Guardian of the Green Hill (22 page)

“Her husband's sick?” Gwidion asked, suddenly interested. “How sick?”

“The doctor thinks it's a stroke. He wanted him to go to the hospital, but the nearest one's twenty miles away, and Lysander refused. He said an old plough horse always stays in his traces.”

“And Phyllida is upset? Very upset?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“Take me to her at once!” The sketches made that morning were good, but there was nothing like the sight of fresh tears to lend verisimilitude to his portrait of a weak and vulnerable old woman. Just a glimpse would give him fresh inspiration, and he'd spend the night in a frenzy of labor by candlelight.

“I don't think she wants to see anyone now.”

“You defy me?” Gwidion bellowed, rising to his impressive height and pointing a bony finger at Rowan. “You gave your oath to help me … as I have helped you. Betray me now and I leave at once, and you will never get this Rookery you desire!” He rifled through a leather portfolio and brought out the drawing that had first captured Rowan. Its power was fading, but when the boy looked at himself on the page, the thought that anything might keep him from his beloved estate was impossible to bear.

“I'll take you to her, but I doubt she'll let you stay.”

“Good boy,” Gwidion said, rubbing his chin with paint-stained fingers. “By the by,” he added, trying to sound casual, “have you seen that Finn today?”

“He was in the room when Lysander had his stroke.” It didn't occur to him that Gwidion might want to know about Meg's fight with Phyllida, and of course he didn't know about the banshee.

“Did Finn say anything about me?”

“No. I didn't talk to him. Why? What would he say?”

“Oh, never mind, never mind.” That was one worry eased. It was as he thought—that hateful boy had just destroyed his pictures out of spite, not because he had any idea that they were magic.

“Now lead on!” he said, and shoved Rowan out of the room.

Neither of them saw an eye-patched face peering through the grimy window, and they certainly didn't see a handsome black-haired boy unlock the door with a skeleton key and creep into the keeper's shack as soon as they were gone.

“Well, what have we here?” Finn said aloud as he surveyed the room. He stood with his arms akimbo in front of the half-finished portrait of Phyllida. At least, he thought it was Phyllida. The features were hers, but for the rest, it might have been an unpleasant joke. Half was in featherlight pencil sketching, half in oil paint, but he could see what it would look like when complete. The portrait's eyes were bloodshot and shone with moisture, the rheum of old age and tears of despair. The figure was thinner than Phyllida, almost frail, while the Phyllida of the flesh was robust for her age. And the mouth, though just sketched in at this point, quivered almost palpably on the canvas. One hand was held out as if offering something to someone. She looked old and weak, in body and spirit. This Phyllida would fold at any danger, agree to any demand forcefully made.

Why on earth had Gwidion painted Phyllida like this? A man off the streets with a magic gift of art had shown up from nowhere and wanted to paint unflattering portraits of the lady of the house, a stranger to him, who was kind enough to let him stay? If he could make magic with his drawing, why hadn't he used his talent for riches? Finn himself had only had his magical gifts for a day, and look at what they had brought him. True, the feathered hat he had bought was, on further reflection, too outlandish to wear, and the clockwork cricket broke the third time he wound it. But he still had his leather belt with the wizened little faces twisted into it. And he had his deerhorn pocketknife.

He took it out now, unfolding it with his thumb. “I never got to test the blade,” he said, smiling to himself. “I don't even know if it's sharp.”

He slashed the canvas, leaving a gash across Phyllida's face.

“Hmm … pretty sharp, but I'm still not sure.” He sliced again, and again, tearing at the portrait until it hung in ribbons.

“I don't know what you want with Phyllida and her family, but you're not going to get away with it.” That's what he said out loud, because it sounded good. But to himself he said,
That's what you get for hitting me!

He found tubes of oil paints near the tattered remains and squirted them around the room one by one until the walls were as good as (actually, better than) a Jackson Pollock painting. Cerulean, raw sienna, viridian, and carmine flew in trailing squirts until every tube was empty. At last he took a tub of chalk-white paint and a wide brush and wrote across one paint-streaked wall in giant letters,
I KNOW.

He paused. He wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. What did he know? Gwidion was up to something, that much was for sure, but exactly what it was he had no idea. Probably Gwidion wanted money, some exorbitant price for his work. That was as far as Finn thought, and content that he'd foiled his nemesis, he was satisfied.

“I know” would do just fine.

He looked around one last time to see if anything had escaped his wrath. He spied the leather portfolio and carefully unzipped it. Inside was a stack of papers, sketches. Some were of people he knew—two rough drawings of Meg riding in a carriage, a few of Phyllida, one of Dickie, Rowan, Meg, and Silly looking trustingly (and, he thought, rather stupidly) off the page—and some were of strangers—a man cheerfully serving what appeared to be a gourmet meal, a constable unlocking handcuffs, a tailor measuring a suit. He folded them into quarters and tucked them under his shirt. He only wanted the pictures of Meg, but he thought the others might come in handy to annoy Gwidion further. He was pretty sure the painter would pack his kit and leave as soon as he saw the damage and the ominous
I KNOW
, but if he stayed, the sketches might furnish some proof, of what Finn was not sure.

He opened the door and stepped right into the horns of a dilemma. Or, rather, of Pazhan.

Finn tried to slam the door, but the huge Persian billy insinuated his broad shoulder into the threshold and blocked him. His horns were as high as Finn's chest.

Unable to flee, Finn tried his old tactic of circling—he dashed behind a table and wondered how long he could hold his pursuer off. It wasn't any use with a goat, of course, and Pazhan leaped lightly to the tabletop and looked around at the damage.

“He'll kill you, you know,” the goat said.

“I knew you could talk!”

“No you didn't, or you wouldn't have said that. If you were going to live long enough to benefit from it, I'd give you a lesson on the difference between being sure and being almost sure. But, as I say, he will kill you. Or more likely, have me kill you. His hands are dirty enough from paint. I'm sure he won't want to sully them further.” Pazhan shook his head, tossing the heavy manelike mantle of fur on his shoulders.

“You're going to kill me?”

“If he orders me to, I don't have any choice.”

Even the brownie wouldn't have had words of wisdom here. Most people have a choice, more or less, in everything, but not Pazhan. He was bound to serve each generation of Thomas men until such time as one struck him thrice in three days. Until his bonds were thus broken, he had to do whatever his current lord said, no matter what his own personal feelings. And however phlegmatic Pazhan may have seemed, he had strong personal feelings about a great many matters.

“Of course,” Pazhan said wryly, “he can't order me if he doesn't know. I have to go tell him now. That's my duty, I know that much. But a simple goat like myself can't predict exactly what my master will order me to do. So no, best not to kill you now.”

Finn thought that Pazhan winked at him then, but since the goat had one amber eye on each side of his head, it was a little hard to be sure. “Why, I don't even know where my lord and master is.”

“He said he was going to the—,” Finn began idiotically, but the goat blandly interrupted him.

“He could be anywhere. A shame that in my search for him the culprit—if indeed you are the culprit, for the evidence is only circumstantial—will have ample time to get away. Far away. Before my lord can give me an order I can't refuse.”

“Oh,” said Finn, who really wasn't quite as stupid as he looked at the moment, only a little frightened. “You're letting me go?”

“No such thing!” Pazhan said sharply. “But obviously I cannot both look for my lord and hold you here.”

“Will he leave when he finds out what I've done?”

“If I can goad him in that direction, I will, but wherever he goes, I follow, and whatever he orders, I obey. I don't know what will come of this, but I do know that even without proof, if he spies you again, your life is over. Find someplace safe, human.” He looked around at the destruction. “You've done a good day's work here. Perhaps it will be enough to change his plans.”

Finn was too distracted to ask what those plans were. Happy to be given his life, he edged along the wall past Pazhan (still not sure it wasn't all a ruse to get his guard down), and with an eye on those wickedly sharp horns, he slipped out the door.

He had to find Meg. She'd know what to do. Up until her encounter with the bunyip, he'd still thought of her as a nice little kid (though she was not more than a year younger than he) but after that, he realized, as he should have sooner, that there was steel at that girl's core and a knowledge of things that were beyond him. He understood now that he was in a foreign land, completely out of his depth. He'd once thought England was a quaint version of America. Now he knew it was alien as the deepest jungles of the Congo. Meg, who had it all in her blood, could be his guide.

He knew where she must be. When she learned that her trusted great-great-aunt and -uncle weren't doing anything to find her brother, she must have decided to get him back herself. That could mean only one place.

He gulped and looked into the darkening woods. The sun was almost down, and the sky's molten gold would soon be replaced by velvet black and stars; the hazy glow at ground level would become dim shadows that could hide anything. When he was younger, he was afraid of the woods at night because of the unknown dangers they could hold. Now he was afraid again because he knew some of the dangers.

With the threat of death behind him and Meg and the Green Hill beckoning him on, he told himself not to be a baby and in a moment was enclosed in the woods.

I found it once, he reasoned. I can find it again, and if I don't, I'll just walk through to the next village and keep going, all the way home. At least in the woods I'm safe from Gwidion.

He didn't know that the woods around the Green Hill have a way of eating people up, and if they choose to spit them out again, it may be a hundred years later, or in quite a different shape than they started out with.

He had no idea where the Green Hill lay … though it didn't really matter, because once the sun went down, he had absolutely no idea which direction he was heading in. There was hushed light from the stars and moon, enough to see by, but he couldn't get his bearings at all. Oh, well, he thought. If the Green Hill wants me to find it, I will.

Which is exactly how it works.

A nightjar on silent wings alighted on a branch high above him and startled him with its rising and falling
churrr
. Far away, a barn owl answered with a call like a small animal screaming, and from much too close for comfort, a small animal
did
scream when a stoat caught a vole who was watching Finn pass. He saw none of the drama, but the sounds alone were enough to make him quicken his step.

It was slow going through the woods, but eventually he came to a trail, a rough winding way worn almost clear by fallow deer and the occasional bold poacher. Common sense told him no trail would lead to the Green Hill, but he couldn't resist the lure of an easier walk and followed it, telling himself he'd turn off any minute but never quite convincing himself it was time. As the gloom settled more heavily around him and the noises of unseen wings and feet got more ominous, he began to have second thoughts. He had no doubt Gwidion meant him violence, but he'd been a fool to fear for his life. Or had he? The man had come after him with a pitchfork. Finn saw a form scurry across the path and wondered if it was better to face the human among other humans back at the Rookery or the fairies all alone in the woods.

No, not alone. He heard singing in front of him, and it surely wasn't fairy singing. It was something about keeping your hands off Red-Haired Mary, sung very sloppily, off-key and with elaborate, inappropriate flourishes and the occasional hiccup. When the song came to its punchline, it was cheered with a high-pitched giggle, rather like a young boy laughing at a bodily function.

“Give us another!” cried a familiar childish voice.

The singer had just begun another ditty about taking a tramp in the woods when two figures burst around a corner into view.

It was Fenoderee in all his snouted, tusked glory. He had a heavy arm around his companion, whom Finn recognized as Tansy. The mower was roaring drunk and still hard at it—he had a wineskin on a strap across his chest—and when he saw Finn, he squirted a swig neatly into his mouth.

“'Struth, a pirate!” Tansy said. “We're—hic!—far off course if we've come to the sea, my friend.”

“It's not a pirate, it's my best friend in the world!” Fenoderee caught himself and looked guiltily at Tansy. “My other best friend in the world, I mean.”

“'Sall right, piggie. Can't have too many friends. I know this chappie. He was with the little lady as tricked that Smythe proper. Any friend of hers is a friend of his. Hic! I mean, any friend of mine is a friend of yours. I mean … I mean something, truly I do.” He swayed and would have fallen if not for Fenoderee's arm.