inside his mind.

Clutterbuck looked around. 'So you don't, sir -thought I heard you talking to somebody,' he said easily. 'Shall I show them in?'

Chalkhill pushed himself upright. 'Who is it?' he asked.

'Princess Blue and Gatekeeper Fogarty.'

Chalkhill was on guard at once. It could be his release, but it could just as easily be trouble. He'd have to play this very cautiously indeed.

'Yes, show them in,' he said.

Blue eyed Jasper Chalkhill with distaste. He'd lost a little weight, but apart from that he was the same obnoxious, painted piece of slime he'd always been. 'I've come to ask you a question,' she said without preliminary.

Chalkhill smiled at her. Even in jail he'd managed to get hold of his ghastly magical mouth paste so that his teeth flashed and sparkled like tinsel. 'Yes, of course, my dear.'

She bit back the urge to tell him not to call her my dear. This was a difficult, delicate mission and there was no sense in antagonising him. 'Dismiss your Trinian,' she said bluntly.

'Clutterbuck is here to protect me in case of attack,' Chalkhill protested.

'Who do you think is going to attack you, Mr Chalkhill? Me?'

Chalkhill's eyes wandered over to Mr Fogarty, who was standing with his back against the door.

Blue said, 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' She turned to Mr Fogarty. 'Would you leave us, Gatekeeper – I'll be fine.'

Mr Fogarty nodded. 'I'll be just outside if you need me.'

Chalkhill's smile returned and this time it actually reached his eyes, which glittered with a sort of pleased malevolence. 'You can go, Clutterbuck,' he said.

As soon as they were alone, Blue said, 'The chances are you'll be a guest of Asloght for a long time, Mr Chalkhill, perhaps even for the rest of your life. But if I were to have a word with my brother, it's possible your term of sentence might be shortened. Do we understand one another, Mr Chalkhill?'

'Perfectly, Serenity,' Chalkhill said with a peculiar flash in his eye. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Just tell me what happened in the operating theatre.'

Chalkhill looked at her blankly.

'Why were you there and what happened -' she hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, '- what happened to my father?'

'Ah,' Chalkhill said.

After a moment, Blue said, 'Well…?'

Chalkhill licked his lips. 'This, ah, reduction of my sentence… You say you would be willing to speak to your brother – your brother Pyrgus – about it?'

'Yes.'

'Do you think he would be… sympathetic?'

'I can't give you guarantees, but I think he might.'

'What happens if he isn't?'

Blue turned and knocked on the door. 'I'm ready to leave!' she called.

'No, just a minute,' Chalkhill said quickly. 'There's no need to be like that. Of course I'll tell you. Why wouldn't I? If I can be of any help, any help at all, to any member of our illustrious royal -'

'Get on with it,' Blue warned.

He seemed to come to a decision. 'Very well. The operation. Lord Hairstreak found he could not control your father as effectively as he wished. The Purple Emperor was – is – was a man of strong and noble will. Even in death he was too much for Lord Hairstreak. The operation was an attempt to increase the level of control by interfering with your father's brain.'

'How?'

Chalkhill licked his lips. 'He was going to – he tried to – to reconnect the neural pathways in a different order.'

Blue stared at him with distaste. 'Why did he cut my father's head off?'

'That was a mistake,' Chalkhill said. 'Entirely a mistake – a ghastly mistake. Lord Hairstreak hired this… primitive to carry out the operation. Mountain Clouded Yellow. Can you imagine a more ridiculous name? Dreadful man, but a very powerful psychic surgeon. I gather he came well recommended, despite his failings. The trouble was, he had too high an opinion of himself – too cocky by half. The most important connections were at the brain stem and he decided to access them through the neck. He believed he could reconnect the head afterwards.' Chalkhill's face took on a sorrowful expression. 'But he couldn't. Lord Hairstreak would have killed him, if your people hadn't done it first.'

'So it was this… this Mountain Clouded Yellow who cut my father's head off?'

'Yes.'

'No one else?'

'No, Serenity, of course not. Who would want to?'

Blue said, 'One final question. What was your part in the operation? Why were you there, Mr Chalkhill?'

'Blood donor,' Chalkhill told her promptly. 'I happen to be the same blood type as your illustrious father. I was on hand simply in case of an emergency; and delighted to be of any possible help to your father, of course.' He looked at Blue earnestly. 'But in the event he was beyond my help.'

Blue stared at him for a moment, then said, 'Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chalkhill. You've been… helpful.' She knocked behind her on the door and it opened at once.