Red Rowan: Book 3: Return of the Reluctant Hero

by Helen Gosney

  Griff had a quick look at the poor frightened creature that was standing as close to Rowan as she could.

  “Yes, I will, but it’s just a few… dammit! A few cinders.” He brushed them off the sheep’s singed woolly back, stamped them out, and hurried off to get some water for the madman who was closer to him than a brother.

  **********

  Mirrin hurried after Rowan and the beasts he’d thought he’d lost. He’d been widowed barely six months ago and his only daughter was wed and living in the north; his beasts were all he had. He pushed his way through his neighbours’ horses and sure enough, there they were. It seemed an oasis of calm after the noise and smoke of the fire and the shouts of the bucket brigade. The bull was laying down quietly, with Rowan sitting leaning against it as he coughed and wheezed, and around them were the animals Mirrin had thought he’d never see: a couple of bedraggled hens, a worried-looking sheep, the little mare with her foal suckling quietly, several workhorses and some heifers. And a duck nestled against Rowan’s knee.

  Mirrin pushed the sheep aside, sat down gingerly beside the bull, and put an arm around Rowan’s shoulders as he waited for him to stop coughing again.

  “Rowan, lad… I… I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, scrubbing tears from his face unashamedly, “I thought all my animals would be… would be burnt… I couldn’t… I couldn’t get to them, and they wouldn’t come to me, except for the dog…” The dog had promptly, and sensibly, made itself scarce, but here it was lying at Rowan’s feet with a slightly embarrassed look on its face.

  Rowan smiled at him, his teeth very white in his blackened face.

  “You don’t need to thank me, Mirrin. I’m only glad I could get them out,” he looked around him, concerned, “But I couldn’t find your barn cat and I’ve only got a couple of hens and a…” he coughed again, “…And a duck…” The bull had been a surprise too, as it’d loomed up through the smoke inside the barn. He hadn’t known that Mirrin had a bull. He patted its muzzle absently.

  Mirrin nodded.

  “Bloody foxes got the rest of them last week. And the cat moved her kittens a couple of hours before the lightning strike. They’re all right,” he said.

  “They’re clever creatures, cats…. But what about the others? Are they all here?”

  Mirrin looked around more carefully. Hmm… there were three, no, four workhorses and four, five… six heifers, the little chestnut with her foal, his dead wife’s pet sheep that she’d raised by hand, and the bull. His neighbour Geraint’s bull, that he’d have returned today except it had been surly and unhappy with the thunder and lightning.

  “Yes, Rowan. They’re here. I can’t believe it laddie, but they’re all here,” Mirrin wiped his eyes again, “How the hell did you get them all out?”

  Rowan shrugged.

  “I just put the foal over the mare’s withers in front of me, and the hens and the duck under my jacket, and out we came. The others just followed me,” he said.

  It sounded so simple, Mirrin thought dazedly. So very bloody simple.

  “I thought the damned bull wouldn’t stop running until it hit the mountains,” he said slowly.

  Rowan grinned again.

  “No, he’s all right. A bit singed, maybe, but not badly hurt. Somebody’s gone to get something to put on the animals’ burns… Oh, and there’s these too…” he said as he felt something moving against his ribs.

  ‘These’ turned out to be eight or ten tiny chickens and a few ducklings. He’d put them inside his shirt and done up all the buttons, hoping that he wouldn’t squash the little creatures or suffocate them. He’d simply had no other way to carry them and so they’d taken their chances with all the rest of Mirrin’s beasts. They blinked up at him for a few moments and then cheeped and quacked surprisingly loudly. The hens and the duck that had been sitting anxiously at Rowan’s side scrambled up to them. They fussed over their babies’ damp fluffy down and then settled carefully as the tiny birds disappeared under their warm bodies.

  With a loud crash of thunder it started to rain quite heavily, much to the hens’ disgust. They sidled closer to Rowan with an air of having already had quite enough for one day, thank you. He stroked their feathers gently.

  “I’m sorry about your barn, and your beasties, Mirrin,” he began.

  “Doesn’t matter now, laddie. You’re safe, the beasts are safe… the rest doesn’t matter. And at least this rain will help put it out,” Mirrin replied.

  Rowan looked up. It looked like the rain might set in.

  “Aye, it will, I think. We’re all right here, Mirrin, truly. You go back to the buckets,” he coughed again and swore. “Dammit! Bloody smoke… you go, and I’ll join you in a few minutes…”

  **********

  “Here you go, Rowan love, here’s some water. I’ll help you with your eyes when you’ve had a drink.”

  Rowan smiled up at Honi. She’d stayed behind to move their supper off the hob and bank the fire and she’d milked the cow and fed the dogs and cats. Then she’d bundled up the men’s cloaks and some shirts so they’d have something warm and dry to wear home after the fire was out. The nights could still be surprisingly cold, particularly when one’s clothes were wet and clammy. Finally she’d put some salves and clean rags and a couple of bottles of clean water into a bucket and ridden over to join the firefighters. She’d arrived not long after Griff had doused the unhappy sheep with water. The poor creature moved even closer to Rowan.

  “Thanks, Honi. Everything all right at home?” he gulped down some water gratefully and tried to move the sheep away a bit. No, it wasn’t going anywhere. Gods, his damned throat felt raw, but so would everyone else’s be, with the smoke from the burning hay. He certainly wasn’t the only one coughing.

  “Yes, all’s well back there. Not so good here with poor Mirrin’s barn though,” she said softly, “But at least he’s all right, and they’ve saved his house, and his beasts are all right too, thanks to you…” she suddenly looked at him very sternly, “But you still shouldn’t have gone into that bloody barn, you idiot! What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  He shook his head.

  “I had to, Honi. I couldn’t… I couldn’t just stand there and not try…” he said simply.

  “And what would we have told Rose and Rhys and your Gran if the bloody roof had fallen in on you?”

  Rowan shrugged. It hadn’t, had it? It had only fallen in a good five minutes after he’d got out.

  “That I was a daft bugger who wouldn’t listen, I suppose, love.” He smiled at her again. “I shouldn’t think it’d be news to any of them.”

  “No, I suppose not. You and Griff are right, Rowan, you truly are a daft bugger sometimes.” She kissed him without worrying about the grime on his face. “Did you really get all of the animals out?”

  “More or less, I think. Might have missed a couple of chickens or ducklings, but… most of them anyway.”

  “And are you all right? Apart from that cough, I mean?”

  He nodded.

  “Aye, I think so. Just a few blisters on my hands is all.”

  “So, no sabre practice for a bit, then,” she said as she helped him to wash the soot and grit from his eyes.

  “No, maybe not. But they won’t take long to heal up.” He coughed again and swore.

  “I’ll make you some lemon and honey for that when we get home. The others will need it too… where are you going, Rowan?” she said as he got to his feet, careful not to tread on the duck and the hens nestled beside him or the sheep that was finally laying down.

  He looked down at her, surprised.

  “I want to see that Ross and the lads are all right, and then I’ll join the bucket line…”

  “Sit down, you silly man. Griff said they’re fine, and there’s plenty of folk on the buckets now. The trolls are working hard on the pump too and they’ve got the fire nearly under control. Just stay here with your sheep and your chickens and your duck. And what’s wrong with
your foot?”

  “The bull trod on it,” he admitted as he quickly sat down again. He’d seen the healer, Thorn, headed his way. He’d be sure to bring out his foullest concoctions when he heard Rowan’s wheezing cough, but he wouldn’t be able to do much for a bruised foot. Perhaps some arnica or a bit of liniment or something.

  Honi looked at him fondly. Rose is right, she thought, he really shouldn’t be let out alone.

  “Silly bugger. Don’t take your boot off until we get home then, or you’ll never get it back on again,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m not quite that bloody daft, Honi.”

  “Of course you’re not, Rowan love.”

  **********

  Hours later, they headed back home, very glad of Honi’s foresight in bringing their cloaks and dry shirts. It was very dark now, so they kept to the road. Mirrin’s barn had been almost completely destroyed, and a lot of stored hay and grain with it, but his precious animals were safe, his house was safe, and so was he, and nobody’d been badly hurt. He was very grateful. Some of his neighbours would stay the night and probably the next day too, to be sure that the fire didn’t flare again. It wasn’t likely, given the way the rain was pelting down now, but it was best to be sure.

  Everyone was quiet on the ride home. The Wirrans had been surprised at the number of foresters who’d gone out of their way to thank them for their efforts in the bucket brigade; surprised too at the number of folk who’d turned up to help. Not only foresters – the Bridge troll Moss had been there side by side with several forest trolls and quite a few dwarfs. When the fire was practically out and almost everyone was squashed together under Mirrin’s verandah or sitting on the ground in the rain sharing their cloaks with those who had none, several buggies had rattled up laden with food.

  “This is the good part of fires, Dorrel lad,” Conor and Isan, not yet returned to the forests, were sitting beside him and Kurt. They laughed as the innkeeper’s daughter expertly tapped a barrel and a pair of pretty girls came past with a big basket of bread and meat between them.

  “Cheeky bugger!” one of them said, smacking Isan’s hand as he reached for the bread, “Visitors first, you great lump!” She knelt down beside Dorrel and Kurt and smiled at them both. “Truly, he’s got less manners than a sheep. And about as many brains. I’m Vreya. Are you the Wirrans who’re staying with Rowan?”

  **********

  Ross walked beside Rowan as they came back from putting their horses in the paddocks. They’d sent the exhausted Cadets to bed and they wouldn’t be long in going themselves, though there wasn’t much of the night left. Rowan smiled at him.

  “Thanks again for helping us tonight, Ross. You and the lads did really well,” he said.

  “I’m just glad we were able to help, Rowan. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Rowan was still coughing harshly. The others had been coughing too, of course: the smoke from the burning hay had been thick and acrid, but they had all more or less stopped now.

  Rowan nodded though.

  “Aye, I’ll survive,” he said, “Thorn, he’s the healer, he’s promised to bring over some more of his horrible potions later today. Why do you suppose they always have to taste so revolting?”

  “The Gods only know! Maybe to put you off needing them in the first place!” Ross laughed. “What about your hands and your foot though?”

  Rowan was limping and his hands were slathered with aloe sap and neatly bandaged.

  “They’re all right. A bit sore, to be truthful, you know what burns are like, but they’ll be fine in a few days.”

  “And your foot?”

  “I’ll let you know when you’ve helped me to get the boot off. Just bruised, mainly, I think,” he thought about it a bit more as they walked back to the house, “Could be a toe broken, perhaps, but it’ll be all right too. It might just take a bit longer.”

  Ross nodded and said nothing for a moment as he tried to articulate something so… incredible… that he could barely find the words.

  “Rowan…” he said slowly, “You truly are a… a Whisperer, aren’t you…?”

  Rowan looked at him in surprise.

  “You know I am,” he said, puzzled at the expression on the other man’s face, “And have I grown another head too?”

  Ross shook his head.

  “No, Rowan… I mean you’re a… a real Whisperer.” He took a deep, calming breath. “You’re a Bewitcher… It’s not just horses, is it…?”

  Ah. Rowan lowered his head for a moment and took a deep breath of his own. Then he raised his head again and looked Ross in the eye.

  “No, Ross, ‘tisn’t just horses… I truly am a… a real Whisperer. I have the Gift, the Talent, the Way, the Charm, and the Song. I have the Calling, the Touch, the Blessing, the Bewitching …” he sighed softly, “I’m a Singer, a Whistler, a Chanter, and a Beast Master. I’m a Beast Speaker, Beast Walker, a Rider, and a Tamer; I’m whatever you want to bloody call me. And I’ve been that since my first breath and I will be until my last… It’s as much a part of me as the beating of my heart,” he hesitated for a moment. Might as well give him all the bad news at once, he thought. He continued carefully, “I’m the one that all the old tales tell you to beware of. I’m the one that folk fear, even though they don’t believe I really exist. The Curse’d One, as they’d say in some parts.” He’d never really understood why anyone would believe a Whisperer would simply charm their animals away, but in a way they were right: he could do exactly that if he chose to. But there were enough folk who thought they could help themselves to others’ livestock without him adding to them. “But… please don’t look at me like that, Ross. I’ve not changed…I’m still the same man who had breakfast with you and the lads this morning,” he shook his head slowly, “I’m the same man who’s had breakfast with you every day for the last two months …”

  Ross looked at Rowan very, very carefully as he limped beside him, his dogs and cats trotting at his heels. He thought about the incredible thing that he’d only just realised, wondered how he could have not recognised it before, and suddenly remembered what Rowan had said as they’d crossed the Scream… ‘Pa knew damned well what would happen, I think. He’d seen me toddling around the paddock at home enough times with a herd of workhorses and cows and pigs and Gods know what following me. Nobody has ever been able to explain it, least of all me…’

  Dear Gods, Ross thought. That was it, right there, and I bloody missed it. And hadn’t Griff said something earlier today about Rowan calming all of his family’s animals in a storm when he was only a little lad?

  Ross swallowed hard and thought about what Rowan had said just now. He hadn’t heard all of the names before, but he remembered how frightened he’d been as a lad when his old Gran had told him the Bewitcher of Beasts would steal his pony from him if he didn’t mind his manners, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from happening. The Bewitcher would simply walk past the fiercest dogs and take whatever beasts he wanted. Ross thought some more and finally he nodded.

  “Aye, so you are. Just a bit more singed and covered with soot and ash and bits of burnt hay. Oh, and you smell of smoke and cows and wet sheep, lad.”

  Rowan laughed, relieved.

  “I didn’t say anything about not needing a bath.”

  **********

  30. “Barn raising.”

  A week or so after the fire, Rowan’s burns were healing well and his cough was finally gone. His deeply bruised foot and two broken toes would take a lot longer to heal, and inevitably they slowed him down a bit. As Honi had foretold, sabre practice had had to be suspended, but Rowan was unconcerned. He was very fit and he knew how to handle a sabre, so for him it didn’t really matter if he had to have an enforced break from it. If he’d had to, of course he’d have kept going, but there was little point in doing that now.

  Griff had come across the morning after the fire, with a very disreputable boot that should have been thrown away long before that. Really,
it was a mystery how it had managed to elude Honi.

  “Here you go, Rowan,” Griff said, “You might need to wear a couple of extra socks as well, but at least you’ll be able to get about a bit. I assume you’re not going to be sitting around on the verandah drinking cups of tea for the next couple of weeks?”

  “You assume right, laddie. Thanks for that. I was wondering how I was going to manage,” Rowan laughed as he took the battered old thing. His foot was very swollen and he couldn’t get his own boot on. “That’ll serve the purpose, I think, so long as I don’t fall over it and break my damned neck.” He had quite small feet for a man of his size, and so did Griff really, but Griff was a very large man.

  “Just have to be a bit careful, then,” Griff shrugged.

  Dorrel and Kurt had nearly had hysterics when Rowan stood up in his new footwear and walked about, trying not to laugh himself and trying equally hard not to fall over. It certainly had the look of a clown’s boot about it, but Griff’s castoff would serve the purpose of protecting Rowan’s foot as he went about his business.

  He’d adapted to it well and didn’t care how comical he looked. At least he didn’t feel completely useless, even if his work around the farm was necessarily limited and of course he could still ride without needing a stirrup.

  **********

  The Wirrans’ time in Sian had flown, but now it was time to return to Den Siddon. First though, they’d go to Mirrin’s barnraising. This wasn’t a custom in Wirran, so Ross, Dorrel and Kurt were most surprised when they arrived at the site of the barn fire to find men and women, trolls and dwarves, already hard at work. The debris of the fire was all but cleared away and the workers were busily measuring, sawing and hammering at big lengths of timber. Others were unloading hay from two big carts and yet more were squabbling amiably about the best way to spitroast enough lambs to feed everyone.

  A feisty young rooster was making sure that everyone knew he wanted to get out of his crate and go and meet the half a dozen sprightly hens that had joined the survivors of the fire. Someone had even brought a couple of ducks and a handsome drake to keep Mirrin’s lone duck company.