by Roger Taylor
‘Yes, well, I think we’d better leave it as we’ve found it, don’t you?’ Gryss said, turning her towards the door. ‘We shouldn’t really be here at all.’
Marna followed his gentle urging out of the cottage and towards the broken gate. Suddenly she stopped, causing Gryss to stagger.
‘What are you two doing here, anyway?’ she asked forcefully, returning to her original question.
Not having a clear answer, Gryss, a lifelong bache-lor, made a mistake. He ignored the question in the hope that it would go away. ‘How’s your father, Marna?’ he said, looking purposefully towards the gate. ‘I haven’t seen him for some time, I…’
Marna’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s going on?’ she de-manded. ‘Rannick wandering about beyond the castle for weeks on end. And running into gatherers. And you two skulking about his cottage…’
‘We were not skulking,’ Gryss protested. But Marna raised scornful eyebrows by way of reply and deliber-ately allowed an embarrassing silence to develop until another thought occurred to her.
‘And how did you know that the gatherers had seen him?’ she asked.
Gryss capitulated and briefly told her of Nilsson’s visit the previous evening, confining himself to the simple facts and omitting any references to the slaughtered horse and Nilsson’s concern about Ran-nick’s ‘strangeness’.
‘What did he want to look at Rannick’s cottage for?’ Marna asked, when he had finished.
Gryss took refuge in his ignorance. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened when his men met Rannick, and he didn’t say. He just asked me to show him where Rannick lived, so I did.’
Marna set off for the gate. ‘It wasn’t very polite, was it?’ she said, incongruously.
Gryss agreed with some relief. ‘But he is a soldier and he does have the King’s authority for anything he does.’
Marna sniffed. ‘I shouldn’t imagine the King’s so ill-mannered,’ she said.
Gryss could not help but laugh at this observation and its solemn utterance.
‘How’s your father?’ he tried again, as they walked back down the pathway.
‘He’s well, thanks,’ Marna replied off-handedly. Then she stopped again abruptly, and her face clouded. ‘I don’t like any of this, Gryss,’ she said, her voice uncharacteristically anxious and urgent. ‘I didn’t like the look of those gatherers when they rode in, nor what I saw of them when they came to collect the tithe. Now there’s this business about them wandering around the top of the valley and finding Rannick there, of all people. It all feels wrong. No one ever goes up there, Gryss. Not ever. And why should that wretched captain be sniffing about Rannick’s cottage? And why you two as well?’
She looked at Gryss squarely. He reached out to put an arm around her shoulders then thought better of it.
‘Just changing times, Marna,’ he said gently. ‘Chang-ing times.’ He pointed towards the mountains. ‘We live a good life here, very sheltered, very secure. But out there, over the hill, there’s another much bigger world full of all sorts of strange people and strange things, a lot of them not particularly nice and some downright bad. Believe me, I’ve been there. It’s not for no reason that we’ve developed our way of living here through the generations. Now a little of the outside world has come into the valley and unsettled everything. If we keep our wits and our manners, these gatherers will probably forget about us completely after they’ve left and things will soon be back to normal.’
Marna shook her head. ‘You can’t unbreak a pot,’ she said, simply. ‘What’s gone is gone and can never be the same, and there’s no point fretting about it.’
Momentarily, Gryss looked distressed at this stark verdict, not least because he knew it to be accurate. He searched for words to soften its impact, but none came. And, in any event, he realized, Marna needed no comforting about the implications of her own conclu-sion. But there was need in her manner, without a doubt.
‘I feel so… vulnerable,’ she said, unexpectedly.
Gryss tried again. It was just change… The King must need the tithe for something… Everything would settle down again… more or less…
But Marna swept the answers aside.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Something’s wrong.’ She looked at Gryss squarely, her dark eyes concerned but deter-mined. ‘I don’t think those men are tithe gatherers at all.’
Chapter 18
‘Hold!’ Nilsson shouted to the gate guard as he started to run down the stairs that led to the courtyard.
A few swift strides carried him to the gate where he was intercepted by the man who had been on sentry duty on the wall above the arch. He, too, was breathless from his own reckless descent of the stairs.
‘He came out of nowhere, Captain,’ he protested before anything was asked of him. ‘I was listening to you, but still on look-out, honestly. I don’t know where he came from. He just…’
‘It’s all right,’ Nilsson said, as he pushed him aside, almost gently. The man turned to others standing around him, with a desperate, pleading expression, as if the need to justify his apparent lapse had to run the course he had plotted for it in his dash down the stairs. It spluttered to a halt only when he registered the fact that his captain intended no summary punishment for him. Puffing out his cheeks he wiped his brow, then quietly slipped back up to his post.
Nilsson had thrown open the wicket door and stepped outside.
Rannick stood there. His gaunt face and unkempt black hair testified to some neglect, and he was dressed like any of the farm labourers in the valley with his rough shirt and soiled and patched trousers. But his demeanour was quite different. He stood erect and relaxed, exuding an assuredness that was far beyond either mere confidence or brittle arrogance. And his narrow eyes were bright and piercing, as though lit from within by some awesome fire.
Nilsson’s own eyes narrowed at the sight of him, as if he were looking at a bright light, or at something that was a long way away. It seemed to him for a moment that although Rannick was motionless, some strange, other-worldly breeze was tugging at him, ruffling his hair. He blinked and the image was gone, but the weight of Rannick’s presence remained. He felt it now in the clear daylight just as he had in the starlit darkness of the previous night. He was in the presence of one who could use the power.
Yet at the same time as he confirmed this he recalled that even his erstwhile lord had had need of lieutenants and advisers, indeed there had been a huge hierarchy of lesser men to implement much of his will. And when he had been drawn to rely too greatly on his power, then he had been thwarted by the lesser servants of other lords. And, Nilsson knew now, powerful though he might be, Rannick was not remotely the equal of his former lord. He would have an even greater need of others to implement any plans he might have. And plans he would have, as sure as fate.
Once again Nilsson found himself torn between different ambitions. The one: to pursue his present, meandering aimless existence, effectively a fugitive from his past, and dependent on his ability to manipulate his men to his will, through both superior intellect and physical force, and his ability to turn circumstances to his own ends. The other: to take up again his quest for power and wealth by serving in the train of another, far greater.
A vista of endless wandering opened before him, with its inexorable conclusion, the gradual loss of his authority, or the retribution of others, and some weary, lonely death. It was a vision that he had contemplated many times before in his quieter, darker moments, and one that he had resolutely turned his face away from.
Things would change, he knew. Things always did, if you kept your wits about you and your sword sharp.
And they had again! he realized. His journeying so far had been but a preparation for this moment. His vision of the future changed and took him towards the wealth and power he had always coveted. Took him beyond this life of little more than miserable banditry, and far beyond the vengeful reach of his past. And, his thoughts gathering a momentum of their own,
perhaps it might even take him to re-conquer what had been lost. To expunge the past!
He felt his whole body alive with exhilaration. Yet his soldier’s instincts kept his feet solidly on the ground, for drawn along with these bright whirling thoughts was a small, dark one which whispered, coldly, ‘Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, I can kill this one.’
‘You’ve come,’ he said prosaically, moving to one side and extending an inviting arm to the open wicket. Rannick stepped through it.
Inside he gazed around the courtyard, first at the towers and other buildings and then at the men, who were staring at him.
Like a breeze unfelt below but rustling through the leaves of the trees above, a whisper hissed around the courtyard, and with it came a slight stirring.
‘It’s him!’
One or two edged towards him, torn between Nils-son’s commands and the vengeful gossip that had returned with the patrol and which demanded immedi-ate action.
The look on Nilsson’s face stopped them.
Rannick affected to ignore the threat he had been offered. ‘You spoke well,’ he said to Nilsson. ‘I am indeed better as your friend than your enemy. And my… local… knowledge, as you call it, is indeed remark-able.’
Nilsson could not keep the surprise from his face. He glanced up at the high, solid wall surrounding them. ‘How did you hear what I said?’ he asked bluntly, without thinking.
Rannick made no response, but gazed around the courtyard again, and at the men still held back by Nilsson’s will. Then he spoke as if there had been no interruption. ‘And while this is a good beginning, it is a small one and it would be a shame to waste the lives of any of your men needlessly.’
Nilsson felt the menace in the words but knew that he must assert himself without delay if he was to achieve the position he desired in his proposed partnership.
‘They listen to me and obey me because I advise them well,’ he said. ‘But they’ve other loyalties, and not least among these is a battlefield obligation to collect their dead and wounded and to rescue anyone who’s been taken prisoner.’
Rannick smiled at the motley collection of men who were watching him. ‘And they… you… need to know the fate of their comrade, Meirach?’ he said.
‘If it’s… an honourable one,’ he said after a pause, adding in a lowered voice, ‘If it isn’t, then a lie will be the simplest expedient.’
Rannick nodded slightly, then held up a hand for silence. The quiet that fell across the courtyard was almost tangible, until…
‘Someone’s coming.’
It was the sentry who had been so anxious to exon-erate himself for failing to notice the arrival of Rannick.
‘That’s a good man up there,’ Nilsson said to Ran-nick. ‘Why didn’t he see you?’
‘Local knowledge, Captain,’ Rannick replied, smiling darkly. ‘Local knowledge.’ He chuckled to himself, then nodded towards the gate. ‘Let your visitor in,’ he said.
Nilsson signalled to the gate guard to open the wicket again and all eyes were turned towards it, bright in the shade of the gate arch. A figure was silhouetted in it briefly, before emerging into the light of the yard.
It was Meirach. And his face and hands were clear of their burns. He grinned broadly and threw out his arms as if he were returning from a great victory.
The silence was shattered as the men, turning their attention from Nilsson and Rannick, began advancing on the new arrival, cheering and shouting.
Yeorson ran with the others, but paused as he passed Rannick and Nilsson. ‘What’s happened to his hands and face?’ he asked. ‘The burns?’
Nilsson shrugged and flicked a glance at Rannick. ‘Maybe later,’ he said. Yeorson nodded hesitantly and went on to push his way through the throng moving to greet Meirach.
Nilsson caught Rannick’s eye. ‘I’m glad to see him,’ he said.
Rannick pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘It was a close thing. Captain. Scarcely a hair’s breadth in my thinking when I decided to let him live.’
Nilsson, emboldened by this confidence, risked a venture. ‘The horse, Lord…?’ he began.
Rannick’s slight intimacy vanished like a candle flame snuffed out by a winter wind. ‘Is a forbidden matter,’ he said. The voice cut through Nilsson, and his chest went tight.
‘As you wish… Lord,’ he said. He was about to apologize for his effrontery, but decided against it when he noted a flicker of a response from Rannick at the word ‘Lord’. That would be enough concession for the moment.
Nevertheless, if anything else was eaten in the woods he wasn’t going to ask about it.
The throng that had gathered round the returned Meirach was spreading and opening up now to enclose Nilsson and Rannick also. Questions and praise filled the air. Nilsson shouted above the noise.
‘Men. This is… Lord Rannick,’ he said. He gave a broad smile of welcome to Rannick and noted with relish, his fleeting discomposure. ‘Lord Rannick has come to help and advise us. To set us on the new road that I hinted at only a few minutes ago. He’s to be given the courtesy that befits a lord, and’ – he became emphatic – ‘he’s not to be pestered with idle questions. Our ways aren’t his. I’m sure you’ll find that Meirach’ll be only too keen to tell you what he’s been up to. He’s not known for his ability to stay quiet as a rule.’
This was greeted with raucous jeering, which Mei-rach accepted as justly his own, then Nilsson spoke again. ‘The Lord and I have things to discuss. When you’ve finished listening to Meirach’s yarn, get back to your duties.’
Nilsson was leading Rannick quickly to the rooms he had taken as his own private quarters, before the men could think about what he had said and, despite his injunction, begin to level some very searching questions at him.
‘It’s rather basic,’ he said, by way of apology when they arrived. ‘There was little here when we arrived and over the years we’ve learned that dragging luxuries along can sometimes carry a high price while, con-versely, simplicity can be quite life-enhancing.’
‘I know,’ Rannick said, sitting on a wooden chair and resting his arm on a table.
Nilsson looked at him carefully. ‘How much do you know?’ he asked.
‘Everything,’ Rannick replied.
Nilsson shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Only what Meirach could tell you, and that’s not everything by any means. He’s just a stupid foot soldier.’
‘Do the men know the high regard in which you hold them?’ Rannick asked.
‘We’re bound together,’ Nilsson said. ‘Regard is of no account. They know I’ll not betray them; that’s enough.’ There was a silence between the two. ‘What do you want?’ Nilsson asked eventually.
‘What do you want, Captain?’ Rannick replied.
Nilsson returned his gaze for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. He must risk all now. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve skill enough in the use of the power to destroy me, I’m sure, and probably many others. But you’ve not the skill of our former lord.’
Rannick’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
‘And even he needed the help of ordinary men such as myself,’ Nilsson continued. ‘Ordinary men who could command ordinary men and fight ordinary men, and do the many ordinary things that have to be done in the ruling of a land.’
Rannick’s expression did not change. ‘In the ruling of a land,’ he echoed. ‘Is that what you think I seek?’
‘Yes,’ Nilsson said, starkly.
‘And what place do I see for you and your men in my scheme, Captain?’
‘I’d not presume so far,’ Nilsson replied cautiously.
‘Though loyal service is loyal service,’ Rannick sug-gested. ‘And a loyal servant might reasonably look to loyalty and support in return? And advancement?’
Nilsson nodded.
Rannick stood up and walked over to a window. For a long time he stared out over the still busy courtyard. Nilsson watched him closely, but neither spoke nor moved.
Ra
nnick turned but remained at the window, throw-ing himself into silhouette. ‘This castle is now mine,’ he said. ‘You shall command it as you have hitherto but will submit to my authority.’
Nilsson, aware of the light from the window falling on him, willed himself to absolute stillness. He knew that any angry outburst against this assertion would yield him nothing but pain, or worse.
‘Just like old times,’ a small ironic voice whispered deep inside him.
‘What are your plans?’ he asked.
‘You accept my authority?’ Rannick said, with a faint hint of surprise in his voice.
‘What are your plans?’ Nilsson repeated both wil-fully and blandly.
There was another long silence. Nilsson felt his expectations rising. Unlike his former master, this one he would be able to use.
Rannick turned back to the window. ‘Those horse-men,’ he said, pointing. ‘Where are they going?’
Nilsson joined him. Feeling your way, aren’t you? he thought. As I am. ‘That’s Yeorson and Storran. They were going to look for Meirach. Now they’re going to see what lies to the north.’
Rannick frowned. ‘The Great Forest lies to the north,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for you there. Your future lies down the valley and beyond. Have them stand down.’
‘No,’ Nilsson said, categorically. Rannick swung round on him, his eyes blazing. Nilsson knew that he could not meet his gaze, and kept his eyes on the men below. ‘Down the valley and beyond lies our past, and it pursues us,’ he went on. ‘The only way forward for us is to the north, away from here. If I order the men to stand down they’ll want to know why. And if I’ve no answers then my authority over them will be fatally under-mined.’
Rannick seemed to ponder something for a mo-ment, then, without speaking, he turned and left the room. Both concerned and intrigued, Nilsson went after him.