The Language of Stones

‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘Laughing? Why should you say that? This is your reward. You will find that you are able to spend it like a silver shilling, for those who value coins will see it as such.’

‘You are laughing at me. Or you’re mad.’

The sorcerer shrugged. ‘If you think so, then throw it away.’

But Will decided to put the pebble in his pouch.

The sun had begun to warm the day and Gwydion pulled back his hood, revealing a high-browed head set with a close-fitting cap of grey linen that covered long, unbraided hair. His face was also long and his dark eyes deeply set under thick brows. It was a kindly face. He wore the beard of an old man, but it still seemed impossible to place a certain age upon him.

After finishing his sweetcake, the sorcerer took out his hazel wand and went back to scrying the ground around the stones. Despite all that had happened, Will could not now think too badly of him. In the sunshine, he seemed to be no more than a pitiful old man – one weighed down with too many cares. Perhaps he had been telling the truth all along. And perhaps it might not be such a bad life to be apprenticed to a sorcerer for a while.

When Gwydion noticed he was being watched, he beckoned Will to him. ‘I’m reading the stone.’

‘You really are mad.’

‘And you really must be careful.’

‘Reading it how?’

‘With my fingers. I want to see if it is a battlestone.’ He walked carefully around the stone, touching its surface with his fingertips. ‘Are you any the wiser?’

‘What’s a battlestone?’

Gwydion straightened, then a wry smile broke out across his face. ‘Perhaps there is no harm in telling you. I want to know if this is one of the stones that are bringing war to the Realm.’

Will screwed up his face, but said nothing.

‘Oh, you are not alone in your disbelief! All standing stones are powerful and precious things. They were put in place long ago by the fae or else by wise men who knew something of the fae’s skills. Only fools have ever tried to move them since.’

Will looked at the stone critically. It was a large, weathered grey rock, much taller than it was broad, and quite unremarkable. He put his hands on it and found the surface nicely sun-warmed.

Gwydion smiled. ‘Most stones bring benefits to the land – like the Tarry Stone which keeps your village green so lush and makes the sheep who graze there very glad, but some stones are not so helpful. The worst of them were made long ago with the aim of inciting men to war. That is why they are called battlestones.’

‘Is this one?’

Gwydion sighed. ‘In truth, I cannot easily tell what is a battlestone and what is not. It has become my wearisome task to try to find them, but so far I have failed.’

‘Failed?’

‘I lack the particular skill for it. The fae knew well how to protect the lorc from prying.’ He patted the stone he had been examining. ‘But at least this one may be discounted, for it carries the sign that tells me its purpose is harmless.’

‘A sign? Where? Let me see.’

The sorcerer cast him an amused glance. ‘Do you think you would be able to see it?’

Will digested Gwydion’s words in silence, then he said, ‘What’s a lorc?’

‘The lorc? It is a web of earth power that runs through the land. The battlestones are fed by it, and—’

He stopped abruptly, and Will became aware that the skylarks high above had ceased their warbling song. A powerful sense of danger settled over him as Gwydion looked sharply around him.

‘Did you feel that?’

‘What?’

But the sorcerer only shook his head and listened again. ‘Come!’ he said, heading swiftly away. ‘We must take our leave of this place. By my shadow, look at the time! We should have crossed the Evenlode Bridge and passed into the Wychwoode by now!’

As he hurried on, Will’s sense of danger mounted. The sorcerer behaved as if something truly dreadful was following hard on their heels, but he could neither see nor hear any sign of pursuit. At last, they entered the shade of a wooded valley bottom, and Will’s fears began to fall away again. The waters of the Evenlode flowed over stones and glimmered under fronds of beech and oak and elm. A stone wall snaked out of sight across the river and led down to a well-used stone bridge. A woman seemed to be standing some way along the far bank next to a willow tree. She was beautiful, tall and veiled in white, yet sad. It seemed she had been crying. She watched him approach then stretched out a hand to him longingly, but the sorcerer called gruffly to him not to dawdle, and when he looked again the woman was gone.

As they followed the path up into the woodland green, he asked who she was and why she had been weeping. But Gwydion looked askance at him and said only, ‘By that willow tree? I saw no one there.’

Will stopped and looked back again, but even the shaft of sunlight in which the woman had seemed to stand had faded. He knew he had seen her, though now he could not say how real she had been.

Gwydion had raised his staff and was exclaiming, ‘Behold the great Forest of Wychwoode! Rejoice, Willand, for now you will be safe for a little while at least.’

They travelled deeper into the forest along whispering runnels, among towering trees where sunshine flecked the green gloom with gold. Will heard the clatter of a woodpecker far away in the distance. Cuckoos and cowschotts and other woodland birds flittered among the trees. After a while, he said, ‘Master Gwydion, how is it you’ve got memories that go back eighty generations? Are you immortal?’

‘I have lived long and seen much, but that does not make me immortal. No one is that. I was born as other men were born. My first home was Druidale, on the Ellan Vannin, which some now call the Island of Manx – though that was long ago. I can be hurt as other men are hurt – by accident or by malice – though it is quite hard to catch unawares one who has lived so long in the world. I do not grow old as other men grow old, and many magical defences protect me from different kinds of murderous harm, but one day I will cease to be just as all men cease to be. As for what I am, there is no proper word for that in these latter days. I am both guardian and pathfinder. Once I might have been called “phantarch”, but you may call me a wizard.’

‘Aren’t wizards the same as sorcerers, then? Or is one good and the other evil?’

‘There are many fools who would have you believe it. But be careful of such words, for believers in good and evil cannot understand true magic.’

‘Believers?’ Will said, frowning. ‘Do you mean there might be no such thing as good or evil? But how could that be?’

But Gwydion said only, ‘For the present you would do well to forget all you have ever learned of light and dark, for the true nature of the world is not as you suppose.’

Will looked about. ‘So am I to live with you here in this wood, and learn magic?’

Gwydion seemed puzzled by his question, but then he laughed and clapped Will on the shoulder. ‘See there, we are nearing the tower of Lord Strange. He will settle some of your endless questions.’

As Will followed, he wondered who Lord Strange might be. He had never seen a lord, for no lord had ever bothered to tramp through Quaggy Marsh down by Middle Norton. No one except Tilwin ever visited the upper reaches of the Vale. Even so, Will had heard tell of lordly ways, about their finery, about how they feasted in stone-built castles and rode snow-white horses, and most of all about how they wore shining armour and wielded swords in battle. Lords had sounded at once a fine and a fearsome lot.

As for Gwydion, he did not look as though he did any of those things. He dressed simply, like a wayfarer, not in robes of velvet or cloth-of-gold, but in plain wool and linen. And he went barefoot like a man who could not afford himself a pair of shoes. There was no metal about him, nor anything that came from the killing of an animal – no fur, no leather and no bone – except for the bird’s skull charm that he wore around his neck.

‘Why do you wear that?’ he asked, pointing to it as they came over a mossy bank and headed down towards a forest glade.

The wizard looked sidelong at him. ‘This? It is an ornament…and a safeguard.’

‘Against what?’

‘The unexpected.’ He intercepted Will’s finger as he tried to touch it. ‘Be careful! It is a trigger that sets off a very powerful piece of magic. It works much as a crossbow works upon a bolt. If the spell were invoked, I would become the bolt.’

Will did not understand. It was only a bird’s skull. But there was no time to dwell on the matter, for just then Will saw a fallow deer hind. He touched the wizard’s sleeve and pointed her out. She was watching them nervously from beyond a stand of birch trees, but as soon as she knew she had been discovered she leapt away.

Will saw the marks of her cloven hooves in the damp earth, but there were others that were bigger and uncloven. Gwydion examined some droppings then a half-smile appeared on his face. ‘These are rare fumets indeed,’ he said. ‘Unicorn dung! It is most odd. They are not often to be found so far south. Something is amiss here.’

The forest deepened around them and the undergrowth thickened, but just as it seemed their path would be blocked the ground began to fall away into a clearing. There stood a double tower of dressed stone which rose to many times the height of a man. Will marvelled at it, though it seemed a dismal place. It was old and round and green with moss. Its top was battlemented and set with pointed roofs and several small, high windows. Below the tower there was a square moat.

Will’s fears returned as they approached the gate. When they reached the bridge a frightening figure came out to bar their way. He was a man, but he was wearing a bonnet of iron and a coat that jangled with countless interlinked iron rings. His body was covered with a red surcoat that displayed the likeness of two silvery hounds. Will had never seen cloth so bright. It was as red as blood.

‘Who comes to the dwelling of Lord Strange?’

Gwydion spread his hands. ‘Tell your master there is a friend at his gate. One who brings tidings of wind and water and of war to come.’

‘Wait here for your answer.’

When the man had disappeared, Gwydion said, ‘The warden of the forest is named John le Strange. This is his lodge. His own domains are in the North where many men follow him, but King Hal has made him warden here. The king hunts rarely and has never come to this place, but Wychwoode is a royal forest and must be kept as such. You will soon see why Lord Strange has been appointed to a place where few eyes can linger upon him.’

‘Is he…ugly?’

Gwydion looked up to the top of the tower. ‘He was once the handsomest of men, but his appearance has been changed. He wears a ring of gold in his nose. That is his wedding ring which he is loath to cut and cannot otherwise remove. Take care not to stare at him.’

Will’s fears surged. ‘Why not?’

‘Because first impressions count for a lot. You do not want to be thought rude.’

Will swallowed hard. ‘Master Gwydion, why have you brought me here?’

‘To learn, Willand. To learn.’

The man returned. This time he lifted up the front part of his iron hat and bade them enter. Will followed as Gwydion crossed the threshold and entered the hall. There, attended by his people, Lord Strange came out to greet them both. He was a big man with a chest like a barrel, but what was terrifying about him, and what made Will reel back in horror, was the fact that his head was more than a little like that of a wild boar.

Will managed to steady himself. He rubbed at his eyes, but the sight persisted. The lord’s face sprouted grey bristles and his lower jaw foamed where two yellow teeth jutted. His nose was snout-like and did indeed carry a golden ring. Below the neck, though, he had the normal figure of a man and was attired in fine red robes.

To stop himself staring at the hog-headed lord, Will looked instead at the lady who came to stand by his side. She was a long-faced woman, tall and thin, and her hair was swept back inside a veiled hat which was the same grey as her long belted gown of embroidered velvet. The gown was tight to her form at bodice and sleeve, and at her neck was an ornament of silver set with pale stones. She seemed not to care that her husband was a monster.

‘You are welcome to Wychwoode, Crowmaster,’ Lord Strange said. ‘Have you succeeded in your quest?’

‘I thank you for your welcome,’ Gwydion replied. ‘And as for my quest, we must talk urgently, you and I. But first, I shall beg a favour on behalf of my young companion. He has walked throughout the night and is both weary and footsore. He may fall down soon where he stands if he is not afforded a corner in which to lay his poor head.’

Will felt the shock of the lord’s appearance still tingling through him as he entered the tower. After a little while a man and a woman appeared and asked him to follow them up a curving stair of finely mortared stone that was lit by bright rays of dappled sunlight. After a turn or two, the stair opened onto a broad gallery, supported by many carved pillars. Will had never been in such a place, and it filled him with awe. ‘I suppose you must be Lord Strange’s kin,’ he said, offering his hand to the man as soon as he turned. ‘My name’s Willand.’

The attendants looked blankly at him. ‘Sir, we are my lord’s servants. We do his lordship’s bidding.’

Neither the man nor the woman would smile or speak further to him, and their coldness set him on edge. He could see no reason for their unfriendliness. They were dressed in costly stuff, though the style and cut were lacking in dignity. The man’s hair was cut to shoulder length, but he wore no braids. The woman’s hair was hidden inside a plain headcloth. They showed him into a gorgeously painted chamber that looked as if it belonged to the lord himself.

He looked around in wonderment. ‘Are we to go in there? What a place it is, hey!’

But the woman only looked away and lowered her gaze. ‘My lord bids you to take refreshment, and sleep if you will.’

‘And food and drink too!’ He could hardly believe it. ‘I thank you, but tell me—’ he lowered his voice and said with a grin ‘—how did Old Nittywhiskers come by that hog’s head of his?’

At once a look of horror came over both the servants’ faces, and instead of answering him they made as if to leave.

‘Wait,’ Will said, as an idea came to him. ‘Here. I have something for you.’

He fished the pebble that Gwydion had given him out of his pouch, and gave it to the maidservant. She stared at it in amazement, so that Will could not tell if she was happy at getting a shilling or bewildered at having been offered a pebble. But then the serving man said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ And the way he said it removed all doubt.

The servants backed away, thanking him again and closing the door after themselves. Will laughed out loud. He saw a plate of food and a goblet of small beer. He fell on it with good appetite, then he climbed up onto the great bed, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared up at the ceiling.

It seemed for a moment that a thousand new sights and sounds whirled inside his head, dizzying him, then sleep whispered in his ear and he knew no more.

He awoke in darkness. For a moment he wondered where he could be, but then a dozen memories came flooding back and his belly turned over. He got up and went to the tall, narrow window of lead and horn that opened onto the tree tops of the forest. The night was balmy and dry. No moon lit the whispering trees, but there was glow enough from the castle to show ghostly beech trunks standing motionless in the still air. He could smell the stagnant water of the moat down below, and from somewhere far away there came a strange heartbeat, a low but insistent sound that echoed with a regular thump-thump-thump through the forest.

Wychwoode seemed to be a solemn place, not at all what Will had imagined when the wizard had spoken of a place of safety. He ducked back inside the window and went to try the door. It was of thick oak and set with clever craftsmanship into stonework that was as solid as any outcrop of the earth. At first, the door would not open, and he wondered if he had been made a prisoner, but then he found the heavy iron latch ring, lifted it, and the door swung easily and noiselessly.

Outside, a pillared gallery gave onto the great hall below. It was decorated with woven hangings that showed hunting scenes and a painted frieze of hounds and woodcutters. A huge stone-hooded fireplace was set in the far wall, its grate empty. The remains of a meal were scattered across a large table, set with many wooden trenchers and bowls which had yet to be cleared away. Two dozen candles, each as thick as a man’s arm, burned brightly on a pair of iron stands and threw back the shadows. Gwydion sat in the lord’s own high-backed chair at the top of the table, while Lord Strange and his lady sat on each side and listened to him.

‘I have read the portents,’ Gwydion was saying. ‘And if I had in my pouch a thousand silver crowns and if there was at my command a company of nine dozen men, still that would not be enough to avert the disaster that is surely coming.’

Lord Strange leaned forward in his chair, his moist snout twitching at the mention of silver. ‘If war is coming as you say then all our hopes walk alongside you, Crowmaster.’

Gwydion put out his hand and said, ‘That is why I urge you to come with me to the court at Trinovant. So far, I have worked in secret, but the time of uncertainties is at an end, and the day is fast approaching when I must bring unwelcome tidings to those who surround the king.’

‘Alas for my affliction!’ Lord Strange looked away, so that the ring in his nose glittered and the candlelight danced on his blond eyelashes. ‘For who will be persuaded by one who carries on him the head of a hog? The queen cannot stomach to stay in the same room as me. She calls me “King Bladud of the Swine” and mocks me. Therefore you would do better to seek the favour of the court without me.’

Gwydion let a long silence stretch out before he spoke again. ‘I feared you would answer me thus, Friend John. Listen to me: I tell you there is nothing left to a man in your position save to attend to your duties as honestly and as generously as you may. I say to you that you must not look to others to find the remedy to your ailment, you must seek for it in diligence and prudent action. Give rather than take.’

‘You make much of your advice, Crowmaster, and yet you seem to me to speak in riddles.’

‘If I do, then perhaps it is because there is no straighter way to speak to you at present.’ Gwydion spread his hands. ‘Nor do I wish to trouble you with the detail of my own task, but I must make some explanation so you understand something of the import of this news that I bear. Just as water flows upon the earth in streams and in rivers, so there are also flows of power within the earth.’

Lord Strange grunted. ‘Power, you say?’

‘Just as some places are wetter and drier, so accordingly there are places where there is an abundance of earth power, and other places that suffer from a lack of it.’

The lord’s wife looked bored by this. ‘Crowmaster, we know this much for we have seen you scry the ground with your hazel wand.’

‘Oh, those patterns are wholly natural, and long have I studied them. The Realm is tattooed from end to end with subtle flows that any willing person may learn to feel. They spiral and coil underfoot, always rising and falling as the moon and sun run their several ways. Farmers read the land by them, and use such knowledge to ensure their crops will thrive. A fast flow of power makes for a place of good aspect, whereas a sluggish flow diminishes the life force of all that grows in the ground or goes upon it. This is well known.’

The Hogshead gave a great yawn. ‘We will take your word for it, Crowmaster. For we know nothing of such matters and care for them less.’

The wizard leaned forward and his manner became as wily as a conspirator’s. ‘But, Friend John, this is not the power of which I now speak. Consider this: just as there are natural rivers upon which men ride to trade their goods, yet also men will oftentimes cut artificial canals so they may reach places where no natural river runs. And so it once was with the great flows of earth power, for long ago, during the days of the First Men and before the fae retired into the Realm Below, a thing called the lorc was made.’

‘Lorc? We have never heard this word before,’ Lord Strange scratched at his chin. ‘What does it signify?’

The wizard shook his head. ‘No one in these latter days has any knowledge of it. Even we wizards of the Ogdoad supposed it to have been broken by the Slavers some fifty generations ago. Yet according to fragments of the Black Book of Tara which I have lately found in the Blessed Isle, there is reason to believe otherwise. Think of the lorc as channels, built by the fae and set deep in the earth. These channels – or “ligns” to give them their proper name – are nine in number and cross the Realm in different directions. They were made to draw and direct flows of earth power from one end of the Isle to the other.’

‘And their purpose?’ the lord’s wife asked.

‘Lady, your shrewdness brings me neatly to my point – their purpose was – and is – to feed certain standing stones which are known as “battlestones”. Once primed they are able to incite men to war.’

Lord Strange frowned at this. ‘And you now wish to find these battlestones?’

‘Quite so. But whereas I can easily scry the natural flows that lie in the ground, I cannot feel the ligns that were made by the fae, for their artifice was ever beyond that of men to comprehend, and in this case has been well hidden from us. I do not know how many battlestones there may be, but since I have become aware of their purpose my hope is to find at least some of them, if I can, by indirect means.’

The lord and his lady exchanged a wordless glance, then Lord Strange said, ‘It is your wish to render these battlestones harmless?’

‘It may yet be possible to lessen the slaughter that approaches. But time is already short, and I cannot accomplish my task alone. Men and horses and silver have I none – in short, I must beg for the king’s permission and hope for the aid of his court.’

The silence grew heavy. Then Lord Strange said bluntly, ‘As I have already explained, I cannot help you at court. I hope you have not come here to ask me for silver, Crowmaster, for I have little enough—’

The wizard held up his hand. ‘Have no fear, I will not ask you for silver, Friend John. But it will help me immeasurably if you would agree to look after the young apprentice lad.’

Will almost fell off his perch.

The wizard went on. ‘You see, I was obliged to save his life. It is a tiresome tale with which I will not burden you, save to say that for a while I had hopes of using him as my bag-carrier, but so far he has proven himself to be more of an encumbrance. I dare not allow myself to be weighed down by him any longer.’

‘You would have us keep the boy for you?’ the lord’s wife said.

‘He is a teasel-headed young churl, yet he may be turned to some use if he were to have some book learning knocked into him. Would you be so kind as to do that, my lady?’

She returned Gwydion’s gaze frostily. The lord growled, and it seemed to Will who watched in speechless horror that he would refuse, but then the wizard inclined his head persuasively and it seemed that an atmosphere of compliance came over the hall.

‘I would remind you that all such favours come around full circle in time.’

‘So you never tire of repeating, Crowmaster.’ The great, piggy head tossed. ‘However, I shall again do as you ask in the hope that one day—’

‘No!’Will shouted. ‘I won’t stay here! Not in this dismal place! I’m coming with you, Master Gwydion, or else I’ll go home! I’m not a teasel-head and you’re not giving me away!’