The Dubious Hills (34 page)

“
Con does say,” she added, her
brow clearing, “that the last thing Halver eats ought to be
pleasant.”

Arry went home feeling she could never eat anything
again. After she had fed Con and Beldi she left them struggling to
invent a new game using the chess pieces, and walked in the kindly
golden evening to Oonan’s house. He was sitting on the stone wall
with his cats, cutting splints. “No, Physici,” he said when he saw
her, “I have not thought of anything else we may do to repel Halver
when the moon rises tomorrow.”

“
I wanted to ask you,” said Arry
sitting down on the other side of the cats, “what you thought of
everybody’s rejoinder to all this. Because if I don’t look closely,
I receive the distinct impression that they are mightily enjoying
themselves.”

“
Oh, they are,” said Oonan, not
looking up from his work. “We enjoy drinking May wine also, but the
damage it does is done all the same.”

“
What will the morning after be of
all this?”

“
Much worse than any quantity of
May wine could produce,” said Oonan. “We can, I think, prevent
Halver’s in fact killing anybody who chooses not to become a wolf;
but we cannot prevent anybody’s so choosing. And that is what will
wreck us.”

“
Does Halver think we deserve to
be wrecked, or that we’ll be the better for it?”

“
Of course he does,” said Oonan,
looking at her at last. “He told you so himself; he told all of us
so.”

“
But is he right?”

“
No,” said Oonan. “There is a
balance here, and when he upsets it the restoration will be beyond
us.”

“
Do you know this?”

“
I know it.”

“
But can you, if it’s to do with
Halver?”

“
It’s not to do with Halver,
except as Halver is a force like a flood or a plague. It’s to do
with all of us.”

“
Is it too late
already?”

“
No, I think not,” said Oonan, his
eyes on his work again. “We can absorb a little upset, as the body
can absorb a little May wine. But the dosage Halver prescribes for
us, that is fatal.”

“
Oonan?”

“
Fatal to the larger body,” said
Oonan. “And, of course, to anybody who refuses the dose and then is
careless whom he drinks with.”

“
You’re being much too
metaphorical,” said Arry, crossly.

Oonan shrugged. “It soothes anxiety,” he said.

“
If you’re so anxious why don’t
you think what else to do?”

“
You’re much more anxious than I
am,” said Oonan, “and it doesn’t seem to be helping you to
think.”

“
Mustn’t there be something wrong
with us and our workings if we can’t think what to do about
impending harm?”

“
Mustn’t there be something wrong
with the oak, if it but stands on the mountain and lets lightning
strike it?” said Oonan. “Or to be more precise, mustn’t there be
something wrong with the birds who nest there, that they cannot
alter the oak to be impervious?”

“
Oh, never mind,” said Arry, and
slid off the wall and stamped off home.

She sat in the chair with red cushions, stroking
Woollycat with one hand and the pile of books she had been lent
with the other. It was interesting that Oonan too sometimes thought
of Halver’s bargain as a dreadful storm. We can’t weather it,
thought Arry, we can’t outrun it; we must turn it back. Patrick
Spens lacked a good wizard. She put Con and Beldi to bed and sat
back down in the chair. This is the last night, she thought. No
matter what happens, there will be change.

“
Are you ever coming to school
again?” said Con the next morning.

“
No,” said Arry.

“
Shall I tell Halver?”

“
I’ll tell him,” said Arry, “when
he comes to tea.”

The afternoon was sunny, kind, and tender. Summer
was its most perfect green. The wild roses were blooming early.
Arry went down a little early to the stream, and found Zia already
there. She had brought one of Mally’s finest linen cloths, but
Mally or someone had prevailed on her to bring wooden cups and
platters. She had laid a fire but not yet lit it. Arry gave her the
oatcake and cheese she had brought, so the children, who would be
far too excited to eat any dinner, would have something vaguely
resembling nutrition.

Zia was sparkling and glittering with excitement.
She began talking the moment she saw Arry and did not stop until
Con and Tany arrived. Tany bore the food Mally had promised; Con
had a large jug almost too large for her to carry.

“
What’s that?” said
Arry.

“
It’s the blushful Hippocrene,”
panted Con, thumping it down in a patch of chickweed. “Jony says it
makes all the sleepy herbs work better, and Mally says it’s
entirely proper to serve at afternoon tea.”

“
How nice for Halver,” said Arry,
a little hollowly.

They all looked at her. “Will it hurt him?” said
Zia.

“
No,” said Arry.

“
Lina’s bringing him,” said Tany.
“It’s her turn to help clear up, so she’s bringing him.”

After this there seemed nothing else to say. Tany
lay on his back in the grass and stared up into the new leaves of
the oak trees. Con and Zia amused themselves by throwing stones
into the stream. Zia had found a good place. The bank was flat and
grassy and sloped a little towards the water; the pool beneath it
was wide and deep. The stream made small chuckling and splashing
noises going through the narrow spot before the pool, but it was
not so loud as to impede conversation.

What in the world are we going to talk about,
thought Arry, while the blushful Hippocrene and the valerian work
themselves on Halver? I can’t do this. It’s treachery, the most
hurtful thing there is. Well, so is what Halver wants to do
treachery. It’s worse than treachery. He’s using force. Is that
worse than guile?

“
Here he comes,” said
Zia.

Arry looked around. Lina was leading Halver by the
hand through the stand of oaks. He looked perfectly serene. Lina
brought him over and sat him on a flat stone. He thanked her, and
then looked at the rest of them. “This is very good of you,” he
said.

“
Mally says it’s good of you,”
said Zia, “to have tea with children after spending all day with
children.”

“
The obligations are different,”
said Halver. “In school, I’m obliged to teach; but now, you are
obliged to entertain me. Which you seem to be doing very well.
What’s this?” And he took from Con a wooden cup brimming with red
bubbly Hippocrene.

“
It’s the blushful Hippocrene,”
said Con.

“
Ah,” said Halver. “A beaker full
of the warm South. Where did you get this, Con?”

“
I made it,” said Con.

“
Truly?” said Halver. “We’ll hope
you can help Rine with the beer when you come into more knowledge,
then.” He sniffed his cup, and looked thoughtful. “Have you drunk
any of this?” he asked Con.

“
No,” said Con. “I made pancakes
of it.”

“
You had perhaps better not drink
much of it.”

“
Beldi says it tastes bad,” said
Con, accepting a cup from Zia and regarding it
suspiciously.

“
To the fresh palate, it probably
does,” said Halver. “Mix it with water, Zia; that will give us
enough for a toast.”

Zia had a jug of water already, for making the tea;
she did as Halver told her, and handed out the cups. Arry got the
cupful Zia had originally given to Con, being, she supposed, old
enough to no longer have a fresh palate. Halver held his cup up in
a shaft of sunlight. “To transformation,” he said, and drank.

They all drank, including Arry. I’ll show you
transformation, she thought. Halver looked at her over the rim of
his cup, exactly as if she had spoken. “What have you all decided?”
he said.

Arry opened her mouth, but she was forestalled by
Zia. “Mally says,” said Zia, “that asking personal questions at
tea is very rude.”

Arry shut her mouth in time to turn her laugh into a
snort, probably as rude in its way as a personal question.

“
Mally has the right of it,” said
Halver, agreeably. “But it’s rude to correct your guests, as well.
You must make it up to me with more Hippocrene.”

Zia poured him another cup full. Halver drank it
fairly rapidly. Arry sipped her own and wondered about him. Either
he was in fact finding the continued presence of small children
wearing, or he was in some anxiety about what might happen when
the moon rose. “What isn’t rude to talk about at tea?” said
Con.

“
Why tea?” said Arry, suffering
and giving in to an impulse of mischief. “Why is tea more polite
than supper?”

“
Because it’s superfluous,” said
Zia, coming out with the entire word in one triumphant breath.
“Mally says so.”

“
But surely,” said Arry, “the
necessary ought to be more palatable than the optional?”

The children looked at her resignedly, but Halver
said, “Palatable is one thing, decorated another. We decorate tea
with amiable nothings.”

Arry grinned into her Hippocrene.

“
What
is
the blushful
Hippocrene?” asked Lina, prompting Halver to quote the entire
spell. While he was doing so, Con and Zia made the fire and boiled
the water and made the tea, and Arry observed Halver. He was
certainly rather flushed and cheerful. She hoped Jony was right
about the combined effect of sleepy tea and wine.

Tany then asked how one could have a beaker full of
the south, or any other direction, and in the very confused
conversation that followed, the tea got brewed very strong indeed.
Zia finally tore her attention away from Tany’s adamant refusal to
admit the value of metaphor, and poured out a greeny-yellow
decoction that looked more like a medicine than a drink. Arry
supposed it was. She gestured at Zia and then at the honey pot,
and Zia shot a huge spoonful of honey into the cup she meant for
Halver.

When Arry got her own tea, she decided that it was
just as well. The tea was very bitter. She almost asked for honey
herself, and then realized that the rest of them had better not
drink much tea. They were all smaller than Halver and would be
snoring well before him. Which would be not only disastrous to the
plan, but very rude. Arry found herself chortling, and stopped
hastily. Halver gave her a knowing look, and drank his tea. Arry
saw that the Hippocrene had made him thirsty. This might work after
all.

It did work, with an almost terrifying rapidity.
Halver ate some honeycake, declined cheese and oatcake, drank
another cup of tea, leaned back against his rock saying something
about which bird was singing in the oak tree, and was suddenly
asleep.

Lina grinned. “I put valerian in the honeycake,
too,” she said. “And I got a spell from Niss to say over it.”

Zia began clearing cups and cakes off the cloth,
which she then folded tidily. Arry sat and watched as she made an
easy path for rolling Halver into the water. She watched as the
four of them pulled him down off the rock and tried to roll him so
he was, as he had taught them the concept, parallel to the stream.
The loose gray robe he wore caught on the rough rock. He was too
heavy for them. They stopped and looked at her.

“
We can’t do this,” said Arry.
“Truly, we can’t.”

They went on looking at her.

“
You could teach us when he’s
gone, I think,” said Lina. “We listen to you. Even Tany listens to
you.”

“
You sound like me,” said Tany. He
flashed her a delighted and charming grin.

Oh, wonderful, thought Arry. “I’m glad you do,” she
said, “because I’m going to have to disappoint you. It was the talk
of courtesy that made me realize. You can’t murder your guest, you
really can’t. He trusted us; we can’t kill him.”

“
Does this mean we lose the game?”
said Zia.

“
No, it’s just a different game
than we thought.” They went on looking at her, three pairs of brown
eyes and one of blue, sweet little faces, a trifle flushed with
their watered wine and smeared a bit here and there with honey or
crumbs.

“
Oh, well,” said Zia suddenly,
“now we know it works. This was—what does Vand call it—a dry run.
We can always do it later.”

“
But if it’s rude?” said
Lina.

“We
could be
his
guests,” said Zia. “We’ll think of
something.”

“
But what do we do now?” said
Lina, looking at Halver.

“
You go home with your cloth and
dishes,” said Arry. “I’ll stay with him until he wakes
up.”

“
I’m staying too,” said
Con.

“
All right, but go find Beldi
first and let him know where we are.” She looked again at Mally’s
children. “Thank you,” she said, “for having such lovely
manners.”

They packed up their tea things and went off
chattering. Con said, “But is he still going to hurt us,
Arry?”

“
Yes,” said Arry, “but we needn’t
hurt ourselves even more.”

Con went off silently to find Beldi. Arry sat
looking at the ashes of the fire. Was that stupid? she thought. For
he is dangerous, and something must be done, because he’s hurting
us all, he’s hurting whatever we are together, he’s ruining
something bigger than all of us, whereby we live. But it would have
hurt those children to let them roll his helpless body into the
water.