Limbo Lodge (25 page)

“Not in
this
room,” he said in dismay. “Too many bad things have happened here.”

“No, no, we shall find some other. Rooms in plenty in this house.”

When another chamber had been chosen, and John King settled in it, with Talisman beside him, playing the hyena game on a beautiful spiral board made of nutmeg wood, Aunt Tala’aa, Tylo, Dido, and Lord Herodsfoot walked slowly out on to the veranda of Limbo Lodge. They were all dejected and silent. The sight of the woods below, with burnt patches still steaming from Yorka’s rain, did nothing to cheer them.

But Aunt Tala’aa said, trying to be brisk about it: “We should not grieve for
her
. Only for ourselves. She is now receiving a Kanikke’s welcome in the Other Forest.”

Tylo said: “And Manoel sent to Black Hole. That one very good thing.”

“What shall we do now?” said Dido. “We can’t cross the bridge, it’s burnt. Manoel must have been on this side when that happened. And those fellows over there in the camp won’t know that he is dead. Do you think we should tell them? In case they start shooting again?”

“No,” said Aunt Tala’aa. “As they do not know what has happened they will wait and wait for Manoel to reappear, and then gradually they will drift away home. So, that way, probably when we go to Regina, only some, not all of those men will have returned.”

“But – but how
can
we get to Regina? The bridge is burned—” Dido swallowed, remembering how Tylo and Yorka wove their own bridge of rope. Would she be able to help Tylo make another?

“We go by ship.”

“You don’t mean – climb down the cliff to Manati harbour?” Herodsfoot came out of his gloomy reverie to inquire.

“No, no. Let us go and look at the ship. That will take our minds off sad things.”

Aunt Tala’aa led the way down the steps off the veranda and across the stretch of short grass to the cliff top. A low building stood near the southern tip of the promontory. In front of this, a small ship was perched upon chocks: a solid, stubby, clinker-built sloop, Bermuda-rigged, with an enclosed cabin. Her name was painted on the side:
The Lass of Cley
.

“Dear me,” said Herodsfoot. “That seems a stout, seaworthy little craft – but how in the world to get it down to the water?”

Here they were, perhaps a bowshot length from the edge of the cliff; a thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, which they could see, black, blue, silvery, and crinkled, away to the south.

Aunt Tala’aa smiled. “No problem. In a few days the undersea volcano Mount Ximboë will erupt. The eruption is always preceded by earthquakes in this region. Part of the cliff we are standing on will fall.”

She began to walk about near the cliff edge, pacing to and fro, counting the paces. She had taken a forked rod from the boat-yard and held it with both hands, her thumbs pointing upwards and backwards along the forks. When it quivered, as it did now and then, she stuck a sliver of bamboo into the ground.

“See,” she said, “that defines the area of the rock-fall. Now it only remains to shift the boat to this spot.”

“On rollers?” suggested Herodsfoot doubtfully. “But how shall we pull it? And then—” his words absolutely dried up in his throat as he contemplated the scheme which Aunt Tala’aa seemed to be proposing.

“You mean,” he said hoarsely, “we put the boat here and then wait for it to fall into the sea?”

“Ah, the sea will not be so far down then,” Aunt Tala’aa said, laughing at his dismay. “You will see! After Mount Ximboë erupts, a great wave races northwards past this island. They call it the onda. All we have to do is choose our moment when the wave approaches – we shall see it coming, here, for a long time before it arrives – then launch off at the moment when it is nearest.”

“Just so,” muttered Herodsfoot in a hollow voice.

But Tylo was enthusiastic. “Like ride a dolphin.”

This, he had told Dido, was a favourite sport of the island boys, when dolphins were in a co-operative humour.

“Well, I reckon it’s the best way to get to Regina town,” Dido remarked. “How long does it take a boat on that onda, Auntie Tala’aa?”

“Not more than nine or ten hours. The most difficult part is steering
out
of the onda when we reach the north tip of the island.”

“Oh yes – I remember that was why Doc Tally never got back to her dad after Manoel threw her in the sea and the Dutch boat picked her up, ’cos the current took the ship right up to the Moluccas.”

“Just so. John King used to be a skilful sailor – but whether he will be equal to the task at this time remains to be seen,” Aunt Tala’aa said equably.

Herodsfoot croaked out: “Er – sailing used to be quite a little hobby of mine – before I began collecting games.”

“Then you are just the man we need,” said Aunt Tala’aa, giving him a kindly look.

T
HEY SPENT TWO DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS AT
Limbo Lodge. Most of this time was passed by Dido, Herodsfoot, and Tylo in playing games, of which they found a huge selection about the place. Dido’s favourite was Hyena, a board game somewhat akin to Ludo, using a spiral track on which players moved their counters according to throws of dice. The counter was the player’s mother, going to the well for water. If she managed to escape all the hazards on the way, and returned with a jug of water, she turned into a hyena and could pounce on all the other contestants. This tickled Dido greatly.

“Coo! Don’t I just wish
my
ma would turn into a hyena! She couldn’t be any meaner than she is already.”

Dido’s own parents were so disagreeable that she could not help envying the happy relationship that had sprung up between John King and his daughter Talisman.

He got up from his bed on the morning after they had arrived, declaring that he was entirely better, and spent most of his time in an armchair by a window facing out to the southern sea. Sometimes Herodsfoot spent time with him, and played a game of Go, or Hnefatafl, or Four Field Kono, but in general it was Talisman who sat beside him, holding his hand, looking lovingly into his face, and discussing, endlessly, what should be done for the welfare of the island of Aratu. Sometimes Aunt Tala’aa joined them and shared these discussions, but Aunt Tala’aa was a true Forest Person; she could hardly endure to be in one place for more than six or seven hours, and would often vanish away on her own concerns.

“Where do you
go
, Aunt Tala’aa?” Dido asked her.

“Oh . . . here and there! Up and down. To and fro. Sometimes to the camp, to see how they go on there. Many were killed by that fire. The others – poor things – they are in great confusion, some deserting. Other times I take a look at the madman Ruiz – or those sad Ereiras—”

“But, Aunt Tala’aa – how do you get across the gorge? How do you get about?”

Aunt Tala’aa smiled. “Oh, comme-ci, comme-ca! One way or another. Lo’ongoh . . .” She used a Dilendi phrase that Dido had not heard before.

“Aunt Tala’aa – what did you mean by that thing you said to Manoel about the baby?”

Aunt Tala’aa said, “Once – long ago – Manoel (in those days he was still known as Paul, Paul Kirlingshaw) he played a game of Mancala with a Forest Man. Manoel cheated – he moved his piece when the other man had left the board to fetch his baby who was crying. But a memory-bird saw what Manoel did and told its master when he came back. And the man’s wife, who was a Kanikke, held up the baby and said, ‘Angrian man! The next time you see a baby with the same name as our daughter, your wits will leave you for ever and they will never return. From then, you will be as good as dead.’ So always, after that, Manoel hated the company of women and small children and would avoid them whenever he could.”

“What was the baby’s name?”

“Miria. It is a name often used by the Forest People. It means Daughter of the Sun.”

“Is it so terrible – to cheat in a game?”

Aunt Tala’aa looked at Dido seriously. “It is the first step towards annihilation of the spirit.”

“I see. So it was quite kind of you to knock Manoel off, after he had seen Miria. Otherwise he’d have been ninepence in the shilling for the rest of his life.”

“All I did was remind him. After that, sheer terror finished him off.”

Dido gazed at Aunt Tala’aa with respect.

“Did you know that Manoel had pinched a skull from the Place of Stones?”

“Yes, a memory-bird told me that. If he had ever gone back to that place, one of the stones would have fallen and crushed him.”

“No wonder he didn’t care for Aratu.”

“He was a poor, despicable wretch,” Aunt Tala’aa dismissed Manoel with a wave of the hand. “The urge to gamble is a disease – like the craving for opium, or rum-toddy.” Dido nodded. She knew all about that. “Some might say – leave such poor fools alone, to wreak their own destruction. But the danger is that they do harm to others – they steal, they lie, they commit crimes to pay for their habit. And they infect their companions.”

“Yes. That’s so,” said Dido sadly.

“We will think of him no more. He did great harm to Aratu. But matters will mend now.”

Tylo came to summon them to Yorka’s death-rites.

On the stone floor of the little Ghost House, he and Dido had built a pyre of musk, aloes, ambergris, djeela-bark, sandalwood, pepper, bezoar and nutmeg leaves. Yorka’s body was tucked into this, wrapped in the gold brocade from King’s four-poster. Aunt Tala’aa had removed the wooden ring from her finger.

“Even a wooden ring may tie down her spirit.” Tala’aa gave it to Dido. Then, with a piece of fire-fungus she touched the djeela-bark and blew on it gently. At once a clear green flame shot up. In five minutes the little fragrant pile was totally burned, without smoke or sound. Dido wondered that no wind stirred the flame, for, outside the ghost-house, she could see that a strong southerly breeze was bending the branches of the clove-trees; then she noticed that both TaIa’aa and Talisman wore expressions of deep concentration, focused on the flame; she remembered Yorka making the rain, and, before that, Yorka and Talisman at the Place of Stones, dispersing the mist.

It’d be great to be able to do that, Dido thought, and noticed, as the last spark died away, Tala’aa’s eye fixed measuringly upon her.

“Teirale haseem – go with light feet, Yorka,” called Tylo loudly, and the others echoed him; and Dido heard another voice take up the message from above, a voice that she recognised, which then went on to sing:

Dido looked around, startled. Nobody else seemed to have heard the ghost song. But again, she noticed the eye of Aunt Tala’aa fixed on her measuringly.

When they returned to Limbo Lodge, Tala’aa pointed to the sky in the south. “It will not be long now till the onda. We had better provision the boat.”

They ran back and forth to the
Loss of Cley
with food, fruit, water, and warm waterproof clothes.

Herodsfoot caused some dispute by his urgent request to bring a dozen games, wholly unfamiliar to him, which he had found about the house. In the end he was persuaded that there really was no room for them, and, despite his arguments, he was obliged to reduce the number to three, when he pointed out that John King might need some entertainment during the trip.

Dido felt extremely sorry for Herodsfoot; she suspected that he was terrified of what was going to happen next and was making use of this distraction to keep himself from thinking about it, and from the ever-widening gulf between him and Talisman. His eyes were fixed on her piteously whenever she came near him.

Dido heard John King ask his daughter: “Should I bring some notebooks to Regina? In case – in case I can’t hear what people say to me?” and Talisman’s reply: “No, Father! You can hear very well now – as well as anybody. And, if you are in any doubt about what somebody has said, you can always ask me. I shall always be there.”

Always, Dido thought.

“Now we must move the boat to the cliff edge,” Talisman said. “Look at the sky.”

It was early morning on their third day. The sun had risen behind a huge, inflamed angry cloud. A high rustling wind whined briefly over the cliff-top and was gone. When it had fallen, the air became intensely sultry and humid. Talisman decreed that they must all put on cork jackets; Dido, stifling in hers, felt sweat trickling between her shoulderblades.

“How are we
ever
going to get that boat to the cliff edge?” demanded Herodsfoot.

“I have a certain skill at carrying weights,” Talisman quietly reminded him. “If you, my father, will go to the starboard quarter, you, Francis, and Tylo to the port, Dido at the prow—” she placed them all well forward and then went with Tala’aa to the stern. “Are you all ready? When I give the word,
lift
!”

And somehow, astonishingly, the boat was in the air, its entire weight apparently born by Talisman and Tala’aa at the stem, while the bearers at the front did no more than keep it steady and balanced. They moved out of the boat-yard at a slow but regular pace and covered the short distance to the area marked by bamboo wands in three minutes. Lowering was anxious: first the two women knelt, carrying the weight on their shoulders; then, with cracking muscles, the other three let down the bows. The
Lass of Cley
lay on her side, leaning away from the red and angry ocean at the foot of the cliff, which seemed hungry to receive her.

This is a pretty hare-brained business, thought Dido. Suppose the boat gets smashed in the landslide? Or is swamped by rocks falling on it? Or turns turtle and fills up when it hits the water? And us? How can we fall as far as that without getting knocked about?

Oh well, can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

“Now we must go on board,” said Talisman.

They did so, King helped by Herodsfoot and his daughter. Dido noticed that he never even turned back to look at the house where he had lived for so long.