Whitemantle Page 39

  There were tears in her eyes. ‘Chlu?’

  He nodded. ‘We fought. I couldn’t tame him.’

  ‘But you knew to come here. You knew that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I knew.’ He kissed her and waited for the emotion to flush through him and run to ground. ‘How long have you waited here?’

  ‘All night. I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘I should have told you…’ he blethered. ‘I’ve seen the truth. I know what I am. I should have told you sooner. I’m not what you think.’

  ‘I know what you are,’ she said, looking him in the eye as if she had already worked out what he was going to say. ‘Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?’

  ‘But you don’t understand. I’m not a man. I’m not whole, just an aspect. I’m what happens when magic splits a man.’

  ‘Will.’ She said it very deliberately. ‘It doesn’t matter. None of that matters to me.’

  ‘But it does to me…I—’

  ‘Will – it doesn’t matter. Not now. Not ever. You are what you are. And whatever you are, I love you.’

  ‘Look at you!’ he said, fighting back the tears. There was pure love in her eyes, and he saw how worried she must have been. ‘You’re perishing cold! You waited all night for me? Even when the gates were shut?’

  She squeezed him. ‘I knew you’d come. You’re my man.’

  ‘Well, whatever I am, I don’t suppose you know where a breakfast may be had? I could eat a horse.’

  As they hurried to their lodgings, Willow poured out the story of what had happened. ‘Master Gwydion did what he could with that cold-hearted stone, but there was no stopping it. I don’t know what kind of malice the fae filled it with, but it felt like revenge to me. Every man out there under the Ebor banner was screaming for blood. And every one of them went to their work with a will.’

  ‘Did Maskull turn up?’

  She darkened. ‘No. The whole plan was a wash-out. And after I got all fired up again to do my best against him.’

  ‘You’d better thank the stars above that he didn’t come. Though I didn’t think he would.’

  She showed her surprise. ‘Didn’t you?’

  He told her what had happened on Cullee Hill, then added, ‘So you see, with Chlu using the very same trick that we were planning to pull on Maskull, I couldn’t help thinking that something had gone very seriously wrong along the way.’

  ‘So you already know…’ She stopped and began to feel at the seams of his clothes.

  ‘Know what? What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for that Fellowship button. The one that knave Lotan gave to you.’

  He stared at her. ‘Knave? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll soon see how he’s betrayed us,’ she said with uncommon disgust. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Here.’ Will produced the golden disc from his pouch. She took it and dropped it in the scrip of the nearest beggar, whose look of astonishment was quickly followed by his rapid withdrawal.

  ‘That’s got rid of that!’

  He took her wrist. ‘Do you mind explaining?’

  ‘Oh, Will, I know you won’t want to believe it any more than I did, but that so-called friend of ours – well, he’s turned out to be a bad one after all.’

  ‘Lotan? I don’t believe it…’

  ‘You’d better. And after all we did for him. Master Gwydion really was right about him all along.’

  Will was incredulous. ‘But what happened?’ Suddenly something smelled of rotten dealings. Gwydion. Despite his promise to treat Lotan with respect, had he forced him out?

  ‘You’d better tell me what’s what before we go any further.’

  ‘When you didn’t come back and the battle was just about to start up, Lotan went to Master Gwydion and admitted everything. He told him how he had been working for the Fellowship all along.’

  ‘Lotan said that?’ He blinked in shock. It was almost too much to take in.

  ‘I was there, Will. I heard him with my own ears. He said how he’d been sent to track you, how he’d wormed his way into our company. Then he threw himself on Master Gwydion’s mercy.’

  Will blew out a long breath. ‘He said all that of his own accord?’

  ‘That and more. He’s been reporting all our doings right back to the Sightless Ones.’

  ‘But I can’t believe it.’

  ‘And Lotan was reporting to Maskull too.’ Willow’s eyes flickered. ‘He told us that Maskull and the red hands have common cause now. The sorcerer’s secretly in league with them.’

  ‘What did Master Gwydion do to him?’

  ‘Nothing. He just sent him away.’

  ‘What?’

  Willow sighed. ‘I know. It’s not the punishment I wanted to mete out to him, I can tell you.’

  Will was dazed, but more by disappointment than any other emotion. He said slowly, ‘You know, part of me found it hard to believe that Lotan could have survived when he attacked Maskull on Awakenfield bridge with only a sword in his hand. Master Gwydion warned me that Maskull’s magic might be letting him see all that passed before Lotan’s new eyes – I didn’t want that to be true, and so I wouldn’t listen. But it was true after all.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Willow said, shame-faced. ‘You were angry with me for using Maskull’s medicines to restore Lotan’s sight. It was Lotan who suggested it. He played on my pity, and he was working for Maskull and the red hands all the time. He was sending messages back to the Spire as regular as clockwork. He even gave you that golden button so his masters could track you.’

  ‘But I felt no red hand magic on that gold. It was clean, or I’d never have taken it.’

  ‘Master Gwydion says it’s very unusual gold, taken long ago from one of the Hallows and hoarded by the Sightless Ones as a special treasure. Nothing sticks to it. You wouldn’t have known a thing.’

  Will put his face in his hands and let out a long breath. ‘Oh, Lotan,’ he said finally. ‘How could you?’

  As they came to an alley, Willow turned up it, but Will stopped dead. His mind was whirling. Lotan, a traitor? Could it be that he was so fine a liar? Or was this how a wizard failed, collapsing into suspicion and deceit and plotting against true friends? Surely there was more to this than met the eye.

  ‘Willow, did you actually hear Lotan make his admission?’

  ‘I told you. I saw the whole thing. I was as close to him then as I am to you now.’

  It felt like the death of a friend. ‘But did he…did the admission seem to be made of his own accord? Or did Master Gwydion have to badger it out of him?’

  ‘I know it’s hard to accept, but that’s the way it was.’ She looked anxious as she tried to drag him onward. ‘Come on, Will, this is no place to linger.’

  The tower of the counting house rose above the thatches on the far side of the Butcher Market. It had no tall spire, but four small spines and each of them was topped with a vane that was, even now, whirling out messages to unseen watchers in each of the four directions. Here where the road forked, overseeing the market, the Sightless Ones had erected one of their stone monuments. This one was six-sided, a series of steps that rose up to a central pillar. Around that pillar many a votive candle burned, and at its foot a woman knelt. She was weeping, mad with grief. Then Will saw the object of her torment. On top, spiked so it could not fall, was a head, white-haired and bearded. It had once belonged to Owain of Cambray.

  ‘By the moon and stars!’

  Willow took his arm. ‘Come on, Will. Don’t look at it.’

  ‘Oh, Willow, my darling girl,’ he muttered, turning. ‘When will this ever end?’

  ‘Ten noble prisoners were beheaded. One after the other,’ Gwydion told him as they prepared to eat. ‘And last of all was Jasper of Pendrake’s father. Until they tore the shirt from his back he never lost faith that his son would ransom him.’

  ‘Those gentler days are gone,’ Willow said flatly.

  ‘But Jasper escaped?’ Will asked, gratef
ul for a small crumb of hope, though he could hardly keep the reproach from his voice.

  ‘He was not taken.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have stopped that despicable act of revenge at least?’

  ‘I cannot change the minds of those who choose not to hear me. It presently seems to Edward the most fitting thing in the world to strike off the heads of captured opponents. And you must admit that his reasoning is impeccable: a father’s head for a father’s head. What arithmetic could be simpler than that?’

  Will closed his eyes. ‘And that’s the way it carries on and on. What fools men are!’

  ‘Have you only just realized that?’ Willow said.

  The wizard got up and left them, darkly preoccupied.

  Will sat down with Gort and Willow and, as he wolfed some bread and cheese, he reflected on what the others told him. Edward would not see the wizard: he had issued orders that the ‘conjuror’ be shot at if he should try to make any approach.

  ‘Don’t blame Master Gwydion, Will,’ Gort said. ‘It’s this changing world. They don’t listen to him any more. None of them do.’

  A sudden clanking noise out in the Butcher Market drew their attention, and then Gwydion reappeared, standing at the open door. He beckoned to Will. ‘Edward is preparing to leave. But first there is something he feels he must do.’

  The clanking came again. It was the sound of hammers and chisels breaking a block.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Will asked, coming out to see.

  Ebor troops were massing in the square, ready to leave the city. Edward sat proud on his great charger, surrounded by his captains. And there, under the sightless gaze of Owain of Cambray, two masons were shattering a friable grey stone with hammer blows upon a bolster. Will knew at once that it was the stump of the Morte’s Crossing doomstone. It was being chipped away, and the resulting pieces handed out as luckstone charms to the men.

  ‘They’ll love him for this,’ Gort said.

  ‘They already love him,’ replied Will.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Willow asked.

  Gwydion did not answer, and so she looked to Will.

  ‘There were three doomstones,’ he said, staring into space. ‘Or have you forgotten?’

  ‘To Baronet Hadlea, then?’ She said it fearfully, and he saw that she was recalling with dread his sickness the morning they had left Trinovant. Going back there would not be a pleasant prospect.

  ‘There’s no doubt the flow in the lore is strengthening again. And it’s directed a little south of eastward.’

  ‘Along the yew lign?’ Gwydion asked.

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Well, that makes sense.’

  Will knew what the wizard meant. Edward would have to ride for Trinovant if he wanted to intercept Queen Mag’s monstrous army. It must by now have accomplished most of its journey.

  ‘Lord Warrewyk’s holding Trinovant,’ Will said. ‘But he has fewer men under his banner than Edward. To stand any chance of opposing the queen’s thrust against the capital, Edward will need to link up with Warrewyk. No doubt messengers have already been sent to Trinovant with orders to that effect.’

  ‘Come!’ Gwydion said, eyeing the soldiers who were now flooding into the Butcher Market. ‘Let us see if we cannot steal a march on them all!’

  Will reached the stables just in time to prevent their horses being commandeered. They left Erewan together and travelled with all speed, taking a back way to the Byster Gate. Once outside the walls they swung down onto the track that would take them eastward.

  Gwydion told them, ‘This old Slaver road leads to Caer Gloustre, and from there another road goes on to Cirne.’

  Will nodded. ‘Edward is going to have to take his army across the Great River, and my guess is that he’ll do it by way of Gloustre Bridge. How far is it from Cirne to Trinovant?’

  Gwydion’s eyes flickered as if he was recalling some ancient piece of information. ‘It is thirty leagues eastward to the White Hall as the crow flies.’

  ‘And the crow will have to fly like the wind, if we’re to have half a chance,’ Willow said.

  Will saw in his mind the three-sided journey he had made. By the time they reached Trinovant again, he would have travelled completely around the great triple triangle that made up the lorc. The first leg had taken them north up the hazel and holly ligns. On the second he had followed the birch to the south and west. Now the third journey would bring him back along rowan and yew to the very place where he had started. The irony of it was not lost on him.

  It’s all been a wild goose chase, he thought. How many men have died since last I saw Trinovant? And how many more will have to die before the lorc is sated?

  Will sank into a dark mood. To travel along the ligns again was not a prospect that delighted him for, with so many stones gone, the third of the great doomstones was now pulling earth power without hindrance. The elixir Gort had made for him was all gone, so crossing the ligns would be torturesome. But it was no good dwelling on drawbacks, and in any case a more immediate question was nagging at his mind. As soon as he was able to pull away discreetly from Willow and Gort, he came up alongside Gwydion and asked the question straight out.

  ‘Why did you have to drive Lotan away?’

  ‘Hmmm? What did you say?’

  ‘Lotan – you drove him away. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? As soon as my back was turned, you made him out to be a villain. You put him under some compulsion, had him condemn himself out of his own mouth. Tell me why you did it, for I know it wasn’t pride alone.’

  The wizard took the accusation as if he had been expecting it, though the insult stung him. ‘Lotan admitted his deceptions freely, Willand. And the only reason you are saying otherwise is because power is flowing in the lign—’

  ‘Oh, no! Don’t give me that. You made him do it. You cast a spell over him.’

  ‘That is not true.’

  Will’s jaw clenched. ‘So, on the one hand, you’re asking me to believe that he’s a Fellow through and through, a hard-bitten spy who’s been plotting our destruction. While on the other, you say he just ups and throws it all over? Why? That’s a very sudden change of heart for one so committed to our downfall, isn’t it?’

  The wizard returned a patient look. ‘I am not asking you to believe anything. But if you would know how it happened I will tell you plainly. Before the battle at Morte’s Crossing began Lotan’s spirit was greatly unsettled. He looked ever and again to the north, hoping for your return. He knew you were to be ambushed by Chlu. That was my surmise at the time, for I saw it in his demeanour. He had made a promise to his masters—’ He held up a hand to forestall Will’s next objection.’—but you and he have been through much together, and I think that in the end he came to like you too much.’

  ‘He suffered a crisis of conscience because he liked me?’ Will said incredulously. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘That is exactly it.’ He watched Will’s resolve waver. ‘You see, no man may serve two masters. And some men discover too late that the only master worth serving is their own true heart.’

  Will saw that he had no choice but to swallow what was a very bitter pill. ‘Then Lotan really did betray us…’

  ‘If you wish. But I should prefer to think of it otherwise.’

  ‘Otherwise? What otherwise can there possibly be?’

  ‘That in the end he stopped betraying us.’ The wizard smiled regretfully. ‘We should rejoice in any withdrawal from wrongdoing, be it ever so late in the day, don’t you think?’

  ‘And that’s why you let him go?’

  ‘That is why I let him go.’

  The doubts that Will had had to voice had flown like birds. The wizard was telling the truth, but Will still found the betrayal hard to digest, or to forgive. He found it hard to ask more, but he needed to know. ‘What did Lotan say to you?’

  ‘He told me he had been selected for his mission personally by Grand High Warden Isnar, who knew that pity woul
d be the key.’

  Will let out another long breath. ‘But surely he could have killed me as I slept. He could have murdered me at any time.’

  ‘He could have. But his orders were not to murder you. Nothing so crude. The Fellowship have been informed that you are to play a crucial part in an attempt to block the union of the worlds. Lotan has been trying to discover whether or not your survival works in the Fellowship’s favour. Had he determined that it would not, then perhaps he might have tried to kill you. I cannot say.’

  Will pressed his eyes shut as a fresh pang of anxiety flowed through him – so much seemed to be expected of him, yet he could not see how he could even begin to accomplish anything so immense in what little time remained. He forced himself to ask, ‘How does the Fellowship know that I’m to play this crucial part? Who informed them?’

  ‘Maskull. He has joined with them, offered them a favoured place in the world to come.’

  ‘But doesn’t that jeopardize the absolute power he seeks? Why would he do that?’

  ‘In return for their help now. He cannot reach you on his own. He knows that time is fast slipping away, and that the Fellowship possesses what he does not – a ready-made web, thousands of followers at their beck and call. After hearing what Maskull proposed, the Fellowship sent Lotan to entrap you, to gain your trust then put the golden mark upon you so Isnar could track you.’

  ‘But Maskull already knew how to find me. He controls Chlu.’

  ‘Perhaps. But not for much longer. The day will dawn quite soon when Maskull is no longer able to trust Chlu to act for him. It may already have dawned.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Then you have not thought about it enough. As the other world approaches, so magic has been draining fast from us. As my powers have been enfeebled, so too have Maskull’s. Virtually all that will remain in the latter days of this world is the very oldest magic – that which the fae left behind.’

  Will looked far ahead to where the road forked. ‘You mean the magic which is in Chlu? And in me?’