The Garden Paths
One cannot deny, as the poet once said, there is pleasure in the pathless woods. Here in the Garden the pathless parts of the wood are not always safe, although I have no doubt they contain many pleasures. These pleasures one can enjoy from the safety of the paths, and yet the trouble always starts, if one happens on a pathless path.”
From Mr. Whizz’s Notebook, On the Garden, a thing rarum.
“Where are we going?” asked Laila.
“To the clearing,” said Cyril.
“What’s that?”
“We will be safe there. Wolves aren’t allowed in the clearing.”
“Thank God for that,” said Laila. “I don’t want to see any more grrs.”
It appeared they had escaped the wolves and were now riding along one of the many paths that seemed to criss-cross the woods. Mr. Whizz had a rather anxious expression.
They had not been riding far when Mr. Whizz pulled up on Beautifully and held up his arm – a gesture which caused Handsomely to pull up, too.
“What’s up, Mr. Whizz?” asked the gnomes.
“It’s this path,” said the wizard. “There is something I don’t like about this path.”
“But Mr. Whizz,” said Laila, who was suddenly alarmed at the thought that the wolves might attack them again, “I thought we were safe on the paths.”
“Generally,” said the wizard, “one is safe on the paths. However, there are certain paths that are not what they seem.”
“I don’t understand,” said Laila, turning to Cyril.
Cyril shrugged.
“You cannot always trust the paths, especially in this part of the wood.”
“It is true that some paths lead nowhere,” the wizard went on. “On the other hand, there are others that do not obey the rules of the wood. These are the pathless paths.”
“Pathless paths?”
“This I admit is a contradiction. Here the wolves may not attack, but there are others who may, so we must be vigilant.”
And so it was; the small party comprising Mr. Whizz, Laila and the gnomes went on. With utmost vigilance.
For what seemed like an age, they rode along the path that presented itself to them in a most generous and open way, or so Laila thought. Mr. Whizz did not stop or appear to hesitate. But his eye was always fixed upon the way, and sometimes his beard twitched and pointed in such a way. It convinced Laila they were on the right way. And if they were not on the right way, they were surely getting a long way away from wolves. Unbeknown to Laila, however, they have found themselves on the path not far from where that gentleman known in the common parlance of the Garden as Smarm dwelt.
“Into the trees!” cried Mr. Whizz.
At his word they flung themselves off the path and into the woods.
Before them was a large timber structure on two storeys with a stone chimney and a thick oak door. There were several benches arrayed around a yard. A musket was leaning against one of the timber walls, and there was trough with water. Beside the door, there were a series of hooks where hung dead pheasants and various seasonings such as garlics and drying herbs. On one of the hooks were several empty sacks.
“It is as much as I feared,” says Mr. Whizz.
“What is there to fear?”
“Smarm’s place,” said Cyril.
“Let’s give him a nice reception,” said Yin, who was about to give a loud bang on her drum.
Yang started giggling.
“Go on, Yin. Give Smarm a wake-up call!”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Mr. Whizz. “He is not a wolf.”
“Mr. Whizz, we know he’s not wolf.”
“Precisely,” he said. “Smarm is not a wolf. He will not pay the slightest heed to your crashes and your bangs and your wallops.”
“Honestly, Mr. Whizz. Can’t we just give him one crash?”
“Clowns!” said Cyril. “You heard the wizard. Smarm is not just any common garden wolf. You cannot scare him off with noise.”
“If he’s not a wolf, what is he then?” asked Laila.
But neither Mr. Whizz nor any of the gnomes had time to answer her question when a wolf entered the yard.
It was a silver coated wolf with big, black ears and black streaks in its tail.
Laila’s heart was in her mouth as it went up to the trough and began to drink.
The piebald wolf was quite unconcerned and evidently used to drinking at the trough. It looked up and sniffed the air. Then it turned and looked in their direction. Although they were well hidden among the trees, Laila could almost hear the voice again – the one that was telling her she was for turning.
The wolf, however, must have had something else on its mind other than turning young girls. It took one last lap from the trough and trotted off, slipping back into the woods.
“What shall we do, Mr. Whizz?”
The gnomes looked round at the wizard who remained in silent contemplation until Laila noticed his beard twitching as if in readiness for a speaking role.
“Although it is a long time since I have been in this part of the woods,” the wizard said hesitantly, “if I remember rightly, and of course I am not always right in my remembering, this track on the right of the lodge will take us in the direction of the clearing…”
The wizard stopped to consider his reasoning until his beard began to quiver and point in agreement.
“However,” he went on, “we cannot ride the unicorns here. Laila, you must take charge of Handsomely while we circumnavigate the lodge.”
Whether it was the right path or the wrong path, the path to the right of the lodge was narrow and overhung with stubborn branches; and riddled with awkward roots.
As perhaps has been noted, Yin, who was a carefree young gnome – often acting without thinking and thinking without acting, was not looking where she was going when the drum round her neck caught on one of the more stubborn branches. In her effort to pull it free, it made a thump. Delighted by the sound, she could not help herself and made a thump in the same way.
The thump echoed round the woods.
“You foolish gnome!” hissed Mr. Whizz.
“Sorry,” she said, looking sheepish.
Mr. Whizz’s beard was decidedly on end. In sympathy the manes of the two unicorns now stood on end. Laila herself was also on end as they walked along the narrow path. They were expecting to meet their enemies, either wolves or smarmers or even Smarm himself. Just as they were least expecting it, however, as Mr. Whizz’s beard and even the manes of the unicorns relaxed, there appeared in front of them on the path a gentleman in a tricorn who needed no introduction.
In his hand was a musket.
The gentleman in question raised his weapon and everyone stopped.
“Prince, what an unexpected pleasure.”
“Monsieur Wizard.”
“Prince, what are you doing? Why are you pointing your musket at us?”
“The question is, Monsieur Wizard, what are you doing?”
“Prince, we came upon this path, and are, as is our right, on our way to the clearing.”
“Au contraire, Monsieur Wizard, you are mistaken. You are not on the path. This is the path.”
He kicked the leaves on the ground around him, revealing what appeared to be a more delineated path with stones on either side of the way.
Mr. Whizz frowned.
“Is this some kind of trick?”
“No trick,” said Smarm, “just the God’s honest tricky truth. In vino and vero veritas.”
“Prince, you have not played fair with us. We came in good faith on this path.”
“Fairness has nothing to do with it. You know the rules, Monsieur Wizard. You have strayed from the path.”
“Prince, as I recall,” began the wizard. “We have all – and I include everyone in the place we call the Garden – made a promise. By that promise and all that it implies, we live. Have you not forgotten yours?”
“A long time ago, someone made me a promise, then they broke it. Consequently, I do not make promises. I only make legally binding agreements, according to jus naturale and actus reus.”
“Prince, please speak in plain English.”
“My meaning is as plain as can be,” said Smarm. “It is in my mother’s tongue fee simple. You have strayed from the path, and therefore legally speaking, you are fair game. This, however, is beside the point.”
“The point is, Prince, we have every right to be on this path.”
“The point being over and above the straying from the path,” said Smarm, swinging round so that his gaze fell upon Laila, “there is a yanger in your midst.”
“The child is none of your business.”
“Since when can you decree that a yanger is none of my business? – You know the law, Monsieur Wizard.”
“To what law are you referring?”
“Monsieur Wizard, you are being disingenuous. You know as well as I do that we are all bound by the sanctity of the law hereabouts, the jus natural and actus reus.”
“I cannot be responsible for the arrangements you make with the Mistress Dido. I will assert once more our right to go along this path about our business.”
“I will not mince my words, Monsieur Wizard. You have not obtained the permesso. And if you have not obtained the permesso, you have no right, or, as they say in my father’s tongue, droit seigneur to carry the yanger through my domain.”
“As you well know, Prince, the wood is no one’s domain.”
“In both law and nature, this is my domain.”
“I have no doubt you can be quite the gentleman when it suits you, Smarm. But this is not a time in which I have much patience with your smarminess.”
The gnomes sniggered.
Smarm frowned.
It was clear to Laila from his frowning face that he did not enjoy the pointed criticism of the wizard or the sniggering of the gnomes.
“I see you have forgotten your manners, wizard. However, to return the contract signed by the Mistress and witnessed by my fellow men and her silly little Butterlings. Our contract is an agreement that says around my lodge or as we say in my mother’s tongue loggia, I have the right to do as I so simply please.”
“I cannot believe the Mistress would sign such a contract.”
“In point of fact, and further to this, there is a clause regarding yangers and youngers, to wit children.”
“If you have the document, show it me and let’s see if the Mistress would have put her signature to such an abomination.”
Smarm made as if to reach into his jacket pocket. “How very remiss of me,” he said, “I seem to have mislaid my copy.”
In fact, instead of reaching into his pocket, he reached into the pouch around his waist for the cartridge in readiness to prime his musket.
Everyone was now watching Smarm so they failed to spot the two gentlemen in tricorns sneaking up behind Yin and Yang. One of the said sneaks picked Yin up and slung her over his shoulder. The other who had a sack in his hand tried to scoop up her legs into it, but her legs kept swinging in protest and when Yang came around behind the sneak and copped him with a dead leg, he let a pained cry: “Oh, I say what! How jolly unsporting!” and fell in a heap of potato sacks.
Mr. Whizz, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the confusion and the fiddly business of priming an antique weapon.
“Laila,” he called, “you must flee!”
By some stretch or scratching of his beard Laila found herself on Handsomely, who dodged past the fumbling musketeer and sped off down the path when the musket shot rang out.
Laila fled on the unicorn.
She did not stop or look back, not even when she had heard the musket shot. She kept on. Handsomely carried her along the path. If it was a real path or one of Smarm’s paths she had no way of telling. The trees muttered and shook around her. Their branches swept down over her as she clung to Handsomely’s mane. She dared not think what had happened to the others. If she did, tears would well up in her eyes. Had they been taken prisoners? Or worse? Had they been eaten by wolves?
The unicorn pulled up.
Upon the path was a thicket of spears. The spears were arranged at different heights and in such a way that made it quite impossible for both rider and unicorn to go through. No doubt it was some cruel trick of Smarm’s, but Laila thought she could see a way through the thicket.
“Come on, Handsomely,” she said, sliding off the unicorn. “You can do it! That’s my boy!”
The unicorn hesitated, not unlike Whisper once at Badbury Rings. The spears were sharp and meanly pointed. For a moment it looked as though Handsomely would be stuck between two cunningly positioned spears. But slowly and not without magic of her own, Laila managed to coax the unicorn through the thicket of spears.
Exhausted by her efforts, she sat down on a sump and covered her face in her hands.
“What are you doing here, Laila?” she said to herself. “You said you wanted an adventure in the woods and now you certainly have got one.”
But there was to be no let up. Suddenly she heard a noise among the trees, and she leapt back up to her feet, as a little green figure burst through the bushes onto the path.
“Laila! By my cheese! It’s you!”
“Cyril! Thank God! – I thought the smarmers had got you.”
“Fat chance!” said Cyril, who was still panting and out of breath. “A smarmer wanted to put me into his sack, but I ran between his legs and got away. When he came after me, I got him with a stone. Smarmers don’t like it when you get them on the nose. This one got in a real stew. Anyway, the others were more concerned about getting Yin and Yang into their sacks.”
“How could they do a thing like that to Yin and Yang?”
Cyril shrugged.
“’S what smarmers do.”
“What about Mr. Whizz?” asked Laila, recalling the musket shot.
Cyril shook his head.
“The last I saw the wizard was trying to get away from Smarm.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“We must find the Mistress,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.”
“How are we going to find her when we’re lost?”
“There are always ways and means to find the Mistress.
“Gnomes have a saying,” he went on. “To find the Mistress one need not invoke Smarm’s treason. Whatever the weather or the season, the Mistress will find the reason.”
“Why, Cyril Longhop, it looks as though I have found my reason!”
Laila looked round and saw a woman holding a weaponised bow.
“Don’t shoot!” she cried.
But it was too late.
The arrow came whistling towards her.