Turning to his friends, he held up the crumpled notice. ‘This alone shows the rightness of Commander Yatsu’s actions and of the conclusions we ourselves have reached. No further debate is necessary except on the strategy and tactics of how we rid ourselves of Dan-Tor. Do you agree?’ The three Lords nodded without speaking.
Eldric turned to Hawklan and Isloman. ‘You’re bound to neither me nor my country by any oath or tie, but will you help us further?’
‘We’ve a common foe, Lord Eldric,’ Hawklan replied, taking his hand. ‘You’ll have our help and probably that of all Orthlund should the need arise, though in what manner time alone will tell.’ He looked at the old man. ‘But what are you going to do?’
Eldric, satisfied, turned to the crowd. He held up the notice again and addressed them all. ‘According to this, my son’s to be executed if we four don’t surrender. Executed! After a secret trial! No man’s been executed in Fyorlund for three generations.’ He paused and looked intently at the crowd momentarily silenced by his passion. Then he continued more quietly, ‘I can’t begin to understand what Dan-Tor wants of us. However, it behoves us to remember that he’s a man of great cunning and deviousness. A man who turns all eventu-alities to his own ends. A man capable of anything. I can only imagine that he wants the City rent by riots again, for surely few Fyordyn could let such infamy pass unhindered.’
Some of the crowd shouted their approval, but El-dric waved them to silence, and then pointed to Yatsu and the others. ‘These men are not what they seem. They’re High Guards and it’s due to their courage that we four are free today. You all heard the orders I gave them. Publicly and openly announced, in the Fyordyn manner, for all to hear. I’ll offer no one violence but I fear that superior force will be the only way this man’s hand can be stayed.’
More shouts of agreement came from the crowd.
Eldric continued. ‘But there must be no rioting. No random, ill-judged violence. We must not hand this man weapons to strike us down with. While my one hand arms itself, I’ll offer the other in peace, if not friendship. Two days hence, on the day set for my son’s… execution, I shall present myself before the Palace and demand a public Accounting of my accuser, according to the Law. I ask you all to accompany me to witness this.’
The crowd fell suddenly silent, and then began to shout and applaud.
Hawklan looked at Darek in puzzlement. ‘What does this mean?’ he asked.
The lean-faced Lord seemed to be deeply moved. Quietly, he said, ‘Under the Law, any accused person has the right to demand a public Accounting of his accuser. It’s the very heart of our Law, Hawklan.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘But surely if he appears in public he’ll simply be taken by the Mathidrin?’
‘Not now,’ said Darek. ‘The word will fly around the City. His very openness will protect him until the Accounting. More than any other act, if Dan-Tor were to breach his right of Accounting it would unite the City against him to a man. It’s not merely deep in the Law, it’s deep in the people.’
Hawklan frowned. ‘And after this Accounting?’ he asked.
Darek looked at him, his face unusually pale. ‘Who can say?’ he replied. ‘Eldric’s fulfilled his duty to the country by publicly ordering us to unite and arm, presumably he sees the Accounting as his duty to his family.’
‘The Accounting’s his duty to everyone.’ It was Hreldar. ‘It’ll expose Dan-Tor to the real scrutiny of the people for the first time. They’ll start realizing they must choose. He’s providing himself as a focus for the people. He’s trying to lance the boil that’s been festering in our society ever since that… man… arrived.’ He looked at Eldric, now in earnest conversation with Astrom. ‘He’s also bought us time,’ he said slowly.
Later, the party rested some way outside the City so that Hawklan could tend to Arinndier and Dacu. Everyone sat motionless and silent in the starry darkness. Eldric’s decision dominated all their thoughts, but no one spoke of it. Time enough later.
Hawklan stood leaning against a tree looking back at the City. Streaked with the bright lights of the globes lining its streets, it looked like some great phosphores-cent animal that at any time might waken and come seeking them in the night.
Free now of the immediate dangers of the last few days he felt again the strange unease he had noticed when he first approached Vakloss. It was like a low rumbling note deep within him. What was this place when I was last here? he asked himself. ‘You’ll ruin your shadow vision staring at those lights.’ Isloman’s voice interrupted his reverie.
Hawklan nodded. ‘I’d not have thought it possible that anyone could use light so destructively,’ he said.
‘Consider yourself fortunate to be as shadow blind as you are rock-blind, Hawklan,’ Isloman replied, his voice strangely solemn. ‘Those lights of Dan-Tor’s are the stuff of nightmares. More corrupt by far than anything he brought to Pedhavin. He has some terrible, fascinating knowledge.’
Hawklan looked at his friend. ‘Fascinating? Take care, Carver,’ he said.
Isloman nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Dan-Tor’s a man of deep and subtle traps. I wonder how many good men have unwrapped his evil, layer by layer, only to be trapped at its heart by those very wrappings?’
‘Does it frighten you?’ Hawklan asked.
‘A little,’ said Isloman after a moment’s pause. Then, ‘No. It frightens me a lot. He’s powerful beyond my understanding, old friend. I think he could destroy us with the blink of an eye if he so wished. Still, perhaps I’ve known that ever since we left the village. It doesn’t alter the fact that we have to face him and all he offers. If we don’t, we’ll die with him at our backs.’
Hawklan laid his hand on Isloman’s shoulder and turned away from the City to rest his eyes in the deep purple distance.
‘Mount up, gentlemen.’ Yatsu’s soft order came out of the darkness. ‘We’ve some hard riding ahead.’
Chapter 42
On the day appointed for Jaldaric’s execution, the very elements themselves seemed to reflect the new turmoil within the City. An unseasonable wind whipped and buffeted the streets, flapping through the market stalls, blowing petals from the innumerable floral displays that still decorated the colourful houses, and shaking the milling crowds.
Only in the darkest corners of the City did there linger any of the stench that had emanated from the funeral pyre of Dan-Tor’s workshops.
Overhead, tattered streams of clouds blew relent-lessly from the north as if pursued by some demon, though higher still, the sky was blue and calm and the sun shone warm.
The crowds, too, were unusuaclass="underline" restless and noisy, roaming the streets, then becoming quiet and patient, hovering expectantly near the Palace. They lacked the busy purposefulness of the normal City traffic.
Dan-Tor looked out over the City and scowled as he watched the shadows of the clouds scrambling over the rooftops below. Their innocent movement and the strange, quixotic behaviour of the crowds disturbed him.
Standing behind him in the comparative shade of the centre of the room were Urssain and Dilrap. Urssain watched Dan-Tor carefully. Emotion on the man’s face was a rarity. I must learn to read him, he thought, not for the first time. Urssain’s ambition and his fear of Dan-Tor were like badly matched horses in a chariot. First one would pull ahead and then the other. His ride was always uneasy.
‘Tell me again,’ said Dan-Tor without turning round.
‘The rumour came in from all over the City,’ Urssain said. ‘Eldric has ordered the three Lords and their rescuers to return to their estates and begin organizing the High Guards against you.’
‘Against me?’ Dan-Tor said. ‘Not the King?’
‘Against you, Lord… Ffyrst,’ Urssain confirmed. ‘And he announced that he’d come to the Palace today to demand a public Accounting of you as his accuser.’