quare
had been packed full all afternoon and the crowds kept increasing into the
evening. The public houses were overflowing into the streets. I suppose I was
busy watching you. I thought it was you, crossing the street there, but when I
caught up it was someone else. I didn't notice anybody showing a vague interest
in me or pointing me out to their companions until then. Others would seem to
smile discreetly and then turn away. To tell you the truth it did not really
register until Dai Takes Eggs planted his elbow in my ribs and winked his wink
at me. It was not just the high spirits of the evening that shone in his eyes.
"Still free as a bird then, I see" was all I got
from him.
"What are you blabbering on about?" But he was
gone, sunk back into the crowd. Having loitered around a bit longer listening to
the speeches broadcast over the megaphones strung along the towers, having no
whisky left to keep me warm, I pulled up my collar around my ears and set off. I
thought perhaps to call on you at Tyn y Coed, but how would I explain anything
to you Caress, now that words have become weapons between us? Crossing the
street, down below in the subway, I saw Scarlet Nightshade stooped down and she
raised her head full of black tears and a bruise spreading across her cheek. She
was picking up some necklace beads off the concrete.
"What happened, Scarlet?" I said a bit coldly. I
had struck up a chat with her earlier over on the Square. I don't have very much
to say to her, she's always on the verge of a crisis."
" Just leave me alone, " she spat and her two eyes
like coal burning into me. Her eye make-up was in dark streaks down her cheeks.
You would not want to cross her in her temper, I tried to avoid annoying her.
"Just go," she said coldly. "Go to your little
Miss Caress now, and see if she'll take you back."
I just left her there on the floor. I went towards home. I'm
not going to tangle with such a spiteful girl.
Outside All Night Café I noticed Wil Pickled Herring sitting
on the pavement with his head in his hands. I couldn't make out a word he said
to me, I didn't really understand either the forefinger which he slowly drew
across his throat, smiling his ugly black pegged smile. All I did was step past
him and went in to get something to eat.
"Give me something to warm me up, Betsan," I said
to Betsan Ten Minutes behind the counter. "How's the new job going?"
"You can have hot stew and mind your own business"
I hear that Betsan Ten Minutes is going steady with Wynne
Screen Viper nowadays so that's why she's working nights behind the counter at
All Night Café and not upstairs on her back anymore. We were talking about old
times when the door opened and there was Wil Pickled Herring again hanging like
a climber on Snowdon half way up the door. He lost his grip and fell all over
the tables.
"Out!" shouted Betsan Ten Minutes getting hold of a
mop handle and beating him on his back and shoulders. Wil Pickled Herring didn't
react. She flung the mop at him and left him in a heap where he was.
"Surprised to see you're still around" she said after stepping back to
the counter.
"I've had just about enough of it" I said.
"What is all this looking and poiting, what's going on?"
"They were here looking for you earlier"
"Who were?"
"For you, Gwern. I said nothing."
"What is there to say? Why would they look for me?"
Betsan Ten Minutes likes to provoke people and to tell lies, so I didn't believe
her. Just then Wil Pickled Herring pulled himself up at my table and began to
dribble so I gave Betsan two units for the food and left. I suppose I was
expecting something. Anyway, I went straight home.
A gnawing feeling came into my stomach. I picked up the note
I had found on the mat. The eye of the answer machine was flashing. I suppose I
hadn't paid much attention to the changes reported on the news, nothing had
altered yet in my town and anyway I had been away working so I didn't at that
time understand as well as I should have perhaps.
"Fuck," I though to myself. "So it's true.
Fischermädchen does want to see me. At this rate I'll be in Entwürdigung
Castle before you can say Abergwyngregyn and Rausman himself will be flaying the
hide off me."
I forgot all about the answer machine when I read that note
and just drummed out her number like a woodpecker on a trunk.
Fischermädchen was not happy to be waked in the middle of
the night until she realised it was me and then I thought I detected a thaw in
her attitude.
"Oh! It's you, Gwern! At last! Where have you
been?" She said pretending to be ever so charming. "I've been waiting
for your call."
"I know" I said, "I'll be round first thing in
the morning. Sorry about the work on the network...You know I did not recommend
that software....Are they really that annoyed?"
"Tomorrow morning eight o'clock. Don't worry about
anything, Gwern. Come at eight, everything is fine."
I had heard Dai Takes Eggs talking about some Saffron Tinker
or other saying that he was the one to lead you across to the sunless Summer in
the high passes. Saving fugitives from the Uncons. "He'll do," I
thought to myself as I thought about how I might reach the High Country."
But then I thought, "Yes, but he's only in the new legends and doesn't
really exist at all so what's the fucking point!"
Anyway, even if I was gullible enough to believe in the
Saffron Tinker, as do the children and the old people, I didn't even have his
network code and anyway I could not have got him on line without the cat coming
into the lap of the Seen and Heard and they would be straight after me. "If
you can't be strong be cunning" I mused, very briefly, realising I had no
options left.
I just chucked whatever came to hand into a bag. I was dying
to phone you but I knew they would know. I flipped open the screen and deleted
the log of restriced access files. Some files I even opened the lid to check
that they were really gone. A quick message for Fischermädchen for forward
delivery and out I go without a backward glance. Wil Califfornia takes me to the
station. I pay cash and don't wait for change. I jump the fence to catch the
train.
"Ticket, son" says the guard.
"Haven't got one." I'm still out of breath.
"Penalty charge then, " says the guard.
"Swipe that, grandad," says I thrusting my unit
card at him. A little yellow paper ticket squiggled out of a box on his tummy
and the ink still looked wet on the paper.
I didn't get off where I was supposed to but carried on into
the night, past places I had never seen or heard of before. The night was like a
long tunnel and the carriage lights lit up nothing but dozing passengers. I held
my face to the glass and watched raindrops running races down the pane outside.
At Gwastadaros siding I slipped out into a blue dawn. It has a big name for a
small place, the sign is huge but there are only a few unplastered concrete huts
on the station. Even the searchlights keep going on and off just like our ones.
The people here are very much like we are back home. The first thing anyone said
to me was "Where are you from and where do you want to go?"
He was a taxi driver actually. Perhaps he asked this to all
his fares. Anyway he only took me a short distance.
"High Country?" he said. "Not a chance in
hell. You can get out here."
"Rat," I said and gave him two fingers as he drove
away. I thought for a minute he was going to come back. Then I started walking
concrete roads, unsure which direction was best. It wasn't that cold but there
was no sun visible and there was drizzle in the breeze. The main road rose from
the station village up towards the hills, the east I hoped. Behind the hills a
rampart of dark rock rose to meet the clouds. The concrete road was pitted and
crazed and every mile got worse until it was like a net on a stony stream. An
hour or so later, and not making progress, I saw on the hill's edge above the
road a little cottage like a holiday cottage but with a chimney full of smoke
coming from its chimney. I went towards it to ask was I lost. There seemed to be
a way to go from the start but the longer I climbed the farther away the damn
thing would go. I was drenched in sweat when I finally made it to the farmyard
having wasted the best part of a day, and now night was falling on the second
evening. Three ferocious dogs came at me as my foot touched the farmyard.
Barking and baring their dripping fangs. "Down, bad dogs," I said. A
door opened and a lanky youth with hollow cheeks came out, a sack and a cloak
and thonged sandals on his feet. He started to pelt the dogs with stones he drew
from his sack while looking at me and shouting "Welcome to Sunless
Summer!"
"Is that what it is?" I said to him. "Isn't
Saffron Tinker is in that legend?"
"Asgwrn Ffriddoedd does not have inexhaustible
patience," said the cloaked youth. "Come with me."
I followed him into the house, a dark smoke filled place
where everything was old fashioned except for the network screen flickering in
the corner. Asgwrn Ffriddoedd is a big man. He has a mop of curly red hair on
his head and a big red beard on his chin. I was given a steaming bowl of bread
and milk, some baked potatoes with butter and some wine. I wolfed it all down
anyway.
"So you got on line eventually," he said,
"What kept you?"
"Oh, yes, sure!" I blurted out untruthfully.
"Do you know the Saffron Tinker?"
"What did you do, Gwern, to have them after you?"
"I did nothing to them. The Heartless Bodies don't want
me."
"Come now, " said the big man. "Lets all
cooperate. Your whole case has been hopping all over the web."
"Look" I said, "It's Scarlet Nightshade who
started this. She's turned everyone against me and it would be nothing for her
to carry any old lies about me to Fischermädchen as well. Look, it was Wil
Pickled Herring who broke her necklace, not me!"
"And what is this about you and the network crash in the
Exile States? I don't wonder the Heartless Bodies are after you for wrecking
their systems, and by mistake as well, for God's sake, due to incompetence not
patriotism at all! You would have more respect had you done it on purpose,
foolish one."
"It was on purpose, actually, I wanted to spoil their
plans, it wasn't an accident!"
"Bullshit! I don't believe a word."
"You can believe what you like, Asgwrn Ffriddoedd,"
I said sulkily.
"That's better" He is such a pompous man. "So
you were thinking of escaping towards the High Country?" he added after
chewing his beard for a bit.
"If you say so, Asgwrn Ffriddoedd, " I said.
"I've seen plenty of the likes of you before."
"Is the High Country far?"
"'Is it far, indeed?" Asgwrn Ffriddoedd beckoned to
the gaunt lad. "Tell him how far it is to the High Country, Pilgrim."
said the big man.
"It's nearer than yesterday and farther than
tomorrow" said the sombre youth.
"Well you're all leaving tomorrow anyway," said
Asgwrn Ffriddoedd.
"Is Saffron Tinker coming as well, sir?" I inquired
innocently.
"You know him, then, do you?"
"So he does exist? Everyone has heard the legends about
him leading to the High Country the ones who flee from the grip of the Heartless
Bodies."
Asgwrn Ffriddoedd laughed when I said that and started to
slap his knee with his palm. "Yes, very good" he said simmering with
mirth. "Well, he is here, oh yes, he's here. He's been waiting a long while
for you, you three legged snail."
"Sorry about that," I muttered.
"Tomorrow morning then, Saffron Tinker, Pilgrim and you
have got to set off up towards the High Country. Use this secure device for
inputing updates. These are my orders. Sleep then go.
"Thank you, sir" I said taking the processor not
really knowing what he meant or whether I had any reason to thank him or not.
Sunless Summer is a big country, vast I would say. Some say
that it has no borders but I don't believe it. A country must stop somewhere or
it can't be whole, surely that's true. Well, anyway, I never saw such wastelands
as the places I passed on the way through. Rolling bare hills to the horizon and
not a furze bush growing. No walls. No paths. A country like the waves of the
sea with no surf breaking. Here and there I saw grass growing and around these
clumps there were sheep struggling to graze. But though there is no sun nor
pasture, the people here greet you with a smile. I don't know where they live or
what they do. We saw no houses. I doubt they get many visitors, they seem so
hospitable. "Welcome to Sunless Summer!" they shout as hordes of
ragged children come from nowhere around your legs and smile into your face and
laugh at your hair and clothes and skin. Saffron Tinker just frowned all the
time like a scarecrow at everyone, his yellow eyes flashing disapproval in all
directions. You would have thought his wild appearance would be enough to
frighten them, what with his stooped gait, long arms and spindly short legs
leaping here and there. Few doubt that he is a cross and angry man. He was, in
contrast, actually quite kind to me during the journey. Occasionally he would
allow me up behind him on his mule for a few minutes. Pilgrim had to walk the
whole way, poor fellow.
"I prefer to walk" he would say whenever I got a
ride. "My destiny is to walk the rough paths always and that is as it
should be and ever shall be, and should there be no path untrodden in this
transient world I would still walk on in a circle like a mouse on a wheel."
I didn't know him at that time, so I tended not to query many
of the crazy things he said, thinking he was ever so wise. "But why do you
want to carry a sack full of old stones around with you?" was one question
I asked. "Aren't there plenty around us in the mountains?"
"Listen, lad," he said in a boastful voice,
squaring his owl like shoulders, "some people prefer to carry their weight
on their backs rather than in their hearts. Anyway, these are special
stones."
"If the two of you would like to stop quarreling"
said Saffron Tinker, "you can pitch camp on the ridge over there. It gets
dark early on the borders of the Wild Country."
That was the first I knew that we had arrived in the Wild
Country. I'm not denying that it was cold, by Jesus it was cold, it hit you like
a fist in the mornings and like a blade cutting through the mist at night. It
would be nothing for your eyelids to freeze shut, and I almost failed to
recognize Dai Takes Eggs as he swaggered into camp towards me in his big coat.
"Hey, Gwern!" he called with a wink like the wink
that he gave me on on our town square. "So you've arrived."
"Takes Eggs!" I said, "What brought you
here?"
"Keep your questions" he said. "Sealed lips
are sweet. I thought you were done fore back in town."
I told him about the hassle I had had and all he did was
start laughing.
"Listen, Gwern" he said "both you know and I
know that you weren't working with Lower Level team, so keep your fibs. It was
an accident and that's all. You made a right mess of their systems, I'll admit,
you and your incompetence. I bet Fischermädchen's face was a picture when you
escaped her grasp. You lucky basadard!" He laughed heartily and slapped me
on the back.
"You can keep your luck, Takes Eggs, thank you very
much," I snapped. I couldn't see much to laugh about.
"Just you work on your story, my son"
"Why do they call it the Wild Country, Takes Eggs?"
I asked to change the subject having said too much already probably.
"I really don't know" said he. "Perhaps it has
something to do with the fact that the Wire Bandits rear all their Shining
Beasts here."
"Are the Shining Beasts dangerous?"
"Oh, no, not at all. They would only tear you to shreds.
They would happily eat up six better men than you before breakfast, boy. And
mind you don't look into their electric eyes. But remember, should you raise so
much as a finger against them you will have their leader Rock Jaw himself to
answer to."
Dai Takes Eggs went on his way soon after. Going down to
Sunless Summer, he said, with an important message for Asgwrn Ffriddoedd. That's
what he said. But knowing Dai Takes Eggs he was probably just showing off.
However fair play to him, he did lend me his restplate so that I might continue
in safety. It was a good one too, a shiny transparent plate moulded to the body
and fitting like a glove. I gave him Saffron Tinker's mule in return because Dai
Takes Eggs said that it would be no use to us in the Wild Country; too much
slippery on the rocks for a mule and so forth. Saffron Tinker was not at all
pleased when he found out what I had done. He started calling me all sorts of
unrepeatable names and threatened to throw me from the precipice and beat me
with his stick but he was too frail so I broke his stick and said I would carry
the tent and he quieted down. But of course Saffron Tinker is a poor walker, his
spindly legs have no strength, and we stayed where we were for a while. I
thought it was a good bargain because I would never have managed to sleep those
nights in the Wild Country without the restplate to protect me, what with the
Shining Beasts howling and braying and keeping up a commotion all night around
the camp and eyeing our tent with their piercing eyes as they churned up clumps
of the the mountain with their hooves until the night would become a wild storm
of lightning all about us. Pilgrim had no restplate and simply lay there
shivering in his cloak through the small hours without a wink of sleep, groaning
and saying his prayers under his breath. Probably all part of his penance.
Pilgrim is a strange fellow.
Saffron Tinker would get into a blind fury with the shining
beasts and would start shouting and screaming at them for all he was worth.
"Get out of here you blasted devils! There's nothing for you here! Clear
off!" And he would reach for his combat claw and threaten them with it
while shielding his eyes from their piercing gaze and they would retreat behind
the escarpment until Saffron Tinker had put away his combat claw and gone back
to lie in the tent in the middle of the night with everything was peaceful in
camp again. But little by little the shining beasts would creep back stealthily
around the camp again and strike up their unearthly crying and wailing while
flashing their piercing eyes and churning up the rocks with their hooves until
the lightning storm would fill the night and Saffron Tinker would quite loose
control of himself, swearing and blinding like a devil and dancing and bounding
like a man gone mad.
This is how it was for nights on end. One night in the belly
of the night Saffron Tinker knotted a cord onto his combat claw and sped it
towards the shining beasts until the claw caught in the flank of one of them and
then Saffron Tinker started to draw in the cord and the shining beast started
screaming and the claw took the hide clean off the side of the moaning beasts
from its shoulder to its hind quarters and all the shining beasts came howling
and roaring and gnashing their teeth and flashing their eyes to the side of the
wounded one which lay crying quietly on its side in its own blood on the rock
until the whole herd turned tail and charged away to the escarpment and we were
not bothered by them again that night.
The next morning when I looked out from under the side of the
tent who should I see encircling the camp but the Wire Bandits mounted on
shining beasts in a line around us, stony faced and with arms folded on their
chests and their eyes staring mute at the wounded one lying in its own blood
stretching to lick dew of the stones. Its little eyes were dull and rolling like
marbles in its head. I shook Saffron Tinker to wake him, but that didn't work -
I suppose he was too tired to wake after being kept awake every night by the
shining beasts.
"Saffron Tinker! Saffron Tinker! The Wire Bandits are
here!" I cried giving him a nasty pinch on his purple nose.
"Leave me alone you weevil" said Saffron Tinker.
The next minute he opened one round yellow eye and demanded, "What did you
say?"
"The Wire Bandits are here and they want you."
"Oh heavens, what will we do now?" cried Pilgrim.
"Be quiet the two of you," said Saffron Tinker.
"I'll go out to them then you useless cowards. Rock Jaw and I are thick as
thieves, I don't envisage any difficulties, he eats out of my hand for God's
sake, yes indeed, he is not as unreasonable as some would make out, not at
all." He can be very brave, poor old Saffron Tinker.
With that Saffron Tinker wrapped his cloak about him and
stepped out onto camp ledge. I say camp but it was really hardly more that a
tent and an open hearth on a level patch under the mountain's eves.
I was watching from under the tent and Pilgrim was watching
with me and both of us quaking and the tent quivering with us as we saw poor
Saffron Tinker standing before the Wire Bandits and the bandits all pressing
down on him and some lo them eaping from their shining beasts and pinioning him
between. Rock Jaw raised his palm.
"Saffron Tinker!" said Rock Jaw, "You have
injured my shining beast through black treachery and his value I claim. Oh rude
serf, you will pay his value and the price of this insult to me!"
They bound old Saffron Tinker and flung him crossways on his
stomach across the back of one of the shining beasts and then tied his wrists
and ankles together to form a girth under the belly of the beast so that he
could not even raise a hand to wave at us as they were leading him away.
As if in afterthought Rock Jaw stopped and turned his beast
towards us in our tent. "And as for you two cowards hiding in there, your
job is to mend my beast until he is well again and then you'll get Saffron
Tinker back again. In the meantime I'll use him as my best beast.!" And
with that the warband galloped away from us, their streaming pennants glistening
behind them and their wild long hair swimming in the wind and we were not
troubled by the shining beasts ever again.
"Bwwwww!" said the wounded one outside and we went
out to see what could be done to try to mend him. His flank was an open wound
and in spite of the cold there were already maggots squirming in his flesh. We
washed out the wound with melted snow. The beast snorted and dribbled but was
too weak to struggle. Then Pilgrim reached in his sack for the 'special stones'
as he calls them and carefully laid them on the beast's flank over the wound. We
lit a fire to keep the creature warm and we boiled water to make porridge with
which to spoon feed him. Our beast slept the whole night through without
groaning or anything and the following morning he managed to raise his head from
the moss we had packed under his head as a pillow. His eyes had stopped rolling
like marbles around in his head and fixed us with a steady gaze.
"Gwern Medicine Man you should be called," said
Pilgrim, "not Gwern Excuses." I told him that I though there might be
some good in his special stones after all.
We spent three weeks curing the beast and when he died we
wanted to cry. We were almost sick because we had become best friends with the
poor creature and he had come to lick our faces and to blow warm air up our
nostrils.
"How shall we bury him with the ground hard like
iron?" Really, Pilgrim is enough to infuriate anyone.
"Put the rest of your "special stones" over
him for all they're worth now," I said crossly, blaming him and his old
stones for everything. But it was stones from the mountainside that we collected
in the end because Pilgrim refused to share any more of his silly stones.
We left the tent where it was and struck out for the gap
above where Saffron Tinker used to point when we asked him before. The pass to
the High Country was in the clouds that spiralled around us like cold smoke. At
night Pilgrim had to resign himself to sharing my restplate or he would
certainly have frozen as we had no tent and his cloak was worn threadbare and as
we were both on our last legs and our provisions were gone and the daytime kept
shrinking smaller and smaller every day and the chill of the mountain kept
closing around us tighter every night. We must have left the Wild Country by now
and reached the middle of Bleak Winter because there was nothing but mist below
us with outcrops of rock coming through it like islands. The paths were all
shale and ice and we were quite unsure which of them was the right one to take.
There is no colour in Bleak Winter, no trees, no birds. A stump of a day and
then a cloak of night from mid-afternoon to mid morning. On the last day Pilgrim
put his sack down and sat like a wreath on a stone.
"My ears are bleeding and I've lost all feeling in my
toes," he said. "I can't go any further."
" Well the pass won't come to us" I said
accusingly.
"I am to blame for this" said he.
"Yes," I said, "because it's you who's
supposed to know this wasteland and it's you who's supposed to get us over, you
spineless useless weakling."
A shower of hail rose was the next plague to strike us,
rising like a swarm of angry bees over the clifftop below and pelting us until
we cringed. We managed to crawl to a crack in the rock to shelter but the
restplate was of no use in a place like that. Pilgrim's stones didn't seem to be
doing us much good either so I got hold of his sack and flung it over the edge
of the precipice.
"You shouldn't have done that," said Pilgrim, his
head handing like a duck in a Gameshop.
"Oh, shut it," I said as my eyes closed and my mind
circled like a kestrel above a deep ravine.
It was a fine sunny ravine. I was falling and falling until
my stomach was doing head over heels inside of me and the earth was rising like
a ball towards me and all the time I was trying to raise back my head to arrest
my fall before I hit the ground. But I landed like a feather after all, close to
Gelli Aur at the orchard of Tyn Coed where the blossom boiled in the apple trees
and where the green bracken was swept with warm insects in the sunlight and the
cold smell of moss awoke in me a boy catching tiddlers in a jam jar by the
stream as I went towards Tyn y Coed and you opened the door and smiled and said
nothing so I knew I was only dreaming after all. "It's so cold in Bleak
Winter, Caress," I said. "I know " you said, "I still love
you and won't listen to Scarlet Nightshade's stories." I could smell
flowers and sun as I watched your smile. "Why can't the dream last
forever" I said. "Nothing lasts forever, Gwern," you said, your
voice so warm and gentle. "Will you be nice to me forever, Caress?" I
said. "They're looking for you" you said and then you turned on
hearing the baby cry. The shadows were opening like roses and the river was a
murmer far away, the slate flags of the footpath were sinking beneath my feet as
you smiled gently and slowly raised your hand to wave goodbye and I couldn't
move or raise my hand or make any gesture as darkness surrounded me.
-
- Testimony Two ''''' Follows...
It was on the backs of mules that the Swarthy Cavedwarves
carried us up to the High Country once they had revived us by rubbing us with
some leaves similar to dock leaves but that stung like nettles. So Dai Takes
Eggs's story about the mules being unable to negotiate the high passes was a
pack of lies. "We are the masters of Bleak Winter," was the Swarthy
Cavedwarves constant refrain. "We'll get a good price for a couple of
ruffians like you from Grind Underfoot." They secured our feet under the
bellies of the mules and tied our arms about their necks, to prevent us falling
into the void below they said, and away we went through the day and then through
the night with flaming torches lighting up our way. I have no recollection of
how many days we spent on the journey to the High Country.
At daybreak one morning I knew we were close as I could see
some black birds similar to ravens circling above and cawing. We hadn't seen
birds of any description since leaving Sunless Summer and it made me think we
must be close to High Country. I was correct for once. As the mules struggled
forward over the boulders and in spite of having my face in the rough mane of my
mule, I saw a gap opening in the mountain wall and smelt bracken burning on the
breeze. On we went at a leisurely pace now, along an interminable valley floor.
The path was now level for the first time. I remember that it had already
started to become warmer even at the mouth of the pass, and it got progressively
warmer as we went on. There was a strange type of bracken growing from among the
boulders that swayed like seaweed in the tide. Above, on the valley slopes, we
saw husbandmen working their ploughs behind cart horses, turning black
glistening furrows of peat across the high grasslands, now stopping to mop the
beads of sweat from their brows as they saw us pass. The change in the
temperature was too much for me; I suppose I must have fainted, that was the
last thing I remember until I awoke in a dark chamber with sunlight playing
through the chinks in the drystone walls. I was so stiff I couldn't move so I
just lay there. Pilgrim was snoring contentedly quite close beside me on the
dirt floor. I managed to roll over to him and blew hard into his ear to wake him
up.
"No...no..." he mumbled in his sleep, "I can
explain about the stones. Just one chance..."
"Stop your jabbering and stir yourself" I said.
"Tell me where we are."
"Is it you?" he said. "I thought you'd gone
over the precipice... O, no, now I remember... It was you who threw away my
stones!"
"Shut up about your stupid stones and tell me where we
are!"
"How long did I sleep?" There was anxiety in his
voice and his lips were quivering. I felt almost pity for him.
"Two weeks" I said cruelly to provoke him although
I had no idea. "And you've only been blabbering in your sleep the whole
time too!"
"Oh, no! What did I say?"
"A great deal too much, sonny boy. Is it true about
Saffron Tinker?"
"I don't know what you're on about," he spouted
sulkily. "Where are we?"
"For pity's sake, Pilgrim," I declared, beginning
to lose patience, "You are supposed to tell me where we are. Only you know,
Pilgrim, because only you have been here before if it is here that we are. We
are in High Country, aren't we? Come on, tell me!"
At that the door creaked open and a man's shadow filled the
open doorway. He must have seen that we were awake because he slammed the door
shut again and we could hear his footsteps tinkling like a piano as he sped away
over the loose slates.
In a while the door was opened again and six men's heads
against the light peered into the cell without us being able to make out their
faces.
"Out," said one.
"I can't move" said poor Pilgrim and a lance from
somewhere came and stabbed him in the behind. He got to his feet quite quickly
then, and I followed.
"This way," said the man.
Outside, the dazzling sunlight sparkled in our eyes like
thousands of sovereigns gleaming from the leaves of the trees and bouncing from
the streams and pools. Once I could see properly again all I could do was laugh
at Pilgrim with his face as black as a collier, and he laughed at me and said I
was the same. We asked if we might have a wash.
"No," said the guard
"You're welcome to water from my spring," said a
pretty little maiden who appeared from somewhere and stood in our path.
"Hurry up then," snarled the guard.
We made the most of it and washed ourselves with the little
maiden pouring spring water for us from her pitcher. With the cold cold water on
our faces and the warm sun on our backs we soon felt a lot better.
"Aren't they friendly round here," said Pilgrim
once we had set off again.
There were all kinds of birds flying free between the trees,
species I had never seen the likes of before on any nature programme back home
in Lowland. Big clumsy birds with long golden tail feathers and black wings and
red crests on their heads, continuously calling and whistling to one another
like referees and flocking to the bushes around us to get a good look at us and
to see where we were going. The path slabs were worn smooth and being wet flowed
before us like quicksilver between the two high walls down towards a village of
grey stone walls and slate roofs with smoke rising like ribbons from the
chimneys. The streets were paved with cobbles worn down to a smooth glow, nice
and gentle under foot. There was one house larger than the rest with the High
Country White on White flying proud from its pole on the rooftop, and it was
towards this house that we appeared to be making our way. Having arrived we
found it was not a house but a hall, and no holes in the walls here but fine
plaster and murals all around the inside, battle scenes, fighting, and the
Heartless Bodies being beaten by the warriors of High Country and the Wire
Bandits on their Shining Beasts fleeing before their forces and the men of High
Country raising their standard, the white star in a bright sky, over the
battlefield. I'm sure they must have been glad to have beaten the enemy rather
than to have been killed. I spent ages studying that High Country flag on the
wall trying to make out the white star but for the life of me I couldn't find
it, all I could see was the plain white square.
"Grind Underfoot : Prince of High Country," barked
a cross little man from his raised throne. "I want answers and I want the
truth. Do you understand?"
"What was the question, sir?" asked Pilgrim,
receiving another spear stab from one of the soldiers for his trouble.
"We will be pleased to co-operate in any way we can,
Grind Underfoot, sir," I said. Grind Underfoot reached for a roll of
parchment and unrolled in with a flourish.
"Where is Saffron Tinker?" was his first question.
"With the Bandits, sir," said Pilgrim.
"Of his own accord or against his will?"
"They did not offer him a choice, sir, if that is what
you mean," I replied. "But there it is, it him that killed the beast
and..."
"Look you here!" growled Grind Underfoot starting
to get angry. "I don't give a brass farthing who killed the beast, Saffron
Tinker is supposed to accompany you to the Lower Level! I can't send you without
him!"
"It doesn't appear that we'll be going,then," I
said.
He lost his temper at that and started to shout. "You're
damn lucky that Saffron Tinker's name is on the same paper as yours, boy!
Otherwise I would derive the greatest of pleasure in having Giant Hands tear you
limb from limb with his ten fine fingers!"
"Sorry, sir," said I trying to appease him.
"Of course we'll be going to the Lower Level... When will Saffron Tinker be
arriving?"
"Idiot! Moron! Fool! You are the ones who lost Saffron
Tinker and you are the ones who are going to find him. There is nothing further
to discuss! And just thinking about what will happen to you should you be so
insolent as to fail makes even my bitter old blood curdle in my veins. Take them
away!"
"I think he want's us to rescue Saffron Tinker" I
said to Pilgrim once we were alone, this time in a hut of quality by the side of
the hall.
"Is that what he wants?" said he, dense as usual.
"Do you think we can manage it?"
"No." I was telling him the truth for once.
"What if we refuse?"
"Don't even think about it. We've got three days to
prepare."
Yes indeed, everything was fine for us while we were in Stone
Town. That was the name of the village as we were told. There are other villages
in Red County but this is the best one according to those who live here. We were
also told that there are three other counties in Central Province and that it is
one of the five provinces of High Country. We stayed put in Stone Town otherwise
I'm sure we would have got lost.
It was an agreeable enough place other than that the
electricity supply had long since been disconnected and stolen by the Wire
Bandits to be sold to the Exile States. Since there was no electricity the
Network screens were of no use either and the news had to be carried by old
fashioned messengers, like postmen in the olden days. They were able to get from
High Country to Sunless Summer in less than a week, so it was said, not like us
pitching camp on the edge of Wild Country and getting lost in Bleak Winter.
We were allowed free rein to go as we pleased and all we had
to do was say that we were acting on behalf of Grind Underfoot and all doors
would open before us and everyone would compete to offer their best to us.
Pilgrim was delighted, of course, and went off to the
storehouse to choose all manner of trinkets, and to scour the streams for
colourful stones. I left him to it and went for a walk above the village.
I was quite content looking at the birds looking at me, and
whistling at them and they screeching crossly back at me for imitating them.
"Don't frighten the Flame Birds," said the little
maiden having appeared from nowhere with her pitcher of spring water on her
head.
"Gosh," I said, startled, "you're lightfooted
enough anyway."
"You're from Lowland aren't you?" she asked.
"Aren't you Gwern?"
"I am, yes," I said. "How did you know?"
"I'm Summer Nightshade Water Maiden. How long are you
staying in High Country?"
"Couple of Days. We're going to rescue Saffron
Tinker" I boasted. "Tell me," I added, "haven't you got
family in my town?"
"Down in Lowland? Oh, sure, my cousin Scarlet
Nightshade. Know her? We moved to High Country when the Heartless Bodies took my
father and brother when I was small. I don't often hear from my family in my
town now. I try to write but it's not the same since we lost the Wire Post. The
new messengers are so slow, don't you think?"
"I remember now, yes, you had to leave, six, seven I'd
guess you were, wasn't it? Suppose I wasn't much older myself come to think of
it."
"I'm late with Grind Underfoot's water," she said
smiling like the morning sun. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime."
I lingered awhile longer. I sat with my back to the bank by
the cold spring listening to the water as it arched and fell deeply into the
pool and watching the Flame Birds going through their paces above me, whistling
and winking at me and hoping from bough to bough in the branches.
Pilgrim was lounging indolently on his mattress when I got
back. Worn out, he said, having been selecting weapons for the journey back to
Wild Country.
"I've been for a walk above the village watching the
Flame Birds," I told him. "Come on, it's time we went to look for some
supper."
We went to Leather Belly's place for supper and ordered two
bottles of bilberry spirits and roast meat with roast potatoes and a loaf of
bread, putting it all down on Grind Underfoot's account.
"You must come with me tomorrow to get your weapons for
the journey," said Pilgrim as we ate. "There's a lot of choosing to be
done, you know."
But it wasn't to choose weapons with Pilgrim that I went the
next day. I went up for a walk above the village to see the Flame Birds going
through their tricks and showing off like anything.
"Hi, Gwern," said Summer Nightshade over her
shoulder as she bent over the spring pool to fill her pitcher. She never wears
shoes does Summer Nightshade and she had her skirts all hitched up around her
waist with her naked legs glistened wet in the sunlight.
"It's a nice day, Summer Nightshade," I said.
"These birds are quite something, aren't they? Will you have a drop of
bilberry spirits?" And I fished out the bottle that I'd kept from the night
before and held it out for her to see.
She came to sit beside me by the bank and that's where we
were drinking bilberry spirits and talking about Lowland and about High Country
and about everything under the sun. Then I put my arm around her waist and felt
her warm and soft under her shirt. She rested her head on my shoulder as if she
was terribly tired.
"You're so pretty, Summer Nightshade," I said in
her ear as I bent over to kiss her. Her lips were warm and yielding and her
fragrance of blossoms filled my head as the sun caressed my nape and as the
green grass under us soothed us and I closed my eyes and enveloped myself in her
warmth as my mind opened towards you and as we lay I could hear the whirling of
the warm insects and could see before me the emerald grass choking the path to
Tyn Coed as swallows darted overhead and could see the dry moss on the stones in
the river with only a trickle flowing like water down a plug hole and I felt the
sun's heat radiating from the drystone walls of the orchard and a dragonfly
going zig zag, zig zag with his wings whirling like a little helicopter. You
were hanging sheets to dry in the garden with the boy at your feet playing with
the pegs. He pointed at me as he saw me approach and made a gurgling noise in
his throat and you turned to look as I walked up the path.
"You shouldn't have come," you said. "They'll
know that you've been. Hey, Calonnog! Spit that out this minute!"
"I miss you Caress..."
"You can't miss something you've never had."
"Will you give me a bit of your heart to take with me?
It would be a shelter against the tempest where I have to be. It's not much to
ask of you..."
"You know you could have had it all, Gwern, but we both
know you would only lay it to waste. The wound is only beginning to heal from
the last time, things are different now, it belongs to the boy now, Gwern, I
have to be strong for him. You know that, don't you, and I'm sorry I can't give
it to you again Gwern."
I felt the world getting colder and I raised my head and
heard the arched water plunge hard into the spring pool and saw a little cloud
swallow the sun as Summer Nightshade opened her eyes and raised her head to see.
A sharp breeze was blowing, the Flame Birds had long since vanished from the
trees and the evening dew was deep and menacing on the bowed blades of the green
grass.
"Damn that cloud," she said nestling closer.
"You won't tell anyone that I've been up here with you
drinking and so on, will you..." I couldn't keep my voice from grating.
"Of course I won't" she said looking puzzled.
"Listen, Summer Nightshade, just in case you got the
wrong impression, I only came up here because I thought you might be lonely
drawing water by yourself all day and no one to keep you company. It was the
spirits that went straight to my head, that's what it was... You won't mention
this to anyone..."
All she did was jump angrily to her feet, straighten her
skirts, snatch her pitcher and stride away from me with her bare feet slapping
like flatfish on the smooth stones.
I went back to our lodgings feeling quite low at heel and
there I sat for ages at the table by the window with my head on my arms until
Pilgrim came in looking very worried.
"Who's eaten you're porridge this time, then?" I
asked sharply as I raised my head.
"Well you've never been with me to choose your weapons
for tomorrow," he answered. "Come on, hurry up, we'd better go
now."
I decided to go with him anyhow, anything to turn my thoughts
to another matter rather than keep thinking what you'd be thinking if you knew
about me now.
They could only offer us old fashioned weapons, Pilgrim told
me. He now obviously knew all there was to know about it having spent his three
days inspecting and selecting them. The new ones were useless, apparently,
because there was no energy left to power them, that's why. But I've got to say,
you would never have seen such machines as they had there, no indeed. Hand to
air missiles still gleaming in their paper, electric distortion bullets in their
clean cotton wool covers, dessication rays, everything you could think of. And
Pilgrim still badgering me, "Look, that's a good one, Gwern, and here,
look, come on look at this one, isn't that a fantastic machine if it would only
work." I saw restplates by the dozen, hard and transparent like Dai Takes
Eggs's one, every size to fit like a glove; three edged swords, tridents,
crossbows - all come from the museum. Everything was kept in the town lockup,
that's where we were. What a dreadful place. Six of the Swarthy Cavedwarves,
smaller even than Grind Underfoot, having been recruited from the caves of Bleak
Winter and retained as warders of the prison. Two prisoners: two Bodies without
Hearts, chained fast in a dark cell. Each of the Cavedwarves would be obliged to
thump both Heartless Bodies on the head six times a day a thrice at night, so it
was no surprise that they both looked the worst for wear. We entered their cell
for a chat between wallops.
Very chatty they are too, the Heartless Bodies. They are the
ones who have to fight for the Exile Sates, that's what Saffron Tinker had told
us. They don't necessarily have to be from the Exile States but are often from
elsewhere, having been possessed and processed by Rausman and his Counsellors
who take their hearts from them and unless they fight they don't get them back
again. I'm sure I'd have been made a Hearless Body had Fischermädchen caught me
and handed me over to Rausman's Counsellors. And the only treatment for
Heartless Bodies in High Country is to beat them, because without electricity
the head wires are no use at all, and the beating seemed to be doing some good
too. These two were actually volunteers from Zigenner City in the southern Exile
States. They were full of praise for the treatment afforded them, saying how
lucky they were to have survived the carnage in Bleak Winter the last time they
had tried to crush High Country. It was to be noted, mentioned one of them, that
of course they hadn't actually survived, rather that they had been rubbed over
by the Swarthy Cavedwarves' healing herbs to bring them back to life again so as
to be sold by the Cavedwarves for a unit a head to Grind Underfoot, and of
course that kept their expatriates in the lockup in work as well.
"Actually it has been quite super," said the bald
one called Wasser Schwoll. "They have all been frightfully
hospitable."
"Isn't it a drag getting beaten black and blue all the
time?" I asked feigning interest in their affairs.
"Certainly not!" said the one with his matted grey
hair entwined about his body, Herz Erklingt I think they called him. "I is
most essential to develop a physical relationship with one's captors and we feel
privileged to receive such attention."
"What did he say?" asked Pilgrim.
"Time for your hiding," said the largest Cavedwarf.
"Just a minute," I cut across. "We're here on
official business on behalf of Grind Underfoot so shut your gob and go make us
some tea."
He went too. The tea was like dishwater although the two
without Hearts complemented it warmly. The dwarf brought us biscuits as well.
We learnt a lot from those poor hostages. They were quite
surprised that I spoke their language so well.
"What I don't understand," I said, "is why the
Wire Bandits would steal High Country's power supply. I thought they were part
of the confederation together with Lowland and all the rest under the presidency
of High Country. Surely they would be wiser not to break ranks like this but
stand firm together to prevent the Exile States taking back our freedom again.
They'll get nowhere at each others throats like this."
"But of course, old man," said Herz Erklingt,
"Quite inexplicable, we don't pretend to understand. Together you would be
unconquerable. However I firmly believe that war is now inevitable as naturally
the Exile States are bound to take a dim view of your unilateral declaration of
independence. They were not even consulted about the matter. I am convinced that
in this instance the whole edifice of this paltry alliance shall crumble before
our superior tactical organisation. This time it will be final. Zuruchschlagen!"
"Zugang Zuruchschlagen!" rejoined the bald
one. They were starting to get exited and trying to get up from the floor but
the fetters kept them down.
"Shut your filthy mouths," I shouted angrily. I had
a word with the Cavedwarves and gave them an extra unit each to give both of
them an extra beating that evening. We bade farewell and were soon back at our
lodgings by the hall in the centre of Stone Town.
We were due to set out the following morning. And set out we
did. I had chosen a restplate and some other junk for the journey together with
a tent and a mule. Pilgrim, of course, had selected a mountain of weapons, a
sackful of stones and a pen full of mules to carry all his kit. "Fool"
I thought to myself seeing him struggling with all his things for a wasted
journey.
Down in Bleak Winter the weather came to hit us like a pole.
I was having trouble enough with Pilgrim and his obstreperous mules. The burdens
would constantly fall to the ground and Pilgrim would then have to secure them
on their backs again, and the mules would then refuse to go on or otherwise
refuse to stop, anything to infuriate Pilgrim and to retard our journey.
Inevitably, the Swarthy Cavedwarves fell upon us and stole
ten of Pilgrim's mules, leaving him crying like a baby in a wet nappy.
"Hush now," I tried to soothe him. "You've got
six left, and look I only have the one. So really, what are you crying
about?"
"Yes, but you only had one to start with," he
whimpered, "and I had sixteen fine mules and now I've only got six. That
means that I've lost out terribly and I'm quite broken hearted about the whole
thing." And he started to blubber again.
"Losing a mule or two isn't so hard to swallow for God's
sake." I was beginning to loosing patience.
"I couldn't spare any of these to swallow," he
snapped.
I was about to reach him a sharp cuff on the ear when all of
a sudden the Ice Locusts descended upon us. A lucky intervention for Pilgrim.
They were rising up over the edge of the precipice and
raining down hard upon us like hailstones, the mules were struggling and Pilgrim
began wailing all the louder and there was I damning and cursing and trying to
kill the Ice Locusts with a two yard sword.
When we were on all fours on the ground under the weight of
the locusts the Swarthy Cavedwarves returned to plunder us again.
"Enough," commanded Snow Storm, leader of the
Cavedwarves, and the locusts at once rose from us.
"Throw them over the precipice," she instructed her
followers who held fast onto our arms and legs and proceeded to inch us towards
the chasm.
"You're making a mistake," I cried.
"Not at all," she said. "This is the precipice
we always use."
"We have messages for you from the High Country Lockup
Cavedwarves," I shouted from the edge.
"Drop them," said Snow Storm.
"On the ground, she means," screamed Pilgrim,
struggling
as they lowered him over the edge of the abyss.
We received a fine welcome after all, indeed we did. They
treated us like proper gentlefolk, allowed us to visit their caves and meet
their families and warm ourselves on Ice Locust stew.
We told them that the Jailhouse Cavedwarves sent their
regards and that the two without Hearts were still being beaten and that there
was talk that there might be many more Heartless Bodies available in Bleak
Winter soon who could be sold as hostages to Grind Underfoot as they had done
with the other two and with us as well. Snow Storm and her husband Rustrat were
delighted to hear the news and they did not even bother to take all our mules,
belongings and provisions as they had promised, but allowed us to keep a mule
each. They also furnished us with plenty of Ice Locust sandwiches. We received
also a bag of healing herbs into the bargain.
"Look us up any time," they called as we rode away.
"Certainly," called back Pilgrim. "When we can
afford it," he added dryly.
"You're very materialistic calling yourself a
pilgrim," I chided him as we left their sight.
"What does that mean?" said the innocent one.
"Gratified by all sorts of possessions and weapons and
mules and such like."
"Well I never had any before and anyway I like animals,
so what's wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing, I'm sure," I muttered turning away
from him towards the path in front of me and ignoring him thereafter.
We were left alone by the Ice Locusts and hence managed to
reach the Wild Country by nightfall without further incident. There was our
tent, as we had left it, in the middle of the camp ledge on the mountain
escarpment, and still there also was the body of the shining beast, under its
pile of stones, but we didn't approach it that evening. The rocky peaks below us
rose up through the clouds like islands in a sea of cotton wool, and the setting
sun dying the cotton wool pink all over. They seemed so solid, the clouds, that
you would expect them to hold you easily should you leap towards them from the
icy brink. We pitched a few stones down from the ledge but they always seemed to
vanish before reaching the clouds so we never knew whether they were really
caught and held in the mists. Night fell around us and we retreated to the tent.
It was quiet as the grave, no lowing of shining beasts to frighten us in the
darkness, but the sound of Pilgrim's breathing and the sound of the whispering
canvass progressively became amplified until they filled my head and prevented
me from sleeping. It was lucky I still had my restplate.
The next morning we ventured out to inspect the shining
beast's grave. We dragged a few stones from around his head to see how he was.
He was much the same, dead, but the cold (and the "special stones"
according to Pilgrim) had kept him in a relatively good state apart from the
maggots in his wounds.
"Will the healing herbs bring him back to life
again?" asked Pilgrim.
"I doubt it," I said. "Well, we might as well
try I suppose."
So we built a fire to thaw some ice from the mountain and
boiled it to make tea with the healing herbs and after pulling all the stones
off the shining beast we packed the tea leaves into his wounds and poured some
of the tea down his throat and rubbed him with the healing herbs and by this
time it was time for lunch.
We repaired to the tent for lunch. We had Ice Locust
sandwiches, the ones the Swarthy Cavedwarves had kindly given us in return for
the roast geese and spiced sausages that we had brought with us for the journey.
Foul tasting things they are too, the Ice Locusts, and very little nourishment
in them I would think, if the appearance of the Swarthy Cavedwarves is anything
to go by.
Anyway, in the middle of trying to force down these
sandwiches what should we hear but a weak voice calling "Bwwwwww" so
we got up and went out to have a look.
The shining beast had risen shakily to his feet and was
looking around in bewilderment. His hide of his flank had healed along its
length apart from a little claw shaped scar on his shoulder where the weapon had
gone in. He had become alarmingly thin, his ribs all showing through his skin.
"Hurrah!" shouted Pilgrim, "The special stones
have done the trick!"
"Hold your rejoicing, nincompoop," I reproached
him, "and go boil up a saucepan of porridge for him quick as you can."
"None left," he said. "Only Ice Locust
sandwiches."
The shining beast devoured all the locust sandwiches and was
still hungry so I sent off Pilgrim to look for moss and grass and such like. He
returned eventually with a huge armful of rushes and moss which the beast was
soon munching noisily. By the following morning the beast was right as rain
while the two of us were beginning to droop from hunger.
"What's for breakfast?" asked Pilgrim as soon as he
awoke.
"Nothing."
"Has the shining beast eaten everything?"
"Yes. You know he has. And here are you wasting all your
energy dragging a sack of stones around with you everywhere. I don't know."
I was feeling very peevish. "What else have you got in that sack?"
"More special stones."
"You and you're "special" stones. Let's have a
look."
"No you don't. Get away. Let go..." But I was
stronger than Pilgrim and I prized the sack from his grasp and emptied it's
contents on the floor of the tent. And what do you think he had under the
stones? Tins of baked beans, tins of sardines, packets of pancakes, jam, butter,
slabs of chocolate... and two roast geese.
"Well for Christ's sake you selfish little
glutton," I cried flying into a blind rage. "Hiding all this food from
me and stuffing yourself behind my back! And all the while pretending to be
starving! I'll throw you over the precipice for this you greedy swine!" I'm
sure I wouldn't really have thrown him over but it was enough to frighten him.
"But I really I am starving. I haven't eaten anything
from the sack, it's true really. I'm disciplining myself to overcome temptation,
that's all... Can I put the food back now?"
"What nonsense. Overcoming temptation? If you don't pass
me the tin opener this instant the temptation to stone you to death with your
bloody "special" stones with be too much for me and I won't even
attempt to overcome it!"
We had soon enjoyed a hearty breakfast and both of us felt a
lot better. By God, there's no end to that Pilgrim's antics, indeed there isn't.
We set off again after that. We mounted the shining beast
having tied the two mules behind us. Since we still had a spare tent we left the
other one standing. The shining beast was given free rein to take us whichever
way he pleased in the hope that he might chance upon one of his well worn trails
that would lead us to Switchback City, the lair of the Wire Bandits, but
unfortunately he didn't.
There is one good thing about Pilgrim and that is his sharp
eyesight. He can spot a pin head at a hundred yards and tell whether it is rusty
or not. Of course he would miss the most obvious thing right under his nose, but
that's beside the point, he spotted the pylons. A long line of pylons marching
over the hills far below us, he reported, while I saw nothing. The shining beast
refused to take us in that direction so we brought the mules up from behind and
tied the beast by two long ropes to the mule's collars, mounted the mules and
led the beast like that. The bull beast could have dragged us to kingdom come
should he have chosen to do so, being four times the size of the two mules
together, but he chose to be led as docile as a pet lamb fair play to him. And
there was no trouble getting the mules to move it with a huge shining beast
breathing down their necks. We soon arrived at the pylons having come from the
rough rocky regions to a boundless marshy plain where the cotton grass bowed
before the wind. Where the pylon lines dipped over a distant knoll there could
be seen red and yellow light flickering and colouring the low clouds. We
approached warily that no one might see our coming, but there was no one there.
The lines between two pylons had been uncoupled and a heavy black cable had been
connected, which dangled down from them emitting, from the join, red and yellow
sparks which flared terribly and made a frying sound all around.
"This is the work of the Wire Bandits," said
Pilgrim.
"However did you work that out," I replied dryly.
We followed the cable as it wound like a huge black eel
between the marshes and the knolls. It was only as it got dark that we made out
the lights of Switchback City in the distance. At first all we noticed was a
glow reflected in the clouds and then we saw it, spread out on the horizon like
a shower of stars fallen to earth.
The shining beast was beginning to become restless, probably
sensing that the herd was close. We could hear their lowing in the distance,
thankfully they weren't keeping up such a din as they used to on the escarpment.
Sam, our beast, had quite recovered by now. Hearing the herd he puffed himself
up to his full height, easily three yards to his shoulder, and raised his up his
massive bull like head to blow hot air into the sky and flash his electric eyes.
He was always docile with us though, thank God, and would always insist on
sleeping with his head sticking into our tent.
We decided to pitch camp on the marshland that night, in case
we lost Sam in the darkness. All around us we could hear nothing but the sound
of the shining beasts lowing and snorting and munching noisily as they chewed
the cud, and their pungent smell was heavy on the cold air.
"I'll never get to sleep in a place like this,"
moaned Pilgrim.
"A good job too," I replied. "Someone has to
stay awake to keep and eye on Sam in case he tries to escape." We called
him Sam because we didn't know his real name.
"You won't try to escape from Pilgrim, will you
Sam?" said Pilgrim soothingly.
"Bwwwwwww," said Sam.
The next morning Pilgrim was snoring like a hog and Sam was
gone. I gave him a kick in the ear and he started to screech.
"I'll kill you for this you useless scarecrow," I
shouted back at him.
"He's probably outside," said Pilgrim rubbing his
ear. We went out to look. There was nothing to be seen but a sea of shining
beasts peacefully grazing all around us and all of them identical to one
another. It's only when the get cross that they start to flash their electric
eyes so we were in no danger. But had I electric eyes at that moment I would
have flashed them at Pilgrim and burnt him to a cinder.
Our mules had also escaped with Sam during the night. We were
ravenous and feeling weak as two rag dolls. We couldn't even take down the tent,
but stumbled on towards Switchback City. We were such a sight that no one
noticed us.
Switchback City is a very disorderly place. It's not really a
city, rather a shanty town of corrugated iron huts with tangled cobwebs of wires
coming from them and crossing in all directions. Everywhere the wires spark and
smoulder and crackle like anything and make hissing frying sounds all over the
place.
"Excuse me, but we're looking for Rock Jaw," asked
Pilgrim of a wild looking harridan who was busy plucking a duck in the doorway
of her cabin.
"AAAAAaaaaarg!" screamed she at the top of her
voice letting the duck fall from her grasp. The duck scrambled frantically away
from her, quacking loudly. The harridan began shouting and pointing her finger
at threateningly. I presumed that they were unaccustomed to see strangers coming
amongst them. In no time at all we were brought before Rock Jaw who contemplated
us wearily.
"We brought the shining beast, sir." My voice was
louder than I had hoped.
"Get up of that floor you moron," he said with
disinterest and I was given a kick up the backside which sent me half a yard
into the air. "Where is he then?"
"I'm afraid he escaped last night, sir," I said.
"Pilgrim here was supposed to watch him but he fell asleep. He escaped with
our two mules. He must be with his friends in the middle of the herd by
now."
"Do you not think that I have heard that one before,
sonny?" said Rock Jaw reaching for a meat cleaver and starting to trim a
bit around his beard. "I have ten thousand shining beasts on yonder
plain."
"You've got ten thousand and one now," said
Pilgrim, poor fellow.
"Take the comedian for a walk, Blue Gash," said
Rock Jaw with a yawn. "You might like to show him your collection of
pointed sticks?"
We could hear Pilgrim's screams for a long while afterwards.
"Isn't he a silly goat," I said. "He is to
blame. But I'll find your beast for you, Rock Jaw, honest I will. Can Saffron
Tinker be set free afterwards?"
"No he can not. And neither can you. I am annoyed. I am
cross. Nothing pleases me. And with Burnt Tongue nagging me all the time...
Everyone owes me energy units and I owe energy units to everyone. I am not in a
good mood. At least I shall have a few minutes entertainment this afternoon when
it is time to feed the ravenous beasts. A bit on the skinny side was that other
one, however no matter. Granite Fist and Chews Boulders, take him away."
"I'm so sorry to hear about all your difficulties,
sir," I called as they dragged me out by the feet. "Really," I
muttered once out of earshot, "I don't know what's so bloody special about
that beast."
"Your game is up, anyway, sonny," said one of the
guards, having overheard me. "Loosing Rock Jaw's bull beast! Ho, ho,
ho..." And they laughed and laughed at my expense as if I were a circus
clown.
"Well what was the work of the bull beast that Saffron
Tinker has to carry out in it's place?"
"Ho, ho, ho... You'll find out soon enough. Saffron
Tinker's on his last legs by now, I expect. He will be glad of your help I'm
sure. Here we are, open up the cage Chews Boulders, in he goes!"
My, Saffron Tinker looked tired. He hardly raised an eyebrow
in my direction as I sailed into the cell. His beard was matted and his purple
nose was unpolished and dull. The shining beasts must transgress pretty often as
well, I thought, as there was a cell full of them there also, stinking worse
than Saffron Tinker.
"It's been a long time, Saffron Tinker," I said in
case he hadn't recognised me.
"Not tonight," replied the poor bewildered fellow.
"It's me, Gwern Excuses!"
"Can't you see the red cross on their sides?"
"No, listen it's Gwern Excuses, come to rescue you,
Saffron Tinker. The beast you killed is right as rain again."
"Yes, sir, all these ones already seen to. Notice the
crosses!"
"You don't seem to understand, Saffron Tinker! And
Pilgrim is around here somewhere. We'll all get out of here, you'll see!"
"It is crucial."
"Yes, Saffron Tinker, yes it is."
"Sir, it is crucial that I be accorded a ladder boasting
a view over extensive newspaper with November externally at its base if you
would be so kind or I shall telephone for additional eggs."
"I don't know," I said, unable to make head nor
tail of his gibberish. "Anyway, we lost the bull shining beast on the way
so who knows when we'll get out of here now."
"Oh you irresponsible rascals!" Saffron Tinker
raised two tired eyelids revealing two angry yellow eyes. "I'll kill you
both! Where is Pilgrim?"
"He was impudent to Rock Jaw. He has a good shouting
voice, doesn't he?"
"Had, I'm afraid. Poor thing. A pity. Rest in
Peace etcetera. What is the time? Oh, yes they are, by now I would imagine.'
"Stop moidering and speak straight, man!"
"Yes, wormwood and a half in a bucket is what I said and
no treacle on it this time thanking you very much too you unkempt old
magpie!"
"Pull yourself together, Tinker!"
"And how does the husband like prison then? Better off
there, they say, than being with you, you dirty sow not even bothering to wash
the sheets before eating them and I know all about your gorging yourself while I
starved, you swollen suet pudding, to hell with you, spending all my few savings
on your chapel hats and funeral handkerchiefs, you swollen stinkhorn pillaging
the trees of their leaves in Winter and strutting around as if you were related
to Snowdon but you will be disappointed! I will silence you, oh yes... oh yes I
will, I will..."
"Let go of me you crazy madman," I shouted as he
tried to strangle me, thinking that I was Mrs Tinker, back to haunt him after he
did her in one drunken night without telling anybody because he had had enough.
It was Pilgrim who knew the full story and he had let slip enough of it talking
in his sleep on the back of his mule in Bleak Winter.
Thank heavens there were plenty of loose rocks strew around
and I got hold of a heavy one and let him have it on the temple until I could
see little stars circling around his head and until his grip slackened and he
crumbled to the floor like a sandcastle, lying there groaning and dribbling
blood and blathering quietly to himself. I stepped back and went to sit in the
farthest corner of the cage away from him to mull over my difficulties.
"Oh, what the hell will I do now?" I said to
myself. "Where is that treacherous Pilgrim, gone and left me? Tinker has
lost his marbles and I'll lose mine here... Oh, what shall I do?... Why did they
have to come for me at all? There are worse ones than me who've been allowed to
stay and no one persecutes them... It was that bitch Scarlet Nightshade who
started all this, does she think I don't know she's thick as thieves with
Fischermädchen? It was her who told Fischermädchen who programmed the virus
into the Persuasion Department's computer software... And now this... " My
poor head felt brittle as a robin's egg, the cage was undulating like the waves
of the sea before my eyes and the shining beasts were nudging their damp noses
into my face, blackness was closing in around me and there I was in broad
daylight standing again on the cart track to Tyn Coed where the leaves fell in
showers and the bracken rusted, where the bowed grass was wet underfoot and the
slabbed path slippery as soap, where the crows cawed from the crowns of the
stark oaks and the smell of the far marshes hung upon the breeze, I walked on as
the river dressed it's white ribbons about the proud rocks while the cobwebs of
drizzle clung to my hair and the flattened smoke slunk from the looming chimney
and I knocked and heard your voice calling "Come in" and I went in to
the warm smell of a wood fire and ironing clothes and you put down the iron and
glared at me with pin prick pupils.
"What do you want?"
"I came to see you and Calonnog."
"He's not here. You've got a nerve. Coming here as bold
as brass when everyone knows what you've been up to. Get out of here, go on back
to your Summer Nightshade you womanising swine and to the others too!"
"Where is he?"
"With Scarlet Nightshade. You won't see him again. Get
out of my sight. I don't want you here."
"Let me explain..."
"Come one step closer and you'll get this iron in your
face. Just go!"
"Be careful with that Scarlet Nightshade. Be careful
Caress. One day you'll know who is true to you and who isn't."
"Get out you twofaced bastard! And don't darken my door
again!" With that you started to shake me like a rattle, shoving me back
towards the door until I was reeling from side to side and you were hitting he
about the head with the iron as I bent like a reed in the wind and the whole
room became darker and darker, spinning away from me at the end of a long tunnel
like looking down the wrong end of a telescope and Pilgrim's voice calling,
"Wake up, Gwern, wake up will you" as he stood over me shaking me like
a rag doll and whacking me about the head with his shoe.
"What the hell d'you want?" I said peevishly.
"Can't you see I'm sleeping, leave me alone."
"Snap out of it, Gwern, hurry up! Come on, we're
leaving!"
"How did you get here, Pilgrim?" I spluttered as I
came to my senses. "I thought you'd had it good and proper from them for
being impudent with Rock Jaw?"
"Oh, that? Yes," he said nonchalantly as if he were
an old hand at being thrashed. "But I found the shining beast and Rock Jaw
says we can go now."
"Where did you find him, Pilgrim?"
"It was him who found me," he said scratching his
nose pensively. "There I was, lying at the bottom of Rock Jaw's ditch, and
Granite Fist letting loose the ravenous beasts from the fasting pen to fall upon
me and devour me when a huge shining beast came from behind and butted him into
the ditch on top of me and then bent his big black head down to me until I could
grab his horns and he pulled me out and started to lick my face and to blow warm
air like the smell of biscuits up my nose while the ravenous beasts swallowed up
Granite Fist. There was a little scar the shape of a claw on his shoulder and I
shouted, "Sam Rock Jaw's shining bull beast!" And that's how I gained
forgiveness for being cheeky with Rock Jaw, although I hadn't really thought to
be cheeky with him at all, it's just he's thin skinned as a frog and..."
"Yes, yes, very good, you can shut up now," I cut
across him. "Where is Saffron Tinker then, we have to take him with
us?"
"With the mules."
"O dear," I said dejectedly. "Thinks he's a
mule now, does he?"
"Actually, no. Thinks he's a saddle now, wants to be
stretched over his mule's back with his hands and feet making a girth about the
mule's belly as he was tied by the Wire Bandits, and he wants me to sit on top
of him."
"Well, I suppose at least we won't have any trouble in
getting him back like that." Boulder Biter held the door open as we left
the cage.
"I'm sorry about Granite Fist," I said to him as I
passed.
"I'm not," he replied.
"It is not usual for me to thank anyone for
anything," said Rock Jaw as we stood before him in the Big Hut. "So
bugger off before you annoy me. However, before you go, is there anything you
would like to take with you as a souvenir?"
"I'd be very happy if I could keep these little stones I
collected in your ditch," said Pilgrim.
"Keep them then, and treasure them," said Rock Jaw.
"Saffron Tinker, what do you choose?"
"I'll have my girths oiled with goose fat that the
leather may be supple should you see her say that I remember to append a
foreword."
"Boulder Biter!" shouted Rock Jaw, "Smite the
lunatic." Boulder Biter boxed Saffron Tinker's ears and the Tinker thanked
him heartily.
"Gwern Excuses," Rock Jaw turned regally towards
me. "What would you like as your souvenir of Switchback City?"
"Well, sir, since you are generous enough to make the
offer, I was wondering would it be possible for you to restore the electricity
supply to High County please? It's so boring there without television,
sir."
"Fine," said Rock Jaw. "And now, adieu to the
three of you. Give my regards to Grind Underfoot... Oh, and tell him that the
wires predict war."
"We surely will, sir," said Pilgrim and out we went
to the mules. Pilgrim adjusted Saffron Tinker on the mule's back and then
climbed up to sit upon him as we set out for High Country without once looking
back in case Rock Jaw changed his mind.
Testimony Three''''' follows...
I can vaguely recall that the return to High Country was as
long, cold and arduous as ever, but that's about all I can remember because
Saffron Tinker had swallowed the energy pack of my mobile processor resulting in
my being unable to enter my usual notes. All I now remember of the journey is a
confused muddle of disjointed troubles.
However we obviously must have reached High Country at last,
and what a welcome had been laid on for us! High Country's white on white
banners were displayed all along the streets and the population were all on
their doorsteps cheering us on, others were waving at us from upstairs windows
and throwing multi coloured paper streamers down on us as we passed. Even the
Flame Birds were there, performing somersaults in the air and screeching at us
like mad things; what with them and the meowing and droning of the pipers and
the booming of the drums and with the sun beating down on our heads it was no
wonder that my head was spinning worse than Wil Pickled Herring's on a Sunday
morning.
Of course Pilgrim was delighted with it all. I suppose he
thought the celebrations had been laid on just for him. There he rode through
the pressing throng pleased as punch and smiling like a Cheshire cat, waving in
triumph to the people on every side. Every now and then he would rise up in his
stirrups so that he might count how many had turned out to watch and he would
get quite irritated that no one had bothered to lay palm leaves in front of his
mule. Saffron Tinker underneath him had managed to get one hand free from the
thongs binding him and had started to shake his fist, swearing and cursing and
shouting some uncouth nonsense as he tried to raise his head to spit at anyone
who would get too close.
What with these two acting the goat like this and the crowd
pressing in on us from both sides and the mules forever stopping to graze the
coloured streamers it was little wonder that we took a good hour to reach Grind
Underfoot's hall and so I suppose it was no wonder that he was cross about being
kept waiting all that time.
"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded instead
of welcoming us back from our journey as perhaps he might have done.
"We've been to the Wild Country where we rescued Saffron
Tinker from the Wire Bandits," said Pilgrim with a proud grin.
"Come here," commanded Grind Underfoot.
Pilgrim mounted the steps up to his dais and stood before the
throne. "Bend forward," said Grind Underfoot and without another word
lashed out a ringing blow to Pilgrim's forehead. "Stupid boy," he
added with another stinging clout to the side of his head. "I happen to
have been waiting for you here for one hour and ten minutes. Nobody slights
Grind Underfoot in this way without paying the value of a prince's insult. Do
you understand?" With that he brought his knee up between Pilgrim's legs
making him close like a book and collapse in a groaning heap on the floor.
"Do you understand now, you insolent little weevil?"
"YYyyyees, sir...YYyyess, sir..." whimpered Pilgrim
without a trace of a smile on his ashen face. "I'm very sorry, sir...It
won't happen again, sir."
"That's better," said Grind Underfoot. "Now
get up off my floor you maggot or you'll spoil the shine of my slates. Go on,
get away from me down to those two monkeys down there!" Pilgrim had hardly
struggled to his feet when he was dealt a mighty kick in the behind which sent
him sailing through the air towards us to land on his nose at our feet.
"Why is it always me that gets hit?" whined Pilgrim
through his tears. I kicked him to make him shut up.
"Now then," continued Grind Underfoot, "here
is an invoice each for the value of this insult to me. One hour ten minutes of a
prince's time at ten thousand units an hour, that makes three thousand eight
hundred and eighty units each to be paid within seven days. And now, finally,
what tidings from the Wild Country?"
I nudged Pilgrim with my foot to get him to stand up and give
his report. He had worn an old tie for the occasion which he straightened and
clearing his throat with a cough announced: "Burnt Tongue wife of Rock Jaw
says there are no tidings left after computer viruses corrupted the software on
all her tidings and forecast terminals. But I found some nice red stones in
Grind Underfoot's ditch, sir, and he let me keep them too, as a souvenir of
Switchback City, because it was me who found his shining beast, sir, and these
are the very best stones that ever i had, sir, look, you can see them twinkling
and sparkling."
"Bring them here...Hmmm...These are mine now." It
was really a shame to watch Pilgrim fighting back the tears as he
transferred his little collection to Grind Underfoot.
"Saffron Tinker is very quiet," announced Grind
Underfoot turning his attention away from Pilgrim. "Take that gag from his
mouth and let us hear what he has to say."
"Begging your pardon, sir," I ventured, "but I
am not sure how wise that would be, sir..."
"Do it!" Screamed Grind Underfoot and we hurriedly
tore the binding from his head and pulled the rag that had been stuffed in his
mouth to put paid to his ranting.
"Saffron Tinker," declared Grind Underfoot,
"present your report from Switchback City. Were you well served?"
"Served? I was only served that's all, what the hell's
the matter with you all here, where's the goose fat I've already ordered, no
one's lubricated the girth straps, the carwden is loose from the strodur
and God alone knows where this scatterbrained boy's put the tindres, he
must be sorely punished for this I'm telling you and what's the use me telling
you and nobody taking a blind bit of notice when I say the girth needs
tightening and this one here riding as if he had his trousers full of ants it's
no wonder his mule is unruly, good Lord Jesus he's a giddy goat this boy,
there's nothing in there between those two cabbage ears of his, I know from
bitter experience, oh yes, many's the time I've been there searching for the tindres
and finding nothing but cobwebs and a dusty copy of Pilgrim's Progress with the
pages all stuck together and the little rascal knows full well I can't stand the
smell of that grease he rubs on his back side because he's such a pampered softy
who isn't used to riding mules always walking everywhere like some wingless
heron, my God he needs some sense knocking into his head, so he does and if you
won't do it then I will and I'm telling you..."
"That's enough!" Shouted Grind Underfoot getting
into a temper.
"Don't try to patronise me just because you've lost the
best saddle you ever had because you won't get me and that's that! Go straight
to hell!"
"Put the rag back in his mouth!" roared Grind
Underfoot beside himself with rage, bouncing up and down on his dais. "If I
had permission I would torture him to death with a hot poker for that!"
"Why the hell do you need permission if you're a
prince?" shouted Saffron Tinker spitting out the rag we were trying to
force into his mouth. "What a second rate prince, having to get permission
from Faithful Night, probably even has to ask to go to the toilet I
surpooooonngngngn ngngnwweengwee..." The rag did the trick eventually and
we bound it tight.
"I'm afraid he's lost his marbles, sir," I
explained apologetically. "He was forced to live in a cage full of shining
beasts day in and day out after he killed Sam, Rock Jaw's bull beast. You
mustn't take any notice of him, sir."
"What about you, then, sonny?" said Grind Underfoot
still steaming like a kettle. "What's your story? Come on."
"Humbly report, sir, Rock Jaw sends his regards and has
agreed to restore the electricity supply."
"That's done it! Right, I shall have you torn limb from
limb for that! You're even madder than the other two! Sends me his regards,
indeed! Restored the electricity supply, indeed! Oh, you unpleasant little
insect, come here!"
"But it's true, sir, look, you'll soon see." I ran
to the nearest light switch. Nothing happened.
"Guards, arrest him!" he shouted as I ran from
switch to switch down the hall.
"Probably the element," said Pilgrim dejectedly,
"needs a new bulb probably, or perhaps a fuse has blown."
"Rock Jaw said something else as well," I called
over my shoulder as I dodged the guards. "He said the wires predicted war
and..." I couldn't finish because Giant Hands had got hold of me and was
beginning to twist my head from my shoulders.
Grind Underfoot raised a hand and my head was released.
"Well why didn't you say so before? Guards, bring bulbs from the storeroom
and find Bright Spark and bring him here to fix the fuse."
The new bulbs were obtained. The fuse was mended. The lights
were switched on and a wave of white light rippled from one end of the hall to
the other like a stone thrown into a pool. Grind Underfoot switched on his grid
screen which hummed and whirred and the screen flashed up the green opening
menu.
"You can go," said Grind Underfoot not looking up
from his screen. He seemed to have lost interest in us. "Oh, just a
minute," he added. "The word is that the three of you are to present
yourselves tonight in the Lower Level... And don't forget that you owe me for
the insult, because I won't!"
On our way out who should we meet but Summer Nightshade
bringing spring water for Grind Underfoot.
"Hello, Summer Nightshade," I said looking down at
my feet and feeling myself blushing.
She strode right past us as if I wasn't even there.
"Did you know her?" asked Pilgrim. "Wasn't
that..."
"No, not really."
"Nggnggg wwwww ngg," said Saffron Tinker but we
couldn't understand him with his mouth full of rags.
Outside on the street the flags had gone and the coloured
streamers were no longer littering the streets. The Flame Birds had gone to
roost. An evening breeze stirred up the dust in the gutters. There were very few
people about and those that were kept their heads down as they went about their
business, as if struggling against a strong wind.
We struck out sharply for the edge of town. On turning a
corner we bumped into a little old lady bent almost double, dragging a heavy
sack behind her. "Excuse me," I asked taking a step back, "do you
know the way to the Lower Level?"
She didn't answer, didn't even raise her head, but just
struggled on past us without a word.
"Ngggannngw," said Saffron Tinker pointing with his
elbow towards the surrounding hills.
"Yes, this way," declared Pilgrim crossing the
road.
"The mad leading the blind," I said as I resigned
myself to following them out of the village into the blue and white world of a
full moon night on the mountain.
Having spent several hours stumbling about the arid hillsides
we suddenly found ourselves before a great oak door studded with iron nail heads
like black currants over it and with a massive oak frame around it at the foot
of a sheer white granite cliff face which sparkled in the moonlight.
"This is where he lives, probably," said Pilgrim
wiping the sweat from his brow and making the dry soil crunch under the soles of
his boots as he turned towards it.
"Who d'you mean?" I asked.
"Well the Answer Keeper of course," and he knocked
hard on the door.
No one came to answer his knocking and what did he do but
catch hold of the latch and pull the door towards him on rasping hinges and
stuck his head in.
"Ouch!" he cried stepping back and holding his head
in his hands.
"Stupid idiot," I said leaning forwards to rap my
knuckles against the smooth white wall of granite that blocked the doorway.
We continued on our way, clambered up the hillside and there,
on the summit, was a black hole which, upon inspection, contained stone steps
descending into the bowels of the mountain.
"I was right," said Pilgrim. "That's where he
lives, all right! Down in the Lower Level!"
"Nggwaa nggwaaa," said Saffron Tinker backing off.
We hauled him after us with two ropes the Pilgrim found in his sack.
"We may as well try it," I said and down we went.
The Answer Keeper must be a very parsimonious man, I thought
to myself, or perhaps he doesn't realise that the power supply has been
restored. The black hole of Calcutta would be light as day compared with this
hole, for Christ's sake.
Having reached one thousand two hundred and something as I
counted the steps on our way down Pilgrim made me lose my count by asking the
Answer Keeper' phone number.
"What the hell do I know?" I snapped angrily.
"What's the matter with you asking such stupid questions and making me lose
my count you brainless gecko?"
"I thought we could telephone him to find out if he's at
home."
"Oh, brother!" I exclaimed, "and have you got
a mobile phone in that sack as well, have you? It won't work down here you
know."
"No, no, Gwern, here, there's a phone in the wall here.
I can feel it under my hand. Look..."
"Look indeed," I said feeling my way towards his
voice keeping my palm to the rough wall to try to find out what he was on about.
There really was a telephone in the wall and as I put the
receiver to my ear a voice said "Lower Level O, O, O"
"Is the Answer Keeper home?" I asked.
"Who's there?" asked the voice.
"Us."
"Who are you?"
"Gwern Excuses, Pilgrim and Mad Saffron Tinker."
"Come in."
"In where?"
"Put the phone down then turn into the tunnel that will
open before you to your right hand side as you go down."
"Could you switch on the lights for us?" But the
voice had gone leaving nothing but the tone.
The tunnel was as dark as the stone stairs but as we followed
it the walls fell away from us and soon our footsteps were floating into space
all around us and nothing to be felt in any direction but the floor under our
feet as we ran this way and that in the dark without bumping into any obstacle
or impediment other than one another occasionally. We heard Saffron Tinker let
out a panic stricken "Nggwaaa Ngggwwaaaa" and stopped to listen for
the echo of his voice from some far wall but the sound was gone like a stone
falling into a cloud.
"Welcome," the voice whispered by our side.
"Is that what you call it," snivelled Pilgrim in a
tearful voice. He's rather afraid of the dark, I think.
"Are you the Answer Keeper?" I asked to which the
voice laughed heartily.
"I am Faithful Night, my friends. I am his servant. It
was I who ordered Grind Underfoot to send the three of you here."
"How can a servant order a prince to do anything?"
said Pilgrim who seemed to have got over his initial fright somewhat. Faithful
Night took no notice of him.
"I have work for you," he said.
"Ngwaa Ngwaa Nggng," said Saffron Tinker who must
made his way towards our voices.
"What did he say?" asked Faithful Night.
"He's rather eccentric, sir," I explained. "In
fact he's bonkers."
"Let him speak!"
Pilgrim must have caught him and pulled off the binding
around his head because the next minute Saffron Tinker's voice flooded the void
like a sluice gate opening: "...telling me her old lies and expecting me to
believe them, 'what's the matter with you' I said to her, 'do you think I'm
crazy you old crow, put the bedroom light on will you, you slut so's I can see
your ugly mug so's I can belt you one' says I and what does she do, she lights a
match and sets the bed on fire and there I am tied hand and foot and the flames
blistering the ceiling and licking the soles of my feet and she throws open the
window roaring with laughter into the night, 'laugh will you?' says I as I fry
like a trout in butter, 'have you enough light now, you odious crab,' she says
and I'm telling you now that..."
"Shut up, Saffron Tinker," I said lashing out a
fist in his direction and connecting with a smack.
"Ouch you bastard!" cried Pilgrim who's nose
appeared to have been in the way.
"Now, now," said Faithful Night, "none of that
here! And Saffron Tinker, you pull yourself together or it will be the worst for
you."
"Worst he says," shouted Saffron Tinker.
"Worst he says the lying devil it's no better for you having stolen the
light bring it back to me or I'll trample you under foot do you hear you cunning
swine where have you hidden it I'll half kill you, you bogeyman and who are all
these other people, go to hell the bloody lot of you, go on before I beat you
all to a pulp."
"That's enough unless you want the mouth rag," I
said and surprisingly Saffron Tinker remained quiet.
"When the wise go astray they go well astray,"
commented Faithful Night with a sigh.
"He never was wise," said Pilgrim.
"What's this work you've got for us then?" I asked.
"Is the pay good?"
"Pay?" There was incredulity in Faithful Night's
voice. "Is the honour of serving your people not enough reward for you,
Gwern Excuses?"
"The hell it is. What have they ever done for free for
me?"
"Fine. We shall therefore have to hand you over to the
Heartless Bodies, I understand they are keen to meet you. I am sure you will be
warmly welcomed by Befehlnotstand and the Heartless Bodies, perhaps even by
Rausman personally I should not be surprised."
"What do you want me to do, sir?" I said.
"Could you turn on the lights down here, if you see
fit?" pleaded Pilgrim.
"There is no light down here therefore I do not see fit
to do anything. However I do feel that which rests upon people's hearts and I
find that quite sufficient to know them, light or no light."
"What does he mean, Gwern?" asked Pilgrim.
"I don't believe it," I said. "What's in
Pilgrim's heart, poor devil, if you're so clever?"
"In his heart there is a river flowing uphill,"
said Faithful Night.
"What do you mean?" asked Pilgrim. "What about
Saffron Tinker, does he have a heart?"
"Oh, yes. In his heart there is a wild river flowing
into a deep cave."
"Don't give me that crap," I said trying to laugh.
"What's in my heart then? Tell me that?"
"In your heart there is a river flowing between valley
meadows with tree branches hanging over it, Gwern, and a ruined cottage on its
banks with brambles' fingers poking out of the windows."
"I'm not going to listen to this twaddle," I said
sharply. "Tell us what you want with us or let us go!"
"Calm down now, Gwern," said the voice slowly.
"You've done quite well up to now, don't blow it... Well, yes, so be it for
all that, as you are no doubt now aware, Rausman has ordered Befehlnotstand to
mass the Heartless Bodies along the borders of the Exile States and the forecast
is that there will soon be another strike against the Alliance."
"We heard some such rumours," I said.
"Right then. Well, now that you have won back Rock Jaw's
allegiance to High Country and the Confederation..."
"Forgive me," I butted in, "but all he did was
agree to restore the supply he had stolen and..."
"Exactly. Yes, Rock Jaw has always been something of a
black sheep but now he's back in the fold where he belongs, thanks to you! I'm
sure Grind Underfoot's face was a sight worth seeing when you told him Rock Jaw
sent him his regards."
"He got angry because he thought Gwern was
fibbing," said Pilgrim.
"I also note that you have to some extent pacified the
Swarthy Cavedwarves. It was no mean feat to get them on your side. So now
listen, I have advised the Answer Keeper to appoint you his War Envoys to carry
the message to mobilise forces to all members of the Alliance! Are you willing
and able?"
"Well I'll have a go," I said. "But I don't
know if I can manage it with these two clowns for assistants."
"The boy want's to go alone, wants to go alone he does,
alone it is he wants to go, let him go alone, yes, yes, he's to go all on his
own, that's it, that's it, that's it..."
"Be quiet, Saffron Tinker," said the voice in an
official tone. "You all must go."
"Does that include me, sir?" asked Pilgrim and I
hissed "Hush now" in his ear for being so silly.
"Put out you hand, Gwern," said the voice. I did so
and felt immediately the cool roughness of the tunnel wall beneath my fingers.
"The steps are to the left some way down," continued the voice.
"Tell no one of your mission, send nothing through the wires. Oh, and you
had better leave your mobile processor here, Gwern, just in case. Grind
Underfoot will provide everything necessary for your journey. I shall expect you
back here in due course. Do you all understand? Gwern?"
"Understood, sir."
"Saffron Tinker?"
"Yes, it is he, I am convinced, what is the charge this
time, sir?"
"Pilgrim?"
"May I have the question again, sir, so as to be sure of
the answer?"
By the time we reached the head of the stairs the sun was
high in the sky making us squint through our fingers. It was downhill all the
way and in no time we were back in Stone Town and we went straight away towards
Leather Belly's place where we ordered food and drink as much as we could eat
and the best rooms in the house to sleep out the day and sleep through the
night.
Testimony Four''''' follows...
We were woken that night by Dai Takes Eggs who had travelled
far and wide in search of us.
"Thought you might like to hear these," he said
chucking four tapes onto my bed.
"Oh, great, some new releases!" said Pilgrim from
the other bed. "We only get to hear old fashioned stuff up here."
"Oh shut up, Pilgrim," said Dai Takes Eggs.
"Come on, hurry up, we can listen to them in the sound chamber. Where is
Saffron Tinker? Sleeping upstairs? Leave him there... Hey, Gwern, you're on
these tapes and so is Fischermädchen. I had a hell of a job getting hold of
them."
"What if the Seen and Heard knew?"
"They don't suspect a thing, Gwern. Stroke of luck for
once. Come on, let's go."
He told us he'd obtained a special pass that would admit him
to the most secretive places, that he'd been given it by Faithful Night himself,
that's what he told us; that he had penetrated the depths of the Seen and
Heard's underground chambers and had managed to lift these four tapes and have
them copied before anyone could detect a thing or suspect him in any way. We
were supposed to believe him, I suppose, but Dai Takes Eggs never tells the
whole truth, I guess he's no longer able to, and in many ways that's probably a
good thing in his position, being a spy. Suspicious of everyone and thinking
that everyone is suspicious of him. He must be convinced that we are trustworthy
at least. He's from Lowland, isn't he, or that's what I've always heard.
As Leather Belly was busy in bed with a visitor from the
border regions we were obliged to borrow a bottle of spirits from his store
without asking. It was a good thing too that we took it as we would never have
stayed awake in the warmth of the sound chamber without it, not at five in the
morning, slouched in the deep and cozy seats of the auditorium.
"Stick a tape in the player," said Dai Takes Eggs
throwing one of them at Pilgrim. I relaxed back into the seat with my legs over
the back of the one in front as the chamber began to echo like a cave. The
clicking and whirring of the wires was suddenly broken by the familiar rasp of
Fischermädchen's voice seemingly coming from all directions at once.
"...At last! Where have you been, Gwern? I've been
waiting for your call."
"I know. I'll be round first thing in the morning if you
like. Is it anything to do with the work on the network? Listen, I did tell them
I was not entirely sure about the new software... Are they really angry?"
"Tomorrow morning eight o'clock. Don't worry about
anything, Gwern. Come at eight, everything is fine."
"I didn't know you'd been on radio, Gwern," said
Pilgrim but Dai Takes Eggs raised a finger to his lips to shut him up.
The wires clicked and whirred again and through them came her
voice enveloped us again, this time cold and purposeful as she demanded,
"Bettnachzieher!"
"He is in bed, Madam Fischermädchen."
"Well get him!"
"We are not certain in whose bed he is tonight, Madam
Fischermädchen."
"Put me through to General Befehlnotstand."
"Do you have a security clearance code, Madam
Fischermädchen?"
"Twelve twenty two sixty six. Now put me through you
cheap little trollop before I get angry."
"Right away, Madam Fischermädchen."
Some strange music came over the speakers and then we heard a
receiver being picked up and a man's voice talking like the sound of a stream
gurgling over pebbles. "Fischermädchen. I presume that this is
important."
"General Befehlnotstand, my apologies for troubling you.
Bettnachzieher was out... again - he never seems to be at his post. I had no
option but to come through to you although I realise it should be dealt with by
a lower rank. If only Bettnachzieher would be more diligent! General
Befehlnotstand, the slippery eel has swallowed the bait. I shall be drawing in
the line at eight tomorrow morning. The Heartless Bodies can come!"
"Hmmmm. We as it happens, Bettnachzieher is here with me
discussing strategy. Fortunately he is one of the few who are not tied to their
desks. I will advise him of the situation. By eight tomorrow everything will be
in place."
"Thank you Gener..." The line closed.
"Swine," said Fischermädchen coldly.
"Haven't you got any tapes with pictures?" asked
Pilgrim. "These ones are so boring."
"What d'you want, jam on both sides?" asked Dai
Takes Eggs. "Get lost if you're going to moan. Snap in the second tape
instead of yawning like a catfish."
"What's a catfish?"
"Just do it!"
Again the speakers crackled and spat static and then came the
voice of heavy breathing. "General Befehlnotstand, General Befehlnotstand!
Thank God you picked up the phone!"
"Good morning, Fischermädchen. Ask one of the Heartless
Bodies to bring the little worm to the phone and have him hurt badly that I may
hear him squirm. I have been looking forward to this."
"General Befehlnotstand, he failed to turn up. The
Heartless Bodies have been to his lodgings. We have had the place turned over.
The bird has flown."
"Fischermädchen, I am disappointed in you. I shudder to
think what Rausman will have to say about this. I would not wish to be in your
shoes at this juncture. I want the contents of his green screen personal
information file downloaded through the red channel immediately! I shall have
his details on every green screen from Entwürdigung City to Bharatistan. The
little fox will not get far."
"General Befehlnotstand, the little fox has formatted
the hard disk. All that remains is a foul message suggesting that I perform a
lewd act with 'my fish', sir."
"You are loosing your grip, Fischermädchen. It seems
you have blown your cover this time. I believe you are loosing the faith the
Lowlanders have been painstakingly persuaded to put in you. Perhaps it is
something in your voice? What is it about you? You were fully trained and
briefed. A waste of time! I hold you personally responsible for this. You have
three days to identify the insect's lair and to crush it under your heel.
Failure will result in difficulties for you. Do I make myself clear,
Fischermädchen?"
"Perfectly, General Befehlnotstand. Firstly, may I
exp..."
The customary click closed the line leaving only the phone's
tone as a background to Fischermädchen's slow, deliberate swearing in language
so exalted and pure that I could scarcely make out any of it.
"You really dropped her in it, didn't you,"
commented Dai Takes Eggs. "Serves her right, the toffee nosed shrew. Sharp
of you to have wiped the disk, Gwern, all credit where it's due."
"I had the network code," I replied. "I'd
worked it out previously. All you need is the right key and you can open any
door. By the way, how are things down in Lowland at present? Is there much talk
of war down there?"
"Are you mad? Talk of war has been banned under Lowland
Council rule seven two seven. They don't want to annoy the Exile States now, do
they? And all that toilet paper with Befehlnotstand's face on it has been
withdrawn too. It looks as if it won't be long before things start to hot up. I
mean why else would Befehlnotstand's legions be massing all along the frontiers?
'Manoeuvres' they say officially, do you believe it? And I heard that Rausman
himself recently addressed a vast assembly of his slaves as part of the Exile
States' forever-triumphant freedom celebrations. Oh, yes, I can see it coming,
boy."
"But Lowland is a free country now," said Pilgrim.
"They don't have to fight."
"Oh, I see, Pilgrim, of course," replied Dai Takes
Eggs. "Lowland is free, how stupid of me. Free to follow in the footsteps
of the Exile States and imitate them every step of the way. Free to acquiesce
and to bow down low, is that what you mean? Free to agree but not to differ.
Yes, you've hit the nail on its head again, Pilgrim, of course they don't have
to fight. They can put their hands in the air like last time and let
Befehlnotstand line them up against a wall. He doesn't have any use for the
people, it's only the land he wants, that was in the papers."
"It won't come to war," said Pilgrim sulkily.
"You'd be shot for saying that in the Exile
States," snapped Dai Takes Eggs. "But you'd probably have been shot
ages ago for being silly anyway. Put the third tape in the slot and stop acting
the goat."
"Click," went the tape and out came
Fischermädchen's voice talking our language, her accent creaking like a swollen
door. "Well, hello, Scarlet Nightshade, its been a while."
"Fischermädchen? I was about to phone you..."
"Well you didn't, did you? You are a fickle girl. Would
you betray me, Scarlet?"
"Gosh, no, Fischermädchen, never! Didn't the report
please you? What's wrong?"
"It's you that's wrong, Scarlet Nightshade, you. I am
not even sure that I can still depend upon you."
"You can, certainly, yes you can, I wouldn't double
cross you Fischermädchen, you know that..."
"Prove it. I want to know about Gwern Excuses. You know
him don't you?"
"Hardly. Enough to say 'hello'."
"Enough to say, 'Jest leave me alone...! Jest go. Go to
your Caress then, see if she'll take you back.'?"
"How did you know about that?"
"To be dim whited is not a qualification for my job,
Scarlet Nightshade, but to know the long and the short of your lies, now that is
an important qualification, wouldn't you say so?"
"What do you want of me?"
"I want to know about Gwern Excuses."
"You probably know more than I do already."
"Probably."
"What good am I to you then?"
"You are my eyes and my ears, Scarlet Nightshade. Now
open that beak start singing."
"I don't know him that well. If I'd known him better he
would never have been able to steal my heart. He took it before I knew it. Then
he threw it down and crushed it under his foot."
"He did that, did he, Scarlet?"
"He's in love with Caress, not with me. He's been in
love with her, the little bitch, long before he ever pretended to care for me.
He never cared for me at all, not even when we lay together at night, his gentle
whispers were nothing but corrupted lies. "I don't want to hurt you,"
he told me, "I don't want to hurt you," and with every word it was
like a heel turning in my heart. I didn't know him at all."
"Do you know him now?"
"Perhaps... How should I know? Anyway, that's really all
I know to tell you about him."
"Why do you defy me, my pretty? Am I not your friend?
Who else has stood up for you? You know you can trust me, Scarlet."
"I know. I'm sorry Fischermädchen. It was Wil Pickled
Herring who broke my necklace and made me cry, not Gwern. He wouldn't have done
that. Wil Pickled Herring got jealous to see me talking with Gwern on Town
Square. Wil Pickled Herring is a wild one in his drink, until he's had one too
many that is, or when he's sober."
"I'm not interested in some drunk Skunk. Don't start to
change the subject. What did Gwern Excuses have to say to you on Town Square to
rile Wil Pickled Herring so?"
"He told me he'd done something terrible in the Exile
States and that he'd made a mess of some software or other, I really don't
understand these things. Said it was all a mistake but that now the Heartless
Bodies would be sure to be after him and that he didn't intend hanging around
waiting for them to pick him up. Mind you, he didn't seem too worried.
"They don't know yet that it was me," he said. "I'm not scared of
the Heartless Bodies." "Why are you shivering then?" I asked.
"Because you're so close to me," he said, but he was only mocking me.
"Get away from there, Scarlet!" said Wil Pickled Herring crossing over
from the White Wheat Tavern towards us, seeing me with Gwern. "Get away
from the little traitor." He grabbed me by the arm to pull me away.
"Who are you calling a traitor you drunk scum?" said Gwern looking him
straight in the eye. I shrugged off Will's grasp but he snatched at my necklace
and started to drag me away. He dragged me down into the subway where the
necklace burst, then he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out the other side
where he hit me in the face but I managed to get free and I ran off, I ran and
ran to my sister's house and I didn't go back to pick up the necklace beads
until I knew that Wil Pickled Herring would be pickled senseless outside All
Night Café and no good to anyone any more. That's where I saw Gwern last."
"In the subway?"
"Yes."
"I know. There's a good girl telling the truth for once.
Where did he go from there?"
"How should I know? Home I guess. Or to see Caress. Ask
her. Don't ask me."
"He's pretty close to her, isn't he?"
"Too close by half. Too close for his own good. I would
have been better for him. And everybody knows that she's head over heels with
him but the little fool won't forgive him. What's a bit of fooling around? It's
in his nature. She can't understand that. She has to have all or nothing, that's
Caress for you. Who the hell does she think she is, holding her head up high on
Town Square when everyone knows he's the father."
"Gwern? He's the father then? Calonnog's father?"
"Who else? You knew that already. Everybody knows."
"Of course I knew, yes, of course. It has been
interesting talking with you. Is that the time? Well, good bye for now, Scarlet.
And remember, next time phone me before I phone you."
Fischermädchen must have carefully replaced the receiver
because there was only the lightest click as the line closed.
"Bit of a fly by night," said Dai Takes Eggs
smugly. "What's done by night is seen by day. Did you know about this,
Pilgrim?"
"It's none of my business," said Pilgrim.
"That's right," I said, "so just shut up Takes
Eggs. You would do well to check out the beam in your own eye. Everyone gets to
know soon enough where you have been when all the nursery schools start to fill
up with your offspring."
"There was no need for that," grumbled Dai Takes
Eggs.
"He that sows brambles should not go barefoot,"
commented Pilgrim philosophically.
"From fools comes truth," I added. "Put in the
last tape, Pilgrim, and leave wisdom to those that believe themselves
wise."
There was a terrible scratching sound at the start of the
last tape but it soon cleared to the bleep of an answer machine and the shock of
hearing my own voice from what seemed another age chirping like a cricket,
"Gwern here. Thanks for calling. I can't take your call right now. Please
leave a message after the tone..."
"Pilgrim speaking on behalf of Asgwrn Ffriddoedd
summoning Gwern Excuses to Sunless Summer," said Pilgrim's voice from my
answer machine tape.
"That was me!" shouted Pilgrim hitting the stop
button. "Do you remember that, Gwern? Can we hear it again?"
"No I don't and no you can't," I said.
"But you told Asgwrn Ffriddoedd that you'd got the
message."
"How is it you remember the most trivial details,
Pilgrim? Why don't you ever remember anything important? All right, OK, so I
told a lie. What does it matter. If I had listened to the message I certainly
would never have come this way. Now press the button and be quiet."
Next came Fischermädchen's voice spitting venom into my
little machine: "Gwern Excuses. Where are you? Wake up! It's gone eight
o'clock! Why do you not come like you are told? You must now come immediately.
Immediately!"
"These tapes are not all in the right order," I
said.
"Don't complain," said Dai Takes Eggs. "It was
enough for me to get them copied any old how. This one now is the last
part."
"Who's on this one then?"
"If you shut up you'll hear..."
"...not here." It was your voice, Caress.
"Has he been there?" demanded Fischermädchen.
"What is it to you?"
"Listen, Caress, we are worried about him. He should
have been here at eight this morning. He did not come. We are concerned that
something may have happened to him."
"You want me to believe that? Why would you worry about
him? What is he to you?"
"What is he to you, Caress? If you tell me truly then I
also will tell you."
"You people from the Exile States, I thought you were
supposed to know everything."
"Yes, Caress, from the Exile States perhaps, but I am
here for your own good. You know that. It is a turbulent period in Lowland's
history. Your new freedom is fragile and I am here to ensure it's future. Gwern
has been very naughty. He has made a mess of the tidy systems of our friends
across the border. But I know it was unintentional and that's why I want to make
things better for him before he, if you'll excuse my use of your crude language,
really and truly pisses off Befehlnotstand and the Heartless Legions."
"I'm saying nothing. I know nothing. Befehlnotstand will
never get his claws into him and neither will the Heartless Legions."
"Don't you be too sure, Caress. I would certainly hate
to think what they would do to him should he fall into their clutches before he
had a chance to apologise. Lowland is completely surrounded by a circle of
steel, he cannot get away, the net is closing in on him. Do you not want to help
him?"
"But he meant no harm, Fischermädchen, you said that
yourself. We all know how headstrong he can be, but he's not really against the
Exile States no matter what he blabbers in his drink."
"You will help him, won't you?"
"I don't want him to get hurt."
"You love him very much, don't you Caress?"
"Yes but I wish he wasn't so capricious, he's like a
shower of rain, sometimes falling here and sometimes falling there."
"Unfaithful?"
"He thinks I don't know about his exploits. But I get to
hear all about him from Scarlet Nightshade. She, at least, is a true
friend."
"Does he know that you love him?"
"I doubt it. I don't want to give him the pleasure of
knowing that he's left behind him one more heart broken like in the old verses.
He's not to come here again, I've told him that. But I still want to help him,
Fischermädchen, I don't want him to get hurt. He's making tracks for High
Country, he's often said that that's where he'd go if things got to hot for him
around here. Do you think he'll make it?"
"Not a hope in hell. But if I can get to him before
Befehlnotstand and the Heartless Legions I will at least be able to persuade him
to give himself up to Rausman and his Counsellors and that will stand in his
favour at his trial."
"Thank you for helping us, Fischermädchen. I was not
sure of you at first and I'm sorry."
"Caress, and this is confidential, there is talk that
this will lead to war. No one will be safe. Especially not those who have been
close to Gwern Excuses. I suggest that you and the boy, Calonnog isn't it,
should come under my wing here where you know you will both be safe. What do you
say?"
"War? Hot war? Not over something so trivial? It was an
accident, even you said that. What do they want from us?"
"You will come then?"
"I'll stay here. I'll stay until I know that Gwern is
safe."
"I'm disappointed. I had thought you had more
sense."
"Scarlet Nightshade is staying. She won't move, says
she. Calonnog and I will be fine here at Tyn Coed thank you."
"You're an obstinate girl. But remember what I said,
Caress, my offer to protect you still holds good. But if you insist on holing up
in that dank valley, that's up to you. I'm sure Scarlet Nightshade will look
after you."
The line clicked and closed for the last time leaving me
staring into space with your voice still ringing in my ears. I was thinking of
Scarlet Nightshade's lies and of Fischermädchen's deception. Slowly I began to
come to, realising that I was stiff all over, and thinking about you saying that
you loved me and knowing how I loved you too and seeing for the first time how
life itself had come between us keeping us apart like two magnets pushing one
another to one side.
"That's all," said Dai Takes Eggs nonchalantly
through my dreams. He yawned loudly and added, "the bottle's empty and the
night is gone. You've heard it all now, Gwern. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to rescue her from the clutches of that
poisonous
Scarlet Nightshade and Fischermädchen. That's what I'm going
to do, Takes Eggs, I don't care how long it takes."
"We have to go first to all the countries of the
Alliance," reminded Pilgrim over his shoulder as he took the tape from the
jaws of the machine.
"I know, I know. You don't have to remind me."
"What's this?" asked Dai Takes Eggs.
"Its secret," I said. "But we have to persuade
the alliance countries to join forces with High Country before hot war breaks
out."
"Why on earth would they send you? If that smelly
Saffron Tinker going with you? The three fruitless ones, that's what they should
call you. I hope you have fun."
"Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Dai Takes Eggs, just
'cause you're jealous that you're not coming," I said. "By Jove
though, we're to visit all sorts of exotic places, every country under the sun,
almost. Hey, Pilgrim, did you remember to pack the suntan lotion? You did?
Good." I began to do my best to make Dai Takes Eggs's mouth water and to
make him envious of us by telling him all about our proposed trip to the Earth
Vineyard where we were to meet Duke Waronket Kalz, and then onwards to the Great
Vineyard to the court of General Bol (we were to remember to take with us
exquisite delicacies as presents for him), after which we were to proceed to
Wide Island where we were to insist upon an audience with the renowned Gonerin
Borlat their prince and again after that onwards, this time by air, far far away
to Bharatistan to arrange an audience with the Emperor Bara Hathi (this is where
the suntan lotion would be useful, also the sunglasses and an umbrella too just
in case). This is how I boasted about our proposed journey, little thinking in
fact that I could actually pull it off. Not with two complete imbeciles for
assistants, Pilgrim and Saffron Tinker, the latter as I now remembered still
stinking in his bed where we had left him in Leather Belly's attic with the
rainwater dripping down upon him from the rafters and soaking his beard while he
slept.
So much for all that, it was time for him to go, said Dai
Takes Eggs. He was not supposed to be here in the first place. I sent Pilgrim to
fetch Saffron Tinker before anyone else woke up. We bade one another farewell
there and then in the early light of day, Dai Takes Eggs in the costume of a
Moral Standards Inspector setting off in one direction and Saffron Tinker,
Pilgrim and myself riding out towards the other side of town. It was only much
later, upon our eventual return, that I had an opportunity to note what happened
to us on our journey because Faithful Night had forbidden me to take my mobile
processor with me. I'm sure he thought that we'd get caught, but we didn't, and
here, much to my surprise, I find myself at my little desk under the window of
our room tapping the details into my machine.
Testimony Five ''''' follows...
We only arrived back the night before last and although it
was late and we were dog tired we didn't stop until we reached our final
destination. Our mission would not be over until our report was delivered to
Faithful Night, servant of Answer Keeper in the depths of High Country's Lower
Level. A new moon was hanging from the bright stars as we urged our mules
forwards past the great oak door in the cliffside onwards towards the summit. We
had wandered distant lands and roamed the far countries all but unfortunately
even seasoned travellers like us could not negotiate the rough paths to Faithful
Night's door without a full moon. I sent Pilgrim back to Stone Town to get
torches, which he obtained from Grind Underfoot's storehouse, and it was only
then that we were able to find the entrance to the deep stairway.
We tied the mules to some spindly bushes on the summit before
descending torch in hand the stone steps to the Lower Level. The deeper we
descended the weaker became the light of the torches until all that remained
were three little green specks like the light of three glow worms in the
darkness and soon enough even these specks were consumed by the velvet
blackness.
"Welcome back," said Faithful Night's voice quietly
in my ear when once again we stood surrounded by the dark empty space which he
called home. "What news my long lost friends?"
"Trials and tribulations, troubles," blurted out
Saffron Tinker raising his voice as he spoke. "Misfortune, pain, sorrow oh,
Gosh, sir, these two were indeed fruitless, oh yes, little help to me indeed and
she too was in my head all the time contradicting me and cursing me, I'm telling
you, if a man could only be allowed peace to draw breath, hell's teeth it's come
to something when..."
"That's enough, Saffron Tinker," commanded the
voice. "When I shall require your opinion I shall ask for it. In the
meantime, Gwern, accord me your report, concisely and to the point."
"May I ask something at this juncture?" asked
Pilgrim hopefully.
"No, you may not," I told him but he asked anyway.
"What do you mean by 'accord'? Is it a special
word?"
"Shut up!" said Faithful Night, "or I'll
freeze the very tongue in your head. I'll do the same for you, too, Saffron
Tinker, if you both don't stop interrupting your leader in his report.
Gwern...?"
"At once, Faithful Night, sir," I replied,
scratching my chin and feeling cheated that Faithful Night had not allowed me
the use of my mobile processor to record the journey. "Well, sir, we have
in general terms accomplished most of what you told us to do, I think, sir. We
have slithered like vipers through the lands of the Alliance in the guise of war
envoys and being under your patronage, which was a big help, we were able to
overcome most obstacles that might otherwise have thwarted our mission. The
first place we reached was Earth Vineyard south across the sea. That's where we
met Duke Waronket Kalz and his two henchmen, Mewdal Bemdez and Revrad Bemnoz.
Don't they have fine houses in Earth Vineyard? We had been nosing around not
wanting to draw attention to ourselves when we met the itinerant Stoty Vragoo
and it was he who pointed us in the right direction.
"Come zis vey," he said and so we followed him.
Stoty Vragoo can gain admission to every secret fastness in the kingdom and he
said to us, "Be as wagabonds viz me. Ve vill soon be made velcom by
Waronket Kalz." We were soon to discover that Waronket Kalz knows little
but what he does know he knows it well.
"Come sit at ze table," said Waronket Kalz to the
four of us. "A glass each for the bread seekers. And a two pound loaf for
each of zem and meat and earth apples as much as they can eat! Vell, vanderers,
do you know there are tales told about your kind coming from afar to the palace
of the Duke like this. Al Lostig from Ploureos and Packet Omp from
Gwitalneblec'h, they had both lost their way. You should hear the tale. We have
not heard of anyone like them until this day and therefore velcome and one
hundred velcomes to you to Earth Wineyard. Come, Inan Alter cup bearer, let the
cider flow, uncork the wine that our guests may drink in liberal and generous
measure!"
"We appreciate the welcome," I rejoined in an
appropriately formal syntax. "I won't deny that we're thirsty." And
that is how the evening was spent, carousing and feasting and making merry.
Having served the feast the duke's daughter came forward to introduce herself, a
comely smiling maiden of fair countenance.
"Imer Vailable," she said with a curtsy to Pilgrim.
"Well I'm not, sorry, no indeed," said the bone
head beginning to make up excuses that he had a headache after all the wine and
cider and then Saffron Tinker started up chiding against the looseness of morals
in contemporary society so I took Inan Alter aside and we repaired to her
chambers at the top of the highest tower of the palace. There we spent a most
agreeable night sipping wine and making polite conversation and doing the things
that are traditionally done in such situations.
The next day, around mid morning, who should I find on
entering the kitchen but Saffron Tinker snoring sound asleep on the kitchen
table and Pilgrim stalking around in a huge sulk because I had stolen his
girlfriend! What in all honesty is one to make of such a fellow? And where was
Duke Waronket Kalz? He was with his henchmen, Revrad Bemnoz and Mewdal Bemdez
still drawing corks from old vintages and singing about the triumphs of his
tribe before Rausman the Great and Befehlnotstand and his Heartless Bodies put
paid to their antics.
"Duke Waronket Kalz, friend, mentor," I said in the
grave voice that I use in my official capacity as war envoy. "I find it
intriguing that you should mention the Exile States for that is why we are
here....no, do not be afraid, we are not Heartless Bodies but war envoys sent
from the High Country to convey to you as our allies the news of a great wave of
rearmament and mobilisation on our borders and here under official seal direct
from the high authority of Faithful Night is what you have to do. Unite with us
to turn back this tide and on the hearths of Earth Vineyard and in her halls it
will be the legends of your exploits that will echo down the ages and not the
exploits of some two faced bums like Al Lostig and Packed Omp!"
"What on earth do you mean?" stuttered Waronket
Kalz sobering up immediately. "What can we do against so many when we are
so small? Who will stand by us in our hour of need? No, I'm afraid that..."
"Duke Waronket Kalz, we have with us already High
Country, the Swarthy Cavedwarves and the Wire Bandits not to mention Lowland,
Great Vineyard, Long Island and Bharatistan."
"Ha! So you come to us last of all! Well no one shall
call Earth Vineyard a country of cowards! Is not our blood as red as the rest?
We will be there!"
"I never doubted that you would, sir."
Having bade farewell to Duke Waronket Kalz and his court we
went forth to try our luck in the Great Vineyard. It was Saffron Tinker who made
a hash of things for us there, it was by the skin of our teeth that we didn't
lose the contract. As you know, Faithful Night, sir, he is a native of that
country, but having wandered the backroads of this world so long he could
actually hardly even remember his mother tongue at first."
"This boy is a liar and a devil in a man's skin making
mischief again and again and..."
"One more word, Saffron Tinker," snapped Faithful
Night and we heard Saffron Tinker's jaws snap to like a mousetrap closing.
"Well, anyway," I continued, "the roads in
Great Vineyard are very long and we had our share of walking, I can tell you. It
took us ages to reach Vineyard Island where the Presidents's headquarters are
located. How much closer to our goal where we, I ask you? That place is like an
ants' nest, no exaggeration. Everyone darting from one place to another and
nobody willing to pause for breath to listen to us asking directions, they
didn't even seem to notice us, sir. And didn't Saffron Tinker have to start up
his nonsense calling them names and shouting obscenities, but at the top of his
voice and what's worse, in their own language and it was touch and go that they
didn't cut off our heads because of him, however that is another story. Suffice
it to say that eventually we were dragged before General Bol in the high
chambers where he holds court.
"Well tell him what we are doing here, Saffron
Tinker," I demanded of him and do you know what he said?
"Good day to you all and I also am fed up of this
too," he said. "Don't you know war is about to break and everyone is
diving for cover and look at you wolfing down foie gras and vintage claret and
troubling your heads with stupid grammatical rules, shame on you, you
materialistic turkeys, I'd rather wander alone an eccentric Tinker with nothing
between my ears save what came in through them to start with, so are you with us
or aren't you, you obese wretches?"
"What's this?" cried General Bol tearing the napkin
from his collar and pushing aside his table. "What's this bread and wine
nonsense of yours, lard heads!"
I explained as best I could in my broken Great Vineyardish,
noticing General Bol's nostrils rising higher and higher with every
mispronounced syllable that fell from my lips.
"Est bian," he said finally having heard of the
welcome we had received in the Earth Vineyard and called Oos Weej his servant to
show us to our lodgings.
First class lodgings they were too. Drapes of silk and
matching silk wallpaper, they had a pis-en-lit pattern all over them and I was
worried what effect this might have on Pilgrim. I shouldn't have worried, the
boy didn't notice. We had a bedroom each off a spacious drawing room, a four
poster bed in each room with a bottle of fine spirits the colour of sunlight
through spring leaves by the side of each bed.
"What shall we do next?" asked Pilgrim but before I
could tell him there came a knock on the door and in came three of the prettiest
girls you ever did see.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said the tall black
haired blue eyed one holding her handkerchief to her nose. I couldn't blame her,
Saffron Tinker never seems to wash himself. They got used to it after a while.
"You have the wrong room, girls," said Pilgrim in
his innocent way. I didn't bother to translate for them.
"On the game, are you, you brazen hussies?" shouted
Saffron Tinker. He didn't open his mouth again that night.
"Go to bed, Pilgrim," I said. "We'll fetch a
doctor for Saffron Tinker in a minute."
"I can't stand the sight of blood," said the tall
black haired blue eyed one. "Let me introduce ourselves. I am Iliona de
Mond, this is Silty Play and here is Elle Belle. How best can we entertain
you?"
"Forget the formal speak, honey," I said once
Pilgrim had gone to his room. Saffron Tinker was still lying on his back in a
coma with his tongue hanging out. Perhaps I did hit him a bit too hard, but he's
used to it. You're a busy man, Faithful Night, sir, so I won't bore you with the
details. Suffice to say that we found ways to make the time pass until morning
and when it was day and the three of them were getting dressed I told them to
ask for breakfast to be sent up to us to our room on their way out.
The breakfast, when it arrived, was very disappointing. A
stale croissant and a tiny cup of black coffee, hardly enough to drown a flea.
However General Bol was in high spirits when we got downstairs.
"Good day to you," he said brightly.
"Overnight I had an opportunity to mull over a little dish of quail in
truffle sauce and having spoken over the wires with Waronket Kalz I am prepared
to support and unite with the allied forces on condition that Great Vineyardish
shall be the official language of this historic repulse of... ehm, by the way, I
didn't catch who we would be repulsing...?"
"My liege, you probably should not have discussed such
matters over the wires," I pointed out. "No doubt the cat is now well
out of the bag."
"Do not worry, my boy, Waronket Kalz and I understand
one another well enough but the Seen and Heard do not understand either of
us." That is what he said, Faithful Night, sir...
"He's a silly devil if ever I saw one," shouted
Saffron Tinker wildly, "no one at all understands a word he says and nobody
wants to listen to his blathering, all he does from morning to night is stoke up
his fat belly and..."
"This is your last warning, Saffron Tinker," said
Faithful Night as sharp as ice; a cold blast sweep over us from the direction of
his voice.
"Well, sir," I went on, "this is how it was
after that. We were given a lift by Vadonc Andouie, the transport minister, to
the city gates and on we went from there in the direction of Wide Island."
"Having reached the coast we took the ferry across the
sea. Once on board we changed into the grand silk suits that we had found in
General Bol's wardrobe. I must admit we did look very fine, we were even invited
by the Captain to dine with him at the top table with all the marine
dignitaries. Pilgrim shamed us by being sick under the table and spoiling a pair
of calf skin shoes that the captain was wearing. We had locked up Saffron Tinker
in our cabin and when I got Pilgrim back to put him to bed I found that Saffron
Tinker had behaved very badly as well, he had apparently gone completely off his
head and had tried to light a fire to dry out the water he saw outside his port
hole thinking that he had caused it all when he wetted his bed. I was thoroughly
relieved when at last we docked by the quayside at Wide Island. Rather than
waste a minute of our time I immediately asked of a little chap who we met on
the quay whether he knew how we might find the Prince.
"Sure but that's me," he exclaimed dancing up and
down and throwing out his legs as if he wanted to get rid of them. "Come
wet your lips, am I not choking for a pint? Sure, and you'll be the same way no
doubt?"
"Yes," said Saffron Tinker, his eyes rolling
strangely.
"No," said I.
"Yes and no," faltered Pilgrim.
Be that as it may, the little chap on the quay turned out to
be Castoo Hein and not the Prince at all; he had only wanted to please us, he
said, seeing as how we'd come such a long way. "Ach, but I'll take you to
him, right enough," he added with a wink and we followed him, not being
accustomed to their ways.
We followed him to the public house of Bas le Tart where we
found the place to be thick with smoke and packed full of guzzlers knocking back
pint after pint of dark porter even though it was only six in the morning and
the dawn mist was still nibbling the corners of the streets outside.
"Tell us a song, Bida Host Singer!" cried Castoo
Hein clapping on the shoulder an aged sage in the corner. "For our noble
visitors of fine vestment who honour us with their presence on this splendid
morning. Tell it, and tell it well!" Every head in the room turned to gaze
upon us and shortly turned back to gaze again upon their pints. Bida Host Singer
sang his song, an interminable ballad whose pure notes were drowned by the
shouting of the Wide Islanders at each others throats to best put the world to
rights.
"And where would you three be from then?" asked a
man wearing a cloth cap and who had a nose like a tuck-knife in the middle of
his face. "You are not Heartless Bodies, God bless you."
"Indeed we are not," confirmed Pilgrim. "We
can sing!"
"From High Country," I explained not wishing to say
too much about our mission. However I am afraid that the liberal measures of
water of life I had imbibed had loosened my tongue somewhat. "We are here
to speak with the Prince!" I boasted.
"Gonerin Borlat?" asked the man. "Well as sure
as my name's Keta Ra Gut, the same man will be here on the dot at seven this
very morning for you. Sure, he comes here at seven every morning on his way to
the House of Assembly. Wait that you may see. Are you for another one, my
friends, come..."
By the time Prince Gonerin Borlat arrived at seven Saffron
Tinker had begun to misbehave again, and this one here, Pilgrim, he had started
to make up all sorts of stories which he was telling to the brothers Taren Show
and Machen Show, saying that he too was originally from Wide Island and was
equal to the best of them in downing fine spirits. Meanwhile I was too
intoxicated to cut across him.
Apparently, all Gonerin Borlat had to do was put one foot
over the threshold and the whole house came to a standstill, immediately quiet
as the grave, as Bas le Tart raised a pin between finger and thumb and let it
drop to the floor emitting a tiny pathetic little tinkle. The threshold ceremony
over, everyone resumed their roaring shouting match as Gonerin Borlat tried to
fight his way thought he packed bodies to the bar.
"Gentlefolk to see you, Prince," said Bas le Tart
drawing a slow pint of white and black for him and marking a cross on the slate
above the till.
"Have they arranged an appointment at all?"
"I doubt it."
"Sure, then that's fine, where are they?"
"By your elbow, friend Prince, here they are. Gwern
Excuses, Saffron Tinker the Mad and Pilgrim, come from High Country all the way
to our fair Wide Island just to see you, if 'tis true for you."
"God to you and a hundred thousand welcomes," said
Prince Gonerin Borlat quaffing a draught of his pint. "What tidings?"
I explained as best I could what with Pilgrim butting in
every minute boasting of his Wide Island ancestry and interrupting me. A wise
man is Gonerin Borlat, oh indeed he is. Mid morning saw me only half way through
my communiqué therefore he sent forth Grow Maggot the Agricultural Minister to
postpone the morning debate in the House of Assembly. By mid afternoon he had
also sent forth Nabee Magafoom from Slieve Garoo to declare an international
amnesty for the under aged.
"Let me introdush Saffron Tinker to shomone
special," he declared at around four o'clock as the afternoon began to fade
and as a towering redheaded woman in a green dress shoved everyone out of her
way and planted herself on a stool and her elbow on the bar. "Shaffron
Tinker... I want to introdush my shishter, Tamming Ralat... Tamming Ralat, I
want you to meet my friend Shaffron Tinker from High Country, war envoy to
Faithful Night no less..."
Please understand, Faithful Night, sir, we would have been
back ages ago if it had not been for that. Well, there's no point crying after
the milk, and Saffron Tinker is much better now he has a fine wife in Tamming
Ralat, she really is a consolation to him in his dotage. But believe me, sir, I
had no idea that the marriage feast would last a fortnight...
The long and the short of it is that the happy couple have
arranged to rent over the Winter a little summer cottage called Bwlch where they
intend spending their honeymoon. That is, of course, once he has completed his
service to you, isn't it sir, and if he gets back his sanity. However that would
appear to be a big if to start off with.
Well, now, of course Gonerin Borlat agreed at once that he
was with us, sir. We got on famously with him. He took us to stay with him and
Pilgrim used to wash the dishes while Saffron Tinker carried on with Tamming
Ralat and while Gonerin Borlat and I pored over various strategies in the
company of a bottle of fifteen year old water of life, but listen to me, sir,
that is how you have to do business in Wide Island, sir, and anyone who tells
you that three weeks is a long time to close a bargain with Gonerin Borlat,
well, sir, he is talking through his hat."
"May I say something now, please?" asked Pilgrim
taking advantage of the pause.
"Is it relevant?" demanded the voice through the
blackness.
"Well, not exactly, but..."
"Be quiet then and shut up," said the voice.
"So that was how it went in Wide Island. And the last of the alliance
countries, Bharatistan, how fared you there, Gwern?"
"Yes, well, having eventually obtained the official seal
of Wide Island's House of Assembly and having then bade farewell to Gonerin
Borlat there was nothing for it but to make for the airport where we were to
seek space on the Over Ocean. It was Gonerin Borlat's contacts that ensured us a
seat on it in spite of the waitlist and in spite of cutbacks. He had also
furnished us with undercover agents' papers and had disguised us as missionaries
and no one dared stand in our way, not even the airport taxi drivers.
"I have heard this is a cold, cold country," said
Saffron Tinker wrapping his fur coat tightly about him as we disembarked from
the aeroplane into the tunnel.
"Everyone to his own opinion," I retorted, rolling
up my cotton shirt sleeves and taking out a pair of sunglasses from my purse.
"I never heard a word about the place," commented
Pilgrim in his safari shorts and his sandals and his huge bear skin fur hat.
"But I have always wanted to come here except that it was too far to
walk."
Apparently Saffron Tinker was correct. As we dragged our
luggage from the conveyor belt the goose flesh stood out on my arms and on
Pilgrim's legs much to Saffron Tinker's satisfaction in his warm fur coat.
However the minute the glass sliding doors opened to the street it was like
walking into Dowlais furnace and you should have seen Saffron Tinker stripping
off quicker than the ladies from the Red Windmill in Great Vineyard.
I asked the taxi walle would be take us to the Emperor Bara
Hathi but all he did was grin widely and roll his head like a wooden doll.
"My name is Mera Desh," he said. "You are
wanting see Sunder Lerki memorial in Sunder Nagar, my friends, because that is
where I am taking you. Everybody is going to see Sunder Lerki memorial built by
Shah Kitna Paisa her husband to attracting visitors to the place."
"No, we do not," I said.
"Oh, yes, sabji, tourists are all liking to see Sunder
Lerki memorial built by Shah Kitna Paisa her husband to draw tourists to the
place."
"Stop the car!" I exclaimed getting annoyed.
"We are not tourists!"
"You are wanting bhang, Sabji! Come, we are going to the
Paan Walle on Pansh Myrtli corner under the shade of the pomegranate tree. He is
having the best!"
"We are here to see Emperor Bara Hathi," I said
peevishly, "and if you don't take us to him you won't get paid!"
"Aatchaa, Sabji, fine, sir, why are you not saying
before?" and he took us there without further ado.
We were led by the chawkadar Patyr Neheehyr doorman in his
splendid red and gold turban into a dark hallway after the glare of the sun, and
up a flight of narrow twisting stairs, so narrow you had to squeeze up it
sideways on. At last we reached a dusty corridor along which numbered doors led
into offices and chambers.
"Office two four seven, enquiries," said Patyr
Neheehyr raising a palm to his forehead in salute.
"Thanks," we said but he didn't move, he kept on
standing to attention rolling his head every so slightly.
We gave him three units for his trouble and went on into the
office where we found a crowd of people waiting their turn, some sitting, some
jostling at the counter and others cross legged in the middle of the room
sharing a bite of lunch.
We managed at last to register our presence; the official
Meranam Oot-hey opened up a file for us which he dated and stamped. "You
are to be filling this form also for me in triplicate and returning pink copy to
me," he advised.
"Where is General Certificate of Preferences?" he
asked once we had fought our way back to his counter clutching the pink copy.
I sent Pilgrim across the city in a cycle rickshaw to obtain
the certificate and by the time he got back the petitioners were already
unrolling their blankets and preparing for bed.
"Come back after some time," said Meranam Oot-hey.
"What do you mean?" I asked with a sinking feeling.
"How much time, official, sir?"
"Tomorrow, day after, day after that," he said
dismissively rolling his head and turning us away with a lazy gesture of the
hand.
"We are here on official business from High
Country," I said angrily. "You will have to answer to Emperor Bara
Hathi for keeping us waiting like this."
"What to do?" He rolled his head slightly further
from side to side. "The two brothers Garam Panni and Tanda Panni from
Rajpur, they were coming day and night for forty years and how much better were
they for their trouble? They were coming to petition Emperor Double Roti
regarding the right to extract water in Mera Gown and by the time they were
taken through to see him he was long since cremated and his son Bara Hathi was
Emperor in his place with no knowledge of the case and with the file long since
lost like all the rest and so they had to return home empty handed in the
end."
"Well, we don't have forty years to spare," I
exclaimed looking him straight in the eye. "Just tell me whose palm is to
be greased!"
"When are you wishing to see him, Sabji?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"Aatchaa, Sabji," and he rubbed his chin
thoughtfully. "You are giving me one hundred units deposit and then you
must be going with Chawkadar Patyr Neheehyr to Parana Likana Letterwriter on
Bodmarsh Lerki Square and you are giving him this note together with two hundred
more units and everything is being arranged accordingly for nine o'clock
tomorrow morning. Aatchaa?"
"We can't afford that," I lied. "You can have
fifty units now and I'll give Parana Likana Letterwriter another hundred and
we'll settle for ten o'clock. Ok?"
He started to roll his head around again adopting a mournful
expression. "Sabji, inflation is rife in Great Bharatistan. Give ten per
cent more, Sabji, and come by ten thirty and everything is being arranged."
"Bahood aatchaa," I agreed and we shook hands.
The Emperor Bara Hathi is a huge big man with a great black
beard filling his face and a tall golden turban on his head and a long thin
sword in its golden jewel encrusted scabbard lying on his desk by the telephone.
He must have his own private staircase, or perhaps he does not go out. He picked
up our file, dusted it off and said, "Chai walle, tea for our guests."
"Bara Hathi-ji, Emperor of Sun and Earth and Great
Bharatistan, a message from the Answer Keeper!" I announced after we had
been given a glass each of sweet milky tea. "The Heartless Bodies are
massing on our borders and the Answer Keeper would like to know will you join
forces with us that your legions may stand behind us to push back the onslaught
of the Exile States?"
"Oh, it was so fine here when the Exile States used to
run our affairs," exclaimed Bara Hathi, a teardrop coming to his barbarous
eye. "So wonderful the discipline of the Heartless Bodies. There is no
orderliness to be had anywhere nowadays and no respect for anything or anybody.
Are the trains running on time? They are not. Are the days and nights keeping to
their schedules? They are not. Is there one man left who is capable of preparing
a successful white sauce? There is not! They can come this very day! The
Heartless Bodies, Rausman and his Counsellors, they can all come and welcome,
only that they bring with them a cook. It would be so much less of hassle for me
to have them running this show for me."
"Oh brave Bara Hathi, Oh Emperor of the Universe, O
Mighty Overlord, won't it rather look as if you're a yellow bellied coward who
want's to chicken out of his obligations?"
"You are thinking so? Hmmmm... listen, I will do one
thing. Rather than to lose face I will send what I am sparing from my army plus
six circus elephants, this I am sure will be keeping Answer Keeper happy. In
truth for you, though, I have no faith in them as fighters!"
"Thanks, Bara Hathi-ji," said the three of us and
away we went.
"You seem to have carried out your duties fairly
well," said Faithful Night's voice, "and although you have not told me
everything about the journey, your story will do for now. By your side, Gwern,
you will find your mobile processor. Go now and prepare for war. Gwern, you are
to develop your craft as a software engineer under Raven Dream, Commander of the
Air Peaceforce; you, Pilgrim, had better go with him as an apprentice. Be in the
Air Caves by seven. You, Saffron Tinker, are to complete your period of service
minding the army's mules on the Moor of the Home of Graves. Any questions?"
"None, sir," I replied.
"Yes, one," said Pilgrim. "What is that great
oak door at the foot of the granite cliff? It leads nowhere."
"That's right, Pilgrim," said the voice patiently.
"It leads nowhere unless it pleases; the Answer Keeper is waiting for the
one that may come and open it and be accepted by it that the pure light may
flood through it into the gloomy depths of the Lower Level. And the one for whom
it opens shall be known as the Answer Keeper' true successor who will lead us to
triumph and who will sit upon the Answer Keeper' right hand."
"Would that not be rather uncomfortable?"
"Do you have any questions, Saffron Tinker," asked
Faithful Night ignoring the simpleton.
"I have one question only," said Saffron Tinker.
"Is it due to my maturity of years or else is it due to the sharpness of my
eyesight that I have been promoted to the high office of Guardian of Answer
Keeper' Mules rather than having to go off to some cave as an apprentice flyer?
And by the way, when can I go back to Tamming Ralat at Bwlch?"
"That is not only one question," said Faithful
Night.
"I never claimed to be good at counting."
"Well to answer you, there were other considerations
regarding your 'promotion', and you may go to Bwlch when you have completed your
service to High Country. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a report to prepare.
Farewell, intended heroes, and good bye."
Testimony Six''''' follows...
Prince Grind Underfoot is a hard master for those under his
thumb but now that we were answerable only to Faithful Night and Raven Dream we
didn't have to worry any more about the spiteful midget. He would get his orders
from the Lower Level through the Green Screen and these he would execute to the
letter and woe betide anyone that got in his way, he would have his guts for
garters that very afternoon. By the end of the first week of the declaration of
war Grind Underfoot had already filled the town lockup to overflowing with
soldiers that had transgressed him in some way or other.
I can well remember private Black Crow from the Village of
Ashes being given three days in the punishment block without heat or blankets
because he had a button missing from his shirt. In fact it was only Summer
Nightshade Water Maiden kept him alive when she slipped him a shirt, late one
night, through the roof grating of his cell.
Then again, I recall the day the new wire codes arrived,
there would be no chance the Heartless Bodies would ever decipher them this
time, I thought, after all I did know about them having had a hand in the
software development stage, well, the day the new codes arrived Kills Two Birds
from Frontier Province was given a month's hard drubbing under the fists of the
cavedwarves for daring to suggest High Country was now invincible. "Just
remember that no one is bloody invincible!" shouted Grind Underfoot after
him as he was being dragged away.
"That's right!" said Pilgrim. "And everybody's
got to serve somebody!"
"What did you say, you loathsome maggot?" screamed
Grind Underfoot pointing a bony finger at Pilgrim. "I will make you regret
you said that, you offensive little irrelevance!"
"Don't speak to my deputy like that," I said,
"or you'll answer to Faithful Night about it."
"You again!" he spluttered grinding his teeth in a
hissing fury. "When this war is over, boy...!"
"Oh, and by the way, Grind Underfoot, concerning those
units you suggested we owed you, we gave them to Raven Dream to buy spare parts
for the war effort, I'm sure you agree we did the right thing. And before I
forget, Pilgrim would like his special stones back now, please. You know, the
ones you borrowed from him. Otherwise I'll tell Faithful Night that you stole
them."
Grind Underfoot's face went from red to purple to white as he
sat on his throne crushing a golden cushion in his fists until the feathers flew
like snow. But Pilgrim got his stones back; he stood there smiling as he
counting them carefully one by one into his sack.
"Gosh, thanks, Gwern," he said. "No one before
has been so kind to me."
"Well you must have had it pretty rough, then, that's
all I can say. Now, enough of your nonsense and lets go find Saffron Tinker
before we leave for the Exile States."
It didn't take us long to find Saffron Tinker, he was in his
hut above the village, smoking his pipe and keeping an eye on the mules that
grazed all over the hillsides. With the sun gilding the reeds and reddening the
bracken, with the birds chirping from the rusty woods, and with Stone Town down
below like a newly blasted fall of quarry rocks with the dust still rising from
the fissures, I thought Saffron Tinker had it pretty good up there having only
to sit in his shepherd's hut smoking his pipe and gobbing into the fire,
occasionally keeping half an eye on his mules through the open door. It must
have done him some good, too, being up there daydreaming all alone for so long,
it seemed to have relieved some of the tension in his head, he seemed to have
regained some of his senses.
"Come in, friends, take a pew," he announced as we
darkened his doorway. "Explain to me who you are and whether you take
sugar."
"We've come to bid you farewell for the time
being," I explained. "Pilgrim and I are flying tonight with the first
raid on the Exile States."
"Mules not good enough for you anymore, is that it? And
what do you know about flying, you untruthful wretch? And why do you haul poor
innocent Pilgrim after you? Oh, the two of you are enough to drive me mad! I
don't know! I don't know!"
"Don't get exited now, Saffron Tinker," I said
soothingly. "I'm an old hand at playing the Virtual Reality Flying Game at
All Night Café, you know, and we've also had lessons from Raven Dream, Air
Marshal of Answer Keeper' Air Peaceforce. He has taught us all he knows about
the business, and anyway, these new systems are childsplay compared to the old
systems I'm used to working with."
"And if Gwern is going, I'm going too!" piped up
Pilgrim defiantly. "He'll look after me, oh yes he will, better than you
ever did you old buffoon, you've only ever been cross and horrible to me and
I..."
"Oh, listen to the monkey jabbering, listen to the snake
that bites the hand, oh wicked boy, I'll soon show you what's what..."
"That's enough, both of you!" I shouted as the foam
started to issue from between his teeth. I stood between them trying to fish
Pilgrim from under the table where he had crawled. "Stop it, Saffron
Tinker! And don't you start winding him up either, Pilgrim, look how you've
maddened him now! We'd better go. Thanks for the tea..."
"Yes, go! That's it, go, leave me here on my own then! I
don't care. Leave me here, you beasts, alone on my mountain with no one but the
wind for company months one end and then you come for five minutes and go to
you're deaths in the Exile States and what am I to do then, I wonder? But you
don't care, do you? You and your grand uniforms and your peaked caps and your
stripes and your style, how much better will you be for all your pomp when
you're in the bottom of a ditch with crows pecking at your eyes and ngwaa ngwaa
ngwaa aaa nngg..."
We could hear his voice shouting under the flecked stars
opening in the sky above but the wind took his words, thank God, and spat them
out scornfully against the high crags. When I turned to look back all I could
see was a dark spot by the hut darting back and forth like a spider sewing up
his prey. I pulled my cap down hard on my head and with Pilgrim following struck
out back towards Stone Town.
We were to be at the air caves by eight. Having entered our
network codes into the touchpad outside the slate slab of a doorway swung
noiselessly aside and we stepped into the preparation chamber. The other crews
were already there, pair by pair, crowding around the Green Screens for any last
minute details.
"How's it going, lads?" called Hugh New Pilot
raising his head from his screen for a moment. "Ready to whip some
ass?"
"The birch rod is all ready for them," I called
back. Just then Raven Dream strode into the chamber to say a few words before we
climbed into our machines. I'm afraid I didn't listen much to his speech because
I had heard it all before, he always goes on and on about his exploits in the
first war and about his portrait in the mural in Grind Underfoot's hall,
depicting him putting paid to several Heartless Bodies all at once; and wasn't
his portrait larger by far than that of anyone else on the wall? And wasn't it
just fine for young peace pilots like us to go get ourselves killed with no
trouble at all without pausing to consider how much trouble the pilots of his
day had to go to get themselves annihilated, no indeed it was not like the old
days. And those guards of Grind Underfoot's, no metal at all, might as well be
without them. No, it was a fact, without him, Raven Dream, it would be all over
with High Country. Without him and his peace pilots High Country would be a pile
of rubble and Faithful Night would be singing for his supper and so on and so
forth ad infinitum. I was on tenterhooks wanting to get moving and eager to be
allowed to climb into my glove of a cockpit before anyone noticed my shaking
hands. Eventually he shut his trap and came amongst us shaking hands, clapping a
hand on our shoulders and wishing us good luck each in turn; I noticed the sweet
smell of life water on his breath as he clasped me to his breast. Finally we
were actually allowed to get on with the job in hand. Pilgrim and I went to our
peace machine and quickly checked her over, testing the jet stream indicators,
adjusting the blades, making sure all circuits were open. Then, up into the
cockpit with us, the masks and helmets on our heads and thumbs up to the crews
in their machines lined up to right and left of us. Following my training I
powered up to the tenth level as the air gates opened in front of us revealing a
diamond sky. One by one the heavy bellied machines in front of us began rolling
towards the take off line, one by one they left the group, their short wings
springing out on either side, and on the green light powering up to the top and
roaring down the line as the heat of their jets warmed us through the screens
and the glare made us blink through our visors. Seconds later there would be
nothing left of them but a tiny red light like a burnt out shooting star fading
into nothing amongst the stars.
"Appliance seven two one seven, Gwern Excuses, thirty
seconds over." The coordinator's voice broke through my distant thoughts.
"Line thirty, position for take off."
"Pilgrim," I commanded, "set the power compass
to zero nought zero and confirm."
"Confirmed."
I threw the lock switch to release the wheels and we slowly
rolled down along line thirty towards the air gates.
"Five, four, three, two, one, hit it!" said the
coordinator. The engines roared as I locked the controls for take off and there
we were pressed by an unseen into our seats as if by an unseen hand as the
outside dissolved into strands and vanished behind us leaving only the night
opening like a flower around us and the nose of our machine straining forwards
towards the stars.
All the while the coordinator's voice kept up a commentary in
our helmets, directing the fleet and confirming cross-references. Having drawn
in our wheels into the machine's sleek underbelly all we had to do was sit and
wait, all the while keeping a check upon the red and green buttons of light
flashing on the air screen in front of me confirming that all was in order and
going like clockwork.
"Appliance seven two one seven, confirm location,"
said the coordinator. I turned to Pilgrim.
"Ten over a hundred, seven seven eight south south east
at three thousand units," said Pilgrim reading off his power compass.
"Terminating voice contact," said the coordinator.
"Dump on them, lads and safe home!" and we were all on our own with
only the air screens to show us where we were within the fleet formation.
"Good lad," I said to Pilgrim. "You've learnt
your lessons well."
"Thanks," said he. "I'm not afraid, mind. I've
got faith in you to bring us back home."
"Don't you worry about it. I'll buy you a slap up
breakfast at Leather Belly's place tomorrow morning."
"There is one thing, though," said Pilgrim
thoughtfully. "Gosh, these missiles won't half make a mess of the Exile
States, won't they?"
"If we do our job properly, I guess they will,
yes."
"And kill?"
"Military targets only, Pilgrim, nothing else."
"Yes, but..."
"Listen, Pilgrim, this is war so someone has to get
killed presumably or it wouldn't be a war now would it?"
"They'll die without knowing who killed them and we'll
have killed them not knowing who we killed."
"It could happen, Pilgrim old son. It would not be the
first time."
We remained quiet for a long time after that as the machine
thrust us farther and farther into the night and finally towards a narrow band
of pink that was beginning to stain the clouds on the edge of the world down
below us.
I concentrated on the screens to check that the programmes
were running to schedule. The screen rant through the preliminary check list
before arming the exit ports while at the same time beginning to turn the
machine slowly downwards towards the pink clouds to the right of us as the air
screen flashed up the penultimate screen: "Armed: Confirm".
I punched the confirmation into the keypad and waited for the
screen to confirm back that the missiles were locked onto their targets.
"Missile One. Away." flashed the screen. I punched
in the code and away it sailed in front of us, swerving to the left and then
plunging into the clouds.
"Missile Two. Away." flashed the screen, this time
it swerved away to our right.
As I watched the flight path of the missiles on the screens
the familiar cross-wires moved together to form a cross over some sort of
factory buildings which were coming into view and getting larger and larger
until they filled the screen.
"Missile One. Confirm target," flashed the screen.
I hit the red button as the two wires parted directly above the buildings and
these seemed to implode and spew forth a ball of smoke like an egg yolk falling
into a bowl of flour. Now on the other screen the two wires were already poised
over a lake or reservoir of some kind and together they came to form a cross
over the dam embankment.
"Missile two. Confirm target." I confirmed and
watched as the screen zoomed in on the embankment where men the size of ants
were running from their huts and scrambling hither and thither along the dam
wall. In a second the dam burst and a great wall of water and beams and rocks
swept everything in its path taking the ants along with it and the screen closed
with the message: "Accomplished".
"Back home then, I suppose." I turned to Pilgrim as
a dull weight began to settle on my stomach as I thought of the ants being swept
away.
"Is it over?" asked Pilgrim opening his eyes. All I
could see through his mask and his helmet were his frightened eyes.
"Set the power compass for home, Pilgrim," I said,
hearing the weariness grate in my voice.
"Home? Where is that?" he asked.
"Don't you start," I exclaimed angrily. "A
hell of a help you've been to me what with me trying to get a job done and
all."
"That's not what you said last night."
"Well it's a new day today. And you're bloody hopeless.
You lily livered pansy you."
All Pilgrim did was stare out his window without a reply so I
did the same and we let the machine take us wherever it would. That was when I
saw the little glowing ball rising from the clouds towards us and before I had a
chance to activate the defence screen it had stuck fast to our right wing by my
shoulder.
"Oh, my God," I said wildly punching buttons on the
pad in front of me and then came the splintering crack which shook us to bits as
I strained to see half my wing torn away with our second jet engine leaving us
spiralling down through ragged broken clouds before hurtling into an open
picture book of fields and woods and hills and beyond a red desert crushed by
the sun as my head burst and my ears screamed and the world turned around my
head it was all I could do to scream through the mike as I fought to raise a
hand or a foot, "Hit the red button, Pilgrim, get out," while my
stomach locked inside of me and through my seared eyes, through my red eyelids I
saw snowflecked peaks glisten under a glinting sun and naked branches strewn
with the raucous crows at Gelli Aur and the orchard trees all felled with their
tangled twigs obstructing the cart track to Tyn Coed where the orange and
brittle bracken filled the ditches and where the suffocating river struggled
with rusting machinery and rotting sheep, their fleece unwinding in the current,
their shell like teeth grimacing, their sockets open holes, and beyond, Tyn y
Coed, the whitewashed walls now streaked with black soot, the roof burst open
and the windows shattered, the hanging smell of damp smoke on the air and its
colour bleeding on the wet washing still hanging on the line, the front door
creaking on one hinge, no sign of life. I fell upon my knees and closed my eyes.
Tight, tight, I closed my eyes to shut it out and turn and turn in a starless
night longing only for your arms to close about me once again before...
But I got daylight bursting all around me as I hurtled
spinning through whistling space and the rush and tearing of canvas and a
snapping jolt and there I was swinging, sitting, slowly turning in my ejector
seat gently descending in the shadow of mushroom like parachute hanging above.
The first I saw were the red hills rising on my left so I guided the seat
towards them using the direction buttons on the arms. It was lucky I did so too
because I'm sure the Heartless Bodies were crawling around the other side of the
hills where the machine went down, they were probably waiting for me at that
very moment. There I was, alive, floating gently downwards with no-one shooting
at me and thinking vaguely, "where's that Pilgrim go to? Oh, he'll turn up
in a moment..." Then I noticed a weight pressing down on my lap and on
examining found Pilgrim's sack tucked neatly under my seat belt. I hung my head
and stared unblinking at the sack.
"Poor Pilgrim," I said out loud over and over again
until I was half crazed by the sound of his name in my ears. All the while the
ground was getting closer, the seat was drifting in the rising air currents and
I had to concentrate on getting the unwieldy gadget landed and we hadn't even
had a practice at base camp. Eventually we came down in a marsh which was soft
at least, drat me, it wasn't us at all it was me alone. I couldn't think
straight, I couldn't think at all, all I could think of was Pilgrim and his
little collection of stones and about him being beaten by brutal Grind Underfoot
and about how I tried to stand up for him once. I was shedding bitter tears as I
thought of him now, broken limb from limb lying somewhere in a ditch with ants
crawling all over him. "Why didn't you go as I told you, Pilgrim? I didn't
ask you to press my button...Why?" As I looked around me beyond the swamp
to the red foothills in front and to the boundless desert to the other side, and
to the circling vultures which seemed to be gathering above me I thought,
"What would you do in a place like this, Pilgrim?" And I thought of
how he would answer and say, "Well, I'd be with you, Gwern," and I
said aloud, "Yes, Pilgrim, you will be with me, and I'll carry your sack
and I'll make them pay!" I unclipped myself from the seat and pushing it to
one side, struggled through the swamp towards the distant hills on the other
side.
I hope you don't mind if I miss out the bit about the journey
from the swamp to the hills. It would take too long and my backup batteries are
getting low. Suffice it to say that it took me several long hard weeks to get
through. You can bet your life it did. I mean, there was I in the middle of the
Exile States with a war apparently raging all around me. In fact I soon realised
that the war didn't reach this far, I was actually in the peripheral zone where
the desert gives way to the barren hills and they in turn give way to forested
ranges where white water streams flow through gouged channels. I walked and
walked. My feet were swollen like balloons and my legs covered with leech bites.
They would drop from the branches at night and slurp up your blood as you slept
without waking you at all. I don't know what kept me going, I suppose I was
determined to live so that Pilgrim might not have died in vain. At long last I
reached the hut of a hermit who lives in a hollow where the water flows clear
from the channels and turns his old water wheel creaking and slow. I could
jabber enough Exilese to conceal my Lowland accent and I made up some fibs which
he seemed to believe and he gave me an egg on toast and also a set of peasant
clothes in return for my flying suit, once gleaming, now rather the worst for
wear. The hermit had not even heard of the war, bless him, and didn't know
anything about High Country and I was made very welcome by him and his cat,
Panger Bán.
He turned out to be a bit of a preacher, making me stay up
late into the night listening to his rantings.
"Thou art a great sinner!" he pronounced, jabbing a
gnarled finger into my chest.
"I know, I know, don't rub salt in the wound," I
pleaded wondering how he came to know so much about me.
"I too am a great sinner!" he cried, beating
himself on his breast. "I am the greatest sinner that ever did walk the
face of God's earth!"
"Is that why you have to live here, and why nobody wants
to know you?"
"Of the seven deadly sins only I have committed
eight," he continued. "The day and the hour that I feel myself moving
closer to God, God simply gets up and moves away from me as if I had bad breath.
Poor Panger Bán himself leads a better life than I, although she is a useless
mouser."
"What exactly did you do to deserve this?" I asked,
curious to know more about the Exile States' legal system.
"Do?" he asked in a wounded tone. "I did
nothing. I had impure thoughts. That, in my opinion, is the very worst sin of
all. Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Think impure thoughts?"
"Get away from me you pervert!" I shouted
struggling to remove his hands from my person.
"You shall do penance tomorrow," he said. "It
is now late. Come to bed."
"I'll be fine in the shed, hermit," I said fleeing
outside taking the floor brush with me and wedging it against the inside of the
door.
I thought I'd better leave early the next day, before the
hermit awoke and before the Heartless Bodies picked up my trail. I made a fine
Exile peasant, though I say it myself, and found it quite easy to tramp around
the countryside like a beggar, the sky often opening over me, sometimes with
missiles, sometimes with rain. I had nothing against the people but I realised
that they must not guess who I was. I tended to plead ignorance and often
succeeded in pulling the wool over their eyes.
My wanderings eventually found me in Schadenfreude Forest
where I was given shelter in a hay loft belonging to an old forester near the
fishing wear of a forest village, don't ask me how you pronounce it's name. In
return for food and shelter I had to carry grain to the local mill, and by and
by I became friendly with the old forester's daughter, and the old forester's
wife treated me with kindness and everything seemed fine, I thought perhaps I'd
stay there for a while and forget everything about High Country and Pilgrim and
Lowland and even about you, Caress, and turn myself into a proper Exiled One as
like Ivan Echo from Betws had done some time back when he became a ticket
collector on Rausman II Station, but who do you think arrived to put paid to my
dreams? Saffron Tinker and his mules.
I was in the farmyard shovelling manure from a wheelbarrow
onto the dung heap when he turned up from nowhere, filling the yard with his
mules. "Come round the other side of the cowshed you mad devil," I
hissed, worried that we might be seen together. "And tell these animals to
come with you!"
"Things aren't so great, not so very good," said
Saffron Tinker. "Lost Pilgrim. Lost Gwern Excuses. Not too good. Not too
splendid, see."
"What are you jabbering about you crazy beaver. Don't
talk like that. Look, it's me, Gwern! But use my pseudonym, Hau'ab Schmutztuck,
while you're here."
"Is it really you, Hau'ab Schmutztuck?" cried
Saffron Tinker leaping from his mule. "Where is Pilgrim, is he here?"
"No, he's finished."
"Killed? And they let you live...? Oh, my! Oh, my! Well,
I'm here searching for you disguised as a sane person, so come on, mount one of
these mules and we'll away."
"How many mules did you bring?"
"Enough. Come on."
"I was actually quite content here until you showed
up," I replied, taking exception to his attitude.
"You want to bury yourself in this hole until you rot,
is that it? You think you can hide your head in that dung heap, do you? Fine
then, you bury yourself away here, dung mayor. But you won't hide from your
fate."
"I can try if I like."
"Come, choose a mule!"
"No!"
"I'll be mad if you won't!"
"Do you mean 'angry' or 'insane'"
"Both!"
"Oh, all right then. I'll take the brown one."
"What's all this noise?" hollered the old forester
striding towards us.
"Ah! And a good morning to you again too!" I said.
"Ehm, my friend Bettenhauen here was just reminding me that I have an
appointment with him today in Entwürdigung City. Being preoccupied with
shovelling dung I forgot all about it. I shall see you tonight, and fear not, I
shall shovel all night to make up for lost time this afternoon."
"Entwürdigung City? Gosh, will you make it there and
back in an afternoon I wonder?"
"No problem," said Saffron Tinker. "Look at
the mules we've got."
"Strange accent," said the old forester.
"It's Schopfer Wohlgefallt's accent, actually,"
said Saffron Tinker. I borrowed it from him. Come on, Hau'ab Schmutztuck, we
must loose no more time."
Testimony Seven'''' follows...
Once out of earshot Saffron Tinker started to prattle on
about the war, how things would all be going wrong one minute while the next
minute a new dawn would seem to usher in a better period. The length of each
period had been curtailed to a quarter of an hour, he said, to economise on
gossip. Great Vineyard had pulled out at the last minute having had a better
offer elsewhere and Bharatistan hadn't bothered to turn up, but Earth Vineyard
and Wide Island were shoulder to shoulder in the breach together with High
Country and Lowland, Sunless Summer, Wild Country and Bleak Winter.
"Quite some breach," I commented. "But I can't
believe that Bleak Winter has joined in. Can you see those Swarthy Cavedwarves
being willing to lend a hand?"
"No, you're right, I'm sorry, they pulled out too. But
all the rest have joined in and it seems we have a chance now."
"How long were you looking for us... me?"
"Since you went missing," he replied. "Mind
you, with my contacts," he added, and it was a pleasure to hear his lucidly
delivered pronouncements, "I might be able to bake foxgloves before
dawn."
"Come now, Saffron Tinker, say it properly. You can do
it."
"Don't expect too much of me, Gwern. Kick that mule,
hurry. Over the ridge there, down in the glen below, are the remnants of Fion
Tra regiment, Gonerin Borlat's finest infantrymen, or what's left of them."
"How do you know?"
"Because it was with them that I came here, stupid.
They'll give us shelter and we can traipse along with them back to Lowland where
my Taming Ralat is waiting for me."
"Why did you leave her in such a dangerous place, you
fabulous lunatic?"
"Dangerous? No, it's not really dangerous, man. This is
a high technology war. How much war damage did you see with the old forester and
his family?"
"None," I admitted. "Although they did used to
watch in on TV every night and they'd clap and cheer every time our lads took a
pasting."
"Peasants," said Saffron Tinker contemptuously,
spiting out a long jet of brown tobacco juice all over the leg of his trousers.
"Damn it all, I'll catch it from Taming Ralat for that now." He
started furiously rubbing at the stain with a dirty rag. The white peaks of
Gonerin Borlat's tents were now coming into view over the rise and I took no
more notice of him.
"War envoys of Faithful Night! Welcome!" cried
Gonerin Borlat coming from his tent towards us. "Come inside to quench your
thirst."
You would have thought we were princes the way we were made
welcome and the way the turnip potsheen started flowing and the best of
everything from the camp kitchens was put before us: potatoes.
"Go on, have another, just one more," urged Gonerin
Borlat.
"Well, just one then," I said, trying to push
another baked potato into my mouth, and doing the same for Saffron Tinker.
"Nngggww nggwww nggaaa," he spluttered in protest.
"I was sorry to hear about Pilgrim," said Gonerin
Borlat when all the potatoes had been finished. "Giving his life to save
his master. Sure, you wouldn't get that nowadays would you?"
"Now look here, I'm sorry too," I snapped. "I
didn't want him to save me. I told him to get out while he could. And what
really hurts is that I'd been beastly to him and I wasn't even able to say
sorry, but he was still my friend or I wouldn't he here, would I, so you can
just shut up, Gonerin Borlat, and mind your own business!"
"And it only happened a few months ago you thick Wide
Island bumpkin," shouted Saffron Tinker beginning to froth at the mouth.
"Come, drink," said Gonerin Borlat without turning
a hair. "Throw it west and another will be yours just now."
We made a big night of it, I can tell you; there we were
still at it putting the world to rights as the blue dawn filtered through the
tent. He had explained the whole campaign strategy to us, using pictures,
diagrams, sticking pins into maps and explaining in detail the exact reason we
were being defeated. I just wish I could remember half the things he taught us
about that war. Saffron Tinker, however, lost interest half way through and
began snoring loudly from his wooden armchair. No me, though. I was all ears
listening to the exploits of the Fionn Trá Regiment shoulder to shoulder with
Rock Jaw's warrior bandits on their shining beasts as they held Sleeve Eoghann
Pass for seven days and six nights until Befehlnotstand arrived in person from
Entwürdigung Castle leading the reinforcements needed to drive off the forces
of the Alliance.
He told of Raven Dream's air raids and of the warheads that
fell over the Exile States like falling hail from a clear sky. This was all that
stood between us now and the world of the Heartless Bodies.
And he told of Grind Underfoot leading a hundred infantrymen
under Captain White Fear and how, as they passed through Bleak Winter, they had
been hounded by the Ice Locusts and driven to despair by the Swarthy Cavedwarves
and how Grind Underfoot, having failed to appease them or reach any agreement
had been obliged to return to High Country in his vest and his underpants having
lost half his men over the precipice and how Faithful Night had dismissed him
and was calling now for a successor to his throne.
"Sure, hasn't he sent out the word far and wide,"
added Gonerin Borlat, "under the seal of the Answer Keeper, that it is
yourself that is to go back to High Country to try the Door of Answers."
"Well, I can't go," I boasted drunkenly,
"because I've got other irons in the fire."
Gonerin Borlat went off to bed soon afterwards leaving me to
ponder and to finish off the dregs of the bottle.
Suddenly the regiment's horn sounded and Saffron Tinker leapt
to his feet bringing his palm smartly to his temple, standing to attention like
a soldier.
"Well I am a soldier now," he said. "I've got
the stripes to prove it. Look, pull up the back of my shirt if you don't believe
me."
"What did you get those for?" I asked as I rubbed
the tiredness from my eyes.
"Stealing flour from Naback Leish's stores back at the
camp in the Valley of Forgetting, where we were before reaching the Exile
States. By God it did me good, though."
The lads were striking camp around us by now, even our tent
was being folded about our ears. Gonerin Borlat's bed was carried to his cart as
he slept peacefully like a year old baby in the middle of its feathers.
"You and your technology war," I croaked hoarsely
to Saffron Tinker. "I haven't seen much evidence of it so far in this
camp."
"Oh, there's no technology down here on the
ground," he said patiently. "It seems you've missed the one and only
fundamental point of Gonerin Borlat's interminable postulation last night then?
Ho, ho, ho! It takes a simpleton like me to understand it while you, with your
head in the clouds, see nothing but mist."
"Of course I understood," I replied grumpily.
"I was just testing you. Down here all energy sources have been used up,
that's it, isn't it? But they have enough left up in High Country or the peace
machines wouldn't still be airborne, would they?"
"Thank you and farewell, ex-pilot of the sky,"
proclaimed Saffron Tinker as he loosened his mules reins from the stake.
"And now welcome back, mule drover. Get up on your mount and sober up, will
you!"
What an excruciating, dragging on to nowhere for ever of a
journey it was too. Every night Gonerin Borlat would insist on the pleasure of
our company at his soirees, taking it into his head that we were gentlefolk. In
fact, I suppose Saffron Tinker is some kind of noble now, now he's a husband to
the sister of Prince Gonerin Borlat the brave. He didn't bother to mention Mrs
Saffron Tinker at the time, nor the scandal when he did away with her and I
wasn't going to spill the beans either because he didn't know that I knew.
As each new day dawned Gonerin Borlat would make his excuses
and climb into bed to be carried along in his cart while I had to perch in pain
on the back of my mule; Saffron Tinker, needless to say, was content to continue
his inimitable mule riding technique called "saddle" in which he would
have his arms and legs unceremoniously bound together as a girth under his mount
in which position he would sleep away the day dreaming his strange dreams.
We dragged along through the dirt and the mud between high
matted hedges of blackthorn and brambles, a long line of open shirted Wide
Islandmen sinking up to their shanks in wet clay marching along; behind them
Gonerin Borlat's cart with his comfy camp bed wedged tight between it's deep
sides and he himself tossing and turning with every pothole and rock.
Then the two of us, Saffron Tinker and I, on our mules, he
asleep on his stomach, me trying to sleep on my feet if that's what you call
nodding fitfully on the ridge-like back of a mule. The war band was completed by
a rear-guard of Saffron Tinker's spare mules. Yes, of course we offered the lads
a ride. Would they accept? Shay De Vahy from Cineal Sugreach it was who spoke up
over the rest of them. "'Is it not true for me that 'tis poor impoverished
peasants rise up on high on muleback? Is it the way that you are thinking we are
such? Are we not warriors of the lineage of Bhfuil Athas Ort? Keep your bloody
mules, brother, we will walk!"
Weak hillocks to either side of us spoiling the view with
their covering of black soot and no good sprouting from them but curls of smoke
rising here and there like corpse candles from their pock-marked fields.
On we went, on and on. Gradually the hillocks began to fatten
and fill out and the mists bit by bit became clouds pregnant with rain; the
paltry showers grew in strength day by day until they poured down upon us like
water from a tipped barrel on our heads. We won't be long now until we reach
Lowland, I said to myself and for the first time I started to notice living
creatures other than ourselves. A snail to start off with, then a green frog;
two little mice and then three rats, and wherever trees might be one would spy a
thin old crow to weak to caw.
"Tinker, Tinker, wake up!" I shouted when first I
saw a sheep gnawing a tuft of pasture. The devil didn't even wake.
Lowland was the same as usual once I got there except that
some things had changed. Thank goodness the fighting had been in other, stronger
places I thought. But I'm sure that the war must come here through the
television all the same because the people seemed to be rather withdrawn. I had
long since shaken off the remnants of Fionn Tra Regiment by now, having promised
Saffron Tinker that I'd be sure to look them up, Tamming Ralat and he, at Bwlch
when I had a chance. He took my hand as I turned to go: "I have a fine
place there, kept a Summer cottage over the Winter I have and Tamming Ralat will
make us tea the way we like it when you come: a good drop of water of life in
it's eye for you."
"Keep a bottle until I come, then," I said as I
shook his hand.
The greatest thing that had changed were the roads: arrived
at the main road - no cars. Only people on mule-back or on bikes. All energy
points closed. Six cars for one bike, that was the rate. And you could barter a
mule for a bike plus suit of clothes. That's what I did, anyway. A huge big
black bicycle and a chapel suit. All I could do was shrug at the mule as he
turned his head to watch me go. Well, you're better of with a bike if it's
respect you want round here, you can't eat a bicycle. Off I went, at my ease,
all along the country lanes with a Lowland look on my face and what with my
Sunday clothes and my bicycle all I got was "Nice morning" and
"Going far?" from everyone I met.
It was a change not to feel afraid anymore. I hadn't felt at
ease since I left Lowland, and in the Exile States I now realised I'd been
scared stiff of being caught for most of the time, even when I was staying with
the old forester. Now, at last, I was able to breath easily again, free to go as
I pleased on my sturdy bicycle and not having to worry about being recognised in
my sombre Sunday outfit.
Don't I know every inch of ground, every bush, every thicket
within two miles of our town? I knew that Fred Redbeak was too lazy to call in
his cows until after the ten o'clock freedom call so that's where I went to
spend the night. What an untidy haybarn he has, what with the rain seeping in
through the holes in the roof like sand in an eggtimer and the hay all left to
spoil. "I'll choose Sam Stutter's barn over at Hill of Cold Places next
time," I decided, "he keeps his farm much tidier."
So there I was, at first light, trundling my bike down the
lane, while around me the clouds were crumbling and the stars were going out one
by one and the chaffinch, the wren and the other small birds of Winter were
calling good morning to one another from the twigs and branches; I stroked my
hand for warmth on the tufted caterpillar like moss on the backs of the walls
but it was still brittle with frost. There was no one around, no smoke yet rose
from the scattered chimneys and the bare hills' grey-blue summits waited
silently for the sun's whitewash.
I hid the bike under a clump of withered bracken at the base
of the bank of the furthest field-end at Hill of Thorns and then lit out on foot
over the walls, across the fields.
By the time I reached the gate to Tyn Coed the sun was
beginning to burnish the snowcapped hilltops but the hazels of Gelli Aur were
still naked and cold. Twigs snapped beneath my feet; crows cawed uneasily, drawn
from sleep by my passing, now scolding me for my intrusion but I heard them no
more as I stood and stared at the orchard trees on their sides across the path.
I pushed past through them, the twigs tore at my face and hands, I felt no pain.
The stiff tall grass crunched like eggshells under my feet. In the struggling,
foaming stream was strewn carcasses of furniture, machines, a mangle, a dead
sheep, her fleece unwinding slowly from her body, her frozen smile of shells and
her black eyeless sockets following me as I passed, running to the bend in the
path before Tyn Coed. "Caress," I called as I saw the black slime that
had belched forth from the windows and the rafters like the ribs of a boat and
the door hanging from one hinge, stinking soot still smouldering within,
rustling as it slid now and then from the crossbeams, it's colour impregnated on
the sheets still limply hanging like thieves on the line and I shouted
again," Caress!" but only the crows laughed out their answer.
I fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the wet ground and
cursed the day I ever set out from home; somehow I found the strength to rise, I
shoved open the door, the soot trickled down upon me, I stepped into the dying
shell.
I knew where to look. The note was under the hearthstone.
"Waiting for you in Entwürdigung Castle. Caress."
"Are they going to try that one on me, are they?" I
spat, recognising the handwriting on the paper. "Scarlet Nightshade, the
little betrayer."
At least I knew, I suppose. I just dragged a stick through
the wreckage, picking up this and that from the ashes. I picked up a tiny singed
boot and held it tight it to my breast. I found a gold brooch with it's centre
gone and its pin broken, then a blackened photo of you and the Calonnog, it's
frame all charred and bent. Outside, I plucked from the prongs of a thorn bush
some fluttering pages covered with your precice, elegant handwriting, now
bleached and faded by sun and rain. The remains of your diary, perhaps? They was
hardly a whole page left amongst them, the edges serrated by the flames. I
gathered them up. I've got them here in front of me on the table at Bwlch,
trying to make out what is held on the yellowing paper:
...but it's taste to me was honey sweet.
There is a valley in my heart,
all along it flows a stream,
on its banks are trees and meadows
and an old hearth that lies in ruins.
If I could sit on its banks again
where you gave me those gentle kisses
the hearth would once more glow with life
and my whole world would not be cold.
But a stormy valley night
tore the trees and holed our roof,
all the thunder, all the rain
they've also split my heart again.
I thought of Faithful Night when I read that, Caress, I was
thinking what he would see in my heart now, and what he would see in yours, and
I knew he would see the very same thing. I took another look at that broken
cottage and I felt my heart become knotted and hard inside of me against the
ones that did all this to you.
By the time I got back to my bike there were people to be
seen here and there, but they didn't see me. Down I went, down Winter Dwelling
Hill, the wind for once behind me. It didn't take me long to reach Pass of the
Lake and I opened the door without even shouting, "Are there people?"
and there was Saffron Tinker in his frilly apron cooking breakfast for Mrs
Tamming Ralat-Saffron.
"Oh, hello, Gwern," said Saffron Tinker as if I'd
hardly left his side.
"Where is my breakfast, Saffron Tinker?" shouted
Princess Tamming Ralat-Safffron from the bedroom.
"I'm making breakfast for three now, dear orchard. Gwern
Excuses has arrived."
"Well a hundred welcomes before you, my treasure,"
said exclaimed, bounding from the bedroom and planting a resounding peck on my
cheek.
"That lipstick won't come off, you know," commented
Saffron Tinker dejectedly.
"Shut up and bring me some coffee you layabout,"
she commanded, taking a pew at the table and looking as if she was going to
question me.
It's nice to be questioned by someone you know well.
Actually, though, I had only spoken with her once before, in Bas le Tart's pub
in the Town of the Wattle Fords and... but I felt as though I knew her and it
felt good to have her looking into the mess in my heart and saying, "There,
there, my precious. Don't blame yourself for everything. Take for instance me
and Saffron Tinker here, I just blame him for everything." Saffron Tinker
took no notice, he just carried on trying to grill oysters, burning his nose
every time he peered into the stove. She doesn't mince words with him, that's
for sure. He must have got to know her, though, or he wouldn't have married her,
I suppose.
Saffron Tinker makes a pretty picture in his frilly apron,
pirouetting across the floor, singing 'The Hall of Cynddylan", his purple
nose shining merrily and a plateful of breakfast in either hand.
"I'm much better now, thank you, Princess Tamming
Ralat-Saffron," I said.
"Call me Ta, my love, it's less formal," she
replied as she poured me out another cup of coffee.
Staying with the Saffrons did me the world of good, there's
no doubt about that. I never had time to brood on gloomy thoughts as she would
always have an alternative thought prepared which she would serve up to me and
make me swallow in one piece.
"So you'll be heading for Rausman's castle, I suppose,
will you?" she asked one fine morning, placing her cup carefully on it's
saucer. "Is it to Entwürdigung Castle you'll be going then, my
precious?"
"Well, yes, I guess that that's the direction I'll
take," I replied lethargically.
"Well if you have to go, go now," she exclaimed
bringing her cup back up to her lips. "And go in peace and take my
blessings with you, dear heart. Safe journey!"
What could I do but raise my hand to wave at them as there
they stood by the garden gate, seeing me off? The bicycle wobbled, I pushed at
the peddles and then was away.
I was soon in the middle of nowhere without a map, trying to
find the old forester's cottage somewhere in the Exile States. It was the Space
Gypsies from Milk Under Sun who saved me, I you were to believe the stories I
heard afterwards, but that was not how things really were. It was elbow grease
and pedal power kept me going and that alone, I defy anyone to prove otherwise!
That and a bit of ingenuity and cunning. I didn't raise my head up too high in
the Exile States, didn't look anyone in the eye. Well, anyway, the old forester
took me back. "Holidays in Entwürdigung City, what a marvellous
place," I explained when he asked me where the bicycle came
from."Hundreds of them there," I continued, warming to the subject.
"The place is crawling with them. You've never seen anything like it!
They're all rich as anything, yes, all of them, oh by God, you've never seen
such wonders! Just look what passes for rubbish, trickling along the gutters
there," and I took out one of Pilgrim's red stones. The old forester's eyes
got wider and wider as if he would swallow up the stone with his gaze.
"Take it, I don't know what it's worth around here," I said
nonchalantly. "Dirt cheap where I come from."
"Noble gentleman!" cried the old forester.
"You're an Entwürdigung City man yourself, I can tell! Oh joyous
morning!"
"And it's taken you all this time to notice?" I
scolded, folding my arms on my chest. "By the way, what's your name?"
"Old Forester, sir. Allow me to present my wife, she
would like to kiss your shoes, sir."
"No doubt she is called Wife of Old Forester," I
commented disinterestedly.
"Indeed she is, sir. Gosh, sir, I wish I could have been
to college and become a great scholar like you, sir."
"Well you didn't and you aren't," I spat crossly as
I'd seen the Exile States nobles treat their servants. "And by the way, I'm
appropriating the contents of your miserable hovel in the name of Rausman the
Great as well as everything else you may have of value plus all of your land a
narrow shot from you door.
"Begging your pardon, 'an arrow shot', sir."
"When I want your opinion, serf, I shall go to the
toilet to look for it. Now go start loading the cart with your possessions a be
ready to leave!"
"Ja vol!" said Old Forester excitedly, almost
striking out his right eye with the vehemence of his salute. A strange salute it
is too, that Exile State salute, middle finger brought up to the right eye. I
wondered whether he was trying to insult me. "No," I decided,
"these people are in my pocket."
"Ja vol!" I said back to him and clipped my heels
together but my Lowland felt boots made no din. "Get out your best pair of
boots, Forester, and while you're at it bring me the family's best suit as well.
I can't return to Entwürdigung City looking like a Methodist minister. And
hurry!"
With some fine embroidery work from the hand of Wife of Old
Forester you'd never guess that the suit was not the uniform of the Buchhalter
Kommando rank; I took a goose quill from the old buffoon's hat and I took the
only book they had in the house which I wrapped in greased paper and with these
in my hand and the uniform on my back I looked the very image of a war
accountant.
"And listen," I hissed, beginning to feel the
importance of my position, " the girl can stay here to watch over the place
and to keep guard over Rausman the Great's new property." I thought for a
bit and then added, "And in this unwasteful age we dare waste no needless
energy." I then plucked the Network screen plug from its socket and cut the
wire. I didn't want news of our journey to travel before us, now, did I?
Testimony Eight'''' follows....
Old Forester and Old Forester's Wife proved very able bicycle
pullers. Surely an official of the Buchhalter Kommando would not be expected to
peddle his own bicycle?
Apparently they were both quite taken in by my yarn about
being on a secret mission for Rausman and they accepted unquestioningly that
this was why I would change my story from one village to the next. I always
introduced myself as an official of the Buchhalter Kommando but I would
constantly change the details of our mission and perhaps say we came from
Zigenner City in one village and from Heerschau City in the next, or from
Schadenfreude Forest or some other place.
What a terrible place that Entwürdigung Castle is, rising up
on its hilltop from the surrounding city, the Häfling River winding like a
sleepy snake around the base of the hill. Saffron Tinker had told me about the
kites wheeling above the castle towers, and I had thought he was making it up
when he told me of their three meter wingspans but it was all true. I'm sure
they must feed them with the bodies of Lowland captives, otherwise they would
surely not be so tame, swooping and turning so close above the sentinels'
shoulders as they marched around the ramparts.
"Begging your pardon, sir," inquired Old Forester,
"but what time is the appointment with Rausman the Great?" He saluted
smartly at the mention of the awesome-glorious name.
"Never you mind about that," I replied
authoritatively. "I have decided to see him tomorrow, the time I shall
decide later, and I will therefore require overnight lodgings. Nothing cheap,
understand!"
Old Forester went off to find lodgings while his wife, the
bicycle and I repaired to a nearby tavern to enjoy a bit of local atmosphere and
to hear all the gossip.
Unfortunately there was little in the way of local colour and
no gossip. The occasional "Wot wuz the score tonight?" and perhaps a
grunted answer "Hundred - nil" and someone else asking what were the
teams and no one bothering to reply but carrying on staring into their pints. My
spirits rose when I noticed a smartly dressed girl coming in and walking up to
the bar. She ordered a multi-coloured cocktail and asked for a cigarette machine
card, handing over a fifty unit bill. "Now then," I thought to myself,
"We'll find out something of what's going on in this town."
"By the stairs, there," said the proprietor
pointing. "All I've got left are tens of Mellow Sidney."
"That's not very patriotic," snapped the girl
snatching the cigarette card from his hand.
"What I mean to say is," spluttered the proprietor,
"is that it is my honour to announce that I have available, through the
bountiful generosity and unflinching bravery of Rausman the Great, plenty of
tens of Mellow Sidney."
"That's better," said she as she strode over to the
machine.
She went to sit under the window without looking up at
anyone. No one looked up at her either. I've seen more lively funerals, for
God's sake. Talk about being fed up waiting for Old Forester to come back, but
back he came eventually thank goodness.
"Where the devil have you been until now?" I
demanded, having first explained to the proprietor why we were not paying for
our drinks and having made him sign his name in my book and having told him he
was lucky that I had not closed him down on the spot and that he should mind his
tongue in future and not talk so seditiously about his cigarette stocks.
"I've been arranging lodgings," said Old Forester.
"You call this lodgings?" I barked once we had
arrived.
"It says 'Resting Place' above the door,"
countered the peasant.
"Have you arranged the accommodation?"
"Humbly report, sir, my orders were to find lodgings,
sir, that was all."
"Look here, you! Stop calling my 'sir' will you," I
shouted in a fury. "I am 'Your Highness' as far as you are concerned, thank
you. And this is not a lodging house but the house of dissenters. Oh, what's the
use, just knock on the door."
"These ones will be Church of Rausman," said Old
Forester, knocking loudly. "That's what they all are in town nowadays.
Myself, as you know, I remain true to the path of Shri Rupaiah who came down in
a wheel of fire with his six swords one in each hand whirling everything in his
path."
"Have you been drinking, Old Forester?"
"Chust a trop, illiterally," he replied meekly but
just then our host for the night came to the door and postponed Old Forester's
kick up the backside.
"What the devil is the meaning of this commotion?"
demanded our host for the night.
"Grand Officer Hau'ab Schmutztuck, Buchhalter Kommando
is the meaning of this commotion, citizen," I replied coldly clicking my
heels and raising my forefinger to my eye according to the custom. "Your
papers, please."
"Ernst Gewalt at your service," he replied fishing
out his papers from his dressing gown pocket. "Network code: eleven, forty
one, thirty nine. Occupation: Capo, stone dressers section, City Embellishment.
The books are open upon my desk upstairs. But come, come into the house, my wife
will be delighted to get up to prepare a bite for you."
"A bite?" I said. "A bite will not do at all.
Go and wake up the butcher and bring me some of that red venison which I hear is
now in season. And wake up the wine merchant while you're at it, I'm rather
thirsty."
"Ja vol!" said our host.
"And not a word to anyone," I added tapping my
right index finger alongside my nose. "Confidential."
"Ja vol!" he said again and rushed off into the
night.
"And how are you, then, citizenne?" I asked Mrs
Gewlat. That's how you're supposed to greet people in the Exile States, so they
say. "You there" was how I greeted Mrs Old Forester and "Hey
you" was how I greeted Old Forester, this evidenced my higher social
ranking and was proved effective by their meek acceptance of my bullying. I know
I was an stuck up overbearing brute but what else could I do, I'd have got no
respect from them if I'd have been nice to them. It actually surprised my how
readily it came to me, I soon began to feel just like Grind Underfoot before his
fall from grace. But I was not about to take a fall in the Exile States, I had
decided. 'They are not going to get the better of me', I told myself.
"Citizen Gewalt," I said leaning back in my chair,
having polished off the venison, the wines and the spirits that had been
brought, and long after the two peasants had been bundled into the under-stair
cupboard for the night, "Citizen Gewalt," I said, "let us put you
to the test. What did you say your work was?"
"Capo in the stone dressers department, City
Embellishment, Your Excellency."
"Just call me 'sir'," I interjected casually. He
bowed before me in appreciation of the honour bestowed upon him. "City
Embellishment? And how much over budget are you with the current project?"
"You mean the new tower? Oh, only a couple of million
units at present, but it will get worse."
"I see you are no mean estimator," I commented.
"Increased costs due to unforeseen alterations?"
"Oh, yes, sir! Nothing seems to satisfy her. She's not
like us here, simply drawing a black and white box and then living in that. No,
sir, not at all, sir, she wants windows that open outwards and then, once these
have been fitted, she decides that they should open inwards. The worst problem
were the doors. Did you ever hear of a door being hinged from the floor? Oh,
yes, she had to try it out, she would not listen to my argument that one of the
fundamental functions of a door is to allow one to pass unhindered from one room
to the other without actually having to knock the wall down."
"That's the way it is with these strangers," I
agreed, beginning to prick up my ears. "So many foreign prisoners around
nowadays, aren't there?"
"Indeed there are, and too many by far. They get all the
best food while we go with... what I mean is, they are kept well but not as well
as us citizens, supplied to our heart's content. But that girl, she won't eat
anything she doesn't like and she doesn't like much, that's what Ungesttalten
the cook told me. I said she was just as fussy about the interior design of her
cell."
"Women!"
"And that little rascal of a boy she's got, playing in
our cement sand and making a mess of it, and he, if you please, is allowed to
run wild all over the place like a charging goat."
"I see, well, very interesting. And I hope you will
properly appreciate this official visit, it's quite an honour, you know..."
"Indeed I do, sir!" And our host bowed low,
sweeping the knuckles of one hand over his boot.
"I'm going to your bed, now. Good Night."
"Good night, sir," said Ernst Gewalt.
"Good night, your Excellency," said Citizenne
Gewalt. "When would your Excellency like your morning repast?"
"When I wake up," I yawned from the stairs.
The deep shadow of the castle engulfed us as I walked the
following morning in the company of Citizen Ernst Gewalt to inspect the accounts
which he had left at work.
"You know you should not leave any official papers at
work," I scolded him. "Otherwise how can you carry on working when you
get home?"
"I'm sorry," he apologised. "Come, this way.
Your network code into the keypad and we'll be in."
"I know all about that," I said dryly. "If I
enter my network code it will become known that I am here and my secret mission
on behalf of Rausman the Great will not be so secret any more, will it? What's
your network code again, Citizen Gewalt?"
"Eleven, forty one, thirty nine, sir. Am I still allowed
to call you 'sir', your Excellency?"
"Yes, yes. Get out of my way. Look here, I'll go in
instead of you today, and do you know what I'll do for you tomorrow?"
"I do not, sir."
"You can go enter using my code and get to meet Rausman
the Great!"
"Really? Oh, thank you, sir!" The citizen bowed low
and turned to go. "Your dinner will be ready on your return."
In I went, walking tall along wide corridors as though I knew
the place like the back of my hand but was in a hurry to reach an appointment.
Where there not hundreds of others just like me? Everyone seemed to be in a
rush, clutching armfuls of papers to their chests. The clacking of manual
typewriters issued forth from behind the innumerable doors which opened off
along the long passages. "I can't run around like this for ever like a dog
chasing its tail," I said to myself, completely lost in the honey comb maze
of corridors, stairways, lobbies and offices. "This is worse than Emperor
Bara Hathi's palace, for goodness sakes - although it seems to be a bit better
maintained."
I poked my head into the very next office that I came to.
Several secretaries looked up in unison, then stood up to attention when they
saw my rank, making the Exile States salute with their index fingers.
"Your Excellency," they said, again in unison.
"The bar is on the next floor."
"I'm not looking for the bar," I retorted, drawing
my leather gloves through my hands. "I'm being miss-directed at every turn
here as I try to bring my mission to a punctual and successful conclusion. I was
told that this was the Repair and Renewal Department Office."
"Everyone is the same, sir," chirped up one of them
cheekily, a tall blonde girl with high cheekbones - I soon found that
informality ruled amongst the office girls, very few seemed to address their
superiors as they should; she really had no right to address someone of my rank
merely as 'sir'. However no one seemed to notice and I put up with it. "No
one can find anything here, sir, since they took down the direction screens from
all the lobbies."
"Of course security considerations are more than all
important, girls. You are correct."
"How right you are, sir," she cried. "Now,
sir, you want Bettnachzieher's office seventeen floors up, the stairs are first
left at the end of the next right hand corridor."
"I am gratified to note that you do not suggest using
the lift."
"Never, sir! Energy saving is the rule, sir! Anyway,
it's never wo..., ehm, actually, sir, we've been saving energy on it since the
day it was installed."
"Well, girls, I must not keep you from you duties. Your
patriotic enthusiasm will be noted in my report." I was really finding it
difficult all this pushing my tongue around fine-mouthed utterances all the
time.
Red in the face and dripping in sweat I finally reached the
floor I wanted, leant against a wall to catch my breath and looked around for
Bettnachzieher's office. Having found it, I knocked.
"In," said his secretary's voice.
"And a good day to you too," I said stepping in.
"He's out on business. You'll have to wait, sir. I've no
idea when he'll be back. Take the armchair over there. Tea or coffee?"
"Is Bettnachzieher often out during office hours?"
I inquired from the armchair as I sipped my black coffee.
"I would not like to say, sir."
"Would you like to go straight to jail, my girl?"
"I would not, sir. He's out more than he's in. I used to
say that he'd gone to the toilet but he corrected me. "If I'm out I'm out
on business," he said. "Don't say I've gone to the toilet or than I
haven't got up yet, there's a good girl.""
"Well, I can not wait any longer. In confidence, this
has to do with the new tower. A discrepancy regarding the accounts."
"Oh, so you're the one they've sent to sort it out, sir?
High time too if you want my opinion. Do you know the price they've been paying
for cement? You could have built a palace for a quarter the price!"
"You have not mentioned this to anyone else?" I
asked "It is imperative that you keep this to yourself, do you
understand?"
"But the story is all over the castle, sir. Thank
goodness you are here to bring it all to a head, sir."
"I see, I see," I muttered. "Well, now, I
can't waste another minute. Direct me to the tower. And not a word about my
visit to anyone. Confidential!"
Seven floors above I finally glimpsed the tower through a
side window in the draughty stairshaft. A high tower with a pointed roof and
unforgivably poor stonework, as far as I could judge from that distance. I could
see long green drapes billowing from the narrow windows. The Exile States flag
swam haughtily from its pole on tower's lead-capped point. I can't stand those
red, white and black colours forming a jagged cross. "Just you wait,"
I hissed, "one day the white on white will fly from that pole." I
laughed wryly at my own immaturity in thinking such stupid thoughts. Far below,
Entwurdigung City's patchwork roofscape spread out in all directions, partly
obscured by the brown smoke that hung above it's chimneys, until finally
dissolving into the murky horizon. I had little time to appreciate the view,
however, as I was interrupted by a dozen well fed red faced officers of
Rausman's high command.
"Ho! Ho!" said one with a brush like moustache and
a monocle embedded into the folds of flesh around his eye, wearing, like the
others, a shining spike topped helmet on his head and clanking silver and gold
medals on his chest. "One of the Buchhalter Kommando! Off the beaten track,
rather, aren't we?"
"Grand Officer Hau'ab Schmutztuck. Network code eleven
forty one thirty nine. Good day to you, General Befehlnotstand. Please accept my
congratulations! Who else could have re-taken Sleeve Eoghan pass from that
rabble, how one earth does one pronounce it? - 'Fine Try'?"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" bellowed Befehlnotstand. "Come,
Officer Schmutztuck, let us repair to the Smoking Club, it's almost time for the
Wire Brandy distribution."
It had not been hard for me to recognise the old so-and-so,
his face used glower at us from every leaf of our Lowland toilet paper and below
it the caption "KNOW YOUR ENEMY". Of course all that had been
withdrawn just before war broke out. After all there was probably no point
inciting Befehlnotstand unnecessarily, in case we lost.
"Investigating the cement case, I presume?"
Befehlnotstand and I were by now comfortably installed in our deep armchairs in
the Smoking Club, each with his glass of Wire Brandy and his baton like cigar.
"Yes, amongst other things," I replied casually.
"I am certainly not impressed by the exterior stonework."
"You should see the place from the inside,"
spluttered Befehlnotstand. "It is a scandal of the first degree."
"I fully intend to inspect every inch of it," I
said firmly, knocking back a stiff draught of the bitter spirits. "It's
really awful how wasteful of energy units people become in war."
"Exactly! You are an officer of my school of thought
exactly! Look at all the prisoners we have taken - it's quite ridiculous how
much has to be spent on them, depriving our City Embellishment Department of
valuable funds at a time when they are already fully stretched with the
reconstruction of bridges, embankments and factories; they should all be shot
there and then. By the way, that is what I do, personally, but you try getting
everyone to agree!"
"You have a point," I agreed, beginning to dislike
the man. "However I have heard others arguing that we should blow up our
own bridges, embankments and factories before the enemy drop their missiles on
them, we would not then have to shoot down their machines and take all those
costly prisoners."
"Yes, sir. That is Shrumpmann's theory. Rausman, as you
no doubt know, is considering both options. It is apparent, sir, that you are
pretty close to the top. Am I right? Ho! Ho! Ho! I knew it! I knew it!"
We had to drink another bottle of Wire Brandy after that but
still he showed no sign of stirring so I made my excuses, "duty
calls"; a knowing tap on the nose, a click of the heels and a forefinger to
the eye, and with a final shout of "Zugang Zurüchschlagen!"
back I went into the beehive.
If I'd been lost before I was even more lost now what with
the belly full of spirits I'd had. I was pushing my luck and I thought I'd
better get on with my business and get the hell out as soon as possible.
The anaemic afternoon sun was drowning in the seashore sky
and a yellow tide of fog was spreading slowly over the city roofscapes below me
as I marched authoritatively towards the new tower workmen's workplace on the
thirtieth floor at the base of the tower.
"Where is the gaffer?" I demanded of a round
bellied stone mason who was bending to pack his tools away.
"Gone 'ome," he replied gloomily, picking up his
bag of tools.
"Do you know who I am?" I insisted nastily.
"I do, sir," he shrugged. "You've come about
the cement. I told Schlacht the Gaffer, 'No good will come of this, Schlacht,' I
said to him. "They're sure to get to know and they'll send the Buchhalter
Kommando to question us and then we'll be in a fine mess." The stone mason
put down his bag and held out his arms. "Put on the cuffs, sir. You will
say I co-operated with you, sir?"
"First I need to inspect the insides," I said.
"Come with me."
"Coming, sir!"
"What cowboys have you had here plastering the walls,
workman?" I demanded, scratching the crazed and pitted plaster with my
thumbnail. "This will have blistered in no time."
"My brother Gründlichkeit and I did the plastering,
sir."
"And you call yourself a craftsman! What a jerry-job!
Your name and number!"
"Gotthold Ephraim, Stone Mason of Morgenglocke, sir.
Thirteen twenty six forty two. And if it please you, sir, I have never been so
bold as to call myself a craftsman, sir. But I am cheap, and that is why
Schlacht the Gaffer gives me work, sir."
"Who lives in this tower, Workman Ephraim?"
"I dunno, sir. What's it to me? What with all the
chopping and changing here the place won't be ready for another three months,
anyway. Of course, with honest workmen taking over now, I suppose it will all be
finished a lot sooner."
"I had heard that a foreign girl was being kept here,
she and her son?"
"Who, that abusive little shrew? And that scamp of a son
she's got? Running wild all over the place and dragging his finger through the
wet plasterwork, wasting the men's time with his silly questions about the city
and his silly bits of paper. Schlacht the Gaffer sometimes takes him to the
punisharium but he still doesn't learn."
"So do they live here now?"
"The work has to be finished first, sir."
"Yes, of course. Well, I'm taking you into custody now.
It's quite obvious that you are guilty of who knows how many crimes. Head first
into Rausman's dungeon to rot forever with you! Have you any family?"
"I have, sir! Thank you for your consideration! Will you
take a message to them, sir?"
"That will not be necessary, prisoner. They will be
joining you in the dungeon. We cannot allow low types of your sort to walk free
through the city polluting the atmosphere."
"No, you can not, sir."
"But I'm rather tired tonight. I really can't face all
the paperwork. Do you know what I think I'll do with you? Instead of Rausman's
dungeon for the rest of your life I shall lock you up overnight in the tower.
Who's a lucky devil, eh?"
"If it please you, sir, I'm a lucky devil, sir ... but,
sir, you will still take the wife and kids to the dungeon won't you sir?"
"Yes, yes. Now, go!" And I locked him up in the
tower and started to grope my way through the gathering shadows towards the
stairhead. However the darkness in Entwürdigung Castle is nothing compared to
the darkness of Faithful Night's Lower Level and I managed to find my way back
to the twentieth floor without mishap.
Turning a corner I was suddenly thrown to the ground by a
hurtling bundle of arms and legs and there on the flagstones we thrashed wildly
like fish in a net. "All good things must come to an end," I thought
to myself as I waited for the click of the searchlights and the crunch of the
Heartless Bodies' boots.
"Lemme go! Lemme go!" squealed a high pitched voice
from somewhere inside my greatcoat.
"Out from there!" I shouted fiercely catching hold
of a stubborn little wrist.
"Not go punisharium. Not go punisharium," wailed
the voice plaintively.
"I fear that there is no alternative but to take you to
the punisharium," I said drawing out the little boy from my coat and
pulling him along after me. "You know very well that you should not run
wild along the corridors. What will your mother say when she hears?"
"Mum not care. Mum not care." He was struggling and
trying to drag his feet to get away from me.
"Where is your mother at the moment?" I asked as I
yanked him after me.
"In our cell she. She not come out. I come out."
I was glad to see that his Exilese was still pretty basic,
but I carried on talking Exilese to him in case he guessed who I was. "Is
she alone?"
"No. Rausman with her. Question time."
"Are you allowed out of the castle, Calonnog?"
"No, not."
"Would you like to be allowed to go out, instead of
having to go to the punisharium?"
"Yes, would."
"Fine! Now, what time is your mother expecting you
back?"
"After Rausman go. Twenty one hour."
That gave us three hours and I made the most of them. I
wasn't intending to take the boy away from you, quite the opposite. I'd come to
take you both away but I'd failed this time. But it's going to be so much easier
next time, I'll know the ropes, you'll be on your own, and the boy far away in a
safe place. You'll both have to flee to High Country, for sure, but we two will
be friends again and you'll see that I love you and we'll live happy and free in
the middle of High Country and Saffron Tinker and Tamming Ralat will come to
retire to a cottage in the bowl of the mountains and Faithful Night will welcome
us all home. This is how I was thinking as we descended the stairs from floor to
floor until at last we reached the foyer with it's revolving glass doors but it
was out through the back that we went, having tapped in the network code making
the screens think I was Citizen Architect Ernst Gewalt while the guards all
thought I was an officer of the Buchhalter Kommando and no one putting two and
two together or suspecting anything, one even giving Calonnog some sweets which
he promptly spat out once we went round a corner.
I didn't bother returning to Resting Place but went
directly to Rausman II Station to find out if there were any trains running.
Calonnog showed me how to get there, it turned out he knew every twist and turn
of the streets having spent all his time staring down at the city from the
castle towers and making little childish maps of the place to pass the time and
which he would ask the workmen to explain to him. There were no passenger trains
running and only one goods train leaving that night, bound for Schadenfreude
Forest, so we crept to the far end of the station where the lights grew dim.
There were only two guards ridding her as far as I could see,
one up with the stoker and the other at the far end. It was not to difficult, as
she pulled slowly past, for me to slip un-noticed, with Calonnog buttoned inside
my coat and his arms clinging around my neck, up onto the connection between two
wagons and away we went.
"Where we going?" Piped up Calonnog, apparently
enjoying all the excitement.
"Home to Lowland, my laddie," I replied in our
language. "I'll be back for your mother very soon, don't you worry."
"Why can't Mum come tonight? She hates that horrid old
castle and those nasty old soldiers too. What's your name?"
"Gwern Excuses, my little one. Your mum and I, we go
back a long way but you were only a little little boy last time I saw you so you
won't remember me probably."
"I've heard Mum talking about you. I think she was
waiting for you or something, you were supposed to come. Gosh, won't she be
cross that she missed you tonight?"
"She will, little one, yes, she will," I said
wrapping my greatcoat tighter about him and pushing my fingers through his hair.
On the empty plain between the city and the desert a burning
train lit up the night, the leaping flames burnishing his round and perfect
sleeping face as we sped by. I wedged my boots more tightly against the wagon's
boards and let the rhythmic clanking of the wheels flow over my head like waves.
Testimony Nine'''' follows...
"Well indeed, I don't know what to say," said
Saffron Tinker, his chin in the cup of his hand, as we sat around the tea table,
Calonnog tucking into cream and pancakes prepared by Princess Ralat-Saffron.
"Well shut up then and say nothing," said Tamming
Ralat striking his wrist from under him so that his forehead bounced on the
table-top, "and let someone with some sense say something for once."
"You're silly, Uncle Saffron," laughed Calonnog,
his cheeks full of pancake.
"I never before heard of anyone escaping from
Entwürdigung Castle," she continued, "and to cross over into Lowland
as well, its a miracle!"
"I've done it! I've done it!" shouted Saffron
Tinker pounding the table and making the saucers tinkle.
"No you haven't! Now be quiet!" She scolded.
"Isn't it a shame that she isn't here with us tonight, we'd all be
together, not a care in the world."
"Hmmph!" Grumbled Saffron Tinker, "This one
would be sure to find something to grouse about, the fruitless lout that he is,
I'd soon show..."
"Take no notice of him Gwern dear," Tamming Ralat
interrupted him. "Sure, there's enough trouble with you anyway, Saffron
Tinker."
"Trouble! Yes, and troubles!" he shouted getting
all agitated, gesticulating wildly.
"He'd come along so nicely last time I saw him," I
commented quietly.
"This one is like the wind, my love. He can change in a
trice. He'll be fine just now after he's finished his tea, mark my words."
She was right, he felt better after his tea and went out to
play with Calonnog in the back garden. You can bet that Saffron Tinker is not
much of a dab hand at the specialised art of nurturing plants and flowers but he
likes to call the rough patch of rocks and nettles behind the cottage "my
garden". But little Calonnog is quite fascinated with his Uncle Saffron and
watches rapt as he teaches him all sorts of tricks; likewise, Saffron Tinker
listens to the boy wide-eyed in wonder as he recounts his stories of
Entwürdigung Castle and all he saw there.
I'd decided to return to the Exile States at the end of the
week but my plans were disrupted by the arrival on the farmyard this morning of
Scarlet Nightshade on her bicycle. She was nice as cherry pie and said I was
looking really well and asking after Saffron Tinker and his wife, did I go to
the wedding, I said they were out but she could come in anyway, have a cup of
tea. Calonnog had gone with them to the village on the back of his little mule
but I didn't mention that to Scarlet Nightshade. She was keeping fine, thanks,
but had been through terrible times with the Heartless Bodies, had been
kidnapped by them and been interrogated by none less than Rausman himself -
she'd told him nothing - and had eventually got herself free of them and was now
on her way to join up with the remnants of the Wire Bandits, still holed out in
the Wild Country and keeping the Exiled States at bay. Spies from the Exile
States were like flies all over Lowland, she said.
"Did you hear anything of Caress then?" I asked
her.
"The little tart has gone over to the enemy, if you
please, for shame on her! Living like a noblewoman in that dirty old castle and
they say she's even exchanged rings with that glutton Rausman."
"Who says?" I asked in fright. "I don't
believe it."
"Believe you what you will, my bonny," she said
scornfully.
"How's things with Wil Pickled Herring?" I said to
change the subject.
"Oh, that one was pickled long ago," she answered
in an off-hand manner, "serves him right too, the unfragrant wretch."
"I thought you two were kind of close."
"Who? Me? For Heaven's sake, Gwern, where ever did you
get that idea? Anyway, how's tricks with you these days? Heading back towards
High Country are you? I expect things are a bit hot for you to dawdle around
here much longer."
"Yes, I guess that's what I'll do,"
"So you'll leave Caress in Entwürdigung Castle, then?
Very sensible too. Listen, I'll come with you to High Country. I've got a cousin
living there so I'll be able to stay there with no problem. You and me, we're
childhood friends, our paths lead from the same point, it'd be a shame for us to
part again, Gwern. I'll look after you, my tired love, you're quite worn out,
aren't you? Come lie down, rest awhile, you'll soon feel better, my dearest.
Take off that old coat, you'll be more comfortable..."
A seductress and a half is this one, I told myself weakly as
my eyelids, heavy as lead, started to close and I let myself be led by the hand
to Saffron Tinker's bedroom.
"Come, we'll get undressed," she said in a business
like tone.
She was half undressed, standing before me, a strong limbed
lass, lithe of body, busy with her straps. I was having trouble concentrating on
anything else.
"Who is your cousin in High Country, Scarlet?" I
asked absent mindedly.
"I think you probably know quite well who she is,"
she smiled back.
"What are you suggesting?" I think I sounded quite
innocent.
"You used her, didn't you? Then you cast her to one side
like a rag doll, having satisfied your desires on her... But, there: she's
always been a cheap little bitch and she deserved no better so who gives a
damn?"
"What are you doing now then, if you're not using
me?" I snapped starting to get fed up with her attitude. "And maybe
you don't give a damn but you didn't waste any time spilling the beans to Caress
did you, you spiteful hussy."
"And you're a two-faced womaniser," she spat
angrily. "She deserved to know what you're really like, you had it
coming."
"And what are you really like, then, Scarlet Nightshade?
Carrying tales to Caress and carrying tales to Fischermädchen so she could
carry your tales to Befehlnotstand and the Heartless Bodies, you treacherous
bitch!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" she laughed as she stooped and
straightened again with a shining razor blade in her hand. "Well, who's a
clever boy then? Too clever by half I'd say. Even Caress won't want you when
I've sliced you up like a side of bacon, you cuckoo chick, you!" She lunged
at me and drew the blade lightly through the thick of my naked forearm, opening
it like a pigs throat, the blood gushing over the sheets as she drew back and
came for me again but I rolled on my side and caught her wrist in my other hand,
pressing down on the back of her hand until the blade dropped from her grasp and
I grabbed it still holding on to her arm.
"Try one more dirty trick like that," I snarled,
holding the blade right in front of her eyes, "and I'll cut you up into
pieces so small even the crows in the fields won't bother to pick at them. Now,
get dressed and get out!"
I know that I wasn't supposed to let her go. Any professional
soldier would have been obliged to kill her, knowing that she was a spy. I just
could not, I couldn't think of doing that. She was too alive, too fine, and too
close, not like those ants we wiped out on the reservoir embankment. And I
couldn't keep her there either, even as a prisoner, or she would have come to
know that Calonnog was here and somehow she would have got word out that he was
here.
So away she went on her bicycle as I stood on the threshold,
the blood rusting on the razor blade in my hand and the stain creeping through
the rag on my arm.
That was this morning. Now I've got to go. Back to
Entwürdigung City before she brings the world of the Heartless Bodies down
about my head. Does the Network screen work in this house? Good. Copy the mobile
processor, a copy for you here, a note to go with it. Damn that little bitch for
opening my arm. Missed the artery, though, and my left hand anyway. Note: 'Dear
Saffron Tinker, Tamming Ralat and Calonnog, I'll see you in a day or two.
Scarlet Nightshade was here but she knows nothing about Calonnog. A copy here of
my mobile processor data, I hope there's nothing too bad in it about Saffron
Tinker. For the time being, Gwern.
In Zählappell's apartment the word machine clicked once and
loaded the second word card into the play position. Having missed a night's
sleep the previous night Zählappell was snoozing happily in his comfy armchair
and noticed not as the screen lit up again and the second card began to roll
it's words down the screen:
Testimony Ten'''' follows...
Gwern, my heart, Why did you come back? Now I've got two
holes in my heart instead of the one I had before. Rausman says you were no
better than a highwayman. A thieving rebel. He delights in making me read from
your data card: 'Read it out loud and make me laugh, read it in Exile language
so's I can understand!' 'That stupid little worm," he calls you. He's a
swine of a man, but I have to pretend otherwise or my life would not be worth
living. Is it worth living anyway, I wonder? Is it true that I won't see you
anymore?
Scarlet Nightshade comes to see me of an afternoon and she
never fails to taunt me about your unfaithfulness to me and she gloats about how
close you always were to her cousin and that you even went with her in Saffron
Tinker's cottage. But Scarlet Nightshade doesn't know about your mobile
processor - Rausman himself gave it to me but he has no time for Scarlet
Nightshade. So I just listen to her ranting on, knowing that it's all untrue,
and knowing that you were really thinking of me all that time, just as I was
missing you. But I was to proud to admit it. If only I'd known when Scarlet used
to come by Tyn Coed poisoning me against you. She was in love with you but
because you didn't love her, her love turned to hate towards you and towards our
land and everyone in it and she went over to work for Fischermädchen. That's
how they came to know how to snatch me and Calonnog without anyone standing in
their way, that's how they took us to the middle of the Exile States and locked
us up in our 'luxurious' tower here with nothing to do all day but mope.
Calonnog was my world and I almost lost my mind when he went missing and no-one
would tell me where he'd gone and there was I thinking it was one of Rausman's
tricks to get me to submit to him and I couldn't eat or sleep or anything. Where
is Calonnog now, Gwern? Is he with Saffron Tinker? Have they tried to reach High
Country? I know all the paths are now closed between Lowland and High Country
and I'm sick with worrying what's happened to them. Poor Calonnog. If only I
could know what happened. And if they were caught by Befehlnotstand did he kill
them as he kills all his captives or were they taken by the Heartless Bodies and
are they at this moment on their way to Entwürdigung City or are they here
already in some underground cell shivering and calling out for the light? If you
were alive you could tell me Gwern, my steadfast love, but now I have no place
left to turn.
Gwern, my love and my friend, they have raised your poor head
on a pole by the castle gates; Rausman says I must go to look at you but I will
not. He is a cruel man, Gwern, he has so many ways to hurt me. He likes getting
that vicious Befehlnotstand up here to my tower and he says to him,
"Explain to us again, Befehlnotstand, how you killed that thieving little
fox."
And the fat giant starts to boast about how they surrounded
you by the banks of Häfling River, where it turns from Schadenfreude Forest
towards Entwürdigung City, on a cold late afternoon as the sun sank low over
the blood red river, there you were on the back of your mule which they shoot
from under you and then they had some sport with you until they got tired of it
and killed you like a worm before retiring to their tents for the night, and
that you were nothing but a straw soldier and that the new legends about you
miss by mile - you were nothing but a good for nothing coward at the end,
pleading for your life. But I never believed one word that fell from that
bastard Befehlnotstand's lips and I'll believe not a word that may fall from
them again.
Oh, that you might come again into my dreams, Gwern, my
embracing love. Our dreams would be happier now but you don't come. Come
tonight, Gwern, let me sleep once more in your arms before my daylight fades.
Your Caress.
The machine gave another click as the third card dropped into
place. The unexpected sound sank into Zählappell's dream, causing him to stir
slightly in his chair. In his dream he was alone in the Network screen Archives
late at night, selecting at random all the word and picture cards that he could
carry and loading them one by one into the banks of screens that filled the
floor area until the whole archive chamber was a multi-coloured bedlam of voice
and movement all mixed up together. The click did not wake him and he did not
therefore notice the words that were moving across his screen:
Testimony Ten'''' follows...
Gwern Excuses, the boy is pulling the house down around our
ears. Two so old and feeble as her indoors and me, we can't be running after the
little monkey all day. Oh, but he's a dear sweet thing, I won't deny it. He
really likes it up here in the pure High Country air. Some workmen from Stone
Town came to help me build a little cottage on the site of my old hut up in the
bowl of the hills. It's cozy as a nest! Do you know, we were lucky to get here
at all, Gwern. The last path was closed three days after we had passed along it.
Mind you, with my connections... we were lucky to even get close. But it's fine
here now, Gwern, the Spring is dizzy on the hillsides and the birds of the
bushes are out early practising their song. All you have to do is imagine that
the mules are lambs and you can feel as if you're back in Lowland once again.
It's been a hard blow for Faithful Night, Gwern. The Keeper
of Answers and he had been confident that you would have come to stand in the
breach on the eleventh hour. An old fool like me, who should have been pushing
up the daisies long ago, he misses you to, my bright flower, and when I think of
those devils that killed you, it makes my blood churn until everything swims
before my eyes and I want to throw out my arms and break anything I can lay my
hands on and I fly outside shouting "Gwern!" unto the high pastures,
"Gwern!" as I stumble through the wooded slopes, "Gwern" I
whisper on my knees into the ear of the mountain streams and only the wind in
the rushes seems to answer. Her indoors, she says I've lost my marbles for ever,
she threatens to take me back to the Lower Level but she knows that I won't go.
But then when I see the boy racing his little mule and when I
help him to build a tree house in the ash behind the house and when I see the
sun shining from his eyes I say to myself, "Don't be stupid, Saffron
Tinker." Tamming Ralat and I will bring up the boy for Caress and you, and
one day I'll tell him what they did to you that frozen night on the banks of the
Häflinge River where Scarlet Nightshade had told them to lie in wait for you
and where they shot your mule from under you as you passed by but that even then
they failed to take you and you kept their Heartless Bodies all at bay and so
they shot you in the back and your blood ran red and mingled with the dying
river sunlight and they cut off your head and stuck it on a pole to carry it in
triumph back to Entwürdigung Castle where the crows peck at it above the castle
gates, and I'll give him your mobile processor data and your Calonnog will be a
worthy heir to you, Gwern, and the day will come when they will pay for this
violence, in the name of God, their day will come.
I'm beginning to get worked up again, Gwern. I'd better close
down the screen for now. Until tomorrow. Saffron Tinker.
It's me again, Gwern, just back from a walk above Stone Town
this afternoon, Calonnog and I, because Faithful Night wanted to meet him down
in Lower Level. 'You won't be afraid of the dark, will you, little one?' I said.
'No, I won't, Grandpa, not if you're with me," he said. "Grandpa,' he
asked later, 'what's that big wooden door in the cliff?' 'That's the Door of
Answers, Calonnog, it's...' and before I could finish the little rascal had
scampered away from me and was tugging at the Door of Answers which opened and
the afternoon was all illuminated like the throwing of a switch as the rays
flooded out through the Door of Answers and the voice of the Keeper of Answers
said quietly from within, "Come in, Calonnog, the time has come.'
Everything has been arranged, Gwern! He's going to stay with
us until he's old enough to start with Faithful Night and then he'll go to live
in the Lower Level to study at the feet of the Keeper of Answers himself! And
Lower Level is an ocean of light now, Gwern, not a black hole as it used to be,
and Faithful Night is delighted and smiles all the time. He's a little man like
myself, Gwern, he wears a suit of homespun cloth and calf skin shoes and he
smokes a pipe, Gwern, can you believe it? I haven't met the Keeper of Answers
but there we are, I'm sure he's just as friendly too.
No news from Entwürdigung City, I'm afraid. But Faithful
Night promises to help us try to bring back Caress from her lonely tower. I've
told him I'm coming out of retirement and I'm going to try and find her. What do
you think of that, Gwern? Do you remember how I helped you when you were in the
Exile States? Old Saffron Tinker will do it, Gwern, and if I die trying, who
will miss me? Of course, Tamming Ralat is coming with me! She insists. We will
have to wait, though, we'll have to wait until Calonnog is old enough to go to
the Lower Level, but there are only a few years until then.
The Network screen was bleeping like an alarm watch and
flashing the message 'END' in large green letters across the screen. The clerk
Zählappell woke up and stretched over to turn it off. 'Oh, damn,' he groaned,
'another night in the chair. Just my luck to get some old fashioned rubbish
about the war again. Why don't I ever have the luck of someone like the
sub-archivist Windesharfe, he once got some word and colour picture cards with
girls with no clothes on?'
He got up stiffly, his joints creaking, and pushed the
curtains to one side. The grey morning was undoing the knots of cloud that
shrouded the castle ramparts and the River Häfling down below was still as
lead. Only a few windows showed yellow against the castle's dark walls, here and
there lights were coming on, the clouds around the high tower parted briefly
revealing the white star in a bright sky swimming stiffly in the wind from its
pole on the pointed roof.
'What the hell time is it? Am I to be late again today? Oh,
damn all this...' Zählappell was pottering around his room vaguely cursing the
start of his day, wishing he didn't have to go to work and looking for a clean
shirt when there came a loud rapping at his door.
Published in Welsh as
Seren Wen ar Gefndir Gwyn
(literally White
Star on a White Background)
Gwasg Gomer, Llandusul