Wyrd Sisters

‘I think we should be getting on, Esme. The night’s nearly gone.’

‘Just don’t blame me if it doesn’t work properly, that’s all. Lessee … “Baboon hair and …” Who’s got the baboon hair? Oh, thank you, Gytha, though it looks more like cat hair to me, but never mind. “Baboon hair and mandrake root”, and if that’s real mandrake I’m very surprised, “carrot juice and tongue of boot”, I see, a little humour, I suppose …’

‘Please hurry!’

‘All right, all right. “Owl hoot and glow-worm glimmer. Boil—and then allow to simmer.”’

‘You know, Esme, this doesn’t taste half bad.’

‘You’re not supposed to drink it, you daft doyenne!’

Tomjon sat bolt upright in bed. That was them again, the same faces, the bickering voices, distorted by time and space.

Even after he looked out of the window, where fresh daylight was streaming through the city, he could still hear the voices grumbling into the distance, like old thunder, fading away …

‘I for one didn’t believe it about the tongue of boot.’

‘It’s still very runny. Do you think we should put some cornflour into it?’

‘It won’t matter. Either he’s on his way, or he isn’t …’

He got up and doused his face in the washbasin.

Silence rolled in swathes from Hwel’s room. Tomjon slipped on his clothes and pushed open the door.

It looked as though it had snowed indoors, great heavy flakes that had drifted into odd corners of the room. Hwel sat at his low table in the middle of the floor, his head pillowed on a pile of paper, snoring.

Tomjon tiptoed across the room and piled up a discarded ball of paper at random. He smoothed it out and read:

KING: Now, I’m just going to put the crown on this bush here, and you will tell me if anyone tries to take it, won’t you?

GROUNDLINGS: Yes!

KING: Now if I could just find my horsey …^{58}

(1st assassin pops up behind rock.)

AUDIENCE: Behind you!

(1st assassin disappears.)

KING: You’re trying to play tricks on old Kingy, you naughty …

There was a lot of crossing out, and a large blot. Tomjon threw it aside and selected another ball at random.

KING: Is this a duck knife dagger I see behind beside in front of before me, its beak handle pointing at me my hand?^{59}

1ST MURDERER: I’faith, it is not so. Oh, no it isn’t!

2ND MURDERER: Thou speakest truth, sire. Oh, yes it is!

Judging by the creases in the paper, this one had been thrown at the wall particularly hard. Hwel had once explained to Tomjon his theory about inspirations, and by the look of it a whole shower had fallen last night.

Fascinated by this insight into the creative processes, however, Tomjon tried a third discarded attempt:

QUEEN: Faith, there is a sound without! Mayhap it is my husband returning! Quick, into the garderobe, and wait not upon the order of your going!

MURDERER: Marry, but your maid still has my pantoufles!

MAID (opening door): The Archbishop, your majesty.

PRIEST (under bed): Bless my soul!

(Divers alarums)

Tomjon wondered vaguely what divers alarums, which Hwel always included somewhere in the stage directions, actually were. Hwel always refused to say. Perhaps they referred to dangerous depths, or lack of air pressure.

He sidled towards the table and, with great care, pulled the sheaf of paper from under the sleeping dwarf’s head, lowering it gently on to a cushion.

The top sheet read: