The Stolen Lake (Wolves Chronicles)

by Joan Aiken

  "And they've been there ever since?" Dido was greatly struck. "Didn't they never go back?"

  "Some of their descendants went back. And by that time the Saxons had settled down in Britain and made friends with the natives. So there has always been a link between the two countries."

  "And that's why this queen thinks poor old Cap'n Hughes has got to come running two thousand miles to pick up her knitting when it drops off the needles? If you ask me," said Dido, "I think she has a sauce!"

  Mr. Holystone looked a little baffled—some of Dido's language was beyond him. But at this moment they heard Captain Hughes coming along the passage.

  "It's lucky," pursued Dido, without heeding this, "that the Thrush is one o' these newfangled steam sloops, or it'd be Blue Moon Habbakuk Day afore we ever gets to London. How long'll it take us to sail down the coast of Roman America, Mr. Holy?"

  "A week or two—depending on the wind."

  Picking up his tray, the steward gestured to Dido to follow him as Captain Hughes appeared in the doorway. The captain, however, halted her with an uplifted hand.

  "One moment, Miss Twite."

  Oh, blimey, now what? wondered Dido. She searched her conscience for misdeeds. Captain Hughes had a decidedly gloomy expression, as if he had swallowed a sea lemon.

  Mr. Holystone had gone to his pantry, and now returned, carrying a bowl of shark soup and the pan of freshly baked rolls.

  Captain Hughes said, "Lay another place for Miss Twite, Holystone. I have instructions to give her."

  Mr. Holystone was far too well trained to betray surprise. He had attended butlers' school in London; part of the course consisted of half an hour's poker-face work every morning. So now he said, "Certainly, sir," with perfect calm, and retired to reappear next moment with silver, plates, napkin, and glasses for Dido. She, however, gaped at the captain, startled out of her wits by this unexpected honor.

  "Sit down, Miss Twite," said the captain.

  "Ay, ay, Cap."

  Captain Hughes did not go so far as to pull out her chair. He eyed her morosely, as if she were some small obstinate piece of grit that had fallen into his chronometer. Dido herself, now that the initial surprise was over, endeavored to appear quite at her ease. She sat down opposite the captain as if she dined at his table every day, while Mr. Holystone supplied her with a plate of soup and a hot roll.

  "It has become my duty, Miss Twite—" said Captain Hughes after a fairly lengthy pause, while he eyed his own plate of soup as if wondering how to navigate a vessel across it. "Ahem!—it has become my duty to change course and make passage to the kingdom of Cumbria."

  He paused, as if expecting to be questioned, but as Dido continued quietly spooning up her soup, he demanded in a tone of some asperity, "I daresay you will tell me you have never heard of the place?"

  "No I shan't," replied Dido with aplomb. "It's Britain's oldest ally, in the middle o' Roman Ameriky; been that since the Battle o' Dickerydock in the year 577."

  "Ah. Ho-hum." Captain Hughes was taken aback. "Yes—er—that is, in fact, the case. Ships of the New Cumbrian Navy have been of assistance to us in attacking the Hanoverians. And their ports are at our disposal for watering, refitting, and taking on food."

  "Mighty obliging of 'em," said Dido.

  "So we are bound to go to the help of the present ruler, who has sent an appeal to His Britannic Majesty King James III."

  "Crumbs," said Dido, wondering what sort of help a ruler would need. "I mean, natcherly we are." She also wondered why Captain Hughes was taking pains to explain all this.

  Mr. Holystone removed the soup plates and brought in a roasted mutton ham, which the captain proceeded to carve.

  "Since it is not yet perfectly clear what the queen wants," said Captain Hughes, handing Dido a plate of meat, "I shall disembark at the port of Tenby and travel inland to wait on her at her capital."

  "Is that far?" inquired Dido. It would, she thought, be very boring if the Thrush had to lie at anchor for many days, waiting for the captain.

  "Over two hundred miles, I understand. The capital, Bath Regis, lies in the Andes Mountains, which range forms the western boundary of the kingdom."

  Dido sighed, chewing on a piece of gristly mutton. He'll be weeks at it, she thought. But then the captain astonished her by saying, "I intend taking you with me, Miss Twite."

  "Me?" Hastily Dido gulped down her piece of gristle.

  "Don't gape, child! It is most unbecoming. Yes, you," said the captain irritably. "You have been committed to my custody; it would be a shocking dereliction of duty if I were to leave you on board without somebody to watch over you."

  "I've managed without custard whatever-it-is plenty o' times before," said Dido ungratefully. "'Sides, I reckon Mr. Holystone'd keep an eye on me."

  "I intend taking him as well."

  "Oh."

  "Do you not wish to see New Cumbria?" demanded the captain. "I had thought I was doing you a favor."

  (In fact he had thought nothing of the sort.

  "We have Reason to Believe," the British agent in Trinidad had written to Admiral Hollingsworth, who had passed on the letter, "that the Queen of New Cumbria is somewhat crack'd in her Wits. She insists, among other things, that she is the rightful Ruler of the British Isles; & asserts that she would set Sail to Make Good her Claim had she not Pressing Reasons for remaining in her Domain of New Cumbria. But she threatens to withdraw her Friendship, including Use of her Ports by British vessels, unless we Come to her Assistance. Do, Pray, Admiral Hollingsworth, send one of your most Trusted Officers to Settle the Old Lady down—for it wd be a most Disastrous Inconvenience to lose those Roman American Bases. Very likely the Whole Affair will prove to be No Great Matter.—By the bye, I hear the Queen is devotedly Fond of Young Female Children & likes to have one or two such Youthful Protégées always at hand. If any of your Officers shd chance to have a Wife and Young Family, the addition of these Persons to the Mission might well serve to Butter Up the Queen & win her Goodwill, should there prove to be any Difficulties about carrying out her Wishes.")

  I only hope the queen does not prove to be a cannibal, thought Captain Hughes rather uncomfortably.

  "I never said I didn't want to come!" retorted Dido to his last observation. "All I said was 'oh.' I don't mind coming along. Is this here Bath Regis a grand town—big as London?"

  "I doubt that," said Captain Hughes shortly. He was feeling guilty and anxious—not to say deceitful—about Dido's part in the business, and this made him sound sharper than usual. He added, more mildly, "Yet it is said that some of these cities in the Andes Mountains are very magnificent—the Cities of the Kings, or Caesars, they are called; it is believed that the streets are paved with gold and silver, that the rivers run with diamonds. Even their plows and farm implements are reported to be made of precious metals."

  "Fancy," said Dido. Even she was impressed at the thought of silver cobblestones. "Is Bath Regis like that, then—silver cobbles and all?"

  "I do not know. We shall see."

  Dido began to be reconciled to the prospect of breaking her journey.

  Mr. Holystone removed the meat and brought in a gluey conserve of quinces in syrup. Captain Hughes absently spooned out a ladleful of this delicacy for Dido and added, "Ahem! Miss Twite! Since your manners and conduct appear to have been scandalously neglected (indeed I cannot imagine how you have been brought up or who has had charge of you), I shall instruct Holystone to bring all your other studies to a halt, and concentrate, during the next week, on teaching you ladylike deportment and elegance of bearing."

  "Croopus!"

  "You must learn to curtsy—"

  "Blimey!"

  "You must learn to walk with a book on your head—"

  "Why?"

  "And," continued the captain, beginning to recall disciplines under which his sisters had suffered, "you will lie each day on a backboard, and will recite 'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prisms' a hundred times, to give you a more refined dict
ion."

  Luckily at this moment—for Dido seemed about to burst—the midshipman of the watch knocked and came in with the day's sextant readings giving the ship's position. Captain Hughes exclaimed with satisfaction over these.

  "The Thrush certainly has an excellent turn of speed. It is that steam screw—a remarkable invention, to be sure. Now, if only it could be harnessed to wings.... Thank you, Mr. Multiple; you may return on deck. And you, Miss Twite, had best retire to your cabin; you have much to learn before we reach the port of Tenby."

  "Ay, ay, sir," said Dido in rather a stifled manner. She walked slowly toward the door.

  Noticing her glum looks, Captain Hughes remarked sharply, "And no sulks, if you please! I shall expect a livelier obedience than that, when we are ashore in New Cumbria! The country is excessively dangerous; there are jaguars, giant owls and bats, spiders seven inches in diameter, which can, I am told, leap thirty feet in one spring; there are alligators, poisonous snakes, hostile savages in the forest armed with poisoned darts, besides huge hairy tusked birds, larger than horses, which can snatch up a grown man in their talons and fly off with him to their eyrie in the mountains."

  "Blister me!" muttered Dido, startled out of her gloom. "What are they called—them big birds? Lucky we don't have them in Battersea, or it'd be short commons for the sparrows."

  "Their correct designation is rocs," said Captain Hughes. "But I understand the Cumbrians refer to them as aurocs—because of the tusks, presumably. So you see it is imperative that, while we are in that land, you behave yourself obediently—let there be no quirks or foolish capers, I beg!"

  "Reckon there won't be time," said Dido. "We'll be too busy dodging the snakes and alligotamoses—not to mention them awe-rocks. G'night, Cap."

  She quietly shut the door behind her and glanced into the galley, hoping to find Mr. Holystone. One thing—I'm glad he's coming along, she thought. He's a right handy cove; daresay he'll be a regular oner when it comes to dealing with giant spiders and bats and awe-rocks.

  But Mr. Holystone was not in his galley.

  And, strangely enough, Dido thought she recognized the back view of Silver Taffy, walking away along the corridor.

  What was he doing in Mr. Holystone's galley? she wondered.

  The cat, El Dorado, emerged from a place of concealment in the galley coal scuttle, and came to wrap her long tail twice round Dido's ankles.

  "Hey, puss!" said Dido. "Lucky Taffy didn't see you or he'd likely have poured a pot of shark soup over you. Are you coming to New Cumbria too? I'd not give a groat for your chances if you stayed on board without Mr. Holy to keep an eye on you. How about coming to share my bunk?"

  The kitchen slate was hanging on the wall. It contained the notes: "Weevils in flour. Tell Quartermaster. Fish for Cap brek. Shark again?"

  Dido added at the foot: "Hav tuk Dora to bedd. Cap sez you gotta lern me Maners. D."

  Then she retired to her tiny cabin, scrubbed her teeth with a rope's end, and clambered into her bunk, where Dora was already purring.

  "Well," she yawned, "I guess us'll have some fine larks in New Cumbria, hey, Dora? With the silver cobbles and the hairy spiders—maybe the cobbles'll come in handy for beaning the spiders."

  Presently the door opened softly, and Dido felt the blanket twitched off her feet.

  "Hey," she muttered, "you're tickling!" Then she was suddenly wide awake, bolt upright. "Murder, is it one o' them spiders?...Oh, it's you, Mr. Holy! What the blazes are you doing to my toes?"

  "We are in cockroach latitudes," replied Mr. Holystone, who held a little bottle of dark green liquid and a paintbrush. "They swim out from land. So you must paint your toes every night, and your fingers, with this cactus oil. I thought I might do it without waking you." He passed her the bottle.

  "What if you don't?" inquired Dido, industriously painting away at her toes.

  "Cockroaches come into bed and nibble; you wake up next day with half a dozen toes missing."

  "Oh."

  "Good night, Miss Dido," said Holystone, and took the bottle from her.

  "Mr. Holy, Silver Taffy was in your pantry—why? What'd he come there for?"

  "He came to steal the pigeon," Mr. Holystone replied. Dido could feel anger beneath his calm.

  "The pigeon? What for? To eat?"

  "No, no. He sent it off—Mr. Multiple saw him toss it over the side."

  "With a message? Who's he want to send a message to?"

  "How can we tell? To some of his piratical friends, maybe."

  Frowning to himself, Mr. Holystone withdrew, and closed the door.

  Dido went back to sleep, and dreamed of hairy cockroaches, bigger than horses, with tusks thirty feet long.

  2

  Even with the added power of her steam screw, it took the Thrush a week to make her way down the coast of Roman America as far as Tenby. For three days, while they were crossing the equator, the weather became outrageously hot, and, as Mr. Holystone had prophesied, cockroaches came on board in large numbers. They were a great nuisance, turning up in wholly unsuitable places: the crow's nest, the captain's bath, the compass, and the quartermaster's molasses jar.

  Dido had a busy and aggravating week.

  "Love a duck! Why did I ever let myself in for this lay?" she grumbled, when obliged by the exacting Mr. Holystone to walk up and down outside the wardroom door with a copy of the heavy King's Regulations balanced on her head, in order to acquire a more dignified and ladylike posture.

  "Plenty of girls would give their eyeteeth to meet a queen," observed Mr. Holystone. He was sitting in his galley, so that he could keep an eye on her through the open door, while he stuffed half a dozen flying fish with a mixture of minced barnacles and powdered hardtack. "When I did my butler's training in London there was a young ladies' finishing school in the same building. All the girls talked about was the day when they would make their curtsy before His Majesty King James III."

  "Finishing school?" growled Dido. "That's a right good name for it. It's liable to finish me, I can tell you."

  "Now curtsy," said Mr. Holystone calmly. "Do not let the King's Regulations slip off your head. Point the right toe—swing the leg slowly to the side, then back—bend the left knee—hands move slowly backwards, spreading the fingers wide—"

  The King's Regulations thudded to the floor, narrowly missing the feet of the first lieutenant, a fair-haired young man with a long, earnest face, who came by at that moment. He gave Dido a sympathetic grin, and went into the captain's cabin, where they heard him reporting:

  "Thirteen volcanoes sighted ahead on the starb'd bow, sir."

  "Thank you, Mr. Windward. You may give the order to slacken sail. We shall heave to, a safe distance out to sea from the port of Tenby, in case the state of hostility between New Cumbria and its neighbor should have worsened. I hope to receive further information and instructions from the British agent in Tenby."

  "Ay, ay, sir." Lieutenant Windward saluted and returned on deck.

  Dido replaced the King's Regulations on her head.

  She pointed her right toe and announced, "How do you do, Your Majesty?" Then she shakily lowered herself on a bent left knee, continuing, "It was kind of you to invite me to your palace.... Oh, fish guts!" as the heavy book crashed to the floor once more.

  "You had better come in here," said Mr. Holystone, "and practice taking tea. Thumb and three fingers together on the handle—small finger extended.... Good. Let me hear your tea table conversation."

  "No sugar, thank you, Your Majesty. Merely a drop of cream. There; that is just as I like it. Pray, ma'am, from which Tradesman do you obtain your tay?"

  "No, Dido, no! Not 'Pry, from which tridesman dew yew obtine yer tie?' 'From which place do you obtain your tay?'"

  "From which plaice dew yew obteeyne yewer teeaye?"

  Mr. Holystone threw up his eyes to heaven.

  At this moment a sudden shudder through the ship indicated that the Thrush had hove to; they heard the creak of windla
sses and the thud of feet on deck as the sails were lowered.

  "Oh, please lemme go up on deck, Mr. Holy!" begged Dido. "I'll practice ever so hard tonight, cut my throat and swelp me, so I will!"

  Mr. Holystone shrugged and let her go. To his mind, the chances of Dido's acquiring the manners of a polite young lady seemed about as probable as a mouse's nest in a cat's ear. Besides, he thought, how do we know what is considered polite behavior in Bath Regis?

  Up on deck, Dido glanced eagerly about her.

  The Cumbrian coast was visible as a line of black cliffs, about two miles to westward of the Thrush. Those cliffs must be tarnal high, Dido thought, to be so plain from here. But at one point they dropped to a V. And a pinnace, which had put out from the Thrush, was steering for this cleft.

  Beyond the cliffs, and a good deal farther inland, Dido thought, a line of mountains could be seen—a cluster of peaks, very high and spiky, like the teeth of some great trap. Wonder if Bath Regis is up in them mountains? If so, it's going to be a scrabblish climb getting up there. Oh, scrape it! Dido sighed to herself; don't I just wish it was the Kentish flats, and that there port was Gravesend!

  A considerable bustle was going on about the decks and rigging, as the sailors spread sails over the yards to act as awnings, bundled other sails tidily into canvas cases, coiled up the shrouds, and generally prepared the ship for a spell of inactivity. Dido, on the foredeck, had to duck and dodge several times, as men dashed past her or ropes whistled over her head.

  All of a sudden she heard an angry yell and the outraged squall of a cat. Spinning round, she was just in time to see the sailor known as Silver Taffy grab hold of El Dorado, who had been perched on one of the main-deck eighteen-pounders, minding her own business. Twirling the cat by her long tail, Taffy tossed her over the side. Not, however, before Dora had avenged herself by slashing with all her claws at Taffy's face. She whirled through the air, turning over a dozen times, and would certainly have fallen prey to the sharks had she not struck the anchor cable. With despairing strength the poor animal managed to twine her long, sinuous tail several times round the cable, and so dangled there, swinging and wailing, as she scrabbled frenziedly to grasp the rope with her paws.