"Now are you going to tell us how you managed to make such charming lowland friends, or do we have to pry it out of you?" Kal said, as Wilum had his two assistants take their seats on soft leather cushions before a fire that crackled in the stone hearth of his keeil. The old man, holding back his own questions, had finished with Galli's wound, cleaning it gently and applying a soothing herbal ointment.
"Aye, go ahead. Tell us quickly, lad, and then we've other matters to discuss," urged Wilum once he had ushered them to their places, a gaunt hand clutching the staff that he lifted like a pointer, jabbing towards Galli.
"Well, it's like this," Galli said, pulling the jewelled dagger in and out of its sheath, turning it over and around, keeping his hands busy with it. "I hadn't done more than just start shaking a stick at one of Gammer's carpets at the Burrows, when I happened to look up and see a flash of light up in the woods." He made a gesture as if to show the direction with the dagger. "I didn't think much of it at first. Thought it was just a trick of light. You know the way a rock or a tree can catch the sun and glitter sometimes. Well, my eyes kept straying to the spot and, after a while, I got curious. So, I climbed that little hill behind our cottage to get a clearer look. Anyway, I thought I saw something. It wasn't an animal. I decided I'd better go check it out. I wasn't much in the mood for working anyway, what with it being such a lovely day. It struck me as odd that anyone should be up there at all."
Frowning, Wilum rose from his stool and leaned his staff against the corner of the mantelpiece. "Let me brew up some paxwort tea for the three of us. A cup of it would do me the world of good. Calms the nerves. I'm sure it wouldn't sit badly with the two of you either. Go on then, lad." Wilum nodded, as he filled the kettle from a wooden bucket standing by the hearth.
"Well, I headed up there. A blind man could have tracked them, what with the oxpath they'd trampled through the woods. I got to the hill over the Shaad, just above a little ledge that jutted out from the hill, and guess what I found? This dagger lying on the ground." Galli held the weapon out again, running his fingers along the flat of the blade. "The area was strewn with bracken, cut and laid, like it was being used for bedding. And the place was thick with tracks, two sets of them, the same as I'd followed up there. Fellows wearing boots. Lowlanders. Impossible to mistake it from the stitching on the sole, and they were all over the place, some old and some really fresh. Two sets going to and from that ledge. It gave them a perfect place from which to keep an eye on the keeil and the Great Glence. I was all keen at first to keep following their trail and put some questions to them, but then I thought better of it. Lowlanders, I figured they were probably unpleasant types—"
"Or worse still, deadly types," said Kal. "We know that firsthand, don't we?"
"That's why I thought it'd be wiser to wait for you. Also I figured it would be better to leave the dagger where it was. Maybe one of them had unstrapped it from his belt on purpose before he lay down, forgetting to put it back on. Anyway I thought to myself, why don't I find a hidden spot and stay put up here on the hillside 'til Kal arrives at the keeil. Then I could sneak back down and grab him and we could deal with the two lowlanders together. So I settled in silently against the big oak tree root. From there I could easily catch sight of Kal down below. At the same time I could keep watch over their spy post on the ledge perfectly and not be seen. What a comfy little nook it was. Too comfy. You know what, though?" Galli glanced up from the dagger. "All that time I had a strange feeling that I was being watched. But it didn't raise my hackles. Somehow I didn't get a sense of any real danger, just of someone or something being curious about me, looking me over. I'm almost certain now that it was that Telessarian watching me from the shadows."
The boiling kettle fussed over the fire, sputtering.
"Telessarian?" Wilum raised his brows in puzzlement, turning once again from the teapot he was preparing.
"Sorry, I'll get to him in a moment. It's my guess the two lowlanders had him keep an eye on things while they were gone on other business."
"But how come you didn't spot the Telessarian's tracks at all?" said Kal.
"Well, I wasn't looking for anything of that sort, so I missed them. A seasoned woodsman from Telessar can leave a trail that's almost invisible. Anyway, the next thing I know, there's that big lout trying to run me through and the Telessarian trying to stop him for some reason—"
"That's when I came on the scene," said Kal, taking up the thread of the story now, peppered with an interjection here and there from Galli. When he had finished his account, they sipped tea for a moment, left to their own thoughts.
"But this Telessarian . . ." Kal broke the silence. "Where would he have come from? How did he get past the gatewardens at the Aerie and enter the valley?"
"It's plain he was in cahoots with those two spies."
"Which makes it even stranger still why he risked his own life to save yours."
"What about those dying words of his. He mentioned your mother's name, didn't he?" said Wilum as he poured Galli another mug of tea.
" 'Cairderga . . . you face like my sister . . . Cairderga.' "
"I think he was trying to say that Galli's face—He must have figured that he and Galli were somehow related. After all, Galli's mother—Well, the man may have been one of her brothers and so suspected that Galli was a son of Cairderga's," Wilum said.
"Which would make Galli a long-lost nephew. That's why the man tried to fend off Galli's attacker! It's the only explanation that makes sense!"
"Even so, the bigger question remains."
"What do you mean, Master Wilum?" asked Galli.
"What were they doing up there in the hills spying? Why were they so quick to resort to violence and murder?"
"Well, I can't say it surprises me." Kal shook his head. "Two lowlanders, no doubt the same two as have been prowling around the Holding for the past few weeks, comrades of Kenulf and Enbarr by all appearances. And you know Kenulf and Enbarr . . . especially Enbarr. The way I gauge it, he's got Kenulf under his thumb, although you'd be hard put to ferret that out judging by the surface of things. Enbarr's too clever, knows exactly when to blend into the woodwork when he needs to. I tell you, Enbarr's the sort who would slit his own mother's throat to go on an orphans' outing."
"Aye," agreed Wilum, "but it's Kenulf the old Thane's sore distressed about. His only son, last of the direct Strongbow line, and doesn't care a mote about the old ways. Why, he looks and acts more like a lowland coxcomb than a proud highland prince."
"Small wonder," Kal said, "when he and that cousin of his spend more time in Dinas Antrum than they do in the Holding. Then they return home to the highlands with those thugs in tow."
"In any case, there's a greater evil afoot here in the Holding," continued Wilum, "the quenching of the Sacred Fire—"
"How's that? The Sacred Fire . . . quenched?" Galli's eyes grew wide. At the same time Wilum's staff slipped from its niche and clattered onto the tiled floor, giving the three of them a violent start. Kal rose to pick it up.
"Ah, yes, yes, you don't know yet . . . Re'm ena, the whole thing's quite unimaginable. I never expected it. Caught me totally by surprise, utterly beyond my reckoning." He shook his head and shuddered, staring blindly out the large window of the keeil towards Stillfields, where his predecessors lay buried. "Aye, the Sacred Fire's been extinguished, for the first time since Ardiel carried it forth from the Balk Pit of Uäm after his great triumph at the Velinthian Bridge. Can you imagine? For more than three thousand years it has burned here in the Stoneholding, time out of mind, but now it burns no more. I can still hardly fathom it."
"But how did it happen?"
"It was Gawmage's messenger who snuck into Oakenvalley Bottom early this morning at dawn. By the time I got there, the coals that feed the Sacred Fire lay dead cold in their brazier. I had called for him in the morning at the guest lodge. He was not there, nor was his horse. The next thing I know, he was thundering down the Eastmarsh Causeway from the direction of the Bottom." Wilum turned his tired gaze back to Galli. "A sly weasel-faced fellow, and bold too, asking endless questions about the Holding. About Raven's Crag Island and the old Castle too. Kept wanting to talk to me about the manor rolls for some reason, slipping in his queries about the Bottom.
"It's really my own fault," he said and paused, cradling his mug of tea with both hands, staring blankly into it. "I should have been more cautious, more vigilant. But I've lost count of the times Gawmage has sent his messengers over the years. Every spring, as regular as swallows, they've come riding into the Holding, shouting down the gatewardens, bearing some proposal or edict that Gawmage has spent the winter months concocting at his palace in Dinas Antrum. And whenever they come, I always feed them and give them shelter, as loathsome as I find the endless bicker of their conditions and demands. That way, at the very least, they can't make me out to be sour and inhospitable." Wilum sighed, glancing up from his tea wearing a wan smile. "So you see, you weren't the only one caught napping, Galli. This latest move of Gawmage's has caught me flat-footed too. While I may not have been short when it comes to hospitality, I've certainly been short on guile." He rose restlessly from the stool on which he had paused to seat himself. "The wily Crown-Taker, he guessed well that after all these years my guard would be down. What better time for him to spring his mischief on me!" The old man halted, his lips tight, as he shook his head, so consumed by his fretting that the tea slopped over the lip of his mug.
"No wonder the fellow was in such an awful hurry to reach the Wyrdlaugh Pass," Kal said. "I saw him this morning galloping down the Edgemere Road as if his very life depended on it."
"Oh, the wonderful clarity of hindsight. What I should have done." Wilum set his tea mug on a sideboard. "Ah, but it's no good moaning now about water that's passed under the bridge, when it's too late . . . much too late . . . But then in the end what could I have done, a doddering old man, invested with an office that is but a shadow of a shade of its olden glory? Shoring up the fragments, that's my lot these days." As he spoke, the morning sun passed behind a cloud, casting a chill over the room. For a moment the old man shivered, leaning heavily on his staff, which he had taken in hand again.
"Listen," he bade suddenly, cocking his ear. "There's my pigeons again. Something's not right. Can you hear them, lads?"
"They do sound different," said Kal. Galli lifted his eyes from where he had again begun toying with his knife.
"There have been other things too," Wilum continued, stooping to warm his hands at the fire of the hearth, his voice grown pensive and brooding. "Last night I heard the greyhen cry and the night before last as well, above the frightened cooing of the pigeons. And my dreams, they've been hag-ridden and storm-tossed. I'm very much afraid that the quenching of the Sacred Fire is merely the beginning of our woes. There's evil abroad, even here in the Howe of all places, and it's crept up on us in tiny cock's steps, so slowly that it's caught us all but unawares.
"Arvon is overspread by lengthening shadows of unrest. Something in my bones tells me that all of Ahn Norvys is in dire upheaval. The deep darkness is casting forth powers that have long lain dormant or have been held in check, at least, in hidden out-of-the-way places. The Great Harmonic Age is ending, even as the Age of Echoes ended many centuries ago. Hedric foresaw it, darkly and in riddles. I sense it now more strongly than ever, I smell its vapours of decay, even in Oakenvalley Bottom, now that alien feet have trodden its hallowed soil."
Still clutching his staff, but now straight and unstooped, Wilum stepped back from the hearth and turned round to the two, his face flushed and resolute. "It was powerful runes that messenger of Gawmage's must have used to broach the boundary of our holy wood. And the means he used to extinguish the Sacred Fire were cunning and far-sought."
Kal looked puzzled.
"Come, Kalaquinn, you know yourself, lad, that the Fire is well nigh unquenchable while it burns in its brazier. But even so there is a way of snuffing it out."
"By using . . . pyraphoric mistletoe, right?"
"Aye, with pyraphoric mistletoe, which grows only on the oaks found in the Atrian Forest."
"The Atrian Forest?"
"Far from here, far from Arvon, on the eastern marches of Ahn Norvys, a place which the sun scarcely touches in its rising and its setting. A wild lawless place that even Ardiel could not fully tame to the measure of the Great Harmony. But very cleverly Gawmage has managed to obtain some of this hard-won herb to force my hand, or so he thinks," the old man said with a strained laugh.
"If he only knew, he wouldn't have been so suspicious all these years, so frightened of me, thinking that I know where the young Prince Starigan is, that somehow I've secreted the last tender shoot of the Royal House of Ardiel and that I'm protecting him somewhere, waiting patiently for an opportune moment to pull him out from under my sleeve, like some upstart Thrygian magician."
"I don't understand, what do you mean by Gawmage forcing your hand?" said Galli.
"I mean that Gawmage is not an utter fool and he knows as well as you and I do that the Sacred Fire must be rekindled, or else there'll be no Candle Festival as usual next year . . . an unthinkable prospect. And not just anybody can retrieve it. The fact of the matter is that only one of Ardiel's very own bloodline may undertake the task. So ancient tradition has it. Hedric says as much himself in a little-known section of his Criochoran, the Song About the End Age."
"Galli, do you remember our lessons? Landros was always fond of quoting from the Criochoran," Kal said. "I remember him speaking about the lore of the Sacred Fire. You remember, don't you, Galli?"
"I don't, no. But you, Kal, you've got a head for those things. Besides, it was a while ago."
"Aye, it was, and we didn't spend much time discussing it anyway. I suppose he didn't think it was very important."
"It probably never crossed his mind that the Sacred Fire could ever go out. I'm sure the very thought would have struck him as ridiculous," Wilum said, slowly shaking his head. "The worst has happened, lads, what Hedric predicted."
"What was it that Hedric said? I can't remember. Landros only mentioned the lines once, I think, to illustrate a rare point of grammar in the Old Tongue," said Kal.
"Well, the key lines of the prophecy run something like this:
'The Sacred Fire shall soon expire
When darkness light assail.
Will seed alone of ancient throne
Rekindle Oakenvale.
The Kyne-merk true, by darkest ruse,
Obscured by shadows foul,
Shall slip the snare, rise daystar fair,
From up the Glen of Owl.
Royal blood new-found shall trumpet sound
The triumph over dark,
Bring forth relit, from Uäm's far Pit
The Ever-Sacred Spark.'
"That's my own translation from the Old Tongue," Wilum said, after reciting the verses, "although I'm not altogether happy with the first line of it. Needs work."
"What's that word 'kyne-merk'?"
"It means 'a mark or sign of royalty.' A very hard word to translate, so I just left it."
"How about the 'Glen of Owl,' where's that?" Galli raised his eyes to meet the old man's.
"Nobody has figured that one out yet, lad. It's a real puzzle, and the Criochoran is full of puzzles. Makes me wonder sometimes just why Hedric ever set himself to writing it, when it's a piece even the wisest of bards haven't been able to make nor head nor tails of, as dense and difficult as a fog in the Breathing Sea."
"So only Ardiel's descendant can restore the Sacred Fire . . . And he will come from some place called the Glen of Owl, wherever that is?"
"Exactly. That's what Hedric is saying, and as I mentioned before, ancient tradition confirms this interpretation." Wilum rose from his stool by the hearth to pour more tea for himself and the two young men from the teapot that he had left perched on a trivet near the flames.
"So where does that leave us?" Galli inquired.
"Not where Gawmage thinks it leaves us, that's for certain. He thinks I know where Prince Starigan is to be found, and that this way I'll be forced to bring him out of hiding."
"I don't understand all this talk about King Colurian's son. None of the family of King Colurian survived," Galli said.
"That's what Gawmage has led men to believe, but it's impossible. You two lads of all people ought to know that," Wilum gently rebuked.
"How's that?"
"Because somehow, some way there must always be a King, a King that has Ardiel's blood coursing in his veins. It was a solemn promise that Ardiel made before he left on his last quest and disappeared from the annals of our history. When I was a boy, we had a little rhyme supposedly coined by Ardiel, 'Through thick and thin, you'll have my kin.' " Wilum afforded himself a whimsical chuckle.
"What about Gawmage? Is he not of the line—?"
"Gawmage? There runs not a drop of royal blood of any kind in his veins! Why, he's no more than a vile power-hungry upstart, a usurper, the distinguished descendant of a long line of Dinasantrian shopkeepers."
"But all the same he thinks some of King Colurian's folk survived?"
"Aye, he does indeed and that bothers him," answered Wilum, "even though he wants men to suppose that the seed of Ardiel was destroyed forever when the Mindal seized power from the faltering line of King Colurian. I think he's haunted by Ardiel's promise, much as he likes to dismiss all the old promises and prophecies as so much rubbish. Also, and this is much more disturbing to him, the fact of the matter is that there's a whole grey area here. Neither Gawmage nor I know what befell the young Prince Starigan or who was behind his disappearance. Gawmage is convinced, however, that I'm somehow privy to this secret, and that I actually had a hand in spiriting the Prince away. Hence has that stolen circlet of royal office perched precariously on his crown these last eighteen years. In addition, the ferocity of our highland archers has kept his crop-eared bullies from marching with main force into our clanholding to root me out of the Howe and put an end to the menace they see in me yet. That and his hope that he could wheedle the information about Starigan from me one way or another by flattery or by guile." Wilum turned to face the fire, seized a poker, and stirred the embers.
"Nonetheless, it's been my fear for some time now that Gawmage has been waxing in strength, growing bolder and more reckless, partly at least because he's brought Arvon into the Gharssûlian League and he can draw on the immense might of the League to buttress his power . . . So there we are," Wilum heaved a sigh and placed fresh logs from a small pile beside the hearth onto the now glowing bed of coals. He returned this attention to Kal and Galli. "We have no choice in this matter. We must find Prince Starigan. It's he who is the rightful High King of Arvon."
"But how? Where do we start?" Kal said.
"I'm not sure . . . I was in Dinas Antrum when the Prince was born, the seventh child of King Colurian, nineteen autumns ago, Colurian's only son," mused Wilum. "I was there by Colurian's side at the Silver Palace in Dinas Antrum as his wasting sickness drained him of the last dregs of life. It was only at the end that he understood in what danger the folkdom stood. That's why he sent for me and I hurried to his side as quickly as I could from Wuldor's Howe, the second and last time I've ever left our little highland clanholding. Alas, there was little I could do against the might and influence of the counsellors of the Mindal.
"They had been growing stronger for years while King Colurian lived for the pleasures of the chase. All real authority had finally become vested in them, and the High King had become little more than a figurehead. I sent him letter upon letter, trying desperately to warn him, for it had grown clear to me that the Mindal was a viper in his bosom. It was they who turned the smallholders of lowland Arvon from their homes to make their sheepwalks and huge enclosed estates, battening themselves greedily, like cormorants, on the misery and helplessness of their fellow folk. It was they who hobbled them with their forest laws and woodmoots. It was they who despoiled the lush valley of the Dinastor, razing the forests and fields to make room for noisome fuming smithies and forges, befouling the air and the water. It was they who ravaged the glences and robbed the orrthon of its ancient glory."
A darkness had passed over Wilum's brow. "Anyway, lads, I don't think I need to go on and list all their evildoings or their latest treasonous alliance with Ferabek and the Gharssûlian League." Wilum sighed, turning to eye Kal, who was held rapt by the old man's account. "I decided that posting letters was no longer enough. The situation had turned so dire that I travelled to Dinas Antrum in person for the first time ever in my life and dared to tell Colurian to his face that on account of his weakness the folkdom stood in the greatest of peril. Well, he flew into a wild rage, threatening me with a dungeon room in Tower Dinas and even worse. I think it was only the influence of the Queen that saved me from suffering harm. All the same, he came close to deposing me then and there as Hordanu, which was what the Mindal in its sly lust for power was pressing for.
"Ten autumns later he lay on his deathbed in the Silver Palace, the victim, some were saying, of poisoning by his counsellors after a hunting accident. And I don't for a moment doubt the truth of that. As far as the Mindal was concerned, he was still too unpredictable and too much his own man. They were ready and eager to assume total power. I think Colurian began to suspect as much himself. These first faint glimmers of suspicion tipped the scales in my favour. That's why he sent for me, hoping the folkdom could still be saved, as late in the day as it was. It was good fortune that the Mindal, in their pride and certainty of triumph, considered me of such small account that they didn't try to stop me from rushing to his side. They did not perceive a threat to themselves in the maunderings of a dying king." Wilum rested again on the stool, his hands clasped around his staff, his eyes closed, and his head bowed forward.
"I still remember vividly his last words to me. He was but a vestige of the man he once was, his royal dignity but a fragile shell. 'Wilum,' he said, 'I looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health and harmony, but, behold, trouble and blackest chaos, for they've come, Wilum, they've come. They're devouring the land and all that's in it. I place my family and folkdom in your care. Hurry, Wilum, you must hurry. My last hope rests with you. May Wuldor speed your steps. Briacoil, Wilum, briacoil.'
"But though the Mindal didn't care a tinker's dam about King Colurian in his death throes, they did very much care about his royal line and wanted to destroy the whole Ardielid dynasty, root, trunk, and branch. They needed to pave the way for their elective monarchy, one in which a member of the Mindal, one of their own tight-knit circle of insiders, would be elected by his peers to the High Kingship. Any surviving member of the legitimate royal family was bound to be a threat to them. So, on the flimsiest of pretexts they arrested all of Colurian's daughters, his brothers and sisters, and all their children and threw the lot of them into the dungeons of Tower Dinas.
"As for Queen Asturia, who remained feverish and unwell after giving birth to Prince Starigan, they placed her under house arrest at the Silver Palace. That way they came to gain immediate control over the main bloodlines of the entire Ardielid dynasty. I had a very good idea what was going to happen. They were waiting for Colurian to die and then they would execute a sentence of death on the Royal House of Ardiel, trumping up a charge of high treason."
One of the fire logs crackled in the hearth, sending a shower of sparks across the floor. Wilum lifted his gaze to the raven-haired youth before him.
"It was at that point I conceived the notion of making one last desperate gambit, to try to save the King and Queen along with their newborn child. Thus it was that I sought out your father."
"My father?"
"Aye, your father. In Dinas Antrum. There are parts of this story that you've never heard, I'm sure, for your father and I have kept it a close secret between us—with good reason as you'll learn."
"Father's never spoken much about his years in the lowlands. Only vaguely."
"Having my contacts, I hastened to seek out your father, since he was crucial to my scheme. He lay in hiding outside of Dinas Antrum, a loyal captain of the King's Life Guardsmen—"
"What? My father?" Kal stared at Wilum, wide-eyed, then turned to look at Galli, who shrugged.
"Indeed," Wilum said, chuckling at his young companions' astonishment, "your father, Kalaquinn, he was a first-rate soldier, clever and resourceful. He and some of his comrades who had not shifted their allegiance to the Mindal were waiting for the chance to take up arms and mount some real resistance to the usurpers."
"A captain of the King's Life Guardsmen!" Kal said, recovering himself somewhat. "I had no idea."
"As well you should have had, Kalaquinn. In any case, we talked together, your father and I, and formed a plan. By a clever ruse, at great peril to their lives, he and a handful of his men gained entry one night to the Silver Palace. They managed to free the Queen and her newborn son, but not King Colurian. He died that very night. Commandeering the royal barge, they fled up the Dinastor River. Leaving the river, they headed on horseback for Ashwood Hall, the King's Summer Palace on the Lake of the Swallows, aiming to rest there briefly and then hurry on to the safety of the highlands with mother and child. It had been agreed that I would meet them at an abandoned gamekeeper's cottage near the Summer Palace, but before they could reach it they were ambushed, 'slaughtered' would be a better word, by an unknown group of assailants, aided by a traitor in your father's own troop.
"Apart from your father," Wilum continued, his eyes still trained on Kal, "only the Queen and her son survived. Clearly it was the little boy they were after for some reason of their own. They took him alive, carrying him and his mother with them after they had abandoned their efforts to comb the woods for your father, who escaped by the very skin of his teeth, having salvaged Lightenhaft—"
"What! Lightenhaft! The Lightenhaft!" exclaimed Kal.
"Aye, the one and only, which, thanks to your father, rests now in safe hands."
"But where—?"
"Aye, who's got it now?"
"That's a whole other story. Leave Lightenhaft be for the moment, lads." Wilum raised an open hand. "And your father's past, as well . . . Well, what was I saying? . . . The ambushers, yes." He shook a finger and continued. "They threw the bodies of your father's fellow Life Guardsmen into a deep ravine, practically inaccessible. It's as if they wanted to put people off the scent and remove all traces of the slaughter, making it seem to anyone investigating that it was the Life Guardsmen who had disappeared with the mother and child.
"The next morning, coming from Dinas Antrum, I arrived at that cottage near Ashwood Hall myself, where I waited impatiently, until at last your father managed to arrive and recount his tale of what had happened. With great difficulty and danger, he descended into that horrible ravine—the Charnel Pit, they call it—looking for survivors. But alas, to no avail. Because there were indications that the attackers had passed through Ashwood Hall, we searched every nook and cranny of the place, desperate to unearth a clue about their identity. I remember vividly the ravens, flocks and flocks of jet-black ravens, that croaked at us in bitter mockery from the grove of royal oaks and beech trees that hedged in the Hall like a living tower.
"No sooner had we finally grown tired of our fruitless searching than we heard a clatter of mounted troops. They had come, I think, from Dinas Antrum hot on your father's trail, for they flew Gawmage's mastiff's-head pennant. We were rummaging halfheartedly in the garden, but they came on so fast we had to make a run for it into the woods, although not before they caught sight of us, recognizing me, but not your father. They thrashed around in the forest, trying to find us as we fled.
"But as chance would have it we found a bypath deep in the woods that led us to the dwelling of a humble cottar and his wife, with five young children. Accepting their gracious hospitality, we stayed there for a fortnight, scouting the countryside round about, looking for some clue that would help us unravel the mystery of the strange abduction of Prince Starigan."
Having laid his tea mug aside, still seated on his stool, Wilum traced patterns on the floor tiles with his staff. "There was precious little. We did, however, manage to gather one very striking scrap of information, puzzling though it was. We learned from the cottar's oldest two children that they had been playing in the woods a few days earlier, when they saw from their makeshift hidey-hole a large party of men, most of them clad in black. The men were armed and passed by the hidden children. The little boy and girl cowered in their place of cover. They heard a baby's cry. When the party disappeared from sight, the children fled home to tell their mother.
"I questioned the two of them, taking them to the spot at which they had been playing and discovered from the boy that one of the men, the one who seemed to be their leader, was dressed differently from the rest. He wore a green crosscloth on his forehead matched by a green tunic. Your father and I tried taking up their trail, but, whoever they were, they proved too clever at covering their tracks.
"At a loss, I teased more details from the two children, discovering that on both the crosscloth and the tunic was blazoned a black orb shining forth with rays stitched in gold. Flanking this orb were two dark birds facing one another. So maintained the lad with much sureness, and his sister confirmed it. I had never heard of such an emblem. I made numerous inquiries about it when I returned to our clanholding and pored through Hedric's Master Legendary looking for a clue. But to no avail. For the longest time I supposed it was a ruse of Gawmage's, to put loyal Arvonians off the scent, although I couldn't understand why he did not just kill the child straight off. As it turned out, for many years I was none the wiser about it. Until very recently," said Wilum, turning his face again to the fire.
"There was scarcely a thing else to be learned, except that for the first few months the Mindal set about beating the bushes furiously in their desire to catch me and your father's fellow Life Guardsmen, letting out the word that we had abducted the Prince and setting a high reward for our capture.
"In any case, taking our grateful leave of the cottar and his family, your father and I fled across country, making for lowland Arvon's western marches. We skirted the high roads and slept in lonely farmsteads, breathing a sigh of relief when we achieved the safety of the highlands. I remember vividly the day your father and I reached the Aerie and looked down on the town of Wrenhaven snuggled peacefully against the shores of Deepmere. We agreed to tell no one what had happened. You two are the first Holdsmen I've told of this." Wilum eyed them gravely.
"It was soon after this," he continued, returning his gaze to the fire in the hearth, "that the Mindal had Gawmage crowned as High King, his first royal act being to depose me as Hordanu and appoint a new Hordanu to reside in Dinas Antrum. It was decided, too, that henceforth all Hordanus would be appointed by the High King and continue in the office at his good pleasure. Thus they overthrew the custom that we have held from time immemorial, by which we the folk of the Holding, upon the death of a Hordanu, choose the next one for all of Ahn Norvys. As for the young Ardielid prince, who had slipped from their grasp, the first flush of their ardour to lay hands on him waned and they forgot all about him in the intoxication of their newfound power. For a time I speculated that Gawmage and the Mindal had in fact disposed of Prince Starigan themselves and were merely using me as a scapegoat, blaming me for his abduction in order to deceive the people and divert suspicion from themselves.
"Then with the passing of the years I began to suspect that Gawmage was guiltless in this matter, perhaps the only thing of which he stands guiltless, and that he truly believed I was the one who had abducted Prince Starigan. At first, the whole question did not bother him overmuch. He and the Mindal were too preoccupied with the power and wealth they were grabbing greedily in Arvon's lowland counties. It was merely a matter of time, they thought, before the highlands in their wild backwardness gave way to superior force and numbers. And when that happened, and the highland clanholdings, even the Stoneholding itself, fell into their grasp, they would have me at their mercy. Then the secret of Starigan's fate would not matter much anymore."
Wilum rose from his place and made his way to the window of the keeil. "Well, it has not happened according to plan for them. The highlands are too rugged and our fighters too spirited. At first, though, Gawmage sent solemn messengers who presented me with dire ultimatums, demanding me to present myself forthwith before his royal court in Dinas Antrum. Then, as his military sallies failed, his messages became more tempered, more seductive. He began to ply me with smooth lies, promising me safe passage to Dinas Antrum and reinstatement as Hordanu if only I would leave the Holding to pay him homage at his royal seat." Wilum growled, stamping the floor with his staff. "As if I needed his approval to retain the office that belongs to me 'til death divests me of it! And I never worried too much about an attack on my person, because I knew that Gawmage could never be certain what precautions I had taken to ensure that with my death the secret he thought I possessed would not die with me. But recently he's become more brazen and threatening. There's a new confidence about him, and I find that sinister.
"But now I have some notion why. With this latest move he's neatly forced my hand, a cunning scheme to flush out the heir of King Colurian, since he knows well enough that I have no choice but to send Prince Starigan to recover the Sacred Fire. That's common knowledge, Kalaquinn—only an Ardielid can retrieve the sacred spark. At least it used to be common knowledge. Every bard worth his song in all of Ahn Norvys used to be able to recite large parts of Hedric's Master Legendary by heart and in their original Old Arvonian, mind you, until now, alas." The old man looked again to Kal, gesturing at him with a bent finger. "That's why Landros sent you to me in the first place, your gift with languages. Even though you're not a bard, at least not yet, I've had you commit so much to memory yourself, before it's lost, you know."
"So they've baited you," said Kal, leaning forward in his seat, "forcing you to show Starigan, and when you do, they'll pounce on him."
"Maybe that's why they've been spying on you here," Galli said.
"Likely."
"So where does that leave us, Master Wilum? What happens next?" asked Kal.
"First things first. We'll need to summon a folkmoot as soon as possible."
"For when? Tonight?"
"Aye, tonight, here at the Great Glence after supper as usual. Let your father sound the summons. I'll explain to the people what's happened, but not everything, not some of the things we've discussed together this morning. There are others in the Holding besides Kenulf and Enbarr whose loyalties are questionable, and it's best to leave them in the dark. Mind yourselves and mark your words with prudence too . . . Kalaquinn, Master Galligaskin." Wilum held the two with a fierce steady eye. "Also, we'll hold court and try the lowlanders, get them out of our valley one way or another, no matter the fuss that Kenulf may make—"
"While Enbarr whispers encouragement in his ear and goads him on, no doubt. But what about finding Starigan?"
"We need a clue, a place to start. I've spent endless days and watches of the night poring over all the old manuscripts to the point of nausea, trying to puzzle things out. But there's hope. I'm waiting for word from . . . from a friend . . . from Aelward."
"Who's Aelward?" asked Kal, getting up to stretch.
"Hard to answer . . . who Aelward is." The old man cast his gaze to the floor. "I'm not certain myself. Indeed, I'm not sure I could tell you what I know without taking up more time than we've got at present." Wilum paused a moment, lost in thought, then regained himself. "The important thing is that not too long ago he sent me some startling, although welcome, news. He's found the emblem and feels he's close to finding the Prince."
"Emblem?"
"The device that puzzled me, the emblem that the cottar's children saw, the emblem of Prince Starigan's abductors. Aelward has tracked it down to somewhere near the twilit shadowedland beyond the Alnod River in the East. That's all he told me. That's all I know. It was last autumn that he sent me his short message by pigeon from his place up in the hills many miles north of the Holding. It was the first time in almost twenty years I had heard from him, the first time since Prince Starigan's abduction. He said he had another long journey to make, more information to gather, and that he would be in touch with me again sometime during the month of May, before the end of the Octave of the Candle Festival. Well, the Octave has come and gone, and I'm beginning to feel somewhat fearful, since I've had no word from him. All the same, I'll give him another day or two before I worry overmuch. But it's enough talking we've done, lads. Hurry along now, Kal, and tell your father to blow the summons, the sooner the better. You'd best go together, though."
"What about the work that needs to be done here?"
"Since when do you worry about work that needs to be done, Galligaskin Clout? No, move along. The work will wait."
Kal wore a look of concern. "We can't just leave you here alone. What if there's somebody still out there?"
"Not to worry about old Wilum. You fellows routed them so handily they're hardly likely to come back."
"I have an idea," Galli said. "Why don't Kal and I swing around to his place by a side journey through the woods. That way I can check for trail sign just to make sure they're not still in the neighbourhood, and then, when we've given Kal's father the message at Mantling Moss, we can come right back and keep you company until the folkmoot this evening."
"All right. But I want you just to check for sign. You leave them alone if you get anywhere within sight or sound of them. They can be dealt with later at the folkmoot. We'll get some of the men to take them in hand. And if the need arises, you have my longbow. Now off with you," he said, ushering them to the door, "and mind you use the bow only if you've no other choice."