“Such times are hard on all of us, and on none harder than the young. But you’re the lady of this hall now. Gods be true, you’ll make your mother proud.” Crowan straightened, and her hands resumed their work.
“I’ll tell you what else I know. Your mother lived well on this land. She was kind and generous, always tending to the people. The Ancestors wouldn’a miss guiding her home. The lady Idell suffers no more. I can promise you that.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from welling at the mention of my mother.
Nor at the memory of her standing knee-deep in the half-frozen river, pale and silent, like a stranger.
Like a ghost.
• • •
Father’s chair sat empty at breakfast. The servants had set out plates with salt pork and cheese, warm bread and fresh-churned butter. Lail and I ate dutifully before pushing back our chairs to find Cathan beyond the courtyard. The Wisdom Keeper’s hut sat just inside the inner rampart, beside a thorn tree and a small stand of crab apple. When Cathan and my father weren’t traveling to collect the food rents or summoned to the capital by the high king, Tutgual, we visited Cathan daily for instruction. Smoke emanated from the thatching of the little hut, telling me he’d just thrown a fresh block of peat on the hearth. I pushed open the door to find the coverlet pulled neatly over his bed, the usual clutter of fossils and parchment cleared from the table in anticipation of our visit. Cathan was seated on the floor in silence, his white sleeves pushed up past his elbows and hands clasped in his lap.
I’d been frightened of Cathan as a babe, difficult as it might be to remember now. He was a sturdy man, tall, and must have seemed towering as a standing stone in his billowy white robe and stormy wilderness of hair. His blue eyes were clear as a forest pool and as chilly, too, until some fair humor struck him—for as stern as he might appear, Cathan the Wisdom Keeper was quick to laugh.
The floor creaked beneath our feet and Cathan opened his eyes. Standing slowly on stiff legs, he assessed us.
“No sleep, I see. At least, not for you,” he said, gesturing at Lail. Lail shrugged as we took our seats on the little bench beside the hearth.
“And you, Languoreth? How do you fare?”
The tenderness in his voice summoned the swift sting of tears, and I bit my lip against the wave that threatened to drown me.
“Eh, now?” Cathan bent, clasping his weathered hand in mine. “There, there. No sense in battling tears. We all weep. Sometimes it’s best to let them fall.”
I blinked their hotness onto my cheeks, and Cathan sighed and straightened, looking at the two of us.
“It is good we are here.” He bowed his head. “The lady Idell would not want you to miss any more instruction.” The Wisdom Keeper’s eyes trailed out the unshuttered window, where our shaggy white cattle were roaming the bleak winter pastures of Cadzow, the fields sprawling hay-colored against a smoky morning sky.
“Death is no easy thing,” Cathan said. “There is always the missing. But the dead never leave us. Lady Idell watches over us all. Someday you shall understand the truth of what I mean.”
I wanted to tell Cathan what we’d seen, to ask him why Mother had looked as she did and what she might have to do with the great stag; but Lailoken was watching, and he fixed me with a hard look. Why didn’t Lail wish me to speak of it? It was Cathan who was teaching Lailoken all he knew of augury. Signs and omens in nature, messages that came from the spirits of the woods.
Besides, no good ever came from keeping secrets from Cathan.
Cathan, unnoticing, only flexed his fingers, clearing his throat.
“So. Today we shall learn about the laws that govern our people. Why must we have laws?”
I fought to still my racing mind as his instruction began.
“Why must we have laws?” he echoed. “It is a rhetorical question. To attempt any organized society without them would be an exercise in futility. Laws do not simply dictate right from wrong. They provide measures of balance. In this way, laws are not only laws, they are Spirit. Laws become our guardians. They help men and women keep the course between right and wrong when they cannot do so themselves. A law broken results in a punishment, most often payment—the aim of which is to encourage correct action in the future.”
“But what about raiding?” Lailoken asked. “If raiding cattle is stealing from others, why are no fines paid by warriors or kings?” My brother thrived on instruction, and it cheered me a little to hear him sounding more like himself.
“Because when raiding’s done right, it’s all in good sport. Proper kings don’t go to war over stolen cattle!” Cathan grinned. “They learn instead to guard them better the next time. It is when the laws built to protect men and women are broken that raiding turns to war. Lords and chieftains take their revenge. Blood feuds begin. Always a messy business.” He waved his hand dismissively.
“But how can laws be Spirit, you may wonder?” he continued. “Well. Our laws were divined by the Wisdom Keepers from the earliest of days. In keeping to the law, we are obeying instructions on how people should walk the earth, sent from the highest authority—that of the All Knowing, the forces we call Gods. Laws prevent bloodshed. They provide care for the sick. They bind a warrior to his king. And they keep a king close to his gods.”
A gust of frosty air blew in through the open window, meant to keep us alert, but I leaned closer to the hearth as it crackled and spit, warming my back. Cathan’s deep voice soothed as he went on about the fines owed—for land disputes, failure to contribute goods for rents, mistreatment of a tenant farmer or a wife, and, worst of all, murder. Perhaps Cathan was right. Even in the pit of our sadness, there was room for instruction. Some thought it tedious, but Lailoken and I had a mind for it. After all, our father was a petty king, one of the thirteen kings in the north. As his children, we were expected to commit such laws to memory.
The overseeing of our laws fell to our council of jurists: Wisdom Keepers, the most respected of whom were chosen to uphold them. Cathan, in our kingdom, was such a man, though he was an expert, too, in philosophy, augury, star knowledge, and the wonders of the earth. It was Cathan who’d noticed the pair of sparrows beating their wings outside my mother’s window in the days before our birth. It was he who foretold the twins that shared her womb.
“The Gods are watching,” he’d said. “There will be two, and there is magic in them.”
Magic . . .
There were tales of Wisdom Keepers from long ago who could call forth a tempest from the bluest of skies, or lay a curse upon a man with a murmur of breath. But this was the stuff of Midwinter tales. If there was any magic in us, it dwelled in my brother. This was why he’d been chosen by Cathan to train as a Keeper. When I dreamt, I dreamt only of the forest. It was the place I loved best, so why should I question it? I could not shift the weather or foresee events. I was no message taker between our land and the land of our gods, and I was thankful for it.
Until now. There was a gnawing in my chest I’d never felt before. First the dream, and then the shock of seeing my mother, no longer living and yet so real I could almost touch the strands of her dark, silky hair. If I had rushed into the wintry freeze of the river, could I have wrapped my arms around her and tethered her to the earth?