Elder Isles - Madouc Part 16

Several minutes pa.s.sed. Madouc waited, hardly daring to breathe. She heard footsteps; Ossip and Sammikin went blundering past. Madouc closed her eyes, fearing that they would feel the brush of her vision and stop short.

Ossip and Sammikin paused only an instant, to look angrily around the glade. Sammikin, hearing a sound in the distance, pointed his finger and gave a guttural cry; the two ran off into the depths of the forest. The thud of their footsteps diminished and was lost in the hush.

Madouc remained huddled in the cranny. She discovered that she was warm and comfortable; her eyelids drooped; despite her best intentions, she drowsed.

Time pa.s.sed-how long? Five minutes? Half an hour? Madouc awoke, and now she felt cramped. Cautiously she began to extricate herself from the cranny. She stopped short. What was that sound, so thin and tinkling? Music? Madouc listened intently. The sounds seemed to come from a source not too far away, but hidden from her view by the foxglove foliage.

Madouc crouched indecisively, half in, half out of her covert. The music seemed artless and easy, even somewhat frivolous, with queer little trills and quavers. Such a music, thought Madouc, could not conceivably derive from threat or malice. She lifted her head and peered through the foxglove. It would be an embarra.s.sment to be discovered hiding in such an undignified condition. She plucked up her courage and rose to her feet, ordering her hair and brushing dead leaves from her garments, all the while looking around the glade.

Twenty feet distant, on a smooth stone, sat a pinch-faced little creature, not much larger than herself, with sound seagreen eyes, nut-brown skin and hair. He wore a suit of fine brown stuff striped blue and red; a jaunty little blue cap with a panache of blackbird's feathers, and long pointed shoes. In one hand he held a wooden sound-box from which protruded two dozen small metal tongues; as he stroked the tongues music tinkled from the box.

The creature, taking note of Madouc, desisted from his play ing. He asked in a piping voice: "Why do you sleep when the day is so new? Time for sleep during owl's-wake."

Madouc replied in her best voice: "I slept because I fell asleep."

"I understand, at least better than I did before. Why do you stare at me? From marvelling admiration, as I would suppose?"

Madouc made a tactful response. "Partly from admiration, and partly because I seldom talk with fairies."

The creature spoke with petulance. "I am a wefkin, not a fairy. The differences are obvious."

"Not to me. At least, not altogether."

"Wefkins are calm and stately by nature; we are solitary philosophers, as it were. Further, we are a gallant folk, proud and handsome, which conduces to fate-ridden amours both with mortals and with other halflings. We are truly magnificent beings."

"That much is clear," said Madouc. "What of the fairies?" The wefkin made a gesture of deprecation. "An unstable folk, p.r.o.ne both to vagary and to thinking four thoughts at once. They are social creatures and require the company of their ilk; otherwise they languish. They chatter and t.i.tter; they preen and primp; they engage in grand pa.s.sions which occupy them all of twenty minutes; extravagant excess is their watchword! Wefkins are paladins of valor; the fairies do deeds of wanton perversity. Has not your mother explained these distinctions to you?"

"My mother has explained nothing. She has long been dead."

'Dead'? What's this again?"

"She is dead as Dinan's cat, and I can't help but think it inconsiderate of her."

The wefkin blinked his green eyes and played a pensive trill on his melody box. "This is grim news, and I am doubly surprised, since I spoke with her only a fortnight past, when she showed all her usual verve-of which, may I say, you have not been denied your full and fair share."

Madouc shook her head in perplexity. "You must mistake me for someone else."

The wefkin peered closely at her. "Are you not Madouc, the beautiful and talented child now accepted, if somewhat gracelessly, as 'royal Princess of Lyonesse' by King b.u.mblehead?"

"I am she," said Madouc modestly. "But my mother was the Princess Suldrun."

"Not so! That is a canard! Your true mother is the fairy Twisk, of Thripsey Shee."

Madouc stared at the wefkin in open-mouthed wonder. "How do you know this?"

"it is common knowledge among the halflings. Believe or disbelieve, as you wish."

"I do not question your words," said Madouc hastily. "But the news comes as an astonishment. How did it happen so?"

The wefkin sat upright on the stone. Rubbing his chin with long green fingers, he appraised Madouc sidelong. "Yes! I will recite the facts of the case, but only if you request the favor- since I would not care to startle you without your express permission." The wefkin fixed his great green eyes upon Madouc's face. "Is it your wish that I do you this favor?"

"Yes, please!"

"Just so! The Princess Suldrun gave birth to a boy-child. The father was Aillas of Troicinet. The baby is now known as Prince Dhrun."

"Prince Dhrun! Now I am truly astonished! How can it be? He is far older than I!"

"Patience! You shall learn all. Now then. For safety the baby was taken to a place in the forest. Twisk chanced to pa.s.s by and exchanged you for the little blond boy-baby, and that is the way of it. You are a changeling. Dhrun lived at Thripsey Shee a year and a day by mortal time, but by fairy time, many years elapsed: seven, eight, or it might be nine; no one knows since no one keeps a reckoning."

Madouc stood in bemused silence. Then she asked: "Am I then of fairy blood?"

"You have lived long years in human places, eating human bread and drinking human wine. Fairy stuff is delicate; who knows how much has been replaced with human dross? That is the way of it; still, all taken with all, it is not so bad a condition. Would you have it differently?"

Madouc reflected. "I would not want to change from the way I am-whatever that is. But in any case, I am grateful to you for the information."

"Save your thanks, my dear! It is just a little favor-barely enough to be reckoned."

"In that case, tell me who might be my father."

The wefkin chuckled. "You phrase the question with a nicety! Your father might be this one or he might be that one, or he might be someone far away and gone. You must ask Twisk, your mother. Would you like to meet her?"

"Very much indeed."

"I have a moment or two to spare. If you so request, I will teach you to call your mother."

"Please do!"

"Then you so request?"

"Of course!"

"I accede to your request with pleasure, and there will be no great increment to our little account. Step over here, if you will."

Madouc sidled from behind the bank of foxglove and approached the wefkin, who exuded a resinous odor, as if from crushed herbs and pine needles, mingled with bosk, pollen and musk.

"Observe!" said the wefkin in a grand voice. "I pluck a blade of saw gra.s.s; I cut a little slit here and another here; then I do thus, then so. Now I blow a gentle breath-very easy, very soft, and the virtue of the gra.s.s produces a call. Listen!"

He blew, and the gra.s.s whistle emitted a soft tone. "Now then: you must make just such a whistle with your own fingers."

Madouc started to make the whistle, then, troubled by a thought which had been working at the back of her mind, paused. She asked: "What do you mean when you speak of 'our little account'?"

The wefkin made a flickering flourish of long-fingered hands. "Nothing of large significance: in the main, just a way of speaking."

Madouc dubiously continued her work. She paused again. "It is well known that fairies never give without taking. Is the same true of wefkins?"

"Bah! In large transactions, this might be the case. Wefkins are not an avaricious folk."

Madouc thought to detect evasiveness. "Tell me, then, how I must pay for your advice?"