The Giants' Dance

by Robert Carter

  ‘Edged tools? This is no way to greet an old friend, Edward!’

  ‘Friend, he says! Much good his friendship did us at Ludford! Oh, let the maggot through. He’s harmless enough – though a little mad, I dare say.’ He wafted a gauntleted hand and the riders parted.

  Will steered his horse into the gap and came alongside the three earls. It made Will uneasy to see how the friend of his youth had changed. Seeing no other way to be his father’s heir, Edward had gone some way beyond the original. Here was the paladin, the brave warrior, the man Edward thought his father wanted him to be – perhaps even something close to the man Richard of Ebor wanted himself to be. And Edward’s true self had been locked up within this greater, self-invented personality. The question immediately rose up in Will’s mind: how would such a man be affected by the battlestone at the crucial moment?

  Would this Edward change his mind once he was set on a course and sworn to it? Will doubted it, and so perhaps there was a way to use the warlike bravado that Edward had put on with his armour.

  ‘Your face is white as dough,’ Edward said, looking hard at him. ‘Are you unwell?’

  He took it how it was meant, as a joking slight against his courage. ‘I’m no more scared of a fight than you! Or have you forgotten?’

  ‘Well said!’ Edward nodded using his father’s best conciliatory gesture. ‘But you’ve changed since those days. I suppose you’ve come on the orders of the Old Crow.’

  ‘I seek you out on my own initiative.’

  ‘If he’s here to dissuade us, tell him to save his breath,’ Lord Sarum said.

  Edward shot him a glance. ‘We’re here as my father’s avengers. We’ll do now what we should have done long ago.’

  The two earls made fierce, approving murmurs. But Will shook his head. ‘I have not come to argue with your intent.’

  ‘Then offer us marvels,’ Lord Warrewyk said. ‘That would make you welcome.’

  Will’s eyes flashed at him. ‘Such marvels as you want, my lord, are not to be traded.’

  ‘A pity!’ Lord Sarum reached out and flipped the hazel wand from his belt. ‘Are you still planning to fight alongside us with a wooden sword?’

  Will caught the wand before it fell, but a ripple of amusement passed among the riders. Sarum had recalled the time before the battle at Verlamion when Will had brandished a stick of wood.

  ‘I’ll get this bumpkin into an iron suit yet!’ Edward said.

  ‘Fight for you? Not I, Edward.’ Will thrust the hazel switch back into his belt. ‘Not even with a wooden sword – unless the cause was greater than yours.’

  Edward’s face darkened. ‘I know of no cause that’s greater. Say what you’ve come to say and leave us, Willand. We have a stern task to accomplish this day, and we have no more time for your tomfoolery.’

  ‘I came to tell you—’ Will’s words trailed off as another sharp pain creased him and passed, glittering, from temple to temple, ‘—that the battlestone is guarded by a powerful enemy. I cannot approach it. Today there will be no easy end to the fight. Therefore, beware!’

  Edward’s laugh was brassy and his bravado infectious to those around him. ‘Is that all? Then you bring good news indeed, for we are ready to win a bloody set-to!’

  Will wiped the sweat from his face. It seemed that the only way to ease the pain in his head now was to give in to it. He raised his hands ominously. ‘Hearken to me, Edward! Lord Dudlea is to command the king’s left. Attack him and he will receive you without reply.’

  A moment passed while Edward stared back at him. The air was filled with the clatter of armour and the jangling of horse harness bells. ‘Is this…a prophecy?’

  Will felt the weird brightness suffuse him. It drove his actions. What harm would it do to give Edward the push he needed? Or, seen another way, what harm would inevitably follow if Edward was not given that push?

  For a moment, Will struggled. But then he could no longer see why he was struggling, or what against. He had certainly done the right thing. This was the straightest means to a necessary end. And it was an end that justified all.

  Wasn’t it?

  Wasn’t it?

  He shouted it out. ‘Lord Dudlea will go over to you once battle is joined! He has promised this to me!’

  Edward’s glance was an eagle’s. ‘He gave you his word?’

  ‘He did.’

  A smile quickly grew across Edward’s face. ‘Then you are a friend indeed! And a finer fellow than ever I thought. But your eyes unsettle me, Will, for there is madness in them today.’

  He felt such a surge of unease that his words came out as haughty. ‘By my efforts I have brought you a victory! It remains only for you to ride out and take it!’

  Will’s aura burned with a strange, sallow glow. Something was wrong. Something important that could no longer be ignored. He felt the stone’s power seeping into him like the wriggling of some loathsome worm climbing through all the chambers of his heart. But he clenched his thoughts against it, and it was stilled. A part of him wanted to blurt out the truth about Dudlea, to say how the deal had been left unsealed and hanging, that faith was the key here. But the urge vanished, for he knew that telling the truth would have undone all his hard work.

  His mount lurched as loud bangs nearby surprised the horses. The sound was of arquebuses being touched off – tests to see if moisture had got into the sorcerer’s powder they used. Will controlled the beast strictly, and called to Edward, ‘There’s a price to pay, Princeling of Ebor!’

  Again, Edward’s eyes narrowed. Nineteen, he was, and already riding into a third great test of arms. Had he fallen as fully under the battlestone’s spell as the rest of them? It was impossible to know. ‘Ask your price, Will, and let’s be done with you!’

  ‘It’s this – once victory is yours you must issue the call for common quarter!’

  Such an order would show the winning commander’s mercy. It would prevent the battle, once won, turning into a bloodbath.

  Edward grinned broadly. ‘Two words? That’s a small enough favour to ask.’

  ‘Not so small to those whose lives they will save!’ Will’s horse tossed her head again and he reined her in severely. ‘I must be away!’

  Edward laughed, ignoring those around him who still showed their doubts. ‘Let him go!’

  ‘Look at his face! He’s mad!’ Lord Warrewyk objected. ‘We’ll not change our battle plans on the say-so of a barefoot beggar! And we should hold him, lest he betray us to the queen!’

  But Lord Sarum stayed his son. ‘That’s the Crowmaster’s apprentice. Let him take whatever word he will to the enemy. If news of common quarter is spread among the queen’s people it will only help them to think better on surrender. I’ve seen this lad and his master work miracles upon Blow Heath, and I would rather he left us prophesying our victory than stayed to foredoom us with words of calamity.’

  Edward gave neither earl much heed. He called out heartily, ‘Fare you well, Willy Wag-staff. We are different, you and I. Yet I did love you almost as a brother once. And in all the world there are few whose word I would trust as readily as yours!’

  Will turned his horse’s head, whipped her hindquarters and dug his heels into her flanks so that she sprang away. He broke from the earls’ column and rode ahead of Edward’s proud army. The closer he came to the battlestone, the greater the shimmering glory that flowed in his veins. He felt as if he was outside himself. Invulnerable. All conquering. As if no one else in the world mattered.

  He should have ridden back the way he had come, following the grain of the land. Instead, he bolted across open country, brazenly kicking the horse onward, not bothering to avoid woods that might conceal ambushing archers or squadrons of horsemen with orders to run down and kill enemy scouts.

  Yet all the way back he felt the power massing in his flesh. A tremendous force was building underground and at the same time inside his skull. His head seemed ready to burst, so that he did not need to open his m
ind to feel the power of it. His one thought was to get back to Delamprey and save Gwydion. He would strike off the old man’s fetters. How Willow would admire him then! How the world would fall at his feet! Today was going to be a glorious day. Nothing could stop him now. Nothing!

  Will should have ridden more widely eastward around the king’s army and the skirmishers which had been deployed to guard the southern approaches. He chose otherwise. He spurred his steed savagely, and burst straight across the lines, a lone horseman, looking for all the world – or so he imagined – like a royal messenger carrying the vital word that would save the day.

  When at last he flung himself down from the saddle his mare was blown and heavily lathered. He pulled her into the ash spinney and began to tether her, but then the strap got in a knot and he threw the reins down and let the horse trot away as it would. He gave the secret whistle, waited to hear Willow’s reply.

  There was none.

  His mind was spinning now. The afternoon was stealing on, and he felt the goading of a terrible impatience. He whistled again, but again there was no reply. At last he shouted out Willow’s name angrily.

  ‘Willow! Willow, where are you!’

  Still no answer came. But was that surprising? He recalled the way the Verlamion Doomstone had turned Willow’s mind. He began to think she must have fallen under the new battlestone’s spell.

  ‘Willow! By the moon and stars!’

  He ground his teeth, staggered, felt his eyes pulse with anger, but then he caught himself up sharply. Were not his own thoughts sinking into error?

  How could that be? After all his experience with battlestones, he knew how to deal with them!

  ‘She’s not as strong-minded as me,’ he told the trees. ‘The day that I fall under a battlestone’s influence has yet to dawn!’

  He felt hot, sweaty, confined. He needed to breathe, and ripped the breast of his shirt down to his navel, baring his chest to the sky. The shirt hung, cinched at his belt. One of the sleeves dangled like a tail. The horse would not let him approach. That was no longer important. He headed out of the spinney on foot, half-naked yet buoyed up on a tide of self-admiring thoughts. And now the promptings in his mind began to centre on Gwydion, and what tiresome failings he had. In truth, the wizard had begun to lose his powers long before the golden fetters had been put on him. He was old and fading.

  ‘But I’m coming to save you anyway!’ Will shouted, laughing at the breadth of his own charity.

  His voice sounded harsh in his ears. He wished he had kept silent, for there were lines of men not far from the edge of the spinney and some of them had turned to look his way.

  He ducked down in the long grass and began to laugh again. The grass here was luminously green, as if the stalks were filled with subterranean light. Little did those men out in the open realize that the man who would deliver them from pain and death was crouching in the grass nearby. That struck him as uproariously funny. He laughed until his belly ached and tears filled his eyes. Then, all at once, he put a finger to his lips and hushed himself. It was time to decide what to do. But thinking straight among all these whispering trees was like trying to listen to music in a high wind.

  The battlestone seemed suddenly very close. It was beaming forth powerful waves. For a moment Will forgot what he was trying to do. There was a puddle of mud within reach and he crawled towards it. He smeared black lines on his face, mussed his hair like a wild man. Slowly a new plan had begun to hatch out. Why not lie low in the mud and watch the battle from the safety of the wood? He would become one with the earth without any need for dying.

  Once he had thought of the idea, it seemed wholly excellent. So obvious. So clearly the wisest thing to do under the circumstances.

  Except that he could not sit still. There was glory to be had! Glory, and the small matter of a wizard to be redeemed. He would walk right up to the cloister and do that now!

  First he collected dry branches from a dead tree and snapped them down into a bundle. He would carry them as if he had been sent by the Fellows to fetch ash twigs for their never-failing ritual fires. What was it the Wortmaster had taught him about the ash? He sang out the rhyme,

  ‘The ash he be a goodly tree,

  Big black buds, one, two, three.

  Ashen handle – hoes and rakes,

  Always gives before he breaks!

  ‘Elm hub, oaken spoke, ashen rim,’ he called out, repeating the words of the wheelwright’s song. That ditty would serve as well as anything to keep the battlestone from finding its way into his mind. ‘By the moon and stars, I’ll be like the ash and spring back against whatever tries to break me!’

  He strode out, carrying his bundle across the cloister’s newly-made outworks, past the defensive mounds that the king’s army had piled up. The lines were fully manned now; long swallowtail banners flew above them. A flash came from the barrier in the middle distance. Smoke obscured the king’s standard, and a loud bang smote the air. Another bursting of sorcerer’s powder, Will thought, delighting now in the brimstone taste of it. Some of the queen’s soldiers carried arquebuses – cleverly wrought iron tubes that spurted flame and noise like fireworks. They cast stones that maimed or murdered. But the giant engines of death that also employed sorcerer’s powder were more glamorous still – fearsome pipes of iron and brass that had been hauled into place on stout wooden frames and thick, iron-bound wheels. These wall-smashers had once belonged to Lord Warrewyk, but had been abandoned by him at Ludford.

  A small voice in Will’s head asked if Edward’s attack could really succeed against these formidable weapons. But the question seemed meaningless. What did it matter how powerful the guns were? There would be no time for them to do their work. The battle would be over almost before it had begun. He would see to that!

  He was almost at the cloister now. The strange feeling of immense strength surged in him as he entered the empty yard. The gate was unguarded, the Fellows, no doubt, hiding away like grubs from the sun’s glare. There was a sour taste in his mouth. He spat. A nasty odour was here. Not sorcerer’s powder, more like the reek of the sewer. And something like the sound of a tent flapping in the wind, though there was no wind.

  A gang of men beyond the high wall were grunting and groaning as they went about some desperate business. They were in the adjoining yard, shouting, hauling hard on ropes. It sounded from the strain in their voices as if they were trying to drag some gigantic beast to a place that it did not want to go.

  He felt the ground shake. There came the noise of large chains, of claws raking against cobbles, and a raucous hissing and spitting. Then came the clang of metal, furious shouts, and suddenly Will knew where he had smelled that boar’ssty stink before.

  Aston Oddingley!

  He had reached the main entrance of the College of Delamprey. Around every chapter house door were cut the letters:

  The Giants’ Dance

  Delamprey was no different. On the door was a great fistshaped handle of tarnished bronze. As he kicked the door open, the fist unclenched and tried to take hold of him. He tore away from its grasp, then thrust an ash twig at it. It grabbed, then discarded it in disgust.

  Will knew the Fellows were alerted, for a warning bell had begun to toll. Two men came groping into the dark corridor to discover who had broken the sanctuary threshold. Then two more Fellows appeared with a group of bequines who began to wail until they were hurried away from the intruder’s profane gaze.

  Will laughed, hooted at them in imitation of their dismal noise. ‘Wooooo! Ha ha! Wooooooooo! Ha ha ha! Where’s the sacred fire, ladies?’

  But then he saw the way that must lead down into Gwydion’s dungeon, and his heart leapt. Only four Fellows stood between him and the head of the stair. Blind to light, they nevertheless perceived him darkly through some dim sense. When the nearest Fellows drew cudgels from their robes, he yelled and roared like a lion, bearing down on their pathetic attempt to block his way.

  ‘Who comes?’ they deman
ded. ‘Who comes?’

  Suddenly, the cloying smell in the air made him gag, and the brightness coursing through his mind faltered. There is something wrong, he told himself. It’s the stone…It’s in me…I must…I must…

  But then a bony hand grabbed at him and made him jump. He gritted his teeth, threw down his bundle of sticks and darted away from the clatter they made. The empty eye-sockets of the Fellows seemed to listen for him, but whatever had replaced their sense of sight could not find him fast enough.

  ‘Who comes?’ they cried again. ‘Defiler! Defiler!’

  As with the great chapter house of Verlamion, the stones of the cloister floor were carved with skulls and bones. Under them, Will knew, lay the remains of those who had lived and died in this dismal college over many centuries. Fear of death lay at the empty, white heart of the Fellowship. That was what Gwydion always said. Fear of death and the great entrapping lie that there was a way for mortal men to live forever.

  He felt the idea inspire him. It seemed that he stood on the verge of a great insight, a vital discovery that could save all mankind. Glittering confidence welled up inside him once more, supreme self-belief, seemingly as elemental as the tide, yet groundless. He yelled, burst along the passageway, charged two of the Fellows aside, ran towards the stairhead. There he leapt a barrier of old bell-rope and, as he wrenched open the cellar door, he looked around.

  Though the Fellows held out grasping hands, they no longer dared follow him. It was as if he had passed some limit beyond which they were forbidden to go.

  Under his feet here, the stone flags were plain, the walls unadorned by any sign or symbol. This part of Delamprey still belonged to the king, and had not been dedicated to the Fellowship. Perhaps that was why the Fellows would go no further.

  ‘Ha ha hahahahahahaaa!’

  He stuck out his tongue and made a gargoyle face at his pursuers. He laughed at them, taunted them. Then he threw a chair. Infuriated, one of the Fellows groped for the barrier, but then recoiled from its touch as if it had been on fire. Obedience was ground so deeply into them that they dared not cross. They’re fools who should be baited! he thought. And what fine sport it is!