The Dubious Hills (30 page)

As if he too had been waiting for this, Beldi put
his spoonful into his mouth. His went down like pancake too. He
said, “Too dry.”

“
Put some honey on it,” said
Con.

Arry put her spoonful into her mouth. It tasted like
summer, late, full, old summer with harvest almost upon it. It had,
under its complex flowery grainy sunny flavor, almost no actual
substance; she could not imagine what Beldi had meant by calling
it too dry. She swallowed it. “It’s lovely, Con,” she said, “but
mightn’t it be a little too rarefied for breakfast?”

“
It’s a special breakfast,” said
Con.

“
Yes, extremely,” said Arry, and
ate the rest of her plateful.

“
Because of Zia’s plan,” said
Con.

Arry looked at Beldi. He said, “I made her tell you
at least.”

“
You did not,” Con said, without
heat. “You can’t make me do anything. You
persuaded
me
that I ought, and Zia helped you.”

“
Zia wanted you to tell me?” said
Arry. “Why?”

“
Because you’ve got Tiln’s coat,”
said Con.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us, thought
Arry. “What does she want with Tiln’s coat?”

“
You older ones always forget,”
said Con, leaning her elbows on the table and fixing her round dark
gaze on Arry. In her clear high voice Arry could hear traces of
Zia’s deeper drawl. “But Halver teaches by games. If we lose the
game, then he makes us learn the hard way. So Zia wants to win the
game.”

“
And what’s the game?”

“
Being better wolves than
Halver.”

“
Who told Zia,” said Arry, with
extreme care, “that Halver was any sort of wolf at all?”

Con looked at her pityingly. “Zia always finds
things out,” she said.

“
Did Halver tell her?”

“
Halver doesn’t tell you when he’s
playing a game,” said Con, still pitying.

Arry put the entire tangle aside for later
consideration and said, “So why are you making us a special
breakfast, again?”

“
Because wolves can’t cook,” said
Con.

“
Halver isn’t a wolf all the
time.”

“
No,” said Con, with enormous
patience. “But to be better wolves than Halver, we have to be
wolves all the time.”

“
Con, for mercy’s sake. Do you
want to be a wolf?”

“
No,” said Con, with her mouth
full. “I didn’t want to learn to read, either, but I liked it
after.”

“
But if you become a wolf you’ll
lose your knowledge.”

“
Haven’t got any,” said Con,
indistinctly.

“
But Mally thinks you’re going to
be a wizard.”

“
I’ll be a wolf wizard,
then.”

Arry ground her hands into her forehead. She
reminded herself that she did not have to have this argument,
that force would probably suffice, that she had the one coat and
Niss the other, and what Niss would do for the Physici of the whole
community she would not do for Con. On the other hand, to
underestimate Con or Zia, or most especially Con and Zia, might be
fatal, not in the rhetorical but in the true sense. And why in the
world, thought Arry, can Zia persuade Con to anything while I can
persuade her to nothing?

“
There’s no such thing as a wolf
wizard,” said Beldi.

“
Sune says there is.”

Oh, merciful heaven. “Con,” said Arry. “You can’t
perform this plan at once. I need to study this coat, and Niss
needs to study Beldi’s. She must discover how they work, and I must
discover if they can do hurt.”

“
Zia already asked Niss,” said
Con. “She said no, no child might have one.” Con scowled. “And she
hid it with the strongest spell she has. So we have to have this
one.”

“
Not while I’m studying
it.”

“
Well, when?”

“
I don’t know, Con.”

“
Well,” said Con, scrambling down
from her chair. “Zia said she’d think of a way to get the coat away
from Niss. So we’ll think about that, and if we can’t you can give
us Beldi’s.”

“
Con, you are not to meddle with
Niss.”

“
No, I won’t,” said Con
cheerfully. “I’ll just help Zia think.”

“
Whatever she thinks, I want you
to tell me. I need to see if it will do hurt. These coats are very
powerful, Con.”

For once, the combined ring of authority and truth
seemed to catch Con’s ear. “All right,” said Con. “But we can’t
wait very long, Arry, or Halver will win.”

“
Halver can’t be a wolf at all
until the next full moon,” Arry told her. “I’ll be done by then. Go
take a bath, Con, it’s been days since you did.”

Con went off without demur, probably in the hope of
finding towel-sprites. Arry looked at Beldi. “Will Zia let you in
her plan?”

“
She’ll let anybody in who does
what she says.” “Does Mally know about this plan?”

Beldi shrugged.

“
Can you be my spy? Can you stick
with Con and Zia and tell me what they’re doing, what state they’ve
got to?”

“
She usually makes us promise not
to tell,” said Beldi.

“
Well, promise me first; promise
me you will.”

Beldi looked at her.

“
No,” said Arry swiftly, “it isn’t
right. But it’s as right as we can manage at the
moment.”

“
Frances used to say that,” said
Beldi.

“
She did, didn’t she?”

“
This isn’t just a plot to make me
watch Con, is it?”

“
No,” said Arry. “It is not. This
is extremely important.” She hesitated. Beldi could certainly keep
quiet; but he was not very old. I’m not so very old myself, she
thought. “Halver is trying to change us all,” she said. “And while
that’s part of his province, I think there’s something wrong. So do
Frances and Bec. It looks as if they’re trying to stop him, but I
think they need help. And I certainly need help—not just to keep
Con out of the way. She and Zia could wreck anything, you have seen
them do it before. This mustn’t be wrecked.”

“
Maybe you should ask them to help
you,” said Beldi.

“
I don’t want them. I want
you.”

She had thought this would please him, but in fact
his face went very blank. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I
promise to tell you all about their plan, and not to tell them
about yours.”

“
Thank you,” said Arry.

Beldi nodded, and helped himself to the last of the
pancakes. Arry drank her tea and thought. It would really be
better to go talk to Mally again. But she did not think she could
bear it; she was not sure that anything Mally could tell her would
be of use; and she felt in a serious and terrible hurry. She took
the last of the oatcake, the three remaining cold potatoes, and
another large lump of cheese, shoved them into a pouch that had
been her father’s, and went into the front room to collect the
wolfskin coat.

Both cats were sleeping on it. Arry wondered if
sleeping on it three times would also cause some profound
transformation; if it worked on cats; if it would work through
Niss’s warding. She shook the coat, and the cats sprang away,
glaring. Arry rubbed each affronted head briefly and went out the
front door.

It was warm again, and today the sky was perfectly
clear and no breeze blew, which meant it would soon be more than
warm. Arry stood under the pine tree, looking at the crocuses,
which were a little wilted now, and would soon lose their blooms
altogether and resemble striped grasses until they turned brown and
disappeared. Where shall I go to nap, she thought. Lying down
right amongst the crocuses would be pleasant, but not these
crocuses, of course, so close to the house: She wouldn’t be
undisturbed for long enough to shut her eyes.

She walked away towards Halver’s house, skirted the
foot of its hill, and came to Sune’s house. Sune was sitting
outside in the sun, still spinning. She had quite a large mass of
yarn by now, but she would have to knit fast if she wanted a
blanket for Knot by the time Knot presented herself. Sune felt
better today, though she did not feel very well. She waved, so Arry
climbed the hill and greeted her.

“
Have you been sleeping out?” said
Sune, looking rather pointedly at the coat.

Arry realized that she had not bathed since she went
on that long futile walk with Oonan; that she was still wearing her
crumpled shirt and grass- and mud-stained leggings; that she had
not even combed her hair, which was coming out of its braids and
probably full of twigs. “I thought I’d see what it was like,” she
said. “Can I do anything for you?”

“
You can, in fact,” said Sune. “I
haven’t seen Halver today, or yesterday, either.”

“
I think he’s devising some
particularly strong lesson for us to make up for the holiday,”
said Arry, putting the coat and pouch down.

“
I never found planting oats much
of a holiday,” said Sune. “Though there must be better ways of
avoiding it than being pregnant.”

Arry fetched her a great deal of water; brought her
last sack of potatoes out of the cellar; moved the rocking chair
nearer the fire, since Sune said Grel had been by to say it would
grow cooler this evening and probably rain; spread an extra blanket
on the bed; and made a pot of tea. Sune thanked her profusely. Arry
professed herself delighted, and in fact she was: she needed to be
tired if she were to sleep well outside.

She went on down to the stream and into the little
wood on its far side. No crocuses here, but drifts of scilla in the
clearings, and eyebright, and more may blooming. Arry finally
tucked herself under a huge twisted hawthorn, put her head on her
pouch of food, spread the coat over herself, and shut her eyes.

Her mind woke up at once. Is this once or twice
under this coat, she thought, exactly as she would when measuring
cinnamon for solstice buns. Extra cinnamon never marred the buns,
though Frances used to talk about how much it cost. If something
didn’t happen soon after her third nap under this garment, she
would just have to have a fourth. She hoped it wouldn’t be like
kneading the cinnamon into the dough after it had already risen
once. That was never entirely satisfactory.

Neither was being a wolf. She could see less than
she was accustomed to, and smell a great deal more. She trotted
dutifully about, sniffing; but while she knew that a wolf would
have been wildly fascinated with all these scents, she could not
make herself be interested. It was like reading a bad recipe. Arry
finally lay down and put her nose on her paws and went to sleep,
which had the effect of waking her from her human sleep sooner than
she liked. It was still morning. She rubbed her eyes and sat up.
How long ought one to go between naps, she thought. What Niss had
told her really was just like a carelessly written recipe, leaving
too much for the experience of the cook to fill in. She cast off
the wolfskin coat and sat with her knees under her chin, working
the tangles out of her filthy hair and admiring the sun on the new
birch leaves.

If it had been a very little warmer she would have
gone and had a bath in the stream. She thought that, if she dreamed
she was a wolf again, swimming might do to relieve the boredom. She
could not believe that this was what Halver had had in mind. But
then, after all, he had intended this coat just for Tiln, and the
other just for Beldi. Niss might say that whosoever slept under
them three times would suffer this or that effect, but it did not
follow that everybody would have the same experience.

A cooler breeze moved through the trees. Arry pulled
the coat over herself and lay down again. She watched the sunlight
falling through the may blossoms, pink and white and gold. When she
woke up a wolf, she did go swimming in the stream, frightening all
the fish and making a great deal of noise. Then she lay down in the
sun to dry. It was when she woke up in the sun in her own shape
again, but still damp, and with the beginnings of sunburn, that
she began to view the wolfskin coat with respect. She shook the dry
grass and leaves out of it, and went back to her hawthorn tree to
fetch the pouch of food. The strap was there, and a crumble of
oatcake.

“
Bother,” said Arry. She was
getting hungry; it was early afternoon now, and the pancakes of
blushful Hippocrene had not been entirely filling. She stood
turning the strap in her hands, frowning. This would be either the
third time, or the fourth; it was either necessary, or not; and
what her wolf-self was most likely to fill its time with would be
in killing something.

Arry went home and finished cleaning the discarded
oddments out of the kitchen. Con and Beldi came home at suppertime,
and she fed them potato-and- onion pie. They were both preoccupied.
Con declined offers, after dinner, to play chess, to be read to, to
play with the cats, to be helped to make scones, and to see if Sune
might like to make some music. She went off to her room. Arry
looked at Beldi.

“
Well?” she said.

Beldi was lying on the hearth-rug, and he addressed
himself to the fire, which Con had spoken to with somewhat
different intention before she went to bed. “It’s very hard to tell
with Zia,” he said. “She likes—Mally says so—she likes you to think
she always knows what she’s doing, and she makes things up. Mally
says she’s the other half of Sune. Tany’s even stranger. Mally says
he truly doesn’t believe in anything; she says he’s like the people
the Descent of Doubt first descended on, before they changed the
spell—did she tell you about that?”