Enchanted Pilgrimage

22

When Cornwall knocked, the witch opened the door. "Ai," she said to Mary, "so you came back again. I always knew you would. Since the day I took you down that road, I knew you'd come back to us. I took you down the road into the Borderland, and I patted you on your little fanny and told you to go on. And you went on, without ever looking back, but you didn't fool me none. I knew you would be back once you'd growed a little, for there was something fey about you, and you would not fit into the world of humans. You could never fool Old Granny…»

"I was only three years old," said Mary, "maybe less than that. And you are not my granny. You never were my granny. I never till right now laid my eyes upon you."

"You were too young to know," said the witch, "or knowing, to remember. I would have kept you here, but the times were parlous and unsettled, and it seemed best to take you from enchanted ground. Although it wrenched my heart to do so, for I loved you, child."

"This is all untrue," Mary said to Cornwall. "I have no memory of her. She was not my granny. She was not…"

"But," said the witch, "I did take you down the road into the Borderland. I took your trusting little hand in mine and as I hobbled down the road, being much crippled with arthritis at the time, you skipped along beside me and you chattered all the way."

"I could not have chattered," Mary said. "I never was a chatterer."

The house was as Mary had described it, an old and rambling house set upon its knoll, and below the knoll, a brook that rambled laughing down the valley, with a stone bridge that spanned its gleaming water. A clump of birch grew at one corner of the house, and down the hill was a lilac hedge, an interrupted hedge that started and ended with no apparent purpose, a hedge that hedged in nothing. Beyond the lilacs a clump of boulders lay and in the land across the creek was a marshy pool.

The rest of the party waited by the stone bridge, looking up the hill toward the porch, where Mary and Cornwall stood before the open door.

"You always were a perverse child," said the witch. "Always in the way of playing nasty tricks, although that was just a childish way that many children have, and no flaw in character. You pestered the poor ogre almost unendurably, popping sticks and stones and clods down into his burrow so that the poor thing got scarcely any sleep. You may be surprised to know that he remembers you rather more kindly than you have the right to deserve. When he heard you were on your way, he expressed the hope of seeing you. Although, being an ogre with great dignity, he cannot bring himself to come calling on you; if you want to see him, you must wait upon him."

"I remember the ogre," said Mary, "and how we threw stuff down into his den. I don't think I ever saw him, although I may have. I've often thought about him and at times have wondered if there really were an ogre. People said there was, but I never saw him, so I couldn't know."

"Indeed, there is an ogre," said the witch, "and most agreeable. But I forget myself. I was so overcome with seeing you again, my dear, that I fear I have been impolite. I have left you standing here when I should have invited you in to tea. And I have not addressed one word of welcome to this handsome gallant who serves as your escort. Although," she said, addressing Cornwall, "I do not know who you are, there have been marvelous tales about you and the members of your company. And you as well," she said to Mary. "I see you no longer have the horn of the unicorn. Don't tell me you lost it."

"No, I have not lost it," said Mary. "But it was an awkward thing to carry. It seemed so much like bragging to carry it all the time. I left it with the others who are waiting at the bridge."

"Ah, well," said the witch, "I'll see it later on. Once I'd heard of it, I had counted so much on the sight of it. You'll show it to me, won't you?"

"Of course I will," said Mary.

The old crone tittered. "I have never seen the horn of a unicorn," she said, "and strange as it may seem, I have never seen a unicorn. The beasts are very rare, even in this land. But let us now go in and sit us down to tea. Just the three of us, I think. It'll be so much cozier with just the three of us. I'll send a basket of cakes down to those waiting at the bridge. The kind of cakes, my dear, that you always liked—the ones with seeds in them."

She opened the door wider and made a motion with her hand, signaling them to come in. The entry hall was dark, and there was a dankness in it.

Mary halted. "It doesn't feel the same," she said. "Not the way I remember it. This house once was bright and full of light and laughter."

"It's your imagination," the witch said sharply. "You always were the one with imagination. You were the one who dreamed up the games you played with that silly troll who lived underneath the bridge and that daffy Fiddlefingers." She cackled with remembering. "You could talk them into anything. They hated mud-pie making, but they made mud pies for you. And they were scared striped of the ogre, but when you threw stones down into his burrow, they went along and threw their share of stones. You say that I'm a witch, with my humped back and my arthritic hobble and my long and crooked nose, but you are a witch as well, my darling, and a better one than I am."

"Hold there," said Cornwall, his hand going to the sword hilt. "Milady's not a witch."

The old crone reached out a bony hand and laid it gently on his arm. "It's a compliment I pay her, noble sir. There is nothing better said of any woman than that she's a witch."

Grumbling, Cornwall let his arm drop. "Watch your tongue," he said.

She smiled at them with snaggled teeth and led the way down the dark, damp, and musty hall into a small room carpeted with an old and faded rug. Against one wall stood a tiny fireplace blackened by the smoke of many fires. Sunlight poured through wide windows to illuminate the shabbiness of the place. A row of beaten-up house-plants stood on a narrow shelf below the windowsill. In the center of the room stood a magnificently carved table covered by a scarf, and on the scarf was a silver tea service.

She motioned them to chairs, then sat down behind the steaming teapot.

Reaching for a cup, she said, "Now we may talk of many things, of the olden days and how times have changed and what you might be doing here."

"What I want to talk about," said Mary, "are my parents. I know nothing of them. I want to know who they were and why they were here and what happened to them."

"They were good people," said the witch, "but very, very strange. Not like other humans. They did not look down their noses at the people of the Wasteland. They had no evil in them, but a great depth of understanding. They would talk with everyone they met. And the questions they could ask—oh, land sake, the questions they could ask. I often wondered why they might be here, for they seemed to have no business. A vacation, they told me, but it is ridiculous to think that sophisticated people such as they should come to a place like this for their vacation. If it was a vacation, it was a very long one; they were here almost a year. Doing nothing all that time but walking around the countryside and being nice to everyone they met. I can remember the day they came walking down the road and across the bridge, the two of them, my dear, with you between them, toddling along, with each of them holding one of your hands, as if you might need their help, although you never needed any help, then or any other time. Imagine the nerve of them and the innocence of them, two humans walking calmly down a Wasteland road, with their baby toddling between them, walking as if they were out for a stroll of an April afternoon. If there were anyone here in all this land who might have done them any harm, they would have been so shook up by the innocent, trusting arrogance of them that they would have stayed their hand. I can remember them coming up to this house and knocking on the door, asking if they might stay with me and I, of course, good-hearted creature that I am, who finds it hard to say no to anyone…"

"You know," said Mary to the witch, "I think that you are lying. I don't believe this is your house. I can't think my parents were ever guests of yours. But I suppose the truth's not in you, and there is no use in trying."

"But, my darling," said the witch, "it all is solemn truth. Why should I lie to you?"

"Let us not fall into argument," said Cornwall. "Truth or not, let's get on with it. What finally happened to them?"

"They went into the Blasted Plain," said the witch. "I don't know why they did this. They never told me anything. They were pleasant enough, of course, but they never told me anything at all. They left this child of theirs with me and went into the Blasted Plain and they've not been heard of since."

"That was when you took Mary, if it was you who took her, into the Borderland?"

"There were ugly rumors. I was afraid to have her stay."

"What kind of rumors?"

"I can't recall them now."

"You see," said Mary, "she is lying."

"Of course she is," said Cornwall, "but we don't know how much. A little or a lot, all of it, or only some of it."

"I take it sadly," said the witch, dabbing at her eyes, "to sit at my own tea table, serving tea to guests who doubt my honest word."

"Did they leave any papers?" Mary asked. "Any letters? Anything at all?"

"Now, that is strange," said the witch, "that you should ask. There was another one who asked, another human. A man who goes by the name of Jones. I told him that I knew of none. Not that I would have looked; I am not a snoop. No matter what else I may be called, I am not a snoop. I told him there might be some on the second floor. That I wouldn't know. Crippled as I am, I cannot climb the stairs. Oh, I know that you think a witch need but use her broomstick to go anywhere she wishes. But you humans do not comprehend. There are certain rules…"

"Did Jones look upstairs?"

"Yes, indeed he did. He told me he found nothing, although he has shifty eyes, and one can never know if he told the truth. I remember asking him and…"

The front door burst open, and feet came pounding down the hall. Gib skidded to a stop when he burst into the room.

"Mark," he said to Cornwall, "we've got trouble. Beckett has showed up."

Cornwall sprang to his feet. "Beckett! What about the Hellhounds?"

"He escaped from them," said Gib.

"That's impossible," said Cornwall. "How could he escape from them? Where is he now?"

"He's down by the bridge," said Gib. "He came running up to us, naked as a jaybird. Bromeley got a towel for him—"

The door banged, and feet pattered rapidly down the hallway. It was Sniveley, panting with his running.

"It's a trick!" he yelled. "We can't let him stay here. The Hellhounds let him escape. Now they'll say we're sheltering him, and they'll come swarming in here—"

"Pouf," said the witch. "These pitiful little puppy dogs. Let me get my broom. There ain't no Hellhounds getting gay with me. They may act vicious, but give them a whack or two…"

"We can't turn him back to them," said Cornwall. "Not after what we saw last night. He has a right to ask protection of us. After all, he's a Christian, although a very shabby one."

Cornwall hastened down the hall, the others trailing after him.

Outside, coming up the hill toward the house, was a motley procession. Beckett, with a towel wrapped about his middle, was in front. He was not proceeding by himself. Hal walked behind him, and Hal's bowstring was looped about his neck. Hal held the bow and, twisting it, drew the cord close about his captive's throat. Behind the two came Oliver and a bunched-up group of trolls, brownies, gnomes, and fairies.

Hal made a thumb over his shoulder. "We got company," he said, speaking to Cornwall, but not taking his eyes off Beckett.

Cornwall looked in the direction of the thumb. On the top of the barren hill across the brook sat a row of Hellhounds, not doing anything, with the look of not being about to do anything—just sitting there and watching, waiting for whatever was about to happen.

Coming down the hillside, heading for the bridge, was a giant, although a very sloppy giant. From where Cornwall stood on the gallery that ran before the house, he seemed to be all of twelve feet tall, but large as his body was, his head was small. It was no larger, Cornwall thought, than the head of an ordinary man, perhaps smaller than that of an ordinary man. And large as the body was, it was not muscular. It was a flabby body, a soft body, with no character to it. The pin-headed giant wore a short kilt and a half shirt that had a strap across one shoulder. He moved slowly, his great splay feet plopping squashily on the ground. His long and flabby arms dangled down, not moving back and forth the way a man's arms usually do when he is walking, but just hanging and joggling with every step he took.

Cornwall came down the steps and started walking down the hill.

"You stay here with Beckett," he told Hal. "I will handle this."

The giant halted short of the bridge. He planted his feet solidly beneath him, and his voice boomed out so that all could hear him.

"I am the messenger of the Hellhounds," he roared. "I speak to all who have no right to be here. I bring you measured warning. Turn back, go back to where you came from. But first you must give up the one who fled."

He stopped and waited for the answer.

Cornwall heard a commotion behind him and swung hastily around. Beckett had broken loose from Hal and was running up the slope to one side of the house, toward a pile of boulders. The bow was still looped around his neck. Hal was racing after him, with others of the crew whooping along behind. Suddenly Beckett swerved and appeared to dive headlong into the earth. He disappeared; the earth appeared to have swallowed him.

The witch, hobbling painfully along, let out a screech. "Now," she screamed, "there'll be sheeted hell to pay. He dived down the ogre's hole."

"Answer me," yelled the giant. "Give me now your answer." Cornwall swung back to face him. "We are simple pilgrims," he shouted. "We came to carry out a sacred trust. We have no wish to cause any trouble. We only seek the Old Ones."

The messenger guffawed. "The Old Ones," he roared, "if you find them, they will put you to the knife. You must be daft to seek them. And no one goes into the Blasted Plain. It is forbidden country. Thus far you have come; no farther will you go. Give up the prisoner and turn back. If you do, we will not harm you. You have safe passage to the Borderland. On that you have our solemn promise."

"We won't go back," yelled Cornwall. "We haven't come this far to turn tail and run. And we'll not give up the prisoner. He has answered sufficiently to you; now it is us he must answer to."

"So be it," bellowed the giant. "Your own blood is now on your hands and not on ours."

"There need be no blood at all," yelled Cornwall. "No blood on any hands. Simply let us through. Once we find the Old Ones, we'll return to our own lands."

"What about the prisoner? He has many miles to run. Much more screaming he must do. The end of agony is not yet for him. He defiled our sacred soil with a marching army. Once, Sir Scholar, that would have meant war to the very hilt. But these days we grow soft and mellow. Be glad we do, and give us back our plaything."

"If you would kill him quickly. Horribly, perhaps, but quickly."

"Why should we do that? In these boring times there is slight amusement, and we must grasp it when we can. Surely you do not begrudge us that."

"If you do not kill him, then I shall."

"Do that," screamed the giant, "and you will take his place."

"That yet is to be seen," said Cornwall.

"You refuse, then, to give him back?"

"I refuse," said Cornwall.

The giant turned about in a lumbering fashion and went clumping up the hill. The row of Hellhounds on the ridgetop did not move.

Up the hill behind Cornwall another commotion erupted. Cornwall spun about. The trolls and goblins and other little people were fleeing in all directions, and a living horror was emerging from the ground beside the boulders.

The witch was screaming, thumping her broomstick on the ground. "I told you there'd be hell to pay," she shrieked. "He went down the ogre's hole. There isn't anyone can play footsie with the ogre."

The ogre by now had backed entirely from the hole and was tug- ging at something, pulling it from the hole. Galloping up the hill, Cornwall saw that the thing the ogre was hauling from the hole was Beckett, who was mewling faintly, clawing at the earth, resisting being drawn forth.

The ogre gave a mighty tug, and Beckett popped out of the hole like a cork from a bottle. Hal's bow, somewhat the worse for wear, was still looped around his throat. The ogre flung him contemptuously aside.

"Have you no respect?" the ogre shouted, not at Beckett alone, but at all of them. "Is not one secure in his own habitation? Must the world come pouring in on him? Why are all of you standing there? Tell me what is going on."

"Sir Ogre," said Cornwall, "we regret this exceedingly. It was a happening furthest from our thoughts. Under no circumstances would we willingly have disturbed your rest."

The ogre was a squat beast, almost toadlike. His eyes were saucers, and his mouth was rimmed with pointed teeth. His body seemed neither fur nor flesh but an earthy filthiness that fell from him in little patches as he moved.

"Such a thing," the ogre said, "has never happened. The people here know better. It would take an outlander to do what this creature did. Although once, long ago, there was a little minx who delighted in dribbling bark and clods of earth and other sundry items down into my burrow. What pleasure she might have gotten out of it I do not understand."

His saucer eyes swiveled around to fasten on Mary. "And if I am not mistaken," he said, "there is the little minx, quite grown now, I see, but the self-same one."

The witch raised her broom. "Back off," she shrilled. "Do not even think of laying your filthy hands on her. She was just a little tyke and she meant no harm. She was only playful and full of brimming spirits, and there is little enough of good-natured playfulness in this land of ours."

Mary said, "I am truly sorry. I had no idea it would disturb you so. You see, we pretended we were afraid of you, and we'd drop in the sticks and stones—as I remember it, very little sticks and stones—then we'd turn and run."

"You," said the ogre, "and that fiddle-footed brownie and Bromeley, the crazy troll—but, then, all trolls are crazy. You thought I did not know, but I did know and chuckled often over it. I suppose you find it hard to believe that I could ever chuckle."

"I did not know," said Mary. "If I had known that you could chuckle, I'd have come visiting and introduced myself."

"Well, now," the ogre said, seating himself on the ground, "you do know now, and this is as good a time as any. Let's do that visiting."

He patted the ground beside him. "Come over here and sit and we'll do some visiting."

The witch made a little shriek of happiness. "You do just that," she said to Mary. "I'll go and get the pot and we'll have some tea."

She turned and scurried off.

Cornwall saw that Hal and Gib had tight hold of Beckett, who lay quite passively on the ground.

"What are we going to do with him?" asked Hal.

"By rights," said Cornwall, "we should chop off his head. Either that or return him to the Hellhounds, an action I find most repulsive."

"I plead mercy," Beckett whined. "As one Christian to another, I most sincerely plead for mercy. You cannot abandon a fellow Christian to this heathen horde."

"You are at best," said Cornwall, "a very sorry Christian. I would choose ten heathens over a Christian such as you. As a man who tried his best to have me killed, I have slight compunction over whatever happens to you."

"But I never," cried Beckett, struggling to sit up, "I never tried to kill you. How could I? I have never set eyes on you. For the love of God, messire…"

"My name is Mark Cornwall, and you did hire men to kill me."

Oliver, popping up beside Cornwall, yelled at him. "You tried to kill him because of a certain manuscript found in the library at Wyalusing. And you would have killed me, too, if you could have managed. There was a certain monk named Oswald, who ran bearing tales to you. He was found, come morning, with his throat slit in an alley."

"But that was long ago!" howled Beckett. "Since I have repented…"

"Repentance is no good," said Cornwall. "Make your choice now. The Hellhounds or the sword. A bastard such as you has no right to live."

"Allow me," said Gib. "It is not right that you should stain the good steel of your blade with the blood of such as this. One stroke of my ax…"

A pair of claws grabbed Cornwall by the arm. "Hold this talk of killing," screeched the witch. "I put my claim on him. It would be a waste of good man-flesh to kill such a lusty specimen. And I have need of him. Many cold nights have gone by since I've had a man to warm my bed."

She thrust herself past Cornwall and bent to examine Beckett. She reached out a claw and chucked him beneath the chin. Beckett's eyes went glassy at the sight of her.

"He isn't worth the trouble," Oliver said to her. "He will be running off as soon as he has a chance. And there are the Hellhounds…"

"Hah!" said the witch, disgusted. "Those little puppy dogs know better than to get gay with me. I'll take my broomstick to them. And as for running off, I'll put a spell on him, and I guarantee there'll be no running off. Aiee, the darling," she keened, "I'll make good use of him. Once I get him under covers, I'll break his lovely back. I'll give him loving such as he's never had before…»

"It seems to me," Cornwall said to Beckett, "that your choices now are three. The Hellhounds or the sword or this…»

"That is utter nonsense," screamed the witch. "He has no choice. You heard me say I lay a claim on him." She made a gesture with her hands, and gibberish flowed from out her mouth. She did a little dance and clicked her heels together. "Now turn him loose," she said.

Hal and Gib let loose of him, and Cornwall backed away. Beckett turned over and got on hands and knees, crawling forward to fawn against the witch.

"Like a goddamn dog," said Cornwall, flabbergasted. "If it had been me…"

"Look at the darling," the witch exclaimed, delighted. "He likes me already." She reached out and patted him on the head. Beckett wriggled in ecstasy. "Come along, my dear," she said.

She turned about and headed for the house, with Beckett gamboling at her heels, still on hands and knees.

While all this had been going on, the others, excited at the tea party, had paid slight attention to it. The witch, assisted by many willing hands, had brought tea and cakes, which had been placed on a table set before the boulders, underneath which the ogre had his burrow.

Cornwall looked about. There was no sign of the sloppy giant or of the Hellhounds. Quite suddenly the place assumed a happy look. The gentle sun of an autumn afternoon shone down on the knoll, and from far below came the murmuring of the stream as it flowed beneath the bridge.

"Where are the horses?" Cornwall asked.

Hal said, "Down beside the stream, in a little meadow, knee-deep in grass and doing justice to it. Sniveley is there, keeping close watch on them."

Coon came scampering three-legged, one front paw clutching a tea cake. Hal reached down and picked him up. Coon settled contentedly in his arms and munched blissfully at the cake.

"I guess it's all over now," said Cornwall. "Let us join the party."

"I keep wondering," said Gib, "how the Hellhounds will react when they find Beckett is beyond their reach."

Cornwall shrugged. "We'll handle that," he said, "when we come to it."