The very quietness of the utterance of this revelation brought a fearful silence to the meeting.
‘Murder’s murder,’ someone ventured after a while. ‘It’s the King’s business, I suppose. As is the seizing of his castle. We should get word to the capital.’
‘I know,’ Gryss said. ‘But Jeorg was caught trying to do just that and he only escaped with his life because of some whim on Rannick’s part. Now he’s said categori-cally that anyone who tries to leave will be killed.’ He shrugged his shoulders unhappily. ‘I don’t know what to say, let alone what to do.’ He looked at the waiting faces of his friends sitting around the Council table. Their fear and anger were almost palpable. It came over him that all he wanted to do was run away, go back to his cottage, close the door behind him and just… sit; leave the problem to someone else. For a moment he found himself wishing fervently that this was all some awful dream and that he would wake up to the sun streaming through his window and to the everyday problems of life that had seemed to be such a penance but a few weeks ago.
But none of his inner turmoil reached either his face or his voice. Instead he said, calmly and authoritatively, ‘I think what we have to do is to make sure that everyone understands what has happened and to ensure that no one does anything foolish. In my estimation, crossing Rannick would bring dire consequences not only on the person who did it but on anyone else nearby. You all know what a spiteful swine he was.’ He closed his eyes for a moment in self-reproach. ‘And no language like that, even in private.’ There was a stir amongst his listeners. ‘I mean it,’ he said sharply. ‘Those… bandits… call him Lord Rannick, presumably for a damn good reason. You’ll do the same if you…’
Several disparaging voices interrupted him.
‘Lord Rannick, indeed! I’ll lord him, the…’
‘Yes you will,’ Gryss said, before any of the protests could gather momentum. He pointed to Harlen and Yakob. ‘You’ll do what we did. You’ll lord him, and you’ll go down on your bended knees and call him wonderful or whatever else he wants, if you’ve got two grains of sense in your head. Trust me. You want no demonstration of what he can do.’
His anger subdued the outburst, but other voices had been released by it.
‘We can’t sit around and do nothing,’ they said, quietly and reasonably, echoing Marna’s plaint.
‘I know,’ Gryss said, wearily. He stared down at the table helplessly for some time. ‘But all I can think of is watch and wait. Whatever dreadful game’s being played here, we’re small pieces and easily removed from the board. If we avoid trouble, appease them a little, we’ll probably be able to find out more about them. Get to know how they think…’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps in a week or so, we might be a great deal wiser than we are now, and far better placed to decide what to do.’
It was an unsatisfactory answer, he knew, but he had no other.
‘You don’t appease a mad dog,’ someone muttered.
‘And you don’t pull its tail either, unless you’ve got a stick big enough to deal with it,’ Gryss retorted, impatiently.
It was virtually the end of the meeting.
Later a large crowd gathered on the village green to hear the same news. The light was fading when Gryss arrived and, as he climbed on to a table that someone had taken from the inn, a few stars were beginning to appear in the purpling eastern sky. They were mirrored by a sprinkling of lanterns and small sunstones amongst his audience.
He told them what had happened as he had told the Council, and their response was the same, though it was louder and wilder and the clamour lasted a great deal longer. More than once some of the younger men had to be restrained from dashing off immediately to storm the castle and drag Rannick to justice. Gryss found the experience of his many years as a negotiator of disputes, as a calmer of quarrels and a soother of hurts sorely stretched. He prevailed, however: here a sharp com-mand, a caustic rebuttal; there a friendly word, a laughing dismissal. Words, gestures, expressions all played their part in swaying the crowd away from hasty action and towards quieter, more serious considera-tions.
He ended, ‘I’ll run second to no one in my love for Garren and Katrin Yarrance, or in my desire to see justice done. But Katrin herself saw the truth clearly enough. “They’re all fighting men. Used to brutality and stabbing and killing. There’s none in the whole valley could stand against any of them and hope to live should need arise.”’ He paused. ‘Her words, my friends. Tragically accurate. And now these men are obeying the orders of Rannick.’ He paused again to allow the words to sink in. ‘To move against them will gain us only the same fate as she suffered. Living is the way to honour the dead, not dying. Her own son was almost killed when he sought in his grief to confront Rannick. We must be circumspect in all things, no matter what our inner feelings. We find ourselves locked in the pen with a wild bull. Watchfulness, silence and stillness will be our best allies.’
His endeavours, though, left him ill at ease as he watched the crowd disperse into the night, pale faces fading into the gloom to become shadows through which flickered the lights of the lanterns and sunstones.
‘I feel as much a murderer as Rannick,’ he said softly to Harlen as he took his supporting hand and clambered off the table.
‘What do you mean?’ Harlen asked.
Gryss shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said sadly. ‘I just feel…’ He brought his two fists down on the table. ‘I feel like getting my old axe out, marching up to the castle and hacking my way through everything until I get to Rannick, regardless of what happens. And yet I tell them to be calm, to be thoughtful, to do nothing rash. I can’t help feeling that I’m betraying them. Continuing to betray them, in fact. Perhaps that’s what we should do. Trust the judgement of the youngsters. March up there and fight them.’
Harlen laid a hand on his shoulder, but made no comment.
Chapter 36
Gryss had returned to his cottage with Yakob and Harlen and the battered and silent Farnor.
‘We’re all right,’ Gryss had said, by way of hasty reassurance to an alarmed Marna. ‘I’ll tell you every-thing in a moment.’
Then he had given Farnor a more thorough exami-nation than he had been able to do on the road and, finding he was only bruised, ordered him to stay at the cottage and rest.
‘I’ve got to arrange a Council meeting, then a village meeting,’ Gryss said to him, finally. ‘While you’re here, help Marna with Jeorg if you can.’ He put his hand to his brow as he spoke. ‘I’ll have to see Jeorg’s wife, too.’ He closed his eyes and blew out an unhappy breath at this remembrance, but no one volunteered to ease his burden.
Farnor ignored him except for a slight nod that some residual courtesy made him make, and Gryss’s face was taut with controlled impatience when he turned to Marna and gestured towards Jeorg’s room. ‘How’s he been?’ he asked.
‘He keeps waking up,’ Marna said. ‘I’ve been telling him what happened, but I don’t know how much he’s taken in.’
‘Was he distressed, agitated?’
‘Not particularly,’ Marna replied. ‘Not after I told him you’d heard what he said about Rannick.’ She smiled weakly. ‘He thought he might have been dreaming.’ Then she glanced at the room they had just left. ‘What’s the matter with Farnor?’ she asked, softly.
She clasped her hands tightly in front of her to pre-vent their trembling as Gryss told of Farnor’s beating at the hands of Nilsson, but she went pale as she heard about Rannick and his strange powers. Her only question, however, was about Farnor’s dark mood.
‘The beating he received was no light matter, Marna,’ Gryss replied. ‘He’ll be hurting badly, and feeling humiliated, degraded. But I think he’s the way he is because of his grief.’
Marna did not understand. ‘Why doesn’t he shout and scream, or cry or something?’ she said.
‘Grief takes everyone differently.’ Gryss grimaced anxiously. ‘To be honest, he’d be better if he did shout and scream. He’s penning too many things up inside himself.’ He shook his head. ‘It’ll do him no good. These things have to come out sooner or later, one way or another.’