The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  He put his hand to his pouch and pulled out the piece of cheese that was still there, but as he offered it he felt his wrist seized as if by a claw.

  ‘I thank you for your kindness…Willand.’

  He was startled to hear his name. Two milk-pale eyes looked up at him. The last time he had seen the crone she had been Queen of the Ewle, her long grey hair twined with holly and ivy.

  ‘Mother Brig!’

  ‘Ah, your memory is keen!’

  ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘Has Master Gwydion neglected to teach you the proper greetings. Say: “By the boar, the tree, the wheel and the raven!”’ She broke the cheese in two and sniffed at it, then put the smaller piece in her mouth and sucked it with evident enjoyment.

  Will did not know who – or what – Mother Brig was. Now that he thought about it, she seemed to be a witch, one of the Sisters, perhaps even their queen, though she chose to appear as no more than an old, blind beggarwoman. Embarrassed, he said, ‘How is it that a famous Wise Woman sits begging for her bread in this damp and draughty place?’

  ‘Do you not yet know your redes of magic? Begging is a way of doing kindness in the world.’

  ‘Doing kindness? What can you mean by that?’

  ‘Aye, kindness! Begging is giving bliss,’ she laughed. ‘Don’t you know even that much?’

  ‘Begging is giving bliss? How can that be?’

  ‘Have you never fed ducks before? Have you never felt the enormous pleasure there is to be had from their gratitude?’

  ‘Ah, so you’re a seller of gratitude, are you? I never thought of begging like that before.’ He laughed, but then grew serious. ‘Surely you’re of more consequence than this. I remember that once you entertained Duke Richard to your Ewletide feast. And when he came you laid a rule on his head and sat in judgment upon him. You even told him his future. How is it then, that you enjoy no better ease than a cold corner to sit on and dry crusts to eat?’

  ‘There is no ease better than this and no place more important in all the Realm!’ She scowled and shifted away from him. ‘Do you think the gift that beggars give is to make others feel superior? That is dirty charity. And what is this “consequence” you speak of? You should go away and think deeper thoughts about the world. Think hard about wealth and power and influence and wisdom, then come back to me and tell me what they truly are.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Perhaps one day you will even know what foolishness is.

  ‘Birch and green holly, boy!

  Birch and green holly!

  If you get beaten, boy,

  ’Twill be your own folly!’

  While she laughed and sang and cackled to herself, he shook his head. ‘Truly, Mother Brig, you must be the wisest of the wise, for I never have any idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Then you are still a young fool! Can you not feel all the eyes in the Realm turning this way? We are in the thick of it here, Willand! This is now the hub about which the whole world turns.’

  She cackled again, then slapped lightly at his braids with her stick and repeated the eerie omen that she had spoken to him once at a Ewletide feast:

  ‘Will the dark,

  Will the light,

  Will his brother left or right?

  Will take cover,

  Will take fright,

  Will his brother stand and fight?’

  He listened, then spoke the verse back to her. ‘Mother Brig, what does it mean?’

  She laughed again. ‘What does anything mean? Oh, how the Ages decline when we must make do with such heroes as you!’

  He remembered the red fish and the problem of the Blow Stone, and a foreboding came over him. He said, ‘Mother Brig, there are things I must attend to. I have to go.’

  ‘Of course, for I am but an ugly old crone with a laugh like a cinder, while you are a handsome young man.’

  And when he looked again, she seemed no longer to be an ancient beggarwoman, but a young woman as fair of face as Willow. He recoiled, blinking.

  ‘What’s the matter, Willand? Something in your eye, perhaps?’

  When he looked again she was as she had been before.

  ‘I…’ Urgency pushed him on. ‘I…I’ll tell Master Gwydion I saw you.’

  ‘Tell him my favourite food is salmon!’

  ‘Salmon, did you say?’

  ‘Leastways, this beggar is a chooser!’ She wagged her stick at him, then, as one remembering an afterthought, she said, ‘Now think on all that I’ve said! Beware your brother! Hah ha ha ha ha!’

  He left her then, and went back towards the castle, looking ever for a white cat that had once more gone its own way.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE HOSTS GATHER

  Anxious days passed. Every sunrise, Gwydion went alone to the Round House, but his report to the duke every sunset told that no matter how he worked the Blow Stone’s stump he could not make it shift its shape or reveal the resting place of the battlestone they must now so urgently find.

  Every day Gort brought powders and flasks of dew. Gwydion danced around the dead stump with absorbed concentration. ‘There must be a secret within,’ he told the impatient duke. ‘It remains only for me to find it. But these things take time.’

  As for Will, he told Gwydion about meeting Mother Brig, but said nothing about the red fish or its loss. That was partly due to shame over his foolishness, and partly that he had begun to tell himself the fish was of no consequence. It had passed easily into his possession, and passed out of it again just as easily.

  Instead he fretted over Willow’s likely return and watched all that passed in and around the castle. He saw Lord Dudlea near the water cisterns. He was looked after by no guard, and Will saw that he no longer wore chains, even on his ankles. He was carrying a yoke from which hung two full pails of water, and he looked askance at Will, but made no comment, except to seek his gaze and to make a baa sound, like a ewe calling to a lamb.

  Will hurried to the Round House, thinking it no more than some kind of curious insult. He thought again about what he had heard concerning the captive, and noted the improvement in his treatment.

  ‘Of course,’ Gwydion said. ‘It is Lord Sarum’s doing. Friend Dudlea has offered to trade knowledge about the queen’s secret weapons.’

  ‘What has he said about them?’

  ‘Very little, as yet. Nor will he without first receiving certain guarantees.’

  ‘Why don’t you make him talk?’ Will said.

  But the wizard turned his attention back to the Blow Stone, saying, ‘Foolish words. They make you sound weak, like a torturer.’

  And Will left the Round House, feeling an intolerable pressure building in his head.

  Not long after the noonday bell, a fast messenger galloped into the outer ward and threw himself down from a lathered horse, unstrapping his satchel as he ran. The duke came out from his solar. His knights and Edward, his heir, were with him. Will approached, but Edward looked at him as a man who sees only a stranger, and the bodyguard came forward with their bills and helm-axes. Not wishing to confront them at such a moment, Will drew back from their challenge.

  His decision was wise, for within moments a commotion took hold of the whole castle, and a whisper began spreading abroad: ‘The earl’s son has come at last!’

  The looked-for army of Lord Warrewyk, Earl Sarum’s firstborn son, was reportedly no more than two leagues distant. The welcome prepared in the town for the son was even greater than that which had greeted the victory of the father. Jackhald said that a large host of men had come across the Narrow Seas and had landed in Kennet, where more had joined the march. The army had swung widely to the west, avoiding the great city of Trinovant. Three engines of death came in pride of place with Lord Warrewyk, three ox-trains of twenty yoked pairs, each hauling a great fire-belcher.

  Will and Jackhald watched as the army approached and the town was called out to receive it. Throughout the afternoon, Ludford more than doubled its strength
so that a formidable company was now gathered without the walls, and the joy of the townsfolk at that was real enough.

  ‘Now we shall see whose arms are the greater,’ Jackhald said with satisfaction.

  ‘There’s nothing to be cheering about,’ Will told him gloomily.

  Jackhald grinned back, robust. ‘Down in the dumps again, are we? You’re beginning to sound like a proper crow. You should ask Master Gwydion to see if a spell hasn’t been placed on your head by some witch or another.’

  Will let the comment pass, though he reflected on the rhythms of his increasing discomfort. It was no wonder, for here he was sitting atop a flowing lign, yet trapped among stone walls that shattered it like a fountain. His mind quickly became bemused whenever he tried to make sense of the confusing patterns. Dread feelings rose and fell twice a day, and came later every day like the tides of the sea. During a nondescript phase of the moon the rise was bearable, but at every sharp quarter the pain and confusion threatened to swamp his sanity. And as the lorc continued to fill with power the pressure on Will’s thoughts increased.

  He watched Lord Warrewyk’s army entering the town by the Broad Gate. Now, just as before, a great mass of men marched down towards the soldiers’ camp, while others came up into the castle precincts. The nobles rode under three banners. The first had three white bucks upon bars of black and gold. The second flew two silver lions upon red. Between them, there was a red banner with a muzzled bear in silver. The bear, Will knew, was the badge of Lord Warrewyk himself, but he was unsettled to see the two silver lions, for they were the arms of John, Lord Strange.

  Almost seven years had passed since the summer when Will had learned to read and write in Lord Strange’s tower in Wychwoode. It had been some five years since Lord Strange had appeared among the king’s forces at Verlamion. Now, true only to his own inconstancy, he had switched sides. No matter how much water might have flowed under Evenlode Bridge, it seemed, nothing had been able to wash Lord Strange clean. Will shuddered at the thrill of horror he always felt at the sight of the half-man. From the neck down Lord Strange was like any other lord, but his head was that of a wild boar. And it had grown even bristlier and more boarish – his tusks were yellower, his snout more pointed, and a stiff ridge of grey bristles now ran right over the top of his head.

  ‘Filthy crow!’ he grunted as he turned into the outer ward and saw Gwydion standing near the duke.

  As the Hogshead strode towards him and launched out his sword, Gwydion did not turn, but suddenly raised his gnarled staff. ‘John le Strange, I warn you – approach me no closer.’

  ‘Gnngh!’ Lord Strange snorted in his wrath. His sword was lifted, made ready to chop down, but when the time came it did not move. The razor-sharp point only circled irresolutely in the air while Gwydion’s back remained turned.

  ‘Show your face to me, wizard, for I would speak hard words to you!’

  The hundreds who were gathered saw Gwydion turn about. His eyes were dark and his voice soft. ‘Speak then. What have you to say to me?’

  ‘You have cursed me! And now you will cure me, or else, as I swear by all the rotting stumps of Wychwoode, you will die at my hand!’

  ‘Hear me, John le Strange, and hear me well. I do not deal in curses. Nor do I bear you ill will. I have told you as plainly as I dare that you have only yourself to blame for your misfortunes.’

  ‘You told me my blood would fail!’ The pig-voice rasped out. ‘You said girls would be born to my line! Girls! So my title would pass to the son of another! Since you spoke those words, I have sired naught but daughters! What is this if it be not a curse?’

  ‘Be content, John le Strange. For daughters are a joy denied to many. And surely they are the equal of sons.’

  ‘Four daughters!’ he sneered. ‘You have cursed me!’

  ‘My words warned what would befall through your own failings. You allowed the sacred grove of Wychwoode to be destroyed, though you were its appointed warden. Did you think such a deed would go unpunished? What goeth, goeth about again! Greed and ambition are what destroy you.’

  ‘Then pity me my misfortune!’

  ‘Is it any wonder that misfortune attends one as obdurate as you?’

  What Will knew but Lord Strange did not, for it could not be told to the Hogshead directly without killing him, was the true nature of his curse. The spell had been laid by Maskull, concocted from the dregs of Lord Strange’s own inconstancy and made as a flag to show the sorcerer how the winds of change were blowing in the Realm. The spell forced Lord Strange’s face to show the greed and corruption that lay in the hearts of his fellow lords, but so fashioned was the spell that he could have restored himself at any time, simply by rooting out his own failings. Yet he had remained deaf to all the wizard’s hints.

  The Hogshead brandished his sword again, but impotently, for it was as if his elbow and shoulder were both locked tight.

  ‘Gnngh! Sorcery! See how he practises sorcery against me!’

  Gwydion hooked a little finger. ‘I warn you, defiler of groves – if you shake that stick at me one more time I shall scatter no more acorns for you to eat.’

  Those who watched now goggled and gasped, for the sword suddenly seemed to become an oaken branch, one laden with acorns that began to drop all around as Lord Strange shook it.

  Nervous amusement began to ripple among those who saw. Then laughter broke out. Will felt Lord Strange’s spirit falter under the burden of humiliation. The Hogshead cried out as his anger was trodden down by Gwydion’s ridicule, then his courage failed him altogether.

  As Gwydion walked away, the Hogshead’s sword – a sword once more – fell in the mud, and he shouted after the wizard, ‘Master Gwydion, I am heirless!’

  At Will’s side Jackhald guffawed. ‘Well, that’s a pretty sight, ain’t it? They say it’s called vanity when a person looks in a glass and sees what’s not there. But hairless? Him? Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  Will could not help but feel for Lord Strange. His appearance and manners were far worse now than they had been six years ago. That fact, more than anything, warned how close the Realm must have come to degradation.

  As Will watched the Hogshead go, ill-boding thoughts simmered in his mind, but then he felt an unexpectedly gentle touch on his shoulder. He stiffened, turned and found himself staring at a face that was far easier on the eye than Lord Strange’s.

  It was Willow’s.

  PART THREE

  MADNESS AT LUDFORD

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HONEY MEAD

  Supper was over and night had fallen. The wizard, the two loremasters Gort and Morann, and the little family that had been reunited all settled down in Gort’s wonderful rooms. Willow had brought the green fish talisman. Straight away she handed it to Will, who hung it next to his heart where it seemed to belong. It felt very good to have it back, and he pressed it between palm and breast and closed his eyes briefly like a man savouring the moment.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Willow asked.

  He smiled at her. ‘Oh, yes. Better than I’ve been for some time.’

  She squeezed his hand and smiled back. ‘Me too.’

  As darkness deepened across the ceiling and walls, they gathered close together round the fire while Gwydion sketched for the newcomers a picture of what had taken place in their absence. When talk of the dreadful battle on Blow Heath was done, the Wortmaster opened a bottle of his sweetest honey mead.

  Willow smiled and touched her husband’s face. He looked back at his wife now as she nursed their child, and found himself filled with the same contrary emotions he had felt back at the Plough – great joy that his family were with him, but an equal fear for their safety, for now here they all were bottled up together in Ludford and their enemies bearing down on them.

  Morann recognized Will’s misgivings and laid a hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry for the delay. These are dangerous times and I had an errand of my own that would not wait. But it’s good we left when we did, because we w
ere not long out of the Vale when we happened upon the queen’s host.’

  ‘You saw them?’ Will said, struck with horror.

  ‘We saw them all right,’ Willow said. ‘But they never saw us. That was through some craft of Morann’s, I suppose, for they came right by us. Then, as soon as we could, we rode west, and ran straight across Lord Warrewyk’s army.’

  Morann nodded. ‘Willow went up as bold as you please to the earl. She pushed aside his bodyguards and warned him to his face that he was heading for a wrathful meeting with a far larger army.’

  ‘And what did he say to that?’

  ‘He thanked me, of course,’ Willow laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you have done?’

  ‘The king himself rides with the royal host?’ Gwydion asked.

  ‘He’s at the head of it,’ Morann said. ‘With the queen and Henry de Bowforde at his elbows.’

  Gwydion stroked his beard. ‘You say a larger army? How many soldiers were with the king?’

  ‘A very great many,’ Willow said. ‘More than enough to make Lord Warrewyk and his twelve thousand turn aside, and he struck me as a man who’d give battle at the drop of a hat if he thought there was the smallest chance of winning.’

  Gwydion nodded. ‘That is not far from the truth. Lord Warrewyk is warlike, but I fear he is persuaded here by a greater strategy of which he remains wilfully ignorant. He has more than doubled the strength of Ludford. Now perhaps the Ebor falcon is too big to be locked up, even by the fetterlock which the queen has brought with her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wager a wooden spoon on that,’ Willow said. ‘You should have seen the king’s army! We thought there must be forty thousand men if there was one.’

  ‘Forty thousand?’ Will said sitting up. ‘Surely that can’t be right.’

  ‘At least,’ Morann said. ‘And it’ll be fifty thousand by the time it arrives, for it’s swelling all the while as it goes.’