“Well, I’d like to give it a try.”
Fearn demonstrated the method of using a lever, supported by a second stone, to prize up a smallish boulder. Though Niav had used slats of wood to loosen the odd flagstone in her time, she had never realized about using the smaller stone to help. She was impressed to discover quite how large a rock it was possible for two youngsters to move on their own with a proper-sized lever. However, in the end they called in the aid of Kyle, Estra and Canya who turned up unexpectedly.
All five of them were flung, laughing, on their backs as the mighty block was finally shifted to one side to reveal an intriguing cavity, lined with what looked like river-pebbles packed round a long, well-preserved leather sack.
Fearn knelt down and pulled it out.
With a muffled clang of metal on the stones, Fearn dragged it over to the others and squatted down to loosen the draw string and peel the bag open.
There was a long soft leather case, with a strap almost like a quiver for arrows, and about the same size, but heavy — a solid strip of metal. A bone handle protruded from the top, wound round with a tight string of what might be human hair — raven black, with gold plaited in. Gently, Fearn slid it out of the casing. It was coated with grease and came out easily.
“That’s got to be the biggest knife I have ever seen!”
“But it’s not flint …”
“No, it’s
It was the biggest blade of bronze any of them had ever encountered, slender as the finest arrowhead or dagger, but longer than any piece of flint that they could imagine in their wildest dreams. It was ridged down the centre, widening where it plunged into the bone handle. The blade shone, softly golden in the bright sunlight.
Gingerly, Fearn touched the leading edge with the tip of his finger.
“Youch, that’s sharp.”
“You could whistle through a patch of reeds with that one!”
“Reeds, my eye — that’s for killing people!” observed Kyle with relish.
Fearn, Niav and Canya were busy displaying the new discovery to Aunty Grizzel in the sunshine outside the weaving-hut. She was looking down the blade with obvious admiration — after Fearn had demonstrated what damage he could do to a discarded mat — when Kyle, Estra and a sweating Uncle Lurgan came puffing up the path.
“What in the world are you thinking of — letting him loose with that
With quite astonishing speed, Lurgan had retrieved the scabbard from its resting place across a wool basket, plucked the dagger from Grizzell’s unsuspecting grasp, and belted off back down the path to the river.
To Niav’s surprise, it was Kyle who dashed fiercely after him, followed by Fearn, and they attempted a tackle half way down the steep road. Lurgan broke free from them with unexpected speed and skill and Fearn fell heavily on his back. Kyle made a grab at Lurgan’s kilt and almost had him down, but only got smacked severely in the lip for his pains. Lurgan was away in the coracle as fast as lightning.
The three girls came tearing down the hill to find the two bewildered boys stranded on the bank.
Kyle was not allowed to cross the river the next day and Estra and Canya ruefully told Niav and Fearn that their parents had had the bronze blade securely hidden away by the time they reached home.
The five children — who so nearly bordered on not being children — were completely bereft. Aunty Grizzel was quietly furious. For once, Niav and Canya agreed with Estra in hoping that Aunty Grizzel would have decided to pour a few appropriate libations to deities who might take an active interest.
It was a pivotal moment, the point at which childhood dreams came to an end. In respect of Estra and Canya, in particular, Helygen decided it was time for them to concentrate on adult occupations — they must knuckle down and think of the future. Kyle and Fearn were kept apart for almost a week.
Estra, like Niav, was perfectly content, in fact most enthusiastic, to take up an adult role in helping with the family’s responsibilities for care and healing, but they both had trouble with trying to pretend that any of the local male talent raised the faintest flutter in their breasts. One would not have known what Canya felt about any of her young admirers; she was incapable of being unkind to anyone, so never voiced her feelings to anyone on the subject.
Kyle and Fearn were a different matter. Niav felt that Fearn was quietly seething — she did not know when he would break out, but she knew it would be well-planned when he did. In due course, Fearn built his own, small hut, further up the ridge, but still had a way of turning up at meal times, or bringing his washing along to be dealt with alongside theirs. However, his bed — on the right-hand side of the fire — that had been Diarma’s before him, remained empty.
Kyle was a mystery. He stayed at home, but he seemed bewildered that he had attacked his father. He didn’t come over to the west bank so often. Maybe he had never expected Lurgan to take the action he did. Maybe he feared that Fearn might feel betrayed by him and take appropriate vengeance — in other words, maybe he remained the suspicious, if slightly larger, stoat that he always had been.
No one could have suggested that, down by the river, there was any lack of opportunity within the seasons of the year for young persons to show their interest in members of the opposite sex.
Winter and summer, there was a whole succession of ceremonies to celebrate life, death, and, with special reference to the young, fertility. Even in the heart of winter, two hazelnuts, representing a would-be pairing, could be placed side by side in the embers. If they burned together slowly, it was said to bode well, but if one was seen to pop away across the ashes from the other — things were not held to be so good, and much laughter would result. Niav never had a nut which would stand still, while a Canya nut would smoulder away next to any suggested candidate. Niav never heard of anyone placing an Estra nut in the embers at all — maybe they would have been too nervous.
As spring arrived and the catkins on Fearn’s alder tree sprang into life, the boys and girls put strips of bark with their own signs on into adjoining bags. All the girls dreamed of drawing Fearn, all the boys dreamed of drawing Canya. No one ever gained any sign that they were likely to get satisfaction.
Eventually, even Niav had to acknowledge the fact that she had followers. She found it difficult to separate the image of these young suitors from the little boys that she used to watch silhouetted against the sunset as they dived off the flat rock by the traders’ landing point. She agreed to be courted by the least offensive of her suitors, but was very unsure about it. She had sincerely never realized that she was so sought-after. Aunt Grizzel started piling things up as bride-gifts.
So, one fragrant bee-hummingly radiant afternoon while Aunt Grizzel was busy, dealing with a difficult birth along in the settlement, Fearn came to find Niav in the weaving-hut.
“Are you going to get betrothed?” he asked.
“I expect so; don’t you like him?” said Niav.
“No, he’s fine. It’s just that I think I should be going to find my father. But I would like to know that you are settled before I do.”
“How could you find him? He could be anywhere.”
“Oh no! I know where we came from. I don’t forget things.”
“But you came in a boat. You don’t have a boat. Are you going to build one?”
“No, I don’t need to. Mother came from a headland in the west. It’s called ‘The Place of the Great Worm’ — all the smiths get their copper there. I will just wait for him to arrive. Anyone could go there on foot if they wanted to, but ore and suchlike are heavy stuff, so metalworkers go by boat — you must have realized that. I only need to follow the setting sun; it’s perfectly simple.”
