They dodged back into the storeroom and barred the door. For the rest of the afternoon they kept themselves hidden, watching one another as they slowly returned to their true selves. The noise and anxiety outside reminded Will of the days they had spent locked in the dark at Ludford, but this time the danger was greater. The news of the invasion had led the queen to issue an announcement. Every lord loyal to King Hal was to go immediately to his estate and gather his forces. There was uproar in the castle, with so many trying to leave at once. Carts rumbled through the yards outside. There was shouting and a great deal of hustle and bustle, but eventually the sounds died away, and as evening came there was an eerie quiet, broken only by the changing of the guards and the sound of birds cooing in the dovecote.
They waited in silence. Hunger began to gnaw at them. Though most of the earls and barons had departed, the kernel of the king’s court remained, making it impossible to emerge. Then the moon sent a beam through a high vent in the wall, and a patch of silver began to creep across the stone floor. Once the castle doors were closed to traffic for the night, Will judged it safe to venture out. As he cracked the door ajar, the sweet smell of rot drifted in from the compost heaps in the garden beyond the wall. Will now looked sufficiently unlike the Maceugh to risk crossing the courtyard, though he never thought who he would claim to be if he was challenged.
He returned with a basket of food, two grubby travelling cloaks and some other necessaries. He had also found a sack, a cord and a spool of grey silk. When they had eaten bread and cheese he emptied out the sack and began to knot the silk into a net.
‘The statues were gone,’ he said.
‘Both of them?’
‘Yes. I suppose Dudlea must have taken them away with him.’
‘Poor man.’
Will looked up. ‘He threatens our lives, and you call him “poor man”?’
‘But you saw what happened to his wife and child. Imagine how you’d feel if it had happened to you.’
‘You’re right. He is a poor man.’
As the darkness deepened, Will crept out again. First he checked to make sure of Maskull’s whereabouts, and found that he was closeted with the queen. Then he went up onto the battlements and climbed perilously onto the tower’s slate-shingled roof. He hung the net from the eaves so that it covered Maskull’s window. When that was done he let down two long cords with which to spring the snare. It only remained for them to find a dark corner under the walls and wait.
Willow joined him and they huddled together in the shadows, taking it in turns to keep watch. Will studied the familiar star patterns that slowly wheeled above his head. He saw a barn owl swoop silently across the court. Bats flitted through the air after moths, and he heard the barking of dogs and a distant nightingale’s call. Still no light appeared in Maskull’s window, and no one entered the stone spiral that led up to the sorcerer’s chamber. At last, as Will yawned and let his head loll forward, he heard the soft sound of wingbeats.
He nudged Willow gently, and pointed up to where a ghostly grey shape fluttered in over the castle wall. It disappeared for a moment but then came back again. In all, it flew three times about the tower before folding its wings and squatting as if by magic upon the sheer wall nearby.
Will saw the strange way it moved, climbing sideways with amazing agility across the featureless stone. Only when it had begun to poke its head in at the slit and the net snagged on its snout did Will pull the cords. Immediately, it was enveloped.
‘Naaaaaw!’ it screamed, and the sound echoed loudly through the castle court.
Will pulled again and the grey silken mesh that wound the ked up like a fly in a spider’s web began to fall away from the window. He dashed out and tugged the cord one last time to dislodge the creature’s grip. The whole dead weight of it plummeted down. He caught it heavily, as if it was a child falling from a window ledge, but this was no child. It was a creature with sharp teeth and wildly scratching claws, and it was frightened.
‘Naaaw!’
‘Come on, my little wriggler!’ Will said, grabbing it by the back of the neck. He thrust it down into the sack that Willow held open. ‘You’re coming with us!’
The creature’s pitiful screeches were muffled by the sack, and as they reached the buttery and Willow shut the door, he told the ked severely: ‘You’d better be quiet, or I’ll have to knock you on the head.’
When it showed no sign of settling down and one of its claws tore through the sack, he put it on the floor and laid some of his weight on top of it. ‘No, you don’t! I’ll squeeze the breath out of you if you don’t shut up. Quiet, I say! Or I’ll sell you to the Sightless Ones.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Willow told him. ‘It’s terrified enough.’
‘It’s more than terror,’ Will said, holding tight to the struggling mass. ‘There’s something nasty gripping its heart, but if it doesn’t shut up it’ll bring the whole castle down on us.’
‘Naaaaw,’ the creature squawked, and Will bore down harder until the struggles slackened. After a moment he relaxed his grip a little.
‘Listen, ked. You’d better keep still. If you do, I promise no harm will come to you.’
‘Cannat breeeeathe…’
Will let go of its neck and it began to gurgle. Then it gave out a thin self-pitying whine.
‘That’s good,’ Will said. ‘You mustn’t scream. No noise. We mean you no harm, but if you try to make a noise I’ll stop you. Now – do you want me to let you out of the sack?’
‘Yers,’ the bundle croaked in a small voice.
‘You promise? No more noise?’
‘Little Ked keep quiet.’
‘Good. That’s…very good.’
Will loosened the sack enough for the ked to put its head out. It mewed plaintively, and Will saw its many needlelike teeth flash white in the moonlight.
Will did not let go of the sack. He said, ‘What’s your name?’
The ked stared and twitched, not knowing how to answer.
‘Do you know who we are, Little Ked?’ Willow asked.
Will glanced at her. He knew they had come to the crossroads, and that now there would be no going back. He said, ‘Don’t you remember me? I’m the one who let you go when your leg was caught in the iron trap.’
The ked flinched, but then its eyes widened and Will saw that it did know him.
‘Saved Little Ked!’
‘Even though you bit me, right here on my hand. Look.’
The ked blinked, and a shudder ran through it as if a fever gripped it. ‘Sorry, sorry! Awwwwww! Awwww!’
The ked began to flap. Its threadbare wings, so skilled in the open air, were a useless encumbrance of skin here. Will made no move. His voice was firm. ‘We don’t mean to harm you, Little Ked, but if you make a fuss, we’ll have to put you back in the sack. Do you understand?’
The ked’s eyelids finally drooped. ‘Yers.’
‘Are you hungry?’ Will asked after a moment’s silence.
‘Yers.’
‘Perhaps you’d like a mushroom.’
There was silence, then: ‘Mushroom?’
A look of concern crossed Willow’s face. ‘Will, should we? What if mushrooms don’t agree with it?’
‘Gwydion says they live in caverns under the ground. They eat morels and ceps that grow in great numbers down there. He once told me that the red hands use honeyed mushrooms as bait to catch them.’
Willow uncovered the basket and the ked’s attention became fixed on it. Slowly it put its claw out. Then it took a large mushroom, very carefully peeled back the brown skin of the cap and began to chew the flesh.
‘Good?’
‘Good.’
‘You’re not still frightened of us, are you?’
The ked’s eyes flicked from face to face. ‘Yers.’
‘Then you may have as many mushrooms as you like until you’re not.’
The ked took another, then another. It broke off the stalks and bit into the heads with
the side of its mouth. After the third, it tried a morel. ‘Very good.’
‘Now that we’re friends,’ Will said gently, ‘maybe you’d like to tell us why you brought a bad man to us that night at the inn.’
The ked stopped chewing and the morel fell from its hand. It trembled again, and for a moment Will thought it might try to take flight. But it made no move to escape. Its eyes were fast on Will’s face while its hand felt uncertainly for what was left of its meal.
‘What’s the matter? Why are you shivering?’
‘Very frighty. Fog in head. Dust in throat. Need medicine soon.’
‘Medicine?’
‘Yers. Very soon!’
‘Will, I told you some of those mushrooms might not agree with it,’ Willow said, taking the basket away.
The ked made a grab for it, but then recoiled fearfully.
‘Sorry, sorry!’
‘Shhhhh…I’ll soon make you feel better,’ Will said gently. ‘But first, why did you bring the bad man to me while I slept?’
The ked trembled again and moved away as Will’s hand neared it ‘Awww! Not coming for killing! Watching over. Only waking because Dark Child coming.’
Will flashed a meaningful glance at Willow.
‘Shhhh…be easy,’ she told the ked.
Will said, ‘Who’s the Dark Child? Why did he come to me?’
‘Want find for killing! Little Ked tappy-tappy. Waking! For friend!’
Willow said, ‘He was trying to warn us.’
‘Yers. Warn us!’
The ked blinked and its small hands trembled. Will saw then that it gave trust as easily as a puppy and that, although Maskull had used it cruelly, he had not succeeded in entirely ruining its nature. It picked up a piece of mushroom and whimpered again, saying that it was very sorry it had bitten Will’s hand.
Willow shook her head, anger simmering in her voice. ‘My dad always used to say there’s no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad owner.’
‘You can say that again.’
A shiver passed through the creature and it began to tremble again. Then it began to fluster and flap. ‘Must go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Need medicine!’
Willow put out a hand. ‘What do you think it means?’
The ked’s big eyes watched Willow reach out. ‘Must have. Or die. Never go home.’
‘Tell us about home,’ Will said. ‘Tell us how you came here and I’ll give you better medicine than any you’ve had before.’
‘Better medicine?’
‘I promise.’
Will opened his mind and let the power of his talent flood out and the ked suffered Will to come close and place his big warm hands on its back and chest. Will felt the spells gripping its flesh, surging in agonizing waves over its delicate little ribs. They were too powerful for the ked to fight, but Will drained them. Then, holding the ked in his arms, he danced the sorcerer’s magic off its heart.
As he removed the spell he remembered what Gwydion had told him about how Maskull’s arrogance had so many times in the past led him to be magically careless. And so it proved with the ked, for Maskull had underestimated the reserve of innocent trust that the ked possessed. Nor had he ever imagined that his slave would be taken and his power over it challenged by kindness.
Will planted his feet and danced an incantation of cure until circles of white light haloed the ked and the purple shadows that befouled its aura began to lift. Then Will took the greenstone fish in one hand, knelt, laid both palms upon the swooning creature’s head and slowly drew out the harm.
At last the ked fell down, limp and fragile. Will knew his breaking of the sorcerer’s magic would alert Maskull. The sorcerer’s own spells, exorcized so close by, must surely be felt by him. Yet for all the dangers, Will knew he had done what he should, and that was what mattered most.
‘Good medicine…’ the ked said, stirring at last. Then it began to tell how one day it had gone deeper into the Realm Below than ever before, and there in a luminous cavern in the ruined Land of Annuin, down in the forgotten city of Caer Sidhe, it had met with a lost wanderer. ‘He very happy. He see me, say: “Friend!” Say “Now show the way! Up! Up!” And so we go out from Caer Sidhe. Up and up, up and up. Always by secret ways only I know. Sometimes in a dark cave, sometimes in starry bright. Sometimes wild mushroom, sometimes nothing. Long time we walk, then sometime come to place where water go like this.’
‘An underground river?’ Willow asked, seeing the way the ked moved its delicate hands.
‘Yers, ugown river. Coming down from Realm of Light. This river end of Land of Annuin. Then some long time walking in tunnels and after starting the cool caves.’ The ked blinked and looked to them helplessly. ‘For me – this home!’
‘But Maskull wouldn’t let you stay?’
‘I say show stranger way to Realm of Light – then he catch me. Tell me big sickness on me. Make me drink medicine!’
‘How easily Maskull breaks faith,’ Willow murmured. ‘Even with those who’ve gone out of their way to help him.’
Will had listened in silence, and the more he had listened the angrier he had become, and the more he had pitied the ked. Here, perhaps, Was a far descendant of the ancient fae who had left the Realm of Light so long ago. In some strange way, it reminded him of the noble creature who had drowned under the water wheel at Grendon Mill, and of the elfin retinue which he had seen accompanying the Green Man one night in Severed Neck Woods.
‘There’s a gaping void of human weakness that’s powering Maskull’s spells,’ Will said grimly. ‘Gwydion says Maskull has locked all the deceits and betrayals of five Ages into his heart and there he distils the foulness that turns everything he touches to filth!’
The ked went on to tell of its many torturesome days and nights, seeking out damp hidey-holes and cowering in shadows, or else flying in a strange and frightening world of boundless air. It told of the blinding, shrivelling sun it suffered by day and the terrible burden that Maskull’s potion had laid upon it by night. It had been commanded to fly far across the Realm, and every three days to return and tell of the villages and towns it had passed over. The sorcerer had then checked, them off in the pages of a great book, looking for any discrepancies. This, Will supposed, must be the king’s book, the Great Book of the Realm that Gwydion had spoken of before.
‘So that was how Maskull found the hidden village of Little Slaughter,’ Willow marvelled.
‘And how close he must have come to finding the Vale.’
But there was more, and Will now learned what he had hoped to learn, for the ked said, ‘Dark Child also slave of sorcerer. Keep wrapped up in black. Make to obey him always.’
‘But why does Maskull keep the Dark Child wrapped in black?’ Will asked. ‘And why does he want so much to murder me?’
But the ked said that it did not know the answer to that.
By the time it had finished telling its tale, it was sitting on Will’s lap. He stroked the sparse grey fur of its head and let it cling securely to his chest. It looked up at him with big, sad eyes and trembled. And Will noticed the hollow way Willow looked at them then, with the glisten of a tear in her eye. He knew she was thinking of Bethe.
‘Perhaps it would have been much better for all of us, Little Ked, if you’d not been so kindly to strangers, but how were you to know what a weak-hearted man you’d happened upon?’ He gave Willow a smile. ‘I think it’s high time this Little Ked went home.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Willow said, and now there were tears in both their eyes.
Will stroked the creature and comforted it, and as he did so he thought of what Gwydion had taught him about never talking thoughtlessly of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and how the best way forward was often too hard for men to see with certainty. What always mattered most in the long run, he told himself, was to have a gentle aim and to keep a steady heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE DUEL
They crossed th
e courtyard and mounted the stone stair up to the battlements. ‘You need drink no more medicines, Little Ked,’ he told the creature as he held its small hand in his. ‘The sorcerer has lost his power over you. You’ll feel no pain if you don’t return to him. You’re free again.’
‘Good happiness now,’ the ked said, opening its big, liquid eyes.
‘Go home now! The ruined chapter house where you entered our world is no more than seven leagues to the south and there’s still a good hour before sunrise. Fly home, and let no one see you.’
Will threw the creature into the air. It stretched its wings, dived, then rose, and was gone into the night.
When they had seen the last of it winging beyond the trees Willow whispered, ‘We must go too. Maybe, if we can find a good horse…’
‘No. Remember what Gwydion said: more haste, less speed. Now we’re ourselves again Chlu will soon be on my trail. We’ll leave him no easy track to follow but go softly on foot. If we travel east we’ll reach the Mulart lign. I’m sure it’s no more than half a dozen leagues from here. The stone I sensed at last full moon is standing on it, and though it’s now three days before last quarter, we may be able it pick it up so long as the ground is kind—’
‘Shhhh!’ Her voice became a whisper. ‘Look who Maskull has sent to do his bidding.’
His eyes followed where Willow pointed. On the far side of the courtyard, a figure slipped from the shadows and paused outside their quarters. A shaft of moonlight caught the movement. The figure’s head was darkly swathed, but the jerky, animal movements were gone now, as if an invisible tether had been loosed. In its hand was a long dagger, and Will saw a glint of green flash from the blade.
He watched as Chlu hesitated, then turned away. Will thrilled with horror when the black-swathed figure swooped silently on the buttery where the ked’s mental shackles had been broken just a little while before. Willow squeezed Will’s arm silently, and they jumped blindly hand-in-hand into the garden yard beyond. They landed on top of a large compost heap. It was warm and moist under the surface and stank of rotting vegetation, but it was a silent place to come to earth. When they had rolled away, Will checked the moon-silvered parapets above.
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