Midwinter Nightingale (19 page)

The sedan chair, with the king in it, was very heavy. At first it was almost more than Simon thought he could manage, and he was extremely worried about old Harry.

“Can you do it?” he called.

“Got to, han't I?” Harry called back.

Going in front, Harry chose the way and struck up a footpath that led away from Darkwater Mere. “'Tis a shorter way to Saint Arling's Chapel, but over high ground. More of a climb, see, but us won't be flooded this way, nor like to meet any unfriends.”

Simon had let out the mare, Magpie, on a long leading rein, and the owl, Thunderbolt, perched on her saddle. He had considered harnessing Magpie between the carrying poles, but dismissed the idea. However, to his amusement and Harry's astonishment, they had not gone more than a hundred yards from Darkwater Farm when the flock of sheep came bustling after them. A dozen
sheep squeezed together under the sedan. The height of their backs from the ground was just enough to support its floor and the carrying poles. And this made an immense easement to the weight on the human carriers' arms and shoulders.

“Well, by gar!” exclaimed Harry. “In all my born, I never knowed such a thing! They blessed wethers makes a fair heap of difference. Reckon they'll keep His Grace right snug in there, as well!”

In fact it was plain that the warmth from the wool and the trotting animals underneath him had a very soporific effect on the king; for the first ten minutes, a stream of complaints and lamentations had issued from inside the chair, but these soon died away.

“You don't think he's dead inside there?” Simon queried anxiously. Harry peered through the peephole.

“Nay! Sleeping like a dormouse!”

The sheep too were silent; the only sound made by the procession as it snaked along the woodland path was the squelch of a hundred feet, human and animal, on the sodden, rain-soaked forest floor. Simon was worried about the weather. The rain, which had been continuous for three days, was showing a tendency to change its character; the gray, sullen sky now came wandering down in snowflakes.

“How long will it take us to get to Saint Arling's Chapel this way?” he asked Harry.

“Matter o' forty minutes—don't we meet no hindrances.”

There were remarkably few hindrances at present, Simon thought, mentally crossing his fingers. The forest seemed strangely empty; there were no rabbits to be seen, no squirrels, no foxes, no deer. Could they all have fled, seeking higher ground? The only wildlife he thought he saw, a couple of times, and that a long way off in the dim distance, were two bulky shadowy creatures, far too large for foxes and the wrong shape for deer—could they possibly be bears? The idea was so unlikely that he did not even mention it to Harry.

But now there came a small interruption to their quiet progress: The owl, Thunderbolt, suddenly and silently took off from Magpie's saddlebow, lifted into the boughs overhead and returned next moment to perch on Simon's shoulder, clutching a white pigeon.

“Well, I'm blessed! What have you brought me now, Thunderboy?”

“Pears to me that pigeon be carrying summat a-wrapped round is ankle!” called Harry. “Best we stop a minute and you take a look, Mester Simon.”

Conveniently the path here twisted between hip-high boulders. Harry and Simon were able to rest the carrying poles on these rocks and take a much-needed rest; and the sheep gratefully strayed away to munch the greenery on the forest floor.

Thunderbolt gently let go his hold on the pigeon, who seemed uninjured but affronted at his sudden capture and shook his disturbed feathers to rights before fluttering
away. A small packet had been attached to his leg, wrapped in oiled silk. Simon undid the wrappings and unfolded the paper inside them. He read: “Dear Cousin Titania: Snow and terrible weather up here hinder our troop setting sail at present. Best you go to F.H., as I told you in my last letter, to see what they are up to. Pray do your best to keep you-know-who alive. Aelfric Bloodarrow.”

Oh, dear, thought Simon. Nobody is as simple as they seem. Not that Aunt Titania did seem particularly simple. Where is F.H. and what can she be doing there?

Frowning, he showed the paper to Harry, who said, “Nay, I'm no scholard, Mester Simon. And don't-ee read it out loud to me; trees have ears, I'm thinking…. Best we be on our way.”

But before they could move on, an arrow sang between the trees and stuck quivering in the path just ahead of the sedan chair. A voice cried, “Halt! Don't move!”

Simon hastily slipped the paper into his pocket, just as a fair-haired man moved out onto the path ahead of them. He was dressed in tattered gray-green clothes that were a cunning match for the autumnal foliage still hanging on the branches. He had an arrow notched in his bow, and looking past him, Simon could see a number of other men, similarly dressed, similarly armed, in among the trees.

“Don't move!” the man warned again. “Our shafts are tipped with devil's claw juice; one of these through ye
and you'd turn up your toes afore you could take another step.”

“Who are you?” Simon asked quietly. “And by what right are you stopping us?”

“URSA, that's what we are, young mister,” said the man.

“URSA, what is URSA? I never heard of it.”

“You shall, very soon, young sir! URSA will soon be a power in this land.”

“What is it?” asked Simon again. He looked questioningly at Harry, who shook his head.

“United Real Saxon Army!” said the man proudly. “Soon, I tell ye, you'll be hearing more of us. We're a proper match for all those Armoricans and Burgundians.”

“But why are you stopping us?”

“We aim to put down the tyrants. We need money.”

“We are not tyrants! We are taking a—a sick friend to Father Sam at Saint Arling's Chapel.”

“Let's see your sick friend.”

With great caution, Simon undid the buttons of the sedan's leather apron front.

The green-clad man peered in and was evidently somewhat taken aback at the sight of the king's pale, sleeping countenance. Plainly he did not recognize it.

“Wha—who—is it dinnertime? Where am I?” quavered the king.

“Don't worry, Cousin Dick, we shall be with Father Sam directly,” Simon reassured him.

“I'm thirsty! I have a pain in my toe! A pain in my tooth! I'm hungry!”

“Very soon,
dear
Cousin Dick, we shall be able to take care of all those things. Will you kindly let us pass?” Simon said to the green man. “You can see that our friend is very ill.”

Querying looks passed between the green man and his mates in the trees.

“Got any cash on you?” he asked hopefully.

As it happened, Simon had a hundred pounds on him, in paper money, which had been hastily thrust on him by the lord chamberlain when he had been asked to search for the missing king. But he was certainly not going to part with it to these fly-by-night characters.

“I could let you have a couple of pounds,” he said cautiously “But what do you want money for? How do I know you'd make good use of it?”

He noticed Harry give him a warning glance.

“Us'ud take meditation lessons,” said the man unexpectedly. “Into meditation in a big way, us Real Saxons be! Oswin there, he can rise right off the ground when he's meditated for half an hour or so. Alwyn can too.”

“What do you need meditation for if you're an army?”

“Binds us together like brothers.”

“Oh, very 'well!” said Simon. He pulled two gold sovereigns from his pocket. “Here you are. Now will you allow us to go on our way?”

“Certingly, guvnor,” said the man heartily. “And very
much obliged to-ee.
You
be our brother now. Don't-ee go below this height, mind, in the woods, for the dam's due to bust anytime—there she goes, hark!” he added, as a distant dead sound, between a throb and a thump, quivered through the forest. “Now the water'll come up in a hurry, and bad luck to all the roe deer and foxes that haven't shifted their quarters already….”

“Talking of animals,” said Simon, “you live in the woods; have you seen any beasts that look like bears lately?”

The green man grinned. “The bears was the Burgundians' big mistake,” he explained. “Ordered em from Muscovy, they did, and a pretty penny they Rooshians asked for em, so I'm told—and they all took sick, no use to anybody, so they turned em loose in the woods.
Boots
was what they had ordered, but bless your soul, they Rooshians don't understand a word of Burgundian, simmingly, and
bears
was what they got. Thank you, young mister, a safe journey to ye.”

He and his comrades melted away among the trees. Then, suddenly, he was back again. “They sheep, gaffer? They be yourn?”

“Why, yes,” Simon said. “I bought them—paid for them. Why?”

“If ye didn't want them, we could find a use for em.”

“I do want them.”

“No matter.” He was gone again.

Simon and Harry picked up the carrying poles. The sheep reassembled themselves under the chair.

“When, when shall we get there?” fretted the king.

“Very, very soon now, Cousin Dick. I can see the spire of Saint Arling's Chapel ahead, past those holly trees.”

As they struggled on—both Simon and Harry exhausted by this time, and even the sheep seemed tired— Simon suddenly said, “I wonder what was the matter with the bears?”

out of the lift at the cellar level, she had the presence of mind to scoop up a handful of half-burned candles that lay on the floor before venturing out. She knew that she must waste no time in removing herself, for Lot would surely come down after her as soon as the lift returned to ground level.

It was pitch dark down there. She lit one of her candle stubs, packing the rest into her pocket. Beyond the lift entrance, facing her, she could see a warren of narrow, brick-built vaulted passages that led away in half a dozen directions. Impossible to know which to choose, but the choice must be made fast, for she heard the lift creak and groan as it started on its upward journey.

She took the passage on the extreme left and started along it, noticing that its walls were lined with wooden wine racks containing hundreds of bottles. Wow! Lot
must enjoy himself down here, she thought. I bet he often comes down here. Maybe I shoulda taken one o' the other passages, but maybe they are all the same, stuffed with wine bottles.

Before she had gone very far, she almost tripped over a bulky object that lay on the floor of the passage. The object seemed to be a canvas sack containing coins. Realizing that she was almost on the point of collapse, weak and trembling, Dido sat down on it. It chinked. A sack of sixpences, she thought. Who was saying summat about a sack of sixpences? And then she remembered that it was the Woodlouse…. Something about Baron Magnus having lost his power because a sack of sixpences fell on him …But, if so, why would he keep it in the cellar? You'd think he'd want to get rid of it! But maybe somebody else put it in the cellar?

I must sit still for a moment, thought Dido; my legs feel about to buckle.

In the past couple of hours she had seen two people whom she liked and respected ejected from life as horribly and heartlessly as if they had been wasps or rats. That Piers, she thought, was a real spunky little character, in spite of being scared to death most of the time— and for good reason: He chose to help me and
did
help me, and he was game as a little cock-sparrer when it come to crossing the moat on stilts. Though, mind you, that was a clung-headed thing to do and I only wish I'd stopped him. But he would go….

And, as to what they had done to Frankie
Herodsfoot—it didn't bear thinking about. But she couldn't help the thoughts; they would push in. Dido had encountered Lord Herodsfoot some years ago. They had met on a Pacific island where he was searching for unusual games to entertain the former king, King Richard's father, and Dido was on a roundabout way home to England from New Cumbria. And a right decent cove he was, Dido remembered, a bit vague and wandering in his ways but just as sound as a nut when you got to know him. Why did they ever have to keep him in a box? How long was he in that box? No, it don't bear thinking of.

Just the same, she had to think of it, and the thought was so wretched that she stood up, clambered past the sack of coins and started walking fast. I wonder which is the worst of those three? The old duchess is even nastier than my ma—which is saying a good deal; and young Lot is just about as stupid and spiteful as they come— and a drunk, as well; and as for that Baron Magnus, if I had to choose between him and a snake for company on a desert island, I know which I'd pick.