The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken

  A wide clay shelf along the side of the building was evidently meant to serve both as a table, chairs and bed, for any travellers making use of the place. Lieutenant Windward heaped some ruanas on a section of this near the fire, and then assisted the rescued captive to lie down.

  'How are you feeling now, Miss?' he inquired very politely.

  The fire blazed up. Dido could see now that the prisoner was a girl perhaps four years older than herself. Elen wore a very plain grey dress with a white tucker, and a brown pinafore over it, reaching to her ankles. She had blue stockings, buckled shoes, and a blue cap that fitted her head closely and had four square corners. She was desperately thin and frail. Despite that she was the most beautiful person that Dido had ever seen. Her face had a kind of transparent clearness – like the mountains at sun-up, Dido thought, or one o' them waterfalls. Her eyes were large and grey, her nose straight, her mouth wide and smiling. Silky brown curtains of hair fell on either side of her forehead.

  'I am alive!' she said, in answer to Windward's question. Thanks to you all! And to Tildrum here.' The cat had jumped up beside her and she was fondling its head.

  'How did you ever get behind that rock?' demanded the lieutenant.

  'Are you King Mabon's daughter?' said Dido.

  The girl smiled at her and held out a hand.

  'Yes, I am Elen. And I have to thank you, especially, for climbing through that cranny, and thinking to get me the rumirumi flowers!'

  You have to thank me for a deal more than that, Dido thought, taking the small thin hand for the second time and smiling back at the princess of Lyonesse.

  'How many o' them cats did you have to start?' she asked.

  'Six. Poor faithful friends . . . I am afraid Aurocs or wild beasts must have killed the others.'

  'Not all o' them,' said Dido. 'Three got through. But – like the loot here asked – who put you in there?'

  'Queen Ginevra, of course,' said Elen, as if surprised that anybody should ask such a simple question.

  Dido noticed that Mr Holystone, who, since entering the warm, dim stable, had seemed wrapped in dreamy reverie, gazing at the fire, started slightly at this name and looked round.

  'The queen put you there?' Windward gaped at the princess. 'But – why?'

  'For a sacrifice to Sul. The temple of Sul is up above here, on the mountain.'

  'Why?' he said again incredulously.

  'For long life, naturally?' Elen. raised her beautiful brows. 'Many short lives make one long one. How can she live until her Quondam king comes back unless she takes a great many other lives – young lives, of girls?'

  Windward stared at her, speechless, stiff with horror.

  'That's why there weren't any girls in Tenby or Bath? It ain't the Aurocs at all?' Dido nodded, her suspicions fully confirmed.

  'I daresay the Aurocs may have had one or two every year,' said Elen. 'But they mostly remain in the mountains. You have only to ask the Guardian of this place; he will tell you how many years he has been throwing girls into Lake Arianrod. And his predecessors before him.'

  'I never heard anything so disgraceful in my whole life,' said Lieutenant Windward hoarsely. 'And she calls herself a civilised woman! But how did she manage to get hold of you, miss?'

  'Well: when I was seven my father sent me to school in Queen's Square. In the other Bath – in England. Lyonesse ought to be safe enough; but, my father thought, best take no chances. So I went to school for nine years. And on the way back my ship was captured by pirates. Pirates? They were in Ginevra's pay; her watch-dogs. Those three witches of hers throw their net far afield. And a king's daughter, by their reckoning, is worth far more than any ordinary girl. Her bones give six months of life; mine, who knows how long? Six years, perhaps .. .'

  'Bones?' whispered Mr Multiple, who, now that the fire was burning well, had been drawn by the sound of Elen's level voice.

  'Thrown into the lake. Eaten by Sul's sacred fish. Then the bones are made into a paste, which, eaten daily by Genevra, has preserved her life for many hundreds of years.'

  Dido thought of the fat queen, lolling on her couch, languidly tasting white thick porridge from a silver dish. My reflection, she thought suddenly. I wonder if it ever came back – like those watches beginning to go again? But even if it didn't – better lose your reflection than be thrown into Arianrod for the fish to munch and then have your bones ground up into porridge.

  'That was why your dad pinched the lake, then?' she said. 'So you couldn't be thrown in? He guessed the queen musta got you?'

  'Did he steal the lake?' A warm ripple of affection came into Elen's voice. 'Clever father! He knew that would put a stone in her shoe!'

  'So then she called in the British Navy,' said Windward. 'I begin to see . . . But how could she hope to make King Mabon return the lake so long as she held you, Princess?'

  'Because,' said Dido, 'she hoped as I'd let on to be the princess, and that King Mabon 'ud be fooled. That was why she didn't make me into porridge. Though I reckon she was fair itching to. But why were you left in that cave, Ma'am? Princess?'

  'Oh, pray call me Elen. All the girls at Miss Castelreagh's Academy did so. I was left in the cave because the sacrifice has to be made at a particular time of the month, when the new moon holds the old one in its arms. Lady Ettarde and those other women put me there. And the Guardian used to come every day or so to feed me . .. when he remembered. He will not be best pleased when he finds that I have escaped. Ginevra will probably have him thrown in the lake. Oh, no, I forget; there is no lake. She must have been growing desperate. . .'

  Elen's eyes widened. The fire had now burned up into a good blaze and, for the first time, she had noticed Mr Holystone, who stood gazing at the flames with a puzzled frown creasing his brow, as if he were groping in his mind for the verse of some ancient rhyme which continually escaped him.

  Elen said,

  'But why is my cousin Gwydion with you? And why is he so silent?'

  'Gwydion?' said Dido. Her eyes followed Elen's to the silent figure by the fire.

  'Gwydion,' repeated Elen. 'I recognised him at once. Though he has grown a beard, which suits him very well – and it is a long time since we used to play as children. He used to carve me dolls from sigse wood. He is the son – the adopted son – of my uncle Huw Ccapac. Atahallpa, they called him in Hy Brasil, but father always called him Gwydion. How are you, cousin?'

  'No, Madam,' said a new voice, which made them all, Holystone included, turn hastily towards the doorway, 'he is not your cousin. He is of more ancient lineage than you reckon.'

  Framed in the entrance stood a strange figure – what seemed at first sight to be a walking snowball, but proved, when he had shaken himself, to be a dwarfish little man, hardly more than three feet high, with white hair and deep dark eyes and a long hooked nose. He threw off the snow-caked toga which he had wrapped round him, and stumped forward, giving his unbidden guests some very unwelcoming looks, and stopping in front of Mr Holystone to launch at him a stare of particular dislike while apparently making an inventory of every detail of his appearance, from the gold-brown beard, bronzed skin, and quiet grey eyes, to the birth-mark on his right forearm and the hand which still clasped the hilt of the sword Caliburn. Splitting the rock had cleaned the rust from the swordblade; it now shone green and deadly; more light than was reflected from the fire seemed to play up and down the blade.

  'I beg your pardon – are you the Guardian – Caradog?' broke in Lieutenant Windward briskly, feeling that some explanation was owing to their reluctant host. 'Ahem! Excuse me! I have a permit here, signed by Queen Ginevra, for travel through the Gate of Nimue and on to Lyonesse – '

  'Yes, yes, yes, I know all about that,' testily answered the Guardian. 'I was expecting you last night, my sister had informed me of your intentions.'

  He spoke as if their journey seemed to him a tiresome fidget about a trifle, and went on, ignoring Windward and addressing Holystone, 'But why trouble King Mabon about the l
ake, my lord, since you are already returned to us? What need to visit Lyonesse? Will you not rather return to your capital of Bath Regis?'

  'Gwydion's capital?' exclaimed Elen. 'Gracious me, whom do you take him for?'

  'Why, who should he be but the Pendragon? He is Mercurious Artaius, true son of Uther. Let me be the first to salute you, lord, Rex Quondam et Vivens, High King of New Cumbria, Lyonesse and Hy Brasil,' said Caradog, not sounding in the least pleased about it, but going rather creakily and grumpily down on one knee nevertheless, to kiss Mr Holystone's hand, which still rested on the hilt of the sword Caliburn. 'Ave rege! Vivat rex!'

  The party from the Thrush stared at one another, dumbstruck.

  Elen exclaimed,

  'Gwydion? Can this be true? Or is the old man joking? Are you – can you really be the Pendragon?'

  Holystone looked down at the sword in his hand. He said slowly,

  'Yes, it is true. I am beginning to remember it all -the battle by the winter sea, and how the queens came in a boat across the lake, and carried me away, and cast me into a sleep.'

  'In the Isle of Avilion,' confirmed Caradog. He added rather sourly, 'Your lady wife will be very happy to have you restored to her. She has waited and sorrowed for you these many hundreds of years.'

  'Wife?' exclaimed Dido in horror. 'D'you mean that Mr Holystone is married to that murdering old hag of a queen in Bath? Who's been killing off girls right, left and rat's ramble, just so she could stay alive longer than ordinary folk?'

  'Finis coronet opus,' said Caradog.

  'What's that mean, mister Guardian?'

  'It means, the end justifies the means.'

  'No it certainly don't! What do you think, Mr Holy? King What'syourname? If you really are him? Do you think it's right for that fat queen to stay alive by having poor girls chucked into the lake? Why, she was fixing to chuck Elen here, if we hadn't turned up – '

  Mr Holystone appeared deeply troubled. Frowning perplexedly at Dido, he said,

  'Who are you, child? Why do I seem to know you? And what can you know of these high matters?'

  It was evident that the three separate parts of his existence had not yet dovetailed together.

  'Oh, blimey!' said Dido, hurt and cross. She felt extremely upset, but tried not to show it. However she couldn't help adding, 'When I think of all the times I fed Dora – and taught you the Battersea Basket – and how you used to put cockroach lotion on my toes – '

  At the same instant Elen exclaimed in a tone of horror, as though the reality had been gradually dawning on her,

  'You mean my cousin Gwydion is married to that wicked woman – to Queen Ginevra?'

  'Was, was, in a former life,' corrected Caradog fussily. 'And as, although he has been reborn, she has remained alive, of course the marriage is still valid. Any court of law would uphold it. Not to mention the ties of honour and obligation – since she has faithfully waited for him so many hundreds of years.'

  'I don't see how honour could tie him to somebody who's been eating people's bones all that time!'

  'Really, Miss Twite, I feel this is none of your – of our business!' exclaimed Lieutenant Windward.

  'Our business is to fetch the lake back and have Cap'n Hughes let out of the pokey,' pointed out Mr Multiple matter-of-factly. 'And then to get hell-for-leather out o' this infernal country,' he added under his breath, rattling the diamonds in his pocket.

  'If you are committed to reclaim the lake for Queen Ginevra, of course you must do so,' Caradog said suavely. 'The storm will abate very soon; you may set out at daybreak.'

  Dido thought she noticed a calculating gleam in his eye. There's one as'll bear watching, she thought; cunning as an old weasel or my name ain't Twite. Had poor Elen shut in a cave, was going to chuck her in the lake, but we don't hear anything about that now, oh, no! Butter wouldn't melt on his whiskers. If Mr Holy is King Arthur come back, what's it matter to Old Nibs there whether the lake is put back or not? And who does he remind me of? Who else has a long neb like that?

  Her reflections were interrupted at this point by a tremendous fanfare of bocinas and bamboo trumpets outside the door, together with shouts of, 'Guardian, there! Ho, Guardian! Open up!'

  'Who is it?' demanded Caradog suspiciously.

  'Sextus Lucius Trevelyan, officer-in-command, second division, Wandesborough Frontier Patrol. You know my voice, you old spider! Come on, open up! We've heard a tale that you have the princess Elen with you.'

  'And who in the name of Nodens told you that?' muttered old Caradog, hobbling to unbar the door, which he had bolted behind hin.

  9

  On the second day of Captain Hughes's captivity a new prisoner was thrust, cursing and struggling, through the door that led into the circular series of rooms at the top of the Wen Pendragon tower.

  To the captain's surprise the newcomer turned out to be none other than Silver Taffy, who was equally startled at finding his commanding officer in the town jail.

  'By jings, sir, I never expected to see you in such a place, and that's a fact! Whatever reason did those sons of pigs fetch out for casting you in the lock-up?'

  The discovery of the captain's incarceration seemed to have done a certain amount towards reconciling Silver Taffy to his own; he grinned broadly, displaying most of his well-polished teeth.

  At first Captain Hughes felt inclined to stand on his dignity with this rogue, who had virtually gone absent without leave and who was, after all, originally a pirate. On the other hand, the captain was becoming heartily impatient with his confinement; Mr Brandywinde made a miserable fellow-inmate, for he could do nothing but sit rocking back and forth, lamenting over his wife and child and his limp, paralysed hands. At least Silver Taffy, though ruffianly, was lively and quick-witted, and might become a possible ally in a scheme that the captain was turning over in his mind; so, very much more amiably than might have been expected, he replied,

  'The queen (who, I am persuaded, has windmills in her head) is holding me hostage while Lieutenant Windward undertakes a mission for her to King Mabon of Lyonesse. It is a perfectly disgraceful outrage that an officer of His Majesty's Navy should be used so – after all, I have ambassadorial status! – but what use to protest? The woman is clearly unhinged. What of yourself, fellow? I trust that you are not incarcerated here for criminal activities?'

  His voice did not suggest that he expected his hopes to be fulfilled.

  Silver Taffy shrugged and winked.

  'No, sir – but it's something of a different case from yourself. I've always been in the free-trading line, you know, fetching butter and astrolabes and woollen goods and such stuff from Lyonesse to Cumbria without troubling the Customs! for Queen Ginevra she levies a crool high rate of duty on all merchandise as comes in.'

  'You were a smuggler, in other words,' snapped the captain.

  'If you choose to call it so, sir,' said Silver Taffy with dignity. 'We prefers to call them Benefactors.'

  'Very well!'

  'I was a Benefactor, bringing goods through the mountains by a secret way. But them Cumbrian Customs guards, with those damned red-and-white hellhounds of theirs – ' (here Mr Brandywinde gave a shuddering whimper) 'grew so active and fidgety that it became harder and harder to dodge 'em. So me and my mates got us a brig, and took to sea, running up and down the coast from Santa Genista to the port o' Tenby. Well, then, by an' by, my auntie, she got in touch with me.'

  'Your auntie?'

  'My auntie Ettarde, she as is First Lady o' the Bedchamber and Mistress o' the Queen's Robes. My family is Quality, Captain, I'd have you know,' said Silver Taffy with dignity, 'though for myself I've always been partial to a roving life.' His teeth flashed again as he grinned, wearing the sly expression that had always made Dido mistrust him. 'My auntie, she said to me, "You've got a ship, David, and if you do a private errand for Her Mercy, I daresay she will be prepared to overlook certain activities of yours which are otherwise liable to get you dropped into the Severn river one o' thes
e days for the pescadilloes to scrunch up." "Any way I can serve Her Mercy," says I, "o' course I'll be proud and willing." So then she told me as how King Mabon's daughter fresh from boarding-school had sailed out o' Bristol, England, on the Maypole, and how it'd be worth her weight in gold bezants to me if I could see this princess conveyed safe to Queen Ginevra, who would love her like an auntie.'

  'You abducted the princess, you villain?' exclaimed Captain Hughes. 'So King Mabon was right in his suspicions! The queen did have the princess all along. But to what purpose?'

  'As to that,' said Silver Taffy cautiously, 'he that asks no questions don't get his tongue chopped out, like those poor grey ghosts o' sentries round the palace. Yes, I did pick up the princess, an' I had her conveyed to my Auntie Ettarde. Well, just after that, I got tempted north-east'ards by a very pretty prize that was coming up from Patagonia – a Hanoverian merchantman. I thought I'd slip her in my pocket afore travelling up to Bath City for to claim my reward from Her Mercy. But blow me, Cap'n Hughes, if I don't run up agin you in the Thrush, an' all my plans go aggly. And I get took prisoner and lose my ship and have to work as a common seaman. But then, what happens? Why, the old Thrush herself runs down to Tenby, and I hear you're a-going to visit Queen Ginevra your own self. So all I have to do is sit tight, and I have a free passage to my own front door.'

  'And then, you rogue?' inquired the captain, interested, in spite of his strong disapproval.

  'Why, when I did get to see my Auntie Ettarde, she and I had a difference as to fee. I found out she was a-, keeping four-fifths o' what the queen had paid her, and passing on to me only a measly one-fifth. "If I was to pass word to King Mabon about what you did," says I to her (for I'm in Lyonesse as often as not, and could easy drop word along, annie-nonnie-mousily); "if King Mabon was to learn what you did, your life wouldn't be worth a lead bezant. He'd send his agents over into Cumbria somehow, and have you tressicated!" '

  'Why, you treacherous dog!' said the captain indignantly. 'You yourself were implicated just as deeply in the plot to steal Mabon's daughter." '