The Giants’ Dance. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

hand, but he had shown scant joy at his victory. He and Maskull had once been part of the Ogdoad, the council of nine earth guardians whose job it had been to steer the fate of the world along the true path. But then Maskull had given himself over to selfishness, and though a great betrayal had been prophesied all along, that had not made it any easier for Gwydion to accept.

      Will sighed, roused himself from his thoughts and looked around at the familiar surroundings. It was strange – in all his months of wandering he had thought there was nothing better than home. And now he had a family of his own there was even more reason to love the way life was in the Vale. And yet…when a man had extraordinary adventures they changed him…

      It’s easy for a man to go to war, he thought. But having seen it, can he so easily settle down behind a plough once more?

      It hardly seemed so. Occasionally, a yearning would steal over Will’s heart. At such times he would go alone into the woods and practise with his quarterstaff until his body shone with sweat and his muscles ached. There was wanderlust in him, and at the root of it was a mess of unanswered questions.

      He stirred himself and kissed Willow on the cheek. ‘Happy Lammas,’ he said.

      ‘And a happy Lammas to you too,’ she said and kissed him back. ‘I guess we’re just about finished with the Blazing. Looks like everyone’s had a good time.’

      ‘As usual.’

      ‘What about you?’

      ‘Me?’ he asked, his eyebrows lifting. ‘I enjoyed it.’

      ‘It looks like you did,’ she said, a strange little half-smile on her lips.

      ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

      She fingered the manly braid that hung beside his ear. ‘I saw you looking into the bonfire just then. What were you thinking?’

      ‘I was thinking that only a fool would want to be anywhere else today.’

      She smiled. ‘Truly?’

      ‘Truly.’

      It was good to see everyone so happy. They had watched the lads and lasses circling the fire. They had listened to the vows that had brought the night’s celebration to a fitting close. Some had plighted their troths, and others had made final handfasting vows. Now couples were slipping off into the shadows, heading for home.

      There was no doubt about it, since the ending of the tithe the Vale had prospered as never before. They had put up three new cottages in the summer. They had filled the new granary too, and all this from the working of less land. Now the surpluses were not being taken away to make others rich, the plenty was such that Valesmen’s families had already forgotten what it was to feel the pinch of hunger.

      ‘About time this little one was abed,’ Willow said.

      ‘Yes, it’s been a long day.’

      They walked up the dark path to their cottage, his arm about her in the warm, calm night. In the paddock, Avon, the white warhorse that Duke Richard of Ebor had given him, moved like a ghost in the darkness. Away from the fire the stars glittered brightly – Brigita’s star, sinking now in the west; Arondiel rising in the east; and to the south Iolirn Fireunha, the Golden Eagle.

      An owl called. Will remembered the Lammastide he had spent six years ago sitting with a wizard atop Dumhacan Nadir, the Dragon’s Mound, close by the turf-cut figure of an ancient white horse. Together they had watched a thousand stars and a hundred bonfires dying red across the Plains of Barklea.

      He sighed again.

      ‘What’s that for?’ Willow asked.

      He scrubbed fingers through his hair. ‘Oh…I was just thinking. You know – about old times. About Gwydion.’

      It seemed a long time since Will and the wizard had last set eyes on one another. How good it would be to wander the ways as they had once done. To walk abroad again among summer hedgerows, enjoying the sun and the rain, or feeling the bite of an icy wind on their cheeks.

      ‘I wonder what he’s doing right now?’ Will muttered.

      ‘Unless I miss my guess, he’ll be striding the green hills of the Blessed Isle,’ Willow said. ‘Or sitting in a high tower somewhere out in the wilds of Albanay.’

      Will’s eyes wandered the dark gulfs between the stars. ‘Hmmm. Probably.’

      ‘Wilds?’ he could almost hear Gwydion chuckle. ‘It is not wild here. See! These trees in a line show where a hedge once grew. And what of those ancient furrow marks? The Realm has been loved and tended for a hundred generations of men. It is almost, you might say, a garden.’

      While Willow went indoors to put Bethe into her cradle, Will lingered in the yard at the back of their cottage. He could smell the herbs, all the green leaf he had grown in the good soil – plants ripe and ready to offer the sweetness of the earth’s bounty. The scents of the orchard were keen on the still air. He heard Avon whinny again, and tried to recall when he had noticed the elusive feeling in his belly before, but when he looked inside himself he was shocked.

      ‘A premonition about a premonition,’ he told himself wryly. ‘Now that would be something…’

      Willow came out and said, ‘I’m glad we chose to call her Bethe. There’s strong magic in naming, for I can’t think now what else we could have called her.’

      ‘Bethe is the birch tree,’ he said. ‘“Beth”, first letter of the druid’s alphabet, and Bethe our firstborn.’

      ‘I like that.’

      ‘You know, the birch was the first tree to clothe these isles when the ice drew back into the north. Her white bark remembers the White Lady, she who was wise and first taught about births and beginnings, the one who some call the Lady Cerridwen. Our May Pole is always a birch, and Bethe was born on May Day, which is my birthday too. In the old tongue of the west “bith” means “being”. And “beitharn” in the true tongue means “the world”. Maybe that’s the reason I suggested the name and why you agreed – because our daughter means the world to us.’

      Willow squeezed him close and laid her head against his breast. ‘There’s such a power of learning in that book of yours.’

      She meant the magic book that Gwydion had given him that sad day at Verlamion. He said, ‘There’s much to read and more to know. It’s said that a country swain comes of age at thirteen years, that the son of a fighting lord may carry arms in battle at fifteen, and that a king must reach eighteen years to rule by his word alone – but one who would learn magic may not be properly called wise until he has come to full manhood.’

      Willow looked at him. ‘And how old’s that?’

      He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But as the saying has it: “The willow wand is slow to become an oaken staff.” And so it must be, for if I know anything at all it’s that there’s much more to be understood in the world than can ever be learned in one man’s lifetime.’

      Now it was Willow’s turn to sigh. ‘Then tell me true: do you read that book every day in the hope that one day you’ll become a wizard too? Like Gwydion?’

      He laughed. ‘No. That I can never be.’

      ‘Then why?’

      ‘Because Gwydion gave it to me and bade me read it. And I gave him my word that I would.’

      She squeezed him again, but this time it was to stress her words. ‘Well, now, you’re going to promise me something, Willand Bookreader: that you won’t be burning any candle stubs over hard words tonight!’

      He grinned. ‘Now that I’ll gladly promise!’

      They held one another in the starlight for a moment. A shooting star flared brilliantly and briefly in the west, and then a coolness stirred among the leaves of the nearest apple trees. She looked up, and he felt her stiffen.