Elder Isles - Madouc Part 76

"With pleasure and grat.i.tude, Your Ladys.h.i.+p!"

"Henceforth you must devote your time to good works and a kindly hospitality toward wayfarers!"

"Just so! How glorious to be free of my thralldom!"

"Nothing more detains us," said Madouc. "Sir Pom-Pom has found the object of his quest; I have learned that Sir Pellinore exists elsewhere; Travante is a.s.sured that his lost youth is not immured among the oddments and forgotten curios of Castle Doldil."

"It is something, but not much," sighed Travante. "I must continue my search elsewhere."

"Come!" said Madouc. "On this instant let us depart! I am sickened by the air!"

III.

The three travellers departed Castle Doldil at their best speed, giving a wide berth to the corpse of the goblin knight with the broken neck. They marched westward in silence along Munkins Road, which, according to Naupt would presently join the Great North-South Road. And many glances were turned backward, as if in expectation of something terrible coming in pursuit. But the way remained placid and the only sounds to be heard were of birds in the forest.

The three walked on, mile after mile, each preoccupied with his own concerns. At last Madouc spoke to Travante. "I have derived some benefit, so I suppose, from this awful occasion. I can, at the very least, give a name to my father, and it would seem that he is alive. Therefore, I have not quested in vain. At Haidion I will make inquiries, and surely some grandee of Aquitaine will give me news of Pellinore."

"My quest has also been advanced," said Travante, without great conviction. "I can dismiss Castle Doldil from all future concerns. This is a small but positive gain."

"It is surely better than nothing," said Madouc. She called out to Sir Pom-Pom, who walked ahead. "What of you, Sir Pom-Pom? You have found the Holy Grail and so you are successful in your quest!"

"I am dazed by events. I can hardly believe in my achievement!"

"It is real! You carry the Grail, and now may rely on the king's bounty."

"I must give the matter serious thought."

"Do not choose to wed the royal princess," said Madouc. "Some maidens sigh and fret; she uses both Sissle-way and Tinkle-toe with no remorse whatever."

"I have already made a decision on that score," said Sir Pom-Pom shortly. "I want no spouse so willful and reckless as the royal princess."

Travante said, smiling: "Perhaps Madouc might become meek and submissive once she was married."

"I, for one, would not take such a risk," said Sir Pom-Pom. "Perhaps I shall marry Devonet, who is very pretty and remarkably dainty, though a trifle sharp of tongue. She berated me bitterly one day in regard to a loose surcingle. Still, failings such as hers can be cured by a beating or two." Sir Pom-Pom nodded slowly and reflectively. "I must give the matter thought."

For a time the road followed the river: beside pools shadowed under weeping willows, along reaches where reeds trembled to the current. At a ledge of gray rock, the river swung south; the road rose at an incline, dropped in a swoop, then veered away under enormous elms, with foliage glowing all shades of green in the afternoon sunlight.

The sun declined and dusk approached. As shadows fell over the forest, the road entered a quiet glade, empty save for the ruins of an old stone cottage. Travante looked through the doorway to find a compost of dust and mouldering leaves, an ancient table and a cabinet, to which, by some miracle the door still clung. Travarite pulled open the door to find, almost invisible on a high shelf, a booklet of stiff parchment, the leaves bound between sheets of gray slate. He gave the booklet to Madouc. "My eyes are no longer apt for reading. Words blur and squirm, and reveal none of their secrets. It was not so in the old days, before my youth slipped away."

"You have suffered a serious loss," said Madouc. "As for remedy, you can surely do no more than what you are doing."

"That is my own feeling," said Travante. "I shall not be discouraged."

Madouc looked around the glade. "This seems a pleasant place to pa.s.s the night, especially since dusk will soon be dimming the road."

"Agreed!" said Travante. "I am ready to rest."

"And I am ready to eat," said Sir Pom-Pom. "Today we were offered no food except Throop's grape, which we declined. Now I am hungry."

"Thanks to my kind mother, we shall both rest and dine," said Madouc. She laid out the pink and white kerchief and cried: "Aroisus!" and raised the pavilion. Entering, the travellers found the table laid as usual with a bounty of excellent comestibles: a roast of beef with suet pudding; fowl fresh from the spit and fish still sizzling from the pan; a ragout of hare and another of pigeons; a great dish of mussels cooked with b.u.t.ter, garlic and herbs; a salad of cress; b.u.t.ter and bread, salt fish, pickled cuc.u.mbers, cheeses of three sorts, milk, wine, honey; fried tarts, wild strawberries in clotted cream; and much else. The three refreshed themselves in basins of scented water, then dined to repletion.

In the light of the four bronze lamps Madouc examined the booklet taken from the cottage. "It appears to be an almanac of sorts, or a collection of notes and advices. It was indited by a maiden who lived in the cottage. Here is her recipe for a fine complexion: 'It is said that cream of almonds mixed with oil of poppy is very good, if applied faithfully, and also a lotion of sweet alyssum drowned in the milk of a white vixen (Alas! Where would a white vixen be found?), then ground with a few pinches of powdered chalk. As for me, I command none of these ingredients and might not use them were they at hand, since who would trouble to notice?' Hmm." Madouc turned a page.

"Here is her instruction for training crows to speak. 'First, find a young crow of alert disposition, jolly and able. You must treat it kindly, though you will clip its wings that it may not fly. For one month, add to its usual food a decoction of good valenan, into which you have seethed six hairs from the beard of a wise philosopher. At the end of the month you must say: "Crow, my dear crow: hear me now! When I raise my finger you must speak! Let your words be clever and to the point! So you shall make for the joy of us both, since we may relieve each other of our loneliness. Crow, speak!" 'I followed the instruction with every possible care, but my crows all remained mute, and my loneliness has never been abated.'

"Most odd," mused Sir Pom-Pom. "I suspect that the 'philosopher' from whose beard she plucked the six hairs was not truly wise, or possibly he deceived her with a display of false credentials."

"Possibly true," said Madouc.

"In such a lonely place, an innocent maiden might easily be deceived," said Travante. "Even by a philosopher."

Madouc returned to the booklet. "Here is another recipe. It is called 'Infallible Means for Instilling Full Constancy and Amatory Love in One Whom You Love.'

"That should be interesting," said Sir Pom-Pom. "Read the recipe, if you will, and with exact accuracy."

Madouc read: " 'When the dying moon wanders distrait and, moving low in the sky, rides the clouds like a ghostly boat, then is the time to prepare, for a vapor often condenses and seeps down the s.h.i.+ning rind, to hang as a droplet from the lower horn. It slowly, slowly, swells and sags and falls, and if a person, running below, can catch the droplet in a silver basin, he will have gained an elixir of many merits. For me there is scope for much dreaming here, since, if a drop of this syrup is mixed into a goblet of pale wine and, if two drink together from the goblet, a sweet love is infallibly induced between the two. So I have made my resolve. One night when the moon rides low I will run from this place with my basin and never pause until I stand below the horn of the moon, and there I will wait to catch the wonderful droplet.'

Travante asked: "Are there further notations?"

"That is all to the recipe."

"I wonder if the maiden did so run through the night, and whether, in the end, she caught her precious droplet!"

Madouc turned the parchment pages. "There is nothing more; the rain has blurred what remains."

Sir Pom-Pom rubbed his chin. He glanced toward the sacred chalice, where it reposed on a cus.h.i.+on; then he rose to his feet and, going to the front of the pavilion, looked out across the glade. After a moment he returned to the table.

Travante asked: "How goes the night, Sir Pom-Pom?"

"The moon is near the full and the sky is clear."

"Aha! Then there will be no seepage of moon syrup tonight!" Madouc asked Sir Pom-Pom: "Were you planning to run through the forest carrying a basin at the ready?"

Sir Pom-Pom responded with dignity: "Why not? A drop or two of the moon elixir might someday come in useful." He turned a quick glance toward Madouc. "I am still uncertain as to the boon I will ask."

"I thought that you had decided to become a baron and wed Devonet."

"Espousing a royal princess might be more prestigious, if you take my meaning."

Madouc laughed. "I take your meaning, Sir Pom-Pom, and henceforth I will be wary of your pale wine, though you offer it by the gallon on your bended knee."

"Bah!" muttered Sir Pom-Pom. "You are absolutely unreasonable."

"No doubt," sighed Madouc. "You must make do with Devonet."

"I will think on the matter."