by Joan Aiken
“What is Manoel up to?” Herodsfoot asked again.
“He want to push out his brother Sovran John. He got Town Guard camped up by bridge, ready attack Limbo Lodge.”
“His own brother? – Now I remember,” muttered Herodsfoot, mostly to himself. “In Bad Szomberg, I remember there was some scandal attached to Manoel Roy – after cheating at cards he had waylaid a person who threatened to expose him and stabbed the man – but nothing was proved—”
“Why doesn’t his brother stop him? If he has his own guards over there in the palace?”
Tylo pondered: “Sovran John maybe not know. And we Forest Folk not like fight,” he presently offered.
“But John King ain’t a Forest Person. He came from Norfolk,” Dido said.
“But he old now, he learn Forest notions.”
“That’s true; and he had them from his wife, too, didn’t he? But do you reckon he really doesn’t know what Manoel is up to?”
“Golly-maybe,” said Tylo doubtfully. “Or maybe he hope, still, whispering leaves, sand-voices, knot in grass blow across Manoel path, trip him—”
He had lost Dido. She did not understand these references.
“What we gotta do, Tylo?” she said. “We can’t go and call on John King if his brother Manoel is camped in front of the bridge with his Guards. There’s no other way across the gorge. We’re in a bit of a fix. And, from what Manoel said to that other cove, he plans to do us all in. Who was the other guy, the one Manoel called Mateo? Is he kin to those folk where we stayed?”
“He that gal’s brother.”
“But he said his sister had gone off to the Cliff of Death—”
“Hush!” whispered Tylo. “Listen!”
Far back in the cave where they now were, the silence was very complete: the massive rock above and around them seemed to banish all noise, save an occasional faint drip of water.
No, not quite all noise. Tiny, in the distance, far, far away, came the smallest possible cry – not more than the thinnest spider-web of sound.
“Where’s it coming from?” breathed Dido.
“Maybe more frontways? In side cave? You stay here, Shaki-Dido,” said Tylo softly. “Stay here with Milord Oklosh. I go look.”
“S’pose you don’t come back?”
“I come, I come. You see. If I no come, you go back to horses, go back to my Sisingana.”
“Could I ever find the way?”
“I think you find it, Shaki-Dido. You got good baraat,” Tylo told her encouragingly. Dido did not know exactly what baraat was – common-sense, maybe – but his tone cheered her.
Tylo broke off a morsel of fire-fungus, passed it to her, and slipped off along the passage.
“Where’s the boy gone?” asked Herodsfoot after a while.
“There was a noise – sounded like a baby crying.”
“A baby? In a place like this? Who in the world . . .? Oh, dear me,” sighed Herodsfoot. “I feel so useless. If only . . . if only Talisman were here . . . How happy we should be to see her.”
You never said a truer word, Frankie, thought Dido.
Then she thought she caught the sound of soft pattering footsteps. In a moment she was sure of it. Tylo was returning.
He came rather slowly. Dido was puzzled, momentarily, as he seemed to have balanced the fire-fungus on his head, on a flat flake of stone, while he carried a bundle in his arms. It was too dark to see what he held until he came up to Dido and passed her the bundle, which felt like an outsize grass birdsnest with something warm and solid in the middle. As Tylo handed the bundle to Dido, it let out a faint chirrup and waved a fist.
“Save us! A baby!”
“Paper tell who,” said Tylo.
Having handed Dido the baby, he removed the fire-fungus from his head and pulled a folded paper from his waistband. Holding the fungus beside the paper, he raised it near enough to Dido’s face so that she was able to read the few lines written on it.
“I have gone to jump off the Cliff of Death and rejoin my beloved Kaubre who was killed by my brother and father. I will not take my baby, for if the tree-fathers of Aratu wish her to live, she will be found and cared for. Whoever finds this paper, please, if she is still living, take my baby to a tree-mother. Luisa Ereira.”
What a shame, thought Dido. Doc Talisman goes to all the trouble of keeping that gal from dying, helping her baby be born, and then she has to go and jump off the Cliff of Death.
Now what’s to be done?
“Where’s the nearest tree-mother?” she murmured to Tylo.
He seemed a bit nonplussed. “Best we go down to horse-cave.”
“Yeah, that would be farther away from those coves and their camp. In case the baby lets out a yip and they hear her. And you got some djeela-juice in one o’ the saddle-bags, haven’t you? Maybe she’d take a drop of that.”
So they moved, with the utmost care and caution, out of the cave and back down the cliff path. The mist was still very thick, the night still black-dark and the going, down the narrow, slippery, twisting path, was slow, unpleasant, and very often terrifying. Dido, holding the bundle of baby, was glad that Tylo walked ahead of her, sometimes reaching back a friendly hand to steady her on the sharper turns. Herodsfoot came behind Dido, every now and then letting out little subdued grunts of anxiety. Dido could sense, as if by telepathy, each time he felt an impulse to take off his glasses and wipe them.
“Don’t take those glasses off, Frankie! – wiping them won’t make a mite of difference in this tarnal fog.”
(So far the plaster that Talisman wrapped round the earpiece had held firm, but it was becoming very grubby and frayed.)
They could tell when they drew near to the lower cave because of the warm smell of horse that came drifting up the cliff path. Stepping slowly down, carrying the grass-wrapped baby (who was quite heavy – she must weigh as much as a Michaelmas goose) – Dido became possessed by an unreasonable fear. Suppose those massive crocodiles had decided to clamber all the way up the cliff path and devour the horses? But when they reached the lower cave, all seemed orderly and quiet, the horses peaceably munching on their fodder and no rapacious reptiles to be seen.
The baby was so tranquil and well behaved that Dido wondered if her mother had given her a dose of some calming herb juice to quiet her when they escaped from the Quinquilho ranch. But when offered a sip of djeela juice she sucked it willingly enough, then went back to sleep in her cocoon of grass and leaves.
“What’ll us do now?” Dido whispered to Tylo, and he whispered back, “Wait till day come.”
This seemed a sensible plan, as they were all exhausted after the day’s trek through the forest, the parting from Talisman at the cliff foot, and the long struggle up and down the cliff path. They piled themselves beds of keedo-grass and opoe vine, sprinkled kandu nuts, and gratefully lay down to sleep. Outside they could hear the distant roar of the Kai river, far below still, and sometimes the cry of a night bird.
It should have been easy to sink into slumber, but Dido lay wakeful and worried.
We are in a right dicey pickle, she thought, with those Angrian coves up above, a-planning to do in old John King, and Doc Tally lord knows where, and Cap Sanderson laid up with snake-bite in that crazy-feller’s hut – and the Siwara loaded with pearls on its way to Valparaiso leaving us marooned in Aratu – I reckon Cap’n Hughes back on the Thrush will be wondering where the devil we’ve got to – and poor old Multiple in that creepy hospital being cared for by a passel of witches – all because we came hunting for Frankie Herodsfoot and his precious games. Those games just better cure old King Jamie of his megrims, if we ever do get back to London, that’s all . . .
At last she slept.
And woke to a thin silver blade of sunlight slicing in from the cave’s upper left-hand corner, piercing between the bulbous stalactites; and Yorka’s small hard hands urgently tugging her awake.
“Yorka!”
“Shaki-Dido! You wake quick! I bring news and br
eakfast!”
“We got news too,” said Dido, “We found a baby.”
“O-o-o-o!” Yorka exclaimed mournfully as Dido told the baby’s history. “Well, well, that poor Outros girl she now with her Kaubre in under-forest, better than stay in dark cold unkind house. But we best take the baby to Aunt Tala’aa pretty quick—”
“Where is Aunt Tala’aa?”
“Breakfast first, we feed baby, then now-and-now I find out.”
Yorka had brought tikkol fruit, which had firm juicy pink flesh under a thin brittle rind. The baby accepted some of its juice, trickled into her mouth, and then slept again. Yorka showed Dido how to wrap her snugly in one of the huge green ukka leaves.
“What about Cap Sanderson, where did you leave him?” asked Dido.
Yorka said she had fetched back the guide, Trinki, who had taken care of Sanderson before, when he was making for Manati harbour. “Take him back to Regina town. Snakebite better. Ruiz still sleep.”
“I thought Trinki’s father was dying.”
“Father die, go to under-forest, Trinki glad come back.”
“I just hope Sanderson won’t get into trouble in Regina town. He was so angry about his ship—”
Herodsfoot, who had been munching tikkol fruit in gloomy silence (it seemed as if, on top of everything else, he was suffering from a homesick longing for bacon, eggs, toast, and marmalade), now said, “And what are we proposing to do?”
“First find Aunt Tala’aa,” said Yorka.
Dido had been wondering how Yorka had been able to summon Trinki to conduct Captain Sanderson back to the town. Now she watched with interest as Yorka stepped outside the cave, climbed a short way up the sloping cliffface to a knob of rock, and stood on this, tilting her head as far back as it would go. She looked as if she were staring intently at the sky, but her eyes were shut. So she stood, absolutely still, for about five minutes. Once Herodsfoot began to say something, but Tylo hushed him with a gesture. Dido, listening intently, caught the faint sound of drums in the far distance; also – more disquieting and closer at hand – a sharp crackle, now and then, which might be rifle-fire.
Now Yorka came down from her rock. “Aunt Tala’aa not far. On Mount Fura.”
“But that’s where Limbo Lodge is – ain’t it?” said Dido. “Across the gorge?”
Tylo said: “Maybe Aunt Tala’aa go visit old Sovran John. Be golly-good she do that.”
“So what do we do? Is there a bridge? Can we get across?”
“I go see,” said Tylo. “You-all wait here.” And he flitted away up the steep cliff path.
“I hope he’ll be careful,” said Dido anxiously. “Seems to me I heard gunfire up there.”
“He go taku,” said Yorka.
Then Yorka related an item of news which she had been politely withholding until the party’s plans had been discussed. While at the foot of the cliff path, by the crocodile beach, she had seen a strange sight. A large number of men – “five times fingers and toes” – climbed, quite easily it seemed, down the Cliff of Death – “like some person before made foot-places in rock.”
“Stairs?” said Dido. “Steps? Like when we went to bed in the Ereira house, high up in the tower?”
“Yes. Stair path on cliff, men coming down, many, many Outros men.”
“That’s mighty queer. D’you think John King was one of them; escaping from Limbo Lodge by the back door?”
“Old Sovran King much old climb cliff,” said Yorka firmly.
“What did the men do when they got to the bottom? How did they get past all those crocodiles?”
They had dropped rafts into the sea, Yorka said, big light rafts made of sliced-up clove-wood; they climbed down on to the rafts and floated away up the west side of the island.
“Where will they get to?”
“Regina town.”
Yorka explained that every few months, when the volcano south of the island was due to erupt, a warm ocean current set in, flowing northwards, which would, in about three days, carry the rafts directly to the north tip of the island.
“Do you think they were going for help? Help to fight Manoel?”
Yorka thought this unlikely. “Who would help?”
“The Forest People?”
But the Forest People would never fight, Yorka said. Their task was to sing and listen and heal; what useful result did fighting ever produce?
Now Tylo came back. His report was discouraging. Manoel Roy, with a large troop of Angrian Town Guard, was encamped on the brink of the gorge by the bridge over the Kai ravine. The bridge could not be crossed.
Guards with muskets patrolled it every few minutes. And the troop, from time to time, fired their muskets into the forest which surrounded Limbo Lodge.
“Maybe Manoel plans to starve King out,” said Herodsfoot. “What a way to use your own brother! Disgraceful When I return to London I shall tell His Majesty King James that we must immediately cancel our treaty of trade and defence with Aratu.”
“Before that, though,” said Dido, “how are we going to get to see John King? Had us better climb up those steps in the cliff?”
She did not sound at all eager. Herodsfoot turned pale at the very suggestion, and both Tylo and Yorka were opposed to it.
“Cliff of Death holy place, for jumping off, not climbing up.”
“Talisman did.”
“Well . . .”
Talisman had her own good reasons and was special, their silence conveyed.
“So – what, then?”
Yorka had a plan. It would not be too hard, she said, to make another bridge. They would do it farther down the gorge, around several bends, where Manoel and his men could not see what they were up to.
“But the gorge is wider down there. And how in the world, may I ask, can you build a bridge?” asked Herodsfoot in disbelief. He did not sound any happier about this idea than he had at the notion of climbing home-made steps up a thousand-foot cliff.
But Yorka sent Tylo off to the fishing-village on the other side of the headland with a gift of some djeela-pods, which she had by her, and a request for shark-rope.
“What is shark-rope, Yorka?”
“Rope made from human hair, very strong, easy catch shark.”
While Tylo was gone, Yorka strolled down the cliff path, looking across the gorge, until she found what she considered a suitable place for a bridge. And she set Dido to collecting spider-webs. These were plentiful, all up and down the cliff path, spread over the thorny, heather shrubs which grew on the lip of the cliff and at the edge of the trees. The large grey-black-and-yellow spiders who spun the webs were not at all pleased at having their handiwork taken away, and shook their legs furiously at Dido, who did not greatly care for the task of despoiling them.
“Will they bite me?” she asked Yorka, who said, “Not if you don’t let them.”
Herodsfoot was no use at this job as his short sight prevented him from seeing where the webs were, and he broke the stem of his glasses again trying to help.
“Lucky spider-web good for mending glasses,” Yorka said, and did an emergency repair while Dido went on with the web-collecting. In the end they had a substantial heap, which Yorka skilfully twisted into a thin line, only just visible in the sunshine. Then Yorka’s memory-bird was sent across the gorge at the selected spot with instructions to fly round a chosen tree and come back again with the end of the cord. A thicker strand was now attached and pulled across.
At this point Tylo returned from his trip to the fishing-village with two huge hanks of human hair-cord and a gift of shark steaks. When he saw the slender strand stretched across the ravine he beamed approval.
“Golly-good! Soon now we make bridge.”
Herodsfoot had been watching these activities with incredulous disapproval. “We cross that? Who, pray, will carry the baby? And what about the horses?”
“I fetch Trinki, he take horses back to Regina,” said Yorka.
Meanwhile Dido cooked the shark steaks, and Ty
lo passed a third strand, then a fourth, across the width of the gorge. Next a length of rope was pulled across; and another. Then Tylo went across himself, holding the upper rope, sliding his feet along the lower; Dido found it impossible to watch him, she gulped, and had to close her eyes, thinking of the roaring white water forcing its way between rocks so very far down below, but he did it without the least concern, and skipped ashore on the far side to fasten the ropes more securely and clear out a foothold on the top of the cliff. The forest grew right down to the cliff edge on that side, but Yorka had chosen her site well; there were two large smooth tikkol trees which provided a strong reliable support for the bridge. By the time the shark steaks were cooked, Tylo and Yorka had constructed a trustworthy-looking rope bridge with two strands of rope on each side, an upper and a lower, and a network of cord zigzagging between, forming a floor, or footing.
Tylo and Yorka had both been across the gorge several times, during the construction of the bridge; now Yorka said, “You go this time, Dido, take baby; time you go,” as if she were conferring a big privilege, and Tylo, returning from a scouting trip up the cliff path, said, “Best us all go, pretty-golly quick. Outros guards coming down path for look-about.”
With a lump in her gullet the size of a cricket-ball, Dido picked up the baby and moved towards the bridge.
“No, no, baby on back,” said Yorka, and, with a swift whipping of opoë vine, fastened the bundle of baby and ukka-leaf on to Dido’s shoulders. “Now you got two hand for hold.”
Dido found it best not to look at the foamy water crashing and thundering among the rocks such a long way below those frail-seeming strands of rope that supported her feet. She kept her eyes steadily fixed straight ahead, on the dark tree-covered slope in front, and tried to ignore sounds from behind – the rattle of musket-fire, and then, more ominously, men’s shouts from higher up the hill on her right. She knew the bridge was not strong enough to support more than one person at a time; she tried to accelerate her pace, but it made the rope structure swing about in a terrifying way, and she dared not go any faster.