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Authors: Joan Aiken

BOOK: The Whispering Mountain
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And the Seljuk, a-twitter with apprehension, climbed puffing up the steep hill to the castle, accompanied by Arabis, who had browned her face with walnut juice and dressed herself in Ribaddi's fur jacket and trousers, tucking her black hair inside his astrakhan fez.
When they were halfway up the hill a winged form came flapping heavily through the snowy dark and settled with a martyred croak upon Arabis's hat.
“There now! I was afraid he might do that, so cross as he's been because I left him behind when—” Guiltily she bit off her words and addressed the bird. “Why did you have to come out in all this nasty snow? Go home, bad Hawc!”
But Hawc refused to budge.
“You will have to tell the Marquess that you bought him in the village, I am afraid, sir.”
The Seljuk seemed to feel that Hawc was the least of their troubles.
“But what are we going to
do
when we get to the castle, my dear young colleague, partisan, crony? What course do you propose we pursue?”
“Oh,” Arabis said airily, “I have several plans. We shall have to see. But first we must discover whether all those people are still there—Owen, Brother Ianto, Mr. Hughes'—thank goodness the Marquess doesn't know about the Children of the Pit, she thought to herself—”and then we must make sure he doesn't harm them until Prince Deio arrives with Dada.”
“Indeed, I see,” replied the Seljuk rather faintly.
“It is quite simple.”
“Plain sailing, mere child's play, no great shakes, in fact?”
“Right, just,” said Arabis, and then they both had to concentrate on the steep slope, iced over now, and dangerously slippery.
Just before they reached the iron-barred entrance gate Hawc, evidently disliking the look of the place, rose from Ribaddi's fur hat and sheered off into the storm.
“That fowl has some intelligence in his brain-pan, noddle, headpiece, upper storey,” muttered the Seljuk gloomily, raising his hand to knock on the gate.
Twenty yards in the rear a dark figure followed, unseen amid the driving snow, keeping exact pace with them as they approached the castle.
A
s Arabis and the Seljuk entered Castle Malyn the our of dinner was announced by a footman who beat upon an enormous golden gong.
“Alack, more yellow comestibles,” sighed the Seljuk.
Arabis thought he would hardly be able to eat much, anyway, considering the quantity of oyster stew he had just consumed, but when the majordomo ushered them into the dining-room and she stationed herself correctly behind his chair, she was astonished to see him tuck into curried eggs, chicken with saffron, smoked haddock with mustard sauce, peaches, bananas, and yellow plums, as if he had never eaten in his life before.
Arabis, for her part, was almost fully absorbed in studying the Marquess of Malyn. Brought up to think of him as a kind of ogre, she had expected an uglier man than, on first inspection, she found him; but when she looked again at his strange deep yellow eyes a shudder of repulsion and fear nearly made her drop the cloth-of-gold napkin which
she was trying to fasten under the Seljuk's double chin. The Marquess did not so much as notice her; his eyes passed her without the faintest interest, and for this she was thankful.
The two men talked about Lord Malyn's collection of gold articles until the peach course had been reached; then the Marquess, coiling his little gold-linked snake round the glass of wine in front of him, languidly inquired,
“And your own researches, my dear guest? How do they proceed? I—ah—believe you took a stroll this afternoon, that you honoured my humble village with a visit? Did you there learn anything of interest about your lost tribe of craftsmen in gold—what was their name? The tribe of Yehimelek? Dear me, a most romantic tale! I quite long to have them reunited with their rightful prince!”
Arabis, who, instructed by the butler, had been about to place a gold finger-bowl by the Seljuk, let it slip; it fell to the ground, splashing its contents over the velvet carpet. At the sound of her indrawn breath Lord Malyn gave her a brief, cold look; then studied her more sharply, his eyes narrowing.
But the Seljuk, unaware of this, continued peeling a peach and answered in a placid voice,
“Why, no, my dear sir! Confidentially, joking apart, to tell truth, I cut short, put a period to my researches—your weather is so inclement!—and instead paid a call on an acquaintance of mine.”
“Oh indeed? And who might that be? I was not aware that you had any acquaintance in these parts—apart, of course, from that charming Brother Ianto,” Lord Malyn said suavely, still studying Arabis in a manner that was
beginning to make her very uneasy, as if her appearance stirred some recollection in him.
“Oh, a most talented, estimable person, a travelling poet, bard, versifier, by name Tom Dando,” the Seljuk said enthusiastically. Lord Malyn started, but still kept his eyes on Arabis. “This agreeable troubadour—besides reading many of his excellent works—has been telling me some local lore of Nant Agerddau which, perchance, I appear to have missed, let slip, turned a deaf ear to when I was in that vicinity. I can tell you, it is not like me to be caught napping! But Mr. Dando informs me there is a tradition that small dark persons, known as Fur Niskies, were once wont to roam those parts by night. Now, do not these sound like my lost Phoenicians? Indeed, my dear host, if you will not think it too discourteously precipitate of me, I believe that tomorrow I shall betake myself back to the noble slopes of Fig-hat Ben and trespass on your hospitality no longer!”
“Why, my good friend,” replied Lord Malyn, never for an instant removing his eyes from Arabis, “you do not trespass on my hospitality at all! Indeed your presence is so delightful to me that I will be only too pleased to accompany you on your excursion to Nant Agerddau! If your lost tribe are indeed to be found in the caves there, I can hardly wait to be present at the touching scene when you encounter them!”
No,
that
I'll wager you can't, Arabis thought. She was in agony, unavailingly trying to escape the Marquess's eye, unable to attract the Seljuk's attention. Why, why, didn't I ever think of him, she wondered, but who would, so fat and foolish as he seemed? Nobody would be likely to
reckon on
him
as a deliverer. Now what's to be done? Perhaps if Lord Malyn and the Seljuk go off to Nant Agerddau tomorrow I can somehow get a message to Yehimelek to keep his people well hidden until the Prince of Wales has come and dealt with the Marquess; but first I must warn the Seljuk not to go letting out any more information; and there's still those poor prisoners to be rescued. Eh, dear! Here is a fine old state of affairs.
At this moment a lean, dark man slipped in, sidled up to Lord Malyn, and began to murmur in his ear. The Marquess listened attentively; his eyes moved from Arabis to the Seljuk and back again; his face did not change, except that the nostrils fluttered, twice. At the end he said, “Thank you, Garble,” in a cold voice. The man turned to leave. “No, stay—I may have need of you.” Garble moved two paces to the rear.
“So!” Lord Malyn began at last, hissingly. “So you betray my hospitality, do you, my fat friend? All this fine talk is but a cover, under which you plot and plan against me?”
With a slashing stroke he brought his gold snake down across the wine glass in front of him and it broke into fragments.
“Eh?” The Seljuk was so startled that he almost swallowed a peach stone. “I beg your pardon, may I have the pleasure? I don't quite understand, get your drift, grasp your meaning, my dear fellow?”
“I think you understand very well,” Lord Malyn replied menacingly. “My secretary here informs me that this afternoon while you were calling on Dando—an intransigent, subversive good-for-nothing with whom I have had
trouble before—he heard you plotting together to set the militia to hinder my perfectly respectable activities, to turn the Prince of Wales against me! What do you say to that, my treacherous friend?”
“Why,” said the Seljuk stoutly, “I say that it is all a pack of moonshine, tomfoolery, stuff and nonsense, gammon and spinach, pish, tush, fiddle-dedee! There is only your secretary's word for it, after all—and what was he doing, eavesdropping on a private conversation, be so good as to tell me, pray?”
“He was watching my interests, as he is paid to,” replied the Marquess. “Moreover he tells me that he heard you plot to release various persons confined in my cells—persons whom I have every right to imprison if I so choose!—further, that to assist you in this underhand scheme you smuggled some female accomplice of the miscreant Dando into my castle, tricked out as your servant! And what have you to say to
that?”
As the Seljuk opened his mouth to reply, Garble, who had slipped stealthily round behind Arabis, suddenly whipped off her fez, revealing her long hair.
“0 deuce take it!” exclaimed the Seljuk to Arabis crossly. “Now we are properly rumbled, in the cart, the cat is let out of the bag with a vengeance! What did I tell you, and so forth?”
“What is your name?” Lord Malyn asked Arabis in a cold, deadly tone. “And how dare you sneak into my castle in disguise?”
But she, now that all was discovered, felt, for some reason, less afraid; she answered with spirit,
“My name is Arabis Dando, and I will be pleased to
hear what I am doing that is wrong! No law there is against wearing a fur hat, that I know of? As for the rest, it is all hearsay, nothing to go on but the word of that shovel-faced fellow!”
“Arabis Dando,” repeated the Marquess musingly. “Yes indeed, and now that I come to consider, you have quite a look of your mother, as she used to be when she sang her outlandish Mediterranean songs on the stage at Pontyprydd! Arabis Camilleri! To be sure, how that name does conjure up old times.”
Not very pleasant old times, it was evident; the expression in his eyes as he studied Arabis was far from friendly. And, curiously, when he thus addressed her, the tones of his voice stirred up in her, too, a long-buried memory. Although up to that moment she had had no recollection of ever seeing him before, now a distant scene began to come back to her—in the snow—long ago—when she was very small: of themselves, as it appeared, words rose to her lips. Some force from outside seemed to raise her hand until it was pointing at him.
“Woe to you, Malyn! Woe to the despoiler of the fatherless, woe to the roof and all those beneath it! May you hurtle for ever into a bottomless pit! May your inheritance be scattered to the four winds!”
“Enough!” snapped Lord Malyn, white with rage. “Garble! Take her away! Put her in the bottom dungeon with that mealy-mouthed, mumchance monk—let them live on air together.—Has he let out any word, yet, as to the whereabouts of the harp?”
“Not a word, your lordship. I can get nothing from him but a lot of Latin.”
“Very well. In that case we may as well dispatch them both with the least possible delay. Put Gog and Magog in with them; that should settle them fast enough.”
“But, my lord—” Garble began rather doubtfully.
“Quiet, you! When I wish for your advice I will ask for it. If the old monk has anything to say, maybe the sight of Gog and Magog will fetch it out of him.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“As for this fat imposter—'
“Upon my halidom!” gasped the Seljuk, outraged.
“—I shall interrogate him myself, and then he can be stuffed in with the curator.”
“Now do you see what your schemings and stratagems have let me in for!” the Seljuk cried reproachfully to Arabis as Garble, who was far stronger than he looked, dragged her from the room, helped by a burly footman. But she was too pleased to learn that Mr. Hughes and Brother Ianto were still alive to be entirely downcast; in any case she thought that the Seljuk was being rather unfair; he was merely to be imprisoned with old Mr. Hughes, whereas she and Brother Ianto were also landed with Gog and Magog; she had no idea who the latter might be but felt sure that their company was not intended as a treat.
Down flights and flights of winding stone stairs they went, stairs worn out of the naked rock, shallow with age and slippery with damp; at last they came to a low, wide, irregular chamber, sloping somewhat downhill, and with a curiously wrinkled, fluted ceiling, which resembled nothing so much as the channellings of a great ear. Iron-barred doors were set all round this space; from behind some of them came groans. Garble led Arabis to the door just above
the lowest corner, selected a key from a bunch at his belt, thrust it into the lock, and turned it with some difficulty; it seemed very rusty.
“Don't try climbing out the window unless you fancy a six-hundred foot drop into the sea,” he said curtly, and gave Arabis a shove which sent her staggering down a short flight of steps. Behind her the door clanged shut.
“Brother Ianto!” cried Arabis, picking herself up—she had landed on hands and knees. “Are you really here? Are you all right, with you?”
“Dear to goodness, is that you, Arabis, my child? Well indeed, how did you come by here?”
Arabis, her eyes beginning to get used to the dim light from the narrow window, made out Brother Ianto rising stiffly to his feet from a corner where he had been sitting or kneeling. She ran to him and hugged him.
“Oh, Brother Ianto, there's glad I am you are still alive! If that fiend have hurt you I will have the eyes out of him personally!”
“Hush, child!” he warned. “Mind your tongue here, you must. Every word we say travels back to them upstairs,” and he gestured to the roof.
“Much I care!” said Arabis. “Hope I do that the ears are sizzling on him this minute! Anyway, my dada and the Prince of Wales will soon have us out from here. But are you all right, Brother Ianto?”
“Fine and grand,” he said. “Good spot for a quiet think it is here; No complaints, indeed, only for a twinge of the rheumatics in my old bones.”
“Soon have that out of you, I will,” Arabis said, “while we are waiting for Gog and Magog. Oil of wintergreen I
have in my pocket, see, and no trouble to rub on.”
So Brother Ianto unbuttoned his hair shirt and she gave him a vigorous rub until, as he said, he was as lissom as a young firefly, and the cell smelt wholesomely of warm wintergreen.
“And who may Gog and Magog be, my child?” he inquired, when Arabis had finished with him.
“I am not knowing yet,” said Arabis, putting the stopper back in the wintergreen bottle. Then she cocked her head sideways and added, “But I am thinking we shall not be long finding out.”
She could hear footsteps, and the Seljuk's voice raised in indignant protest as he was hustled down the stairs. A door slammed somewhere near by. Then their own door was briefly opened again, just long enough for a basket to be dumped inside. It fell over, tipping out a dazzling tangle of black and yellow, which resolved itself into two large, angry tiger-snakes.
“Not very nice quarters for them down here,” Brother Ianto said disapprovingly. “Hard old rock and nothing to eat; no wonder they will be a bit put out. Best to stand quite still, Arabis, my child. A tiger-snake has a nasty temper on him, and no use to say sorry, no offence, once he has lost it.”

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