Birds fell in soft bundles around him. Slowly, his muscles aching, Deian moved among them, collecting those he could hope to nurse back to health, wringing the necks of those beyond help. Fianna followed behind him, cradling those few he had selected in her arms. Then, even Fianna quiet for once, they made their way back to the fields.
<><><><><><>
A cold nose pressed against Deian’s ear. He woke slowly, his mind returning from far reaches of the Land. Above him, the gyrfalcon which insisted on resting on the bed’s headboard ruffled her feathers as Alastair nudged him again.
The urgency in the dog’s mind brought Deian to his feet. He reached for his clothes, stuffing stiff legs into trousers as Alastair pressed an image into his consciousness. Fianna. He had found Fianna, alone in the forest.
Deian drew a thick tunic over his shoulders, stamped his feet into boots. Pigs shuffled out of his way as he strode across the room, Alastair eager at his heels. Flurries of snow drifted onto the wooden floor as he opened the door, the chill biting his nose. Almost as an afterthought, he pulled a coat from a peg, draping it around him.
A white mantle several inches thick blurred the outlines of the clearing, thinning slightly as they went under the trees. Alastair’s broad paw prints marked the snow several times, fresh over the older marks of other animals. He led Deian directly into the woods, ears flicking back impatiently at the slower progress of a two legged creature over that with four.
Fianna was standing by a tree, hands buried into coat sleeves as she leaned against the thick trunk. Alastair broke away, hurrying to her side. Without turning around, she said, ‘I told him not to tell you. I’ll be going back in a moment.’
Her voice was low and flat, missing its usual spark. Deian rubbed his face, chin rough from the beginnings of a beard. He glanced at the darkening sky, the cold promise of more snow on the wind. ‘It’ll be night soon, and the snow hides many landmarks. I will take you back to the town--’
‘I don’t need rescuing.’
‘Or I could offer you shelter for the night.’
‘I don’t need anything from you,’ Fianna snapped. ‘I can take care of myself.’
He wondered why humans were so difficult to read. ‘At the moment, under my roof reside a dozen birds, thirty pigs, two deer, a young wolf, and a hedgehog. Should they be welcome and a human turned away?’
She turned slowly, a small smile tugging at her lips. ‘I think that’s the longest I’ve ever heard you talk for.’
There was something else behind that smile. He might not be able to read it, but Alastair could, and his tail beat reassuringly against her legs. I will lose him to her one day, Deian found himself thinking. And he could not blame the hound. ‘I have a fire in the hearth.’
Fianna waited a moment, head bent as she considered. Then she nodded. In formal response to the traditional invitation of hospitality, she said, ‘May the fire light the hearts as well as the bodies of those who dwell therein.’
He held open the door to his hut to first let out the pigs and the creatures in his care. Unlike Alastair, they had neither the knowledge nor the tall hound’s reach to undo the latch themselves. Then he welcomed Fianna inside. She hesitated just beyond the door, studying the small room. ‘All the beasts spend the winter in here with you?’
‘It would be too cold outside.’ He unlaced his boots and slipped into a pair of indoor shoes. Beyond the bed was a small closet, out of which he pulled a second pair of the fur lined slippers.
‘Doesn’t smell as much as I would’ve expected.’
As ever, her frank honesty pleased him. He handed her the shoes, and she exchanged them for her boots. ‘I let them out thrice daily.’
He took the half-dozen strides to the fire. Having a guest under his roof called for more than the usual winter rations, and he pulled from storage jars handfuls of dried vegetables and fungi, adding them to water in a small cauldron over the fire. He measured blood-warming spices into the broth, and took a deep, appreciative sniff as the high scent wafted through the room. It had the added effect of removing traces of animal fur and bird dust.
‘How long have you lived here?’ Fianna asked. In the oversize shoes she shuffled to the small table, taking a seat in one of the chairs.
‘My father built this place to prove his suit for my mother’s hand.’ Deian touched one of the mud-thatched walls with real affection. ‘They lived here happily, and I with them, until she died and we two lived here alone.’
‘My mother too died, when I was young.’
Deian met her gaze, felt a flash of understanding between them. ‘When she died,’ he said solemnly, ‘my father said to me, “The Land will be a mother to you now.”’
‘The city was mine.’ She accepted the mug of warm tea he handed her, leaves and pieces of root slowly sinking as they stained the water. ‘The city of kings and queens, the heart of the Fourth Kingdom. Secondus, where magic roams the streets so that whole quarters change from one day to the next. When I left her...’ Fianna’s voice faltered, and she took a deep drink of tea, straining the leaves through the mesh on one lip of the mug.
Deian bent to the fire, adding logs to stoke up the warmth. In this, they were opposites, he knew. He spoke rarely, but when he did, it was always from the heart. Fianna never seemed to cease talking, but rarely was it about anything of importance. Now, for once, she was speaking from a deep part of herself. Allowing her a moment of silence, he went to the door, letting his charges back into the house. A few of the pigs snuffled at their guest, but most settled by the warmth of the fire, grunting happily.
‘I was heartsore to leave her gates,’ Fianna continued finally, in a voice so low that it only just carried above the crackling of the flames. ‘But I always expected to return, one day. But now--’ She bit her lip.
The broth was ready. Deian filled three bowls, setting one down for Alastair, and carrying the other two over to the small table. They ate in silence. A wind had started outside, blowing snow against the sides of the house. The trees turned most of it aside for Deian, and the strong mix of timber and mud withstood the rest.
‘You don’t ask many questions, do you?’ Fianna said, her voice short of mocking.
Deian shrugged. ‘Everything comes of its own time. Seeds come only steadily to harvest, a piglet must have its months of nursing, trustworthiness must be proved to a hound--’
He stopped. Fianna had turned her head away. Her loose hair slid down her shoulders, glinting in the firelight. With a start, Deian realised that she was near adult now, and beautiful, the hair framing a long, elegant face. ‘I can’t go home, now,’ she said quietly. ‘News has come to the Lady Sallah this day. The King’s consort is with child. No one would welcome me back to Secondus. Sallah was right. I can never go home again.’
Deian had no understanding of politics, or what a servant might do to so displease the wife of a king. But he did know something about mourning. He rose softly from his seat. Even as he had seen his father do for his mother years before, after the death of his brother, he gently turned Fianna’s head to his chest so that she would not have to cry uncomforted.
<><><><><><>
Fianna said no more. He gave her his bed, and lowered himself down along the fire, Alastair curling at his side. In the morning she said that she wished to return to the town. Knowing better than to offer his help, he merely pulled on boots and cloak to accompany her. Alastair reluctantly remained behind to care for the other animals, merely pressing his face against hers for a moment.
‘He will follow you, one day,’ Deian said as they started across the snow-lined fields.
‘He’s your dog.’
Deian shook his head, wondering why she felt such a need to possess things. ‘He is his own.’
Their boots crunched into the fresh snow for a few minutes in companionable silence. Deian didn’t expect it to last, and he was unsurprised when Fianna spoke again. ‘That dragon. He won’t feel any gratitude for what you did, you know.’
Deian smiled. ‘I know. Dragons are only obligated to the Family.’
‘And how do you know so much about dragons?’
‘I have touched their minds.’ A question tugged at his own lips, and he gave in reluctantly. ‘Do you still have the piece of horn?’
‘Here.’ She tapped her chest. ‘In a pouch of mage’s cloth. The cloth is specially charged to keep others from sensing such a thing of magic.’
‘Even the one it is meant for?’
‘It’s meant for me,’ Fianna said fiercely. ‘You heard what the dragon said. He got it for me.’
That was not what Deian had understood, but he shrugged away an argument.
The town was quiet, the greatest life coming from smoke rising dark from chimneys above snow-whitened roofs. Deian would have walked around to the servant’s entrance of the large mansion, as he did when he paid his rent. But Fianna walked boldly up the steps to the main entrance and knocked loudly on the door.
Sallah herself answered, pulling the thick oak frame back so suddenly that Fianna almost fell inside. Deian knew the older woman, since it was into her strong hands that he placed gold coins every autumn. Her green eyes were cold with anger. ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded of Fianna.
Fianna looked down at her feet. ‘In the forest.’
‘All night?’
‘No. Deian gave me hospitality.’
Deian felt the hostile gaze rake over him. ‘I trust,’ Sallah said warningly, ‘that you took precautions. I’ll not have her fall pregnant.’
For a moment, Deian did not understand. Then he did, and a flush crept up his neck. ‘Lady,’ he said gravely, ‘I have not even yet cut a beard for the first time.’
‘And I’m getting cold,’ Fianna protested.
Sallah stood aside, allowing her to pass through the door. Then she was back again, looking down the steps at Deian. He stood still, unconcerned by her scrutiny. ‘You’re not afraid of me.’
Deian smiled slightly. He had met more fearful dragons than her. ‘Should I be?’
‘Enough are. More would be, if I had ascended to the Dragon Throne, mine by right...’ Her eyes had unfocussed. Deian waited patiently, his feet growing cold even in his fur-lined boots, until her thoughts returned to the man at her door. ‘I am thankful that you brought Fianna back to this door, and I will not forget it,’ she said crisply. ‘I have a fire in the hearth.’
‘Your presence is enough warmth,’ he said in the traditional decline. ‘I must return to those in my care.’
She waited until his boots were upon the road again before shutting the door.
<><><><><><>
When the spring thaws came, Deian carefully shaved the scraggly beard which had grown during the winter. As he had promised his father, he buried the handful of light hairs in the earth near the unmarked grave. The woods were silent with respect as he rose from his task, brushing the soil from his hands. He was a man now, able to inherit lands, ride into war, and ask a woman to marriage.
Yes, now, marriage. Fianna was his age. Even now, she should have cut her long hair back to the short locks of a newly-mature woman. She was old enough to hear his proposal, and to accept or decline as she wished.
And he did want to ask her. As he set about the tasks of spring, repairing the walls of his house, sending the sows in turn to the boar, and searching out the herbs which only flowered this time of year, he found his resolve firming. They were a good match, a talker and a listener, even as his parents had been. He could withstand her flashes of anger, perhaps even lessen them. She was sunlight to his earth, each needing the other to bring forth life. And she herself had said that she had no place to return to, caused for whatever reason by the pregnancy of the King’s second wife. Why not stay here with him, bringing her own skills with animals to help him in his work?
Above all, and to his great surprise, he had come to love her.
Alastair shifted with unease when Deian confided his plans to the hound. But he either would not, or could not, explain, though the hound looked out across the fields for her return as often as he himself did. In the meantime, Deian found out the bracelet his father had given to his mother on their betrothal, and carried it with him in a pocket.
So it was with the unaccustomed leap of fear that he saw her finally come across the fields one soft morning, dew darkening her boots as she strode through the grasses. Her red hair clung to her head, scarcely covering her ears. She smiled shyly as Deian came to his feet.
‘I’ve brought the Strategy board,’ she said, her free hand self-consciously patting her short hair. ‘Can you free Alastair for a game?’
The hound had already warned the pigs with pushes from his muzzle, and was now trotting over to join them. Deian had laid a cloth across the moist ground, and Fianna knelt on a corner to spread out the colourful map. Alastair took his seat beside Deian, ears pricking forward as he turned his attention to the game.
Several hours later, the sun high in the sky and Fianna’s army surrounded, she surrendered her king with laughter. ‘Pity you’re nothing more than a hound,’ she told Alastair. ‘You would out-fox many a high ranking knight.’
The dog’s tail thumped, recognising the compliment. Deian ruffled the grey coat, thinking once again how much Fianna seemed to belong out here, at home with the sun and the wind. He looked forward to her hair growing out again, braided in the style of a woman. Fingering the bracelet in his pocket, he stood slowly. ‘Fianna.’
She looked up at him, laughter dying away. Then she stood as well, brushing creases from her trousers. ‘Yes?’
‘I think we like each other well enough, you and I.’ He stumbled a little over his words, wishing that speech were not so awkward for him. And fighting the sudden feeling that she might be a creature of fire and wind, but not earth, nor water, the two elements which were more of his affinity. ‘I ask you to consider putting your hand to mine before witnesses, and coming under my roof to live.’
There, he had said it. Greatly daring, he looked up at her. Her face had gone very still, as if listening to more than his words. ‘You mean, marry you?’
‘Yes.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Think upon it. And have this as a hope-promise.’ The bracelet glittered as he pulled it free, gold links twisting in the sunlight. Mute for once, she watched him clasp it around her left wrist, bright against her pale skin.
Whatever she might have said in response was lost in the heavy thuds of hooves against drying grassland. Deian straightened, felt Alastair come alert beside him. The sun picked out the gleam of well-worn armour when the knight was still a good distance off. Even Deian recognised the banner flying from a mailed hand. The red and gold of the royal family of the Fourth Kingdom, a golden dragon outlined against a blood red background.
Fianna had swallowed loudly at first seeing the approaching horseman. Her arms dropped limply to her sides. Only when the rider was close enough for them to see that the silk was fringed with the gold tassels which marked a member of the royal family did she take a deep breath. Suddenly she stood taller on the ground, a new confidence lifting her shoulders. Deian took a step back to study her closer. Something was wrong here, very wrong. He felt Alastair press close against his leg, as if to offer comfort.
The knight brought his gelding within feet of them. Bit clanked against teeth as he reined the grey to a halt. The horse’s nostrils flared at the scent of pigs nearby, and the heavy body danced sideways. The knight jerked again at the red reins, stilling his mount. He stared down at Fianna for a moment. Then he offered her the banner, which she took with trembling hands. As the breeze snapping the silk above her head, the knight swung from his horse and went to one knee before her. ‘Your Highness, I bring news from Secondus. The King is dead, and his get from his second wife is yet unborn. For all intents and purposes, you are his heir. Will you return with me to the city to prove your claim?’
Was this what Alastair had sensed? Fianna was not a servant girl. For reasons he’d had no
interest in understanding, she had come to Lundern. And now she could return to the city she loved. Deian watched her, wondering what she would do now.
‘I must go.’ Fianna turned her head to him. ‘I was born to sit on the Dragon Throne.’
Deian bent his head, sensing that she wanted to be happy, yet was not. ‘Go to your city. Rejoice.’
‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ The bracelet flashed as she put a hand to the knight’s mailed shoulder. ‘Arwan, my aunt. Has she been told?’
Arwan nodded. ‘She is preparing to follow, even now.’
‘Then let us go.’ As the knight mounted, Fianna glanced at Deian. Her right hand touched the hope-promise, but made no move to unclasp it. Without a word, she allowed Arwan to give her hand up onto the horse to sit behind him on the broad back.
As they started off, Alastair shifted restlessly at Deian’s side. He glanced down at the hound, saw the indecision in the deep black eyes. ‘Go,’ he told Alastair quietly. ‘Keep her safe for me.’
The hound reared up on his hind legs, placing forepaws briefly on Deian’s shoulders. A wet tongue left behind a hope-promise of its own. Then he was gone, his long strides bringing him quickly even with the warhorse. Deian stood and watched them leave, until they were nothing more than a bright smudge on the horizon. Then he went into the forest, seeking the calm reassurance of the Land.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Prancer trotted down the hills in the same easy gait which had already carried him days away from the forest of the herd. The first pangs of leaving behind all he had ever known had by now given way to anticipation, and he stretched an eager nose into the stiff breeze whipping the mane from his sweaty neck. As the land levelled again he was coming to the Third Kingdom, one of the two inhabited by humans. He would soon finally meet one of these near-mythical beings.
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