“Didn’t I tell you?” Cudberj slapped his leg and chortled. “Didn’t I say she had a sharp tongue on her? And her older sister is worse. The women in this family are part snake, I tell you!”
Hyara didn’t say anything, but concentrated on picking up the bowls and spoons that had been discarded without a second thought all over the area around the fire. Everybody thought that because she was the thane’s wife, with the largest wagon and the largest camp, her life must be enviable. But the largest wagon and camp needed the most work to keep them tidy, and her husband, his cousins, and her ancient father were like spoiled children, leaving messes and breakage behind them wherever they went.
As she thought of the heedless men she had to deal with every day, Hyara felt the darkness begin to flow over her again, as though clouds had swallowed the sun, even though the summer twilight was clear and cloudless. Sometimes the feeling was so strong that it was all she could do not to fall down and weep, to lie helpless and unmoving until the men dragged her away and ended her uselessness, as though she were a horse with a broken leg. Her sister knew this fearful, hopeless darkness too, although neither of them spoke of it. The two of them carried the secret between them, and if nothing made it stop, at least it was a tiny bit easier for Hyara knowing she was not the only one.
She stood up, stacking the bowl she had just found onto the others she had gathered, and saw that someone was approaching the camp—a man of good size, but too slender to be her burly husband. She shaded her eyes against the setting sun but still did not recognize him, though something about the way he moved caught her attention. The newcomer did not walk so much as he loped, body balanced, head steady, like a wolf calmly pacing a herd of deer.
Cudberj saw him too and stood up, his hand falling to the ax hung on his belt. A few of the other men saw this sudden movement and looked up. Hyara could feel a certain tightness in the air suddenly. A stranger was a rare thing on the High Thrithings.
The man stopped a dozen paces from the fire and calmly examined the half-dozen men sitting there. The stranger was tall and well-muscled but not as broad as Cudberj or the others, and certainly nowhere near as burly as Hyara’s own husband, the thane of the Stallion Clan. “I look for the camp of Thane Fikolmij,” he said. “Is this it?”
“Why?” Cudberj demanded. He had his ax out and was stroking it as though currying a prize horse. “Who are you, to walk into the March-thane’s camp so bold? I do not know your face, nor does any other man here, and you wear no clan badge.”
“My name is not important,” the stranger said. “Until a short time ago I was part of the Crane Clan from south of the Littlefeather, down in the Lake Thrithings. They called me Unver. But I have left them now. I have no clan.”
“No clan?” Cudberj shook his head and spat into the fire. “You might as well say you have no heart, no cock. What kind of man renounces his clan?”
“A man whose clan treats him badly.” The tall stranger had dark hair like a clansman, but even in the late daylight Hyara could see that his eyes were unusually pale, like someone from the far north, but more gray than blue. Something else about him caught her attention, too, something about his long, narrow face that seemed almost familiar. “But my leave-taking was not a pleasant one,” he went on, “and my mood is still foul, so do not keep me standing here when I have asked you a question. Is this the camp of Thane Fikolmij?” He looked past the men to the wagon. “Is that his?” He began to walk toward the steps, but Cudberj stepped out to block his path.
“Turn around,” Cudberj said, hefting his ax. He might have been no match for his cousin the March-thane, but he was still a dangerous man. “Turn around, or I will send you back to those Crane Clan cowards in pieces.”
The stranger ignored him and tried to walk past. Cudberj let out a hiss of rage and grabbed at the stranger’s arm, at the same time drawing back his ax to deal what would no doubt have been a mortal blow, but instead the dark-haired man grabbed Cudberj’s wrist and pivoted, twisting the arm until Cudberj shrieked in astonished pain and dropped his weapon. A moment later the stranger’s fist hit him full in the face, knocking him to the ground as though he had been slaughtered with a horse-maul.
The others leaped up to attack the stranger, but within a time so short it seemed to Hyara like some kind of magical vision, they were nearly all down, one with his head rammed between the spokes of the nearest wagon wheel, another with his jaw clacked violently shut by a blow from the stranger’s knee. A third managed to swing his curved sword once, but by the time he brought it around, the stranger was no longer where he had been. He kicked the swordsman hard behind the knee, then again in the other knee, so that the man dropped his sword and fell to the ground, howling and clutching his injured joints. The last of Cudberj’s companions had seen enough and did not attack the stranger, but sprinted away from the wagons, probably to find Hyara’s husband, the thane.
During the fighting Hyara herself had climbed up onto the wagon steps, and now she blocked the stranger’s way. “Do you mean harm to the women or children here?” she asked. “We will fight you if we must.”
“I do not hurt women,” he growled. “I do not hurt children. I want answers only. I seek my mother, the woman called Vorzheva.”
“By all the gods and all the saints of Sacred Mother Church!” Hyara was so astounded she muddled her prayers together again. “Vorzheva? You are my sister’s child?”
He looked at her, not particularly interested. The familiar thing she had noticed was now much plainer—a likeness in the eyes, in the hawklike nose and strong jaw, that could only have come from her own family’s blood. “So I’ve been told. Is she still alive?”
“She is alive and she is here,” said Hyara. “By the Thunderer, I do not know what to say!” A sudden thought came. “But if you wish to speak to her, you had better be fast. They will bring back my husband any moment now, and he will be angry. You must leave before he gets here. He is a terrible man.”
“No,” said the stranger, and his face suddenly went hard, as her sister’s face sometimes went hard. It was like seeing a ghost. “Your husband is strong, perhaps, or cruel, or even dangerous, but those are not the same.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, but she fumbled off the latch and pushed the wagon’s door open. “What do you mean?”
His look suddenly made her feel sick to her stomach—he was so cold, so terribly, hopelessly angry. “I am what a truly terrible man looks like.” He vaulted up the steps and pushed his way into the wagon.
Inside Vorzheva stood waiting, a look on her face that Hyara had never seen before, a mixture of both hope and horror. “No,” she said as she saw the stranger, and pawed at her iron-gray hair, still stubbornly streaked with black even after so many years. “No, go away. You cannot see me like this, covered in ashes.”
The gray-eyed man looked her up and down, and if Vorzheva’s face was something hard to read, his was suddenly even more so. “You are my mother,” he said at last. “Why?” There was something damaged in his voice that Hyara had not heard before. “Why did you do it?” He strode forward and took Vorzheva’s face in his hand, examining it as though it were some rare object, staring at each fold and wrinkle while she stood motionless but for her eyes.
She slowly lifted a hand to clutch the stranger’s wrist. “By my soul, it truly is you—!”
He shook her fingers off, then pushed her back so that she thumped against the wall of the wagon. Confused and only half-awake, their father Fikolmij struggled to sit up in his corner bed and failed.
“Tell me what is happening!” the old man demanded. “Who is this?”
Vorzheva and the stranger stood eye to eye. Hyara was frightened the man would kill her sister—she could see his arms trembling where he held her prisoned against the side wall—but before she could move toward them, he let her go and his hands fell to his sides. His face seemed empty of all feeling now.
“Why did you send me away?” he asked. “They told me that you and my father were dead.”
Vorzheva did not use her sudden freedom to escape him. “I had no choice. Send you away or see you killed—those were his orders. Him!” She pointed to the old man in the bed, who looked from his daughter to his grandson, still not understanding.
Fikolmij blinked, then looked to Hyara, his face almost pitiful in its confusion. “I don’t like this. Where is my supper?”
“Shut up, you old fool!” Vorzheva cried. “This is my son, do you hear? My son! And he has come back to kill you.” Her lined face was suddenly lit with some deep exhilaration. “My Deornoth has returned, and now all will be put right.” She turned back to the stranger. “That is your name, your true name—Deornoth! You were named after a hero.”