Circle of Stones Read Free

North, mazter?”
    â€œNone of your business.”
    They grinned at each other. Probably at my accent. One said, “The new house is thataway, in Giles Alley she be.”
    â€œThank you.” As I walked away I felt their eyes on my back, & I gripped the handle of the sword-stick Forrest had told me to carry. The city, he had said, was dangerous at night. A low snigger of laughter told me they were still watching. One of them called out. “Be careful going in that house, zurr. There be a ghost in she.”
    The lower classes in this place talk in a soft, furry dialect, all aars & urrs. It’s taken me weeks to understand a word they say. I splashed through the filthy runnels of the street, stepped over a pile of muck & turned into what must be Giles Alley.
    It was pitch-black. The houses leaned together overhead & blocked out the sky with their decrepit eaves. Something like a rat ran over my boot; I stabbed at it, but it streaked into a hole. As I walked on, my footsteps rang in the narrow slot. Was this really the place?
    I stopped. It struck me that those men might have sent me down here for some jest or darker purpose. Robbery. Even murder! My fingers tightened on the sweaty grip of the sword-stick. I looked back.
    The night stank of decayed vegetables & ordure. In this quarter Aquae Sulis was still a fetid warren of dark alleys, & for a moment I could see why my new master Forrest raged so about it, & how his vision of a city made glorious with sunlit terraces & wide streets obsessed him. But no one was coming to cut my throat, so I groped onward, my gloves smeared by the slimy wall. After a while I came to an archway with a burnt-out lamp beside it, still smoking, as if it had recently been extinguished. There was no bell to jangle yet, & no gate either, so I ducked through, & found a courtyard. Dimly I could see piled heaps of building stone, & the choking dust made me sneeze, far too loudly.
    The sound echoed. Above the half-finished roof the moon hung, a perfect crescent.
    I wiped my eyes with a kerchief & said, “Master Forrest? Are you here, sir?” The letter crinkled in the pocket of my waistcoat. “It’s Zac, sir.”
    Of course he wasn’t here. The site was deserted & the workmen gone home. Even the night watchman was in some ginhouse.
    I turned, disgusted.
    Then, in the window beside me, something knocked.
    I confess I froze in fear. Because there was nothing there but a dark sash casement, showing me a ghostly reflection of myself, & above the window in the stonework a half-finished carving of a crowned man, his face an obvious copy of Forrest’s own.
Bladud
. The ancient druid king. My master’s craziest obsession.
    After a moment I crossed to the window & put my face to it, looking in, blocking out moonlight with my hands. “Master! A message has come for you. The man said it requires an urgent answer.”
    The room beyond was utterly dark. This was one of the houses Peter Bull’s team were building to Forrest’s design, & Bull’s men were lazy. The work was weeks behind, & yesterday Forrest had stormed around the workshop in fury because he had discovered they had mixed bad stone with the good, & it would crumble to pieces in a few years.
    I knocked softly. “Sir? Are you there?”
    With a great crack something hit the window full in my face. I leaped back in terror, every nerve tingling, my hand snatching out the sword-blade.
    Black. Black & flying, like a winged demon!
    Again it came, a hard smack, but even as I cried out, my fear ebbed into relief because I’d seen its eye, tiny & bright & wild & suddenly I understood. There was a bird trapped in the room.
    I breathed out. This place was getting to me. I straightened my shoulders & put on my most confident air. Then I walked along to where the front door should be & peered through the gap into the hallway. The half-built house was a patchwork of shadows & bright spills of