Had he paused to look at the bridge, however, he would have seen timbers large and small, trimmed, jointed, carved and decorated with a skill and knowl-edge far beyond those exhibited in the gate to the castle, which but weeks ago had held him awe-stricken with its massive solidity.
Apart from the tracks that he encountered from time to time, the main evidence of the Valderen was to be heard rather than seen. At dawn each morning he would hear horn calls ringing out in the distance. Sometimes two or three different calls would mingle in a confusing but not unpleasant clamour. The affirmation, the confident assuredness of the calls irked him.
Only once did he actually encounter people, finding himself one day passing through a lodge. It was oddly quiet after what he had experienced at Derwyn’s, and such inhabitants as were to be seen were all men, sitting, apparently casually, on the lower branches of the trees. They watched him silently as he passed by, but for the most part he avoided their gaze, sensing that they would be only too ready to intervene should he show any sign of halting his journey there. Though he was not in any way menaced, the experience was frightening, renewing in him as it did, the fear of strangers that was his natural heritage and which had been so vividly justified by the arrival of Nilsson and his men.
Despite his dark preoccupation however, this recep-tion offended him. ‘Did they know who I am?’ he asked of the trees that night in some indignation. ‘And that I’m here because of your will, not my own?’
‘Hearers Hear,’ was the only response he got, despite several further askings.
He was still feeling puzzled, and not a little bruised by this encounter several days later, and he was reliving his surly march through the lodge as he stared into the flames of his campfire. He could not have said what whim made him go to the trouble of lighting a fire when the sunstones that Derwyn had given him would have been sufficient for such heat and light as he needed, but he had done it. Patiently he had searched around for dry twigs and branches, sorted them, broken them into convenient lengths and, with the flint that he had brought from home, eventually ignited them.
He had sensed whisperings of alarm from the trees as the flames had flared up and sent sparks wheeling and dancing into the night air. ‘Not keen on fire, I suppose?’ he had asked.
There had been no specific reply, but the whisper-ings became louder and began to fill with images which he could not understand, but which were distinctly unpleasant. His first inclination was to tell the trees to sod off, they’d brought him here, they could take the consequences, but instead he said, ‘I understand. Don’t be afraid. I’ll cause you no harm.’
The whispering faded.
He sat for a long, timeless interval, staring into the fire. Memories of happier times hovered at the edges of his mind, just as the darkness hovered at the edges of the firelight. But he would not allow them closer. There was nothing to be gained in dwelling on such times; they were gone and could never be again.
Yet, paradoxically, it still disturbed him that he had not been greeted at the lodge he had passed through, as he had been by Derwyn and his family and friends. He could not see himself as the dark-haired, lowering outsider that he so obviously was. Nor as the centre of a strange, unsettling upheaval. He was Farnor Yarrance, popular and loved by any who knew him, forced by cruel circumstance to do what he had to do. He was no man’s enemy, save Rannick’s. Why should anyone fear him, watch him as though he were a dangerous animal?
And it had been fear in that lodge, without a doubt, he realized, as he threw some more wood on the small blaze. And fear begets anger and hatred. He frowned. The firelight etched out the lines in his face, ageing him.
The silent watchfulness that had greeted him at the lodge lingered more menacingly with him than the open antagonism he had received from EmRan. They must be different from place to place, these Valderen, he thought. Just as someone from over the hill would be different from us.
He prodded the fire with a long branch. The dark-ness beyond the firelight seemed to deepen and his thoughts took an ominous turn. They were hunters, these people. Forest hunters. Silent, skilful movers through the shadows. And could not they, like he, decide that that which they feared should be destroyed?
Even as the thought occurred to him, a sound that was not a sound of the night, impinged on him. A soft rustling.
He moved his head slightly, idly turning the branch in his fingers. Then with a cry of terror he jumped to his feet and swung the branch at the dark shadow standing close behind him.
Harlen sat in the doorway of his cottage. One hand held a short-bladed knife while the other periodically reached down to pick up a willow rod from a bundle lying beside his chair. With swift, practised strokes he stripped the bark from each rod and transferred it to another bundle on the other side of his chair. He was scarcely watching what he was doing, and his progress gradually slowed as his attention settled on the lurid red sky that was filling the western horizon since the sun had dipped behind the mountains. It had been a fine warm day and it would be a fine warm evening, but the bloody sky and the jagged black teeth that the moun-tains had become seemed to make the day and its ending into a metaphor for his own life. He shivered slightly.
‘Do you want any help with those?’
Marna’s voice at once dispelled his momentary gloom and heightened his deeper concern. Gryss, Yakob and Jeorg were growing increasingly resolute in their determination to do something to bring Rannick down. And he, Harlen, a basket weaver, was helping. There were times when the enormity of what he was doing welled up inside him and threatened to choke him.
Surreptitiously, he was checking on the guards downland: their numbers, their routines. He noted the strengths of the armed columns that passed along the road a little way from his door, how long they were away, how many returned, and, interestingly, were any of them injured. He had even taken to engaging in conversation some of the unsavoury characters who entered the valley with a view to joining Rannick’s growing army. From such casual encounters he had learned a great deal about what was happening over the hill, and such knowledge he passed on to the others. This was consistently grim, though no clear picture of Rannick’s intentions could yet be discerned.
But, worse than the implications of his own in-volvement, was that of Marna’s. Dutifully she listened, as Gryss had asked her. Listened to the chatter of the women, of her friends, of the children. Listened, thought, told, so that the conspirators’ knowledge could grow still further.
There was surely no risk in what she did?
But she was his daughter, a brightness in his life upon which he knew that he could not look and expect to see with true clarity, and without which he judged he would be nothing. And there was such awful darkness about.
And, too, if something happened to him, what then?
He twitched away from the question, and, almost angrily, tore the bark from the rod in his hand. ‘No thanks,’ he replied. ‘I was just looking at the sunset.’
Marna moved to his side, and leaned against the door frame, her arms folded. Neither of them spoke for some time. Harlen continued to peel the rods, though now very slowly, absentmindedly, and Marna stared fixedly at the slowly darkening sky. Incongruously pink clouds were forming around some of the peaks.
Then Marna turned away and went back into the cottage. ‘Nothing looks the same, nothing smells the same,’ she said quietly, as she passed him. ‘Everything’s tainted.’
Harlen turned and looked back at his daughter. He wanted to find some words that would tell her that all was well, that everything would be again as it had been. But there were none. Nor could there ever be. Whatever the future held, be it either the rise or the fall of Rannick, Nilsson’s intrusion from outside the valley and Rannick’s corruption from inside it would leave a scar which no span of time could completely obliterate.