It seemed such an odd question, coming after all that talk of mushrooms, that I gaped.
"Laughed?"
"Aye, laughed. Rolled around on your belly and held your ribs till they ached, and howled with merriment and joy? Laughed till tears ran from your eyes and your ears hurt?"
I could still only gape at him: I didn't know what he meant. The only laughter I had seen was the wild cackling of our Mistress when something pleased her, and sometimes I had seen young men and girls from the village laughing in the fields at harvest, as they chased each other in and out the stocks of corn, teasing with chaff, dried milkweed or poppy-heads . . .
I didn't know what it was to laugh.
I stretched my mouth as I had seen them do and gave an experimental "Ho-ho-ho, Ha-ha-ha" as I remembered the sound, but it didn't seem quite right and certainly felt very silly. It had an unexpected effect on Tom, too, for it sent him off into paroxysms of giggles that sounded strange coming from a grown man.
"I don't believe you know how!" he accused, and giggled again.
"Can't remember," I said crossly. "What does it matter, anyway? I'm not missing anything."
"Don't be too sure about that, then! All folks feels better after a good laugh: almost as good as a—Never mind: you're too young. Like to try some of Tom's magic?"
"You can do magic?" I gasped.
"Oh, not your old spells and suchlike, only the magic what's in my little friends here," and he opened his pouch and took out some more mushrooms, a large red one with white spots on it and some tiny brown ones with a little knob on top. "This one here, the big fellow, is what they call the Magic Mushroom. Why there are folks overseas who worship this one like a god on account of it gives them pleasant dreams if they take it in moderation, and kills their enemies for them taken in larger amounts: I reckon enough of 'em died finding the right doses . . . I ain't going to give you none of him 'cos you has to think of size and weight and age and tolerance to make the dose right for dreams and wrong for t'other, but these little fellows—Fairies Tits when they're fresh and Mouse-Dugs dried—these fellows I can measure out for you and give you nothing more'n a good laugh or two. Not that they ain't bad when taken too much, but I'll only give you a tickle.
"Well? You looks doubtful: then I'll take 'em too, like the drink last night, but I'll take twice as much . . ."
In the end he persuaded me, not so much from his words as from a mutter from Puddy: "Seen 'em before: not poison in small quantities. No more than the number of my toes, mind . . ."
And that is exactly the number he gave me, lightly cooked in the fat remaining in the pan-juices: fourteen tiny little mushrooms. I tasted one: nothing special. I waited till he had eaten half his—double my quantity—before I started on the rest.
Then I waited for the laugh. Nothing.
He read my mind. "Oh, you has to linger awhile for them to work . . ."
"How did you come to know so much about mushrooms?" I asked curiously, while I waited.
That darkening of his face again. He seemed to hesitate, then shovelled the rest of his mushrooms into his mouth and drank the pan juices. When he looked at me he was smiling.
"A tale for a tale, then? 'Tain't much, when all's said and done, not really . . .
"Well, see, once Tom loved a fair lady and they lived in a fine house in a town many miles from here. Now Tom had a good living then and they were both happy, this beautiful lady and he, and their happiness was crowned when she told him there was a child on the way. And as is the way with ladies in that condition she came to have strange tastes, wanting things out of season and difficult to come by. But Tom, he kept her satisfied, going miles out of his way for strawberries in April and brambles in June. Then came a time, and she was near her lying-in, when of all things she wanted mushrooms, some of those wood mushrooms that grow best near pines. And Tom knew where he had seen some, near to a clump of fir trees, so off he went and picked them and rushed back and tossed them in a pan and carried them in to her on a silver platter, and she cried with joy when she saw them and kissed her Tom and turned to scoop them to her mouth . . ."
He stopped, and I knew, oh I knew, what was to come next and tried to stop him, but he shook his head.
"Better out than in, Flower . . .
"I should have known that smell: smelt of sleep, smelt of death." Now there was no third-person Tom, it was himself . . . "They was Destroying-Angel, all white in their purity, all black in their intent, and my lady died in agony and the child with her. After that I was a little mad, I think, for they shut me away . . .
"But I had time to think, there in the darkness of soul, and when they finally let me out and I found the business sold and all moneys gone I didn't care: it was the mushrooms that had taken from me all I held dear and by my own ignorance and I swore to spend the rest of my life learning about the little devils until I was always one jump ahead and could fair say I had beaten them at their own game. And so I have.
"So, old Tom's a mushroom expert, you might say . . ."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"No need to be, no need. 'Tis time past, and if there is one thing I did learn then it was to look to time present . . .
"And, talking of the present: how do you feel?"
Now he came to mention it, I was beginning to feel different, as if my stomach had a pleasant little fire chuckling away all warm inside it. The fire light seemed stronger too, making all colours brighter, but a little fuzzy round the edges.
Nice . . .
Then it happened. Tom got up to throw more wood on the fire, slipped, and for a moment, trying to regain his balance, stood on one leg like a heron, lanky and ungainly, arms flapping like wings, and such a comical look of surprise on his face that I felt a little tickle of amusement jerking my tummy, then another and another, till I was like a pot waiting to boil, bottom all covered with bubbles. I couldn't help it: I came to the boil, slowly but surely. Snorts, spasms, gasps all accompanied these completely new feelings till, with a painfulness that only those who laugh out loud but seldom could appreciate, merriment rose to the surface and, once there, wouldn't stop, and I was boiling away like a pot of forgotten water, salted by the tears of laughter that coursed down my cheeks. At first I thought I was dying, for I could not laugh and breathe and cry at the same time and got the hiccoughs, but in the end everything sorted itself out, except that by that time my ribs ached and so did the bones at the back of my ears.
The trouble was that once started, I couldn't stop: Moglet's studied aversion and turned back and Corby's offended stare only set me off worse than ever.
Tom poked me in the ribs: he too was laughing fit to burst, his arms hugging his ribs, knees up to his chin. "Tell—tell me: why—why do you wear that terribly tatty little flap of—of leather? Oh, dear me, what with a fringe of hair like a taggley pony and that flap of hide there's nothing but eyes like post-holes to be seen—oh, dear me!—all across your face."
I giggled helplessly. "'Cos—'cos I look like a fright without! I've worn it ever since—ever since I could remember! Our Mistress made me, so I didn't frighten the villagers to death! Got a face like a—like a cross between a pig and a snake without it . . . Oh, dear: how do you stop laughing? It hurts . . ." And I doubled up.
"How—how do you know what—what you look like, then?"
"Mistress showed me—in a mirror of polished metal . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! You should have seen me! Oh, dear, I shall die if I don't stop this . . . Said I was too ugly to go abroad without a mask, so I made—tee-hee!—this. Ho! Ho! And if any ask—He! He!—I say I am marked bad with the 'pox!"
"You don't mind looking like that, then?"
"Can't, can I? Always have, s'pose . . . Oh, mercy, mercy! Stop making me laugh!"
"What with that mask and walking around doubled up with that—stone—in your stomach, you look—you look much like a hobgoblin!"
"A hob—hobgoblin? Oh dear, yes, I must do! How—how hilarious! What a fright! Enough to scare the children, and the old folk from the chimney-corner . . . He-he-he . . ."
And thus was changed in my mind the hidden hurt of the day when our Mistress had found me trying to gaze at my reflection in a pail of water—just to see whether my fingers lied when they felt a straightish little nose, a wideish mouth and long lashes—and, muttering a few words, had shown me what a horror I really was, in that polished mirror of hers: jutting brow, little snake-like eyes downturned at the corners, a crooked nose, squashed like a pig's, uneven, jagged teeth, and a drooling, loose mouth. The whole face, from brow down, was covered in skin-blemishes: blue scars, pocks and a web of red like a spider's which had spread up from the red pebble in my navel like the plague . . . After that I had begged a piece of soft leather from her and hung it on a thong threaded through the top over my nose and across the rest of my face.
And she had laughed even more when she had seen it.
But now it was I who was laughing, and far harder than she had ever done.
After that I fell suddenly asleep, exhausted by the strange thing called laughter, but the others told me in the morning that even in my dreams I had been giggling happily, though when I awoke I could not recall a single thing.
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.