Dogsbody (18 page)

“. . . not used to being detained in the sphere of my Most Effulgent Consort,” she was saying.

“But, Effulgency,” Sol said, out there, “it is such an unexpected pleasure to find you honoring my humble sphere. I feel I must meet Your Effulgency with proper politeness.”

“My dear Sol! There’s no need for that!” the Companion answered. “I’m here quite informally.”

“But how delightful, Effulgency!” said Sol. His voice dripped golden politeness. “Naturally I should not want to intrude on your privacy, except that, since Your Effulgency is honoring my sphere, I take it that you have come to visit me.”

“I don’t wish to disappoint you, Sol,” began the Companion.

“Effulgency,” Sol said, sweetly earnest. “My only disappointment is that you came without my knowledge. That was why I stopped you. I had no wish to be rude, nor to point out that I am of higher effulgence than your honored self, but—”

“Oh, very well,” the Companion said crossly. “I’m here on
business for my Effulgent Consort, which is secret. Does that satisfy you? Effulgency.”

“Effulgency, I must always be satisfied in your presence,” Sol said unctuously.

Sirius put his face on his paws and groaned. What a flaming green fool Sol must think he was! It was only too clear Sol knew what his Companion was like. It was equally clear that Sol disliked her intensely. But he had never said a word about her to Sirius. He had always hurried the conversation away from her—no doubt to spare Sirius’s feelings. Sirius lay in the damp smelly hole and writhed. He was very grateful to Sol for stopping his Companion, but he could hardly bear to listen to them quarreling so politely.

A voice spoke near his ear. It was a voice as jealously ruffled as Tibbles, the time Sirius turned her off Kathleen’s knee. It said, “Who is that being out there?
What
is she?”

There was no new smell, apart from the strong meat-and-peppermint stink and the clay of the walls around him. Sirius supposed it must be the owner of the hole speaking. He dared not offend the creature, whatever it smelled like, so he answered politely, “She’s the Companion of Sirius. A white dwarf.”

“Then she’s a luminary,” the voice answered, not at all pleased. After a stormy pause, it asked, “
Very
beautiful, is she?”

“Very,” Sirius answered miserably. And because his Companion was beautiful, he thought, he had made a far worse fool of himself over her than he ever did over Patchie. He had let her lead him as tamely as Kathleen led him on the leash.

“
How
beautiful?” the voice persisted. “Compare her to something. Is she as beautiful as Sol?”

“Well—” Sirius said helplessly. “They’re very different. Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then she’s more beautiful than the Moon?”

Sirius sighed a little, and wondered why it mattered to this persistent creature. He thought of the living pearly luster of the Companion. He had not seen the Moon often, but he knew it was a dead white in comparison. “Oh yes.” He could tell that the creature was not at all pleased to hear this. He tried to explain in terms it would understand. “Put it like this: she’s more than the Moon, about the same as Sol, but nothing like as lovely as that meadow with the flowers out there.”

“Really!” For some reason, the demanding creature was truly pleased by this. Sirius hoped it would now go away and let him hide with his misery in peace. But it added thoughtfully, “Then, if she’s a luminary, I suppose something like a small volcano wouldn’t finish her off, would it?”

Sirius did his polite best not to laugh. “I’m afraid not. Luminaries are not like creatures, you know. Sol himself couldn’t finish her off without destroying himself too—unless he had a Zoi he could use on her.” Then he did not want to talk any more. He remembered that his Companion had tried to use the Zoi on him. She had knocked him nearly senseless with it while he tried to snatch it away from her.

The demanding creature seemed to be thinking. It did not say anything for a while, and Sirius could hear Sol and his Companion still talking out in the meadow. Sol must have forced the Companion to tell him her business, because she was saying, “I’m sure you have enough to do without looking for Zoi.”

“Effulgency,” Sol prompted her sweetly.

“Effulgency!” snapped the Companion. “My Consort sent me to find it before it got into the wrong hands.”

“But, Effulgency, I must offer my services in my own sphere,” Sol replied. “Your Consort would wish it. And that was one of my creatures you tried to kill just now.”

“Who cares? Creatures die all the time,” said the Companion. She sounded so much like Duffie as she said it that Sirius shivered.

“Effulgency,” Sol prompted with dreadful politeness.

“Oh—Effulgency!” said the Companion, cold and furious. “To blazes with you and your creatures! They’re not important.”

“A correction, Effulgency,” said Sol, in melting contempt. “Everything in my sphere is important to me.”

The creature in the hole seemed to share Sol’s contempt. Its voice said in Sirius’s ear, musingly, “A Zoi could finish her off, you say? Hm.”

Sirius knew he ought to get away from this hole. Sol was keeping the Companion talking so that he could. Since the creature in it did not seem unfriendly, he asked it, “Could you help me escape? You see, I’m the creature she tried to kill. That’s why I had to come in here without asking you.”

“Asking me?” said the voice. “No one asks—” It broke off, and seemed very surprised. “Does that mean you don’t know who I am?” That amused it highly. It chuckled, a huge, joyous chuckle that shook the clay walls around Sirius and cheered him as much as it puzzled him. “Then you paid me a real compliment just now, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” said Sirius, feeling stupid and confused. “But I’ve never talked to you before, have I? Er—are you male or female?”

“I’ve no idea,” was the confusing reply. “I’ve never considered it. And you have talked to me, and I’ve talked to you—ever since you were a puppy.”

“I’m afraid I’m being very stupid,” Sirius apologized. He looked carefully around the dim green hole. There was nothing there except the yellow clay walls and the strong smell. He began to think the creature must be invisible. “Is this a silly question too? What do you look like?”

“What you see,” said the voice, amused.

“But I can only see—” Sirius suddenly understood. “Earth!” he exclaimed. “How stupid of me! Do forgive me.” It was not a creature at all, it was a planet, the most beautiful and kindly he had known. Of course he had talked to Earth. He had done so every time he scoured around the meadow or splashed in the river or sniffed the air. And Earth had talked to him in return, in every living way possible—in scents and sights, in the elegance of Tibbles, the foolish charm of Patchie, in Miss Smith’s brusqueness, in Kathleen’s kindness, in Basil’s roughness and even in Duffie’s coldness. Earth contained half the universe and had taught him everything he knew. He did his best to apologize, but Earth was not offended.

“There’s no need to keep saying you’re sorry. It’s Sol’s fault. I’ve listened to him. He deliberately didn’t mention me, because you told him you liked me for being green. And I didn’t like to speak to you directly, until you were out of Sol’s sight. I knew he’d be annoyed.”

Sirius thought he did not blame Sol. He knew a number of luminaries who might be tempted to steal Earth if they knew what Earth was like. But he was a little hurt that Sol had not trusted him. Then it struck him that Earth had not been wholly honest with Sol either.

“Look here,” he said. “You know where that Zoi is, don’t you? Why haven’t you told Sol?”

“I’m not going to tell you either,” Earth said, and fell into another stormy silence.

Sirius was alarmed. He was afraid he had really offended Earth this time, and just when he needed help most. The meat-and-peppermint smell was stronger, coming in warm gusts along the hole. The real occupant had clearly scented an intruder and was on its way to investigate. Sirius scrambled hurriedly around to face the stink. “I need the Zoi,” he said to the earthy wall. “I shall die a dog if I don’t have it.”

“There are worse fates,” said Earth. “Believe me.”

“But it’s making a mess of your climate,” said Sirius.

Earth did not answer. Outside in the meadow, the Companion was losing patience. “Effulgency,” she said, high and cold, “if you don’t let me go, I shall be forced to damage this wretched planet of yours.”

“You just try!” Earth muttered at her.

At that, Sirius remembered how interested Earth had been in what a Zoi might do to the Companion. He saw that Earth was not unwilling to let him find it, if he asked for it in the right way. “Why are you hiding the Zoi?” he asked.

“Because my most unhappy child has it,” said Earth. “He hopes it might help him, and so do I. But I can’t tell you who he is, because that’s against his rules. You know that, too. His hound told you.”

The longer hairs of Sirius’s back lifted with excitement until they caught on the damp clay. “Yeff, you mean? But he wouldn’t say anything.”

“He told you the rule,” said Earth, and repeated almost exactly what Yeff had said: “No one can ask anything of Yeff’s Master unless he has run with his hounds and shared their duties.”

When Yeff had said this, it had seemed like nothing. But now Sirius knew Earth was willing to let him find the Zoi but not to tell him where it was, it sounded almost like a promise. “You mean, if I ran with the cold hounds, I might bargain with your child for the Zoi?”

“You might,” said Earth. “His rules allow him to bargain.”

“Why does he have rules like this?” said Sirius.

“All my darker children have to have strict laws,” Earth said. “Sol wouldn’t let them exist otherwise.”

There seemed such sadness in this that, at any other time, Sirius would have put his nose in his paws and thought about it. But, outside, the Companion’s voice was high and angry and Sol’s beat against it like the flames in a furnace. Inside the hole, the real occupant was making its way through the last foot or so, snarling shrilly as it came.

“I think you ought to be going now,” said Earth.

The animal’s pointed snarling face appeared in the hole. It had green eyes too, strong white teeth and reddish fur. It was quite a bit
smaller than Sirius, but it was prepared to tear him to pieces all the same.

“What is it?” he asked Earth.

“Get out of here, dog!” snarled the creature. “How dare you sit in my earth!”

“It’s a vixen,” said Earth. “Vixen, I’m sorry, but I want you to help this dog. Take him through your earth and show him your other entrance.”

“I will not!” said the vixen. “I’ve a litter of cubs back there, and he goes near them over my dead body!”

“And a fat lot of good your dead body will be to your cubs!” said Earth. “Don’t be so unreasonable.”

“I promise I won’t touch your cubs,” said Sirius.

“No. You’ll come back later with men and spades and more dogs,” snapped the vixen. “I know dogs.”

“Of course I won’t,” said Sirius.

“This isn’t really a dog,” said Earth. “Look at his eyes.”

Grudgingly, with her lips drawn back from her teeth, the vixen crouched and stared up at Sirius. “Yes, I see,” she said. “But it’s not a fox either. What is it?”

“Quite another order of creature from a long way away,” Earth told her. “Now let it out through your earth before another creature comes and sets fire to you, him, your cubs and probably the whole wood too.”

Stiffly and reluctantly, the vixen turned and crawled back down the hole. “Make haste!” she said to Sirius, flicking the white tip of her brush at him. “I want you out of here.”

He squeezed himself after her. It was some distance. The smell was abominable, and grew stronger. Sirius sneezed. He wanted to stand up and stretch, but there was no space. If he had not known that it was Earth all around him, he would have panicked. At length, the vixen crawled out into a lighter, warmer place—a clayey cave, with a hole slanting up from it into bright sunlight. A number of chubby cheerful foxcubs were tumbling about in the sunny patch. Sirius thought they looked rather jolly. He would have liked to stop and play with them. They felt much the same about him. They came bundling playfully toward him, yipping excitedly, obviously under the impression that he was some sort of kindly uncle.

The vixen cuffed them fiercely aside. “Don’t go near it! And,” she added to Sirius, “touch a hair of their tails and I’ll bite your throat out!”

“I told you I won’t hurt them,” Sirius protested.

“Maybe. But I can’t have them thinking dogs are friendly,” the vixen snapped. “A fine mother I’d be if I did! Go up that hole. It comes out on the other side of the wood.” As Sirius put his head into the sunlit hole and forced his shoulders after, she added, “There’s a stream where you can get a drink down to the right.”

After all that running, Sirius was terribly thirsty. “That’s thoughtful of you,” he called back, as he squeezed his hind legs after his front.

“No it isn’t. I just want you gone,” snapped the vixen. In her voice he could hear all the strain it was to live in the wild.

12

D
raggled, limping, and covered with clay, Sirius descended cautiously to the stream and drank. There was no sign of his Companion, but he could not smell clearly. He stank of fox. In order to get rid of the smell, he had to get right into the stream and roll in it. Then he surged out, soaking wet, and limped over plowlands in the direction of home, hoping that Sol, would warn him if his Companion came after him again.

Sol said nothing. By the time Sirius reached the town, he had dried out and looked clean. He hobbled to the yard, pushed both bolts home, thrust his head into his collar and crawled into his shelter. It was well he came back when he did. Duffie remembered him and came out to make sure he was still there. Sirius gave her a sarcastic look from under one eyebrow and went to sleep. He was worn out.

But that night he was wide awake. He sat on Kathleen’s bed, thinking and thinking, until the Moon rose and Tibbles begged him not to be so restless.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “Those white dogs with red ears—you never told me where you saw them.”