Roger Taylor - Farnor

Although Farnor would have preferred answers from the elder, he found that the acceptance of his tale had lifted a burden from him that he had scarcely realized he had been carrying. And the practicality of Gryss’s response heartened him.

Gryss reached out and took from the table the sheet of paper on which Garren had written the arrangements for the night watches. He nodded slowly as he studied it. ‘I think we can do it without causing too much stir,’ he said. ‘I’ll attend to it when you’ve gone.’

Yet something lingered between the two men. Lin-gered like foul air over a stagnant pond.

‘Rannick,’ Gryss said, like a cold, dispelling breeze.

Farnor looked at him but did not speak.

‘It’s just occurred to me that you heard me talking about the taint of Rannick’s family yesterday, didn’t you?’ Gryss said.

Farnor nodded.

Gryss paused for a moment. Farnor’s concern had become clearer. He voiced it.

‘Looking back, you think that when Rannick snapped his fingers he moved that cloud of flies away, controlled them in some way, don’t you? Then, within days, you found yourself mysteriously drawn out beyond the place you were in and touching a strange animal presence. It occurs to you, therefore, that you might be like Rannick. And Rannick is tainted, you heard me say.

Farnor nodded again, his face pained.

Gryss held a brief debate with himself. Better the truth, he decided. Or at least such truth as he knew, and an honest admission of his uncertainties.

He held out his hands. ‘When people come to me with their ailments and their aches, I use what knowl-edge I’ve gathered over the years to try to help them. Some of it I was taught by another healer when I was younger, some I’ve learned from books, most I’ve probably learned by experience. But sometimes…’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Only sometimes, sadly, and far from often, these hands seem to heal things on their own. They sense things. They go straight to a hurt and put it right almost as if I wasn’t there.’ He gave a disclaiming shrug. ‘I get the credit for it, but I don’t begin to know how it happens. It’s just some attribute that I seem to have been born with.’ He looked at Farnor squarely. ‘For all I know, now you’ve made me think about it, such a trait could be some remnant of the strangeness that runs in Rannick’s family. The strangeness that yesterday I referred to as a taint. So also might be the brief awareness of… the creature… that I sensed yester-day.’

Farnor shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that you’re related to Rannick in some way, and because of what happened yesterday you think I might be too?’ Fear came back into his eyes, mixed with anger. ‘I don’t want to be related to Rannick,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with him. I can’t stand him.’

‘It’s not something you’ve got any choice about,’ Gryss replied starkly. ‘This is a small community and very few here have either the inclination or the oppor-tunity to marry outsiders. It’s always been that way and if you go back a few generations and think what it means, you’ll soon realize that by now everyone’s related to everyone else. We’re all cousins at some degree and at one remove or other. The blood of Rannick’s family is in all of us, just as all of ours is in his.’

Farnor knew enough about the breeding of animals to understand this, though it did nothing to make him feel any easier.

‘But it’s diluted, Farnor,’ Gryss went on reassuringly. ‘Spread thin. And mixed with the blood of many other good solid folk before it came to you from your mother and father.’

‘I’ve heard of traits coming out in sheep after five generations and more,’ Farnor said in rebuttal.

‘And what traits do you have in common with Ran-nick, Farnor?’ Gryss said. ‘His surly, self-destructive disposition? His sour idleness? You’ve certainly none of his looks.’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Just consider what’s happened. You think you’ve seen him exert some mysterious control over animals, or flies anyway.’ He allowed a hint of scorn to colour this last remark. ‘Then you think that you’ve… touched… one particular animal. How can you draw any profound conclusions from such vagueness? It might all be no more than coincidence.’ He jabbed an emphatic finger at the young man. ‘And in any case, Farnor, while you’re half your mother and half your father, you’re wholly yourself. Whatever traits you were born with, bad or good, and whoever they might have derived from, they’re yours now and how you use them is up to you! Whether they become masters or servants is your choice.’

Farnor grimaced. ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded reluc-tantly, though the thought of being related to Rannick, however distantly, made him feel as though he were wearing a shirt full of hay chaff. He fidgeted uncom-fortably in the wicker chair.

‘Don’t suppose so, know so,’ Gryss insisted. ‘It truly doesn’t bother me if part of my healing skill is some-thing inherited from Rannick’s line.’ His face darkened as the memory of tragic failures he had known rose to overshadow his many successes. ‘I only wish I had more of it,’ he added softly. ‘And you yourself. How has this ability shown itself?’ He leaned forward, his voice compelling. ‘It warned you about something, Farnor. And you warned us. Perhaps because of it some of our friends and neighbours will be alive next week instead of being dead. It was your choice, Farnor, and you made it correctly. How can that be bad? Be grateful to whatever fate gave you such an opportunity to help others.’

Farnor’s remaining resistance crumbled in the face of this assault. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘Thank you.’

Gryss warmed to this simple, unconditional grati-tude. It was like seeing a fever patient pass through a crisis. He was both relieved and more than a little pleased with himself that in helping Farnor he had also been able to shine some light into the darkness of his own recent concerns. He looked at Farnor. Young people could be monumentally tedious at times, he mused. But at others they were quite splendid. And they certainly kept you on your toes.

He raised a cautionary finger. ‘But,’ he said, ‘this is still our secret until we know more. I can quietly arrange for our hunters to be better protected, but you must tell me if anything like this contact happens again. However slight, however odd.’

‘Of course,’ Farnor said, almost off-handedly. Most of his anxiety having been taken from him, he wanted to be away; to be outside; to breathe cool, fresh air and feel space about him.

Gryss released him with a flick of his hand. ‘And if you see Rannick, ask him if he could drop in and see me urgently,’ he concluded as Farnor rose to leave.

By dint of his knowledge of the villagers and farmers, coupled with some shrewd talking and some straight-forward alarmism based on the results of ‘another look at’ the damage to the two corpses, Gryss persuaded the hunters to go out in groups of six and armed with, amongst other things, sharpened staves, axes, sickles and the inevitable rusty swords.

The sheep were rounded up and brought lower down the valley, except for a few that were left to act as bait for the marauder. With varying degrees of patience the hunters kept their nightly vigils, but apart from an occasional alarm prompted by a curious fox, or some night bird, nothing happened, and after a few nights spent thus, such small enthusiasm there had been for night watches disappeared completely.

‘It’s left. We’ve frightened it away,’ was the consen-sus among the yawning and by now bad-tempered watchers. Gryss could scarcely disagree. In the past, offending animals had invariably been caught by the third night at the latest. And, too, Dalmas was imminent and there would be a great deal of work involved in agreeing the final value and distribution of the tithe and then collecting and preparing it.