Roger Taylor - Farnor

‘No,’ Farnor replied. ‘I just thought I’d come and help with the arrangements for the night watches if I could.’

He was pleased when he saw his father successfully fighting back an urge to ask his once-usual, ‘Have you finished all your jobs, my lad?’

He glanced around. ‘Is no one else here?’ he asked. Gryss chuckled. ‘Only the people who matter,’ he replied. Garren smiled and nodded knowingly.

Alarm lit Farnor’s face. ‘We’re not doing night watches on our own, are we?’ he asked.

Gryss’s chuckle became a soft laugh. ‘How many people do you think would like to go out on night watch?’ he asked.

‘Not many,’ Farnor replied.

Gryss shook his head. ‘None,’ he declared, firmly. ‘But we’ll all have to do it, and if I get the whole crowd in here they’ll spend half the day concocting excuses as to why such and such a night will be inconvenient and why such and such a place will be awkward, and why we should do this and why we shouldn’t do that. Then they’ll spend the other half saying it all over again. And in the end they’ll decide they need to go to the inn because their throats are dry with all the talking.’

Farnor thought that this judgement was a little harsh, though he could see some truth in it.

Gryss went on. ‘So what your father and I will do is decide on the watch places, prepare the lists of watchers and just tell them.’

Farnor looked at the old man uncertainly. ‘Won’t they mind?’ he asked, after a moment.

‘Probably,’ Gryss said, laughing again. ‘But they’ll get it out of their systems by haggling with one another about who should do what when, not why they shouldn’t be doing it at all.’

Rather to his surprise, Farnor felt mildly indignant at Gryss’s high handed treatment of the villagers. ‘Surely no one would try to avoid helping to catch this thing?’ he said.

Gryss’s eyes widened at this response, then he put his head back and stared up at the ceiling. Farnor’s insides curled up in anticipation of a rebuke or, worse, some acid rejoinder. It wasn’t his place to reproach a village elder, for any reason.

But no axe fell. Instead, Gryss threw an acknowledg-ing salute to Garren who accepted it with an unusually proud smile.

‘You shame me in your innocence, young Farnor,’ he said, his tone half serious, half mocking. ‘You put me in my place. You’re quite right,’ he conceded. ‘Probably none of them would try to avoid helping if asked outright. It’s just that I’m so used to people turning to me to sort out the most unbelievably foolish quarrels and disputes that I tend to forget they’re quite capable of thinking for themselves at times.’ He chuckled again. ‘However, it’s still the only way to organize these night watches if we’re to get it done this side of the summer solstice.’

Farnor was not disposed to try his good fortune too far and took the opportunity to pursue practicalities. ‘How much have you done?’ he ventured.

Garren picked up one of the sheets in front of him and pushed it along the table to his son. On it were various lists. One was of times, another of places. The longest was a straightforward list of names, and a final one seemed to be of equipment, food and general advice.

Farnor looked at it for a moment, uncertain what was expected of him, and then handed it back to his father. One of his prepared speeches clattered awk-wardly round his head and he cleared his throat as casually as he could.

‘How many men will there be in each group?’ he asked.

‘We usually work in pairs,’ Gryss replied ‘Six or seven scattered around where we think the dog is prowling. Setting aside the grumbling, night watches are a nuisance. They interfere with everybody’s work and we try to keep the disturbance to a minimum.’

Two people. Alone and isolated in the dark night. The memory of the creature’s savagery returned to Farnor. He had to say something.

‘This creature’s big and vicious,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I think it would attack two people alone. I think you should send them out in groups of at least four.’

His suggestion was made with considerably less subtlety than he had hoped, but immediately he felt easier in himself.

Gryss and Garren exchanged a glance. ‘Why do you say that?’ Gryss asked quietly. ‘No dog’s going to attack a man when it can have a sheep. You know that. If we send out men in larger groups there’ll be fewer groups and the chances of catching it will be that much the less.’

Farnor cringed inwardly. He could not deny Gryss’s answer without explaining in some way his knowledge of the creature. And yet he could not sit silent when men might be sent out to face it, oblivious of its malevolence.

‘It’s just that it’s so big,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘Didn’t you notice the size of the wounds on that second sheep?’ He held up his hands, his fingers curling clawlike. Reluctantly he edged away from his intention to warn. ‘Perhaps it won’t actually attack, but if it were cornered or caught with its prey I don t think it would run away.’

Neither Gryss nor Garren spoke.

A memory came to Farnor’s rescue. ‘You yourself said we shouldn’t go out alone when we came to tell you about the sheep the other day,’ he said to Gryss.

Gryss nodded. Even as he had spoken it he had thought it a strange remark, and now it returned to confront him. Like Farnor, he had had a troubled night, with dark, ill-formed thoughts keeping sleep at bay and refusing resolutely to come clearly into focus. Dominant amongst them was the sensation he had felt when he had touched the creature’s fur. The merest whiff of something admittedly, but he was wise enough to take heed of such happenings, however transient, and it had been bad, without a doubt.

And then Farnor, down-to-earth, strong, young Farnor, a steadfast son following a long, steadfast line of sons if ever there had been one. But he had fallen into some kind of trance at that same touch.

Discreetly, Gryss looked at the young man. He was patently troubled in some way, and, it seemed, turning from a boy into a man almost as he watched.

What was moving here?

He wanted to question Farnor, persuade him to speak out and bring his concerns into the open, but he had to be patient. Farnor was teetering on some unknowable edge and an injudicious inquiry might send him the wrong way, plunging him into deeper silence.

Besides, he knew that the urge to bring Farnor’s secrets into the light was merely a reflection of his desire to have his own confusion clarified. Whatever was amiss would have to wait events. For now he could simply use his authority to advocate the caution that Farnor’s intervention had stirred in him.

‘I think I agree with you, actually, Farnor,’ he said, levering himself out of his chair with some effort and moving to the table to sit next to Garren. ‘And I commend you for noticing the size of the wounds to the sheep. It is a big dog, as I said to your father yesterday. A very big one.’ He took the cork from a bottle of ink and stood it carefully on end. ‘And there’s no saying what it might do if it comes across anyone in what it now probably thinks is its territory. Four men per group it is. And well armed at that.’

Farnor breathed a discreet sigh of relief. Garren looked mildly irritated. ‘That’ll cause problems,’ he grumbled.

Gryss pushed a clean sheet of paper in front of his scribe. ‘That’s what we’re here for,’ he said.

For most of the rest of the morning they worked through those problems, deciding who should go with whom, and where and when. Farnor contributed little, but sat in some awe as he listened to Gryss’s detailed knowledge of the everyday affairs of the villagers and farmers being used to arrange a system of watch nights that they would be likely to accept. He was impressed, too, by his father. He had never seen him doing anything like this before, but at the same time he realized that his methodical and orderly approach actually pervaded the whole of his daily, weekly, even seasonal routines at the farm. At intervals the two men came to an agreement, and Garren diligently wrote down the details, his tongue protruding between his lips slightly as his weathered hands pursued this untypical task.