The Language of Stones

‘A shooting star.’Will echoed. He stretched out his hand in wonder. ‘Can a person ever touch the sky?’

He continued to stare at the vast, eerie dome, but soon his eyelids grew heavy and moments later he was asleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN LAMMASTIDE

They rose early, just before dawn. Gwydion turned about on his heels, tasting the air warily until he was sure that no danger had been laid for them. Then he danced and paced and danced a little more. He spoke words to himself until it seemed to Will that a billowing net of blue gossamer came into being around their sleeping place. As Gwydion spoke, the light was drawn down to his hands and vanished inside him. Then, as if nothing had happened, he raked the ashes out of the fire and scattered them about, while seeming to thank the grass for having made them welcome. Will watched with raised eyebrows.

‘And now we must remake the ground,’ Gwydion told him. ‘Do you want to do it?’

He shrugged, feeling a little foolish. ‘What should I do?’

He was told to replace the turfs just as they had been before, and ritually water them. This he did, not really knowing how ritual watering differed from pouring the jug out over the ground, but Gwydion seemed to approve his actions, and when all was done and the ground looked almost as if they had never come this way, they set off.

‘What were you doing before?’ Will asked.

‘I was dancing back the magic that I laid forth last night as our protection.’

‘Against Maskull?’

‘Against all harm.’

Will’s heart felt suddenly leaden. ‘Why does Maskull want to kill the one spoken about in the Black Book?’

‘Because he was “…born of Strife, born of Calamity…born at Beltane in the Twentieth Year…when the beams of Eluned are strongest”.’

Will tried to be withering. ‘I suppose that’s meant to tell me everything.’

‘Perhaps it does not make much sense to you, but Maskull knows that the prophesied one will eventually stand between him and that which he most desires.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘To be the one who chooses the direction of the future.’

‘Well, I’ll not stand in his way. He can do what he likes with the future for all I care!’

The wizard smiled knowingly. ‘If you are the one, then you will eventually confound him. This he knows, and knowing it he cannot rest.’

‘And because Maskull is your enemy too, you’ve become my friend. Is that it?’ he said gloomily. It felt like he had been caught between gigantic forces, and that they were fast closing on him.

But the wizard smiled another wistful smile and shook his head. ‘I see that you doubt my sincerity, Willand. But I was a friend to you long before I suspected whom you might be.’

They continued south, skirting villages and avoiding the most well-travelled roads. They kept off the fields where golden grain awaited harvest, and Will enjoyed the walking. After weeks of homesickness and stifling study in the tower he felt truly free at last. Still, the wizard’s words had unsettled him more than a little.

He took his knife, went to the hedge and cut a bough from the blackthorn. It was an arm’s length from end to end and two fingers around. As Gwydion looked on he began stripping it of twigs and bark, shaping the torn end into a handle, the other into a point. But he felt ever more uncomfortable as he worked, for Gwydion’s eyes rested upon him and at length he stopped and looked up. ‘Is there anything amiss, Master Gwydion?’

‘What is it you are at, lad?’

‘Just carving a new stick for walking.’

‘Blackthorn is a good choice. Like ash, fine wood for tool handles, a wood that is strong and dense.’

Will smiled back, encouraged.

‘But you neglected to ask first if the blackthorn minded.’

‘Should I have done that?’

‘It would have been the polite thing to do.’

Will looked at his stick, confused. It was just a stick. ‘Do you mean I should have asked forgiveness of a bush?’

‘Not forgiveness, Will.’ Gwydion’s voice grew mellow. ‘Permission.’

‘But surely a bush couldn’t hear what I said to it.’

‘That is quite true. But also quite beside the point. One day you will understand. Meanwhile, tell me: are you versed in any weapon?’

‘Only the quarterstaff, Master Gwydion.’

‘In the wider world it is important you know how to protect yourself. When next you cut yourself a quarterstaff, make it as long as you are. And remember that you will double its strength if you give thanks for it beforehand.’

Will narrowed his eyes at the wizard. ‘They say a quarterstaff is always to be preferred to a sword, but I can’t see how that can be true.’

‘Can’t you?’ Gwydion opened his crane bag and drew out an impossibly long staff. ‘No swordsman, no matter how fine his weapon, can hurt you if he cannot reach you. You need only learn how a suitable distance may be kept.’

Suddenly Gwydion rose up and danced, stroking the staff about him in eye-fooling twists and thrusts, then, equally suddenly, he halted, pushed the staff back into the crane bag and motioned him to follow on.

‘That was amazing!’ Will said. ‘You moved the staff so fast I could hardly see it!’

‘Practice, as the rede says, maketh perfect.’

They pressed on across a river, the broadest yet, which they crossed easily by walking ankle-deep across an eel weir. Will dogged Gwydion’s steps three paces behind until, as night fell, they came near to a barn. Gwydion made it safe by crumbling bread crusts in the corners and dancing out an eerie-sounding protection. But for half the night Will lay awake in the straw, listening to every sound. He curled himself tighter in his nest and did not have the courage even to wake the wizard, but in the morning he made his admission.

‘Master Gwydion, I heard noises last night. I thought they must be Maskull’s spies.’

‘I heard them too.’

‘You did?’ His eyes widened. ‘Then I was right?’

‘Oh, indeed. They were spies. Three of them, in fact. All in brown velvet coats. All about this long.’ He placed his hands a little way apart.

Will tutted. ‘Rats?’

‘Rats. Exceptional creatures. They were looking out for our safety as I asked them.’

With the dawning of the day they went down into the village of Uff, and Will saw the Blowing Stone. It turned out to be only a great block with three holes in it that stood in the yard of the village alehouse. ‘It is played like a stone flute every second year,’ Gwydion said. ‘It calls men to the Scouring. Do not hang back from it, it is not a battlestone, nor anything to be afraid of.’

‘Scouring? What’s that?’

‘You will know all about that by the end of Lammas.’

All that morning while the wizard talked with the villagers, Will waited and waited. The wizard was well liked in Uff, and well used to tarrying there, for it was horse country and he seemed greatly fond of horses. Word soon got about that a famous horse leech had come into the village. Food and cider were brought out for him, but he gave both to Will to offset his fears and forestall his impatience. And after so much cheese and bread and a quart of best apple dash to wash it down, Will lay in a corner and did not get up again until a goodly while had passed.

‘When are we going to leave?’ he asked Gwydion, feeling more than a little wretched and dry in the throat. ‘I thought you wanted to get along, yet you’ve nearly wasted the whole day.’

‘And lying dead drunk on your back all day is wasting nothing at all, I suppose?’ the wizard said, ruffling the mane of a fine, white horse.

‘Come on, Master Gwydion. You know what I mean.’ He rubbed his arms and looked around unhappily. ‘Maskull.’

‘But first things first. You must learn patience, and understand that old debts must always be paid. Anyway, we cannot go on more urgently if we are to spend Lammas night on the Dragon’s Mound. Behold this mare, Willand. Is she not the very image of Arondiel?’

‘Who?’

‘Have you not heard tales of Arondiel, the steed of Epona?’

When the villagers overheard Gwydion’s remark they began to grin and clap their hands as if the wizard had conferred some deep and secret honour upon them. Will had never been told who Arondiel was, nor Epona, though for some reason he had the unshakable idea in his mind that the latter was a great lady who had lived hereabouts long ago. He did not know why, but her name made him think of white horses and a queen of old who delighted to feed her favourite mount apples…

He started. ‘Hey! Master Gwydion! What’s that about a “Dragon’s Mound”? You can’t trick me like that!’

But the wizard was too busy appreciating horseflesh to pay him much heed. ‘There is no cause to worry, Willand,’ he said lightly. ‘It’s just the name of a little hill near here. You will like the place, I think.’

When Gwydion finally took his leave and called Will onward, he said, ‘They are faithful folk hereabouts who know their horses. There is a bond between us that I would not deny for they have kept to the Old Ways more than most.’

They pressed on southward through what remained of the day, and soon came to the foot of a ridge that rose up green and round out of the haze. It took longer than Will expected to reach, so that just as the sun was beginning to sink into the west they came to a halt under a great swell of sheep-cropped land.

Gwydion was delighted. ‘This is a very special place,’ he said.

‘But are we going to be safe here?’

‘We can do no better than to camp here tonight.’

He led Will up a curious little conical hill and showed him how the flattened top gave a fine view to the north of the plain across which they had walked. The hill stood below a fold of the ridge which blotted out the prospect to the south. Directly below them an arm of flat land swept interestingly halfway around the hill and into a dead-end, while on the other side a well-worn path meandered up into a fold of the scarp as if it was taking the easiest way up to higher ground. It seemed a most ancient place.

Will breathed deep and decided that anyone with both a heart and a head would know that this place was very special, but as he looked up to the south-east he saw a shape cut high on the ridge which put its uniqueness beyond all doubt. Above the path was a strange set of curves, shapes cut out of the turf so that the white chalk underneath showed through. The slope of the land foreshortened the figure somewhat, but the white lines flowed around one another in the unmistakable shape of a horse.

‘Behold, Arondiel!’ Gwydion exclaimed. ‘Is she not most beautiful to your eye?’

Will was awed by the figure. ‘She’s wonderful!’

‘Look upon her with respect, for she is the oldest form made by the hand of man that you have yet seen in the land. On yonder plains there once grew great orchards where a powerful queen once reigned. She rode yearly to this place upon a white mare. Men have been coming up from the village of Uff every second year for thousands of years to keep Arondiel alive. This is the Scouring of which I spoke. Were it not for that effort of care, Arondiel would have vanished under the encroaching grass long ago, and we would all be the worse for that.’

‘But what is she?’ he asked, staring at the figure like one who finds himself suddenly unable to remember something important.

‘She is both a sign to read and a spirit guardian. Some see in her form the idea “horse”. What do you see?’

‘She looks like a horse to me too,’Will agreed. ‘But maybe…’ He shaded his eyes and studied the figure a moment longer. ‘I think that if she’s a word she isn’t “horse”, but rather “gallop”, or maybe “speed”.’

Gwydion beamed. ‘Ah, Willand! How easily you prove yourself again!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you are more in tune with the spirit of this sacred place than I had dared to hope. You will be very safe here tonight. Speed! Her name means speed! And such a form as hers cannot be cut in these latter times, for though this is a land of many horses, there are no longer men who know how to draw lines like this upon the land.’

The gift that Gwydion had taken when they left the village was a loaf of new-baked bread. For this was Lammastide, also called in the Vale ‘the festival of loaves’, the day when the first ripe grain was cut and threshed, ground and baked into bread, all in the space of a day. This was ritual bread-making, a solemn and sacred duty, and done to mark the bounty of the earth. A time to give thanks to the land, and for folk to count their blessings.

They climbed the flat-topped hill and munched their bread, and it seemed to Will that the taste of it was as good as any food he had ever eaten. Festive bonfires burned red across the plains of the old Kingdom of Wesset to the north. As darkness deepened, folk would be attending each of those fires, toasting bread on long forks. There would be butter and honey for the children, and much ale drunk and many songs sung. They sat together and talked far into the night and Will felt himself to be closer to Gwydion than ever before. Tonight the wizard seemed joyous and wonderfully wise and very pleased to be here. He spoke much about history, showing Will to the very the spot where, almost a thousand years before, Great Arthur had stood to address his assembled troops.

The wizard said quietly. ‘Shall I tell you the name of this hill in the true tongue? It is “Dumhacan Nadir”.’

Will repeated the words as if he half recognized them. ‘“Dumhacan Nadir” – the Dragon’s Mound.’

‘You have not slept upon a dragon’s mound before, I think. Nor shall you again for a very long time.’

Will patted the ground under him in wonder – there was something too regular about this mound for it to be a natural hill, and nearby was an odd bare patch of chalk, a part where the grass would not grow.

‘Flenir was the greatest of the great dragons of old, the most famous in the land. Huge and fierce was he, the “winged beast with breath of flame” of which many tales were told and many songs sung in a time long before the establishment of the Realm. For long years did Flenir misuse this land, preying upon sheep and cattle across the domain of Angnor. Any man unwary enough to be caught in the open at his approach would be torn to pieces like a mouse caught in the talons of an eagle. Flenir would breakfast in a place near here – it is still called Wormhill Bottom – and when he had rent enough flesh from bone he would return to his lair to lie. The top of his mound is flat because Flenir was accustomed to rest here, rubbing his great red belly free of the lice that clung to it. All dragons had lice, Willand, and dragon lice were as big as a man’s hand. In daylight you can see the groove where Flenir wrapped his tail around the mound, and if you look carefully down there you might discover the entrance he used, though it has long since been sealed. It is said that one day, while flying over Angnor, Flenir saw the figure of Arondiel and became enamoured of it. That is why he made his mound here. Though other tales say the site was chosen only out of jealousy.’

Will looked down into the darkness below. ‘I think a dragon would have found this a perfect place to launch himself into the air.’

‘That much is certain.’

Will scuffed at the turf with his toes. ‘So was there once a great treasure buried under here?’

‘There was, for as you know the great dragons were like magpies. They would collect any trinket that glittered. They coveted bright metal for its own sake and would always try to make a hoard of it. But in the end Flenir did not much like the bright bronze blade that was forged up on yonder ridge, for that was his bane.’

Will thought of those brilliant, ancient days, all long gone now and impossibly heroic. But what kind of heroes did the world have now? Men who wore the heads of pigs, and lords whose own increasing greed showed in the Hogshead. A shiver passed through him as he sat there, and thoughts of home began to crowd in on him. His fingers went to the greenstone talisman that hung at his neck, and he remembered the song that Valesmen used to sing every year called the Wyrm Charm. Last year it had been Eldmar’s turn to sing it. The moment had come when they had all raised their hot, steaming dragon soup together and supped off the flavoursome liquor, then Eldmar had raised his voice and led the others through the verses.

Will felt a tear come to the corner of his eye. He sniffed, fighting the sadness away, knowing very well that it was no use pining for home now. He stood up and went to stand alone and a feeling of such strangeness came over him then that his eyes rolled up into his head and his hands went deathly cold and it was as if all the world was melting away before him. And when he opened his eyes he saw a ghostly army of ten thousand filling the space below, and he knew they were gathering here before starting their heroes’ march to Badon Hill where great deeds of war would soon be accomplished.

He saw them clear as day, saw their burnished war gear, watched them shake the charms on their spearheads and clash their spearshafts against shields that bore the device of the hawk. He saw their faces, and heard them raise such a shout that it echoed across a forsaken land like rolling thunder. And he stared back, enthralled, standing at the edge, lifting up his arms, to shout in reply, ‘Anh farh bouaidan! An ger bouaidhane!’

Then Gwydion’s arms were instantly around him, and the echoes were rolling around the hill as he shook himself out of the vision and when he came to himself he was cold as death and he could still hear the horns of Elfland faintly blowing.

‘Where am I?’ he said, falling.

The wizard drew him back from the edge. ‘Do not sit here. Do you see how it is bare of grass? That is where dragon’s blood once was spilt. Nothing has grown here since.’

He staggered in the wizard’s arms as vague fears flashed through him. For a moment he wondered if he had unleashed some unnamed peril upon them, but when he looked up at the sky, only the cold stars shone down, pitiless as the glint in a dragon’s eye.

His words came all in a rush. ‘Master Gwydion, let me go home. I can’t be this Child of Destiny you’ve been looking for, really I—’

‘Easy, lad. The Rede of Foolishness says, “Talk not about things whereof you know nothing.” You are what you are. Stop fighting yourself.’

For a moment Gwydion’s answer put a stone in his heart, but then he saw a shooting star flare and its beauty so moved him that he wept. The wizard laid a comforting arm across his shoulders and Will leaned against him and soon he began to drowse. It seemed he had been sleeping half the night when he woke up with a start to find that all was still and silent. Gwydion was nowhere to be seen, so he got up and began to look around. This time he was careful to respect the bare patch as if it was a gravestone. He walked around the top of the hill, telling himself not to worry, then he stumbled over something hard and sharp that was half buried in the grass.

When he knelt down to try to discover what it was, it felt cold to his fingers, like metal, and as he scraped the hard earth from around it he saw that it was curved, a metal rim – like the edge of a goblet – sticking out of the ground.

The more he scraped the freer the goblet became, until he was able to pull it out. Then he saw it was no goblet at all, but a horn, clogged with earth, the silverwork upon it battered and tarnished black but a horn all the same. It was not the sort that shepherds blew, but the kind warriors winded to send a warning clear across a valley. Even in the starlight he could see there were words cut in the metal.

He knocked the dirt out of it and tucked it into his bundle. Then, with a heavy sigh, he lay down to sleep.

The next day they travelled onward, following the meandering path that climbed up the ridge. They passed a great bank of bracken that was overgrown with bindweed. It parted before Gwydion’s steps, and the many pale pink flowers closed up and seemed to nod respectfully as he climbed up between them. Will saw revealed another ancient earth enclosure much like the one in which they had rested on their way to the Wychwoode. This ruin was round in form, and Gwydion said it was the remains of a burgh, a dwelling camp, built in a time when all men raised their homes in timber and thatch and did not arrogantly root out the bones of the earth for the sake of vanity.

‘They used only those stones which the earth itself offered up. A great gate once stood here. How wondrously worked were the timbers of that camp, how great the magic knotted into its carven beams. But great though the ancient camps were, all of them fell easily to the iron-girt invader.’ Gwydion’s eyes flashed. ‘There was no defence against Slaver steel and Slaver sorcery once the Isles were betrayed. The Slavers were the beginning of the darkness that has ever since shadowed this land. I do not say such a thing easily, but I would that Gruech had never lived!’

‘Gruech? Who’s he?’

‘A foul traitor! One whose bones lie in a dusty cave far away.’ Gwydion grunted. ‘Let me tell you how it was: King Hely reigned forty-four years, longer than any king of the line of Brea since Dunval the Great, and his first son was called Ludd. When Ludd became king, he rebuilt Trinovant, the city that Brea had founded near a thousand years before. So great were King Ludd’s works that the city was renamed Caer Ludd, in his honour, but on his death the name Trinovant was taken up again. Ludd’s body was interred in one of the great gates of the city that bears his name – Luddsgate. It was I who gave his funeral oration, and at that time I made known certain truths that disqualified Ludd’s son, Androg, from the kingship.

‘This was well done, for Androg was possessed of a weak spirit, and four years after Ludd’s death, during the reign of his brother Caswalan, there turned out to be much work for a strong leader. The mighty power from the East that we called “the Slavers” first invaded the Isles. They claimed they had come on the Day of Auspices, one thousand years to the day since the landing in the Isles of the hero Brea. By this boast they sought to terrify the people, for Iuliu, the captain-general of the Slaver army, was a famous seer and he had said that the line of Brean kings could stand only so long.

‘But our bards sang well their histories in reply. They countered that the true Day of Auspices must already have passed unmarked during the reign of King Hely, and Iuliu’s prediction was therefore false. Thus were our warriors heartened, and afterwards they scorned the claims of the enemy, even when what they said was true. Now as the first Slaver foot stepped upon shingle shore, the lorc awakened. It happened exactly as the fae had always intended it should. Soon a great battle was fought, and one of Ludd’s younger brothers, Neni, who was a master of many arts, fought bravely against the Slaver armies that day, though in the end he paid dearly for his enterprise. The Slavers were setting camp on the banks of the River Iesis when the great clash came. Neni’s men rushed upon them and he himself captured the Slaver sorcerer’s sword, but it cut him and the poison entered his body, so that he died of his wounds fifteen days later and was interred in another of the northern gates of Trinovant. The sorcerer’s gilded blade which he took as spoil, and which he named Thamebuide, or “yellow death”, was buried with him.

‘And that’s how the Slavers won the Realm?’ Will said, frowning.

‘Oh, not so! The Slavers’ ill-fated first invasion was ended by their captain-general, Iuliu the Seer. Ever since landing on the shingle shore, he had been troubled. He suffered falling fits and terrible night visions, both of which were conjured in his mind by the lorc. So affected was he that after the great battle fought against Caswalan and Neni, he chose to withdraw his dread army back across the Narrow Seas. He returned with it to his great capital of Tibor where he vowed never to trouble the Isles again. Iuliu the Seer became a despot upon his own people and was murdered by his friends.’