“Unver is a good man, but you still should not tempt any spirits,” his sister said, frowning. “Here, drink.” She helped him put the cup to his lips and poured a little water in his mouth. He lifted his hand to take it from her but she pushed it away. “Just let me tend you. Always so proud!”
“I’m a man of the Crane Clan. I was only wounded in a fight. I can take care of myself.” He knew he sounded like a child. “In any case, if the spirits want me to get better, they’ll make me better.”
The beginnings of a smile twisted her lips, but she fought it down. “Oh, yes. Men on men’s business. Forgive me for trying to help you while you lay on the ground, moaning. Everyone else has been up for hours.”
“By the Stone Holder!” He groaned as he sat fully upright. “Why did no one tell me? Is Odrig angry?”
“He laughed.” Kulva clearly did not approve. “He laughed, then he went off to the lake with Drojan to hunt.”
That was a relief. Fremur pulled himself up so he could sit cross-legged, which helped his balance. His head felt like a swollen bladder—if it got any more full, he thought, he would begin to piss out his ears.
“What are you laughing about, Fre?”
“I don’t know. My head hurts. Is there something to eat?”
“I brought you bread.” She reached into her apron and pulled out a leaf-wrapped bundle.
Fremur unwrapped the bannock and took a bite. Chewing seemed to make his entire head feel odd, like a precariously balanced rock that might roll away with a push. He took several bites, then suddenly found he did not want any more. Even with food in his stomach, he still felt strange. The colors around him, like the voices of the birds, seemed too strong—surely the world had never been so bright! The wagons of the clan seemed to gleam like jewels, and the colorful ribbons that decorated them were searing streaks of light. But when he closed his eyes, instead of darkness he saw Unver standing atop the wall of the settlement, made into a giant by firelight, the Anvil Smasher come to life. In that moment, the tall clansman had seemed to be touched by divine fire like a great thane—or like something even greater.
“He saved me,” he said quietly. “Saved many.”
“What did you say? Here, drink more water.” Kulva handed him the cup again. As Fremur drank, the colors began to seem less painful, less striking, but his sister was still a brightness hovering before him. She was not beautiful, not as the clanfolk reckoned beauty—she was thin, for one thing, and her hair was an indistinguished shade of brown too fair to be striking. Her skin was also freckled beyond any ordinary notions of comeliness, but Fremur thought her kindness and the honest steadiness of her eyes made her beautiful. When their mother had named her Kulva, which meant dove, their father had said, “Well, then she’s a bony, speckled dove, fit only for the stew-pot.” But when their mother died in his fourth or fifth year of life, Kulva had taken on the role of Fremur’s protector. Now he could scarcely remember their mother’s face without thinking of Kulva’s instead.
Their father Hurvalt had never been kind, but he had never gone out of his way to inflict pain. Fremur thought Odrig had inherited the worst of the old man, but without Hurvalt’s love for his people, and although she would never say anything against the eldest brother who headed the family and the clan, Fremur knew Kulva felt the same way.
“I have to get up,” he said.
“Why? You should rest.”
“I will speak to Unver.” A part of him was annoyed that a woman, even his dear sister, should question him. Men of the clans were not questioned, at least not by their sisters or wives. “I owe him my life.”
“Unver will still be at his father’s wagon when you are fit to walk.”
“No.” He got his legs under him, then rose to his feet, shaky as a newborn colt. “I am fit to walk now. I am a man of the Crane Clan.”
Kulva sighed. “Of course you are.”
? ? ?
Zhakar, stepfather of Unver Long Legs, was sitting on the steps of his wagon, smoking his pipe and scowling at the clouds overhead, which was more or less what Fremur had expected. Zhakar was too old and lame now to be a threat to a grown man, but being unable to enforce his will with a fist or a strap had, if anything, only made his outlook on life more unpleasant. He had been a strong, handsome man once, at least so others in the clan said, but now he was little more than bone and sinew covered with wrinkled brown skin, like a hide left out in the sun and rain too long.
“What do you want, boy?” the old man said. “Did your brother send you?” Thane Odrig was one of the few people Zhakar respected, which Fremur knew meant “feared.”
“I’ve come to speak to Unver.”
The old man took out his pipe and spat. “Speak to Unver? That clod scarcely has two words for anyone, and the spirits know he’s no use elseways. Went out on a raid and came back with nothing.”
“He saved my life. That’s why he didn’t bring anything back.”
For a moment Fremur thought the old man would get up, hobble toward him, and try to strike him, his scowl was so fierce. “Saved your life? By my wheels and whip, that makes him even more the fool. Your father should have drowned you at birth like a kitten, scrawny whelp that you are. As I should have done when mine was given to me, too.”
“Where is he?” Fremur did not want to trade words with Zhakar any longer than he had to. His head still hurt, and the walk across the camp had made it worse. He was imagining what it would be like to shove a knife into the old bastard’s throat, and considering it just made him want to do it even more. No wonder Unver hardly ever spoke, if this was all he had to speak with.
The old man spat again. “Tinkering with that useless pile of sticks of his. Which will never be anything but a pile of old sticks, cluttering up my paddock.”
Fremur let his eyes rove slowly across the collection of broken pots, stew bones, and other rubbish strewn on the ground around the wagon. “That’s a shame.”
Now Zhakar did start to rise, his face reddening, but thought better of it after a moment. “Don’t loose your tongue at me, boy. I’ll have it out of your mouth. I’m not so old I can’t teach a pup like you some respect. I still have my whip!”
“May it give you much pleasure, then.”
Fremur headed for the paddock out behind the ramshackle wagon. Unver’s big horse Deofol and the others were cropping grass at the near end. Unver was on the far side of the paddock, just outside the fence, hammering ashwood spokes into a wheel hub to replace one that had cracked as it was being mounted. The rest of the unfinished wagon stood nearby in the shade of a paltry copse of aspens, axle-end propped on a stone while Unver made the new wheel. The wagon was still far from complete—once the wheels were all on, a season’s worth of careful ornamenting, polishing, and painting would still remain.
Unver looked up from his pounding as Fremur approached, but did not speak. The younger man could not think of anything to say at first, so he stood and watched until words came to him.
“Last night, Unver. You saved me.”
The tall man took one hand off the maul and swept straight dark hair from his eyes. He had taken off his shirt and hung it from a branch, and his chest and long arms gleamed with sweat. He stared at Fremur for a moment, then shrugged. “I saw no purpose in letting you die.”
“But you lost your plunder because of me. In fact, you came back with nothing.”
Unver made a sour face. “You must have talked to my stepfather.”
“You didn’t need to do it, but you helped me. And those others. Why?”
“What is the point of leaving men to die?” Unver took up the maul and began pounding at a spoke with precise but powerful blows. “Are we clansfolk so many, then, and the stonedwellers so few, that we should leave many dead behind just to steal a few horses and cattle? Nabban horses?”
“But you could have sold that bull. That would have paid for all the paint and fittings you’re going to want.” No Thrithings-man could expect to set himself up as a true man of importance, to get married and be respected, without his own wagon. It was odd that Unver had waited so long to build one, but he had always been a strange fellow, private, even secretive.
“Why do you care?” Unver demanded. “What does it matter to you, Fremur Hurvalt’s son?”
“It’s my fault. You lost your prize because of me. You could have had all the paint and brass you wanted.”
“It’s true that is all I need,” said Unver. For the first time in a while, Fremur saw the anger that Unver hid underneath his silences. The cords of his arms bunched as he rammed another spoke into the next open slot, but he was scowling as though it did not fit at all. “I have the horses already. One day soon I will travel as a man should travel.” Something in his eyes changed; for a moment, something long hidden looked out instead. “One day I will go where I want. Do as I please. And no one . . .” He trailed off.
“So why did you come back to help me?”