by R. J. Grieve
Gorm, standing awkwardly at the end of the line, hung his head and shifted from one foot to the other as the old man approached him. Even when the Keeper addressed him, he refused to look up but remained staring uncomfortably at the daisies on the lawn.
“I once said that goodness is to be found in the unlikeliest of places, and you are living proof of that. I never thought to give my blessing to a Turog, but I give it to you – true and faithful Gorm.”
For a brief moment, the sulphurous eyes flickered upwards.
In silence they mounted their horses and as they passed through the rose hedge, still covered in flowers, Vesarion looked back at the frail old man and his cat standing on the doorstep of the tower, and in some sad corner of his heart, felt he would never see them again.
The wooden bridge that crossed the Harnor into Sorne, looked even more rickety than the last time they had seen it and was viewed by the five riders with a certain amount of disquiet. Although it was late afternoon, there was no one about – a fact for which they were grateful, for they had a Turog amongst their company.
“Back where it all began,” observed Eimer a little wistfully. “We have been away only three months, yet it seems to me like an age. I wonder where everyone is?”
Vesarion, watched by the others, dismounted and approached the only member of the company who had completed the entire journey on foot.
“Gorm,” he said gently, “I’m afraid you can come no further. Your kind are seen in Eskendria as our deadliest enemies and I fear I could not protect you from so many who would wish to kill you.”
“Don’t want to leave Sareth,” Gorm objected.
“I know, but you must realise that Sareth does not wish any harm to come to you and neither do the rest of us. Perhaps some day, when I tell our king all that you have done, there may be a place for you across the Harnor but in the meantime, you must go no further.”
Gorm looked a little uncertainly at Sareth. She nodded her agreement and slid out of the saddle. “He’s right, Gorm. We could not protect you, especially now, with war imminent.”
“However,” continued Vesarion, “I have a favour to ask of you, if you are willing?”
Gorm’s ears pricked up. “What?”
“I need you to find out the route that Mordrian’s army takes through the Forsaken Lands. I want you to keep watch upon the army without being seen and report to me when you know which part of our border it is heading for.”
Sareth bent towards her small admirer. “I know your woodcraft is excellent, Gorm, but you must be especially careful not to get caught.”
He nodded importantly. “Gorm can do this. Very stealthy. Very good spy. But how will I tell Vesarion?” he asked, looking up at the tall man beside him.
“Do you know the stone bridge with twelve arches that crosses the Harnor near the border with Westrin?”
Gorm nodded.
“When you have information you want to give me, place a white stone on the pillar at the end of the bridge in the Forsaken Lands. I will meet you in the Great Forest a short distance beyond the bridge just as soon as I can. Don’t attempt to cross into Eskendria. I will come to you.”
Sareth met the yellow eyes looking up at her so earnestly and smiled. “And make sure you avoid all those other Turog who used to persecute you, won’t you, Gorm?” Then to everyone’s astonishment, not least the Turog’s, she gave him a quick hug. A huge grin gradually spread across his unprepossessing features, as if life could offer him nothing more. Then briefly raising his hand in farewell, he disappeared like a shadow into the forest.
When he had gone, Bethro was heard to sniff audibly. “I hope the little rodent stays safe.” Catching the amazed stares directed at him, he added huffily: “I don’t know what you are all gawping at!”
The five travellers reached the town of Sorne just as the sun was lounging on the horizon, reluctantly surrendering to the embrace of evening. The wooden houses, with their ornate carvings, nestled drowsily between the broad trunks, where the violet shadows were broken here and there by freckles of golden light. One of these last touches of sun, filtering between the trees, splashed across the moss-covered walls of Forestfleet, unfortunately highlighting the castle’s mouldering state of decay. The light also fell on the owner of the castle, who was looking in something the same state as his neglected keep. Pevorion’s red hair was on end, his chin bristled with the makings of a beard and his shirt was askew. He was contemplating, in melancholy fashion, the buttercups growing abundantly in the moat, remembering the days of his youth when it had been full of water, serving the defensive purpose for which it had been designed. The moment he detected the sound of several horses approaching at a fast trot, he looked up curiously, squinting against the low sun. At first he could make out nothing of the five riders, as they were silhouetted against the light, but all at once he stiffened, like a hound that has spotted game. Raising his hand to better shield his eyes, he stared harder.
“It can’t be,” he breathed. “It simply can’t be.”
As they drew closer, he became more and more joyously certain of what he saw, and gripped by excitement that he could not contain, he ran back to the gate, and taking a deep lungful of air, bellowed for his wife. “Kelda!” he roared, “come quickly! You are not going to believe this!”
He rushed back just as the travellers dismounted at the drawbridge.
“What miracle is this?” he cried. “You were all given up for lost. What miracle is it that has restored you to us?”
Vesarion was barely out of the saddle when he found his hand gripped in an enthusiastic manner calculated to cause serious damage. Questions, to which he did not wait for an answer, began to tumble out of the older man.
“Vesarion! Damn my eyes! Is it really you? How can this be? Where have you been all this time?”
Not content with a handshake, Pevorion, not standing on ceremony, tugged his unprepared victim into a bear hug of such proportions that Vesarion was unable to take in enough breath to answer him. “Where did you disappear to all this time?” he asked again.
“Let’s just say that our mission to catch the thief took longer than expected.”
Kelda, running out of the gate with the speed of someone expecting to put out a fire, suddenly skidded to a halt when she saw them. The poise that she had acquired by being the mother of seven sons likely to bring chaos on the household at any moment, deserted her and she stood transfixed, unable to utter a single word.
Sareth, escaping Pevorion’s boisterous clutches, ran to embrace her. “We’re not ghosts, Kelda!” she cried merrily. “We really have come home.”
Pevorion by this stage had subjected not only Eimer, but more surprisingly, Bethro, to the rib-crushing process. However, when he encountered Iska, he suffered a check.
“Who is this young lady?” he asked uncertainly.
Eimer, determined to get some revenge for the mangling he had endured, said impishly: “This is the boy, the thief, that we pursued into the Great Forest all those months ago.”
Pevorion’s eyes bulged. “But…but?”
“ ‘He’ turned out to be a ‘she’, but I can assure you, she is no thief.”
Sareth still smiling gaily at Kelda, said: “How is everyone at home? I’m sure Enrick will be simply thrilled to hear that we are back again.”
Suddenly, as if her question was an icy winter’s wind intruding upon a summer’s day, the joy drained from their hosts’ faces and they exchanged charged glances not lost on anyone.
“You don’t know, then?” Kelda asked timidly.
Eimer was suddenly seized by a dark premonition. “Know what?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”
“Princess Sareth….Prince Eimer,” began Pevorion in the hesitant fashion of a man unwilling, or unable, to proceed. “I fear that I must be the one to darken the joy of your homecoming by being the bearer of bad news. Since you have left, much has happened in Eskendria and precious little of it has been good.” Looking around hi
m uneasily at the grooms waiting to take their horses, he snatched at the chance to give himself a moment’s respite to collect his thoughts. “This is not the place to discuss such matters. Come with me to the great hall.”
Without a word, everyone followed him into the dim interior of the wooden hall. As Eimer entered, he glanced up at the arching roof beams, but the carved head was back in its place, staring blindly down on all that passed beneath it. Even though the day was warm, some logs were burning sleepily in the huge fireplace. Pevorion’s eldest son, Aythar, was in the act of placing more wood on the fire when he looked up to see who was entering and immediately dropped the lot.
His father shook his head repressively at him and escorted his guests to the leather-covered armchairs set around the fire.
“I think you should sit down, my dear,” he said solicitously to Sareth, “before you hear what I have to tell you.” Then, taking a deep breath, he said: “I wish I could think of some way to break this gently to you, but since you went missing, both your father and Queen Triana have… have passed away.” He heard Sareth’s cry of distress and continued hurriedly. “Queen Triana’s death was not unexpected, for she was of a great age and she passed quietly away in her sleep but your father’s death was a shock to us all.”
Eimer, who was as white as his shirt, leaned forward and said in a tense voice: “I don’t understand this. How can this be? My father was fit and well when we left him.”
“Aye, he was, lad,” replied Pevorion, forgetting etiquette, “but what man, even in the prime of life, could withstand the shock of hearing that in one day he had lost his son, his daughter, and a man who was as dear to him as his own son? It was my sorry lot to have to write to your father telling him that you were missing in the Forsaken Lands. I had to tell him that we had found Ferron and the guards butchered by the Turog and that despite searching for you during every hour of daylight, we could find no trace of you. According to those who were with him at the time, the moment he read my letter, he turned pale and collapsed where he stood, still clutching the letter. He spoke only one word before the end.” Pevorion turned to Vesarion, who had Sareth in his arms, trying to comfort her. “He spoke your name, Vesarion, but no one knows what was in his mind when he did so.”
“Did Queen Triana hear this news?” Bethro asked, heartbroken that his poem in her honour would never now be finished.
“No, I am thankful to say that she did not, for she died only a….”
“….only a few days after we went missing,” Vesarion finished for him. “Is that not correct?”
Pevorion looked at him strangely. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I have not told anyone before,” he replied, looking down into Sareth’s tear-stained countenance, raised questioningly to his, “but when we were in the Great Forest, one night I had a…..well, I’m not sure what it was, a dream, or vision, perhaps, in which Celedorn came to me and told me that Triana was now with him in the Monastery of the White Brotherhood where they had been so happy before. He told me we were actually encamped right within its walls but that we were not permitted to see it. Triana, he said, was once more united with her beloved Andarion and would never again be parted from him.” He looked down again at Sareth and continued gently: “Grieve for your father, Sareth, as I do, but do not grieve for grandmother, for she has at last gone where she longed so greatly to be.”
Sareth nodded and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I know,” she replied quietly.
Eimer raised his head from his hands in despair. “Then there is no one to welcome us home,” he said disconsolately, “for we will get no welcome from Enrick.”
Again, the Lord and Lady of Sorne exchanged significant glances and the travellers knew that all had not yet been told to them.
It was Kelda who replied. “That is more true than you think. Enrick was crowned king, in breach of the traditional mourning period, barely a month after your father’s death. His first act upon ascending the throne was to declare you all dead, and as Westrin has no heir, he forfeited the barony to the crown.”
“What!” The word shot from Vesarion like the crack of a whip.
“He can’t do that!” cried Eimer.
“Apparently, he thinks he can,” observed Pevorion sardonically.
Vesarion, now gripped by a cold anger that made his blue eyes as icy as glaciers, said harshly: “It is our law that a person who has gone missing cannot be declared legally dead until a year has elapsed. I need not point out that we have been away only three months. This is nothing short of theft!”
“There is more,” intervened Kelda. “He has appointed his henchman, Berdis, to rule Westrin on his behalf as steward, and from all I hear, Westrin is no longer the happy place it once was. He extorts money from the people by force, and all semblance of justice and the rule of law that you were at such pains to cultivate, has vanished. There is no joy left in Westrin any more, Vesarion.”
Eimer was outraged. “He appointed a commoner – a mongrel like Berdis, to rule the greatest barony in the Kingdom! Has he taken leave of his senses?”
“Apparently so,” replied Vesarion dryly, striving with some success to master his wrath. “How did the other barons react to this, Pevorion?”
“Not well, Vesarion, not well. Not unreasonably, they feel that if Enrick can disregard the law in order to appropriate one barony, then he can do the same to others. None of us feel secure any more. He continues to strip money from us with this iniquitous land tax, which I begin to think is a deliberate policy to keep us impoverished and incapable of rebellion. But in that he errs. What began as a few grumbles about the tax, has now grown to such proportions that the barons are on the brink of outright insurrection. My lord of Veldor was appointed by his peers to plead their case to the King, but instead of listening with respect to the oldest and most venerable baron, this young king sent him away with a flea in his ear. He leaves us in the unenviable position that if he will not listen to reason, then we have no other recourse but to defy him?”
Aythar, who had remained respectfully silent during the discussion, spoke up for the first time. “There are those amongst us, Prince Eimer, who will be glad of your return for many reasons, not least of which is that they will see in you some hope. We all wish to a man, that your father had left his kingdom to his younger son instead of his elder.”
Eimer, accustomed to being regarded as irrelevant in matters of state, looked genuinely astonished but his reply was unequivocal. “I may not like what he is doing, but Enrick is my brother and the rightful king. You know well, Aythar, that in Eskendria a king does not choose to whom he leaves his kingdom. It goes by right to the first born son and like it or not, that is Enrick. I admit that he must be made to see reason, and quickly, too, given what we have to tell you, but I will have no part in any plot to overthrow him.”
Aythar nodded, a little shamed by the words, but he stood his ground on one issue. “What about the barony of Westrin?”
“That is a different matter,” intervened Vesarion. “Eimer is correct. His brother has the right to wear the crown, but even the King must respect his own laws or this land will descend into chaos. Enrick has taken what he has no right to take and I will not hesitate to oppose him in this matter, but I have no wish to unseat him from the throne.” He turned to Pevorion, who was nodding agreement. “Where are the Ravenshold Brigands?”
“Half are at Ravenshold and half are acting as Enrick’s personal bodyguards in Addania. Apparently, he doesn’t trust his henchman with the entire force.”
“Then I must go to Westrin and confront this usurper. To head for Addania and try to take on Enrick where he is strongest, would be folly. Ravenshold was ever the power-base of the Westrins and I must take it back again.”
“There is one in Westrin who would help you. Captain Seldro has been in hiding in the mountains since you left. The King issued a warrant for his arrest on the grounds of treason, but the real reason is that he knows h
e would try to keep the Brigands loyal to you, should he remain in command. He came here one night to tell me of the King’s death and he gave me directions as to how he could be contacted should the need arise.”
“Good. Send word for him to meet me at the inn in Ravenshold, two days from now.” He rose and crossing to the fireplace, gripped the tall mantelshelf with one hand. Every eye was riveted to him, for he had the air of a man arranging his thoughts before embarking on a speech of great importance. Absently, he pushed at the smouldering logs with one booted foot. “All this could not have come at a worse time. I regret to say that I have returned with even worse news that I have been given. We have discovered on our journeys that the Kingdom of Adamant not only exists but is in the process of assembling an army that will shortly be unleashed against Eskendria. I had thought to hasten home to warn King Meldorin and assist him in rallying the barons to its defence, but now I find this land in such disarray that our future begins to look very uncertain.”
In as few words as he could manage, he related all that had happened to them, cutting out all irrelevant details and getting to the heart of the matter with masterly speed and conviction. When he had finished, quietly he unsheathed his sword and held it out in the firelight for his stunned audience to examine.
“I know it all sounds incredible, but we have no time to ponder matters and I must ask you to believe me and take this threat seriously. As proof, I show you this, my grandfather’s sword, recovered from Prince Mordrian’s clutches. At the moment, it is the only advantage we have.”
Pevorion leaned forward, reverently scrutinising the shining blade in the firelight. “Heaven be praised that you got it back, for this is fearful news you bring with you. I had thought Adamant was just part of the legend of Erren-dar, not meant to be taken too literally but all the time the threat has been growing and we were in ignorance of it. You return to find a kingdom torn and divided, just when we most need to unite.” He paused thoughtfully, his eyes shrewd. “With your permission Vesarion, I will write to all the other barons telling them of your return and giving them a brief account of your discoveries. The standing army is depleted. Only the Brigands are up to full strength and they cannot take the place of infantry. As in the old days, in time of war, the barons must raise recruits and make them ready. They must be armed and taught to move in formation – and all before the onset of winter! Vesarion, my friend, I do not see how this is going to be accomplished in time.”
