The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter
foamed where two yellow teeth jutted. His nose was snout-like and did indeed carry a golden ring. Below the neck, though, he had the normal figure of a man and was attired in fine red robes.
To stop himself staring at the hog-headed lord, Will looked instead at the lady who came to stand by his side. She was a long-faced woman, tall and thin, and her hair was swept back inside a veiled hat which was the same grey as her long belted gown of embroidered velvet. The gown was tight to her form at bodice and sleeve, and at her neck was an ornament of silver set with pale stones. She seemed not to care that her husband was a monster.
‘You are welcome to Wychwoode, Crowmaster,’ Lord Strange said. ‘Have you succeeded in your quest?’
‘I thank you for your welcome,’ Gwydion replied. ‘And as for my quest, we must talk urgently, you and I. But first, I shall beg a favour on behalf of my young companion. He has walked throughout the night and is both weary and footsore. He may fall down soon where he stands if he is not afforded a corner in which to lay his poor head.’
Will felt the shock of the lord’s appearance still tingling through him as he entered the tower. After a little while a man and a woman appeared and asked him to follow them up a curving stair of finely mortared stone that was lit by bright rays of dappled sunlight. After a turn or two, the stair opened onto a broad gallery, supported by many carved pillars. Will had never been in such a place, and it filled him with awe. ‘I suppose you must be Lord Strange’s kin,’ he said, offering his hand to the man as soon as he turned. ‘My name’s Willand.’
The attendants looked blankly at him. ‘Sir, we are my lord’s servants. We do his lordship’s bidding.’
Neither the man nor the woman would smile or speak further to him, and their coldness set him on edge. He could see no reason for their unfriendliness. They were dressed in costly stuff, though the style and cut were lacking in dignity. The man’s hair was cut to shoulder length, but he wore no braids. The woman’s hair was hidden inside a plain headcloth. They showed him into a gorgeously painted chamber that looked as if it belonged to the lord himself.
He looked around in wonderment. ‘Are we to go in there? What a place it is, hey!’
But the woman only looked away and lowered her gaze. ‘My lord bids you to take refreshment, and sleep if you will.’
‘And food and drink too!’ He could hardly believe it. ‘I thank you, but tell me—’ he lowered his voice and said with a grin ‘—how did Old Nittywhiskers come by that hog’s head of his?’
At once a look of horror came over both the servants’ faces, and instead of answering him they made as if to leave.
‘Wait,’ Will said, as an idea came to him. ‘Here. I have something for you.’
He fished the pebble that Gwydion had given him out of his pouch, and gave it to the maidservant. She stared at it in amazement, so that Will could not tell if she was happy at getting a shilling or bewildered at having been offered a pebble. But then the serving man said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ And the way he said it removed all doubt.
The servants backed away, thanking him again and closing the door after themselves. Will laughed out loud. He saw a plate of food and a goblet of small beer. He fell on it with good appetite, then he climbed up onto the great bed, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared up at the ceiling.
It seemed for a moment that a thousand new sights and sounds whirled inside his head, dizzying him, then sleep whispered in his ear and he knew no more.
He awoke in darkness. For a moment he wondered where he could be, but then a dozen memories came flooding back and his belly turned over. He got up and went to the tall, narrow window of lead and horn that opened onto the tree tops of the forest. The night was balmy and dry. No moon lit the whispering trees, but there was glow enough from the castle to show ghostly beech trunks standing motionless in the still air. He could smell the stagnant water of the moat down below, and from somewhere far away there came a strange heartbeat, a low but insistent sound that echoed with a regular thump-thump-thump through the forest.
Wychwoode seemed to be a solemn place, not at all what Will had imagined when the wizard had spoken of a place of safety. He ducked back inside the window and went to try the door. It was of thick oak and set with clever craftsmanship into stonework that was as solid as any outcrop of the earth. At first, the door would not open, and he wondered if he had been made a prisoner, but then he found the heavy iron latch ring, lifted it, and the door swung easily and noiselessly.
Outside, a pillared gallery gave onto the great hall below. It was decorated with woven hangings that showed hunting scenes and a painted frieze of hounds and woodcutters. A huge stone-hooded fireplace was set in the far wall, its grate empty. The remains of a meal were scattered across a large table, set with many wooden trenchers and bowls which had yet to be cleared away. Two dozen candles, each as thick as a man’s arm, burned brightly on a pair of iron stands and threw back the shadows. Gwydion sat in the lord’s own high-backed chair at the top of the table, while Lord Strange and his lady sat on each side and listened to him.
‘I have read the portents,’ Gwydion was saying. ‘And if I had in my pouch a thousand silver crowns and if there was at my command a company of nine dozen men, still that would not be enough to avert the disaster that is surely coming.’
Lord Strange leaned forward in his chair, his moist snout twitching at the mention of silver. ‘If war is coming as you say then all our hopes walk alongside you, Crowmaster.’
Gwydion put out his hand and said, ‘That is why I urge you to come with me to the court at Trinovant. So far, I have worked in secret, but the time of uncertainties is at an end, and the day is fast approaching when I must bring unwelcome tidings to those who surround the king.’
‘Alas for my affliction!’ Lord Strange looked away, so that the ring in his nose glittered and the candlelight danced on his blond eyelashes. ‘For who will be persuaded by one who carries on him the head of a hog? The queen cannot stomach to stay in the same room as me. She calls me “King Bladud of the Swine” and mocks me. Therefore you would do better to seek the favour of the court without me.’
Gwydion let a long silence stretch out before he spoke again. ‘I feared you would answer me thus, Friend John. Listen to me: I tell you there is nothing left to a man in your position save to attend to your duties as honestly and as generously as you may. I say to you that you must not look to others to find the remedy to your ailment, you must seek for it in diligence and prudent action. Give rather than take.’
‘You make much of your advice, Crowmaster, and yet you seem to me to speak in riddles.’
‘If I do, then perhaps it is because there is no straighter way to speak to you at present.’ Gwydion spread his hands. ‘Nor do I wish to trouble you with the detail of my own task, but I must make some explanation so you understand something of the import of this news that I bear. Just as water flows upon the earth in streams and in rivers, so there are also flows of power within the earth.’
Lord Strange grunted. ‘Power, you say?’
‘Just as some places are wetter and drier, so accordingly there are places where there is an abundance of earth power, and other places that suffer from a lack of it.’
The lord’s wife looked bored by this. ‘Crowmaster, we know this much for we have seen you scry the ground with your hazel wand.’
‘Oh, those patterns are wholly natural, and long have I studied them. The Realm is tattooed from end to end with subtle flows that any willing person may learn to feel. They spiral and coil underfoot, always rising and falling as the moon and sun run their several ways. Farmers read the land by them, and use such knowledge to ensure their crops will thrive. A fast flow of power makes for a place of good aspect, whereas a sluggish flow diminishes the life force of all that grows in the ground or goes upon it. This is well known.’
The Hogshead gave a great yawn. ‘We will take your word for it, Crowmaster. For we know nothing of such matters and care for them less.’