The last sight we had of that extraordinary man, Thomas Herrilees Trundleweed, was of him bowing us exaggeratedly away, and then striking his head on a branch some seven feet up as he straightened, and being showered thus with last night's raindrops. I had smothered a giggle against the back of my hand, remembering the release of the night before, but he was, by then, too far away to have heard anyway. I was still not sure whether I really liked him, in spite of his kindnesses, for he was too mercurial and fey to understand completely, but I had to admit we had been very well treated and were now better off with a route to follow for the next few miles, full stomachs, dry clothes, fur and feathers, the promise of a lift partways, a grounding in the art of mushrooming—and in the case of the latter, a further present.
That morning Tom had handed me a small package of the dried Mouse-Dugs, as he called them, enough for two adult dosings.
"Though I doubt if you'll find any other that hasn't laughed for seven years . . ." But when I had queried the specific number seven he had just winked and tapped the side of his nose. "It's a number, just like any other, ain't it? 'Sides, old Tom listens to the trees and the birds, don't forget." And that was all I could get out of him, try as I would.
We made fair progress, although the village we were aiming for was a good ten miles away, and arrived soon after noon. Tom's contacts were an elderly couple, quiet and reserved, but ready enough with food and lodging once we had explained who we were; they said that it would be a waste of time to set out for the market till the following morning as it would take at least three hours at their donkey's sedate pace. So I had to curb my natural impatience to get on, and spent the afternoon learning to weave simple baskets and carriers, which was their trade. I grew quite proficient after an hour or so, and by the time the light faded and rushes were lit I had managed a creditable back-carrier, which they gave to me, pointing out that my sack was almost threadbare. The broad top of the carrier meant that there was somewhere for Moglet to perch, so that only one shoulder—Corby's—would be sore, and this I padded with a scrap of leather.
We suppered from fresh bread, goat's milk and cheese, and they parted with some eggs and a loaf for our journey, taking but one copper coin, so we bedded down in the lean-to shed at the side of the cottage with light hearts soon after eating, warned of an early start. They woke us before light as they had stock to feed and the little cart to load with their weavings and the mushrooms and me, and we eventually set off an hour before daybreak, to arrive at the market as early as possible. We slipped away before they came to the town proper, for though neither of them had made any comment about my friends, the woman especially had cast curious glances at my mask, and I judged it better not to risk us with the more open townsfolk.
So, considerably heartened, we set off again on our way south and west. Before long the broad road on which we found ourselves became too well populated, and we took to the byways and woods again, only using the main thoroughfare very early or very late and in this fashion, lucky with our nightly lodgings—ruined hut, upturned wagon, barn and, once, church porch—we made another fifty miles or so.
Then our luck changed. The road we were following took in another and turned to run due southeast/northwest for many miles, and though we followed the left hand for many miles it soon became evident that we were bearing ever more easterly, and when I assisted Corby with his keener eyes to the top of the tallest tree around he came fluttering to earth with the news that there was no change in direction "as far as a crow can see" . I was disheartened, for that meant either a detour to find another road, or crossing the present one and plunging into forest that looked far less hospitable than the one we had so recently left. A detour was too risky, so for the next day or two it was scratched arms and legs from briars, whipped head and shoulders from tangled branches and snappy twigs and a rapidly dwindling store of food.
One thing I learnt: staying in one place and going round and about with an expert gathering mushrooms was one thing; gathering them without one on the march was another. You only saw them if they were right in front of you, or at least in eye-reach, and then one had to stop, dislodge Corby, wake up Moglet in the carrying-basket, set down Pisky, where he moaned that he couldn't see, and, if you were lucky, get away without disturbing Puddy in the side-pocket. Then, when you had examined the mushrooms they might turn out to be the wrong sort, or if they were the right kind there weren't enough of them to justify cooking or, more often, they were a species I had not come across before.
We were down to our last handful of flour and a rind of cheese when we came to a small village. Here, in the forest, were signs of cultivation: trees had been lopped and felled for building and fuel and the scrub thinned down in the direction of a navigable river, unluckily flowing the wrong way for us, otherwise I might have risked trying to hire a boat, but here the only transport available seemed to be large working rafts, and I did not have the strength to pole one of those against the current. Leaving the others on a knoll overlooking the river I slipped down to the village and paid the usual stranger's over-price for bread, cheese, apples and a hand of salt pork. This reduced our savings to two silver and two gold coins: these latter I was wary of changing, for the last time I had been short-changed and almost openly accused of being a thief, for obviously no one who looked as I did could possibly come by gold honestly.
I was anxious to rejoin the others as soon as I could because for the last few days, even as the trees had thinned and broadened into great stands of leaf-dropping beech and oak and the going had become easier, I had had the uneasy feeling that we were being followed. Not that there had been anything to see, merely a fleeting impression of something white through the trees to the left, the right; the half-heard sound of a footfall, muffled by leaves, ahead, behind; a soft breathing in the night-hours; a feeling of loneliness, of an empty heart . . . None of the others had seen anything, although they too were uneasy.
However, today the sun was shining full on the knoll, they were safe and sound, and we ate till we were comfortable. Stomach full I felt decidedly soporific: after all, if we had an hour or so's rest now, safe out of sight of the village, it would mean less time tonight in a possibly uncomfortable sleeping-place.
Unbuttoning my jacket to the pleasant rays of the sun, I laid aside my mask and stretched out, pillowing my head on my cloak.
"We'll stay here for a while," I told the others. "Moglet: you can keep half an eye open, can't you?" For I could see that Corby and Puddy fancied some leaf-turning.
Closing my eyes I slipped effortlessly into dreamless sleep.
"Pig, pigs, pig-person! Wake up, Thing—" Moglet's urgent mew in my right ear and I was struggling to open my eyes, to make some sense of what was happening. There was a rootling, grunting, scrunching noise, a strong, not unpleasant piggy smell and then Corby's raucous croak: "Geroff! That's mine, you big bastard! Find your own, you great vat of lard—" and then the sound of a stone striking the earth and a yelp from the crow. I leapt to my feet, the sun in my eyes, and squinted at a herd of swine grunting their way slowly along the fringes of the forest, and standing about six feet away the swineherd, another stone ready to follow the first.
Snatching up my mask with one hand and fumbling with the fastenings of my jacket with the other, I cursed Moglet for not waking me sooner.
"Fell asleep . . . wind in the wrong direction . . ." she whispered.
"Well-now-then," said the swineherd. "What-have-we-here?" Each word was slow, measured, calculating. He was a dirty-looking man, short and squat but powerful. He smelt of pig and frowsty nights of drink and even as I watched he took a flask from his pocket and offered it to me. I shook my head but he took a draught and replaced the stopper but not the flask. Instead he eyed me up and down and smiled. Not a nice smile: his mouth was too fat and he looked to have twice as many teeth as he should, yellow, sharp teeth with little pits in them. His skin, too, was pitted and the pits black; his nose was upturned, the nostrils sprouting black hairs like his ears, and his eyes were too small.
I backed away a step or two and Moglet backed with me, her fur anxious. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Corby hopping up and down, luckily undamaged, and the movement of grass as Puddy crawled closer.
"Keep back," I thought-ordered them. "I don't like the look of this fellow . . ."
"You'd like him even less if you'd had a ruddy great rock up your arse," was Corby's succinct reply. "And we're not abandoning you in a dangerous situation," he added. "Fellow like that means business. Where's your knife?"
"Words first," said Puddy. "Action second if necessary. You've never used that knife in anger . . ." No. It was the one I used for vegetables, peeling and slicing. But it was very sharp.
The swineherd had moved forward as I moved back, and now he was the same distance away as before. "No-harm-meant," he said ingratiatingly, and stretched out his free hand to my still half-covered chest. "Pretty-little-bubs-them. Shame-to-hide-them. Like-to-touch-them-I-would . . ."
I backed away again, looking away past him to where I had left our belongings, with Pisky's bowl in the shade of the wicker carrier. I received his anxiety and sent back a reassurance, but inside I was panicking. I did not know what this man intended: did he mean to kill us for our paltry belongings? He could not know I had our remaining coins hidden away in a pouch in my breeches. Perhaps if I offered them to him he would let us go . . . Frantically I dug down and his eyes followed my hand, his tongue passing slowly over his lips.
"Getting-them-off-for-me-then?" the voice was suggestive, nasty.
I held out the coins. "That's all I have. Please take them and leave us alone . . ."
His eyes lit up and he snatched the coins away from me and bit them. "Good-good . . ." He took another pull from the flask, pulling the cork with his teeth and spitting it to the grass. "Why-don't-you-speak-proper? Why-the-mask? And-what-you-got-over-there?" and he gestured in the direction of our belongings.
He wasn't going to leave us in peace, he wanted everything. "Take it all," I said despairingly. "Except my little fish. Then please let us alone . . ."
He put down the flask and placed the coins atop, where they winked in the sunshine. "Don't-hear-you-right-girl. Ain't-answered-my-questions. Let's-see-what-else-you-got-in-there—" and he made a grab for me but I jumped back, and this time my knife leapt to my hand, glinting to match the coins.
"Let us alone, or I'll—I'll kill you!"
He couldn't reach me but unfortunately Moglet had not moved fast enough and he grabbed her and held her high by the scruff of the neck, his other hand flashing to his own knife. He made as if to strike her and I screamed, a scream that was echoed by a strangled wail from Moglet.
"Help me, Thing dear, help me!"
"No, no!" I yelled. "Anything you want, anything!"
Apparently this time he understood, for he lowered my kitten, but his knife was still at the ready.
"Don't-want-me-to-harm-your-pet? All-right-put-your-knife-down-over-there-and-I'll-let-it-go. That's-right . . ." For a moment longer he held her, then opened his hand and she dropped, choking and gasping, to crawl back to my side. I bent to stroke her, but a moment later a hand was at my throat and I was forced backwards to the ground and his other hand tore at my belt. "Get-'em-down, get-'em-down," he muttered and pulled my trews past my knees. In hideous shame I tried to cover my red-pebbled belly with my hands and roll over, but he slapped my face till my head rang. "Lie-still-curse-you-or- it'll-be-the-worse-for-you—"
At that moment he broke off with a yell for all at once he was attacked by the spitting fury of Puddy, whose venom shot up into his face, the claws of an enraged Moglet, scratching blood from his hands, and the beak of an angry Corby, who tore at his rear.
"Run, Thing, run!" they yelled, but with a fist the swineherd punched Moglet from him, with a foot he kicked Puddy away and his knife flashed within an inch of Corby. I knew it was no use and called on them to stop.
"Go away, go away, my dear ones: you cannot help me now. Go into the forest where he cannot find you, and drag Pisky's bowl with you. I'll be all right, only please, please go!" But still they hesitated, crying and cursing, till I used the words of command. "Go, and do not disobey. I command you by all that holds the Earth, the Waters, the Sky in their accustomed places; the Now, the Then, the Hereafter . . ."
I heard them leave me, and the desolation of the abandoned tied my stomach in knots, spilt the tears from my eyes and cut at my heart as keen as any knife. The sun went behind cloud and the figure standing over me assumed the proportions of a giant. Why doesn't he kill me, I thought, and get it over with? And I sent a hope-call for my dear ones, to be left to fend for themselves. Let them be brave and resourceful, I prayed, let them find their own peace . . .
The swineherd unbuttoned his trousers. Staring upwards, all at once I realized what he intended: he meant to use me as Broom used to punish our Mistress, for the great thing that poked out from his groin was smooth-knobbed, and ridged and gnarled along its length like Broom, and it throbbed and pulsed and swelled like Broom, and like Broom it had a great bush of furze at its base the colour of dead heather, and it waved arid nodded and beckoned just like Broom and any moment now it was going to thrust into my stomach where the pebble hurt and bring forth great gouts of blood and pain, and I began to whimper and cry.
"Oh, do not hurt me! Do not hurt me—I cannot stand more pain! Please, please!" I did not want to writhe and curse and bleed as she had done—
The sun came out from behind the clouds, there was a thudding noise on the turf, a wild neighing, and all at once the swineherd was gone, clear over the top of the knoll, and soft horse-breath was sweet on my face.
"Come up, youngling, come up! He is gone and you are safe, for the moment. Gather your things quickly, for he will be back . . ."
I stared up in bewilderment at the tattered, ragged-maned horse that stood over me.
"Gather your things quickly, before he returns," he repeated. "The others are safe: I will take you to them. Come!"
That night we had a fire, and ate at our leisure, and slept in the open. No looking for a tree to climb up, a hole to crawl into; that night we slept at peace for the first time since we had left on our great adventure. It is difficult to explain just why we all felt this sense of security—and we all felt it, not just me—except that the finding of the white horse, or rather his finding of us, was at the root of it all. Not then nor after did we ever question his unerring sense of direction, his knowledge, his warm benignity: we just accepted them, and him as something special.
Not that he was a splendid white stallion of some eighteen hands, like the great chargers I seemed to recall from some other time, some other place; he was small, perhaps a little larger than pony-size, with cloven hooves and tatty feathers, a long tail and mane, curly and tangled, and large, soft, brown eyes. It was probably those eyes that set the seal on it: they seemed brown most of the time, but in sunlight they were blue-green, in shade brown-green and they beamed—there is no other word for it. Reassurance, comfort and a strange other-worldliness shone from those eyes, and yet they were not happy . . .
He promised us nothing that first day, except that he would take us to a place of safety: he had carried us all smoothly and swiftly through the forest, stopping as twilight fell in a particularly pleasant glade to let us down. After gazing at us reassuringly for a moment or two he went to lie down a little distance away, leaving us, as I said, feeling so calm and confident that I had lighted a fire without further thought, and we slept in the open that night all wrapped under my cloak, for the nights were chill—all that is except Corby, who preferred to roost off the ground.
In the morning the white horse was still there, quietly cropping the sweet grass that still lingered in the hollows. He seemed shy of approaching us, so I went across with one of the small russets I had bought the day before.
"Please have one: they are nice and juicy."
Lipping the apple gently from my palm, he scrunched it with evident enjoyment. "Thank you."
"Talking of thanks, I quite forgot to offer mine—and ours—for the rescue and the ride and—and everything."
"I had been near you for some days: I thought sometimes you realized I was near."
"I thought someone, or something, was following us, but I wasn't sure. And if you hadn't, I don't know what would have happened to us. That—that man, with his—his—" I still wasn't sure what it had been.
"I followed you because you seemed a small and vulnerable party to be making your way in such a determined manner, and I was curious. Besides, you are a maiden, and even in my present state I have not forgotten my duties."
"Duties?"
"To defend all maidens and the pure and unsullied from Evil, in whatever form that may come . . ." The answer was confident as if it came from a much bigger animal, but my eyes must have mirrored my astonishment, for the white horse blew softly in my ear. "Things are not always what they seem," he said. "I was not always the wretched thing you see me now . . . No more of that. Now tell me, youngling—"
"My name is Thing," I interrupted. "And may I know just whom I have the honour of addressing?" I knew that was the correct way to ask someone's name because I had overheard two gentlemen meeting on the road one day, and they had addressed one another in just that way. I had crept away and practised it.
"You may, but not just now. Give me a name of your own: whatever you would call a white horse."
I thought of all the things that were white: clouds, linen, daisies, dough (sometimes); swan-feathers, chalk, marble, eggwhite; snow—Snow. "Would you mind if we called you 'Snowy'?"
"I would not mind being called Snowy at all," he said gravely. "I do not think I should have liked 'Doughy' or 'Eggwhitey' as much . . ." He had been reading my mind! That was another thing: all of us could understand him perfectly, but none of us considered this strange, although we had been used to our own methods of conversation for so long. And he seemed to sharpen our understanding of all the other creatures we met along the way, as if he were a catalyst through which all tongues became one. What surprises me now is that we accepted it without question at the time, but perhaps that was all part of his magic, too.
"And now," he said. "Would you like to trust me with your purpose in journeying so far and so poorly attended? I can see you have a tale to tell—but perhaps you would prefer it if we talked as we went? I am afraid I am not strong enough to carry you far in one go, but if you can manage to walk a league, say, and then travel on my back for the same distance, we could probably manage double your usual journeying."
"You go our way, then?" I said, delighted.
"For want of a better, my road lies with yours for a while, yes," replied the gentle creature.
It was a day of sun and shadow, wind and the falling of leaves. As we went I told our new companion our story, right from the beginning. He questioned me closely about our Mistress, then sighed. "You are sure She is indeed dead?"
I was sure, and he sighed again. "Then that is that: no hope that it may be changed." He seemed to make up his mind. "Then, if you will have me, I shall be with you till your journey's end.
"You wanted to find a magician, a wise man: I heard tell of a great sorcerer who lived once in the arm of the west. I had supposed him dead or fled, but you have such faith that it is possible he is still there. If he is, I think I know the way.
"Come, my friends: the sooner we are there the better. I have an idea the hour-glass has been turned for the last time . . ."