"Lobster," he remarked more than once, "gives me the most appalling heartburn. And gooseberries..."
In short, there was nothing to fear from Alberich, and Malcolm found himself feeling rather sorry for the Nibelung, who, by his own account at least, had had rather a hard time.
"It wasn't the gold I wanted," he said. "I wanted to get my own back on those damned women."
"Which women?"
"The Rhinedaughters. I won't bore you with all the details. Not a nice story." Alberich helped himself to some more gin. "There I was, taking a stroll beside the Rhine on a pleasant summer evening, and these three girls, with no more clothes on than would keep a fly warm..."
"I know all that," said Malcolm.
"Do you?" said Alberich, rather disappointed. "Oh well, never mind. But it wasn't the power or the money I wanted—well, they would have been nice, I grant you, I'm not saying they wouldn't—but it's the principle of the thing. You know how it is when someone takes something away from you without any right to it at all. You feel angry. You feel hard done by. And if that thing is the control of the world, you feel very hard done by indeed. Not that I want to control the world particularly—I imagine I'd do it very badly. But it's like not being invited to a party, you feel hard done by even if you wouldn't have gone if they'd asked you. I know I'm not explaining this very well... You can get obsessive about it, you know? Especially if you've thought about nothing else for the last thousand years."
"Couldn't you have done something else, to take your mind off it? Got a job, or something?"
"This may seem strange, but having been master of the world for forty-eight hours—that's how long they let me keep the Ring, you know—doesn't really qualify you for much. And they threw me out of Nibelheim."
"Did they?"
"They did. You can't really blame them. I had enslaved them and made them mine gold for me. They weren't best pleased."
"So what have you been doing ever since?"
"Moping about, mostly, feeling sorry for myself. And looking for the Ring, of course. And a bit of freelance metallurgy, just to keep the wolf from the door. My card."
He took a card from his wallet. "Hans Albrecht and partners," it read, "Mining Engineers and Contractors, Est. AD 900."
"Most people think the date's a misprint," said Alberich, "but it's not. Anyway, that's what I've been doing, and a thoroughly wretched time I've had, too."
"Have another drink," Malcolm suggested.
"You're too kind," said Alberich. "Mind you, if I have too much to drink these days, it plays hell with my digestion. Did I tell you about that?"
"Yes."
Alberich shook his head sadly. "I'm boring you, I can tell. But let me tell you something useful. Even if you won't give me the Ring, don't let Wotan get his hands on it."
"I wasn't planning to," said Malcolm. "Another?"
"Why not? And then I must be going. It's late, and you've been a horse all afternoon. That's tiring, I know. Now, about Wotan. I don't know how you've managed it, but you've got the Ring to do what you want it to. Not what I had intended when I made it, let me say. In fact, I can't remember what I intended when I made it. It's been a long time. Anyway. Is there any tonic left?"
"No. Sorry."
"Doesn't matter. About Wotan. He's devious, very devious, but if you've got the Ring on your side..."
Malcolm thought of something incredibly funny. "I haven't got the Ring on my side," he said, "I've got it on my finger."
They had a good laugh over that. "No, but seriously," said Alberich, "if you can make the Ring do what you want it to, then there's nothing Wotan can do to you unless you want him to."
"But I don't want him to do anything to me. I want him to go away."
"That's what you think. Like I said, Wotan's devious. Devious devious devious. He'll get you exactly where he wants you unless you're very careful, I assure you."
"How?"
"That, my friend, remains to be seen. The days of armed force and violence are long gone, I'm sorry to say. It's cleverness that gets results. It's the same in the mining industry. Did I tell you about that?"
"Yes," Malcolm lied. "Go on about Wotan."
Alberich looked at the bottom of his glass. Unfortunately, there was nothing to obscure his view of it. He picked up the bottle, but it was empty.
"I am going to have raging indigestion all tomorrow," he said sadly. "Don't let them tell you there's no such thing as spontaneous combustion. I suffer from it continually. Wotan can't take the Ring from you, but he can make you give it to him of your own free will. And before you ask me, I don't know how he'll do it, but he'll think of something. Have you got any Bisodol?"
"I can get you a sandwich."
"A sandwich? Do you want to kill me as well as breaking my leg? No, don't you let go of the Ring, Malcolm Fisher. If I can't have it, you might as well keep it. It'll be safe with you until you're ready to give it to me."
Malcolm looked uncomfortable at this. Alberich laughed. "Of your own free will, I mean. But that won't happen until it isn't a symbol of power any more, only a bit of old jewellery. It'll happen, though, you mark my words. See how it ends."
"How do you know?"
"I don't." Alberich rose unsteadily to his feet. "Time I was going."
"How's your leg?"
"My leg? Oh, that's fine, it's my stomach I'm worried about. I'm always worried about my stomach. We sulphur-dwarves were created out of the primal flux of the earth's core. We have always existed, and we will always exist, in some form or other. You can kill us, of course, but unless you do, we live for ever. The problem is, if you're made largely of sulphur, you are going to suffer from heartburn, and there's nothing at all you can do about it. Over the past however many it is million years, I have tried absolutely every remedy for dyspepsia that has ever been devised, and they're all useless. All of them. In all the years I've been alive, there was only one time I didn't have indigestion. You know when that was? The forty-eight hours when I had the Ring. Good night."
"You can stay here if you like," said Malcolm.
"That's kind of you, but I've got a room over at the Blue Boar. The fresh air will clear my head. I'll see myself out."
"That reminds me. How did you get in here?"
"Through the front door. I have a way with locks."
"And how did you find me in the first place?"
"Easy. I smelt the Ring. Once you started using it, that was no problem."
Alberich went to the door, then turned. "Do you know something, Malcolm Fisher?" he said. "It goes against the grain saying this, but I like you. In a way. Up to a point. You can keep the Ring for the time being. I like what you're doing with it."
Malcolm wanted to say something but could think of nothing.
"And if ever there's anything... Oh, forget it. Good luck."
A few minutes later, Malcolm heard the front door slam. He got back into bed and switched off the light. It was nearly morning, and he was very tired.
* * *
Two ravens were perched on the telegraph pole outside the Blue Boar in Combe.
"It's definitely coming from near here somewhere," said Thought.
Memory had been listening for the Voice all day, and he no longer believed in it. "You've been overdoing it," he said. "Maybe you should take a couple of days off. We can't hear the Ring, either of us. It's not possible."
In the road below, a short, heavily-built man was waiting for the night porter to open the door of the hotel. Thought flapped his wings to attract his partner's attention.
"Look," he whispered, "down there."
"It's Alberich," replied Memory. "What's he doing here?"
"I told you," said Thought. "I told you and you wouldn't..."
"All right, all right," said Memory uneasily. "Doesn't prove anything, does it? I mean, he could be here for some totally different reason."
"Such as?"
Memory stared blankly at his claws. "Dunno," he said. "But it still does
n't mean..."
"Come on," said Thought, "we've found him. He's somewhere in this village. We'd better tell Wotan."
"Oh no." Memory shook his head. "You can if you like. If we're wrong, and Wotan comes flogging out here on a fool's errand..."
"So what do we do?"
They racked their brains for a moment, but in vain. Then Thought had a sudden inspiration. "I know," he said. "We'll tell Loge. Then it'll be his duty to pass the message on to the Boss."
The two ravens laughed, maliciously.
7.
ALBERICH WOKE UP next morning with a thick head, a weary heart, and indigestion. He took a taxi to Taunton, only to find that he had missed the London train, and was faced with an hour in one of the dreariest towns he had ever come across in the course of a very long life.
The only possible solution was a cup or two of strong, drinkable coffee, and he set off to find it. As he sat in a grimly coy coffee shop in Kingston Road, he tried to turn over in his mind the various courses of action still open to him, but found that rational thought was not possible in his state of health and the centre of Taunton. He gave it up, and as he did so became aware of a familiar voice behind him:
"Really," it was saying, "nobody's worn that shade of blue since the twelfth century. I couldn't go out looking like that."
"You should have thought of that earlier," said another voice, just as familiar. "You're impossible sometimes."
The last time Alberich had heard those two voices, and the third voice that broke in to contradict them both, was in the depths of the Rhine, about a thousand years ago. He turned round slowly.
"What are you three doing here?" he asked.
Flosshilde smiled sweetly at him, with the result that the milk in his coffee turned to cream. "Hello, Alberich," she said. "How's the digestion?"
"Awful. What are you doing here?"
"Drinking coffee. What about you?"
"Don't be flippant."
"But that's what we do best," said Woglinde, also smiling. There was little point to this, except pure malice, for Alberich had forsworn Love and was therefore immune to all smiles, even those of Rhinedaughters. But Woglinde smiled anyway, as a sportsman who can find no pheasants will sometimes take a shot at a passing crow. "We're too set in our ways to change now."
"What are you doing here?" Alberich asked.
"That would be telling," said Wellgunde, twitching her nose like a rabbit. "How about you?"
"Tourism," said Alberich with a shudder. "I like grim, miserable places where there's nothing at all to do."
"You would," said Flosshilde. That, so far as she was concerned, closed the subject. But Wellgunde was rather more cautious.
"We're out shopping," she said artlessly. "Everyone's looking to Taunton for colours this season."
"In fact," said Flosshilde, "Taunton is the place where it's all happening these days." She giggled, and Wellgunde kicked her under the table.
Alberich shook his head, which was a rash move on his part. "You'll find it harder than you imagine," he said. "You won't be able to trap him easily."
"Trap who?"
Alberich ignored her. "What you fail to take into account," he continued, "is his extreme lack of selfconfidence. Even if he does fall in love with one or all of you, he's highly unlikely to feel up to doing anything about it. He'll just go home and feel miserable. And then what will you have achieved?"
"We're not like that," said Woglinde. "We're good at dealing with shy people."
Alberich laughed and rose to his feet. "I wish you luck," he said.
"No, you don't," said Wellgunde shrewdly.
"Let me rephrase that. You'll need luck. Lots of it. See you in another thousand years."
"Not if we see you first," said Flosshilde cheerfully. "Have a nice day."
* * *
One of the few luxuries that Malcolm had indulged in since his acquisition of limitless wealth was a brand new sports car. He had always wanted one, although now that he had it he found that he was rather unwilling to go above thirty miles an hour in it. The whole point of having a car, however, as any psychologist will tell you, is that it represents Defended Space, where no-one can get at you, and Malcolm always felt happier once he was behind the wheel. There were risks, of course; driving in Somerset, that county of narrow lanes and leisurely tractors, can cause impatience and bad temper, which Malcolm was in duty bound to avoid.
Once his headache had subsided, Malcolm thought it would make a change to go into Taunton and look at the shops. He had been an enthusiastic window-shopper all his life, and now that he could afford to buy not only the things in the shop-windows but the shops themselves if he wanted to, he enjoyed this activity even more. Not that he ever did buy anything, of course; the habits of a lifetime are not so easily broken.
For example, he stood for quite five minutes outside the fishing-tackle shop in Silver Street looking at all the elegant and attractive paraphernalia in the window. At least two rivers, possibly three, ran through the grounds of the Hall, and fishing was supposed to be a relaxing occupation which soothed the nerves and the temper. Not that he particularly wanted to catch or persecute fish; but it would at least be an interest, with things to learn and things to buy. For the same reason, he had a good look at the camera shop in St. James Street, and he only stopped himself from going inside by reflecting that he had nobody to take pictures of, except perhaps the English Rose.
He walked by the auction-rooms, and wondered who was doing his old job now. Inside there would be Liz, cataloguing something or other, and Philip Wilcox, training, not very energetically, to be an auctioneer. Again, he felt a strong temptation to go inside and look at them, and that would be perfectly reasonable, since they both knew him only as the rich German who had bought the Hall. He could now afford to buy everything in the sale if he wanted to. But the sale today was of antique clocks, and he already knew only too well how slowly the time passed. Besides, there was no point in buying anything for himself (it was, after all. Only Him) and he had no-one else to buy things for.
As he walked down North Street towards what passes for a centre, he noticed a shop that he could not recall having seen before. It was one of those art and craft places, selling authentic pottery and ethnic clothes (hence no doubt its name. Earth 'n' Wear). But shops of that kind are always springing up and disappearing like mayflies in upwardly-mobile towns, and Taunton is nothing if not upwardly-mobile. In fact, as they will be delighted to tell you, Taunton is no longer a one-horse town; these days, they have a bicycle as well...
Entirely out of curiosity, since he was safe in the knowledge that there would not be anything in a shop of this sort that he could conceivably want to buy, Malcolm opened the door, which had goat-bells behind it, and went in. The place was empty, except for a ghostly string quartet playing Mozart, a large cat asleep on a pile of Indian cotton shirts, and an astoundingly pretty girl with red hair sitting behind the till. As soon as Malcolm walked through the door, she looked up from the poem she was writing in a spiral-bound notebook with a stylised cat on the cover and smiled at him.
Malcolm had always been of the opinion that pretty girls should not be allowed to smile at people unless they meant something by it, for it gives them an unfair advantage. He now felt under an obligation to buy something. That presumably was why the owner had installed a pretty girl in the shop in the first place, and Malcolm did not approve. It was exploitation of the worst sort.
"Feel free to look around," said the girl.
Malcolm walked briskly to the back of the shop and tried to appear profoundly interested in beeswax candles. Although he had his back to her, he felt sure that the girl was still looking at him, and he remembered that he was the most handsome man in the world, which might account for it. A smirk tried to get onto his face, but he sent it away. He was, he assured himself, only imagining it, and even if he wasn't, there was bound to be a catch in it all somewhere. This was Taunton, not Hollywood.
For her part,
Wellgunde was rather dismayed. Either her smile had gone wrong since she checked it that morning, or else this young man was immune to smiles, which would be a pity. She had gone to the trouble of materialising this shop and all its contents just in order to be able to have somewhere to smile at the Ring-Bearer. A shop, the Rhinedaughters had decided, made an ideal trap for ensnaring unwary Ring-Bearers. Perhaps they had underestimated him, Wellgunde thought. Certainly it had seemed a very straightforward project when they discussed it that morning. From all they had learnt about him, Ingolf's Bane was a foolish, sentimental and susceptible young man who would as instinctively fall in love with a pretty girl who smiled at him as a trout snaps at a fly. The only point at issue in their planning session had been which one of them should have the dubious privilege of being the fly. They had tried drawing lots, but Woglinde would insist on cheating. They had tried tossing for it, but Flosshilde had winked at the coin, and it kept coming down in her favour. So finally they had decided to make a game of it: whoever captivated the Ring-Bearer first would have to see the job through, but the others would buy her lunch at Maxim's.
To make it a fair contest, they had materialised three shops in the centre of Taunton. It was a reasonable bet that no-one would notice three shops suddenly appearing out of nowhere in the centre of town, for Taunton is like that, and it would be up to the Ring-Bearer to decide which one he went into first, and so who should have the first go.
Wellgunde frowned. She was going to have to make an effort.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" she said sweetly.
There was another potential customer outside, looking through the window at a selection of herbal teas. She turned quickly and smiled at the door. The card obligingly flipped round to read "Closed." Things generally did what she wanted them to when she smiled at them.
Expecting Someone Taller Tom Holt Page 8
