Whitemantle Page 14

  ‘Crowmaster, those ancient days are gone. You cannot hope to set the clock back.’

  ‘Imbeciles!’ Gwydion threw off Will’s restraining hands and marched away, trailed by Captain Jackhald and two hapless guards.

  Seeing now that they were alone, Edward said, ‘Can’t you keep a tighter grip on him? He frightened the life out of me, bursting in like that.’

  ‘It won’t happen again.’ Will spread his arms. ‘But you realize…he’s right.’

  ‘Oh, not you too!’ Edward looked witheringly at him. ‘My father’s not in league with the Fellowship. Isnar called for King Hal to be recognized, or have you forgotten?’

  Will saw an opportunity. ‘Perhaps Master Gwydion spoke more deeply than you allow. What he meant was that folk are drawn to the Fellowship through the deepest of fears. I’ve thought much upon what the Great Lie means and I see now why Master Gwydion was loath to tell me about it. It was not so much because he feared I would be deceived by it, just that everyone must come to his or her own understanding of the world, and of people, before the enormity can be truly understood.’

  ‘Be that as it may—’

  ‘Edward, the Great Lie persuades folk that they can avoid the meeting which, in truth, all mortals must make.’

  Edward sat back, serious now, trying to see the meaning of Will’s change of tack. ‘You speak of…Death.’

  ‘Yes, I do. The Sightless Ones promise an invisible life beyond the grave, a life that stretches out in endless comfort wherein every initiate will be reunited with those he has loved in life. But this is an invention, a dangerous infection of the mind that must be stopped from spreading!’

  Edward’s face clouded, and he snapped, ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘Enough to know when it’s got its grips on someone.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I think you know my meaning right enough.’

  Now Edward tried to laugh off the remark. ‘So? What of it? Many people, high and low, are coming to believe just lately. We can’t all be wrong.’

  Will held his glance. ‘There are many ways to foster beliefs such as you are coming to, Edward. The Fellowship works especially hard on the easy clay of young minds. And later, they make it easier to believe than not to believe, for they know that given two ways, most folk will choose the easier. They seek to catch the unwary: people who are in torment, or youthful idealists – those who aren’t yet too old to see all the faults in the world, but who can put forward no remedy themselves. These are the easiest of prey—’

  Edward grunted. ‘I’m no wide-eyed idealist!’

  ‘True. But be warned: the glib answers offered by the Sightless Ones seem to make a lot of sense, but they are in truth quite hollow.’

  ‘While you’re always right about everything, I suppose?’

  ‘No, Edward. I’m not always right about everything. But I’m right about this. The Sightless Ones devour people who have been unaccustomed to think for themselves. They go after those whose thoughts run as a maze – those, perhaps, who are feeling guilt for what they’ve done.’

  Edward seized on that as Will had known he would. ‘Guilt? I feel no guilt.’

  ‘Don’t you? Not even after you lied to me at Delamprey?’

  ‘When did I lie to you?’

  ‘You said you would call for common quarter, yet there were murders. Cold-blooded, planned butchery. And you planned it. After the battle was done, unarmed men, bound, then beheaded—’

  ‘Warrewyk’s doing, not mine!’

  Will drew back. ‘Well…it’s good to see that, despite your protests, you have some small, lingering sense of shame about it. Enough at least to want to pass the blame.’

  ‘I’m not ashamed!’

  He laughed. ‘I can smell shame, and it coils about you as thick as chimney smoke.’

  Anger welled up visibly inside Edward. ‘Get out! You’re not my confessor!’

  ‘Oh – it’s gone that far, has it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Edward, I know they send their Elder across the river every day. I’ve seen him in his little boat. He comes from the cloister at Lamb Hythe to hear your private thoughts. And I wonder what you’ve been telling him.’

  ‘That’s none of your concern!’ Edward’s self-control failed wholly now. ‘You’ve never understood rank, have you? You think you can speak to whomsoever you please? Say whatever you want, whenever you want? Well, you can’t! Not in this world. You’re nothing, Willand. A jumped-up peasant who thinks he’s important because he hides behind the skirts of an old magician. I could have your head struck off on a whim. And I might just do that.’

  ‘For once, Edward, consider the truth! We’re men, the same flesh and blood, you and I, and worthy of the same respect. I proved as much to you long ago. And while magic exists in the world you should not discount it.’

  ‘Magic? Oh, those days are over! The magic is rushing from the world like blood from a stuck pig, or haven’t you noticed? That’s why your greybeard of a crow is fading away. He’s all used up. And when the magic’s gone, what will he be then? And what will you be? Eh?’

  Will took none of the bait. He raised an admonishing finger. ‘I warn you, Edward. You’re drifting. The red hands have caught you up in their net, just like they caught your father.’

  Edward leapt at him, shoved him hard up against the wall. His teeth gritted. ‘What about my father?’

  Will returned his fury stonily. ‘Do I really have to tell you? Before this year’s out, he’s going to die.’

  The struggle to bring the casket upstairs depended largely on Will’s strength. It weighed almost as much as he did, though it felt heavier now that he had Gort and Gwydion to hinder him.

  ‘Put your back into it!’

  ‘Hnnng!’

  ‘Careful of the door!’

  They manhandled the casket onto the table. It was like a cupboard; wooden but lantern-shaped, and with scarlet panels and gilding. And it was locked.

  Gort asked, ‘How did you get Edward to release it?’

  Will gasped and wiped the sweat from his face. He took off his heavy coat. ‘Never mind how I got it, Wortmaster. It’s here now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Boxed up like a sacred relic,’ Gort said, fingering the doors. ‘Edward must have had high hopes for this to give it such a pretty little house.’

  ‘What persuaded him?’ Gwydion asked.

  Will clapped grey dust off his hands and looked at the trail of it that had followed them across the room. ‘I told him he could put on a show for friend or foe, for his family and those bound to him as servants, but he could not fool the Crowmaster.’

  ‘You do me honour,’ the wizard said flatly. ‘But I would prefer it if you did not try to humour me. That is always a mistake.’

  ‘I simply told Edward that I was not interested in debate. I said I was asking him about what he most truly and sincerely believed in. “Do not forget, my friend,” I said, “the world eventually becomes what the sum of men believe it to be. Be careful therefore what you believe.”’

  ‘That was well said, at any rate…’ The wizard’s words tailed off and he wandered away. When he stood in the light by the window he seemed thin and colourless, as if some transparent quality had settled on him.

  Gort, still thrivingly substantial, ran a hand over the treasure chest and smiled up at Will impishly. ‘But have you got the key, hey?’

  ‘Oh, I forgot to ask,’ he said, pulling it out of his pouch and returning a sly smile to the Wortmaster.

  ‘Irony monger,’ Gort said and sniffed. ‘There’s a rede about speaking plainly, you know.’

  ‘Then I’ll speak plainly: get out of the way.’ Will thrust the big key into the lock and turned it, then he and the Wortmaster looked inside the casket.

  After a moment’s shocked silence, Will said, ‘Master Gwydion, where are you? Come and look at this.’

  The wizard was still staring out of the window, his back to them. ‘I b
elieve I know what you wish to tell me,’ he said.

  ‘You mean you knew the Delamprey stump would be like this?’ Will picked up a handful of grey dust and let it filter down. It felt like nothing at all. ‘Ashes?’

  ‘Less than ashes. And I suspected it would be so.’

  ‘Then this is Maskull’s doing?’ Will offered, aghast.

  ‘Oh, hardly.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘You, Willand.’ The wizard gave a little laugh. ‘You.’

  ‘Me? But…how?’

  ‘It was you who dissolved the fetters from my wrists, was it not? Remove both the spirits of harm and kindness from a stone and what is there of substance to remain? Unable to sustain itself in the world, it has quite reasonably fallen into dust.’

  Gort looked up. ‘But then how shall we work upon it, Master Gwydion?’

  ‘Yes,’ Will echoed. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I think, my friends,’ the wizard said, smiling, ‘you are both missing the point.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE WINDOWLESS CHAMBER

  Two nights later the black flashes came again. Will closed his eyes and forced himself to lie still on the bed. The room was pitch black. The sky beyond the window ranged moonless and starless under a snow-heavy overcast. When he opened his mind again he did it cautiously; all he could feel was the blood coursing in his skull and a rare tingling in his hands and feet. But the flashes had been real enough, and the ache they left in their wake made him feel hollow.

  There were three ligns passing near Trinovant – Collen, Mulart and Celin. Collen, the lign of the hazel, crossed the river by the White Tower less than a league away. Mulart, the elder tree lign, crossed a couple of leagues further to the east. And Celin, the holly lign, met the river near Harper’s Cottage, a wooded place below Hammersmyth and only about a league to the west of where Will now lay.

  But it was not the lorc that rumbled and flickered on the edges of Will’s mind like a distant summer thunderstorm. The flashes reminded him of a time not so long ago when he had looked out from a lakeside hovel and scanned the night for Chlu.

  He’s dancing out magic, Will thought. But he’s not doing it in any well-considered way. He’s doing what Maskull has taught him, making selfish moves that will serve him and him alone. He’ll think that better than begging for his bread and ale.

  The dark flashes rippled through Will’s head like pain, like light turned upside-down. There was no adequate way to describe these echoes of sorcery.

  And Chlu must feel an equivalent pain whenever I gather magic to me, he thought. That’s part of the way he finds me, though there’s a more permanent bond. Maybe he’s decided there’s no reason to hide himself from me, maybe he’s in a tight situation and using his talents to fight his way out…

  He imagined his twin inhabiting the shadow world of the City, slipping easily among the careless lives that swilled in and out with the river tides. Chlu would haunt dark, stinking alleys. He would terrify and prey upon whoever he could, until silver and gold were his in good store. His lodgings would be comfortable, but he would know no peace of mind for he had only one mission.

  And right now he’s tired and angry and drunk.

  Does he know I’m here?

  Yes. He knows.

  Does he know I can feel him twisting out his dirty magic, misusing it to cheat, to waylay and to rob?

  He knows that too. It’s like a taunt. A signal he’s putting out. A reminder that he’s still waiting for me…

  People like him have no place in the world. None.

  He sat up.

  Willow turned over. ‘Can’t you sleep?’ There was a measure of irritation in her voice. ‘I’m sorry. Did I wake you?’

  She yawned. ‘I have to be up early. I’m going to see her grace again tomorrow morning.’

  That brought his spinning mind down to ground with a bump. ‘Duchess Cicely? Why?’

  ‘She’s asked me to wait on her.’

  ‘You’re to be one of her ladies?’

  ‘It’s all arranged. I ought to agree after she looked after Bethe for so long in the Blessed Isle.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take Bethe along with me.’

  But Will grunted at her. ‘The duchess is becoming too attached to our daughter for my liking.’

  ‘Oh, what do you mean? She likes children, and hers have all grown up. She’s trying to honour me.’

  She felt for his hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s him; you’ve been thinking about him again, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the middle of the night everything always seems to be at its worst.’

  He drew encouragement from her tone: she knew very well that she couldn’t help him directly, but that didn’t stop her trying to unburden him in other ways. That was true love, and it melted him inside like butter.

  After a moment he said, ‘Shall I go out of the palace? Shall I find him? Do battle with him? Shall I do that?’

  Another moment passed while she considered, or at least bit her tongue. Then she said, ‘No, don’t seek him out.’

  He turned on her. ‘Why not? I’ll have to meet with him again in the end. Why should I let him choose the time and the place?’

  ‘Ask Master Gwydion in the morning. Let him be your guide. But for now…get some sleep.’

  ‘Oh, Willow. We’re losing the fight.’

  ‘No, we’re not. Things will seem a lot rosier in the morning.’

  She could not understand, and it was unfair to expect her to. His thoughts drifted to the worthless casket of grey dust he had obtained so artfully from Edward. Edward must have known the stone had crumbled away, of course. He had been secretly laughing at him.

  ‘Maybe it does serve me right,’ he murmured, ‘when everything I do seems to take us further from a solution. Since the stump that bore the unreadable inscription turned into dust we can’t find out where the next stone lies. And if we can’t get to it before it begins calling men to battle, we can’t drain it. And even if we could get to it we still couldn’t drain it because it would only make things worse…’

  She made no answer and he closed his mind firmly shut and decided that, for the moment, his main concern must be to protect himself and his family from Chlu’s next attack. But one last nagging doubt lay at the back of his mind like a worm in an apple. As his thoughts cleared, he understood that it was about Chlu, but it was also about a piece of unfinished business.

  The toothed wheels inside the time engine in the tower shifted one last notch, a lever moved and clicked and the bell clanged out the first hour. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Going out.’

  ‘Out where?’

  Struggling, he put an undeserved measure of scorn into his answer. ‘Where do you think?’

  Cold steamed in the air, a cold that soon became pain wherever it bit into exposed flesh. Will twisted a knee painfully and stifled a curse: here was ice where a puddle had frozen solid. In the morning the palace servants would diligently attend to the slippery patches with their shovels and scatter pink grate-ash onto them, but for the moment they were treacherous.

  He went through the private arch that led up past Edward’s apartments. It was by far the shortest way to where he was going, but it meant passing along a dark passageway and then through the door beyond. There he surprised one of Jackhald’s hidden guard who came forward too late to challenge him. He thrust a palm at the man’s face and muttered, ‘Sleep!’ The man collapsed with a thud.

  A big ring of iron turned the latch. Heavy and cold, it drew the heat from his fingers and made a dead sound. The bolts needed heavy force to move them, but they yielded under hammering from the heel of his hand. Then the door swept open in an arc.

  The inner yard was black, but he could see a shape rising up in the darkness. He knew the place well enough from memory. It was a tower, set apart from the rest of the palace and not of its fabric. It was older
and built of stone and Slaver brick. He found another arch, another door, then a dark passageway that began at the tower’s foot but soon became a stair.

  This was the place from which the wasp’s nest had been removed. He felt sickness rise in the pit of his stomach. The walls shimmered like reflections in a stilly pool. He groped towards the immoveable door, touched cold steel, ran his hands over band and rivet, hinge and lock. Then he whispered up a frosting of magelight and stood back, shoulders hunched, elbow in palm, thinking. A movement. He turned. A pang of fear. The air here was thick and suddenly hard to breathe. He cast a panicked spell at arm’s-length into the shadows. ‘Sleep!’

  ‘Oh, not I, villain!’

  Will’s skin bristled as the magic broke back on him. He shut his eyes, but it almost made him pass out. When he resisted, iron force clamped around his ribs and blew the air out of him. He tried to fight it off, steadied himself against the wall. ‘I see no villainy here…unless it be your own…Master Gwydion.’

  The pain went away instantly. Blue magelight alighted on the wizard as he stepped out of the shadows. He let Will breathe again.

  ‘Why have you come here? I told you to beware this place and not to climb that stair.’

  ‘I came to find you.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  In reply Will heard only the loud cracking of knuckles, then, ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘Where else would you be? You’ve been here for the last three days.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The wizard let his hands fall to his sides. He managed a mirthless chuckle. ‘It might be true to say that this chamber is getting to be something of an obsession with me.’

  ‘Whatever it is, you’re too close to it.’

  The wizard’s eyes rolled up like a seer’s and he muttered distractedly, attempting, or so it seemed, a portentous speech. ‘I see two ships sailing across a night sea. One is large the other small. Soon the Sightless Ones shall vomit up blood and ashes! Go away, Willand. I feel I am…just about to make a great discovery.’

  Will suppressed a sigh. ‘That’s sorcery. These defences are Maskull’s and, as you’ve so often said, he knows you very well. Now, please—’