Roger Taylor - Farnor

‘What a shame,’ he said quietly.

‘It is indeed,’ Garren agreed. ‘Just try to think of it as a hail storm flattening the corn, or a wind like this costing us most of our fruit. One of those things, and quite beyond our control.’

‘I’ll try,’ Farnor said. ‘But it’s not really the same.’

‘True,’ his father replied. ‘But it’s the best I can offer to stop it hurting so much.’ There was an unexpected humour in his voice that caught Farnor’s attention. ‘It’s not without its funny side,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘Gathering this, ostensibly for the King but really for ourselves, and finding that the King really wants it after all.’

The unexpected lightness shifted Farnor’s percep-tion of the event. There’d be other years. It wasn’t that bad.

‘It’s bad enough…’ Farnor started as a surly voice behind him muttered this contradiction of his unspoken thought. ‘… them taking all our stuff. But manhandling it up to the castle is the sodding limit. And in our own carts at that!’ Farnor glanced over his shoulder to confirm the speaker. It was Jeorg.

‘The King’s stuff,’ Garren corrected with an unchar-acteristically malevolent chuckle at Jeorg’s petulance. He offered him the same consolation he had offered his son. ‘Just imagine that the barn’s been struck by lightning.’

Jeorg almost growled. ‘I can just about cope with losing the tithe, Garren, but your good humour is too much.’

To Gryss’s surprise, Saddre made no comment on the way in which the tithe had been calculated. To each of Gryss’s, ‘We’ve never been quite sure about this, so…’ he nodded indulgently and waved a dismissive hand, concluding finally that, in the absence of a tithe master, the villagers had made a remarkably accurate assessment. ‘It’s an excellent piece of work. Your diligence is to be commended.’ He went on to say that there might be one or two minor adjustments after he had had an opportunity to examine the calculations and inventory at his leisure, and he was about to say more when he caught Nilsson’s eye and, instead, closed the ceremony quite abruptly.

The rest of the blustering day was spent in trans-porting the produce to the castle. Despite Gryss’s best urgings to look cheerful, it was done for the most part with a very ill grace, although this was confined to sullen attitudes and nothing overtly unpleasant was said within earshot of the gatherers.

And then the barn was empty. Bits of paper and torn sacks and the remains of floral displays scurried hither and thither about the dusty floor as the wind continued its own relentless search. Farnor gazed round at the echoing emptiness. It looked as it always looked after tithe day, but now it seemed sad and empty whereas previously he realized now, it had always seemed happy in some way… contented at a task well done, perhaps. He watched the whirling, wind-inspired dance of dust and litter about the floor for a while then half-heartedly reached for a brush.

‘Leave it, Farnor,’ Gryss said. ‘It’ll be there tomor-row.’ A logic that could not be disputed, Farnor thought, though he had never been able to make his mother see it on similar occasions. Deferring to the elder’s wisdom, he conscientiously put the brush down.

There was another short but alarming struggle to wrest the doors from the wind until they were finally shut and locked, then the few remaining villagers wandered off down the road. There was little conversa-tion.

At the castle, however, there was a great deal of conversation, and even more mirth as the entire complement gathered in a dining hall and proceeded to ‘assess’ the tithe by eating and drinking it – mainly drinking it.

‘Here’s to you, tithe master,’ Nilsson said, raising a tankard to Saddre.

‘Clerk of the tithe, Captain,’ Saddre corrected, rais-ing his own tankard in return. ‘I’m army, you know, not civilian. Co-opted and specially trained.’

‘Trained to pick pockets and cut throats,’ Dessane intervened raucously. This shaft, sharpened by the ale, made the trio relapse into uncontrollable laughter.

‘This is rich,’ Nilsson said, wiping his eyes and still laughing. ‘All this!’ He pointed to the piles of produce occupying one end of the hall. ‘We’ve raided bigger villages and come away with less on more than a few occasions. And delivered to us as well.’

‘They didn’t enjoy it, judging by their faces,’ Des-sane said.

‘They’d have enjoyed it a damn sight less if we’d collected it the usual way,’ Nilsson said.

‘Maybe I should tell them that not enjoying paying their taxes is an offence against the dignity of the King, and fine them for it,’ Saddre declared. ‘In my capacity as…’

‘Clerk of the tithe,’ Nilsson and Dessane said simul-taneously.

Again, the laughter that greeted this was dispropor-tionate to the humour of the remark, but it went unnoticed in the general uproar that was filling the hall.

None of the three, though, was truly drunk. The presence of the other revellers forbade that. To lead such meant that to be without control around them was to risk death.

Saddre pursued his thought. ‘Perhaps I could fine them a few women,’ he said, leering lasciviously. ‘For the entertainment of the King’s officers in the field. I saw some tasty ones in that crowd.’

Nilsson chuckled but his eyes were cold as he looked at his lieutenant. ‘No,’ he said categorically.

Saddre, abruptly possessed by his idea, protested. ‘Just a few,’ he pleaded. ‘For crying out, we can’t…’

‘You can and you will.’ Nilsson’s voice was icy, and all trace of humour had gone from his face. Recognizing the change, both Dessane and Saddre sobered. Dessane eased his chair back, ready to move quickly, and Saddre held out his hands. ‘Just my joke, Nils,’ he said, smiling desperately. ‘Just my joke. No harm meant. You know I wouldn’t…’

The crash of a table falling over and a sudden shout-ing rose above the din to cut across Saddre’s plea. Nilsson turned away from him and scanned the hall. He focused on the source almost immediately. Like a whirlpool suddenly appearing in a turbulent river, a circle of hastily moving bodies was forming around two struggling figures. Its power drew other bodies to it and soon it would occupy the whole hall.

Nilsson swore and stood up clumsily. His chair clattered over behind him. Without pausing, he strode into the melee. Saddre and Dessane looked at one another with expressions of open relief and Saddre drew the back of his hand across his mouth nervously. He let out a trembling breath.

The object of his alarm was gone however, plough-ing violently through the crowd, at times lifting men bodily off their feet and throwing them effortlessly to one side.

When he reached the centre Nilsson’s face was a mask of fury. The inner circle widened to reveal two men rolling about the floor amid a mess of food, ale and broken dishes. They were pummelling one another mindlessly. With a snarl, Nilsson reached down and seized them both by the hair. Then he hoisted them upright and brought their heads together with a resounding thud. Some of the spectators winced at the impact while others, the majority, laughed, always glad to see other than themselves being hurt. Nilsson released the two men who slumped unconscious to the floor.

‘You’d no call to…’ a drunken voice began behind Nilsson’s back. Before it could finish however, Nilsson had spun round and, using the momentum of his turn, delivered a punishing blow to the protester’s face. The man crashed backwards, taking several others with him as he fell. Blood was streaming from his nose and mouth.

As those felled with him crawled hastily away, the man struggled into a sitting position, his face livid with rage. He reached inside his jacket. A bystander’s foot kicked him over and planted itself on his chest. Nilsson stepped forward and looked down at the bleeding man. Gently he motioned the owner of the foot to one side, then he held out his hands, to the fallen man, palms upwards. His eyes were wide with a mixture of rage and exhilaration.