Gryss looked at it. ‘You know more about these people than we do, don’t you?’ he said out loud. Then he sighed. He wished he had asked more of the man from whom he had bought it all those years ago. Now he couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
Still, that was wind through the tree: long, long, gone. He set the ring down. It rattled slightly against the wall of the cottage.
Gryss took a deep breath. The air was fresh, cool and still now. He looked up. Clouds, rich with blacks and dark blues, ominous with grey and sometimes silver edges, moved to the whim of a wind of their own against a moonlit sky.
He had mixed feelings about what had transpired. He was glad that he had shared at least part of his burden with his friends, but he felt some remorse that he had lied to Garren and Harlen about the involvement of their children. There was nothing else he could have done, of course, and he had promised both Farnor and Marna that he would try to clear the way for them to continue to be involved without bringing parental strictures down on them.
Even so, deceit went against the grain. It had the feeling of a bad omen. He reached up to strike the sunstone as he had done every night for as long as he could remember. Then he hesitated and lowered his hand. Not tonight, he thought. Not tonight.
He turned and went inside, closing the door gently behind him.
Chapter 24
Fortunately, the extensive debate that the Council had held and the final decision to watch and wait, had been well absorbed by the individual Councillors and thus, for the greater part, it pervaded the public breaking of the news about the intended garrison over the next few days.
Inevitably, though, the reaction of the villagers was mixed. Most naturally pondered the reasons for it, but in the absence of any great knowledge about the world over the hill their attempts foundered or became manifest flights of fancy such as Yonas the Teller might have retailed.
One or two, nodding wisely, announced that they had known all the time that something of the kind had been intended. ‘Why else would they arrive here, after all these years?’ Although it was well noted that these individuals had neglected to share this foreknowledge with their friends and neighbours prior to the public announcement.
No small number shrugged indifferently, regarding the matter as being one beyond their control and thus not worthy of serious concern.
A small minority – a very small minority – by some circuitous reasoning all their own declared that they felt reassured to have an armed force nearby because the fact that an armed force was needed nearby made them feel uneasy.
On the whole, the men expressed varying degrees of indignation – generally in the familiar security of the inn – while the women, wiser by far, fell silent or drew in sharp breaths and lifted their hands to their breasts to still the fluttering fear that rose from their inner depths to greet the news.
Few were really concerned about the positioning of a guard post down the valley. ‘Nobody ever goes down there anyway. Besides, it’ll keep any undesirable outsiders out.’ Though quite when any undesirable outsiders had last visited the valley was a question not pursued.
Gryss and most of the other Councillors found themselves occupied at length in discussing the matter, but this time Gryss was happy to be repeating the same story. The feeling that gradually spread across the village chimed with the villagers’ natures.
‘Don’t rock the hay-cart.’
‘Don’t stir the pigswill if you don’t want the smell.’
In short, leave them alone and they’ll leave us alone. The funeral knell of many a society.
Despite his relief at the reception of the news, how-ever, Gryss’s concerns did not lessen. He looked at the complacency he was helping to engender and wondered if he were not once again failing the village as he had failed them when he accepted the arrivals as tithe gatherers without comment.
After a few days, he called another Council meeting and had himself confirmed in the duty that he had already assumed, namely official representative for the village at the castle.
Not that his services seemed to be needed. There was no activity from the castle other than the occasional group of men heading down the valley, or returning. Harlen reported that their guard post was only a few tents, although he remarked also that they were patrolling widely on horseback.
Gryss merely nodded at this intelligence, though he ensured that it was repeated in Jeorg’s presence.
Marna and Farnor, now officially seconded to Gryss’s command, as it were, found they had nothing to do except pursue their everyday tasks. Gryss would glance inquiringly at Farnor when they met, but the young man had no further strange contacts to report.
Increasingly, though, Farnor kept sensing the dis-tant, unintelligible babbling that he had heard before his last contact with the creature. It tended to come to him when he was at the edge of sleep, yet it was unequivo-cally from beyond himself, he knew; it was no figment of his imagination.
For no reason that he could have given, he did not mention this to Gryss. Whatever it was, it had none of the malignity that he had felt so sharply in his contacts with the creature.
While the momentum of the villagers’ age-old ways began to reassert itself, matters at the castle were less serene.
Rannick came and went to a rhythm of his own, just as he always had, accounting to no one for anything. But each time he returned he was peculiarly elated. The men, however, were less so. They had turned to him partly out of fear, but also because he had given them a vision of the future which they had had once before, and the destruction of which had sent them out from their homeland into their present fruitless and futile wandering.
Now however, apart from manning the guard post down the valley, they found themselves without much to do. When they had stumbled on this castle, they had been exhausted, hungry and almost totally demoralized, their will sapped by the ever-present fear of retribution from the past. Now they were more secure than they had been since they began their travels, and the bonding that a common privation had given them began to weaken.
It needed no great sensitivity on Nilsson’s part to detect the growing discontent, but he was at a loss to know what to do. Rannick had bound them to the valley and, to ensure peace, Nilsson himself had effectively bound them to the castle and its immediate environs.
He taxed Rannick. ‘The men need to be occupied, Lord,’ he said. ‘They’ll go sour on us left to their own devices for too long. Sour and quarrelsome.’
Rannick, recently returned from one of his ab-sences, was sitting staring into space. He gave no indication that he had heard anything and Nilsson made to speak again, but as he opened his mouth Rannick lifted his hand.
‘Every day,’ he said softly.
‘Lord?’
‘Every day,’ Rannick said again. He looked at his hands. ‘Such things I find.’
Some inner voice told Nilsson not to inquire further. A long silence elapsed. Then Rannick stood up and turned to face Nilsson. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said. ‘The men will not only become sour and quarrelsome, they’ll become soft and useless if they’re allowed to continue thus.’ His face hardened. ‘And they’re of no value if they can’t fight, and fight well.’
‘Yes, Lord,’ Nilsson agreed. ‘But what…?’
‘We ride,’ Rannick said, cutting across his question. ‘We ride downland, out of the valley. Begin our journey along the golden road.’
The last remark made no sense to Nilsson, but the import of Rannick’s intention did. ‘Leave here, Lord?’ he exclaimed, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘Why?’