At sunrise the five once more took to the saddle and proceeded south along the Trompada, here little more than a path wandering among the sa.r.s.en-stones.

At noon the road swung down from the fells to rejoin the River Siss, then followed the riverbank south.

Halfway through the afternoon the road arrived at a fork. By deciphering an age-worn sign-post, they learned that Bittershaw Road angled away to the southeast while the Trompada crossed a bridge and followed the Siss in a southerly direction.

The travelers crossed the bridge and half a mile along the road encountered a peasant leading a donkey loaded with f.a.ggots.

Aillas held up his hand; the peasant drew back in alarm. "What now? If you be robbers, I carry no gold, and the same is true even if you not be robbers."

"Enough of your foolishness," growled Cargus. "Where is the best and nearest inn?"

The peasant blinked in perplexity. "The 'best' and the 'nearest eh? Is it two inns you want?"

"One is enough," said Aillas.

"In these parts inns are rare. The Old Tower down the way might serve your needs, if you are not over-nice."

"We are nice," said Yane, "but not over-nice. Where is this inn?"

"Fare forward two miles until the road turns to rise for the mountain. A bit of a track leads to the Old Tower." Aillas tossed him a penny. "Many thanks to you." Two miles the five followed the river-road. The sun dropped behind the mountains; the four rode in shadow, under pines and cedars.

A bluff overlooked the Siss; here the road turned sharply up the hillside. A trail continued along the side of the bluff, back and forth under heavy foliage, until the outline of a tall round tower stood dark against the sky.

The five rode around the tower under a mouldering wall, to come out upon a flat area overlooking the river a hundred feet below. Of the ancient castle only a corner tower and a wing stood intact. A boy came and took their horses to what had once been the great hall and which now served as a stable.

The five entered the old tower, and found themselves in a place of gloom and a grandeur impregnable to present indignities. A fire in the fireplace sent flickering light across a great round room. Slabs of stone flagged the floor; the walls were unrelieved by hangings. Fifteen feet overhead a balcony circled the room; with another above in the shadows; and above still a third, almost invisible by reason of the gloom.

Rough tables and benches had been placed near the fire. To the other side a fire burned in a second fireplace; here, behind a counter, an old man with a thin face and wispy white hair worked energetically over pots and pans. He seemed to have six hands, all reaching, shaking and stirring. He basted a lamb where it turned on a spit, shook up a pan of pigeons and quails, swung other pots this way and that on their pot-hooks, so that they might receive the proper heat.

For a moment Aillas watched in respectful attention, marveling at the old man's dexterity. At last, taking advantage of a pause in the work, he asked: "Sir, you are the landlord?"

"Correct, my lord. I claim that role, if these makeshift premises deserve such a dignity."

"Dignity is the least of our concerns if you can provide us lodging for the night. From the evidence of my eyes I feel a.s.sured of a proper supper."

"Lodging here is of the simplest; you sleep in hay above the stable. My premises offer nothing better and I am too old to make changes."

"How is your ale?" asked Bode. "Serve us cool clear bitter and you will hear no complaints."

"You relieve all my anxieties, since I brew good ale. Be seated, if you will."

The five took seats by the fire and congratulated themselves that they need not spend another windy night in the bracken. A portly woman served them ale in beechwood cups, which by some means accentuated the quality of the brew, and Bode declared: "The landlord is just! He will hear no complaints from me."

Aillas surveyed the other guests where they sat at their tables. There were seven: an elderly peasant and his wife, a pair of peddlers and three young men who might have been woodsmen. Into the room now came a bent old woman, cloaked heavily in gray, with a cowl gathered over her head so that her face was concealed in shadow.

She paused to look about the room. Aillas felt her gaze hesitate as it reached him. Then, crouching and hobbling, she crossed the room to sit at a far table among the shadows.

The portly woman brought their supper: quail, pigeons and partridge on slabs of bread soaked in the grease of the frying; cuts of roasted lamb which exhaled a fragrance of garlic and rosemary, in the Galician style, with a salad of cress and young greens: a meal far better than any they had expected.

As Aillas supped he watched the cloaked woman at the far table, where she took her own supper. Her manners were unsettling; leaning forward, she gobbled up her food at a snap. Aillas watched in covert fascination, and noticed that the woman seemed also to peer toward him from time to time behind the shadow cast by her cowl. She bent her head low to snap up a morsel of meat and her cloak slipped away from her foot.

Aillas spoke to his comrades. "The old woman yonder: notice her and tell me what you see."

Garstang muttered in amazement: "She has a chicken's foot!"

Aillas said, "She is a witch, with a fox mask and the legs of a great fowl. Twice she has attacked me; twice I cut her into two sections; each time she repaired herself."

The witch, turning to stare, noticed their gazes and hastily drew back her foot and darted another look to see if anyone had noticed the lapse. Aillas and his companions pretended indifference. She turned once more to her food, snapping and gulping.

"She forgets nothing," said Aillas, "and certainly she will try to kill me, if not here, then from ambush along the trail."

"In that case," said Bode, "let us kill her first, at this very moment."

Aillas grimaced. "So it must be, even though all will blame us for killing a helpless old woman."

"Not when they see her feet," said Cargus.

"Let us be to it, and have done," said Bode. "I am ready."

"A moment," said Aillas. "I will do the deed. Make your swords ready. One scratch of her claws means death; allow her no scope to spring."

The witch seemed to divine the quality of their conversation. Before they could move she arose and hobbled quickly away into the shadows, and disappeared through a low archway.

Aillas drew his sword and went to the landlord. "You have been entertaining an evil witch; she must be killed."

While the landlord looked on in bewilderment Aillas ran back to the archway and looked through but could see nothing in the dark and dared not proceed. He turned back to the landlord. "Where leads the archway?"

"To the old wing, and the chambers overhead: all ruins."

"Give me a candle."

At a slight sound Bode looked up, to discover the fox-masked woman on the first balcony. With a scream she leapt down at Aillas; Bode thrust out with a stool and struck her aside. She hissed and screamed again, then leapt at Bode with legs outstretched and clawed the length of his face, before Aillas once more hacked her head from her body, which, as before started a mad canter back and forth, buffeting itself against the walls. Cargus forced it down with a bench and Yane hacked away the legs.

Bode lay on his back, clawing at the stone with clenched fingers. His tongue protruded; his face turned black and he died.

Aillas cried in a guttural voice: "This time the fire! Cut this vile thing to bits! Landlord, bring logs and f.a.ggots! The fire must burn hot and long!"

The fox-faced head set up a horrid wailing. "No fire! Give me not to the fire!"

The grisly task was complete. Under roaring flames the witch's flesh burned to ashes and the bones crumbled to dust. The guests, pale and dispirited, had gone to their beds in the hay; the landlord and his spouse worked with mops and buckets to clean their soiled floor.

With morning only hours away Aillas, Garstang, Cargus and Yane sat wearily at a table and watched the fire become embers.

The landlord brought them ale. "This is a terrible event! I a.s.sure you it is not the policy of the house."

"Sir, do not in any way blame yourself. Be happy that we have made an end to the creature. You and your wife have given n.o.ble a.s.sistance and you shall not suffer for it."

With the first glimmer of dawn the four buried Bode in a quiet shaded area, at one time a rose garden. They left Bode's horse with the landlord as well as five gold crowns from Bode's pouch, and rode sadly down the hill to the Trompada.

The four toiled up a steep stony valley by a road which twisted and sidled back and forth, up and'around bluffs and boulders, and eventually gained to wind-haunted Glayrider Gap. A side road led off across the moors toward Oaldes; the Trompada swung south and slanted down a long declivity, past a series of ancient tin mines to the town Market Flading. At the Tin Man Inn the four travelers, weary after the work of the night before and the toilsome ride of the day, gratefully supped on mutton and barley, and slept on straw pallets in an upper chamber.

In the morning they set out once more along the Trompada, which now followed the North Evander along a wide shallow valley toward the far purple bulk of Tac Tor.

At noon, with Tintzin Fyral only five miles to the south, the land began to rise and close in beside the gorge of the North Evander. Three miles farther along, with the nearness of Tintzin Fyral impressing a sense of menace upon the air, Aillas discovered a dim trail leading away and up a gulley, which he thought might be that trail by which, so long ago, he had hoped to descend from Tac Tor.

The track climbed a long spur which trailed down from Tac Tor like the splayed root of a tree, then followed the rounded ridge by a relatively easy route. Aillas led the way up the trail to the hollow where he had camped, only yards below the flat summit of Tac Tor.

. He found the Never-fail where he had left it. As before the tooth pointed something north of east. "In that direction," said Aillas, "is my son, and this is where I must go."

"You can choose from two routes," said Garstang. "Back the way we came, then east; or through Lyonesse by Old Street, then north into Dahaut. The first may be shorter, but the second avoids the forest, and in the end is probably faster."

The second, by all means," said Aillas.

The four pa.s.sed by Kaul Bocach and entered Lyonesse without incident. At Nolsby Sevan they swung to the east along Old Street, and after four days of hard riding arrived at the town Audelart. Here Garstang took leave of his comrades. "Twanbow Hall is only twenty miles south. I shall be home for supper and my adventures will be the marvel of all." He embraced his three comrades. "Needless to say, you will always be welcome guests at Twanbow! We have come a long way together; we have known much hardship. Never shall I forget!"

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

Aillas, Cargus and Yane watched Garstang ride south until he disappeared. Aillas heaved a sigh. "Now we are three."

"One by one we dwindle," said Cargus.

"Come," said Yane. "Let us be off. I lack patience for sentiment."

The three departed Audelart by Old Street and three days later they arrived at Tatwillow, where Old Street crossed Icnield Way. The Never-fail pointed north, in the direction of Avallon: a good sign, or so it would seem, since the direction avoided the forest.

They set off up Icnield Way toward Avallon in Dahaut.

Chapter 25.

GLYN'ETH AND DHRUN had joined Dr. Fidelius at the Gla.s.sblowers Fair in Hazelwood. For the first few days the a.s.sociation was tentative and wary. Glyneth and Dhrun conducted themselves as if walking on eggs, meanwhile watching Dr. Fidelius sidelong that they might antic.i.p.ate any sudden irrationalities or quick fits of fury. But Dr. Fidelius, after a.s.suring their comfort, showed such even and impersonal politeness that Glyneth began to worry that Dr. Fidelius did not like them.

Shimrod, watching the two from his disguise with the same surrept.i.tious interest they gave him, was impressed by their composure and charmed by their desire to please him. They were, he thought, an extraordinary pair: clean, neat, intelligent and loving. Glyneth's native cheerfulness at times broke free into bursts of exuberance which she quickly controlled lest she annoy Dr. Fidelius. Dhrun tended to long periods of silence, while he sat gazing blankly into the sunlight, thinking his private thoughts.

Upon leaving the Gla.s.sblowers Fair, Shimrod turned his wagon north toward the market-town Porroigh and the yearly Sheep-sellers Fair. Late in the afternoon Shimrod drove the wagon off the road and halted in a little glen beside a stream. Glyneth gathered sticks and set a fire; Shimrod erected a tripod, hung a kettle and cooked a stew of chicken, onions, turnips, meadow-greens and parsley, with mustard-seed and garlic for seasoning. Glyneth gathered cress for a salad, and found a clump of morels which Shimrod added to the stew. Dhrun sat quietly by, listening to the wind in the trees and the crackle of the fire.

The three dined well, and sat back to enjoy the dusk. Shimrod looked from one to the other. "I must make a report to you. I have traveled Dahaut now for months, plying from fair to fair, and I never realized my loneliness until these last few days that you two have been with me."

Glyneth heaved a small sigh of relief. "That is good news for us, since we like traveling with you. I don't dare say it's good luck; I might start up the curse."

"Tell me about this curse."

Dhrun and Glyneth told their separate tales and together reported the events they had shared. "So now we are anxious to find Rhodion, the king of all fairies, so that he may remove the curse and give Dhrun back his eyes."

"He'll never pa.s.s the skirl of fairy pipes," said Shimrod. "Sooner or later he'll stop to listen, and, rest a.s.sured, I too will keep lookout."

Dhrun asked wistfully: "Have you ever yet seen him?"

"Truth to tell, I have been watching for someone else."

Glyneth said: "I know who he is: a man with sore knees, which clack and creak as he walks."

"And how have you come by that knowledge?"

"Because you cry out often about sore knees. When someone comes forward, you look into his face rather than his legs, and you are always disappointed. You give him a jar of salve and send him away still limping."

Shimrod showed a wry smile to the fire. "Am I so transparent?"

"Not really," said Glyneth modestly. "In fact, I think you are quite mysterious."

Shimrod now laughed aloud. "Why do you say that?" "Oh, for instance, how did you learn to mix so many medicines?"

"No mystery whatever. A few are common remedies, known everywhere. The rest are pulverized bone mixed with lard or neat's-foot oil, with different flavors. They never harm and sometimes they heal. But more than sell medicines I want to find the man with the sore knees. Like Rhodion he comes to fairs and sooner or later I will find him."

Dhrun asked: "Then what will happen?"

"He will tell me where to find someone else."

From south to north across the land went the wagon of Dr. Fidelius and his two young colleagues, pausing at fairs and festivals from Dafnes on the River Lull to Duddlebatz under the stone barrens of G.o.delia. There were long days of traveling by shaded country lanes, up hill and down dale, through dark woods and old villages. There were nights by firelight while the full moon rode through clouds, and other nights under a sky full of stars. One afternoon, as they crossed a desolate heath, Glyneth heard plaintive sounds from the ditch beside the road. Jumping from the wagon and peering among the thistles she discovered a pair of spotted kittens which had been abandoned and left to die. Glyneth called and the kittens ran anxiously to her. She took them to the wagon, in tears over their plight. When Shimrod gave her leave to keep them, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and Shimrod knew he was her slave forever, even had it not been the case before.

Glyneth named the kittens Smirrish and Sneezer, and at once set about training them to tricks.

From the north they fared into the west, through Ammarsdale and Scarhead, to Tins in the Ulfland March, thirty miles north of the awesome Ska fortress at Poelitetz. This was a grim land and they were happy to turn east once more, along the Murmeil River.

The summer was long; the days were bittersweet times for each of the three. Strange small misfortunes regularly troubled Dhrun: hot water scalded his hand; rain soaked his bed; as he went to relieve himself behind the hedge he fell into the nettles. Never did he complain, and so earned Shimrod's respect, and Shimrod, from initial skepticism, began to accept the reality of the curse. One day Dhrun stepped on a thorn, driving it deep into his heel. Shimrod removed it while Dhrun sat silent, biting his lip; and Shimrod was moved to hug him and pat his head. "You're a brave lad. One way or another we'll end this curse. At the very worst it can last only seven years."

As always, Dhrun thought a moment before speaking. Then he said: "A thorn is only a trifle. Do you know the bad luck I fear? That you should tire of us and put us off the wagon."

Shimrod laughed and felt his eyes grow moist. He gave Dhrun another hug. "It would not be by my choice: I promise you that. I could not manage without you."

"Still, bad luck is bad luck."

"True. No one knows what the future holds."

Almost immediately after a spark flew from the fire and landed on Dhrun's ankle.

"Ouch," said Dhrun. "More luck."

Each day brought new experiences. At Playmont Fair, Duke Jocelyn of Castle Foire sponsored a magnificent tournament-at-arms, where armored knights played at combat, and competed in a new sport known as jousting. Mounted on strong horses and wearing full regalia, they charged each other with padded poles, each trying to dislodge his adversary.