Whitemantle (18 page)

Will started after him, but Gort said, ‘Leave him to his tasks. He has much to do.’

And all the while, the business of the Council was proceeding. The duke was consulting now with the Serjeants over some dubious legal point. Things seemed to have stalled. Will watched the lawyers crawling over the matter like flies over rotten meat until the lords grew restive and blew them off the corpse. Then objections were flung up from the floor, until it was announced that King Hal would have to be brought.

Will watched as the duke tried to block the move. He stood like a tower in the tide, but there was such a swell of opposition from the benches that to preserve any hope of support he was forced to relent. And all the while, Gwydion’s grim eye was upon the struggle. Will recognized in his ungiving stare a power that had the capacity to move mountains. Strain was etched on cheek and brow, and he listened as the mariner listens to the tell-tale creak and crack of spar and line as his vessel founders in stormy waters.

When King Hal appeared he was pale of face and unsteady. He moved down the main aisle like an old man, so that it was hard for Will to credit that he was not yet forty
years of age. As he came to the royal enclosure there was no one to lead him forward. He stumbled on the step and put out a hand to stop himself from falling down.

Everyone’s eyes were upon the king. Some of the lords who sat on the nearest benches got to their feet, but it was Mother Brig who stepped forward and steadied him. She took his arm, and he smiled at her in a kindly way.

But once Hal was upon the dais the duke would not suffer him to approach the throne. He intercepted him, as if casually, arm outstretched, indulgent. His ivory rod shepherded the king and Hal responded as he had done all his life, obediently, and with all respect to the man of the moment, until the plainly dressed monarch stood forlorn, the very figure of humility.

Will’s eruption of feelings got the better of him again as he watched Hal’s pathetic form. He felt for the man whose unadorned robes hung from his shoulders, whose black hat looked like nothing so much as a Melston Moberry pie that had been burned in the oven.

Hal did not look at the assembly before him but clasped one hand in the other and gazed at the red and yellow ochre tiles at his feet. And when the question of whether he was king or not was put to him by the Serjeants, his mild voice answered, ‘My lords, we have reigned over this Realm nigh on forty years. We dare to remind all now present that you have oftentimes before recognized us as your king. You have given your oath to us upon bended knee. Your fathers did likewise to our father. Your grandfathers to our grandfather. And so I ask: which of you will now break his oath?’

It was simply said, a speech delivered quietly and without bombast, but it was as if a thunderbolt had been hurled down.

No one stirred. There was not a sound. Will looked on as Duke Richard seethed with barely suppressed anger.
This was not what he had counted on, and he did not seem to know how to answer.

Once again the duke strayed closer to the throne, until Gwydion’s dour eye clamped on him. And then – miraculously – an adjournment was called.

Dukes and earls and knights of the Realm leapt up off their benches, making accusations. Richard was at the centre of these disputes, a hubbub rising over his head.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ a voice demanded at Will’s back.

He turned. It was Edward, with a retinue of square-jawed men. They were all of them lesser nobles, Ebor relatives, and all had the right to be here, but they seemed to Will to have formed a knight’s guard. Edward seized Will’s sleeve. ‘Your Crowmaster’s put a spell on my father!’

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Why did your father choose to call Hal here?’ Will asked, turning the fierceness of the attack. ‘That was a stupid mistake, Edward. He’s rushing headlong towards his doom.’

‘He had to!’ Edward’s fists clenched and unclenched. He wanted someone to blame. He was hunting for Gwydion, but his eyes were presently upon a different uninvited guest. ‘Who’s that damned girl? If she hadn’t helped the old devil up the step he would’ve gone sprawling and that would have settled it.’

Thinking fast, Will stepped to the side so that Edward was distracted and Gwydion’s already unobvious form was removed entirely from his line of sight. ‘You might better ask why your father insists on carrying around that piece of unicorn horn. His touching Hal with it was a pivotal moment, Edward, a turning point. You should tell him he ought not to make so free.’

Edward’s attention locked fast on him. ‘The rod? What about it?’

‘I’ve explained to you before what meddling with powers can bring. It’s as the redes say: “All power corrupteth in proportion, and great power corrupteth greatly.”’

Edward scowled, bethought himself a little, but then cast about impatiently. ‘I don’t want your platitudes. I want Master Gwydion to
do
something for us instead of letting it all go to Hell in a handcart.’

‘Magic cannot be used in the way you want. Only restoring the proper balance—’

‘Useless man! If there’s no spell upon my father’s head, then why does he not simply seize the throne? I would if I were him!’

‘Yes,’ Will said quietly. ‘I know you would.’

‘It’s the wizard’s doing. We must find him!’ Edward and his guard of cousins moved off to the centre of the storm where their leader struggled. Will looked to Gwydion but could not see him at first against the granite columns. Then his outline appeared, transparent as a wraith in the dusty light until Will’s tutored eye began to fill it in.

The wizard was still gazing towards the throne. A blare of trumpets shocked Will’s attention back to the proceedings. More angry words were spouted as the lords heckled the serjeants-at-law, but when the duke stepped forward the chaos subsided. A fresh sense of expectation took its place, and was satisfied at last by the announcement that all had been waiting for.

‘My lords,’ Duke Richard began. ‘To the right wise, notable and discrete lords of this present parliament here assembled, and by the king, right trusty and well beloved, for as much as we have granted our…’

The preamble to the duke’s speech was long and hard to follow, but the meat of it was easier chewing. It was received by some with jubilation, by others with stunned silence. Will could scarcely believe what he had heard. Hal was to remain king, but Ebor to succeed him.

‘Well, that’s fixed it,’ Gort said, shaking his head sadly.

‘But this will only fuel the war like the outrage at Delamprey did!’ Will cried. ‘Is this what Master Gwydion meant to happen?’

‘It is not.’

The wizard had approached unseen and looked to Will like a man at the very limit of his strength. He had now the waxen pallor of a corpse and leaned heavily upon his make-do staff. He raised his hand weakly, only to let it fall again. He was almost too cast down by what had happened to speak, but he said, ‘Everyone knows that lawyers are knaves who thrive on discord, but I did not know until this day how wedded they had become to foolishness.’

‘Master Gwydion, this is the worst possible result!’ Will said. ‘Such a compromise satisfies nobody. Haven’t they any idea how much the queen will be provoked by it? To cut her son from the succession is calculated to enrage her beyond measure. And in three days she’ll know exactly what has passed here and use it to rouse up feeling all across Umberland and the north.’

‘She will know sooner than that,’ the wizard said, his eyes seeming to follow invisible lines of force that criss-crossed the space above their heads.

Will turned to see Lord Warrewyk strutting gleefully in the aisle. His attention had been drawn by Will’s words, which were an offence. ‘If you dare to speak of Mad Mag now,’ Warrewyk said, ‘that is no matter! She, who is living on charity across the border in Albanay! It matters little what a penniless
widow
thinks.’ He laughed.

Will realized when he heard that deadly word the true danger that had arisen, for there was now in place a terrible incentive – that Duke Richard’s way forward would be made clear as soon as Hal was dead.

‘Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?’ Gort asked.

‘I’m thinking about murder, Wortmaster.’

Gort nodded. ‘If the power of the lorc were to rise again soon…’

Will saw in his mind’s eye the serpentine complexities of the situation. The Realm was slithering ever closer to conflict once more. In truth, Duke Richard was not to blame. He had been unable to do other than accept the lords’ verdict, while Hal, forlorn and alone, had had little choice. Indeed it should have been clear to all that events were being carried forward by some far greater power, and that they had now developed a momentum all their own.

But it was another event that stabbed Will to the heart with a blade of fear, for the king was being escorted from the White Hall and as he came near he paused at the step. Will watched him take the royal ring from his finger and gave it to Mother Brig. ‘For you, my dear,’ he said before continuing on. ‘You were kind enough to steady an old fool when it seemed he might fall.’

And in both Will’s and Edward’s hearing Mother Brig made her reply: ‘Know this, your grace – Ebor shall overlook Ebor before the year is out!’

W
hen Will burst through the door he found Lotan sitting with Willow. The big man had his back to Will but did not have his hood up. Willow’s hands were on his face and she was crying.

‘Don’t be angry, Will,’ she said, looking up at him.

He had sensed something was wrong, a feeling that had grown more acute as he had got closer to his lodging. He had taken the final stairs at a run, but had not failed to notice that the chest that Gort had refused to keep in his room was no longer in the passageway.

He heard Lotan say in a faraway voice, ‘You are so beautiful…’ and put his hand to Willow’s cheek.

‘
What have you done?
’ Will heard incredulity and accusation in his own voice. But Willow had only acted out of compassion, and that – surely – was what mattered. Yet the fact that the medicine chest had come from Maskull’s chamber – had been of his making – filled Will with dread, and he recalled Master Gwydion’s warning him long ago that fine intentions were by no means all there was to magic.

Glass vials and jars of powders and tinctures were
scattered around. Some had pictures, others words, on their labels. Despite the odour of stale magic Will forced himself to pick up one of the lidless vessels and examine it. There was a grey ointment inside, greasy on his fingers, mintily aromatic. He dabbed a little onto the knuckle of his middle finger where a white scar circled the joint. It was the reminder of a cut he had got while sparring with Edward years ago. By a count of seven the scar had started to vanish; by thirteen it had gone.

It was a reckless trial, but necessary. He moved round so that he could see Lotan’s face. The big jaw was square now, the cheek whole, and where once two empty sockets had scanned the air, the eyes were restored.

‘Gort said it needed Ogdoad magic,’ Will said, controlling himself. ‘I never supposed Maskull would be the one to provide it.’

His stiffness of demeanour accused her and she said, ‘This must be right.’

‘Must it?’

‘Well, ask Lotan!’

‘Why should he know?’

And Willow’s face showed that she had never considered that the man at the centre of a magical issue might be the very last person to consult over the question of its ethical standing.

‘It’s
his
life, Will.’

‘And you, Willow? What has this to do with you?’

Lotan stirred. ‘I asked her for help, and she was kind enough to give it.’

‘She had no right! No right at all. Not without talking to me first. And you – you’ve betrayed me and abused my hospitality!’

As Lotan turned, the light caught in his eyes and Will saw that they were different colours. One was blue, the other brown.

‘I took them,’ Lotan said, ‘from those who can no longer use them.’

‘The right came from Magog and the left from Gogmagog,’ Willow said quickly. ‘Will, they were going to be
burned
!’

‘But they weren’t burned. And now they can never be restored. You haven’t thought this through.’

‘No! And thinking things through doesn’t always work. Look at you, Will. You’re stuck. You don’t know what to do, so you wait and you wait until events move along, and then you respond to them. This is not the Will I know. And you’ll have to do better if you’re going to be a king.’

He felt the indecision still grinding inside him. Suddenly he seemed like the fool who cannot bring himself to cheer a victory until the basis on which it has been won can be shown to be wholly and completely without blemish. Yet Willow, pragmatic as ever, had simply acted from the heart. She had, by an act of love, cut the impossible knot, and it seemed that her inner lodestone might, after all, have pointed them in the right direction.

‘Will, it can’t be wrong,’ she said, willing him to believe also. ‘I’m sure of it.’

If you think that, he wanted to say, then why did you do it behind my back? And why are you begging so hard now for my approval? But the more he considered the more it seemed that she was in the right, and – right or wrong – the deed was irreversibly done.

He wiped his fingers clean, offered the others a hopeful nod. ‘I don’t know what you’ve thrown into the air here, and I don’t know what Master Gwydion will say when he learns about it. As to whether it was the right thing to do, we shall have to wait and see.’

‘What did she mean by it?’ Edward asked, the next time Will saw him.

His breath boiled visibly in the December air. Three days had passed since the disastrous agreement between king and duke had been struck. Will found himself cornered in Albanay Yard as the clock struck four. Edward’s guard of men closed in. Their usual function was to clear a way for the young Earl of the Marches, to make sure he received the respect he thought was his due.

In his case it’s the respect that rats give to a terrier, Will thought.

‘I’ll ask you again, Will: what did she mean by it?’

Will treated the question as if it was a threat. ‘I’ll assume you’re speaking about Mother Brig. Let me ask you, Edward: what do
you
think she meant by it?’

Even so innocent a question could be a provocation to the duke’s son when he was in the wrong mood. Still, Edward seemed minded to keep his temper, although his men reacted in exaggerated fashion with jeers and whistles.

‘My friends have decided you’re being too familiar.’

‘Have they, now? And these new friends of yours – don’t they know we’re
old
friends, you and I, Edward?’

‘I don’t think they care about that.’

Will looked around at their eager faces and felt their excitement, but also their ill-concealed fears. ‘And how if I bite my thumb at them? Are you sure they won’t all fall down like so many nine-pins?’

Edward’s voice hardened. ‘I’ll ask you for the last time: what did the girl mean?’

Will parried the question as squarely as he dared. ‘When I ask what
you
think she means, that isn’t a question I pose without reason. I must know what you want from me before I can answer you.’

‘Damn your word games!’

Edward was not sharp enough to realize the exchange had already given Will all he needed to know. ‘I wish I could answer you, but sometimes the world just isn’t as simple
as we might wish it to be. I can find you any number of fawning false astrologers who’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear. It’ll cost you no more than a silver penny. But you’ll waste your money.’

The toothed wheels inside Edward’s head turned like those inside a great water mill, until a heavy hammer was tripped and fell. Neither he nor his men could tell if their victim was being clever with them, but Edward chose to let it pass and instead he took another slant.

‘Why do you call her “Mother Brig”?’

‘Her name is Brighid.’ Will straightened. Edward’s retinue had by now boxed him in uncomfortably. ‘I told you I’m not to be leaned on, Edward. If you don’t call them off, I’ll make them all sweat.’

‘My friends…’ A tired gesture of the hand, and they drew back. Another and they were dismissed out of earshot altogether. ‘You see? They’re just like dogs.’

‘Then you should be more careful of the company you keep.’

‘What do you expect? These are unsettled times, and if you think my friends are bad, you should see my enemies. Was it a prophecy or not? Tell me. You owe me that much.’

‘Owe
you
?’ Will inclined his head, pointing up the mismatch of their understandings. ‘You’re behaving as if you think I know something that might be of use to you. I don’t.’

‘I hope you do, for your own sake. Or am I supposed to be fooled by that ominous manner you’re so much at pains to cultivate?’ He drew a disappointed breath. ‘Is there anything to you, Willand? Anything at all, underneath all that
mystery
?’

Will put on a deliberately enigmatic smile. ‘You must try me and see.’

Edward absorbed the retort easily. ‘Truly, I don’t see what’s the harm in a little good-natured co-operation between boyhood friends…’

How like his father he sounded when he adopted a jocular tone. Will decided to lay it out plain. ‘You’ve no idea how we’ve laboured night and day to keep you and your father in whole skins. But neither of you will be told, because your pride cannot bear advice, and in any case you don’t like the solution to this war. But it is the
only
solution in the end.’

Edward rolled his eyes. ‘And now I suppose you’ll want to lecture me on—’

But Will cut him off. ‘There is a far greater force in the land than you allow. Far greater than—’ he gestured deprecatingly at the richly carved stone of the palace buildings ‘—than all
this.
You won’t rest until you and all your people are dead, and a great many others who have nothing to do with you and your ambitions.’

Edward grasped his arm, suddenly intense.’ “Ebor shall overlook Ebor before the year is out.” Gort says you know what it means.’

‘Why would Gort have said that?’

‘Because I asked him!’

Will wanted to say outright that Edward had laughed off the warning about his father’s doom. Why did he think he deserved another chance? But he resisted the temptation. Telling Edward home truths was a dangerous game at the best of times, and Mother Brig’s words had disturbed the Earl of the Marches more than he wanted to admit.

‘Gort’s wrong. I don’t know what her utterance means. But Mother Brig is a seer. And whatever she says will come to pass after a fashion.’

‘It means that my father will overlook me and give the crown to Edmund, doesn’t it?’ Edward blurted out.

Will was momentarily thrown. ‘
What
?’ He looked away, hoping it was some kind of joke, but when he turned back he saw that Edward was in complete earnest.

‘You asked what I thought. “Ebor shall o’erlook Ebor”.
It means he’s going to try to put a damned cripple on the throne, doesn’t it?’

Will had never heard Edward talk like this about his brother. Something was running badly out of kilter.

‘Your suspicions have got the better of you,’ he said, wary now of giving more fuel to Edward’s trend of mind. But he added, ‘And, you know, it feels like a piece of dirty magic has been put on you.’

‘So—you think it’s
sorcery
?’ It was said more out of curiosity than fear.

‘That’s likely, listening to you speak. A spell-cast to create tension between two brothers. Another to do the same between father and son. Somebody’s seeking to open rifts in the house of Ebor. Have you accepted any tokens lately?’

Edward was on that like a cat. ‘Tokens? From whom?’

‘Anyone. I mean, are you carrying anything unusual about your person? Something that might have been tampered with before being given to you?’

There was the slightest of pauses. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure!’

‘In that case there’s nothing to worry about.’ He stroked his chin in a deliberately judicial way. ‘But I would counsel a formal reconciliation even so. A clearing of the air. If you want I’ll ask Master Gwydion if he’ll arrange it.’

A haunted look came over Edward, and he said, ‘So things have come to this, have they? The day has finally arrived when I need permission from a damned crow to meet with my own father!’

Will watched wordlessly as Edward turned about and left, taking his kinsmen with him. There was nothing more that could be said.

Rain blustered against the window panes and threatened to wash out the cold, grey dawn. Will’s feathered nest was
snug and warm, but something insistent was driving him out of it. Then he heard Willow’s voice calling to him from the stair. ‘Will! Will, wake up!’

He rolled over, then sat upright. ‘What is it?’

‘Gort says they’ve all gone!’

He shook his head, still heavy with sleep. She had got up without waking him, had let him snore on as she sometimes did on mornings when the night before had turned out to be overly convivial.

‘Who? Who’s gone? What’s happening?’

She had come in bringing with her a great draught of cold air. She was bright and breathless with the news. ‘The duke. He’s gone. Sneaked off this morning. With a big party of men. Gort just told me.’

Anger briefly flared that he had not been awakened sooner. ‘Where are my shoes?’

Willow opened the window and studied the foul weather. ‘I thought I heard horses in the middle of the night. But it must have been just before dawn. What a day to pick.’

‘Gort might have said something.’

‘He didn’t know. He’s only just heard – Will? Hey, wait!’

He ran down the stairs while still securing the ties on his jerkin and pulling his shirt straight. When he reached the middle of Albanay Yard he wondered what he was doing beyond uselessly confirming Willow’s words. The duke’s personal guards were gone, and when he reached Edward’s apartments he found the main doors locked and no guard posted.

He banged a fist on the heavy wood, then waylaid a couple of palace servants. They did not know where the duke had gone, except to say that all the nobles lodging in Albanay Yard had left before sun-up, and the strangest thing – the horses had all had sacking tied over their hooves.

‘Yes, I bet they did! They didn’t want to wake anyone. What about Edward?’

‘My Lord of the Marches departed some time before them.’

‘Before? When?’

The servants looked at one another. ‘Howbeit…sometime after the midnight hour.’

It took Will a little while to get the full story out of them, but it seemed there were murmurings about men breaking camp and soldiers mustering ready to leave the May Fair fields.

‘Edward’s got a good head start, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he said, touching a knuckle to his lips, then turning to the servants again. ‘And Warrewyk and Sarum? Are they gone too?’

The question was met by an uncomfortable shuffling. Having no silver, Will pushed the difficulty aside. ‘Never mind about that. Tell me: is her grace the duchess in her apartments now?’

They brightened and nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And his grace the king?’

Likewise.

‘Thank you. You may go.’

Will stood alone in the cold, moist air. Willow’s right about the duke sneaking away, he thought, and kicked off his shoes. Despite the cold and wet he planted his feet on the flag stones and tried to sense below the slabs for the good earth. Then he cautiously opened his mind and began to feel for Chlu.