The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  They had already seen a regal-looking tent set up on the banks of the river, and far to the rear of the army. The queen had doubtless sent him there to wait, attended by two burly servants, while the battle was decided. Three horses were saddled and tethered nearby.

  Will took a drink from the water flask, passed it to Willow and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘We’ll meet here again as soon after the noontide as we can. Or if we should miss one another, this is where I’ll come back to.’

  His mind had begun to flash with horrible visions – the carnage of Blow Heath, images of Willow cradling her father’s bloody body after the clash at Verlamion. The stone’s emanations were seeping into him, and his voice faltered, ‘I hope we can stop this. All these men are looking to us…’

  She gazed into his eyes. ‘Save their lives, Will. They don’t deserve to die.’

  ‘They never do.’

  He let out a long breath, and gave her Morann’s blade. ‘Look after this for Morann. It kills or it doesn’t cut at all. I’ll have no use for its peculiarities today.’

  ‘I love you, Will.’

  ‘And I love you.’

  They held one another close for a long moment, then, when he was sure he could delay no longer, he kissed her and told her to be mindful of her safety and never stop believing she would see Bethe again. Then she set off through the bright sunshine. Once she had passed out of sight he forced a frosty calm to settle over his mind and tried to listen to his inner promptings, then he began to order his thoughts and started to work out a plan.

  They had found the Dragon Stone at Nadderstone. It had drawn its power from the Indonen lign. The Blow Stone, too, had stood on only one lign – Caorthan – and the King’s Stone battlestone on one lign, that called Eburos. The Harle Stone, too, had been on one lign, Mulart, the lign of the elder tree. The Plaguestone, however, had stood where two ligns crossed, Mulart and Bethe. And so had the Blood Stone – Bethe and Caorthan, and also the stones at Arebury and Tysoe – Indonen and Tanne, and Indonen and Caorthan, respectively. Lastly, the mighty Verlamion Doomstone had stood upon three ligns – Caorthan, Celin and Mulart.

  Will closed his eyes and tried to make sense of it all, but the names swam before his eyes and he could not picture the arrangement, or even see how such knowledge might help him. But then he thought of the ked, and the Great Book of the Realm of which the creature had spoken. And that made him think about the night when he had lain in sweating torment as his mind’s eye had risen up and looked down over the lands around Ludford as if from above…

  That was it!

  Was there not a way of picturing the whole Realm, picturing it as if he was looking down on it from a great height? Making a plan that showed every coast, every hill and every river – every village, every road…and every lign!

  What if such a picture could be drawn? Surely then every lign would be shown in its proper place. And the nine ligns that made up the lorc would be shown as straight lines, just as straight as they actually were. And so where these straight lines ran and crossed would show the places where the real battlestones lay. Find the underlying pattern and you could find every one of them!

  The idea was exciting, and too important to let go. But how could such a picture of the ground be made? There was no art that could show the world in small size. There was no clue as to how such a thing might be accomplished – except perhaps by the use of magic.

  ‘Oh, Gwydion,’ he murmured. ‘I have so much to tell you when next we meet.’

  But he knew that before they could meet again the next battlestone would have to be thwarted. He would open his mind at noon to see if there was any hint of the lign. Whenever he had found the Indonen lign before, it had run broadly east and west, and since ligns always ran straight, it would have to run in the same direction here. But where exactly was it? Did it go through the place where the earthworks had been heaped up, and through the fields that the king’s captains had sought to make a killing ground? That seemed likely. And if it was true, then the Indonen lign must also run through Delamprey’s field of death. That meadow, with its strange tombstones, was now a soldiers’ camp, filled with many hundreds of colourful tents. He peered across the field where the battle would have to take place. He tried to foresee how the royal forces would be drawn up, considering in turn each of the lords who might command the fight. The centre would almost certainly be led by Duke Henry, and the king’s right by Duke Humphrey of Rockingham. But who would take charge of the king’s left?

  Will opened his mind cautiously again, but he could sense nothing. The battlestone was behaving stealthily, guarding itself. Even the power flowing in the lign had become hard to discern, like a fish moving in deep, murky water. He checked the sun. It was still rising higher in the south. This was still the forenoon – the best time for scrying would come soon. He undid the strings of his weaver’s cap, and tried to look a little more like one of the archers loitering nearby. He began to follow the long grass by a water course that ran near the lign. As he made his way, he opened his mind wider to sense the strangeness of the tombstones. They were mute – unnaturally so, given the magic that tainted them.

  He wondered again about Maskull, asking himself if the sorcerer had blanketed the ground with spells and spaes designed to deaden the lorc’s emanations.

  He went on a little way but no one approached, not even when he stopped in the shade of a big weeping willow. ‘Where best to hide a tree?’ he said to himself, then added, smiling, ‘In a forest, of course…’

  But which of the many stones was the culprit? There were hundreds of them, and hundreds of knights’ battle tents set up among them, too. It was impossible even to approach. He was considering risking a foray into the camp when his skin began to tingle. He crouched down.

  All his senses screamed that it was Duke Henry. He was riding at a gallop with half a dozen of his lieutenants, returning from the direction of the king’s tent. Will felt a sudden anxiety for Willow, and his fears deepened as he saw Henry turn down the path.

  Just as they drew abreast of Will’s tree, the duke lifted his arm and reined in his horse. Will pulled back into the cool green shade and flattened himself against the willow’s deeply riven bark. But not before he had seen what was in Duke Henry’s raised hand. It was a piece of polished wood, half a span long, almost like a club, except that the narrow end was roughly broken off and the knobble at the top sparkled with a pale sheen.

  Will knew it instantly – it was the top half of Gwydion’s staff.

  The shock made Will spin around and slide down between two tree roots. He crouched there among the moss for a moment, thinking hard. There could be only one explanation. Gwydion must have been taken. Or worse.

  Will could feel the dread rising in him, the sweat beading his face as the duke dismounted and began to beat about in the stinging nettles twenty paces away.

  ‘Look at it!’ he heard Henry say. ‘It’s telling me there’s danger here.’

  Will put his head down and kept very still, his mind opened as he concentrated on the glow that haloed the staff. A large bumble bee,’ threaded its way through the grass stalks near his head, distracting him and drowning out the talk. But then he caught, ‘Did you see that?’ and, ‘It’s gone out.’ Will raised his head a fraction and saw Henry shake the staff and crack it against a tree trunk. Another of the duke’s men spoke, then they all began to move away. Will could not hear what passed between them. A tense moment followed, before the duke remounted. He waved the staff around him briefly, and then they rode off.

  Will’s relief at not having been spotted drained guiltily into despair. The hopes he had cherished for so long had been dashed at a stroke. ‘“It’s hard to kill a wizard”,’ he quoted grimly.

  ‘For once, try to be honest with yourself!’ he hissed, being hard on himself. ‘You knew all along that he’d been taken! You knew it! You even had confirmation when the disguises began to fall away. Yet you wilfully ignored it all.’

/>   The despair that made him shiver stank like the black Charrel ooze that had tried to pull him down near Arebury, but once summoned, strength began to pool in him, and hope sprang up, a pure, shining stream of it, refreshing his spirit. ‘Fortune favoureth he who doth himself encourage.’ So said the rede.

  ‘Well, if I did know all along, then it’s served to cushion the bad news. And if Gwydion has been taken, then I’ll just have to take him back. They’ll soon find out they’ve bitten off more than they can chew!’

  The truth of the rede coursed through his veins and a bold plan started to come together. More craven minds would have called it recklessness, but there was a rede that said, ‘Desperate needs do desperate deeds require.’ And so he dared freely.

  He must not risk drawing Chlu down on himself here, but it seemed that the redes were pointing him towards what he must do next. He checked to left and right, came out from behind the willow’s green protection and began to walk purposefully towards the cloister.

  The buildings were grey and solemn, the shadows they cut from the summer sun cool. Hundreds of soldiers were moving hither and thither. He began to ask where Lord Dudlea might be found, and was quickly pointed to a cluster of tents that stood between the cloister and the river. Lord Dudlea’s pavilion was striped blue and white, its canopy decorated in red and gold with a line of little red martlet birds. Dudlea was inside, and at Will’s approach two guards sprang forward to bar his way.

  ‘Stand!’

  ‘My Lord of Dudlea!’ Will called past the men. ‘I bear a vital message!’

  Dudlea looked up from his papers and rose from the table all in one motion. He wore leg armour, a padded arming doublet and a blue velvet hat with a feathered plume. On his breast, above his heart, was pinned the badge of the white swan. His eyes were darkly ringed, his face drawn like one beset with relentless cares. His suspicions were roused. Confronted by a common soldier speaking so brazenly to a man of rank, he expected some trick.

  ‘Hold him!’

  The guards gripped Will’s arms expertly. He offered no resistance. ‘My lord…’

  ‘Who are you?’ Dudlea demanded, pulling his dagger and putting its tip to the vein that pulsed in Will’s neck.

  ‘Only a messenger.’

  ‘I won’t ask you again.’

  Pain knifed through his shoulder joints as the two guards did their duty. Though the agony contorted Will’s face, he met Dudlea’s eye steadily enough. ‘My lord, the message I carry is private.’ The pain came again. ‘It concerns your family!’

  Dudlea tried to hide his surprise. He seemed to Will suddenly to be like a condemned man who had been offered a miraculous reprieve but did not yet dare to believe it.

  ‘Speak!’

  Again the pain came. ‘My lord, call them off! I bear you no grievance. I bring only hope with me.’

  ‘Hope?’ Dudlea’s breath was sour in Will’s face. ‘What hope can there be for me and mine?’

  ‘If you want to see them restored to you—’ he glanced at the guards, ‘—we must speak privily.’

  Dudlea’s tormented eyes bored into him for a moment, then he signalled for Will’s release. He was searched, and found to be weaponless, save for a short hazel switch which they took from his belt. When the guards left, Dudlea let the flap of the tent down to indicate that he wanted no interruptions. He had recovered his composure, but his dagger was still gripped tightly in his right hand.

  ‘If this is some knavish trick—’

  Will said in a low voice, ‘Maskull put the spell on them. I tell you, it can be taken off again.’

  Dudlea tensed, still not daring to believe. ‘You can reverse it?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Will watched the fire that burned in Dudlea’s mind. ‘But first you must do something for me.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A man of magic.’

  Dudlea’s eyes sweated in their sockets. His knuckles were white on the handle of his dagger. ‘What do you know about me?’

  ‘More than you would like me to know.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Luckily for you, only a very small thing.’

  That triggered Dudlea’s anger. ‘Before you get a penny I must have proof!’

  ‘I don’t want your silver. There is a rede that speaks of the faith that flees from the proof of powers—’

  ‘I know naught concerning spells!’ Dudlea’s eyes cut away. He was trapped in a nightmare. ‘Without proof, I dare not cross Maskull.’

  A veil of fear was falling fast over Dudlea’s mind. Will decided he must gamble. ‘Show me where the Duke of Ebor’s wizard is held. Show him to me, and you’ll get your proof.’

  Dudlea recoiled. ‘The Old Crow? He’s in the queen’s care.’

  ‘I must get to him, or nothing more is possible.’ He risked pressing his advantage. ‘My Lord Dudlea, since your plot to murder the Duke of Ebor went astray, your own life has been in danger.’

  Dudlea took it like a hammer blow. ‘You…you know about that?’

  ‘That and more. Believe me when I tell you that the queen’s sorcerer is wholly unforgiving. Maskull does not think you have suffered enough yet for having failed him.’

  ‘He trusts me well enough. He’s appointed me commander of the king’s left in the coming fight.’

  ‘He thinks you’re too terrified to disobey. But he’ll never restore your wife and son to you, whatever you do for him. Only I can do that.’

  Dudlea stared at the table. His fear of the sorcerer contended visibly with his hopes. He threw back the flap of the tent and said, ‘Follow me.’

  As Dudlea took him across the path of the Indonen lign, Will felt all the hairs rise on his body. The lorc was running more strongly now, heading towards a mighty climax.

  A hundred billmen were unloading poleaxes at the front of the cloister. Once Dudlea had rounded the corner of the tower he motioned Will into a gateway that led into the smaller of the cloister’s two yards.

  ‘What about the red hands?’ Will said, alive now with warnings. ‘They’ll know we’ve broken their privacy if we pass the gate.’

  ‘It has been defiled often enough of late. When Queen Mag demands the use of a sequestering hall, not even an Elder dare gainsay her.’

  ‘But there are Fellows inside.’

  ‘Yes. And fifty bequines, dwelling under the rule of an Elder of the Middle Shires. Their burden is daily suffering – perfect silence, the rigours of the flesh. You know what the Iron Rule means.’

  ‘These bequines – they are not to be looked upon by outsiders.’

  ‘Then don’t look upon them! You wanted to be brought here.’

  Dudlea was testing Will’s reluctance to break the bounds of the cloister, using his fear to gauge the strength of his claims. Will saw that he must show no weakness. He shoved the gate open and entered.

  The yard smelled of death, a slaughter yard where tithe beasts were brought twice yearly to be killed. The college’s tall tower loomed over the yard. An acrid stink hung in the air, a smell that Will recognized. Blood channels were cut into the stone flagging. Iron flesh-hooks hung from beams above, and there were two great rendering cauldrons to boil up animal fat. Will heard the slow, muffled tolling of a handbell, but the yard was deserted.

  As he passed the base of a slit window he saw what lay within the cloister. Ghostly figures moved in a line among the shadows. Their left hands were on the shoulders of those who went before, their right hands carried tapers. Each woman was draped in a shapeless robe of plain pale grey, cinched at the waist by an iron chain. Their heads were crudely shaved and they wore iron masks on which the semblance of a face had been painted. Ahead of them walked a senior Fellow, eerily steering his way along the familiar cloister. In his hand was a bell, and every five paces he would shake a double clang from it.

  Dudlea pulled Will onward, beckoning him to move further along the wall. There, at the base of the tower, was a row of iron bars set into the ground. They co
vered a hole that afforded light and air to a noisome cellar below. When Will crept towards the hole the stink of ordure hit him. He saw a dismal scene. There, his hands chained around a slender stone pillar, stood Gwydion.

  Will stifled a gasp and moved back. He knew he must not alert the wizard. It seemed that Gwydion must have spent many days in captivity, for he was dirty and dishevelled, bloodied and bruised. Yet his spirit seemed unbowed, and that made Will’s heart leap for joy.

  The wizard had been trapped. Will saw the delicate golden fetters that looped his wrists and the fine gold chain that secured him to the pillar. The chain was clasped by a small golden lock, and Will knew that for all their delicacy, these works must be of tremendous strength to prevent a wizard’s magic.

  Those fetters must be the gift and weapon about which Maskull boasted to the queen, Will thought. No wonder our disguises fell away. And no wonder all of Gwydion’s holding magic has been decaying. How long has he been here?

  He wanted to call out, to let Gwydion know that help was near at hand, but Dudlea grabbed his collar and pulled him aside, furiously signalling him to silence, for crunching down the gravel pathway outside was the queen’s bodyguard.

  Through a gap in the big wooden gates Will saw the glint of their bright breastplates and helms. Above the wall he saw the tips of the fearsome poleaxes they carried. He felt himself being pulled down to his knees. Dudlea swept off his feathered hat and bowed low in an extravagant gesture as the queen came into view.

  The queen did not deign to notice them. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw the whiteness of her face, the pale skin of her neck revealed above a crimson gown. From a long chain depended a golden key that swung at her breast. She swept on, her armoured guard flanking her, heading into the darkness of the cloister. When she had passed from view, Will crept back to the foundations of the tower.

  Dudlea hissed. ‘You’ve seen the Old Crow! Now it’s time for you to honour the bargain. Give me proof of your promises or I’ll mark you as a liar and call Maskull down on your head!’