‘Interesting’s not a word I’d choose,’ Athyr said. ‘Murdering little devils.’
Gulda accepted the rebuke with a gesture. ‘But I think we’re beginning to get some measure of them at last,’ she said. ‘I think… ’
The tent flap was pulled back hastily and a large, burly figure strode in unannounced, his face riven with anxiety. Tirilen half stood. A brief spasm of pain on her face made Loman lower his eyes.
‘Tirilen,’ the man said urgently, ignoring the others. ‘Come quick, he’s bad again… ’
Without speaking, but with a brief nod to Gulda, Tirilen walked straight towards the gaily painted entrance. The man turned aside and held it open for her as she passed through, then followed her. The flap, folded awkwardly, stood open for a moment until a light breeze touched it and it slowly dropped back to close out the damp coldness pervading the camp.
Gulda looked down at the ground and tapped her stick on it absently. There was a long uneasy silence.
‘Three dead?’ Loman said softly.
‘Soon, I fear,’ Gulda replied.
Barely had she spoken, than a loud cry of despair and anger reached them. Other cries formed around it. Gulda looked around the circle, her face pained. ‘I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do,’ she said. ‘But Loman’s approach will be essential. We must redirect that.’ She lifted her hand towards the commotion outside. ‘Or they will use it.’
Before anyone could pursue this, Tirilen returned, her face pale. She walked a few paces into the tent and then paused to look at her hand. It was bloodstained.
Loman looked at the woman who was now more than ever his and not his.
‘This obscenity must stop,’ Tirilen said, her voice shaking with emotion and her gaze fixing Gulda. ‘You and I will go and talk to these creatures, now.’
Gulda did not reply, but stood up and with a nod of her head, motioned Tirilen back to the entrance.
‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked as they stepped outside, but Tirilen did not answer. She simply fastened her cloak more firmly round her shoulders and pulled the hood forward purposefully against the fine, penetrating drizzle. Then she turned and began walking through the camp. Such few people as were wandering about stepped aside silently to let her pass, forming a wide, sombre aisle for her. Gulda looked at the retreat-ing, green-clad figure for a moment, then, pulling her own hood forward, followed her.
Athyr looked anxiously at Loman, but the smith shook his head. ‘Leave them,’ he said softly. ‘Both of them are beyond anything we can help with. We’d better tend the living and make arrangements for burying our dead.’
Tirilen walked for a long time, tall and straight, though with her head bowed. Gulda, black and stooped, followed silently behind, unflagging.
At the end of a long grassy slope, Tirilen stopped on a small rocky outcrop. She pushed her hood back and gazed out into the mist. Rain dampened her face and gradually started to run down it. She looked at Gulda. The old woman returned her gaze without speaking, then held out her hand. It was a gesture of encourage-ment amp;mdashor one seeking help.
Tirilen took the hand and held it for a little while before releasing it and, pulling her hood forward again, she set off once more.
Eventually she stopped and the two women stood at the centre of a mist-enclosed circle. Everywhere was silent and muted except for the barely audible hiss of the fine rain.
She gazed around. ‘Why have you done this?’ she said quietly into the greyness. ‘Why have you killed and maimed our people. Tell me so that I can understand, here.’ She laid the palm of her hand on her chest.
Silence.
Tirilen inclined her head a little. ‘You hear me, I know,’ she said. ‘I hear your very listening. Your pain whispers where you’d have it silent. Answer me.’
Silence.
She spoke again. ‘Whatever we were doing, be it wisdom or folly, it offered you no hurt. We raised neither sword, fist, nor even voice against you. Yet you make friend turn on friend. And now brother has slain brother.’
Gulda turned her head away, but still there was only the mountain silence.
‘Answer me!’ Tirilen’s voice suddenly shook with barely controlled emotion. ‘Tell me why, in your wisdom, you give my people this pain? Tell me how I am to bear it, who must enter into it to aid them? Tell me the words I can use to mend the cry you heard rise up from that man’s heart?’
The faint sounds of the rain seemed to shift and change imperceptibly. Doubts and regrets rose to surround the two women, though no words could be heard.
‘I need your words, your reasons, for what you’ve done,’ Tirilen said. ‘Not hints and vague nuances. If you have no words or reasons, then leave us, Alphraan. Leave us to our own destiny. Bear your own guilt as best you can.’
‘We have no guilt. We took no life,’ said a voice abruptly. It was harsh with uncertainty, and doubts fluttered all around it. ‘We did what was necessary.’
‘Words and reasons,’ Tirilen said again. ‘Give me your words and reasons for this necessity so that I can carry them back to comfort those you have injured.’
‘We will not be questioned,’ said the voice.
‘I don’t question you,’ Tirilen said with soft but unyielding purpose. ‘This terrible blood debt is yours. It will question you forever. I asked you for comfort for those you have injured amp;mdashand for myself. Whatever solace you have for yourselves will help my people too, because our burdens are the same. You willed the deeds, we committed them.’ She opened her arms in a gesture of resignation. ‘If you have no words of comfort, then tell me that and I’ll disturb you no more.’
‘We are not responsible for your vi amp;mdashyour people’s violence,’ the voice said hesitantly.
Tirilen shook her head. ‘You are not responsible for our nature, but you cannot avoid your responsibility for what you did yesterday,’ she said.
‘We did not strike down any of your people,’ the voice said. ‘What was done was necessary to show you your folly.’
‘Who are you to show us our folly?’ Tirilen said reluctantly, as if not wishing to enter into debate. ‘You, who’ve shunned us so completely for so long that we didn’t even know you existed.’ She paused, but the words forced themselves forwards irresistibly. ‘But as we’re ignorant of you, so are you ignorant of us. And as you know yourselves, so we know ourselves.’ Her voice pleaded. ‘And we need no one to show us the darkness that lies within us.’
‘We are not responsible for your deeds,’ said the voice again, hastily, a disturbing mixture of arrogance and doubt.
‘No?’ said Tirilen, still reluctant. ‘Who but you re-leased that darkness which we hold in gentle check as part of our own harmony? Who but you let it run unfettered in all its horror? If you cannot see the wickedness of that then content yourself with shunning us further. But leave us alone before more ill is done and the debt becomes beyond your bearing.’
‘Do you menace us… healer?’
Tirilen lowered her head for a moment, then lifted it and threw back her hood, as if she needed the rain to cleanse her. She held out her bloodstained hand.
‘How can I menace you?’ she asked. ‘A simple healer asking for help? I come for words of comfort.’ She pointed in the direction of the camp. ‘But can you not hear the anger you are unleashing?’
Silence.
Tirilen gazed around, blue eyes peering into the grey mist. ‘Have you no words for me then?’ she said. ‘Nothing for the injured spirits of my people?’
Silence.
Tirilen opened her arms wide again. ‘Accept then what comfort I can offer you,’ she said slowly, tears mingling with the rain running down her face. ‘For our pain is yours also, even if you do not yet feel it. We forgive you the blindness that led you to these deeds. May it pass from you before it harms further. And may you find peace.’
Suddenly, all around, the whispering returned. It seemed to pluck frantically at her very cloak, but Tirilen stood motionless. Then it rose in intensity until it became a vast babble, swelling all around to enclose the two women.