Limbo Lodge

by Joan Aiken

Yorka said at once – “You been with Auntie Tala’aa – you Shaki Doctor? You got sticky string, mend glasses?”

  “Whose glasses?”

  “These here, Mylord Oklosh.”

  Moving to the patch of moonlight where the doctor sat, Yorka produced the broken spectacles from her little pouch and displayed them.

  “Oh yes, I can easily mend those with a bit of sticking-plaster,” Talisman said. She had brought her bag of medical equipment, slung on her back. She delved into it and found the plaster. “You are Yorka, are you not? I met your aunt last night.”

  “Doc Tally,” said Dido, as the repair was being swiftly and neatly executed, “how in the name of wonder did you climb up to that window?”

  Talisman chuckled quietly.

  “Well – you see – while I was doing my medical training – I spent a couple of months in the mountains of Transylvania with a kind of Senior Lady Magician—”

  “A witch?” suggested Dido.

  “I suppose you might call her that. Certainly she was a healer and a seer – and she taught me various ways of getting into houses where there is a sick person – sometimes, you know, there may be nobody around to let in the doctor. Or they may not want the doctor to get in. In this house I think there is somebody who is in bad pain – isn’t that so?”

  “On the nob, Doc,” said Dido. “There’s a poor gal somewhere downstairs having a baby – least ways she may have had it by now—”

  “No, she has not,” said the doctor. “I would know that. I had better go down directly and see to her.”

  “You may have a mite of trouble getting to her,” Dido warned. “There’s some fierce old hags in this house—”

  “I daresay they will be glad enough to let me by,” said Talisman drily. She picked up her bag. Out of it rolled something hard and round. Yorka let out a squeak of astonishment.

  “One headbone! From Kulara, the Place of Stones!”

  She picked up the object and held it in the moonlight. It was a human skull – small, dark in colour, and plainly very old indeed. “Where you get?” she demanded.

  “No, no, my love, I know what you think, but indeed I didn’t steal it from the Place of Stones,” Talisman said soothingly. “I plan to take it back there. Later. I will tell you. Now I must go and look after that poor girl.”

  “Can we help, Doc?” said Dido.

  “If I need you I will call. There’s probably a whole troop of people in there already. Yorka will hear if I call – won’t you, Yorka?”

  “I hear,” said Yorka.

  “While I’m down there you think helpful thoughts.”

  After Talisman’s light step had died away down the stair, Dido said, “How did she know your name was Yorka? I never told her that.”

  “She just been with my mother’s sister Tala’aa,” said Yorka. “Last night. Aunt Tala’aa probable help her out of jail.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Scent. Aunt Tala’aa, she every day pick melanthus curd, make ointment. No one else do like that.”

  “I see. I wonder how Talisman got in touch with your aunt.”

  “Aunt Tala’aa know many a thing. Sisingana know she help Doctor, from the drums.”

  “Can you hear the drums, Yorka? Do you know what they say?”

  “No,” said Yorka sadly. “Hear, yes, but not know what they say. Nor Tylo can. We learn speak other tongue, so drum noise slip away from ear.”

  “You mean, because you can speak to me in Shaki language, you can’t understand drum language? What a blame shame,” said Dido. “I bet you’d rather know what the drums are saying.”

  “Too late,” said Yorka. “Too late now. Maybe, if Never Week come, hear drum again.”

  Never Week, Dido had learned from Tylo, was a time when everything that had gone wrong would be put right. Or the other way round.

  Both girls felt too wide awake now to sleep again; instead they told each other stories. Meanwhile, Dido tried to think helpful thoughts.

  Perhaps they did help.

  Yorka said: “That girl down there. Now better. Girl-baby is come.”

  “Oh, I’m glad,” said Dido. “The family won’t be, though, will they? Angrians don’t like girl-babies.”

  “No, can’t inherit house, can’t fight in battle. Girl-baby often put out in forest for wild pig to eat.”

  “No!” said Dido, horrified. “They don’t really do that, do they? Those Angrians?”

  “Golly-often. Often! But not this girl, maybe. Listen.”

  The two girls crouched in silence, listening, then Yorka said, “Baby find voice. Tell ghosts, go back where they came from.”

  “Where is that? Where do they come from?”

  “Back-to-front land under ground. Under forest. Where sun rise in west, shadow go frontwards. Shadow land. Ghost people come from there.”

  The cry of a newborn, unnamed child, Yorka told Dido, contains terrific ghostly power. Giving a child a name, like putting a ring on its finger, ties down the spirit, reduces its force. But makes it safer, too, from the hungry spirits that cluster in search of prey whenever a baby is about to be born.

  “Like tree-snake waiting for plum-bird chicks to hatch,” Yorka said. “Ah! Now listen! Doctor calling us.”

  Dido could hear no call, but followed Yorka without hesitation. They ran down the winding stair and along another narrow damp passage to a kind of lobby where several maids were gathered outside a door. Isabella the housekeeper was there and sternly waved them back.

  “Bad girls! How did you get out? Go away! Go to your room! This is no place for you.”

  But the door opened and Talisman’s voice called from inside: “No! Let them come in. They are wanted. I need them here as witnesses.”

  Passing the group of servants, who unwillingly stood back to let them through, the girls went into a large untidy room, dimly lit by a dozen candles. Three or four maidservants were running about with jugs and cloths and towels. The Senhora Esperanza Ereira stood, grim as a post, on the far side of the bed, which was the untidiest feature of the room, rumpled and crumpled, tangled with damp sheets and piled high at both ends with pillows.

  Curled limply against the pillows and draped with a silk shawl was a skinny girl, utterly submerged in sleep. And, in a basket beside her on the bed, not sleeping at all, but looking alertly about, lay a tiny baby, wrapped in a shawl of djeela flowers.

  Dr Talisman, standing by the bed, said: “Good. I need you two to witness the christening.”

  “This is not right. None of this is right,” said the Senhora Esperanza sternly. “A christening should not be performed by a woman – even if she has trained as a doctor.”

  She swept Talisman with a disapproving glare. Is it because she’s a doctor? wondered Dido, or because she is wearing men’s clothes? It was plain that the senhora had not, for a single moment, been deceived by the men’s clothes.

  “Very well, senhora,” said Talisman calmly. “Then let your husband, the Senhor Don Enrique Ereira, perform the ceremony.”

  “He will not. I mean,” said the Senhora correcting herself, “he cannot. The Senhor is – is indisposed. He is unwell.”

  “In that case,” suggested Dido, “how about Lord Herodsfoot? He’s a college-learned fellow, he’d oblige. I bet he’d do it for ye, all hunky-dory.”

  Despite the Senhora’s look of even greater disapproval, Talisman said, “Is Lord Herodsfoot in the house? Yes, from all I hear of him, he would be an excellent choice. Let him be sent for.” And putting her head out the door, she ordered, “Let the English milord be wakened and brought here directly.”

  “Senhora Medica,” said Dona Esperanza crossly, “we must of course be obliged to you for saving my daughter’s life – and the child—” (She don’t sound a mite thankful, Dido thought.) “But now you go beyond what is needed or seemly.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Doctor Talisman cheerfully. “Not at all.”

  “You come here – a stranger to us,
an outsider—”

  “Not entirely, ma’am. I was born in this island twenty-five years ago.”

  “Indeed.” This news seemed very unpleasing to the Senhora.

  “And furthermore,” Talisman went on, “I have, from one of my parents, the gift of knowing in advance – a very little – what fortune keeps in store for some of my patients. For instance—” she leaned down and touched one of the baby’s fists with her finger; instantly the tiny hand grasped the finger and held it. Dr Talisman looked up, smiling, at the angry grandmother. “For instance, ma’am, just by this contact with your granddaughter’s hand, I can tell you two things: one is that in the circle of people closely connected with her at this moment there is one who wishes her great harm. Safely christened, she will be in less danger from that. And, secondly, your granddaughter has an unusual future ahead of her. If – and it is only if, mark you – if she reaches the age of an adult, she may well become the ruler of this island. Of course that is only one chance among many – at every moment of our lives so many different choices face us, do they not—?

  The Senhora did not seem particularly enchanted at the suggestion that her granddaughter might one day become Queen of Aratu. She began, “I do not at all understand—” in an angry voice, but at this moment Lord Herodsfoot entered the room, tying his cravat with a hasty negligent hand, wearing the slightly blind, bemused, helpless look of a person who ordinarily wears glasses but has mislaid them. He was followed by Tylo, plainly anxious not to miss anything interesting that might be going on.

  “You sent for me, ma’am? – Goodness gracious me,” he added, peering about him at the disorderly, candle-lit room, “have I come to the right place?”

  “Mylord Oklosh!” cried Yorka joyfully, “see, see, see! Shaki Talisman fix your glasses, very best!” And she ran forward, pulled Herodsfoot’s hand so as to bring his head down to her level, and carefully, tenderly fitted the glasses on to his nose.

  “My word! That is an improvement!” ejaculated Lord Herodsfoot, adjusting the spectacles with the palms of both hands. Then he looked straight ahead, and the first thing he saw was the face of Dr Talisman, studying him across the tumbled bed, wearing her usual expression of keen, alert attention.

  “Dr Talisman, I believe?” He gave her his wide, friendly smile. “I cannot tell you, ma’am, how exceedingly happy I am to meet you, and how grateful I am for this work of rescue—” He touched the mended glasses. “I have been hearing so much about you, both from Miss Twite and from the boy Tylo here. But now, how can I be of use? – for I feel this is not a room where male guests are welcome for longer than is strictly needful.” Now catching sight of the Senhora, grim and silent in the shadows, he made her a low bow, and said, “Ma’am: your most obedient servant . . .”

  She slightly, silently inclined her head, but made no reply.

  “We need this child christened,” Talisman said briefly. “And the Senhora here is of the opinion that the ceremony is best performed by a man. Sir, will you be so good . . .?”

  It was plain that, during Lord Herodsfoot’s extensive travels round the world, he had at various times been faced with unusual circumstances equal to these. He said: “Certainly; if you wish it, ma’am?” glancing from Talisman to the Senhora, who again very slightly inclined her veiled head.

  “Would you have such a thing as a drop of holy water, or a thimbleful of djeela-nut oil?” “Certainly not!” snapped the Senhora.

  “Well, it is no matter. I have a thimbleful myself, which this boy’s great-grandfather was so kind as to give me, in return for my reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets to him.” And he pulled a beautiful little spiral shell from his pocket. “Do you have a pin, my dear Doctor?”

  Talisman produced a pin from her neck-cloth and Herodsfoot, with extreme care, removed a tiny plug of clay from the opening of the shell, and tipped a minute drop of oil on to his finger. Very quickly he replugged the shell with the speck of clay and returned it to his pocket. Meanwhile the overwhelming aromatic scent of concentrated djeela-juice filled the air of the whole chamber.

  “Now,” said Herodsfoot briskly, “where is this baby? Ah – there you are, my dear—” and he scooped the baby from its basket. She stared at him peacefully but made no sound.

  “What name is she to be given, senhora?”

  Grimly, the Senhora shook her head. “Her name is no affair of mine.”

  “Doctor Talisman? Do you know?”

  “No, sir. I entered this house only in time to help with the confinement.”

  “Dear me! Shall we have to wake the mother? I would be most reluctant to do so.”

  “You would not be able to,” said Talisman. “I gave her a draught which will keep her asleep till morning.”

  “Then we shall have to choose a name,” said Herodsfoot, undaunted. “Senhora, what would you say to the name Vitorinha?”

  But, as she was beginning a distasteful motion of her head, Yorka spoke up. “Baby’s name be Miria.”

  “How do you know that?” inquired Talisman.

  “My mother’s sister Tala’aa tell me so.”

  “Good. Miria it shall be. Lord Herodsfoot—?”

  He nodded, touched the baby’s forehead with the finger anointed in djeela nut oil and said rapidly, “In the name of this island and its ancestral powers I pronounce this child’s name to be Miria Francisca Ereira.”

  Then he popped her back into the basket, adding apologetically, “I always think it best for a child to have two names, in case it doesn’t fancy the first one, so I gave her one of mine; I hope you don’t think it a liberty, and that she will not object.”

  “Thank you sir,” said the Senhora dourly. “At least Francisca is a more godly name than Miria – she should properly have been given her father’s name also—”

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon, ma’am – I had understood that in this land a child carries its mother’s name?”

  “That is so,” the Senhora answered grimly, “but the father’s name is customarily added as well.”

  “In that case let us add it by all means.”

  “Most unfortunately,” said the Senhora, as if the words were being pulled out of her by pincers, “most unfortunately we do not know the father’s name.”

  Dido noticed Doctor Talisman give a compassionate glance at the sleeping girl on the bed.

  “Then,” said Lord Herodsfoot, “I will write it down as I spoke it.”

  Pulling a notebook from his pocket he rapidly scribbled a couple of lines, remarking “Doctor in attendance: shall I put Dr Talisman Van Linde?”

  She nodded.

  “And witnesses – Dido Twite and Yorka – can you sign there, my dears?”

  Yorka could not write, but made her mark, a little flower-drawing. Dido wrote DIDO. Then Herodsfoot dripped a bit of wax on to the paper from a candle and pressed it with his seal-ring.

  “There you are, ma’am, signed, sealed, and all in order: from this moment little miss is safe from all ghostly enemies.”

  He handed the paper to the Senhora, who looked far from pleased but received it with civility.

  “Now we should all return to our chambers,” she announced. “Doctor Talisman – I do not know which of my servants admitted you to my house—?”

  Dido wondered very much what explanation Doctor Talisman would give for her presence in the mansion, but at this moment they were all startled by a clamour of shouts in another part of the building, and a thunderous banging on some distant door.

  “Oh, heavens above, now what?” ejaculated the Senhora.

  A footman came running in to announce: “Senhora, it is the Very Honourable Gerente Manoel – with a troop of Civil Guards – he asks admission—”

  Dona Esperanza hurried away.

  Chapter Six

  “COME WITH ME!” WHISPERED A VOICE. “COME with me quickly, meninha – you and your friends!” It was the maid, Katarina. “You must not stay to meet the Gerente Manoel – they say he means you great harm!”
/>   She led them along a passage to a large, damp library, its walls lined with shelves and shelves of musty, leather-bound books which looked as if nobody ever read them. A dying fire faintly warmed the air. In one of a pair of leather-covered armchairs a red-faced man snored, fathoms deep in slumber; a fumy odour of wine came from him, and half a dozen empty bottles lay on the floor by his chair. Dozens of candles in wall-sconces guttered and flickered towards their end.

  “Dear me,” said Herodsfoot. “Is that our host?”

  “Senhor don Enrique,” said Katarina. “But he will not stir till noon – he never does – he is full of wine. You will be safe in this room – nobody will think of looking for you here.”

  “But why should we hide? We have done nothing wrong.”

  Katarina looked impatient at Herodsfoot’s simplicity.

  “Not you perhaps, milord – but your friends. First, in the town hospital – the knife-work done on that Outros man – then, in the prison – one of the guards killed – they say the doctor did that—”

  “One of the guards killed?” said Talisman, astounded. “But I never touched any of the guards – Yorka’s aunt Tala’aa let me out while they were all playing Cows and Leopard—”

  “However that may be, a guard was killed. And a page from the doctor’s notebook was found on him—”

  “Oh, croopus,” said Dido, “I reckon it must have been one of the two guards that nabbed me. They were fighting each other – they were half-seas over and both had knives – one of them must have finished off his mate. And now they put the blame on Doc Tally. Well, but I could tell them how it really happened—”

  “No,” said Talisman. “That would not help. They will never believe you. They will not want to believe you. They will blame us both equally.”

  “You must at once leave this house,” insisted Katarina. “All of you.”

  “Lord Herodsfoot’s not accused of anything,” objected Dido. “He could stop.”

  “And do you think I would stay behind,” he said, “when the rest of you have to flee through the forest? I agree, it does seem the height of injustice when, by what I am told, Doctor Talisman has almost certainly just saved that poor girl’s life – and brought her baby in to the world – but I fear these Angrian folk are not at all reasonable – especially when it comes to the treatment of women—”