‘Such as?’
Stort shrugged and said, ‘Well, I suppose any scrap of information might help. You did know ã Faroün, did you not?’
‘I did.’
‘Did you know he was not of Arabic origin?’
‘That too. He told me when he brought me here.’
‘You have been here before?’ asked Stort, surprised and excited.
‘On this very spot. Also on the night of Samhain, a great many years ago.’
‘Celebrating?’
‘Yes.’
‘My Lord,’ interrupted Blut, ‘you are being obtuse. I think what Mister Stort is asking, or trying to, is simply whether or not you know what your great mentor did with the gem?’
‘Well, of course I do, Blut, because he did it here when I was standing next to him.’
‘He did what!?’ cried Stort and Blut together.
‘Disposed of the gem. He felt the time had come for him to part with it.’
‘You saw it?’
‘I did.’
‘You touched it?
‘Ah . . . no . . . it is not for ordinary folk to do that. It requires someone rather special, with a heart that is purer than mine.’
‘What did ã Faroün do with it?’ asked Jack.
‘Did he bury it?’ wondered Katherine.
Sinistral looked around at them all, enjoying himself.
‘No, he didn’t bury it.’
He signalled Stort to come and stand by him. The two were the same height.
‘He threw it,’ said Sinistral.
‘Threw it?’ repeated Stort. ‘Where?’
‘There,’ said Slaeke Sinistral softly, taking his arm and pointing at the racing clouds before them. ‘There! Why not try it for yourself?’
He bent down and picked up a small stone from the earth at his feet and gave it to Stort with a smile.
‘Throw it as hard as you can towards the sky, as ã Faroün did, and you will see that it is not so hard to find where the gem of Autumn is.’
They had all gathered round for midnight and fell silent as Stort pulled back his arm to throw.
‘Hard,’ instructed Sinistral, ‘and high!’
The stone was dark and small and they could not see it as it flew from Stort’s hand until, by some trick of the light perhaps, its flight began to leave an arc of tiny stars, one following after the other in a myriad that seemed to open up the sky and part the clouds and show that, where the moon shone bright, the White Horse and its rider waited.
The stone’s trail of stars fell slowly to the ground as the White Horse, which galloped faster than time itself, flew towards them such that when its two front hoofs touched the ground and the Shield Maiden riding it hauled in the reins, the stone fell between its feet.
They saw that it shone with all the colours of the Autumn and at its core it held the Fires of the Universe.
At once Stort left them where they stood and crossed the field, following the silvery trail to where the Horse and its Rider stood, and he picked up the gem that the stone had become.
Its light shone in the Chime that hung from his neck, and it too held something of the Fires of the Universe and the warm light of Samhain.
‘Hello, Judith,’ he said softly.
The moonlight lit her hair and the gem her face.
‘Hello,’ she said, ‘where have you been?’
‘Here and there,’ he said, ‘looking for this and finding other things . . .’
‘Come closer.’
He did.
She was old and lined, but all that was gone in seeing him.
‘You are beautiful,’ he said.
‘You make me feel so, Bedwyn Stort, you make me feel it. Now, give the gem to me.’
She bent forward so that he could put the gem of Autumn in the setting in the gold pendant that hung from her neck, so perfectly made by Beornamund that once a gem was put back in its proper place with love, it would not come out again.
‘There,’ he said, ‘you have it now. But we . . .’
She put a finger to her lips.
‘ “We” can never be,’ she said.
He stared at her, frowning.
‘It is a problem,’ he conceded good-humouredly, ‘but every problem has a solution.’
‘This one doesn’t, Bedwyn Stort. Not ever.’
‘We’ll see.’
She smiled.
‘You only have until the end of Winter to find a solution.’
‘There is one?’
She laughed the laugh he had always loved.
‘It’s beyond any mortal to find it,’ she said.
‘Maybe,’ said Bedwyn Stort, ‘and maybe not.’
She rode among them briefly, all silvery light and fire, and paused awhile with Arthur especially, their words together private. She embraced him and her light seemed to be his own.
Then, as suddenly as she had come, she was gone, over Pendower Beach, high over Killigerran Head, towards where the moon soared and the stars shone.
They all watched after her, who rode alone through the seasons and loved a love that could never be.
Professor Arthur Foale passed away peacefully three days later in nearby Carne.
The hydden made a pyre on the spot not far from the Beacon, where Stort had found the gem of Autumn.
The day of the burning was still and the fire bright and fierce. It died with the coming of the evening, by when Arthur’s spirit had returned to the Mirror and his body turned to ash. That same night the first winds of Winter came from the north and scattered his ashes across land and sea and to the four quarters of the Earth he loved; and to the stars above.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a great pleasure to thank Janice Brockway once again for her support from the beginning to the end of the writing of a Hyddenworld novel. A writer may reach for the stars but, on this occasion, this particular one sometimes needed help getting there. She has given it unfailingly.
BY WILLIAM HORWOOD
The Duncton Chronicles
Duncton Wood
Duncton Quest
Duncton Found
The Book of Silence
Duncton Tales
Duncton Rising
Duncton Stone
The Wolves of Time
Journeys to the Heartland
Seekers at the WulfRock
Tales of the Willows
The Willows in Winter
Toad Triumphant
The Willows and Beyond
The Willows at Christmas
Other works
The Stonor Eagles
Callanish
Skallagrigg
The Boy with No Shoes (Memoir)
The Hyddenworld series
Hyddenworld: Spring
Awakening
Harvest
First published in 2012 by Macmillan
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Copyright © William Horwood 2012
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