The Enchanter's Forest by Alys Clare Read Free Book Online

looked real enough and, despite himself, Josse was awestruck. His eyes ran over the huge bones – large dome of the skull, with the brow ridges elegantly curved; long, heavy arms, deep ribs; wide pelvis, femurs and lower leg bones stretching endlessly. He glanced down at his own legs then back at the skeleton, calculating that the giant’s legs must have been at least an arm’s length longer than his own. Which would have meant that had Josse and the giant stood side by side, the giant would have towered over him by perhaps almost as much as a quarter of Josse’s own height.
         He did not know what to make of it. Expecting a very obvious fraud – a pile of bones scavenged from some old, forgotten burial ground, perhaps, or even the cast-offs from a slaughter house – here he was faced with a real human skeleton, moreover an unusually large one. It was . . . disturbing.
         Josse realised as he stood there in silent, entranced contemplation that something was happening: there was a definite sense of power emanating from the skeleton and he could feel the hairs on his arms tickle his skin as they rose in response to his atavistic dread. It’s not Merlin! he shouted silently, fighting his sudden alarm. It can’t be; Merlin is nothing but a legend. Am I to be like some ignorant peasant, deluded by a clever man’s trickery? For trickery it is, he told himself, struggling to keep a clear head and a rational outlook. Whatever power these huge bones may possess, Florian of Southfrith is claiming it to be something it isn’t and in my view, Josse thought grimly, that amounts to deception.
         But argue with himself as he might, still Josse’s body defied his brain as the fear and the awe flooded him.
         He tore his enchanted eyes from the bones and caught sight of the faint gleam of some dull, dark metal on the far side of the tomb. Moving around the head end of the pit so as to have a closer look, he saw that it was a plaque, probably made of lead. It was roughly in the shape of an equal-armed cross, pitted and broken at the edges as if it had, in truth, spent six hundred years in the ground. The inscription was in Latin and read Here lies Merlin, magician to King Arthur. Look upon his power and fear him .
         Trying desperately to shake himself free of the spell, Josse took a pace – two, three paces – away from the tomb. And abruptly the dread left him.
         He stumbled on, following the path as it curved away, concealing the tomb once more. His breath came more easily now and he felt the sweat of fear drying on his back. By the time he reached the huddle of tables, benches and low, rudely fashioned huts where the pilgrims took their refreshments, he was breathing normally again.
         Almost.

Chapter 3
     
    As he rode thoughtfully back to Hawkenlye Abbey, Josse tried to distract his thoughts from his reaction to the strange power of the bones by attempting to calculate just how much money Florian of Southfrith must be making out of his convincing and seductive new venture. There was the admission fee; he recalled the not inconsiderable sum of two silver half-pennies that had been extracted from him, although it was possible that those pleading extreme poverty might get in for less. How many visitors could there be in a day? Twenty? No, more, surely, for they had been arriving steadily throughout the time span of Josse’s approach, arrival and departure. Forty, then, and that estimate was surely on the low side. Even if every one gave just half a penny, that was twenty pennies. It would take a working man three weeks to make that much.
         Then there was the food and drink that was on offer after the pilgrims had visited the tomb. Hot and thirsty after the journey, surely it would have taken either a strong will or an empty purse to resist the mugs of beer and the plates of bread, dried meat and cheese invitingly spread out. Josse had succumbed to temptation; he had been