Читать книгу Whitemantle - Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Robert Carter - Страница 9

As they rode south, shadowing the last league of the Great North Road, they crested a heath dotted with elm trees and Trinovant began to rise up out of the afternoon haze. Will saw the dark needle of the Spire, which rose up like a crack in the sky, and the blue-grey sprawl that lay below it, sunk in summer haze.

‘The Spire contains the shrine of Ercowald,’ Gwydion said, ‘to which many pilgrims make journeys on the days when its precincts are thrown open to the ill and the dying, the lovelorn and despairing. They are given to wash in the troughs that surround the building, and perhaps make bargains of the heart with the hidden agents who speak to them persuasively from behind the iron grilles. Pilgrims come here even in freezing weather, when the ice on the troughs must be broken. On two great days in November and February there is a special ‘Day of Whipping’ in which the most committed of the Fellows go in procession through the City, beating themselves with scourges, for these are the ones that are mad beyond repair and have come to revere, and even to love, the suffering of their own flesh.’

Will felt a shiver of revulsion go through him. He looked to his wife and daughter, anxious now about the ordeal that was soon to come. It was said that at each of the City’s seven great gates there was kept a pair of dragonets, silvery wyrms whose task it was to guard the capital. Gwydion said that in olden times they had been bred to smell out treachery, and would pick clean the ribs of anyone whom they thought unworthy to enter.

Gwydion had spoken many times of the great city of Trinovant. Often he had likened its size and power to that of Tibor, the Slaver capital of old.

‘Over the centuries this place has grown into a vast, walled capital, a city of spires and towers and palaces, of the Guild Hall and the White Tower and Corfe Gate. A sprawling, rollicking morass of people live here, huddling inside for warmth in the cold midwinter, sweltering in the sweats of high summer. It is a city of high and low, from the bright, castellated battlements of royal palaces to the crowded hovels of the poor. It is quite unlike anywhere else.’

Now, as the shadows of the elms stretched more and more, the wizard turned, pointing ahead. ‘And do you see the white heart weather vanes of the Sightless Ones? Look how they rise above the walls. Those walls that will soon pass on our right are not the walls of the City, but those of the House of Silence. Beyond it lies the College of Benedix and the glass-makers’ yards, which is another rich establishment of the Fellows…’

Will listened as Gwydion pointed out the various marvels that were to be seen as they approached the City wall proper. So much of Trinovant seemed to have burst out and overspilled into the land beyond. But these unprotected buildings were not all mean houses and trade stalls as he had thought. His eye passed along many a row of tall merchants’ houses, some of three and even four floors built right on top of each other. In the street there were all manner of people – such a flow of traffic coming in and out of the City that Will could hardly believe there was not some special reason for it.

As they came past the great chapter house to their right, Will got his first sight of Eldersgate. It was like the gate of a great castle, all decorated with the rough likenesses of several great wyrms – the five great dragons of Umberland, Gwydion said. Their heads snarled down at them stonily.

‘What you will never see of this city are the cellars down below,’ Gwydion told them. ‘The whole place is greatly undermined. There are the secret passageways of the Guilds and many a sunless dungeon that lies beneath every lordly mansion flanking the river. There are tunnels too, linking together the many places of secret power – places like Bayard’s Castle and the Fitchet’s Den. The lords dwell there and the streets around them are wide and throng with sellers of costly wares. You will see, but first we shall pass by more humble ways, for we must go by Fish Street, Salters Ride and the Cloth Market, and so by unstraight ways to our destination, for today I must speak with Magog and Gogmagog.’

‘Magog and Gogmagog…’ Willow mused. ‘Weren’t those two the last of the giants? The ones that were put to flight by King Brea in the olden days?’

‘Put to flight? Not at all. Do you not know your own history? They were taken captive by Brea. Chained by him, then brought to his oaken palace, which was from that time onward called the White Hall.’

Will said, remembering his lordly schooling, ‘I was told by Tutor Aspall that Magog and Gogmagog were sent to the White Hall to do service as porters. Perhaps they serve King Hal still, for I don’t know how long giants live.’

Gwydion grunted. ‘Long, but not that long. Today’s Magog and Gogmagog are not the same as those giants of yore, yet they serve the present king after their own fashion, for today they are two great statues which stand in niches on each side of the throne. They look down upon the king’s proceedings and call out to give warning whenever his throne is in danger.’

‘They must be crying themselves hoarse at present,’ Will muttered.

‘And so it may be for the next few months, unless I am allowed to set to work to prevent the catastrophe.’

‘What will you do?’ Willow asked.

‘Do? I must do many things. But first there is a far greater work of un-doing. As I have already told you, I must pull down the grey skeins of sorcery that festoon the White Hall. Maskull has dwelt here for many a month, and in that time he has crept over every wall and tower like a longlegged spider, spinning webs of deceit about the royal house. Those spells must be swept away before the king and his captor come to town. I must find the workshop of Maskull’s wickedness.’ He sighed and glanced to his left. ‘What say we slake our thirsts at The Bell Without?’

‘Bell without what?’ Willow asked.

‘Without its clapper, I guess,’ Will said. ‘The Fellows of the Charterhouse yonder are of the White Order, and they keep a ritual of silence.’

‘A creditable surmise, but you guess wrongly. The inn is called The Bell Without, because it is without the walls. There is another alehouse inside the City called The Bell Within.’

Will smiled at that. ‘They seem to like their drink here. That’s a good sign, at least, for those who can drink and be merry are good men indeed!’

He was pleased they were taking a rest, for his throat was dry. As he dismounted and looked around the inn yard his thoughts lingered on the captive King Hal. The queen had wrought her easy-melting king like wax, but since the fight at Delamprey, she and her allies had fled into the north to find succour and no doubt try to regroup their forces. The captured king had been invited to ride in Duke Richard’s company. The plain truth was that the king was now as much in the duke’s power as he had once been in his wife’s.

‘What do you think Duke Richard intends?’ Will asked as they sat down. ‘Do you think he’ll play fair, or does he mean to keep the king under his thumb?’

The wizard drew a deep breath. ‘That is a most pertinent question. In truth, I am no longer able to read Friend Richard’s heart in matters of state. As for Hal, he wants little more than to be allowed to return to a scholarly cell and to peruse the parchments and papers that are his delight. But still he knows he is the king, and he may not prove as pliable to Friend Richard’s plan as the latter might wish.’

Willow frowned. ‘Do you remember what Mother Brig once told Duke Richard at the Ewle revel at Ludford all those years ago? She warned him that he’d die if ever he dared lay his hand upon the enchanted chair. Could she have meant the throne of the Realm do you think?’

The wizard became circumspect. ‘We all die – eventually.’

‘But she said more than that,’ Willow insisted. ‘She said that Duke Richard would die in his first fight after he touched the chair.’

‘You have a surpassing excellent memory, my dear.’

‘It was a surpassing memorable night, Master Gwydion. But tell us – did Mother Brig really mean the throne of the Realm? And is what she foretells bound to come to pass?’

Gwydion looked down the passageway towards the stables. ‘Brighid makes many a claim regarding future happenings. Some are important, while others are not. It is the way with seers.’

‘But all she says does come to pass, one way or another,’ Will said, not letting Gwydion off the hook. ‘I believe she swore a destiny upon the duke.’

But the wizard was not to be drawn further on the matter of great prophecies. Instead he said, ‘You know, one thing has already come to pass as you foretold – Duke Richard has given the Delamprey battlestone to Edward.’

‘A gift of thanks to recognize his victory, I suppose.’

‘Indeed.’

Since the fight, the battlestone had shrunk down twice. The first time was just after pouring forth its stream of malice, when it had transformed itself into a nondescript plinth of brown ironstone incised with words that even Gwydion could not read. Later it had shrunk again, once Will had used the remaining powers of the stump to burn away the manacles from Gwydion’s wrists. That time, it had been as if the very substance of the stone had collapsed, and it had faded to grey.

‘What can Edward want with it, I wonder?’ Gwydion mused.

Willow said, ‘I suppose he’s fetching it to Trinovant in hopes that it’ll be a touchstone to his ambitions. But isn’t it now drained of the power even to confer boons?’

Will nodded. ‘If I know Edward, he’ll delight in it mostly because his father has given it to him. He’ll value it because his father values the stumps of Blow Heath and Ludford, and he’ll tell himself it has virtues even when it does not.’

‘In that, then, he will be like most men,’ Gwydion said regretfully.

‘But aren’t you going to claim it from him, Master Gwydion?’ Willow asked.

The wizard shrugged. ‘I might have to.’ Then he took a draught of ale.

‘Have you had any fresh thoughts on the inscription?’ Will asked. ‘Or are you still, ah – stumped?’

Gwydion raised an eyebrow. ‘If that was meant to be a joke it was not very funny. But since you ask, I am no further forward. The verse is not written in any tongue that I have ever met with.’

‘At Delamprey you said that that was Maskull’s doing.’

‘It is one of his nasty little snares. His arrogance shines through in all that he attempts.’

‘And he knows you well enough to be able to pose a problem that you cannot solve,’ Will said. ‘But that in itself could be a clue, don’t you think?’

The wizard gave him a look that told Will it was a mistake to teach grandmothers to suck eggs. ‘Maskull has done enough dirty work – I could not read the marks I found in the stone.’

‘Well perhaps it’s only the script that’s unknown to you,’ Will said, hoping his optimism would infect the wizard. ‘The language itself may be one that you know.’

Gwydion stroked his beard. ‘True. It might only be a cipher that I have to crack…’ He fell silent, but it was a silence unlike the dark ones that had overtaken him lately.

Willow had taken out a heavy bronze coin and she had begun spinning it on the table top. Will watched it whirl faster and faster as it settled down. He picked the coin up and spun it again, fascinated for the moment by its odd behaviour, at the rising sound it made before it came to a sudden dead stop. Is that what’s happening to us, to the war? he thought oddly. Getting faster and faster until suddenly everything stops on doomsday?

Knives and trenchers were laid before them, and with more ale came pie and cheese and warm bread. As they ate and drank, they talked of lesser matters, and when Willow excused herself and Bethe briefly from their company, Will took the opportunity to ask a rather more pressing question.

‘Chlu’s true name, Master Gwydion – pronounce it again for me.’

Gwydion flashed a glance at Willow’s departing figure. ‘And give you a knife to fall on?’

‘I think I must have that knife, whether it is safe or not.’

‘Very well then – Llyw.’

‘Thloo.’

‘That will not do at all. It is a difficult sound for those unused to the language of Cambray. But see – put the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth as if you are making a luh sound, then breath past it.’

‘Dzzllll…’

‘Do not voice the sound! Just breathe.’

‘Shlllew.’

‘Almost. Again.’

‘Llyw.’

The wizard smiled. ‘You see? The rede is correct: practice does make perfect. But take care how you use your new-found knowledge, for there is danger in it.’

By now Willow was coming back, so they made ready to go. Gwydion steered them away from the stables, out of the inn and then onto the high road, saying that he had arranged for their horses to be left at The Bell Without and now they must walk.

They had almost reached the moated bastions that flanked the triple arch of Eldersgate. The soaring stone structure, deftly wrought and set with dragons, seemed dour and unwelcoming. A group of travellers waited gloomily beside a barrier.

Will waved a hand in front of his face as he caught his first clue that this was no ordinary gateway – the smell took him back to the wyvern’s cage he had seen at Aston Oddingley. He now understood why Gwydion had left their horses at the inn. All travellers wishing to enter the City were made to dismount fifty paces before the Eldersgate. Stolid Midshires cart horses stamped their shaggy hooves as they approached the drawbridge. Even brave warhorses were unharnessed and led aside to be specially blinkered and let in by a side arch so they would catch no sight of the dragonets.

Will saw that this brought good trade to the gate-keepers and porters who dealt with the animals or worked in gangs to pull carts and wains in through the main arch. It gave them the opportunity to charge twopence a time for their labours, and Will smelled more than the stink of wyrm about it.

Once they were nodded through the barrier he glimpsed the two dragonets that were chained inside the middle arch. They were not great dragons, being only about the size of bulls, yet they seemed to be more dangerous than lions. They were flighdess wyrms, specially bred to their task, small-winged but powerfully clawed, with barbed tails and flickering red forked tongues. Their hides shone like quicksilver as the muscles beneath rippled. They snarled and trod back and forth fearsomely.

Willow clutched Bethe to her as she approached the gate. Gwydion walked beside her. ‘It is best not to look the wyrms in the eye,’ he said. ‘Such beasts as these have attended the gates since the time of King Ludd. They are supposed to safeguard the City against the entry of people of ill purpose, for it is said they can smell guilt in the sweat of a man like dogs can smell fear. But over the centuries their keepers have fallen into sorry disrepute. For a silver coin they will give an easy passage to any wayfarer who happens to rouse the guardian beasts to wrath – which you will see happens most often whenever a wealthy person arrives. Do you see that merchant in the blue hat? Watch how they winch the chains back so there is a wider way for him to pass. They drive the animals back with those white shields quartered in red.’

The keepers set up a loud banging on their shields, hitting them with red-painted truncheons shaped like short swords until the dragonets turned their heads aside.

‘The keepers seem careless of the danger,’ Willow said.

Gwydion surveyed the goings on in the gatehouse. ‘The colour red and the number four are held to be worrisome to the beasts. They are said to shy away from the good-hearted, but it is just the loud noise and how these rogues have trained them, for they are also the ones who give them their feed.’

Then, all of a sudden, Gwydion cast up the wing of his travelling cloak and ushered Willow and Bethe past the beasts. The nearer of the two dragonets was momentarily quieted, and Will saw in his black eyes a spirit more touched by sadness than rage. On an impulse, he put out his hand to the creature and felt its moist red tongue flicker with interest over his palm.

‘It wants for salt,’ he said, pitying it its life trapped in this acrid stall. ‘And it wishes for a run in the fields.’

‘Get on by!’ one of the keepers shouted. ‘No lingering! No loitering!’ He shoved Will through the door and spat insultingly when he saw he was not going to be offered any coin for his assistance.

‘Beggars coming through!’ the head keeper shouted. ‘Get you gone out of the City quickly again. We already have too much vagrancy here!’

‘And too little respect!’ Gwydion told him. ‘This outrageous preying upon travellers goes too far. I shall speak to the king about it!’

But seeing no staff in his hand, the keeper said, ‘Oh, my lord, so sorry! Come here and I’ll give you a kick, and you can pass that on with my compliments to his grace the king when next you see him!’ And he laughed them away with the usual welcome he kept for customers who made no donation.

‘Is everyone so rude and ruffianly here?’ Willow asked.

‘It is a game they play hereabouts.’ Gwydion gestured up at the tall dwellings that made a deep gorge of the street. ‘And is it any wonder they keep rough manners, when they must live piled one atop the other like bees in a hive? The lives of too many here are ruled by greed and false ideas about the getting of gold. You will soon see how it is.’

He hurried them on until they had passed inside the gates, and Will began to savour the curious character of the City. He reacted to it with an odd mixture of disgust and delight. The place was filled with people, yet it seemed dirty and dangerous. There seemed to be countless shining possibilities to be found at every turn, but no easy way for him to get at those possibilities without a purse full of silver. The great heap of buildings stretched as far as his eye could see in every direction. There were throngs of people, but not a tree or any splash of green. A tumbled roofscape blocked the view of the River Thamesis, which Gwydion said was also called Iesis. There was one landmark that could be plainly seen – a huge black steeple of sinister aspect that rose high above more humble rooftops and made Will’s spirits dip. The sight of the great Black Spire of Trinovant struck him with an immovable dread.

Gwydion followed his gaze. ‘No taller tower was ever made in the Realm. It stands six-score times the height of a man, and is guarded by special Fellows who dress in robes of grey and yellow. They are called Vigilants. You will see them, for we must go by that place. But first, we must go another way – not a pleasant way, for it is now the junction of two vile sewers. I knew them long ago as pretty brooks lined with willow trees. The Wall Brook drains the Moor Field. It meets with the Lang Bourne, and goes thence down into the Iesis and so carries with it all the refuse and offal and filth that the population of a city such as this cares to throw into it.’

As they walked on through the hot, close afternoon Gwydion remarked on the uneven and filthy state of the streets. ‘But you will see little of this unpleasantness about the mansions of the wealthy, for those whose task it should be to care for the City even-handedly have long since given themselves over to the far more agreeable business of supping at lordly tables, or else wrangling with one another for the privilege of doing so.’

‘I can see how the lords and those who serve them might live well here. But what of the rest? How do the poor live?’

‘As the poor always live. But here there is also a middle ground – every trade still has its guild, though their power is not as it was, and whenever things become too oppressive a great mob takes to the streets and there is a riot. Burning and looting happens more often than you might imagine. Why do you think there are no thatched roofs allowed here in Trinovant?’

Will was almost sorry he had asked. As they got deeper into the commercial heart of the City, the streets began to teem. He saw great flocks of sheep in the road, and stockmen herding cattle to the pens that stood near the shambles. He followed on in silence, watching as Gwydion stopped here and there at corners to search out strange marks that had been left chalked on posts or scratched into beams. They seemed to guide him like secret clues. Often he tasted the air for spell-working tell-tales and magical resonances. And when he found them he quietly danced, undoing the dismal tokens of bone and blood that his rival had hidden in so many nooks about the City.

‘They do much mischief,’ Gwydion said, holding up his latest find. It was a severed finger and a cockerel’s claw that had been bound together with a silken thread and put high up on a ledge. ‘This and others like it overlook many of the City’s crossroads. They power the spells that Maskull has trussed about the commerce of the streets. Six or seven of them will have to be rooted out if the stock market here is to flourish again!’

A pack of Fellows watched from a little way off. They slunk away from the wizard’s eye as he turned to face them, then dissolved among the crowds. Will was amazed to see so many Sightless Ones walking openly and almost at liberty within the City. They were always in groups of at least three, sometimes led by a sighted guide. Fellows from different chapter houses dressed in different coloured robes, and there seemed to be a certain coolness, or perhaps even rivalry, between them. Will was reminded that although called ‘Sightless Ones’, they possessed a strange, groping sense that served in place of vision, and the more he walked the City streets, the more he began to fear there were those among them who had already identified him as the defiler of Verlamion and were passing the news to a higher authority.

‘Come!’ Gwydion whispered sharply. ‘You do right to beware the Sightless Ones, Willand, for they do not forgive and they are surely hunting for you. But do not gawp so plainly at them. See how they tilt their heads at you! Mind you do not give your thoughts away so easily.’

Will did as he was told and guarded his face as the wizard took them past narrow alleys that stank ripely in the heat. There were many beggars and peddlers and barrow-men here. Gwydion said they would do well to get quickly across the Wartling, the main Slaver road that cut diagonally through the City. They passed down thronging lanes, and in time came to another market. There was much that Will had never seen before, and more for which he saw no good reason. The street sellers offered too many wares that were unneedful – dubious foods, badly made flutes, sweetmeats, vain hats, posies of wilting flowers, false charms, and little songbirds confined in tiny cages, too distraught to do anything but hop back and forth and chirrup warnings to one another.

Nor could Will’s own talent find silent rest. Threat and malign intent bubbled among the press of bodies, and there was such a cacophony of human weakness in the air that it pained him to feel it all. He was relieved when the wizard steered him away from the Cheap and down a lane towards the wide river where the brown-grey waters sparkled in the sun. Ships from beyond the seas rode at anchor, loading and unloading their cargoes at Queenhythe. There were the smells of faraway places here – salt and spice and spiritous liquors. Oddly, it made him feel homesick, though he could not say why.

‘In the days of the First Men a great burgh stood here,’ Gwydion told them. ‘It was known as Ludnaborg by the seafarers, and was the greatest and most famous of all the burghs in the Land of Albion. Then came the Desolation, when giants and dragons ruled here, but afterwards came Brea, out of a far land. A descendant of Abaris and son of Frey, he built the Wooden City after the style of Trihan, which was the place of his birth. And he called it “New Trihan” or in his own speech “Trinh Niobhan” and that was eleven hundred years before the founding of the Fellowship of the Sightless Ones.’

Will looked up at the unfinished buildings, and at the men who climbed over them like squirrels. New warehouses were being thrust ever higher, packed tight against one another. ‘When will this city be finished?’ he asked.

‘Finished?’ Gwydion laughed. ‘Never! Here they do not think about reaching perfection, only of staggering greedily onward, for in this city bigger is always held to be better, despite what the redes have to say on the topic.’

Will could not but marvel at the monstrous bridge of twenty-one piers that had been flung across the Iesis. A traffic of small boats and wherries shot under it where the water flowed rapidly in shadow, while above many houses stood crowded upon the span. There were fortified gates at each end that could be closed to prevent entry into the City, though Gwydion spoke of the many times that the bridge gates had been forced, such as when Jack the Carter had led fifty thousand Kennetmen in revolt against the king and then given the order to kill all the lawyers.

‘Not all revolts are to be discouraged, then,’ Willow said wryly.

And Gwydion laughed. ‘Sometimes a good bonfire serves to cleanse the body politic.’

Beyond the bridge to the east a great castle brooded on the northern shore, revealed now by the sweep of the river. Soaring lime-white walls stood out bold and square above the waters, and Will knew that this must be the White Tower, the main fortress which the Conqueror had built to control the City almost four hundred years before.

A strange feeling began to course through Will’s body, making him feel faint.

‘Will you take us to Tower Hill?’ he asked, pointing to the great keep.

Gwydion’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Do you think I should?’

‘I…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘We cannot go there, for the White Tower remains under siege both by land and by water.’

‘Under siege?’ Willow said, surprised. ‘Who’s attacking it?’

‘Men wearing the Earl of Sarum’s livery. A body of them stayed while the rest of his host marched north to Delamprey. Friend Sarum has begun calling himself the military governor of Trinovant if you please!’

Willow sniffed. ‘But I thought Duke Richard’s allies were welcomed into the City by the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen.’

‘They were. And the White Tower was the bolt-hole into which all the king’s supporters jumped for safety. They’re still there and dare not come out.’

‘They’ll have to when the king himself orders it.’ Willow resettled Bethe on her hip. ‘Don’t they know that he’s coming here?’

Gwydion offered a vinegary smile. ‘I expect they do. My own best guess is that Richard and Hal will arrive in three days’ time, which is why I must get on with my work—’

‘What does the mystical head of Bran say about the matter?’ Will asked suddenly.

The question came out of the blue. Gwydion halted and squinted at Will. ‘Again?’

‘I asked you about Bran, Master Merlyn!’ Will’s voice was deep and otherworldly. ‘Or does his head lie elsewhere these days?’

Gwydion continued to look hard at Will as he made his reply. ‘Bran’s head remains buried within the grounds of the White Tower. It is still attended by thirteen ravens, just as I promised you, Sire.’

Will, pale-faced and uncertain now, put a hand to his head. ‘I…I don’t feel…’

And it seemed suddenly that he was falling.

When he opened his eyes again he found it hard to breathe. He struggled, but quickly realized that Willow was holding a cloth to his nose, which was bleeding.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You banged your head.’

‘I must have…fainted.’

‘What do you remember about Bran?’ Gwydion asked as Will stood up.

‘Who?’

‘Bran. He was the twenty-eighth king of the blood of Brea, a great king who with his brother, Beli, took armies across the Narrow Seas and led them against the rising power of sorcery in the East. The brothers sacked the great city of Tibor, and later Bran took his men under the earth. That was the last time any mortal king ever attempted to journey into the Realm Below. It is a place from which few have ever returned. The feat was achieved only once – by a far greater adventurer than King Bran. That man’s name was—’

‘Arthur…’

‘Indeed. Arthur.’

Will felt as if he had been reminded of things that he had once known but had later forgotten. ‘Bran’s name signifies “raven”. He was…the son of Dunval the Lawmaker…who was himself the first king to wear a golden diadem as the sign of kingship in these Isles. Dunval’s two sons were Beli and Bran, and his daughter was Branwen the Fair. And Bran married the daughter of Isinglas – but I can’t recall her name.’

‘Esmer.’

‘Yes! Esmer. Esmer…’ Will looked up. ‘Gwydion, did I know these folk in my former life?’

Gwydion laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You did not. They lived in a time that lay between your first and second comings. Perhaps you know their names for another reason – for they are part of the histories that I taught to young Wart.’

Will closed his eyes, and put his face in his hands for a moment. When he took them away again he began to sing.

‘Then made Great Dunval his sacred laws,

Which some men say

Were unto him revealed in vision—’

He paused. ‘But why should I bring King Bran to mind now, Master Gwydion? Of all the histories you must have taught me in a previous life, why this one?’

‘I cannot say for certain. Do you not remember what happened at Bran’s last battle at Gerlshome when he was wounded by a poisoned spear? That wound caused him such great agony that his head was cut off by his brother as an act of mercy. Bran’s bodyguards bore his head to the White Tower, and all the way it spoke to them, telling where it must be buried—’

‘It was to protect the Realm against invasion,’ Will continued. ‘The head was set to face the Narrow Seas. But after many years Great Arthur dug it up again, so that he would henceforth be the sole guardian of the Realm.’

Gwydion nodded. ‘I found the head shut up in a golden box after Arthur’s death. It was I who re-interred it at a place then called the White Mound. Oh, the head was quite clear about where it wanted to rest, and enough of its protective power lingered on for the Conqueror to fear it considerably five hundred years after. He built the White Tower over the very place where I buried it.’

Will looked suddenly to the wizard. ‘Gwydion, the White Tower lies upon a lign! I’ll wager my life on it. Bran’s head became a part of the lorc! That’s how it spoke to Arthur during his second coming.’

‘Well, we cannot go to the White Tower now. Nor can we go across the river. Over the bridge lies the Cittie Bastion of Warke. There the Grand High Warden, Isnar, keeps his winter hearth. It is a main counting house wherein the Elders of the Fellowship keep a great stock of gold. They have many rituals concerning the accounting of it. Come along, Will – a thousand hollow eyes stare out from that place. It is best not to spend too long looking back at it, for its golden glimmer ensnares many.’

But Will did not take his gaze away from those blank walls across the water until the morbid feelings that emanated from the place made him turn about – and then he saw the Spire again. Its gigantic presence shocked him now. It seemed to have followed him and grown huger in the hazy sky. Its dark surface was a mass of strange ornament, pillared and fluted, with arches and niches and buttresses and every kind of conceit carved in stone.

The whole weight of it seemed to be falling upon him, and as he looked away he thought that the character of the City had changed. Hereabouts the streets were narrower, and the aspect of the ground felt dull and blighted. They were now so close to the Spire that he could see dark motes in the air, circling its top. Ill-begotten things were fighting and disputing, or so it seemed, about some high platform.

‘Birds?’ Willow said, following his gaze.

‘They are not birds,’ Gwydion muttered darkly. ‘Do you not realize the size of them? They are bone demons, come to feed on human remains.’

‘Bone demons?’

‘Ugh!’ Will grimaced. ‘You mean, there are dead bodies left up there? Exposed?’

‘They call it the Bier of Eternity. When a High Warden dies, his remains are not hidden within a chapter house like those of lesser Fellows.’

‘That’s horrible.’

Gwydion’s grunt was dismissive. ‘The Sightless Ones make singular claims about what happens when a man ends his days, dangerous claims that play upon the weakness of fear, and one form in particular: the fear of death. They intensify it greatly, for they know that in the end they can make a profit from it. What do you think they sell to make such stores of gold? Have I not already told you what is meant by the Great Lie?’

Will did not care to hear more. He fell back and walked a pace or two behind his wife, watching to see that nothing unpleasant happened. She would not let go of Bethe for a moment, nor did she pay any heed to the ragged men who reached out to tug at the hems of her skirts. Yet Will did pause, touched, despite his fears, to see a press of beggars crowding expectantly on the other side of a barred portal. It was the begging hole of a hospice or lazar house, one of the morbid lodgings that Gwydion had once mentioned. The Sightless Ones maintained such houses to draw in the sick, though those who were admitted were expected to feed themselves by imploring passers-by to give them alms. Deformed men whose auras burned dim thrust hands and stumps up through the bars, crying pitifully. Skull-like faces pressed together into the light and the stench of unwashed bodies gusted from the hole. The spectacle was horrifying and made Will take a step back. But he could not look away. The beggar who most caught Will’s eye was heavily mantled in grey. A deep hood hid his face, but it did little to disguise him.

Suddenly, Will’s belly clenched – his feelings flashed dangerously, and he thought of Chlu – but it was not Chlu. Chlu could not be here, surely, for the queen and Maskull had gone into the north and the Dark Child must have gone with them…

Will continued to stare at the beggar, unsure why he had been so affected by him. What had marked him out, packed as he was among so many other beggars? He was certainly large. Will looked at his outstretched forearm. It was solidly muscular, though his hand was swathed in filthy rags. He seemed troubled, and, for all his strength, less adept at beggary than the rest, though hardly a man on the point of losing his will to live.

Will understood from the way the beggar inclined his head as he thrust his bowl through the iron bars that he was blind. Then with a shock he realized that the rags the man wore were the tattered remains of a Fellow’s garb. He was no beggar, but their warder…

Will recoiled, but then he steadied himself and some strange impulse of charity came over him, for this man, though he was a Fellow, seemed somehow more needy even than the beggars who surrounded him.

When Will brought out an apple from his pack it was quickly seized and josded away before the Fellow could take it, so he brought out another and deliberately guided the man’s bandaged hand to it. This time it was taken and Will turned away, driven back in part by the foul stink of the place.

‘Why did you do that?’ Gwydion asked as Will caught them up.

‘Even their warden was hungry. He was begging too. Don’t they feed their own inside the Fellowship in Trinovant?’

Gwydion brushed the matter off. ‘They are drinkers of blood. Why did you give him an apple?’

‘Because he wanted it. And because giving is getting.’ Will’s solemnity melted away and he smiled. ‘That’s something I once learned from feeding ducks.’

When they came to the end of the street the way opened out into a space dominated by the massive structure of the Spire. The foundation storeys and the monument that stood opposite its entrance were wholly faced in black stone. The Spire itself was railed off and the area around it paved in a complicated pattern of black and white stone across which Fellows in yellow garb patrolled. Surrounding the Spire beyond the spiked rail was what looked at first like a market, but Will soon saw there were no buyers at these craftsmen’s stalls. Each booth had its own canvas awning. Each was occupied by a different kind of worker. There were butchers and bakers, metalsmiths and wood-turners, coiners and token-makers, bodgers and cobblers, tinkers and money-changers. Smoke was rising from many of the stalls, and there was the smell of charcoal and the ringing of hammers upon anvils.

‘See how the Fellowship draws in so many of the useful trades and binds folk unto itself,’ Gwydion said. ‘But these craftsmen are not serving the commerce of the City. None of what they make is used beyond the Fellowship.’

‘Then, is the rest of it set in store?’ Will asked, seeing the quantity of goods that was made here.

The wizard grunted. ‘That question shows that you little appreciate the scale of wealth that the Fellowship commands. What you see here is power, for through it the Grand High Warden exercises a torturesome control.’

Will frowned. ‘Torturesome, you say?’

‘Surely. For on the other side of the Spire is a yard such as this, except that there the artisans’ business is the breaking apart of whatever is made on this side.’

Will balked. ‘What on earth is the point of that?’

‘By this means Grand High Warden Isnar regulates every key trade in the City. He can quickly destroy any cooper or candle-maker or any other producer of wares who dares to displease him. He has succeeded in strangling this city and many another, for what could be more torturesome to a man than the prospect of having his livelihood taken away?’

‘But what about the famous Trinovant Guilds?’ Willow asked. ‘The mercers and drapers? The grocers and vintners and ironmongers and all the rest? Don’t they fight back?’

‘They cannot. Their power is now all but broken by the Fellowship.’

As they drew closer to the Spire grounds, Will saw rows of money-changers’ booths and beyond them the block-like monument. Such an edifice stood outside every Chapter House, no matter how small, but no other in the land was like this. It was as big as a house, and its top was decked with statues of monstrous animals and its sides cut with mottoes in the Tiborean tongue. The words were mostly obscured by spills of wax from ten thousand red candles that forever burned among the bronze or basalt legs of the beasts, but the letters were carved deeply and Will made out the legend.