“And should they not wish to perform such duty?” asked Elric quietly.
“Ah, well, sir, I can see that you are indeed a philosopher. Things so abstruse are beyond me, I fear, sir. But there are people in Trollon who would be only too pleased to debate such abstractions.” He patted Elric amiably upon the shoulder. “Indeed, I can think of more than one friend of mine who will gladly welcome you.”
“A prosperous place, this Trollon.” The Rose looked through the gaps in the buildings to where similar villages moved at a similar pace.
“Well, we like to preserve certain standards, madam. I will arrange for your receipts.”
“I do not think we plan to trade our horses here,” said Elric. “We need to travel on as soon as possible.”
“And travel you shall, sir. Travel, after all, is in our blood. But we must put your horses to work. Or, sir,” he uttered a little snigger, “we shall not be traveling far at all, eh?”
Again a glance from the Rose stilled Elric’s retort. But he was growing increasingly impatient as he thought of his dead father and the threat which hung over them both.
“We are only too happy to accept your hospitality,” said the Rose diplomatically. “Are we the only people to join Trollon in recent days?”
“Did you have friends come ahead of you, lady?”
“Three sisters, perhaps?” suggested Wheldrake.
“Three sisters?” He shook his head. “I should have known if I had seen them, sir. But I will send enquiry of our neighbouring villages. Meanwhile, if you are hungry, I shall be only too happy to loan you a few credits. We have some wonderful restaurants in Trollon.”
It was clear that there was little poverty in Trollon. The paint was fresh and the glass sparkling, while the streets were neat and clean as anything Elric had ever seen.
“It seems all the squalor and hardship is kept out of sight below,” whispered Wheldrake. “I shall be glad to leave this place, Prince Elric.”
“We might find ourselves in difficulties when we decide to end our stay.” The Rose was careful not to be overheard. “Do they plan to make slaves of us, like those poor wretches down there?”
“I would guess they have no immediate intention of sending us to their marching boards,” said Elric, “but I have no doubt they want us for our muscles and our horses as much as for our company. I do not intend to remain long in this place if I cannot quickly discover some clue to what I seek. I have little time.” His old arrogance was returning. His old impatience.
He tried to quell them, as signs of the disease which had led to his present dilemma. He hated his own blood, his sorcery, his reliance upon his runesword, or other extraordinary means of sustenance. And when Amarine Goodool brought them into the village square (complete with shops and public buildings and houses of evident age) to meet a committee of welcome, Elric was less than warm, though he knew that lies, hypocrisy and deception were the order of the moment. His attempt to smile did not bring any answering gaiety.
“Gweetings, gweetings,” cried an apparition in green, with a little pointed beard and a hat threatening to engulf his entire head and half his body. “On behalf of the Twollon weins-men and -morts, may we vawda yoah eeks with joy. Or, in the common speech, you must considah us all, now, your bwothahs and sistahs. My name is Filigwip Nant and I wun the theatwicals …” Whereupon he proceeded to introduce a miscellaneous group of people with odd-sounding names, peculiar accents and unnatural complexions whose appearance seemed to fill Wheldrake with horrified recognition. “It could be the Putney Fine Arts Society,” he murmured, “or worse, the Surbiton Poetasters—I have been a reluctant guest of them both, and many more. Ilkley, as I recall, was the worst …” and he lapsed into his own gloomy contemplations as, with a smile no more convincing than the albino’s, he suffered the roll-call of parochial fame, until he opened his little beak to a sky still filled with cloud and spray and began a kind of protective declamation which had him surrounded at once by green, black and purple velvet, by rustling brocade and romantic lace, by the scent of a hundred garden flowers and herbs, by the gypsy literati. And borne away.
The Rose and Elric also had their share of temporary acolytes. This was clearly a village of some wealth, which yearned for novelty.
“We’re very cosmopolitan, you know, in Trollon. Like most of the ‘diddicoyim’ (ha, ha) villages, we are now almost wholly made up from outsiders. I, myself, am an outsider. From another realm, you know. From Heeshigrowinaaz, actually. Are you familiar—?” A middle-aged woman with an elaborate wig and considerable paint linked her bangled arm in Elric’s. “I’m Parapha Foz. My husband’s Barraban Foz, of course. Isn’t it boring?”
“I have the feeling,” said the Rose in an undertone as she went by with her own burden of enthusiasts, “that this is to be the greatest ordeal of them all …”
But it seemed to Elric that she was also amused, especially by his own expression.
And he bowed, with graceful irony, to the inevitable.
There followed a number of initiating rituals with which Elric was unfamiliar, but which Wheldrake dreaded as being all too familiar, and the Rose accepted, as if she, too, had once known such experiences better.
There were meals and speeches and performances, tours of the oldest and quaintest parts of the village, small lectures on its history and its architecture and how wonderfully it had been restored until Elric, brooding always on his father’s stolen soul, wished that they would turn into something with which he could more easily contend—like the hopping, slittering, drooling monsters of Chaos or some unreasonable demigod. He had rarely wished so longingly to draw his sword and let it silence this mélange of prejudice, semi-ignorance, snobbery and received opinion, of loud, superior voices so thoroughly reassured by all they met and read that they believed themselves confidently, unvulnerably, totally in control of reality …
And all the while Elric thought of the poor souls below, pressing their bodies against the marching boards and sending this village, in concert with all the other free gypsy villages, in its relentless progress, inch by inch, around the world.
Unused to gaining the information he required by any means less direct than torture, Elric left it to the Rose to glean whatever she could and eventually, when they were alone together, Wheldrake having been taken as a trophy to sport at some dinner, she relaxed into a mood of satisfaction. They had been given adjoining rooms in what they were assured was the best inn of its sort in any of the second-rank villages. Tomorrow, they were told, they would be shown what apartments were available to them.
“We have survived this first day well, I think,” she said, sitting on a chest to remove her doeskin boots. “We have proven interesting enough to them so that we still have our lives, relative liberty and, most important now, I think, our swords …”
“You mistrust them thoroughly, then?” The albino looked curiously at the Rose as she shook out her pale red-gold hair and peeled off her brown jerkin to reveal a blouse of dark yellow. “I have never encountered such folk before.”
“Save that they are drawn from every part of the multiverse, they are very much of a type I left behind me long ago and like poor Wheldrake hoped never to encounter again. The sisters reached the Gypsy Nation less than a week before we did. The woman who told me this had it from a woman she knows in the next village. The sisters, however, were accepted by a village of the forward rank.”
“And we can find them there?” Elric knew so much relief he only then realized how desperate he had become.
“Not so easily. We have no invitation to visit the village. There are forms to be observed before we can receive such an invitation. However, I also learned that Gaynor, of whom you spoke, is here, though he disappeared almost immediately and no-one has any notion of his whereabouts.”
“He has not left the Nation?”
“I gather that is not easily done, even by the likes of Gaynor.” There was suddenly an extra bitterness to her voice.
&nb
sp; “It is forbidden?”
“Nothing,” she echoed sardonically, “is forbidden in the Gypsy Nation. Unless,” she added, “it is change of any kind!”
“Then why was the boy killed?”
“They tell me they know nothing about it. They told me they thought I was probably mistaken. They said they felt it was morbid to study the garbage heaps and think one saw things lurking in them. In short, as far as they are concerned, no boy was killed.”
“He was trying to escape, however. We both saw that. From what, my lady?”
“They will not say, Prince Elric. There are subjects forbidden by good manners, it seems. As in many societies, I suppose, where the very fundamentals of their existence are the subject of the deepest taboos. What is this terror of reality, I wonder, which plagues the human spirit?”
“I am not, at present, looking for the answers to such questions, madam,” said Elric, finding even the Rose’s speculations irritating after so much babble. “My own view is that we should leave Trollon and head back to the village which accepted the three sisters. Did they know the name?”
“Duntrollin. Odd that they should accept the sisters at all. They are some kind of warrior-order, I understand, pledged to the defense of the road and its travelers. The Gypsy Nation is comprised of thousands of such mobile cantons, each with its peculiar contribution to the whole. A dream of democratic perfection, one might suppose.”
“Were it not for the marching boards,” said Elric, disturbed, even now, to know that as he prepared himself for rest, the great platform on which all this existed was being pushed gradually forward by emaciated men, women and children.
He slept badly that night, though he was not plagued by his usual nightmares. And for that small mercy he was grateful.
Breakfasting in a common hall, still hygienically free of any sign of a real commoner, served by young women in peasant frocks who found their work amusing rather than arduous, like children in a play, the three friends again shared what little they had discovered.
“They never stop moving,” said Wheldrake. “The very thought is hideous to them. They believe their entire society will be destroyed if once they bring this vast caravan to a halt. So their hoi polloi, whatever their circumstances, push, with or without the help of horses, the villages on. And it is debtors and vagabonds and defaulters and creators of minor grievances who make up the throng walking on the road. These are, as it were, middle-class offenders of no great consequence. The fear of all is that they should join those at the marching boards and therefore lose their status and most chances of regaining it again. Their morals and their laws are based upon the rock, as it were, of perpetual motion. The boy wanted to stop walking, I gather, and there is only one rule where that is concerned—Move or Die. And Move Forward Always. I’ve lived in Gloriana’s age, and Victoria’s, and Elizabeth’s, yet never have I encountered quite such fascinating and original hypocrisies.”
“Are there no exceptions? Must everyone constantly move?” asked the Rose.
“There are no exceptions.” Wheldrake helped himself to a dish of mixed meats and cheeses. “I must say that their standard of cuisine is excellent. One becomes so grateful for such things. If you were ever, for instance, in Ripon and had a positive dislike of the pie, you would starve.” He poured himself a little light beer. “So we have our sisters. We believe Gaynor could be with them. We now need an invitation to Duntrollin, I take it. Which reminds me, why have they not asked you to give up your weapons? None here appears to sport a blade.”
“I think they might be our next means of earning a season or two away from the boards,” said Elric, who had also considered this. “They have no need to demand them. They will, they believe, possess them soon—for rent, or food or whatever it is they know people always prefer to liberty …” And he chewed moodily on his bread and stared into the middle-distance, lost in some unhappy memory.
“Thus by deep injustice is that Unjust State upheld;
Thus by gags of deedless piety old Albion’s voice is still’d.”
intoned the little poet, rather mournful himself. “Is there no luxury that is not the creation of someone else’s misery?” he wondered. “Was there ever a world where all were equal?”
“Oh, indeed,” said the Rose with some alacrity. “Indeed, there was. My own!” And then she hesitated, thought better of her outburst, and fell silent over her porridge, leaving the others at something of a loss for conversation.
“Why, I wonder, are we discouraged from leaving this paradise?” said Elric at last. “How does the Gypsy Nation justify its strictures?”
“By one of a thousand similar arguments, friend Elric, I’m sure. Something circular, no doubt. And singularly apt, all in all. One is never short of metaphors as one travels the multiverse.”
“I suppose not, Master Wheldrake. But perhaps that circular argument is the only means by which any of us rationalizes their existence?”
“Indeed, sir. Quite likely.”
And now the Rose was joining in with sotto voce reminders to Wheldrake that they were not here as Detectives of the Abstract but were searching with some urgency for the three sisters, who carried with them certain objects of power—or, at least, a key to the discovery of those objects. Wheldrake, knowing his own weakness for such tempting trains of thought, apologized. But before they could resume the subject of leaving Trollon and somehow gaining access to Duntrollin the outer doors of the room swung inwards to reveal a magnificent figure, all ballooning silks and lace, a mighty wig staggering on his head and his exquisite face painted with all the subtlety of a Jharkorian concubine.
“Forgive my interrupting your breakfast. My name is Vailadez Rench, at your service. I am here, dear friends, to offer you a choice of accommodation, so that you may begin to fit in with our community as quickly as possible. I gather you have the means of taking quarters of the better type?”
Having no choice for the moment, unless they were to arouse the Trollonian’s suspicions, they followed meekly in Vailadez Rench’s wake as the tall exquisite led them through the tidy and rather over-polished lanes of his picturesque little town. And still, inch by inch, the Gypsy Nation rolled on along the road it had beaten for centuries, creating a momentum that must be maintained above all other considerations. And forever returning to the identical point of arrival and departure.
They were shown a house upon the edge of the platform, looking out over the walls towards the distant walkers and the other snail-crawling settlements. They were shown apartments in quaint old gabled houses or converted from warehouses or stores, and eventually they were led by Vailadez Rench, whose sole conversation revolved, like some tight-wrought fugue, about the subject of Property, its desirability and its value, to a little house with a patch of garden outside it, the walls covered in climbing tea-roses and brilliant nunshabit, all glowing purples and golds, the windows glittering and framed by lace, and smelling sweet and fresh as spring from the herb-beds and the flowers; the Rose clapped her hands and for a moment it was clear she was tempted by the house, with its crooked roof and time-black gables. Something within her longed for such ordinary beauty and comfort. And Elric saw her expression change and she looked away. “It’s pretty, this house,” she said. “Perhaps it could be shared by all of us?”
“Oh, yes. It has a family, you see. Quite large. But they had their tragedies, you know, and must leave.” Vailadez Rench sighed, then grinned and wagged a finger at her. “You’ve chosen the most expensive, yet! You have taste, dear lady.”
Wheldrake, who had taken a gloomy dislike of this Paladin of Property, made some graceless remark which was ignored by everyone, for all their different reasons. He reached his nose towards a luscious paeony bush. “Is their scent here?”
Vailadez Rench rapped upon a door he could not open. “They were given their documents. They should be gone. There was some kind of disaster … Well, we must be merciful, I suppose, and thank the stars we are not ourselves sliding towards t
he board-hold and the eternal tramp.”
The door was opened with a snap—wide—and there stood before them a disheveled, round-eyed, red-faced fellow, almost as tall as Elric, with a quill in one hand and an inkpot in the other. “Dear sir! Dear sir! Bear with me, I beg you. I am at this very moment addressing a letter to a relative. There is no question of my credit. You know yourself what delays exist, these days, between the villages.” He scratched his untidy, corn-coloured hair with the nib of his pen, causing dark green ink to run down his forehead and give him something of the appearance of a demented savage prepared for war. While his alert blue eyes went from face to face, his lips appealed. “I have such clients! Bills are not paid, you know, by dead people. Or by disappointed people. I am a clairvoyant. It is my vocation. My dear mother is a clairvoyant, and my brothers and sisters and, greatest of all, my noble son, Koropith. My Uncle Grett was famous across the Nation and beyond. Still more famous were we all before our fall.”
“Your fall, sir?” asked Wheldrake, very curious and taking to the man at once. “Your debts?”
“Debt, sir, has pursued us across the multiverse. That is a constant, sir. It is our constant, at least. I speak of our fall from the king’s favour, in the land my family had made its own and hoped to settle. Salgarafad, it was called, in a rim-sphere long forgotten by the Old Gardener, and why should it be otherwise? But death is not our fault, sir. It is not. We are friends to Death, but not His servants. And the king swore we had brought the plague by predicting it. And so we were forced to flee. Politics, in my view, had much to do with the matter. But we are not permitted to the counsels of the steersmen, let alone the Lords of the Higher Worlds, whom we serve, sir, in our own way, my family and myself.”
This speech concluded, he drew breath, put one inky fist upon his right hip, the second, still holding the bottle, he rested across his chest. “The credits are,” he insisted, “in the post.”
“Then you can be found easily enough, dear sir, and reinstated here. Perhaps another house? But I would remind you, your credits were based upon certain services performed by your sister and your uncle on behalf of the community. And they are no longer resident here.”