Wood Magic: A Fable
his better judgment, Kapchack declared his intention of sending his army
to the front.
He then proceeded to distribute the commands. Ki Ki was proclaimed
commander-in-chief (the rook did not like this, but he said nothing, as
he knew Kapchack could not help himself), and the rooks had the right
wing, the crow the left wing (the crow was surprised at this, for his
usual post was to guard the rear, but he guessed at once that Kapchack
suspected him, and would not leave him near the palace), and the owl had
the reserve. As they received their orders, each flew off; even the owl,
though it was daylight, started forth to summon his men, and though he
blundered against the branches, did not stay a second on that account.
The squirrel had charge of the stores, and jumped down to see after
them. Not one was forgotten, but each had an office assigned, and went
to execute it, all except the fox and the weasel. The weasel, obedient
to orders, lay still at the foot of the pollard, humbly hiding his head.
The fox, presently finding that he had been overlooked, crept under
Kapchack, and, bowing to the earth, asked if there was no command and no
employment for him.
"Begone," said Kapchack, who was not going to entrust power to one of
royal descent. "Begone, sir; you have not shown any ability lately."
"But did not the gnat tell you?" began the fox, humbly.
"The gnat told me a great deal," said Kapchack.
"But did he not say I sent him?"
"No, indeed," said Kapchack, for the gnat, not to be outdone, had indeed
delivered the fox's message, but had taken the credit of it for himself.
"Begone, sir (the fox slunk away); and do you (to his guards) go to the
firs and wait for me there." The eight magpies immediately departed, and
there was no one left but the weasel.
The king looked down at the guilty traitor; the traitor hung his head.
Presently the king said: "Weasel, false and double-tongued weasel, did I
not choose you to be my chiefest and most secret counsellor? Did you not
know everything? Did I not consult you on every occasion, and were you
not promoted to high honour and dignity? And you have repaid me by
plotting against my throne, and against my life; the gnat has told me
everything, and it is of no avail for you to deny it. You double
traitor, false to me and false to those other traitors who met in this
very place to conspire against me. It is true you were not among them in
person, but why were you not among them? Do you suppose that I am to be
deceived for a moment? Wretch that you are. You set them on to plot
against me while you kept out of it with clean paws, that you might
seize the throne so soon as I was slain. Wretch that you are."
Here the weasel could not endure it any longer, but crawling to the foot
of the tree, besought the king with tears in his eyes to do what he
would--to order him to instant execution, but not to reproach him with
these enormities, which cut him to the very soul. But the more he
pleaded, the more angry Kapchack became, and heaped such epithets upon
the crouching wretch, and so bitterly upbraided him that at last the
weasel could bear it no more, but driven as it were into a corner,
turned to bay, and faced the enraged monarch.
He sat up, and looking Kapchack straight in the face, as none but so
hardened a reprobate could have done, he said, in a low but very
distinct voice: "You have no right to say these things to me, any more
than you have to wear the crown! I do not believe you are Kapchack at
all--you are an impostor!"
At these words Kapchack became as pale as death, and could not keep his
perch upon the pollard, but fluttered down to the ground beside the
weasel. He was so overcome that for a moment or two he could not speak.
When he found breath, he turned to the weasel and asked him what he
meant. The weasel, who had now regained his spirits, said boldly enough
that he meant what he said; he did not believe that the king was really
Kapchack.
"But I am Kapchack," said the king, trembling, and not knowing how much
the weasel knew.
In truth the weasel knew very little, but had only shot a bolt at random
from the bow of his suspicions, but he had still a sharper shaft to
shoot, and he said: "You are an impostor, for you told La Schach, who
has jilted you, that you were not so old as you looked."
"The false creature!" said Kapchack, quite beside himself with rage. In
his jealousy of Prince Tchack-tchack, who was so much younger, and had
two eyes, he had said this, and now he bitterly repented his vanity.
"The false creature!" he screamed, "where is she? I will have her torn
to pieces! She shall be pecked limb from limb! Where is she?" he
shrieked. "She left the palace yesterday evening, and I have not seen
her since."
"She went to the firs with the jay," said the weasel. "He is her old
lover, you know. Did you not see how merry he was just now, at the
council?"
Then Kapchack pecked up the ground with his beak, and tore at it with
his claws, and gave way to his impotent anger.
"There shall not be a feather of her left!" he said. "I will have her
utterly destroyed! She shall be nailed to a tree!"
"Nothing of the kind," said the weasel, with a sneer. "She is too
beautiful. As soon as you see her, you will kiss her and forgive her."
"It is true," said Kapchack, becoming calmer. "She is so beautiful, she
must be forgiven. Weasel, in consideration of important services
rendered to the state in former days, upon this one occasion you shall
be pardoned. Of course the condition is that what has passed between us
this day is kept strictly private, and that you do not breathe a word of
it."
"Not a word of it," said the weasel.
"And you must disabuse your mind of that extraordinary illusion as to my
identity of which you spoke just now. You must dismiss so absurd an idea
from your mind."
"Certainly," said the weasel, "it is dismissed entirely. But, your
majesty, with your permission, I would go further. I would endeavour to
explain to you, that although my conduct was indiscreet, and so far open
to misconstruction, there was really nothing more in it than an
ill-directed zeal in your service. It is really true, your majesty, that
all the birds and animals are leagued against me, and that is why I have
been afraid to stir abroad. I was invited to the secret council, of
which you have heard from the gnat, and because I did not attend it,
they have one and all agreed to vilify me to your majesty.
"But in fact I, for once, with the service of your majesty in view,
descended (repugnant as it was to my feelings) to play the eavesdropper,
and I overheard all that was said, and I can convince your majesty that
there are far greater traitors in your dominions than you ever supposed
me to be. The gnat does not know half that took place at the council,
for he only had it second-hand from that villain, the fox, who is, I
believe, secretly bent on your destruction. But I can tell you not only
all that went on--I can also relate to you the designs of Kauc, the
crow, who conferred with Cloctaw in private, after the meeting was over.
And I can also give you good reasons for suspecting Ki Ki, the hawk,
whom you have just nominated to the command of your forces, of the
intention of making a bargain with Choo Hoo, and of handing you over to
him a prisoner."
Now this last was a pure invention of the weasel's out of envy, since Ki
Ki had obtained such distinction. Kapchack, much alarmed at these words,
ordered him to relate everything in order, and the weasel told him all
that had been said at the council, all that Kauc, the crow, had said to
Cloctaw, and a hundred other matters which he made up himself. When
Kapchack heard these things he was quite confounded, and exclaimed that
he was surrounded with traitors, and that he did not see which way to
turn. He hopped a little way off, in order the better to consider by
himself, and leant his head upon one side.
First he thought to himself: "I must take the command from Ki Ki, but I
cannot do that suddenly, lest he should go over to Choo Hoo. I will
therefore do it gradually. I will countermand the order for an immediate
attack; that will give me time to arrange. Who is to take Ki Ki's place?
Clearly the weasel, for though he is an archtraitor, yet he is in the
same boat with me; for I know it to be perfectly true that all of them
are bitter against him."
So he went back to the weasel, and told him that he should give him the
chief command of the forces, on the third day following, and meantime
told him to come early in the evening to the drain which passed under
the orchard, where his palace was, so that he could concert the details
of this great state business in secret with him.
The weasel, beyond measure delighted at the turn things had taken, and
rejoicing extremely at the impending fall of Ki Ki, whom he hated,
thanked Kapchack with all his might, till Kapchack, enjoining on him the
necessity of secrecy, said "Good-afternoon"; and flew away towards the
firs, where his guard was waiting for him. Then the weasel, puffed up
and treading the ground proudly, went back to his cave in the elm, and
Bevis, seeing that there was nothing more going on that day, stole back
to the raspberry canes.
None of them had noticed, not even the cunning weasel, that the mole,
when the council broke up, had not left with the rest: indeed, being
under the surface of the earth, they easily overlooked him. Now the
mole, who hated the weasel beyond all, had waited to have the pleasure
of hearing King Kapchack upbraid the traitor, and presently consign him
to execution. Fancy then his feelings when, after all, the weasel was
received into the highest favour, and promised the supreme command of
the army, while he himself was not even noticed, though he was a clever
engineer, and could mine and countermine, and carry on siege operations
better than any of them.
He listened to all that was said attentively, and then, so soon as
Kapchack had flown away, and the weasel had gone to his hole, and Bevis
to the raspberries, he drove a tunnel to the edge of the copse, and
there calling a fly, sent him with a message to the hawk, asking Ki Ki
to meet him beside the leaning stone in the field (which Bevis had once
passed), because he had a secret to communicate which would brook no
delay. At the same time, as Kapchack was flying to the firs where his
guards were waiting, it occurred to him that, although he had no
alternative, it was dangerous in the extreme to trust the army to the
weasel, who, perhaps, just as there was an opportunity of victory, would
retire, and leave him to be destroyed. Thinking about this, he perched
on a low hawthorn bush, and asked himself whether it was worth while to
attempt to defend a kingdom held under such precarious tenure. Would it
not be better to make terms with Choo Hoo, who was not unreasonable, and
to divide the territory, and thus reign in peace and safety over half at
least,--making it, of course, a condition of the compact that Choo Hoo
should help him to put down all domestic traitors?
The idea seemed so good that, first glancing round to see that he was
not observed, he called a thrush, who had been coming to the hawthorn,
but dared not enter it while the king was there. The thrush, much
frightened, came as he was bid, and Kapchack carefully instructed him in
what he was to do. Having learnt his message by heart, the thrush,
delighted beyond expression at so high a negotiation being entrusted to
him, flew straight away towards Choo Hoo's camp. But not unobserved; for
just then Ki Ki, wheeling in the air at an immense height, whither he
had gone to survey the scene of war, chanced to look down and saw him
quit the king, and marked the course he took. Kapchack, unaware that Ki