The Giants' Dance by Robert Carter

sun began to fill the ups and downs of their path with shimmering patches and pools.
    They went a league or two out of their way to the southand passed many folk on the road. Gwydion made a sign to them and warned Will to silence. Some people seemed to see Will but not the wizard. Some seemed to see neither. Others turned about as if alarmed, or at least puzzled by some unaccountable presence. Occasionally there were those who embraced Gwydion as if they had been met by a long-dead kinsman, and to these Gwydion gave a word in friendship and sometimes a token of reward.
    They came down to a little river and saw a bridge-keeper’s shack. Here two men in red livery guarded the bridge. Arms had once been painted on a board but they had faded and peeled away.
    Neither the keeper of the Windrush crossing nor the two men-at-arms seemed to notice them, though a witless beggar put his hands out for a blessing and Gwydion clasped his hand briefly as he passed.
    â€˜Welcome, Master Jack-in-a-box!’ the beggar said.
    â€˜Keep up!’ Gwydion warned as Will looked pitifully at the beggar’s sores.
    â€˜Has he no friends to take care of him?’ Will asked angrily. ‘Is he a man or a dog? And why is he clad in such filthy rags? Is there no Sister here? What sort of place is this?’
    â€˜We are at the village of Lowe, and shall soon be through it,’ Gwydion said.
    â€˜Can nothing be done for the people here?’
    â€˜This village belongs to an ill-starred fellow whose company is best avoided. This lord has driven the local Wise Woman away, and for that his people will one day murder him, for it is a true rede that “by the least of men shall the best of men always be judged”.’
    There were cottages clustered here, with folk sitting at their doors. Half a dozen dirty children played in the way, and the people seemed odd. They made no acknowledgment of Will’s greetings as he passed. One old woman, however, received Gwydion as a subject would receive aking. She gave him a bundle which was put into the wizard’s crane bag which was instantly passed to Will to carry. As they left the village and rose up the hill high above the mossy thatches Will looked back down into the valley to where the brimming waters of the Windrush shone in brash daylight. There was a large manor some way to the right of the bridge.
    â€˜Do not look at it,’ Gwydion said, and pulled him onward.
    â€˜But how did the village get that way?’
    â€˜It is a place of poor aspect. Land-blighted. Not every village in the Realm is as well set as Nether Norton. Many do not have a kindly lord. You should think yourself fortunate that the Vale is a place without any ruler, for some delight in making themselves overmighty while they may.’
    Their journey, Gwydion had said, would not take them far, but they had already walked many a long league and Will’s feet ached. They were going to the place where the violet light had burned, but it was ever the wizard’s way not to go anywhere very directly. He took account of the flows in the land, choosing ancient paths, or striding along great arcs that swirled from hill to saddle and then swept on along the spring-lines of an upland or plunged down into the cool heart of a wood. Always the wizard’s staff would swing out in a striding rhythm, seeking narrow deer paths, and more often than not Will found himself following in his guide’s footsteps instead of walking at his shoulder as he preferred. Seldom did they follow the ways used by men, though sometimes they found dusty tracks, or a line of gnarled trees, or a trackway that meandered among planted fields. By now Will had begun to worry about Willow and his regret at their not having said a proper farewell was eating at him. He went through what he would have liked to have said, then he pictured his daughter crawling across the grass while her mother gathered windfall apples, andthat image