Hastily she scrambled up and dropped Maddyn a curtsey. She was very pretty, with raven-black hair and dark, calm eyes. Maddyn bowed to her in return.
‘You’ll forgive me for imposing on you,’ Maddyn said. ‘I haven’t been well, and I need a bit of a rest.’
‘Any friend of Nevyn’s is always welcome here,’ she said. ‘Sit down, and I’ll get you some ale.’
Maddyn took off his cloak, then sat down on the hearthstone as close to the fire as he could get without singeing his shirt. Announcing that he had to get back to the cows, Bannyc strolled outside. The woman handed Maddyn a tankard of dark ale, then sat down near him and picked up her mending again.
‘My thanks.’ Maddyn saluted her with the ale. ‘My name’s Maddyn of … uh, well, just Maddyn will do.’
‘Mine’s Belyan. Have you known Nevyn long?’
‘Oh, not truly.’
Belyan gave him an oddly awestruck smile and began sewing. Maddyn sipped his ale and watched her slender fingers work deftly on the rough wool of a pair of brigga, Bannyc’s, by the large size of them. He was surprised at how good it felt to be sitting warm and alive in the presence of a pretty woman. Every now and then, Belyan hesitantly looked his way, as if she were trying to think of something to say.
‘Well, my lord,’ she said at last. ‘Will you be staying long with our Nevyn?’
‘I don’t truly know, but here, what makes you call me lord? I’m as common-born as you are.’
‘Well – but a friend of Nevyn’s.’
At that Maddyn realized that she knew perfectly well that the old man was dweomer.
‘Now here, what do you think I am?’ Maddyn had the uneasy feeling that it was very dangerous to pretend to dweomer you didn’t have. ‘I’m only a rider without a warband. Nevyn was good enough to save my life when he found me wounded, that’s all. But here, don’t tell anyone about me, will you? I’m an outlawed man.’
‘I’ll forget your name the minute you ride on.’
‘My humble thanks, and my apologies. I don’t even deserve to be drinking your ale.’
‘Oh hold your tongue! What do I care about these rotten wars?’
When he looked at her, he found her angry, her mouth set hard in a bitter twist.
‘I don’t care the fart of a two-copper piglet,’ she went on. ‘All it’s ever brought to me and mine is trouble. They take our horses and raise our taxes and ride through our grain, and all in the name of glory and the one true King, or so they call him, when everyone with wits in his head knows there’s two kings now, and why should I care, truly, as long as they don’t both come here a-bothering us. If you’re one man who won’t die in this war, then I say good for you.’
‘Ye gods. Well, truly, I never thought of it that way before.’
‘No doubt, since you were a rider once.’
‘Here, I’m not exactly a deserter or suchlike.’
She merely shrugged and went back to her sewing. Maddyn wondered why a woman of her age, twenty-two or so, was living in her father’s house. Had she lost a betrothed in the wars? The question was answered for him in a moment when two small lads, about six and four, came running into the room and calling her Mam. They were fighting over a copper they’d found in the road and came to her to settle it. Belyan gave them each a kiss and told them they’d have to give the copper to their gran, then sent them back outside.
‘So you’re married, are you?’ Maddyn said.
‘I was once. Their father drowned in the river two winters ago. He was setting a fish-trap, but the ice turned out to be too thin.’
‘That aches my heart, truly. So you came back to your father?’
‘I did. Da needed a woman around the house, and he’s good to my lads. That’s what matters to me.’
‘Then it gladdens my heart to hear that you’re happy.’
‘Happy?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Oh, I don’t think much of things like happiness, just as long as the lads are well.’
Maddyn could feel her loneliness, lying just under her faint, mocking smile. His body began to wonder about her, a flicker of sexual warmth, another sign that life was coming back to him. She looked at him steadily, her dark eyes patient, self-contained, almost unreadable.
‘And what will you do now?’ she said. ‘Ride on before the snows come?’
‘Nevyn doesn’t think I’ll be fit by then, but sooner or later I have to go. It’ll mean my life if I stay. They hang outlawed men.’
‘So they do.’
Belyan considered him for a moment more, then got up briskly, as if she’d come to some decision, and strode out of the room through a blanket-hung door in one of the wickerwork walls. He was just finishing his tankard when she returned, carrying a shirt, which she tossed into his lap when she sat back down.
‘That was my husband’s,’ she said. ‘It’s too small for Da, and it’ll rot before the lads grow to fit it. Take it. You need a shirt that doesn’t have foxes embroidered all over it.’
‘Ye gods! I forgot about that. No wonder you thought I was a deserter, then. Well, my humble thanks.’
He smoothed it out, studying with admiration the sleeves, stiff with finely embroidered interlacing and spirals, and at the yokes, floral bands. It had probably been her husband’s wedding shirt because it was unlikely that her man had owned two pieces of such fancy clothing, but still, it was a good bit safer for him to wear than one with his dead lord’s blazon. He took off his old shirt and gave it to her.
‘Do you want this for the cloth? You can mend the lads’ tunics out of it.’
‘So I can. My thanks.’
She was looking at the scar along his side, a thick clot of tissue in his armpit, a thinner gash along his ribs. Hurriedly he pulled the new shirt over his head and smoothed it down.
‘It fits well enough. You’re generous to a dishonoured man.’
‘Better than letting it rot. I put a lot of fancy work into that.’
‘Do you miss your man still?’
‘At times.’ She paused, considering for a few moments. ‘I do, at that. He was a good man. He didn’t beat me, and we always had enough to eat. When he had the leisure, he’d whittle little horses and wagons for the lads, and he made sure I had a new dress every spring.’
It came to that for her, he realized, not the glories of love and the tempests of passion that the bard songs celebrated for noble audiences. He’d met plenty of women like Belyan, farm women, all of them, whose real life ran apart from their men in a self-contained earthiness of work and children. Since their work counted as much as their men’s towards feeding
