“That’s right.” He grinned even more sweetly. “Do you know my brother well?”
“NO,” Nick, Rupert and I all said in chorus.
“Shame,” said Will. “He quite often improves on acquaintance. Why don’t you all come in?” He held the gate open invitingly and we all three trooped in past him.
Beyond it was a low white house against a hill of ploughed fields. I could see the roofs of quite a large village at the top of those fields. But I didn’t pay much attention to the view, because the space beyond the gate, which was a garden of sorts, was just such a mass of creatures. The majority were pale fluffy chicks, all running about and cheeping. They sounded like a chorus of mobile phones. They must have been several different kinds of chick, because the adult birds goose-stepping about amongst them were some strange sort of hen and peculiar ducks and a number of tall grey birds with long pink legs. But there was a peacock too, which flew up into a bare tree with a shriek and a whacking of wings that made Nick jump and clutch hold of me. A large silky dog appeared then, out of nowhere, pushing her nose lovingly into Rupert’s hand – and then doing the same quickly to Will, in case he was offended – and she was followed by four cats and a whole gang of kittens. Meanwhile a flock of white creatures – I couldn’t tell if they were odd sheep or unusual goats – was coming galloping from mid-distance, baying with interest. Since they had fairly sizeable horns, Nick was not happy to see them and got behind me quickly.
But that was as nothing to Nick’s dismay when the door of the house burst open and a string of little girls – six of them, I gathered later – came rushing out screaming. “Rupert! Rupert’s here!” and flung themselves in a mass upon their uncle. The smallest had come out in such a hurry that she was only wearing her vest. Two of the kids had heads of hair even bushier than mine. I could see they got it from Will. He had bushy hair that wriggled. He was standing there grinning broadly at our reaction to his livestock, and he more or less laughed when the inrush of little girls caused Nick to yelp, “Oh help!” and retreat towards the gate.
I would have expected Rupert to behave the same way, but he surprised me by greeting his nieces as enthusiastically as they greeted him. He let himself be grabbed and dangled from and then dragged off to see the new swing and slide, looking as if he loved every minute. Before he had been dragged many yards, though, a fantastically good-looking woman in jodhpurs and pink bedroom slippers appeared at the house door waving a small pair of red leggings.
“Vendela’s trousers!” she shouted. “Put them on her, Rupert.”
She threw them and Rupert caught them, laughing. Then he was dragged away, scattering chicks and kittens and halting the charge of the sheep-goats, who stopped dead when Rupert and the children all rushed past their noses. The woman came up the path towards us, smiling, to find out who we were.
“My wife, Carina,” Will said. It was like someone saying, “And here are the Crown Jewels.”
“We’re Nick and Maree Mallory,” I explained, “and we’re here by mistake, I’m afraid.”
“I’m just in the middle of getting a meal,” Carina said. “You’ll stay and have something with us, won’t you?”
“Rupert won’t like it,” I said. “But—”
“Rupert can lump it,” said Will. “Have we got enough food, Carey?”
“Eggs to burn,” Carina called, on her way back to the house. “Sponduley and Cash both started laying today, as well as all the quacks.”
“That’s all right then,” said Will. “I hope you both like eggs.”
“Yes, and we didn’t have any lunch,” Nick said.
“Then that’s settled then,” said Will. Then, in the most natural, casual way, he took us on a tour of the livestock while he got out of us what had happened and then gave us an explanation (which we certainly wouldn’t have got out of Rupert). I had been dying to take a look at the strange hens,, not to speak of the birds with the long pink legs. Will trudged casually in among the little running, cheeping birds in his great boots, picking up one here, and another there, and upending them for me. “A quack chick,” he said. “Female, look. Most of these are Buktaru quacks. Good layers. Nice feathers too. See, this one’s getting her blue tailfeathers already. She’ll be different blues all over when she’s fledged. We sell a lot of these, but we make pets of the sollyhens.
Here. This one’s a sollyhen – unless it’s a cock. They’re hard to sex at this age. What do you think?”
I peered at the upside-down rear end of the placid yellow handful he was holding out to me and mustered all my despised vet-learning. “It’s a cock,” I said.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” he agreed.
I could tell I had gone up in his estimation, so I risked saying, “But I never heard of a sollyhen. Are they the ones that look like herons?”
“No, those are butes,” he told me. “You don’t have those in your world, or sollies either. Butes are a bit like guineafowl to eat, but they’re much quieter to keep. They only shout if there’s a fox near. When they shout, we turn Petra out.” He patted the head of the silky dog. “Petra eats foxes for breakfast, don’t you, lady? Sollies, now, they’re a bit like bantams, but they have lots of these little spotted feathers. And their combs are orange. Come and see the goats.”
He trudged away into an orchard-like section of the garden, followed by Petra, followed by me, followed by several butes, followed by Nick, looking bored and traumatised. The white, horned flock did not please Nick, although he pleased them. They bustled and butted around us, then concentrated on Nick and left drool on his jeans.
“They’re very intelligent,” Will observed, “and perverse as hell. They’re teasing you, Nick. Look pleased to see them and they’ll leave you alone.”
I was fascinated by the creatures, so of course they avoided me. They were so like sheep, except for the mad goats’ eyes. Will told me they kept them for milk and for wool. We caught one and ran our hands through the silky, curly pelt, which he said made the most wonderful sweaters. Beautiful. I felt myself relaxing, in a way I hadn’t for years. I remembered all over again why I had decided to become a vet. The air of this place had something to do with it. It was wonderful – even laden with goat-smell – fresh, mild and light. Being in the hotel all those hours had given me a headache I hadn’t noticed until then, when the air melted it away. I think it was having the same effect on Nick – unless it was the distant sound of Rupert being mobbed on the other side of the orchard. That seemed to please Nick, and it certainly pleased me.
Anyway, as we went on into the vegetable plot, where wire runs held about a hundred rabbits, I told Will how I hoped to be a vet and he told me that he had almost trained as one too. He said they lived off the land here as far as possible. Then Nick and I both told him about the nightmare way we had followed Rupert here.
“I thought you both looked pretty upset,” Will said. “Transit from world to world can be unsettling, even if you know what you’re doing. And Rupert wouldn’t have been able to hear you shouting – or see you, unless he was deliberately looking. He was a universe ahead of you the whole time, you see.”
“You mean,” Nick said challengingly, “that there really are other worlds?”
“Infinite numbers,” Will said cheerfully. “This may look like England here, but it isn’t. It’s a country called Albion, on a world – well, they call it The World, the people who live here, but we Magids call it Thule.”
“What,” I said, “are Magids?”