Song of the Gargoyle (7 page)

As he spoke the last words his voice, suddenly and without warning, became weak and quavery, and tears flooded his eyes. Angrily he brushed them away and covered his face with both hands. He hated tears, and embarrassed to be so weak and unmanly, he kept his face hidden until a hot, wet tongue caressed the back of his hands. He jerked them away just as the tongue came again—up his cheek and across one eye. Tymmon drew back, wiping his face with his sleeve. Troff was regarding him anxiously, as one might a crying infant. Tymmon felt shamed—and angry.

“It didn’t have to be that way,” he cried. “It was his own fault.” Troff drew back, looking startled and puzzled.

“It was. He didn’t have to be a poor helpless minstrel and jester. My father was born to a noble family and he became a commoner by his own choice and action. He denied his birthright and left his homeland and country forever. He told me so himself.”

Troff’s expression showed that he was as amazed and incredulous as any human being would be to hear of such an incredible act of folly.

“I know,” Tymmon said. “I would not have believed it myself except that he would never lie to me. So even though he would not explain, I... Tymmon’s mind went back to that day, almost a year ago, when his father had, in an unguarded moment, revealed his strange story.

Tymmon had been pressing his father to explain how he, a poor commoner, was skilled in reading and writing and in many other arts and sciences. His skills and learning, he told Tymmon impatiently, were due to the fact that he had been born to a noble family. But he had chosen as a young man to deny his birthright and leave the place of his birth. Just that much Komus said, but when Tymmon, almost overcome with delight and curiosity, had questioned him further, he had set his jaw, his eyes had darkened, and he would say no more.

“He told me only that much, and swore it was the truth. He would not tell me more. Nothing except that he was born to a noble family in the kingdom of Nordencor. Oh yes, and that when my mother died of a fever—I was but two years old—he took me and set out to travel the world as a minstrel. As a common jongleur and minstrel. And when we came to Austerneve he took service in King Austern’s court. He would say no more on that day, or on any day thereafter no matter how I pleaded. But he made me promise to tell no one. He especially made me promise I would not tell Lonfar. Although, in truth, I was no longer a friend to Lonfar at the time, and I certainly would not have told him. Although—although I would have greatly liked for him to know.”

Troff stared at him, and then looked away indifferently, as if he had decided the matter was of little importance. It was clear that he did not understand how heartless it was of Komus to tell that much and then to refuse to say more. How cruel to even refuse to answer the question “Why?” To refuse to tell why he had chosen, not only for himself but for his son as well, the life of a commoner. And how particularly cruel it was to one who, like Tymmon, had special reasons to be all too aware of the vast difference between the future life of one born to the knighthood and one who was but the lowly offspring of a court jester.

“Do you know what a court jester is?” he asked Troff. And when the gargoyle seemed uncertain he went on angrily. “A court jester is a fool. A clown to be laughed at and made the butt of jokes.” Tymmon could hear his own voice rising to an angry screech. He breathed deeply, swallowed hard, and went on, but the screech quickly returned. “A court jester is a buffoon who spends his life pleasing stupid people by making them feel superior to the pitiful and craven fool he is pretending to be. Only pretending because—as God himself knows well, and all men should know too—my father truly is more gifted and wiser and more learned than any other man in Austerneve could ever hope to...

The tears returned and Tymmon threw himself down on his blanket and buried his face in his arms, and when Troff snuffled in his ear and pushed at his hand with his ugly snout, he told him gruffly to go away.

I
T WAS BETTER DURING
the day. Better because there was little time for thought or remembrance. Tymmon soon found that in the hours between sunrise and sundown it was not difficult to keep his mind on the events of the moment, and to how those events related to the condition of his stomach.

The struggle for food was constant and endless. In the first few days they moved their base constantly, traveling always southward along the riverbank, always looking for a sheltered camping spot and for better fishing and hunting. But even on the days when the hunting had been successful they seldom ate more than once, and it seemed they were always hungry. Sometimes when their luck had been good Tymmon tried to save something for the next day, but that proved to be impossible. Troff never stopped eating until everything—the last scrap of burned skin, and even the last small bone—had disappeared. Obviously a gargoyle’s belly was as boundless and endless as the sea.

Of course, it was Troff who brought in most of what they ate, partridges and water birds, and once a fine fat rabbit. But Tymmon was soon able to do his part. With a lance fashioned from a long straight branch he occasionally managed, after long hours of trial and error, to spear a fish in the river shallows. Now and then he found a few nuts left over from the autumn before, and on one lucky day he found a nest of duck eggs that were very tasty when roasted in the ashes of a fire.

But while Troff ranged into the depths of the forest on his hunting trips, Tymmon’s expeditions, whether to look for food or gather wood for the fire, were always limited to the riverbank and to short distances from the camp. There, on the bank, where the river stretched away to the north and south in a broad path that could be followed until it would undoubtedly come at last to civilization, he felt safer and more at ease. But even there he could always feel it—around and behind him. The dim, deep Sombrous waiting to ensnare him in its endless, haunted maze. Even later, when they had decided on a more permanent base, and it had become necessary to collect saplings and fern fronds to build a hut, he went only a few yards into the forest, or waited until Troff could accompany him.

The hut was begun after several days of travel and nights of sleeping beside an open fire. The rain had returned then, and with it more long hours of soggy misery. It was after such a wet and chilly night that Tymmon began to construct a shelter near the foot of a sloping stretch of sandy beach. A three-sided lean-to, roofed with reeds and fern fronds, its walls no more than a palisade of stakes cut from young saplings. The flimsy walls slowed the advance of the north wind but little, and the roof dripped in the worst downpours, but it was better than no shelter at all. During the dark nights, curled in his blanket with Troff at his feet and the fire before them, it was a comfort to have a wall behind his back. A barrier, however rickety, between him and the forest.

So the days rushed by, but the nights seemed to last forever. If he had not known that it was impossible, Tymmon would have been sure that the hours of darkness in the Sombrous Forest were longer than they were elsewhere. Long after the fire burned low and Troff slept soundly, he was often wide awake. Wide awake, thinking and remembering, and listening to the forest sounds that he could sometimes hear over the soft liquid mumblings of the river.

Sometimes there were screams or howls. Soon after sundown and again in the first dim light of day, a high moaning wail would suddenly shatter the soft, pure silence of the morning air. A wild tormented sound, sadder and more pitiful than the keening of any human mourner. But even more terrifying were the noises that came in the depths of the night—deep throbbing cries punctuated by sharp high-pitched yelps. Clearly the baying of the wolves of the Sombrous, horrible sharp-fanged beasts known throughout the North Countries for their ferocity and greedy hunger. Staring into the darkness, his ears straining, Tymmon sometimes prodded Troff with his foot, and told him to awake and listen.

The first few times he was thus aroused Troff came alert quickly and hearkened, but after a bit he seemed to take little interest, even when the terrible wails came again and again. Sometimes he only looked at Tymmon reproachfully and turned away, and even when the baying of the wolves seemed very near he only growled softly and then yawned, stretched, and said there was nothing to fear while he was there. Then he went back to sleep.

But after Tymmon had prodded him into wakefulness several times he became harder and harder to awaken only lifting his head briefly, snorting and mumbling, and then sinking back into a motionless and useless lump at Tymmon’s feet. That, at least, was his reaction unless Tymmon was able to get his attention and keep it—in one of several ways. Tymmon soon learned which ways were most useful.

The old flute had been a gift from Komus, and Tymmon had learned to play it when he was no more than four years of age. “My father taught me,” he told Troff, turning the beautifully fashioned instrument in his hands, “although he said I needed very little teaching, having been born, as he was, with a true ear and a quick memory. Sometimes during those years I even played in the great hall before King Austern and his guests.”

Troff seemed impressed. Tymmon shrugged. “I remember it but little. I was, I suppose, a kind of curiosity, having so much skill at a tender age. I have not played now for many years.”

But the old tunes came back and Troff clearly enjoyed them, turning his head from side to side to listen and now and then lifting his muzzle toward the heavens and joining in—in a low throbbing lament, somewhat like the wailing of the wolves.

He liked the merry songs, too, particularly the lively rollicking chansonettes and folk tunes that Komus had played and sung to entertain King Austern’s guests in the great hall. And to these merrier tunes Troff sang in a different way, adding bursts of short staccato syllables to his usual quavering themes. The music and singing worked well, but when Tymmon tired of making music, he found that Troff could also be kept awake by the telling of stories.

Many of the tales, also, had been part of Komus’s repertoire, which Tymmon had learned by listening to his father’s rehearsals. Komus had spent long hours practicing dramatic effects, the miming and capering and mimicking that he would use to enliven the tales for his noble audience. The king’s guests, Komus had said, enjoyed his comic antics, and Troff seemed to appreciate such things also, when they were related and even embellished and improved upon by Tymmon, who, like his father, had a gift for mimicry and farce.

Some of Komus’s stories were exciting accounts of the brave deeds of famous heroes, heroes not only of recent times but also of ancient Greece and Rome. Others were romantic tales of pure and chivalrous love, and still others were lively and humorous stories concerning heroes who were not always so pure and noble.

Troff listened politely to such tales, but sometimes his attention wandered and his eyelids drooped. He seemed to like better the true accounts of Tymmon’s own past. Particularly, he seemed to enjoy hearing about Lonfar and the many adventures he and Tymmon had shared.

“We were friends for many years,” Tymmon told him. Shutting out more recent memories, he could feel himself smiling as he recalled all the good times. Troff smiled, too, thumping his tufted tail and lolling his tongue. “Yes, for many years. I think we were less than five years old—we were of almost exactly the same age—when Sir Hildar first brought Lonfar to Komus for instruction. I did not question it then, but I suppose there were those who did. And truly one would not expect a noble knight to send his son to be taught by a jester. But the priest at Austerneve at that time, Father Nominus, was very old and of unsound mind, and there were few in the castle who could read and write. So my father taught us—Lonfar and me together—and we learned to read and write and do sums, and to enjoy each other’s company as well.”

Troff seemed to like best stories concerning the games that Tymmon and Lonfar had played—games of high adventure that were played in empty attics, crumbling turrets, and forgotten dungeons. And no matter how dull-eyed the sleepy beast had been only a moment before, he quickly became alert and attentive when Tymmon leaped to his feet to demonstrate the wooden sword battles and broomstick jousts that he and Lonfar had often staged in the castle courtyard.

“We were together from dawn until dusk in those years,” he told Troff. “So much so that the people of the castle, nobles and commoners alike, began to speak our names together. Tymmon-and-Lonfar or Lonfar-and-Tymmon—as if they were but one word. Some even said we looked alike, except for our coloring, since Lonfar is not dark as I am, but very pale with hair the exact hue of harvest grain. We were, in truth, closer than brothers, Lonfar and I, until...

Tymmon stopped, and Troff, who had been thoughtfully licking one of his great front paws, looked up quickly.

Tymmon shrugged. “Well, until after Lonfar became a page and started his training for knighthood. Oh, he swore it would make no difference, and right at first it did not. When his training in horsemanship and fencing began, I would meet him afterwards and he would teach me what he had learned. And sometimes I was even allowed to go with him to the archery master and practice with bow and arrow. But then—well, then—only last year a new knight came to Austerneve. The baronet Quantor, son of Lord Krodon, baron of Unterrike.”

Tymmon pronounced the names with a flourish, indicating how important they were, but Troff took little notice. “Surely you have heard of Unterrike?” Tymmon asked.

Troff looked away and stared thoughtfully into space before his great round eyes returned questioningly to Tymmon. “Unterrike?”

“It is a large fief, a dominion. Bordering Austerneve to the southwest. And the baron is a highborn lord—one of the richest and most powerful in all the North Countries. So, as I was saying, the baron’s son, Baronet Quantor of Unterrike, came to do service in King Austern’s court. And soon after, Lonfar learned that when he reached the age of fourteen he would be pledged to Quantor as squire. And that made all the difference in the world.”