by Roger Taylor
'Don't be,’ he replied simply. ‘Do you want to talk about anything ... your hand?'
Yrain held out her injured hand and turned it over once or twice, her face set. ‘I'd rather be doing almost anything in the world than this,’ she said, though her voice was quiet and calm.
Hawklan bowed his head. Yrain continued examining her hands.
'They cut that girl from Wosod Heath to pieces, didn't they?’ she went on after a long silence, gently, curiously almost, massaging the end of her mutilated finger.
Hawklan frowned for a moment, until the memory of the fallen skirmisher charging alone against the enraged Morlider came back to him. ‘Yes,’ he said.
'I don't want that to happen to me,’ Yrain said.
Hawklan could not find the words to answer her. ‘She was dead when it happened,’ he offered.
Yrain's eyes pivoted up to his though her head did not move. They were dark with scorn and anger. For a moment Hawklan felt a seething anger of his own rise in response, but he forced it down, and as he did so, Yrain's own expression changed. ‘I'm sorry,’ she said again. ‘I suppose I'm in shock, aren't I?'
'A little, maybe,’ Hawklan replied. ‘But mainly you're just facing up to feeling lost and frightened. You'll be the stronger for it.’ She looked doubtful, and Hawklan sat down beside her. ‘Look at Isloman and Dacu, over there,’ he said. The big carver, dressed now, but still apparently aglow, was wandering about with the Goraidin, showing him different rocks and talking earnestly. ‘They seem so strong—they are strong—because they face their fears all the time, and they know that only fear of fear is the real enemy. They value everything and cling to nothing.'
Yrain watched the two men for a moment, then she turned to him, ‘And you, Hawklan?’ she said.
'And me, I hope,’ Hawklan said, with a faint smile. ‘Like you, I'd rather be doing almost anything in the world than this.’ He looked at her and sensed her easing away from her pain a little. ‘But like them, I won't let that desire burden me.’ He stood up and looked down at her. ‘Nor will you, Yrain; you know that. Or when they move to cut you to pieces, they'll succeed, won't they?'
She grimaced as she nodded, then pulled her gloves on determinedly. ‘Andawyr wants you,’ she said, standing up and nodding her head towards the Cadwanwr who was gesticulating vigorously from one end of the chamber.
Hawklan looked at her for a moment.
'Go on,’ she said. ‘I'm all right now. It was just a little tiredness.’ She held up her gloved hand. ‘Look, five fingers,’ she said, smiling ruefully.
As Hawklan walked over to Andawyr, he saw that the little man was signalling Isloman also.
'What is it?’ Hawklan said, as both he and Isloman reached him.
'This way,’ Andawyr said. ‘See what you think.'
Turning up his torch he led them away from the camp and around a rocky outcrop. Beyond it lay another chamber about the same size as the one they were camped in.
'Here,’ he said, moving up a small slope along one side.
As the two men followed him, the shadows gave way to reveal a series of openings in the wall.
'What do you think?’ he said. ‘Which way?'
The two men looked at him uncertainly. Apart from the Alphraan at the depths of their journey, not once had Andawyr asked for advice on the choice of route, and these openings seemed no different from countless others that he had chosen between previously.
'Well ... ?’ he pressed.
Hawklan was about to protest his ignorance when Isloman stepped past him and walked to one of the openings. He stood there for a moment then stepped inside and, without turning, beckoned Hawklan.
As he walked forward, Hawklan faltered. Faintly, he felt something; something repellent. Then it was gone, like a distant cry carried by a powerful wind.
Isloman too was leaning forward, his face intent, as if trying to catch an elusive sound or scent.
Hawklan became aware of Andawyr by his side, expectant, but silent.
Isloman turned to the Cadwanwr. ‘This is the rock that this creature lives in?’ he asked.
Andawyr nodded.
Isloman blew out an anxious breath. ‘It sings a bad song. If we must go this way we mustn't linger.'
Andawyr did not reply. ‘Hawklan,’ he said. ‘What do you feel here?'
Hawklan walked slowly along the tunnel for a little way. The sensations came and went, still evading his full perception tantalizingly, but nevertheless, they were unmistakable. Here was the corruption he had seen jigging a demented marionette on a tinker's hand at Pedhavin; the corruption he had seen in the aura that surrounded Oklar at Vakloss, and Creost and Dar Hastuin on the battlefield in Riddin.
'Him,’ he said softly.
* * *
Chapter 25
The Fyordyn had turned out to welcome the Orthlundyn army with no small enthusiasm, but that was a mere fraction of the welcome they afforded to their Queen when she returned with her baby son.
The weather was the sourest-faced guest present at her reception, choosing to assail the crowd with a cold blustery wind laced with occasional flurries of icy rain, but it could not prevail against so well entrenched an opponent as the genuine pleasure of the Fyordyn.
The city streets were alive with milling crowds, all waving flags and coloured ribbons. Weaving amongst them were lines of High Guards, once again in the formal uniforms of their Lords, and charged with the task of gently maintaining some semblance of order. From the houses and buildings hung all manner of buntings and other colourful decorations, swaying and dancing joyously in the peevish wind.
'The City looks as if it were in the middle of the Spring Festival,’ Arinndier said, as he looked out from one of the Palace towers.
Darek joined him and stood for a moment surveying the scene. ‘It is,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘It's the start of the rebirth of our country. The people see it more clearly than we do.'
Arinndier raised a mocking eyebrow at his stern friend's unwonted lyricism, but Darek's smile faded. ‘Let's hope the coming frost is not too much for us all,’ he said.
Sylvriss herself wept unashamedly at times as she rode through the cheering crowds with Eldric at her side, and her son wrapped snug and warm in the traditional shoulder sling of the Muster women.
Her tears, however, were for the most part tears of happiness and they were shared by many others in the crowd. Only when she saw the unrepaired remains of the damage wrought by Oklar did her face become pained, yet even then her anger enhanced rather than diminished her radiance.
Your smile lights the whole city, Dilrap thought, as he stood at the Palace Gate with the official welcoming party. Looking at the noisy crowd, he remembered others that had thronged the streets over the past months; the expectant crowd waiting for Eldric to call Dan-Tor to an accounting; the appalling, near-hysterical crowds that had gathered in the smoke-stained glare of blazing torches, to roar and cheer at Dan-Tor's bellowed lies and his violent hammering music; and, most tragic of all, the crowd that he had not seen, the crowd that had followed the Orthlundyn, Hawklan, to be crushed by the wrath of the revealed Uhriel.
And were these the same people? he thought, looking round at the upturned faces. The greater part of them must be, he concluded. How could it be otherwise? There were not so many people in the City that crowds of this size could be materially different. Curiosity and concern had taken the people to Eldric's accounting; fear had goaded them to Dan-Tor's harangues—and worse, darker, traits, he knew; had not he himself, with all his knowledge, responded to Dan-Tor's strutting martial theatre? And finally, self-righteous anger had drawn them after Hawklan on his fateful journey.
The crowd was a fearsome creature with a strange will of its own; capable of any extremity and quite beyond the control of its members ...
'What a wonderful day, Dilrap. I'm so excited. It'll be so marvellous to have her back—and a baby too.'
Alaynor was responsible for all the female servants and o
fficers in the Palace and her gleeful voice cut across Dilrap's darkening reverie. He turned to her with an indulgent smile only to find that her unbridled enthusiasm was immediately infectious and that he too was now one of the crowd.
Later, the Queen made a quieter, sadder, pilgrimage around the Palace, holding her child tight to her and facing the dreadful impact of familiar, once shared, objects and places. It was a journey she had made many times in her heart since she had fled the Palace and she wept very little, but her face was pale and drawn when at last she came into the small meeting hall.
It was ablaze with torches and colourful decorations, but her few guests fell silent as she entered. She looked at them in silence for a moment and then the strain eased from her face and she smiled warmly.
'I apologize if I'm not wholly myself,’ she said. ‘I'm afraid that my return to the palace and particularly to our old rooms, was more ... taxing ... than I'd envisaged. The potency of even the smallest item in evoking memories is not to be underestimated.'
She motioned them all to sit down, and then placed herself in the seat that Rgoric used to occupy.
As the scraping and shuffling of chairs faded, Sylvriss became the focus of all the watching eyes. When she spoke, her voice was strong and resolute.
'We've much to do, my friends, so I'll remove one obstacle immediately if you'll allow,’ she said. Then, without waiting for this permission, ‘I know of your feelings for my husband. But I'll not have any of you burdened with my special grief for him. It's an emotion you've all experienced in your time and it's one that must run its course, as you know. Over the coming days and weeks, I shall be easing your burdens by attending to many matters of state, both in connection with the rebuilding of Fyorlund and the prosecution of the war against the architect of this horror. My husband's name will occur frequently as will reminders of his more misguided deeds.’ She looked round the table. ‘I'd rather you discussed such matters simply and openly than have you dithering about uneasily in misplaced concern for my feelings. There is neither the need nor the time for such amongst friends.’ She looked across at Loman and Gulda. ‘And I count you both among my friends even though we've only met this day.'
Both of them nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Now,’ she went on. ‘To business...'
* * * *
Loman chuckled as, later, he and Gulda walked out into the chilly night and through the partly rebuilt archway of the Palace gate. ‘I do believe you were impressed, Memsa,’ he said.
Without breaking her relentless stride, Gulda gave him a sideways look.
'Yes,’ she said. ‘She reminds me of someone I once knew—a long time ago.'
As was not infrequently the case, her tone prevented any further questioning.
'She's clever, capable, and savagely vengeful,’ Gulda went on.
Loman turned sharply. ‘Vengeful?’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Never! Even without having heard Isloman eulogizing her I can tell she hasn't got a vengeful bone in her body. Besides, vengeance isn't a woman's way.'
Gulda stopped abruptly and her stick swung up to block Loman's path. He lurched forward a little over this seemingly immovable obstacle, and looked at her apprehensively. However, her face bore an expression that betrayed emotions far deeper than petulant annoyance, and there was no hint of any reproach against him.
'Neither you nor any man can have the slightest notion of Sylvriss's pain,’ she said. ‘True, you can probably understand her hatred for her husband's murderers. Perhaps you can even understand the pain of her grinding impotence at having to stand idly by for almost all her adult life while her lover was slowly degraded and destroyed. But such emotions are nothing against her real hatred. What has fired Sylvriss is her silent defiance of the Uhriel, Oklar. It has given her a sight she does not even know of, but which guides her every act.'
Loman's eyes narrowed. Was there a hint of uncertainty in Gulda's voice? He remembered how Sylvriss had stared searchingly at her when they had first met, and how Gulda had failed to hold the gentle brown-eyed gaze.
'It's the same with Dilrap,’ Gulda went on. Suddenly, her eyes became distant and reflective. ‘As it is with any who've stood too near to Hi...’ She stopped in the middle of the word.
Then the moment was gone and her eyes returned to Loman again. ‘Such people have seen into His true, awful intent, and they know the fate that will befall all of Ethriss's creatures if He is not destroyed. And now, to sharpen the edge of her own intent far beyond any man's understanding, Sylvriss has a child!'
She punctuated each of her final words with powerful jabs of her stick in Loman's stomach. Somewhat to his surprise, he found himself unbalanced; the old Gulda had returned.
'Listen and learn from such as Sylvriss, smith,’ she concluded. ‘Listen and learn.'
Then she turned and stumped off out into the still crowded Vakloss street.
As he ran to catch up with her, the memory of Gulda and Sylvriss's first meeting merged with that of their parting of a few moments ago.
The Lords were now familiar with Gulda's ways and merely bade her a polite farewell as she prepared to walk back to the Orthlundyn camp; but Sylvriss, concerned at such seeming discourtesy, had offered her a horse.
'I can find you one with a pleasant disposition,’ she said.
The Lords held their breaths in wide-eyed alarm, but Gulda had merely smiled strangely, and said, ‘A horse will be found when need arises, Majesty.'
Sylvriss had looked at her with an odd expression; surprise and ... realization ... as if suddenly glimpsing something profoundly secret yet blindingly obvious. Then she too had smiled, and inclined her head in a graceful acceptance of this refusal.
The clear light of the newly restored street torches glistened up from the damp, well-worn stones, as Loman fell in beside Gulda's stooped black silhouette.
Listen and learn, he thought.
He had however, little opportunity for consciously doing either over the following days, as they were filled with a frenzy of activity. Somehow, the arrival of the Queen had been like the dropping into place of the keystone of an arch, and everything seemed now to be whole and stable.
One problem she dealt with before it arose was the matter of the command of the combined Orthlundyn and Fyordyn armies. It was a subject that hitherto had been tacitly, if uneasily, avoided by the principals involved, they being quite happy to immerse themselves in accommodating the many practical, operational, differences between the two forces.
'The army is mine,’ Sylvriss declared without preamble. ‘I rule the Fyordyn, and it is the Fyordyn who were charged by Ethriss with the watching of Narsindal and the protection of Orthlund.'
'That is certainly the Law, Majesty,’ Darek volunteered hastily, ready to defend his Queen with learned argument should need arise.
But Sylvriss needed no such aid.
'There is no Law for a people who go to war, Lord,’ she said quietly. ‘Except survival.'
A grim silence spread through the listeners sitting around the table. Coming as it did from the Queen, this pronouncement had a chilling starkness that no warlord could have invested it with.
'However,’ she continued. ‘Our Law enshrines much wisdom, and imposes few restraints that an honest person would deem unnecessary or wish to see slackened and, while we're able, we will carry it with us. Being under arms makes for some cruel necessities, but it allows no licence.'
She looked at her audience, though apparently more to ensure that they were listening than to invite questions. Then she bowed her head briefly. Her face was pained when she looked up. ‘At least then at some future time we can account to ourselves as we might to some other authority.'
The atmosphere in the room eased. ‘As for my command, have no fear,’ she went on. ‘I shall command as I intend to rule; with the consent, and after hearing the advice, of my various friends.'
She turned to Loman. ‘Loman, you will be my second in command. You shall have all my authority save that you will obey me,
and you will have the true responsibility for waging this war.’ She smiled. ‘I'm an untried horse trooper, not a tactician.'
A small cry interrupted the proceedings. Sylvriss reached out and gently rocked the nearby crib.
'Lord Eldric, you shall be the next in command,’ she went on. ‘Beyond that you may determine for yourselves.'
Both Loman and Eldric opened their mouths to speak, but Sylvriss released the crib and raised her hand for silence.
'Loman, you'd affect to be just a shoer of horses from a quiet Orthlundyn village,’ she said. ‘But we haven't the time for such protestations. You're Goraidin; you led the Orthlundyn successfully against the Morlider; and you forged the arrow that struck down my husband's tormentor. These are qualifications enough, but one more, above all, leaves you with no other road to travel; you are Hawklan's choice, and he would have commanded all without question had he so chosen.'
Before Loman could reply, Sylvriss turned to Eldric. ‘Lord, does my decision offend you?’ she asked.
Eldric, taken aback by the sudden question, answered frankly, ‘Being honest, Majesty, I suppose it offends my ... vanity ... a little,’ he said after a brief hesitation.
Sylvriss laughed softly. ‘I find it heartening that you still possess such a young man's trait, Lord Eldric,’ she said. ‘I trust you have others. Rest assured, I want no surly elders about me.'
Her easy laughter spread around the meeting table like a ripple across a pond, and washed away much of the uneasiness. Eldric cleared his throat gruffly, went a little pink, and did his best to accept the compliment graciously. ‘My vanity will survive the blow, Majesty,’ he said. ‘Especially if it's to be a requirement of my continued service to you.'
Only Loman seemed to be having difficulty responding to the lightened atmosphere. He leaned back in his chair and stared downwards bleakly.
Sylvriss laid her hand on his arm. ‘I'm sorry, Loman,’ she said. ‘Truly. We will help you bear your burden, but none of us can remove it, as, I fear, you're aware. That you didn't seek the leadership of the army and now would be free of it, is a measure of the correctness of my decision.'
