CHAPTER XXXI: Bookends

"Is he gone?"

Tatya turned from the door to see Greagoir looking in his direction with one eye open.

"He…Lord Kiryatin is taking a walk about the grounds, master," Tatya replied with some surprise.

"I always could play him like a fiddle," Greagoir said with a wry grin.

"Play him? Lord Kiryatin? I don't get your meaning, master," Tatya mumbled, fumbling for an answer.

"At my passing you shall become Kiryatin's chief scribe, Tatya. You shall replace me."

"But…but…I am only an apprentice!"

Greagoir laughed hoarsely and lapsed into a spasm of coughing. "You are an apprentice no longer," Greagoir wheezed, "you have nuzzled at the teat of knowledge overlong, man-cub, it is time for you to leave the den."

Tatya was not at all pleased with the analogy, but he caught his master's meaning well enough. "But I am not ready," Tatya implored, "I have a lot yet to learn, and so many questions to ask!"

"Yes, there will be no more confounded questions," Greagoir sighed with obvious relief. "Tatya, one learns better by doing rather than asking. You are not some mindless myna parroting rote rhymes. I have given you my chronicles, add then to my history -- or better, create your own. There is so much left undiscovered…so much left undone…so much…"

Greagoir closed his eyes, still furtively rolling the great black pearl in his hand. Tatya tenderly brushed the hair back from his master's snow-white brow. "There is still time for us to finish your work, master," Tatya said with a sad smile. "You must rest now."

"I shall find no rest here," Greagoir murmured as one dreaming, "I must go on a final journey to find one who has my heart in her keeping..." He then opened his eyes, looked out beyond the feeble constraints of his blind orbs, and whispered "Leannan." His mouth slackened and the black pearl rolled from his grasp.

Tatya called out to his master, but he knew Greagoir was well on his way, and from this journey there would be no returning. Tatya gently closed his master's eyes and pulled the coverlet over his head. He then took up the pearl and held it to the light, its eboned opalescence stormily reflecting the sputtering candle on the bedstead. Then a thought suddenly came to him, and he went outside. The gloaming of evening was slowly casting its magical half-light on the whispering meadows as the last vestige of the setting sun tinged the uppermost rims of the hills reddish-orange in the west. Tatya found Attar Kiryatin at the end of the lane, making his way slowly back to his coach.

Tatya bowed solemnly to the Syndic Lord and said curtly, "Greagoir is dead, my lord. His last words spoke of his fealty towards you, and what a great honor it was to serve you."

Lord Kiryatin was at first distracted upon hearing the news, but then he eyed Tatya quizzically and a shrewd half-grin passed across his lips. "He said all that, did he? Well, either he was hallucinating at the end, or else you are a great liar."

Tatya shrugged noncommittally.

"In any case, young…Tatya, is it?" Lord Kiryatin continued, "I made your master a promise. After we bury Greagoir, you shall accompany me back to Caladh. There you shall be my chief scribe and take up his role in my service."

"Begging your pardon, my lord," Tatya said lowering his eyes, unable to maintain his thoughts under Kiryatin's raptorial gaze, "but I would much prefer to go it on my own, if you don't mind." He gathered up his courage and looked up again at Kiryatin. "And I would like to purchase this cottage and the land about it. In addition, I would appreciate some gold to defray the cost of my first expedition."

Kiryatin laughed aloud. "Naught but that, eh? Let me see if I have this a' right: first, you decline the position I have offered you --one which brought me much vexation at the hands of your former master, mind you; next, you expect me to give you title to this land; and finally, simply hand you some gold for a journey? You have more insolence than ever your master did, and at a much younger age!"

"I do not expect you to simply hand me anything, my lord," Tatya replied rather sharply, "for I wish to purchase the land and the gold with this." So saying, he brought out the great black pearl and placed it in Lord Kiryatin's hand.

Kiryatin was speechless for quite awhile. He hefted it in his palm, held it up in the waning light of dusk, and rolled it about in his fingers. His mouth moved silently in time with the calculations he was doing in his head. At last he spoke, but it was the squeak of an old man through parched lips, "Have you any idea the worth of this little bauble?"

Tatya smiled. "That little bauble, my lord, is worth far more than what I expect you'll give me for it."

Kiryatin laughed again, but it was tempered with wariness. "Tatya, why is it I get the distinct impression that you dislike me?"

"I have not said so, my lord."

"Hmmm, you are very unlike your master…" Kiryatin said with slight hesitation, "and yet, and yet…" He then handed the pearl back to Tatya and said, "I shall have a proper deed drawn up for the land and the dwelling thereon, and ready a sum of gold for use at your disposal. The price shall be…fair."

"Fair for a corsair?" Tatya replied dubiously.

Kiryatin's mouth drew up into an evil little smirk. "What passes as fair for a corsair often proves more so than that of a respectable man of business." Considering the discussion closed, Kiryatin began to walk the lane towards his coach, stopped, turned and added, "But at other times one can scarce tell the two apart."

Lord Kiryatin's grumbling footmen aided Tatya in burying his master in the garden Greagoir had so adored, even in his blindness. There was very little funerary ceremony -- death being such a common occurrence in that part of the world during that time, it was better not to dwell on it. Still, Tatya mourned and ruminated over Greagoir's grave for several hours after Lord Kiryatin's coach trundled off down the lane, the Syndic Lord filling the night air with many a mouth-filling oath regarding the inadequacies of his bungling driver. Within a few days, Kiryatin returned with the deed and the gold as promised (and it was indeed fairer than Tatya expected).

"And so what shall you do now, Tatya?" Kiryatin asked. "You are a young man of means and property; perhaps being a gentleman farmer would suit you best."

"Nay, my lord, I shall not farm the soil, but Middle-earth itself," Tatya answered cryptically, shouldering a pack he had already prepared. As he was seeing the Syndic Lord out, Tatya stopped at the doorway and hefted the black staff of Pallando, which had been leaning casually against the wall. "You see this, my lord? It was crafted from wood that came from Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains of fabled Gondor. I have an errand to run out that way."

Kiryatin could do nothing but stand on the porch and shake his head as Tatya marched down the lane with staff in hand. "So very unlike his master?" Kiryatin grunted and rolled his eyes. "Bah, he's the spitting image!"

But Tatya Reecho could not hear Lord Kiryatin's remark, having quickly passed out of sight of the ramshackle cotter's cottage that had been his home for so many years. As he crested the last hill, he caught a faint glimpse of the distant shores of Marannan Astair and the dark sea beyond. Heaving a great sigh, he said, "And thus the tale comes full circle at last!"

THE END