The Changes Trilogy (48 page)

“Doubtless for the same reason as yourself. But no, you are too young. You go to find out, do you not?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“And so, in a way, do I. In my journeyings after leaving Norwich—and let me advise you, young man, that folk do not welcome two weathermongers in a district, and still less does the operator already in possession—in my journeyings I began to hear talk of the Necromancer, subdued talk round inn fires when men had a quart or two of ale in them. Ignorant country gossip, of course, and full of absurdities, but pointing always, and especially as one drew westward, to a source of power in the Welsh hills.”

“Yes, that's what we heard,” said Geoffrey.

“No doubt. Now, if I am to return to my easy life—oh, so much more agreeable than my old trade of schoolmastering—I need power, power to oust a local weathermonger in some fat district, power more than lies in a mere chivvying of clouds. Some such thing is hidden just over that horizon, and I mean to find it if I can. There is gold in them thar hills, pardner. Let us study the providential map.”

It was a one-inch survey, still crackling new, which they spread on the bank, banging it to make it lie level on the grasses.

“Hmm, less providential than I thought. You must have been coming almost directly toward the source, and my poor legs do not carry me fast enough to make much difference. I fear we shall have a very narrow base for our triangle.”

“Well,” said Geoffrey, “we were up here when I first felt it, and about here when I really saw it. It brewed up a little south of west, beyond the north slope of a biggish hill, this one I think. My line runs like this.”

“Ah, more useful than I had feared. I had not realized that the motorway curved north as it does, and I had forgotten how fast a motor vehicle can travel. Now, if I lay my line along here, where does that carry us to? Off the map. No, not quite. This is a painfully crude method of measuring, which would not have satisfied me when I had the pleasure of instructing the young in mathematics, but if we were to head for Ewyas Harold we would certainly be going in the right direction, though our destination must be a step or two beyond that.”

“It looks an awfully long way, without the car. You don't seem to mind about the car.”

“I went through a period,” said the weatherman, “of revulsion from machines, but it has passed. Still, it is not safe to say so, though I suspect that there are more of us about than care to admit it. Certainly, the Black Mountains are a tidy step.”

“The thing is I don't know whether Sal is up to it. Couldn't we buy horses?”

“No doubt, given the wherewithal. I myself, I regret to admit, am in somewhat reduced circumstances, but if you have the equivalent of nine gold pieces on you I daresay we could purchase nags of a sort. It would not be money wasted. A horse that can be bought can always be sold again.”

“I've got some money.”

“Then let us be moving. We will eschew Ross-on-Wye. Townspeople ask tiresome questions of strangers. Which do you think is the better way round?”

“Look, we could head up here through Brampton Abbots, then jiggle down to the railway line and over to Sellack. Then, if we take this footpath we can cut through along the riverbank here and get on to this road which runs all the way to Ewyas Harold.”

“That will do passably well,” said the weatherman. “
Marchons mes enfants
. Good heavens, what a pleasure it is to be able to speak in a civilized manner after all these years. But we must be cautious. I think, dear colleague, that you had best revert to the dumb idiocy which you portrayed so convincingly to the yokels a while back. You might well be my servant. A leech—I usually travel in the guise of a leech, and do less harm than most of the profession—might well have picked up some poor creature brought to him for cure. I think, however, that we will not afflict the young lady with loss of speech—the strain would be too great for her. She shall be my ward, and as such should call me Dominus. Do you know Latin, young lady?”

“Yes,” said Sally. “I'm hungry, and where are we going to sleep?”

“You shall eat at the first likely farm, while I haggle for a horse. We are unlikely to pick up more than one at any one place, because horses are still scarce, now that the tractors are no more. Big farm horses command huge sums, but there is a plethora of ponies left behind by the pony clubs. We shall contrive something before dusk, I doubt not. Perhaps it would be more verisimilitudinous if Geoffrey were to disburse what coin I am likely to need while we are still hidden. It would not do for me to have to ask my servant for gold.”

Geoffrey brought out his purse and gave the weatherman ten gold pieces. He still felt dazed, and was glad after that hideous careering and decision-taking to put himself into the hands of this self-assured adult. He felt hungry too. They had breakfasted at dawn and missed lunch, and the world was now heaving over toward evening. At least they ought to be sure of a fine night, with two weathermen on the staff, if it came to sleeping out.

They crossed the motorway, not looking at the ruined Rolls. Up on the other side, a field away, lay a small road along which they walked slowly, sending up puffs of summer dust at every step. Sally seemed very tired, her face drawn and sullen, mouth drooping, skin gray beneath the dirt and tan. In a mile they found a cottage beside the road where the weatherman, leaning on his staff, sent Geoffrey to knock on the door. A mild old dame, stained beyond the wrists with blackcurrant juice, came out into the sunlight and answered the weatherman's imperious questions. Yes, she knew for sure that Mr. Grindall up at Overton had a roan foal for sale. He'd taken it to Ross Market only last week but hadn't been offered a price. And mebbe he had another. And at Park Farm they might have horses to spare. Folk were afeard, living so close to the Necromancer, and there wasn't always men to work the horses. They'd all gone east, to easier climes, including her own two sons, and times were terrible hard.…

The voice trailed away into a whining snivel. Unmoved, the weatherman stared at her, as if she were telling him lies, until she hauled up her long black skirts and scuttled back into the cottage.

“We must move on a few paces,” he said in a low voice, “so that we may look at the map unseen and hope that Overton is on it.”

“It's up that track there,” whispered Geoffrey, back to the cottage. “I remember from the map. And Park Farm's a bit beyond it.”

“What! Total recall! I have always regarded it as an obscene myth. Still, I must take advantage of your faculties just as you must take advantage of mine—social contract, in effect. Rousseau
would
have been pleased.”

At Overton Farm the weatherman's demeanor was completely different. He became soft and smooth, rubbing his hands together and cooing at the girl who opened the door, and then at the sturdy farmhouse wife who pushed her aside. He was a leech from Gloucester, he said, hasting north at the command of my Lord Salting, to attend the birth of an heir. Now they were late, having stayed by the way to succor a village oppressed with a running sickness. They were tired and hungry. Could they rest awhile and buy milk and bread? And if by chance there were any illness in the house, he would be glad to do what he could in recompense for hospitality.

The farmwife led them indoors to a room where the pattern of embossed wallpaper still showed through whitewash. The fireplace had undergone an upheaval in order to install a great open range, unlit at this time of year, with hooks for curing hams in the chimney and a bread oven jutting across the hearth beside it. The furniture was hard oak, crudely made. Sally and the weatherman sat on a long bench and Geoffrey stood against the wall, pulling faces at random to sustain his reputation for idiocy, while the farmwife and her maid clattered in the scullery beyond.

His dizziness was gone, and he was beginning to have doubts about the weatherman. There was something too slick about him, and he really had been horrid to the poor old woman at the cottage. But he did know his way about. He was being very useful now, and rather cunning not mentioning horses at all.

The farmwife came back with a leg of cold mutton, and the maid brought ale, milk, butter and rough brown bread. They ate for a while in silence, but soon the farmwife started asking where they'd come from and why they hadn't gone through Ross. She didn't sound suspicious, just curious, and the weatherman satisfied her by saying that Geoffrey tended to have fits in towns. They all sighed and glanced at him, and to keep them happy he pulled another face. Then the weatherman asked about crossing the Wye, and was told to take the path down to the old railway bridge, keeping an eye open for thunderstorms in case the Necromancer chose to throw a bolt at it. It was only at this point that he mentioned horses, in the most casual way, as though he wasn't really interested and honestly preferred walking. It was just that they were so late for this important birth, and his lordship was not a man to displease. The farmwife's face turned hard and greedy and she called to the maid to go and fetch the master from the cowshed.

He was a small, dark, beaten-looking man, and even when he was there his wife did most of the talking, speaking of the superexcellent quality of the farm's horses, and how exceedingly lucky the travelers were that there should be, at this moment, not one but two to spare, which were a bargain at seven sovereigns. The weatherman nodded and smiled until the two horses were led into the yard. One was a lean, tall roan and the other a restless piebald. The weatherman grunted and strolled over to them, feeling their legs and sides, forcing their mouths open, slapping their shoulders. At last he stood up, shook his head and offered the farmwife three sovereigns for the pair, or four with harness thrown in. At once there was a cackle of dismay, as if a fox had got into a henhouse, and they settled down to hard bargaining, with the weatherman holding the upper ground, as he could claim both that they didn't want horses and also that two horses were no good to them in any case—they really wanted three.

The haggling grumbled back and forth, like a slow-motion game of tennis, until the farmer broke into a pause.

“If you be wanting three horses,” he said, “we got a pony as might do for the young lady. He's a liddle 'un, but he's a good 'un.”

He shambled off around the corner of a barn and returned with the most extraordinary animal, a hairy, square thing with four short legs under it, dark brown, the texture of a doormat, with a black mane and a sulky eye. It snarled at the people, and when the weatherman was feeling its hocks it chose its moment and bit him hard in the fleshy part of the thigh. He jumped back, his face black with rage.

“Ah,” said the farmer, “you want to watch un. He's strong, but he's willful. Tell you what, you take the other two for five-an-a-narf sov, an' I'll give un to you, saddle an' all. Ach, shut up, Madge. He eats more than he's worth every month, an'
we've
no use for un.”

The weatherman rubbed his thigh, pulled his temper together and looked at Sally.

“What do you think, my dear,” he said. “Can you manage him? He gave me a vicious nip.”

“What's his name?” said Sally.

“Maddox,” said the farmer. “I dunno why.”

Sally felt in a pocket of her blouse and brought out a small orange cube. Geoffrey recognized it at once by the smell: it was a piece of the gypsy's horse bait. She broke it in half and walked stolidly toward the pony, holding a fragment in the flat of her palm. The other two horses edged in toward the sweet, treacly smell.

“Keep them away,” said Sally. “This is for Maddox. Come on then, boy. Come on. That's a nice Maddox. Come on. There. Now, if you're a good pony and do what I tell you, you shall have the other half for your supper. You
are
a good pony. I know you are.”

She scratched as hard as she could through the doormat hair between his ears, and he nuzzled in to her side, nearly knocking her over, looking for the rest of the horse bait.

“Well,” said the farmer, “I never seed anything like it. I'll just nip off an' fetch his harness afore he changes his mind. Five-an-a-narf sov it is then, mister?”

“I suppose so,” said the weatherman, and counted the money out into the farmwife's hand. She bit every coin.

The horses jibbed at the railway bridge, disturbed by the machine-forged metal, until Sally led Maddox up onto the causeway and the other two followed. It really was evening now, a world of soft, warm gold, with the hedge-trees black on their sunless side and casting field-wide shadows. They plugged on (Geoffrey very unhappy on the piebald) through Sellack, along the path by the riverbank onto the road again near Kynaston, and up the slow westward hill. It was almost dark, with Sally yawning and swaying in her saddle, before the weatherman agreed to stop for the night.

The place he chose wasn't bad, a disused huddle of farm buildings backing onto a field which was a wild tangle of weeds and self-sown wheat. There was a big Dutch barn of corrugated sheeting, half its roof blown off in some freak wind, but filled with rusting tractors, combines, balers, hoists and such. It didn't look as though they'd been afflicted by any special visitations from over the horizon, no such holocaust as had destroyed the Rolls. Given time and petrol, Geoffrey felt that he could have got some of them to go. But the moment a cylinder stirred, the wrath of the Necromancer would be down on them.

They ate and slept in another barn, floored with musty straw. The weatherman had bought bread and a bagful of mutton at the farm, and they sat with their backs against decaying bales and munched and talked. Sally, curiously, did most of the talking—about life in Weymouth, and the respect Geoffrey was held in, and the inadequacy of other Dorset weathermen compared to him. When the weatherman spoke he did so in smooth, rolling clauses, full of long words such as schoolmasters use when they are teasing a favored pupil, but he told them very little about himself. His talk was like cotton candy, that huge sweet bauble that fills the eye but leaves little in your belly when you've eaten it. At last he gave them both a nip of liquor from a flask “to help them sleep,” and they wormed themselves into the powdery straw, disturbed by tickling fragments at first, then cozy with generated warmth, then miles deep in the chasms of sleep.