‘We are here, Prince Serbitar, because it is our duty. This we will accomplish best without you beside us.’
More painful than this, however, was the long discussion he had had with the Abbot of Swords – the man he revered, loved as a father, mentor and friend.
Serbitar closed his eyes and opened his mind, soaring free of the body prison and sweeping aside the curtains of time.
Back he travelled, back and further back. Thirteen long, wearisome, joy-filled years flowed past him and he saw again the caravan which had brought him to the Abbot of Swords. Riding at the head of ten warriors was the giant, red-bearded Drada, the young Earl of Segril – battle-hardened, volatile, a pitiless enemy but a true friend. Behind him ten of his most trusted warriors, men who would die for him without a moment’s hesitation, for they loved him above life. At the rear is a cart upon which, on a straw pallet covered with silken sheets, lies the young prince, a canvas screen shielding his ghost-white face from the sun.
Drada wheels the black horse round and gallops back to the cart. He leans on his saddle horn and glances down at the boy. The boy looks up; framed against the bright sky, he can see only the flaring wings of his father’s battle helmet.
The cart is moving again, into the shade of the ornate black gates. They swing open and a man appears.
‘I bid you welcome, Drada,’ he says, the voice at variance with the silver armour he wears, for it is a gentle sound, the voice of a poet.
‘I bring you my son,’ answers the Earl – his voice gruff, soldierly.
Vintar moves to the cart and looks down on the boy. He places a hand on the pale forehead, smiles and pats the boy’s head.
‘Come walk with me, boy,’ he says.
‘He cannot walk,’ says Drada.
‘But he can,’ says Vintar.
The boy turns his red eyes towards Vintar, questioningly, and for the first time in his lonely life feels a touching of minds. There are no words. Vintar’s gentle poet’s face enters with a promise of strength and friendship. The fragile muscles on Serbitar’s skeletal body begin to shake, as an infusion of power regenerates wasted cells.
‘What is the matter with the boy?’ Drada’s voice fills with alarm.
‘Nothing. Say farewell to your son.’
The red-bearded warrior turns his horse’s head to the north, and gazes down at the white-haired child. ‘Do as you are told. Be good.’ He hesitates . . . pretends his horse is skittish. He is trying to find words for a final farewell, but he cannot. Always he has found difficulty with this red-eyed child. ‘Be good,’ he says again; then raises an arm and leads his men northward on the long journey home.
As the wagon pulls away, bright sunlight streams on to the pallet and the boy reacts as if lanced. His face mirrors pain, his eyes squeeze shut. Vintar gently seeks his mind and pulses: ‘Stand now and follow the pictures I will place on your eyelids.’
At once the pain eases and the boy can see, more clearly than ever before. And his muscles lift him at last – a sensation he thought he had forgotten since a year ago when he collapsed in the snow of the Delnoch mountains. From that moment to this he has lain paralysed, unspeaking.
Now he stands, and with eyes tight shut, he sees more clearly. Without guilt he realises he has forgotten his father and is happy for it.
The spirit of the older Serbitar tastes again the total joy which flooded the youth that day as, arm-in-arm with Vintar the Soul, he walked across the courtyard until at last, in a bright-lit corner, they came to a tiny rose cutting nestling by a high stone wall.
‘This is your rose, Serbitar. Love it. Cherish it and grow with it. One day a flower will form on that tiny plant. And its fragrance will be for you alone.’
‘Is it a white rose?’
‘It is whatever you will it to be.’
*
And through the years that followed Serbitar found peace and joy in comradeship, but never more than the experience of true contentment with Vintar the Soul on that first day.