Chapter 12 #2
Just after mid-morning, the gently rolling plains to the south gave way to marshlands.
The tittering of sparrows and sandpipers faded into the sharp bugling of marsh cranes and the buzzing of crakes.
A subtle aroma of wet grass and decay wafted over the road.
Round-topped barrows rose from the marshes, born by no natural process.
The graves of kings, Torin surmised, though he wondered why the heathens buried their rulers so far from the seat of their power.
The road passed a hill that stood above the barrows, dominated by a vast, reaching oak.
A wall of unmortared stone surrounded the base of the hill, and a few dozen houses stood in the shadow of the tree.
This was, if Torin had to guess from the maps of the kingdom he had studied, Bryngodre, the sacred holdfast of the druids.
One structure in particular caught Torin’s eye: a squat tower that encircled the trunk of the oak tree, built of a strange green stone whose colour, at this distance, seemed to shift and fade from the bright green of new spring to the pallid grey of old verdigris.
At first, Torin took it for the dappling of light filtering through the leaves above as they drifted in the wind.
But the changing colour of the stone defied any other play of light and shadow he could see.
There was power there, within the tower. Old, dark and hateful, bound by the First Folk and worshipped by these heathen fools.
Four figures dressed in animal skins and one wrapped in a cloak of pine needles and oak leaves with a headdress of antlers descended from the tower, then processed through the town and its gates to meet the prince and the queen.
Druids. One held a silver censer that wafted a heavy, heady incense.
Three others carried boxes of rich, dark wood carved all over with knotwork and swirling, abstract designs.
The last, with the antlered headdress, carried a staff of sprouting yew to match the queen’s.
They exchanged quiet words, then the four counts of the land—Cilbran, Afondir, Forgard and Glascoed—dismounted and took the king’s coffin in hand.
The prince and the burly captain of the king’s housecarls joined them.
The other courtiers, too, dismounted, and the five druids led the way, on foot, to the far side of the road and out into the marsh.
‘Well, I suppose it would be rude not to,’ Torin mused, then offered Orn and Anwe each a smile before dismounting and following the heathens at their ritual. Gestures towards respect for the local traditions and superstitions were necessary, after all, to win their trust.
Torin observed the proceedings as he might watch children play a silly game, full of weight and importance to them but entirely meaningless to any adult observation.
They walked to a circle of freshly laid stones, a dozen paces in diameter, and placed the king’s coffin in the centre.
The druids chanted softly as they removed the lid from the coffin.
The censer masked any scent of must or rot.
The druids opened their boxes and placed various gems and jewellery upon the linen-shrouded body of the king, proclaiming in loud voices what each item represented: a silver dagger for his valour; a lobe of unsmelted iron ore for his piety—towards gods that were no more than the echoes of First Folk meddling, Torin was sure.
Other items and other virtues which were no more than a vague gesturing at true understanding of the world.
As the ritual continued, Torin’s detachment gave way to a fresh pang of pity and grief.
Deep in their souls, these people, despite their ignorance, despite their heathen blindness, truly longed for the truth.
They spoke of virtues, little understanding them.
With guidance, with the truths of the Mortal Church and the blessing of the Sacred Agion, they could become a shining beacon of a mortal kingdom under the auspices of the Church.
Sadly, that was not his task. That would come later, after the sickness and corruption that had given rise to these false rituals had been scoured away. After the Church had saved the kingdom from horror and earned its trust.
The prince placed the last of the trinkets beside his father, then led his mother back outside the circle.
The four druids in animal skins took positions at the cardinal points of the circle, while the antlered one traced in the soil with the end of his staff.
All five chanted slowly, under their breath—a chant taken up by the queen, the prince, and the four counts as the pattern grew into a complex, winding lattice of interleaved spirals.
The last spiral carried the druid out of the pattern he had drawn.
He raised his staff high, then thrust it into the ground.
The scent of loam and summer rain filled the air.
The earth rumbled and, like water gushing from an unearthed spring, the soil within the circle of stones rose and swelled, flowing upwards to enclose the king’s coffin in a barrow.
The druid lifted his staff and the earth stilled.
Silence held as awe gripped the gathering—or in Torin’s case, disgust. Silence, but for the scratching of a pen nib.
The sorceress Fola, of the supposed Starlit Tower, with her silver staff balanced in the crook of her arm, held a pad of paper at her waist and scribbled with a strange cylindrical pen. Torin was too far away to see what she was drawing. He nudged Orn and pointed to the sorceress with his chin.
Subtly, Orn raised himself, peering over shoulders and heads. ‘Looks like a sketch of the design the druid made,’ Orn murmured.
‘Indeed?’ Torin said as the young knight nodded and returned to ordinary height. Not proof, but the agents of the City were known to fascinate themselves with the primitive rituals and magic of the heathen kingdoms. ‘Not something the druids would take kindly to, I would—’
A whispered sentence never finished, interrupted as it was by raised voices from the edge of the barrow. The prince stalked away from his mother and the leaf-cloaked druid.
‘… as your ancestors did,’ the druid was saying. ‘The Old Stones are the kingdom’s foundation, Your Highness. You must—’
The prince wheeled to face the druid. ‘I must do nothing,’ he roared, his fists trembling at his sides. ‘My father prayed and prayed. Knelt and howled in the night for deliverance. Did your “old stones” hear him? Did they, Mother?’
The queen met her son’s gaze as a cliff meets a crashing wave. ‘Owyn, you must do this. It will heal the kingdom.’
‘The last king to attune in the old way with the Old Stones was your great-great-grandfather, Aegelwyn,’ the druid said. ‘The haunting may—’
‘I’ll not while away a fortnight kneeling in some decrepit temple while rebellion stirs and terror grips the land,’ the prince declared. ‘We will finish this rite, and when my father is properly buried and honoured, I will return to Parwys. That is my decision.’
This talk of ‘attunement’ and healing the kingdom drew Torin’s attention. Whatever foul, primitive magic they discussed, it seemed the queen, at least, believed it key to ending the haunting. Yet the prince refused it—which meant it must cost him some price he was unwilling to pay.
Tension held between the prince and the queen—who, as Torin understood the heathens’ ways, ruled in her late husband’s stead until the prince was crowned.
Clearly, she sympathised with the druids, given that she was of their order.
But would she command her son, humiliating him in front of these lords and nobles he would soon rule?
The fractures in Parwys ran deep if they had driven apart mother and son, who ought be united in grief. Here, then, was a crack he might worm his way into.
‘As you wish, Owyn,’ the queen said at last.
A stone engraved with the king’s name was placed to mark his barrow, then the gathered courtiers remounted and began the long, sombre ride back to the city.
The sorceress Fola lingered a moment, gazing over the wall at the green stone tower, again sketching and writing in her little book.
Her odd bird, perched on her shoulder, seemed to catch Torin staring, and squawked.
Fola followed the line of his gaze, and Torin turned away, nudging his horse to follow the procession.
The cracks in the kingdom were not only an opportunity for Torin.
If the sorceress Fola was what she seemed, she might exploit those same weaknesses to steal whatever ancient power lay within that tower.
Another relic of the First Folk added to the City’s vile archive, to be wielded in the next inevitable war between City and Church.
‘Orn,’ Torin said, ‘I want you to keep an eye on that woman. No confrontation.’
‘Then she is a Citizen?’ Fear and interest mingled in his voice.
Torin nodded. ‘Let us proceed under that assumption. Whatever purpose would draw a Citizen here, we must thwart it.’
Anwe chuckled deep in her throat. An unsettling sound, to Torin. A sound he had long associated with screams and spraying blood.
‘You, in contrast, will stay with me,’ he told Anwe firmly. ‘We watch and wait, for now. Do you understand?’
Anwe rolled back her heavy shoulders and smiled. ‘For now, Anakriarch. Understood.’