“I thought weathermongers stayed in one place and made weather there. What are you doing wandering about?”
“I might ask the same of you, dear colleague, and even more cogently. Your circumstances are dangerously peculiar. Why did you leave your own source of income, wherever it was?”
“Weymouth. I can’t remember much about it, actually, because they hit me on the head, but when I woke up they were trying to drown me and Sal for being witches.”
“Ah. They were trying to hang me in Norwich.” “For being a witch too?”
“No, no. For being a businessman. It had long seemed to me that the obese burghers of East Anglia did not adequately appreciate my services, so I announced that I proposed to raise my fees. Of course they refused to play, so to bring them to their senses I made a thunderstorm over Norwich and kept it there for three weeks at the height of the harvest. Unfortunately I had misjudged their temper, and when I heard the citizens come whooping down my street it was not, as I hoped for a moment, to yield to my reasonable demands but to stretch my neck. I left.”
“And why do you want to go to Wales?”
“Doubtless for the same reason as yourself. But no, you are too young. You go to find out, do you not?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And so, in a way, do I. In my journeyings after leaving Norwich — and let me advise you, young man, that folk do not welcome two weathermongers in a district, and still less does the operator already in possession — in my journeyings I began to hear talk of the Necromancer, subdued talk round inn fires when men had a quart or two of ale in them. Ignorant country gossip, of course, and full of absurdities, but pointing always, and especially as one drew westward, to a source of power in the Welsh hills.”
“Yes, that’s what we heard,” said Geoffrey.
“No doubt. Now, if I am to return to my easy life — oh, so much more agreeable than my old trade of schoolmastering — I need power, power to oust a local weathermonger in some fat district, power more than lies in a mere chivvying of clouds. Some such thing is hidden just over that horizon, and I mean to find it if I can. There is gold in them thar hills, pardner. Let us study the providential map.”
It was a one-inch survey, still crackling new, which they spread on the bank, banging it to make it lie level on the grasses.
“H’m, less providential than I thought. You must have been coming almost directly towards the source, and my poor legs do not carry me fast enough to make much difference. I fear we shall have a very narrow base for our triangle.”
“Well,” said Geoffrey, “we were up here when I first felt it, and about here when I really saw it. It brewed up a little south of west, beyond the north slope of a biggish hill, this one I think. My line runs like this.”
“Ah, more useful than I had feared. I had not realized that the Motorway curved north as if does, and I had forgotten how fast a motor vehicle can travel. Now, if I lay my line along here, where does that carry us to? Off the map. No, not quite. This is a painfully crude method of measuring, which would not have satisfied me when I had the pleasure of instructing the young in mathematics, but if we were to head for Ewyas Harold we would certainly be going in the right direction, though our destination must be a step or two beyond that.”
“It looks an awfully long way, without the car. You don’t seem to mind about the car.”
“I went through a period,” said the weatherman, “of revulsion from machines, but it has passed. Still, it is not safe to say so, though I suspect that there are more of us about than care to admit it. Certainly, the Black Mountains are a tidy step.”
“The thing is I don’t know whether Sal is up to it. Couldn’t we buy horses?”
“No doubt, given the wherewithal. I myself, I regret to admit, am in somewhat reduced circumstances, but if you have the equivalent of nine gold pieces on you I daresay we could purchase nags of a sort. It would not be money wasted. A horse that can be bought can always be sold again.”
“I’ve got some money.”
“Then let us be moving. We will eschew Ross-on-Wye. Townspeople ask tiresome questions of strangers. Which do you think is the better way round.”
“Look, we could head up here through Brampton Abbots, then jiggle down to the railway line and over to Sellack. Then, if we take this footpath we can cut through along the river bank here and get 011 to this road which runs all the way to Ewyas Harold.” “That will do passably well,” said the weatherman. “Marchons mes enfants. Good heavens, what a pleasure it is to be able to speak in a civilized manner after all these years. But we must be cautious. I think, dear colleague, that you had best revert to the dumb idiocy which you portrayed so convincingly to the yokels a while back. You might well be my servant. A leech — I usually travel in the guise of a leech, and do less harm than most of the profession — might well have picked up some poor creature brought to him for cure. I think, however, that we will not afflict the young lady with loss of speech — the strain would be too great for her. She shall be my ward, and as such should call me Dominus. Do you know Latin, young lady?”
“Yes,” said Sally. “I’m hungry, and where are we going to sleep?”
“You shall eat at the first likely farm, while I haggle for a horse. We are unlikely to pick up more than one at any one place, because horses are still scarce, now that the tractors are no more. Big farm horses command huge sums, but there is a plethora of ponies left behind by the pony clubs. We shall contrive something before dusk, I doubt not. Perhaps it would be more verisimilitudinous if Geoffrey were to disburse what coin I am likely to need while we are still hidden. It would not do for me to have to ask my servant for gold.”
Geoffrey brought out his purse and gave the weatherman ten gold pieces. He still felt dazed, and was glad after that hideous careering and decision-taking to put himself into the hands of this selfassured adult. He felt hungry too. They had breakfasted at dawn and missed lunch, and the world was now heaving over towards evening. At least they ought to be sure of a fine night, with two weathermen on the staff, if it came to sleeping out.
They crossed the Motorway, not looking at the ruined Rolls. Up on the other side, a field away, lay a small road along which they walked slowly, sending up puffs of summer dust at every step. Sally seemed very tired, her face drawn and sullen, mouth drooping, skin gray beneath the dirt and tan. In a mile they found a cottage beside the road where the weatherman, leaning on his staff, sent Geoffrey to knock on the door. A mild old dame, stained beyond the wrists with blackcurrant juice, came out into the sunlight and answered the weatherman's imperious questions. Yes, she knew for sure that Mr. Grindall up at Overton had a roan foal for sale. He’d taken it to Ross Market only last week but hadn’t been offered a price. And mebbe he had another. And at Park Farm they might have horses to spare. Folk were afeard, living so close to the Necromancer, and there wasn’t always men to work the horses. They’d all gone east, to easier climes, including her own two sons, and times were terrible hard . . .
The voice trailed away into a whining snivel. Unmoved, the weatherman stared at her, as if she were telling him lies, until she hauled up her long black skirts and scuttled back into the cottage.
“We must move on a few paces,” he said in a low voice, “so that we may look at the map unseen and hope that Overton is on it.”
“It’s up that track there,” whispered Geoffrey, back to the cottage. “I remember from the map. And Park Farm’s a bit beyond it.”