Peter Dickinson - The Poison Oracle

The —— comes to ——

It ——s into the ——

It ——s this and that

It ——s to and fro

Ai!

It ——s the ——.

While she was singing it for the fifth or sixth time, watched in total silence by the hitherto restless crowd, a flood of fear washed suddenly into Morris, filling every creek of his being, as strong and uncontrollable as nausea. His tongue seemed to stick to his palate; it made a sucking noise as he wrenched it away with his throat-muscles and clung back as soon as he relaxed. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, filled with furry darkness. Only the touch of Dinah’s head against his cheek meant anything other than this gulping dread, which wasn’t even dread of pain and death, but was as though a vast invisible bird had nestled down on to the rock, covering him with its stuffing feathers of fear. He loosed Peggy’s hand and teased the back of Dinah’s head, unconsciously at first but slowly gathering out of her a vague comfort that enabled him at last to look up again and face his trial. As he did so the girl broke off her chant in mid syllable.

She stiffened. Her head went back. Her mouth was open and her eyes stared. One drum beat, very slowly. The girl rose to her feet as though the sound jerked her upwards and with a strange mannish gait started to strut round the arena. At one drum-beat she thrust her hand into the pot; at the next she drew it out; at the third she tossed whatever she was holding out across the arena. She moved widdershins round the outside of the circle, throwing with her left hand towards the middle something that fell with a light rattle on to the rock. Again it was a motion like seed-sowing, but this time that of a Victorian sower broadcasting his wheat-seed across a field. The crowd on either side of Morris seemed to shrink back a little when she was throwing in their direction, and then to relax again when the danger was past; but in fact all the little projectiles fell well short—it must have been a very practised performance, for all that the girl moved like a creature controlled by powers outside her.

By now it was almost dark. The girl did two circuits and stopped near the orchestra. The stiffness went out of her. She dropped the empty pot with a crash and at the same moment looked down at her left hand and started to wail, a real child in real pain. Two women ran out of the shadows and pulled her down beside a larger bowl, where they sponged at the paint on her arm, using bits of cloth on the end of reeds; the arm itself seemed to be twisting about as if there were no bones in it, but they were careful not to touch it with anything except their cloths. The wailing diminished, but Morris in his daze of fear, though he shut his eyes, seemed to see the arm grow monstrous, a snake with fingers at the end, or the leafless limb of a dead tree. He realised that once the old woman with the withered side might have been just such a girl, tossing out poisoned seed at a witch-finding, wailing as the poison penetrated the thick paint and began to bite like fire into the young flesh, starting the process that would one day wither the whole side . . .

But when he looked up he saw that two men were standing over the inert form of the old woman, prodding her with the butt end of their spears. A mild hum of talk had broken out, such as civilised people produce between items at a concert. He shifted Dinah to his other hip and as he did so let her see that the white leaping things that had given her the horrors had vanished from the arena. She chattered a little and blew in his ear, then wriggled to be put down; so he settled her at his feet, fixed her leash and stood on it, so that she could only move a couple of feet; contentedly she began to fasten and unfasten the buckle of his sandals.

One of the painted women came back into the arena wearing on her feet two thick little reed mats which prevented her soles from touching the poison-seed; she carried half a dozen flat dishes which she placed at various points in the arena; then she fetched a big gourd and poured water out of it into the bowls—all this without any ceremony, as though she were preparing a meal in her own hut. Then she went back to the shadows.

At last the old woman stirred, groaning. The men who had been prodding her stood back and watched as she rolled on to her stomach and pushed herself with her good hand into a sitting posture. She called out, quite strongly, in the secret language, and a cry answered from the dark. A woman brought a closed wicker basket and put it in front of her. She shuddered again and sang a short, fierce invocation in the secret language, waving her good hand to and fro over the basket. The woman with the mats on her feet then carried it to the exact centre of the arena, where she lowered a flap in its side and retreated. Total silence fell again. The night was now dark, and the mists beginning to clear from the dull moon; the seven torches burnt yellowish-orange, with sudden spurts of green; the ring of jet-black bodies seemed to absorb most of the little light they gave. Morris peered at the meaningless basket.

Something moved at the opening and immediately the orchestra struck up a series of quavering hoots and whistles, backed by a dull pattering on the drums. Hesitantly the duck stepped out into the open.

It was quite a presentable creature, something like a female mallard but larger. Its wing, as far as Morris could see, was not broken but lashed to its side. Once out in the wavering torchlight it lost its shyness, cocked its head a little sideways and peered about, then darted forward and scooped up a few seeds from the rock. The marshmen sighed. The old woman craned forward, her little eyes glistening in the flames. The duck, with absurd confidence, began to follow one of the spiralling trails of seed, but suddenly darted aside for a drink of water from the nearest dish. When it had drunk, raising its head to the moon to swallow each sip, it wandered about until it hit on another trail of seed, which it again began to follow round the spiral. Morris had another of his attacks of sick fear. Dry-mouthed and gulping he tried to work out where the girl had thrown the seed from her pot. In his mind’s eye he could see her white, ghastly figure, with its drab aureole, strutting round the arena. He could envisage the jerky arc of her sowing-arm. But he couldn’t calculate where the seeds might have fallen—more towards the outside than the inside, he thought.

Slowly the watchers became more intent. The bird, after various meanderings, was now pecking among the seeds which had fallen over to Morris’s right, not quite where the three mommets sat, but uncomfortably close to them—supposing the oracle was worked by mere proximity—part of the terror was the meaninglessness of the whole procedure—if he had known what the duck’s movements meant, and how they could be read, he’d have had fixed points to pin his fears on, to reduce them to rational order, to master them, even. But . . . why, I haven’t even been accused of anything, he thought. Let alone given a chance to answer. The hell with them!

For the moment resentment overcame his fear, and he peered with hot eyes at the duck filling its crop with gusto, pausing only for sips at the water-dishes. The savages followed its progress with a sort of aware concentration which also infuriated him. They knew what was happening, goddammit.

“Oh, get on with it,” he whispered. “For Christ’s sake get on with it!”

Almost as his lips moved the bird’s actions altered. It darted towards a bowl of water, missed and performed its gulp and swallow in dry air. The whole crowd hissed with indrawn breath. The old woman cried aloud. The orchestra began to make as much noise as its instruments would permit, but this was immediately drowned by the shouts of the audience, everybody bellowing at the top of their lungs. He felt a movement at his side and glanced down to see Peggy skipping with excitement and whooping too. The bird was now straight in front of the mommets, staggering around, gulping and swallowing at nothing. It almost fell but recovered, and with a wild flapping of its free wing darted in an arc towards Morris himself, collided with one of the water-dishes, swung away and crashed headlong into the side of the basket in the centre of the arena. The basket fell on its side and rolled away. The bird also fell, on to its back. Its feet paddled at air for a moment and its free wing flapped twice. And then it was dead, as stiff as if it had dropped frozen out of the sky.