The Giants’ Dance

‘Now you see the horrible truth about what happens when the Sightless Ones gather the tithe,’ Morann said. ‘It’s not just carts full of grain they take to hoard and sell. Horses, cattle, sheep, fowl – all go into their slaughterhouses.’

Will saw the place where sheep and calves had been strung up to have their throats cut. Anything that walked on two legs or four was bled into ritual jars, then soap and wax made from their fat.

‘A sickly smoke always hangs over the houses of the Fellowship at tithing time,’ Gwydion said. ‘Many trees are hewn and much wood burned for ash to make soap. Flesh is boiled up and rendered of its fat, and the meat buried or left to rot, for the Fellows partake only of the blood.’

Will knew that the soap was used in ritual washing, which was why townspeople nicknamed the Fellows ‘red hands’, though never in public for that was punishable and could end in a person’s lips being cut off.

‘And why do they make so many candles?’ Gwydion asked, and when Will made no answer he added, ‘The Fellowship make candles to light their sacred pictures.’

Will looked to the wizard and then up at the faded remnants of paint and gold leaf. ‘But…why? When the Fellows have no eyes to see them? And why would a Grand High Warden want to visit destruction upon one of his own chapter houses?’

‘The Fellows call such a thing a “Decree of the Night Fogs”,’ Gwydion told him distantly. ‘It is ordered only rarely. It is their punishment for deviation.’

‘Deviation?’

‘That is, if a house strays from their creed so far that they cannot whip it back into line. Then they cut it off and trample it into dust. This is done partly lest the disease spreads to other chapter houses, and partly by way of example. They erase all reference to the broken house from their records. They destroy its chronicle, take away its adherents. Such a house becomes to them a house that has never stood, and the Fellows who failed become men who have never lived.’

‘Is that what happened here?’ Will said, looking around. He could feel the prickling in his skin growing stronger and wanted now only to get away from the place.

‘I do not know what happened here, for the doings of the Fellowship are kept a tightly bound secret. But did I not tell you how the houses of the Sightless Ones are most often built upon ligns and other streams of earth power?’

‘How could this house have failed?’ Will asked, stepping over piles of broken wood and fallen slates.

‘This may be the explanation,’ Gwydion said. ‘You know that the Doomstone was the slab that capped the tomb of their Founder. When it was broken that source of power which is habitually tapped and abused by the Sightless Ones must have shifted. Did you not tell me of the madness that beat through the chapter house of Verlamion when the lorc came alive?’

Will remembered. ‘It was hardly to be imagined. As if the one idea filling all their heads had suddenly gone out like a candle and left a darkness which they could not bear.’

Gwydion turned to him. ‘In like wise, Willand, the troubles of this house may have started as soon as we plucked up the Dragon Stone. For the power of the lorc certainly shifts when a battlestone is taken from the earth, and this house also stands upon the lign of the ash.’

Will looked around the stone-cold walls, aware of the perpetual shadows that lurked in the corners.

‘You must beware the Sightless Ones,’ Gwydion told him earnestly, ‘for they do not love you. They will not easily forgive the intruder who defiled their most revered shrine.’

Will felt the walls close in around him. ‘I’ve wondered more than once why the Fellowship has not come into the Vale to get me. They were the only ones, apart from yourself and Morann, who ever came near.’

Morann shook his head. ‘They cannot find the Vale. They’ve never come into it, nor will they ever. I was always at Nether Norton when the tithe fell due. It was I who took the carts through the quag and down to Middle Norton. The red hands from Great Norton never approached further than that. They don’t know of the Vale’s cloaking. They’re interested only in amassing wealth. It’s gold that gives them influence.’

Gwydion said, ‘The Fellowship does not connect the Vale and what they call the pollution of their chapter house at Verlamion. Still, at their annual public self-mutilations in Trinovant Isnar has sworn to destroy the one who broke the Doomstone. You must not underestimate him, for he never underestimates his enemies. And the threat you pose them is very great.’

‘With all their wealth and power?’ Will said, looking about. ‘What threat could I be to them?’

‘That is easy to answer. I have already said that you are the Child of Destiny, third incarnation of Great Arthur of old. What you will do if the prophecies of the Black Book are brought to full fruit, will cause their spires to topple. And not before time!’

‘But I don’t see how—’

Morann made an open-handed gesture at what lay around them. ‘It’s been their habit for at least a thousand years to build where the men of olden times set up cairns and groves, and so supplant the Old Ways.’

Gwydion grasped his staff tighter. ‘Many of their chapter houses must be built upon ligns. They do not know it, but they feed on the power of the lorc as greenfly feed upon sap that rises in a flower stem. With every battlestone we discover and root out, Willand, another of their houses will fall as this one has.’

Will folded his arms. ‘Then let us hope we find all the battlestones. Whatever it was that made the Sightless Ones leave here, I’m glad.’

‘Bravely said.’ Morann clapped him on the back. ‘The red hands tell all who will listen that they bring freedom, life and peace, but they trade in slavery, death and war.’

Now Gwydion hastened forward like one who has suddenly found what he was looking for: a steep stone stair that led down into the cellars. They followed him into the stinking darkness, until he struck up a pale blue light for them to see by. The place was vacant now, the treasury emptied of its gold and all the strongroom doors thrown open. The blue glow that lit the palm of the wizard’s hand seemed reluctant to penetrate the gloom. He walked alone in the magelight shadows, and unguessable thoughts troubled him. ‘Behold!’ he said, raising his staff. ‘It is as I suspected. This is more than a thieves’ hoard-room.’

As Will’s eyes adjusted there appeared in the cellar wall a low gate of iron bars. It was meant to stop off the way, but it was wrecked. A hole had been rent in it as if by some powerful beast.

‘What is it?’ Will asked. The magelight did not penetrate far beyond the bars.

Morann clasped his arm tightly, hushing him. Gwydion’s voice was rising: ‘I can smell it! Truly these are dungeons of despair!’

‘What could have done this to iron bars?’ Will asked, looking to Morann and putting his finger on the place where brute strength had torn the barrier.

Morann whispered, ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a passageway into the Realm Below. Can you feel the air moving up, and with it the salt of the Desolate Sea?’

And Will could feel it. On his face, a dank draught that issued up from a hidden place below the earth. Air that bespoke tremendous depths, great caverns, ceaseless tunnels, dark rivers that had never seen the light of the sun. This was truly the air of another world.

And something in Will wanted to go beyond the bars and venture into that darkness. He wanted to see for himself what lay below, but Morann drew his knife and said he thought the cellar unwholesome and that the fissure had the whiff of sorcery about it and needed to be blocked up. He wanted to leave the vile place for the sake of his lungs.

Will, and then Gwydion, followed him up the stone stair and out into the light. They stepped back across the rubblestrewn yard, and Will blew out a great breath. ‘Let’s go. Just being here makes my flesh crawl.’

Gwydion set a bleak eye on him. ‘The Sightless Ones are involved in a bigger way than I thought.’

The wizard quickly turned away and Will said, ‘So big that you daren’t speak of it?’

He was not sure Gwydion had heard, and the wizard offered no reply, saying only, ‘Have you forgotten why we set out?’

‘What’s bothering him?’ Will whispered to Morann as they followed on.

‘I think he’s found what he came here for. And whatever it is, he doesn’t like it.’

Out in the open again the wizard climbed quickly aboard the cart and clicked his tongue at the horse. Will looked up at the dismal tower and his eyes sought the lone gargoyle that he had seen on his arrival, but it was nowhere to be seen.

They rode on in silence, their spirits overcome by the stagnant earth streams that ran sluggishly now under the cloister. But Will’s low mood stemmed more from the gloom that Gwydion showed. Their walk in the ruins had put the wizard in a mighty sulk.

When the road rose and Bessie laboured in her pulling, Morann and Will jumped down and walked the meadows for a while. Morann renewed the flowers in his hat with bright yellow dandelions and purple knapweed. Will cooled his toes in the lush grass. He said, ‘What are the Sightless Ones involved in? Finding the stones? Did Gwydion mean that?’

Morann looked back towards the cart. ‘You must ask him that yourself, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say he’s most worried about those broken bars and what must have come through them.’

‘I can feel the lign right here,’ Will said. He stopped suddenly.

Morann took his hazel wand and began to scry, but unsuccessfully. ‘I feel nothing unusual.’

‘It’s dispelled the bad taste left by the ruins. It’s running strongly under my heels.’

‘Where?’

Will ignored the question. ‘Oh, how can I explain it? It’s like a fiddle string, and once the chapter house was a finger pressing down on it in the wrong place, making a discordant note. And now the string is open the note is more pure again.’

‘We’ll tell Master Gwydion that. Maybe it’ll cheer him up.’

It was not long before they arrived in Nadderstone. Will hardly recognized the place. Flow along the lign was swift and joyous, like water in a new-dredged channel. Where once there had been abandoned buildings now there were new, white cottages. Lime-washed walls were bright in the noonday sun and new thatch shone neat and golden. Much of the land round about was under cultivation or had been fenced to keep cattle in. Men, women and children were busy in a barn threshing grain with flails. When they saw the cart approaching they came out. The place was clean and prosperous and the four or five young families who lived here now were courteous and welcoming.

Gwydion approached the foremost. ‘Where have you come from?’ he asked. ‘And who is your lord?’

For a moment it was as if a shadow had passed over them. The man fell under the spell of Gwydion’s voice. He shifted his feet and said, ‘We are poor, landless folk. We came here from a faraway place on the strength of a rumour that there was good land here that might be had.’

Gwydion smiled. ‘Have no fear – that rumour was mine. Enjoy Nadderstone and make it your own, for your hard work and care have already won me as your protector. I offer you a blessing of words upon your new homes, so that all will be well and when the time comes your sons and daughters will find good husbands and wives in the villages round about.’

While the wizard talked, Will and Morann went up into the meadows north of the hamlet. As soon as Will began to feel the lign running strongly underfoot again he took back his hazel wand and began to pace out the limits of it, scrying just as Gwydion had first taught him in this very same place.

Either the flow had increased several fold since then, or his own talents had developed greatly. ‘All the pain’s been cleaned out,’ he said. ‘It’s the difference between dirty ditchwater and a mountain stream.’

They came to the spot where the Dragon Stone had once lain. Its hole was filled in and there was a bed of pretty yellow flowers growing there. ‘I’m sure the Dragon Stone hasn’t been returned to the place where we found it. Let’s go and tell Gwydion the good news.’

Morann laughed. ‘I think he already knows. It doesn’t take a talent such as yours to see that this place is flourishing as never before.’

Will scrubbed at his head. ‘You know what I think? I think Nadderstone’s now taking its fair share of earth power – flows that were for too long pent up by that chapter house.’

Morann looked eastward. ‘This is the lign of the ash, you say?’

‘Yes. Its taste is unmistakably Indonen.’ Will shaded his eyes and looked east also.

‘Taste?’ Morann said, turning to look back the way they had come. ‘That seems a curious way to speak of it. Did you not just tell me that the tower and chapter house were like the finger that stops a fiddle string?’

‘I could just as easily have said it’s like the grip that pinches off a vein in a man’s arm and so holds back the flow of blood to his hand, bringing numbness and robbing his grasp of strength. I said “tasted”, but it’s not really a flavour I’m talking about.’ He shrugged, finding his talent impossible to describe.

Morann let out a piercing whistle and beckoned to Gwydion. ‘Let me see now. There are supposed to be nine ligns that make up the lorc. The one that runs by the Giant’s Ring is “Eburos”, the lign of the yew. The battlestone that you say is planted at Aston Oddingley lies upon the lign of the rowan, and the true name of that lign is “Caorthan”. While this lign is “Indonen” of the ash. What of the others?’

‘I’ve felt other ligns sometimes as we crossed them. There’s the one named “Mulart” for the elder tree, and “Tanne” for the oak. The rest are named in honour of the hazel, the holly, the willow and the birch. I’ve not felt them at all, or if I have I can’t easily call to mind their particular qualities.’

The wizard came up to join them. He leaned on his staff, seeming troubled still.

‘A fair old morning’s work,’ Morann said.

Gwydion wiped his brow and resettled his hat. ‘But as is so often the case, work begets more work, for now I must go urgently to the place that I was called away from.’

‘Foderingham?’ Will said.

‘Plainly, the Dragon Stone is not here, so I must go there.’

‘Now?’

‘As the rede says: “No time is as useful as the present.” Nor, in this case, is there any reason to delay. I shall leave at once.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Will murmured, sure that Gwydion had set his heart on a perilous path.

‘In what I must now do you cannot help me. I mean to gain entry to the dungeon of Foderingham. I will do it with or without Richard of Ebor’s consent. Once there, if the Dragon Stone is present, I shall lay hands upon it. Recall the rede: “By his magic, so shall ye know him!” I shall search for Maskull’s signature, and if I find he has not meddled with the stone, then I shall renew the holding spells in which I first wrapped it, and perhaps add a few more for good measure.’

‘You won’t try to drain it?’ Will said, only half convinced by the wizard’s assurances.

But Gwydion smiled an indulgent smile. ‘I promise, I will not try to do that.’

‘And if you find that Maskull has been there?’ Morann asked.

‘Then I shall have to undo that which he has done, before renewing my own spells.’

Will brightened. ‘Surely we can help you, if only in keeping the jacks who guard the walls of Foderingham occupied for a while.’

‘I have greater need of stealth than assistance.’ The wizard regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘But, Willand, if you would help me then make a promise.’

‘Anything.’

‘Go to the Plough and wait quietly for my return. Do not stray far from that place. Dimmet will begrudge you neither board nor lodging if you tell him of my request. If you will heed my advice, you’ll lay low. Speak to no one, and do not advertise yourself widely abroad. This is most important.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

The wizard took his hand briefly and nodded as if sealing a bargain. Then he clasped Morann to him and words passed between them in a language that seemed ancient to Will, though it was not of his ken.

He watched Gwydion go down into the hamlet, speak to one of the farmers and then he was up on a piebald horse and riding away east out of the village, while Bessie was being led towards the farmer’s stable.

‘Well, I like that!’ Will said as he realized their ride back to Eiton had just been bargained away.

‘That’s wizards for you,’ Morann said. ‘For a man who cannot be in two places at once he’s powerful good at being in one place not very much at all.’

Will put his hands on his hips. ‘I suppose we’d better start walking. It’ll be thirsty work in this warmth. I guess Gwydion’ll be right about Dimmet’s charity. I just hope it lasts when he finds out that Bessie’s been handed to a farmer in Nadderstone to ease a wizard’s emergency!’

The walk back to the Plough was indeed hot work and much was talked over as they wended their way towards Eiton. When they were about halfway there Will cut and whittled for himself a staff. It was fit for a quarterstaff, though he wanted to use it as a walking stick. Morann would have nothing of it, and was not content until Will had whittled a second staff and given him the choice of which to use.

Gwydion had once said that the quarterstaff was the diamond among weapons, striking like a sword and thrusting like a spear, it was able to disable and dispirit without inflicting undue damage. ‘The skilled wielder of a staff has the advantage against even two swordsmen, for a staff has two ends, and if one opponent should break his distance against a skilled staff he will suffer a hit. Against the single sword, a staff always has four paces in hand. Such is its dignity it metes out humiliating reminders while barely drawing blood.’

Will had never forgotten that lesson, and had practised the staff until he could easily beat the best who lived in the Vale. But there were many more whacks that Morann was able to teach him, and their journey back to Eiton became in part a running fight.

They got back aching and bruised and laughing. Once they were in the Plough’s yard Will found Dimmet among his flitches of bacon. They told him what had happened to his horse.

‘No matter,’ Dimmet said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘One good turn deserves another, or so they say. And all things have a way of coming full circle in the end. If Master Gwydion’s gone off all of a sudden, there’s bound to be something needful at the root of it. I know he’ll return her to me some time. Now, what’s it to be for you?’

Morann grinned broadly. ‘A quart of your finest nutbrown ale. And we’ll take it to the snug, if we may.’

‘That you may, and with pleasure. Stew and leftovers all right for you?’

‘Enough is as good as a feast, as my friend the Maceugh always used to say.’

‘The Maceugh?’ Will said, his brow rutting. ‘Have I heard of him before?’

‘Maybe you have not,’ Morann said lightly, then added, ‘But maybe you will come to know him one day.’

Will took a tallow dip, passed behind the inglenook and the snug door opened at Morann’s touch. The space inside was soon golden with candlelight. They slaked their throats with first-mash ale, and then set to work on a supper of spoon-meat, barley bread and cold roast goose before they pushed their bowls and trenchers away from them and sat back content.

‘Old Dimmet’s right about something needful being at the root of Gwydion’s going,’ Morann said. Once more he took out his knife and laid it on the table before him. ‘There’s talk of Commissioners riding abroad all up and down the Realm. Folk are worried. They’re talking about war everywhere you care to go.’

Will knew that Morann meant Commissioners of Array, the officers that were sent out in the king’s name to raise an army. ‘It must be serious if they’re coming for men in the middle of harvest,’ he said. ‘Who’ll gather in the crop if all the able-bodied men are marched off the land?’

Morann lowered his voice. ‘Gathered in or not, the Commissioners will have their men in the end. Have you ever known a lord starve because of a bad harvest? Likewise, it’s the churl, the common man, and those who depend on him, who come most to grief when a war begins.’

‘That’s right enough.’

‘It’s said that in Trinovant the Sightless Ones are offering large loans. They lend only to lords, so what does that tell you?’ Morann’s eyes twinkled. ‘If lords are borrowing gold, it’s for only one purpose.’

Will laced his fingers together, stretched and yawned. ‘They’ll spend gold enough on the feeding and equipping of soldiers, but it’s a risk they care to take. They go to war in hope to gain the lands held by their enemies.’

The large green stone in Morann’s ring seemed to glow with crystal fire, and his voice became passionate. ‘I tell you, Willand, the queen has spent most of the past four years trying every way to undermine Duke Richard’s rule as Lord Protector. If he’s stopped taking Master Gwydion’s good advice there’ll be a clash soon. That’s why I must be on my way tomorrow.’

‘Not you too?’ Will’s spirit rebelled at the idea. ‘Am I to wait here all alone and do nothing?’

‘It can’t be helped. Master Gwydion asked me to go to Trinovant. I’m to do what I can to steady events. I could hardly refuse him, so I’ve agreed to speak to some friends I know there. They are people of influence who owe me a small debt of gratitude and are willing to pay it – which is the best kind of friend a man can have.’

‘What will these friends do?’

‘Tell me how things truly stand at court. It’s rumoured that the king’s latest insanity is ended. Perhaps it was a natural brain fever, but poison cannot be ruled out, and Master Gwydion suspects that the queen has arranged for spells to be cast upon his mind to make him appear well again.’

‘She’s done that kind of thing before, and that was at Maskull’s prompting.’

‘These days Master Gwydion sees the sorcerer’s hand in everything.’

Will took the remark without comment and thought to console himself with a slice of cheese. He reached out for Morann’s knife, which was handy, but when he came to cut the cheese the blade would not enter.

‘Either this cheese is a lot older than I thought,’ Will said, frowning at the knife, ‘or your steel has lost its edge.’

Morann laughed. ‘Do not worry yourself. Being a knife-grinder I’m never far from a whetstone.’

Will tried again, but looked up, seeing the cheese rind was untouched. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it. What you have in your hand is the second most precious item that I have ever clapped eyes upon.’

‘This old knife?’

‘It’s an old knife, surely, but not any old knife. This knife has been sharpened on the Whetstone of Tudwal, which is one of the spoils that was brought forth from Annuin by Great Arthur of old.’

Will’s interest deepened. ‘Master Gwydion has spoken many times of prophecies that concern Great Arthur, but he’s never told me much.’

Morann sat back in his chair and began to sing,

‘Where is the man who is mightier?

The four winds tell it not!

When greater the treasures that were taken?

Won in war and fair fight.

How bright was the blessing

Brought upon Albion?

Whose land now shall be the Wasteland?

Before Great Arthur led,

the Cauldron swirled…

Before Great Arthur sailed,

the Sword smote…

Before Great Arthur entered,

the Staff upheld…

Before Great Arthur’s coming,

the Star shone…

‘Aye, Willand. In those early days the Hallows were bound, blind and in darkness all, down in Annuin, in the Realm Below.

‘The spoils were brought out by Arthur, upon his ship,’ he said as if half remembering. ‘Out from a sea cave in the north. The Cave of Finglas, which was then a mouth into the Realm Below…