The Witch of Clatteringshaws

by Joan Aiken

  Like the English army, the Wends had apparently paused to eat breakfast and water their beasts, which were being led in groups down to the river that ran along the valley bottom.

  “Humph,” said Rodney Firebrace, who had walked up beside Simon. “I reckon this is where you need to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate what? They could beat us hollow. Look at them. There are twice as many of them. And their guns—”

  “True. But we are on higher ground, Ah, look—they want to talk.”

  The foreign force had now caught sight of the advance part of Simon’s army on the opposite slope. They could not see it all, because of the fold in the hillside. They could not see that they had the numerical advantage. A group of leaders, down by the bridge, were shaking their heads, obviously discussing the situation.

  “Look, here’s someone who wants to parley,” said Firebrace.

  “Aaarkh,” said the bird on his shoulder. “A castle that parleys is half taken.”

  “I’ll go down to the bridge and see what they have to say,” said Rodney. “That fellow is waving a yellow flag.”

  “I’m coming too,” said Simon.

  “This is where you have to remember King Canute and Edmund Ironside.”

  “Why? I never met either of those guys.…”

  Several of the group at the bridge fell back, leaving a tall rangy fellow in a steel helmet with wings and a fat, compact dark-bearded man in royal-looking clothes.

  “Ah, good morning,” he said in fluent though heavily accented English. “I am Albert the Bear, Count of Ballenstedt, founder of the Ascanian line, Margrave of Brandenberg and heir of Pribislav.”

  “Good morning,” said Simon. “I am Simon Battersea, King of England. Er—can I inquire about your intentions—what you mean by arriving here in this warlike manner?”

  That should have been better put, he thought. I’m no good at this kind of thing.

  “You like to fight?” said King Albert the Bear. “Ve Vends enjoy fighting. But this is not a good spot to fight.”

  “Why did you stop here?”

  “Vell, ve have to. Because the sign say so.”

  Albert pointed to a triangular road sign. It said, STOP. TOADS CROSS HERE.

  Behind Simon, Firebrace muttered, “This is definitely a case for Canute and Ironside.”

  Simon suddenly remembered about them. Father Sam had told him.

  “I’ll tell you what, Your Majesty,” he said. “Instead of involving our troops in a battle in this narrow, muddy spot, why don’t you and I have a personal combat? Like King Canute, son of Sweyn the Dane, and Edmund Ironside? Don’t you think that would be more—more sporting and economical?”

  “Quarterstaff or smallsword?” said King Albert alertly.

  “Whichever Your Majesty prefers.” And heaven help me, thought Simon, for I know as little of one as of the other.

  “Can you find my smallsword?” he said to Firebrace. “I think I left it somewhere in the baggage train.”

  “Certainly, Your Majesty. And I’ll cut a quarterstaff out of that holly bush.”

  “Vun moment,” said King Albert, who meanwhile had been conferring with his adviser. “Vilf Thundergripper reminds me that I have been suffering from severe cramp in my left leg. Not good, not good for personal combat!”

  “Oh, that is a pity,” said Simon. “Then what about—”

  “Vilf Thundergripper suggest that instead of combat ve play a game of hnefatefl.”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Firebrace. “My king will be delighted to take Your Majesty on at hnefatefl.”

  A Wendish gentleman-in-waiting was sent off at the double to the supply cart at the rear of the Wendish armed column.

  “For heaven’s sake!” whispered Simon urgently to Firebrace. “What is hnefatefl and how do you play it?”

  “Oh, it’s a Saxon board game. You’ll very soon get the hang of it. There is a board with eighteen squares—”

  The board—a very handsome gold and leather one—was quickly brought and set out with its pieces on a handy tree stump.

  “The game is a kind of religious allegory,” Firebrace murmured in Simon’s ear. “There is a piece called the hnefi, that’s the king, he’s bigger than the others, and the common pieces are called hunns. The game starts with the king in the center square, and he has to try and escape to the edge of the board without being captured. A capture is made by trapping an opposing piece between two enemy pieces. That can be done on rank or file but not diagonally. And any piece can move orthogonally.”

  “Hnh?”

  “To right or left or straight ahead. Not diagonally. The king is captured by being surrounded by enemy pieces on all four sides.”

  “How many squares can a piece move?”

  “As many as are empty.”

  “I see. It sounds simple enough,” said Simon dubiously.

  The pieces were set out on the board. They were made of bone, and the king piece, the hnefi, had a gold crown round his stomach. Two stools were brought from the Wendish camp for Simon and King Albert. They tossed a Wendish pfennig for color, and King Albert won and chose white. (Afterward Simon discovered that the Wendish pfennigs had heads on both sides.)

  Simon’s black king was in the center of the board and the black pieces were ranged in a formal pattern round him. The white pieces were placed in a more open diamond pattern outside the black ones.

  “Black has the first move,” Firebrace muttered in Simon’s ear.

  Simon moved one of his king’s attendant pieces sideways, to give the hnefi an exit hole. At once King Albert moved in one of his white men as close to the black king as he could come. He shifted his pieces with a quick pouncing movement and his black eyes sparkled.

  “Hah!” he said.

  Simon guessed that he played this game a great deal and was expert at it.

  “Ve play best of nine games, yes?” said King Albert.

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  “You vin, I take my army back to Vendland. I vin, you find us Vends nize home in beautiful English countryside—yes so? Not too far from my cousin Bloodarrow of Bernicia.”

  “Very well,” said Simon.

  I wish Dido were here, he thought. I bet she’d be good at this game.

  “Don’t play with a straw before an old cat,” said the parrot.

  ELEVEN

  Dido was hunting for Fred.

  As soon as she and Piers got back from their conference with Malise, she went to the greenhouse, for the house was still locked up. But there was no trace of Fred, only the crumpled sack where he had lain.

  Back in front of the house, she said to Piers: “You go and hunt for him down by the lochside … I’ll go back into the town.”

  “But why should he have gone to either of those places?”

  “Dear knows! But he’s got to be somewhere.”

  Before she had gone far, Dido encountered Mrs. McClan and Desmond. He was plainly the worse for liquor, and was dancing and singing, or at least attempting to dance and sing, while being dragged furiously along by his mother.

  Dido recognized one of her father’s songs:

  “As I went a-waltzing down Calico Alley,

  A handsome young maid called, ‘Come dilly, come dally!

  Oh, where are you going that’s better than here?

  Come dilly, come dally, come dally, my dear!’ ”

  “Will you come along, Desmond! And stop making that disgraceful racket!”

  “ ‘Come ricket, come racket, come racket with me,

  Sing hey, diddle-diddle and fiddle-de-dee!’ ”

  “Desmond! Whisht! Ye’ll wake the Residents!”

  “Some of them seem to be awake already, ma’am,” said Dido.

  Faint cries were coming from the Eagles.

  “Dido! What in the waurld are ye doing up so late?”

  “I’m looking for Fred, ma’am. He’s not in the greenhouse.”

  “Saints save us! What does it matter where Fred ha
s chosen to pit himself? You go to bed directly, girl, or ye’ll never be up in time tae make the Residents’ breakfast. What should we care where Fred has got to? He’ll turn up in the morning.”

  Mrs. McClan briskly unlocked the front door and dragged Desmond through it.

  Dido went on her way toward the main street of Clatteringshaws. A pale quarter-moon had risen, and the wet cobblestones under her feet shone like a silk counterpane.

  A small gleam caught her eye; as she stooped to pick up whatever it was, a hand grasped her arm, an alcoholic breath engulfed her, and she looked up into the wine-reddened face of Sir Fosby Killick.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the lovely Miss Dido Twite! My little fairy fay! And what might you be doing in the streets of Clatteringshaws at midnight past? What do you suppose she’s doing here, eh, Angus, old friend?”

  Sir Fosby was with his constant companion, Sir Angus MacGrind; they had just emerged from the tall derelict building called Mackintosh’s Rents. They were scanning the ground as if one of them had dropped something of value, but now they abandoned their search for whatever it was and concentrated on Dido.

  “What are you two gentlemen doing here, for the matter of that?” Dido retorted. “And what were ye looking for? Lost a ha’penny?”

  “Lost a ha’penny, yes indeed,” vaguely replied Sir Fosby. “Now you come with us, my dearie. You are the very person to tell us something about these mysterious letters from hereabout that Lady Titania and our revered Father Sam have been receiving. Not from the illiterate Desmond—certainly not from Fred—?”

  “Why don’t you ask Father Sam hisself?” suggested Dido.

  “Ah, well, Father Sam is a trifle elusive, my pretty. But now, just you come with us. I feel sure that you can tell us more than that wretched McClan woman and her sottish son.”

  Dido had not the least intention of going with them. She dropped onto hands and knees, twitched sideways, pushed herself up vigorously with her hands, giving Sir Fosby a sharp shove with her elbow as she did so—and was away, scooting down a narrow dark alleyway between two tall buildings.

  “Odds cuss it! Come back, you! Grab her, Angus!”

  Both men started heavily after her, but, now that she was free, Dido could easily outrun them; she flew down the alley, turned left, then right, then left again; and then she knew she was safe from them. They would never find her.

  She was in a pitch-dark network of alleys but calculated that if she kept going in one direction, ignoring side turns, she must soon come out on the waterfront.

  After a while, though, she began to think that her sense of direction must have got muddled, for, instead of coming out, she seemed to be plunging deeper and deeper into a maze of passageways so narrow that her shoulders brushed the walls on either side. Every now and then she stumbled over objects that lay scattered on the ground. Looking back, she could see only a thread of sky.

  It’s almost as if I was indoors, she decided. Which is mighty queer, as I didn’t go in no doorway. It’s these spooky little passages, they seem to dig right into the hill that’s behind the town. And there’s a smell of timber. Like Mrs. M’s log store.

  That’s it! she realized. That’s what these things are that I’ve been tripping over. They’re logs.

  Perhaps I am in Mrs. M’s wood store?

  That explained the smell. A great rampart of logs was piled up on her left side. Once or twice she knocked against one, and a few came tumbling and clattering down to the floor.

  Better take care, thought Dido; if a whole slew of them came rolling down on me I’d be stuck here. And squashed flat, likely.

  Now she remembered that she was still holding the small round thing she had picked up off the cobbles when Sir Fosby had grabbed her. Thin. Flat. About the size of her thumbnail.

  Surely it was a button. One of the horn buttons off Fred’s shirt? And something else she had grabbed as she ducked to evade Sir Fosby’s clutch. But she found it difficult to guess what that was. It was hard—with a sharp edge—curved—one end was pointed. A hook? A claw?

  Why would a claw be lying in the street?

  Now the passage widened. On her right side Dido could feel nothing.

  But if I go right, she thought, I’ll go deeper into the cave. If I go on ahead, I’ll maybe come out in Mrs. M’s greenhouse.

  But what about Fred?

  Where is he?

  Softly, warily, she called, “Fred? Are you in here? Can you hear me?”

  And thought that somewhere, in all that darkness, she could hear a faint “Halloo?”

  And she thought also that, far ahead, she could see a speck of faint greenish light, like the face of a luminous clock.

  King Albert the Bear was evidently an old hand at the hnefatefl game and won three rounds in quick succession. But by then Simon was beginning to get the hang of it, and now he began to win. When he had won four games running, King Albert suddenly said:

  “I now getting again this bad, bad cramp pain in my leg. Ve must stop playing! At vunce!”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry about that, Your Majesty. Shall we fight a duel, then? Or would you rather have a battle?”

  “I tell you vot,” said King Albert. “Vot you say I get my men to vote. Vuns that vant to stay in Engel-land, you let them stay. I think I go home. Men that vish to go home, they go home vith me. Vot you say?”

  “Sounds all right,” said Simon cautiously. “If we can find a place that’s big enough for the ones that want to stay. What do you think, Firebrace?”

  “It might be arranged,” said Firebrace with equal caution. “When the train stopped at Northallerton, I remember hearing talk of an unoccupied valley in Yorkshire. That might do for some of your men, Your Majesty. What do you think?”

  “Goot enough. Let them vote. Bring two baskets.”

  Massive Wendish baskets were used to carry arrows and bullets. Their contents were all tipped out onto the heather.

  “Men who vish to go back to Vendland put cheese in basket. Those who vish to stay in Engel-land put egg in basket. Understand?”

  While the two leaders had been playing hnefatefl, a good deal of fraternization had been taking place among the troops. Simon’s army, who had been supplied with more hard-boiled eggs than they could use, had been happy to exchange these for the Wendish soldiers’ ration of hard, round blue-veined cheeses the size of golf balls, which were found to be very tasty by the English troops.

  “Made by adding the cream of one day to the entire milk of the next,” the Wendish quartermaster told them. “Makes cheese extra rich.”

  When the vote was counted, it was found that three hundred men wished to remain in England. The rest preferred to go home.

  “Good! Some go, some stay. I go home now, to Vendland. You come, Simon, you visit me sometime, we play more hnefatefl. You play not bad, not bad at all,” said King Albert.

  So the arrows and bullets were bundled back into the baskets, the eggs and cheeses were distributed to those who wanted them, and the two armies prepared to go their ways.

  “If I could borrow a horse,” said Firebrace, “I could ride down directly into Yorkshire and make arrangements about that valley. There may be a bit of rent to pay—”

  “Vell, vell,” said King Albert, “ven you vant some rent, you let me know. No vorry! Goodbye. Ve go now. To the again-see!” And he mounted his horse and rode eastward with the main part of his army.

  Simon, with his men and the rest of the Wendish army, turned back westward, singing Abednego Twite’s song “Raining, Raining All the Day,” which had a very catchy chorus:

  “I reign, you reign, he reigns, they reign when the skies are gray.”

  A large number of toads, which had been hesitating at the side of the road, now decided that it would be safe to cross.

  * * *

  Following the faint fleck of luminosity ahead, Dido made her way along the narrow passage to a little cave. It was dimly lit with a faint glow. The walls were shiny like the insid
e of a pomegranate rind. A scatter of faintly glittering objects lay about the floor. Crouched among these things, dark, alive, and trembling, was Fred. Dido knelt down beside him and gave him a hug.

  “Fred! You’re all right! What happened to you? Was it those men?”

  He was speechless with fright and simply clung to her.

  “Never mind! Tell me later. Is this Tatzen’s cave?”

  She felt his nod.

  “Where is he now?”

  To this Fred made no answer, but one was not needed. Dido could hear a scraping sound and see an indistinct but growing light coming toward them.

  When Father Sam stepped off the train at Clatteringshaws, he was warmly greeted by Malise, who had the gray parrot Wiggonholt sitting on her shoulder.

  “Sam! It’s good to see you!”

  “Words and feathers the wind carries away. A third hand is better than two feet.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Wiggonholt!”

  “On the other hand,” Father Sam said to the parrot, “a word and a stone cannot be called back.”

  “Kaaaaark!”

  “Would you like to stay in my little hut by the coach park, Sam?”

  “No, thank you, Malise,” said Father Sam very firmly. “There are no chairs in your house, as I recall, let alone beds. I’ll go down to the Monster’s Arms. Where is Simon? And Dido? And Piers Crackenthorpe?”

  “Simon is off fighting the Wends. The other two should be at the Eagles.”

  “I’ll ask for them there. It is quite urgent about Piers. I have a letter for him.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  They began walking down the steep zigzagging road.

  On the way Malise said: “My penalty was a lot worse than yours.”

  “Deservedly. You left a dying man alone. I had left him in your care.”

  “You left him to go fishing!”

  “And you to catch hold of a tune. Which is more irresponsible? Besides, would you want to be Archbishop?”

  “No,” she said cheerfully. “Actually, I enjoy being Witch of Clatteringshaws!”