THE PROPHECY OF THE EAGLE
Mr. Gough told the Punchkins it was good for them that tomorrow was a Wednesday, for Wednesday was the day when King Oresgal regularly gave audience to commoners of the realm. But as it turned out, their embassy met hardly more respect at the palace gates than at the Court of Justice. A sentry in black armour, with a black and golden tabard, sneeringly directed them to another gateway, a hundred yards along the pavement. Through this they drove, with a certain sense of achievement, only to encounter two more sentries who brusquely ordered them to take away their cart and ponies. Aldred departed with Tim, first to drive back to the inn and then to enquire about Swin at the guard-house. Enquiry elicited the bare fact, with no word of explanation, of his having been taken from the guard-house already. Disturbed and unhappy, they returned to their rooms at the inn.
At six in the evening Mr. Proudfoot, Fortinbras and Waltrot also returned. They were even more gloomy, and they were famished, having had nothing to eat all day. Fortinbras told the tale: they had been shown into a large gloomy hall in which two or three hundred people were standing around or sitting on hard benches. A wizened page had handed Mr. Proudfoot a small brass disc, which he now wearily showed to Aldred. On one side was stamped the royal coat of arms, on the other was engraved the number 713. ‘After two hours some other folk came out of a door at the upper end of the hall,’ said Fortinbras, ‘and then another man was called in. I went and asked the people who came out, if they’d actually seen the King. They said they had. I asked them what their number was. They said it was four hundred and eighty. I asked them how long they’d had to wait. They said, since last November. I asked, did you have to wait there every Wednesday? They said, yes, you’ve got to or else you may lose your place in the queue.’
Mr. Proudfoot drained his mug and put it down with a little bang. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this won’t do. Bring me the writing materials, Waltrot. We’ll have to send him a letter. We need to let him know that we’re here. But we need counsel as well. Tim, go and fetch our host, there’s a good fellow. Ask him to bring up a bottle of his best wine.’
Tim found Mr. Gough in the public bar of the house. It was a quiet evening, and he made no objection to coming up straight away. He put out glasses and Fortinbras poured out the wine. It was a vintage of the South Hundred, a rather better one than the Punchkins had tasted for years.
‘Well, sirs,’ the innkeeper began, ‘you’ve begun to climb your hill, and found it a steep one, eh? Here’s wishing you good luck.’ He raised his glass, drank, and then sat down at their table. ‘His Majesty does see suitors, and most of ’em discover him to be a fair-minded man. The question is, how long can you wait?’
‘We cannot wait,’ said Mr. Proudfoot sharply, ‘and we are not suitors. We are Punchkins of his Demesne, and we are here on an embassy!’
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Gough, looking down, ‘but what can you offer to make it worth while? You’re in Ruminas now, Mr. Proudfoot, and you’ve got to take us as you find us. We’re a trading city. We don’t do naught for love. If you had something to offer, you’d get to see him fast enough.’
‘I assure you that we can offer nothing more!’
‘No, no, not so fast. My remark had a different bearing. There are ways in, d’ye see? Ways up through the ranks of his officers. But you have to have something to offer.’
‘I see,’ said Aldred. ‘You mean, bribe the King’s servants.’
Mr. Gough sipped his wine and swilled it round his mouth, gazing up at the ceiling with tightly pursed lips.
‘Very well,’ said Mr. Proudfoot with a sigh. ‘Tell us how this is best to be done.’
The innkeeper began to teach the Punchkins the art of effectiveness at Court. They felt a discomfort, a sense of pollution and shame, as if he, or indeed one of themselves, had silently broken wind at the meal-table. After fifteen minutes’ talk the paper and ink were made ready. Aldred carefully wrote a letter at Mr. Proudfoot’s dictation. The latter then signed it with a flourish, waited for the ink to dry, folded the letter and placed it in a heavy envelope. ‘Let’s have the candle,’ he said. A blob of scarlet sealing-wax was dripped on, and Mr. Proudfoot ceremoniously pressed it with his mayoral signet-ring. ‘So there’s our plan for tomorrow,’ said he. ‘Now, there’s another thing we’re wondering about, and that’s what’s happened to our friend. How shall we set about finding him, if he needs help? I think my colleagues will agree that we’d rather not go back to that dreadful lawyer again, if there is some other recourse.’ Aldred and Fortinbras nodded.
‘Tell me about your friend,’ said Mr. Gough, a little evasively. ‘Didn’t I hear something about an arrest?’
They told him about the trial. As they described the Magistrate and her cold, venemous manner, he burst into a roar of laughter.
‘Oh no! Such cruel luck, I shouldn’t laugh! Fancy your friend falling foul of Princess Frosty!’
‘Is that her name?’ asked Fortinbras.
‘The King’s daughter. White face. Fair hair. Thinks she’s the wisest young lady that ever was. I tell you gents, there’s fifty innkeepers in this City beside me that would like to put her across our knees and give her a good spanking! And for why? Wants to ruin our trade, she does. Wants to ban wine and beer. Says they cause drunkenness. Says they’re bad for folks. Wants to ban meat. Yes, meat. Never eats meat herself. That’s why she’s so pale in the face. And those pipes you’re smoking – she’d deny you that, too, if she could. Says tobacco’s bad for you. Gives you consumption or warts in the lungs. She’s like your nanny, she thinks we’re all children, she knows that everything children like is bad for ’em in some way or other. And, Lord Dru help us all, some day she’s going to be the Queen of this land.’
‘The Princess!’ said Fortinbras. ‘But that’s the one Swin’s friend is marrying, surely? Lord Melohtar and Princess Nometh?’
‘Quite right. Five days off, the wedding is: the spring festival. I do some catering work for the nobility of this town, sirs, and I’m respected in the trade even if I do say so myself, and I might have been called in to help towards making it a truly merry and festive occasion, wouldn’t you think? But no: the palace kitchen’s to do the whole job, and oh, such good cheer the wedding-guests can look forward to. Barley-bread and pease pudding all round, I reckon, and as much cold water to drink as their hearts can possibly desire!’
‘And indeed she seems to have begun on that already,’ said Mr. Proudfoot. ‘Our friend is a wedding-guest. Surely she wouldn’t have – or would she? Knowingly imprison an honoured friend of her betrothed?’
‘I think she would, Mr. Proudfoot, I really think she would. As for her betrothed, Lord Dru help the poor man. He’s back in town now, so I hear, and there’s not a soul in this City but pities him.’
‘Then it’s merely a political match?’ asked Aldred.
‘You might say so. King Oresgal’s not been on the throne for long, not as reigns go in this land. And his father was the first of the present line. He still needs to settle himself in, like. Lord Melohtar’s Lord Ostendil’s son, and round here he’s the most trusted of all the barons. And his son’s a very dutiful lad.’
‘He must have some influence, then,’ said Aldred. ‘As the Lord Steward of this City, surely Ostendil would be able to get Swin out of jail?’
‘I’m sorry, it was me as interrupted what you were saying,’ said Mr. Gough. ‘Go on with your tale.’
Fortinbras went on, and soon came to the strange responses and words that had been provoked by Swin’s surrender of his sword and helmet. ‘What was it that Woman said?’
‘Red as you are,' quoted Tim, ‘you can’t be a Red Boar.’
At once all the innkeeper’s good-humour vanished. He stared at the Punchkins with wide eyes.
‘That,’ observed Mr. Proudfoot, ‘is how everyone else at that trial looked, just before they heard those same words. Come, sir. Tell us what everyone knows but us.’
For half a minute the innkeeper said nothing at all. The Punchkins waited for him to speak, but he just sat still, twiddling his wineglass with his fingers. ‘I reckon,’ he said eventually, ‘that your friend may be in quite some danger. And seeing that you came here along with him, I reckon you might be under some suspicion also. Tarred with the same brush, as you might say. Listen: when you have to deal with the palace people, don’t say anything at all about your fellow-travelling with him! And be very very careful what you do say!’
‘We asked for your counsel,’ said Mr. Proudfoot. ‘We are to pay for it; and so we will heed it.’
At the word ‘pay’, Mr. Gough made a sour face. ‘Excuse me,’ he grunted, and left the room, and returned shortly afterwards with another bottle. ‘This one’s on the house,’ he said, refilling all the glasses. ‘Now. You want to know what happened.’ Evening had come on, and the room was dark. The only inside light was the candle that Mr. Proudfoot had used to melt his sealing-wax. ‘My wife’ll bring the lamps and light the fire in a minute,’ Mr. Gough said. ‘Now then...
‘It was at the last Festival of Lamps, three months since. Not a long time ago. The quarter-festivals are the big offerings held in the Temple. All respectable folk attend. And this was a special celebration, the ten-year thanksgiving. The what’s-it, the consecration of the Erumar has been held every ten years since it was first built. And this last one was the thirteenth. So, my folks and me, off we go, and we’re a bit late unfortunately, so there’s no standing-room left and we have to go and sit at the front: and we get plenty of view of the choir and the priests and all, more than we like, on the other side of the Tree. Ah, you mayn’t know, if you haven’t seen it yet, that the Temple is built in the form of a seven-pointed star, with that big golden glass dome over the middle part. And the points of the star they call Rays, and the Ray that points due east is the top one, so to speak, where the priests do their business, and where the sacrificial animal is led up to the high altar with the candlesticks. And the Tree grows in the middle of the Temple, underneath the dome… Now where was I? Oh yes, there we are almost at the front, and we’re suffering through the litany and sitting dead still for the sermon, which I do tell you always seems to go on for about three hours, and Ruddle the High Priest he’s preaching, and my wife she feels just the same as me, like she wants to go and powder her nose or run away, but she can’t, she daren’t, because old Ruddle when he’s up there in the pulpit he seems to be looking right at you the whole time: his dark eyes are a-burning into you, and you don’t dare do no more than stare back at him like a blessed bunny-rabbit. Well, he makes an end at last, and then it’s time for the offering. They lead out a white bull – always a white bull for the yuletide feast and a black bull for the summer – and they rope it to the horns of the altar, and the Second Highest Priest, who’s dressed up like a hangman in a hood and a mask, takes his special sacred knife and slits its throat, and some other chap catches the blood in a gold basin, and then Ruddle dips a branch of cypress into the blood, and he shakes it over all the gold lamps, and them bowl things, the censers, and then he comes right down and shakes the branch over the congregation, that’s us, and I do assure you that no-one feels very happy about it. And all the time the poor creature, the victim, is a-bellowing and a-gargling and a-bubbling and a-dying right in front of us. Nasty it is, very nasty, but then in a queer way you seem to want it, and afterwards you do feel glad you took the trouble to attend. Then the choir sings a hymn and we thank Lord Dru it’s all over for another three months.
‘But this time there was the golden eagle as well, the statue, that they were going to dedicate. There always was a gold eagle statue right on top of the dome. It’s also the emblem of the City, as you’ll have noticed, and the image of law and justice. This gold eagle had stood on the dome for more than a hundred years, but last year it started to lean over a bit, so they had to take it down – and some job that was, the whole dome covered with scaffolding, eight hundred men, and it was Dru’s mercy that no-one was killed – and they lifted it off its pedestal, right over all that glass and nothing underneath; and they, that’s the Guild of Ironfounders and the Goldsmiths, strengthened the pedestal and covered the whole statue with new gold leaf covering, and a really nice job they made of it too. So there it was, stood up behind the altar, ready for a special ceremony of rededication before the Ironfounders put it back up again. And the bull’s been led in, and the deed’s been done, and the High Priest has got his bloody branch ready for the aspersing, as they call it, and he begins the job by sprinkling the censer-bowls. And incense is burning in the censers as usual, stuff made of tree-barks and gums they get from away down south, beyond Turmal, where them spicy trees grow in the desert. They’re always a-burning and a-smoking during the whole time of the service. So he sprinkles the blood on and suddenly we see them puffing up great columns of smoke, broad blue in the sunlight that’s shining through the glass; but he’s already gone round behind the altar, and he’s flicking his branch at the statue. And the smoke gets thicker all of a sudden, and then the whole Temple is filled up with it, and there doesn’t seem nothing much to be seen except the eagle shining in the light, and nothing to be heard but the beast still making noises. And everyone is standing still as stone. And the noises stop, and then the statue comes to life.
‘Now I’ve seen, and you can see ’em too if you like, the things of the cunning artificers – toys and models and such, mechanical dummies. And clever though they be, they never really look alive – not so as to say, natural: always a bit awkward and jerky-like. But this statue, it didn’t move like something living, yet no more it didn’t move like a thing of artifice. It moved – I guess you can only say it moved like a moving statue, kind of heavy and slow and gliding. You may think I’m crazy or telling you a story, but that temple was packed out, and every one of the people saw it, and we all said the same afterwards. The eagle-bird slowly stretched its wings right out, so that they touched the walls with a double thudding noise, and then it gathered them up behind its back and clapped them together like great booming cymbals, and then it raised its head up high and it cried out, and it said:
The apple is taken from the tree.
The white wolf will run from the tree.
The black dog will follow the wolf.
The red boar will follow the dog.
The white dragon will slay the boar
Whose elvish sword will come to restore
The royal seed and the fruit of the tree.
The door was nudged open and a boy of twelve came in. He carried a tray. On it were two lamps, cleaned and filled and ready to be lit. ‘’Scuse me, Dad,’ he said. ‘Mum’s minding the bar.’
‘All right, Bentley, carry on.’
The boy set the lamps on the mantelpiece, then lit a paper spill at the hearth. He lit and adjusted the two lamps. As the light touched his face, the still-spellbound Punchkins noticed his strong resemblance to the innkeeper. His task done, he turned and grinned at them.
‘Did you see it too?’ asked Fortinbras.
‘It was great,’ was the answer, ‘it was magic! But wasn’t it the red boar will slay the white dragon, Dad? And the black dog will run to the north?’
‘Nay, lad, get on with your work, and don’t contradict your elders!’
The boy made a face, then took his tray and himself out of the room.
‘And that’s all there is to it,’ Mr. Gough concluded. ‘The eagle did nothing more, and the smoke cleared away, and everybody left. Bentley says it was magic. The priests say it was a miracle. But what those words mean, and whether it’s the white wolf or the black boar or the red apple that matters, no-one could say, except for the priests, and they fell a-arguing about it like they always do. They didn’t know whether to put the statue back up or keep it there in case it spoke again… As far as I know, it hasn’t been moved. But not till yesterday –’ Bending over the table towards the Punchkins, he spoke in a low and earnest voice – ‘Not until yesterday did anyone in the City, man, woman or child, have any notion of what the Red Boar meant: him with the Elvish Sword what’s going to slay the dragon, or the dragon’s going to slay. The White Dragon we know of, that’s old Fëaruk, and the apple taken from the Tree must refer to the time of the first consecration – the last time your kind of folk, Punchkins, have been seen here. But whether or no the Red Boar is your friend, that word about restoring the royal seed is going to set people thinking. That’s why he must take care.’
His hearers made no reply. Already, in these pages, a number of awkward over-charged moments of silence have been recorded; and this was yet another. None of them knew, as he obviously assumed they knew, of that last matter – the taken apple and connexion with Punchkins present on a previous occasion. The very existence of the City (to labour the point) had hitherto been unknown in the Demesne. Then there was the questions of Swin’s lineage, the possible royal ancestry of which he had told them and which they had solemnly sworn to keep secret. But most of all there was the feeling, as in the inn at Tregg, of cold sick shock. The walls of their ignorance were cracking wider and wider. Outside were grim portents, harbingers of a future that might be terrible or strange beyond all foreknowing.
Mr. Proudfoot made an effort. ‘Thank you very much, worthy Innkeeper,’ he said, reverting to the manners of the Demesne. ‘A most interesting and enlightening talk. One gold sovereign, I think we owe you.’
Mr. Gough closed his hand on the coin. Like Swin on another occasion, he was disappointed and a little puzzled by their lack of response. ‘So that’s all?’ he asked. ‘You’ve no questions for me?’
‘No, I think not, thank you very much again.’ Changing the subject with another strenuous effort, Mr. Proudfoot asked: ‘So that’s your son, is he? A fine boy.’
‘He’s not my son,’ was the short answer.
‘But he looks just like you,’ said Fortinbras, surprised.
‘My brother’s youngest son. My wife and I adopted him. Goodwort has seven, and we’ve none of our own.’
Aldred, looking across the table in the increased light, noticed the dark bitter lines under the innkeeper’s eyes, as he said these words. And a thought came into Aldred’s mind: busy and crowded as the City was, how many children had the Punchkins yet seen there?