A Hero's Tale

  The thought came to me that I now had an opportunity to run away. Then I thought again. The hunter had my bow, and I was more lost now than I had been before. If that were not enough, the smell of cooking would have held me there.

  A few minutes later the woman came to the doorway and invited me inside. She offered me a place beside the hearth and handed me a bowl of soup. I was so hungry that I forgot my manners. I swallowed the soup down almost at a gulp and didn't make even a polite gesture of refusal at the offer of more. When I finished the second bowl, I found the courtesy to apologize for my greediness and thank the woman for her hospitality.

  She seemed to understand me better than her husband did. She spoke a few common words of welcome and saw that my needs were met, for food and drink, for warmth and rest, before she let her husband question me.

  He started by pointing at me. "Home," he said, and looked around at the four directions. "Where?"

  I would have gestured to the south if I had known which way it was. The forest people had no word for south or any of the four directions. With no clear view of the sky, they didn't orient themselves by the sun or moon or by the stars. Instead they used features of the landscape. "The way the water runs," I said, and hoped that here the streams also ran from north to south.

  Then the man said something I didn't understand about the common speech. I knew the phrase because I had learned from Maara, as well as from my own experience, that the common speech was whatever people around one spoke, while other ways of speaking were outlandish.

  I shrugged and shook my head, to let him know I didn't understand what he was asking me.

  He pointed toward the direction we had just come from and said, "The way the water runs speaks not."

  I thought he was asking me why I spoke as I did, since I came from a place where nothing resembling his common speech was spoken. Whether or not he knew of the existence of the forest people, he would learn no more of them from me.

  "A traveler," I said, pointing to myself. "A traveler speaks outlandish."

  For the first time, the hunter smiled. His wife interrupted our conversation to offer me a bowl of tea. We sat in silence for a while, sipping our tea and enjoying the fire's warmth on this damp and chilly day. Then the hunter spoke again.

  "Your bow," he said. "Is from?"

  At the time it didn't seem like an odd question. I was trying to think of a way to explain its origin to him when I didn't know myself.

  "A gift," I said. I hoped it was a word he understood. The forest people had no word for gift, not the way my people understood it. Among the forest people, no one owned anything. Whatever they had belonged to all, so a gift to them was just something held in common, and the act of giving consisted of someone who had a thing offering it to someone else who needed it.

  The hunter thought that over for a while. Then he said, "Gift from who?"

  I first thought of Maara, who had given me the bow, before I remembered what she told me. "Someone has left a gift for you," she said, and I knew now who it was she meant.

  "The world," I said.

  The hunter asked me no more questions. He sat still and silent for a long time. I woke many hours later, lying under my wolfskin with no memory of having gone to bed. Around me in the dark I heard the sounds of sleeping people. Feeling as safe as if I were at home, I closed my eyes.

  When I woke in the morning, the hunter was gone. His wife offered me breakfast, and in the guise of idle conversation, she soon had out of me the whole story of my travels from the time I entered the forest until her husband found me. I also told her my destination. I didn't tell her why I was going to Elen's house, but I wanted to know if she had heard of it and if she knew where it was. Though she knew Elen's name, she told me she had never been there. When I asked her if her husband had, she shrugged and shook her head.

  I was waiting for the hunter to come home before I took leave of them, partly out of politeness, but also because he hadn't returned my bow. It was nowhere to be seen within the house. When I went out to relieve myself, I looked around for it. I didn't see it anywhere.

  It was growing late, and I was losing precious time. When I asked the woman when she expected her husband to return, she smiled and offered me more tea. At last, late in the afternoon, we heard him shout a greeting. We both went out to meet him. With him was a stranger, and the stranger held my bow. When he saw me, he stopped and stared.

  "She is!" he said.

  I had to wait while the hunter's wife performed the rituals of hospitality before I learned what he meant. I used the time to study him. He looked familiar. He must remind me of someone, I thought, because surely I've never encountered him before.

  After all were greeted, warmed, and fed, the hunter's wife sat down with us beside the fire and drew her child into her lap. Holding him firmly between her knees, she began to finger-comb his hair.

  I felt the stranger's eyes on me. I met his gaze. The warmth of his regard surprised me. He looked at me as he would have looked at a dear friend he thought he would never see again. He picked up my bow from where it lay beside him and with some ceremony offered it to me.

  "I return to you my brother's bow," he said.

  He took me so aback I hardly knew that my hands had accepted it. I had no words to make an appropriate reply. I stared at him, and began to see the man as I had seen him years before, a gaunt man in ragged clothing made of skins and furs, sitting on the floor of the men's house beside his wounded friend, the man whose pain had filled me with compassion, though he was my enemy.

  Then I thought of that man's fate.

  "I'm sorry he was lost," I said.

  Although it took us a little time to become accustomed to each other's speech, by the end of the day, with the aid of signs and gestures I had learned from the forest people, we understood each other very well. The stranger, whose name was Finn, recognized me as the one who came with the healer to care for his brother. He remembered it was I who brought the medicine that eased his brother's pain. The hunter too had been among our prisoners, although he didn't recall seeing me.

  Despite what Vintel had done, they and all who had been with them remembered with gratitude the treatment they received in Merin's house. They called it the house of kindness. They called Merin's people the kindly ones, and they judged us all, not by the vengeful act of one, but by the compassion of the many.

  Of course they didn't know that it was I who interceded with Merin on their behalf. I said nothing to them about it. As it was, their warmth of feeling for me as one of Merin's people was more than I deserved. We too had reaped the benefit of what we did for them. They never returned to trouble us, they formed no alliance with our enemies to seek revenge against us, and they thrived on our gifts of grain and cattle, the loss of which we never felt at all.

  Now I too had been nourished by the gift, and more precious than the gift of food, they offered me their friendship. I didn't tell them why I left Merin's house. It would have taken me forever to explain how I became an exile, even if I could have found the words. That didn't matter anyway. There was a much simpler explanation. I told them that someone I cared for had been captured by the northerners and that they were taking her to Elen's house.

  The hunter nodded. "Our faithless friends," he said, and told me about their last dealings with their treacherous allies.

  They had crossed the river into Merin's land at the urging of a chieftain of the northern tribes, with assurances that the northerners would divide Merin's forces by attacking from the north. A shiver went down my spine when I realized how close we had come to disaster. The northerners waited for news of the success of the river crossing. When it didn't come, they left their allies to their fate and went back home.

  "You come to trade?" asked Finn.

  He was asking me if I had come to negotiate Maara's ransom.

  I shook my head. "I come to steal," I said. "To take her back."

  The two men exchanged a look. Now they understood thi
ngs that had puzzled them. If I had come to negotiate a ransom, I would have come with a guide, under safe conduct. I wouldn't have been wandering, lost in the mist, with no idea where I was going. The time had come to tell them the whole truth.

  "My friend owes the people of Elen's house a blood debt," I said, "but she is innocent of the crime they accuse her of."

  The two men stared at me and said nothing.

  "Do you know Elen's house?" I asked them.

  They nodded.

  "Will you take me there?"

  "Not alone," said Finn, and the two men put their heads together. They spoke for several minutes, loud enough for me to hear, but so rapidly that I could hardly understand a word. Then the hunter got up and left the house.

  "He brings your friends," said Finn.

  Before nightfall the hunter returned with three other men, and in the morning more arrived, until there were two dozen altogether, armed with swords and bows. All of them had once been prisoners in Merin's house.

  75. Elen's House

  By midmorning we were ready to travel. When I took leave of the hunter's wife, I thanked her for her hospitality and tried to reassure her that I wouldn't lead her husband and his friends into danger. I told her that, while I was grateful for their escort, I didn't intend to draw them into battles that were mine to fight.

  She smiled at me and rolled her eyes. "Try and stop them," she said, and kissed me on both cheeks.

  Then I understood that I had with me more than an escort, and although they had pledged themselves to help me, they were not mine to command. As we traveled I watched to see who the others looked to for direction. Finn was one. The other was a man they called Bru, which seemed to be, not a name, but a title of respect. He stood half a head above the others, and his mane of dark hair and bristling beard would have made him look quite fierce if he hadn't smiled so much.

  That evening I invited both Finn and Bru to take counsel with me. In full hearing of the others as we sat around the fire, we made our plans.

  "How soon can we expect to be there?" I asked.

  "By the day after tomorrow," said Bru. "If all goes well."

  "What is the country like?"

  "Beautiful," Finn said. "A valley. Not like yours, not so big, but flat land between hills so steep that water falls in places almost straight down from top to bottom."

  "And Elen's house?"

  "A fortress within a fortress," said Bru. "First the hills, then the walls."

  They told me that while Merin's house stood on a hilltop ringed by earthworks, Elen's house stood on flat land, ringed only by a palisade, but well guarded nonetheless by the steep hills all around.

  "How will we get in?" I asked.

  "We'll go in through the gate," said Finn. He tried not to smile at my look of surprise. "A friend of mine is a craftsman there. We'll go in on the pretext of paying him a visit."

  "All of us?"

  Two dozen armed men traveling together were seldom on the business of paying a friend a visit.

  "I think not," said Bru. "Let Finn and one other man go first, to see if there is any news of your friend."

  "I'll go with Finn," I said.

  Bru shook his head. "They will suspect a woman."

  When he saw that his objection made no sense to me, he said, "Our people are so few, and the world we live in is so dangerous, that we cannot risk our women. They stay at home, and even if we had brought a woman with us, she would not dress or conduct herself as you do."

  I was determined not to stay behind while others risked themselves on my behalf.

  "Then I'll go in alone," I said.

  There was a moment's silence, while Bru tried to think of something else.

  "They won't suspect my son," said Finn, and gave me a hearty thump on my shoulder. "Dirty his face a little and no one will know the difference."

  I had to acknowledge the resemblance. Finn's hair was no more than a shade or two darker than mine. He too was small and slightly built. Even our deerskin clothing looked similar enough, and our weapons were almost identical.

  "Are your people on good terms with the people of Elen's house?" I asked Bru.

  "We are on no terms with them," he replied. "We leave them in peace. They leave us in peace."

  "They need us now," said Finn. "We dread the day that is no longer so."

  A somber mood descended over all of them, as Finn explained their situation. The people of Elen's house lived both by farming and by trade, but their wealth came from goods made by their craftsmen.

  Finn's people kept animals and grew much of their own food. They also trapped and hunted, and traded game and furs for what they couldn't provide themselves. They traded both with the northern tribes and with the people of Elen's house, but they had entered into an alliance only once, and the failure of that alliance convinced them that the dangers far outweighed the benefits. Yet because they were so few in number, both their neighbors were encroaching on the forest they regarded as their own. It seemed to them inevitable that someday they would be forced to ally themselves with one against the other.

  "It is a delicate balance," said Bru.

  "Then we must not disturb it," I replied. "I would be a false friend to you if I put you in open conflict with either side."

  Bru knit his brow. Though he knew that what I said was both true and wise, he would feel bound by honor as well as by obligation to help me in any way he could, regardless of the consequences.

  Before he could protest, I said, "In any case we are too few for open conflict. We will achieve more and at less cost by stealth."

  Bru laughed. "Finn's son is still a woman at heart. A woman counsels caution, while a man's heart burns to see justice done."

  "Justice will be done," I told him, "as justice was done to you."

  The countryside surrounding Elen's house was as beautiful as Finn had said. We traveled through a forest of young pines, following a stream that tumbled down the wild hillside. On the day when we expected to reach Elen's house, around midafternoon, I heard a roaring in the distance.

  "The falls," said Bru.

  Soon the roar grew so loud that we had to shout to make ourselves heard. At the forest's edge we stepped out from under the trees onto solid rock. The stream flowed gently by, then vanished into mist, as it fell from the rock into the abyss. I approached the edge and looked over. I must have wobbled a little. Finn took hold of my arm to steady me.

  When I lifted my eyes from the dizzying drop, I saw mountains in the distance. All stone and ice, their cold breath made me shiver, and the mist that overhung the waterfall beaded in my hair. Below me lay a narrow valley. Sunlight sparkled on the waters of the stream that, after its violent fall, grew calm again as it meandered through fields and pastures. Green and golden, abloom with spring, the valley seemed as pleasant a place as any I had ever seen. Only a few farmsteads were visible from where we stood. No fortress was in sight.

  "Where is Elen's house?" I asked Finn. I had to raise my voice and speak close to his ear to make myself heard above the thunder of the falls.

  Finn gestured downstream. "Just around the bend," he shouted back. "We'll see it from trail."

  Set between high cliffs of stone, frighteningly steep, the valley floor appeared unreachable by any creature that had not the power of flight.

  "Where is the trail?" I asked.

  Finn pointed to a place not far away, where I could just make out a faint path that zigzagged back and forth down the cliff face. I would have descended into the valley that afternoon, but Bru feared the dark would overtake us before we reached the valley floor.

  "A little patience," he said, "or we may take you to your friend in pieces."

  We withdrew into the forest until we were far enough from the falls to be able to carry on a conversation. There we made our camp. I thought about the bands of warriors who guarded the borders of Merin's land, and I worried that a band of Elen's warriors might find us there.

  "They already know we're
here," said Bru, when I spoke my fears aloud, "but they won't challenge us. Tomorrow, when you and Finn go down into the valley, they'll keep an eye on you until you walk openly through the gates of the fortress. The rest of us will travel south, as if we're bound for somewhere else. We'll wait for you below the Giant's Maw."

  "What place is that, to have such a dreadful name?" I asked.

  "Where the stream flows out of the valley," said Finn, "there is another waterfall, less than half as high as the one that flows into it, but much more terrifying. Rocks like sharp and broken teeth thrust up through the water everywhere. A few careless boatmen have gone over the high falls and lived, but anything that falls into the Giant's Maw is dashed to pieces."

  "It seems that it's easier to get into the valley than to get out of it," I said. "Once I find my friend, how will we get safely away?"

  "There's no getting out by the same way you go in," said Bru. "If you go by light of sun or moon, they'll see you on the trail, and if you try to go by dark of night, one misstep will be your death."

  That much I had seen for myself.

  "We know a thing or two about this place," Bru said, smiling a mysterious smile. "Luckily for you."

  "Our fathers lived here once, many ages past," said Finn. "They left us their lore in grandfathers' tales."

  Of times long unremembered, old stories long forgotten old men tell.

  Totha, king in his great hall, welcomed his brothers and his mother's brothers, his sisters and his sisters' sons, to hear him name his heir. One of them it must be, as the custom always was, while Totha's wife made her own plans.

  "Husband," she said, as she lay on his breast at night, caressing him with her long hair. "Husband," she said, "you have the son I bore you. Name him."