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‘No, wait!’ he cried. ‘Hothbrodd is kindhearted really, even if he doesn’t look it! He’s a fjord troll.’
The monkeys went on chattering to each other all at once.
‘You might almost think he was related to the Whispering Trees,’ said the voice behind Ben.
That voice didn’t sound anxious, but curious. The other animals fell respectfully silent as the speaker stepped in among their prisoners on the clawed feet of a big cat.
None of the pictures that Ben had seen, none of the reliefs and statues did justice to the creature he saw above him now.
The griffin was bending over Hothbrodd with interest.
Shrii – wasn’t that what the monkeys had called him?
He looked so much more fantastic than Ben had imagined a griffin. His tail was a blue-green snake with its tongue darting in and out, his muscular hindquarters and leonine body were marked like the coat of a marbled cat, but the feathers on his head and neck, like his wings, shimmered in all the shades of green in the jungle. Only his beak, ears and eyes were yellow as honey. In Ben’s experience, birds’ eyes were as cool as the eyes of reptiles. Even Me-Rah was no exception. But Shrii’s eyes had almost the same warmth in them as Firedrake’s dragon-gaze – although you could tell from looking at the griffin that he didn’t live entirely on moonlight. Ben sensed the attentive stance of a beast of prey, and his readiness to go hunting was evident in every muscle.
‘Whispering trees? Right you are!’ Hothbrodd was still struggling against the lianas binding him. ‘If you don’t let us go this minute, I’ll tell them to strike you down with their branches! And believe you me, you cudgel-swinging fur-faced kidnappers,’ he shouted up at the monkeys, ‘there are lots of trees who listen to trolls! Lots and lots of trees!’
‘Really?’ Shrii was still examining him, fascinated. ‘I’m tempted to set you free just so that you can prove it.’
He turned his feathered neck, and looked at Ben and Barnabas. ‘Hmhm. This one is very young for a spy,’ he commented. ‘And the older human doesn’t really look like one of Kraa’s poachers, don’t you agree, Patah?’
Barnabas was looking at the griffin, so enraptured that for a moment he forgot to speak.
‘Poachers? Oh, no, no!’ he finally said. ‘You could say we work for the other side. My name is Barnabas Greenbloom, and this is my son Ben. The monkeys will tell you that they found no weapons on us. We come in pea—’
‘Who said you could speak, human?’ Patah interrupted him harshly. He was very delicately built for a macaque, but he obviously made up for his lack of height by fearlessness. ‘They all tell lies as soon as they open their mouths. You don’t know them as I do, Shrii. Kupo is right. Of course they’re spies. We ought to throw them into the sea. Or send them back to Kraa dead, like Daun, Manis and all the others whose bones are bleaching beneath the ruins of our nests!’
The other monkeys set up a howl of lamentation, but they stopped as soon as Patah raised his paw. It was brown as withered leaves, but the macaque’s face was the colour of human skin, and there was thick, pale grey fur around his chin and cheeks, like a luxuriant beard.
‘Yes, we ought to kill them!’ he repeated. ‘But first,’ he said, lunging at Ben, ‘first we ought to make them talk. I’ve found out how to do it from others of their kind! The more we know about Kraa’s plans the better. He’s not going to give up, Shrii! He’ll never tolerate another griffin questioning his authority! I’ll say it again, even if none of you want to hear it: we must leave this island!’
Shrii sat up very straight.
‘No,’ he said. ‘The rest of you should go. Get yourselves to safety. But I am staying. This island is my home. I was born here. It coloured my feathers and my coat, and I would be sorry to hear it sighing and groaning under Kraa’s rule.’
The monkeys were looking with as much concern at the gap through which the sounds of the jungle came in as if they feared that the griffin Kraa might have heard Shrii’s challenge. Ben tried to imagine that other griffin, but his eyes were fixed with fascination on Shrii. Shrii made him forget that they were prisoners, and what they were looking for on this island. He even made Ben’s longing for Firedrake a little less strong. The two of them would probably get on with each other very well.
‘Yes, yes, all right, I know you won’t leave,’ muttered Patah. ‘We’ll all die here. A heap of dead heroes… that’s what we’ll be. And will the parrots, marbled cats, and gibbons that you defend thank you for it? No!’ He crouched down besi
de Ben and pinched his cheek. ‘Tell me, little human,’ he whispered, ‘what’s your mission exactly? Are you meant to kill Shrii?’
The griffin growled softly, his snaky tail rearing up like an attacking cobra. ‘Leave them alone, Patah! There’s no evidence of their guilt yet.’
The macaque bared his teeth, but he moved away from Ben. ‘Your soft heart will be the ruin of you, Shrii!’ he growled. ‘And the rest of us will die with you!’
Ben’s heart missed a beat when he saw what was hanging around the macaque’s neck. It was the locket that Barnabas had given him to keep Firedrake’s scale safe. Had Patah opened it? And if so, would Firedrake sense that the scale had a new owner? Or would he take the monkey’s feelings for Ben’s?
‘Patah is crazy, but he’s right, Shrii,’ chirped Kupo, the loris who had described them as spies. She jumped to Shrii’s marbled shoulders and examined Ben with her round eyes. ‘I suggest we make a cage and keep them in it as pets, which is the kind of thing they do to us. I can decorate the cage, the way you see cages in their markets. Although my carvings are very much better!’ Kupo proudly inspected her delicate fingers – and suddenly leaned forward. ‘Oh, what’s that? It looks like a very good knife.’
The knife that Hothbrodd used for carving lay neatly lined up on a huge leaf, along with his other possessions. The ballpoint pens full of anaesthetic lay right beside it. Barnabas exchanged a glance of concern with Ben.
‘It’s very big!’ twittered Kupo. ‘But the blade! It looks as if wonderful things could be carved with it! Oh yes!’
She put her tiny hand out covetously – and jumped back in alarm as Hothbrodd furious fought against his bonds.
‘The alligators,’ said Patah, raising Barnabas’s binoculars to his eyes and turning them on Kupo, ‘the alligators down by the great waterfall –’ he put down the binoculars and reached for one of the ballpoints – ‘they eat everything. Monkeys, humans – and I’m sure they’d eat a green tree-giant like this one as well! And there are almost no leftovers! Shrii would never know what became of his spies.’
The others chattered in agreement. Except for the gibbon. His coat was almost black; only the fur around his face was reddish, like the skin of a deer. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Barnabas all this time. Now he straightened up and tripped delicately over to him, using the hands at the ends of his long woolly arms as well as his feet. His name was TerTaWa, and his experience of human beings had been as bad as Patah’s. He had stolen the jacket he wore from a man who took him around from village to village on a chain for years, and had trained him to be a thief. The gibbon had escaped only when, one night, he stole the key to the padlock that the man used to chain him up. Then he had hidden in the birdcatchers’ boat, and so he came to Pulau Bulu. The boat had left the island again, loaded up with captured birds – for which the catchers had paid the griffins – but TerTaWa had stayed behind.
