Part 59 (1/2)

”Females larger, flat sh.e.l.ls underneath,” said Basher succinctly. ”Males undersh.e.l.ls curved concave. Makes sense. Think about it . . .”

But I was about to get a demonstration. Growch came panting back.

”Two females down there. Tell you what, don't like bein' up-ended! Cursin'

like 'Ell, they is!”

By the time we got there they had righted themselves again, their pale brown patched sh.e.l.ls disappearing into the undergrowth at speed. I put Basher down and immediately he was off, pausing only to eye the disappearing females with an experienced eye and turn in scurrying pursuit of the larger. A moment later there was a resonant tap-tapping noise, a pause, then a sort of triumphant mewing. Cats? No, just a tortoise enjoying himself; as I came nearer I could see him reared up at the back of the female, his mouth open on pointed pink tongue. ”M-e-e-w! Oh, what bliss! How I've missed thiiiis! Hey-”

With several violent jerks from side to side, the female disengaged herself and charged off once again, Basher in pursuit. Then once again the tap- tapping, pause, and ”M-e-w! Bliss . . .”

”Basher! Are you all right?”

”Couldn't be better! Thanks for eeeeverything . . .”

”Basher, wait . . .” There was something wrong, something about him, about the female . . . Oh, G.o.d! They were a different species! He was black and gold with a sh.e.l.l that frilled out at the back, they were pale brown shaped in a perfect hump. . . . I ran after him. ”Wait! They're a different species! Come back, and we'll go on further. . . .”

”No fear!” His voice was rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng. ”This'll do me. Color isn't everything. . . . Their parts are in the right place!” Tap-tap. ”This is far better than freezing to death! May you all find what you seeeeek. . . .”

When I rejoined the others, my heart heavy, Gill was listening, his ears c.o.c.ked. ”That tapping noise: reminds me of the cobbler mending my boots. . .

. Is he all right?”

”Yes,” I said. ”He has-what he wants.” What he thinks he wants, I added to myself. But there would be no eggs to hatch into little black and gold tortoises: his would be sterile couplings. Why couldn't he have waited till we found the right place? And yet, like Traveler, he seemed to be content with a subst.i.tute, and they had both said it was better than being dead. . . .

Were none of us to find what we really sought, I wondered?

”Half a loaf is better than none,” said the Wimperling unexpectedly.

”Especially when you're hungry.”

”Talkin' of bein' hungry,” said Growch: ”Ain't we stoppin' for lunch today?”

Chapter Twenty.Two.

We had come as far south as we could, without crossing into another country.

As one accommodating monk explained when next we sought food and lodging (overnight stay in the guesthouse, sleeping on straw; stew and ale for supper, bread and ale for breakfast and please leave a donation, however small), our country was a rough square, bounded to the northeast by one kingdom, the southeast by another and the south by a third. The other boundaries were sea, but there was still a lot of the square to explore. He drew everything in the dirt with a stick so I could understand.

Because he was a monk I told him a bit more of the truth than I had anyone else, and once he understood I was looking for Gill's home he worked out roughly for me the way we had come, like the right-hand side of a tall triangle.

He suggested that I travel along the ways that led from east to west till I came to the sea, then either complete the triangle by going northeast, or bisect it by going straight up the middle.

That seemed good advice, but there was not only Gill to consider. The Wimperling contemplated for a moment, then said he had felt no tuggings of place so far, and was content to continue as I suggested. Growch scratched a lot-warmer weather-and said that as long as there was food and company he wasn't bothered. But it was Mistral who was keenest on the idea. She said that the distance south seemed about right, and if there was a real sea to the west of us, that would be right too.

Not having told Gill about consulting the others, of course, he was happy enough to fall in with the idea, so we walked the many miles west during those spring days in a sort of dreamy vacuum. Mistral became more and more convinced we were heading in the right direction and I knew I wasn't about to lose Gill, for he had suddenly recalled that he couldn't see any mountains from his home-which was comforting to me, as we were leaving the highest ones I had ever seen to our left as we traveled. The range seemed endless, rearing purple, snow-fanged tips so high that the sun hid his face early behind them, the shadows stretching cold in our path.

But even the biggest mountains come to an end, and gradually they sank away the farther west we traveled. By now we looked like a band of gypsies, brown and weatherbeaten, our clothes comfortably ragged, although I tried to keep Gill as smart as possible by tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his hair and beard regularly, and I kept my hair in its plaits. Mistral was shedding her winter coat, and I could have stuffed a mattress with the brown hair that came out in handfuls when I tried to brush her. Growch evaded all attempts to wash, brush or trim anything.

But it was the Wimperling that was changing faster than anyone else-so much so that his name seemed too childish to fit the long-as-me-and-growing- longer animal that trotted away the miles beside us. He was taller, too, near up to my waist, and his k.n.o.bs and protuberances were growing more p.r.o.nounced as well. The claws on his hooves were real claws, the tip of his tail more like a spade than ever and his wings were bigger as well.

He was shy of showing them off, preferring to flex them behind a tree or large rock or in a dell, but I saw them once or twice. They resembled bat's wings more than anything else, but they were proper wings, not extended hands and fingers like the night-flyers. I began to feel embarra.s.sed in villages or with our fellow travelers, for fear they would think him some sort of monster and stone him to death, but for some peculiar reason they seemed to see him as just another rather largish pig: they even looked at him as if he were much smaller, their eyes seeming to span him from halfway down and halfway across. It was most peculiar, but the Wimperling merely said: ”They see what they expect to see. . . .”

”But why don't I see you like that?”

”You wear the Ring.” And quiet it was now, almost transparent, with tiny flecks of gold in its depths.

As he had no objection, every now and again the pig gave a simple performance in a village square, to augment our dwindling moneys-nothing fancy, just a bit of tapping out numbers, no flying, and Gill and I would sometimes literally sing for our suppers.

Growch disappeared a couple of times-I caught a glimpse of him once on the skyline at the very tail end of a procession of dogs (five hounds, two terriers, three other mongrels), following some b.i.t.c.h in season, but he had little success, I gathered, spending more time fighting for a place in the queue than actually performing. Being so small, he was a master of infighting, but he would have needed a pair of steps to most of the females he coveted. He remembered with nostalgia the two little b.i.t.c.hes with plumed tails he had successfully seduced way back.

”Don't make them like that round here. Some day, p'raps . . .”

I hoped so. Fervently. Then perhaps we would all get some peace.

The terrain became flatter, more wooded, and every day I peered ahead to try for my first glimpse of the sea. Now and again I thought I caught a teasing reminder of that evocative sea smell, and Mistral was forever throwing up her head and snuffing the breeze. Now she had shed her winter coat she was a different creature. Her coat was creamy white, her mane and tail long and flowing, and the sharp bones of haunch and rib were now covered with flesh.

Her step was jauntier, her chest deeper, her head held high and proud; she was no longer just a beast of burden, and sometimes in the mornings when I loaded her up I felt a little guilty, as though I were asking a lady to do the tasks of a servant.

At last one morning she sniffed the air for a full five minutes, and she was trembling. ”It is here,” she said. ”Over the next ridge, you will see . . .”

And there, glittering in the morning light, some five miles or so distant across flat, marshy land, was her ocean.

”You are sure?”

”I am certain. This is the place. This is where I came from.”

I looked more carefully and there, sure enough, some two miles away, were other horses, mostly white, some with half-grown brown colts, grazing almost belly-deep in gra.s.s. Perhaps because we were not as high as when we had seen Basher's Great Water, this sea seemed different: steely, clear, sharp against the horizon. And the smell was subtly different, too; colder and saltier.

”Right,” I said, my heart strangely heavy. ”Let's go and find your people, Princess.” And taking Gill's hand I followed the sure-footed Mistral towards the sh.o.r.e. As we drew nearer the sands, I could see that the gra.s.sy stretches I had taken for meadows were in fact only wide strips of green, full also of daisies, dent-de-lions, b.u.t.tercups and sedge, bisected by narrow channels of water, so that the ground was sometimes treacherous underfoot and we had to take a circuitous path.

Growch took a flying leap into the first channel we came to, after what looked like a bank vole, which disappeared long before we hit the water, and we had to spend the next five minutes or so fis.h.i.+ng him out, as the banks were too high for a scramble. When he finally landed he was soaking wet and, choking and hawking and spitting, he managed to let us know that the water was: ”salty as dried 'erring, and twice as nasty!”

Now we were in a marshy bit-it didn't seem to bother Mistral, and for the first time I noted that her hooves were wider than usual in a horse-and Gill and I took off our shoes and boots, squelching with every step. The Wimperling and Growch were even worse off, and when the horse noticed our difficulty she led us off to the right and firmer ground, through a thicket of bamboo twice as tall as Gill.

At last we emerged on a firm stretch of sand and there in front of us was the sea, stretching on right and left as far as the eye could see. From here I could see whitecapped waves that looked like the fancy smocking on a s.h.i.+rt, but moving towards us all the time, like never-ending sewing. A cool breeze lifted the hair from my hot forehead and flared Mistral's tail and mane.

I lifted the packs from her back, undid the straps and took off the bridle, laying them down on the sand. Strange: I had never thought how we were to manage our burdens when she was gone; share them out, I supposed now. I looked at the pile with growing dismay-we had taken her bearing of our goods so much for granted.

”There you are,” I said. ”You're free now. . . .”

In a moment she was flying across the ribbed sand away from us and towards the foam-fringed edges of the sea, then turning and galloping along the sh.o.r.eline, her hooves sending up great gouts of water until she was soaked and streaming. Then she came thundering back and wheeled round us, her hooves whitening the sand as they drove out the water, the prints hesitating before they darkened again into hoof-shaped pools.

”This is wonderful,” she neighed. ”It's been so long, so long. . . . And now I'm free, free, free!” and away she galloped again, until she was only a speck on the horizon.