Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

Athyr looked anxiously at Loman, but the smith shook his head. ‘Leave them,’ he said softly. ‘Both of them are beyond anything we can help with. We’d better tend the living and make arrangements for burying our dead.’

Tirilen walked for a long time, tall and straight, though with her head bowed. Gulda, black and stooped, followed silently behind, unflagging.

At the end of a long grassy slope, Tirilen stopped on a small rocky outcrop. She pushed her hood back and gazed out into the mist. Rain dampened her face and gradually started to run down it. She looked at Gulda. The old woman returned her gaze without speaking, then held out her hand. It was a gesture of encourage-ment amp;mdashor one seeking help.

Tirilen took the hand and held it for a little while before releasing it and, pulling her hood forward again, she set off once more.

Eventually she stopped and the two women stood at the centre of a mist-enclosed circle. Everywhere was silent and muted except for the barely audible hiss of the fine rain.

She gazed around. ‘Why have you done this?’ she said quietly into the greyness. ‘Why have you killed and maimed our people. Tell me so that I can understand, here.’ She laid the palm of her hand on her chest.

Silence.

Tirilen inclined her head a little. ‘You hear me, I know,’ she said. ‘I hear your very listening. Your pain whispers where you’d have it silent. Answer me.’

Silence.

She spoke again. ‘Whatever we were doing, be it wisdom or folly, it offered you no hurt. We raised neither sword, fist, nor even voice against you. Yet you make friend turn on friend. And now brother has slain brother.’

Gulda turned her head away, but still there was only the mountain silence.

‘Answer me!’ Tirilen’s voice suddenly shook with barely controlled emotion. ‘Tell me why, in your wisdom, you give my people this pain? Tell me how I am to bear it, who must enter into it to aid them? Tell me the words I can use to mend the cry you heard rise up from that man’s heart?’

The faint sounds of the rain seemed to shift and change imperceptibly. Doubts and regrets rose to surround the two women, though no words could be heard.

‘I need your words, your reasons, for what you’ve done,’ Tirilen said. ‘Not hints and vague nuances. If you have no words or reasons, then leave us, Alphraan. Leave us to our own destiny. Bear your own guilt as best you can.’

‘We have no guilt. We took no life,’ said a voice abruptly. It was harsh with uncertainty, and doubts fluttered all around it. ‘We did what was necessary.’

‘Words and reasons,’ Tirilen said again. ‘Give me your words and reasons for this necessity so that I can carry them back to comfort those you have injured.’

‘We will not be questioned,’ said the voice.

‘I don’t question you,’ Tirilen said with soft but unyielding purpose. ‘This terrible blood debt is yours. It will question you forever. I asked you for comfort for those you have injured amp;mdashand for myself. Whatever solace you have for yourselves will help my people too, because our burdens are the same. You willed the deeds, we committed them.’ She opened her arms in a gesture of resignation. ‘If you have no words of comfort, then tell me that and I’ll disturb you no more.’

‘We are not responsible for your vi amp;mdashyour people’s violence,’ the voice said hesitantly.

Tirilen shook her head. ‘You are not responsible for our nature, but you cannot avoid your responsibility for what you did yesterday,’ she said.

‘We did not strike down any of your people,’ the voice said. ‘What was done was necessary to show you your folly.’

‘Who are you to show us our folly?’ Tirilen said reluctantly, as if not wishing to enter into debate. ‘You, who’ve shunned us so completely for so long that we didn’t even know you existed.’ She paused, but the words forced themselves forwards irresistibly. ‘But as we’re ignorant of you, so are you ignorant of us. And as you know yourselves, so we know ourselves.’ Her voice pleaded. ‘And we need no one to show us the darkness that lies within us.’

‘We are not responsible for your deeds,’ said the voice again, hastily, a disturbing mixture of arrogance and doubt.

‘No?’ said Tirilen, still reluctant. ‘Who but you re-leased that darkness which we hold in gentle check as part of our own harmony? Who but you let it run unfettered in all its horror? If you cannot see the wickedness of that then content yourself with shunning us further. But leave us alone before more ill is done and the debt becomes beyond your bearing.’

‘Do you menace us… healer?’

Tirilen lowered her head for a moment, then lifted it and threw back her hood, as if she needed the rain to cleanse her. She held out her bloodstained hand.

‘How can I menace you?’ she asked. ‘A simple healer asking for help? I come for words of comfort.’ She pointed in the direction of the camp. ‘But can you not hear the anger you are unleashing?’

Silence.

Tirilen gazed around, blue eyes peering into the grey mist. ‘Have you no words for me then?’ she said. ‘Nothing for the injured spirits of my people?’

Silence.

Tirilen opened her arms wide again. ‘Accept then what comfort I can offer you,’ she said slowly, tears mingling with the rain running down her face. ‘For our pain is yours also, even if you do not yet feel it. We forgive you the blindness that led you to these deeds. May it pass from you before it harms further. And may you find peace.’

Suddenly, all around, the whispering returned. It seemed to pluck frantically at her very cloak, but Tirilen stood motionless. Then it rose in intensity until it became a vast babble, swelling all around to enclose the two women.

Gulda touched Tirilen’s arm. Tirilen looked around again at the grey stillness that now seemed like a great domed cave, echoing with this tumultuous cacophony. Then, without speaking, the two women set off to return the way they had come.

As they neared the camp, angry voices reached out of the mist towards them, but when the motley array of tents and shelters loomed up to greet them, it seemed at first to be deserted.

The two women exchanged a significant glance.

‘I’m going to look to my charges,’ Tirilen said, busi-nesslike. ‘You look to yours.’

Gulda watched her until she disappeared from view behind a group of horses, then turned and walked towards the sound of the shouting.

As she neared the centre of the camp she found herself at the back of a large crowd. She scowled, unable to see what was happening over the heads of the people in front of her. Selecting a particularly large individual who was waving his fist in the air and shouting loudly, she swung her stick up and gave him a determined poke. The man turned, his brow furrowed angrily, then immediately identifying his assailant he stepped deferentially to one side, nudging the man in front of him as he did.

The nudge rippled urgently through the crowd which parted in its wake as Gulda strode through, swinging her stick purposefully from side to side like a farmer scything through a field of tall grasses. Reaching the platform that was the focus of the crowd she clambered up its makeshift steps to join Loman and Athyr.

The crowd fell silent as her stern gaze swept over them.

‘Carry on,’ she said incongruously to Loman after this inspection.

Loman gestured vaguely. ‘We were waiting for you, Memsa,’ he said. ‘To see if you have any news.’

An angry voice rang out from the crowd. ‘We were deciding what to do about those murdering… ’ It was stopped short by Gulda’s levelled stick and piercing gaze, but several other voices rose to buttress its meaning.