207. Fencing in the Wind

 

207.  Fencing in the Wind

After our trip to New York, I tried once more to find Mathilde and see if I could guess her intentions. I didn’t quite dare to ask outright. There was no finding her, and I went to see how Uncle Wildgale was. He and Uncle Rich were sour at each other, though Uncle Rich insisted it was no fault of his. Wild had tried to warn him about how bossy Ula was and when Rich laughed and said all one had to do was say yes to everything and then do as one pleased, Uncle Wild had accused him of not taking warning signs of conflicts to come seriously. That was when he had gone off to his properties in a huff, where Dad and Ces and I had visited him. He hadn’t shown signs of being alive since we had. So I went to see how he was.

I had to take Alpin with me, no choice but that, and we found Uncle Wild sulking in his lone tree, the one where I had last seen him.

“How am I? How am I supposed to be? I’m surprised you are here, that much I can tell you. No one else has cared to come and see me. I don’t matter.”

I was trying to talk him into getting down from the tree and returning to civilization with us, when Mathilde appeared out of nowhere, carrying an enormous backpack. With her were two dragons. One was Neidy, with whom I was already acquainted, the dragon that had guarded her while she slept at the grove of the hidden flower. The other, I learned much later, was called Siegie.The backpack turned out to be full of stones, which Mathilde dumped right next to the pile there already was under Uncle Wild’s tree.

“So it was you who brought those stones here, was it?” asked Uncle Wild. “Why?”

“You be quiet and wait,” said Mathilde. “Observe and you’ll learn by yourself. Where does your property start and where does it end?”

Uncle Wild didn’t seem thrilled to tell her, but she insisted and he drew out his crystal ball and showed her.  

Mathilde took hold of a stone and cast it miles away, to where Uncle Wild said his property began. To our surprise,  we saw it, in the crystal ball, turn into an enormous boulder. And it kept growing.

“Wow!” said Alpin. “That’s one strong arm you have there, Mathilde.”

“You think it’s easy to carry off the souls of dead soldiers in fast flight?” asked Mathilde.

It seems these souls weigh even more than the mortal bodies in armour that are left behind in the fields.

Mathilde kept casting stones. When we finally asked her if she was fencing in Uncle Wild’s lands, she said yes.

“But why?” asked Uncle Wild.

Mathilde drew a bag of cheese pretzels out of a pocket in her back pack and cast it at Uncle Wild.

“Eat that and be quiet,” she said. “I don’t know who supplies you with crunchies. Make do with pretzels for the timebeing.”

And she continued casting stones.

Uncle Wild rolled his eyes and gestured to us that he could not believe what was happening. He returned to his tree with the bag of pretzels, but he did not eat them.

“I told you these people would be the end of us,” said Uncle Wild.

“What are you going to do about this?” said Alpin.

“I don’t know yet,” said Uncle Wild. “I have no idea why she’s doing what she is doing. And it’s obviously no use asking her.”

“Do you think Uncle Rich sent her here?”

“No. That would not be like Rich. I suppose that since I am no longer looking after Richie, Dad has given him my lands to him and this woman knows and has come to claim her future husband’s property.”

“How awful of her!” I said. “I would never have thought her capable of anything like that. She was so nice. I’m going to speak to Uncle Rich about this.”

“No, you are not!” cried Uncle Wildgale. “You leave things be. I’ll claim my ideal home and go live wherever they plant it. I don’t need any of this.”

To our further surprise, the dragons were moving stones around too. But they seemed to be building a fort or something that was not a wall.

I asked Neidy what he was doing and he said that when they were done, we would know.

“Come with us to see Mum, Uncle Wild,” I said. “She won’t let them take your lands. Not ever.”

“Like this matters to me. No. I’m going to see Earl and Ludovica. It’s high time I claimed my house. When I have it, I’ll move the stuff I have inside the tree and some stuff I have at Richie’s there.”

“I’m going to speak with Mum whether you want me too or not,” I said.

“The nerve of this woman,” said Uncle Wild, studying the bag of pretzels. “She’s noticed I was sour about my crunchies and she’s brought me this to be rid of me. Like the French king sent Henry V tennis balls so he wouldn’t claim his French dukedoms.”

“I’m speaking to Mum,” I said.

“I’m packing,” said Uncle Wild, leaving the bag under the tree.

But I didn’t get to speak to Mum, because if Uncle Wild felt like Henry V, I felt like Hamlet. Also, Alpin advised against it. Normally, I would never take Alpin’s advice, but this time he seemed to know something I didn’t. And for some reason, I felt he could be right.

“Wait, Arley. Until you know what is going on, just like Mathilde said. It’s not like you to act without information. Observe how things go and how everyone acts at Michael’s Halloween Party. It’s almost here. Trust me on this one, Arls.”

At the Halloween party, I still felt like Hamlet, full of doubts. One of my shadows became Mathilde’s, and the other, her mother’s. They followed these women everywhere, but noticed nothing strange. Both looked appropriately cheerful, and they smiled on everything and everyone and were charming as can be. Charming hostesses, for they had supplanted Michael in everything, though he said he couldn’t deny he was actually grateful for that. Everyone was scared of them and Caligula’s Guard and therefore behaved correctly. But I think everyone enjoyed being scared. After all, this was Halloween.

Uncle Rich was behaving well too. This was his first Halloween Party, and though it was more of an Oktoberfest than anything else, he seemed pleased to be there. I did notice that he did look about a little too much, even someone curious and new to such parties would have looked around less. He was, I soon learned, looking for Uncle Wildgale. Finally, he spoke out and asked me, “Where’s your Uncle Wildie? Why isn’t he here? I want to ask him to be my best man.”

I was relieved to hear that, because I had thought he was expecting to be attacked. My father was on guard, expecting something like that too, I guess. But Uncle Rich didn’t seem to even think his brother would come after him with a scythe. Nothing could be further from his mind.

“I wanted to ask him to be my best man,” he said, “right after Ula announces our engaement. Dad should have done the announcing, but of course, not even Mummy could get him out of his house for this. Don’t you think Wildie is carrying his sulking too far this time? He usually goes off for a few days when he’s piqued, but it’s been weeks, hasn’t it?”

He didn’t sound like someone who has stolen someone else’s lands. But with Uncle Rich, you never know what he’s thinking when it comes to business.

I suppose this was the moment to tell him about how Mathilde was buidling the Great Wall of China in Uncle Wild's moors. But I felt it wasn’t and I didn’t. I only said, “I think Uncle Wild’s gone to claim his ideal house. Maybe he already has and he’s living in it.”

“I wonder what that home could be like,” said Uncle Wild. “I can’t imagine Wild inside a house. One of his own, I mean. Just blasting through his moors. Do you think I should go visit him at his tree and get this misunderstanding or whatever it is straightened out?”

“What misunderstanding?” I asked, thinking he was going to say something about the lands, something like Mathilde was building a fort there for the Batavians.

“About his crunchies. He’s so childish! He’s made such a fuss about them. How can you get so worked up because someone has taken a bag of snacks from you?”

“I suppose it’s a symbol of…of other things that can be taken from one too.”

“Bah!” said Uncle Rich. “What does Wild have that anyone would take from him? His liberty? No, I think not.”

And I saw plainly that he had no idea about the moors and the marsh and the stones and Mathilde and her dragons.

“Don’t you speak, either of you,” said Alpin. “You shut your trap, Arley, and you do too, Master Richman. You’re neither ready to say anything, and you look far prettier with your mouths shut. Let things flow. I’m feeling there’s luck in the air. Something’s coming, something good. Don’t spoil it. You go announce your engagement, Richearth. Here comes your future mum-in-law looking for you.”

The acordeons went oom-pa-pa and tra-la-la and la-dee-da-dee-ay and drums rolled and Ula got hold of a resounding horn and said what she had to say. And everyone cheered like mad and the engaged couple looked very happy.

“I don’t understand anything,” I said. “Do you?”

“Yes,” said Alpin. “I think I do. But it’s soon to say. Hold your tongue, for I’m betting things are going the way they should. All manner of good things come to those who wait, Arley. Let us wait.” 

It’s not like one can trust Alpin. But I really felt like Hamlet. So I did nothing.

But then my brain lit up with a not so bright idea. Seeing Matilde beaming on Uncle Richearth, I thought I knew what she had been doing. She had walled Uncle Wildgale within his property so he couldn’t come for her promised one with a scythe.