The Giants’ Dance. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ truth I was already there – passing through the inner bailey and about to reclaim my wayward charge.’

      Will blinked. ‘You were going to take the Dragon Stone away without the duke’s permission?’

      The wizard made a dismissive gesture. ‘I had not yet made my decision.’

      Will wondered at what Gwydion knew and what he needed to know concerning the Dragon Stone. He had always said there was no such thing as coincidence, that every weft thread in the great tapestry of fate touched every warp thread and vice-versa, and from all those touches was made the great picture of existence.

      Will’s thoughts returned to what had happened that night at Foderingham when he had last clapped eyes on the Dragon Stone. ‘Gwydion, I think there’s something I ought to tell you…’

      He explained how he and Edward, and all the Ebor children, had got more than their curiosities had bargained for. The stone’s writhing surface had terrified them. It had begun by posing a morbid riddle for Edward, and had finished by attacking Edmund, the duke’s second son, sending him into a swoon from which he had never fully recovered. He told of how he had wrestled with the stone and how it had almost overcome him, before cringing back at the mention of its true name.

      When Will had finished explaining, the wizard leaned heavily on his staff and said, ‘Let us overnight here. We shall talk more on this after supper, though it would have been better for all concerned if you had told me about this sooner.’

      ‘I couldn’t break a confidence,’ Will said lamely.

      ‘You are breaking it now.’

      ‘That’s because Edward is boastful and very close to his father. He may have told tales about the powers that dwell in the stone. That might be the reason the duke is behaving this way.’

      Gwydion turned sharply. ‘You think Friend Richard seeks to use the battlestone’s power for himself?’

      Will knit his brows over the suggestion. ‘I don’t think he would ever be that foolhardy.’

      ‘Hmmm. It would depend on how desperate he became.’

      Here, east of the Slaver road, the air was cleaner and the grass greener. At their backs a slim crescent moon was following the sun down over the western horizon. Their camp was made on a rise close by the manor of Swell. Once again Gwydion had avoided the villages and farms that nestled nearby. He chose the best ground and then carefully cut away the turf to make a fire pit and piled up enough dry sticks to give them good cheer until they should fall asleep. Will was very hungry, and glad of old dry bread and a delicious soup of dried roots and morels that Gwydion cooked up from ingredients he took from his crane bag.

      Will’s eyes drooped as, with a full belly, he listened to the crackle of burning wood and the calls of night creatures. The ground was hard under his elbow and hip bone. He smelled the drowsy perfume of cow parsley and meadowsweet and bruised grass, and felt pleased to be back in the wider world.

      ‘My First in the West shall Marry…’ he said, stirring himself to recite the riddle that had appeared in the skin of the Dragon Stone.

      ‘My first in the West shall marry,

      My second a king shall be.

      My third upon a bridge lies dead.

      My fourth far in the East shall wed.

      My fifth over the seas shall send.

      My sixth in wine shall meet his end.

      My seventh, whom none now fears,

      Shall be reviled five hundred years.’

      ‘What are we to make of that?’ Gwydion asked.

      Will looked into the night. ‘If the Black Book said there were many battlestones, maybe it’s the Dragon Stone’s way of giving clues about its brothers. Maybe one of the stones is fated to be reunited with its sister-stone in the West – that might fit with the piece you sailed over to your friend Cormac in the Blessed Isle. Or maybe that’s the second stone mentioned, because it stood in the shadow of the King’s Stone. It could be that the third will be found, or drained, on a bridge. Or maybe it lies near a place called Deadbridge – oh, you know better than I how riddles go.’

      Gwydion settled back, watching the last rosy blink of moonset. He said distantly, ‘It may be that the Dragon Stone is more important than we have so far supposed.’

      ‘Why did you choose to lodge it with Duke Richard?’ Will asked, unable to keep the criticism from his voice.

      ‘You think that was a mistake. In truth, it was no choice of mine, but a course forced on me by events. There was nowhere better to lodge a battlestone at the time. Do you know that time itself has a most curious character? I have discussed it much with the loremaster who lives at the Castle of Sundials. Though he speaks of “time’s arrow”, its nature, he says, is not straight so much as turning ever and again upon itself – wheels within wheels, like the cogs that turn within his confounded engines. As the rede of time says, “History repeateth.” Thus, if we are wise, we may learn from the past—’

      ‘Gwydion,’ Will knew when he was being distracted, ‘what are we going to do?’

      The wizard stirred restlessly. ‘Rather than return to Foderingham, let us find out first if it has been put back in its original resting place. That is my greatest fear. And in any case we must go by Nadderstone if we would go to Foderingham by the shortest way.’

      ‘Who would want to re-bury the stone at Nadderstone?’

      ‘Who do you think? If it has come to Maskull’s notice, and if he is making it his business to tamper with the lorc, then we should know about that.’

      ‘What if we find it’s been put back?’

      ‘Then the time will have come for me to drain it. For, whatever the other merits of your midnight visit to the Dragon Stone, you have certainly given us a great advantage by discovering its true name.’

      ‘Oh, no, Gwydion,’ Will said, feeling dismay blow through him. ‘Please promise me you won’t try another draining.’

      ‘I must do what I must do,’ Gwydion said, then added with a note of finality, ‘Do not worry about it yet. It may never come to that.’

      Will blew out a long breath. He watched the flames of their little camp fire and wished himself back at the Blazing, but the coils of intrigue seemed to have wound themselves more tightly about him than any serpent. He said doggedly, ‘Gwydion, before I set off anywhere else, I must get a message to Willow.’

      ‘As a matter of fact, Willand,’ the wizard said archly, ‘I have already sent word to her explaining your absence. Good night.’

      

      After three days’ walk along highways and byways they came at last to the village of Eiton. There were many harvest carts about the lanes and straw was blowing everywhere along the dusty road that led to the Plough Inn. Gwydion looked for signs that the Sightless Ones were out overseeing the tithe, but he saw nothing.

      The Plough was a much-praised alehouse and inn, and one that Will knew СКАЧАТЬ