The Talent Seekers

By Jemima Pett

Humphrey is on the run. He has no friends, no past, no purpose, and no future. He’s just a guinea pig trying to find his way west in a world of dark forests, wild hills, strong castles, and assorted vagabonds and other things that might or might not begin with the letter V.

White Horse Castle has a proud past but an uncertain future. The new king, Benson, is trying to hold his realm together against the avaricious intentions of his neighbour, Lord Colman of Castle Deeping. Fortunately, White Horse Castle has a secret. It knows that there are special guinea pig people out there... people who need a purpose... people with skills and talents that could be put to good use. The trouble is, how to find them?

In the fifth book in the Princelings series, we find the young outcast from the Lost City of Arbor travelling west as his mother suggested. He is rounded up amongst other exiles, but escapes, and finds himself among people that could be his friends, something he has never had before. But they are under threat, and Humphrey’s adventures twist and turn as he is called to his destiny by an unknown force, one that calls to his special hearing skills. He meets other talented individuals and learns to be a team, to work with others for the common good.

It’s a tale of greed, of fighting, of cruelty and of a darker place than the ones we’ve met so far in the Princelings world. Heroes and heroines emerge from the unlikeliest of places to find laughter and friendship and a place where they belong.

The Talent Seekers is a fantasy adventure story with paranormal influences and some pitched battles. It is set in the months between the Prologue and the Epilogue of the Princelings and the Lost City, but with otherwise little connection to the previous stories in the series so can stand alone. It’s suitable for readers aged 13 and upwards.

“Another intricately woven story in the land of the Princelings. This time we journey with Humphrey. A gentle and trepid soul with a talent for listening to things above and beyond the realms of the everyday... Humphrey is tested beyond anything he has ever known, unsure of who is friend or foe. Using every ounce of knowledge from his books, combined with his unique and special talents, he bands together with his unit. They must prevail against a force so evil, that it threatens the livelihood of the entire land of the Princelings.” Julie Grasso

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princelings Publications
• Release date: Aug 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301482900

Jemima Pett

Jemima Pett has been living in a world of her own for many years. Writing stories since she was eight, drawing maps of fantasy islands with train systems and timetables at ten. Unfortunately no-one wanted a fantasy island designer, so she tried a few careers, getting great experiences in business, environmental research and social work. She finally got back to building her own worlds, and wrote about them. Her business background enabled her to become an independent author, responsible for her own publications.Her first series, the Princelings of the East, mystery adventures for advanced readers set in a world of tunnels and castles entirely populated by guinea pigs, is now complete. The tenth and final book, Princelings Revolution, came out in October 2020. Jemima does chapter illustrations for these. She has also edited two volumes of Christmas stories for young readers, the BookElves Anthologies, and her father's memoirs White Water Landings, about the Imperial Airways flying boat service in Africa. She has compiled four collections of flash fiction tales, publishing in the first half of 2021. She is now writing the third in her science fiction series set in the Viridian System, in which the aliens include sentient trees.Jemima lived in a village in Norfolk with her guinea pigs, the first of whom, Fred, George, Victor and Hugo, provided the inspiration for her first stories, The Princelings of the East. She is now living in Hampshire, writing science fiction for grown-ups, hatching plans for a new series, and writing more short stories for anthologies.

Book preview

The Talent Seekers

By Jemima Pett

The Talent Seekers

Smashwords edition 1.0

Cover by Danielle English http://kanizo.co.uk

Chapter illustrations by the author

Published by Princelings Publications 2013

Copyright J M Pett

Book 5 in the Princelings of the East series

Other books in the series:

The Princelings of the East

The Princelings and the Pirates

The Princelings and the Lost City

The Traveler in Black and White

Bravo Victor

The right of Jemima Pett to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The names and characters in this story are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Many of the names are inspired by guinea pigs owned by members of the Rodents with Attitude online forum, to whom I am eternally grateful. These may be similar to other fictional characters but no plagiarism is intended.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my editor, Dawn Cavalieri, for her continued support and unswerving attention to grammar and punctuation. Any typos and mistakes in punctuation are entirely down to my stubbornness or inattention to her corrections.

I would also like to thank Vikki Motley for continuing to rescue guinea pigs, whether abandoned or produced as unwanted pregnancies. Without her care and attention I wouldn’t have nearly as much inspiration for my characters as I do (and lots of guinea pigs would not be found loving homes). Hugo, Victor, his cousins Crimp and Harrison, Diesel, Humphrey, Hector, Dylan and Dougall were all introduced to me by Vikki.

This book is dedicated to all who rescue and care for unwanted people and animals, especially when they have special needs.

Contents

Principal Characters

Chapter 1: The Forest

Chapter 2: The Chase

Chapter 3: Market Day

Chapter 4: One thing after another

Chapter 5: Bed and breakfast

Chapter 6: Mists of Time

Chapter 7: Festival of White Horse

Chapter 8: Wall Running for Beginners

Chapter 9: Mind and Body

Chapter 10: Security Alert

Chapter 11: Under the hill

Chapter 12: The Narrathon

Chapter 13: An Explosive Mixture

Chapter 14: Back to School

Chapter 15: Breaking and Entering

Chapter 16: The Power of the Mind

Chapter 17: Preparations

Chapter 18: And Live To Fight Another Day

Chapter 19: The End of the Beginning

Chapter 20: Forest and Deeping

Chapter 21: Evidence and Conjecture

Chapter 22: All for One

Chapter 23: Long Road to Longmoor

Chapter 24: Enlightenment

End

Principal Characters

Humphrey – A lost soul with many talents, but limited experience, travelling west

Hywel – A calming influence, an outcast with a long future

Freya – a red-haired outcast with very little patience

Betty – a kind and caring outcast with excellent craft skills and a secret identity

Glory – a wall-runner who would like to be part of a team

Winston – A valued member of Castle White Horse who can see through walls

Bertie – a refugee from an oppressive regime with the talent to smell out anything

Lord Colman – an avaricious despot who thinks he should run not only Castle Deeping, but his neighbouring castles as well

Prince Kevin – Crown Prince of Castle Deeping who may one day realise that Lord Colman is not his friend. For now, he’s glad Colman’s running things for him

King Benson – new and inexperienced king of Castle White Horse

Lord Diesel – cousin to King Benson, and a great strategist

Prince Colin – brother to King Benson, doing his best in the family business

Willoughby – A Narrator, who travels wherever he desires – and has outstanding ninja skills

Fitzroy – mentor to a talented group recruited after the Narrathon

Lord Duffield – overlord at Castle Forest, and thoroughly under Lord Colman’s thumb

also featuring:

At Castle White Horse: Daph, a clerk and Narrator; Harrison and Crimp, guards

Among the outcasts: Chester, leader of a large group of refugees and his partner Sheldon; Frankie, a pirate reduced to roaming the hillsides with other ex-pirates

Chapter 1: The Forest

In which Humphrey puts his foot in it

In the dark of the cave, Humphrey shifted restlessly. He stiffened, lifting one ear. Sleep vanished as his head came up, his nose quivering as he looked down the length of the cave towards the entrance. With ears cocked towards the sound that had disturbed him, he extended his hearing out a way, then back, and located the sound in the middle distance. He settled back on the hay he had brought inside from the autumnal forest– still alert, pondering the various sounds in the forest.

The shuffling in the mid-distance was made by one of the forest animals. Badger. No danger, but not someone to disturb when he was going about his nightly business. The sound in the far distance was something else. Voices whispering. Persons without much woodcraft moving in the forest. He tuned into their voices.

Set it there.... Yes, that’s right. Ok, I’ll ease this up now. Another over there. Go!

Humphrey made no sense of these whispered instructions. The sound disappeared, even in far-distance hearing. Humphrey could hear through rock, but in the open air, sound was deflected by foliage, trees, or broken ground. Tuning in became difficult, but he was learning.

He stretched and settled back on his bed, a convenient ledge in the sandstone cave. It was a much better cave than most that he’d found on his travels. Sandstone was dry. The chalky ones he’d tried were dry but let the rain through, and you had to be careful where you settled yourself. He’d hoped he might be able to make this his home for the oncoming winter. Now he wasn’t so sure. Who were these people and what were they doing out in his forest?

His tummy rumbled. If he was hungry, it must also be time for the moon to rise. It had been full a few days ago; now it would be shrinking again. Badger was about, so he had better take care. Still unsure of the right things to eat, he preferred to have some light when he was trying foods in the forest. He also wanted to store dried grass and other forage to prepare for the winter. He’d reviewed the books in his memory and decided that winter was a time to have a stack of food in a cave and to do a lot of sleeping. Now he should go out and see whether the whisperings he’d heard meant he should move on.

He stretched and brushed his long black coat. He moved out to the cave entrance, smelled the night air, and nodded as he saw the oval moon just showing through the trees to the southeast. He padded through the small scraggly bushes that hid the approach to his home, making sure they didn’t catch his coat and leave telltale hairs for others to spot. Listening, he decided that it was safe to go to the stream, drink and eat, then look for longer grass to bring back. Skittering noises through the increasingly thick layer of leaves suggested a mouse or shrew had decided to avoid him. Down at the stream edge he drank deeply, eyes and ears attentive to any sound of danger. The moon reflected on the broad stripe down his face, a wiggly line in the rippled surface of the water.

As the night wore on, he became more confident. He could neither hear nor smell anyone nearby. Yes, there were traces that someone had passed this way, but these were hours old. There was no danger.

He stepped confidently between two young trees.

He was grabbed by the ankle and pulled into the air. His hair fell over his eyes; the blood rushed to his head. His leg stretched awkwardly out above him, all his weight hanging from it.

Ouch, he thought, then realised if he relaxed, it didn’t hurt.

Hanging upside down suspended by one leg was a new experience. He was getting so used to new experiences that he considered this one in the same calm way he did everything else. He was not hurt. The ground was ‘above’ his head instead of in its usual position. He was free to move, but not free to walk away. He decided he would like to be free to walk away. He reached up to his leg, found that it was attached by a piece of twine to the branches, and pulled himself up the twine till he was holding onto the thin twigs and rustly leaves of a young tree. He couldn’t see how to get rid of the twine from his leg or the tree, so he bit it. It would need more than one bite, he decided, so he started gnawing. It frayed a bit, but then strands got stuck in his teeth. This irritated him and he pulled at it in disgust. The moon was high, the first glimmer of light was appearing in the east, and he hadn’t gathered any dry grass for his cave yet. What a wasted night!

He froze as he heard movement in the leaves on the ground over the hill. One or two animals were coming towards him, trying to be quiet, but they weren’t quiet enough to escape his attention. The moon cast pale shadows, and he could see persons like himself approaching. This was not good. He trusted no one. He tested the twine still holding him.

As the persons drew up underneath him, looking for where they’d left their trap, he launched himself out of the tree, extending his leg to take the rope then pulling hard with it as the twine went taut. As he’d hoped, the last fibres snapped. He fell on the two surprised persons, knocking them over. He leapt to his feet and ran the way they’d come, leaving them well behind in their confusion.

He hurtled down the track, bounded over the stream, swept through the leaves onto bare rock and earth, and kept running, running, running.

Chapter 2: The Chase

In which Humphrey gets caught in a round-up

The ditch was wet. Humphrey had found a comfortable place to lie during the day, out of sight, but his long hair was woefully bedraggled. The grass was good, though, and he could nibble it without showing himself above the level of the ground. He had outrun his erstwhile captors the other night, and continued west, leaving the cave behind him. There would be other places, he thought. If he needed it again, he could find his way back. It was as fixed in his memory as any of the books he’d read. Sometimes he dreamt of a place that was warm and dry and surrounded by enough books to keep him busy for years. A library. He’d never seen one, but he hoped he’d find one, one day.

He’d left the quiet of the forest behind. This was a place with more persons around. He listened to them all day and some of the night. The ones nearest to him talked of harvested hay and about growing roots, and whether these should be stored now or whether a few more weeks would be safe. The ones in the mid-distance talked of markets and inns and preparation for dinner, and whether the castle needed more supplies. And the ones in the castle....

My lord, we have reports that the gangs of thugs are increasing. We are sending a sortie to apprehend them.

My lord, this person reported that his wife had seen a vampire in the night.

My lord, there are rumours of a pestilence affecting the corn stored in the warehouse.

He could imagine these people, what they looked like, how they bowed and fawned. He had read stories of kings and their courtiers. He found it rather relaxing to listen to their conversations as he lay in his ditch during the day. It was like his first home, listening to the queen and her ladies in waiting. He wondered if he would ever have another home.

Despite the increasingly keen wind blowing in from the east, he found it easy to doze off in the afternoon, feeling safe from prying eyes. As soon as dusk fell he would be out to eat what he could find. Some of the roots the locals gossiped about had tasty green leaves still.

The dark was fully upon him and owls were hunting around, when some murmuring in the background grew loud enough to make him uneasy. People were moving through the fields and along the roads. He crouched down among the furrows where the roots grew. It was hard to make sense of the dark shapes he could see in the distance. People were running along the edge of the field. Then they were running through the field. Then they were running along the furrow, straight towards him.

He got up and ran along the furrow too, keeping a few lengths ahead, not knowing where he was going. He reached the end of the row and kept going, jumping over a ditch and swishing through long grass on the other side. People joined him and ran with him. He had no idea why they were running, but didn’t have breath to ask what was going on. People on his left leaned towards him and jostled him. He ran towards his right more and jostled the person on his right, who veered off and jostled the next person, and so the whole group of runners headed right towards the corner of the field. They streamed over the edge and into a narrow lane heading uphill between deep banks. Trees started to shut out the night above them.

Break left, break left, he heard someone call. They’ll funnel us into their trap!

Humphrey saw a slight gap in the left bank. He headed up it, followed by scores of others. He ran on through small trees with low branches. He squished something soft on the ground; from the smell it was some sort of fruit. One part of his brain registered ‘fruit would be good to store