The Face in the Frost (13 page)

“We’re going over to the north to burn that town... Bow...what’s its name?”

“Bishop’s Bowes,” said the innkeeper. “Why are you doing this?”

“We’ve finally figured out what’s going on. Town’s full of evil people. Witches. I have an order here from Duke Harald to burn it to the ground. Here, look at it. Not that you have anything to say in this.”

He unrolled a long parchment that trailed lead and yellow wax seals on twisted strings of skin. The signature, a cross with a letter on each point, was so large that it covered a quarter of the page.

“They deserve it, too,” the leader went on. “You’ve seen the things. Half the people in Wellfont are afraid to go down into their own cellars. Shadows moving, screams from kettles when there isn’t any fire. Well, a little fire’ll teach ’em. A couple of my men are out getting wood for torches. Do you have any pitch?”

“In the basement. I use it on the roof.”

“That’s fine. We’re going to use it on the roof too.” He laughed, spitting flecks of brown beer on the muddy floor.

Prospero did not wait any longer. He climbed the steep stairs quietly, hands on the dark steps in front of him, and soon he was shaking Roger awake.

“Come on. They’re going to burn the village. How far is Bishop’s Bowes?”

Roger sat up. “Uh? Hah? Bishop’s Bowes? Five miles. There’s a bridge; that’s why it’s called Bishop’s Bowes. ‘Bowes’ are the arches of a bridge. Wait till I get dressed.”

In a few minutes, the two wizards were opening one of the several side doors of the inn. A cold beaded lamp on a curved hook hung over them, and a few late-fall insects clung to the mottled glass. Each man could see how nervous the other looked.

“Well,” said Prospero, whispering, “have we got everything?”

“I think so. Let’s hope those louts stay here for a while. We will have to walk fast.”

And they did walk fast. For old men, Roger and Prospero could really travel on foot if they had to, and before long, the noisy inn with its clattering cans and torchlight was far behind. In a rising wind that thrashed the nearby bare bushes by the roadside, they hiked down the gravelly strip of yellow clay. There was the bridge, a long flattened arch of close-fitted unmortared stones. Bishop Hatto’s arms were carved in relief on the keystone faces. Trickling moss hung over his moons and dogs’ heads, and his miter was trimmed with stars of yellow stonecrop. At each end of this wide bridge sat a pair of stone wardens, giant Norse chessmen in high-backed chairs, hunched gloomy kings with swords on their knees. The keepers of the Bishop’s Bridge sat staring with deep-drilled empty pupils. Prospero hung his hat on one of them.

“Well, here we are. Roger, you’d better go ahead and get the townspeople out of bed. You know the people around here and I don’t. Don’t scare them too much. I think I can keep these clots at a distance for a while.”

Roger walked out onto the bridge and looked over the side. Fast water hissed around the back marble pillars. Little clusters of bubbles moved downstream.

“I hate to say this,” said Roger, “but I think you’d better destroy this bridge. I’ve been thinking about some things on the way here. Harald is one of the few southern kings with a real following, and he is also one of the few who think looting and burning are manly sports. There’ll be more soldiers before we get rid of Melichus, if we can. And there are no stone bridges for three hundred miles either way. We can count on the Northerners on the border to burn the wooden bridges if it looks like war.”

“I guess you’re right. Very well, I’ll meet you when this business is over. And this time, don’t turn into a monster.”

“I’ll try not to. Good luck.” Roger waved and walked across the bridge, clicking his staff on the rough stones of the railing.

Now that Prospero was alone, he found that he wanted to smoke. Out came the stubby brier and the tin matchbox with the nutmeg-grater sides.
Brrrip!
went the match, and it shot little pin sparks before flaming an acrid yellow. Prospero lit his pipe and threw the match into the water, where it sank like a nail. It gave a skyrockety
ka-foosh
, and the whole river under and around the bridge was lit up. Awakened fish swam in little flipping darts and a turtle started to swim toward the surface. Prospero was leaning over the rail and laughing at the idiocy and essential triviality of a wizard who made magic matches. He laughed until he realized that he hadn’t the faintest idea of how to destroy a bridge.

And now the soldiers were coming. He could hear them clanking and stomping, and over the black horizon was a bouncing orange glimmer. They must be about two hills away, he thought. Bridges. How to destroy a bridge. No time to go riffling through the book, and anyway he knew he wouldn’t find anything there. Tarot cards? Ha! Well, it was worth a try, and from the sounds up the road, he would only have one try. He dug into the bag and brought out a pack of tarot cards in a painted cardboard case. But which ones to use? Some sort of logic had to be followed, and it would take several years to try all possible combinations. What about the four aces at the corners and the tower struck by lightning in the center? All right, but hurry!

He ran from one corner of the bridge to the other. Using candle wax to hold down the cards, he put the aces of cups, coins, staves, and swords on the four rail ends of the bridge. The wind had died down, so it was easy to hold the cards in place. A whack of his hand squashed the pasteboard against the wax. Now he was in the middle of the bridge again, holding the tower card that signifies madness and destruction. He pasted it to the center of the bridge, on the pentagonal block that lined up with the two keystones. Stamping on the card with his heel, he shouted:

“Bridge,
break!

Stones,
crack!
”

He was not surprised when nothing happened. The dirty straw-covered stones were still in place. The fern-capitaled marble columns that Bishop Hatto had stolen from a church still held up their load. And the soldiers were coming.

They were at the top of the hill that looked down on the bridge. A cluster of shiny bloodflashed kettles with dark bristled faces underneath. Tipping pike poles and pendulum-swaying chain maces. Prospero stood and watched them come. They probably can’t see me yet, he thought, with those blazing torches and a moonless night. He walked to the rail and relit his pipe. The troop halted at the edge of the bridge with a dishpan clatter. Their leader squinted into the darkness for a minute, and then he handed his torch to someone. He drew his sword, a plain iron blade without bosses or jewels. Now his feet were clumping on the pavement.

Prospero felt the ragged blade point touch his beard.

“Well, old man, what are you doing here?”

“Looking at the fish, an it please Your Lordship.” Prospero tipped his hat and blew smoke out of the corners of his mouth.

“Really? In the dark? You’ll be able to see them better from the bottom of the river.”

“Ah, but I won’t be able to smoke in all that wet, will I?”

Prospero raised his arm and threw his pipe on the stones, where it burst with a sudden red flash that lit the faces of the two men. A second after came an aerial-bomb thud that hurt the ears of everyone standing near. The leader’s sword flew into the air and came down looking like a big buttonhook. He ran back, holding his ears, and little corkscrewing ribbons of fire screeched after the army, as they turned into a colliding, shouting metal thicket that hustled away down the road.

Prospero stood there wishing that he knew how to destroy bridges. An image came back that had registered in his mind when he first saw the bridge. One of the staring stone wardens had a little crack around his neck. Prospero ran to the figure, pulled off the head, and with a sudden heave, threw it off the bridge. The carved lump hit the mud with a thock, and now he could see a little square hole in the neck. A piece of paper was in it. Without stopping to read the charm, which might have been interesting at another time, Prospero tore it up and went back to the middle of the bridge. He tapped the card with his staff.

“Bridge,
break!”

The mate of the headless statue pitched forward on its face, one of the mossy coats of arms fell into the stream, the pillars shook in their muddy sockets, and the bridge started to lurch in hiccupy spasms. But it did not collapse.

The soldiers were coming back now, shouting. Prospero thumped his staff as if he was churning butter, all the while shouting, “Break, blast you, break!” When the soldiers were on the bridge again, bill points lowered for a charge, they saw a sweating old man throw down his stick. He took the remaining cards from his pocket and threw them in the air. A fountain of orange-and-black strips fell around him. The cloud of cards started to whirl and a stiff streaming wind began to blow between the high curbs of the bridge, freezing the little army in the act of charging, so that for a moment it looked like a statuary group. Then they were blowing down the road, skidding on rocks and vaulting very professionally on bending pikestaffs. The wind blew them flat to the ground and kept on blowing. Five miles away, the innkeeper of Five Dials was emptying a tub of dishwater in his back yard, a little alcove in the cup of the overhanging cliff. He heard a whizzing overhead and looked up to see the copper weathercock spinning into a blurry ball. As he watched in stupid amazement, he heard a bang out in front. Peeking around the shingled corner, he saw a helmet rocking in the road like a little round boat.

Back at the bridge, Prospero was running on a pitching stone deck. Slime-haired blocks popped up and fell into the stream. He heard long roar and many heavy splashes behind him, and suddenly he was standing on a tipping pile of stones. One arm heaved the bag to the bank; the other threw the staff spinning into the dark grass. A standing broad jump brought him to the bank, where he fell into a clump of thistles. He rolled out of it and sat there with little forked burrs littering his robe. A shadow moved over his head as one of the stone men—there were two on this side as well—stood up on grinding stone knees, raising a thick sword in blocky fists. The glum face nodded, the knees cracked, and the statue, sitting in his chair again, slid backwards down the bank.

At Bishop’s Bowes, the first thing Prospero saw was Roger sitting on a keg of onions in the middle of the empty street. He was smoking and staring placidly around at empty windows.

“They’re all gone,” he said. “They were gone when I got here. I suppose the news got to them and they fled to some castle. How did your bridge go?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” said Prospero, who was still picking burrs out of his robe. “What are we going to do now?”

“Well, I’ve looked around the town. There are two horses left in the stable here. I suggest that we take them and leave some money. It’s a long way to the mountains, and you can feel that something is gathering. I felt it all the way up here from the bridge.”

“But I can’t ride a horse!” said Prospero. “You know that. I was frightened of ponies when I was a child. And it won’t do you any good to give me riding lessons. I’m still scared.”

“Fine figure of a wizard!” said Roger, chuckling. “Ah, me. You’ll never guess what I’m going to do. Or try to do. Come on.”

Roger led the way out of the little town to a thickly planted and weedy garden. The black mucky soil sprouted string beans in pale green clusters—their pods felt sticky and furry to Prospero as he bent down to look at them—the delicate ferny tops of carrots, big clumpish cabbages, and tomato vines on leaning crutches. Roger passed these by. He was looking for something else.

Prospero suddenly knew what was going on. “Oh, good heavens! Great elephantine, cloudy, adamant heavens full of thunder stones! Roger! You can’t be serious. Are you?”

Roger was looking around and drumming his forefinger against his teeth. “If I were serious, I would never have become a wizard, would I? The fact that it’s been done before doesn’t stop it from happening again. And we’ve got to get there somehow.”

“There are no pumpkins in this garden,” said Prospero. “Anyone can see that.” He reached up a vine and broke off a tomato. The slippery red flesh was already getting loose and wrinkly. “Here. Work on this.”

“Thanks,” said Roger sourly. “We’ll see. And wouldn’t
you
be surprised.”

“I would,” said Prospero. “And I’m watching. What kind of spell are you going to use?”

“Something appropriately silly,” said Roger. “Hum. Te tum. Oh,
tum
te tum. ‘Awe bleteth after lamb, lhuth after calve cu’...ah!”

He put the tomato down in the middle of a patch of spear-bladed weeds. Touching it with his wand, he recited calmly:

“Higgeldy-piggeldy

Saint Athanasius

Riffled through volumes

In unseemly haste;

“Trying to find out if

(Hagiographically)

John of Jerusalem

Liked almond paste.
”

At first, the tomato just wobbled foolishly on its platform of weeds. Then it swelled and spun into a reddish cloud of gaseous bromine—deadly if inhaled—which gradually took the shape of a carriage. Unfortunately, it was the kind of carriage you would expect from an overripe tomato: a large sagging purse of red leather on prickly green wheels. As Prospero and Roger watched disgustedly, the wet jowly bag collapsed, oozing ketchup from many slurping cracks.