The Great Big Big George Book of Stories, page 18
He had no idea what lay at the other side of the door, but the very fact of it opening at all delighted him beyond measure.
It gave him hope. Because to lose your memory is a strange and terrible thing.
When Big George cracked his head during his landing on Earth, he lost all connection with the things which, until then, had made him real to himself.
He no longer knew who he was.
He did not know where he was.
He did not know where he had come from, or why he was here.
And to add to his misfortunes, when he met the people who lived in this world he couldn’t understand a word they said.
Big George, in fact, was as lost as you can possibly be.
But George was not stupid. Far from it. He looked for clues and pointers. He tried to learn the people’s language by mimicking the sounds their words made. He looked inside their heads and hearts to understand how they thought and felt. But even so, after two unforgettable adventures, he was still not much further forward.
The problem was it was bedtime on Halrig. George should be asleep now. But he had learned to his cost that if he nodded off around here, when he woke everything would be changed.
He had lost Tilly Miller and Simpkin Sampkins that way and now, crouching outside his hill, sniffing the starlit land, he knew that another change had taken place. Which meant that his new friends Walter of Swyre and Joanne of Nowhere would also have disappeared.
Here people came and went like dust on the wind. That was confusing.
It was also bewildering that among all the people he had met none looked anything like himself. He was a stranger in a very strange land.
Yet now, suddenly and unexpectedly, the comet had spoken to him.
‘Follow me,’ it had whispered.
George stood up. ‘All right,’ he said to himself, ‘that’s what I’ll do. I’ll follow that star. And while I’m following it I’ll learn about this place – I’ll look and listen, see and find. That will be an adventure!’
He knew he would have to be careful, though, because up to now nearly everybody he’d met had been unfriendly.
There seemed no one he could trust. Because who can you turn to when there’s no one else like you in the world?
Fired with this new purpose, George stood up tall and straight.
Stretching his cramped muscles he unfolded himself until he towered higher than any tree in the forest.
For one last moment he waited, tasting the air and savouring it.
Then, closing his ears to the clanging universe and trusting a comet to guide him, he strode away into the winter night, heading westward.
Chapter Two
Follow that Star
As Big George began his journey he eagerly looked for things to learn. What he found first was a puzzle – a puzzle about all the changes that had come over the world since he was last awake.
Then there had been birds, flowers, leaves, sunshine and soft warm air. Now, as a new day slowly dawned and the comet and the glow in his cheeks faded, George saw a grey, bleak land in the grip of bitter winter. The trees were leafless skeletons, black and still. There were no flowers and no colours. Birds were silent. Instead of comforting softness, the air pinched his face like the nails of a bad-tempered child and the ground rang hard as iron under his tramping feet.
Having no experience of winter, because on Halrig there are no seasons, George thought that Earth had been stricken by a terrible disease, and was dying.
He worried about that a lot, until he heard a distant beating of drums. He ducked down behind a copse, peered warily round it and saw that ahead the flat lands he’d been crossing were giving way to low hills rising to a misty horizon.
And he saw that climbing the nearest hill, and moving westward like himself, was a small army.
A drummer led the way, sounding a rhythmical, hypnotic beat.
Behind him an untidy line of soldiers shuffled like a column of weary ants. Half a dozen were on horseback while the rest slogged it on foot.
George’s concern was to pass the ramshackle army unseen, so he waited until it was out of sight and then, keeping low, wheeled northward to circle the hill.
But when you’re a forty-foot-high grolyhoomp it’s hard to be invisible, and even though George crouched as low as he could without actually toppling over, his head and shoulders were for a few moments clearly visible to the drummer, who was a little ahead of the rest.
George forged on, unaware he had been seen but aware that the drummer had missed a beat. If he had turned he would have seen that the tiny man had become a pale and shaking wreck, certain he had seen his first Welsh monster, and convinced that this trip was going to turn out badly.
In that he was quite right.
All that day the monotonous drumming echoed inside George’s head. All day he marched westward, through a country ever more disturbed by hills. He saw no one else because the local people, farmers all, were keeping to their hearth-fires. Cultivation was impossible in weather like this.
He heard a few sounds, though: an axe chopping wood, a shepherd calling his sheep, a dog barking – and once, far away, a cockerel crowing like a wailing bagpipe and making the lonely land seem even more lonely.
At least, thought George, the sounds proved that the land wasn’t quite dead yet.
In the afternoon he reached a river that gleamed a dull pewter in the fading light. Although it was wide the water was low and George was able to cross it by jumping from island to island, cracking and crunching ice-floes to powder beneath his great boots.
After the river the hills grew higher and closer together with deep narrow valleys between, so that from a distance the country looked as if dozens of whales had beached themselves there.
Dusk was short and swift. The stars pricked out again and in the western sky the comet sailed into view, showing George the way to go.
He adjusted his direction slightly.
When it was almost too dark to see the ground beneath his feet, he reached the summit of the highest hill of all – and noticed two things.
The first, far below, was a ring of light made by the clustering fires and candles of a small village.
The other was even more unexpected: George noticed that high above the village and his own head the comet had stopped moving.
Chapter Three
Village in the Hills
On that bleak midwinter evening the village of Kingswell – crouched beneath a mountain with a comet hovering above – looked like a scene from a Christmas carol. (Think ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and you’ll be very close.)
A small stone church with a wooden tower was perched on a hump of ground scattered with yew trees. Below it houses, farms and barns huddled together for company.
On another rocky hump a fortified manor reared like a black fist. It was more castle than house, and at this windless hour the flag on its battlements hung limply. All of its windows were dark except one, where a torch weakly flared.
To George on his cold hilltop the lights of Kingswell seemed to twinkle like stars, as if the village was the centre of its own small universe. That was also exactly how its inhabitants thought of it, because if you lived in Kingswell everywhere else was a very long way off.
It could stay there too, the villagers thought, because in their experience the outside world brought nothing but trouble. Why, only a few decades ago had it not sent the plague, whose effects were all too visible in the churchyard? And now there were rumours that the English king was sending soldiers to wreak more havoc on their innocent heads, as punishment for the behaviour of that rebellious Welshman, Owain Glyndwr.
What had Kingswell to do with a Welsh prince? Or an English King? A curse on both their countries, for Kingswell was neither Welsh nor English, look you, and didn’t want to be either.
Besides, it had enough troubles of its own already.
Why, had not its lord, Sir Simeon Griphook, become such a weeping baby since his poor wife died that he had completely lost his grip on the village and now seemed to be losing his wits?
And was not his daughter, the motherless Bess, miserably unhappy to see her father and Kingswell sinking under the ruthless sway of Solomon Sneck the Sorcerer?
And was not that sorcerer hungry for more and more power, until it seemed he would not be satisfied until he had all of Kingswell crushed inside his bony fist?
And did not everybody else have troubles, right down to the lowest of the low – to Huw Evans the pig boy, who was unhappy because he had no power at all and no authority, even over his pigs?
With all that going on, the villagers whispered around their winter fires, they needed an invading army like a hole in the head. Why, they grumbled, crossing themselves superstitiously as they spoke, they would rather be visited by a monster, or a giant!
If those villagers had looked outside at that moment they’d have thought their wish had been granted for, high above them on the mountain, George’s face was glowing like a green cheese moon, and his shape – which could have been a man’s if it had not possessed a swan’s neck and been so utterly huge – reared up gigantically against the stars like their worst nightmare.
And now that nightmare was moving – descending – heading their way!
George, who ever since he landed on Earth had been looking for somewhere to belong, decided to look into Kingswell – and listen and learn and seek and find.
But as he made his way down the mountain by the light of his cheeks he felt anxious, as we all do when we’re entering the unknown.
For George, everything and everywhere was unknown.
When he reached the village he heard music. From the dark manor there came the soft twanging of a harp, accompanying a lilting voice which chanted words that were neither song nor speech but something in between.
Walking tiptoe (‘dibdoo’ he called it), George was able to approach the manor unseen and unheard. But as he neared the lighted window, which had been opened to let out the smoke from the fire inside, he stopped sharply.
Because outside the window, peering inside and listening enthralled to the chanting, there was a boy.
Chapter Four
The Boy at the Window
Huw Evans had a dream.
It came to him every morning when, at first light, he woke on his straw pallet in the cowshed which had served his family for a house since the day his father died.
Lying very still, he dreamed that this was the day when the fabulous Great Hero of Kingswell would return and transform him from a pig boy to something altogether wonderful.
In his dream Huw saw the Hero quite clearly: a massive red-bearded giant who rode full tilt out of the west with the setting sun turning his head to flame. He came for one purpose only – to touch Huw’s starving family with magic and change their lives for ever.
Tears of longing scalded his eyelids. ‘It could happen!’ he told himself. ‘It isn’t impossible because it happened once before, right here in Kingswell. And anything that has happened once can happen again!’
That was why Huw was trespassing here now, risking discovery, clinging to ivy outside the manor hall window, shivering with cold and eavesdropping on the people who – all except one – despised him.
Inside the hall, by the flickering light from torch and fire, a minstrel was chanting the Legend of the Winter King.
He was an old man, well past eighty, but as he sang he moved nimbly about the hall, stepping lightly between sleeping dogs and the sprawling legs of his audience, who had heard the story many times before but never tired of hearing it again.
‘From the western lands in the hour of our need
Rode a King who would answer our prayers indeed
And set our people free…’
He paused and looked round the room to make sure everyone was awake for the climax of his story.
Near the fire the languid frame of Sir Simeon Griphook stiffened with anticipation.
At his knees the small figure of his daughter Bess tensed, her dark curls and eyes shining brightly in the firelight.
Close by, the crouching form of Solomon Sneck stirred, unhooked itself like a straightening question mark, then hunched back again.
Beyond them, away from the fire, the worthy people of Kingswell clustered like ghosts in the shadows, holding their breath.
The minstrel was satisfied. He could end his tale.
‘See the villains flee before him!
See their blood on his sword and spear!
See the glory of the sun shine round him
Shielding him from hurt and fear. . ! ’
Huw’s knuckles tightened round the ivy. Once again in his mind’s eye he saw the mysterious Hero who, centuries ago, had visited a village called Simonswell to free it from oppression. After a wonderful victory he had disappeared as quickly as he came, but he left behind a hope that should the need arise again another King, another Giant, would come riding out of the sunset to perform miracles of daring.
In gratitude, and to ensure that the story would never be forgotten, the villagers had done two things.
First, they renamed their village Kingswell.
Second, they established the annual Ceremony of the Winter King, during which a simple soul was crowned King for the season and honoured as the Spirit of Christmas.
The custom was still going strong and the people of Kingswell felt sure that this year it would be more important than it had ever been before. As soon as the minstrel had ended his song their mutterings began.
‘We should start praying for that King to come back before those English soldiers get here!’
‘That’s only a rumour. There may be no soldiers at all.’
‘Even if there are,’ said a third man, a swarthy fellow with a squint who scratched his nose incessantly, ‘they mayn’t find us. We’re not easy to find.’
Then they began to worry about the terrifying things that were foretold to happen as the old century died and the new one reared over the horizon.
‘We’ve got all that coming to us, see, as well as the soldiers. Dragons rising from the earth.’
‘Griffins diving from the clouds, breathing fire.’
‘Black poison flowing across the ground and turning your feet to mush.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
‘We can pray, that’s all. Pray for that King to come, look you.’
Huw was afraid. He was scared by the rumours of ruthless soldiers seeking revenge. He was worried by the superstitious talk because he was sure it would all come true.
And he trembled at the sight of Solomon Sneck the Sorcerer unwinding his lumpy frame again and shouting, in the harsh reedy voice that sounded half sneer and half threat, ‘Newt’s ears! I could solve all your problems with spells, if only… ’
He stopped and stared insolently at the lord of the manor.
Sir Simeon Griphook returned his stare with a listless gaze. ‘If only what, Solomon?’
The enchanter smiled. ‘If only you’d give me the power I seek, my lord. If only you’d say the word.’
Bess Griphook clutched her father’s arm. ‘Don’t listen to him!’ she cried. ‘Everything he says is a lie!’
Huw heard no more. He saw the malice slide across Solomon Sneck’s eyes but then his fingers, numb with cold, slipped out of the ivy and he fell heavily to the ground.
The fall knocked the breath out of him. As he lay there Huw thought despairingly of his mother and sister huddling with the animals for warmth. And in his heart he knew that even though this winter was so bitter, and the loss of his father so great, the Hero of his dream would never come.
‘Dreams are useless,’ he thought. ‘And stupid. Because why would a King come to a cowshed?’
Sighing, the Kingswell pig boy struggled to his feet, turned for home – and in a flash of green light had a r eal vision for the first time in his life.
Chapter Five
Grolyhoomp
Huw yelled with fright.
He knew he shouldn’t do that because he’d give himself away, but seeing the unbelievable bulk of Big George hiding the stars and lighting the air around with his eerily glowing face, he couldn’t help it.
He also felt that praying for a giant to come had been a very bad mistake.
He yelped again when George leaned down over him and grinned. His cry startled a dog, which began to howl, and that disturbed another dog further off, whose barking roused ten more dogs and every cat in Kingswell. In no time there was such a hullabaloo that the guard on the manor battlements woke up and called out in drowsy alarm, ‘Who goes there? Show yourself! Who goes there!’
Huw fled. He ran from giant, guard, dragons, griffins, dogs, cats and the cold snake eyes of Solomon Sneck.
But he got nowhere at all because after only two steps he tripped on a rusty chain lying across the manor drawbridge and fell into the moat.
He was sinking in icy slime when a hand the size of a horse plucked him out and set him dripping on the bank.
Huw coughed up something nasty and croaked, ‘Don’t kill me, please, I’m needed at home! Don’t rob me, because I’ve got nothing! Don’t frighten me, because I’m a coward!’
The giant lowered his face to see Huw clearly and frowned.
Huw, looking a sickly shade of green and feeling even sicker, thought he should give a reason why his life should be spared.
‘You see, sir,’ he babbled, ‘two months ago my father was chopping trees for Solomon Sneck – he’s our landlord – when a tree fell on him. Father died, and because we were no use to Sneck any more he turned us out of our house and made us live in the cowshed.’
Talking about his family’s misfortunes made Huw want to cry again.
