by Clio Gray
Maulwerf put his head to one side, the questions he wanted to ask hovering on his lips, like how the devil Kwert had got into the state he was in and what had happened that they neither of them wanted to talk about. And why had neither mentioned Ullendorf? And how had they wound up here at the very neck end of Prussia when it was the first time Maulwerf had brought his Fair here? Philbert volunteered no more than Kwert, saying only that Kwert had been ill for a while, that their stay with Ullendorf had not been a success, and with that Maulwerf had to be content. He looked the boy up and down as he left, trying to figure out what was different about him. Taller certainly, but not so much in height as in the way he carried himself. He had a confidence to his step, an aloofness that kept others at arm’s length, including Maulwerf himself. Maulwerf was the Father of the Fair but he’d wondered, watching Philbert walk away, if he was any kind of father at all to this boy who seemed to have outgrown them all. He was worried. Uncertainty was part of the game Maulwerf had been playing for all his fifty years, but this uncertainty, this disparity between the boy who had left and the boy who had come back, and the unwillingness of Kwert to confide in him – in Maulwerf of all people – had him discomforted in the extreme.
Philbert sat beneath his pear tree that afternoon, seeing Lita and Lorenzini in the distance sitting on their cart-stoop like birds perched alone in a tree, the strong wing of Lorenzini’s arm around Lita’s shoulders, protecting her. It was so intimate a scene Philbert felt like he was spying, surprised when he was roused from the snooze he wasn’t aware he’d fallen into by Lorenzini himself. He presented Philbert with a stick he’d carved, with an impressive swirl of a handle, and Lorenzini proceeded to show Philbert all the tricks he’d taught Kroonk over the past few months: pushing balls through a miniature obstacle course with her snout, flipping them over jumps and through twig hoops; going onto her knees on command then lying down completely and rolling over, waggling her trotters in the air. Lorenzini was gratified to see Philbert smile at Kroonk’s shenanigans, evidently pleased and proud of what she’d learned as he took the stick graciously from Lorenzini, asking if Lorenzini could spare the time over the next few days to go through all the commands with him until he had them fixed.
‘But of course!’ Lorenzini said with enthusiasm. ‘And we have this too . . .’
He produced a green velvet vest Lita had tailored to size for Kroonk from a couple of Maulwerf’s old waistcoats, sewn over with sequins and beads.
‘I do love her, you know, Little Lita,’ Lorenzini said, as if expecting Philbert to argue against it. ‘She’s the most perfect thing in all the world, and it’s important to us both that we have your blessing.’
Philbert raised his eyebrows in surprise but did not hesitate in giving what was asked. ‘I wish you both every blessing and happiness,’ he replied with the same formality the request had been put to him.
‘I don’t think you need her anymore, Philbert. Not like I do. And I don’t know what happened on your travels but I know travel changes people, and that it has changed you.’ He shook his head, then shook Philbert’s hand and bowed, Philbert bowing back. ‘I’m not sure you need any of us anymore,’ said Lorenzini as he turned to leave. ‘But whatever life has in store for you, Philbert, be assured that wherever me and Lita are there is a place for you too, if ever you have need of it.’
The Aqueduct – Wedding feast lasted four whole days. People fell asleep mid-sentence, mid-mouthful, mid-dance, lying down where they fell. The nights were warm enough for everyone to sleep on capes and blankets spread out beneath trees and stars, listening to the water sleek-sloping down the aqueduct in its carved wooden channels, slooshing and paddling into its pools, rocking the small rafts folk made out of branches to launch onto the silvery lakes. The Great Magendie was the name on everyone’s lips, constantly tattling about his strange history and this extraordinary creation they’d travelled so far to see. Everyone was eager to meet him, shake him by the hand, goggling at his magnificent achievement of civil engineering, but he never ventured from his home in all the time the hordes were there. What he did do though, to amuse himself, was invite into his company a select handful of guests every now and then, an honour folk would have killed for, eager as dammit, for just like the man who lived there his home was nothing of the ordinary.
It went by the name of Der Spaltrostamm, and Philbert was amongst the guests invited to attend on the last night of the feast. Whether the Great Magendie had been keeping the best until last was anybody’s guess, but the company Philbert was called into was illustrious. Maulwerf was presenting some new additions to the Fair, including a woman whose hair was so long she had to push it in a barrow before her and a man who could speak twenty-six languages and chattered away in all of them, slipping from one to the next without warning; from Peru had come a bearded lady and an albino who made an odd couple indeed, even more so than Lorenzini and Lita who were also part of the crew. Philbert tagged along behind them like an afterthought at Maulwerf’s bidding, approaching the house with the rest up a drive that was screened by tall beech hedges on either side whose trunks had been set close together as saplings so they grew into one another to make an impenetrable barrier, branches entwined and twisted as they fought for light and space. And it was no easy task to get to this mysterious house, Der Spaltrostamm, for the Great Magendie had built it right on the top of the lower ravine, reachable only by a complicated zigzag of steps up which the lady with her long hair had to haul her barrow, helped on by the others as they had breath, thanking God Frau Fettleheim hadn’t been one of the favoured.
‘Two hundred and seventy eight,’ panted Maulwerf, as the small party gasped their way up the last leg. ‘One for each week of the aqueduct’s construction, so I’ve been told by those who have gone before.’
The language man spoke a sentence in a mixture of Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, Welsh and French that none of them understood directly but got the gist of its true interpretation: The journey always takes longer than you think, but in so doing makes its goal all the more worthwhile.
Once they’d finally reached their destination the door creaked open without their ringing the ostentatious bell that hung like an overgrown pine-cone from the eaves. They were led in by two moleskin-clad foot-boys, red hats wobbling on their heads, bunches of iridescent feathers strapped to their hatbands by blue ribbons. Petitorri would have loved it, Philbert thought, all that swank and swagger. He wondered briefly where that man was now, what lies or otherwise he was spreading, for men like Petitorri did not lie down and take defeat without at least some spit and stand. But no time to think on the peacock any longer, for the moment they were in the door Philbert realised he was inside one of the most extraordinary places he had ever seen.
The room was huge, undivided and dark, all made of wood, from the panelling on floor and walls to the sparse furniture, the centrepiece being a massive table lined with knot-backed chairs and laid up with food and wine. Two great fireplaces were lit at either end of what could only be described adequately as a hall, each banked and correctly fuelled so the flames were bright and the smoke directed to all the various foodstuffs hanging from hooks inside the five foot width of each inglenook: haunches of meat, bunches of herbs, strings of sausages, tack bread, hams, the carcasses of hares, squirrels and rabbits, several necklaces of yellowing mushrooms and peppers, the grey curl of an ox’s tongue.
The Great Magendie himself was sat at the left hand side of the room, a vast chair hiding his withered frame like a walnut within its shell, rough-hewn boards heavy and dark, crudely cut with acorns and leaves as if they’d been chiselled by woodsmen’s children still practising their craft. The footsteps of his latest guests creaked on the floorboards as they crowded forward, ushered on by the red-hatted boys who introduced the visitors one by one, listing their various unusual attributes before urging them to sit at table and partake of what was there. And sit they did, and one by one were called forward
by the hat-twirling boys to meet the Great Man himself, Maulwerf first, whose role was only to introduce the rest. The greatest surprise for Philbert was the couple from Peru. The so-called bearded lady was strange indeed, her face and arms felted over with long soft hair. The Great Magendie had her come to him, stroked her hair, asked her to show him her mouth, all of which she did, for apparently not only was she hairy all over her body but also had a second set of teeth set behind the first. None of this was so extraordinary to Philbert as when she returned from her examination and began to sing in her own language, the words unknown to any but herself and her husband and the man who understood twenty-six languages. But for Philbert it was utterly compelling, like streams running over moss, and he could have gone on listening to her for hours if her husband hadn’t been summoned forward, at which point her singing ceased. He called himself the White Jester, an albino with a stock of jokes and anecdotes that would have made a stevedore blush. He took his place at the Great Magendie’s feet, had his own face poked and prodded, his jokes ignored, a candle shone into his pink eyes before being summarily dismissed. In his place came the woman with all the hair pointing out the delicate intricacy of her braids, followed by Lita and Lorenzini doing a quick dance and turn, replaced – after a short silence from their host – by the language man, who didn’t get farther than sixty seconds of his excellent routine before being repelled by a bored wave of the Great Magendie’s hand. Philbert was the tail end of the exhibits, doomed – he’d already concluded – to be a huge disappointment after all the others had apparently failed to impress, completely aware that his paltry head was nothing in comparison. He came forward grudgingly, Maulwerf’s hand at his back pushing him on.
‘Does your hat never move, boy?’ the Great Magendie’s voice splintered through the air, the first words he’d spoken since they’d arrived. Philbert took off his hat and moved closer to the tiny wrinkle of a man in his huge chair so as to be seen properly. A few months earlier he would have been intimidated by the strange room, the unexpected interrogation, the hard blinks of small windows glittering malevolently behind the man holed up in his chair, but not now. Philbert’s small body was taut and hard, his head no longer seeming to pull him to one side with its weight but feeling instead as if it was just right, part of the balance between himself and the world in which he lived.
‘Well, my,’ said the Great Magendie succinctly as he leaned forward to take his look. ‘I can see why you wear a hat.’
Philbert didn’t blink but stared back at the sunken eyes of his interlocutor, saw the light of the nearby fire reflected in them beneath their hoods like the splash of sunlight on wood-hidden pools.
‘And what’s your name, boy?’ the Great Magendie asked.
‘Philbert,’ he replied, the man laughing fit to burst.
‘Philbert! Oh but that’s a good one!’ he said once he’d calmed, poking hard at Philbert’s taupe with his finger. ‘And what do you keep inside your head, nut boy?’
Philbert took a breath. He didn’t like the way he was being looked at, and absolutely loathed the way Magendie had treated the rest of the Fair’s Folk as if they were dogs begging for scraps at his table. He didn’t like the karking timbre of his voice and certainly not the scratch of the man’s nail upon his taupe and, before he’d thought the action through, Philbert pushed the man’s hand roughly away, replaced his hat firmly back down upon his head and moved his face nose to nose with the vile Magendie.
‘You don’t want to know,’ Philbert said quietly, though not so quietly that everyone in the quiet hall couldn’t hear it. ‘There are memories in here that span the world far more than your aqueduct will ever do, and violence enough to make your hair curl, if only you had hair enough to make the exercise worthwhile.’
Maulwerf was at his back, snatching at Philbert’s arm but Philbert kept his footing, he and the Great Magendie staring hard into each other’s eyes. And maybe the Great Magendie saw a shiver of those memories flickering across Philbert’s face for it was he who pulled away.
‘Quite a boy,’ he murmured, though not directly to Philbert. ‘I see I was right to save the least until last. If I had my hammer here I would take great pleasure in cracking open that skull of his, scatter his secrets to the wind.’ He smiled, but it was not a good smile, then waved his arm, informed the company he was tired and they needed to go away and not come back. It took the bonny-hatted boys only moments to get everyone in order, shovel the long haired woman’s hair back into her barrow, shove a few coins in Maulwerf’s hand and then they were off and out, the moleskin boys barricading the doors behind them, Maulwerf leading them sternly back down the twisting steps between the impenetrable hedges of beech, his anger harsh within his chest at the way both he and his prize exhibits had been treated. Only Philbert – of all people – had stood up for them, and he silently applauded the boy. Undoubtedly the Great Magendie had achieved great things, but Maulwerf was disgusted by the privilege he obviously believed his status earned him. He was rather pleased therefore to overhear what the White Jester said to Philbert as they went back down the steps, proud of his protégé, despite their recent lack of communication.
‘Oh but well done, my fine young friend,’ the White Jester exclaimed, slapping Philbert gently on the shoulder, ‘for standing up to that old curmudgeon. He’s had me and my lady La Lanuga in there three times these last few days, pinching at us both, pulling her hair and teeth, seeing if my eyes will change colour. And never once,’ he added, as if this was the worst of the Great Magendie’s crimes, ‘has he ever laughed at any of my jokes.’ He placed his paper-pale face right in front of Philbert’s, his bright eyes pink and merry. ‘He might have built the greatest aqueduct anyone has ever seen since the Romans, but there’s no doubting the man is an arse of the first order and you, my young lad, are the only person who had the courage to point it out. Hair indeed! And quite right!’
Maulwerf quivered in his velvet jacket. He no longer twirled his silver topped cane. It was obvious to him from that little exchange between Magendie and Philbert that Philbert was no longer some ingénue raked up by the travelling of his Fair. Something deep and dark had happened to Kwert and Philbert when they’d been away, and he meant to find out what that was.
37
The Christmas Factor
Winter ground on, a dog within the wheel of the seasons, bearing frost in its fur and a howling snarl of wind, the snow barely having time to settle on the frozen ground before it was snatched up again, a hound that would not loose the broke-backed rabbit – still squirming – from its hold. For several months, following the Great Magendie’s Opening, Maulwerf’s Fair toured the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, a land in danger of losing its identity halfway here and halfway there, no one knowing whether they should make alliances with the Swedish or the Prussians or the Danish. They were not alone, uprisings and small revolutions going on all over Europe, but Lengerrborn had not been forgotten and men were on Philbert’s tail.
Philbert didn’t know what Kwert had told Maulwerf after their visit to Magendie, but he knew he’d said something, maybe everything. Maulwerf was certainly on his guard, but to his credit never mooted the notion that Philbert should leave, instead was of entirely the opposite demeanour, telling Philbert he was glad he was back, a sentiment spoken, but one of which Philbert was never entirely sure. He listened for every creep and crack of rumour that might tell him pursuers were on his tail, either from Lengerrborn or Bremen. But he heard nothing, and slowly came to the assumption that winter and snow had thrown them off his scent.
Philbert woke one night in that strange land of Schleswig-Holstein, teeth chattering with the cold, pushing his feet deeper into his squirrel-skin boots, snuggling closer under his covers into Kroonk’s warm side. On his other flank lay Jimble and Jamble, surprise additions to the Kroonk family, engendered whilst Philbert had been away on his travels – a slip on Lorenzini’s part, but a welcome one –
a family of piglets it had never occurred to Philbert might ever have existed. These two, the only ones to survive from a poor litter, were lying snout to tail, a shiver of dream passing through first one and then the other, trotters twitching in harmony. All was quiet, only the snuffled coughs and grunts that he was used to coming from his neighbours’ tents as they snored and sneezed the cold night through. Philbert was lying on his stomach, hand lifting the corner of his tent-flap to peer out into the night. Stretched out before him the land ran down to the sea, combed into straight lines by a bleak procession of knick-hedges, its white flatness broken only by the low rolls of distant dunes and the stark outlines of tumbled, dilapidated tombs left by the Angles many hundreds – maybe thousands – of years before. The water of the lake before the castle was frozen solid, covered with a multitude of Fair stalls; also frozen were its many offspring streams and feeders, no splish nor merry splash, only the hard cold crack and arthritic groans of ice to be heard. The moon shone down upon the land, the one a mirror to the other’s pale unconcern, both glistening in the icy light as if the ceaseless murmurings of the distant sea had swept sudden and silent over the fields, flattening all below it, leaving a crystal lattice of salt to glitter in its place as it withdrew again, unseen.
Philbert turned his head, heard the pochards whistling on the brack-marsh, saw the outline of a small dark fox slink beside the reeds, scrawny herons hunched low on branches, ducks scrunching harder into their nests as the fox’s scent came and went. The moon veiled its face within a cloud of ice then let fall one, two, three flakes of softest snow. Philbert put out his hand and caught a snowflake on his fingertip, put it to his mouth. He held out his hand again but soon withdrew it as the night suddenly filled with flurries and gusts, the wind beginning to swirl its cloaks of ermine between tent and stall. Behind them, Philbert saw the white-bricked walls of the castle standing solid between the shifting screens of snow. He could hear the champ and chafe of horse and cattle shifting lazily within those walls, safe in byre and barn and beside them, in the keepers’ cotts, the keepers’ kith and kin, goats and sheep, vying and jostling for the warmth of meagre fires that gently expired upon their cooling hearths.
