Part 21 (1/2)

'If Sul wished it yes!'

'Mister,' said Dido by this time the old man had grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and was marching her fiercely back in the direction of the temple a most uncomfortable progress 'Mister,' she said, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her neck round to look at him, 'has it ever strook you that perhaps it was meant for Elen to escape?'

'Meant? What can you possibly mean?'

'Well, she managed it twice, didn't she? Once we and your High King just happened to be on the spot; and as for this time well, no one but a noddy would a left the girl to be guarded by a cat, when I'd a thought the whole population around here might know she just dotes on the whole tribe o' cats and them on her -ouch!' for the old man had now taken a firm grip on her ear.

'I wish to hear no more of your irreverent rubbish,' he snapped. 'Sul needed that girl. Nodens is angry. See how Catelonde burns and sulks -' gesturing across the valley to the volcano which had just received two water-skins in its hot gullet, and was vomiting out a fiery spray of lava.

'But don't you see, you old Fossil, that's because -oh well -'

Looking at his angry, implacable old face, Dido decided she might as well save her breath. He was not going to be convinced by her. Instead she asked, 'Who's Nodens?'

'He is the husband of Sul. He must be propitiated. Or he may wreak his vengeance on the whole city of Bath.'

'If you ask me, the whole city of Bath could just about do with a tidy-up hey! That hurts!'

Grasping her by both ears he pushed her past the altar and with a final heave propelled her sharply through the door of her bedroom so that she fell on her face on the stone floor. By the time she had picked herself up he was nailing the door shut with furious bangs of a hammer.

'And there you stay!' he shouted through the door, 'until tomorrow evening when it is time for you to go to Sul. Hodie mihi, eras tibi! Nota bene! Respice finem! Suaviter in modo! Experto crede!'

And she heard him stomping off back into the temple, where he soothed his feelings and allayed his temper by making a lot of noise on various different instruments and thumping some very cacophonous chords on the piano. Poor old boy, thought Dido, he ain't half sore that he lost Elen. I guess those old girls will be right mad with him.

And then Dido began to wonder and worry as to whether she had done the right thing in encouraging the princess to escape on Hapiypacha. Would the leopard really consent to be ridden all the way over the mountains to Wandesborough? Or would he toss Elen off into a sigse thorn thicket and then eat her? Or would she fall off his back? Or would they get lost, and fall asleep on the bare mountain slopes, and become the prey of Aurocs?

Still, thought Dido, anything's better than waiting here to be chucked off a blessed rock into a peris.h.i.+ng lake.

She had ample time to think this. It was a miserable night. The room was extremely dark with the door shut, since there was only one window, about the size of a brick, very high up. Dido groped her way to the heap of hair and curled up miserably in it. She felt, for the first time, horribly lonely for Elen, for Mr Multiple, for Holystone, Noah Gusset even for Captain Hughes and Hapiypacha. Where were they all, this night? Dido was very tired indeed, but it was a long time before she slept.

She woke up hollow with hunger for the Guardian's bean-stew was not very nouris.h.i.+ng and it was many hours since she had eaten it also parched with thirst. She thought longingly of the water in the tank on the other side of the nailed-up door. The sun was up she could tell that by the light in her window-hole. Banging on the door she shouted, 'Lemme out!' For a long time there was no answer, then Caradog's voice replied, 'Quiet, child, you interrupt my devotions. And in any case you cannot come out till moonrise. You had better think, meditate, put yourself in a proper frame of mind to go to Sul.'

'I don't want to go to flaming Sul!'

But nothing she said could elicit any further response from the Guardian; she heard him from time to time chanting and playing on his instruments. Then there was a long silence; perhaps he was away seeing to his beasts.

The day dragged. It is bad enough at any time being shut up in a room in the dark with nothing to do; but the prospect of being a human sacrifice at the end of it makes the whole situation incomparably worse.

Dido's thirst, hardly bearable at the beginning of the day, was so acute by nightfall that she could hardly speak when at last the Guardian wrenched open the door and let her out. She had to work her sore throat several times before she could get out the word 'Water!' in a hoa.r.s.e wheezing whisper.

'Thirsty, are you?' said Caradog sourly. 'No more than you deserve. Water's not what you need, with a thirst like that; what you need is a cup of my willow-tea.' He had a cup ready brewed, which he handed to her; for the second time within two days Dido thought of Mr Holystone's admonition: 'Always throw away the first cupful from a stranger.' But she was too thirsty to throw away this cupful; she grasped the cup with shaking hands and tipped the contents eagerly down her painful throat, which was almost closed up with dryness. The willow-tea tasted stale and metallic like water that pennies have been soaked in; but then all the Guardian's concoctions tasted peculiar; Dido thought nothing of it.

'Now I want some cold water,' said she, and before he could stop her walked into the room with the tank and swigged down about four cupfuls one after the other. Caradog wagged his head angrily.

'Not good, not good!' he said. 'You should go empty to the sacrifice!'

'Croopus!' said Dido. 'I'm the one as is going to be sacrificed. You oughter be giving me crumpets and plum jam and haddock kedgeree and pancakes.'

Caradog looked at her as if she had gone mad.

'Condemned person's breakfast,' explained Dido. 'Who's a-coming to the ceremony?'

The one thing that had cheered her (and that not much) during her hours of incarceration, had been the thought of a huge crowd with Queen Ginevra, the Grand Inquisitor, the Mistress of the Robes, and the rest of them, come to see her jump to her doom. She would make a speech, which she had been preparing, giving them a piece of her mind, telling them what she thought of them. But the Guardian undeceived her.

'Ceremony?' he said. 'You mean the sacrifice? n.o.body comes. Only you and I. Come along: it is time.'

He picked up a thing like a witch's broom, a long stake with a bundle of ichu gra.s.s tied at one end, and with it gestured Dido towards the doorway. She had intended to put up a vigorous struggle, but to her surprise and rage she found herself obeying him with dreamy docility, walking peacefully along, putting one foot in front of the other.

'Blister it, Mister,' she muttered, yawning. 'I reckon you put some hocus-pocus in that cup of tea, you wicked old wretch, didn't you? What a noddy I was to go and drink it. Might a known you'd be up to tricks. Should have remembered what Mr Holy told me -' She yawned again.

'Just keep walking,' said the Guardian.

Outside it was not so dark as it had seemed in Dido's room; a mild blue dusk filled the silver-cobbled streets; beyond the twin peaks of Ertayne and Elamye the evening star shone clear, and the slopes of Mount Catelonde were turning a soft velvety red. A few birds still keened and whistled overhead, and, when they climbed higher, Dido, looking down, saw that Lake Arianrod had been completely refilled, and now lay among its mountains like a calm steel-blue star.

'When you think about it,' she said to the Guardian she could still argue, though she seemed to have lost command over her arms and legs 'when you think about it, there wasn't no need for Mabon to send back the lake.'

'Why not?' grunted Caradog.

Dido, turning to look at him, observed that he had donned formal clothes for the ceremony a frock coat and black stove-pipe hat.

'Why not? She wanted it back so her Rex Quondam could come out of it. Didn't she? But he'd already come! And you're throwing me in, like you did all the other poor gals and hundreds of other Guardians before you, I suppose so as to keep her alive till he gets back. Well, he's got back. And she's still alive. So what's the point?'

'Keep moving,' the Guardian said. He gestured with the hand that held the broom. The other clasped a silver-tipped wand of office. He added, 'Even though Artaius has returned, his lady is still of immense age. Married to a much younger king, she will need more care and support than ever before.'

'Well, I reckon she's lived quite long enough,' said Dido. But despite her indignant feelings, she could not prevent herself from obeying the Guardian; they came to the high stone shaft with the face of Sul; they descended to the terrace below; and here Caradog waited, leaning on his silver-tipped rod and eyeing the horizon, until the delicate slip of the new moon moved out from behind the shoulder of Mount Damyake, with the mysterious shadowy ghost of the old moon cradled inside it, like an egg inside its egg-cup.

'Now it is time,' he said.

'Blame it!' expostulated Dido. 'It ain't right for me to die! Have you thought of that, Mister? You're an old gager; you've lived nigh on fourscore years, I shouldn't wonder. You did a whole lot of things and learned a lot o' stuff (though mussy knows, you ain't put it to very good use). But I haven't hardly done nothing!. And I ain't learned much, neither, except the Use of the Globes that Mr Holy taught me, and how to curtsey and cut up whales.'

At the thought of Mr Holystone her voice, to her shame, began to wobble dangerously; she stopped speaking and drew a deep breath.

'Cease repining, child, and go down those steps,' said Caradog. 'Do not quarrel with your destiny. If Sul wishes you to die, then it is your time.'

Dido remembered the story that Bran had told, about the man who picked up the necklace. Well, if it is my destiny, she thought, best not to make a pother about it.

She walked slowly down the long flight of stone steps, and out on to the rock spur. It was much longer and wider than it had looked from above; it took about twenty steps to reach the end. There she stood, feeling the mild evening breeze, gazing down at the waters of Lake Arianrod, a thousand feet below. One thing the old cuss has forgot, she thought; there ain't any fish in the lake now; their bones was lying all over the sand. So no one's going to nibble me to a skellington; I shall just drown. But still, I don't much want to drown.

A red light began to glow behind her. She half turned cautiously, and saw that the Guardian had set light to the end of his broom, which was a kind of long-handled torch. He stood at the inner end of the rock spur, holding the flaming brand, presumably to prevent Dido trying to go back, should she have any thoughts of doing so. He was waving the torch in slow circles so that it plumed and sparkled. The sight made Dido dizzy, so she turned her back on him again. How long will it be before I get so fuddle-headed that I topple off? she wondered dismally. Maybe it would be best to jump?

But I don't want to jump!

And then, looking up, she thought with a pang of dismay, Blister it, there's Aurocs about. I thought they wasn't supposed to come out after dark? For an unmistakable triangular shape was floating down towards her, silhouetted black against the twilit sky; it must have launched itself from a crag somewhere higher up the hillside.

'No, really, that's a bit much!' Dido exclaimed. 'Drowning's one thing but I ain't going to be a bedtime tidbit for no Auroc!' and, taking a deep breath, she tensed her knees, preparing to launch herself off the rock pinnacle, when she was startled almost out of her wits by a very familiar voice.

'Keep quite still, pray, Miss Twite,' said Captain Hughes. 'Don't kick, don't cry out. Above all, don't wriggle. Just remain calm, and I promise you that in a very short time I shall convey you to a place of safety.'