Land of Unreason (4 page)

            "Not very nourishing,
I'd say," remarked Barber, sniffing hungrily and remembering that dreadful
Yorkshire supper he had toyed with in what now seemed a past a thousand years deep.

            "Oh, as to that, fear
nothing. 'Twill nourish you featly, though it have the taste of adder's
venom."

            It might just as well,
thought Barber, munching away and trying to forget the heavy, sweet flavor that
went with the meal. At least the texture was real enough, indubitably that of
bacon and eggs. And the coffee did have the familiar reviving effect of coffee.
He finished and laid knife and fork on the tray with a little clink just as the
crowned woman came sweeping through the grove again. Barber laid aside the tray
and stood up, making the courtliest bow he could manage with a torn pajama-leg
dangling around one ankle.

            "May I offer my
respects to Her Most Resplendent Majesty, Queen Titania?" he said in his
best diplomatic manner. "And offer her my services to the small extent of
my powers?"

            She looked so pleased that
her expression became a positive simper. "So young and so well
taught!" she said. "I perceive my Violanta has not wasted time. Why,
aye; since your offer is fairly made it will be as gladly accepted, and you
shall be my messenger of amity before His Radiance. Would that delight
you?"

            Barber bowed again. "I
can't think of anything I'd like better." He might as well, he told
himself, play out the string; behave as though this whole crazy business were
real and as much a part of his life as, say, the Luftwaffe bombing London. He
would have thought that idea crazy, too, if anyone had mentioned it as imminent
a year or two back.

            "Then let's away,"
said the Queen. "My coach!"

            A wide-mouthed imp, dressed
in a blue tabard with an intricate design of silver crescents woven onto it,
dropped from the tree branch where he had been sitting and shouted in a voice
of surprising volume: "Ho! The Queen's coach!"

            Somewhere among the trees another
voice took up the cry, then another and another off into the distance,
"The Queen's coach! The Queen's coach!" The coach rolled into the
glade before the last shout died away, a structure like that used ceremonially
by the Lord Mayor of London, if anything more elaborate, more gilded, and drawn
by six white horses.

            Two footmen leaped down from
the tail; Barber noted with a jar of surprise that they were enormous frogs, in
appearance and costume duplicates of those Tenniel had drawn for
Alice in Wonderland.
He was diplomat enough not to allow this to upset him, but stepped forward
and handed Queen Titania in. She smiled graciously, and opened her mouth to
speak, but just at that moment the outrider beside the frog-coachman lifted a
trumpet and blew a series of piercing notes. The Queen motioned Barber to join
her; he hopped in, the horses started, and they moved off, surrounded by
running, flying and shouting fairies. Barber's last glimpse of the glade where
he had landed in Fairyland showed him the brownie philosopher, engaged in a
startling series of Catherine wheels behind the vehicle.

-

            The grove was a mere screen
of trees; once through it, they were in an enormous landscaped park where tall
blossoms on stalks grew in mathematical precision, interspersed with elms and
maples set out in oversize flowerpots. There was no road, but the frog-coachman
seemed to know where he was going, and they rolled along easily, coming to a
stop with another trumpet flourish and the appearance of the frog-footmen at
the door. Barber handed the Queen down.

            Behind a row of the
flowerpot trees a factory chimney jutted into the air with a yellow-and-blue
flag hanging limply from a mast at its peak. "Well met," said the
Queen, "His Majesty's in residence at the palace. Come, babe." And
she started toward it.

            The grass between was set
with a maze of fountains, playing high with moon-rainbows through their spray.
From one of them a voice suddenly chanted, basso profundo: "Rocked in the
cra-a-dul of the de-ee-ee-eep!"

            Bombing is notoriously bad
for the nerves. Barber jumped, caromed into Queen Titania and both sat down.
The water of the fountain heaved itself up into an anthropomorphous shape, like
a translucent snow man and stared at him from lidless eyes.

            "Blow me down, here's a
sniveling mortal!" it boomed. "And rouncing round the Queen! You bag
of tripes, I'll better your behavior!" A transparent arm shot out, the
fingers clutching for Barber's face. He ducked, threw up a hand to ward the
grip, and bumped the Queen again as water splashed all over him. The rest of
the aqueous monster subsided into a plain fountain, with a Neptunian bellow:
"Ho-ho-ho! Did you see it jump? Haw-haw-haw!"

            "Haw-haw-haw!"
came an echoing burst of laughter from the other fountains, as the one that had
splashed Barber burst into deep-voiced song:

-

"Fifteen
men on a dead man's chest,

Yo,
ho, ho and a bottle of rum!

Drink
and the devil had done for the rest—*'

-

           
All the
fountains were coming in on the second "Yo, ho, ho—" as Barber
scrambled up and offered Titania his hand. She disdained it and leaped to her
feet, her good nature gone.

            "You clay-headed oaf,
you clumsy tallow-ketch!" she blazed in a quietly deadly voice.
"Were't not that you are a mere object, a toy for a better man, I'd have
you to the strappado! I'll—"

            Barber bowed. "A
thousand pardons, Your Resplendency! I was only trying—"

            She advanced furiously,
cocking a fist. "Trying! I'll try you, and in a star-chamber
fashion!"

            Barber backed, then looked
around to make sure he had sea-room, for the living fountains were shouting and
singing all around behind him. As he did so his eye caught a figure—a small,
thin-haired man in doublet and hose, with a sandy mustache, and a six-inch
diamond hanging from a chain around his neck. Titania's eye caught him at the
same time as Barber's; she lowered her arm as the man came hurrying up.

            "How now?" he
said. "Why, it's my sweet cowslip, my pretty helpmate, and with her
feathers ruffled like a mourning dove! What—"

            "Spare your sarcasms,
my lord," snapped the Queen. "Here's your changeling, and good
riddance. Now do I get my little Gosh?"

            King Oberon looked at
Barber. "This great woolsack jobbernowl a changeling?"

            "Aye, and I give you
joy of him. Just now the lightsome ox strewed my royal dignity upon the
path."

            "Ha, ha! Would I had
seen it. If you dislike him so, the colt must have better points than show in
his teeth."

            "Why, you starveling
stick—" Titania suddenly seemed to recollect that she had come not to
quarrel, but to get something she wanted by exchange. Her face underwent a
lightning transformation. "In very faith, it's not so useless a wretch;
can argue, stretch a point like a philosopher. Will you not take it, give me my
Gosh, and set our affairs once more to their wonted smoothness? My lord knows
full well there has been another shaping."

            The King rubbed his chin.
"Full well, indeed. I cast a spell for a hunting lodge and get these
cursed, crank living fountains. I'm still not won to your thought that the
variance between us lies at the root of these shapings. But 'tis most evident
they are thereby increased in effect, like a pox with exercise, since we can
receive in our affairs only what we put forth. So, since you wish it, madam,
let there be peace between us."

            The fairies, who had been
crowding around, went into shouts of delight over this announcement, and began
the same series of antics Barber had seen them perform before. Titania's smile,
though gracious, was a trifle glassy.

            "And my little
Gosh?" she asked.

            Oberon swallowed, then
lifted his voice and shouted: "Gosh!" There was no answer. He tried
again. Still no response. "Herald!" he called.

            A sprite, the twin of the
one who had called the Queen's coach, save that his tabard bore a design of
suns, somersaulted into position, opened his mouth and shouted: "Chandra
Holkar Raghunath Tippu Vijayanagar Rao Jaswant Rashtrakuta Lallabhbhai Gosh!
Come forth, you misbegotten imp, you villainous standing-tuck, you—"

            "Here sir," said a
dark-skinned boy of about twelve, appearing suddenly. "Did you call, O
Pearl of Wisdom?"

            "Call? Aye, and for the
last time. Take the brat, then, my lady, and let me call myself well shut of
him."

            Chandra Holkar Raghunath
Tippu Vijayanagar Rao Jaswant Rashtrakuta Lallabhbhai Gosh stood grinning
unregenerately, with his feet apart and two small thumbs hooked into his sash,
then turned to Titania and bowed. "Am I truly to be yours again, O Star of
Beauty and Queen of Felicity?"

            "Aye," said
Titania. "Come, my babe. Let's to our chambers."

            The boy winked at Barber.
Oberon's mouth suddenly fell open. "It's not to be done," said he.
"And wherefore not?"

            "There's a matter—they
are not fit—" As he stumbled Barber experienced for the third time, and
stronger than ever, the sixth sense that told him the man was lying. But Oberon
rushed on: "That is, I did prepare your apartment against your coming and
it is but now all betousled and lumbered with new decoration. Since you left my
bed—"

            "It stayed cold not
long,
I'll warrant," said Titania, her foot beginning to tap dangerously.

            Oberon's fists clenched and
the diamond danced on his chest. "Fie! Fah! By Beelzebub's brazen—look
you, who are you to talk, wench, with a changeling in your train whose beard
sprouts and fists are like footballs! Call me kobbold if he's not good for more
games than ring-around-a-rosy." Before Titania could retort, he swung
suddenly on Barber. "Sirrah! How long have you known my wife? Quick and
true or turn to a frog!"

            "If you mean how long
since I met the lady," said Barber, his sixth sense warning him there was
something phony about this outburst, "maybe an hour. If you mean—"

            "Enough, let be. Your
reply's ample."

            "But not yours to
me," said Titania. "Come, Gosh, we'll see what 'tis my lord is so
desirous to conceal." She swept regally toward the factory chimney,
followed by the boy. Oberon muttered after her. "Wish her joy of her
conquest. He's found a taste for felonious magic—oh, a perfect accomplished
young cut-purse ... Yet now what's to do?" He looked wildly from side to
side, then seized Barber's arm. "Your name, fellow!"

            "Barber."

            "Marry, a most proper
one to the emergency, since here's a great bloated business to be bled docile.
Art trustworthy?" He poked his face close, then went on rapidly: "No
matter, it's a case of trust and be damned, or doomed for lack of trust.
Harkee, fellow Barber: there be two entrances to my lady's apartment, by the
staircase and through our royal rooms. Do you take the nearer while we move with
her ladyship by the longer route. Will find a wench there—ha, ha, 'tis a babe
of parts, I see you take my meaning. Well, spirit her away; exorcise her, by
any means. Come!"

            Still gripping Barber's arm,
the King went across the grass after Titania in a series of bounds, dragging
the other with him. They were together at the entrance to the chimney, which
proved to have surprising interior dimensions and a helical staircase that went
up and up. "Pox take these villain shapings," panted Oberon, as they
climbed, "that will not let us mount by the old Fairyland method of a word
and aloft. Ouf!"