Hidden Variables (48 page)

Sir Hamish knew he would have to act quickly. However, the Mackays had survived in the highlands of Scotland for hundreds of years, and that called for a certain basic cunning.

"Aye. Hmph. Ten poonds. Ah," said Sir Hamish.

He reached into his pocket as though seeking his wallet and drew out a curiously carved ebony disc, to which a number of leather tassels had been tied. He handed it across the hedge to George.

"Here, houd this while Ah see if Ah ha' the poonds. Houd it soft, noo."

George looked curiously at the carvings on the disc's face.

"I say, what are these markings?"

"Spells. Dinna ye worrit ye'sel aboot them."

George had understood only the first word, but it was enough.

"Coo. Magic spells?"

"Aye. Yon's a giftie fra' ma auld serrvant, Khalatbar."

"Coo. What does it do?"

Sir Hamish pulled a much wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket. It seemed to have suffered diverse fates before being used to transmit a written message. The baronet looked at George with a cunning eye.

"D'ye read Pushtu?"

The lad shook his head, and Sir Hamish nodded in satisfaction.

"So Ah'll have tae translate fer ye."

He ran his eye quickly over the document, making the throat-clearing noise that in a Scotsman often passes for reasoned speech. At last he nodded.

"A verra valuable giftie. It turrns a mon tae a creature, when ye gie it a wee bit rubbit."

"Coo." George looked at the amulet reverently. "Any man? Why did he send it to you?"

Sir Hamish peered hard at the paper.

"Aye. Any mon, it's guid for. Ma serrvant used yon tae alterr his wifie's mother tae a croco-dial. He doesna' want her back noo, and he's sent me yon talisman tae pree-vent it bein' used agin."

"Coo."

George looked again at the ebony disc. Compared with that, a mere airgun seemed like an infant's plaything. His eyes gleamed at the possibilities. Fatty Parsons could be a hippo, and Cousin Juliet a horned toad. And what about Spotty Trimble? The potential was enormous.

"Would you sell it? I'd take it instead of ten pounds."

Sir Hamish rolled his eyes, wiggled his whiskers, bared his teeth and otherwise registered shock.

"Sell it? Ma laddie, yon's worrth a forrtune. Sell for ten poonds? Ah'd be gie'in' it awa'."

"Then I'll just have to go and tell grandfather what you'll be doing tonight."

"Houd on." Sir Hamish held up his hand. "A' right, ye win. Ye can tak' it. But mind noo, nae worrd aboot ony o' this. Gang awa' wi' ye."

George grabbled the amulet and did his instant disappearing act behind the hedge. Sir Hamish breathed a sigh of relief at his wallet's close escape, smiled a horrid and whiskery smile, and set off for the gate. As he went, he threw away Khalatbar's request that Sir Hamish obtain for him a commission in the Coldstream Guards. It had, contrary to all logic, served a useful purpose. Now there were serious pigpinching arrangements to be considered, if the Empress were to be in his possession before the day was done.

* * *

George was Lord Emsworth's flesh and blood, and it was no more than natural that they should share a few traits of character. The lad had avoided the general dottiness and absentmindedness of the ninth Earl, but he had inherited his singleness of purpose. When Lord Emsworth went over to the pigsty to look at the Empress of Blandings, that is exactly what he did. If there were no interruptions, he would stand there happily until it was too dark to see, then stay to listen. In the same way, George now had his mind set on a fair test of the talisman, and he proposed to employ it, like Oberon's love potion, upon the next live creature that he saw. Fatty Parsons, Cousin Juliet, and Spotty Trimble were perhaps more intriguing targets, but the figure of Lord Emsworth, still bending over the sty, had the great advantage of immediacy.

George hurried closer, rubbing the talisman against his pullover.

The Empress had inexplicably stopped eating. Lord Emsworth was mentally urging her on with all his inadequate powers of mind, and at the same time he had thrust one hand into his jacket pocket. Encountering George's bag of toffees, some primitive childhood instinct led him to remove one, unwrap it. and lift it to his mouth.

The life of a prize pig is not particularly exciting. The high point of the Empress' week was likely to be signaled by the discovery of an unusually juicy turnip, or a better-than-average pail of potato peelings. But in that bland catalog of days, unenriched by strange events, one stood higher than the rest. A visitor had once thrown into the sty a bar of Devon toffee that had accidentally been dropped in the mud. Now, that ambrosial fragrance was again wafting to her nostrils. The Empress yearned towards it, as the hart after the water-brook, at the same time as Lord Emsworth, toffee poised before his lips, willed her to eat. George rubbed the talisman.

Nothing happened. His grandfather stood there still, in human form. George felt that old sinking feeling. For the first time, he began to appreciate the meaning of the phrase
caveat emptor.
Sir Hamish, the cunning haggis-eater, had tricked him into accepting a useless bit of carved wood instead of ten pounds.

George turned and ran back towards the gate. It might be too late to reverse the decision, but he had to give it a try. At the very least, he would have to learn Pushtu to make sure this sort of thing did not happen again.

Back at the sty, matters apparently ran on much as before. It may be, as the gents who specialize in studies of animal intelligence assure us, that a pig has no capacity for abstract thought. Its perceptions of matters intellectual, they assert, are dim and confused, and it can think of only one thing at a time. But for many years, friends and relatives had been saying much the same thing about Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, and in rather stronger language. From a line purified by centuries of inbreeding, no one expects too much in the way of brains. Even so, many people felt that Lord Emsworth, with a power of mind that had on occasion been compared unfavorably with that of a boiled potato, took the matter to extremes.

This mental lack now stood the ninth Earl in good stead. Many men finding themselves on all fours inside a pigsty might be perplexed, even alarmed. Not so Lord Emsworth. Two feet in front of his snout stood a cornucopia of interesting food, and it all smelled delicious. A few turnip tops as hors d'oeuvres, he thought, and then perhaps twenty or thirty pounds of bran mash as a nice entree. Deep within, Lord Emsworth sensed the vast eating potential of his new form. He pushed his head forward and took the first mouthful.

It was exquisite; better, in his judgment, than the
cordon bleu
of Alphonse at the Astoria on even a very good day. The sun shone warm on his broad back, and from the corner of his eye he could see a patch of squishy mud that looked ideal for a postprandial wallow and nap. The peace that passeth all understanding filled his soul. He was perfectly happy.

The Empress, on the other hand, was a good deal less contented with her lot. Although the Earl, never a slave to fashion, was dressed for comfort, the clothing felt strange against her skin. She wriggled about uncomfortably inside the itchy shirt and trousers. Then there was her new shape. It was wrong in a number of ways, shorter here and longer there. If Richard III had popped up next to her outside the sty, to complain that Nature had shaped his legs of an unequal size and disproportioned him in every part, the Empress would have applauded and joined in the chorus. The only advantage of her new posture was a view of the kitchen garden, denied to her from lower levels. It was a sight that no prize pig, however transmogrified, could ever resist. She turned and slowly made her way towards a laden plum tree.

It was there, twenty-seven plums later, that Lady Constance found her. Lord Emsworth's sister was not dressed for comfort. She was heading for London, and her hat alone had denuded the ostriches from a large portion of the African continent.

"There you are, Clarence," she said benevolently. There was nothing like a trip to the big city to tone up the system. "I see the plums are ripening nicely, but it looks as though the birds have been at them."

The Empress grunted companionably. Lady Constance had never been one to stand there and dish out the rotten potatoes with her own fair hand, but her tone was friendly and the Empress was of a naturally kindly disposition.

"I have asked Beach to serve tea on the terrace," went on Lady Constance. "With the weather so beautiful, it seemed a shame to remain inside. Come along, Clarence. I'm afraid I will not be able to join you, since my train leaves in thirty minutes." The Empress grunted.

"And remember," said Lady Constance, "you must be careful about the house tonight. Lock all the doors. I have asked Beach to do the same and to check everything before retiring. Julia called me this morning, and apparently the burglars are still at work in the neighborhood. The Bishop lost all his silver just last night."

The Empress grunted again. When Lady Constance took her arm, she allowed herself to be led out of the orchard and over to the terrace, where an ample tea had been set out. Lady Constance looked at her watch.

"I'm afraid I'll have to leave you to it. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

The Empress gave a final grunt and watched as Lady Constance hurried off through the French windows that opened onto the terrace. To some people, grunting might seem an inferior form of conversational response, but not to Lady Constance. She knew her brother well, and he would not in her opinion be easily mistaken for Oscar Wilde. She could recall occasions when Lord Emsworth's contribution to a dinner party had been the single word "Capital," repeated two or three hundred times, and another when he had described the care and feeding of prize pigs in such relentless and graphic detail that a lady guest of neurasthenic temperament had been led from the room in hysterics. Lord Emsworth had many sterling qualities, and his sister found a grunt to be quite satisfactory.

Left now to her own devices, the Empress found much at the tea table to interest her. Apart from sandwiches, potted shrimps, and several varieties of cakes and jams, the thoughtful Beach had set out a selection of hothouse grapes and peaches. Although rather hindered by her unfamiliar form, the Empress had a fair go at all of these delicacies and pretty much managed to sweep the board. It was only when the last mustard-and-cress sandwich had followed the final dollop of clotted cream down the hatch that the Empress became aware of the answer to the old riddle: What is the difference between the digestive system of an aging peer and that of a pig who has three times won the silver medal in the Shropshire Fat Pigs competition?

A little contemplation of the infinite seemed to be called for. She staggered back to the orchard, lay down full-length beneath the shade of a pear tree, and was soon fast asleep. The servant who came out to collect the remnants of the tea noticed the recumbent form of Lord Emsworth, but her main attention was reserved for the carnage on the terrace table. The
Shropshire Herald
was apt to miss some news items, that she knew, but an invasion of the district by a Mongol Horde ought to have drawn at least a paragraph. So she mused, and returned inside as the shadows lengthened across the rolling lawns of Blandings Castle, and the calm of evening descended over house and garden.

Descended outside the house, that is. Inside it, there was a certain amount of ferment—most of it within the breast of young George.

The lad had been thinking about his recent encounter with Sir Hamish, and it was becoming increasingly apparent to him that he had been manipulated, as clay in the hands of the potter. He realized that would not do. The
Champion Paper
had been quite firm on the point; millionaires-to-be never allow themselves to be separated from their earnings by the mere blandishments of a honeyed tongue.

Fortunately, it was not too late. George knew now what he had to do. At eight o'clock, Sir Hamish and Maestro Wellbeloved would observe their tryst by the pigsty, for the purpose of abducting the Empress. Clearly, if George were to turn up there also, return the talisman and again demand a tenner as the price of his silence, the baronet would have no choice but to give it to him. George had heard the yearning tone in Sir Hamish's voice when he spoke of the Empress, and it had sounded familiar. Like Lord Emsworth, the man would be putty where pigs were concerned.

George picked up the talisman and sneaked out of the back door of the castle. The shades of night were falling fast as he approached the Empress' sty, ready for the confrontation.

His timing had been excellent. Sir Hamish had just arrived but had not yet begun the operation proper. For one thing, his accomplice had been slightly delayed by a desire to make the first dent in his pig-pinching earnings. George Cyril Wellbeloved had just emerged from the Emsworth Arms, weaving a little but clearly feeling no pain, and was now making unsteady progress towards Standings Castle. The other factor that had slowed Sir Hamish was the first sight of the Empress herself. He felt like some watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken. The Empress made the Jewel of Kabul look like the runt of the litter. Earth, thought Sir Hamish as he looked on her, had not anything to show more fair. What was that other Wordsworth poem that had helped to make his schooldays miserable? My heart leaps up when I behold, the Empress in her sty. Something like that. He gazed on.

In the sty itself, Lord Emsworth had just awakened from a blissful sleep. He had eaten until even a champion fat pig could hold no more, then enjoyed a refreshing mud wallow and nap. The only cloud on his horizon was the horrid object that had appeared over the side of the sty. Sir Hamish, taking his cue from the wily Pathan, had covered his face with boot-blacking before venturing forth on his ill-deeds. He would have reaped applause in the minstrel show on Brighton Pier, but he fitted in poorly with native customs in central Shropshire.

This was the tableau, Man and Pig, that presented itself to George as he approached the Empress' abode. He paused twenty paces short of the sty. Sir Hamish, eyes and teeth gleaming from a coal-black countenance, was a trifle off-putting. Although George was a brave lad, he decided he ought perhaps to give the talisman another chance before taking the next step. He pulled it from his pocket, rubbed it feverishly on his sleeve, and closed his eyes.