The Giants' Dance (26 page)

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 not 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.'

They hastened to the meeting and when they entered the Round House, Will was dismayed to find the duke's chamber already packed. All the senior officers of the castle were here, every knight and nobleman, the duke's chamberlain, his seneschal, as well as Earl Sarum and his most trusted lieutenants. Edward was here, but the Elder of the Sightless Ones whom Will had seen earlier was not. The
duke himself sat on a great carved seat that was raised up three steps. There were lions' heads with flowing manes carved on the armrests. Around the circular chamber, twelve carved faces – women's heads set with crowns – stared down. They were the Twelve Austere Queens whom Will knew from history. Their images appeared in all courts of government in the Realm and were meant to guide the consciences of those who sat in judgment upon others. Then Will's eye fastened on something resting by the duke's seat, an ivory rod. With a start, he realized that it was an item he had seen once before, a piece of unicorn horn that Edward had shown him. Duke Richard, he now saw, used it as a pointer when he sat in council.

The duke looked every inch the rightful king. He said, ‘Master Gwydion, welcome to you.'

The wizard opened his arms in a gesture of friendship. Will did not know if he should bow. He saw Edward look his way, but there was no acknowledgment in the glance.

‘I thank you, Richard of Ebor,' Gwydion replied with formal dignity.

‘You have asked to speak with me about my stone. You will pardon me if I insist that such a talk be conducted before my friends and all my people.'

Gwydion's hand slid down his staff, and he leaned its head against his shoulder. ‘I did not request any secrecy, for I come to speak about the true cause of the disaster at Blow Heath.'

There was a tense shuffling at that, and the duke smiled. Earl Sarum, at his elbow, did not. ‘True causes, Master Gwydion? Disaster? A strange choice of words. You speak as if the bravery of my staunch ally, Lord Sarum, was not responsible. Do you not agree then that it was he who brought us our great triumph against overwhelming odds?'

The chamber fell utterly silent now.

Gwydion stirred. ‘The colour of the warrior blood that
flows in your heart has never been in doubt, Friend Richard, nor the bravery of your kinsmen or servants. They were surely the masters in the late battle. But I ask you: what profit is gained by the death of so many innocents?'