Free Circle of Stones by Catherine Fisher Page A

time I had finished I was at least respectable, not that anyone in this hole could tell. I went to the window & threw open the shutter.
    A great storm was rising. The wind laid all the trees & hedgerows down before it. There was a small orchard outside, grazed by a flock of geese, & to my dismay I saw there were stones here too, three great ones, huddled together. For a moment I was curious as to how they related to the circles, what their purpose had been, but then weariness with the whole thing came over me & I went & lay on the musty bed. Rain pattered on the thatch. I wondered how much lower I could sink than this.
    My apprenticeship with Forrest had been arranged by a friend of my father’s—perhaps the one friend he had left. It was to be a new life for me—a new start for my family. I was to make the fortune we had lost. I had felt the faint stirrings of interest, on hearing of Forrest’s alleged genius, but meeting him had been a sore disappointment, & now with this trollop he had brought to the house, & the rich men of the city despising his new scheme, I wished I had never come. Perhaps I should write home & ask them to think again. I had no idea what fees my father was paying Forrest, but I was sure they could be better spent. I would never be much of an architect.
    I curled up. Failure & loneliness galled me. For a moment I felt like some outcast, like the leper king in the forest among the pigs, lost & seeking only a magic place of healing. Then Forrest called up the stairs, “Supper, Zac!”
    The food was, I suppose, surprisingly good. A crackling joint & mashed swede & turnip & a steaming confection that I had no name for but which tasted of cream & which banished the cold right out of me to the fingertips.
    I sat back with a glass of porter & was almost content.
    â€œSo, Zac.” Forrest watched me. “Did you see the connection between these circles & my work?”
    I shrugged. “A druid circle, sir, but  .  .  .”
    â€œThere were thirty stones.” He stood & paced, impatient. “Twenty-seven remain, but there were thirty in the outer ring, as at Stonehenge. As if that number was a magic one. As if it meant some harmony, some geometric truth. Three times ten. Perhaps they had thirty gods, or thirty ancestors, or thirty days in a month. It would make thirteen months in a year  .  .  .”
    I tried not to sigh. “So you will have thirty houses in the Circus.”
    â€œAnd three avenues leading out. The points of these will form a triangle of equal sides within the circle. The houses will have three stories each. The pediment will be crowned with a circle of acorns—the fruit of the oak. Bladud’s crown. This is what my design is, Zac, a repeat of what the ancients did.
I will build my own stone circle
.”
    I drank. “What Greye said. About the noise. The foul air  .  .  .”
    â€œTotal nonsense.” He glared at me. “Can you believe such rubbish?”
    This from him, with his leper druids! The pot-woman had told us some tale that the stones here were the remains of wedding guests turned to stones for dancing on Sundays. He had laughed at that.
    I said, “People fear new things. Perhaps a straight terrace would be better. You would make a good profit, & then  .  .  .”
    He was looking at me as if I had stabbed him with a knife. “Get to bed. I have to go out for an hour. Don’t wait up for me. Tomorrow we ride back early.”
    He went out, slamming the door, & I stared at it in astonishment. Where was there to go in this pig-poke of a place? And yet at once it came to me that this was the real reason we had come, & the sign of the serpent devouring its tail flashed into my mind. In minutes I was up, had caught my coat & slipped out after him.
    The storm was roaring over the downs. The orchard was a howling clamor of threshing branches. But I could see him. He had not gone