CHAPTER FIVE
MEMOIRES
Bobs head collided with Greebie’s head jarring them both awake at the same time.
“Humph!” said Bob
“Oh My!” said Greebie “Oy must have dozed off for a second”
“Oy thet be ma as well Druid. It’s all this memberin! Memberin and rememberin makes a man tired to be sure”
“It’s not remembering that makes you tired it’s this Ale made from Youforia.”
“No No! Oy de-stinkly remember memberin about your child hood encounter with Druid Mogie, I do”
“But that was not Druid Mogie! That was some black minstrel with a Doom-a-Gram of well, Doom what came for The Druid Mogie, you recalled.”
“Oy thart be true! Ere ave anuther Ale while I finds out what really happened” he said cutting off another pot of green slime.
“I members it this way” said Bessie the goat as every-ones vision went wavy and blurry once again. (Strangely no-one thought it unusual that Bessie the goat was now spinning a yarn. This was because the Youforia has the effect of making anything possible.)
This was a more serious attempt at recalling the horrid yet more accurate first encounter with Druid Mogie. It was more serious because there was less humour involved. Anything dealing with Greebie’s father had far less humour. Bessies voice droned on casting them both into the trancelike state of remembrance.
Fifty years ago at four o’clock in the morning, the on-coming dawn.
The first hour of the day with the sunrise Greebie began to wake. The shaft of light reflected from the quartz prism that he had carefully set the previous night as an alarm clock, fell gently across his dwelfish face. Stirring, he rolled in his bed, yawned, and scratched his ear, then drifted back into a semi slumber. There was no escaping the persistant beam however and as the hour increased so too did the beams intensity. (Def: Intensity adjective- an ity bit of intense). With it came warmth. This was not the savage scorching heat of the tropical continents of the Northern Hemisphere however, it was but the gentle caress of life which is ever so faint in the South, that its kiss is merely a promise of warmth yet to follow. Greebie awoke.
“How be Oy doin?” asked Bessie.
“Fine fine continue. You’re a great storyteller” agreed Greebie swilling another bite of his thick green Ale.
Swivelling on his bed he sat upright shovelling his hands through his hair reflectively. His thoughts nagged him. The solution he had hoped to dream was not forthcoming and the problem remained. He groaned when he remembered and dropped his head into his hands. “perhaps one of the Eleven will think of something” he reassured himself half-heartedly as he rubbed his eyes to wake fully.
Outside his dome dwelling it was a calm day, though he did not know it. His window was closed-in by louvered shutters through which he was unable to see (Except for the beam of light focused on the crystal alarm clock) In other domes dwelves were already stirring. (Some were stirring their tea others drank coffee).
Mogie, the oldest and wisest of all Druids had, as stubborn as the day, risen before the sun (How he got his crystal alarm clock to work before sunrise was anybody’s guess). He was already making his way briskly toward the Gazebo of the Pyx. The ritual oblations at dawn which he alone maintained seemed an unnecessary burden to the newer younger breed of Druid. Each new Druid in their turn, had sadly forsaken this particular rite for other less arduous occupations. Their reasons were as varied as their natures for some had said it was always too windy while others claimed that it was merely a chore of tradition and didn’t achieve anything worthwhile anyway. Still more had moved away from the Pyx cliffs altogether to take up dwellings further north where the climate was more tasteful. This was a disturbing situation to old Mogie. With the threat of a Doom-a-Gram hanging over him his only hope lay in Greebie who by any stretch of the imagination was far too young to be a real Druid.
Mogie muttered to himself as he marched, about the decadence that had overtaken the Druidship since the ‘Old Boys’ had perished. No more was a Druid that “Mysterious Eccentric of the Rock” for a Druid nowadays had become ‘all too friendly with common folk’ and had lost their ‘Enigma’. Whether this was good or bad was difficult to judge, but Mogie had his mind made up on the matter.
“They are too soft!” he would openly admit. Hobbling along the well-worn path which Druids had hobbled along for centuries, Mogie thrashed at the salt-bush and scrubs that grew everywhere in sparse clumps. Overturning them was his way of cursing the lack of attendance at the Pyx. He hobbled and thrashed and cursed as he always had done. “Bah! Call themselves Druids! Bunch of Pimsy Pamsy Modlykins! A lovely day this an all!” he moaned.
As usual, he broke from the track at the junction where the south road met, and turned to wake the Pyxies in the bunkerhouse. “Come! Come you lot! Get the lead out there’s work to be done!” he sang to the tune of banging on their acacia door with his stick, (Contrary to his belief, banging on a door with a stick does not constitute a tune). then moved on.
Greebie had often heard this cry himself during his pyxie years for this habit of Druid Mogie had not altered since Greebie had first arrived at the Pyx. It was a ritual that the pyxies did not enjoy, therefore they assumed that Druid Mogie resented others who slept in, when he rose early to attend the dawn. Although old, he was tenacious and as hardy a Druid as many half his age but nomatter which pyxies were rostered to the bunkhouse they always found this relentless Druid a source of complaint. With grumbling they slowly stirred to life also.
Marcus Diad was also up, riding his she goat towards the pastures for the roundup. (Bessie particularly enjoyed this part of the story.) All dwelves rode goats, as horses were much too cumbersome a creature for a dwelf to handle. These were not the gentle farm goats of the vales, but the wild wooly, ruminants of the mountains, and Marcus had an affection for them. He was a rugged Druid himself as hairy as the goats he so loved to tame and master. A very withdrawn dwelf he was too, who spoke much less often then he mixed with others, which was very rare.
He had a whole herd of riding goats now, having captured many from the nearby ranges and bred them with others that he bought. He would let them out each night in the fenced arenas that he called the pastures, but which in fact were enclosures as rugged and hilly a place with its many crevices and sandstone formations as any other part of the Pyx cliffs. Nevertheless he enjoyed the rough scrabbling over the rocks and the twisting and darting through the thick salt scrub as he herded his spirited animals to their stables. They were lively mounts which were at home in the broken ground of this area of Skard.
Being located at the northwest end of the Isle of Skard, the Pyx cliffs as they are known are remote and isolated from the rest of Skard and the world by vast distances. Skard itself is over a thousand leagues in length and the largest and only land mass in the southern hemisphere. It could easily qualify as a continent in its own right but it is known as the Isle of Skard as it had been known since before maps were made, when the first Skards and Druids arrived to live a hermits away from the civilisations of the north. They were mysterious days in the partly forgotten dim ages of the past, when tales of strange beings were being told to children by the firesides. It was a time when any ocean voyage generated enough aura to capture the imagination of the whole planet.
“These were the true Druids!” thought Greebie as often as his daydreams, in which he desired to enjoy the same celibacy as the most ancient of days. (It was thought that celibacy extended ones life years but in fact it only made each passing year seem eternally longer than normal.)
Times change however and in recent decades more and more of the dwelf race have found escape from the injustices of the race of men by migrating to the Isle. Villages of those pilgrims (So called because these people took pills that made them feel pretty grim.) soon sprang up all over Skard, the chief of which are in the fertile valleys around Lake Temper and the rich soil plains of the delta of the four rivers. Greebie’s ancestors however, being amongst the first, settled far to the south in the mountainous regions of Kab-Ababa. There the Razorbacks form a horizon of pinnacles in every direction. Their snow clad peaks lofty against the sky and dwarfing the lesser, forested mounts of the Wayfairers. Streams and rivers are plentiful and wildlife abundant in the whole of that region, but for all of its beauty, Greebies childhood was not one of bliss and his memories of Kab-Ababa are all overshadowed with grief or sorrow or regretfully hatred. For there, where his own mother had perished in the woods, his life became one of misery and torment. His FatherLord had little time for a weakling lad. “Stripling” as he called him, “was no good for none!” he cursed between gulps of gooseberry wine. “Poor excuse for a Sailors Son, tart lard! Makes me shamed in me own trewsers ‘e do!” said he to the uproarious laughter of his drunken friends. Greebie would slink away to the forest and the waterfall of his favourite hiding, but the mockery was sharp; too sharp for the tenderness of Greebie’s heart and the wounds went deep. As often as he attempted to please his FatherLord he was beaten, so that he resorted to hiding(To be in hiding was better than to be given a hiding) from the only parent he had; for mortal fear.
This only made matters worse for his Father interpreted such behaviour as laziness. Consequently he doubled his chores until there were so many jobs to do that he doubted if an army of Greebies could complete them all. He was beaten for not having his chores completed, and his fatherLord laughed to see him cry and to see him cringe and cower like a dog under the wrath of a cruel master. He laughed, and drank more Ale and then beat the lad again for being within his sight. “Pityful lard! Ought to go into them thar woods and lose sight ‘o imself like his marm! ‘e ought!” his FatherLord cursed.
Eventually the day came and Druid Mogie with it passing through Kab-Ababa by way of the Gap of Bingle midst those ragged peaks and he stopped in the town at the same Inn where the Sailors retired,(Sailors retired a long way from the sea and the Arkwrights because they knew better) and there he saw this lad of eight or nine, (Actually ten) being laid at hand for the mockery of love, and it tore at his heart to witness it. So he detained himself and his entourage of six camels, three horses, twenty six goats, two pigs (male and female) and one hundred and twenty manservants and a partridge in a pear tree. So he detained himself at the Inn for a week and a day (The breeze that sat above the large sign on two hinges loved the opportunities these people afforded) making all manner of excuses to his retinue for the belaying; and he spoke to the lad, secretly when his FatherLord was incapacitated. (This incapacity was often caused by Ale. Youforia Elevatus often caused Flatus. People often became Flat and Lifeless not to mention sick after its consumption Oh and they passed wind too).
Greebie hardly understood what the old man had asked of him, for he had not heard of Skards or Pyxies, but he knew that the name of Druid, carried with it a strange spectre of ghastly fear, that threw the whole township into a frenzy of delight, when they heard that one was coming. It was not this that begged him to agree however, no; it was nothing the old man had said to him, it was the soothing of his voice that spoke deep within the child’s comprehension, and the gentleness of his aged hands as they rested upon his shoulders like a soothing balm.
“What do they call you lad?” he had asked.
“Stripling Sir”
“And what be thy FatherLords?”
“Dael El Sire.”
Greebie could hardly have guessed what was in the Druids mind at that first encounter (Nobody could guess what was in the Druids mind at any time) but three days later he could hardly believe what he heard. The Sailors came into the Inn as usual(Easily identified by their comical Sailors uniformed skirts) laughing and gagging and practicing their swashbuckling(Buckling swashes was a favoured skill) among themselves, as only Sailors can, and the Druid sat at the bench awaiting them. When they had finally settled he arose approaching Dael El as if he knew him.
“Ah! It is you?” he said with a pretence of joy. “Cousin Dael El! Do you not know me? Ah; but of course! I am a Druid now!” he said as he joined their party.
Dael El was dumbfounded (His dumb was found not long after his birth) He peered at the Druid with his mouth agape(The Druid did not have his mouth agape. It was dael El) unable to both recognise the bard, or to fathom(Fathom- Sailors talk for six feet under. That deep under the ocean and you become a corpse. This is why the dead are buried one fathom down). what was actually taking place.
A Druid had suddenly spoken, by choice mind you, to a common sailor. The whole Inn was in silence. (The Inn itself was just a building and could not actual speak although it could make noise especially with a little help from the breeze that sat above the sign.)
“Surely you must recognise me Cousin Mogie now Druid?” he asked again poking his own chest but Dael El did not know him nor could he place any cousin by the name of Mogie.
“Mogie?” stuttered Dael El as the words stumbled from his lips. He was stunned, but the Druid obviously knew him and the whole Inn was gathering about this dwelf of importance. (Actually just the people in the Inn)
Nevertheless Dael El could not place Druid Mogie and knew not what to say, but he knew not to offend a Druid or a Mogie Maggi.
“Me Lord; I might have a cousin though I canna place…” he went on to say but Mogie swayed him.
“Of course! Of course! But say not that you have forgotten you secon cousin twice removed?”
Dael El wondered what that meant. “Can’t says I cin recall…”
“On your Mother’s side?” encouraged Mogie.
The crowds were pressing tight by this and Dael El felt most uncomfortable. He could not place this stranger although thousands of faces passed before his minds eye. (Sailors met many folk not all of them people) Like Arkwrights; a Druid is not one to call a liar or to argue against. If he said he was a cousin then let him be a cousin.
“My Mothers side? Aye! That’s it me Marms line. Now there could be a Mogie in them thar lot, right ‘nuff. They’re Lowlanders them is. Queer mob is them. Wi’ more ‘lations than stars in the night them is. Could be Mogie ‘mongst em. Thou’t scapes me now” he finally agreed looking at the nods of approval he received from those standing about. Pleased with himself he took another gulp of Ale.
“Ive come all this way” Druid Mogie went on “especially to see you!”
Dael El was perplexed, “you have” he gasped.
“Yes and how is your charming spouse? Er; now what was her name? I seem to have misplaced…”
“Gaib?” volunteered Dael El without realizing that he had said it and continued without further thought. “Oh she done lost sight ‘o herself in them thar hills she do!” he answered swigging Ale nervously.
“Oh that’s sad! Druid Mogie toned with compassion “aand she was such a … a… charming dwelf!”
“Thart she were ‘o right! Thart she were! Charmin dwelf!” the Sailor repeated amongst his beer. “But do tell what is it I cin do fer ye?”
“Well it’s about Striplin…”
Suddenly Dael El began to choke. Ale splurted out of his bearded snout and sprayed those unfortunates in his wake. He coughed, sneezing froth from his nostrils in the fit and went blue from the effort.
“Stripling” he gulped.
“Yes, the boy; your boy! It’s time he enrolled you know!”
Dael El too surprised to drink asked, “enrolled?”
“As my Pyxie! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?
Forgotten! He knew nothing of it; nothing at all. Now he really was speechless. Stripling was only a nickname, His nickname and he wondered how the Druid came to know it. Perhaps he really was a second cousin twice removed, whatever that meant, and perhaps it was through his marms side and the Lowlanders and all but he failed to see how any such dwelf would know the name of stripling? Then again Druids have powers.
Druid Mogie knew how confused this poor sailor must have been and in a weird way it delighted him. Seeing the cruel FatherLord trembling under his own confusion was a reward he had not expected.
“The lad is spoken of highly!” he added quietly.
This statement was twofold in effect. Firstly Greebie who was nearby immediately straightened, pricking his ears; suddenly he was filled with emotions he could not recognise. They swept over his body like the falls of the mountains, cleansing him, and flooding him with pride and hope. For once someone had thought kindly of him. He was elated.
Dael El however was the opposite. He sank in despair. His mind was as empty as his beer jug. Total disbelief revealed itself on his face and his only utterances were gurglings and stammers.
“Sp; spoken of highly? The boy? Thart boy there?” His surprise was more than he could control having thought so little of the weakling lad but Druid Mogie continued.
“Well yes! He is highly regarded. After all, he is our blood, is he not?”
Dael El found himself helpless in the face of such logic, he simply had to have another drink. Snatching a colleagues mug he began to say “Let me get this straight. You wan’ Striplin tar be ye Pyxie, yea?” he said swilling the Ale as he finished as if it would calm his nerves and give him a nonchalant appearance at the same time.
“Well yes!” answered Druid Mogie “of course I realize what a loss it must mean to you!” Suddenly dael El choked again and nearly drowned this time as the Ale slid down his throat and up his nostrils at the same time. It seemed to flow everywhere at once. He coughed, sneezed and choked simultaneously bringing tears to his eyes and crippling him in asthmatic convulsions.
As he straightened his voice was raspy and strained.
“Aye a great loss, thart it be, a loss o’right” he said but inwardly he could hardly contain the laughter.
“That is why…” continued Druid Mogie “…and Lord forbid should I insult you noble cousin; but that is why I offer you a thousand golden guineas… as a recompence…”
Dael Els mouth dropped at the mention of gold.
“Naturally” Mogie went on “ I realize the boys worth far exceeds…”
Dael El heard nothing more than this; his ears were filled with clinking sounds and his mind, already mesmerized by these events had ceased working altogether. The Druids voice droned on about the boys worth but Dael El only heard “a thousand golden guineas” as it repeated itself to his stupification.(The act of being stupid) “A thousand golden guineas” he repeated to himself to convince his dark soul that it was true. This was more money then he could imagine, ten years no twenty years pay!
“A thousand golden guineas” repeated Druid Mogie “Of course the boy will have to earn it all back!” said he as he counted out the money two days later. So the lad was sold.
At ten years old Greebie Piggleman was worth a thousand golden guineas. This knowledge had the effect of immediately raising Greebies self worth from slum dog to leader of the pack instantly. His self esteem was now optimal and Druid Mogie smiled.
Greebie remembers very little of the rest of the events of that day. If he remembers anything at all perhaps it might be the joyous elation he experienced at being wanted by someone; anyone. Maybe he recalls the tenderness of Druid Mogie’s voice as he first heard it in those distant mountains or it could be that the only spark of remembrance which he now holds is the day of his departure from Kab-Ababa
Whatever it is that is locked within his breast he is keeping to himself for he has never spoken of his FatherLord or Marm to anyone not even Druid Mogie. Strangely not long after his departure his Mother appeared and challenge Dael El for no less than half the thousand golden guineas. Five hundred golden guineas was enough for her to purchase a goodly and sizable acreage atop the mountain. It was a saddle of land that draped both sides of the mountain on which she built a wattle and daub structure that she called a house. There she lived the life of a mountain queen eccentric mad crazy woman of the hills. However it only lasted fifty years and she passed away. It was at this time that our own Druid Piggleman returned home to take up residency in the house. Prior to that Druid Piggleman had exiled himself from Kab-Ababa. This self-exile was the talk of the town for many decades. Why he refused to visit was perplexing to the residents. Some said he was ashamed of his lineage other said that his FatherLord would have exploited him and still more claimed it was for the towns own protection against the foes of Druidship.
Just then the breeze atop the sign blew itself up; high up into the sky. Approaching was a nightmarish creature, huffing and puffing swearing and cursing in mumbles under her breath. It was Marjorie Andoreena Piggleman beating up the path in anger. Bursting into the Inn she hollered.
“Greebie! Greebie Piggleman!”
The beer stein slid out from under his forearm and his head fell hard against the bar top as he woke.
“Uh What?”
“Where’s Mrs Crabtree and why’s Bessie inside the Inn and what are you doin drinking Ale at this time o’day? And wheres the cart have you unloaded it yet?” She went on and on.