The Language of Stones

by Robert Carter

  The villagers fell back from him, their faces awed. ‘No! No!’ they cried. ‘There was no one!’

  But then the mad woman blurted something out. She fell down strangling, frothing at the mouth.

  ‘Wise Woman!’ someone called out. ‘The maggots are in her brain!’

  Gwydion knelt over her, made a sigil over her forehead, then commanded, ‘Speak to me, Sister!’

  ‘The old yew!’ she gasped, her lips blue. ‘It’s bleeding! Bleeding!’

  Gwydion tended the woman briefly, seemed to tear something unseen from her throat, then he straightened. His face was as pale as moonlight. ‘Take me there.’

  A yew tree bleeding, Will thought as they were led to the green. How can that be?

  They reached the great sombre tree, surrounded now by fifty or more folk. At about head height the yew split into two main trunks, and thereafter it spread its dense dark foliage into a soaring spire above the ground. Under its shadow no grass would grow. Poisonous red berries glistened all over it. It was very ancient, the sacred tree of Preston Mantles. Gwydion approached it with careful respect. A little below the place where the trunks separated a deep red resin oozed and ran from a fold in the wood.

  ‘Which of you has broken the heart of this venerable tree?’ Gwydion demanded turning angrily upon the gathered crowd.

  His words resounded with great power now, and the villagers backed away from him.

  ‘Who has been dancing here?’ Gwydion demanded. ‘Tell me!’

  The people looked guiltily to one another, still denying all with shrugs and wide eyes. They quaked with fear at the wizard’s wrath. All weapons were cast down and children hid behind their mother’s skirts.

  ‘Tell me who was dancing here!’

  Despite himself, Will shrank back also.

  ‘Fetch a team and chains,’ Gwydion commanded. ‘This must be settled!’

  As the oxen were being yoked together and led up to the tree, the villagers muttered among themselves, but their complete obedience to Gwydion surprised Will. They seemed to accept his anger and his authority for they responded without demur. The parents of the missing child watched as he took up a mattock and began to hack away the lower branches. Then a chain was looped around one of the two main trunks and the oxen set to haul.

  ‘Gooo-on!’ one of the men shouted. He held a rope attached to a ring in the nose of the lead ox. The great beasts strained as they were urged on. Hooves stamped into the ground. The chain tautened and then tore into the red bark as it strangled the bough. Then a shudder passed through the tree and with a crack the timber of the trunk split clear to the ground and the tree thundered apart.

  The man leading the oxen yelled. The broken half of the tree lurched and fell to the ground in a cloud of dust and leaves. Then Will saw the white heartwood of the ancient tree revealed to daylight, and he turned away in horror.

  Embedded in the wood was a perfect skeleton. Maggot white, maggot soft, glistening, curled up like a sleeping child. The sight of it made Will gasp. All who witnessed it reeled back, groaning. The mother screamed and the father cradled her so she would see no more.

  Gwydion went immediately to them and laid healing signs upon their foreheads. Will looked away from the horror. He could not move or utter another word for the shock of the moment held him in its grip. But then Gwydion turned his attention back towards the tree and directed a stream of blue fire into it. Then the wizard’s grip tightened on his staff and he turned upon the old woman who shrank down to her knees before him.

  ‘Tell me who did this, Sister!’ Gwydion ordered, his eyes blazing like smelted iron.

  The Wise Woman fell down again and began to writhe. Her blue lips were flecked with foam and she groaned as if her spirit was fighting to leave her body. Then the wizard laid both hands upon her upraised face and made his irresistible demand.

  ‘Tell me his name!’

  And her frothing throat gave up a single word – ‘Maskull!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE STONE OF CAER LUGDUNUM

  Will said little the next morning. What had passed in Badby Chase now seemed like a horrible nightmare and perhaps also an ill omen for the future. For the moment he wanted only to put the terror of it out of his mind.

  But what did the dead boy signify? Under powerful compulsion, the poor Wise Woman of Preston Mantles had told Gwydion everything he wanted to know – the monstrous deed had been the work of the wizard’s great enemy. And though Will was not directly touched by what had happened, yet it hardened his heart against the dishonest use of magic that was called sorcery.

  The sight of the dead boy had shocked him horribly. He had not understood at first, or perhaps he had not wanted to understand. But Gwydion had not left it there. ‘His name was Waylan, but they called him Wale. He was thirteen-and-a-half years old, and Maskull came into his village and killed him. I think you can work out why.’

  Last night he had felt pity for the parents as they had watched their son’s sap-softened skeleton crackle and hiss among the flames. He had listened to the village women keening and his heart had been broken by that unforgettable sound. But to hear that the boy, Waylan, had been murdered in his place – that brought the horror down full upon him, and fear crept into his belly.

  ‘Can I ask a question, Master Gwydion?’

  ‘Of course. And if you are lucky you may even receive an answer.’

  He did not react to the wizard’s attempt at levity, but said morosely. ‘Last night you asked the villagers if they had seen a stranger come by, but they were lying. They were lying, and you saw that and punished them for it. That’s not like you, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘They were not lying,’ Gwydion said softly. ‘They could not fully remember what had happened because they had been told to forget it.’

  With that the wizard reached into his pouch and took out a grey powder. It looked like some of the ash left from the burning of the yew. He tried to make a sign over Will’s forehead but Will pulled away. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Giving you comfort. What did you think?’

  ‘I don’t want comfort, Master Gwydion,’ he said tonelessly. ‘I want to remember how today feels.’

  The wizard put away his pouch. ‘As you wish.’

  As day followed day in the open air and meetings with others grew seldom, Will lost track of time, but judging by the colour of the leaves and the strong webs and great round bodies of the orb spiders among the hedges it must have been near the end of October by the time they broke off their fruitless searching and came at last into the village of Eiton.

  Mice fled from them as they crossed the stubble fields and coneys bounded out of their path as they climbed the hills. In time they came to a huddle of oak-framed dwellings whose lime-washed walls of wattle and daub and roofs of thatch seemed most homely to Will. He best liked the look of the Plough Inn, whose sign-board showed seven stars.

  ‘Liag,’ he said and made Gwydion smile. ‘You see? I’m not a teasel-head. I do remember some things.’

  By now Will had become used to sleeping out of doors, and he knew how to make himself comfortable, be the weather fair or foul. He had learned how to choose the best ground, how to make himself a leafy bed, how to weigh down his cloak with stones and to prop it up over him with sticks. Several times now that the weather had begun to turn cooler he had stuffed his shirt with straw, or filled their cooking pot with ashes and red embers, put on the lid and curled up close around it. In the mornings he had often awakened to find his cloak sparkling with rain or fallen dew, but himself dry and warm within his little cloak tent and nothing to do but shake out the earwigs to fend for themselves.

  He was now so strong from all the walking that no matter what ache was put into his bones from sleeping on open ground, a league’s journeying could always put it to flight. In the last week, though, the ground had begun to lose much of its summer warmth, so the prospect of indoor hospitality at the Plough was greatly to Will’s liking.

>   When they entered they found a cheery place with a stair that led up to a second floor. In the downstairs parlours there were several folk warming themselves by the fire, mostly waggoners and carriers and other men of the road.

  ‘Now then, Master Gwydion!’ said Dimmet, the Plough’s keeper. He was a big man with a strong chin and bewhiskered cheeks. ‘What a pleasant surprise. Ought I to pour you a tankard of my best?’

  ‘That you ought, Friend Dimmet.’

  ‘And what about you, my lad? The same for you, is it?’

  ‘We have no payment,’ Will said, putting his hand to his pouch while a big black dog sniffed at him.

  ‘Nay, lad. That will not be needed. Any companion of Master Gwydion’s is welcome here, freely and as my guest. Duffred! Come on out here, you sluggard! You’ll see a change in my lad, I’m thinking, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘Indeed! He’s a well-fed lad.’

  Duffred, who seemed to be growing into the image of his father, gave a wink and a beaming smile and went to draw off the refreshments.

  Gwydion leaned over and whispered to Will, ‘Now do you understand what I told you about the man who has friends being richer than the man who has silver? You see, I have travelled this way once or twice before.’

  ‘You get a fine welcome here,’ Will said.

  ‘There is a reason for that. Folk come from all around to taste the ale that comes out of Dimmet’s brewing vats. He always asks me to put a word or two upon them when I’m here. And I do, though Dimmet’s ale is hard to improve upon.’

  Will thought about all the spells and favours that Gwydion gave out. It would be marvellous to be like him, he thought, to be carefree and do naught but good wherever he went, giving away boats and doing honest magic and helpfully curing horses that had come down with the fives or the yellows. A wizard left friendships and debts of gratitude behind him all over the place. It seemed a fine way to live. But then Will remembered the confusion that Gwydion inspired when he had appeared in the Vale.

  ‘Master Gwydion? Nether Norton isn’t a place of bad aspect, is it? So why do Valesmen fear you so?’

  ‘Fear?’ Gwydion said quietly. ‘Perhaps that is too strong a word. Nether Norton’s wary welcome is due to the spell I used to cloak the Vale. I chose it carefully some time ago – the Vale is a naturally out-of-the-way place, and Valesmen are naturally quiet and self-reliant folk. But if they like to stay at home and do not take kindly to strangers who rudely come among them – especially practitioners of magic – then you may blame my spells for that.’

  ‘Master Gwydion, why is Tilwin the only one who ever came in from outside? Were you sending him to check up on me?’

  ‘Tilwin the Tinker is not necessarily what he seems.’

  ‘Master Gwydion?’ He met the wizard’s eye. ‘Where did I come from? Who left me to die when I was only a day or two old? Was it my parents? Are they to blame?’

  But the wizard put a long finger to his lips, and Will fell silent as Dimmet returned with the brew that his son had drawn. Though Dimmet’s good cheer was fulsome, a chill had fallen over Will’s heart.

  ‘Now then!’ Dimmet said, seeing his guests’ glumness. ‘Let us drink a health to his grace the king. May he get better and rule us for many a long year to come!’

  When they did not lift their ale, Dimmet blinked at them in a surprised way and asked in a low voice, ‘Have you by any chance picked up any fresh news about the king’s ailment?’

  ‘No word about the king has come to my hearing in the last few weeks,’ Gwydion said with perfect truth.

  Dimmet shook his head sadly. ‘Then perhaps you’ll not have heard what I have – he’s as sick as a Nadderstone man, or so they say. A carrier who comes through here once a fortnight says his grace was laid flat on his back by an ailment and without the use of either his limbs or his wits.’

  ‘Is the carrier a man whose word you trust, or one of the usual wagtongues who trade loose talk in the back parlour?’

  ‘I never forget a face, Master Gwydion. And I generally read what’s in them. And if I don’t like what I see I don’t let a body linger under my thatch for long. It’s out in the road and on your way!’

  ‘Oh, is that so?’ Gwydion allowed himself a half smile. ‘When did this fountain of truth speak about the king?’

  ‘Oh, ‘twould be just three days back. It’s fresh enough news, no more than a week old, I’d guess. They say his grace has been poorly nigh on two months now. They say—’ Dimmet leaned in close ‘—they say it were a shock to his heart to see that swelling come up around the queen’s middle. Now, then! What about that?’

  ‘You mean the king did not know the queen was with child until he saw the swelling?’ Gwydion asked, his eyes fast on Dimmet’s face.

  ‘Seems not.’

  Gwydion’s murmur was a mild caution. ‘Why, Dimmet…that is treasonous talk.’

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ Dimmet sniffed. ‘But between you and me and the roof beams, you know how unworldly his grace is. Always at his studies and his devotions, or so it’s reported. The king is otherworldly, as you might say. Now I’m not a great one for gossip as you know, but the gossip everywhere is that the child is not his grace’s own.’

  At that Will looked in surprise to Gwydion, but the wizard gave no hint of his thoughts on the matter. Instead he changed the subject. ‘You said just now his grace was “sicker than a Nadderstone man”. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘Oh, there used to be a place up yonder and over Chapter House Hill, a place name of Nadderstone.’

  ‘I remember it. I was there once, but it was a very long time ago.’

  ‘It would have to be, for it’s a hamlet as used to be but ain’t no more. Everybody there took sick of the Great Plague back before my great grandfather’s time. But before that they used to say it had the worst luck of any place hereabouts. There were all manner of stories about it, and the saying lives on yet – if you hear of a man going mad, or cutting his own throat, or falling off his horse, or getting struck on the head by a thunderbolt, then you’d say: “He must be a Nadderstone man.” There’s nothing left of the place now. Nothing at all, except ruins.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Gwydion said thoughtfully. ‘Well, now, that is worth a word or two spoken over your brewing vats.’

  They retired to a corner and as evening fell they warmed themselves by the fire in a small back room that Dimmet called ‘the snug’. It seemed to be at the back of the great hearth and was approached through one of the inglenooks. Gwydion said that the entrance to the snug had a magic about it that only certain people were able to fathom. It had a low-raftered ceiling, a small grate stacked with a few sawn boughs ready for burning, and a tiny, lead-glazed window that opened onto the yard. There was an oak table, several benches, and it was lined with carved and polished wooden boards so that it seemed somewhat like the inside of a big barrel, or one of the tiny cabins Will had seen aboard the ships along the mole at Cauve. The snug seemed like a place where most cares could easily be forgotten, but despite the good food and drink, Will did not feel wholly at his ease. At last he asked why they were tarrying in comfort if there was urgent work to be done.

  ‘We must await the moon.’

  ‘The moon? But what’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘The moon has a lot to do with most things.’

  ‘If you say so, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘I do say so. Indeed I do.’

  There was another question Will wanted to ask, but he was more tired than he had realized and a quart of ale had made him drowsier still, and when his eyelids began to droop, Gwydion ruffled his hair and said that with a restful night in prospect they should take to their beds.

  The wizard was up again before first light. When Will came down the stair he found him sitting in the parlour next to the kitchens. Will yawned as Bolt, the Plough’s big, black dog looked up at him expectantly. Its tail wagged as Will fed it a piece of bacon rind. ‘Where are we to go now, Master Gwydion?’
he asked.

  ‘To a place Dimmet spoke about yesterday. Did I never speak to you of Caer Lugdunum?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Do you remember watching the bonfires of Lammas?’

  ‘I’ll never forget that night. Or that place.’

  ‘The name Lammas has been warped and worn down over the centuries as all names are warped and worn down by time. Long ago it was Lughnasad for, as I have already told you, Lugh was a great hero among the Gadelish folk and known by them as the Lord of Light. Lammas was Lugh’s favourite festival. The word Dunum is an old term for a fortress, and Caer means city.’

  ‘So,’ Will said, remembering the inscription. ‘The City of the Lord of Light’s Fortress…’

  ‘Correct! Now, what about the dragons?’

  ‘As in Dragon Stone, you mean?’

  Will thought hard, but try as he might he could not see what Gwydion was trying to tease from him. Then an idea came to him. ‘Wait! I remember Dumhacan Nadir – the Dragon’s Mound. So Nadir must mean either “dragon” or “mound”.’

  ‘Which is it?’

  ‘Dumhacan makes me think of dunum, and you said that meant a fortress. And fortresses always used to be on hills. Also, Nadir makes me think of adders, and adders are snakes, and thought of as baby dragons by some. Also, according to Lord Strange’s book of beasts, snakes are sometimes called “wyrms”, and so are dragons. So my guess is that we’re going to Nadderstone!’

  Gwydion smiled. ‘Quick as a young stoat! I must confess, Willand, sometimes you do surprise me.’

  ‘I think I’m getting more into your way of thinking at last, Master Gwydion.’

  ‘It takes time. But then most things that are worthwhile take that.’

  Will wolfed down the rest of his breakfast of bacon and eggs, and then they set off eastwards, walking over gently rippling country. The prospect to the north was hillier, but to the south the land ran down to a broad plain. Woods occupied the high ground and ploughed fields extended a league or two from Eiton. The soil here was thick brown clay, and on the slope was a pond – no more than a round depression filled with water and fringed with bushes. Gwydion took out his hazel wand and walked back and forth beside it. He said it would be a likely place to wade in and feel in the mud for star-iron, for the hollow was surely no man-made dew pond or any other sort of earthly mere, but had been made by a falling star hitting the ground in ages past.