Lyonesse II - The Green Pear and Madouc (35 page)

Aillas instantly extinguished the fire lest a wisp of smoke draw attention from the riders. He told Tatzel: “Yonder is the Windy Way; it leads to Poelitetz. I have come this way before.”

Tatzel watched wistfully as the caravan passed by, and Aillas could not suppress a pang of pity and even a trace of guilt. Was it just to visit vengeance for all the wrongs done to him upon the head of one young girl?

He gave an angry answer to himself: Why not? She was Ska; she shared and endorsed the Ska philosophy; she had shown never an iota of pity or concern for the slaves at Castle Sank: why should she be exempt from retribution?

Because the Ska style of life was not of her contriving, came the answer. She had assimilated Ska precepts with her mother’s milk; they had been given to her as axioms of existence; she was Ska willy-nilly, through no choice of her own!

But the same could be said of any Ska, man or woman, old or young, and she showed no sign whatever of altering her point of view. She simply refused to accept Aillas’ assertion that she was now herself a slave. In short, she was as guilty as any other Ska, and tender emotions in this case were irrelevant.

Still, there was no denying that Aillas had singled out Tatzel for special attention, although he had envisioned none of their present hardships. He had wanted only to-what? To force her to recognize him as a person of worth. To make real the daydreams he had fabricated at Castle Sank. To indulge himself in the pleasure of her companionship. To enter intimately into her life and thoughts, to gain her good opinion, to excite her amorous yearnings… . Again Aillas felt sardonic amusement. Those goals, formed with such innocent fervor, now all seemed absurd. At any time he could put Tatzel to those erotic uses which she apparently at least half-expected, and which, so Aillas’ instinct told him, she might not have found entirely unwelcome. Often, when he felt her warm presence beside him, the urge to abandon all restraint was almost overpowering. But whenever lust started to cook inside his brain, a whole cluster of ideas intervened to quench the fire. First, what he had seen upon entering the hut had sickened him and the image hung in his mind. Second, Tatzel had possessed herself of his knife, and he could only believe that she had meant to kill him, a thought which dampened his ardor. Third, Tatzel, a Ska, thought him a hybrid of the ancient beetle-browed cannibals and true man, and a creature lower in the evolutionary scale than herself: in short, an Otherling. Fourth, since he could not woo Tatzel in the ordinary fashion, pride dissuaded him from taking her by force, for the sheer relief of his glands, with no thought for all the other considerations. If Tatzel were amorously inclined, let her make the first move: naturally, a farfetched possibility. Although-perhaps he only imagined this-sometimes he felt as if Tatzel were taunting him, daring him to take her, and possibly she burned with some of the same urges which beset him.

An irksome problem. Perhaps some day, or some evening, when conditions were right, he would learn the truth of how she felt, and perhaps the daydreams would be realized in full and breathtaking totality. Meanwhile, the caravan had passed.

“Come!” he said gruffly. “It is time we were riding.”

Aillas had long since recovered his knife from the cheese. He made up the pack, which he loaded upon the horse he had previously ridden, while he mounted Torqual’s strong black stallion, and the previous packhorse carried nothing. Aillas helped Tatzel into the saddle and they were once more underway, but now they rode into the north.

As Aillas had expected, Tatzel was sorely bewildered by the choice of direction, and finally blurted out a question: “Why do we ride to the north? South Ulfland is behind us!”

“True: a long hard journey, with Ska and other bandits as thick as flies along the way.”

“Still: why ride north?”

“Ahead is the road from the Foreshore to Poelitetz. Beyond is wilderness, all the way to Godelia. The land is empty; there are neither bandits nor Ska to plunder us. At Dun Cruighre we will find a Troice ship and return to South Ulfland in comfort.”

Tatzel looked at him as if she doubted his sanity, then gave her apathetic shrug.

An hour later they came upon the road leading from the Foreshore to the great mountain redoubt Poelitetz. Discovering no traffic to right or to left, Aillas put the horses to their best speed, and crossed the road unchallenged.

All day they rode across trackless moor. Far to the east stood the guardian ridge which here separated Dahaut from North Ulfland. To west and north the moor melted into haze. On this high tableland only furze and sedge and coarse grasses prospered, with an occasional cluster of windbeaten yews or a spinney of ragged larches. Sometimes a hawk flew overhead, on the lookout for quail or young rabbits, and crows flapped across the desolate distance.

As the afternoon passed, a float of heavy black clouds appeared in the west: first a line of scud which quickly advanced to loom across the sky; a storm was surely in the offing, with a dreary night ahead. Aillas accelerated the pace of his company and gave keen attention to the landscape, in the hope of discovering some semblance of shelter.

The outriders of the storm passed across the sun, creating a scene of melancholy magnificence. Beams of golden light played across the moor, and shone full upon a low cottage with walls of whitewashed stone and a roof slabbed over with thick turf from which grew tufts of grass and clover. Smoke issued from the chimney, and in the yard adjacent to the byre Aillas noted a dozen sheep and as many fowl.

With hopes high he approached the cottage, and dismounted near the door. At the same time he signaled to Tatzel: “Down from your horse! I am not in the mood for another crazy chase across the moors.”

“Help me then; my leg pulses with pain.”

Aillas lifted Tatzel to the ground, then, together, the two approached the cottage.

Before they could knock, the door swung wide to reveal a short sturdy man of middle years, round and red of face with orangered hair cut to overhang his ears like the eaves of a house.

“Our good wishes to you, sir,” said Aillas. “Our business here is ordinary: we seek food and shelter during this stormy night for which we will pay in suitable degree.”

“I can provide shelter,” said the crofter. “As for payment, ‘suitable’ for me might be ‘unsuitable’ for you. Sometimes these misunderstandings put folk at the outs.”

Aillas searched the contents of his wallet. “Here is a silver half-florin. If this will suffice, we have eliminated the problem.”

“Well spoken!” declared the crofter. “The times of the world would flow in halcyon joy, if everyone were so open-hearted and forthright as you! Give me the coin.”

Aillas tendered the half-florin piece. “Whom do I address?”

“You may know me as Cwyd. And you, sir, and your mistress?”

“I am Aillas, and this is Tatzel.”

“She seems somewhat morose and out of sorts. Do you beat her often?”

“I must admit that I do not.”

“There is the answer! Beat her well; beat her often! It will bring the roses to her cheeks! There is nothing better to induce good cheer in a woman than a fine constitutional beating, since they are exceptionally jolly during the intervals in an effort to postpone the next of the series.”

A woman came to join them. “Cwyd speaks the truth! When he raises his fist to me I laugh and I smile, with all the good humour in the world, for my head is full of merry thoughts. Cwyd’s beating has well served its purpose! Nevertheless Cwyd himself becomes gloomy, through bafflement. How did the roaches find their way into his pudding? Where except in Cwyd’s smallclothes are household nettles known to grow? Sometimes as Cwyd dozes in the sunlight, a sheep wanders by and urinates in his face. Ghosts have even been known to skulk up behind Cwyd in the dark and beat him mercilessly with mallets and cudgels.”

Cwyd nodded. “Admittedly, when Threlka is beaten for her faults, there is often a peculiar aftermath! Nonetheless, the basic concept is sound. Your mistress has the look of costive asthenia, as if she were an arsenic-eater.”

“I think not,” said Aillas.

“In that case, a thrashing or two might well release the bile into her blood, and soon she would be skipping and singing and larking about with the rest of us. Threlka, what is your opinion?” Aside, he told Aillas: “Threlka is a witch of the seventh degree, and is wise beyond most others.”

“In the first place, the girl has a broken leg,” said Threlka. “Tonight I will mend the break, and then she will know less dole. But singing and larking? I think not. She is fey.”

“Sound opinions,” said-Cwyd. “Now then, Aillas, let us deal with your horses, while the storm still gathers strength. Tonight it will be a mighty display, and conceivably a single silver coin is poor recompense for the misery I am sparing you.”

“This sort of afterthought often spoils a promising friendship,” said Aillas.

“No matter how reasonable its basis?” asked Cwyd anxiously.

“Trust, once established, must never become the plaything of avarice! This was my father’s wise dictum.”

“The proposition seems generally sound,” admitted Cwyd. “Still, it must be remembered that ‘friendship’ is temporal, while ‘reason’ transcends both human caprice and time itself.”

“And ‘avarice’?”

Cwyd pondered. “I would define ‘avarice’ as a consequence of the human estate: a condition arising from turbulence and inequality. In none of the paradises, where conditions are no doubt optimum, does ‘avarice’ exert force. Here, we are men struggling toward perfection and ‘avarice’ is a station along the way.”

“That is an interesting point,” said Aillas. “Am I correct in my belief that I have felt the first drops of rain?”

The horses were stabled and fed generous wisps of hay. Aillas and Cwyd returned to the main room of the cottage.

For supper Threlka set out a savory soup of onions, greens, barley and mutton, with milk, bread and butter, while Aillas contributed what remained of the potted goose, as well as a goodly portion of cheese. Meanwhile the wind howled and roared and rain battered in a steady hard tattoo on the turf roof. A dozen times Aillas gave thanks to the providence which had afforded them shelter.

The same ideas had occurred to Cwyd. He said: “Hear how the storm yells, like a giant in pain!” And again, with russet eyes fixed knowingly upon Aillas: “Pity the poor traveller who must brave such ferocities! And all the while we sit snug before our fire!” And again: “In conditions like this the word ‘avarice’ loiters sickly by the wayside while the concept ‘gratitude’ marches forward in triumph, like Palaemon’s conquering army!”

Aillas responded: “When storms rage, then is when folk become aware of their common humanity, and like you and Threika, they willingly extend hospitality to those unfortunate enough to be at disadvantage, just as you, in your hour of inconvenience, will hope for the same! In these cases, the thought of payment is cause for embarrassment, and the host cries out: ‘What do you take me for? A jackal?’ It is heartwarming to meet such folk out here on the high moors!”

“Exactly so!” cried Cwyd. “Out here on the high moors where conditions are hard, ‘sharing’ is the watchword, and each gives of what he has without stint! I open my larder wide and light my best and most cheerful blaze; you are of the same disposition with your superfluity of silver coins; thus we honour each other!”

“Precisely to the point!” declared Aillas. “I will reckon up my little store of coins and whatever I find to be superfluous you shall have! We are in accord; let us say no more on the subject.”

When supper was done, Threika sat Tatzel in a chair with her leg propped upon a stool. She cut away the dark green breeches, which were now soiled and stained. “This is not a good color for healing. We will find you ordinary clothes, by which you will profit. You may remove your tunic as well… . Come, girl,” she said as Tatzel hesitated. “Cwyd cares nothing for your breasts; he has seen them by the hundreds on cows and sheep, and they are all the same. Sometimes I think that modesty is merely a ploy so that we can pretend a difference to the animals. Alas! We are very much alike. But here! If you are uncomfortable, wear this blouse.”

Threika cut away the splint and threw it into the fire. “Burn, wood, burn! Pain, in smoke fly up the chimney; disturb Tatzel no longer!” From a black jar she poured a syrup upon Tatzel’s leg, then sprinkled on crushed dry leaves. She wound the shin with a loose bandage and tied it with a coarse red string. “And so it goes! In the morning you shall know no more weakness.”

“Thank you,” said Tatzel with a wan smile. “The splint was most tiresome. How may I pay you for your healing?”

“I want nothing but the pleasure of your smile,” said Threika. “Oh, if you wish, give me three hairs of your head for remembrance; that shall suffice.”

“It is not enough,” said Aillas. “Here is a silver penny, worth a whole head of hair, and also useless in magic, should it fall into improper hands.”

“Yes, that is wisdom,” Cwyd agreed. “And now it is time to sleep.”

All night long the storm wailed and roared across the moors, and only began to slacken with the coming of day. The sun rose in a cataclysmic welter of black, white, red, pink and gray; then seemed to assert itself and from a peculiarly black sky sent long low shafts of rosecoloured light across the moors.

Cwyd blew up the fire and Threika prepared porridge, which the group consumed with milk, berries and rashers of fried bacon provided by Aillas.

Threika removed the bandage from Tatzel’s leg, and threw the bandage into the fire with an incantation. “Rise now, Tatzel, and walk! Once more you are whole!”

Cautiously Tatzel tested the leg and discovered neither pain nor stiffness, much to her pleasure.

Aillas and Cwyd went to saddle the horses, and Aillas asked: “If I were to question you about the lands I intend to travel, would you be happy if in gratitude I made you a present of several copper pennies?”

Cwyd mused. “Our conversations have raised a number of interesting points. I could describe every turn of a long road, reciting each of the perils to be found along the way and its remedy, thus saving your life a dozen times, and you would gratefully reward me with a bag of gold. However, if I casually mentioned that the man you wished to see at the end of this road were dead, you might thank me but give me nothing, though all went to the same effect. Is there not an inherent disequilibrium at work here?”