Whitemantle

by Robert Carter

  ‘This may have been only a town levy. A contribution to a greater army camped elsewhere. There are wheel ruts. Provision waggons, and many horses without riders.’

  Will deliberated. ‘We have a choice. We can follow the flow until we get to the Doomstone of the West, or we can track this trail until we find Edward.’

  ‘You must decide,’ Lotan said

  ‘I already have.’

  It was a simple decision, for as Will explained, wherever the levy had gone, their final destination was in no doubt—they would eventually be drawn towards the battlestone.

  But as Will looked east towards the dark mass of Cullee Hill he knew they would go nowhere much for the moment. The light was already failing and after a short while they were forced to make camp. The horses were quickly seen to, their own bellies were soon filled, and a single candle and a little charcoal brazier were hung up to give their tent warmth and good cheer.

  ‘How do you know where to find the ligns?’ Lotan asked once they were settled. ‘Can you see them?’

  Will had been quiet all day, bound up with the morose business of healing himself. He did not welcome the question. ‘See them? Not usually.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘It’s just a knack I have.’

  ‘But how does it feel, what you do?’

  ‘We call it scrying. The first thing you must do is make your mind go blank.’

  Lotan looked doubtful. ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Just…think of nothing.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Well, think of thinking of nothing. That will have to do.’

  The big man stared into space for a long moment, then he shook his head as if a wasp had flown into his ear. ‘Oh, this is stupid!’

  ‘It’s harder than it seems.’

  ‘For me, it’s impossible.’

  ‘That may be true.’

  Lotan went into a sulk, but Will could see that his mind was ploughing furrows and it was not long before he spoke again. ‘If Edward’s not at the castle, where is he?’

  ‘That’s a good question. He could be anywhere. He’s been scouring the Marches for men since before Ewle.’

  ‘Has he got other, smaller fortresses hereabouts? Towers held by his kinsmen maybe?’

  ‘There’s Castle Morte at Wyg Moor and Castle Crofter. And some keeps between here and the Great Dyke of King Offa in the west.’ Will looked up from studying the ashy glow of the charcoal. ‘But I don’t think the news from Awakenfield has reached any of them yet.’

  Lotan stirred. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because, now I’ve had chance to dwell on it, I’m sure they didn’t know who I was talking about back there at the Durnhelm Gate when I mentioned the duke. I meant Edward, but it seems to me they thought I was talking about Duke Richard.’

  ‘If they’ve not heard the news, then why was the town shut up like an oyster?’

  ‘Edward’s orders. Precautions. And it’ll be his way of creating a sense of urgency. I think he knows there’s an army coming, but not why. His spies in Cambray must have told him of its approach.’

  Lotan was unconvinced. ‘But what about Ebor’s men who escaped the disaster at Awakenfield? The fastest of them could have got here yesterday, well ahead of us.’

  ‘Those who fled in time to escape wouldn’t know for certain that Richard was dead, only perhaps that the battle had been lost. Those who lingered long enough to confirm his death would probably not have got this far.’

  ‘Some must have.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Will sat back in the flickering candle-light. ‘I believe that only a handful got away.’

  ‘But where have they gone?’

  ‘Anywhere and nowhere. Anywhere quickly, at first, but then nowhere they wanted to get to. Not after a rout like that. The few who escaped were hunted men, as we saw. We didn’t get far before we had to show our tokens of safe conduct. Any survivor of Awakenfield who still carried with him more than a care for his own life would probably have decided to make for Trinovant.’

  Lotan nodded slowly. ‘Given the choice, it would make more sense to warn Lord Warrewyk that the ogres of Awakenfield were coming to break down the doors of the capital.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what of Lord Pendrake?’ Lotan asked after a moment. ‘He must have travelled here by a different route. An armed retinue could not have passed through this country as we have. I think Jasper will join with his army today, if he has not done so already.’

  Jasper’s no fool, Will thought. He said, ‘I agree. His escort would have chosen a more protected route than ours. They would have used the Slaver roads and not been concerned with tracking ligns along the way.’

  ‘Also his men would likely have ridden well-shod coursers – much faster than the three dawdling palfreys he gave to us. His knights would have taken many spare mounts with them to share the burden.’

  ‘Then it’s our best guess that he’s already joined up with his army. I wonder where they are now. Coming by the road that passes under Hergest Ridge, I expect, unless they’re already across the Dyke.’

  ‘If Lord Owain has brought the army out of Cambray, then it can’t be far.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re wrong. I like to think that Jasper will stand by his word, to come in strength, but to use that strength to work for peace.’

  Lotan’s grim face showed little hope. ‘We should sleep as soon as we can, for we must rise early.’

  Will yawned and lay down, the unsettling power of his personal revelation still resounding inside him. ‘Whatever happens tomorrow, Lotan, I want you to know that I’m glad chance threw us together. There’s no one I’d rather have beside me when danger threatens.’

  The big man stared back, and his strange eyes of blue and brown were beyond any reading. He took Will’s hand briefly in a strong grip, then turned over and blew out the candle.

  The night was deep and the ground iron-hard before the first grey of morning. Biting cold snapped at them as they emerged into the still air. Frost had dusted everything in white and they had to shake out the tent before they could stow it. They packed up in darkness and began riding under a high, waning moon, so that by sun up they had followed the Theam as far as Wolferton Mill.

  On the way, Will examined his heart’s wound again and saw that squarely facing the truth he had long suspected about himself had been the right thing to do. Every man has the right and duty to know who he is. It’s the first step. For every man must love himself – or else how can he love others?

  After that he dared to open his mind to the land. The strength of the earth power surprised him. A strange ferocity was attracting the flow south, greedily drinking in all that it could. He tasted the flavours of birch, willow, rowan and yew, but as they went the rowan and the birch diminished while the willow maintained and the yew increased. He corrected their course further and further westward through hillier country, until only the rowan was being left behind while the influence of the others still grew.

  Progress was painfully slow. At Park Pale they came past what seemed at first sight to be a windmill with only two sails, but Lotan said that it was a signal tower – one of many that belonged to the Sightless Ones. Though no hooded Fellows could be seen, a lone, unsmiling figure in green leather with a crossbow in his hand looked at them as they passed.

  Will watched a low overcast roll in from the west, gloomy and featureless. The day was windless, and it looked for a while that it might snow, but then the blanket of cloud began to thin, though never enough for the sun to break through before it plunged below the hills. As they reached Yarple the light was dying. The promptings of the birch lign had begun to overpower the others. Ahead lay the valley of the River Lugg and the wooded bluffs between which a Slaver road ran north and south. To the north, Will knew, lay the hamlet of Yatton Mystery and the two ancient forts that Gwydion had once told him about, forts which, of old, had guarded the approaches to Wyg Moor. To the south, Luggvale op
ened out into flatter country, a land of farms dotted with coppices and coverts and neatly planted orchards. They met no one on the road, and there were signs that the farms had been abandoned.

  ‘It’s a pretty land, but I have a bad feeling about this place,’ Lotan said, surveying the shuttered cottages.

  ‘You and me both,’ Will told him.

  ‘Over there must be the route out of Cambray. And that Slaver road was made to move armies.’

  ‘We’re very close now. Look, there’s the crossing.’

  Will led his horse forward across the stone bridge that carried the Cambray road over the Lugg. The little river was flowing purposefully southwards, swollen with icy water. With a shock Will realized that he had come this way before, though he had approached from a different direction. It had been in the days before his talent had sharpened, when Duke Richard had finally seen enough of the future to move his strength from Foderingham Castle to the remoter fortress at Ludford.

  Will cast his mind back to that cold winter’s night years ago, when he had walked alone under the haloed moon and the stars of the Ell-wand had ridden above his head. Their pitiless stare had survived the brightness of the moon, striking a pattern that, now he came to think of it, pointed down towards a hill where a single oak grew. He had heard a running stream that night – it must have been the Lugg – and there had been a Slaver journey stone at the crossroads to tell that this place was called Morte’s Crossing.

  Then, the rotting body of a villain had been enclosed in the gibbet cage here. It was a warning to wrong-doers and a statement for all travellers to read that this was Marcherland and they should mind the power hereabouts.

  So it was again. As they came to it, Will saw another dead man. Perhaps a killer or a sheep stealer, he had been exposed to parch and starve, to die in a cage and to rot away. The Conqueror’s law said that a man deemed to have relinquished his honour in crime had no need of dignity in death. But it seemed to Will too fierce a code, Marcherland or not.

  The closeness of the colliding ligns and the gently swinging cage brought back the horrors of Ebor to Will’s mind. He turned his head away, but the fire in his veins was raging now. This new corpse accused him just as the other one had. Perhaps, that night long ago, he had had a premonition without realizing it. Perhaps a warning had been sent back to him from the future. It seemed so. How sad, then, that he had not possessed the skill to see that message for what it was, or to believe the dead man when he had whispered that a disastrous war was coming.

  Lotan dismounted and looked at the frozen tracks at the crossroads. ‘The carts from Ludford did not roll this way. Nor has an army come out of Cambray yet. Twenty, maybe twenty-five men on long-pacing horses passed westward. Yesterday, by the look of it. They had as many unmounted horses with them. All were well-shod and going at the gallop. Hot-bloods, judging by the stride.’

  ‘Was it Jasper?’

  ‘I would say so.’ Lotan’s breath steamed in the air, for it was still very cold and now the sun had set there was little warmth to be found in the dying day.

  Will got down too. He felt shaky, feverish and uncertain on his feet, but he staggered to the side of the road where there was a wreath of dead leaves lying near a fallen log. He picked up the wreath, brushed the frost from it, and began to riffle through the various brown leaves that had been threaded together.

  ‘What is that?’ Lotan asked.

  ‘A loremaster’s letter.’ Will found what he was looking for, a sprig bound up separately. ‘Elder, ash and vine, furze and silver fir – it means Lord Morann has been this way too. But this is old. And apart from the signature I can’t read it.’

  ‘Oh, but I can!’

  The voice had come from the cage. Will whirled about. The horses shied and bolted. Lotan drew his sword, staring in disbelief at the corpse that now jumped down from the gibbet.

  But the spike of fear that drove Will back in terror quickly ran to earth. With the flourish of a mouse-brown cloak a familiar figure was revealed before them. ‘I see you want to know how I got here so soon – and I a wizard who is such a long way past his prime.’ Gwydion plucked the circlet of leaves from Will’s hand and scattered it. ‘Tut, tut. That is private correspondence.’

  ‘You need a lesson in manners, old man!’ Lotan muttered. He was white-faced and held his sword before him in both hands.

  ‘No, Lotan…’ Will came between them, then he turned to the wizard. ‘You must be more careful who you give shocks to, Master Gwydion. Lotan’s instincts are…keenly protective.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you like to think?’

  ‘All I know is that he spent one of his swords up to the hilt on the last magician we met.’

  The wizard inclined his head. ‘You have come up against Maskull?’

  ‘After a manner of speaking. To tell the truth I half thought we’d find you – or him – out here. What were you doing in that grim disguise.’

  ‘Watching the road. Nobody looks at a dead man with any expectations.’

  Will told everything that had befallen them since they were parted. He left out nothing of importance save the most important: he could not yet expose the revelation, even though he knew he should. Fortunately, excuses were plentiful: the situation was too urgent, and there was one who deserved to know what Will was even before even an Ogdoad wizard.

  Gwydion listened sagely to all that was told to him, then he said, ‘As for us, we are much as we were when last you saw us. Though Willow has not for a moment stopped asking after what we thought might have become of you.’

  ‘Is she with Gort?’ Will asked anxiously.

  ‘Do you see that tree on the hill yonder?’ The wizard pointed into the middle distance where a slight rise was crowned with a large oak of fine form, though leafless and looking like black filigree etched against the sky. ‘They are nearby.’

  ‘But we must not linger here,’ Will said, blinking. ‘There are armies on the move—’

  ‘—and they are coming here,’ Gwydion finished for him. ‘Of course they are, because there’s your Doomstone of the West, my friend.’

  ‘It makes a change for you to be showing me where a battlestone is to be found. Do you mean by the tree?’

  ‘Not by the tree. Under it.’

  They secured the reins of the horses to a fence post and set off up the slope on foot. ‘You had better tell me how you knew where to come.’

  ‘The birds of the forest tell me much about what passes, and who may be found upon the road.’

  Lotan growled. ‘But you didn’t follow us. You were already here.’

  The wizard’s eyes were hooded. ‘We came by a faster way.’

  ‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘I know all about your shortcuts. But you knew to come here. How?’

  ‘Before we left Trinovant I spoke with Friend Hal. The king’s scholarship has always been seen as a harmless pursuit by those who keep him, but it has repaid his efforts well. He has spent many a long hour in the royal libraries, but it was in his scroll cellars, those shelved passages that lie beneath the White Hall, that he found jewels beyond price.’

  ‘Jewels?’

  ‘Writings. Ancient fragments which he would never show to Maskull.’

  ‘But he showed them to you,’ Lotan said.

  The wizard ignored the impertinence and went on. ‘They were fragments of the Black Book of Tara. One detail the writings confirmed was that where two ligns cross there always lies a battlestone. And where three ligns cross there lies one of the great doomstones. There are three of them, as befits the triple triangle pattern that you have already established for the ligns. That is why, if you recall, I made sure we went north along the road that passes through Baronet Hadlea.’

  Will took the wizard’s words angrily. ‘Well, thank you for confiding in me! Couldn’t you have spoken sooner?’

  ‘The facts required confirmation. And your discomfort would have been made no less unbearable if you had known about any of this in advance.’ The wi
zard glanced at Lotan and added in a needless aside, ‘Besides, how could I confide in you when it was clear to me that you had taken leave of your senses?’

  Will turned on him. ‘Meaning what?’

  Gwydion’s finger stabbed accusingly at Lotan. ‘Meaning that he is a Fellow, and once a Fellow always a Fellow!’

  ‘Oh, please, not that again!’

  ‘He belongs body and mind to the Sightless Ones. Ask him!’

  Will bit back his riposte. The wizard was not making it easy to confide in him, and it was a necessary confidence, one central to their quest. Will turned and strode on, letting those who wanted to come follow or not as they pleased.

  Foremost in his thoughts now was Willow’s safety and after that her peace of mind. He warned himself that the ligns that crossed nearby were active and stirring up all kinds of powerful discord. He realized that without the tonic cordial that Gort had given him, he would have been unable even to stand up by now. But that was by no means proof against all the defences a battlestone could throw up.

  Nor was Willow untouched by the nearby doomstone. When she saw him she did not run to him with outstretched arms but remained where she was, huddled in her travelling cloak. Her eyes were red with crying.

  ‘How could you have just gone off like that?’ she asked bitterly. ‘How could you? I was so worried.’

  He tried to hug her, but she stubbornly refused him, and after a few moments he gave up and went to find the Wortmaster, feeling less than half a man.

  ‘She has a point, Willand. You went off without a word.’

  ‘I had to do what I had to do.’

  ‘She was terribly worried. We all were.’

  ‘Get her off the lign,’ he told Gort. ‘She’ll see things differently from that hillside over there.’

  ‘I will, but first you ought to—’

  His temper snapped suddenly, provoked by Gort’s very reasonableness. ‘Do it now, Wortmaster! Or by the moon and stars I’ll take my wife home and let the whole world slide where it will!’