Part 6 (1/2)

I did as I was told, using at least two inches of the dark mixture. Then I boiled the kettle and filled the cup almost to the brim with hot water.

'Drink this, Meg,' the Spook told her as I handed her the steaming cup. 'You'll need this because the weather's turning colder and it might make your bones ache.'

Meg smiled at him and within ten minutes she'd drained the cup and her head was already beginning to nod. The Spook handed me the key to the gate on the stairs and told me to lead the way. Then he picked Meg up as if she were a baby and followed hard on my heels.

I unlocked the gate, then went down the steps and waited at the middle door of the three while my master carried Meg into the darkness inside. He left the door open and I could hear every word he said to her.

'Goodnight, my love' he said. 'Dream about our garden.'

I'm sure I shouldn't have heard that, but I had, and I did feel a little embarra.s.sed to hear my master of all people talk like that.

And what garden was the Spook talking about? Did he mean the gardens at Chipenden? If so, I hoped he meant the western garden with its view of the fells. The other two, with their boggart pits and graves for witches, didn't bear thinking about.

Meg said nothing in reply, but the Spook must have woken her up when he came out and locked the door behind him, because she suddenly started to cry like a child afraid of the dark. Hearing that sound, the Spook paused and we waited outside the door a long time until the crying finally subsided and was replaced by another very faint sound. I could hear the breath whistling out through Meg's teeth as she exhaled,.

'She's all right now' I said quietly to my master. 'She's asleep. I can hear her snoring.'

'Nay, lad!' said the Spook, giving me one of his withering glances. 'It's more like singing than snoring!'

Well, it certainly sounded like snoring to me, and all I could think was that the Spook didn't like even the slightest criticism of Meg. Anyway, that said, we went up, locked the gate behind us and packed our things for the journey.

We went east, climbing deeper into the clough, until it grew so narrow that we were almost walking in the stream and there was just a tiny crack of grey sky above us. Then, to my surprise, we came to some steps cut into the rock.

They were narrow, steep steps, slippery with patches of ice. I was carrying the Spook's heavy bag, which meant that, if I slipped, I only had one hand free to save myself.

Following my master, I managed to get to the top in one piece and it was certainly worth the climb because I was back in the fresh air again, with wide open s.p.a.ces on every side. The wind was gusting fit to blow us right off the moor and the clouds were dark and menacing, racing so close above our heads that it felt like you could almost reach up and touch them.

As I told you, being a moor, Anglezarke was high but a lot flatter than the fells we'd left behind in Chipenden. There were some hills and valleys though, some of them very strange shapes. One in particular stood out because it was a smallish mound, too rounded and smooth to be natural. As we pa.s.sed close to it, I suddenly recognized it as the barrow where I'd seen the Hursts' son.

'That's where I saw Morgan,' I told the Spook. 'He was standing right on top of it.'

'No doubt he was, lad. He always was fascinated by that barrow and just couldn't stay away. They call it the Round Loaf, you know, because of its shape,' said the Spook, leaning on his staff. 'It was built in ancient times, by the first men who came to the County from the west. They landed at Heysham, as you well know.'

'What's it for?' I asked.

'Few know for sure, but many are daft enough to make a guess. Most think it's just a barrow where an ancient king was laid to rest with all his armour and gold. Greedy folks have dug deep pits, but for all their hard work, they found nothing. Do you know what the word Anglezarke means, lad?'

I shook my head and s.h.i.+vered with cold.

'Well, it means 'pagan temple'. The whole moor was a vast church, open to the skies, where that ancient people wors.h.i.+pped the Old G.o.ds. And, as your mam told you, the most powerful of those G.o.ds was called Golgoth, which means Lord of Winter. This mound, some say, was his special altar. To begin with, he was a powerful elemental force, a spirit of nature who loved the cold. But because he was wors.h.i.+pped so long and so fervently, he became aware and wilful, sometimes lingering long after his allotted season and threatening a year-long grip of ice and snow. Some even think that it was Golgoth's power that brought about the last Ice Age. Who knows the truth? In any event, in the depths of winter, at the solstice, fearing that the cold would never end and that spring would never return, people made sacrifices to appease him. Blood sacrifices, they were, because men never learn.'

'Animals?' I asked.

'Humans, lad - they did it so that, gorged on the blood of those victims, Golgoth would fall satisfied into a deep sleep, allowing spring to return. The bones of those sacrificed still remain. Dig anywhere within a mile of this spot and it won't be long before you find bones a-plenty.

'This mound is something else that's always bothered me about Morgan. He couldn't keep away from the place and was always interested in Golgoth -far too much for my liking - and he probably still is. You see, some folks think Golgoth could be the key to achieving magical supremacy, and if a mage like Morgan were to tap into the power of Golgoth, then the power of the dark could overwhelm the County.'

'And you think Golgoth is still here, somewhere on the moor ...'

'Aye. It's said that he sleeps far beneath it. And that's why Morgan's interest in Golgoth is dangerous. The thing is, lad, the Old G.o.ds wax strong when they're wors.h.i.+pped by foolish men. Golgoth's power waned when that wors.h.i.+p ceased and he fell into a deep slumber. A slumber we don't want him waking from.'

'But why did the people stop wors.h.i.+pping him? I thought they were afraid that the winter would never end?'

'Aye, lad, that's true, but other circ.u.mstances are sometimes more important. Perhaps a stronger tribe moves onto the moor with a different G.o.d. Or maybe crops fail and a people have to move on to a more fertile area. The reason is lost in time, but now Golgoth sleeps. And that's the way I want it to stay. So keep away from this spot, lad, that's my advice. And let's try to keep Morgan away from it too. Now come on, there can't be much daylight left, so we'd better press on.'

With those words the Spook led us away, and an hour later we came down off the moor and moved northwards, arriving at Stone Farm before dark. William, the farmer's son, was waiting for us at the end of the lane, and we made our way up the hill towards the farm just as the light was beginning to fail. But before visiting the farmhouse, the Spook insisted on being taken up to the place where the body had been found.

A track from the back farmyard gate led straight up onto the moor, which was dark and threatening against the grey sky. Now that the wind had dropped, the clouds were moving sluggishly and looked heavy with snow.

About two hundred paces brought us to a clough far smaller than the one where the Spook's house was built but no less gloomy and forbidding. It was just a narrow ravine full of mud and stones, split in two by a fast-moving shallow stream.

There seemed nothing much to see but I didn't feel at ease and neither did William. His eyes were rolling in his head and he kept spinning round suddenly as if he thought something might be sneaking up on him from behind. It was funny to watch but I was too scared to manage even a smile.

'So this is the place?' asked the Spook as William came to a halt.

William nodded and indicated a patch of ground where the tussocks of gra.s.s had been flattened.

'And that's the boulder we lifted from his head,' he said, pointing at a large lump of grey rock. 'It took two of us to lift it!'

The rock was big and I stared at it gloomily, scared to think that something like that could drop from the sky. It made me realize how dangerous a stone-chucker could be.

Then, very suddenly, stones did start to fall. The first was a small one, the noise of it hitting the gra.s.s so faint that I only just heard it above the gurgling of the stream. I looked up into the clouds just in time to see a far larger stone fall, narrowly missing my head. Soon stones of all sizes were dropping around us, some large enough to do us serious damage.

The Spook pointed back towards the farm with his staff and, to my surprise, began to lead the way back down the clough. We moved fast, and I struggled to keep up, the bag getting heavier with every step, the mud slippery beneath my feet. We only came to a breathless halt when we reached the farmyard.

The stones had stopped falling but one of them had already done some damage. There was a cut on the Spook's forehead and blood was trickling down. It wasn't serious and no threat to his health, but seeing him injured like that made me worried.

The stone-chucker had killed a man, and yet somehow my master - who wasn't in his prime - was going to have to deal with it. I knew he really was going to need his apprentice tomorrow. I knew it would be a terrifying day.

Henry Luddock made us very welcome when we got back to the farm. Soon we were seated in his kitchen in front of a blazing log fire. He was a big, jovial, red-faced man who hadn't let the threat from the boggart get him down. He was sad at the death of the shepherd he'd hired, but was kind and considerate towards us and wanted to play the host by offering us a big supper.

'Thanks for the offer, Henry' the Spook told him, declining politely. 'It's very kind of you but we never work on a full stomach. That's just asking for trouble.

But you just go ahead and eat what you want anyway' To my dismay that's exactly what the Luddock family did. They sat down and tucked into big helpings of veal pie, while a measly mouthful of pale yellow cheese and a gla.s.s of water each was all the Spook allowed us.

So I sat there nibbling my cheese, thinking about Alice in that house where she was so unhappy. If it hadn't been for this boggart, the Spook might have dealt with Morgan and made things better. But with a stone-chucker to face, who knew when he would get round to it now.

There were no spare bedrooms at the Luddocks' and the Spook and I spent an uncomfortable night, each wrapped in a blanket on the kitchen floor, close to the embers of the fire. Cold and stiff, we were up the following morning well before dawn and set off for the nearest village, which was called Belmont. It was downhill all the way, which made progress easy, but I knew that soon we'd have to retrace every step, making the hard climb back up to the farm.

Belmont wasn't very large - just a crossroads with half a dozen houses and the smithy we'd come to visit. The blacksmith didn't seem very pleased to see us, but that was probably because our knocking got him out of bed. He was big and muscular like most smiths, certainly not a man to trifle with, but he looked at the Spook warily and seemed ill at ease. He knew my master's trade all right.

'I need a new axe,' said the Spook.

The smith pointed to the wall behind the forge, where a number of axe-heads were displayed, roughly shaped ready for their final finish.

The Spook chose quickly, pointing to the biggest. It was a huge double blade and the blacksmith looked my master up and down quickly, as if judging whether he was big and strong enough to wield it.