Song of the Gargoyle

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “There is no more meat, Troff,” he said hastily. “I have nothing more to give you. But I am going to go now to look for food.”

  The gargoyle jumped up, stretched, and opened its great mouth in a growling yawn and then said something eager and enthusiastic about the possibility of food.

  To look for food. But where? It was a question that must be answered quickly since he himself was already dangerously weak and light-headed from hunger. And the gargoyle was obviously also hungry, which might well be even more dangerous. He must find food and very soon. Here in the forest there might be wild game such as deer and rabbits, but to live by hunting required a bow and arrow and the skill to use them. No, it would have to be the highroad and farm and village, no matter what the danger from Black Helmet and his men.

  “Troff,” Tymmon said, and the gargoyle moved nearer, its ears cocked. “I’m going to have to leave the forest and go to the nearest village and find food, even if I have to beg for it. So I’ll be leaving soon.”

  The ears drooped and Tymmon imagined that the monster looked regretful, but it made no comment and Tymmon moved away to gather up his belongings. A moment later, when he turned back, the grove was empty. “Troff?” he said softly and then louder, “Troff,” but there was no response and nothing stirred in the underbrush that surrounded the clearing.

  Tymmon sank down against a tree trunk and remained there for some time lost in thought. Where had it gone so suddenly, and what kind of magical creature had it been? Magical surely, since it had the power of speech—or did it? Had he heard the things it said with his ears, or in some other manner? It was a question that, for some reason, had not even occurred to him before. But now, in recollection, it seemed that it had not been through his ears that the gargoyle’s thoughts echoed in his mind. It was instead as if its thinking reflected inside his own head, in the manner that still water reflects all that it is near.

  But magical or not, what it had surely been was a monstrous creature that came out of the night and slept at his feet like a faithful guardian. A faithful guardian so fearful in appearance that no other creature, however evil, would have dared to approach them.

  Tymmon smiled then, a lopsided, mock-the-devil smile like the one that Komus used to suggest that something was only amusing on one side and more or less disastrous on the other. As in a case where a faithful guardian perhaps saves one from other dangers but also consumes the last of one’s food supply, leaving one on the brink of starvation.

  It was with some relief—but also with a strangely deep feeling of loss, and not just for the salted beef—that Tymmon went about the business of preparing to move on. Retrieving his articles of clothing from where he had spread them out to dry, he stacked them on the linen pack cover and collected his other belongings, the knife, the ax, the rope, the tinderbox, the flute—and then the cap and bells. Komus’s jester’s cap.

  Komus. The memory was a sharp and rending pain. Where was he now and how was he faring? The thought of his father in captivity, perhaps hungry or in pain, caused Tymmon’s throat to tighten and a hot and aching fire to rage behind his eyes. And after the pain, as usual, there came anger.

  Anger at his own helplessness, at first. Anger that there was no way that he could help his father. No way to help him—and not even the hope that he might someday take revenge against his captors, which he would surely have done had he, Tymmon, been destined for knighthood. Destined for knighthood as he might have been if only Komus had not... He twisted the cap in his hands and threw it angrily to the ground—and then, as quickly, picked it up again. He was about to add it to his pile of belongings when another thought occurred to him.

  Komus’s colorful jester’s cap, with its red, orange, and purple horns, was well known in all of Austerneve. So it followed that to take it with him might increase the danger he would surely be facing if Black Helmet’s men had visited the villages and farms that lay to the south.

  “What?” he imagined himself saying to a suspicious villager. “Am I the fugitive son of Komus, the court jester of Austerneve? No, of course not. I am only Arn (or some such name), born a baker’s son though now an orphan.”

  Yes, with his usual quick-wittedness, he might well think of something of the sort to say. And then all might be well—until some less trusting townsman insisted on searching his belongings—and there found the cap and bells. No, it would be too dangerous a thing to carry. And God only knew why he brought it with him in the first place.

  He was still musing on such things, turning the jester’s cap in his hands and listening, perhaps for the last time, to the chiming bells when, from just behind him, there came a sudden sound—a strange mumbling grunt like someone trying to speak with his mouth full. Whirling around, Tymmon saw Troff emerging from the underbrush at the other side of the grove with something in his jaws.

  Dropping the jester’s cap at his feet, Tymmon gasped in surprise and consternation. He had, in just that little time, forgotten how huge the creature was—and how ugly. And then he saw what it was that Troff was holding in his mouth and gasped again. The object in the gargoyle’s mouth was a fine fat pheasant.

  “For—us?” Tymmon asked in a voice that he could not keep from quavering in anticipation.

  Troff trotted across the clearing and dropped the bird at Tymmon’s feet. With his great head hanging low, he continued to stare at the dead bird, making a soft growling noise in his throat and twitching the end of his tail. Then he backed away, looked up into Tymmon’s face, and clearly said that it was, indeed, for both of them.

  And in just the time it took for Tymmon to pluck and clean the bird, and roast it over a newly built fire, he was eating one of the most important meals of his life. Eating and sharing the rich meat with Troff, the skillful hunter, the faithful guardian, the—whatever else he really was.

  “Gargoyle?” Tymmon asked him once with his mouth full of pheasant. And the creature licked his chops, grinned, and tossed his great round head.

  “Troff,” he said, and Tymmon grinned back and repeated, “Troff, the gargoyle.”

  When the feast was over they lay for a while before the fire, but then Troff stirred restlessly, got up, and began to wander about the clearing. Stopping at a hollow that had recently held rainwater, he snuffled at the damp leaves, pawed at the earth, and snuffled again. Then he trotted back to Tymmon and stared urgently into his face.

  “Thirsty?” Tymmon asked. “I know. I am too. Where can we find water?”

  Troff turned and trotted off to the west, and jumping up, Tymmon grabbed his pack and followed. Halfway across the clearing he stopped, ran back, and retrieving the belled cap from where it had fallen, stuffed it deep into the pack. Then he ran to catch up.

  Beyond the clearing they plunged into dense forest—and the endless network of trails that Tymmon remembered all too well. Faint, narrow footpaths that wound in every direction between towering trees, beds of fern and flowers, and dense thickets of underbrush.

  Again, as on his previous visit to the Sombrous Forest, Tymmon’s mind raced faster than his feet, imagining dreadful things. Imagining all the dangers he had so often heard about—wolves in the underbrush, robbers lying in wait behind tree trunks, and harpies roosting overhead. Time and again, gasping at some newly envisioned horror, he thought to turn back. But they had already gone too far, too far to hope that he could find his way back to their starting place in the clearing. No, his only hope was Troff, and that was but a faint one, since he had no idea where, and to what, the gargoyle was leading him.

  Once when the path became a narrow canyon between high walls of underbrush, Tymmon hesitated, and in doing so lost sight of his fast-moving guide. For a moment he was overcome by panic, but when he called in a voice pinched by fear, “Troff. Troff, come back,” the gargoyle returned, trotting up to Tymmon and staring into his face with his furry forehead creased into furrows of concern.

  But when he asked what was wrong, Tymmon, embarrassed at his own lack of courage, answer
ed briefly and grumpily. “Nothing. Nothing, except you are going much too fast. Wait for me.”

  They went on then at a slightly slower pace for what seemed a great distance, so that Tymmon could only wonder, and tremble with awe, at the thought of the trackless maze that seemed to have engulfed all the land, as endless as the heavenly firmament. His legs were weak and trembling with exhaustion by the time he began to be aware of the sound of flowing water. Soon afterwards they came out upon the bank of a wide river.

  Tymmon built a fire that night on a thumb-shaped peninsula of land that projected out into a deep curve of the river—as far away from the close-crowding shadows of the forest as he could get. Above the curve the river ran still and deep, but just below, it spread out into wide shallows that rippled over rocks and around many small boulders.

  That night there was plenty to drink, and together Tymmon and Troff trapped a large trout in the shallows and caught it. They drank and ate, and when night fell they lay by the fire and listened to the sound of the river—and talked. That is, Tymmon did most of the talking, but Troff listened and now and then commented briefly or asked a question.

  Tymmon spoke first of the five armed men and how they had taken Komus away. Troff listened carefully while he told the whole frightening story, from the strange sound that had awakened him to the end, when Komus secretly warned him to leave Austerneve and then had been led away by the terrible knight in the black-snouted helmet and his four companions.

  “One of them struck him,” he added after a moment. “I did not see the blow but I heard it and I heard the one with the black helm threaten to do worse if they found he was lying to them when he said I had gone from Austerneve. I wish I knew where they took him—and why.”

  As he spoke the last words his voice, suddenly and without warning, became weak and quavery, and tears flooded his eyes. Angrily he brushed them away and covered his face with both hands. He hated tears, and embarrassed to be so weak and unmanly, he kept his face hidden until a hot, wet tongue caressed the back of his hands. He jerked them away just as the tongue came again—up his cheek and across one eye. Tymmon drew back, wiping his face with his sleeve. Troff was regarding him anxiously, as one might a crying infant. Tymmon felt shamed—and angry.

  “It didn’t have to be that way,” he cried. “It was his own fault.” Troff drew back, looking startled and puzzled.

  “It was. He didn’t have to be a poor helpless minstrel and jester. My father was born to a noble family and he became a commoner by his own choice and action. He denied his birthright and left his homeland and country forever. He told me so himself.”

  Troff’s expression showed that he was as amazed and incredulous as any human being would be to hear of such an incredible act of folly.

  “I know,” Tymmon said. “I would not have believed it myself except that he would never lie to me. So even though he would not explain, I... Tymmon’s mind went back to that day, almost a year ago, when his father had, in an unguarded moment, revealed his strange story.

  Tymmon had been pressing his father to explain how he, a poor commoner, was skilled in reading and writing and in many other arts and sciences. His skills and learning, he told Tymmon impatiently, were due to the fact that he had been born to a noble family. But he had chosen as a young man to deny his birthright and leave the place of his birth. Just that much Komus said, but when Tymmon, almost overcome with delight and curiosity, had questioned him further, he had set his jaw, his eyes had darkened, and he would say no more.

  “He told me only that much, and swore it was the truth. He would not tell me more. Nothing except that he was born to a noble family in the kingdom of Nordencor. Oh yes, and that when my mother died of a fever—I was but two years old—he took me and set out to travel the world as a minstrel. As a common jongleur and minstrel. And when we came to Austerneve he took service in King Austern’s court. He would say no more on that day, or on any day thereafter no matter how I pleaded. But he made me promise to tell no one. He especially made me promise I would not tell Lonfar. Although, in truth, I was no longer a friend to Lonfar at the time, and I certainly would not have told him. Although—although I would have greatly liked for him to know.”

  Troff stared at him, and then looked away indifferently, as if he had decided the matter was of little importance. It was clear that he did not understand how heartless it was of Komus to tell that much and then to refuse to say more. How cruel to even refuse to answer the question “Why?” To refuse to tell why he had chosen, not only for himself but for his son as well, the life of a commoner. And how particularly cruel it was to one who, like Tymmon, had special reasons to be all too aware of the vast difference between the future life of one born to the knighthood and one who was but the lowly offspring of a court jester.

  “Do you know what a court jester is?” he asked Troff. And when the gargoyle seemed uncertain he went on angrily. “A court jester is a fool. A clown to be laughed at and made the butt of jokes.” Tymmon could hear his own voice rising to an angry screech. He breathed deeply, swallowed hard, and went on, but the screech quickly returned. “A court jester is a buffoon who spends his life pleasing stupid people by making them feel superior to the pitiful and craven fool he is pretending to be. Only pretending because—as God himself knows well, and all men should know too—my father truly is more gifted and wiser and more learned than any other man in Austerneve could ever hope to...

  The tears returned and Tymmon threw himself down on his blanket and buried his face in his arms, and when Troff snuffled in his ear and pushed at his hand with his ugly snout, he told him gruffly to go away.

  SIX

  IT WAS BETTER DURING the day. Better because there was little time for thought or remembrance. Tymmon soon found that in the hours between sunrise and sundown it was not difficult to keep his mind on the events of the moment, and to how those events related to the condition of his stomach.

  The struggle for food was constant and endless. In the first few days they moved their base constantly, traveling always southward along the riverbank, always looking for a sheltered camping spot and for better fishing and hunting. But even on the days when the hunting had been successful they seldom ate more than once, and it seemed they were always hungry. Sometimes when their luck had been good Tymmon tried to save something for the next day, but that proved to be impossible. Troff never stopped eating until everything—the last scrap of burned skin, and even the last small bone—had disappeared. Obviously a gargoyle’s belly was as boundless and endless as the sea.

  Of course, it was Troff who brought in most of what they ate, partridges and water birds, and once a fine fat rabbit. But Tymmon was soon able to do his part. With a lance fashioned from a long straight branch he occasionally managed, after long hours of trial and error, to spear a fish in the river shallows. Now and then he found a few nuts left over from the autumn before, and on one lucky day he found a nest of duck eggs that were very tasty when roasted in the ashes of a fire.

  But while Troff ranged into the depths of the forest on his hunting trips, Tymmon’s expeditions, whether to look for food or gather wood for the fire, were always limited to the riverbank and to short distances from the camp. There, on the bank, where the river stretched away to the north and south in a broad path that could be followed until it would undoubtedly come at last to civilization, he felt safer and more at ease. But even there he could always feel it—around and behind him. The dim, deep Sombrous waiting to ensnare him in its endless, haunted maze. Even later, when they had decided on a more permanent base, and it had become necessary to collect saplings and fern fronds to build a hut, he went only a few yards into the forest, or waited until Troff could accompany him.

  The hut was begun after several days of travel and nights of sleeping beside an open fire. The rain had returned then, and with it more long hours of soggy misery. It was after such a wet and chilly night that Tymmon began to construct a shelter near the foot of a sloping stretch of sandy beac
h. A three-sided lean-to, roofed with reeds and fern fronds, its walls no more than a palisade of stakes cut from young saplings. The flimsy walls slowed the advance of the north wind but little, and the roof dripped in the worst downpours, but it was better than no shelter at all. During the dark nights, curled in his blanket with Troff at his feet and the fire before them, it was a comfort to have a wall behind his back. A barrier, however rickety, between him and the forest.

  So the days rushed by, but the nights seemed to last forever. If he had not known that it was impossible, Tymmon would have been sure that the hours of darkness in the Sombrous Forest were longer than they were elsewhere. Long after the fire burned low and Troff slept soundly, he was often wide awake. Wide awake, thinking and remembering, and listening to the forest sounds that he could sometimes hear over the soft liquid mumblings of the river.

  Sometimes there were screams or howls. Soon after sundown and again in the first dim light of day, a high moaning wail would suddenly shatter the soft, pure silence of the morning air. A wild tormented sound, sadder and more pitiful than the keening of any human mourner. But even more terrifying were the noises that came in the depths of the night—deep throbbing cries punctuated by sharp high-pitched yelps. Clearly the baying of the wolves of the Sombrous, horrible sharp-fanged beasts known throughout the North Countries for their ferocity and greedy hunger. Staring into the darkness, his ears straining, Tymmon sometimes prodded Troff with his foot, and told him to awake and listen.

  The first few times he was thus aroused Troff came alert quickly and hearkened, but after a bit he seemed to take little interest, even when the terrible wails came again and again. Sometimes he only looked at Tymmon reproachfully and turned away, and even when the baying of the wolves seemed very near he only growled softly and then yawned, stretched, and said there was nothing to fear while he was there. Then he went back to sleep.