The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (21 page)

He explained. Stott nodded. “An excellent plan, friend Pete. And you wish Tim and myself to be on the
qui vive
for signs of undue agitation among the congregants.”

“I expect they’ll all be pretty agitated. You just stand by to grab the one who tries to run.”

They marched into the chapel, Peter strumming “We shall meet but we shall miss him” as reverently as he could manage, and Dan, who had a fine bass voice with a range of almost half an octave, droning a sort of bagpipe accompaniment. Tim, who couldn’t have carried a tune in a basket, confined himself to lifting his sickle now and then in some intricate gesticulations that didn’t mean anything but seemed to impress the congregation. They marched twice around the bier, then took up strategic positions according to their prearranged plan.

Daniel Stott, who could make even a page of hog statistics sound impressive, recited several of the more affecting verses from sympathy cards received at the time of his first wife Elizabeth’s demise. Then he launched into a stirring eulogy, touching on Prince Edmyr’s prowess in the hawking field, his lofty bearing and premonarchical mien, on the loss to his family and to the realm occasioned by his demise, and on a number of other things that might or might not have any particular relevance to the deceased. The eulogy was well constructed, eloquently delivered, and probably not more inanely inappropriate than most. When Dan showed symptoms of running down, Peter stepped forward.

“And now comes the time for each person here to pay his or her last respects to our departed crown prince. Led by your monarch, will you all rise and walk slowly past the bier?”

“Nay!” Old Dwydd had come out of hiding, all set to do battle. “It be unlucky to bestir ye atmosphere around ye dead, lest his ghost come to afright us.”

“His ghost will not walk in this holy place,” said Peter sternly, “unless there be someone among you who is guilty of having caused his death. No innocent person need fear to perform this rite. To refuse in the presence of the king and the archdruid, would constitute a confession of guilt. Now rise and pass along, as the archdruid directs. Slowly and reverently, please.”

After that, nobody would have dared hang back. Tim stood like a French gendarme, directing traffic past the bier while Peter made indeterminate noises on the harp strings. One by one, the family walked over to Prince Edmyr’s corpse and around the bier. Peter watched narrowly. At the critical moment, praying his aim was true, he fitted one of the improvised arrows he’d worked on during the night to a string of his harp, drew back the string as far as he could, and fired.

Bull’s-eye! The pig’s bladder he’d filled in the kitchen and hidden under the cerecloth burst with an audible pop, spraying blood all over me skirt of Princess Edelgysa.

“Ooh!” The shriek went up all through the chapel. Edelgysa herself reared like a startled mare, her face as white as her robe.

Princess Aldora and Prince Dagobert flew at her. “Wicked woman! ’Twas ye who killed our loved one!”

“Ye lie,” she shrieked back. “I ne’er laid hand on him.”

Peter stepped forward and surreptitiously reclaimed his arrow. “You didn’t have to touch him. That little whip you wield so handily, as everyone here can testify, did the job for you.”

“Impossible,” screamed Dwydd. “Her whip be but a toy, and she was two horse-lengths away from ye prince. I was there. I saw.”

“Prince Dagobert was there, also,” said Peter. “He saw Princess Edelgysa hit up her horse and swing her whip forward just before Prince Edmyr fell. Yesterday afternoon, Prince Dagobert and I found the heavy black thread she’d used to lengthen out the whip lash and kept hidden in her hand as she rode. That was why she hadn’t been using her whip as usual during the ride. She’d weighted the end of the thread with a silver hawk bell. She may have meant to hit the horse and make it bolt. Instead, the bell struck Prince Edmyr at the base of his skull, probably stunning him momentarily and causing him to lose control of his mount, which broke into a gallop, stumbled, and threw him with fatal results, as you know. Unfortunately for her plan, the bell broke through the thread and remained caught in Prince Edmyr’s hood, where it was found yesterday in your presence. She’d stolen the bell from the king’s treasure room, along with a number of more valuable items.”

“She robbed ye king?” That seemed to horrify the congregation far more than the idea of her having caused Prince Edmyr’s death. Naturally enough, perhaps, in this era when heirs to thrones were always sitting targets for assassination.

“Ye lie, bard,” shouted Prince Owain, who must have realized whom she’d done it for. “How could my mother get into ye strong room? It be aye locked, and ye king keepeth ye key.”

“She drugged him. Dwydd mixed her a potion to drug both King Sfyn and your father, who was keeping guard during Ffyffnyr’s enforced absence. They slept so soundly that she was able to sneak in and steal the key, then put it back later without getting caught. Prince Edwy has already testified that his wife persuaded him to drink such a draft, under the pretext that it would give him a good night’s rest, but cause him to wake instantly if anyone tried to get at the king.”

“And how, prithee, did she manage to drug my grandfather?”

The old king looked up at his too-handsome grandson. “Easy enow, I ween. Thy mother came to me all pitying and condoled with me on ye loss of Ffyffnyr. Then gave she me a magic potion to quaff. She said it might send me a soothsayer’s dream to show me what had become of Ffyff. It only made me dream of lizards crawling up inside my vizard. That would have been her wicked fingers, I doubt not, brushing o’er me to get at ye key.”

“I be falsely accused,” cried Princess Edelgysa. She had nerve, at any rate. “What be these things he claimeth I took from ye strong room? How could it be known what be missing from those many eel baskets heaped high with treasure?”

“The fact that you know about the eel baskets might be a point against you, but we don’t need it,” said Peter. “To answer your question, we know what you took because the amount of treasure now in the baskets doesn’t tally with the record made at the time the wyvern’s hoard was locked away. Would you care to give us an itemized account, Lady Syglinde?”

Sir Torchyld’s new bride, blushing importantly, fiddled with her slates as all good treasurers do with their account books, then read off the missing items. “And ye necklace with stones like dewdrops be ye same she weareth now, albeit it be too dressy for a funeral,” she finished. “ ’Tis ye one I wanted Torchy to give me for our wedding, so I know.”

Princess Gwynedd caught her breath. “I did wonder where Edelgysa got so rare a jewel on a sudden,” she said in a kind of stifled shriek. “She sought to persuade me ’twas from her great-aunt Maud’s estate.”

Princess Aldora roused herself from her paroxysms of grief long enough to snort; a regal and ladylike snort, to be sure, but nonetheless a snort. “Her great-aunt Maud’s estate, forsooth! Maud had scarce a robe to cover her back, let alone fine jewels for her neck. ’Twas she who ran away with a mad wizard and became his—By my halidom, I see all now. ’Tis Dwydd! Bethink ye, Gwynedd, what ye traveling minstrel told us, that ye wizard had died of his own poison and Maud was seeking employ as a resident hag. ’Twas shortly after that Edelgysa found Dwydd ye post here with Papa Sfyn. Behold, she hath a look of Edelgysa around ye eyes. So, Maud, ‘twas ye who abetted thy niece in her wicked designs to obtain ye throne for her spoiled brat Owain.”

“She forced me,” Dwydd quavered. “I could do no other.”

“There, she sweareth! Confess, Edelgysa, all be revealed. Ye blood hath told, in more ways than one.”

Everybody was either gaping at Dwydd or shuddering at the pool of blood under the bier. Seeing their attention withdrawn from her, Princess Edelgysa leaped for the door. Tim, who’d been watching for such a move, tried to stop her. She shoved him aside with the strength of desperation,  and kept going. Dan Stott then moved to block her way, but she gave him a savage left hook in the belly and left him gasping. Peter almost reached her, but she slammed the heavy chapel door in his face and lowered the bar, penning them all inside.

It took a fair amount of pounding and hollering before some minion happened to hear and came to let them out. By then, Princess Edelgysa had reached the stables.

“Raise ye drawbridge,” ordered King Sfyn.

That didn’t stop Edelgysa. She galloped headlong toward the moat, frantically whipping up her horse for the impossible jump. The heavy beast, bred to carry armored knights, could never have made it. He caught his foot in a basket of fresh-caught eels and stumbled, shooting Princess Edelgysa headlong into the soft mud at the bottom. Torchyld, Prince Dagobert, Prince Owain, Prince Edwy, Prince Edbert, Prince Gelert, and Prince Gaheris all jumped in after her, stirring up the silt and making it impossible for any of them to see anything under the water. By the time they’d groped their way to her, Princess Edelgysa was dead.

“Mayhap ’twas all for ye best,” said Syglinde, wiping mud off Torchyld’s face. “ ’Twould have been an unseemly execution, with her bossing ye headsman around and complaining about ye dullness of ye ax.”

Prince Owain threw Torchyld’s bride a remarkably Aunt-Maudish look, then strode over and knelt before the king.

“Sire, a boon. Grant me permission to go on a geste. To stay here now would be intolerable to me.”

“Aye, grandson, go and prosper. Belike ye will find a wyvern to slay.”

“Belike he will find a rich widow to cozen,” Dagobert murmured.

Prince Edwy went over to clap his son on the shoulder. “Great idea, Owain. Shake ye dust of ye court from ye feet and get out among ye fearsome dragons and ill-tempered knights errant. Nothing like a spot of slashing and slaying to take a young prince’s mind off his troubles.”

He in turn hurled himself at King Sfyn’s feet. “Father, I crave pardon for having been ye instrument of bringing this dire misfortune upon our house. Had I but wist what Edelgysa was really like, I’d have let ye dragon keep her in ye first place. Prithee grant me also leave to erase this stain from our escutcheon by myself going back to ye gesting trail.”

“Aye, son,” said the old king, “gin ye swear a solemn oath to refrain from rescuing any more princesses. God speed ye both. Ho, gravediggers. Dig an extra hole and let us get on with ye obsequies.”

I
T WAS A STRANGE
feeling, to have watched the planting of a murderess and a murderee side by side in the same burying ground, Peter thought, but at least it was over now. Everything seemed to be over: all the young lovers married, Prince Edwy and Prince Owain off on their geste, the wicked hag gone nobody knew where, the red griffin and the old king happily reunited. Surely this mad fairy tale ought to be coming to an end for himself and his friends, too. Peter felt a profound reluctance to reenter the castle. He turned aside and began examining the exterior architecture, which in fact he’d had little opportunity to do thus far.

Sir Torchyld noticed, and came over to join him, looking rather naked without Syglinde glued to his side. She had gone to comfort Princess Aldora, whose own daughters were too busy getting ready for their upcoming trip to Ysgard to notice their mother’s grief.

“Bard Pete,” said the knight, “I crave to ask by what means ye sent ye feathered shaft through ye pig’s bladder full of chicken blood when ye were standing a full three lance-lengths from my uncle’s bier.”

“Oh, you noticed, did you?”

“Aye, and marveled. ’Twould have been nigh impossible e’en for me to throw so flimsy a wand hard enough to pierce ye cerecloth and ye bladder from such a distance. ’Twas necromancy, I misdoubt.”

“Not at all,” Peter assured him. “Simply an application of the principle of propulsion. Let me demonstrate. Here’s another stock like the one I shot. They’re called arrows, for your information.”

“Arrows. ’Tis a pretty name, but a paltry weapon.”

“Not when shot with force. You see, what I did was this.”

Peter set his harp to his shoulder, fitted the nock of his makeshift arrow to a taut harp string, and pulled back on it. The harp’s frame was a flimsy thing of supple wood, probably manufactured by Dwydd herself for the sole purpose of turning Torchyld into a bard and probably never really meant to be played. It bowed in a reasonably satisfactory manner, and Peter let go. The arrow shot through the air and pierced the basket of eels that was still sitting beside the moat.

“There, you see how it’s done. You don’t need a harp, of course. You’d be better off with a plain stave of wood—yew, I believe, is an excellent choice—about as long as the span of your outstretched arms. This would be called a bow, since it gets bowed into an arc when you pull on the bowstring, which is attached to the ends much as the strings are attached to this harp. See what I mean?”

Peter borrowed Torchyld’s dagger to cut a long, slender sapling, notch it at both ends, and string it with the long thread he’d been carrying as evidence of Princess Edelgysa’s perfidy. “This is very rough, of course. You’d skin off the bark, flatten the stave to make it more flexible, and perhaps wrap a piece of leather around the center to give yourself a firm handhold. There are any number of ways you could improve the design, and I’m sure you’ll find them, since you and your countrymen are destined to give the longbow to Western civilization.”

“Ye hell we be. Such a splendid weapon, we shall keep to ourselves. A bow, ye say, and an arrow.” Torchyld flexed the sapling in wonderment. “ ’Tis a wonder, Bard Pete. A bowman would need more than one arrow, meseems. In ye heat of battle, he could not go out among ye enemy to pick them up once they be shorten.”

“Good point,” said Peter. “I’m sure you’ll have the bugs worked out in no time. Well, Torchyld, I expect this is as good a time as any to say good-bye.”

“Bard Pete, ye cannot leave us now. Ye peril be past and ’tis time for merrymaking. Also, I need ye to help Syggie and me choose an auspicious place to build our house.”

“You’ll know the place when you come to it, Torchyld. As for my friends and myself, I’m afraid we really have to push on. You see, we have a geste of our own. We were just setting out on it, as a matter of fact, when we ran into you and—er—things took their course.”