139. Gorm Jock

  

He was in a good mood, the demon. When his dreadlocked blue head with shells of great beauty twisted in his hair rose above the calm waters, for so they were that day, I greeted him and explained my business there in verse. He nodded and said he knew very well who the rascal Tansy Mandrakecott was and all about the pencil. He sank back into the deep and returned with it in his hand. I was thinking the Blue Men were nowhere near as ferocious and wild as they were said to be when the sea creature said I had to answer a riddle before I got to get the pencil. My hopes sank, and I thought I would never win it. But...

Jock the Gorm, for such was his name, fixed his blue eyes on me and said very gravely, “Since you have been to Salamanca, you may have learned some of the riddles the students there enjoy. Let me see if you know the answer to this one. Students who study Latin, and know more than one, how can I cover two holes with one?”  

He must have heard me gasp with relief. I knew the answer to that one. I had read it in the cave, where it was scribbled on one of the walls.

                      

     

“Stick your nose up your arse, sir, and when you are done, 

 you’ll find you have covered two holes with one.”

Jock beamed on me, showing all his pearly teeth, sharp as a shark’s, as he smiled.

“I wrote that myself on the wall of the devil’s cave in Salamanca, for in my youth I studied there to be a necromancer. Down here we are all aware it is a question of thief’s honour never to return what one steals, unless one wishes to be taken for a fool, but there is nothing I wouldn’t do for another son of my alma mater. I mean you, of course, not that blackguard Mardakecott. He stole my pencil, so I stole his. So now he’s trapped in the school is he? Don’t give him any pencils. Steal those he has.”   

He took hold of one of my hands and shook it after moving his fingers in a strange way that probably had something to do with his fraternity or the Blue Men, and then he put the magic pencil in my hand.

                 

                          “Arley, frater,” he said. “Here is your pencil.”