Gavor ignored the tone and peered purposefully in the direction the brown bird had flown.
‘I say. Little beggar’s got a fair turn of speed, hasn’t he?’
‘Gavor, I told you to stay at the castle. I have to make this journey alone,’ said Hawklan, though not very convincingly. He had already begun to miss his old friend’s irreverent chatter.
‘Nonsense, dear boy, nonsense. You’re too innocent for the world yet. You need Gavor’s more experienced eye to guide you round its pitfalls.’
‘Jaundiced is the word I’d have used, rather than experienced,’ replied Hawklan.
Gavor snorted and, unfolding his great black wings, glided down to land on Hawklan’s shoulder. He winked at him as he landed. Then his tone became more serious.
‘I’ll watch your back for you, dear boy,’ he said.
Hawklan started to walk along the path again. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘What I say, dear boy, what I say. I’ll watch your back. In fact I’ve been watching it for some time already.’
Hawklan turned his head and looked at him.
Gavor continued. ‘Did you know that that little brown… bundle of feathers with the ghastly eyes has been following and watching you?’
Hawklan’s face showed disbelief, but he did not speak.
‘Well it has,’ said Gavor. ‘And I’ve never seen a bird like it until that tinker came.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Hawklan said. ‘It looked like a perfectly ordinary little bird to me.’
The affectation left Gavor’s voice.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No normal bird can fly that fast, or has eyes like that. There were two or three of them nosing around the village while the tinker was there, but I didn’t think much about it. But when he went, they went. They’ve all gone. Not a trace. Until I saw you, and there was one of them skulking behind the rocks and watching you.’
Hawklan slowed his stride as the path rose up a small incline.
‘How can you be sure it was watching me?’ he asked. ‘There are all manner of birds and animals up here.’
‘No there aren’t,’ said Gavor categorically. ‘Not this high. I watched it for an hour. It kept pace with you all the time. And not once did it pause to eat or drink anything-not once. Distinctly unnatural.’
Hawklan did not speak, and for a while they moved on in silence. He was disconcerted by this strange revelation, if only because of the way it had affected Gavor.
‘What did you do to it?’ he asked eventually.
‘Nothing, regretfully,’ said Gavor irritably. ‘Little beggar heard me gliding in before I was anywhere near it. I don’t understand it. I’m known for my subtle approach.’
‘What would it want?’ asked Hawklan, ignoring the last remark. ‘Why should a bird follow me?’
‘I’ve no idea, dear boy, no idea. But I’d risk a guess that it’s a messenger. Someone wants to know where you are and what you’re doing. I’m glad I came now, in spite of your rather churlish greeting.’
Hawklan knew that, in spite of Gavor’s news, he could only go forward. His mind pushed Gavor’s strange reasoning to one side.
‘I’m glad you’ve come too, Gavor,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed your company. And I’ll feel much happier indeed with you at my back after what you’ve just said.’
‘Dear boy,’ came the reply. ‘You’re just too kind.’
High above, on a narrow pointed spur, two small brown birds sat and watched the two travellers through blank yellow eyes. Nearby, a succulent insect chewed its way luxuriously through a leaf, unhindered and unthreatened.
Chapter 9
The Lord Eldric sat square in his ornate chair at the head of the table. He was staring straight ahead and his hands were gripping the carved animal heads that decorated the ends of the chair’s arms. He was abnor-mally still. Only a pulse in his temple and his whitened knuckles gave any measure of his thoughts.
A fire was burning in the large hearth and its flicker-ing lights offered the only movement in the room. Even the house dogs had stopped their ceaseless prowling up and down among the guests, and the guests themselves were sitting as still as their Lord, every eye, without exception, watching him. Apart from the crackling of the fire, the only sound in the hall was the breathing of the newly arrived messenger, standing stock-still by the Lord, but still breathless from his long and frantic journey.
One of the dogs whined a little. Eldric breathed out a sigh of resignation and turned to the messenger.
‘You are…?’ he asked quietly.
‘Hrostir, Lord. Second son of the Lord Arinndier. Serving with his High Guard.’
Eldric nodded in acknowledgement and turned his gaze forward again. The tension seemed to have gone from him a little, but the pulse still throbbed in his temple.
‘I recognize you now, Hrostir. You’ve grown a great deal since I last saw you. How is your father?’
‘Well when I left him, Lord, but that was some time ago. I’ve been on Palace duty.’
Eldric nodded, then his face twisted momentarily into a spasm of distress, and his hands tightened once more on the wooden heads of the chair arms. Leaning forward, he took up the document that Hrostir had given him, and looked at it for the second time.
‘You’ve done well, Hrostir,’ he said, his deep voice regaining its normal tone of command. ‘Very well. Your father can be proud of you.’ He raised his hand and indicated the table. ‘Join our meal. Take what you want, then rest yourself. I’ll need to talk to you very shortly.’
‘My horse, Lord,’ said Hrostir.
‘It’s being tended, Lord,’ volunteered the servant who had brought the insistent messenger into the hall. Eldric nodded to the servant and then again to Hrostir, to indicate that he could now eat with a clear con-science. Hrostir bowed and made his way to one of the empty seats that were always left at the Festival table.
Eldric rested his head on his hand thoughtfully for a moment and then beckoned the servant. The man bent forward to receive his instructions and then left the hall quickly. Eldric turned his attention to his guests, his bearded face a mixture of anger and sudden weariness.
‘My friends,’ he said. ‘It’s said to be a good omen when an unexpected guest arrives at the First Feast of the Grand Festival. And I consider it particularly auspicious that the guest is the son of my old friend. However, we’re in need of such an omen, for he’s brought… grim news. His disturbance of our feast is our pleasure, but I fear the paper he’s brought will disturb us less pleasantly.’
He paused as if reluctant to say the words out loud. Then, sensible of his duties, and like a man who must kill a wounded horse, swiftly and cleanly, leaving the mourning for another time, he spoke.
‘The King has suspended the Geadrol. The Great Council of Lords is to sit no more.’
His tone was a mixture of defiance and resignation, and its cutting edge severed the tension in the hall. A hubbub of disbelief, anger and shock rose up from his guests. Eldric sat back in his chair with his head bowed until the babble faded away as one persistent voice spoke all their questions.
‘What does it mean, Lord?’
The questioner was Tirke, a friend of Eldric’s son Jaldaric, currently seconded, like Hrostir, to the King’s service in the capital of Fyorlund, Vakloss. Eldric did not like Tirke. He considered him to be impatient, rash and arrogant, and his assessment was indeed accurate as far as it went. However, for his son’s sake he tolerated him, aware that if he forbade the friendship it might continue clandestinely and the guilt of this would probably bring Jaldaric further under Tirke’s influence.
He remembered a vulgar barrack-room epithet about it being better to have someone inside the tent ‘looking’ out rather than outside ‘looking’ in, and the thought made him smile unexpectedly. The smile coloured his view of Tirke. He was, after all, only a young lad, and we all do foolish things when we are young.
‘It means, Tirke, what it says. The Geadrol is sus-pended. The King will rule without the benefit of the advice of his Lords.’
‘And restraint,’ said a voice to his left. Eldric nodded a worried acknowledgement.