Chapter Five
CARAS GULWEN
They unlatched the gate and passed through. And on the other side everything was different.
This wood was darker, and filled with movements, and flutterings, and tiny shifting gleams of light. The air was warmer, scented and spicy. The path was hardly to be seen at first, yet straight and broad; not smooth, for the companions often stumbled, yet soft, for they never hurt themselves when they tripped and fell. There was a faint pervasive tinkling, as of many streams. The companions’ faces often encountered cobwebs and large blundering moths. The greenish-white or yellowish-white sparks that lay beside the edges of the path were glow-worms, fair enough, but what could the farther-off ones be, the infinitesimal rubies and emeralds that winked and shifted among the trunks of the trees? And where had the moon got to? How could such thick clouds have come over so suddenly? The Company pressed on, hopelessly guessing at time and distance. Sometimes a black shadow would lollop ahead of them; sometimes they heard scuffling movements as of some more substantial creature, or hootings and calls that sounded like laughter; always they felt that they were being watched; never did they see the watchers. Once Fortinbras felt something brush against his leg. He jerked and jumped with a cry, and then they all made out the shadowy creature that was following them. But this was the fox. Its eyes were quenched: it seemed to have been robbed of all its power. When the punchkins sat down for another rest it pressed its cold nose to them anxiously, and whined, and allowed them to pat its back. They felt it trembling.
Waltrot said: ‘Lots of brambles here.’ He explored with his hands, and then said: ‘My goodness. Hey, masters, try these. Give out your hands.’
Aldred’s palm received a small soft heavy thing: a sweet-smelling fruit.
‘Where have I tasted that before?’ asked Fortinbras.
It was a huge blackberry.
‘Berma’s jam,’ said Waltrot. ‘Now we know where she gets ’em.’
‘Do you think we should?’ asked Aldred.
‘Yes,’ answered Hodgekin, rather sharply. ‘We’re deep in, probably too deep to get back the way we came. We’ve got to go deeper, as deep as we can.’
‘I agree,’ said Fortinbras. ‘Let’s have some more.’
Aldred saw the aptness of Hodgekin’s advice, but he contented himself with a couple of the berries. The taste might or might not have been the same as that which Fortinbras had described to him so poetically. Aldred thought it was like some very sweet and heady wine. Moreover the berries had an effect that was just like the effect of wine. His companions ate all the berries they could find, and then the Company set off again, tumbling and laughing, telling jokes and singing snatches of song while the woods rose up higher and higher on both sides, and the glow-worms twinkled like party lights, and the fox trotted anxiously behind. Presently, becoming irked by the repeated falls, the Company adopted Hodgekin’s suggestion of walking four abreast with their arms around each other’s waists and shoulders; and in this manner, hilariously supporting one another, they charged down the path to Caras Gulwen. Waltrot raised his powerful, tuneless voice and began to sing the ballad of the Fair Maid of Tregg. The others all roared out the choruses with as much gusto as revellers at any village inn. And that was Aldred’s last memory of the night.
He awoke in the grey light of yet another dewy dawn, exactly as folk do who have been overtaken by their own imprudence: very stiff, and very cold indeed, with an aching head, and fingers and toes completely numb. He saw that he had arrived at another large clearing, or rather a wide meadow, enclosed by a tall thick hedge, with sleeping cows and a large still pond into which several streams quietly trickled. The grey woods, solemn and still, were ordinary enough apart from the manner in which they so completely surrounded the hedge, the heads of the tall trees slanting down in half-suggested lines and steps. This was the end of the valley of Nan Thurin, and there, before his eyes, was the abode of the Witch.
Caras Gulwen was a plain, square-built house of grey stone, built on top of a grassy mound, with three windows along the front of the upper storey, two larger bay windows at the bottom and a white wooden porch between them. A double chimney stood up at either gable-end of the tiled roof. One of the chimneys was smoking. The wide green mound rose up at the far end of the meadow, a hundred yards away from where Aldred was now sitting. A staircase with carved and lichenous balustrades led up from ground level to a front yard and flowerbeds before the front of the house. This stairway was the only thing that had a sinister look. All of the step-slabs were cracked, worn and unevenly slanted. It had the appearance of being older than the house.
Aldred got up with a groan. He saw the inert form of Fortinbras not far away. The sky was all grey and pearly, and the heights of the hillsides could not be seen; the trees vanished into the mist-ceiling. Aldred went to Fortinbras, shook his shoulder, then kicked him bad-temperedly. Fortinbras moaned, and gurgled, and turned his head. His hair was tousled and filled with grass-ends, his mouth surrounded by purple stains and his legs bespattered with filth: he had stumbled in a cow-pat. Aldred was intensely annoyed by the knowledge that his own appearance must be little better. What a way to arrive! Leaving Fortinbras to go through his own waking-up performance, Aldred went in search of the others. Hodgekin was kneeling over the pond and splashing his face; Waltrot, who had gone the farthest, was still snoring near the base of the green mound.
They gathered themselves together, had a wash and tidied and smartened themselves as best they could. Fortinbras had a comb in his pocket, which he lent to the others. Then, like a gang of lads in deep disgrace, they climbed up the tricky, shifting steps and made for the front door. It was a green double door, with a brass knocker shaped like a leaf.
‘Well,’ said Fortinbras nervously.
‘Oh, bother it,’ said Aldred; he stepped forward, grasped the knocker and gave a couple of loud knocks. The sound was very loud in the stillness. A couple of cawing rooks rose out of one of the trees behind the house and flew off into the mist.
The punchkins waited, wondering who, or what, would answer the door. Aldred clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.
Footsteps approached inside.
There was no noise of unlocking or unbarring. One half of the double door was opened by a Woman. She looked like a housekeeper or other upper servant. Three of the Punchkins at once knew that they had seen her before. She wore a brown work-dress with a clean white apron. Her dark hair was smoothly braided; her dark eyes looked down on them inquiringly. The Punchkins gaped at her. Their mouths were dry.
‘Well, my lads, what can I do for you?’
Fortinbras was the first to find a voice. ‘Mistress,’ he said in a strangled croak; ‘Mistress,’ he said again more clearly, and gulped, and continued: ‘we believe that this house is the home of the Witch of the South.’
‘That is true enough,’ she replied.
‘We are Punchkins, folk of the King’s Demesne. We have to, to – are you the Witch, please?’
‘I am not.’
‘We have an errand to her, and so we ask to be admitted to her presence.’
For another long moment she studied her four visitors. Her expression was very serious. Then she stepped back and opened both leaves of the door. ‘Welcome to Caras Gulwen,’ she said, and the Punchkins entered.
To Aldred and Hodgekin the entrance-hall of the house seemed, again, quite simple and ordinary, such as they might expect to find in any well-kept farmhouse – hemp doormat, dark waxed wooden floor, plain distempered walls, dark beams supporting the floorboards of the room above, row of coat-pegs and no ornament save a pot of red geraniums on a side-table. Fortinbras and Waltrot, however, appeared to find it very confusing. The Woman led their party through a door, down a short passage and into a large bright kitchen where maidservants were at work. Young girls they seemed to be at first, but as they prepared breakfast the Punchkins had opportunity to observe how gracefully and noiselessly they moved, and how dancelike were the movements of their beautiful feet below the hems of their smooth grey dresses; and their white hands, and their golden hair, and the starlike beauty of their eyes. Meanwhile the housekeeper had been saying:
‘I will announce you to the Lady: maybe she will see you sometime today. For now, these girls will attend to your needs. You have travelled far and are tired. When you have eaten, you may wish to sleep.’ She addressed a few elvish words to one of the maids, who replied briefly. ‘You’ll find beds upstairs. I shall see you this afternoon, and then we’ll talk. And a very good morning to you.’
‘But, Mistress!’ said Fortinbras urgently. ‘Will you not tell us your name? And should we not tell you ours? How is it that I seem to have met you before?’
She gave him a friendlier smile. ‘You still have no memory of our – meeting?’
‘Of meeting you? None!’
‘Well, that ought to be mended. But Aldred remembers, don’t you, Aldred? I’ll see you before you go to the Lady.’
The Punchkins sat down at the kitchen table and watched the three Maids. With a flowing, fascinating swiftness, returning to the table one after another, they finished preparing the meal and served it up: fried pig’s liver and onions, fried bread and bacon and black pudding, and a jug of beer. It was just such a breakfast as the guests most desired, and they ate ravenously. Afterwards they were led upstairs by the tallest of the Maids (whose names were never told). The bedroom was somewhat dark, lit only by a single small window through which came a leafy green light and the sound of a stream.
‘Where are we?’ said Fortinbras.
‘There was only the three beds last time, sir, wasn’t there?’ contributed Waltrot.
‘Wiccot! It’s the same!’
‘No doubt,’ said Aldred, yawning.
‘No, it’s absolutely the same!’ Fortinbras exclaimed. ‘That’s the very same bed I slept in before.’ He sat down on it. ‘I remember that squeak!’
There was some discussion of this strange fact, but soon all four Punchkins lay down on the beds, which were certainly comfortable, and fell asleep.
Aldred slept until the afternoon. It has been mentioned that none of them had any dream while the quest lasted. But now, at the end of the quest, he found himself standing on a high hill near the Sea. Hodgekin was with him and the two of them were talking quite amicably. The hill sloped down towards cliffs. The sky was dark, but brighter near the horizon, where a single bright star was shining. He was telling Hodgekin the story of the island of Atalantis. As he talked, Atalantis itself became visible in the distance. But then the great wave rose over it, and the isle slipped sideways and disappeared, and the sea became tumultuous. He and Hodgekin made out the cleft or chasm into which the island had fallen, a wide black crack not far below the surface of the transparent waves. This crack was growing wider and running towards the land. Soon it would reach the cliffs. The waters poured into it, and it did reach the land, and the cliffs were split apart, just below where he and Hodgekin stood; and now the ground and the turf began to be torn apart also. He begged Hodgekin to come with him, to run from the danger, but Hodgekin grew angry and shook his fist. The crack raced up to their feet, and now the whole hill was split apart, he on one side, Hodgekin on the other. A gulf opened up. He knew that everyone else had remained on the other side, with Hodgekin, and that he himself was left all alone, and woke up in dismay.
Hodgekin was there, in the bedroom, and awake. So were the others. He and Hodgekin kept up their new manner of deliberate forced affability towards one another. Aldred said nothing about his dream. Fortinbras and Waltrot talked about their encounter with the other Witch. One of the Elf-maids tapped on the door and gently announced that the Mistress was waiting. The Punchkins’ nervousness returned. The Maid took them downstairs and showed them into one of the front rooms. It had a broad, sunny bay-window that gave on to the cow-pasture and the peaceful woods. The fox was there, prowling back and forth in front of the house. On the window-sill stood four pewter mugs. A moment later the Housekeeper came into the room. She carried in her hands a large jug.
‘The Lady will give you an audience,’ she said, ‘and we can go down whenever you like. Have you two remembered me yet?’
She went to the window, filled the mugs and turned to face her guests. With her back to the light, her face obscured, she seemed more familiar. Waltrot’s and Fortinbras’s minds strove painfully towards recognition but could not attain it.
‘We’ve tried,’ said Fortinbras.
‘No matter. You helped me once and I am still your debtor. In payment I now offer you a potion that the Lady herself has brewed. It’s another kind of beer. We sometimes call it “beer of memory”. It will call to your minds things you have forgotten, and then you will know me again. There will be many other things also that you will be able to find in your memories when you have quietness and leisure to seek for them. Will you drink?’
‘Yes,’ said Fortinbras.
‘Yes please,’ said Aldred.
‘Yes, thanking you kindly, Mistress, I’m sure,’ said Waltrot.
Hodgekin frowned. ‘Thanks for the offer,’ he said as she handed the first mug to him, ‘but it don’t look very nice.’ That was quite true. The beer was black and foul-smelling, with a thin head of broken brown scum. ‘How do we know – I mean –’
‘The drink is not poisoned,’ she said unemotionally. ‘It will do you good, though it is bitter. But if you have memories that you do not wish to recall, you might well prefer not to taste it.’
His face cleared. ‘Yes. In that case, with many thanks,’ he responded, ‘I’ll decline.’
The other three stood holding their mugs. ‘Here’s to your good health, Mistress,’ said Fortinbras. They drank. The beer was indeed horrible at first, startlingly bitter, with a taste as of mingled soap and ashes and urine. The Punchkins looked at their mugs, and at each other, with wry mouths. The Woman said nothing. They were expected to quaff it down. Waltrot made the effort. ‘Happy days!’ he said, and drank, and tilted his head back. Aldred, and Fortinbras too, found on their second attempt that the beer was rather more palatable. Strange lights burst and flared inside Waltrot’s head. There was a fire. The bodies of Mr. Bavour and his own old Master were being consumed. Swin was with them. And then…
‘Bryd!’ he cried.
‘Bryd, daughter of Afi and Amma,’ said Fortinbras precisely, wiping his mouth. ‘Mistress, how came you here?’
‘And what I’d like to know, Lady Bryd, if you’ll tell me,’ said Aldred, glancing down into his empty mug and almost wishing there was more, ‘is, what kind of spell did you put on them – and why not on me?’
She curtseyed to them gracefully. ‘I thank you again, gentle Punchkins, for enabling me to get free from those wicked men and for succouring me in my distress. It was not I, but She whom I serve, who cast the spell of forgetting upon you, so that when you woke up two mornings later you had no knowledge of me. I had told her something of you: it was she who then judged you unripe for meeting her and having her acquaintance. I have now returned what she took away, with a little added gift of strength. As for you, Aldred, the spell simply failed on you because – what shall I say? – because you are very unusual. You have an obdurate spirit, a special kind of integrity. It is a gift of strength that you were born with; but I say to you, be wary of it, when you learn to use it, lest it betray you into endless solitude.’
‘Very well,’ said the mystified Aldred. ‘I thank you. But who is this She whom you serve? Berma, or –’
‘And what is this place?’ asked Fortinbras as Bryd made no answer. ‘Is it really Caras Gulwen or Wiccot?’
‘I’ve heard,’ she returned, ‘that there are wise men of learning in the great cities of Thandor and Turmal, who devote their whole lives to considering what really is, and what is really not. You are luckier than they, for you will be able to see for yourselves. Having seen, you will be able to ask me better questions than these, if you like, and if time allows. But for now they may distract you from your errand. Do you still all hold fast?’
‘We do,’ they answered.
‘Then come.’
Following her into the hall they heard an anxious whining and scratching behind the front door. ‘He wants to come too,’ said Fortinbras. ‘Need I explain?’
‘No, let him in.’
Fortinbras opened the door. The red-brown thing streaked through the hall and disappeared down a further passage.
‘He seems to know his way,’ said Hodgekin. ‘Lead on, Mistress!’
There was a wooden staircase at the end of the passage. Bryd stepped down it quietly and the Punchkins followed. They emerged into a long cellar, pillared and vaulted and dimly lit by two small skylights. The cellar was soon seen to be very large, perhaps larger than the house itself. There was a smell of old brewing, and many barrels on trestles, and glass bottles stacked on dusty shelves, and great vats and troughs and basins, and a large thing that consisted of twisting copper pipes and flasks, which Aldred was unable then to recognize: a still. ‘We met your daughter in the palace,’ he said casually as the little group walked through the long dim chamber. ‘You know, we would have already held ourselves amply repaid by what she tried to do for us – no, by what she actually did. She’s a brave lass, and she paid a grievous price.’
‘Yes, poor Wencela. She told me.’
‘And how is she now, do you know?’
‘Last thing I heard, she was still employed at the palace. Perhaps she may be taken back into favour. The King isn’t a bad man.’
‘Yes, I thought that of him. And – your other matter – your good man, your husband, if I may ask?’
Bryd took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eye. ‘There’s never any news,’ she said sadly. ‘I now serve the Lady; but she will release me if he returns.’
‘But which Lady?’ asked Aldred.
They had come to the end of the cellar-vault. Here, in a recess, another stairway ran down. This one was made of stone, a broad spiral; and the workmanship of the steps resembled that of the stairway outside the house. There was a carved balustrade and rail that ran round the wall, with grotesque carvings, heads of Men and Goblins and strange Beasts, on the banisters. The roof was hung with tissues of cobweb and the stairs seemed to lead down into complete darkness. Bryd shook her head sombrely. ‘Down we go,’ was all the answer she made. ‘There’s light at the bottom.’
The Punchkins shuffled down the worn stairs. Faint light came through one or two slits in the wall. The shadows closed in. The air grew damp and very cold. At last a glow was seen emanating from below. This turned out to be the light of a single lamp, a large one, with a great stone jar to serve as a reservoir. In this much smaller chamber, this lower cellar or basement, there was nothing else to be seen except a couple of small spare lamps hanging on brackets, a wooden chest standing on the stone floor and an archway closed by an iron gate. Beyond the bars of the gate was only blackness; and above it the keystone of the arch was carved in the likeness of a dreadful face, larger than life-size. It was a female face with hair like long roots, twisted and branching, and tormented eyes, and a snarling mouth with wolfish fangs. Bryd unhooked and lit one of the small lamps. ‘There are candles in the box,’ she said. ‘Take a couple each. Mr. Hodgekin, would you like to carry the lamp?’
But when Hodgekin took the lamp his hand shook violently and the light flickered. His face was pale. Aldred noticed how composed Waltrot and Fortinbras were – and himself too. Whatever its other benefits, the drink had certainly steadied their nerves.
‘Let me have it, Mr. Dyer, sir,’ said Waltrot kindly.
The Woman took out a large black key and unlocked the gate. It swung open on squealing hinges. The Company passed in: first Waltrot, then Hodgekin, then Fortinbras, then Aldred, then Bryd.
This next passage was long, narrow, down-sloping, tunnel-vaulted and sided with smooth square-cut stones that showed many traces of water. The candle-light fell on long blurry wall-stains, alternating bands of black and vivid green, often interrupted by patches of whitish crust, or blended into flaring blotches of rust-red and sea-purple. The floor became muddy and slippery. A slight but steady breeze blew up the tunnel: it smelt distinctly of the sea, or of sea-weed: the Punchkins knew this smell without having encountered it before. They thought of many questions they would like to ask, but Bryd’s manner positively commanded silence. The vault of the tunnel ended. Above their heads the Punchkins now saw rough-hewn layers of rock, festooned with hundred of tiny stalactites, that ascended into a cavernous darkness. Humpy stalagmites rose up on both sides of the path, some of them dimpled or pitted as with eye-shadows, seeming to scowl at the passers-by like glum stone dwarves. There was a distant sound of water, a continual surge and turbulence mixed with a regular throbbing or churning, as of great mill-works.
A voice spoke from the darkness, a female voice, deep and harsh: ‘Maro,’ it said, and the echoes flew back and forth. ‘Stay where you are,’ said Bryd, and then spoke to the Witch in the elvish language. Then the Witch spoke again. Never, in the ensuing talk, did she speak more than a few words at a time. ‘One of you speak up,’ said Bryd. ‘She wants to know why you’re here.’
Fortinbras spoke, Bryd translating for him. It was natural, Aldred thought, that every time he was called upon to explain their errand he did so in fewer words. Then the darkness was silent. The Punchkins began to hear the Witch’s breathing.
She spoke a third time: a single word, something like olozedrath.
‘Close your eyes,’ said Bryd.
All did so.
Immediately vivid memory rushed into Aldred’s head.
He saw himself standing with the others in the room upstairs. He saw himself drinking and his mouth remembered the bitter taste. Rapidly he saw himself making the three stages of the descent.
But this time he was moving not only downward in space but also, with singular strangeness, downward through his own body…as if the house was his head, the first staircase the throat, the first cellar the chambers of his heart and lungs, the second staircase the spine, the second chamber the entry into the long gut…
Re-arriving, with a quiver of the loins, at the spot where he now stood, he found that he could see, in his head, the entirety of the cavern.
‘Can you see through closed eyes?’ asked Fortinbras in astonishment.
‘Don’t open them,’ said Bryd.
Before their feet the path was a ramp made of some artificial stone, sloping shallowly down to the floor of the great cave. Twenty yards away stood a rectangular block of stone. Someone was lying on it, someone small, with bare feet and hands folded on breast.
‘Oh no,’ muttered Fortinbras.
‘Tim Bottlebanks, ain’t it?’ said Waltrot. ‘Poor lad.’
‘How can you see him?’ complained Hodgekin.
‘Patience,’ said Bryd.
Beyond the block of stone, raised on a high chair, sat Fuindis.
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