204. The Cabal of the Infernal Harpies

204. The Cabal of the Infernal Harpies

It was clear Cespuglio had visited Wildgale before. He moved wih ease through boggy territory and got us, without  any accident to lament, to interminable fields of heath. The ground was pink, rife with heather, and the sky was blue that day. A black bulk  that was visible at a great distance promised to be the one tree in which my uncle was supposed to live. We srpead our wings and flew towards  the bulk, but when we were near enough to see it had fulfilled its promise, we descended, folded our wings, and politely gave another  vague bulk, this one on the tree, time to see who we were and make ready to receive us.

“Yooooooo!” yelled Cespuglio, surprising us all. I don´t remember ever having heard him raise his voice before, and neither, I think, had Dad.

Ces began to walk towards the tree with the three Leafies on his shoulders and Dad and I trailed a little ways behind him.

Uncle Wildgale was indeed sitting on one of the branches of the tree. He saluted Ces wih his hand,  but he was looking beyond Cespuglio, directly at Dad.

There was a tall heap of small stones next to the tree and Dad shouted out, ”Are you going to cast stones at us if we come any closer, Wildie?”

Without moving from where he sat, Uncle Wild shook his head.

“They’re not mine,” he said.

“Whose then?”

Uncle Wild shrugged, but said nothing.

“Some kind of an offering, then,” said Dad. “Probably to the spirit that lives in the tree. To you, therefore.”

I did not think so. That would be in the mortal world. But what fairy would leave a stone pile as an offering to a tree fairy?

Uncle Wild shrugged again.

“Come, brother mine,” said Dad. “You may now rant. You´ve a friendly ear here.”

“If you’ve come to pry about what I think you have, you’re better off not knowing. Turn on your heels and go,” said Uncle Wildgale. “This is no no concern of yours. Don’t make it one. Not even to wash your hands of it.   ”

“What is your sister keeping from me?”

“It’s not my sister.”

“What is your family keeping from me?”

“It´s really no business of yours,  but there are some who are scared you will ruin their  plans out of sheer  perversity. And these are as much your family as they are mine.”

“Who, Wild?”

 Uncle Wild’s response was to say hi to me.

“Hi, Arley! You wouldn’t happen to have any mortal cheese crunchies, would you? An infernal, victim-gulping serpent took my last bag from me.”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.

“We’ve brought you cider and doughnuts,” said Dad. “At least I think we have, if they haven’t been lost on the way here.”

“Oh. Well, thanks!”

Ces went up to the branch and Uncle Wild jumped down from it and took the jug from him. And he began to munch on one of the doughnuts from a box Ces offered him too.

“When your mouth isn’t full, be so kind as to tell me what I need to know,” said Dad to Uncle Wild.

“You don’t need to know anything. I already told you that. But since you insist, ask Gen. He’s your  brother as much as he is mine. He says he wants to have nothing to do with this, but his sinister daughters and mother-in-law have plans.”

“I’ve already asked Gen. And yes, he wants nothing to do with whatever this is about. He said it just like you did, that it was really no concern of mine and I was better off not knowing. Are you happy about whatever  this is, Wild?”

“I’m rarely happy about anything. But, no. I’m not happy about this at all. To begin with, it has cost me a bag of cheese crunchies. And who knows what other dire consequences this may have for me? The picture isn’t bright.”

Dad had been patient enough. He was about to blow his top. But he knew that would not have the desired effect on someone like Wild, who is more prone to blowing off himself than anyone else in our family.

“Wild, speak out, for  the love of crispies, or whatever  that is that you were stopped from eating! Maybe I can help you.”

 “Hmm. Maybe I should. Maybe you should know about this. Who knows what is best?”

Wild nodded at Dad. He was ready to speak.

“Gen’s women? Mabel, of course, excepted. Those three infernal harpies have cooked this cabal to marry Richie off.”

“Again?” asked Dad. “Wasn’t he going to marry someone named Clepontia  who has nothing to do with us? Did he?”

“That too. No, he didn’t get to marry that one. And you are one behind. After Clepeta, he had great fun almost marrying the septuagenarian human owner of some dovecotes. But that’s over, because the old lady turned out to be less greedy and more sensible than expected. A sackful of diamonds was enough for her. She didn' need to put up wih Rich once she got that. We all parted friends. But that's  all in the past. The future lies elsewhere. Now he´s going to do a nice girl a favor. You know how he likes to do favors. It makes him look good.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Nothing. I already said that. Except the nice girl is your childhood sweetheart, the apprentice valkyrie Mathilde.”

“WHAT?” exclaimed Dad.

 “You can´t be serious!” I cried out. “Mathilde is like eleven years old.”

Uncle Wild glanced at me with surprise and curiousity.

“No, she’s not. She’s as old as I am. Three measly years older than Richie.”

“But…”

Before I could say anything else, Uncle Wild explained.

“She´s three years younger than your dad too,” he said.

“No, two,” said Dad.

“Okay, never mind the details,” continued Wild. “The case is the poor girl wasted centuries and moved backwards and came out of a spell looking like not even a teenager. But to make up for that, this example of willpower has been sleeping right and eating right and in these years you lost at Teddy Bosk or wherever  you were dawdling, Arley, she has managed to look like she’s twenty. Are you in love with her or something, Arley?”

“No. I just think she’s a very sweet kid. Well, was. Always trying to please everyone. But that was years ago. If she’s changed, I don’t know what to say. I’ve always thought of her as something that used to be Dad´s.”

“Hmm. You’re not thinking of her as something yours, are you Ob?”

“No. I…I wish her the best. But is that Richearth?”

“Everybody seems to think so. The poor girl can’t just marry anyone, because she was your girlfriend and you were the prize bull in the marriage market. She would look like an awful loser if she didn’t catch someone splendid in some way. Plus all the men of her age and season are married anyway. Only Rich is spectacular and surpisingly single. He’s always almost married mortal women or tended to get involved with already married fay shrews. All very prepotent, these women, and each thinking she would be the one person  to control him, which is impossible. When they see he isn´t the twit they took him for, they die of chagrin or have a nervous breakdown or something like that.”

“Mathilde is…I don’t want him to hurt her,” I said.

“He won’t. He never hurs anybody. They do that to themselves trying to annul him. Mathilde is not going to try and control him. All she wants is a certain status. He can give her that and go on being himself whenever and wherever he pleases. The idea is not as ludicrous as it sounds. A marriage of real convenience. For her at least. And I suppose he’ll be happy too, because he’ll be doing her a favor. You know how he enjoys making people happy. In his own crazy way of course.”

“Aunt Cybela said there would be two women. Who is the other one going to be? I don’t understand anything. I thought Uncle Rich would be marrying Siamese twins.”

“Aha ha ha! Now you’ve put  your little finger in the pustulent sore, Arls. The other woman is the hideous, infernal, victim-gulping serpent who stole my crunchies.”

“Og!” whispered Dad. That was all he said. Very low too.

“Mathilde turns into a serpent at night or something like that?” I asked.

“No. Mathilde is a perfect sweetheart. You know how Cybela said Richie had never had a proper wedding with guests and gifts and pageantry and pomp and circumstance? Remember how she also said he’d never had a mother-in-law to quarrel with and that was why he was always at odds with his wives? We call them his wives, it´s easier that way. And politer.”

“Mathilde’s mother…that would be Ula. She’s a nice, friendly lady too,” I said.

“She’s the strangling, victim-gulping serpent out of hell that stole my crunchies.”

“She ate your last crunchies and you are this upset about that? This isn’t like you, Uncle Wild.”

“If she had eaten my crunchies I would have nothing to say but that she could have left me a few. Or shared. No. This was power  play, Arley.  Rich and I and Tanny - your mum - went to Cybela’s place in great secret. Your mum made herself invisible and everything and even hid behind a curtain to get herself out of the way.  She just wanted to watch. And then Mathilde and the monster arrived, leading a gang of blokes that were once Caligula’s Batavian Bodyguards.”

“I think we  may have seen some of those at one of Michael Toora’s Halloween parties,” I said. “I don’t remember their having caused any trouble,” I added weakly.

“Yes. That’s where they are going to be on the last day of this October. The leprechaun doesn´t know it yet, but they wil be there. They will be bringing with them everything they need to turn the party into a surprise nightmare October fest where a yodeler will announce Rich and Mathilde’s engagement to the tune of polka-playing acordeons. They will bring a lot of those. Who cares what the host has in mind? She organizes everything, that creature out of hell does. You should have seen the infernal harpies drooling over her and her abilities as a wedding planner.”

“In ausentia? The engagement will be announced without Uncle Rich being present? He can’t show himself in public on Halloween night.”

“Oh, yes he can, the serpent says. Hence the Batavian bodyguards.”

“But they weren’t able to protect even Caligula,” I protested.  

“Who would want to protect Caligula? Says the serpent, of course.The case is, the Granny Harpy brought the monster up to me to introduce us, and I was holding my last, unopened bag of cheese crunchies from our trip, you know, in case I needed a boost. And I am about to lie and say all that falsity about being pleased to meet her, and before I can speak she tears the bag of cheese crunchies from my hands and forbids me to ever eat such food again. Verbotten! It´s not good for me, she says. And before I can retrieve the bag, she casts  it into the fireplace. My crunchies! And I am so paralyzed by that serpent I do not even think of blowing the fire out to save my poor crunchies. Arley! Oberon! This wedding is going to be the worst disaster Rich and I have ever suffered. It cannot happen. It can´t!” 

“But what does Mathilde want?” said Dad. I saw his face. He didn’t want her to go through heartbreak again.

“How can she want anything? She’s controlled by a cabal of infernal harpies, the wicked worm of the north and Caligula’s bodyguards.”

“My mother used to say something like that,” muttered Dad.