Roger Taylor - Farnor

No, it was someone in the village.

But who?

The anger bubbled up again, but he forced it down ruthlessly, forging it into an icy hatred.

Gryss? Yakob? Harlen? Farnor? Surely not. Three old men and a battered, broken youth who could scarcely stand. There could be no opposition there. The merest touch would scatter their pathetic spirits like dried leaves in autumn.

But who?

He snarled as the question pressed in on him. It did not matter who. He could not answer the question here and now, so he would not allow it to be asked again.

He walked on steadily, following the warm lure of the creature’s will. As he passed through a small clearing he found himself moving to its shaded edge, instinctively avoiding the sunshine. He permitted himself a bitter smile at this response to the creature’s dark nature, which increasingly mingled with his own; it had little love for the daylight, and none at all for such brightness.

Soon, my pet, he thought. Soon I’ll be with you. We can rest together in the darkness of your lair and ready ourselves for the hunt tonight.

A lustful anticipation flooded through him.

In the absence of any inspiration on the weary journey back from the castle, Gryss broke the news of the murder of Garren and Katrin and the seizure of the valley simply and bluntly to a hastily gathered meeting of the Council.

There were as many reactions as there were Council-lors present, ranging from the fatalistic to the massively belligerent. Unlike the last meeting, Gryss did not let the uproar continue too long. Then it had seemed that time was ahead of them and that they could patiently await events. Now those events had happened and, they being more desperate in character than anything he could have possibly imagined, Gryss saw no benefit to be gained by allowing a gentle proceeding.

‘We have no choice but to accept the reality of this,’ he shouted above the din, going straight to the conclu-sion that the previous meeting had reached. He repeated it as the noise fell. ‘We have no choice, my friends. We’re trapped in our own valley. Trapped by armed and ruthless men who themselves have been subdued by one of our own.’

The mood of the meeting tumbled between stunned shock at the untimely and brutal deaths of Garren and Katrin – some wept openly – and, initially, open disbelief of the news of Rannick’s transformation. However, being valley dwellers, the Councillors had that profound pragmatism that comes as a consequence of living close to the mysteries of the land, and none would fly in the face of the combined testimony of Gryss, Harlen and Yakob, however much they would have wished to. Further, Rannick was known by all and, eventually, both shock and disbelief turned into anger. Gryss allowed some time to be spent in the general telling and retelling of old tales about the ill-natured labourer and his forebears, and in declamations of how none of this would have happened if he had been treated this way, or that way, or forbidden to do this, or allowed to do that, and so on.

But he was stark in his description of the probable fate of anyone who chose to consider Rannick as the man they all imagined they knew.

‘You’ll die for your pains, and none too pleasantly either. He regarded it as an honour for Garren and Katrin that they died by his hand.’

The very quietness of the utterance of this revelation brought a fearful silence to the meeting.

‘Murder’s murder,’ someone ventured after a while. ‘It’s the King’s business, I suppose. As is the seizing of his castle. We should get word to the capital.’

‘I know,’ Gryss said. ‘But Jeorg was caught trying to do just that and he only escaped with his life because of some whim on Rannick’s part. Now he’s said categori-cally that anyone who tries to leave will be killed.’ He shrugged his shoulders unhappily. ‘I don’t know what to say, let alone what to do.’ He looked at the waiting faces of his friends sitting around the Council table. Their fear and anger were almost palpable. It came over him that all he wanted to do was run away, go back to his cottage, close the door behind him and just… sit; leave the problem to someone else. For a moment he found himself wishing fervently that this was all some awful dream and that he would wake up to the sun streaming through his window and to the everyday problems of life that had seemed to be such a penance but a few weeks ago.

But none of his inner turmoil reached either his face or his voice. Instead he said, calmly and authoritatively, ‘I think what we have to do is to make sure that everyone understands what has happened and to ensure that no one does anything foolish. In my estimation, crossing Rannick would bring dire consequences not only on the person who did it but on anyone else nearby. You all know what a spiteful swine he was.’ He closed his eyes for a moment in self-reproach. ‘And no language like that, even in private.’ There was a stir amongst his listeners. ‘I mean it,’ he said sharply. ‘Those… bandits… call him Lord Rannick, presumably for a damn good reason. You’ll do the same if you…’

Several disparaging voices interrupted him.

‘Lord Rannick, indeed! I’ll lord him, the…’

‘Yes you will,’ Gryss said, before any of the protests could gather momentum. He pointed to Harlen and Yakob. ‘You’ll do what we did. You’ll lord him, and you’ll go down on your bended knees and call him wonderful or whatever else he wants, if you’ve got two grains of sense in your head. Trust me. You want no demonstration of what he can do.’

His anger subdued the outburst, but other voices had been released by it.

‘We can’t sit around and do nothing,’ they said, quietly and reasonably, echoing Marna’s plaint.

‘I know,’ Gryss said, wearily. He stared down at the table helplessly for some time. ‘But all I can think of is watch and wait. Whatever dreadful game’s being played here, we’re small pieces and easily removed from the board. If we avoid trouble, appease them a little, we’ll probably be able to find out more about them. Get to know how they think…’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps in a week or so, we might be a great deal wiser than we are now, and far better placed to decide what to do.’

It was an unsatisfactory answer, he knew, but he had no other.

‘You don’t appease a mad dog,’ someone muttered.

‘And you don’t pull its tail either, unless you’ve got a stick big enough to deal with it,’ Gryss retorted, impatiently.

It was virtually the end of the meeting.

Later a large crowd gathered on the village green to hear the same news. The light was fading when Gryss arrived and, as he climbed on to a table that someone had taken from the inn, a few stars were beginning to appear in the purpling eastern sky. They were mirrored by a sprinkling of lanterns and small sunstones amongst his audience.

He told them what had happened as he had told the Council, and their response was the same, though it was louder and wilder and the clamour lasted a great deal longer. More than once some of the younger men had to be restrained from dashing off immediately to storm the castle and drag Rannick to justice. Gryss found the experience of his many years as a negotiator of disputes, as a calmer of quarrels and a soother of hurts sorely stretched. He prevailed, however: here a sharp com-mand, a caustic rebuttal; there a friendly word, a laughing dismissal. Words, gestures, expressions all played their part in swaying the crowd away from hasty action and towards quieter, more serious considera-tions.

He ended, ‘I’ll run second to no one in my love for Garren and Katrin Yarrance, or in my desire to see justice done. But Katrin herself saw the truth clearly enough. “They’re all fighting men. Used to brutality and stabbing and killing. There’s none in the whole valley could stand against any of them and hope to live should need arise.”’ He paused. ‘Her words, my friends. Tragically accurate. And now these men are obeying the orders of Rannick.’ He paused again to allow the words to sink in. ‘To move against them will gain us only the same fate as she suffered. Living is the way to honour the dead, not dying. Her own son was almost killed when he sought in his grief to confront Rannick. We must be circumspect in all things, no matter what our inner feelings. We find ourselves locked in the pen with a wild bull. Watchfulness, silence and stillness will be our best allies.’