Igraine the Brave Read online

  “Completely empty,” added the Fair Melisande, sighing.

  “So what does that mean?” asked Igraine uneasily. She could never remember just what all the magic ingredients were for.

  “We told Albert that jar was empty two months ago,” complained a fat book with a gilded cover. “But he’s so careless. He’ll never get to be a good magician that way.”

  The other books nudged each other and nodded, sneering.

  “Yes, all right, I know. I ought to have gone to find more at once!” Albert gave the books a nasty glance. “But giant’s hairs don’t exactly grow beside every castle moat, do they?”

  “So what exactly does all of this mean?” cried Igraine impatiently.

  Her brother cleared his throat. “Without the giant’s hairs,” he said, “our parents will stay pigs.”

  “No doubt about it,” croaked the smallest book. “Nothing to be done. All over. Finished.”

  “What?” cried Igraine, horrified. “Are you saying I have a couple of pigs for parents from now on?”

  “It’s not all that unpleasant being a pig, honey,” said Melisande, who still had beautiful blue eyes. “So if you don’t mind very much …”

  “Well, not very much,” murmured Igraine, looking down at her parents. Suddenly she just had to smile. “You do look funny,” she said. “Especially you, Papa. But pink suits you.”

  “How kind!” said Sir Lamorak shyly, rubbing his nose against a chair leg.

  “Couldn’t I find some giant’s hairs somewhere?” asked Igraine. “Where did you get them from before?”

  “Oh, there are several giants in these parts,” replied her father. “But it would mean a long ride for you, and these are wild and dangerous times.”

  “Who cares?” Igraine shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve often found you magic ingredients before. I like doing it.”

  “Let’s discuss it later,” said the Fair Melisande. “I think we all need some sleep now. You, too, books. Off you go, back on the shelves.”

  Grumbling, the Books of Magic scrambled up and climbed the narrow ladders to their bookshelves, where they leaned against each other, closed their eyes, and were all snoring fit to bust in a moment. Casting spells is strenuous work, even for Books of Magic.

  “What do you think, Lamorak?” whispered Melisande. “Would we be more comfortable in the stables or downstairs in front of the hearth?”

  “I’d prefer the stables,” replied Sir Lamorak quietly, and yawned, which looks rather odd in a pig.

  So Albert and Igraine took their parents to the stables, made them a comfortable bed of clean straw, and then left them alone — with the horses, who looked disapproving when they saw their new companions, and foolish when the pigs began talking in their owners’ voices.

  6

  When Igraine opened her eyes on her twelfth birthday, Sisyphus was sitting on her stomach. He mewed, “Many happy returns!” and deposited a dead fish on her forehead.

  “Oh, thank you, Sisyphus!” she murmured sleepily, although she thought his present was rather nasty.

  “Don’t mention it,” purred the tomcat. “Breakfast in the magic workshop.” Then he padded away.

  “I’ll soon know what my present is!” murmured Igraine. “Soon, soon, soon!” And she was so excited that she could hardly do up the buttons of her silly dress. She always wore a dress on birthdays, in honor of the day and because her father liked making magic dresses for her. Her father! For a moment Igraine had quite forgotten that her parents had curly tails now. I’ll go and get those giant’s hairs tomorrow, she thought, yes, that’s what I’ll do. But now she just had to see her present. What luck it hadn’t turned into a pig, too!

  Birthday breakfasts were always in the workshop, because the Books of Magic liked to watch presents being unwrapped.

  “Happy birthday, Igraine, happy birthday to you!” they all chanted as she opened the door. Igraine was fond of the books, though they thought rather too highly of their magic powers and insisted on being dusted every Wednesday and Saturday. They really could work wonderful magic if an experienced magician used them, one who had the necessary ingredients, could decipher the mysterious writing on their pages, and had passed at least Grade Seven of the magic exams. It was said that almost a hundred years ago, two of Igraine’s great-great-uncles had exploded when they tried using the books after passing only Grade Three!

  Albert was wearing his golden magic coat, as he always did on special occasions, and he had cast a spell to give his mice red spots on their gray fur. Sisyphus looked hungrily at them, but of course he wouldn’t touch so much as the tip of a tail for fear of Albert. Igraine’s parents wore necklaces of sugar hearts around their piggy necks, and the books sat on their shelves, threw confetti down on Igraine, and sang in high voices:

  Happy birthday, dear Igraine.

  Waiting was a dreadful pain.

  Everything today’s for you,

  Birthday cake and presents, too.

  “Oh, thank you!” cried Igraine. “Thank you, books!”

  A wonderful birthday breakfast was laid out on the carpet, with a birthday cake, pancakes, waffles, scrambled eggs, and cat biscuits for Sisyphus.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” said Sir Lamorak, trotting over to his daughter on his pink piggy legs. “Pigs aren’t good at sitting on chairs. Your mother and I tried it this morning, and it just doesn’t work. So I’m afraid we must have your birthday breakfast on the carpet this year.”

  “Oh, I like it there,” said Igraine, kneeling down on the floor.

  Albert bowed to her and put a big parcel into her arms. “Here you are, sister dear. From Father, Mother, me, and the Singing Books.”

  The parcel weighed very little for its size, and the red wrapping paper smelled of roses when she undid it. Her parents poked their snouts expectantly over her shoulders, and the Books of Magic leaned so far forward that one of them fell off its shelf and landed in the cat biscuits.

  Inside the parcel there was a suit of armor — a wonderful, shimmering silver suit of armor, with a helmet that had a white bird spreading its wings on the crest. Its long tail was made of peacock feathers, and when Igraine carefully put the helmet on, she was amazed to find that it was hardly any heavier than the plumed tail itself. The whole suit of armor weighed so little that it seemed to be made of nothing but light and air. And when Igraine climbed cautiously into it, the metal fit her like a second skin.

  “Well, do you like it?” asked her mother, who still had a few blades of straw stuck among her bristles from her night in the stables.

  “Oh, it’s wonderful!” breathed Igraine. “Truly, truly, truly wonderful.”

  The Books of Magic chuckled and applauded each other.

  “And it will grow with you,” said Sir Lamorak, scratching his ear with his back trotter. He did it very elegantly now, although he’d been a pig for just one night.

  “That’s right,” said Albert happily. “We cast spells so that it will still fit you if you ever get to be tall and fat.”

  Igraine stroked the shining suit and smiled.

  “And nothing can get through it,” said her father proudly. “Nothing at all. Even lances will bounce back from this armor. It’s supposed to be waterproof, too … at least, the books say so.”

  “And then we wanted to give it a pink glow.” Melisande sighed, and wrinkled her black piggy nose. “We thought that would be really pretty. So I said:

  Silver be this armor fine,

  With a pink and rosy …!

  “… swine,” said Albert. “Mama went and said ‘swine’ instead of ‘shine.’ And then it happened. Father turned into a pink pig. But why Mother turned into a pig, too, and a black one at that, while nothing happened to me, is more than we can explain.”

  “That’s magic for you,” said Igraine, striding up and down in her birthday present. Nothing about it clinked, nothing squeaked. Magic did have its advantages. “I’ll wear it tomorrow when I ride off to find the giant,” she said.
“Or do you think I’d better set out today?”

  “No, no!” cried her parents. “Definitely not. Today we’re celebrating your birthday.”

  “And anyway,” added Sir Lamorak, “your mother and I are still wondering whether it isn’t too dangerous a task for you. Perhaps we ought to go ourselves.”

  “Nonsense,” said Igraine. “Running around in the wilderness is much more dangerous for pigs. Someone might catch and eat you! No, I’m going, and that’s that. Which giant should I ask for some of his hairs? As far as I know, there’s one in the hills in the west, and another who lives beyond the Whispering Woods.”

  “Garleff is the friendliest; he’s the giant in the west,” replied Sir Lamorak, trying to get his pink snout into the milk jug. “The giant beyond the forest is too fond of catching humans and giving them to his children to play with. Anyway, his hair is more brown than red.”

  “Yes, if you do go, ride to Garleff,” agreed the Fair Melisande. “Your father charmed away a nasty rash he had a few years ago. Giants don’t forget that kind of thing, not for ages. They’re very grateful creatures.”

  “What about me?” Albert passed his curly-tailed parents the birthday cake. He sounded rather injured. “I’m older than Igraine, and I’m a considerably better magician. Why can’t I go and get the hairs?”

  Igraine was greatly tempted to stick her tongue out at him.

  “Because your sister rides considerably better than you do,” replied the Fair Melisande. “I’m afraid you take after your great-grandfather Pelleas. And as we all know, he always fell off his horse at the wrong time.”

  “And in addition to that,” said Sir Lamorak, smacking his lips — obviously the cake tasted good to pigs as well as to people — “in addition to that, my boy, we may need your magic arts here in the near future.”

  Albert looked at his father in surprise. “Why?”

  “For the same reason that forces us to let Igraine go on this mission alone,” replied Sir Lamorak. “I confess that under these slightly changed circumstances the news our dear friend Bertram brought makes me a little anxious. Suppose this Osmund really does turn up here soon? To be sure, Pimpernel Castle can defend itself. The lions will roar, the gargoyles will swallow any missiles. And the magic of the moat will certainly work, too. None of that, however, will be enough if Osmund attacks the castle with a large army.”

  “But you can simply magic the army away!” cried Albert. “You can turn all the soldiers into ants or wood lice if you want to.”

  The two pigs exchanged gloomy glances.

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” said Sir Lamorak. “Your mother and I have found out that, now we’re pigs, we can’t work magic at all.”

  “What?” Now it was Igraine and Albert who looked anxious.

  “Not the least little scrap of magic,” said the Fair Melisande. “That’s why we need those giant’s hairs as soon as possible, and you, Albert, will have to defend the castle until we can cast spells again.”

  Up on their shelves, the Singing Books groaned.

  “Luckily we’d made the birthday breakfast in advance, or else …” Sir Lamorak fell silent, but Igraine ended his sentence for him.

  “Or else breakfast would have been blue eggs and dry biscuits this morning.”

  Albert went as red as a beetroot. “All right, all right, little sister, I’m working on it!”

  “You’d better,” said Igraine, standing up. “But anyway, that settles one thing. I must set off today. In fact, at once.”

  “No, no, no!” grunted her father, shaking his pink ears energetically. “Out of the question. We’re celebrating your birthday today. Tomorrow’s soon enough to decide whether you really do go to find the giant. I still don’t like the idea. You’d most likely be back within four days on your pony, but then again it probably wouldn’t take your mother and me more than a week. At least, so I assume,” he added, looking doubtfully at his pink trotters. “I don’t have the faintest idea how good pigs are at hiking. But in any case, it would be the devil’s own luck if Osmund arrived with his men before we’re rid of our curly tails.”

  Sometimes, however, the devil does have all the luck. Then it’s just one thing after another. And troubles seldom come alone.

  7

  Osmund came the very next morning.

  Mist still hung over the meadows, and Igraine was saddling her pony while Sisyphus rubbed uneasily around her legs. Albert was sitting astride one of the stone lions, cleaning dove droppings out of its eyes. He almost fell off its back when it roared in alarm.

  “Oh, hang it!” he said angrily. “Are you up to your old tricks again? There’s no excuse this time!”

  Igraine raced up the flight of steps as fast as she could, but Sisyphus slipped between her legs and was up on the wall first.

  “Albert, get off that lion!” called Igraine once she had looked over the battlements, but her brother was already hiding behind them.

  Horsemen emerged from the mist in the east. Horsemen in gray armor. They were riding toward Pimpernel Castle.

  “Sisyphus, go and fetch our parents!” Igraine whispered. “Quick! They’re still in the stables.”

  Sisyphus shot away as if a pack of wolves were after him.

  “What do you bet it’s our new neighbor, little sister?” asked Albert in a low voice.

  Igraine didn’t answer.

  For where but Darkrock could the horsemen be coming from? There were a great many of them, so many that Igraine soon lost count. A fat man in a black cloak rode at the head of the troop, with a gigantic knight following him. The strange banner that Igraine had seen flying from the towers of Darkrock was fluttering from his lance.

  “A visit from the neighbors?” Igraine’s father was badly out of breath after climbing the steep steps to the battlements on his piggy legs.

  “Goodness me, this looks like trouble, my dear,” said Melisande, pushing her snout above the wall. Sisyphus jumped up on the battlements, his tail raised high, and hissed at the visitors below.

  The horsemen were coming closer and closer. The cold morning air was filled with the clanking of their weapons and armor. They were hardly a horse’s length from the castle moat when their stout leader reined in his mount and raised his gloved hand. His men swarmed forward, taking their horses up to the moat until they surrounded it like a wall, leaving only a space in front of the drawbridge for their master and the knight with the lance. The knight’s armor looked exactly as Bertram had described it; it was covered from his neck to his greaves with iron spikes. Even his helmet was as prickly as a sweet chestnut husk.

  When Osmund (for who else could the leader be?) took up his position in front of the drawbridge, the Spiky Knight followed and planted his lance on the ground between himself and his master.

  The lions were still roaring, but when Albert snapped his fingers they stopped.

  “Hide!” Igraine whispered urgently to the two pigs. Her parents hesitated, but finally stuck their heads under Albert’s magic coat. Meanwhile Igraine climbed up on the battlements. Luckily she’d put on her new armor when she got up that morning.

  “Who are you?” she called down as loudly as she could. “And what do you want?”

  The Spiky Knight opened his visor and looked up at her. His face was white as snow.

  “I am the castellan of Osmund the Magnificent!” he called across the marshy water. “Osmund is the new master of Darkrock Castle, and he presents his compliments to his neighbors at Pimpernel.”

  “How kind!” Igraine called down. “Same to him. And now you can all ride home again.”

  “Hush, Igraine!” hissed Albert. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  Igraine pressed her lips together and kept quiet, hard as that was.

  The horses were snorting uneasily. They could scent the water snakes. But the Spiky Knight forced his own mount closer to the moat.

  “The noble Osmund didn’t come to bandy words with children!” he called up to
Igraine. “Especially not with an impertinent minx like you. Take a look at that!” he told his men. “Here’s a castle where they put little girls in armor. They really scare us, don’t they?”

  The horsemen gave such a loud roar of laughter that the water snakes lifted their heads out of the water. Whinnying, the horses reared. Five men fell headfirst into the moat and disappeared beneath the water lilies. The Spiky Knight angrily signaled to his men to pull them out, but however hard they looked, their companions had disappeared, armor, swords, pennants, and all.

  “The moat magic still works all right!” whispered Albert.

  “That’s good news!” the Fair Melisande whispered back. “The sheer nastiness of this Osmund and his castellan is getting up my nose like the stink of sulphur!”

  “Hey, you down there, you can save yourselves the trouble of searching!” Igraine put her hands on her hips. “Anyone who falls into our moat turns into a fish. But don’t worry, I’ve already fed the water snakes today.”

  Osmund’s men were getting restless. But when their master cast a menacing glance all around, they fell perfectly silent again.

  “That’s enough silly children’s talk!” cried Osmund. His voice sounded like the growling of a fat tomcat, and his black cloak billowed out in the wind. “Where are the enchantress Melisande and her husband, Lamorak? Is this your idea of hospitality, turning brave men into fish?”

  “Talks big, doesn’t he?” murmured Albert. “I don’t think I like him one little bit.”

  “Can’t you turn him into a wood louse or a fat frog?” whispered Igraine, without taking her eyes off Osmund.

  “Answer the noble Osmund, you little toad in armor!” bellowed the Spiky Knight. “Where are your parents, the enchanters Melisande and Lamorak?”

  “Not at home!” Igraine shouted back. “But you can always come back next week and try again.”

  Osmund obviously didn’t care for this information at all. “Listen to me, little girl!” he called back menacingly. “I don’t care where your parents are. Tell them that I want their Singing Books of Magic! I’m ready to pay whatever you and your skinny beanpole of a brother weigh in gold. But if they turn down this extremely generous offer,” he added, drawing his sword and laying it across his knees, “I’ll be back with an army, to tear down this miserable castle stone by stone. And no magic in the world will prevent me from taking the books by force. Will you tell them that?”