The Language of Stones

‘Good. I’m glad. It’s your fault for being here in the first place. What’s your name?’

‘Will. It’s short for Willand. What’s yours?’

‘Never you mind.’

Will scowled. ‘Neveryoumind? That’s a stupid sort of a name.’

‘And you’re a stupid sort of a boy. What’re you doing here?’

‘Looking for unicorns.’

‘Unicorns?’ She laughed. ‘You won’t see any unicorns around here.’

‘I suppose not. They don’t often come this far south.’ He tried to sound knowledgeable. ‘They wouldn’t like it here much either. Not with that mill down there making such a thumping din half the time.’

She gave him a hard look. ‘Where do you belong?’

‘I…I live at the tower.’ He wanted to point out his braids and tell her that he was not a boy any more but a man, but her face had taken on a look of deep disgust.

‘The tower? I didn’t know the Hogshead had a son.’

‘You mean Lord Strange.’

‘That’s what you call him. You’re his kin, more’s the pity for you. A proper warden would look after the forest, but this one brings men here to cut it down. You can tell your kinsman that he’s a pig, his purveyor’s a pig, and all the rest of them are pigs too!’

She jumped down and ran from him, but he ran after her. ‘Hey!’ he called. ‘I’m no lordling! I’m a churl like you! Don’t be a fool! Wait for me!’

But the girl would not wait. She was as fleet as a fawn and knew the ground well, dodging along the deer runs where she thought he could not follow. But he did, until she came to a slender fallen tree that bridged a ditch of muddy water and, stepping lightly across, reached the far side. Will attempted it, but as soon as he stepped onto it she pulled over a side branch and turned the trunk under him so that he fell off. He landed flat in the mud below, while she stood six feet above him laughing like a drain. ‘Who’s the fool now?’ she cried.

‘I’ll spank you for that!’ he shouted back.

‘No, you won’t. You’ll never catch me! Not here!’

He stood up, slopping the mud from him. He was soaked all down one side in black, foul-smelling slime. ‘You know what? I think you’re right. Give me a hand up out of here instead.’

She looked down at his outstretched hand, and shook her head. ‘Think I’m a fool? I’m not, you know. Anyway, look at your hand. It’s filthy.’

‘Listen, I’m not Lord Strange’s kin. I’m not a lordling. I’m nothing to do with the folk at the tower.’

‘You said you lived there. Were you lying then – or now?’

‘Neither. What I meant was I’m only lodging there. And I agree with you, the lord is a swine, and he’s wrong to have his best trees cut down. It’s just wickedness and greed, but he can’t help being a pig because there’s a spell of magic on his head.’

She looked at him afresh. ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

‘The same as you, at a guess. Just walking about, listening to what the birds tell each other.’ He clasped his hand round a tree root and began to haul himself up. When he put his hand out to her again she stepped back and made ready to run.

‘Oh, come on. You can trust me.’

‘I’ll decide who I’m going to trust. And you look like trouble. I don’t expect you understand anything worth knowing. My father says your sort never do.’

‘I told you – I’m not any sort. I’m just me.’

She sniffed. ‘Why’s your hair all done up like a girl’s?’

‘It’s…it’s a sign of manhood where I come from.’

‘Manhood?’ She laughed. ‘That’s girl hair. You look like a girl.’

Just as he began to think she was not going to help him she made a grab for his wrist. She would not let him clasp her hand. She braced her foot and, with one final effort, pulled him out of the hole.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You see? I’m not going to throw you down – even though I could.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me.’

‘Try it, then. If you think you can.’

‘Oh, this is baby talk,’ he said turning away. ‘And on the Midsummer of all days.’

She seemed taken aback. ‘Do you respect the solstice, then?’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘The Hogshead doesn’t. Lords don’t. You should know that.’

‘Lady Strange thinks it’d ruin her dignity to have any fun. She says only churlish folk go out on Midsummer’s Eve. I can’t see her standing under elder trees or dancing at fae rings.’

‘We do all kinds of things. We sing songs mainly.’

‘What do you sing?’

‘Mostly the old songs. My favourite’s the one about the prince who plants three apple trees that bear him gifts of silver, gold and diamonds. You must know it.’

‘Maybe. Sing it for me.’

She hesitated, embarrassed, but then she relented. ‘All right. Just one verse.’

But she sang all four, and when she had finished, he clapped his hands. ‘That was pretty. You have a sweet voice, you know.’ Then he backed away a pace.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Nowhere. But I’ll have to go back soon. I’m in trouble with the Hogshead for backchatting him.’ He glanced in the direction of the tower. ‘But first, I’d like to know your name.’

She laughed. ‘I bet you would.’

‘No, really. I would.’

‘We live down by the river, so folk call me…Willow.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘I know it’s a stupid name.’

‘Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a lovely name. It’s beautiful, just like the tree. And it suits you.’

They walked slowly back to the place where they had met, and sat down. She told him she lived in the village of Leigh. Her father, Stenn, was one of the verderers, men whose job it was to tend the forest. He was one of the men who were going to be made to fell the trees.

‘But that kind of work isn’t at all to his liking,’ she said. They crouched down together behind a fallen trunk and looked at the mill and the smouldering heaps nearby. ‘A man can’t look after a forest all his life as my father has and then be expected to lead a tree massacre. He says the law may say the forest belongs to the king, but there’s more to forests than just owning them.’

‘And more to trees than just the using of them for timber.’

She looked at him and smiled. ‘You do understand, after all. Those big oaks are my father’s friends. He grew up with them and delights in each and every one of them. He says there’s been an oak grove here since long before the Slavers came. He doesn’t like what’s happening of late. He says it all stinks!’

‘There’s certainly something nasty in the air around here.’ He looked down at the wreaths of smoke that laced the air around the mill and gave it an acrid tang.

‘That’s the charcoal burners, stinking the place up with their heaps. They need charcoal to heat the iron and melt it. They cut down all of Grendon copse where that mill pond is now. My dad says there are three blacksmith’s hearths down there. Going all the time, they are, with big bellows and everything. And that thumping you can hear all over the forest – that’s what you call trip-hammers.’

He looked at her. ‘What are they doing?’

‘I don’t know. Making things. We aren’t supposed to go near Grendon Mill, but I know it’s where they work iron into shapes. Waggons come up from the Old Road most days and take stuff away.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Whenever I go down there they chase me off. I don’t care. I don’t want to be down there anyway. It’s a dirty, stinky, smoky place now. Not at all the sort of place I like.’

‘That’s not what I meant about there being something in the air. It’s what that man said – the times are changing.’

She nodded. ‘And far too quickly, I’d say.’

‘It all seems to fit in with what Master Gwydion told me.’

She sat up and looked at him with sudden interest. ‘Who’s Master Gwydion?’

Straight away Will regretted mentioning the wizard’s name. So much was important and secretive about Gwydion that it seemed almost like a betrayal. And yet when he looked at Willow he felt he could have done nothing very wrong. ‘He’s the one who brought me into Wychwoode. Can you keep a secret?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never tried.’

He looked at her and remembered the look on her face as she hauled him out of the ditch, then decided he could trust her. ‘If you swear to keep it to yourself, I’ll tell you about Master Gwydion.’

‘I swear.’

‘Hand on heart?’

‘Hand on heart.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Master Gwydion is a wizard.’

Her mouth opened wide and then her nose wrinkled. ‘No!’

‘It’s true. And I’m his apprentice.’

‘And do they all tell such whopping lies where you come from?’

‘I’m not telling lies! It’s true. I’ll swear to it if you like.’

‘Hand on heart?’

‘Hand on heart.’

She looked at him sidelong, and Will could not be sure but he thought she had decided to believe him.

‘It must be very exciting being a wizard’s apprentice.’

‘It’s a little scary sometimes. You’d be amazed at the things I’ve seen.’

She smiled a doubting smile. ‘Like what?’

‘Oh, all kinds of things. He makes owls fly so slowly that you can count their wingbeats. He makes falling rain stop, right in mid-air. He can whistle up a storm just like that—’ He clicked his fingers and leaned towards her confidentially. ‘And he even summons giants out of the earth. Giants as big as barns. They’re terrifying.’

‘Go on, then,’ she said, her eyes sparkling now. ‘Do a bit of magic for me.’

That stopped him dead, and he wondered what his boasting had led him to, but then he put on his most serious expression. ‘I’d like to, but…’

‘But what?’

He shook his head and sucked in a breath. ‘You must know that magic is dangerous?’

‘Surely not if you know what you’re doing.’

He drew himself up. ‘Oh, no. It’s always dangerous. All magic is dangerous because, you see, it affects the harmony, the balance, the…the way things touch one another, and so on.’

‘Is that right?’

She watched him, waiting for more, while he desperately tried to remember all the things the Wise Woman had told him.

‘It’s quite hard to give magical knowledge to someone who hasn’t had the proper grounding.’

‘So I see. But I don’t want you to give me any magical knowledge. I just want you to do some for me.’

‘I’ll…I’ll think on that.’ He nodded his head gravely. ‘Yes, I’ll think on it. And maybe I’ll show you some tomorrow.’

Her glance slid away from him. ‘Oh, I see. And what makes you think you’ll be seeing me tomorrow?’

‘Well…I mean I’d like to. I really would.’ He felt his composure deserting him so that he couldn’t meet her eye now. ‘That is, if you’re able to…if you want to come back here. They say all things come full circle – that’s a rede, you know.’

Just then, Will heard two piercing whistles and he looked down the slope. There stood a bearded man with his head tilted back and a couple of fingers stuck in his mouth.

‘That’s my father! He’s going back with the others to make ready for the celebrations. Can’t stay. I’m late.’

She jumped up and without another word scampered down the slope.

He was about to call after her, but her father was there and he thought better of it.

‘Willow…’ he said to himself. ‘But what about tomorrow?’

CHAPTER FIVE THE MARISH HAG

For a while Will lay by himself on the fringe of the forest, knowing he ought to return to face Lord Strange’s wrath, and that the longer he delayed the worse it would be. But something defiant inside him resisted. He looked out at the still waters of the pool. When the thump-thump-thump had ended for the day it had been like the fading away of a toothache. Wisps of smoke still rose up from the charcoal burners’ mounds, but there was no other movement. Everyone, it seemed, had gone down to the village to prepare for the Midsummer.

He sighed, feeling truly alone. At home in the Vale, folk would be dancing and feasting and playing festive games long into the evening, but all that seemed too far away now, and a chill touched him as he lay on his mat of mossy grass. He fell into a sombre mood as he watched the pool and saw the doomed trees reflected there.

After listening to the silence for a while, curiosity roused him and drew him down the slope into a forbidden place. He was mindful of his promise to Gwydion to remain within the Wychwoode, but a desire to know the truth pushed him just a few steps beyond its bounds. Around him stood heaps of rubbish, piles of sawdust and the axe-hacked stumps of large trees. Sheds and shelters clustered round Grendon Mill. Piles of small logs were stacked up ready for charring. Where the sluice leaked there was the sound of water spilling down behind the stationary wheel and tumbling through the race.

He looked inside the mill and saw a great square oaken shaft, toothed wheels, trundles bound in iron and bearings set in stone. There were empty anvils at each of the three trip-hammers and an idle bellows by the covered hearth. Long pincers and mallets hung on the walls. All around lay piles of metal that had been cut into different shapes. Most of it was rusty or fire-blackened, though some of it was burnished bright, but there was no mistaking what was being made here.

‘War,’ he whispered, picking up a half-formed sword blade. ‘Just like Master Gwydion said…’

Excitement thrilled through him as he looked at what had been fashioned. There were blades of different lengths, all as yet without point or edge. Grim-looking axe-heads and war-hammers stood in rows. And thousands of sharpened arrowheads waited to be attached to shafts. In another shed were iron hats and helms, many roughly-made pieces of armour for limb and body. And in the shelter of a thatched lean-to was a mail-maker’s bench with boxes of rivets and pairs of pincers with rags tied round their handles. Thousands of close-linked rings had already been painstakingly fitted together to make hoods of mail like Lord Strange’s guards wore.

Every shed Will looked into was the same. There seemed to be enough iron to arm five hundred soldiers, and if as Willow had said waggons came most days taking away what had been finished, who could say how much had already gone into store?

Does Lord Strange know what’s happening? he wondered. Of course he must know! The sound of those trip-hammers carries far and wide.

He felt suddenly cold inside. His fingers reached for the comfort of the leaping salmon talisman that hung about his neck. He wished Gwydion was here. This is a fine way to spend Midsummer, he thought as he came away.

He was picking his way past the mill-race when he chanced to look down. The sight that met his eye made him exclaim. Where the water gushed under the sluice and splashed down like a waterfall behind the green paddles of the wheel there was a pale hand. Slender it was, like a girlchild’s, and wax-pale in the darkness.

He stared at it, shocked. Unable to turn away, he bent to get a better view. The hand seemed to wave to him and he watched it beckon for a moment. Then, he stood up and looked around in panic. Moments ago he had feared discovery in a forbidden place, now he yelled as loud as he could for help.

But no help came.

I have to do something, he thought, and leapt down into the race. The escaping flow was knee-deep under the wheel and cold enough to make him gasp. The water showering down on him gurgled past in a mass of bubbles. The wheel and stonework in which it was set were slimy and slippery. He reached out to touch the waxen hand, but it was dead and he pulled back from it.

A groan of dismay escaped him. Here was a drowned thing, a body caught up horribly in a wheel. What had the beating and turning of it done to the flesh? He screwed up his face and reached into the narrow gap. There, revealed to his exploring fingers, was a lolling head and a slender arm, trapped and mangled by the tearing of the wheel. His feet kept slipping, but he ducked under the water again, braced his back against the paddles and forced himself up with all his strength against the current to lift the wheel a little and so free the arm from its grip.

It fell away. There was no blood. The body was frail and light as it came free. He carried it in his arms, looking for a place to lay it down. There was dust and dirt everywhere in the clearing, so he carried the body back up into the forest and laid it on a bed of moss. He was drenched and shivering as he knelt beside the dead, pale thing, but all he could feel was an immense sadness.

He blinked, wiped his face and allowed his eyes to dwell on the body. At first it seemed to be a trick of the light, but then he realized that the skin was as pale as could be, silvery, transparent almost. A tracery of greenish-blue veins showed through. The flesh of the arm was torn where it had been trapped in the wheel, and on the forehead and at the temples there were greenish marks, as if lampreys or sucker fish had attached themselves to draw blood. The hair was greenish too and child-fine, yet the features of the face were adult – sharp and delicate, a pointed chin and wide mouth, and the eyes almost as if closed in sleep. Will knew the creature he was laying out had not been born of woman, but that did not matter.

The poor thing must have died alone, he thought. Caught as it tried to swim in the pool. Dragged under the wheel.

A bout of shivering overcame him and he shed a tear. But he arranged the creature’s limbs with dignity and laid leafy branches over it to cover its nakedness until only the face showed. Then he gathered a posy of woodland flowers. Despite its ugly wounds the creature was beautiful. He felt he must lean over and kiss its forehead in farewell. He did so, then fled back to the tower.

As blazing June turned into an even hotter July, Will longed more and more for the return of the wizard. The wild words he had spoken to Lord Strange had brought punishment – work at the slate had been doubled and his long afternoons of freedom were taken away. He was put to do the chores of a kitchen servant to pay his way, which he did not mind. What did trouble him was that he had been stopped from going back to the mill to see if Willow had come to meet him, and now he was no longer allowed to go beyond the moat.

‘What about Willow?’ he asked the white cat, appalled. ‘Shall I ever see her again?’

The cat came and rubbed its head against him, looking up with unblinking eyes.

He hated staying indoors when the sun was shining. The constant squeezing of the quill made his finger-ends sore, but he had begun to see the power of letters, and then the power of words, and beyond it all he had begun to grasp the blazing power of ideas too. Writing, he saw, was not, after all, about the tiresome business of scratching jots and tittles onto slate or parchment, it was about gaining the power to lodge ideas in other people’s heads – people who were far away, people who might even be living in another age!

The immensity of the discovery startled him, for no one had yet bothered to warn him what delights all the drudgery would lead to. All he needed now was a book to read, and so far as that was concerned he had already hatched a plan.

Excitement beat through him as he followed Pangur Ban up the stair to the lord’s privy chamber. There, he knew, three books bound in old leather stood together on a limewood stand. He looked over his shoulder to make sure none of the servants had seen him, then he went in and pulled out the first of the books. It was a book of household accounts and he looked it over quickly and put it back.

The second book looked the same as the first, but the third was quite different. It seemed to be much older than the others and its cover was not secured with an iron clasp and chain. There was something written on the front, and though Will could read the words, they made no sense:

Ane radhas a’leguim oicheamna ainsagimn…

The rest had been destroyed by a deep scorch-mark. It looked as if someone had once tried to throw the book onto a fire but had changed their mind. When he opened it, he saw that every other page showed a large picture. There were many lines of careful black writing, with some parts done in red, and lettering so even that Will wondered at the skill of the scribe. The pictures were of animals, all kinds of animals, and one especially caught his eye – a lion, which was the creature on the surcoats of Lord Strange’s men, and which he had taken at first to be an odd-looking dog for the only lion he had ever seen before was a dandelion. There was also a leopard, which the book said came of crossing a lion with another, even fiercer animal called a pard. Looking at the pictures it seemed that quite a few of the beasts were crossed with one another, some even with humankind.

Will bent close over the book while Pangur Ban walked on the table and rubbed himself against Will’s head. In the margins beside a few of the pictures someone had written several lines. The writing was thin, like beetle-tracks, and looked as if it had been inked by a pin, but again it was writing of a kind he could not read. In the back of the book was more curious handwriting, and this time, as he tried in vain to read it, an idea came to him.

He fetched the lady’s looking-glass and then tried the writing again. Now he could read it. But not quite, because although he could spell out the words, still they did not make any more sense than the words written on the cover. He read them aloud – they sounded magical. And when he looked back through the pictures, beside the eagle there was added the word feoreunn, beside the bee begier, and beside the wyvern – which was a man-eating beast of the air, a two-legged, winged dragon – was the word nathirfang.

Will mouthed them aloud for a while, then turned to look in the back of the book where the same small writing was:

To have the creature come, say,

‘Aillse, aillse, ______ comla na duil!’

To have the creature do thy bidding, say:

‘Aillse, aillse, ______ erchim archas ni! Teirisi! Taigu!’

‘They’re spells!’ Will whispered fiercely to himself. ‘And those gaps are where to put the true names.’

I shouldn’t be looking at this, he thought, suddenly mindful of the Wise Woman’s warnings about the respect that magic demanded. It seemed wrong to be stealing peeks at a book that was not his to look at, and even more wrong to be slyly acquiring spells, but now he had started reading it was hard to stop.

He began to commit the words to memory, and he had made a fair job of it before a sound outside alerted him. He had been so engrossed that he only just managed to scramble back to his own chamber before the housekeeper’s maid came past.

After the noonday meal Will took a piece of bread and honey away from the kitchen, and armed with his spells he set about catching a fly. As soon as one came in through the window to feed on the honey he shut it in the room and all afternoon, instead of practising his writing, he called out the words he had learned.

But it was not as easy as he imagined. There were many ways to pronounce what he had written down, and the fly took no notice of any of them. Also, the fly was not exactly like any of those pictured in the book. Was it a foulaman? Or could it be a gleagh, or a crevar? Lastly, he tried cuelan with no better success, but when he opened the door a big, fat bluebottle came in and began to buzz round his head.

He let out a yell of triumph. Wherever he went in the room the cuelan followed, flying round his head with the same solid determination that a moth flies about a candle flame. When he walked back and forth, the fly followed. When he stood still, it flew round him in a perfect circle.

‘I’ve done it!’ he said, enormously pleased with himself.

He lay down on his bed and watched the fly circling above his face. Then the fly landed on his nose. He tried to waft it away. But it dodged his hand.

‘That’s enough. You can go away now,’ he said.