“I thought we were friends,” said Mari. “I thought we could trust one another.”
“We can. Honestly!”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I know,” said Rowena sadly. “But it would spoil our friendship.”
“Nothing could do that. How long have you been here - two seasons? Have we ever fought? Oh, come on, Ro. Where’s the harm? You tell me your secret and I’ll tell you mine.”
“I know yours already,” whispered Rowena. “You gave yourself to the Drenai captain when he and his men passed through here on patrol in the summer. You took him to the low meadow.”
“How did you find out?”
“I didn’t. It was in your mind when you told me you would share a secret with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can see what people are thinking. And I can sometimes tell what is going to happen. That’s my secret.”
“You have the Gift? I don’t believe it! What am I thinking now?”
“A white horse with a garland of red flowers.”
“Oh, Ro! That’s wonderful. Tell my fortune,” she pleaded, holding out her hand.
“You won’t tell anyone else?”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t work.”
Try anyway,” urged Mari, thrusting out her plump hand. Rowena reached out, her slender fingers closing on Mari’s palm, but suddenly she shuddered and the colour faded from her face.
“What is it?”
Rowena began to tremble. “I… I must find Druss. Can’t… talk…” Rising, she stumbled away, the washed clothes forgotten.
“Ro! Rowena, come back!”
On the hillside above, a rider stared down at the women by the river. Then he turned his horse and rode swiftly towards the north.
Bress closed the door of the cabin and moved through to his work room, where from a small box he took a lace glove. It was old and yellowed, and several of the pearls which had once graced the wrist were now missing. It was a small glove and Bress sat at his bench staring down at it, his huge fingers stroking the remaining pearls.
“I am a lost man,” he said softly, closing his eyes and picturing Arithae’s sweet face. “He despises me. Gods, I despise myself.” Leaning back in his chair he gazed idly at the walls, and the many shelves bearing strands of copper and brass, work tools, jars of dye, boxes of beads. It was rare now for Bress to find the time to make jewellery; there was little call for such luxuries here in the mountains. Now it was his skills as a carpenter which were valued; he had become merely a maker of doors and tables, chairs and beds.
Still nursing the glove, he moved back into the hearth room.
“I think we were born under unlucky stars,” he told the dead Arithae. “Or perhaps Bardan’s evil stained our lives. Druss is like him, you know. I see it in the eyes, in the sudden rages. I don’t know what to do. I could never convince father. And I cannot reach Druss.”
His thoughts drifted back - memories, dark and painful, flooding his mind. He saw Bardan on that last day, blood-covered, his enemies all around him. Six men were dead, and that terrible axe was still slashing left and right… Then a lance had been thrust into Bardan’s throat. Blood bubbled from the wound but Bardan slew the lance wielder before falling to his knees. A man ran in behind him and delivered a terrible blow to Bardan’s neck.
From his hiding-place high in the oak the fourteen-year-old Bress had watched his father die, and heard one of the killers say: “The old wolf is dead - now where is the pup?”
He had stayed in the tree all night, high above the headless body of Bardan. Then, in the cold of the dawn he had climbed down and stood by the corpse. There was no sadness, only a terrible sense of relief combined with guilt. Bardan was dead: Bardan the Butcher. Bardan the Slayer. Bardan the Demon.
He had walked sixty miles to a settlement, and there had found employment, apprenticed to a carpenter. But just as he was settling down, the past came back to torment him when a travelling tinker recognised him: he was the son of the Devil! A crowd gathered outside the carpenter’s shop, an angry mob armed with clubs and stones.
Bress had climbed from the rear window and fled from the settlement. Three times during the next five years he had been forced to run - and then he had met Alithae.
Fortune smiled on him then and he remembered Alithae’s father, on the day of the wedding, approaching him and offering him a goblet of wine. “I know you have suffered, boy,” said the old man. “But I am not one who believes that a father’s evil is visited upon the souls of his children. I know you, Bress. You are a good man.”
Aye, thought Bress, as he sat by the hearth, a good man.
Lifting the glove he kissed it softly. Alithae had been wearing it when the three men from the south had arrived at the settlement where Bress and his wife and new son had made their homes. Bress had a small but thriving business making brooches and rings and necklets for the wealthy. He was out walking one morning, Alithae beside him carrying the babe.
“It’s Bardan’s son!” he heard someone shout and he glanced round. The three riders had stopped their horses, and one of the men was pointing at him; they spurred their mounts and rode at him. Alithae, struck by a charging horse, fell heavily, and Bress had leapt at the rider, dragging him from the saddle. The other men hurled themselves from their saddles. Bress struck left and right, his huge fists clubbing them to the ground.
