Solstice at Stonewylde Page 4

  ‘Sylvie, if you do this for Stonewylde, I’ll be in your debt forever. Nobody else has your gift, nobody else can do what you can. Please share it with me. You’d be like a queen here and you could have anything you wanted.’

  She sat stiffly despite his arm holding her so close.

  ‘There’re only two things I want,’ she replied shakily, scared at how he made it all sound so simple. Scared that she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist the full assault of his charm and persuasion. ‘I want you to leave Yul alone and I want you to allow us to be friends.’

  His face tightened and his voice changed.

  ‘Sylvie, we’ve been through this so many times. We had a deal, didn’t we? I’d lay off Yul if you stopped seeing him. And who broke that deal? You’ve brought suffering on him by not keeping your side of the bargain, so this is your fault and it’s too late now for any more deals. The boy has pushed it too far this time.’

  ‘What do you mean? What have you done to him?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing to him yet.’

  ‘But yesterday you said …’

  ‘I was just winding you up, Sylvie. It’s not difficult. You made me angry, threatening to leave Stonewylde, and I retaliated.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘He’s been around. You’re the one who’s been out of action, not him. He’s actually taking part in a ceremony tonight up at the Stone Circle. Alwyn will be there too, and it’ll be good for the son to go with the father.’

  ‘So he’s alright then?’ she asked eagerly, her eyes wide with hope. ‘I’d heard he was really ill.’

  ‘I don’t know who told you that, but I can assure you he’s alive and kicking.’

  ‘And he’s taking part in a ceremony tonight? Oh, that’s such a relief! Is he here now?’

  ‘No, he should be in the hospital wing with his father by now. Alwyn’s a very sick man and he hasn’t got much longer.’

  ‘So can I—’

  ‘Sylvie, I don’t want to talk about Yul now. In the morning, in the New Year, we’ll discuss this. Things will be very different then. And now I really must go. It looks like most of the folk have performed their Dance of the Green Labyrinth and we need to move across to the Playing Fields to light the Samhain Bonfire and start cooking the food. Come with me, Sylvie – lean on my arm and you can stand by my side and help me. I want your role in the community to be acknowledged and you can start by assisting me this evening. Everyone will know how special you are, and what a fine thing you’re doing every month for me. And for Stonewylde.’

  He spoke as if she’d already agreed to everything, but Sylvie felt too tired to argue now. It was easier to let it go and let him think what he liked. She remembered her resolution made in the labyrinth. She’d never give in to him but for the moment, she’d use his strength and support to get through the evening and gather herself ready to fight him in the future.

  It was some time since Jackdaw had left the byre and Yul was huddled up alone in the darkness. His mind was now completely clear, although in many ways he wished he were still in a stupor. At least then he wouldn’t be able to feel the awful pain that Jackdaw had inflicted so casually, just for a bit of fun to while away the time. He didn’t dare try to imagine what further torture Magus had in mind for him. He hugged his knees and closed his eyes, shivering in the cold byre and desperate for more food. He wished with all his heart that he’d listened to Mother Heggy’s advice. He should never have gone up to Mooncliffe for the Hunter’s Moon. It hadn’t helped Sylvie at all and because he’d acted so rashly, he was once again at Magus’ mercy. There was nobody to help him escape, despite Tom’s promise after his last imprisonment here. It was too much to expect the man to risk his own safety. Yul was alone and he was scared.

  He knew that down in the Village, everyone would be gathered in the Playing Fields with Magus to light the Samhain Bonfire. They’d dance in great circles around the bonfire, several people deep, to symbolise the wheel of the year turning and never ending. There’d be singing and fireworks, which he’d always enjoyed. Food would be cooking on the fires around the field and people would eat to their heart’s content, hungry after a day of fasting; Yul’s mouth watered at the thought. After games and fun, the dancing and drinking would continue in the Great Barn well into the small hours of the New Year. Yul knew too of the other rites that took place tonight. He’d never witnessed them, as only a few chosen acolytes took part in the ceremony with Magus, but everyone in the community was aware of what happened in the Stone Circle at Samhain. It was the festival of the dead after all.

  Then Yul heard footsteps approaching and quaked with fear. Jackdaw filled him with terror in a way that Alwyn had never done. His father had been a bully who relied on brute force; Jackdaw was more subtle and he shared Magus’ enjoyment of a slower paced cruelty. The light snapped on and the door was flung open. Jackdaw beckoned, huge in the dark doorway. Slowly Yul tried to stand, his legs giving way beneath him at first. But he managed to stand upright and then attempted to walk across the byre. Everything tilted and spun around crazily. He put out a hand to steady himself but the wall wasn’t where it should’ve been and he fell heavily to the floor. Jackdaw stood watching and laughed at his clumsiness.

  ‘Hurry up, boy! I ain’t got all bloody day.’

  Yul tried again but just couldn’t walk across the room. He’d thought his head was clear now but the poison must still be in his body, and he was very weak from lack of food.

  ‘You’re pissing me off now, Yul. If you can’t walk then crawl, but do get a move on.’

  Shakily Yul started to cross the stone floor on all fours but Jackdaw swore at his slowness and hauled the boy back to his feet. Yul felt himself sway and hoped that Jackdaw wouldn’t let him drop to the ground again. He felt so fragile, as if his bones would shatter if he hit the stone floor too hard. But the giant of a man picked him up, tossing him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. They left the stable area and headed round the back of the Hall to the Hospital Wing.

  Jackdaw strode inside, nodding to the nurse on duty, and made his way to a room near the end where he dumped Yul onto his feet. It was very quiet in here. There were four patients: three old people and Alwyn. Standing confused and unsteady, Yul was shocked at the sight of his father. He’d always been a large man and in his later days an obese one, but now he was shrivelled and withered, the skin hanging off him in folds. His piggy eyes were lifeless and droopy. Most of his hair had fallen out and he sat in a wheelchair like a dummy. Two of the other people lay on trolley beds, ashen faced and clearly very ill. The third was in a wheelchair but shaking severely and breathing with difficulty. All of them wore white tunics tied with white cords, their withered arms, legs and feet bare.

  Yul stared at them and it slowly dawned on him that these were the Death Dancers who’d be going to the Stone Labyrinth tonight for the special ritual. But why was he here? Then it hit him like a stone between the eyes and he felt a terrible panic rise in his throat. As if in confirmation, Jackdaw pointed to a white tunic and told Yul to put it on and sit in the remaining wheelchair. Then Jackdaw left him amongst the dying people.

  The other four were unaware of him – indeed, unaware of anything. Yul’s heart thumped with absolute dread. Magus couldn’t intend for him to die with them tonight up in the Stone Labyrinth; it must be a horrible joke, just another of Magus’ cruelties. Carefully, he shuffled to the door but it was locked. He stumbled back to his wheelchair, head reeling, and sat there for what seemed like hours, though without a window he had no idea of time. The ragged breathing of the dying four was awful and Yul wanted to scream with horror. He shook uncontrollably even though it was warm in the room. Too warm in fact. He began to sweat, a clammy wave of dizziness washing over him.

  When the door finally opened he almost choked with relief. Jackdaw wore a long black cloak and his face was grim. Yul tried to stand up but Jackdaw cuffed him round the head, making the room spin once more.

  ‘S
tay there and don’t bloody move,’ he growled. ‘And I told you to put that tunic on! Do it now, boy, and be quick.’

  He wheeled the four others out, one by one, and eventually came back to push Yul’s chair down the corridor and out into the night. A large cart waited outside with two black plumed horses in the shafts. Jackdaw scooped Yul out of the wheelchair and laid him along the width of the cart next to the dying people, so all five of them lay head to toe like sardines in a tin. Jackdaw threw a blanket over the lot of them, pulled up the tailgate and went round to sit beside the driver. Slowly the cart rolled forward, jolting on the track.

  The old people’s shrivelled skin rubbed against his and Yul felt a wave of revulsion. He was young and healthy and he didn’t belong with the old and the dying. He tried to move, tried to sit up, but he was so weak. His body, already exhausted by the effort of standing and walking even a little, wouldn’t respond. He’d never manage to escape even if he could somehow get out of the cart, so he lay jostling against the dying person next to him as they trundled onwards. The track forked off just before the Village and as they approached it, Yul smelt wood-smoke and roasting meat and heard wild shouts and laughter as the community celebrated the festival.

  He started to cry, sobs choking his throat, tears running hot down the sides of his head and soaking into his hair. He’d never again take part in the ceremonies, the dancing and feasting. Never again be with his family and the folk he’d known all his life. Never see his cottage, the Village, the woods, the hills – none of the places he loved. Everything was coming to an end this night. He loved life, loved Stonewylde and he didn’t want to die.

  The sounds and smells of the Village receded and the cart rumbled up the track of the Long Walk. In the lantern light Yul saw the skeletal branches of the trees above, interlacing into a tunnel. He remembered all the times in his life he’d walked along here, to and from ceremonies at the Stone Circle. The feelings of excitement and magic he’d experienced there, of being part of something beautiful and powerful and in tune with the Earth Goddess and her forces. He’d never imagined this horror – the Dance of Death before he’d even reached adulthood.

  The cart stopped and Jackdaw hauled him out roughly. He was dumped onto a hard wooden sled with his arms laid across his chest. The air was cold on his bare skin, for the white tunic was skimpy and thin. He lay silently as the other four were laid out onto similar sleds. They were just outside the great stones of the Circle, and Yul turned his head and saw flickering light inside. The cart rolled away and the sleds were lined up side by side. Yul heard voices approaching, people getting closer, and then Jackdaw loomed into view again, black cloak flung back to reveal an enormous glistening torso covered with dark swirling tattoos. He crouched down, knees crushing Yul’s chest as he leaned forward to leer into the boy’s face. His breathing was heavy, his eyes gleamed with excitement. He produced a tiny bottle and forced Yul’s mouth open with a grimy finger.

  ‘Swallow!’ he growled, pouring the liquid down Yul’s throat. Yul gagged and choked on the bitterness and Jackdaw smiled, his gold tooth glinting. His face started to swim and melt away and Yul’s fears were confirmed; he’d been drugged once more. Jackdaw laughed as he saw the change in Yul’s eyes.

  ‘That’s a good boy, Yul. Taking your medicine nicely now, ain’t you? We don’t want you getting up halfway through and trying to leg it. This’ll stop you wriggling but it won’t knock you out. Magus wants you conscious for the ceremony.’

  Jackdaw stood up as people approached, and positioned himself by the sleds. Yul could see and hear although everything was strangely distorted and elongated, but found he couldn’t move a muscle. The group wore hooded black robes and skull masks and for Yul, reality spiralled out of reach.

  ‘How many folk wish to enter the Stone Labyrinth tonight?’ asked Magus, his voice formal and ceremonial.

  ‘Five,’ answered Jackdaw, now wearing a bird mask. He looked like a real jackdaw.

  ‘The five who enter the Stone Labyrinth must perform the Dance of Death. Are they prepared for this?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Have their closest relatives agreed that they should perform the Dance of Death?’

  ‘They have.’

  ‘And are these Death Dancers prepared for the Dark Angel, who may tonight come in their midst and take their souls to the Otherworld?’

  ‘They are.’

  Magus paused, looking in turn at each of the bodies on the sleds. He was quite terrifying in the skull mask.

  ‘Bearers, step forward.’

  Five robed people stood before him and he addressed them solemnly.

  ‘Tonight you bearers may look Death itself in the face and you must turn away, for you belong in the Realm of the Living. Before you enter the Stone Labyrinth, you must be fortified. This wine is the fruit of the elder, the sacred tree of the dead, and represents the blood of the earth, the blood of death, and the blood of birth. Drink deeply of the wine in preparation for the part you must play in the Dance of Death.’

  A squat female figure with a small cauldron and ladle came forward. One by one the bearers knelt before Magus, who held a ladle of the dark liquid to their mouths for them to drink. He then moved to the white figures, supine on the sleds, and poured a tiny amount of wine over their unresponsive lips. But when Magus came to Yul, the bearer stood aside. Jackdaw crouched and lifted the boy’s head, tipping it back and opening his mouth. He winked as Yul’s terrified eyes met his, only centimetres away. Magus slowly poured a whole ladle full of the wine down his throat, giving him time to swallow without choking. Yul felt the thick, warm wine slide down into his empty stomach. Jackdaw looked up and nodded, and Magus gave him another ladleful.

  Yul, already drugged from the little bottle of liquid, felt his body melt into paralysis as if his bones were dissolving. Before him he saw Magus flex his claws and purr with pleasure. The Jackdaw strutted forward and bowed to the Cat. Then the black-robed bearers took up the ropes and began to drag the Death Dancers’ sleds towards the entrance of the Stone Labyrinth.

  3

  Within the Stone Circle the transformation was complete. The circus of joy and celebration had become a carousel of darkness and death. Painted emblems of the dead danced and flickered on each great stone, lit from beneath by flaming torches. On the beaten earth floor the lines of the labyrinth were defined with black stones and candles in red glass jars, glimmering like tiny pools of blood to mark the sacred path. In the centre of this Stone Labyrinth rose a flat-topped pyre, a raft of death large enough to consume several corpses.

  The first bearer dragged his sled under the elder arch, brushing beneath the hanging feathers and bones. The black-robed figure and his white-tuniced burden stepped onto the path of the labyrinth and the Dance of Death began. Yul knew that the pattern itself marked the dance, and led the dancer by twists and turns into the Realm of the Otherworld. Tonight at Samhain, with the veil between the worlds so thin, the dead would be visible. Echoing around the arena, the drums were like heartbeats thudding out their final rhythm and a lone voice chanted eerily in a song for the dead. The birds of the Otherworld were now here, having left the Village once the Samhain Bonfire was lit. Crows, jackdaws, rooks, blackbirds and starlings perched on every stone forming a ring of black feathers and bright eyes.

  Finally it was Yul’s turn to enter the labyrinth; he was the last. His bearer tugged and the sled moved forward, sliding across the soft earth. It was a strange sensation for Yul, lying inert on his back – lurching but gliding, and very slow. Reality had vanished and his world had imploded into this circle, this pattern; the red flickering lights below his vision, the torches and capering skulls and crows above. The drumming and chanting were deep and unearthly, and in the slight mist inside the Circle the temperature was dropping steadily. Yul’s skin was cold; his feet and hands were numb already. He tried to close his eyes, wanting only to block out this vision of horror, but couldn’t. The Dance of Death was inexorable.

&
nbsp; The Great Barn was alive with merriment and laughter, the community having feasted well and all now freely drinking cider and elderberry wine. With the young children tucked up in bed, the older children and adults were having a riotous time. The Barn looked fantastical with all the candles inside the pumpkins and skulls lit and flickering. Flocks of black papier-mâché birds moved in the hot air or perched realistically on the rafters. The dancing was wild, the musicians tireless and Miranda sat on one of the benches at the edge fanning herself. She was hot and uncomfortable, too pregnant to join in the galloping dances. Sylvie sat listless and exhausted next to her, the earlier resolve to fight Magus now seeped away. It had been a long day and all she wanted was get back to her bed, but Magus wasn’t here so she couldn’t ask to leave. Would he be angry if she went back to the Hall now, having made such a fuss this morning about her joining in the celebrations?

  She thought wearily about what he’d said to her earlier but her tired head was a jumble of confusion. If Magus intended to talk to her again in the morning she must sleep soon, as she’d need all her strength to stand up to him and his silver tongue. Perhaps she could use her gift of moon magic as a bargaining tool to help Yul? Sylvie closed her eyes, trying to block out the noise and heat of the celebration. The only thing that would make it bearable here tonight was if Yul were around. She wanted so much to see him, to make sure that he really was alright as Magus had said. She wondered what he was doing up at the Stone Circle tonight. What sort of ceremony was taking place up there?

  She concentrated hard and suddenly an image flashed into her mind: hundreds of black birds perched on the tall stones looking down; drumming and chanting, slow and sinister; red lights flickering in the mist; black-hooded figures with skulls for faces dragging heavy burdens after them. Sylvie felt terror, a suffocating sensation of being trapped and unable to move, a certain knowledge that something terrible was going to happen. She opened her eyes with a jolt, her heart thudding.