The Pinhoe Egg (22 page)

Great-Uncle Edgar cleared his throat and looked uneasily at Great-Uncle Lester. Great-Uncle Lester went gray and seemed to get very shaky. “
You
tell them, Edgar,” he quavered.
“I—I'm not up to it after all this time.”

“The fact is,” Great-Uncle Edgar said, looking pompously around the inn yard, “Gaffer Pinhoe is not—er—actually dead.”

“What's this?” Gammer Norah cried out, catching up rather late. “What's this? Not
dead
?” She's drunk! Marianne thought. She's going to start singing soon. “What do you mean, not dead? I
told
you to kill him. Gaffer Farleigh
ordered
you to kill him. Your own Gammer, his
wife
, said you had to kill him. Why didn't you?”

“We felt that was a little extreme,” Great-Uncle Lester said apologetically. “Edgar and I simply used that spell that was used on Luke Pinhoe.” He nodded at Irene. “Your ancestor, Mrs. Yeldham. We disabled both his legs. Then we put him in that old cart he loved so much and drove him into the woods.”

Irene looked aghast.

“It had been our intention,” Uncle Edgar explained, “to stow him beyond and behind with the hidden folks. But, upon experiment, we found we couldn't open the confining spell. So we made another confining spell by building a barrier and left him behind that.”

“Please understand, Gammer Norah,” Great-Uncle Lester pleaded. “Gaffer Farleigh knew all about it, and he didn't object. It—it seemed so much
kinder
that way.”

Chrestomanci said, so softly and gently that both great-uncles shuddered, “It seems to
me
exceedingly cruel. Who else knew about this
kind
plot of yours?”

“Gammer knew, of course—” Great-Uncle Edgar began.

But Chrestomanci was still using Performative Speech. Dad spoke up. “They told all of us,” he said, bending his saw about. “All his sons. They needed to, because of dividing out his property. We weren't surprised. We'd all seen it coming. We arranged for Cedric and Isaac to leave him eggs and bread and stuff behind the barrier.” He looked earnestly up at Chrestomanci. “He must be still alive. The food goes.”

Here, Great-Aunt Sue, who had been sitting holding the collar of the one fat dog that had come back from chasing the flying machine, quite suddenly stood up and slapped her hands down her crisp skirt. “Alive in the woods,” she said. “For eight years. Without the use of his legs. And
all of you lying about it.
Nine
grown men. I'm ashamed to belong to this family. Edgar, that does it. I'm leaving. I'm going to my sister outside Hopton. Now. And don't expect to hear from me again. Come on, Towser,” she said, and went striding briskly out of the yard, with the dog panting after her.

Great-Uncle Edgar sprang up despairingly. “Susannah! Please! It's just—we just didn't want to upset anyone!”

He started after Great-Aunt Sue. But Chrestomanci shook his head and pointed to the bench where Great-Uncle Edgar had been sitting. Great-Uncle Edgar sank back onto it, purple faced and wretched.

“I must say I'm glad Clarice isn't here to hear this,” Great-Uncle Lester murmured.

I wish
I
wasn't here to hear it! Marianne thought. Tears were pushing to come out of her eyes, and she knew she would never feel the same about any of her uncles.

Aunt Joy, who seemed to have waited for this to be over, stood up too, and folded her arms ominously. “Eight years,” she said. “Eight years I've been living a lie.” She loosed one arm in order to
point accusingly at Uncle Charles. “Charles,” she said, “don't you expect to come home tonight, because I'm not having you! You spineless layabout. They do away with your own father, and you don't even mention the matter, let alone object. I've had enough of you, and that's final!”

Uncle Charles looked sideways at Aunt Joy, under her pointing finger, with his head down, rather like Joe. Marianne did not think he looked enormously unhappy.

Aunt Joy swung her pointing finger round toward the rest of the aunts. “And I don't know how you women can sit there,
knowing
what they've all done and lied about. I'm ashamed of you all, that's all I have to say!” She swung herself round then and stalked out of the yard as well. The invisible person on the roof played a march in time to Aunt Joy's banging shoes.

Marianne looked at her other aunts. Aunt Polly had not turned a hair. Uncle Cedric had obviously told her everything years ago. They were very close. Aunt Helen was staring trustingly at Uncle Arthur, sure that he had good reasons for not telling her; but Aunt Prue was looking at Uncle Simeon very strangely. Her
own mother looked more unhappy than Marianne had ever seen her. Marianne could tell Dad had never said a word to her. She looked at Uncle Isaac's grave face and wondered what—if anything—he had told Aunt Dinah.

“I hope no one else wishes to leave,” Chrestomanci said. “Good.” He turned his eyes to Dad. Though his face was pale and pulled with pain, his eyes were still bright and dark. Dad jumped as he met those eyes. “Mr. Pinhoe,” Chrestomanci said, “perhaps you would be good enough to explain just
what
you had seen coming and
why
everyone felt it was necessary to—er—do away with your father.”

Dad laid the saw carefully down by his feet. The brownish purple hand at once obligingly offered him another tankard of drink. Harry Pinhoe took it with a nod of thanks, too bothered by what he was going to say to notice where the drink had come from. “It was that egg,” he said slowly. “The egg was the last straw. Anyone had only to look at it to know Gaffer had fetched it from behind the confinement spell. Everything else led up to that, really.”

“In what way?” Chrestomanci asked.

Harry Pinhoe sighed. “You might say,” he answered, “that Old Gaffer suffered from too much dwimmer. He was always off in the woods gathering weird herbs and poking into things best left alone. And he kept on at Gammer that the hidden folk were unhappy in confinement and ought to be let free. Gammer wouldn't hear of it, of course. Nor wouldn't Jed Farleigh. They had rows about it almost every week, Gammer saying it has always been our
job
to keep them in, and Gaffer shouting his nonsense about it was high time to let them out. Well, then—”

Harry Pinhoe took a long encouraging pull at his strange drink and made a puzzled face at the taste of it before he went on.

“Well, then, the crisis came when Gaffer came out of the woods with this huge, like egg. He gave it to Gammer and told her to keep it warm and let it hatch. Gammer said why should she do any such thing? Gaffer wouldn't tell her, not until she put a truth spell on him.
Then
he told her it was his scheme to let the hidden folks out. He said that when this egg hatched, he would be there to watch the bindings on the hidden folks undone.” Harry Pinhoe looked unhappily over at
Chrestomanci. “That did it, see. Gaffer said it like a prophecy, and Gammer couldn't have that.
Gammer's
the only one that's allowed to prophesy, we all know that. So she told her brothers Gaffer was quite out of hand and ordered them to kill him.”

Marianne shivered. Cat found he had one hand protectively on Klartch, gripping the warm fluff on his back. Klartch, luckily, seemed to be asleep. Chrestomanci smiled slightly and seemed entirely bewildered. “But I don't understand,” he said. “
Why
is it necessary to keep these unfortunate beings confined?”

Dad was puzzled that he should ask. “Because we always have,” he said.

Gammer Norah came abreast of the talk again. “We always have,” she proclaimed. “Because they're abominations. Wicked, ungodly things. Sly, mischievous, wild, and
beastly
!”

Dorothea looked up from her enormous glass. “Dangerous,” she said. “Evil. Vermin. I'd destroy every one of them if I could.”

She said it with such venom that a desperate, terrified shiver ran round all the half-seen and invisible beings in the yard. Cat and Marianne
found themselves clutched by unseen, shaking hands. One half-seen person climbed into Marianne's lap. A hard head with whiskers—or possibly antennae—butted pleadingly at Cat's face and, he was fairly sure, another person ran up him and sat on his head for safety. He looked at Chrestomanci for help.

Chrestomanci, however, looked at Dorothea and then, sternly, at Harry Pinhoe. “I regret to have to tell you,” he said, “that Gaffer Pinhoe was quite right and the rest of you are quite, quite wrong.”

Dad jerked backward on his bench. There was an outcry of shocked denial from Pinhoes and Farleighs alike. Dad's face turned red. “How come?” he said.

Millie glanced at Chrestomanci and took over. “We've been finding out all about you,” she said. “We've traced Pinhoes, Farleighs, and Cleeves right back almost to the dawn of history now.”

There was another shocked muttering at this, as everyone realized at last that their secrecy was truly at an end. But they all listened attentively as Millie went on.

“You've always lived here,” she said. “You
must be some of the oldest witch families we know about. We found you first almost like clans, most of you living in tiny houses round the chief's great hall, and the rest of you living
in
the hall as followers of the chief. Woods House is certainly built on the exact spot where the Pinhoe hall was—and that was built a surprisingly long time ago too. Before the church, in fact. The Farleigh hall seems to have been destroyed in the trouble that came, but the Cleeves still have theirs, although it's the Cleeve Arms now, over in Crowhelm.”

This caused some interest. Pinhoes and Farleighs turned to one another and murmured, “I never knew that. Cleeve Arms
is
old, though.”

Heads turned back to Millie as she continued. “Now there are at least three important things you should know about those early days. The first is that your chief, who was known as Gaffer from quite early on, was chosen from among the old chief's family, and he was always chosen for having the most dwimmer. And he wasn't just chief, he was a prophet and a foreteller too. Your Old Gaffer was behaving just as he should, in fact.
He
was the one who chose the Gammer—and she
wasn't always his wife, either. She was the woman with the most dwimmer. And the pair of them not only governed the rest, they worked in
partnership
with the hidden folks. These folks were cherished and loved and guarded. You shared magics with them, and they repaid you with healings and—”

This was too much for everyone. Millie was drowned out with cries of “That
can't
be!” and “I never
heard
such twaddle!”

Millie smiled slightly, and her voice suddenly came out over and above the objections, clear as a bell and, seemingly, not very loud. But everyone heard when she said, “Then comes the awful gap, with all sorts of horror in it.” Everyone hushed to hear what this horror was.

“A new religion came to this country,” Millie said, “full of zeal and righteousness—the kind of religion where, if other people didn't believe in it, the righteous ones killed and tortured them until they did. This religion hated witches and hated the hidden folk even more. They saw all witches and invisible folks as demons, monsters, and devils, and their priests devised ways of killing them and destroying their magic that really worked.

“All three Gaffers at this time prophesied, as far as we can tell, and all of you, Pinhoes, Farleighs, and Cleeves, at once made sure that no one knew you were witches. What craft you used, you used in utmost secrecy, and because the hidden folk were even more at risk than you were, you all combined to keep them safe by locking them away behind the back of the distance. It was only intended to be a temporary measure. The Gaffers were all quite clear that the bloodthirsty righteous ones would go away in time. And so they did. But before they did, their priests became even more skillful and learned to conceal their plans even from the Gaffers. Even so, the Gaffer Farleigh of the time started to prophesy disaster. But that was the night the bloodthirsty ones attacked.

“They came with fire and swords and powerful magics, and they killed everyone they could.” Millie looked round the yard and at the people clustering at the gate. “When they had finished,” she said, “the only people left were children, all of them younger than any of the children here. We think the bloodthirsty ones took all the children they could catch and educated them in their own
religious ways, and some children escaped to the woods. The gap lasts about fifteen years, so those children had time to grow up. Then, thank goodness, the bloodthirsty ones were conquered themselves, probably by the Romans, and you all came together again, those from the woods and those who had been captured, and started to rebuild your lives.”

Chrestomanci took a deep breath as Millie finished and steadied himself on the arms of his chair. He was looking awfully ill, Cat thought anxiously. “But you see what that means,” Chrestomanci said. “These children had been too young to understand properly. They only knew what their anxious parents had impressed on them before the slaughter. They thought they had to keep their craft secret. They believed it was their duty to keep the hidden folks confined—and they had a vague notion that danger would come if they didn't. And they all knew that if a Gaffer prophesied, horrible things would happen—so they chose Gaffers that were good at giving orders, rather than those with dwimmer or the gift of foresight. And,” Chrestomanci said ruefully, “I am afraid to say that the bloodthirsty doctrines of the religious ones had
rubbed off on quite a lot of them, and they saw it as their religious duty to do things this way.”

A long, thoughtful silence followed this. While it lasted, Cat watched a spidery hand, a new one that was a silvery white color, reach from behind Chrestomanci's chair to pass Chrestomanci a small glass of greenish liquid. Chrestomanci took it, looking rather startled. Cat watched him sniff it, hold it up to the light, and then cautiously dip a finger into it. His finger came out sparking green and gold like a firework. Chrestomanci examined it for a moment. Then he murmured, “Thank you very much,” and drank the glassful off. He made the most dreadful face and clapped his hand to his stomach for a moment. But after that he looked a good deal better.