The Stones of Ravenglass (19 page)

Eri stood up. Timoken could see doubt in the wizard’s face. The spell was incomplete. Somewhere there was a flaw.

‘What is it, Hugh?’ The commander called to the soldier whose finger now rested, in the air.

‘I felt something,’ said the man. ‘A piece of wool, or cloth. And I saw colours.’

Several of the others laughed, and one of them said, ‘Like you saw a pile of stones where there are none?’

But the man kept his finger where it was. He leaned forward and squinted into the room. ‘I can see something else,’ he said. ‘I can see . . . I can see . . .’

The wizard strode towards the man. Timoken felt his heart slide into his mouth. Eri and the man were now staring at each other. All at once, the wizard lifted his staff and tapped the man’s finger with its point.

The soldier grimaced. ‘Ow!’ He pulled off his glove and sucked his finger. ‘Something bit me!’

This was followed by a howl of laughter from the men nearest to him. Even the commander gave a wide grin. ‘Come on, Hugh,’ he said. ‘It’s the drink that’s bitten you!’

The man pulled on his glove. Still frowning he followed his commander out of the castle and into the trees.

The children looked at each other and began to giggle, softly at first, and then, as the soldiers moved away, they rocked with unrestrained and happy laughter.

As soon as they were on their feet again, the walls became solid, the carpets were all in place and the furniture looked as if it had never moved.

‘It’s ours, all ours,’ Sila declared, clapping her hands, ‘and no one will ever find us; no one will take our castle away from us, will they, Eri?’

The wizard yawned. ‘Not if I can help it.’ He lowered himself on to the couch.

‘That soldier saw something,’ Thorkil remarked. ‘There’s a flaw somewhere, in the wall of plants.’

‘A small gap,’ the wizard said airily. ‘Easily repaired. Horses can kick things about a bit. But the spell is still there; nothing can move it now.’

That evening, Timoken lit the candles in the long hall, identical to the one where his parents had dined with their friends and ministers. The cooking pots were put to use and a feast of sorts was laid out on the wide table; a feast of celebration. They had scarcely begun when Enid flew into the courtyard beyond the hall. With beating wings and excited squawks she called, ‘People in the forest!’

Timoken left the table and ran into the courtyard. ‘More people? Where?’ he asked.

‘By the river,’ said Enid. ‘They have horses.’

Timoken looked into the candlelit hall. Reluctant to disturb the others, he lifted into the air. Only Gabar saw him flying into the dark sky; the camel was glad to see the dragon follow his family out into the night.

Far below, a lamp swung in the breeze from the river, its light reflected in small wavelets that brushed the bank. Timoken could just make out three horses with, maybe, five riders. They were not soldiers, and yet he was wary of calling out. And then he heard a voice.

‘Look! Up there! Is it a bird – or Timoken?’

‘Mabon!’ cried Timoken.

He swooped down, landing beside Mabon’s horse. ‘Mabon, you’re alive. You didn’t die. I didn’t kill you!’ cried Timoken.

‘You almost did!’ Mabon slipped off his horse and gave Timoken one of his great bear hugs. ‘But your cloak gave me life again.’

There was a touch on Timoken’s arm, and there was his sister with the biggest smile he had ever seen on her beautiful face.

‘Zobayda,’ he cried, clasping his sister. ‘We have our home back, just like our mother said we would. We’re safe.’

Zobayda was too happy to speak, and then Edern was grabbing his hands and Peredur throwing an arm around his shoulders.

‘I thought I would never see you again,’ said Timoken, the tears in his eyes blurring their wide smiles. ‘But here we all are, the eagle, the wolf and the bear . . .’

‘Sadly not the fish,’ said Edern. ‘But we’ll get Gereint back one day.’

‘And the running hare?’ Timoken peered into the darkness. He saw a boy sitting on Mabon’s horse. He wore seal-skin breeches and looked familiar to Timoken. But he was not Beri. ‘Is she here?’

His friends were silent. Their smiles vanished and they looked at one another with grave faces. Zobayda said gently. ‘We lost her, Timoken. She escaped with us but those brutes Aelfric and Stenulf attacked us and we scattered. I looked for her everywhere.’

‘Your sister wouldn’t give up,’ said Edern. ‘She searched half the night, but they must have caught our running hare.’

Timoken couldn’t speak. In the midst of such overwhelming happiness, he couldn’t understand why a dark cloud had descended, why his heart had stopped beating, and the castle behind him didn’t seem quite so splendid after all.

Chapter Nineteen

Seven days had passed since the escape. In that time, autumn had turned to winter. Wind and rain had stripped the trees of their last leaves. Now it was snowing.

Beri had found a cave where animals had lived. A lynx and her young, perhaps? It didn’t smell too good but it was warm and dry; the lynx had left a pile of fur on the floor and a few bones. The baby liked to play with them; and yet he wasn’t playing, Beri decided – he was intensely involved with the bones, murmuring to himself and stroking their hard, bleached surfaces.

He was an extraordinary baby. He often demanded to be allowed to walk and, in spite of the thick undergrowth, could travel quite a distance on his short, sturdy legs. He never cried and could eat almost anything with his few baby teeth. He had never talked in the castle, but here, in the forest, he learned two or three new words every day.

The temperature plummeted and frost laid a sparkling crust on the snow. Zobayda had dressed the baby in warm clothes: a fur bonnet and a long coat made of sheep’s wool. On his feet he wore soft leather boots. Beri was also dressed for winter. She wore a thick padded jacket and woollen breeches. Zobayda had given her a hare-skin cap with two fur streamers hanging down the back, and a pair of leather mittens. The enchanted sword in its leather scabbard was now buckled to Beri’s belt.

The horse was sleeping on its feet, just inside the entrance to the cave, where at least it was dry. After two days, the snow stopped. It was time to move on.

‘You’ll have to ride now,’ Beri told the baby, ‘or you’ll drown in snow.’

He laughed. ‘Snow,’ he said. ‘Drown.’ He insisted on bringing one of the bones with him. It was a long thighbone but Beri didn’t know what creature it came from. It could have been human.

Where were they going? To find Timoken, that’s all Beri knew. Someone had said north, and so that was the route she took. She wondered if Zobayda and the boys had escaped. Her terrified horse must have carried her in the opposite direction to the others. By now they were probably miles away.

She was aware that the horse was leaving a trail of prints in the snow, but there was nothing she could do about it. She could only hope that the search had been called off. ‘Let that be-whiskered brute find another wife,’ she muttered.

‘Wife,’ said the baby, and they both laughed.

They had travelled less than a mile when the baby turned and looked up into her face, saying, ‘Go!’ Anger and fear glimmered in his dark grey eyes.

Beri kicked the horse and it tried to gallop. Leaping over a fallen branch, it stumbled when it landed and Beri slipped off the saddle. She fell into a tangle of snow-covered creepers with the baby on top of her. The horse got to its feet snorting nervously, and then it bolted into the trees.

‘Come back, you idiot!’ cried Beri. ‘Come back!’ She stood up with the baby clutching at her coat. ‘Silly horse,’ she told him. ‘If we don’t catch it, it’ll take us days and days to find the others.’

‘Walk,’ said the baby.

‘Yes, walk.’ Beri was glad that she still had the bag of provisions strapped to her back. ‘Do you want to be carried?’ she asked the baby.

‘Walk!’ he said with a determined frown.

And so they trudged onward, following the trail of deep prints left by the horse. The light was fading when Beri spotted him, grazing on a few stalks poking out of the snow.

‘Stay here,’ she told the baby, ‘by this tree.’

‘Here!’ he said.

As quietly as she could Beri plodded through the snow towards the horse. Suddenly she heard a sound to her left; a thump, a rustle of snow, and then another thump. Two figures bounded from behind a tree. Soldiers. They stood between Beri and the horse, their wide grins showing black and broken teeth.

‘Well, if it isn’t Sir Osbern’s runaway wife,’ said Aelfric.

‘I’m no one’s wife.’ Beri spat the words.

‘Will be soon,’ scoffed Stenulf.

‘Never his!’ Beri’s hand flew to her sword hilt; drawing out the blade, she held it across her body.

‘Ah. We want to play at fighting, do we?’ Aelfric snorted with laughter. He sounded like a pig.

‘If you want to play, you’ve chosen the wrong person.’ Beri sprang forward, her sword pointed at Aelfric’s throat.

With a derisive sneer, Aelfric stepped towards her through the snow. Drawing his sword, he brandished it before her. Quick as lightning, Beri beat his sword away with her own. He looked surprised but, as she lunged at him again, he brought his heavy weapon crashing down on hers.

‘Come home, there’s a good girl,’ called Stenulf.

Ignoring him, Beri danced round Aelfric, thrusting at his back, his arms, his chest.

Amazed by her skill and agility, he nevertheless managed to parry all her blows. He scratched her shoulder and her wrist, but she was too quick for him to do any damage.

‘If that’s what you want,’ he snarled breathlessly, ‘we’ll have to take you back dead!’ He turned and lifted his sword ready to bring it crashing down on Beri’s skull.

The sudden, shrill cry took them both by surprise.

The soldiers hadn’t seen the baby. They stared at him, so tiny; the snow almost up to his waist.

‘Drown!’ His baby cry rang through the trees. He lifted the thighbone and flung it at the sky. The two soldiers watched the bone in fascination as it twisted in the air above them. A grimace of disbelief crossed Stenulf’s face when the bone became a knife, its lethal tip glinting in the snow-light. Before he had time to gather his wits, the blade had entered his eye.

As Stenulf ran through the trees, Beri thought his terrible scream would never end. Before it did, she leapt as her father had taught her; she leapt for her life, with her sword held straight and steady, and she lunged. Aelfric gave a mighty roar and struck at Beri’s arm. But he was too late. The tip of her sword pierced the chain mail just above his collar bone and sank into his throat. He dropped into the snow with hardly a sound.

‘We must run,’ cried Beri, sheathing her bloody sword.

‘Run!’ said the baby as she swung him up into her arms.

Aelfric and Stenulf had not been alone. Others had followed them. She could hear them shouting behind her. Stenulf must have run to them before he collapsed.

The horse was nowhere to be seen.

Beri dared not think what might happen if the soldiers caught her now. She zigzagged through the trees, hoping to confuse her pursuers, but she knew she couldn’t run forever. Already she had an ache in her side, her legs wouldn’t run any more, and the cold air in her lungs made her dizzy.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to the baby. ‘I can’t go on.’ She stopped and, letting him slide on to the snow, pressed her hand into her aching ribs.

The baby looked up at her and smiled. ‘Look!’ he said, and he pointed at a gap in the trees. There was something there, a creature. Beri could see a crested head, a long, scaly neck and wide wings covered in snow. For all its alarming appearance, the creature’s golden eye looked kindly at her.

Before she could stop him, the baby was bounding through the snow towards the creature. It turned its head to greet him and, when he stroked the wide, flat snout, Beri was horrified to see thin puffs of smoke curling from its nostrils. The baby laughed delightedly and tried to scramble on to the creature’s neck.

‘No!’ cried Beri, but the creature had already lowered its head and the baby crawled on to the small spines that ran down the back of its neck and into the snow that covered its body.

‘Safe!’ the baby held his hand out to Beri.

She shook her head.

‘Good!’ said the baby, patting the crested head.

The voices behind Beri grew louder. She could hear boots tramping through the snow. ‘Here! This way. See! She’s losing blood!’

‘Run!’ shouted the baby, his small brow creased with worry.

And so Beri ran. She leapt on to the scaly neck behind the baby, and the great wings were raised either side of her. Drifts of snow flew all about them as they lifted into the air, and when Beri looked down she could see the group of soldiers staring up at them, in silent astonishment.

The palace in the secret kingdom had been built for eternal summer. Now that it had become a British castle, changes had to be made. A balcony supported by pillars ran around the upper level of the courtyard. Beneath the balcony one could sit in a shady passageway, out of the heat of the fierce African sun.

In Britain, when snow fell the north wind blew it into the passageway, where it piled into frozen drifts. Gabar was indignant. ‘You promised sand,’ he complained to Timoken, ‘not this icy rubbish.’ He kept his other problem to himself. Occasionally he had to share his quarters with three leopards, but he knew it would be useless to mention this.

The camel wasn’t the only one to complain about the snow. Sometimes it blew from the courtyard into the dining hall and the room that had now been named the chamber of pictures. Eri suggested a barrier; it could be made with multiplied lengths of wood, placed between the pillars. The barrier would stop icy draughts and snow from blowing into their living quarters.

‘Excellent,’ said Thorkil, and he led a group of volunteers out into the forest. They returned with seven long branches, and Timoken set to work.

Since Tumi’s arrival, Sila and he had seldom been apart. Together with Karli, they swept the snow out of the passageway and then helped the others to carry the wood from Timoken into the spaces between the pillars.