‘I mean what I say, and what I say is exactly what I do not mean,’ Oslo bellowed. ‘Now, before we begin, I have a test to conduct.’
The children waited in horror, wondering what kind of test Oslo had in mind.
‘Who can tell me,’ he began, pacing up and down like a general, ‘what to do if a man slights you?’
Encouraged by her recent successes, it was Harrietta Hapless’s hand that went up. ‘You ignore him and walk away?’ she suggested.
‘Wrong!’ Oslo roared. ‘You disembowel him. What do you do if a thief thieves from you?’
‘You report him to the nearest authority?’ Ernest proposed, starting to enjoy himself a little now.
‘Incorrect!’ Oslo snorted. ‘You cut off his hands. What means of action is appropriate if someone blows their nose in your direction?’
‘Offer them a hanky,’ someone called out.
‘Excellent!’ Oslo yelled. ‘Then smother them to death with it!’
‘Are you saying that no matter what a person does, they deserve to be punished by death or dismemberment?’ Milli challenged.
‘Did I mention that inquisitiveness is also punishable by death?’ Oslo said, glaring at her.
‘This is preposterous. We need to speak to someone in charge.’
If Gummy’s attempts at military behaviour had previously amused Oslo, Milli’s snappish demand nearly made him split his sides with laughter. After recovering his breath he was finally able to speak.
‘Dinner is in exactly half an hour,’ he said in between renewed fits of laughter. ‘You may use the time between now and then to settle in.’
He stumbled off, still holding his sides and repeating Milli’s last words to himself.
Murmurs of dismay broke out immediately after Oslo’s departure and the children scattered in various directions. Milli and Ernest headed for the huts. They entered a long rectangular building that was lined with rows of bunk beds, each with a straw mattress and a grey army blanket. A paper bag at the end of each bunk contained some meagre personal items: a metal comb, a rough tunic, a pair of army boots and a jar of hair-removal cream, which caused some bafflement.
‘I think ancient gladiators preferred their bodies hairless,’ a voice behind them stated. Milli and Ernest turned to find Finn and Fennel standing there. Still in their circus costumes, the twins looked conspicuous in the grim surroundings of the camp. Finn wore his usual hard and ‘prepared for anything’ expression while Fennel’s face was crumpled with worry. Milli’s apprehension swelled to anger. ‘You tricked us!’ she accused the twins. ‘You knew this was going to happen and you didn’t warn us!’
‘We were trying to help,’ Finn responded in an injured tone.
‘It was all we could think to do,’ Fennel added, her blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘We knew we couldn’t stop Lampo, but we thought we might save you.’
Milli found her anger somewhat dissipated by Fennel’s distress, which seemed quite genuine, and the four of them slumped onto the floor to discuss their predicament.
‘Can you at least tell us what’s going on and where we are?’ Ernest asked with an imploring look.
‘Well, you’re a long way from Drabville,’ Finn said. ‘Have you ever heard speak of the Conjurors’ Realm? That’s where we are.’
Milli and Ernest froze in horror. They needed no further explanation. Immediately their thoughts raced back to their imprisonment in Hog House and everything they had learnt there about the Conjurors’ Realm. How naive of them to have believed they could be free of Lord Aldor and his accomplices so easily. And this time they had travelled right into the heart of his domain. Escape might not just be tricky, but impossible.
‘You don’t mean to say that you live here?’ asked an incredulous Milli. The twins’ silence indicated an affirmative reply.
‘It wasn’t always such a terrible place,’ Fennel said. ‘Not originally anyway. We were very young when things started to go bad.’
Finn sighed and exchanged a glance with his sister.
‘I suppose you’d better hear it from the beginning,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty we don’t know, mind you, but maybe our story will help you to understand things a bit better.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Fennel and I used to live with our parents in the hills outside Runis, the main town in the province of Rune. We were a proper family and did everything together. The only thing our parents refused to include us in was their weekly meeting with our neighbours where they discussed the leader of the Realm who was greedy and wanted everything for himself. We listened at the door once and heard them talk about the horrible things he’d done and how they intended to try and stop him.’
Finn’s voice caught suddenly. He bit his lower lip and looked at his feet. Fennel patted his arm and continued.
‘Soon after we came home to find our house in ruins and our parents gone,’ she whispered. ‘There were two cloaked men waiting for us who called themselves members of the Inquisition. They took us to Lampo and we’ve been with him ever since.’
‘It’s my job to look after Fennel,’ Finn told them. ‘We haven’t got anyone else to rely on. You don’t find many friendly faces in the Realm these days.’
‘I’m sorry about your parents,’ Milli said quietly, ‘and that things have been so hard for you.’
Fennel nodded gratefully and went on with the story. ‘We worked as servants for Lampo and Bombasta, until they cooked up this awful scheme of tricking the town of Drabville. We couldn’t think how to stop them.’
‘But why would they do that?’ Ernest asked. ‘Surely you must know something.’
There was a desperate edge to his voice but Finn and Fennel just shook their heads.
‘We know only that a war is coming and we must prepare for it,’ Finn said.
‘Whose war? What does any of that have to do with us?’
The twins, distressed at their inability to elucidate further, looked at the children helplessly.
‘This is making no sense at all,’ Ernest said. ‘I thought you two were acrobats in the Lampo Circus.’
‘Don’t you see?’ wailed Fennel. ‘The circus was just a front.’
‘A front for what?’
‘We’re not sure. All we know is that trouble is brewing, and something tells me we’re right in the middle of it,’ Finn said.
‘Lampo wouldn’t kidnap hundreds of children just for fun,’ Milli muttered.
‘We’re as much in the dark as you are,’ said Finn. ‘No one is allowed to ask questions, remember? But Lampo and Oslo are part of whatever is happening.’
‘Please don’t put Oslo off side or we’ll all pay for it,’ Fennel pleaded.
‘Who is this Oslo, anyway?’ Milli retorted hotly. ‘Seems like nothing but a big bully to me.’
‘He’s a trained gladiator hired by Lampo,’ said Finn.
‘Why isn’t he fighting hungry lions or doing gladiator things then?’
‘Apparently he gets light-headed at the sight ofblood,’ Finn explained,’ so he’s been reassigned to other duties.’
Milli scowled. ‘Gladiators don’t even really exist any more.’
‘Do us all a favour—don’t tell him that,’ was Finn’s advice.
(What Finn proposed was good advice indeed. In my experience, people generally, whatever their profession, do not appreciate being reminded of their shortcomings. But this is especially true in the case of unsuccessful gladiators. Those who prosper in this industry—which is fiercely competitive and very hard to break into—usually find it a short-lived career. Those who do not prosper often turn to child or aged care as an alternative source of income whilst they wait for their talents to be discovered or their fears to disappear through expensive and protracted therapy. Oslo, as it happened, was extremely thin-skinned about his sensitivity to butchery and did his utmost to make up for it by being the most barbaric disciplinarian possible.)
Any further conversation was cut short by a speaker on the wall suddenly crackling to li
fe.
‘All recruits are required in the mess hall for dinner. That is, all weaklings to the mess hall immediately,’ instructed an expressionless voice a little like the one you might hear in the supermarket when the cashier scanning your items calls for assistance.
Feeling even more unnerved than before, Milli and Ernest joined the other children as they made their way to dinner. The mess hall was a long room that smelled of boiled cabbage and school camp. Spider webs hung from the beams of the ceiling. The only furniture was medieval-looking trestle tables with rough benches to sit on. At the servery were stacked wooden bowls and cups, which the children were required to collect on trays before lining up at the counter. Here the food was doled out in sloppy and shapeless portions by the kitchen staff. They were elderly matrons with scabby scalps and dirty fingernails, and Ernest’s first instinct was to report them to the Department of Sanitation before he remembered where he was.
Think of the most nauseating things your parents have expected you to eat in the name of good health: steamed Brussels sprouts, slimy salmon steaks or the brown pulp they call lentil soup? Well, the food the children were about to be served made these things look scrumptious. We all know the components of a healthy diet are vegetables (however green and smelly they may be), legumes (although they are generally brown and look like rat droppings), carbohydrates (despite being boring and plain) and protein. Alas for the children of Battalion Minor, protein was the only element Oslo considered important, as it built muscle. First came a thick and purplish slab of undercooked meat which the kitchen staff called Rhino Rump. It arrived swimming in its own juice and was as chewy as old octopus. It was accompanied by a serve of baked potatoes so ancient they had sprouted tentacles. Then came a plate of what looked like pancakes rolled into cylinders, although the children had never seen grey pancakes before. They looked coarse and rubbery in texture and had a peculiar smell like the plains of Africa, if anyone knew what these smelled like.
‘Excuse me,’ Ernest asked of one of the kitchen ladies, ‘what is this?’
‘Crepes au Elephant Ear,’ she replied as she scratched a sweaty armpit and slapped down another serving.
Lastly, and quite possibly the most horrendous of all the dishes, was a circular fillet of python in what Gummy Grumbleguts identified as tartare sauce. Some of the scales were still attached and stuck between the children’s teeth as they ate, for eat they must as it was the sensible thing to do under the circumstances. Who knew what strength they might need to deal with tomorrow’s challenges? Gruesome as the meals appeared, everyone agreed that starvation was far worse a prospect.
Their only beverage was a frothy protein-enriched drink called Yolk Wine, which combined egg yolk with the juice of muscat grapes.
When the repulsive repast came to an end, Oslo immediately ordered the troops to bed. Ernest begged for some toothpicks from the kitchen ladies, as the idea of going to sleep without flossing was absolutely abhorrent to him. The barracks were as cold as igloos when the children returned to them. They gathered their blankets and mattresses and decided to huddle together on the floor to keep warm. Finn and Fennel curled up together like two little peas in a pod. So chilly was the night that Ernest, much to his horror, found himself snuggling up to Gummy Grumbleguts. Gummy had much the same effect as sitting on a radiator, his body gave off so much heat. He wrapped an arm comfortingly around Ernest.
There on the floor of the barracks, the children lay and waited for morning. Sleep was fitful and many remained awake well after midnight. But the human mind, as we know, is a complex organism. There are only so many hours it will allow you to contemplate the unfathomable before switching off like a mobile phone when the battery has run low. When this happens, there is not much you can do about it. Eventually, the children stopped both thinking and crying and fell into an exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
A Soldier’s Life
Milli woke to a snuffling in her hair and something like a moist sponge nudging her cheek. She opened one eye to see the face of a large Alsatian looking down at her. In her state of semi-wakefulness Milli mistook the dog for Stench, rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. But the dog whipped her blanket off, pawing and barking at her until she had no choice but to get up.
She looked around to see other dogs bounding on beds and shaking the rest of the children awake. It wasn’t long before they had roused the whole barracks. When everybody had struggled to their feet, the deadpan voice crackled through the speaker again.
‘Rise and shine! It is currently one minute past five and just after Question Time. All new recruits are to report immediately to the mess hall. I repeat, all recruits to the mess hall immediately.’
A ghastly serving of Kransky sausages and watery gruel awaited them at breakfast. For those of you who do not know, Kranskies are a type of Russian sausage the width of a baseball bat and dotted with lumps of fat the size of golf balls. Kranskies are stodgy food at the best of times, let alone first thing in the morning. When the children emerged from the mess hall after picking at their breakfast, a fired-up Oslo was waiting for them on horseback.
‘Today’s program,’ he began, projecting his voice as if the children were miles away instead of standing right in front of him, ‘will start with a morning drill. Camp duties will follow and I have put a rostrum up in the hall.’
‘What’s a rostrum?’ Milli muttered under her breath.
‘He means roster,’ Ernest said.
Oslo looked down at his palm a few times while speaking, and some of the more alert children saw he had jotted down key points he wanted to make in case they slipped his mind. Oslo’s speech was made funnier by his emphatic pause each time he used a word intended to impress.
‘You have been aligned [assigned]…teams that will be responsible for the upheave [upkeep]…of different areas. Kitchen staff will issue you with sandy [sundry]…cleaning equipment. At precisely ten o’clock there will be an inspection of the troops. I expect you to make a favourable impression. When the officious [official]…party arrives, be sure to stand to attention and do not speak unless spoken to. Your real training will begin after this. Now, displace [disperse]!’
The children cleared tables, swept floors and washed undergarments by pounding them with a stone in one of the troughs. Then came a disorderly session of formal marching. Oslo put them through a series of routines that required them to straighten their shoulders and lift their knees until they were almost level with their chests. They were required to lie on their backs and kick their legs from side to side as an exercise for developing ‘burly buttocks’. Eighty star jumps were performed for ‘steely sinews’; sixty push-ups for ‘formidable forearms’; and one hundred and twenty sit-ups for ‘murderous midriffs’. They were then required to spin around in circles for apparently no purpose at all until Oslo made some reference to the importance of balance on the battlefield.
Oslo himself spent the entire time on horseback, hurling invectives rather than incentives at them. It is not easy to achieve optimum performance with your trainer addressing you as: puny slugs, puking midgets, bumbling sparrows, cream puffs, prissy princesses, candy-sucking ballerinas, mollycoddled measles or dimwits in diapers.
It was close to ten when the warm-up and abuse were finally over. Most of the children collapsed to the ground, only to be ordered up again by an unsympathetic Oslo and made to assemble in rows for the formal inspection.
‘Feet together, shoulders back, tidy that hair, straighten your tunics!’
If Milli wasn’t mistaken, Oslo seemed a little agitated. Obviously his reputation rested on the impression they created.
When the official party arrived, the children recognised two figures they now knew to completely mistrust. Federico Lampo, in full ringmaster uniform and still holding his whip, strode past them accompanied by a huge woman at least a foot taller than him and possibly ten years his senior. Her detestation of children was so palpable in her expression that it made their skin pric
kle just to lay eyes on her. This woman, I am sorry to inform you, was the sort of female who if you were a Nubian goat would make you want to chomp your way through an entire fence in order to avoid her, if you were a panther to climb the highest tree to literally save your skin, and if you were a caterpillar to do your darndest to transform prematurely into a butterfly so as to flutter as far away from her as possible. Alas, she was the Contessa Augusta Bombasta, the personage Lampo had introduced at the start of the ill-fated matinee performance.
The Contessa sneered down at the children. The miniature dog in the crook of her arm gnashed its tiny teeth and the little fur that was left on its shorn body stood on end. Bombasta’s pooch was as pink as a piglet except for the bits of fur left as booties on its feet and the pom-pom on its tail. With its narrow snout and spindly legs, it looked more like an oversized rat than any canine species. Its toenails had been French manicured and the name Muffy-Boo was spelt out in diamantes on a purple collar around its neck. The Contessa sang to the pooch in sugary tones:
Muffy-Boo, don’t feel blue
Mama will find you things to chew.
Muffy-Boo, where are you?
Fancy a game of peekaboo?
Perhaps it was as a result of this kind of pampering that Muffy-Boo had become delusional about both his size and ferocity. He seemed to think he possessed the same capabilities as a guard dog and instead of scolding him when he growled (as any responsible pet owner would do) Bombasta did everything to encourage and incite hostility in the creature.
‘That’s the way, mash them to a pulp, Muffy-Boo,’ she cooed. ‘Go for the jugular.’
With Lampo trotting effeminately beside her, Bombasta conducted an inspection of the troops. She walked importantly down the rows, chatting casually with Oslo as she went. When Bombasta spoke she had a habit of drawling out syllables so that her sentences took twice as long to say. It was as though she believed she had all the time in the world to while away as she chose.