Abruptly, in its wake came another, older memory of his father cutting down a tree on their country estate. The tree had been diseased and had to be removed for the sake of its neighbours. On some whim his father decided to tackle the job himself and Dilrap remem-bered being sat down by his mother to watch him while she pursued the mysterious household tasks that mothers pursued. Dilrap remembered vividly the cruel accuracy of his childish perceptions.
Almost from the first stroke it became apparent that the task was not going to be as easy as his father had envisaged. The axe bit only slightly yet succeeded in jamming itself. Dilrap watched as his father passed through many moods and learned many things as he laboured painfully at this unfamiliar task. Overall however, had been a daunting determination, at first smiling and vigorous but later increasingly grim. Finally it had happened. One, two, three strokes of the axe and with a slight groan the tree was falling, crashing down and bouncing slightly as it hit the ground. And there was his father, reluctantly triumphant.
Dilrap nodded to himself. The City had not fallen suddenly at all, nor had he suddenly discarded the worst excesses of his old dithering self. Dan-Tor had chopped silently and relentlessly at the City for years, but he too had learned little by little how to lie and deceive to protect the old ways.
Dilrap remembered also that the tree stump had sprouted again the following year and been a regular hazard to the unwary at night-time.
Chapter 6
The setting sun swept a bright yellow light across the undulating plains of Orthlund, casting the long, deep shadows beloved by the Orthlundyn. It washed through the streets of Pedhavin and in its slow progress released those secrets that had been hidden within the village’s carvings to await its special touch.
Many of the villagers were walking the rambling streets and watching the changes being wrought by the shifting sunlight. Some were gazing in admiration at the work of long-dead masters; others were looking critically at their own work or that of their neighbours. A few young apprentices were being marched round to examine some of the ‘classical features that can amp;mdashpay attention amp;mdashthat can be obtained, with care, in this special light.’
High above, in one of the towers of Anderras Darion, Tirilen shaded her eyes and peered down at the village. She could see the little block of apprentices moving through the streets like a tiny phalanx of infantry, cutting its way relentlessly through the browsing villagers, just as they in their turn cut through the streaming light of the sunset to make their own moving shadow-forms.
The sight brought sad thoughts to mind. Her uncle, Isloman, head askew, looking at some grotesque shadow he was casting on the uneven ground, and chuckling to himself. Then, alongside the worried sadness of that memory, the darker, more frightening image of the Orthlundyn training for war. And training very effectively, the Castle grounds ringing with the practice of swordsmanship, archery, and many other forms of combat. People being selected for special training and disappearing for days on end out into the country or into the mountains. Areas of land that had been tended for generations by loving hands being churned and broken by marching feet, as cavalry and infantry training developed apace.
And the injuries she had learned to treat! She grim-aced. It needed little imagination to extend the injuries that resulted from the accidents of over-enthusiastic training into those that must occur in the grim, hate-filled reality of combat. And there was worse.
Healers must enter into the pain, Hawklan had said, but there was pain and pain. The pain of a broken limb or an accidental sword gash was bad enough, but the pain of a mother whose son had fallen to his death in the mountains, or the pain of considering where this work was leading: they were different.
Everything was changing. Everybody was changing. She herself was different in a way she could not begin to fathom. And her father, Loman… She turned away from the window and looked down at him sleeping soundly if somewhat ungraciously on a nearby couch. He had changed too. He was a little leaner in the face and such small layers of fat as had decorated his massive frame had turned into muscle many months ago, and…
Loman opened his eyes wide as if he felt Tirilen’s gaze on him.
And he was different inside. Younger, more alert somehow. More sensitive, yet harder. Like everything else, he seemed to be… waking. That was it. Waking. The people, the Castle, even the Great Harmony of Orthlund seemed to be more alive.
‘What’s the matter, Tirilen?’ he asked, his face con-cerned.
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head, slightly em-barrassed. Then, deftly, she swept her loose blonde hair back into a single shining mare’s tail and tied it with a green ribbon.
Loman watched this little ritual of avoidance and raised his eyebrows knowingly. Tirilen shrugged. ‘Well. Everything, really,’ she conceded.
Smiling, Loman swung himself into a sitting posi-tion, stretched and then stood up. ‘Everything, eh?’ he echoed in a slightly mocking tone as he joined her at the window. Tirilen did not respond to this gentle probe but turned to look out again over the sun-swept village and plains.
Loman’s face became more serious and he gazed at her solemn profile for a little while before he too looked out into the warm twilight.
Castellan of Anderras Darion and a smith by calling, he did not have the deep shadow-lore of his brother, Isloman; but he was no mean carver and he had enough to appreciate the long clear-cut shadows below him. He nodded. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Isloman would’ve been out prowling the streets tonight, wouldn’t he? Finding shapes and patterns that the rest of us are too blind or too oblivious to see.’
Tirilen’s mouth suddenly pinched tight and her face twisted. She was on the verge of tears. Loman put his arm around her and gently led her back to the couch.
‘Come on, healer,’ he said. ‘Sit down and talk.’
Loman had noticed Tirilen’s manner growing qui-eter over the weeks but had been uncertain how to deal with it. In any event, like everyone else, he had had precious little time to look to anything other than the myriad new tasks that circumstances had brought down on him. Awkwardly he had watched his daughter quell her mounting unease with her own tasks of the moment, promising himself that he would speak to her soon.
Now, however, a natural lull had entered into both the training programmes and the farming that sustained the Orthlundyn, and Loman saw in Tirilen’s impending tears, a release for both of them. He pulled her head down on to his shoulder and handed her a rather soiled kerchief.
She wiped her moistening eyes and then looked at the kerchief with amused resignation. ‘Well,’ he conceded, ‘I suppose some things never change.’
Somewhat to Loman’s surprise however, Tirilen’s tears never came, and her solemn mood passed almost immediately, as if the small letting of moisture had released all the pressure that was there. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, unnecessarily. ‘It was just the long shadows made me think of uncle Isloman… and then Hawklan… and then… ’
‘Everything?’ said Loman, finishing her sentence.
She nodded and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Everything.’
A silence fell between the two for a moment, then Loman said, ‘I think I’ll tell Gulda to incorporate a little reflection time into our training schemes. We’re all so busy we’re forgetting why we’re doing all this.’
Tirilen nodded. ‘I sewed up a gash in Englar’s arm today,’ she said, seemingly irrelevantly. Loman frowned uncertainly at the name. ‘You know,’ Tirilen said, impatiently. ‘Ireck’s grandson.’ Loman’s frown deep-ened briefly for a moment and then vanished as the young man’s face came to him. Tirilen returned to her tale. She held out her open hand, fingers spread wide. ‘It was a span and a half long, father, a span and a half. He’s lucky it didn’t happen out in the mountains, he’d have bled to death. As it is it’s damaged some muscles that I can’t repair, and I doubt even Hawklan could.’