Three Bags Full (12 page)

The Way Back is always the most important, said the leaves. They said the same everywhere, and you had to believe them: they were the fragrant, breathing fleece of the world, even though it always grew away from you, in flight from the withered brown. But when the air began to smell of cold smoke, when swallow-flying time came and dark days, brown covered the ground all the same. Then you had to watch out in case it caught hold of your hooves and crawled up your legs like tiny spiders. His legs itched—it wasn’t a good idea to think of the spiders. They tried to chill his heart and crawled into his nose. But the leaves were right. Even in swallow-flying time they whispered from the hedgerows, from the holly bushes, the ever-ravenous ivy in the undergrowth, the little pine trees and his own shivering soul. The Way Back is always the most important. He believed them all. And he believed the crows who freed his fleece from parasites but left the Way Back unharmed. Black wings on his back, hoarse cawing and shiny eyes. For the swallows returned with the leaves too.

Now the Way Back had curled up, like a wood louse, into a single step to be taken. Beyond that step they were grazing, they were like clouds of wintry breath, warm and alive in an empty world. He saw the black ram among them, the ram with the angry soul and all the scars under his fleece. The black ram belonged here now. Who could fix it for someone to belong somewhere? George had known how to herd sheep together and then drive them apart better than any sheepdog. George should have herded him too with all the scattered sheep, right into the middle of the Way Back. But George had looked too deep below the dolmen, to stone and bone. He saw the one who was like a quiet pool of water, saw his belly hanging slack. But those horns wound like the Way, curving and proud as his own.

His soul galloped ahead.

But he himself still stood there, watching his soul go. No one had told him that the last step was the impossible one. Sadness, enough to make you howl at the moon the way his crows secretly did when they thought he wouldn’t notice. There was no bridge to take him over that last step, no ford where the water wouldn’t be so deep. He hadn’t expected to drown at the last step. His horns bored into the passing night like screws. And yes, yes…there was a ford after all, you could build it with words, ancient words lovingly kept safe in the soul all those years, thought out like magic spells. Now he was looking for them. But his soul had grown so large, so bewildering and crowded, there were ways after ways after ways, all the ways he had ever gone, and he couldn’t find the words anymore. He must, though. It must be done quickly, because the fleecy ones were as ephemeral as wintry breath, and the silent shepherd already sat under the dolmen with his blue eyes gleaming. Day came up slowly above the sea and threatened to drive him away again, as it had driven him away those last four days. The fifth day. The fifth day was the day of the Way Back. He hesitated.

12

Rameses Intervenes

Miss Maple was the first sheep out in the meadow at dawn. She couldn’t remember having slept at all. Something wouldn’t let her rest. A dream? No, more like the memory of a dream, the memory of the half sheep. She felt as if that scent of a great many sheep were in the air again but strange and incomplete.

Gabriel’s sheep, thought Miss Maple. But at the same moment she knew it couldn’t be that. Gabriel’s sheep were easy to scent, a flock of young ewes and rams one and two years old with no difference between them, a flat kind of smell. But these half sheep weren’t all young. There were some very old rams among them; there were mother ewes and lambs; there were memories, experiences, ingenuity, youthful high spirits, innocence. A complete flock, only not really complete. Strange scent strands hung in the air.

Ritchfield was standing in the morning mist. On George’s Place. For a moment Maple thought he was dead—not because he was standing there so still (that was nothing unusual in old rams) but because of the birds. There were three crows perched on Ritchfield’s back, and what live sheep would put up with crows using it as a lookout post? Certainly not Sir Ritchfield. One of the crows spread its wings and croaked hoarsely. It looked as if Ritchfield had grown short black wings of his own. A shudder ran through Maple’s fleece.

She sensed something moving behind her and shot round, jumping up in the air with all four legs at once, as only a young lamb or a very frightened sheep can. Behind her, Sir Ritchfield stepped out of the mist. But Sir Ritchfield was standing on George’s Place in front of her, too. Awestruck, Miss Maple took a couple of steps backward.

The two rams were facing each other like reflections on two sides of a puddle. Except that the black birds weren’t reflected. Maple remembered from the fairy tale that the dead don’t have reflections either. Both rams lowered their horns and approached each other. Their horns clashed together with a full, ringing sound. Then they both raised their heads.

“I did dare,” said Ritchfield with crows.

“You did dare,” agreed Ritchfield without crows. He suddenly looked bewildered. “No sheep may leave the flock,” he bleated. “George came back smelling of death.” He shook his head, distressed. “If only I’d kept my mouth shut! So stupid…”

And Ritchfield without crows turned and trotted briskly toward the cliffs. The other Ritchfield stood there looking at him with an affectionate expression in his eyes. As if at a signal, all three crows rose into the air together, and there was only one Ritchfield left in the meadow. A shaggy Ritchfield smelling like a flock of half sheep.

Miss Maple looked anxiously at the other, bewildered Ritchfield wandering along the cliff tops. She turned and ran after him.

Normally Cloud and Mopple were the first sheep out at pasture every morning, Mopple because he felt hungry earlier than the others, and Cloud because she was convinced that morning air made your wool grow.

“You don’t think I’m just naturally as woolly as this, do you?” she asked.

“Yes!” bleated the lambs and some of the older sheep who always admired Cloud’s superior woolliness.

Cloud felt flattered and rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe,” she would say, “but you needn’t think I don’t do anything to make it that way!” And then those sheep who took any interest in the subject could settle down to listen to a long lecture about the benefits of morning air. Oddly enough, although Cloud’s sermons were very popular, no single sheep ever left the fleecy embrace of the flock earlier than the others in order to improve its personal woolliness.

This morning Mopple the Whale was still sleeping off the stress and strain of his first ever attack of colic, and Cloud was all alone in the dewy meadow. Well, not really. Of course there were Gabriel’s sheep, who had to be up early, since they didn’t have a hay barn, and who disproved Cloud’s theory of the natural woolliness of morning air.

To Cloud’s great surprise, Sir Ritchfield was up and about too. He stood on George’s Place grazing with dignity. Cloud indignantly fluffed herself up and faced Ritchfield.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked.

“Back,” said Ritchfield, sounding emotional. He lowered his head to the still ungrazed plants on George’s Place and nibbled carefully around some of the delicious nose-tickler flowers.

“You’re grazing on George’s Place!” bleated Cloud. “How could you?”

“Easy,” said Ritchfield. “Over the hills, over the fields, through the old stone quarry, over the body, all through the world and back again. Mustn’t get caught by the butcher. Easy, because the carrion eater fears the dead. Head in the wind, eyes open, mustn’t shake the memories out of your fleece. Impossible. Simple when you come to do it.”

Cloud stared at Ritchfield in alarm. There was something badly wrong with him. She bleated uneasily. Ritchfield didn’t seem to like that. He went closer to her and whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, woolly ewe. This isn’t George’s place. George’s place is under the dolmen where no grass grows, where the blue-eyed shepherd sits waiting. George’s place is safe until the key comes back into the light of day, all warm. Who has the key?” he asked.

These remarks were obviously meant to be reassuring. Ritchfield’s voice sounded gentle. All the same, Cloud fled toward the hay barn in confusion.

A little later the whole flock had gathered at George’s Place. They were standing, at a respectful distance, around Sir Ritchfield, who made no move to leave George’s Place himself. All these sheep seemed to bother Ritchfield.

“Sometimes being alone is an advantage,” he said.

“What does he mean?” asked Heather. The other sheep said nothing.

“It doesn’t sound at all like Ritchfield,” said Lane at last.

“He smells strange,” said Maude. “Sick. Or perhaps not sick, but not like Ritchfield. In fact not like a sheep at all. Or at least not like
a
sheep. Like a young ram with just one horn.
And
like an experienced mother ewe.
And
like a young sheep with a very thick fleece who hasn’t seen a winter yet.
And
like a very old ram who won’t see another winter. Yet not just like any of them. Somehow or other—he’s half.” Maude was at a loss.

“He’s running out!” exclaimed Mopple. “Ritchfield is running out!”

That must be it! The hole in Ritchfield’s memory had got so large overnight that every possible and impossible memory was now running out of it.

None of the sheep knew what to do. Ritchfield was the lead ram, but of course he couldn’t be expected to do anything about it himself. Maple had disappeared, Othello was nowhere to be seen, Mopple, the memory sheep, had hurried off to the other side of the meadow because he was afraid a hole in the memory could be infectious. Zora stared wide-eyed at Ritchfield for a moment and then fled to her rocky ledge. Finally Rameses took the initiative. He led the flock a little way from Ritchfield, so that the old ram couldn’t hear what ideas they were discussing.

At first they had no ideas to discuss. No one knew how to stop up a hole in the memory. They couldn’t even imagine what a hole in the memory was like.

“We must get him away from George’s Place before he grazes it bare,” said Rameses.

“How?” asked Maude. “He’s the lead ram.”

“He is
not
the lead ram, not anymore,” said Rameses. “We just have to make that clear to him.”

It was a suggestion, anyway. The confused sheep would have backed almost any suggestion with enthusiasm. Before Rameses knew what was happening, it was decided that he would make it clear to Ritchfield that his time as lead ram was now over.

The sheep pressed close together expectantly as Rameses hesitantly trotted up to Ritchfield. Rameses swallowed. He felt as if he had never seen Ritchfield look so majestic. He was about to murmur a respectful greeting when Ritchfield interrupted him.

“Straight-horned ram, short-horned ram,” he addressed Rameses. It was true: Rameses had horns that were little more than two small points. “Spare your breath. Never mind making things clear. Don’t you see how clear the day is? Clearer than all the days there are. My birds know it and rise early. Ritchfield knows it and is looking for his memories. It’s clear that I’m not a lead ram. It’s clear that no sheep in the world is going to get me off this lovely pasture if I don’t want to go. But you,” he said, looking the other sheep up and down as they stared with wide, bewildered eyes in the direction of George’s Place, “you could do with being a whole lot clearer.”

Without having said a single word, Rameses trotted back to his flock.

“He heard us,” bleated Maude. It looked as if the hole in Ritchfield’s memory had sharpened his hearing. They decided to be more careful with critical remarks in future. To be on the safe side, they trotted even farther from George’s Place, all the way to the dolmen.

Othello had hidden in the shadow of the dolmen and was looking across the meadow at Sir Ritchfield with close attention.

“Othello,” sighed Heather in relief, “you must drive him away from George’s Place!”

Othello snorted with derision. “I’m not crazy, am I?” he said, and they could get no more out of him.

Othello’s strange answer made the sheep feel even more uncertain. He knew the world, he knew the zoo. He knew something they didn’t know. That was why he was standing motionless in the shadow of the dolmen. They thought some more.

“Ritchfield did say he was looking for his memories,” said Lane optimistically.

“If it’s a hole in his memory we ought to stop it up with more memories,” said Cordelia. “You stop up a hole in the earth with more earth.”

“But you don’t stop up a rat hole with more rats,” said Cloud.

“You could,” Cordelia insisted, “if they were very fat rats.”

A few minutes later they had a plan. They would make a memory for Sir Ritchfield so big and thick that it could not fail to stop up the hole. It was a large memory involving as many sheep as possible. They enticed Zora off her ledge again and persuaded Mopple to venture back into Ritchfield’s vicinity. Mopple’s girth could only help with the size of the memory. Othello alone firmly refused to join them.

“It has to be something really special,” bleated Heather excitedly, “something no flock has ever done before.”

Soon afterward all the sheep in the flock were lying on their backs in front of George’s Place with their legs in the air, bleating for all they were worth. Ritchfield had stopped grazing and was inspecting them attentively. If they hadn’t been making such an effort, they would have noticed how amused he looked.

“What’s all this nonsense?” snorted Ritchfield’s familiar voice all of a sudden. “Have you gone out of your minds?”

The sheep cast each other triumphant glances, as well as they could in that attitude. Sir Ritchfield sounded perfectly all right again. They scrambled back on their legs, quite flustered but proud of their success.

Ritchfield trotted over from the cliff tops. “Let’s have some order around here!” he snorted. “Stand to attention! Can’t you be left alone for two minutes together?”

Ritchfield was there on George’s Place, beginning to graze around the nose-tickler flowers again.

The sheep’s eyes looked blankly from one of the two Ritchfields to the other and back again.

“That’s Ritchfield,” whispered Heather, glancing at the Ritchfield who was bellowing demands for order from the cliff tops, “but that’s Ritchfield too.”

“No,” said Miss Maple, who had appeared beside Ritchfield like an interested shadow, “
that
is Melmoth.”

Melmoth’s arrival had the flock in such an uproar as only the arrival of a genuine wolf could have caused. Melmoth was more than a ram who had disappeared: he was a legend, like Jack the Lad who had got away unshorn, or the seven-horned ram, a ghost who was roped in to teach refractory lambs the meaning of fear when all other warnings had failed. He was an example of what happens to a sheep who leaves the flock and gets too close to the cliff tops or who eats strange fodder and ignores the warning bleats of the mother ewes.

“Melmoth leaned over just like that, and he never came back,” they said when an inquisitive lamb ventured too close to the abyss.

“Melmoth ate just as much woe weed as that, and now he’s dead.”

Melmoth had died a thousand whispered deaths; he was the bogey sheep of the lambs’ education; and now there he stood before them, radiating strength and in the best of health. The mother ewes were wondering how they were ever going to make their lambs behave in future. And no lamb had been told more Melmoth horror stories than the winter lamb. Now he was standing back in the shade of the hedge, staring at Melmoth with a strange gleam in his eyes.

“Two Ritchfields!” sang out the other lambs, except for one, who kept quiet and snuggled into Cloud’s white fleece.

They all realized that Melmoth was something special. Some of them called him “the one who got away scot-free,” and didn’t quite know whether they meant it as an insult or a mark of respect. But once Ritchfield had told him why no sheep were allowed to graze on George’s Place, Melmoth met with a friendly reception at first.