‘You could have left her with Breona.’
‘Will, she’s our child, and her place is with us.’
‘The work we’re about is perilous.’ He shook his head at her lack of understanding, still feeling the shock of the lesson that Gwydion had taught him. ‘I don’t want her to be put in danger.’
She gave him a hard look that stifled further comment. He glanced at Gwydion anticipating what the wizard would have to say on the matter. He did not have to wait long.
‘Tomorrow our fight against the battlestones must resume in earnest,’ Gwydion said. ‘Willow, you must stay here tonight, of course. But at first light tomorrow you should set off for home.’
‘As you can see, Master Gwydion,’ Willow said, unmoved by the wizard’s persuasion, ‘I’m well, and Bethe is well also. Far better than either of us would have been if a shooting star had landed flat on our village like it did on Little Slaughter.’
The wizard glanced at Morann with displeasure. ‘Be that as it may—’
‘So the Vale is no safer for us than anywhere else, I’d say.’
Will jumped in. ‘Gwydion’s right. It’s more dangerous for you to be here.’
‘Well, maybe there’s another thing that you should know,’ she said stubbornly. ‘You can thank Master Gwydion for his advice. But I’d say it’s my duty to go with my man and help him in whatever business he’s upon. That’s what I undertook to do at our handfasting, and that’s what I’m going to do. And as for Bethe, babies are a lot tougher than folk generally give them credit for. She’ll want for nothing on the road.’
At that there was silence. Then Gwydion laid both hands flat on the table. ‘It is right and proper that we have all been able to say our say tonight, but it is getting late now. Let us go to our beds and settle the matter tomorrow.’
When they emerged from the snug the dancing and music and eating and drinking were all finished. The inn’s big room was quiet and half in darkness. Will took Willow and Bethe upstairs and saw they were comfortable, then he went out through the darkened yard, down the lane, over a stile and into a grassy field in which an old oak grew. Overhead the stars of late summer twinkled. He asked them to tell him what to do for the best, but they only gazed down in pitiless silence.
The stars don’t know what to do, he told himself sternly. They’re just holes in the sky, holes seventeen hundred leagues away. You’ll have to answer questions like that yourself, Willand, as hard as they are.
Whatever happened tomorrow, it was going to be an eventful day. It would be wise to meet it fully prepared. He did not know why, but he took the red fish from around his neck and put it back into his pouch. Then he found a place that felt right, stood straight, his feet a little apart and his arms loose at his sides. When he felt the time had come to begin, he closed his eyes and breathed three deep draughts of air, drawing them in through his nose and blowing them out each time from his mouth. Then he planted his feet hard in the good earth and invited the power to fill him.
First it trembled in the soles of his feet, an irresistible force rising through his legs, then up through his body. He felt the tingling rush over his ribs and all the way up his spine. It surrounded his heart, and there split into three streams. Slowly, he raised his arms until they were as far apart as they would go. The power kept rising inside him until it reached his hands and it seemed to Will that a pale blue light that only he could see had begun shooting out from the tips of his splayed fingers. But it was when the power reached his head that he was hit by an overwhelming feeling of joy and peace.
He felt he was inside a great cold flame, and even though his eyes were closed he could sense a brilliant light filling him. As he accepted it, it grew brighter and stronger, blotting out everything, so that in that ultimate timeless moment he forgot who and what he was.
But then, gradually, the light began to draw back inside him. He did not mind that it was dimming for he knew that, although he could no longer see it, the power had not forsaken him. It was wonderful how that moment seemed to last forever and yet to take no longer than a brief moment. Wholly refreshed in spirit, he went back inside, feeling content and happy to be with his family despite everything.
Will did not know what woke him. At first he thought it was Bethe’s crying, but as he lay still in the darkness the echoes died in his mind and he heard only Willow’s breathing and what he thought must be the furtive rustling of mice in the thatch.
But then, as he came fully awake, he felt pins and needles tingling in the nape of his neck, and he sat up when a scratching and scrabbling came at the shutters.
That’s no mouse, he thought. It’s far too big. Someone’s trying to get in!
He was about to shout out, but he stopped himself. A shout would wake everyone, but it would also drive away whoever was outside.
Silently, he pulled his clothes on, wrapped himself in his cloak to cover his shirt’s whiteness, and crept along the passageway. He moved carefully down the stair, pausing only to take up the balk of wood that barred the door, and went out into the slanting moonlight. No sooner had he stepped outside, than he heard a scream. It was Willow. Then Bethe began to cry.
‘Hoy!’ he shouted as he reached the place below the window. There, up on the thatch and scraping at the shutter, was a goggly.
So they are child-stealers after all, Will thought. It’s after Bethe! But it hasn’t reckoned on the spells of protection that Gwydion’s put on the Plough! That must have been what woke me up.
‘You! Get away from there!’
The thing was fighting to open the shutters, and now it was hissing and scratching like a mad thing, then it slid down a little among the hard moonlight shadows and began to tear at the thatch.
Will flung the balk of wood at it, but missed. Then he picked up a piece of broken floor tile. It was sharp and three-cornered and he aimed it well. The creature twisted away, but this time it was hit on the back. It screwed up its face at him and shrieked, before flapping up into the air.
As soon as it settled again, the shutter was flung open. That knocked the creature away, but it was the last thing Will saw of it, for, without warning, a dark shape loomed out of the shadows and slammed heavily into him. The weight of it knocked him down and forced the breath out of his lungs. He was pinned down as a muscular body landed on top of him. A rough rope was neatly looped around his neck and pulled tight. The attacker was trying to choke him, but the rope snagged on Will’s wrist and dragged his hand across his throat. It prevented him from using his arm, but it saved him, because as the rope was drawn tighter his hand was pulled up inside the loop. The attacker pulled harder, but he soon saw that no matter how tight the rope was pulled it would not do what he wanted, and so he let go.
Instead he tried to beat Will unconscious. Blow after blow rained on his head, but Will fended them off. He matched the attacker punch for punch, and eventually managed to thrust him back and get on top of him.
But no sooner was he up than a new threat came at him from above.
‘Naaw! Naaaw!’
The creature flapped and squealed in the darkness, diving and jerking and raking his head with its claws. Will threw up his arm and swatted it away, but that unbalanced him and he lost his grip on his attacker’s arm.
As he fought it became plain to him that the man who was trying to kill him was exactly as strong and skilled as himself. He had determination too, and seeing that gave Will a vital strength of his own. He fought back, countering every move with one of his own. They rolled over and over, gripped in deadlock. He grunted and snorted, felt a hand close on his windpipe; another knocked his head back hard against the ground. By bucking upward and twisting, he threw his attacker off. Then shouts came.
As Will grappled, he drew his arm back and a shaft of moonlight fell across the other’s face. He gasped, and recoiled from it.
By now, lantern beams were piercing the gloom. Patches of light swam drunkenly. Heels scraped against cobblestones and a dark figure fl
ed. Bolt growled and there was the tearing of cloth, then a yelp. Will struggled to his feet to find Willow rushing out with his oak staff in her hand. She swung and hit something hard. Then the mastiff leapt at the stranger again, but the man was already scrambling away into the night.
Duffred ran out of the yard with a fire-iron in his hand, shouting, ‘Bolt! Bolt!’
Then Dimmet was holding the lantern up in Will’s face and saying, ‘Is he all right?’
In the aftermath, Will could make little sense of what had happened.
‘Who was he?’ Willow asked, cuddling Bethe close to her now.
Morann strode about the yard. ‘I wish you’d hung on to him a moment longer.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t,’ Will said, rubbing his jaw.
Dimmet growled. ‘But you’re all right, and that’s the main thing.’
‘Whoever he was, he was strong,’ Will said, picking up the door bar and taking it inside. ‘It was all I could do to hold him off. There was one of the flying creatures helping him.’
‘A goggly?’ Dimmet said. ‘I told you they was wicked vermin!’
They all followed Will indoors. Willow sat him down and began to dab at his hurts with a dampened rag.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘A few cuts and bruises and – ouch! – a twisted finger.’
‘Looks like he’s tried to throttle you,’ Morann said, looking at the rope burn on Will’s neck. He stared watchfully into the darkness and started as he saw movement.
It was only Duffred and the dog. Duffred was breathless and empty-handed. ‘Got away. I called Bolt off. Didn’t want him hurt on no thief’s account.’
‘What happened, Will?’ Dimmet asked. ‘What do you think he was after in my yard?’
‘He was after me.’ Will touched a tender spot on his head, still shocked by what had happened. ‘Just when I thought I’d got the better of him, the strangest thing happened. I saw his face clear as day in the moonlight.’
‘And?’ Willow asked.
‘It terrified me.’ He shook his head. ‘He had no face. I just…let go of him.’
Morann exchanged a mystified glance with Willow. ‘Had no face, you say?’
The big mastiff paced round them, still excited. Will said, ‘It was like something from a bad dream.’
Gwydion stepped into the lantern light. ‘Whatever else it was, it was not a bad dream.’
‘What I want to know,’ Willow said, rubbing her arms, ‘is what that thing was! The one that tried to get in at our window.’
‘It was a goggly,’ Will said.
‘A what?’
Morann explained. ‘Here the country lore calls such creatures “gogglies” or bat-elves. They’re supposed to come out of burrows in the ground. It’s said they steal babies away.’
Willow put down the bloodied rag and clutched her daughter tighter. ‘Was it after Bethe, then?’
Gwydion sat down at the table and made the candle flare. He said sternly, ‘I have already warned that you and your child are in danger here.’
Will shook his head. ‘I don’t think it was after Bethe. It was trying to lure me outside.’
Morann said, ‘In the Blessed Isle it’s said these creatures come up from the Realm Below. They prowl the places where there are vents leading up to our world.’
He looked meaningfully to Will, who straight away thought of the strongroom that lay under the abandoned chapter house and of the cleft that led down into the measureless depths below.
‘It was surely the same kind of creature that bit my hand,’ he said. ‘And I’ve seen things like it before. They were clustering in the roof vaults of the great chapter house of Verlamion.’
Morann put his hat on the table and raked his fingers through his long hair. ‘Then my guess is that your attacker was an agent of the red hands.’
‘The Sightless Ones?’ Willow said, looking around, worried. ‘Do you think so?’
Will grunted. ‘Rather the Sightless Ones than Maskull.’
He looked from Morann to Gwydion, who said flatly, ‘We must go from here at first light. Until then, you should all try to sleep. I shall keep watch.’
When Willow had finished cleaning the blood from Will’s face and looking over his bruises they took to their beds. Gwydion went out into the darkness, insisting that Dimmet bar the doors behind him. ‘Let no one in or out for any reason while night reigns. I will knock three times when dawn comes.’
As Will laid his head down for the second time that night he ached and smarted in a dozen places, but he was pleased to have taken no serious hurt. He took the red fish from his pouch and decided to put it under his pillow, just as he had once put Morann’s protection against nightmares under his pillow at home. Yet the fish seemed oddly cold to the touch, and in the muted moonlight its green eye looked at him with a baleful stare. He wondered again about what had happened that night.
Where had Gwydion been while the attack was going on? And if he had webbed the Plough about with magic to counter harm, then how come the flying creature had almost got in through the window? Nor had Gwydion cast any magic to help capture the attacker. Why?
He yawned but could find no rest. More disjointed doubts bubbled up from the mud at the bottom of his mind. Maybe Morann was right – maybe the would-be killer was an agent of the Sightless Ones. What if the sorcery the Fellowship employed was stronger than Gwydion’s magic?
As sleeplessness gripped him, Will’s thoughts began to riot, turning ever darker. What if Gwydion had left him alone at the Plough deliberately, knowing that he would make himself known to the whole district? Maybe he had been used as bait to draw Maskull here! Gwydion never told all that he knew; wasn’t his mysteriousness no more than deceit and manipulation?
The more he thought about it the more reasonable it seemed. But, whatever Gwydion’s game was, he was right about one thing – Willow must be persuaded to go home. And soon.
Eventually, the first faint glimmerings of daybreak began to creep in around the edges of the shutters. He heard Dimmet and Duffred moving about, and so he got up and went down to help them prepare the farewell breakfast. He found Morann was already dressed for the road.
‘I couldn’t sleep either,’ he said. ‘And since Master Gwydion has stood sentinel over us through the darkest hours, I thought I’d set another pair of eyes to watch over him while the light came up.’
Three knocks came at the door. Gwydion appeared. He nodded at Morann who spoke a brief word in the true tongue, then let him in. ‘Old friend, you have a stout heart. There are few like you remaining in the world, which is a great sadness to me. And as for you, Willand, we must be gone from here as soon as the sun is risen.’
Will waited for Gwydion to sit down, then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Listen – I want to help prevent the war if I can, but after what happened last night I can hardly believe that Willow and Bethe will be safe anywhere. You told me the Vale was in danger of ending up like Little Slaughter. How can I ask Willow to go back there?’
‘The Vale may recently have been in as much danger as Little Slaughter,’ Gwydion said, seeming to choose his words with care. ‘But it is not in danger now.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because the Vale would only be in danger if Maskull had found it.’
‘But maybe he has.’
‘Maybe. But you are no longer there. And Maskull knows that now.’
Will sat back, unsettled. ‘How do you know he knows?’
Gwydion’s eyes were steady on him. ‘Because last night’s assailant was sent by him.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Remember the rede, “By his magic, so shall ye know him.” Last night I went to see if I could smell him out.’
‘And did you?’
‘It is surprising what the weak of character will do when they believe they are not being watched. Maskull’s reek was faint but clear.’
Will rubbed at his chin, night doubts still swirli
ng in his head. ‘I’m scared for Willow and my daughter – I can’t deny it.’
‘Then persuade her to return home.’
He nodded at last. ‘I’ll try.’
When Willow appeared she cuddled her daughter and sat down. ‘Morning,’ she said, looking at them in turn.
Will took her hands. ‘Will you do something to help me?’
‘If I think it will help you.’
‘Do you remember my talisman? The green fish?’
She searched his face and he saw she had not been expecting the question. ‘You mean the one you usually wear around your neck? What about it?’
‘I don’t have it with me.’
‘I know. You left it on a nail by the back door. Don’t worry, I put it safe.’
He shook his head. ‘But I need it.’
She gauged him suspiciously. ‘Will, if this is your way of getting me to go home—’
He pressed her hands earnestly. ‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Willow – this is important to me. The fish was with me when Gwydion first carried me into the Vale as a baby. It was in my hand when I cracked the Verlamion Doomstone. I’ve always been comforted by its touch. I need it with me.’
She met his look squarely, part of her still thinking she was being pushed around, but then she sat back and sighed. ‘Well, if you’re sure you need it, then I suppose I’ll have to go and fetch it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, truly relieved. ‘I knew you would.’
But she did not seem pleased to have been thwarted. ‘There’s a couple of questions I have for you, Willand. Just how do you expect me to find my way home? And how am I to find you again once you’ve moved on from here?’
‘That is easy,’ Gwydion said. ‘Morann brought you here. He will guide you home again. Is that not so, Morann?’
And Morann sighed and nodded. ‘It looks that way.’
PART TWO
A LOSING BATTLE
CHAPTER EIGHT
THIS BLIGHTED LAND
Will waved farewell as Avon followed Morann’s horse from the Plough.
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