Child of Flame

Unlike his kinsman Kel, Urtan had the gift of patience, and he fell back to walk beside Alain to teach him new words: the names of trees, the parts of the body, the different tools and the type of stone they were made of. Beor strode at the front with various companions walking beside him. Now and again he shot an irate glance back toward Alain. But unlike an arrow, a glance could not prick unless you let it. Beor might hurt and even kill in a fit of jealous rage, but he could never do any other harm because he hadn’t any subtlety.

The village feasted that evening on fish, venison, and a potage of barley mush flavored with herbs and leaves from the forest, sweetened by berries. Urtan ate with his family, his wife Abidi and his children Urta and a toddler who didn’t seem to have an intelligible name, leaving Alain to eat with the unmarried men, all of them except Beor little more than youths. Adica ate by herself, off to one side, without companionship, but when Alain made to get up to go over to her, Kel grabbed him and jerked him back, gesturing that it wasn’t permitted. Adica had been watching him, and now she smiled slightly and looked away. The burn scar along her cheek looked rather like a congealed spider’s web, running from her right ear down around the curve of the jawline to fade almost at her throat. The tip of her right ear was missing, so cleanly healed that it merely looked misshapen.

Beor rose abruptly and began declaiming as twilight fell. Like a man telling a war story, he went on at length. Was he boasting? Kel and Tosti started to yawn, and Adica rose suddenly in the middle of the story and walked right out, away into the village. Alain wanted to follow her, but he wasn’t sure if such a thing was permitted. At last, Beor finished his tale. It was time for bed. Alain’s friends had given him a place to sleep beside them but at the opposite end of the men’s house from Beor. He was tired enough to welcome sleep, but when he rolled himself up in the furs allotted him, stones pressed into his side. He groped and found the offending pebbles, but they weren’t stones at all but some kind of necklace. It hadn’t been there earlier.

At dawn, when he woke, he hurried outside to get enough light to see: someone had given him a necklace of amber. Kel, stumbling out sleepily behind him, whistled in admiration for the handsome gift, and called out to the others, and they teased Alain cheerfully, all but Beor, who stalked off.

Down by the village gates, Adica was already up, performing the ritual she made every day at the gateway, perhaps a charm of protection. As if she heard their laughter, she glanced up. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but her stance spoke to him, the way she straightened her back self-consciously, the curve of her breasts under her bodice, the swaying of her string skirt as she walked from the gates over the plank bridge. It was difficult not to be distracted by the movement of her hips under the revealing skirt.

Kel and Tosti laughed outright and clapped him on the shoulder. He could imagine what their words meant: gifts and women and longing looks. Some things didn’t change, even in the afterlife.

He had come a long way. He no longer wore the ring that marked him as heir to the Count of Lavas. He no longer had to honor the vows pledged between him and Tallia. He no longer served the Lady of Battles. With a smile, he put on the amber necklace, although the gesture made his friends whoop and laugh.

That day they hoisted the poles they’d cut the day before into place in the new palisade. Once, Beor neglected to brace while Alain was filling in dirt around a newly upright pole, and the resultant tumble caused two poles to come down. Luckily no one was hurt, but Beor got a scolding from one of the older men.

Alain went down with Kel and Tosti to the river afterward to wash. “Come!” shouted Kel just before he dove under the water. “Good!” he added, when he came up for air. “Good water. Water is good.”

Alain was distracted by the sight of the tumulus. Here, upstream from the village, the river cut so close below the earthworks that the ramparts rose right out of the water except for a thin strand of pebbly beach from which the men swam. He couldn’t see the stone circle from this angle, but something glinted from the height above nevertheless, a wink like gold. The twisting angle of the earthworks reminded him of the battle where he had fallen. He heard Thiadbold’s cries as if a ghost whispered in his ear. The past haunted him. Did the bones of their enemies lie up there? Two days ago, he had wandered off the height in a daze, following Adica. He hadn’t really looked.

Stung by curiosity and foreboding, he began to climb. His companions shouted after him, good-humoredly at first, then disapprovingly and, finally, as he got over the first earthwork and headed for the next, with real apprehension. But no one followed him. At the top a wind was rising and he heard the hoot of an owl, although the sun hadn’t yet set. Where it sank in the west, clouds gathered, diffusing its light. The stones gleamed. He ran, with the hounds beside him, sure he would see his comrades, the Lions, fallen beside their Quman enemies, whose wings would be scattered and molting, melting away under wind and sun.