Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  The Wortmaster looked hurt. ‘Will, that’s not a nice thing to say after making such a pretty apology.’

  ‘I mean it. Why don’t you?’

  ‘Because you might need all of what’s left. And it’s too late to go back for more, heh?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Will took the stone chip.

  Gort scratched at his beard. ‘There. Put it in your pouch. You better keep it now. Take it daily, or at need. Or not at all if you so decide.’

  They stayed in hiding, not daring to risk themselves until the dawn of the third day when a freezing fog rolled down from Caldordale. They came out into the mists and struggled onward. When they found the road, they saw that it had been churned to mud, and in among the mess Lotan found a foot-print that was much larger than any man’s. It was indistinct, and though Gwydion dismissed it with a specious remark, the sight of it made Will uneasy.

  But the imminent danger was still from armed riders. Many foraging parties were out roaming the land. That these parties did not notice them Will put down to the subtle art of Gwydion’s dancing. Late in the morning they came in sight of the town of Awakenfield. It sat resplendent with flags across the River Caldor, and a bridge of many spans with a strong stone parapet was clearly visible leading to it.

  ‘So this is the “sleepless field”,’ Will said, looking to Gwydion.

  ‘Indeed it is. But hold hard, for we must not go that way.’

  ‘Not go into the town?’ Will looked at the small chapter house that stood by the bridge. It seemed innocent enough. ‘Why not?’

  ‘The town would appear to be held by the queen’s forces.’

  Will looked again. ‘I see no one there at all.’

  ‘What do you expect to see? The Weirds of Albanay sitting all in a row?’

  The question balked him. ‘We were told of wild-men, of wood ogres and hill trolls, were we not? Surely if the queen had occupied the town, then—’

  ‘Look closely at those coloured rags stirring in the breeze. They are the royal colours. A wry welcome – a taunt, set there by a queen to enrage a duke. They say to him, “I have the city of Ebor in my power. I have Awakenfield also.” They are there to tempt Friend Richard over the bridge. But I know him. He will have given orders to his men not to approach the bridge, for none of those who presently scour the south bank of the Caldor have yet ventured that way.’

  ‘Then, which way shall we go?’

  ‘To see Richard, of course! And if you would know where Richard has gone, look yonder!’

  And there, half a league distant where the wizard pointed, Will saw many towers rising. It was a castle – strong walls, seven bastions, curtained and battlemented. The Castle of Sundials, first sited here on its motte by the Conqueror to control Caldordale and all the lands as far east as Pomfret. And the view from the highest of those roofless towers would be unimpeded across the tracts of cleared land and woods. A land that was now in the deep mid-winter, and with all its yeomen already fled with their stock and in hiding from the queen’s host. It would be a hard place for five thousand newcomers to scrape a living.

  As they drew nearer, Will saw cavalry horses tethered and attended in the woods nearby. Then he saw that each of the towers of the castle was surmounted by what looked like a great iron siege engine, though he soon realized that these were engines of a different kind.

  ‘The stars!’ Gort told him. ‘Braye Skymaster watches them all and accounts their movements in a great book. These are his machines for measuring the same.’

  And so they were – huge south-pointing quadrants, sighting frames and skeleton spheres of glinting metal, all hinged and hooped and set with pointers, and there were the small figures of men working among them, as if upon some unknown design. Will regarded the activity with mixed feelings, surmising yet again that there must have been a reason beyond military strategy for the duke to have come here.

  It seemed that Duke Richard’s army had not arrived so long before them. It was partly encamped unhappily beside the castle. Trees had been felled and logs were being dragged in. Many fires tainted the air with woodsmoke, and much activity attended the soldiers’ preparations.

  Gwydion called upon someone he knew to see to their horses. He gained them entry to the castle quietly and without demur from the guards, but once inside Will found that the castle was not what he had imagined. There were indeed many sundials and time machines set up on pillars or sunk in stone pits, but the castle itself had been built as a fortress of immense strength. The outer curtain wall screened a deadly ditch and, within that, the strong inner keep was set high on a mound, with a barbican the like of which Will had never seen before to guard it. This last seemed wholly impregnable.

  Separated from the keep by a drawbridge was a large, crescent-shaped bailey on which now thronged much of the duke’s host. Tradesmen had set up amid the bustle, and Will noted the signs of imminent war that he had seen so many times before. Heaps of goose wings showed where fletchers and arrowmakers had been hard at work. Armourer’s hearths glowed red. Steam rose where iron was quenched and last-minute repairs made to blade and harness. But Will also saw where Braye’s instruments had been broken. Many littered the ground or lay tumbled in the ditches. Several of the intricate devices had been purposely hauled down and smashed, their iron parts hammered into bill-heads and their oaken beams chopped up for firewood to feed the forges. It was as if the Skymaster’s machines had spoken strange heresies and had borne the penalty.

  It was not long before the wizard and the Wortmaster were noticed. The rumour of their arrival soon reached the ears of Sir Hugh Morte, the aged lord who attended ever at Duke Richard’s right hand. Though he was grey-haired and jowly, he was sound in body and had the stature and stance of a warrior.

  ‘Why are you come here, Crowmaster?’ he demanded.

  Gwydion faced him. ‘Ah, Friend Hugh. But this is no way to greet your lord’s helpmeet, one who has travelled a hard road to be at his side during his time of greatest need.’

  ‘Helpmeet, you say? You are a worker of wily words, a spinner of spells. Yet you can think of no better name for yourself than that?’

  ‘What name would you have me use, when I am one who habitually sups with the enemy?’

  The knight bared his teeth at that, recognizing the sentiment as one he had expressed himself while outside the wizard’s hearing. Will saw that if Gwydion had meant his irony to set the lord’s teeth on edge he had succeeded.

  ‘There, Crowmaster, you prove my point! Come now, answer me straightly. Tell me your business then be on your way!’

  Gwydion scowled. ‘I come to speak with your master.’

  Sir Hugh, half-armoured, truculent now, folded his arms and stood four-square in the middle of the drawbridge. ‘But my master does not desire to see you!’

  Gwydion’s answering gesture was the barest of bows. ‘That, of course, has ever been his choice, but I would hear it from his own mouth.’

  ‘You may not! Nor may you stay among us, so we say fare thee well!’

  The wizard was unmoving now. ‘May I at least know why I am to be sent away without a kind word?’

  ‘I know not. Nor do I care to know. I am a soldier. I only follow my master’s orders.’

  ‘And that you do very well, Friend Hugh, but it is often the soldier’s claim when he knows he is in the wrong that his orders are to blame.’ The wizard put out an accusing finger. ‘But if you love your master, you should tell him this: there are less than two days before the year’s end and he will surely die on one of them’

  Sir Hugh, instantly wrathful and heedless of the wizard’s staff, took a step forward. ‘You dare to imagine his grace’s death? To speak of that is a crime! Did I not say you are no longer welcome here? Now get you gone!’

  The lord threw Gwydion back with a mighty shove that almost robbed the wizard of his balance. Poleaxes and glaives bristled as the barbican guard came forward. Will drew himself up, ready to intervene. He knew Sir Hugh of old, knew his opinio
n of wizardry, knew there could be no arguing with him. Will swore under his breath at the way Gwydion had mishandled things. But then the door of the keep opened and a knot of guards issued out, among them a figure in black and brown who pushed his way to the fore, head bobbing and face twisting.

  ‘Edmund!’

  ‘Twice have I ordered this rabble out!’ Sir Hugh shouted, drawing his sword. ‘I shall not do so a third time. Guards! Drive them into the ditch!’

  Edmund, face colouring, stuttered and spat furiously, but he was overruled.

  ‘No, Sir Edmund! Your father will not have it!’

  There was a brief flurry as Edmund’s bodyguard drew steel, tore the sword from the old warrior’s grip and pinned him.

  ‘Infamy!’ Sir Hugh shouted. ‘Barbican guard, take them!’

  But Edmund’s bodyguard cowed the barbican garrison with a bullish display of arms, and Edmund limped past the stricken seneschal to greet the newcomers with courtesy and lead them into the keep.

  Furious shouts burst from Sir Hugh, and put the rest of the keep guard in doubt. Will raised his eyes in dread to see the iron-shod teeth of the portcullis hovering as he passed beneath. So similar were the guard liveries of the duke and his sons that a mistake must surely be made soon by one of the archers on the walls. A fight would be triggered, then disaster. But Edmund’s men came single-mindedly through the gatehouse as the others looked on, then they clattered noisily up the stone-faced passage towards the Lord Keeper’s tower, shouting, ‘Clear a way there for Edmund, Earl of Rutteland, or die!’

  The earl habitually dragged his left foot, but that hardly impeded him when upon a vital errand, and he led them speedily up the killing ramp to the open doors of the tower. Gort and Gwydion followed close behind. Will steered Willow ahead of him, while Lotan brought up the rear. The big man’s sword was held tight to his side, his cloak drawn over its hilt, for he would not surrender it willingly.

  Once inside, Will listened carefully to what the duke’s son had to tell them. ‘Loremaster Braye…fled…his assistant flogged…both sent out of the castle.’

  ‘What?’ Gort whispered, horrified. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because…he would not…give my father…what…he needed.’

  ‘Which was?’ Will asked.

  Another grimace. ‘T-t-time!’

  Gwydion shook his head. ‘No man could have done that, loremaster or not, for as I have warned, the seer has spoken! Now, Edmund, you must do as I ask and take me to your father.’

  ‘My father is…m-mad with anger. He will not…see you.’

  ‘The lorc is speaking to his mind, Edmund,’ Will said. ‘Against his better judgment he’s being drawn into battle. That’s why we must speak with him, if we can.’

  ‘He will k-k-kill you! And…after what I have done…he will…kill me too.’

  Gwydion’s thunderous gaze fell upon him. ‘It matters not, for the House of Ebor has already fallen.’

  ‘Let the enemy come,’ Lotan growled, looking around appreciatively at the thickness of the walls. ‘This place will stand, even to the last grain of sorcerer’s powder! So long as there are victuals and a sweet well here the—’

  ‘There are no victuals!’ Edmund stood firm. ‘I told you: Keeper Braye failed my father…he has not bought us time…he did not…p-provision the castle with all necessaries as he was bid.’

  And Will suddenly saw what Edmund had meant. There had been, after all, a plain, matter-of-fact reason for the Lord Keeper’s flight. Will felt the world make another dreadful lurch towards the prosaic. ‘Not enough food? Is that all there is to it?’

  Gort took Edmund’s arm. ‘Loremaster Braye could not have obtained grain hereabouts for love nor money with the queen’s presence already at Ebor, and there was a day when your father would have understood that. Are you sure the Skymaster did nothing else to bring down your father’s wrath upon his head?’

  ‘He went mad.’

  ‘Mad?’

  ‘He spoke…false prognostications.’

  ‘Of what kind?’

  ‘Perilous…pernicious…my father would not hear them.’

  ‘Concerning?’ Will asked.

  ‘Why…about the sky, of course.’ Flecks of white foam bubbled at the corners of Edmund’s mouth. ‘The motions of the red wanderer…the star that governs war. When my father asked Braye what would be…he said only mad things…that he had lately found…the true reason for the red star’s motions. He claimed that it is another world…one far, far away…but somewhat like our own. He said he had proved that our own world…circles about the sun…instead of what is obvious to…to every man. He said…the red wanderer…did not govern the ways of war at all.’

  Will stared, dumbfounded. ‘And so your father had him thrown out?’

  ‘Braye was…in the end…mad…’

  Gort and Gwydion exchanged glances, then the wizard turned to Edmund, his eyes flaming. ‘We must persuade your father to tread with greater care, for we have learned much about the way the world is changing that appears to confirm the Skymaster’s ideas.’

  Edmund stared back queerly, as if a matter had been broached that was far beyond him.

  The wizard went on. ‘But let us speak rather concerning the strength of the queen’s forces. She has come from Albanay with a greater power than you seem to suppose. She has six men in the north to every one loyal to your father.’

  Edmund fetched from his purse a little scroll of vellum that looked as if it had been wound tight around someone’s finger then angrily crumpled. On it, Will read a message that accused the duke of cowardice and dared him to do battle.

  ‘You see?…arrows are found each morning…all over the keep…my father has them collected…and burned.’

  ‘Love letters from Queen Mag,’ Gwydion said with heavy sarcasm.

  When Will asked after the whereabouts of Edward, Edmund confirmed that he had gone to the Marches to raise men. And it seemed that his young brothers Richard and George were with him. Of Lord Warrewyk there was equally dispiriting news – he had remained in Trinovant to have the keeping of King Hal.

  ‘Then the Ebor force is split three ways!’ Will groaned.

  ‘That is not good,’ Lotan said heavily.

  ‘Is some attempt going to be made to free the king?’ Willow asked, and Will saw that she was now worried beyond reason for Bethe’s sake. ‘Will, if there should be bloodletting in the palace, and if the duchess becomes caught up in it—’

  But there was no chance for Will to reassure her, for now the doors flew open and the duke himself appeared. He was white-faced and red-eyed and he seemed suffused with a weird light. His cold anger was awesome to Will.

  ‘I fight for the crown!’

  Edmund’s whinny was pitiful as he was roughly pushed aside. ‘Father…please! Those words…’

  ‘Were you not all instructed by my seneschal to go from this place?’

  ‘Father…’

  ‘Get out, all of you! Go! The dread hour is at hand!’

  Then Gwydion spoke with all the power he yet commanded. ‘Richard, hear me!’

  ‘No, Crowmaster, you may not speak here!’

  But then the magnate collapsed and the weird light fell from him. He sat down on his own step like one suddenly aware of a weight of tragedy that had settled upon him.

  When next he spoke, it was with a sigh. ‘No, you may not speak here, Master Gwydion, for you will only try to tell me that I must keep this castle and defend it the same until my son comes with his power of Marchermen. I will not be counselled thus, for my fate is upon me and I must meet it in the manner best fitting. If you have loved me as you say, how now would you have me dishonoured? You never saw me hide from mine enemies like a bird included within a cage, for I am a man! I have not kept myself behind walls nor hid my face from any man living. Would you that I did so today for dread of a scolding woman? No, my friend, the great number of mine enemies does not appal my spirits, but rather encourages them, for if I am to die then
it will be as the rightful king of this Realm dies, and in no other way.’

  This time Gwydion did not seek to argue. He bowed deeply and withdrew without demur. Nor was the reason hard to fathom, for no one could negotiate with insanity.

  ‘Alas! Richard is already a dead man.’ Gwydion’s skirts swirled around him as he strode out across the drawbridge escorted by the men of Sir Hugh’s guard. Will felt the shame of the retreat keenly. Sneers and shouts followed them from the walls. But those who stood closer, though they may have lost their respect for a wizard’s crook, still did not dare to insult the cloaked giant who shepherded the little party down into the bailey and back across the ditch to the gate.

  Will did not wish to look back, for a deep gloom had descended over him. How he had admired the duke in days gone by. Now it felt as if his own father had been put under a sentence of death, so firmly was the man reconciled to an unalterable fate.

  ‘Nothing is unalterable for those who truly wish to change it,’ he muttered.

  Willow tugged on Will’s arm, and he realized how the meeting had affected her.

  ‘Why has Edward taken his two younger brothers with him? Why, Will? Do you think maybe they’re going in secret to Caster and taking ship to the Blessed Isle? What’s going to happen in Trinovant? Master Gwydion said they have riots there. What if the White Hall was to burn—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his jaw knotting. ‘You mustn’t worry.’

  ‘How can I not worry? Aren’t you worried?’ Her words were suddenly fierce.

  Then Gwydion half caught the comment and said, ‘I hope he is worried – for I am.’

  Will felt the presence of the nearby lign, and knowing the mark of the lorc was upon them all helped him bear their accusations. It frustrated him that only he could see it for what it was, but in a strange way it could also be a source of comfort. ‘Forgive them,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Forgive them their faults, for they are not like you.’

  An undeniable odour drifted across the castle walls, the whiff of malice. There was certainly a battlestone sited where the two ligns met, perhaps seven leagues to the north, of that he was now certain. But there was something else much nearer, something here that did not wish to reveal itself.