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

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.

• CHAPTER TWELVE •

Love

TALON FROWNED.

‘Hold still, please,’ he pleaded.

Demetrius and Rondar both attempted to hold their poses for a moment longer, but at last Demetrius burst out, ‘I can’t do this!’

Talon threw his brush down in disgust. ‘All right. Let’s take a minute to relax.’

Rondar came around to where Talon had set up his easel with a treated piece of wood resting on it. He examined the portrait Talon was painting of the two young men and grunted. ‘Pretty good.’

Demetrius picked up an apple off the small table by the door and bit into it. Around a mouthful of fruit, he said, ‘Do you have any idea why they’re doing this?’

‘Doing what?’ asked Talon.

‘Making you learn to paint.’

Talon shrugged. ‘They have had me learning all manner of things over the last few years that don’t make a lot of sense to me. But I owe Robert de Lyis my life and he’s bound me over to Master Pug’s service, so I do what they tell me.’

‘But aren’t you the least bit curious?’ asked Demetrius.

‘Of course, but they’ll tell me what I need to know when I need to know it.’

Rondar sat down on a bed and said, ‘It’s simple.’

‘What?’ asked Demetrius, his freckled face resolving into a frown.

‘Why he paints,’ replied Rondar.

‘Well be so kind as to explain it to us, then, why don’t you?’ Demetrius looked at Talon who smiled.

Rondar shook his head as if it was obvious to any but a fool. Then he stood up, crossed the room and put his hand on Talon’s shoulder. ‘Talon: Mountain boy.’

‘Right,’ said Demetrius, his expression showing he wasn’t following so far.

‘Talon: Roldemish gentleman.’ With that, Rondar sat down.

Demetrius nodded as if understanding.

‘What?’ asked Talon, puzzled.

‘How many languages do you speak now?’

‘Six, including Orosini. I speak fluent Roldemish, King’s Tongue, the Common Tongue, pretty good Keshian; and I’m getting decent with Quegan – which is pretty close to ancient Keshian. Next I’m supposed to learn Yabonese.’

‘And you’re the best on the island with a sword.’

‘Yes,’ said Talon without modesty.

‘Do you play an instrument?’

‘A flute. Nakor showed me how to make one.’

‘Well?’

‘Well enough.’

‘You play chess, cards, dice, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re good at them, right?’

‘Yes,’ Talon repeated.

Demetrius grinned. ‘Rondar’s right. They’re going to pass you off as a gentleman of Roldem.’

‘Cook?’ asked Rondar.

Talon grinned. ‘Better than Besalamo, if I’m honest.’

‘That’s not saying much,’ observed Demetrius. ‘Look, if they start teaching you how to play more instruments and everything you need to know about wine and other such niceties, then Rondar’s right. The masters of this island are transforming you into a gentleman of Roldem.’

‘But why?’ asked Talon.

‘You’ll know when they tell you,’ Demetrius replied.

Talon pondered the possibility for a moment, then said, ‘All right. Back to your places. I told Master Maceus I’d have something to show him before supper.’

The two young men resumed their positions and Talon turned his mind away from the question of what he was being trained to do and back to the task at hand.

Master Maceus considered the portrait. After a while he said, ‘Passable.’

‘Thank you,’ Talon replied without much conviction. He was frustrated by the shortcomings he recognized in his work; the figures were stiff, unnatural, and showed little of the nature of his two friends.

‘You need work on the structure of the body,’ said his instructor.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I think your next study should be a nude.’

Talon raised an eyebrow. He had grown up in a culture in which the sight of the human body was no cause for notice, yet he had learned since coming away from the mountains of the Orosini that many other people viewed nakedness in a very different fashion. Some students swam nude in the lake, while others avoided those gatherings, preferring to swim and bathe alone, or wearing clothing designed for wear in the water. Others, like Rondar, avoided swimming altogether.

Talon had even discussed the matter with Nakor, which probably had been a poor choice, since his instructor had left him with more questions than answers. Even so, Talon felt compelled to ask, ‘Master Maceus?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are such paintings common?’

‘Common enough,’ said Maceus, though he added a self-conscious cough and remarked, ‘Though not often for public viewing. Private collections and the like. Still, statuary, that’s another story. Great heroes are often depicted in various stages of undress, their bodies showing magnificent wounds. But I’m not concerned about your ability to create something to titillate a bored noble; nor do I think you have the makings of a sculptor. It’s a matter of seeing below the surface, Talon.’ He pointed to the work on the easel and went on, ‘You’ve captured the surface of the boys, the overall sense of the planes and angles of their faces and clothing, but the muscles underneath, the curves of their shoulders, arms, chest – all that is missing. When you paint a portrait you must think of the body beneath, the spirit within: then you clothe the subject with your brushes and knives. When you look at the naked body, see the bone, sinew and muscle within, and clothe them in skin and hair. You’ll learn to understand this.’ With a rare smile, he added, ‘We may make a painter of you yet.’

Thinking of trying to persuade Rondar to stand in the room with no clothing, Talon said, ‘Should I seek another subject?’

‘Do not concern yourself. I’ll send someone along tomorrow.’

Talon nodded, thinking about what his instructor had said, and slowly began to clear away his brushes and paints.

Talon hurried from the kitchen. He had been assigned breakfast duty and had been up for two hours before the rest of the community had arisen. He had spent the entire time in the kitchen, until the afternoon crew had come aboard. He was to have returned to his quarters to meet the model for his new painting, but Nakor had found him and sent him off on an errand, telling him he’d meet the model later.

It had taken almost all of the afternoon for Talon to finish Nakor’s bidding, and now he was ready to return to his quarters to take a quick bath before supper. But when he got there, he found Rondar and Demetrius picking up the wooden chest that held Talon’s belongings. ‘What’s going on?’ Talon asked.

‘Moving,’ said Rondar.

‘We’re moving?’

‘You’re moving,’ said Demetrius. ‘I don’t know why, but we just got orders to take all your things down to that little cottage by the lake. You know the one.’

Talon grinned. The cottage was often used by students for assignations after hours. Then his grin faded. If he was being assigned that hut as quarters, any number of students would be less than thrilled.

As if reading his mind, Rondar said, ‘They can use the stable.’

Demetrius laughed. ‘He’s right. There are plenty of other places to get friendly. I’m partial to the baths after dark, myself. Water’s still very warm, it’s quiet …’ He grunted theatrically as he lifted the trunk, but Talon knew it wasn’t heavy, just big.

He let them go past him and out through the door, then fell in behind them. ‘My bed?’