The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (4 page)

The giant wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “How can I say? Ffyff could be—”

“Come, come,” said Peter briskly. “Grown-up giants don’t cry. When did you last see Ffyffnyr? That’s the griffin’s name,” he explained in an aside to Ames and Stott.

“Gin they ken Syglinde’s name, how come they kenned not Ffyff’s?” Torchyld demanded.

“Our particular branch of the druids happens to specialize in women rather than griffins, that’s all. Please answer the question. Did you see the creature this morning?”

“Nay. I went perforce on duty at cockcrow. Ffyff never ariseth so early gin he can help it.”

“Where does he sleep?”

“Across Great-uncle Sfyn’s threshold, in sooth.”

“H’m, a well-trained griffin. But you told me Ffyffnyr was in the act of stealing boiled eels off the breakfast table this morning when he disappeared. How did you know that?”

“Well, he always doth.”

“Why eels?” Dan Stott wanted to know.

“They slither down easily. Ffyff has but few fangs left.”

“Have you tried him on—”

“Later, Dan,” said Peter. “Then, Sir Torchyld, you don’t actually know whether the griffin did in fact disappear from the banqueting hall.”

“They all said he did.”

“Who all?”

“Aunt Aldora, Aunt Edelgysa, Aunt Gwynedd, Uncle Edmyr, Uncle Edwy, Uncle Edbert, Cousin Dagobert, Cousin Owain, Cousin Gelert, Cousin Gaheris, Cousin Gwendolyn, Cousin Guinevere, Cousin—”

“Thank you. Precisely how did they say the griffin disappeared?”

“I told ye, he but went. Poof.”

“He didn’t—er—take wing?”

“Meaneth ye did he fly away? Methinks one so learned might try to talk straight. Nay, he took not wing. Some of them would have said so gin he had flown, would they not? Anyway, Ffyff’s right wing hath bothered him these past few days. Syglinde hath been rubbing it with warm eel grease.”

Stott raised his eyebrows, slowly so as not to tax the facial muscles. “Eel grease? I should rather have thought a decoction of—”

“Right, Dan,” said Peter. “Sir Torchyld, can you tell me precisely what your uncles and your cousins and your aunts said with regard to the griffin’s disappearance?”

“How many times will ye ask, druid? They said he was there and then he was not. Poof.”

“Did they go looking for him?”

“Aye, they looked. Great-uncle Sfyn drove them to ye hunt like partridges before ye beaters. They hunted high, they hunted low, e’en in places too small for Ffyff to fit into.”

“How big is he?”

“Ordinary griffin size. Gin he standeth on his hind claws, he can just about rest his front ones on my shoulders. He cometh thus to me when he craveth his chin whiskers to be scratched.”

“I am reminded of our prize boar, Balthazar of Balaclava,” said Daniel Stott. “There is a certain poignancy about the endearing little ways of very large beasts.”

“No doubt,” said Peter. “Well, boys, it looks to me as if we’re not going to get anywhere with this case of the gone griffin unless we hightail it straight to King Sfyn’s castle and hear some firsthand accounts of Ffyffnyr’s disappearance for ourselves. Dan, you and Sir Torchyld can compare notes about Ffyffnyr and Balthazar on the way,” he added kindly.

“What way?” snarled their difficult new acquaintance. “Think ye we should ever get back to ye castle, druid? Dwydd hath by now barred ye path by many a fell enchantment.”

“Who’s Dwydd?” Tim wanted to know.

“King Sfyn’s resident hag,” Peter told him.

“Oh, he’s got one, too, has he?” Tim knew all about resident hags. “Then what’s the big mystery? I’d be willing to bet my shirt, if I knew where the hell I left it, that griffin’s around the castle somewhere. Stuck up over a downspout disguised as a gargoyle, most likely. How the hell did we get into this, Pete?”

“Don’t ask me, Tim. All I know is, when you and Dan went into the men’s room of that pub, I walked on ahead into the bar. There wasn’t a soul around, not even the bartender. I was standing there working up a thirst and thinking how shiny the pump handles were when, as Sir Torchyld here would say, poof. Here I was and there he came. That’s my story. What’s yours?”

“Same thing, just about. When Dan and I went into the bar, you weren’t there. We thought you must have stepped out to take a gander at that hogweed down in the meadow, so we were going to go ahead and order our drinks. But the bartender wasn’t there, either. We coughed and flapped around, you know how you do, thinking somebody would hear us and come out, but nobody did. So then I said to Dan, why didn’t we go ahead and draw one for ourselves? If the guy never showed up, we could just leave the money. So we both went behind the bar. Dan was getting us a couple of glasses and I was trying to figure out which pump was for the bitter when we poofed, too.”

“Your hypothesis, Peter,” said Daniel Stott, “is that we are sharing a dream. May I venture an alternative suggestion? I believe we are jointly experiencing something quite other than a mere sleep-induced vagary.”

“Such as what?”

“Simply a situation of a type that appears to be relatively frequent in this part of the world. As you know, I have been bountifully blessed with offspring. When my children were small, we maintained the homely old custom of reading aloud. Knowing this, my sister Matilda kept us well supplied with what she deemed to be suitable reading matter. Matilda’s penchant was for British authors who wrote about children falling down rabbit holes or stepping into wardrobes and finding themselves henceforth involved with adventures of a nature which at the time seemed to be fantastical. I therefore assumed these to be works of fiction. Now I realize they must have been mere vignettes of local history. That public house evidently functions in a manner somewhat akin to a wardrobe or a rabbit hole. We may perhaps consider ourselves fortunate to have encountered Sir Torchyld instead of a well-dressed rabbit or a talking lion.”

“I’d have settled for a rabbit,” said Tim.

“I’d have settled for a pint,” sighed Peter. “Drat it, why didn’t we pick another pub?”

“Because you wanted to stop there and look at the goddamn hogweed, that’s why,” his old comrade snarled back.

“Friends,” Dan interposed, “let us strive to avoid dissension. Dimmed by the passage of time though my recollection of Matilda’s tales must inevitably be, it strikes me that any show of disunity was always prejudicial to the outcome of any escapade in which the protagonists found themselves caught up.”

“M’yes,” said Peter. “I’m afraid you may be right, Dan. All right. We’re down the rabbit hole and I’m the one to blame.”

“Indeed, Peter, accepting full responsibility is not your privilege. I say this in no contentious spirit, but as a simple fact. We are equally grown men, and men of reason. Our right of choice is as valid as yours. Had we urged you to drive on, you would no doubt have acceded to our wishes. We chose instead to stop with you. Therefore, we must insist on our right to share the blame, if blame there be, for our present plight.”

“Gad, Dan,” said Peter, deeply touched, “I had no idea you were a man of so profound a philosophical bent.”

“Anyone who communes much with hogs inevitably becomes a philosopher. Would you care for some cheese?”

“I would,” said Torchyld. “My fast hath not been broke since yester e’en. I meant to eat after my watch was over, but I got no chance, with everybody yammering at me and Great-uncle Sfyn banishing me and Dwydd enchanting me and my darling Syglinde—”

“Give him some cheese, quick,” said Peter.

“By all means,” Stott replied. “Tim, might I trouble you for the loan of that golden sickle? Though a sickle is not, I fear, the ideal instrument for cutting cheese.”

“Ye could hack it with my disenchanted sword,” Torchyld offered. “Ye blade be no good for anything else. I doubt not that be why Dwydd let me keep it.”

He hauled the mangled blade from underneath his robe and whacked a mighty hunk off the cheese. As he started to munch, Peter Shandy reached for the sword.

“Let’s see that thing for a minute, if you don’t mind. Tim, what do you think?”

The elderly gnome brought the blade close to his eyes, then ran a thorny thumb along its edge. “I’d say some bastard’s disenchanted this sword by whanging it against a rock. You want it reenchanted, son, or prince, or whatever we’re supposed to call you?”

“Gin ye wottest to work so great a charm, archdruid,” Torchyld replied with his mouth full of cheese, “ye may call me anything ye crave to.”

“Just let me find something to use for a whetstone. Ought to be a halfway decent stone kicking around here. Ah, just the ticket.”

Among the arcane skills Timothy Ames had learned as a boy on a farm was how to put an edge on a tool with a hand-held stone and a judicious application of elbow grease. While Torchyld wolfed cheese and gazed in wonderment, Tim stroked at the nicked and battered blade. When Tim gave out, Peter took over. By the time the two disenchanters were telling each other they guessed maybe now she’d do, Torchyld was wiping his mouth on his forearm and Dan Stott was regarding the remains of his cheese with grave concern.

“Ye be great wizards,” cried the young giant. “Now prithee disenchant me.”

“I expect you’ll be disenchanted enough before this expedition’s over,” Peter told him. “Which way is King Sfyn’s castle? Ready, gentlemen? Let’s go.”

“Where to?” asked Timothy Ames.

Well might he ask. Directly in front of them, blocking their way, stood a solid mass of giant hogweed.

“I TOLD YE SO
,” said Torchyld. “She will not let us gae.”

“She?” said Tim. “You don’t mean the resident hag?”

“None other. She groweth yon evil weed by a foul enchantment. Ye path was clear when I came over it but a small while hence.”

“You sure it was the same path, son?”

“How many paths dost think we have, forsooth? Verily, archdruid, wert ye not so aged and venerable, I’d call that a damned silly question. What kingdom be so proud and foolish as to have more than one path in a given direction?”

Tim snorted. Shandy sighed, thinking of the four-lane highways they’d traveled to get to that ill-omened pub.

“You’ve been walking along this path, then, ever since you left the castle?” he asked.

“Where else would a bard walk?”

“You didn’t go foraging in the woods along the way, to see if you could find your great-uncle’s griffin?”

“To what end? I wot Dwydd hath him enchanted, same as me. Mine eyes avail not to see him until she or ye break ye enchantment. Nay, I but slouched along twanging this asinine harp. I was trying to think up a rhyme for Syglinde, gin ye care to ken. I thought perchance I could charm her to me with my bardry, but I be hopeless at rhymes. Everything be hopeless. Nevermore shall I—Look out!”

“Gripes,” gasped Tim. “The damned stuff’s chasing us.”

Even as they watched in horror, the hogweed plants were sending up shoots like pikestaffs, crowding forward to envelop them.

“Ah, yes,” said Daniel Stott, securing the remnant of his cheese and taking a giant step backward. “My sons and I observed a similar phenomenon on a television broadcast some years ago. In that instance the plants were destroyed by having seawater pumped on them. However, those were of a different species called, I believe, trifids. I question whether seawater would prove efficacious against
Heracleum mantegazzianum.
”

“I question where we’d be able to lay our hands on a pump around here, not to mention a sea,” said Peter. “This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. That hogweed’s growing faster than corn in Iowa. We’d better get off this path. Torchyld, where can we go?”

His question was rhetorical. There was only one way open to them and they took it, around the bole of the biggest oak and on through the forest. For a while they seemed to be getting ahead of the hogweed. Then all of a sudden, it was surrounding them, crowding them up against a wall of rock.

“Quick,” shouted Torchyld. “Here be a cave.”

Fighting off the bristly, venomous leaves, they followed his lead inside. At once, the plants grew solidly across the cave’s mouth, blocking any chance of egress.

“It almost looks as if the hogweed meant to pin us up in here,” Shandy panted. “I wonder why.”

“If we are imprisoned without food or water for any length of time,” Stott began lugubriously, then caught himself. “At least we still have a modicum of cheese,” he finished in a more hopeful tone, for the Stotts were men of valor.

“Well, we can’t stay here watching the goddamn hogweed grow,” Tim fretted. “I vote we hunt for another way out.”

“Have we reason to hope there might in fact be another exit?” Dan inquired.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if there are several,” Peter answered, trying to sound hearty. “The rock formations are mostly limestone around here. Limestone’s highly water-soluble, as you know, and this is a rainy climate. The cave roof may have broken through in any number of places. I’d only suggest we try to leave a trail of some sort, so that we can find our way back to this opening if we have to. The cave may go on for a considerable distance.”

And wind up at a dead end, for all his brave talk. He didn’t have to tell them that.

“How can we leave a trail?” Torchyld asked him.

“Good question,” Peter admitted. “Tom Sawyer did it with smudges of candle black, which brings up another interesting question. How are we going to see our way? It’s already dark enough here by the entrance, with those infernal hogweed plants blocking out the daylight. I don’t suppose anybody thought to bring matches?”

Even as he asked, Peter knew the question was ridiculous. All he personally had in his possession at the moment were this dratted bedsheet around his body and the buskins on his feet. Except for Torchyld’s harp and what was left of Dan’s cheese, the others were in no better case, barring their meager arsenal of the freshly reenchanted sword and a golden sickle that wouldn’t cut anything except, presumably, mistletoe. It wasn’t much to equip a spelunking expedition with.

“I might have a lightning bug or two on me,” Tim remarked. “I think I’ve picked up a fair assortment of vermin.”