He punched the rock-hard pillow, and sank into a fitful sleep. Perchance to dream.
‘Slab and grue, yes. But it doesn ‘t say how slab and grue.’
‘Goodie Whemper recommended testing a bit in a cup of cold water, like toffee.’
‘How inconvenient that we didn’t think to bring one, Magrat.’
‘I think we should begettingon, Esme. The night’s nearly gone.’
‘Just don’t blame me if it doesn’t work properly, that’s all.
Lessee . . . “Baboon hair and . . .” Who’s got the baboon hair? Oh, thank you, Gytha, though it looks more like cat hair to me, but never mind. “Baboon hair and mandrake root”, and if that’s real mandrake I’m very surprised, “carrot juice and tongue of boot”, I see, a little humour, I suppose . . .’
‘Please hurry!’
‘All right, all right. “Owl hoot and glow-worm glimmer. Boil – and then allow to simmer.” ‘
‘You know, Esme, this doesn’t taste half bad.’
‘You ‘re not supposed to drink it, you daft doyenne!’
Tomjon sat bolt upright in bed. That was them again, the same faces, the bickering voices, distorted by tune and space.
Even after he looked out of the window, where fresh daylight was streaming through the city, he could still hear the voices grumbling into the distance, like old thunder, fading away . . .
‘I for one didn’t believe it about the tongue of boot.’
‘It’s still very runny. Do you think we should put some cornflour into it?’
‘It won’t matter. Either he’s on his way, or he isn ‘t. . .’
He got up and doused his face in the washbasin.
Silence rolled in swathes from Hwel’s room. Tomjon slipped on his clothes and pushed open the door.
It looked as though it had snowed indoors, great heavy flakes that had drifted into odd corners of the room. Hwel sat at his low table in the middle of the floor, his head pillowed on a pile of paper, snoring.
Tomjon tiptoed across the room and piled up a discarded ball of paper at random. He smoothed it out and read:
KING: Now, I’m just going to put the crown on this bush here, and you will tell me if anyone tries to take it, won’t you?
GROUNDLINGS: Yes!
KING: Now if I could just find my horsey . . .
(1st assassin pops up behind rock.)
AUDIENCE: Behind you!
(1st assassin disappears.)
KING: You’re trying to play tricks on old Kingy, you naughty . . .
There was a lot of crossing out, and a large blot. Tomjon threw it aside and selected another ball at random.
KING: Is this a duck knife dagger I see behind beside in front of before me, its beak handle pointing at me my hand?
1ST MURDERER: I’faith, it is not so. Oh, no it isn’t!
2ND MURDERER: Thou speakest truth, sire. Oh, yes it is!
Judging by the creases in the paper, this one had been thrown at the wall particularly hard. Hwel had once explained to Tomjon his theory about inspirations, and by the look of it a whole shower had fallen last night.
Fascinated by this insight into the creative processes, however, Tomjon tried a third discarded attempt:
QUEEN: Faith, there is a sound without! Mayhap it is my husband returning! Quick, into the garderobe, and wait not upon the order of your going!
MURDERER: Marry, but your maid still has my pantoufles!
MAID (opening door): The Archbishop, your majesty.
PRIEST (under bed): Bless my soul!
(Divers alarums)
Tomjon wondered vaguely what divers alarums, which Hwel always included somewhere in the stage directions, actually were. Hwel always refused to say. Perhaps they referred to dangerous depths, or lack of air pressure.
He sidled towards the table and, with great care, pulled the sheaf of paper from under the sleeping dwarfs head, lowering it gently on to a cushion.
The top sheet read:
Verence Felmet Small God’s Eve A Night Of Knives Daggers Kings, by, Hwel of Vitoller’s Men. A Comedy Tragedy in Eight Five Six Three Nine Acts.
Characters: Felmet, A Good King.
Verence, A Bad King.
Wethewacs, Ane Evil Witch
Hogg, Ane Likewise Evil Witch
Magerat, Ane Sirene . . .
Tomjon flicked over the page.
Scene: A Drawing Room Ship at See Street in Pseudopolis Blasted Moor. Enter Three Witches . . .
The boy read for a while and then turned to the last page.
Gentles, leave us dance and sing, and wish good health unto the king (Exeunt all, singing falala, etc. Shower of rose petals. Ringing of bells. Gods descend from heaven, demons rise from hell, much ado with turntable, etc.) The End.
Hwel snored.
In his dreams gods rose and fell, ships moved with cunning and art across canvas oceans, pictures jumped and ran together and became flickering images; men flew on wires, flew without wires, great ships of illusion fought against one another in imaginary skies, seas opened, ladies were sawn in half, a thousand special effects men giggled and gibbered. Through it all he ran with his arms open in desperation, knowing that none of this really existed or ever would exist and all he really had was a few square yards of planking, some canvas and some paint on which to trap the beckoning images that invaded his head.
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
‘It’s a good play,’ said Vitoller, ‘apart from the ghost.’
‘The ghost stays,’ said Hwel sullenly.
‘But people always jeer and throw things. Anyway, you know how hard it is to get all the chalk dust out of the clothes.’
‘The ghost stays. It’s a dramatic necessity.’
‘You said it was a dramatic necessity in the last play.’
‘Well, it was.’
‘And in Please Yourself, and in A Wizard of Ankh, and all the rest of them.’
‘I like ghosts.’
They stood to one side and watched the dwarf artificers assembling the wave machine. It consisted of half a dozen long spindles, covered in complex canvas spirals painted in shades of blue and green and white, and stretching the complete width of the stage. An arrangement of cogs and endless belts led to a treadmill in the wings. When the spirals were all turning at once people with weak stomachs had to look away.
‘Sea battles,’ breathed Hwel. ‘Shipwrecks. Tritons. Pirates!’
‘Squeaky bearings, laddie,’ groaned Vitoller, shifting his weight on his stick. ‘Maintenance expenses. Overtime.’
‘It does look extremely . . . intricate,’ Hwel admitted. ‘Who designed it?’
‘A daft old chap in the Street of Cunning Artificers,’ said Vitoller. ‘Leonard of Quirm. He’s a painter really. He just does this sort of thing for a hobby. I happened to hear that he’s been working on this for months. I just snapped it up quick when he couldn’t get it to fly.’
They watched the mock waves turn.
‘You’re bent on going?’ said Vitoller, at last.
‘Yes. Tomjon’s still a bit wild. He needs an older head around the place.’
‘I’ll miss you, laddie. I don’t mind telling you. You’ve been like a son to me. How old are you, exactly? I never did know.’
‘A hundred and two.’
Vitoller nodded gloomily. He was sixty, and his arthritis was playing him up.
‘You’ve been like a father to me, then,’ he said.
‘It evens out in the end,’ said Hwel diffidently. ‘Half the height, twice the age. You could say that on the overall average we live about the same length of time as humans.’
The playmaster sighed. ‘Well, I don’t know what I will do without you and Tomjon around, and that’s a fact.’
‘It’s only for the summer, and a lot of the lads are staying. In fact it’s mainly the apprentices that are going. You said yourself it’d be good experience.’
Vitoller looked wretched and, in the chilly air of the half-finished theatre, a good deal smaller than usual, like a balloon two weeks after the party. He prodded some wood shavings distractedly with his stick.
‘We grow old, Master Hwel. At least,’ he corrected himself, ‘I grow old and you grow older. We have heard the gongs at midnight.’
‘Aye. You don’t want him to go, do you?’
‘I was all for it at first. You know. Then I thought, there’s destiny afoot. Just when things are going well, there’s always bloody destiny. I mean, that’s where he came from.
Somewhere up in the mountains. Now fate is calling him back. I shan’t see him again.’
‘It’s only for the summer—’
Vitoller held up a hand. ‘Don’t interrupt. I’d got the right dramatic flow there.’
‘Sorry.’
Flick, flick, went the stick on the wood shavings, knocking them into the air.
‘I mean, you know he’s not my flesh and blood.’
‘He’s your son, though,’ said Hwel. ‘This hereditary business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘It’s fine of you to say that.’
‘I mean it. Look at me. I wasn’t supposed to be writing plays. Dwarfs aren’t even supposed to be able to read. I shouldn’t worry too much about destiny, if I was you. I was destined to be a miner. Destiny gets it wrong half the time.’