Whitemantle Page 30

  ‘Slow down. Who’s in Ebor? Do you mean Gwydion?’

  ‘No, no – Maskull.’ Will realized he would have to explain. ‘Look – Queen Mag plays a most important part in Maskull’s plan. That’s probably why the queen was told to wait seven leagues away in Ebor. So that, if her forces suffered defeat, she could still be ridden off to safety.’

  ‘But they didn’t suffer defeat.’

  ‘In the event, no.’

  Lotan rumbled, ‘I think I see what you’re saying, but it doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘How will the others know to find us in Ebor?’

  ‘Well, obviously Gwydion will go to Ebor because he’ll realize that Maskull is there.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I know him well enough, and he knows me. He’ll know how to find us and he’ll take care of Willow.’

  ‘Hmmm. The way of wizards is strange. I hope you’re right.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  And so they set out upon the journey in the early Ewletide dusk. Though he had never had the good fortune to visit Ebor, Will knew that it was the greatest city of the north. Gwydion had spoken of its long and bloody history, saying that its formidable walls had been built and rebuilt a dozen times. They had first risen up at the command of the Slavers, and the city’s many-sided towers had once been a famous sight. Since then, two castles had been built there, one on each side of the River Ouzel, near to where it joined with the River Fosse. A king of old had ordered the Fosse dammed as a defence, and Gwydion said there was a lake there full of fish that made good eating for those who dared to poach them from the Sightless Ones. There was a very large chapter house in Ebor, but all in all, it was the queen of cities, and known as such far and wide. How sad, then, that it must now play host to a real queen, and one so deadly.

  Mag’s human plague, having ravaged Awakenfield, was now being drawn away from the battlefield by a power greater than either drunkenness or exhaustion. It would soon fall upon Ebor. As Will and Lotan travelled along moonlit lanes the air was dry and still. The cold intensified as the moon rose higher. That silvery disc stared down on Will like a dead man’s eye.

  Twenty thousand soldiers were making their way north, some walking in disciplined formations, others in ragged bands, still more raking the countryside in ones and twos, but all would eventually meet the Great North Road.

  Will felt for the lign. There were glimmerings in his feet, but nothing like the spirit-destroying power he had felt in the days before the battle. It was the lorc’s usual torpor, having just spent its malice on the battle. Will longed to repair to a grassy meadow and plant his feet in the ice-cold dew, to drink a draught of earthly powers, but he could not risk revealing himself, so once more refreshment would have to wait.

  As they went on they saw baggage waggons clogging the way at every bridge. Thousands were coming back together into one mindless army. Will was pleased he had taken Lotan’s advice and put on the livery of the Hogshead. To be taken for a member of one of the most feared companies in the queen’s array gave a measure of protection. But it was not Lord Strange and his men who played most on Will’s mind that night; it was Mad Clifton.

  Edmund’s murder had shocked Will more than he had allowed. Now he felt a gush of guilt that he had not been quicker upon the scene. Nor did it help when Lotan asked how he could have known. A burn of wicked desire stirred at his core as he walked. He pictured in his mind the thrusting of an obliterating bolt through the body of the bloodsupper. He imagined doing him to death with his own hands. And how great was the effort Will had to apply to blot out that pleasurable phantasm. He succeeded, at last, in bringing the savagery in him to heel, and told himself strictly that for a lawmaker to kill a man for murder was a paradox and so against all the laws of magic.

  I would for choice burn him down like a scarecrow, but the consequences would in the end outweigh the justice of the case, he told himself, feeling almost at first hand how revenge piled upon revenge in the hearts of wronged men.

  And while they walked Lotan felt his pain and said, ‘The red knight is no soldier but a tyrant, for the lion is wont to be a furious and unreasonable beast, cruel to them that withstand it. He is no soldier, and unworthy prey for such as you.’

  ‘He is mad, and known to be mad,’ Will said shortly. ‘And it is all the lorc’s doing. What blight the Dragon Stone began was finished up at Awakenfield. Such was Edmund of Rutteland’s unhappy lot.’

  My third upon a bridge lies dead…

  Lotan said, ‘And it’s not finished yet. I can feel it in my bones.’

  ‘Your bones tell true, I think.’

  They forded the River Hare at Woodle then joined the Slaver ridge road that ran due north through the ancient kingdom of Elmet. All the way Will was increasingly aware of the birch lign that passed through Awakenfield, and how it seemed to provide a pointer to the tramping army that pushed north and east more or less in company with it. They crossed the lign not long after passing through the ruined hamlet of Bywater, and its influence faded, but after Bramham Cross, where they turned east, they crossed the strong-running power of an entirely different lign.

  ‘Celin!’ Will said, stopping dead at the first appearance of it.

  ‘Trouble?’ Lotan asked. The sheared-off poleaxe still in his hand rose up.

  ‘No, it’s the holly lign.’ He looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I was expecting…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m getting ahead of myself again.’ He faced Lotan squarely. ‘I expected the ligns to cross at Ebor, but they cross somewhere else.’

  ‘Do you mean there’s another stone where they cross?’

  ‘Yes.’ He put out his arms, measuring the angle, then pointing. ‘It’s that way. Almost due south of us. A couple of leagues, maybe more.’

  ‘And the power’s flowing there now?’

  ‘Not as strongly as before. Not a ninth, nor yet a thirteenth, of the power.’ He orientated himself and felt for the flows in the earth, scrying towards the south for the magnitude of the stone. ‘I might be wrong, but that one seems big. I’d say it was a battlestone as potent as the Dragon Stone or the one that caused the fight at Delamprey.’

  Ghostly soldiers flowed past them, their eyes candid with questions as to what he was doing.

  ‘Come,’ Lotan whispered. ‘Don’t spook them. You’re one of them now, remember.’

  After that they bridged the River Worffe at the little town of Tadpole, and then they crossed the birch lign again. Will’s hopes guttered as he dared to consider the face-by-face reading of the Dragon Stone verse that he had read so long ago.

  King and Queen with Dragon Stone.

  Bewitched by the moon, in darkness alone.

  In northern field shall wake no more.

  Son and father, killed by war.

  Whatever it meant, it seemed eerily apt tonight. And if the Dragon Stone had told true, then there was no hope for Duke Richard.

  Now that the heat of the battle had truly cooled in the wash of moonlight, Will could see the day in its full awfulness. So many men he had known and liked were dead of the violence. Thousands had perished. What exact numbers might be placed on the disaster hardly seemed to matter, for the arithmetic of death was a strange count that did not keep the usual proportions. When the heralds reported ‘a thousand dead’ they hardly described the thousand private tragedies of which they spoke, every death being total to the man concerned and to those who loved him. But what was beyond doubt was that many more men had died today than in any previous fight, and their sum surely betokened further grief.

  Distant figures, hooded and walking in lines, caught Will’s eye. They were moving against the northward flow. Red hands, thousands of them, stirring from their chapter houses. Every Fellow for three leagues around would be aroused by the whiff of blood. They formed blind, caterpillar queues, preparing to make their pilgrimage to the sleepless
field. Over the next week they would gather together what could be found of the local people and oversee the digging of grave pits.

  Will felt fatigue growing in his limbs, but there was a greater need oppressing him. He dared to tune his mind to listen out for Chlu and found a shocking presence. Not close, but too furious to tolerate for long, and he quickly closed his mind again. Whatever was happening with Chlu, he was not in a mood of prudence or moderation. Judging from the ache Will felt inside his skull, his twin had directed a seemingly endless supply of malice throughout the battle, spending spells like a drunk spends silver. He had been part of the rout, riding down hapless men for sport as a hunter pursues wild boar, and now his mind was fixed on a more vital quarry. Why he and Maskull had not come to the Awakenfield stone and fallen neatly into their trap was impossible to say. Will’s earlier speculations seemed insufficient now – that Maskull had had his hands full with the fight. Could it be that his trials with fae magic were now complete, that he had no further use for the stones or the harm they contained? Was the greater fight already over, and the deed done? Had Maskull already made the checkmating move?

  These questions and others vexed Will’s mind mightily as the army fell back upon the city. Will was amazed to see that tall bonfires had been heaped up and fired at the news of the queen’s victory. The road that led from the south into the Muckle Gate was lined with blazing cressets. The gate itself was formed of two round towers with an arched entry between and a wooden balcony set above from which prestigious visitors could be showered with white rose petals as they halted to ask permission of the City Father to enter.

  No such welcome met the unwanted army that now poured into the city. Red shadows blazed across the white walls, and the chanting of troops resounded from Lord Clifton’s tower. The curfew bells of the Great Chapter House tolled midnight as Will passed beneath the portcullis fangs of Muckle Gate. The streets were packed with men, drunk now and revelling. The light of a thousand candles blazed from the ancient hall where the Elrondyng, the council of Ebor, usually met. The City Father and his aldermen had had no choice but to open the city to admit the queen, for there were many already within who would have thrown wide the gates for her. Now the city worthies were sitting in dutiful celebration of the victory, fearing for what the night would bring by way of fire and sword to their fortunes. But the sight that made Will’s heart sink the furthest was that of the crowd trying to enter the castle.

  Will urged Lotan to clear a way, and the big man cut a path to the castle gate. Normally the bailey was barred to all except those who had business with the king’s steward. Tonight it was packed tight, so that even knights of middling rank who had arrived late found it difficult to reach the Great Hall. Lotan shouldered his way through like a giant mole and Will followed as if he held higher authority.

  He did not dare apply magic here. The taint of Maskull’s corruption grew in Will’s nostrils as he entered the Great Hall, and he knew he had walked into the gravest jeopardy. There was the queen, accompanied by her solemn young son and surrounded by the nobles of her party. Tonight she wore crimson velvet trimmed with royal ermine, and her slender figure occupied the High Chair of the city, the one reserved for the sovereign. Not far from her, and all in black, stood Maskull. Will was staggered by the air of expectation about the hall, so thick that it could almost have been sliced and served.

  What were they waiting for? His eye danced from person to person. There were many here that he knew – the Hogshead, Lord Exmoor, the Duke of Umberland, even Lord Dudlea and the white-haired Owain of Cambray. Will’s blood boiled to see Lord Clifton among them with his smooth-shaved jaw and his insane smile, but where was that prime mover and favourite of the queen, Henry de Bowforde, Duke of Mells? Was not this his greatest hour?

  Hot wax spattered down from the candle wheels that hung on chains above, bringing Will back to the moment. Then there were shouts of ‘Make way!’ and a bodyguard dressed in the blue and white Bowforde livery entered. Will saw the golden portcullis badges glittering on their breasts, saw an aisle open that revealed floor tiles of red and ochre. And down that aisle marched Duke Henry, a fierce expression on his face. He looked to Will like a man damming back a great torrent of feeling, as if this moment was the one that his efforts had been leading him towards for the whole of his life.

  Silence descended. Henry walked straight down the aisle and approached the queen to within a sword’s length. He carried in his hand a short pike, its top obscured by a sack. It seemed to Will that Henry had conceived some grand surprise for the queen and was about to reveal it. But then Will noticed that a thin red juice ran down the pole and onto Henry’s hand, as if a fresh chicken carcass had been spiked there.

  And it dawned on him what horror crouched ready to pounce on the scene and devour it.

  Henry set the foot of the pike down on the ground, saying, ‘Gracious queen, I come tonight bearing gifts.’ And he flung off the sack to reveal his first ghastly present. ‘Your war is done, my queen! Here is your king’s ransom!’

  There, atop the pike, was the impaled head of Richard of Ebor.

  Will turned away, disgusted by the sight, all his hopes now in ruin. Around him there were shouts of delight and a burst of rejoicing. Will felt like giving out a warning that he who made merry at the death of another today would surely rue it upon the morrow. But he said no such thing, for he knew that if he did it would be Willow who would have to bear the consequences of his bravery.

  He knew suddenly that he must get out of the hall or else soon be spotted, for he could not join the celebration nor even seem to. But the gleeful rituals were by no means complete, for now two more heads were brought in on spikes to general approval. The first was the Earl Sarum’s, and the other was poor Edmund’s.

  Then Duke Henry, warming to his grim comedy, produced a paper hat cut in the shape of a crown, and he clapped it on Richard of Ebor’s head with much ribaldry, so that the fierce queen and all in the Great Hall laughed to see the mocking respect a ‘subject’ paid to his ‘rightful king’.

  ‘And what shall we say to him who is the other son of this “rightful king”?’ Duke Henry asked now turning to the queen’s child.

  And the six-year-old boy gazed back and announced, as if having been previously schooled to say the line, ‘Death to Edward! Off with his head!’

  There was laughing applause, which Duke Henry cut off, saying, ‘And what shall we do with his head when we have it?’

  The prince giggled. ‘Stick it on a hook and let the crows pick out its eyes!’

  In the uproar of mirthful approval none paid any heed to Will and Lotan as they burrowed their way out of the hall and then out of the castle.

  First they sought the darkness of cramped alleys, and Will gnashed his teeth and raged against the cruelty he had witnessed. He knew he must range far into the frozen fields and settle his boiling mind and finally gather his powers. Unless he could do so he would not be able to pledge himself again to peacemaking, for this barbarity had truly struck home with him.

  But it was no mean task to get out of the city. The crush of men entering now was twice what it had been, and the gateway was packed tight to the jambs. Again Lotan took the lead and somehow they made their exit to find a great crowd gathered expectantly outside, including many wild-men and trolls who had so far been denied entry into the city. The crackling fires threw an uncertain light up at the gatehouse, and when a roar went up from those around, Will turned to see the queen herself and all her entourage coming out onto the wooden balcony.

  The queen stood stern and remorseless. And there too, in his white garb, the queen’s son, as innocent as a swan yet already turned to the dread path by those who would see war promoted. And soon the son of the man many thought was the child’s true father, the Duke of Mells, came there also, and the Hogshead, and all the others, parading out to stand beneath the place where carpenters had already fixed a bracket with five up-curving hooks on it.

  And Will saw
the duke’s head placed up there, still wreathed in its mocking paper cap, and he recalled the words Richard of Ebor had spoken that very morning: ‘I fight for the crown!’ That was what he had said, and how true the sentiment, for now in the end he had got his heart’s desire, but not in any way that he would have wanted.

  ‘Now he looks like a king, does he not?’ Queen Mag asked, working her oratory upon the crowd. ‘Behold the traitor who dared to set his rebel hand upon my Hal’s golden throne! The impostor would have sat himself down there in majesty had not so many gallant men denied him. Do you see these five hooks I have ordered to be sharpened? I think Ebor’s head should take centre place, flanked to left and right by the traitor, Sarum, and the cripple, Rutteland. We have but three heads to show you this night, but two more shall soon adorn these walls. The far hook awaits the coming of treacherous Warrewyk! And this, above me now, is reserved for the head of Edward of Ebor! He is hereby attainted and made outlaw! Now raise the father up above this town so that Ebor shall overlook Ebor!’

  That gloating speech made by the queen was cheered rapturously by the multitude below. As the bonfires blazed higher, trolls and wild-men shouted and stamped, adding their bass voices to the noise. Will looked on, wordless and numb, seeing how vilely the war – and the world – had slumped to a new low. He was sad and sorry, like one of those great, dumb ogres in their midst, who could not understand anything of what passed, but who felt it all keenly.

  Will saw that the ogre closest to them was roaring and crying now as competing influences vied inside its slothful brain. Men around it had taken note of its agonies, and they laughed and poked fun at it in a dangerous game, like dogs baiting a bear.

  Slow of mind it may be, Will thought, yet it feels both the power of the lorc and Maskull’s enchantments, and they are tearing apart what little there is of its rudimentary emotions.