'Tame!’ Tarrian's indignation, however, was for the Duke and Antyr only.
Ibris ignored the protest and continued. ‘See that that is clearly understood by everyone. Interfering with them will be a disciplinary offence.'
The guard saluted nervously and left.
Ibris levelled two fingers at the two wolves. ‘That is not carte blanche for you to raid every kitchen tent in the column,’ he said sternly. ‘I shall regard that as looting. Is that clear?'
'Yes,’ came a rather sulky reply after a short pause.
Ibris nodded, and the sternness fell away from him. ‘Keep away from the men,’ he said. ‘There's endless scope for misunderstandings and accidents in these circumstance and I don't want either of you injured.'
Antyr gave Tarrian a sharp, private command to stay silent, and Ibris returned to his message from Arwain.
'As a result of his action we're sending two divisions up at speed, to meet with one from Stor.’ He looked at Antyr, who was wondering what relevance all this activity was to him. ‘They'll be under the command of Menedrion, and I'd like you to go with him. Pandra can stay here and keep an eye on me.'
The relevance explained, Antyr's stomach sank; he had no desire to be rushing towards a battlefield behind Menedrion's banner. He'd done his part when it was needed, he shouldn't be asked to do it again. It was too much.
But other thoughts came through the fear. Despite the seeming quiet of the past few nights, the Duke's eldest son still needed to be protected. And with Arwain, Menedrion and the Bethlarii in close proximity, who could tell how vulnerable this would make them to the Mynedarion and his guide? Antyr felt again the weight of his own ignorance about these unseen assailants.
However, Pandra couldn't do it. Not the journey, nor, in all probability, any defence of the dreamers against a serious assault.
Somewhere he felt choices falling away from him; felt his feet being drawn down a path determined by others.
But to where? Into what darkness?
'Tarrian? Grayle?’ he reached out to them silently.
For a brief instant he was surrounded by sensations and a deep, ancient knowing, that were at once profoundly familiar and utterly alien to him. And they were sharp and intense.
I am wolf, a fading, distant part of his mind thought before it vanished.
All around was fear and reluctance; and a terrible longing to return to a place far away. A place of endless freedom and light, of great beauty, where a great harmony prevailed.
And, too, the place of his birth, the place of the song, of the …
He was himself again.
'We have some measure of your burden as you have of ours, Antyr,’ Tarrian said, his voice subdued, shocked even. ‘We'll stay with you to the end, or until our strength fails us.'
Antyr looked at the Duke. ‘We'll do whatever you wish, sire,’ he said.
Chapter 34
Efnir was a small hamlet of perhaps twenty families situated in the shadow of the mountains that marked the far northern edge of Bethlarii territory. It was an isolated, self-sufficient community, far from the mainstream of Bethlarii life, but its people were of a traditional, old-fashioned disposition, and it was a matter of some pride to them that when the Hanestra called on men for the army, Efnir would always play its full part, and would not stint on its duty.
Thus it stood now empty of men, other than the very young and the very old.
Not that this greatly affected daily life. The departure of the men was not particularly welcomed, but it was not uncommon in any Bethlarii community, ‘The army must be kept in good order', and life was arranged accordingly.
Now, more than ever, any distress at the leaving of the men was thoroughly hidden beneath stern, determined faces, for this time it was no training exercise that the men had gone to, it was war. This time, sons and husbands had been sent off by their proud mothers and wives with an embrace and the time-honoured edict, ‘Return with your shield, or on it.'
'The Serens have assailed our people in Whendrak, in breach of the treaty, and the city is to be returned at last to its true allegiance.'
There had been some slight, extremely polite, questioning … requests for clarification … of the priestly acolyte who had brought the news, but, as was fitting, he had not been pressed, and, as had become the way these days, he had confined many of his answers to, ‘It is the will of Ar-Hyrdyn.'
Despite this divine reassurance, there had been some unease … suspicion? … among the men that all was not as it should be. Such of them as travelled at all, knew that the Serens had gone their own way for many years now, seemingly indifferent to rekindling the flames of old conflicts.
And surely there would be no Bethlarii community at Whendrak? It was a city mired in trade and commerce. There might well be Serens there, of course; they were a mongrel breed quite without honour and pride, and capable of anything. But there would be no Bethlarii there, surely?
Certainly no true Bethlarii.
And, too, there was some concern about the … intensity … of the priests who seemed to be rising high in political power up there in Bethlar.
But these doubts had scarcely found voice, other than obliquely. For as each man looked at his neighbour he saw only a reflection of his own face with its expression of a grim willingness to observe the ancient, trusted code of unquestioning submission to the Hanestra. At such times, even to show doubt was to preach dissension and that would surely bring about public or worse, private, denunciation and thence, disgrace, banishment, perhaps even death.
Thus the men of Efnir, full of confidence and bravado, left their homes and their wives and mothers, ‘for the good of the state', which, of course, was above them all.
Magret and her ten-year-old son, Faren, went over the field towards the place from where they normally drew their water. It was a cold day, a bitter wind blowing down from the mountains that dominated the tiny hamlet.
Magret adjusted her shawl. ‘When we've done this, we must go up to the forest with the others to help collect firewood; we'll be needing plenty soon,’ she said to her son, pulling the wide collar of his tunic up about his red ears.
With an accurate imitation of his father's scowl, Faren pushed it down again and straightened up to face the cold wind; a man should not concern himself with such discomforts.
Magret smiled to herself at the gesture, but, unwittingly, a little sadly, as pride at her son's spirit mingled with those deeper currents that told her, far below the well-learned patriotic responses that passed for thought, that these men and their warring, strutting ways, were fools beyond description; tragic fools.
The stream was wide and slow-moving where they stopped to fill their earthenware jars. It had bubbled and cascaded down rocky channels and over steep edges before it came here, and but a few paces further downstream it would chatter off again on its way down to the lowlands and the great rivers. But here it was slow and placid, as if gathering its breath after such a journey, and readying itself for the next.
It was not quiet, however, as all around the sound of water rushing towards this resting place filled the air.
It was the noise that prevented Magret from hearing the approaching riders as she laid down her yoke and began showing Faren how to fill the jars without putting his hands into the almost freezing water.
Even when they were on the opposite bank she saw them before she heard them, or rather, she saw their reflection in the gently eddying water of the stream.
She looked up with a start and took a step back as she stood up. The jar she had just been filling teetered slowly and then fell over and rolled into the stream with a soft splash. Faren, who was neglecting his task and leaning over the low bank pulling faces at his reflection in the water, looked around at the noise.