The Caller (10 page)

‘It’s all ready.’ Silva’s cook pot stood beside the fire, and now she filled three bowls with barley broth – Whisper would have to wait. A savoury, comforting smell wafted through the chill air. There were hunks of flat bread to dip. The hot food was bliss after my cold, cramped day at the cairns, and although Ean’s presence meant I could not relax my guard, eating did take away the need to talk. As we shared the meal, I wondered what had brought him here now, nearly three turnings of the moon after the fire. If he lived close by, surely he must have known where Silva was. Why hadn’t he come looking for her as soon as he heard what had happened?

‘Ean wants me to go south with him to a safer place,’ Silva said at last, setting down her empty bowl. ‘I’ve said no.’

Ean’s dark gaze moved to me, then back to her. He said nothing.

‘I explained to you, Ean,’ Silva added. ‘I can’t leave Neryn on her own. There were twelve of us before this happened. It’s not a job for one.’

Ean wanted to say something, I could see that, but he didn’t trust me. It was written all over his face. Fine; the feeling was mutual.

‘You can talk in front of Neryn,’ Silva said.

But he couldn’t, any more than I could tell him the truth about what I was. He might go straight out and denounce me to the authorities. If he was somehow associated with the rebellion, or even if he was prepared to risk helping Silva when he knew she was flouting the king’s law, he took the same risk in being open with me. I looked directly at him. ‘How can you be sure Silva would be safer in the south?’

‘This place is a ruin.’ Ean’s flat tone served to emphasise that this was the simple truth. ‘You’ll run out of food for yourselves and the stock.’

Neither of us said a thing.

‘You know the risks of what you’re doing, unless you’re stupid.’ Ean’s voice dropped to a murmur. ‘The folk of the settlement know there’s someone here, that’s how I found out where Silva was. They know someone survived. So far, they’ve kept clear because that’s safer for you and safer for them. But you’ll be found. Sooner or later, someone will come looking. You need to get away before that happens.’ He looked at me. ‘You shouldn’t have kept Silva here. She’s only young.’

And what was he, I thought, fourteen? Younger than me, most likely. A painful memory of my own brother came to me. Farral had believed himself a man at fourteen. At the hands of the Enforcers he had died a man’s death.

‘This is not Neryn’s doing,’ Silva said. ‘It’s my choice to stay here. It’s good to see you, Ean, but you shouldn’t have come. What’s dangerous for us is dangerous for you, too.’

Ean made a sound indicating exasperation. ‘You’re a child,’ he said. ‘You have no idea –’

‘Have you forgotten what happened here?’ I asked him. ‘Or did the villagers not explain to you why this house lies in ruins and there are only the two of us left? Of course Silva understands the risk.’ I stopped myself from saying more. If Ean was trustworthy, and if he really did have a safe place to take her, it would make complete sense for her to go with him. But there was the White Lady. We could not walk away and let her fade.

‘I can’t go and I won’t go.’ Silva folded her arms. ‘There’s no need to talk about it anymore. Did you bring a bedroll? If you want to stay tonight, you’ll have to sleep in with Snow and the chickens.’

‘I’m staying until you see sense,’ said Ean.

Chapter Four

A
t Winterfort, with the entire court in residence, nowhere was safe from scrutiny. When a man already lay under suspicion, the slightest hint of error was sure to reach the ears of the king. Or, more likely, those of the queen. Varda had her eye on him. He was becoming more sure of that every day. And if the queen wanted someone made an example of, the king ensured it was done. It had been so since the day they were hand-fasted. If Keldec had never met Varda, would he have become a different kind of man? What if he had married, instead, a kindly woman with no ambition? Perhaps such women never wed kings.

Over his years at court, Flint had seen how the queen shaped her husband’s thoughts and influenced his decisions. Varda liked spectacle. Blood excited her. She enjoyed watching people suffer. Above all, she thrived on being in control. And since a woman could not rule in her own right – the ancient laws of Alban forbade that – she made sure her husband ruled in the way she would.

The Caller was a new plaything for Varda, magnificent in his ability to provide her with diversions. Flint had seen him at work soon after the court moved back to Winterfort. A young man, twenty at most, nothing startling in looks – he might have been any farm hand or fisherman. The queen’s agents in the south had found him in company with a fire creature, all flame and smoke. Brydian, Varda’s councillor, had realised immediately what they had, since Brydian was something of a scholar and versed in ancient lore. So the young man, Esten, had not been summarily executed for breaking the king’s law. Instead, he’d been apprehended, questioned, and brought back to court. Not a traitor. Not a miscreant. Esten would be a tool unparalleled in the queen’s hands. Through him, she would show the people of Alban how much power the king could wield, not only over his human subjects, but also over the Good Folk.

For a tense few days, Flint had thought the king would order him to enthral Esten, so the Caller’s loyalty could be ensured. What other reason could there have been for Keldec’s insistence that his right-hand man return from the foray to Wedderburn within as short a time as possible? Despite his very public failure at last midsummer’s Gathering, Owen Swift-Sword was still the most reliable of the king’s Enthrallers. The episode with Tali had been the only time his craft had been seen to go awry. Each of the other Enthrallers, less skilled, improperly trained, had a number of disasters behind him: victims whose minds had been destroyed by the process. Most settlements in Alban housed at least one such damaged individual, a grown man or woman turned witless and wandering by an enthralment gone wrong. It was no wonder ordinary folk called the Enthrallers mind-scrapers.

So, Esten had arrived at court. The days had passed, and the Caller had not only been welcomed and made much of, he had been quickly embraced by the queen’s inner circle. The court had made its customary move from Summerfort to Winterfort as soon as the season changed, and no request for an enthralment had come, either to Flint or to anyone else. It seemed the young man was willing to do whatever he was asked to do. It was hard to believe that Esten’s canny gift was the same as Neryn’s. They were worlds apart. Neryn put her talent to work for the good of Alban, for freedom, for change, for a brave new future. She would not dream of using it to gain power or to wield terror. Neryn loved and respected the Good Folk. She understood them in all their various and wondrous forms. She used her gift only to seek wisdom, to bring folk together, to . . . No longer accurate, of course; he was deluding himself. There was a battle looming, if, of course, Tali managed to pull the disparate elements of the rebellion together by midsummer. When the time came, Neryn would have to call the Good Folk to fight, to wound, to kill, to die. Whatever path next Gathering’s confrontation took, she would come away from it carrying a heavy burden. If she survived. If any of them survived.

And he . . . he was trapped here, surrounded by comrades loyal to the king, under constant scrutiny. If Queen Varda was not watching him in person, she had her people doing it. He suspected there were some of his own kind, Enforcers, who were doing the same job when the troop rode out.

Perhaps he was foolish to hope for a message. None of the Good Folk would approach Winterfort, since the place was full of iron. Even when Stag Troop was out on patrol, uncanny folk would not come close, for the nature of the work meant everyone went heavily armed. He gave them opportunity when he could, walking out into the woods on his own with his weapons rolled into his cloak, but even then there was nothing. Yet Sage had approached him twice in the past when he was bearing knives.

The onset of winter made it unlikely Tali would use human messengers. It was a long way from Shadowfell to Winterfort, with a mountain pass to cross. Too far in the cold season, even if Tali had a chain of reliable folk all the way. Too risky, unless the matter was of utmost importance. And if messengers did not come to him, he could not send word back again. The rebels did not know about Esten. He could not warn them; Neryn could not prepare. Esten’s presence would turn next midsummer’s confrontation into disaster. It was the difference between an unlikely but possible victory and certain defeat. Worse than defeat. Annihilation. They’d all be done for: brave Tali, his beloved Neryn, the band of rebels who had shaped his destiny since he was little more than a boy, the chieftains who had pledged to stand up beside Tali’s rebel army and the men who followed them. And the Good Folk; those whom Neryn would call to fight alongside them. They, too, would be destroyed, perhaps by their own kind. It was unthinkable.

He knew what Tali would want. She’d expect him to kill Esten, despite the risk that he would be discovered. A straightforward assassination: a task well within his capabilities, if not for one thing. Brydian, too, had a canny gift, a highly unusual gift not known to many. He could throw a cloak of protection over a person, an unseen armour that no physical attack could penetrate. He used it to shield the king during his public appearances – for instance, at the Gathering.

Now Brydian was staying very close to the Caller, and Flint suspected he was under orders to keep Esten protected at all times. Unless and until Brydian let Esten go far enough from him to render the charm ineffective – the councillor’s gift did not work over a long distance – there would be no quick and covert despatch of the Caller.

He could account for Brydian first and then kill Esten, of course, but he was unlikely to get away with that, and the repercussions would be dire. Tali would expect him to sacrifice his own life for the good of the cause; it was part of the rebel code. But he’d need to be quite certain of his ability to stay silent under torture, or his will to use the packet of hemlock seeds they all carried for such an extreme. No point in this double murder if he then betrayed the tightly held secret of the planned rebellion. So. First Brydian, then Esten, then himself. He’d need to be constantly alert, ready to seize the opportunity. As for dying without seeing Neryn again, he could not let himself think of that.

He was in the stables, grooming Lightning. One or two other men were about, engaged in the same task – many horses were kept here. There were stable hands to do the job, but most of the Stag Troop men preferred to tend to their own mounts. It strengthened the bond; helped rider and horse to work as a team. The steady movement of the brush, the warmth of Lightning’s presence close to him, the relative quiet of the stables helped calm his racing thoughts. And if, even here, someone was watching him, ready to report back to Varda – perhaps that boy over there oiling harness, or the fellow from Seal Troop on the far side working on his horse’s hoofs – he would, for a little while, pretend it was not so. He would allow himself to remember last summer, and the night he and Neryn had spent lying chastely in each other’s arms, alone in a cottage with the sound of the murmuring sea beyond the shutters. His last night of peace. Her hair soft against his naked skin; her hands touching him with such tenderness. That night, he had glimpsed a future that now seemed an impossible dream.

The king had made Esten demonstrate his skill before all of them. The Caller had conjured three of the smaller Good Folk out of nothing, or so it had seemed; he had, perhaps, called them forth from somewhere in the wooded hills around Winterfort, but the three of them had not walked in through the fortress gates. They had simply appeared beside Esten, looking bewildered. Two were human-like in form; the third had a long snout, big eyes and a soft coat of dark fur. Under the wild applause of the assembled onlookers, the three had shrunk back. The furred one had screamed when the king approached to prod and examine them. Keldec had been wearing a knife at his belt. Even sheathed, it would have hurt them.

Nobody had attempted to engage the small ones in conversation. Instead, the queen had asked her Caller if he could make them dance; if he could make them fight; if he could make one of them attack an Enforcer. The resulting spectacle had been . . . He could not find the right word for it. He only knew it would have brought bitter rage to Neryn’s heart if she had seen it. He’d wanted to step in, to stop it. Instead he had stood there watching like all the others, with his jaw clenched tight over a torrent of furious words. Others, too, had found the spectacle offensive; he had seen it on their faces. But nobody had spoken out.

The three small folk had survived their ordeal, though two had been injured. Now they were locked into one of the punishment cells, with an iron chain on the door to prevent their escape. Wolf Troop had the job of guarding prisoners. The special captives had been in custody awhile. The word was, the queen went to visit them every day, with Brydian and Esten. It entertained her to toy with the small folk. All three were weakening. How could he endure this until midsummer? The days were all edgy pretence, the nights a torment of agitated wakefulness or, worse, darkly violent dreams. How had he managed to be what he was, to do what he had to do, for all these years? How had he shut down his conscience for so long?

In the past, he’d been a master of shielding what he felt. Since that day at Wedderburn, when he had so nearly escaped this travesty of a life, it had become ever harder to maintain his detached look. Now he saw a question in his comrades’ eyes as they glanced at him. Whether it was because the king had ordered him to prove his loyalty at the Gathering, or whether it was the delay in returning to court after the trip to Wedderburn – only a short delay, thanks to Rohan’s intervention, but noticed all the same – he felt he was under scrutiny even by the men of his own troop. Midsummer seemed a long time away. And yet, it would come all too quickly.