The Curse of the Giant Hogweed

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Lord Ysgard kept up a hospitable flow of small talk while the ex-voyagers made up for lost mealtimes. Boiled eels weren’t at all bad, Peter found. Daniel Stott was thoughtfully and painstakingly demolishing a trencherful singlehanded, while the six sons of Lord Ysgard, no mean trenchermen themselves, gazed upon him with awe and reverence. Peter did wish there were something other than ale to drink, and not even halfway palatable ale at that, but at least it helped the eels down.

  The hall was a strangely cheerless place, Shandy thought. It wasn’t too badly kept, he supposed; but there was no ease, no grace, not even any color to speak of, barring the florid face of Lord Ysgard. It wasn’t homey. The master and his company were doing their best to be hospitable, but they simply didn’t know how.

  Torchyld was noticing. At first he looked puzzled. Then he asked, “Where be thy ladies, Lord Ysgard?”

  “Be it meet for an apprentice bard to address so personal a question to our liege?” Degwel inquired of an eel he was about to eat.”

  “Oh yes,” said Peter before Torchyld could retort in his own fashion. “He is himself of noble birth.”

  “Then prithee, why be he apprenticed to a bard? No offense, of course.”

  “And none taken,” Peter replied sweetly. “Far be it from me to castigate you in verse of mystic power just for asking a civil question. Torchyld is apprenticed to me because he is under enchantment and I happened to have an opening for an enchanted apprentice at the moment. When my colleagues and I get through disenchanting him, he will resume his rightful guise and you will be proud to have had the opportunity of—er—splitting eels with him. Therefore, you may be pleased to recall that you accorded him due respect now. With all respect to yourself, of course.”

  Degwel glared at the eel and said nothing. Shandy turned to their host.

  “Lord Ysgard, I expect you and your people are wondering how so distinguished a group as we are happen to be wandering loose around the country like a band of gypsies. Frankly, so are we. The fact of the matter is, we’ve been having an adventure.”

  “An adventure?” A murmur of excitement went around the board. “Wilt sing of ye adventure, noble bard?” asked Hywell, or possibly Hayward.

  “M’well, I haven’t had time to put it into verse yet,” Peter answered. “Would you be satisfied with a mere telling?”

  “In sooth, a mere telling would suit us fine. Poetry be always such a bother to figure out.”

  “He hath a brain easily strained,” said the brother next to him. “Tell on, O bard. How cometh it ye and these venerable druids have gone a-venturing together?”

  “The druids and I are old comrades,” Shandy began. “We come from a great distance and how we traveled is a mystery not meet for young ears like yours to hear.”

  This sort of thing wasn’t so tough, once you fell into the way of it. “Suffice it to say we arrived in the country of King Sfyn—”

  “King Sfyn? Can it be possible?” They were pointing at Torchyld and nudging each other. Shandy gave them an indulgent look and went on with his saga.

  As Helen often said, Peter did have a way with words. Perhaps he had really been a bard in some transmigration or reincarnation or other. He’d have to check it out with Dan Stott sometime. Anyway, his yarn lost nothing and in fact gained a good deal in the telling. He extracted each last shred of dramatic value from the hogweed, from the perilous journey through the cave, from the mysterious glow that had guided them. Medrus became quite a hero down at the far end of the table. Peter described the encounter with Gwrach, using every adjective he could dredge from his early perusals of E. A. Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. When he got to the part where she brast, a wild cheer went up around the banqueting hall and Lord Ysgard bellowed for the drinking horn.

  “Ye shall judge if our liquor be as potent as that of the dread sorceress. Eh, great archdruid?”

  “Cripes, Pete, what am I supposed to do now?” muttered Tim. “Another drinking bout like that last one would send me six feet under.”

  “Then tell him you have to go and perform some secret rites,” Peter suggested. “They must have a chapel in the castle.”

  “I can’t go performing secret rites in some stranger’s chapel. I couldn’t do it in my own, if I had one. I don’t know any secret rites. I never even joined the Odd Fellows.”

  “So make believe you’re under a vow to abstain from strong drink until you’ve finished disenchanting Torchyld.”

  “Ale doesn’t count?”

  “How can it? You’ve already swilled a quart or two.”

  As Dan Stott’s head was strong and his capacity great enough for a brace of druids, Lord Ysgard was not offended by Tim’s vow of abstinence. He was as eager as the rest of them to see Torchyld disenchanted and his true identity revealed, though he was trying not to show it. His dignity seemed to be a kind of greased pig on which Lord Ysgard kept at best a precarious and spasmodic hold.

  Chapter 9

  THE LIQUOR WAS POTENT, all right. After the horn had gone around once or twice, Peter felt emboldened to say, “You still haven’t introduced us to Lady Ysgard.”

  “Alas!”

  He must have said the wrong thing with a vengeance. Not only Lord Ysgard but every member of his family and staff fell to weeping.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” Peter stammered. “I didn’t realize you were still mourning her loss.”

  “It be not my wife,” sniffled his lordship. “She ran off with a wandering minstrel many years agone. It be everybody. There be not a lady nor a maid or e’en a serving wench left in ye castle or ye village or all ye country around.”

  “Good God, what happened to them?”

  “They be abducted by ye lecherous monster King Sfyn.”

  “King Sfyn be no monster,” shouted Torchyld. “What ye hell would he go around abducting women for? He hath more women around him than he can handle already.”

  “Aye,” cried the sons in a growling chorus. “Our women!”

  “That be to say,” explained Huw, who was evidently more articulate than the rest of the pack, “ye women we might have if King Sfyn’s men hadn’t got to them first. What happened was, there used to be this wyvern that would fly around King Sfyn’s kingdom grabbing up maidens and devouring them. So they began to run short of maidens over there. So they came and got ours.”

  “It was disgusting,” said Degwel. “Ye hussies would line up in rows outside the castle walls with their hair in braids and their lunches all packed, just waiting for some swashbuckling scoundrel from Sfynfford to come galloping over and abduct them.”

  “I gave strict orders against rape and ravishment,” snarled Lord Ysgard, “but they flouted me, damn it. Hell of a note, being flouted by a lord’s own damsels. Soon as they heard the wyvern had been killed, they began washing their necks and trimming their toenails to get ready for ye next raiding party. Claimed it was livelier over in Sfynfford. Ingrates!”

  “We tried to organize a squad of our own to go and abduct some of them back,” said Yfor gloomily, “but we could not get it together. Ye trouble is, nobody can find anything any more. When we had women around, they always kenned by some kind of instinct where ye’d parked your lance or shield or gyves or corselet or whatever. And they’d shine them up for ye, and comb ye nits out of thine hair so ye wouldn’t go crazy with ye itch when ye put on thy helmet. Damn it, I want mine old nanny!”

  He began to bawl again. Around him, the chorus of wails rose in sympathy.

  “And you say they’re every one of them over at Sfynfford now?” said Shandy, raising his voice to make himself heard above the din. “Dash it, quit that infernal yowling a minute, can’t you? Give a man a chance to think.”

  In the hope of quelling the tumult, he picked up the harp and gave them a chorus of “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad.” This, he realized too late, was an undiplomatic choice as it must inevitably remind Lord Ysgard of Lady Ysgard and the traveling minstrel. He switched to “Wouldst Could
I but Kiss Thy Hand, O Babe,” which struck a more responsive chord.

  As the sobs quieted down to sighs of yearning, he remarked, “King Sfyn has several granddaughters, does he not, assistant bard? All single and all beautiful. I repeat, all beautiful,” he added when he saw Torchyld’s lip begin to curl.

  “Imogene be not so bad,” Torchyld admitted. “If ye likest fat brunettes.”

  The entire company voted unanimously in favor of fat brunettes.

  “On ye other hand, if ye have a preference for skinny redheads, there be Guinevere.”

  They all expressed a willingness to prefer skinny redheads, given the opportunity. They were ready to prefer whomever they could get. The problem was, how to go about the getting.

  Shandy vetoed the mere notion of a raiding party.

  ‘Obviously you can’t beat the Sfynffordians at abduction. What you must do is try a different approach. I’d recommend a diplomatic mission.”

  “A what?”

  “A social call, if you prefer. Get yourselves slicked up in your Sunday go-to-meetings, take some nice presents, and go to call on the ladies. Tell them the fame of their beauty has spread far and wide, and you came to feast your eyes on so much amalgamated pulchritude.”

  “All of them together cannot—” Torchyld began. Shandy shut him up in a hurry.

  “As you were saying, though assistant bards do well not to speak until spoken to, all the ladies together cannot help being flattered by the attentions of six fine, young, eligible bachelors like Lord Ysgard’s sons. I believe their parents are—er—willing to consider suitable offers.”

  “Willing?” Torchyld snorted. “Aunt Edelgysa practically—”

  “So she did, now that you mention it. Mothers always like to make sure their daughters have ample dowries, don’t they? Been filling hope chests ever since the girls lisped their first infant words, I don’t doubt. And with King Sfyn’s—er—famed munificence, I’m sure the arrangements would be satisfactory to all parties, should these lads succeed in winning the hands of the young ladies. Is there a barber in the castle?”

  “A barber?” faltered Lord Ysgard. “Degwel, do we have a barber?”

  “We had one, but it was stolen by King Sfyn’s men when they abducted our kitchen maids,” Degwel replied with great presence of mind.

  “Oh yes, so it was. We’ve been meaning to buy a new one, but ye know how it is. Er—what did ye want ye barber for, noble bard?”

  “I just thought we might tidy the boys up a bit. Trim their hair, wash their necks, make them more presentable. After all, princesses are bound to have a good many gentlemen callers. Competition’s pretty fierce over at King Sfyn’s, I understand. Princes and lords and knights errant and traveling salesmen lined up in rows, all clamoring for the hand of Gwendolyn or Guinevere or one of the other girls.”

  “I marvel these fair princesses be not yet espoused, with suitors so thick on ye ground,” Degwel observed with the merest hint of a sneer.

  “M’yes. Well, you know how young ladies are.” Peter sang a few bars of “Some Day My Prince Will Come” to illustrate his point. “The problem is, they may all be getting fed up with waiting for the right prince to come along. I’d say you lads ought not to lose any time getting started. How far is it to Sfynfford, anyway? I shouldn’t think it’s any great distance if they’re always popping over here on wench-napping expeditions.”

  “It be a vast distance,” said Yfor. “A half day’s march afoot, at least. Less by horse, in sooth.”

  “Ten miles or so, I expect,” Shandy remarked to Stott.

  Dan nodded his head profoundly. He was pleasantly stuffed with eels and inclined to somnolence, but he roused himself enough to say, “You spoke of barbering. I may be permitted without undue accusation of immodesty to remind you that in my hot-blooded youth I once held the national slow-clip sheep shearing championship.”

  “So you did, by George. Then a spot of haircutting ought to be right up your alley, if we can find you anything to cut with. A sharp knife would do, I expect. Anything you could do to change those kids’ looks would have to be an improvement. Nice if we could clean them up a little. I wonder if it’s possible to manufacture soft soap out of wood ashes and eel fat?”

  “I can manage that, I think,” said Tim. “Hilda Horsefall was telling me once how they used to do it back before the soap works was started over at Lumpkin Corners. They used tallow, not eel fat, but what the hell?”

  “Then let’s get cracking.”

  Ysgard’s sons were just the excuse they needed to hotfoot it for Sfynfford, but if they were going to peddle the boys as prospective bridegrooms, they’d have to improve the product. Shandy rounded up some knives and set Dan and Torchyld to sharpening them, while he helped Timothy Ames start their own soap factory.

  Tim’s kettle attracted a good deal of attention for the rest of that day, though surreptitious tasters were somewhat disappointed in the flavor of his brew. When he at last managed to produce a curdy mess that actually worked up a lather and removed dirt, though, all hands were vastly impressed.

  To be sure, the natives couldn’t figure out quite why the archdruid should be interested in removing those layers of grime Lord Ysgard’s sons had been so patiently collecting all their lives. They decided it must be some esoteric rite of passage. Anyway, it was interesting to watch the youths turn color in the tub.

  Once they were bathed, Dan Stott produced a short knife he’d borrowed from Lord Ysgard and honed to razor sharpness. He had to demonstrate his intentions on Tim’s beard before the young men would let him touch them. Once they’d grasped the idea, though, they were charmed at the novelty and willingly submitted to being barbered. Cleaned up and dressed in freshly laundered tunics, they turned out to be a far more well-favored lot than first impressions had led Shandy to expect.

  Lord Ysgard was unreasonably proud of himself, as fathers are apt to be, for having sired such a personable collection of sons, though none too happy when it came time to open his strong room and fetch forth six engagement presents rich enough to tempt a king’s granddaughters. He kept on grumbling about the high cost of wooing until Peter Shandy, who’d strolled out beside the moat to watch the eels swim by, happened to spy Medrus draw his lordship aside and whisper something in his ear.

  Whatever he said perked Lord Ysgard up amazingly. Peter could see the lord questioning the ex-clerk eagerly, nodding and sticking out his under lip, waving his hands and all but licking his chops. Then Medrus said something else and Ysgard’s eyebrows shot up. This was as good as a play. Ysgard was trying to say no. Medrus was giving him a sales talk. Ysgard was falling for it. He was beginning to look furtive. Medrus was looking furtiver. Shandy recalled the impulse he’d had back in the coracle to kick Medrus overboard and wondered why he hadn’t yielded to it. What was the little sneak up to now?

  He wished there were some way he could get close enough to overhear what they were talking about, but cover was sparse around the moat. So was Medrus’s beard, and that would have made lip reading fairly feasible if he’d been obliging enough to keep his face turned toward Shandy. Instead, he kept his mouth close to Ysgard’s ear, which was now cocked even more sharply than before although its owner’s face was still registering conflicting emotions. Shandy could make out one word, though, because Medrus kept saying it over and over. He could swear it was “Dwydd.”

  Chapter 10

  THAT MISERABLE SON OF a bitch! Whatever Medrus was selling Lord Ysgard a bill of goods about couldn’t be anything savory if King Sfyn’s resident hag was mixed up in it. Peter watched the pair separate and sneak into the castle by different doors. Then he came out from behind the bush he’d been using for cover and went inside, too.

  It must be time to eat again; he could smell boiled eels. They reminded him of an old ballad: What got ye from your sweetheart, Randall my son? And Randall said eels and eel broth. And then Randall’s mother made his bed and he lay down on it and died from the eels his sweetheart had poiso
ned. Shandy decided he’d better not eat any eels tonight. Tim hadn’t better, either, nor Dan, nor most particularly Torchyld. Where was he?

  He asked a passing vassal. “Have you seen my apprentice? It’s time for his music lesson.”

  “He sleepeth, sire,” was the reply.

  “Where?”

  “On ye battlements, sire.”

  “Show me.”

  “Sire, my master hath sent me to dish up ye eels.”

  “They can wait. Show me. Quick.”

  The serf didn’t like this but, being a serf, he didn’t dare disobey. He led the way up an unbelievably narrow, twisty stone staircase to what Peter Shandy in his ignorance would have called the roof. There, dreaming perhaps of his troth-plighting days, lay Torchyld, his golden hair glinting in the sun and his bardic robe rucked up around his thighs. He was a magnificent specimen of young gianthood, no doubt about that. And he was still breathing. Just to make sure, Peter reached out to take his pulse. His hand stopped in mid-reach.

  On the battlements stood a row of boulders, ready to be cast down, Shandy supposed, on the heads of enemies. Up through the crenellations in the wall grew a vine: a sturdy, thrifty creeper that looked picturesque as all get-out but was no sort of thing for a prudent castellan to have growing where some marauder could climb up it, or a man-at-arms get his foot caught in it. Lord Ysgard ought to know better, Shandy was thinking, when he noticed a loop of the vine had been artfully led around the biggest of the boulders, then twined around Torchyld’s left ankle. If the young knight were to leap up suddenly, he’d dislodge the boulder, get dragged over the parapet, and crack his skull on the stones below. And people would say, “Such a promising young knight. What a pity he couldn’t have looked where he put his feet.”