Chapter 4
Four
The concubine laughed when her king told her he did not believe in destiny. But then he looked cross, and she feared she would be treated to a royal sulk.
“Come now,” she said. “A king by birth who thinks fate is humbug? You must see the irony.”
But her king did not believe in irony, either.
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
That had to be the single most prolonged parting of Henry’s life. Even now, he couldn’t imagine why he had let it be drawn out that way.
What an odd woman. Odd, but striking with that wild, gray hair and those golden-brown eyes in that impish, round-cheeked face. And dangerous with that scythe.
But maybe he was wrong to think her odd. She was of a piece with this whole strange, dreamlike morning.
Earlier, before his borrowed horse had lost its shoe, Henry had ridden past the old church and felt a shiver of recognition along his spine.
He had dismissed it. Naturally, it was eerie to see a church sitting all alone in the countryside with a broken churchyard wall. It had nothing to do with the oversized gargoyle in the shape of an elephant.
Then the shoe had come off, and Henry had dismounted to spare Sir John’s horse, and, as he had walked on, the slower pace had helped him realize he’d stumbled upon a place full of familiar landmarks.
Familiar, yet he’d never seen them before. Not outside of his mind’s eye, at any rate.
He’d heard that sometimes people thought they had been somewhere, seen something previously when they had not. But Henry’s recognition of this place was no figment. It was real, and he could recite why.
He knew the twists and turns of this lane as it approached the river. He knew the bridge he now crossed, the mill next to it, and even the pale color of the stones in the river. He knew them because he’d read about them more times than he could count.
He’d known where to find the farrier—next to the village green, just beside the coaching inn—and he hadn’t had to stop to ask anyone. Because he already knew.
How Tommy took the magic mare to the farrier to mend her hurt leg.
The farrier, a huge man of few words, had ignored Henry but addressed the horse by name.
“Nym.”
“Yes. You know he’s Sir John’s, then. He’s lost a shoe. I suppose he’ll need a new pair.”
“An hour.” A jerk of the farrier’s head towards the coaching inn as he led the horse away. “Try the pork pie.”
But the coaching inn and village had been bustling, full of horses and wagons and people carrying things, and Henry had needed to think far more than he needed to eat.
Out of all the quaint corners of England, the Earl of Ashthorpe had somehow arrived in a place straight out of the pages of a Tommy Treadwell storybook.
He had long ago discarded the notion of fate and believed every man charted his own course, so clearly his being here was a happy accident. Serendipity, as Walpole had said. And, like those wise princes of Serendip, Henry could deduce and reason and discover Puddlewick.
So he had retraced his steps and walked back to the church, to the first place he’d sensed something out of the ordinary. However, it wasn’t a church in the Tommy Treadwell books. It was a castle full of labyrinths and treasure, boasting the same large gargoyle in the shape of an elephant.
How Tommy Treadwell turned the rampaging elephant to stone and hung him on the castle wall.
And that was where Henry had met Miss Beasley. But did she really belong in a children’s story? She was something out of a grown man’s dream, one that involved skin and scent and hard things going into soft places. The kind of rare dream from which he would never want to awaken.
In a different time, she’d have been thought a witch. Except she’d been tidying a churchyard and surely that would have excluded her from suspicion.
Or maybe not.
It wasn’t that Henry had sensed any darkness or malice about her. Quite the contrary. But she’d held him rapt. He’d looked at her and then wanted to keep looking at her.
Miss Beasley was not a witch but an enchantress. A short, bosomy enchantress with dirt on her face and fly-away hair.
She could have done more than made him look at her.
She could have seduced him and kept him trapped in her castle with an elephant to keep guard.
But there had been no seduction—damn—so maybe she was the kind of enchantress who would speed him on his way with a magical thingummy to complete his quest. But she hadn’t done that either, had given no answer to the mystery of Augustus Puddlewick.
And Puddlewick was why Henry had walked back to the church. He hadn’t gone there to fall under Miss Beasley’s spell, to while away his morning looking at her and wondering why he couldn’t stop looking at her.
So.
How might Henry find the man? Because if he lived, he was here.
In the hour that had taken Henry to walk to the church, fall under Miss Beasley’s spell, and return to Much Wemby, the village green had been invaded by half a dozen small boys who were removing sheep trattles and chasing sheep away as men set boards atop trestles.
Henry turned his head and saw something he had missed previously. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. He must have not wanted to see it.
“Ho,” he said to a nearby young man who was surveying the doings on the green. The fellow looked around to make sure Henry was speaking to him before he removed his cap and walked over.
“Sir,” the young man said, all smooth agreeability. “What service might I do for you?”
“That hill.” Henry pointed.
It was a hill all by itself with three notches at the top as if it had once been a lump of dough and a three-tined fork had come down upon it, leaving an impression behind.
The young man twisted around to look. “The Wrecknot.” He turned back to Henry with a grin. “They say it was a giant what did it. He wanted to dam the River Wem so he could take a bath, so he dug up a hill’s worth of dirt to make the dam, but then he got tired and dropped it and made the Wrecknot.”
How Tommy Treadwell tricked the Giant Scognal into making a mountain and saved the town from a flood.
“The dents are from the giant’s fingers because giants have only three fingers. Did you know that, sir?” The young man sidled closer. “For a small fee, I can take you up. There’s ruins of a Roman fort on top and a view for miles. Do you fancy climbing it, sir? ”
Henry could think of nothing he—or his knees—would like less. Instead, he said, “Mr. Augustus Puddlewick.”
Yes, the name might be false, and if Miss Beasley didn’t know it, it seemed unlikely this youth would, but Henry was feeling untethered now, his nerves ajangle.
The young man scratched his head. “No one by that name in Much Wemby.”
“And no authors—men who write books—in these parts.”
“No.”
Henry gave the young man a shilling.
“Are you here for the fête tonight, sir? There’ll be drink and music and dancing.
For another shilling, I can make sure you have some tempting partners.
The girls won’t mind that you’re elderly.
” He leaned towards Henry and confided in a low voice, “You see, they’re all mad in love with me and will do what I tell them. ”
“I’m sure they’re very tempting. And I’m also sure they wouldn’t like to hear you’re selling their dances to old men,” Henry said flatly. “And, no, I am not coming to the fête.”
Even though Miss Beasley might be there.
The whippersnapper grinned again and strolled away, tossing his shilling in the air, not chastened in the least. Henry walked on towards the farrier’s forge, passing the busy coaching inn and the coaching inn’s sign in the shape of a swan.
The swan stopped him, and he stared.
The swan was green. Brightly, proudly green. The sign had not once been a white swan that had turned color from the growth of lichen over it. This was a deliberately green swan.
How Tommy Treadwell changed the green swan back into an elven prince.
If only Henry’s own life were a storybook with chapter titles that would assure him of the happy ending. How Henry Delamere discovered Augustus Puddlewick and granted his granddaughter’s wish.
Nym was ready for Henry and the ride back to Sutton Hall, but the farrier waved Henry’s coins away.
“Sir John’s man’ll see me right.”
“Very well. I’ll tell him he owes the farrier next to The Green Swan.”
“The Swan.”
“The sign is a green swan.”
The farrier shrugged. “Inn belongs to the Greenways. Inn’s next to the green.”
Henry hesitated. “I wonder if you know of a man who writes books.”
“My father. Dead now.”
Even if Tommy Treadwell hadn’t been lurking in every corner of Much Wemby, even if an enchantress hadn’t charmed Henry, it was a strange village that boasted a farrier with a father who wrote books.
“And his books were about . . .”
“Not books. One book.”
Only one book. Not Augustus Puddlewick, then.
Henry nodded, mounted Nym, and set out for Sutton Hall. He would take the shortest way back since the sun was high in the sky, and he didn’t want the D’Oylys to worry. Yes, he would take the shortest way even though it would not take him past the church again.
That was for the best. After all, Miss Beasley might still be cutting grass in the churchyard, and Henry might be ensorcelled by her all over again.