Roger Taylor - Farnor

The night watches were thus abandoned without further debate and village and valley life reverted to normal, enlivened by a rash of new tales being told, retold and exaggerated about the many small incidents that had coloured the tedious nightly outings.

Superficially Gryss was satisfied with this outcome, though something inside him could not accept that it was yet finished. And two more specific matters lingered uncomfortably in his thoughts. One was that Rannick had still not appeared. The other, though vaguer, Gryss found more disturbing. When the sheep had been rounded up, one of the farmers thought that some of his were missing. He made no great issue of it as the round-up was necessarily not a particularly thorough one, and Gryss gave the remark little heed. In due course, however, independently and equally casually, some four or five other farmers made the same observation and Gryss realized that the possible total number of sheep missing was disturbingly large.

But, with Dalmas pending, and general disenchant-ment at the fruitless night watches dominating village affairs, Gryss held his peace. It felt like an act of cowardice however: something that he might come to regret in due course.

Farnor, not privy to these concerns, and to some extent still glowing from Gryss’s secret approval of his actions, happily let the whole affair slip into the past. And as Dalmas approached, like everyone else, he became increasingly occupied with the business of gathering the tithe.

To Farnor there was something comforting about the particular reliability of Dalmastide, with its long-winded and almost ritualistic haggling over who had to pay what and why, and the subsequent communal effort involved in the gathering.

Daily routines were changed, carts and wagons were borrowed, as were casks and kegs and barrels and all manner of other containers. Special breads and cakes were baked and meats prepared. The village had a smell of spring awakening and of cooking that was uniquely Dalmastide. People were not where they usually were and, bumping into friends and acquaintances they had ‘not seen for ages’, invariably stopped too long to gossip and chatter – usually in the inn.

Overall, a sense of excitement, expectation and, not infrequently, dire emergency filled the air.

Farnor was less taken by the details of the prepara-tion, affecting to regard it as women’s work, though it was not a comment he would have said out loud in the vicinity of his mother or any of the other women. And, notwithstanding this affectation, he always found the careful arrangements of the stored produce decorated with elaborate patterns of spring flowers and leaves a happy, even moving, sight.

On the evening of Dalmas Eve there were the usual last-minute alarms but, as ever, the preparation was eventually declared adequate and the tithe barn was ceremoniously closed and sealed at sunset.

Gryss stepped back from the door of the barn and performed the final task of the ceremony, the striking of a sunstone which was to be mounted on the ridge of the barn. In earlier days this had involved a hair-raising climb up a long and invariably shaking ladder, but following a series of unfortunate happenings to one particular elder, an ingenious rope-and-pulley system had been devised so that the matter could be attended to with dignity from the safety of ground level.

Farnor watched the shining sunstone as it rose to the top of the barn in its open metal bowl. It swung hypnotically from side to side until with a click it came to a halt. The barn being on raised ground, the sunstone would be visible from many parts of the valley and at night would look like a bright new star set low in the sky. It seemed like a good omen, a celebration of the end of the strangeness that had begun with his finding of the dead sheep and to some extent still lingered with him, albeit greatly lessened by Gryss’s lancing.

Dalmas Day passed quietly, as always, it being regarded as a rest day following the flurry and bustle of the tithe gathering. Dalmas Morrow, too, was quiet, though, as usual, it had a livelier air about it as final preparations were made for the cooking of the special meals that were a feature of the following day.

At risk of being drawn into this activity by his mother, Farnor judiciously opted to observe another Dalmastide tradition, namely the sunset watch. This was ostensibly the oldest of the Dalmastide ceremonies though, whatever the truth of this, it had undoubtedly changed in character from its original form.

Once believed to have been a gathering of worthies charged with the task of watching for the arrival of the King’s tithe gatherers, it was now an excuse for the young sparks of the village to gather with a view to making merry. Accompanied by knowing looks, unorthodox bottles full of ‘my father’s best fruit cordial’ and ‘my mother’s liniment’ appeared, as did food more properly destined for the morrow. Instruments were brought and played, songs sung, dances danced and other activities pursued as the mood of the moment dictated. There was much talk and laughter and the ‘ceremony’ always extended well beyond sunset, the time by which the gatherers had to arrive if the tithe was not deemed to be unrequired by the King. Indeed, the ceremony did not normally begin to get properly under way until the light began to fade.

It was still some time to sunset when Farnor arrived at the hillock to the south of the village where the sunset watch was traditionally held and, after greeting those already there, he flopped down on the short springy grass and lay back luxuriously to await events.

It had been a fine warm day and it promised to be a fine warm evening. The atmosphere on the hillock was already lively and happy and Farnor felt a euphoria seeping over him: a feeling of gratitude such as he had felt for his mother the day after the hunt; a feeling of gratitude for his father and Gryss and all his friends, and the good life that was to be found in the valley. Yonas’s ringing tales of wars and battle and heroism in distant magic lands, and Gryss’s quiet reticence about the world over the hill, swung in easy counter-balance to one another against this contentment. Tonight, whether it be quiet and reflective or noisy and boisterous, would be good, he knew. It always was.

Through half-opened eyes he watched his friends. Some were lying idly on the grass as he was, some were standing and talking, others were just wandering to and fro. The buzz of their conversation and the smell of the grass seemed to flow right through him. His friends appeared to be at once here, around him, and a long way away. He wanted to reach out and thank them for being.

Abruptly, a great spasm shook him wide awake as if he had been lifted gently off the ground and then dropped violently. It was a familiar enough experience often happening as he was drifting into sleep.

He smiled ruefully to himself. A lucky escape, he thought. Had he gone to sleep there was no doubt that some atrocity would have been committed on him by his friends that would have served as a topic for merriment for the rest of the year. As he levered himself on to his elbow, he noticed that the hillock was suddenly silent and that many of his companions had raised their hands as if something had touched them or as if to catch a distant sound.

He clapped his hands loudly, making several of them jump and immediately restoring the noisy hubbub to the top of the hillock twofold.

He laughed as he dodged various missiles, then looked around to decide which of the groups he should favour with his company.

As he did so, however, something caught his eye. For a moment it confused him, then he sought it out again and studied it intently.

Silence once again descended on the gathering. Others had seen it.