Roger Taylor - The call of the sword

Only with Hawklan had Tirilen’s quieter nature appeared. He had asked Loman to be his castellan at their first strange meeting, but Loman and his toddling daughter only moved into the castle some three years later when, despite Hawklan’s aid, Loman’s wife died. Then Hawklan had helped with the upbringing of the noisy, blue-eyed child as Loman pulled himself through the blackness that followed. He was a second father to Tirilen, although their relationship was very different from that she had with her real father. Hawklan it was who received those confidences and confessions which Tirilen preferred not to bring to her father’s attention, but which needed to be excised by utterance. And Hawklan it was who guided her into looking behind the surface of the dour man to find the true father within.

Hawklan it was also, who found she had no small gift for healing, and who took charge of her instruction. Thus when the mood was right, she had learned about the herbs and other healing plants that could be found in the fields and among the rocks, and about repairing gashes and fractures. He could not teach her how to speak to the animals, because he himself did not know how he did it, but she was sensitive to their silent distress calls and frequently appeared in Hawklan’s workroom with some injured creature that she had found because ‘on impulse’ she had turned from her path.

Like Gavor and Hawklan’s other close friends, Tirilen too had noticed his growing preoccupation; a lessening of his gentle ironic humour and, she alone noticed, an occasional strange, distant expression in his green eyes. In conversation and everyday intercourse he seemed happy enough, but he was increasingly to be found alone and pensive, and she sensed an unknown and mounting pain.

It was only Gavor who asked the question directly and received any semblance of an answer. And vague though it was, he was pleased, because he knew that once question and answer began to appear in the mind, then the inner conflict was beginning to be resolved. With the emergence into the light of this slender bloom from the depths, Gavor deemed it advisable to leave lest their normal banter trample it underfoot, and he was pleased to see the arrival of Tirilen, to whose hands it could be more safely entrusted.

However, the bloom having appeared, it transferred a portion of its uneasy perfume onto Gavor. Hawklan’s powerful intuition was not lightly set aside and Gavor felt dark clouds gathering distantly on his own inner horizons. Hawklan’s words began to crystallize unspoken concerns of his own, though not clearly. A change was in the air, and not a good one. He croaked at himself disparagingly as he flew above the rooftops of Anderras Darion. He had no intention of visiting his ‘friend’ in the north tower. Uncharacteristically, he too now wanted to be alone. Spiralling high above the Castle, resting on the warm spring air rising up from the front wall, he looked down at the crowd on the green by the crossroads, and at Tirilen leading Hawklan down the road to the village.

He started crossly as a small brown bird whirred past him at great speed and disappeared in the direction of the green.

Not many could resist Tirilen when she chose to be persuasive, and, his heart lightened a little by speaking of his concern to Gavor, Hawklan made only a token opposition to her invitation to see the strange tinker and listen to his chatter.

He had to stride out to keep up with her as they walked down the road to the village. She, unusually, was talking incessantly.

‘He’s so funny, and he’s got so many wonderful things in his pack, you’d wonder how he could possibly get them all in, let alone lift it. And he seems to know so much about everything-sewing, farming, carving… ’

‘And emptying purses,’ said Hawklan dryly.

Tirilen smiled at him knowingly and then linked her arm in his.

‘Look at this,’ she said, carefully unwrapping the pendant she had bought. Hawklan looked at it studi-ously.

‘It’s an unusual design,’ he said, ‘although there’s something vaguely familiar in the style. Gold too, by the feel of it.’

They were almost leaning on one another as they examined the pendant and they strode out in step down the last, steep part of the road. Hawklan rubbed the pendant gently between his thumb and forefinger and wrinkled his nose slightly.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Tirilen.

Just clouds on the horizon, thought Hawklan.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just thought I felt a tiny sharp edge, but it must have been my imagination.’

At the green the tinker was still in full flow and the crowd was even bigger. Most of the people they had met on the way were either laughing or carefully examining purchases, and Hawklan had become increasingly anxious to see this phenomenon that had landed so randomly on the village.

He soon found himself at the front of the crowd as it was in continuous movement, and the villagers, invariably glad to see him, virtually ushered him through. The tinker was at the edge of the little clearing around his laden cloths, busily expounding to someone the virtues of an intended purchase, but he turned round the instant Hawklan appeared and made straight for him, or as straight as his jerky gait would allow.

His eyes stopped flickering for a moment and held Hawklan’s gaze fixed.

‘Hawklan,’ he said to himself softly, as if sending the word to some deep part of his memory.

‘Hawklan.’ Again with the same strange softness. Then, in his normal voice. ‘Hawklan? Hawklan the healer? From the…?’ A long finger unfolded in the direction of the castle.

Hawklan smiled and nodded. The tinker clapped his hands, and his face lit up as he returned the smile.

‘Ah, what have I for a healer?’ he said, screwing up his face thoughtfully. ‘Derimot Findeel Dan-Tor, who has everything for everybody, must have something for a healer-especially a rich healer like yourself.’

This last he said in a loud whisper accompanied by an enormous wink and a complicated nod of the head in the direction of the castle. Hawklan laughed out loud along with many in the crowd.

‘I’m afraid you’ll starve to death waiting for my gold, Derimot. Although I’ll happily give you some food and drink if that becomes likely.’

‘Take the food, Derimot,’ shouted someone in the crowd. ‘Hawklan has no coffers, but he has the finest kitchen in Orthlund.’

‘In that case I may accept your offer one day,’ said the tinker, bowing low, but creaking his head round to look at Hawklan. ‘Local knowledge is always worth more than gold.’ And he sent an acknowledging nod to his unknown adviser in the crowd. Then he turned his attention once more to Hawklan, looking him up and down professionally.

‘Look at my wares, Hawklan. There are things here that only I could obtain. No one-no one-has the skill and knowledge of Derimot Findeel Dan-Tor when it comes to trading. And all of it is the very finest. When I leave, you may never see such things again.’

Hawklan inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you, Derimot, I shall,’ he said, and he walked across to the articles now scattered and disarranged by the villagers.

He always took an interest in objects from beyond Orthlund, in the hope that they might stir some memory of the time before he found himself walking in the wintry mountains some twenty years ago.

The tinker flitted away and gathered a crowd of children around him.

‘Now, children,’ he said very slowly. ‘Your turn.’ He put his long arms around several of them, and crouch-ing on the floor brought them together in a confidential huddle. His mouth pursed up into a disparaging expression.