They sat outside in the late afternoon sunshine with the sifting-pans in their laps, not speaking, shaking out the grain and collecting piles of rough brown chaff between their crossed legs. After ten minutes of silent work Balor straightened up and looked at Banac.
“So are we going to talk about it?” he said.
“Talk about what?” Banac did not look up.
“About what you found — about what you’ve got hidden over there.”
Banac looked up at the nearby hen-hut, then over at his brother.
“It’s nothing,” he said shortly.
“It’s gold,” Balor pressed him. “I saw it. It’s gold, and you stole it.”
“I didn’t steal it!”
“You took it, and it’s not yours. That’s stealing.”
Banac lashed out with the sifting-pan, scattering the grain in a wide arc, but Balor had seen the blow coming and ducked quickly out of the way.
“You did steal it,” he said triumphantly, scrambling out of arm’s reach. “You took it from that place, and now it’s hidden under there. What if it belongs to the galac-men? What if it’s cursed?”
Banac had had enough. It was his secret, and he did not see why Balor should share in it. He leapt up, intending to thrash him until he promised to forget about the torc; but a cold gust of wind interrupted him, and both boys looked up in surprise to see a dark bank of cloud rising up over the Sea where there had been clear skies only moments before. A ribbon of lightning snapped between the Sea and the clouds, and a few seconds later a guttural snarl of thunder rolled across the sky. Another gust hit them, stronger this time, blowing the chaff up around their ears.
“Banac! Balor!” They turned to see Mother standing in the doorway, waving to them. “Get the chickens inside! And clear up out here! It’s going to be a bad one!”
They jumped to their feet, their argument forgotten. It was rare for summer storms to blow up over the Sea, but when they did they were serious. There was no time to waste in arguing.
They started shooing the hens into the hen-hut, as all over the village other mothers and children did the same. Already the wind was tearing at sheets and tugging at ropes, sending anything that was not tied down or stowed indoors tumbling between the houses.
The boys finished their work quickly, locking firm the hen-hut door, then they dashed inside just as the clouds swept overhead and a stinging wall of rain descended on them. Before he ducked through the low doorway Banac looked back: the rain was already falling heavily, obscuring everything as if behind a curtain. Beyond it he could dimly see grey swell rising and falling where the calm Sea had been only ten minutes before, and he heard the muted rush of white-tipped waves beginning to hurl themselves on the shore. He shivered, already soaked to the skin, and turned and went inside where it was warm and dry.
*
Inside the house Mother was seeing to the stores, making sure they had enough food and firewood. The last such storm had lasted for nearly a week, keeping everyone battened down in their houses, able to venture out only for water when it was needed. There was no way of knowing how long they would be kept inside this time.
Once again the boys were put to work, sorting and stacking firewood. They did not complain. They knew from Mother’s industrious silence and grim face that the situation was serious, and no-one wanted to mention the thought that was at the forefront of their minds: none of the men had yet returned from the Sea, and Father was with them.
Soon all the work was finished and the house was in order, and there was nothing more to be done but sit, and wait, and try to pass the time.
Grandfather sat off to one side with Mother, talking to her softly. Banac could not hear what they were saying. He sat silently with Balor by the fire, a great cloak cast round them in the unseasonal chill, listening to the sound of the wind groaning and howling round the smoky room like a wild animal. The rain beat a fierce tattoo against the side of the house; water had begun to leak through the thatch, dripping into a slowly spreading puddle on the floor.
When Grandfather finished talking with Mother he came to sit with them by the fire. His wiry hands grasped them tightly by the shoulders, and he began to tell them stories in his soft, cracked voice to take their minds off the wind and rain. He told the tale of the making of the world, when Cafan’s words formed the seas and the land and cast the sun and moon into the sky; of the adanen, and the fall of Auglir Gedion when he tried to take the world for himself; of the Unetar, the first children of Cafan, and their long wars with the children of Auglir; of the Anodarin and the Aldunar, of Tiran and Twmbaela, of Twlyn and the Dragon, and all the other stories that usually made Banac sit up and pay attention and imagine himself in the middle of them.
But today Banac hardly heard him. His ears were open only to the sound of the wind and the rain, and in the background the low, shuddering detonations of the waves pounding again and again on the beach. He tried to imagine Father out there upon the heaving Sea, wet to the bone, climbing up great ridges of water in his tiny boat before racing down the other side into deep gullies that threatened to plunge him down, down, down into the sunless depths.
Then he thought of buried gold beneath the hen hut, and pale skin and staring eyes beneath the trees, and he shook his head and tried to push to image away. This was no time for adventures. He sat with Grandfather and Balor and prayed to Cafan that he would bring Father home.
* * *
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