Читать книгу Cart and Cwidder - Diana Wynne Jones - Страница 9

AFTER ONE NIGHT attempting to share the smaller tent with Kialan and Dagner, Moril took to creeping into the cart along with Brid and the wine jar. As he told Brid, even the wine jar took up less space than Kialan, and it did not have knees and elbows. Moril had woken up three times to find himself out among the guy ropes in the dew. He resented it. He resented Kialan, and he wished Dagner joy of him. It was hard to tell if Dagner got on with Kialan or not, because he was such an untalkative person. Dagner was like Lenina in that way. It was quite impossible to tell what Lenina thought about Kialan – or, indeed, about anything else.

Kialan, in spite of Clennen’s rebuke, seemed unable to stop making outspoken remarks. “You know, that cart is really horribly garish,” he said, on the second morning. Perhaps he had some excuse. It was standing against the dawn sky, as he saw it, and Moril’s red head was just emerging from it. The effect was undeniably colourful, but Brid was keenly offended.

“It isn’t!” she said.

“I expect you’re too young to have much taste,” Kialan replied. Brid swore to Moril that she was Kialan’s enemy for life after that one.

What Moril resented most – apart from Kialan’s elbows and the fact that Kialan never made the slightest attempt to help with any of the chores – was the superior way Kialan stood by and listened in whenever Moril had a music lesson. Unfortunately he had them fairly frequently in the next few days. They were taking – perhaps for Kialan’s benefit – a more direct route to Flennpass and the North than usual. It meant that they did not pass through any large towns and only two villages. Lenina bought supplies in the first, but they did not perform in either. Clennen took the opportunity to grind away at the old songs with Moril, to keep Brid hard at the panhorn and to rehearse a number of songs with all of them.

Kialan stood by and put Moril off continually. Moril came so to resent it that he took refuge in more than usual vagueness. He would sit on his perch behind the driving seat, staring up the white road unreeling ahead between the grey-green slopes of the South, basking in the hot sun – which never tanned him however long he sat in it – and dream of his birthplace in the North. It always saddened Moril that his father would never go to Hannart because of his disagreement with Earl Keril. He longed to see it, and he had built up in his mind a complete image of what it was like. There was an old grey castle in it, rowan trees and blue hills of a certain spiky shape. Moril saw it clearly. He saw the whole North with it, spread over the grey-green Southern landscape as if it were painted on a window: dark woods and emerald dales, the queer green roads from olden days which led to places that were not important any longer, hard grey rocks, and the great waterfall at Dropwater. In it lived all the stories of magic and adventure that seemed to go with the North. The South had nothing to compare with them.

Hearing Kialan talking behind him, Moril thought that the North had one new advantage. Kialan would leave them there.

“I’ve said that six times now,” Kialan said. “Do you spend all your time a thousand miles away?”

Moril was annoyed. His family could accuse him of dreaminess if they wanted, but Kialan was a stranger. “You’ve no right to say that,” he said.

It was possible Kialan did not realise how annoyed Moril was. “You see,” Brid explained to him later, a good long way behind the cart, “even when you’re angry, you always look so sleepy and – and milky, that he probably didn’t even notice you were attending. Not,” she added tartly, “that he’d have noticed anybody’s feelings but his own, mind you.”

What Kialan had replied was: “Oh, good grief! I know you’re the fool of the family by now, but you don’t have to be rude as well as stupid!”

“And the same to you!” Moril retorted, and took Kialan completely by surprise by butting him in the stomach. Kialan fell backwards heavily – and painfully, Moril hoped – on to the wine jar. Whereupon Moril found the prudent thing to do was to hop out of the cart double quick and scud off down the road behind it. And for the rest of the day he was forced to walk well in the rear for fear of Kialan’s vengeance.

But it was Clennen who took the vengeance. When they camped for the night, he beckoned both Kialan and Moril up to him. “Are you two going to make up and apologise?” he enquired. Moril looked warily at Kialan, and Kialan looked most unlovingly back. Neither answered. “Very well then,” said Clennen, and banged their heads together. Nothing seems harder than another person’s head. Moril could only hope that Kialan had seen as many stars as he had. He was rather surprised that Kialan did not say anything to Clennen. “Next time, I’ll do it harder,” Clennen promised. Then, as if nothing had happened, he went on to give Moril a lesson. And to Moril’s annoyance, Kialan stood by and listened just as usual.

The following day they reached a market town called Crady, and it came on to rain – big warm drops that seemed like part of the air and very little to do with the moist white sky. The raindrops made dark brown circles in the dust of the road and raised a delicious smell of wet earth. But it meant everyone crowding into the cart to change in great discomfort. Moril was not surprised that Kialan got out.

“I’m not really interested in your show,” he said to Clennen. “I’ll meet you on the other side of Crady, shall I?”

“If you like, lad,” Clennen said cheerfully. Brid and Moril exchanged seething glances in the hot dim space under the cover and wondered why Clennen did not box Kialan’s ears for him. But the only thing which seemed to perturb Clennen was the rain. “We shall have no audience in the open,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. We’ll go in with the cover up.”

It was lucky that they did. By the time they came to the marketplace, the rain was coming in white rods and bouncing up off the flagstones. Olob was wearing his most long-suffering expression, and there was not a soul in sight. But Clennen had friends in Crady, just as he had everywhere else. Half an hour later they were installed under the great beams of a warehouse on the corner of the marketplace, and a crowd, damp but interested, was gathering into it.

They gave an indoor kind of show. After Clennen had told everyone about Hadd and Henda, the Waywold money, the price on the Porter’s head and the cost of corn in Derent, and the usual messages had been handed out, they sang songs with a chorus that the audience could join in. Dagner did his part early. Then, when good humour and attention were at their peak, Clennen told one of the old tales. This pleased Moril highly. He always felt rather too hot indoors, and playing the cwidder made him hotter still. But during a tale he was only needed once or twice. All the stories had places where there was a song. For the rest of the time Moril could sit on the dusty chaff of the floor with his arms wrapped round his knees and drink the story in.

Clennen chose to tell a branch of the story of the Adon. It had to be only a branch because, as Clennen was fond of saying, stories clustered round the Adon and Osfameron like bees swarming. The songs which came in where the story needed them were the Adon’s own, or Osfameron’s. Moril always thought the old songs sounded rather better set in their proper stories, though he still wished the silly fellows had tried to sing more naturally. But their doings made splendid tales. Moril listened avidly to how Lagan wounded the Adon and the wound would not heal until Manaliabrid came out of the East to him. Then came the story of the love of both Lagan and the Adon for Manaliabrid, and how the Adon fled with her to the South. Lagan followed, but Osfameron helped them by singing a certain song in the passes of the mountains, so that the mountains walked and blocked the way through. And Lagan was forced to turn back.

Here Clennen lowered his rich voice to say: “I shall not sing you the song Osfameron sang then, for fear of moving the mountains again. But it is true that since that day the only pass to the North is Flennpass.”

The Adon for a time roamed the South with Manaliabrid, singing for a living, until Lagan found where they were. Then he stole away Kastri, the Adon’s son by his first wife, and the Adon followed. But Lagan was something of a magician. He made Kastri invisible and took on the shape of Kastri himself. And when the Adon came up to him, unsuspecting, Lagan stabbed him through the heart.

Here came Manaliabrid’s lament, which Moril was supposed to sing. He took up his cwidder for it, glancing as he did so into the warm blue-grey depths of the barn at the attentive audience. To his surprise, Kialan was there. He was standing at the back, very wet and draggled, listening with as much interest as anyone there. Moril supposed he had decided he preferred a performance to a soaking after all. And he was annoyed with Kialan for coming. His head was full of grand things, journeys, flights, fighting and the magic North of once-upon-a-time. Kialan was the everyday world with a vengeance. Moril felt as if he had a foot on two different worlds, which were spinning apart from one another. It was not a pleasant feeling. He took his eyes off Kialan and concentrated on his cwidder.

Then Clennen went on to how Manaliabrid asked Osfameron for help. Osfameron sang, and made Kastri visible. Then he took up his cwidder and journeyed by a way that only he knew, to the borders of the Dark Land. There he played such music that all the dead crowded in multitudes to hear him. Once they were gathered, Osfameron sang and called the soul of the Adon to him. And – this part always gave Moril a delicious shiver – Clennen once more lowered his voice to say: “I shall not sing you the song Osfameron sang then, for fear of calling the dead again.”

Osfameron led the Adon’s soul back and restored it to his body. The Adon arose, defeated Lagan, and reigned as the last King of Dalemark. He was the last king because Manaliabrid’s son, who was to have been king after him, chose instead to go back to his mother’s country. “And since that time,” said Clennen, “there have been no kings in Dalemark. Nor will there be, until the sons of Manaliabrid return.”

Moril gave an entranced sigh. He had hardly the heart, after such a story, to join in Jolly Holanders, and he only managed to sing with an effort. After it he crept away to the other end of the barn to avoid the usual crowd, and sat under the cart, brooding, while Clennen greeted his friends and Dagner failed to explain how he made up songs. If only such things happened nowadays! Moril thought. It seemed such a waste to be descended from the singer Osfameron, who knew the Adon and could call up the dead, and to live such a dull life. The world had gone so ordinary. Compare the Adon, who lived such a splendid life, with the present-day Earl of Hannart, who could think of nothing better to do than to stir up a rebellion, so that he dared not show his face in the South. Or you only had to think of the difference between that Osfameron, Moril brooded, and this one, Osfameron Tanamoril, to see how very plain and ordinary people had become lately. If only –

Here the plain and ordinary life interrupted in the person of Lenina, carrying the chinking hat to the cart. She was followed by the usual kind of murmuring gentleman. “And it must be sixteen years now …” this gentleman was murmuring.

“Seventeen,” Lenina said briskly. “Moril, come out of that dream and count this money.”

Moril unwillingly scrambled out from under the cart. As he did so, Clennen turned his head, and his voice boomed across the barn. “No, I didn’t care for him at all, last time I was in Neathdale.” With his voice came a look that caused the murmuring gentleman to wither away into the crowd. Moril watched him wither, a little puzzled. He seemed to be the twin of the murmuring gentleman in Derent.

The takings were not bad, which pleased Lenina. And Clennen was in good humour because an old friend of his had made him a present of a beefsteak. It was beautifully red and tender and wrapped in leaves to keep it fresh. Clennen stowed it carefully in a locker. He talked jovially of supper as they drove through Crady in the slackening drizzle. Kialan, to Brid’s contempt, was waiting for them under a tree just beyond the town.

“Huh!” said Brid. “Not interested in our shows, isn’t Mr High-and-Mighty! Did you see him, Moril? Drinking in every word!”

“Yes,” said Moril.

While the red steak fizzled over the fire, Brid said mock-innocently to Kialan: “Father told one of the Adon stories at the show. Do you know them at all?”

“Yes. And a dead bore they are too,” said Kialan. “All that magic!”

“You would say that!” said Moril. “I saw—”

“Silence!” said Clennen. “You’re interrupting the steak. Not another word until it’s ready to eat.”

The steak was certainly worthy of respect. Even Kialan had nothing to say against it. They went on again after supper. In his carefree way, Clennen seemed to be quite as anxious as Moril to see the North again. He refused to let Olob choose them a meadow until the sun was nearly down and the sky ahead and to the left was a mass of lilac clouds barred with red.

“Imagine that over the peaks of the North Dales,” he said. “But even in the South, Mark Wood is fine at this time of year. There’s nothing to beat a tall beech in spring. And do you know the Marsh at all, Kialan?”

“A little,” said Kialan.

“If we’d time, I’d take you through it just for the flowers,” said Clennen. “But it’s too far east, more’s the pity. The ducks there make your mouth water.”

“There are rabbits in the South Dales,” Dagner suggested.

“So there are,” said Clennen. “Look the snares out tomorrow.”

By the end of the following day the landscape had begun to change. The rolling grey-green slopes gave way to higher, greener hills, and there were more trees. It was like a foretaste of the North. Moril began to feel pleasantly excited, although he knew that they were only entering the South Dales. Tholian, Earl of the South Dales, was reputed to be a tyrant fiercer even than Henda. It was still a long way to the North. Beyond these green hills lay the Uplands and Mark Wood, before they came to Flennpass and the North at last.

Nevertheless, budding apple trees made a pleasant change from rows of vines. The nights were slightly cooler, and rabbits were plentiful. Every night Dagner went off to set snares round about the camp, and to Moril’s surprise, Kialan made his first helpful gesture and went with Dagner.

“It’s only because he likes killing things,” Brid said. “He’s that type.”

Whatever the reason, Kialan was surprisingly good at catching and skinning rabbits, and Lenina was good at rabbit stew. Since they had wine as well, they fed very well for the next few days. Moril was almost grateful to Kialan. But Brid was not in the least grateful because every time they stopped in a town or village to give a show, Kialan would put on his act of not being interested and announce that he would meet them outside the town. And every time, unfailingly, they would see him among the audience, as interested as anyone there.

“Two-faced hypocrite!” Brid said indignantly. “He’s just trying to make us feel small.”

“That wouldn’t do you any harm,” Lenina said, in her dry way. Brid was more indignant than ever. It was becoming clear that Lenina rather approved of Kialan. Not that she said anything. It was more that she did not say any of the things she might have done. And when Kialan tore his good coat in the wood, Lenina mended it for him with careful neat stitches.

Kialan seemed far more surprised than grateful when Lenina handed him the mended coat. “Oh – thanks,” he said. “You shouldn’t have bothered.” His face was red, and he seemed actually a little scornful of Lenina for doing it.

“Nothing to what I am!” said Brid. “He can go in rags for all I care.”

The day after this they entered the part of the South Dales which was the lordship of Markind. They never gave shows in Markind. Brid’s dislike of Kialan came to a head while Olob was patiently dragging the cart up and down the steep little hills of this lordship. The reason was that Clennen, who never disdained an audience, began to explain to Kialan exactly why he always hurried through Markind without giving a performance.

“I took Lenina from here, you see,” he said. “From the very middle of Markind, out of the Lord’s own hall. Didn’t I, Lenina?”

“You did,” said Lenina. She always looked very noncommittal whenever Clennen told this story.

“She was betrothed to the Lord’s son. What was his name? Pennan – that was it. And a wet young idiot he was too,” Clennen said reminiscently. “I was asked in to sing at the betrothal – I had quite a name, even in those days, and I was a good deal in demand for occasions like that, let me tell you. Well, no sooner did I come into the hall and set eyes on Lenina than I knew she was the woman for me. Wasted on that idiot Fenner. That was his name, wasn’t it, Lenina?”

“He was called Ganner,” said Lenina.

“Oh, yes,” said Clennen. “I remember he reminded me of a goose somehow. It must have been the name. I’d thought it was his scraggy neck or those button eyes of his. Anyway, I thought I’d rely on my looks being better than his and deal with Master Gosler later. For the first thing, I concentrated on Lenina. I sang – I’ve never sung better, before or since – and Lenina here couldn’t take her eyes off me. Well, I don’t blame her, because I don’t mind admitting that I was a fine-looking man in those days, and gifted, too – which Flapper wasn’t. So I asked Lenina in a song whether she’d marry me instead of this Honker fellow, and when I came up to get my reward for my singing, she said Yes. So then I dealt with him. I turned to him. ‘Lording,’ I said, most respectful, ‘Lording, what gift will you give me?’ And he said ‘Anything you want. You’re a great singer’ – which was the only sensible thing he said that evening. So I said, ‘I’ll take what you have in your right hand.’ He was holding Lenina’s hand, you see. I still laugh when I think of the look on his face.”

While the story went on – and it made a long one, for Clennen went over it several times, embroidering the details – Brid and Moril walked by the roadside out of earshot, watching the fed-up look settle on Kialan’s face. They had both heard the story more times than they could remember.

“I suppose the thing about being a singer is that you like telling the same story a hundred times,” Brid said rather acidly. “But you’d think Father would remember Ganner’s name by this time.”

“That’s all part of it,” said Moril. “I always wonder,” he added dreamily, “what would happen if we met Ganner while we were going through Markind. Would he arrest Father?”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” said Brid. “I don’t suppose it’s true, anyway. And even if it did happen, Ganner must have grown into a big fat lord by now and forgotten Mother ever existed.”

Since this was Brid’s true opinion of the matter, it was a little unreasonable of her to be so angry when she found Kialan shared it. But one is seldom reasonable when one dislikes someone. They stopped for lunch, and Clennen, thoroughly in his stride, went on embroidering the story.

“Lenina’s a real lady,” he said, leaning comfortably against the pink and scarlet wheel of the cart. “She’s Tholian’s niece, you know. But he cast her off for running away with me. And it was all my fault for playing that trick on Gander. ‘Lording,’ I said to him, ‘give me what you have in your right hand.’ Oh, I shall never forget his face! Never!” And he burst out laughing.

Kialan had heard this at least three times by then. Moril had rarely seen him look so fed up. While Clennen was laughing, Kialan got up quickly to avoid hearing any more, and stumped off without looking where he was going. He nearly fell over Moril and Brid and became more fed up than ever.

“Blinking bore your father is!” he said. “I’d be quite sorry for Ganner if I thought there was a word of truth in it!”

“How dare you!” said Brid. “How dare you say that! I’ve a good mind to punch your nose in!”

“I don’t fight with girls,” Kialan said loftily. “All I meant was I’m sick of hearing about Ganner. If your father remembers it that well, why on earth can’t he get the poor fellow’s name right?”

“It’s part of the story!” screamed Brid, and threw herself at Kialan.

Kialan, for a second or so, tried to keep up his claim not to fight girls, with the result that Brid punched his nose twice and then boxed his ears in perfect freedom. “You spiteful cat!” said Kialan, and grabbed both her wrists. It was in self-defence. On the other hand, he squeezed her wrists so painfully that he hurt Brid rather more than if he had hit her. She lashed out at his legs with her bare feet, but finding that made no impression on Kialan, she sank her teeth into the hand round her wrists. At this, Kialan lost his temper completely and punched Brid with his free hand.

Dagner never let people hit Brid. He surged up from his seat in the hedgerow and fell on Kialan. Moril, since Dagner seemed to be doing his best to strangle Kialan, thought he had better get Brid out from between them and entered the fray too. They made a grunting furious bundle. Brid would not unfasten her teeth and Kialan would not let go of Brid. Clennen heaved himself up, strolled over, and wrenched Dagner away from Kialan and Kialan away from Brid. Everyone, including Moril, fell with heavy thumps, this way and that. Clennen might have been fat, but he was also strong.

“Now stop!” said Clennen. “And if you’ve anything more to say about my story, Kialan, say it to me.” He looked cheerfully down at Kialan, angrily sprawled on the roadside sucking his bleeding knuckles. “Well?”

“All right!” said Kialan. “All right!” Moril could see he was nearly crying. Brid was crying. “You can keep on saying you’ll never forget Ganner – or whatever he’s called – all you like,” said Kialan. “I don’t believe you’ve even met him! You wouldn’t know him if he came walking down the road this minute! So there!”

The cheerfulness died out of Clennen’s face. It was replaced by a very odd look. Kialan noticeably tensed at it. “Do you know Ganner then?” Clennen said.

“No, of course I don’t!” said Kialan. “How could I? I don’t suppose he exists.”

“Oh, he exists all right,” said Clennen. “And I’m sure you don’t know him. Yet you’re right. I’ve seen Ganner three times this month and not known him till this minute.” He laughed again, and Kialan relaxed considerably. “Not a face that stands out in a crowd,” he said. “Eh, Lenina?”

“I suppose not,” agreed Lenina, and continued calmly slicing cold sausage.

“You knew him though, didn’t you?” Clennen said. “In Derent, and on the road, and again in Crady?”

“Not till he said who he was,” Lenina said, quite unperturbed.

There seemed suddenly to be a situation ten times worse. All through lunch Clennen looked at Lenina in a tense, troubled way. He seemed to be expecting her to say something and, at the same time, carefully not saying all sorts of things himself. And Lenina said nothing. She said nothing so positively and obviously that the air seemed sticky with her silence. It was hateful. The rest of them picked awkwardly at their food, and no one spoke much. Kialan did not say anything. It was obvious, even to Brid, that he was kicking himself for causing the situation – as well he might, Moril thought.

When the food was finished and the cart packed again, they went on, still in the same heavy silence. At last Clennen could bear it no longer.

“Lenina,” he said, “you’re not regretting all that, are you? If you want that kind of life – if you’d rather have Ganner – just say the word and I’ll turn Olob towards Markind this moment.”

Moril gasped. Brid’s mouth came open in her tear-stained face. They looked at Clennen and found he seemed quite serious. Then they looked at Lenina, expecting her to laugh. It was so silly. Lenina was as much part of their life as Olob or the cart. But Lenina did not laugh, nor did she say anything. Not only Brid and Moril, but Dagner, Kialan and Clennen too, stared at her in increasing anxiety.

They came to a fork in the road. One branch led west, and the milestone said MARKIND 10. “Do I turn here?” asked Clennen.

Lenina gave herself an impatient shake. “Oh no,” she said. “Clennen Mendakersson, you must be a very big fool indeed to think such a thing of me.”

Clennen burst into a roll of relieved laughter. He shook the reins, and Olob trotted past the turning. “I must say,” he said, laughing still, “I can’t see how you could prefer Ganner to me. He couldn’t have made the songs I’ve made to you, not if his life depended on it.”

“Then why did you think I did?” Lenina asked coldly. The trouble was not over yet.

“Well,” Clennen said awkwardly. “Money and all that. And it’s what you were bred to, after all.”

“I see,” said Lenina. There was silence again for quite half an hour, except for the plopping of Olob’s hooves and the light rumble of the cart. Kialan was unable to bear it. He got out and walked ahead, whistling the Second March rather defiantly. The others sat with their heads hanging, wishing Lenina would make peace. At last she said, “Oh, Clennen, do stop sitting there watching me like a dog! I’m not going to take wings and fly, am I? It’s lucky Olob has more sense than you, or we’d be in the ditch by now!”

Then the trouble seemed to be over. Clennen was shortly laughing and talking again. And Lenina, if she was silent, was silent in her usual way, which everyone was used to. Brid and Moril got out of the cart too, though they did not go near Kialan. Brid was still too angry with him.