Robert Carter - Whitemantle

Happily no such grim entertainment was in progress now. All along the way there were men-at-arms in steel bonnets, leaning on their pole-arms as they waited to march into the City. Will noted that the soldiers were all wearing either red and white or red and black, and upon their breasts were the devices of the white bear of Warrewyk or the green eagle upon yellow of Sarum.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Willow asked, seeing his face.

‘I have the strongest feeling that I ought to tell Master Gwydion something.’

‘Then you must, and right away.’ She stared at him. ‘What is it?’

‘Something that might seem unimportant now, but which might just turn out to be otherwise. Come on.’

As they went, a rambling assemblage of buildings grew up around them, sprawling royal mansions, all of different sizes and styles and apparently put up at quite different times. Ahead, Gwydion had already turned off the common highway. He came now to an arched gate where they were given access by the palace guard, but only after Will showed Captain Jackhald’s men the warrant that carried the seals of the royal household.

‘Gone are the days when such as I could come and go without let or hindrance,’ Gwydion muttered.

‘So you’ve noticed the way our liberties have been boiling away?’ Will said, half jocularly.

The wizard scowled at him. ‘It is no laughing matter. What is to become of this city? We need a king, Willand, one who has the courage to set things to rights!’

Will made no reply, for he knew the barb with which the remark was set.

Within the walls lay smooth-scythed lawns, a little brown in patches now, and two large oak trees. There were tiny, neat hedges. Beds of roses and cobbled quads were surrounded by turrets of red brick and stone that rose up in some places four floors high. In one of the two towers a statue of King Dunval stood in a niche, holding, Will presumed, a scroll of law in his hand, and in the other tower, facing the royal lawmaker of old, was the great dial of an engine of time.

This clock was the latest thing, Gwydion said, sent as a present to the king a few years ago by Duke Richard. ‘To remind Hal that time was passing, but perhaps not passing swiftly enough.’ It had come from near the town of Awakenfield in the north, in lands where the Ebor writ ran more strongly than the king’s. It had been made in the workshops of the famous Castle of Sundials, and its chime was loud and commanding.

Will drew a deep breath and looked around. Many centuries were piled up here, the newer parts scrambling over the old like ivy in the place where Brea had first raised his halls and houses of carved oak so long ago.

But the chief splendour of the present palace was the White Hall. This huge oblong of pale limestone carried mock battlements at roof level and a series of pinnacled buttresses along each side. Its most arresting aspect was its lights. Each panel was artfully made to be both tall and wide, and was gorgeously decorated with what must have been an acre of coloured glass. All was ingeniously supported by traceries of lead and narrowly cut stone, and each panel told in pictures a history of a different Brean king. Will recognized in the first of them King Bladud the Leper in conversation with his unforgiving father Hudibrax. The next carried a portrait of the long-beard, Old King Coel, with night to his left and day to his right to show the passing of his one hundred and twelve years. Then came Gurgast, being eaten by the dragon, and after that a grave depiction of King Sisil leaving Queen Meribel and his infant son to sail off into the Western Deeps to search for the land of Hy Brasil. But what caught Will’s eye most were the bright greens and yellows shining from the last panel, for it showed Leir and his three daughters, two of them undoubtedly wicked, and a third who could do no wrong.

Perhaps it was just a trick of the light or the position of the sun, but Will had the impression that the king winked at him. And it was easy to imagine that a dozen gargoyles made faces and rude gestures as they passed below, showing that even here the traditional humour of the masons’ guild had not been forgotten. And though Gwydion insisted there was much dark magic still waiting to be swept away, there was much here also that seemed benign.

They went straight up to the small, comfortable apartments that the royal chamberlain had grudgingly afforded them – through an arch, up some stone stairs and along a cool passageway onto which three doors opened. By the time they came to their own door, Will had decided he must speak urgently to Gwydion of the strange Fellow who had stepped forward to save his life.

But no sooner was Will’s decision made than it was dashed aside, for as their own door opened they found a surprise waiting for them.

‘Now then! Ha-har! And look who’s here to greet you!’

‘Oh!’ Willow cried out. ‘It can’t be!’

‘Wortmaster?’ Will said, equally delighted. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Where else should I be? Hey? Answer me that! I’m come down with the rest of my Lord of Ebor’s people. And just lately I have been as busy as a bee in June! Ha-har! Look at you!’

Gort opened his arms in a wide embrace and hugged them left and right, until Bethe started up such a howling at being pressed into the face of so bewhiskered a monster that Gort was driven into retreat.

‘There, there, kitten! Oh, she doesn’t know me…’ Gort said, dabbing a fond finger at Bethe’s nose. ‘Do you, hey, little poppy-kin?’

‘Aye, and maybe she knows you too well, Wartmonster,’ Will said, grinning.

‘Oh, Will! How can you say such a thing?’ Willow patted Bethe’s back until she drew breath. Then Willow began to grin and coo in the way that mothers do to disconcerted babes everywhere.

‘That child has lusty lungs,’ Gort said, poking a finger in his ear.

‘She’s tired.’

‘Maybe she’d like a nice piece of cheese. I’ve fetched down a fine Cordewan Crumbly for you.’

‘Not for Bethe, I don’t think. But I’ll take some of it gladly. Here, have a chair, and tell us your latest news.’

They all sat down. Bethe’s storm of tears dried up and soon she was at Gort’s knee and smiling up at him as he cut pieces of Cordewan Crumbly.

‘Did I tell you the young victor of Delamprey has brought the stump away with him?’ the Wortmaster said.

‘The battlestone?’ Will asked with sudden interest. ‘We thought he might do that.’

‘Hmmm, well he has. It came south in Edward’s own baggage train. It’s being heavily guarded.’

Will got up and began to walk about. ‘You’re going to have to speak to Edward, Master Gwydion. How will we ever be able to decipher the stone if we can’t get to see it?’

Gort waved a hand towards the window. ‘It’s sitting down there in Albanay Yard, Master Gwydion, but they won’t let me near. Me, or anyone.’

‘Edward will quickly tire of it.’ The wizard tossed his head in dismissal. ‘But Wortmaster, surely you have news of greater import than this?’

‘Oh, I’ve been much abroad since last we met, Master Gwydion, and busier still since the king was taken – going here and there, sowing appleseeds and bringing to mind things once said by Semias.’ He grinned and looked out from under the overgrowth of his eyebrows. He cast a meaningful glance at the wizard. ‘I did as you wanted.’

‘Then you have brought it…’ the wizard said, as if hardly daring to believe. His eyes roamed to every corner of the room, but evidently did not find what they were searching for. ‘Well? Where is it?’

‘I have it. I have it indeed. It is here somewhere,’ Gort said distractedly. ‘And I have something else too!’