The Tiger's Egg (8 page)

M
iles Wednesday, dressing-gowned and hollow-trapped, stood in the center of a heaving circle of small, shaggy figures, none of whom rose above the level of his chin. The sky was still dark and they carried no lights, but at close range he could see them a bit better. Their hair was long and matted, and their faces almost completely covered with thick beards. In their noses they wore brass rings. They were dressed in a sort of patchwork of animal furs, but so hairy were the little men themselves that it was impossible to tell where their clothes ended and their own pelts began. They jockeyed and elbowed each other to get a better look at
him, and some of them poked him with sharpened sticks, or reached out and pinched him with bony little fingers to see what he was made of.

He glanced at Doctor Tau-Tau, who was struggling to free his arms from the grip of their captors so that he could remove the clump of grass from his mouth, but although the hairy men were small they were wiry and strong, and there were far too many of them to be overpowered. Miles himself had been neither tied nor gagged, and he decided that it was better not to resist, and to wait and see what would happen next. He had no doubt that these little men were the ones who had been raiding the circus at night, and if anything this encounter increased his curiosity about them.

Their captors began to poke and prod them toward the deeper darkness at the far side of the hollow. Miles could just see Doctor Tau-Tau stumbling ahead of him, surrrounded by the jostling men, and soon he found himself pushing through thick bushes. He suddenly lost sight of Tau-Tau altogether, and before he had time to wonder where he had gone the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he tumbled into blackness. The hole into which he had fallen was not very deep, and moments later he found himself rolling down a rocky slope in absolute darkness. He could hear Doctor Tau-Tau
ahead of him grunting and swearing as he bounced along. The grass gag had been jolted from his mouth, and he cursed and spat by turns as he tried to rid his tongue of the gritty soil.

As he tumbled down the underground slope Miles could hear a faint jingle of metal and the whisper of many leathery feet. He pictured (quite rightly, as it happened) the small army of hairy men running and leaping down the rocky slope on either side, without so much as a flashlight or even a flaming match to light their way. Just when he felt he had collected a bruise on every part of his body, he fetched up against the bulk of Doctor Tau-Tau, who was lying winded at the bottom of the slope.

“Get off me!” spluttered Tau-Tau. His hand found Miles in the darkness and groped its way around his face. “Oh, it's you,” he said irritably, as though it were Miles who had led him to this place and not the other way around. Miles picked himself up carefully and checked in his pocket for Tangerine. The little bear gripped his finger shakily, but he knew better than to make a sound.

Miles felt little bony fingers take his elbows on both sides, but their grip this time was not hard, and it was obvious that their captors knew he could see nothing in the pitch darkness that surrounded
them. He wondered why they did not make a light, but it seemed they needed none.

“Get your hands off me!” he heard Tau-Tau say. “I wish to parlay with the king. Which one of you hairy little devils is the king?”

A ripple of chuckles swept around them, and Miles could hear the sound of muttering and argument in a language he did not recognize. He wished, not for the first time, that Little were with him. He had never heard a language she was unable to translate.

The men gripping his elbows began to push him forward, and they stumbled for a while over uneven rock, Doctor Tau-Tau grousing loudly all the way. “Can't see a thing,” he grumbled. “Surely even these gibbering pygmies have learned to make fire.”

“Aren't these the people you were planning to meet?” asked Miles.

“Of course,” huffed Tau-Tau, who must have been bent double to avoid cracking his skull on the rocky ceiling. “But I wasn't expecting their emissaries to be such an uncouth rabble.”

“You said they didn't welcome visitors,” said Miles. “Who exactly are they, anyway?”

“I told you,” said the fortune-teller, “these are the people who lived here before your ancestors came from the lands to the east. They are known as the Fir
Bolg by the few people who believe in their existence. They don't get out much, as you may have noticed.”

“But why should they know anything about my father?” asked Miles.

“That's a long story.” Tau-Tau's voice echoed back along the tunnel. “I believe there was some connection between them and Celeste before she died, but it's too complicated to go into now. I intend to speak to their king, assuming he too hasn't descended to running around in rabbit skin and speaking gibberish.”

A faint glow appeared ahead of them. It began to grow in size, though not in brightness, but it was relief to eyes that had spent so long straining in the inky dark. Miles began to make out the outlines of their Fir Bolg captors, swarming through the tunnel and out into a wider space from which the glow came.

They emerged into a large cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites and lit with a feeble orange light. There were hundreds of the little hairy figures in the cave, arguing and laughing in their strange tongue, eating and fighting and crouched in groups playing games with small pieces of bone. There were women and children here too, even smaller than the men and distinguishable only by the fact that they had no beards.

The dim glow came from a sort of fireplace built in the center of the cavern. The fire was almost completely enclosed by a huge stone funnel, and in the stonework was a network of little gaps. These let out warmth and plenty of smoke, but very little light.

As Miles and Tau-Tau stood blinking in the smoky glow a silence fell over the crowd, and hundreds of faces turned to stare at them with glittering black eyes.

The silence did not last long. For a few moments there was nothing to be heard but the faint crackling of the enclosed fire, and somewhere in the distance a trickle of water, then all at once the Fir Bolg began to swarm around them—men, women and children, shaking their sticks and their fists, and all shouting at once. Miles and Tau-Tau were propelled into the cavern and half pushed, half carried toward the other side, which sloped steeply upward into the gloom. Doctor Tau-Tau's fez was knocked from his head in the scuffle, and what little patience he possessed deserted him altogether. His face turned a dangerous purple, and he threatened his hairy captors with the police, the plague and a hundred forgotten curses. The Fir Bolg did not understand a word.

Miles knew better than to put up a struggle, and
allowed himself to be swept along. The far side of the cavern was a stone slope dotted with smaller caves. Some were as large as a baron's bedroom, and others so small that they were just big enough for one of the little men to lie down in. Up ahead of him Miles could make out a knot of Fir Bolg manhandling Doctor Tau-Tau over the lip of one of these caves. The sight reminded him of a swarm of ants heaving a grub into their larder, and for the first time he wondered what the little men ate.

A moment later he was shoved into the cave after the grub, and collapsed beside him onto a carpet of dried grass. Tau-Tau was gasping for breath after his exertions, and no doubt the shouting had not helped. “Barbarians . . . ,” he panted. “Troglodyte hooligans! . . . Clearly have no idea who they're dealing with.” He produced his battered notebook from inside his dressing gown and rifled through it for a time in the faint orange light. He closed the notebook with a snap and poked his head out of the cave. “I wish to speak to the king,” he said slowly to the knot of guards posted outside. The little men looked at each other and shrugged.
“On Ree,”
said Tau-Tau. “Get me
on Ree
.”

The guards broke into laughter, then began to argue and gesticulate among themselves. Even
tually one of them received a poke from the blunt end of a spear, and set off back down the slope.

“That's more like it,” said Tau-Tau. “There's nothing like an in-depth knowledge of the local lingo.” Miles joined him at the cave mouth and looked out into the cavern. “Are you going to ask the king about my father?” he said.

“Yes, yes, all in good time,” said Doctor Tau-Tau. “There are formalities to be observed first.”

They waited for a long time, until it seemed that they had been altogether forgotten. Tau-Tau rummaged absently in his pocket and produced a fluff-covered chicken drumstick, but before he could get it to his lips one of their tiny captors ran forward and speared it deftly on his pointed stick. The fortune-teller was left with his mouth dangling open and his two hands grasping empty space, and the look of shock in his bulging eyes made the guards stop squabbling over their prize and hoot with laughter.

Eventually Miles spotted someone clambering up the slope toward them. As the figure got closer he could see that it was a woman, and that her wrinkled face was tattooed all over with a blue-black pattern of spirals and swirls. She wore three rings through her nose, each one larger than the last. Some of her matted hair was plaited into twisted
tails and finished with brass beads, and she carried a switch that she cracked from side to side to clear a path for herself. Perched on top of her head was Doctor Tau-Tau's faded red fez.

Tau-Tau pasted a strained grin on his face as the tiny woman approached, and extended his hand, which she ignored. “I have business with the king,” he said, with as much politeness as he could muster.

The woman spoke, and to his surprise Miles could make out some of her words.

“King,” she said, and a grin split her face. “
Gaw cade dahreig!
Two hundred kings and twelve.” Her bony arm swept out in an arc behind her.

“Two hundred and twelve? But there aren't much more than two hundred people here,” said Doctor Tau-Tau.

“I think that's what she means,” said Miles. “Maybe they don't have a ruler.”

The little woman turned her black eyes on Miles. She reached out and grabbed his jaw, turning his head from side to side.
“Fasogue?”
she chuckled. “Where's your beard?”

“I don't have one,” said Miles. “I'm only eleven.”

The woman cocked her head to one side like a bird, and the rings in her nostrils clinked. She turned to Doctor Tau-Tau again and poked him in
the belly with her switch.

Tau-Tau's smile began to crack. “Your leader,” he said loudly. “Who is your leader?”

“Two hundred kings,” repeated the little woman. “Speak to me. I am Fuat, daughter of Anust, daughter of Etar. I know your tongue. Who are you, and who was your mother and your mother's mother? What are you wanting here?”

Doctor Tau-Tau gave Miles a sidelong glance. “We need to speak in private,” he said to Fuat, “and you are wearing my hat.”

The woman poked him again with her switch. “Speak now,” she said. “Fuat's ears are open. The hat is mine.”

Tau-Tau shifted his feet uncomfortably. He leaned forward and muttered something in the little woman's ear. Miles could not hear what he said, but whatever it was did not remain a secret for long. The woman's eyes sprang wide and she went rigid, as though an electric shock had run through her. She turned slowly around, and in a surprisingly strong voice she boomed out her message to the entire cavern.
“Tawn t-Uv Reevoch egge!”
she said. A roar went up, and the Fir Bolg began to swarm up the slope toward them. Fuat shouted something else, and they stopped where they were. She
snapped her fingers and pointed to the little group of guards, who piled into the cave and at once began a thorough search of the startled Doctor Tau-Tau's person. They poked in his pockets and rummaged in his hair. They took out his notebook and his eyeglasses, two squares of fudge and a number of used tissues, and examined them all minutely. Two of them yanked off his slippers and shook them out.

“Not me, the
boy
, you hairy little nincompoops!” spluttered Tau-Tau. “The egg is in the
boy
!”

Miles felt his stomach tighten. He had no idea what Doctor Tau-Tau was talking about, but he knew that it would be his turn to be searched next. He put his hand into his pocket, and grasped Tangerine firmly. If they found the little bear there was no knowing what they would do to him. Miles glanced around him quickly. The cave wall behind him was pocked with smaller holes, like a giant cheese. He spotted a Tangerine-sized hole just above him, and making sure that the Fir Bolg were still occupied in their search of Tau-Tau, he reached up and quickly tucked the bear into the hole, pushing him to the back and hoping against hope that for once Tangerine would stay where he was put.