beige caps – two each. Death Caps – lethal and final.
14
The light was fading amongst the trees as the men and boys in the Wildwood cooked their feast on the fire, the meat on a spit and large potatoes wrapped and baking amongst the glowing charcoal. There were other treats spread out on rough trestle tables and a great barrel of cider too. Some of the men were drumming and everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. Yul sat on a log slightly apart from everyone, his back against a tree trunk. It had been a very long day, as these days always were, joining in all the activities alongside the youngsters destined to become men in the morning.
All day Yul and some of the men had kept the boys in the Wildwood, away from the community, and engaged in physical endurance challenges. Yul was exhausted from the stealth games, tree climbing and archery, and he longed for a hot bath and bed. But there was the evening of feasting, singing and drinking to be got through first and more male bonding with the youngsters. They were all very excited about becoming men and receiving new ceremonial robes from their families and pewter pendants from their magus.
Yul fingered the pewter pendant on its leather thong around his own neck. He’d chosen the Green Man as his personal totem, and the other side was embossed with a sprig of mistletoe just as all these youngsters would have too. Tomorrow was his birthday – twenty-nine years old. Thirteen years since he’d become a man, although the occasion hadn’t been marked in this way. He hadn’t even taken part in the customary ritual up at the Stone Circle because he’d wanted to wait for Sylvie to reach her sixteenth birthday.
It had been a terrible day overall, though it had started well enough with the wonderful sunrise ceremony. The relief that his lifelong battle with Magus was finally over had been overwhelming, but all day he’d been haunted by the thought of that broken body lying at the foot of the Snake Stone amongst the boulders and stone rubble. Edward had dealt with that – and the other two bodies at Quarrycleave – and Clip and others had stepped in too, wanting to protect the boy from further distress. Yul distinctly remembered the strong sense of unreality that had clouded everything that Winter Solstice, and the feel of new beginnings for everyone at Stonewylde.
When the sun had risen over the Village Green and the community had arrived at the Great Barn for a Solstice breakfast, someone had discovered old Professor Siskin’s body curled up on the ground, all rimed with frost. Sylvie had been devastated; convinced his death was her fault. But worst of all, for Yul at least, had been the discovery of Mother Heggy’s death. He and Sylvie had walked to her tumble-down cottage later on that morning, still in their beautiful Winter Solstice robes, hoping to persuade her to come to the Barn for the festivities. Yul remembered noting the lack of smoke trickling from the crooked chimney, which was an ominous sign in mid-winter, and had pushed the door open with trepidation. He’d never forget the sight of the tiny crone still hunched up in the centre of her circle of salt, the five points of the pentangle marked with symbols of the elements, the little fire-cauldron cold and dead.
Mother Heggy had looked so small and helpless then, but she’d been so very strong for him. He’d cried on seeing her, great sobs of anguish and sorrow, and Sylvie had done her best to comfort him just as he’d comforted her a little earlier by Professor Siskin’s body. His sixteenth birthday had been a day like no other and he wouldn’t wish it on any of the boys here today. They seemed so young and carefree, yet they all knew so much more than he had at their age. He smiled wryly; if nothing else, he could feel a sense of achievement that the youngsters of Stonewylde were now educated properly and had many choices and opportunities open to them.
He sat there gazing at the revelry around him and wondered what Sylvie was doing now. She would have left the girls’ Rite of Adulthood events under the willows by the river and was probably back at the Hall putting their daughters to bed. Leveret could’ve been told to babysit of course, and Celandine and Bluebell would’ve loved that. Yul couldn’t understand