I really hate you Fortescue.

I hate your parts, I hate you whole,

I hate you from your greasy pate

Down to your cheesy sole.

I hate you on a Sunday

And every other day.

I hate you not a tittle less

When you are miles away.

I hate you at Communion,

I hate you on the bog,

I hate your house, I hate your wife,

I also hate your dog.

That irritating laugh of yours,

That nauseating shrug,

The way you ponse around I'd

Like to squash you like a bug.

I'll hate you all your life and

When you're six foot under ground.

I'll never leave off loathing you.

You still owe me five pounds!

Do I sound a tad ungenerous?

Are these feelings better hid?

Well that's alright for you to say,

You don't know what he did!

I really hate you Fortescue,

I'll never have enough

Of hating and berating you,

And all that sort of stuff.

I HATE YOU FORTESCUE !!!

There is peace in the vault of the skull,

Leave the gulls to their squabble and spoil,

For it's cool in my box, all at one with wise rocks,

So gently subsiding to soil.

But when one is all and all is one

Timeless moment…

…a belch of the sun…

And this Earth that abides must then boil.

Shall devils of fire then frolic therein

And mock us with sulphurous breath?

When crystal dreams shatter through tormented matter,

Where then contemplation in death?

This delicate land that we live in

Amid stormy strands and the sniggering quantum foam

Must surrender at last, when the future is past.

Let the stars and the patterns come home.

Blood in Byzantium raised a stink

When Copronymus cropped the pink,

A sedulous Caesar too pure to think

Of the ire evoked by th' imperial crimp

Of the noses of his enemies.

Copronymus Constantine,

The fifth imperial Byzantine

Baptised to bear the founder's name,

Befouled his font to take the shine

Off the noses of his enemies.

'P was a Parson dressed in black',

And he was raised to take that tack,

To employ th' imperial wheel and rack

To break th' idolatrous bone and back,

And the noses of his enemies.

The raging iconoclasts wrecked the hope

Of eastern monks, and vexed the Pope.

The Schism went down the slippery slope

As Protestant Padres tweaked the cope,

And the noses of his enemies.

The pious imperial saved the state

And held secure the Mundburg gate.

Both swift to bless and to mutilate,

A singular hunger so hard to sate,

His favourite dish the shivering plate

Of the noses of his enemies.

The legend of Corby Brecks

There was once a wicked old witch who lived in the middle of the dreadful forest of Palug Stride, where few men choose to go. She had a hut beside a sucking pit, which was full of Mana, for it connected to the centre of the earth. This mud, by her art, she would mould into Nasty Snake Boys, who she sent out to plunder the neighbourhood. They broke into houses to rob them, they broke things up for the sheer pleasure of it, and a fine muddy mess they left behind them. The place worst afflicted was Corby Brecks.

The men of the town decided to take measures, so they lay in wait to catch the Nasty Snake Boys, but they, when apprehended, just collapsed into heaps of stinking mud. The witch always made more and the plunder carried on unabated.

Once in a while a hero would follow the boys home, and this the old witch liked most of all. For she would wait in her kitchen, catch him up with her talons and thrust him headfirst to drown in the barrel of beer that she always had ready. The old girl was mighty strong, for this Rotting Dead Body Beer was her favourite brew. Seven heroes she caught and she brewed as many barrels, and no more came after that.

Having drunk it all up, she emptied the barrels out of the kitchen window, leaving the dead men's bones to lie, as she pondered the problem of replenishing her brew. But unfortunately for her she had a little dog called Scamp. Now Scamp loved the pool of bubbling mud for its warmth and for its stench, and he also liked to roll in it. One by one the little dog took up the bones and buried them there, where they marinated the while in that magical mud that had made the Nasty Snake Boys.

One night there came a great wind as the bones joined themselves together and returned to life. The heroes arose from the pool in a new flesh of mud, dripping and stinking the while. They came to the hut, where they scratched on the windows and rattled the door.

'Boys?' whined the witch, hoping it was her Nasty Snake Boys, but they had seen them arising and had run off into the forest quaking with fear. Indeed they quaked so hard that they quite shook themselves to pieces. The heroes broke in through the walls with a great crash, and tore her apart, which silenced her screams.

And that was the end of her.

Now they looked at each other and saw that they were nothing more than stinking mud and rotting bones.

'We must go home,' they said, 'lest it rain and our skin is washed off entirely.' So they returned to Corby Brecks, where the townspeople were in the church to mourn their dead heroes and to celebrate the feast of Saint Bonizet, and a horrible sight they were.

'My dears,' they hissed (and the people were not happy to see so many missing husbands and sons returned in this way), 'as you may see, we have rid you of the witch in the woods, and the Nasty Snake Boys, but only at great cost to ourselves. Now we can but await the rains, when our flesh must be washed away and we shall be utterly destroyed. Give us your skin!' And the people howled in terror as the dead men advanced.

But the priest laid the blessing of Saint Bonizet upon them and they were at once miraculously re-clothed, not only in flesh, but also decently trousered.

And they all lived happily ever after.

* * *

But some there are who say that this was not the true ending, for not everyone believes in miracles. They say that when the congregation saw the dead men upon them, with that dire threat upon their muddy lips, their howl was so loud that it quite shivered the mud off their bones to leave nothing but a defilement upon the nave. And it may well be that this is the true ending of the tale, for heroes are not always welcomed at their homecoming.

* * *

The Heroes' Howe, both widely revered and aweful, still stands tall beside the church of Corby Brecks, where the wind howls around the eaves of Palug Stride. Whatever their end, this is their final resting place and many a pup plays on that flowery turf, for the pups of Scamp were many. But neither the witch nor the Nasty Snake Boys were ever seen again.

The cat cried

And I agreed,

Again, again I felt her need.

Should formal sanction seal the deed?

And I was done with sitting.

"Arise," she said,

"Belial hath led!"

But I just held my heavy head,

Too little sleep, too long in bed

And that is hardly fitting.

"No, no," said I,

"A lie's a lie.

A better man would stand and die!"

And then she gave a riven cry

And I was all for flitting.

"Miaow, miaow,"

And nevermore

A word she said, except to purr,

For I had shot my bolt at her.

And as she prowled the night I saw

I'd killed her all unwitting.

Note: Some people have suggested that this is about sexual relations with a cat.

They are wrong.

A poor farmer had a beautiful wife, a cow, two geese and six hens, but they had very little meat, for they had to sell all that the animals produced to pay the rent. And so they lived mostly off vegetable broth. But they always took care to have a good sausage.

This was what is known as a Poor Man’s Sausage, being all skin, bone and gristle, in short: all of those parts of a pig that have no other utility. This he would simmer in his wife’s broth, stirring it well around, to give it a fine and meaty savour. After some days the sausage would inevitably go flaccid and lose all potency, but by then it would be soft enough to eat.

One day it so happened that, as the farmer went off to work, a roguish journalist came in by the back door to take down his wife’s particulars for a human-interest story. This continued, at intervals, for several weeks, for it was a rousing tale.

Now the farmer normally took great care of his sausage, but one day, having recently bought a fine new one, he carelessly left it unattended on the dresser. The journalist came to see his wife in the usual way and, after they had finished their dictation, and she had turned her back to discretely tidy away all sign of his presence, his eyes fell on the sausage.

Seeing that it was so firm and red and meaty, and fragrant with herbs and garlic, he stole it away, hidden in his trousers, meaning to have it for supper. He soon discovered it was really all skin and bone and gristle, but being a man of parts he was not to be beaten by a mere sausage, so he set about eating it anyway.

When the farmer came home he soon saw that the sausage was gone, and his wife tearfully told him of everything that had come to pass. He was enraged and determined to stay at home next day to await the journalist, in order to teach him a hard and salutatory lesson. But he waited in vain, for that very same night the journalist had choked on a large piece of gristle and had never lived to see the sun rise.

* * *

The moral of this tale is quite plain: never play fast and loose with another man’s sausage, and always take good care of your own.

(Song for a clockwork musical box)

Gerald has a devil

Riding on his back,

His teeth go chatter, chitter, chatter,

Clitter, clatter, clack.

He’s with him every evening,

And he likes his midnight snack.

Don’t look back, boy, when the night is black.

Gerald has a devil,

Living in his head,

He’ll be with him all his lifetime,

He’ll be with him when he’s dead.

He’s with him every evening,

And he’s company in bed.

In your head, boy, better left unsaid.

Gerald has a trouser devil,

Snurking round his parts,

He never really finishes,

He comes in fits and starts.

He’s with him every evening,

He’s a patron of the arts.

Men of parts, boy, never bare their hearts.

Gerald has a gun collection,

Underneath the stairs,

He knows it’s really naughty,

But he doesn’t really care.

He takes it out each evening

When he knows there’s no one there.

Won’t they stare when he settles his affairs.

A WALK IN THE WOODS

Father Camomile Robinson, acting Vicar of Starkadder, had thought hard, if not long, about leaving his parish. Chew Tikka Wargman Shiftleafer, barbarian and hero, had probably laid the ghost that had for so long blighted the village, but it was too soon to tell. There was also the question of rebuilding. He had sent messages to the Archbishop at Roldale, to his Abbot at St. Gobchop's at Hives and, out of courtesy, to the Bishop of Trotland, before setting off with Chew Tikka Wargman, heading north to the Stromburg Motte to join an exploratory expedition into the dreadful forest of Drakes.

Hives and Roldale were far to the south, so his message was a statement of intent rather than a request for guidance and permission, but those of his order had to think on their feet. He believed the barbarian to be a Crux, a resolver of paradoxes, and God knows Laphard, invaded, divided and beset by foes, sorely needed one. Besides, the hero was also an illegal alien, naive as a child and vulnerable to powers and authority.

He led from the rear, riding the pony Ken the Bastard, conserving his resources, while the barbarian strode ahead flexing his mighty muscles. The barbarian spoke but little, and when he did it was more likely to be to the pony than the priest, but that offended Father Robinson not at all, for it gave him time to meditate and to enjoy the scenery.

Soon they came to the hill country of upper Trotland, rolling and gentle on that dull winter’s day. Here there were copses and orchards and stone farmhouses in snug valleys, many of them ancient and built in the Lap vernacular, stolid and squat with a slight taper upwards and inwards. Lower Trotland, where lay his former parish of Starkadder, was mostly flat and much of it had been severely ravaged in the Civil War a hundred years before. Few old buildings had been left standing and new construction had mostly been hasty, ugly and foursquare. It was nice to return to a more pleasant countryside. Here also were the pallid spoil heaps of the ancients, from before the Restitution, and the chemical works that mined them, adding a welcome counterpoint to a landscape that, even in winter, might otherwise have been over pretty.

They crossed the river Galatrot by the bridge at Asberg and dined at the famous inn there. The priest introduced the barbarian to the brown cheese of Dogwood, but the he pronounced it too sweet. However, he was delighted to find a stock of fermented goats’ cheese imported from the Spleenstampers, a tribe of the Haron friendly to Laphard, who lived close by Vallum, the great wall.

Slowed by the beer, for he had drunk more than a little light luncheon ale, Chew Tikka Wargman set a plodding pace and it was dusk by the time they reached the small town of Bleasdale and the Factory of the Stromburg. The Baronial Arms were set over the Factory gate, a jewelled red firedrake upon black, and his motto, "Nosciture ab sociam", which in the dog Latin preferred by the Scribes of Laphard means "Know me by the company I keep". Within was a wide courtyard with the stables and coach-houses on all four sides, and warehouses, dormitories and barracks above them. Thankful that he had succeeded in persuading the barbarian to avoid the winter-beer and other more powerful beverages, Father Robinson called in a favour that must remain unspecified and found them a place in a dormitory.

For the next few days they had nothing to do as they waited for a caravan to assemble. The priest made himself busy around town, for his was a helpful and much travelled order and a Vicar’s work is never done, but the barbarian followed his usual course of eating and drinking, gambling and whoring.

"This is a dump and a hole and these Whey more womanish than usual, they look at me askance!" complained Chew Tikka Wargman. This was unusual for, in spite of his barbarous garb and demeanour, he was good company and, moreover, usually lost his wagers, but Father Robinson was not surprised. He looked up from greasing his boots and nodded.

"They are just ignorant, for they are woodsmen and fear offending the puma. The Dogwood is afflicted with Catcutters."

"But they paint themselves blue and are without honour," exploded Chew Tikka, "they can't think all Haron are the same! They scurry and breed like mice, and if they killed half the cats they claim there would be no puma left in the forest. Only the Whey could fear Catcutters!"

"They fear Catcutters less than loss of wages," explained the priest patiently, "for if the Puma Lords are offended we will be delayed and more snow is forecast. We are lucky that the weather has held off for so long as it is."

Catcutters killed puma as a right of passage; a young man entered the forest alone and came out a warrior. It was suspected that most, in fact, did very little while they were in there, but the Puma Lords controlled the ways through the woods and none could pass without their consent. It would be unwise to take a Haron of any coloration into the Dogwood without it.

These puma, as the priest explained, were offspring of the war-cats of old Shang Yang. Originally creatures of the Saltermarsh, that wide swamp that guards the southern marches of Laphard, the Min had part-tamed them and bred them to guard their forests, especially Geen, the centre of so many of their cults, of which Palug Stride is but an angry remnant.

As for their strange and reclusive lords: in the chaos of the Rover and Lap invasions, landless men took refuge in the forests and joined with those fugitive Min and their cats. Thus were the forests made independent of kings, and made dangerous to all men. Gradually, and not without bloodshed, the Puma Lords became an order, both friendly and useful to the kingdom of Laphard; but they are tame only in the manner of cats. The forests remain perilous and even the Brovians are wise not to enter unless they show all due deference to the Puma Lords.

"I know those cats," said the barbarian, "they walk freely through all the woods of the world, though their lords do not enter our lands. We treat each other with respect and we go our own separate ways."

"I'm sure the lords also enter Haronya," said the priest, looking up at him, "for they are symbionts, but the cats would not let them be seen. Do you not know of the cat doors in Vallum?"

"Too well we know those doors of death," said Chew Tikka darkly, "though few have returned to describe them. Wise men go not near."

He stalked off to have a look at Ken the Bastard, to ensure that his hay was not mouldy and that he was getting his oats.

At last the day came for the caravan to assemble and a great urgency filled the courtyard, whinnying and cursing echoing off the thick stone walls. Chew Tikka Wargman and the priest went on ahead with the General, which is to say the leader of the caravan, and two men-at-arms, all three dressed in the red and black livery of the Stromburg. They marched steadfastly out of the great gates of the Factory and on up the High Road that ran out of Bleasdale towards the Dogwood. This followed the Galatrot round a hill called Frogshead Low, which was high and nothing like a frog. Five miles on they entered the foothills of the Greenhills to skirt Cow Arc, which was another hill equally misnamed, and plunge down to the hamlet of Boy Bridge. Crossing the bridge, they entered the Dogwood and left the river where it foamed eastwards out of a maple-choked gorge from the direction of Vallum. A wide earth road, patched with quarry waste, ran on northwards through conifer plantations. A couple of miles on they left it to climb a grassy hillock that was a rabbit warren, where the General blew three discordant blasts on a cow horn and they sat down to wait.

"Of course it would have been rude to bring sandwiches," said the priest wistfully, for the wait turned out to be a long one. Chew Tikka raised his eyebrows.

"If we're accepted they'll leave us a kill," explained a guardsman, a squat taciturn man, huddled up against the cold and damp.

"What will they do if we aren't?" asked Chew quietly. "Eat us?" No one else had noticed the large, tawny bodies creeping up to crouch down in the woods all about them. He kept his hands well away from his weapons.

"Not us," laughed the other guardsman, a tall gangling fellow with a prominent Adam's apple. "His lordship will tell us to bugger off and the tom will cock his leg more like."

"We are safe enough here in the stands," agreed the General, "but we might have to go back and hope to renegotiate."

A great tom puma sauntered down the road, looked up at them as if startled, and stood tale erect and snarling. It was a muscular brute and bigger than the barbarian, but he saw that its tail was smooth and did not quiver. The lord came after, a small unassuming man, unarmed and wearing the customary puma skin cloak. Man and cat approached the General together.

"Thank you for your courtesy," said the Puma Lord, quietly. Meanwhile the queens had come out of the wood to nuzzle the barbarian, softly growling. He stood up straight and tall, slightly trembling, hands at his sides.

"Welcome Shiftleafer, I hope the carp still grow fat in the Sandlemere," said the lord, with a gentle smile.

"They still fatten in the Cool Peach Mansion," said Chew Tikka Wargman, preferring the Haron name for that lake.

"We respect all of the Haron except for those who paint themselves blue and have no honour," explained the Puma Lord. "Welcome hero and healer, we grant you the freedom of this Dogwood and all the woods of Laphard, so long as respect is maintained."

"This is an honour indeed," breathed the priest beside him, quite startled, "for apart from designated roads, plantations, orchards and hunting grounds, not to mention the treaty ports of Palug Stride, no one enters the woods without the lords’ permission. Even the Arnold must ask politely." Then he addressed the lord more loudly, "Do you speak for all the prides, including those in the depths of Palug Stride?"

The Puma Lord licked his forefinger and smoothed his moustachios, "Men are men and cats are cats, we go where we will, even into Palug Stride. Likewise fire is hot and water wet. Be sure to introduce yourself and offer your scent."

"What of our borders," asked the General, who was also a military man, "can the Haron cross at will without let or hindrance?" He sounded alarmed and somewhat peeved.

"Only Chew Tikka of the Wargmen, and he will lose our respect if he abuses our hospitality," affirmed the lord.

Two queens dragged a roebuck carcass into the road and then, without further word, lord and puma turned about and melted back into the plantations, each going their own separate way.

"Your Brovians walk the world like ghosts," murmured Chew, appalled, "but these are the ghosts of ghosts, they were always among us and know all about me. How do the Catcutters survive?"

"Cat and mouse," said the tall, thin guardsman cheerily. "I'll bet those cats have a taste for human flesh and enjoy the hunt, good gamekeepers the Puma Lords."

They made a fire and jointed the buck. Before they were half done the caravan rumbled up, coaches, wagons and the great monster-bred aurochs that pull timber out of the deep forest, steaming in the cold air.

"So you knew I'd be accepted," said Chew Tikka, hungrily eyeing the spit.

"Not at all, we'd have sent you pair back," said the lanky guardsman.

"Who are you anyway?" asked the barbarian.

"Heironymous Sidney Armrod, call me Bean."

"B N that is, Bloody Nuisance," grumbled his taciturn companion. Chew Tikka Wargman, who never ceased to marvel at the ridiculous names of the Lap, was pleased to call him Bean.

Two days later they left the plantations and returned to the foothills of those mountains called the Greenhills, where the Dogwood grows more wild. The road grew rougher as it wound through the forest, but remained well bridged and always passable to wheeled vehicles. Occasionally they met other caravans and lumbering timber wagons, mostly in the red and black livery of the Stromburg. To their left rose birch and pine and lowering crags, while the land fell on their right to willows and quaking bogs. The road ran on through oak and ash and various kinds of maple, well choked with fallen trees and thick undergrowth, but at regular intervals they passed clearings where rabbits burrowed and deer peeped shyly from leafless spinneys of fruit trees, seemingly contrived for the convenience of travellers.

"How are you liking Laphard then? Is civilisation to your taste?" Bean and Chew Tikka Wargman were sat in the back of a covered wagon, sheltering from a dismal sleet; and drinking beer.

"Before we came down from the passes life was noble, brutish and short," replied the barbarian. "Now we live in new lands that we have freed, and we will let them make the most of us; they were wasted before we came. But this is a strange forest, warped and tamed to your own puny tastes."

"I'd have it tamer," laughed Bean, quite unoffended by the rudeness of the barbarian, "but the hunting needs the wild, you can't have the boar without the bear ay?"

The barbarian was patient. "The boar is our patron, so we eat him with respect, but we also hunt the bear."

"That I'd like to see, but only on telly, a bear's a match for any number of men."

"I've tracked and killed at least ten, on my own, in the world, in that wildwood that we have made free," said the barbarian nonchalantly. They continued to drink and became less concerned with the cold.

"I'll but tell you of the biggest, a twenty foot brute that killed our pickets and savaged our goats for a long month. Michael Wargman himself, with his boon companions, hunted him, but he eluded them. Lesser men tried and were dismembered. On our honour we bloods of the Wargmen had to kill him, and so I took my chance.

"He was clever, so I took his scent and then took to the woods in another direction. I walked a mile or more to a hillock of pines, dug a hollow, roofed it with turf, covered it over with needles and waited. The secret of the hunt is patience and I am more patient than a bear."

"But bears aren't patient are they," objected Bean between gulps, "they just blunder in and eat your luggage."

Chew Tikka glared at him, "The bears of the living forest are, they are patient and cunning. He knew he was hunted by heroes and his dread soul hungered for our blood. For weeks I lived off the land, stalking up hill at dawn and down hill at dusk, doing my butchery in an open place and lying low at night. Then it happened, he fell on my shelter in the dark of the moon and tore it all to pieces!" He looked at Bean expectantly, but Bean was idly studying the froth at the bottom of his glass.

"Of course I wasn't there. I lay up in a different place each night, alert in the undergrowth, sleeping in the middle of the day, but a warrior needs little enough of that. He looked up from the ruins. He knew. Though I put out both of his eyes with arrows, he still leaped out to maul me and tear open my chest, but I have healing flesh. Then I lopped off his nose and paws with Windowmaker and took up my spear to thrust beneath his ribs, the killing stroke. A hunter, like a warrior, has to make his plans and keep his cool in the heat of battle.

"Then I skinned him, bled him and jointed him, and ate his testicles and drank of his bile, for no man can have enough potency, especially the potency of a bear."

Bean looked closely at the barbarian’s chest, bare beneath his harness. Healing flesh indeed, for there was not a scar to be seen. "I go beating," he said, "for pheasants mostly, and I crew for my uncle on his eel-boat in the Carrowmere."

Chew Tikka despaired of him; he was not a warrior.

On the third day out the General blew his horn, Chew Tikka was again sniffed by puma, and a hunting party from Dogwood town set off with the pride to go wild-fowling in the marshes. The fourth night they slept in the luxury of a Vassal's inn, for the wild places of Laphard are well serviced where the main roads run. Soon after that they joined the military road below Vallum, which they followed for the rest of the journey, camping by the mile-castles. Companies of woodsmen left at intervals, leading their aurochs and led by puma, to seek rare hardwoods in the depths of the forest.

The caravan was now much depleted, for only supply wagons and retainers remained, these and the men-at-arms whose transport incorporated a substantial strongbox. The wall too was but lightly manned, so deep in the Dogwood, the domain of the Puma Lords. The garrison was mixed, some in the red and black of the Stromburg, others in the lime green livery of Lord Edgar and others in the gold and black of the Arnold. The troops were divided, each patrolling a section of two mile-castles and manning the semaphore station thereon.

"Tellywag poles," Bean called them and laughed. At intervals rattling signals passed up and down the line, disturbing the crows that perched on the vanes, launching them skywards with squawks of indignation.

There was a palpable tension between the Arnold's men and those of the March Barons, and the men in black and gold stood aloof. This was to have an evil consequence.

(continued in A walk in the wood 2)

A pony whickered from beyond the wall, and behind his hangover Chew Tikka Wargman reflected that this was odd, for there was plenty of safer forage on this side of Vallum.

Then arrows hammered thick and fast into the caravan. Men-at-arms drew crossbows, wound them up and died before they could shoot. Blue faced Haron, incongruously dressed in black and gold, swung down from the ramparts onto the party and spitted them. Chew Tikka sat up, grabbed bow and arrows, drew and loosed in one smooth movement and kept on doing so, to clear those who remained upon the wall, making a sick and tearing howling all the while, modulated in Shiftleafer battle language.

And Ken the Bastard broke loose from the spare mounts to attack in his turn, with tooth and hoof, for Chew Tikka Wargman had taught him well. Blue men went down, showing that their blood was red and, as the ambushers were ambushed, the men of Laphard rallied and showed their mettle. The rout turned into a confused and bloody melee, and a blue man rose, naked and terrible, howling in some devilish tongue. Chew Tikka Wargman Shiftleafer howled in harmony and the other combatants drew back appalled.

"Do nothing, do nothing, do nothing! On my honour you will do nothing or I am your foe, for battle is drawn!" screamed the Shiftleafer.

He stood up through shreds of tarpaulin with spittle-flecked chops and mad eyes, glowering down onto the Lap. The Haron stood expectantly, for they knew all about single combat.

"Strike not the first blow, but stand ready, for these are Catcutters and they have no honour!"

The leader of the Catcutters strode forward, tall and lithe and well made in his parts. His hair was platted around spikes of bone and his face dyed blue, the dye extending down his body in widening swirls and spirals to dissipate at all of his extremities. He was tattooed with many beasts and ogres in red, showing black beneath the dye. He strutted, brandishing his sabre and flint dagger in arrogant fashion.

"What have we here? A puling Gao? An Owlhowler? Or perhaps a poor little Pondsorter? Of what sort is this lackey of the Whey?"

Chew stood silent and quivering, but gave him a bland look.

"No this sort is an arse-licker," continued the Catcutter, "a groveller for pay." He sniffed, "it smells like, let me see, a Shiftleafer!"

"This one walks openly in the dress of a man. You sneaks look better unclothed." Chew Tikka curled a sneer, looking pointedly at his blue genitals, all shrivelled up in the anguish of battle. "Though I would not display such paltry wares."

His foe edged forward, "Let's open you up and see if you've shat your breeks," and he made a spiralling uppercut with his sabre.

So the fight began, each with dagger and sword, exchanging cut and thrust and insult with full passion. Chew Tikka held his ground, somewhat protected by his clothing, but the Catcutter was more mobile and circled him with slashes and taunts. It was over quickly, for the fighting was deadly. The Catcutter hurled his dagger at Chew's head, which was counted a foul stroke, but his thick skull turned the blow, leaving a bloody wound gaping over his right eye. As they closed, by a seemingly clumsy jab, Chew pierced his inner thigh, slicing the artery and then he had only to defend himself while his opponent rapidly bled to death. He finished him by inserting the point of his sabre beneath his chin and thrusting through into the base of his skull.

"Who was he?" he gasped, staring round at the pale blue faces.

"Chow Han Scriber," said the boldest among them, standing bravely forth.

"He was a doughty warrior, and the bain of many another, you must take him home." He knelt down and carved neat circles around his hands and feet, anus and genitals. Then he cut his head off and proceeded to flay him, as is customary among the Haron when they wish to honour a valiant foe properly slain.

He licked his sabre clean, with all due care and reverance, but wiped his dagger on some grass, for it had a blade of flint whose soul needs no calming. He turned to the waiting Lap and snarled, "Blow your horn!"

Bean left his taciturn companion, who was dead with an arrow in his eye, and took the horn from the headless corpse of the General. As Father Camomile Robinson crawled blinking from beneath a carriage, Bean blew a reverberating blast.

"The sword is mine by right," said the barbarian, he bent it with his foot and laid it on the pelt beside the severed head, "but a warrior needs no more than one and these blades are not for the Whey."

Seven puma, summoned by the horn, melted out of the forest and surrounded the company, pacing restlessly and whining in irritation.

"Escort them to their borders and do them no harm while they keep truce," commanded Chew Tikka Wargman, and the puma obeyed him.

The Haron sorrowfully departed, carrying the pelt, the head, and the bent sword of their leader. Chew Tikka made a pyre to dispose of his remains and then sat and watched them burn, howling to his dragons in the face of the Old Women, who looked down on him sternly from their seats on the High Plateaux.

* * *

"Of course they scaled the wall, slew the garrison, and then lay in wait to plunder the first travellers to come along," said the barbarian. "This would have been less easy for them had the men of the Arnold and those of the March Barons chosen to talk to each other, and the follies of the Whey are quite apparent to a warrior. But how did they evade the cats?"

The survivors sat together in the hall of a mile-castle, tending their wounds by the hearth, while, outside, a relief force of Lord Edgar's men was busy disposing of the bodies.

"We border the Bloodletters," answered the priest, "and they are friendly. We looked for no trouble here."

"It was well planned and bravely done," concluded Chew Tikka Wargman, "his hide will brighten the Stupa of the Scribers." Abruptly, he stood up, walked outside and disappeared into the leafless forest.

Dusk fell and it started to snow heavily. As he had not returned within the hour, Father Robinson asked directions of the Lord Edgar’s men and went after him. He found him huddled and trembling by a brook.

"It is nothing. You may find it hard to believe, but I have never killed a man before. The dragons are not at ease with me for killing such a man in the service of the Whey." Chew Tikka shuddered, suppressing his sobs.

The priest was silent.

"Of course I killed some rogue Whey in Disdor Bailey," sniffed the barbarian, misliking the silence, "but they don't count."

"What of me, Chew Tikka Wargman?" chided the priest. "Am I a man or am I Whey? Do I count?"

As the barbarian pondered that question the priest hugged him, hauling him to his feet with some difficulty, and walked him back to the fire.

The next day was clear and they pushed on through the melting snow, soon passing the last mile-castle and the end of the wall, though fortified tellywag stations still continued the line, all now staffed by those men in black and red. They had entered the Stromburg Domain.

In roaring drunken roisterings he told rousing great lies of his adventures in the forests of the world, though he made no mention of his more profitable work in Disdor Bailey, for he was ever discrete. And the people of the lower Trotland loved to see him strut, enjoying his fresh-faced innocence.

When they learned his name, Chew Tikka Wargman Shiftleafer, it might have eased their apprehensions, for if they knew of Shiftleafers at all, it was as friends to Laphard, as indeed they had to be in the face of the Snowbangle terror. They were not to know that the Shiftleafer is the fearsome wild boar who goes where he pleases, and they knew nothing of the dreadful clan of Michael Wargman. If they found his name amusing, why should that bother a man? Of what account was the laughter of white faced and waterish Whey?

They liked to look upon him, for he was Chew Tikka Wargman, the hero and mighty barbarian, and if they mocked him at all they did not mock him twice.

But there was always the troublesome little matter of earning a living, and that can never be entirely compatible with a life devoted to noble deeds and honourable adventure. Nonetheless, it was for noble deeds and honourable adventures that the barbarian hungered above all else, and for such a man the neighbourhood was not found wanting.

The Arnold held Disdor Bailey on the further bank of the Carrowmere and his self assumed Royal Mandate, with the assistance of the Northern Lords, held secure the rattlegatt, the main roads north to Dogwood and east to Charbridge, and also the navigation of the Carrowmere itself. But the Northern Lords were ever wary and jealous of this jumped up Duke, this self styled Lord Protector. They accepted his troops with reluctance, they would never allow him pre-eminence, and though they demanded the roads be kept open they certainly had no wish to fork out. Thus, after a fashion, was the lower Trotland welded to the rest of Laphard, but in the hinterland anarchy and the little lords held sway.

So this was truly a land fit for heroes.

* * *

Chew Tikka Wargman gave his most recent lady of the night a resounding smack on the rump to send her squeaking out the door. She ran through several other bedrooms on her way, for this was an ancient house without corridors, not that it mattered, for they were the last to get up.

He arose for a late liquid lunch, walking carefully down to the bar with a heavy head and feeling bilious. His acquaintance Backsliding Gnosall was there to greet him and accept a drink. His was of course a pseudonym, as was so often the case here in the lower Trotland where few such men stayed in any one place for very long, often with good reason. He was of a common kind, and the barbarian tried not to look down on the little man with too obvious a disdain, for he needed his services; though it was all too clear to him that the wily wretch's backbone had long since slid entirely out of his body.

The barbarian had to admit himself an innocent among thieves, that for all their admiration of a hero, the natives might still see him in the light of a naïve and uncouth fellow. He had to admit that he might sometimes need the advice of one such as Backsliding Gnosall.

Two strangers entered the bar, looked cautiously around the room as their eyes adapted to the gloom and then walked confidently towards the barbarian, to introduce themselves as Mr Smith and Mr Jones. Chew Tikka could not help but compare them to a weasel and a great ape. Though he had never met the latter sort of anthropoid, all of the Haron are familiar with the tales of the legendary yentle who roam the highest passes of the High Nagai, who gibber at the moon and pass unseen through the night, known only by their horrible footprints of the morning.

"We know you by your deeds," said Mr Smith, "for did you not but lately slay the dread serpent of Lanehead Lane?"

"And did you not then despatch that peculiarly rabid stag who so ravaged the fields around Hunter's Hill, and banish the draugs that possessed him?" said Mr Jones.

"That I did," said Chew Tikka Wargman, though he remembered nothing of any ghosts

"And is not a hero ever in need of ample reward for brave deeds well done?" said Mr Smith.

"So long as the deed be honourable, the labourer is worthy of his hire," said the barbarian.

"Well then," said Mr Jones, "may we retire to a more private place to discuss business?"

"No," said the barbarian, who had never been paid for his efforts in ridding the land of such noxious vermin and had therefore decided to be more canny in future.

"We may discuss your proposition in the company of my friend Mr Gnosall," he said; so they did.

"You may have heard of that notorious pirate, the self styled Duchess of Doonham," said Mr Smith. But the barbarian had not.

"She preys upon the shipping of the Carrowmere," continued Mr Jones, "and her minions are most terrible for they are dragon women of savage aspect and a Sapphic persuasion, bound together by unnatural lusts. You might otherwise have heard of her as the Sad Lady of Doonham, rendered bitter and twisted by her inability to whelp an heir?"

"Well she'd have a job, wouldn't she," said Backsliding Gnosall, from behind the barbarian.

"Not that she lacks menservants," said Mr Smith, looking down at him darkly, "but they are poor creatures, crippled in their limbs and broken, fitted only for the most menial of tasks."

"Just as I said," said Backsliding Gnosall.

"Will you silence your dog Mr Wargman?" said Mr Jones. "Or should we crop his tongue?"

At this remark a number of brawny fellows drew near, for Mr Gnosall was popular hereabouts and had a number of beer buddies at the bar.

"You watch your step," squeaked Mr Gnosall from behind the barbarian. "Mr Wargman, you should know that this Smith and Jones business is all a damned lie. I know them all too well. These are truly Wormauld the Thief and Cyrus the Pimp, scallywags from down Marsden way. And we all know of Brigid, the Duchess of Doonham. She is a powerful woman, trouble best left alone; you'll mess with her at your peril."

"And what of that, Mr Wargman?" said Wormauld Jones, discretely showing the barbarian a bulging money pouch. "We are all entrepreneurs are we not?"

"We would speak to you in private," said Cyrus Smith, "to our mutual advantage. And you, Mr Gnosall, would be wise to steer well clear of Marsden."

"That I will," said Backsliding Gnosall, but the barbarian left him standing at the bar, taking Wormauld the Thief and Cyrus the Pimp up to his room for a quiet chat. He was not afraid of any woman, and sometimes that wretch of a Gnosall could be more irritating than he was worth. And anyway, he was running dangerously low on funds.

"To be honest, Mr Wargman," said Wormauld the Thief, "we have heard that you are an accomplished burglar. That little affair in Disdor Bailey…"

"Hmm," mused the barbarian.

"And it is a burglar that we need," said Cyrus the Pimp, "and one better than my friend here I'm afraid. For we have learned, never you mind how, that Brigid Doonham has the Hairy Girdle, we know indeed that she has it mounted at the head of her bed. Our patron, never you mind who he is, would show great munificence to whomsoever helped him acquire it, for it would divest the pirate of the greater part of her power. We wish no less than to return the rule of law to the Carrowmere."

"Hmm," mused the barbarian with a knowledgeable look, for he had never heard of the thing.

"It is an undertaking of the utmost peril," continued Wormauld the Thief, "for it lies at the heart of her dread domain, well guarded by her army of harpies. Of course you might think a woman better able to sneak through her watching minions, but we fear it would make no difference, for the guardians are ever alert and know each other intimately. Yet a woman of the right calibre…"

"But we don't know any," said Cyrus the Pimp, "so are you up for it? You would naturally risk the direst and most painful of reprisals, but the reward…"

"Hmm," said the barbarian. He sat on the bed and crossed his legs. "It occurs to me that too much of my time has been taken up of late with animal husbandry. I shall discuss the proposition with my friend Mr Gnosall. Leave us to it and I shall give you my decision in the morning."

And to this they had to agree.

Chew Tikka Wargman and Backsliding Gnosall sat out the evening in an inglenook, where they downed many a pint of the finest homebrew at the barbarian's expense, and discussed the proposition privily behind the crackling logs.

"This is beyond belief," said the little man. "The Hairy Girdle is one of the treasures of old Laphard. It was last heard of in the collection of Gustave Grubb at Die Schloss Der Glaucenfaucon in the Grey Hills, but we thought it lost in the war."

The barbarian raised his eyebrows at this mouthful.

"Oh don't ask. Suffice it to say that he was over enamoured of sailors from Pugland and had more money than sense, but the girdle is another matter. Legend has it that the Hairy Girdle was a gift to the Wanderer from our ancestral god Brom on his journeying through Corombad, before we ever crossed the High Nagai and descended into Laphard."

"It must have been very long ago that your people crossed those mountains," said Chew Tikka Wargman, "for nowadays the Old Women would never allow the Whey to penetrate the high passes. It must have been long before the Haron."

And here he had to digress, to inform Backsliding Gnosall of the Old Women of the High Plateaux and of their dreadful significance. And Mr Gnosall digressed as well, into the ancestral gods of the Lap, who are become the Tesseract, and the legend of the Wanderer, but there is no room for such digressions here.

"Anyway, the Hairy Girdle," continued Backsliding Gnosall, "is the hide of a ram, reputedly dressed in thread of solid gold and decorated with many jewels. Not only is it priceless, but it is also said to permanently clothe the wearer in the rage of battle, to render him invincible, if somewhat unstable. Not that it did much for Mr Grubb, not in the invincibility department anyway."

The barbarian was well enough able to go berserk without the help of a sheepskin, but the other properties of the girdle interested him.

"It would be well to rid the pirate of such a talisman, to restore the rule of law to the Carrowmere," he said.

continued below.

He left the care of his pony, Ken the Bastard, to the supervision of Backsliding Gnosall, and left that pub, the Night Fright at Lumb. He looked back at the sign of the withered old hag with disdain and hoped for prettier sights in the Doonham domain.

The rich dark water of the Carrowmere slopped thickly against the low sides of the wherry in a vigorous odour of mulch and ozone. Chew Tikka Wargman gazed sadly at the many fat ducks and other assorted waterfowl that obscured the distant shoreline and darkened the sky, for on this excursion his arrows were denied him. Neither had he rod nor line. He pined for the cleaner waters of the Cool Peach Mansion, that great lake of the Shiftleafers.

His middle was broadened with sacking to make his muscles look like fat and he sat huddled in a shapeless gown of canvass, his hair greased with malodorous fish offal to hang lankly over his eyes. Wormauld the Thief and Cyrus the Pimp sat beside him in similar state for this scouting expedition.

The boat tacked gently downstream, using the sail for direction rather than speed, keeping well away from the many mud banks and the shore, especially the starboard shore, which was that unwholesome reach of the Beaconwood, the haunted land of Diss Door. Not that there was any real danger of grounding on either shore by accident, for the Carrowmere is a huge and implacable monster, rolling on in sediment, a mass almost palpable that, though the eyes may say otherwise, the heart might perceive as being wider than the sea.

As the sun rose to his zenith, ripening the odour of the bubbling flow, an island rose from the haze ahead, all built up with walls of stone as protection against the force of the spring floods, which are proverbial and render the bounds of the Carrowmere virtual and transient as she winds her ponderous way through the flatlands of Hanarbor in shifting meanders, wrapped in ox bows and fertile marshes. The current drew them steadily to port, for the southern channel was all silted up into meres, lagoons and steaming swamp, all the way to the distant tree-line of Diss Door.

A galley rounded the point and escorted them to the wharves, beneath stern flint towers mounted with hebefract, flambagon and ballistae. And it was true, these mariners, these warriors were women, fierce and businesslike. Certainly a poor crippled fellow with a club foot helped tie them to the jetty, and two hefty chaps of troubled demeanour helped with the heavy work, inspecting the cargo, but the men were clearly subservient.

All of those under arms, all in authority, were women. The barbarian looked with unease upon those that were beautiful and with loathing upon those that were not, and did his best to keep out of their way, which was not his usual way with the ladies. But so it was with these unnatural creatures against such an eldritch shore. And they ignored him, took their allotted toll and sent the wherry safely on its way.

"I go in alone," said Chew Tikka Wargman, and the two entrepreneurs were happy enough to go along with that.

"But we can help," said Wormauld. "You will need camouflage, a night cloak perhaps, or this carbonaceous unguent that rapidly dries and is odour free, it is easily removed by baby oil. And weapons: a dagger, a garrotte…"

"I have my own," said Chew Tikka Wargman and showed them Windowmaker. They looked enviously upon so much well forged metal. "But I will have the unguent."

"And poisons, stimulants, soporifics…" suggested Wormauld.

"No," said the barbarian, "but I will need a big, black, plastic bag.

"To bring the Hairy Girdle safely back across the river," he explained.

The Doonham domain extended over many miles of meadow and pastureland along the hither shore of the Carrowmere, so he resolved to swim across the river upstream, and approach the island from Diss Door.

"For I do not fear the Gao," he said, referring to the dead men of old Shang Yang, the ghosts who were reputed to haunt Diss Door, "and certainly not dead ones."

"But you will never make it," protested Cyrus the Pimp, "for that water is thick as soup, with quicksands and treacherous currents."

"Fear not, for am I not a Shiftleafer, with all the strength of my patron, the mighty boar? And I will not sink, for like all men I am full of hot air." He took a deep breath to demonstrate.

"And a boat might attract attention."

In fact he did not much like their company and looked forward to being alone. They arranged a rendezvous and he was off into the night. It was to be several weeks before they learned of his fate.

The barbarian swam steadily through the clotted water, oblivious to the gnats that chewed on his back and the reptiles that tickled his underbelly. He swam with a slow and certain rhythm, so the great pike of the Carrowmere respected his strength and did not rise to bite him. He gained the haunted bank before dawn, throttled a sleeping duck for his repast, and snored the day away within coarse grass upon a bank in the middle of the marsh, coated all over with mud so that the sun would not burn him.

As the sun set he looked upon it in the west, and meditated upon the Old Women of the High Plateaux, but whatever response he found there was entirely ambivalent. Then he thanked the dragons for his deliverance from the waters, and spent a happy night slithering through the marshes, chewing upon familiar rhizomes and cress, and twice bagging a fowl, more for the fun of it than the hunger; though he ate them both up for the easement of their simple little souls.

This marsh was not a dreadful place at all, but rather a very fruitful one, whose inhabitants were unfamiliar with men and so easily caught. He was thankful for the superstitions of the Whey. He half wished that he might disturb a ghost of the waterish Gao, which might have some guts to it after all, for these had been slain without surrender, slain by the Rovers long before the advent of those later sort of Whey who call themselves Lap. He would say boo to it with relish and surely send it off howling through the night. But he was not to say boo to a ghost, for he never saw one and never felt even a shiver of unease. Not until the second dawn that is, when he saw the island against the glow, far off in the mist.

This time he dozed on his side, for even so far away he would not risk a snore, and he made his approach the following night, speeding silently along at first, then feeling his way along carefully through the shallow lagoons in a silent breast stroke, or on his finger tips, keeping to the water wherever he could for fear of quicksand.

It was as he had thought, they kept but a light watch on this side of the island. He hid his sabre and britches in the last of the tussocks, blacked himself up, and invaded the domain naked apart from his dagger, for clothing might rustle and a sword might catch. He must rely upon stealth, for no weapon would afford him any more protection than his own unarmed strength, here in the midst of a martial and hostile kingdom.

The streets were narrow and cobbled, and the houses, also built of cobble stones, were small with tall ornamental gables. Silently he slipped through, investigating this house and that, but there was little doubt as to his goal, for the big house was clearly in the middle of the island at the highest point. Once he had to down an Amazon of the watch, a sharp rap to the crown of her head with the pommel of his dagger. He knew that he should have slit her throat, but she was very fair, and it went against the grain to slay a sleeping maiden of any sort, so he robbed a washing line to tie her up and gag her, and continued on his way.

It was the early hours of the morning when he reached the big house, the time when watchers nod and men are most wont to die, and it was built in the Lap vernacular, with that inward slope to the walls that looked so solid and was so easy to scale, with many a gargoyle and ornamental excrescence, so he was up it like a lizard and soon had the whole house investigated from the outside, without ever having to risk an entry.

And there it was, the bedchamber and the Duchess, with the Hairy Girdle openly hanging above her head, and her guardians safely beyond the chamber door; and still some hours before the dawn, plenty of time for an expedient getaway. He did not even have to slip the catch, for the window was already open on this warm and humid night.

Silently he entered, to be seized equally silently by two well muscled maidens, daggers at his throat, and four more to the sides with crossbows cocked. Brigid the Duchess of Doonham sat up and switched on the light (the domain was well powered by hydroelectricity). And she was beautiful: long hair lustrous and dark, slim, athletic of build, and suitably symmetrical in all her parts.

"Let us see who you are, Sir Assassin," she looked at him closely, "though it is hard to tell beneath all that blacking, and I do not believe that you are of the Ik."

"I am Chew Tikka Wargman Shiftleafer," said he, with a steady voice, "a Haron warrior and no assassin. Doubtless you will slay me, for you are a pirate and an unnatural thing of no consequence, quite without honour. I pray you do so quickly, for the dragons await me and I would not try their patience."

"I had heard of a vagrant Haron hereabouts," she inspected his features with penetrating gaze. "This is unusual. You have the look of an honourable man, and the Shiftleafers are well thought of I trow. And you did not slay Anna of the watch, which we found curious."

"I did not come to kill anyone," said the barbarian, "but to pull the teeth of a tyrant. I came to relieve you of that Hairy Girdle, which is not for the likes of you."

"That old thing!" she said, looking up and down his mighty muscles, with a hungry interest and darkening eyes.

"My course is laid and I shall keep to it," he said. "I am come to restore the rule of law to the Carrowmere."

"The rule of law is mine, Mr Wargman, but I shall give you your life, if you will swear to do us no further harm," said Brigid looking up at him in satisfaction, the barbarian so stern of mien and so mighty in his parts. "And I shall give you the Hairy Girdle as well, if you would be so kind as to relieve me of something else."

"…and out of gratitude those same refugees gave it to my great grandfather. Its provenance is assured. They did not wish it to fall into the hands of the invading Haron, who were wild enough already I should have thought. Not that we have ever noticed any unusual influence, though of course we have not worn it for it is much too ancient and fragile. No, we have merely kept it safe, an heirloom of the elder days. I dare say your mysterious patron will treat it with at least an equal care; the climate here is not ideal after all, being rather damp." She stretched herself in cat-like abandon.

He too stretched himself in a contented languor for they had both been well exercised.

"It is as well I did not have to stuff it into that bag, it would have done it no good at all I think. I see no gold though, no encrustation of precious gems."

"A silly mistake," said she. "A tale, I suppose, that grew in the telling. No, it is of interest only to the philosopher and the antiquarian, but a relic of great national and historical importance nonetheless. It is safer hidden away for a generation or two, for these are unsettled and lawless times."

"We must wrap it carefully and transport it with all due discretion. It might take a while to make the necessary arrangements, perhaps a few days…" He was in no hurry to leave.

In the weeks that followed it became plain that she was in no hurry to dismiss him either, being impressed by his forceful entry and having acquired a taste for his vigorous diligence in all of his endeavours.

"You see, the advent of the Haron has quite torn away our former complacencies. Young women of a forceful character who might once have been contented in the kitchen and the nursery have had the wide world thrust upon them, and now have more varied ambitions. Unfortunately, the nation as a whole has been slow to adapt, stuck in the mud; and openings for ladies of a seemly, but adventurous temperament are all too few."

They were sitting on a high balcony, watching the sun set, sipping mint juleps and enjoying the bats.

"When my father died it all fell upon me, and I was very young then. But I had a few good friends to help me, and word soon spread that I was neither male, nor a chauvinist pig, and more and more young women flocked to my domain, all quite willing to embrace a career high in personal fulfilment, if initially low in financial reward. They tell me I'm a good manager. And men too, of the sort that find scant sympathy among their fellows, found a welcoming berth at Doonham. Of course the women tend to come out of ambition, while the men are mostly eccentrics in search of safe lodgings, so naturally we women retain the upper hand, it's simply a question of ability. Most of my father's old retainers didn't like it, I'm afraid, and moved on to pastures new."

"I too have noticed an unhealthy lethargy of body and rigidity of mind among the Whey," said Chew Tikka Wargman. "And we respect our women."

He proceeded to tell her of the Old Women of the High Plateaux, who keep all of the Haron firmly under their thumbs. He regretted that they did not sufficiently squash the pestilential Snowbangles, but reflected that the ways of women are mysterious. Then he went on to recapitulate a demonstration of the healthy bodily rigidity of the Haron, which left her lethargic and none too concerned with his mind.

Life was busy in Doonham. When they were not collecting their tolls and repelling bandits there was always the dredging and the constant building up of the island, for the Carrowmere rose and fell in her season and could sometimes be very deep. Having been reassured that the ladies were mostly not the inverts he had feared, he had come to wholeheartedly enjoy his stay, watching them with pleasure at their work as they flexed their healthy limbs and jiggled in appropriate fashion.

One day a flotilla came down from Disdor Bailey to collect their disbursement, for of course the Arnold, being somewhat overstretched up here in the north, allowed Doonham to police the navigation of the upper Carrowmere, and exacted a levy on her domain for the privilege. She kept Chew Tikka Wargman under wraps at that time, for she knew he had a reputation.

"The Arnold winks at my title," she said, "for we are both classical scholars and know that in the elder days of Byzantium and Rome the Duke was the deputy of the Emperor, with delegated authority in the barbarous lands. And the cream of the jest is that the Northern Lords love my duchy too, for they think that I beard the Duke."

"Did you know that they call you Sad Brigid, the Dismal Lady Doonham?" said Chew Tikka Wargman. "Yet you have been lively and true to me, and never a hint of melancholy."

"Because of your company, Chew Tikka Wargman," said Brigid, "because of you."

She sighed.

"I know but two disappointments, the lack of a soulmate and the lack of an heir. Well I confess that my soul is a strange one, and I have come to see all too plainly that those who entertain me and the one I could abide for any length of time are entirely separate people. Not that I haven't known many men, and I intend to further my knowledge; and my want of an heir is not for want of trying, and in faith I hold fast to the conviction that the whole question is one that is not getting any younger, having been more than adequately rehearsed by the Patriarchs."

Chew Tikka Wargman smiled knowingly, for he had entirely lost the thread.

"I am sure I have been named many things by many more people," she continued, "people whom I mostly neither know nor would ever be likely to care to. But what of you Chew Tikka Wargman, whence your barbarous titles?"

He had already explained the mighty boar, and he recapitulated the dread clan of Michael Wargman, his mother's clan, whose totem is the wolf.

"Chew is my given name, which in my language means 'one who goes forth'. Tikka is my father's name, a foreign name as so many of us assumed after the conquest. I believe it refers to a meaty confection of a sort that is popular in both Nagarond and Jabesh-an."

And then he showed her another meaty confection that once again kept them both occupied the while.

As is often the case with women Brigid eventually became moody, exhibiting both a quarrelsome elation and a pallid weariness, and an eccentricity of diet.

"I fear our time is at end Chew Tikka Wargman," she said one morning over an abstemious breakfast. "Yet I have loved you and been well served. But now you must go, and take the Hairy Girdle with you."

She asked him how much he would be paid for it, and he told her.

"You must take the same again from the treasury, for what you have given me is worth far more than any hoary old ram's skin of doubtful legend. Take it all with my blessing and be gone, for I am in need of a long rest from your potency. Be gone and pursue your fate, but never forget Brigid Doonham, and if you should choose to return I shall give you a warmer welcome than you received at your first coming. But for the moment give me respite, perhaps nine months or so…"

And so he left her, not without a certain relief, for she was no longer the slip of a girl that he once had known. She lent him a galley with a guard of honour, but he soon chose to leave them with discretion and he walked alone to his rendezvous with Wormauld the Thief and Cyrus the Pimp.

* * *

"What!" screamed Cyrus, "that mouldy old thing? Where are the jewels, where the gold. We cannot take him that!"

"That is not my concern," said Chew Tikka Wargman. "The Hairy Girdle is what it is, and that is the Hairy Girdle. If your patron has any sense at all he will know it. But now you will either give me my money, or I shall take your heads."

Not liking the way he caressed the pommel of Windowmaker they complied, made the exchange and, having reassured them that the law ruled the navigation of the Carrowmere most securely, the barbarian went swiftly on his way, winding his way through the hedgerows and lanes, toward the moors on the distant horizon.

In the bleaker climate of Lumb he soon sought the cosy welcome of the Night Fright where, having discovered that Ken the Bastard was stabled in soiled straw and had a colic from eating mouldy hay, he knocked the teeth out of Backsliding Gnosall. Ken, meanwhile, overjoyed at the return of his chum, bit an ear off the groom, and so they beat a hasty retreat.

And the fame of Chew Tikka Wargman continued to grow and grow, both for his courage and for his remarkable potency, though he remained oblivious to the finer points of the discussion.

He and Ken the Bastard trotted happily off on their way, side by side as comrades should, and never again were they slipshod in the stabling