Whitemantle (32 page)

Lotan nodded silently.

It was a worrying thought because it meant that the lorc was not yet finished with Ebor. Will looked back along the street. City walls and the castle footings mirrored the earth power, shattering the image and confusing his mind, but as he tuned his talent to it he felt the unmistakable rumblings of power rolling beneath his feet. There was a surprise there too, for it was not flowing into the city, but out of it.

That could only mean that although Ebor itself must one day play host to a battle, that battle would not be the next one.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he asked Lotan who had hung back. ‘It’s always the next battle that has to interest us, and that’s not going to be here.’

Lotan shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

‘It’s going to be somewhere along the birch lign. That’s where the power’s flowing. And do you know what lies on the birch lign?’

‘What?’

‘Ludford. It’s where the lign of the birch crosses the lign of the rowan.’

‘But did you not tell me you already found a battlestone at Ludford? That you pulled it out like a village Sister pulls out a rotten tooth?’

Will grunted. ‘We called it the Blood Stone for good reason…’

He recalled the terrible time at Ludford as the town burned and the abandoned castle lay under siege with them still inside it. Gort had made him chew on a piece of heath-pea root, and afterwards his mind had taken leave of his body and floated high into a moon-washed sky. And he had seen the ligns crossing below – straight green channels, glowing across the night. He had seen the power flowing in waves along those channels, being drawn towards a point beyond the southern horizon. Then, if he had but seen it, he had had the triple-triangle pattern of the lorc laid out before his very eyes.

‘That was the Doomstone of the West,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘Another doomstone. It has to be. We thought there must be one in the Cambray Marches, one that made a trio of stones with the Blood Stone and a lesser stone, a guide stone, sited a couple of leagues to the west of Ludford. Do
you remember what happened to me when we came through Baronet Hadlea?’ Will began to relive the horror of the vision the Hadlea stone had evoked, a feeling that his mind had separated from his body, a feeling so strange and so strong that he had fainted and vomited on awakening. Now he shook his head to dispel it, saying, ‘Three ligns go through the Doomstone at Verlamion. Three go through another at Baronet Hadlea…’

‘…and three go through some place in the Marches.’ Lotan finished, his mind calculating, ‘And that’s where the Doomstone of the West lies.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that what makes them doomstones? Because they sit upon three ligns instead of just one or two?’

‘I think that’s so.’

Lotan nodded thoughtfully. ‘And the one that’s out in the west? What ligns does that sit on?’

‘Heligan, Bethe and Eburos – that is to say: willow, birch and yew.’

‘Willow, Bethe and you?’ Lotan muttered, meeting Will’s gaze. ‘It could not be calling to you more personally if it was shouting your name.’

Will felt leaden. Dread crept along his spine, for Lotan had made it sound as if the lorc was making some ghastly joke at his expense. Thoughts of his wife made his stomach clench. He had spent much silent hope on her having gone with Gwydion. It was likely she had, but the uncertainty still undermined him.

As they rode out through the Muckle Gate Will looked up to see the three impaled heads. Throughout the day the crows had been at them, but the ragged faces were abandoned now and frozen by the pale light of the moon. They gazed open-mouthed and vacant-eyed towards the south and west as if pointing the way.

Will headed off against the grain of the country, going
westward by Acorne and Weatherbury-upon-Worffe, and only later turning south through the land of Elmet. They passed several homesteads that had escaped the worst of the devastation. Near Barrick, Will called a halt, saying, ‘We must rest, but at daybreak we shall have to go on all the faster.’

It was not only for himself that he sought to break their dark journey. He had seen the way Lotan was swaying in his saddle, but he knew that if he had offered him rest the big man would have refused. There was another reason. They had, so far as Will could tell, recrossed the holly lign and had come to a place of extraordinarily good aspect. It was an opportunity for him to draw sustenance.

He wandered away from Lotan and the horses and found a spot by a dew pond where the land was flat and there were long views all around. There he braced his feet and flung out his arms as the First Men had done a thousand generations before, and quietly and confidently he breathed in the draught that he had longed for.

With the breathing came the bliss. It coursed through his chest, pulling power in through his feet and out through his hands. While the power rumbled and shook under his feet, the flow lit him blue-green. A warmth began to radiate from him. It seemed like heat and light, but it was not. They were only the commonplaces that his mind employed to interpret the power of wellbeing that had entered him.

As soon as he accepted the power, the timeless moment dawned in which the boundaries of the self dissolved and he felt one with the world. When that state began to fade he glimpsed that he had understood once again the secret that lay at the heart of all things, but the understanding was elusive and always just beyond recall, like a book that could be read only in a given room and never removed.

He was soon himself again. Always afterwards there
was a wonderful feeling of floating in which, if he were not careful, he could stagger and fall. It passed quickly, leaving behind a mighty sense of satisfaction. The stars stood out bright overhead now that the moon was sinking low. Their paths held a magical beauty all their own, and Will wondered at what Skymaster Braye was supposed to have said about them. Could it be that in the coming world there would be no influences from the wandering stars?

‘What were you doing out there?’ Lotan asked.

‘What did it look like?’

‘Were you casting a spell?’

‘No. But it felt as if a spell was being cast over me.’

They found a barn and Will slept with the skittering of hay-loft mice in his ears and the smell of mildew in his nostrils. When he awoke he laid a blessing on the barn, then he roused Lotan and they pressed on through the cold mists of morning, all the time looking out for the patrols that had been posted to secure the district and all the main routes.

‘What’s the plan to find the others?’ Lotan asked when they gave the horses their first breather.

‘I have none. Master Gwydion will find us if he needs to.’

‘You said that before.’

‘This time, if he thinks it’s necessary, he’ll use his magic.’

‘Can’t you call to him magically?’

‘Not without drawing Chlu also.’

An air of disappointment fell over the big man. ‘What about the ritual you did back there?’

‘Ritual? You mean the blessing?’

‘No, when you were by the pond. Didn’t that alert Chlu?’

‘Probably not.’ Will felt disinclined to explain, but he added, ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t felt any echo of his magic for a while.’

‘So he’s lost us, you mean?’

Will put Lotan’s jitters down to his warrior’s training. ‘It could mean several things. He could be asleep.’

‘Or?’

‘Or he’s not active. Or maybe he’s too far away.’

‘And you won’t know where he is unless he gives himself away?’

Lotan’s questions about the nature of Will’s relationship with his twin began to feel intrusive. ‘I don’t care where he is. What concerns me is where he thinks I am. Don’t worry about him. He’s drawn to me and I to him, but I have a duty that I must put first.’

Lotan nodded slowly and looked away. The answers seemed not to satisfy the big man, as if he had thought up another strategy that was more to his liking. But if he had, he said nothing of it.

After a space of silence Lotan asked, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we tried to join up with the wizard before we looked for the battlestone?’

‘I told you: Master Gwydion will find us if he needs to.’

‘But surely—’

‘Lotan, we’re doing the right thing. Trust me.’

‘You begin to sound like Lord Dudlea.’

‘Trust me!’

‘I will, just as soon as I know where we’re going.’

Will looked to him in surprise. ‘You
know
where we’re going.’

‘No.’

‘To find Edward of course. Where did you think? We must reach him before Jasper does.’

‘But you can’t stop the battle!’

‘Maybe not. But I must bear the bad tidings.’ Will felt the mismatch of their understandings keenly. ‘Edward has to know.’

Disagreement simmered in Lotan’s stare, as if he could
not understand why Will felt his duty towards Edward so strongly. ‘And all because you feel it in your bones? You ask a lot of your feelings.’

‘It’s funny you should say that. Master Gwydion tells me I don’t ask nearly enough. Come, we must push on.’

Will began to think about Gwydion then, and the wizard’s fading powers. What had caused him to misjudge so much? Like a green leaf, marred by insects and browning at the edges as winter approached, Gwydion had begun to show signs that the seven failings were seeping into him at last. He had half-convinced everyone that Lotan was not to be trusted, and that had been only one of his mistakes. Lotan’s aura was not without blemish. Dark shadows lay over him. But there was something wholesome at the heart of the big man that could not be denied. It made Will think that things might have turned out better if the warrior had been with them earlier. But it was easy to dwell on might-have-beens and should-have-dones, and easier still to blame others.

After Wrathford-on-Eye they rode east to avoid Awakenfield. They crossed the Caldor further upstream at Horburgh Bridge, but that was only possible by showing the token of safe passage that Jasper had provided for them. As they climbed up onto higher ground Will saw distant patrols riding hard, and knew that the queen’s man-hunters were out looking for those who might have escaped the rout at Awakenfield with Ebor gold in their pouches.

They tracked up into the moors of Elmlea, over-nighting at the greystone village of Hepfirth. A full day’s hard riding took them into even more beautiful country, across the high bogs of Cinder Clout and past the snowy heads the local people called Crow’s Den and Dark Peak. Then down they came through Buckstone Wellwater and into the lands where Will and Gwydion had once found the Plaguestone.

All the while Will tried to keep the Bethe lign on their left-hand side. He could feel its power growing ominously. Memories of the dread battle in which he and Gwydion had been caught at Blow Heath, now only a little way to their west, impressed themselves upon him. The echoes of that horror made Will’s skin prickle.

As the light faded again he realized they must have entered the Earldom of Shroppesburgh, or Salop as the county was more often called by the churlish folk. They made camp at Wealdmoor Eiton, pitching their tent in the lee of a small hill. The next day another hard ride took them across the remains of the Slaver road called the Warding and shortly afterwards they passed east of the Wreaken Rock along a road that took them to the huge arch that spanned the Great River of the West at Stonebridge. The last time Will had come this way he had seen the green power glittering under the waters, and he knew they must be careful, for this was the lign, bared raw to the eye as it arced across the gorge.

Once safely across Severine’s Flood a short ride brought them to the village of Mart Woollack, and they went thereafter by Luddsdale with its skeletal orchards, through the bountiful places Will recalled from the ride he had taken with Earl Sarum’s victorious army south from Blow Heath to Ludford, though now a sifting of snow had bleached all colour from the land.

As they rode through wintry oak woods, the ever-present lign started to eat at Will’s thoughts again and he began to blame and berate himself. He pondered the reasons why he had allowed so much time to elapse between the making of his promise to Lotan and his acting upon it. There had been no hex on him, no outside power of constraint, yet he had shied away from fulfilment. That delay had been down to his own weakness. He should have taken himself in hand sooner and made himself do what he knew must be done. But he had lacked discipline. That was where it
had all fallen apart. That was where he had missed his chance to become King Arthur!

And because Will forgot to stand back from himself he did not notice that the lign had begun to haunt him. The world was sinking into twilight, and it all seemed to be his fault. His and his alone. A hot ember of shame burned inside him, and he dwelt on it as he rode. Nor did the lign give him any respite from his doubts about the coming battle.

‘Is true courage to do with not feeling fear or despair?’ he asked Lotan suddenly. ‘Or just not letting others know when you feel that way?’

Lotan took the question with due seriousness. ‘Courage is not the same as fearlessness. A piece of wood is fearless, but it is not courageous. What men call courage is often only recklessness, or a need to follow another man’s orders. Sometimes what is called courage is only a kind of anger. I have known that sort too.’

‘You make it all sound less than heroic.’

Lotan seemed about to let the topic go, but then he said, ‘There is a true form of courage. It comes from knowing self-sacrifice. If ever you see that kind, you will never forget it.’

Will waited for more, but nothing more came. Lotan’s reticence prickled him, and he realized that they had both fallen into a morose silence, and each was now concerned with his own thoughts.

It’s the lorc, he thought, drawing a deep breath. The birch lign is running strongly. And it’s very close.

He looked up at the clouds and listened to the sound of the horses’ hooves among the fallen leaves, then made a conscious effort to shift his mind onto more elemental matters. But however hard he tried he could not sustain it for long. Instead he began to ruminate on Jasper’s doomed efforts. That led to a dour little conversation as he tried to
make Lotan understand why he had rebuffed the Lord of Pendrake.