Сарбан - Ringstones

I teased him about his command over them. I called him their Lord and Master, the King of Ringstones, the Slave−Driver. He laughed and they went on slavishly obeying him, and so, for that matter, did I.

We had thrown ourselves down one day in the shade of a chestnut tree. I asked him questions about his country and his people—more for the sake of keeping him still for a few minutes than out of real curiosity. But he would not be serious.

“This is my country! Ringstones is my country!” he said, and lay on his back and laughed. “Well, then,” I said. “What's your other name?” Then he did become for a moment grave, or pretended to be grave. “We never tell our real names,” he said very solemnly. “People say a man must never say his real name out loud because if he did they might hear and they would have power over him.” His eyes were twinkling again as he said that.

“They? Who do you mean by 'they'?”

“Oh, you know...” He shrugged his shoulders. Then laughed so much he set Marvan and Ianthe giggling and squirming about on the grass half hysterical at the mysterious joke.

“But what about Nuaman?” I persisted. “That's your real name, isn't it?”

The two girls rolled about and gurgled and choked and snorted with laughter until Nuaman, laughing so much himself that he could hardly speak, threw green horse−chestnuts at them and finally half quietened them with a slap before they wriggled out of reach. “Aren't they a badly−behaved pair?” he said, screwing up his face to stop his own laughter.

I looked at the pair, kneeling on the grass, stuffing their fists into their mouths and still heaving with their fit of the giggles.

“Well, you started them off,” I said, wondering what on earth it was all about.

“I started them off!” he cried. “Right! I'll stop them!” Quick as eels they eluded his spring and dodged in different directions behind the trees. He caught Marvan by the frock in a twinkling. I rushed to defend her—or her frock, and so that attempt at a conversation too ended in a wild game of catch−as−catch−can.

Nuaman rarely spent more than half his day with me; though as his day sometimes began at dawn and ended in the small hours, what I thought was a half was probably nearer a fifth. He would sometimes yawn lazily like a cat when I found him curled up somewhere in the morning sunlight and confess that he had been out all night. A lot of the time he was not with me he spent with Sarkissian in the old stables. He always refused to tell me what he did there, but I gathered Sarkissian had a workshop there and I supposed that Nuaman, with his own skill in making things, liked to hang about and watch and help. Sarkissian was as much his slave as anybody. I asked Dr Ravelin one evening.

“The old stables?” he repeated. “Well, you may call them old. They cover, in fact, the site of the priory. Old Squire John pulled the ruins down and used the stone to build this house, but a good deal of the original foundation remains there. I have traced the cloister. But what interests me more is that there are distinct indications that the priory itself was built on the foundations of a much earlier edifice. Without doing far more work than I am able to undertake it is impossible to establish the matter beyond doubt, but I have the strongest suspicions that some work which may be Roman, but I think much older, lies under the masonry there. One day I must take you and show you what I base my beliefs on. It's highly interesting.”

I felt no doubt it was, but I hardly thought that that was what interested Nuaman. Dr Ravelin forgot to take me and Nuaman clearly did not want me to go, so I never went inside the great old gates of the stable−yard.

Then, unexpectedly, I saw one of the products of the work−shop. The children had gobbled their lunch and run out to the park. I sat drinking a cup of tea and gossiping with Mrs. Sarkissian for half an hour or so, and then I strolled out after them. I had not far to seek them. From behind a long clump of rhododendrons a short distance from the house I heard the girls squealing excitedly and Nuaman shouting. But mingled with their voices was the most extraordinary mooing, moaning sound, like a calf with its voice breaking. I ran round the end of the clump and stopped dead.

Bent double and frisking about the open space, emitting all the time those unearthly whoops, was a fair−haired girl of about my own age. Her only garment seemed to be a brown boiler−suit, and that several sizes too small for her. The straps were strained across her bare back, and from the stern view, which was my first, it looked as if a seam might split disastrously at any moment. To that stern was pinned a length of old rope with the end frayed out to represent a tail, and as the girl swung round her head appeared decorated with a pair of fearsome, spreading cow's horns. She was playing the part of a pantomime cow gone mad and putting terrific zest into the performance; and there, dancing round her was Nuaman in his white bathing slips and the two girls in their little brightly patterned trunks and halters. In another second I made mental apologies to the “cow”. The game was a bullfight, and an extraordinary one at that. The “bull” charged straight at Nuaman with lowered horns and every appearance of intending to go straight through him. But he, instead of skipping out of the way like a matador, launched himself with outstretched arms in a remarkable, dog−like leap clean over the oncoming “bull's” head. Then, as he skimmed over, my heart missed a beat, for the “bull” viciously swung up its horns, missing his unprotected stomach by a matter of inches. I shouted out, but the game was going too fast: Nuaman landed and sprang away; the “bull” turned and charged again, and this time it was Marvan who sailed over the up−slashing horns.

“Nuaman!” I yelled.

The game stopped and the children came rushing up to me while the older girl slowly straightened up and turned to stare at me with a pair of light blue eyes in a broad, placid face that was very cow−like indeed.

“This is Katia,” cried Nuaman, pulling me forward and taking both of us by the hand. I had forgotten all about Katia. No one had breathed a word about her having come back Nuaman pulled us down to sit on a little mound, one on each side of him. Katia undid the horned apparatus from her head. Her hair was short and bleached−looking, lighter than her sun−browned skin. She was a robust, strong−looking girl.

“Katia?” I said to her across Nuaman who leaned back on his elbows, grinning away. “And where have you sprung from?”

“Please?” she asked blankly in the most un−English of accents. “I mean where do you come from?” I said, more slowly.

She put her hands on her round thighs and leaned forward gazing at me earnestly and sadly. “I am day pay,” she said.

“Day pay?” I said. “Do you mean you come by the day?” She seemed to consider how to explain it.

“You say, dippee,” she announced.

“Dippy!” I exclaimed, and I believe I began to edge away. “What on earth...?”

She turned her head and contemplated the park for a bit, and then, with a sigh and a shrug, as if admitting the worst, “I am a displeased parson,” she said.

They say you have to humour them, I thought, and it was on the tip of my tongue to reply that I was the Pope of Rome and not amused, when light dawned. In some ten minutes of questioning at the wildest cross−purposes I discovered—or thought I did—that she was a Pole who had suffered some complicated displacements during and since the war. We might have got further but I heard Mrs. Sarkissian's voice calling from beyond the shrubs. Katia, exclaiming “My God!” jumped up and fled with the chewed−looking tail still swinging behind her.