able in a big hospital, but I feel that it is my duty to take the risk. If I fail, only he (and possibly I) will suffer. And I really do intend to try and use him for the good of mankind. Pray heaven that I turn out to be justified.
The Latin, I think, means: I am Merlin. He who touches me upsets the world.
I have already touched him. I cannot change that.
Phew, thought Geoffrey, things certainly hadn’t turned out as Mr. Furbelow intended. Fancy expecting to make Merlin his slave! Other way round, now, from the look of it. He began to turn on, looking for an account of the wakening, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Maddox move. Geoffrey put the diary back in its place and slipped out through the back door. He ran down a long empty shed full of perches for hawks and climbed through the open window at the far end. From here he was out of sight, and could saunter back towards the windlass, noticing for the first time, as he did so, the flowering cherry that had started all the upheaval.
Mr. Furbelow was already winding the slab down into position, and Sally was talking to Maddox, her face as white as a limed wall.
XI THE NECROMANCER
Geoffrey sensed at once that it wouldn't do to ask how the interview had gone. He took over the crank in silence, and lowered the stone. Then Mr. Furbelow solicitously took Sally into his cottage and made her lie down on one of the upstairs beds, and he himself settled down for a nap on his sofa. Geoffrey was left to explore, but found nothing of interest, and spent most of the afternoon looking for birds from the tower over the outer gate. He didn't see anything uncommon, but he fancied he heard a wood warbler several times.
They supped early and went to bed when there was still gray light seeping through the outer window. As soon as he was lying down Sally, who had been very quiet all evening, spoke:
“Jeff, you've got to do something. He’s killing
him, really he is. It was all about making a sword this afternoon, but full of words I didn’t know. It’s awful. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, and he’s so marvelous, you can feel his mind all strong and beautiful, and Mr. Furbelow is just dithering around waiting for him to die. I tried and tried, but he wouldn’t hear what I was saying. His Latin’s a bit funny, the way he says it, but you soon get used to it. And goodness he’s big. Do you remember — no, you won’t — there was a dancing bear came to Weymouth once? It was beautiful and strong, and it had to do this horrible thing with everyone laughing and jeering and a chain round his neck. He’s like that, only worse, much worse. It’s horrible. Jeff, please!”
“Oh, Lord, Sal. I’ll try and think of something. Did you know he was Merlin?”
“Yes. It said so on the stone where he was lying. How did you?”
He told her about the diary, but before he’d finished she was asleep. He lay on his back with his hand under his head and thought round in circles until he was asleep too. It all depended on Mr. Furbelow.
But next morning Mr. Furbelow had changed. He was still polite and kind, but when they tried to talk about Merlin he said that that was his concern; and at lunch he told them that he would prefer them to leave next day. They were upsetting things, he said. They needn’t bother about the wolves, because they could give them the rest of the feast tonight and wolves sleep for twenty-four hours after a full meal. That was settled then, wasn’t it? He’d be sorry to see them go, but really it was for the best.
In the afternoon, for an experiment, Sally managed to maneuver Maddox into a position where he could take a good kick at Mr. Furbelow as the old man snoozed in a ramshackle deck chair in front of the house. The pony shaped happily for the kick, but suddenly danced away as if it had been stung and would not go near the place again. So that was no good. Nor, presumably, would be hitting him on the head with something, even if Geoffrey had managed to bring himself to do it. Geoffrey trudged round and round the tower, frowning. Mr. Furbelow would hear the windlass clack if they tried to raise the stone when he was asleep. If only they could contrive a reason for Mr. Furbelow sending them down without him.
He came round the tower for the twentieth time, and saw Mr. Furbelow, awake now, do his funny skitter down the steps. If only he would fall on them he might break a leg. They really were hideously dangerous, and that was the only hope. He must be made to fall.
The three of them dined together very friendlily.
Most of the meat was high by now, but they found a leg of sweet, thymy mutton. Then, in the dusk, Mr. Furbelow showed them some funny long wheelbarrows without any sides in one of the sheds, and they wheeled load after load of bad meat to the outer tower and threw it through the wicket gate. The wolves were already there by the time they brought the second load, snarling and tugging at the big joints. As they watched, more and more of the long shadowy bodies flitted out of the blackness under the trees. There were several mother wolves with cubs which waited, eyes green in the half-light, until their mother dragged a big hunk for them and they could begin a snarling match of their own.
When the last of the meat had been ferried away from the tables Mr. Furbelow barred the children into the tower. Two hours later Geoffrey stood at the parapet in his gold robe and thought of rain.
All day the island had slumbered in the sun. It was warm, warm, and above it the warmed air rose, sucking in winds off the western ocean, disturbed winds heavy with wetness, only just holding their moisture over the smooth, tepid sea. And now meeting the land, already cool with night, cooler now, cooler still, and the hills reforming the clouds, jostling them together, piling them up, squeezing them till the released rain hisses into the hills’ sere grasses. Now trees drip, leaves glisten in faint light, forgotten gullies tinkle. Rain, swathed, drumming . . .
Sally, wrapped in drenched furs, led him down the long stairs to shelter. He squatted in a corner, deliberately uncomfortable, so that he woke every half hour. When it was still dark he put his soaking robe on over a dry jerkin and went up to the parapet again. The last rain had gone, and starlight glistened in every puddle and drip. It was very cold already. He thought of frost.
Still air chilling the hills. Evaporation chilling the ground. The trees ceasing their breathing. An icy influence from the stars. Rivers of cold air flowing down, weaving between the trunks, coming here to make a deep pool of cold, crisping the grass. Cat ice now in crackles on the puddles, white-edged round hoof prints, ice glazing cobbles and stones in a shiny film. A deep, hard frost, making earth ring like iron. Deep, hard, deep . . .
This time he was woken from the weather trance by the violent shivering of his own body. The robe was starched rigid with ice, and his legs so numb with cold and standing that he couldn't feel his feet. He had to clutch the guardrail all the way down to the roof, and even so he nearly fell twice on the ice-crusted steps. He warmed himself by the never-dying fire in the hall, watched by yawning hounds, and then went up to the gallery. As he snuggled into his furs he was struck by a nasty snag in his plans.
The doors would still be barred, but if all went right Mr. Furbelow wouldn’t be able to open them. Sulkily he crawled out of the warmth and rootled through several chambers for belts. Ten ought to be enough. He hacked the buckles off and tied the straps into a single length with a loop at the end. And then sleep.