The landscape to the north ended at a dark loom across the northern horizon: the Forest of Tantrevalles. As Aillas approached, the countryside altered, to become ever more thoroughly steeped in time. Colors seemed richer and heavier; shadows were more emphatic and showed curious colors of their own.
The River Timble, shaded under willows and poplars, wandered away in stately meanders; the road turned and entered the town Tawn Timble.
At the inn Aillas ate a dish of broad beans and drank an earthenware mug of beer.
The way to Glymwode led across the meadows, ever closer to the gloom of the forest, sometimes skirting the verge, sometimes passing under outlying copses.
Halfway through the afternoon Aillas trudged into Glymwode. The landlord at the Yellow Man Inn directed him to the cottage of Graithe the woodcutter. He asked in puzzlement: "What brings so many fine folk to visit Graithe? He's but a common man and no more than a woodcutter."
"The explanation is simple enough," said Aillas. "Certain grand folk at Lyonesse Town wanted a child brought up quietly, if you get my meaning, and then they changed their minds."
"Ah!" The landlord laid a sly finger alongside his nose. "Now it's clear. Still, a far way just to veil an indiscretion."
"Bah! One cannot judge the high-born by sensible standards!"
"That is a basic truth!" declared the landlord. "They live with their heads above the clouds! Well then, you know the way. Don't stray into the woods, especially after nightfall; you might find things you weren't seeking."
"In all likelihood I'll be back here before sunset. Will you have a bed for me?"
"Aye. If nothing better, you'll have a pallet in the loft."
Aillas departed the inn, and in due course found the cottage of Graithe and Wynes: a small two-room hut built of stone and timber, with a thatched roof, at the very edge of the forest. A spare old man with a white beard worked to split a log with maul and wedges.
A stocky woman in a homespun smock and shawl tilled the garden. At Aillas' approach both drew erect and in silence watched him come.
Aillas halted in the dooryard and waited while the man and woman slowly approached.
"You are Graithe and Wynes?" asked Aillas.
The man gave his head a terse nod. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Your daughter Ehirme sent me here."
The two stood, watching him, still as statues. Aillas sensed the psychic reek of fear. He said: "I haven't come to trouble you; quite the contrary. I am Suldrun's husband and the father of our child. It was a boy named Dhrun. Ehirme sent him here; King Casmir's soldiers brought back a girl named Madouc. So then, where is my son Dhrun?"
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.