Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman (16 page)

‘Two
ways t’ manage it,’ Tafferty announced. ‘Either she ‘as tricked it,
or she ‘as dissolved it ‘erself because she were the one who ‘ad
set it in th’ first place.’

Isabel glanced at Sophy. Her friend was clearly troubled by
this latter notion; her usually sunny smile was absent, replaced by
a deep frown. ‘That would break Lihyaen’s heart,’ Sophy said
softly. ‘I cannot believe that Hidenory could have done such a
thing.’

‘I
said she were the one who ‘ad set up the table,’ Tafferty said.
‘Not that she also put thy girl here. The two may o’ been different
peoples altogether.’

Sophy
looked a little relieved at this reflection. ‘But surely, if
somebody else had used her enchantment to entrap Lihyaen, she must
have known of it? And she left the girl here for years.’

‘She
may not ‘ave known,’ Tafferty said. ‘Then again, she
may.’

The
whole realm had believed the princess to have died, Isabel knew.
When the princess had been taken, a stock had been left in her
place — a kind of enchanted doll, which seemed to live for a little
while, and then apparently died. The princess had been buried, and
no one had known that she had instead been taken away and trapped
within the Teapot Society. No one save for her abductor, of
course.

If Hidenory had
not been her abductor, perhaps she, too, had believed Lihyaen to
have died. Supposing that she paid any attention to her creation at
all, could she have realised that the girl at the head of the table
was Lihyaen?

But
perhaps she had not created the Teapot Society at all. Isabel knew
little of Hidenory, but by Sophy’s accounts she was fully wily
enough to trick her way out of it.

‘I
wonder where she is,’ Sophy said again, with a sigh. ‘I should
dearly like to ask her a question or two.’

Isabel agreed to it. ‘I think it altogether unlikely that she
had any hand in this,’ she said to Sophy, hoping to soothe away the
shadow of concern in her friend’s eyes. ‘Perhaps she was helped to
escape.’

Sophy
nodded. ‘I wish she had informed Lihyaen of her escape, either way.
The poor girl has been suffering a great deal over Hidenory’s
fate.’

‘Perhaps she could not,’ Isabel said reasonably.

Sophy
smiled ruefully. ‘It is impossible for us to know, and so it is
useless to speculate. Let us go on.’

Sir
Guntifer gallantly assisted the ladies to mount once more, and the
party resumed its progress through the Outwoods.

Isabel had expected to encounter the discomfort of sleeping
out-of-doors on her journey to Mirramay, but to her relief, she was
obliged to endure no such ordeal. The Outwoods was a vast forest
covering more space than she could easily imagine; they had
travelled within it for two days without once stepping out from
beneath the canopy of its over-arching trees, and they had but once
passed anything which could be called a settlement. In spite of
this, Isabel found that the way was clearly marked. Wide,
well-tended roads wound through the trees, some of them paved with
honey-coloured stone, and the way was sign-posted. Even better, the
larger roads featured wayside inns at intervals, perfectly spaced
to allow for one full day’s travel in between. Thus, her adventure
was of precisely the refined sort to appeal to her, for she slept
in a proper bed each night, in a room of her own which bore,
together with its other comforts, a lockable door. She dined very
well upon the best of Aylfenhame’s produce, and suffered no other
trials save for a lamentable degree of saddle-soreness after so
many hours of riding. Sir Guntifer stood guard outside her window
and Sophy’s, slumbering peacefully in his tree form, and Isabel
knew few worries.

On the third day,
the atmosphere began to change. Hitherto, the Outwoods had been
airy, spacious and well-lit, in spite of the thick canopy. The
leaves were vibrantly coloured, the floor carpeted in bright green,
fragrant moss, and there were berries aplenty growing in bushes by
every roadside.

As
the morning wore on upon the third day, the light began, gradually
but noticeably, to dim. The trees grew closer together, and the
vegetation thicker. Pinket, who had adopted the role of scout for
the party and sailed dreamily someway ahead, began to slow, and
reduced the distance between itself and Sir Guntifer. It looked, to
Isabel’s mildly concerned eye, as though the wisp was uncomfortable
and preferred to remain closer to the giant.

She
could not blame Pinket, if so, for she began to feel less at ease
herself. The road was growing narrower, and the trees crowded in
ever closer on either side. The wind turned cool, and a chilling
breeze plucked at the gown and spencer she had chosen for warm
weather. She shivered, and tried not to turn her eyes upon the
thickening undergrowth that lined the road. Too many shadows lurked
there, and she began to wonder what else might be lurking
besides.

How
foolish, she reprimanded herself. Just because it had grown darker
did not mean that monsters hid between the trees! She was behaving
with all the absurdity of a child of five!

But
even as she formed the thought, Sir Guntifer slowed his pace and
finally stopped, his great head swivelling upon his mighty neck as
he searched among the trees.

‘What
is it, Sir Guntifer?’ asked Sophy, reining in her mount alongside
the giant.

‘This
is not as it was,’ he said tersely. ‘I do not know what has chanced
to happen here while I slumbered, but—’ He broke off, holding up
one large hand. ‘Hark,’ he said softly.

Isabel listened. At first she heard nothing at all, but after
a few moments some faint sounds reached her ears. It was a kind of
horn, she realised, and no pleasant sound either, though it seemed
intended as a kind of music. The flaring notes were not without
melody, though they were harsh sounds, and she resisted a
temptation to cover her ears.

She could not
tell where the music was coming from. She could swear that it was
but a single instrument being played, but the notes seemed to
emanate from everywhere around them all at once. The effect was
disturbing, and Isabel shivered.

Sophy
drew her pony up alongside and grasped the bridle of Isabel’s pony,
directing a smile at her friend which was perhaps intended to be
reassuring. Isabel found the whole of her behaviour to be more
alarming than comforting, and shivered harder.

‘Do
not be alarmed!’ said Sophy. ‘Something strange is afoot, but it
will soon be sorted out. Sir Guntifer will know what is to be done,
and you may perhaps see Pinch come into his own.’

Isabel nodded nervously. In spite of her discomfort, Sophy’s
words soothed her a little. Sophy had spent a year living in
Aylfenhame, in addition to her prior adventures, and she must know
of what she spoke.

‘Pixie,’ said Sir Guntifer, shrugging the huge shoulder upon
which Pinch still reclined. ‘Wisp. Methinks we have need of
ye.’

Pinch
sighed and clambered down to the ground, muttering darkly. Isabel
caught the word ‘trow’ in the midst of his grumblings, though it
made little sense to her.

‘What
is a trow?’ she whispered to Sophy.

‘Darkling things,’ said Sophy in response. ‘They will try to
cause mischief, but Pinch is a match for them. Pinket, too.
Watch!’

Isabel watched. Pinch marched off into the trees, bristling
with indignation. A stream of cinnamon-coloured smoke billowed out
behind him, in the midst of which floated Pinket. The pair halted a
few feet off the road, and Pinch adopted an uncompromising stance
with his legs apart and hands upon his hips. Pinket hovered a few
feet above his head and swelled in size, until the tiny bubble of
light became as a small sun; so bright that Isabel was obliged to
look away from him.

Dark
figures approached through the trees, some of them as small as
Pinch, others rather larger. At first they appeared as mere
shadows, but as they grew closer Isabel discerned spindly frames
with gnarled limbs and overlarge hands, feet and ears. They wore
ragged clothing, shoes with pointed toes and black caps upon their
heads, from underneath which their wispy hair protruded. They were
odd creatures, gangly and ungainly, though not ugly; only the
expressions of their faces deserved that term. They glared at the
travellers with chilling malevolence, and more than one bore
weapons: long, jagged knives and stout sticks. Isabel saw no piper
among them, but nonetheless the music continued, growing in
eeriness and volume as time passed.

‘Ho!’
shouted Pinch as the nearest came within earshot. ‘Trow party, is
it? We decline your kind invitation! Be off.’

These
words had no effect upon the trows, but Pinch did not appear to be
concerned. He made some kind of signal to Pinket, and then abruptly
vanished. In his place hovered a second wisp, which grew in size
and brilliance until two miniature suns hung there. Isabel blinked,
sun-spots dancing before her eyes. She lost track of what happened
next, so blinded was she by the dancing and weaving of the two
wisps as they darted among the trows. She could not understand what
they were doing, but its effects were clear. The trows halted, some
of their truculence fading into confusion. Some few of them began
to retreat, step by step, into the trees.

Then the wisps
vanished. Pinch reappeared in his pixie form, his green jacket
somewhat askew. In his hands he held a little golden pipe, which he
began to play at a dizzying speed, the notes rippling over the
glade like tumbling water.

To
Isabel’s surprise, he was not alone. Pinket had also disappeared.
Where he had previously floated there now stood a second pixie,
slightly shorter than Pinch, and dressed in a red jacket and
trousers. This pixie — Pinket? — held a tiny fiddle, and this he
began to play with a speed to match the pipe. The melody clashed
horribly with that of the trows’ horn, and Isabel winced and
clapped her hands over her ears. This did little to exclude the
sounds, and she gritted her teeth, waiting in intolerable
discomfort as the fae’s strange musical battle
proceeded.

It did not seem
to her at all likely that Pinch and Pinket could win, for they were
sorely outnumbered. But that they were gaining ground against the
trows soon became obvious, for the dark figures began to retreat
further. At length, the horn faltered and fell silent, and the
trows broke and fled.

Pinch
and Pinket maintained their exhaustingly lively music for some
minutes longer, and finally ceased only when every last hint of the
trows’ presence had faded. Even the light had returned to the
forest, to some degree, though it remained shadowed, and darker
than it had been before.

The
pixies shook themselves mightily, and then packed away their
instruments. They directed matching grins back at Isabel and Sophy,
though Pinch’s bore more of mischief; Pinket appeared simply
pleased with himself. Then Pinket resumed his wisp shape, while
Pinch swaggered over to Sir Guntifer and held up his arms to be
lifted. ‘Gunty!’ he bellowed. ‘I am tired!’

‘Did
you know he could do that?’ Isabel asked of Sophy.

Sophy
shook her head. ‘Pinket! No, indeed. I thought he was a wisp
only.’

Pinch
cackled, restored now to his throne atop Sir Guntifer’s shoulder.
‘What’s the use of secrets if you tell them to
everyone?’

‘A
reasonable point, Pinch,’ said Sophy drily.

‘Are
they brothers?’ said Isabel, aghast. The two pixies had looked very
much alike — too much so, for her comfort.

‘A
horrifying thought, is it not?’ Sophy agreed. ‘As if Pinch were not
enough by himself!’

‘Ungrateful!’ said Pinch in a mournful voice. ‘When we have
but just saved both your skins from the most menacing band of trows
I have seen in many a year! Tsk! But it is always that way with the
ladies of England. You do them all kinds of favours and they only
screech at you.’

‘When
I first met you,’ Sophy said, ‘the favour you were doing me was to
lead me off an incline.’

‘An
incline of two feet!’ Pinch protested. ‘I would have been much
surprised if you had done more than turn your ankle, and if you had
suffered so much as that I should say it was due to your own
clumsiness.’

‘I
hope your brother is more congenial than you are!’ Sophy
retorted.

Pinket answered this by shining a little brighter for an
instant or two, which struck Isabel as rather like a smile — if
wisps could be said to smile.

‘A
pitiful band of trows!’ interjected Sir Guntifer. ‘Insolent
noise-makers only! Thou art a plague, pixie. Thou and thy brother
hath dispatched the miscreants, indeed, and with skill. But do not
imagine that I would have allowed any harm to come to the ladies of
our party if ye had not! Ye will find that my protection is no
small thing.’

Pinch
rolled his eyes and collapsed backwards upon the giant’s shoulder
with an exaggerated display of exhaustion. ‘Lecture me later,’ he
said, ‘for I am all to pieces with weariness. Heroism! It is so
exhausting!’ With that, he began to snore.

Isabel could not help smiling a little. Pinch’s manner could
irritate, but at times he could also be an amusing
companion.