by Joan Aiken
“Where to?”
“Across the loch. You can walk over the rail bridge. I live in a hut on the other side. In the coach park.”
“But what about those creatures—Hobyahs?” Dido was doubtful.
“Oh, I can frighten them off. They won’t come when I’m there.”
“Well—I’ll see. Can’t promise. And we have to keep an eye on young Fred.”
“Yes! You must certainly keep an eye on him!”
Dido thought about Fred’s black eye and cut cheek. Had phizectomy been practiced on him?
“And what about the monster?” she said.
“Tatzen? Oh, he’s my friend.”
“Who are you, then? Not just the social worker? You said your name was Aldith Somebody—”
“That was in the train. I was keeping an eye on those two men. They are up to no good. They have a plot to put a false king on the throne. My name is Malise. I’m the District Witch of Clatteringshaws. Listen—there is something I want you to bring me—to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.…”
“Malise? Father Sam’s cousin? Oh, now I begin to twig.…”
EIGHT
They were assembling in King’s Wrath station for the trip to the north. Father Sam had come to see them off and give them his blessing.
“Who are the Wends, exactly?” said Simon. “And why should they invade us?”
“Oh, they are a warlike tribe,” said Father Sam vaguely. “They live on cheese and plum brandy. Every now and then they like to fight somebody. It’s such a pity they don’t play football.”
“Why can’t they fight the Picts? Picts like to fight too.”
“Well, suggest it to them.… While you are in Caledonia,” said Father Sam, “be sure you get in touch with Dido and check the claim of this Aelfric who says he is descended from Canute.”
“Yes. If I can find Dido. Who was Canute, anyway?”
“He was the son of Sweyn the Dane, and he was King of half England.”
“Who had the other half?”
“A fellow called Edmund Ironside. Yes, you could take a lesson from him—from them—”
“About what?”
“Be sure to look up my cousin Malise—the Witch of Clatteringshaws.”
“Why?” said Simon, beginning to look harassed.
“She’s my cousin too,” put in Rodney Firebrace. And the parrot on his shoulder said, “Ha ha ha! Be sure to call the bear cousin till you are safe across the bridge. Third hand calls the tune.”
“Oh, be quiet, Wiggonholt.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Father Sam, “I believe the Wendish king is called Albert the Bear. That is, if they still have the same king they had two years ago.”
“How is it that you both have the same cousin?”
“We all had the same grandfather. Sir Jonathan Firebrace. He had three sons, and we are the children of those sons. Malise and I went to divinity school together. She became a witch, I became a friar. Rodney went to high school and became a geologist and fell off a mountain and became a professional jester.”
“Why?”
“Effect of brain damage,” said Firebrace. “I hit my head on a rock when I fell off that hillside; result is, I’m clairvoyant. I can foretell the future. Not always, but sometimes. It’s a useful quality in a king’s adviser.”
“So who will win this battle?”
“Odds are even. It’s complicated.”
“Here’s a book to read on the train.” Father Sam handed Simon a little old volume that looked as if it had been well used. “Lives of the Saints. The Wends and the Danes are all very keen on saints. This will tell you about Saint Arfish and Saint Ardust and Saint Arling. May come in handy. Mind you keep in touch by pigeon mail.”
“Don’t keep your supper for breakfast. You may die before dawn,” said the parrot. “The third hour rings the bell.”
“Shut up!”
The train gave a warning whistle. Half the English army was piled on it. Legs and arms stuck out of windows. The other half of the army was on an extra train following behind. They had been issued crossbows, arbalests, and cheese sandwiches. The entire army only numbered two thousand men, and their equipment was sadly out of date. Simon could only hope that the Wendish army was equally behind the times.
“Where do Wends come from?” he asked Rodney Firebrace when the door of their compartment had been slammed and the train was gathering speed.
“Eastern Saxony somewhere, I believe. Lusatia. They sail from the port of Lubeck.”
“What language do they speak?”
“Wendish.”
“Oh.”
Discouraged, Simon applied himself to the lives of the saints. One chapter was headed “Famous Last Words.” Many saints, it appeared, had said very important things as they lay dying, delivered prophecies or given good advice. Three of them had left instructions that their last words were to be written down, then kept secret for a number of years—Saint Arfish for three years, Saint Ardust for nine, Saint Arling for twenty-one.
“Those terms must be over by now, at least the first two. I wonder what they said?” Simon murmured. “Was it so important?”
“Who said what?” Rodney had returned to the crossword puzzle in his newspaper. “Greer’s gringo—a light-footed lady—who could that be?”
“The saints—Saint Arfish, Saint Ardust, Saint Arling—I wonder what their last words were? What would you say if you were dying?”
“ ‘Speech by rote,’ ” mumbled Rodney, absorbed in his puzzle.
“Parrot-talk?” Simon suggested.
“Never buy secondhand time,” remarked the parrot. “The second hand travels faster than the hour hand.”
“Quiet, Wiggonholt!”
“Cousin Sam and Cousin Malise got into bad trouble about Saint Arling,” said Rodney after he had filled in a couple more words.
“How come?”
“The saint was on his deathbed in a theological college. In the town of Clarion Wells. All the college students were on a rotation to sit by his bed and note down his last words, whatever they were. But Father Sam—he was Brother Sam then, of course—wanted to go fishing, so he did an exchange with Cousin Malise—she took his place at the bedside. And then she—for some reason—ran out of the bedroom into the street—something she heard or saw through the window distracted her—and when she came back the worst had happened—the old boy had handed in his tickets. So Sam and Malise were both dismissed from the seminary in disgrace with severe penalties. But Sam’s penalty was lighter because he had left someone in charge. So he was allowed back after a year in a grotto. But Malise …”
“That’s odd. I wonder what the last words were? Maybe he never said anything. That reminds me of something that once happened to me—a long time ago—in a wet-country town—come to think, I believe it was Clarion Wells—”
“Well—we’ll never know what the man said.” Rodney rubbed the parrot’s head.
“Never climb, never fall. First’s the worst, second well reckoned, third is the luckiest of all!”
“Oh, shut your beak, Wiggonholt. So that,” Rodney went on, “is why Malise keeps writing to Sam—she feels bad because she let him down. But somebody else has been writing letters from Caledonia, some people called McClan—to Lady Titania Plantagenet—claiming to be descended from Canute and Aelfred the Great and Brutus of Troy.”
“What a lot of direct descent. Why not throw in King Solomon and Attila the Hun? Still,” said Simon, sighing, “if somebody else has a better claim, I’d be as pleased as a dog with two tails to be rid of this job and go back to painting, which is what I really want to do. Dido said she’d never be Queen—you can’t blame her. And having to lead troops into battle—for heaven’s sake! It’s the outside of enough! You need education for that sort of job. I grew up in a cave, looking after geese—I don’t even speak Latin!”
“Well,” said Rodney, “you had better be thinking what to say in your address to the troops,
because I see we are approaching Clatteringshaws station.”
“How far is it from Clatteringshaws to Tentsmuir Forest?”
“About fifty miles eastward over very hilly country.”
“Do you think there will be any horses available? Or other transport?”
Rodney scanned the bare mountains clustered around Loch Grieve.
“Very little chance, I’d say. We had better hope that your army are good walkers.”
The train drew to a halt.
A woman in a red dress strolled along the station platform toward Rodney as he opened the carriage door. The parrot Wiggonholt, sitting on Rodney’s arm, gave a sudden loud, delighted squawk, flew to the woman, and perched on her head.
Dido, on her weekly errand to buy cinnamon, cloves, and wintergreen at the only grocer’s store in Clatteringshaws, was startled to death to see the familiar backs of two elderly men going into the Monster’s Arms. Sir Angus MacGrind and Sir Fosby Killick!
What the blazes are those two old birds of ill omen doing up here in these northern parts? Why aren’t they in Saint Jim’s Palace giving Simon a hard time?
Dido was thankful that they did not appear to have seen her. But why should they be here?
She found the Woodlouse in the greenhouse, thinning out lettuce seedlings, and asked him what he thought about it.
“They were here while you were out,” he said. “They came to the house and I heard them asking Mrs. McClan if she had a napkin with a crown on it. And she said yes, she had. But when they asked her to show it to them, she couldn’t find it.”
Dido chuckled.
“No, they couldn’t find it, because I’ve got it.”
“You’ve got it?”
“That woman—Malise—she told me about it and asked me to try and find it. And I did! You know when Desmond finally got up and dressed, and he asked me to iron all his cravats—he has drawers and drawers full of them, and he spends hours in front of the glass, trying them all tied in different fancy ways, he’s as vain as a peacock—anyway, this white linen napkin was in among the cravats. It has a gold crown embroidered in one corner. Tell you what, Woodlouse—I bet that’s the napkin Fred was wrapped in when he was left on their doorstep as a baby.”
Piers said seriously, “We ought to take Fred up to London.”
“Yes, I know we ought. When we see Malise tonight—when we give her the napkin—I’ll tell her that. Maybe she can lend us the train fare.”
“Are you sure that you can rely on her—that she means well? That she is on our side? She is a witch, after all.”
“She’s only a witch because she was thrown out of holy college. She told me so. She told me that she’s Father Sam’s cousin.”
“Even so—can we trust her?” Piers thought some more and then said, “Dido—do you think that Fred is fit to be King of England? All he has ever done is live in this dismal house and be bullied by Mrs. McClan and Desmond. He’s a nice boy, but he’s not educated at all. He can’t even read! He hasn’t met any other people—”
“He has a right to be King,” said Dido stubbornly. “That is, if he’s who we think he is. And it would let Simon off the hook.”
“So you and Simon could get married? You don’t think,” said Piers, “that Simon makes a better king than Fred?”
Dido bit her lip.
“Do you have to be able to read to be King? After all, before King Aelfred, kings weren’t expected to be able to read.”
“Things are different now. Nearly everybody can read. And reading does help to—to teach people about other people’s habits—so they don’t expect natives of other countries to be just like themselves. And think themselves better than their neighbors. Look at the way the McClans treat Fred, just because he was a foundling. I’ve heard Mrs. M telling him that he was sure to go to the Bad Place, where the devil will burn him. He told me he brought in a kitten once that was starving and Mrs. M said foundlings weren’t allowed to have pets, so Desmond killed it. He just threw it out of the attic window.”
“Hateful beast! I hope someone throws him out of the attic window.”
Since Desmond had risen out of his bed of “tonsillitis,” he had not endeared himself to Dido and Piers. He was mean, moody, overbearing, and spiteful. He treated them as members of a lower order, bawling commands and insults at them. And his vicious language came strangely out of a face that seemed to have been smoothed over with a flatiron, as Dido had done to his cravats: it was pale and smooth; its expression never changed. Two light blue eyes stared fixedly ahead; they looked as if they had forgotten how to move in their sockets.
“I suppose,” said Dido to Piers, “that his da did him over—made him a new face to look like King Dick. And then took and died before he’d rightly finished the job. Maybe it hurts. And that’s why he’s so nasty-tempered.”
But Piers thought it was just his nature.
Dido had been racking her brains for an excuse to get her and the Woodlouse out of the Eagles that evening for their meeting with Malise, but, as it turned out, none was needed. Mrs. McClan herself was going out.
“I have a business meeting tonight,” she said, “with—with two members of the Regional Medical Board, at the Monster’s Arms. The Residents will have to be given their supper early. I can’t have you young ones rampaging about the house on your own for all that time. You and Peter will have to sleep in the shed with Fred.”
Mrs. McClan had never managed to get her tongue round Piers.
“Regional Medical Board! My foot!” said Dido to Piers. “I bet it’s MacGrind and Killick. I bet it was her husband who’d been sending those letters to old Lady Titania saying he had a claim to the throne. I bet it was Fred’s napkin gave him the notion.”
“Those men aren’t at the Monster’s Arms,” said Piers. “When I was buying herrings at the market I saw them going into one of those tenement buildings across the road in Alarm Clock Street—the one that’s about nine stories high. Maybe the Monster’s Arms was too expensive.”
“They aren’t short of a groat,” said Dido. “I’ve seen them in London taking a cab from Saint Jim’s Palace to Piccadilly—two minutes’ walk. Maybe the Monster’s Arms isn’t private enough for them.”
Dido would have liked to take Fred along to the meeting with Malise, but he was not at all keen.
“Walk over the rail bridge? But it’s so high! I hate heights! And there are Hobyahs on the other side. They’ll chew us to bits!”
“Malise said she can scare them off.”
Dido hoped that this was true, though in a way, she was curious to see the Hobyahs.
But Fred was unshakeably opposed to crossing the high railway bridge.
“I hate high places. I have horrible nightmares of being snatched up and carried through the air—high, high up—and the awful fear of being dropped …”
“Maybe you were dropped by somebody when you were a baby,” said Dido. “Like Mr. Firebrace, the jester. He fell off a mountain and it gave him second sight. Well, if you won’t come, you won’t—I must say, I don’t wholly blame you. But I’m a bit worried about leaving you here all on your ownsome. Don’t answer the door if anyone comes.”
“I can’t. The house is all locked up.”
“That’s true. Well, make yourself snug in the greenhouse.”
They left him well wrapped up in a bit of sacking and went off up the steep hill with anxious hearts.
NINE
The troop train had backed away from Clatteringshaws station and was now out of sight. The men of the English Ninth Army were squatting on the heathery ground in a circle round Simon, waiting for him to address them.
“Men of the Ninth Army,” he began. “By the way, what happened to the other eight?”
“It was back in owd King Jamie’s time,” someone told him. “When we was fighting against the Frogs in the year thirteen. All got wiped out.”
“Oh. I see. Well, listen. Men of England. What you have to do now is walk a distance of abou
t fifty miles to where the Wends have landed in Tentsmuir Forest. Does anybody here know the way, by any chance?”
Dead silence was his answer to this.
“Oh. Well, it’s about due east of where we are now, so the rising sun will be a help presently. I hope you are all good walkers.”
More silence.
“Now. We don’t want our country inhabited by a lot of Wends, do we?”
“Dunno,” somebody said.
Ignoring this, Simon went on: “We don’t know how many Wends there are, but there are not very many of us, so we all have to be extra brave and tough. I’m not particularly brave myself, but I like to think that all of you are with me, backing me up, and that, perhaps, in a hundred years’ time, this day will be remembered by our grandchildren as the day when a not very large force of English beat off an attacking army of Wends who wanted to turn this island into a place where everybody spoke Wendish. Don’t you agree?”
“What’s Wendish like, then?” one of the men inquired.
Rodney Firebrace spoke up.
“Wendish is an awful language. It’s highly inflected—there are nine declensions of nouns—”
“What’s inflected?” somebody shouted.
“When words have different endings to express different grammatical relations. And Wendish has thirty different kinds of verbs. You have to decline them as well as conjugate them.”
“What’s verbs?”
“I hit. You run.”
“Who says we run? We ain’t a-going to run!”
“No way!”
“Hoo-ray for English verbs!”
“We don’t want no foreign verbs!”
“Are you all with me, then?” called Simon.
“Sure we are!”
“Let’s go!”
“We’ll show those Wends the way back to Wendland!”
“Let ’em wend their way!”
The men jumped up and started bustling about, picking up their arbalests and repacking their hard-boiled eggs. In ten minutes the whole mass of them had drifted off down an eastward-facing valley (Rodney Firebrace had prudently brought a compass) and were out of sight of the station. Simon and Rodney walked alongside the lengthy, straggling column, talking to the men, telling them jokes and stories to keep their spirits up, and encouraging them to sing marching songs.
