Nor could solitude heal this ill. He feared to take off his shoes and plant his cold toes in the hoar frost because that would make the sickly feelings sharper. Memories of scrying for the Dragon Stone still lingered in the muscles of his arms and chest. But, though little more than a year had passed, his body had changed. Overhead the moon was trampling down the truceless armies of the stars. The sheep in the fields stood motionless. All was colourless. Nearby, a stream gurgled through shingle banks, but here at the crossroads mud trodden by a thousand hooves had hardened. A journey stone declared this place was called Morte’s Crossing and that Trinovant was seven times seven leagues distant. Slaver figures cut in the stone swam into ogham as he squinted at them. They had gone when he looked again. Opposite, in the shadow of the trees, stood a terrible gibbet. It loomed upon him as he staggered over the frozen hummocks of the road. An oaken post, rough-hewn, square and three times as tall as a man stood as a reminder. From its high iron arm horror hung suspended – the body of a criminal, condemned to hang in chains, caged at this crossroads for a year and a day as an example, as a warning. By night this sentinel waited still and silent, a lonely shepherd keeping his flocks.
Who was he? Will wondered, trapped by the grim need to look up at the frosted head of the corpse. The shock of seeing flesh for what it was reverberated inside him. But who had this stranger been, this man dressed now in his ice-whitened rags? A poacher perhaps? A murderer? A stealer of cattle? Had he been guilty or innocent? Had he ever loved? Had he been loved in return? What error had ruined him and brought him to this? Why had he not been saved? And what brutality had hung him here to be displayed like so much rotten meat?
There were no answers in the ghastly smile. The glint of moonlight on teeth revealed under stretched, winddried lips gave nothing away. A hand, withered and slim, lay composed against one of the iron bands that enclosed the dead man. And the empty sockets of his eyes, all pecked away by crows, looked down with a knowing sort of assurance. He seemed to Will like a man who had been on a journey, but to a far place of which he could never tell.
Unnerved by the stillness, Will reached up and pushed the cage a little. It moved as easily as a sweetheart’s swing in a summer garden.
‘War!’ the figure told him rustily. ‘They hung me high…and I did die!’
And Will, who had never seen an executed man before, put his hands over his ears to shut out the words.
‘War!’ said the cage’s hinge. ‘I would not go…and so you see…they made a show…of me.’
For all that they had tried to teach him at Foderingham, his inner spirit still understood that war was not about bright swords and brighter armour and swallow-tailed flags that floated in the breeze. It was about lordly greed and common suffering – and it was about pain and fear and death.
‘War!’ cried the corpse’s empty jaw. ‘It’s coming! It’s coming…It’s coming…’
He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of that horrible, moonfrosted flesh, and in that moment he grasped precisely what Gwydion had sent him to Foderingham to learn.
They made their approach to Ludford late the next afternoon, two days before Ewletide. The low sun, dilute and unwarming all day, was now only just clearing the woods that stood out above the furrowed lines of misty fields. Skeletal trees held rooks’ nests, and there was the kind of cold in the air that sent woodsmoke straight up to fan out flat in a breathless sky.
‘What do you think?’ Will called out, gesturing at the sad beauty of a watery sunset where the sun slumped into a wispy haze of yellow and red.
‘That?’ Edward called back, misunderstanding. He was ruddy-cheeked from his ride. ‘Good heavy horse country. And a very strong fortress.’
‘I meant the sunset, not the castle.’
Edward controlled his horse and slapped himself on the chest. ‘Did you know Ludford was mine?’
‘Yours?’
‘I’m the Earl of the Marches. Didn’t you know? The castle of Ludford belongs to me.’
‘Let me ride,’Will said, suddenly wanting to swap places with Edward.
But the duke’s son turned the mare’s head and walked her away, saying, ‘Not today. She’s blown.’
Such was the day: cheerless and miserable in the dead of the year, despite what the merrier folk of the train said to try to make it otherwise. Will brooded, watched the way Willow picked dainty steps over the ridges and ruts of the frozen road. He saw the way her skirts swished as she lifted them. The way she moved bewitched him.
Why had Edward been talking privately with her?
‘Now, then, Will!’ Stenn said, coming up. ‘What ails you? You’ve had a face as long as a lute for days.’
‘Bad cold.’
‘Is that all? Double portions for you tonight, then. They say to feed a cold and starve a fever.’
Will liked the older man, but for all his solid cheeriness he kept a vigilant watch over his daughter. ‘She’s the only person I’ve got in the world,’ he had said at supper last night, and it had sounded like a warning.
‘Why don’t you go see the Wortmaster?’
‘I already did.’
But he knew the cold was no cause – it was an effect.
They went by Wyg Moor and then by Leint Hall, where the great family of Morte kept a robust garrison. At the hamlet of Ellton, Will saw a tiny fairy palace, gorgeous in all details, yet no taller than his shoulder and fit for folks no more than a foot in height. But it was lived in now only by hens.
When he showed his amazement at it, Gort said, ‘Oh, but these are the Marches of Cambray. There were once little people hereabouts, though that was long ago and none of their works now remain. Perhaps this small house was built as an encouragement to them, in hopes of a return.’
Finally they came to Ludford Gate and Will saw it was a lively enough place, with town walls that were thick and well-kept, and a welcoming gatehouse. Here the gatemen were red-cheeked and stout and jolly. ‘Not like Caster used to be in olden times,’ Gort told him. ‘In that city the great gate had a secret false beggar, ha ha!’
Will raised a wry smile. ‘How can a beggar beg in secret, Wortmaster? And who would bother to impersonate a beggar anyway?’
‘Ah, well! You see, it was like this – this beggar used to call out lustily to those who would come in, “Alms!” he would shout. “Alms for the needy!” But he had been set there by the Lord of Caster himself to see which of the wealthy merchants showed charity, for reports were made on all who came in and then they were treated accordingly!’
But it was news of the coming of Ludford’s own lord that had brought the townsfolk here out into the streets. There were horns calling and bells pealing and a cheering procession that came along with them. Will saw how the duke had been missed from this place like an absent father. He passed among his people now, at first on horseback but now on foot, enjoying their adoration until he came to his own high walls.
The town was neatly planned, with straight streets, many of them finely cobbled, though Will was dismayed to see a large chapter house and cloister dominating the market square with its tall stone spire and monument. As at the chapter house close to Eiton the spire carried the device of a white heart and a weather vane bearing the letters A, A, E and F.
‘What does that mean on the vane?’ he asked the Wortmaster.
‘If you asked them they’d claim it was the names of the four winds in the mystical language of Tibor. That’s where the Slavers came from.’ Gort looked about, then spoke from behind his hand. ‘They named the winds after their four cardinal points – North they call oliuqA, East is suruE, South retsuA, and West suinovaF. But that’s no simple windcock. Oh, no! Watch it long enough and you’ll see it stir, though there came not a breath of wind to move it. The letters really stand for “satinretarF dA tE bA”. It means “From and To the Fellowship.” Those ugly iron masts atop their spires – that’s how the chapter houses and cloisters talk with one another across the land.’
Will shud
dered. He imagined the vanes moving in magical sympathy with one another, spelling out in some secret cipher dark messages, telling all that the spies of the Fellowship could gather, and passing it on swiftly across the Realm. The face of the stone monument that stood outside the chapter house was incised with unreadable words and lit up now with votive candles. A hooded Fellow stood guard at the entrance. Will’s skin prickled as he smelled the greasy stink and heard the solemn dirge that issued from inside. It seemed to him an organization of the most tremendous and malevolent power.
The throng followed as far as the castle and gathered at the gate. Edward’s marcher stronghold stood at the top of the town, and Will thought it a testament to the duke’s reputation that he should be so well received by his people. But seeing the gleeful faces all around he knew there was as yet no understanding of the real reason their lord had come. Nor did they have any inkling of the terrible calamity that was foregathering.
What’s wrong with me? he wondered, unable to lift his spirits another notch. Why am I seeing things through dead eyes? Is it me, or is it that the world is truly darkening? I don’t know, for I’ve never seen war gather before. The knights won’t say much about that for fear of spies, and I cannot get an uncluttered answer about the stones from the Wortmaster.
As they passed beneath the gatehouse Will chanced to look up at the battlements and fancied he saw the figure of Death, waiting there in his black robes. A sudden terror swarmed through him and he gasped at the reek that came sharply up into his nostrils as if from a great chasm. He shied back as a man would from a sudden precipice.
A soldier at his elbow bumped him and cursed. But then Willow was beside him and asking him what was the matter, and he shook his head and said he was just a little dizzy and not to fuss.
But it had seemed to him as he looked up at the teeth of the portcullis that he had had that same feeling of dread before. And he had done the same thing before, even down to imagining the men hauling hand-over-hand on the bars of the windlasses above him. When first arriving at Foderingham he had feared the gatehouse men would make a mistake and allow the great barrier to fall down on him, and he wondered at why such a feeling might have overwhelmed him a second time.
‘Come along,’ Gort said, slapping his back. ‘Don’t block the entrance, hey?’
The castle of Ludford, having been forewarned by messengers, was now ready to receive them. Here too there were outer and inner baileys, except that here the guards called them ‘wards’. A wall of grey limestone enclosed the outer ward – two of its corners were rounded and one square, while built into the fourth corner was the moated inner ward with its tall, square keep and high walls. Ravens circled the highest tower, and the duke’s standard flew there.
When they entered the inner ward Will saw there was a great hall, a ‘solar’ which was the lord’s private quarters, and Gort pointed out the magnificent Round House, the place from which the duke administered his affairs. Various other lodgings were built inside the castle walls and here, as at Foderingham, a great iron engine of time clanged out the hours from inside its special high tower.
‘They all come from the Castle of Sundials,’ Gort told him. ‘That’s a great house in the north belonging to the duke. Braye, the Lord Keeper there, is a loremaster and a watcher of the skies. These machines are of his making, though I wish he’d stuck with sundials!’
‘Then there is an Old Father Time, after all,’ Will said, taking it all in. It was easy to see why a castle had been built here, for this place was a high point from which the land fell away steeply to the north and west, on which sides it was also guarded by the River Theam and its tributary, the Ludd. But, once inside, the castle was far from the forbidding fortress that it appeared from outside. There were servants everywhere to welcome them and the many chimneys of a large kitchen and bakehouse were issuing smoke and delicious smells. Will had spent many an hour studying fortifications, and he passed an expert eye over the keep, judging that its foundations had been laid ten or more generations before, and that almost every generation had strengthened it or added some new part, as was only right.
Gort ushered them into the quarters that had been prepared. Will thought the rooms were cramped but adequate, and after a brief look around he sat down with Willow on a bench and tore off some warm bread for her. They munched as darkness fell and Gort unpacked his precious bundles on the table or wandered in and out of the rooms with armfuls of mystery. After a while, Edward came into the inner ward and lingered some distance away, and it seemed to Will that he was waiting for someone. Willow’s eyes followed him. She interested herself in him as he stood, hands on hips, staring up at the strength of the walls his father had given him. Will knew it was a fool’s question, but he could not stop himself from asking it.
‘Is he handsome?’
‘Sir Edward? Yes,’ she said straight away. Her eyes followed Edward again. ‘But he’s got a high opinion of himself.’
Will felt some of the hollowness leave him, pleased despite himself to hear that Willow disliked some aspect of Edward. ‘I suppose he has every right to have a high opinion.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, this is his castle. It’s his by title, and he’ll be the Duke of Ebor one day. A great man.’
‘Most people are impressed by belongings and rank,’ Willow said with a private smile. ‘Some girls would walk a long way to marry a miller’s son.’
‘Huh! Edward’s no miller’s son.’
She laughed at him. ‘You don’t have much idea what girls like in boys, do you?’
‘You mean you’re not impressed by him?’ he asked. He watched the way Edward moved. He had learned to copy much of his father’s manner. Something made Will say: ‘You know, noblemen don’t often make friends among churls.’
‘They have trusted servants, men they trust with their lives.’
‘But they’re not friends. Not real friends. Edward finds it hard to be close with anyone.’
Willow looked at Edward with undisguised interest. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘You’ve seen how he looks up to his father. He secretly thinks the duke’s shoes are going to be too hard for him to fill. He isn’t confident he can do it. That’s why he doesn’t let people get close to him. In case they get to find out about the real Edward.’
Willow folded her arms. ‘That’s nonsense.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Sir Edward’s confident to a fault!’
‘That’s just what he wants people to think. He’s trying to make something special of himself, but it’s all just show.’
‘That’s how you get to be special, isn’t it? By trying?’ She tilted her head as she looked at him. ‘I don’t know why you’re talking this way. You’re not jealous, are you?’
He could not stop himself. ‘I saw him give you his ring. Why did you take it?’
She looked at him for a while, then her anger showed. ‘That was his signet, Will. He told me to take it to the scribe, because he needed to seal a letter. He couldn’t be bothered to walk through the mud himself! Anyway, what’s it got to do with you what he gives me?’
‘Now, then! What’s this? Hard words? Raised voices? Squabbles, hey?’ Gort came in and asked Willow if she would take a fresh charm to hang in the wine store. It was a harvest sigil, a token twisted out of ears of wheat and made up in the form of a vine leaf to stop the wine from spoiling. She took it, but Will followed her out into the innermost ward.
A terrible feeling, one that he had never felt before, gnawed at him. It was as persistent as hunger, only a thousand times worse. He looked up at the well-head and brewhouse and the high walls of the keep that seemed to lean in on him. He trailed Willow through a small door and down to the keep cellars where the wine was stored. A stout, barred entrance led off to the left and he knew at once it was a solitary cell in which a prisoner could be held in darkness. He heard a cry. An infant. Then a smothering feeling came over him, and he almost choked.
‘This place…’ he said. ‘There’s a baby in there!’
Straight away she went to look. But there was nothing living in the dank gloom except perhaps a rat.
‘What did you say that for, Willand? There’s no child in here.’
‘But…I heard it crying.’
‘I don’t know what’s ailing you, but I think you ought to see the Wortmaster about it. And soon.’
She finished placing the charm over the wine and stood back, hooking a wisp of hair over her ear. Then she made her way up the steps, annoyed that he was shadowing her. Eventually he let her go.
He watched moodily as she crossed the dark innermost ward. He was feeling even more unhappy now she had gone than he had before. He made a fist and hammered the wall until the side of his hand hurt. The movement attracted Edward and he came over.
‘What goes?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to come to the armoury? I’ll show you what we have here.’
‘Go away!’
Edward stiffened, mystified by Will’s sudden unprovoked rage. No one was permitted to speak to the duke’s heir that way, least of all in his own castle. It required an immediate apology, but none was offered and their eyes met in a wordless challenge. Even so, Edward saw what was the better part of valour. He merely looked Will up and down, said, ‘As you wish,’ then nodded curtly and withdrew.
‘What’s happening to me?’Will asked the night air when Edward had gone. He put his hands to his temples and stared into the sky, shivering. ‘The duke’s brought it with us,’ he whispered, shocked by his sudden revelation. ‘By the moon and stars, I know what he’s done! He’s brought the Dragon Stone here!’
‘Now then, Master Miseryguts!’Wortmaster Gort was down on hands and knees, busying himself like a great badger rooting through his disordered belongings in the pale light of dawn. He set down an armful of gear, looked up and said pleasantly. ‘So how are you this fine morning?’
The Language of Stones Page 32