The Pinhoe Egg

“Mr Vastion, then,” said Chrestomanci.

Cat could not bear to think of anything so beautiful and so much alive as Syracuse being turned into dog meat. “Can I have him?” he said.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Syracuse.

“You want the vet?” Chrestomanci said.

“No, Syracuse,” said Cat.

“On your head be it then.” Chrestomanci shrugged and turned to help Julia down off the roof.

Cat found he owned a horse – just like that. Since everyone seemed to expect him to, he approached Syracuse and tried to remember the way Joss had told Julia to do things. He got his foot stretched up into the correct stirrup, collected the reins from Joss and jumped himself vigorously up into the saddle. He would not have been surprised to find himself facing Syracuse’s tail. Instead, he found himself looking forwards across a pair of large, lively ears beyond a tossing black mane, into Julia’s tearful face.

“Oh, this is just not fair!” Julia said.

Cat knew what she meant. As soon as he was in the saddle, a peculiar kind of magic happened, which was quite unlike the magic Cat usually dealt in. He knew just what to do. He knew how to adjust his weight and how to use every muscle in his body. He knew almost exactly how Syracuse felt – which was surprise, and triumph at having got the right rider at last – and just what Syracuse wanted to do. Together, like one animal that happened to be in two parts, they surged off across the yard, with Joss Callow in urgent pursuit, and through the open paddock gate. There Syracuse broke into a glad canter. It was the most wonderful feeling Cat had ever known.

It lasted about five minutes and then Cat fell off. This was not Syracuse’s fault. It was simply because muscles and bones that Cat had never much used before started first to ache, then to scream, and then gave up altogether. Syracuse was desperately anxious about it and stood over Cat nosing him, until Joss Callow raced up and seized the reins. Cat tried to explain to him.

“I see that,” Joss said. “There must be some other world where you and this horse are the two parts of a centaur.”

“I don’t think so,” Cat said. He levered himself up off the grass like an old, old man. “They say I’m the only one there is in any world.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot,” said Joss. “That’s why you’re a nine-lifer like the Big Man.” He always called Chrestomanci the Big Man.

“Congratulations,” Chrestomanci called out, leaning on the gate beside Julia. “It saves you having to teleport, I suppose.”

Julia added, rather vengefully, “Remember you have to do the mucking out now.” Then she smiled, a sighing, relieved sort of smile, and said, “Congratulations, too.”

Chapter Five (#ulink_2c07307b-d14c-5361-b16c-40fc4e9b2372)

Cat ached all over that afternoon. He sat on his bed in his round turret room wondering what kind of magic might stop his legs and his behind and his back aching. Or one part of him anyway. He had decided that he would make himself numb from the neck down and was wondering what the best way was to do it, when there was a knock at his door. Thinking it must be Roger being more than usually polite, Cat said, “I’m here, but I’m performing nameless rites. Enter at your peril.”

There was a feeling of hesitation outside the door. Then, very slowly and cautiously, the handle turned and the door was pushed open. A sulky-looking boy about Roger’s age, wearing a smart blue uniform, stood there staring at him. “Eric Chant, are you?” this boy said.

Cat said, “Yes. Who are you?”

“Joe Pinhoe,” said the boy. “Temporary boot boy.”

“Oh.” Now Cat thought about it, he had seen this boy out in the stableyard once or twice, talking to Joss Callow. “What do you want?”

Joe’s head hunched. It was from embarrassment, Cat saw, but it made Joe look hostile and aggressive. Cat knew all about this. He had mulish times himself, quite often. He waited. At length Joe said, “Just to take a look at you really. Enchanter, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” Cat said.

“You don’t look big enough,” Joe said.

Cat was thoroughly annoyed. His aching bones didn’t help, but mostly he was simply fed up at the way everyone seemed to think he was too little. “You want me to prove it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Joe.

Cat cast about in his mind for something he could do. Quite apart from the fact that Cat was forbidden to work magic in the Castle, Joe had the look of someone who wouldn’t easily be impressed. Most of the small, simple things Cat thought he could get away with doing without Chrestomanci noticing were, he was sure, things that Joe would call tricks or illusions. Still, Cat was annoyed enough to want to do something. He braced his sore legs against his bed and sent Joe up to the very middle of the room’s round ceiling.

It was interesting. After an instant of total astonishment, when he found himself aloft with his uniformed legs dangling, Joe began casting a spell to bring himself down. It was quite a good spell. It would have worked if it had been Roger and not Cat who had put Joe up there.

Cat grinned. “You won’t get down that way,” he said, and he stuck Joe to the ceiling.

Joe wriggled his shoulders and kicked his legs. “Bet I can get down somehow,” he said. “It must take you a lot of effort doing this.”

“No it doesn’t,” Cat said. “And I can do this too.” He slid Joe gently across the ceiling towards the windows. When Joe was dangling just above the largest window, Cat made the window spring open and began lowering Joe towards it.

Joe laughed in that hearty way you do when you are very nervous indeed. “All right. I believe you. You needn’t drop me out.”

Cat laughed too. “I wouldn’t drop you. I’d levitate you into a tree. Haven’t you ever wanted to fly?”

Joe stopped laughing and wriggling. “Haven’t I just!” he said. “But my family says boys can’t use broomsticks. Go on. Fly me down to the village. I dare you.”

“Er – hem,” said someone in the doorway.

Both of them looked round to find Chrestomanci standing there. It was one of those times when he seemed so tall that he might have been staring straight into Joe’s face, and Joe at that moment was a good fifteen feet in the air.

“I think,” Chrestomanci said, “that you must achieve your ambition to fly by some other means, young man. Eric is strictly forbidden to perform magic inside the Castle. Aren’t you, Cat?”

“Er — ” said Cat.

Joe, very white in the face, said, “It wasn’t his fault – er – sir. I told him to prove he was an enchanter, see.”

“Does it need proving?” Chrestomanci asked.

“It does to me,” Joe said. “Being new here and all. I mean, look at him. Do you think he looks like an enchanter?”

Chrestomanci turned his face meditatively down to Cat. “They come in all shapes and sizes,” he said. “In Cat’s case, eight other people just like him either failed to get born in the other worlds of our series, or they died at birth. Most of them would probably have been enchanters too. Cat has nine people’s magic.”

“Sort of squidged together. I get you,” Joe said. “No wonder it’s this strong.”

“Yes. Well. This vexed matter being settled,” Chrestomanci said, “perhaps, Eric, you would be so good as to fetch our friend down so that he can go about his lawful business.”

Cat grinned up at Joe and lowered him gently to the carpet.

“Off you go,” Chrestomanci said to him.

“You mean you’re not going to give me the sack?” Joe asked incredulously.

“Do you want to be sacked?” Chrestomanci said.

“Yes,” said Joe.

“In that case, I imagine it will be punishment enough to you to be allowed to keep your doubtless very boring job,” Chrestomanci told him. “Now please leave.”