Lizard's Leap: chapter Twenty Nine: Of Kings, Keys and Treasure.

Of Keys, Kings and Treasure

Lidlia burst into the kitchen where the children were still talking to Dawdilion, the chef. She licked her finger and wiped a smudge of chocolate cream from Mark’s chin. He rumpled his face in disgust and tried to fight against her, but it was no good, Lidlia had wiped too many chocolatey faces in her time to be defeated by one small boy.

‘Gerroff!’ Mark grumbled.

‘Okay, you’ll do. Good King Luke has summoned you. He’s free to see you right away. Follow me.’

They walked a long way because it was a big castle and they stopped outside a big wooden door that said, “Ye olde Throne Roome.” Lidlia grandly threw open the door and announced them.

‘The four amazing puzzle solvers, Your Majesty.’ She bowed low and edged backwards out of the door.

‘Come, come.’ A high-pitched voice floated towards them. ‘Steppest thou this way, that mine eyes might rest upon thee.’

They walked up the red carpet. The throne was right at the end of a very, very long room. When they saw King Luke they were shocked. He was no older than they were, a boy of twelve or thirteen years old.

‘Hail, travellers,’ he said, discarding the toy Porsche car that he had been driving with his royal fingers up and down the arm of the great red velvet throne. ‘Hast thou come to retrieve my assets?’

Vicki and Kerry curtsied low before him. Mark hopped from foot to foot, and Emma stood and stared at the little boy in the big chair.

‘Eh? What did he say?’ Mark asked, looking puzzled.

‘He said,’ Emma began, ‘Hast thou…, oh heck, I think he means have we come to get his money back for him.’

The King hid a grin beneath his arm. His tunic sleeve was long enough and loose enough and white-ruffed enough to hide not only his grin, but most of the rest of him as well.

‘Where is your money?’ Emma asked, ‘and why can’t you get it yourself?’

‘Oh, Milady. It hast been under locketh and keyeth for many ages. Mine serfs hath been driven down by the score. Mine knights hath failed me. Mine gladiators hath perished. Many hath tried to gain entry to the golden room, but all hath been stricken down and perished.’

‘What’s he saying?’ Mark was even more confused.

‘I think he’s got a lisp, bless him,’ Emma said.

‘I said,’ sighed King Luke, dropping his hasts and thithers and sounding just like any other boy who doesn’t need thees and thous, ‘My treasure’s all locked up and everyone who has tried to get to it has been killed, either by the crocodiles or the Floor of a Thousand Spikes.’

‘I don’t know why you didn’t just say that in the first place,’ Emma said. ‘We might have understood you.’

‘And now,’ King Luke continued, ‘you have come from another land to release my treasure and save the castle from ruin—’

‘Now, wait just a second there, your worship,’ Emma interrupted.

‘It’s Your Majesty,’ cut in Vicki, importantly.
‘Whatever,’ Emma said. ‘You say everybody else who has tried has been killed?’

‘That is so, and in the most bloody of departures, too’

‘Aw,’ Mark said, ‘he swored.’

‘Shut up, Mark, this is important,’ Emma shot at him before tuning back to the king. ‘I’m so sorry not to be of any assistance, but, you see, I’m only ten, and although they don’t know it yet, my grandchildren are planning a big eightieth birthday party for me.’

Now, it was the young king’s turn to look puzzled.

‘Just ignore her,’ Vicki said to the King. ‘She thinks she’s funny. Her mum should never have bought her that joke book for Christmas. She hasn’t been the same since.’

‘Are you saying you won’t help me? You have to help me. It is decreed. You are the four amazing puzzle solvers. Why else would you have come here?’

‘Ah, but…you see, there is a big difference. Solving puzzles has not been life threatening so far. This final puzzle sounds a little bit more complex and dangerous. And, anyway, I couldn’t possibly deny my father the pleasure of paying my way through university.’

The King’s face fell. His smile was gone. His bottom lip had protruded and was in danger of hitting the floor with a thunk.

In short, Good King Luke was sulking. His golden, bejewelled crown, which was too big and too heavy for his head to support, had fallen over one eye. He tried to stamp the floor in temper but as his legs were two feet off solid ground and dangling in mid-air. It just made him look silly.

He clapped his hands twice and shouted loudly, ‘Guards.’

Four men appeared from two doors, one at either side of the throne. They looked funny with their knobbly knees and bright red tights.

‘Guards, take these four prisoners and throw them in the dungeons.’

Kerry looked around in horror. She raised a hand as one of the guards approached to grab her. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.’ she screamed. The King nodded his head to let her have her say. She put her hands on her waist, scowled and stomped up the three steps towards the King. He shrank back in his throne as he saw the look of fury on her face.

‘Go, Kez,’ Vicki wgispered.

Kerry’s long blonde pigtails bounced up and down as her head bobbed in anger. ‘Prisoners? Prisoners?’ she shrieked. ‘I thought we were guests. Do you treat everybody like this? I thought you looked very nice when we came in, but now I can see you’re just a rotten bully. Good King Luke indeed. I think you are Bad King Luke, and if you were my King…well, I’d rather have Henry the Eighth, and he was bad too because, he chopped his wives’ heads off, and there were quite a lot of them.’

‘Who is this Henry the Eighth?’ asked King Luke.

‘Oh, he hasn’t been born yet. But if he ever is born here, you’ll be sorry. If you just asked us nicely to help you, maybe we could see if there was anything we could do, without putting ourselves in danger. But when you threaten to have us thrown in the dungeons…well, it’s not very friendly, is it?’

King Luke hung his head in shame. ‘I’m sorry. Will you help us, please? Without the treasure we have no money to pay the workers, and the castle needs repair, and my mother and father are sick, and the crops are dying, and…’

‘All right, all right,’ Kerry interrupted, softening. ‘We get the idea. Well, we can’t promise anything. But it wouldn’t hurt to talk your problem through with you and see if anything can be done.’

King Luke cheered up and sent the guards away, but only after demanding that they brought chocolate fudge sundaes for everybody.

This pleased Mark especially and he was more than happy to try and help in any way that he could.

Kerry helped King Luke down from the massive throne and they sat round a little table overlooking the Squircle.