Roger Taylor - Whistler

Yet, she couldn’t have been so wrong, surely? It wasn’t possible that she’d misread the man for so long.

Something had happened up that damned hill. And she needed to know what, more than ever now.

She had come full circle. On firmer ground again, her composure returned. Folding her cloak carefully and laying it delicately over the back of a chair, she confronted her husband.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘Well what?’

‘What happened?’ Dowinne allowed herself a note of exasperation.

‘Your prayers were answered,’ Cassraw replied, without an inkling of humour. ‘I returned.’

Dowinne put her hands to her head. ‘But what happened?’ she demanded again. ‘Why did you suddenly decide to go wandering about the mountainside in the middle of a Chapter meeting? And into that storm, of all things. And where did you fall, and why, and who found you, and what were they doing looking for…’

‘Enough, Dowinne,’ Cassraw interrupted, raising both hands as if to fend her off. ‘So many questions.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and moved her across to a seat by the window.

‘Speak to her,’ the voice within him said. ‘As you know how. She is too strong to oppose and too valuable to dispense with. She will be your right hand, as you are Mine.’

The words chimed with Cassraw’s own thoughts.

He smiled. Dowinne had not seen him smile like that for a long time. ‘Curb your impatience, my dear,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you everything as soon as I’ve got it completely clear in my own mind.’ Dowinne made to speak but his hand gently silenced her. Then he turned away from her and looked out of the window as if he were afraid to meet her gaze.

‘As you may have guessed, these last few months have been… difficult,’ he began. ‘Much about the church has been troubling me.’ His hand fell to the pocket in which he kept his familiar copy of the Santyth, and he patted it reassuringly. ‘But I went about seeking answers the wrong way. Offended people with whom I should be friends, turned people against me who should be my allies, showed disrespect to the Covenant Member…’ He shook his head. ‘All bad things. Serious misjudgements. I won’t excuse them.’ He looked earnestly into Dowinne’s eyes. ‘But it’s all behind me now. Something… wonderful… happened to me yesterday.’ He raised his hand again in anticipation of further questioning. ‘I can’t tell you what, not yet – the time’s not right. I’ll have to ask you to trust me.’ His face became alive with excitement. ‘But great changes are coming, Dowinne. And I… we… will be riding them. Riding them on into a new era, one in which His Word will reign supreme, in which Canol Madreth will be again the centre of a Gyronlandt united within the church.’

Dowinne kept her eyes fixed on her husband’s face throughout this declamation, searching desperately with her every sense for the signs about him that would confirm what his words were telling her, namely that he had become unhinged. But there was nothing. Though his voice and manner were excited, they were not hysterical. Nor was there anything in his gestures, his expression, or in those most revealing traitors, his eyes, that indicated that he was other than quite sane.

It was a scheme, she decided. He had seen the folly of his conduct of the last few months and had decided to change direction.

But a united Gyronlandt…

Despite his appeal, she would have to probe.

‘I can see you rising to the position of Covenant Member, Enryc,’ she said, ‘but a united Gyronlandt? And within the church? Twenty or more different states with every conceivable form of government and religion, or lack of it, all of them larger and more powerful than Canol Madreth. Even the most ambitious of politicians would hesitate before promising something like that.’

There was no reproach, however. Instead, Cassraw simply nodded and smiled again. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Politicians,’ he sneered. ‘Mountebanks and charlatans. Men with dreams far outstripping their meagre abilities, yet without vision beyond the next Acclamation, or even the next crop of Sheets.’ He stood up and looked out at the Ervrin Mallos, dark and solid against the grey sky. ‘They clatter around without any semblance of true guidance.’ He shook his head. ‘They have no conception of the nature of the institutions that they ostensibly command, none at all. They’re blind, Dowinne, blind to a man, but I will bring them the light to see by. The One True Light.’ He fell silent. ‘As for their religions,’ there was a darker note in his voice now that drew Dowinne’s attention sharply. ‘They are heresies, all of them. They will fall before what is coming like wheat before a scythe. There will be a grim harvest.’

Dowinne experienced a frisson of excitement as Cassraw spoke. There seemed to be a power about him that she had never known before. She reprimanded herself. Stay calm. Stay quiet. Above all, listen!

She probed again. ‘I’ve never doubted your vision, Enryc,’ she said. ‘Not ever – you know that. But what you’re saying now seems as wild as any politician’s Acclamation speech.’ Then, dangerously, ‘Or as foolish as the rantings of one of those spurious religious leaders who spring up from time to time to prey on the gullible and foolish.’

Cassraw’s eyes blazed.

Dowinne braced herself, though she could not hazard for what.

‘She is of Us. Do not doubt. She will not be lightly won. Lead and she will follow.’

With an effort, Cassraw set his anger aside. ‘I am neither, Dowinne. If you don’t know that, then watch me, and learn. You will be by my side in this as you have been in all other things before.’

Again she felt a power within him that was new to her. He was not insane, nor was he naive or foolish. He was strong and whole, and filled with a purpose whose end she could not see but which would be one after her own desires.

Abruptly, he reached out towards her with both hands. ‘Will you trust and follow me?’ he said, very softly.

This time the power in him almost overwhelmed her. Doubts whirled about her mind, but beneath them another knowledge rose to urge her on.

She stood up and took the offered hands. ‘Yes, my love,’ she said. ‘I will.’

Vredech leapt up out of his chair in terror and spun round. He became aware of a cry mingling with his own and, as his eyes began to focus, reality slipped away once more as he found himself gazing into Cassraw’s face, its eyes wide and fearful, its mouth agape.

His mind teetered at the edge of an abyss.

The mouth began to move. Slow, lumbering words reached him.

‘I’m so sorry, Brother Vredech,’ they said breathlessly. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I…’ Control was exerted and there was a trembling but relieved breath. ‘You gave me a rare fright, jumping up like that.’

Vredech’s vision cleared and, somehow, he found his own voice. ‘Skynner. Keeper Skynner,’ he gasped, slapping his hand on his chest as if to still the frantic pounding of his heart. The two men stared at one another for a moment, then simultaneously began a babbled round of mutual apologizing. Eventually they both became coherent and Vredech motioned his visitor to a seat.

Haron Skynner, a bulky man of middle years, was a Keeper – a Serjeant Keeper, to give him his rank – one of that august civilian body which maintained order on the streets of Troidmallos at the behest of the Heindral. It was not a clearly defined duty and the Keepers were judged primarily on their success at controlling the town’s more troublesome individuals, rather than on the legal niceties of how they achieved this. But, for the most part, they were respected, if not always loved. And generally, they were competent and honest. Not that Keeper Skynner and his colleagues were above occasionally welcoming largesse from the local traders as tokens of gratitude for their good offices. Hardly ever money – that was really beyond the pale – but a meal here, a piece of beef there, a loaf, a fowl, a favourable discount on this or that. It was not approved of officially and, in fact, ran directly counter to the formal procedures laid down by the Heindral governing the conduct of Keepers, but one has to be realistic, flexible, in these matters, hasn’t one?