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Poor Tilly was sandwiched between the two village worthies, pale as a slice of
cheese between hunks of good brown bread. One hand clutched a brimming mug of
ale, the other held onto his knobbly knees for dear life. "I -- I doubt I
ought," he replied, setting the mug aside and using both hands to safeguard his
knees from any prowling joint-bandits.
A chorus of objections came from the merry villagers filling the garland-hung
room. Jolly faces beamed at the guest of honor where he sat in splendor on a
huge plush armchair before the roaring fire. Granny Bones and the blacksmith
perched on the plum-colored armrests like a pair of upholstery gargoyles.
Against one wall Olivia could see a groening board of gargantuan proportions,
laden with all manner of succulent seasonal delicacies --roast goose, mince
pies, syllabub, a holly-crowned boar's head, partridges roasted and regarbed in
the gaudy plumage they had worn in life, a brimming punchbowl where whitecaps of
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"lambswool" bobbed alongside wizened crabapples.
The ancient noddy who called himself Merlin was manning the ladle. "Drink up,
drink up!" he insisted. "We're all friends here. Nothing like a good stoup of
ale to welcome in the festive season. Unless you'd fancy a measure of this?" He
doled out a cupful of punch and offered it to Telemachus.
"No, no, really, I couldn't." Tilly's hand was shaking as he waved off the
oldman's hospitality. "Besides, I-- I should think you'd prefer me to keep my
wits about me. If I should stumble in the procession tomorrow, it might disturb
the holiness of the occasion, ruin the sacrifice, and so forth."
Tomorrow! The word slammed Olivia's heart. But tomorrow was only Thursday. Her
womanly self exclaimed, Oh, poor Tilly! Her scholarly side huffed, They are
supposed to hold the Yuletide sacrifice on Friday! Haven't these stupid pagans
read the right books?
"Blest be t' heart o' 'un." Granny Bones chuckled warmly. "Heaven love 'ee,
child, nowt ye could do as'd harm our solemnities. They a'n't too picky over
what we offers 'em. Not like soom." Her sparkling eyes dimmed. A look of gravest
concern momentarily froze her features. She made a strange, unchristian sign
over herself-- a slithery passage of the hand from shoulder to shoulder-- which
was aped by every villager there present.
"I take it-- I take that they are your gods?" Telemachus asked. But before he
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could obtain an answer, there came a harsh crash at the door, then another, then
a third which splintered the portal at the lockplate and spent it swinging wide
open to the wintry blast.
"Don't worry, Tilly!" Olivia cried, brandishing the tongs. "I'll save you!"
"Oh, for -- !" The old man by the punchbowl made a face. "Young woman, in decent
society we are taught to knock." He raised the ladle and wigwagged it in the
air. Olivia was swept from her feet on what looked like a sparkling cloud of
pastel fireflies and plunked down on a chair which sprang up like a mushroom
from the floor right beside Tilly's seat. When she attempted to rise from her
place, still swinging the tongs wildly, her weapon of choice transformed itself
into an infant ferret which ducked into her sleeve. Much shrill squealing and a
couple of minutes' worth of amateur Irish jigging later, she managed to evict
it. Paisley Bloodwell lured it off with a pheasant leg and peace returned.
Olivia hid her face in her hands and sobbed.
"Miss Drum-- Olivia." Warm hands closed over her shaking shoulders. "Please
don't carry on so. I shan't have a minute's peace going to my death if you won't
stop crying over me."
The general level of jollity pervading the gathering vanished like a drop of oil
in the Atlantic. "Death?" Bloodwell the tapster repeated. "Here, now! Ye told
auld Granny as ye was in t' pink. Ye han't bin aholdin' back anything now has
'ee?"
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"Arr," Ham Dethalter concurred. "Gin ye're summa, betooken wi' t' rheumatics,
'twould be wicked evil doin's at t' ritchul, an' no mistake."
Almost without thinking, Olivia found herself melting into Telemachus' arms.
From this haven she raised her head and bitterly confronted the villagers. "How
kind of you to insist that your human sacrifices die in good health."
"Wot?"
"Human?"
"Sackereefices?"
The silver-headed gaffer self-yclept Merlin rolled his eyes. "Not again!" he
exclaimed, plainly at the tether's end. "Oh, he'll laugh himself silly, if he
wasn't such a vicious bastard." Eyes boring gimlet holes into Olivia and
Telemachus he spat, "Bloody folklorical fools."
Telemachus looked entirely bewildered, but his protective embrace around
Olivia's shoulders did not falter. "Eh?" he inquired. "Then am I-- am I to
understand that the rite for which you require my person tomorrow does not also
require my life?"
"You might say that," Merlin replied dryly. "If you weren't such a book-bound
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idiot."
"Oh, I say!" Telemachus took umbrage.
"If I'd've had it my way," the codger continued, "I'd've tossed the two of you
down Hob's Chimbley and left you there for a Yuletide gift, but what can I do?"
His expansive gesture took in the whole room and the villagers therein. "My
hands are tied. I'm only here on sufferance, and even in my day it wasn't the
done thing to insult the prejudices of one's host. Bread and salt and all that
claptrap."
"'Twere a Bloodwell as found 'im," said the innkeeper of the same family name,
cocking a calloused thumb at the old man. "Aye, just amucklin' through t' woods,
old Orsli Bloodwell were, when he spies this fine old oak an' thinks to hisself,
he do, what a prime log un'd make for t' cruel winter wot was comin'."
"I was lucky he didn't chop my ankles off when he felled my tree." Clearly
Merlin did not share the innkeeper's worshipful pride in the Bloodwell family's
great historical accomplishment. "But he did not, so there you are. There I was,
rather. One look and the good fellow bundled me straightaway home with him to
this sweet place. Oh, it was a fine change from the hustle-bustle of Camelot,
with all its intrigue and treachery and illicit bed warming and Esus knows
what-all, I can tell you! I half believe I allowed that sluttish chit of a
Nimue-person to imprison me with my own magic just so I could get a few hours of
peace and quiet."
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"A few hours?" Olivia was incredulous. "But if what you say is so, it was more
like a few centuries."
Merlin made a wry face. "Madam, you exaggerate, although not by much. The
trouble was, the little strumpet took to magic like a salamander to the flames.
Oh she did a bang-up job on me, all right, in more ways than one. I was quite
glad of some human companionship by the time Paisley's great-grandfather broke
me out. You can't get any intelligent conversation out of beetles, you know, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]