The Circle of Stone: The Darkest Age

by A. J. Lake

  Before midday they came to a wall: roughly made earthworks as high as a man, extending over the fields to each side of the road.

  ‘I know of this place,’ Cathbar said. ‘King Harald had it built for protection against the Saxons, and lately against the Franks.’

  When they reached the barrier it was not guarded. The heavy wooden gate fixed across the road was swinging open, and there was not a man in sight.

  ‘Strange times,’ Cathbar said uneasily.

  When the sun finally emerged from the clouds, they were passing a cart at the side of the road, the donkey cropping grass while the driver sat nearby, propped against one of the wheels. He was so still that Edmund was seized with dread, remembering the pedlar Menobert, murdered at the roadside. But the carter stirred as they approached and nodded to them. Just taking a rest in the sun. For a moment Edmund almost envied the man, scrawny and ragged though he was. What must it be like to have nothing to think about but the next meal?

  The road was bordered by hedges now, with a few trees dotting the fields behind them. Edmund heard Eolande give a small gasp, and followed her gaze to see another roadside shrine, almost hidden by hawthorn and brambles. For a wonder, it had escaped destruction by the worshippers of the Burning Man, perhaps thanks to its thorny veil. Edmund looked closer at the little goddess who smiled out from between the thorns – and stared.

  It’s Branwen! he thought, astonished. Or another just like her. His mother’s namesake, the goddess who ruled over water and the sending of messages. The same flowing hair, the same broad-winged bird hovering above her.

  ‘Stop a moment,’ he said.

  He had no wine for a libation; not even beer, but he took the last of his father’s wheat bread from his pack and crumbled it before the feet of the little image. Heored had never been greatly concerned with honouring the gods – he had always preferred to trust to his own strength and the loyalty of his men. Still, Edmund sent a brief, silent prayer to any power that might be listening for his father’s soul, and for his men’s safe journey over the sea to Sussex.

  And keep my mother well, he finished, as he touched the statue’s feet. Keep her in good comfort until I return to her.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  It was a man’s voice, sharp and commanding. Edmund spun round to see a group of nine or ten: all burly, all in thick furs, and armed with clubs and axes.

  ‘Looks like we missed one!’ their leader declared, his gaze flicking from Edmund to the shrine. ‘Stay where you are, idol-worshippers! We’ll show you the power of the one true god!’ He pushed past Edmund and raised his axe above the little image.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Edmund grabbed at the handle of the axe, deflecting the man’s aim so that it carved a swathe through the hedge and stuck fast in the woody stems beneath it. The man tugged ineffectually at it, shooting a murderous look at Edmund. Then he turned to his men.

  ‘Take them!’ he ordered.

  Edmund drew his sword. Cathbar was already at his side, his weapon in his hand, and Eolande had raised her arms, muttering the beginning of a charm. But their backs were to the hedge, and the men had surrounded them, brandishing their long-handled axes. They grinned as they advanced.

  There was a terrified braying behind the attackers. A moment later the men scattered as a wild-eyed donkey burst through their ranks, the cart it drew careering behind it. The beast swerved crazily as it reached Edmund, and juddered to a halt that sent the cart skittering sideways, knocking several of the attackers off their feet. A man yelled down to them from the donkey’s back; it was the skinny carter they had passed a while before.

  ‘Climb on the cart! Quick!’

  The frightened donkey’s hooves kept the men at bay while they scrambled up. Cathbar lifted Eolande bodily and landed her in the cart with little grace. The Fay woman said nothing. They huddled together, Edmund and Cathbar slashing at any of the bandits who came too close, as the driver urged his mount into another wild turn and sent him galloping down the road.

  Edmund clung to the back of the cart, slammed against the wood with every jolt, while the yelling men pounded after them. One hurled his club to the ground and started to throw stones; Edmund ducked as a pair whirred past his ear. He twisted round to see the road ahead, willing their cart to go faster. The donkey was running flat out, its ears laid back. The driver crouched over its neck. When Edmund looked back, more of the pursuers had fallen behind. Soon, only the leader was still in view: a small, furious figure with fists raised. His shouts followed them down the road.

  ‘You! Carter! I’ll know you again. You’re a dead man!’

  The carter gave no sign that he had heard. Half a league further on, he let the donkey slow and stumble to a halt; then he climbed stiffly down and patted the beast’s steaming side.

  ‘We’re not built for that kind of travel, are we, Longears?’ he said wryly. His voice was deep, with a trace of accent that Edmund found familiar.

  Cathbar jumped down from the cart, and came to shake the man’s hand. ‘We owe you a debt,’ he said. ‘A double one if we’ve brought trouble on you from those men.’

  The carter shrugged. ‘They’ll have forgotten me long before I come this way again. It would have been the business of any decent man to stop them.’

  ‘Well, we’re grateful that you did,’ Cathbar said. ‘And if you’re not overtired of our company, Master Carter, would you consider taking us further down the road? We’ll pay you well.’ He had taken out his silver-pouch as he spoke.

  ‘Keep your money,’ the carter said. ‘I’d welcome your company. I’ll be stopping to give this brave fellow a drink –’ he slapped the donkey’s side again – ‘and after that we head south-east, to the coast.’

  Edmund felt hope flare inside him. Perhaps the goddess Branwen had heard him after all. The carter would take them straight to where they wanted to go. Where they could wait for Elspeth, find a ship, and sail for home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was quiet when Elspeth woke. She gazed up at a pale-grey sky, fringed with leaves. Someone was sitting beside her, perfectly still. She tried to raise herself and gasped as pain flared in her hands – not the agony of the sword, but a savage pain that snatched the breath from her.

  Cluaran bent over her. ‘How is your hand?’

  He did not say ‘hands’, Elspeth thought. It would be Ioneth who truly concerned him. She looked down. Below her wrists, her hands were an angry red and mottled with blisters. Her right hand curled on itself like a singed spider, and when she tried to open the fingers the pain made her cry out. Another cry sounded in her head at the same instant.

  Cluaran was watching her, his expression almost pleading.

  ‘She’s still alive,’ Elspeth said. ‘The fire hurt her, but she’s still with me: I can hear her.’

  Cluaran turned his face away. ‘We must leave as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Can you walk?’

  Elspeth was so tired, she thought she could sleep for a moon. But she remembered what Cluaran had said about Loki coming to find her – to kill her – and she knew the time for rest would not come for a while. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  Cluaran looked down at her, and his face was expressionless once more. ‘We’re going to my other people,’ he said. ‘To the land of the Fay.’

  Elspeth stared at him in dismay. ‘No! I have to stay here. If Loki comes after me, I need to be ready for him.’

  Cluaran shook his head. ‘We have no choice. It is our only chance of healing your wounds.’

  ‘It’s Ioneth, isn’t it? You are doing this for her, not me! Well, it’s me Loki wants to kill. Ioneth is dead already!’ Elspeth stopped, panting and aghast at the anguish that pounded behind Cluaran’s eyes.

  ‘To us, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But she lives on in the sword. And that is our only hope of defeating the demon-god.’

  He helped Elspeth to her feet, holding her tightly when she swayed and nearly fell down again. The fire in her hands fille
d her ears and hands, and she had to wait for it to clear before she could see where they were. They were standing in the stone circle, starkly grey in the blackened forest. The sky was bright above them; it must be close to midday, although the sun was hidden behind clouds. Or maybe smoke.

  Cluaran released Elspeth and stepped away from her. He raised his arms above his head, his fingers coming together in a pinching movement as if pulling something towards him. He held still for a moment, then moved his hands apart, bringing them down in a wide arch around his body. A faint line of light followed as he bent to touch the ground. The air within the arch shimmered like the skin on still water. The trees on the other side suddenly looked further away. Then the air seemed to thicken, and the arch was filled with a pearly haze, shot with soft colours like the gleams inside an oyster shell.

  Cluaran straightened and turned to Elspeth, taking her arm. ‘Keep close beside me. Stay on the path, and speak to no one, unless I speak first. Are you ready?’

  Elspeth nodded, and they stepped through the arch.

  The haze enveloped them. Elspeth couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet, and for a moment she flailed in panic. But Cluaran’s hand was firm on her arm. ‘Keep to the path,’ he said softly, and she moved one foot forward, then the other, as the pearly light flowed around her. A few paces further she thought she could make out a path ahead, grassy and lined with taller growing things that faded into the haze. The path was faint and bleached of colour, as if seen by moonlight or through mist, and she still could not feel it beneath her feet, though Cluaran drew her along it steadily, till Elspeth thought they had been walking for ever. There was a roaring like wind in her ears, but when the minstrel spoke his words seemed to drop into a huge silence.

  ‘We’re here.’

  Colour and sound returned as if she had surfaced from underwater, and Elspeth blinked, shaking her head to clear it. She could hear birdsong again, and the sound of her footsteps. They were walking down a forest track, through trees that were smaller and wider-spaced than the ones they had left. There was a soft, pale light, gold-tinted like dawn or evening. There was no sun visible through the trees, and none of the long shadows of evening; no shadows at all that Elspeth could see. She wondered how long they had been walking – and with the thought, her legs buckled and pain surged back into her arms.

  ‘Steady,’ Cluaran said as she staggered against him. ‘You can rest soon, I promise.’

  They emerged from the trees into a meadow full of summer flowers and loud with the sound of water. A stream ran through it, widening to a pool at the far side. A tall, slender figure in a green dress was walking towards them across the grass.

  ‘Cluaran!’ she cried, and ran to embrace him, talking rapidly in a language like birdsong and falling water, and the wind in leaf-heavy trees.

  Cluaran replied, indicating Elspeth. The young woman turned to her, but without looking at her face or giving any greeting. Instead she took both Elspeth’s hands in her own and bent over them. Elspeth winced, but the woman’s touch was cool and gentle as she ran her finger over the blistered skin.

  After a moment she released Elspeth’s hands and said something to Cluaran. She was pointing to the stream that ran nearby: Elspeth thought the gesture included her, and turned to Cluaran for a translation.

  ‘You can talk to her, Roslyn,’ he said. ‘In her own tongue.’

  The woman’s face stiffened, but she looked Elspeth in the eyes for the first time. She had a long, narrow face, not unlike Eolande’s. Her eyes were clear, the colour of water over pebbles, and her skin had a faint greenish tint as if it reflected the grass. ‘Follow me,’ she said. She led them across the meadow to the pool. ‘Cool your hands in the water, child,’ she urged. Elspeth could still hear the murmur of leaves in her voice, like an accent beneath the words.

  Elspeth knelt by the water’s edge. The water was clear to the stones at the bottom, rippling with the pattern of the clouds above. She told herself that Cluaran obviously knew the Fay woman well, trusted her to help. She leant over and let her burned hands slip through the skin of the pool. At once, she felt icy fingers stroke her, clutching at her scorched skin until she couldn’t pull away if she wanted to. For a moment she thought of the tortured water spirits beneath the frozen lake in the Snowlands. But this was different: she didn’t want to take her hands away. Instead, she wanted nothing more than to kneel beside the pool for ever with her hands clasped by the water.

  A hand rested on her shoulder. Elspeth looked up and saw Cluaran, outlined in gold against the sky. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, and the gentleness in his voice showed he knew how much Elspeth wanted to stay.

  Reluctantly, she sat back on her heels. Her hands slipped free of the water with a shower of droplets, a tiny rainbow captured in each one. The pain had gone; she felt as if she were wearing gauntlets of coolest silk, or grass woven soft against her skin.

  Behind her she could hear Cluaran in animated discussion with the woman, Roslyn.

  ‘Use only words she can hear,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep no secrets from her now.’

  ‘But she’s not . . .’ Roslyn’s voice was shocked, and she lapsed into her own tongue again. Cluaran interrupted her.

  ‘Neither was my father! But you played with him as a child, so I was told.’

  Elspeth looked up, startled. Roslyn seemed barely older than herself, and far younger than Cluaran, with her brown curls and clear eyes. The Fay woman nodded, her face suddenly stricken. ‘I miss Brokk, too,’ she murmured. ‘Your mother’s loss is shared by more than she knows.’

  Cluaran’s voice was gentler now. ‘I already owe Elspeth a debt, Roslyn. If she succeeds in her task, our people will owe her even more. I’d have my own kin honour that debt, even if no one else here does.’

  There was a long silence. Elspeth heard a soft footfall behind her, then Roslyn knelt beside her, holding a wooden bowl filled with water and strips of moss.

  She gave Elspeth a cautious smile. ‘Give me your hands, and I’ll try this remedy.’ She wrapped Elspeth’s hands in the damp moss, and bound them with threads as fine as spidersilk. As she worked, she and Cluaran talked, but in Elspeth’s language now. ‘And so I’ve seen Eolande again,’ Roslyn said, smiling a little sadly, Elspeth thought. ‘Cluaran – can you not persuade her to come back to us?’

  The minstrel looked grave. ‘It would be best for her,’ he said. ‘But too much has happened.’

  Roslyn sighed. ‘When you see her again, say that her sister misses her.’

  Elspeth’s hands felt wrapped in countless layers of cool and softness, and she let herself slip into drowsiness. As her eyes closed, she thought she could hear Ioneth’s voice again: calmer this time, murmuring words that she could not make out.

  She awoke to find that someone had moved her further from the pool, and laid her head on a folded cloak. The golden light was the same as it had been when she fell asleep, and the sky was still blue; she raised her head and looked in vain for the sun.

  The Fay woman bent over her, smiling. ‘You’ve slept a long time,’ she said. ‘See how your hands have healed.’

  The moss had gone, and they were covered in some greenish salve now. Under it the skin of both palms was still red and sore, but the blisters had gone, and her right hand had lost its rigid claw-look. She flexed it: there was no burning pain; just a deep throbbing. Was that Ioneth’s voice in her head again, whispering a greeting?

  Cluaran had come up and knelt beside her. He smiled, as Roslyn did, but there was a new tension in him.

  ‘How long have I been asleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Two days, as we measure time here,’ Cluaran said. ‘As the world outside goes, much longer.’

  ‘How much longer?’ Elspeth tried to get up, but her limbs were too stiff. She pushed herself clumsily to her knees. ‘We must go, Cluaran! Edmund and the others will be waiting for us at the coast.’

  Cluaran shook his head. ‘I told Eolande to wait no longer than three days. They’l
l have gone by now.’

  Elspeth stared at him in horror. ‘You told them to leave without us?’

  ‘I had to.’ Cluaran’s face was so grave that Elspeth fell silent. ‘Elspeth – the most important thing was for you to heal fully. In this land you are hidden from him. As soon as you cross the boundary, he’ll come after you. Would you really choose to meet him before you could use your hands?’

  ‘But how will we find them again?’ Elspeth tried to keep the tears from her voice.

  ‘Eolande and I have fixed a meeting place in Wessex,’ Cluaran said.

  ‘How will we get there?’

  ‘You said no secrets, Cluaran.’ Roslyn’s voice held an edge of reproach, and she placed a hand on Elspeth’s shoulder. ‘If you’re sending this child to fight the Burning One, should she not know all your plan first?’

  ‘I’m not sending her!’ Cluaran snapped. ‘And you don’t know the dangers we face – neither of you do. Outside our boundaries, Loki could have heard anything I told her. He could take any form, or make any creature his spy. Out there, nothing we say is safe from him. Even this land won’t keep him out for ever.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Roslyn exclaimed. ‘He couldn’t come here – no gate would open for him!’

  ‘And that would stop him, you think, if he had his full power?’ Cluaran’s voice was scornful. ‘Let him free himself of that last chain, Roslyn, and he’ll need no gate. He’ll break through the wall like bursting a bubble.’

  Roslyn’s face was white. ‘But how can Elspeth fight him?’ she whispered.

  ‘There is a place in Wessex, a stone circle of great age, so ancient that men have long forgotten the time of its first building.’ He looked at Elspeth. ‘Your people call it the place of the Hanging Stones. It’s been turned to the worship of a dozen gods – but Loki was never one of them. If any place can block his power, it’s there.’