Castle Chansany Volume 2: Tales from the Flying Castle

By Charlotte E. English

Have you been to Castle Chansany? If you have, perhaps it’s time to go back.

There’s strangeness afoot up there in the clouds. Something odd has got into the cakes; the sylphs are plotting fresh mischief; and if you look carefully, there might be an ancient Wizard to be found, slumbering somewhere sleepish, and in disguise.

Moreover, Castle Chansany is on the move. Where can it be going? Well, nobody aboard could tell you. You’ll have to visit, to find out…

This second collection in the tales of the Castle features five new stories:

Strangeness Aloft

Knavery

Among His Majesty’s Roses

Baldringa’s Blunder

Sylphish and Strange

 

Contains: dragons and disasters, magic and misdeeds, wizards and wiles, and smiles aplenty.

Don’t miss the first stories of Jessamine the dragon, Garstang the Wizard, and Their Various Majesties, in volume one!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frouse Books
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022

Charlotte E. English

English both by name and nationality, Charlotte hasn’t permitted emigration to the Netherlands to damage her essential Britishness. She writes colourful fantasy novels over copious quantities of tea, and rarely misses an opportunity to apologise for something. Spanning the spectrum from light to dark, her works include the Draykon Series, Modern Magick, The Malykant Mysteries and the Tales of Aylfenhame.

Book preview

Castle Chansany, Volume 2

Tales from the Flying Castle

Charlotte E. English

Copyright © 2022 by Charlotte E. English

Cover design by MiblArt

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by EU copyright law.

Contents

1. Strangeness Aloft

2. Knavery

3. Among His Majesty’s Roses

4. Baldringa’s Blunder

5. Sylphish and Strange

About the Castle

About Charlotte E. English

Strangeness Aloft

The clattering and rattling, scuffling and banging (not to mention an occasional thud) had been going on all day.

Not consistently, or Jessamine could not have borne it. No, there were intervals of peace and silence, just long enough for an irascible and increasingly aggravated dragon to tuck her nose beneath her tail and drift halfway back into slumber…

…and then there it came again, with, if anything, extra slithering and dithering and general to-do, and it sounded horribly as though something had got into the walls, and was making itself at home there. And that could only be bad news, for today of all days, today, Jessamine had other things to occupy her.

Prince Armael had returned to Castle Chansany. Everyone knew it, for there had already been considerable pomp and celebration. Everybody knew the Wizard Garstang's part in it, too, of which Jessamine disapproved, for it made him — somehow — smugger than ever.

Despite all this, soon there was to be a ball, a grand ball, in honour of the wayward Prince's return (and, indeed, his rescue from the ignominious state in which he had been discovered and rescued: that of being, embarrassingly, obliged to take up state as a household object). Their Majesties would preside over the festivities, naturally, and the Wizard Garstang would be feted as befit his service to the Crown (wearing the best of his most salubrious attire, naturally, and lording it insufferably over all and sundry).

Someone had even managed to rustle up some foreign dignitaries. Such persons did not often attend Court at Castle Chansany, the kingdom being but a small one, and the Castle somewhat out of reach. That being so, the presence of a fair few extra nobles and royals, ministers and wizards, was no small thing.

They were all coming to gawp, of course, at this handsome (or nearly handsome) prince, the man who had, through riotous adventure, developed an unusually close sympathy with the daily plight of household crockery. There wasn't another person alive, probably, who could tell you, with such exactitude, how a plate might feel when it was heaped with edibles and then swept into the sink; how a tankard or a knife experienced the raising and draining of beverages by hungry mouths, or the slicing and dicing of slippery comestibles. Nor, indeed, how it felt to become a man again, and take up walking about on two legs, and talking, and such practicalities, when he had, for some time, been obliged to occupy himself with neither.

There was curiosity.

And there was, therefore, so much for a Jessamine to do, that she had no time whatsoever for unnameable things making a racket behind the walls.

'Got no right to be living in the walls,' she declared, spitting a cinder or two, when another such clamour woke her from her pleasant doze, and brought her scaly head up in rank disgust. 'Stars! Do they think that's what we put them there for, to be bustled about in, and bashed to pieces?'

The chair, her own chair, answered her. 'Who?' it said, in its high, fluttery way (matching, rather, the fluttery and tendrily plants, and other such bits, that clambered up the legs, and twined about the arms).

'If I knew that, I'd have turfed them out again, wouldn't I?' said Jessamine. She gave a great sigh, for half her words disappeared under the tumult of another great messing-about happening. She'd have to get down, and investigate, just as her own, dear chair had made itself so comfortable!

'What a bother,' spat she, and got down.

The chair had parked itself in the Wizard Garstang's study, where it often liked to sit. The Wizard's own best-of-all-chairs often lurked there, too, together with a quantity of other, congenial furniture; Jessamine liked for her chair to go where it had friends.

But that meant that the scuffling sorts behind the panels were likely of a magical nature, and that meant that the problem couldn't possibly be the simple sort, over and done with in half-an-hour, and straight back to sleep.

No. It would be difficult, and delicate, and obstreperous, and befuddling, and awkward, and what with all things considered, Jessamine felt that life had delivered more than enough of those things, for the time being.

'I prefer the sapphire,' said she shortly afterwards, having tracked the Wizard Garstang down in his dressing-chamber. He was decent at the time, being bedecked in silks and velvets, with a tunic all covered in embroidery, and prancing before a long mirror. 'The crimson's very fine, I grant you,' she added, 'but it makes your nose look bigger.'

The Wizard had vanity enough to catch at the thought; he studied his dark-visaged face in the mirror, frowning. 'No it doesn't,' he said, rather curt. 'You jest, Jess-o-mine.'

She did, but would not own it. Instead she sniffed, and slithered over the stone-flagged floor to join him before the looking-glass. 'Much bigger,' she insisted. 'Her Majesty would never approve.'

'Her Majesty does not concern herself with the proportions of my nose,' answered Garstang, and with spirit. But he removed the crimson mantle and cast it over a nearby chair.

Jessamine waited.

'The sapphire, you said?' said he next, and shortly thereafter presented himself, properly attired, for her inspection. He cut rather a dash, as a general rule, even Jessamine could not deny. Today, he looked handsome indeed, for someone had done something intriguing with the thick waves of his dark hair, and he shone with an energy and a vigour which could not help but attract.

'You'll do,' said she.

The Wizard smiled. 'Did you come here to criticise, dragon, or was there some other purpose?'

'We've a problem,' she answered.

'Oh, no. No problems today, I forbid it.'

'I tried that my own self,' she said. 'It didn't work.'

He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Probably his head was hurting him. 'Very well then, let me hear it. Quickly, quickly.'

Jessamine told him.

'The walls?' he repeated, frowning. 'What walls?'

'In your study.'

'Oh,' he said, and was silent for a moment. 'Oh, dear.'

'You've some notion as to who it is,' she observed, misliking the look of things.

'You intrigue me, dragon,' he said, which was not at all an answer. 'Not a what, but a who, you ask.'

'I've learned a thing or two, keeping company with you,' she retorted. 'Even a basin may have opinions, it seems.'

His glittering smile flashed; he gave a crack of laughter. 'Well,' was all the answer he made. He was gone in the next moment, out the door and striding away down the passage. 'Come along, Jess-o-mine!' he called back, and she hastened to scurry after him.

Typically, they arrived at the Wizard's study to find the chamber shrouded in apparent peace and slumber. The silver candelabras had dimmed their flickering flames and sat dreaming upon the tables; the rug lay, quiet and silent, before the cooling hearth; the best-of-all-chairs gave a slight snore, its wings sleepily stirring.

‘Not much amiss, at present,’ observed the Wizard, in a hopeful tone.

‘Give it time,’ answered Jessamine, swarming up the legs of her chair to repose herself, once more, upon the seat.

Wizard Garstang did not excel at waiting, as a rule. He