The Kingdom - Clare B Dunkle - Hollow Kingdom 01 - The Hollow Kingdom
“She doesn’t have any business here,” hissed Kate’s guardian. “She or her sister. This has been Roberts land for eight hundred years. I can show you the records.”
“I know whose land it was before that,” declared the goblin, “and I can show you records, too. So you wanted them gone because they were taking your land. Then why did you offer to be their guardian?”
“I had to,” growled Hugh Roberts, shifting from side to side as he tried to fight the spell. “Otherwise, whoever did would have thrown me out and moved into Hallow Hill with them. Besides, being their guardian would give me certain opportunities.” He glared at Kate rather desperately.
“You had plans, then?” asked Marak, frowning.
“Of course I did,” snapped the gray-faced man. “Ideas, mainly. I thought about poison, but I couldn’t make up my mind.”
“And why’s that?” asked the goblin.
“I have a horror of hanging,” said Hugh Roberts with a shudder.
“What compassion!” hooted Marak. “You’re always thinking of others. Did you have any more ideas?”
“I just decided to see what opportunities arose,” said Hugh reluctantly. “I had three years before she would come of age, and lots of things could happen in that time. Sure enough, she started showing real nervous strain, and I did all I could to encourage it. I even persuaded some village boys to play a trick, pretending to be goblins. She tried to run off the very next day. I knew she wouldn’t take her sister’s disappearance without a fight. I had the doctor right here to listen to her arguments when the search party brought her back from the woods.”
“I see,” mused Marak, watching Kate become more and more indignant. “You were well on your way to getting rid of the older sister, but what were you going to do about M?”
Hugh rocked back and forth furiously and ground his teeth. It was no use. “I would have had ten years with that one,” he spat out finally. “Almost anything can happen in ten years. I was sure, if the older one was gone, that I could handle the younger one.”
Kate let out a shriek of rage.
“Yes,” agreed Marak heartily, “I think we’ve had all the truth out of you that we can stand. You’ve made it quite clear what kind of guardian you are. The only thing now is to decide what to do about it. Kate has already made her decision. She came down to my kingdom tonight and agreed to marry me in exchange for her sister’s safety.”
“Oh, Kate, really?” asked Emily excitedly, sitting up. “What was it like? Was it horrible and dark? Was it very beautiful?”
“I don’t know, Em,” Kate replied, trying to harness her scattered thoughts. “It was—very beautiful, yes. I think,” she added slowly, “that some parts were horrible, too.”
“You won’t leave me behind, will you?” begged Emily. “Please take me with you. I don’t want to stay here with him,” she insisted, pointing at her guardian.
Marak gave Kate a shrewd, assessing glance. “I’d be happy to steal you, M,” he said sorrowfully, “but I’m afraid your sister wants you to stay behind. She thinks humans make much better companions for a young child than we monsters do. After all, M, your own race is bound to love you best.” He met Kate’s astonished stare with a rather wicked smirk.
“How could you!” cried Emily as Kate opened her mouth to protest. “I don’t think humans are nice at all, and goblins are a lot more fun.”
“But, Em,” said Kate sadly, “what about your great-aunts?” She tried to think of other things that tied her lonely little sister to the world she herself would have to leave. “And what about Hallow Hill?”
“I don’t want Hallow Hill without you,” said Emily appealingly. “Who would go on rambles with me? And I don’t want to live with the aunts. They snapped at me, and they won’t let me have a pet. You let Seylin have a pet,” she told Marak. “Would you let me have one, too?”
The goblin King chuckled and gave Kate a triumphant look. “Have a pet?” he said winningly. “Why, M, you’d be a pet! You’d go about the kingdom playing with the goblin children, and the old ones would weave ribbons into your hair, which is especially soft and beautiful by our standards.” Emily stroked her straight brown hair wonderingly. “And the dwarves would make jewelry just for you, rings and bracelets and pretty necklaces. They’re always disappointed, the dwarves, that the King’s Wife can’t wear necklaces.”
“Do come, Em,” piped Seylin, putting his paws up on the couch. “I’ll show you all the magic I know.”
“That’s fine as far as it goes,” interrupted Kate sternly, “but you’ll have to marry one of those goblins someday, Em. You’re just saving them the trouble of stealing you.” And she glared indignantly at the arrogant goblin King.
“Your sister is right,” Marak said to Emily. “I’ll bring you into my kingdom under two conditions. First, you do have to marry a goblin when you’re old enough. But you can marry any goblin you like; I’ll leave you the choice. And second, if you come, no changing your mind later. You won’t be allowed to leave.”
“I don’t mind marrying a goblin,” promised Emily with all the blithe disregard of a child for the future.
“You know perfectly well Em’s not old enough to understand what she’s losing,” Kate cried angrily. “How dare you try to lure her underground after I made my promise to you! You know I intended her to stay up here and—and be a human!”
Emily started to argue, but Marak stopped her with a gesture. He came to Kate’s side and took her hands soothingly. “By all means,” he agreed, “we can leave little M behind. And in whose care are you willing to leave her?”
Kate ran quickly through the available choices. Her great-aunts? No, they had already failed her. Besides, after this horrible experience, Kate wondered whether they would even take Emily back in. Father’s nephew had already declined. If pressured, Kate suspected that he would do it, but he certainly wouldn’t love her.
“Surely you don’t think,” said Marak, “that your guardian is particularly unusual? A young human girl alone, with land, is going to be quite a target. Or are you proposing that I sally forth every few years to rescue her from whatever new menace she encounters?”
Kate looked up. The goblin’s pallid face was calm and cruel. He knew she had no choice. He must have realized right away that he could rescue Emily and still get to keep her. Kate jerked her hands free. As he let her go, she saw the brown wound on his thumb. That had probably been the only moment of her entire life when she would get the better of him.
“Don’t you realize what you mean to M?” added Marak more kindly. “If you love her enough to give up your world for her, don’t you think she would want to do the same for you? She wants to be with you, and it won’t be as hard for her, I think. She’ll have a happy life with us. We’ll appreciate her.”
Kate nodded reluctantly and looked away. Her eyes met her guardian’s, and she felt a rush of anger. She forgot her promise not to speak to him. “This is your fault!” she cried, helpless and furious. Her guardian glared back at her. He didn’t look particularly contrite.
“Indeed it is, Kate,” Marak agreed. “It’s time to plan your revenge. Goblins just adore revenge.” He grinned. “Do you have anything in mind?”
Kate was taken aback. “Revenge is wrong,” she told him solemnly. “Vengeance belongs to God.”
The goblin put his head to one side and watched her through narrowed eyes. “You won’t even give God a little help?” he asked softly.
Kate thought about what her guardian had done. He had made her promise to lose her freedom and marry a monster. Hallow Hill belonged to her, but she would never live here now. She’d never even see it again. But it was hers, and no one else’s, so it wasn’t wrong to demand this one thing.
“I don’t want him living here,” she said firmly. “I want him off my land.”
“Oh, good,” Marak said with relish. “I thought of that one, too.” He walked over to her guardian. “It seems Kate doesn’t want you on her land,” he announced cheerfully. “And I’m bound to say, cousin, that I don’t want you here, either.”
The big man stared up at him in alarm. “I didn’t do anything!” he insisted. “I never even touched her, and her sister’s fine.”
“It’s true that you didn’t kill or imprison her,” agreed Marak, “although I don’t think you deserve much credit for that since you were certainly trying to. But no, we’ll set that aside. Kate’s revenge is for what you actually did do.
“Kate isn’t at all like her sister. She has no desire to be a goblin’s pet. She tried everything she could think of to stay out of my reach, and she did quite a remarkable job. She went to you for protection, for the help that you had promised to provide, but not only did you not help her, you actually drove her to me. Kate is the first King’s Bride I know of who had to promise away her own freedom in exchange for the goblins’ help. Thanks to you, she’ll be lost to her own race and locked away from this land that she loves. She’ll never see the sun or stars. She’ll never be outside again. She’ll raise just one child now, and he’ll be a goblin; she’ll cry for days after her first sight of him. And she’ll be married to a creature she finds so frightful that I have to leash her to me with magic to keep her from running away even now.”
A profound silence fell over the study. Kate stared down at the carpet, so overcome with homesickness and grief that she didn’t understand how it could fail to show. There should be a physical injury to cause such pain, some wound over her heart, gushing blood. The goblin King studied her grimly. Then he turned toward Hugh with a philosophical shrug.
“It’s not my problem,” he said. “I have to protect my people. Kate’s suffering is the price paid for the goblin race to continue. But,” he added sternly, “you were supposed to protect her. You chose to become her guardian, and that makes her suffering your problem.
“I don’t think you’ll spend much time on Kate’s land, anyway. The Stamp of Truth is a permanent charm. The doctor, here, will wake up never even knowing he was asleep. He’ll ask you why you look so upset, and you’ll tell him all about it. It’s going to be very amusing, your descriptions of us all.”
Hugh’s anxious eyes widened as he realized what this would mean. Kate looked at the sleeping Dr. Thatcher. He was far too well educated ever to believe in goblins, especially goblins right in the room with him and somehow escaping his notice. She imagined his interested look as her guardian related his incredible tale. Hugh Roberts would soon be in the asylum himself.
“But when Kate ordered you off her property,” concluded Marak, “I don’t think that she wanted to wait, so from this moment forward, you are forbidden to set foot on her land.”
Hugh Roberts stared at him, completely baffled. “I’ll do my best,” he promised shakily. “I give you my word.”
“Oh, I think you’ll surprise yourself,” the goblin King murmured absently. “Bulk?”
The great ape seized Hugh by the head and arm. Thaydar came up and caught the other arm, stepping down firmly on Hugh’s feet. Marak reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny jar. Kneeling, he held it close to the floor, upside down. He removed the stopper, but nothing dripped out. Then he positioned the bottle below Hugh’s arm and turned it quickly upright. A drop splashed upward onto the man’s arm.
Before Kate’s astonished eyes, the terrified Hugh began to tilt. As Thaydar stepped back, Hugh’s feet slipped out from under his chair and flipped up over his head. In a few seconds, he was entirely upside down, balancing in the air, screaming and twisting. Bulk still held the other arm. He extended his own feathery arm as far as he could, pushing the man higher and higher into the air. Then he let go. Hugh whizzed through the air like a great bat and flopped grotesquely onto the ceiling.
Marak crossed quickly to Kate, who clutched the fireplace in an attack of dizziness. He put an arm around her and stared up at Hugh Roberts crawling about on the ceiling like a wasp. The big man pushed himself upright, feet stuck on the ceiling plaster and head pointing straight down. He stood swaying, goggling down at them, his round face frantic with terror. His wig didn’t even fall off.
“You’re not allowed to set foot on Kate’s land,” Marak reminded him evenly. “Well, actually, any land. Now, I understand that the doctor here is fascinated by preternatural forms of insanity. Kate tells me he believes the mind can perform impossible feats when it gives way to madness. Things not explainable in the everyday world.” He paused, watching as Hugh Roberts scrabbled about above him. “You should exceed his wildest expectations.”
The big man gibbered down at them, clawing at the walls, and then, making a rush across the ceiling, he tangled himself in the chandelier. Kate couldn’t bear it any longer. He looked like some huge cockroach. She put her head down and stared at the floor as Marak shepherded her from the room. The quiet goblins filed out of the house, Hugh Roberts’s screams echoing down the hall behind them.
Chapter 9
The goblins left by the front door. Kate stumbled, dazed, down the wide steps, Marak’s protective arm holding her upright. She could still hear her guardian’s screams behind them, and she put her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The chilly night breeze revived her a little as they crunched along a gravel walk. They were filing down one of the tree-lined edges of the Hallow Hill green, leaving the Hall and forest behind.
Kate glanced up at her strange companion’s implacable face. He knew exactly how miserable she was at the thought of the life he had planned for her. He even knew how miserable she was going to be about things she hadn’t thought of yet. She shivered, thinking of a hideous goblin baby. She wondered if Adele had cried for days at her first sight of him.
The goblin King knew all this, and he could just shrug it off, completely pitiless, but he could exact an appalling price for her misery from a human who he thought should have tried to prevent it. Kate cautiously pulled her hands away from her ears. She couldn’t hear her guardian’s screams anymore, but she had a swift image of him flopping about on the ceiling, and she shivered again. Marak paused in their walk, frowning, to pull his cloak around her slight shoulders.
But then, Kate considered, her father would say to be fair. It was true that the goblin King had been trying to capture her, but it was also true that he hadn’t succeeded. She had walked in unannounced and promised to be his wife, and she had set the condition herself. He had immediately marshaled his forces to meet the terms of the agreement. He had taken her along to watch him accomplish his part, and she had promised to go back when it was done. She had even picked the revenge herself, although she’d had no idea what her simple statement would become in the hands of a magical monster.
They came to the end of the gravel walk. On the field beyond the green, the goblin groom waited with their horses. Kate stepped out of the shadow of the trees into bright moonlight. As she tilted her head to look at the full moon, she felt the grief of her loss sweep through her again. The goblin King had said she would never be outside after their marriage. Kate didn’t think she could endure it.
