by Joan Aiken
“I fear you are in the right,” sighed Herodsfoot. “You do not think there is any chance that, if we called the boy’s name, he might be able to respond?”
“Can try again, but I doubt it,” Dido said. She yelled, “Ty – lo!” at the top of her lungs, so that her voice echoed between the sides of the ravine.
The only result was that some more pieces of rock and soil came clattering down on to the existing heap.
“No, mister, it ain’t a bit of use. If he is there – on the far side of that devilish tip – he can’t hear us, not with all the ruckus going on. All we can do is make tracks ourselves before we’re pounded into mincemeat.”
She turned her horse, and set off at a fast clip, trusting to the beast to find his own footing, for the rain in her face blinded her. Herodsfoot followed, letting out a stream of ejaculations and objurgations relating to the weather and the fate of Tylo and their own horrid plight.
“What shall we do?” he kept demanding. “What ever shall we do, Dido? Where shall we go now? What do you think is best to be done?”
“Well,” said Dido, “we have to find the house of this Ruiz, for that’s where Doc Tally said she’d meet us. And I remember Tylo saying earlier that there were two ways to get there and we’d take the quicker one – but he said there was another way over the top of the ridge. Best we go back and find that, if we can. There was a clump of nutmeg shrubs where he was telling me that; I remember those, just at the turn-off point. Trouble is, everything looks so different with the rain slamming down.”
“You don’t think we should endeavour to take shelter for a while from the elements?” suggested Lord Herodsfoot plaintively. The wind lashed them, the rain slapped them, huge branches, tossing, impeded their path.
“Nowhere to take shelter,” returned Dido briefly. Rubbing her eyes against the rain, she peered ahead. “Ho! I believe that’s the nutmeg clump – now we have to go up over that rise, and then kinda bear right, so as to get back towards where he was heading before. It’s too bad the nags ain’t in better heart.”
The horses were nervous and weary, upset by the storm. Arriving at a grove of tall, broad-leaved trees, Herodsfoot proposed again that they stop for a few minutes. “I believe the storm is abating,” he pointed out hopefully. “A short respite may put new heart into our mounts.”
It soon appeared that Lord Herodsfoot had a personal motive for wishing to halt at that particular spot. The sky was clearing and he had recognised, up above them, the unmistakable outline of the Place of Stones.
“Oh, I would give worlds – all the worlds I have to give – to pay another visit to that remarkable site.”
At this, Dido was really shocked. The loss of Tylo – and their predicament – seemed to her incontestable reasons why they should keep going and cover as much ground as they possibly could before dusk fell, in order to reach their destination in daylight. But Herodsfoot had already dismounted and fastened his reins to a tree – she did not dare let him go off on his own, for heaven only knew how long he would stay up there, measuring, sketching, taking notes – and then he would very likely go down the wrong side of the hill and get himself lost . . .
So, reluctant, disapproving, and irate, Dido followed him up the hill. One circumstance, she noticed, made the climb easier than it had been on their previous visit – the heavy rain had rinsed off the dust which had formerly coated the rock surface. Although wet, it was not so slippery as it had been before, and the warm rock dried off quickly as soon as the rain ended.
“We mustn’t stop there longer than five minutes!” Dido called, and wished with all her heart that Talisman were there to reinforce this command.
“Yes . . . yes . . . very well, very well,” he muttered distractedly. “I cannot tell you how very significant the arrangement of these stones appears to me – how closely related the pattern is to – for instance – the game of Pong Hau K’i – or the game of Mulnello Quadruplo – (mind you, there is grave doubt as to whether that game was ever actually played – according to report, each player had five men, which were entered in alternate turns of play. When all five were in place, they had the power of moving in any direction to a contiguous point)—”
Herodsfoot’s voice dried up. He came to a total stop.
Dido, just behind him, observed that he had turned chalk-white. He was staring at the ground as if he had seen a deadly snake.
Coming up alongside, Dido too stared at the ground, and found her own breathing suddenly blocked at a point somewhere between her chest and her throat. No air would go in, no air could come out.
She leaned forward, put her hands on her knees, and managed, with a gasp, to inhale.
On the dust, inscribed with a finger-bone just as Talisman had left them, were Herodsfoot’s list of names: Algernon Francis Sebastian Fortinbras Carsluith, Baron Herodsfoot.
Everywhere else, on the slightly dome-shaped surface of the Place of Stones, the dust had been washed, blown-swept, sluiced away by the storm. But just in this one spot the surface of the rock was quite dry; the letters remained in the dust exactly as Talisman had written them.
Dido picked up a great sodden ukka-leaf, which had blown up the hill, and swiftly wiped the words away, scrubbing the ground hard until there was nothing to be seen but some streaks of wet grit.
“Come along, my lord,” she said briskly. “We must not waste any more time hereabouts. Dear knows how long it will take us to get from this place to where Mario Ruiz lives.”
She caught hold of Herodsfoot’s hand and gave it a yank, obliging him to move away from the patch of ground where his name had been written.
“That’s the dandy – come along – those nags will soon take a chill, so wet as they are, if they are left standing any longer. And we shall take a chill too—”
Gabbling out whatever random cautions and words of advice came into her head, she urged her companion back into the saddle, and untied his horse’s tether. Once he made as if to push his spectacles off, by the earpiece, and she cried out sharply, “Don’t do that, or you’ll go and break them again—” and he gave her a startled look and desisted. Otherwise he seemed like a man in the grip of nightmare or paralysis; he sat his horse, staring straight ahead, and made no attempt to guide it, leaving it to follow where Dido led.
She found a kind of deer-track which crossed over a shrubby hillside and then led down to lower ground. Over to the right of this route, she hoped, was the gorge they had been threading when the fatal landslide occurred.
Did she make that happen? Dido wondered – Talisman? So he’d be obliged to go back to the stone circle and see his name? Did she lay out the whole business on purpose to teach him a lesson?
Somehow Dido could not believe this of Talisman. She might be impatient, yes, might lose her temper, yes; but to set a whole trap for the poor fellow – involving a storm, a landslide, and the loss of Tylo – no, no, surely not? Tally’s a good person, Dido thought; so’s he, for that matter, not an ounce of harm in the poor dear gentleman – it’s too bad they got acrost each other.
Now the track ran down again into forest, thick, dark and green.
Dear only hope this is the right way, thought Dido apprehensively, for once we’re in these trees you can’t tell which way you’re going, north, south, east or west – you might as well be in the main drain under Petticoat Lane. Don’t I jist wish I had one o’ those Memory Birds that the Forest People take around with them!
To her utter astonishment, no sooner had this thought framed itself than one of the little white, pink-headed birds fluttered down out of the branches above and settled on her horse’s brow-band.
“Well – I’ll – be jiggered!” gasped Dido. “Lord Herodsfoot – Frankie! look and see what’s come!”
He gave her a lacklustre glance, hardly seeming to take in what she said, and rode on in silence. After a mile or two he said, “Did you see those words, Dido? Or did I dream them?”
“No, the words were there, mister, sure eno
ugh,” said Dido. “I reckon there’s a lot more in Doc Tally than meets the eye. I guess you just gotta put that in your kettle and boil it . . .”
Herodsfoot made a sound like a man who has just swallowed a raw egg, ice cold.
“Why? Why?” he cried out woefully. “Why can’t she just be an ordinary person?”
“Well – you gotta face it, Frank – she ain’t an ordinary person. And maybe if she were you wouldn’t fancy her so much.”
“I don’t know – I just do not know,” he said miserably. “I’ve travelled all over the globe – I possess a larger collection of Ancient and Interesting Games than anybody else in the Western Hemisphere – but I have never felt like this before, and I do not know what to do.”
“Best thing you can do,” said Dido practically, “is to collect all your games together and get yourself off this plaguey island and back to Lunnon Town and cheer up poor old King Jamie. That’s summat you can do – and you’re the only cove as can do it, seemingly. So that’s what you must do. If we can get ahold of Cap Sanderson and the Siwara.”
And she sighed.
Funny thing, she thought, when we were on the Siwara Doc Tally didn’t seem anything out of the common. O’ course then she was putting on an act, letting on to be a man – both Mr Mully and I twigged that, and very likely Cap Sanderson did too and thought it none of his affair – but then she was just like anybody else, seemingly, an ordinary enough young feller-me-lad. It was coming ashore on Aratu changed that. Doing that job on Mr Mully in the hospital – wonder how he’s getting on? – and that game with the bowl of water in Manoel’s yard – it was then I began to feel there was summat havey-cavey about her. No, not havey-cavey – but spookish. Maybe meeting Manoel again kinda twitched her. It must be a bit creepy to meet a feller that you are pretty sure once stuffed you in a clay pot and chucked you off the Cliff of Death. It’d sure make the cold slithers run down my back. And then the night she put in with Yorka’s auntie, the old Kanikke lady. I guess that was what really changed her . . .
“Fancy, Frankie,” she said. “I believe that’s a house ahead of us! I reckon the Memory Bird brought us to Mr Ruiz’ residence.”
They were at the end of a long open glade. The customary fragrance of clove, cinnamon, djeela, ukka, and frangipani was now augmented by woodsmoke and the savour of broiling meat. Dido remembered – not for the first time – that she was ravenously hungry.
Mario Ruiz’ house was perched against a slope of hill covered with tree ferns. It was neither in the wocho nor the Angrian style of architecture, being long and low, solidly built of logs, with a wooden shingled roof. The windows were screened and there was a stout door. An open stable or shed was built on to the end of the house. Patches of corn, okra, plantains, and coffee bushes grew in front of the building; fruit trees grew beyond it. All seemed orderly and peaceful. A man sat reading on a sawed-off log near the front door. He was a tall, skinny individual, an Angrian, with bushy, rusty grey hair and a deeply lined, gloomy face. He stood up, bowed as they approached him, and addressed himself to Lord Herodsfoot.
“Greetings, senhor! Salutations! You do much honour to my poor residence.”
With a brief glance at Dido, Ruiz went on, “Tell your peon to stable the horses in that barn. Allow me to offer you a glass of wine.”
This cove is supposed to be a bit off his rocker, Dido remembered; when I said that I hoped he was harmless, Tylo said – what did Tylo say? . . . Still the guy seems quiet and friendly enough – it sure is lucky how almost everybody does feel friendly to Frankie right off – I will say that for him.
—But, oh, Tylo, where are you now?
Reaching the stable Dido received a shock. For there was Tylo’s pony, tied up, peacefully munching fodder, along with a mule and a few goats.
Dido’s first impulse was to rush back to the house and find out if Tylo was there; her next was to see to the horses and look about her, before following the two men indoors. If Tylo is here, then, she thought, he’s all hunky-dory; the nag seems well enough – and it never does harm, in a strange place, to check around, take a gander, count the exits and mark the loose floorboards. I wonder where the hot spring is that Tylo spoke of? Along there by the bank, maybe, where all those tall grasses and reeds are a-growing?
Remembering the hot spring made her feel thirsty; she thought, here’s a well, anyhows, and a bucket on a rope. I’ll take some water to the nags and drink a mouthful or two myself. Wouldn’t trust the feller’s wine. I jist hope Herodsfoot has the sense not to drink too much of it . . .
She was about to lower the pail into the well when, looking over the stone coping that encircled it, she received an even more atrocious shock: down below the rim she could see the head of Tylo, just above the level of the water.
“Tylo!” she gasped.
He heard her, but could not reply; a bandage was tied over his mouth.
“Here – haul yourself up!” whispered Dido, dropping the rope’s end to him. But he shook his head and raised his hands; she could see that they were bound round and round, tightly together, with yards of cord.
“Croopus – I’ll come down and get you.”
This proved not at all easy. The well was narrow: Dido had to undo the bucket and go down head-first, binding herself to the well-rope by a travelling loop which – very fortunately – she had learned from a petty-officer on H.M.S. Thrush – then, hanging head-down, she had to undo Tylo’s hands. The rope around his wrists was too tight, and by now soaked with water, for fingers to be of any use here; she had to work herself back up the rope, extract Herodsfoot’s knife from his saddle-bag, then slither down again and saw through the strands round Tylo’s wrists. All this had to be done very quietly; she was terrified that Ruiz might come out and discover what was going on.
Even after Tylo’s wrists were free, his hands were at first too weak for him to be able to pull himself up, and Dido, hanging head-down, was not able to do more than support his weight and rub his wrists until, at last, by a few nods, he was able to assure her that now he thought he could climb out. Dido retreated up the rope, then lay flat on her stomach by the well and helped haul Tylo upwards. With a huge gulp of joy and relief she saw his bandaged head appear over the rim of the well, and dragged him out on to the grass. Then with the knife she cut off the gag over his mouth.
“Golly-heyo – Shaki-miss!” he gasped.
“Oh, Tylo!”
They hugged each other frantically. Tylo was slippery, coated in slime, since he had been sunk in the mud at the bottom of the well up to his neck.
“Think I sink much more too soon!” he said. “Think I sink over here.”
He laid his hand across his eyes.
“But why did that man do it?”
“He noddle-stricken.”
“You can say that again!”
“He think his mother send me.”
“Why the pest should he think that? Or why should that put him in a pucker?”
“I bring him a bunch of toro fruit I see hang on vine.”
Tylo explained that the mother of Ruiz had once tried to poison him with toro fruit (or so he had thought at the time) so it was a most unfortunate piece of bad luck that Tylo happened to arrive carrying the same gift. Ruiz had at once gone berserk and flown at Tylo. He was as strong as a gorilla.
“But maybe, by now, golly-likely, he forget all about me.”
“Tell you what,” said Dido, “put on one of Herodsfoot’s shirts – I see he’s got two spares in his saddle-bag – then you won’t look the same and most likely the cove won’t recognise you.”
Tylo did this – laughing heartily and admiring himself; for the shirt was Lord Herodsfoot’s best, with fine frilled cuffs – and then they went cautiously into the house.
All indoors appeared entirely peaceful and orderly. It was plain that the first thing Herodsfoot had spotted in Ruiz’ living room was a game-board and a pack of cards. The two men were sitting at a small table, completely immersed in a gam
e, which seemed very complicated, for it required cards, dice, ivory counters, as well as the board itself, which was marked out in squares. On each of these was a different emblem: hearts, anchors, crosses, horses’ heads, bells, hammers, and swords. The men had glasses of wine beside them, but were so occupied with the game that neither player seemed to have taken more than a sip from his glass. A jug of wine stood on a shelf, a pail of water on the floor.
Dido stepped quietly around behind Lord Herodsfoot, picked up his glass, and emptied it back into the jug. Tylo, with a nod, performed the same service for Ruiz. Then, sniffing the jug, he took it outside and emptied it on to a plantain, before refilling it with water.
Dido began scanning the house for food. She found the meat that Ruiz had been cooking on a spit over the fire, but by now it was burned black, and inedible; he had forgotten all about it. But there were some plantains, which she sliced and fried, and a loaf of corn-bread, fruit, and a bowl of hard white goats’ cheese.
She wondered whether to disturb the two men at their game by offering them a meal, but Tylo, in a whisper, dissuaded her. “We eat, Shaki-missie; let them play. Play game – very teryak.” He used a Dilendi word that Dido had not heard before, but his gesture made its meaning quite plain: he smoothed his hands in curves in the air as if calming a stormy sea. And Dido could see for herself that absorption in the game was quelling some of Herodsfoot’s miserable feelings about Talisman, about how in the world she had contrived to preserve his name, mockingly written in the dust, through a tempest that had torn up whole trees and tossed boulders like peppercorns. Ruiz, likewise, seemed commendably calm and even cheerful; every now and then he laughed with pleasure as some cunning move of his foiled one of Herodsfoot’s gambits. It seemed he was the better player – not surprisingly, since he must spend most of his time playing this game against himself.