The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

The wizard smiled. ‘Duke Richard is a glamorous man. Be careful you do not come to like him too much.’

  Will looked up at the steel-shod fangs of the portcullis which being down for repairs had to be raised especially for them. He thought of the men hauling on the bars of the windlasses above him, and began to panic. He imagined them losing their grip and allowing the great barrier to fall down on him. A shiver passed down his spine and made him gasp. He felt like jumping from the waggon, but he steeled himself, and soon they had come inside the castle’s outer defences and the dreadful feeling passed.

  ‘Steady, Will.’

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead, embarrassed that the wizard had noticed his inexplicable terror. ‘I’m sorry, Master Gwydion. I suppose I’m just a bit overwhelmed by the grandness of this place.’

  ‘That must be it.’

  Now all that Gwydion had told him about castles began to make sense, for here was power realized in stone. Inside was an outer bailey, or yard, surrounded by a high wall that was manned by guards. The outer bailey contained stables and other outbuildings. It was filled with hundreds of people of all walks, many in the Ebor livery, but many more plainly dressed and going about their daily business. An arched gateway led beneath a second gatehouse and opened into an inner bailey, but the oaken gates were closed and Will could not see what lay within.

  Gwydion was met by more liveried men to whom he gave careful instructions about what was to be done with Bessie and the waggon. Will jumped down, put his hands on his hips and began to study the castle keep. That alone was bigger than the Tower of Wychwoode. The donjon was eight-sided, each side being thirty or more paces across, and it was built on top of a steep, grassy mound. From where Will stood he could see three of the sides and all had slit-windows so that defenders could retire inside and still command the Outer Bailey if it was overrun by an enemy. Like the Tower of Wychwoode the top was battlemented so that defenders could shoot arrows and crossbow bolts at those below from behind stout wooden shutters. And above the keep flew a long white and blue battlepennon with two tails like a swallow. It carried the same device which the guards wore on their breasts along with a scattering of white flowers. Will felt unaccountably pleased to be here. Gwydion had said it was a place of good aspect, and so it seemed.

  ‘And what marvels have you brought for us this time, Master Gwydion?’

  The voice made Will start. He turned and saw the question had been asked by a tall, able-looking man about forty years old. Will could not help but look at him admiringly. The man’s eyes were as grey as the slate of the Blessed Isle. He wore a brown velvet hat, trimmed with otter fur, and his coat, which was a sumptuous blue, fell from his shoulders all the way to the ground. The coat had a pair of elaborate sleeves which also carried an otter fur trim, and was clinched at the waist by a buckled belt of red and gold. The end of the belt looped over and was pushed down through itself, and supported a broadsword on the man’s left hip.

  The duke – for who else could it be? – stood with five or six of his people. There was no doubt in Will’s mind who was in charge. The man’s every gesture was decisive, and he seemed to Will to be someone whom others would follow to the death. Where Lord Strange trod down those around him in an effort to raise himself up, Duke Richard stood effortlessly above the men of his household. Will thought about the sorry weakling that was King Hal, and saw immediately why there should be many in the Realm who would prefer Duke Richard as their king.

  ‘Friend Richard, well met!’

  Gwydion and the duke clasped each other by the upper arms for a moment, and Will saw a gold signet ring glitter on the duke’s little finger.

  ‘Master Gwydion, you are welcome. But how did you know I was here? I am rarely at Foderingham in these troubled times, nor shall I tarry here long.’

  ‘Important news travels fast. I myself bring tidings that cannot wait. And in return I must ask a favour of you.’

  ‘Ask freely, Crowmaster, but if the tidings you bring concern the birth of a royal prince then we are already aware of that.’

  Will heard the unspoken comment that attended the duke’s words. Gwydion said, ‘I have no doubt you are kept abreast of events for your messengers are swift and your sources generally sound. But my news is different – and for your ears alone.’

  ‘Come, then, for we must speak now if we are to speak at all.’

  ‘Friend Richard, perhaps the Wortmaster should hear my tidings too, if he can be found quickly enough.’ The wizard turned to Will and winked. ‘Willand, you must remain here. Take care to do just as you are told now.’

  ‘I will—’ He was about to add more but Gwydion had already swept the duke away. There was a strange peal of bells that stopped almost as soon as it had begun, then the gates to the inner bailey parted and both wizard and duke were gone.

  Will waited, unregarded, as folk went about their business all around him. He felt awkward, and wondered what he should do. Of late he had spent hardly a moment out of the wizard’s company, and it felt strange to be waiting alone like this. After a while he sat down on a bench by the wall, and eventually one of the duke’s followers, a huge knight attired in blue and yellow, found him and took him to the kitchens.

  The knight was in his mid-twenties, with a broad nose and built like a great captain of war. ‘My name is Sir John of Kyre Ward.’

  ‘And I am Will of…of Nether-Norton-in-the-Vale, sir,’ Will replied, unsure what was the proper form of reply to a knight of Sir John’s rank. The knight seemed hardly to regard his answer, but he did not ignore the question that followed it. ‘Are you a kinsman of the duke?’

  Sir John shot him a narrow glance. ‘My father is Sir Hugh Morte of Morte Hall, who is the natural uncle of his grace, and guardian of Foderingham in his absence.’

  The kitchen was hot and steamy and filled with iron pans and copper cauldrons. A great quantity of logs were stacked up at the hearth. The air was warm and smelled of new-baked bread. ‘You’re to be taken in as a page with all the duties that entails. You look like a handy enough lad and keen-minded. You’ll need to be, for there’s much practice and learning involved.’

  ‘What kind of learning?’ Will asked with sinking heart. He hoped there would be no more of the solitary copying out that he had stomached between Beltane and Lammas.

  ‘Etiquette and the histories, I expect. Though Tutor Aspall will hardly teach you which way to face when you climb on a horse. Do you have anything of the doctrine of letters?’

  ‘Some. I can write out a hundred words or more and—’

  ‘Well, that’s not my affair. I’ll teach you all there is about the killing arts.’ He grinned and sat Will down. ‘How to kill without being killed yourself, that’s more important than scribe’s work. But eat now if you have an appetite, for you’ll be spoken to about all things presently.’

  After clearing a huge trencher of beef and dumplings, Will was taken by one of the kitchen servants to a tiny room in a building attached to the wall of the inner bailey and told he was to live there. When the servant left him alone he wandered around the garden, supposing it to be the Garden of the White Rose of which Gwydion had spoken. There came the tantalizing tune of striking metal again, and a strange clanging floated over the walls. He stopped to listen to it, then saw that the garden was overlooked by a gallery. Two young girls, about seven or eight years of age, watched him from its shadows. As he saw them, one leaned to whisper something to the other and they both giggled.

  Will was about to wave to them when a mild-mannered man, tall and thin and dressed in black and white appeared. ‘Ahem! You may call me Tutor Aspall,’ he said in a curiously high voice. ‘I am tutor to his grace’s two elder sons. I will show you your duties.’ He began to take Will on a tour of the castle, but then he saw the girls. ‘Do not pay Lady Elizabeth and Lady Margaret any heed.’

  ‘Ladies?’ Will said, thinking them too young to be called that. ‘Those two girls?’

  ‘“Lady” is their title. His
grace the duke and the Lady Cicely have seven children in all. Four boys and three girls, though Lady Anne is not a child any more, she is going on sixteen. The two youngest children are George and Richard. You will see little of them for they are still both in the care of Nurse Rose, but the two elder boys reside here.’

  Will looked in. There was no one in the chamber, but it was as chaotic as any room lived in by two boys.

  ‘What are their names?’ Will asked.

  ‘Sir Edward and Sir Edmund.’ The tutor gave a smile which quickly vanished. ‘Sir Edward is about your age, I would say. He is his grace’s heir. Sir Edmund is three years his junior. You will wait on them.’

  Will asked uncomfortably, ‘Do I have to call them “sir”?’ It seemed wrong to call anyone his own age or younger ‘sir’.

  ‘Sir Edward is Earl of the Marches,’ the tutor said as if that explained all. ‘And Sir Edmund is Earl of Rutteland. You are not allowed to go down that passageway. That leads to the chamber where the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Margaret sleep. Nor are you permitted to use those stairs. Come with me now, and I will take you to meet Wortmaster Gort – if he can be found.’

  All the new names but one had begun to swim together in Will’s head. ‘Wortmaster Gort,’ he said as he left the chamber. ‘That’s an odd sort of name.’

  Tutor Aspall tutted. ‘You must never say that in his hearing. It is a most venerable title for a most venerable old – ahem! – personage. He is lord of the gardeners and a healer and also, after a fashion, one of the tutors here. I was told your name is Willand and that you are used to the company of wanderers. Is that so?’

  ‘Er…I suppose so.’

  ‘Then I trust you will not find the Wortmaster too strange.’

  They followed a twisting passage that came out at last into the inner bailey once more, and an empty bench. Will asked, ‘Where’s Master Gwydion gone?’

  Tutor Aspall turned. ‘What concern is that of yours?’

  Will hesitated at the oddness of the question. ‘Because I have need to speak with him. What do you think?’

  One of the guards passed them, and Will recognized him as Jackhald, the same man who had let them across the bridge.

  ‘Hey, Jackhald! Do you know where Master Gwydion is presently?’

  The guard stopped, pushed back the brim of his iron hat and addressed his answer to Tutor Aspall. ‘Sir, if it’s the Crowmaster the lad wants then he’s out of luck.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Will asked.

  ‘Because he’s gone off with his grace.’

  ‘Come along now—’

  Will held back. ‘Gone off? Where to?’

  ‘It’s not your place to be asking questions,’ Tutor Aspall said.

  ‘Where to?’ Will insisted. ‘I need to know!’

  And despite his shock at the wilfulness being shown to him the tutor said, ‘His grace has taken a guard of men. They’re riding urgently for Trinovant. Did you not hear them leave?’

  ‘Gone? Already?’Will looked from one face to the other. ‘But…what about Bessie? The horse isn’t Master Gwydion’s. Nor the cart. They belong to—’

  Jackhald laughed. ‘No doubt the Crowmaster left a mess of instructions. He always does.’

  ‘But when’s he coming back?’

  The guard laughed. ‘Neither his grace nor the Crowmaster account their doings to old Jackhald, that’s for sure!’

  And Will sat down heavily on the bench. A wave of hopelessness overwhelmed him. Well, how about that? he thought. Master Gwydion’s had time enough to arrange for Bessie to be sent back to Eiton, but he’s left without so much as a word of farewell to me!

  PART THREE

  THE DUKE OF EBOR’S PLEASURE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A WINTER OF DISCONTENT

  Once Will’s resentment faded what was left felt like loneliness. A new jerkin and hose in Ebor colours were brought to him, along with two shirts and a pair of leather shoes that at first felt very strange.

  He wrapped his own clothes around his precious silver-bound horn, took his other belongings from his bundle and put them into the small chest that had been provided for him. No sooner was he dressed than he was sent down the long passage to meet Duke Richard’s two elder sons. It was not long before they had his measure, and he theirs.

  After the fashion of princes these young lords wore their hair cut to just above their shoulders. Their doublets were of the best quality, though well used, and they sported matching green velvet hats that gave them a lofty air. Edward was certainly his father’s son: tall, blond and determined to be a leader. Edmund was more studious and kinder to a newcomer.

  ‘Can you use a sword?’ Edward asked as soon as they met.

  ‘Maybe,’ Will replied warily. Something about Edward troubled him.

  ‘Either you can use a sword, or you can’t. Which is it?’

  Will shrugged. ‘It’s maybe.’

  Edward met his eye. ‘You’ll have to learn good manners if you’re going to serve as my page. And swordsmanship. I’ll show you some moves. Here, hedgehog!’

  Will silently caught the blunt steel practice sword that was tossed to him.

  ‘My name’s Willand,’ he murmured.

  ‘What’s wrong with your hair? Had a fight with a lawn mower, did you?’ Edward laughed, then his brother laughed also. ‘What other weapons do you know?’

  Will had no idea what the other was talking about. ‘I can shoot a bow. And where I come from men use the sporting quarterstaff. I can wield one, but we don’t use them as weapons.’

  Edward looked down his nose and scoffed. ‘A quarterstaff? Did you hear that, Edmund? He fights by waving a wooden stick! So, Willy Wag-staff, let’s see how you fare with a sword!’

  Will parried the sudden blow and began to wonder about his welcome. Edward’s next wild swing threw Will backwards so that he jarred his elbow against a table.

  Edward’s third blow was intercepted by a large man in knightly garb. He and Sir John were as alike as two peas, except that this knight was grey-haired and Will realized he must be father to Sir John of Kyre Ward, which must make him Sir Hugh of Morte Hall.

  The knight cuffed Will’s ear, then Tutor Aspall who had entered behind the knight, asked him what he thought he was doing.

  ‘Here for less than an hour and already you’re behaving like a barbarian. You will go without supper tonight.’

  Edward smirked at him from behind the tutor’s back.

  Will looked back defiantly, but said nothing. It seemed to him that if Gwydion had wanted him to have his understanding of the lordly world tested, then he had picked the right place, for this was in its way as much a madhouse as Clarendon Lodge or the Hogshead’s dismal tower. It seemed an ill-advised place to have brought the battlestone.

  But it was not long before Will had completely forgotten about the captive stone. At first he was taken up with getting used to his new lodgings, and making a truce with those who were to be his new companions. After life on the open road, the days at Foderingham seemed like torture. The lessons were endless. Everything at the castle was ruled over by a strange iron engine that sat inside the small tower over-looking the inner bailey. Every now and then the bell near the engine would clang out. The tower had a wheel on it, marked with ‘I’s and ‘X’s and ‘V’s, and a pointer that moved when no one was looking at it. There were times when nobody took any notice of the clangs, but at other times the guard would rush to change, or a meal would be served or some other sudden alteration in the rhythm of life would happen. At those times Will hated the engine, for then conversations would finish without ending properly and people whose company he was enjoying would hurry away as if some insult had been passed.

  And it was not only the ebb and flow of the day that was closely controlled at Foderingham. Here, as in Lord Strange’s tower, the folk were divided into family and retainers and servants. The servants were of many different kinds, all ranked one above another, and some had been made miserable
by being put to lowly duties and never given anything better to do. But there was never any complaining, for servants were treated roughly if they complained, or even if they did not defer. It was a long way from life in the Vale, where everyone looked after one another and a man’s respect – and his self-respect too – depended largely on how helpful folk said he was.

  Nor were these the only shocks that Will’s view of the wider world suffered. There were Sightless Ones among those who were let into the castle. Their nearest cloister stood not half a league distant from the castle, and when he enquired about it he was told that the duke’s family had paid for it to be built, and that it was maintained there at great annual cost to him.

  The Fellows came into the castle from time to time to perform their strange rituals. They refused to celebrate the eight great days of the year that Gwydion had named – the two solstices that marked Midsummer and Ewle, the two equinoxes that marked the days of equal light and dark, and the four festive days of Sowain and Beltane, Imble and Lammastide. At Foderingham the duke’s family celebrated lesser days, not the important ones that were set by the great motions of the sky, but ones named after men, and mostly dead Elders of the Fellowship at that, men such as Ilbyn the Perfect or Swythen the Martyr.

  And when the day of a true festival did come around, it was called by another name, one given to it by the Sightless Ones to glorify themselves, and none of the proper observances were kept. There were no jolly games, no feasting, just hunger all day long and a dull parade of Fellows decked in golden robes who moaned as they walked along. Will suspected that the fasting days had been deliberately set down to supplant what had gone before, so folk would come eventually to forget the Old Ways altogether.

  As for Will himself, there was little at Foderingham that he could call fun. He missed Gwydion’s company more than he could say, for after the time they had spent together the wizard’s going away felt like losing a part of himself. And though Edward and Edmund were not as bad as he had first thought, neither of them seemed to know anything worthwhile about the world.