Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy Page 6

“Yes,” said Robin warily. She was not entirely sure who she was talking to now, whether it be the priest or the one he served. She could feel the sudden attention of the oaks in the forest. They would not bend themselves to listen to a mortal. But it was not safe to seek the Allfather’s favour. He was a god who loved battle and dissent, and delighted in sudden treachery.

  “Your servants would try to prevent you going to Winchester,” said the priest. “But they will sleep here till the dawn, and by then you will be at the gates of Winchester, with your black arrow.”

  “I do not want your aid, whoever or whatever you are,” snapped Robin. “Wake my men!”

  “I only wish to be of service,” wheedled the priest. “Duke William is a powerful adversary. How will you strike at him, without more powerful allies?”

  “I asked only for what any kin may ask of any priest, to sing my sister’s death,” said Robin. “I will take nothing else, and owe no debt. Wake my men!”

  “Very well,” said the priest. “I will wake them.”

  He snatched up the ox-horn and blew it mightily, its peal echoing out across the forest. It was answered not just by Jack and Doublejack’s sudden, surprised oaths, but by many voices on the forest path below, accompanied by the jangle of arms, armour, and harness.

  Robin looked down and saw a column of men-at-arms stretching back along the path, their helmets glinting in the moonlight. They were leading their horses and there were at least two score of them, perhaps more.

  When Robin turned back, the priest was gone, as were horn, cup, and oat-cake. Shouts from below showed that she had been seen. Within a few seconds there would be Norman men-at-arms charging up the steps.

  “Into the cave, Highness!” exclaimed Jack. He pushed Robin out of the moonlight, into the dark entrance. “You must escape!”

  Robin knew there was a wide, natural chimney at the rear of the cave, but she couldn’t see it, and she didn’t even try to find it. Instead, she turned back towards Jack and Doublejack. Two silhouettes, etched in moonlight, standing in the cave entrance with drawn swords. From beyond them came the crash of soldiers charging up the steps, and sudden war-cries that echoed and danced around the cave.

  “Go!” shouted Jack. He didn’t turn around. A moment later, he and Doublejack were beset by three men-at-arms, all that could attack the cave-mouth at one time. But many more waited their turn on the steps or the forest-floor below.

  Robin tried to think of some magic she could do, something that might hold the soldiers off long enough for Jack and Doublejack to disengage. But no Inglish spell came to mind, not one that would work in a cold stone cave. And she had none of the apparatus or the prepared objects that would let her work any serious Norman magic.

  But she had her sword. She ran forward and, crouching between her two housecarls, stabbed out at the knee of one of the attacking men-at-arms. Her thrust struck home, sliding under the skirts of the man’s mail byrnie. He stumbled back, teetered on the edge of the cave’s natural porch, was helped along by a sword-thrust from Jack, and fell over the edge.

  One of the other men-at-arms was already dead on the ground. The third backed towards the steps. A commanding voice from the forest-floor below bellowed out, “Bring up the archers!”

  “Take the Princess and flee!” ordered Jack to his brother. Doublejack shook his head. It started as a human head-shake but ended up as a dog’s. His shredded clothes and basket fell to the ground and a huge cralle dog crouched, ready to spring. With a deep bass howl that Robin felt from her feet up through her breastbone, the huge beast leapt forward, straight at the terrified men-at-arms, who tried to jump back, beginning a mass fall down the steps.

  Jack watched for two long seconds, then whirled around, gripping Robin’s arm with considerable force.

  “To the chimney!”

  Robin tried to wriggle out of his grasp as they ran into the cave. She couldn’t see a thing, but Jack obviously could, for they didn’t run into anything.

  “We have to go back! Doublejack—”

  “They’ll shoot us down. Don’t waste his gift!”

  Robin stopped struggling. Jack dragged her along another half-dozen steps, then abruptly picked her up. Tilting her head back, Robin could see a faint circle of lighter darkness above her.

  “There are iron staples,” said Jack. “I hope.”

  “There are,” said Robin. She knew where they were without having to see them. Iron called to her; she could feel its resonance deep in her bones. She reached out blindly, her fingers closed around the first staple, and she started to climb.

  The chimney was about fifty feet high. Robin emerged on the side of a steep slope, between stunted trees that clung to the rock with gnarled, exposed roots. Jack climbed out behind her.

  Both of them looked down the slope. The cave-mouth was hidden from them, but they could see at least forty Norman men-at-arms standing ready on the path below it, including half-a-dozen archers who stood in a semicircle, laughing and joking. From their triumphant demeanour, and the snatches of talk that drifted up the hill, it was clear Doublejack’s furious attack had ended under a hail of arrows.

  “Doublejack—”

  “He’s dead,” said Jack. “Come on. Some brave fool will try the chimney, sooner or later, and the wiser will come up the easy side of the hill.”

  Using the exposed roots as handholds, Jack started to make his way diagonally across and up the slope. Robin followed more slowly. Jack no longer had his basket to weigh him down, but Robin had managed to keep her leather bag and quiver, though Merewyn’s bow lay on the cave steps below.

  It was a hard scramble to the top of the hill, followed by a frantic, dipping, ducking run between, under, and around the trees and bushes that followed the ridge-line, as the Normans had already raced up the easier side of the hill. Fortunately, they were much slower and clumsier in the forest than Jack and Robin and could not simply bull their way through the undergrowth like the Ferramenta.

  At last, when the noise of their pursuers faded and there was only the expected sounds of the night forest, Jack stopped before a vast, lightning-struck remnant of a royal oak. It was split in several places, revealing a hollow chamber within, but none of the holes were large enough to allow even a child passage.

  “Highness, can you make us a way?”

  Robin touched the oak, her palm flat on the ancient trunk. If the tree had been alive, she would have felt its green spark at once. But this oak was long dead. Only its shade remained, contained within the collective memory of the forest.

  Robin stopped breathing and stood as still as she could. She felt the forest mind slowly drift into her head, like a fog gliding across the moor. She felt what it was to be a sapling reaching for the sun, to have leaves trembling under heavy raindrops, branches reaching out and dividing many times, a trunk thickening its girth for year after year, century after century.

  She became the oak, took its place in the memory of the forest. Green shoots sprang out around her palm. Old, dry bark quickened under her skin. One of the holes in the trunk groaned and split farther, a tiny twig growing out from one side. The split expanded, and the twig became a branch, tiny shoots forming on its edges, leaves unrolling from the green buds a few moments later.

  “Enough,” said Jack.

  Robin heard him from far away. But she did not want to let go, did not want to leave the forest. She was the oak, and all her human pain and guilt and fear were somewhere else, far away and alien.

  More branches grew around the split, questing outward.

  “Enough!” said Jack again, more strongly.

  Robin shuddered and withdrew her hand, tearing the skin where the bark had grown around the fleshy mound between thumb and wrist.

  She sucked at the graze as she ducked through the split and into the warm, dry, and remarkably roomy chamber that occupied perhaps a quarter of the royal oak’s broken stump. The interior was lined with thick moss, on which Robin gratefully lay down, letting the exhaus
tion she’d held back flow through her limbs.

  After a few minutes, Jack, who was propped up near the split, said, “We’ll be safe enough here till the dawn. After that, it might be best to make for the convent at Avington. You could claim sanctuary there.”

  “No,” said Robin. “I’ll not run from the Allfather to Christ Godsson.”

  “What shall you do then, Highness?” asked Jack. His voice was weary, so weary that he stumbled on his words. Robin looked at him, and for the first time in her young life, saw that Jack was old. Forty at least, perhaps even older. She hadn’t noticed that he was grey with fatigue, for Robin had been thinking only of herself.

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said quietly. “For everything. If I hadn’t been so impatient to attack, none of this…Merewyn…Doublejack…”

  “If not then, it would have been soon anyway,” said Jack. All his usual confidence was gone, his tone strange to Robin. “Princess Merewyn knew it. We had more than two thousand men in the months after Senlac Hill. How many stood with us two days ago? Four-and-thirty! I fear to say it, Highness, but I think the time has come for you to treat with your grandfather.”

  “What?” snapped Robin.

  Jack closed his eyes for several seconds before forcing them open again with obvious effort.

  “Let us speak of this in daylight, Highness,” he whispered. “I am weary, so weary…perhaps it is weariness and despair that speaks. Let us talk on the morrow…”

  His voice trailed off, his head slumped to one side, and his breathing slowly changed, clear indication that he had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

  Robin stayed awake, anger frothing about inside her, but she could not maintain her rage. Jack had served her father and her sister faithfully for far longer than Robin had lived. He was mistaken, of course. It might seem as if the Inglish were defeated, but Robin had no intention of falling on her knees before her grandfather and begging forgiveness. She had other plans.

  Other plans which meant forcing herself to wake before the dawn and creep from the hollow oak, leaving Jack still asleep. She looked down at him for a few moments, wondering if she was doing the right thing, and found herself reaching out to wake him. But she stopped, her hand wavering a few inches from his shoulder. Jack would not allow her to do what she intended.

  Even so, she felt she could not leave him without a word or sign to show that she had gone of her own free will and not been taken by enemies. So she took the silver-set amber hairpin that no longer had a place to go on her shorn head, and stuck it in the ground by Jack.

  BY the time the sun was well up and warming the air, Robin was hidden amidst long grass, watching the Roman road that ran down from Newbury to Winchester. A lone rider had passed by just after the dawn, but Robin was looking for a large group of travellers, or better yet, a train of merchants that she could join and mingle with. To better do so, she had thrown away her quiver, keeping only the ivory-tipped arrow, which was uncomfortably tied to her waist under her tunic. She had cut it short, throwing away the flight end, for Robin did not intend to shoot this arrow.

  A small group of broad-hatted, staff-wielding pilgrims followed the lone rider an hour after the dawn had yielded to the bright sunshine of a summer day. Robin ignored them too. She would stand out like a dark toadstool in a basket of mushrooms amidst the pilgrims.

  The next group was much more promising. It looked like the whole population of a village, going to the fair at Winchester to sell their produce. More than thirty men and women, with half a dozen hand-carts and three ox-hauled wagons.

  Robin stepped out of the trees, pulling her tunic down and hose up, as if she were returning to the road after modestly finding a more private toilet than the roadside ditch.

  Thirty pairs of suspicious eyes watched her approach. But when they saw that she had neither sword nor bow, and was not the precursor of a throng of armed bandits, some called out a greeting, the words unclear but the intention friendly.

  They were from two villages, Robin found as she walked and talked amongst them. She had thought they might be wary of her, with her Norman looks, but if they were, they didn’t show it. Towards mid-morning, a grandmother even invited Robin to ride with her on an ox-wagon, making one of her grand-daughters step down. Robin accepted gratefully, for she was very weary.

  They did not talk at first. But after a mile of silence, save for the rumble of the wheels, the creak of the cart, and the occasional snuffling bellow from the oxen, the woman asked a question. Her dialect was thick, but Robin understood her well enough.

  “Where are you from, boy? Who is your master?”

  “Winchester,” said Robin, glad that as she hoped, she had been taken for a boy. “I am a freeman. My name is…Wulf.”

  The woman nodded three times, as if impressing the information into her head.

  “I am Aelva,” she said. “Widow. My sons are also freemen, holding a hide of land from Henry Molyneux.”

  “Is he a good lord?” asked Robin.

  “Aye, better than the last.”

  “The Normans have many bad lords,” said Robin. She saw the woman’s gaze slide across her shorn hair, and added, “My father was Inglish. My mother Norman.”

  “The last lord before Sir Henry was Inglish. We danced when the tidings came of his end at Senlac Hill.”

  Robin glared at her and stood, ready to jump off the cart. But the woman caught her elbow.

  “I meant no harm, lad. Inglish or Norman lords, it matters not to me, but I’ll say no more.”

  Robin slowly sat back down. They did not talk again, but after a while settled into a companionable silence, the moment of tension between them left on the road behind.

  Instead of talking, Robin watched the country-side, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine. It was years since she’d been out of the forest in daylight. The land looked more prosperous than she remembered. There were more sheep on the hill-sides, and more farm buildings, and the road was well mended.

  The villagers stopped to rest the oxen and themselves when the sun was high. Robin thanked Aelva and wished them all well, and continued on her way. She felt much more rested in body, but her mind was besieged by new thoughts, brought on by the peaceful road, the contentment of the villagers, and the wealth of the country around her. She tried to tell herself that it was fattened as a lamb was fattened for the slaughter, but this did not agree with what she could see, or with the demeanour of the people.

  A mile farther on, she caught her first look at the city of Winchester, the ancient royal capital of Ingland. Once it had been her home, but she had not seen it for more than three years. She had expected it to look exactly the same, for it had not changed in the first twelve years of her life. But it was different, very different, and Robin stopped on the road and stared.

  The old wooden palisade was gone, replaced by a much higher one of white-faced stone that incorporated the three old stone watch-towers and had four new towers as well. At first she thought nothing remained of the old royal palace, a large hall, which used to perch atop a low hill, then she realised it had been incorporated into the fabric of a new castle, a fortification that would completely dominate the city were it not balanced by the abbey, whose bell-tower was as tall, if not so martial. The abbey had also been extended and rebuilt since Robin had seen it last. Harold had not favoured the followers of Christ Godsson, but William was said to hold their priests in high esteem.

  Entering the city through a new gate of freshly worked stone with masons still finishing the façade, Robin found herself in a crowd and for a few moments was struck with a sudden, nameless fear. She wasn’t used to the noise, to the bustle, to the accidental touches as people moved all around her. But she kept pushing forward, making for the market square, where there would be more room. Surely, she told herself, that would not have changed overmuch.

  Yet, when she came to it, she found the square also completely different to her expectations, as it was neither an empty field, as it used to be
seven days out of fourteen, nor awash with buyers and sellers, goods, and smaller livestock as it would be on the seven fair days.

  Instead, the whole field was roped off with muddy red cord fixed to iron pickets driven into the ground. Small groups of men-at-arms lingered at each corner of the field, and right in the middle there was a huge roughly hewn lump of sandstone lying on its side like a toppled sarsen-stone. It had a sword stuck right in the middle of it. Even sixty feet away, Robin could feel the iron magic involved. The sword had been plunged into the stone by some great magic.

  But there was also a hint of Inglish magic there. Robin couldn’t make it out, but there was something on the stone next to the sword. A pile of sticks, perhaps a bird’s-nest, or something like that, only it emanated a strong sense of holly magic, and rowan too. It gave her a strange, slightly nauseating sensation to feel the two magics so close together.

  “Strange, ain’t it?” whispered a voice near her elbow. “Kiss my hand with silver, and I’ll tell you the tale.”

  Robin looked down and stepped back. A crippled man, both of his legs lost at the knee, was grinning up at her and holding out his hand. He would have been tall and strong once, Robin could see, a handsome Inglishman. Now he was a beggar, though she guessed he must be a successful one, for he had decent-enough clothes and good padding on his stumps.

  “Did you lose your legs at Senlac?” she asked. If he were one of her father’s men, she thought to give him a coin.

  “Nay,” smiled the man. “It was an accident, building the castle. The King’s reeve paid me leg money, but that’s long gone. Go on, give me a scratch of silver, and I’ll tell you about the sword.”

  “No,” said Robin. She turned away and headed back towards the busy, closed-in streets. The cripple shouted after her, but in good-nature. Something about it being a story worth hearing but only if told well.

  The crowd swallowed Robin up and buffeted her. It took a while for her to get her bearings again and try to find the human currents that would carry her in the direction she chose, rather than force her back or push her into the more dubious side streets.