“Well, we’ll see what can be done about squaring things for you.” Golias signaled the waiter. “If not, we’ll find somebody equally lovely somewhere in the course of our expedition.”
Jones stiffened. “There is nobody equally lovely.”
“I haven’t had the honor of meeting the lady in question,” Golias said, “though I have no doubt she is above praise. Nevertheless, I don’t like this business about the curse put on you — it’s a tough thing to get around — and a reasonably wide acquaintance in the Commonwealth convinces me that there are others — ”
“Not for me!” Jones insisted. He leaned forward earnestly. “This isn’t just a fancy, gentlemen. Years ago a soothsayer told me that I would wed Hawthorn’s daughter or die wifeless.”
To my astonishment Golias took this as seriously as he had taken the curse. “Oh, that’s different,” he asserted. “All right, we pledge ourselves to do what we can to help win her for you.”
While Jones was thanking him the new bottle was brought, and there was silence until it was opened. Now that we had apparently seen the dimensions of his trouble, it seemed to me high time to find out what I, as his volunteer ally, had let myself in for.
“You said a while back,” I remarked, when the waiter had gone, “that you thought the first thing to do was to get yourself in line for your inheritance again.”
“It’s an essential of success in all directions,” Jones said. “I certainly would never ask my darling to marry a pauper.”
“And old Hawthorn would no doubt see you and her damned before he’d let her,” Golias put in. “Now when I first met you, you told me that you intended to begin by locating Ravan with a view to trying to squeeze the truth out of him. Are you still of that mind?”
“Yes. I said ‘locate,’ because I’ve temporarily lost track of him. As Don Rodrigo is the king’s favorite, he is apt to be in court when not in these parts, although it’s possible that he may be at another one of his numerous estates. It is also possible that the king himself is rusticating rather than holding formal court; but that’s one of the things we have to find out.” Jones looked from one to the other of us. “With your approval we’ll go to the City, then.”
“The logical course,” Golias assented.
“Which city?” I demanded.
“When you speak of ‘the City’ here,” Golias explained, “you mean Ilium. Although the Commonwealth is rich in famous towns, none is of comparable importance. Inasmuch as the arch king holds court there, it can also be considered the capital.”
As I had yet to see one of the country’s major cities, that part of the idea suited me well enough. My attention was fixed, however, on a different aspect of the trip.
“You say this bird whose tail we’re trying to salt is the king’s favorite,” I said. “Won’t that make him hard to squeeze?”
“It will,” Jones agreed. He ran a hand through his hair. “That’s why I need help. It is also perhaps a reason why I shouldn’t ask it. It will be such a dangerous undertaking that we’ll be lucky to come out with our lives.”
“Oh, Shandon doesn’t mind,” Golias announced, while I was sombrely reviewing Jones’ statement. “Here, let me fill around.”
12
Down Watling Street
RIGHT AFTER breakfast the next day Golias hocked his gold and paid Jones’ hotel bill, thereby releasing his luggage. For a man on the road he had quite a wardrobe, but with coaching he whittled it down to what he could carry in a small knapsack. Due to limited means, walking was to remain our way of traveling.
My own costume and that of Golias I have already described, except for the two sword canes the latter insisted on purchasing for us. Jones was dressed like neither one of us. Above tawny stockings were azure knee pants, while above them was a red jacket frilled with gold braid. A sword hung at his belt.
The thought of actually being on his way to do something about his destiny put him in high spirits, and I felt good myself. There is a special feeling attendant upon traveling a region’s greatest road toward its greatest city. Moreover, I was acquiring the comfortable sensation of belonging wherever I was that is the property of a seasoned traveler. In proportion as the Commonwealth ceased to confound me with its strangeness, my interest in it grew.
I don’t mean to imply that the element of novelty disappeared from my experiences. About two in the afternoon of the third day out of Hypata, the road ran through a grove of oaks. We had hardly reached it, when we heard a commotion around the bend just ahead of us. We kept on our way, though slowing down, until a woman’s scream was mixed with other noises of a struggle. I was still willing to investigate with caution, but Jones started to hurry forward. Grabbing for him, I hauled him back.
“Take it easy, Lucius,” I advised.
“But that’s a woman calling!” he cried, tugging away from me and trying to draw his sword.
“Look, son,” I said, “all women aren’t hurt when they yell, and some that are hurt ought to be. Let’s find out before you start carving people.”
There was another screech, and Jones grew wild-eyed. “Let me go, damn it!” He tore away from me to dash down the road, waving his sword and shouting for persons unknown to quit whatever they were doing on pain of death.
It made me nervous, and I looked at Golias. “We can’t let him go alone,” he said. Well, we couldn’t, so we began running, too.
When we reached the turn of the road, Jones had slowed down for understandable reasons. There were women in trouble, but not women who could be helped. The commotion we had heard had plainly been the thrashing of a body as it dangled from a branch. The first shriek had been the last cry before the hanged woman’s breath was shut inside of her. The second had been a wail of discovery on the part of a mourner.
Left to myself, I would have detoured, not out of fear of the dead but out of distrust of the living. Being found by a corpse in a country where I was unable to produce credentials was not to my liking. Nor, as we could do nothing useful, was there anything to exchange for the risk. Golias didn’t like it either and yelled to Jones to hold off, but it was too late. Lucius had slowed, but he hadn’t stopped.
“We’ve got to find out who did this,” he called back.
Exchanging resigned glances, we joined him. By then he had squatted down by the live woman, who had thrown herself on the ground, and was trying to comfort her. We on our part first gave our attention to the dead one. I can’t remember ever having seen an uglier hag. She had a face like one of the shriveled cocoanut masks which bar owners are unaccountably given to importing from the tropics. Her complexion was nearly as hairy as a cocoanut, and only a shade or two lighter. The body below was shapeless, as though it had been stuffed piecemeal into the dirty garments, which were those of a gypsy. The fact that her clothes were gaudy contributed to make them look horrible.
The other person, we found when we turned to look at her, was but a girl, a jump from puberty one side or the other. She, too, was a gypsy, to judge from her clothes and what we could see of her face. Jones had it pressed against his shoulder and was patting her on the back.
“Tell us who did it,” he alarmed me by volunteering, “and we’ll go and see that they get what’s coming to them.”
Much as I wanted to get away from there, I had to admit that the child was in need of comfort. I felt even worse about her when she finally checked her sobs enough to be able to talk.
“No — nobody d-done it. She — scragged herself.”
That knowledge must have made the discovery doubly awful for her, though I was relieved that we wouldn’t have to undertake vengeance for the hanging in addition to the business we already had on our hands. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t see that it was any of our concern, I felt that anybody who had killed that crone would have been guilty of no more than a misdemeanor, at the worst.
Still the fact that I wouldn’t be called on to do anything released more sympathy for the girl. Lucius was gawking, not kn
owing how to comment on the suicide, so I took over.
“Is she a relative of yours, kid?”
“My grannam.”
“Your granny, eh? Are you sure she hanged herself?”
“I know she done it. She was disapp’ inted.”
She was talking more steadily. Thinking that anything would be better for her than speechless grief, I pursued the subject.
“She was disappointed, eh?” Knowing that lack of security is the bogey-man of the aged, I made a stab in the dark. “Did she lose out on some money she was expecting to get?”
The girl still wouldn’t raise her head from Jones’ shoulder, but she freed one eye. “The poor people don’t need money,” she said enigmatically. Then she suddenly burst into tears again. “But he didn’t die!”
Lucius and I blinked at each other. “Who didn’t die?” he asked.
“My gr-grannam’s enemy.”
I hadn’t noticed what Golias was doing, but, hearing him cough, I glanced at him. He was leaning against the bole of the fatal tree, surveying us with sardonic interest. His voice, however, was winning when he spoke.
“If a woman doesn’t love, she must hate,” he remarked.
The girl sat up to stare at him. “My grannam had no one to love except me. She left her people.”
Golias’ voice was now that of a cross-examiner who knows the facts. “Because of this enemy?”
“Yes.”
“What had he done?”
“He — she hated him, because her people liked him.”
“That happens,” he agreed. “Listen; we are not the law and couldn’t hurt your grandmother if we were. What could an old woman do to a man?”
For a while the little gypsy hesitated, then she looked up from under her straggling hair with a half grin. “I don’t think my grannam could’ve done anything to that man — a big strong one, tall as this rye with the run of silver in his hair — but somebody give him some milk.” She brightened at the recollection. “It made him sick. We saw him, and he thought he was going to die.” Then her face fell, and her voice dropped with it. “But he got well.”
“And your grandmother was very old.” Golias’ voice had become warmly sympathetic.
“It was what she had to live for,” the girl whispered, “and she knew she’d never have another chance.”
It had taken Jones a moment to absorb the fact that the girl he had been comforting was mourning for a thwarted poisoner. He sat back, then rose to edge sheepishly away from her. Remembering how I had warned him, I was mean enough to be gratified. I grinned at his embarrassment, though I liked him for having been so eager to help.
“Ready to go on now?” I enquired.
“In a minute,” Golias answered for him. “We can’t leave her hanging for the child to look at, Shandon.”
“Right,” I admitted.
The girl bounced to her feet. “You won’t take her away?”
“Not I, sister.” I thought of making off with that hideous corpse and shook my head again. “Your grandma will be right here for the coroner.”
Apparently she was convinced. “You cut her from tree, and I go for friends,” she said, and darted away through the trees.
When she had gone, I hitched up my belt and walked over to take hold of the old woman’s foot. This was bravado, because I wasn’t happy about the task ahead.
“She’s a hefty cadaver,” I announced, after giving the body a shake.
“Oh, I wish I’d done that!”
Hearing a strange voice at such a time made me start. During our preoccupation a man had approached to within a few yards of us unheard. In cut his clothes resembled those of Golias, although they were at once more subdued and more dandified. The fellow himself was small and chubby. Where his cheeks weren’t hidden by a moustache like black porcupine quills they were round and pink. From above this bundle of whiskers he was staring at us from mild blue eyes.
Irritated, because I was jittery, I snapped at him. “Done what?”
He started to point with his hand and then, as if that made him nervous, he indicated the corpse with his riding crop. “That,” he said respectfully. “If I could only get up the resolution to hang somebody — not to mention the extra points I’d make if it was a defenceless old woman — I could live in peace for the rest of my life.”
Finding I still had hold of the hag’s foot, I let it go. It swung with the body, as if kicking at me, and I jumped again.
“Let’s get this straight,” I said. “Are you accusing us of lynching this old dame?”
Taking out a glorified snoose box, he dipped into it. Guides and lumber jacks, the only people I had ever seen use snuff, mouth it; but he stuffed some up his nose. As he might have known, he sneezed. His dog bone of a moustache came off, more to my surprise than his. Matter-of-factly he replaced it.
“I wasn’t accusing you,” he pointed out. “I was envying you.” His tone became professional. “Where did you catch her?”
He had annoyed me so much that I couldn’t put my mind together about him. While I was trying to decide whether he was crazy or just a smart aleck, Jones spoke up.
“I assure you, sir, that you’re under a misapprehension. This is a case of suicide, of which we were unlucky enough to be early witnesses.”
The newcomer looked astonished. “Then she’s not a witch?”
“I wouldn’t go bail for the fact that she’s not a witch,” Golias said. “If I had to bet, I’d chance it that she was; but we had nothing to do with her death.”
“Nothing at all!” Lucius said.
Sucking at the silver tip of his riding crop, the fellow stared at the dead woman, as if waiting for her to testify against us. “Then she didn’t curse you?” he said finally.
I wanted to tell him to scat, but I feared he might get suspicious and put the finger on us before we could get out of the neighborhood. “No,” I told him, as mildly as I could manage, “of course not.”
“You were luckier than Rupert,” he remarked.
I was about to speak again, and with less restraint, when Golias put his hand on my arm. “Who’s Rupert?” he asked.
“The first baronet,” the man answered. “Oh, I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m Sir Despard Murgatroyd — the twenty-second baronet, you know.” He made a sweeping gesture with his crop. “Own all this.”
That didn’t make me feel good, and I was even more uncomfortable when Jones whispered to me: “That means he’s a justice of the peace.” Then he addressed the baronet. “If you wish to know why you found us here with the body, there’ll be a member of the old woman’s family along in a minute.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I always do.” Sir Despard took some more snuff, sneezed, shook his moustache loose from its mooring again, and put it back. “I never prosecute anyone, because I know nobody’s a sinner compared with us Murgatroyds.”
His face assumed a gloomy pride, as he said this, but he quickly lost that expression. “Except for me,” he added. “I just naturally can’t make myself live up to the curse.”
“But why should it bother you?” Jones asked. “I thought you said it was the first baronet whom the witch cursed.”
“Runs in the family,” the other explained. “We have to do an evil deed every day, but I only sort of fake it. Makes the older baronets furious, and they come from their graves and devil me. Gives me insomnia.”
He seemed well disposed toward us, but under the circumstances and as long as he was a justice of the peace, I thought it best to show him our hearts were kind. “That’s bad,” I said, clicking my tongue and shaking my head.
“What I want to know,” Golias said, “is how you avoid fatal consequences, if you’re not fulfilling the terms?”
Murgatroyd looked embarrassed. “Oh, I promise to do better, and that’s a lie, you know, and helps some. Then I do do some things, like abducting innocent girls. Of course, I see that they’re home before it’s late, and I always let their parents know where
they are, so they won’t be wor — Ah, there’s my carriage now, I think. I asked my man to pick me up here.”
With the words he trotted over to the side of the road and gazed toward the bend around which we had come. I, too, could hear horses approaching, and in a moment four of them appeared, drawing a gaily painted vehicle. They were traveling fast, but the driver brought them to an abrupt halt. A man jumped from the seat beside him and gave the baronet a salute.
“She’s been run off with, your honor.”
“Good, good,” Sir Despard stroked his phony moustache. “Er — did she scream?”
The man looked concerned. “I had to pay extra to have her scream. She done a pretty good job, though.”
“Worth it, then,” the baronet decided. “Take me home, and then you’d best go back after her. We wouldn’t want to make her late for tea.”
“Rather not!” the other agreed. He opened the door of the coach and gave Murgatroyd a boost in. The latter waved to us as he seated himself. The former sprang back to the seat beside the driver. The driver cracked a twenty foot whip. The horses sprang forward.
To my surprise I found myself wishing that the baronet had stayed a little longer. “At times,” I chuckled, “there’s no better company than an earnest nut. Just the same, I’m glad he took those other two away before they saw the old hag.”
“I was worrying about that myself,” Jones said. “But I’m sure they didn’t, as she was well back in the shade.”
“Keeping right still and not making a sound,” Golias added. “Well, we better get her down before somebody else comes along.”
Glancing at the crone with distaste, I decided to stall a moment longer. “What do you figure was really the matter with that screwball?”
“Why, you heard him,” Lucius protested. “The poor devil’s under a curse! Having the same affliction, I can tell you it’s no fun.”
“A curse often livens things up,” Golias asserted, “but one ought to be tried on for size before a man walks off with it.” He seemed pleased with his thoughts. “That’s the trouble with hand-me-downs. Speaking of which, will you hand her down to me, or shall I hand her down to you?”