Whitemantle Page 20

  ‘Gort said it needed Ogdoad magic,’ Will said, controlling himself. ‘I never supposed Maskull would be the one to provide it.’

  His stiffness of demeanour accused her and she said, ‘This must be right.’

  ‘Must it?’

  ‘Well, ask Lotan!’

  ‘Why should he know?’

  And Willow’s face showed that she had never considered that the man at the centre of a magical issue might be the very last person to consult over the question of its ethical standing.

  ‘It’s his life, Will.’

  ‘And you, Willow? What has this to do with you?’

  Lotan stirred. ‘I asked her for help, and she was kind enough to give it.’

  ‘She had no right! No right at all. Not without talking to me first. And you – you’ve betrayed me and abused my hospitality!’

  As Lotan turned, the light caught in his eyes and Will saw that they were different colours. One was blue, the other brown.

  ‘I took them,’ Lotan said, ‘from those who can no longer use them.’

  ‘The right came from Magog and the left from Gogmagog,’ Willow said quickly. ‘Will, they were going to be burned!’

  ‘But they weren’t burned. And now they can never be restored. You haven’t thought this through.’

  ‘No! And thinking things through doesn’t always work. Look at you, Will. You’re stuck. You don’t know what to do, so you wait and you wait until events move along, and then you respond to them. This is not the Will I know. And you’ll have to do better if you’re going to be a king.’

  He felt the indecision still grinding inside him. Suddenly he seemed like the fool who cannot bring himself to cheer a victory until the basis on which it has been won can be shown to be wholly and completely without blemish. Yet Willow, pragmatic as ever, had simply acted from the heart. She had, by an act of love, cut the impossible knot, and it seemed that her inner lodestone might, after all, have pointed them in the right direction.

  ‘Will, it can’t be wrong,’ she said, willing him to believe also. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  If you think that, he wanted to say, then why did you do it behind my back? And why are you begging so hard now for my approval? But the more he considered the more it seemed that she was in the right, and – right or wrong – the deed was irreversibly done.

  He wiped his fingers clean, offered the others a hopeful nod. ‘I don’t know what you’ve thrown into the air here, and I don’t know what Master Gwydion will say when he learns about it. As to whether it was the right thing to do, we shall have to wait and see.’

  ‘What did she mean by it?’ Edward asked, the next time Will saw him.

  His breath boiled visibly in the December air. Three days had passed since the disastrous agreement between king and duke had been struck. Will found himself cornered in Albanay Yard as the clock struck four. Edward’s guard of men closed in. Their usual function was to clear a way for the young Earl of the Marches, to make sure he received the respect he thought was his due.

  In his case it’s the respect that rats give to a terrier, Will thought.

  ‘I’ll ask you again, Will: what did she mean by it?’

  Will treated the question as if it was a threat. ‘I’ll assume you’re speaking about Mother Brig. Let me ask you, Edward: what do you think she meant by it?’

  Even so innocent a question could be a provocation to the duke’s son when he was in the wrong mood. Still, Edward seemed minded to keep his temper, although his men reacted in exaggerated fashion with jeers and whistles.

  ‘My friends have decided you’re being too familiar.’

  ‘Have they, now? And these new friends of yours – don’t they know we’re old friends, you and I, Edward?’

  ‘I don’t think they care about that.’

  Will looked around at their eager faces and felt their excitement, but also their ill-concealed fears. ‘And how if I bite my thumb at them? Are you sure they won’t all fall down like so many nine-pins?’

  Edward’s voice hardened. ‘I’ll ask you for the last time: what did the girl mean?’

  Will parried the question as squarely as he dared. ‘When I ask what you think she means, that isn’t a question I pose without reason. I must know what you want from me before I can answer you.’

  ‘Damn your word games!’

  Edward was not sharp enough to realize the exchange had already given Will all he needed to know. ‘I wish I could answer you, but sometimes the world just isn’t as simple as we might wish it to be. I can find you any number of fawning false astrologers who’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear. It’ll cost you no more than a silver penny. But you’ll waste your money.’

  The toothed wheels inside Edward’s head turned like those inside a great water mill, until a heavy hammer was tripped and fell. Neither he nor his men could tell if their victim was being clever with them, but Edward chose to let it pass and instead he took another slant.

  ‘Why do you call her “Mother Brig”?’

  ‘Her name is Brighid.’ Will straightened. Edward’s retinue had by now boxed him in uncomfortably. ‘I told you I’m not to be leaned on, Edward. If you don’t call them off, I’ll make them all sweat.’

  ‘My friends…’ A tired gesture of the hand, and they drew back. Another and they were dismissed out of earshot altogether. ‘You see? They’re just like dogs.’

  ‘Then you should be more careful of the company you keep.’

  ‘What do you expect? These are unsettled times, and if you think my friends are bad, you should see my enemies. Was it a prophecy or not? Tell me. You owe me that much.’

  ‘Owe you?’ Will inclined his head, pointing up the mismatch of their understandings. ‘You’re behaving as if you think I know something that might be of use to you. I don’t.’

  ‘I hope you do, for your own sake. Or am I supposed to be fooled by that ominous manner you’re so much at pains to cultivate?’ He drew a disappointed breath. ‘Is there anything to you, Willand? Anything at all, underneath all that mystery?’

  Will put on a deliberately enigmatic smile. ‘You must try me and see.’

  Edward absorbed the retort easily. ‘Truly, I don’t see what’s the harm in a little good-natured co-operation between boyhood friends…’

  How like his father he sounded when he adopted a jocular tone. Will decided to lay it out plain. ‘You’ve no idea how we’ve laboured night and day to keep you and your father in whole skins. But neither of you will be told, because your pride cannot bear advice, and in any case you don’t like the solution to this war. But it is the only solution in the end.’

  Edward rolled his eyes. ‘And now I suppose you’ll want to lecture me on—’

  But Will cut him off. ‘There is a far greater force in the land than you allow. Far greater than—’ he gestured deprecatingly at the richly carved stone of the palace buildings ‘—than all this. You won’t rest until you and all your people are dead, and a great many others who have nothing to do with you and your ambitions.’

  Edward grasped his arm, suddenly intense.’ “Ebor shall overlook Ebor before the year is out.” Gort says you know what it means.’

  ‘Why would Gort have said that?’

  ‘Because I asked him!’

  Will wanted to say outright that Edward had laughed off the warning about his father’s doom. Why did he think he deserved another chance? But he resisted the temptation. Telling Edward home truths was a dangerous game at the best of times, and Mother Brig’s words had disturbed the Earl of the Marches more than he wanted to admit.

  ‘Gort’s wrong. I don’t know what her utterance means. But Mother Brig is a seer. And whatever she says will come to pass after a fashion.’

  ‘It means that my father will overlook me and give the crown to Edmund, doesn’t it?’ Edward blurted out.

  Will was momentarily thrown. ‘What?’ He looked away, hoping it was some kind of joke, but when he turned back he saw that Edward was in complete
earnest.

  ‘You asked what I thought. “Ebor shall o’erlook Ebor”. It means he’s going to try to put a damned cripple on the throne, doesn’t it?’

  Will had never heard Edward talk like this about his brother. Something was running badly out of kilter.

  ‘Your suspicions have got the better of you,’ he said, wary now of giving more fuel to Edward’s trend of mind. But he added, ‘And, you know, it feels like a piece of dirty magic has been put on you.’

  ‘So—you think it’s sorcery?’ It was said more out of curiosity than fear.

  ‘That’s likely, listening to you speak. A spell-cast to create tension between two brothers. Another to do the same between father and son. Somebody’s seeking to open rifts in the house of Ebor. Have you accepted any tokens lately?’

  Edward was on that like a cat. ‘Tokens? From whom?’

  ‘Anyone. I mean, are you carrying anything unusual about your person? Something that might have been tampered with before being given to you?’

  There was the slightest of pauses. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure!’

  ‘In that case there’s nothing to worry about.’ He stroked his chin in a deliberately judicial way. ‘But I would counsel a formal reconciliation even so. A clearing of the air. If you want I’ll ask Master Gwydion if he’ll arrange it.’

  A haunted look came over Edward, and he said, ‘So things have come to this, have they? The day has finally arrived when I need permission from a damned crow to meet with my own father!’

  Will watched wordlessly as Edward turned about and left, taking his kinsmen with him. There was nothing more that could be said.

  Rain blustered against the window panes and threatened to wash out the cold, grey dawn. Will’s feathered nest was snug and warm, but something insistent was driving him out of it. Then he heard Willow’s voice calling to him from the stair. ‘Will! Will, wake up!’

  He rolled over, then sat upright. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Gort says they’ve all gone!’

  He shook his head, still heavy with sleep. She had got up without waking him, had let him snore on as she sometimes did on mornings when the night before had turned out to be overly convivial.

  ‘Who? Who’s gone? What’s happening?’

  She had come in bringing with her a great draught of cold air. She was bright and breathless with the news. ‘The duke. He’s gone. Sneaked off this morning. With a big party of men. Gort just told me.’

  Anger briefly flared that he had not been awakened sooner. ‘Where are my shoes?’

  Willow opened the window and studied the foul weather. ‘I thought I heard horses in the middle of the night. But it must have been just before dawn. What a day to pick.’

  ‘Gort might have said something.’

  ‘He didn’t know. He’s only just heard – Will? Hey, wait!’

  He ran down the stairs while still securing the ties on his jerkin and pulling his shirt straight. When he reached the middle of Albanay Yard he wondered what he was doing beyond uselessly confirming Willow’s words. The duke’s personal guards were gone, and when he reached Edward’s apartments he found the main doors locked and no guard posted.

  He banged a fist on the heavy wood, then waylaid a couple of palace servants. They did not know where the duke had gone, except to say that all the nobles lodging in Albanay Yard had left before sun-up, and the strangest thing – the horses had all had sacking tied over their hooves.

  ‘Yes, I bet they did! They didn’t want to wake anyone. What about Edward?’

  ‘My Lord of the Marches departed some time before them.’

  ‘Before? When?’

  The servants looked at one another. ‘Howbeit…sometime after the midnight hour.’

  It took Will a little while to get the full story out of them, but it seemed there were murmurings about men breaking camp and soldiers mustering ready to leave the May Fair fields.

  ‘Edward’s got a good head start, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he said, touching a knuckle to his lips, then turning to the servants again. ‘And Warrewyk and Sarum? Are they gone too?’

  The question was met by an uncomfortable shuffling. Having no silver, Will pushed the difficulty aside. ‘Never mind about that. Tell me: is her grace the duchess in her apartments now?’

  They brightened and nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And his grace the king?’

  Likewise.

  ‘Thank you. You may go.’

  Will stood alone in the cold, moist air. Willow’s right about the duke sneaking away, he thought, and kicked off his shoes. Despite the cold and wet he planted his feet on the flag stones and tried to sense below the slabs for the good earth. Then he cautiously opened his mind and began to feel for Chlu.

  Nothing.

  That in itself was strange. Chlu could not still be in Trinovant, or anywhere else within a dozen leagues. A coincidence, then, that he had chosen to leave on the same night as the duke? Possibly, but very unlikely. For first Edward’s host, then that of the Duke of Ebor suddenly to muster and leave within hours of one another – there must have been a plan, and a secret one at that, and Chlu had reacted most swiftly to the departures.

  ‘Out of bed at last, I see,’ Gort said, coming up. ‘And out of your shoes too. A bit cold for that kind of dance, hey?’

  Will frowned. ‘Where have they all gone off to in such a wildfire rush, eh, Wortmaster?’

  ‘Wouldn’t we both like to know the answer to that? So…better try to find out, hey?’

  A fresh warning sounded at the back of Will’s mind. ‘And they all got away without Master Gwydion getting wind of it? That’s something.’

  ‘Not so much as you might think, since the sneaking off was done in Master Gwydion’s absence.’

  ‘He’s not in the palace?’

  ‘He was abroad all last night. He’s still not back.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to find him. I have something to tell him.’

  Gort rumbled. ‘Finding him’s easier said than done these days.’

  Will knew he had heard an undertone of concern. ‘What do you mean?’

  Gort’s vigilance returned. ‘Oh, only that if a wizard doesn’t want to be found…’

  ‘Doesn’t he want to be found? I should have thought that at a time like this he’d be looking for us. Wortmaster, is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘I’m always not telling you lots of things.’ Gort’s glance alighted on Will, but then fluttered away again like a butterfly. ‘As you say, Willand, I’ll try to find him.’

  Will nodded. ‘And I’ll see what I can find out. Let’s meet back here at noon. I promise I’ll be here. And tell Willow to prepare to travel.’

  Gort headed back to the stair and Will went the other way, passing the stacked timbers that had once been Magog and Gogmagog. They were slick with rain now, and water had collected in their empty eye sockets, so their blind gazes seemed full of sky.

  When Will reached the main gates he noticed a knot of men and approached them. Edmund was among the shadows under the arches of the gatehouse. He was preparing to leave. Two servants were helping him up onto his horse, and his bodyguard moved to block Will as he came up.

  ‘Edmund! Please, I must speak with you.’

  The tragic young earl turned and recognized Will. At first, Will thought he would ignore his plea, but then he motioned him forward, and the guards allowed him to pass.

  Edmund’s stoop was pronounced, even on horseback. It seemed as if he had lost the power over half his body. He favoured his serviceable left arm and kept the withered right hidden inside a fold of his riding cloak. His mouth closed lop-sidedly so that he drooled. The cold had blotched his face with red, and caused spittle to chap his skin. But Will had always liked Edmund. Lately he had come to admire his stubborn courage, and even his ingenuity. Edmund had taught his favourite horse a whole new set of commands, and had even had hi
s saddle remade according to a pattern of his own devising, so that he could ride without discomfort.

  Edmund drawled, ‘Wish a safety…upon me, Will…and upon my father’s…enterprise.’

  At first, Will could not grasp the meaning. Edmund could not easily get his words out. Speaking was so painful a process that it destroyed cadence and emphasis in all that he said. Listening to Edmund required patience.

  Will reached up and took the young earl’s offered hand in a brief grip. ‘I would put a blessing on all your house if I could, Edmund. Where has your father gone?’

  Another mumble while Edmund’s eyes rolled in their sockets. ‘I may…not say.’

  ‘Then answer me this: has the Earl of the Marches gone with him?’

  Edmund’s helplessly roaming eyes slid deliberately away. ‘Edward is…elsewhere.’

  Will could feel the silent consternation that passed among Edmund’s guard. Everyone knew that it was dangerous to give any kind of clue to a crow, for by his arts he would work upon it and soon come to know more than he should. Whatever the truth, Will could see clearly enough what must have happened. Edward had tried to square matters with his father without employing Gwydion’s help, so it had all gone wrong. There had been hot words, and the bonfire against which Will had cautioned had flared up.

  The headstrong fool, Will thought, though part of him wondered if some of the blame was his own for mishandling Edward. He said, ‘Edward’s gone to the Marchlands to gather forces. He’s angry with your father. They argued. That’s so, isn’t it?’

  Edmund became animated. His head jerked this way and that as he brayed, ‘In…invasion!’

  ‘Invasion?’ The castle of straw that Will had built in his mind came tumbling down. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Queen Mag…no more…in Albanay!’

  Will blinked at the harsh sound, then at the news.

  ‘Thank you, Edmund.’

  He understood. But how had Queen Mag come to afford an invasion? The penniless widow must have bargained with the Regent of Albanay to raise an army.