I did not really care for the thought of a night in so exposed a position, even with the lattice-shelter of bare trees, but he had never been wrong, so I moved a bit further into the woods and soon had a fine blaze crackling up through the trees and spread my cloak among the fallen leaves, ready to dig a shallow pit if it grew too cold.
Perhaps because I was a little lonely, in spite of the nearness of my friends, perhaps because, although safe, I felt far from home, wherever that was, perhaps just because, I took off my mask and sang a small song, a lonely sort of song that came into my head from nowhere and ran down to my lips and tongue. I sat gazing into the fire, seeing ruined castles, great pits of flame, towering mountains and endless forest, and I sang the song of the traveller far from home. It had no words, just a rising and falling tune that could have rocked a babe to sleep, but in my mind"s eye I was in a green and pleasant land; rolling meadows, gentle hills, smoke rising from a little cottage set in the angle between sea and down. In that home there were children, a woman waiting for- I broke off suddenly as my tune was echoed by a voice from the road.
Springing to my feet, my hand s.n.a.t.c.hed at my dagger, but Snowy murmured "Steady, now!" and through the trees came the Rusty Knight.
Over his shoulder, besides his pack, was slung a sack of provisions, and these he slung to the ground, before remarking: "Trying to set the forest on fire? I could see your blaze for miles . . . Well, now: how are we all? Had something to eat? If not, I"ve got-"
"You"ve come back?" I interrupted, scarce believing, still poised dagger in hand.
"Well . . . Had a think about it, after I left you. Thought of what my mother might have said if she had known I was leaving you parcel of sillies to go forward on your own; thought about my duties as a knight to protect those weaker than myself; thought about my Christian conscience, too. Came to the conclusion I might as well see you to wherever you"re going, before I set off on my own travels again. So, here I am again, for the time being at least- Whatever"s the matter, Thingy?"
For I had leapt across the fire to embrace him in my enthusiasm, remembered in mid-leap I was still carrying my dagger but not wearing my mask, leapt straight back again to rectify both errors, and then jumped to his side once more, only to find that the idea of hugging him was ridiculous, so just stood there, feeling foolish.
"Welcome back," I said inadequately. "I say: how did you know my song?"
"Your song? I first heard that sung in some court or other abroad oh, years ago. It"s a Frankish tune; I was going to ask you where you knew it from . . .
I"ve forgotten most of the words, but it is something about a lady waiting in vain for her lover to come back from the wars. I remember the air, though: very pretty."
I couldn"t tell him how I knew it, because I didn"t know, but there were more important things to think about than a sad tune that teased at memory. He was back, he was coming with us, and the others shuffled closer, Moglet even going so far as to twine round his ankles. He bent to stroke her.
"They all say they"re glad to see you back," I said. I didn"t interpret exactly: would he have been as happy with Corby"s "Well, I suppose he"s better than nothing: at least he has silver for food," and Puddy"s: "Tell him not to shout all the time: gives me a headache"?
"Have you eaten, Rust-er, Sir Knight?" I asked.
He glanced at me quizzically. "If we are to become fellow-adventurers "tis as well for you to know my name, and where I come from . . ."
His name was Connor Cieran O"Connell of Hirland, and he was the younger son of a chief. When his father died, as was the custom, his lands and belongings had been divided equally among his kinsmen, and to Connor"s lot had fallen a bag of gold and his father"s sword, so, landless, he had set off to seek his fortune. He had travelled a great deal and had earned his knighthood in the Frankish lands, for some "trifling service" as he put it, to a Duke.
Earlier this year he had travelled back to his homeland, found his brother dead, his mother remarried and an unwelcoming cousin the new chief. So he had decided to make his way back to the Duke"s court and seek employment in the endless wars that part of the world produced.
"A man"s life," he said, and scowled at me. "Still, there may have been something in what you were saying about swords and rust and-and spells and things. I"ll tell you someday. But for the present we won"t mention it again. Right?"
I nodded. "Don"t worry," I said. "I know it will turn out all right; I feel it in my heart, Sir Connor."
He smiled then, and his smile was all I had known it would be.
"I wish I had your faith, little Thingummy, though I think it depends more on hope than experience. And never mind the "Sir": call me Conn."
"Yes-Conn," I said shyly.
He glanced around at us all, his eyes sparkling, and pushed up the edges of his moustache with his finger. "A crippled cat, a creaky crow, a torpid toad, a miserable minnow, an unhorned unicorn and you and me, Thingy: did you ever see a more unlikely combination for high adventure? "Twould make the angels themselves laugh fit to weep . . .
"Come, my friends: supper and bed, before I change my mind and regret the very day you rescued me!"
But he was smiling again . . .
The Gathering
The Turning-point
It may have been the sunlight that awoke him, low enough now at midday on the shortest day to shine momentarily on the neglected heap of pebbles; it may have been his dreams, too intolerable to be longer endured, concerned as they were with happier times, the search for his treasure-whatever it was, the dragon jerked in his sleep, coughed like one strangling, and opened his eyes to stare out over the snow-shrouded hills beyond his cave. He blinked once, twice, the narrow slits of pupil narrowing still further, then their gaze shifted to the piled stones before him, and a great sigh moved the scaly flanks that hung, mere skin upon bone now, behind the sharpened shoulders.
The sun prismed an icicle that hung from the mouth of the cave, and a single drip of water plopped onto the rock beneath. The dragon considered this for a moment, then his forked tongue flickered out of his mouth and he hissed. It took a long time for him to uncoil stiff joints and rise, and the sunlight had shifted away from the mouth of the cave by the time he reached it. Stretching up, his yellow fangs snapped off the icicle at its base and then scrunched the ice between his teeth, swallowing the pieces before they melted so that they rattled and c.h.i.n.ked on their way down to his stomach.
He burped uneasily, then suddenly sniffed the air like a surprised hound that scents hare when he least expects it. For a moment his whole body tensed, straining after the elusive hint of something alien, then his brow wrinkled and he shook his head as if to clear it. Again he sniffed the clean, cold air, but the trail had gone stale, cold.
He went back and lay down again, this time not even glancing at his pebbles, but now his sleep was lighter, uneasier, and once or twice he rumbled and frowned and raised his head, as though the thing he thought he might have sensed had left the faintest trace of itself behind, to tease at the edge of consciousness with the merest shadow of hope . . .
Ki-ya the buzzard moved cramped pinions, one eye on the weather outside, the other warily watching the now sleeping dragon. He had sought shelter two days since during the blizzard, and had perched on the pinnacle of rock just inside the cave-mouth, stomach empty, one tail feather damaged. Now that feather, groomed, smoothed, oiled, would carry him on a favourable wind, but he would have to take care. A week ago he had strayed from his home territory, a bold yearling male, and the great southwesterly had caught him foraging on the edge of the moor. A more experienced bird would have sought shelter but he had thought, with his young defiance, that he was strong enough to ride out the storm, to slip the winds under his wings and rise above the worst of it, but the elements had decided to teach him a lesson and had lifted him high, high on a thermal, then tipped him sideways across the mouth of the Great Western River and flung him helter-skelter to the teeth of the Black Hills, where he had spun crazily from one down-draught to an up and vice-versa, until the wind had veered in a night, and dawn had found him disorientated and dispossessed on the ledge of the dragon"s lair.
At first, with the northering wind fetching a blizzard, he had not noticed that the inner side of the cave was occupied, and when he had it seemed the heap of bones and scales was merely that: Now it was different: nest-tales had included Dragons, Fire-drakes and Wyrmes, but this was his first encounter with one. He was not even sure this was a dragon: parent tales had described him as such, but with fire in his belly and flying, higher and faster than even his own kin. But this thing looked near dead and its fires were out: still, a good enough tale to carry to The Ancient, if he were not off on his travels again. Fair exchange for a decent dinner . . . His stomach contracted and he spread his wings.
Five or so days later, living by rick and midden, tolerably full but defeated from straight flight by adverse winds, he followed a trail of footprints through the new snow some quarter mile below. The trail wound over the downs for half-a-league, going in his direction, and lazily he let it lead him, switching off the nagging pull and ignoring the pre-set markers for a while, till he saw the footprints halt in a huddle of creatures a mile or so from a village. Coasting down, for now he could feel a favourable veer in the wind was imminent and see the build-up of high, scattered cloud to the west, which would mean a good six hours" clear flight, he alighted silently in a tall pine some fifty yards from the party. Two humans, a unicorn if his guess was right, but in a sorry, hornless state, a crow, a . . . cat? something that looked amphibian in a basket and a bowl with a tiddler in it. The smaller human was holding the bowl and breathing on it to melt the thin coating of ice.
The crow glanced up. "Greetings, brother!" He had a crippled wing.
"Greetings: may the wind lift your wings and smooth your pa.s.sing, your eyes never grow dim, nor your beak or talons less sharp." It was the standard predator"s greeting. "Whither away?"
"Southwest, to seek a sorcerer they say still lives there."
"All of you?"
"All of us."
"A quest?"
"Something of the sort . . ."
"Travel well, brother: I shall be there before you," and he coasted up until he felt the familiar tickle of wind slide round to hug his body and then he spread the fingers of his wings to grasp at the air, joying in the buoyancy, the waves that met and pa.s.sed him, the crests that he rode as easily as a gull on the estuary.
He screamed his name: "Ki-ya! Ki-ya!" that all should know him. Here was another t.i.t-bit of news: he should reach the old man in a couple of days. He screamed again.
But they would have a longer journey . . .
The Gathering
Hedged by Magic
It was a long, hard journey and a long, hard winter.
At the turning of the year I had thought we were over the worst of it, but with the lightening of the days came a darkening of the weather. The Moon of Snows lived up to her name and by Inbolc, or Candlemas as Conn called it-a much prettier name-we were still up to our ears in the white stuff. Well, nearly. Well, Moglet was, and in the drifts Snowy was in to his belly. Twice we were forced to make long detours, once for unseasonable floods, and for two weeks we were holed up in one village, snow to the lintels. Conn"s money ran low and mine was finished and by the Moon of Waters we were cold, hungry, tattered and snappy with each other. Puddy and Pisky fared better than the rest of us because they went into half-hibernation, stirring only on warm days and requiring little or nothing to eat. Corby and Moglet were reasonably sheltered and not unfed but Conn, Snowy and I fared worse. Conn, despite his long legs, found the going hard and his mail, which he wore all the time now to lighten Snowy"s load, heavy and c.u.mbersome, and he still did not have my belief in journey"s end and the magician to lessen his burdens. Snowy, for all he was a unicorn, albeit no longer magic, could still feel hunger, cold, the weight of his burdens, and the frost struck cruelly at the poor, tender stump of his horn. And I? I felt I was colder, tireder, hungrier than all of them put together, and even the binding of my feet with rags, the wrapping of sacking around my shoulders and chest and Conn"s purchase of a squirrel-fur hood did little to keep out the shivers that chattered my teeth and rattled my bones.
We almost quarrelled and parted company more than once, but now it was Snowy that kept us together. As the weather gradually changed for the better he declared he could smell spring on the softer winds from the south, and broke into a trot now and again, snuffling the breeze and discovering the new, tender mosses and thin slivers of fresh gra.s.s revealed by the thaw to persuade us. We crossed the downs and came to the high moors, and the last, bitter fling of a winter whose reign was nearly over. Below us to our left lay a grey- green expanse that Conn said was the sea, but all we were concerned with was struggling through bog, slough, bitter thicket and twisted, stunted wood. One night we spent crouched in the lee of some towered stones on the flank of the moor and even Snowy stamped his hooves and looked uneasy, and I dreamt of our Mistress and woke screaming till Conn clapped one hand over my mouth and with the other stroked my back until I calmed.
Then, suddenly, things changed.
We came off the moor after five days, slipping and sliding down a steep combe to a valley, and it was as if the Moon of Birth had arrived three weeks early and spent her first few days all out, day and night, to persuade us our sense of timing was all a-kilter and surprise us with her husbandry. On either side of the narrow track that led deep between bank and wood, bracken was uncoiling in shy green crooks, gra.s.s spiked in surprised clumps, colts-foot shocked with their bright heads, furred bramble leaves were gently unfolding and everywhere birds sang. Rounding a corner to where a stream chattered across stony hollows a willow was already greeny-yellowing with slim leaves, bending to the water to admire its reflection, and downs-pastured lambs ran wag-tailed to their dams with dirty knees and black faces as they heard us approach. Somewhere high above us a lark strove mightily with the heavens, and other birds darted busily across our path, twigs, dead leaves, sheep"s wool and dried gra.s.s in their beaks, nest-building leaving them too busy to do anything but ignore our pa.s.sing. A balmy breeze from the south kissed us in greeting and Corby shook up all his feathers.
"Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all. Feel like a dip in that puddle over there.
Too much grease on your feathers and you can"t fluff "em up at night . . ."
"Think I"ll try a walk," said Moglet. "Sun"s warm. And a drink from the stream."
Puddy emerged, looking rather saggy and crinkled. "May we stop? Definitely need some water . . ."
Pisky swam to the top of his bowl. "I fancy a little dip, and perhaps a change of water. My grandmother always said . . ."
Conn and I watched them, and I kept an eye on Pisky in case the stream ran too strong, and re-filled his bowl with fresh water and set it in the sunshine to warm.
"D"you know," said Conn, stretching upwards till his fingertips burnt red in the sunlight, "I think they"ve the right idea. Mind if I wander off downstream and have a dip? The winter"s sweat is sticky on my body like sc.u.m," and he ambled off down the road, whistling an experimental happiness.
I turned to Snowy. "A good idea: I could do with a wash. How about you, dear one?"
"If you could set down the packs for a while . . ." I unloaded him and he pranced like a yearling to the nearest patch of gra.s.s and rolled, his tummy pink and his hooves tucked up close to his body. I wandered down till I found a pool then undressed, hesitating for a delightful moment of antic.i.p.ation before gasping into the water. It was freezing and exhilarating and glorious; putting on my old clothes while I was still damp was rather nasty, but I heard Conn returning and dared not shame him with my ugly nakedness.
He came striding down the road, jerkin and mail over his arm, his hair curled tight, dark red with the water, and it gleaming in drops on his shoulders and running to the darker hairs on his chest, and a smile on his face as he saw me.
I felt a jolt in my insides like someone had kicked me, but without the pain and yet with it- "Fish for dinner, Thingy dear!" and he held aloft two silver trout. "And I"d never have caught them but that the wash of my dive into the water threw them up onto the bank, and they surrendered without a fight . . . I had not realized how long your hair was; right down your back it is and black as Corby"s wing," and he flicked the damp fringe on my forehead as he pa.s.sed and I was absurdly pleased, almost as though he had told me I had turned pretty overnight, and I watched the muscles on his back and shoulders as he broke up some dead branches for our fire, and longed to touch their hard knots . . . Then laughed at my foolishness and went to gather up the others, fussing over them more than usual, stroking and holding them.
The fish were delicious and fed all of us, one way and another, although in truth they were but one man"s dinner, but I made oatcakes to go with them for Conn and myself, and we had the snow-fed waters of the stream to wash them down. That night we found an old barn and slept warm and dry in the last of the winter hay and woke early, for though none of us said so, I think we all felt that the end of our search was near. And as we walked that day it seemed that spring walked with us, or ran a little ahead and turned and beckoned so that we had no need to ask the way, and all our aches and pains were smoothed away and we paced as if in a dream . . .
And so we came to the barrier.
"We can"t get through there," said Conn, scratching his head. "Not without an axe or two," for our way was blocked by a tangle of briars and thorns well above man-height. "We shall have to go round," and indeed the track we had been following branched off to the left and right as though there had never been a way through, though the barrier seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see without a break.
"But that"s the way," I said, pointing ahead, as sure as eggs, though I could not have explained why.
"It can"t be," said Conn. "You must be wrong. There"s nothing behind there, there can"t be . . ."
"There is," I insisted. "I"m sure of it. Come on," and without thinking I walked forward straight into-and through-the th.o.r.n.y ma.s.s, just as if it hadn"t been there. Snowy followed by my side, the others on his back, but when we found ourselves on the other side and I turned to look for Conn, I found he had not followed us.
"Bother!" I said. "Conn?" Faintly, very faintly, I heard him call back, as though he were on the other side of a house, for the thorn hedge had closed behind us as though there had never been a way through. "I shall have to go back for him," I said, and started forward, but this time I merely scratched my hands and arms, for the thorns would not give way. I shook the branches frantically, but try as I would they did not shift, and all the time I could hear Conn calling, calling . . . Bursting into tears I tore and pulled at the thicket till I was covered in scratches, but it was no good.
Rushing over to Snowy I clasped him round the neck. "Help me, dear one, help me!"
He breathed gently down my neck. "There is no way back, only forward. He can come to you, but you cannot return to him. You will have to use your mind, make him believe he can walk through, just as we did . . . Concentrate: call him to you."
"Call him?" But even as I questioned I knew what to do. Kneeling down I heeled my palms over my eyes till all was blackness and dug my fingers into my ears till all was silence and thought hard of Conn, conjuring him up in my mind from feet to crown of head and then walking towards him in my mind, back through the hedge, till I stood again by his side and held out my hand.
"Come," I said. "Come with me. Don"t be afraid . . ."
But he looked at me as though I were someone different.
"I cannot go through there: it is solid. Must be five or six feet thick."
"It"s not there," I said. "Not there. It"s an illusion . . . Close your eyes, take my hand, and believe!"
And I took his hand and led him through the way I had come.
"What on earth-Are you all right, Thingy?"
I opened my eyes and they hurt with sunlight and I took my fingers from my ears and they rang, and there was Conn coming across the gra.s.s towards us. I stumbled to my feet and hobbled towards him.
"I"m fine . . . You all right?"
"Think so . . . Extraordinary thing: one moment I thought I"d lost you all, and then there was this gap-What is this place?"
We were standing in a glade, full of sun and sound and smell. To our left was the hedge we had come through, but already it seemed some distance away, and between it and us there were trees, some blossoming, some in full leaf, others with the tints of autumn and bearing scarlet and yellow fruit. Before us a meadow, full of daisies and b.u.t.tercups and clover and blue, white and yellow b.u.t.terflies. Beyond that was what I thought might be the sea, now sparkling and blue, with little white lines dancing towards the sh.o.r.e. To the right were more trees, a wood of conifer, all greens from black to yellow.
Squirrels ran up and down the trunks and along the branches, nuts in their mouths, and tall ferns rustled as deer came out from the shadows and sniffed the air and gazed at us, their furred ears swinging back and forth, their tails wagging. Behind us a little spring gushed out of the rock and ran away, disappearing into a shallow pool. And by the spring was a cave, and at the mouth of the cave lines of strata where martlet and martin bubbled and chattered. And I could hear the sea and the trees and the birds and the bees and the wind in the gra.s.s and smell pine and ripe apples and clover and- And on a rock-seat in front of the cave, apparently asleep, sat the largest owl I had ever seen.
"It"s an illusion," I said, but I wasn"t quite sure.
"Not all of it," said Conn, plucking and scrunching a rosy apple from a nearby tree.
Snowy was cropping the short, sweet gra.s.s and, rea.s.sured, I lifted down Puddy, who made for the stones by the pond; next I put Moglet down, and she was off batting at b.u.t.terflies in a blink, but never quite catching them. I carried Pisky over to the pond and submerged his crock. "There," I said. "I think it"s all right . . ." Corby had not waited: turning over a pile of leaves he had found some grubs, or what looked like grubs.
"Have an apple," said Conn, already on his second, but I shook my head. At my feet the runners of a strawberry were thick with tiny pointed, scarlet fruit which burst in my mouth in an explosion of delight.
But things were just not right: they looked as they should, felt as they should, tasted and sounded as they should, but where in the world would you find a place that held all seasons as one? The promise of spring blossom, the warmth of summer sunshine, the fulfilment of autumn"s apples, the consolation of winter"s conifers . . . But it didn"t feel bad, not as though it were an enchantment to thrall us into evil: there must be an explanation.
I looked around me again for some sort of clue to these contradictions. My friends seemed to find nothing strange in the situation: they were peaceful and happy enough for the moment. I supposed I was meant to be too, but somehow I felt annoyed with whatever-it-was for presuming I could be so easily lulled into compliant acceptance of the situation. For something to do I picked and ate another strawberry, appreciating its tart sweetness, the gritting of pips in my mouth. One got stuck between my teeth, and I nudged it loose with my tongue; if anything were designed to convince one that life was normal a pip between one"s teeth was the thing . . .
I felt a tickly feeling between my shoulder blades and whirled round: the owl was shutting his eyes again.
"All right," I said. "Explain!"
But the bird remained silent, eyes firmly shut, feathers fluffed, just as we had first seen him. I was sure now that I was right so I marched up to where he was sitting in the bright sunshine on that throne-like chair, and addressed him again. "I know you"re foxing," I told him. "Tawnys don"t sit out like that in the sunshine at midday. And all the rest of this," I waved my hand, "is just too perfect. So, bird, tell me what all this is about or I"ll-I"ll break your blasted neck!"
There was a little silence. The others left off eating or playing and came up behind me, Pisky swimming up the stream to where the spring gushed out, Corby wiping his feathers with his beak, Puddy damp, Moglet with pollen on her flanks, Conn with an applecore in his hand, Snowy smelling of new gra.s.s.