The Witch of Clatteringshaws (8 page)

“Once I undertook a job—a task—it was necessary to stay in one place and listen—to hear—something that somebody was going to say. But I heard this tune being played on a barrel-organ in the street outside the window. I’m mad for tunes. They haunt me, specially when they are only half remembered. And this was one I’d heard before and half forgotten—it was driving me crazy.”

Dido nodded. “I know. I’ve felt like that with tunes. Specially Pa’s tunes, they are so catchy, but not at all simple—”

“That’s it exactly!” said the woman. “So I ran out, leaving my post, and the organ and the street singer had gone already—I never heard the tune again—and when I got back it was too late—the words I should have heard had been said—or not said. It was too late,” she repeated. And she went on, half to herself, “Nothing so silent as the mouth of one just dead. There were these three saints, you see, Saint Arfish, Saint Ardust, and Saint Arling. They left instructions that their dying words were to be written down. And kept secret for a period of time. The first for three years, the second for nine years, the third for twenty-one years.”

“Why?”

“Oh, how should I know why? The first saint died cursing, the second died laughing.”

“Why?”

“The curse of Saint Arfish was tremendous. ‘May you fall so ill that if the sea were made of ink, it would not be enough for your doctor to write you a prescription!’ ”

“Croopus! Who did he curse like that?”

“That was why Saint Ardust died laughing. Saint Arfish forgot to fill in the name of whoever he was cursing, so the curse failed to go off. And who it was meant for, we shall never know. That was why Saint Ardust died laughing.”

“What were
his
dying words?”

“He never had time for them.”

“What about the third saint? Saint Arling?”

“That is what we don’t know. And never shall! Because of my wicked negligence, running out into the street to try to catch that tune.”

“Oh,” said Dido. “I see. Well, I guess you just have to learn to live with that.” And after a minute she added, “Did you know that Mrs. McClan’s husband just died?”

“I guessed that might be so. Since the old man, not Angus McClan, was digging the graves. Usually Angus would be doing the digging. What about Desmond?”

“Recovering from tonsillitis.”

“Humph! More likely phizectomy!”

“What in the world’s that?”

“Angus McClan had a talent for changing people’s faces.”

“Unh?”

“He could give you a new face so your mother wouldn’t know you—and somebody else’s mother would think you were her dear daughter.”

“Croopus.” Dido thought about this for several minutes.
“So that’s who the dead man’s face reminded me of. He’d done it to himself. But not well enough. And that’s why he had all those pictures of King Dick on the walls of his bedroom.…”

“Angus was a face smith.”

Dido jumped up. “I better go back—or Mrs. M will give me what for and ask where I’ve been—”

“Listen! We must meet again. I want to talk to you about—something. And the boy who was with you in the train. But Mrs. McClan mustn’t know. Can you come out tonight?”

“Where to?”

“Across the loch. You can walk over the rail bridge. I live in a hut on the other side. In the coach park.”

“But what about those creatures—Hobyahs?” Dido was doubtful.

“Oh, I can frighten them off. They won’t come when I’m there.”

“Well—I’ll see. Can’t promise. And we have to keep an eye on young Fred.”

“Yes! You must certainly keep an eye on him!”

Dido thought about Fred’s black eye and cut cheek. Had phizectomy been practiced on him?

“And what about the monster?” she said.

“Tatzen? Oh, he’s my friend.”

“Who are you, then? Not just the social worker? You said your name was Aldith Somebody—”

“That was in the train. I was keeping an eye on those two men. They are up to no good. They have a plot to put a false king on the throne. My name is Malise. I’m the
District Witch of Clatteringshaws. Listen—there is something I want you to bring me—to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.…”

“Malise? Father Sam’s cousin? Oh, now I begin to twig.…”

They were assembling in King’s Wrath station for the trip to the north. Father Sam had come to see them off and give them his blessing.

“Who are the Wends, exactly?” said Simon. “And why should they invade us?”

“Oh, they are a warlike tribe,” said Father Sam vaguely. “They live on cheese and plum brandy. Every now and then they like to fight somebody. It’s such a pity they don’t play football.”

“Why can’t they fight the Picts? Picts like to fight too.”

“Well, suggest it to them.… While you are in Caledonia,” said Father Sam, “be sure you get in touch with Dido and check the claim of this Aelfric who says he is descended from Canute.”

“Yes. If I can find Dido. Who was Canute, anyway?”

“He was the son of Sweyn the Dane, and he was King of half England.”

“Who had the other half?”

“A fellow called Edmund Ironside. Yes, you could take a lesson from him—from them—”

“About what?”

“Be sure to look up my cousin Malise—the Witch of Clatteringshaws.”

“Why?” said Simon, beginning to look harassed.

“She’s my cousin too,” put in Rodney Firebrace. And the parrot on his shoulder said, “Ha ha ha! Be sure to call the bear cousin till you are safe across the bridge. Third hand calls the tune.”

“Oh, be quiet, Wiggonholt.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Father Sam, “I believe the Wendish king is called Albert the Bear. That is, if they still have the same king they had two years ago.”

“How is it that you both have the same cousin?”

“We all had the same grandfather. Sir Jonathan Firebrace. He had three sons, and we are the children of those sons. Malise and I went to divinity school together. She became a witch, I became a friar. Rodney went to high school and became a geologist and fell off a mountain and became a professional jester.”

“Why?”

“Effect of brain damage,” said Firebrace. “I hit my head on a rock when I fell off that hillside; result is, I’m clairvoyant. I can foretell the future. Not always, but sometimes. It’s a useful quality in a king’s adviser.”

“So who will win this battle?”

“Odds are even. It’s complicated.”

“Here’s a book to read on the train.” Father Sam handed Simon a little old volume that looked as if it had been well used. “
Lives of the Saints
. The Wends and the
Danes are all very keen on saints. This will tell you about Saint Arfish and Saint Ardust and Saint Arling. May come in handy. Mind you keep in touch by pigeon mail.”

“Don’t keep your supper for breakfast. You may die before dawn,” said the parrot. “The third hour rings the bell.”

“Shut up!”

The train gave a warning whistle. Half the English army was piled on it. Legs and arms stuck out of windows. The other half of the army was on an extra train following behind. They had been issued crossbows, arbalests, and cheese sandwiches. The entire army only numbered two thousand men, and their equipment was sadly out of date. Simon could only hope that the Wendish army was equally behind the times.

“Where do Wends come from?” he asked Rodney Firebrace when the door of their compartment had been slammed and the train was gathering speed.

“Eastern Saxony somewhere, I believe. Lusatia. They sail from the port of Lubeck.”

“What language do they speak?”

“Wendish.”

“Oh.”

Discouraged, Simon applied himself to the lives of the saints. One chapter was headed “Famous Last Words.” Many saints, it appeared, had said very important things as they lay dying, delivered prophecies or given good advice. Three of them had left instructions that their last words were to be written down, then kept secret for a number of years—Saint Arfish for three years, Saint Ardust for nine, Saint Arling for twenty-one.

“Those terms must be over by now, at least the first two. I wonder what they said?” Simon murmured. “Was it so important?”

“Who said what?” Rodney had returned to the crossword puzzle in his newspaper. “Greer’s gringo—a light-footed lady—who could that be?”

“The saints—Saint Arfish, Saint Ardust, Saint Arling—I wonder what their last words were? What would you say if you were dying?”

“ ‘Speech by rote,’ ” mumbled Rodney, absorbed in his puzzle.

“Parrot-talk?” Simon suggested.

“Never buy secondhand time,” remarked the parrot. “The second hand travels faster than the hour hand.”

“Quiet, Wiggonholt!”

“Cousin Sam and Cousin Malise got into bad trouble about Saint Arling,” said Rodney after he had filled in a couple more words.

“How come?”

“The saint was on his deathbed in a theological college. In the town of Clarion Wells. All the college students were on a rotation to sit by his bed and note down his last words, whatever they were. But Father Sam—he was Brother Sam then, of course—wanted to go fishing, so he did an exchange with Cousin Malise—she took his place at the bedside. And then she—for some reason—ran out of the bedroom into the street—something she heard or saw through the window distracted her—and when she came back the worst had happened—the old boy had handed in his tickets. So Sam and Malise were both dismissed from the seminary in disgrace with severe
penalties. But Sam’s penalty was lighter because he had left someone in charge. So he was allowed back after a year in a grotto. But Malise …”

“That’s odd. I wonder what the last words were? Maybe he never said anything. That reminds me of something that once happened to me—a long time ago—in a wet-country town—come to think, I believe it
was
Clarion Wells—”

“Well—we’ll never know what the man said.” Rodney rubbed the parrot’s head.

“Never climb, never fall. First’s the worst, second well reckoned, third is the luckiest of all!”

“Oh, shut your beak, Wiggonholt. So that,” Rodney went on, “is why Malise keeps writing to Sam—she feels bad because she let him down. But somebody else has been writing letters from Caledonia, some people called McClan—to Lady Titania Plantagenet—claiming to be descended from Canute and Aelfred the Great and Brutus of Troy.”

“What a lot of direct descent. Why not throw in King Solomon and Attila the Hun? Still,” said Simon, sighing, “if somebody else has a better claim, I’d be as pleased as a dog with two tails to be rid of this job and go back to painting, which is what I really want to do. Dido said she’d never be Queen—you can’t blame her. And having to lead troops into battle—for heaven’s sake! It’s the outside of enough! You need education for that sort of job. I grew up in a cave, looking after geese—I don’t even speak Latin!”

“Well,” said Rodney, “you had better be thinking what to say in your address to the troops, because I see we are approaching Clatteringshaws station.”

“How far is it from Clatteringshaws to Tentsmuir Forest?”

“About fifty miles eastward over very hilly country.”

“Do you think there will be any horses available? Or other transport?”

Rodney scanned the bare mountains clustered around Loch Grieve.

“Very little chance, I’d say. We had better hope that your army are good walkers.”

The train drew to a halt.

A woman in a red dress strolled along the station platform toward Rodney as he opened the carriage door. The parrot Wiggonholt, sitting on Rodney’s arm, gave a sudden loud, delighted squawk, flew to the woman, and perched on her head.

Dido, on her weekly errand to buy cinnamon, cloves, and wintergreen at the only grocer’s store in Clatteringshaws, was startled to death to see the familiar backs of two elderly men going into the Monster’s Arms. Sir Angus MacGrind and Sir Fosby Killick!

What the blazes are those two old birds of ill omen doing up here in these northern parts? Why aren’t they in Saint Jim’s Palace giving Simon a hard time?

Dido was thankful that they did not appear to have seen her. But why should they be here?

She found the Woodlouse in the greenhouse, thinning out lettuce seedlings, and asked him what he thought about it.

“They were here while you were out,” he said. “They came to the house and I heard them asking Mrs. McClan
if she had a napkin with a crown on it. And she said yes, she had. But when they asked her to show it to them, she couldn’t find it.”

Dido chuckled.

“No, they couldn’t find it, because I’ve got it.”

“
You’ve
got it?”

“That woman—Malise—she told me about it and asked me to try and find it. And I did! You know when Desmond finally got up and dressed, and he asked me to iron all his cravats—he has drawers and drawers full of them, and he spends hours in front of the glass, trying them all tied in different fancy ways, he’s as vain as a peacock—anyway, this white linen napkin was in among the cravats. It has a gold crown embroidered in one corner. Tell you what, Woodlouse—I bet that’s the napkin Fred was wrapped in when he was left on their doorstep as a baby.”

Piers said seriously, “We ought to take Fred up to London.”

“Yes, I know we ought. When we see Malise tonight—when we give her the napkin—I’ll tell her that. Maybe she can lend us the train fare.”

“Are you sure that you can rely on her—that she means well? That she is on our side? She is a witch, after all.”

“She’s only a witch because she was thrown out of holy college. She told me so. She told me that she’s Father Sam’s cousin.”

“Even so—can we trust her?” Piers thought some more and then said, “Dido—do you think that Fred is
fit
to be King of England? All he has ever done is live in this dismal
house and be bullied by Mrs. McClan and Desmond. He’s a nice boy, but he’s not educated at all. He can’t even read! He hasn’t met any other people—”

“He has a right to be King,” said Dido stubbornly. “That is, if he’s who we think he is. And it would let Simon off the hook.”

“So you and Simon could get married? You don’t think,” said Piers, “that Simon makes a better king than Fred?”

Dido bit her lip.

“Do you have to be able to read to be King? After all, before King Aelfred, kings weren’t expected to be able to read.”