by Roger Taylor
It took him a little time, but the dog eventually stopped its growling and moved cautiously towards him, dropping on to its belly as it reached him. He put out his hand and stroked it. ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘We'll see to them now. Your job's finished.'
Then, keeping his hand comfortingly on the dog's shoulder, he moved over to the two bodies. Yakob followed him.
'Are they...?’ he asked needlessly, finishing the question with a vague and helpless gesture.
'Yes,’ Gryss said. ‘And some time ago, I'd say.’ He looked up at Yakob. ‘Farnor was deeply shocked when he came to me. I think he'd been wandering round lost for hours.'
Yakob crouched down by him. ‘What in pity's name has happened here?’ he said, his voice lower than ever. ‘Why are they ... here? Outside the house? Why are they dead? What...?'
'Hold the lantern still while I look,’ Gryss said.
He began to examine the two bodies.
One of the grimmer thoughts that had occurred to him as he had tended Farnor was that indeed the lad's mind had failed under the pressure of recent happenings and that he had committed some terrible atrocity. His whole being rebelled against the idea, but it had its own dark logic and could not lightly be set aside.
His mind was not eased by the rent he found in Katrin's dress and by the broad wound under the arch of her ribs. As he examined the wound, his eye caught sight of the stout kitchen knife embedded in the door frame.
Almost reluctantly, he moved to Garren. Gently he kneaded the crooked limbs, then he placed his hand around Garren's head to raise it.
The softness there made him draw a sharp breath and he had to force himself to examine it further.
'What's the matter?’ Yakob said.
Gryss shook his head in a mute appeal for further patience, and continued his sorry work.
When he stood up his face was puzzled, though there was also a hint of relief in it. Whatever had happened here, Farnor could not have done it. Yakob looked at him expectantly.
'Katrin was stabbed,’ Gryss said bluntly. ‘Probably with that thing there.’ He gestured to the knife. ‘As for Garren, he's a mass of broken bones. I've not seen anything like it since we found Menion.'
Yakob grimaced. That incident had been many years ago. Menion had been a young man, who, finding that a long-held and until then secret love was not returned, wandered off into the mountains. Yakob and Gryss had been members of the party that was sent out to search for him two days later. They found him twisted and broken at the foot of a towering cliff. Whether he came there by accident or by intent none could ever determine, but for those on the party the sight of his shattered body remained with them always.
'I don't understand,’ Yakob said, his voice unsteady. ‘Menion took a terrible fall. How could that have happened to Garren?'
'I've no idea,’ Gryss said unhappily. ‘If anything, he's in a worse state than Menion ...'
But Yakob was not listening. He was swaying and rubbing his face with his hands. Quickly, Gryss took his arm and led him away from the two bodies. They had scarcely gone three paces when Yakob doubled over and vomited. Then his knees went and, unable to support his collapsing weight, Gryss eased him down to the ground until he was on all fours.
Yakob lowered his head and his back started to shake with silent sobs.
Gryss extinguished the lantern and turned away from him. There was nothing he could do for the moment except wait.
Eventually Yakob got to his feet. ‘I'm so sorry,’ he said, shamefacedly, as he took the offered hand for support. ‘Such a display. It's the smell of the smoke, and ...'
'It's stark, unbelievable horror, and it's too much happening too fast,’ Gryss said. ‘I can hardly bring myself to think that this is all real and not some frightful dream I'm having.’ He looked at his friend, struggling to regain his usual dignified composure. ‘There's a butt full of fresh water over there,’ he said. ‘Give your face a wash. It won't make any of this go away, but it'll make you feel better.’ Then, without waiting for Yakob, he walked over to the butt and took his own advice.
'What are we going to do?’ Yakob said, after he too had finished a rudimentary ablution.
The question threw Gryss into confusion as a rush of thoughts burst in upon him. What to do about what? About Farnor? Jeorg? About what had happened here? About Nilsson? About telling the villagers? About gathering in these wandering animals and tending Garren's—Farnor's now, he supposed—crops?
'We must put Garren and Katrin somewhere safe,’ he said, snatching at the nearest thought to still this rambling. He gazed around the yard. ‘We'll have to put them in one of the stalls here. Cover them up, lock the door. We can't do anything else until it's daylight.'
It was an unpleasant task. Katrin was heart-breakingly light and frail and neither man could look at her as they carried her. Garren was much heavier and distressingly bent in the strangest ways due to his massive internal injuries. It lent their struggle with him an element of grotesque farce. Throughout, however, Katrin's words, ‘stabbing and killing', kept ringing through Gryss's head to the rhythm of his shuffling feet.
They left the bodies resting on boards carried on trestles and covered with a rough cloth. Gryss pulled the two halves of the stall door shut and bolted them both, then he plunged his hands into the water butt again and rubbed them together desperately. Moonlight glittered brilliantly on the dancing droplets.
The two men did not speak as they walked back to their horses. Yakob mounted his, but before he too mounted Gryss turned and looked fretfully about the moonlit yard.
'What happened here?’ he said, half to himself. ‘There are gaps in the walls as if something's crashed through them, and everything's scattered all over the place.’ He looked up. ‘And there are slates missing from some of the roofs. Garren was meticulous about such things. It's almost as if there's been a great storm here.'
As he spoke, the memory of the wind that had arisen in the castle courtyard returned to him, and with it Jeorg's words, ‘Rannick's leading them', and his account of how Rannick had tortured him.
A coldness descended on him, stifling his whirling thoughts with an icy grip.
'What's the matter?’ Yakob asked, sensing the change in him.
'We're in the hands of a madman,’ Gryss said.
'Nilsson?'
'No. Rannick,’ Gryss replied.
'Rannick!’ Yakob exclaimed. ‘What's he got to do with anything? He's probably gone over the hill weeks ago, and good riddance.’ Then he looked at Gryss, concerned, fearing, as Gryss had feared for Farnor, that this sudden shock had unhinged him. ‘You mean Nilsson, don't you?’ he said. ‘This could only have been done by him and his men.’ His voice shook. ‘They must've beaten poor Garren like they beat Jeorg, only this time it went too far and ...'
Gryss had been shaking his head throughout. ‘Garren wasn't beaten. No beating could do that kind of damage without it showing more. I think this is Rannick's handiwork. I'm beginning to recognize it. He's leading those men now.'
Yakob leaned forward to reiterate his protest at this foolishness, but Gryss turned to him and said, ‘Jeorg told me about him, Yakob. It was what he whispered to me before you left. I didn't tell you because I didn't know what to make of it. I wanted to think. Then, later, he was so agitated that he woke up despite my sleeping draught and spoke about him again.'
'You mean it, don't you?’ Yakob said, his manner uneasy. ‘Are you sure he wasn't delirious?'
Gryss nodded. ‘There are other things that've been happening of late that I haven't told you about, Yakob, nor anyone else except Farnor and Marna ...'
'Marna! You've been talking about village matters with a slip of a girl and keeping them from the Council?’ Yakob was outraged.
'Marna's no more a slip of a girl now than you are,’ Gryss said with a quiet resolution that was more compelling than any amount of noisy indignation. ‘She's an intelligent and capable young woman, just as Farnor is an intelligent and capable
young man. And what's happening in this valley is going to have a greater effect on them than it will on you and me. They're the ones who'll have to do something about matters, and they're the ones who'll have to live with the consequences, good or bad. All we old sparks are going to be able to do is talk.'
Taken aback by this forthrightness, Yakob was composing himself for a further reproach when Gryss swung up into his saddle with unexpected vigour. ‘Come on, Yakob,’ he said. ‘We've had our kin murdered. Whatever doubts and hesitations I've had about all this will have to be resolved tonight, along with such questions as you want to ask.'
Outfaced by this sudden purposefulness, Yakob began to withdraw into his normal cautious dignity. ‘Where are we going now, then?’ he asked.
'To my cottage,’ Gryss replied. ‘Then Marna can fetch her father. And for the rest of this night we talk and we cling to one another and we try to look into the darkness that's come amongst us.'
* * *
Chapter 31
Footsteps clattered along the stone corridors of the castle, some running, some walking, some firm and determined, others hesitant and fearful. They beat a random, shifting tattoo which threaded its way through the other sounds that filled the castle that night—the sounds that marked a disorder that was teetering perilously near to outright panic. Orders were shouted and disputed, voices were raised in angry quarrels and, too, in laughter, though it was brittle and hard-edged; voices cried out in pain and distress, some pleading, some agonized. Doors creaked and slammed, furniture was overturned, horses whinnied and screamed and pounded their stable walls with violent hooves.
Nilsson sat motionless at the heart of this din, hearing it all, but scarcely heeding. The task of gathering together and calming the men he had curtly delegated to Saddre and Dessane as he had swept the collapsing Rannick on to his horse and dashed with him at full gallop back to the castle.
It had been no easy task for his two lieutenants, not least because they themselves had been badly shaken by the events at the Yarrance farm; not the slaying of Garren and Katrin, which meant little to them, but the unnerving and explosive destruction of the house.
'Do it!’ he had thundered at them, bringing to bear the full power of his dark personality in an attempt to replace the terror of the immediate past with terror of the immediate present. ‘Do it. Round them up. Crack whatever heads need cracking, but do it or we lose everything. I'll tend to the Lord.'
He had crushed ruthlessly any signs he felt rising to the surface of his own inner quaking at what had happened. He had seen worse, albeit many years ago, and his constant solace when standing near the heart of such events remained with him: it was happening to someone else!
But now this eerie yokel had spent himself in some way. Nilsson cursed to himself inwardly as he stared fixedly at Rannick, lying silent on the bed. His only consolation lay in the steady up and down movement of Rannick's chest. Whatever else he had done, he hadn't killed himself.
Which was good and bad fortune, he found himself thinking. Still a part of him urged him to take a knife and end this monster now, before his overweening ambition took him too high too fast, and invoked some other mysterious power in opposition that might bring them all down like proud oaks blasted by lightning. One stroke could end him now, and he and his men could flee to the north as had been his original intention.
But the greater part of him was well fortified against such urgings. What if this ‘illness’ were merely feigned as part of a testing on Rannick's part? Or if his flesh were in some way protected and would turn the point of any lunging blade? Both such things he had known. And, too, what of the creature that Rannick seemed to control? Would it flee, howling and lost, back to whatever pit it had emerged from at the death of its master, or would it come crashing amongst them lusting for bloody vengeance?
Nilsson had many and strong defences ever ready to protect him from his wiser self.
He watched Rannick's steady breathing and sought other consolations like a nervous parent. Perhaps in fact Rannick was only in a deep sleep. All of them had been tired after the last few days’ activity: the long, hard riding, the rough sleeping, the raid on the village in the adjacent valley, then the business with that oaf of a villager and finally all this.
His hopes waxed and waned. This was no ordinary sleep. He had shaken him as roughly as he dared, and called his name. But there had been no response. Hesitantly, he had lifted the eyelids, but that had told him nothing. Nothing except that though his body seemed to be asleep, Rannick's eyes were terrifyingly alert in their fixed gaze.
Out of habit, Nilsson composed his face into an expression of anxious concern to avoid the possibility of his true feelings being visible.
Loud voices in the passage outside roused him from his reverie. Angrily he stood up and went to the door. The source of the noise were two men remonstrating with Dessane. One of them was Bryn, the man who had had such a narrow escape from the creature when he had ridden with Haral's ill-fated group. The other was Avak. That meant trouble.
'We're off,’ Avak was saying as Nilsson emerged from Rannick's room. ‘This ... Lord's a lunatic. It'll go the same way it went before. Next thing you know there'll be a sodding great army marching along the valley looking for us.’ His manner became contemptuous. ‘And our precious Lord, by the way, won't be able to do anything about them, but he'll save his own neck. Gallop off somewhere, just like ...'
'Enough!’ Nilsson kept his voice low, as if, paradoxically, he wished to avoid disturbing Rannick, but its power stopped Avak in full flow.
'Nobody's leaving,’ Nilsson went on, still quietly. ‘We stick together. We make our decisions in congress. That's the way we've survived this far, and that's the way we're going to continue. If you or anyone else wants to leave, then the congress will decide.'
His tone was full of a calmness that should have warned the two men, but they were too preoccupied with their own fears to notice.
'To hell with that ...’ Avak began, but his protest was cut short as Nilsson's fist swung up and struck him squarely on the jaw. So swift, direct and unannounced was the blow that Avak had an incongruously surprised expression on his face as he fell to the floor.
Bryn swore, and moved around the fallen body as if to confront Nilsson.
This time it was Nilsson who was surprised. Avak he could always expect problems from—he was too clever by half. But not Bryn. And, normally, the administration of a little summary justice on the leader of any disturbance had a salutary effect on his followers. That this did not appear to be the case here he noted as being potentially very serious.
This consideration, however, did not hinder him as he moved to deal with the continuing opposition. He raised his clenched fist as if to strike Bryn in the face. Automatically, Bryn raised his hands to protect himself, at which point Nilsson's foot shot out and delivered a jarring kick to his shin. Bryn doubled up immediately with a loud cry of pain. As he did so, Nilsson's raised hand came down and seized him by the scruff of the neck. Then, twisting to one side, Nilsson drove Bryn's head into the wall.
'I'm sorry, Nils,’ Dessane said, hastily, as Bryn slithered to join Avak on the floor. ‘I tried to stop them coming here, but you know Avak. I don't know what ...'
Nilsson ignored his excuses. ‘How many more?’ he demanded.
'Not many,’ Dessane managed, after a little hesitation. ‘And most of them will listen to reason.'
Nilsson held up his hand for silence and inclined his head to catch the sounds drifting along the passage. He frowned, then cast an anxious glance at the door of Rannick's room.
'They're just shouting the odds, Nils, that's all. Getting it out of their systems,’ Dessane said. His voice fell. ‘That panic in the yard frightened the hell out of me, I'll admit.'
Torn between his vigil by his stricken Lord and the need to be amongst his men, keeping this incipient rebellion under control, Nilsson bared his teeth like a trapped animal preparing for a final charge. Dessane dis
creetly took a short pace backwards ready to flee.
'Frightened,’ Nilsson muttered with a snarl. ‘I'll frighten them. Too long without proper action, that's the trouble. They've all ridden in battle and most of them have seen the power used worse than that, haven't they?’ He kicked the fallen Avak. It eased his mood. ‘Get these two old women out of here, Arven. And remind the rest of them who the Lord's anger was directed at. The time to be frightened is when it's directed at them. And if any more of them are thinking about leaving, remind them of our rules and the punishment for disobeying them. We stay together until we have a congress that says otherwise.'
Before Dessane could reply, a figure came running along the passage. Nilsson turned, ready for further confrontation. It was Haral and, uncharacteristically, he seemed worried and uncertain.
'Captain,’ he said urgently. ‘Come quickly. There's something you need to see.'
Nilsson looked at him narrowly, mindful of the two men lying at his feet and half concerned that this appeal might be to lead him into a trap. Then he dismissed the idea. Whatever else he was, Haral was no conspirator. Indeed, he was direct to the point of folly.
'What's the matter?’ he asked.
'I think you'd better come and see for yourself, Captain,’ Haral said. ‘It's ...’ His voice faded away and he gave an awkward shrug.
Nilsson frowned irritably. ‘Stay here and guard the Lord's door,’ he said to Dessane. ‘No one is allowed inside, and if the Lord wants me, I'll be ...’ He looked at Haral inquiringly.
'On the wall by the main gate, Captain,’ Haral said. Despite his basic trust in Haral, Nilsson kept his hands loose and near to his knives as he followed him through the castle. In fact the brief walk reassured him. Such of the men as they passed acknowledged him openly enough, and while he could feel the tension in the air he inclined to Dessane's judgement that it was mainly due to the men shaking off the fear they had experienced at Garren's farm.
