by Adam Roberts
‘Aye,’ said the Dean.
But as they approached the haystack moved, and a great face reared up, like a parody of sunrise, over the line of the roof. The giant grinned his great grin, teeth like a row of crusader shields, his brown flesh folding and creasing with audible noise.
The three of them stopped; but there was no hiding place, and no benefit to be had from running.
‘I,’ said Bates. ‘I have had converse with these creatures. Have you, Dean?’
‘These monsters? Not I.’
‘Then let me - let me address it.’ He forced his legs onwards and approached the being. It had been lying its length in the field, behind the farmhouse, and now had raised itself on its elbow and turned to face them.
‘Hello!’ cried Bates, and his voice wobbled. Try as he might to control himself, it wobbled. ‘We are travellers!’
‘Travellers,’ rumbled the enormous mouth.
‘Are you under orders from the military forces?’ Bates shouted, pointing to the great studded leather jerkin the being wore across his chest.
‘I cannot hear you.’
‘Shall I elevate myself? Might you position your great ear, Sir Giant?’
‘I cannot hear you.’
Laboriously, Bates went to the side of the house and clambered up the unevenly sloping chimney stack, until he could settle himself on the roof. Straddling the centre tiles like a jockey, he tried again.
‘Are you under military orders?’
‘Aye,’ said the giant, meditatively. ‘I am of the French.’
‘We have met before, sir!’ cried Bates, with great excitement. ‘We have met once before - in London!’
‘Met before?’
‘Yes, sir, do you remember? Can you remember?’
‘Forgive me,’ rumbled the giant. ‘You tiny people are not easy to distinguish. Forgive me.’ He exhaled a long sigh, and the bushes trembled.
The Dean and Eleanor had come over to the house. ‘Is it a friendly giant?’ called up the Dean.
‘More,’ rumbled the being, ‘travellers.’
‘You and I sat together on the banks of the Thames - do you remember, sir?’ urged Bates. ‘You were mournful at the destruction of the city.’ The giant, by turning his head so that his ear was receptive to Bates’s words, appeared to be staring at the horizon.
‘Tell it,’ shouted the Dean. ‘That we are eminences in the French army. It can help us! It could carry us to York with seven-league strides!’
This had been in Bates’s mind too. ‘We, sir, have important business at York. Important business. If you help us, you would be handsomely rewarded.’
‘Rewarded,’ rumbled the giant.
‘What is it you need? You helped me once - don’t you remember? You carried me along the river, and placed me at the Tower. What do you need?’
‘I am,’ said the giant, his voice like a mighty boulder rolling, ‘hungry.’
‘Food! There are great supplies of food in York.’
‘I have eaten all there is to eat,’ said the giant, ‘in this place.’
Bates looked down. So intent upon the Brobdingnagian had he been that he’d not until this moment noticed the disarray in which the yard and fields of the farm lay. A hedgerow was sooted with fire. Many trees from a small wood six hundred yards distant had been uprooted and stripped of branches. The carcasses of half a dozen cows, in various states of having been eaten, were spatchcocked upon the trunks of trees, and now lay scattered on the turf. It looked as though a battle had been fought; merely a snack for this giant.
‘There were people,’ he said. ‘They ran.’
‘No matter! No matter!’ said Bates, excitedly. ‘If you help us, we can repay you! Take us to York! Do you know York?’
The enormous head moved, with a tidal slowness, left, right: a shake.
‘No matter! Put us on your shoulders and we can spy out the way! It is not far; a few strides for you.’
The giant turned his head to look at Bates, perched on the roof like a cockerel. Then he looked down at the Dean and Eleanor on the ground. Despite himself, the Dean flinched.
‘I was with the army,’ said the giant, in the most mournful drawn-out basso profundo. ‘But the soldiers sickened and died. Many died, and the others went away, afeared of the sickness.’
‘I understand !’ bellowed Bates. ‘You have no orders! But we are eminences in—’
‘This is a land of death,’ said the giant.
‘No matter!’ shouted Bates.
‘I wish that I had never come to this land,’ said the giant.
The impact of the being’s melancholy was like a natural force, a great pressure. Bates could not think what to say in the teeth of such enormity of grief.
‘Giant!’ shouted the Dean. ‘Giant!’ And for once the Dean was equal to the task. He projected himself. ‘Giant! GIANT!’
The Brobdingnagian angled his big head.
‘Are you a Christian?’ bellowed the Dean. ‘Have you accepted Christ into your heart?’
‘I have,’ said the creature, sounding almost surprised.
‘I am Dean of York. Do you know what that means? I am a man of God!’
‘God,’ said the giant. ‘Is bigger even than I.’
‘God is bigger than all,’ said the Dean. ‘And I am a vicar of God! Do you understand?’
‘Of God,’ said the giant. ‘The God died, but he was bigger than death.’
‘Yes! You must help us - you must help me.’
‘Yes,’ rumbled the giant.
‘For the sake of God!’
‘Yes.’
‘Carry us to York!’
‘For,’ the giant said, with his enormous slowness, ‘the sake of God.’
‘Carry myself, and carry this lady - she is my betrothed. But not this other man.’
‘Dean!’ shrieked Bates. The word came out much more high-pitched than he intended. ‘What? Dean - no!’
‘Yes,’ said the giant.
Bates hauled himself to the chimney stack and began, ungainly, to clamber down. ‘Dean, what are you doing? The fellow can easily carry us three.’ His foot slipped and he half-fell, half-dragged down to the turf at the bottom. ‘Dean!’
The giant was unfolding himself. He got to his feet with vast unhurried motion; then, again slowly, he bent down to squat on his immense haunches.
‘Dean,’ said Bates, breathlessly, hurrying over to Oldenberg. ‘Of course I must travel with you to York.’
‘You, sir?’ said the Dean, not meeting his eye. ‘You viper!’
Bates was startled out of speech. ‘Are you jesting, sir? Are you joking?’
‘No sir. Our paths diverge at this point.’
‘But - but, Eleanor!’ he appealed. ‘You must tell him!’
‘You must tell him yourself, Mr Bates,’ said Eleanor, demurely. ‘He is my future husband.’
‘Eleanor!’ Bates felt a panic rise within him. ‘Say - not this! Do not abandon me here!’
‘My advice,’ said the Dean, in a deep voice, ‘would be to walk south, return to London.’ And then, in his excitement, his voice resumed its more usual higher pitch. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, sir.’ And he hurried forward. ‘Sir Giant!’ he bellowed. ‘Myself and this lady - to York, sir! To York!’
‘Eleanor!’ cried Bates, once more.
She stepped to him. ‘Do not despair,’ she murmured close to his face. ‘And do not think I love him, for I do not. But - he has wealth, and position, and these things . . .’
‘Eleanor,’ he urged. ‘I love you! You know this, that I love you.’
‘If I had a free choice,’ she said, making a pretence of buttoning her jacket to her neck. ‘If my choice were free - then of my two husbands, you know which I would choose. But, choice is not given to everybody, dear Abraham—’
‘Eleanor!’ barked Oldenberg. ‘Why dally with that man?’
‘Bidding him farewell, my dear,’ she said.
‘Eleanor,’ Bates said,
in a low and urgent voice. ‘We have shared - we have shared a thing that—’
‘I know it,’ she returned. ‘But our choices are not often free. Let us say we shall meet again soon, and perhaps . . .’ And she lifted her hand. Feeling the biggest fool in Christendom, Bates kissed it. And then she trotted over to where the giant was already scooping up the Dean.
Bates started running towards the enormous hand. ‘Take me too!’ he cried. ‘Take me too, Sir Giant!’
‘Don’t listen to him, Sir Giant,’ bellowed the Dean, already fifteen feet in the air. ‘Take the lady, but not that other one.’
‘Wait!’
But it was already too late, and the giant was stretching himself to his full height. And then Bates could do nothing but stand and watch as the great figure strode away to the west, stepping over hedgerows and sending the birds bickering into the air all around him.
FOUR
GUGGLERUM AND LITTLEBIG
[1]
Let the giant plunge on with his giant stride. Let him step over rivers as if they were runnels of mercury upon a green floor. Let his head graze underbellies of clouds.
The Dean clung to the creature’s shoulder. He plunged his hands in amongst the giant strands of the creature’s woollen vest and clasped one of the ropes inside. He was saddled upon the shoulder-strap of leather - three inches thick - that linked the front of the Brobdingnagian’s protective jerkin to the back, and gripping at the network of interwoven ropes of wool, he clung on. Mrs Burton was cradled in the creature’s left hand. But Oldenberg wanted to see. He wanted the aerial seat, like Euripides on his cloud, to look down on mortal vanity. And this seat he had, save only that it jiggled and swung, and that he must focus most of his energy in simply hanging on, or face a seventy-foot drop to the ground.
‘Are you alright, Eleanor?’ he called, but she could not hear him over the whooshing of the air. And he was elated. They mounted a hill and the prospect from the top was of Yorkshire all to the west, and the spire of York Minster - was it? - visible pricking the horizon, and villages and copses, but the trees looked like broccoli florettes, and the sky was filled with rainclouds, taller even than he. Great mountain-peaking clouds with grape-coloured bases. With what certainty they promised rain. The deluge! Lave the world clean! ‘York city!’ cried the Dean. ‘I can see it, Sir Giant! The horizon - the Minster, proud - make for—’ but the rest of his words were swallowed by thunder. A great Brobdingnagian rumble of thunder, like a boulder as massy as the moon rolling down the mahogany grooves of the sky.
On strode the giant.
[2]
Bates surprised himself. He expected to be stricken and downed by the fact of his abandonment. He might never see her again - never, never - and here he was marooned in the middle of a desert county, a land picked clean like the Black Death. And yet, his heart, like a hot coal - elation. She had said: If my choice were free - then of my two husbands, you know which I would choose. He would see her again. The Dean was an old man, old and ill with his snuff, and corpulent. He was rickety after the fever. Death had curled a bone-finger through his buttonhole. But Bates was young, and would prevail. Young and, people said, handsome. Eleanor had been a widow before, and would be a widow again, and then - and then - and then.
Dear Abraham, she had said.
He must follow them to York, of course. He could not walk to London, and the thought of returning to the coast was repugnant to him. He would walk west, and make his way to York. He would present himself to the English forces - he would style himself as a man with important knowledge of the French - or . . . he knew not what he would do. But he would follow her. She was the star that guided his life now.
First he must address his hunger. He made his way to the pile of cattle carcasses that the Brobdingnagian had left, for there was meat still on the bodies, and cooked too. He pulled some chunks from one and, chewing, he made his way to the cottage and inside. His cheek ached mildly when he moved his jaw. The skin of the side of his face, punctured by the tiny bullet, stung when stretched. No matter.
It was dark, for the shutters were still closed. But the kitchen had not been looted, and Bates found first a large knife with a bone handle and - better than that-a heel of bread. It was moulded over with blue fur, but he pared this away easily enough to fashion a cube of bread unspoiled, if a little stale. At the back of the kitchen was an annex that led, round the corner, to a covered outhouse, and here there was a well. Bates dropped the bucket and hauled it up, and drank until his stomach creaked. Then he moved from room to room chewing on the cube of bread, exploring the rest of the house. It was quite empty, though the bed - which was on a broad shelf overlooking the main chamber - was ruffled, as if somebody had but recently arisen from it. Bates did not care. The combination of a full stomach, and his poor sleep the night before, spurred him. He climbed the ladder and fell on the bed. Dear Abraham, she had said. He was asleep almost at once.
Upon awaking he found the pain in his cheek much more severely disagreeable. The carbuncle, where the Lilliputian warrior had shot him with his miniature rifle, felt hot under his finger. It ached now as a toothache aches, a continuous and distracting quantity of pain. The pellet was still embedded in his flesh. Bates could feel it, like a pea under a quilt; but no matter how he manipulated his cheek with his fingers he could not unloose it.
Annoyed by the ache of it, Bates found his mood slipping. He recalled himself to his resolution - to follow the giant’s footsteps, and hurry to York as fast as his own feet could take him. ‘Rouse yourself, Abraham,’ he said aloud. ‘What? Indolent? In a stranger’s house?’
His slogan must be: Eleanor!
So he climbed down the ladder and searched rapidly through the house for items to carry with him. He found little enough, but he did chance upon a Hessian-cloth satchel, and into this he put his knife, some leeks from the larder (they were starting to bolt, but he took them anyway) and a stoppered jug which he filled at the well. Then he went outside and carved some more pieces from the scorched carcasses of the cattle. He thought of salting it, but there was no salt to be had. He felt quite the pilgrim, to be thinking in such terms. He, who until a few months ago ate only what others cooked for him, servants or the chef at his club. Now here he was, like a questing knight, attending quite to his own needs!
The sun was past the zenith, and the sky was busy with corpulent white clouds, each of them edged with blue like the mouldy bread in the kitchen. A storm might be coming. Bates debated with himself whether he should spend another night in the farmhouse, and set out the following day. But no! he told himself. I have delayed long enough! I must get on. To Eleanor! And so he set off, walking west.
At first he made good progress, crossed three fields and found a road; unmetalled, but made of solid dirt and with a hedgy strip of grass growing along the middle. He walked with long strides. The sun shone warmly, but with the warmth of a friend bidding farewell. Soon enough, the sky became covered entire with cloud. A wind got up. It grew colder.
Nevertheless, in his heart: Dear Abraham.
It began to rain, mildly at first, and then more heavily. There was no shelter, and nothing to do but press on, but Bates found his resolve melting and shivering out of him. Turn back, advised his inner voice. Go back to the farmhouse. ‘No!’ he said to himself, aloud. ‘Be a man, Abraham. Eleanor! Eleanor!’ And that word was his tocsin. He put his head down and marched on.
The rain wet his clothes. Soon enough it got through to his skin, and started to run down the crease of his back. His stockings became clogged with water inside his shoes, and chafed at his heels. His shirt adhered coldly to his back. It was much darker now, and blackening more every moment.
Thunder crumpled the sky over his head.
Flickers in the corner of his eye, and the rain was illuminated, momently, as a million wriggling threads. After the flash the night was darker than before.
The road passed a house. It was a farm, with a cart in its yard, and a duckpond. W
ith a cry of thanks to merciful God Bates dashed over the muddy yard and pushed open the door.
The inside was too murky to be able to see. But the smell was offensive: merde-ish, redolent of corruption, and Bates hesitated on the threshold. But tush, he told himself. His need for shelter outweighed his dainty repulsion. He stepped forward.