by Jenny Nimmo
The boy and the wizard looked at the wood, but they didn’t see the eyes that watched them from the trees.
The watchers gazed at the galloping, humped beast, churning the sand with its great feet. They observed the dark-skinned boy and the tattered man coming closer and closer, and they wondered what they should do. Hide, or stand and fight?
Chapter Three
Tree Children
While Timoken built a fire, the wizard went in search of food.
The camel rested. From the clearing that had been chosen for their night’s rest, Gabar could see the wide stretch of sand, pale and gleaming in the dusk. He hadn’t known such happiness for a long time, not since he and Timoken had arrived in this damp, green land, a year ago.
Eri appeared with a dead hare and a bag full of berries. ‘There are plenty of deer,’ he said, ‘but I wasn’t in the mood for chasing anything larger than this.’ He laid the hare beside the pile of sticks and sat down, folding his knees to one side.
Timoken didn’t ask how the wizard had managed to catch the hare. He didn’t want to know. He disliked hunting and killing creatures he could talk to.
‘You won’t have to catch another hare,’ he told the wizard.
‘How so?’
‘Because I can . . .’
Eri raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me you can conjure meat from the sky.’
‘No. I can multiply.’
‘Multiply?’ The wizard pondered the word for a while before saying, ‘That is quite an accomplishment.’
The wizard’s nephew, Edern, had told Timoken that Eri could light a fire with his fingers. This was also one of Timoken’s talents, but he was interested to see how the wizard would do it. When tiny flames began to lick the dry twigs, Eri said, ‘I might have left my bag of tricks behind, but I still have a few up my sleeve.’
‘What is in your bag of tricks?’ asked Timoken.
‘Some potions,’ the wizard said airily. ‘Herbs, of course, and also bats and toads, dragonflies and snakes.’
‘Dead?’
‘Of course, dead. Dry as parchment. I have some fish teeth, too.’
‘Fish teeth?’ Timoken was impressed. ‘In all my years of travelling I never saw a fish tooth.’
‘No?’ The wizard smiled as flames roared to the top of Timoken’s pile of sticks. ‘Believe me, fish teeth are very potent, and I’m sorry to lose them. No matter. We will find more.’ Eri nodded at the beach. ‘Right here, if I’m not mistaken.’ He began to skin the hare.
The meat tasted good, Timoken had to admit. He took a few pieces of the cooked hare and, turning his back on the wizard, discreetly multiplied it.
‘We cannot survive on hare meat,’ Eri said gently. ‘Winter is coming and we shall need hides to keep us warm, leather for our feet, for carrying water, for our roof, for everything.’
Keeping his back turned, Timoken picked up the hare skin and lightly ran his hands across it. Then he murmured a wishing prayer in his own language and within minutes the hare skin had become a pile of soft furs. Gathering them in his arms, Timoken turned to the wizard. ‘There,’ he said. ‘We shall be as warm as bears.’
‘We shall indeed, boy.’ Eri laughed. ‘But you’ll have to forgive me if I do a little hunting of my own.’
Timoken noticed that Gabar had wandered off. He could hear the camel shaking branches and munching dry leaves. It was getting dark and Timoken didn’t want to lose sight of his camel. He was about to go after him when Gabar trotted out of the shadows.
‘Strangers,’ said the camel.
‘Strangers?’ said Timoken. ‘Animals? Humans?’
‘In trees,’ Gabar replied.
‘Birds?’ Timoken ventured.
‘In the trees,’ the camel repeated. ‘Not birds.’
‘What are you both bellowing about?’ asked the wizard.
‘My camel says there are strangers in the trees,’ said Timoken.
The wizard sucked his teeth. ‘Not much we can do about it. We don’t have a lantern.’
‘We have this.’ Timoken pulled a long stick from the edge of the fire. Only the tip glowed red. Wrapping dried leaves and grass around the stick, Timoken ran into the trees. With a leap he was in the air. Flying through the higher branches he waved his stick. The smouldering leaves, fanned by the air, burst into flame. In their wavering light, Timoken thought he saw a glistening eye, a face, a foot, but he couldn’t be sure.
‘What are you?’ he called. ‘Come out!’ He tried the bird calls that he knew and thought he heard a whisper, a rustle. But, again, he couldn’t be sure.
When he returned to the clearing Timoken told Eri that whoever, or whatever, it was might have been afraid of a flying boy. ‘I don’t think they mean us any harm,’ he said. ‘If they had weapons they could have killed me.’
‘Your camel is a nervous creature,’ said Eri. ‘He sees things that are not there.’
‘Maybe.’ Timoken glanced at Gabar, feeling he’d betrayed the camel.
The camel observed the doubt in Eri’s eyes. ‘I know what I saw,’ Gabar grunted, settling himself behind the boy.
Timoken stroked the camel’s neck. ‘I don’t doubt you, Gabar.’
The camel sighed and closed his eyes.
Eri banked up the fire. He yawned and stretched out his pale, bony legs before the flames. Timoken frowned at the bruises covering the wizard’s shins.
‘Osbern’s men did their worst,’ Eri muttered. ‘But my legs can still carry me. Tomorrow I’ll find plants and cure my bruises.’
Timoken thought of offering his cloak. It might ease the old man’s pain. But he didn’t want to belittle the wizard’s own skills.
They sat in silence for a while, with only the crackle of flames to disturb their thoughts. And then Eri said, ‘My nephew told me a little of your history, but I would like to hear it from your own lips.’
Timoken squeezed his eyes tight shut. Sometimes he tried to blot the worst memories out of his head, but he had never succeeded, and he had come to realise that they would always be with him; they were part of him as much as his legs or his arms, or his black woolly hair.
‘Your memories cause you pain, boy,’ said Eri. ‘Better to share them.’
Timoken opened his eyes. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Clenching his fists, he told the wizard about his early years in a secret African kingdom. With a smile on his face he described a beautiful place of warm, green forests, clear streams teaming with fish, of orchards full of fruit, and a sky that was always blue. The pain of the outside world was unknown, and never intruded.
‘And then they found us.’ Timoken took a breath. For a moment it seemed as if he would never let it out again.
‘They?’ prompted the wizard.
‘Beings from the dark underside of the forest. Greenish things with red eyes and hair like vines. Their bones are soft, their hands like roots. They are called viridees.’ Timoken shuddered. ‘Their leader . . . their leader . . .’ For a moment he couldn’t say the words, and then, speaking fast and lowering his eyes, he told the wizard how his father, the king, had been killed by the lord of the viridees.
‘He cut off my father’s head.’ Timoken buried his face in his hands. ‘We saw it all, my sister and I, from the roof of the palace. But before the viridees came with their knives and sabres, my mother put this crown on my head and I have never been able to take it off.’ He drew his cloak closer round his shoulders. ‘And then she gave me the web of the last moon spider. She said it would protect me, and she also told me that I could fly.’
‘You didn’t know until that moment?’ asked the wizard in surprise.
‘I was happy. I had no need to fly.’
Eri nodded. ‘I see. And where is the spider’s web?’
‘Here.’ Timoken lifted a corner of his red cloak. ‘I turned it into a cloak. My mother also gave me a bottle containing Alixir, the water of life. The moment I left the secret kingdom, the viridees tried to kill me and steal the cloak and the bott
le. But viridees can’t survive in the cold, so I’m safe here in Britain, as far as I know.’
‘And how long have you been travelling, little king?’ asked the wizard.
‘You might find this difficult to believe.’ Timoken looked away from Eri’s penetrating gaze. ‘But I left the secret kingdom nearly three hundred years ago. The water of life kept me and my sister young. We took one drop of the Alixir every new moon, and so did Gabar.’ He smiled and patted his camel’s back. Zobayda wore a ring that protected us, but the viridees lured her away and stole it, and for many years we were apart. I only found my sister a year ago, after I met your nephew, Edern. I lost the water of life when I rescued him.’
‘Ah, Edern.’ The wizard shook his head. ‘You are his greatest friend. He will miss you. But tell me, Timoken, what happened to your mother?’
‘My mother?’ This was a part of his story that always made Timoken feel guilty. ‘She was on the palace roof when I flew into the air with my sister. I looked down and my mother was gone, hidden by a mass of black-robed soldiers. Maybe I could have rescued her, too. Why didn’t she hold on to me? I’ve never stopped wondering.’
‘Perhaps she was afraid of holding you back,’ the wizard said gently. ‘For her, you and your sister were the future. You were safe. That’s all she needed to know.’
Timoken stared at the wizard, repeating the old man’s words in his head. He began to feel lighter, as though something heavy had been lifted away from him. And then his thoughts turned to Mabon and the weight came down again. Have I killed my friend? Is he alive or dead? Timoken curled up beside his camel and the animal’s quiet heartbeat gradually lulled him to sleep.
The wizard gazed at the fire. He threw another bundle of twigs onto the dying flames and they roared to life. Timoken’s story had unsettled him. There were beings in the northern forest, too. Here they were not called viridees, they had another name. A name the wizard wouldn’t allow himself to utter, even in a whisper. Suppose they could connect?
‘Unthinkable,’ muttered Eri. Folding his torn cloak tight about him, he lay down beside the fire. On the other side of the flames, Timoken smiled in his sleep.
‘What now, little king?’ the wizard murmured. And then he, too, fell asleep.
The fire burned steadily for a while, and then it began to die. When it was just a pile of glowing embers, the camel woke up. They were coming, just as he had guessed they would.
A cloud of stars fell gently through the trees. The camel blinked. No, they were not stars. Now he could see that the lights came from the tips of long rushes held by children. They were not falling from the trees, but descending on thin creepers. Children usually made a noise, but these slight creatures were completely silent. The camel was too surprised to utter a sound.
When every child was down they began to move towards the glade. They came from all sides; thin, wiry children with tanned, roughened skin. Their long hair was wild and matted and they wore ill-fitting garments patched with fur and feathers and held together with strings of creeper. They were rebels’ children from the town of Innswood. Two years ago, the people of Innswood had revolted against the conquerors’ laws. The result was inevitable. Soldiers came in the night. Houses were burned, men and women captured or killed. Their children ran into the trees to hide.
The forest was home to more than thirty children now. They had built shelters in the trees and learned to keep silent. Though, sometimes, in the evenings, they would speak in whispers, telling each other their stories: how they had hidden in baskets and boxes, in cowsheds and cauldrons, while the conquerors ravaged their homes.
They tried to help each other, to share the hares and squirrels and pigeons they caught, the nuts and berries they found, the snakes and beetles and roots. But when there wasn’t enough, fighting would break out. It was always the younger ones that suffered.
The children crept forward. Closer and closer. Holding their rush-lights high they formed a circle, five deep, around the boy, the old man and the magic beast. All at once the beast made a noise like something from the underworld; the boy woke up and the children leapt away. Some forgot to be silent and let out hoots of fear.
‘Who are you?’ asked Timoken, drawing his cloak tight around himself.
The children stared at him. They hardly moved a muscle.
The wizard had also woken up. He rubbed his eyes and looked round the circle of children. He guessed who they were. Rebels’ children. He had heard of a rebellion in the north.
‘What d’you want?’ Timoken asked the children. ‘Are you hungry?’ They certainly looked it.
The children had learned never to trust a stranger. They whispered amongst themselves and frowned at the camel. They had never seen anyone with skin as dark as Timoken’s.
‘Rebels’ children,’ Eri muttered. ‘They’ve done well to survive in the wild.’
One of the girls suddenly stepped forward. ‘I am Elfrieda.’ She spoke defiantly, her head held high as though her dress of fur and feathers was a fine robe edged in gold. Her thick, matted hair covered her shoulders like a rug of muddy sheepskin.
‘I am Timoken, and this is Eri the wizard.’ Timoken indicated the old man. ‘And this is Gabar, my camel.’ He patted the camel’s neck.
‘Camel,’ said Elfrieda, frowning.
‘Camel,’ whispered one of the children. Others repeated it and the whispered word travelled round the group like a great rustling of leaves.
Whether Gabar understood or not, he suddenly got to his feet and gave another loud bellow.
The children fell silent. They stared at the magic beast in awe, and then a voice said, ‘He is mighty ugly.’
Timoken stared into the crowd. It made him angry to hear Gabar being called ugly. But he knew that a camel was strange to northern people.
‘Who said my camel was ugly?’ he demanded.
There was no answer. Elfrieda lifted her chin and said haughtily. ‘You can’t say he’s beautiful.’
‘I do,’ Timoken replied.
‘There,’ said the wizard. ‘I might not agree with my young friend, but that camel is a marvel.’
The crowd of children murmured amongst themselves. One of them grumbled and stepped back, pushing another sideways. Others began to mutter and complain, and then the cause of all the grumbling, a very small boy, crawled out of the crowd, stood up and went over to Gabar. He gazed at the camel, his brown eyes shining. Gabar appeared not to notice the boy, so far beneath him, but all at once he lowered his neck and the boy gently stroked him.
‘Karli, get away from that thing.’ It was the voice of the boy who had called Gabar ugly.
The little boy took no notice.
‘The camel won’t hurt him,’ said Timoken.
‘But I will.’ A tall boy pushed his way past the other children. His blond curls were matted with dust and his wide face scarred with scratches. He was bigger than Timoken, and his voice had begun to break.
‘Are you his brother?’ asked Timoken, looking at the small boy, whose hair was a dark oak-brown.
‘Do I look like his brother?’ said the tall boy with a sneer. ‘I am Thorkil and I am his protector.’
‘He’s your slave, you mean,’ muttered a quiet voice.
Interesting, thought Timoken. They were not an entirely happy group. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be part of their quarrelling.
Either Thorkil hadn’t heard the quiet voice, or he chose to ignore it. ‘Karli, come here!’ He strode up to the small boy and grabbed his arm.
Timoken could have chosen to believe that Thorkil was Karli’s protector and allowed him to drag the little boy away. But the quiet voice in the crowd had alerted him.
‘Let it rest, Timoken,’ Eri warned.
It was too late. Timoken’s hand was already on Thorkil’s shoulder. ‘Leave him alone.’
‘What did you say?’ Eyes blazing, Thorkil swung round and pulled a dagger from his belt.
Timoken swiftly sank his fingers into Thork
il’s wrist, and the dagger dropped to the ground.
Thorkil stared at Timoken. ‘So your fingers can burn, stranger.’ He spoke in a low voice, full of hatred. ‘But you had better watch out, because I never forget.’
Chapter Four
A Magic Beast
The wizard could still move faster than most, in spite of his bruises. He placed himself between the two boys before either could do any harm.
‘We are all victims of the conquerors,’ Eri said sternly. ‘We must keep our wits about us if we are to survive.’
‘I need my dagger.’ Thorkil glared at the wizard, whose foot rested on the blade.
‘Give me your word that you won’t use it,’ Eri demanded.
Thorkil’s grey eyes narrowed. The wizard could see that honour still meant something to this arrogant boy.
‘How can I live without a blade?’ Thorkil said sullenly. ‘How can I hunt, eat and make the things I need?’
‘You know very well what I mean,’ Eri replied. ‘Give me your word that you won’t use your dagger to harm anyone here.’
Timoken noticed that Elfrieda had been anxiously watching Thorkil, and now she said, ‘So my brother is not allowed to defend himself?’
‘I am sure that no one here wished him any harm.’ Eri stepped off the dagger and picked it up. ‘Your word, boy!’ he said.
Thorkil remained silent, his brow creased. He seemed to be struggling to remember something, and then out it came. ‘On the blood of my father, Earl Sigurd of Holfingel, I give my solemn promise that I will not use my weapon against anyone here present.’
Timoken was impressed. He hadn’t expected such a long and solemn oath.
Eri was also surprised by Thorkil’s words. He handed over the dagger and watched the boy push it into his belt.
‘And now perhaps you will allow us to get some sleep,’ said the wizard. ‘The sun will soon be up and Timoken and I have a long journey to make.’