Caell’ian

  Caell’ian politely declined the chieftain’s offer to stay in one of the empty roundhouses. He had taken one look at Finn’s house and quickly walked out again, deciding they would just pitch their tents outside the village. Until that moment, he had always thought there was no worse habitat in the world than military quarters after a battle, but that was nothing compared to that dark, closed room where the smell of human sweat, acrid smoke, animals, and who knew what else had been settling in for years. No wonder people were outside all the time.

  This time, however, there was another reason why people framed the street. A mournful procession was passing to the village centre, following two carts drawn by heavy, large animals. Caell’ian could smell blood and decay before he could even see them. He inclined his head respectfully when the procession passed him.

  ‘Would you mind if we used the boar for the funeral feast?’ Finn asked him.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Or maybe I should ask Lady Alean’or? It is her quarry.’

  ‘I am sure she won’t mind. Though she probably won’t thank you for addressing her as a lady. She is a knight as much as I am. ‘

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A warrior.’

  ‘You are certainly the cleanest warriors I’ve ever seen,’ Finn commented with an amused smile, but then his face became suffused with sorrow again as he looked at the crying people. ‘Come, I’ll introduce you to my father. He can tell you more about what happened at the mine.’

  ? ? ?

  ‘I am not expected to eat them, am I?’ Sandor asked nervously as they gathered outside the village where the miners’ remains were laid on large wooden pyres.

  ‘What? No!’ Halliena said and clapped him on the head.

  ‘But I heard they are building those large fires to roast them. It’s the same as with the brig.’

  ‘You mean pig. Boar. That is roasted slowly to cook the meat. The dead people are meant to be burned to ashes. Sometimes they are buried in the earth, but this tribe chooses to burn them. Their bodies need a lot of time to decompose, so they cannot just leave them lying around,’ Alean’or informed him.

  ‘And here I thought you were whispering sweet words of love and dreams of soul-sharing to that handsome bard, when in truth you were just gathering useful information,’ Tormandor remarked with a grin.

  ‘Someone has to, since the rest of you are so easily distracted,’ she replied calmly.

  ‘Then you won’t mind if I try to seduce him?’ Tormandor asked, his smile widening.

  ‘I don’t think lovers of the same sex are well regarded here,’ Alean’or told him earnestly.

  ‘And how do you know?’

  ‘Because all the stories of love and passion he knows are only between a man and a woman’

  ‘So, you did talk about love and passion after all?’ Tormandor teased.

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  Caell’ian left them to it and went to find Rowena. He had been wrong to assume that she was a simpleton. What was much worse was that she seemed impervious to his control. It had been easy with the regular humans. Influenced by that much glamour, they would have believed anything Caell’ian told them. Rowena and Gwydre, however, didn’t seem to be affected in the same way. They kept asking questions even after both he and Tormandor had worked the glamour on the whole room.

  She was sitting on a tree stump aside from the crowd, hugging her knees, and seemed deep in thought. He sat down on the ground next to her.

  ‘Is this an inappropriate time to ask questions?’ he inquired politely.

  She hesitated for a heartbeat, then asked, ‘About what?’

  ‘Your father said you found something that could help us find out who did this.’

  ‘Why do you want to help?’

  ‘I would like to prove that I had nothing to do with it.’

  She regarded his face closely. ‘You want something else, too,’ she then accused him.

  ‘Oh? And what is that?’ he asked, trying not to smile.

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I will find out.’

  ‘So you will not answer my question?’

  She remained silent for so long that he was just about to leave her again when she finally reached into the pocket of her voluminous skirt and handed him a medallion.

  ‘There was this. Have you ever seen such a stone?’ she asked.

  Caell’ian examined the piece. The reflections of the setting sun and the large fires made the face on the medallion look eerily alive. He assumed it represented some human goddess and the duality of the sun and moon. It was divided into two halves. The left side was dark obsidian, while the right side was light with inlays of faded bone. It was surrounded by stylized rays of light made of garnet inlays. He was impressed that humans had developed such artistry in the crafting of jewellery. Then again, they had also developed their weapons and tools to a new degree. Maybe they would become civilized one day after all.

  ‘This is not a stone. It is obsidian,’ he told Rowena.

  She seemed confused. He smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter. Yes, I have seen such material.’

  ‘Gwydre told me he once saw a dagger made of such black stone. A druid of the Veneti tribe across the sea brought it to Ynys Mon as a gift. Are you from that area?’

  ‘I come from further away. We don’t have druids.’

  ‘But you have a lot of this … obsidian?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Not a lot. I’ve only seen it on smaller pieces of jewellery. My mother had a necklace pendant made of it, but nothing as large or elaborate,’ he explained, returning the medallion.

  ‘But no weapons? These edges here are very sharp,’ Rowena inquired with narrowed eyes.

  ‘No. It is sharp but too brittle for combat weapons. Even if your raiders had enough of it to make such blades, you would have found shattered pieces of it all over the place.’

  ‘So it has no magic properties?’ she asked.

  He tried not to laugh at her disappointed tone. She was just as gullible as the beautiful bard. ‘There are no such things as magical weapons. But I know a story of an evil queen with a magic obsidian mirror.’

  She didn’t even smile, just looked at the medallion in her hand. ‘Our mirrors are made of polished bronze. This is not reflective enough.’

  ‘But it was a magic mirror. She didn’t use it to admire herself in it but to steal her lovers’ souls and talk to them over great distances,’ he teased.

  Rowena gave him the same blank look that Alean’or always used to discourage her admirers, and he gave up.

  Taliesin struck up a mournful melody and started singing. Rowena stood up to join the crowd. Caell’ian followed her example. It was a beautiful song, he thought as he listened to the verses. It sounded like they were meant to help the spirits of the fallen find the path to the right afterlife. Rowena joined in on the chorus, but he just hummed the melody under his breath, not sure if it was appropriate for an outsider to join in. He had no experience with such rites at all. There were no such things as Fae funerals. When the soul left the body, it was carried to the Lake of Enchantment, where it would decompose within a few bell chimes and become one with the elements again. Public displays of mourning were frowned upon.

  He wondered if the mourners here were comforted to see how many people shared in their grief. His mother had not even left a body to cry over. She’d simply thrown off her gown and left it at the shore together with her lyre to show that she was gone, then dove into the Lake never to come out again. Fae who had lived for many centuries and felt their energies starting to fade often did so. Yet most of them did it in the presence of their family and only when they were closing in on the eighth or ninth century. His mother had only been around Tormandor’s age when she had left. In the prime of her life. The old familiar feeling of resentment started creeping up on him, and he pushed it away resolutely. There were more important things to worry about.