The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Will did not feel like cheering anybody on. Leoftan had mentioned an ill wind, and an ill wind had sprung up – or at least a cold one – and not just over the Tops either. Iron-grey clouds had begun to boil up and gather darkly in the west. At first no one among the villagers seemed to notice, but then as the sun went in, one or two of them started to look skyward, and soon the bunting began to flap and the crowns of the tall beeches in Pannage Woods started to sway and roar. Folk began to feel a sudden chill touch them. It looked suddenly as if it would rain.

      The music stopped and folk set to helping one another clear the stalls and tables away. They muttered that this was unheard of, because the last time the May Pole dance had been washed out was beyond living memory. Will had just finished lending a hand when a cry went up. He turned and saw old Frithwold coming up the track, shaking his fists as he ran.

      ‘Jack o’ Lantern!’ he wheezed as he reached the Green Man. ‘May Death cut me down if I tell a lie! Jack o’ Lantern’s down in the lanes!’

      ‘Now, sit down and catch your thoughts, Frith,’ Bregowina, the brewster’s wife, said coolly. ‘There ain’t no warlocks round here.’

      ‘Sit down be blowed! It be Jack o’ Lantern in the lanes over by Bloody Meadow, I tell you!’

      Baldgood peered past his barrels. ‘You’ve had too much of them cider dregs, Frith.’

      ‘Noooo! It was Jack o’ Lantern, as I live and breathe!’

      They settled him down, and the clearing away carried on until all the doors were put back on their hinges and everything was closed up tight. There was no doubting Frithwold believed what he was saying – he was grey in the face and more upset than Will had ever seen him. Groups ofValesmen were muttering to one another, scythes in hand, glancing fearfully down the track. He turned to Baldgood and asked, ‘Who’s Jack o’ Lantern?’

      ‘You won’t recall him,’ Baldgood said, troubled.

      ‘Tell me.’

      ‘He’s a visitor who comes to these parts from time to time. And not such a welcome one neither. You’d’ve been just a babe in arms when last he came this way, or not even born maybe.’

      Cuthwal leaned across. ‘We don’t none of us like the looks of him. And we never did.’

      Will looked down the lane and saw nothing unusual. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because he’s a crow, and up to no good.’

      ‘Don’t you fear now, Will,’ Baldgood said. ‘There’s a hue and cry gone up after him. Our stout lads’ll drive him off! Now you best get back home.’

      Will looked out across the green. Inky clouds filled the sky now. It was almost as dark as night. Then it began to pelt with rain. The May Pole looked forlorn as it swayed with its ribbons streaming out. The wind had got up fiercely and was trying to tear down what was left of the bunting. Bregowina, unruffled as ever, lit candles, and her sons barred the doors. They had just finished when Gifold One-Tooth and both his sons started banging, wanting to be let in. The way they held their pitchforks showed they expected trouble, but nobody had told them what sort.

      ‘What does Jack o’ Lantern look like?’ Will asked, but nobody answered him.

      He folded his arms. No fire burned in the hearth and the only light in the parlour now was from two candles that burned with a quavering, smoky flame. It was a light that did not penetrate far. ‘I’ve never seen a crow. Is that the same as a warlock?’

      ‘None of them knows much about what Jack o’ Lantern looks like, Will.’

      He turned at the voice that came from the back of the room. At the table in the corner shadows sat Tilwin. He had found a place where nobody had noticed him. His hat was in front of him on the table, and he was thumbing the edge of a long, thin knife. He said, ‘The only man in Nether Norton who ever challenged Jack o’ Lantern face to face was Evergern the Potter, and he’s been dead these ten years.’

      ‘What are you doing, skulking back there?’ Gifold demanded, as if he was speaking to a ghost.

      ‘Minding my own business, Gif. Like you should be doing.’ Tilwin leaned forward and turned his gaze on the rest of them. ‘I slipped in quiet, so I did, while you were all running about down the way like fowls with their heads stricken off. I could have marched an army in here for all you’d have known about it.’

      ‘You’re a strange customer, and no mistake,’ Baldgood said.

      ‘That I may be, but let me tell you something about your Jack o’ Lantern – in this part of the Vale you call him by that name and say he’s a crow. Others further down call him “Merlyn”, or “Master Merlyn” to be correct about it, though that isn’t his true name. Down by Great Norton they say he’s “Erilar” and claim he’s a warlock. While over at Bruern they put the name “Finnygus” on him and fetch their horses to him to benefit from his leechcraft. But none of them knows who he is, for Jack casts a weirder light than any lantern ever I saw.’ Tilwin leaned further forward until the candlelight caught in his blue eyes. ‘He runs deep does our friend Jack. Deep as the Kyle of Stratha. Nor does he suffer fools easily. So if he’s got business in this place, I’d let him finish it without hindrance – if I were you.’

      There was silence. Like everyone else, Will listened and held his peace. He didn’t understand much of what had been said, but the thrill of excitement at Tilwin’s words made the hairs rise up on the back of his neck.

      ‘Now that’s enough of that kind of talk,’ Baldgood muttered, bustling out from behind his counter. ‘Willand! Now, I thought I told you to get on home?’

      Will went to the door but after what Tilwin had said home seemed a long way to go in the pitch dark. In truth it was no more than a furlong – a couple of hundred paces – but it was still raining hard. He poked his head outside. Water was trickling down the track. Where only a short while before there had been dry dust, now there was a stream. He jumped out into the night and set off at a run until the light from the alehouse gave out. Then he stubbed his toe painfully on a flint and almost fell. After that he groped his way along by the side of the green. His shirt was soaked. Every village door was closed and every shutter barred tight.

      So much for welcoming the summer in, he thought as he felt twigs snapping in the grass under his feet. His outstretched hands met the deeply grooved bark of the Old Oak. He paused, listening. Overhead, leaves were rattling in the downpour, and there was something eerie about the sound, as if the tree was talking to itself.

      He shook the water out of his eyes and peered into the dark to where a faint bar of yellow light escaped under a door. Home. He stumbled towards it, and soon his fingers felt a familiar latch.

      The light guttered in the draught as he came in, then steadied. He saw Breona and Eldmar, his mother and father, standing together by the unlit hearth, and there, seated before them, was a stranger.

      The figure was wrapped in a mouse-brown cloak with a hood that shadowed his face. Will’s heart beat against his ribs. He was about to speak when his father told him sternly: ‘Go up to bed, Willand.’

      ‘But Father—’

      ‘Will! Do as I tell you!’

      Eldmar had never barked at him like that before. He looked from face to face, scared now. He wanted to go to his mother’s side, СКАЧАТЬ