by Kit Berry
His deep grey eyes flashed and Magus, lounging on the throne up on the dais, smiled lazily. Yul thought again of the silver cat of his nightmares, and shivered. Something bad was going to happen – Magus was too purring and complacent.
‘Of course, this is all a shock to Yul so please excuse his rudeness,’ he replied smoothly. ‘He didn’t know why I summoned him here this morning. He didn’t know I was going to acknowledge him in public as my son, nor invite him to live here. Such grandeur must seem daunting to someone raised in the Village, and we’ll make allowances for him. But Yul, there’s a second piece of news today. Sylvie already knows and she insisted on being the one to tell you.’
He smiled again at Yul, his dark eyes hooded with veiled menace like a cobra about to strike. Yul straightened himself, preparing to take whatever Magus gave. He knew that look of excited cruelty only too well.
‘Sylvie, stand up,’ commanded Magus.
She obeyed, swaying slightly like a slim reed in the breeze. The amethysts and pearls in her skirts caught the light, the diamonds sparkled and her hair shimmered around her. She glittered like a star and people caught their breath at her perfection. Sylvie slowly raised her eyes to meet Yul’s, and in them he read all her sorrow. What had she done? His heart began to hammer in his chest as the dread grew inside him. He had the most terrible, awful premonition of what was to come: she’d submitted to Magus, maybe given herself to him in a deal to stop the imminent conflict, or maybe Magus had taken her by force. This magical, moongazy girl, so pure and precious, was now the latest in Magus’ long line of women. She was too young of course, but only by six months, and Magus made his own rules.
Yul took a deep breath, flexed his fingers and steeled himself ready to do what must now be done. There was a clear path from him, in the middle of the hall, to Sylvie on the dais. People had instinctively parted to make a way through and slowly he began to walk towards her, hesitant, dreading what she was about to say and worried that she might faint away altogether. She was as white as death and looked alarmingly fragile.
‘Tell him, Sylvie,’ said Magus, a small smile on his lips. ‘Tell him the wonderful news.’
Yul stopped a few steps away from her, the dais balancing their heights so their eyes were level. She brushed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and glanced towards Magus in supplication. He nodded at her encouragingly.
‘Go on then, Sylvie. You wanted to tell him yourself and everyone’s waiting to hear.’
She swallowed, and cleared her throat in the absolute silence.
‘The night before last,’ she said, in a small voice that filled the silent Galleried Hall, ‘ … I discovered … I can’t …’
‘Tell him!’
She tried again, her voice faltering.
‘He told me … the truth is … it was him, Magus. It was Magus who … forced himself on my mother in the woods when she was a girl. It was him who made her pregnant. Which means that he’s … he’s my father too.’
She saw the awful shock flash in Yul’s eyes, and then the light in them die as the truth hit him, just as it had hit her the night before. Magus had risen angrily to seize hold of her, and she cried out as he gripped her hard.
‘No, please not my arm …’
‘That’s not what I told you!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t force girls! You’ve twisted it!’
‘Let go of her!’ Yul roared and leapt forward to pull Sylvie from his grasp.
‘My mother was forced!’ cried Sylvie, flinching before Magus’ fury. ‘It wasn’t all fun and lovely, the way you told it. She was only a young girl and she didn’t want that! She wasn’t willing. You’re the one who’s tried to twist it!’
‘NO!’
‘Yes,’ came a clear voice from above, cutting through the stunned silence. ‘Sylvie’s speaking the truth – it was rape.’
There was a collective gasp and every head in the hall looked up. Miranda stood above in the gallery which ran around one wall. Her red hair gleamed as she held onto the balustrade and gazed down at them all.
‘Thank you for inviting me, Magus,’ she said quietly, but in a voice that carried right across the hall packed with shocked faces. ‘And just as well you did, for as Sylvie says, you’re twisting the facts a little.’
‘We’ll discuss this later, Miranda,’ hissed Magus, his face like thunder. His moment to stick the knife into Yul was now completely ruined.
‘I’m sorry, but as you’ve chosen to make Sylvie’s parentage such a public affair, I don’t think you should deny the truth at this point,’ replied Miranda coolly, her chin tipped with defiance.
Sylvie had sunk down onto her stool, her legs unable to hold her, and stared up at her mother with admiration. This was the old Miranda, the woman who stood up for herself and fought the rough deal life had given her. Yul had stepped forward and taken one of Sylvie’s hands in his. She felt him trembling and knew that she was doing exactly the same.
‘Everyone may leave now!’ called Magus. ‘I—’
‘Not so fast!’ cried Miranda. ‘We were talking about how I was raped in some woods at the age of sixteen and how, out of that dreadful act, I conceived my beautiful Sylvie.’
‘I do not rape girls!’ bellowed Magus in outrage. ‘Everyone here will testify to that! I’ve never, ever had to force anyone.’
‘That’s true,’ came another voice, similar to Magus’. Up in the Gallery, Clip stepped out from behind Miranda and surveyed the pool of upturned faces and his brother’s murderous expression. ‘You’ve never forced anyone in your life, Sol. As you say, you’ve never had to. But I’m ashamed to confess that I have. I took poor Miranda’s virginity that night, not you. Sylvie is my daughter!’
There was another explosion of noise, and Yul stared at Sylvie, his eyes flaring with hope. Was it true? Cousins? And only half cousins at that! She looked at Yul with the same frantic hope in her eyes. Magus was beside himself. He paced the dais like a caged panther, desperate to go up into the gallery to silence them but not daring to leave the hall to do so.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Clip! You’re a shaman – you’re celibate!’ he raged. ‘And you couldn’t make love to anyone even if you wanted to. You know full well you’ve never been able to.’
‘Never been able to here at Stonewylde, with you mocking and taunting me,’ said Clip calmly. He leant over the balustrade and met his brother’s eye unflinchingly. ‘You always had to be the best at everything, didn’t you, Sol? You even turned love-making into a competition and of course I couldn’t compete with you. You’re right – I could never manage it. But once, just once, I did. At that dreadful fancy dress party in the Outside World, I saw a lovely young lady dressed as a fairy queen, who knew nothing about me or you or Stonewylde. She knew nothing of all my failures, of the way you’d teased and taunted me for my lack of success with women. And I managed to make love to her, under the red Harvest Moon in the woods. At least, to me it was making love, a dream come true. But to her it was rape. And of course I never imagined a child would come of it.’
‘Is this true, Mum?’ cried Sylvie, staring up at them. ‘Is Clip my father and not Magus?’
‘Yes, Sylvie, it’s true,’ said Miranda, looking down at her sparkling daughter on the dais, all bathed in blue stained-glass light and her eyes shining with hope. ‘Clip realised who I was on the night of the last full moon, after Magus humiliated me and showed his true colours. The memory slid into place and Clip put it all together.’
‘It was when Miranda cried and her long red hair fell over her hands,’ said Clip ruefully. ‘I’ve never, ever forgotten that. It’s an image that’s haunted me all these years – that poor girl standing up afterwards, all covered in leaves and earth. She cried into her hands with her lovely hair hanging over her face … I’m so sorry, Sylvie. This is a terrible way to find out I’m your father. I’m so very sorry that it had to be like this.’
The Hall erupted as the Hallfolk began to discuss these extraordinary revelat
ions. Sylvie had risen again and flung her arms around Yul, who held her tightly as though he’d never let her go.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, in the mayhem and noise around them. ‘I love you more than anything in the world, Yul. I thought I’d lost you for ever, but now …’
‘Shall I get you out?’ he whispered back. ‘I hate your being trapped here in this vipers’ nest. I can take you away now, Sylvie.’
‘No, it’s only three more days. It’s almost over. Best to wait for the right time, as the prophecy said.’
She looked up and her eye fell on the Green Man in one of the stained-glass windows above. She smiled, hugging Yul tighter, and kissed his cheek. Miranda and Clip had left the gallery and were on their way down. Excited noise from the startled Hallfolk rose like a cloud of bees ready to swarm. Magus stepped forward and roughly pulled Sylvie away from Yul.
‘Don’t touch her, boy! Upstairs, Sylvie!’
Yul looked Magus in the eye, his steely grey gaze steady.
‘Three more days,’ he said softly. ‘Under blue and red, the fruit of your passion will rise up against you, with the folk behind, at the time of brightness in darkness, and overthrow you in the place of bones and death. You have three more days, Magus of Stonewylde. Three more days until I finish you.’
17
Magus leant against a tall standing stone watching the boy on the rock. It was still half-light, the sky a palette of lavender and mauve with a hint of pink. A cold breeze rippled across Magus’ cheeks, numbing his lips, but the boy seemed oblivious to it. He sat cross-legged and straight-backed on the Altar Stone facing the lightest part of the sky, his eyes closed. Dressed in browns and muddy greens, his hair long and curly, he looked like some sort of woodland spirit. Like the Green Man.
As Magus watched, a curious spectrum of emotions flickered inside him. Strongest of all was hatred, and had he been able to, he’d have killed the boy right now with no hesitation. He stood in silence, remembering the moment when Yul had been born next to that stone almost exactly sixteen years ago. The sun had set and the full moon had risen; a red moon at the Solstice, a highly unusual conjunction indicating rare magic afoot. The eclipse was total, the face of the Moon Goddess finally becoming a deep blood red at the moment when the ceremony reached its mystical and powerful climax.
Magus remembered the scene so clearly; the dark Circle packed with silent people, all lit by the flickering light of the great Solstice Fire. The young dark-haired girl – his Maizie – had crouched down on the earth and moaned in a long drawn-out wail of agony, unable to stifle the sounds of her labour any longer. Then the unmistakable, primeval howl of a new-born baby echoed around the sacred circle. Magus’ heart had leapt at the unexpectedly early birth of this child, not his first, but certainly the one he imagined would be special. This one had been conceived at Stonewylde during a Blue Moon with a Village girl who’d given him her virginity and then stolen his heart. How could this baby, born so magically during a total eclipse at the Winter Solstice, be destined for anything other than greatness?
But then … with Maizie still down on the earth floor and the bloody afterbirth staining the sacred ground, Mother Heggy had exacted her revenge against the Hallfolk for the death of her beloved Raven. In just a few heartbeats, before the totality of the eclipse had slid past, the crone had blighted both his love for the simple Village girl and his hopes and dreams for their child. She’d cut the cord with her white-handled knife and triumphantly delivered the baby, still bloody, onto the Altar Stone. And then she’d screeched her wild and dreadful prophecy to the hushed crowd.
Magus recalled the cold whisper of destiny in his heart as he’d picked up the tiny child, hot and velvet-skinned from the womb, and had the terrible, unspeakable urge to smash its fragile skull on the Altar Stone. For Mother Heggy’s words had triggered a nightmare vision in his soul, one which had haunted his dreams since childhood: he lay in agony, alone and cold in the silver darkness, with a terrible pulsing in his head as the life-blood spurted out of him and the creeping blackness closed in. This vision, premonition perhaps, had burst into his mind as he held his son over the Altar Stone thinking perhaps he could cheat destiny and destroy the key to his downfall.
For Magus never doubted Mother Heggy’s words. The prophecy – or was it a curse? – held within it a truth and certainty that grabbed his heart and squeezed. The Wise Woman was powerful, terrifying, and had always hated him and his kin with a vengeance. So he’d raised the baby high but he’d hesitated, and then Mother Heggy had risen up like a ragged spectre and screamed her summoning spell. She’d called on the Dark Angel to bind the child with his shadowy protection, to keep him safe from the evil intent of his father. A thick mist had swirled into the Stone Circle at her call, bringing spirits from the Otherworld and a deathly cold unlike any winter chill.
Magus still shuddered at the fearful memory; the awful paralysis that had stilled his hands as he clutched the screaming child. The crone had snatched the baby from him and completed the magical words that would ensure Magus’ death if he ever tried to kill his child. Magus had felt the cold presence of the Dark Angel at his shoulder and had recognised the Wise Woman’s power. But she’d paid for the potent magic invoked that night. Her abilities had waned, as if everything had been drained from her, used up in that terrible summoning of the Angel of Death.
Now, as Magus looked at the young man sitting on the Altar Stone, he felt the hatred flowing in his heart as strong and blood-red as ever, and the same desire to smash his skull. The binding spell that Mother Heggy had cast that night at the Winter Solstice red moon only enabled Yul to grow up in safety. The spell expired at sunset on the eve of the Winter Solstice when its purpose was fulfilled and the boy attained adulthood at last. Finally Yul would stand alone and unprotected and Magus smiled at the thought. Then, at last, he’d free himself of the horror that had haunted him since childhood – that cold, lonely haemorrhaging in the darkness.
The sky was palest apricot to the south-east horizon where the sun would soon rise. Shredded ribbons of cloud lay above the skyline, glittering pink and bright, mirroring the sun that had yet to clear the rim of the earth. Yul’s body yearned towards the horizon, his hollow-cheeked face serene, his eyes shut. Suddenly great rays of golden light beamed up around the skyline and the boy’s eyes flashed open as the light washed over him. Magus frowned in disbelief, blinking in the blinding light. It seemed that Yul himself glowed, giving out light and brightness. He stood in a fluid movement facing the glorious sun, his slim frame arched to accept the caress of light.
Then Magus felt something moving, a rumbling beneath his feet. The glowing boy quivered as the force thrust up in an explosion of energy from below the Circle, through the silicate molecules of rock and into his body. Sparks shot from his outstretched fingertips and his hair stirred with a crackling charge. Yul shuddered violently as he received the energy bestowed upon him by the aligned magnetic fields of the earth and sun. He stood several minutes longer as the sun glittered brighter and brighter, rising in the pink sky. Then with a respectful bow he jumped lightly from the rock, as if gravity had been altered just for him.
Magus was overwhelmed at what he’d witnessed. Such power! And it wasn’t even a festival; even in his early days he’d never been so powerfully blessed. He stepped forward into the arena of the Stone Circle. Yul turned to him, his eyes burning like stars, and Magus felt the confidence and magic surging within the boy.
‘I want to speak to you, Yul.’
Yul merely raised his eyebrows.
‘Come and sit with me on the stone.’
‘It’s a sacred altar, not a seat. I’ll stand.’
‘Very well. I want to speak to you about the future of Stonewylde. I know you have some notion about taking over from me at the Winter Solstice, but let’s be frank here – we both know that could never happen. But I want to see if we can work something out together, some kind of partnership which will benefit the whole community. I see jus
t how very strongly the Earth Goddess loves you.’
‘And no longer loves you,’ retorted Yul, looking his father straight in the eye, ‘which is why you want to share my power. You’re a stealer of energy – Sylvie’s moon magic and my Earth Magic. If the Goddess wanted you she’d still be blessing you, and not me. But the energy has stopped coming to you and now you’re finished.’
Magus watched the boy in bemusement. Yul had blossomed; metamorphosed from a simple Village boy into a powerful young magician. As Magus had seen yesterday in the Galleried Hall, his son was no push-over.
‘Yul, you have no concept of what it is to be magus of Stonewylde. It’s more than just standing on a rock as the sun rises and feeling a tingle in your fingertips. It’s about leadership of the people, stewardship of the land, guardianship of the magic. Yes, I’ll grant you, the Goddess loves you and you’ve been abundantly blessed with the magic, but that’s not enough on its own to make you magus.’
Yul shrugged and Magus gesticulated impatiently.
‘Listen to me, Yul! You need wisdom and experience. You can’t even read and write and you haven’t the remotest idea how much organisation and paperwork’s involved in running this place. You must’ve heard tales of how bad it was in the days of my father, my uncle and their father too, when Stonewylde was falling apart and the people were starving. That was due to poor management and lack of organisation and I’ve spent my life putting that right. I’m very good at it now and I have a wealth of experience and knowledge. I’m also a very rich man, thanks to my business interests in London, and I use much of my personal wealth to subsidise the community. How could you do all this? You wouldn’t know where to start – you don’t even know what money is! But together, Yul, we could run Stonewylde perfectly.’
Yul looked at his father and knew that what he said was true – he had no idea how to run Stonewylde. But he also knew this was a man unable to compromise, a man who’d allowed his darkness of spirit to overrule his sense of decency and morality, and certainly a man who couldn’t be trusted, however honeyed his words now. Yul shook his head.