Scilly Seasons

by Chris Tookey

  “That’s like me and Mrs Scraggs,” said Wenda.

  “Don’t stand around talking,” snarled Mrs Scraggs to Wenda. “We’ve got work to do, and I smell trouble.”

  “Oh dear,” said Buzzard, “I hope you don’t mean me!”

  “No,” said Mrs Scraggs, wrinkling her nose. “You smell of potions, dust and very old, unwashed armpits.”

  “What does trouble smell like?” asked Wyrd, eagerly.

  Mrs Scraggs wrinkled her nose again.

  “What I’m smelling now is earth, and blood, and… goblins!”

  The last word came out of her with special vehemence because suddenly there erupted from the rocks around them six goblins of more than usually repellent aspect. They had leapt out from under rocks, and the malevolent glint in their eyes suggested that they were bent on no good.

  The six of them had two things in common: mud-caked tunics and a deathly pallor, both of which correctly suggested that they spent most of their time scurrying through underground tunnels. Their facial characteristics included long, beak-like noses, black bushy eyebrows and thin, cruel lips. The smallest of them appeared to be the leader.

  “What are you staring at?” he cackled. “You’re looking like we’ve just crawled out from under a stone!”

  The other goblins sniggered obediently, although Wyrd suspected they had heard the joke many times before.

  “Ah,” said Buzzard, adopting an avuncular tone tinged with a certain nervousness. “I trust that we have not intruded on your, how do you say it, patch?”

  “Patch?” asked the goblin chief. “Is this our patch? What do you say, Ugluk?”

  The goblin to the left began to sway in rhythm, click his long, mud-caked fingers and chant:

  “Is it our patch? Maybe it is.

  We don’t like no one invading our kingdom.

  Tear ’em in half, break ’em in two,

  They wouldn’t come here if they had any wisdom.”

  “Yeah!” cackled the other goblins appreciatively.

  “Does he really think that rhymes?” Wyrd muttered to Wenda. “It doesn’t even scan properly.”

  He paused as he felt a knife at his throat.

  “You got something to say?” inquired the goblin chief.

  “I think my young friend was just, er, appreciating your poetry,” said Buzzard. “We have nothing like it at Castle Otto. So fresh, youthful and, ah, irreverent. The poetry of the tunnels, so to speak.”

  At this, Ugluk was inspired to try out some more of his verse:

  “The old man stinks but he’s getting the vibe.

  Let’s kill the others and kidnap the babe.

  She’s young and foxy, so let’s tear off her shirt

  I want to do things to her that are dark and dirty…”

  “Now, steady on, old chap,” said Buzzard. “That’s not the way to speak in front of a young lady, even if she is a serving wench. Just put away your weapons and let’s have a civilised chat about this.”

  By way of reply, the four other goblins produced extremely large knives. Wyrd noticed that one of them still had blood on it, presumably from some other unfortunate who had strayed into their territory.

  “I do understand why you chaps feel constrained to live this way,” said Buzzard.

  “You do?” sneered the chief goblin.

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely,” said Buzzard, with what was meant to be an encouraging smile. “You’re uneducated, unemployable and have doubtless suffered broken families and brutalised childhoods. But come now, you chaps, that doesn’t mean violence is any kind of solution.”

  The chief goblin scratched his head and removed an earthworm from behind his ear.

  “It isn’t?” he asked.

  “My dear fellow,” replied Buzzard, “I happen to be a wizard and, if I wanted, I could smite the whole lot of you. But I’m not going to do it.”

  “Why not?” asked Ugluk, momentarily forgetting to talk in verse.

  “Because,” said Buzzard, “I honour the many and various cultures of this fine island. I would not wish to impose a human value-system upon you. By the same token, I would hope that you would extend the same elementary courtesy towards us.”

  “I dunno,” said Ugluk, confusedly turning towards his colleagues. “What’s the old fool on about?”

  The goblins muttered among themselves. Eventually the chief goblin took it upon himself to express the mood of the meeting.

  “Give us the girl to play with,” he said, “and we promise to slaughter the rest of you quickly.”

  The other goblins nodded and grinned menacingly.

  “I’m not sure that you have entirely understood what I was trying to say,” responded Buzzard. “The essence of a multicultural society is mutual respect: live and let live.”

  “Save your breath, Buzzard!” The voice was that of Mrs Scraggs, who was behind him, standing on the very edge of the cliff. “Let’s just kill the bastards!”

  So saying, she waved her stick in the air. The goblins sneered at such an old woman trying to put up a fight and then gasped as the gnarled stick turned into a cobra. The serpent leapt at Ugluk and bit the aspiring poet in the neck. He fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth, twitched once and died. The black feathery hat on Mrs Scraggs’ head turned into a pair of ravens that pecked out the eyes of two minor goblins even as they were watching Ugluk’s death spasm. In their panic, the two goblins swung their knives and stabbed each other. Only the chief goblin stood his ground and advanced on the old woman, thrusting his knife at her. He knew that if she took one step away from him, she would fall backwards over the cliff.

  “What are you, bitch?” he hissed. “Some kind of witch?”

  “At least you can rhyme,” replied Wyrd without thinking, “some of the time.”

  The chief goblin turned on Wyrd with a snarl and was surprised to receive a stone between the eyes from the boy’s slingshot at virtually point blank range. The goblin tottered for a moment and fell backwards over the cliff edge. The boy moved to the cliff edge and looked down. The goblin’s head had smashed open on the rocks beneath. Even now his brains, such as they were, were being washed away by the tide.

  “Good shot,” said Mrs Scraggs, changing suddenly into a statuesque warrior queen with flowing red hair and a long spear. “Now let’s finish these bastards off.”

  “Look, you chaps, come along,” said Buzzard encouragingly to the other two goblins, who looked understandably perturbed at the blinding and premature death of their colleagues. “Let’s be reasonable about all this.”

  Still on the edge of the cliff, the warrior queen beckoned the two goblins towards herself and Wyrd.

  “Come on,” she said. “Do you feel lucky, punks? Make my day!”

  This threat, together with a sudden attack on their eyes by Mrs Scraggs’ ravens, and the fact that her cobra was sliding menacingly close to their boots, resulted in them running to the nearest two rocks and hastily sliding beneath them.

  “Well,” said Buzzard, dusting himself off, “now that’s over, I think we ought to be getting back. I take it that everyone’s all right?”

  “No thanks to you,” snarled Mrs Scraggs, changing back into an old witch. “Call yourself a wizard? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  “I still maintain,” replied Buzzard, “that it is best in these circumstances to talk, communicate, negotiate.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Mrs Scraggs. “They’re only goblins.”

  “But if we start treating the old races as subhuman,” said Buzzard, “are we not being judgmental?”

  “Too damn right we are,” said the old witch. She gave a whistle. The cobra slid back into her hand and turned back into a stick. The ravens rearranged themselves into her hat. “I’m part goblin myself, but that doesn’t stop me knowing they’re scum.�
��

  “I still do not believe that this kind of minor unpleasantness needed to end so violently,” said Buzzard.

  “So, what should we have done?” asked Wyrd, more loudly perhaps than he intended. “Waited for them to murder us?”

  Buzzard flushed, unused to having a small boy answer him back with such vehemence.

  “I shall overlook that outburst,” said Buzzard, with injured dignity. “This has been a difficult episode for all of us. I daresay that, when you are older, you will understand that the answer to the goblin problem is essentially one of re-education, socialisation and listening to some of their quite possibly legitimate grievances.”

  As they set off for the castle, Wyrd had a question for Mrs Scraggs.

  “Mrs Scraggs, do you mind my asking you a question?” he said.

  “That depends what it is,” said Mrs Scraggs.

  “It’s just that… well, I couldn’t help noticing that you’re a shape-shifter.”

  “I am.”

  “Like Merlin and Buzzard,” said Wyrd.

  “And their mother,” said Mrs Scraggs. “We were at school together.”

  “Well, if you can look like that – you know, with all that red hair and long legs and everything…”

  “You’re wondering why I don’t look like that all the time,” said Mrs Scraggs.

  “Well, yes,” said Wyrd. “It did occur to me.”

  “Well, this is the real me,” said Mrs Scraggs. “Looking like something else is an effort. It’s a bit like dressing up for a party – it’s okay for a few minutes or even a few hours, but it would be too much effort to look like that all the time.”

  “I see,” said Wyrd. “I hope you didn’t mind my asking.”

  “Not at all,” said Mrs Scraggs.

  “I wish I could shape-shift,” said Wyrd.

  “You’ve got your own talents,” said Mrs Scraggs.

  She leaned across and muttered in Wyrd’s ear.

  “You keep practising with that slingshot,” she said, and pointed her stick in the direction of Buzzard, who was striding off in front with a vaguely purposeful air. “And remember, there’s no fool like an old fool. Especially when he’s a wizard.”

  9

  Small

  In which our hero encounters a new friend

  Buzzard was nominally headmaster of the castle school, but even Wyrd could see that really it was run by Merlin’s younger brother, Osprey, a wizard taller, thinner and more angular than anyone Wyrd had ever imagined, let alone encountered. Osprey had a deathly pale but handsome face, with skin drawn tight across it, as though the skull beneath was trying to push through.

  He often walked with the help of a stick, but Wyrd couldn’t tell if he was old or young. He might have been anything between twenty and two hundred.

  Osprey’s teeth and his fingers were both stained a brownish yellow. He had piercing blue eyes and a sardonic wit. Wyrd often saw boys creep away to weep in seclusion after the lash of Osprey’s schoolmasterly sarcasm. Also to be feared was Osprey’s smile, as cold and cruel as an owl descending upon a defenceless mouse. Wyrd could well believe that he was descended from the Prince of Darkness, though he struggled to believe that Buzzard and Merlin could have had so malign a father.

  Osprey was usually at pains to be deferential to his oldest brother, but Wyrd had heard him call Buzzard an old fool behind his back. Wyrd was sure that Osprey intended to become chief wizard of the castle. He had the outwardly calm but faintly twitchy air of a man who was biding his time.

  One of many things that Wyrd couldn’t work out was: why did a man as obviously clever as Osprey wish to be in a remote place like Castle Otto? He was a schoolteacher with a class full of students who, like Prince Artorus, didn’t really wish to learn. All they wanted was to become knights, able to ride and fight.

  Surely a man of learning such as Osprey must have loftier ambitions? But then, Wyrd thought miserably, perhaps the rest of the world was an even less civilised place than Castle Otto. Wyrd suspected this might be true, and whenever he felt homesick for Dumnonia he reminded himself that, though life might be hard in the castle, at least here nobody was trying to kill him. Yet.

  One fine summer’s day, Osprey was teaching his pupils history in the school courtyard of the castle. Wyrd was sidling around the edge, keeping out of everyone’s way, when suddenly he heard the wizard say in a loud voice, “How dare you?”

  As always, Osprey was wearing a Roman toga, and he clutched it about him as he stood and waved a finger at the gawky pupil who had aroused his ire. Wyrd heaved a sigh of relief that he was not the centre of attention.

  “Yes, Sir Ganimore, I’m talking to you! How dare you say the Roman Empire is over?”

  “Well, here it is, sir, surely,” said the offending boy, gamely defending himself. “The Romans only come to Atlantis these days to trade, and to dump the odd convict.”

  “The odd convict?” said Osprey. “That is no way to refer to the Empress Honoria! She is an honoured guest of Atlantis. She has the most luxurious villa west of Iscia.”

  “That may be so, sir, but she’s not here of her own free will, is she, sir?” asked the boy.

  “That is correct, Sir Ganimore. She is in exile,” concurred Osprey, “but who knows what the future may bring, especially if Aurelius were to restore Roman civilisation to this godforsaken land?”

  “You mean my uncle?” asked Artorus.

  “Yes, Artorus. Your uncle Aurelius is the rightful King of all Albion.”

  “But he doesn’t actually rule much of it, does he, sir?” relied Artorus. “Not compared with King Vitalinus.”

  “And the Roman Empire is so over, sir,” persisted young Sir Ganimore. “I mean, hasn’t Rome just fallen to the Vandals?”

  “An unconfirmed rumour,” snapped Osprey.

  “It was Buzzard who told us, sir.”

  “May I remind you that it is I who teach you history,” said Osprey sharply. “And even if these reports turn out to be true, which I very much doubt, Rome has survived many such occupations. It was an attack on Rome by the Visigoths that made the legions depart from Britain in the year… What year was it, Artorus?”

  “What, sir?” asked Artorus, testily. He looked as if he had been day-dreaming about succeeding his uncle Aurelius as King of all Albion, and he wasn’t too pleased about being interrupted.

  “What year,” repeated Osprey, “did the Roman legions leave Britain?”

  “How should I know?” grumbled the prince. “350? 360?”

  “No it wasn’t, Artorus,” said Osprey, unable to stop his eyes rolling as the crown prince’s blockheadedness. “It was 410. And yet, even today, the Roman Empire remains a force in Albion. Queen Elinor’s brother Aurelius, ever a defender of Roman ways, is fighting the Saxon hordes in the east, not to mention the tyrant King Vitalinus in the west.”

  “But isn’t Aurelius losing ground, sir? That’s what Buzzard says.”

  “Don’t answer back, Sir Ganimore. Go and stand over there, in the corner.”

  Sir Ganimore, a gangling boy with straggly blond hair, walked across to where Wyrd was hiding behind a pillar. Catching sight of the serving lad, Sir Ganimore gave him a friendly wink.

  “What are you doing here?” whispered the young knight.

  “I’m trying to learn things,” said Wyrd.

  “Really?” whispered Sir Ganimore.

  “So what,” said Osprey, “does history teach us about the Roman Empire?”

  There was a resounding silence from Osprey’s pupils.

  “Sir Ganimore?” said Osprey. “Have you no views upon this subject?”

  Sir Ganimore shrugged.

  “It teaches us that though Rome the city may be sacked, yet the Roman Empire will survive. Even now,” continued Osprey, warming to his theme, “the forces of good are gath
ering their armies to fight the usurping tyrant Vitalinus and take Albion back, once and for all, to the Roman way of doing things.”

  “So, why aren’t you fighting alongside your brother, sir?” asked Sir Ganimore.

  “I am a man of peace,” said Osprey.

  “But shouldn’t we be fighting alongside the forces of good, sir?” asked Artorus, showing interest for the first time and clearly perking up at the prospect of violent conflict.

  “That,” said Osprey, “is not for me to say. At present, for diplomatic reasons, your father has a peace treaty with Vitalinus. But perhaps a time will come when King Otto has to make a stand, whether alongside my brother or in his own defence. In which case you must all be ready to fight.”

  He swung round and aimed his last remark of the lesson at Sir Ganimore.

  “Even you, Sir Ganimore.”

  Sir Ganimore winked at Wyrd.

  “I bet you’re glad you don’t have to be a knight,” said Sir Ganimore.

  “Yeah,” said Wyrd, flushing that someone so well born would address him in such friendly terms. “Well, I suppose so. On the whole, I mean. It’s just… Er, look, I have to go. Work to do. Sorry.”

  ***

  King Otto himself was invariably in residence at Castle Otto, although Wyrd rarely caught sight of him. Even when he did, only the top half of his big, round face was visible above a huge, red beard, giving him the appearance of sunrise over a burning hedge. Wyrd had heard, through spying on lessons, that King Otto had been in earlier days a formidable warrior, first subjugating the various races of rocky Atlantis to the south and west, annexing the fertile land of Lyonesse to the east and then extending his dominion east into the Lordship of Cornubia, where teams of dwarves laboured in the tin and arsenic mines and added a sizeable income to King Otto’s treasury.

  Even further to the east, beyond the River Tamar that marked the furthest border of Cornubia, the Dumnonian lords and even King Cunomor himself had been brought under Otto’s heavy heel. They now paid annual tribute to him, mostly in the form of food and livestock.

  For the last five years, peace had broken out. No rival king seemed eager to invade Dumnonia or any other land that paid tribute to Otto. And so King Otto was able to live peaceably at home, in the castle he had had built and named after him.