The Caller (49 page)

‘My lords. My ladies. People of Alban.’

My heart gave a great leap. The voice was Flint’s. People made way as he came to the front of the crowd, supported by a Wolf Troop man on one side, and on the other, the rocky being who not so long ago had tried to kill him. His eyes were masked with swollen red, his face was marked by the rents of that great claw, his clothing hung in tatters. But he was alive. I put a hand in front of my mouth to stifle a wrenching sob of relief.

‘I understand your need to see punishment meted out against this man who has so wronged you, and who has so wronged Alban,’ Flint said, his voice growing stronger. ‘It would be easy to do as you ask and string him up right now, so you could watch him die and reassure yourselves that he was truly gone forever. It is not for me to decide what becomes of him. But I would ask that you consider this: if we satisfy our need for quick and bloody resolution of our grievance, are we not showing ourselves to be no better than he is?’ His eyes were on Keldec, and the look in them was not of hatred or resentment, but of compassion. ‘This should be given time,’ he went on. ‘Time for all of us to come to terms with the great change that has occurred today. Time for us to think on loyalty and on the reasons why we sometimes obey orders when we know in our hearts that they are wrong. Lannan is wise in asking for due process. The king and queen and their advisers should be held in secure custody until the regency is established, then tried in an open hearing. If the verdict of that hearing is death, so be it.’ A pause; nobody spoke. ‘Each one of us has in him the capacity to do good or ill,’ he said. ‘Each of us bears some spark of greater things.’ He looked up at the Guardians. ‘Not all of us manage to find that spark. Not all of us keep it alive. But even he, even this tyrant, has the ability to change. At least give him time to contemplate what he has wrought here.’

I glanced at Keldec and saw to my astonishment that tears were rolling down his face. Varda was quivering with rage; a red flush stained her pale cheeks. Brydian sat with his head in his hands.

‘What place of incarceration would be strong enough to hold such a man?’ asked Gormal. ‘And which of us would want to keep him?’

‘Entrust your king to me.’ It was the Lord of the North who spoke. ‘In my hall there are many chambers, and all of them are guarded by magic. I will keep him safe until you are ready.’

‘And the queen?’ asked Lannan.

‘Oh, leave her to me,’ said the Master of Shadows. ‘My folk will have a fine appreciation of the task.’

‘I’ll house the councillors and the Caller,’ offered Ness of Corriedale.

‘This fellow’s deid.’ Sage spoke flatly, from where she stood beside Esten’s limp figure.

Had Esten’s last attempt to call stretched his body and mind beyond endurance? Or had someone from Stag Troop helped matters along with a pair of thumbs to the neck, choosing a moment when people’s attention was elsewhere? Had Brydian removed the protective shield once it became clear the king’s Caller was no longer useful? I tried to feel sorrow for a man who had been more misguided than bad, but right now my head was swirling and everything had started to turn in circles around me. The White Lady was saying something, but her voice kept fading, and then everything else was slipping away, and I thought,
Maybe I am dying too. Maybe that’s what happens when Callers overreach themselves . . .

Chapter Fifteen

M
y eyes struggled open. Dim light. Quiet. Somewhere familiar, indoors. I was bone tired, my aching body already tugging me back toward sleep. But I could not sleep, something had happened, something important . . . I sat up with a start, and everything spun around me.

‘Slowly, Ellida. Or should that be Neryn?’

Toleg was sitting on the side of the pallet, reaching out to steady me with a hand on the shoulder. I breathed, blinked, came piece by piece back to myself. I was in the infirmary, on one of the beds reserved for the sick.

‘I was getting concerned,’ Toleg said with a smile. ‘You’ve taken a long time to come back to us.’ He peered into my eyes, then got up and fetched a water skin. ‘Drink. It will help the headache.’

The headache was a dull throbbing, not unbearable, but enough to make me crave the oblivion of sleep.

‘Best if you stay awake now,’ Toleg said. ‘Drink more water, eat a little. There are rather a lot of folk waiting to talk to you. But I’ve only let one of them in.’

I turned my head, and there was Flint sitting on the next pallet, a ghost in borrowed clothing – Gormal’s green – with the claw marks livid across his face. The wounds had been cleaned and salved. Within the mask of bruising, his grey eyes gazed at me steadily. There was no need for him to say a word.

‘It’s true, then.’ My voice came out as weak as a kitten’s mew. ‘We’ve really done it. The rebellion’s over.’

‘I’m still finding it hard to believe.’ Flint rose and came over to take Toleg’s place beside me. ‘But yes, it is true. A new Alban. The place of justice and peace we longed for. Really here. Not a hopeless dream but . . . tomorrow and the next day and all the days after. I thought you would never wake up.’

Through the fog of weariness I felt warmth stealing through me. Tomorrow. The time after. Perhaps, until now, I had not truly believed there would be a future for the two of us beyond today.

‘I’d best go.’ Toleg picked up a laden basket. ‘We’re tending to the wounded in the annexe, since there are so many. Scia’s down there with the other healers; they’ll be needing me. Send a guard if you want me, there are men on the door.’

‘How many were injured?’ How could I hold so much happiness and so much sorrow at the same time? ‘I should come and help –’

Toleg halted in the doorway. ‘You’ll stay here, the two of you, and that’s an order. Eat, drink, talk about something inconsequential or don’t talk at all. And don’t let too many folk in at once. You’re worn out.’

He went out, shutting the door behind him. I sat up, and Flint’s arms came around me. He held me gently, as if he feared I might break or disappear. I knew how he felt. I could not help wondering if it was all a dream, and I would wake up in the women’s quarters to find midsummer was still to come. For a while I let myself drift in the warmth of his embrace, hardly able to believe we were free to touch at last, free to speak without watching every word. Then I made myself say what must be said. ‘Toleg didn’t answer my question. How many were killed?’

‘Toleg said you should eat first, and that was sensible advice, dear one. Let me fetch the tray.’

A flask of mead, a platter of delicate little cakes, some bread and sliced mutton, fruit in honey syrup. A feast for an invalid. With so many out there hurt and broken, it did not seem right to eat it.

‘A bite or two, Neryn. It’s good for you.’

I nibbled obediently. ‘Don’t try to soften the truth for me,’ I said. ‘If friends have been killed, I want to know. I saw Whisper die. I saw Andra cut down on the field. Who else?’

‘Both Brocc and Ardon. Those deaths lie heaviest on me, since I brought the two of them back from enthralment only to see them slain trying to protect me.’

‘You
what
?’

‘I had wondered for a long time if the enthralment charm could be reversed. It was not something my mentor ever taught me or spoke about – it was not relevant to the true practice of mind-mending. Rohan convinced me to try it, thinking my guards might be prepared to set me free if I could break their loyalty to the king.’ He looked down at his hands, avoiding my eye. ‘There was no certainty that it would work at all, or that if it did, they would not go straight away to report me to Keldec. In their situation, I believe my strongest feeling would be anger at those who enthralled me in the first place. But Brocc and Ardon kept their anger for the king. They chose to stand alongside us at the end. For that, they paid with their lives.’

‘You didn’t try to escape once you’d reversed the enthralment?’

‘That was what Rohan intended. But I couldn’t do it. I needed to be there. I wanted Keldec to hear those words from my lips, even if he killed me for it.’

‘So that was why Rohan wanted a double dose of Oblivion. In fact, enough for four more men.’

‘Our two enthralled men from Stag Troop were also treated. They, too, chose forgiveness over anger. Both survived the battle.’ He sounded weary to death. Weighed down by sorrow.

‘Who else has been killed?’

He told me. The Shadowfell rebels had lost not only Andra, but nine others, including Dervla and Gort. And Galany had not been the only friend I had among the Enforcers who had fallen today; many had lost their lives. It made no difference which side of the battle they had been on. Only that they had fought bravely, and that they were gone.

‘I thought Andra was invincible,’ I said, wiping away tears.

‘There’s more, Neryn. Take a sip of the mead, that’s it.’

I waited.

‘I’m afraid Morven is dead,’ he said. ‘He was among those found on the field afterwards. I’m sorry.’

‘His real name was Brenn.’ A brave man. A sweet, good, funny man. A stalwart friend and a courageous rebel. If he had not volunteered to come with me, he would still be alive. ‘What of your comrades in Stag Troop?’

‘Stag Troop avoided the worst of it. Rohan planned their role; he wanted to make quite sure the king did not escape justice. Not that all of them knew what was coming. But they trust me, and they trust him. The Wolves were the same. Becoming sickened by the loss of good men over the years; growing weary of the mad decisions the king foisted on us. Other troops also had their dissenters – the Seals, the Bulls. Obedience goes only so far. Galany was a great loss. He and I clashed often over the years, but at the end he was a strong voice for truth.’ He fell silent for a little, then said, ‘The men have been talking to me about you. Asking me whether a Caller can influence human folk as well as Good Folk. They’ve been saying things changed here from the day you first arrived, even when they hardly knew you existed. You became their friend, and men who not so long ago were obedient to the king’s orders, misguided as those orders might be, became open to thoughts of freedom and justice, even though you never spoke a word of those things.’

‘I don’t think that can be right. It’s not in the old tales about Callers.’

Flint gave the sweetest of smiles. ‘Nonetheless,’ he said. ‘It seems you’ve made many friends here. One man said you were like a candle burning in the dark; another that you were a bright flower growing in a place of shadows. Not the kind of words one expects from Enforcers.’

We ate a little more; drank a little more. Held each other’s hands; gazed into each other’s weary eyes. I began to feel stronger. ‘Are you ready for visitors?’ Flint asked.

‘Is Tali here?’

Flint opened the door and there she was, leaning against the wall and not quite managing to look nonchalant. Beside her was Rohan Death-Blade. Flint let them both in. Tali had changed her bloodstained clothing; she wore a neat tunic and trousers in Gormal’s colours. Her face was white, and the lines and shadows there spoke of the long weary preparation for this day, and the terrible losses endured along the way. But she was composed, as always; a true leader.

‘Neryn,’ she said, and reached up a hand to wipe her eyes. Seeing my strong friend shed tears was the last straw; my own tears spilled, and then Tali was taking Flint’s place on the pallet and hugging me. ‘You were wonderful today. What a stirring speech! And the way you brought those fey folk in . . .’

‘You too,’ I managed. And I wanted to tell her I could not have borne it if she had been killed, but I held back the words, knowing how close she and Andra had been. And before that she had lost Regan, the love of her life, the heart of the rebellion. Peerless warrior my friend might be, but she was vulnerable, and she needed time to deal with this, just as we did.

Rohan Death-Blade had busied himself putting a kettle on the brazier, as if to leave us to our private conversation.

‘Did you know, Rohan?’ I asked him. ‘Were you one of us all along?’

‘It crept up on me.’ He did not sit down, but stood a little awkwardly, his fair cheeks flushed. ‘Owen and I had a wary understanding; as the time passed we talked more openly about the possibility of change, but it was not until last night that he told me the full truth. We’ve learned to guard our words under Keldec. It will take time to un-learn that.’ A pause. ‘What you did,’ he said, ‘it was . . . astounding. I thought calling was an evil practice, designed to quell and dominate. That’s what we saw with Esten. But you . . .’

‘It’s all in the training. And this wasn’t just me, it was everyone together. In the end, the Guardians themselves.’

‘Speaking of fey folk,’ Rohan said, ‘there’s a wee green-haired woman out there with some news to give you. Waiting to have a word.’

‘Sage? Here in the keep?’ I remembered the Master’s shield against cold iron, which he had promised would remain until all the Good Folk had made their way safely home. ‘Could you bring her in?’

Then we had three visitors at once, breaking Toleg’s order. Sage stepped over to the pallet, stood on tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek, then took the jug of mead and refilled my cup.

‘Drink up, lassie,’ she said. ‘You look like the urisk, all big eyes.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you, Sage. What you’ve done is too big to put in words.’ She had supported me from the first, when I hardly knew what my gift meant; she had stayed strong through grief and loss; her belief in me had never wavered. And today, she had saved Flint’s life. If anything had been apparent out there on the field, it was that her small form contained not only a mighty courage but a powerful magic. She had stopped the two big warriors in their tracks, even when they had been under Esten’s orders. One day, I would ask her about that.

‘No need for thanks, lassie,’ she said. ‘We all played our part, at the end.’

Tali had dried her tears. ‘You know Andra’s gone,’ she said. ‘But for her, I wouldn’t be here now.’

‘It’s a great loss. Tali, she’d be nothing but proud of what you’ve done. I know she’s looking down on you and saying,
If I had to go, at least I died a warrior’s
death
.’