Hallsfoot's Battle (3 page)

The scribe wondered what the atmosphere of
the place where he had lived back in Lammas might be. Cowardly and
confused, no doubt. Little wonder she could read him so well.

“No matter,” he said. “Johan does the same.
Perhaps I’m an open scroll to all Gathandrians.”

The mention of Johan’s name brought a slight
blush to Annyeke’s face. A ripple of something from her mind
drifted through his and, as if she’d suddenly shouted it, how
things were with her became clear. Simon knew how love felt, and he
reached out and patted her arm even as she was replying.

“Even so,” she said, recovering her mental
poise. “Even so, I should be more courteous. I’m not used to
visitors, you see. And recently there’s been rather too much to
think about, even for a woman.”

The words were meant in jest, but Simon still
nodded. He’d heard what the disgraced elders had said at Isabella
Montfort’s burial, had an inkling of the kind of responsibility
they’d given to Annyeke before they, like Johan, had vanished. It
seemed beyond any one person’s capabilities. Now he could sense
their presence in his companion’s mind, the facts of them almost
overshadowing her, if such a thing were possible. Greatest of them
all was the First Elder, the Day-Guardian of the Wine Lands, a man
whom past sins and regrets had all but shattered. He had departed
from the city to the distant place of healing where the cypress
trees grew in abundance in order to try to save Gathandria with
prayer. That much Simon could see, although he could not understand
it. He had taken the remaining four elders with him, men skilled in
glass-making, the carving of chairs, the nurture of gardens and
parks, and one who knew the harmony of words and silence. They had
gone together in order to meditate, leaving Annyeke alone. He did
not envy her task.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Annyeke leaned back on her stool and brushed
her hand through her hair. The gesture caused some strands to
escape from her plait and she frowned. “I don’t know. I’m not even
sure what the elders meant, if I’m honest. Of course, we need to
work together as a people, try to rebuild our strength and face
Gelahn when he attacks us again. But if you ask me how in the gods’
names we’re going to do that, then I really don’t know. The elders
left me no clues. But that doesn’t mean I won’t die trying, if I
have to.”

Watching the determination flicker over her
face and feeling the bright echo of it in his mind, Simon thought
perhaps the elders had known exactly what they were doing. It also
surprised him that she would dare to mention the mind-executioner’s
name. Hadn’t Johan warned him against doing so, since it apparently
gave their enemy an entry to the mind and a chance to ravage them?
It was obvious things in Gathandria were changing but, without any
personal sense of the land’s history, the scribe had no
understanding of how much, or how dangerous those changes might
become. But, right now, there were more urgent issues to face.

“I hope we won’t have to die,” he said. “I’m
a scribe, not a soldier. I was hoping things might be easier once I
was here in your lands, but I can see, already, that’s
unlikely.”

If Simon had expected the frisson of distaste
he was accustomed to from Johan when he expressed something less
than enthusiasm for an act of bravery, his expectations were not
fulfilled.

Annyeke laughed.

She stretched forward, gripped his shoulder
and opened her mouth to speak as the door to the outside world was
pushed open and someone who wasn’t Talus stepped onto the
threshold.

Johan.

First Lammas Lands
Chronicle

Ralph

The castle of the Tregannons is no longer his
home. He does not even need the gifting of a Sensitive to know
this. Ralph’s few remaining guards mutter in the shadows and the
stallholders have gone from the courtyard—the women, too. Not that
he has taken a woman for many moon-cycles, nor any man neither, not
since Simon the mind-dweller came to haunt him.

Ralph thinks Simon saved him during the
battle with the Gathandrians, but he cannot be sure. His hair is
burnt, as is the skin on his arms and chest. His leg is twisted and
cannot bear his whole weight. He doesn’t remember much about how
this happened but perhaps that is for the best. It is certainly
better not to think of the scribe at all, nor about what he himself
has done. He must instead think of his people, the Lammas dwellers.
Soon the mind-executioner will return and Ralph must be ready for
him. The executioner and he have failed in their endeavours and he
does not know what his enemy will do now, nor how he might want
Ralph to help him.

There is no other choice, but he has always
known that. The mind-executioner’s hold on him is too great and
Ralph will never be free of it. He gave up that freedom when he
chose to save himself rather than Simon before the great and
fruitless journey to Gathandria that has brought them only more
pain and a despair he cannot shake.

This morning, when the sun wakes him, Ralph
finds a moment in the darkness of his mind when everything is as it
should be. He is the Lord of these lands, his position is sacred
and the decisions he has made over the past moons are mere fantasy
and nothing but children’s terrors. That moment doesn’t last long,
but it is precious beyond anything he has known.

It has only been two days since the scribe
sent Ralph back here. The thought of another day of inaction is too
overwhelming, so he swings himself out of bed, reaches for the
half-finished beaker of wine he left the night before, takes a long
gulp of its sweetness and begins making the small series of
decisions that will keep him alive through to the night, he
hopes.

All but stumbling over the remains of
yesterday’s frugal supper of winter oranges and slivers of dried
goat meat, Ralph flings open the carved wooden door and yells out
into the corridor’s darkness.

“Boy! Bring me my garments, and fresh water.
I need to wash.”

He closes the door without waiting for any
response, limps across the bed area and gazes out of the window.
The boy will come. He knows it. Since the death of Ralph’s former
steward, only a handful of his personal servants remain with him.
But how long they will stay, Ralph does not know. The first morning
of his return here, his young dresser’s response was quick,
startled, no doubt, by his Overlord’s unexpected return home.
Yesterday, the boy had tarried and Ralph had been all but ready to
shout for him again when he had arrived in the chambers, bearing
the tunic and overshirt he is still wearing. The cloak lies
discarded on the stone floor where Ralph had pushed it during his
night-time thrashings. Sleep had been granted only with the wine
he’d drunk. He should have punished the boy’s tardiness before, but
the heart for it has gone.

Now, Ralph wonders if he will bother coming
at all. While he waits, he gazes out over the castle courtyard
acknowledging, once again, its emptiness. Only a few moon-cycles
ago, he would have seen a hubbub of bread-sellers, herb-dressers,
beer- and mead-makers and the inevitable travelling story-tellers,
all vying for the honour of being part of the evening tale-bearing.
Simon, of course, had been one of these before Ralph had taken him
into his employ, although he had sold his mind-skills secretly, as
well as offering his talents with writing and herbal cures, a gift
learned from his mother, Simon had once told him. Ralph hadn’t
known then which of his skills he had meant. Now he’ll never
know.

The air drifts in, smelling of trees and the
faint metallic sweat of the few soldiers lurking near the moat.
They don’t see him and he makes no effort to command their
attention. He has no orders to convey, though he must do so soon,
before all his protection is lost. Ralph senses he will need
it.

The time for the beginning of one of Simon’s
stories goes by before the boy arrives. Ralph would give the whole
of his castle, lands and ancient privilege (though not, please the
gods, its people) to know where the scribe is now and whether he is
safe, but there is nobody here to whom he can offer such a prize,
and none who would take it. Thus far he, Ralph Tregannon, has
brought the Lammas Lands and all its lesser lords into
disrepute.

The boy knocks on the bed-chamber door and
opens it without waiting for any command. When Ralph turns round
from the window, the boy won’t look him in the eye. He’s only
fifteen winter-cycles old and he’s been Ralph’s personal steward
for two days now—a slight boy with pale blond hair and a limp which
almost echoes his own. Ralph doesn’t even remember his name. As he
thought, the boy is later than he was yesterday, but Ralph says
nothing; he’s too young to be caught up in the middle of Lammas
politics. Too young, also, to be forced to stay with a discredited
Lord.

“Why do you stay, boy?” The question is
spoken aloud, even though Ralph had not realised he would do so,
and the boy starts, almost dropping the jug of water and basin he
clutches under one arm.

“My Lord,” he mutters, dodging past and
placing the items on the side shelf. He is still carrying the
bundle of clothing Ralph asked for. “Do…do you wish me to lay out
your morning dress?”

Words crowd Ralph’s mouth. So many questions
he wishes to ask, but he cannot bear listening to the answers. He
wants to ask again why the boy stays when there is no future here,
or not one that bears any resemblance to the past they have known.
He wants to ask where the other servants have gone and what they
might be doing, if indeed they are still alive. He wants to ask if
the boy imagines that the soldiers will be any defence against the
mystery of whatever is to come upon them. Most of all though, he
wants to ask if he thinks that Ralph’s presence here is more of a
blessing than a curse.

Of course, he asks none of these things. Not
of a servant. Ralph’s father taught him well. Instead, he shakes
his head.

“No,” he says. “Leave them on the bed. I will
dress myself today.”

As he speaks, Ralph remembers the last time
he made the decision to dress himself—the morning when Simon the
Scribe first visited the castle.

He brushes the memories aside as the boy nods
a reply and leaves. He doesn’t look back.

When he’s gone, Ralph fills the basin with
the icy water and splashes it over his face. It knocks away his
self-pity and makes his mind feel clear. He washes quickly and, as
he dresses in plain clothes, Ralph thinks about what has happened
and what might still.

He chose to support the mind-executioner,
believing that what he offered would bring peace and prosperity to
those under his care, the Lammas people. There had been unrest for
so long in the lands, wars and rumours of wars, that an alliance
with a man who promised peace had been too tempting to resist. But
he was fooling himself. If he is going to survive, and by the gods
he intends to, Ralph will have to acknowledge the truth to himself,
at least. What the mind-executioner had promised him was power, the
chance to extend the Lammas rule into the lands beyond their
borders, the chance to make the Tregannon name more far-reaching
than that of any of the minor lords around him.

Simon, the mind-executioner had said, stood
in the way and must be destroyed. Ralph had been committed to give
up the scribe as easily as if he had been a sworn enemy, and with
no second thoughts about what he was doing—betraying a friend and a
man under his protection for the sake of gain. He could fool
himself that he’d been blinded by the mind-executioner’s mental
hold, but the fact remained that Ralph had been willing for him to
have that power. The fault in the first place had been his, so
where is his honour now?

He doesn’t bother with breaking his fast. The
questions in his mind aren’t conducive to eating, though he does
finish last night’s wine. Instead, he walks out into the corridor,
favouring his wounded leg a little, past his private rooms, through
the series of stone-carved arches and into the dining-hall. One
maid-servant is clearing out the grate, though why she should do so
he has no idea. There will be no entertainment here for many
seven-days, he thinks. Ralph ignores her but the sound of his boots
on the slabs and the swish of his cloak send her scuttling away
into the shadows.

In the courtyard he shouts for the horseman
and waits, rubbing his hands together to fight the cold while he
appears. Like the steward for the dressing ceremony, the horseman
is not swift. Again, Ralph does not complain. Even so, that must
surprise the man—he has sometimes been harsh in his lordship,
though not until recently unfair. He can see now that trying to
emulate his father’s firm hand with the servants has not been wise.
Not many have stayed with him, when he thinks he needs them the
most.

By the time Nightcloud, his grey stallion, is
ready, the sun is already creating long shadows from the turreted
walls. No soldiers stand to attention, and that alone is enough to
pierce Ralph once more.

“When will you be back, my Lord?” the groom
asks but Ralph shakes his head, beyond speaking for that moment.
Besides, he has little idea. Today he will ride, see what ravages
have fallen across the land for himself. When he has seen that,
then he will know more of what he must face.

He grasps the reins handed to him but, as he
places one foot in the stirrup, Nightcloud snorts and tosses his
head, sidling away as if Ralph is a stranger to him.

“What the …?”

“Please,” the groom says, “he hasn’t been
ridden for a while. He’s grown unused to the feel of a man.”

“So I see.” And he does. He sees the horsemen
have grown lazy and decided that he would not return from the
journey with the mind-executioner. They have been lax in their
duties, and Ralph’s stallion has been left to his own devices and
become skittish.