Valderen by Roger Taylor

Author:Roger Taylor [Taylor, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781843192794
Google: t5Nk6idFVfUC
Amazon: 1843192799
Publisher: Bladud Books
Published: 2007-04-02T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

As Marna looked about her, she tried to keep her nervousness from showing in her manner. It was almost impossible. Time ticked by, heartbeat by heartbeat, pounding achingly in her stomach. This fearful clock had begun the instant that Nilsson had spoken his message, ‘Lord Rannick wants to see your daughter, weaver,’ and Marna had the feeling that she had not breathed out since his final, emphatic, ‘Now.’

Her immediate impulse had been to flee, but that had scarcely had chance to form in her mind before it shrivelled. Not so much because she knew that it would have been futile, but because of the look on her father’s face. There had not even been an initial expression of shock. Instead an eerie deadness had come over it, as though he had suddenly donned a strange mask. Only his eyes were alive, searching deeply into this intruder with his appalling news.

It was because she could not read what was in them, except that it was terrible, that she stepped forward immediately.

‘What does he want me for?’ she had asked before her father could speak.

It was not possible that she could know it, but Nilsson was as relieved at this intervention as she was concerned about his message. For he could read what was in Harlen’s eyes. His nerves were jangling with the shock of a man whose mind is far away from any thought of threat and who suddenly finds the blade of a frantic assassin at his throat, or his hand resting upon a poisonous snake.

Almost out of habit, he had quietly tormented the slightly built weaver with his stripping knife, and he had been routinely prepared to knock him to the ground had he chosen to protest and bluster at the taking of his daughter. But this was different. Nilsson had seen such a look only a few times before, but it had been enough to teach him that he might not survive the next few moments, even though he were to kill his opponent. For though Harlen made no threatening movement, the eyes with which he was now watching Nilsson came from a part so deep within him as to be scarcely human; they were the eyes of an animal guarding its young. Harlen was beyond any possibility of fear because his own death was now of no account to him. Nilsson had the vision that Harlen had had but seconds before: of being torn open by that short bladed but lethally sharp stripping knife wielded by a knowing hand. It could happen in the blink of an eye, and he knew that he would not have the reflexes to stop Harlen seizing the knife from the chair should he so decide.

Thus, at Marna’s approach and her question, he took the opportunity to step back a little, ready to leap clear of the confines of the doorway to where space might give him a chance to defend himself. At the same time he muttered a hasty reassurance to Harlen, before addressing himself to Marna.

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