‘No, I don’t, really,’ Gryss admitted. ‘But I’d have thought that someone somewhere would have been ordering affairs better than that. Still, I don’t imagine anyone would be expecting you’d be getting involved in combat, would they?’ He shook his head pensively. ‘Your man’s been lucky. If the point hadn’t struck the bone it could’ve severed a vessel that would have emptied the blood out of him in minutes. How did he come by such a wound?’
Nilsson smelt the trap coming. Damn this crafty old fool, he reminded himself. ‘It was a training accident,’ he said blandly. ‘These things happen. But that’s a soldier’s lot. As we used to say in my own country, if you can’t stand the cold don’t sit in the snow.’
‘It was worth a try,’ Gryss said to Farnor as they walked across the courtyard to their horses. ‘But I suppose he’s used to guarding his tongue, whether he’s a King’s man or one of Marna’s bandits.’
Farnor ignored the observation. Away from the urgency of his unexpected night journey and the tension of the sick room, his own concerns returned.
‘I’ve something I need to tell you when we’re away from the castle,’ he said simply. ‘It’s about all this.’
Gryss shot him a quick glance, but said nothing.
As he mounted up, he looked round the courtyard. There was a great deal of activity going on for this time of night, he thought. Though much of it consisted of groups of men talking. And there was an air of… expectancy. As if they were waiting for something.
Once clear of the castle, Farnor told Gryss what had happened that day as he had been in the work-shed. Gryss listened in silence, and remained so for a long time after he had finished. ‘So many questions,’ he said, half to himself. ‘And there’s no point asking you for more than you’ve already told me, is there?’ He gave Farnor a school-masterly look. Farnor shook his head. He had omitted no details. Gryss reached over and laid a hand on his arm comfortingly. ‘How are you?’ he asked in a voice full of concern.
‘Better, I think,’ Farnor replied. ‘A little more pre-pared to wait things out.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t know how long I can stay like this.’
Gryss patted his arm. ‘You’ll be all right. Having learned to do that, it’ll be with you for as long as you need. That’s the nature of things. You’ll be burdened with no more than you can bear.’
The next day, his mind full of Farnor’s strange tale and the evidence of panic that could be read in the damage that had been wrought to the injured men, Gryss returned alone to the castle. The rain that had been confined to the upper part of the valley the previous day had moved to occupy the whole of it and, coupled with a blustering wind, made it more like winter than spring.
There was an almost eerie silence about the castle as Gryss plied his fist to the wicket door. A solitary guard eventually opened it and beckoned him in with a surly grunt.
Gryss attempted some small talk about the weather as they trudged across the deserted courtyard, but the man merely hitched up his dripping leather cape irritably.
‘The sick room’s over there,’ Gryss said, pointing as the man led him in an entirely different direction.
‘Captain wants to see you,’ came the reply.
Gryss knew that asking, ‘What about?’ would yield no answer, so he followed in silence.
He was, however, beginning to feel increasingly uneasy as the journey took him into a part of the castle that he had not been in before. But it was the stillness pervading the place that was disturbing rather than the place itself. The guard stopped and knocked discreetly on a door.
There was a reply from within and the guard pushed the door open and ushered Gryss in.
Though uncarpeted and barely furnished, the room was made almost homely by a large fire burning in an ornately decorated fireplace. Nilsson was seated at a table writing something, while another figure stood with his back to the room gazing out of the window.
Gryss smiled. ‘I see you’ve found yourself some more comfortable quarters,’ he said. ‘The fire’s wel-come. It’s an unseasonable day today.’
Nilsson said nothing, but gestured to a chair on the opposite side of the table. Gryss sat down and waited. He cast a covert glance at the man by the window. There was something familiar about him, but he was silhouet-ted against the grey daylight and Gryss could not see him clearly enough to identify him.
‘Did any of my patients have any problems in the night?’ he asked the still-writing Captain, hoping for a reply that might enable him to discover more of what had happened to the men. He had no doubt that Farnor had told him the truth about what he had… felt. But…
Nilsson laid down his pen after a moment. ‘Don’t worry about the men, Gryss,’ he said. ‘We’ll attend to them.’ His manner was easy and casual, but before Gryss could respond it became serious; grim, even. ‘A great many things have changed since last night, and I…we…’ He nodded towards the figure by the window. ‘… are going to need your help in explaining them to the villagers.’
Gryss frowned. Images of invading armies marching down from the north returned to him again, to displace his immediate worry about the injured men and the mystery of Farnor’s tale. What had these people done with their prying to the north? He brought his attention back to Nilsson sharply. He was still speaking; and hurriedly, as if to get the matter over.
‘It’s been decided that the castle here will become a permanent garrison. It’s to become a… training centre… and local headquarters for the army, to help strengthen what has become a very weak north-eastern border.’
Gryss’s mind reeled. Of the many things he had thought might happen since the arrival of these men, this had not been one.
‘I don’t understand,’ he blurted out. ‘Why now, all of a sudden? Who’s made this decision? What’s it going to mean to the village…?’
Nilsson raised a hand for silence. ‘Listen, Gryss,’ he said, a sterner note in his voice. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, but I’m speaking to you now in your capacity as one of the village’s senior elders; probably its most influential. So listen, because you’ll have to explain it to the others. I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to do it myself.’
With an effort Gryss held back his questions.
Nilsson continued. ‘The why of all this is neither yours nor mine to question,’ he said. ‘Such decisions are made by the King and his ministers, for whatever reasons they think fit. The who is of no relevance. Suffice it that the order is the King’s and that I’m both obliged and empowered to put it into effect.’
Despite the admonition however, Gryss could not contain himself. ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner?’ he interjected, without waiting for the answer to his third question.
Nilsson scratched his cheek impatiently and his lips slipped back to bare his teeth. ‘Because we didn’t know,’ he said. ‘The tithe had to be collected and certain other matters determined before the decision was finalized.’
‘What other matters?’ Gryss demanded.
The figure by the window stirred. Nilsson shot it a nervous glance then glared at Gryss. ‘Matters which don’t concern you,’ he said bluntly.
It brought Gryss back to his third question. ‘What’s it going to mean to the village?’ he asked again.
Nilsson thumbed through some of the papers in front of him. ‘Probably very little,’ he said. ‘Technically you’ll be under military law because of your nearness to the castle, but for the most part that’ll only affect anyone who wants to enter or leave the valley. You can rest assured that we want nothing to do with your routine daily squabbles. You can continue to deal with those as you do at present, providing they don’t interfere with our work here or the security of the valley.’
Gryss frowned. Few either entered or left the valley so, apparently, this new regime would indeed have little effect. But somewhere deep inside, a part of him rebelled against this unasked-for and unwanted constraint. He held it in check; his head was still spinning with this unwelcome news.