It was with some relief that Eldric welcomed the last of the three Lords he had summoned following Hrostir’s news of the suspension of the Geadrol.
Lord Darek rode into the courtyard with his small, yellow-liveried escort, and dismounted stiffly.
‘I’m sorry,’ were his first words to Eldric. ‘I came as quickly as I could, but I don’t ride like I used to.’
Eldric smiled warmly and took his hand. ‘Nonsense. You’re here a good day earlier than I thought you’d be,’ he said. ‘It’s a long journey. I’m only sorry you’ve had to make it under such circumstances, and at this time of all times. You must rest a while before we talk.’
Darek shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me attend to my men and then we’ll talk right away. I couldn’t begin to rest with all the hares your news set running around in my head, and I presume you’ve all been pacing the floor for at least two days waiting for me. And being none too charitable about the delay.’
Eldric raised his hands and shrugged in mute con-fession and apology. ‘You always were too sharp, Darek,’ he said with a smile. ‘Come inside. My men will attend to your escort and the horses, and we’ll join Hreldar and Arinndier straight away.’
Leading his guest through a blossom-decorated doorway, he added wryly, ‘You’ll not decline a little Festival fare while you’re talking, I trust?’ Darek allowed a brief smile of acknowledgement to light up his thin, dour face.
Within minutes they had joined the others in one of the rooms of Eldric’s private quarters. It was simply decorated and well-lit with ample comfortable furniture, and Darek sat down in a capacious chair with an aura of considerable relief.
The four Lords presented a considerable contrast. Eldric, bluff, solid and open-countenanced; by a month or so the senior in years, but by far the most senior in the eyes of the people and his peers. Arinndier, some five years younger, but bigger and stronger and with the demeanour of a much younger man. Darek, thin and wiry, with a quiet, rather scholarly manner. And finally Hreldar. A real Festival Lord, as Eldric described him. Round faced and jolly. A man much given to easy and infectious laughter.
For all their contrasts however, they were bound by long ties of affection and loyalty. Ties forged mainly during the years they spent fighting shoulder to shoulder in the Morlider War, and subsequently tested and tempered by their long service together in the Geadrol.
Ironically, for four Geadrol Lords, their conference was remarkably brief.
Hrostir had little to add to the news he had brought. Leaving Vakloss at the end of his routine secondment to the Palace, he had come across the edict almost by accident, so quietly had it been posted. It came as no great surprise to any of the Lords that there had been no public outcry at such an edict. For all its virtues, there was no widespread interest in the affairs of the Geadrol and, at that time, the Grand Festival dominated all horizons. Few things were deemed so serious that they could not be left until ‘after the Festival’. Taking a copy of the edict, Hrostir had ridden post-haste to Eldric with the news rather than to his father because his estate was the nearer and because of his seniority.
He looked a little uncertainly at his father as he concluded, but Arinndier nodded his approval. ‘You heard no rumours, no palace gossip, before this happened?’ he asked. ‘Noted nothing untoward?’
Hrostir shook his head. ‘Nothing, Lord,’ he said. ‘The Lord Dan-Tor is away somewhere with a small escort, I believe; but he never celebrates the Festival anyway, as you know. Everything else was normal. Everyone was full of preparations for the Festival as usual.’
Following this, there was little any debate could yield but conjecture and concern, and after a while this became abundantly clear.
‘We’re just getting bogged down,’ said Eldric, even-tually.
He stood up and paced over to the window. The spring sun was warm and pleasant on his face. He could see some of his guests on the lawn below performing an impromptu and accelerating round dance to the accompaniment of a pipe and drum. Others stood watching, encouraging the dancers with clapping hands and shouts. Laughter filled the air as the dance headed inexorably towards chaos. ‘We must leave for Vakloss immediately,’ he said after a long pause. Then, catching Darek’s eye, ‘Or at least, first thing tomorrow. We can talk on the way and perhaps clarify our thoughts further, but we’ll neither learn nor achieve anything until we ask the King directly why he’s done this.’
The Lord Eldric’s castle was not Anderras Darion. It was a fine building raised with great skill and understand-ing, but though much younger than Anderras Darion, it looked older despite the Festival decorations currently adorning it. Its crenellations and corners had been smoothed and rounded by countless years in the cold, harsh winter winds that blew across Fyorlund, and its stone walls were pitted and blotched with lichen. Thick ivy clambered relentlessly up most of the towers, actually reaching the roofs of some of the smaller ones.
A lesser building would have seemed to be decaying but, like its Lord, the castle had a quiet, solid dignity, showing only slightly the impairments of old age, and demonstrating a robust grip on life and a capacity for continuing for some time to come.
Commander Varak stood on one of the lower levels of the castle watching the four Lords and their party dwindle into the distance as the dawn sun broke through a streaky troubled sky and filled the scene with long obscuring shadows. Idly he loosened a piece of damp moss from a joint in the top of the wall he was leaning on and flicked it over the edge to fall erratically through the early morning air into the dried moat below. Screwing up his eyes he peered into the distance, but the new light, with its harsh contrasts, had swal-lowed his last view of the pennants of the entourage.
He stood up and cleared his throat as if about to speak. It was a characteristic sound, much imitated by the cadets-when he was well out of hearing. Like the Lord Darek he was thin and wiry, but his movements were brisker and more precise than the Lord’s.
Varak was a classical example of a High Guard Commander. His subordinates both feared and loved him and the loyalty he received from them he passed unstintingly to his Lord. He lived a hard, spartan life and expected the same from his men, though it was a point of honour with him that he would never ask of them what he would not do himself.
If he had a weakness it was that he could be too rigid and narrow in his thinking and reluctant to change his ideas once they had been established. It was this rigidity that was making itself felt at the moment, as the conflicting loyalties of his Lord affected him.
The King’s action in suspending the Geadrol was without precedent, and presented problems that even he, a simple soldier, as he liked to think of himself, could see. The Lords swore their Oath of Fealty to the People and to the King as their Protector, ruling through his Lords in Geadrol. Now the King had suspended the Geadrol, by what right did he rule? Where then should the Lords place their loyalty?
He was not however disposed to dwell on these problems. They were beyond any action he could take. If he’d been asked, he’d have told the Lords that they’d only find out what was happening by asking the King to his face; but he hadn’t been asked, and it had taken them half a day to see the obvious as a result. He cleared his throat and frowned a little at his own insubordina-tion.
Turning away from the battlements, he pulled his tunic straight and brushed from his arms the grit that his leaning had lifted from the wall. Thus did Eldric’s castle shrink.
Walking through the castle he reviewed the task ahead of him. It might have taken Eldric some time to see the obvious, but he had shown his old military instinct at the very outset.
Following Hrostir’s news at the First Feast, he had told Varak to find the old plans for removing the entire household to the mountain stronghold. Varak’s surprise had shown.
‘Have a quick look at them, Varak. Just refresh your memory. See if there are any obvious improvements needed.’
His manner had been apparently offhand, but he had spoken in the Battle Language, something he had not done since the Morlider War, except on formal occasions. It was an involuntary action and Varak had been both moved and disconcerted.
He paused as he walked along a balcony overlooking the hall where most of the Festival Feasts had been held. The dawn light was growing stronger and seeping into the room, illuminating the servants who were just starting to clear the remains of the Final Feast.
Watching them he saw that one or two were still a little the worse for drink, and quite a lot of whispering and giggling rose up to greet him. Most of it seemed to come from the direction of the north wall where two men were staging a mock sword fight with some bedraggled boughs of blossom. Inevitably one of them lost his balance and, as he sought to recover it, he bumped into the Shrine. The impact was slight but an abrupt and unexpected silence fell over the room and the man, suddenly sobered, hastily inspected the Shrine for damage. His friends gathered round, anxious at this inadvertent assault on one of their Lord’s treasured personal artefacts.
Varak shook his head knowingly, and allowed him-self a brief smile. He was about to turn away when the little cluster broke up suddenly, leaving the original culprit isolated and reaching awkwardly inside the Shrine to adjust something. As they stepped back, several of the servants scribed a circle over their hearts with extended forefingers. The ancient Sign of the Ring. Voices reached up to Varak in muffled alarm.
‘The fourth figure… ’
Varak started. The hidden figure of Ethriss must have been jolted loose and fallen into view. He found his own right hand reaching up to echo the responses he had just seen and he restrained it only with an effort. Stepping back from the balcony rail, he cleared his throat in some embarrassment at having fallen victim to such a superstition. Then, sternly, he brought his mind back to the more urgent matters left to him by his Lord.
The casual instruction of a few days ago had just been made chillingly purposeful. Prior to leaving, Lord Eldric had given him quite specific orders.
‘Commander, while I’m away at Vakloss I want you to move the entire household to the mountain strong-hold. It’s just an exercise of course, but everyone will need shaking up a little after the Festival; there’s far too much inclination to turn a seven day celebration into a fourteen day one. My fellow Lords will be doing the same, and we’ll see who’s managed the most effectively when we return. Probably in a couple of weeks.’
Varak had saluted.
‘No questions, Commander?’ Eldric asked.
‘None, Lord,’ Varak replied, his eyes exposing the lie.
‘Good.’ Eldric nodded gratefully. Then again, in the Battle Language. ‘I rely on you absolutely in this matter.’
Into our mountain strongholds like rebels, was Varak’s first thought, but it passed almost immediately, to be replaced with a genuine regret.
Eldric’s an old man, he thought reproachfully. He shouldn’t have to deal with things like this. And those other three aren’t much use. Well, Arinndier’s all right, but the other two… He made a contemptuous gesture with his right hand. Thank the Guardians this house kept the old values alive. Kept a proper High Guard, well trained and disciplined. True, Arinndier kept his up to scratch, but he could not understand how someone like Lord Darek, with his quiet shrewdness, could join in the current trend to turn High Guards into ceremonial rather than combat troops.
No one threatens us, went the specious wisdom. A bit of discipline’s good for the lads, but no need to risk them in mountain training, patrolling in Narsindal, doing endless tedious duties at the bleak fortress of Narsindalvak…
The arguments rattled irritably in his head. It was all wrong; he felt it in his bones. Darek’s High Guards in their yellow liveries looked like a bunch of spring flowers, and Hreldar’s beggared description with their multi-coloured liveries and braids and laces. A good breath of mountain air would blow them on their backs, let alone a real training exercise.
Then, the unusual introspection and his considera-tion of the inadequacy of the High Guards of two such important lords, seemed to shake loose many old thoughts, and stray pieces fell into place to give him a sudden fearful insight.
The King had long since stopped The Watch-the rotation of the various High Guards as duty garrison at the great tower fortress of Narsindalvak. For genera-tions they had maintained a continuous watch over Narsindal, both from the tower itself and through their regular patrols. Now that was no more! True, the conditions in Narsindal were invariably appalling, and no patrols in Varak’s memory had ever seen Lake Kedrieth because of the mists that surrounded it and the ever-changing shape of the marshes that marked its edges. However, the patrols had kept the men in good fettle and, although they had grumbled, it had given them a feeling of continuity with the great traditions of the past, and a certain dignity.
But Varak suddenly saw the end of The Watch and the deterioration of the High Guard as part of a corruption. No one these days could believe in Sumeral and his defeat by the four Guardians and the Great Alliance, or that he might one day rise again from the depths of Lake Kedrieth. That was foolish superstition. But Narsindal was indisputably a bad place. Men had been lost there regularly. Its predominant inhabitants, the Mandrocs, were bad enough: man-like, dog-snouted savages, but there were worse things lurking in those perpetual mists.
Varak shivered slightly. He had taken many patrols into Narsindal in the past and felt in his bones that myths or no, it was wrong not to keep watch on it. Somewhere in those old stories was a hard kernel of truth that was not wisely ignored.
The word corruption lingered in his mind, and Tirke’s outburst at the First Feast rose before him-Dan-Tor, that devil’s spawn out of Narsindal, has our King strung like a puppet.
Then old habits reasserted themselves. These were not problems he could do anything about other than speak his piece when the time came. He pushed them aside vigorously, straightened up, and strode off down the sun dappled corridor, the echoes of his clicking heels hanging in the air like dust motes.