The Wanderer's Tale (30 page)

T
HEY STARED ACROSS THE
dismal swamp in bewilderment.

After the dreadful ordeal which had left Paulus, Wodeman and Appa unconscious, and deprived them of four of their mounts, those remaining knew they had nothing left in them. Any further hostile encounter now would be the finish of them.

So it was with immense relief (and no small amount of confusion) that they beheld the woman who stood before them. Wearing neither furs nor skins, and apparently unarmed save for the knobbly stick she clutched in one hand, she was obviously not of barbarian stock. A drab, russet-coloured gown snagged with bits of twig clothed her plump form, over which was draped a grey cloak that had seen better days and a woollen shawl with a faded pattern. She could have been a traveller, as her unkempt appearance suggested, yet there was something too rustic, too homely, about her. She looked more like a simple Aescalandian villager – and entirely out of place in this terrible wilderness.

‘Wha’s goin’ on, Nym?’ came a muted voice indistinctly from somewhere behind her. The exhausted southerners’ eyes immediately narrowed as they began to perceive shapes moving about in the darkness beyond.

‘Grockles,’ the woman replied, ‘caught inna bog.’

Her companions – several of them by the sound of it – seemed reluctant to come any closer, and continued shuffling about hesitantly under the cover of the trees. She, alone of them, drew closer and stood over the men who still lay panting on the ground. But though she faced them squarely and glared irately, they could sense she was nervous and still clutched her knobbly stick tightly.

‘You a’right? Don’ look too well to me . . . You boys bin inna fight?’

An ironic laugh escaped the Peladane’s lips as he gazed thankfully up at her. It was a plump, florid face lined with the creases of late middle-age, but the eyes held, within their earthy brownness, a clarity hinting at a vitality that was forever young.

Nibulus rose to his feet with difficulty, bowed slightly to her and said, ‘Good evening, old lady, I am thankful to—’

‘Wha’s him sayin’, Nym?’ came a disembodied voice from the trees again.

‘Bletherin’,’ Nym replied, not taking her disapproving eyes off the strangers. Then, waving her stick at them, she motioned them to make haste and follow her out of the hollow.

‘Come on, come on!’ she scolded them. ‘Don’ do to hang about here, you’m.’

As quickly as they could, the travellers hauled their still senseless companions onto the remaining horses and hastened after her, leaving behind them forever the bubbling pool that had claimed four of their mounts.

‘Myst-Hakel?’ Nibulus cried out after her, as she disappeared ahead of them. ‘How far?’

‘Just yonder,’ she gestured without stopping. It seemed clear that she did not like this place any more than they did. The sounds of her companions – family, fellow villagers or whatever they were – could also be heard up ahead, then also others on either side of them, and before long even some behind them.

On through the lightless woods they were led, wondering what fate could befall them next.

Her name, it seemed, was Nym-Cadog, and she lived alone in a small cottage not twenty minutes’ walk away from the hollow. Whether she was reluctant to linger near the stinking pool for any longer than was necessary, she certainly was not hanging about there. Not for anyone, nor anything. Not on this night.

Struth, can she shift herself!
Gapp marvelled, as he and the others tried to keep up with her. She may well have been on more familiar ground here than they, but it seemed to the gasping travellers, as they plunged through the trackless woods, that the old girl was positively streaking ahead.

All the while the other villagers continued to escort them unseen. In truth, it began to get a little unsettling, for though they kept pace with Nym and her charges, they also kept their distance, as if refusing to allow the wayfarers to come too close. They could be spotted only as occasional dark figures out there in the woods, or heard only as the odd sniggering or strange fluttering.

It was a long twenty minutes and when, eventually, they came to the edge of the woods and arrived at her house, the other villagers had disappeared. Gone off to their own homes, no doubt – in any case, they were not here now. In the gloom all Nibulus and his men could make out was the vague shape of a cottage, a simple peasant’s hovel, set in a clearing and surrounded by a small picket fence. It had one door, two windows, one on either side, and there in front of the gate waited Nym.

They drew up sharply. She was stood there like a featureless moon-shadow, silent, absolutely motionless, staring straight back at them.

‘Nym?’ Nibulus enquired.

The shadow stirred to motion them forwards.

‘Through here,’ they heard her say at length, leading the way through the gate and into her cottage.

Having tethered Quintessa and Paulus’s mare to the gateposts, and bit by bit hauled all their baggage – human and otherwise – through the door, inside they found themselves in a small room dimly lit by four or five tallow candles that sputtered smokily in little niches set in the walls. In this murky light it was difficult to see much, beyond a dirt floor carpeted with dried rushes that gave off the dusty pungency of late summer. In the middle of the room a large and ancient cauldron hung from a tripod, its gridiron, spit and trivet all layered with a thick, black grease that exuded the same odour as late nights at the Pig & Gristle in Lower Kettle Market.

Next to it was a crudely constructed yet comfortable-looking rocking chair that had worn two deep lines into the dried grease on the floor, with a small, vinegary-smelling jug and a massive water pitcher by its side. There was also a large table of solid oak set against the far wall, and a simple bench that consisted of a plank laid atop two squat logs.

Apart from this, there was little to see save two doors in the opposite wall, one on the left and one on the right.

‘I’ll just be a minute. Make y’selves at home,’ Nym said, indicating the floor.

Looking doubtfully about themselves, the guests remained standing while their hostess disappeared through the right-hand door. A moment later she returned with a huge pile of blankets, rugs and fleeces, dumped them heavily on the floor and quickly set about building a fire. Within a surprisingly short time she had kindled a sizeable blaze, and hefting the pitcher in her stocky arms, she poured all its contents into the cauldron.

Nibulus cleared his throat. ‘We really are most grateful for your hospitality, my good woman,’ he said as graciously as he could, ‘and rest assured you will be rewarded most handsomely for your kindnesses. I still have not introduced myself. My name is Nibb, a soldier of fortune from the South, and these are my companions. We travel to Godtha, far away beyond the Herdlands of the Tusse, and we were passing this way when we were waylaid in these woods by some foul shade of Evil.’

Neither acting nor lying came easily to the Peladane, for it was not something that one such as he had much need or desire of. But he had no intention of giving anything away about his identity or purposes until he felt surer about this Nym-Cadog and her kind. In any case, whether the woman saw through his mendacity or not, she did not let on. Neither did she show any particular interest in what he had just said, or give any indication that she even knew what a soldier of fortune was. She simply went about her obligations as a hostess, and said nothing.

When she had finished building the fire she retreated into the shadows, and the company eagerly gathered around it. Leaving the recumbent forms of their companions still upon the floor for a while, they warmed their hands and stared deep into the hungry red flames that danced and crackled before their eyes. Ignoring Nym, who kept coming and going, they savoured the warmth that gradually permeated their damp, chilled bodies, welcoming it back like an old friend. As the fire grew apace and sent a column of smoke and sparks billowing up through the hole in the roof, light began to fill the room.

The insensible ones were tended, the remainder of their baggage sorted, and at last the four men were able to relax a little and take stock of their surroundings.

To be frank, this was not the sort of lodging any of them was used to. The main reason was the fetor: apart from the wood-smoke that had impregnated the soot-caked timbers of the low ceiling, and the mustiness that rose in curling tendrils of steam from their sodden clothing, there was the lingering odour of thousands of meals that had been cooked in this stuffy, badly ventilated hovel over the years.

It was a graveyard of fragrances, a memorial garden of scents, a Grand Hall of Remembrance for unsavoury, undying fumes.

But (and this was all that really mattered right now) it was
indoors
– a situation they had not found themselves in for nearly a month, and it was warm and dry. There was even a large tin bathtub in one corner waiting to be filled, and most welcome of all the saliva-inducing aroma of food being prepared.

Lots of food for a bunch of adventurers who had not eaten properly in weeks! Somehow, Nym-Cadog’s cottage did not seem too inhospitable a place after all.

One by one, during their lengthy repast, the exhausted and filthy travellers availed themselves of the bathtub. Both table and cauldron were kept topped up by Nym, who brought in a seemingly unending supply of food and fresh water from the next room, but who seemed otherwise content to leave her guests to themselves. Old clothes were discarded in a great sodden heap in one corner, and after each one of them had washed most of the muck off them, new garments were donned.

After an hour waiting his turn, Gapp – the last one of course – finally lowered himself into the slightly murky but warm embrace of the bathtub. He had already eaten well, gorging himself on black bread and mutton, and four bowls of a thick soup made from various root vegetables, edible toadstools, tree bark and spicy forest herbs. He had also drunk deeply of a full-bodied elderberry mead that Nym kept in apparently limitless supply in the back room; and even now the kettle was whistling shrilly as the after-dinner harebell and fungus tea was being prepared. As the tub’s last, slow wisps of steam exhaled through the thin scum that layered the water and adhered wetly to his face, and the comforting warmth of the water permeated every pore in his skin, Gapp felt his whole body relax: every chill, cramp and ache floated away and was forgotten. Bloated with food, half-drunk on mead, all he needed to do now was let his troubled mind drift away into sensuous semi-consciousness.

Barely aware of the others’ existence, Gapp could hear the distant drone of their conversation, the muted, contented hum of their talk only occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of his master’s raucous laughter. But he was heedless of whatever was being said as he languished in blissful unawareness.

‘. . . bit odd, don’t you think? Didn’t show their face once . . . Where’re they all now? I mean, does she live here on her own?’

Finwald’s voice was quickly interrupted by that of the Peladane:

‘Who cares?’ he said, just before thrusting yet another hunk of gravy-soaked bread into his staggeringly capacious mouth. ‘She’s got food.’

Clearly their leader was fully aware of their present situation regarding rations, and was taking full advantage of this unexpected opportunity to feed himself with as much as he could cram in without causing himself internal bleeding.

‘We’ll not come by such fare as this again till Myst-Hakel,’ he explained between mouthfuls.

‘Myst-Hakel’s just up the road,’ Finwald exclaimed. ‘Didn’t you hear what she said earlier?’

The voices faded again as Gapp’s mind wandered away. After what seemed hours, but may have been only minutes, he awoke again to the sound of Nibulus’s laughter. The bath water was still warmish, the fire still lit.

‘. . . that thing in the pool . . .’

‘Just forget it, Finwald, it’s gone. In any case, these are the wildlands; you have to expect things like that.’

‘But to just appear then disappear like that? I tell you, Nibulus, I don’t like it at all. We’re still too close, and this place . . .’

‘Finwald; you always were a worrier.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing. It’s gone. I have decreed it. You three priests dispelled it or “turned” it, or whatever the word is. Trust me, it’s gone.’

There followed a short pause in which Gapp’s bath water seemed to become notably cooler, then Wodeman’s voice cut through clearly.

‘. . . can’t believe you didn’t even
try
to rouse me! What’s the matter with you people? Can’t you
smell
it? Euch! The whole place
reeks
of aberration . . .’

Eyelids like lead, the boy finally fell asleep.

As he slept, he dreamt. He dreamt he was walking the high bleak hills north of Nordwas with his brothers Ottar, Snori and the rest. They were chattering endlessly, but whenever he tried to join in they would merely laugh and ignore him. After a while he became aware that somebody else was walking alongside him, but something prevented him from seeing who it was. He tried asking his brothers about this newcomer, but now they had transformed into Nibulus and the rest, and
still
would not speak to him.