Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  But now, up on the balcony, it was the Duke of Mells’ turn to address the soldiery and rouse his men to a new passion, for he told them that their great army would rise up on the morrow and march unstoppably into the south, where all the riches of Trinovant awaited them.

  ‘There lies such bounty as makes this city of Ebor seem like a bare hillside! In Trinovant, treasure is at every hand! Silver apples and golden pears hang down from the trees for the taking! Who among you will come with me to shake those trees and make the treasure fall?’

  Whereas the shouts from the crowd had been vengeful when the queen had spoken, now they were shot through with veins of pure greed. Lotan seized Will’s shoulder and hissed through gritted teeth, ‘His intent to move the army south is something your wizard has to know about. We must find him right away!’

  But Will had no time to make a reply, for the nearby ogre, maddened now by its tormenting neighbours, lifted itself suddenly up off its haunches and ran amok, dashing men down as it began to flail its fists.

  A space opened up around the commotion, but Will and Lotan stepped bravely forward, the first trying to calm the stricken half-beast, while the second urged the fevered crowd back.

  Will raised his hands and began to step dangerously before the enraged creature. For a moment it seemed he would be stamped down, but then it looked as if it had bethought its violence, and though the lone man was now at its mercy it refused its chance to kill and merely swept him aside with an open hand.

  Will crashed to the ground, and then keepers and collarmen came, holding up gaudy charms before them. ‘Back, Scabbe! Stand down, I say!’

  Scabbe did not stand down, but defied them and roared out its anger, but in the end the rebellion petered out, for those amulets were oozing magic that coshed the ogre into submission.

  When Will picked himself up and began to dust himself down worse happened. A not-so-gentle blow fell upon his own head from behind. He sank to his knees, not knowing who had singled him out, or for what reason, but as he knelt he was hit again and this time the blow knocked him cold.

  First came the nightmare – pain and bright hues swimming in his head and Chlu riding through the night on a blown horse.

  Then, very slowly, he became aware that the resonant sound he could hear was snoring, though he was himself no longer asleep. The pain and the nightmare became real. He found that breathing was hard. Confusion disorientated him. It made no difference, it seemed, if he opened his eyes or not. There was only darkness, a void written over with ghosts of vivid colour like those that came after a heavy blow to the head. And then he began to remember.

  The pain swelled as he tried to adjust his position. He realized there was something wrong with his hands which were held up and out somewhere above his head. That was why his chest was stretched, and what made breathing so hard. A surface, hard, damp and gritty, pressed lightly against his back, but when he moved his feet only his heels touched solidity. He was floating in the form of a human letter Y, strung up by his hands against a wall…

  The sound of laboured breathing was speckled not by the jangle of horse tackle, but by the chittering of rats, and something else – the clink of iron that called a certain person to mind.

  ‘Lotan?’ he said.

  His voice was dry and weak and went unheeded. He swallowed hard and tried again. This time his call was louder, then the breathing faltered and there was a groan.

  ‘Lotan, is that you?’

  He had to repeat the name three times before he got a reply.

  ‘Willand…are you hurt?’

  ‘My arms are dead. I can’t feel them. I can’t move my fingers. How about you?’

  ‘It’s either totally dark in here, or I’ve lost my eyes again.’

  Chain rattled and there was the sound of a man sitting up. Will felt Lotan’s head against his feet as he recoiled from the contact.

  ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘What are you doing up there?’

  He would have found the question ripe for retort had not the pain dissuaded him. ‘Can you stand up?’

  ‘There’s an iron hoop around my neck. And my wrists are bound…’

  Will heard rusty chains being snapped taut. They sounded sturdy enough to keep a dragonet tethered. ‘Sit up and let me rest my feet on your shoulders for a little while.’

  Lotan obliged, taking his weight.

  ‘I’m…trying to get the blood back into my hands,’ Will groaned. He dwelt on advancing the tingling that was the first glimmer of sensation. The pain rose and rose, as torturesome as cramp, but he suffered it in the hope that it would soon reach a peak and begin to fall away. He muttered in the true tongue to help himself through, then when the worst was over he tried to distract his mind with more commonplace words.

  ‘I wonder how long we’ve been here.’

  Lotan’s growl was heartfelt. ‘I’m more interested in how much longer we’ll stay.’

  ‘I know the answer to that.’

  ‘Along with the dungeon master’s first name, I hope.’

  ‘There’s not a great deal of choice, but I’d rather it was Henry of Mells. I’d prefer him to the queen or Maskull. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Compared to them even the pig-headed lord would be a welcome host.’

  ‘I know a thing or two about pig-headed lords.’ Will tried again to flex his fingers, releasing another torrent of pain. ‘Whoever’s put us here, we won’t have long to wait. My brother…’

  He stopped himself. Until now he had made no mention of Chlu to Lotan. But now he wondered why he had said nothing before. Perhaps he had been affected by Gwydion’s unreasoning suspicion.

  Now he explained about Chlu, haltingly but leaving out nothing.

  Lotan braced his back more comfortably against the wall. ‘So…your brother knows you’re here, and he’s coming to kill you?’

  ‘He’s bound to try. My drifting mind saw him on a horse. He’s riding here as fast as he can. He was at Awakenfield or somewhere close by when the battle was fought. And if I felt him, then he’ll have felt me. He’ll know that I’m in pain and confined somewhere in Ebor. There can’t be that many dungeons in the city, even a city as big as this.’

  ‘He has a choice of two castles and the guild prison. His guess is as good as ours.’ Lotan’s words sounded resigned.

  ‘I’m sorry to have got you into this.’

  ‘I’m not worried.’

  ‘You’re not?’ Will managed an incredulous laugh.

  ‘No. Didn’t I tell you? I’ve always been lucky.’

  A great deal of time seemed to pass while they heard no sound other than the squeaking of rats. In the darkness, Will’s imagination made a picture of their cell. From the smell he knew the floor was earthen and filthy. From the touch on his back he knew the walls were as thick and damp as only castle foundations could be. And from the way the sounds echoed he knew there were four walls, a barrel-vaulted ceiling and a single door. Beyond that, he surmised, must be a passage and steps and probably another door beyond, for the lack of light was total and they must have been imprisoned for longer than even the longest of winter nights without the least smudge of light reaching them.

  Thirst began to afflict Will now. By careful management, the feeling had returned to his hands, though he still suffered much discomfort in hands, arms and chest. Sleep was not possible for either man, and every once in a while Lotan shifted his position, though on the whole he bore the trial of Will’s weight with immense patience.

  ‘If your brother really is coming to kill you, I wish he would hurry up,’ Lotan said, after another readjustment.

  The remark made Will laugh, and the laugh seemed so incongruous in the dank darkness that he found it hard to stop. At last he let out a long sigh, and the gloom settled back on him like crows on a furrowed field.

  ‘I don’t know what’s keeping Chlu, but whoever’s put us here knows who I am. I’m afraid that can only mean we’re awaiting Maskull’s pleasure.’

>   ‘Do you mind explaining to me how you know that?’

  ‘What’s the floor made of in here?’

  The odd question took Lotan by surprise. ‘It’s…unmade. Hard-packed earth.’

  ‘I thought so. And that’s why I’ve been dangled up here. Once, years ago, I was embraced by the Green Man and I think that changed me so that I could draw power from the earth just as a tree draws what it needs to live. Of all the people here in Ebor only Maskull knows that I have a magical talent and that my capacity to do magic may be thwarted in this way.’

  ‘If you’re right then we are both of us done for.’

  The matter-of-fact way that Lotan replied made Will smile wryly in the darkness. All along the big man had dismissed his own ordeal with apparent unconcern and Will was grateful for his steady refusal to admit despair. That was an admirable trait, a sign of true courage.

  They began to swap tales of many things, of Will’s home in the Vale and of Lotan’s travelling days. Will spoke of horses and helmets and how to grow green beans and Lotan told of sea-faring in the Far North and drinking ale in a contest to save his life in the mead houses of the Easterlings.

  Then Will sang a poem that Gwydion had taught him.

  ‘Hearken to this truth I tell you,

  Lost, we sailed the stark salt wave.

  ‘Dealing days of bitter hardship,

  Steering straight, our lives to save.’

  And Lotan joined in.

  ‘Strange the seas and mischance many,

  So far the fathoms, so deep the swell.

  ‘Of frosty, fearsome waters travelled,

  No landsman, haven-safe, can tell.

  ‘Fast the fogs that gird the Baerberg,

  Soon the strand where silver lies.

  ‘Looming large the subtle stairway,

  Rising rare before our eyes…’

  There were many more verses that spoke of a hero’s journey to the northernmost edge of the world and his quest to climb a secret stairway and use a golden key to stop the sky spinning and open a door that led into the Brightness beyond.

  When the song was over Will ached in the darkness, his blood tingling. He told himself that had he wanted someone to look up to, someone from whom he could learn about what it meant to be a man, and a man worthy of kingship, then there was no one better than Lotan.

  But it was too late now. So many of the heroes of Will’s youth had been killed or broken. He thought of Sir John Morte, lying dead in the field, of Tutor Aspall, fleeing south in terror. Then there was Duke Richard himself, whose glamour had once touched Will, and of course Gwydion. What would happen to him, now that the magic was leaving in earnest? The process was quickening every day, starting with the leeching away of the little magics of everyday life, then the influences of Wise Women, the wonder-working of loremasters – eventually even the high spells of the Ogdoad would fail, and in the end the power that was the ancient work of the fae.

  Suddenly there came sounds from outside that drove all other thoughts from Will’s mind. The grinding of old iron bolts and the creak of hinges filled his belly with fear. The moment he had tried to deny had come. He gathered himself to face his tormentor. But when the door was opened a piercing light burst across the room that made him turn his head aside.

  Two black shapes moved in the torchlight. A ladder propped against the wall at Will’s side and a stocky figure climbed up and leaned across him. Deft fingers began to unscrew the bolts that secured his hands. He groaned at the ache in his chest as he was moved, but then he was lowered to the ground and left to lie there while the shackles on Lotan’s neck and wrists were undone.

  As soon as Will touched the ground he began to draw surreptitiously upon the power that could be found there.

  ‘I should apologize for the delay,’ a sharp voice said, ‘but you must understand that I had to wait until the last of the army had left before I came for you.’

  Will shielded his eyes from the light of the torch, trying at the same time to identify the dark shape that had spoken. The voice seemed familiar, but not so familiar that he could place it.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ he croaked.

  ‘To dine with a friend.’

  Despite everything, Will felt hope spring alive. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you not recognize me?’ the figure said, tilting its head. ‘I am John Sefton.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE DOOMSTONE OF THE WEST

  And so they were released by John Sefton – or Lord Dudlea as Will better knew him. Dudlea had not issued the order to lock them up, or to release them, he said. He was only a go-between.

  Dudlea’s servant gave them a skin of water. Enough to drink, then more to wash in.

  ‘Trust me,’ Dudlea said. ‘I haven’t forgotten my oath to do the right thing.’

  Will grunted. ‘If having us thrown in here was the right thing, then I’d hate to see you do wrong.’

  ‘I didn’t put you here. That was your friend, and done to protect you. As you’ll soon see.’

  Lotan growled. ‘Have you any idea what it’s been like sitting in this stinking hole?’

  ‘What better place than here to keep you safe from the general tumult?’

  Will’s patience wore thin. ‘We are used to looking after ourselves, and we resent interference!’

  ‘I’m sure of that my good crow, but you were about to be recognized and killed.’

  ‘I’m no crow. And if you’re playing games with us, Dudlea, then my hard-done-by friend here will snap your neck like a dry twig!’

  But Dudlea was blithe enough to smile. ‘Gratitude is powerful enough to make spells from. Your Master Gwydion once told me that. Perhaps that’s why you hold it back like a miser.’

  ‘Now, listen to me, Dudlea—’

  ‘Be calm. We’re on the same side. And the man whom you’re about to meet is your friend – despite having a little too much royal blood in his veins.’

  ‘Royal blood?’

  ‘At least it’s not the queen,’ Lotan murmured.

  ‘Oh, Mag’s long gone.’ Dudlea’s teeth glittered in the torchlight. ‘Although the prince who requests your company is most loyal to Hal’s cause.’

  ‘Prince, did you say?’

  ‘Oh, yes. In fact, he’s just been given the Army of the West, though I think “Lord Commander” is a title that would sit rather better with me.’

  Will and Lotan exchanged questioning glances. Army of the West? What was that? So far as they knew, no such army existed. And who could the queen have appointed to a command like that? Surely no one who might be described as their friend.

  Will contained the impulse to make Dudlea tell all. If he was up to no good, then they would know soon enough. They cleaned themselves up as best they could, then were conducted speedily out of Clifton’s Tower and hurried towards the Great Hall of Ebor Castle.

  The bailey was now in darkness and almost deserted. A cold mist hung over the castle and there was a keen smell of woodsmoke in the air. It tasted like wine to Will. His misgivings began to evaporate – at least they were out of the dungeon, and that was something. Helmeted guards stood in the lee of the two main gateways and several small windows showed lights, but the place was eerily silent compared to the night before. As they emerged from under the keep and went out into the open, a clock struck the hour. Will counted three, which made him wonder how much time they had been forced to waste. What it might mean for the Realm could only be guessed at, for events were now once again moving along rapidly.

  ‘Has Master Gwydion come here?’ Will asked as they came to the doors.

  Dudlea looked askance. ‘If he has then he’s not shown himself to me. Are you expecting him?’

  Will did not answer, but put his hand on the iron doorring so that Dudlea could not open it. ‘You’re sure the whole of the queen’s army has left Ebor? The Duke of Mells, Lord Strange and all the others?’

  ‘I tell you they’re making their way into the
south. The plan is to take Trinovant as soon as may be. Did you not hear my Lord of Mells say as much? Be easy in your mind – if your enemies had not gone do you think I would have dared to let you out?’

  ‘I think if the slightest thing had gone wrong you’d have left us to rot.’

  ‘That’s most unfair.’ Dudlea’s reply was wounded. ‘It’s not just myself I had to consider. I couldn’t risk coming a moment sooner because the sorcerer didn’t leave the castle until after midnight, and if he’d discovered you it would’ve implicated the Lord Commander of the West. All along I’ve done right by you. If you disbelieve me you may ask my wife and son, who both continue in rude good health.’

  ‘You’re truly a reformed character,’ Will said dryly, seeing a very different reason why Lady Dudlea might not yet have begun to complain about stiffness. In a world without magic her condition would never deteriorate, no matter how faithless her husband became.

  ‘So it was this Lord Commander of yours who had us locked up?’ Lotan asked, seizing on the important point.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

  Will shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. How does this man know me? And how did he know to have me hung from chains?’

  ‘Ah, that was because of me,’ Dudlea admitted. ‘You see, I told him who you were. And I warned him what you could do.’

  ‘And the chains?’

  ‘That was my idea too. I remembered a moonlit night not so very long ago when your Master Gwydion drew power from the earth and then gave my wife back to me. I watched how his steps and movements cast the power into spells. I didn’t want you stepping and gesturing your way to freedom. Not for the moment anyway.’

  Will hardened his gaze, relieved that Dudlea had not really appreciated the mechanism whereby a crow gathered his powers. ‘You took a foolish gamble with me, John Sefton. Ordinarily it would only have taken a few words of the true tongue to set me free, even from a lock-hole such as that one. And then I would have come for you!’