The Language of Stones

‘That’s enough. You can go away now,’ he said.

But it would not go away. It had been called to him magically and nothing he said would persuade it to leave. He quickly tired of it, but it did not tire of him. It kept landing on his lips and bothering him as he tried to write, until finally he dived under the bedclothes to rid himself of it.

When he came out again, it was waiting for him. When he went down to supper it came too, and though three pieces of bread and honey were put before him, the fly took no notice of any of them. It wanted only to circle his head, and when it next landed on him he slapped himself hard on the mouth, threw a fit of temper and almost fell off his chair.

The cook stared at him oddly. He shrugged back at her and scampered off, the fly in pursuit. Lady Strange, annoyed by the fly’s attentions when she came near him, asked Will if he had forgotten to wash behind his ears. She set him an evening writing exercise and went away. Will hoped the fly would go too, but it did not.

As darkness fell there was no hope of concentrating on his studies. All evening the fly plagued him, and when the moon rose and every kind of daytime fly might reasonably be expected to go to its rest, this one continued to buzz. It seemed to Will that the only way to catch it would be to let it go where it so obviously wanted to go – into his mouth – then to swallow it whole.

He finally succeeded in killing it – he shot out a hand and slapped it against the wall then trod on it. But his savage joy was tempered with guilt. It was only a bluebottle, but that was beside the point. Working with naming magic could lead to unexpected trouble. He would have to learn a lot more about magic if he was ever going to do it right.

As Lammastide approached, Will planned his escape. It was an unsophisticated plan. Two weeks of obedience had slackened the vigilance of those who might otherwise have watched him with greater care, and when the courtyard next emptied he made a dash for the gate. He went straight down to the river and there he found the Wise Woman’s hovel, pitched as it was in the shade of a spreading willow tree.

‘Hello, Wise Woman!’ he cried as he came up.

She had a basket on her lap and was shelling peas into it, but she greeted him with a kind word and asked him in. He sat down on an upturned pail and said, ‘Wise Woman, will you answer me a question?’

‘If I can.’

‘Do you know a village called Leigh?’

‘Surely. I pass by it every third day.’

‘Do you know a girl who lives there by the name of Willow?’

The Wise Woman nodded thoughtfully. ‘That one is very pretty, is she not?’

‘I – I’d like you to take a message to her. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.’

‘Oh.’ She broke open another pod. ‘And why don’t you go yourself?’

Will knew the Wise Woman well enough to have anticipated that. ‘Because Leigh’s beyond the bounds of the Wychwoode, and I don’t want to break my word to Master Gwydion.’

The Wise Woman’s face was like cracked leather, but her eyes were pools. They seemed to see deep inside him. ‘That’s a fine sentiment when you’ve already broken faith to come here.’

Will looked down. ‘That wasn’t any promise made to Master Gwydion. It’s only Lord Strange’s rule.’

‘Does it matter? It’s your promise that loses its value when you break it.’

A powerful mixture of feelings welled up inside him. ‘But I must get a message to Willow.’

The Wise Woman watched him again in her quiet way. ‘What does your message say?’

‘I want to ask if she’ll meet me in the place above Grendon Mill where we first saw one another at noonday tomorrow. Please tell her how much I want her to come, and say I’ve got something important to show her.’

The Wise Woman laid her basket aside and hobbled to the doorway. ‘What do you want to show her? Let me see it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then I can’t take your message.’

He squirmed. ‘I want to show her some…feats.’

‘What sort of feats?’

‘Just some small magic. The sort you’ve told me about.’

She looked at him for a long while, then she shook her head. ‘Willand, the secrets of magic are not to be vouchsafed lightly. Magic is not a toy. And it is not for everyone to play with as they will. I have told the secrets to you only because Master Gwydion says you are very special.’

‘But Willow’s special too. If you’ve seen her, you’ll know she’s—’

‘I know she’s pretty.’

Will’s cheeks coloured. ‘Please, Wise Woman.’

‘Oh, I’ll take your message to her.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘But I’ll do it for my own reasons, not yours. You may not think so, but in my time I’ve known what it’s like to burn with youthful fires. I’ll do as you ask, but first you must promise not to teach the girl any lessons in magic, for as a famous inscription says “to be curious about that which is not your concern while you are still in ignorance of your own self, that is ridiculous”.’

‘I promise, Wise Woman. I won’t teach her anything at all. I give you my word.’

‘Your word?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, I shall treasure that, Willand. Truly I shall.’

The next day, he rose early and set about completing all the writing exercises the lord’s wife had set for him, then he began to watch the courtyard and await his chance. By employing a little craftiness he had managed to get back from yesterday’s meeting without being missed. Now, once again, he stole away at the changing of the guard. Excitement churned in him as he sped through the wood. All his worries had been stirred up – what if the Wise Woman had failed to find Willow? What if Willow had got the message but had been given some inescapable chore to do? And, worst of all, what if she had got the message but had decided not to come?

He pushed that idea away. Then, even though he was a little late, he forced himself to stop and calm down. ‘There’s no point in worrying,’ he told an elm tree. ‘I’ll know what’s what soon enough.’

But when he reached the heights above Grendon Mill a terrible sight met him. The entire hillside above the pool had been cut and all the fallen trunks dragged down to the road. Where there had been deep forest it was now a ruinous wasteland. It made his heart sink to realize that the special place in which he and Willow had met was now no more.

All around were crudely axed stumps, broken twigs and chippings underfoot where tree limbs had been hacked off and stacked by the charcoal pits. He looked up suddenly, feeling his skin prickle in warning. Then, as if he was dreaming it, he imagined gangs of men chopping and sawing, and a pair of yoked oxen hauling the trunks away. There were shouts and the cracking of an ancient yew tree as it groaned and split suddenly in half. But then the moment burst open inside his head and the horrible vision was gone, leaving him alone and in silence.

There was no thump-thump-thump. The continuing dry weather had, in the intervening weeks, lowered the water in the pool below the level needed to drive the wheel. The mill was deserted, and all the men sent away to other labours. He went down to the pool and called out Willow’s name.

His voice echoed, but no reply came, so he sat down on a log and waited, his chin in his hands. An emptiness was growing inside him, though at first he refused to call it disappointment. He got up and walked back and forth across the earth dam. He did not want to go near the sheds or kilns that stood by the mill, so finally he wandered back to the edge of the pool and looked down at his own face in the water. Two fair braids hung down by his left cheek. Without thinking more about it, he took out his knife and cut one of them off. Then he cut the other.

‘There! I don’t look like a girl now,’ he told the emptiness, and threw the braids as far as he could into the pool. They floated forlornly as circles widened around them on the surface.

‘Willow!’ he called out again. If she had bothered to come at all she would not have waited long. He remembered what she had said: It’s a dirty, stinky, smoky place now. Not at all the sort of place I like. It was foolish to have tried to meet her here. But how could he have known it would be like this? And where else was there? They had not shared the name of any other place within Wychwoode except the tower.

As his hopes faded he thought of the trick he had learned in the hope of impressing her. He had practised long and hard with craneflies after the bluebottle incident. Before making his promise to the Wise Woman he had meant to do a piece of naming magic for Willow with dragonflies. He had found out the true name of the large kind that wore a dazzling pale blue stripe along its body.

Well, he thought, if Willow’s not coming then there’s no longer any harm in it.

In an effort to cheer himself up he stepped to the water’s edge and called out grandly, like King Leir of old addressing his army.

‘Ealsha, ealsha, sathincarenta comla na duil!’ he commanded.

No sooner had his words echoed out across the pool than a dragonfly swooped in and began to circle before him. He repeated the enchantment five times, and a moment later there were half a dozen of the wonderful insects dancing in the air before him.

‘Sathincarentegh erchim archas, teirisi! Cruind!’ he told them, raising his arms, and they immediately began to fly in triangles. Yet another command, and they began to loop in figures of eight, darting in and out of each other’s paths, their great double pairs of wings chattering in time with one another.

‘What marvellous skill you have!’

Will turned at the voice. There was a girl standing behind him in the brightness, a girl just like…

‘Willow?’ he said, shading his eyes.

She looked like Willow, but surely she was not, for she shimmered like pale gauze.

He rubbed his eyes. She was tall and slender, and as like Willow as any sister, but her eyes were glowing with a faint, sad light and her voice was deeper and more dreamy. She wore a shining, white gown of such fineness that it might have been made of dragonfly wings. It reminded Will of the one the ghost had worn down by the bridge over the Evenlode, the one he had seen the day he had arrived at the Wychwoode.

‘Come to me, Will,’ she said. ‘Give me your hands and I will show you wonderful things.’

‘Willow? Is…is it you?’ He shook his head, trying to clear it but the whole world was swimming now. ‘Who are you? How do you know my name?’

‘I’m your friend, Will. I’ve been searching for you, and now I’ve found you. You’ve come to me at last, my own true love.’

‘I…’ He wiped at his face, striving against the weariness that was overpowering him, but there was a cloying sweetness on the air. It was as if his arms and legs had lost their strength.

‘Sit down. You’re tired. Don’t you want to sit down?’

The girl’s glowing eyes had lost their sadness. Now they assured him that sitting next to her would be the most wonderful thing there was. He remembered the look on Willow’s face when she had reached down to help him out of the muddy hole. How could he not do as she asked? It was hot now and the still, quiet warmth of the afternoon closed in around him like a suffocating blanket. He drew breath, but the air did not seem to satisfy his lungs and he sighed for more.

‘Let me touch you,’ the girl said, soothing his struggles. He felt a cool hand stroke his knee, his arm, the side of his face. ‘Isn’t that better? Isn’t that so much better than waiting alone? Close your eyes, Will. Rest. Soon we will be together.’

A part of him resisted, knowing there was something wrong, something important, but when he tried to think what it might be it vanished. His eyes felt dusty and sore, and it was getting too hard to keep them open. He fixed his gaze on the dragonflies still turning and circling above the water. The brilliant blue flashes of their bodies swept out the loops into which his spell had locked them. I must release them before I go, he thought. But somehow he could not remember the releasing words, and it seemed not to matter any more if they flew on while he rested.

The dragonflies’ weaving patterns reflected in the dark waters of the pool like a mystic symbol. It seemed as if the surface of the water was a looking-glass, a looking-glass that had the power to change him. He would have smiled but the tiredness was too great, and the soothing voice irresistible. ‘Close your eyes, Will. Come with me. Come with me into the beautiful, cool water. There is a wonderful world below. A wonderful realm bigger and more beautiful than anything you’ve ever dreamed. So much. So much you never thought could be. You’ll see many things, many wonderful things. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Come with me, then. Come, and we shall be together. Together forever.’

He felt the last shreds of resolve drain from him. The drowsy opal sky burned and seemed to press down on his head. He felt the warm mud seeping between his toes, making the ache in his feet go away, making the hurts of his long journey out of childhood fade. When he looked again he was already knee-deep in the water and the girl was naked beside him. But it was all right. It was how it was meant to be. Velvet smooth mud caressed his skin, inviting him deeper. He sank to his waist, then to his chest, and then he felt the water creeping up his neck and chin. The air above was filled with the lulling drone of dragonfly wings, repeating, repeating, endlessly repeating. And Willow, graceful beside him, walking a watery aisle, her cool hands on his face. Then she kissed him full on the mouth and led him down into the wonderful world that lay below the surface.

PART TWO THE POWERS OF THE EARTH

CHAPTER SIX A NEST OF SECRETS

When Will burst into wakefulness he was choking and fighting for breath. A cage of bony fingers imprisoned his face and, as they were ripped away, they tore at his cheeks.

‘Be gone, foul hag!’ a tremendous voice roared.

He saw a vile creature draw back from him. Its mottled grey skin sagged and fell in slack folds, its hair hung like fronds of stinking pondweed, its mouth hissed and spat as it struggled against Gwydion’s grip.

‘How dare you exact your revenges upon the innocent?’ the wizard demanded. ‘This obligation I lay upon you: get back into the slime where you belong and bother the sons of men no more!’

The creature’s long fingers grasped for Gwydion’s face. Their ends had suckers that tried to attach themselves to him, but the wizard held the hag away. For a moment it seemed that it would succeed in embracing him, but then he laid a mighty word on it, and it collapsed into the water and melted away.

Will was on his hands and knees coughing and spluttering. Every time he tried to draw breath, water vomited from his lungs and he began retching. Gwydion pushed him down and squeezed the water out of him and soon he was able to lie on his back and breathe freely again.

‘It was horrible,’ he said wildly. ‘Horrible! I thought it was a girl! I thought it was Willow!’

‘And what of your promise that you would not stray beyond the bounds of Wychwoode?’ Gwydion’s voice was soft but there was such a power of accusation contained there that Will shrank from it.

‘I didn’t mean to disobey! The forest got cut down and I sent word for Willow to come to the place we knew and then, and then—’

‘And then you fell neatly into a trap set for you by the marish hag! And I hoped you could be trusted.’

Will was shivering and could not stop. ‘What…what was it?’

‘A hag. A creature that preys on fools.’

He put a hand to his throat. ‘I almost drowned…’

‘Oh, you would not have drowned! You would have been kept happily alive for many days and weeks as part of the loathsome larder that all such water hags keep down below. And there all the juices would have been sucked from you one day at a time as you dreamed your death dream!’

Will wallowed in the mush of stinking, black ooze that had accompanied him out of the pond. ‘Master Gwydion, if you hadn’t come…’

‘You are lucky indeed that I have returned.’ The wizard looked down on him as if from a great height. ‘Augh! I cannot abide the stench of dirty magic.’

‘But how did you know where to find me?’

‘Do you remember your little friends the dragonflies? Your use of naming magic upon them drew me just as it drew the hag. You are fortunate it drew nothing worse, for you were lit up like a beacon!’

‘I didn’t mean to do wrong. I—’

‘You are no better than the child who delights in pulling the wings from butterflies. Cruelty is a grievous failing, Willand.’

Those words cut deep. ‘But I didn’t harm them.’

‘Of course you harmed them. And after all you were told. Who are you to entrap dragonflies and use them as you did? They are living creatures, with their own concerns and neither the time nor the strength to dance attendance on the will of a lad who merely wants to impress a pretty girl!’

‘I never thought of it that way.’

‘Indeed you did not!’

The wizard paced up and down the bank and Will looked away in shame. He saw his dragonflies lying exhausted on the surface, their tiny legs moving weakly. He had nearly killed them.

Gwydion reached down and lifted them from the water one by one and whispered words that unbound them, so they revived and flew away whole from the glow that was in his hands. When he had done with them he looked around, his face still grey with anger. ‘I hope you now have the strength to walk, for we must be gone from here.’ His anger blazed up. ‘Na duil! Look at the desecration they have wrought! They have hewn down an ancient and sacred grove. This is a high crime, the like of which we have not seen since Nis and Conat burned the groves of Mona!’ He turned suddenly. ‘And you! Where are your braids?’

‘I cut them off.’

‘Young savage!’

He was shivering, and now he began to babble. ‘When the hag came to me she was beautiful, Master Gwydion. She reminded me of the white lady. The one who stood by the bridge over the Evenlode when we first came into the Wychwoode. You know, the one I asked you about. Why was she weeping?’

Gwydion laid his hands on Will’s shoulders, his expression hard to fathom. ‘That is the innocent form of her apparition. She weeps for a lost love, for she was driven to madness by a jilting.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Do you not yet know? Did I not tell you that Lord Strange was once the handsomest of noblemen? Before he became a lord he was the younger son of a noble family that lived many leagues to the north, but being without title he greatly desired advancement. While travelling near Wychwoode he met a beautiful girl called Rowen who lived close by. She was a churl’s daughter, a commoner, but she loved John le Strange with all her heart, and she was happy when he promised her they would marry.’

‘Do you mean his wife? The lady who taught me to read and write?’

‘On the day that everyone expected John le Strange to marry Rowen, he announced that he would marry another. That other is the Lady Strange whom you know. Rowen fell prey to despondency. She allowed herself to sink into madness and wandered the Wychwoode, living in the wild for a year before committing herself to the Evenlode. Now she cannot bear to see others who are in love. It is her delight to lure hopeful young men down to their doom to make them pay for her suffering. And meanwhile Lord Strange’s foul betrayal left him open to the spell that holds him in its power. Now do you understand?’

Will nodded. He thought again of the figure in white weeds that he thought he had glimpsed floating in Grendon Pool. ‘Now I see why Lord Strange must wear his wedding ring through his nose. He is more cursed than ever I knew.’

‘Take this lesson from today – bitter grudges corrode the human spirit, while only forgiveness restores it. The same is true of painful memories.’

Will hurried after the wizard until they regained the forest. Had he been a dog, his tail would have been between his legs. He halted and saw how Gwydion drew apart and flushed the anger out of himself. The wizard became as still as stone before he gathered his powers. Then, holding out his hands in an attitude of appeal he focused a thousand brilliant points of light on himself and called forth a staggering thunderbolt.

It was bluer than the flash of a dragonfly, brighter than the noonday sun. It flashed forth with a bang and burst the dam asunder. Out of the brilliance, a cloud of steam boiled up into the air, and the pent-up waters were suddenly relieved. They raged out for a few moments in a dark flood, then the water was gone and all that remained of the pool was a foetid acre of mud in which ooze-worms wriggled and thrashed.

Will followed, both comforted and cowed by the wizard’s overawing presence. He was unwilling to break the silence and was still shocked at what had happened. When he closed his eyes he could see crimson spots that the flash had made. A dozen men could not have dug a hole that big in half a day – it was easy to respect such power, and hard not to fear it.

At the tower moat they were met by a guard of alert soldiers. Some of them started in surprise when they recognized Will’s companion. They drew weapons, fearing what they called sorcery. No doubt they had heard the thunderbolt, but Gwydion offered only the same words of greeting he had spoken last time he arrived at their lord’s tower. But there was no need for the guard to seek permission to admit them, for both Lord Strange and his lady came to the gate.

Will felt wretched. What on earth had made him cut off his braids? He stood before the severe lord and his retinue, his clothes mud-soaked and his face blotched and bloodied. He had proved himself an oathbreaker and a fool, but at least no one was taking any interest in him. All eyes were upon Gwydion.

‘You are welcome, Crowmaster,’ Lord Strange said stiffly as he halted.

‘Welcome?’ Gwydion laid aside all niceties: ‘I am unable to forgive you for what you have allowed here, John le Strange. There is a madness abroad in the Realm. But what madness is it that allows the ruining of an ancient grove while the Lord Warden of Wychwoode sits in his tower, turning a blind eye to all that passes?’

Lord Strange’s fearsome face was set, his small, pale eyes unblinking. ‘Madness, you say?’ he grunted. ‘You may count the felling of Grendon Copse a grievous loss, Crowmaster, but it means little to me, for I am unlearned in the matter of trees. I was placed here merely for the sake of the king’s convenience, and as you must know – I cannot tell a sacred grove from any other kind.’

‘Have you learned so little from your misfortune? Even a fool would know that he had no business allowing the cutting of any of the oaks of Wychwoode. You are making preparations for war.’

Will saw a sneer playing at the corners of Lord Strange’s mouth. ‘Preparations for war I do not deny. But your memory fails you, Crowmaster, for it was you who brought warning of strife to me. Is it not prudent to stand ready for the blow which you say is coming?’

Gwydion shook his staff and banged its haft into the ground. ‘John le Strange! I have known you since you were a babe in arms. Once I had great hopes of you and your line, but you have failed me. That foul mill was stamping out swords long before any news of war was brought here by me. Why have you ignored your duty when the king himself set you to command watch and ward over this ancient wood?’

‘I did not ignore my duty,’ Lord Strange’s snout jutted. He put his hand to his monstrous face as if some part of him wanted to preserve the secret still. Then he wiped the foam from his lips then said in a voice that was barely audible, ‘for it was the king himself who ordered Grendon Mill to be built.’

It seemed to Will that, behind his solemnity, Lord Strange was laughing. He looked to Gwydion with alarm. The wizard was barely in control of his displeasure as he said, ‘I thank you for that morsel of courage at least, but it would have been better for you had you found your tongue sooner, for now you have presided over the murder of the living heart of Wychwoode. This forest is doomed to fail and never again to be as it was. But know this, John le Strange, the circle of fate turns ever upon itself. By your cowardice and negligence you have tainted yourself. Because of this your blood shall fail as the forest green fails. Your firstborn shall be a girlchild, and all who follow shall be girlchildren likewise. Unless you purify your heart of greed and ambition, you will have no son, and your title and worldly wealth will pass to the son of another. I bid you think on that in my absence.’