“For Christ’s sake, Pete, don’t insult the poor woman,” Tim hiccuped. “Go ahead, have a slug. Good for what ails you.”
“If you insist.”
Peter raised the horn, waited till a downdraft blew smoke in everybody’s eyes, then quickly dumped the remains of the drink into the straw on the earthen floor behind him. “Thank you, madam. Most refreshing. How’s the cheese coming, Dan?”
“Nicely, Peter, though in view of the lack of plates, I believe I may have invented not a Welsh rabbit but a fondue. We can best eat this, I think, by dipping pieces of the acorn cake into the pot. I will step outside and obtain some sharp twigs to serve as forks.”
“Nay,” cried the woman of the house. “Set ye no foot ayond this door until after cockcrow. Great though be thy magic, more terrible forces be now at work in yon forest. This hut be thine only refuge. Ye black forces dare not approach my fire. Stay and be merry. See, here be ye cake for ye dipping and here be more drink for your pleasure.”
She refilled the drinking horn and handed it again to Tim. He took another swig and settled back on the bench, his beard bristling upward like a contented cat’s whiskers. Again the horn passed from hand to hand. Again Peter only feigned to drink and sent it along to his clamant benchmate, Torchyld.
Dan’s melted cheese was a great success. They had no trouble scooping it out of the pot, since the acorn cakes were about the heft of cedar shingles. Shandy made sure the old woman got some, and she ate it in an apparent state of ecstasy.
“To think so fine a dish could come out of my old cooking pot! Ye be indeed great men, gin men ye be.”
“I already told ye I be ye great-nephew of a king,” Torchyld muttered, though with some difficulty. He was already on the verge of coma, as well he might have been, considering his traumatic day and his feats with the drinking horn.
Tim was asleep even before Torchyld. Dan might or might not have been. His ruminative habit sometimes made it hard to tell. Even the widow, who’d been sneaking a nip for her bones every time she refilled the horn, must be half-seas over by now.
Peter decided he might as well go through the motions of sleeping, too. There was nothing more tedious than being the only one sober among a pack of flaked-out roisterers. When the old woman lurched into the mouth of the cave and brought out armloads of fresh rushes to cover the floor for their comfort, Peter collapsed on one of the heaps, made sure his druidical robe was decently covering his lower elevations, and mingled his snores with the rest.
But he kept his eyes half open. He was still uneasy about what he might or might not have seen at the bottom of that drinking horn.
Chapter 6
MAYBE HE’D DROPPED OFF for a minute or two. The old woman was crouched by the fire now, feeding it with little sticks. Peter couldn’t imagine what kind of wood they might be. They were burning with an odd, greenish brown flame; giving off a powerful, musty odor nothing like ordinary wood smoke. Maybe they weren’t tree branches, but stalks of some herb or other. Fleabane would have been nice. Like Adam, he was sure by now he had ’em. Or else it was just prickles from the rushes he was lying on.
So this was what it had been like in the halcyon days of yore, he thought drowsily. The puncheon floor wasn’t intolerable to him now, but how would it feel to aging bones on a winter’s night, with the wind howling in around the edges of that cowhide door, and nothing to keep one from freezing to death but a fire of twigs and a rotten sheepskin? That one rug of hers must have begun to decay. He could smell putrefaction.
Or was it only that the old woman had started taking off her clothes? That was an unkind thought. But drat it, she’d probably never taken a bath in her life.
Then again, the smell might be coming from the cave. They’d been stepping back into the tunnel and employing one of the niches as a comfort station, since she wouldn’t let them go out into the woods and they could hardly use a corner of the hut. Though maybe their hostess herself wouldn’t have been so fussy.
Come to think of it, he’d heard some pretty feculent stories about what the plumbing had been like in those fairy tale castles the Stott kids’ Aunt Matilda had no doubt-filled their infant minds with. Why couldn’t such places stay in storybooks? What if he got stuck in this unhygienic fantasy? What if he never got back to the college? What if he never saw Helen again?
If he were Torchyld, he could at least cry. As it was, he didn’t even dare swear out loud for fear of embarrassing that pathetic old—Great jumping jehoshaphat! Why was she making those hideous grunting noises?
Thinking the woman must be in some kind of trouble, Peter opened the eyes he’d modestly shut when she began to undress. He hadn’t expected to see anything pretty. He could never, never have anticipated what he saw.
She was naked now, her body turned toward him. One pair of withered breasts would have been enough to turn his stomach. This woman had five pairs, lined up on both sides of her torso like the dugs of an old sow.
She looked bigger without her clothes. Much bigger. Good God, she was growing before his eyes. Could that stuff she’d been burning be having a hallucinogenic effect on him? Or was the peasant face he’d thought so simple, so careworn, actually being transformed? Was the nose lengthening into a snout? Had the eyes become little dark rounds that flared red when the firelight hit them?
And the teeth! She’d seemed to have no teeth at all, supping up the broth from the trencher and gumming Stott’s melted cheese off an acorn cake. Now the mouth showed great, pointed incisors and horribly tusklike canines. He didn’t even want to imagine the bicuspids.
She was splashing some dark stuff on her ropy arms, smearing it around her frightful snout. He wondered what it could be. Then he knew, and wished to God he’d never eaten from that accursed cauldron.
This was no peasant. This was Cerridwen, or one of her litter, and the way she kept licking those foul chops as she bent over young Torchyld’s magnificent body showed what those hideous teeth were for.
“Ye cave be where I store my food,” she’d told them. She would sate her dreadful hunger on that great, handsome frame, then hang up the rest of them like sides of beef in a butcher’s warehouse, to be dripped on with the stalactites until she got hungry again.
Well, Peter was damned if he’d let himself or any of his comrades provide chops and cutlets for that ten-titted horror. But how in Sam Hill was he going to stop her? She was enormous now, bigger than Stott, bigger than Torchyld; so big he couldn’t see how the tiny hut held her.
Then he realized they weren’t in any hut. They were still in the cave. The hut had been a mere contrivance of thatch and wattles: stage scenery for the pathetic old-woman act that had lulled them into feeling safe enough to get drunk on her hell-brew. No wonder she’d fed them that line about not venturing beyond the cowhide. They’d have found nothing outside but more rock. Great God, would they ever get out? Would it be kinder to let her kill them all quickly? No, damn it, such a death was unthinkable.
Cerridwen, or whatever she was, had gone on to Tim, curling her snout in scorn at his puny frame. She turned to Dan, nodding and cackling over his stately height and impressive poundage. Then she looked thoughtful.
“Perchance ’twould be wiser to save this one for a rainy day,” she mused aloud. “He be comely of countenance”—Stott did in fact somewhat resemble a particularly majestic and distinguished porker—“and he be courtly in demeanor. ’Tis long since I last took a consort. Sometimes I find myself missing Lord Mochyn. But he did make a sumptuous pot roast. Ah, decisions, decisions. No matter, I can think about that later. First, to enjoy ye young giant Dwydd sent me. I suppose I ought to drop her a thank-you note. He will roast nicely. Or should I tear ye living flesh from ye quivering bones with my razor-sharp fangs, let ye blood roll down my chin, and hark with pleasure to his shrieks of agony until he hath nothing left to shriek with? As for that one in ye corner,” she cast a disparaging glance at Peter, “not much to go to ye table with, but better than rabbit stew, methink
s!”
Then at least it probably had been a rabbit in the pot. Peter found a tiny drop of comfort in that. Perhaps it was the last drop he’d ever have. Did the bitch have to keep licking her chops so avidly? Was there no way out this nightmare?
Peter stole furtive glances from under his eyelashes, spying around for anything that might conceivably be used as a weapon. No use trying to tackle that monster with his bare hands. She’d have them chewed off to the armpits before he could get them around her throat. His only chance was in guile. He’d never felt more guileless in his life.
Then his glance fell on the harp Torchyld had flung into the corner behind the bench. It was no sort of weapon, but it was better than nothing. While the monstrous creature had her back to him, gloating over Torchyld, Peter snaked out his hand and grabbed the harp. It jangled. There was only one thing to do now, and he did it.
“A hog he would a-wooing go,
“Hi-ho, says Rowley.”
Peter was no singer, he’d never twanged a harp before in his life, but that was beside the point. Bards were supposed to have the power of song over the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the minds and the hearts of men. Did this thing have a mind, or a heart? No matter. At least he might distract her long enough for the others to wake up and make a run for it, though God only knew where they could run to. He sat up on his haunches, swept his hands back and forth across the strings to make as much noise as possible, and bellowed on.
“O bury me not on the lone prairee.
“These words came low and mournfullee
“From the pallid lips of a sow who lay
“On her dying bed at the close of day.”
He couldn’t be charming the hag, but he’d certainly managed to shake her aplomb. She stood staring at him through those mad, red eyes; her snout quivering, her jaw dropped to show rows of abominable, filelike teeth. He kept singing and strumming. As he played, he rose and backed slowly toward the cave mouth, praying his feet would locate a loose rock he might quickly scoop up and hurl. He’d been a pretty good shortstop for the Wheatfields Nine in his youth. The old wing still had enough juice in it to knock out a few of those God-awful teeth, anyway.
This was too slow. He struck up a livelier jangle and danced to the rhythm, hounding around in a wild jig that seemed to fascinate her more than the music.
“Git out the way, ol’ Dan Tucker!
“Git out the way, ol’ Dan Tucker!”
Why in hell didn’t his companions wake up? He cavorted over toward the cave wall, still hoping to find something he could throw, but any rock he encountered had been glued to the floor by that eternally dripping mineral water.
Water! Peter scrooched down and managed to drag the hem of his robe through a puddle, danced back, and slapped the robe across the sleepers’ faces, one after another. They groaned, stirred. He danced back and soaked his garment again, and again and again till he was ready to fall with exhaustion. Still the hag had made no move to attack. Maybe he had in fact managed to work an enchantment. She started clapping her blood-streaked hands, swaying in time to the music. It was revolting to watch all those yellow dugs flap to and fro, but better than being eaten. Then praise the Lord, Tim woke up.
“Pete, what the hell?” he grumbled.
“Oh, git out the way, ol’ Tim Tucker,” Peter caroled. “Or you’ll be goddamn sorry you stayed for supper!”
“Great Christ on a crutch!” Tim looked from his madly jigging friend to the naked, swaying, clapping hag. Then, incredibly, he started to laugh, leaped to his feet, and began dancing, too.
“Jee-hoshaphat, Pete, if you ain’t the damnedest! Dan! Hey, Dan, wake up. We’re having a hoedown. Swing it, Pete. Sashay left and all hands ’round. Whee! Haw, haw!”
Maybe it was hysteria. It could hardly have been anything else, but Peter began laughing, too. He twanged and stomped and ho-ho-ho’d, totally out of control. He slapped the hem of his wet robe back and forth across Dan Stott’s face until at last their colleague sat up.
“Wherefore the levity, friends?”
That set them off again. Dan, normally the most decorous of swine experts, rose up to laugh and leap with them. At last they managed to rouse Torchyld.
“Oh, my head!” he groaned, then he realized what was going on and joined the roaring roisterers.
“I’faith, hag, ye knowest well how to maken merry. This be funnier than when I made Owain eat the boiled eels.”
The only one not laughing was the hag. All that male guffawing appeared to terrify her as perhaps no threat of physical violence could have done. She was cowering away from them and beginning, Shandy thought, to shrink.
“Come on, old sow,” he yelled boldly. “Put on your clothes and join the party.”
Peter danced over and picked up the garment she’d thrown off in her ghastly transformation. “Phew, this is ripe. I’ll wash it for you.”
He sloshed the reeking rag through a pool in the cave floor, and flung it at her.
“Squee-ee-ee!”
As the sopping, cold cloth hit her, the sow sorceress squealed a horrendous squeal. Then came a mighty explosion. Loathsome fragments flew around them. A direful stench filled the air.
“Great balls of fire,” yelled Tim. “What happened?”
“She brast,” said Torchyld matter-of-factly. “Good show, druids.”
“What do you mean, she brast?” Tim insisted. “Where is she?”
“Around,” said Peter. “Let’s get out of here. This place stinks like a bunkhouse full of lumberjacks.”
Daniel Stott was inclined to stand and ruminate on what had occurred, but Peter hurried him off. “Come on, Dan. You can think on the way.”
“On the way to where?” Tim wanted to know.
“I wish I knew. As far as I can tell, we’re still inside the cave.”
“Not for long,” said Torchyld.
“How do you know?”
“It standeth to reason. Ye hag had firewood and herbs and a fresh-killed rabbit. I be no great and wisdom-stuffed druid like ye, but to me these things grow not in caves.”
“But she was a witch, or some damned thing,” Peter argued. “Maybe she conjured them up.”
“Conjured, hell,” Tim snorted. “The kid’s right. Come on, Pete, quit dithering. You’re the one who said we’d better leave.”
“I know I did. I’m only wondering if we’d better take some torches to light our way. Our ambulatory flashlight doesn’t seem to be around.”
“I be here.” This was the prissy voice they recalled from their weary trek through the cave. “Only I fear I glow no more. I be disenchanted, ye see.”
The voice’s owner stepped forth from the cave. They found themselves faced by a man not more than four and a half feet tall. He was dressed only in a rude loincloth or kilt of something that looked like worn-out burlap, and his feet were bare. What hair he had was badly in need of a trim; his beard was so straggly it hardly seemed worth the bother of growing. He looked to be well on toward middle age, but that meant nothing, since middle age here could be anything. He was skinny and downtrodden-appearing. This was no doubt to be expected in a gone-out glow.
“She disembodied me so she wouldn’t have to feed me,” he was explaining. “I must say it feeleth good to be back in mine own shape, such as it be.”
“You’ll never be hung for your beauty, that’s for sure,” said Tim, rather pleased to have somebody in the group less physically prepossessing than himself. “Mind telling us who you are and how you got here?”
“What care we how he got here?” Torchyld interrupted with that suave courtesy they’d learned to expect from a king’s great-nephew. “Can he guide us out?”
“Oh yes, no problem,” said the ex-glow. “Just follow me, please. If ye don’t mind joining hands—mine be a bit grubby, I fear—and making a chain, it will be easier for me to lead you without a light. I ken every puddle and pothole in this weary, weary cave.”
“But why should we tr
ust you?” Shandy demanded. “Look where you landed us last time.”
“Ye be all-wise, great druid, and I be ye lowliest wretch that e’er groveled along a cave floor. I perceive now that I erred by not leaving ye and thy co-mates to perish in ye dark or be crushed by ye hogweed. I most humbly crave pardon.”
“M’yes, neatly put. What were you before you got disembodied? A lawyer?”
“I was clerk to my liege, Lord Mochyn.”
“The chap who became the—er—gentleman friend of that whatever-she-was?”
“She was a cruel enchantress, great druid. If she had a name, I wot it not. She spared my life and that of my liege lord only on condition that we do her every bidding. We were the last of a band of ten travelers who had been caught like yourselves by ye giant hogweed and herded into her clutches. By ye time she tracked us down, she had already eaten two and salted down ye others for her winter’s store. Hence she was not enhungered, otherwise we had been devoured like them.”
“How did you happen to be the last ones caught?”
“Lord Mochyn had fled into ye remote fastnesses of the cave, thinking to escape her fell design. I followed him as was my duty, so we were caught together. She made him her leman and me her guide, to lure ye unwary to her lair and save her ye bother of having to chase them through ye darksome caverns.”
“I see. It never occurred to you to lead them elsewhere?”
“Nay, sire, I wot my responsibility to my employer.”
“I see. You’re not—er—working for anybody else now?”
“Not I, great druid. My liege be gone, ye enchantress be brast. At last I know what freedom meaneth. To be free is to be out of a job. Mayhap ye will allow me to guide ye out of ye cave on approval? Perchance, gin I give satisfaction, ye will then keep me in mind should an opening come up.”
Chapter 7
The Curse of the Giant Hogweed Page 5