Minerva's Voyage (16 page)

Here is the picture that I did devise
To show thee simply how men should not be:
An inward wood, unsearched with outward
    eyes
A thousand angles light will never see.
But thou who art of open heart and free,
True as thou dost pass along the way,
Shalt know what's to be known and not
    betray.

“What can it mean, Robin?”

“I think it means that we two will be safe in the labyrinth, as we're both of open heart, and you at least are honest.”

“You are, too.”

I would have laughed aloud had I not been so afeard. “Oh, Fence, if you only knew the sum of my wickedness.”

“If it's in the past, I don't need to know. And it's better that I don't.” Fence took a deep breath before stepping off the path and onto the grass. I joined him, and we moved cautiously into the stand of trees. At the entrance the spiders winked at us, their webs like giant fishing nets, seeming to draw us in. They shone emerald and gold. The moon shone silver. But once inside, the webs disappeared, the moon and stars went out like candles, and there was no light at all. I had spots before my eyes in the velvet dark. And there was neither the sound of the sea nor any other noise save that of my own heart, beating loud and fast.

Tempest lunged at me and began to bark. “Sh,” I whis
pered. “You'll wake the wizard.” He took no notice. I grabbed the fur on his back and told Fence to do likewise. “Dogs can see at night. He'll lead us through.”

“Aye,” agreed Fence. After Tempest had bumped us into several large obstacles, however, I remembered that it was cats that could see in the dark and let him go.

But as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I began to see grey and foggy outlines of trees and bushes, and a con
fusing profusion of paths. We started along one, only to have it stop a few yards in. We retraced our steps and started on another, only to have it crisscross many others and lead us back to what appeared to be the beginning. “This is like my life,” I groaned after several more tries, “lots of wrong turnings.”

“But it certainly is a labyrinth, so we're on the way to where we should be. The cave, remember?”

“How could I forget?” I snapped, beginning to feel very tired indeed. I wished I was back at camp and asleep in the lean-to.

“We shouldn't give up, Robin. The next path might be the one. And at least Tempest has stopped barking.”

In fact the dog had disappeared altogether. Soon he came bounding back. He grabbed Fence by the shirt and pulled.

“He knows the way! He knows the way!” Fence, triumphant, allowed himself to be dragged along. I followed, of course. But true it is, Tempest didn't know the way, not through the labyrinth, at least. What he did know was the way to the nearest coney warren, a maze in miniature, you might say. When we reached the hole that led into it, he stopped dead He was barking madly again and I could hear him digging with his paws.

I sighed and cast my eyes down despairingly. Then I realized: there was something quite different about this path. Beginning at the warren, it was studded with fan-shaped cockle shells, which glowed in the awful dark. “Look, Fence, look here. Someone has done this on purpose to guide us. This must be the way.”

“You mean all we have to do is follow the shells?”

“Yes, along ways both curved and straight. Now see if you can get that dog to stop his racket.” I tried to hide the fact that I was almost pissing myself with excitement.

“Aye, I'll pinch his nose, see if that'll do it.”

It didn't.

We left Tempest barking and followed the cockle shell path. It meandered mysteriously through darkness, the sharp branches of trees and needles of bushes scratching us as we went. I heard frogs and night insects, whereas before it had been silent, save for the dog's racket. Once I thought I heard a shrill and hollow laugh. Fence must have heard it too, because he suddenly clung to me. But whether it really was a laugh, or a shrieking nightbird, or even a creaking bough, we knew not. And it was not repeated.

At last the path stopped. The clearing in front of it signalled the end of the labyrinth, and we emerged slowly, our eyes blinking in the light. True it is, the moon and stars were brilliant again in the night sky. It was as if they'd been waiting for us, and were shining all the harder for seeing us safe. I looked around. We were very close to the shore, and likely on the other side of the island from our camp. I wasn't very good at reading the sky and position of the stars, so I couldn't be certain. But, “We're on the far southwest side of Winters Island,” said Fence, whose natural knowledge often proved very useful.

The sea roared. I could see by the expanses of wet and muddy sand that the tide was receding. Each time a wave broke on the shore, it was a little further out. There was not a single footprint, apart from our own, anywhere on the wet sand, nor the dry sand neither. Not even a pawprint. I felt we had reached the end of the world. If there were other islands further west or south of us, we couldn't see them. The ocean seemed to stretch forever. The dog had stayed behind to worry the conies, his yapping growing ever softer as we drew further and further away from him. Distance had finally muted him. I imagined he was still at the warren, having totally forgotten us.

“I still don't see a crown,” said Fence, as if expecting one to pop up on the grass. “If there's a cave, it will be over yonder.” Fence pointed to a tumble of high rocks beyond the sand dunes and tall grasses that lined the shore. “Let's hurry. There's a red glow in the sky.”

“It can't be long till daybreak. And we still have to find our way back.” I scrambled over the dunes and up the rocks with him, my feet slipping and sliding. Trees grew on the rocks, their long and twisting roots tangling with one another and trailing down towards the sand. I had never seen anything like them before, but I'd never have managed to climb to the top without them. I grasped a thin trunk here or a stringy root there to stop myself from crashing down.

It was hard finding anything in the muddled tangle of rocks and trees, but of course that's the way it should be. We were, after all, at what I judged to be the end of a long trail of emblems, clues, pathways, and mazes. How could we expect finding the cave to be anything but difficult? “It's like climbing the rigging in the
Valentine
,” said Fence, completely out of breath, and sliding back a little every time he moved forward.

But what was that ahead? A hole — a rather large one. Jagged rocks lined it, like the teeth of a huge and fearsome beast. “I think we've just reached the crow's nest,” I announced. “Or at least, what we're searching for…. There's what looks to be an entrance right here, right at the top, among the highest rocks and trees. Looks dangerous, like a corcodillo with its mouth wide open.”

“Aye, you're right.”

We both peered in, taking care not to snag ourselves on the sharp-toothed rocks. The hole smelled of dank and cold, a strange odour that I'd only smelled once or twice before — in English caves where I'd hidden when I had nowhere safe to be. “It's very dim. What do you see, Fence?”

“Not much at all, Robin … I wish we'd had a candle to bring, though it would have burnt out by now. It's very dark, except …” he paused and craned his neck, “there looks to be a passageway, slanting down. But I can't be sure.”

“There's only one way to find out.” My heart racing, I began to clamber in. I scratched an arm as I went, but it bled little. “Well, what are you waiting for, Fence?”

“The old man. I'm greatly afeard he's down there.” Fence was shaking, and a tear, which I pretended not to notice, squeezed out of the corner of his eye.

“Me too, but just think: The dog made enough racket to wake the dead, yet we didn't see hide nor hair of the man. And his footprints aren't in the sand below. Perhaps I was mistaken altogether, and only
imagined
I saw him. I did still have a pretty bad bump on the head, true it is. But even if he is down there, we'll deal with it somehow. As you said yourself, we've stood against Proule. And we've already done the hard work and found almost all there is to find.”

“I did say those things, didn't I? At the moment I wish to Heaven I hadn't.” But Fence, after a sad groan, climbed in, very, very carefully, and on we went, past long thin outcrops descending from the ceiling like stone swords. It grew no darker, but it grew no lighter either. There was only distance and freezing cold, more distance and more cold. Down, down, down we went, hellwards, through many winding passages. Sometimes we slipped. Sometimes we skidded. Once, Fence's big head banged hard into a stone sword. I had managed to avoid it, but turning when he cried “Ouch,” I tripped over another growing upwards from the floor. Eventually, there was sharp pain between and behind my eyes from the cold, and I could barely breathe. But the passage widened suddenly, and we found ourselves in a large and somewhat smoky cave, lit by torches.

“Hell's Bells,” I muttered, staggered by the size of it, and the fact that it was furnished, although somewhat oddly.

“Someone lives here, Robin,” whispered Fence. “It looks like a chamber. There's a fire, and a chair, and a bed.”

This was indeed so, but both the chair and the bed were of stone, although hung with palm leaves. They seemed to be natural outcrops of the cave. The fireplace, built in a circle of small nuggets of rock, sat directly below a narrow hole in the ceiling of the cave that must have stretched all the way to outside, or the inside would be full of smoke, the air unbreathable. The fire in the grate burned bright red and yellow, with wisps of blue flame flying up through crackling logs.

Misfortunately, there was not a jot of treasure that I could see. No crown neither. But the cave was decorated with cedar branches and purple berries, both on the floor and along the walls. It all looked rather merry, like Yuletide. An old song that I'd learned years before knocked on my bonce, demanding admittance. Something mad had got into me, mayhap the happy realization that though the wished for treasure was nowhere about, neither was the old man. I began to hop and dance around the fire singing:

Be merry, be merry,
My friend withal,
For friends should be treasured,
Both short and tall;
Tis merry in hall, when tongues wag all,
And welcome Merry Yuletide.

“Shh, Robin, someone might hear you.” From the way Fence said “someone,” I knew exactly who he meant. “And it's not Christmas anyway. It's too late in the year, between Yuletide and Shrovetide. Besides, there are no presents,” he finished lamely, warming his hands by the fire.

The S on the back of his right hand stood out in stark relief against the flames. My merriness vanished. I stopped myself from stating the obvious: That there were never any presents for such as us, foundlings that we were. Not at Christmas, nor at Shrove or New Year, nor any other time. Not so much as a crumb from a plum pudding. For a moment I felt really sorry for myself, and for Fence too. But I was distracted by a glimpse of something hanging off the back of the chair. It was half hidden by palm leaves, so I hadn't noticed it before. It shimmered and glowed in the firelight. I blinked and looked again. I couldn't believe my eyes.

“Look at this, Fence,” I said, my voice rising with excitement. “I believe we've found what we're looking for. We've found the best Christmas present ever! We've found the Golden Prize!”

C
HAPTER 29
R
OBIN'S
F
IND

“Here it is,” I said, as I moved to the back of the chair and picked the object up. It was a long and heavy chain, which slipped easily through my fingers. “This is treasure indeed.”

Fence clapped his hands and laughed aloud. “I
knew
we should find it. What's that on the chain?” he asked, his cheeks red as apples in the firelight.

“It's a pendant, a medallion, a golden medallion covered in precious gems,” said I, examining it. “There is something engraved on it. A strange-looking bird. Come see.”

Fence studied it carefully. “It's a bird on a bed of flames, just like the flames of this fire.” He turned it over and over again.

“The engraving seems familiar. I'm sure I once knew what the bird represents, but have forgotten. It must be worth a fortune.”

“We should put it back now, Robin.”

“Don't be daft. We should swipe it, swipe it and run.” I grinned. My wickedness was rising fast, with its old whoosh and flash hardly tarnished. “If we ever get back to England, or even to Virginia, we'll be rich as Croesus.”

“It isn't ours to take,” said Fence flatly.

“We can bolt with it fast. I'm good at that.”

“You seem to forget we were led here. The old man wanted us to come or we'd never have found the entrance. He invited you into the labyrinth, you told me so. We're sort of his guests. He put his trust in us. We should leave the necklace where we found it.”

“That would mean we'd made so much effort, for such small reward.”

“Virtue is its own reward,” Fence replied smugly. As if I didn't know he'd been as enthusiastic as I was at the thought of treasure.

“You're not so virtuous. You've lied before, mostly for my sake. What's the difference between lying and thieving?”