Roger Taylor: The fall of Fyorlund

As they breakfasted, Rgoric seemed preoccupied. Eventually he raised an affectionate and inquiring eyebrow, and Sylvriss pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘Just excuse me for a few minutes,’ she said.

Rgoric took her hand and looked at her earnestly. ‘Just a few minutes,’ he said, part entreaty, part demand. She looked down at him. Older now than his years, by dint of his lined face and greying hair, he was still weak, and a shadow of his former self. But he was no longer the bent, haunted creation that Dan-Tor had made. He was the man she had married. Straight and upright, with a steady hand and clear eye.

She bent down and kissed him. ‘Just a few,’ she con-firmed.

When she returned, he stood up and stared at her. ‘Your Muster uniform,’ he said, smiling delightedly. ‘The one you insisted on wearing when we rode home from Riddin. I remember. Everyone in their fancy clothes and you in your simple tunic and cloak. And you outshone them all.’

‘Not too difficult, the way you Fyordyn ride,’ Sylvriss replied nervously.

Rgoric smiled again and looked at her proprietori-ally. ‘I’d no idea you still had it. And it fits too.’

Sylvriss patted her stomach and blushed. ‘Just about,’ she said. Then Rgoric’s expression changed, and he put a concerned arm around her shoulder. ‘You need to feel the strength of the Muster and your family behind you before you can tell me whatever it is that’s been tormenting you?’ he said.

Sylvriss returned his embrace and led him to a long couch. She had hoped that the inspiration of the moment would finally come to aid her, but it did not. Where could she start on this hideous saga that would not risk plummeting her husband down into the darkness from which he had been so agonizingly lifted.

Eventually she spoke the problem out loud. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said.

‘Then start anywhere,’ said Rgoric, simply. He reached up and ran his hand through her hair. As she looked up, their eyes met and an overwhelming poignancy tightened her chest and throat.

What followed next she barely recalled. The whole tale flowed out of her; not hysterically, but with an almost unstoppable force as if that would support Rgoric as much as it might inundate him.

Alone now, she clenched her hands in regret and concern as she went over the subtleties and nuances, the complexities of events that she had brushed aside in her haste. And yet, she began to console herself, he had not fallen screaming into dementia, or raged, or reproached her for her perfidy. Just a simple ‘Go to your room. Go there and wait for me. I’ll be some time.’

But how long ago was that? She took a deep breath to quieten her heart. She must find him. ‘Wait for me,’ he had said, but what was a modicum of defiance when added to the months of deception?

Total. The word brought an image to her-one she had had at times in the early years of her marriage-an image of a cornucopia rich with many-coloured gifts. Suddenly her guilt fell from her like an ill-fastened cloak. They were each the total of one another’s making. They would be together now, whether the moment was one of joy or horror. They were irrevocably joined for this span of their lives. Even though he might at this very moment be rejecting her, he would still be her support, he would still be half her life, and she his.

She straightened her uniform and looked in the mirror. The face gazing back at her was flushed, and radiated a mixture of defiance and triumph. Years of habit took her hands to those small flaws in her appearance that no one else would see and the face smiled as she saw their practiced concern.

Before she reached the door, it opened and Rgoric entered. He was dressed in a simple field uniform of the kind that he had worn to complement his bride when they had returned from Riddin. Around his head was the simple iron ring that was the ancient crown of the Kings of Fyorlund.

Dan-Tor shifted uneasily on his chair.

Dilrap, sitting at a nearby table and immersed in papers, echoed the movement with a twitch of his own. For all his apparent obliviousness, he was in fact watching Dan-Tor closely. The Ffyrst’s moods were beginning to alarm him profoundly.

There was an increasing restlessness in him that was wholly uncharacteristic, and some of his recent decisions seemed to have been whimsical and arbitrary-as though made in irritated haste.

But why? Dilrap asked himself repeatedly as his unseeing eyes scanned the documents in front of him. Why? Dan-Tor, meticulous and endlessly patient in his cunning, usually became more so in the face of opposition. So what was amiss?

What indeed? Dan-Tor was occupied with the same question. Nothing in his schemes seemed to be awry. True, the City was bubbling with anger at his treacher-ous re-arrest of Eldric, and rumours of the attack on the Queen, but that would pass. In general, opponents were becoming doubters; doubters, allies. The young flocked to the newly formed Youth Corps which, with its uniform and parades and raucous, pounding music, provided a mixture of carnival and memories of ancient martial glory.

The old, too, turned increasingly to him to be treated with the ingenious salves he had prepared for the myriad tiny ills that he had so assiduously infected the country with. Indeed it would have been difficult for anyone to analyse or locate the source of the miasma of discontent that pervaded Fyorlund, so long and subtle had been its spreading. Dan-Tor, however, offered the way with a clear light. The fault lay with the Lords who had taken advantage of a sick and ailing King to gratify their own desires for power and self-aggrandizement. Only he had stood against them and thwarted their schemes. And now they were preparing armies in the east to seize by force what he, using Fyorlund’s most ancient and precious institution, the Law, had denied them.

The mindless, unthinking roar of the mob and their mounting intolerance were the opening notes of the great symphony he had been so long preparing. Those who thought and saw nearer the truth hid their heads increasingly for fear of losing them. And yet? He banged the arms of his chair with clenched fists.

Dilrap looked up. ‘Ffyrst?’ he ventured hesitantly. An angry flick of those long bony hands bade him be silent. Dilrap dropped his eyes hastily. A tiny insect crawled painstakingly across the unread page he was staring at. He moved his hand to crush it, then paused and cast a glance at Dan-Tor. Suddenly his intention and its arbitrariness flooded him with shame. Go on your way, he thought. Go on your way. Who am I to take your life for a mere whim? Who am I to divine your purpose? The insect continued its laborious journey undisturbed and Dilrap watched it protectively until it disappeared into a sheaf of papers.

Dan-Tor stood up and turned his head from side to side as if looking for a sound that was annoying him. A narrow band of streaming sunlight cut across him like a bright sash. Dilrap willed himself into absolute stillness and, for an interminable chain of minutes, he felt the very air around him was dancing to the beat of his pulse.

The chain was snapped with a deafening abruptness by the opening of a door and the seemingly thunderous footsteps of a servant running across the hall. Without speaking, the man bowed low to Dan-Tor and held out a small, decorated gold plate bearing a white card.

Scowling, Dan-Tor picked up the card and studied it. Then with a curt nod he dismissed the servant. Dilrap turned to look at him directly. The man’s eyes were like pinpoints of red fire, but the voice was like ice.

‘The King requires that we attend him immediately,’ he said.

The wind was still blowing quite strongly and the weather seemed uncertain whether it should continue to celebrate summer or warn of impending winter when Hawklan and Isloman mingled with the morning crowds filling the streets of Vakloss. Both were glad of the opportunity to wrap their cloaks about them, as there was a strange tension in the City. Faces among the crowds were, for the most part, grim and downcast, quite at odds with the streets of decorated and colourful buildings. Hawklan remembered Lorac’s parting advice. ‘Don’t skulk and don’t look anyone directly in the eye if you don’t want to be seen.’