“Is that it?” With obvious reluctance, Ennit relinquished his daughter, but he couldn’t resist drawing his hand across the dark fuzz on her head. “I was afraid my ugly face scared her.”
“Oh, hush. You’re not ugly. You’re not handsome, but you’re not ugly.”
Ennit laid his hand over his heart. “Ah, Griane. I always wondered how Darak remained humble in the face of his accomplishments. Now I know.”
“Get back to your sheep before they fall off Eagles Mount.”
“Conn’ll mind them. And Trian,” he added as an afterthought.
At fourteen, Conn was already more responsible than his uncle. A strange assortment of brothers had come out of that womb—Gortin so dour, Ennit dour of face but merry of heart, dreamy Trian. And Pol, of course. A blessing when his spirit had finally flown to the Forever Isles. Neither Mother Netal nor Struath had been able to heal the poor lad after the ram kicked him in the head.
“How is Conn? I’ve hardly seen him since the lambing began.”
“Tired. Happy. Lambing time’s always busy. But the newborns are sweet.” Ennit cast a fond look at his daughter. “And Keirith?”
“I don’t know. He’s turned broody again.”
“It’s a broody age. Gods, I wouldn’t be fourteen again for anything.”
“I wouldn’t mind fifteen. Or sixteen.”
“Oh, aye.” He threw back his head and yowled.
Griane punched him. “I’ll give Lisula your love.”
“I’ll do that myself. Lisula!”
Startled by his bellow, the babe began to wail again. Griane glared at Ennit and tried to soothe the poor mite.
“I love you, Lisula. As long as the sun rises and sets. As long as the moon waxes and wanes. As long as—”
“As long as you have breath to shout with,” Griane said, “which will be forever, I’m sure. Now stop scaring the child.”
“I love you, too, you wonderful, silly man.” Lisula’s answering shout made Ennit laugh. “And I can’t wait to get out of this stuffy hut and hold you in my arms again.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait,” Griane replied. “Seven days and seven nights. That’s the law.”
“It’s a stupid law,” Ennit muttered, then continued shouting endearments to Lisula.
Not so stupid, Griane thought. The law decreed that no man should touch or see a woman at the magical times of birthing and bleeding. Magical or not, those were the only times a woman was freed from the endless demands of work and family. The placing of the birthing hut near the fields to ensure the fertility of crops and women alike was only common sense. But the tradition that dictated both the birthing and moon huts be built within sight of the Death Hut . . .
A man surely invented that tradition, thinking to reinforce the endless circle of life, death, and rebirth, but totally oblivious to the feelings of the women who had to walk past the Death Hut to deliver their babes or celebrate their moon flow. She could still remember her rite of passage, the women’s chanting vying with the raucous croaks of the crows and ravens feasting on poor Giti. Even the spicy tang of the burning herbs had failed to disguise the sweet-rotten stench of his corpse.
Belatedly, she realized Ennit had ceased his shouting. “What is it?” Then she heard the high, thin voice of a child. They both spun around, searching for the source of the cry. In the fields, women and girls straightened to do the same. In a tribe as small as theirs, everyone looked out for the safety of a child.
“Mam!”
Through the alders that screened the birthing hut from the lake, she glimpsed the small figure racing down the beach.
“Mam! They’re coming!”
The children in the fields took up Callie’s shout and surged toward the lake. The women dropped their bone spades and hurried after them. Other children, too young to be of help with the planting, scampered down the gentle slope from the village. Their mothers trailed behind, chattering, laughing, and pausing occasionally to dust off a toddler who stumbled and fell.
Peering through the alders, Griane spied the first coracles emerging from the narrow channel between Eagles Mount and Stag’s Leap.
He’s home.
“Ennit . . .”
“Go.”
She kissed his cheek, then remembered she was still holding the babe. Bethia ducked out of the hut and Griane quickly deposited the child in her arms. “Tell Lisula I’ll be back tonight. And tell Sali—”
“Go, Mother Griane. We can manage.”
Maker bless her. So calm, so capable. She’d make a fine Grain-Mother someday. And here she was, nearly ten years Bethia’s senior and as flustered as a girl. It was unseemly. She hurried toward Callie, then abandoned decorum and ran.
“Fa’s home!” His cheeks flushed with excitement, Callie seized her hand and pulled her toward the lake.
“You go. I want to change out of these clothes first.”
Callie’s face screwed up in a frown as he studied her. She smoothed her untidy braid, rubbed a splotch of blood on the sleeve of her worn doeskin tunic, but there was no help for the patched skirt spattered with faded bloodstains that all the scrubbing in the world couldn’t get out. You didn’t wear your best clothes to a birthing, after all.
“But you look pretty.”
She pulled him close. Keirith was broody like his father and Faelia was just plain difficult—the gods only knew who she took after—but her baby had inherited his sweet nature from his uncle Tinnean.
Callie squirmed and pulled away. Her baby was six now, too old to endure his mother’s fussing—in public, anyway.
“You go,” she repeated. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Callie rolled his eyes. He’d picked that up from Faelia. She was forever rolling her eyes and blowing out her breath in exasperation. Though never at her father, of course.
Griane hurried toward her hut, praying that Faelia had remembered to put the stew on the fire and prepare a fresh batch of oatcakes. Her prayers—as usual—were not answered; the unbaked oatcakes sat on plaited withies, the stewpot beside them.
She shoved the baking stone atop the peat bricks and vented her anger on a bunch of wild onions. She tossed them into the stew, hefted the pot into the fire pit, and thrust a handful of dead twigs under it, watching to be sure they caught. At this rate, it would be dark before the stew was hot.
Squatting beside their pallet, she threw back the wolfskins. For a long moment, she eyed her best tunic, the one she wore only on feast days. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she pulled out her everyday tunic and skirt. Her fingers fumbled with the drawstrings of her birthing skirt.
Like a girl on her wedding night. Except Darak was more nervous than I was.
She kicked her birthing clothes under the wolfskins; time enough on the morrow to wash them. No time, alas, to rebraid her hair. A splash of water on her face, a quick look around the hut. Was it so much to ask that the children tidy their sleeping places instead of leaving the furs strewn about? It looked like a storm had blown through. She spent a few precious moments smoothing furs and folding clothing, then abandoned the effort and raced down to the lake.
Everyone was there, hugging family members, shouting greetings, waving to those whose coracles had yet to reach the beach. Darak was easy to find, a good head taller than most of the men. He’d caught Callie up in his arms, but freed one as Faelia flung herself on him. Keirith must still be with the Tree-Father.
You’d think he could abandon his lessons long enough to welcome his father home.
Darak’s lips moved, still talking to the children, as his gaze swept the crowd. “It’s like you carry the sunset on your shoulders,” he’d once said in a most uncharacteristic burst of poetry. Her hair had been brighter then, even brighter than Faelia’s. Age and worry had streaked the sunset with white, but still he found her.
The milling throng, the babble of voices, the glittering water of the lake all faded away. There was only that cool gray gaze and that slow smile and the ridiculous thumping of her heart. He walked toward her, Callie clinging to one hand, Faelia to the other.
“We didn’t expect you so soon.”
“We were eager to get home.”
“No trouble at the Gathering?”
He shrugged, his glance straying to the children, letting her know without words that they would talk later.
“You were probably trying to seduce Seg’s wife again.”
“Aye. Well. I’ve a great fondness for scolds.”
He freed his hands from the children to brush wisps of hair off her cheeks with his thumbs. Then he cupped her face and kissed her lightly. She hugged him hard, abandoning herself to the feel of that broad back under her fingertips, the familiar smell of leather and peat smoke and that indefinable something that was Darak and only Darak.
“I missed you, too, girl,” he whispered.
“Did you bring us presents from the Gathering, Fa?”
With a rueful grin, her husband slipped out of her arms and back into his role as father. “Maybe.”
“Fa . . .” Callie danced from one foot to the other in impatience.
“Callum. Give your father a moment to catch his breath.”
“Fetch my pack and we’ll see about presents.” Darak scanned the thinning crowd. “Where’s Keirith?”
“Praying, probably,” Faelia said. “I snared twelve rabbits while you were gone and brought down four wood pigeons and three—”
“It’s awful heavy.” Callie’s face was mashed into a frown of concentration as he staggered toward them, dragging the pack. “You must have brought a lot of presents.”
“Enough, both of you. Your father’s probably starving. There’s rabbit stew. And oatcakes. If they bake in time.” Griane spared a quick glare for Faelia who predictably rolled her eyes.
Hand in hand, she and Darak started up the slope. Suddenly, he pulled away. “Urkiat. Forgive me. I’m a poor host.”
For the first time, Griane noticed the hawk-faced stranger. He smiled at Darak’s words, but his rapt gaze remained fixed on her. Perhaps she looked better than she imagined.
“Griane, this is Urkiat. He’s going to be spending a few days with us.”
Griane smoothed her hair, the vision of their untidy hut making her wince.
“Urkiat, this is my wife. My daughter, Faelia. And this one . . .” He bent down to retrieve the pack that Callie was attempting to drag up the hill. “This is my younger son, Callum.”
Urkiat bowed. “Griane. I can’t tell you . . . It’s . . . I am honored.”
Merciful Maker, another of the worshipful young men. Every summer brought one or two to the village, slack-jawed and stammering, to meet the great Darak Spirit-Hunter. Their own tribe had long since accepted their roles in the quest to find the spirit of the Oak-Lord, lost during that long-ago Midwinter battle. Even those who still remembered Darak’s brother seemed to view the story of Tinnean’s transformation from boy to tree as if it had happened to a stranger. And no matter how many times they heard the story of her interval in the Summerlands with the Trickster, it was hard to worship the woman who dosed you with dandelion root and yellow dock to loosen your bowels.
“Best close your mouth,” Faelia said. “Else you’ll be having flies for supper.”
Urkiat flushed and snapped his mouth shut. Darak tugged Faelia’s braid, unsuccessfully hiding a grin. As usual, it was left to her to preserve the proprieties. “Forgive my daughter’s rudeness, Urkiat. You are welcome to our village.”
Gods grant the rabbit stew would stretch to feed another. He didn’t look like a big eater, but the skinny ones invariably surprised you.
Faelia and Callie hung on their father as they walked back to the village, leaving her to make polite conversation with Urkiat. “I judge from your accent that you come from the south.”
“Aye. I grew up by the sea.”
“You’re a fisherman?”
“I was.”
Clearly, there was a story, one the young man didn’t want to tell. She’d get it from Darak later.
“Was this your first Gathering?”
“Nay. I went once before. When I was young.”
Griane suppressed a smile. Despite the white scar that curved like the waxing moon from cheekbone to jaw, Urkiat couldn’t be much older than twenty.
“How did you meet Darak?”
“I spoke at the convocation.”
“You’re a chief?”
“Nay.”
“Oh. The chiefs invited you to speak?”
“Not exactly.”
Easier to pull a bullock from a womb than to get words out of this one. She considered him, frowning. After the Long Winter, the chiefs had broken generations of tradition to ask Darak to join the convocation they held at the twice-yearly Gatherings; only at their invitation could anyone else address the circle.
“So. How did you find the convocation?”
“Worthless.”
The savagery in his voice stopped her.
“The northern tribes don’t understand what it’s like.”
“The raiders, you mean.” He glanced at her, clearly surprised. “We’ve all heard the tales.”
“But you’ve never lived them.”
“Nay. We’re fortunate.”
“So far. Forgive me, I shouldn’t be burdening you.”
“Bel’s blazing ballocks. I’m not a child. How bad are things?”
“Bad.” He lowered his voice. “Many of the coastal villages are deserted, the people murdered or fled inland.”
“Your people?”
He looked away, his face bleak.
“Forgive me, Urkiat. I’m the one burdening you by forcing you to speak of such things.”
“I have to speak. But no one seems to hear.”
“Darak did.” Again, that surprised look. “He’s not in the habit of inviting strangers home.”
“The Memory-Keeper . . . Darak . . .” He breathed the name with prayerful reverence. “. . . encouraged me to speak and tried to calm the chiefs after, but—”
“Calm them? Good gods, man, what did you tell them?”
“The truth. That the northern tribes have abandoned us. That they don’t care what’s happening in the south. That they must be foolish or stupid or both to believe they’ll be safe from the raiders forever.”