Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

drawing power from the meadow. Candlelight flickered as Willand carefully lifted the lid from one of the wooden caskets and began to tease out the straw packing and bare the stone cold flesh within. When Gwydion returned he asked Dudlea to sit alongside Willow on the far side of the tent then turned to look with close interest upon the fine-veined marble of the lady’s cheek.

      ‘This spell has been well worked,’ Gwydion said at last. ‘I have never seen detail like it.’

      Will saw how stone eyelashes and other wisps of hair had been shattered under the first and least careful of the handlings that had brought her here. A sprinkling of fine-spun stone was to be seen in the folds of the statue’s wrappings as the last coverings came off.

      It was an incredible transformation, a perfect statue of Lord Dudlea’s wife, but no mortal sculptor had made it. This was malicious work, that of a potent sorcerer.

      As Gwydion reached a hand under the figure’s head, Dudlea stood up and said, ‘Please, let me—’

      ‘Sit down,’ the wizard told him shortly.

      ‘But if you’re going to lift her, I’ll call my—’

      ‘It’s not necessary,’ Will said, looking up.

      Gwydion’s tone became compassionate. ‘Leave your men be. They are keeping true to their word, and on that much hangs. I asked them not to spy on us, come what may.’

      ‘Come what may?’ Dudlea blinked in alarm, and Gwydion laid a calming hand on his shoulder that made him draw in a long draught of air.

      ‘Take courage, John Sefton! You must be strong, for hope is one of our most important magical resources.’

      Dudlea nodded and backed away. At Gwydion’s signal, Willow tied the tent’s flap firmly closed. Her daughter, Bethe, was sleeping by the camp fire, wrapped tight in a blanket. She and Will had been reunited with her only yesterday after a torturous separation. She had fared well in the care of the Duchess of Ebor, and as soon as Duchess Cicely had set foot in the Realm following her husband’s victory she had made every effort to return the child to her mother as quickly as possible. Still, Willow’s feelings had not yet fully settled. Will knew that was a concern to the wizard. He had tried to smooth their worries before the spell-working was begun. Any source of disturbance was best anticipated and dealt with ahead of time, for emotional auras would spark and fizz in bright display during magical transformations.

      Will leaned over the nest of straw, checking the lady’s perfect visionless eyes informed by a glint of surprise, the knuckles, the fingers, so expressive in their attitude, gripping the stiffened folds of her robe.

      ‘She’s quite undamaged,’ he told Dudlea, touching the man’s spirit. ‘The delicacy of her face is scarcely blemished. Look how its waxy shine remains unscuffed. Nothing so much as a fingernail has been broken.’

      John Sefton, Lord Dudlea, King’s Commissioner of Array and sometime commander of ten thousand men, broke down and wept. At Gwydion’s summons he came forward and his jaw flexed and his knuckles turned as white as his wife’s on the edge of what he feared might yet become her coffin. His tears fell upon her, but if he had imagined that tears alone would wake her, then he now discovered otherwise.

      ‘Open the second,’ Gwydion murmured.

      The face of the lord remained bloodless as Will prised open the crate that contained the boy. The waggoner had been well paid and charged with two duties. But speed and care did not ride easily together over the Realm’s badly rutted roads, and the cart had bumped and bounced over thirty leagues to bring it to this place of particularly good aspect. The boy, too, was perfectly captured in stone. He lay mute in the finest alabaster, ten years old and innocent. Just like his mother, he was covered in fine spicules of stone. A little detail had eroded here and there, but he seemed to be undamaged.

      At Will’s prompting, Dudlea came to gaze upon his son, and again he wept with relief. How different the man was now to the Lord Dudlea who had bare weeks ago tried to force Will into carrying out a murder. It was a satisfying change, a true redemption perhaps.

      Gwydion’s voice rose, at once soft and sonorous, and gave the command, ‘Come to me, John Sefton.’

      At that the lord went meekly. Without being asked, he knelt before Gwydion as an earl might kneel before his sovereign. Gwydion laid a hand on his shoulder, saying, ‘I want you to understand what I am attempting. It is done neither for your sake nor out of charity towards your kin. No offer that you could make would ever be sufficient to pay for this service, and it is to your credit that you did not sink to the proffering of silver or gold to me. This is to be a corrective. It is a private matter between wizard and sorcerer, and also the rescuing of a promise made by another to restore your wife and son to you.’ His eyes flickered to Will and back. ‘Fortunately for you, I happen to owe that person a favour. It is wise to power some spells on gratitude whenever possible.’

      ‘Thank you, thank you. I’m as grateful as any man could be,’ Lord Dudlea babbled, and it was plain to Will that he considered himself fortunate indeed. He had clearly remembered Will’s warning to him not to offer payment or reward and not to disrespect the wizard.

      Gwydion’s face darkened. ‘However, when the promise was made, the promiser did not know whether there was a spell to reverse what had been done to your kin. He did not know if it was even possible. And in that falseness of promise resides my present difficulty, for lies do poison magic. They weaken it.’

      ‘I understand,’ Lord Dudlea said eagerly. Though he did not understand much at all, and his eyes were fever bright. ‘I can vouch that Master Willand’s word was given in true hope, at least – hope that a greater good would be born of it.’

      ‘That, alas, is not nearly enough. For magic springs from moral strength. In the true tongue the name of magic means ‘keeping the word’. Such stuff may not be coldly traded, for in that case the results will not be as expected. And those whose hopes are pinned upon debased magic are doomed to be disappointed.’

      ‘Then, if only for pity’s sake…’

      ‘Pity, you say? How that word has been warped over the years! Pity is properly what we feel for those who have given themselves over to weakness and so harmed others. What you mean is not pity, but fellow feeling. Do I have fellow feeling for you, John Sefton? Do I have enough? That is what you want to know.’

      The lord stared back as if already stricken. ‘Do you?’

      ‘The question you are asking now is: have you merited it?’ He shook his head, apparently amused, and turned back to the crate. ‘I must not try to remove the spell directly, for that is now all but impossible. However, I may attempt the laying on of a counter-spell.’

      Dudlea swallowed hard. ‘Do whatever you think, Master Gwydion. Only, I beg you, please do not fail them. I love my wife. I cannot live without her. And my boy is both son and heir to me.’

      The wizard inclined his head. ‘You have a quick mind, John Sefton, and how uplifting it is to hear a squalid politicker such as you speak from the heart at last. Is it not time that you put on the mantle of statesman and set aside your childish plots? You are not yet become another Lord Strange. You may still choose dignity. So cease your peddling of lies and threats, keep the promise of your ancestors, even as I shall keep Willand’s promise tonight. And remember that men of privilege are but stewards of this Realm. You should not fail it in its hour of need.’

      The lord had hung his head but as Gwydion finished he looked up boldly and met the wizard’s eye. ‘I’ve behaved like a fool, Crowmaster. I told myself that desperate times called for desperate measures, but I see now that I was only being weak. I will take your advice as my watchword.’

      ‘See that you do. What passes here tonight is not to be spoken about. And, since true magic depends upon truth of spirit, what you pledge to me here and now will take effect in the flesh of your wife and son. If you break your bonden word to me, the counter-spell will be undone and your kin will slowly – painfully – return to stone. Do you understand this warning