The Deptford Histories

by Robin Jarvis

  Each family brought their own speciality to the celebration and sat upon stools, benches, chairs or piles of cushions around the splendid display. At the main table sat Fenny and the honoured guests—except Giraldus who, because of his disease, had been asked to sit by himself some distance away. Tysle had objected to this at first, but the mole had accepted the temporary banishment quite willingly.

  “No one wishes to sit at table with a leper,” he commented. “My gruesome visage would no doubt turn their stomachs and dispel their appetites. I shall be quite content to dine in solitude; be not upset, Tysle.”

  So, when the feasting began, the shrew made certain his master had plenty of everything before he sat down to enjoy his own meal and silence the growls of his stomach.

  Tysle had never seen such food; the feast was a fabulous spread of toothsome delicacies. The different courses seemed to utilise nearly every plant and tree in the forest and the shrew clapped his paws in excited glee, not knowing which to sample first.

  There were herb soups, walnut and hazel pies, fennel and oak-apple pasties, twelve kinds of stew, a mash of vegetables, freshly baked bread still warm from the oven—all steaming with delicious scents that set Tysle drooling.

  He was so famished and so eager to launch himself at the various dishes, that by the time the puddings arrived his stomach was already swollen and stretched to its utmost capacity. As he washed the meal down with a swig of dandelion mead, Tysle gazed at the sweet-smelling desserts and wished he had room for them.

  Sitting by himself, Giraldus had been more patient and less enthusiastic over his food. His sense of taste seemed to have almost disappeared and whatever he ate was as bland on the tongue as unsalted porridge.

  “Too many furry wrigglers,” he muttered despondently, “their bitterness has jaded my palate—never shall I enjoy a juicy worm again. This banquet may just as well have been gruel and mud.”

  As the evening progressed and the folk of the mound grew merry, some even came to him—at a safe distance of course. The mole abstained from all drink, except elderflower water, and was horrified to discover the others were tasting the bramble wine.

  “The fruit of that tree is the blood of the Green,” he warned them. “Thou shalt not drink of it.”

  In response to that, Wendel defiantly swilled down a whole goblet full and hiccuped loudly.

  Sitting next to Vesper, Ysabelle munched a small cake flavoured with raspberries and the two spoke only of light-hearted matters—neither uttering a word about their cares and troubles.

  When just about everyone had finished eating and were simply nibbling and picking at whatever was left over. Fenny stood up and addressed his people. The woodlanders listened gravely, as he told them of the harsh struggle ahead.

  By the time he sat down again, all faces were turned to Ysabelle and it was apparent they expected her to say something too. Nudged by Vesper, the squirrel rose and thanked the folk of the mound for their hospitality and for agreeing to join her in the fight to regain the holy land.

  When she was done, they all cheered, yet the sound was hollow, and presently a still solemnity fell as all thoughts turned to the following day and what it might bring.

  Tysle looked quickly at each pondering face and his bright, brown eyes gleamed. Putting down a spiced bun which he thought he might just be able to find a space for, the shrew hobbled over to where Wendel was patting his stomach contentedly, and whispered in the stoat’s ear.

  “Aha!” the jester cried. “Indeed, my limping friend, this is the perfect occasion!”

  Leaping to his feet, albeit rather drunkenly, Wendel waved his arms to gain everyone’s attention and announced that he would be only too glad to entertain them if they so desired.

  Amidst great applause and banging of fists on tables, Wendel wheeled his cart into the centre of the gathering and at once began to juggle, whilst roaring scandalous jokes to the delight of the audience.

  Mice and hedgehogs rolled from their benches, too full to laugh without hurting their sides. The elderly weasel tutor guffawed at a particularly scandalous jest, then turned bright pink and hid his face behind a large pie dish. Wherever he saw boredom or pomposity, the jester scurried over and punctured them with his needle-sharp wit. Wendel scampered about the assembly, mysteriously pulling objects from behind ears or out of mouths to the astonishment of everyone.

  As the merriment proceeded, Giraldus let out a deliberate yawn just as the stoat capered by. But Wendel had no wish to waste his time and talents trying to raise a smile on that one’s lips—far better to ignore him and win this new audience over.

  The mole eyed him disdainfully; he did not care for the fellow’s irreverent humour and it occurred to him that he might aid his digestion by having a little nap. There was nobody near him now; those woodlanders who had spoken with him seemed to have done so only out of curiosity and now they were far too busy appreciating the jester’s performance to take any notice of the secluded pilgrim.

  “’Tis the illness which does affright them,” he sadly observed. “Let us hope that the damsel can restore the fortunes of Grinuvicia and can heal both Tysle and me.”

  He pulled gently on the string and noticed with dismay that Tysle took longer than usual to respond and when he did arrive it was with some reluctance.

  “Do not worry thyself,” Giraldus said in a dejected tone, “I shall not keep you from the silly antics of your friend. If you could but guide me to some out of the way corner where I might rest awhile and close mine eyes, I should be grateful.”

  Thus, Tysle directed his master over to a shallow cave just off the hall and made him comfortable on the small bed there.

  “Thank you,” the mole said. “What would I do without my trusty friend?”

  Tysle smiled, then looked over his shoulder as tremendous squeals of laughter broke out around the jester.

  “Ooh,” cooed the shrew, “the fellow has brought out a bladder on a stick and is a-beating folk about the head. He do look funny—why he is pretending to be Captain Fenny!”

  Giraldus shut his eyes. “Tysle,” he began, “what will you do once you are cured of thy lameness and I of my ailment?”

  “I... I don’t know, and that’s the truth,” replied the shrew, taken aback by the question.

  “If I am no longer blind,” Giraldus continued, “then no need of a guide shall I have. You will be free to do as you wish—whatever life you choose to lead.”

  Tysle knelt beside his master and took a bandaged paw in his own. “What’s this?” he asked in a quavering voice. “What are you a-saying?”

  “Only that you need not feel duty bound to remain with me,” the mole replied.

  “But you did save my life,” the shrew murmured, his eyes growing moist. “I could not leave you.”

  “You must not feel obliged simply for that,” Giraldus said gently. “I... I know how fond you are of the jester—if you wanted to journey with him instead and see new lands then I would understand. The life of the pilgrim is no happy vocation; I have no tricks or pranks with which to entertain.”

  At this Tysle broke out crying. “Master!” he sobbed. “Don’t say such things, I don’t want to leave—not never! ’Twas you who gave me a purpose in life after the Hobbers destroyed my family. Oh, I grant the jester is mightily funny, but I ain’t willin’ to traipse round the country listening to the same old jokes day after day. You and me can’t ever be split apart now—not after all we been through. Did we set out on the pilgrimage for it to end like that? I think not.”

  Giraldus sniffed and squeezed the tiny paws that gripped his bandaged fist. “Stout-hearted and most loyal of friends,” he said huskily. “What did I ever do to deserve a companion such as thee? Blessed in the eyes of the Green must I have been that day.”

  The mole wiped his own eyes hastily. “Go now,” he said thickly, “enjoy the stoat whilst I slumber.”

  So, on a lengthy, forty-three-autumn-rain-wormer, Tysle left his master and returned to t
he hall.

  Wendel had been an enormous success and the woodlanders demanded that he entertain them once more before the night was through and with a flamboyant bow the jester agreed.

  A group of mouse and vole musicians began playing their instruments and the folk of the mound tidied away the remains of the feast. Gradually the cleared floor became filled with couples dancing, their tails sweeping through the air as they cavorted and their voices raised in happy rejoicing.

  Vesper looked at Ysabelle and raised his eyebrows. The squirrel stared back at him for a second then giggled as she had done long ago—before the silver had come to her. Taking his wing in her paw, the two capered into the twirling woodlanders and, leaning against the wall, Wendel watched them in much amusement.

  Tysle limped about the merry hall, chatting amiably to anyone he encountered. Everyone liked him, for he was so eager and willing to listen, and in that brief time, the shrew made many friends and learned a great deal.

  Every woodlander, it seemed, had the highest regard for their gallant captain and they never tired of relating the brave deeds he had done. Many were the Hobbers Fenny had killed and countless innocents had he saved through his unmatched valour. No equal had he, not in all the forest was there such a heroic leader and unto the ends of the earth would they gladly follow him.

  “Yet despite his vigour in despatching the enemy,” a plump mousewife told him, “our captain has sworn that one day he will lead us from all dangers. To find a new land is his heart’s desire, some place away from dark forests—some fair meadow by a stream is his wish, and all would go with him.”

  Tysle beamed at her, though when she asked him to dance, his worm string made it impossible and he would not remove it in case Giraldus awoke and needed him. Shrugging, the mousewife found another partner and disappeared into the whirling throng, leaving the shrew standing alone.

  He scratched his head and meandered about the edge of the dancers, exchanging pleasantries and answering whatever questions they put to him about the life of a pilgrim. Yet always his eyes returned to where Wendel’s cart stood by the side of the blacksmith’s forge and eventually in that direction, the shrew’s feet slowly pattered.

  No one was near the cart when Tysle approached and he reached out a paw to touch the garish paintwork. Bright flourishes and scrolls twisted over the boards and his eyes gazed fixedly at the prop chests. Casually, Tysle glanced about him. Everyone was too wrapped up in the dancing to notice him—even Fenny had joined them now and the mouse bounded from one lady to another as a brisk reel piped up.

  “I suppose them chests is locked anyhow,” the shrew mumbled to himself. He flicked at the catch on the one nearest to him and the lid lifted a little.

  Tysle guiltily looked around; still no one was looking.

  “What do you think you be doing, Tysle Symkyn?” he muttered. “You were brought up better than to peek at someone else’s property.”

  “But I mightn’t get to see it again,” he countered. “Mister Jester might go off soon and I won’t be stealing anything—I just wants a play, that’s all.”

  “A play? What age are you? Too old to get excited over such vain fripperies! Think of thy master!”

  Gingerly, he touched the string which linked him to Giraldus and his gaze turned in the direction of the sleeping chamber where at that moment the mole was snoring contentedly.

  It was reassuring to be moored to such a solid and noble anchor—for the pilgrim could always be relied upon to support and save him from any trouble. The shrew looked back at the cart. “I just need the teeniest of glimpses,” he mumbled. “Just a teeny eeny one.”

  “No,” his conscience scolded him, “you just get away from here right away—Wendel won’t thank you for meddling with his tricks!”

  Tysle frowned, “Very well,” he consented, “I shall go and find some other thing to do.”

  But his fingers had closed about the cart’s handles and, before he knew what was happening, the shrew had wheeled it into an empty passage—away from the noise and any curious eyes.

  “My!” he breathed, his paws stroking one of the intriguing and beguiling boxes. “’Tis such a lovely thing, all them whorls of colour and how bright Wendel do keep them biddy brass hinges.”

  Carefully, he opened the lid and his shining eyes looked inside. At once, two painted moths flew out and Tysle uttered a woeful cry of dismay as he leapt up and down trying to catch them.

  “Oh dear!” he yelped. “I’ll get what for if Mister Jester finds them missing.” After a few desperate moments, he finally managed to recapture the bedaubed insects and stuffed them hastily back into the box, slamming the lid down shut and sitting on it just to make sure.

  “That were a near thing,” he told himself, “you just mind to take this back now before you does some real damage.”

  Tysle sucked his teeth and studied the other prop chests thoughtfully. “’Twould be a pity to miss out now,” he admitted. “P’raps if I just peep at one more.”

  The shrew took up another and shook it cautiously before looking inside.

  This one contained the jester’s coloured acorns and Tysle spent several unsuccessful minutes attempting to juggle them. When they had fallen to the ground over a dozen times, he gave up and peered to see what else the chest contained. There seemed to be a square of silk at the bottom. Tysle reached in and pulled it out, but the material was tied to another, and that to another. Presently he was up to his knees in festoons of coloured silk and after he had thrown it into the air and fluttered them in pretty patterns about his head, he pushed them untidily back into the box.

  Tysle was enjoying himself immensely and lifted a third chest. This was smaller than the others, made of elder wood, it was painted black with an elder, or ruis leaf, daubed in scarlet upon the lid.

  From this, the shrew brought out four wooden hoops which he had seen Wendel twirl about his arms and legs. The little fellow tried to imitate what he had seen, but ended up spinning round more than the hoops themselves, until one went whizzing through the air and clattered over the floor.

  Scampering after, he retrieved the mutinously wayward circle and checked it was not damaged, then he looked once more into the chest. There, he discovered more material and the shrew unrolled it to see what manner of trick this was.

  The scarlet cloth unfurled and he held it at arm’s length in order to see better.

  “Funny,” he muttered. “’Tis a sort of garment—a costume with peculiar stitching running all across...”

  His voice evaporated into nothing as a vivid memory flooded before his eyes. It was the night of the Hobbers’ attack, his sisters’ screams were deafening his ears and vicious claws dragged him from their riverside home. Tysle’s heart thumped in his ribs as he remembered the awful figure striding up to him, the long knife in its grasp still dripping with his family’s blood.

  Here, held in his shaking paws, was the very costume that evil fiend had worn—a ghastly representation of a bloody-bones!

  Tysle wailed and threw the foul material away from him in terror. Yet in the chest there was one more object—the undeniable shape of a Hobb lantern.

  Tysle pushed the ruis box from the cart and it fell with a crash. The shrew was in a frightful state and he realised, with a knot tightening in his stomach, what this all meant.

  “We... Wen... Wendell” he spluttered. “It’s... it’s him! Master—I must tell my master!”

  But before he could take up his crutch and leap from the cart, his string gave a sharp tug—Giraldus needed him.

  Tysle whirled round, but there, framed within the gloomy passage, was Wendel himself and in his fist he was holding the string. “Tut, tut,” came the soft, hissing voice as he teasingly pulled the lead a second time, “I can’t have you toddling off to tell anyone, now can I?”

  “You’re the one!” the shrew exclaimed.

  The lips of the stoat parted and he bared his sharp teeth unpleasantly as a cold chuckle gargled from his throat
. “Yea,” he snarled, “’tis I; the duncefellow, the gowk, the simpleton—the dark deceiver,” he cackled and stole nearer, his deep shadow falling across Tysle’s frightened face.

  “I am the loyal servant of the Lord Hobb, and though I was forced to endure thy contemptible company, I should do it a thousand times over to return Him to this world. When the time is ripe all shall know and the despised pretence will be done with, but that is not yet upon us. I fear little hobbling one, that I must still your squealing tongue—forever.”

  He lunged at Tysle but the shrew jumped from the cart and tried to dodge past him. Yet Wendel still held the string and with a vicious yank, dragged Tysle backwards.

  “No!” Tysle screamed, desperately trying to untie the lead. “No!”

  Wendel Maculatum—high priest of the Raith Sidhe—laughed wickedly as he lifted the wildly squirming shrew off the ground and drew a knife from his belt.

  “Now join the rest of thy family—halt-footed one!” he growled.

  The knife glittered. Tysle screamed once more—then his voice was silenced.

  “Hmmm?” Giraldus stirred in his sleep and smacked his lips in agitation. His dreams had suddenly become troubled and the mole mumbled under his breath—something was wrong.

  “Tysle,” he called, wiping the drowse from his eyes, “Tysle, where are you?”

  He shook himself and sat upright in a dreadful daze. Outside the small sleeping chamber the jolly music was still playing, yet a bitter chill entered Giraldus’s heart and for some unknown reason he felt anxious.

  “Tysle!” he shouted, and this time his voice was desperate and fearful.

  Trembling, he clutched at the string and tugged on it. The lead was slack. The mole babbled frantically and heaved, gathering it in as fast as he could until great coils wound about the floor. Then, to his dismay and unending horror, he held the end of the string in his paws.