Peregrine said, “My brother, I’m not sure that you understand the gravity of the situation here . . .”
The Marquis, who understood the gravity of the situation perfectly, said, “I’m sure these nice people”—he gestured to the shepherd and to the three fur-clad, sharp-faced sheepdog people who were standing about them—“will let me head out of here, leaving you behind. It’s you they want, not me. And I have something extremely important to deliver.”
Peregrine said, “I can handle this.”
“You have to be quiet now,” said the shepherd. He took the strip of tape he had removed from the Marquis’s mouth and pressed it down over Peregrine’s.
The shepherd was shorter than the Marquis, and fatter, and the magnificent coat looked faintly ridiculous on him. “Something important to deliver?” asked the shepherd, brushing dust from his fingers. “What exactly are we talking about here?”
“I am afraid I cannot possibly tell you that,” said the Marquis. “You are, after all, not the intended recipient of this particular diplomatic communiqué.”
“Why not? What’s it say? Who’s it for?”
The Marquis shrugged. His coat was so close that he could have reached out and stroked it. “Only the threat of death could force me even to show it to you,” he said reluctantly.
“Well, that’s easy. I threaten you with death. That’s in addition to the death sentence you’re already under as an apostate member of the flock. And as for laughing boy here”—the shepherd gestured with his crook towards Peregrine, who was not laughing—“he’s tried to steal a member of the flock. That’s a death sentence too, in addition to everything else we’re planning to do to him.”
The shepherd looked at the Elephant. “And, I know I should have asked before, but what in the Auld Witch’s name is this?”
“I am a loyal member of the flock,” said the Elephant, humbly, in his deep voice, and the Marquis wondered if he had himself sounded so soulless and flat when he had been part of the flock. “I have remained loyal and in step even when this one did not.”
“And the flock is grateful for all your hard work,” said the shepherd. He reached out a hand and touched the sharp tip of one Elephantine tusk, experimentally. “I’ve never seen anything like you before, and if I never see another one again it’ll be too soon. Probably best if you die too.”
The Elephant’s ears twitched. “But I am of the flock . . .”
The shepherd looked up into the Elephant’s huge face. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. Then, to the Marquis: “Well? Where is this important letter?”
The Marquis de Carabas said, “It is inside my shirt. I must repeat that it is the most significant document that I have ever been charged to deliver. I must ask you not to look at it. For your own safety.”
The shepherd tugged at the front of the Marquis’s shirt. The buttons flew, and rattled off the walls onto the floor. The letter, in its sandwich bag, was in the pocket inside the shirt.
“This is most unfortunate. I trust you will read it aloud to us before we die,” said the Marquis. “But whether or not you read it to us, I can promise that Peregrine and I will be holding our breath. Won’t we, Peregrine?”
The shepherd opened the sandwich bag, then he looked at the envelope. He ripped it open and pulled a sheet of discolored paper from inside it. Dust came from the envelope as the paper came out. The dust hung in the still air in that dim room.
“ ‘My darling beautiful Drusilla,’ ” read the shepherd, aloud. “ ‘While I know that you do not presently feel about me as I feel about you . . . ’ What is this nonsense?”
The Marquis said nothing. He did not even smile. He was, as he had stated, holding his breath; he was hoping that Peregrine had listened to him; and he was counting, because at that moment counting seemed like the best possible thing that he could do to distract himself from needing to breathe. He would soon need to breathe.
Thirty-five . . . thirty-six . . . thirty-seven . . .
He wondered how long mushroom spores remained in the air.
Forty-three . . . forty-four . . . forty-five . . . forty-six . . .
The shepherd had stopped speaking.
The Marquis took a step backward, fearing a knife in his ribs or teeth in his throat from the rough-furred guard-dog men, but there was nothing. He walked backward, away from the dog-men, and the Elephant.
He saw that Peregrine was also walking backward.
His lungs hurt. His heart was pounding in his temples, pounding almost loudly enough to drown out the thin ringing noise in his ears.
Only when the Marquis’s back was against a bookcase on the wall and he was as far as he could possibly get from the envelope did he allow himself to take a deep breath. He heard Peregrine breathe in too.
There was a stretching noise. Peregrine opened his mouth wide, and the tape dropped to the ground. “What,” asked Peregrine, “was all that about?”
“Our way out of this room, and our way out of Shepherd’s Bush, if I am not mistaken,” said de Carabas. “As I so rarely am. Would you mind unbinding my wrists?”
He felt Peregrine’s hands on his bound hands, and then the bindings fell away. There was a low rumbling. “I’m going to kill somebody,” said the Elephant. “As soon as I figure out who.”
“Whoa, dear heart,” said the Marquis, rubbing his hands together. “You mean whom.” The shepherd and the sheepdogs were taking awkward, experimental steps towards the door. “And I can assure you that you aren’t going to kill anybody, not as long as you want to get home to the Castle safely.”
The Elephant’s trunk swished irritably. “I’m definitely going to kill you.”
The Marquis grinned. “You are going to force me to say pshaw,” he said. “Or fiddlesticks. Until this moment I have never had the slightest yearning to say fiddlesticks.
