Willoughby the Narrator

By Jemima Pett

Willoughby the Narrator is the seventh in The Princelings of the East series. Willoughby first appeared in the Talent Seekers, as a mysterious ninja and mentor to Humphrey.

As might be expected from a Narrator, Willoughby tells his story with style and panache, starting with his somewhat surprising arrival in the Realms. The first part of the book takes us from the realisation that he was stuck here, through his adventures as he finds a way of making a living until he can return to where he belongs. That all ends when he falls from a high tower at Castle Deeping during the battles between Deeping and White Horse, as detailed in the Talent Seekers, and not elaborated on in his tale. Willoughby concentrates on the new story – what happened next, what he got up to as an itinerant narrator, and how he eventually compromised his career with undercover work for the rich and powerful, and had to start again. He treats us to a number of his special tales in the process, all the while reporting the changes in the social structure of the Realms as the Troubles deepen. Where will it all end?

Willoughby demanded that his story should be told. I more or less completed part one, wondering whether to retell his role in the Talent Seekers, or to give a modest summary, which is what my Willoughby eventually did. ‘Eventually,’ because nearly two years went by before I took up his story again. Once I realised where the story ended, for now, I could get going again. Willoughby’s story becomes entwined with that of Fred and George, the original Princelings, so there will be more to hear from him before the end of the saga.

Lovers of the series will enjoy this latest adventure, but newcomers may find it easier to start with book 1 or book 5. It’s a mystery adventure in a world not quite like ours, suitable for age 10 and upwards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princelings Publications
• Release date: Apr 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370770830

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

Willoughby the Narrator

Princelings of the East Book 7

by Jemima Pett

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

Chapter illustrations by the author http://jemimapett.com

Edition: Smashwords 1.1.1

© J M Pett 2017/2024

Published by Princelings Publications, Hampshire UK

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

The Talent Seekers

Bravo Victor

The Princelings of the North

Chronicles of Marsh

Princelings Revolution

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 your favourite online retailer 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.

Author’s message

Willoughby first appears in book 5 of the Princelings series, the Talent Seekers. In this book, we start at the time of Book 1, and early events shadow those in the latter part of The Princelings of the East. So I would suggest readers new to the series should start with either of those—preferably book 1, which you can usually find as a free ebook at online stores—to make sense of Willoughby’s thoughts on overheard conversations.

The world of the princelings, known as the Realms, is based on the British Isles. If you like maps, you can find these at the Princelings of the East website under ‘Xtras’. Generally, the books are written in UK English. Willoughby does not originate in the Realms, but becomes naturalised. As he tells this tale in the past tense, he now spells in UK English, but starts out using a US style which he changes as time goes on. As a narrator, or travelling story-teller, he quickly adopts local speech patterns. I hope you don’t find this too confusing.

I’d like to thank all those who helped to bring this book to life, especially my editor Dawn Cavalieri, for whom Willoughby is a reminder of the guinea pig she knew and loved (as are Mariusz, Saku, Atticus and Roland). I’d also like to thank all my beta-readers and followers, especially those who commented on the stories Willoughby tells, and on the Christmas specials, when they were first aired on my blog or the Princelings website. It’s been great fun bringing them together as part of Willoughby’s adventure.

Jemima Pett

April 2017

Note: this April 24 update corrects a technical issue with the contents set-up.

Contents

Author’s message

Cast of Characters

Part 1 – Willoughby of White Horse

Chapter 1: Spring 2021

Chapter 2: Spring 2009

Chapter 3: A Strange Memento

Chapter 4: Summer - Autumn 2009

Chapter 5: My First Narrathon

Chapter 6: Powell and Buckmore

Chapter 7: Return to White Horse

Chapter 8: Winter 2009

Chapter 9: 2010

Chapter 10: The Battle of the Ninjas

Part 2 – Willoughby the Narrator

Chapter 1: 2012

Chapter 2: The Princess and the Pea

Chapter 3: Narrator in Residence

Chapter 4: Vexstein

Chapter 5: Spring at Buckmore

Part 3 – Willoughby the Investigator

Chapter 1: August 2015

Chapter 2: Yuletide at Castle Marsh

Chapter 3: The Castle Marsh Narrathon

Chapter 4: Springtime for Smallweed

Chapter 5: Free as a Bee

About the Author

Cast of Characters

Castle Hattan

Lord Mariusz: leader, controller, or big boss of Castle Hattan, in some foreign place across the Great Western Sea (as seen from the Realms). Rich, famous and well-travelled.

Saku: professor and inventor of many things including the grav-sled and Diet Wozna (a cola-type beverage)

Willoughby: an intelligent young person, training as a ninja and looking for adventure

Raisin, Atticus, and a few other ne-er-do-wells: Willoughby’s cousins and friends, Mariusz’s minions.

Castle White Horse

King Edgar: an elderly and possibly senile king, past his best.

Prince (King) Benson: his successor; keen to get his castle out of the stagnation it has fallen into.

Lord Diesel: Benson’s cousin, chief strategist and Benson’s trusted advisor.

Daph: a ledger clerk who tells a good story in his spare time.

Harrison: captain of the guard.

Humphrey: a shy and retiring but talent member of the team, missing in action

Castle Deeping

Lord Colman: an avaricious despot who thinks he should run not only Castle Deeping, but most other castles as well.

Prince Kevin: an ingenue who’s happy to have his uncle running Castle Deeping as his Regent, while he plays youthful games.

Castle Buckmore:

Prince Lupin: actually king, but he thinks the title makes him look old. Tries to hide his intelligence under a playboy exterior.

Lady Nimrod: Lupin’s trusted advisor. The wisest person in the realms, probably. Hides her powers well.

Queen Nerys: Lupin’s wife, and mother to his children. Formerly first Princess of Chateau Dimerie.

Baden: Steward of Buckmore; that’s something like a Chancellor, Secretary and Chief Executive all in one.

Jupiter: runs the bar at Buckmore, although she wouldn’t mind a new challenge at a smaller castle

Io: originally from Arbor, looking for an opportunity to run a bar like Buckmore’s

Pippin: former pirate recruited by George to help with his strawberry juice project, then involved with his flying machines; communications project manager and transport expert. Knows a bit about sailing, too.

Plenty of other minor characters at the most important castle in the Realms.

Castle Marsh

King Fred: originally princeling Fred, became crown prince when he was working at Buckmore, and returned to build up a new and vibrant community once he found his true love

Queen Kira: Fred’s true love, formerly second Princess of Dimerie; probably the rock on which Castle Marsh stands.

Prince Engineer George: originally princeling George, also known as George Marsh. Brilliant engineer and technologist, currently working on advanced flying machines and fuel systems.

Haggis: originally captain of the 25th Rifle Brigade, stationed at Castle Marsh for so long he’s considered part of the family. Head of security at Marsh.

Plenty of minor characters at this castle in the middle of nowhere that is central to the series plot

Castle Vexstein

Lord Smallweed: ambitious, cruel and generally a nasty piece of work who would sell his own grandmother if it would give him more power.

Although Vexstein is huge, everyone else there is relegated to a bit part.

Other castles:

North: Sowerby, rumoured to be infested with vampires; Hallam, centre of the metal-working industry; Palatine, centre of finance; Edin, gateway to the northern wastes

South: Cabot, maritime centre; Powell: closest castle to Buckmore; Chateau Dimerie, wine centre and producer of excellent princes and princesses, including Miles, Caspar, Nerys and Kira; Wash, nearest castle to Marsh, import/export with the continent, run by Crown Prince Hunston.

Other characters

Champion Christopher: a champion wall-runner and promoter of the sport

Fitzroy: an innocuous but nosy travelling announcer from Castle White Horse

Tatum: a young ninja and friend to Willoughby

Victor: busy barkeeper and business guru from the Inn of the Seventh Happiness

Part 1 – Willoughby of White Horse

Chapter 1: Spring 2021

In which I investigate what my uncle is up to

Seven days after I’d followed my uncle Mariusz down the time tunnel, I stood in the corridor, searching for the line of blue twinkly lights to show me where the portal was.

They weren’t there.

They resolutely failed to twinkle at me.

I walked to where they should have been, walked even farther, till I knew beyond doubt that I had passed the place they had been, and I turned back.

I reached the place where the side tunnel joined the main tunnel; I hadn’t seen them on the way back either.

They weren’t there.

If they weren’t there, I couldn’t get back.

I was stuck.

I was stuck twelve years in the past, in a place generally called the Realms. Everyone I knew, my home, my uncle, my brother, were all on the other side of the time tunnel in a place called Hattan. They were in 2021, which is where I should have been, too. Instead, I was homeless, friendless, and stuck in 2009 in a backward place with a lot of people who spoke in a funny accent. Lots of funny accents.

I sat down, closed my eyes, and called upon my ninja training to help me out.

***

You will never be an effective ninja, Willoughby, until you learn to focus.

It was fine for my teacher to tell me that, again, but if he was tickling my nose of course I would be distracted. I frowned and tried again, but he sighed, stood up, and waited for me to copy him. We bowed. That was the signal for the end of the lesson.

I went out into the sky courtyard, pausing to admire the towers that rose from the murk below me. In the afternoon sun, they were fingers against the shimmering ribbons of the rivers that joined in the distance. It was a great view, and it always calmed my mind. Yes, I needed to focus more, but I was making progress in my training, and my teacher knew it. My hearing was coming on exceptionally well, mainly because I got in a lot of practice listening to my uncle and Professor Saku wrangling about the time tunnel. They had all sorts of theories about it: how it came into being, what happened if you met yourself, why it made you tired—they were definitely concerned about its side effects. They were also making plans to meet the cola orders that came through, and discussing whether to train up a new travelling salesman as a replacement for Hugo. I had not yet discovered who Hugo was. We didn’t have a Hugo at Hattan, so he had to be someone at the far side of the tunnel, the place they called the Realms. The guys who sorted out the deliveries down there did so in shifts and were shipped off for a break as soon as they came back, so I never managed to find out what they did. I was planning to slip down there myself, just working out when and how.

I waved at my cousin Raisin, who was lounging about on sentry duty. We had a sentry in the sky courtyard just because it was an easy job for us juniors, and it gave us basic training before we got into serious work. I heard him pretending that he was accosting someone as I left the yard to nip down to see Saku.

Stay where you are! You are completely surrounded!

Yeah, Raisin. It does get boring, doesn’t it?

Down in Saku’s lair, I hitched myself onto a stool while he did some complicated twiddles of his calculating machine. Saku was always trying to improve the processes in our cola manufacturing plant, and always trying to improve me, too, although he’d given up trying to make me an engineer. Saku was great, though—kind, always willing to listen and to share his wisdom. Trouble was, he was very clever, and he knew perfectly well that I was trying to uncover the secret of the time tunnel. He denied there was a time tunnel, of course. It was a Big Secret. We all knew it was a magic tunnel, that wherever it went, it didn’t go to street level, yet it took a decent share of our production every year. It was my ninja listening that gave the game away. I had a new idea, though.

How can I get into cola sales, Saku? Does Uncle pick people to train or is there some route up through the system?

Saku peered at me down his long nose. Are you interested in sales? Well, I suppose you might be. You have an interest in people; you’re sociable, enthusiastic.... He gazed up at the ceiling as if there were more answers written up there. I knew there weren’t—I’d checked the ceiling long ago, when I was much younger.

I sat there in my best ‘keen teenager’ pose—alert and attentive. I had others I used with my cousins—loafing about and being rude about everything.

He looked like he was going to say something useful when one of the machines started making a juddering noise and losing puffs of steam. He leapt up to attend to it, and I heard a thanks for stopping by, young Willoughby! echoing back at me, so I guessed it was time to go.

At the top of the stairs I stretched my hearing out to find out what Uncle Mariusz was up to. He had a guest he was boring with the history of Wozna Cola. I could recite it with him, if he wanted me to.

Thinking back on it, I realize that was the start of the end of the time tunnel.

Or maybe it had really started when Argon arrived. That had caused a huge stir.

I didn’t see him arrive, but I saw him being led away by security, and Mariusz standing at his door practically steaming with fury, shouting clap him in irons and don’t let him out of your sight, and a few more overreactions. I did a lot of listening. I heard Mariusz and Saku discussing visitors from the ‘other side’ and guessed Argon must be from wherever the tunnel led. It didn’t take me long to go and visit him in his dungeon.

It was a pretty nice dungeon, as far as dungeons go. I’d seen the ones in the basement; they were nasty. Wet and cold and tiny. This was tiny, and cold, but it had a window, and it was dry and cosy in there, with a bed and blankets and some books. I reckoned whoever Argon was, Uncle liked him; he just didn’t fit in with Uncle’s plans.

Argon wasn’t allowed visitors.

I persuaded the guard to let me peer at him through the spy-hole. Red haired, but similar in looks to Saku. Normal. I wondered why he’d been locked away. I kept listening in my ninja way: to him, to Saku, to Mariusz, and struck gold the day Mariusz let Argon out of his dungeon.

You must promise not to tell anyone about the time tunnel, or the Realms, or the Wozna business down there, Mariusz said. Argon agreed. How would you like to work at our bar on the ground floor? Mariusz asked.It’s not exactly the Inn of the Seventh Happiness, but it’ll keep you from being bored.

Do you mean to keep me here forever, then?

Well... I’d never heard Mariusz hesitate before. He was almost regretful, like he was being mean to a friend. Yes, I’m afraid I have to.

So now I added ‘Inn of the Seventh Happiness’ to my list of things connected with the time tunnel, and I was itching to go down there. I’d more or less decided to go down in summer, but then we started to get these other visitors. Mariusz had a huge row with one of them just after midnight one night, and with all the coming and going I decided to sneak down the tunnel after them.

It was weird. I was swept off my feet on a current of light, with a strange whooshing noise in my ears. It felt a bit like swinging on the ropes to go down the tower, which was our quick way down to street level, but it felt like I could be going up, not down. I also felt like I was tumbling over, and yet I was sure I was just in the same position as when I started. Anyway, whatever it was, I landed in a dark corridor, with a string of lights dwindling back to a blue twinkly ring that went all the way around the corridor behind me. I stepped forward into a larger corridor and wondered whether to follow it or not. My nose told me that was the way Mariusz had gone. I went along it for a while, got a bit hungry, and decided to turn back. All the whooshing and lights happened again, and I got back and sidled into the courtyard.