The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  To the south-west was the dark Forest of Morte, brooding upon its hillside. It was ablaze now with autumn colours. Away to the east was Cullee Hill and on its summit the rocky crag they called the Giant’s Chair.

  Up here under a milky sky the morning breeze was cold. Will was without his cloak, and he felt all the colder leaning against stone and listening to the hungry ravens’ croaking cry. He saw the guards, blear-eyed, silent, dishevelled, their blood still fired by last night’s red wine and mutton marrow. But Will was feeling the world around him with a strange crispness. He took a deep draught of cold air, and then a familiar voice behind him said, ‘Now then, Master Willand, how goes it?’

  His hand clasped guiltily around the red fish, hiding it from view. When he turned, he saw a face that was known to him. ‘Why…Jackhald…’

  ‘Hey-ho, Willand. It’s been a long time, has it not?’

  Will forced a smile and they clasped hands. Jackhald had been one of the duke’s castle guards at Foderingham. Since the battle of Verlamion, he had been raised to the rank of sergeant of the guard. He had noticed Will’s interest in Cullee Hill, and said, ‘On a clear day half of the Middle Shires can be watched from that place.’

  Will looked in vain for a wisp of smoke rising from the beacon. ‘And does the duke keep watchers up there?’

  Jackhald grinned. ‘Aye. Ludford’s in Marcher land, which means it’s close to the borders of Cambray. Cambray, with its hard mountains and blind valleys – it was ever a dangerous place to enter uninvited. Its rule is still disputed by the hardy princes of the west. They are often in a state of war.’

  ‘That’s no doubt the official reason why the duke has men sitting up on top of the Giant’s Chair,’ Will said quietly. ‘But I expect the real reason is to keep a watch out for the approach of Queen Mag’s allies, is it not?’

  Jackhald folded his arms. ‘They say there’s a second great army out there as big as the one Lord Sarum beat off. They say it’s coming here. Is that not true?’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing.’ It came into Will’s mind to mention Earl Sarum’s captured sons. Instead he asked, ‘What’s happened to Lord Dudlea? I saw his cage in the market place but there was a block of stone in it instead. Has he escaped?’

  ‘No, his lordship is safe under lock and key.’ Jackhald glanced sidelong at him. ‘The two younger sons of Earl Sarum have been taken.’

  He feigned surprise. ‘Earl Sarum’s sons? You don’t say.’

  ‘No doubt Lord Warrewyk will be angered to hear of his brothers’ fate. When he arrives…’

  Will looked up suddenly. ‘Lord Warrewyk is coming here? From Callas?’

  ‘He’s already set sail across the Narrow Seas. He’ll be here soon enough. And in great strength as likely as not.’ Jackhald gave an encouraged laugh. ‘With his lordship’s army here, Ludford will be able to withstand any power the queen may send against us.’

  Will said nothing, feeling no urge to share what he knew with the duke’s man. He pointed down towards the inner ward, where a tall young man with trimmed blond hair stood, clothed in lordly style. He was surrounded by half a dozen men.

  ‘Isn’t that Edward down there?’ He put fingers to his lips and made as if to whistle, but Jackhald pulled his hand away to stop him.

  ‘Now, don’t you be showing no rude manners here, Will. And don’t you be calling a plain name on an earl in general hearing.’

  Sudden anger snapped his patience and he shook Jackhald’s arm away. ‘And don’t you lay hands upon me without leave!’

  Jackhald looked back, surprised at Will’s haughtiness. ‘I only meant to say that the Earl of the Marches has his dignity to think of. If you would speak with him you must go formally to make a petition in writing and beg an audience of him.’

  ‘Beg an audience? With Edward? We grew up together!’

  ‘I know that. But don’t forget who is the master here now.’

  Will said no more. Ludford Castle was indeed Edward’s by title, since he was his father’s heir and therefore Earl of the Marches. Will recalled the Edward of old, the many lessons they had endured together and the day they had fought one another to a standstill in their tutor’s room at Foderingham. That had made them firm friends, yet later, here at Ludford, Will had conceived a jealousy for the duke’s heir that had been hard to set aside. He had clearly seen that Edward was angling to take Willow away from him. And the last time they had met had been at Verlamion, where Will had played the peacemaker while Edward had been anxious to blood himself as a warrior. It was then that their paths had parted, as he had always known they must. Parted forever.

  Down below, Edward paused at the entrance step of the Round House, the place where the duke conducted all public business. Edward seemed to be giving orders. Among those who joined him were two knights. One was unknown to Will, but the other’s colours showed him to be Sir John Morte of Kyre Ward, the man who had first taught both Will and Edward the practicalities of war. Will almost did not recognize him, for he had lost much of his fine head of dark hair. Also crowding upon Edward was his seneschal, a scrivener, a notary-at-law in dark green robe, two merchants waiting to hand him petitions and a black-robed Elder of the Sightless Ones.

  ‘He’s now quite a busy man, I see.’ Will’s eyes followed like a crossbow as the duke’s heir disappeared inside the Round House. He felt a strange, vinegary pang biting at him. ‘Tell me, does he still like to play the paragon of chivalry to please his father?’

  Jackhald looked quickly askance at that. ‘Sir Edward does not play at anything. He is all that his father wished him to be. More, if I’m asked about it.’

  ‘And Edmund?’ Will asked, meaning Edward’s younger brother.

  Jackhald shifted uneasily. ‘Sir Edmund is still but sixteen years old.’

  Will thought he heard a hint of shame in the soldier’s voice. He pursued it. ‘Come on, Jackhald. Tell me: is Edmund as kind and thoughtful a lad as ever he was?’

  Jackhald stiffened, his voice hard now, affronted. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  And it even alarmed Will to hear the sneer in his own voice. He knew he sounded meddlesome and insulting, but he could do nothing about it, for when he tried to repair the damage his words began to sound wheedling. ‘You know how much I always liked Edmund, how much I liked them all. They were like brothers and sisters to me, for I had none of my own. I just want to know what’s happened to them, that’s all.’

  Jackhald looked at Will’s sweating face and guarded his views with a plain reply. ‘Sir Edmund still studies under Tutor Aspall. The Lady Margaret and the Lady Elizabeth are all grown up now and promised in marriage.’

  Will wiped at the moisture on his face. The red fish was burning in his left hand, but somehow he could not open his grip or put it away. ‘Is the Duchess Cicely here?’ he asked, meaning Duke Richard’s wife, a woman he had once liked very much. ‘She was always so attached to the duke as I recall. She always wanted to be near him no matter how important the business that took him away.’

  ‘Her grace is here. And her two younger sons. She did not want the boys falling hostage to her husband’s enemies.’

  ‘She should fear for her children the more if there’s to be a siege,’ he said. ‘But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, eh?’

  ‘Aye. Let us hope.’ Jackhald’s eyes narrowed. He searched Will’s face carefully. ‘It looks to me like you’re sickening for something, Master Willand.’

  He was not and he knew it. But whatever was moving within him sent his mouth running away with itself. ‘It’s nothing. Tell me about the others. The two younger boys.’

  ‘Sir George is ten now, and Sir Richard is eight.’

  ‘You might tell me more about them than their ages. You don’t like any of the duke’s children much, do you?’

  Jackhald balked at that. ‘They are my lord’s kin! I would not speak ill of them to anyone!’

  Will burst out into edgy laughter. ‘Oh, be straight with me, Jacky. I’ll n
ot speak your opinions aloud. They are despicable young brats, are they not? You’ve always thought it, but never had the guts to say Isn’t that so?’

  Jackhald’s jaw clenched. He turned on his heel and left. Will watched him, the sweat streaming from him now, the red fish burning his palm like something held in a blacksmith’s tongs. He couldn’t open his fingers. He went down from the keep as soon as he could, staggering, yet still as furtive as a rat, and trying not to draw attention. As he reached Gort’s rooms he burst in and could no longer contain his agony. He let out a gasping yell, bit hard against his lip and peeled his fingers back with his free hand. Once he had picked the talisman out of his flesh he jammed his hand in a basin of water in which herbs were soaking.

  Relief washed over him, but it was a long count before he dared to look at his palm. When he did there was no sign in it that anything was amiss. He flexed his fingers, rubbed at the ball of his thumb. There was no pain at all, no mark or angry colour.

  He went over to the corner where he had flung the red fish, and gingerly picked it up by the tail. Its green eye stared up at him innocently enough.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked it.

  He felt unwilling to put it back in his pouch, and instead he shut it in a box and hid it under his bed. Then, still feeling more than a little jittery, he went out and sought refuge in Gort’s now empty leech garden. Here was a comfortable bench, set down in a good place to think, and he began wondering at the way he had lost control of himself and what had urged him to so ill-judged a conversation. It was all too reminiscent of the last time he had been at Ludford. Something here was leaning on him, trying to drive him out of his mind.

  Knowing he must meditate on the problem, he began to consider the weaknesses and the failings, examining himself closely on each point, and paying particular attention to the failing called vainglory, or pride.

  According to the magical redes, the three great weaknesses were jealousy, hatred and fear. These gave rise to the seven failings, urges which, when carelessly indulged, led to injury and affront to others. The three lesser failings were pure – greed, cruelty and cowardice. Each of these arose from one weakness alone, greed from jealousy, cruelty from hatred, and cowardice from fear. Then came three greater failings, each of which were made from two weaknesses in combination, like the colours of a painter’s board. Tyranny was blended from jealousy and fear; wrath was a mixture of hatred and fear; and sloth arose from jealousy and hatred. But the king of all failings was vainglory, compounded as it was of all three weaknesses in equal measure.

  At last, he decided he must go to find Jackhald and apologize without delay. He took another circuit of the walls to look for him, and as he came to the parapet near the gatehouse he spied a black-robed figure breaking from the cover of a stone wall no more than fifty paces ahead of him. One glimpse made the hairs tingle on the back of Will’s neck. The face was masked, yet there was something familiar about the way it moved.

  ‘Hoy!’ Will called, but the figure was already running. It entered the upper storey of the gatehouse and passed out of sight. Will ran after it, but found only a slammed door. He burst into the gatehouse, dodged past the great rope-wound drum and windlasses that raised the portcullis, then he hauled open the far door. By the time he had emerged onto the parapet on the far side, the figure had made its escape.

  ‘What are you up to? You have no business here!’

  He spun. It was one of the gatekeepers, a bumbling fellow in a dirty cap and apron, coming out of a side door.

  ‘I saw someone. Chased him here. Did you see where he went?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A man. Dressed all in black.’

  ‘I saw no one come this way, in black or otherwise. Here, you can’t just come up—’

  ‘There’s mischief afoot! Raise the alarm. Put out a call for Master Gwydion. And another for the Wortmaster.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Well, go on, man!’

  The gatekeeper started into action and disappeared back the way he had come. Will searched warily now, listening and watching for a sign. At last, when he looked down over the wall he saw a rope dangling free by one of the round towers. Whoever had come by here had vanished into the bushes below.

  By the time Will returned the other gatekeepers had appeared. Then Gort and Jackhald came and listened to his account. When he had finished Jackhald said stiffly, ‘Perhaps you imagined it.’

  ‘Jackhald, you were right to think that I’ve not been myself today, and for that I ask your forgiveness, but did I imagine this?’ He stepped to the tower and hauled up the rope.

  ‘Probably just some serving maid’s sweetheart making himself scarce,’ Jackhald said, unimpressed.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Black-hooded? Black-robed? One of the red…ahem!’ Gort came close and put his mouth close to Will’s ear. ‘One of the eyeless brethren, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I don’t think that either.’

  Gwydion appeared at the doorway to the stair. ‘Then tell us. What do you think?’

  ‘I think it was the same man who attacked me at the Plough.’

  Gwydion closed his eyes for a moment, then he opened them and said, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, Gwydion. How could I be? But I’d say there were at least six chances in seven that it was the same man – if I am to trust my feelings as you constantly remind me—’

  Jackhald gave him the same searching look he had given him earlier. ‘His feelings don’t mean much. Our young friend’s not been feeling too well today. Quite out of sorts, Master Gwydion, if I’m any judge.’

  ‘Willand’s feelings may mean more than you think, Jackhald,’ Gwydion said. ‘There is more to this than meets the eye.’

  Will looked to where he had first caught sight of the figure. Nearby was the great wooden housing that held the iron time engine which kept the hours. It made Jackhald jump by loudly clanging out the first of nine strokes.

  ‘Come with me now, Willand,’ Gwydion muttered in a way that brooked no objection. ‘We must attend the duke in council. There are important matters to settle for which I have sought an audience.’

  Will felt disappointment at that, wanting instead to pursue the matter of the rope. ‘Must I come too?’

  ‘I think you would profit by it.’

  They went back through the gatehouse and down off the walls and once they were alone Gwydion took him sharply towards Gort’s parlour, ostensibly so he could don his newly patched cloak. But what greeted them in their quarters was not what Will had expected.

  ‘Oh, Gwydion! Look at the mess!’

  Gwydion stood at the door and surveyed the wreckage of the room. The table and all the chairs had been turned upside-down. A goose-feather pillow had been slit open, the mattress upon which he had been sleeping was slashed and his second-best shirt torn. Even his scrying wand had been snapped. The room seemed to have been ransacked by someone in a hurry, someone who did not care what he damaged.

  ‘Why pull a good shirt in two?’ Will said, unhappily holding up the ragged remains.

  ‘That will mend. But who has done this? And why? Those are the important questions.’

  Will pointed in the direction of the gatehouse. ‘Our visitor, of course. Don’t you think it was him?’

  Gwydion’s glance was impassive. ‘Is anything missing?’

  Will hunted through his belongings. After a while he said guardedly, ‘Nothing of any real consequence.’

  ‘Nothing? Your face tells me otherwise.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, I can’t find my silver coin.’

  ‘Silver comes and silver goes. That is no matter.’

  ‘I care nothing for its amount, Gwydion. But this coin was in the nature of a keepsake. I used to keep it for luck. It was given to me by the man I’m accustomed to call my father.’

  ‘Then it is indeed valuable. But thieves are weaklings, and seldom respecters of real worth. That, truth to tell, is the chiefest harm they do
in the world, for some things that are stolen can never be replaced.’ He pushed the foot of his staff through a jug handle and lifted it up, as if expecting to see something underneath.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sometimes, when we seek for what has gone missing, we find instead what has been left behind.’ He bent and picked up a small white thing from the floor by the fireplace. It was flat, but too big to be a coin, and too white.

  ‘Let me see that,’ Will said, coming over. Then he gasped, for it was a bone badge made in the shape of a white heart. ‘That’s the token of the Fellowship!’

  ‘I take it this keepsake is not yours?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then it would seem that we have our answer. But now we must bend our minds to a new challenge. We’re late for Friend Richard, and he is not a man to wait.’

  Will sighed. He put on his mended cloak and looked at it, pursing his lips. ‘Hardly fit to wear before a duke.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Gwydion adjusted the folds of his cloak as it hung. It was clean and neatly mended. ‘I do not think any garment the worse for patches. Each patch is a piece of kindness, something done with care and often-times love. My own garb is ancient – it is nothing but patches – like the old broom that has had six heads and seven handles.’

  ‘I can’t see any patches in your cloak.’

  The wizard laid a long finger beside his nose. ‘That, Willand, is just a matter of seeming.’

  Will sniffed. ‘Ah, then you do think appearances are important.’

  ‘Only when it comes to persuading fools to think better of what it is that I have to tell them. Come along, it is past time I brought Friend Richard to book.’