The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (8 page)

“A what?”

“A long stick, suitable for prodding and lambasting.”

“Oh, a
ffon.
That be a peasant’s weapon. And forsooth, who careth?”

Torchyld leaped to his feet and went on the prowl. It wasn’t long before he found a
ffon
to his liking, about six feet long and as big around as Dan Stott’s arm. Peter thought it more suited for tossing the caber than hand-to-hand combat, but he didn’t say so.

“Might ye rest of us not equip ourselves with
ffons,
too, if I may be so bold as to offer ye suggestion?” Medrus ventured.

With his eyes now fully open and all those beechnuts under his kilt, the clerk looked a shade less weedy, though still a wretchedly inferior specimen. His suggestion was sensible enough, though, so they all began equipping themselves according to their tastes. Tim chose a sturdy branch about three feet long with a knob at the top, which he could use as a war club or a walking stick as occasion offered. Medrus followed his example on a punier scale to befit his rank and stature. Dan Stott managed to find a tall staff with the top looped over to suggest a shepherd’s crook or a bishop’s crozier.

Dan did look remarkably like a bishop, or some such august personage, in that long white robe and headdress, with the fillet of gold across his hairless brow. No wonder the hag had fallen for him, Peter thought. He himself aroused Torchyld’s derision by selecting not one but three sticks: short, straight, and strong; none of them bigger around than a plant stick. He also gathered up a few feathers the starling had shed when it fell out of the tree, and stowed them in a fold of his robe.

Peter was also still carrying the harp, which Torchyld appeared to have handed over to him on the strength of his stellar performance back in the cave. Now he hoisted it back over his shoulder and jerked his head forward.

“What do you say, men? Let’s start hunting for water. I want a drink and I want a bath. And I want to wash this filthy damned burnous I’m wearing. And then I want a nap. The rest of you at least managed to get a little sleep last night. I never closed my eyes.”

“It still amazeth me, noble druid, that ye alone were not felled by Gwrach’s magic potion,” Medrus remarked.

“That so?” Shandy gave him a narrow look. “It amazeth me that you know her name all of a sudden. Back there a while, you said you didn’t.”

“Great sir, I durst not men utter it. Mayhap I should not have dursted now.”

“You mean the evil that she did lives after her?”

“I cannot say. I only fear.”

“Laugh it off,” Tim snorted. “Mayhap you can snicker up a stack of buckwheat cakes. Let’s strike downhill, Pete. We’re more apt to find water on low ground. Besides, I’d rather go down than up.”

“Right, Tim.”

Peter was growing deeply concerned for his old buddy. Tim was a tough old rooster for his years, but he wouldn’t be able to stand much more of this. He’d keep going till he dropped, of course, rather than admit he was done in, but how soon was he going to drop? It was an ineffable relief to come upon an open, grassy bank with a genteel creek meandering through. Better still, the sun they’d seen back at the cave mouth and hardly been able to glimpse since then in the thick forest was warming the grass nicely.

They all crouched at the water’s edge and took long drinks. Then Peter remarked, “Great day for the wash,” stripped off his soiled robe, and waded in with it over his arm, leaving the harp, the feathers, and his three sticks on the bank.

“How’s the water, Pete?” Tim asked him.

“Great. Come on in, everybody. Good for what ails you.”

Torchyld plunged in as a warrior should, splashing and wallowing and insisting it wasn’t a bit cold once you got ducked. Tim followed, then Dan Stott, still wearing his white robe and looking a bit like Moby Dick. At last Medrus waded in ankle deep and dithered there moaning until Torchyld picked him up by the ankles and pitched him in head first. Once over the initial shock, he paddled around like a puppy and put on airs about his bravery in entering this foreign element.

Without soap, they couldn’t get themselves or their clothes really clean. They did their best, however, all except Medrus, who couldn’t seem to grasp the principle of washing. At last, refreshed and at least semipurified, they came ashore, spread out their garments to dry on the grass, and eased themselves down to rest. Before long, Torchyld caught the older men yawning.

“How can ye sleep?” he chided. “Men on ye march drowse not without first setting a sentry.”

He sounded as if he hoped they’d talk him out of the idea, but nobody did so he had to sit alone listening to Tim snore, Dan snuffle, and Medrus emit strange whuffling noises like a dog dreaming of chasing a rabbit. Peter merely slept, or tried to until he felt himself being prodded in the ribs.

“Hist, druid,” whispered the self-appointed sentry. “Something cometh.”

“What cometh?” Peter growled back. “Why couldn’t you wake somebody else?”

“Because ye old one and ye fat one outrank me, and ye scrawny runt I trust not. Behold.”

Peter sat up and beheld. “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” he exclaimed when he’d spotted the object bobbing toward them down we stream. “A floating washtub. Is that what they call a coracle?”

The vessel looked to be about the size and shape of his grandmother’s zinc bathtub, woven basketwise of osiers or some such withy material, and covered with stretched cowhide. Shandy had seen pictures of them, but had never really believed anybody would voluntarily set out from shore in so flimsy a craft.

“Who’s in it?” he asked Torchyld. “Can you see?”

“I see nobody. It floateth high on ye water, yet acts as if it were being steered.”

Torchyld waded out into the stream, his staff held ready just in case. In a moment, the coracle had bobbed close enough for him to look inside.

“Empty,” he announced. “Unless there be a disembodied boatman.”

“That be entirely possible.”

It was Medrus who’d spoken. Their talk had wakened him and Timothy Ames, who were both eyeing the coracle with keen interest.

“Bring it ashore, son,” Tim called out.

Before Torchyld could obey, the little boat of itself changed course and swerved in the direction of Tim’s voice.

“It obeyeth ye archdruid,” laughed the king’s great-nephew. “Come hither, boat.” He waded ashore. Sure enough, the coracle bobbed along behind him, into the shallows next to the bank.

Now that he could get a good look at it, Peter saw that the wicker frame was skillfully woven and the hide covering shrunk so tight to it that it made a dry, light, and probably efficient craft. It would be tippy and cranky to steer until you got the hang of it, but could be rowed or paddled without much effort.

He’d heard Welsh fishermen would take their coracles out off the coast in all weathers. He’d hate to try that himself, but on a meandering creek like this one, the little boat might be at least a temporary answer to Tim’s fatigue. The problem was, how could they all fit in? The coracle looked as if it would founder under the weight of Torchyld and Dan alone, not to mention trying to squeeze the others in around them.

Maybe it would be possible to make a rope of vines or strips from their robes, and float the coracle along with Tim and that poor shrimp Medrus in it while the rest towed from the bank. That was, of course, provided the stream flowed in the direction they wanted to take. He asked Torchyld. The young giant only stared at him.

“Dost expect me to know? I thought ye did.”

“But how the hell—” Peter caught himself. He’d forgotten he was supposed to be infallible. While he was wondering how to save face, Dan Stott blinked, opened his eyes without undue haste, and slowly sat up.

“Ah,” he remarked. “The boat has arrived.”

“Cripes, Dan, you sound as if you’ve been expecting it,” said Tim.

“Let us rather say that I am not surprised. Such craft are frequent manifestations in the vignettes of local history to which I alluded earlier. It has come to take us on the next leg of our journey.”

“The hell it has. Where’s that?”

“We shall no doubt be informed when we get there.”

Stott arose, picked up his now dry robe, shook it free of lounging grasshoppers, and put it on. He adjusted the gold fillet around his head-covering, made a discreet trip behind a convenient tree, came back, and announced, “I am ready.”

“You’re actually going to ride in that boat?” Tim demanded.

“We all are, are we not?”

“How the hell can we? The damn thing’s no bigger than my Aunt Winona’s old sitz bath.”

“I suggest that Sir Torchyld and I, because of our greater weight and girth, take the bow and stern respectively. If you and Medrus sit side by side in front of me and Peter takes his place between you two and Sir Torchyld, we should be able to trim the boat adequately.”

“Trim, hell! She’ll be slam on the bottom with all hands before we can get our rumps planted.”

“I believe not. Such an occurrence has not cropped up in any of the literature sent by my sister Matilda. Passengers are merely wafted over the rippling waters while gentle breezes fan their temples. Sometimes ethereal music is heard, sometimes not.”

“Sometimes there’s a rudder and sail, or a pair of oars, or some damn thing to navigate with, isn’t there?” Tim insisted.

“Such accoutrements are not strictly necessary,” Dan informed him. “The boat is guided by mysterious forces.”

“What forces?”

“That detail is never explained, possibly to enhance the atmosphere of mystery. One merely trusts. Sir Torchyld, if you and I get in simultaneously from opposite sides, I believe we shall thus minimize the danger of capsizing.”

Tim snickered meanly. “Some trust. Go ahead, Dan. We can all use a good laugh. Might bring down something else to eat.”

“There is, as I rather anticipated, a lunch basket in the boat,” Dan replied mildly, setting one large foot in the flimsy craft and pulling the other in after it.

Torchyld stepped briskly aboard at the same time. Shandy watched for the coracle to founder. To his astonishment, it appeared to ride almost as high in the water as before. Stott and Torchyld were now passing chicken legs, jam tarts, and bunches of grapes back and forth like two ladies at a tea party. Medrus moaned.

“Might I not go in ye coracle, great druids? It be so long, so very long—”

“Oh, what the hell? Come on. Here, boys, take your staves.”

Peter got Tim and Medrus stowed aboard, then he climbed over the gunwale himself. It was a tight squeeze, even with his knees up under his chin, but at least he got his jam tart before Torchyld ate them all.

“Now who’s going to shove off?” Tim demanded with his mouth full of chicken. “Assuming we can get off at all.”

“We are already afloat,” Dan told him, reaching calmly for the last drumstick.

Lo and behold, they were. The coracle had moved out into the middle of the stream and the mysterious forces were buckling down to serious business. They were none of them comfortable but the chicken was juicy, the fruit was sweet, and for drink they had only to dangle their cupped hands over the side and scoop up the cold, clear river water.

The water was remarkably good in this enchanted land. Peter only hoped it wasn’t laden with typhus germs. Probably it wasn’t. That would come with modern progress. He drank some more and rubbed his wet hands across his face to wash off the traces of his picnic lunch. He needed a shave. So did Dan. Tim hadn’t shaved in years, and he doubted whether Medrus had ever shaved at all; though Torchyld’s blond mustache was at least decently trimmed.

There was something to be said for beards. He’d have one himself, no doubt, before they got out of this mess. A gray one. If they ever did. He sighed and tried to find a more comfortable position. It wasn’t easy, sitting scrunched up on this blasted wickerwork. The crew’s backsides would look like a plate of waffles by the time they disembarked. Why couldn’t the mysterious forces have laid on a bigger boat? And a few cushions?

Nice of them to have thought of the lunch, though. Too bad there wasn’t more of it. The forces must have been expecting a smaller party. At least they were moving the boat along at a good clip. It was rolling slightly now. Medrus was beginning to look a bit green.

“Lean over the side and wet your head if you start to feel funny,” Peter told the clerk.

“Great druid, I dare not move.”

“You’d damn well better move if you’re going to be sick,” Tim growled.

Maybe Medrus did and maybe he didn’t. Peter couldn’t stay awake to find out. The warm sun, the gentle breeze wafting as predicted about their temples, the rocking motion of the boat, were lulling him and the rest back to sleep. Torchyld, who’d so gallantly kept watch while they were napping back on the riverbank, was already snuffling gently, murmuring “Syglinde” every so often and looking surprisingly angelic. Dan Stott was probably asleep, too. It was hard to tell, with Dan.

Medrus had dropped off when Shandy roused himself to check, and was making those whimpering noises again. Poor bastard, Peter thought muzzily. God alone knew what horrors he’d been subjected to by that monstress Gwrach, aside from the trauma of being disembodied. Or what he’d gone through beforehand, if it came to that. Lord Mochyn couldn’t have been the world’s greatest employer, either. Any human being who’d be willing to engage in sexual congress (Peter was something of a prude in certain ways) with a creature like that deserved to wind up in the soup.

He didn’t feel so well, himself. Maybe the chicken had been slightly off from sitting out in the sun in that picnic basket. Not that he’d had enough of it to matter.

And that was still an interesting point to consider. He’d had no previous experience of enchantments, but it did seem as if whatever power was engineering this excursion could have provided more adequate accommodations. Unless the coracle was just some kind of ferryboat that drifted around looking for business and took anybody who came along, regardless. Or unless the mysterious forces had been expecting a smaller group, as he’d wondered before.

They mightn’t have counted on Medrus. He’d been sort of an accidental addition, though not a big enough one to count for much. It was Torchyld who really made the difference. And it was Torchyld whom the hags had been out to get. That old bat Dwydd had made two attempts on his life already that Peter knew about: once when she’d disenchanted his sword and presented him with those two quite possibly poisoned biscuits as he was on his way to kill the wyvern; and the second when she’d swiped the griffin and the girl to create a situation that would send him into the clutches of Gwrach, weaponless and distraught over his sudden demotion from hero to villain. Gwrach herself had talked of sending Dwydd a thank-you note for the lovely dinner, so there could be no doubt the whole thing was a put-up job.