by Roger Taylor
Uldaneth edged away slightly and shook her head. ‘I've eaten,’ she said.
Farnor looked at her uncertainly and then continued eating. ‘I thought I heard you talking last night,’ he said, between mouthfuls.
Uldaneth's eyes fixed on his. They were blue and piercing. ‘Quite possibly,’ she replied acidly. ‘I frequently talk to myself. It's often the only intelligent audience I can find.'
Farnor turned away from her gaze. She was a strange one, this old woman. He was convinced that she had sat by the fire all night without sleeping and that, despite her protestations, she had not eaten this morning; apart from the meat, nothing had been taken from his supplies, and she did not seem to have a pack of her own. And when she moved, she did not really move like an old woman. A twinge as he adjusted his position reminded him too that on their first meeting she had effortlessly defended herself against an extremely violent attack.
He wanted to ask her about all these things, but something told him that it would be either foolish or impertinent. And too, he realized that he did not want to enter into a cross-examination that might lead her to question him further about the creature. He did not know why he had told her what he had the previous night, and he did not know why she had not pursued it, but he was grateful.
'You teach the Valderen?’ he asked eventually.
Uldaneth nodded slowly. ‘Their young,’ she said. ‘They teach the parents.'
'Tell me about the trees,’ Farnor said, somewhat to his own surprise.
Uldaneth tilted her head a little as she looked at him, as if she were listening for some distant sound. ‘Tell me the history of the world,’ she mimicked, raising her eyebrows in gentle mockery.
'Tell me about the trees,’ Farnor asked again, unabashed. ‘As you seem to know, I ... talk ... to them. I Hear them. But there's so much I don't understand about them.'
'Nor ever will, other than slightly,’ Uldaneth said, looking at the trees around them. ‘Nor they us. We are too different. You'd understand a bird or a fish more easily.'
Farnor persisted. ‘I've never spoken to a bird or a fish,’ he said. ‘Let alone have one give me orders or call me ignorant. But if you've lived with the Valderen you must know more about the trees than I do.’ Urgency filled him. He leaned forward. ‘You said you'd spoken to Marken, didn't you?’ he asked.
'Yes.'
'Then you'll know that I've things to do elsewhere, and that these hold me here.’ He waved a hand at the surrounding trees, his mood becoming angry.
'Against your will?'
Farnor shrugged awkwardly. ‘They say they're afraid of me because I possess some strange power, and they'll oppose me if I try to leave. Yet when I talk with them, I get so many confusing impressions. Sometimes they're like children, at others they're stern, even fierce. Sometimes there's one, always the same one, somehow, and sometimes there's many. And they seem to have so little idea of place and distance.'
Uldaneth sniffed, then stood up. ‘Break camp,’ she said. ‘We'll talk as we walk.'
Farnor's eyes widened. ‘You'll come with me?’ he asked hopefully, the prospect of company on his journey suddenly shining through his anger like a bright ray of sunlight through the Forest canopy.
'Our paths lie together a little way,’ Uldaneth replied. ‘I'll tell you what I can, but I too have important matters to be dealt with elsewhere.'
Farnor's simple camp was soon dismantled and packed away. Uldaneth watched him carefully ensuring that the fire was completely extinguished. ‘They don't like it,’ he said, half apologetically. ‘I can understand, I suppose.'
Uldaneth nodded.
Then, catching her apparently talking to his horse, Farnor asked if she would like to ride in preference to walking. By way of reply however, he received only an unexpectedly suspicious glare and he decided not to press the matter.
As they walked away from the camp site, Farnor, leading the horses, was surprised at how quickly he had to walk to keep up with the stooping form of his companion. ‘You said last night that I'd a long way to go yet,’ he said, after they had been walking for some time. ‘How many days is it to these central mountains and this special place of theirs?'
Uldaneth did not answer immediately. Instead, she stopped and gazed about her. Then she nodded. ‘You do have a long way to go yet, Farnor,’ she said, striding out again. ‘But the mountains ...’ She took his elbow and ushered him away from the trail they had been following.
Within a few minutes Farnor, flushed and breathless at the pace that had been set, found himself emerging on to a sloping grassy knoll. It was higher than much of the immediate Forest and offered an extensive view over the rich, many-greened canopy.
Uldaneth, still holding his elbow, twisted him round and pointed.
* * *
Chapter 14
As Marna looked about her, she tried to keep her nervousness from showing in her manner. It was almost impossible. Time ticked by, heartbeat by heartbeat, pounding achingly in her stomach. This fearful clock had begun the instant that Nilsson had spoken his message, ‘Lord Rannick wants to see your daughter, weaver,’ and Marna had the feeling that she had not breathed out since his final, emphatic, ‘Now.'
Her immediate impulse had been to flee, but that had scarcely had chance to form in her mind before it shrivelled. Not so much because she knew that it would have been futile, but because of the look on her father's face. There had not even been an initial expression of shock. Instead an eerie deadness had come over it, as though he had suddenly donned a strange mask. Only his eyes were alive, searching deeply into this intruder with his appalling news.
It was because she could not read what was in them, except that it was terrible, that she stepped forward immediately.
'What does he want me for?’ she had asked before her father could speak.
It was not possible that she could know it, but Nilsson was as relieved at this intervention as she was concerned about his message. For he could read what was in Harlen's eyes. His nerves were jangling with the shock of a man whose mind is far away from any thought of threat and who suddenly finds the blade of a frantic assassin at his throat, or his hand resting upon a poisonous snake.
Almost out of habit, he had quietly tormented the slightly built weaver with his stripping knife, and he had been routinely prepared to knock him to the ground had he chosen to protest and bluster at the taking of his daughter. But this was different. Nilsson had seen such a look only a few times before, but it had been enough to teach him that he might not survive the next few moments, even though he were to kill his opponent. For though Harlen made no threatening movement, the eyes with which he was now watching Nilsson came from a part so deep within him as to be scarcely human; they were the eyes of an animal guarding its young. Harlen was beyond any possibility of fear because his own death was now of no account to him. Nilsson had the vision that Harlen had had but seconds before: of being torn open by that short bladed but lethally sharp stripping knife wielded by a knowing hand. It could happen in the blink of an eye, and he knew that he would not have the reflexes to stop Harlen seizing the knife from the chair should he so decide.
Thus, at Marna's approach and her question, he took the opportunity to step back a little, ready to leap clear of the confines of the doorway to where space might give him a chance to defend himself. At the same time he muttered a hasty reassurance to Harlen, before addressing himself to Marna. ‘She'll be all right,’ he said, man to man.
'He asked me to fetch you to him,’ he replied to Marna. ‘I don't know why he wants to see you.'
'And if I choose not to go with you?’ Marna asked.
Nilsson shrugged and surreptitiously edged a little further away from Harlen. He tried to put some light-heartedness into his voice. ‘I don't argue about my orders, young lady,’ he replied. ‘I suppose I'd have to throw you over my saddle and carry you to him that way.'
Marna moved between him and her father, who, to Nilsson's considerable alarm, be
nt forward to pick up the knife. When he stood up his eyes were fixed on Nilsson and he laid a quiet hand on his daughter's arm as if to move her to one side. She turned towards him and looked into that terrible gaze. ‘I'll be all right,’ she said simply, though her voice was far from steady. Harlen's grip tightened, but she gently prised it loose and moved across to Nilsson. ‘I'll be all right,’ she said again, more emphatically.
Nilsson nodded, as if in confirmation, though, as with his previous assurance, he had no notion of what Rannick intended with the girl. Casually, but unashamedly, he kept Marna between himself and her father as he led her towards his horse.
Only when he was mounted, with Marna behind him, and moving away from the isolated cottage did he begin to recover his inner composure.
Bad mistake, he thought, with considerable and genuine self-reproach. He, above all people, should know the dangers of such a mission. Though not one to dwell excessively on death avoided, he knew that it would be some time before he was totally at ease again. Still, he mused, on his way to that state, at least he'd survived. And the incident had certainly woken him up! The occasional lesson like that was no bad thing.
Then curiosity returned. What did Rannick want this girl for?
Probably the obvious, he decided, as he had decided several times on his outward journey. She was not unattractive, he supposed, though from what he'd seen of her in the past, she could be a surly looking bitch at times. Yet Rannick had shown no interest in such matters with any of the women who had been brought back from the raids. Then, again, he had sent him to collect her with the simple but menacing caveat, ‘She's not to be hurt, captain. In any way.'
He let the question go. Accurately anticipating Rannick was virtually impossible. His main concern was to be alert enough to follow wherever Rannick chose to lead. Doubtless he would find out why the girl was wanted in due course.
Still, best be reasonably polite to her, he decided. Just in case. Women were natural and treacherous string-pullers once they fastened on to a man. And she might yet end up as Rannick's consort.
Then they were entering the castle courtyard. A noisy clamour greeted them. Marna took in such of her surroundings as she could as Nilsson guided his horse through the confused activity.
There were guards at the gate and patrolling the battlements, and men everywhere: some lounging about idly, others apparently busy, and still others—fastened with chains?—unloading wagons and unharnessing horses. And there were women too. Unhappy, miserable looking women for the most part, presumably brought in from wherever the raids had been made. Her stomach turned over. Was that to be her fate? She began to shake but somehow she crushed the thought. She'd known Rannick all her life, surely he wouldn't...
But old memories held few comforts for her. Rannick had always been coldly formal to her after she had finally rebuffed him.
Reining his horse to a halt, Nilsson swung his leg over its head to dismount and then reached up to help Marna. She ignored his outstretched arms and jumped down beside him. He caught her as she missed her footing and staggered, but she yanked herself free.
'I'd be a bit pleasanter than that with Lord Rannick if I were you,’ Nilsson offered, softly and not ungently. ‘Whatever he used to be around here, he's very different now. Just do as he tells you.'
Rather than let her fears show, Marna glowered at him.
He gave a shrug of indifference. ‘You'll learn, one way or another,’ he said. ‘Come with me.'
They walked only a short distance across the courtyard, but Marna felt as though she were the focus of the attention of everyone there. Clenching her fists, she drove her fingernails into her palms and fixed her gaze resolutely on Nilsson's retreating back. The shaking began to return and her legs began to feel weak.
She heard some comments being made to Nilsson. They were spoken in his own language, but their content was unmistakable and she coloured. She took some relief however, from the fact that his terse response silenced the inquirers immediately.
'Enjoy yourself, dear,’ a lecherous voice said, close by, as she reached a door. Someone else laughed.
The tone of the voice snapped Marna's brittle control and she spun round furiously to face her taunter. It was a mistake, she realized, even as she did it. The speaker's leering mouth became O-shaped in mock surprise, as did his companion's. Then they both laughed raucously.
'That one's mine when he's finished with her, definitely,’ one of them said.
'She'll be everyone's,’ another voice called out, to further, spreading, laughter.
'Come on, girl.’ Nilsson's abrupt command was almost welcome. She stepped through the door with the laughter ringing about her. For a moment she stood motionless, struggling in vain to control her shaking body. The laughter seemed to go on for ever.
'Come on!'
Nilsson had stopped at the far end of the passage and was beckoning impatiently to her. With a monumental effort, she forced herself forward.
For a while, her feet clattered along stone floors and steps, then after they had walked up a wide stairway, the sound disappeared. Glancing down, she saw that the floor was now carpeted. She stopped and looked at it, puzzled. Whatever state the castle might have been in after being closed for so long, it was not possible that any fabrics could have survived. The truth dawned on her. Like the women she had seen in the courtyard, the carpet must have been stolen on one of the raids that were being made beyond the valley. Suddenly she shuddered; a different shaking from the tremors that she had been fighting against since she left her father's cottage—this was deeper, and colder. This carpet had been torn from some ordinary house somewhere far away. Perhaps a family had been slaughtered like Garren and Katrin just to obtain it, or, somehow worse, slaughtered and then robbed as an afterthought. Her toes curled within her shoes as she tried to shrink away from it. What rich memories in that woven fabric were marred forever now?
She shuddered again, and then ran after Nilsson. He was standing at the foot of a flight of winding stairs.
'Up there,’ he said, with a flick of his head. ‘Don't dawdle. He knows you're here now.'
There was a quality in his voice that made her look at him. ‘How?’ she asked, somewhat to her own surprise.
Nilsson returned her gaze, though she could read nothing in his eyes but indifference. ‘He knows,’ he said starkly. Then he motioned her towards the stairs again.
The stairs were quite narrow and steep and not easy to negotiate. Like the passageway she had just left, they were carpeted, though here the close proximity of the rough stone walls made any decorative effect incongruous. Nevertheless, the thoughts about where, and how, the carpet had come there lingered. Her earlier conversation with her father returned to fill her with guilt. How could she complain about life in the valley when she compared it to what must be happening elsewhere?
Other considerations however, rose to spare her as she paused to catch her breath. Used only to simple cottage stairs, the long, steep flight of spiral steps unsteadily lit by tiny lanterns made her feel at once oppressively closed in and vertiginously exposed. She fought back her momentary panic but only to find herself assailed by other, equally fearful and more tangible thoughts about the immediate future. She struggled to reassure herself again. She knew Rannick, for pity's sake; she could handle him. But Nilsson's words tolled like a knell. ‘Whatever he used to be around here, he's very different now. Just do as he tells you.'
Do as he tells you.
Her legs threatening to fold under her again, she reached out and pressed her hands against the curved walls of the stairwell. The hard stone, cold and gritty, reminded her that no matter what she felt, there was no way but forward for her.
At the top of the stairs there was a small landing and a solitary door. Hesitantly she knocked on it.
It opened with a sound like a soft, sighing breeze.
'Come in, Marna,’ said a familiar voice. Tensing her stomach muscles she forced herself to move forward.
> * * * *
Farnor started as he followed Uldaneth's pointing hand. The mountains towards which he had been journeying rose up ahead of him, seemingly only a few hours’ walk away. Though perhaps no higher than those which hemmed in his home valley, peculiarly jagged, broken peaks and sheer cliff faces gave them an ominous, brooding quality. The effect was heightened by the trees which swept up the ramping sides then petered out as though exhausted. It was as if the mountains had suddenly burst through the Forest and the trees had attempted vainly to restrain them.
From where he was standing, Farnor could not see much of the northern horizon, but what he could see was filled by the mountains.
'I'd no idea I was so close,’ he said, a little awe-stricken by the suddenness of this revelation.
Uldaneth nodded. ‘Woodland terrain's very deceptive. But you'd have found out within the day,’ she said, with some amusement.
'How far do they go?’ he asked, gesticulating towards the mountains, vaguely.
'A long way,’ Uldaneth replied unhelpfully. ‘Like your own mountains, they're part of the same upheaval that caused the great ranges to the north.'
Farnor looked at her, startled. ‘You know where I come from?’ he asked.
'I like to get around,’ Uldaneth replied offhandedly. ‘But it's a long time since I've been there. A very long time.’ She pointed again before he could pursue any inquiry. ‘That's where you need to go,’ she said. ‘That's the place where they're most ancient. That valley.'
Farnor looked at the gap between two mountains to which she was pointing. From this vantage, it seemed in no way unusual.
'It's a strange place,’ she went on, nodding pensively to herself. ‘Very strange. Haunting, beautiful.'
'I thought they didn't allow anyone in there,’ Farnor said suspiciously.
'Nor do they,’ Uldaneth admitted. ‘But no one bothers about a wandering old teacher.'
Abruptly Farnor asked as he had before, ‘Tell me about the trees.'