Heartwood (Tricksters Game) (23 page)

During the day, he could keep his senses focused on hunting, on searching for signs of the wolf. Only at night did the fear return. During the darkest time of the night—after the moon had disappeared below the treetops and the sky to the east refused to brighten with the hope of a new day—that was when despair threatened to overwhelm him. When he thought of Tinnean, lost forever, with no hope of forgiveness or farewell. And Maili, safe in the Forever Isles but just as lost to him, with no chance to make amends for those nights when he’d gone a moon without touching her and the need was on him so bad that he wouldn’t let her turn away but poured his lust into her while she lay still and silent beneath him.

He told himself that he had been a good provider, that he had only tried to protect Tinnean from his boyish impulses, that he had always tried to be patient with Maili, no matter how many times she flinched from his touch. But he had only to remember the cold accusation in Griane’s eyes for those beliefs to leach away like rain seeping into soft, summer earth.

Long after the others had curled up around the fire, the Holly-Lord watched Darak. He sat against the wall of the cave, knees pulled up to his chest. Although his head was lowered on his forearms, the Holly-Lord knew he was waiting. Helpless, he waited, too.

Finally, Darak’s head came up. He rose into a crouch. Struath’s eye snapped open. Griane’s hand slid out from under her mantle, but froze when Yeorna seized her wrist.

Darak must have seen. He saw everything. Picking his way around their still figures, he approached slowly. The Holly-Lord found that comforting until he remembered that Darak moved the same way when he was stalking an animal he intended to kill.

Darak broke a dead branch into smaller pieces. One by one, he threw them on the fire. He poked the flames with a longer branch until they crackled and hissed. Only then did he squat down just out of reach as if to assure him there was no danger of attack.

Darak poked the fire again, although the flames were already high. “I won’t lay hands on you again,” he said in a soft voice. “You’ve my oath on that.”

“Thank you.”

Darak frowned, even though he had spoken politely. Remembering that the giving of the oath was important, he added, “You have my oath that I did not cast out Tinnean’s spirit.”

Darak crouched there, still and silent. Then he nodded.

“Shall we spit?”

For the first time, Darak looked at him, clearly surprised. “If you like.”

Rather than spitting into the fire as he expected, Darak spat into his palm. He did the same. He hesitated a moment when Darak held out his hand, then crawled closer to allow the big man to clasp his. He flexed his fingers until the ache went away.

Darak did not notice; he was staring into the fire again. He knew that expression almost as well as the angry one. This was the look that always came over him when he was thinking of Tinnean. He did not know the words to make that expression go away, but he knew the comfort of touch; Griane had taught him that.

Darak tensed as he reached toward him. He hesitated, his hand hanging in the air between them. Then he leaned forward and patted Darak’s leg. It was a very hard leg.

“We will find him.”

Darak’s breath leaked out of his body. “I’m sorry. That I shoved you. I don’t … I usually have better control of my temper.”

“You were angry. And frightened.”

Darak’s scowl reminded him, too late, that Griane had told him men did not like to admit to fear. He sighed. It was so much easier to be a tree. Perhaps if he offered sorry for sorry—just like oath for oath—it would make up for his mistake.

“I am sorry that I blew on Tinnean’s flute.”

Darak closed his eyes. His throat moved. That was not good. He had made another mistake. He should not speak of Tinnean unless Darak did.

Before he could offer another sorry, Darak opened his eyes. “I wasn’t ready for it.” His large, blunt fingers clenched and unclenched. “Hearing the music. Seeing you …” Just for a moment, their gazes met.

“It’s so hard … to have you look at me. With his eyes.”

He lowered his head so Darak would not have to see his eyes. “If I left …”

“Nay. We must stay together. This … I’ll be fine.”

“Who is Tinnean that you would kill to have him back?”

Darak’s head jerked up. “He’s my brother.”

“Aye. But what is that?”

“He’s … I thought you understood. Tinnean and I, we’re the same blood. The same father and mother.”

“The same litter?”

“Aye. But more than that. He’s … part of me. Like …” Darak hesitated, frowning. It was the thinking frown, not the angry one. After a moment, his face smoothed out. “Like two trees growing from the same roots.”

For the first time, he understood. Darak felt the same incompleteness, the same loss he did. Of course the big man expressed those feelings in strange and often frightening outbursts. That was the way of all humans, it seemed. They were so very young, so raw and fragile despite their fierceness. No wonder the Maker loved them.

He got to his knees and waited for Darak to look at him. He had spent much time studying that face. He knew that the two vertical lines between the brows could mean anger if the lips were pressed together and the brows went down. Those same lines could mean sorrow if the brows went up and the throat went up and down, or puzzlement if the mouth turned up on one side.

He saw expectation on the face now—brows up, forehead creased, lips parted. When he took Darak’s big hand between his, expectation changed to surprise.

“The Oak is my brother.”

He watched the hard lines ease and the eyes widen. For once, his words had been right.

Darak’s hand gripped his hard. “We will find him.”

“We will find both of them.”

Although no spit was exchanged, this oath felt even more powerful than the other.

W
HEN HE ROLLED OVER the next morning, he discovered Darak crawling into the cave, brushing snow off his back and shoulders. The Holly-Lord sighed; if the weather was bad enough to keep Darak inside, there would be no escape for any of them.

Struath and Yeorna treated Darak as they always did, but Griane did not speak to him at all, just stabbed her needle in and out of the shoe she was mending for Struath. He found her silence strange, for surely she had heard their words the previous night, just as she could observe Darak teaching him to chip flint with the rock called “hammerstone.” Darak even moved his fingers so they gripped it correctly when he had always avoided touching him before. She must understand that he and Darak had exchanged sorries and that everything was all right now.

Sometimes, he would catch Darak watching Griane. She watched him, too, when she thought he was not looking. When they both looked up at the same time, Griane’s face flushed red and she would stab the shoe again. Darak just frowned; once he muttered something under his breath.

He decided the flushing and frowning was caused by something other than Darak pushing him or Griane drawing her dagger. He was not sure what it was, but since his flute playing had started the bad feelings, he felt he must do something to make them go away.

“Yeorna, would you please tell the story about the rowan-woman and the alder-man?”

She smiled and the unpleasant fluttering in his belly eased. “You’ve heard that twice since we’ve been here.”

“It is my favorite.”

He had been surprised to learn that people had once been trees. Always, he had thought of them as wolf-kin because of their fierceness and their meat-loving and their habit of traveling in packs. When Yeorna told about the rowan that lifted up its roots and walked out of the forest to become the first woman, the story began to make sense. If Griane had grown weary of standing in the forest, she would have done that.

“Perhaps Griane could tell a story,” Yeorna said.

Griane’s voice was not as sweet as Yeorna’s, nor did it fill the cave as Struath’s did, but her stories were very exciting. Like the time she and Tinnean had leaped over the Midsummer bonfire and their tunics caught fire and Darak rolled them both on the ground and nearly squashed them and shouted that they had no more sense than mayflies to be leaping the bonfire when the flames were so high. Or the time she stayed out all night in the forest because she wanted to find a vision mate like the boys did, but she was afraid to close her eyes, because as soon as she did, she heard all sorts of scary sounds, and she wanted to go home, but she was too afraid to move, and then Darak found her and carried her home and put her to sleep with Tinnean, and stopped her father from beating her with a leather strap the next morning.

“Tell about the time you filled Darak’s shoes with porridge,” he said. “And you could hear him shouting all the way across the village and he smacked your arse and—”

“Nay.” Darak’s voice was very quiet.

He caught his breath. He should not have spoken of the arse smacking. He was making things worse. Yeorna must have understood, for she said, “Griane, have you come up with a name yet?”

Darak looked up. “A name?”

Griane glanced at him, then flushed and looked down at her mending. “The Holly-Lord asked me to choose one for him.”

“What have you chosen?”

“I was thinking … I don’t know. I thought of one, but …”

The Holly-Lord leaned forward. “What is it, Griane?”

“Cuillonoc.”

He repeated the name, slowly shaping it with his tongue and letting it roll off his lips. Yeorna clapped her hands, just as she did when he blew on the flute. “It’s perfect. That was the name of the very first chief of the Holly Tribe. Isn’t that right, Tree-Father?”

Struath stared at the roof of the cave, stroking the underside of his chin. Recognizing the beginning of a story, the Holly-Lord stretched out his legs; Struath’s stories were usually long.

“Long, long ago, before my father’s father’s father was born, before there was an Oak Tribe or a Holly Tribe, there were The People.”

He sighed. It was not only going to be a long story, but one about people he did not know.

“The People came from the south where the soil was rich and black, and the rivers teemed with fish, and the barley grew taller than a man. The summers were long and warm, and in winter, the snows only lingered for a moon before melting away.”

The Oak would have liked this place. “Did they have forests?”

“Aye, Holly-Lord. And they worshiped in the sacred grove of the First Forest and witnessed the battle of the Oak and the Holly at Midsummer and Midwinter.”

Now the story began to interest him. He must know these People, after all. In the beginning, only the trees and the birds and the beasts had observed the battles. Then came a strange creature, no larger than a bear cub, which fell to its knees when it entered the grove. He wondered if this was one of Struath’s People or if they had come later.

“The People had lived many generations in this place when a new people arrived. At first, the two tribes lived in peace, trading with each other, sharing knowledge, even intermarrying. However, each spring brought more of the strangers and in time, there were too many for the land to support. These newcomers dug stone out of the earth for their places of worship. They cut down the forests for their fields. They stole the children of The People to sacrifice to their—”

“They cut down the trees? All of them?” Surely, Struath was mistaken.

“They did not worship the Holly and the Oak. They did not believe that we share this land with our tree-brothers and with the birds and beasts of the forests and the fish of the rivers.”

He shook his head, unable to imagine such a people or such a world.

“And so The People fled to their boats and journeyed down the river until they came to a great sea.”

“What is a sea?”

“It is a large expanse of water, as big as the First Forest.”

This seemed as improbable as the existence of a people who wished to cut down all the trees, but Struath nodded firmly, so it must be true.

“The People journeyed for many days. Each morning, they watched the sun rise over the forests to the east and each evening, they watched it sink into the great sea. Some of The People grew afraid and wanted to turn back. Others wanted to drag their boats to the shore and build their new village right there. But many voices were raised against this idea, because the village would be far from the forest.”