I was just about to suggest to Golias that as long as nobody was there, we might as well leave, when he called out: “Deiphobe, we would hear the voice of the Delian.”
To my dismay the answer came from all directions at once, including behind us. “Who comes to seek word from the Delian, and by what right do you trouble him?”
“We are Demodocus the Maker and Shandon Silverlock,” Golias called back, “and we have no claim against his kindness save that of men helpless without it.”
There was silence for a few moments. “The voice of the all knowing one will come to you,” we then heard. “It will give the solution to whatever problem absorbs each of you. That and nothing else.”
“We’ve got to concentrate,” Golias whispered. “Keep your brain nailed down to just what we want, and we’ll find how to get good old Lucius straightened out.”
In the stretched minutes which followed I tried to do precisely that. Yet it turned out to be more than I could manage. I started out all right by wishing Lucius could be turned into a man again; but after it was jerked back into line a few times, my mind pursued its natural course of skipping from one point to another.
My chain of thoughts in this instance had a logical sequence. From bearing on Jones’ release from donkeydom, the next jump was in the direction of his ultimate goal. If he achieved that, which is to say his marriage to Hermione and settling down to the management of his affairs in general, our scheduled connection with him would end. That raised the question as to what would happen next, which in turn promoted the query: what did I wish to do? With that query all the inchoate desires which had visited me during the quiet of nights on the raft revived and took over my mind. If they were complex when separately considered, they teamed to give a simple answer. Like all travelers in a country which interests them, I longed to be an initiate instead of a neophyte.
I had just arrived at that conclusion when Deiphobe finally came to stand on the edge of darkness. So placed, only the highlights of her features were visible. They outlined a face as impersonal as time. I could see only the sockets of her eyes, but it overawed me to be aware of the passionless knowledge they must contain. Nevertheless, I could not look away from them, and in a moment they stopped the clock on my thinking. Until they should turn away from me, my brain’s only function was to be a receptacle for what she might have to say.
So I was not really disturbed when she went into a fit. She writhed and slavered, but as she did not take her eyes from us, I waited, neither patiently nor impatiently, until the frothing lips began to bark words.
“Demodocus the Maker,” she yelped, and the chorus of echoes took it up, “the Delian answers the questions which trouble you. Your friend who is now an ass can regain human form only by eating fresh rose petals. He will find the secret of his paternity and the woman he desires for his mate at Chapel Perilous.”
“I thank the great Delian,” Golias said with a bow. “It’s time to go.” He plucked me by the sleeve as he whispered the words; but I didn’t turn, because I knew I must wait.
“Shandon Silverlock,” Deiphobe now cried in her harsh, high monotone, “the Delian answers the problem which troubles you. His decree is that you attempt the pilgrimage to Hippocrene.”
As soon as she was silent, she stopped shaking, swaying, and slavering. “Leave,” she ordered us, and I discovered I had the ability to comply.
I was careful not to look at Golias for a minute after we stepped from the blackness of the passageway back into the gloom of the grove. Something had to be said, though.
“It’s a good thing one of us kept his eye on the ball. Lucius would have stayed a jackass for any help I gave him.”
“Oh, as long as we got the job done, that part of it’s all right.” Even in the poor light I could see how soberly he looked at me. “It’s you that I’m worried about now. You don’t know it, I suppose, but you just pushed yourself into a tight spot. The trip to Hippocrene is a rough assignment.”
The seriousness of his tone impressed me. “Heck; if it’s that bad, I won’t try it.”
He snorted. “That wasn’t an option you were offered; that was the high command giving an order. It may be different outside the Commonwealth — I wouldn’t know — but inside it such things as economic, moral, political, social, theological, sentimental, and scientific laws are vain pretenders to authority.” Golias made a gesture of sweeping finality. “Here there is only Delian Law, and anyone rebel to it has swift burial and a water color epitaph.”
Listening to him, I nearly bumped into a tree but side-stepped just in time. “Quit scaring me with generalities,” I suggested, “and give me facts. What’s so hard about getting to this Hippocrene place?”
“There’s no use in going into that until we find out whether we’re going to survive winding up Lucius’ affairs.” If his words couldn’t be called cheerful, his tone showed me that he had temporarily shaken off foreboding. “Hey, Lucius!” he shouted, as we came in sight of the two animals. “Come here and get a long earful of good news!”
22
Activities at the Chapel
AMONG THE THINGS Golias had taken thought to procure from Gwynn Uriens MacLir was a small supply of food. It was so limited in quantity, however, that we agreed — Jones as yet having no voice — that as long as Lucius could get by on leaves and grass, he’d have to lump it. At that we were able to set aside no more than a snack for breakfast the next day.
While we ate supper we sat looking out over the darkened water, which Golias told me was the southwestern tip of Gitche Gumee, and discussed the project before us. “Where are we going to find roses this late in the summer?” I asked.
“You mean in the fall,” Golias mumbled. He swallowed, then used the flask of wine to clear a path for further speech. “Damned if I know where to go for roses, but I figure we ought to start looking at Chapel Perilous itself. It’s been seven weeks since we set out, and I — ”
“Holy cow! Has it been that long?” Then I thought back. “I guess it has,” I answered myself. “And Ravan said he might be back by now.”
“That’s our indicator,” Golias nodded. “We’ve got to go there first to see what Hermione’s situation is. As it’s far in the south, there’ll be roses in that vicinity if anywhere. Besides, I think that’s what the Delian meant for us to do.”
With the nag’s cooperation we remounted and left the miles behind in the night. The wind of passage made me drowsy. If I didn’t actually sleep much, I was between a doze and a stupor most of the night. It wasn’t until day had been a fact for a couple of hours that I shook the feathers out of my mind.
About the time I did so the nag abruptly stopped. There was no apparent reason. Nothing was in sight but trees.
“What’s the pitch?” I asked Golias.
“I don’t know, but we’d better look around,” he decided.
I was so stiff, when I followed him in his drop to the ground, that I fell down. The horse was in the act of plucking Jones from his back by the time I had picked myself up. Quickly but not roughly it set the donkey on the ground — and then the huge beast simply wasn’t there.
“That should mean we’re about where we want to be,” Golias said, while I was blinking dazedly. “Now that we’re afoot I can see open country.”
The forest line was indeed only some fifty yards off. Where the trees stopped the country fell away to give us a view I didn’t admire. Its chief natural feature was a swamp which filled the bottom of the valley. There was little color to take the curse off the dead reeds, dirty pools and water-poisoned trees. Buzzards, flying low to suggest carrion was handy, presided over this expanse of ugliness. Above and in the background was a dull sky.
Man’s contribution to the scene was a building whose walls and towers climbed out of the very middle of the swamp. There was no use in asking whether that was the place we were going. I knew it.
“Let’s eat while we still can,” I said. “Though I must say I’d never tell the
sight-seers that was a church.”
“The chapel’s just beyond.” Golias was fishing our food out of a bundle largely composed of clothes for Jones and a whacking big sword. “We’ve got to go through the castle to reach it.”
I watched one of the buzzards drop out of the sky. “It doesn’t look like much of a spot for roses.”
“It may not be,” he admitted. “The only time I was ever in the chapel was with Lancelot, and we had other things on the docket. I wish we had some of that wine left.”
“I wish we had a couple of stiff jolts of drinking whiskey,” I said.
The approach to the castle was a road which we reached after a half-hour of downhill walking. Following it into a patch of woods, we discovered a thing which the trees had previously concealed. A considerable body of men, lounging amidst a gay assortment of tents, was encamped there. Some weapons were in evidence, but if it was a military camp, it was one untroubled by officers. Early as it was, quite a bit of boozing was in progress, although gambling was the principal occupation.
“All you need for success at this is a good eye,” one professional shark was announcing. “The shells can’t outguess you, and the pea can’t walk off the table, you know. It’s bound to be under one of the three, and a good eye — I’ll admit it takes a good eye — can follow it and find it. Just lift up the right one, and it is no more possible for the pea to hide from you than it is for the shell to conceal it.”
Glancing around as he talked, the man suddenly waved a long, bony arm. “Hi, Golias.” His voice was cordial, but his wild-eyed horse face was unsmiling. “Would you like to try this wonderful, new game of chance I’ve just invented?”
“No, thanks, Tyl.”
“But as I was telling these gentlemen,” Tyl persisted, “it’s excellent training for the eye, it gives the mind practice in forming rapid decisions — ”
“And,” Golias took him up, “it is harmless to the lights and liver, doesn’t stunt your growth, eases pay day itch, and is an education in itself. But just now I’d like to be educated along different lines. What’s this camp for, for instance? They got company at the castle?”
“Just the arch king,” Tyl drawled. “This roost is for the overflow of the free feeders he brought with him.”
Golias exchanged glances with me. “Do you know why Jamshyd is here?” he asked the gambler.
“I do not,” the latter informed him, “enjoy his majesty’s confidence, or things would be run much better than they are. However, I am at liberty to disclose that there must be big doings today. Every fancy pants in the carnival made for the castle right after breakfast.”
As we were starting on our way again, Tyl called after us. “You figuring on getting in there, Golias?”
“Yes, why?”
“Well, if they don’t chop you up before they throw you out, I’ve got a proposition for you. I’ll wait around.”
“I don’t like the fact that the king’s here,” I confided to Golias. “If Deiphobe was right about Hermione being on the premises — Well, if his nibs thinks as much of Ravan as he’s supposed to, wouldn’t it be natural for him to turn up for the wedding?”
“It would, especially as Jamshyd’s sanction is the only thing that gives Ravan the nerve to be so high handed.” To spare Jones’ feelings both of us had been speaking softly, but now he dropped his voice to a whisper. “If all the nobles have been summoned to the castle, as Tyl claims, it might mean that the wedding is due to come off today.”
Low as we had pitched our voices, Jones’ outsize ears had picked up our words. Golias had hardly expressed his fear, when, with a startled grunt, Lucius charged full speed down the narrow causeway which connected the castle with solid ground.
“Hold it!” we chorused, but as it was obvious that he wasn’t going to, we broke into a run also. Donkeys not being built for racing, he didn’t get far away from us, but neither could we gain. Cursing and panting, we trailed him through the bog toward a danger we would have preferred to approach cautiously.
Nor was this all there was to aggravate us. Somehow there are few things that rejoice spectators more than the sight of men vainly pursuing a supposedly domesticated animal. Soldiers on duty on the wall above the castle gate saw us and were overjoyed. To my chagrin they commenced roaring with laughter, and to their delight I tried harder than ever to seize Jones’ tail and stop the ridiculous procession.
“Three to two on the jackass!” one fellow cried.
“Which one?” another was careful to enquire.
“Eight to five silvertop there busts a gut,” a third offered.
I didn’t quite do that, but I had used up my sprint and began to fall behind. Seeing that, as well as the general futility of the pursuit, Golias slowed to a walk.
“Ease up,” he advised. “We’ll need our breath.”
We were then close to the walls, and Lucius was right under them. I don’t suppose it had occurred to him until that moment that he had no means of bargaining for entry. He had simply dashed ahead, driven by a vision of Hermione’s danger. Having crossed the bridge leading to the gateway, however, he was visited with a full knowledge of his helplessness. He saw he could accomplish nothing, yet he had to make the effort. With a loud bray of protest, he threw himself against the mighty gate, to bounce back, half stunned.
I thought some of those guards would fall off the wall and fervently hoped so. My next thought was that we had no better chance of getting inside than the donkey. In the third place I sneakingly wished we wouldn’t succeed. The idea of having those iron bars close behind me gave me gooseflesh.
“I don’t know about the chapel,” I said aside to Golias, “but I bet this is Castle Dangerous.”
“Nope, Nigramous,” he contradicted me. His eyes were fixed on the laughing men above us. “If the Porter is at his post, which one is he?”
At this formal appeal one of them checked his mirth. “I, Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr; and I’m the one to ask questions here, not you.” He didn’t succeed in his attempt to look forbidding, and I saw that the whole crew had been hitting the bottle. “What are you doing here? Nobody’s to cross the drawbridge today without an invitation from my Lord Ravan.”
“We were just following our pet donkey,” Golias said.
“He didn’t look very tame to me,” Gavaelvawr declared. He nudged the man next to him, as he made this statement, and they all howled. “I was afraid he was going to wreck the portcullis.”
It was apparent that Lucius’ antics had made them genial where they would otherwise have been tough. Perceiving that, Golias made haste to act before they could become tired of us. Whatever he whispered into Lucius’ ear, it must have had to do with Hermione, because Jones came out of his daze and gave him his full attention.
“All right, Lucius,” Golias said loudly. “We’ve been told that the arch king is in the castle here. What would you give to see his august and thrice gracious majesty?”
For answer the donkey lay down, rolled over on his back, and closed his eyes. “Oh, you’d give your life and feel lucky to do it?” Golias pursued. “But suppose you were still living when you saw him. What would you do then?”
Scrambling to his feet, Jones went down on his knees and touched his head to the ground, as he had once done before Semiramis. The porter and his subordinates laughed again, but now their mirth was appreciative rather than derisive. Golias put Lucius through a few more tricks before he tried to take advantage of this change in attitude. Finally, though, he turned and made Gavaelvawr a showman’s bow.
“We’re strolling entertainers who’d like our opportunity to amuse the glorious inmates of the castle — and to collect gloriously from them. What’s the chances?”
“H-m-m, I’m not supposed to let anyone in without Don Rodrigo’s orders,” the Porter said, “but he’s already given entry to a lot of minstrels and what not.”
“Aw, this is a good act,” one of his men said. “I think the king himself would get a bang out of it. Bes
ides, Ravan’ll never know he didn’t give his O.K. He’s got something else on his mind.”
“What’s the sword for, first?” Gavaelvawr demanded, pointing to the hilt sticking out from the bundle Golias carried.
“Just one of our props.” Golias drew the sword, threw his head back and, to my astonishment, lowered a foot and a half of the weapon into his gullet. “See?” he inquired, when he had removed the blade.
“Haul up the portcullis,” the Porter ordered.
Within we found ourselves in a paved court yard surrounding a second wall. The gate to this was not closed, and the guards didn’t so much as break up their gabfest to look at us. It was certainly a day of celebration when such laxness was permitted. Without consulting each other, Golias and I started walking faster.
“We’ll try the pleasance for flowers,” Golias said, as we skirted the main inner building. “Of course, if the ladies are using it, it might be worth our necks; but I’m not sure that’s saying much today anyhow.”
The entrance to the wall-enclosed garden to which he led me was not guarded, and a glance showed us it wasn’t occupied. “Inside, quick, before somebody spots us,” Golias ordered.
Alert to the occasion, Jones trotted ahead of us. Yet it took only a minute to see we were taking a vain risk. I recognized, without being able to name them, a variety of late-blooming flowers, none of them any variety of rose. And what made our disappointment doubly hard to accept was a profusion of barren bushes to show how common the blossom we sought had been earlier in the year.
“We’d better try the church yard,” I said, glad to be able to suggest getting out of there.
“Look, Shandon,” Golias said, as we left, “have you seen anybody stirring since we came into the inner court — anybody at all?”
While I was thinking, I realized why he had asked the question. “No,” I replied. “There must be a gathering some place.”