I pushed opened the main door to the hotel, hoping to tell the Princess and everyone else what had happened as soon as I could, but there didn’t seem to be anyone about. The ops room was locked although I could still hear people working inside, and while yesterday the reception area had been busy with clerks moving about with reports and paperwork and suchlike, there was little movement in the hotel at all. It seemed a little eerie – and worrying.
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked the man on the main desk.
‘They’re at the wedding,’ he said, grinning with an annoying level of royalty-based rapture. ‘I would have liked to go but I couldn’t move my shift. How was your day?’
‘It could have gone better. Room 266, please.’
He handed me a message from my pigeonhole. It was from William of Anorak, and he’d come to the conclusion that since he had no factoids about Trolls, someone must have stolen them from his head – and maybe that’s what Shandar had been up to: fogging any memories over how to stop them.
‘Bad news?’ asked the receptionist.
‘Not unexpected,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a little late in the day for a wedding?’
‘The city runs a twenty-four-hour Harry and Sally marriage service,’ he replied, handing me my key, ‘because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of that life to start with them as soon as possible. Also, I think the Princess said there was some constitutional urgency in it.’
‘Which princess?’ I asked, although only reluctantly, as royal weddings were, along with tapioca, boy bands and celebrity biographies, things in which I had zero interest. ‘The tall gawky-looking one or Jocaminca?’
‘No, no, the
I suddenly had a very nasty feeling.
‘Who … is she marrying?’
The receptionist grinned fit to burst.
‘Why, Sir Matt Grifflon, of course. Such a lovely couple. I’ve managed to reserve a dozen commemorative plates; they’re going to become collector’s items one day – do you want to buy one? Actually, I think I’ve over-ordered so can let you have five at the extra-special price of anything you want to give me.’
I hurried across to Penzance’s cathedral, a neo-industrial design built entirely of red brick, oak beams and riveted iron, the material of choice of Cornish architects, who were more used to designing mine workings and engine sheds than ecclesiastical architecture.
The crowds were about twenty deep outside the cathedral, but I pushed my way to the main doors with some difficulty, as it seemed that almost everyone had over-bought commemorative plates and now wanted to sell them on. I confronted a guard who tried to stop me getting in by saying something threatening, and I, in return, said something so frightening back that he shrank in horror and let me past.
The interior of the packed cathedral was filled with the sound of muted snivelling, but I trotted nosily up the nave as fast as I could, the Quarkbeast at my heels. Six more guards tried to confront me but I simply glared at them dangerously and clasped the hilt of Exhorbitus, and they instantly retreated. I may even have gone a little red in the face as my temper, once up, can be frightening to behold. When you’ve been in a berserker frenzy, it pays to put it about: you’d be surprised how many people treat you with caution.
The couple were at the altar. Matt Grifflon in his best armour, buffed to a high sheen, his long hair coiffured to look like a blond wave about to break on the seashore. The Princess, greatly smaller than he, was by his side, dressed in a wedding gown and veil, with the best tiara anyone could find atop her head as a makeshift crown. Worse, she had her hand in his.
‘I have an objection!’ I yelled, as the nuptials, it seemed, had not yet been completed. Both Sir Matt and the Princess turned.
‘What utter nonsense is this?’ I asked, striding up. ‘A coerced marriage is unrecognisable in law.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Sir Matt, rolling his eyes, ‘it’s little grumpy-chops again. Are you jealous it’s not you I’m marrying?’
‘Me?
‘Jenny,’ said the Princess, ‘I know this is a shock to you, but Sir Matt explained
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
She stepped forward and hugged him tightly.
‘My mind is made up. Sir Matt is the person best suited to lead the nation to a negotiated settlement with the Troll and Mighty Shandar. I also ask that you respect our views in this matter and not stand in the way of our happiness.’
And she smiled at me and biffed Sir Matt affectionately on the nose – which I have to say was so nauseating I actually felt the bile rising in my throat.
