Once among the trees, he began pacing the circuit of the clearing, whistling very softly to himself the unicorn tune and pausing to listen. A quarter of the way round he was halted by a tense whisper, “Stand, sir!”
“Belphebe!”
“Aye.” She stepped from her place of concealment, arrow drawn to the head. “In good sooth you look like Harold de Shea. But show me how you hold that narrow sword.”
Shea drew the still-warm épée and demonstrated.
“Certes, then you are indeed he. I feared lest the enchanters had sent a phantom forth to beguile me. Right glad I am to see you, Squire Harold.”
Shea said: “Say, I’m glad to see you, too. I knew I could depend—”
“Save your fair speeches for another hour. Here is danger. What is toward?”
Shea explained. Belphebe said: “For myself I fear not, though I thank you for the warning. Yet it’s somewhat otherwise with Britomart, who has not the protection of the woods so close as I. And sure it were shame to miss the chance of catching the entire Chapter at once. Let me think. I left Artegall at a woodcutter’s cot on the far flank of Loselwood. His man Talus had gone to fetch Cambina, that she might heal his bruises and calm his mind.”
“So Cambina’s a psychologist too! Why does he need his mind calmed?”
“Why, sir, he’s the chief justiciar of all Faerie. Without a calm mind, how shall he hold the balance even? Let us go thither and lay this matter before him. Certes, we two cannot lay so many rogues by the heels alone.”
Two hours of walking brought Shea to the yawning stage. The moon had set. Under the black trees, even the sure-footed Belphebe found the going hard. She was ready to listen to suggestions for a nap.
“Sleep is still far from me now,” she said. “If you wish, I will keep watch for the first hour—which should be till the stars of the Bear sink to the top of that tree.” She pointed. Shea, too drowsy to notice, composed himself to rest.
The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake in a brightening world.
“Hey, young lady,” he said through his first yawn. “I thought you were going to wake me up after the first hour?”
“And so thought I. But you were so in comfort that I wanted the heart to rouse you. I need but little sleep.”
“Naughty. What about my masculine pride?”
She made a face at him. “I forgot that. Men are such foolish carls about it. But come.” She danced a step or two. “Tirra-lirra, a brave day! Let’s forth and seek our breakfast.”
As they walked along, Belphebe peering toward thickets for an edible target and Shea a bit woozy from lack of sleep; he asked: “D’you suppose Cambina will have calmed Artegall down so he’ll listen to my explanations before he starts carving?”
“A thing to think on! Will you hide whilst I speak him fair?”
“Guess I’ll take a chance on his temper.” Shea wasn’t going to have his dreamgirl suspect him of timidity at this stage. He was sure he could outrun the bulky justiciar if necessary.
“Marry, I would not have you answer otherwise!” She smiled at him, and he felt rewarded. She went on, scrutinizing him: “Many knights, squires, and yeomen have I keened, Master Harold, but never a wight like you. You speak fair, yet half the time with words I wot not of. You promised to explain the meanings of those wherewith you put the Blatant Beast to rout.”
Shea replied: “Curiosity killed a cat.”
“Miauw! Yet of this cat’s allotted nine, I have several left to draw upon.”
“I really can’t, Belphebe. Magical reasons.”
“Oh. Well then, tell me the meaning of the strange thing you called the Lady Cambina even now.”
“Psychologist?”
“Aye.”
Shea gave an account in words of one syllable of the science of psychology, and of his own experiences in its practice. Under the girl’s admiring curiosity he expanded. Before he knew it he was practically telling her the story of his life. As soon as he realized this, he cut his autobiography off short, not wanting to leave her with nothing to be curious about.
Belphebe said: “A strange tale, Squire. Gin you speak truth, this homeland of yours were worth the seeing.” She sighed a little. “The wilds of Faerie I know like my own palm. And since I will not tarry at Gloriana’s tedious court, there’s nothing left for me but to hunt the Losels and such vile—Sst!” She broke off, moved slowly a couple of steps, and loosed an arrow. It knocked over a rabbit.
While they dressed and cooked their breakfast, Shea thought. He finally ventured: “Look here, kid, some day Doc and I will be going back, I suppose. Why don’t you plan to come with us?”
Belphebe raised her eyebrows. “ ’Tis a thought audacious. But stay—could I live among the woods-paths as I do here?”
“Unh.” Shea imagined the horrible complications that would ensue if Belphebe tried to lead her present life in Ohio’s close-fenced farmland. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be practical. But there’s plenty else to do.”
“What then? How should I live in one of your great towns?”
That problem had not occurred to Shea. He revised his estimate of Belphebe. The girl might look like something out of a medieval romance, but she had a core of hard common sense. The only job he could think of for her was giving bow-and-arrow lessons, and he heardly supposed the demand for professional archers to be large.
He said vaguely: “Oh, we’ll figure something out. Doc and I would see to it that you were—uh—uh . . .”
“Harold!” she said sharply. “What are you proposing? Think not that because I lead a free-roving life, I—”
“No, no, I didn’t mean—uh . . .”
“What then?”
He thought again. One obvious solution was staring him in the face; yet to bring it up so early might spoil everything. Still, nothing ventured . . .
He drew a deep breath and plunged: “You could marry me.”
Belphebe’s mouth fell open. It was some seconds before she answered: “You jest, good Squire!”
“Not at all. People do it in my country, you know, just like here.”
“But—knew you not that I am affianced to Squire Timias?”
It was Shea’s turn to stare blankly.
Belphebe said: “Nay, good friend, take it not so to heart. I had thought it known to the world, else I should have told you. The fault was mine.”
“No . . . I mean . . . it wasn’t . . . let’s skip it.”
“Skip it?” said Belphebe wonderingly. Shea bent over his rabbit-haunch, muttering something about the meat being good.
Belphebe said: “Be not angry, Harold. Not willingly would I hurt you, for I like you well. And had I known you sooner . . . But my word is given.”
“I suppose so,” said Shea somberly. “What sort of man is your friend Timias?” He wondered whether the question had a useful purpose, or whether he was showing a slight touch of masochism in keeping the painful subject alive.
Belphebe’s face softened. “A most sweet boy; shrinking and sensitive, not like these brawling knightly ruffians.”
“What are his positive qualities?” asked Shea.
“Why—ah—he can sing a madrigal better than most.”
“Is that all?” said Shea with a touch of sarcasm.
Belphebe bridled. “I know not what you mean. ’Tis even the core of the matter that he’s no bold confident venturer like yourself.”
“Doesn’t sound to me like much of a reason for marrying anybody. I came across a lot of cases like that in my psych work; usually the woman lived to regret it.”
Belphebe jumped up angrily. “So, Squire, you inquire of my privy affairs that you may sting me with your adder’s tongue? Fie on you! It regards not you whom I marry, or why.”
Shea grinned offensively. “I was just making general remarks. If you want to take them personally, that’s your lookout. I still say a woman is taking a lousy chance to marry a human rabbit in the hope of making a lion out of him.”
“What do you mean, ‘pretense’?” barked Shea. “I meant that when I said it! Though now I see that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea—”
“Oh, you do? You change your mind quickly! I’ll warrant me you’d have done so in any case!”
Shea got himself under control, and said: “Let’s not go any farther with this, Belphebe. I’m sorry I made those cracks about your boyfriend. I won’t mention him again. Let’s be friends.”
Belphebe’s anger wilted. “And right sorry am I that I threw your proposal in your face, Squire Harold; ’twas a sad discourtesy.” Shea was surprised to see a trace of moisture in her eye. She blinked it rapidly and smiled. “So, we are friends, and our breakfast done. Let us be on.”
###
The new sun was a patch of flecks of orange fire through the foliage. They found a sluggish little stream and had to squeeze through the thickets on its banks.
They reached a stretch of drier ground where the glades expanded to continuous meadow and the forest shrank to clumps of trees. They left one of these clumps and were swishing through the long grass, when a leathery rustle made them look up.
Overhead swooped a nightmarish reptile the size of an observation plane. It had two legs and a pair of huge batwings. On its back rode Busyrane, all clad in armor but his face, which was smiling benignly.
“Well met, dear friends!” he called down. “What a pleasing thought! Both at once!”
Twunk! went Belphebe’s bow. The arrow soared through one wing membrane. The beast hissed a little and banked for a turn.
“Into the woods!” cried Belphebe, and set the example. “The wivern cannot fly among the trees.”
“What did you call it? Looks like some kind of a long-tailed pterodactyl to me.” Shea craned his neck as the sinister shadow wove to and fro above the leaves.
Belphebe led the way to the opposite side of the grove. When Busyrane circled above the segment away from them, they dashed across the open space and into the next clump. A shrill hiss behind and above warned them that they had been spotted.
They worked their way through this grove. From under the trees they could see Busyrane silhouetted against the sky, while he couldn’t see them.
“Now!” said Belphebe, and ran like an antelope through the long grass. Shea pounded after. This was a longer run than the first, a hundred yards or more. Halfway across he heard the hiss of cloven air behind and drove himself for all his strained lungs were worth. The shadow of the monster unblurred in front of him. It was too far, too far—and then he was under the friendly trees. He caught a glimpse of the reptile, horribly close, pulling up in a stall to avoid the branches.
Shea leaned against a trunk, puffing. “How much more of this is there?”
Belphebe’s face had a frown. “Woe’s me; I fear this forest thins ere it thickens. But let’s see.”
They worked round the edges of the grove, but it was small, and the distance to all others, but the one they had come from, prohibitively great.
“Looks like we have to go back,” said Shea.
“Aye. I like not that. Assuredly he will not have pursued us alone.”
“True for you. I think I see something there.” He pointed to a group of distant figures, pink in the rising sun.
Belphebe gave a little squeak of dismay. “Alack, now we are undone, for they are a numerous company. If we stay, they surround us. If we flee, Busyrane follows on that grim mount—What are you doing?”
Shea had gotten out his knife and was whittling the base of a tall sapling. He replied: “You’ll see. This worked once and ought to again. You’re good at tree climbing; see if you can find a bird’s nest. I need a fistful of feathers.”
She went, puzzled but obedient. When she returned with the feathers, Shea was rigging up a contraption of sapling trunk and twigs, tied together with ivy vine. He hoped it wasn’t poison ivy. It bore some resemblance to an enormous broom. As Shea lashed a couple of crosspieces to the stick he explained: “The other one I made a single-seater. This’ll have to carry tandem. Let’s see the feathers, kid.”
He tossed one aloft, repeating the dimly remembered spell he had used once before, and then shoved it in among the twigs.
“Now,” he said, “I’m the pilot and you’re the gunner. Get astride here. Think you can handle your bow while riding this thing?”
“What will it do?” she asked, looking at Shea with new respect.
“We’re going up to tackle Busyrane in his own element. Say, look at that mob! We better get going!”
As the pursuers came nearer, thrashing the brushes of the near-by groves in their hunt, Shea could see that they were a fine collection of monsters: men with animal heads, horrors with three or four arms, bodies and faces rearing from the legless bottoms of snakes.
They straddled the broom. Shea chanted:
“By oak, ash, and yew,
The high air through,
To slay this vile caitiff,
Fly swiftly and true!”
The broom started with a rush, up a long slant. As it shot out of the grove and over the heads of the nearest of the pursuit, they broke into a chorus of shouts, barks, roars, meows, screams, hisses, bellows, chirps, squawks, snarls, brays, growls, and whinnies. The effect was astounding.
But Shea’s mind was occupied. He was pleased to observe that this homemade broom seemed fairly steady though slower than the one he had hexed in the land of Scandinavian myth. He remembered vaguely that in aerial dogfighting the first step is to gain an advantage in altitude.
Up they went in a spiral. Busyrane came into view on his wivem, beating toward them. The enchanter had his sword out, but as the wivern climbed after them Shea was relieved to see that he was gaining.
A couple of hundred feet above the enemy he swung the broom around, over his shoulder he said: “Get ready; we’re going to dive on them.” Then he noticed that Belphebe was gripping the stick with both hands, her knuckles white.
“Ever been off the ground before?” he asked.
“N-nay. Oh, Squire Harold, this is a new and very fearsome thing. When I look down—” She shuddered and blinked.
“Don’t let a little acrophobia throw you. Look at your target, not the ground.”
“I essay.”
“Good girl!” Shea nosed the broom down. The wivern glared up and opened its fanged jaws. He aimed straight for the red-lined maw. At the last minute, he swerved aside; heard the jaws clomp! vainly and the bowstring snap.
“Missed,” said Belphebe. She was looking positively green under her freckles. Shea, no roller-coaster addict, guessed how she felt.
“Steady,” he said, nosing up and then dodging as the wivern flapped toward them with surprising speed. “We’ll try a little shallower dive.”
Shea came down again. The wivern turned, too. Shea didn’t bank far enough, and he was almost swept into the jaws by the centrifugal force of his own turn. They went clomp! a yard from the tail of the bottom. “Whew,” said Shea on the climb. “Hit anything?”
“Busyrane, but it hurt him not. He bears armor of proof and belike some magic garment as well.”
“Try to wing the wivern, then.” They shot past the beast, well beyond reach of the scaly neck. Twunk! An arrow fixed itself among the plates behind the head. But the wivern, appearing unhurt, put on another burst of speed and Shea barely climbed over its rush, with Busyrane yelling beneath him.
Belphebe had her acrophobia under control now. She leaned over and let go three more arrows in rapid succession. One bounced off the reptile’s back plates. One went through a wing membrane. The third stuck in its tail. None of them bothered it.
“I know,” said Shea. “We aren’t penetrating its armor at this range. Hold on; I’m going to try something.”
They climb
ed. When they had good altitude, Shea dove past the wivern. It snapped at them, missed, and dove in pursuit.
The wind whistled in Shea’s ears and blurred his vision. Forest and glade opened out below; little dots expanded to the pursuers on foot. Shea glanced back; the wivern hung in space behind, its wings half-furled. He leveled out, then jerked the broom’s nose up sharply. The universe did a colossal somersault and they straightened away behind the wivern. In the seconds the loop had taken, the beast had lost sight of them. Shea nosed down and they glided in under the right wing, so close they could feel the air go fuff! with the wing beat.
Shea got one glimpse of Busyrane’s astonished face before the wing hid it. The scaly skin pulsed over the immense flying muscles for one beat. “Now!” he barked.
Twunk! Twunk! Belphebe had drawn the bow hard home, and the arrows tore into the beast’s brisket.
There was a whistling scream, then catastrophe. The wide wing whammed down on the aviators, almost knocking Shea from his seat. They were no longer flying, but tumbling over and over, downward. The top of a tree slashed at Shea’s face. Dazedly, he heard the wivern crash and tried to right the broom. It nosed up into a loop and hung. A cry from behind him, receding toward the earth, froze him. He saw Belphebe tumble into the grass, twenty feet down, and a wave of the monster men close over her.
Shea manhandled his broomstick around, fervently wishing he had a lighter one—a pursuit job. By the time he got it aimed at the place where he had last seen Belphebe, there was no sign of her or of Busyrane either. The wivern sprawled bloatedly in the grass with hundreds of the enchanter’s allies swarming round it.
Shea drew his épée and dove at the thick of them. They screeched at him, some of them producing clumsy breast bows. He swooped toward a monster with a crocodile head as the strings began snapping. The arrows went far behind, but just as Shea stiffened his arm for the gliding thrust, Crocodilehead thinned to a puff of mist. The épée met no resistance. As Shea held his glide, parallel with the ground, he found the crowding monsters disappearing before him. He pulled up, looking back. They were materializing behind. More arrows buzzed past.
The Complete Compleat Enchanter Page 24