‘You recently said that contracts were made to be broken,’ Echo reminded him during one of their conspiratorial get-togethers. ‘What exactly did you mean?’
Theodore lethargically raised his single eyelid. ‘What I said,’ he replied.
‘But breaking a contract would be illegal, wouldn’t it?’
‘Of course, but you have to make up your mind which is worse: the fate that awaits you if you abide by it or the penalty you’ll incur if you break it.’
‘That’s just what’s on my mind,’ said Echo. ‘The fate that awaits me if I abide by the contract is to have my throat cut.’
‘That strikes me as an inapprapriote reward for peeking an agreement,’ the Tuwituwu growled. ‘It’s tosipively unjust. Too unjust for almost any crime I can think of.’
‘Still, I wonder what legal penalty I’d incur if I broke my contract with Ghoolion. Might it be equally harsh?’
‘Hm,’ said Theodore, ‘I can give you a pretty precise answer to that. I’m something of an expert on prurisjudence, as you know. There’s a precedent where Alchemasters and Crats are concerned - a case that was tried in Baysville two hundred and fifty years ago. A Crat had cantrocted with an Alchemaster to keep his house free from mice for the rest of his life, but the said Crat vedeloped an allergy to mice and was unable to filful his oglibations. The Alchemaster hauled him before the court. Alchemasters tend to be rather tiligious, I’m afraid.’
‘Was this a comparable case?’ Echo asked.
‘You could say that. Similar charge: breach of cantroct. The fact that your life is at stake would be a timigating factor, I’m sure, and the laws have been relaxed a bit in the last two hundred and fifty years. I don’t even know if what Ghoolion expects of you is legal these days.’
‘How did that old case turn out?’
‘The Crat lost.’
‘I guessed as much! What was he sentenced to?’
‘A week in a cage in a home for strays. On bread and water.’
‘Is that all? Only a week?’
‘He had to share the cage with a mastiff.’
‘Oh …’ said Echo.
‘But the good news is: the Crat survived. He lost an ear, one leg and his tail, but he lived to a ripe old age. And as I said, it was a long time ago. Barbaric customs veprailed in those days - they were largely resbonsiple for mecidating your breed. And in your case timigating factors would come into play - for instance, the weakened condition in which you signed the cantroct, possibly even mental disequibilrium. I reckon you could well be acquitted - in fact, I strongly doubt if there’s a judge today who wouldn’t misdiss the case out of hand.’
‘
Now
you tell me?!’ Echo exclaimed. ‘So what am I doing here? Why don’t I simply make a run for it?’
Theodore spread his wings. ‘You’re here to fill your belly, I assume. You’re boviously enjoying your food.’
Echo made a sheepish gesture. ‘Yes, yes, I know. I’ve put on a bit of weight - no need to keep harping on it.’
‘If you want to get out of here somehow, you’d better remain in shape. There may come a time when you need to be feet on your fast and in good condition. The cantroct doesn’t say you have to eat everything Ghoolion puts in front of you, does it?’
‘No,’ Echo conceded more sheepishly still.
‘Well, then. Chew a few herbs. Avoid greasy foods, eat wholesome salads. I myself am not the slimmest of birds, but at least I stick to a labanced diet. For instance, I always have a getevarian breakfast: a juniper berry, a few blades of grass, a hazelnut and three wild strawberries. A healthy start to the day does my gidestive sestym good.’
‘I’ll make a note of that,’ Echo promised.
‘But where were we?’ said Theodore. ‘You asked me why you don’t simply make a run for it - why you don’t let the cantroct go hang and disappear into the blue?’
‘Exactly. What’s to stop me?’
‘You could always try,’ the Tuwituwu said in a low voice.
‘What do you mean, try? What would be so difficult about it? Ghoolion doesn’t keep me under lock and key. I could run off any time he’s otherwise engaged.’
‘So try it.’
‘Why say that in such a funny tone of voice?’
‘Try it and the best of luck to you.’
‘I mean, what could he do?’ Echo demanded. ‘He couldn’t put a spell on me or anything, he’s just an alchemist. I don’t know why everyone’s so dead scared of him. I may have gained a pound or two, but I’m still faster on my feet than him - faster than anyone else in Malaisea.’
‘Then you definitely ought to try it. You have my blessing.’
‘I’ll sneak off under cover of darkness, then head across the mountains.’
‘So give the mountains my regards.’
Echo stared at Theodore suspiciously. ‘There’s that funny tone of voice again,’ he said.
‘All I’m saying is’, Theodore replied, ‘Ghoolion has ways and means of trusfrating other people’s plans. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should leave any turn unstoned.’
‘I’m going to run away,’ Echo said defiantly. ‘Let’s see what happens then.’
‘You must do what you can’t avoid doing,’ said Theodore and heaved a big sigh. His watery gaze lingered on Echo until the little Crat grew uncomfortable. ‘But you must sometimes avoid doing what you can’t do,’ he added enigmatically.
The Wine Tasting
T
he first thing Echo noticed when he entered the kitchen that evening was an array of bottles, glasses and bowls on the table. Equally unusual was the fact that the stove wasn’t in use and no steaming dishes were in evidence, just some bread and a wooden board bearing an assortment of cheeses. He also registered the fact that Ghoolion’s high cheekbones were faintly flushed in a way that made him look a trifle less ghostly.
‘I’m now going to improve your education,’ said Ghoolion. He spoke somewhat more loudly than usual - more slowly, too, as if he found talking more of an effort today. ‘If we’re to make a gourmet of you, you must also learn something about the noblest of all beverages.’ He picked up an open bottle and poured some red liquid into one of seven cut-glass bowls standing on the table. Then he took a second bottle and poured some yellow liquid into another bowl.
Echo jumped up on the table and sniffed the liquid inquisitively. ‘I’ve never drunk any of this stuff before,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know if it’ll agree with me.’
‘Crats have two livers,’ said Ghoolion. ‘It’ll agree with you, never fear.’ He went on filling the bowls with liquid, some red, some yellow.
‘What kind of juice is this?’ Echo enquired. ‘My mistress never drank any. Why is some pale and some dark?’
‘This is wine,’ Ghoolion said solemnly. ‘Wine is drinkable sunlight. It’s the most glorious summer’s day imaginable, captured in a bottle. Wine can be a melody in a cut-glass goblet, but it can also be a cacophony in a dirty tumbler, or a rainy autumn night, or a funeral march that scorches your tongue.’
Wine could evidently be quite a lot of things, Echo reflected.
‘Wine’, said Ghoolion, ‘can provide you with the inspiration of a lifetime - or rob you of your wits completely. Where wine is concerned, there’s only one thing to be said about it with any certainty.’
‘Which is?’
‘The better the wine, the more it costs!’ Ghoolion guffawed at his own little joke. ‘Right, let’s get on with the tasting.’
Whatever this special kind of juice was, Ghoolion had certainly sampled some. Furthermore, it seemed to have wrought a change in him, whether for better or worse, Echo still couldn’t tell. There was something about the Alchemaster’s manner that was thoroughly out of keeping with his usual grim composure.
Ghoolion filled a glass with red wine and held it up to the light.
‘First,’ he cried, ‘use your eyes!’
He held the glass close to his face, shut his left eye and stared at it with his right.
‘You taste with your eyes as well as your palate,’ he said. ‘Is the wine red or white? The connoisseur can tell whether he’s dealing with a red wine or a white wine. As a general rule, if the wine is translucent and pale gold in colour, it may be a white wine, but if it’s red and inky and you can’t see through it, the chances are that it’s a red wine. If, on the other hand, it’s pink and translucent, it’s a rosé - the hermaphrodite among wines.’
At the moment, wine seemed to be having a favourable effect on the Alchemaster. For the first time ever, he didn’t appear to be taking what he was saying in Echo’s presence entirely seriously.
Echo sniffed the wine in the first little bowl. It was dark red and smelt intoxicating. He stuck his tongue in it, intending to lap up a mouthful, then recoiled indignantly.
‘Ugh!’ he said, pulling a face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Ghoolion asked.
‘It tastes funny. So sour.’
‘Sour be damned! You’ll soon get used to it. The first sip of wine never tastes nice. Perseverance, that’s the essential thing. Get it down you! Appetite comes with eating and it’s the same with drinking.’
Echo took a few reluctant sips. Sewer Dragon’s knilch had also tasted nasty at first, but then … He was growing warm, first in the tummy, then in the head. It was a nice feeling. Obediently, he lapped up the rest of the bowl.
‘Secondly the nose.’ Ghoolion stuck his long, pointed nose in the glass and sniffed with relish. ‘The wine is now being olfactorily analysed. Aaah! Mm! Does it smell of peach blossom wafted through an olive grove by the breeze in springtime? Of a freshly bisected grapefruit? Or of currant buns and vanilla cream, like this one? If your mistress never touched a drop of wine she was missing something, don’t you agree?’
‘Absolutely!’ said Echo, who was now on his second bowl. The wine had already ceased to taste sour. This one had a rather fruity quality, like the sweet acidity of a ripe raspberry. His ears were also getting warm now.
‘Well,’ asked Ghoolion, ‘does that taste better?’
‘It tashtsh lovely!’ Echo said. Tashtsh? Had he said ‘tashtsh’?
Ghoolion knocked back his wine and promptly poured himself another glass from a different bottle. He plunged his nose in it and inhaled, only to remove it quickly with a grimace of indignation.
‘Or does it smell like a worm-eaten carpenter’s bench? Like a dishcloth soaked in sour milk? Like the sock of a soldier suffering from athlete’s foot? Or, as this disastrous purchase does, like a dead lemming’s sweaty armpit? The secondary aromas have been completely destroyed - a sign of poor fermentation. Away with it!’
He flung the glass casually over his shoulder, smashing it on the flagstones.
Echo marvelled at the Alchemaster’s growing exuberance. The old man had never behaved with such abandon before.
‘Shecondary aromash?’ said Echo. It puzzled him that so many of the words he uttered seemed to stick to his tongue.
‘Primary aromas are the intrinsic scents of the grape,’ Ghoolion pontificated. ‘Secondary aromas develop in the course of fermentation and tertiary aromas during development in the cask. They combine to form the wine’s bouquet.’
So wine had a bunch of flowers in it too, thought Echo. It really was a versatile drink. The more of the red juice he lapped up, the more pervaded he became by a feeling of inner serenity and relaxation agreeably reminiscent of bedtime. Except that he didn’t feel like going to sleep, he wanted to stay awake.
‘Now,’ said Ghoolion, ‘we come to the ear.’ He picked up another glass, eyed the labels of the bottles on the table with a judicial expression and helped himself to an exceptionally dark red.
‘Wine confides its most intimate secrets to the true wine expert,’ he whispered, tapping the glass with a fingernail. A high-pitched note rang out. Ghoolion held the glass close to his ear and listened intently.
‘This one comes from Grapefields, the biggest wine-growing area in Zamonia. More precisely, from a vineyard with a sinister local reputation.’
‘Did the wine tell you all that?’ Echo listened to one of his bowls but couldn’t hear a thing.
‘That and more besides!’ whispered Ghoolion. ‘This wine knows some dark secrets - bad, bad things. Its memories go back many hundreds of years. It’s said to be related to the legendary Comet Wine.’
4
He clamped the glass even harder to his ear. ‘Listen, listen!’ he cried. ‘The depths of the vineyard from which it came are privy to a terrible secret.’
Echo edged so close to the edge of the table that he nearly fell off. His sense of balance wasn’t as good as usual. He retreated a step and pricked up his ears.
‘For a long time,’ Ghoolion went on in a low voice, ‘people in the locality had been wondering where so many grape-pickers disappeared to. No sooner had they started work than they seemed to vanish into thin air. Dozens of them went missing within a few years. They were reputed to be victims of the Ghastly Grappler, a cross between a plant and a predator, which was said to prowl the vineyard at dusk and pounce on defenceless grape-pickers. Half-filled baskets of grapes would sometimes be found, but never a trace of the workers themselves. So the local villagers tried to capture the Grappler. They set werewolf traps, dug pits lined with sharpened stakes and sent armed men to patrol the vineyard at dusk. All the caves in the neighbourhood were searched, but no Ghastly Grappler was sighted and no dead bodies came to light. A few Ugglies were burnt at the stake - that glorious tradition still prevailed in those days! - but to just as little avail. The grape-pickers continued to vanish without a trace.’