‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful.’
‘It’s good you’re rich,’ said one of the men. ‘That’ll help you on your journey. Now if I were you, little miss, I’d make off along that path there and ride on … up and over until you come to the wood. You can go around the wood or …’
‘She should go through it,’ said the second man. ‘It’s quicker.’
‘Would you like us to ride with you, little miss?’ asked the first man. ‘We know the paths round here well.’
Linnet would have loved a guide, but the two men frightened her. She couldn’t explain why, for their questions and comments had been reasonable enough. Perhaps it was because they were both looking her up and down with a curious calculation, not quite a threat but certainly not friendship. She scrambled on to her horse, irritated to find herself suddenly clumsy at doing something she knew very well how to do, and, though she had longed for the certainty the villagers might give her as far as her road was concerned, she left the village behind her with enormous relief.
At first she rode through open farmland, but, as she moved on, up and over the slopes of a small hill, the hedges gave way and she found herself on a rolling heath … bushes, straggling trees and coarse grasses seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of her. A teasing wind blew as she took the bread and cheese from her saddlebag, for by now she was starving. While she ate greedily, her horse walked on up and over a rise. The heath stretched ahead of her for what seemed to be leagues, but in the distance she could make out a smudge against the horizon … trees. The men in the village had mentioned a wood. And the road ahead was striped with the tracks of cart wheels, bracketed with the prints of horses, coming and going. This was sustaining in a way. It meant other people must use this road regularly. But for all that … ‘Where am I?’ Linnet asked herself over and over again, wondering just how tired her horse might be. Sure that this well-used road must finally link up with the central road from Hagen to Diamond, she persisted, trying to recapture that first feeling of adventure. What had the men back there said? She could go around the wood or through it … I’ll worry about that when I come to it, Linnet thought. Slowly the forest advanced out of the distance, vanishing as the road sank down between the hillocks, reappearing as she was lifted by a wave in the land only to sink again as she rode patiently on.
– ± –
It was the end of a quiet day, though a faint, warm breeze was blowing, toying with the grasses and the bushes on either side of the road, and because of the quietness, she suddenly became aware that she was being followed. At first the beat of those pursuing horses came to her more as a vibration. Coming to a standstill, to drink a little water and to rest her horse, she began to feel a rhythm coming up out of the ground and into her very bones – the rhythm of a chase. Linnet was immediately sure the two village men who had watched so keenly as she took the silver coin from her saddlebag were after her. No doubt they’d gone out into some field beyond the village to get their own horses and now they were tracking her down.
Linnet had a good lead on them, but her own horse was weary. Forced into a canter, it responded valiantly, but the riders behind were overtaking her. The vibration coming up out of the ground became a sound, the distant beat of hoofs, and, looking over her shoulder, she could see them on the top of one of the hillocks she had ridden over only a little earlier, momentarily standing out against a darkening sky, before vanishing into a dip in the land.
Despair at her heels, but at the same time the forest ahead of her offered hope. If she could reach it before her pursuers reached her, if she could ride in among the trees, she could lose herself in shadows and silence. Filled with desperation she struck her horse again and again. It stumbled as it tried to gallop, but it did not fall.
‘Go!’ she screamed. ‘Go! Go!’
Small trees seemed to spring up, their leaves waving in the wind like green fingers wildly beckoning. A narrow path spun sidewards into the wood and she veered aside from the main track to follow it. In minutes she was in a different world … moving into a darker space, and moving with much less certainty, for the forest path was not only darker but thinner … indefinable in patches.
As she struggled on, Linnet heard her pursuers enter the wood. They had slowed too, but for all that they were still catching up with her. There would not be time to hide properly, there could be no escape. She was about to lose her money, her horse and possibly her life.
Something slid backwards and forwards on the ground ahead … not an animal, not a forest breeze, but a shifting light. She looked right … looked left, and saw something leaping and flickering ahead of her. A fire. Someone had built a fire in the forest.
‘Hey, little miss!’ shouted a voice from behind. ‘Entertain us and we might let you go.’
Linnet’s horse stumbled again. She came to a decision. Listening to her pursuers, so close behind, she dismounted and slid sideways, making for the firelight, knowing as she did that it might be a treacherous beacon. But, once off the track, a girl might hide where a horse could not. At the same time she was quickly aware, as she struggled through fern, fallen branches and leaves, that she was making enough noise for the pursuers to know exactly where she was going. Her one advantage was that she was now taking a path no horse could easily follow and they might be content with taking her horse and leaving her to the mercy of the trees and the intensifying twilight.
But those voices still sounded behind her, speaking urgently to one another. Even the moments of silence seemed shot through with tremors of action. Then she heard a more definite sound – a resumed but altered chase. The men behind her must have dismounted just as she had done, must have paused, perhaps, to tether their own horses and were now after her once more.
‘Wait till we get you, bitch!’ a voice yelled almost exultantly, a violent voice she was sure belonged to the one she thought of as the first man.
A moment later Linnet burst into a totally unexpected space among the trees. She could hardly believe it. She was running along a street … an overgrown street but a street for all that … lined with empty cottages … all doors broken, all windows dark, though that light off to one side, that firelight, painted empty windowsills and tilting doors with an uneasy orange glow. She had stumbled into another village – a village where, surely, nobody lived. But there was a fire …
Astonishment brought on hesitation in spite of the crashing so close behind her now. Hesitation betrayed her. A hand grabbed her arm.
‘Got you!’ shouted the first man.
Linnet swung around on him, beating at his face as well as she could. Some of her blows must have gone home because he yelled with indignant pain. The other man caught her flailing arms and twisted them up behind her back.
‘Be good now, little miss,’ he hissed in her ear. She felt his breath on her cheek. ‘Be good and we just might let you live.’
‘Let her go,’ said another entirely unexpected voice, a curious voice, rough and husky but with an undertone of music for all that. And it was somehow familiar. She had heard that voice before.
‘Yes, do let her go,’ said another voice, certainly a man’s voice this time.
‘She belongs to us,’ shouted the first of the village men. ‘We got her first.’
But then, suddenly, he did release her, so suddenly that she crashed forward to sprawl on to the ground. Twisting around, she scrambled to her feet and then heard herself exclaiming in amazement. For there, beside her, was one of the King’s Wellwishers, and behind him rose the shape of a very tall man, a giant, almost blotted out by shadow. All the same Linnet had recognised in the few words he had spoken the trace of a country accent he had never quite shed.
‘Heriot Tarbas!’ she gasped.
‘Linnet of Hagen?’ he said, sounding every bit as astonished.
‘Linnet of Hagen?’ the first villager echoed incredulously. There was more than incredulity in his voice. He was suddenly alarmed – more than alarmed, confronted by a giant,
a Wellwisher and a noble lady.
‘Go!’ said the second man decisively, and both men rapidly peeled off into the forest.
As they crashed away Heriot stepped forward to steady Linnet and brush the leaves from her hair and shoulders. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, but she ignored his question, crying out one of her own.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ he answered.
‘My horse!’ Linnet cried. ‘It won’t have gone far, but …’
‘I’ll get it,’ said the Wellwisher and vanished into the shadows.
‘What are you doing here?’ Linnet repeated, peering at Heriot’s firelit face. Then she said, half whispering, ‘You’ve changed. What’s happened to you?’
‘You first,’ said Heriot.
‘I think Betony Hoad is plotting treachery,’ she exclaimed. ‘I think my father might know something about his plans. I think, perhaps, Betony might have promised to turn Hagen loose to join the Dannorad. And I think Betony Hoad plans something against Dysart. I’m only guessing, but I’m afraid …’ her voice died away.
Heriot was silent for a moment. ‘I think those might all be good guesses,’ he said at last. ‘I think Betony might want to destroy Hoad, and maybe even himself along with it. It would be a grand way for him to go, bringing all Hoad exploding around him … punishing it for not being astonishing enough. Well, if that’s his plan we might have to interfere.’
Later they sat around the fire, Magician, Assassin and Lady of Hagen, their horses fed and tethered in a sheltered space between two tumbledown cottages.
‘What has happened to you?’ Linnet asked again, for now she could clearly see that Heriot’s face had been altered. His nose was bent out of shape and his long hair was gone. The ghost of his old beauty was still there, in a damaged way, and he gave off a strange power just as the fire was giving off heat.
‘I spent some time in Hoad’s Pleasure,’ he told her.
‘You? How could they keep you there?’ Linnet asked incredulously. ‘You’re the Magician of Hoad.’
‘I’ve always been a faulty Magician,’ Heriot replied. ‘They took me by surprise. And then the magical part of me hid somewhere deep inside, while Carlyon paid me some attention.’
‘Carlyon? The Hero?’ Linnet exclaimed, watching a strangely intent, wry expression forming on Heriot’s firelit face.
‘He’s never been a hero to me,’ Heriot replied. ‘And he’s no true hero to himself these days. Carlyon may have some deep plan to become King in due course, and some of the counties might jump at the chance to join him. There are men out there nostalgic for the old days and the adventure of war.’
Linnet looked over at the silent Wellwisher, stretched out on the other side of the fire. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t work out why.
‘What shall we do?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no doubt about it,’ Heriot said with a sigh. ‘We make for Diamond, hoping we’re not too late. Mind you, I think it would be a different thing for Betony to smash up the King’s Magician than it would be to kill his own little brother. Even Betony might hesitate over that. After all, some of the counties might move against him, reminding him he isn’t King yet … just standing in for his father. On the other hand, if he has a valuable hostage or two they might keep their distance until the King returns.’
‘If he’s taken Prince Dysart, he’ll have taken others as well,’ said the Wellwisher. ‘But the Wellwishers will stand apart from him. They belong to the King … not to his Princes, not even to his heir.’
‘Except for you,’ Heriot said. ‘And you belong to me.’
‘I never forget it,’ the Wellwisher replied.
The glance they exchanged was brief, but a strange thing happened. Linnet was suddenly flooded with recognition.
‘You!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re that boy who used to run at Heriot’s heels.’
‘Right,’ said the Wellwisher. ‘But that was back then.’
‘And … and you’re not a boy,’ she cried incredulously.
‘You’re not a man. You’re …’
She couldn’t describe to herself just what had happened. It wasn’t just the shape of the Wellwisher’s face, though that was part of it. That damaged husky voice could have belonged to either man or woman. Yet suddenly, looking into the blue eyes that looked calmly back at her, and taking in Heriot’s expression as he looked over at the Wellwisher, she knew she was right.
‘You’ve turned into a woman!’ she exclaimed.
‘It’s what I’ve always been,’ cried the Wellwisher, laughing, ‘but I made a good boy for a while back there, didn’t I?’
‘I’m such a Magician,’ Heriot said. ‘I’ve enchanted her. I can’t take total credit, mind you. She was born female.’
‘Living my sort of life as a child it was always better to be a boy and then a man,’ Cayley explained. ‘I worked at it. And I can take on any man, mind you, any man in Diamond. The Wellwishers know that, or they would never have taken me in.’
‘And you …’ Linnet looked from Heriot to Cayley and back again.
‘Never mind that,’ Heriot said, smiling. ‘You’re right, though, and if we get through the next bit, we’ll make good gossip. The thing for us to do now is to get back to Diamond … to make sure Dysart’s all right and to help him if he isn’t. We zigzagged along old Traveller tracks getting here, but how long will it take if we go straight along the main roads?’
‘Five or six days perhaps,’ said Cayley. ‘We’ll have to go steadily.’
‘Well, let’s do it,’ Heriot said.
‘That Betony Hoad will be glad to have you back in his clutches,’ Cayley said. ‘He’s already broken your nose. Of course you’ll have me beside you this time round and that’ll make a difference.’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Heriot said. ‘I’m remade in more ways than one. Prince or not – King or not – he won’t be able to touch me.’
And suddenly Cayley and Linnet found themselves staring across the flame of the fire, not at a man but at a different sort of flame, a blue burning fire. A new heat beat out on them and with that heat came words.
‘I am the one man, the one fire … a single thing at last, fused into myself at last. I am entirely … I am totally … the Magician of Hoad.’
41
A Turning Key
The room in which Dysart sat, the room in which he had been imprisoned for the last few days, was not a cell, but it was certainly a prison. The bed was comfortable. A bowl of fruit sat on the little table, and, above the little table and that bowl of fruit, there was even a shelf of books. But there were no windows and the door was locked.
Dysart, the royal reader, refused to read. He found reading was quite beyond him. Slumping and sighing in his chair, he found himself wondering, over and over again, just what Betony had in mind for him … wondering what had happened to Heriot the Magician of Hoad … and dreaming about Linnet, grateful that she was safe in Hagen.
The dragging stillness that had engulfed him was broken by a grating sound, a sound that seemed to have hidden secrets. The outside bolt of his door was shifting. A key was turning in the great lock. Then the door opened.
Dysart straightened abruptly … glimpsed a guard in the space beyond the door. However, the man who now loomed over him was no guard but Carlyon the Hero of Hoad. He was being rescued. Leaping to his feet, Dysart felt his face suddenly shining and creasing into a wide smile, a great noisy sigh of relief bursting out of him.
‘Lord Carlyon, I’m glad to see you. Hurrah for the Hero!’
A moment later he was regretting his childish cry of relief. Ignoring him, Carlyon made a sign, and the door was closed. The key grated and clicked in the lock, and only then did Carlyon raise his hand in an approximate greeting, avoiding Dysart’s gaze. He pulled the chair away from the table and sat down. Dysart sank on to the edge of his bed, feeling his own expression changing yet again, as he tried to h
ide the dismay that now came rushing in on him, finally becoming blank and impassive. It seemed that, after all, the Hero of Hoad was not there to set him free.
‘Greetings, Lord Prince,’ Carlyon said at last, mild irony sounding in his voice.
‘You’re with my brother,’ Dysart declared abruptly.
Carlyon nodded slowly. ‘To some extent,’ he agreed. ‘The Lord Prince Betony Hoad came up with a proposition that appealed to me. But it isn’t as simple as that.’
Dysart knew he was supposed, at this stage, to ask about that hovering proposition, but he chose silence, swinging around, thumping back on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. He felt Carlyon glancing over at him, but Dysart refused to look back.
‘I think your father hoped your brother would betray himself in some way,’ Carlyon said at last. ‘But I think he underestimated just how extreme that betrayal would be.’
‘Well, it seems he did,’ Dysart said. ‘Because you …’
Carlyon interrupted him, speaking impatiently now. ‘Listen to me! Your brother is a madman. He longs to step outside the cage of human limitation. He wants to be more than King. I’m not that ambitious, but I certainly want to be a King rather than a Hero … a Hero stuck out there on a little island, living alongside a King whose peace leaves me with no function.’
‘You want to replace my father?’ asked Dysart. ‘I don’t see him going along with that. He’s given up too much to be what he is, and he’s not going to surrender kingship easily.’
‘I don’t want to replace your father,’ Carlyon cried. ‘It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. Your father has set up a time of peace. He has dedicated his kingship to a time without war … a time of negotiation, and he has succeeded to a considerable extent.’
‘And it’s done well for Hoad, hasn’t it?’ Dysart exclaimed.
‘The trade between Hoad and the Dannorad has brought prosperity to both. Young men have the prospect of growing into middle age …’
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