Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter
more strongly than the king’s. It had been made in the workshops of the famous Castle of Sundials, and its chime was loud and commanding.
Will drew a deep breath and looked around. Many centuries were piled up here, the newer parts scrambling over the old like ivy in the place where Brea had first raised his halls and houses of carved oak so long ago.
But the chief splendour of the present palace was the White Hall. This huge oblong of pale limestone carried mock battlements at roof level and a series of pinnacled buttresses along each side. Its most arresting aspect was its lights. Each panel was artfully made to be both tall and wide, and was gorgeously decorated with what must have been an acre of coloured glass. All was ingeniously supported by traceries of lead and narrowly cut stone, and each panel told in pictures a history of a different Brean king. Will recognized in the first of them King Bladud the Leper in conversation with his unforgiving father Hudibrax. The next carried a portrait of the long-beard, Old King Coel, with night to his left and day to his right to show the passing of his one hundred and twelve years. Then came Gurgast, being eaten by the dragon, and after that a grave depiction of King Sisil leaving Queen Meribel and his infant son to sail off into the Western Deeps to search for the land of Hy Brasil. But what caught Will’s eye most were the bright greens and yellows shining from the last panel, for it showed Leir and his three daughters, two of them undoubtedly wicked, and a third who could do no wrong.
Perhaps it was just a trick of the light or the position of the sun, but Will had the impression that the king winked at him. And it was easy to imagine that a dozen gargoyles made faces and rude gestures as they passed below, showing that even here the traditional humour of the masons’ guild had not been forgotten. And though Gwydion insisted there was much dark magic still waiting to be swept away, there was much here also that seemed benign.
They went straight up to the small, comfortable apartments that the royal chamberlain had grudgingly afforded them – through an arch, up some stone stairs and along a cool passageway onto which three doors opened. By the time they came to their own door, Will had decided he must speak urgently to Gwydion of the strange Fellow who had stepped forward to save his life.
But no sooner was Will’s decision made than it was dashed aside, for as their own door opened they found a surprise waiting for them.
‘Now then! Ha-har! And look who’s here to greet you!’
‘Oh!’ Willow cried out. ‘It can’t be!’
‘Wortmaster?’ Will said, equally delighted. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Where else should I be? Hey? Answer me that! I’m come down with the rest of my Lord of Ebor’s people. And just lately I have been as busy as a bee in June! Ha-har! Look at you!’
Gort opened his arms in a wide embrace and hugged them left and right, until Bethe started up such a howling at being pressed into the face of so bewhiskered a monster that Gort was driven into retreat.
‘There, there, kitten! Oh, she doesn’t know me…’ Gort said, dabbing a fond finger at Bethe’s nose. ‘Do you, hey, little poppy-kin?’
‘Aye, and maybe she knows you too well, Wartmonster,’ Will said, grinning.
‘Oh, Will! How can you say such a thing?’ Willow patted Bethe’s back until she drew breath. Then Willow began to grin and coo in the way that mothers do to disconcerted babes everywhere.
‘That child has lusty lungs,’ Gort said, poking a finger in his ear.
‘She’s tired.’
‘Maybe she’d like a nice piece of cheese. I’ve fetched down a fine Cordewan Crumbly for you.’
‘Not for Bethe, I don’t think. But I’ll take some of it gladly. Here, have a chair, and tell us your latest news.’
They all sat down. Bethe’s storm of tears dried up and soon she was at Gort’s knee and smiling up at him as he cut pieces of Cordewan Crumbly.
‘Did I tell you the young victor of Delamprey has brought the stump away with him?’ the Wortmaster said.
‘The battlestone?’ Will asked with sudden interest. ‘We thought he might do that.’
‘Hmmm, well he has. It came south in Edward’s own baggage train. It’s being heavily guarded.’
Will got up and began to walk about. ‘You’re going to have to speak to Edward, Master Gwydion. How will we ever be able to decipher the stone if we can’t get to see it?’
Gort waved a hand towards the window. ‘It’s sitting down there in Albanay Yard, Master Gwydion, but they won’t let me near. Me, or anyone.’
‘Edward will quickly tire of it.’ The wizard tossed his head in dismissal. ‘But Wortmaster, surely you have news of greater import than this?’
‘Oh, I’ve been much abroad since last we met, Master Gwydion, and busier still since the king was taken – going here and there, sowing appleseeds and bringing to mind things once said by Semias.’ He grinned and looked out from under the overgrowth of his eyebrows. He cast a meaningful glance at the wizard. ‘I did as you wanted.’
‘Then you have brought it…’ the wizard said, as if hardly daring to believe. His eyes roamed to every corner of the room, but evidently did not find what they were searching for. ‘Well? Where is it?’
‘I have it. I have it indeed. It is here somewhere,’ Gort said distractedly. ‘And I have something else too!’
Gwydion’s expression grew suddenly suspicious. ‘What else? Wortmaster Gort, what else?’ He wagged a finger. ‘I hope you have not gone beyond my request and made a tomb robber of yourself.’
‘Pooh!’ Gort took the comment like a slap, and said to no one in particular, ‘Did you ever hear such a charge? And me a right stout and dependable spirit when it comes to the doing of favours for people, hey?’
Gwydion closed his eyes, and a look of sorely-tried patience came over him. ‘Wortmaster, what have you done with the staff?’
‘Have no fear. It’s been well looked after. There now! You can’t see it because it’s packed up small in your old crane bag! Appleseeds, appleseeds, appleseeds…’
Will and Willow exchanged uncertain glances as Gort bent down and began to rummage in a small bag that suddenly appeared from under the skirts of his robe. Will recognized it from his first days travelling with the wizard. When the Wortmaster straightened up he had in his hand a gnarled stick of wood. It was a full fathom in length and it gleamed and sparkled. Under ordinary circumstances it could not possibly have come out of a bag so small, but Will knew the crane bag was no ordinary scrip.
‘Master Gwydion, is that your staff?’ Will asked doubtfully. Then he turned to the Wortmaster. ‘Have you remade it, Gort? It seems different.’
Gort shuffled and shrugged. ‘Not I. Making staffs? I’m not suited to that kind of work. Oh, not me!’
‘No one is these days,’ Gwydion said, taking the staff and looking it over closely. ‘This is not mine, Willand. Mine was broken, and no power in the world can remake it.’
‘Then whose is this?’
Gwydion’s eyes looked far away and he seemed to be seeing the ghosts of a distant time when the world was yet young. ‘This is quite a piece of work. It once belonged to Maglin whose self-sacrifice is famous – he who was Phantarch after Celenost failed and went into the Far North.’
‘Maglin?’ Will said uncertainly, hardly knowing why he felt dismay at the name. ‘The second phantarch? Wasn’t it Maglin who presided over the Ogdoad during…the Age of Giants?’
‘Maglin’s rule was sorely troubled,’ Gwydion said, ‘for it was his lot to steer the Isle of Albion through turbulent waters. In Maglin’s time we of the Ogdoad were much taken up with the healing of the world after a great mishap befell. We repaired the fabric – plugged a hole