by Tom Holt
‘We’re not like that,’ said Woglinde. ‘We’re good at dealing with shy people.’
Alberich laughed and rose to his feet. ‘I wish you luck,’ he said.
‘No, you don’t,’ said Wellgunde shrewdly.
‘Let me rephrase that. You’ll need luck. Lots of it. See you in another thousand years.’
‘Not if we see you first,’ said Flosshilde cheerfully. ‘Have a nice day.’
One of the few luxuries that Malcolm had indulged in since his acquisition of limitless wealth was a brand new sports car. He had always wanted one, although now that he had it he found that he was rather unwilling to go above thirty miles an hour in it. The whole point of having a car, however, as any psychologist will tell you, is that it represents Defended Space, where no-one can get at you, and Malcolm always felt happier once he was behind the wheel. There were risks, of course; driving in Somerset, that county of narrow lanes and leisurely tractors, can cause impatience and bad temper, which Malcolm was in duty bound to avoid.
Once his headache had subsided, Malcolm thought it would make a change to go into Taunton and look at the shops. He had been an enthusiastic window-shopper all his life, and now that he could afford to buy not only the things in the shop-windows but the shops themselves if he wanted to, he enjoyed this activity even more. Not that he ever did buy anything, of course; the habits of a lifetime are not so easily broken.
For example, he stood for quite five minutes outside the fishing-tackle shop in Silver Street looking at all the elegant and attractive paraphernalia in the window. At least two rivers, possibly three, ran through the grounds of the Hall, and fishing was supposed to be a relaxing occupation which soothed the nerves and the temper. Not that he particularly wanted to catch or persecute fish; but it would at least be an interest, with things to learn and things to buy. For the same reason, he had a good look at the camera shop in St James Street, and he only stopped himself from going inside by reflecting that he had nobody to take pictures of, except perhaps the English Rose.
He walked by the auction-rooms, and wondered who was doing his old job now. Inside there would be Liz, cataloguing something or other, and Philip Wilcox, training, not very energetically, to be an auctioneer. Again, he felt a strong temptation to go inside and look at them, and that would be perfectly reasonable, since they both knew him only as the rich German who had bought the Hall. He could now afford to buy everything in the sale if he wanted to. But the sale today was of antique clocks, and he already knew only too well how slowly the time passed. Besides, there was no point in buying anything for himself (it was, after all, Only Him) and he had no-one else to buy things for.
As he walked down North Street towards what passes for a centre, he noticed a shop that he could not recall having seen before. It was one of those art and craft places, selling authentic pottery and ethnic clothes (hence no doubt its name, Earth ‘n’ Wear). But shops of that kind are always springing up and disappearing like mayflies in upwardly-mobile towns, and Taunton is nothing if not upwardly-mobile. In fact, as they will be delighted to tell you, Taunton is no longer a one-horse town; these days, they have a bicycle as well . . .
Entirely out of curiosity, since he was safe in the knowledge that there would not be anything in a shop of this sort that he could conceivably want to buy, Malcolm opened the door, which had goat-bells behind it, and went in. The place was empty, except for a ghostly string quartet playing Mozart, a large cat asleep on a pile of Indian cotton shirts, and an astoundingly pretty girl with red hair sitting behind the till. As soon as Malcolm walked through the door, she looked up from the poem she was writing in a spiral-bound notebook with a stylised cat on the cover and smiled at him.
Malcolm had always been of the opinion that pretty girls should not be allowed to smile at people unless they meant something by it, for it gives them an unfair advantage. He now felt under an obligation to buy something. That presumably was why the owner had installed a pretty girl in the shop in the first place, and Malcolm did not approve. It was exploitation of the worst sort.
‘Feel free to look around,’ said the girl.
Malcolm walked briskly to the back of the shop and tried to appear profoundly interested in beeswax candles. Although he had his back to her, he felt sure that the girl was still looking at him, and he remembered that he was the most handsome man in the world, which might account for it. A smirk tried to get onto his face, but he sent it away. He was, he assured himself, only imagining it, and even if he wasn’t, there was bound to be a catch in it all somewhere. This was Taunton, not Hollywood.
For her part, Wellgunde was rather dismayed. Either her smile had gone wrong since she checked it that morning, or else this young man was immune to smiles, which would be a pity. She had gone to the trouble of materialising this shop and all its contents just in order to be able to have somewhere to smile at the Ring-Bearer. A shop, the Rhinedaughters had decided, made an ideal trap for ensnaring unwary Ring-Bearers. Perhaps they had underestimated him, Wellgunde thought. Certainly it had seemed a very straightforward project when they discussed it that morning. From all they had learnt about him, Ingolf’s Bane was a foolish, sentimental and susceptible young man who would as instinctively fall in love with a pretty girl who smiled at him as a trout snaps at a fly. The only point at issue in their planning session had been which one of them should have the dubious privilege of being the fly. They had tried drawing lots, but Woglinde would insist on cheating. They had tried tossing for it, but Flosshilde had winked at the coin, and it kept coming down in her favour. So finally they had decided to make a game of it: whoever captivated the Ring-Bearer first would have to see the job through, but the others would buy her lunch at Maxim’s.
To make it a fair contest, they had materialised three shops in the centre of Taunton. It was a reasonable bet that no-one would notice three shops suddenly appearing out of nowhere in the centre of town, for Taunton is like that, and it would be up to the Ring-Bearer to decide which one he went into first, and so who should have the first go.
Wellgunde frowned. She was going to have to make an effort.
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ she said sweetly.
There was another potential customer outside, looking through the window at a selection of herbal teas. She turned quickly and smiled at the door. The card obligingly flipped round to read ‘Closed’. Things generally did what she wanted them to when she smiled at them.
‘A present for my mother,’ Malcolm replied, amazing himself with his own inventiveness.
‘Does she like cats?’ Wellgunde suggested. ‘Most mothers do.’
‘Yes, she does.’
‘Then how about a spaghetti-jar with a cat on the front, or a tea-cosy in the shape of a cat, or a little china cat you can keep paperclips in, or a cat-shaped candle, or a Cotswold cat breadboard? We haven’t got any framed cat woodcuts at the moment, but we’re expecting a delivery this afternoon if you’re not in a hurry.’
‘That’s a lot of cats,’ said Malcolm startled.
‘Cats and Cotswolds,’ said the Rhinedaughter, brightly. ‘You can sell anything with a cat or a Cotswold on it, although some people prefer rabbits.’
She smiled again, so brightly that Malcolm could feel the skin on his face turning brown. He began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.
‘I’d better have one of those oven-gloves,’ he mumbled.
‘With a cat on it?’
‘Yes, please.’
The girl seemed rather hurt as she took Malcolm’s money, and he wondered what he had said.
‘If she doesn’t like it, I can change it for you,’ said the girl. ‘No trouble, really.’
‘I’m sure she’ll like it. She’s very fond of cats. And cooking. ’
‘Goodbye, then.’
‘Goodbye.’
Wellgunde watched him go, and frowned. ‘Oh well,’ she said to herself, ‘bother him, then.’
She smiled at the shop, and just to please he
r it vanished into thin air. Then she walked down to the banks of the Tone and dived gracefully into its khaki waters.
‘Well,’ said one old lady to another as a chain of silver bubbles rose to the surface, ‘you don’t see so much of that sort of thing nowadays.’
Confused, Malcolm turned up Hammet Street. It was not surprising, he said to himself, that a girl, even a pretty one, should want to smile at someone looking exactly like Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer. And it was Siegfried’s appearance, not his, that she had been smiling at, so really the smile was nothing to do with him. Besides, it was probably just a smile designed to sell cat-icons, in which it had succeeded admirably. He felt in his pocket for the oven-glove, but it didn’t seem to be there any more. He must have dropped it. What a pity, never mind.
At the junction of Hammet Street and Magdalene Street, there was a health-food shop which had not been there yesterday. Of that Malcolm was absolutely certain, because he had parked his car beside the kerb on which the shop was now standing. He stood very still and frowned.
‘Did I do that?’ he said aloud. ‘And if so, how?’
He knew the song about the girl who left trees and flowers lying about wherever she had gone; but trees and flowers are one thing, health-food shops are another. Either it had been built very, very quickly (after his recent experiences with builders at the Hall, Malcolm doubted this) or else it had appeared out of nowhere, or else he was hallucinating. He crossed the road and went in.
‘Hello there,’ said the bewilderingly pretty girl behind the counter. ‘Can I help you?’
It was probably the dazzling smile that made Malcolm realise what was going on. ‘Hang on a moment, please,’ he said, and walked out again. Next door was a furniture shop with a big plate-glass window. Fortunately, the street was deserted, and Malcolm was able to turn himself into the three Rhinedaughters without being observed. He found that he recognised two of them immediately. As an experiment, he smiled a Rhinedaughter smile at a chest of drawers in the shop window. It seemed to glow for a moment, and then its polyurethane finish was changed into a deep French polish shine.
‘That explains it,’ he said to himself, and did not allow himself to think that although that explained the smiles he had been getting, it did not explain the shops that had appeared from nowhere. Take care of the smiles, after all, and the shops will take care of themselves. He understood that the Rhinedaughters, the original owners of the gold from which the Ring was made, were after him, and their smiles were baits to draw him to his doom. Not that there weren’t worse dooms, he reflected, but he had the world to consider.
Instead of walking away, however, he turned and went back into the health-food shop. Now that he knew that the smiles were only another aspect of this rather horrible game that Life was playing with him, and not genuine expressions of interest by pretty girls, he felt that he could deal with the situation, for he had a supreme advantage over the previous owners of the Nibelung’s Ring. He had no vanity, no high opinion of himself which these creatures could use as the basis for their attack. All that remained was for him to deal with them before they did anything more troublesome than smiling.
‘Hello again,’ said Woglinde.
‘Which one are you, then?’ he replied, smiling back. Woglinde looked at him for a moment, and then burst into tears, burying her face in her small pink hands. Instinctively, Malcolm was horrified; then he remembered Hagen, Alberich’s son, whom the three Rhinedaughters had drowned in the flood, singing sweetly all the while.
‘Thought so,’ he said, trying to sound unpleasant (but he had lost the knack). ‘So which one are you?’
‘Woglinde,’ sobbed the girl. ‘And now you’re all cross.’
The Rhinedaughter sniffed, looked up angrily, and smiled like a searchlight. A carnation appeared in Malcolm’s buttonhole, but his resolve was unaffected.
‘You can cut that out,’ he said.
‘Oh, well,’ said Woglinde, and Malcolm could see no tears in her deep blue eyes. He could see many other things, but no tears, and the other things were rather hazardous, so he ignored them.
‘Where did the shop come from?’ he asked.
‘Shan’t tell you,’ said Woglinde, coyly frowning. ‘You’re beastly and I hate you.’
‘Girls don’t talk like that any more,’ said Malcolm. ‘A thousand years ago perhaps, but not in the nineteen-eighties. ’
‘This girl does,’ replied Woglinde. ‘It’s part of her charm. You’ve been looking for a nice old-fashioned girl all your life and now you’ve found one.’
Put like that, the proposition (accompanied by the brightest smile yet) was somewhat startling, and Malcolm turned away and looked at a display of organic pulses.
‘You’ve been to a lot of trouble,’ he said.
‘I spent ages making it all nice for you,’ said Woglinde.
‘I don’t like health food. Especially organic rice.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Woglinde, petulantly. ‘If I’d known, I’d have built you a chip-shop instead.’ She checked herself; she was letting her temper interfere with business. ‘I still can, if you’d rather.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,’ said Malcolm. ‘I expect you’re sick of the sight of fish.’
‘If you asked me to I would.’
‘Forget it, please. I know what you want, and you can’t have it.’
‘Usually that’s our line,’ said the Rhinedaughter casually. Malcolm blushed. ‘Oh go on,’ she continued, ‘it’s our Ring, really.’
Perhaps the smiles had a cumulative effect. Malcolm suddenly felt a terrible urge to give her the Ring. He had already taken it off his finger before he knew what he was doing, and it was only when he caught sight of her face, like a kitten watching a beetle it intends to eat, that he felt the sense of danger. He thrust the Ring back on, so fiercely that he cut the skin between his fingers.
‘I can’t,’ he said, sadly. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t. You wouldn’t want it, really.’
Woglinde suddenly laughed, and Malcolm felt as if he was being smothered in gossamer, like a fly trapped by a spider. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she cooed, ‘I’d like it more than anything in the whole wide world. I think you’re mean.’
Again there was a hideous temptation to give in, so strong that the Ring seemed to burn his skin. Malcolm could stand it no longer, and tried to command the Tarnhelm to take him away. But his mind could not issue the order; the smiles had got into it, as light gets into photographic film, and blurred all the edges. ‘Stop that!’ he shouted, and Woglinde winced as if he had slapped her. He tightened his hand round the Ring, and her face seemed to collapse. Suddenly, she was not pretty at all; she looked like a thousand-year-old teenager who wanted something she knew she couldn’t have. Then, just as suddenly, she was lovelier than ever, and Malcolm knew that she had given up.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but there it is.’
He turned and walked out of the shop, trying not to look back, but the urge was too strong. When he did look back, however, the shop was gone. He had won this bout, then; but was that all? It would probably be unwise to go swimming for a week or so . . .
After the fight, Malcolm needed a drink. He walked swiftly up Canon Street, heading for his favourite pub. But it wasn’t there any more; instead, there was one of those very chic little wine-bars that come like shadows and so depart all over England. He had a horrible idea that he knew where this one had come from.
The wine-bar (‘Le Cochonnet’) was empty except for a quite unutterably pretty girl behind the bar, tenderly polishing a glass.
‘You can put it all back exactly as it was,’ said Malcolm, sternly.
The girl stared at him in amazement, and for a moment Malcolm wondered if he had made a mistake. But he looked at the girl again, and recognised the third Rhinedaughter. There couldn’t be two girls like that in the world, unless he was very lucky.
‘So which are you,’ he said, ‘Wellgunde or Flosshilde?’
&nb
sp; ‘Flosshilde,’ said the girl, carelessly. ‘You’ve met the other two?’
‘That’s right.’ He held up his right hand, letting the light play on the ring, ‘And I’m not going to give it to you, either. It’s not a toy, you know.’
Flosshilde studied the glass in her hand for a moment. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you insist. Would you like a drink?’
Flosshilde had been rather proud of her wine-bar, and it was with great reluctance that she had agreed to change it back into the French Horn. But she did so with a smile.
‘Won’t the landlord and the customers be a bit disorientated? ’ Malcolm asked.
‘Not really,’ said Flosshilde. ‘All I did was change them into chairs and tables, and they won’t have felt anything. For some reason, when I smile at people and change them, they don’t seem to mind.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Malcolm. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’
‘I’ll have a Babycham,’ said Flosshilde. ‘No ice.’
When he returned with the drinks, Flosshilde leaned forward and whispered, ‘Your Liz is over there in the corner with her boyfriend. The one you threw in the water.’
‘So what?’ said Malcolm coldly. ‘She’s not my Liz.’
‘I could turn him into a frog for you, if you like,’ whispered Flosshilde. ‘Or I could smile at him without turning him into a frog. Your Liz wouldn’t like that at all.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’m not allowed to be malicious any more.’
‘That sounds awful.’ Flosshilde seemed genuinely sorry for him. ‘Would it count if I did it?’
‘Probably. But it’s kind of you to offer.’
‘Any time. I might just do it anyway. I don’t like him, he’s stuffy. I don’t like stuffy people.’