Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Abroad

"Local customs rule," Nita said, smiling. "As usual. I have a warning for you, madreen rua. There's a hunt coming through here in a few days."

The fox yipped quietly in surprise. "They are early, then."

"That's as may be," Nita said. "But if I were you, I'd spread the word to keep your people well out of this area, and probably for about five miles around on all sides. Maybe more. And you might lay off the chickens a little."

The fox laughed silently, a panting sound. "They've poisoned almost all the rats: what's a body to eat? But for the moment. as you say. I am warned, wizard. Your errand's done." It looked at her with a thoughtful look. "So then," it said. "Go well, wizard." And it whisked around and went bounding off through the pasture-grass without another word.

Nita shut her manual and sat there in the quiet for a while more, getting her breath back. Talking to animals differed in intensity the more clever the animal was, and the more or less used it was to human beings. Pets like cats and dogs tended to have more fully humanized personalities, and could easily be got to understand you; but they also tended to be short-spoken — possibly, Nita thought, because being domesticated and more or less confined to a daily routine, they had less to talk about. Wilder animals had more to say, but it was often more difficult to understand them, the message being coloured with hostility or fear, or plain old bewilderment. The fox lived on the fringes of human life, knew human ways, but was wary, and so there was a cool tinge, a remoteness, about the way it came across.

At any rate, she had fulfilled her own responsibilities for the evening. A wizard had a duty to prevent unnecessary pain, and fox-hunting did not strike Nita as particularly necessary, no matter what farmers might say about the need to exterminate 'vermin'. If a fox was stealing someone's chickens, let them shoot it cleanly, rather than chasing it in terror across half the countryside and getting dogs to rip it to shreds. Meanwhile, there were other concerns. Kit? she said in her head. Yeah!

She paused a moment. What's that noise? I'm chewing, Kit said.

Oh no, you're eating dinner!

It's not such a fascinating experience that I can't spare a few minutes to talk to you, he said. Nita got a distinct impression of slightly lumpy mashed potatoes, and restrained herself from swallowing. What's happening? Kit said.

This, she said, and gave him a series of pictures of the day as quickly as she could, ending with the fox. Great, huh?

Bored with me already, Kit said. I knew it.

Kit.

…I She would have punched him hard, had he been in range. As it was, he flinched a little from what he felt her fist and arm wanting to do. Look, she said, I'm worn out. I'll talk to you more in the morning.

He started to nod and stopped himself. She had to laugh a little. Have a good sleep, Kit said. Will do.

She let the contact ebb away, then got up and started carefully walking back the way she had come. Behind her, from the woodland, a fox was barking; perhaps a mile away, another answered it. Nita smiled to herself and headed for the caravan.

As she had thought, she wasn't able to stay up very late that night. She tried to watch some television, and as her aunt had warned her, only one channel of the six available was working, showing some old film that didn't interest her. So she turned it off and went back to the caravan again to read. Not before, on the sly, opening a small can of cat food and parceling it out to the cats. They accepted this with great pleasure, purring and rubbing and making their approval known: but none of them spoke to her.

She went back to bed and slept some more. The dreams were not entirely pleasant. In one of them, she thought she felt the earth move, but it was probably just the wind shaking the caravan. When she woke up, everything was quite still. It was early morning — how early she couldn't tell any more without her watch: the different sunrise time here had her thoroughly confused. She found her watch and saw to her surprise that, even though the sun was well up the sky, it was only seven o'clock in the morning.

She got up and dressed in yesterday's clothes, slipped into the house, had a quick shower, dressed again in clean clothes this time, and went to see what there was for breakfast. There were already several people in the kitchen, two of whom Nita had been introduced to earlier. One was Joe, the stable manager, a tall lean young man with a grin so wide that Nita thought his face was in danger of cracking. Another was Derval, the head riding instructor, a tall curly-haired woman, eternally smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. She had a drawly accent that made her sound almost American. "There y'are then," Derval said. "You want some tea?"

Nita was beginning to think that every conversation in Ireland began this way. "Yes, please," she said, and rooted around in the big ceramic bread crock for the loaf. "Where's Aunt Annie?" "Down at the riding school, waiting for the farrier. She said to tell you to come on down if you want to."

"OK," Nita said, and cut herself a slice of bread and put it in the toaster. The butter was already out on the worktop, as were a basket of eggs from the farm's hens, various packages of bacon and a gruesome-looking sausage called 'black pudding', more toast, some of it with bites out of it, boxes of cereal, and spilled sugar. Breakfast was a hurried business in this house, from the look of things. Nita sat down with her tea and toast and pulled over the local weekly paper, The Bray People. Its front-page story was about someone's car catching on fire in the main street of Wicklow town, and Nita sat there paging through it in total wonder that any place in the world should be so quiet and uneventful that a story like that would make the front page. Derval looked over her shoulder and pointed with one finger at an advertisement in the classifieds that said BOGS FOR SALE. Nita burst out laughing.

"If you're going to be around the stable block," Derval said to her, going to get another piece of bread out of the toaster, "just one thing. Watch out for the horse in number five. He's got a bad habit of biting."

"Uh, yeah," Nita said. She had been wondering when she was going to have to mention this. "I'm a little scared of horses. I hadn't been planning to get too close to them." "Scared of horses!" Joe said. "We'll fix that."

"Uh, maybe tomorrow," Nita said. She had been put up on a horse once, several years ago on holiday, and had immediately fallen off it. This had coloured her opinions about horses ever since. Joe and Derval finished their breakfasts and headed out, leaving Nita surrounded by cats eager to shake her down for another free handout. "No way, you guys!" she said. "Once was a special occasion. You want more, you'd better talk to your boss."

They looked at her in thinly disguised disgust and stalked off. Nita finished her tea and toast, washed her cup and plate, and then wandered out into the concrete yard again. There was a pathway past the back of her caravan into the farm area proper, and the road that wound past the front of the house curved around to meet it. Here there was another large concreted area with two or three large brown, metal-sided, barnlike buildings arranged in a loose triangle around it. The field on the right-hand side as she faced it was full of horse-jumping paraphernalia, jumps and stiles; all around the edge of it ran a big track covered with wood shavings and chips for the horses to run on. Further down and on her right was the stabling barn, and beyond it what Derval had referred to as 'the riding school', a big covered building that had nothing in it except a floor thickly covered with the same chips as on the track outside. This was where the riders practiced when the weather was bad.