by Rhys Hughes
The river was much narrower here and I assumed I was seeing it at a point upstream from my original point of contact. The granite arch which spanned it was an extravagance: far too grand for such a trickle. Over I went and found myself on the outskirts of a village, with mean houses in the shadows and a chapel and cemetery done up in the fidgety style. As moithered as I was to view this, my tongue rejoiced greatly at the sight of a tavern in a central square, pale lights flitting in the windows. So my wishes had been granted; I was contrite.
Skulking past the other buildings, I reached the establishment. No name or sign to it, but an empty cage hung from a post outside, like an obsolete gibbet. A figure, hidden from my gaze by the pole’s thickness, stepped out of the dusk as I was going in and we jammed together in the doorway. To my alarm, it was a young woman.
I apologised profusely. “I did not intend physical contact, Miss. I am religious and have atrophied parts. I belong to the druid’s union and hope to be elected to the Gorsedd of bards.”
She seemed amused by my demeanour. “I’m supposed to be meeting some friends inside. Do you know if they’ve arrived yet?” She had short black hair and a set of crooked teeth which added to her charm. “I’ve come far to see them. Men they are, two peculiar chaps.”
“I am also a stranger to this region,” I replied. “However, this is doubtless the place where you’ll find them.”
We extricated ourselves and tumbled into a sort of ante-chamber with doors leading off in both directions. She made no move to step away, but kept her arm lightly draped over my neck. I introduced myself, to defuse the situation, and she returned the gesture.
“Spring-Heeled Jane is what they call me. I’m from Llanboidy, which is in Pembrokeshire and was settled by Flems in olden days. My surname is Van Hopp. We’re a tightly-coiled family.”
I shuddered under her touch and she dropped her hand to her side. Pushkin hissed out from his nest; she reminded him of a rival cat and he prefers the company of dogs. I saw she was heading for the lounge so I made for the bar. “Perhaps we’ll cross bosoms again,” I droned. “If not, the blessing of Cthulhu’s myngu on you.”
I made the sign of the pyramid with my fingers and held it over one eye. In return, she blew me a filthy kiss.
Opening the door, I was confronted by a very old-fashioned interior with a stone floor and low ceiling. My entrance fanned the flames in the hearth, sending sparks shooting up the chimney, to the mild annoyance of the barman, who flicked a dishcloth in my direction. He was a rotund dab with shifty eyes; I took an instant dislike to him. Three other drinkers were present, two perched at the counter on warped stools, and the third huddled alone in the corner, using a coffin as a table. I ordered a pint of porter, nodding at the patrons in turn.
The barman pulled a viscous glass. “What’s this then? A troubadour! Haven’t had a decent cantwr here since Wynford the Shriek was broken on a wheel at thirty-three revolutions a minute.” He set down the frothing drink before me and stood with his brawny arms on his hips. “Partial we are to a bit of music in this valley. But we have our own kind and don’t trust foreign notes. They repeat on us!”
“Fair enough,” I said, “but I’m lost and my arrival was accidental. I care nothing for your aesthetic inclinations. What is the name of your village? And what is the strength of your ale?”
“Lladloh to the first question, lost and savage as a minotaur in an Eisteddfod. Solid as a chin, to your second.”
While I digested this he slapped me on the shoulder and cried: “I’m Emyr James and this is Caradoc Weasel. The greasy one is our own poet, calls himself Homunculus.”
The fellows in question seemed to belong to separate species. To my mind, the one named Weasel looked more like a stoat. The customer on the further stool was a sioni, badly dressed and with hair which cascaded in oily rivulets over his face. What I took for a growth on his neck turned out to be a raven balanced at an odd angle.
I jabbed a thumb at the coffin. “What about him?”
Emyr shrugged. “No idea, came in an hour ago. Doesn’t want to knock about with us, says he’s from Aberystwyth. Pervert, I bet! Booked a room for a night, asked for a triple bed.”
Touching my harp, I sent a shiver of sound to make the bottles sigh behind the bar. “I’m Tin Dylan and I use strings of spun tin on my lyre. Helps to preserve the old ballads.”
“Tin Dylan? Any relation to Silver John?”
I scoffed. “That precious fool! Twp as a sledge, he is, and ronk as a bwgi. Can’t play for love or liver!”
“Is that so? What about Johnny Cash?”
“Cash is worthless!” I announced firmly.
Emyr considered this statement and nodded. “Quite right. We barter for things round here. Now then, Dylan, what are you going to offer for your pint of dark? A couple of toes?”
“My profession is a noble one and steeped in druidic tradition. The minstrels in the time of Hywel Dda were given free board and lodging. Do you not fear the wrath of the pagan deities?”
“Pagan? No, mun, Satanist I am, see!”
I sipped my drink. “I worship Seedy Crom. He’s very compact and has an astounding memory. His horns are velveteen.”
Emyr twisted his dishcloth into a noose and grinned. “But Satan has a better tail. Twisted and slippery it is, like a greased worm. His cook used to work for our vicar, baked cakes as proper as liars! His pikelets had eyes for raisins, were consumed like poets!”
At this juncture, the local laureate spoke up, his fringe muffling his words. “Do you play that harp, Dylan?”
For reply, I placed my instrument on the bar, adjusting the tuning to the mixolydian mode, well calculated to inspire tears. “This shall be my payment,” I added. “Though you must provide me with change, as songs like mine are worth more than drinks.”
Holding Pushkin firmly, I opted for an arcane favourite. In a voice grainy as a powdered shadow, I crooned:
Salty Myfanwy was my girl,
Her tongue was like a whip.
She had many a golden curl
But all on her upper-lip.
With a grimace, Emyr fell back from the bar, hands clamped over his ears. Weasel and the poet followed his example, though the coffin-hugger merely swivelled his head to stare in my direction. Before I could groan the second verse, there was a rattle from without and the door flew open to admit the traveller I had met by the river. He had his wagon with him and it barely fitted between the jambs. But he pulled it through and, with a cursory glance at the whole company, wheeled it over to the coffin. Emyr followed his progress and scowled.
“Treating this tavern just like a public house!”
“Looks like a tinker,” avowed Weasel. “His gambo all shandivang and him with the manners of a dentist.”
I watched as the fellow sitting by the coffin stood and shook hands with the hauler, who removed his hat and liberated his mane. They seemed delighted to see each other, conversing in hushed tones over the box. In the warmth of the fire, the tentacles in the jar waved languidly. Having none of such mysteries, I called out:
“I know this dab, I do! Met him on the road a while back. Buy him a drink of his choosing, I shall, like best butties!”
And to pay for the order, I continued my song:
Salty Myfanwy loved me daft,
By a gold-mine we were wed.
But she fell down the shaft
And a goblin ate her head.
The tinker nodded at me and accepted the offer. “A pint of mead and a whisky chaser! So you made it, bach, over the stream? Went a different way, you say? No trouble for me, the bridge.”
“You don’t look wet,” I pointed out, “but you ought to. Sail across on your trailer, did you?” There was something not right, but he was too crafty to catch out. He laughed and complimented my song, saying that he never heard melodies like that in his own village. “It’s a sacrificial,” I explained. “Should be played on a musical saw.” He answered there were no saws of any kind where
he came from, just hatchets. So I enquired after the name of his town and he mockingly obliged.
“The hamlet of Cray, bach, very small too.”
I frowned. A pattern was emerging, though I was unable to grasp the relevance of it to my situation. I have no stomach for riddles, though a keen spleen. Rather than talk or drink more, I contented myself with the cat, stroking him under the chin. The poet leaned closer and admired the sheen of his fur, confessing that he wanted a pet like that, instead of a mad raven who tried to peck his eyes. Emyr was still tamping at the rudeness of the new arrival, though he poured mead and whisky as promised. As the tinker came to take it from his hand, he rumbled: “An introduction might be nice. And a statement of business.”
“A friendly pub I wanted, not a courthouse!” moaned the fellow, but his eyes gleamed. “I’m Icarus Evans and that’s Medardo the Anatomist. No harm to folk: we’re waiting for a friend.”
I thought I knew who that friend could be and I was proved right as the door opened once again and Spring-Heeled Jane tottered into the bar, waving at Icarus and Medardo. “Been sitting in the lounge on my own like a flighty one. No better than a didoreth.”
“Miss Van Hopp,” I asserted. Weasel and Emyr leered after her quite shamelessly, whereas the poet adopted a dreamy expression. She passed us and I held my nose against her perfume. Icarus carried his drinks in her wake and they formed a triangle round the coffin, ignoring our bellicose and lustful attentions. The suspense was as bad as on Walpurgis night, when witches and warlocks are free to go shopping. To shell the tension, Emyr broke open a kilderkin of marinaded eggs.
We chewed convulsively. I kept my eyes on the eerie trio, sure they were up to something disreputable. Weasel and the poet lost interest and concentrated on the nameless globules floating in their beer; the barman turned to more prosaic matters, washing and drying. But I never left off studying the group. Indeed, my porter made an excellent lens, refracting the light they shed as they plotted, enabling me to observe their antics in detail, down to every last twitch.
Coolly, as if acting within bounds of normality, the tinker reached for his wagon and grasped the tentacles. He dipped one into his glass of mead, the other into his whisky. Then he gave a dozen quick turns on a wheel: the apparatus trembled and the whisky glass grew larger as the mead glass grew smaller. Soon they had exchanged sizes. Replacing both tentacles, the man knocked back his shot of mead and raised his pint of malt. Noticing me, he poured a libation.
I was astonished but said nothing. Things like that aren’t supposed to happen this side of the Irish Sea. Turning to my comrades, I remarked how eager I was to know the coffin’s contents. It seemed a rather morbid focus of attention, hinting of necromancy.
The others agreed. Individually, the newcomers seemed fairly benign but in league they fouled the very atmosphere round them. Emyr regretted he couldn’t force them to open the lid.
“What if they are a roving coven?” I demanded. “Come to dance naked and burn your pickled-onions in a wicker-man?”
“Such things happen in Porthcawl,” conceded Weasel.
Emyr mopped his brow. “Best cause a diversion and poke our goitres in without them knowing. A bit of underhand!”
The barman had a scheme for achieving this. He whispered in the ear of the poet, who slipped from the room. Before I could ask the nature of the plan, Emyr stalled me by saying: “Give him a minute, then we’ll see. Straddles two tectonic plates does Lladloh!”
Tugging at his whiskers, Weasel chortled: “The only earthquake zone in Wales. Known as the Felinfoel Fault.”
There was a terrific crash from outside. Emyr clapped his hands, as if to amplify the blast. “Mount Yandro has erupted!” he shouted. “Vilest volcano in the locality! Lava like tabasco!”
At once, the strangers jumped to their feet and rushed to the dirty window, to peer out at the imaginary spectacle.
The coffin was left unattended. Emyr, Weasel and myself crossed the floor and gained its side. Easing off the lid, we were greeted by a most horrid sight. About the same length as a dead woman, wings partly folded over its pointy face, it had an infinitely sad expression. “What sort of cythraul is this then?” blurted the barman, reaching in to tug its limbs like a photographer posing a bwci-bo.
I have knowledge of pagan devils. “It’s a harpy.”
“There’s tidy!” muttered Weasel.
Although the creature was evidently dead, something was crawling in its fur. “Fleas!” I spat. We jumped away, aware that harpy fleas are the most voracious parasites known to pet-owners. Pushkin loosed a desperate howl and scratched himself vigorously before leaping back under my coat. Emyr and Weasel collided and fell over.
The trio returned from the window and frowned at our pranks. “Going through our possessions, now?” Icarus replaced the lid and tightened the screws. “Like a wedge of thieves. Ach-a-fi!”
“Shall I body-search them?” Spring-Heeled Jane licked her lips. She was ready to implement the suggestion, but Medardo restrained her. Stiff as a starched knife, he wagged a rigid finger.
“Not worth it. They are just peasants. I suggest we retire upstairs and continue our affairs in our room.”
“Affairs then, is it?” Emyr was insulted. “Won’t have any free-love on my premises. Affections are caged round here. Hippies and harpies! Go you to Cardiff and leave us in pieces of quiet!”
“Not so pious yourself,” the tinker complained. “Liars you are. Saw no volcanic activity, bach, just a crushed sheep.”
It was wise to avoid an escalation of hostilities. I backed away to the bar and beckoned Emyr and Weasel to join me. To my relief, they came without protest. While we sat and drank, Icarus, Medardo and Jane hefted the coffin and the tinker’s cart up the narrow winding steps to the room they had reserved. In the middle of this operation, the poet returned to sup with us. None of us made a move to help; I took my harp and tuned it to the Ionian mode. But Pushkin refused to perform, so we continued in a silence punctuated by a creaking bannister.
“Where have you been?” I asked the poet.
He held aloft a huge manuscript, pages stitched together with roots of malodorous herbs. “My unpublished works,” he explained. “Dropped them from a balcony onto a ewe. Made the sound of a volcano right outside the pub. I often play this trick on tourists.”
“What would anyone want with a harpy?” Weasel wondered. “And a dead one at that, it’s face all pug and pinched!”
“Heard somewhere they’ve a stone in their heads,” I remarked, “like in a toad, but bigger and more valuable.”
“Might they be wanting that?” ventured Emyr. “One was an anatomist, they said so. His thumbs were like scalpels.”
I considered the idea. “The bottom’s dropped out of evil gems, they couldn’t get much for a standard harpy-stone, not even in the markets of Monmouth. Have to be a really big example to make a fortune and they had a small creature. But it’s a possibility.”
“That Tin Dylan! Patronising he is, see!”
“Thank you, I try my best. Size is crucial when it comes to valuing harpy-stones. They’re used in science to manufacture orgone-lasers, rays which penetrate the astral plane. Cut ghosts in half, they can, and boil poltergeists. Puts the mockers on seances.”
“Terrible the way they treat spooks these days!”
“Well, we won’t know now, unless they invite us to the operation. I say we drown our curiosity in darkest beer.”
Emyr pulled pints all round and we kissed our reflections in many a foaming head. I was hungry and ordered food, but a loaf of bread was the only fare available. Threaded with black veins and throbbing like mercy, it made me lose my appetite, though I dropped it in one of my voluminous pockets for a time when I might be desperate.
Buying porter for the crew, I wanted to tip the barman, but Pushkin was still on strike. Music was vital for the lay of Salty Myfanwy, so we had to miss out on that story. But there were other tunes, other ditties and lies. My repertoire is
extensive as fog.
I elected to sing unaccompanied, coaching Weasel and the poet in an ancient hymn to Hades, cousin to Seedy Crom. Our disparate voices caused ructions among the furniture, hurting stools:
Harpy days are here again,
Untie your Fury and Gorgon.
Slip Cerberus from his chain,
Dance to my Plutonian organ!
There was an angry thumping from above. The terrible trio must have choreographed the stamping for maximum effect. Plaster sleeted down from the ceiling, a floorboard laughed and snapped.
“Best keep the noise down, mun,” cried Emyr. “I don’t want to upset guests, even horrid ones. Lodge a complaint, they will! Damage my rating in the Michelin Guide. Six-hundred and sixty-sixth, I am! Boiled a whole kettle of fools to obtain that score.”
Weasel nodded. “Highest placing this side of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch.”
I was as weary of appeasement as of conflict. I asked the barman if I might hire a room with the promise of a recited epic on the morrow. He led me up the stairs, past a door which exuded a dreadful smell and into a warped chamber, crammed with antiques.
“Here it is, mun,” he announced. “Sleep well!” Leaving me on my own in the scalene dungeon, he thudded back to the bar. I settled my harp on the Welsh Dresser, sat on the sagging bed and yawned. Through the wall I caught pieces of frantic conversation: the trio were my neighbours. Only the one called Medardo was really audible. His words were mingled with a medley of baser sounds: the groaning of bedsprings, the slap of flesh. But I did not suspect carnal experimentation.