The call of the sword tcoh-1 Read online

  Spreading his wings he craned forward and, resting on the warm air that filled the cavernous roof, he floated silently into the void. With barely a twitch of his delicate feathers he spiralled gracefully down through the sun-striped air and came to rest a little way in front of Hawklan. The landing was not quite as graceful as the flight, and certainly not as quiet, for Gavor’s wooden leg was apt to give him trouble from time to time. Not least when he wished it to.

  The hollow thud of Gavor’s landing and the regular clunk of his wooden leg made Hawklan lift his head to look at the approaching bird. It stopped in front of him and returned his gaze.

  ‘Rrrukk,’ it said. Hawklan did not speak.

  ‘Rrrukk,’ it repeated. A slight smile flickered in Hawklan’s eyes and spread reluctantly across his face.

  ‘Very good, Gavor,’ he said. ‘Very good. Your bird impressions are coming on very nicely. You will be in demand at the next village fair. How’s the nightingale coming along? Is your throat still sore?’

  Gavor raised his head with regal disdain.

  ‘Dear boy,’ came his cultured tones. ‘Such irony doesn’t become you. It really isn’t your style.’

  ‘I do apologize,’ said Hawklan with patent insincer-ity, laying a hand on his chest. ‘Please accept my humblest apologies. I was overwhelmed by the sight of you. May I ask to what do we owe the pleasure of your august presence at our repast?’

  Gavor maintained his hauteur. ‘You sighed, dear boy. You sighed.’

  Hawklan looked at the bird quizzically and suspi-ciously.

  Gavor shrugged. ‘You sighed,’ he repeated. ‘There I was. Up in the rafters. Brooding, as it were. Contemplat-ing the mysteries of the universe. When my reverie was shattered by this heart-rending sigh soaring up through the hall. "Ah, such pain," I thought. "My friend and saviour is being crushed under some unbearable burden. I must help him." And down I come. And what do I get? Sarcasm-base ingratitude. There’s friendship for you.’

  ‘I’m touched by your concern, Gavor,’ said Hawklan. ‘But I didn’t sigh.’

  Gavor turned away and started clunking up and down the table, pecking at various morsels left in the silver dishes. He paused to swallow something.

  ‘Ah yes you did, my friend. Most distinctly. Mind you, I will admit I’ve never actually heard anyone sigh before, but I know what one sounds like. I’ve read about them on the Gate.’ He levelled a wing at Hawklan. ‘And what you produced was a sigh. Quite unequivocally. A sigh.’

  He paused and rooted out a piece of meat.

  ‘Mm. Delicious,’ he said. ‘My compliments to the cook. Loman’s cooking is improving noticeably-for a castellan.’

  ‘If Loman hears you calling him a cook, we’ll be eating raven pie for a week,’ said Hawklan.

  Gavor ignored the comment. ‘As I was saying,’ he continued. ‘You sighed, Hawklan. A great heaving outpouring of despair. Almost knocked me off my perch. So I’ve come to see what’s wrong, dear boy. If I allow you to get away with sighing, you’ll be groaning next, and you’ve no idea how it echoes up there. I really can’t preen myself if you’re going to assail me with such a tragic cacophony.’

  Hawklan laughed. ‘I may concede that perhaps I breathed out rather heavily, but I give you my solemn promise that I will not allow it to degenerate into groaning. I’ve far too much respect for your feathers.’

  ‘Huh,’ Gavor grunted, cracking a nut with a shud-dering blow of his great black beak. ‘You’ve been very quiet recently. Not that you were ever particularly raucous. But you’ve been… solemn. Sad almost.’ Gavor’s tone had changed. ‘What’s the matter, Hawk-lan?’ he asked suddenly, with concern.

  Hawklan stood up, pushing the heavy chair back as he did. He was a tall man, but lean and spare. His face looked weathered, yet ageless and relaxed, its dominant feature being bright green penetrating eyes. It was the combination of these eyes with the angular, high cheek-boned face and prominent nose that had prompted Gavor to call him ‘Hawklan’ when they first met, twenty years ago, in the snow-filled valleys to the north. He, Gavor, dying, with his leg caught in an old, forgotten trap, and the strange quiet man with no memory, who freed him and nursed him to health with magical hands.

  Hawklan shrugged his shoulders as he walked away from the table. Gavor, partly mistaking the gesture and partly to be nearer his friend, glided after him with an imperceptible movement of his wings. There was no graceless landing here, as his good foot closed gently on Hawklan’s shoulder and his wings folded to avoid Hawklan’s head.

  Hawklan tapped the black beak gently with his fin-ger. ‘You’ve known me too long, Gavor,’ he said.

  Gavor cocked his head on one side. ‘As long as you’ve known yourself, dear boy. Now tell all, do.’

  Hawklan’s eyes flitted briefly to the round window with its coloured glass picture.

  ‘Ah,’ said Gavor, catching the movement. ‘A sensi-tive artist and a sad tale from harsher times. But their pain is long over, and would ever have been beyond your powers.’

  ‘Look at it, Gavor. Look at the background. Tell me what you see.’

  Gavor jumped off Hawklan’s shoulder, dipped al-most to the floor, and then soared up towards the window, his black plumage iridescent with purples and blues as he cut through the beam of sunlight.

  ‘What do you see?’ called Hawklan.

  ‘Fields, dwellings, hills. The closer I look, the more I can see. It’s a remarkable piece of craftsmanship.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Sky and clouds.’

  ‘On the horizon, Gavor. In the far distance.’

  Gavor turned over in mid-air and flew slowly past the window. A small feather drifted down.

  ‘Black clouds, Hawklan. Just on the horizon-very symbolic.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s settled in my mind and won’t go away. Black clouds in the distance. Foreboding. Like some-thing in the corner of your eye that disappears when you look directly at it.’

  Gavor landed back on Hawklan’s shoulder. He knew his friend was not given to self-indulgent flirtations with matters dark, and he dismissed immediately any intention of teasing him out of his mood. It was, however, Hawklan who initiated the change.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me it’s Spring, and that I should get a wife?’ he asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact I was, dear boy,’ replied Gavor with mock testiness. ‘But you’ve spoilt the surprise.’

  ‘Some surprise. You usually give me the benefit of your highly dubious experience in these matters every Spring. While you have the wind left, that is’

  Gavor shook his head indignantly. ‘I’m a creature of wide but discerning tastes,’ he said. ‘Not to say stamina. I never lose my wind.’

  He saw that Hawklan’s mood was passing.

  ‘I fail to see why I should allow myself to be dis-tressed by your peculiar lack of interest in such matters, dear boy. It’s not natural. You’re bound to have gloomy thoughts.’

  Hawklan paused and smiled resignedly. ‘Gloomy thoughts I could deal with, Gavor. But vague presenti-ments… ’

  Gavor took off again and flew in great arcs around the hall.

  ‘Hawklan,’ he shouted. ‘You know there’s only one thing you can do with a presentiment, don’t you?’

  Hawklan stared up at him, black and shining, flit-ting in and out of the roof beams and sunbeams. He swooped down close.

  ‘Wait, dear boy. Wait.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Hawklan. ‘There is nothing else I can do really.’

  ‘Of course I’m right, dear boy,’ came the echoing reply from the rafters. ‘Always am. And I’m right about you finding a woman. Oh, excuse me, a spider.’

  There was a brief scuffle overhead, and then Gavor glided into view again. He perched on a high window ledge and looked out.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘talking of women. Look who’s com-ing across the courtyard in a hurry. Hair rivalling the sunshine, mouth like winter berries, and a grace of movement that not even my
words can encompass.’

  He sighed massively. ‘I tell you, Hawklan, if I were a man… or she a bird… ’

  ‘Gavor!’ said Hawklan menacingly, interrupting his friend’s lecherous flow.

  ‘I know, dear boy. Proud father and all that. Gavor for the pot, etc, etc.’

  ‘Yes. And I’d help him pluck you.’

  ‘More ingratitude. Well, I fear you’re beyond my aid, so I’m off to the… er… north tower, I think, today. To… a friend. If anyone wants me I’ll be back later.’ He paused and looked down at his friend below, his head on one side, as if listening to some far off voice. ‘Wait, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘That’s all you can do. But watch your back.’

  And then he was gone, into the sunlit air; a dwin-dling black spot against the many towers of the castle and the blue spring sky.

  Hawklan’s brow wrinkled slightly then he smiled and shrugged off the last of his mood. Outside, in the corridor approaching the entrance to the hall, he heard Tirilen’s light and confident footsteps. He wondered why she was hurrying, and instinctively straightened his long habit as he walked across the hall to greet her.

  Chapter 2

  Pedhavin was a village of several thousand souls, and as such was quite large by the standards of Orthlund.

  It was situated at a crossroads. The River Road ran east to west, starting as a narrow track wending a weary way over the mountains from the Decmilloith of Riddin, before becoming a wide road to sweep across Orthlund, and eventually fade away near the banks of the Great River in the west.

  The other road ran north to south, and skirted the western edge of the mountains. It was known simply as the Pedhavin Road; at least, near Pedhavin it was. Elsewhere it bore different names, dependent on the whims of the local population.

  As with Anderras Darion, no one knew who had built the roads, or why; but also like the castle, they were made by a people with skills now lost. Innumerable small blocks butted together so tightly that the joints between them could scarcely be seen, let alone felt under the feet. Joints so tight that not even the most vigorous of weeds could find a roothold.

  Not that these two roads were in any way unique. Almost all the roads that criss-crossed Orthlund were similarly built, and provided a network for travel far beyond the needs of the Orthlundyn. Only towards the borders of the country did the roads begin to deterio-rate, particularly in the west, near the Great River. But the Orthlundyn rarely travelled, even in their own land, and such deterioration was of no interest to them.

  The houses of Pedhavin were, for the most part, two storeys high, built in stone, and crowned with low-pitched roofs which jutted out at eaves level like so many resolute chins. They were scattered indiscrimi-nately about the slopes beneath the castle, forming a rambling maze of little streets and open squares and courtyards, unadorned by tree or garden.

  They all bore a similarity of style, but individually were very different. The inhabitants of Pedhavin were mainly farming people, as were most of the Orthlundyn, but their passion was away from the changing mysteries of growth and decay, away from the yielding of grasses and soil. It was carving. Carving in the hard mountain rock, permanent and solid. Carving with subtle techniques nurtured and preserved by the Carvers’ Guild, a meritocracy appointed by public acclaim, and the nearest thing the Orthlundyn had to a public institution. Lintels, arches, thresholds, balconies, walls and roofs throughout Orthlund all bore testimony to this passion.

  In their farming was their shared peace, their com-mon wealth, but in their carving was their individuality, strong and determined. There was an ancient and watchful patience in the Orthlundyn, and nowhere was it more evident than in the carvings that festooned the houses of Pedhavin.

  * * * *

  One day, down the Pedhavin Road and into this quiet village, shadowed and lit by the spring sunshine, came a tinker, bowed under an enormous double pack, looking like a creature from legend.

  While Hawklan sat musing in his dining hall, and Gavor sat drowsily on a high beam, this tinker was entertaining a crowd on the green near the crossroads.

  He was a strange-looking creature, dressed in a tunic that had more coloured patches than original material, with a similarly tailored cloak and a sharp nebbed hat sporting a prodigious many-coloured feather. His odd appearance was further enhanced by his posture, with his neck craning forward, one shoulder higher than the other and a bending at the waist as if he were eternally preparing to pick something off the ground. His head jerked this way and that, as did his eyes, although frequently head and eyes went in different directions. His long arms bore long hands with long bony fingers, and all twitched as much as his head. Then his thin, tight clad legs would bend and flex in such a way that watchers were inclined to put their hands over their ears in anticipation of the great cracking that their appearance indicated they might make.

  With an elegant flourish he produced a shimmering cloth, and with practiced hands laid it out on the ground, hopping round it jerkily and flicking out creases here and there. Then another and another, pausing only to wink broadly at one of the silent, gathering crowd, and to expose two bright white rows of teeth shining in his brown, wrinkled face. It was a smile that few could resist.

  Then he plunged into his voluminous pack and waited for a moment with his arms immersed, sweeping his smile across his entire audience. With a slight movement of his head, he mimicked their own involun-tary craning curiosity. The adults reflected his smile knowingly back at him and the children laughed, the strangeness of the man beginning to fade. The Orthlundyn were reserved, but neither unfriendly nor inhospitable.

  Abruptly, there were more flourishes, and even more frenzied activity, and all manner of things started to appear on the three cloths. As they appeared, so the reserve of the crowd faded further, and as people started to gossip and point, so the tinker started to underscore his actions with a jerky stream of staccato chatter delivered in a high creaking voice that seemed to fit his creaking shape.

  ‘Here, ladies. Laces from the north and the south. Ribbons woven and dyed by the Eirthlundyn over the Great River.’

  He draped the laces around the necks of the women, and whirled the coloured ribbons high and twisting into the air, as he twisted himself in and out of the crowd.

  ‘Not many Eirthlundyn left now, but they know how to adorn their women,’ he noted more confidentially to the men. ‘And, ladies. These perfumes.’

  Small crystal bottles appeared from various myste-rious pockets in his tattered tunic, and like the ribbons and laces they were handed around indiscriminately. He looked pensively at one.

  ‘Such a journey to bring these to you, dear ladies; such a journey as you could not imagine. From rare hot lands that burned and wrinkled my skin to its present delicate leathery hue. And what it did to my feet, I must walk on, but we need not dwell on. And my pocket. Ah… But I was ever foolish in such matters, and their women kept so fair and beautiful in that terrible sun. How could I resist? Only the women of Pedhavin are worthy of such treasures I thought, and here I am with the most subtle and fragrant perfumes you will ever know.’

  Then again, confidentially. ‘With these, no man will be able to resist you, ladies.’

  As the hubbub of the crowd grew and the women started to dab themselves with perfume and hold the ribbons and laces against one another, heads cocked critically, the tinker deftly isolated the men like a sheepdog cutting out sheep from a flock.

  ‘For the ladies, gentlemen, the finery and the frip-pery, but for you… ‘ More plunging in the pack. ‘For you… ’

  Chisels and knives and all manner of tools ap-peared.

  ‘Steel such as you’ve never seen. Edges that even your Pedhavin stone won’t easily turn. Careful, sir. When Derimot Findeel Dan-Tor says edge, he means edge. You’ll lose your finger and not even know it’s gone.’

  ‘Hawklan will put it back on for me,’ laughed the young man who was holding the knife, and his friends joined in. However, he eased the knife back into i
ts carved leather sheath very carefully.

  ‘From Riddin sir, the leather. The finest leather you could possibly find. No one works leather like the Riddinvolk.’ Then he rested his hand on the young man’s arm.

  ‘Hawklan, sir? Who is he?’

  The young man turned and pointed up the hill to the castle.

  ‘Our healer. That’s his castle up there.’

  ‘His castle?’ said the tinker, eyes widening. The young man nodded.

  ‘Ah,’ said the tinker with a great exhalation. ‘I was going to ask you whether the great lord might allow me in to show my humble wares to his servants, and you tell me that this splendid castle houses only a healer.’ His voice became almost contemptuous. ‘A mixer of herbs and stitcher of gashes.’ He shook his head. ‘Orthlund is a strange place.’

  An older man caught his eye. ‘We have no lords in Orthlund, tinker… Derimot,’ he said in a friendly, but firm tone. ‘No man holds sway over another here. Hawklan had the key to open Anderras Darion when he came, and he speaks nothing of his past, so we respect his wish. He’s a most exceptional healer. And much loved.’ He looked significantly at the tinker who was still for a moment before bowing his head and twisting it round to look up at the man.

  ‘Had the key when he arrived?’ he said quietly. The man nodded.

  Then, like a wave returning down the shore to the sea after lingering at the storm line, the tinker burst into movement again.

  ‘I meant no offence, sir. I’m much travelled, and not all healers are deserving of honours by any means. In other lands, such a castle would house a most mighty Lord, with many servants, and… ’ he winked, ‘many needs.’

  So Derimot Findeel Dan-Tor flitted through the crowd gathered around his three cloths, gangling like a huge, amiable and multi-coloured spider. Chattering endlessly, bartering and bantering, as soft hands tested linens and silks, and soft eyes looked knowingly as rare perfumes were bought. Chattering, as brown, experi-enced hands examined chisels and sickles, and brown voices asked cautious questions, carefully trying to hide the desires bred from the love of the land and the love of the carving that saw fulfilment in the glitter of the shining tools.