The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ Willand, is called the sea.’

      ‘The sea…’ Will echoed, still staring at the ribbon of light. ‘I had no idea it would be like that.’

      ‘To the south of us lies the valley of the Bourne. Do you see that grey spire that sits on yonder skyline like a crack in the sky? That is a chapter house, a cloister of the Sightless Ones.’

      Will stared at the sharp, soaring point. ‘Who are they? They come up every year to the bogs near Middle Norton to take the tithe. I know they come to impoverish honest folk, but it’s said their eyes have been plucked out. And do they really have hands that are red?’

      ‘As red as a rooster’s comb, some of them. And yellow fingernails like claws. Do you know the saying, “to be caught red-handed”?’

      Horror thrilled down Will’s spine. He knew that to use the name ‘red hands’ in their hearing risked the cutting off of a man’s lips. ‘But are they truly blind?’

      ‘As blind as love and justice. Though they deal in neither of those fine goods. Nor do they believe that all things come full circle. They are mind-slaves, you see.’

      Will shivered, and the wind that whipped among the furze bushes seemed suddenly cold. ‘Who are they?’

      ‘Clever blood-suckers who have found a way to interpose themselves between lord and churl and so grow fat at the expense of both.’

      ‘Why don’t the lords and the churlish folk fight back against them?’

      ‘The churls can do nothing because the work of the Fellowship is under the protection of lordly arms. And that is so because the Fellows relieve the lords of the trouble of collecting tithes and taxes. The chapter house which you see down there is one of many thousands that have been built across the Realm to store their ill-gotten booty in. That spire is second only in height to the great Black Spire of Trinovant, which place you will also see one day. In such places are kept all the tithes taken from the districts round about. Half they keep for themselves, and half they pass on to the lords who rule.’

      ‘What if a village can’t pay?’Will asked, thinking of some of the thin years they had had in the Vale. ‘What if there’s a poor crop or a failed harvest? Or damp rots the grain after threshing? Or pests come and spoil it? What do the Sightless Ones do then?’

      ‘In that case the Iron Rule is invoked.’ Gwydion looked out darkly from under his eyebrows. ‘When famine comes the only way the Sightless Ones can be appeased is by making an offering of youth to the Elders.’

      ‘Youth?’

      ‘Children. They call it having too many mouths to feed. Did I not tell you that the Fellowship is always on the lookout for new recruits?’

      ‘Are we going down there now?’ Will asked, putting a hand to his throat.

      ‘The grey spire yonder lies close by the city of Sarum. But we are going a little way beyond, to the royal lodge of Clarendon, and there, as I have already told you, our host is to be the king himself.’

      

      They came off the high downs, passing on the way an ancient earth circle. Gwydion waved his hazel wand at it and said that these overgrown banks were all that remained of the once-great Figgesburgh Calendar. In times past it had held a huge mirror of polished bronze that had sent beams of sunlight down into the ancient palaces of Sarum on the most sacred of days. And on sacred nights the ancient astronomers had used their great mirror to interrogate the stars. Will delighted in the feel of the place and tried to imagine the observatory that Gwydion described, but so little of it remained now that even Gwydion’s words could not easily bring it back to life.

      They descended by a wooded valley and reached the limits of Clarendon Forest just as the sun was setting, but tonight there was no beautiful display of pink and gold in the sky to bid the day farewell. Grey clouds that looked as heavy as anvils had gathered, and there was the sound of distant thunder as they entered the forest.

      Will soon saw that this was no forgotten forest like Wychwoode. This was a much-visited royal park, and within it stood a magnificent hunting lodge that had become over the years a palace in its own right. Gwydion said that the king’s court came often to Clarendon to hunt, and that a hundred foresters kept his herds and managed his chases.

      ‘But the king never liked hunting. He is not a man of blood. It is his nobles who enjoy the killing, lesser men, cruel and brutish – and loud, as you will soon see.’

      Will looked up at the leaves of the great oaks. They were in the dark green of late summer, but many had become covered in a white bloom they called in the Vale ‘oak mildew’, and he knew that meant the trees hereabouts were unhappy. The lodge itself could be seen at the end of a long processional avenue, a green maybe two thousand paces long by a hundred wide. Gwydion saw him looking at it and whispered, ‘It was made so to prevent an ambush of the royal party.’

      ‘But who would want to ambush the king?’ he asked, shocked.

      ‘Politicking is a deadly and self-serving game. The aim is for one lord to make himself richer than all the rest, and so more powerful. If he owns more land, then he can lord it over more men. If he is rich enough he will have the final say in all things, for he may keep the king himself in his purse.’

      Will shrugged, thinking of Lord Strange. ‘But what use is all the gold in all the world if a man cannot sleep easy at night and be at peace with himself and his neighbours?’

      ‘Ah, lad! I would that your country wisdom was better understood among the company we are soon to meet. But it is not.’

      Will recalled what Gwydion had said about the usurper’s curse that lay upon the king, and a pang of fear ran through him.

      Gwydion shook his head, ‘Chivalry gutters low in these latter days. There is ever the stink of greed and ambition rising over the king’s court. Violence must soon follow, as night succeeds day.’

      Now they were nearing the lodge, many people were to be seen. The poor and the sick, hearing of the king’s presence, had come – as was their right – to petition him, to receive his healing hand. But they had been allowed to approach the lodge only as far as a line of hurdles. Behind these stood a wall and a gate, and beside the gate-posts half a dozen soldiers lounged at their ease.

      Gwydion moved unnoticed to the front of the crowd. He murmured and moved his arms, slowly, as if casting a stone towards the group of soldiers. Then, with Will following in his wake, he unhooked one of the hurdles and walked through the gap.

      ‘Hoy!’ one of the soldiers shouted. Three of them got up, pushed forward their iron hats and moved towards Gwydion. Their chief carried with him an axe with a long handle. He said, ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

      ‘To see the king, of course,’ Gwydion told him.

      ‘Get back there!’

      Two of the three soldiers made to lay hands on what appeared to them to be an old man too bewildered to obey instructions. ‘Stay back behind the hur—’

      Then their chief came forward. He pulled the others away and bowed an abject apology. ‘I’m sorry, your grace. They didn’t recognize you. Let Duke Edgar and his kin pass!’

      ‘Come along, СКАЧАТЬ