Valderen ft-2

by Roger Taylor

  He jumped to his feet impulsively. ‘I’ll go now,’ he said, his face tense and determined.

  Marken looked at him, startled. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, standing up and reaching out to restrain him.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ Farnor repeated. ‘Right away. What can they do to stop me? They’re plants, for pity’s sake. Lumps of wood – stuck in the ground. How can they possibly prevent me from leaving?’ He stopped as a thought occurred to him. Then he looked at Marken and gave it voice as he shook the old man’s grip free. ‘Except have you tell Derwyn and the others to hold me here by force,’ he said slowly.

  Marken turned away from him angrily, then his shoulders sagged and he sat down as if suddenly burdened by his age.

  Again, the soft drone of voices from the room above, gently filled the room.

  ‘We come from different worlds, Farnor,’ Marken said. ‘And even though we’re both human beings, we have difficulty in understanding one another’s ways.’ He looked up at Farnor, who was still watching him, tense and suspicious. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how foolish – insulting – such words are. I don’t know what laws you have in your land, or how you enforce them, but such an act here would be unthinkable. We’re a free people. Save for the respect we freely give to those whose land this is, and the respect which we offer each other, we accept no constraint on this freedom. Even when a crime is proven we try to look to the causes and ways of rectifying them. And to reparation and conciliation.’

  Farnor’s lip curled in disdain. He pointed towards the ceiling. ‘Derwyn himself told me that things were so confused that I might bring the hunt down on me if I fled unexpectedly. Then he wouldn’t answer me when I asked what would happen if I couldn’t make the Congress understand what had happened with EmRan. And you yourself just said that my life was hanging by a thread. How much conciliation is there in that kind of talk?’

  Marken put his head in his hands. ‘I can’t deny that not all causes can be put to rights, Farnor,’ he said with a mixture of regret and impatience. ‘Nor all misdeeds repaired. Sadly there are some individuals in our world, as doubtless in yours, who are just plain wicked, and who do wicked things seemingly for the joy of it. They’re rare, thank the stars, very rare, but they appear from time to time and we have to deal with them. And, if need arises, they have to be sought out and brought back to face the consequences of their actions.’

  ‘And by seeking out, you mean hunting them?’ Far-nor said. ‘With dogs and bows and spears?’

  Marken turned to him sharply. ‘As need arises, yes,’ he said, suddenly angry. ‘And you can take the condem-nation out of your voice until you’re a damn sight better acquainted with how we conduct ourselves here. For one thing, we don’t… ‘

  Farnor was not listening. ‘And I would have been treated as such a person,’ he said heatedly, striking his chest with his fingertips. ‘Hunted down like an animal, just for trying to return to my own home?’

  Marken stood up, his fists clenched and his mouth working angrily. Farnor stood defiantly in front of him. For a long moment, the two men stared at one another, across both years and cultures. Marken forced himself to patience. ‘Please try to understand,’ he said, sitting down again and motioning Farnor to do the same. ‘This has been an upheaval for everyone, not just for you and me. Derwyn and the others thought that I might have gone for good, as indeed, I might. It’s not unheard of, and the loss of its Hearer is a serious problem for any lodge. Then this strange-looking outsider that we’ve taken in draws a weapon against one of our own…’ He waved his hand as Farnor made to speak. ‘I heard your reasons,’ he said, hastily. ‘And so did everybody else.’ He became stern again, as if ashamed of some momentary weakness. ‘And that matter’s finished.’ He shouted angrily. ‘Finished! Your story was confirmed and accepted, and you’ll hear no more of it. That’s the way we are. And too, much of the confusion’s gone now that I’ve come back. And will you please stop hovering there and sit down.’

  Farnor quailed before this outburst and, rather awkwardly, did as he was told.

  Marken’s manner became more gentle. ‘Derwyn probably didn’t answer you because he had no answer. Usually he’s not a man to speak unless he’s got some-thing to say. He knew that if you left suddenly, it would make the existing confusion even worse. And it would certainly have given him all sorts of problems with EmRan.’ He narrowed his eyes and shook his head as if that were a prospect that he did not remotely want to consider. ‘And too, with me being gone, he’d be concerned about what they wanted in all this. After all, it was they who let you in and they’d already made their interest in you quite manifest.’ He laid a reassuring hand on Farnor’s arm. ‘As for talking about the hunt, that would have been no more than an ill-considered comment when his thoughts were on other things. Your drawing against EmRan wasn’t that serious, by any means.’

  Farnor looked at the Hearer warily, far from being fully convinced by what he had heard.

  ‘And you?’ he said tartly. ‘What about my life hang-ing by a thread? Or was that just another ill-considered remark while you were thinking about other things?’

  Muffled footsteps overhead, and a low, resonant laugh, intruded into the silence that followed this question.

  Marken conspicuously bit back an angry rejoinder to Farnor’s sarcasm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But the truth is that, as with much that’s happening at the moment, I don’t know. To be honest, as we talk I’m becoming increasingly loath to advise you. I’m beginning to suspect that your own instincts will serve you better than anything I can say.’ He looked at Farnor shrewdly. ‘I know that there are things you’ve not told me about yet.’ He paused, but Farnor offered him no enlightenment. ‘Still, I suppose I’m only an intermedi-ary, a messenger of sorts,’ he went on. ‘And, I’ll admit, perhaps a poor one. But the message I received, I’ve given you. You’re to go to the central mountains to stand amongst the most ancient of them so that you can be questioned and a decision made about your fate.’

  Anger welled up black and awful in Farnor. ‘They can go to the devil,’ he said grimly. ‘I go where I want. How can they threaten me?’

  ‘I might’ve misunderstood many things lately,’ Marken said, his tones wilfully measured. ‘But not that message. Nor the fear that hung about it. Many-layered, deep and complicated. And that’s where the danger to you is Farnor. Their fear of you. That, and your defiance. True, they’re not as we are, but I can’t imagine such fear being far away from aggression… violence… in any thinking being.’ He nodded to himself conclusively. ‘As far as we’re concerned, Derwyn and the rest of us, you can do what you want. You owe us nothing in any way, neither debt nor duty. If you want to head north, south, wherever, we’ll help you on your way, but I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at the consequences of your disobeying them!’

  Farnor gazed at him bleakly for a long time. Then suddenly his anger drained out of him, to be replaced by confusion and doubt. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said, almost pleading. ‘You’re the one who talks to them, understands them. I know nothing. I’m lost in every way. Please help me.’

  Marken smiled ruefully. ‘I’m a Hearer, Farnor. I don’t know why or how, I was just born to it.’ He lifted his hands and delicately tapped his ears. ‘And just as there’s always noise about us, even at the quietest times…’ There was an anonymous clunk above their heads by way of confirmation. Marken chuckled and, despite his anxiety, Farnor smiled weakly. The tension between them disappeared. ‘… So in me, and my ilk, there’s always the sound of the trees to be Heard when all else is silent. Nothing distinct, just a low sighing – a murmuring. Like the sound of a large, quiet crowd in the distance.’

  Farnor waited.

  ‘But now, it’s gone,’ Marken continued. ‘For the first time in my life I Hear nothing. Nothing at all.’ He looked at Farnor. ‘I think perhaps that you’re the quiet place that I set out to find. And if you are, then perhaps I’m here for a reas
on.’

  Farnor could not help but smile again. ‘I’ve never been called anything quiet before,’ he said. But no sooner had he spoken than the smile and the levity felt alien and offensive. The darkness within him rose to reproach him.

  Marken looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps they’re remaining silent in your presence not for some benefit to me, but in order to listen to you better,’ he said. His voice became almost cold as he reached a decision. ‘My advice, I think, is ask them yourself. We’re fretting here in pathetic ignorance when a little knowledge would perhaps answer all our questions. The fear is theirs. The needs are theirs and yours. Ask them yourself.’

  Farnor’s face twitched, as Marken’s simple state-ment of the obvious struck him like icy water.

  ‘How?’ he asked, uncertainly.

  Marken waved his hands vaguely. ‘Just ask,’ he re-plied, unhelpfully. ‘They’re listening, I’m sure.’

  ‘If they’re… listening in my head, then they know that I don’t belong here, that I came here by accident and that I want to leave,’ Farnor replied, in some frustration. The faint sound of laughter drifted into the room from above. Farnor recognized it as Angwen’s. It seemed to curl around his mind, subtly releasing it. ‘When he was speaking at the Congress, Derwyn said that you’d been told to find me and make a judgement about me. Is that true?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Marken conceded, somewhat defensively. ‘But I think that was for us simply to decide what to do with you when we found you.’

  Suddenly earnest, Farnor pointed to the room above again, and quoted Angwen. ‘They fear because they don’t understand,’ he said. ‘When I was a child, I once sneaked downstairs when Yonas the Teller was staying with us. I listened to one of his stories: one that he wouldn’t have told to children. And for weeks after, at night, I lay under the sheets, afraid that all the shadows in my room were monsters and demons and evil magicians come to carry me away.’

  Marken smiled and nodded, but there was an irrita-ble note in his voice when he spoke. ‘They are not frightened children, Farnor,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t they?’ Farnor said, rhetorically. ‘Aren’t we all children when we’re afraid?’

  Marken stared at him thoughtfully.

  Farnor went on, ‘You say, ask them. But I don’t know how. You say, they’re probably listening, but I can’t speak to them, and I think they won’t speak to me. I think they’re hiding under the blankets from me.’ There was an element of challenge in his voice, which made Marken look about nervously, as if expecting some retribution. But Farnor ploughed on. ‘Make the judgement that they asked you for. Tell them what you think about me, Marken. Perhaps they’re not listening to me. Perhaps they can hear me all too well. Perhaps they think I’m deceiving them in some way. Perhaps they’re silent because it’s you they’re listening to, you they need to hear. You’re the one they know, you’re the one they trust. Tell them.’

  Marken was pushing himself well back into his chair, as if to avoid this sudden determined outpouring. Farnor took his arm and nodded encouragingly at him. ‘Do you have a special place where you do your listening?’ he asked.

  Marken stammered. ‘Yes… no… well, when I’m dealing with one tree I stand near to it, but otherwise, I Hear best in my own lodge,’ he said, eventually.

  ‘We’ll go there, then,’ Farnor decided.

  * * * *

  He began to regret his inspiration shortly afterwards, however, as he climbed painstakingly up ladder after ladder in leaden pursuit of the depressingly agile old Hearer. Insofar as he had considered the matter at all, he had imagined that Marken, being quite elderly, would have had a lodge somewhere below Derwyn’s; some-where much closer to the Forest floor.

  Wrong, he mused bitterly, as they came to yet an-other ladder, and Marken began yet another effortless ascent.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ Farnor appealed, leaning his head on one of the rungs and waiting for his heart to stop pounding, his breath to stop rasping, and his legs to stop protesting. Marken released one hand and one foot and swung wide to look down. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, without a tremor of breathlessness.

  ‘Just wait a moment,’ Farnor demanded, this time through clenched teeth.

  Marken nodded and, to Farnor’s horror, swung completely off the ladder and sat on a nearby branch. ‘How much further is it to your lodge?’ Farnor asked.

  ‘Nearly there,’ came the reply, with a hint of hearti-ness. ‘You should relax more, you’re terribly tense. It’s going to make you awfully…’

  ‘I know. I know,’ Farnor interrupted sourly and still through clenched teeth. Grimly, he began to force his legs up the ladder. Being left standing by some trim young woman was one thing, but by this old beggar…!

  A powerful hand reached out and supported him as he arrived at the top of the ladder and stepped on to the platform. Farnor could not muster the energy to shake it free. ‘Thank you,’ he said, gracelessly.

  ‘My, you’re puffing like a gnarl,’ Marken said, half sympathetically, half mockingly.

  Farnor did not reply.

  ‘Anyway, we’re here now,’ Marken said, indicating a door a little way along the platform.

  But Farnor’s attention was elsewhere. He had straightened up and was gazing down at a panorama of brilliant lights, trailing through and between the tops of the trees in every direction. It was as if he was looking down on a star-filled sky rather than up at it. ‘How high are we?’ he asked, forgetting his fatigue.

  ‘Oh, it’s a nice spot,’ Marken answered, with no small amount of pride. ‘Good and high.’ He leaned against the handrail next to Farnor and stared out over the scene. ‘It took some building, this lodge, I can tell you. But it was worth it. I often come out here and just look.’ He patted the handrail, then returned to the door and opened it. ‘Of course, the lodge is quite small. Inevitable at this height, as you’ll understand,’ he said, stepping inside and holding the door open. ‘But it’s ideal for an old bachelor like me.’ He turned and looked out over the lights again then raised an appreciative finger. ‘You should see the sun come up.’ His eyes were wide. ‘Mingling with the sound of the dawn horns. Makes you weep for joy.’

  Farnor turned away from him sharply as he stepped past him.

  Unlike Derwyn’s lodge, the door of which opened into a long and spacious hallway off which stood several rooms and passageways, Marken’s was served only by a short porch which, as far as Farnor could see, was purely to serve as a weather guard. As he followed Marken through the inner door, the room they entered filled with light. Almost immediately, Farnor’s fatigue returned, and he slumped down into a nearby chair without invitation.

  Marken snapped his fingers crossly, and motioned him to another one.

  ‘That’s mine,’ he declared, possessively. ‘You’ll find that one’s comfortable enough.’

  ‘I’d find a log comfortable,’ Farnor muttered surlily, rubbing his legs as he moved to the other chair.

  ‘Bildar can give you something for your aches and pains, I’m sure,’ Marken said, standing protectively by the seat he had just commandeered.

  ‘He did,’ Farnor replied, irritably. ‘It’s down at Der-wyn’s, and I’m damned if I’m trailing back for it. Even if I knew the way.’ Marken made a mildly sympathetic noise and went into an adjacent room. ‘I suppose you’re hungry?’ he called.

  Farnor grimaced guiltily to himself as the kindly voice contrasted itself with his own churlishness. ‘Yes, I am, a little,’ he said, reflexive politeness asserting itself. ‘I had a meal at Bildar’s this morning, but… it’s been a long day.’

  Marken came back into the room, chuckling. ‘That’s a considerable understatement for both of us,’ he said, thrusting a plate full of thick slices of bread into Farnor’s lap. A bowl of butter landed on a table by his elbow. Both plate and bowl were made out of finely joined and decorated wood. ‘Make a start on that,’ came the command, as Marken disappeared again. ‘I’ve got some soup, or something,
heating up.’

  It was simple fare, but Farnor turned to it with rel-ish. ‘Thank you,’ he said with genuine sincerity.

  ‘I should warn you that I’m no Bildar when it comes to cooking,’ Marken shouted. ‘But I’ve not killed anyone yet.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ Farnor spluttered, spraying bread crumbs freely. Something fluttered in the corner of his vision, making him start violently and almost up-end the plate of bread. A large sparrow landed on his knee and began fussily picking up the crumbs he had spilt.

  ‘Sod off, Roney,’ Marken shouted, coming back into the room. ‘Greedy fat beggar.’ The sparrow looked up at him slowly, turned away with great dignity and then flew off to a shelf at the far end of the room.

  ‘See him off if he comes sponging around again,’ Marken ordered, sitting down. ‘He eats enough for a solstice turkey. He’s supposed to be a messenger bird, but his wings can hardly lift him.’

  Farnor responded with vague head movements, uncertain how to respond to this domestic revelation. From the shelf, the sparrow eyed the new arrival superciliously.

  All immediate conversation seemingly spent, and Farnor busy eating, Marken drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Then Farnor looked up and caught his gaze. ‘I may well have told them what I think about you, Farnor,’ Marken said, his face serious and his voice soft. ‘I don’t know. But I’ll tell them again, now.’ He closed his eyes.