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‘As the rede says: “No time is as useful as the present.” Nor, in this case, is there any reason to delay. I shall leave at once.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Will murmured, sure that Gwydion had set his heart on a perilous path.
‘In what I must now do you cannot help me. I mean to gain entry to the dungeon of Foderingham. I will do it with or without Richard of Ebor’s consent. Once there, if the Dragon Stone is present, I shall lay hands upon it. Recall the rede: “By his magic, so shall ye know him!” I shall search for Maskull’s signature, and if I find he has not meddled with the stone, then I shall renew the holding spells in which I first wrapped it, and perhaps add a few more for good measure.’
‘You won’t try to drain it?’ Will said, only half convinced by the wizard’s assurances.
But Gwydion smiled an indulgent smile. ‘I promise, I will not try to do that.’
‘And if you find that Maskull has been there?’ Morann asked.
‘Then I shall have to undo that which he has done, before renewing my own spells.’
Will brightened. ‘Surely we can help you, if only in keeping the jacks who guard the walls of Foderingham occupied for a while.’
‘I have greater need of stealth than assistance.’ The wizard regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘But, Willand, if you would help me then make a promise.’
‘Anything.’
‘Go to the Plough and wait quietly for my return. Do not stray far from that place. Dimmet will begrudge you neither board nor lodging if you tell him of my request. If you will heed my advice, you’ll lay low. Speak to no one, and do not advertise yourself widely abroad. This is most important.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
The wizard took his hand briefly and nodded as if sealing a bargain. Then he clasped Morann to him and words passed between them in a language that seemed ancient to Will, though it was not of his ken.
He watched Gwydion go down into the hamlet, speak to one of the farmers and then he was up on a piebald horse and riding away east out of the village, while Bessie was being led towards the farmer’s stable.
‘Well, I like that!’ Will said as he realized their ride back to Eiton had just been bargained away.
‘That’s wizards for you,’ Morann said. ‘For a man who cannot be in two places at once he’s powerful good at being in one place not very much at all.’
Will put his hands on his hips. ‘I suppose we’d better start walking. It’ll be thirsty work in this warmth. I guess Gwydion’ll be right about Dimmet’s charity. I just hope it lasts when he finds out that Bessie’s been handed to a farmer in Nadderstone to ease a wizard’s emergency!’
The walk back to the Plough was indeed hot work and much was talked over as they wended their way towards Eiton. When they were about halfway there Will cut and whittled for himself a staff. It was fit for a quarterstaff, though he wanted to use it as a walking stick. Morann would have nothing of it, and was not content until Will had whittled a second staff and given him the choice of which to use.
Gwydion had once said that the quarterstaff was the diamond among weapons, striking like a sword and thrusting like a spear, it was able to disable and dispirit without inflicting undue damage. ‘The skilled wielder of a staff has the advantage against even two swordsmen, for a staff has two ends, and if one opponent should break his distance against a skilled staff he will suffer a hit. Against the single sword, a staff always has four paces in hand. Such is its dignity it metes out humiliating reminders while barely drawing blood.’
Will had never forgotten that lesson, and had practised the staff until he could easily beat the best who lived in the Vale. But there were many more whacks that Morann was able to teach him, and their journey back to Eiton became in part a running fight.
They got back aching and bruised and laughing. Once they were in the Plough’s yard Will found Dimmet among his flitches of bacon. They told him what had happened to his horse.
‘No matter,’ Dimmet said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘One good turn deserves another, or so they say. And all things have a way of coming full circle in the end. If Master Gwydion’s gone off all of a sudden, there’s bound to be something needful at the root of it. I know he’ll return her to me some time. Now, what’s it to be for you?’
Morann grinned broadly. ‘A quart of your finest nutbrown ale. And we’ll take it to the snug, if we may.’
‘That you may, and with pleasure. Stew and leftovers all right for you?’
‘Enough is as good as a feast, as my friend the Maceugh always used to say.’
‘The Maceugh?’ Will said, his brow rutting. ‘Have I heard of him before?’
‘Maybe you have not,’ Morann said lightly, then added, ‘But maybe you will come to know him one day.’
Will took a tallow dip, passed behind the inglenook and the snug door opened at Morann’s touch. The space inside was soon golden with candlelight. They slaked their throats with first-mash ale, and then set to work on a supper of spoon-meat, barley bread and cold roast goose before they pushed their bowls and trenchers away from them and sat back content.
‘Old Dimmet’s right about something needful being at the root of Gwydion’s going,’ Morann said. Once more he took out his knife and laid it on the table before him. ‘There’s talk of Commissioners riding abroad all up and down the Realm. Folk are worried. They’re talking about war everywhere you care to go.’
Will knew that Morann meant Commissioners of Array, the officers that were sent out in the king’s name to raise an army. ‘It must be serious if they’re coming for men in the middle of harvest,’ he said. ‘Who’ll gather in the crop if all the able-bodied men are marched off the land?’
Morann lowered his voice. ‘Gathered in or not, the Commissioners will have their men in the end. Have you ever known a lord starve because of a bad harvest? Likewise, it’s the churl, the common man, and those who depend on him, who come most to grief when a war begins.’
‘That’s right enough.’
‘It’s said that in Trinovant the Sightless Ones are offering large loans. They lend only to lords, so what does that tell you?’ Morann’s eyes twinkled. ‘If lords are borrowing gold, it’s for only one purpose.’
Will laced his fingers together, stretched and yawned. ‘They’ll spend gold enough on the feeding and equipping of soldiers, but it’s a risk they care to take. They go to war in hope to gain the lands held by their enemies.’
The large green stone in Morann’s ring seemed to glow with crystal fire, and his voice became passionate. ‘I tell you, Willand, the queen has spent most of the past four years trying every way to undermine Duke Richard’s rule as Lord Protector. If he’s stopped taking Master Gwydion’s good advice there’ll be a clash soon. That’s why I must be on my way tomorrow.’
‘Not you too?’ Will’s spirit rebelled at the idea. ‘Am I to wait here all alone and do nothing?’
‘It can’t be helped. Master Gwydion asked me to go to Trinovant. I’m to do what I can to steady events. I could hardly refuse him, so I’ve agreed to speak to some friends I know there. They are people of influence who owe me a small debt of gratitude and are willing to pay it – which is the best kind of friend a man can have.’
‘What will these friends do?’
‘Tell me how things truly stand at court. It’s rumoured that the king’s latest insanity is ended. Perhaps it was a natural brain fever, but poison cannot be ruled out, and Master Gwydion suspects that the queen has arranged for spells to be cast upon his mind to make him appear well again.’
‘She’s done that kind of thing before, and that was at Maskull’s prompting.’
‘These days Master Gwydion sees the sorcerer’s hand in everything.’
Will took the remark without comment and thought to console himself with a slice of cheese. He reached out for Morann’s knife, which was handy, but when he came to cut the cheese the blade would not enter.
‘Either this cheese is a lot older than I thought,’ Will said, frowning at the knife, ‘or your steel has lost its edge.’
Morann laughed. ‘Do not worry yourself. Being a knife-grinder I’m never far from a whetstone.’
Will tried again, but looked up, seeing the cheese rind was untouched. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with it. What you have in your hand is the second most precious item that I have ever clapped eyes upon.’
‘This old knife?’
‘It’s an old knife, surely, but not any old knife. This knife has been sharpened on the Whetstone of Tudwal, which is one of the spoils that was brought forth from Annuin by Great Arthur of old.’
Will’s interest deepened. ‘Master Gwydion has spoken many times of prophecies that concern Great Arthur, but he’s never told me much.’
Morann sat back in his chair and began to sing,
‘Where is the man who is mightier?
The four winds tell it not!
When greater the treasures that were taken?
Won in war and fair fight.
How bright was the blessing
Brought upon Albion?
Whose land now shall be the Wasteland?
Before Great Arthur led,
the Cauldron swirled…
Before Great Arthur sailed,
the Sword smote…
Before Great Arthur entered,
the Staff upheld…
Before Great Arthur’s coming,
the Star shone…
‘Aye, Willand. In those early days the Hallows were bound, blind and in darkness all, down in Annuin, in the Realm Below.
‘The spoils were brought out by Arthur, upon his ship,’ he said as if half remembering. ‘Out from a sea cave in the north. The Cave of Finglas, which was then a mouth into the Realm Below…
‘Many adventurers sailed with Great Arthur aboard the ship Prydwen. Bards, warriors and harpers – great men of old, they were! Among them, the famous Wordmaster Taliesin, who was one of seven who survived to tell the tale. He wrought a great poem about it called “The Breaking of the Dark”. Much went missing from the Black Book in the days when giants ruled the land of Albion, yet there was enough of it remaining for it to speak of a promise to be redeemed – a king shall come, a king whose forewarning sign shall be the drawing forth of a sword from a stone.’ And Morann sang again,
‘Child of magical union,
Hidden among hunters, weaned upon warriors.
Brave son of a poisoned father,
Sent to the city, tried at the tourney.
A king of tender years,
Sired by a sovereign, but made by Merlyn,
Drew he forth Branstock,
Great Arthur, the once and future king…’
The loremaster’s eyes softened, and he smiled. ‘So you see, Willand, you are not the only one to have been named in the Black Book. Master Gwydion is there too, when Master Merlyn was his name.’
Will tried to smile back. ‘It’s an uncomfortable feeling sometimes knowing that whatever path you choose, the outcome has long been decided.’
‘Don’t think that! Master Gwydion did not mean that when he said your life was hardly your own, only that you were mantled with duties and responsibilities that are heavier than those of most men. But your choices have always been free. It’s not the fulfilment of prophecies that matters, so much as the manner in which they are fulfilled. That’s where final outcomes are decided. Consider the next fragment of the Black Book in which we hear of Great Arthur’s passing, there by the lakeshore of Llyn Llydaw. He made another promise without fear or faltering, one that was to last a thousand years. The verses tell it thus:
‘The worth of my life, such that it be,
Has chained the future to a fateful turn.
When comes the final catastrophe,
Then, only then, shall I return!’
‘When rises the greatest need I shall come again…’ Will whispered in the true tongue.
‘Those were your words. And what turbulent times have we seen since the overrunning of the Realm by the Easterlings. Though none have been worse than those that are upon us now. I will say it straightly, this is the final catastrophe.’
‘The once and future king did not come to save us from the Conquest.’
‘Perhaps the arrival of Gillan might have seemed to warrant it, but in the end the Phantarch, Semias, reached an understanding with the Conqueror and we saw that his invasion was not the ending of the world such as we had feared. That was near four hundred years ago.’
‘How long is it since Arthur fought his last fight at Camlan?’
‘I think you already know the answer to that – near a thousand. So we come to you, Will, and the last pitiful fragments of the Black Book that Master Gwydion has cherished in a secret place down so many generations. This also seems to speak of a king, though no one can be certain. One who is “…a True King, born of Strife, born of Calamity, born at Beltane in the Twentieth Year, when the beams of Eluned are strongest at the ending of the world”.’
‘The ending of the world?’ Will felt the shock of the idea. ‘I was born in a twentieth year…’
‘Aye, in the twentieth year of the reign of King Hal. And on the night of the full moon. And it was said that you would deny yourself thrice, and so you did.’
‘And “One being made two”?’ Will said, looking up suddenly from the strange knife that lay upon the table. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It too seems to be a part of the prophecy.’ Morann looked away. ‘As also is the suggestion that “two shall be made one”.’
Will straightened. ‘Then it was written all along that the Doomstone would mend itself!’
‘That could be one interpretation.’
Morann reached out to take his blade but Will stayed his hand. ‘You said this had been sharpened on the Whetstone of Tudwal. So what if it was?’
‘Ah, well, you see, a blade so sharpened will deal only a lethal blow, or no blow at all.’
Will quickly put the knife down.
‘Morann, if you’re leaving tomorrow, may I ask a favour of you tonight? Could you go to Trinovant by way of Nether Norton? I don’t know of another messenger who could find his way into the Vale.’
‘You may consider it done.’
