Limbo Lodge (6 page)

She walked to the table and chairs, which were all askew. A cup had fallen into the stone water-basin.

“Where’s all the folk?” Dido called again.

Captain Sanderson emerged from the house. He looked pale, shocked, and angry.

“The Civil Guard came,” he said. “They arrested Doctor Talisman for illegally performing an operation in the hospital without proper accreditation.”

“Blimey! Couldn’t Manoel
stop
them? I thought he was the boss of the Guard?”

“There seemed to be some misunderstanding. It’s a good thing you weren’t there or they would probably have pulled you in too for helping the doctor. Manoel has gone off to find a lawyer to help Doctor Talisman – he was very angry, but he said things would sort themselves out. He said you had better go off to the forest with Tylo here, and the trouble will probably have died down by the time you come back.”

“But poor Doctor Tally!” Dido was horrified. “Just after she – he – had done that long hard job too—”

“The doctor did not seem too concerned at being arrested,” Sanderson remarked. “He said a night in jail was no great matter.”

“Where is the jail?”

“Up at the top of the town. Another disused convent, I fancy. You will pass by it on your way to Sorgu. Tylo here is a forest boy; he will take you there. You had better leave at once, in case they come back. I must go down to the ship and carry on with unloading.”

“Who’ll go to see how Mr Mully is getting on?”

“I will try to do that later,” said Captain Sanderson, looking harassed. “Or you can, if you get back in good time with Lord Herodsfoot.”

“Come quick now, Shaki-miss,” said Tylo, the boy who during this talk had been standing quietly, staring down at the stone bowl of water. “Is need to start walk our journey from town. Horses meet us.”

“Chop-chop, I’m a-coming! What does Shaki mean?” Dido asked the Captain.

“I think it simply means Foreign Person. I just hope that you find Lord Herodsfoot without too much difficulty,” said Captain Sanderson, sounding worried to death. “Manoel ordered horses to meet you at the edge of town.”

“Going in style, eh? So long, Cap; keep your mains’l trimmed,” said Dido, and followed Tylo from the yard.

She still carried Talisman’s notebook.

“
T
YLO
,”
SAID DIDO
, “
WHY DOES EVERYBODY
in this town wear black?”

Tylo smiled, with a flash of large white teeth. He was a golden-brown boy, short, about Dido’s height, with short curly black hair. A Forest Person. His costume, like that of the small men on the dock, was close-fitting knee-length black cotton trousers and nothing else.

“Why? Because, treetime back, old Sovran King John he lose he wifie, Erato. Much-loved wifie. So, says he,
all
now grieve till I say quit grieving.”

“And he hasn’t said that yet?”

Tylo sighed and spread out his hands. “Old Sovran King John very very sad sick man.”

“How long is treetime?”

“Till djeela-tree grow fullsize.”

Since Dido had not the least idea how long a djeela-tree took to grow, this did not help.

“What is a djeela-tree? Are there any round here?”

Tylo shook his head. “Not in town. In plantation – djeela-trees much costly. Nobody allowed to grow them, only old Sovran King John.”

“Yus,” said Dido. “Now I remember Captain Sanderson talking about djeela spice. It costs twenty guineas for a thimbleful. No other islands have the trees, only Aratu . . . And John King brought the seeds from no one knows where. Is that right?”

“Right as rainbow!” Tylo grinned again. “Only us have djeela, and only Sovran John grow djeela-tree. Anybody else plant djeela-tree in backyard, he quicktime thrown off Cliff of Death.”

“Croopus,” said Dido. “What’s the Cliff of Death?”

“On Fura Mountain. Nineteen hours’ walk from Regina town.”

“This town where we are now?”

“Yes, Shaki-miss. Sovran King John live on Fura Mountain. In Limbo Lodge.”

“I guess you know the whole island very well?”

“Like palm of my foot!” he said cheerfully. “Tylo, everybody say, optimus guide! Zehr gut, molto bene, oh la la, bueno bueno, speak all language much perfect!”

“And you know where Lord Herodsfoot is just now?”

“Mylord Oklosh?” For some reason, Tylo burst out laughing at the very thought of Lord Herodsfoot, then covered his mouth with his hand, slipping his eyes away politely, and added, “Easy go there for me, Shaki-miss, go to Sorgu dream-easy. Lord Oklosh now sitting outside the house of my father’s Sisingana. He Halmahi.”

“Sisingana?”

He thought, and explained. “Father’s father’s father.”

“Your great-great-grandpa?”

“Golly-likely.”

Dido found that when Tylo was not certain of an answer, this was the phrase he used. It seemed a handy one to her. When she asked how long it would take to reach the Sisingana’s house, Tylo said, “Four hour, golly-likely. Forest very thick, there-a-ways. If rain come, thicker. Take longer. Through night, maybe.”

“Does much rain fall here?”

“Now-and-now. Then-and-then.”

This talk had brought them to the top of the hill, where the houses of Regina town stopped, and a dirt track ran on across a hillside mostly covered with low-growing shrubs. Looking back, Dido saw how the town fell away steeply behind them, white-roofed houses set snugly like ivory dice among green plumy trees, and the harbour at the bottom like a blue keyhole, with the
Siwara
, a toy ship, tethered against the dock. There seemed to be a tremendous amount of activity on the dockside; hundreds of tiny black figures the size of ants rushed back and forth.

“How hard they are working down there,” Dido said, and Tylo, frowning, made no reply for a minute, then said, “Maybe storm come. We best get on our way. Here bring-come horses.”

The horses, led up another track by a wizened old man, were small, sturdy animals with shaggy coats; Dido had never ridden on a horse in her life and hoped the beasts had calm dispositions. Hers, luckily, appeared to have a placid nature, to know its business, and be willing to follow Tylo’s mount.

They were equipped with saddle-bags which Dido hoped had food in them; she had eaten rather a scanty breakfast in Manoel’s house, where she did not feel welcome, and the prospect of a four-hour (or longer) ride to their destination and then the same ride back to Regina town sounded like a long day’s excursion. Specially if they were obliged to stop overnight.

Also in the saddle-bags were gauze mosquito-nets. “You want, for forest,” Tylo said, showing Dido how to wrap it round her. “Many-many bugs, very bitey.”

“What about the sting-monkeys?”

He laughed. “Follycub? You no hurt follycub, he no hurt you. Scared of shadow – always frightened. There, now – see?”

They were passing a large gnarled, grey-leaved tree, standing solitary at the side of the track. Among its branches Dido could see a lot of energetic carryings-on as they approached, small creatures about the size of rabbits leaping from bough to bough and chattering shrilly.

“Watch-see-now,” said Tylo. He dismounted, holding his reins, found a fist-sized stone, and hurled it into the tree. Instantly, with wild shrieks and shrill yammerings, the whole population of the tree leapt out of the branches and fled away in terror over the scrubby ground. They were, Dido saw, small whitish-grey monkeys with long feathery fur and active plumy tails. Their faces, black-ringed, were triangular, and their large eyes pale blue.

“He sting you only by bad chance,” Tylo explained, remounting. “And just as well, by golly, for if he sting, you die.”

“Golly-likely?”

“No. You just die. You got kandu nuts?” Tylo asked, evidently reminded by this of the other peril they were liable to encounter.

“Kandu nuts? Oh,
scrape
it,” Dido said, remembering that Captain Sanderson had advised always carrying some as a precaution against snakebite. “When I left the ship I didn’t expect to go gallivanting straight away into the back o’ beyond.”

“No matter. I got, in saddle-bag.” Tylo looked ahead along the track, frowned, and said, “Here-now we got ride quick. You golly-likely ride quick, Shaki-miss? Like this?”

He kicked his pony into a fast canter, and Dido’s followed. In fact she found this easier than trotting, which was very bumpy. She stuck on grimly.

“Yes, all rug!” she called. “But what’s up, Tylo?”

He made no answer, but kicked his pony on even faster. They galloped at full tilt past a group of people under a tree. Dido was so occupied with sticking on to her mount that she did not see what was happening, but heard a lot of shouting and then one thin, piteous wail, quickly cut short. Next minute they had passed some craggy rocks and were out of sight round a bend in the track. The road began to slope downhill into a valley full of trees; Tylo slowed to a trot, then to a walk.

“What was
happening
back there, Tylo?” Dido demanded.

“Bad business, Shaki-miss. Not our do. Only best ride past, ride away quick.”

Dido thought, with deep worry, which for the past hour she had been trying to push to the bottom of her mind, of Doctor Talisman, hauled off to jail by that tough-looking party of Civil Guards. What was happening to
her
?

“Where is the jail, Tylo?” she asked. “My friend is there.”

“Soon we come.”

The road ran down into a dale where trees grew close together, planted in orderly rows. Some were tall, green, and feathery; others were thickly covered with dark-red flowers. The sweet scent that came from them was so powerful that, although Dido enjoyed it at first, after a while she found it almost too much, too painful; breathing became hard work.

“Jail,” said Tylo, nodding towards a large building in the middle of the grove. “Not name Jail though. We call, House of Correction.”

The House of Correction (a title which Dido thought even nastier than jail) was long and white, with narrow barred windows and a wall round it. A few Civil Guards lounged about the entrance. Others could be seen near wooden huts scattered among the trees.

Dido thought about Doctor Talisman. Was she in that building? What was happening to her? Would there be a trial? A judge?

“Now you listen me, Shaki-miss,” said Tylo, when they had ridden on towards the end of the valley, were still among the planted trees but not in sight of the House of Correction. “You want leave word for your friend? She soon be free again, Shaki-Manoel he soon fix, you say you know that?” Evidently Tylo was not fooled by Talisman’s disguise.

“So Cap Sanderson said . . . but
can
you leave a message there, Tylo?”

He grinned cheerfully. “Everbody know no-harm Tylo. One guard my father’s sister’s son. Not much Forest Person there, but some. You wait here, Shaki-miss, I leave talk-message. You got word-paper-speak?”

“No. I’ve no paper on me. – Wait, though – yes, I have.”

In her pocket she had Talisman’s little notebook. She pulled it out and leafed through it to see if there were any blank pages. At the front, in neat elegant script, was the name Jane Talisman Kirlingshaw. Then followed beautifully drawn little diagrams and numbered instructions. Then what looked like patterns embellished with little figures, some human, some animal. Then lists of herbs and medicines. At the end were a few empty pages. Dido tore one out and wrote (luckily she had a pencil stub), “Yore book is safe. Hop you are all rug. Hop to see you soon. Dido.”

“There.” She gave it to Tylo, then, for safety, tucked away the notebook inside her waistband.

“Now, Shaki-miss, you stay here. Just here. Soon back.”

Tylo turned his pony and, following the track along which they had come, was soon out of sight.

Dido dismounted, threw her pony’s reins over a branch so that he could graze and sat under one of the red-flowering trees (Tylo had told her they were clove trees) keeping a vigilant lookout for pearl-snakes and sting-monkeys. She could hear some monkeys in the branches overhead, jabbering at each other, but she did not interfere with them, nor they with her.

After twenty minutes or so she began to feel desperately thirsty, and looked in the pony’s saddle-bag to see if it contained water. There were bread-rolls and squashy dried figs and a water-bottle, but it was empty. Nothing to drink. Not far away, though, Dido thought she could hear water running. Maybe there’s a brook, she thought. I won’t go far . . .

Through the trees she could see that the side of the valley rose in a steep rocky wall. That was where the sound of water came from. Walking in that direction, Dido saw a little waterfall, spouting down between rocks into a pool below. The very sight of the white spray made her throat feel even dryer.

She hurried on, then came to a startled stop, when what she had taken for a rock at the side of the pool moved and lifted its head, and she realised that it was a man sitting on the ground, wrapped in some kind of brown, muffling garment. Now Dido could see two gaunt bare feet like those of a scarecrow extending stiffly from the draperies. He flung back a fold of cloth from his face, and extended a flat wooden bowl, crying out in rusty Angrian: “Alms, Senhores! Alms, for the love of heaven!”

Dido saw with dismay that he was blind. Jist the same, she thought, this is a mighty queer place for a beggar to choose as his begging-patch – ain’t it? He can’t expect many customers to pass by here? Still, best give the poor cove a couple of pennies . . .

She fumbled in her pocket, where she had a few tiny coins. She was about to drop them into the begging-bowl when the beggar grabbed her by the arm and jerked her off her feet. She yelled, and knocked the man’s hands away from her throat. They rolled together on the ground. Dido had managed to twitch herself away, when the man pulled a long, glittering knife out of his draperies.