Quietly and simply he told them everything that had happened to himself and the others since the visit of the tinker, omitting only the more unbelievable details of his experiences at the Gretmearc. He concluded with their parting from Idrace and Fel-Astian.
There was a long silence when he had finished as if the mountains themselves were listening. He felt he could almost hear the white clouds moving overhead and he resisted a temptation to look up and search for a Viladrien.
A small black disturbance, Gavor landed uncertainly on the stone by Hawklan’s side and staggered slightly.
‘Have they taken their dead with them?’ asked one of the elders eventually, his voice sounding strange after the long silence.
‘Yes,’ replied Hawklan, slightly puzzled. ‘And the bodies of the Fyordyn.’
There was a great deal of what seemed to be relieved head nodding from the crowd.
‘I doubt they’ll be tending their dead well,’ said Hawklan, in a slightly injured tone. ‘They’ve probably only taken them to hide them. To cover their tracks.’
This caused some tolerant amusement.
‘Hawklan,’ said one man kindly. ‘You’ve been with us for twenty years or so, but in some ways you’re still blind. No outlander can hide his passing in Orthlund.’
Hawklan gestured vaguely. ‘Even so, that’s probably why they’ve removed the dead. To avoid discovery rather than for respectful burial.’
‘The dead return to the earth wherever they fall,’ said another elder with a shrug. It seemed to Hawklan to be a peculiarly harsh remark, but it brought no response from the others except some more head nodding.
‘But it’s better that the murdered lie away from Orthlund,’ concluded the man, to further agreement.
Hawklan felt alone again; separated from the deeper lives of these people.
Another spoke. ‘The dead sing their new song now. We must look to the living.’ The speaker was a frail old man from Wosod Heath. ‘There can be no shadows without light.’ Then, unexpectedly, ‘Hawklan, what shall we do?’
Hawklan started. He had expected to tell his tale and then stand aside while the elders decided what to do-if anything.
‘I don’t know,’ he said after an uncertain delay. ‘I’m a healer. I know little of your history and lore, less about Fyorlund, and nothing at all about Mandrocs. Just going to the Gretmearc was an adventure for me. I can’t advise you.’
The man from Wosod Heath spoke again. ‘No, Hawklan. You’re more than a healer. It’s a long time since you’ve been to Wosod and I can see the changes in you. And if the truth’s told, you yourself must feel them. You’ll pursue this Dan-Tor no matter what we decide, won’t you?’
Hawklan remained silent, his head bowed.
The old man continued, ‘A horror has been wrought on our land. There’s a disease in Fyorlund which will spread ever outwards if it’s not checked. You’re our healer. Your time has come. Your inner sense of purpose will guide you truly. Tell us what to do. It will be right.’
Hawklan put his hand to his head and swayed slightly. For an instant he was back in the darkness again. A terrible roaring filling his head, darkness everywhere, even the sky flickering black. And under his feet…? More than that… it was all his fault.
He felt unreasonably angry. He wanted no burden. He wanted the peace and tranquillity of the last twenty years. These people asked too much. They should not put their hopes in one man.
‘No, no, no,’ he burst out. ‘I can’t do it. I’m not a leader, you can’t ask it of me. Whatever I am, I’m an outlander. I don’t have your wisdom. I can heal most of your ills and hurts, but I don’t understand you, not deep inside. I can’t advise you. I… ’ His voice faded. ‘I can’t take this burden. Sometime, somewhere I’ve betrayed the trust of others.’
The remark brought no response from the quiet crowd. The old man rose shakily to his feet and, leaning on the arm of a young apprentice, he walked slowly forward. Shaking his head, he laid a compassionate hand on Hawklan’s arm.
‘No, Hawklan. It’s not in you to betray. Perhaps, once, you failed. Stumbled under too heavy a load. Maybe you, and others, paid some terrible price. Who can say? But no betrayal. Don’t be afraid.’
Hawklan looked from side to side as if for an escape. ‘Perhaps nothing else will happen,’ he said faintly, but the old man shook his head and smiled sadly.
‘Even I can hear this illness crying out, Hawklan,’ he said.
Hawklan twined his fingers together. ‘It’s wrong that you should place such faith in one person,’ he said.
‘We know that,’ replied the old man. ‘And no one’s going to follow you blindly. But then others have followed something or someone blindly and brought death to our land, and we’ve no choice. We love you. We wouldn’t ask this of you if a choice existed.’
‘I may stumble and fall again.’
The old man shrugged. ‘If you fall, you fall. We share the guilt for having so burdened you.’
‘But… ’
‘There is no one else, Hawklan.’
‘Why? Why me?’
‘You’ve answered that yourself by now I imagine.’ It was Gulda’s voice, cross and impatient still. ‘This Dan-Tor wants you. Why he should is unknown, but he obviously won’t rest until he has you, nor scruple to destroy your loved ones. You can’t flee-abandon them-you must face him. None of these can do that for you.’ Her stick swept the crowd in a broad purposeful arc.
‘That’s your immediate problem. But if you can’t feel deeper things stirring then you’re indeed a fool, and the Orthlundyn have been particularly ill-served by fate.’
Hawklan’s mouth tightened grimly at Gulda’s harsh and definitive delineation of his position.
‘Yes,’ he said angrily. ‘But why me?’ Banging his fist on his chest, he used the same words to ask a different question. Why should anyone go to such lengths to capture him?
Somewhere, high above, in one of the many towers, a bell rang out. A single chime. A deep and restful note. The many bells of Anderras Darion rang rarely and to a rhythm of their own choosing.
All eyes turned upwards as the sound echoed round the towers and spires, spilled over roofs and tiers of ramping walls, surged through empty halls and corridors, and overflowed down into the courtyard to submerge the watching crowd.
Gulda threw up both arms to encompass the whole Castle. ‘That answers all your questions, Hawklan-Key Bearer to Anderras Darion. The voice of the Castle itself.’
Chapter 16
As Urssain had remarked, the blatantly illegal appella-tion, King’s High Guard, had caused more adverse reaction from the ordinary people of Vakloss than the suspension of the Geadrol itself and, on his re-appearance at the Palace, Dan-Tor had rapidly declared this to be ‘an unfortunate bureaucratic error by a junior official’. The new Guards were a ‘temporary force’ answerable to himself and intended to ‘relieve the High Guards of the Lords from routine duties, to leave them better able to meet the difficulties which have led to the suspension of the Geadrol’. This announcement, though vague, was couched in bland apologetic terms and was sufficient to quieten most of the public unease. The new Guards, he said, were known as Mathidrin, from an old Fyordyn word meaning, ‘Those who walk’. One or two scholars noted that the word meant, ‘Those who trample underfoot’, but its misuse thus was attributed by them to the ‘general deterioration in the knowledge of our language these days’, and caused no general comment.
Staring out of a high window at the black-liveried men parading below, Sylvriss laid her curse on them, though years of habit prevented her face betraying any emotion. Then she mouthed their name. Riddinvolk to her very heart, she was no student of ancient Fyorlund grammar, but the word Mathidrin had an unpleasant sound to her ears. Her main concern, however, was not the name but the men themselves. Endlessly marching up and down the Palace corridors, the tattoo of their clicking heels announcing their arrival and echoing their departure. Even one alone had to march as if he were with twenty. The High Guard had been formal, but they’d carried out their duties efficiently and without stir. But these creatures…