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Authors: Joan Aiken

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“Thank you, thank you,” replied the Seljuk, hurriedly gulping the coffee from his tiny gold demitasse, “but pray don't trouble, put yourself out, turn topsy-turvy on my account; wild creatures do not tickle my fancy (not to spin you a yarn or put too fine a point upon it); indeed we have rather too many of them in my homeland. No, what would really solace, cheer, rejoice, warm the cockles, drive dull care away, would be to see your lordship's collection of gold articles.”
“Ah yes, of course,” Lord Malyn said carelessly. “You are quite an expert on gold, are you not; I was forgetting you had told me so at Pennygaff. Come then, by all means.”
And he led the way through his library, past long shelves of heavily gilt volumes, into another room furnished entirely with glass cases. These were all filled with gold objects; every conceivable thing that could be made from gold seemed to have its place there: gold tools, gold weapons, ornaments, and utensils; there was a gold spinning-wheel,
a gold musket, even a gold dictionary, with the words printed on sheets of gold-leaf.
The Marquess called for more candles, and when these were brought the effect among all the treasures there was strangely magical; a kind of shimmer filled the room as if the very air had become imbued with gold particles.
“Ah, how truly gladsome, pleasing, felicitous,” exclaimed the Seljuk, and he strolled between the cases, looking very intently first at one object, then at another. While he thus examined the exhibits Lord Malyn, in his turn, watched the Seljuk very sharply, concealing his scrutiny under a pretence of weariness.
“My dear host, what a store, what prizes you have! And so resplendently polished! And such a charmingly warm room!”
“Oh, my servants attend to the polishing,” Lord Malyn said, gracefully stifling a yawn. “And as for the warmth, I can claim no credit for that, it is natural; I have merely had pipes laid from Nant Agerddau to my castle; they carry hot vapour underground from the Whispering Mountain. So I have a never-failing supply of heat. The pipes come up underneath the castle; even my dungeons are warm.” And he smiled benevolently, pouring the links of his gold snake-chain from one hand to the other.
“Indeed, how very ingenious and de luxe,” the Seljuk said absently. He was studying a set of gold fish-hooks. “Tell me, pray, my amiable friend, where did you procure these?”
“Strangely enough, they were picked up on the shore not far from here. Such gold articles are sometimes found on the shore hereabouts; it is thought that perhaps an old
treasure-ship may lie wrecked somewhere off our coast.”
- “Ah, so? And this gold flute?”
“I had it from an old lady in Nant Agerddau; she had inherited it from her father who always declared he had picked it up in a quarry on the side of Fig-hat Ben. More probably he stole it.”
There were golden cymbals, too, and a small gold trumpet.
“You do not have a harp?” the Seljuk inquired, glancing about the room.
“ … No, not at present,” Lord Malyn answered after a slight pause. “Are you interested in harps?”
“It might be easiest to tell from a harp,” the Seljuk murmured, half to himself. Peering closely at a gold kettle, he added, “I recall some legend of a gold harp told me by a friend of mine, a Brother Ianto.”
Lord Malyn started, as if his gold-linked toy had turned into a tiger-snake and bitten him. His eyes dilated.
“Brother lanto?
You
know
Brother Ianto? Of the Order of St. Ennodawg?”
“Indeed, yes!” Puffing a little, the Seljuk leaned forward to examine a gold bridle. “If it were not for the good brother I should now be demised, bumped off, dead as a doornail, my dear sir! I have much cause to be obliged to Brother Ianto; last year he was so obliging as to pull me out of the far distant Oxus river.”
“Oh—last year—” Lord Malyn's excitement died down again as quickly as it had sprung up.
“So,” pursued the Seljuk chattily, inspecting a pair of gold bellows, “it was perforce one of my first concerns to meet, make contact, forgather with this lovable ecclesiastic
as soon as the affairs of the Kingdom of Rum permitted me to visit your country.”
“Brother Ianto is in
Wales?”
Now the Marquess's eyes fairly blazed: the Seljuk appeared mildly startled by the interest his words had excited.
“Dear me, yes; I had the pleasure of calling on him yesterday in his homely grotto.”
The Marquess had turned and was tugging at a bell-pull; when Garble, ever alert for a summons, came silently in, his master said sharply,
“Garble! Send somebody at once to search for a monk, a Brother Ianto, who is to be found inhabiting a grotto—where did you say you found him?” he demanded of the Seljuk. “At Nant Agerddau? very well. Don't delay, Garble. If there should be a harp with him, that is to be brought also.”
“Yes, your lordship.”
The door closed softly behind Garble.
“What a kind thought to bring him here!” the Seljuk said. “Then I too shall have the pleasure of seeing my obliging preserver again. But Brother Ianto has no harp I can assure you, pledge credit, warrant, etc. If he had, I should have been greatly interested to see it.”
“Oh? And why would that have been, my dear guest?”
Lord Malyn was making an attempt to mask his excitement under an appearance of calm; he led the way into a smaller apartment fitted up as a withdrawing room with sofas and tanks of tiger-fish. The Marquess flung himself on a sofa and gestured to his visitor to do likewise; the Seljuk, giving a glance full of dislike at the tiger-fish,
turned his plump back on them and gazed instead at an eight-foot maidenhair fern.
“Why are you so interested in harps? What can you learn from a harp?” Lord Malyn repeated.
“Why, who made it, of course, naturally, to be sure,” the Seljuk said simply.
“And what is that to the purpose?”
“In order to explain that, I must needs relate you a portion of history, my dear host, ally, and patron. Some three years ago a message in a bottle was picked up in the harbour of Sa'ir, which, as you may know, is the chief port of my country. Naturally this message was brought to me, as the Seljuk.”
“And what did it say?”
“It was written in a very ancient form of our Rummish language. It said,”Alas, alas, far from our warm homeland we, the Tribe of Yehimelek, languish in darkness and sorrow, hidden beneath the Whispering Mountain.”
“Indeed?” commented the Marquess. “And what did you understand from this mysterious message?”
“Why, sir, it so happens that some generations ago a portion of my subjects were lost, mislaid, let slip; naturally I am most anxious to restore these poor creatures to their homeland. Since the message was picked up I have sent out missions to investigate mountains reported to be whispering in any parts of the world. Then, happening to encounter Brother Ianto last year and hearing from him of your renowned Fig-hat Ben
and
your famous legendary harp, I leapt to a conclusion, smelt a rat, resolved to leave no stone unturned, decided to visit this salubrious area myself as soon as affairs of state permitted.”
Lord Malyn's eyes had begun to gleam again.
“But what has the harp to do with this tribe? I confess I am still somewhat in the dark,” he inquired.
“The tribe of Yehimelek, my dear sir, were always famous among my people for their skill in gold-mining and gold-working. And chief among their skills in the ancient time was that of fashioning gold harps. For instance we have in our National Museum of Rum a gold harp more than two thousand years old—'
Lord Malyn's eyes gleamed even brighter. “You think the Harp of Teirtu may have been made by your lost tribe?”
“Perhaps, maybe, possibly, indeed, who knows? Certainly I was sorry to hear from the worthy curator of the Pennygaff Museum on whom I had the honour to call that his harp had just been stolen. The unfortunate gentleman seemed quite distraught indeed. Naturally I had hoped that a sight of it might allay my doubts, scruples, waverings; alack, what a slip 'twixt cup and lip!”
“But the Harp of Teirtu, after all, is also extremely old,” Lord Malyn said smoothly. “Even if it had been made by a member of the lost tribe, that does not prove that they are still in existence now.”
“No, my dear old Marquess, but then consider the message in the bottle, picked up only three years ago.”
“A message in a bottle may toss about the ocean for hundreds of years before some chance wave casts it ashore.”
“But—aha! my dear sir—this was a glass bottle embossed with the inscription ‘Llewellyn's Ginger Stingo, Cardiff, 1802'.”
“So,” Lord Malyn said slowly, “you really believe that a lost tribe of craftsmen in gold may be hidden to this very day somewhere beneath the Whispering Mountain, beneath Fig-hat Ben? My dear Seljuk, what an extraordinarily interesting guest you have proved to be! I do hope, indeed I shall endeavour to
arrange,
that you will prolong your stay beneath my roof for a long, long time.”
“Why, thank you sir, I shall be pleased, overjoyed to avail myself of your kind offer; indeed I am sure your castle will make an excellent, tophole base for exploring the neighbouring vicinity.—And now I trust you will not consider me unbred if I retire to my chamber, my good friend? I have had a somewhat travelsome day.”
“Naturally, my dear Seljuk; I wish you to consider yourself
quite
at home. Do just as you please; this, you must know, is Liberty Hall.” And the Marquess rang twice for the major-domo. But as soon as the Seljuk had been escorted to bed, amid smiles and affability, Lord Malyn rang again.
“Garble,” he said when for the third time his secretary appeared, “I want you to keep a strict watch on the Seljuk. Be discreet, don't let him see you, but follow him wherever he goes. Don't let him out of your sight for a single minute.”
B
y now Hwfa's fire was burning briskly.
“Do not try to stir yourself yet, sir,” Owen said to the hurt man. “In a moment you shall have some warm wine.”
Making certain that this was the correct treatment he pulled out his little book and consulted it, to the admiration of Luggins and Mog, neither of whom could read.
“‘Treatment for Wounds, Shock, Hyfteria: Adminifter a little Warm Stimulant, lay the patient in a Recumbent Pofition. Hot Fomentations applied to affected part. Allow fmall quantities of Gruel. The Patient should be kept cheerful, spoken to kindly yet firmly, and told to ftop any eccentricities. If necefsary adminifter a teafpoonful of Sal volatile and dafh cold water in the face.'”
“Hout, ma wean,” protested the patient, struggling to sit up. “Whit gars ye ca” me eccentric? I'm nae mair eccentric than only ither body—but I shouldna say nay to a wee drappie of yon warm stimulant.”
A little wine had now been heated in the silver cuplid of the stranger's wine-flask; this was administered; meanwhile Dove and Hwfa, under Owen's direction, pounded up a handful of chestnuts in some more of the wine and cooked the mixture into a kind of porridge.
“I'm afraid it's all we can do in the way of gruel, sir,” Owen apologized, but when a spoonful of it was offered to the hurt man he smacked his lips and declared it to be the best claut of parritch that he had tasted since coming south of the Roman wall. When it was all swallowed they tried to apply fomentations of hot wine to the stranger's wound, but at the very first attempt he let out such a yell of indignation that they were obliged to desist.
“Deil rax your thrapples, lads, are ye clean daft? Ne'er pit gude Bordeaux to sic a villainous ploy as yon! Na, na, it will gang mair glegly inside than out—” and he took the cup from Owen and drained it, muttering to himself in an undertone, “But there, whit can be expected from a wheen pock-pudding Welsh caterans?”
Owen was puzzled; he had begun to suspect that the wounded man might be the missing Prince of Wales, particularly when Dove, giving him a nudge, pointed out a crown and feathers engraved on the stranger's silver wine-flask, cup, spoon, and hunting-knife.
But why should the Prince of Wales wear a kilt and speak with a Scots accent?
This riddle was presently solved, however. The chestnut porridge did their patient so much good that he was able to sit up, declaring in a stronger tone than he had yet used that he was muckle obleeged to them and that they were as gleg and handy a set of lads as a hunter could hope to
meet. He then tried to stand, but found this beyond his power; his wounded leg had stiffened and he was unable to set it to the ground.
“Ech, oich, neighbours! Sair as I mislike tae trouble ye mair, I believe I'm obleeged to ask if ye will be sae gude as to convoy me to the nearest town. Dooms me! tae think that Davie Jamie Charlie Neddie Geordie Harry Dick Tudor-Stuart should land himself in sic a fashous fizzen-lous pass!”
“Oh, sir!” Owen exclaimed. “Then you
are
his highness the Prince of Wales!”
The other boys gaped in surprise at this, for they had not heard Mr. Smith's proclamation, having been outside the museum at the time, and so had no notion that the prince was in the neighbourhood.
“Och, aye, sirs, I'm Wales, but nae case tae mak” a plisky-plasky abeut it“—as they began awkwardly bowing and tugging at their forelocks—”in the forest, ye ken, we're a” friends thegither.”
And while the boys were collecting fallen boughs and weaving them into a rude litter to carry the prince he entertained them, in the most natural, cordial, sociable manner, with tales about his childhood in the castle of Balmoral, and the hunting he had enjoyed in the Scottish forests.
“But, Gude save us,” he concluded, “our Scots boars are douce and meek as lambs compared wi” yon flitesome Welsh tuskers! Three of the hallions set on me like Bulls o Bashan this morn in the tempest and I had muckle ado to dispatch them.—Ah, thank ye my lads, I'm fair beholden to ye“—as they assisted him on to the stretcher—
“though it fashes me to take ye out of your road.”
The flood had now diminished so that it was possible to wade across from the island, and the boys set off southwards through the forest, four taking turns as stretcher-bearers while one rested and kept a lookout. The weather was much colder now; a keen wind whistled through the trees, almost stripped of leaves by the storm; to keep the hurt man warm they covered him with dry moss scraped from the undersides of rocks.
Owen, privately, was somewhat disappointed by the commonplace appearance of the prince, a slight, active-looking man in his early thirties, with a long nose, reddish hair, and a weather-beaten complexion due to his insatiable passion for hunting. However, his sparkling dark-grey eyes and air of command made the boys treat Prince David with instinctive respect, though he continued to chat to them cheerfully as they bore him along.
Presently Owen decided that the prince seemed recovered enough to hear some intelligence of a distressing nature, and so broke it to him that his father King James III was ill and calling for him. To their astonishment the prince burst out laughing.
“Aweel, aweel,” he said at length, “it's ill tae mak” mock o' the puir auld gentleman; doubtless I maun humour him and gang back tae London; ilka path has its puddle. But I'll wager a guinea that nae mair than lanesomeness ails him; he's aye of a shilpit and dow-spirited humour when I'm awa” hunting.”
Owen then ventured to ask the prince if he had yet received the letter dictated by Bilk and Prigman and addressed to him, demanding money for the stolen harp; but
the prince had not; he had been alone, he said, hunting in the forest for the past five days, and no doubt a large bundle of mail was waiting for him at Caer Malyn, whither it had been his intention to proceed.
“Oh, sir! Then, please, when you receive the letter, tear it up and take no notice of it; indeed I was forced to write it, but I did not steal the Harp of Teirtu and do not want money for it; all I want is for it to be restored to the Pennygaff Museum.”
“Hout, mannie, what't all this hirdum-dirdum about a harp? Ne'er speir at me sae lang-nebbit, but tell me a round tale about it frae the beginning.”
Thus encouraged, Owen once more told the whole story of the harp, and the other members of the party also added their comments and amplifications to the tale as they carried the prince along. He listened with the greatest interest.
“Whisht, whisht, did ye ever hear sic a puckle pirn?” he commented. “And so who do ye jalouse has yon harp the noo, then?”
Owen did not quite like to voice his suspicions of Lord Malyn; Prince David was presumably a friend of his if he had been proposing to stay at Caer Malyn. But the other boys were more outspoken.
“No danger, sir, it's the Marquess himself! Promised to pull down the town of Pennygaff stone by stone, he did, and let the forest grow over it, if he did not get his hands on our harp. Black shame it is!” Mog said earnestly.
“Rubbish! All wrong you have it, boy!” contradicted Luggins. “Not his lordship but the foreign gentleman wanted the harp, so I was hearing.”
“There's a fool you are! It was the Marquess, look you, without a doubt!” asserted Hwfa.
“Nonsense, then! It was the foreign gentleman, indeed!” cried Dove.
“Humph!” said Prince David. “Whichever ane o' them it was, it's plain that those twa souple scoundrels Bilk and Prigman maun be sneckit into jail; ance they are tied up in iron garters they'll soon enough betray the cheat-the-wuddy villain who hired them tae mak” off wi” yon harp. The faurst burgh we reach, I'll e'en command the justices tae carry oot a search for them. Where are ye bound, lads?”
The boys had agreed, hastily discussing the matter, that since he was obliged to return to London it would be folly to carry the prince all the way to Caer Malyn; they had therefore turned aside in the direction of Nant Agerddau, which, Mog reckoned, would not be more than ten or eleven miles south of them. Here the prince could obtain treatment for his wound, and would be able to hire post-horses and a carriage from Mr. Thomas at the Boar's Head for his journey home. Owen chafed somewhat at this interruption to his errand, but he admitted to himself that the prince's convenience must come first. Also, there might be a chance to see Arabis again. And—another consideration—with the Prince of Wales prepared to help him, surely his own fortunes must now take a more favourable turn?
They had left the gorge and were making their way through a level stretch of forest, checking their course by means of Owen's compass. In order not to jolt the hurt man too painfully they were obliged to go at a fairly slow pace; after an hour or so the prince announced that he was
faint with hunger. At this time Hwfa, armed with the crossbow, was going ahead as lookout; not long afterwards he was lucky enough to shoot a hare, which they cut up and toasted on sticks over a hastily kindled fire.
The prince, nibbling a leg of hare washed down with the last of the wine, declared that Hwfa was a bonny shot and, given a little practice, would make as brisk a hunter as any lad north of the highland line. Having eaten, his highness soon became drowsy and Owen, a little anxious about him, urged the others to make as much haste as possible. The day had become even colder and the sky was thickening and darkening; a recurrence of the storm seemed probable. They went on fast and silently, saving their breath for walking, since the track they had taken now began to climb the lower slopes of Fig-hat Ben.
“Snow, it do look like,” said Mog after an hour or so, squinting up at the murky clouds overhead. Sure enough, in half an hour or so, a scurry of white flakes began to blow past them, borne on the north wind that whistled fiercely at their backs.
Dove, who had been taking his turn as lookout, came back to the main party and beckoned Owen aside during a pause when they were getting their breath at the top of a steep ascent.
“Hey, Owen boy,” he whispered, “what did those two crwydadiau look like? The two that took the old harp?”
“Bilk and Prigman? I hadn't my glasses on for most of the time I was with them, but one was short and stout and sandy-haired, and the other was tall and dark with a flat face. Why?”
“Whisht, you,” Dove said. “If you will come this way I
will show you two men the very spit-image of that, sheltering under a rock.”
Owen's heart beat fast. He followed Dove, who led him cautiously round a rocky outcrop grown over with young firs, which gave fairly good cover.
“They have moved on again,” Dove muttered. “There they are, see, Owen, climbing the slope.”
Owen peered through the snow, rubbing his glasses, and saw two figures, one short and stocky, the other tall, going up the hill; could they be Bilk and Prigman? It was hard to decide in the poor light. The two men stopped and seemed to dispute, shaking their fists at one another; then went on again.
“I do think it might be them,” Owen said, frowning with the effort to see through the flutter of snow. “Indeed I am almost certain. But I can hardly leave the prince to follow them.”
“See what the others have to say, is it?” suggested Dove. “Going the same way as us, anyhow, those two seem to be.”
So they returned to the stretcher party, who were busy adding another layer of moss to the prince's covering.
“Not too good, the old prince, I am thinking,” Hwfa said, “Brick-red his face is, and breath coming very quick; best we get him to shelter fast, eh, boys?”
“Wait, you,” Dove said. “We have seen those two thieves, Bilk and Prigman, climbing the hill yonder; first give them a taste of their own medicine, is it?”
Hopeful grins spread over the faces of Luggins and Mog, who dearly loved a fight, but Hwfa shook his head.
“Best not to waste time,” he said, and Owen, who had
been looking at the prince, entirely agreed with him.
“We must hope they are going to Nant Agerddau too,” he said regretfully. “But Hwfa is right; we ought to take his highness on as fast as possible; I'm afraid he is falling into a fever. Maybe the toasted hare disagreed with him.”
The prince was indeed very flushed and restless; he seemed asleep but occasionally muttered or called out a few incomprehensible phrases.
“O honari! Ochone! I hae missit the capercailzie! Sorrow fa” the brood. Gie ower yer daft reiks, man!”
“There is a pity, though, not to dust the jackets of that pair while we have them out in the forest,” sighed Mog wistfully. “Just a bit of a chat, sociable, and maybe they will be telling us who set them on to steal the harp and where they have taken it. Eh, Hwfa? Just you and me to go, and the other three carry the old prince to town, is it? Not more than a couple of miles now.”
“No,” Hwfa said, “I am for sticking by the prince. What do you say, Owen, boy?”
“That is not a bad notion of Mog's,” Owen said. “Supposing you, Mog, and Dove, follow those two men; steal close if you can, try to hear what they say, and see where they go; then meet us in Nant Agerddau at the Boar's Head.”
BOOK: The Whispering Mountain
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