‘Nasal lice!’ Lex spluttered in outrage. ‘You idiot, why the hell didn’t you warn me?’
‘I’m sorry, I thought they’d all gone!’ Lucius cried, wringing his hands hopelessly.
‘Thanks a lot! Thanks a sodding lot, you moron!’
Nasal lice were one of the many reasons that Lex disliked farms. Excluding nostrils, the lice habitat of choice was a special kind of hay of the type used to feed the drayfii. That was why protective clothing was always supposed to be worn when handling the hay. The lice were not dangerous — just exceedingly unpleasant, especially if, like Lex, you had a fetish about being clean. They could lay up to twenty eggs a day but an infestation rarely lasted more than a week. The body had a very efficient, if embarrassing way of getting rid of them. Sudden, violent sneezes. Lex thought of Schmidt and was suddenly even angrier — I daresay I would become accustomed to the lice given time, the lawyer had drawled. So Lex had started life as a farm boy and Schmidt was an expensive lawyer in an expensive suit, but that didn’t mean that Lex wasn’t clean. But now, because of Lucius, he would have to go through several miserable days of feeling dirty again.
‘Why weren’t you wearing the protective suits?’ Lex raged at his twin.
‘I was, but there was a rip down by the leg and I didn’t notice it till afterwards. Look, I’m sorry; I know how much you hate lice, but it will only be for a few days.’
‘Don’t say anything to Schmidt,’ Lex ordered. ‘Not a word!’
After escorting Lucius and Zachary back to the bridge, Lex trailed about the ship looking for the enchanter’s wardrobe. He was sure the rooms moved about. It had been near the bridge before but this time he searched right across to the other side of the ship before he found it.
This room, like the bridge, seemed to be made of ivory. There was a large full-length mirror that took up almost a whole wall and Lex stood and examined his reflection for a while. The hat certainly added to his height. And although it clearly clashed horribly with the rest of his clothes, it did give him something of an impressive appearance. Despite the unease he felt over the enchanter, Lex couldn’t find it in himself to regret putting on the hat. Lex liked power. He craved it in the aftermath of having felt so powerless for so long.
Lucius had tried to keep the special days special — birthdays and so on — but Lex had sneered at him for that. What was the point of dressing Alistair Trent in his best suit and putting out special food and pretending things were normal when it was nothing but a grotesque farce? Lex and Lucius had fallen out about it over the harvest weekend. Lucius had been in the kitchen pouring out three tankards of Grandy, for he couldn’t let his grandfather drink anything with alcohol or caffeine in it now. Alistair had been sitting at the dining-room table waiting patiently for his food, unspeaking. Lex was also sitting at the table waiting but, whilst Lucius was still able to talk to their grandfather by speaking as if to a child, Lex couldn’t do that. At last, unable to take the oppressive silence any longer, Lex had gone into the kitchen to find Lucius.
‘Why are we doing this?’ he’d asked.
‘We always celebrate the harvest,’ Lucius replied, looking up in surprise.
‘But he doesn’t even know what harvest is now, so what the hell is the point? I can’t do this; I’m going out.’
‘Lex!’ Lucius said, and Lex stopped for he had never heard anything even approaching steel in his twin’s voice before. ‘Sit down,’ Lucius said through gritted teeth. ‘I know he doesn’t understand any more. I look after him every day so, believe me, I know! But this isn’t for him, it’s for me. You pretend nothing’s wrong every day so you don’t have to help me. Fine. Okay. But I need this celebration, all right? I’ll pretend everything’s fine today and you can pretend all the other days of the year. Now go back to the table and sit down.’
And Lex had returned to the table, albeit with a certain lack of good grace. But that was in the past. Lex didn’t take orders from his brother now. In fact, he didn’t take orders from anyone. He tilted his head before the mirror, examining his reflection from different angles. The hat suited him. But it was a dangerous thing, he reminded himself. He had no choice but to try and remove it. It was the only responsible thing to do. Responsibility was so boring.
Lex turned in surprise as the door opened behind him. Of everyone onboard he had been the only one brave enough to explore beyond the bridge, so he was not expecting Schmidt to walk in on him.
‘Why aren’t you babysitting Lucius?’ Lex asked.
‘Did you know he was allergic to nuts?’ Schmidt asked.
‘Well, of course,’ Lex said, turning back to the mirror. ‘It’s an allergy we share.’
‘Then why did you let him eat that casserole? Didn’t you know it had nuts in it?’
‘I knew,’ Lex said, smiling. ‘Has his face swelled up yet?’
‘Why do you hate your brother so much?’
‘I don’t hate him. I’m just not favourably inclined towards the constant sound of his voice. Lucius is a chatterbox. The swelling will shut him up,’ Lex said, glancing at Schmidt’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Trust me, I was doing us both a favour. Why did you leave him, anyway?’
‘I’m looking for the kitchen,’ Schmidt said, sounding none-too-happy about it. ‘He said if he didn’t get a glass of water mixed with lemon then he could suffocate.’
‘Oh. Well you don’t seem to be in any great rush. I take it you don’t overly care for my brother’s company, either, if you’re willing to risk liability for his death.’
Schmidt rolled his eyes. ‘Despite what your brother told me, he did not seem to be in any immediate danger. And despite whatever contempt I might feel for you, I don’t seriously believe you to be a cold-blooded killer.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t realise he’d eaten nuts,’ Lex suggested.
‘It seems to me that not much gets past you without your noticing it,’ Schmidt grumbled.
‘Thank you,’ Lex said. ‘Now tell me how to remove the hat.’
‘What makes you think that I have any idea?’ Schmidt said defensively.
‘You knew about the prophet’s bat and the dangers of using the hat. I don’t know where you learnt about those things, but I do know it wasn’t from any law book.’
‘It was a law book,’ Schmidt insisted. ‘I learnt about the bat and the unsuitability of enchanted hats for humans from reading. I have had some strange cases to try over the years and my legal research has sometimes taken me into the realms of the strange and the bizarre.’
Lex gave a slight shrug and tried to pull the hat from his head again, for the look of the thing, before turning back to Schmidt. ‘The enchanter is looking for us. I felt him when I used the hat and he felt me. He is, as we would expect, very angry indeed. You heard the Goddess of Luck earlier. When he catches up with us, which he will do very quickly if I don’t get this hat off, he will not stop to apportion blame, he will simply punish everyone on board his ship and that includes you. He won’t cut you any slack because you’re elderly or because you’re a lawyer or because you’re a Withian citizen. Enchanters are above the law, Monty. We tricked his crone and we stole his ship. You played your part in that even if you played it unwillingly. I know that you know how to remove this hat. I can sense it just as you could sense that I’m a fraud. We’re all at risk whilst I’m wearing it. Tell me how to take it off.’
Schmidt looked at him for a moment, an expression of pure hatred on his face until, making up his mind at last he said, ‘Try holding your breath for twenty seconds.’
Half suspecting that he was being made a fool of, Lex did as Schmidt had suggested. After exactly twenty seconds, the hat fell off.
‘You certainly didn’t get that from any book, Monty,’ Lex said quietly, letting out his breath in relief.
‘Go to hell,’ Schmidt hissed before stalking from the room and slamming the door behind him.
‘Not today,’ Lex murmured softly to himself as he replaced the silver hat back on the rack alongside the others.
The journey on board the enchanted ship continued on the basis of a kind of disgruntled, resentful truce between Lex, Schmidt, Lucius and the ferret. Lucius was exceedingly hurt over the whole nut-allergy affair and somehow managed to bring it up every time he saw Lex — which had not been often over the last few days for Lex spent little of his time on the bridge. He always took care to return at night, though. He knew well enough that the ship was not safe. He really had been joking when he told Lucius that he’d seen ghosts and lost, twisted children down below, but that joke backfired on him when he remembered it late at night and became extremely uncomfortable at the recollection of his own ghost stories.
He had gone out on deck one night with the intention of enjoying the air and the soothing sound of the ship
