Shaman of Stonewylde (25 page)

‘We all know that Magpie has led a difficult life, but thanks to certain people at this table – and most especially Leveret and Marigold – his life is now filled with happiness. He still can’t speak, but he’s learning to read and write, which will open up his world completely. That’s all thanks to Leveret’s hard work. Dawn says she’s a natural teacher and is amazed at what she’s achieved with our Magpie.’

He raised his glass to Leveret and everyone joined him. She sat blushing with pride as David continued.

‘When Magpie’s transformation began, I noticed his extraordinary talent in the Art Room. Over the months since the Winter Solstice – and unbelievably it is only six months since he came to live with Marigold and Cherry – he’s become a different young man. His talent has not only blossomed, it’s positively flourished. Magpie is an extremely gifted artist. I’ve never before seen the like, and I’ve seen a lot of artists in my time.’

Magpie sat beaming at this, his ears pink. Leveret was blinking back tears – all those years of protecting him, striving to get justice for him, fighting his battles and desperately trying to keep him safe – and now this. Her eyes brimmed and she glanced up to find her mother staring at her intently. Maizie’s look said everything and no words would now be needed on the subject, no
apology
or justification. In that one look Maizie acknowledged her own huge share of the blame for poor Magpie’s continued and unnecessary suffering, and also acknowledged that Leveret had been right all along. The look lingered between mother and daughter and then Leveret gave her a tiny smile. Maizie knew she’d been forgiven and her own eyes filled with tears. She lowered her head, searching for a handkerchief in her pocket.

‘Sylvie,’ continued David, ‘Magpie has created something very special which he’d like to give to you for your birthday. He can’t tell you what he felt at the Hare Moon when you allowed him to accompany you, your children and Leveret to the stone on the hill to watch you dance. He can never thank you in words for the profoundly moving experience. But he can paint his thanks and his awe. He can show you just how moved and overwhelmed he was that night. He’s painted you something so beautiful that words can’t do it justice . . . So now I’ll shut up, and we can all go across to the Art Room to see Magpie’s gift that’s awaiting you.’

Everyone clapped at this splendid speech and pushed back their chairs. David gestured for Magpie to lead the way, and Leveret found she could no longer hold back her tears. She stood to one side as Magpie proudly led Sylvie, flanked by her daughters, towards the Art Room, followed by everyone else. Leveret felt two plump, familiar arms enfold her and then her face was against her mother’s bosom and both were crying their eyes out.

By the time Yul arrived at the Hall, there was nobody in sight. He looked in the Dining Hall and even raced up to his apartments, but the birthday party was nowhere to be found. He went back to the kitchen again and then realised it had taken place outside in the courtyard, but was now over. He gazed at the long table, still pretty with the daisies and roses, and the remains of the birthday tea. He took a used glass, poured himself some elderflower cordial from the jug, and picked up a left-over slice of cake. So now where were they all?

There was a sharp rapping on a window and he looked along to the row of house-staff’s cottages. He saw Martin in the window gesticulating at him, and then a minute later, the man appeared in his doorway.

‘The party’s over!’ he cried. ‘They didn’t wait for you, Master Yul!’

‘So I see,’ said Yul. ‘Do you know where they’ve all gone?’

Martin’s thin face grimaced and he waved his hand dismissively at the Hall in general.

‘They’ve gone to look at some painting in the Art Room. ’Tis meant to be done by that half-wit Magpie, but I reckon ’tis the Outsider’s handiwork myself. I can’t see my slut-cousin Starling’s bastard brat being able to paint something of any merit.’

Yul had no idea what Martin was on about, but headed towards the School Wing. Before he got there he heard their voices – so many of them. They were all crammed into the room, standing in a small area so they could get a proper look. He noted all the people present, including Clip and Hazel, and felt a jab of bitterness. It seemed everyone close to Sylvie had come to the party except him – even Rosie’s children. Why wasn’t he in on this? Why had nobody thought to invite him?

Then he noticed Leveret and his mother standing close together, Maizie with her arm around the girl, and this made him really mad. What about the Imbolc fiasco? Maizie had vowed to wash her hands of Leveret, and only Clip’s intervention had saved his sister from the fate he’d planned for her: boarding school in the Outside World. Yet now here they were cosied up again as if none of that mattered.

He located Sylvie at the front of the crowd but her face was turned away from him. Everyone was staring at something that he couldn’t see. He pushed his way into the stuffy, packed room and reached the front of the group, right next to Sylvie. His girls looked up and saw him and Bluebell clutched his leg in delight. But he couldn’t drag his eyes from the great canvas that dominated the room. It stood on the floor leaning up against the wall as it was too big to be hung in here. The breath caught in his
throat
at the sheer magic of it – this was his moongazy girl, this was the one he’d fallen in love with all those years ago and had suffered so much for, to save her from Magus and to win her for himself. This was the sight he’d craved – Sylvie as a moon angel, dancing around Hare Stone with her creatures.

All this hit him right in the chest, as if someone had punched him very hard. This was their beautiful, intimate scene of pure magic at Hare Stone and it had been his special privilege to be both witness to it and part of it. Yet here was a room full of people gawping and commenting, violating his and Sylvie’s privacy, their magical and very personal time alone, their wonderful secret. He felt as if Sylvie had betrayed him, cuckolded him, by allowing everyone to see her moondancing. He’d believed this to be for his eyes alone, but no longer. This was just the start, this private viewing; soon every single person at Stonewylde would be able to look at the painting and share the mystical experience.

And even more – there was his darling Celandine dancing too, like a tiny replica of her mother, leaping with the hares, the silver moonbeams brushing her hair and the star-fire in her eyes. So she too was moongazy? And this boy Magpie – he’d been up there that night with Yul’s family watching and memorising it all, whilst Yul himself had been down in the Village worrying about where Sylvie was, thinking maybe she’d gone off with one of the Outsiders from the handfasting.

Without a word he turned on his heel and left the room, his heart aching. He heard Rosie call after him and then his mother, but he didn’t stop. He strode to the stables and grabbed his saddle, and within ten minutes was cantering out of the stable yard towards Dragon’s Back.

The sun set over the hills to the west, burning like a huge golden wheel as it sank lower and lower, unwilling to admit defeat and submit to darkness. Yul was miles away from the Hall, near the western edge of Stonewylde. He should be up in the Stone Circle now, leading the sunset ceremony, but found that he no longer
cared
. Somebody else would’ve done it – perhaps Clip, or maybe even Martin. It really didn’t matter. He received the earth energy as the sun blazed into fiery oblivion behind the horizon. He felt the serpent energy beneath his feet as he stood, staring at the hills, poor Skydancer’s reins loosely held as the exhausted horse drooped beside him. He smiled bitterly as the Green Magic flickered into him – too late now to share with the folk. Too late and, as ever, too little.

He recalled his vow at sunrise this morning to have his wife in his arms by nightfall, and for a minute it felt as if someone had stabbed him through the heart. He tried not to relive the acute sense of betrayal that had sliced through him in the Art Room. He tried not to think of Sylvie at all; it was simply too painful. Ever since his first glimpse of her in the woods that Spring Equinox when she’d come to Stonewylde – ever since that moment, all he’d wanted in his life was her. She was his entire reason for being and yet now, somehow, he’d lost her. He couldn’t bear it.

The sun had gone and yet the sky was light on this, the longest day of the year. And tonight was the Dark Moon. The Dark Moon at the Summer Solstice – the opposite of that night when he’d seen his father die. That had been the Moon Fullness at the Winter Solstice – the brightness in the darkness. Tonight it was the darkness in the brightness and he felt that tremor of old, that feeling of power deep within which always came to him at the Dark Moon. He felt very old, very strong, and beyond any normal, everyday consideration.

Yul swung back in the saddle, his thighs protesting at yet more punishment. Skydancer needed a drink and a rubdown but, for once, Yul simply didn’t care. He rode back the way he’d come, though not at the same breakneck pace for the horse was spent; along the great ridge of land, the spine of the Goddess in the Landscape, the Dragon’s Back ridgeway. The light faded a little more from the pure blue sky, leaving an orange ribbon along the south western horizon where the sun had set on this, its furthest point south. No moon rose tonight. Yul’s fury pounded in his
veins
as he galloped back to where he knew he must go, the place where he must be tonight.

He rode straight down towards the Village and from a long way off, heard the merriment and music. Tiny lanterns were strung out in the trees around the Green, and people were outside, dancing and laughing, eating and drinking. Where was Sylvie? Was she out on the grass, dancing with bare feet and flying hair? He skirted behind the Barn by the dried-up river, along the bank where the willows hung their heads in sorrow. He crossed the bridge, the one where he’d sat with Sylvie all those years before when his soul cried out, so alone in the darkness. Skydancer’s hooves clattered on the bridge and then he was on the other side, trotting down the path, heading for the place that called to him whilst this darkness was in him and the anger so deep and strong.

Past the reeds, past the spot where fresh water normally met sea water, though now the fresh water was exhausted and had been overwhelmed. Onto the sand where the spiky grass grew in tufts and the pebbles began. He forced Skydancer onto the shingle, knowing the horse didn’t like the beach. The breeze coming off the sea, salty and warm, stirred his stiff curls and dried the latest sweat that saturated his shirt and sheened his body. He reined in the stallion and sat for a moment, sniffing the air appreciatively. The sound of the waves breaking gently on the shore was soothing, calming. The thumping in his veins eased a little and he took a deep breath.

The beach seemed deserted. The sun had finally moved far enough away to claim the golden ribbon on the horizon, yet the sky was still blue and full of light. White pebbles gleamed in the strange midsummer night’s twilight; the water was a shimmering mass with tiny curling peaks where the waves broke softly on the shore. Then he saw her further down the beach, waiting as he knew she’d be. She’d known he would come to her tonight, at the darkness in the brightness, at the Dark Moon. She’d known that this night – this one time – he’d be unable to resist her lure.

Slowly he urged Skydancer along the shingle and onto the sand, where the water lapped at the reluctant stallion’s hooves. At last they reached the woman reclining on the shore amongst the pebbles and the shells. Her hair was loose and wild over her bare breasts, her legs were wrapped in a sarong. Yul stopped and looked down at her. He felt a massive, overwhelming surge of desire like nothing he’d ever experienced before. This was not tempered with love or adoration or tenderness, nor even with normal lust. This was pure animal instinct and it obliterated everything in its path. He dismounted, his legs trembling and the shirt still sticking to him.

Dropping the reins and letting the horse free – he wouldn’t go far – Yul ripped the limp white linen from his torso then removed everything else. She stood up and the shimmering sarong fell to the stones. Naked, she stepped into the waves. Her wild hair fell about her shoulders and curled at her waist, and she looked back at him enticingly. He watched her plunge sleekly into the gleaming water. As she swam, lithe as a fish, a trail of phosphorous glowed behind her like a bright tail. He waded into the sea to follow, ensnared by the promise.

When he reached the rock, gasping for breath, she was already lying on it, recumbent and glistening. The strange twilight danced off the water droplets that shimmered like silver scales on her skin. Her body was perfect, curvy and smooth, and her hair hung over her breasts like long strands of floating seaweed. Her eyes and teeth glinted slightly as she moved her head. He hauled himself out of the water to sit beside her. She laughed softly, a soothing sound like the whisper and murmur of the sea, and shook back the long tails of hair to reveal all her beautiful curves and inviting hollows.

He stared down at her in stupefied wonder. In a fluid movement she sank back onto the hard rock and lay supine, gazing up at him. She raised a languid arm and he felt her cool touch trail down his chest. He shuddered and she opened her arms to him. With a groan of despair he fell upon her gleaming smoothness, drowning in the depths of her welcome. She wrapped herself
around
him in a salty-wet embrace and dug her fingernails of shell into his back. As the rhythm of the waves licked and lapped against the great rock, Yul plunged deeply, irrevocably, into her world of betrayal.

13

T
he children of Stonewylde were seated in tiers on battered old benching, and their fidgeting and chattering became noisier and noisier as anticipation grew. Finally the enormous doors of the Great Barn were closed to the bright and sunny afternoon, and it became dark and quiet inside. Everyone hushed as a slow, deep drumbeat reverberated through the cavernous building. Then came the sound of panpipes, haunting and wild, weaving through the air. A spotlight onto the circular stage made a pool of light in the gloom and illuminated a small fire-cauldron and some large logs scattered around like seats in a forest.