turbulent spirit would never be content with the simple life of a farmer and cattle breeder. He needed the excitement and the danger that came from raiding the herds of neighboring clans, stealing into their lands, ghosting past their sentries. One day they would catch and hang him.
You’ll not change him, Maeg, she thought.
Caswallon had been a child of the mountains, born out of wedlock to a flighty maid named Mira who had died soon after childbirth-supposedly of internal bleeding, though clan legend had it that her father poisoned her. She had never divulged the name of her lover. Caswallon had been raised in the house of the Hunt Lord, Padris, as foster brother to Cambil. The two boys had never become friends.
At seventeen Caswallon left the home of Padris with a dagger, a cloak, and two gold pieces. Everyone had assumed he would become a crofter, eking out a slender existence to the north. Instead he had gone alone to Pallides land and stolen a bull and four cows. From the Haesten he stole six cows, selling three in Ateris. Within a year every out-clan huntsman watched for Caswallon of the Farlain.
Maggrig, the Pallides Hunt Lord, offered two prize bulls to the man who could kill him. Caswallon stole the bulls.
At first his fellow clansmen had been amused by his exploits. But as his wealth grew, so too did the jealousy. The women, Maeg knew, adored Caswallon. The men, quite naturally, detested him. Three years ago, following the death of Padris, Cambil was elected as Hunt Lord and Caswallon’s stock among the men plunged to fresh depths. For Cambil despised him, and many were those seeking favor with the new lord.
This year, Caswallon had even declined to take part in the Games, though as defending champion he could have earned points for the clan. What was worse, he had given as his reason that he wished to stay home with his lady, who had a showing of blood in her pregnancy. He had put her to bed and undertaken the household chores himself-an unmanly action.
Yet, as his stock had fallen with the men, so it climbed in direct proportion with the women.
Now there was the business of the Lowland boy, and the almost perverse use of clan law to accommodate the act. How could he invoke Cormaach for such a one? The old law-crafted to allow for the children of a fallen warrior to be adopted by relatives of the hero-had never been invoked to bring a Lowlander into the clans.
Cambil had refused to speak publicly against Caswallon, but privately he had voiced his disgust in the Council. Yet Caswallon, as always, was impervious to criticism.
It was the same when he caught two Haesten hunters on Farlain lands. He had thrashed them with his quarterstaff, but he had not cut off their fingers. That and his marriage to Maeg had left the Council furious: a slight, they called it, on every Farlain maiden.
Against their fury Caswallon adopted indifference. And in some quarters this fanned the fury to hatred.
All of this Maeg knew, for there were few secrets among the Farlain, and yet Caswallon never spoke of it. Always he was courteous, even to his enemies, and rarely had anyone in the three valleys seen him lose his temper. This was read by many as a sign of weakness, but among the women, who often display greater insights in these matters, there was no doubt as to Caswallon’s manhood.
If he didn’t maim the hunters, there was a reason that had naught to do with cowardice. And Caswallon’s reasons, whatever they were, were good enough for his friends. Since no answer would justify his actions to those who hated him, Caswallon offered them exactly that-no answer.
It was a matter of sadness for Maeg that the result of the hatred would be the letting of blood and a death feud between Farlain houses. But that was a worry for tomorrow, and there were always more pressing problems of today to concern the women of the mountains.
Chapter Two
Unaware of the controversy, of which he was now a part, the boy Gaelen sat in the cave slowly unwinding the bandage around his head, gently easing it from the line of stitches on his brow and cheek.
With infinite care he rubbed away the clotted blood sealing the eyelid and gently prized the eye open. At first his vision was blurred, but slowly it cleared and perspective returned, though a pink haze disturbed him. By the hearth was a silver mirror. Gaelen picked it up and gazed at his reflection. No expression crossed his face as he looked upon his scars, but something cold settled on his heart as he saw the eye.
It was totally red, suffused with blood, giving him a demonic appearance. The top of his head had been shaved to allow the stitches to be inserted, though now the hair was growing again. But it was growing white around the scar.
A change came over him then, for he felt the fear of the Aenir drift away like morning mist, making way for something far stronger than fear.
Hatred filled him, instilling in his soul a terrible desire for vengeance.
For three weeks Gaelen stayed in or around the cave, watching the rain and the sunshine that followed it turn the mountain gorse to gold. He saw the snow recede from the mountain peaks and the young deer emerge from the woods to the fast-flowing streams. In the distance he saw a great brown bear stretching to claw his territorial mark on the trunk of a wiry elm, and the rabbits hopping in the long grass of the meadow in the pink light of dawn.
At night he talked to Oracle, the two of them sitting on a rug before the fire. He heard the history of the clans, and began to learn the names of the legendary heroes-Cubril, the man known as Blacklatch, who first carried the Whorl stone; Grigor, the Flame-dancer who fought the enemy even as his house burned around him; Ironhand and Dunbar. Strong men. Clansmen.
Not all of them were from the Farlain, that was the strange thing to Gaelen. The clansmen hated each other, yet would glory in tales of heroes from other clans. “It’s no use trying to understand it yet, Gaelen,” the old man told him. “It’s hard enough for us to understand ourselves.”
On the last evening of the month Oracle removed the boy’s stitches and pronounced him fit to rejoin the world of the living.
“Tomorrow Caswallon will come, and you’ll meet with him and make your decision. Either you’ll stay or you’ll go. Either way, you and I will part friends,” said Oracle gravely.
Gaelen’s stomach tightened. “Couldn’t I just stay here with you for a while?”
Oracle cupped the boy’s chin in his hand. “No, lad. Much as I’ve enjoyed your company it cannot be. Be ready at dawn, for Caswallon will come early.”
For much of the night Gaelen was unable to sleep, and when he did he dreamed of the morning, saw himself looking foolish before this great clansman whose face he couldn’t quite see. The man told him to run, but his legs were sunk in mud; the man lost his temper and stabbed him with a spear. He awoke exhausted and sweat- drenched and rose instantly, making his way to the stream to bathe.
“Good morning to you.”
Gaelen swung to see a tall man sitting on a granite boulder. He wore a cloak of leaf-green and a brown leather tunic. Slung across his chest was a baldric bearing two slim daggers in leather sheaths, and by his side a hunting knife. Upon his long legs were leggings of green wool, laced with leather thongs crisscrossed to the knee. His hair was long and dark, his eyes sea-green. He seemed to be about thirty years of age, though he could have been older.
“Are you Caswallon?”
“I am indeed,” said the man, standing. He stretched out his hand. Gaelen shook it and released it swiftly. “Walk with me and we’ll talk about things to interest you.”
Without waiting for a reply Caswallon turned and walked slowly through the trees. Gaelen stood for a moment, then grabbed his shirt from beside the stream and followed him. Caswallon halted beside a fallen oak and lifted a pack he had stowed there. Opening it he pulled clear some clothing; then he sat upon the vine-covered trunk, waiting for the boy to catch up.
Caswallon watched him closely as he approached. The boy was tall for his age, showing the promise of the man he would become. His hair was the red of a dying fire, though the slanted sunlight highlighted traces of gold, and there was a streak of silver above the wound on his brow. The scar on his cheek still looked angry and swollen, and the eye itself was a nightmare. But Caswallon liked the look of the lad, the set of his jaw, the straight-backed walk, and the fact that the boy looked him in the eye at all times.
