Page 4 of The Neverfear

‘I can’t,’ said Christopher, with entirely fake regret. The chimaera got too excited when it played and tended to maul its opponents. ‘It’s the Midsummer Feast tonight. I’m helping in the kitchen.’

‘Then Princess Anya must play with us,’ said the goat head.

‘She has to help too,’ said Christopher.

‘And she does not like to be called Princess!’ said the lion.

Anya Argen had been born the Princess of Dousha. She had been, technically, a perfect princess: she had learned to dance, albeit unwillingly, and to sing, and to make every variety of polite conversation. And just three months ago she had solved a murder, rescued her father from death and renounced her throne. She still had nightmares about her uncle, who had tried to kill her – Christopher could hear her, sometimes, though their rooms were several doors apart. Once or twice he had gone to her in the night and woken her, and she had tried to laugh, and they had talked about everyday, solid things until she fell asleep again.

Anya wasn’t restful, as friends went. She was his age, but small and angular, with scars all the way up her forearms from the gagana birds, who still slept above her bed each night. Her resting expression was sharp and knitted in the eyebrows, so that her face always looked like it was insisting on something. But she was infinitely gentle with the birds, and she could whistle with a beauty and range that still startled him, even though he heard it every day.

‘I heard the princesss in the garden yesssterday,’ said the snake. ‘She was talking to that little bird who sssits on her shoulder. She ssaid she doessn’t know any more who she isss. For her whole life she was a princesss, and she didn’t like it, but at least she knew the rulessss. And now that she isss free to do what she wantsss, she doesssn’t know what that iss.’

The lion growled. ‘You shouldn’t admit to eavesdropping.’

‘You were there too,’ said the snake. ‘Obviousssly.’

‘She is a brave creature,’ said the goat. ‘She will find her way, however hard.’

Anya came bursting out of her room. ‘Why are all three of you looking so guilty?’ She scratched the chimaera’s three heads. ‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Nothing,’ said all three heads in chorus.

Nighthand’s bellow came up the stairs. ‘Christopher! Anya! Where are you? I need my assistant chefs!’

Preparations for the Midsummer Feast had been going on for weeks. All the menus had been planned by Fidens Nighthand. Ratwin, the green squirrel-like ratatoska, had spent days perched on a kitchen stool, stirring sauces with her horn. They had made soups and stews, dragon-toasted toffee apples and sugar batrachomyomachian mice. Christopher had successfully persuaded Nighthand away from some of his more inventive ideas: candied tuna, for instance, or sugar rolls topped with cabbage.

‘Everything has to be perfect,’ Nighthand had barked. ‘This is not just any Midsummer – this is the most important Midsummer of my life!’

‘Why?’ Anya had asked, but he had only threatened to bake her in pastry if she asked questions. Christopher, though, had seen him show Ratwin a ring, a golden band with a row of sea-blue sapphires.

That Midsummer Day they were making the centrepiece of the feast – the cakes. For the humans, a vanilla and berry gateau as tall as Anya, thick with cream and cherries. For the ratatoskas, a seed cake of carrot, nutmeg and almonds. For the naiads and mermaids, who have no taste for sugar, a huge crab cake. And finally, at Nighthand’s insistence, an exquisitely beautiful chocolate cake, with an icing of creamed beef, topped with strawberries and fricasseed chicken gizzards, and dusted in white sugar. Nighthand was a Berserker. Berserkers do not feel fear, which makes them impressive and frankly alarming cooks.

Christopher choked as it came out of the oven. ‘It smells like the toilet blocks in my old school, Nighthand. It smells like Cacafuego. Nobody will want to eat it.’

‘I will,’ said Nighthand. ‘I will enjoy it heartily.’

‘As shall I,’ said Jacques. ‘I find it enticing.’

‘Yes,’ said Christopher. ‘But, Jacques, you eat people, with their clothes still on – or so you claim – so you’re hardly fussy.’

Enemies Whose Company I Enjoy

And then, at last, it was time. At nightfall Christopher and Anya moved, side by side, through the Great Hall, down the corridor to the ballroom, and out on to the lawn beyond. Anya wore a floor-length yellow silk dress, her hair plaited and threaded with yellow to match. Koo, the young gagana bird, fluttered after her and came to rest on her right shoulder. The new feathers on his head stuck up like a black party hat into the air.

There they stopped, and Anya jerked her head in awe: once to the left and diagonally down. Koo copied her. Anya spoke both English and Gaganan, a bird-language of gestures and head-flicks.

‘What did you say?’ asked Christopher.

‘Swearing but complimentary,’ she said.

And that, thought Christopher, seemed fair.

The lawn was hung with salamandric lights that shone in red and yellow, and it was crowded with guests. There were perhaps a hundred people, some in black scholars’ gowns, some in rustling silk dresses that swept the grass. There were dryads, all of them breathtaking in their brown beauty, and a clan of naiads, naked river-spirits, their bluish skin gleaming in the setting sun.

And everywhere Christopher looked there were the creatures; the borometzes had been given ribbons around their woolly necks and the al-mirajes shone gold. Toro the roc drank at the fountain, and the young longma, whose left wing was stronger than its right, flew lopsidedly across the lawn to join it.

‘Where’re Irian and Nighthand?’ said Anya.