The Giants' Dance (19 page)

‘In time, I hope, to the city of Caster on the Gut of Dee, and thence by ship to the Blessed Isle.'

He looked at Gwydion critically. ‘But only when you've found a way to take it safely over the water, I trust?'

The wizard's chin jutted. ‘That is a problem which presently remains to be solved, I will admit.'

‘And what's to be done with it until then?'

Gwydion turned to look behind. ‘I hope that we are many leagues away from here by the time Lord Clifton returns home, for when he does, he will learn an impossible tale from his servants. Then he will surely try to follow us, if only to find out what he has lost from under his hall and who might be wearing his semblance.'

‘Gwydion,' Will sighed. ‘You haven't answered my
question. What's to be done with the stone in the meanwhile?'

The wizard nodded shortly. ‘I know a place twenty and more leagues to the north of here where no mortal dares to go.'

T
he mists of dawn had slowly lifted and thinned, but whereas a blue sky had promised a sunny morning, high clouds had later rolled in from the west and the day had come on dull. Will yawned; he was very tired. He wanted to sleep but did not like the idea of making his bed beside the stone. The rough plank on which he sat afforded him little comfort. Besides, every time he so much as shut his eyes the horrors of the previous night made his heart beat so fast that he had to open them again.

After they crossed over the Saltwarp the road passed through dark elm forests that clothed a hilly land. Often they had to climb down from the cart and help their horse up the slope.

As Will pushed at the tail of the cart he asked about the ogham verse that had appeared on the stone.

‘Did you read it?'

‘I did.' Gwydion volunteered no more. He seemed watchful and expectant as he walked alongside the cart.

‘Well, won't you tell me what it says?' When Gwydion made no answer he added, ‘Don't you think I'd better know?'

‘Why not try to read it for yourself?'

‘How can I see the underside without turning it over?'

Gwydion sucked his teeth. ‘What do you think it says?'

‘Something about Lugh and a lofty palace. But on the other edge was nonsense: the false word of a king, or the word of a false king, or some such.'

‘So much for your studies.'

‘The true tongue isn't easy to learn when there's no one else around who speaks it. I did my best,' he said, knowing that was not wholly true. Then he added, ‘Well, more or less.'

‘Your best was all that was asked,' Gwydion said. ‘More or less.'

The wizard cleared his throat and said in the true tongue:

‘Lughna iathan etrog a marragh-tor,

Amhainme feacail an eithichier do righ

Ora fuadaighim na beidbe all uscor,

En morh eiar e taier fa deartigh.'

‘
Lughna iathan etrog a marragh-tor
,' Will repeated, bending his mind to the problem. ‘By Lord Lugh's waterfall—'

‘Ford.'

‘—sorry, ford. Beneath the tall palace, no, er…tower? By the false word of a king—'

‘
Amhainme feacail an eithichier do righ:
by his word alone, a false king.'

‘
Ora fuadaighim na beidbe all uscor:
shall ride his adversary under water. Oh, this makes no sense at all!'

‘Shall drive his enemy the waters over!'

‘
En morh eiar e taier fa deartigh:
and the home of masters they shall come into…the west?'

‘Nearly. And the Lord of the West shall come home.'

‘Um. What do you think it means?'

‘Why don't you tell me?

‘Beside Lugh's ford and the risen tower,

By his word alone, a false king

Shall drive his enemy the waters over,

And the Lord of the West shall come home.'

‘Ah! Lugh's ford. That's surely Ludford!'

Gwydion sniffed. ‘No great mind was needed to work that out, though this verse was made before ever King Ludd reigned. That is certainly true, and therefore remarkable in itself.'

Will stopped pushing at the cart and looked askance. ‘And the “risen tower” must be Ludford Castle, which the verse foretells shall fall.'

‘And?'

‘And…could the false king be the usurper's grandson? King Hal?'

‘We might suppose so.'

‘But then, who is the Lord of the West? Some Prince of Cambray?'

‘I would say it refers to the Lord Lieutenantship of the Blessed Isle. It is a false rank which the kings of this Realm have chosen to create.'

‘Duke Richard, then,' Will said, knowing that the duke had once held the office of Lord Lieutenant. ‘But that means the prediction is that a simple show of strength on King Hal's part will be sufficient to make Ludford Castle fall, and to drive Duke Richard across the sea into the west.'

‘If your reading and mine are correct, that is precisely what it means.'

Will helped to heave the cart over a deep rut, wanting to know what clue the stone's verse had given on the whereabouts of the next stone. He asked, ‘What about when you cross-read the ogham?'

‘Then the verse ran thus – and this time I think it better if I do not trouble you with such tiresome matters as translation:

‘Lord Lugh alone shall have the triumph,

At the western river crossing, word of an enemy

Comes falsely by the raised water,

While, at home, the king watches over his tower.'

Will frowned. ‘Meaning…what?'

‘In this case, Willand, your guess might easily prove to be the equal of my own.'

‘Then guesses will have to do. What are yours?'

‘Only the beginning is clear to me: that Lugh, Lord of Light, shall be the only victor – that is an ancient form of words, an idiom which I had all but forgotten: it means that an outcome is not to be known beforehand, that the matter is safely beyond soothsayers and seers. I do not know the place that is meant by “the western river crossing”. Perhaps it is a bridge across the River Ludd, or else the Theam. Or it may mean another river entirely. The rest of the verse is truly impenetrable.'

‘Could the last line be about King Hal remaining in Trinovant? Being unwilling – or unable – to ride with his army and confront Duke Richard as his queen wishes?'

‘Or perhaps it talks of Richard, sitting in Ludford Castle, deliberating upon what must be done.'

Will stopped pushing and, as Gwydion took the reins once more, he climbed back up onto the cart and drew a sleeve across his sweat-spangled forehead. He looked again at the stone. It was hard to believe that these works of ultimate harm had been created with a peaceful purpose in mind. Everything, as the Second Rede of Advantages said, had a greater price in the long run.

‘I'm going ahead to see if I can't scry some more,' he said suddenly, jumping down. It was pleasant to walk among the wayside grasses. Here the cat's tails were still in flower and their long plumes waved at him, dusting his feet with
pollen. He took his hazel wand out of his belt and made a show of divining, but as soon as he was far enough ahead of the cart he sat down and his fingers sought out the little red fish in his pouch.

He drew it out secretly and felt how it prickled his fingertips. Whereas his own green fish had always given him comfort, this one did not. It seemed as if some power was trying to enter him from the fish, or that the fish wanted to suck something from him like a lamprey sucked blood. It was an odd sensation. There was too much of a mystery here, too many questions unanswered, but when he thought about putting a few of them to Gwydion, his spirit shied away. He put the fish back in his pouch before the cart rumbled by and, feeling thwarted, turned his attention to the battlestone instead.

He got up and walked behind the cart for a while, and the stone stared back at him balefully. As for you, he told it silently, you've taken me away from my wife and child. And you'd do as much for everyone else in the Realm if we let you. That's why I'll see you emptied of all you contain – if I can.

As the cart passed under the shade of tall elms the ridges of ogham along its edges seemed to waver like the ripple that passes down the legs of a centipede. It seemed for a moment as if it was trying to crawl out of the cart.

You don't like that idea, do you? he asked the stone silently as he climbed up beside it. No, you don't.

‘What are you doing so quietly back there?' Gwydion asked.

‘I'm trying to see if it's got any other marks on it.'

‘Well?' Gwydion said after a moment, this time looking over his shoulder. ‘Does it?'

‘It's hard to tell. But I think it's warmer than it was. We've had no sun all morning, yet it feels like the sun's been playing on it the whole day. And look at this—' He
ran his hand over the stone, showing how it had bowed upward. ‘It wasn't like this before.'

‘Do you mean it has changed its shape?' Gwydion asked.

‘To my eye it seems there's now a bulge in the middle that wasn't there before.'

‘Are you sure?'

He looked again. ‘Yes. When I was lying on it, it was flat. Don't you think I'd have noticed a curve like that?'

‘That is hard to say.' Gwydion seemed amused. ‘You were a little taken up with other matters at the time as I recall.'

‘It's an obvious bulge, Gwydion. And it wasn't there before. Perhaps you should put more binding spells on it.'

‘Perhaps.' The wizard's eyes did not move from the horizon ahead. ‘But remember, not everything is what it seems. And it is the business of a battlestone to work upon the weaknesses of the mind.'

Though they saw many dwellings along the way, all had their doors closed and their windows barred. They met few folk and spoke to fewer yet. News of war was thin, either because those they met did not know, or did not want to say. By noon they had come among the western fringes of what Gwydion said were the Hills of Clent. He said they must cut west off the main highway and along a dusty lane to avoid Hag's Wood and Wychburgh Hill. Then, at Fiveways, they chose the most northerly fork and crossed the Stoore at the new bridge, making good speed now along the carrier's road until the light began to die.

Gwydion made much of the lightness of the traffic, and the fact that there had been no bridge-keeper to levy the toll. He got down and looked closely at the ground. ‘A dozen horses were last to ride through here, all well-shod. I know the farrier and the smith who made the shoes. I know two of the horses.'

‘That bridge worries me.'

Gwydion looked around, licking his lips thoughtfully. ‘The local lord is absent. It seems the Commissioners have been scouring this neighbourhood too, for what lord would overlook a source of silver if he could spare a man to collect it?'

‘The local lord, whoever he is, won't have missed much revenue today.'

‘Yet this place is one that usually thrives. We have seen few young men along the way. Those going to market were women and children and old men. The flocks and herds have been led up to higher ground.'

‘I thought there was little enough livestock to be seen. What's the reason?'

Gwydion cast him a knowing glance. ‘If you thought an army of five thousand hungry men was going to pass close by your village, would you leave your flocks to graze in meadows beside the highway?'

‘I see what you mean.'

They rolled on through the quiet landscape. The baron's carthorse was old and had given much, and Gwydion would not ask more of her than he should. When Will's impatience next got the better of him the wizard said simply, ‘“More haste, less speed.” Think on it.' He said he could tell from the very silence how much rumour had been rife. He also said that with the harvest in and the tithes taken, lordly granaries would now be at their fullest. ‘What better time is there to have a harvest of men?'

Will cast an eye at the stone and shuddered. It seemed that the further they took it from its proper place in the lorc the hotter and more bulbous it grew, but the change was happening so slowly that he could not be sure of it.

‘What if we cross a lign with it?' Will asked suddenly.

‘Did we cross ligns with the Dragon Stone?'

‘I don't know. Probably. But this one's different.'

‘How so?'

‘It's active. It's doing things.'

They stopped eventually at Oakey, where Gwydion entered the famous grove and stood under the Thousand Year Tree in whose shade he said a famous king of old had once been crowned.

‘That was in days now long gone,' he said, his eyes misting with memories. ‘And Great Arthur hunted here each year. He gathered acorns for the royal planting ceremony. It is foretold that another tree, grown of an acorn shed by the Thousand Year Tree, shall in future time turn the fate of the Realm.'

‘How can a tree do that?' Will asked, checking again for any further changes in the stone.

‘By hiding in its branches one who shall be pursued. So the seers have said.'

‘It's a mighty strange business, prophecy. And little enough was said of it in the book you gave me.'

‘Little enough is known. Seers do not understand their talent. They are rarely able to give more than misty clues as to what will be. And some things are hidden from them entirely. But time is a cartwheel, which, though it rolls onward, also rolls around. And there are wheels within wheels, for that is the essential self-similar nature of our world, so that events repeat themselves time and again, and through this we may learn much and even prophesy after a fashion through the use of experience alone. Likewise, we may learn much from the experiences of those that have gone before us. That is why the wise man pays close attention to the rede, “History repeateth itself”, for that is a great truth, be the wheels of a man's life ever so great or ever so small…'

Gwydion's philosophies meandered on and Will yawned. In the failing light it seemed to his eye that the stone moved and then lay still again. He watched it for a while longer,
but it did not move again and so he decided he might just have imagined it.

They spent the night in the grove, out in the open, yet Will felt wonderfully safe and secure. He recalled to Gwydion the night they had rested in Severed Neck Woods, and the marvellous dream he had had of the Green Man coming to him with his kingly retinue of elves and his earthy embrace.

‘Perhaps modesty has changed your memory of that night into a dream,' Gwydion told him as they settled down by their fire. ‘It was no dream. You were given the freedom of the wildwood, and that is a very great honour. That is why I steered us here. We will sleep soundly tonight, despite our burdensome cargo.'