The Complete Conclave of Shadows Trilogy: Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, Exile’s Return

‘I understand that is what I am to do. I do not understand why.’

Robert smiled. ‘You have as keen a wit as you do an eye, Talon of the Silver Hawk. Now, what is it you wished to see me about?’

Talon composed his thoughts, taking a few moments to weigh his words. Then he asked, ‘What are your plans for me?’

‘This concerns you?’

Talon lowered his eyes for a moment, then remembered his father’s words, that he should always meet another man’s gaze and always face a problem directly. ‘It concerns me.’

‘Yet you have waited for months to ask.’

Talon again fell silent. Then he said, ‘I have had to consider much. I am without a people. Everything I know is gone. I do not know who I am any more.’

Robert sat back. He drummed his fingers lightly upon the table and said after a while, ‘Do you know what this is?’ He touched the large bound sheaf of parchment.

‘It is writing, I think.’

‘This is called a book. In it is knowledge. There are many books with many different kinds of knowledge in them, just as each man is a different kind of man.

‘Some men live their lives, Talon, without having to make many decisions. They are born to a place, grow up in that place, marry and father children in that place, grow old and die in that place. This is how it was to have been for you, is it not?’

Talon nodded.

‘Other men are cast adrift by fate and must choose their own lives. That is how it is with you now.’

‘But I am in your debt.’

‘And you shall repay that debt. Then what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then we have a common purpose, for in discovering how you may best serve me, we shall also discover what your destiny is.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Robert smiled. ‘That’s not necessary, yet. You will in time. Now, let me tell you some things you should know.

‘You will spend the next year here, at Kendrick’s. You will do many things, serving in the kitchen as you have, and in the stable, and in other capacities as Kendrick sees best. You will also, from time to time, serve Caleb or Magnus, should they need you while they are staying here. And from time to time you will travel with me.’ He turned, putting his hand upon the book once more. ‘And we shall start tomorrow by teaching you to read.’

‘To read, Robert?’

‘You have a bright mind, Talon of the Silver Hawk, but it is untutored. You were educated in the ways of your people to be a good and true man of the Orosini. Now you must be educated in the ways of the world.’

‘I still don’t understand, Robert.’

Robert motioned for Talon to stand. When he had, Robert said, ‘Go away and go to sleep. You will understand over time. I sense a potential for greatness in you, Talon. I may be wrong, but if you fail to develop that potential, it will not be for a lack of effort.’

Not knowing what to say, Talon merely nodded, turned and left. He paused outside Robert’s door and thought to himself, Potential for what?

Talon waited, sword ready. Magnus stood a short distance away, observing. The boy was already drenched with perspiration and was sporting several red welts on his shoulders and back from the blows he had taken.

Kendrick stood before him, a wooden training sword in his hand, motioning for the boy to attack one more time. He had allowed Talon to use a real blade, claiming that if the boy could cut him he deserved to bleed, and so far he had proven his ability to avoid being touched. But Talon was fast and learned quickly, and he was getting closer and closer to reaching Kendrick.

Magnus had said nothing during the training exercise, but he watched every move closely.

Talon attacked, this time holding his blade back as if readying for a downward strike. He suddenly spun away from Kendrick’s right side – his sword side – and slashed down and sideways with the blade, a vicious swing at Kendrick’s unprotected left side. Kendrick sensed the move only at the last instant, and barely got his own blade in place for a block, but suddenly Talon reversed himself and slashed in a backhand at Kendrick’s right side, which was now unprotected since he had over-extended himself for the block.

With a satisfying ‘thunk’ the flat of Talon’s blade slapped into the innkeeper’s back, eliciting a grunt of pain and Kendrick shouted, ‘Hold!’

Talon turned, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath and watched as the innkeeper studied him. ‘Who taught you that move, boy?’

‘No one, sir. I just … thought of it a moment ago.’

The innkeeper reached back and rubbed where Talon had struck him. ‘Fancy move, and beyond most swordsmen’s imagination, let alone their capacity, yet you pulled it off the first time.’

Talon didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he was being praised or not. He was getting to be almost fluent in Roldemish, but some of the nuances and idioms were still lost on him.

Kendrick handed his practice blade to Talon and said, ‘We’re done for today. Put these away and see what Leo has for you do to in the kitchen.’

Talon wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his tunic, took the weapon and hurried off towards the kitchen. When he was out of hearing, Magnus said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘He’s a cat, that one,’ said Kendrick. ‘I would have wagered a bag of gold he couldn’t touch me for at least two more lessons. At first I could whack him at will. Then he started anticipating my blows. Defence first, instinctually, knowing that survival comes before victory. He’s a smart one, too, as well as fast.’

‘How good can he be?’

Kendrick shrugged. ‘If you want a battle-butcher, I can have him ready to storm a wall in a month. If you want a swordsman, he’ll need better masters than I.’

‘And where would I find such?’

‘Give him to me for the year, then he’ll be ready for the Masters’ Court in Roldem. One or two years there and he’ll be one of the finest swordsmen I’ve ever seen.’

‘That good?’

Kendrick nodded. ‘More. He may be the best if something doesn’t ruin him along the way.’

Magnus held his iron-shod staff and leaned against it, staring at where Talon had last been visible, as if maintaining the image of the fatigued youth, dripping with his own perspiration, his hair lank and plastered to his head, hurrying to the kitchen. ‘What sort of something?’

‘Drink. Drugs. Gambling. Women. The usual.’

Kendrick looked at Magnus. ‘Or whatever plots and intrigues your father has lying in wait for him.’

Magnus nodded. ‘Father’s left the boy’s fate up to Robert. Talon is not part of our plans … yet, but father heard Robert’s report on him and counts him a fortuitous opportunity.’

‘Fortuitous for whom?’ asked Kendrick. ‘Come, I need to bathe. That lad worked me more than I expected.’

Magnus said, ‘Had Robert and Pasko not found him, Talon would be dead with the rest of his tribe. It’s Robert’s judgment that every minute from that moment on is borrowed time. The boy’s got a second chance.’

‘Ah, but who is going to use that chance?’ asked Kendrick. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’

Magnus said, ‘We’re all used, in one fashion or another. Do you think for a moment my life could be any different?’

‘No, you were fated by nothing more basic than who your parents were. Your brother, however, had choices.’

‘Not that many, really,’ said Magnus. ‘Caleb had no gift for magic, but he could have been something more than a soldier.’

Kendrick said, ‘Your brother is more than a soldier. Elven-trained as a hunter, master of more languages than I know of, and as skilled a student of men as lived. I wish I’d had him with me back when we put down the rebellion in Bardac’s Holdfast; trying to get information out of the prisoners at Traitors’ Cove was no spring fair, I can tell you. Caleb can tell when a man is lying just by looking at him.’ Kendrick shook his head, ‘No, there is nothing about any member of your family that I’d count as begging. And I think it’s much the same with the boy. I think he could be many things.’ He slapped Magnus lightly upon the shoulder. ‘Just don’t ruin him by trying to make him too many things, my friend.’

Magnus said nothing. He stopped to let Kendrick move ahead of him, then turned and looked into the sky as if trying to read something in the air. He listened to the sound of the woodlands, and then cast his senses outwards. Everything was as it should be. He turned and looked back. What had briefly troubled him? Perhaps it was Kendrick’s warning about the boy. Still, a sword was not forged until the metal was heated, and if a flaw existed in the steel, that was when you found it, in the crucible. And every blade would be needed for the war to come if his father’s plan wasn’t successful.

Talon heaved the last of the flour sacks onto the pile he had been constructing. A wagon-load of provisions had arrived from Latagore and he had spent the afternoon unloading it, hauling them down the steps into the basement below the kitchen. Besides enough flour for the winter, there were baskets of vegetables and fruits imported from other lands, preserved by some fey art that Talon didn’t understand, though he had overheard enough in the kitchen to know that such magic preservation was costly beyond the means of any but the noble and wealthy.

Leo and Martha had taken command of a variety of small boxes, containing spices, herbs and condiments that the cook counted more valuable than their weight in gold. All their provisions for the winter, with what they could grow in the garden and harvest in the autumn, and what Talon and Caleb could hunt, meant a winter of good food, far beyond what the boy was used to.

‘Talon!’ came Lela’s voice from above. He hurried up the broad wooden steps, and saw her standing next to the wagon, a rapt expression on her face. ‘Look!’ She pointed skyward.

Snow was falling, tiny flakes blown about by a gentle but persistent breeze, most of them melting upon reaching the ground. ‘It’s just snow,’ Talon said.

Lela threw him a pout, one of her many expressions which caused his stomach to go hollow. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s beautiful?’

Talon watched the flakes falling for a moment, then said, ‘I never thought of it. In my village, snow means months inside our houses or hunting in drifts as high as your chest.’ For some reason, just mentioning the word ‘chest’ caused his eyes to drift to Lela’s ample bosom, though after an instant he averted his eyes. ‘My toes always hurt after a hunt.’

‘Oh,’ she said in mock disapproval. ‘You have no sense of beauty. I come from a land that never sees snow. It’s wonderful!’

Talon smiled. ‘If you say so.’ He looked into the rear of the wagon and saw that it was empty. ‘I need to go tell the driver I’ve finished.’ He closed the large wooden doors down into the cellar, then moved around to the kitchen door. Once inside, he realized how cold the air outside had become, for the kitchen seemed hot and close to him.

The wagon driver and an apprentice teamster sat at a small table in the corner of the kitchen, eating the meal Martha had prepared for them. They looked up as Talon approached. ‘Wagon’s unloaded,’ he said.

The teamster, a gaunt man whose nose looked like a buzzard’s beak grinned, showing that he was missing two front teeth. ‘Be a good lad and unhitch the horses, will you? We’re not done quite yet and it wouldn’t do to leave them shivering out in the cold. We’ll be staying the night and heading back north first thing in the morning.’

Talon nodded, and turned back towards the door. Lars intercepted him. ‘You shouldn’t have to see to his team. That’s his job.’

Talon shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. No guests to worry about and it’s either see to horses or scrub pots in here. Not much to choose from.’

Lars said, ‘Suit yourself,’ and returned to his duties.

Talon went back outside. The few moments in the kitchen had turned the air outside from brisk to uncomfortable. He hurried to the wagon and led the horses to the mouth of the barn. He had developed a fair hand in dealing with the fractious animals, and while his few attempts at riding had been less than pleasant, he found stable-work easy and mostly enjoyable. The heavy wagon had been drawn by a team of four, and it took a bit of convincing to get the animals to back up enough to put the wagon neatly out of the way. He quickly unhitched each animal, took it inside and got it into a stall. Then he set to brushing each of them. Even after having stood motionless for nearly a half-hour while he unloaded, the horses were still damp from their long pull to the inn that afternoon. Steam rose from their backs as he brushed, as the air turned bitterly cold.

By the time water and fodder had been placed in the stalls, Talon knew that the weather was turning serious. He went out into the stabling yard and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, but he could see that the clouds were growing darker and thicker and the snow more insistent. He thought the teamster and his apprentice needed to be quick on the road to Latagore or else they would find themselves in snow up to their hubs in the next few days. If they were lucky. If a big storm was heading their way, they could find themselves snowed in for the winter at Kendrick’s.

Supper passed uneventfully. After the kitchen had been cleaned and the bread readied for baking in the morning, Talon was about to retire to the room he shared with Lars and Gibbs, when Lela approached him. ‘Don’t go to your room, yet,’ she said in a whisper. She put her hand upon his arm and led him to the pantry between the common room and the dining room. She pushed the door to the common room slightly ajar.

Gibbs was sitting quietly before the hearth, staring into the dying embers as he nursed a mug of ale. Lela closed the door, a mischievous smile in place. ‘Lars needs the room for a while.’

‘For what?’ asked Talon.

Her eyes widened and she giggled. ‘For what? You don’t know?’

He frowned. ‘If I knew, would I ask?’

She playfully put her hand on his stomach and gave him a gentle push. ‘He and Meggie are there.’

Talon said, ‘Why?’ Then before she could answer, he realized. ‘They need to be alone?’ he asked.

‘Of course, you fool!’ she said playfully.

‘With my people it is different,’ he explained. ‘We live in community buildings during the winter, and often a man and woman will lie together under bearskins. Everyone else pretends not to notice.’

‘Around here we notice,’ she said. Looking at him with a glimmer in her eye, she said, ‘You look troubled. What is it?’

Talon’s mind returned to Meggie’s quirky smile and upturned nose, and the way her thin frame swayed slightly when she walked. At last he said, ‘I don’t know.’

Suddenly, Lela’s eyes widened. ‘You’re jealous!’

Talon said, ‘I don’t know that word.’

‘You want Meggie for yourself!’ she said with a merry laugh.

Suddenly Talon’s face was flushed and he wanted to be just about anywhere else. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he stammered.

Lela gave the boy an appraising look for a long minute. Then she said, ‘You’re turning into a handsome young man, Talon.’ She put her arms around his waist and pressed closer, her face just in front of his. ‘Have you known a woman before?’

Talon felt his pulse race and he found himself speechless. Eventually, he shook his head.

Lela laughed and thrust herself away from him. ‘You are such a boy.’

Abruptly, Talon found himself angry. For some reason the remark stung and he almost shouted, ‘No, I am a man of the Orosini! I went upon my vision quest and …’ He paused. ‘I would have had my manhood tattoos upon my face had my family not been killed.’

Lela’s expression softened, and she stepped back towards him. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’

His anger soon fled as she pressed herself against him and kissed him, her soft, warm lips causing stirrings that threatened to overpower him. He grabbed her hard, and pulled her into him, eliciting a squeak of protest. She pushed him back slightly and said, ‘Gently.’

Talon blinked in confusion, his mind swimming in feelings he could put no name to; he ached to pull her back into an embrace.

She grinned. ‘You know nothing of the game of women and men.’

‘Game?’

She took him by the hand. ‘I’ve seen those games Robert and Magnus have taught you. Now I think it’s time to teach you the best game of all.’

Feeling fearful and flushed with anticipation, Talon clung to Lela’s hand as she led him through the common room towards the room she shared with Meggie.

Seeing what was transpiring, Gibbs grinned and hoisted his ale-jack in salute. As they climbed the stairs to the now-empty guests rooms, he said, ‘Got to get another girl working here; that’s all there is for it.’

Lacking any other comfort, he elected for one more ale before finding a place for himself for the night.

• CHAPTER FIVE •

Journey

TALON SNEEZED.

‘Too much pepper,’ said Leo.

Talon wiped away the tears in his eyes with the hem of his apron and nodded. He had been working in the kitchen for a year now and over the last four months had come to feel at home there. He still served elsewhere at Kendrick’s discretion, but most of his time recently had been spent with the cook.

Four months earlier Leo had walked in one day and beckoned Talon to his side, showing him how to prepare dishes for baking pies, a simple task involving lard and wheat flour. From there he had moved on to washing vegetables and fruits. He then worked his way up to preparing simple dishes. In the last few weeks, Talon had learned the basics of baking, cooking meats, and was now being trained how to make sauces.

Talon smiled.

‘What’s amusing you, young fellow?’ asked Leo.

‘I was just thinking how much more there is to getting food ready to eat than what I learned as a boy. My father and the other men of my village would sit around a large spit upon which a deer turned, talking about the hunt or crops or which son was the fastest runner, and the women baked bread or cooked stews or soup.

‘My mother would have gawked in wonder at the spices in your cupboard, Leo.’

‘Simple fare can be challenging, too, Talon. A spit of beef must be dusted lightly with salt and pepper at the right moment, then graced, perhaps, with a kiss of garlic just before presentation.’

Talon grinned. ‘My mother would never have understood presentation.’

‘You’ve only seen the barest glimpse of it, boy,’ said Leo. ‘What we do here is wasted upon commoners for the most part, and even those lords and ladies who stop by on their travels would count our fare rustic compared to the tables at which they’ve dined in the great cities.

‘The noble tables of Rillanon and Roldem are each night piled high with the efforts of dozens of cooks and hundreds of kitchen whelps such as yourself. Each plate is graced with just such a portion of this dish, just such a portion of that delicacy. There is an art in this, boy.’

Talon said, ‘If you say so, Leo. Though I’m not sure what you mean by “art”. We have no such word in my language.’

Leo stopped stirring his own reduction sauce and said, ‘You don’t?’

Talon was fluent in Roldemish and now found himself being corrected only on pronunciation and occasionally on his delight in profanity, which seemed to amuse Leo, irritate Robert, and outrage Martha. The Orosini were comfortable with sex and other natural body functions, and Talon found it oddly amusing that describing defecation or the sex act was considered ‘bad’ in Roldemish society.

‘No,’ said Talon. ‘The closest the Orosini tongue can get is “graceful” or “beauty”, but the idea of doing something just to do it is … not something I grew up with.’ Talon had come to terms with the destruction of his family over the last year. Rather than the terrible pain it had given him, now it had become more of a dark memory which haunted him from time to time. The desperate anguish was gone, for the most part. Learning to do new things was part of the reason; and Lela was the rest.

‘Well, then,’ said Leo. ‘You learn something new every day.’

Talon agreed. ‘We have –’ he corrected himself, ‘– had art in some of the crafts the women practise. My grandmother made patterned blankets that were prized by everyone in the village. Our shaman and his acolytes would make prayer … you don’t have a word for it, circles of patterns of coloured sand. They would chant and pray while they worked, sometimes for days, in a special tent that they would put up and work inside. When they were finished, the entire village would gather to see the work and to chant as the wind took the prayer to the gods. Some of them were beautiful.’ Talon paused. ‘Those paintings Kendrick hangs in the dining room …’

‘Yes?’ asked Leo.

‘I wish some of my grandmother’s blankets or the sand prayer-circles could be remembered like that, hung on a wall for people to see. They were beautiful.’

‘An eye for beauty, young Talon, is a gift.’ Leo said.

Just then, Lela walked into the kitchen.

‘And speaking of beauty …’ muttered Leo with a grin.

Talon glanced at the girl and smiled slightly. His people could mask their feelings around strangers, but he felt now that the kitchen-staff were his family and everyone knew of his relationship with Lela. He had slept in her bed almost every night for the better part of the last year. Close to sixteen years of age, a man by the standards of his people, he would have been wed and a father by now had his village survived.

Lela returned his gesture with a smile.

‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ asked Leo. ‘Is the washing done?’

‘Yes,’ she said pertly. ‘Meggie and Martha are folding the last of the dyed bedding and I came to see what needed to be done here.’

‘Of course you did,’ said the cook with a chuckle. He moved Talon gently aside, dipped a spoon into the sauce the young man was preparing and tasted it. He stared off into space reflectively for a long moment, then said, ‘Simple, yet … bland.’ His fingers danced across the small jars of spices before him, picking up a pinch of this, a dash of that, which he added to the sauce. ‘This is for chicken, lad, and slowly roasted chicken. It is a bland meat, not full of flavour like those lovely partridges and turkeys you bring home from the hunt. Those require a simple sauce to bring out the bird’s taste. This sauce needs to give the bird flavour. Here!’ He poked the spoon at Talon’s lips. ‘Taste!’

Talon did so and nodded. It was exactly the sauce he had been trying to make. ‘So I should have used more spices, Leo?’

‘By twice, my boy, by twice.’ The cook put down the spoon and wiped his hands on his apron. ‘Now, be a good lad and go and help Lela wash vegetables.’

Talon nodded and went over to the large wooden sink attached to the rear wall of the kitchen. It had a drain that cleverly went out through the wall and emptied into a small culvert that ran along the base of the building, then into a pipe under the ground and eventually into the cess pit Kendrick had dug beyond the outer wall of the courtyard. He hefted a bucket of cold water and stood there, pouring slowly while Lela washed the freshly-dug vegetables. It was the first of the spring crop and the thought of fresh carrots, radishes, and turnips made Talon’s mouth water.

‘Why the sauce?’ asked Lela. ‘We don’t have any guests tonight.’

‘That’s why,’ said Talon. ‘Leo decided that since we had no one to complain about the sauce, he’d let me try another one.’

‘You must be making progress,’ Lela observed. ‘He didn’t throw this one across the kitchen.’

‘True,’ said Talon. ‘You people can be strange at times.’

‘We’re strange?’ She flicked water from her fingers at him as he put down the bucket. ‘From what you’ve said about your people, you’re the strange one.’

Talon’s features darkened. ‘It hardly matters. I’m the only one left.’