Robert Carter - Whitemantle

Will knew it was time to put aside his astonishment and ask the crucial question. ‘But tell me, ex-Fellow Eudas, if you are not recruiting lost souls to your house, why did you risk yourself to help a worthless beggar?’

There came a growl from deep inside the big man’s chest, and his strangely accented words gave Will even more to think about. ‘There was little risk. If they had not gone away I would have killed them all. And if there is justice in the world, it will be you who helps the worthless beggar.’

By now, Will’s suspicions were fully aroused. He peered hard at the hooded Fellow, trying with all his mind to penetrate the disguise. There was more to this man than met the eye.

‘You must forgive an old man,’ he said, sticking to his story. ‘I’m in no position to help anyone. Now, if you don’t mind—’

The big man seized him by the shoulders. ‘The worthless beggar I want you to help is… me. ’

Will imagined that in a moment he would slap the Fellow playfully on the shoulder and say, ‘Come now, Master Gwydion, without your staff you are not so nimble in magic as once you were. Don’t you think I can see through your disguises as well as you see through mine?’ But that moment was not to be, for it seemed there was something even stranger than magic about this man.

‘Who are you?’

‘If you would know that, then listen and I will tell you.’

The big man sat down on the steps and began to lay out his life’s tale, and Will, unable to do otherwise, sat down beside him and listened.

‘I have always been lucky. My given name was Lotan, which in my native tongue means “the fortunate one”. I was born seven-times-seven years ago in a land far beyond the Narrow Seas, in a country that you call the Tortured Lands. One day, when I was still a child, all my family was murdered. It was my good fortune to be the only one who escaped alive.’

‘Good fortune indeed,’ Will murmured, though the irony of his remark went unappreciated.

‘Since then, I have roamed upon land and roved upon the sea. I have carried myself to all corners of the world. I have lived in many strange places, and in a few of them my luck has been sorely tested, but never was I bested in fight, and never was I made a slave. This does not mean that I have not done dark deeds, but sometimes a man is given no choice.

‘At last I tired of travel. I came into the port of Callas, and being somewhat skilled in the arts of war I decided to make my fortune as a mercenary soldier. I was accepted into the garrison by the captain there.’

Heavy chain links clinked inside Lotan’s robe as he finished.

‘It would have been a fool of a captain who turned you down,’ Will said, aware of the man’s powerful frame.

Lotan shrugged. ‘I am what I am.’

‘Lord Warrewyk. Is it not he who has been Captain of Callas these five years?’ Will said, unable to resist probing after loyalties.

The hood turned. ‘The time about which I speak was long before Earl Warrewyk’s day. I served three dukes who were captains before he – the Dukes of Gloustre then Southfolk, and latterly Duke Edgar of Mells, who was my last commander. That was six years ago.’

Will showed no reaction, but the information was sound. Duke Edgar had been killed at Verlamion – hacked to death by Lord Warrewyk’s men. Edgar had been a staunch supporter of the queen, and his cruel son was her chief supporter now.

The big man continued speaking, and soon Will heard a burr in his voice that spoke of fond recollections. ‘Strife and easy living were mine in equal measure during my time in Callas. I ate two good meals every day. I lived a manly life. I fought alongside men I trusted, men who trusted me. But the life of a man-at-arms is, at its end, always hard to bear, for a soldier feels more sharply than others the passing of his prime. As the first grey hairs grow he feels the aches begin in his flesh. There came a day when I began to think of retirement, of using what little gold I had gleaned to open an alehouse. I wanted no more than to pass my remaining days in quiet kind, but my plans were overtaken by greater events.

‘Five summers ago, in the last month of my service, war threatened, and I was sent with the bodyguard of my Lord of Mells to a new place. We took ship across the Narrow Seas and came into this Realm to prosecute war.’

‘Did you go to Verlamion?’

The hood stirred again. ‘You know of that place?’

‘I went there…once.’

‘It has a rich chapter house. But it was in the streets of the town that spreads around the chapter house that the battle was fought. In truth it was not much of a battle, but it was the one fight in which my luck failed me. Duke Edgar became trapped. His bodyguard were slain around him, and though I tried to protect him, I took for my troubles an axe blow – here. It cut through the steel brow-strap of my helm and robbed me of half my face. The blow was given to me by one of Lord Warrewyk’s men. It has been my ruination.’

Will winced, echoing the reaction of those who not long before had stared at Lotan and screwed up their faces at the sight of him.

‘When the battle at Verlamion was over, I was left for dead. But then a Wise Woman found me and bound up my head and stayed with me, thinking that I would soon die. She could not heal me beyond the laying on of gentle herbs, but even so I did not die for there was something about her ministering that lifted me up. Instead I lived on for three years, begging in the streets of Trinovant in a red cloud of torment. At last I could bear the suffering no more. I gave myself into the keeping of the Sightless Ones who, to have me, plucked out my eyes.’

Will heard the rumble of Lotan’s regret, and looked up at the blank walls of the chapter house, which for all their impressive size and strength seemed also inhuman and cold-hearted in their proportions.

‘At first, the losing of my eyes felt like a mercy, for all pain leaves a man who surrenders himself. Forgetfulness enfolds him like a blanket and for some that is a powerful comfort. But not for me. The longer I remained within the chapter house, the more doubts came to plague me. I was sure I had made the biggest mistake by going there, for though my head had been deeply cloven and now I was blinded also, still I remained whole in spirit. I have never been one who runs with a flock. My thoughts are my own. How could I surrender myself to that which I did not truly believe?’

Will’s brow creased as he tried to understand. ‘Surrender yourself? To what? To the service of the Fellowship?’

The big man seemed to struggle with the idea. ‘Not to the Fellowship exactly, but to that power which they would make all men bow down before.’

‘What’s that?’ Will asked, horrified. ‘A monster?’

‘It is an invisible power, one that all other Fellows swear they can feel in the world. But try as I might, I could never feel it. That is why I could not progress.’

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. They have a name for it, but that name may not be spoken.’

‘I’ve often wondered what could be at the heart of the Fellowship,’ Will said, still unable to grasp what he was being told. ‘Do they mean a power of magic? I know the Sightless Ones use a form of sorcery, and I can tell you for a certainty that natural magic is real, but—’

‘Oh, it is not natural magic they revere, but something else. An ancient invention, a great piece of wickedness…it did not originate with the Fellowship – they have come about because of it. But they have used it ruthlessly.’

‘But what is it?’

A gurgling laugh escaped the big man. ‘Only an idea. But one so powerful that it has made slaves of all those who were rash enough to open their minds to it.’