Bronze Magic (Book 1) (69 page)

Some of the tension seeped out of Waterstone.
Rainstorm glanced at the older woodman before drawing a wobbly
circle then standing back to look at it. “But you hate being under this
oath, don’t you?” Waterstone nodded briefly. “And so does Tarkyn.
What he saw in Tree Wind’s memories horrified him almost as much as
it had horrified us. Right from the start, he has known how much we
resented the oath and him. Yet, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t walk
away from it.”
North Wind had gingerly lifted himself up onto his elbows while he
listened. “But he could have isolated himself within the forest.”
“Don’t worry. He’s thought of that.” Waterstone shrugged, “But he is
vowed to protect us as we are to protect him. Anyway, that’s no life for
a young man to be totally isolated. This isn’t just a few weeks or months
we’re talking about here. It’s his whole life.”
Rainstorm frowned, “I hadn’t really thought about all that. It must
have been hard for him to have had all of you hating him at the start.”
“It was and it still is.” Waterstone sighed, “And you and I haven’t made
it any easier for him with our recent reactions. And he knows he is going
to have to face that in scores of other woodfolk as they realise they have
come under the oath.” Waterstone took a couple of paces then swung
back around, hands on hips, “You know, the thing I detest most about
the oath is that it muddies my friendship with Tarkyn. If I protect him
or help him out of friendship, how does he know it’s not just because of
the oath?”
Rainstorm smiled, “Don’t worry. He knows. You wouldn’t be as nice
about it, if it were because of the oath.”
Waterstone gave a short laugh, “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. You’re
probably right.” He took his arms down from his hips and grimaced,
“But the other thing that happens is my resentment wells up and I hurt
him when he’s just trying to have a normal conversation with me.”
“But surely he understands…” began Rainstorm.
“Yes and no,” Waterstone’s words unknowingly echoed Danton’s;
“In his head, Tarkyn understands. Stormaway warned him to make
allowances for resentment. But in his heart, he takes it personally. You
can see him struggling to deal with it.” He looked from one to the other
of them. “In the end, he’s just a young man not much older than you.
You might think you have the world against you at times, Rainstorm,
but Tarkyn really does. At least, he did. I think he has managed to get
a lot of people on side as they have come to know him. But as North
Wind has so ably demonstrated, he still has a long way to go. I wouldn’t
be Tarkyn, for all the trees in the forest.”
Rainstorm shook his head in sympathy, “No, it must be tough, fielding
all that resentment… and now there’s going to be more.”
“I feel bad now,” stammered North Wind.
“Good,” replied Waterstone shortly.
“I don’t mean physically. I feel bad because you think I’ve betrayed
Tarkyn. When I said his loss would be our gain, I was thinking about
the forest’s safety and the woodfolk’s independence. Tarkyn’s existence
places them both in jeopardy. It’s the concept of him that I was talking
about, not the man himself.” He eyed Waterstone nervously, “Do you
understand?”
Waterstone let out a pent up breath. “Yes, I do understand. Even
Tarkyn himself gets confused about that. But do you understand that the
concept and the man are inseparable? If you betray one, you betray the
other. Tarkyn doesn’t like it. You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.
To support him as a person, at the very least you have to accept him for
what he is, even if you don’t like it.”
“If you go around saying his loss would be our gain, you’ll inflame
people against him again,” put in Rainstorm. “We’re stuck with him. He’s
stuck with us. You know from talking to him that he’s doing his level best
to make the situation as bearable as possible for everyone. We might as
well just get on with it and support him.”
Waterstone raised his eyebrows, “You never cease to amaze me,
Rainstorm.”
“Get used to it, old man. Something Tarkyn said to me made me
realise that what I think is okay. I just need to figure out how to say it, so
people will listen to me.”
Waterstone gave a wry smile. “I’m not sure that calling me old man is
going to get me on side.”
Rainstorm chuckled. “You love it, really. Anyway, you’re twice our ages.”
“That does not make me old.”
The young woodman grinned unrepentantly, “It does from where I’m
sitting. Twenty is old. Thirty five is positively decrepit.”
A short time later Tarkyn, sitting in the shade of an old oak, having a
break from reconnoitring, watched the trio talking amongst themselves
as they returned from creating the targets. He knew that Rainstorm
and the oath would have been the centre of their discussion. The three
woodmen parted company and North Wind headed over in his general
direction. As he came nearer, Tarkyn saw his cut lip and the beginnings
of bruising on his jaw.
Tarkyn called out to him, “North Wind. What have you done to
yourself? Do you want me to fix your lip?”
North Wind, who was feeling guilty and that he had more or less
earned his sore face replied shortly, “No thanks. I can look after myself.”
“I’m sure you can.” In one short phrase, Tarkyn’s friendliness faded to
constraint.
North Wind veered off and passed him without another word. Tarkyn
watched his retreating back and wondered what the three of them had
been saying. After the unexplained change in atmosphere this morning,
North Wind’s response to him made his stomach tighten. He grunted
and, giving himself a small mental shake, returned to his view of the
encampment through the crow’s eyes. The first sight that met his eyes was
Andoran and Sargon.
anton’s face went white with shock and his mouth thinned.
Stormaway became more self-effacing than ever. Andoran and
Sargon’s faces broke into smiles.
“Danton. Fancy seeing you here!” said Andoran cheerfully, tossing
his head to flick his mop of unruly red hair falling out of his eyes.
“This is great!” He frowned. “Who’s your friend?” he added less
enthusiastically.
Danton had recovered himself sufficiently to produce a friendly smile,
“This fellow here is Threadneedle.” He said, inventing freely. “He is a
tailor, you know. Met him on the way to the camp here.”
Andoran laughed, “A tailor, eh? With a name like Threadneedle, I
never would have guessed.” Andoran sketched an ironic bow, “An honour
to meet you, sir. I am Andoran and this is my friend, Sargon.”
Stormaway bowed to them both, “An honour, my lords.” He glanced
at Danton. “If you’ll excuse me, sirs, I have a few things to sort out.
Perhaps I will see you later.”
“Perhaps,” replied Sargon, his eyebrows slightly raised at the tailor’s
temerity.
“Well,” said Andoran, watching Stormaway’s retreating figure. “I
don’t think your friend could manage the excitement of three exalted
personages all at once. Perhaps one is his limit.”
Danton shook his head, smiling. “I think you may be right.” He
turned back to them. “So, how are you both? It is good to see you after
all this time. What have you been up to?”
Sargon shrugged. “This and that. We have thrown our lot in with these
people for the time being.” He looked down at himself in his grey and
blue jacket and dark blue trousers. “The uniforms are a bit of a deterrent
but we are managing to overlook them as much as possible. Other than
that, they seem a friendly team.”
“So, what are you doing here?” asked Andoran.
Deciding that, as far as possible, honesty was the best policy, Danton
replied, “I don’t really know yet. I only arrived here this afternoon.”
“So, were you amongst a group of travellers that was attacked? That’s
how most people get here.”
“Is it?” Danton put his head on one side. “No. I just fell in with a
column of people and wandered in here with them. I’m actually taking
some time out to visit my grandmother down in the southwest. But I’m
in no great hurry. So I thought I’d spend a day or two here.”
Andoran and Sargon lead Danton to a nearby campfire. Andoran
found a bottle of wine and poured measures into three glasses as they
spoke. He handed Danton a glass as he sat down on a sturdy wooden
chair, “That was a bad business with the prince, wasn’t it?” he said,
shaking his head.
“Yes, terrible,” replied Danton ambiguously, unsure how to play it.
Sargon leaned forward. “You know, he must have been going off
balance for a while and none of us noticed it.” He waved a hand. “I
mean, look at the damage he wrought at the tournament.” He shook his
head sadly, “And then, to attack all those guards in the palace. He killed
a couple of my friends, you know. I admit I was surprised. Tarkyn never
seemed to be aggressive before.”
Danton frowned thoughtfully, “You did have to be careful of him
when he was angry, don’t you think?”
“True,” agreed Andoran. He took a sip of his wine. “I blame his
brothers, though.”
Danton raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You do?”
“Oh yes. They should have pulled Tarkyn into line a lot earlier. You can’t
have a rogue sorcerer like that running free in society and endangering
everyone’s lives. Surely they must have realised, long before it got to that
point.”
“Well, to be fair to them, I didn’t realise anything was wrong earlier
and I probably spent more time with Tarkyn than his brothers did,” said
Danton. He shrugged, “Perhaps the strain of all those years of intrigue
and being discounted within the family took their toll on him and he
finally cracked.”
Sargon leant back in his chair and said disgustedly, “Danton, you are
such a soft touch. Stop feeling sorry for him. Tarkyn was a spoilt brat.
He had everything any of us could wish for.” He leant forward again, his
wavy brown hair swinging forward. His grey eyes met Danton’s and he
spoke in an undertone, “More likely heredity, if you ask me. They’re all a
bit unstable in that family. Look at his brothers. Rampant jealousy from
one and deliberate goading from the other. I ask you, is that any way to
run a kingdom?”
Andoran gave a short laugh and waved his glass around, “Still, we can’t
complain too much. It does provide opportunities.”
“Hmph. Not with Tarkyn anymore, it doesn’t.” said Danton shortly.
Sargon sighed, “No. Pity about that. We were well placed with him.”
Sargon gave Danton a measuring look, “You’re not looking for him, are
you?”
“Me?” asked Danton frowning. “What would be the point?”
Andoran shrugged, “The reward, for one thing. Actually that would be
the only point, when you think about it. But the reward would definitely
be worth it.”
Danton kept his eyes on his wine. “I admit I’ve thought about it. He
could be such an arrogant bastard, couldn’t he? It would serve him right.”
He looked up at them and grinned, “It could be a final offering he made
to us, his loyal followers, if we got the reward for bringing him in.”
“That is a slight contradiction in terms, his loyal followers turning him
in,” objected Sargon with a smile. “But he has betrayed us by deserting
us. So fair is fair.” He shrugged, “Besides it would be doing a public
service, ridding the world of a rogue sorcerer.”
“Surely they would just imprison him, not kill him?” queried Danton.
“I think imprisonment was the sentence after the tournament,” replied
Andoran. “No half measures now. They want the prince’s head after the
deaths in the Great Hall.”
Danton’s eyes widened. “Oh, I see.”
“That wouldn’t worry you, would it?” Sargon’s eyes had narrowed.
Danton gave his head a little shake and managed a smile, “No, not
at all. I was just surprised, that’s all. I left Tormadell soon after all this
happened. So I haven’t kept in touch with developments.”
“So, any idea where he might be?” asked Andoran casually.
Danton ran his eyes around the encampment. “Plenty of people here.
Have you asked around? Someone might have seen him.” Thinking back
to conversations he had had with Stormaway, he said, “I heard from some
people back down the road a bit that the prince had been sighted in the
northwest, maybe heading for the coast. Have you heard anything like
that?”
Andoran and Sargon glanced at each other. “Yes,” said Andoran. “We’d
heard something like that, but that was a couple of weeks ago. He may
well have left the country by now.”
“Oh well,” Danton put a note of disappointment into his voice, “If
that’s the case, we’ll never catch him. Not unless he comes back, and I
can’t imagine that he would.” He shrugged, “I’m not so desperate to get
the bounty that I would travel overseas to trap him.”
“That’s pretty much the same conclusion that we’ve drawn. I just
thought you might have heard something different, that’s all.” Andoran
poured them all another wine and swept the hand holding the bottle in a
wide arc, “So, here we are, in the midst of Plan B.”
“And what is Plan B exactly?” asked Danton.
Sargon sipped his wine and looked at Danton. “You may be surprised at
this but we are helping people who have been attacked on the road or on
their farms by brigands. The king has been so busy antagonising his brother
that he has forgotten to look after his subjects. A lot of people are being
attacked but there are few brigands being brought to justice. The people
you see around you have decided to take the law into their own hands to
protect innocent travellers and farmers by fighting against the brigands.”
Danton frowned sceptically, “And who is financing all this? You can’t
spend your life on a good cause without food in your belly and money
in your pocket.”
“Danton, Danton.” Andoran shook his head sadly, “I’m surprised at
you. So mercenary.”
A little smile played around Danton’s mouth. “Come on. Out with it.
What’s in it for you two?”
Andoran and Sargon both rocked back with laughter.
“Danton. You should have more faith in your fellow man,” said Sargon,
smiling. He shrugged, “Well, as it turns out, the fellow who is financing
this caper is paying experienced officers, like ourselves, good money to
organise and train up the rabble.”