Cart and Cwidder (UK) Read online

  “I think the pegs are slipping,” he said helplessly.

  “Let me have a go,” Brid said competently. But she could not get it tuned either.

  “Let me look at the pegs,” said Kialan. He looked, and seemed fairly knowledgeable, but he could not see anything wrong. He handed it on to Dagner. Dagner, who knew most of all, hitched the reins round his knees and spent half an hour trying to get the cwidder tuned. In the end he was forced to hand it back to Moril in the same state as before.

  “Isn’t that all we needed!” said Brid. “Perhaps it’s in mourning. After all, we all should be, and look at us!”

  “Try playing a lament,” Kialan said thoughtfully.

  “Why?” said Moril. “Anyway, I hate the old songs.”

  “Any lament,” said Dagner. “You played your own treble over the grave, didn’t you?”

  Moril tried it. He began singing the Lament for the Earl of Dropwater, and brought the cwidder in as softly as he could after the first line. The discord was horrible. Brid shuddered. But Dagner took up the song too, and the cwidder seemed almost to follow his lead. The notes came right as Dagner sang them. To Moril’s astonishment and secret terror, the cwidder was in tune by the end of the first verse. He sang the chorus, and first Brid, then Kialan, joined in.

  “This was a man above all other,

  Kanart the Earl, Kanart the Earl!

  You’ll never find his equal, brother.

  He was a man above all other.”

  The cwidder sang on, as sweetly as it had for Clennen. Tears poured down Brid’s face. Moril felt tearful too. They sang lustily through the whole song, and sad though it made them, they felt heartened too. The oddest effect was on Olob. His pace dropped to a slow, rhythmic walk, and he went for all the world as if the cart was a hearse.

  “Put it away,” said Dagner, “or we’ll never get to Neathdale.”

  Moril put the alarming cwidder carefully back, and they made better progress. As before, Dagner would not let Olob stop at the usual time or in the usual kind of place. A little before sunset he took Olob right off the road into a high, lonely field full of big stones, where they could see a good way in most directions.

  “There hasn’t been a sign of Ganner!” Moril protested.

  “Well, there won’t be, until we see him arriving, will there?” said Kialan.

  They demolished the sausage and held their practice. To Moril’s relief, the big cwidder now behaved perfectly. But there were other difficulties. Without Clennen or Lenina, they found they could not do half the songs in the way they were used to. They had to work everything out afresh. And Dagner did not in any way take Clennen’s place. He refused to do more than a third of the singing, and that was the only thing he was firm about. Otherwise, he simply made suggestions, and he was quite ready to be overruled by Brid or Moril. The younger two felt lost. They were used to Clennen’s kind but entirely firm way of telling them exactly what to do. Sometimes they were annoyed, and several times they were tempted to get very silly. It was only the grim thought that their next meal depended on this practice that kept them from breaking into loud arguments or louder laughter. Moril felt he had never truly missed Clennen till then.

  Yet, in the middle of thinking that, he remembered what Dagner had said about Clennen’s always having his own way. It occurred to him to wonder if Clennen had not, in fact, kept them all a little too dependent on him. Maybe this was why it seemed so hard to manage without him.

  While they practised, Kialan lay full length on a rock above them, listening and also, Moril suspected, acting as lookout. This elaborate caution began to irritate Moril. After all, it was Moril and Brid who stood to lose if Ganner found them, not Dagner and Kialan. In the morning he was exasperated to see that they had been on watch again. Both of them looked tired out.

  Brid was furious. “How on earth do you think you’re going to give a performance, Dagner, if you can hardly keep your eyes open? I’ve never known you so silly! We depend on you!”

  “All right,” Dagner said wearily. “You drive and I’ll have a sleep in the cart. But wake me if – if—”

  “If what?” snapped Brid.

  “If anything happens,” said Dagner, and lay down beside the wine jar with a groan. Kialan flopped down on the other side of the jar, and both of them fell asleep before Olob had the cart in motion.

  It was left to Brid and Moril to find the way to Neathdale. They did it too, half cross and half proud of themselves. The map did not help much. They were forced to follow their noses across country, turning into any road that seemed to go north-west and hoping for the best. Once they arrived in a farmyard and had to back out of it, pursued by the barking of dogs and the squalling of hens and roosters. Kialan and Dagner did not even stir. “Stupid fools,” said Brid. They were still asleep when the cart came out on a rise above Neathdale.

  “We did it!” said Moril.

  “Unless Olob knew the way,” Brid said, trying to be fair. “But I don’t think even he can have come to it this way before.”

  Neathdale was a big cheerful-looking town lying across the main road north to Flennpass, in the last level ground before the Uplands. They could look across even its tallest buildings from where they were to where the South Dales mounted like stairs to the Mark Wood plateau.

  “Say four days, and we’ll be in the North,” Moril said yearningly.

  “Four days,” said Brid promptly.

  The scuffle that followed on the driving seat woke Dagner and Kialan at last. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Only Neathdale,” said Brid. Dagner’s sleepy face at once became pinched and tense and mauvish. Brid set herself to soothe him. “We always used to get good takings here,” she said. “There must be hundreds of people who remember us and know Father. I’m going to do the talking, mind, and I shall talk about Father and say who we are – though they can read that on the cart anyway.”

  “The cart ought to be repainted with Dagner’s name,” Moril observed. He did not think Brid was soothing Dagner in the slightest, but he did not mind helping.

  “You’d hardly get the name on,” Brid said brightly. “Dastgandlen down one side and Handagner up the other, I suppose.”

  “Isn’t Neathdale the seat of Earl Tholian?” Kialan asked, tactlessly cutting through the soothing.

  “Not really. His place is outside a bit, over to the east,” Dagner said. He pointed with a hand that shook noticeably. A great white house was just visible, among trees, on the other side of Neathdale.

  “Blast you, Kialan!” said Brid. Kialan looked at her in surprise. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Brid. “Just if this show goes wrong, I’ll blame you. Dagner, I think we’d better put on our glad rags now.”

  “No,” said Dagner.

  “What do you mean?” said Brid.

  “Just no,” said Dagner. “We’ll give the show as we are. We’re quite respectable.”

  “Yes, but we always change,” Brid protested. “It gives you a feel.”

  “That was Father’s idea,” said Dagner. “And he was right in a way. It went with his style to come rolling in, singing and glittering. He could live up to it. But if I go in dressed in tinsel and singing my head off, people are just going to laugh.”

  “You think that because you’re nervous,” Brid said persuasively. “You’ll feel better once you’re changed.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Dagner. “I’ll feel ten times worse. Brid, I just haven’t got Father’s personality, and I can’t do the same things. I’ll have to do them my way, or not at all. See?”

  Brid, by this time, was near tears. “Do you mean you’re not going to give a show at all then?”

  “Not Father’s kind,” said Dagner, “because I can’t. We’ll give a show all right, because we’ll starve if we don’t, and you can introduce us and explain what’s happened, and maybe it’ll be all right. But if I find you boasting and ranting about us – that goes for you too, Moril – I’ll sto
p. We’ll just have to be plain, because we’re not Father.”

  Brid sighed heavily. “All right. But I’m going to put my boots on, anyway. I need a feel.” She brightened a little. “I’ve always hated the colour of your suit, Moril. You look nicer like that.”

  “Thank you,” Moril said politely. Dagner had suddenly brought it home to him that, for the first time in their lives, they were about to give a show entirely on their own. He had never, as far as he knew, been nervous before. Now he was. As Brid drove downhill towards Neathdale, Moril sat clutching the big cwidder with hands that were icy cold and sweating at once, and it would have been hard to say whether he or Dagner was the more nervous. The houses came nearer. Quite desperate, Moril laid his cheek against the smooth wood of the cwidder. “Oh, please help me!” he whispered to it. “I’ll never manage. I can’t!”

  “Can you stop a moment?” said Kialan.

  Brid drew up. Kialan immediately swung down from the cart to the road. Brid looked at him sombrely. “Now you’re going to give us that about not being interested in our shows, aren’t you? Well, don’t. I won’t believe you. I’ve seen you listening to every show we’ve given.”

  Kialan looked up at Brid’s stormy face and seemed nonplussed. Then he laughed. “All right. I won’t give you that. But I’m going to meet you on the other side of Neathdale all the same. See you.” He set off at a good swinging pace towards the town, with his hands in his pockets, whistling Jolly Holanders.

  “I give up!” said Brid. But both her brothers were too nervous to reply.

  THE MAIN SQUARE at Neathdale was always busy. It was not very large, but it had a handsome fountain in the middle and four inns on three of its sides. There was also a corn exchange and two guildhalls, which added to the coming and going. The fourth side was occupied by the grey frowning block of the jail. When Brid drove the cart into the square, it seemed busier even than they had remembered. It was packed with people. The reason, they saw, as Olob patiently shouldered his way towards the fountain, was that there had been a public hanging that morning. The gallows was still there, outside the jail, and so was the hanged man. A number of people outside the inns were raising tankards jeeringly in his direction.

  The dangling figure made them all feel sick, although it meant a good crowd. Dagner turned green. Moril clutched his cwidder hard and swallowed. Brid could not resist leaning down and asking the nearest person who it was who had been hanged.

  “Friend of the Porter’s,” was the cheerful reply. It was a cheerful whiskery man Brid had chosen to ask, and he looked as if he had enjoyed every second of the hanging. “Some say he was the Porter,” he added, “but you can’t tell. He wouldn’t admit to anything. Taken up last week, he was, on the new Earl’s orders.”

  “Oh, is there a new Earl?” Brid said blankly, trying to keep her eyes from the swinging criminal.

  “Sure,” said the man. “Old Tholian died more than a month back. The new Earl’s the grandson. Got a real nose for the Porter and his like, he has. Good luck to him too!”

  “Oh, yes. Very good luck,” Brid said hurriedly, terrified of being arrested for disloyalty to the new Earl.

  “Leave off, Brid, and let’s get started,” Dagner said irritably.

  Brid smiled rather falsely at the whiskery man and hitched up the reins so that Olob knew to stand still. Then she blew a blast on the panhorn for attention. When sufficient people had turned their way, she stood up and spoke. Moril marvelled at how cool she was. But Brid was like Clennen that way. An audience was meat and drink to her.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she called, “please come and listen. You see the cart I’m standing in? Many of you will know it quite well. If you do, you’ll know it belongs to Clennen the Singer. You’ll have seen it coming through Neathdale, year after year, on its way North. Most of you will know Clennen the Singer—”

  She had aroused people’s interest by then. Moril heard someone say, “It’s Clennen the Singer.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said someone else. “Who’s the pretty little lass?”

  “Where’s Clennen, then? It isn’t Clennen,” said other people. Finally, someone was puzzled enough to call out, “Where is Clennen, lass? Isn’t he with you?”

  “I’ll tell you,” said Brid. “I’ll tell you all.” Then she stopped and simply stood there, upright and conspicuous in her cherry dress. Moril could see she was trying not to cry. But he could also see she was making it plain to the crowd that she was trying not to cry. He marvelled at the way she could use real feelings for what was in fact a show. He knew he could not have done it.

  Brid stood there silent long enough for murmurs of interest to gather and grow but not long enough for them to die away. Then she said: “I’ll tell you. Clennen – my father – was killed two days ago.” And she stood silent again, struggling with tears, listening attentively to murmurs of sympathy. “He was killed before our eyes,” she said. At the height of a loud murmur, she came in again loudly, but in such a calm way that Moril and most of the people present thought she was speaking quietly. They hushed to hear her. “We are the children of Clennen the Singer – Brid, Moril and Dastgandlen Handagner – and we’re doing our best to carry on without him. I hope you’ll spare time to listen to us. We know our show will not be the same without Clennen, but – but we’ll try to please you. We hope you’ll forgive any faults in – in memory of my father.”

  She got a round of applause for that. “Put your hat out, then, and let’s hear you!” someone shouted. Brid, with tears running down her cheeks, picked up the hat she had ready and tossed it on the ground. Several people put money into it at once, out of pure sympathy for them. Brid could not help feeling pleased with herself. She had made a considerable effect without boasting once – in fact, she had done the opposite, which, she thought, ought to please Dagner.

  Though Dagner was far too nervous to show any pleasure at all, Brid knew he was not displeased because he left her to do all the announcing. That meant that Brid could more or less choose what they sang. She did her best to put together the things they had practised in the order she thought would be most impressive. She began them with general favourites. Moril felt terrible. Without the deep rolling voice of Clennen, they sounded to him thin and strange, and they lacked the body Lenina usually gave them on the hand organ. Moril began to feel they had nothing to offer the crowd, except perhaps some well-trained playing on cwidder and panhorn.

  Brid felt much the same. To encourage them, she announced that they would now play, in trio, the Seven Marches. That was one thing she was sure they could do well. And they did. The most successful part was when Dagner, on the spur of the moment, signalled to Brid to play soft during the Fourth March, and played his treble cwidder in double time against Moril’s slow and mellow tenor. They looked at one another while they were doing it. Moril knew they were neither of them exactly enjoying it, but they were both by then desperate for some applause from the silent crowd, and they had the dour kind of satisfaction of knowing they were giving an exhibition of real skill. They were rewarded by a burst of clapping and a little shower of coins falling into the hat.

  Then they did Clennen’s Cuckoo Song, which always made people laugh. After that Brid, feeling that the sooner Dagner got his part over, the better he would be for the rest of the show, announced that Dagner would now sing some of his own songs.

  Brid was glad she had said “some”. Dagner was so nervous that he only managed three. If she had not said “some”, it was probable that he would only have sung one. Moril was disappointed and Brid exasperated, and it was altogether a pity, because the crowd liked Dagner’s songs. The Colour in Your Head went down particularly well. Brid could tell he had the crowd’s sympathy. They thought of him as bravely following in Clennen’s footsteps and wanted to encourage him. But Dagner was mauve and shaking, and he stopped.

  Crossly Brid took the centre of the cart and sang herself. Moril, without being told, came to her aid on the cwidder, while Dagner g
asped to himself in the background. Brid did well. An audience always helped her. She sang a number of ballads, though she was forced to avoid The Hanging of Filli Ray, which she did best, because of the corpse dangling on the gallows behind the crowd. Her success was undoubtedly the patter song, Cow-Calling, which she did instead of Filli Ray. Brid always enjoyed it. You started with a sort of yodelling cry, to the whole herd, then you called the cows one by one, and each verse you added a new one.

  “Red cow, red cow, my lord’s thoroughbred cow,

  Brown cow, brown cow, the woman in the town’s cow,”

  Brid sang, and no one looking at her could have realised that she was frantically wondering what else she could put into their unusually short show before her voice gave out. At Old cow, old cow, inspiration came. Brid bowed at the end of the song. Coins clattered into the hat.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, my brother Moril will sing four songs of Osfameron.”

  Moril gulped and glared at Brid. He had never performed any of the old songs in public before. But Brid had gone and announced him, so he was forced to take the centre of the cart, with his wet hands shaking on the cwidder. To make matters worse, he suddenly met Kialan’s eye. Kialan was standing near the fountain, looking cool, attentive and slightly critical. From where Moril stood, the hanged man on the gallows appeared to be dangling over Kialan’s head. Moril took his eyes off both of them and began to play. He knew he was going to make wretched work of it.

  For a short while he could attend to nothing but the queer fingering and the odd, old-fashioned rhythms. Then his tension abated a little, and he was surprised to discover that his performance was pleasing him. As Moril’s voice was naturally high, he did not need to sound cracked and strained, the way Clennen did. And not being yet expert and not anyway liking the noise the old fingering made, he found he had been unconsciously modifying it, into a style which was not old, nor new, but different. Osfameron’s jerky rhythms became smoother, and Moril felt that if he could have spared time to attend to them, he might almost have understood the words: