Robert Carter - The Language of Stones

‘Now you see clear to the bottom of the pail. But that is a truth best not spoken aloud, for the man who does so puts his life in jeopardy.’

All that day they walked along through a mellow land that rolled gently across their southerly path. For a league or so it rose up to broad chalky tops, then fell away for the same distance into rolling clay vales. As they climbed higher there were stretches where dense clumps of spiky furze showed off their yellow flowers. Gwydion led Will on sheep tracks that ran among the bushes. For much of the way the sky was hazy and threaded with the warbling of larks, but as the sun declined across the south a chill wind blew in across the high plain.

Gwydion looked into the western sky to where clouds were boiling up. ‘Thousands of years ago there were great temples to the moon and sun over there. All are now in ruin and forgotten, and the moon and the sun are both the less for it. One day, if you would know the essential nature of magic, I will take you to the Great Henge. It was once called in the true tongue, Celuai na Sencassimnh , which is to say “the meadows of the storytellers”. It was built on a node in the earth where three great oaks once stood, and a tower was raised upon them. Later, when the woods around were cleared, a henge of wood was built, then two of stone, one within the other. Many of the tombs of the kings of the First Men are set about it.’

Will listened, hoping to hear more about the battlestones, but Gwydion called him onward, saying, ‘Look down there! What do you see?’

Will shaded his eyes and looked into the south. In the distance the land was all a-shimmer with light. ‘What is it?’ he asked, awed. It seemed like a vast plain, part land, part sky, yet brilliant as a bank of fog.

‘That, 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.