by Joan Aiken
In front of the Monster’s Arms they found Mrs. McClan shrieking furiously at Sir Fosby Killick and Sir Angus MacGrind, who were looking angry and embarrassed. A group of townspeople was beginning to gather round them.
“Where’s my potwiper, Fred? Where’s my kitchen girl, Dido? Where’s my garden boy, Peter? Why have you made away with them? Where are they? You know where they are, don’t tell me differentways! For I’ll not believe ye! Ye were seen hustling Dido in the street—and that pair of gowks who work for ye were seen hauling young Fred along the street. How am I, a puir helpless forlorn woman, supposit tae take care of all my Residents without any house-help? Answer me that!”
“You are talking total nonsense, my good woman,” said Sir Angus coldly. “Why in the world should we wish to abduct these young persons? We know nothing about any of them—have never even set eyes on them.”
But at this moment a loud whistling sound overhead caused everybody to look at the sky.
“Losh, will ye look at that, now?”
“My certie, ’tis the Monster his ainself!”
“ ’Tis a sign and a portent!”
“Who’d ha’ beleft it?”
The Monster it was indeed, shining gray and silver, circling and twisting in the air as he looked for a landing place among the considerable crowd of people that had now gathered on the jetty. But they scattered as he neared the ground, and he was able to deposit his passengers in the cleared space: Dido, from under one of his forelegs, Piers from another, and little Fred from a loop of his tail.
Most of those present had never seen the Monster, and the reports on his appearance that were carried back afterward to children, parents, and grandchildren who had missed the spectacle varied widely:
“Teeth the length of my forearm! Eyes that burned like firecrackers! Scales! Spikes! Smoking breath! A red-hot tongue! Claws the size of sickles!”
In fact, Tatzen, the Loch Grieve Monster, strongly resembled a large flying otter. He had an otter’s neat gray fur, rising to a row of spikes along his spine. He had an otter’s blunt, catlike face, and his eyes were large and dark. His leathery wings were retractable, like those of a bat, but he spread them out now to their full extent in order to perform a magnificent dipping, swerving swoop and get away from the crowd as quickly as possible. Observing Malise in front of the inn, he inclined his wings to her politely, then flashed away across the loch, gaining height as he went, and vanished behind the distant hills.
“Well!” said everybody. “Did ye ever observe the like? What next? There is a sicht for sore e’en!”
“I’ll need to have my sign repainted,” said the landlord. “It does not do the Monster justice at all, not at all.”
“There, you see!” said Sir Angus to Mrs. McClan. “You were completely wrong about your kitchen staff. The Monster had them all the time.”
But little Fred shouted, “You threw me out of the window! I’d ha’ been killed, only the Monster caught me in midair.”
And Dido said, “You tried to scrobble me. I had to run off to the Monster’s cave.”
Matters began to look unpromising for Sir Fosby and Sir Angus. The crowd muttered and cast hostile glances at them.
“What for did ye throw Fred from the window?”
“Why were ye manhandling the lass?”
“So that’s what you were looking for on the cobbles outside Mackintosh’s Rents!” said Dido. “You were wondering where Fred’s dead body had got to!”
“You thought he was the heir to the English throne. You wanted to make away with him,” said Father Sam. “You thought you had your own candidate. But your own candidate proved unsatisfactory.”
The nerve of the two men suddenly gave way. They ran to the quayside, untied a boat, jumped into it, and hoisted the sail.
“Och!” said the boat’s owner. “Let them go. They’ll no’ travel far.”
At first indeed the boat scudded down the loch at a great pace, with a following wind. But it was then seen to pause, shudder, spin round and round, then suddenly vanish under the surface of the water.
“Ach!” said everybody. “The whirlpool got them. ’Tis a wanchancie thing, to be sure!”
Most of the crowd then went into the Monster’s Arms for an enjoyable drink and discussion of all these happenings.
“But where were ye?” said Mrs. McClan to Dido and her companions.
“We were in the Monster’s cave—way back, under the hill. There’s another way out, but it’s round the other side of the mountain.”
“And is it really true,” said Mrs. McClan, her eyes gleaming, “all that folk say about his lair being full of treasure and lined with diamonds?”
“There certainly were a few things lying about,” said Dido. “I suppose he collects like a magpie.”
She pulled from her pocket a lump of emerald as big as a walnut and handed it to Mrs. McClan. “I picked this up. I suppose he’ll want to move house, poor Tatzen, now that everybody knows about it.”
“And ye say ye can reach this cave from my wood store?”
Dido felt sorry for the Monster.
“Where’s your son?” she asked. “Where’s Desmond?”
“Och, he had a wee bit trouble with the toothache. He was off to bed.”
“Then we’d better help you with the Residents’ dinner,” said Dido.
TWELVE
In the morning Mrs. McClan was vague and distracted. Several residents received extra helpings of porridge, and at least four were given marmalade on their oatcakes, an unheard-of luxury.
“What about Desmond?” Dido asked Mrs. McClan. “Does he want some breakfast?”
“I neether know nor care!” replied Desmond’s mother sharply. Dido guessed that he must have done something of a disgraceful nature during the previous night’s interview with Sir Angus and Sir Fosby.
“I’ll go and ask him,” she said.
But when she went to Desmond’s room she found the curtains drawn, the room shrouded in twilight. An angry voice told her to go away.
“Isn’t there something I can fetch you—a cup of tea?” Dido twitched a curtain, allowing a ray of light to cross the bed. At once she saw what was wrong: half Desmond’s face had peeled off, revealing features that had not the least resemblance to the pictures of the king on the walls.
“Lummy! Your dad put you on a different face. But he didn’t do the job properly—or you didn’t take enough care of the new phiz! Now I see why your ma was so twitchy.”
“Oh, shut up, do! Go away. Go away.”
“Sure you don’t want no porridge? Oh, very well, tol lol,” said Dido. “Dear knows there’s enough to do.”
There was even more than she had expected. For Simon and the two armies had arrived on the quayside while she was upstairs.
“Simon! Am I glad to see you! What a deal there is to tell you! First of all, this here is Fred and this here is Piers—otherwise known as the Woodlouse—”
“He is otherwise known as more than that, I believe,” said Father Sam, who had been hearing the story of the Ninth Army and congratulating Simon on the outcome of his expedition against the Wends. “But first, have your soldiers had any breakfast?”
Malise was arranging that with the townspeople, Simon told him; vats of porridge, piles of oatcakes, and platters of kippers were being prepared.
“Then they are going over the bridge to camp in the coach park and get a bit of sleep. We’ve been marching all night.”
“What about the Hobyahs?”
“They may be in for a surprise.”
“Talking of surprises …,” began Father Sam. He turned to Piers and said, “You are Piers Ivanhoe le Guichet Crackenthorpe?”
“Yes, sir,” said Piers, a little puzzled.
“Look me in the face!”
The Woodlouse did so, even more puzzled.
“Hmn. Yes. Take off your glasses. Yes—as I thought … Now, I have here a letter for you from Edwin and Maria Crackenthorpe in Hy Brasil—”
“The mater and the pater!” cried Piers joyfully. “Are they coming home? Oh, do let me see!”
Father Sam handed him the letter, which was accompanied by a parchment scroll inside a hollow tusk. He opened the letter first, and read it aloud.
“ ‘My Dear Boy: Today is your birthday’—Well, it’s not,” said Piers. “In fact, my birthday was three weeks ago, but I expect this letter had to take three weeks to come here from Hy Brasil.”
He went on reading.… “ ‘Today is your birthday, you are eighteen years of age, and now I have to tell you that you are not our own dear son, but K—’ ” Piers stopped, utterly transfixed, then went on reading in a voice flattened by astonishment, “ ‘not our dear son but King of England. We have just received news of the death of poor King Richard, so we must tell you that your parents, King Malcolm of Caledonia and Queen Ethelfleda, left you in our charge from the day of your birth because of the very great danger from assassins’ plots and foreign invasion. But when you were twelve my dear wife Maria and I were ordered to Hy Brasil as Ambassador and Ambassadress and did not dare take you with us to that perilous spot, so left you at Fogrum Hall School, a very well-reputed place.’ Humph!” said the Woodlouse, breaking off. “ ‘Well-reputed’? That school was just about as perilous as anywhere in Hy Brasil. However! ‘King Malcolm and Queen Ethelfleda had another son, we heard, but it is feared that the babe died in infancy. There should be no doubt of your inheritance because of the eyes, a feature peculiar to the Tudor-Stewart line. However, a scroll of lineage is attached. Let us be the first to pay homage to you, dearest adopted son. Your loving foster-parents, Edwin and Maria Crackenthorpe.’ ”
“Well, fancy!” said Dido. “Croopus, Woodlouse, you’re King of England! What a lucky thing that tiger pike didn’t swallow ye in Fogrum Hall moat! And Simon—dear Simon—d’you see what this means? It lets you off the hook! You can go back to being plain Duke of Battersea!”
She hugged them both.
Father Sam was studying the parchment scroll, which was a long, long family tree, running back as far as Charlemagne and Brutus of Troy.
“But it’s the eyes that really clinches it,” he said. “One brown and one blue is unique to the Tudor-Stewarts. I imagine it is the same in your younger brother?”
He looked about.
“Younger brother?” said Dido.
“Younger brother—of course!” said Malise. “Fred! He has odd eyes too!”
“Of course he has!” said Dido. “What a clunch I am. It didn’t show so much on Fred because he always has a black eye.”
Fred stared at Piers. Piers stared at Fred.
“You’re my younger brother?”
“You’re my elder brother!”
“And what’s more,” said Dido, “the elder one of ye is the King of England!”
“And Scotland,” said Father Sam. “What a good thing that the Wends decided to go home. A Wendish invasion at this time is just what we don’t need.”
At this moment Rodney Firebrace arrived, having come on the train from Northallerton. He looked very cheerful.
“It’s all fixed up!” he told Simon. “The Yorkshire valley is unoccupied. The Wends are welcome to go and settle there as soon as they please. They can travel on the train as far as Northallerton and then take the highway going west, it’s the A684—”
“That’s splendid news,” said Simon. “But it isn’t me you should be telling it to, it’s Piers here—he’s King, we’ve just learned—and Vilf Thundergripper is the leader of the Wendish settlers—”
Matters were gradually straightened out. It was decided that half the English forces should return home that day on the train, and the second half the next, with the Wends going halfway, leaving the train in Yorkshire.
“Ve shall call the place Wvendsleydale! Ve shall farm there for a living and make Wvendsleydale cheese!”
A tremendous rumbling crash was heard at this moment from the rear of the Eagles Guesthouse. Dido, Fred, and Piers raced anxiously to the scene of the explosion and found the glasshouse shivered into splinters. And the passage through into the hill behind was entirely blocked with fallen logs.
“Oh, dear. I think I know what must have happened,” said Dido. “Mrs. McClan must have tried to push her way through without taking proper care—I believe I can see her foot underneath. Yes, look, there’s a foot sticking out—”
So it proved. Simon and some of the army came to help shift the fallen logs, but Mrs. McClan, crushed under the massive heap, had died instantly; nothing that anybody, even Malise, could do would bring her back to life.
“Now who’s going to take care of all those poor Residents?” wondered Dido. “Not that she did look after them so’s a body would notice.”
“I think that is a task suited to my capacities,” said Malise thoughtfully.
“Oh, bully for you, Malise! I bet you wouldn’t give ’em half a cold potato for their dinner! But what about Desmond? He ain’t in good shape, he’s only got half a face.”
“Well, I shall have to see what I can do to improve him.”
“I might give you a hand with those Residents,” said Firebrace. “The new King might want a younger jester.”
Malise grinned at him. “You’re kindly welcome, Cousin Rodney! You can help polish the corners off young Desmond.”
“But what about poor Tatzen? Now everybody knows where his cave is, he’ll have to find a new home.”
Firebrace suggested: “Maybe the Wends could find him a place in Wvendsleydale. I believe there are caves in that valley.”
“I’ll tell him about it,” said Malise. “But who will keep the Hobyahs in check if Tatzen moves away from here?”
“What are Hobyahs?” said Dido. “I wish someone would tell me.”
“You really want to see? Well, come over the bridge at sunset, when the Residents have had their dinner. If you are sure you want to take the risk.”
But both Dido and the Hobyahs were in for a surprise. In the case of the Hobyahs it was terminal.
At sunset, when the Residents had been given an early and lavish meal (boiled beef, beans, and Christmas pudding), Dido, Malise, and the boys walked over the bridge to the coach park, where both armies were camped.
As they reached the far side of the bridge, a swarm of bees, disturbed or attracted by all the unusual human activity, came drifting like a solid black and gold cloud over the heathery hillside. The soldiers yelled in alarm and flung themselves flat on the ground.
“Holy mackerel!” said Dido. “Bees! Where do they come from? What do they want?”
“A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,” suggested Wiggonholt.
“They want a hive,” said Simon. “Like the Wends. Somewhere to spend the night.”
“What can we do about that?”
“They could have the Ladies’ Convenience,” said Simon. “If you are really going to go and live at the Eagles, Malise?”
“The bees are kindly welcome to my Convenience,” said Malise. “But how to put the idea into their heads?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” said Simon. “I had lessons from a bee man at one time. You need kind hands.”
He walked toward the black booming cloud with his arms and hands held wide, fingers spread out.
“Guess he knows what he’s about,” muttered Dido. “I jist hope the bees get the message too.”
“Bees! Kind hands!” said Malise. “Now I remember—in the street in Clarion Wells, when I ran out—”
“How do the bees know that Simon is their friend?” said the Woodlouse anxiously.
“They just know.”
It seemed that they did know. The black and gold cloud narrowed into a funnel shape and poured itself like molasses between Simon’s wrists, down his arms, and over his head and shoulders. Moving slowly and steadily, he walked across the coach park, stepping over a number of prone troopers on his way, and approached the little stone building.
Proceeding with equal caution
, Dido made her way there at the same time, arrived just before him, and opened the door.
The bees peeled themselves off Simon and poured into the hut, where they hung from the ceiling like a huge stalactite. Simon gently opened the window and closed the door.
“Malise had better put up a sign, BEES IN RESIDENCE,” he said.
“Simon! Ain’t you stung at all?”
“Not a sting!” he said. “But I do feel rather sticky.” His head and arms were glazed with a thin film of honey.
“Simon!” said Malise. “Did you once take a swarm of bees out of a house in Clarion Wells?”
“Why, yes,” he said. “A long time ago. When I was quite small, traveling with a tinker, I was in that town. And a monk came up to me in the street and said I looked as if I had kind hands and could I help with a swarm that had entered the infirmary. It was a theological college. There was a dying man and they didn’t want him disturbed.”
“And you took the bees away?”
“I took the bees into the college garden, where there was a hive waiting for them—”
“But the dying man—did he say anything while you were in the room?”
“Yes, he did! But I didn’t understand what he said. The bees were buzzing … and the man was singing—well, chanting. He had put words to a street ballad tune that a man was playing outside the window—”
“First is cursed,” said the parrot. “Second is never. Third lasts forever. Young Billy must be found.”
“The parrot was there in the room,” said Simon. “On the windowsill. I suppose it was this parrot? The man sang:
‘When Rich Heart goes to ground,
Young Billy must be found.
Mark well what I relate,
Billy’s the head of state.
Mark well what I relate,
For here my life must terminate.’ ”
“But what did it mean? What did he mean?”
“I asked him that. He just said, ‘Cracky Billy must be found,’ and stopped breathing.”
“Cracky Billy!” said Piers. “That was what the other boys called me at school.”
“Of course, now I understand he was saying Richard goes to ground—not Rich Heart. It was hard to hear him because of the bees buzzing. And after he said that, he died.”
