The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

woke they were still only in the trees, the sshh-sshh of their side knives brushing the low branches on the path from the castle.
    At once he sprang up, slipping like a cat away from the well, to the other side of the clearing, gathering his belongings as he went—cloak, the almost worn-through shoes, his pouch of writing implements, and precious parchment leaves. He left nothing that might give his presence away. Hardly daring to breathe, he hid at the edge of the woods nearest the outermost house of the village and watched.
    He saw four men, dressed in battle gear, even at this time of night. In the moonlight, he could just make out their livery: a gold star with a black sword piercing its centre. None of them wore an officer badge. What were they doing out here so late, and without their Lord? Casting a deadening barrier over his mind so they would have no idea he was there, Simon watched as they searched around the well, turning over the dead and dying leaves and tearing the bank of moss on the east side with their swords.
    When they came to the place where he’d been lying, they paused and crouched down. One of them placed his hand on the flattened soil and nodded, glancing up at his companions as if confirming their suspicions. They must be feeling the heat of his body, Simon thought. They’d know someone had been here, and recently. Slowly, so as not to alert them to his presence, he took two or three steps backwards into the trees, praying to all the gods to keep him safe and provide a quick route away from this sudden danger. A branch from one of the elms brushed against his forehead and he fought hard not to push it away.
    As he continued to watch, the one who appeared to be their leader—the tallest and oldest of them, his grey hair lit softly by the moon—stood up and stared right in Simon’s direction. In spite of the precautions he’d taken to avoid discovery, he held his breath, poised to run if the soldier took so much as one step towards him.
    After several moments, during which all Simon could hear was the distant cries of night-rooks and the pulse of blood in his own ears, the soldier nodded once—almost a bow—as if satisfied at what he’d seen and turned away. A minute or two later, they’d gone and Simon began to breathe again.
    It was then that a twig broke in the denser trees behind. The sound was no animal.
    “Hello?” he whispered, knowing even then how ridiculous that sounded. “Who’s there?”
    Silence, as if someone held his breath, and then a darker shape moved out of the trees. A tall man, dressed in a cloak and with a silver clasp at his neck. Simon couldn’t see his face—he still stood too far away and the moon shone behind him—and he had the sense not to try a mind-search. Such an act would have given him away at once. Neither did he run; the sword at the stranger’s side too potent a warning.
    A glimmer of whiteness flashed in the night as the man smiled.
    “It doesn’t matter who I am,” the stranger said. “The important matter is who are you? What do you call yourself?”
    “Simon Hartstongue, sir.” He thought it best to answer without lies where possible, and his name could do no harm. Politeness also would be wisest.
    “Ah yes,” the man replied. “So I have heard. But that tells me nothing. From where do you come?”
    “The White Lands, sir,” he said. “I am nothing but a traveller selling herbs and simple medicines in my journeys. I scrape a living. No more. If you wish to rob me, you will find it hardly worth your while.”
    The man laughed. “I have enough goods of my own. I am no robber.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    At Simon’s question, the stranger stopped laughing, and took two paces into the clearing. He was now so close that Simon could have reached out and touched him. Even in the gloom, he could tell the man was finely dressed, handsome too, although the lack of light meant that the specifics remained unseen. Such a man as this had no need to prowl abroad. Simon’s question remained valid.
    “So then, sir, why are you here?” he said again, expecting the man to throw out some statement about the night being fine for hunting. The answer whipped his words away.
    “I have come to find you,” he said.
    Not the reason Simon had expected. He could see he would have to tread carefully here. It might be a trap. The laws of the land forbade the practice of mind-dwelling, in all its forms. He had heard of people with the same