Sword in the Storm (4 page)

He shook his head. “The boy was born to mischief.”

“He is only seven, Ru. And he has a good heart. Do not be too hard on him.”

He chuckled. “Too hard? I have tried talking to him. He sits and listens, then rushes off and gets into trouble again. I tried beating him with my belt, but that had no effect. He took his punishment without complaint and a day or so later stole a cake from the baker in the morning and left a live frog under my bedcovers in the evening.” He laughed suddenly. “Meria got into bed first. I swear she rose up toward the ceiling like a startled swan.”

“You love him, though?”

“Aye, I do. Last week, when I was telling Meria about a lone wolf in the high woods, Conn was listening. He stole my
best knife and went missing. Seven years old, and I eventually found him crouching in the woods, a tin pot on his head for a helm, waiting for the wolf. He has spirit. And when he grins, you could forgive him anything.”

The lamp by the bedside guttered, and the bedroom fell into darkness. Ruathain cursed and walked back into the main living area, lifting a lantern from the far wall. He returned to her at once, but as the light fell upon her face, he saw that she had gone.

Meria lifted Bran from the dwarf pony and hugged him close. “Did you like that, my pet?” she asked him.

“More, Mama,” he said, reaching out toward the little gray horse.

“Later,” she promised. “Look, there is Caval,” she said, pointing to the black war hound lying in the shade. Distracted, Bran struggled to get free. Meria lowered him to the ground, and the boy ran across to where the hound was resting. Bran threw his small arms around her neck and snuggled down alongside her. The hound licked his face. Bran giggled. A black shape glided across the sky, and a huge crow landed awkwardly on the thatched roof. The bird tilted its head, its eye of glittering jet staring down at the tall, slim green-clad young woman below.

Another woman stepped from the house. “Your husband is home,” said Meria’s cousin Pelain. Meria glanced up toward the hills and saw the tall figure of Ruathain leading his pony down the slope. Young Braefar was sitting in the saddle. For some reason that she could never later recall, Meria found herself growing angry.

“Aye, he’s home,” Meria said softly.

Pelain gave her a sharp look. “You do not know how lucky you are,” she said. “He loves you.”

Meria tried to ignore her, but it was difficult. Once Pelain got her teeth into a subject, she was harder to shake than a
mastiff. “You’d know what I mean if you were married to Borga,” Pelain continued with a wry smile. “He gets into bed from the left, rolls across me to the right. And somewhere between he grunts and asks, ‘Was it also a wonder for you?’ Happily he’s usually asleep before I answer.”

Meria grinned. “You shouldn’t talk that way. Borga is a fine man.”

“If he made his bread with the speed he makes love, we could feed the tribes all the way to the sea,” said Pelain. She transferred her gaze to the walking warrior. “I’d wager my dowry that he doesn’t brush across you like a summer breeze.”

Meria reddened. “No, he doesn’t,” she admitted, immediately regretting the comment.

“Then you should value him more,” observed Pelain. “I know I would.”

The anger flared again. “Then you should have married him,” snapped Meria.

“I would have—had he asked me,” answered Pelain, no hint of offense in her voice. “Two strong sons and no dead babies. Strong seed in that one.”

Pelain had lost four children in the last five years. Not one had survived beyond five days. For a moment only Meria’s anger subsided, replaced by affection and sympathy. “You are still young,” she told her cousin. “There is time.”

Pelain shook her head. “Vorna says there will be no more.”

Ruathain opened the paddock gate, leading his pony inside and lifting his son to the ground. Braefar took the reins and led the pony away. The warrior kissed Meria’s cheek, then swung to Pelain. “If you are here making mischief for me,” he said with a smile, “I shall throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to your husband’s house.”

“Please do so,” she replied, “since he’s not there and I have a wide bed just waiting to be filled by a real man.”

For a moment Ruathain stood shocked. Then he laughed
aloud. “By heavens, you have become a wicked woman,” he told her.

Even the normally outspoken Pelain seemed surprised by her own comment. “Wicked or not, I know when I am not needed,” she replied lamely before heading back into the house.

Ruathain took his wife’s hand and kissed it. Above him the crow suddenly cawed and danced along the rooftop. Ruathain glanced up. He had no love of carrion birds, but he knew they served a purpose and was normally content to leave them be. But this one caused the hackles to rise on his neck.

“Did you get a good price at market?” asked Meria.

“Fair. No more than that. The Norvii also brought their cattle. I was lucky to sell on the first day. By the third the price dropped considerably. Have the boys been well behaved?” The question caused her anger to flare again. Why should his absence bring a change in their behavior? Did he think her some weak-minded wench who could not control unruly children?

Ignoring the question, she told him: “There is a hot pie just baked. You must be hungry.”

“Hungry for sight of you and the boys,” he said. She gave a wan smile and moved away toward the doorway. He was about to follow when Connavar appeared from the far side of the house. Meria gave a broad smile, her mood seeming to lift momentarily, like the sun breaking through clouds.

“Where have you been, my bonny lad?” she asked him.

“Is the pie ready, Mam?” he countered.

She stepped in close, peering at the bruise on his cheek and the cut lip. “Why, what have you been doing? Not fighting again, Conn?”

“Just playing, Mam,” he told her, squirming from her embrace. “Anyway, I’ve already told the Big Man all about it.” He darted into the house.

Meria swung on Ruathain. “What did he mean? What has he told you?”

“He got into a fight with Govannan and some of the other boys. It is over now. It matters not.”

“It matters to me, husband. Why were they fighting?”

Ruathain shrugged. “Boys fight. It is the nature of things. They make up soon enough.” Young Braefar had walked in unnoticed from the stable.

“Govannan said Conn’s father was a coward who ran away,” said the boy. “But Conn broke his nose for it. You should have heard it, Mam. It broke with a mighty crack.”

“Get inside!” roared Ruathain. Surprised, for his father rarely raised his voice, Braefar backed away, then ran into the house.

Meria stepped in close to her husband. “What did you tell him?” she whispered. Above them the crow sent out a series of screeching cries.

“I told him the truth. What else would you have me do?”

“Aye, that must have made you feel good,” she hissed, her green eyes angry. “You’d like him to despise his father, wouldn’t you?”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth, woman. It saddens me you should think it.”

“Saddens you? Why would it sadden you? You’re the man who let his father die. Just to win his bride.” As soon as the words were spoken she regretted them. Never in their ten years together had she voiced them before. The sound of flapping wings broke the silence, and the crow flew off toward the northern woods.

Ruathain stood very still, his face expressionless, his pale gaze locked to her face. “That is what you believe?” he asked her, his voice terribly calm.

Pride made her stand her ground. “I do,” she said.

The sudden coldness in his eyes frightened her, but when he spoke, his voice was heavy with sadness. “Twenty men saw him die. Not one of them would say that of me. It is simply not true. I protected him all day. Then he ran. That was
the way of it.” His voice hardened. “But any woman who would wed a man she believed had connived in the murder of her husband is no better than a pox-ridden whore. And I’ll have no part of her. Not now. Not ever.”

Then he walked past her into the house. That night, as the candles were snuffed and the lamps extinguished, Meria found herself alone in the large bed.

Ruathain took his blanket and slept in the barn.

The following morning he summoned workmen and carpenters, who began the construction of a new house at the far end of the long meadow. Three weeks later he moved his belongings into it.

The settlement of Three Streams was mystified by the separation. Was he not the most handsome of men, rich and brave? Was he not a good father and provider? Was she not lucky to have found a man to take on a young widow and her son? It was well known that he adored her and had raised her child as his own. Why, then, they wondered, should he have moved out?

Vorna the witch woman could have told them, for she had been picking herbs in the high meadow and had seen the great crow circle the house. But she said nothing. It was not wise for humans to meddle in the affairs of gods. Especially gods of death and mischief, like the Morrigu.

Drawing her cloak around her, she moved away into the Wishing Tree Woods, there to commune with the Seidh.

If the separation caused confusion in the community of Three Streams, its effect on Ruathain’s children was devastating. For weeks nine-year-old Braefar was inconsolable, believing himself responsible for the rift. Connavar also felt a powerful sense of guilt, knowing that his fight with Govannan had led to the breakup. Three-year-old Bendegit Bran was also tearful, though he was too young to understand the enormous ramifications of the affair. All he knew was that he no longer saw his father as regularly and could not understand why.

Meria herself did not speak about it. She tried to give her children the same amount of love, attention, and care, but she was distracted often, and many times they would find her sitting by the window, staring out over the hills, her eyes moist with tears.

Connavar, as would always be his way, tried to tackle the problem head on. A month after the separation the ten-year-old walked across to the Big Man’s house one evening and tapped on the door. Ruathain was sitting by a cold hearth, a single lamp casting a gloomy light over the main room. The Big Man was sharpening his skinning knife with a whetstone. “What are you doing here, boy?” he asked.

“I came to see you,” Connavar answered.

“You saw me today in the high meadow. You helped me mark the cattle.”

“I wanted to see you alone. Why are you here? Is it something I did? Or Wing? If so, I am sorry.”

“It has nothing to do with you, Conn. It is just … the way of things.”

“Was it what Mother said to you?”

Ruathain gently raised his hand, signaling an end to the questioning. “Conn, I shall not be talking about this matter. It is between your mother and me. However, no matter what passes between us, know this: She and I still love you—and Wing and Bran—and we always will. Now go home to bed.”

“We are all unhappy,” said Conn, making one last attempt.

Ruathain nodded. “Aye, all of us.”

“Can we not be happy again?”

“You will be, Conn.”

“What about you? I want you to be happy.”

Ruathain rose from his chair and walked across to the boy, hoisting him high and kissing his cheek. “You make me happy, my son. Now go.” Opening the door, Ruathain lowered Conn to the porch step. “I shall watch you run home in case the Seidh are out hunting small boys.”

Connavar grinned. “They will not catch me,” he said, and sped off across the field.

In the months that followed Ruathain and Meria rarely spoke except for those times when the Big Man came to visit Bran. Even then the conversation was coldly and punctiliously polite.

Connavar found it all impossible to understand, even though he had heard from the kitchen the last angry words between Ruathain and Meria. But they were just words, he thought. Words were merely noisy breaths. Surely they alone could not cause such damage.

A year after the separation he finally spoke to an outsider concerning the problem. Conn had become close to the foreigner Banouin. The dark-haired, olive-skinned merchant had arrived in Rigante lands twelve years before, bringing with him a baggage train of ponies bearing dyed cloths, embroidered shirts, spices, and salt. His goods were of high quality and rightly prized. He had spent three months among the Rigante, buying bronze and silver ornaments from the metalworker Gariapha and quality hides from the Long Laird’s curious black and white cattle. Those hides, he said, would be highly desired back in his own distant land of Turgony. When he came for the second year he paid for a house to be built and spent the winter and spring among the people, a practice he continued ever since. In his third year he took to wearing the plaid leggings and long blue shirt tunic of the northern Rigante. No one took offense, for such was Banouin’s charm that all knew he wore the attire as a mark of respect.

For his own part Banouin had also taken a liking to the fierce, strange-eyed Connavar. They had met one evening three years before, when Conn had climbed through the window of the small warehouse-stable where Banouin kept his goods. Unknown to the eight-year-old, the little merchant had seen him creeping through the long grass and had
watched him scale the outside wall, easing himself through the window. This took some nerve, since, with the permission of the village council, Banouin always told the children he was a wizard who would turn any young thief into a toad. The tale was widely believed, and the youngsters of Three Streams generally steered clear of Banouin’s house.

Intrigued, Banouin had moved silently into the warehouse, where he saw Conn delving into the saddle packs stacked against the far wall. Banouin waited in the shadows. At last Conn came to the pack containing ornate weapons and drew out a bronze dagger with a hilt of hand-worked silver crafted by Gariapha. Slashing the air, the boy began to move through a mock fight, twirling and leaping as if surrounded by enemies.

At last he stopped, then walked to the window and waved the blade in the air. This last move surprised Banouin, as did the next. Rather than climb out and make off with the dagger, the boy came back and returned the blade to the pack.