Whitemantle Page 33

  Will began to think about Gwydion then, and the wizard’s fading powers. What had caused him to misjudge so much? Like a green leaf, marred by insects and browning at the edges as winter approached, Gwydion had begun to show signs that the seven failings were seeping into him at last. He had half-convinced everyone that Lotan was not to be trusted, and that had been only one of his mistakes. Lotan’s aura was not without blemish. Dark shadows lay over him. But there was something wholesome at the heart of the big man that could not be denied. It made Will think that things might have turned out better if the warrior had been with them earlier. But it was easy to dwell on might-have-beens and should-have-dones, and easier still to blame others.

  After Wrathford-on-Eye they rode east to avoid Awakenfield. They crossed the Caldor further upstream at Horburgh Bridge, but that was only possible by showing the token of safe passage that Jasper had provided for them. As they climbed up onto higher ground Will saw distant patrols riding hard, and knew that the queen’s man-hunters were out looking for those who might have escaped the rout at Awakenfield with Ebor gold in their pouches.

  They tracked up into the moors of Elmlea, over-nighting at the greystone village of Hepfirth. A full day’s hard riding took them into even more beautiful country, across the high bogs of Cinder Clout and past the snowy heads the local people called Crow’s Den and Dark Peak. Then down they came through Buckstone Wellwater and into the lands where Will and Gwydion had once found the Plaguestone.

  All the while Will tried to keep the Bethe lign on their left-hand side. He could feel its power growing ominously. Memories of the dread battle in which he and Gwydion had been caught at Blow Heath, now only a little way to their west, impressed themselves upon him. The echoes of that horror made Will’s skin prickle.

  As the light faded again he realized they must have entered the Earldom of Shroppesburgh, or Salop as the county was more often called by the churlish folk. They made camp at Wealdmoor Eiton, pitching their tent in the lee of a small hill. The next day another hard ride took them across the remains of the Slaver road called the Warding and shortly afterwards they passed east of the Wreaken Rock along a road that took them to the huge arch that spanned the Great River of the West at Stonebridge. The last time Will had come this way he had seen the green power glittering under the waters, and he knew they must be careful, for this was the lign, bared raw to the eye as it arced across the gorge.

  Once safely across Severine’s Flood a short ride brought them to the village of Mart Woollack, and they went thereafter by Luddsdale with its skeletal orchards, through the bountiful places Will recalled from the ride he had taken with Earl Sarum’s victorious army south from Blow Heath to Ludford, though now a sifting of snow had bleached all colour from the land.

  As they rode through wintry oak woods, the ever-present lign started to eat at Will’s thoughts again and he began to blame and berate himself. He pondered the reasons why he had allowed so much time to elapse between the making of his promise to Lotan and his acting upon it. There had been no hex on him, no outside power of constraint, yet he had shied away from fulfilment. That delay had been down to his own weakness. He should have taken himself in hand sooner and made himself do what he knew must be done. But he had lacked discipline. That was where it had all fallen apart. That was where he had missed his chance to become King Arthur!

  And because Will forgot to stand back from himself he did not notice that the lign had begun to haunt him. The world was sinking into twilight, and it all seemed to be his fault. His and his alone. A hot ember of shame burned inside him, and he dwelt on it as he rode. Nor did the lign give him any respite from his doubts about the coming battle.

  ‘Is true courage to do with not feeling fear or despair?’ he asked Lotan suddenly. ‘Or just not letting others know when you feel that way?’

  Lotan took the question with due seriousness. ‘Courage is not the same as fearlessness. A piece of wood is fearless, but it is not courageous. What men call courage is often only recklessness, or a need to follow another man’s orders. Sometimes what is called courage is only a kind of anger. I have known that sort too.’

  ‘You make it all sound less than heroic.’

  Lotan seemed about to let the topic go, but then he said, ‘There is a true form of courage. It comes from knowing self-sacrifice. If ever you see that kind, you will never forget it.’

  Will waited for more, but nothing more came. Lotan’s reticence prickled him, and he realized that they had both fallen into a morose silence, and each was now concerned with his own thoughts.

  It’s the lorc, he thought, drawing a deep breath. The birch lign is running strongly. And it’s very close.

  He looked up at the clouds and listened to the sound of the horses’ hooves among the fallen leaves, then made a conscious effort to shift his mind onto more elemental matters. But however hard he tried he could not sustain it for long. Instead he began to ruminate on Jasper’s doomed efforts. That led to a dour little conversation as he tried to make Lotan understand why he had rebuffed the Lord of Pendrake.

  ‘You don’t have to justify yourself to me,’ Lotan muttered.

  ‘I’m not justifying myself. I’m trying to tell you something important. Jasper’s doing what he can to end the war, but he’s not impartial. He’s the king’s half-brother.’

  Lotan grunted. ‘Impartial? What is that? There’s no one in the Realm for whom loyalty to one side or the other is not important.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s a family fight in which the dukes, whose veins are running with royal blood, are most closely concerned. And all the earls support one duke or another. And the lesser lords and landowners are already committed within the earldoms. As for the churlish folk, feudal bonds keep them tied to the land and the lords whom they think will protect them. Everything’s locked tight.’

  Lotan took the message stonily. ‘That is the usual recipe for war.’

  ‘I’ve begun to realize what purpose the Ogdoad served. Only the wizards were not caught up in the snares of allegiance. Only they could recommend any kind of just remedy. But today they represent the tail end of a dying tradition and now Gwydion and Maskull have fallen to fighting one another.’

  ‘You speak of Maskull as if he once acted justly,’ Lotan said, uncertain now.

  ‘He was accustomed to long ago.’ Will scratched his head. ‘Don’t you know that he was once a wizard? He betrayed their calling and went to work for himself. It doesn’t matter to him who wins the war, he’s only trying to further his own ends these days. That’s why he’s a sorcerer. He and Master Gwydion have seen wars great and small, hundreds probably. They know the shape of war, the way things always go when conflicts arise, and they understand how long it takes to fix things afterwards. But as Master Gwydion once told me, Ogdoad wizards are not men of power. What they hold is wisdom and what they wield is influence. They could never make kings and lords do what they advised, only make the true path seem like good sense.’

  ‘Just like the Fellowship,’ Lotan said.

  ‘Huh! I don’t think so!’

  ‘Why do you say that? What’s the difference?’

  ‘Well, because the Fellowship doesn’t see the true path in anything. It uses bribery and blackmail and it enriches itself obscenely at the expense of the churlish folk, whereas Master Gwydion does none of those things.’

  Lotan thought on that for a long moment, then he said, ‘Is that truly so? Are his motives and his methods really so pure?’

  ‘Yes, I think they are. A wizard’s task is to try to make folk see the truth and the folly of things. Remember, you don’t know him at his best. Nowadays he’s a long way past his prime.’

  ‘Maybe he’s started working for himself too.’

  ‘No. That’s just it, you see. Because real magic won’t work properly when too much self-interest is present. That’s exactly what’s wrong with Maskull’s way. His magic is sorcery, and try as he might sorcery cannot win in the end. It’s dead meat that only
turns to stink and corruption.’

  Will fell silent, thinking how hollow his hopes must sound in the quiet of the oak grove. He began to think about Willow again and to ask whether his own reasons for choosing to come here with Lotan were not at their root a little less than pure. Perhaps they were not, after all, connected with a desire to interfere with the coming battle. Perhaps he was only doing what other men did, trying to protect what was his.

  It was true that the idea to drape Willow in a swan cloak and have her shoot corpse-whale arrows into Maskull had sounded as if it might be possible. Now the thought of it terrified him. It seemed absurd and outrageously dangerous, much more so than when they had been back in the safety of Trinovant. And if Will was honest he would have to admit that Master Gwydion had the knack of making anything seem possible when he so chose…

  As they came to Ludford’s Feather Gate, Will began to worry that Gwydion’s weapon of choice in the battle between wizard and sorcerer was indeed a cause for concern – because that weapon was his wife.

  PART FOUR

  THE END OF ALL THINGS

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE IRON TREE

  ’State your business!’

  The demand was called down from a tall gatehouse that had been barred and barricaded against war.

  Iron spikes had been driven into logs dragged across the road, and a glade of sharpened stakes guarded all approaches like fearsome teeth. It was frosty in the shadow of the walls.

  ‘We bring tidings for Castle Ludford concerning Duke Richard of Ebor.’

  ‘Then go to the Durnhelm Gate, for the town is closed to all comers!’

  The voice was uncompromising. Gone was the simplicity of belief the townsfolk of Ludford had once enjoyed. At the time of Will’s last visit the people had just been told of a great victory by their beloved lord whose great ally had smashed an enemy army. But since that heady and hopeful day, their lord had deserted them, running for his life into the Forest of Morte while their houses had burned. Many of the churls who had cheered the news of Blow Heath had died before the year was out, and now their lord and his ally were dead also, though they were yet to learn about it.

  News of the calamity had yet to come this far, and Will tried to take encouragement from that, for it was vital that the matter of his father’s death be broached to Edward in exactly the right fashion if the explosion of violence that must follow was to be contained. He could not have come here any quicker, not without killing their horses. The hours they had spent in the dark at Ebor had set them back, but not, it seemed, fatally.

  As they skirted the town, Will saw the remains of the earthworks that had been dug long ago to prevent the king’s sappers from getting to the foot of the town walls. He led the way over the mounds where the Earl of Warrewyk’s gunners had set their great guns, and then he recognized the very place where he had been sitting the day he had realized his salmon talisman was missing.

  A ray of sunlight pooled around them. Under his thick woollen jacket Will felt suddenly overwarm. He wiped a sleeve against his forehead, then put a hand against the pit of his stomach and, like a man who has been sickening for a day and sensing for the first time the onset of his illness, he blew out a weary breath.

  But what sickness was this? Not one of the body, for sure.

  He looked up at the sky, searching for the gibbous moon; the pregnant-bellied phase always complicated his blood. But the influence was not upon him. Nor was it the vacant earth, for the blockages of Ludford were long gone. Echoes there were aplenty, but not even the memory of his madnesses here could explain the feelings that welled up inside him as if from under stones. This was a sickness of mind. As if something unacceptable had come to him, something he was pushing down deep and blocking from the light.

  He steeled himself and decided to look within, and in that moment of decision the way became clear. He must follow the pain. Pursue it. It was not fearlessness nor even courage, but some insistent need to know. What he saw was ugly – a revelation he did not want to face.

  ‘What ails you?’ Lotan said, regarding him askance.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘If you’re sick—’

  ‘Leave it!’ That was needlessly brusque. ‘Just…a little queasiness. I’ll tell you if it gets worse.’

  And in the comradely way that all good warriors must learn, Lotan gave space and easy silence. It was a private matter.

  Will suffered, for the revelation was appalling. He could see the red and the green fishes for what they truly were now. The former had gone with Chlu and the latter with himself. They must have been made by Maskull’s use of fae magic, made out of a live fish, perhaps as a preliminary to the main spell-working. But the trial had gone awry and the result had been two wizened pieces of stone, one benevolent, the other malicious. Still in the shape of fish, but both turned to stone and as dead as doornails.

  Good enough, perhaps, for Maskull to know that he was following the right lines with his work, but not nearly good enough to satisfy his eventual aim. For that to happen those transformed by the magic would have to remain alive…

  Will shivered as he imagined the sorcerer hanging those little stone fish on cords about the neck of the original child on which he planned to perfect his grand experiment of separation. It may even have been that they were a part of the magic – a starter, so to say, like a burning ember applied to the vent of a great gun to set off its powder charge.

  And so Maskull had been able to say in his moment of triumph, ‘I made you, I can unmake you just as easily.’

  I am not I, Will thought. I am merely half of a whole. And the other half…

  Perhaps it was only the muting power of shock, but there was no outrage or loathing in him. Only an understanding. And that was good enough. He wondered how he could tell Willow.

  I am what I am, he thought, with contradicting false confidence. I am what I’ve always been, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing.

  But then the idea that he was so closely bound to Chlu overwhelmed his peace of mind: can we really be the two halves that make the same man? The idea was utterly repellent.

  As they turned towards the wooded slopes that dropped down to the River Theam, Will rode across the rowan lign and felt a powerful blast tear at him. A few paces away was the grave of the Blood Stone. That sickly hollow was full of memories and the air above it thick with ghosts. It was just a gaping hole, icy and bare of grass, but it was the place where Lord Strange had once pulled a monster from its bed before throwing it down the castle well.

  The sickness gradually passed from him and Will noted that the earth flow had gone deeper hereabouts. It was as if, no longer pinned to the surface by a battlestone, it had sagged down into the Realm Below. Instead of breaching the land and being shattered into a thousand fragments against the castle ramparts and the byways of the town, the flow was no longer obstructed. Now its power rushed headlong through underground channels to a place of far greater importance, a place which was no more than a league or two further south.

  But was that the only reason that Will could see and feel the power with such clarity now? Or had he changed too? Had he grown more into his own power? He hoped so, for there seemed little doubt that the final combat was approaching.

  ‘What now?’ Lotan asked.

  Will realized that he had unthinkingly brought his mount to a halt. He roused himself. ‘If Edward’s anywhere, he’s up there,’ he said, pointing at the castle.

  The Durnhelm Gate, when they reached it, was also closed. When he called up, a voice came from behind the battlements.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I have an urgent message for the Duke of Ebor!’

  The reply seemed to stump the invisible gateman, then a head appeared and another voice, a woman’s, piped up, ‘He don’t live here no more.’

  Then the first voice said, ‘What do you want with him?’

  Will’s knuckles tightened on the reins. ‘This is an urgent m
atter and only for the duke’s ears.’

  There was hilarity at the hardening of his tone. ‘Hark at that! Open the gate, he says. Urgent, if you please!’

  ‘Tell him to push off.’

  The woman’s face appeared and smiled a gap-toothed smile. ‘My man here says you’re to push off.’

  Will waited, wrathful yet considering, then he shouted, ‘Your lord will not thank you for turning us away when we have important news for him!’

  A new head appeared wearing a kettle hat. ‘Our lord thanks us to keep his town and castle against enemies and ne’er-do-wells like you. Now, be off with you!’

  ‘The message I bear is important. I—’

  ‘Aye, and if you were my lord’s messenger you’d have given us the password by now, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘We’ve been riding three days from the north. We know no password.’

  ‘Then turn around and get you gone. Or shall I have my lads stick a couple of arrows in the rump of that nag of yours?’

  As Will bit back his anger, Lotan touched his arm and motioned him away.

  Will scowled, but complied. ‘I don’t want to use magic on him. Why does he have to make it so difficult?’

  ‘He’s a town gateman. It’s not his job to make things easy for strangers, and we’re hardly dressed like nobility. Look at the ground.’

  Will saw that the place on which their horses were stamping was heavily churned. He met the big man’s knowing look. ‘Traffic.’

  ‘And all going one way.’

  Will nodded. ‘Leaving the town.’

  Lotan got down and examined the muddied ground with care. ‘The gateman’s woman was right, the Duke of Ebor don’t live here no more.’

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘An army passed out of the town this morning.’

  Will rubbed at his unshaved chin. ‘How many men?’

  ‘A couple of thousand. Maybe more.’

  ‘A couple of thousand?’ Will said, pained. ‘That won’t be nearly enough against a fresh army brought up from Cambray.’