| Chapter Two
KEDRAL’S FORD
‘Really? When?’ Aldred’s calm question ended the interval of silence.
‘Just before you appeared.’
‘At the inn? The night we visited?’
Hodgekin did not answer. He had now fully taken in their disapproval. A dark shifty look came over his face, and a corner of his mouth twisted down. Meanwhile the others were sifting through their memories of that embarrassing evening.
‘Ah yes,’ said Aldred, ‘and dear old Clemo ended up paying his bill. There were a lot of drinks on the slate, as I remember. Poor Swin! Well, I know that it doesn’t generally do much good to voice such judgements, Hrothgar Dyer, but I must say that was a shabby way to treat him!’
Hodgekin made a contemptuous noise, dismissing the judgement with a flicking-away of his fingers. ‘Nagh! Don’t give me that! He was one of the Big Folk, and I say, between them and us, it’s only right and proper.’
‘Thievery?’ said Aldred, somewhat perturbed. ‘Right and proper?’
‘Of course!’
As the two punchkin-servants then forbore to make any comment, though listening with deep interest to the discourse of their superiors, and as Aldred needed a few moments to rally his arguments, Fortinbras came in with: ‘You were lucky he didn’t cut your hand off. I expect he would have done if he’d caught you.’
‘Likely enough. But he was drunk and I was crafty. It wasn’t difficult. I could have pinched his pretty harp as well, but I judged it wiser not to. And while you’re still drawing breath to indulge in more condemnation of me, Mr. Sherling, let me remind you who’s just paid for an excellent night’s lodging for us all! You don’t need to know, if you don’t inquire, where that particular money came from. Right and proper, I say again, yes! I don’t steal from Punchkins, I should be ashamed to. But seeing as how the Big Folk set their officials and their spies over us, and turn most of us into slaves to provide for them what they need since that disgusting Worm has wasted their own resources, I call that open, blatant thievery. So I take a little of our own back, now and then, when I may. And I don’t keep it to myself neither. I share it with poor folk of our own kind. And I study our enemies: I watch for chances: I try not to lose heart. And then I hear, to my great surprise, of your return, and I make a point of talking to Waltrot here, and I get a feeling that the tide may have turned: that a lucky, chancy time has come: and I decide I really ought to help if I can. But if you, now, should be so foolish as to go back to Mrs. Brownlock and insist on paying her all over again, out of your own well-gotten gains, I’ll take it as a broad hint that you don’t want me after all, considering me not good enough for you, and I’ll just piss off. Wishing you the worst of luck!’
His fists were clenched inside his pockets. The punchkins stood in a little circle on the stony road, facing each other. Fortinbras frowned, staring at Hodgekin hard. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘don’t go. I think we want you.’
‘Let’s go on,’ said Aldred.
They went on, and Aldred’s arguments remained unspoken.
‘I wonder what Mr. Clemo himself would say, if he was here with us,’ ventured Tim.
‘He’d be understanding and kind,’ said Fortinbras.
Hodgekin snorted. ‘Well, how could he not? His own mother was a Dyer, wasn’t she?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Fortinbras.
‘I mean that it’s in our blood! Going all the way back to your famous namesake. “Damn you, Dyer, knavish thief,” remember?’
‘Oh, that’s unbelievably unfair,’ Fortinbras replied. ‘Fortinbras didn’t steal the ruby from the Dwarves.’
‘What? Of course he did! He just used a tricky excuse to justify it afterwards. And he had a bad conscience afterwards too.’
‘But that was unlike him. We know he was honest by nature.’
‘Then why did Staffal choose him to steal the Sceptre, tell me that, eh? Right at the beginning? And after that he was a confirmed thief. He stole the seven beer-casks. He stole the Dwarves’ ruby. He stole the key to let Prince Kedrahil out of prison. He stole everything that wasn’t nailed down! And then when he got back home he still went on stealing-expeditions with the Elves – at least that’s what the folk in Middleton and Bailiwick always believed. He went on being wealthy and generous, and giving his money away so freely, so he must have been replenishing it somehow – don’t you see that? And they tried to excavate into his cellars at least once, in order to lay hands on his ill-gotten gold, remember? That was what drove him out of the neighbourhood in the end. People don’t gossip for nothing. But I don’t mind. I’m proud.’
Hodgekin’s audience – all except Waltrot, for whom Demesne-lore had less significance – felt stunned. They were unaccustomed to such radical revision. At last Fortinbras weakly protested: ‘He begged the beer from the Trolls –’
‘What, all of it? That he had to drive home on a dray?’
‘All right, all right, we’ve taken the point,’ said Aldred. ‘You’ve certainly given us something to think about.’
And think about it they did. Conversation ceased. They had been walking alongside the Bournbrook for some time now, a broad shallow stream, low in its stony channel after the hot dry summer, screened off by rushes and alders. Soon it curved away to the left. At this point a line of stepping-stones crossed the bend. On the other side there was the beginning of a marshy path, but this soon disappeared into beds of reeds. The marshy plain stretched away to the first green slopes of the woody hills.
‘What are those hills called, please, sir?’ asked Tim.
‘Just the Bleck Hills,’ said Hodgekin. ‘That flatter browner part, in the distance, is the Endbourn Mire.’
They crossed the stepping-stones carefully. A flurry of ducks broke from the rushes as the punchkins approached, and a brown-headed grebe quietly disappeared from sight.
‘There!’ said Hodgekin. ‘you’re outside the Demesne.’
‘And facing a moral quagmire,’ said Aldred drily.
This remark, which was no doubt unnecessary, had the effect of inflaming Hodgekin’s still-smouldering anger. ‘I don’t understand what you think you’re doing on this quest, Mr. Sherling,’ he said.
‘Do come on,’ said Fortinbras.
Getting through the reed-beds turned out to be difficult work. Some of the tussocks held firm, but others twisted and sank underfoot. The punchkins held hands and advanced slowly, supporting each other, often sinking below the knee, while Aldred and Hodgekin continued to bicker.
‘You’re seeking the Witch of the South, aren’t you?’ demanded Hodgekin.
‘Maybe,’ said Aldred, breathing hard.
‘You mean you’re not sure?’
‘Our friends were given a magical clue, a vision of a fox,’ answered Aldred. ‘Fortinbras begged me to join them. I was willing. In all honesty I’m willing to do whatever needs to be done, to save our land. Even so, I don’t want to get mixed up in witchcraft any more than I can help.’
‘Aldred missed our meeting with Berma,’ Fortinbras explained, ‘so naturally he’s still cautious. If you’d been with us then, Aldred, you’d have no doubts now.’
At this moment Waltrot, the heaviest of the party, slipped, splashed into soft ooze and sank down to his waist. He would probably have drowned there without comrades to pull him out. ‘Thank you, my masters!’ he said with a sigh of relief. ‘Truly a quagmire!’
‘Yes,’ said Hodgekin, relishing the comparison, ‘and you’re still standing on the brink of it, Mr. Sherling. I’m afraid you’ll have to go in a lot deeper than Waltrot has.’
‘For goodness sake,’ said Aldred, ‘I take it all back about the purse. It was nothing to do with me. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my business to pass judgement on you.’
Hodgekin paused, considered, then nodded.
At last the reeds gave way to marsh-grass, then turf interspersed with gorse and bracken. The sun was well up now, the breezes light and fresh. The punchkins strode forward eagerly, keeping their shadows to the right as they steered south-west. The countryside was much richer than they had imagined it being. Stately oaks and elms rose from the hillsides. The valleys were lush and full of late roses. Larks sang in the air, and many other birds of many kinds were constantly to be seen, including half-a-dozen very large, wide-winged creatures that rose up two hundred yards away and slowly flapped over and beyond the brow of the next hill. ‘What do you call one of those?’ asked Tim. ‘I’ve never seen ’em before.’
‘Those,’ answered Waltrot, ‘are complete and utter bustards.’
The others all laughed at this, except for Hodgekin.
At noon the company stopped for lunch in the shade of a huge oak-trunk, still alive but in the last stages of hollowness. It was crowned with thick mistletoe and also wound about by an ancient vine that bore hundreds of bunches of golden grapes. These were small, ripe and piercingly sweet.
‘This does surprise me,’ said Fortinbras as he picked himself a second bunch. ‘I always thought it was nothing but marshes and mountains beyond Bournbrook.’
‘But did you ever think of checking?’ said Hodgekin, leaning back with his hat over his eyes. ‘Did anyone? You needn’t answer that.’
‘So then,’ asked Fortinbras, spitting out pips, ‘nobody comes here?’
‘They do now, more and more, especially folk of the South-hundred. They keep sheep on the hills, and you can see how much game there is… If you’re asking why it’s kept secret, I can think of a few reasons.’
‘Go on,’ said Fortinbras.
‘Let’s see. The King’s Reeve hasn’t cottoned on to it yet, and the Reevers don’t come down so far: so of course the locals don’t let them know about their private game larder. And I think – I’m not sure, but I think – that the land itself has been changed, maybe quite recently. It wasn’t always as rich as this. You’ll find it gets richer as we turn south. And then the Demesne as a whole has become so closed-in, so turned in on itself, so blind to anything that goes on outside the borders – it’s almost like a sickness of the mind. Even the Dyers, saving your presence, Fortinbras, all stay at home now and tend the farms. If you found me churlish at our first meeting, that was because I knew from bitter experience that there is no point in trying to enlighten any punchkin of the Demesne, about anything at all to do with the Outside! And contrariwise I’m pleased, I’m delighted, in fact I can hardly believe it, to be here, in this Company, now: with folk whose eyes have begun to be opened.’
A little abruptly he stopped talking and thrust his pipe into his mouth. Aldred, Fortinbras and Tim then all spoke at once, and simultaneously halted in their speech. Hodgekin grinned and sat up. ‘Mr. Sherling,’ he said.
‘Why, I ask, since you appear to have a lot of knowledge – why, would you say, do the King’s officials not know about this place? Is it not within the bounds of his wider domain?’
‘I believe you’re right. This territory is certainly within the bounds of southern Athenor. Therefore the King of Thandor ought to be king of this land. As for why Thandor has never paid any attention to it, your guess is as good as mine. You’ve met the King, I haven’t. But this happy state of affairs can’t last much longer, if indeed it hasn’t already come to an end… Mr. Dyer.’
‘“Fortinbras”, you pillicock! What you’ve been saying is very interesting. You’re absolutely right about our cast of mind. I don’t believe I was asked a single question after our journey. No, not one. But you’ve started me wondering if there is a real sickness of the mind; and what might have happened to make the Demesne turn in on itself so deeply. Guilt can do that, can’t it? I’m wondering now if there’s a shadow of old guilt on us… But it’s time to be moving on.’
They got up, put their packs on and dusted off the grass-seeds.
‘Guilt of doing what?’ asked Hodgekin as they went up the hill.
‘How about, stealing a fruit from the Tree? The holy Tree in the Temple. And the one and only fruit, the sacred object and token of new life for the Kingdom.’
‘News to me,’ said Hodgekin.
‘It’s in the records,’ said Aldred, doing his best to keep the satisfaction out of his tone – satisfaction at having some news to impart to Hodgekin. ‘And the King mentioned it himself. A party of seven punchkins came to the festival of the Consecration of the Erumar, along with representatives of the other tribes and races of the Kingdom. Two of them, Jack Dyer and Odo Smith, broke into the Temple somehow, climbed the Tree and made off with the fruit. Jack was never seen again. Odo was found by the King’s pursuivants, far away in the wilderness, starved and dying after a fall from a cliff. He confessed that he and Jack had done it, but he said no more. It caused a terrible quarrel in Vinyards that ended with the Priests losing sole control of the Tree and the sacred Sward, and an iron fence being put up in the Temple. And the shame must have been worse among us, but we have no memory of it: nothing but songs and nursery-rhymes.’
‘What did the King do in the end?’
‘That was Kedral the Third who was later slain by the Dragon. He was so angry about the theft – yes, another Dyer, maybe you’re right, Hodgekin – that he threatened to revoke the Decree of Kedral and invade the Demesne, and search and search for the Fruit until it was found. But then the Dragon appeared and dealing with him was more urgent. And later the Dragon attacked Vinyards and burned the Temple, and partly withered the Tree, so some people thought the taking of the Fruit might have been a secret providence of Dru.’
‘Or perhaps,’ suggested Fortinbras, ‘the Demesne might have connected the two things in a different way. Perhaps we blamed the lads who stole the Apple for ending the Tree’s magical protection, as if that somehow was what caused the Dragon to appear.’
‘Sounds likely enough,’ agreed Hodgekin. ‘I can see a cleft opening up.’
‘Where, sir?’ asked Tim, looking round alertly.
‘In my mind. A fancy, Tim. I imagine our great-grandfathers feeling guilty on behalf of the Demesne, and not wanting to think about the guilt, and trying to bury it in their hearts; but nevertheless leaving a little open crack in the ground of their thoughts, a cleft of forgetting, as it were, and this cleft slowly getting wider and wider. We can picture all sorts of other, kindred matters sliding down into it: I mean the Tree, and the Temple, and the religion of Dru that punchkins hate hearing about, and even the City itself, the entire City all sliding down and disappearing. And so talking about the High King of Dunbury again, and confusing Dunbury, Emynos, with Vinya-Ruminas.’
‘So that Vinyards gets mixed up with apple-trees. I see.’ said Fortinbras.
They walked on in leafy, song-filled silence for ten minutes.
‘Begging your pardon, Mr. Hodgekin, sir,’ said Tim, ‘but could I ask my question now?’
‘Sorry, Tim. Of course you can.’
‘You said this land itself has changed. It’s got richer. Do you think there’s Elves, sir, where we’re going?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Hodgekin, striding forward.
‘Have you seen ’em, sir?’ Tim pursued, quickening his pace in order to keep up.
‘Yes I have, and I’ve been lucky enough to meet them a few times. So may you be.’
‘“But”?’ suggested Fortinbras behind him.
‘But what?’
‘What’s the “but” that follows after the Elves? What are you running away from?’
Hodgekin stopped and wheeled round so suddenly that Fortinbras almost charged into him. ‘I’m not running away from it, my lad: I’m running to it. And not to it, to her. To her whom Aldred fears, and whom I myself have never before thought of approaching. To Fuindis, the dark Witch of Caras Gulwen.’ Sternly, darkly and forbiddingly he glanced round at the company. ‘The “but”, if you must have it, Tim, is that the Elves haven’t caused the richness of the land. It’s because of the richness of the land that they’ve come here. They were dying out, but she’s helped them to recover.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Tim humbly.
This morning and noontide conversation had a shape that, repeated over the next few days, would become roughly familiar. The companions would be startled and alienated, once again, by another of Hodgekin’s casual remarks. He would strike them as strange, immoral if not actively evil-minded. Yet the ensuing talk would show him to be full of intelligence and passion, with a measure of real kindliness, and thus force Aldred again to admit that his own mind was in need of being educated, his prejudices of being challenged, his eyes of being opened to disturbing larger truths. Yet the last effect of all would be another qualm of distrust. Over and over again the original doubt would return: there’s something amiss with him. Aldred’s misgivings, however, were not shared by his companions. Fortinbras forgot his own first distrust, and Tim and Walt had never had much difficulty in accepting the newcomer, who made no attempt to domineer, but simply continued to offer counsel to Aldred’s and Fortinbras’s acknowledged joint leadership. Aldred often wondered about his origins and his early life; but punchkins, though they will gossip about each other indefatigably, the men more than the women, are exceedingly reserved and respectful when it comes to the opening-up of any kind of personal question. The inquiry would be a delicate one, and it would have to wait for the right moment.
Such were the subjects of Aldred’s thought as the Company travelled towards the great river. Progress was good on the whole, although the landscape sometimes forced a detour on them; and sometimes they waited for Waltrot and Hodgekin to return from hunting expeditions, or found themselves all obliged to stop, like youngsters, to fill their pockets with delicious nuts and wild plums or pears. For the rest of their first day, and all of the next, they climbed more than they descended. At noon on the third day they stood on the brow of a steep cliff, from which the land fell away in screes and scars of crumbling shale, amid dense yellow-and-brown brushwood. Far off, five or ten miles away, the narrow glints of the river could be seen. The descent from the cliff was difficult, especially for Aldred who had only one useful hand. Hodgekin thought a landslide must have taken place since he had last come that way, and could offer no guidance. The Company tried to come down in three different places, and got stuck on each descent, and had to climb back to the top; but they all remained good-humoured, even relishing, as explorers might, this first moderate challenge to their combined skill and strength. By sunset they were safely down. Hodgekin recommended setting a watch, so they took two hours each, timing themselves by the misty autumn stars. There was no sign of the fox.
Next day the woods were found to be pathless, boggy and full of huge brambles; but the Company struggled on, and in the afternoon their persistence was rewarded by the trees thinning, and by the sight of a tall standing stone or column, dead ahead of their line of march. ‘Pat on the back for me please,’ said Hodgekin triumphantly: ‘That stone marks Kedral’s Ford.’ The trees, now mainly willow and birch, were slenderer and fewer; the tracts of bog began to gurgle with small streamlets, and the uncertain soggy ground was varied with swathes of weed-grown pebbles and small boulders, with frequent narrow hummocks bearing long stands of bulrushes. The water-fowl were more numerous here, constantly taking off, circling and landing in groups, or as individuals, or in pairs, or great ragged flocks. Damsel-flies darted and flickered like sparks of blue lightning; large beetles droned past, and there were clouds of midges. The twittering and quacking and honking of the birds, and the trickling of the streams, and the company’s own puffing and gasping and splashing sounded very clear, yet small and somehow distant, fading on the fresh winds and into the vastness of the high blue sky.
‘So whereabouts is this ford then?’ asked Fortinbras. The woods had all been left behind now, but the tall stone seemed to be growing larger without getting any nearer.
‘This is it!’ said Hodgekin cheerfully. ‘We’ve been crossing the Bleck for the last half-hour! It’s more than three miles wide at this point.’
‘Is that stone on the other side?’
‘No! It’s about two-thirds of the way across. There’s a sort of island.’
Wet-footed and very muddy, the punchkins scrambled onward. They were feeling tired. Behind them the sun was going down and the few small clouds were turning pink. The stone column, upraised as if in solemn warning, like an enormous finger, was touched with warm light. The next range of hills, far ahead, faded into a purplish haze beneath the still-luminous blue. The face of the land was darkened. Looking back, the punchkins saw that the sun had disappeared beyond the tree-fringed clifftops, and the whole western sky was aflame with red. The island of the Waymark gradually came into full view. They trudged towards it, over a broad band of gravel, through the last channel and then up its grassy bank.
The island was covered with grass and bushes. It was ten feet high at its highest point, and perhaps twenty yards long. It rose from the midst of the wide interweaving streams and rivulets. These, as now visible from the slight eminence, reflected the alarming light of the sky like a network of dull-gleaming veins and arteries below the blackness of the distant woods. Close at hand, the first of the three square-cut steps of the great stone base, weathered and darkly pitted, took a suggestion of markings, carved runes or pictures, from the dying light; as did the two higher steps, the plinth and the square-cut column itself. The punchkins craned their necks to gaze at it and tried to estimate its height.
‘Are those letters?’ asked Fortinbras. ‘Carvings?’
‘No,’ said Waltrot. ‘Just the natural weathering of the stone, I reckon. How old is it, Mr. Hodgekin?’
Hodgekin made no answer.
‘It’s ancient,’ said Aldred. ‘Two thousand years at least. The old South Way was made by the Kings of Athenor long before the Punchkins came to this land, or the name of Kedral was heard of.’
‘It’s done well to last so long,’ commented Fortinbras. ‘You see there aren’t any birds’ traces on it, and there are no birds’ nests on this island.’
A single bird cried in the distance, far down the river. The tall grass whispered in the breeze. The crimson dusk was fading.
‘You mean this is a magic island, sir?’ asked Tim.
Hodgekin’s smile was broad and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the twilight. ‘I certainly hope so!’ he said.
Fortinbras laid down fuel and began to light a fire, Waltrot gutted two ducks he had shot and Aldred helped by plucking one of them, wedging the still-warm body between his knees. Tim fetched water, then took out the frying-pan and greased it. Night fell, and at length the meal was ready. Afterwards the punchkins ate fruits they had gathered, and Waltrot shelled cobnuts, two or three at a time, with his strong teeth. No-one seriously doubted that the fox would come. No-one was worried about that; even so, the mood of the Company was uneasy. They tried to lie down, or to smoke, but soon found themselves sitting up again, upright and tense, with pipes unlit. The cracking sounds Waltrot was making broke irregularly into the silence. It was Tim who eventually said:
‘Begging your pardon, gents all, but hadn’t we better talk about it?’
‘Yes,’ said Aldred.
‘I agree,’ said Fortinbras. ‘Good for you, Tim. We’ve been avoiding the subject for long enough.’
‘You mean, you have,’ said Hodgekin with a touch of grimness.
‘Well, what do you know about her, Hodge?’
‘First tell me what you know of her yourself!’
Fortinbras made no reply. It was Waltrot who spoke up next. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we don’t talk about her very much in Tregg. Not openly. As you know. Only the young lads and lasses whisper secret stories about her, in the darkness under the trees in June. She’s said to favour lovers who are courting.’
‘Same with us,’ said Fortinbras.
‘Mr. Hodgekin told us her name. She’s the Witch of the South. But she don’t move around like old Berma. She stays in her elvish house called Caras Gulwen. If you journey far down south from the Demesne you come to the mountains of Rediath and the Neverglades, the forest wall that marks the border of her realm. It’s full of monsters like cold dragons and flying lizards, giant creatures with terrible teeth in their beaks. After that there’s the Bleck, at its widest, and you’ve got to get across to the other side. Finally you come to the Erynvorn, which is the darkest, blackest, ancientest old forest in the whole of Midyard. It’s full of ghouls and huge spiders and blood-drinking monsters, but some folk do live there as well. There are human folk, and wood-elves and woses. They all honour her as their Queen. And she – and she –’
‘Go on,’ said Fortinbras.
Waltrot’s voice was a reluctant murmur: ‘And she eats ’em. She has a wicked cult of herself, like in the Temple of the City. They make altars to her, and sacrifice one another, and cut the victims’ hearts out, and she eats ’em raw, and drinks the blood out of their necks.’
Hodgekin’s voice broke into the shocked silence. ‘Why, do you think? Why do they all obey her?’
‘Because she’s got them all under a cruel spell of slavery, of course,’ returned Tim. ‘Now Walt’s spoke his piece, and bravely he said it. Mr. Hodgekin, sir, why don’t you tell us what you know yourself?’
Hodgekin laughed. For once his lean, scarred face looked handsome, even noble, in the ruddy light of the fire. ‘What can I add?’ said he. ‘Some say that she and Calendis are actually sisters. Some say, dissimilar twins, born at the same time from the womb of the Earth herself. And not so long ago either. She and Calendis appeared in these parts, in the North-east of Midyard, at some time – no-one knows when, but it was after the time of Kedral the First. There were many strange changes around that period. I guess that all the tales Walt has heard have some truth in them. Indeed, the full truth may be more frightening than any of the tales. I believe she is a servant, just as Berma-Calendis calls herself a servant. Of who? If you asked me that, I’d have to admit that I don’t know; but think first, and ask yourselves whether you really desire to know, to admit such knowledge to your minds. Her folk fear her, or the power she’s a servant of, but by and large they serve her willingly, not a slaves; for it’s that power which has made them strong again, which has enabled dying races to renew themselves.’
He paused. None of the others spoke. Behind him the Waymark towered huge and dark against the stars.
‘I have travelled a little in the land of Enaderth, where she dwells; but never far, for the perils are great. The monsters of the forest are quite real, and the wild Woodmen are stealthy hunters, using poisoned arrows. So I can’t tell you much about her domain. I very much hope that we are not going to be led through the Neverglades, for the path of the fox crosses the river here: soon I think we will bend our course and go due south. A less uncomfortable approach that the one Waltrot described.’
‘What about this fox, sir?’ asked Tim. ‘What can you tell us about him?’
‘The fox also is real, yet the nature of his being is unclear. Three times I have talked with the Elves, and once, not far from here, I stood with them and watched him cross; and then we saw how the light of his eyes shed a glow that lit up the banks and the dark hillsides, one after another, as he passed along. They love him for the mystery he brings, a gift to a world that has grown over-familiar, and they have made up many songs about him; and to their sense, which is finer than mortals’, he has a quality of yearning. Every year he appears in the woods of the Demesne, and journeys southward, but he never seems to reach his destination. Why does he go? Is it on account of a need, a quest of his own, perhaps a desire for some kind of release, some disenchantment? Perhaps he too seeks the Witch. It may very well be that you, who have seen his image by the magic of Berma, shall become the instruments of his own fulfilment…’ Hodgekin frowned, as if feeling a little impatient with himself. Aldred, listening intently, like all the others, was touched with admiration when Hodgekin added: ‘But all these words are too solemn and complicated. I am sure that the truth, when we find it out, will turn out to be so much simpler.’
Waltrot clenched his jaw, producing a loud crunched report, then took the shells and the whole ripe kernels of three nuts from his mouth. He added them to the kernels he had collected in a tin bowl, and passed it round. They were fresh and good. ‘I’d like to go back,’ he said, ‘if none of you gents has got anything he wants to say, to pick up something I let fall just now. It follows on from summat you said too, Mr. Hodgekin. In Tregg we don’t know much about this lady, like I was saying, but it strikes me, she can’t be all bad if she helps in love and child-begetting, like you allow she does.’
For a moment the edges of the flickering flames had a tinge of green. Aldred, Fortinbras and Tim at once got to their feet and scanned the dark horizon; but there was no other sign of the fox. They sat down again, rather awkwardly. Tim began to fill his pipe with nervous shaking fingers.
‘And so what I thought at first,’ said Waltrot, continuing calmly as if the interruption had not happened, ‘what I said to myself was, it’s a shame we’re none of us husbands. None of us five has ever begotten a child of his own – ain’t that right? Maybe if we knew more about childbearing from wives of our own, we might feel more accustomed, more in tune like, with her sort of magic. It might not alarm us so dreadful much.’
They listened to him and gazed at him raptly, in an enthralment deeper than Hodgekin’s words had created.
‘But then I thought, well again, if we was married men our wives wouldn’t want us to be off gallivanting after magical witches. It might seem disloyal. So maybe there’s a destiny in this, that we’re all bachelors and not married. What do you think? …Tell me, my masters, have you got womenfolks of your own? Am I right or am I wrong?’
Tim was the first to respond to this challenge. ‘It’s not something we normally talk about in the Demesne,’ he said deliberately, ‘but since you’ve put us on the spot, Mr. Hardedge, I’ll own that I’m engaged. My Peony, she’s one of the Bunces, up Cotteridge way in the Woody Hundred. Eight year we’ve been walking out together. A couple more, and we might have enough put by to get married on, but those Reevers do make things so difficult. Still, we’re both young yet, so we don’t see the need to hurry.’
‘How old are you, Tim?’ asked Waltrot.
‘Thirty-two.’
‘And have you and Peony told those kind of tales to each other?’
‘Certainly not! We’re decent respectable folk! Not like in Tregg!’
‘So you’ve never laid her on her back then, am I right?’ said Waltrot. ‘Nor any other pretty young lass?’
‘No! I’ve got a good steady character, Mr. Hardedge, and I aim to keep it!’
‘All right, Tim, all right. No offence, please,’ said Waltrot. He glanced round mischievously. ‘Who’s next?’
‘As for me,’ Aldred said with a shrug, ‘I’ve nothing at all to tell. Never objected to the idea of marriage, but never seemed to meet the right lady. A fairly contented bachelor of fifty-one. And no, nothing else has been written on that page. Single and celibate, if it must be said.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Sherling. Seems to me, right now, that these things do need to be got out into the open. Mr. Fortinbras Dyer?’
Fortinbras’s face was deep red in the firelight. ‘There was a girl,’ he said. ‘Years ago. She told me some things about the Witch. Under the trees, as you say. Then she jilted me for Berry Strutts of Middleton. They’ve seven children so far.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I’m thirty-nine now. There’s been no-one since her. But my parents and I have an understanding that it’s time for me to marry, and they’re looking out for a young lady for me, if I haven’t made my own choice by next birthday.’
For a little while the others respectfully contemplated Fortinbras’s pain. He gave another deep sigh. He came out of the past, and into the present, and looked up: so that the focus of the inquiry moved, of itself, to Hodgekin.
‘Go on, Walt, you next,’ said he.
‘I’ll tell all,’ Waltrot replied, ‘but it’s you next, not me.’
‘Come on, Hodgekin,’ said Aldred.
‘You’ll all disapprove!’
‘I won’t,’ said Waltrot. ‘Confess!’
The thought of being censured by the others now seemed to weigh much more heavily on Hodgekin than it had done when, for example, he had owned up to the theft of the purse. ‘Look,’ he said after some humming and ha’ing, ‘I’m of the Demesne, but the Demesne has rejected me, so do you expect me to follow all its ways? I have lady-friends. I visit them now and again. Who’s to blame me?’
‘The most recent being Mrs. Brownlock?’ suggested Waltrot. ‘Four nights ago?’
‘Of course. Oh, you damned bumpkins, stop looking so disapproving!’
Three jaws had dropped, and the air was, indeed, stiff with disapproval.
‘But no little punchkin-brats?’ pursued Waltrot relentlessly: ‘No little bastards left on the side anywhere?’
‘NO!’ shouted Hodgekin, almost writhing. It was, Aldred realised later, a revelation of some intense private anguish.
‘Cheer up, mate,’ said Waltrot laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘Their disapproving of you is nothing to what they’re going to disapprove of when they hear about me. Go on, somebody, ask.’
‘Oh, do tell,’ said Fortinbras. ‘I bet half the little boys and girls of Tregg would call you their Daddy if the truth was known.’
‘It’s a funny thing, but no.’ Waltrot’s face was pensive in the green light of the fire. He rested his mouth on his fist, and then said: ‘There haven’t been any. Not a one. But maybe that’s because I prefer the Big Girls to the Little. I guess the seed don’t mix so easily.’
It took quite a few seconds for Aldred and Fortinbras to understand this, so mind-boggling was the implication. As for Tim, it passed over his head entirely. He had turned round and was looking back.
‘When you speak of Big Girls,’ said Aldred with some difficulty, ‘can it be that…’
‘There it is!’ announced Tim.
The fox was approaching as before, but now it seemed a distraction.
‘Yes, them mostly,’ said Waltrot, getting up. ‘Farmers’ wives and daughters. A few of the village ladies. They – how can I put it – take an interest. You know?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ answered Fortinbras, also getting up, ‘and I don’t think I ever ever want to find out.’
‘It’s altogether beyond disapproving of,’ agreed Aldred, still sitting astonished and round-eyed. ‘Waltrot Hardedge, I think it’s you that should be the leader of this expedition!’
As before, the Fox was approaching in a giant and ghostly form. Its body was a brown stain on the sky, through which the twinkling stars took on a ruddy hue. The high pricked-up ears were black and opaque, and the bright eyes, swaying as they came near, diffused the same green radiance. The east side of the Waymark was lit up green. The travellers’ faces became masks of green light and black shadow. The five of them stood together, facing the spectre, trying to show no sign of fear. The falls of the huge padding paws were soundless, but felt through the earth. Nearer and nearer it came, strange, aloof and fabulous; the punchkins glimpsed the faint glinting lines of the long whiskers; then, passing over them like a thundercloud on a strong wind, it continued across the other side of the river and into the land of Undor. They had the impression of a bushy tail that swept down like a falling tree, and all smelt the fierce rank scent. The green glow faded and the creature seemed to disappear, but the Company had no doubt of their course. Weariness had left them. They jumped down the western side of the island and forded the first of the starlit channels.
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