Here There Be Dragonnes (37 page)

The people in their boats were racing across the bay, the bows throwing up steep little waves. The first boats were reckless, came too close, too soon, and one was overturned by a thrash of the dying beast's scooped tail and another's side was stove-in by the still-lethal jaws. But soon there were too many of them and the water oozed with a greenish-white murk as the spears and swords rose and fell; thrusting, tearing, gouging out great clumps of flesh until I had to turn away, sickened with the sight.

Snowy, a triumphant Corby on his back, nuzzled my shoulder. "The creature is dead: he can feel nothing . . ."

Conn nodded soberly, watching the carnage beneath. "'Tis often that way, after long fear and frustration; all a man's tensions build up, and unless one takes the lid off the pot—" He shivered, and a haunted look came into his eyes and was gone, so quickly I almost believed I had imagined it.

"Come on, now!" said the irrepressible Corby. "Where's all the feasting and fal-lals, then?"

The following morning we stood once more on the headland. The feasting was over, the songs sung, the thanks given, the gifts received. On Snowy's back, besides two panniers full of food and some herb wine, was a fresh-cured sealskin, soft and supple, ready to make into mitts, slippers, leggings, whatever we chose. Conn sported a new cloak, as like the old as made no difference, and our pockets were lined with silver. We were waiting for the great procession, the release of the seals—the people of the sea, and the townsfolk—the sea-people. It had been arranged that at midday, tide-slack, both animals and men would venture beyond the cliffs, past the mutilated body of the Wyrme, now fast disappearing down the throats of the constant sea birds, and out, out into the limitless sea. From then on, after this last day of amnesty, man and seal would revert to their natural roles, hunters and hunted. Until the spring, and the coming of the seal-cows . . .

I shivered a little as my hand crept to the soft hide on Snowy's back: perhaps this skin had come from some autumn killing like the ones that would start soon. I didn't want to think about it, for I had a secret, a secret only Snowy and I and one other shared. For last night . . .

Last night either the feasting had been too rich or my sleep had been too light, but suddenly, in the dark hour before dawn, I had awoken, all my senses keen, aware of far music in my ears. I sat up in the warm darkness of the hall. There it was again, quite unmistakable. Four notes in a descending scale, as though a child stepped down a great staircase, then an upward note as though he had gone back, up a missed step, and then down again to the ground on the last note, and all in a sadness of sound like innocence lost.

The melody was repeated, and I saw the shadow of our unicorn push aside the hangings from the shrouded doorway and disappear into the night. I tiptoed after him—none of the others, even Moglet of the bat-ears, had heard me go.

I followed Snowy down to the beach, his unshod hooves making no sound on the shingle, my stumbling progress plain enough to my ears and his, though he had not turned his head. There, beached on the pebbles, was the source of the song, our brave young seal-lure, his eyes swimming in the light of the half-moon, singing a song of loneliness and present pain. Snowy bent to the torn side, the injured flipper and I felt a shudder of power pass from him.

"There, my friend," he said. "It will heal. It is healed . . ."

I joined them, and in that dream, half-dream, I looked at the young, royal seal and thanked him again, and the scar on his side and the rip in his flippers shone white and healed. And it seemed to me that he asked whether I would like to try his world and that I agreed, and stripped off my clothes and mask and stepped into the waves and that they were as warm and smooth as new-drawn milk. And I put my arms about his neck, or so it seemed, and with Snowy's blessing we slid into the flooding bay, and the sea closed round us like the finest silk cloth, and there was the taste of salt in my mouth and the waves slid over my back with the gentlest of caresses.

The seal's body undulated like the weeds that waved in dark streamers from the rocks. When we reached the inlet, I felt the sudden great surge of the ocean and I held on tight, breathed deeply and then we were in his world, into the sudden cold beyond the cliffs, and the water sang and bubbled in my ears and lifted me from his back until only my arms held me to his curving, twisting body, and I knew what it was to fly in water and walk in water and live in water . . .

"You helped us," he said. "And because of that we shall sing to you when you come to your home by the water. Listen for us . . ."

Now, as we all watched from the headland, the tide from the bay started to flow out from the beach. First came the seals, the people of the sea; the males, the females, the younglings, surging out to meet their natural element, the sea; and after came the sea-people, the townsfolk and fishermen, singing and shouting and brandishing their spears, paddles flashing in the sun. And leading them
my
seal, breasting proudly the breakers that led to his freedom of the seas.

My eyes prickled with tears.

Over our heads the sea birds and the cliff birds screamed their victory, told of the long hours spent chipping away at the base of the great, lost Look-Out Rock and above them a lone buzzard spiralled, his call lost in the clamour.

"Shall we go?" said Conn. "They won't miss us now . . ."

The ruined fortified wall ran just the way we wanted to go, judging by our next marker: the five fingers of rock indicating northwest-by-north that we found on the edge of the moor above the town of the sea-people.

The shortening days were sunny and dry and bramble and hazel yielded a rich harvest. Brimstone (first and last in every year), tortoiseshell and peacock fluttered in ditch and hedge, some of the trees were goldening towards their fall and sheep fleeces were thickening. Folk were hospitable, for harvest was in, and for a time there would be an abundance of fruits and grain, and cattle- and pig-salting was still some way off while there was still stubble for the former and an abundance of acorns for the latter. Thatch was being replaced, wood chopped, peat stacked, preserves jarred, honey collected, grain threshed and stored; everywhere was bustle, harmony, plenty, and we ourselves were in fine fettle, exchanging shelter and food in the main just for a tale or two, a song, some of Corby's "tricks," but for the most part we just walked the wall, content with our own company and aware that we had in some way "turned a corner."

Conn had shown us The Ancient's map and with charcoal had traced the way we had come so far. "See, 'tis the four sides of a septagon we have done already: over halfway, and not a bone broken!"

"Yes," I objected, "but it has taken us at least three months to get this far: at this rate we will be into the Moon of Fogs at least before we finish. And who knows what else we have to face? Snowy got us and the animals out of that prison of a castle, Puddy reminded me of that fire-spell before we got eaten by tree-roots, Moglet thought of a way to get rid of that spider before we and the bats starved to death, and back there Corby and his friends chucked half a mountain at a sea-monster but—" I stopped. I had suddenly remembered what Snowy had said about it being someone's "turn," and thought flashed past thought; Snowy, Puddy, Moglet, Corby: they had all had their turns. Which left . . . ? Me, Conn and Pisky. "Oh dear!" I said.

Snowy gave me a sympathetic look. "They were not all as bad as each other."

"Bad enough!" I said gloomily, and spent the next couple of days in fruitless speculation on who would be the next one to save his comrades, and would it be difficult and long-drawn out or just plain scary? And would whoever-it-was prove equal to the task? (I meant me, of course.)

But the sun continued to shine by day, and when there were no hamlets we snugged down on colder nights in the remains of stables, dormitories and officers' quarters along the wall. We built fires against the ghosts that still marched those ramparts and stewed hare and wild fowl and vegetables, drank wine if we were lucky and water if we were not. Soon I forgot my cares and exulted in the peace and companionship and stared north up the steep decline from whence the blue-painted savages had challenged the ordered life and discipline of the Romans. I found a sandal, thongs broken, the haft of a sword, burnt grain scattered among broken shards, a pin without its set-stone, half a helmet . . .

"We turn here," said Conn. "Away from the wall, if we are to keep our direction." To the north the hills were starting to crowd down, though still blue with distance. We were on a plateau, but from now on the way was down, the slopes thickly wooded. It was a clear, pleasant day, but ahead lamb's-fleece cloud banked high on the horizon. "Leaf-Change will be with us soon, and the way lies through the woods. Corby, your eyes are best." He took him on his shoulder. "Is that the sea?"

I squinted through my lashes as he asked the question, but could only make out a haze, a deepening of colour, a glint of sun.

"Two rivers," said Corby slowly. "Small 'un and a bigger. Second one's got a wide estuary. Tide's out: plenty of sand."

"That's our way," said Snowy. "We could follow the river from its source, but it would be easier to cut down through the woods and join it nearer the mouth . . . What do you say?"

With the weather changing there was only one answer: we took our bearings and plunged into the forest. The way was difficult, for these woods were old as time and scarce of habitation, and fallen timber and thick undergrowth pestered our way, but I found plenty of mushroom and fungi to supplement our diet, though none of the Magic ones or the Fairies' Tits Tom Trundleweed had shown me. I remembered I still had a little packet of the dried ones in my pack, never used. I checked: they were still there, perhaps a bit squashed and crumbly, but better not to throw them away, just in case.

We descended to the river plain, and here the land had been cleared and farmers and smallholders raised sheep and a few cattle on the sparse, thin grass and fished the banks of the river for salmon and trout. Small, stunted trees bent their backs away from the westerly winds and the fleeced sky brought rain and an uneasy half-gale that gusted and died an instant before it was born. At last the river broadened into a wide estuary where the river Rippam, as it was called, ran fast and wide over great ribbed flats of sand, birds flocked and ran at low tide among the shrimped pools and worm-casts, and the heron flapped slow home with dab and eel in its craw.

We stayed in a fisherman's cottage the night of the Big Storm and lucky it was we found shelter, for the forest and fields of Argamundness, as it was called, were soon roaring with an equinoctial tide and a following gale that had waves leaping twenty feet high over the artificial barriers erected years ago in the little hamlet of Lethum in which we found ourselves.

We had crossed a precarious log roadway over the marsh; the earth and sand packed between the logs were seeping away, and more than once we found places where the logs themselves had disappeared. So it was with a sense of relief that we found the little hamlet tucked away on sand dunes, some twenty feet above the usual tide-level, and protected by an artificial barrier about ten feet high of smooth pebbles, glistening grey, pink and white under the onslaught of the waters. There were also the dunes of sand, bound by spiky marram grass, themselves a natural barrier to the west and north. The hamlet was a poor one, the only livelihood being the fishing that depended so much on wind and tide. Their sturdy boats, broad in the beam, could go out in all but the fiercest weather, and they had nets fine enough for shrimp and tough enough for plaice and dab, which hung pungently from the rafters of the cottages whose shuttered windows faced away from the prevailing westerlies.

Lethum was so poor, it did not even have an inn and the speech of its inhabitants reflected their isolation, being thick and sprinkled with a patois we could not understand. However, our coin they did recognize, and we fed well on fish stew, crabbed apples and goat's milk, and were provided with sacking pallets against the wall of one of the larger cottages. There was no problem with bringing Snowy inside either, for our host's few scrawny hens, a pig and a patient donkey were obviously used to sharing his space. It was warm, if fuggy, and I was more than accustomed to animal smells, so sleeping would have been no problem but for the violent wind.

Suddenly it was upon us, battering and hammering at doors and windows, skirling the rushes on the floor, puffing the smoke from the peat fire in our faces, and ripping great chunks of thatch from the roof, netted and weighted as it was. The mud-and-stone cottage seemed to crouch down upon itself, shrinking into the earth with ears back and eyes closed, a hare in the swirling, shifting dunes. Sand was everywhere; it gritted our teeth, rubbed the sore places in our skin, spun into little shifting castles on the floor. The whole world roared and bellowed and screamed and shouted outside like a huge army of barbarians come to pillage and destroy.

I found myself huddled in a heap on the floor, hands to my ears and eyes tight shut. I only realized I was moaning with fear when Conn took me by the shoulders and shook me.

"Pull yourself together: look at the others!"

I sat up, still shuddering. Snowy was fine, reassuring our host's animals with his mere presence, but poor Moglet was plastered like a dying spider against the far wall, eyes rolling in terror; Corby had his head under his wing in a corner and his feathers were twitching; Pisky had dived right to the bottom of his bowl and hidden his head under the weed; Puddy's throat was gulping up and down in distress and his eyes bulged more than ever. Our host crouched in a corner and was muttering, whether prayers, charms or incantations I could not tell.

I looked up at Conn; his eyes were troubled, and he moved as restlessly as a penned horse who has been used to the plain, but he showed none of the panic of the others. I took courage from his brown eyes, his firm chin, the challenge in his slim taut body.