The Giants' Dance (44 page)

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.

T
hey crossed the 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.

Nothing.

They slipped through the gardens and fled. It was a fine feeling to run barefoot in the grass. After so long cooped up in the castle it felt like true freedom, and Will thrilled to know that a virtuous circle had been forged, that the gift of release he had made to the ked had come round so soon.

The moonlight waned as they ran, and was soon replaced by a pale summer dawn. Low mists clung to the river and Will took Willow's hand and hurried her across the place where hundreds of tents had stood only days before. The temporary village where he had fought with Jasper was now just a memory – only heaps of rubbish and old fire pits
remained. Will's thoughts were in a whirl as he reminded himself of the invading army that was supposed to be marching south under the Duke of Ebor, and how the lords loyal to King Hal had been sent away to gather their strength. He wondered how strongly the lorc had sprung to life, and tried to estimate just how long they had to find the next stone.

Soon they were among the mists of Afon Water and stepping towards Stonelea Woods. The summer sun rose in the north-east. Cocks began to crow. Will kept the moon over his right shoulder and continued to follow the river. In the villages which they passed through folk were already going about their early morning chores. Most paid them friendly heed but little more, for their grey-brown wayfarer's cloaks showed them to be travellers passing through. Some folk asked what news there was. Others told what they had heard.

‘Have a care!' a pedlar at a well warned them. ‘The nobles are in a hurry to raise men. They'll not scruple to take an able young man like yourself off the road.'

‘Is your own lord raising fighting men?' Will asked, feigning ignorance so as to learn more.

‘Aye, all the lords are! Haven't you heard? A great invading army has landed in the west.'

Will thanked the pedlar for his advice and urged Willow on. She looked over her shoulder, still worried about Chlu. ‘Surely he won't be able to track us across fords and along hard roads, will he?'

‘Who knows? It's not our scent he's following, though after we fell into that compost heap he might easily be.'

‘Then what shall we do to keep him off?'

‘I don't know. It's dangerous to imagine too little of him. He found me at the Plough, and the only time he was not drawn to me was when I was in the Vale, or in disguise, and covered by one of Gwydion's spells.'

‘But how does he do it?'

‘He seems to feel my presence, and I light up like a stroke of lightning for him when I dance magic.'

‘Then don't dance any!'

‘I won't if I can help it. But he'll ask questions along the way, and he'll find answers, you can be sure of that.'

They came by a stream that wound among gentle slopes. Broad grazing meadows reached down to the water, and there were dozens of fresh molehills. Further up, older, drier molehills made bald patches in the grass. These had been crazed and cracked by a week of dry weather. Gwydion had once taught him how to read molehills, for the little velvet animals who made them felt very strongly the power that lay in the land.

‘This way,' he said at last. ‘I'm sure it's this way.'

The stream passed into the cool shade of a wood and then out again. There were forget-me-nevers where the stream joined a deeper one, and blue-bodied damsel flies danced over the water. They saw little pebbly beaches that fringed the river and muddy reaches where cattle came down to drink and where the bank was broken. Will felt the cool water lapping between his toes. He saw shoals of transparent fishlings darting and turning as one at his approach. He sang a ditty that he had learned as a child:

‘Fishling fry,

All of him is eye.

He has naught for a body,

But how fast does he fly!'

He took Willow's hand in his. He felt suddenly strong and happy, and knew it was good for them to be themselves again.

‘I wish Bethe was with us,' Willow said. ‘She'll be all right, won't she?'

‘She'll be the pride of the duchess herself. No child could be safer.'

‘Except with her own mother.' Willow bit her lip. ‘What if the duke's army gets beaten? You know what would happen then – the duke and his two eldest sons would be hunted down and killed at the queen's command, and that's if they lasted out the battle. Then Duchess Cicely would be captured and locked up forever in some guarded castle with her daughters…or sent to serve the White Order.'

‘The duchess would never suffer herself to be locked up by the Sightless Ones.'

‘She used to let them into her husband's castle at Foderingham.'

‘But she doesn't like them. Nor does the duke. They have to play the game with the Fellowship, of course. All the lords do.' He turned and saw tears in Willow's eyes. ‘Hey, don't cry…'

‘I can't help it. Oh, where is she, Will? Where's my baby?'

He held her and hugged her tight. ‘She's better off where she is. You know that. And if I know Duke Richard, he's far too wily for the queen. The duchess is no fool either – she'll stay in the Blessed Isle until there's news of the battle either way. I'm sure of that.'

She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Do you really think so?'

‘I really think so.'

Will led her onward, cutting quickly across the land, following the flows just as Gwydion had taught him. He wanted to lay good words here and there, as he had seen Gwydion do so many times, but he knew he must keep their pace up and make their passing as unmarked as he could. When they finally stopped to eat breakfast, Will judged by the sun that it was already the middle of the morning. As he looked up he was assailed by a violent prickling in his skin, and so he began to scry the land around.
He felt what he knew must be the Tanne lign, but it vanished within a few paces of the spot where he first found it.

They crossed the River Afon at the next suitable place, which was a ford at a village called Lawe. There they came upon a flock of honking geese.

‘Beware the east road,' the gozzard told them as he saw them trying to choose the best way. ‘Unless you have business in the town of Rucke, it's best left out of your plans.'

‘Rucke, you say? The famous Rucke?'

‘Ah, you've heard tell of the Towers, then?'

‘That I have. But I thank you for the warning all the same.'

When they had gone on a way, Willow asked, ‘What did you mean by the Towers?'

‘You'll soon see.'

They went on further, following the river. It was partly to put Chlu off their trail, and partly for fear of the Towers that they went the longer way around. Yet as they passed by the walls and ditches of the town, they saw the Towers of Time.

‘It's said there are a dozen needlewomen living there,' Will said. ‘They've worked for two thousand years, making the tapestry called “The History of the World”. Gwydion once told me about them. He said they were set to their task by King Gorboduc, who was the twenty-first king to reign in the Realm after the Age of Giants.'

‘Do you mean the same women have been working there all that time?' Willow asked.

‘I don't know about that, but Gwydion said they record all that happens in the Realm. He told me that if ever their stitching stopped, time would end, and all things would stand still forever.'

‘Master Gwydion said that to you?'

‘He did. He says that's Why, whatever else may pass in the Realm, the town of Rucke is left to govern itself. It has
a sheriff who makes the law, and no one from outside molests it.'

After that they followed the south bank of the Afon, giving as wide a berth as they could to the strange town. Will wondered about Gwydion, and what to do about him. How would they ever find him now? Or he them? Events were moving along too swiftly, and it was so long since they had heard from the wizard. Outlandish possibilities began to flit through Will's mind. Sight of the Towers of Rucke make him think of the far-famed Castle of Sundials – a fortress in the north that belonged to the Duke of Ebor, where many different machines of time were kept. Perhaps Gwydion was waiting there even now, poised to halt time and set everything to rights – but that was surely too much to wish for.

‘I'd be very grateful,' he told Willow, ‘if time did stop, at least for a little while.'

‘How long for?' she asked.

‘Just an hour. My feet hurt.'

‘Don't be silly, how can time stop for an hour? An hour has to go by for that to happen.'

‘Hmmm.'

‘That's why if time ever stopped, there'd be no getting it started again.'

‘I guess so.' Will hunted about distractedly – the power of the lorc rose at noon, and if he missed scrying for the lign then no better chance would come until midnight.

‘Wait,' Willow said as they came to a great, dusty road that ran to the east of Rucke. ‘Think about the verse: “He who seeks the flaxen thread, shall ravens find beside the road.” I think this might be the road.'

Will rubbed his chin, and looked up and down it. It seemed ordinary enough. ‘Why?'

‘Could the bird in the verse have been translated “rook” instead of “raven”?'

Will tried to recall his lessons. ‘The true word “bran” can mean either bird, depending on how you speak it. I think it can mean crow too. But I can't see any rooks. Can you?'

‘No, but that sounds like “Rucke”. It's possible, don't you think?'

Will looked back in the direction of the town, but then shook his head. ‘But every battlestone we've found so far has been on a lign, and the most dangerous ones seem to be placed where two or even three ligns cross. There's no lign running through Rucke.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Not completely. But look at the fields far over that way. Do you see what's growing in them?'

A patchwork of land stretched away eastward into the summer haze and many different crops grew there. Will meant the fields that had a pale blue sheen, a blue made by countless little flowers.

When Willow saw them, she said, ‘Is that what I think it is? Flax?'

‘It looks like it to me.'

They decided to press on again, and soon they came by the village of Elventoft. Will looked to north and south again and had another inkling about the way the land lay. Shifting power, and a sense of drifting to the south. A little further along the road they met a Wise Woman, whose back was bowed and whose stick was gnarled. They asked after the village that had planted the flax.

‘By my warts!' she said. ‘In Harleston they spin left-handed! It is sung of in these parts in a children's rhyme:

‘Four-eyed folk weave the finest linen,

The whitest linen there ever has been!

For they use no flax to spin their linen,

The softest linen that ever was seen!

They pluck the locks from off their heads,

And use white hair to make their threads,

For the spreading over of kingly beds,

Harleston linen, I ween!

‘The needlewomen of Rucke may make the history of the world, but it is stitched upon cloth woven in Harleston!'

‘Thank you for your words, Wise Woman,' Will said. ‘But before you go on I must ask a favour of you. If you should meet with another traveller coming along this road, one who enquires after us, what will you say to him?'

‘I will tell him only to mind the crows, for they will peck his eyes out! Hurry on! Hurry on, my sweets, for it is near to the midday hour!' The Wise Woman laughed to herself again, and sang,