Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Set the name aside,’ Vredech said. ‘It’s not important. Have you any doubts about the nature of what touched you that day on the mountain? Or about the fact that you and I met and spoke together in the same… dream?’

  Horld’s face was pained, but he shook his head.

  ‘Then cling to your faith in those in silence,’ Vredech said. ‘All that we’ve raised with Mueran is what Cassraw’s been saying – a matter that by now dozens of people can testify to. Plain, simple, everyday reality. Iron and coals. My feeling, and it’s growing stronger by the day, is that some evil power – call it what you will – came in that cloud and took possession of Cassraw. Now, something far beyond our understanding of everyday reality is afoot. I’ll have that always in my mind, but only to you and to Nertha will I speak of it.’ He turned and looked straight at Horld. ‘It may be that amongst your own thoughts about this, is one that says I’m raving mad myself.’

  Horld looked startled and shifted awkwardly in his saddle.

  ‘It’s a fair enough assumption,’ Vredech went on, smiling slightly, ‘and I take no offence at it. But give me the right we’ve agreed to give Cassraw: judge me by my actions.’

  Horld stammered slightly as he spoke. ‘I wouldn’t dream of judging you, Allyn,’ he said. ‘“Judge not, lest ye be condemned”.’

  Vredech smiled at the embarrassment in Horld’s voice as he resorted to quoting the Santyth. ‘“But by their deeds shall they be measured”,’ he countered, quoting from the same Dominant Text. ‘I give you the right to judge me, Horld. No – I demand it!’ He tapped his head briskly. ‘I demand the rigour of your mind applied to the judgement of my actions, and to such of my thoughts as I reveal to you.’

  Horld was openly embarrassed now. ‘You sound like Nertha talking,’ he flustered. ‘With her logic and her interminable, probing questioning.’

  Vredech’s smile turned into a laugh. ‘She’s quieter than when you last seriously crossed swords with her,’ he said. ‘Different, too. I think perhaps she’s found some answers after all.’ His manner became distant. ‘She’s really a most admirable person.’

  Horld grunted and gave Vredech a long, curious look.

  Vredech abandoned his reverie and spoke earnestly. ‘You must do this, Horld,’ he said. ‘You’re my shield against my own folly, as perhaps I am against yours. While we test one another, I doubt we’ll do any malice.’

  Horld nodded.

  They did not speak again until they parted company at the foot of the mountain.

  * * * *

  After giving due credit to good fortune, Skynner, too, congratulated himself on a successful day. The public balconies in the PlasHein had been completely filled, but the crowd that had gathered in the square had been much smaller than the one three days previously, doubtless as a result of what had happened then. There were few women present and no children.

  When the result of the debate was made known, there was uproar amongst the Heinders, but the watching public had taken it comparatively quietly, seemingly more interested in watching the antics of their representatives in the hall below than encouraging any particularly partisan opinion now that a decision had been reached. Those people in the square dispersed quietly and in good order. With his limited resources, Skynner had made no attempt to marshal the crowd, but had concentrated on identifying any individuals who looked likely to cause trouble, and quietly removed them. There were remarkably few – a point which reinforced Skynner’s strengthening opinion that the previous incident had been deliberately engineered, though for what purpose and by whom, he had not had the time to ponder quietly.

  And he laid the questions aside once again. Many other voices would have their say about what had happened, in due course, though the Special Assize which had been promised would inevitably be some time away now, with all the current political upheaval. He would continue to interrogate the youths who had been arrested on the day, but he held out little hope of clarification there; they were a mindless lot, and if they were involved at all then it was purely as the unwitting agents of others.

  He leaned on the heavy stone surround to the doorway of the Keeperage, and looked up and down the street. Not a bad day, he thought, as he watched the late afternoon traffic pursuing its usual business. In so far as they ever would after the tragedy in the square, things were getting back to normal. He might perhaps get a decent night’s sleep tonight.

  * * * *

  Thus the day passed for the people of Troidmallos: planned, ordered and for many, successful. Things were, indeed, getting back to normal.

  * * * *

  As Skynner turned to go back into the building, a movement caught his eye. A single movement out of all the bustle that filled the street, yet even as he searched to identify it more clearly, the instinct that years of experience had given him was telling him unequivocally that his self-congratulation was premature and that his night’s rest was far from assured. As the movement became clearer, so this instinct began to raise deep alarms in him, for even though the approaching figure was still a long way away, it seemed that he could see its mouth gaping and its eyes staring wide with awful shock.

  So vivid was this impression that he had walked down the steps to the Keeperage and was moving towards the doom-laden messenger long before the man finally arrived. He was a junior Keeper, scarcely out of his training, and he was white-faced and gasping for breath. Skynner took his arm firmly and, without speaking, marched him out of the public gaze into the Keeperage.

  ‘Calm down, Kerna,’ he said sternly when they were inside, experience this time giving him a patience that he did not really feel. ‘Just breathe easy and tell me what’s happened, slowly.’

  Somewhat to his surprise, the Keeper took a deep, steadying breath and straightened up. The abrupt recovery heightened Skynner’s alarm. Something really serious had happened.

  ‘Another murder,’ the man said, pointing. ‘In the warehouse area again.’

  Skynner’s heart sank. But there was more, he could tell.

  ‘Albor’s dead, as well.’

  Even as the meaning of the words reached him, Skynner heard himself giving the news to Albor’s mother. Struggling to set the thought aside, he felt a myriad tiny clamps suddenly tightening all over his body, holding his hands, his arms, everything, rigid, setting his face, channelling his thoughts, as if any movement, any digression, however slight, would shatter the control over himself and his men, that he would need now.

  He asked a series of simple, terse questions: ‘Where? Who’s there? Who else knows?’ He forbore to ask, ‘How?’ He would find out soon enough anyway and to ask now would be to cause delay. Within minutes he was on horseback, trotting through the sunlit streets as quickly as the busy citizens would allow, his control still icy and pervading both his horse and Kerna, riding behind him.

  A small crowd of men was gathered at the entrance to the alley when he reached his destination. They looked round at the sound of his approach, then parted to let him through. He stared down at them. ‘Unless you’ve anything to say about how this happened, go back to your work right away, gentlemen,’ he said. Though his voice was quiet, there was a quality in it that dispersed the group almost immediately.

  Skynner paused for a moment. The alley was very narrow and received little light from the blue strip of sky overhead. It was also littered with rubbish. Some way along stood a group of three Keepers. A man was sat huddled near to them, leaning on the wall.

  As he wended a careful way towards them, Skynner felt as though he were moving back through time. This was the third occasion he had made such a walk, with lowering walls hemming him in and a circle of uncertain Keepers waiting to greet him. For an agonizing moment, his control slipped and he was flooded with the fear that he would be walking thus for ever, nearing but never reaching, yet always seeing, torn body after torn body, an inevitable and somehow necessary witness to the fulfilment of some great and insatiable need.

  He clenched his teeth so
tightly that they cracked painfully and he was himself again, facing what had to be faced, doing what had to be done. He stepped around a pool of fresh vomit to be greeted by a fellow Serjeant, a man some years his junior who was also struggling to keep command of himself. ‘Young Kerna, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Not that I can blame him. This one’s even worse than the others.’

  ‘Where’s Albor, Stiel?’ Skynner asked bluntly.

  Stiel pointed unsteadily to a shape that was almost indistinguishable from the rubbish cluttering the ground. Skynner walked over and squatted beside it. He reached out to pull back the cloak that had been thrown over the body then hesitated, a flicker of anxiety passing over his face.

  ‘As far as I can tell, his neck’s been broken,’ Stiel said. ‘He’s not been… cut up. Whoever did it had apparently had enough… exercise… with the other one. He’s really bad. It looks as though there’s bits been ripped right out of him. There’s…’

  ‘All right!’ Skynner said sharply, raising a hand to cut off the description. ‘All in good time.’

  Bracing himself, he pulled back the cloak and looked at his dead friend and colleague. As he took in the familiar face, now pale and empty, and the unnaturally crooked head, a terrible anger and pain filled him. He crushed them both ruthlessly. They would serve him best as a fire in which to temper his resolve, rather than a great flaring of empty words.

  His hand trembling a little, he touched Albor’s face.

  ‘He’s been dead for hours,’ he said, a question in his voice.

  Stiel’s glance took in the whole alley. ‘No one comes down here, except to dump their rubbish,’ he said. ‘It was only by chance that that old scavenger found them.’ He flicked a thumb in the direction of the man sat on the ground by the Keepers, his head slumped forward and his arms around his knees. Skynner looked down. Into the many thoughts that he was trying to order, came another, loosed by Stiel’s remark: there could be other bodies lying undiscovered in this district. It was a truly awful thought and he turned away from it. He looked again at Albor’s face.

  ‘He looks surprised,’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘The other one’s the same as before, but worse,’ Stiel said. ‘Horribly frightened.’ He wiped his forehead. ‘I’ll be lucky if I can keep him out of my mind tonight.’

  ‘Don’t try,’ Skynner said starkly. Then, pensively, ‘Why would he look surprised?’

  He knew the answer even as he was asking the question. Albor had come into the alley to investigate something, seen and recognized the murderer, and died before he even knew what was happening. But that prompted many other questions. Why surprise and not anger? And who could have killed him so quickly and with such force? Albor was no junior cadet when it came to looking after himself.

  Skynner stood up and pushed his fingers into his closed eyes. He felt old and lost; it was a bad feeling. He forced back the pain that was struggling to overwhelm him. ‘We’re going to have to ask the Chief to levy part of the militia,’ he said, clinging to present needs. ‘We’ll have to search every alley and every disused cellar around here, and we’ll have to mount Ishryth knows how many more night patrols to cover the area properly.’

  Stiel frowned but nodded. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But it’ll create quite a stir.’

  ‘Not as much as more murders would,’ Skynner retorted, turning and walking back along the alley. ‘And there will be more and more until this lunatic’s caught.’

  As he stepped out from the dark alley and into the bright sunlight, it seemed to Skynner that everything about him was tinged blood-red.

  * * * *

  Another unexpected incident occurred on that well-planned day.

  * * * *

  As is the way with small self-contained communities, the Madren were viewed in many ways by their neighbours. Adjectives such as ‘crafty, self-righteous, churlish’ and even ‘stupid’, were a commonplace but, in fairness, were apt to be reciprocated by the Madren, as is also the way with small, self-contained communities.

  However, amid this sea of vague and general impressions, fed as it was by rumour and hearsay, and moved by the irresistible gravity of ignorance, some evil currents flowed. For every five that spoke ill of the Madren, one was bred who said that they needed to be taught a lesson, and for every five of these, there was one who said theyshould be taught a lesson.

  Not that these populations were fixed. They ebbed and flowed within each individual and throughout communities, in accordance with laws as immutable and as incalculable as those that blow the wind here instead of there. And, in Tirfelden, they had been flowing quite strongly of late.

  While the Heinders pushed and jostled amongst themselves, and while Privv worked diligently to increase his personal wealth by embellishing and spreading tales of their activities, the great clatter of rhetoric that arose was heard far beyond Troidmallos. And, busy pushing and jostling, the Heinders neglected to notice who else was listening to the garbled and broken echoes of the sounds that they were making.

  It was a mistake.

  There were laws in Tirfelden that constrained Sheeters to tell the truth, on pain of drastic financial and sometimes physical punishment, and when some of Privv’s Sheets began to appear there, sent by anxious Felden living in Canol Madreth, they were read against such a background and the tide of tribal mistrust began to flow very strongly.

  Felden officials in Canol Madreth noted the clamour that was being raised about their country while they themselves were not being addressed. They received little reassurance from their counterparts in the Madren bureaucracy as the Castellans, compounding their mishandling of the situation in the heat of their conflict in the Heindral, were either not consulting them or not listening to them. They were regretfully obliged to shrug their shoulders helplessly when asked what the real intentions of the Madren government were.

  Consequently, it was not long before the Felden authorities found themselves dealing with large public demonstrations demanding that they ‘do something’ about the now strident Madren. And being more apt to be led than to lead, they did.

  Thus, while Privv was concocting yet another Sheet, while Vredech and Horld were pondering their own strange revelations, while Toom Drommel was awaiting destiny’s embrace, and while Skynner was quietly mourning his friend, a company of the Tirfelden army marched into Canol Madreth.

  Chapter 30

  Tirfelden, unlike Canol Madreth, but like every other state in Gyronlandt, had a long history both of internal dissension and of menacing or being menaced by its neighbours in varying degrees. Thus it had always had some form of standing army. There had, however, been quite a long period of internal stability, and no serious aggression for even longer and, of late, the need for such an army had come under question.

  The uproar in Canol Madreth, rendered raucously bellicose by distance and telling, and the responses that it provoked within Felden society, were thus ideal for those factions that wished to retain the army. Not least amongst these was the military hierarchy itself, some out of genuine patriotic concern, but most out of fear that they might find themselves reduced to hewing and tilling for their bread.

  Fortunate enough to be inexperienced in actual combat, the Felden army was no hardened and skilled fighting force. It consisted of a largely ceremonial officer corps drawn from the sons of Tirfelden’s richer families, and a markedly rougher element drawn from those members of society who could master no trade – or at least no honest one – or who for other reasons found the freedom and rigours of civilian life too intimidating.

  Nevertheless, it was competent enough for one of its companies to march in and take over the village of Bredill that lay on the main route between Tirfelden and Canol Madreth. Once they were established, an official envoy and token escort, resplendent in formal uniforms, galloped to Troidmallos bearing a strongly-worded ultimatum. This told of the action that had taken place and offered it as a demonstration of the Felden government’s willingness and ability to t
ake ‘reprisals of the utmost severity’ should Canol Madreth proceed with its proposals to expel Felden nationals and seize Felden assets.

  Unfortunately, when they arrived, it was dark and it was only by asking the way of a bemused Keeper that they were able to find the relevant government office. It was shut. The escort stood to one side in discreet silence while the envoy pondered. It is rumoured that he was heard to mutter, ‘Now, what would mother have done?’ but, truth being ever the first casualty of war, this is disputed. However, doubtless in reality fired with patriotic fervour by his senior officers rather than any residual maternal influence, he made his decision and boldly took out the ultimatum to fix it to the closed door. In the absence of hammer and nails he was obliged to fold it rather awkwardly under the iron ring which served as a handle to the door. That done, escort and envoy departed in a splendid echoing clatter of hooves.

  Some way from the town they became quite badly lost and had to rouse a local farmer to find out where they were.

  The only spectator to this small piece of history was Leck. Attracted by the unusual noise of galloping hooves and the strange scent that the newcomers brought with them, she had sidled over and rubbed herself against the legs of the envoy, startling and unbalancing him as he had tried to fasten the ultimatum under the iron ring with martial sternness.

  When he had left, Leck jumped up and clawed the paper free. Dragging it to a nearby lantern she read it. Then she lay down on it and, eyes closed, let out a silent yell, loud enough to penetrate through whatever Privv was engaged in at the moment.