Darek shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me attend to my men and then we’ll talk right away. I couldn’t begin to rest with all the hares your news set running around in my head, and I presume you’ve all been pacing the floor for at least two days waiting for me. And being none too charitable about the delay.’
Eldric raised his hands and shrugged in mute con-fession and apology. ‘You always were too sharp, Darek,’ he said with a smile. ‘Come inside. My men will attend to your escort and the horses, and we’ll join Hreldar and Arinndier straight away.’
Leading his guest through a blossom-decorated doorway, he added wryly, ‘You’ll not decline a little Festival fare while you’re talking, I trust?’ Darek allowed a brief smile of acknowledgement to light up his thin, dour face.
Within minutes they had joined the others in one of the rooms of Eldric’s private quarters. It was simply decorated and well-lit with ample comfortable furniture, and Darek sat down in a capacious chair with an aura of considerable relief.
The four Lords presented a considerable contrast. Eldric, bluff, solid and open-countenanced; by a month or so the senior in years, but by far the most senior in the eyes of the people and his peers. Arinndier, some five years younger, but bigger and stronger and with the demeanour of a much younger man. Darek, thin and wiry, with a quiet, rather scholarly manner. And finally Hreldar. A real Festival Lord, as Eldric described him. Round faced and jolly. A man much given to easy and infectious laughter.
For all their contrasts however, they were bound by long ties of affection and loyalty. Ties forged mainly during the years they spent fighting shoulder to shoulder in the Morlider War, and subsequently tested and tempered by their long service together in the Geadrol.
Ironically, for four Geadrol Lords, their conference was remarkably brief.
Hrostir had little to add to the news he had brought. Leaving Vakloss at the end of his routine secondment to the Palace, he had come across the edict almost by accident, so quietly had it been posted. It came as no great surprise to any of the Lords that there had been no public outcry at such an edict. For all its virtues, there was no widespread interest in the affairs of the Geadrol and, at that time, the Grand Festival dominated all horizons. Few things were deemed so serious that they could not be left until ‘after the Festival’. Taking a copy of the edict, Hrostir had ridden post-haste to Eldric with the news rather than to his father because his estate was the nearer and because of his seniority.
He looked a little uncertainly at his father as he concluded, but Arinndier nodded his approval. ‘You heard no rumours, no palace gossip, before this happened?’ he asked. ‘Noted nothing untoward?’
Hrostir shook his head. ‘Nothing, Lord,’ he said. ‘The Lord Dan-Tor is away somewhere with a small escort, I believe; but he never celebrates the Festival anyway, as you know. Everything else was normal. Everyone was full of preparations for the Festival as usual.’
Following this, there was little any debate could yield but conjecture and concern, and after a while this became abundantly clear.
‘We’re just getting bogged down,’ said Eldric, even-tually.
He stood up and paced over to the window. The spring sun was warm and pleasant on his face. He could see some of his guests on the lawn below performing an impromptu and accelerating round dance to the accompaniment of a pipe and drum. Others stood watching, encouraging the dancers with clapping hands and shouts. Laughter filled the air as the dance headed inexorably towards chaos. ‘We must leave for Vakloss immediately,’ he said after a long pause. Then, catching Darek’s eye, ‘Or at least, first thing tomorrow. We can talk on the way and perhaps clarify our thoughts further, but we’ll neither learn nor achieve anything until we ask the King directly why he’s done this.’
The Lord Eldric’s castle was not Anderras Darion. It was a fine building raised with great skill and understand-ing, but though much younger than Anderras Darion, it looked older despite the Festival decorations currently adorning it. Its crenellations and corners had been smoothed and rounded by countless years in the cold, harsh winter winds that blew across Fyorlund, and its stone walls were pitted and blotched with lichen. Thick ivy clambered relentlessly up most of the towers, actually reaching the roofs of some of the smaller ones.
A lesser building would have seemed to be decaying but, like its Lord, the castle had a quiet, solid dignity, showing only slightly the impairments of old age, and demonstrating a robust grip on life and a capacity for continuing for some time to come.
Commander Varak stood on one of the lower levels of the castle watching the four Lords and their party dwindle into the distance as the dawn sun broke through a streaky troubled sky and filled the scene with long obscuring shadows. Idly he loosened a piece of damp moss from a joint in the top of the wall he was leaning on and flicked it over the edge to fall erratically through the early morning air into the dried moat below. Screwing up his eyes he peered into the distance, but the new light, with its harsh contrasts, had swal-lowed his last view of the pennants of the entourage.
He stood up and cleared his throat as if about to speak. It was a characteristic sound, much imitated by the cadets-when he was well out of hearing. Like the Lord Darek he was thin and wiry, but his movements were brisker and more precise than the Lord’s.
Varak was a classical example of a High Guard Commander. His subordinates both feared and loved him and the loyalty he received from them he passed unstintingly to his Lord. He lived a hard, spartan life and expected the same from his men, though it was a point of honour with him that he would never ask of them what he would not do himself.
If he had a weakness it was that he could be too rigid and narrow in his thinking and reluctant to change his ideas once they had been established. It was this rigidity that was making itself felt at the moment, as the conflicting loyalties of his Lord affected him.
The King’s action in suspending the Geadrol was without precedent, and presented problems that even he, a simple soldier, as he liked to think of himself, could see. The Lords swore their Oath of Fealty to the People and to the King as their Protector, ruling through his Lords in Geadrol. Now the King had suspended the Geadrol, by what right did he rule? Where then should the Lords place their loyalty?
He was not however disposed to dwell on these problems. They were beyond any action he could take. If he’d been asked, he’d have told the Lords that they’d only find out what was happening by asking the King to his face; but he hadn’t been asked, and it had taken them half a day to see the obvious as a result. He cleared his throat and frowned a little at his own insubordina-tion.
Turning away from the battlements, he pulled his tunic straight and brushed from his arms the grit that his leaning had lifted from the wall. Thus did Eldric’s castle shrink.
Walking through the castle he reviewed the task ahead of him. It might have taken Eldric some time to see the obvious, but he had shown his old military instinct at the very outset.
Following Hrostir’s news at the First Feast, he had told Varak to find the old plans for removing the entire household to the mountain stronghold. Varak’s surprise had shown.
‘Have a quick look at them, Varak. Just refresh your memory. See if there are any obvious improvements needed.’
His manner had been apparently offhand, but he had spoken in the Battle Language, something he had not done since the Morlider War, except on formal occasions. It was an involuntary action and Varak had been both moved and disconcerted.
He paused as he walked along a balcony overlooking the hall where most of the Festival Feasts had been held. The dawn light was growing stronger and seeping into the room, illuminating the servants who were just starting to clear the remains of the Final Feast.