by Joan Aiken
“That’s a lie! My granda is not a thief! He has not stolen the harp!”
A thunderous silence fell. The people who were standing close around Owen drew away from him in a semi-circle so that he was left alone, midway between the crowd and the museum entrance.
“Young Owen Hughes, that is,” he heard somebody whisper, “the old rheibiwr’s grandson. Come back, maybe, from disposing of the harp at Caer Malyn!”
Then the silence about him changed its quality and became steely-cold; although he had caught no sound from the museum Owen turned instinctively, sensing that the people in the crowd had shifted their attention to something behind him.
Old Mr. Hughes had come out and was standing in front of the door, staring at the crowd. He seemed quite calm, totally unmoved by their accusations. But when he saw Owen his face set like granite.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you, is it? Well? What have you come back for?”
6
Arabis very much wished to ask her father what the foreign gentleman had been talking about so earnestly. But by the time the latter had ambled off into the darkness, turning to bow again every few steps, one or two customers had appeared outside the wagon; for half an hour or so Arabis was busy fetching down boxes of cough pastilles, phials of ointment, bottles of lotions and potions, and discussing their ailments with the people of Nant Agerddau.
“Pains in the night after too many slices of bara brith, ma’am? Then it is tincture of rhywbarb you will be needing, I am thinking.”
“A sore throat when you do sing in the Maccabeus Choir for nine hours on end, sir? Our syrup of synamon will make you clear as a lark in no time.”
“Chilblains with you, is it, my little lass? Here’s some ointment of marchruddygl and marchalan, horseradish and elecampane, that will soothe them better in a twinkling.”
“Runny nose and the sneezes, boy? Nasty old cold you have got, isn’t it, and here’s a dose will do you good—persli, perwraidd a perfagl, parsley, liquorice and periwinkle, oh, most delicious indeed!”
“A love potion you are asking, sir, a diod huolus, because your young lady won’t speak to you? Indeed I am afraid we have no such thing with us, but one piece of counsel I can be giving you—eat no more wynwyn, no more onions in your lobscows, for, not to tell you a lie, sir, the angel Gabriel would hold his nose to be near you; sure I am then you will find your young lady quite civil and sociable again!”
“Can’t sleep at night, is that the trouble with you, and nasty dreams when you do drop off? Certainly to goodness that is a grievous trouble, and here is some juice of llysiau cwsg, llysiau dryw, poppy and agrimony, that will lull you off before you can blow out the candle. And here, to turn your thoughts in a smiling direction, here is one of my father’s beautiful poems: The Dream of the Emperor Maxen, it is called, and tells how he saw the Princess Helen in a vision, and sought her over land and sea; how much? One hatling, half a farthing for the medicine, sir, and one gini, twenty-one shillings, for the poem; and never again will you be in the way of buying a whole lifetime’s pleasure for so little!”
Right at the end of the queue, lurking outside the wagon door in the darkness, was a curious little person, not much over three foot in height, and so covered with bushy black beard and whiskers that it was not possible to see anything of his face but a pair of sorrowful dark eyes which he fixed steadily on Arabis when, the last of the other patients being out of sight, he ventured into the van. He was wrapped in a black blanket-like robe which came over his head in a hood and covered all but his face.
“And how can I help you, sir?” Arabis inquired in her kind, warm voice. “Oh, there’s silly I am”—as a fearful cough and spell of shivering shook him—“Indeed I can hear what troubles you, and a bad old cough that is! But wait you a little minute now …” and she mixed him a hot, soothing potion of aconite, belladonna, bryony, and ipecacuanha, beaten up in honey, lemon, cinnamon, and steaming metheglin. “There, sir, now we shall soon see you better. Indeed, my da says that dram would make Julius Caesar jump up out of his grave and invade Britain all over again! And I will give you this powder of herbs, mustard, tansy, and dandelion—put one-third in a bath of hot water before to go to bed every night for three nights, is it, and have a good old soak; that will soon stop the shivers.”
All this time her small patient had not spoken one word. Pushing back the blanket, and revealing a sort of black knitted stocking-cap on his head, he drank the potion, and seemed greatly astonished by its flavour (nevertheless it appeared to do him good); he received the powdered herbs and instructions with a puzzled expression, but stowed the paper obediently under his blanket; then Arabis perceived that he was holding out to her something that glittered; a small lump of gold it proved to be.
“Dear to goodness, sir, that is far too much payment indeed, far and away too much! One shilling for the powder and one for the dram, one ffloring altogether, if you please! No more at all.”
But the little patient did not seem to understand her; he still held out the lump of gold.
It was no use appealing to Tom Dando for advice; he had suddenly been struck by a new verse for his poem and was frantically scribbling it down before he forgot again. All Arabis could do was to compare the size of the gold lump with a gold guinea-piece, decide that it was three times as heavy, and so give her patient two guineas, nine silver florins, and a shilling, in exchange, which he regarded in a baffled manner. For a moment she feared he was going to swallow the shilling.
“No, no, sir, it is your change from the gold you gave me—too much it was, see? Please to put in your pocket.”
Did he understand? It was hard to discover his expression, since so much of his face was concealed by the tangle of beard and whisker. But at length he put the coins away and made a sort of bow, pressing her hand for a moment against his cheek. Then he was gone swiftly into the dark outside.
“Well!” said Arabis. “There is curious for you! Didn’t seem to follow what I said too well, though very civil to be sure. Hey, Da! Are you listening to me, Dada?”
“Eh? What is that, my little one? Did you speak?” Tom Dando put down his quill, having come to the end of a canto, and rubbed his eyes, blinking, like someone who has just woken from a deep sleep. His shirt collar was rumpled and his long curly dark hair was standing on end; his forehead was splashed with ink.
“Did you see that strange little fellow that was in by here, with a nasty cough on him? Look what he has given me in payment!”
Tom Dando examined the lump of gold, smelt it, felt it, and bit it.
“Pure, new-minted gold, that is,” he pronounced. “Not often is it that you see the like, these days.”
“But how could he have come on it, Dada?”
“Maybe he do have a goldmine by him,” Tom Dando said vaguely, his mind and eyes once more straying back to his poem.
Arabis seized the chance before he was lost again. “Dada! The man who was in here before—the foreign gentleman in the fur hat. What did he want, with him?”
“Foreign gentleman?”
To prevent her father beginning to write again, Arabis gently removed the quill which he had picked up, and swept his pages of poetry into a neat heap.
“The man with the moustaches like rams’ horns and the great flow of polite talk on his tongue.”
“Oh, the Seljuk of Rum, is it? Kind of a foreign prince he is, down in those parts where they have a lot of sandy desserts, and eat dates. Telling me about his country, he was, while I gave his moustaches a bit of a trim, and then we got to talking of poetry; a fine clever man he is, indeed, and not at all proud with it.”
Arabis breathed a breath of relief. Talk of poetry was harmless enough.
“You didn’t tell him how I found Owen in that empty house this morning?”
“Found Owen in a house? What for should Owen not be in a house?”
Tom Dando looked round absently, picked up his pen, and, for lack of paper, began to write on a large flat Caerphilly cheese which Arabi
s had just put out for his supper. She moved it beyond his reach.
“Oh, Dada!” she said patiently. “You know I told you about finding Owen.”
“Did you so? But what should the Seljuk of Rum care about that? He have never even met Owen! Have sense, girl! Talking poetry, we were—and he was asking questions about the parts round here; interested in the old gold mines, he is, and who used to work them.”
“Why?” Arabis asked suspiciously. “None of his affair, surely?”
“Some reason he had, I am forgetting what. One or two lines of my poem burst sparkling into my mind then, just, so I am not remembering very clearly what he said. Something about somebody he was looking for was it? Oh, and he wanted to know where Brother Ianto was to be found.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Arabis, knitting her brows. “And why was that, I wonder? How have he come to hear tell of Brother Ianto?”
“Whisht, girl! Ask more questions that a magistrate, you do! Why this, why that? How should I know? Maybe he needs glasses with him. Pass me my cheese, if you please, and a drop of metheglin to keep out the cold, and I will be writing another two-three verses while you tuck yourself off to bed. Late, it is indeed.”
Arabis tidied the caravan, covered up Hawc, and went to bed, but as she drew the curtain of her bunk, she asked,
“Will the foreign gentleman be staying long in these parts, Dada?”
“Eh? What’s that you say, cariad?”
“The foreign gentleman. The Seljuk of Rum. Does he stay here long?”
“No, not long,” Tom Dando said, taking a mighty bite of cheese. “Goes off to stay at Caer Malyn tomorrow; interested in all the gold treasures there, seemingly, and had an invitation from his lordship to go and study them.”
“Ach y fi! If that is the sort of company he keeps, I hope we see no more of him.”
“There’s silly you are, girl! Interested in gold he is, that’s all.”
But Arabis, curling up in her bunk, was more than ever relieved that the Seljuk had caught no glimpse of Owen at the wagon, if he was a friend of the wicked Marquess. Maybe it was he who had arranged to have the harp stolen for Lord Malyn? And why should he be inquiring after Brother Ianto? It was all odd, and most suspicious.
She was worried, too, about Owen; the miserable, defeated set of shoulders as he walked away after Brother Ianto had made her heart ache with compassion. Restlessly turning on her pallet she resolved to go down to Brother Ianto’s cave first thing next morning and talk over what was best for Owen to do next. At last she drifted off into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that the Marquess, smiling with wolves’ fangs, was holding the harp just out of Owen’s reach while he hit it with a hammer.
“He’ll break it!” Arabis muttered, half sitting up in bed; then she realized that the tapping sound she had heard was in fact someone knocking at the door of the wagon. Could it be Owen?
Pulling on her dress she tiptoed past Tom, who had fallen asleep with his head resting on a pile of poetry. Outside the door she found the same tiny bearded man who had earlier given her the lump of gold.
“What is the trouble with you, now, sir?” Arabis asked, sleepily rubbing her eyes. “Late hours you do keep, indeed! Hush not to wake my Dada, if you please. I will step outside.”
Once she was down the steps the little man gave a tug at her arm. In his eyes she caught such an urgent, pleading, beseeching look that she guessed something was badly amiss. It did not seem to be connected with himself; indeed his cough appeared much better for the draught she had given him.
“Wait you one moment then,” whispered Arabis gently. Both she and her father were accustomed to be called out at night from time to time; she put on her warm red cloak with the hood, packed up a basket of the remedies most frequently called for, carefully covered Tom with a patchwork quilt, and scribbled a hasty note: “Gone out to patient. Back soon. Yr loving daughter Arabus.”
Then she caught up the horn lantern and slipped out again to where the little man was patiently waiting.
To her surprise he led her not in the direction of the town, but up towards the quarry face, along a narrow path among bushes, and at length paused before one of the larger cave openings, giving her a measuring look.
“In there?” said Arabis, somewhat taken aback. “Da chwi, where are you taking me, friend?”
But the man, evidently deciding that she was not too tall to enter the cave, pulled her forward again without answering, and they went inside.
Arabis was not alarmed, but she was greatly interested, for she began to suspect that her unusual client must be one of the little fairylike beings, the Tylwyth Teg or Fur People who were thought to dwell in the caves of the mountain. Up to now she had been inclined to consider them nothing but a legend, invented by the timid and credulous inhabitants of Nant Agerddau, but the little man certainly answered their description in many particulars. She found it hard to believe, though, that he would suddenly pull her into a bottomless chasm, or disappear leaving her lost in the bowels of the mountain, or turn into a flaming dragon and devour her. His hand, pulling her along, was warm and seemed human enough; though he did not speak she felt instinctively that he was friendly towards her and could be trusted. And, after all, he had swallowed her medicine and it had done him good. That was another proof, Arabis thought, that he was not one of the Bendith eu mamau, the Little Blessed People; if he had been, surely he would have no need of human remedies?
This cave (unlike the one Owen had entered in search of the harp) did not come to an end, but struck downhill, deep into the mountain, growing wider and higher as it descended. The horn lantern threw so small a circle of light that Arabis could catch no more than a glimpse, now and then, of rock walls sparkling with crystals, and occasionally a great cluster of stalactites, like icicles of stone, dangling from the roof overhead. The floor was hard and their steps echoed hollowly as they proceeded; the air, as in all the caves of the Whispering Mountain, was warm and steamy.
Presently her guide came to a halt in what seemed to be a large chamber at the bottom of the tunnel; he put his fingers between his lips and whistled shrilly. Almost at once another man, equally small and hairy, appeared out of the dark, blinking at the lantern as if he were distressed by its light
The two men conferred together in a musical foreign language, then the second one tugged forward a pair of animals which he had been leading; Arabis nearly dropped her basket at the sight of them, for in the whole of her life she had never laid eyes on such peculiar-looking creatures. They were about the size of donkeys, but had big, flat, shuffling padded feet instead of hoofs; their necks were long and swaying, their backs curiously bumpy, their expressions sardonic, and they were covered with long, shaggy black fur, which was moulting here and there; some of the looser hanks were tied up with bits of string. They smelt strongly and disagreeably of fish.
Her guide gestured her forward; Arabis realized that she was expected to climb on to one of these animals; each wore a sort of saddle, adapted to the strange shape of their backs. The second man thumped them with his fist and they knelt down on the rock making a noise, half snarl, half snuffle, which gave Arabis little confidence in their good intentions. However, she mounted, perching her basket and lantern in front of her (there was a bump, convenient for this purpose, on the animal’s back), her guide also mounted, calling out some word of command, and the other man stood back.
The creatures heaved up awkwardly on to their feet and set forward into the dark. Their flat pads made little sound on the rock and Arabis found it hard to judge exactly how fast they were going, but it seemed very fast indeed; their method of progress was to lurch forward until they were almost ready to topple over and then right themselves at the last minute; she soon felt as if all her bones were being pulled apart. She had often bestridden Galahad or the mountain ponies but this was utterly different, and the most uncomfortable ride she had ever taken.
I believe I know what these beasts are like, she presently thought, peerin
g at the long flexible neck and rather sheeplike head in front of her, there is a picture in one of Dada’s books about foreign lands. Camels. That is it, they are like camels.
She had pronounced the last word aloud and, to her surprise, for she had given up expecting her companion to speak to her, he suddenly gave a flashing smile, nodding his head up and down.
“Gamal, gamal!” he agreed, thumping his steed.
“They are really camels? But how do camels come to be in by here, under the mountain? That is a strange thing, surely?”
He answered in his own incomprehensible tongue. She would have liked to ask more: why were the camels so small and dwarfish, their bumps flattened out, how was it they could see in the dark? But there seemed little point in asking if she could not understand his answers.
“Owen will know,” she thought. “Very likely in his little Book of Knowledge it will be giving the whole explanation. But camels underground in Wales—who would have thought it, indeed!”
Meanwhile the camels had been speeding along an apparently endless, straight, level underground passage which ran alongside an underground river. Arabis, while not exactly alarmed, began to be somewhat anxious because they were covering such a distance; “At this rate,” she thought, “it will be daybreak before I so much as reach my patient, and gracious to goodness knows when I shall get back home again; Dada will have to see to his own breakfast.”
She was not afraid that Tom would be worried about her, she knew him better than that. If she were to be absent for a week together he would do little more than lift his head from his poetry and murmur, “Dear, dear, Arabis not back yet, then?” before dashing down another verse.
After an interminably long ride, during which Arabis was able to doze a little, holding on to the pommel of her saddle, the tunnel brought them into a vast cavern which was illuminated by clusters of pale phosphorescent lights hanging far above.
They were still following the course of the river which crossed the floor of the cave in a deep channel. The water, running smooth and silent, was a pale milky green, cloudy but most beautiful, and was evidently hot; wreaths of steam rose from its surface. Far ahead Arabis could see a series of massive pipes, like those of some enormous church organ, which ran up the cave wall and were lost to view in the gloom overhead; the river appeared to flow into these pipes, but how the water was persuaded to run perpendicularly upwards, Arabis could not imagine, nor where this great underground hall could be; they must, she was sure, be very far from Nant Agerddau, perhaps beneath the Fforest Mwyaf.