Suldrun's Garden

Chapter 18

WITHIN AND ABOUT THE Forest of Tantrevalles existed a hundred or more fairy shees, each the castle of a fairy tribe. Thripsey Shee on Madling Meadow, little more than a mile within the precincts of the forest, was ruled by King Throbius and his spouse Queen Bossum. His realm included Madling Meadow and as much of the forest surrounding as was consistent with his dignity. The fairies at Thripsey numbered eighty-six. Among them were: BOAB: who used the semblance of a pale green youth with grasshopper wings and antennae. He carried a black quill pen plucked from the tail of a raven and recorded all the events and transactions of the tribe on sheets pressed from lily petals.

TUTTERWIT: an imp who liked to visit human houses and tease the cats. He also liked to peer through windows, moaning and grimacing until someone's attention was engaged, then jerk quickly from sight.

GUNDELINE: a slender maiden of enchanting charm, with flowing lavender hair and green fingernails. She mimed, preened, cut capers, but never spoke, and no one knew her well. She licked saffron from poppy pistils with quick darts of her pointed green tongue.

WONE: she liked to rise early, before dawn, and flavor dew drops with assorted flower nectars.

MURDOCK: a fat brown goblin who tanned mouseskins and wove the down of baby owls into soft gray blankets for fairy children.

FLINK: who forged fairy swords, using techniques of antique force.

He was a great braggart and often sang the ballad celebrating the famous duel he had fought with the goblin Dangott.

SHIMMIR: audaciously she had mocked Queen Bossum and capered silently behind her, mimicking the queen's flouncing gait, while all the fairies sat hunched, hands pressed to mouths, to stop their laughter. In punishment Queen Bossum turned her feet backward and put a carbuncle on her nose.

FALAEL: who manifested himself as a pale brown imp, with the body of a boy and the face of a girl. Falael was incessantly mischievous, and when villagers came to the forest to gather berries and nuts, it was usually Falael who caused their nuts to explode and transformed their strawberries to toads and beetles.

And then there was Twisk, who usually appeared as an orange-haired maiden wearing a gown of gray gauze. One day while wading in the shallows of Tilhilvelly Pond, she was surprised by the troll Mangeon. He seized her about the waist, carried her to the bank, ripped away the gray gauze gown and prepared to make an erotic junction. At the sight of his priapic instrument, which was grotesquely large and covered with warts, Twisk became frantic with fear. By dint of jerks, twists and contortions she foiled the best efforts of the sweating Mangeon. But her strength waned and Mangeon's weight began to grow oppressive. She tried to protect herself with magic, but in her excitement she could remember only a spell used to relieve dropsy in farm animals, which, lacking better, she uttered, and it proved efficacious. Mangeon's massive organ shriveled to the size of a small acorn and became lost in the folds of his great gray belly.

Mangeon uttered a scream of dismay, but Twisk showed no remorse.

Mangeon cried out in fury: "Vixen, you have done me a double mischief, and you shall do appropriate penance."

He took her to a road which skirted the forest. At a crossroads he fashioned a kind of pillory and affixed her to this construction.

Over her head he posted a sign: DO WHAT YOU WILL WITH ME and stood back. "Here you stay until three passersby, be they dolts, lickpennies or great earls, have their way with you, and that is the spell I invoke upon you, so that in the future you may choose to be more accommodating to those who accost you beside Tilhilvelly Pond."

Mangeon sauntered away, and Twisk was left alone.

The first to pass was the knight Sir Jaucinet of Castle Cloud in Dahaut. He halted his horse and appraised the situation with a wondering glance. "'DO WHAT YOU WILL WITH ME,'" he read. "Lady, why do you suffer this indignity?"

"Sir knight, I do not suffer so by choice," said Twisk. "I did not attach myself to the pillory in this position and I did not display the sign."

"Who then is responsible?"

"The troll Mangeon, for his revenge."

"Then, surely, I will help you escape, in any way possible."

Sir Jaucinet dismounted, removed his helmet, showing himself as a flaxen-haired gentleman with long mustaches and of good aspect. He attempted to loosen the bonds which confined Twisk, but to no avail. He said at last: "Lady, these bonds are proof against my efforts."

"In that case," sighed Twisk, "please obey the instruction implicit in the sign. Only after three such encounters will the bonds loosen."

"It is not a gallant act," said Sir Jaucinet. "Still, I will abide by my promise." So saying, he did what he could to assist in her release.

Sir Jaucinet would have stayed to share her vigil and assist her further if need be, but she begged him to leave. "Other travelers might be discouraged from stopping if they saw you here. So you must go, and at once! For the day is waning and I would hope to be home before night."

"This is a lonely road," said Sir Jaucinet. "Still, it is occasionally used by vagabonds and lepers, and good luck may attend you. Lady, I bid you good-day."

Sir Jaucinet adjusted his helm, mounted his horse and departed.

An hour passed while the sun sank into the west. At this time Twisk heard a whistling and presently saw a peasant boy on his way home after a day's work in the fields. Like Sir Jaucinet, he stopped short in amazement, then slowly approached. Twisk smiled at him ruefully. "As you see, sir, I am bound here. I cannot leave and I cannot resist you, no matter what might be your impulse."

"My impulse is simple enough," said the ploughboy. "But I wasn't born yesterday and I want to know how the sign reads."

"It says: Do what you will..."

"Ah then, that's all right. I was fearing it might be either a price or a quarantine."

With no more ado he raised his smock and conjoined to Twisk with rude zest. "And now, madam, if you will excuse me, I must hurry home, as there'll be bacon tonight with the turnips, and you've given me a hunger."

The ploughboy disappeared into the evening, while Twisk in disquiet contemplated the coming of night.

With darkness a chill crept through the air, and an overcast blotted out the stars so that the night was black. Twisk huddled, shivering and miserable, and listened to the sounds of the night with fearful attention.

The hours passed slowly. At midnight Twisk heard a soft sound: the pad of slow footsteps along the road. The footsteps halted, and something which could see through the dark paused to inspect her.

It approached, and even with her fairy vision Twisk could see only a tall outline.

It stood before her and touched her with cold fingers. Twisk spoke in a trembling voice: "Sir? Who are you? May I know your identity?"

The creature made no response. In tremulous terror Twisk held out her hand and felt a garment, like a cloak, which when disturbed wafted forth an unsettling odor.

The creature came close and subjected Twisk to a cold embrace, which left her only half-conscious.

The creature departed along the road and Twisk fell to the ground, soiled but free.

She ran through the dark toward Thripsey Shee. The clouds broke; starlight helped her on her way, and so she arrived home. She cleansed herself as best she could then went to her green velvet chamber to rest.

Fairies, though they never forget an injury, are resilient to misfortune, and Twisk quickly put the experience out of mind, and was only reminded of the event when she found herself large with child.

In her term she gave birth to a red-haired girl which even in its willow basket, under its owl's-down quilt, surveyed the world with a precocious wisdom.

Who—or what—was the father? The uncertainty caused Twisk a nagging vexation, and she took no pleasure in her child. One day Wynes, the woodcutter's wife, brought a baby boy into the forest. Without a second thought Twisk took the blond baby and left in its place the strangely wise girl.

In such fashion did Dhrun, son of Aillas and Suldrun, come to Thripsey Shee, and so, in due course did Madouc, of uncertain parentage, enter the palace Haidion.

Fairy babies are often guilty of peevishness, tantrums and malice.

Dhrun, a merry baby with a dozen endearing traits, charmed the fairies with his amiability, as well as his glossy blond curls, dark blue eyes, and a mouth always pursed and crooked as if on the verge of a grin. He was named Tippit, showered with kisses and fed nuts, flower nectar and grass-seed bread.

Fairies are impatient with awkwardness; Dhrun's education proceeded quickly. He learned flower-lore and the sentiments of herbs; he climbed trees and explored all of Madling Meadow, from Grassy Knoll to Twankbow Water. He learned the language of the land as well as the secret language of the fairies, which so often is mistaken for bird-calls.

Time in a fairy fort moves at a rapid rate, and a sidereal year was eight years in the life of Dhrun. The first half of this time was happy and uncomplicated. When he might be said to have reached the age of five (such determinations being rather indefinite), he put the question to Twisk, toward whom he felt as he might toward an indulgent, if flighty, sister. "Why can't I have wings like Digby, and fly? It's something, if you please, that I would like to do."

Twisk, sitting in the grass with a plait of cowslips, made a large gesture. "Flying is for fairy children. You are not quite a fairy, though you're my adorable Tippit, and I shall weave these cowslips into your hair and you will seem ever so handsome, far more than Digby, with his sly fox-face."

Dhrun persisted. "Still, if I am not quite a fairy, what am I?"

"Well, you are something very grand, that is sure: perhaps a prince of the royal court; and your name is really Dhrun." She had learned this fact in a strange fashion. Curious as to the condition of her red-haired daughter, Twisk had visited the cottage of Graithe and Wynes, and had witnessed the coming of King Casmir's deputation. Afterwards she lay hidden in the thatch, listening to the lamentations of Wynes for the lost baby Dhrun.

Dhrun was not entirely pleased with the information. "I think that I would rather be a fairy."

"We shall have to see about that," said Twisk, jumping to her feet. "For now, you are Prince Tippit, Lord of all cowslips."

For a period all was as before, and Dhrun put the unwelcome knowledge to the back of his mind. King Throbius, after all, wielded marvelous magic; in due course, if asked nicely, King Throbius would make him a fairy.

A single individual of the shee showed him animosity: this was Falael, with the girl's face and the boy's body, whose mind seethed with ingenious mischief. He marshaled two armies of mice and dressed them in splendid uniforms. The first army wore red and gold; the second wore blue and white with silver helmets. They marched bravely upon each other from opposite sides of the meadow and fought a great battle, while the fairies of Thripsey Shee applauded deeds of valor and wept for dead heroes.

Falael also had a gift for music. He assembled an orchestra of hedgehogs, weasels, crows and lizards and trained them in the use of musical instruments. So skillfully did they play and so melodious were their tunes that King Throbius allowed them to play at the Great Pavanne of the Vernal Equinox. Falael thereupon tired of the orchestra. The crows took flight; two weasel bassoonists attacked a hedgehog who had been beating his drum with too much zeal, and the orchestra dissolved.

Falael, from boredom, next transformed Dhrun's nose into a long green eel which, by swinging about, was able to transfix Dhrun with a quizzical stare. Dhrun ran to Twisk for succor; she indignantly complained to King Throbius, who set matters right and for punishment condemned Falael to utter silence for a week and a day: a sad penalty for the verbose Falael.

Upon conclusion of his punishment Falael remained silent three more days for sheer perversity. On the fourth day he approached Dhrun. "Through your spite I incurred humiliation: I, Falael of the many excellences! Are you now puzzled by my displeasure?"

Dhrun spoke with dignity: "I attached no eel to your nose; remember that!"

"I acted only in fun, and why should you wish to blight my beautiful face? In contrast, your face is like a handful of dough with two prunes for eyes. It is a coarse face, an arena for stupid thoughts. Who could expect better of a mortal?" In triumph Falael leapt in the air, turned a triple somersault and striking a pose drifted away across the meadow.

Dhrun sought out Twisk. "Am I truly a mortal? Can I never be a fairy?"

Twisk inspected him a moment. "You are a mortal, yes. You never will be a fairy."

Thereafter Dhrun's life insensibly altered. The easy innocence of the old ways became strained; the fairies looked at him sidelong; every day he felt more isolated.

Summer came to Madling Meadow. One morning Twisk approached Dhrun, and, in a voice like the tinkle of silver bells, said, "The time has come; you must leave the shee and make your own way in the world."

Dhrun stood heartbroken, with tears running down his cheeks. Twisk said: "Your name now is Dhrun. You are the son of a prince and a princess. Your mother is disappeared from the living, and of your father I know nothing, but it will serve no purpose to seek him out."

"But where shall I go?"

"Follow the wind! Go where fortune leads you!"

Dhrun turned away and with tears blinding his eyes started to leave.

"Wait!" called Twisk. "All are gathered to bid you farewell. You shall not go without our gifts."

The fairies of Thripsey Shee, unwontedly subdued, bade Dhrun farewell. King Throbius spoke: "Tippit, or Dhrun, as you must now be known, the time has come. Now you grieve at the parting, because we are real and true and dear, but soon you will forget us, and we will become like flickers in the fire. When you are old you will wonder at the strange dreams of your childhood."

The fairies of the shee came crowding around Dhrun, crying and laughing together. They dressed him in fine clothes: a dark green doublet with silver buttons, blue breeches of stout linen twill, green stockings, black shoes, a black cap with a rolled brim, pointed bill and scarlet plume.

The blacksmith Flink gave Dhrun a fairy sword. "The name of this sword is Dassenach. It will grow as you grow, and always match your stature. Its edge will never fail and it will come to your hand whenever you call its name!"

Boab placed a locket around his neck. "This is a talisman against fear. Wear this black stone always and you will never lack courage."

Nismus brought him a set of pipes. "Here is music. When you play, heels will fly and you will never lack jolly companionship."

King Throbius and Queen Bossum both kissed Dhrun on the forehead.

The queen gave him a small purse containing a gold crown, a silver florin and a copper penny. "This is a magic purse," she told him.

"It will never go empty, and better, if you ever give a coin and want it back, you need only tap the purse and the coin will fly back to you."

"Now step bravely forth," said King Throbius. "Go your way and do not look back, on pain of seven years bad luck, for such is the manner one must leave a fairy shee."

Dhrun turned away and marched across Madling Meadow, eyes steadfastly fixed on the way he must go. Falael, sitting somewhat aside, had taken no part in the farewells. Now he sent after Dhrun a bubble of sound, which no one could hear. It wafted across the meadow and burst upon Dhrun's ear, to startle him. "Dhrun! Dhrun!

One moment!"

Dhrun halted and looked back, only to discover an empty meadow echoing with Falael's taunting laughter. Where was the shee, where the pavilions, the proud standards with the billowing gonfalons?

All to be seen was a low mound in the center of the meadow, with a stunted oak tree growing from the top.

Troubled, Dhrun turned away from the meadow. Would King Throbius truly visit seven years bad luck upon him when the fault lay with Falael? Fairy law was often inflexible.

A flotilla of summer clouds covered the sun and the forest became gloomy. Dhrun lost his sense of direction and instead of traveling south to the edge of the forest, he wandered first west, then gradually around to the north and ever deeper into the woods: under ancient oaks with gnarled boles and great outflung branches, across mossy outcrops of stone, beside quiet streams fringed by ferns, and so the day passed. Toward sunset he made a bed of fern and bracken, and when darkness came he bedded himself under the ferns. For a long while he lay awake listening to the sounds of the forest. Of animals he felt no fear; they would sense the presence of fairy-stuff and give him a wide berth. Other creatures wandered the woods, and if one should scent him, what then? Dhrun refused to consider the possibilities. He touched the talisman which hung around his neck. "A great relief to be protected from fear," he told himself. "Otherwise I might not be able to sleep for anxiety."

At last his eyes grew heavy, and he slept.

The clouds broke; a half-moon sailed the sky and moonlight filtered through the leaves to the forest floor, and so passed the night.

At dawn Dhrun stirred and sat up in his nest of fronds. He stared here and there, then remembered his banishment from the shee. He sat disconsolate, arms around knees, feeling lonely and lost...

Far off through the forest he heard a bird call, and listened attentively... It was a bird only, not fairy speech. Dhrun took himself from his couch and brushed himself clean. Nearby he found a ledge growing thick with strawberries and he made a good breakfast, and presently his spirits rose. Perhaps it was all for the best. Since he was not a fairy, it was high time that he should be making his way in the world of men. Was he not, after all, the son of a prince and princess? He need only discover his parents, and all would be well.

He pondered the forest. Yesterday he undoubtedly had taken the wrong turning; which direction then was correct? Dhrun knew little of the lands surrounding the forest, nor had he learned to read directions by the sun. He set off at a slant and presently came to a stream with the semblance of a path along its bank.

Dhrun halted, to look and listen. Paths meant traffic; in the forest such traffic might well be baleful. It might be the better part of wisdom to cross the stream, and continue through the untraveled forest. On the other hand, a path must lead somewhere, and if he conducted himself with caution, he could surely avoid danger. And, after all, where was the danger which he could not face down and conquer, with the aid of his talisman and his good sword Dassenach?

Dhrun threw back his shoulders, set off along the path, which, slanting into the northeast, took him ever deeper into the forest.

He walked two hours, discovering along the way a clearing planted with plum and apricot trees, which had long gone wild.

Dhrun inspected the clearing. It seemed deserted and quiet. Bees flew among buttercups, red clover and purslane; nowhere was there a sign of habitation. Still Dhrun stood back, deterred by a whole host of subconscious warnings. He called out: "Whoever owns this fruit, please listen to me. I am hungry; I would like to pick ten apricots and ten plums. Please, may I do so?"

Silence.

Dhrun called: "If you do not forbid me, I will consider the fruit to be a gift, for which my thanks."

From behind a tree not thirty feet away hopped a troll, with a narrow forehead and a great red nose from which sprouted a mustache of nose-hairs. He carried a net and a wooden pitchfork.

"Thief! I forbid you my fruit! Had you plucked a single apricot your life would have been mine! I would have captured you and fattened you on apricots and sold you to the ogre Arbogast! For ten apricots and ten plums I demand a copper penny."

"A good price, for fruit otherwise going to waste," said Dhrun.

"Will you not be paid with my thanks?"

"Thanks put no turnips in the pot. A copper coin or dine on grass."

"Very well," said Dhrun. He took the copper coin from his purse and tossed it to the troll, who gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Ten apricots, ten plums: no more; and it would be an act of greed to select only the choicest."

Dhrun picked ten good apricots and ten plums while the troll counted the score. When he plucked the last plum, the troll shouted: "No more; be off with you!"

Dhrun sauntered along the trail eating the fruit. When he had finished, he drank water from the stream and continued along the way. After half a mile he stopped, tapped the purse. When he looked inside the penny had returned.

The stream widened to become a pond, shaded under four majestic oaks.

Dhrun pulled some young rushes, washed their crisp white roots. He found cress and wild lettuce, and made a meal of the fresh sharp salad, then continued along the path.

The stream joined a river; Dhrun could proceed no further without crossing one or the other. He noticed a neat wooden bridge spanning the stream, but again, impelled by caution, he halted before setting foot on the structure.

No one could be seen, nor could he discover any evidence that passage might be restricted. "If not, well and good," Dhrun told himself. "Still, it is better that first I ask permission."

He called out: "Bridge-keeper, ho! I want to use the bridge!"

There was no response. Dhrun, however, thought he heard rustling sounds from under the bridge.

"Bridge-keeper! If you forbid my passage, make yourself known!

Otherwise I will cross the bridge and pay you with my thanks."

From the deep shade under the bridge hopped a furious troll, wearing purple fustian. He was even more ugly than the previous troll, with warts and wens protruding from his forehead, which hung like a crag over a little red nose with the nostrils turned forward. "What is all this yammer? Why do you disturb my rest?"

"I want to cross the bridge."

"Set a single foot upon my valuable bridge and I will put you in my basket. To cross this bridge you must pay a silver florin."

"That is a very dear toll."

"No matter. Pay as do all decent folk, or turn back the way you have come."

"If I must, I must." Dhrun opened his purse, took out the silver florin and tossed it to the troll, who bit at it and thrust it into his pouch. "Go your way, and in the future make less noise about it."

Dhrun crossed the bridge and continued along the path. For a space the trees thinned and sunlight warmed his shoulders, to cheerful effect. It was not so bad after all, being footloose and independent! Especially with a purse which retrieved money spent unwillingly. Dhrun now tapped the purse, and the coin returned, marked by the troll's teeth. Dhrun went on his way, whistling a tune.

Trees again shrouded the path; to one side a knoll rose steeply above the path from a thicket of flowering myrtle and white dimbleflower.

A sudden startling outcry; out on the path behind him sprang two great black dogs, slavering and snarling. Chains constrained them; they lunged against the chains, jerking, rearing, gnashing their teeth. Appalled, Dhrun jumped around, Dassenach in hand, ready to defend himself. Cautiously he backed away, but with a great roar two more dogs, as savage as the first pair, lunged at his back and Dhrun had to jump for his life.

He found himself trapped between two pairs of raving beasts, each more anxious than his fellows to snap the chain and hurl himself at Dhrun's throat.

Dhrun bethought himself of his talisman. "Remarkable that I am not terrified!" he told himself in a quavering voice. "Well, then, I must prove my mettle and kill these horrid creatures!"

He flourished his sword Dassenach. "Dogs beware! I am ready to end your evil lives!"

From above came a peremptory call. The dogs fell silent and stood rigid in ferocious attitudes. Dhrun looked up to see a small house built of timbers on a ledge ten feet above the road. On the porch stood a troll who seemed to combine all the repulsive aspects of the first two. He wore snuff-brown garments, black boots with iron buckles and an odd conical hat tilted to one side. He called out furiously: "Harm my dogs at your peril! So much as a scratch and I will truss you in ropes and deliver you to Arbogast!"

"Order the dogs from the path!" cried Dhrun. "I will gladly go my way in peace!"

"It is not so easy! You disturbed their rest and mine as well with your whistling and chirrups; you should have passed more quietly!

Now you must pay a stern penalty: a gold crown, at the very least!"

"It is far too much," said Dhrun, "but my time is valuable, and I am forced to pay." He extracted the gold crown from his purse and tossed it up to the troll who hefted it in his hand to test its weight. "Well then, I suppose I must relent. Dogs, away!"

The dogs slunk into the shrubbery and Dhrun slipped past with a tingling skin. He ran at full speed down the trail for as long as he was able, then halted, tapped the purse and went his way.

A mile passed and the path joined a road paved with brown bricks.

Odd to find such a fine road in the depths of the forest, thought Dhrun. With one direction as good as the other, Dhrun turned left.

For an hour Dhrun marched along the road, while rays of sunlight slanted through the foliage at an ever lower angle.'.. He stopped short. A vibration in the air: thud, thud, thud. Dhrun jumped from the road and hid behind a tree. Along the road came an ogre, rocking from side to side on heavy bowed legs. He stood fifteen feet tall; his arms and torso, like his legs, were knotted with wads of muscle! His belly thrust forward in a paunch. A great crush hat sheltered a gray face of surpassing ugliness. On his back he carried a wicker basket containing a pair of children.

Away down the road marched the ogre, and the thud-thud-thud of his footsteps became muffled in the distance.

Dhrun returned to the road beset by a dozen emotions, the strongest a strange sentiment which caused him a loose feeling in the bowels and a drooping of the jaw. Fear? Certainly not! His talisman protected him from so unmanly an emotion. What then?

Rage, evidently, that Arbogast the ogre should so persecute human children.

Dhrun set out after the ogre. There was not far to go. The road rose over a little hill, then dipped down into a meadow. At the center stood Arbogast's hall, a great grim structure of gray stone, with a roof of green copper plates.

Before the hall the ground had been tilled and planted with cabbage, leeks, turnips, and onions, with currant bushes growing to the side. A dozen children, aged from six to twelve, worked in the garden under the vigilant eye of an overseer boy, perhaps fourteen years old. He was black-haired and thick-bodied, with an odd face: heavy and square above, then slanting in to a foxy mouth and a small sharp chin. He carried a rude whip, fashioned from a willow switch, with a cord tied to the end. From time to time he cracked the whip to urge greater zeal upon his charges. As he stalked around the garden, he issued orders and threats: "Now then, Arvil, get your hands dirty; don't be shy! Every weed must be pulled today. Bertrude, do you have problems? Do the weeds evade you? Quick now! The task must be done!... Not so hard on that cabbage, Pode! Cultivate the soil, don't destroy the plant!"

He pretended to notice Arbogast, and saluted. "Good day, your honor; all goes well here, no fear as to that when Nerulf is on the job."

Arbogast turned up the basket, to tumble a pair of girls out on the turf. One was blonde, the other dark; and each about twelve years old.

Arbogast pinched an iron ring around each girl's neck. He spoke in a rumbling bellow: "Now! Run away as you like, and learn what the others learned!"

"Quite right, sir, quite right!" called Nerulf from the garden.

"No one dares to leave you, sir! And if they did, trust me to catch them!"

Arbogast paid him no heed. "To work!" he bellowed at the girls. "I like fine cabbages; see to it!" He lumbered across the meadow to his hall. The great portal opened; he entered and the portal remained open behind him.

The sun sank low; the children worked more slowly; even Nerulf's threats and whip-snappings took on a listless quality. Presently the children stopped work altogether and stood in a huddle, darting furtive looks toward the hall. Nerulf raised his whip on high. "Formation now, neat and orderly! March!"

The children formed themselves into a straggling double line and marched into the hall. The portal closed behind them with a fateful clang! that ech6ed across the meadow.

Twilight blurred the landscape. From windows high at the side of the hall came the yellow light of lamps.

Dhrun cautiously approached the hall, and, after touching his talisman, climbed the rough stone wall to one of the windows, using cracks and crevices as a ladder. He drew himself up to the broad stone sill. The shutters stood ajar; inching forward, Dhrun looked across the entire main hall, which was illuminated by six lamps in wall brackets and flames in the great fireplace.

Arbogast sat at a table, drinking wine from a pewter stoup. At the far end of the room the children sat against the wall, watching Arbogast with horrified fascination. At the hearth the carcass of a child, stuffed with onions, trussed and spitted, roasted over the fire. Nerulf turned the spit and from time to time basted " the meat with oil and drippings. Cabbages and turnips boiled in a great black cauldron.

Arbogast drank wine and belched. Then, taking up a diabolo, he spread his massive legs, and rolled the spindle back and forth, chortling at the motion. The children sat huddled, watching with wide eyes and lax mouths. One of the small boys began to whimper.

Arbogast turned him a cold glance. Nerulf called out in a voice pointedly soft and melodious: "Silence, Daffin!"

In due course Arbogast made his meal, throwing bones into the fire, while the children dined on cabbage soup.

For a few minutes Arbogast drank wine, dozed and belched. Then he swung around in his chair and regarded the children, who at once pressed closer together. Again Daffin whimpered and again he was chided by Nerulf, who nevertheless seemed as uneasy as any of the others.

Arbogast reached into a high cabinet and brought two bottles down to the table, the first tall and green, the second squat and blackpurple.

Next, he set out two mugs, one green, the other purple, and into each he poured a dollop of wine. To the green mug he carefully added a drop from the green bottle, and into the purple mug, a drop from the black-purple bottle.

Arbogast now rose to his feet; wheezing and grunting he hunched across the room. He kicked Nerulf into the corner, then stood inspecting the group. He pointed a finger. "You two, step forward!"

Trembling, the two girls he had captured that day moved away from the wall. Dhrun, watching from the window, thought them both very pretty, especially the blonde girl, though the dark-haired girl was perhaps half a year closer to womanhood.

Arbogast spoke in a voice now foolishly arch and jovial. "So here: a pair of fine young pullets, choice and tasty. How do you call yourselves? You!" He pointed at the blonde girl. "Your name?"

"Glyneth."

"And you?"

"Farence."

"Lovely, lovely. Both charming! Who is to be the lucky one?

Tonight it shall be Farence."

He seized the dark-haired girl, hoisted her up to his great twentyfoot bed. "Off with your clothes!"

Farence started to cry and beg for mercy. Arbogast gave a ferocious snort of mingled annoyance and pleasure. "Hurry! Or I'll tear them from your back and then you'll have no clothes to wear!"

Stifling her sobs, Farence stepped from her smock. Arbogast chattered in delight. "A pretty sight! What is so toothsome as a nude maiden, shy and delicate?" He went to the table and drank the contents of the purple cup. At once he dwindled in stature to become a squat powerful troll, no taller than Nerulf. Without delay, he hopped up on the bed, discarded his own garments, and busied himself with erotic activities.

Dhrun watched all from the window, his knees limp, the blood pulsing in his throat. Disgust? Horror? Naturally not fear, and he touched the talisman gratefully. Nonetheless the emotion, whatever its nature, had a curiously debilitating effect.

Arbogast was indefatigable. Long after Farence became limp he continued his activity. Finally he collapsed upon the couch with a groan of satisfaction, and instantly fell asleep.

Dhrun was visited by an amusing notion, and, insulated from fear, was not thereby deterred. He lowered himself to the top of Arbogast's high-backed chair, and jumped down to the table. He poured the contents of the green cup out on the floor, added new wine and two drops from the purple bottle. He then climbed back to the window and hid behind the curtain.

The night passed and the fire burned low. Arbogast snored; the children were silent save for an occasional whimper.

The gray light of morning seeped through the windows. Arbogast awoke. He lay for a minute, then hopped to the floor. He visited the privy, voided, and returning, went to the hearth, where he blew up the fire and piled on fresh fuel. When the flames roared and crackled, he went to his table and climbing upon the chair, took up the green mug and swallowed its contents. Instantly, by virtue of the drops which Dhrun had mixed into the wine, he shrank in size until he was only a foot tall. Dhrun at once leapt down from the window, to chair, to table, to floor. He drew his sword and cut the scurrying squawking creature into pieces. These pieces squirmed and struggled and sought to join themselves, and Dhrun could not relax from his work. Glyneth ran forward and seizing the fresh cut pieces threw them into the fire, where they burnt to ash and so were destroyed. Meanwhile Dhrun placed the head into a pot and clapped on the cover, whereupon the head tried to pull itself out by means of tongue and teeth.

The remaining children came forward. Dhrun, wiping his sword on Arbogast's greasy crush hat said: "You need fear no - more harm; Arbogast is helpless."

Nerulf licked his lips and stalked forward. "And who, may I ask, are you?"

"My name is Dhrun; I am a chance passerby."

"I see." Nerulf drew a deep breath and squared his meaty shoulders. He was, thought Dhrun, a person not at all prepossessing, with his coarse features, thick mouth, pointed chin and narrow black eyes. "Well then," said Nerulf, "please accept our compliments. It was exactly the plan I was about to carry out myself, as a matter of fact; still, you made quite a decent job of it. Now, let me think. We've got to reorganize; how shall we proceed? First, this mess must be cleaned. Pode and Hloude: mops and buckets. A good job now; I don't want to see a single smear when you're done. Dhrun, you can help them. Gretina, Zoel, Glyneth, Bertrude: explore the larder, bring out the best and prepare us all a fine breakfast. Lossamy and Fulp: carry all of Arbogast's clothes outside, also the blankets, and perhaps the place will smell better."

While Nerulf issued further orders, Dhrun climbed to the table top. He poured an ounce of wine into both green and purple mugs, and added to each a drop from the appropriate bottle. He swallowed the green potion, and at once became twelve feet tall. He jumped to the floor and seized the astonished Nerulf by the iron ring around his neck. From the table Dhrun brought the purple potion and thrust it into Nerulf's mouth. "Drink!"

Nerulf attempted to protest, but was allowed no choice. "Drink!"

Nerulf gulped the potion and shrank to become a burly imp about two feet tall. Dhrun prepared to resume his ordinary size but Glyneth stopped him. "First remove the iron rings from about our necks."

One by one the children filed past Dhrun. He nicked the metal with his blade Dassenach, then twisted once, twice, and broke the rings apart. When all had been liberated, Dhrun reduced to his normal height. With great care he wrapped the two bottles and tucked them into his pouch. The other children meanwhile had found sticks and were beating Nerulf with intense satisfaction. Nerulf howled, danced and begged for mercy, but found none and was beaten until he was black and blue. For a few moments Nerulf was allowed surcease, until one of the children was reminded anew of some past cruelty and Nerulf was beaten again.

The girls declared themselves willing to prepare a bountiful feast, of ham and sausages, candied currants, partridge pie, fine bread and butter and gallons of Arbogast's best wine, but they refused to start until the fireplace was cleared of ash and bones: all too vivid mementos of their servitude. Everyone worked with a will, and soon the hall was comparatively clean.

At noon a great banquet was served. By some means Arbogast's head had managed to raise itself to the rim of the pot, to which it hooked its teeth and pressed up the lid with its forehead, and with its two eyes watched from the darkness inside the pot as the children reveled in the best the castle's larder could afford.

When they had finished their meal, Dhrun noticed that the lid had fallen from the pot, which now was empty. He set up a shout and all ran looking for the missing head. Pode and Daffin discovered it halfway across the meadow, pulling itself forward by snapping at the ground with its teeth. They knocked it back toward the hall, and in the front yard built a kind of gallows, from which they suspended the head by an iron wire tied to the mud-colored hair. At the insistence of all, the better that they could regard their erstwhile captor, Dhrun forced a drop of green potion into the red mouth, and the head resumed its natural size, and even issued a set of rasping orders, which were joyfully ignored.

While the head watched aghast, the children piled faggots below and brought fire from the hearth to set the faggots ablaze. Dhrun brought out his pipes and played while the children danced in a circle. The head roared and supplicated but was allowed no mercy.

At last the head was reduced to ash, and Arbogast the ogre was no more.

Fatigued by the day's events, the children trooped back into the hall. They supped on porridge and soup of cabbage, with good crusty bread and more of Arbogast's wine; then they prepared to sleep. A few of the more hardy climbed up on Arbogast's bed, desipite the rancid stench; the others sprawled before the fire.

Dhrun, weary in every bone from his vigil of the night before, not to mention his deeds of the day, nonetheless found himself unable to sleep. He lay before the fire, head propped on his hands and considered his adventures. He had not fared too badly. Perhaps seven years of bad luck had not been inflicted upon him after all.

The fire burned low. Dhrun went to the wood-box for logs. He dropped them upon the coals, to send showers of red sparks veering up the chimney. The flames flared high, and glinted back from the eyes of Glyneth, who also sat awake. She joined Dhrun in front of the fireplace. The two sat clasping their knees and looking into the flames. Glyneth spoke in a husky half-whisper: "No one has troubled to thank you for saving our lives. I do so now. Thank you, dear Dhrun; you are gallant and kind and remarkably brave."

Dhrun said in a wistful voice: "I would hope to be gallant and kind, since I am the son of a prince and a princess, but as for bravery, I can honorably claim none."

"Sheer nonsense! Only a person of great bravery would have done as you did."

Dhrun gave a bitter laugh. He touched his talisman. "The fairies knew my fearfulness and gave me this amulet of courage; without it I could have dared nothing."

"I'm not at all certain of that," said Glyneth. "Amulet or none, I consider you very brave."

"That is good to hear," said Dhrun mournfully. "I wish it were so."

"All this to the side, why would the fairies give you such a gift, or any gift whatever? They are not ordinarily so generous."

"I lived with the fairies all my days at Thripsey Shee, on Madling Meadow. Three days ago they cast me out, though many of them loved me and gave me gifts. There were one or two who wished me ill and tricked me so that when I looked back and incurred seven years of bad luck."

Glyneth took Dhrun's hand and held it against her cheek. "How could they be so cruel?"

"It was strictly the fault of Falael, who lives for such mischief.

And what of you? Why are you here?"

Glyneth smiled sadly into the fire. "It's a dreary tale. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"If you want to tell it."

"I'll leave out the worst parts. I lived in North Ulfland, at the town Throckshaw. My father was a squire. We lived in a fine house with glass windows and feather-beds and a rug on the parlor floor.

There were eggs and porridge for breakfast, sausages and roasted pullets at noon dinner and a good soup for supper, with a salad of garden greens.

"Count Julk ruled the land from Castle Sfeg; he was at war with the Ska, who already had settled the Foreshore. To the south of Throckshaw is Poelitetz: a pass through the Teach tac Teach into Dahaut and a place coveted by the Ska. Always the Ska put pressure on us; always Count Julk drove them back. One day a hundred Ska knights on black horses raided Throckshaw. The men of the town took up arms and drove them away. A week later an army of five hundred Ska riding black horses drove up from the Foreshore and reduced Throckshaw. They killed my father and mother, and burnt our house. I hid under the hay with my cat Pettis, and watched while they rode back and forth screaming like demons. Count Julk appeared with his knights, but the Ska killed him, conquered the countryside, and perhaps Poelitetz as well.

"When the Ska left Throckshaw, I took a few silver coins and ran away with Pettis. Twice I was almost captured by vagabonds. One night I ventured into an old barn. A great dog came roaring at me.

Rather than running, my brave Pettis attacked the beast and was killed. The farmer came to investigate and discovered me. He and his wife were kind folk and gave me a home. I was almost content, though I worked hard in the buttery, and also during the threshing. But one of the sons began to molest me, and to suggest careless behavior. I dared no longer walk alone to the barn for fear he would find me. One day a procession came by. They called themselves Relicts of Old Gomar* and were on pilgrimage to a celebration at Godwyne Foiry, the ruins of Old Gomar's capitol, at the edge of the Great Forest, over the Teach tac Teach and into Dahaut. I joined them and so left the farmhouse.

*Gomar: ancient kingdom comprising all of North Hybras and the Hesperian Islands.

"We crossed the mountains in safety, and came to Godwyne Foiry. We camped at the edge of the ruins and all was well, until the day before Midsummer's Eve when I learned of the celebrations and what would be expected of me. The men wear the horns of goats and elk, nothing more. They paint their faces blue and their legs brown.

The women plait the leaves of ash trees into their hair and wear cinctures of twenty-four rowan berries about their waists. Each time a woman consorts with a man, he breaks one of her berries; and whichever woman first breaks all her berries is declared the incarnation of the love goddess Sobh. I was told that at least six of the men were planning to lay hands on me at once, even though I am not yet truly a woman. I left the camp that very night and hid in the forest.

"I had a dozen frights and a dozen close escapes, and finally a witch trapped me under her hat and sold me to Arbogast, and you know the rest."

The two sat silently, looking into the fire. Dhrun said: "I wish I could travel with you and protect you, but I am burdened with seven years bad luck, or so I fear, which I would not share with you."

Glyneth leaned her head on Dnrun's shoulder. "I would gladly take the chance."

They sat talking long into the night, while the fire once again lapsed to coals. There was quiet inside and outside the hall, disturbed only by a pitter-patter from above, caused, according to Glyneth, by the ghosts of dead children running along the' roof.

In the morning the children breakfasted, then broke into Arbogast's strong-room, where they found a chest of jewels, five baskets full of gold crowns, a set of precious silver punchbowls, intricately carved to depict events of the mythical ages, and dozens of other treasures.

For a time the children frolicked and played with the riches, imagining themselves lords of vast estates, and even Farence took a wan pleasure in the game.

Throughout the afternoon the wealth was shared out equally among the children, all save Nerulf, who was allowed nothing.

After a supper of leeks, preserved goose, white bread and butter and a rich plum-duff with wine sauce, the children gathered around the fireplace to crack nuts and sip cordials. Daffin, Pode, Fulp, Arvil, Hloude, Lossamy and Dhrun were the boys, along with the morose imp Nerulf. The girls were Gretina, Zoel, Bertrude, Farence, Wiedelin and Glyneth. The youngest were Arvil and Zoel; the oldest, aside from Nerulf, were Lossamy and Farence.

For hours they discussed their circumstances, and the best route through the Forest of Tantrevalles into civilized countryside.

Pode and Hloude seemed best acquainted with the terrain.

Optimally, so they declared, the group should follow the brick road north to the first river which would necessarily join the Murmeil. They should follow the Murmeil out into the open lands of Dahaut, or perhaps by some stroke of luck they might find or purchase a boat, or even build a raft. "Indeed, with our wealth we can easily obtain a boat and float in ease and comfort downstream to Gehadion Towers, or, should we choose, all the way to Avallon."

Such was Pode's opinion.

Finally, an hour before midnight, all stretched out and slept: all except Nerulf, who sat another two hours scowling into the dying embers.