The day was dimming as Meg approached her house from the back field, not wanting anybody to see her come home in her armor, splattered with blood—not that bloodstained clothing was unusual for a butcher’s wife. But mostly she did not want her neighbors to see her in conversation with the creature that darted and chattered at her side. She had stopped once after leaving the disastrous rout and told the Eighth Wonder of the World that he should now vacate the warmth of her bosom and keep out of sight elsewhere until they reached the fields. This he did reluctantly, which she found faintly touching. They stopped by the willow trees that fenced the boundaries of her back garden. She looked over toward the house that was obviously empty. The creature that called himself Gef scurried up the fence and struck a pose, ready to speak atop the gatepost.
“Can we all meet together here tomorrow?” he asked.
“You have grown. You are much bigger.”
“ ’Tis something I can do, Mistress.”
“I have never seen anything like that.”
“You have never seen anything like me. Sometimes some parts of me gets bigger than your husband’s.” He tilted his head in a rakish manner.
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” she riposted, and they both laughed.
“Anyways, as I said before, can we all meet together here tomorrow?”
“Who do you mean, all?”
“Me and my kind.”
“No, no, my husband will be here.”
“No, Mistress, he will not.”
“Why not? Is he sick or hurt?”
“No, he sleeps in pleasure.”
“What pleasure?”
“He is in copulation with one of my kind and Mistress Van Keulen.”
“That whore! That’s unnatural.”
“Yes, she is very old, but safe from begetting and her husband is away.”
“I didn’t mean Mewdriss, I meant your…eh…”
“V’wuuk, it is V’wuuk, and he was wearing a mask. ’Tis my understanding that everyone does this in Carnival.”
Meg nodded in troubled agreement.
“And yous thinks they all be human, ha ha ha.”
Gef was enjoying himself, and Meg suddenly came back on track. “Did you just say he? Is my husband breeding with another man?”
“Not exactly. I have never seen him unclad, but ’twas told he hath no pillicock. Neither does he sport any vulvas, but does have a considerable quantity of paps and uddickeries.”
Meg was silent.
“V’wuuk will keep him busy and away from us for as long as you want.”
“Forever would be nice,” Meg snarled.
“If that’s what you want, Mistress.”
Meg looked at the Filthling and realized he was taking her very seriously. The toothy grin had certainly disappeared from his mischievous face.
“No, I don’t mean that…that I don’t want him back.”
Only the first part of that sentence had conviction; it almost entirely petered out around the word want. Gef opened his eyes wider and Meg felt the litmus-paper hollow behind them waiting for her next doubt or lie.
“If your fellow can keep him away, then yes, come to my house. I will leave the garden gate unlatched.”
“We will be there early next morning.”
Meg was pleased to be home, dropping the heavy clanking basket and sack of spoils just inside the door and stepping over them. They meant nothing now, just tokens of a failed conflict. She went straight to the sink, where she made herself a strong drink of gin and sugar. She dumped her breastplate, helmet, and sword on the kitchen table and floor. Hastily she found bread, cheese, and cooked sausage, which she earnestly devoured while unbuttoning her stiff pinafore dress. She pulled off her stiff boots and released the unwashed butcher’s knife in the passage.
The day had been a nightmare; all had gone wrong. She had gutted the man who had so grievously insulted her. She had stupidly injured her best friend. And now she was in fear of her life, while her lazy, drunken husband was fornicating with a slut and vermin. Then she remembered that her son was still alive. She had been told that he would escape and that all things would be well and bonny. And she believed it. Against all odds, she felt it would be true. Meg fell into her groaning bed, which was gloriously empty, still wearing her stained petticoat, trusting in the radiant optimism of a talking polecat.
In seconds she rolled into the innocent depth of an all-embracing sleep. Its purring warmth seemed to last for years—right up until Cluvmux tapped her shoulder with a very bony finger.
“All right, all right, I know it’s breakfast time.”
She automatically reached for the flint and taper. But just before she lit the candle, she remembered that Cluvmux didn’t have a bony finger. He didn’t have a bony anything, and he wasn’t there. When the flame swallowed half the darkness, she saw that she was not alone. The bedroom was packed with a mass of moving shadows of all shapes and sizes. She could see the details of those closest to the light, the ones that sat or stood around her bed, staring at her…and none of them were human. Every conceivable and even more inconceivable creature and monster had been watching her, waiting for her to wake. She did the only two things possible: she screamed and pissed the bed, in tandem.
Gef was in a quandary. He was shocked by Meg’s reaction, and for a moment or two, he did not understand why she was screeching so. Then he looked at the faces and semi-faces of all those in the room and guessed that she might have found their overall appearance unusual.
This was an important meeting and he didn’t want it to go wrong. Some of the visitors had already left the bedroom. The tall deer-headed one in the long red cloak, who never spoke and who he thought was called Dommi, clasped her feathered hands over her velvety pointed ears. Behind her clattered Kreypex, looking sour-faced and annoyed. His crossbill beak clicked in time with the glass ball tapping against his hat. The ball hung from a twig that sprouted from the large green metal funnel he wore on his head.
Gef thought it prudent to open all the curtains and extinguish the troublesome light. In that way, the hesitant dawn would reveal the party slowly. He told the ones closest to the windows to open the shutters while he went to comfort Meg.
Snuffing the candle out with his yellow fingers and speaking at the same time, he said, “Good morning, Mistress, it’s only us, come for the meeting that we planned.”
Meg could hear his voice and recognized who was speaking but still had the bedsheet over her head.
“You can come out nows, nobody will hurt you.”
The damp sheet was being pulled gently by the three strong fingers of the branch-like arm of a hollow tree being. Its miserable blue face peered out from the thin dried trunk. Of all the creatures in the room, it most resembled a human. In its other arm, it held a baby wrapped tight in a swaddling of shiny white bark. Thinking a strong odor might be difficult for Meg, the tree being had considerately left its steed—a giant rat—outside; unfortunately it had no way of knowing that its own stench of rotting, mildewed wood was substantially worse. It had slithered up onto Meg’s bed to occupy one corner, its scaled, sluglike body tapering out of its trunk and dangling down to the floor.
“We have come to help you regain yours son.”
Meg shifted the sheet on her head so that she could look through its aperture at Gef, who had become more distinct in the early light timidly soaking the room. He beamed at her pale face.
“There yous are, no need to hide. We will not be afraid.”
There was some movement in the throng that indicated his assertion might not be true for all in the company.
“Why are you all here?”
“Like we agreed, to meet today.”
“Not in the middle of the night and not in here.”
Gef looked perplexed.
“I expected later, much later, and in the garden or the yard,” said Meg, finally taking off the sheet in the growing brightness. She did not look about her, staying fixed on Gef. But occasionally she allowed her eyes to look past him, to what dwelt behind. There were things sitting among her clothes and possessions that she would not let near her midden, let alone her bedroom.
Then, in a hushed voice, she said, “Get them all out of here. I want to get up, wash, and get dressed.”
“You just go ahead. We don’t mind staying.”
“Out, out now.”
“But I don’t think that—”
“I don’t care what you think. I will not be given orders by a weasel.”
“Weasel?! I…I am a mongoose.”
“I don’t care what you are. Get them out, then we will talk.”
She put the sheet back over her head and snuggled under the blanket.
Gef put his fingers to his lips, whistled, and then pointed at the door.
By the time he returned and knocked, Meg had cleansed herself, dressed, and stripped the bed.
“Come in,” she called.
Gef entered to find her trying to shovel up some sticky droppings that had been trodden into a small carpet by the window. They both seemed irritated with each other, and it took some time before the conversation became fluid. It was the mention of her son that made her sit down and stop fussing with the housework.
“Yes, like I said before, we can get him out if the guards are not there.”
“And how will we do that? You know what happened last time. They will be expecting us.”
“They are too strong in their days times, Mistress, we must conquer thems in their nights.”
Meg looked hard at the diminutive figure speaking to her. How could a polecat or weasel or mongoose have so much understanding?
“You must do thems in the way yous knows best.”
Meg snorted a sour laugh and said, “But I know no ways.”
Gef cocked his head and grinned. “ ’Tain’t true, Mistress, I bin a-diggin’ on yours plot.”
He then made a grandiose gesture of preening its whiskers, one tiny yellow hand twitching his mustache-like bristles. It took a few moments for the weight of those words to tally, and when it did, the color drained from her long face.
“Those add-mensturations could also be given to the soldier folks.”
Meg was speechless.
“ ’Twas it with ’shrooms or nightshades?”
“ ’Shrooms,” she said in a small voice.
“Did you grow them or forage for them?”
“A bit of both. Grietje taught me about them and many others. She had a great wisdom about such things. But I guess you know that?”
“Aye, I does. ’Twas I who showed her the poison arts.”
Meg’s long, impassive face changed, respect giving it a new rigidity.
“Did you ever think about slipping some juice to the police guards you hate so much?”
“How could I ever do that? They would never let me get that close. And there are so many of them.”
“Duff’rence now is you ain’t doing it lonesomes. Yous got us on yours sides.”
“You would do that?”
“Likes I said before, we are near the end of our time in this realm. It took a long time for us to believe in the malice and spite that drive yous people. We learnt it the hards ways. So let’s give some back in a farewell gift.”
“How shall we do it?”
“Am I not right in thinking it’s your good folk who supply vittels, wine, and beer for the garrison?”
“Eh, yes.”
“There you have it. We simply doctor all.”
“We will need gallons of poison, especially for those big tuns of beer.”
“The beer will be our speciality. We have things you could not dream of.”
He turned toward the door, which he had left open, and whistled loudly. Meg started to ask questions, but he held a finger to his mouth, stopping her.
“Come in,” he called, and a few moments later something ran across the floor.
A mouse, she thought, until Gef picked it up. He walked over and climbed up on a chair close to Meg and extended his hand to show her a smooth, maroon-colored soft lozenge. It reminded her instantly of a slice of fresh liver.
“Mistress Meg, meet Judy. Judy, meet Mistress Meg,” said Gef, and the thing squirmed in his hand, appearing to take a curt bow.
“It ’as no mouth nor ears and understands little but is gifted with a unique property.”
To Meg’s horror, Gef dug one of his long dirty fingernails into the thing and tore off a tiny sliver, holding it up before her eyes. It was the size of her little fingernail, only much cleaner. The sliver also moved and took a miniature bow. Meg opened her hand, expecting to receive it, but the mongoose pulled it away sharply.
“You must never touch a Judy. There is enough toxic venom in that small scrape to kill a score of your sort.”
With that, he gave the scrape to Judy, who absorbed it back into itself. He then gently returned it to the floor, flicked it hard with the tip of his yellow finger, and pointed toward the door.
“Split,” he said, and it cartwheeled and slithered to the doorway, where it stopped, turned toward them, and divided vertically in two. Both halves bowed before they left.
“One Judy per tun makes two hundred and fifty gallons of lethal merriment.”
“How will it get in the barrel?”
“They can get in anywhere they choose.”
“And how will we make it choose?”
“Ask it nicely. But there will be a price.”
“What price?”
“Best not to know.”
“Then why tell me of it?”
“Because it will pay for the life of your boy.”
“Then it is worth it, no matter what!”
“No matter what.”