Johnny could have thought of better places to eat and had grave doubts about the menu, but knowing he had no other choice hurried obediently after Silenus and Faunus as they set off at an exhausting pace down the hill. ‘If we are to ask Basilius to look after you, those garments will not do,’ Hester Nye had said looking with scarcely disguised distaste at Becky’s somewhat grubby jeans and red sweatshirt.
Now, briefly back in the chamber she had been given to sleep in, Becky found that a long white homespun shift had been left on the bed for her, along with a terracotta basin of water scented with orange blossom. She stripped and splashed the water over herself finding it both necessary and refreshing. She was loath to discard her clothes, however. It seemed another stripping away of her links to the world of Greendale. Still, there was no option really. She could hardly insist on wearing dirty jeans and a sweatshirt if she was going to be billeted with a king, however decrepit a king he might turn out to be.
Accordingly, she pulled the shift on and pushed her feet into her trainers again, then sat on the bed to wait to be summoned.
She did not have to wait long. There was a gentle knock and the door was immediately pushed open. At the door was not Hester Nye, but the woman named Althea who had brought them the decision that Becky should be sequestered. She stepped quickly into the room as Becky stood up. Althea paused briefly to study Becky and seemed momentarily taken by surprise. Becky was not especially tall for her age — she would only have reached Althea’s shoulder — but the long shift must have added some height and accentuated her slenderness.
Becky wondered at Althea’s reaction. It was almost as if there had been a flash of recognition. Whatever it was, it was over in an instant, for the woman, as business-like as she had been on the path, said quickly, ‘It is best we leave at once. Hesteria believes Faunus will waste no time in discovering that you are here and could arrive at any moment. It is imperative that you are not here when and if that happens.’
‘Where are we going?’ Becky asked.
‘The palace is not very far away, perhaps an hour or so if we move quickly.’
‘We’re walking?’
Althea looked at her in surprise. ‘Of course. How else? We must walk down the mountain paths.’
Becky had half-thought that Hester Nye may have driven her on the farm trike, but then realised that wouldn’t really have been an option. If Dr Faunus were anywhere near he would have heard the engine, she supposed, so that alone would have ruled it out.
It became apparent that Hester Nye was not going to accompany them. Althea herself was to be Becky’s guide. Hester Nye did, however, make a somewhat cursory farewell.
‘Althea will take you to Basilius. Remember he is an old and venerable man so he is to be accorded all courtesy. Althea will explain the situation and I am sure he will be sympathetic. He will be well aware of the dreadful consequences should Faunus use you to channel that music once more. Do everything he says and remain hidden at all times. We will only come for you when we have located the flute and have it safely in our possession once more.’
Becky tried to take all this in. Hester Nye’s tone had been urgent, underlining the need to hurry.
‘Do you understand?’
‘I think so,’ said Becky. She understood that Hester and the other women were agitated and desperate for her to be on her way. She would have been happier about the situation had she felt that their agitation was simply for her safety and wellbeing. The trouble was she didn’t feel that at all. This was their Plan A to prevent her from playing the flute. She should be grateful. She didn’t want to think about what their Plan B might be.
Johnny Cadman retreated to a stool in the corner of Silenus’s cottage. He still felt very insecure, although much more in awe of Faunus who seemed to have complete authority over the unpredictable Silenus. The trouble was, Faunus himself was unpredictable, his mood swinging without warning from good humour to brooding despondency, from almost buoyant playfulness to bitter anger.
Johnny’s insecurity was now heightened by the fact that their meal was washed down and continued to be washed down with vast quantities of Silenus’s dark brown ale, and both guest and host were becoming affected. Johnny’s apprehensions about the meal had come to nothing for Silenus had simply carved great slices of cold meat from what was fairly obviously the haunch of a goat, accompanied by cold roasted rabbits and cold roasted chickens. Johnny winced at what Ms Bielowski, his home-science teacher, would have thought of it all; Ms Bielowski who was rather shaped like the food pyramid she always kept banging on about.
Johnny’s apprehensions about the drinking, however, continued to grow. He knew how drinking affected his father. According to his mother, his father’s drinking had started shortly after Johnny’s sister had drowned. ‘Drowning his sorrows,’ his mother had said, ‘and forgetting about mine.’ Thus Johnny had hardly known a time when his father was not affected several times a week. If his father did drink to drown his sorrows, Johnny often thought, he was a bloody slow learner, for drink did not make him happy, it simply made him withdrawn, morose, and usually bad-tempered.
The ale was not producing misery in Faunus and Silenus, though. Quite the reverse. It generated much laughter, bragging of past deeds and wonders, and from time to time, an urge to break into raucous song, these songs often accompanied by Silenus’s awful wheezing concertina. Sometimes, when this happened, Faunus would break from the table and kick into a high prancing jig, his hooves clattering on the flagstones on the floor.
In his corner, Johnny suffered all this in worried silence, picking at the meat on his platter and wondering when the good humour might turn sour or, worse, turn to violence.
He was thus surprised when, during a period of relative calm, Dr Faunus turned to him directly and asked, ‘The motor trike came from the villa on the bluff, you say?’
Johnny nodded. ‘Well, it sort of came from that direction.’
‘Mow to rye?’ asked Silenus, puzzled.
‘He means the centaur,’ explained Johnny.
Silenus’s eyes narrowed with resentment. He remembered how the black centaur had scattered them and how it had then forced him into the ignominy of fleeing from it. The shame of this clearly stung still.
‘I will kill it,’ he vowed loudly, raising his tankard as proof.
‘So you shall, so you shall,’ said Faunus. ‘I intend to give you the opportunity very shortly.’
Silenus beamed at him, and took a great draught of ale.
‘That is certainly where she is,’ said Faunus, ‘and if she is there, the flute will be there, and the girl Rebecca.’
‘I will take my great bow,’ said Silenus. ‘It will not get a second chance.’
‘Good man,’ said Faunus. However, he was clearly thinking of something else for the comment was rather perfunctory.
‘Why is the flute so important?’ asked Johnny. He understood that somehow the flute had mysteriously transformed the ancient wheelchair-bound figure into the vibrant muscled creature before him, but surely that meant that its job had been done.
‘Because it is mine,’ said Faunus.
Johnny nodded. That could well have been true, but it didn’t really answer his question. He wanted to find out more and this was an opportunity, but this was also a risk. Silenus’s beer may have made Faunus more expansive and communicative, but could also make him more volatile. Johnny didn’t want to risk the chicken coop again, or worse, should he provoke anger.
‘How come Becky bought it at a second-hand shop then?’ he asked carefully.
‘Before my powers had completely withered, I fashioned the flute,’ said Faunus, ‘and I wished Syrinx into it.’
That name rang a bell with Johnny. He remembered shortly after he and Becky had become lost in this place, she had told him the weird story of the girl who had been changed into a reed. At the time Becky had confessed that the flute was somehow possessed and would only let her play this one melody, a melody she didn’t ev
en know before she’d picked up the instrument.
He didn’t believe Faunus had fashioned the instrument, though. He’d seen it. It was just like a regular flute as far as he knew.
However, given how he’d witnessed the transformation of the old man, and the manner in which he’d plucked a whistling arrow out of the air, he could well believe Faunus had somehow enchanted it.
‘But how come it ended up in a pawnshop?’ Johnny asked.
Faunus gave a short laugh. ‘She lodged it there,’ he said, ‘the fool.’
Johnny suspected he meant the woman housekeeper.
‘She’d already deprived me of my pipes,’ said Faunus bitterly, ‘and she suspected the flute.’ He lapsed into remembrance, and then his bitterness changed abruptly and he laughed at his cleverness. ‘She did not of course realise that the flute held the Syrinx melody and that wherever it was, sooner or later it would draw Syrinx to it, and that she would find it and play it to me.’
Johnny was lost.
‘Becky,’ he reminded the doctor. ‘Becky found it.’
‘Of course,’ Faunus laughed. ‘Rebecca.’
Johnny was still confused, but relieved the doctor seemed still to be in good spirits. He decided to broach his original question again.
‘But surely you don’t need the flute any more?’ he asked.
‘Why on earth do you say that?’ demanded Faunus, holding up his tankard for Silenus to fill.
‘Well … Because … Look at you …’ Johnny tried to explain.
Faunus frowned. ‘You understand nothing,’ he snapped and snapped so sharply that Johnny flinched. ‘There is much yet to do. Much. My body is restored but my powers are not. Then my fauns — puny, pathetic shadows of what they should be — and then there is Syrinx.’
‘Syrinx?’
‘The minx will not escape me again!’
Silenus, hearing the passion in Faunus’s voice jumped from his stool and began to prance about in a mad dance, singing,
Syrinx the minx
is jinxed
he thinks
and thinks
that drinks …
are called for!’
Then he rushed for his flagon in order to replenish the tankards.
It had probably never been much of a palace, thought Becky a little disappointedly, not in the way Buckingham Palace was a palace anyway. As her companion Althea led her through yet another ancient olive grove, she was able to see just up ahead a small group of white stone buildings sheltering behind a cloistered courtyard. These buildings, like the trees, looked incredibly old and some of the capstones on the cloisters had fallen to lie tumbled on the weeds of the courtyard.
She and Althea had begun their journey on the downhill path between the orange trees. This pleased Becky: it meant they were to travel in the opposite direction to Silenus’s cottage. Her own fears, as well as the tension among the women at the villa, meant that she wanted to put as much distance between herself and Silenus as possible.
The path led down the hillside to the plain and then across the plain through tree-studded meadows almost as far as the seashore. Then they climbed once more to another promontory, but a bluff lower than that on which the villa sat and one which was much closer to the sea.
It had been a silent journey. Althea had set the pace and it was such a tiring one, Becky struggled to keep up with her. This meant that as her guide was always several metres ahead, conversation was impossible. Somehow, Becky felt that there would have been little said anyway. Althea’s back was quite uncommunicative. Although she did not have really much breath left for chatter, Becky wondered why. She was reasonably good at reading people, she thought, and felt that Althea’s silence was born of resentment. She wondered again at Hester Nye’s comments. Was Althea blaming her personally somehow for this crisis?
It may have been her imagination, for Althea had no words or no time for anybody. Every so often they would come across a shepherd with a small flock of sheep or goats. Invariably these rustics would pause, leaning on their crooks curiously, and then nod or smile in salute, but these greetings were always ignored as Althea hurried past, head down. Becky, following behind and smiling to make up for this rudeness, was aware that these men and boys had felt stung by her companion.
Now, finally, just beyond the cloisters Althea stopped and turned to Becky.
‘Wait here,’ she instructed briskly.
‘I will go ahead and crave an audience with Basilius. I will tell him of all that has occurred and beg his assistance in sheltering you.’
Becky nodded. She had somehow thought that her staying with the old man was a done deal. The way Althea was now speaking, it seemed her staying there was more like a remote possibility.
While Althea hurried ahead, Becky gratefully sat down on a large piece of fallen masonry. Even though the journey had taken little over an hour, she was so weary that she half-hoped Althea’s interview with this aged king would take forever.
While she was pleased to be at least another hour away from Silenus she knew, too, that she was still further away from any chance of finding her way back home. She and Johnny had tumbled into this world from a window, from a window in a house that had subsequently vanished. How far away was that house now?
How long would it take to find the way out? There must be a way. Hester Nye was proof of that. So was Dr Faunus. At some point they had left this world, their world, and settled in hers. Already she had spent two nights in this crazy place, two nights away from home. Her mother … the police would be involved. Her father in Australia … he would have been informed.
All at once Becky felt the beginnings of what her mother called matchboxes in her throat. She could cry so easily. What made everything worse was Hester Nye’s telling her that this mad world with its drunken goatherds, timid fauns and austere white-gowned women was her real home. It was utterly ridiculous, utterly frustrating, and utterly frightening.
These upsetting thoughts so overwhelmed her, she was not aware that Althea had returned until she heard her voice.
‘It has been arranged,’ she said, without attempting to conceal her relief. ‘Basilius will offer you shelter. Come now, he would like to speak with you.’
Althea led Becky through a series of rooms and anterooms, courtyards and passages. Despite its outside appearance, the so-called palace was surprisingly large. It was also something of a rabbit warren, Becky thought gratefully. She was lost within a few corners as they moved from hall to chamber to passage to courtyard. Even if they suspected she were here, Faunus and Silenus would not find it easy to find her.
They finally reached one last anteroom where they were received courteously by an old woman dressed in black. She welcomed Becky with a small smile and then, with another smile nodded to Althea, and then murmured that it was now appropriate for her to leave should she so desire. Apparently it was, for Althea, murmuring her thanks in turn, took the old lady’s hand and made a brief farewell.
Becky turned to say goodbye to her travelling companion, but Althea, her task completed, had already turned her back and was hurrying away along the tortuous route they had just travelled.
Becky shrugged and turned to the old lady who whispered, ‘The king will see you now. Go in, and I will come shortly with something for you to eat and drink. I’m sure the journey has put you in need of refreshment.’
Becky smiled at the woman. This was a much friendlier reception than she’d received at the villa and she was grateful for the courtesy and consideration. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Shall I …?’ She paused before the door.
The old woman nodded, so Becky knocked softly then pushed at the door.
The room was large, but not overwhelmingly so. Like the big room at the villa the ceiling was buttressed by cloisters, although these were arranged in an inner square thus forming an inner chamber, rather than dividing the room. In the centre of this inner chamber on a long cushioned bench sat an old man. He was bald on top, but his long white
hair fell over his shoulders and he had a wispy white beard. He was dressed in a long white shift not unlike the one Becky herself was wearing, although his was richly embroidered in a geometric pattern around the neck.
He looks just like a wizard in a storybook, thought Becky.
The old man smiled gently at her as she entered and then beckoned her towards him, patting a place on the bench for her to sit.
Becky suddenly worried about protocol and manners. This old man was a king. Nobody had told her what to call him or how to address him or when to speak and when to remain silent. Should she curtsey or something? She’d never actually curtsied in her life before.
In the event, she smiled nervously and crossed the room in as dignified a way as she could muster.
‘I’m Rebecca,’ she whispered when she was quite close.
The old man inclined an ear, and said very loudly in a piping voice, ‘You’ll have to speak up, my dear. I’ve grown somewhat hard of hearing of late.’
This confession of human frailty made the old man less daunting, less regal, and Becky relaxed considerably. Her grandmother Jane, Donna Pym’s mother, was quite deaf now but still refused a hearing aid. Becky felt almost on familiar territory.
Much more loudly, she repeated her name and when the old man nodded and patted the bench again, Becky sat down.
‘I am Basilius,’ he announced, ‘although I’m sure you know that by now.’ He waved his hand in a small flourish. ‘I was once king of this domain, and I suppose I remain so, although it’s hard to say what there is to be a king of any more.’
‘But surely the hills, the woods …’ said Becky.
The old man shrugged. ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘The land is still here of course, but the kingdom is all but a memory. My queen died, my daughters departed, the towns deserted and there was no reason any more for vessels to visit the ports …’
The Enchanted Flute Page 21
