Will gritted his teeth, gasping for breath as they crowded round with horror in their faces. As they lifted him up the helplessness of his situation assailed him. His arm lolled free on parted flesh, the opening bleeding in spurts now as he tried to nurse it hard to his side. They rushed him into the hall and dumped him down on the floor. He was sharply aware of the rattle of his own breathing and the lord’s servants gathering in awe at the sight of a mound of earth and a strange, marked stone standing upright in a hole where the master’s beautiful floor had been.
Some of the servants muttered oaths, others put their hands over their eyes in a gesture taught by the Sightless Ones.
At least Gwydion has got away, Will thought. He knew he was about to faint. He knew he was about to die, but he was unable to do anything to hasten or prevent either. He just waited for the pain to begin, but it would not begin and he started to tremble violently.
‘Treasure hunting is it?’ the baron said in a rage-filled yet distant voice. ‘And in my house? That was a bad idea.’
Will’s eyes rolled as he tried to follow the baron’s walk around the stone. The blood that filled his hand was dark as wine and sticky as honey. He could feel the stone laughing at him, and he felt suddenly very cold.
‘Well, you’ll pay the full price for your thievery! We have a short way with the likes of you! Ready the victual cart!’ He turned on Will again. ‘What’s this…a stone?’
Will tried to reply. He felt a big hand slap his face, squeeze his jaw so that his mouth was forced open.
‘I asked you a question, thief!’
Despite everything Will felt a strange kind of peace settling over him. It was as if he had already begun to move beyond the warmth of the world. Yet something inside him fought against the snowflakes of peace that fell all around him. Master Gwydion! a part of his mind cried out suddenly in terror and desperation. Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here to die!
His pale lips must have moved.
‘What’s that, thief?’ the angry voice began again. ‘What did you say?’
There was no answer to Will’s silent plea, and as the world closed around him he was only just aware of the baron’s rough voice issuing orders, of the stone being taken out and loaded onto a cart, and himself being lifted on top of it and bound to it with ropes that pinched off the flow of blood.
He sensed the starkness of the servants’ terror, but they did as they were told. The stone seemed oddly warm under his back. He lay drawing his last shallow breaths as a halter was put around his neck and drawn tight. Blood caked his fingers as he flexed them. The cart shook and creaked as the baron got up to drive it forward.
‘My lord, where are you going?’ an anxious voice cried.
Through drooping eyelids Will saw the bald man who had first warned them away from the manor, who had given them stale bread and hard cheese.
‘Where to, my lord?’
‘To the lake, Gryth! To do as you should have done, craven, witless scum! I’m going to tip this thief and his booty both into deep water.’
‘My lord, he’s not dead!’
The baron’s laugh brayed out. ‘He’ll not live long!’
‘My lord, you must not kill him!’
The baron threw off his servant’s hand and roared at him, ‘Must not? Must not? What words are these from a man to his master?’
‘But that would be murder!’
‘And who is to witness this murder? The churl came here of his own free will. He has made a thief of himself. He will get only what is coming to him.’
With that he whipped the horse’s quarters and made her pull. Will’s body shook as four iron-shod wheels ground over the uneven stones of the yard. Still the bald man came after them.
‘Have a care, my lord! Old Aeborn says the thief had an accomplice!’
‘Let him interfere with me if he dares! Hyah!’
The cart clattered and shook as the baron goaded the horse to greater speed. Will stared groggily up at the broad back of the baron. His surcoat was redder than blood and the rings embroidered upon it in fine gold thread sparkled even in the pale dawn light. As Will lay bound and huddled on the stone, the warmth of it seemed to suffuse him still deeper, lulling him towards final sleep. The strength was fast leaving him now, and he began to see strange phantasms floating before his eyes as if he was close to death.
So this is what it’s like, he thought, letting the dark close over his sight. How wrong Gwydion was all along about me being a reborn king. How strange that when I kissed Willow I did not know it would be for the last time. How can something as important as that happen without a person knowing? How I wish she were here with me now. At least there is Bethe to show that I didn’t live my life in vain…
He forced open his eyes to take one last look at the beauty of the world, but all he saw was the baron’s broad back. The phantasms swam all around and he doubted his sight, for what he was seeing now was a strange vision indeed. The mail collar around the baron’s neck was unknitting itself one ring at a time, and the rings were falling away like apple blossom. And when the baron looked back, he was smiling and a beard was sprouting from his youthful face, which itself was slowly lengthening and turning older and kinder. And now the baron’s hair was going from black to brown and from brown to grey, and his surcoat of velvet was fading and coarsening into a plain wayfarer’s cloak of mouse-brown. And when Will looked down he saw that his half-severed arm was whole once more. There was no blood soaking his shirt and there never had been.
‘Aagh!’ Will said, looking at his arm and flexing his hand in astonishment. ‘I’m alive! I’m – aaaagh!’
‘Take that halter off your neck before you turn blue.’
‘What have you done to me?’ Will cried, tearing off the ropes and springing to his feet.
‘The power of seeing,’ Gwydion said pleasantly. ‘It must be a disorientating discovery to find yourself in rude good health. I do not doubt that it is a most welcome one.’
‘Aagh!’
‘A simple spell of seeming. That is all.’
Will blinked and gasped, his heart bursting. He sat down astride the stone, careless of it now. All around him the world was bursting with birdsong and vivid colour. After a long time he asked, ‘Gwydion, how could you have done that to me?’
The wizard looked over his shoulder, his face calm. ‘You had to play your part. And that you did admirably.’
‘But I…I thought I was dying…’ There was a hint of reproach in Will’s voice now. ‘I…I thought…’
‘And so did everyone else.’
‘Gwydion, you betrayed my trust.’
‘Oh? And would you rather I had left you behind?’
He turned away.
‘I must say, your skill with a curtain pole is impressive, my young friend. But I fear your action was hasty for it only brought the whole household down upon us.’
‘They were coming anyway. It was your fault if it was anyone’s.’
‘Absurd. In future you must use your wits a little longer before you resort to kicking and screaming. That is generally a good rule to bear in mind.’
Will stared around him. Still his lungs wanted to drink in the dew-moist air. His eyes wanted to feast themselves on the sight of great oak trees dark against the morning mists and the great violet dome of the sky as the last stars winked out.
‘I thought I was dying.’
Gwydion chuckled. ‘What were you thinking of, carrying off the old man like that?’
‘I was trying to save your neck!’
‘Were you, indeed?’
He climbed up beside the wizard, relief bubbling uppermost in the stew of emotions that churned inside him. ‘I thought you told me you should never do magic so close to a battlestone.’
‘Unnecessarily, is what I said. Seeming magic is not high magic, indeed it is little higher than conjuring or the art of subtle oratory. If you tell scared minds what must be believed, then fear will often work the trick. What yo
u want to be believed will be believed without question. One man alone saw through the sham, but he dared say nothing, for all the rest were behaving as if things were otherwise. It is an important rede of magic that most men can easily be made to doubt their own judgment, and judgment is not far from sanity.’
Will looked behind him, into the bed of the cart where the battlestone brooded. It was still covered with dirt, but the dirt had dried in pale patches. ‘It’s warm,’ he said. ‘Warm and getting warmer. I don’t know what holding spells you’ve put on it, but it seems to be fighting back wildly now.’
‘Then it is to be hoped that we took it out of its grave in good time.’
‘Where are we taking it? Ludford can’t be far from here.’
‘Ludford is ten leagues to the west.’ Gwydion turned, sensing some new resolve in Will. ‘Do you think I should make a gift of it to Richard of Ebor?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘Hmmm. Nor do I.’
Will recalled the murderous and suicidal feelings that had overwhelmed his mind when he had been at Ludford before. ‘Now I think back on it, another battlestone certainly seemed to me to be buried close by. Its power was very strong, though its music was confused.’
‘We should not risk bringing this one towards it, in case both their powers are strengthened.’
Will rubbed at his arm, still unable fully to believe he had been saved. ‘So where shall we take it?’
‘In time, I hope, to the city of Caster on the Gut of Dee, and thence by ship to the Blessed Isle.’
He looked at Gwydion critically. ‘But only when you’ve found a way to take it safely over the water, I trust?’
The wizard’s chin jutted. ‘That is a problem which presently remains to be solved, I will admit.’
‘And what’s to be done with it until then?’
Gwydion turned to look behind. ‘I hope that we are many leagues away from here by the time Lord Clifton returns home, for when he does, he will learn an impossible tale from his servants. Then he will surely try to follow us, if only to find out what he has lost from under his hall and who might be wearing his semblance.’
‘Gwydion,’ Will sighed. ‘You haven’t answered my question. What’s to be done with the stone in the meanwhile?’
The wizard nodded shortly. ‘I know a place twenty and more leagues to the north of here where no mortal dares to go.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FLIES
The mists of dawn had slowly lifted and thinned, but whereas a blue sky had promised a sunny morning, high clouds had later rolled in from the west and the day had come on dull. Will yawned; he was very tired. He wanted to sleep but did not like the idea of making his bed beside the stone. The rough plank on which he sat afforded him little comfort. Besides, every time he so much as shut his eyes the horrors of the previous night made his heart beat so fast that he had to open them again.
After they crossed over the Saltwarp the road passed through dark elm forests that clothed a hilly land. Often they had to climb down from the cart and help their horse up the slope.
As Will pushed at the tail of the cart he asked about the ogham verse that had appeared on the stone.
‘Did you read it?’
‘I did.’ Gwydion volunteered no more. He seemed watchful and expectant as he walked alongside the cart.
‘Well, won’t you tell me what it says?’ When Gwydion made no answer he added, ‘Don’t you think I’d better know?’
‘Why not try to read it for yourself?’
‘How can I see the underside without turning it over?’
Gwydion sucked his teeth. ‘What do you think it says?’
‘Something about Lugh and a lofty palace. But on the other edge was nonsense: the false word of a king, or the word of a false king, or some such.’
‘So much for your studies.’
‘The true tongue isn’t easy to learn when there’s no one else around who speaks it. I did my best,’ he said, knowing that was not wholly true. Then he added, ‘Well, more or less.’
‘Your best was all that was asked,’ Gwydion said. ‘More or less.’
The wizard cleared his throat and said in the true tongue:
‘Lughna iathan etrog a marragh-tor,
Amhainme feacail an eithichier do righ
Ora fuadaighim na beidbe all uscor,
En morh eiar e taier fa deartigh.’
‘Lughna iathan etrog a marragh-tor,’ Will repeated, bending his mind to the problem. ‘By Lord Lugh’s waterfall—’
‘Ford.’
‘—sorry, ford. Beneath the tall palace, no, er…tower? By the false word of a king—’
‘Amhainme feacail an eithichier do righ: by his word alone, a false king.’
‘Ora fuadaighim na beidbe all uscor: shall ride his adversary under water. Oh, this makes no sense at all!’
‘Shall drive his enemy the waters over!’
‘En morh eiar e taier fa deartigh: and the home of masters they shall come into…the west?’
‘Nearly. And the Lord of the West shall come home.’
‘Um. What do you think it means?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?
‘Beside Lugh’s ford and the risen tower,
By his word alone, a false king
Shall drive his enemy the waters over,
And the Lord of the West shall come home.’
‘Ah! Lugh’s ford. That’s surely Ludford!’
Gwydion sniffed. ‘No great mind was needed to work that out, though this verse was made before ever King Ludd reigned. That is certainly true, and therefore remarkable in itself.’
Will stopped pushing at the cart and looked askance. ‘And the “risen tower” must be Ludford Castle, which the verse foretells shall fall.’
‘And?’
‘And…could the false king be the usurper’s grandson? King Hal?’
‘We might suppose so.’
‘But then, who is the Lord of the West? Some Prince of Cambray?’
‘I would say it refers to the Lord Lieutenantship of the Blessed Isle. It is a false rank which the kings of this Realm have chosen to create.’
‘Duke Richard, then,’ Will said, knowing that the duke had once held the office of Lord Lieutenant. ‘But that means the prediction is that a simple show of strength on King Hal’s part will be sufficient to make Ludford Castle fall, and to drive Duke Richard across the sea into the west.’
‘If your reading and mine are correct, that is precisely what it means.’
Will helped to heave the cart over a deep rut, wanting to know what clue the stone’s verse had given on the whereabouts of the next stone. He asked, ‘What about when you cross-read the ogham?’
‘Then the verse ran thus – and this time I think it better if I do not trouble you with such tiresome matters as translation:
‘Lord Lugh alone shall have the triumph,
At the western river crossing, word of an enemy
Comes falsely by the raised water,
While, at home, the king watches over his tower.’
Will frowned. ‘Meaning…what?’
‘In this case, Willand, your guess might easily prove to be the equal of my own.’
‘Then guesses will have to do. What are yours?’
‘Only the beginning is clear to me: that Lugh, Lord of Light, shall be the only victor – that is an ancient form of words, an idiom which I had all but forgotten: it means that an outcome is not to be known beforehand, that the matter is safely beyond soothsayers and seers. I do not know the place that is meant by “the western river crossing”. Perhaps it is a bridge across the River Ludd, or else the Theam. Or it may mean another river entirely. The rest of the verse is truly impenetrable.’
‘Could the last line be about King Hal remaining in Trinovant? Being unwilling – or unable – to ride with his army and confront Duke Richard as his queen wishes?’
‘Or perhaps it talks of Richard, sitting in Ludford Castle, deliberating
upon what must be done.’
Will stopped pushing and, as Gwydion took the reins once more, he climbed back up onto the cart and drew a sleeve across his sweat-spangled forehead. He looked again at the stone. It was hard to believe that these works of ultimate harm had been created with a peaceful purpose in mind. Everything, as the Second Rede of Advantages said, had a greater price in the long run.
‘I’m going ahead to see if I can’t scry some more,’ he said suddenly, jumping down. It was pleasant to walk among the wayside grasses. Here the cat’s tails were still in flower and their long plumes waved at him, dusting his feet with pollen. He took his hazel wand out of his belt and made a show of divining, but as soon as he was far enough ahead of the cart he sat down and his fingers sought out the little red fish in his pouch.
He drew it out secretly and felt how it prickled his fingertips. Whereas his own green fish had always given him comfort, this one did not. It seemed as if some power was trying to enter him from the fish, or that the fish wanted to suck something from him like a lamprey sucked blood. It was an odd sensation. There was too much of a mystery here, too many questions unanswered, but when he thought about putting a few of them to Gwydion, his spirit shied away. He put the fish back in his pouch before the cart rumbled by and, feeling thwarted, turned his attention to the battlestone instead.
He got up and walked behind the cart for a while, and the stone stared back at him balefully. As for you, he told it silently, you’ve taken me away from my wife and child. And you’d do as much for everyone else in the Realm if we let you. That’s why I’ll see you emptied of all you contain – if I can.
As the cart passed under the shade of tall elms the ridges of ogham along its edges seemed to waver like the ripple that passes down the legs of a centipede. It seemed for a moment as if it was trying to crawl out of the cart.
You don’t like that idea, do you? he asked the stone silently as he climbed up beside it. No, you don’t.
‘What are you doing so quietly back there?’ Gwydion asked.
‘I’m trying to see if it’s got any other marks on it.’
‘Well?’ Gwydion said after a moment, this time looking over his shoulder. ‘Does it?’
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