by B G Denvil
He was only eleven, but he had a good magical grade, and if he said it, he meant it. But understanding what he meant by ‘it’ in the first place was the problem. However, Tickwick was where his parents lived, and he’d gone back there for some days so I was beginning to guess.
“A flare up?” I asked. “What, the pox? The Marsh Fever?”
“The Black Death,” he said, collapsing on the nearest stool.
I stared. Behind me I could feel Edna gaping, and at my side Peg was definitely agog. “We have to stop it coming here,” I said, pulling myself together. “That’s the most terrible sickness, and it’s usually too strong for us. Even our top grades can’t cure the plague.” My head was racing now. “Did you leave your parents there?” I asked.
Sym had become our new scullery boy just a few weeks past, when I had met him and offered a place in our cottages. The child had a wizard father and a human mother, and although she knew what her husband was, Sym knew she’d be frightened amongst so many of us.
But this was different. “Outside,” he said. “I can’t leave them to get sick and die. Me dad’s a sixty, and I just been given a sixty-nine, but that’s not enough to save me mum from the plague.”
No, it wouldn’t be. “Bring them over to the new building,” I said. “I’ll settle them in and explain a few things. Each living space is in two rooms there, so you can all be together.”
Tickwick was less than a day’s walk, and on horseback would take less than three hours. Flying would be a few blinks. Not so good. That was far too close to such a murderous spreading disease.
Edna agreed. “We can’t save the world,” she said, “but we can save Little Piddleton.”
Sym and I brought in his parents. His father had a bright grin with warm hands, but his mother was a terrified and trembling little woman about to collapse. She was pleased when I seemed normal, but I decided shutting them away for a day or two was the best solution. “Two cosy rooms.” I showed them. “This one is quite large and the bed’s comfortable. The other room is small, but I’m sure Sym won’t mind. Privies on the other side, the well up by the bigger house, and don’t mind the birds and a few other animals. They’re all perfectly safe.”
I nearly told her the only risk was from the donkey which might lick her to death, but then I decided she might believe me and get frightened again. I explained the dining room and meal times and a lot of other stuff, and both were thrilled. Bertha, Sym’s mother, was frightened of possibly ghastly experiences, but at least realised that magic, however terrible, would be better than the plague. Maggs, our other exceedingly happy human, wanted to trot over and try to cheer the woman up and reassure her. But we decided to give them a few days in isolation, just in case.
Which meant Sym would not be able to work in our kitchens for a while. This had more to do with conjuring the right food than actually cleaning anything or turning roasting skewers over fires. We didn’t have any of that. A small fire sometimes helped, and large pots for mixing and adding herbs and spices. Issa was our cook, and the meals she invented were always delicious, so it was no great hardship to do without him.
I was sitting in the garden outside my own ground floor rooms – I had three – is that greedy? – trying to work out a plan to stop the plague spreading, when Fanny floated over. Not much of a help, frankly, even though she was one of my more interesting and recent residents.
“Being a witch,” said Fanny, “isn’t always as easy as people might think.” She was hovering right in my face, and several toe lengths above ground. “I admit, I love flying. But I can’t just fly around in circles every day, or talk to the crows.”
“Most of the higher grades,” I pointed out, “really work on their magic—inventing things, studying what can be improved, seeing what they themselves are capable of and inventing all sorts of new spells and magical objects. You’ve got a high grade. You’re a seventy-seven, so you achieve a lot. Besides,” I added, “I thought you were heavily involved with Harry Flash.”
“I like Harry.” She looked away. “Though he’s only a forty. Much weaker than me. That’s embarrassing. I try not to do things in front of him I know he can’t do. I mean, mostly anyone under sixty can’t fly, and he can a teeny bit, which is brilliant for a forty. But I can sweep and swish up all over the place, and I love doing it. But how can I do that in front of him? It would be rude.”
It was almost winter, and the day was a truly beautiful breath-taking autumn show of amber and gold. I refused to be upset with Fanny, and smiled at her. “Help him grow, then,” I said.
She blinked, confused. “You mean that’s a possibility? How can it happen? I wouldn’t know how.”
“Well, go and find out,” I suggested. “That’ll keep you busy for at least a month. Have a word with Whistle, and try and work it out with Harry. It might be fun.”
Talking of fun – I explained the situation with the plague in the close village close by, and she sank down beside me, horrified. If there was one sickness that scared even wiccan folk, it was the plague. It killed at least half of those who caught it, so everyone suffered in one way or other. You suffered even if you recovered, because it was such an abominable and painful disease. And you often wished to die quicker just to escape for the suffering.
Some of nature was stunningly beautiful. Other parts of nature seemed horrific.
“I wonder if I could work out what makes the plague spread.” I frowned. “A lot of the people think it’s God’s punishment, or a general warning to the wicked,” I told Fanny. “But that never made any sense. If I could find out, it would help such a lot.”
“I’ll help,” Fanny said at once. “And Harry will help. He hates being bored just as much.”
“I rarely meet humans getting bored,” I pointed out. “They’re too busy scrubbing door steps and sweeping floors and spending all day cooking a dinner that gets eaten in a few minutes.”
“Well, Harry gets bored because he’s got nothing to do except cuddle me,” said Fanny.
I was becoming quite enthusiastic. Understanding the very worst of sicknesses could be both life-changing and fascinating.
Then I was interrupted by Issa, who wanted to know if roast lamb was alright for dinner. Of course, I told her.
“I just can’t think of anything else, knowing we have another human in the ranks,” Issa sighed. “I’ll try to make the lamb taste as much like real lamb as I can manage. And some spinach cooked in cream. I could even cook the real thing. And what about bread and butter pudding and a lemon tart?”
Having started to concentrate on that most revolting of diseases, it was now rather hard to be attracted by food. “Perfect,” I told Issa. “That will delight every one of us, wiccan and human.”
She rushed back into the kitchens, while Fanny sat quietly thinking, and I was deep in concentration when the next interruption was definitely more distracting. Whistle turned up. Still a very active squirrel, red bushy-tailed and talkative.
Whistle had long decided that being a transparent ghost was not a good way of getting any of us to take him seriously. Besides, he couldn’t pick anything up, let alone eat. Hence he was now a squirrel which frequently sat on my shoulder.
He said, “I’ve had an idea.”
“Oh, dear,” I said.
This remark didn’t bother him in the slightest. “The shadow forces,” said the squirrel, “are the greatest danger we could possibly imagine. Humanity naturally knows nothing about this danger, and couldn’t stop it however hard they tried anyway. I have decided I must begin to eliminate every source of the shadow.”
He was so serious I couldn’t possibly say I wasn’t interested because I was worried over something else. “Go on,” I said. “What’s the idea?” Actually, I suddenly wondered if that was possibly from where the plague had originally come.
“I intend travelling to the Henge,” Whistle told me. “And I thought you and a few others might like to come.”
But it wasn’t a good moment
. “I’d love to,” I said, “but I’ve just been told about an outbreak of the plague in Tickwick. That’s too close to ignore. I want to protect The Rookery of course, but Little Piddleton as well.”
“I’ll help you, and you help me,” said the squirrel. “These are essential matters, and Stonehenge isn’t far away.”
“A henge is a burial mound.” I nodded. “Do you think the red spoon and toadstool might be buried there?”
“Stonehenge is a little different,” Whistle told me. “There are the old stones carried in from somewhere near Wales, and it’s not your normal henge at all. But it’s where I intend searching.”
“Interesting,” I said. “But the plague spreads fast. I presume your henge doesn’t move at all. So the plague comes first.”
“The Henge doesn’t move at all,” Whistle said with faint distain. “You’ve never seen anything like it until you’ve seen it. The shadow power moves wherever it wishes and whenever it wishes. And that’s a lot.”
“Oh dear,” I sighed.
The birds were singing, but the swallows had left, and the geese had all migrated. Instead of life and movement, what we had now was the amazing colours of autumn leaves, and the first of the season’s bare branches. I stared at golden leaves and then at Whistle, and made my decision.
“I’ll go backwards and forwards,” I said. “I can fly fast enough and being young, hopefully it won’t knock me out. Because everything seems equally important. This plague is such a terrifying thought. Even we can get it.”
“Since I’m already dead,” smiled Whistle, “as I’m already dead, it might be a bit of a shock.”
“Let’s discuss it over dinner,” I suggested.
Issa handed out a tray of the platters she’d produced and asked if anyone could pop some over to Sym and his mother. Meanwhile I talked about my own confusions.
“The plague is the worst possible way to die,” I said, shouting over the din as everyone gossiped with their mouths full of roast lamb. “And we know there are worse dangers from the shadow forces. This is certainly going to be a hard working few months, because we’re going to stop both.”
Two
It was Bertie, one of our highest-grade wizards, who immediately wanted to be involved. Being interested only in the intellectual aspects of wizardry, Bertie was apt to be labelled as tediously stuffy. I sadly have to admit I’d sometimes agreed with this assumption.
Wanting extra space for his experiments and investigations, Bertie now lived in the new cottage, and was rarely at the dining table. Luckily, he had wandered over today. Now he waved from the other end of the table.
“I researched the cause of disease many years ago,” he said across the roast lamb. “I began in the mid fourteenth century when the plague was first seen in this country. It came with the rats on ships from the east, and therefore I now associate it with small animals that live in the bowels of the carracks from the Middle Sea. Marsh Fever is also carried to folk by creatures, for instance those minute buzzing flies that live in the swamps of Kent and Norfolk.”
“Rats bring the plague?” I asked. “They carry it?” It sounded suspiciously as though Bertie thought they brought it in shopping baskets.
“Fleas,” said Bertie. “Rat fleas. When you see dead rats in your barns, you can guess they have died of the plague. Now those fleas need somewhere else to go for dinner. So they come to us.”
“You may need to explain that to me again,” I confessed. “How do we stop it? I can stop folk from other villages coming into Little Piddleton, but how do I stop rats?”
“Burn the dead ones, and poison those living, before they can come anywhere near us.”
I thought that sounded cruel, but then so was the plague. “I should love to talk to you about this in more depth,” I told him. “But then there’s Stonehenge and the dark shadow.”
“That,” said Whistle hopping onto the table and helping himself to a handful of bread and butter pudding, “is certainly most important.”
After dinner the sun spun along our paths, gleaming into every window, turning russet leaves scarlet and brown leaves golden. Firstly, I took the food over to Sym and his family in their rooms, and then marched off to find Whistle.
“I’ll give you three days here,” Whistle informed me as if he was the High Court Judge Humbugas, giving orders. “Sort out the rats and play with the fleas or whatever Bertie advises. Then we’re off to Stonehenge.”
I was daft enough to agree.
Venice, Bertie told me, had locked its gates when the plague had first threatened the city. Letting no one in or out, they still had deaths. Can you really lock out a rat? Anyway, it didn’t help us since we had no city walls, no gates to lock, and no way of keeping anyone in or out.
Except, of course, with magic. Using a silent and invisible bubble, we could keep out rats, humans, fleas and even birds. Not an easy thing to explain to the inhabitants. So, we’d just do it anyway.
As for the rats, I wasn’t sure. Poor things. I’m afraid I wasn’t so worried for the fleas. Whether they had genuine feelings and quietly apologised to every one before biting them, I couldn’t know. But I thought it doubtful. Yet then again, they couldn’t help being what they were born as, and they certainly had no choice but to bite and then drink blood. It wasn’t as though they could make the choice and say, ‘No, I’ll drink water instead.’ I felt a little guilty but would not be creating secret help for the fleas anytime soon. However, I would for the rats; they didn’t want to die of the plague any more than we did. I made plans for the rats, as well as for us and the people of Piddleton.
I visited my pet monster, he was just a beautiful short-haired hound, really, with a bit of a crumpled face and a large mouth. He was particularly large, a slim and elegant body on very long slim legs, and his name was Wolf. He didn’t look remotely like a wolf which was probably just as well, and he could talk, often saying the sweetest things. He’d only recently come into my life, and I had brought him to live with us. He became very friendly with everyone, wandered from house to grounds and back again, occasionally slept on my bed but was as large if not larger than me, so was not the most comfortable companion. Besides, sometimes he dribbled.
Meanwhile Donald the donkey was a healthy weight and no longer starving, and had made a special friend of Twizzle the cockatoo. The donkey was just an ordinary donkey, with no power of speech, but Twizzle did squawk and speak, but without ever making the remotest sense.
Twizzle was sitting on Donald’s neck and pecking gently at his ears as I walked up. The donkey loved this attention so I smiled and walked on. Without hesitation, Twizzle screeched, “There’s a cassowary in the privy. Call in the dunny man.”
Wolf was lying stretched beneath the sun, his nostrils twitching. I didn’t wake him. Instead I sat on the grass at his side, leaned back with my hands behind my head and began to plan how to stop us all being killed off with the plague. The idea of a highly transparent, actually invisible, bubble all around us did appeal. But I would have to make it so the rain could get through. And if the rain – why not the fleas? It would also have to be invulnerable to birds which would no doubt peck large holes. This magic would need careful thought and considerable imagination.
For the rats, I was less organised. If they were dying in large numbers in Tickwick, I doubted I could save them. Yet possibly I could knot another transparent and even rainproof bubble somewhere outside the village and fill it with attractive rat food. I wasn’t actually sure what that was, but finding out what rats ate was surely an easy problem to solve. Then I could bath them all in water, and dry them off with a strong wind. I hoped this might get rid of all fleas, whether they carried the plague or otherwise.
Perhaps not the greatest plot ever devised. I trotted off to see Bertie.
I had never had much cause to speak at length with Bertie before. Now I stood outside his door. “It’s Rosie, to discuss the plague situation with you, Bertie. Can I come in?”
Before I�
�d finished speaking, the door flew open, and Bertie was standing there, beaming. I admit, I’d never even known until now that he was capable of such a welcoming beam. We sat down on the comfy chairs he’d created himself, and two large cups of excellent wine floated down from the ceiling. I was most impressed. In spite of my excellent grade, I’d never done this before. I decided I should start copying some of Bertie’s ideas.
“Hopefully,” he said, “this should take no more than a month.”
I had promised Whistle three days. “I suppose I could come backwards and forwards,” I said. “It can’t be a long flight. But if I’m sure I can get through my own bubble it could work. You know Whistle wants me at Stonehenge.”
“I can look after this end,” Bertie assured me. “Whistle can look after the other end. And you can squeeze in both every few days.”
I wondered when I’d have time to sleep, but it would certainly mean some wonderful achievements. I nodded eagerly, with very little idea of what I was nodding about.
It was sometime later that I bumped into Angdar, The Rookery’s newest resident, I had not expected him to be the one to give the best advice. Yet having been risen from the Viking age, he had an extremely non-magical and definitely practical way of looking at things – an area where I could be sadly lacking. He was also a ghost with the touch and appearance of someone even more alive than some of us. This made him a useful adjunct.
“Stopping people leaving. Stopping people coming. Stopping rats coming. Right? That’s the aim? Why, for Odin’s sake, do you need a cover on top?”
Yes, alright, perfect sense. “Um. You’re right,” I told him.
“Well,” he shrugged, “rats don’t fly. Nor do normal people, apart from you lot. But rats burrow. Therefore, your bubble must go deep down, not high up.”
Vikings could be quite useful sometimes.
He and Butterfield walked the trail I thought relevant, and Bertie strode behind us, measuring the area I wanted to cover, in order to work out some sort of ratio in a language of numbers I might understand.