Tales From High Hallack, Volume 2

by Andre Norton

  *

  Cook stood with both red hands planted firm upon the much scrubbed table, looking across the board at Jennie. Her face was as red as her hands and she made it quite plain just what she was thinking.

  “M’ lady eatin’ only what that puffed pigeon of a doctor tells ‘er, is that it? I say it loud and clear, that wry-faced Madam who thinks to cut ‘erself a snug place ‘ere is goin’ to find out that she ain’t the mistress. No she ain’t!”

  “An’ just ‘ow, Missus, is you goin’ to get ‘er to listen to you?” Ralf emptied his beer mug and thudded it down on the table.

  For a long moment there was no answer. Suddenly Mrs. Cobb straightened up, her weight making her look someone to be taken seriously. She reached out her hand and drew closer a basin of thick brown crockery. Then she turned, without answering the question, and hefted a jug of the same heavy earthenware. From that she poured a stream of milk into the bowl. The milk was so rich and thick one could almost see flakes of butter swimming in it, striving to be free.

  The bowl she filled carefully within an inch of the top, then she put down the jug, and, from under the vast sweep of her apron, she brought out a bunch of jingling keys.

  Ralfs eyebrows slid up. “Th’ keys? ‘Ow ever did that Madam let them get outta ‘er hands, now?”

  Cook’s lips curled, but in a sneer not a smile. “Oh, she got our lady’s bunch to rattle a little song with, may that which waits at water get ‘er for that! But m’lady, she saw long ago as ‘ow it was not handy for me to go runnin’ to ask for this store and that when I was a-cookin’. Nor was she ever one as begrudged me what I ‘ad to ‘ave. So I’ve had m’ own keys these five years now.”

  “An’ what are you goin’ to do with that?” Ralf pointed to the bowl.

  “Ralf Sommers, you ain’t as big of a ninny that you ‘as to ask that now, are you? This ‘ere,” she looked around her, “be Hob’s Green. An’ it didn’t get that name for nothin’.”

  Ralf frowned. “HIM? You is goin’ to deal with him?”

  Mrs. Cobb looked down at the bowl as if for a moment uncertain, and then, her mouth firmed, her chin squared. “I be a-doin’ nothin’ that ain’t been done before under this ‘ere roof and on this land!”

  She walked past Ralf out of the kitchen and down the passage which led to those very dark descending stairs to the vast network of cellars which no one, even in the daytime, willingly visited. Or if one must go, it would be hurried, lantern in hand and looking all whichways as one did it.

  At the top of the stairs there was another door in the wall, opening into the kitchen garden, though no one now used that. Mrs. Cobb placed the bowl carefully on the floor. Selecting a key, she forced it into the doorlock and shoved it open a hand’s breadth.

  She drew back. The way was dark, so much so that she could hardly see the bowl. She cleared her throat and then she recited, as one who draws every word out of some deep closet of memory:

  “Hob’s Hole—Hob’s own.

  From th’ roasting to th’ bone.

  Them as sees, shall not look.

  Thems is blind, they’ll be shook.

  Sweep it up an’ sweep it down—

  Hob shall clear it all around.

  So mote this be.”

  Mrs. Cobb turned with surprising speed for such a heavy woman and swept with a whirl of her wide skirts down the passage until she could bang the kitchen door behind her.

  *

  Thragun stayed where he was crouched, watching through the slit of the door she had opened. He sniffed delicately. That which was in the bowl attracted him. Squeezing through the narrow door opening, the cat looked up and down the narrow stone paved way. He sniffed in each direction and listened. Now he was inside the house again and no one had seen him. He smelled the contents of the bowl, ventured a lap or two, and then settled down to drink his fill.

  He jumped, squalled, and turned all in almost one movement. The painful thud on his haunch was not to be forgiven. Thragun crouched, reading himself for a spring.

  Crouching almost as low, and certainly as angrily as he himself was, a gray-brown creature humped right inside the door. Thragun snarled, and then growled. In spite of the heavy gloom of the passage his night sight was clear enough to show him exactly what had so impudently attacked him by driving a pointed foot into his back.

  Thragun growled again. His right front paw moved lightning quick to pay for that blow with rakeing claws. But the paw passed through the creature’s arm and shoulder. Its body certainly looked thick and real enough but what he struck at might only be a shadow.

  He straightened up. Thewada! So this new place had such shadow walkers and mischief makers as he had been warned about since kittenhood—though he had certainly never seen one himself before.

  “A-stealin’ of Hob’s own bowl, be ye?” The creature straightened up also. It looked like a man but it was very small, hardly taller than Thragun. Its body was fat and round, but the legs and arms were nearly stick thin, and it was covered completely with gray-brown wrappings. Only a wizened face, with ugly squarish mouth and small green eyes like pinheads on either side of a long sharp pointed nose (like the beak of some rapacious bird) were uncovered. However, the skin was so dark it might have been part of that tight clothing.

  “This be Hob’s place!” The words bit at Thragun. “Forget that, you night walker, and Hob’ll see you into a toad, so he will!” He stamped one long thin foot on the floor, followed by the other in an angry dance. Now he pointed his two forefingers at the cat and began to mouth strange words which Thragun could not understand.

  Thewada could be mischievous and irritating, Thragun had heard, but for the most part they were lacking in power to do any serious harm. He yawned to show that he was not in the least impressed by the other’s show of temper.

  “I be Hob!” the dancer screeched. “This be my place, this!” Once more he was stamping hard enough to set his body bouncing.

  “I am Thragun Neklop—guard of the princess,” returned Thragun with quiet dignity. “You are a thewada and you have no place near the princess—”

  Hob’s face was no longer brown-gray like his clothes, rather it had turned a dusky color, and if he tried to mouth words they were swallowed up by a voice which wanted more to screech.

  “The bowl is yours,” Thragun continued. “I ask pardon for sampling it. It is a good drink,” he continued as if they were on the best of polite terms. “What is it called?”

  His attitude seemed to bewilder Hob. The creature halted his jumping dance and thrust his head forward as if to aid his small eyes in examining this furred one who was not afraid of him as all proper inhabitants of this house should be.

  “It be cream—cream for Hob!” He shuffled a little to one side so he was now between Thragun and the bowl. “Cream they gives when they calls. An’ truly it is time for Hob to come—there be black evil in this house!”

  Thragun stood up, his lash of a tail moved from side to side and his ears flattened a little.

  “Thewada, you are speaking true. Evil have I smelled, ever since I have come into this place. And I—I am the guard for the princess. What do you know of this evil and where does it lie?”

  Hob had grabbed up the bowl in his two hands and thrown back his head so far on his shoulders that it seemed to be like to roll off. He opened a mouth which seemed as wide as half his face and was pouring the cream steadily into that opening.

  “Where,” asked the cat again, impatient, “is that evil? I must see it does not come near to the little one I have been sent to guard.”

  Hob swallowed for the last time, smeared the back of his hand across his mouth and smacked his thin lips. Then he pointed to the ceiling over their heads.

  “Aloft now, so it be. She has a black heart, she has, and a heavy hand, that one. What she wants,” his scowl began growing heavier as he spoke, “is Hob’s house. An’ sore will that one be if she gets it! I say that, and I be Hob, Hob!” Once more he stamped on the stone
.

  “If this place is yours, why do you let that one take it?” Thragun asked. He was staring up at the ceiling, busy thinking how he might get out of here and up aloft as the thewada said it.

  “She works black evil,” Hob said slowly. “But the law is with her—”

  “What is law?” asked Thragun in return. “It is the will of the king. Is he one to share this evil?”

  Hob shook his head. “Mighty queer have you got it in your head. The law is of us who have the old magic. Only it will do no harm to that one because she does not believe. There are them who lived here long ago and now walk the halls and strive to set fear in her. But until she believes we can no’ drive her out. ‘Tis the law—”

  “It is not my law—I have only one duty and that is to guard. And guard I will!” Without another look at Hob, Thragun went into action, flashing away down the hall.

  *

  Emmy’s fingers were pinched and scraped from the holds she kept on the ivy, and she dared not look down, nor back, only to the wall before her as she crept foot width by foot width along the ledge.

  She shrank against the wall and hardly dared draw a breath. There was a sound from the next window. The casements banged back against the wall. Then she heard Miss Wyker’s voice:

  “Miss Emmy, my lady? Alas, I fear that you must be sadly disappointed in her. She is impudent and unfeeling. Why, she has never asked to see you nor how you did.”

  Emmy began to feel hot in spite of the very cool breeze which rustled the vines around her. Miss Wyker was telling lies about her to Great-Aunt!

  “Now, my lady, do you rest a bit and I shall be back presently with the night draught Dr. Riggs has prescribed.”

  There came an answer, so weak and thin, Emmy could hardly hear it.

  “Not tonight, Miss Wyker. I always wake so weak and with an aching head. I felt much better before I began to take that—”

  “Now, now, m’lady. The doctor knows best what to give you. You’ll be yourself again shortly. I shall be back as soon as I can.”

  There came the sound of a door closing and Emmy moved, daring to edge faster. Then she was at the open casement to claw and pull her way into the room. There were two candles burning in a small table near the door, but the rest of the room was very gloomy.

  “Who—who is there?” Great-Aunt’s voice, sounding thin and shivery, came out of all the shadows around the big curtained bed.

  “Please,” Emmy crossed the end of the room to pick up one of the candles. Going closer to the bed she held it out so she could see Great-Aunt resting back on some pillows, all her pretty white hair hidden away under a night cap, so just thin white face was showing.

  The anger which had brought Emmy so swiftly into the room broke free now. “Please, Miss Wyker told you a lie. I did want to see you and I asked and asked, but she said you did not want to be disturbed—that I was too noisy and careless. But it was a lie!”

  “Emmy, child, I have wanted to see you, too. Very much. But how did you get here? Surely you did not come through the window.”

  “I had to,” Emmy confessed. “She locked me in my room. And she locks your door, too. See,” she crossed the room and tried to open the hall door, but, as she expected, she could not. Turning back to the bed, her eyes caught sight of the tray Jennie had brought with Cook’s custard on it.

  “Didn’t you want this?” She took the tray in one hand and the candle in the other. “Cook made it special—out of the best cream and eggs. She said you always liked it when you were not feeling well before.”

  “Custard? But, of course, I like Cook’s custard. Let me have it, Emmy. Then you sit down and tell me about all this locking of doors and my not wanting to see you.”

  Lady Ashely ate the custard hungrily, while Emmy’s words came pouring out about all the things that had been happening in Hob’s Green which she could not understand, ending with the story of how Thragun Neklop had come that very day and how Miss Wyker had acted.

  “And father sent him to me—he is a gift from a princess, a real princess. Jennie took him away and I don’t know what has happened to him!!” One tear and then another cut into the dust of the vines which had settled on Emmy’s round face.

  “Emmy, child, can you help me with these pillows, I want to sit up—”

  Emmy hurried to pull the pillows together and make a back rest for Great-Aunt.

  “Emmy, has Mr. Adkins been here lately?” Emmy was disappointed that Lady Ashely had not mentioned Thragun, but she answered quickly:

  “He has come three times. But always Miss Wyker said you were asleep, or it was a day you were feeling poorly, and he went away again.” Mr. Adkins was the vicar and Emmy was somewhat shy of him, he was so tall, and he did not smile very much.

  “So.” Great-Aunt’s voice sounded a lot stronger. Emmy, without being told, took the empty bowl on its tray and set it on the chest under the window. “I do not understand, but we must begin to learn—”

  “But,” Emmy dared to interrupt, “what about Thragun? Jennie said Rog took Cook’s kitty away and it never came back.”

  “Yes, we shall most certainly find out about Thragun and a great many other things, Emmy. Go to my desk over there and find my letter case and pen and ink— bring them here.”

  However, when Lady Ashely tried to write, her hand trembled and shook and she had to go very slowly. Once she looked up at Emmy and said:

  “Child, see that brown bottle over on the mantelpiece? I want you to take that and hide it—perhaps in the big bandbox in the cupboard at the back.”

  It was when Emmy was returning from that errand that they heard the key turn in the lock. Lady Ashely forced her hand to hold steady for two more words. Then she folded it and wrote Mr. Adkins’ name on the fold. Without being told, Emmy seized the letter case with its paper and two pens, one now dribbling ink across the edge of a pillow, and thrust it under the bed, stoppering the small inkwell and sending it after it. Lady Ashely pushed the note toward Emmy and the girl snatched it to tuck into the front of the dusty and torn breeches.

  The door opened and Miss Wyker stood there, a lighted candle in her hand. She held that high so that the light reached the bed.

  “M’lady,” she hissed, “what have you been about? What—”

  The light now caught Emmy, and Miss Wyker stopped short. Her face was very white and her eyes were hard and glittered.

  “You cruel child! What are you doing here! Shameful, shameful!” Her voice rasped as she put down the candle to bear down on Emmy. She caught one straggling lock of the child’s hair and jerked her toward the door. “Be sure you will suffer for this!”

  “I think not, Miss Wyker.” Lady Ashely did not speak very loudly, but somehow the words cut through. Miss Wyker, in the process of dragging Emmy to the door, looked around, but her expression did not change.

  “M’lady, you are taken ill again. This cruel child has upset you. Be sure she will be punished for it—”

  “And if I say no?”

  “But, m’lady, all know that you are very ill and that you sometimes wander in your wits. Dr. Riggs himself has commented upon how mazed you are at times. You will take his medicine and go peacefully to sleep, and when you wake this will all be a dream. Yes, m’lady, you will be very well looked after, I assure you.”

  Emmy tried to hold onto a bedpost and then to the back of a chair, but pain from the tugging at her hair made her let go. Great-Aunt was looking at Miss Wyker as if some horrid monster were there. She pressed her fingers to her mouth and Emmy could see that she was frightened, really frightened.

  The door to the bedroom was thrown open with a crash and Emmy jerked out into the hall.

  “You,” Miss Wyker shook her, transferring her hold on Emmy’s hair, to bury her fingers in the flesh on the child’s shoulders, shaking her back and forth, until Emmy went limp and helpless in her hands. “Down in the cellar for you, my girl. The beetles and rats will give you something else to think about! Come!” Now her fing
ers sank into the nape of Emmy’s neck and she was urged forward at a running pace.

  They reached the top of the narrow back staircase the servants used. Up that shot a streak of dark and light fur. It flashed past Emmy. Miss Wyker let go of the child and tried vainly to pull loose from what seemed to be a clutch on her back skirts. Unable to free herself, she tried to turn farther to see what held her so. Something small and dark crouched there.

  Then came a battle scream, answered by a cry of fear from Miss Wyker. Now her hands beat the air, trying to reach the demon who clung with punishing claws to her back. She screamed in terror and torment as a paw reached around from behind her head and used claws on a white face which speedily spouted red. Miss Wyker wheeled again, fighting to get her hands on the cat. Then she tottered as that shadow hunched before her now at her feet struck out in turn. The woman plunged side wise with a last cry. Thragun flew through the air in the opposite direction, landing on the hall floor not far from Emmy who had crowded back against the wall, unable even to make the smallest sound.

  The cat padded toward her, uttering small cries as if he were talking. That candle which had fallen from Miss Wyker’s hand rolled, still alight, down to the stair landing below. Miss Wyker lay there very still. But there was something else, too, something dancing by the side of her body and uttering a high thin whistling sound. Only for a minute had Emmy seen that and then it was gone. Thragun was rubbing back and forth against her legs, purring loudly. Emmy stooped and caught him tight. Though this was hardly a dignified thank you, Noble Warrior allowed it. After all, was he not a guard and one who had done his duty nobly and well, even if a skirt-jerking thewada had had something to do with it? HIS princess was safe and that was what counted.

  Hob’s Pot

  Catfantastic II (1991) DAW

  In the old days before Papa came home, no one used the big drawing room since Great-Aunt Amelie had stopped entertaining, saying she was too old for company. However, this afternoon it had been turned into a treasure cave and Emmy, sitting on a footstool beside Great-Aunt Amelie’s chair, looked around very wide-eyed. There was a picture in one of the books Miss Lansdall had brought when she had come to be Emmy’s new governess which looked a little like this wealth of color and strange objects, some amusing and some simply beautiful, like the pendant Great-Aunt Amelie was now holding. There had been a boy called Aladdin who had found such treasure as this that Papa’s Hindu servant and both of the footmen were busy unpacking from wicker baskets which looked more like chests, pulling back layers of oiled cloth which had kept the sea air out, before taking carefully from the depths one marvel after another.