Robert Carter - The Language of Stones

He looked at the flowerless plant. It looked bereft. ‘No. But I can begin to see why the folk of Wychwoode call you the “Wise Woman”.’

She took his hand, ‘Cheer up, Willand. It’s only one day you’ve dropped, and that’ll be lost from the far end of your life where it’ll do you far less good than a day like today.’

He thought about that for a while and decided she was right – he had better cheer himself up. ‘Wise Woman, perhaps you can tell me the answer to a question that’s been troubling me.’

‘I will try.’

‘What’s a Child of Destiny?’

‘That’s a curious phrase. Where did you hear it?’

‘Master Gwydion used it once about me. He said something about a Black Book too. What does it mean?’

The Wise Woman smiled. Her leathery face wrinkled, but her bright eyes remained fast on his. ‘That, Willand, I cannot tell you.’

The answer disappointed him for it was no answer at all, and the Wise Woman’s secret smile seemed to raise still more troublesome questions. At last he said, ‘Was it a sorcerer who made Lord Strange hog-headed?’

But the Wise Woman only cackled, as if she thought that was a very good joke.

High summer came with the solstice, the day when the sun climbed to its loftiest place in the sky. It was the longest day of the year, but Will wished all of it away. Despite having spent so short a time in the wizard’s company, and most of that reluctantly, he ached for Lammastide.

Lammas was no more than what was called in the Vale ‘Loaf Day’, a day of ritual breadmaking. And Gwydion had told him it was so with the other festivals – solstices were just Midsummer, the longest day, and Ewletide, the shortest. Equinoxes were likewise marked in the Vale as important days in spring and autumn when days and nights were the same length. Lammas was the first day of Harvest-tide, the day that signified the first ripened corn, or the first day of the month of August. But June was not yet past, and the corn was still as green as grass.

Lord Strange and his people counted time only in Slaver months. Nor was any ceremony kept by them at Midsummer. When he asked the lord’s wife she told him in her stiff way, ‘The churls, the simple folk, have many foolish beliefs. They will go out on Midsummer’s Eve to stand beneath an elder tree, or sit within a ring of mushrooms. Perhaps they are hoping to dance with the fae.’

‘May I go too?’ he asked, delighted at the idea.

But she only drew herself up and said, ‘You were sent to us to learn proper ways. We do not observe low customs here.’

Then Lord Strange came in and sat down at his great oak table, which was as usual spread with pies and pastries. He was looking more pig-like than ever, and as he ate he began to count the cost of Will’s lodging at the tower, and to complain again that the wizard had laid an unlooked for burden upon him. And in that moment Will pitied the greedy, miserly lord and his desolate lady, for she had a heart of ice, and dared not walk in the sun for fear that it would melt.

‘It’s time you had your hair cut,’ Lord Strange growled as he lifted up the nearest pie.

‘What’s wrong with my hair?’

‘Those pigtails you wear befit a girlchild! We shall cut them off!’ He banged the table with his fist.

‘They’re braids, not pigtails, and they’re the sign of a man!’

‘A man? A man, he says! Not here. Here the sign of a man is a shaven head. Churls wear lousy locks, warriors have short hair. Like mine. See?’

Will looked at the ridge of grey bristles of which Lord Strange seemed so proud. He set himself defiantly. ‘Your soldiers may do your bidding, but I’ll not!’

‘ Whaaat ?’

‘Try and cut my hair if you dare. If you do that, Master Gwydion will never take the pig spell off you! Remember what he said – all things come full circle!’

Sudden rage burst from the Hogshead and he threw down his pie. ‘Is that what he told you? That it’s his spell! I knew as much!’

‘I didn’t say that! You only think that because you’re stupid! Stupid as a pig!’

‘Come here!’

Will leapt out of the lord’s reach.

‘Come back, you young louse! You shall be made a scullion for your insolence! A scullion, do you hear me? You shall wash pans and pie dishes until you’ve paid for your keep! Come here, I say!’

But Will escaped the bellowing voice. He dashed from the tower and dived into the forest. And there he ran and ran, and after he had run all the breath and all the bile out of him he lay down in a glade and stared up at the sky. ‘Whatever came over me?’ he asked himself, unable to remember when he had endured such violent feelings of disobedience before. To calm himself he began to listen to the birdsong. He wondered what songs blackbirds dreamed about, and what was the true name of a wren he saw hiding in a holly bush. Perhaps the birds used true names when they sang to one another. He listened hard, trying to fathom their language, but he could not.

At last he adjusted his ear to the other sound, the one he had once thought of as the malign heartbeat of the forest. It had become so familiar that he usually blanked it out, but now he became aware of it again. This time it sounded deeper and more sinister, and there seemed to be something insistent to it. He followed it, feeling out the direction as best he could, and came to a place where the forest began to thin. This was its margin, where dusty fields stretched out in hot, shimmering brightness to envelop the land beyond Wychwoode. The insistent rhythm was strong here. He felt it in his feet, a low thump-thump-thump that was not a wholesome sound at all, but morbid and relentless. There was something else too, for the air here was no longer green and clean, but tainted by the smell of smoke.

Then, quite suddenly, the sound stopped.

The slope ahead of him fell steeply down to a sluggish stream. He followed it and saw it widen and slow into a broad, scum-covered reach. And there his eye halted. For a moment he thought he had glimpsed a figure, that of a woman floating just under the water. From the corner of his eye it seemed that white veils were rippling in a slow current, but when he looked again he saw that it had been no more than a trick of the light.

At the other end of the reach a great dam of earth and timber blocked the stream’s flow. The water was held back in a long, stagnant pool that had crept up the sides of the valley and drowned many fine trees on the lower slopes. But the level had once been much higher, as if the feeder stream had not been strong enough to keep the pool up through the dry summer months. Then he discovered the reason the dam had been built – there was a mill.

It had a big undershot wheel, twice the height of a man, that sat in a race to the side of the dam, and there were men standing by the sluices. More were in the clearing beyond, tending smouldering mounds of earth or walking to and fro.

He watched them for a while, fingering his fish talisman and lying low. He wondered who the men were, but decided not to make himself known to them just in case word got back to Lord Strange. Then three men started to walk towards him – one wore a blue robe cinched with a broad belt, a shorter man was dressed in grey, and a tall, silent man in a belted shirt brought up the rear. Caution made Will hide himself behind a tree as they came along the path that ran below him. He crouched down as they stopped.

‘A thousand,’ the first man said. ‘That’s the order. We’re to begin cutting tomorrow. And this time I’ll choose them myself.’

The smaller man simpered. ‘How many oaks in all, master?’

‘All the big trunks. Them’s to be saved. Ones so wide two men can’t hold hands around. I want them all, and the rest you can cut up as you like.’