The Giants' Dance Read Free Page B

Will,’ one of the lads from Overmast said as he went by.
    â€˜Hathra. How goes it?’
    â€˜Very well. The hay’s in from Suckener’s Field and all’s ready for the morrow. Did you settle with Gunwold for them weaners?’
    â€˜He offered me a dozen chickens each, but I beat him down to ten in the end. Seemed fairer.’
    Hathra laughed. ‘Quite right, too!’
    â€˜Show us a magic trick, Willand!’ one of the youngsters cried. It was Leomar, Leoftan the Smith’s boy, with three of his friends. He had eyes of piercing blue like his father and just as direct a manner.
    Will asked for the ring from Leomar’s finger, but when the boy looked for it, it was not there. Then Will took a plum from the pouch at his own belt and offered it.
    â€˜Go on. Bite into it. But be careful of the stone.’
    The boy did as he was told and found his ring tight around the plumstone. He gasped. His friends wrinkled their noses and then laughed uncertainly.
    â€˜How’dya do that?’ they asked.
    â€˜It’s magic.’
    â€˜No t’aint. It’s just conjuring!’
    â€˜Away with you, now, and enjoy the Blazing!’ he said, ruffling the lad’s hair. ‘And you’re right – that was only conjuring. Real magic is not to be trifled with!’
    Two more passers-by nodded their heads at Will, and he nodded back. The Vale was a place where everybody knew everybody else, and all were glad of that. Nobody from the outside ever came in, and nobody from the inside ever went out. Months and years passed by without anything out of the ordinary happening, and that was how everybody liked it. Everybody except Will.
    Though the Valesmen did not know it, it was Gwydion who had made their lives run so quietly. Long ago he had cast a spell of concealment so that those passing by the Vale could not find it – and those living inside would never want to leave. The wizard had made it so that any man who wandered the path down from Nether Norton towards Great Norton would only get as far as Middle Norton before he found himself walking back into Nether Norton again. Only Tilwin the Tinker, knife-grinder and seller of necessaries, had ever come into the Vale from outside, but now even his visits had stopped. Apart from Tilwin, only the Sightless Ones, the ‘red hands’, with their withered eyes and love of gold, had ever had the knack of seeing through the cloak. But the Fellows were only interested in payment, and so long as the tithe carts were sent down to Middle Norton for collection they had always let the Valesmen be. Four years ago, Will’s service to King Hal in ending the battle at Verlamion had won him a secret royal warrant that paid Nether Norton’s tithe out of the king’s own coffers, so now the Vale was truly cut off.
    And I’m the reason Gwydion’s kept us all hidden, Will thought uncomfortably as he stared again into the depths of the fire. He must believe the danger’s not yet fully passed. But with Maskull sent into exile and the Doomstone broken, is there still a need to hide us away?
    Maskull’s defeat had given Gwydion the upper 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