Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy Page 7

  Her destination was always visible to Robin, no matter how the streets turned or the people thronged about her. The castle was a constant landmark, its towers looming above the roof-tops.

  Finally, she reached the gate and stood alone between the commercial hurly-burly of the city and the guards who glanced at her with casual disinterest. The gatehouse was new, of the same white-faced stone as the city wall. But the twin leaves of the gate were the old ones, the palace gates of ancient oak, etched with the names of all the Kings and ruling Queens of Ingland back to Alfred.

  Robin found her father’s name there. Duke William had not removed it, as she thought he might. But his own name was there too, clear-cut and bright on the old wood, above Harold’s and the Edwards, Edgars, Edmunds and others fading into illegibility below.

  Robin coughed to clear her throat, and the guards looked at her again. She stared back, suddenly aware that this was a moment just like when she had snatched Merewyn’s horn. If she stepped forward and spoke, her plan would be put irrevocably in motion. Her fate would be decided by its success or failure, and the fate of Duke William, and the fate of the whole kingdom of Ingland and perhaps the world.

  If she stepped forward and spoke.

  One of the guards let his hand drop to the hilt of his sword. Three of them were watching her now, wondering why she did not finish her gawping and turn away, as so many did.

  Robin stepped forward. At the same time, she reached out to the iron in the guards’ swords, helmets, and mail, feeling the weight of it, the currents of attraction and repulsion that moved in the metal. She made a ritual gesture with her hand, closing her fist and shaking it, and, as her hand moved, everything of iron on or about the guards let out a keening wail, a crescendoing shriek that was loud enough to make the youngest guard screw his face up and move a little out of position.

  It was the iron cry, the announcement of the arrival of a Norman noble ironmaster. Everyone in the castle would have heard it. But even the ironmasters would not recognize this particular cry, because Robin had never used it. From the Duke down, they would be wondering who could have summoned such a loud, pure call.

  The guards reacted instinctively, bracing to attention. Robin might look like a vagrant boy, but there was no denying the iron cry. She walked towards them, stopped under the gate, and spoke.

  “I am Princess Robin. I wish to be escorted to my grandfather, Duke…King William.”

  More guards ran out to stand at attention, lining both sides of the gate passage. A knight, busy buckling on his sword, followed them, marching up to Robin. He bent his knee briefly and smiled, a cheery, honest smile that had no hint of the Norman duplicity Robin always suspected.

  “Greetings, Your Highness. I am Geoffrey of Manduc. The King has been expecting you, and awaits you in the Great Hall. This way.”

  “Expecting…me?” asked Robin, confusion and fear suddenly gripping her throat, so the words came out hoarse and broken.

  “Indeed, all the King’s heirs are here,” said Geoffrey happily as he bounced along one step behind, still fumbling with his sword-belt. He reminded Robin of a hunting-dog she’d had, long ago when her father had been alive. Or rather it was a dog supposed to be a hunter, but despite its enthusiasm it kept tripping over its own paws and running around in cheerful, ever-decreasing spirals. “When the King returned from the forest yestereve he told the court that you had chosen to end your self-imposed exile. You are very welcome, Highness.”

  “That’s not…” said Robin. She was already trying to work out what the Duke was up to, and how it might affect what she planned. “Never mind. You said all the King’s heirs are here?”

  “Yes, they have all been summoned here, though none know why,” burbled Geoffrey. “The King has not spoken, though many believe it has something to do with his sword, which he set in a stone down in the market field last settling-day.”

  “A beggar said he could tell me the story of the sword,” said Robin, though she felt like someone else was speaking. Most of her attention was on the passage through the gatehouse, and then on the clear space of the outer bailey beyond. She noted the guards’ positions and looked for a postern gate or any other way out of the castle.

  “I’m sure he did!” laughed Geoffrey. “Stories being the stock of beggars. But surely, Highness, you have better stories of your own. To live as a priestess of the Easterner’s Moon Goddess must have given you many stories—”

  “What?” asked Robin. “I haven’t been a priestess for any god, let alone the Easterner’s Moon mistress. I’ve been…”

  Geoffrey leaned in, intent on her words, and Robin realized that he was probably not the fool he appeared. He was some sort of functionary, but at a royal court, and already he was trying to gain some advantage, some secret knowledge of the King’s granddaughter.

  “Is it not known where I have been these last four years?” she asked quietly, as they rounded the base of the motte hill, heading towards the Great Hall rather than climbing the steps to the Keep.

  “No, Highness,” said Geoffrey. “But there have been many tales.”

  “What of…what of my sister, the Princess Merewyn? What do these tales tell of her?”

  Geoffrey looked surprised.

  “The Princess Merewyn? She died of a fever only three days after Senlac Hill, did she not?”

  Robin shook her head, unable to speak. It was becoming clear to her that her life of the last four years had been largely irrelevant to the Normans, to the people, to…everyone in the world outside the forest. They had just been another band of robbers, hiding in the greenwood as robbers so often did. Not even a big enough nuisance for proper tales to be told about them.

  The huge doors of the Great Hall were open. As they approached, Robin could hear voices raised in uproar, immediately followed by the harsh clang of Ferramenta beating their swords on their shields.

  “I suspect the King has explained the matter of his sword,” said Geoffrey. He lengthened his stride and began to hurry. Despite the booming bell-noise of the Ferramenta, the shouts and impassioned voices inside had not subsided.

  It was much louder inside the Hall. A vast, high-roofed building, it was a sea of shouting men and a smaller number of equally loud women. Down the far end, a line of twenty Ferramenta held the crowd back from a dais with a simple wooden throne on it. Only four of them were striking their shields, the insistent clangour slowly quietening the crowd. Behind the Ferramenta were a score of archers who wore the black surcoat of Duke William’s guard.

  The Duke himself stood in front of the throne, calmly waiting for quiet. If he saw Robin, he did not show it. As Geoffrey led her through the crowd towards the throne, Robin realised that nearly everyone around her was a follower of one or the other of William’s heirs. The Hall was packed with Norman nobility and the most important knights and ladies of William’s realm. Most of them either angry, shocked, or excited, the end result being a lot of noise.

  Robin didn’t speak to any one of them, but every few yards, Geoffrey would grab an elbow and exchange a few words and there would be a bit of space for Robin to squeeze through.

  They were only halfway through the crowd when Robin suddenly felt a cold, biting pain behind her right eye. It only lasted a moment, but it also made a strange and sudden anger well up inside her. Anger that was directed at Duke William. He had slain her father, and her sister, and usurped the crown that was rightfully hers. He had to die!

  Robin stopped. She had certainly felt anger towards the Duke. She planned to kill him, it was true, but that had been a cold decision, not born of anger. This sudden fury felt strangely out of place, as if it had come from somewhere else. She looked around and saw only Normans looking to the throne.

  Then she looked up and saw a raven staring down at her from the rafters. Its beady black eye was fixed upon her, but its gaze was not that of a bird. She felt it almost like a wind, something invisible but powerful and cold.

  Robin shook her head and
looked at the floor, mud and rushes overlaying the white flagstones. The fury was still there, but she knew it was not hers. It was the Allfather, trying to force her to play her hand too early.

  “Are you well, Highness?” whispered Geoffrey. Robin jerked her head up, suddenly aware that the Ferramenta had stopped their clanging, the people their shouting, and that the Hall was growing quiet. She took a slow breath, forcing out the anger that would not help her.

  “Yes,” she answered. “But before we go on, tell me, what has caused this commotion?”

  “The King has announced that his heir will be—”

  Geoffrey stopped as the King suddenly spoke, his voice strong and penetrating, echoing above Robin’s head.

  “I have spoken. It is as it is. Who will be the first of my blood to try the test?”

  Silence greeted the King’s words for several seconds. Then a short but very broad-shouldered man with the back of his head shaved to the crown pushed to the front and walked between the Ferramenta. The iron knights let him pass, and the black-clad archers merely watched as he strode to the foot of the dais. He did not bow, but did incline his head a fraction.

  “Aurillac,” whispered Geoffrey to Robin.

  “I protest, Uncle!” snorted the Bastard of Aurillac. “There should be no test! I claim to be your heir by right of blood. There is no need for this foolery with swords—”

  “There are others with an equal or better right of blood,” said William. “More is needed from one who would be heir to the King of Ingland and Normandy both. I have proclaimed the manner of my choosing. If you do not dare attempt it—”

  Aurillac snorted like a bull.

  “I am a greater ironmaster than any here save you, Uncle. I will go now and take your sword from the stone!”

  He did not wait for permission, but bent his head a little once more, then turned and strode towards the doors. His lesser barons and knights, perhaps a quarter of all those present in the Hall, turned to follow him. Shouting and scuffling broke out again, intensified as the Ferramenta suddenly tromped into a wedge formation and began to march for the doors, with the King and his archers within the wedge.

  Geoffrey gingerly pinched Robin’s sleeve, being careful not to touch her, and tried to draw her back.

  “Best we hold back and follow the King,” he said. “This crowd is too great to draw near to him.”

  Robin nodded and followed his twisting, winding progress between people to the side of the Hall. She could feel the ivory-tipped arrow at her side and her hand ached to draw it out and plunge it into William’s chest. But she could not get close enough now. Later, she would have her chance.

  She would be slain soon after, Robin knew, but at least she would die knowing that she had avenged her sister’s and father’s deaths, and that William’s heirs would plunge Ingland and Normandy into war. Though from the look of things, the Bastard of Aurillac might well win that struggle quickly, for his entourage was by far the largest and most warlike. He would also be here, in the capital…

  A shadow of doubt slowly slid into Robin’s mind. If she slew William, then she might be giving Ingland to Aurillac, who by all accounts would be a far worse master than the Duke. And did she really want Ingland to be stricken by yet another war? These thoughts felt disloyal, and were slipperier and harder to grapple with than the pure anger she felt towards William. But they were also persistent, and they stuck with Robin as she followed the crowd out of the castle and down through the town to the market field.

  The commotion from the castle, with the sudden parade of the King, the Ferramenta, and over four hundred Norman notables, caused an even greater sensation in the town. It seemed to Robin that absolutely everyone within the city walls was streaming towards the market field, townsfolk and country visitors mingling with the outer edges of the procession from the castle.

  With Geoffrey’s deft help, whispered words to barons and knights ahead of her, and directions via her sleeve, Robin found herself only just behind the wedge of Ferramenta when they reached the field. There, the iron knights and the bowmen, reinforced by the men-at-arms already at the field, formed a cordon thirty yards out from the sword in the stone, holding back the crowd, which to Robin now seemed to number in the thousands.

  Within the cordon, William stood alone with Aurillac. Geoffrey tugged at Robin’s sleeve and gently manoeuvred her to a position at the very front, so she could see clearly between two Ferramenta. She shivered as she stood up close to them, blinking as she felt the hot spirits contained within the metal bodies reach out to touch her mind. She was both repulsed by and attracted to that mental touch. She had not felt it for many years, not since her lessons with her mother. She had been too busy fleeing from the iron warriors two days before.

  Aurillac was shouting something at William. Robin forced her attention away from the iron knights in order to listen to the Bastard.

  “—the commoners away! I shall not be tricked, Uncle, in front of the mob!”

  William said something Robin couldn’t hear, and gestured at the sword. Aurillac snarled and strode over to it. He climbed up on the stone and planted his feet on either side of the sword, grasping it with both hands. His muscles tensed, and at the same time, Robin felt a surge of iron magic emanating from him. He was trying to manipulate both the metal of the sword and the more unyielding stone, which William had melded together.

  “You must also wear the crown!” called out William. He indicated what Robin had thought was a bird’s-nest, an irregular ring of sticks and berries, before she’d sensed its magic.

  “What?” shouted Aurillac, his nose and cheekbones bright with fury and exertion. “You push me too far! I’ll not wear some fool’s cast-off casque—”

  “It is King Alfred’s crown,” William said, and though he did not shout, his voice penetrated through the crowd and Aurillac’s anger, quietening both. “Lost these two centuries, now found again. Wear the crown of holly, Aurillac, and draw the sword of iron, and you shall succeed me as King of Ingland and Normandy.”

  “Is this yet another insult?” asked Aurillac. “I am pure Norman, no matter that my parents were not wed. I cannot wear a crown of holly!”

  “That is nonsense, born of tales and fancy,” said William. He walked over to the stone and reverently picked up the ancient crown. He held it aloft for a few moments, then gently placed it on his head. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, but William neither sweated blood, nor fainted, nor showed any of the other signs Norman ironmasters were supposed to when touched by good Inglish holly.

  Aurillac stared at William, then a slow smile crept across his face. It was obvious to Robin that he thought the crown some kind of trick, a thing of paper berries and painted sticks. But she could feel its power too, like a cool and separate pool, riven by currents of hot iron magic that flowed between the Ferramenta, William, Aurillac, and…herself.

  “Give me the crown!” Aurillac demanded. He stretched out his hand, but William stepped back and held the crown aloft.

  “Let the crown of King Alfred choose my successor!” he intoned. Aurillac grunted and climbed down from the stone. He bent his head slightly to allow William to place the crown on his head, then he stood up.

  The smile faded from his flushed face as thorns suddenly grew from the holly, long thorns that scraped and scratched like claws towards his eyes. Blood suddenly gushed from his nose, and his breath came in harsh, wheezing gasps. He fell to his knees, with his hands pressed over his eyes to protect them from the thorns. William stepped forward and lifted the crown from his head, the thorns retreating.

  Robin stared. She had felt the holly magic surge, its calm replaced by a sudden chill blast, like a freezing wind off the sea. But she had also sensed that the crown had not reacted to Aurillac’s Norman blood, but to some other sense of wrongness. She vaguely remembered her mother saying too much was made of the Norman antipathy to holly and oak, but it was widely believed—and that belief had its own power. There were rare
people—even rarer than shape-changers—who did not believe in magic at all, and they were extremely resistant to spells, and sometimes could even prevent magic being done at all. Savants speculated that this was a type of magic in itself.

  Two of Aurillac’s knights helped him up. The Bastard wiped his bloody face, stared at William, then turned on his heel and strode to join his followers. There he held a quick conversation, and his men began to turn around and start pushing the common folk, to create a path away from the field.

  “Aurillac!” William called out. “I have not given you leave to go. There are others of my blood here. If one succeeds, all must swear allegiance to my chosen heir.”

  Four Ferramenta moved as William spoke, the iron knights lumbering closer to where Aurillac paused, fury expressed in his clenched fists and caution in his twisting torso, as he turned back to face the sword in the stone.

  William looked at another knot of knights and men-at-arms behind three young men who all stood scowling at the stone. Unlike Aurillac, they were not in mail, and their bright garb was in stark contrast to most of the other men.

  “Well, nephews?”

  “We will wait till you’re dead, Great-uncle,” said the one with the bright blue tunic and the silver-tipped cap. He looked over at Aurillac and added, “Then split everything between us equally.”

  William laughed.

  “Honest as ever, Jean. But I do not intend to die for some time. I think I will find my heir today—and you will swear allegiance.”

  “Who?” asked Jean. “Aurillac could not draw your sword, and my brothers and I know better than to attempt it. There is no one else.”

  William smiled again and turned to face the crowd. He didn’t speak, but stood waiting. A hush fell upon the crowd, the silence spreading till the only sound Robin could hear was the thumping of her heart, the blood vessels in her neck hammering like a drum.

  “The iron call outside the castle,” Jean said suddenly, his voice strange and reedy in the silence of the crowd. “Who was that?”