Spring (37 page)

‘Could you possibly allow me a further quaff or two of that excellent me-mea-meadth-thath me . . . You know . . . the me-mea-to give me courage to speak free-freth . . . feelree?’

Pike glanced at Brief, who nodded at Jack, who poured Barklice more of the intoxicating brew.

He gulped it down so fast that it spilt down both sides of his chin and induced, even before he had quite finished it, a giggle which became a hollow laugh reverberating into the wooden beaker from which he had just drunk.

‘Oh yes!’ he cried suddenly, throwing the beaker aside with abandon. ‘I understand all too well why Stort, excellent fellow though he was, might have wished to end his days and indeed did so. It was not an act of despair but of courage! A bold recognition that the interminable pain of . . . of . . .’

‘Of what, for goodness sake?’ demanded Pike, now just as exasperated as Brief.

‘Come c-clo . . . clother,’ Barklice said conspiratorially, as if what he had to impart was something that could only be whispered, lest there were dark creatures, lurking outside the range of the light of their fire, who might hear. ‘Clother thtill . . .’

They all came very close indeed.

‘You ask of what!?’ he roared, so loud that they started back, and then, nearly silent again, and still shedding more tears, ‘Talk of
what
? That sad state that sensitive souls such as he and I suffer but never complain of . . .’

They looked at each other blankly.

‘What state?’ asked Brief, glowering.

‘Loneliness,’ pronounced Barklice sonorously. ‘The deep, existential, ghastly, never-ending loneliness of feeling as he did, as I do – for this is what we were talking of before you came – that hydden such as us are endlessly alone in this vast Universe of Earth and stars, moon and planets, without hope of ever finding the companionship, the solace and the love – I say the love – of one of the unobtainables.’

He stopped, a strange hopeless yet serene grin on his face, as in one who has faced his fate and finally accepted it.

‘What exactly,’ Brief whispered softly to Pike, ‘is he talking about?’

‘What is it, Master Brief, that we all seek but so rarely find? Yet how would you, who moves in the rarefied world of pollar . . . of pollarshiss . . . of . . . sko . . .’

‘Of scholarship?’

‘That’s right, of pollarsick. How could
you
possibly know?’

They waited for him to answer his own question.

Barklice rolled his head, and also his eyes within his head. ‘It seems no one but I knew the depth of poor Stort’s desire for that which is unobtainable to the likes of us!’

‘Enlighten us,’ said Brief, now genuinely curious as to what his companion was trying to say.

‘More brew and I’ll tell you!’

‘No,’ growled Pike. ‘Tell us right away or I’ll throttle you with my bare hands.’

Barklice took this threat seriously, breathed deeply and finally explained, ‘The love of one of the female gender, that is what is unobtainable. That is why Stort took his life so nobly. He knew he could never be loved.’

‘But, Barklice . . .’

But it was too late, for the verderer’s head slumped onto his chest and he fell asleep. Even when they pinched his cheeks and poured cold water over his head, all he could do was mumble idiotically of love and the Universe and of females, before falling asleep again.

‘All I know,’ said Pike much later, after some further searching and constant shouting of Stort’s name, ‘is that if he went down into the lake – and it looks like he did – he’s not coming back now.’

‘He was one of the most creative and inventive hydden I ever knew,’ Brief said finally. ‘So it is hard to believe he’s dead and gone!’

After due pause, Brief turned to the rest of them and continued, ‘I suggest, with heavy heart, that we sleep now, for we have a long journey tomorrow.’

But Jack was not happy with that. ‘Master Brief, you were going to answer some of my questions and tell me about the Hyddenworld, and about . . . well, everything I need to know.’

‘Need to know for what?’ replied Brief testily as he opened his portersac and took out his bedroll, the others soon following suit.

‘About . . . what’s happening. Who exactly has taken Katherine?’

Brief raised his eyebrows mysteriously and began bedding down.

‘And how did you know to come and get me?’ Jack persevered.

‘Humph!’ murmured Brief as he folded his cloak up, to make a pillow of it.

‘And what exactly is . . . I mean where is . . . Brum? What’s that all about? And your carved stave and how it works, I wouldn’t mind you explaining that as well.’

‘Ah!’ said Brief noncommittally.

Pike was already lying snug on the ground and well covered, his eyes closing.

‘Hmmm!’ murmured Brief sleepily.

Jack undid his own bedroll, took off his tunic to provide something serviceable on which to rest his head, and said, ‘And another thing, Master Brief . . . who exactly am I?’

Brief sat up again.

Pike’s eyes shot open.

‘Well?’ demanded Jack.

‘Now that’s the sort of question you
should
be asking!’ said Brief. ‘Shouldn’t he, Pike?’

‘That’s always the one,’ replied Pike. ‘“Who am I?” is always a good question to ask.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘Aher ghah!’ said Brief which seemed to indicate, if this utterance meant anything, that he had no immediate answer.

Pike simply shook his head and closed his eyes again.

‘Tomorrow,’ murmured Brief, lying back. ‘Let’s talk about these thorny issues tomorrow, yes?’

‘Well, I really wanted . . .

But Brief’s breathing deepened, his limbs jerked, he snorted and snored a bit, and then he was fast asleep.

‘Mister Pike? Are you awake?’

‘No,’ said Pike, ‘I’m not.’

Jack lay down and turned on his side, facing Barklice, the only one still wide awake.

‘I don’t suppose
you
know who I am?’ asked Jack very sleepily.

‘Me?’ replied Barklice. ‘Of course I do – everyone does. Master Brief was just being difficult.’

But Jack, not expecting a sensible answer, was listening no more and Barklice, feeling he had said enough for one evening, spoke no more on that subject just then, for he saw that Jack eyes were closing, his body relaxing, and that he too was falling asleep.

So Barklice mumbled about love and the stars instead.

Then he fell silent and just grinned at the night.

Then he had another turn and said, ‘Gesheshmen . . . ge . . . gents, I wish to make an . . . an . . . an . . . annnouncementyment! I have seen a great light!’

But no one was listening.

He fell silent, shaking his head and striving no more to make them listen.

Which was a pity because in a way he was quite right. He
had
seen a light, though it came not from the stars but the far side of the lake. The light flashed again, and then once more.

‘Stort?’ he murmured sleepily. ‘Could that possibly be you?’

Then he too fell asleep.

T
he night had gone badly for Bedwyn Stort, but not as badly as for his bewildered friends, who given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of his death, were presuming him lost for ever.

Like so many of his schemes, it had begun with the best of intentions and most logical of ideas.

He’d used the string, tube and polystyrene he had collected and, in a trice, turned them into a breathing apparatus, using the string to affix the tube to his person in such a way that it stayed adjacent to his mouth.

His purpose was to swim with his head under the water and attempt to plot those parts of the Quoits which were now submerged, just to satisfy himself of their location and scale.

The fact that he could not swim did not deter him.

He reasoned that all he needed was buoyancy, and there were plenty of lumps of polystyrene floating about the place to provide that. All that was necessary was to attach bits to his various limbs with the pieces of string and tape so liberally washed up on the shore, and then all would be well.

Thus attired he had lumbered through the shallows and entered the water. It was rather colder than he expected but to one such as Stort, on a new quest for knowledge, this was just a trivial inconvenience. The chilly phase passed and, having got himself in order, and his limbs more or less functioning as paddles, he submerged his head and found to his delight that his latest invention worked very well indeed.

He could propel himself about, see reasonably well and float well enough to stay alive. He swam about like this, getting used to his equipment for a little while, before beginning to focus on his study.

The water being so still and clear he was able to follow the line of the sunken henge for some way out into the lake. He was rather surprised to see, as he swam along, a great deal of discarded machinery, several bicycles, a perfect cardboard box which swayed slightly in its waterlogged state at his passing, and a few fish rather larger and more toothy than he would have liked.

Stort had an aversion to animals, whatever genus they were, especially those with teeth. And that particular evening, it seemed to him that the fishy creatures below eyed him not with the welcoming warmth due a fellow traveller in Earth’s waters, but with the lustful stare of predators in search of their next meal.

But his continuing interest in the henge overcame this fear and he pressed on, finding much of interest. When the water below him grew too deep and murky for him to see further, he decided to make a left turn and seek out the other arm of the sunken relic.

It was at this point that he momentarily lost his sense of direction and turned round not once nor twice but three times in all. The moment he did so, and as he reached the far north-easterly limit of the henge, something very strange began to happen. The strings and suchlike that held his buoyancy aid unaccountably tightened very painfully and then, before he was able to loosen them with his hand, they all snapped of one accord. The result was that he began to sink towards the bottom very rapidly.

In such circumstances, scientific curiosity rather than personal survival overtook him. True, it was an unhappy way to end his days . . .

Yet
he told himself,
at least I shall have the rare benefit of observing my own death, which should be interesting to say the least.

Moments later, his chest already beginning to cause him pain as he realized he could not involuntarily hold his breath for ever, a new thought occurred to him.

Ah!
he reasoned.
I spy another opportunity. Most certainly death is of interest, but I cannot say I am enjoying the process of drowning. Let me therefore work out how to swim from first principles. Now . . .

He might well have done so there and then – though not in time to save his life, seconds only remaining – when, hitting the bottom of the lake, his eardrums hurting, his lungs feeling as they were about to explode, his mind beginning to spin, he found himself staring into the eyes and then mouth of a creature of the deep, the kind of which nightmares are made.

Its eyes were a luminescent yellow, its mouth set in a gaping grin of welcome and its teeth sharp, long and rather evilly curved.

Reason deserted him, replaced by fear. All interest in the study of his own death gave way at last to the instinct for survival. The fish he had fallen upon was a pike. As it swished its tail and wiggled its spiked dorsal fin Stort’s feet sought the lake floor, found purchase and he launched himself upward like a shooting star. So hard did he push that he shot straight to the surface, and upward a good way after that, before landing back on the surface with a splash.

Even as he did so he realized that, if he was not to sink back into the welcoming mouth of the pike, he had indeed better learn to swim, and
fast
. He therefore thrashed his arms in the water like the wheels of a cart, and pushed his legs back and forth like the pistons of a steam train. It was a cumbersome manoeuvre but it worked.

He moved through the water with remarkable speed, continuing until his strength began to fail. As he weakened, he discovered he was still as afloat as before, yet quite free of that difficulty of movement he had suffered when he still possessed his buoyancy aids.

In short, Stort had taught himself to swim!

Euphoria set in and he gadded about the surface for quite a time until he realized two things: first, that the evening had become night and he was utterly lost, and second that he had lost his combinations and all else and was now in a state of nature.

It was then that he heard his friends frantically shouting his name, and shortly after, the water carrying the sound all too clearly, he heard raised voices and suspected that Brief and Pike were angry with him.

That, and his desire not to be discovered naked, made him turn tail and swim as quietly as he could in the opposite direction. Matters, he trusted, could be sorted out in the morning. And, anyway, the wind was with him and it seemed the current too, for he felt himself being carried along without much effort.