But it was too late. He looked up.

The bare branches against the sky were a writing and, though he did not want to, he could read it. He saw that it was a question put to him by the trees.

“Yes,” he answered them.

Their age and their knowledge belonged to him.

Beyond the trees was a high, snow-covered ridge, like a line drawn across the sky. Its shadow was blue upon the snow before it. It embodied all kinds of cold and hardness. It hailed Stephen as a King it had long missed. At a word from Stephen it would tumble down and crush his enemies. It asked Stephen a question.

“Yes,” he told it.

Its scorn and strength were his for the taking.

The black beck beneath the packhorse bridge sang its question to him.

“Yes,” he said.

The earth said …

“Yes,” he said.

The rooks and magpies and redwings and chaffinches said …

“Yes,” he said.

The stones said …

“Yes,” said Stephen. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Now all of England lay cupped in his black palm. All Englishmen were at his mercy. Now every insult could be revenged. Now every injury to his poor mother could be paid back a thousandfold. All of England could be laid waste in a moment. He could bring houses crashing down upon the occupants’ heads. He could command hills to fall and valleys to close their lips. He could summon up centaurs, snuff out stars, steal the moon from the sky. Now. Now. Now.

Now came Lady Pole and Mr Segundus, running down from the Hall in the pale winter sunlight. Lady Pole looked at the gentleman with eyes ablaze with hatred. Poor Mr Segundus was all confusion and dismay.

The gentleman turned to Stephen and said something. Stephen could not hear him: the hills and the trees spoke too loud. But, “Yes,” he said.

The gentleman laughed gaily and raised his hands to cast spells on Lady Pole.

Stephen closed his eyes. He spoke a word to the stones of the packhorse bridge.

Yes, said the stones. The bridge reared up like a raging horse and cast the gentleman into the beck.

Stephen spoke a word to the beck.

Yes, said the beck. It grasped the gentleman in a grip of iron and bore him swiftly away.

Stephen was aware that Lady Pole spoke to him, that she tried to catch hold of his arm; he saw Mr Segundus’s pale, astonished face, saw him say something; but he had no time to answer them. Who knew how long the world would consent to obey him? He leapt down from the bridge and ran along the bank.

The trees seemed to greet him as he ran past; they spoke of old alliances and reminded him of times gone by. The sunlight called him King and spoke its pleasure at finding him here. He had no time to tell them he was not the person they imagined.

He came to a place where the land rose steeply upon either side of the beck – a deep dale in the moor, a place where millstones were quarried. Scattered around the sides of the dale were great, round, hewn stones, each of them half the height of a man.