Looking down from the castle walls, Nilsson watched the comings and goings of his men. Like eddies in a stream, they had a rhythm and a pattern seemingly full of purpose but with no discernible cause or conclusion. Yet the movement was too fast, too erratic. To his experienced eye, there were ripples present that betokened the onset of a sudden and dangerous flood.
And, like a flood, a timely intervention would be needed to divert its energies if harm was to be avoided.
He turned to Dessane. ‘Call a congress,’ he said.
Dessane stared at him in surprise. ‘Now?’ he asked, eyebrows raised. ‘The patrol will be ready to leave shortly.’
‘Now,’ Nilsson confirmed.
Dessane did as he was bidden. The procedure was simple and devoid of formal ritual. He walked to the stairs that led down to the courtyard and shouted, ‘Congress!’ at the top of his voice.
The hubbub in the courtyard faltered momentarily before returning with renewed vigour and a quite different character. The cry ‘Congress!’ was taken up by whoever heard it and was soon echoing around the smaller yards of the castle, along corridors and into every inhabited room and hall.
Within minutes, almost the entire company was gathered in the courtyard gazing expectantly at their leader.
Nilsson walked slowly down the stairs and stopped on the first landing next to Dessane. Saddre emerged from the crowd and came up the stairs to join him.
The gathering gradually fell silent.
‘I’ll keep this simple, men,’ Nilsson shouted.
There was a murmur of surprise and almost alarm from the crowd as his voice boomed round the court-yard, magnified many times by some feature in the shape of the walls or quality in the stonework.
‘You can keep it quieter too,’ someone shouted, to general laughter.
Nilsson smiled and acknowledged the jest with a wave of his hand. That was useful; the laughter alone would remove much of the tension that had built up.
He lowered his voice and found that it carried ade-quately over the entire courtyard.
‘I’ll keep this simple,’ he said again. ‘I’ve been hear-ing some rare tales this morning.’ He exaggerated, mockingly. ‘Tales of fire-breathing warlocks invading our campfire. Tales of monsters wakened from their ancient sleep to snatch away our men and devour our horses.’ He shook his head and laughed. ‘For months we’ve lived hand to mouth, scratching the meagrest living from this country. Now we find this cosy billet, with shelter made for us and food thrust upon us, and what happens? You’ve so little to do you begin to rave.’
He did not wait for a response but shouted, ‘Now!’ and clapped his hands together loudly. It had the effect he had desired, as the noise boomed back off the walls, startling all present.
He continued without pause, his voice normal again. ‘We can tolerate such children’s tales for a little while, but no longer. What we have is an injured, perhaps feverish man who’s wandered off into the forest and a horse killed probably by a small pack of wild dogs. Just that. Nothing more. No irate locals marching out on the hue and cry, no groups of mercenaries, no so-called bandits looking to ambush us. One lost man and a wild dog or two.’
Delivered with a carefully judged measure of scorn and fatherly amusement, the brief speech brought the gathering to foot shuffling hesitation almost immedi-ately.
‘What about Rannick?’ someone ventured, though not too loudly.
What about him indeed? Nilsson thought. Time to prepare the ground for his coming… or his not coming as the case should prove.
‘A local character,’ he replied with a dismissive shrug. ‘That’s all.’ He paused, then continued, ‘Though from what I’ve heard there may be more to him than meets the eye. On the whole, I think we’ll benefit more from his friendship and local knowledge than from his enmity. He’s to be treated well if those of you going out on patrol come across him. Give him every courtesy and my best wishes and tell him he’s welcome to visit the castle and sup with us whenever he wants to.’
Yeorson and Storran were standing a little way up the first flight of stairs. Nilsson nodded to them significantly to confirm this change from his earlier orders. Then he put his hands on his hips and moved towards the edge of the landing. His presence filled the courtyard.
‘I’ll tell you this, men,’ he said. ‘No idle chance brought us here. My guts tell me that we’re at the start of something new: something big. Something that’ll mean an end to our looking over our shoulders all the time.’ He paused to let this unfamiliar optimism seep into his listeners. ‘Whatever it proves to be, I want us to be ready for it. Opportunities don’t come to people who aren’t ready to seize them. We’re banded together by common consent, but we’re still soldiers so let’s behave like it. Those of you who’re going out on patrol, put your best face to it. No moaning, no malingering. Those of you who’re staying here, get yourselves and this place cleaned up. Check your weapons, check your kit, check your horses. Check everything that needs to be checked for us to begin a new beginning.’
Some of the men were actually open-mouthed at this declamation but the balance of the gathering was beginning to show marked signs of enthusiasm for Nilsson’s new vision. Before any of them could mar it with injudicious questions however, he raised his hand.
‘No questions, men,’ he said with a knowing look to indicate that he knew more than he could say at the moment. ‘Not yet. Our first job is to find Meirach and look to his needs, our second is to find out what lies to the north and our third is to get this place operational. Let’s have all efforts directed to those ends.’
He stepped back and dismissed the congress. One or two camp-fire lawyers amongst the men muttered that a congress was only supposed to be held when an important decision was to be made, and that such a decision should be made by acclamation after a free discussion. But the mood of the meeting was too buoyant for their grumblings to be listened to, and they held their peace.
Nilsson smiled to himself as the meeting dispersed. He motioned to Yeorson and Storran and they joined him on the landing.
‘I can’t tell you everything yet,’ he said, quietly, ‘but I don’t want any misunderstanding. If you come across Rannick, then do as I ask. Give him every courtesy and tell him he’s welcome here, as I said. Do you under-stand?’
Both men nodded, though with some reserve. ‘Some of the men won’t be happy,’ Yeorson said. ‘They think he was responsible for Meirach getting burned.’
The anger in Nilsson’s voice was barely concealed. ‘I appreciate it’s a change of direction,’ he said. ‘But it is necessary. I don’t even want him put on the wrong end of anyone’s tongue, let alone their knife. Explain it to the men in whatever fashion you feel’s most effective, but warn them that if they seek to deal with him in their own way in the hope that they can leave him dumped in the undergrowth somewhere, I’ll know about it and the consequences for them will be singularly unpleasant.’
There being nothing else to be discussed after this lucid exposition, the two men left. As they walked down the stone steps Dessane moved closer to Nilsson, drawing Saddre with him. ‘Do you mind telling us what’s going on?’ he said. ‘All this talk about a new beginning. And what the devil happened to you last night? When you came back you looked like…’
A loud banging on the castle gate interrupted him.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing here, is more to the point, Far-nor. You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
‘You frightened the daylights out of me, bursting in like that,’ Farnor protested vehemently, his face colouring red as quickly as it had blanched.
‘And you frightened the daylights out of me, jump-ing like that, you ninny,’ Marna countered fiercely.