Wynes began to wail. Graithe held up his hand. "Quiet, woman, we have done no wrong. Fellow, whatever your name, the affair is one we are done with. Our daughter suffered a great anguish. We despise with all our hatred those persons who brought her pain. King Casmir took the child; there is no more to say."
"Only this. Casmir locked me in a deep dungeon, from which I have only just escaped. He is my enemy no less than yours, as someday he will learn. I ask for what is my right. Give me my boy, or tell me where to find him."
"This is nothing to us!" cried Wynes. "We are old; we survive from day to day. When our horse dies, how will we take our wood to the village? Some winter soon we shall starve."
Aillas reached into his pouch and brought out another of Suldrun's possessions: a wrist-band of gold set with garnets and rubies. To this he added a pair of gold crowns. "Now I can help you only this much, but at least you need not fear starvation. Now tell me of my son."
Wynes hesitantly took the gold. "Very well, I shall tell you of your son. Graithe went into the forest to cut faggots. I carried the baby in a basket, and set it on the ground while I gathered mushrooms. Alas! we were close by Madling Meadow, and the fairies of Thripsey Shee worked a mischief. They took the boy and left a fairy-child in the basket. I noticed nothing till I reached to take the baby and it bit me. Then I looked and saw the red-haired girl-brat and I knew that the fairies had been at work."
Graithe spoke. "Then the king's soldiery arrived. They asked for the baby on pain of death, and we gave them the changeling, and bad cess to it."
Aillas looked from face to face in bafflement. Then he turned to gaze into the forest. At last he said: "Can you take me to Thripsey Shee?"
"Oh yes, we can take you there, and should you make awkwardness, they'll give you a toad's head, like they did poor Wilclaw the drover; or give you dancing feet, so that you'll dance the roads and byways forever and that was the fate of a lad named Dingle, when they caught him eating their honey."
"Never bother the fairies," Wynes told him. "Be grateful when they leave you in peace."
"But my son, Dhrun! How does he fare?"
Chapter 18
WITHIN AND ABOUT THE Forest of Tantrevalles existed a hundred or more fairy shees, each the castle of a fairy tribe. Thripsey Shee on Madling Meadow, little more than a mile within the precincts of the forest, was ruled by King Throbius and his spouse Queen Bossum. His realm included Madling Meadow and as much of the forest surrounding as was consistent with his dignity. The fairies at Thripsey numbered eighty-six. Among them were:
BOAB: who used the semblance of a pale green youth with grasshopper wings and antennae. He carried a black quill pen plucked from the tail of a raven and recorded all the events and transactions of the tribe on sheets pressed from lily petals.
TUTTERWIT: an imp who liked to visit human houses and tease the cats. He also liked to peer through windows, moaning and grimacing until someone's attention was engaged, then jerk quickly from sight.
GUNDELINE: a slender maiden of enchanting charm, with flowing lavender hair and green fingernails. She mimed, preened, cut capers, but never spoke, and no one knew her well. She licked saffron from poppy pistils with quick darts of her pointed green tongue.
WONE: she liked to rise early, before dawn, and flavor dew drops with assorted flower nectars.
MURDOCK: a fat brown goblin who tanned mouseskins and wove the down of baby owls into soft gray blankets for fairy children.
FLINK: who forged fairy swords, using techniques of antique force. He was a great braggart and often sang the ballad celebrating the famous duel he had fought with the goblin Dangott.
SHIMMIR: audaciously she had mocked Queen Bossum and capered silently behind her, mimicking the queen's flouncing gait, while all the fairies sat hunched, hands pressed to mouths, to stop their laughter. In punishment Queen Bossum turned her feet backward and put a carbuncle on her nose.
FALAEL: who manifested himself as a pale brown imp, with the body of a boy and the face of a girl. Falael was incessantly mischievous, and when villagers came to the forest to gather berries and nuts, it was usually Falael who caused their nuts to explode and transformed their strawberries to toads and beetles.
And then there was Twisk, who usually appeared as an orange-haired maiden wearing a gown of gray gauze. One day while wading in the shallows of Tilhilvelly Pond, she was surprised by the troll Mangeon. He seized her about the waist, carried her to the bank, ripped away the gray gauze gown and prepared to make an erotic junction. At the sight of his priapic instrument, which was grotesquely large and covered with warts, Twisk became frantic with fear. By dint of jerks, twists and contortions she foiled the best efforts of the sweating Mangeon. But her strength waned and Mangeon's weight began to grow oppressive. She tried to protect herself with magic, but in her excitement she could remember only a spell used to relieve dropsy in farm animals, which, lacking better, she uttered, and it proved efficacious. Mangeon's massive organ shriveled to the size of a small acorn and became lost in the folds of his great gray belly.
Mangeon uttered a scream of dismay, but Twisk showed no remorse. Mangeon cried out in fury: "Vixen, you have done me a double mischief, and you shall do appropriate penance."
He took her to a road which skirted the forest. At a crossroads he fashioned a kind of pillory and affixed her to this construction. Over her head he posted a sign: DO WHAT YOU WILL WITH ME and stood back. "Here you stay until three passersby, be they dolts, lickpennies or great earls, have their way with you, and that is the spell I invoke upon you, so that in the future you may choose to be more accommodating to those who accost you beside Tilhilvelly Pond."
Mangeon sauntered away, and Twisk was left alone.
The first to pass was the knight Sir Jaucinet of Castle Cloud in Dahaut. He halted his horse and appraised the situation with a wondering glance. "'DO WHAT YOU WILL WITH ME,'" he read. "Lady, why do you suffer this indignity?"
"Sir knight, I do not suffer so by choice," said Twisk. "I did not attach myself to the pillory in this position and I did not display the sign."
"Who then is responsible?"
"The troll Mangeon, for his revenge."
"Then, surely, I will help you escape, in any way possible."
Sir Jaucinet dismounted, removed his helmet, showing himself as a flaxen-haired gentleman with long mustaches and of good aspect. He attempted to loosen the bonds which confined Twisk, but to no avail. He said at last: "Lady, these bonds are proof against my efforts."
"In that case," sighed Twisk, "please obey the instruction implicit in the sign. Only after three such encounters will the bonds loosen."
"It is not a gallant act," said Sir Jaucinet. "Still, I will abide by my promise." So saying, he did what he could to assist in her release.
Sir Jaucinet would have stayed to share her vigil and assist her further if need be, but she begged him to leave. "Other travelers might be discouraged from stopping if they saw you here. So you must go, and at once! For the day is waning and I would hope to be home before night."
"This is a lonely road," said Sir Jaucinet. "Still, it is occasionally used by vagabonds and lepers, and good luck may attend you. Lady, I bid you good-day."
Sir Jaucinet adjusted his helm, mounted his horse and departed.
An hour passed while the sun sank into the west. At this time Twisk heard a whistling and presently saw a peasant boy on his way home after a day's work in the fields. Like Sir Jaucinet, he stopped short in amazement, then slowly approached. Twisk smiled at him ruefully. "As you see, sir, I am bound here. I cannot leave and I cannot resist you, no matter what might be your impulse."