Free Call of the Kings by Chris Page

better.’
    ‘But we don’t know if we influence it for the better, and should we try to so do anyway? Future venefici will be able to look back and decide whether taking one side over the other helped change matters significantly over the course of history, but not us. All we know is the influence our participation has on the immediate outcome, not its long-term effect. That can only truly be assessed over a period of many tens of years or even centuries. Surely the best way to influence the course of history for the better is to leave them all alone to get on with their interminable wars and wanton slaughter. Let them kill their way into the course of history without our assistance.’ Tara nodded at her own logic.
    ‘What would we do with ourselves?’ Twilight asked. ‘I must admit that I have grown used to a certain feeling for the excitement and vicissitudes of conflict.’
    ‘I think you have grown to like the big conflicts too much and that is not good for a veneficus. That’s the real reason you spend so much time in the company of kings. It’s their wars, treachery, intrigue, and constant will to dominate that keeps you interested. We should let them get on with it whilst we content ourselves with local issues and the annual handling of the Equinoctial Mists,’ Tara replied, looking at her mother for a contribution.
    ‘You mean such matters as the problem with the Devil’s Pit in Skellighaven?’ Katre said, doing as she was told.
    ‘Precisely,’ said Tara. ‘Leave the kings and queens to fight their big battles while we look after the local stuff. Turn the venefical head back to the everyday and the mundane aspects of nature. Like the wonderful words of that ‘Song of the Venefici’ you taught me.’
    Tara cleared her throat and spoke the lines.
    ‘Kiss the winds and sense the seasons, Smell the rain and know the reasons. Feel the sun, plunge the earth Whisper plant, whisper birth. Run with hares, fly with birds Climb with trees heavenwards. Then you will know the reasons why The earth resides beneath the sky. And if you think it’s yours to change, To redesign and rearrange, Consider your time within its place As no more than a flash in space, And in that flash you would deface The beauty of its timeless place, For no more than a flash in space You would leave your own disgrace So by kissing winds of zephyr light And smelling rain throughout the night And understanding backward sight All your mistakes are rendered right; And this noble place we call our Earth Will have survived you death from birth And all will be as it was before, Your flash in space required a cure.’
    She finished and looked at her teacher with steady green eyes.
    ‘There is no mention of war and kings and conflicts in those prophetic lines are there?’ she said softly. ‘Although a case could be made for:
    And in that flash you would deface The beauty of its timeless place, For no more than a flash in space You would leave your own disgrace.’
    Twilight looked at them both thoughtfully. They had a point and a very good one at that. Since Rawnie’s death he’d become a court conflict addict, drifted away from the codes that hitherto had bound him to the venefical mission. Without Rawnie’s female realism and logic he’d allowed events to take over.
    It was time to reassess.
    ‘I think you’re right and it’s time to get back to nature and local issues. If I have grown to like the big conflicts too much, I will need your help to get over it. War can be an addictive pastime and the withdrawal symptoms difficult to deal with.’
    Katre smiled and grasped his hand. With the other arm around the shoulders of the still-little Tara, the three of them walked back toward the compound. Later, as Tara slept, Katre and Twilight kissed for the first time. Then they kissed again.
    It went on for quite a while.
     
    ‘I think it’s time we went back to Skellighaven to check on progress,’ said the old astounder the following