Lyonesse II - The Green Pear and Madouc (69 page)

"Sammikin, notice! The red-haired brat wears a golden clasp."

"Is it not a farce, Ossip? That some wear gold, while others go without?"

"It is the injustice of life! Were I to wield power, everyone should share alike!"

"That is a noble concept indeed!"

Ossip peered at Tyfer's bridle. "See here! Even the horse wears gold!" He spoke with unctuous fervor: "Here is rich ness!"

Sammikin snapped his fingers. "I cannot help but rejoice! The sun shines bright and our luck has turned at last!"

"Still, we must exert ourselves in a certain way that we know of, in order to safeguard our reputations."

"Wise words, Ossip!" The two moved forward. Pymfyd called sharply to Madouc: "Ride off at speed!" He wheeled his own horse, but Ossip reached out a gangling arm and seized his bridle. Pymfyd kicked out vigorously and caught Ossip in the face, causing him to blink and clap his hand to his eye. "Ah, you little viper; you have shown your teeth! Alas, my poor face! What pain!"

Sammikin had made a dancing little run toward Madouc, but she had kicked Tyfer into motion, to ride a few yards up the lane, where she halted in an agony of indecision.

Sammikin turned back to where Ossip still hung to the bridle of Pymfyd's horse, despite Pymfyd's kicks and curses. Sammikin, coming up behind, seized Pymfyd around the waist and flung him rudely to the ground. Pymfyd bellowed in outrage. Rolling to the side, he seized up a broken tree branch and, jumping to his feet, he stood at bay. "Dogs!" He brandished the limb with hysterical bravado. "Vermin! Come at me if you dare!" He looked over his shoulder to where Madouc sat rigid on Tyfer. "Ride away, you little fool, and be quick! Fetch help!"

Sammikin and Ossip without haste took up their staffs and closed in on Pymfyd, who defended himself with might and main, until Sammikin's staff broke his branch into splinters. Sammikin feinted; Ossip raised his staff on high and struck Pymfyd across the side of the head, so that Pymfyd's eyes looked in opposite directions. He fell to the ground. Sammikin struck him again and again, while Ossip tied Pymfyd's horse to a tree. He started at a run toward Madouc. She finally roused herself from stupefaction, wheeled Tyfer, and set off up the lane at a gallop.

Pymfyd's head lolled to the side, with blood trickling from his mouth. Sammikin stood back with a grunt of approval. "This one will carry no tales! Now for the other."

Madouc, crouching low in the saddle, galloped up the lane, stone fences to either side. She looked over her shoulder; Ossip and Sammikin were trotting up the lane in pursuit. Madouc gave a low wild cry and kicked Tyfer to his best speed. She would ride up the lane until she found a gap in one of the fences, then dash away across the downs and back to Old Street.

Behind came the vagabonds, Ossip pacing with long stately strides, Sammikin pumping his arms and scuttling like a fat rat. As before, they seemed in no great haste.

Madouc looked right and left. A ditch flowing with water ran beside the lane on one side with the stone fence beyond; to the other, the fence had given way to a hawthorn hedge. Ahead the lane curved to the side and passed through a gap in the fence. Without a pause Madouc galloped Tyfer through the gap. She stopped short in consternation, to find that she had entered a sheepfold of no great extent. She looked here and there and all around, but discovered no exit.

Up the lane came Ossip and Sammikin, puffing and blowing from their exertion. Ossip called out in a fluting voice: "Nicely, nicely now! Stand your horse; be calm and ready! Do not make us dodge about!"

'Quiet' is the word!" called Sammikin. "It will soon be over, and you will find it very quiet, so I am told."

"That is my understanding!" agreed Ossip. "Stand still and do not cry; I cannot abide a wailing child!"

Madouc looked desperately around the paddock, seeking a break or a low place over which Tyfer might jump, but in vain. She slid to the ground, and hugged Tyfer's neck. "Goodbye, my dear good friend! I must leave you to save my life!" She ran to the fence, scrambled up and over and was gone from the fold.

Ossip and Sammikin called out in anger: "Stop! Come back! It is all in fun! We mean no harm!"

Madouc turned a frightened glance over her shoulder and only fled the faster, with the dark shade of the Forest Tantrevalles now close at hand.

Cursing, lamenting the need for so much exercise, and calling out the most awful threats that came to their minds, Sammikin and Ossip scrambled over the fence and came in pursuit.

At the edge of the forest Madouc paused a moment to gasp and lean against the bole of a crooked old oak. Up the meadow, not fifty yards distant, came Ossip and Sammikin, both now barely able to run for fatigue. Sammikin took note of Madouc, where she stood by the tree, coppery curls in wild disarray. The two slowed almost to a halt, then advanced a sly step at a time. Sammikin called in a voice of syrup: "Ah, dear child, how clever you are to wait for us! Beware the forest, where the bogies live!"

Ossip added: "They will eat you alive and spit up your bones! You are safer with us!"

"Come, dear little chick!" called Sammikin. "We will play a jolly game together!"

Madouc turned and plunged into the forest. Sammikin and Ossip raised cries of wrathful disappointment. "Come back, you raddle-topped little itling!" "Now we are angry; you must be punished, and severely!" "Ah, vixen, but you will squeak and gasp and shudder! Our mercy? None! You had none for us!"

Madouc grimaced. Uneasy little spasms tugged at her stomach. What a terrible place the world could be! They had killed poor Pymfyd, so good and so brave! And Tyfer! Never would she ride Tyfer again! And if they caught her, they would wring her neck on the spot-unless they thought to use her for some unthinkable amusement.

Madouc stopped to listen. She held her breath. The thud and crush of heavy feet on the dead leaves came frighteningly close at hand. Madouc darted off at an angle, around a thicket of blackthorn and another of bay, hoping to befuddle her pursuers.

The forest became dense; foliage blocked away the sky, save only where a fallen tree, or an outcrop of rock, or some inexplicable circumstances, created a glade. A rotting log blocked Madouc's way; she clambered over, ducked around a blackberry bush, jumped a little rill where it trickled through watercress. She paused to look back and to catch her breath. Nothing fearful could be seen; undoubtedly she had evaded the two robbers. She held her breath to listen.

Thud-crunch, thud-crunch, thud-crunch: the sounds were faint and cautious but seemed to be growing louder, and, in fact, by chance, Ossip and Sammikin had glimpsed the flicker of Madouc's white smock down one of the forest aisles, and were still on her trail.

Madouc gave a little cry of frustration. She turned and once more fled through the forest, picking out the most devious ways and the darkest shadows. She slid through a thicket of alders, waded a slow stream, crossed a glade and made a detour around a great fallen oak. Where the roots thrust into the air she found a dark little nook, concealed by a bank of foxglove. Madouc crouched down under the roots.

Several minutes passed. Madouc waited, hardly daring to breathe. She heard footsteps; Ossip and Sammikin went blundering past. Madouc closed her eyes, fearing that they would feel the brush of her vision and stop short.

Ossip and Sammikin paused only an instant, to look angrily around the glade. Sammikin, hearing a sound in the distance, pointed his finger and gave a guttural cry; the two ran off into the depths of the forest. The thud of their footsteps diminished and was lost in the hush.

Madouc remained huddled in the cranny. She discovered that she was warm and comfortable; her eyelids drooped; despite her best intentions, she drowsed.

Time passed-how long? Five minutes? Half an hour? Madouc awoke, and now she felt cramped. Cautiously she began to extricate herself from the cranny. She stopped short. What was that sound, so thin and tinkling? Music? Madouc listened intently. The sounds seemed to come from a source not too far away, but hidden from her view by the foxglove foliage.

Madouc crouched indecisively, half in, half out of her covert. The music seemed artless and easy, even somewhat frivolous, with queer little trills and quavers. Such a music, thought Madouc, could not conceivably derive from threat or malice. She lifted her head and peered through the foxglove. It would be an embarrassment to be discovered hiding in such an undignified condition. She plucked up her courage and rose to her feet, ordering her hair and brushing dead leaves from her garments, all the while looking around the glade.

Twenty feet distant, on a smooth stone, sat a pinch-faced little creature, not much larger than herself, with sound seagreen eyes, nut-brown skin and hair. He wore a suit of fine brown stuff striped blue and red; a jaunty little blue cap with a panache of blackbird's feathers, and long pointed shoes. In one hand he held a wooden sound-box from which protruded two dozen small metal tongues; as he stroked the tongues music tinkled from the box.

The creature, taking note of Madouc, desisted from his play ing. He asked in a piping voice: "Why do you sleep when the day is so new? Time for sleep during owl's-wake."

Madouc replied in her best voice: "I slept because I fell asleep."

"I understand, at least better than I did before. Why do you stare at me? From marvelling admiration, as I would suppose?"

Madouc made a tactful response. "Partly from admiration, and partly because I seldom talk with fairies."

The creature spoke with petulance. "I am a wefkin, not a fairy. The differences are obvious."

"Not to me. At least, not altogether."

"Wefkins are calm and stately by nature; we are solitary philosophers, as it were. Further, we are a gallant folk, proud and handsome, which conduces to fate-ridden amours both with mortals and with other halflings. We are truly magnificent beings."

"That much is clear," said Madouc. "What of the fairies?" The wefkin made a gesture of deprecation. "An unstable folk, prone both to vagary and to thinking four thoughts at once. They are social creatures and require the company of their ilk; otherwise they languish. They chatter and titter; they preen and primp; they engage in grand passions which occupy them all of twenty minutes; extravagant excess is their watchword! Wefkins are paladins of valor; the fairies do deeds of wanton perversity. Has not your mother explained these distinctions to you?"

"My mother has explained nothing. She has long been dead."

'Dead'? What's this again?"

"She is dead as Dinan's cat, and I can't help but think it inconsiderate of her."

The wefkin blinked his green eyes and played a pensive trill on his melody box. "This is grim news, and I am doubly surprised, since I spoke with her only a fortnight past, when she showed all her usual verve-of which, may I say, you have not been denied your full and fair share."

Madouc shook her head in perplexity. "You must mistake me for someone else."

The wefkin peered closely at her. "Are you not Madouc, the beautiful and talented child now accepted, if somewhat gracelessly, as 'royal Princess of Lyonesse' by King Bumblehead?"

"I am she," said Madouc modestly. "But my mother was the Princess Suldrun."

"Not so! That is a canard! Your true mother is the fairy Twisk, of Thripsey Shee."

Madouc stared at the wefkin in open-mouthed wonder. "How do you know this?"

"it is common knowledge among the halflings. Believe or disbelieve, as you wish."

"I do not question your words," said Madouc hastily. "But the news comes as an astonishment. How did it happen so?"

The wefkin sat upright on the stone. Rubbing his chin with long green fingers, he appraised Madouc sidelong. "Yes! I will recite the facts of the case, but only if you request the favor-since I would not care to startle you without your express permission." The wefkin fixed his great green eyes upon Madouc's face. "Is it your wish that I do you this favor?"

"Yes, please!"

"Just so! The Princess Suldrun gave birth to a boy-child. The father was Aillas of Troicinet. The baby is now known as Prince Dhrun."

"Prince Dhrun! Now I am truly astonished! How can it be? He is far older than I!"

"Patience! You shall learn all. Now then. For safety the baby was taken to a place in the forest. Twisk chanced to pass by and exchanged you for the little blond boy-baby, and that is the way of it. You are a changeling. Dhrun lived at Thripsey Shee a year and a day by mortal time, but by fairy time, many years elapsed: seven, eight, or it might be nine; no one knows since no one keeps a reckoning."

Madouc stood in bemused silence. Then she asked: "Am I then of fairy blood?"

"You have lived long years in human places, eating human bread and drinking human wine. Fairy stuff is delicate; who knows how much has been replaced with human dross? That is the way of it; still, all taken with all, it is not so bad a condition. Would you have it differently?"

Madouc reflected. "I would not want to change from the way I am-whatever that is. But in any case, I am grateful to you for the information."

"Save your thanks, my dear! It is just a little favor-barely enough to be reckoned."

"In that case, tell me who might be my father."

The wefkin chuckled. "You phrase the question with a nicety! Your father might be this one or he might be that one, or he might be someone far away and gone. You must ask Twisk, your mother. Would you like to meet her?"

"Very much indeed."

"I have a moment or two to spare. If you so request, I will teach you to call your mother."

"Please do!"

"Then you so request?"

"Of course!"

"I accede to your request with pleasure, and there will be no great increment to our little account. Step over here, if you will."

Madouc sidled from behind the bank of foxglove and approached the wefkin, who exuded a resinous odor, as if from crushed herbs and pine needles, mingled with bosk, pollen and musk.

"Observe!" said the wefkin in a grand voice. "I pluck a blade of saw grass; I cut a little slit here and another here; then I do thus, then so. Now I blow a gentle breath-very easy, very soft, and the virtue of the grass produces a call. Listen!"