Yet something had changed. His pain was different. It was the pain of healing rather than the pain of injury.
Still he waited, his head buried in his hands, staring at the rocky ground between his feet, though scarcely seeing it. Occasionally he shuddered, as his body responded to the chill that his mind was not noting.
Then a vibration ran through him that was different; finer, more delicate, longer.
And the light around his feet changed.
And there was a sound in the air; distant, but or-dered.
As though he were waking from a long sleep he leaned forward into the sound, his head still bent low.
It was a horn call. Indeed, a series of horn calls. Calls such as he had heard almost every morning since he had left Derwyn’s lodge, and to which he had paid no heed. Others rose out of the Forest to mingle with the first.
There was a joyous quality about them that but the previous day would have jarred and offended, stirred him to black anger. But no longer. Now the sounds passed into him unhindered, ringing, and sonorous, moving amid the grey emptiness that waited there.
The light around him grew brighter and, still gazing down, he became aware of every small detail of his soiled and scuffed boots. The sight unfolded before him their entire history, commonplace and familiar, yet poignant and intense. His vision blurred as the memories mingled with the sound of the horns and brought unforced tears to his eyes.
‘Mother, Father,’ he heard himself saying, softly and hoarsely, through an aching throat, and out into the morning stillness.
A warmth touched him.
He looked up.
Into the full glory of the rising sun.
He could do no other than stand as the dazzling sea of light washed over the vastness of the Forest to engulf him. His eyes blurred again, splintering the sunlight into bright, shifting shafts as tears ran down his face.
And, though they were distant, and should have been faint, the echoing horn calls became part of the light and rose up to fill his entire world with a tumultu-ous paean of thanksgiving; of joy at being.
And he was one with it.
‘Thank you, Mother, Father,’ every part of him cried out over and over.
Over and over.
Slowly, and in the natural way of things, the exaltation faded, leaving in its wake only golden echoes that would probably ring on for ever, and a young man alone on a mountain top aching and stiff, not untroubled, but more whole. And, though transformed, himself again.
Farnor held out his arms wide to embrace the risen sun. Then he turned and began to walk down the mountain.
Chapter 17
Uncharacteristically, Nilsson swallowed as he took the sealed note from Harlen. It needed no great perception to read the messenger’s demeanour; fear and distress radiated from him, shot through with a raging anger that was struggling against its enforced silence.
That damned girl’s run away, Nilsson diagnosed. He felt his stomach churning.
Rannick’s power and ambition he could live with and, with care, use to his own ends. It followed a simple, brutal logic. But a woman on the scene was like a crazed horse in a cavalry charge: capable of causing unknown mayhem. Who could say which way Rannick’s dark malice would strike if he’d truly become infatuated with this stupid bitch?
Harlen’s fear leaked directly into him as he fingered the letter. Whoever delivered this message was at no small risk. But equally, it was not a message that he could give to some underling. ‘When did she go?’ he demanded.
Harlen started. He had said nothing about Marna’s flight, merely confining himself to delivering the letter which had greeted him when he rose that morning, together with a note saying what she intended to do and to the general effect that he should, ‘Not worry, and please take this letter to Rannick.’
‘I… I don’t know,’ he stammered. ‘Sometime dur-ing the night. I was awake a long time myself, but I didn’t hear her go.’ Despite himself, his anger tore through. ‘What in Murrel’s name did that…?’
‘Shut up,’ Nilsson snapped savagely, but it was the look on his face that stopped Harlen. ‘Your life’s hanging on the thinnest of threads. Ask no questions, make no demands, if you value it in the slightest.’ He looked about the courtyard, his forehead furrowed and his eyes narrowed in concentration. ‘Lord Rannick’s not here,’ he said, almost offhandedly. ‘He went riding… north… after your daughter left last night. There’s no telling when he’ll be back, but it’ll be this evening at the latest, I’d imagine.’ He turned sharply back to Harlen. ‘It’s in both our interests to find your daughter and have her ready and amenable for him whenever he chooses to return.’
Harlen’s jaw tightened and his eyes blazed, but Nils-son seized the front of his shirt with a single hand and, lifting him casually up on to his toes, pushed him violently against the castle gate. ‘Spare me your fatherly wrath, weaver,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it too often to waste my time discussing it other than with the edge of my sword. Understand this, Lord Rannick will have whatever he wants. And nothing you or any of us can do will stop him. He wants your daughter, and whether you’re alive or dead means even less to him than it does to me. The choice is yours. Stay silent and helpful, and perhaps you’ll be there for her when he’s finished. Argue the point, and you certainly won’t. Now, where’s she likely to have gone? The valley can’t have that many hiding places.’
‘She’s not in the valley, damn you,’ Harlen shouted, shaking himself free from Nilsson’s grip. ‘She’s gone over the hill. I’ve no idea where she is.’ He retrieved a crumpled paper from his pocket and thrust it under Nilsson’s face.
Nilsson took it and read it. Harlen stepped back, appalled by the emotions that surged into Nilsson’s face and by the ruthless cruelty that crushed them.
‘She’s gone to the capital?’ Nilsson asked rhetori-cally. ‘Gone to tell the king about us?’ He held up the sealed letter. ‘And she’s told Lord Rannick as well? Is this some kind of a joke?’
Harlen shook his head. ‘I doubt it,’ he replied un-necessarily. ‘She knows there’s nowhere to hide here. And she’s taken plenty of food and clothing.’
Again a range of emotions fought for control of Nilsson’s face, and again he crushed them until he was left with a vicious, humourless grimace, his lips curled to reveal his clenched teeth. He looked at Harlen. ‘I’ve seen things and faced dangers that you couldn’t begin to imagine, weaver. And I can’t begin to tell you what I feel at having my life jeopardized by some ignorant farm girl who’s so stupid she thinks she can escape from this valley, and, even stupider, leaves a note saying what she’s going to do.’ Then, menacingly, ‘I presume you’ve had no part in this?’
Harlen quailed at the restrained fury in Nilsson’s voice, and though somehow he held his ground, he could not reply except to shake his head weakly. Contrary to Marna’s instructions, he had in fact spent some time searching for her, shocked and stunned, and then he had delayed even longer before carrying her message to the castle. In the end, however, he had realized that he had been left with no alternative but to deliver the message. And, in honesty, despite his love for his daughter, and his distress at her sudden, foolish flight, he had not been without some reproach for her for leaving him in that position.
Now, however, he could do no more. He was more than relieved that Rannick was away, envisioning more accurately than his daughter what his probable response would be. And, for the rest of this day at least, he had a common interest with this foreign captain. Though he could not have admitted it, he felt the strange compan-ionship of the co-conspirator.
‘Saddre! Dessane! To me!’ Nilsson’s booming voice rose above the noise in the courtyard. Within minutes, some twenty or more riders burst through the castle gates and galloped off towards the village.