The Various Read online

  Midge held out her hands in embarrassment. ‘I was . . .’ – she hesitated – ‘ . . . playing on the tractor. And I fell off.’ It sounded bad enough to account for her dirty clothes, and a few scratches, without being so bad as to merit a real storm. She had judged her reply nicely, for Uncle Brian said, quite sternly, ‘Midge, that could have been dangerous. Now I know that there’s no way that you could have started the thing, or come to any real grief, but for all you knew you could have pressed a button and been roaring across West Sedge Moor by now. Please don’t touch machinery that you don’t understand, OK? Come and have some supper then and we’ll say no more. I’ve saved you a bit of salad.’ He brightened up. ‘Bring it in the sitting room. There’s this amazing nature programme on. You’d like it, I think. David Attenborough.’

  So Midge, after a final and futile attempt to get her hands really clean, sat with her salad on her lap and tried to be interested in what was on the television. It was something about life under the sea, but she couldn’t concentrate. So much was going round her head, that she felt dizzy, and a bit sick. The day had been crammed with such impossible events and such astonishing achievements, that she just wanted to be alone in her room to think. She was sure that she would never sleep, although her whole body ached with fatigue. She tried to focus on the television. What was the winged horse doing now? She thought of it lying alone in the little barn on the hillside, with the sun going down and all the long dark night ahead. The television voiceover broke in on her thoughts, ‘ . . . and it is a fact, an absolute fact, that there are creatures on the surface of this earth that have never been observed by man . . .’ Midge glanced up. ‘There are other worlds – worlds within this world – that we can only begin to imagine. We may think we have seen all that there is to be seen on this tiny planet of ours. We most certainly have not – and perhaps we never shall.’

  The words were a comfort. She held them to her, as the credits scrolled up the screen. ‘ . . . there are other worlds – worlds within this world . . . creatures on this planet that have never been seen by man . . .’

  ‘Uncle Brian, I think I’ll go to bed now. I’m really tired.’

  ‘OK, poppet. You do that. You haven’t had much to eat, though. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes. I’m just tired.’

  ‘Off you go then and get some rest. Sleep tight.’

  ‘ ’Night, Uncle Brian.’

  ‘ ’Night, Midge. God bless.’ Brian watched the girl leave the room and wondered, not for the first time, whether it had been a good idea to agree to look after her for the holidays. It must be so odd for her, after London and the life she was used to. He wasn’t much company for her, but then how many middle-aged men would be company for a twelve-year-old? She seemed happy, on the whole – though she had certainly looked absolutely washed out tonight. Well, George and Katie would be here in a few days and perhaps she would have a bit more fun then. Poor old thing, life was pretty dull for her at present.

  Midge clambered into bed and took off her watch. She placed it on her bedside cabinet and looked at it from the delicious softness of her pillow. The pale blue strap and outer casing were still stained and grubby from the day’s events. Everything that had happened to her, had also happened to her watch. Everything she had seen, the watch had seen. The marks and scratches, the tiny flecks of blood and oil, were a diary of her day. Proof that she had been there. Like the army campaign medals of her grandad, her dad’s father, which Mum let her play with sometimes. Her watch was like a medal. How strange it was.

  But the strangest thing of all, in some ways, and the last thought in her head as she fell asleep, was the business with the heifers. She was really, really frightened of cows. They terrified her. Or they had done . . . till today.

  Chapter Six

  LITTLE-MARTEN TOOK A short run up, flapped hard, and gained the lowest branch of the Rowdy-Dow tree – the dead beech that stood in the south-western corner of Counsel Clearing. He swarmed up the trunk, using the rough footholds that had been hacked into the hard dry wood, and swung himself up onto the Perch – the broken limb that jutted out about twenty feet above the ground. Sitting astride the Perch, he drew the heavy clavensticks from his jerkin and made himself ready, awaiting the signal from Aken, his captain, on the ground below.

  Aken stood at the base of the Rowdy-Dow tree, and kept an eye on the Royal Pod, which swung gently, like a great wicker beehive, among the lower limbs of the Royal Oak on the other side of the clearing. The painted oilcloth flap remained drawn across the circular entrance. Maglin had been in there for some time. Aken wondered whether the General was having trouble in persuading the Queen of the urgent need for a meeting. Ba-betts had grown weaker in the brain of late. Her temper was uncertain. Maglin would need much patience if Ba-betts was in one of her black humours – and Maglin was not long on patience. Aken waited apprehensively.

  Finally, the gorgeously decorated oilcloth was drawn aside and the Ickri General appeared at the entrance of the wicker pod, briefly glancing down at the four winged guards who stood at the base of the Royal Oak. Maglin turned momentarily, bowed in the entranceway, then opened his wings and launched himself across the clearing, towards the Rowdy-Dow tree. An unseen hand drew the curtain again behind him. He landed – rather stiffly, Aken thought – and walked the last few paces, scratching his short grey beard, and looking grim.

  ‘Hemmed woman!’ he muttered darkly, as he reached Aken. ‘She grows madder by the hour. Muster the Various, Aken, all tribes to gather at sun-wane.’

  ‘All tribes?’ said Aken.

  ‘All tribes.’

  ‘Tinklers and Troggles . . .?’

  ‘Are you become deaf, Aken? Or does my breath grow faint? Sound the Muster – all tribes!’

  Aken stepped back and glanced upwards. Little-Marten was looking down from the high Perch, awaiting his signal. ‘Muster the Various!’ shouted Aken. ‘All tribes, at sun-wane.’ Little-Marten hesitated, saw the look on his captain’s face, and thought better than to question the command. He took the hardwood clavensticks and beat two very short tattoos on the trunk of the tree. Then a longer burst, at incredible speed. A hard, dry sound. He paused for a few seconds, then gave a few short taps in quick succession, biting his lower lip as he concentrated. Five lengthy bursts ended the message. The woods rang with the paradiddle of the Ickri lad’s clavensticks – sounding for all the world like a green woodpecker at work. No Gorji ears in the vicinity would have known the difference. Little-Marten took off his cap and waited.

  Maglin grunted. ‘The chi’ beats well. Who is he?’

  ‘Little-Marten,’ said Aken. ‘Son of Fletcher Marten, and a chi’ no more. A youth he is now, though small for his years.’

  ‘Ah yes. Fletcher Marten’s son. Well well, the lad will make a Woodpecker. Till sun-wane, Aken. All tribes, mind.’ The Ickri General turned and left the clearing, disappearing into the dense trees.

  Aken watched the General depart, noting the slight stoop of his shoulders and the greyness of his hair – more marked than ever in the bright afternoon sunlight. He had aged this last season, and ’twas little wonder. These were worrying times. Aken could guess the purpose of the Muster – the disappearance of the Naiad horse was the talk of the forest, though only the tribe leaders were supposed to know the reason Pegs had gone. No doubt the Counsel would be discussing some rescue plan – more foolishness in all likelihood. He wondered if Ba-betts herself would attend. Aken began to walk away, deep in thought – then remembered Little-Marten. He turned and glanced aloft to where the lad sat patiently on the high Perch. ‘That’ll do,’ he said, and added, ‘Woodpecker.’

  Little-Marten remained on the Perch, his Perch now, a while longer – savouring the moment. He clacked the clavensticks softly against the palm of his hand and let his legs swing to and fro in time. He knew he had done well. A long year it had taken him to learn his craft – apprenticed to the hands of Petan, the retiring Woodpecker. It was Fletcher Marten, Little-M
arten’s father, who had noticed that Petan was struggling to reach the lower branch of the Rowdy-Dow tree, and had noticed also the occasional falter in the old Woodpecker’s timing. More than once had a confused message been beaten out on the hollow trunk. And it was Fletcher Marten who had introduced his son to Petan, as a possible apprentice.

  ‘The youth casn’t keep still nor more than two winks at a time,’ he explained to Petan. ‘ ’Twould be a mercy to us all if ’e were learning summat useful wi’ his jumpsy ways. He don’t have the patience to be a fletcher, I knows that.’ And so Petan had taken the little fellow on, and found in him a willing and gifted pupil. His small quick hands had grasped the heavy clavensticks eagerly, and his mind was sharp and precise. He learned quickly, practising for long hours away from the clearing, using a rotten log to deaden the sound. From Petan he learned the basic commands; how to summon the Various tribe leaders, how to warn of danger such as the nearby presence of the Gorji, the arrival of a Renard, and the likelihood of attendant red-jackets. He learned how to announce the appearance of the Queen – a rare enough occurrence – how to call the Elder Counsel to meeting, how to inform the Naiad field workers of an approaching storm, how to bring the tribes in at Basket-time. And his hands grew quicker all the while, until at last even Petan said that he was beginning to sound like a Woodpecker, and that today he might climb the Rowdy-Dow tree and take up the Perch. The old Ickri was actually glad to see the back of it. It took too much out of him, that frantic ascent to the first branch – and the clavensticks had seemed of late to grow heavier at each sounding.

  So Little-Marten was enjoying his moment, and his new position in the world. A Muster! His first day, and he had been required to beat out a full Muster of the Various! Tinklers and Troggles too! Such a thing was almost unknown. And he had never missed a beat. On the western fringe of Counsel Clearing, far below him, he noticed the figure of Petan standing quietly among the beech saplings. He seemed to be nodding his head approvingly. Probably he had been there all the time. Little-Marten tucked the clavensticks into his jerkin and rolled lazily backwards off his Perch. He turned a half-somersault, spread his wings, and spiralled gracefully to the ground. It was a trick he’d been planning. Petan, alone among the saplings, frowned slightly and then shrugged his shoulders. He supposed that he too must have been young, once.

  At sun-wane, the rattle of the Woodpecker rang out again, drilling through the peace of the early evening. Little-Marten sounded Basket-time, followed by the Muster of the Various – indicating that all were to bring their provender to basket before attending the Muster. The wicker baskets, four or five in number according to the season, were arranged near the base of the Rowdy-Dow tree. Always there would be baskets for meat, fish and vegetables, one for each, and in season there would be a fruit basket and a grain basket. At Basket-time, the hunters, farmers and fishers – Ickri, Naiad and Wisp – would bring a daily harvest to basket. Then each would take according to his family’s needs. What remained would be left to the Troggles and Tinklers – who brought nothing to basket, but appeared to live on the charity of the other tribes.

  Little-Marten felt sorry for the tribes who dwelt below ground. They were poor, and led a curious existence, troggling for the base metal ore that lay in the caves and fashioning, from the metal they called tinsy, worthless trinkets – strange drinking vessels, and arrowheads that nobody wanted. These they gave in exchange for a little food, but for the most part their efforts were but time wasted. The upper tribes generally preferred to eat and drink from wooden trenchers and bowls, turned by the Naiad carpenters, and the bright tinsy gewgaws and adornments of the Tinklers and the Troggles, so strangely fashioned, were soon grown dull and given to the children as playthings. The arrowheads, though sharp, were considered to be more trouble than was worth the effort of splicing to shaft, and the majority of archers simply hardened their wooden arrow tips in the charcoal pit. The caves were at the far end of the forest and the Troggles and Tinklers would usually only come out at moonrise, to creep shyly about the forest, grubbing for what they could, and to empty the meagre leftovers from the baskets. Some of the Naiad farmers would complain that their crops had been stolen in the night, but there was never any real evidence to support this. Strange sounds, too, would emanate from the caves at night, when the Troggles did what they called ‘singing’. Their voices would rise and fall in unnatural ways, sometimes together, sometimes alone – rather like the sounds the birds made, but with words. This was viewed with great suspicion by the upper tribes, who had better things to do with their time than squawl like throstles. And anyway, singing was noise – and noise of any kind was to be avoided.

  But Little-Marten did not share the opinions of most of his kind – for he had a secret. A shameful secret. He had heard the Troggles sing, and he liked it. He had crept down to the hawthorn bushes near the entrance of the caves many times, even through the cold evenings of late winter and early spring, and had stood hidden, listening, enthralled by the curious sounds echoing from deep within – the voices that rose and fell together in patterns, patterns that he instinctively understood, that reminded him somehow of the clavensticks and made him itch to tap his fingers. This was bad enough, but there was worse. He feared that he was in love with a Tinkler maid. He even knew her name – Henty.

  The evening when first he had seen her still danced through his dreams at night, and though he had tried to forget her, he could not. He had grown reckless on his last visit, and, as the light began to fail, at dimpsy dusk, he had emerged from the bushes and edged close to the cave entrance, the better to hear the Troggles at their singing. A single voice chanted softly:

  Sweet Celandine, when leaves are turned to amber,

  And the wild winter-time would take our breath away . . .

  Then, it seemed that a hundred voices joined the single voice, yet still softly, deeply . . .

  Into our open hearts, your golden star will shine,

  To make our darkness bright again, Sweet Celandine.

  Little-Marten was won over heart and soul at this, and was even tentatively trying his own voice – a shocking heresy – to see if it too could perform such magic – when a Tinkler maid suddenly twirled out of the darkness of the cave. Little-Marten had been caught with his eyes half closed, his mouth half open, and his whole being off-balance, as the dark-haired creature came spinning to within a yard of where he stood. Her huge eyes flashed white in the dimness of the evening, her pupils as black as charcoal, as she stared at him, horrified. An Ickri! The singing had ceased.

  ‘I . . . I . . . I was . . . I heard . . .’ Little-Marten began to stammer, feeling the hot tingle of blood rushing from his cheeks to his hair roots – but the Tinkler maid was already backing away from him, drawing the thin, loosely woven cloth of her shawl protectively around her neck and shoulders. Her pale round face, with its shocked expression, beautiful, so beautiful, retreated into the murky cave – disappearing like a spirit. A faint orange glow illuminated the corner of a passageway far back inside the cave, but the maid had vanished into some darker side-shoot. Little-Marten heard a muffled voice calling ‘Henty?’ and thought he heard a murmured reply, but no more. He stood at the mouth of the cave a little longer, till the silence gradually made him feel self-conscious and then he eventually left, walking back across the Great Clearing through the deepening darkness, smitten, moonstruck, hopelessly conquered. And ashamed.

  Now, from the high vantage point of his Perch, Little-Marten watched as the Various began to arrive in response to his summons.

  The Rowdy-Dow tree stood in a corner of the Royal Clearing, where South Wood and West Wood met, and so the first to arrive were the Ickri, the winged hunters, who patrolled these nearby stretches of the forest. Scurl, captain of the South and West Woods, and some of his younger followers – Benzo, Grissel, Dregg, and Flitch – came gliding down from the trees. They swaggered over to the baskets and nonchalantly emptied their pecking bags, tossing the limp carcasses of birds and s
quirrels into the wicker receptacle for meat. Tulgi and Snerk, two more of Scurl’s crew, arrived soon after and did likewise. The seven Ickri sprawled around the base of the Rowdy-Dow tree, chewing grass stalks, comparing the latest decorative designs which they had painted, tattoo-like, on their wings, and boasting idly of their exploits that day. Occasionally they would punch or kick each other in response to some insult or slighting remark. They were young, apart from Scurl, their captain. Unattached, unruly and unchallenged – they thought highly of themselves. Scurl was cock-of-the-woods in his own estimation, and his followers encouraged him in this belief. He was flattered by their admiration of him, and they in turn were flattered to be chosen as his disciples.

  Little-Marten, high above the seven lounging hunters, kept still and hoped that he wouldn’t be noticed. No such luck, however, for presently Benzo shaded his eyes against the evening sun and looked upwards.

  ‘Greetings, Petan. How quiet you be. Or do you still catch breath, you old fool? Hullo, though! ’T’ain’t Petan at all! ’Tis some young snip! What, is the old ’Pecker finally dead then? Did ’e finally come unsticked from his Perch?’

  The others looked up and laughed at this, and Grissel said, ‘Now I wonders if young’un here is made o’ stickier stuff. I means to find out.’ He fitted an arrow to his bow and flicked it lightly upwards at Little-Marten. The arrow glanced harmlessly off the end of the broken limb, but it made Little-Marten jump.

  ‘Grissel, thee shoots like an old hag!’ cried Benzo. He hopped to his feet and said, with exaggerated menace, ‘Now then, young Woodpecker! What have ’ee done to our poor old Petan?’ He drew his bow back to its full extent, aiming an arrow directly at the little Ickri, who shrank back in fright against the trunk of the Rowdy-Dow tree.

  ‘Don’t!’ he whispered.