“What do you want?” he snapped, and the youth was treated to a waft of cidery breath.
“Goodly hermit,” the youth began, “might I beg of you a bed for the night? Dusk is creeping across the land and I fear I will not make my destination before night falls, after which all manner of manxome foes will be abroad.”
“Nobody’s spending the night in my tower with me,” came the old man’s curt reply. “I am a hermit of some repute, and I do not wish to tarnish that reputation. Nobody is welcome here.”
“How kind of you!” the youth exclaimed, boldly striding over the threshold, past the bewildered old man, into the tower. “But how did you know my name?”
“What?”
“I am Nobody, good sir. That is my name.”
The hermit looked the youth up and down—from his cascading golden locks to his verdant doublet and his crimson hose, taking in the ancient sword at his belt—and then he began to laugh.
“You’re Nobody, are you?”
“That’s right,” the youth said, and the expression on his face could not have been more earnest.
“And what kind of cruel creature thought to call you Nobody?”
“It was my late father, sir,” the youth replied, “for he used to say to me, ‘Boy, put these notions of monster-hunting from your head. You’re not some noble knight galumphing about the place beheading maidens and rescuing dragons. You’re Nobody, and the sooner you get used to the idea, the better for all of us. Now get me another drink.’” Lowering his voice he added, “I am ashamed to say that my father was often drunk.”
“Out of interest, what career did your father forge for himself?” the hermit asked.
“He was a gong-farmer, sir. But after he fell into a cesspit and drowned, the family business died with him. And so I set out to make my fortune as a monster-hunter.”
“And where did the son of a gong-farmer get a sword like that?”
“It’s an old family heirloom, handed down on my mother’s side.”
The hermit regarded the guileless youth for a moment, a wry smile curling his thin lips.
“All right then, why not?” he said with a laugh. Pointing at a pile of logs beside the door, and the axe sunk into a large chopping block sitting amidst a mess of wood shavings, he said, “Chop that little lot for me and I’ll give you a bed for the night for your trouble, and I’ll even share my supper with you.”
* * *
And so, as night chased the sun below the western horizon, and the moon rose amidst a smattering of stars, safe inside the tower, the hermit shared the contents of his cooking pot with Nobody.
Warmed from without by the fire and from within by the food filling their bellies, talk turned from cabbages and kings to hopes and dreams.
“So what brings you to these parts?” the old man asked Nobody.
Draining the last dregs from his bowl, Nobody wiped the sleeve of his doublet across his greasy lips. “I’m here to kill the Jabberwock.”
The hermit considered the youth’s beardless chin, his slim arms, and his barely scuffed boots. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you sure you’re cut out to be a monster-hunter?”
“Oh yes,” Nobody replied, his face an open book. “And I will prove it to you, just as I will prove it to my late father, by slaying the beast.”
“The Jabberwock.”
“Has the monster not been terrorising this region for some years now?”
“That is true,” replied the old man.
“And always around this time of year, as spring is giving way to summer?”
“That is also true.”
“Well, now that I am here, its days are numbered,” replied the youth, holding his head high, a beatific smile on his face.
The old man rose to his feet, the flickering flames of the fire growing his shadow on the wall behind him, until it loomed over them both like some legendary predatory beast.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” the old man challenged Nobody, baring what few teeth he had left and hooking his fingers into claws in a dumb-show mime of a fearsome monster.
“Oh, have no fear, I shall,” the youth replied, his determination indefatigable.
“And the Jabberwock is not the only hungry horror that haunts the forest,” his host continued. “While you’re at it, you’d best beware the Jubjub bird!”
“The Jubjub bird?” parroted the youth.
“It makes its nest at the top of the tallest tree in the forest. And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!”
“I shall have nothing to fear as long as I have my vorpal sword in hand,” the youth replied, although his complexion had paled somewhat.
“Then on your head be it,” grumbled the querulous hermit.
* * *
When dawn came, the hermit hoped that Nobody’s youthful boasts and the bravado he had demonstrated the night before would have been seen for what they were in the cold light of day. But the gong-farmer’s son would not be dissuaded from his fool’s errand and set off once more, giving the hermit a final cheery wave and a beamish smile.
From the tumbledown tower, Nobody descended the crag, where the hermit’s home perched at its precipitous peak, and followed an old goat-herder’s track that eventually joined with the road that skirted the southern limits of the forest, which brought him at last to the huddle of houses and hovels that had collected at the bend in the river valley.
Crossing a broad stone bridge, Nobody entered the town. The crowded streets were bedecked with bunting and everywhere he looked he saw jugglers, acrobats, fire-breathers, puppeteers and minstrels. The festival had brought a host of entertainers to this place, as well as the monster-hunters and their entourages, not to mention those who had simply come to immerse themselves in the carnival atmosphere, and cheer the hunters on.
Nobody wandered through the streets as if in a trance, mouth agape as he took in all the wonders the festival had to offer this son of a simple gong-farmer.
Beast-slayers, like him, had travelled from far afield in the hope of ridding the town of the creature that had been left to terrorise the town for far too long. There were hairy-armed barbarians from the north, mail-clad paladins from the west, sallow-skinned trackers from the south, and even noble life-liege warriors from the east, wearing red-lacquered armour and carrying tempered steel blades.
But what was clear to even a beardless youth from the sticks, untested by the rough ways of the world, was that the local businesses were doing a roaring trade, providing the hunters, and the cavalcades of hangers-on that followed in their wake, everything they could possibly require or desire, from beer and weapons to trinkets by which to commemorate the occasion of the Hunt and bed companions for a night or two.
The Mayor had declared that a reward of one thousand crowns would be awarded to the hunter, or hunters, who actually slew the Jabberwock, with only one, small stipulation: anyone hoping to claim the reward had to register with the town authorities first to be granted a licence to hunt within the forest.
Foregoing all that the hot food stalls had to offer, having enjoyed a hearty bowl of porridge that morning courtesy of the hermit, Nobody followed the bands of beast-slayers that were converging on the largest inn that stood at the heart of the town, off the main market square.
Nobody took his place in the line snaking out of the door of The Slithy Tove, and waited patiently until it was his turn to shuffle from the warming morning sunlight into the shadowed smoky interior of the hostelry. And eventually he found himself standing before the table at which sat the town’s rotund, rosy-cheeked Mayor and his gaunt, sour-faced clerk.
“And who might you be?” asked the clerk, his words clipped, his tone sharp, his voice nasal.
“Nobody,” Nobody replied.
“Anyone can see you’re a nobody,” chortled the Mayor, taking off his felt hat to mop his brow with an extravagant white lace handkerchief as big as a tablecloth, “but Mortsafe here still needs a name for
your licence!”
“Begging your pardon, your lordship,” the youth said, and had he been wearing a hat he would most certainly have doffed it, “but Nobody is my name.”
The clerk adjusted the spectacles perched on the end of his hawkish nose and gave Nobody an uffish look.
“Nobody?”
“Nobody!” the youth said, smiling broadly.
“Nobody,” the clerk repeated, carefully writing the name on a fresh permit with a borogove quill pen. Without looking up he said, “That’ll be fifty crowns.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Your licence to hunt the beast. The fee is fifty crowns,” Mortsafe said irritably. “To cover administration costs, you understand.”
“I am very sorry, sir, but I do not have one crown to my name, let alone fifty. I have only the clothes on my back, a handful of copper coins, and the sword at my side. The very same sword with which I intend to slay the Jabberwock!” he declared proudly.
“If you do not have a licence you may not claim the reward, even if you do somehow manage to slay the beast,” the clerk snapped.
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” said Nobody.
“Well, you learn something new every day,” said the clerk coldly.
“Be off with you!” shouted the Mayor, making Nobody jump. “And stop wasting our time!”
Disheartened, Nobody turned and headed for the door; he doubted his handful of coppers were even enough to pay for a tankard of the local ale.
“Never mind, lad,” came a voice from nearby, “that vorpal sword of yours wouldn’t serve you well against a monster like the Jabberwock anyway.”
Nobody searched the shadows for the person who had been so disparaging about the ancient heirloom he carried.
Sitting at a table, clad in battered plate and rusty chainmail, was an ageing knight. His white hair hung down to his shoulders, but the dome of his pate was entirely bald. His face was drawn, his nose long and pronounced, and beneath it sat a bristling moustache which hid his mouth when he spoke, although it did nothing to curb his unkind comments.
Crouched beneath the table was a vigilant wolfhound, its ears up, its eyes bright and alert.
“And what would an ancient warrior like you know of hunting Jabberwocks?” Nobody railed, his uffish state causing him to forget his manners.
“I know you need to beware the jaws that bite and the claws that catch!” the white-haired knight countered.
Raising the tankard in his hand, he emptied it in one go. Wiping beer-foam from his moustache, he began drunkenly regaling Nobody, and anyone else within earshot, with the chronicle of his past exploits, finishing with, “And ten years ago, I rid this very town of the Gryphon that was terrorising the farms hereabouts. Of course, that was before my knees gave out, and this backwater wasn’t half as prosperous then as it is now.” Here he rose unsteadily to his feet. “But I swear Sir Albus will save this town a second time, for I intend to be the one who slays the Jabberwock!”
And with that, the aged knight marched out of the inn, his armour clanking with every wobbling step, his faithful hound trotting after him.
His curiosity piqued, Nobody followed.
“Do you have a licence?” he asked the knight.
“Have it here!” the white knight said, thrusting out a gauntleted hand in which was held a crumpled scroll.
Tethered outside The Slithy Tove was the knight’s brave steed. It had doubtless been a mighty charger in its day but, like the knight, the horse was patently past its prime now.
It surely didn’t help that the horse’s saddlebags were laden with everything from a rusty morning-star and a wooden sparring blade to bellows, a dustpan and brush, and even a bunch of turnips.
“But good Sir Knight, what makes you think you will succeed over the other beast-slayers who have gathered here to hunt the Jabberwock?” Nobody asked, giving the old nag a disparaging look.
“You mean, what do I have that they don’t?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have Garm, don’t I, boy?” he said, addressing the dog.
The wolfhound wagged its tail enthusiastically.
“And Garm has a sense of smell like no other. Garm will follow the monster’s scent, and Tancred and I will follow Garm.”
The white knight fixed the youth with a steely stare. “But I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I am not the knight I once was, and it would be remiss of me not to appoint a squire, to join me on my quest.”
His bushy eyebrows rose, asking the question for him.
“Me?” gasped Nobody, taken aback.
“Young lad like you should be up to the task, and you might learn a thing or two. And I’ll give you a share of the reward.”
“Should we actually slay the beast.”
“Should I slay the beast,” corrected the knight, “which, of course, I shall.”
“So when do we start?” asked Nobody.
The white knight looked at him askance. “Not now, that’s for certain! No, only a fool would venture into that tulgey wood this late in the day. I’ll be fighting fit after a good night’s sleep. We set off at cockcrow!”
* * *
Cockcrow came and went, and it wasn’t until the sun was halfway to its zenith that Sir Albus emerged from the hayloft where he had been sleeping off his hangover.
While Nobody made sure that the old nag was fed and watered before they set out, the knight disappeared inside The Slithy Tove again, and didn’t return for over an hour.
But when he did, gyring and gimbling unsteadily along the potholed road, it was with a twinkle in his eye, a knowing finger tapping his nose, and the directions to the last place the Jabberwock had been seen.
And so they set off, the knight struggling to remain upright in Tancred’s saddle, Nobody walking beside them, and the faithful wolfhound Garm running ahead, sniffing the ground for any sign of the beast.
Passing over the stone bridge and leaving the town, they turned off the track that skirted the southern reaches of the forest and headed north into the deeply wooded valley. They passed from clearing to track, to bog, to escarpment, to defile, to briar thicket, following the knight’s directions and the dog’s nose, until, upon hearing a commotion ahead of them, they picked up the pace and rushed towards the source of the sound, as a scream cut through the trees.
The screaming brought them to a smallholding within a clearing in the forest, and the discovery of a terrified family of four, as well as several hard, horny scales deposited in the churned-up mud of the yard, and claw marks upon a barn door.
Two pigs lay dead in their pen—“Savaged by the beast!” the farmer told them, picking another armour-like scale from where it had lodged in a fence post—and when they had determined from the man and his wife which way the Jabberwock had gone, the monster-hunters set off again.
* * *
Night fell, and for all the knight had said about not wanting to pass the hours of darkness in the depths of the forest—and Nobody’s dread of what might be lurking there in the gloom—that was precisely where they found themselves.
Exhausted after their day’s hunting, and too far from the town to make it worth turning back now, they made camp, lighting a small fire to keep the cold—not to mention their fear of the dark—at bay, and agreed to take it in turns to watch for frumious Bandersnatches and mome raths.
Warmed by the fire, and weary from wandering through the tulgey wood, Nobody fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pack he was using as a pillow.
He was cruelly awoken from his peaceful slumber by a terrible, bestial screeching. All was still dark around him, but by the wan light of the gibbous moon that bathed the clearing where they had made their camp, he could see that Sir Albus and his dog were gone, while Tancred was stamping his hooves and snorting in agitation.
The horrible screeching continued unabated, as Nobody raced through the bracken and clawing brambles, until he came upon the knight, battling the beast beneath the spreadi
ng boughs of a bulbous-bellied Tumtum tree.
It was like a cross between a cockerel, a serpent and a gigantic bat. The creature’s wattled head, which was mainly made up of a savage, tooth-lined beak, swayed atop an elongated, snake-like neck; but the beast was still only a head or two taller than the knight.
It wasn’t quite the monster Nobody had imagined was terrorising the area. Hopping about on its great, bird-like feet whilst flapping its stunted wings frantically, the Jabberwock certainly didn’t strike the youth as being the kind of creature that would give an experienced monster-hunter much trouble. Nonetheless, the old freelancer was making quite the meal of it, every flailing swing of his heavy sword missing the shrieking beast. Garm was barking furiously at the monster, whilst taking care to keep clear of its sharp talons.
Taking his own sword in hand Nobody joined the fray, and swinging the vorpal blade about him wildly, what he lacked in expertise he more than made up for in enthusiasm.
And slowly the tables were turned, and the three of them together—knight, squire and hound—began to overwhelm the beast, blood running from their blades and the monster’s body.
Shrieking still, the Jabberwock broke from the fight. Apparently unable to fly, it wasn’t able to do any more than take long, leaping hops through the forest as it attempted to flee.
Knight and squire gave chase together, determined not to let the monster escape. But the weary Sir Albus could not maintain the pace as he went clanking through the forest, and exhorted his young companion to press on after the beast, as he began to fall behind.
As the monster performed its hopping flight between the black trunks of the trees, no longer worrying whether Sir Albus was managing to keep up or not, spurred on by the faith the knight had put in him, Nobody sprinted after the Jabberwock and soon caught up with it.
Using the rotting trunk of a fallen tree as a launching-off point, he flung himself into the air as the Jabberwock reached the apex of another half-flying bound. Grabbing hold of one of the creature’s large, scaly feet, Nobody hung on as, with an agitated squawk, the Jabberwock found itself suddenly dragged back down to the ground.
The youth clung on, even as the monster tried to kick him free, helplessly beating the bracken with its useless wings, whilst screeching in frustration and fear.
Wonderland Page 10
