Читать книгу The Complete Conclave of Shadows Trilogy: Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, Exile’s Return - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 22

THE HORSES RACED ACROSS THE MEADOW.

Nakor and Magnus watched as Talon kept low against the neck of his mare, pushing her as much with will as with any skill as a rider. Rondar’s gelding pulled slowly away as he stayed fluidly poised on two stirrups, his back straight and his hands light upon the reins.

Nakor said, ‘For someone who was counted a bad rider by his people, Rondar seems to know his way around a horse.’

Magnus nodded as he said, ‘You know more about the Ashunta than I do, but aren’t they counted as the finest horsemen in the world?’

‘Best light cavalry, certainly. The Empire had to bring fifteen legions into their lands to subdue them in the end. They were key to Kesh’s conquest of the western Empire two centuries ago, but a revolt by Ashunta chieftains ended that.’ Nakor studied the riders, while Demetrius stood whooping and cheering a short distance away. ‘Talon will be a very good horseman soon.’

‘This I understand, Nakor –’ Magnus waved his hand slightly in the direction of the two riders ‘– Talon learning languages, riding, swordsmanship, the rest – but why are you including him in the classes on magic with the others?’

Nakor grinned at his former student. ‘Magic? There is no magic.’

Magnus tried not to laugh, and failed. ‘You can debate that with Father until the universe ends, but we both know your “stuff” is just another way of looking at the process of using magic.’

‘It’s more than that, and you know it,’ said Nakor. ‘It’s a way to free the mind of preconceived notions.’ He paused, ‘Besides,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘it was your father who first said “there is no magic”.’

‘Are you or Father ever going to tell me how he knew to send that message to you with James on his first trip to Kesh? You two hadn’t even met.’

‘He’s never told me how he knew.’ Nakor replied. ‘There are things your father trusts to no one, not even to your mother.’

‘The Black Sorcerer,’ said Magnus with a sigh. ‘It’s too easy to forget it’s not just a role to terrorize sailors who get too close to this island.’

‘No, it’s far more than that, as your grandfather knew.’

Magnus’s grandfather, Macros, had been the first magic-user to employ a Black Sorcerer to secure the island’s privacy. He also had been an agent for Sarig, the lost god of magic, and had given Sorcerer’s Island to Pug and Miranda.

Nakor and Magnus were as highly placed as one could be within the Conclave of Shadows, yet neither fully understood the deepest mysteries of the organization. Magnus had once asked his father who should take control if anything happened to him, and Pug had replied cryptically that everyone would know what to do if that should happen.

Magnus turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand. ‘Still, magic or stuff, you’ve not told me why Talon is studying the mystic arts.’

‘True, I haven’t.’

‘Nakor, are you planning to irritate me all day?’

Nakor laughed. ‘No, I just forget sometimes you have a problem with the concept of humour.’ He pointed towards the other end of the meadow, where the race had ended and the three boys were standing, awaiting instruction. ‘Talon needs to know as much as he can about any potential enemy. Our enemies have relied on the black arts for years, and Talon’s ability to survive the attack of those three death-dancers gave me an idea.’

Magnus was silent. He knew that had he been alone in the hut, those death-dancers most likely would have killed him. He had speculated late into the night with his father why the enemy had taken such a bold step and why he had been selected as the target, but in the end all they were left with was speculation.

Magnus said, ‘You want him able to recognize magic?’

‘If possible. Years ago, Lord James, Duke of Krondor, told me he could always feel the hair on the back of his neck rise when someone was using magic. He also talked about his “bump of trouble”, his ability to sense something was about to happen that was bad. It was a special intuition that saved James on several occasions.’

‘You think Talon might have that ability?’

‘I don’t know yet, but it might prove useful to have someone who is not obviously a magic-user, but who has some sense of it, who can enter places that will have wards set against magicians, and yet be able to act with some knowledge.’

‘Seems a vague enough motive for subjecting the boy to extra hours of study, especially since it will only be in the abstract and he will never be able to put that knowledge into practise.’

‘You never know,’ said Nakor. ‘In any event, it will make him a far more educated person than he is, and that is to everyone’s benefit.’ He watched as the boys switched roles, so that Demetrius and Talon were to ride the next race, while Rondar observed.

‘I’m thinking we must also see to another phase of Talon’s education. I read with interest your notes on his encounters with those two girls at Kendrick’s. I think we need to further those lessons.’

‘Alysandra?’

‘Yes. I think it’s time for her to start using the skills we’ve taught her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Talon will face things far more dangerous than steel and spell.’

Magnus turned to look back at the large buildings of his father’s estate. ‘How did we become such men, Nakor? How did we become capable of doing such evil things?’

‘The irony of the gods,’ Nakor replied. ‘We do evil in the name of good, and our enemies have at times done good, in the name of evil.’

‘Do you think the gods are laughing at us?’

Nakor chuckled. ‘Constantly.’

‘You didn’t …’

‘What?’

‘When I was your student. You didn’t … Helena … she wasn’t one of yours, was she?’

‘No,’ said Nakor, his features softening. He put his hand on Magnus’s arm and added, ‘That harsh lesson was of your own devising. Life is like that sometimes.’ Then he turned his attention back to the three boys as the new race began, with Demetrius and Talon riding with all the skill they could muster, while Rondar shouted insults at both of them.

When Nakor looked back at Magnus, he found the magician lost in thought. Having some idea of where those thoughts led, Nakor said, ‘You should have found another, Magnus.’

Magnus looked down at his former teacher. ‘Some wounds never heal. You just bind them up and go on with life.’

Nakor nodded. ‘I know, Magnus.’

Magnus smiled. He knew that Nakor understood, for he had once been wed to Magnus’s grandmother and had loved her up to the very moment he had been forced to kill her.

Magnus took a deep breath. ‘Very well. When shall we start?’

‘Might as well be tonight,’ said Nakor.

Magnus started walking. ‘Then I had better go and tell the girl.’

Nakor called after him: ‘Just tell her what to do. She’ll know exactly how to do it.’

When he turned back it was in time to see Talon finish slightly ahead of Demetrius, both boys exulting loudly as they reined in before Rondar. Nakor reflected that youth often understood without having to be taught about seizing the joy of the moment, about not thinking too much of tomorrow and the worries and concerns it would bring, or too much about yesterday, with all its regrets and guilt. Softly, Nakor said, ‘Enjoy this moment, Talon. Savour it.’

Then with a sigh of regret, he turned his back upon the three students and started walking towards Pug’s quarters. They had a lot to discuss, and much of that would be unpleasant.

Talon dried his hair with a coarse towel. He enjoyed bathing, though it had not been a regular part of his childhood. The Orosini had to heat water in which to bathe, since all the rivers ran with snowmelt year round and only in the hot months of summer could one swim in the lakes and rivers of the mountains. In winter you sweated in the lodges and scraped off dirt with a stick.

He had been introduced to bathing at Kendrick’s, but there he had to use a tub, often after others had used it, so it seemed that all he was doing was trading his own dirt for someone else’s. But the Villa Beata had a wonderful set of rooms in which to bathe. It had three connecting baths with cold, warm and hot water which were enjoyed by many folk in the community on a daily basis. And smaller tubs were available in each wing of the estate buildings.

After working or riding, he was glad to get the grime off and don fresh clothing. And every day there was fresh apparel in his clothes-chest. He knew that other students were assigned work in the laundry, but it still seemed like magic to him. He would leave his dirty clothing in a hamper outside the door to the room, and when he returned from his studies or exercises, clean garments awaited him.

As he wiped his face dry, he felt the stubble along his jaw. He had started shaving the year before, in the same manner as Magnus, although the Orosini’s preferred method was to pluck each hair out of the chin one by one. Talon decided he much preferred a sharp razor.

Talon stropped the razor while Rondar and Demetrius came in from their baths. ‘What are you doing after supper?’ he asked, lathering his face.

Rondar threw himself upon his bed, a coarse towel his only garment, and grunted something noncommittal. Demetrius said, ‘I’ve got kitchen duty tonight, so I’ll be serving, and cleaning up. You?’

‘I’m free,’ said Talon as he started shaving. ‘I thought we might build a fire in the pit down by the lake and see who turns up.’

‘It helps if you spread the word during supper that you’re doing so.’

Rondar said, ‘Girls.’

‘An impromptu gathering is often the best.’

‘Well, tomorrow’s Sixthday, so no matter how tired you are in the morning, by midday you can rest.’

‘I can,’ said Demetrius. ‘And he can,’ he pointed to Rondar, ‘but you can’t. Didn’t you check the roster?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve got kitchen duty all day, sunrise until after last meal.’

Talon sighed. ‘So much for a revel tonight.’

‘Well, it’s a good idea, even if you’re not going to be there,’ said Demetrius.

‘Yes,’ Rondar agreed.

‘Thanks. I think of it, and I can’t go.’

‘You can go,’ said Demetrius. ‘Just don’t stay up too late.’

‘Wine,’ said Rondar, as he sat up and began dressing.

‘Yes, we’ll need wine.’

Demetrius looked at Talon who grinned at him. ‘You’re the one in the kitchen tonight.’

‘If Besalamo catches me in the cellar again, he’ll cook and eat me.’

‘Taldaren,’ observed Rondar with a nod.

Talon laughed. Besalamo was a magician from another world – a fact that had taken Talon some time to fully assimilate – and looked almost human, save for two fins of white bone that ran fore and aft along his skull in place of hair. And he had bright red eyes. ‘I think he started that rumour about Taldaren eating boys to keep us in line.’

‘You want to find out?’ asked Demetrius.

‘No, but I’m not the one who needs to get us some wine. Without the wine the girls won’t come down to the lake.’

‘They might, if you asked them,’ suggested Demetrius.

Talon flushed at the suggestion. It was becoming clear that as the new boy he was the object of much curiosity among the girls on the island.

In total, there seemed to be about fifty students on the island, and after taking away those who weren’t human, there were sixteen young men, from Talon’s age up to their mid-twenties, and fourteen girls, aged fourteen to twenty-two.

‘Alysandra,’ said Rondar.

‘Yes,’ Demetrius agreed. ‘Invite her. If she says yes, all the boys will come, and if all the boys are down by the lake, then all the girls will come as well.’

Talon’s face and neck turned deep crimson.

‘Blushing,’ said Rondar with a laugh, as he pulled on his trousers.

‘Leave him alone, you useless barbarian. If we’re going to get the girls to the lake tonight, we need Talon to ask Alysandra.’

Talon gave Demetrius a dubious look but said nothing. He had no problem talking to Alysandra, as some of the other boys seem to have, yet he had come to the conclusion that she was totally uninterested in him. Between her polite but unenthused responses to him over the last few weeks whenever circumstances brought them together, and the near awe with which the boys regarded her, he had decided early on that any pursuit of her was a waste of time.

Still, if Demetrius was willing to risk the cook’s wrath by pilfering some wine, and even Rondar was excited at the prospect of the gathering, Talon felt he’d best do his part.

He finished dressing and set out to find Alysandra.

The fire burned brightly as the young men and women of the island sat in pairs or threes talking quietly. Except Rondar, who sat slightly away from Demetrius and a girl whose name Talon didn’t know.

Talon was surprised to see nearly fifty people around the fire. The two bottles of wine Demetrius had produced were augmented by a large cask of ale someone else had purloined from the storage shed, and a few of the boys were already showing the effects of too much to drink. He helped himself to a goblet, and walked a little away from the group.

Talon enjoyed wine, but ale held little interest for him. The honeyed drinks of his childhood were but a dim memory and he had been denied the fermented honey the men drank. He stood there, on his own, swilling the pungent liquid around his mouth, savouring its taste.

‘Why are you alone?’

Talon looked up and found a slender dark-haired girl named Gabrielle standing next to him, a light shawl around her shoulders. She had startling blue eyes and a warm smile.

‘Hardly alone.’ Talon said.

She nodded. ‘Yet you always seem … apart, Talon.’

Talon glanced around and said nothing.

‘Are you waiting for Alysandra?’

It was as if the girl had read his mind; and on this island, that was a distinct possibility! Gabrielle’s smile broadened. ‘No … yes, I suppose so. I mentioned this gathering to her before supper and –’ he waved his hand at the other girls ‘– apparently she mentioned it to a number of the girls.’

Gabrielle studied his face then said, ‘Are you yet another of those who have fallen under her spell?’

‘Spell?’ asked Talon. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s my friend. We share a room and I love her, but she’s different.’ Gabrielle looked at the fire as if seeing something within the flames. ‘It’s easy to forget that each of us is different.’

Talon didn’t quite know where Gabrielle was taking the conversation, so he was content to remain silent.

After a long pause, Gabrielle said, ‘I have visions. Sometimes they are flashes, images that are with me only for a brief instant. At other times they are long, detailed things, as if I were in a room watching others, hearing them speak.

‘I was abandoned as a child by my family. They were fearful of me because I had foretold the death of a nearby farmer, and the villagers named me a witch-child.’ Her eyes grew dark. ‘I was four years old.’

When Talon reached out to touch her, she pulled back and turned towards him with a pained smile. ‘I don’t like to be touched.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, withdrawing his hand. ‘I only—’

‘I know you meant well. Despite your own pain you have a generous spirit and an open heart. That’s why I see only pain for you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Alysandra.’ Gabrielle rose. ‘I love her like a sister, but she’s dangerous, Talon. She will not come tonight. But you will find her, soon. And you will fall in love with her and she will break your heart.’

Before he could ask any more questions, she turned and walked off into the dark, leaving Talon staring after her bemusedly. He weighed her words and found himself feeling a mixture of confusion and anger. Hadn’t he had enough pain already in his life? He had lost everything dear to him, nearly been killed, been taken to strange places, and asked to learn things that were still alien and disturbing to him at times.

And now he was being told that he had no choice in how his heart was to be engaged. He stood up and turned his back on the revellers and slowly started to head back towards his quarters. His mind spun this way and that, and before he knew it he was in his quarters, lying upon his bed, staring at the ceiling. It seemed to him then that two faces hovered above him, changing places: Alysandra, whose brilliant smile seemed to make a lie of Gabrielle’s words – for how could someone so gentle and beautiful be dangerous? But then he’d recall the pain he saw in Gabrielle’s eyes and knew that she was not giving him false counsel. She had perceived danger, and Talon knew he must heed that warning.

He was dozing when Rondar and Demetrius returned from the gathering, both of them a little drunk. They were chattering. Or rather, thought Talon, Demetrius was chattering for both of them.

‘You left,’ said Rondar.

‘Yes,’ said Talon. ‘As you recall, I have a long day in the kitchen tomorrow, so do us all a favour and stop talking.’

Demetrius looked at Talon then at Rondar, and started to laugh. ‘That’s our Rondar, talk, talk, talk.’

Rondar pulled off his boots, grunted, and fell upon the bed.

Talon turned his face to the wall and closed his eyes, but sleep was a long time in coming.

Weeks passed, and the events of the night in which Gabrielle shared her vision with him faded. Talon found much of the work that was given to him routine and predictable, but there were always enough new lessons to maintain his interest. As Magnus had predicted, Rondar turned Talon into a fine horseman, and over the next few months the Orosini emerged as the most able swordsman on the island. It felt, however, something of a hollow honour, as most of the students on Sorcerer’s Isle spent little or no time studying weapons and their uses.

The magic classes were strange. He barely understood half the things under discussion, and seemed to have no natural aptitude for the subject at all. Once or twice he would get an odd feeling just before a spell was executed, and when he told Magnus and Nakor about this, they spent over an hour asking him to describe that feeling in great detail.

The most amusing situation to arise during those weeks was Rondar’s infatuation with a newly-arrived girl named Selena, a hot-tempered, slender Keshian girl who despised Ashunta horsemen on general principle, for she had seen them on the edge of her town many times as a child. Her outrage at his culture’s treatment of women seemed focused upon Rondar as if he was the sole architect of his cultures values and beliefs. At first, Rondar had been silent in the face of her anger, ignoring the barbs and insults. Then he had returned the anger, speaking in rare, complete sentences, much to Talon and Demetrius’s amusement. Then against any reasonable expectation, he became enamoured of her.

His determination to win her over resulted in Talon sitting quietly, biting his tongue to keep from laughing, as Demetrius tutored Rondar in how properly to pay court. Talon knew himself to be no expert in such things, and judged that the girl had a great deal more to say in these matters than the boy, but his experience with Lela and Meggie at least had made him a little more comfortable around girls than Rondar and Demetrius. Around all girls, that is, except Alysandra.

His initial attraction to her had been supplemented by his reaction to Gabrielle’s warning. He now found her both appealing and daunting in the extreme. There was a sense of danger about her, and he wondered if it was of his own imagining, or if there was something truly risky in having any contact with her.

He decided that the best answer was avoidance, and when a situation arose which threw them together he was polite, but distant. He also found as many excuses as possible to keep away from her until he puzzled out how he felt about all this.

Nakor and Magnus provided new things for him to do all the time, and one afternoon he found himself undertaking the strangest task so far. Nakor had taken him to the top of a hillock, upon which sat a stunted birch tree, nearly dead from some pest, with gnarled branches and few leaves. Nakor had handed Talon a large piece of parchment stretched over a wooden frame, then a fire hardened stick, with a charcoal point. ‘Draw that tree,’ he said, walking away without waiting to hear Talon’s questions or remarks.

Talon looked at the tree for a long time. Then he walked around it twice, and then stared for nearly half an hour at the blank parchment.

Then he noticed a curve below one branch, where a shadow formed a shape like a fish. He tried to draw that.

Three hours later he looked at his drawing and then up at the tree. Frustration rose up in him and he threw the parchment down. He lay back and looked up at the clouds racing overhead, letting his mind wander. Large white clouds formed shapes and in those shapes he saw faces, animals, a castle wall.

His mind drifted away, and before long he realized he had dozed off. He was not sure how long he had slept for – only a few minutes, he judged – but suddenly he understood something. He sat up and looked at his parchment; then the tree, and frantically began another drawing, to the left of the original sketch. This time he stopped looking for details and just tried to capture the sense of the tree, the lines and shadows which his hunter’s eye had revealed. The details weren’t important he realized: rather, it was the overall sense of the object that mattered.

Just as he was completing the drawing, Nakor returned and peered over his shoulder. ‘Have you finished?’

‘Yes,’ said Talon.

Nakor looked at the two trees. ‘You did this one first?’ He pointed to the one on the right.

‘Yes.’

‘This one is better,’ he said, indicating the drawing on the left.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just stopped trying to do everything.’

‘That’s not bad,’ said Nakor, handing back the drawing. ‘You have a good eye. Now you must learn how to record what is important and not what is unnecessary. Tomorrow you will start to learn to paint.’

‘Paint?’

‘Yes,’ said Nakor. Turning back towards the estate, he said, ‘Come along.’

Talon fell in alongside his instructor and wondered what Nakor meant by ‘learning to paint’.

Maceus scowled as he watched Talon. The man had appeared as if by magic outside Nakor’s quarters the day after Talon had sketched the tree. He was a Quegan with an upturned nose, a fussy little moustache and a penchant for clucking his tongue while he reviewed Talon’s work. He had been teaching the young man about painting for a month now, working from dawn to dusk.

Talon was a quick study. Maceus proclaimed him without gifts and lacking grace, but grudgingly admitted he had some basic skill and a good eye.

Nakor would come in and observe from time to time as Talon struggled to master the concepts of light, shape, texture and colour. Talon also learned to mix his colours and oils to create what he needed and to prepare wooden boards or stretched canvas to take the paint.

Talon used every skill he had learned in every other discipline he had been taught, for as much as anything he had ever tried to master, painting caused him seemingly unending frustration. Nothing ever looked the way he had imagined it would when he started. Maceus had started him off painting simple things – four pieces of fruit upon a table, a single leather gauntlet, a sword and shield; but even these objects seemed determined to escape his efforts.

Talon studied and applied himself, failing more often than not, but slowly he began to understand how to approach the task of rendering.

One morning he arose and after finishing his duties in the kitchen – painting made him long for the relatively simple joy of cooking – he found himself looking at his latest attempt, a painting of a porcelain pitcher and bowl. Off-white in colour and with a decorative scroll of blue knotwork along the rim of the bowl and around the middle of the pitcher, the items required a subtle approach.

Maceus appeared as if sensing he had finished, and Talon stood aside. Maceus looked down his nose at the painting and said nothing for a moment. Then he pronounced: ‘This is acceptable.’

‘You like it?’ asked Talon.

‘I didn’t say I liked it; I said it was acceptable. You made correct choices, young Talon. You understood the need for representation rather than exact delineation in the painted knotwork. Your pallet was correct in rendering the white.’

Talon was gratified to earn even this guarded praise. ‘What next?’

‘Next, you start painting portraits.’

‘Portraits?’

‘You’ll paint pictures of people.’

‘Oh.’

Maceus said, ‘Go and do something else. Go outside and use your eyes to look at the horizon. You’ve been taxing them with close work for too long.’

Talon nodded and left the room. Everyone else was doing their assigned work, and he didn’t want to ride alone, or walk down to the lake and swim on his own. So he wandered across the meadow north of the estate and at last came across a group of students working in the small apple grove that bordered the deeper woods.

A familiar figure called out to him and he felt his pulse race. ‘Talon!’ Alysandra cried. ‘Come and help!’

She stood at the top of a ladder which was leaning against a tree. The ladder was being held by a boy named Jom. Talon saw that there were twelve students in all; six pairs.

Talon came to stand at the foot of the ladder and called up, ‘What do I do?’

She leaned over and handed down a large bag of apples. ‘Put that with the others and fetch me another bag. That way I don’t have to climb up and down.’

Talon did as she asked and carried the apples to a large pile of full bags. In the distance he saw another student driving a wagon slowly in their direction, so he assumed it was close to finishing time. He took an empty bag back to the ladder, climbed up a little way and handed the bag to Alysandra.

Her hair was tied back and tucked up under a white cap, accentuating the slenderness of her neck and how graceful her shoulders were. Talon saw that her ears stuck out a little and found that endearing.

‘Why don’t you go and help the others?’ She said after a moment. ‘We’re almost done.’

Talon jumped down and grabbed up an armful of bags. He exchanged empty bags for full ones, and by the time the wagon pulled up, the harvest was complete.

The students quickly loaded the wagon and started the trek back to the estate. When they were almost there, Alysandra fell in beside Talon and said, ‘Where have you been keeping yourself? I hardly see you any more.’

‘Painting,’ said Talon. ‘Master Maceus has been teaching me to paint.’

‘Wonderful!’ she exclaimed and her eyes seemed enormous as she looked up at Talon. She slipped her arm through his and he felt the softness of her breast against his elbow. He could smell the faint scent of her mixed in with the overwhelming scent of the apples. ‘What do you paint?’

‘Mainly what the master calls “still life” – things he arranges on a table, or pictures of the land. Tomorrow I start painting portraits.’

‘Wonderful!’ she repeated. ‘Will you paint a portrait of me?’

Talon almost stuttered. ‘Ah … certainly, if Master Maceus allows it.’

She rose up on her tiptoes for a brief instant with the grace of a dancer, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘It’s a promise,’ she said. ‘I’ll hold you to it.’

And with that she hurried ahead, leaving Talon standing as if thunderstruck, while several other boys laughed at his obvious state of confusion.

Talon reached up slowly and touched the cheek she had kissed and for a long time thought of nothing else.