by B G Denvil
We visited my happy rats first. Though perhaps a mistake. They didn’t look so happy. There was still food and clean water, but they were clearly over-fed and getting not just fat, but heavy. They were also bored, and the number of babies, new born litters attempting to run, having quadrupled, they were too squashed. I don’t think Butterfield was a rat-lover, but as a very kind act of generosity, she started to enlarge the tunnel. She added some fleecy scraps for beds, renewed the food and water, and joined the two massively extended tunnels with a smaller, narrow one. The whole colony was now united, with double the space.
Butterfield sighed. “Hopefully we can let them go in a week or two.”
So, there they were, running around in excitement to explore their enlarged haven. No dead carcasses, no fleas and no fights.
“How long do these plague outbreaks last?” asked Peg.
“I suppose it depends,” said Edna.
“On what?”
“On when the last flea gets bored and hops away.”
“Or dies?”
None of us knew, so we continued on to Piddleton and pushed our way into the Juggler and Goat. It wasn’t crowded, too cold perhaps, and folk were cuddled at home. Yet the tavern was alight with a blazing fire, and we were happy to snuggle into our usual corner. Bob came over at once. He took our order, then gazed down at us.
“Our mate Rollo died,” he said as he turned.
“What?” I gasped, but had to wait until he returned with our drinks. “The plague, you mean?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I always did believe in them curses and troubles,” he lowered his voice since someone might have hit him over the head, even though there were only five other people standing in one solitary group. “And I reckon that awful stuff done come again.” I done told you a few days gone as to how we seen Godwin. That fellow’s dead, and we surely know he is. But we seen him a few times, and all through the village he’s bin seen. Now a living man done died.”
“How is he living if he’s dead?” demanded Butterfield.
“Well, I am,” said Angdar, but Butterfield gave him a warning frown.
“How do you know Rollo is dead then?” she asked.
But Bob was bursting with news and pulled up the last spare stool. “We know how Godwin’s dead. But folk keep seeing him and says as he always asks who killed him. Then someone found Rollo flat on his face in the lane beside the church. Poor Father George got a nasty shock and called Dickon. Dickon reckons Rollo was murdered. Now ‘tis doom and gloom again. But no plague victims here. We’re mighty lucky for that.”
“Oh, fishbones and pickled brains,” I said. “If I’m lucky, one day I might come here without hearing of murder and mayhem. And just have a peaceful drink.”
Peg and Edna were whispering away to each other, and when Bob left the table and they clutched their hypocras, Edna said, steam puffing in my direction, “I don’t believe he’s dead. Even Godwin might not be dead. They’re being kidnapped, then they escape, but then they’ll probably be captured again.”
Now that hadn’t occurred to me. But it made sense. Godwin’s death had happened when the whole village had gone crazy, the fact people saw him dying or dead in different places, had seemed part of the craziness. But perhaps it was actually one of the least crazy. Maybe poor Maggs had become a bigamist without knowing. I had no intention of telling her that until I knew for sure.
“Look,” I said, leaning across the table to speak softly with the others, “it’s life and death all muddled up, isn’t it? Forget the Plague – although that may be part of it all. We have Godwin and Rollo, are they dead or alive, how, where, what, when and above all, why?”
Angdar was too busy drinking, but Butterfield said, “And who blew my Angdar away without reason or warning? If you hadn’t been clever enough, he might have floated around Norway forever more, neither ghost nor alive.”
“And again,” said Edna, “the big question is why?”
“I disagree,” frowned Peg. “The big question is who.”
“It’s Alice again, isn’t it?” I sighed.
Every one stared at me. Angdar had no idea who we were talking about, but even he knew something was very wrong, having been whisked away into nothingness and being at risk of staying there forever. “Worst threat of my life,” he said, then, after a short pause, “or death.”
“But,” Edna insisted, “she couldn’t have been involved with what happened at Stonehenge. And she can’t have anything to do with the plague. Besides, she’s a bug. A very, very small bug.”
I shook my head. “Wolf followed me all the way to Stonehenge and stayed with us there. He doesn’t know a thing about Alice. What if she hitched a ride?”
“That’s a big if.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “But once there, she could have contacted the shadow magic. We actually saw the Shadow King, or something like him. He could have – what?”
“Turned her back into a woman,” said Peg.
“I don’t know about Stonehenge,” Butterfield said, “but I certainly remember Alice. But why would she be mean to Angdar, who she doesn’t know from Adam?”
“I need to think,” I told them all. “Oh – it’s so confusing.”
“Nobody knows what be happening,” Bob interrupted, turning up behind me, and I hoped he hadn’t heard anything else. “We can’t get outta this place,” he complained. “But at least we’s proper safe, and there ain’t no way the plague be getting in.”
“Is Rollo’s body in the church waiting for burial?” I asked Bob.
“Dunno,” he said. “Dunno nuffin no more. Wot’s this, and wot’s that? I just dunno. I was a fellow who knowed it all, and now I ain’t.”
I sympathised. “More drinks,” I said at once, cheering us all up.
I turned to Butterfield, “I’m going to the church to check on Rollo., you’ve already done wonderful work with the rats, so go back and have a cosy day by the fire with Angdar.” She gave a devious smile and turned away. But Peg and Edna laughed. Of course I had no idea why, but said “ You’ve both been through so much, could you go home and try and find Alice? I don’t mean on your hands and knees searching for an ugly little bug. I mean with magic. Alfred might be able to help. Sometimes she goes back to him, pretending the separation was all a mistake, but really doing it on purpose because she feels safe with him after all.”
Eleven
Rollo lay face up on a wooden plinth below the pulpit. The Piddleton church, dedicated to St Timothy, was not a grand affair. Unliked some of the newly improved churches in the big cities, where the monies paid by the congregation had brought in considerably more than Piddleton’s weekly thruppence, or fourpence on a good week, there was no seating provided, so women stood to the left, with their hair carefully covered, while men stood to the right with their hats off.
But now there was a dead body lying in wait of a service and burial. Not that I was sure Rollo was dead. He just might be asleep. But his chest did not rise or fall as he breathed, his eyelids did not flutter and his body appeared stiff, even rigid. No marks or cuts, not even a bruise told how he had died. He simply lay there, without moving. I touched him lightly on the hand and he didn’t twitch, I even caressed his cheek, and found it ice cold. I stood over him and tried various sorts of magic.
Firstly, I tried to ask if he was dead. This met with complete silence, as cold as he was himself. Then I asked where he was. A vague wisp of answer told me he was here exactly as I saw him. I asked who had killed him. Silence again. Finally, I demanded, “How did he die and who aided that death?”
At the back of my head, where the answer should have been floating larger and louder, I heard only a scuffle as though two different voices were giving different answers.
“Oh, botheration,” I told my own confusion. “What sort of a witch are you if you can’t even get a simple answer to a simple question?” And I was absolutely sure I heard a smug snigger.
I skipped around to the back of the church where I wo
uldn’t be seen, and flew home. I landed on top of my adopted father’s tree house. I knocked on the door.
“Alfred,” I called, “do you have a moment?”
He opened the door smiling and ushered me inside. I was surprised to see a squirrel sitting on his table. I said hello to Whistle too. “I have questions,” I admitted, “but you finish your conversation first.”
“We were talking about you,” said the squirrel. “You went back in time, I hear, to fetch your Viking friend. Most impressive.”
“I didn’t really,” I admitted, “although it felt like it. But I could only watch, just as we did at Stonehenge.”
“Aha,” said Whistle with a cheerful hop. ‘That’s what we were talking about. If someone goes back in time, and you can see them, but they can’t see you, well, you can’t do much except look. But what if you could use a little magic after all?”
I wanted more of an explanation than that. But first I said, “It all had to be magic, didn’t it? Getting back there. Coming home through time. Bringing Angdar with me.”
“Think of it another way,” said Whistle with another hop and a swish of the bushy tail. “Imagine someone who is not at his best today and can’t achieve much. But if he goes back in time, then he arrives at a moment when he felt very well indeed and could do what he wanted. If he brings that healthy self, back to the time now, he can achieve so much more.”
Now I knew exactly what he meant, and it coincided with my own idea, but gave such a thought new inspiration. “You mean Alice the bug jumped on Wolf’s back and came with him to Stonehenge when we were actually seeing through time ourselves.”
Both Alfred and the squirrel were nodding enthusiastically.
“She was never a great witch,” Alfred said. “Although better than me. Yet as a Troilus bug, much worse than me. But sitting at your feet and hidden in the grass unseen, she would have watched the parade through time, just as you did.”
Clearly Whistle had told him quite a lot concerning our visit to Stonehenge. “And do you mean she actually jumped through the pictures we saw, really and truly back into time?”
“No, no, no,” said Whistle. “Not clever enough, I assure you. But,” and once again the squirrel hopped, “the King of the Shadows felt her presence. That creature is not bound by time, and has magic beyond all of us. It spoke to Alice in our time, with specific orders. But a year ago when she was a female witch and not a bug. And the shadows sent that witch forward again to us. So – and yes, it’s a guess – it’s the witch Alice we all remember, and with a huge helping hand from the Shadow King himself – is now finding out what she’s capable of.”
I had guessed a great deal of this, but I was horrified at the thought of that wretched woman was using the Shadow King’s force. “But still weakened by her own fifty grade?” I said hopefully.
It was Alfred who shook his head. “No great queen, oh no, that’s impossible, horrid little witch that she was. And now is. But stronger than the old fifty, I imagine. Swallowing shadows will bring her up quite a long way. She’ll be just as stupid – but stronger.”
I sighed. “And the bug is still around? Or does she now keep it in her pocket?”
“An interesting point,” Whistle nodded. “But less important. It’s the witch we need to find.”
“The dark power smells,” I said. “Do you think she will too?”
“I hope so,” said my adopted father. “But back as she was a year ago, maybe not. We can’t be sure of anything.”
But I was sure of this. Whistle had it right. “I think it’s me she’s trying to attack, but of course everyone else is caught up in it.” I said at once. “I’m absolutely sure of that. She knew I liked Rollo, so she’s making him look dead to upset me, even though she can’t actually kill him without a knife or a hammer, that would be impossible in front of his friends and family, so she can only manage the sneaky things with magic.
“She knew everyone disliked Godwin, but likes Maggs who has now married Mandrake. She’s bringing Godwin back to upset us all, and putting poor Maggs in a horrible position, which will upset me too. And then Angdar. I want him around because he’s delightful, and I found his axe, although I let Butterfield think it was her, because Butterfield is such a good friend. So she whisks poor Angdar away and hides him.”
Both Whistle and Alfred nodded madly. “We now go to your room,” the squirrel told me, “and we get out the silver trio.”
I agreed. We left Alfred scratching his head and rumpling his soft tousles of white hair, and we flitted down to my rooms. On the way down we met Peg and Edna on their way up.
“My room now, please,” I said. “We don’t know anything yet, but the beginning of the answer is on its way with its foot in the door.”
My rooms were tidy and clean, since that only took a click of finger and thumb. I summoned four brimming jugs holding wine, hypocras, ale and fresh water. Then I pulled the silver toadstool, spoon and cup down from their shelf. I also woke up Oswald who was, as usual, pinned to my gown.
Wine first. Definitely imperative. Peg and Edna stuck to the hypocras, and Whistle sipped some ale. Then onto the magical routine with the water, first drinking from the toadstool and so on. Once I had drained the water from the cup, I enjoyed that usual invigorating burst of enthusiasm. I wasn’t exactly old, still being twenty-five. But I felt even younger. Rebirth.
And then the questions.
“Is Alice behind the unpleasant and strange events we’ve suffered recently?”
Taking, giving and finally, “Yes. The Troilus bug into which she manifested by rule of the High Cloud Court, achieved a return to her previous self with the considerable help of the Shadow King.”
“As I worked out myself?” Whistle was clearly pleased.
“Indeed, yes, my lord,” said the cup.
“Trying to hurt me?” I asked.
“Indeed, yes,” repeated the cup. “But this activity, and the desire to aggravate and dismay you, is her practise for future activity, which would be more dangerous.”
I might have guessed.
“I already guessed,” cried Edna. “The Shadow King is testing her and teaching her. Once she succeeds in pushing you into a state of misery sufficient to force you into leaving The Rookery, she will then be at a point where the Shadow King can use her for a higher purpose.”
“Do you know what that purpose is?” This was from Edna.
“The time is not yet,” answered the cup. “The future is not mine to know.”
“And what is she planning next?” demanded Peg, “and don’t say you can’t tell the future.”
The cup wriggled a bit. Finally it said, “The witch Alice Scaramouch is now planning to bring plague symptoms to The Rookery, and in particular to her adopted daughter, Rosie Hobb. She cannot bring the true disease, but she can bring the appearance of the plague, to bring fear to yourself, my lady, and your home. This can be combatted, but it is her plan. She has already put the first magical words into action.”
Whistle was still sitting on the table and tapped his claws on the side of the cup. “You’re doing very well,” he told his own small creation. “I shall now make a special request, knowing perfectly well how capable you are.” He didn’t add he had made it that way, giving compliments instead of taking credit. “I need to know where the witch Alice Scaramouch is within our time-frame,” he said. “And then I wish to know where Alice the Troilus bug is in our present time-frame. Please return with that exact information.”
We could actually hear the buzz of discussion between toadstool, spoon and cup while they tried to find Alice. I thought it rather funny, but this wasn’t a good time to start giggling. While we waited for an answer, we started our own conversation.
“Pressure,” said Peg. Her rabbitty muff was still hanging around her neck, her hands nestled inside. “That horrid woman should go off and live with the Shadow King and leave us alone.”
“I think it would eat her alive.”
“E
xcellent. She’d poison the thing. That would get rid of them both.”
“I’m still haunted,” said Peg, “by what we saw at Stonehenge. That ghastly creature holding up the red toadstool with red fire and black smoke coming out of it. So disgusting. Could we ever actually destroy it?”
“Whistle says no,” I told her. “He says we can’t have the good without the bad. Balance or something.” I turned to the squirrel, and so did Peg and Edna.
“If no bad exists,” sniffed Whistle, “then good isn’t good anymore. It’s just normal life and it’s no good trying to be better, because there’s no difference. Just like magic. You can’t be a strong ninety-eight if that’s the same grade every single witch and wizard has too. No one weaker, no one stronger. Impossible. We’d wither. Are you strong? Not if everyone else is equal. You can’t be strong, you’d just have to say, ‘No. I’m normal. What does strong mean?’ You can’t destroy that vile creature, any more than it can destroy our wonderful Royal State of the True Good.”
“Not the High Court Judge?” Edna asked.
But the silver cup interrupted us, which was more important at the moment.
“The witch Alice from the past,” it now informed us, “resides in a barn of pigs and cattle kept safe during the winter freeze. This barn is situated on the farm in Little Piddleton owned by Alid Bank, brother to the human wife of Mandrake Kaarp.”
“Comfortable and warm in a barn of smelly cows and pigs?” demanded Edna.
“Not comfortable,” said the cup without the slightest expression of interest or sympathy. “Though I understand it is deemed a place of privacy suitable for magical experimentation.”
That had probably been the most useful information we’d gained, and quite obviously Peg said, “The next plan is to march over there and stab the vile creature in the ear.”
But Whistle said, “Oh indeed no. Let her continue. Let her think she’s so clever, unwatched and undiscovered. Then we can watch from afar, see everything she’s doing, keep ourselves safe, and meanwhile send a few nasty little tricks her way.”