Farnor quailed before this outburst and, rather awkwardly, did as he was told.
Marken’s manner became more gentle. ‘Derwyn probably didn’t answer you because he had no answer. Usually he’s not a man to speak unless he’s got some-thing to say. He knew that if you left suddenly, it would make the existing confusion even worse. And it would certainly have given him all sorts of problems with EmRan.’ He narrowed his eyes and shook his head as if that were a prospect that he did not remotely want to consider. ‘And too, with me being gone, he’d be concerned about what they wanted in all this. After all, it was they who let you in and they’d already made their interest in you quite manifest.’ He laid a reassuring hand on Farnor’s arm. ‘As for talking about the hunt, that would have been no more than an ill-considered comment when his thoughts were on other things. Your drawing against EmRan wasn’t that serious, by any means.’
Farnor looked at the Hearer warily, far from being fully convinced by what he had heard.
‘And you?’ he said tartly. ‘What about my life hang-ing by a thread? Or was that just another ill-considered remark while you were thinking about other things?’
Muffled footsteps overhead, and a low, resonant laugh, intruded into the silence that followed this question.
Marken conspicuously bit back an angry rejoinder to Farnor’s sarcasm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But the truth is that, as with much that’s happening at the moment, I don’t know. To be honest, as we talk I’m becoming increasingly loath to advise you. I’m beginning to suspect that your own instincts will serve you better than anything I can say.’ He looked at Farnor shrewdly. ‘I know that there are things you’ve not told me about yet.’ He paused, but Farnor offered him no enlightenment. ‘Still, I suppose I’m only an intermedi-ary, a messenger of sorts,’ he went on. ‘And, I’ll admit, perhaps a poor one. But the message I received, I’ve given you. You’re to go to the central mountains to stand amongst the most ancient of them so that you can be questioned and a decision made about your fate.’
Anger welled up black and awful in Farnor. ‘They can go to the devil,’ he said grimly. ‘I go where I want. How can they threaten me?’
‘I might’ve misunderstood many things lately,’ Marken said, his tones wilfully measured. ‘But not that message. Nor the fear that hung about it. Many-layered, deep and complicated. And that’s where the danger to you is Farnor. Their fear of you. That, and your defiance. True, they’re not as we are, but I can’t imagine such fear being far away from aggression… violence… in any thinking being.’ He nodded to himself conclusively. ‘As far as we’re concerned, Derwyn and the rest of us, you can do what you want. You owe us nothing in any way, neither debt nor duty. If you want to head north, south, wherever, we’ll help you on your way, but I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at the consequences of your disobeying them!’
Farnor gazed at him bleakly for a long time. Then suddenly his anger drained out of him, to be replaced by confusion and doubt. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said, almost pleading. ‘You’re the one who talks to them, understands them. I know nothing. I’m lost in every way. Please help me.’
Marken smiled ruefully. ‘I’m a Hearer, Farnor. I don’t know why or how, I was just born to it.’ He lifted his hands and delicately tapped his ears. ‘And just as there’s always noise about us, even at the quietest times…’ There was an anonymous clunk above their heads by way of confirmation. Marken chuckled and, despite his anxiety, Farnor smiled weakly. The tension between them disappeared. ‘… So in me, and my ilk, there’s always the sound of the trees to be Heard when all else is silent. Nothing distinct, just a low sighing – a murmuring. Like the sound of a large, quiet crowd in the distance.’
Farnor waited.
‘But now, it’s gone,’ Marken continued. ‘For the first time in my life I Hear nothing. Nothing at all.’ He looked at Farnor. ‘I think perhaps that you’re the quiet place that I set out to find. And if you are, then perhaps I’m here for a reason.’
Farnor could not help but smile again. ‘I’ve never been called anything quiet before,’ he said. But no sooner had he spoken than the smile and the levity felt alien and offensive. The darkness within him rose to reproach him.
Marken looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps they’re remaining silent in your presence not for some benefit to me, but in order to listen to you better,’ he said. His voice became almost cold as he reached a decision. ‘My advice, I think, is ask them yourself. We’re fretting here in pathetic ignorance when a little knowledge would perhaps answer all our questions. The fear is theirs. The needs are theirs and yours. Ask them yourself.’
Farnor’s face twitched, as Marken’s simple state-ment of the obvious struck him like icy water.
‘How?’ he asked, uncertainly.
Marken waved his hands vaguely. ‘Just ask,’ he re-plied, unhelpfully. ‘They’re listening, I’m sure.’
‘If they’re… listening in my head, then they know that I don’t belong here, that I came here by accident and that I want to leave,’ Farnor replied, in some frustration. The faint sound of laughter drifted into the room from above. Farnor recognized it as Angwen’s. It seemed to curl around his mind, subtly releasing it. ‘When he was speaking at the Congress, Derwyn said that you’d been told to find me and make a judgement about me. Is that true?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Marken conceded, somewhat defensively. ‘But I think that was for us simply to decide what to do with you when we found you.’
Suddenly earnest, Farnor pointed to the room above again, and quoted Angwen. ‘They fear because they don’t understand,’ he said. ‘When I was a child, I once sneaked downstairs when Yonas the Teller was staying with us. I listened to one of his stories: one that he wouldn’t have told to children. And for weeks after, at night, I lay under the sheets, afraid that all the shadows in my room were monsters and demons and evil magicians come to carry me away.’
Marken smiled and nodded, but there was an irrita-ble note in his voice when he spoke. ‘They are not frightened children, Farnor,’ he said.
‘Aren’t they?’ Farnor said, rhetorically. ‘Aren’t we all children when we’re afraid?’
Marken stared at him thoughtfully.
Farnor went on, ‘You say, ask them. But I don’t know how. You say, they’re probably listening, but I can’t speak to them, and I think they won’t speak to me. I think they’re hiding under the blankets from me.’ There was an element of challenge in his voice, which made Marken look about nervously, as if expecting some retribution. But Farnor ploughed on. ‘Make the judgement that they asked you for. Tell them what you think about me, Marken. Perhaps they’re not listening to me. Perhaps they can hear me all too well. Perhaps they think I’m deceiving them in some way. Perhaps they’re silent because it’s you they’re listening to, you they need to hear. You’re the one they know, you’re the one they trust. Tell them.’
Marken was pushing himself well back into his chair, as if to avoid this sudden determined outpouring. Farnor took his arm and nodded encouragingly at him. ‘Do you have a special place where you do your listening?’ he asked.
Marken stammered. ‘Yes… no… well, when I’m dealing with one tree I stand near to it, but otherwise, I Hear best in my own lodge,’ he said, eventually.