While the wizard talked, Will and Morann went up into the meadows north of the hamlet. As soon as Will began to feel the lign running strongly underfoot again he took back his hazel wand and began to pace out the limits of it, scrying just as Gwydion had first taught him in this very same place.
Either the flow had increased several fold since then, or his own talents had developed greatly. ‘All the pain’s been cleaned out,’ he said. ‘It’s the difference between dirty ditchwater and a mountain stream.’
They came to the spot where the Dragon Stone had once lain. Its hole was filled in and there was a bed of pretty yellow flowers growing there. ‘I’m sure the Dragon Stone hasn’t been returned to the place where we found it. Let’s go and tell Gwydion the good news.’
Morann laughed. ‘I think he already knows. It doesn’t take a talent such as yours to see that this place is flourishing as never before.’
Will scrubbed at his head. ‘You know what I think? I think Nadderstone’s now taking its fair share of earth power – flows that were for too long pent up by that chapter house.’
Morann looked eastward. ‘This is the lign of the ash, you say?’
‘Yes. Its taste is unmistakably Indonen.’ Will shaded his eyes and looked east also.
‘Taste?’ Morann said, turning to look back the way they had come. ‘That seems a curious way to speak of it. Did you not just tell me that the tower and chapter house were like the finger that stops a fiddle string?’
‘I could just as easily have said it’s like the grip that pinches off a vein in a man’s arm and so holds back the flow of blood to his hand, bringing numbness and robbing his grasp of strength. I said “tasted”, but it’s not really a flavour I’m talking about.’ He shrugged, finding his talent impossible to describe.
Morann let out a piercing whistle and beckoned to Gwydion. ‘Let me see now. There are supposed to be nine ligns that make up the lorc. The one that runs by the Giant’s Ring is “Eburos”, the lign of the yew. The battlestone that you say is planted at Aston Oddingley lies upon the lign of the rowan, and the true name of that lign is “Caorthan”. While this lign is “Indonen” of the ash. What of the others?’
‘I’ve felt other ligns sometimes as we crossed them. There’s the one named “Mulart” for the elder tree, and “Tanne” for the oak. The rest are named in honour of the hazel, the holly, the willow and the birch. I’ve not felt them at all, or if I have I can’t easily call to mind their particular qualities.’
The wizard came up to join them. He leaned on his staff, seeming troubled still.
‘A fair old morning’s work,’ Morann said.
Gwydion wiped his brow and resettled his hat. ‘But as is so often the case, work begets more work, for now I must go urgently to the place that I was called away from.’
‘Foderingham?’ Will said.
‘Plainly, the Dragon Stone is not here, so I must go there.’
‘Now?’
‘As the rede says: “No time is as useful as the present.” Nor, in this case, is there any reason to delay. I shall leave at once.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Will murmured, sure that Gwydion had set his heart on a perilous path.
‘In what I must now do you cannot help me. I mean to gain entry to the dungeon of Foderingham. I will do it with or without Richard of Ebor’s consent. Once there, if the Dragon Stone is present, I shall lay hands upon it. Recall the rede: “By his magic, so shall ye know him!” I shall search for Maskull’s signature, and if I find he has not meddled with the stone, then I shall renew the holding spells in which I first wrapped it, and perhaps add a few more for good measure.’
‘You won’t try to drain it?’ Will said, only half convinced by the wizard’s assurances.
But Gwydion smiled an indulgent smile. ‘I promise, I will not try to do that.’
‘And if you find that Maskull has been there?’ Morann asked.
‘Then I shall have to undo that which he has done, before renewing my own spells.’
Will brightened. ‘Surely we can help you, if only in keeping the jacks who guard the walls of Foderingham occupied for a while.’
‘I have greater need of stealth than assistance.’ The wizard regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘But, Willand, if you would help me then make a promise.’
‘Anything.’
‘Go to the Plough and wait quietly for my return. Do not stray far from that place. Dimmet will begrudge you neither board nor lodging if you tell him of my request. If you will heed my advice, you’ll lay low. Speak to no one, and do not advertise yourself widely abroad. This is most important.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
The wizard took his hand briefly and nodded as if sealing a bargain. Then he clasped Morann to him and words passed between them in a language that seemed ancient to Will, though it was not of his ken.
He watched Gwydion go down into the hamlet, speak to one of the farmers and then he was up on a piebald horse and riding away east out of the village, while Bessie was being led towards the farmer’s stable.
‘Well, I like that!’ Will said as he realized their ride back to Eiton had just been bargained away.
‘That’s wizards for you,’ Morann said. ‘For a man who cannot be in two places at once he’s powerful good at being in one place not very much at all.’
Will put his hands on his hips. ‘I suppose we’d better start walking. It’ll be thirsty work in this warmth. I guess Gwydion’ll be right about Dimmet’s charity. I just hope it lasts when he finds out that Bessie’s been handed to a farmer in Nadderstone to ease a wizard’s emergency!’
The walk back to the Plough was indeed hot work and much was talked over as they wended their way towards Eiton. When they were about halfway there Will cut and whittled for himself a staff. It was fit for a quarterstaff, though he wanted to use it as a walking stick. Morann would have nothing of it, and was not content until Will had whittled a second staff and given him the choice of which to use.
Gwydion had once said that the quarterstaff was the diamond among weapons, striking like a sword and thrusting like a spear, it was able to disable and dispirit without inflicting undue damage. ‘The skilled wielder of a staff has the advantage against even two swordsmen, for a staff has two ends, and if one opponent should break his distance against a skilled staff he will suffer a hit. Against the single sword, a staff always has four paces in hand. Such is its dignity it metes out humiliating reminders while barely drawing blood.’
Will had never forgotten that lesson, and had practised the staff until he could easily beat the best who lived in the Vale. But there were many more whacks that Morann was able to teach him, and their journey back to Eiton became in part a running fight.
They got back aching and bruised and laughing. Once they were in the Plough’s yard Will found Dimmet among his flitches of bacon. They told him what had happened to his horse.
‘No matter,’ Dimmet said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘One good turn deserves another, or so they say. And all things have a way of coming full circle in the end. If Master Gwydion’s gone off all of a sudden, there’s bound to be something needful at the root of it. I know he’ll return her to me some time. Now, what’s it to be for you?’
Morann grinned broadly. ‘A quart of your finest nutbrown ale. And we’ll take it to the snug, if we may.’
‘That you may, and with pleasure. Stew and leftovers all right for you?’
‘Enough is as good as a feast, as my friend the Maceugh always used to say.’