The Land of Ingary Trilogy (includes Howl's Moving Castle) by Diana Wynne Jones

Author:Diana Wynne Jones [Diana Wynne Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

In which the law catches up with Abdullah and the soldier

By evening, Abdullah was almost used to Midnight. Unlike Jamal’s dog, she smelt extremely clean, and she was clearly an excellent mother. The only times she dismounted from Abdullah were to feed her kitten. If it had not been for her alarming habit of turning huge at him when he annoyed her, Abdullah felt he could come to tolerate her in time. The kitten, he conceded, was charming. It played with the end of the soldier’s pigtail and tried to chase butterflies – in a wobbly way – when they stopped for lunch. The rest of the day it spent in the front of the soldier’s jacket, peeping eagerly forth at the grass and the trees, and at the fern-lined waterfalls they passed on their way to the plains.

But Abdullah was entirely disgusted at the fuss the soldier made about his new pets when they stopped for the night. They decided to stay in the inn they came to in the first valley, and here the soldier decreed that his cats were to have the best of everything.

The innkeeper and his wife shared Abdullah’s opinion. They were lumpish folk who had, it seemed, been put in a bad mood anyway by the mysterious theft of a crock of milk and a whole salmon that morning. They ran about with dour disapproval, fetching just the right shape of basket and a soft pillow to put in it. They hurried grimly with cream and chicken liver and fish. They grudgingly produced certain herbs which, the soldier declared, prevented canker in the ears. They stormily sent out for other herbs which were supposed to cure a cat of worms. But they were downright incredulous when they were asked to heat water for a bath because the soldier suspected that Whippersnapper had picked up a flea.

Abdullah found himself forced to negotiate. “Oh prince and princess of publicans,” he said, “bear with the eccentricity of my excellent friend. When he says a bath, he means of course a bath for himself and for me. We are both somewhat travel-stained and would welcome clean hot water – for which we will of course pay whatever extra is necessary.”

“What? Me? Bath?” the soldier said, when the innkeeper and his wife had stumped off to put big kettles to boil.

“Yes. You,” said Abdullah. “Or you and your cats and I part company this very evening. The dog of my friend Jamal in Zanzib was scarcely less ripe to the nose than you, oh unwashed warrior, and Whippersnapper, fleas or not, is a good deal cleaner.”

“But what about my princess and your Sultan’s daughter if you leave?” asked the soldier.

“I shall think of something,” said Abdullah. “But I should prefer it if you got into a bath and, if you wish, took Whippersnapper into it with you. That was my aim in asking for it.”

“It weakens you – having baths,” the soldier said dubiously. “But I suppose I could wash Midnight as well while I’m at it.

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