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| "... a column of riders on great war-horses, their mighty hooves tearing up the packed earth ..." |
Banac and Balor were stiff and bleary-eyed when they woke from restless sleep the next morning. However, only Balor was ordered out of bed to start the day’s chores; and when he pointed out how unfair this was — quite reasonably, he thought — Mother slapped him on the thigh and told him not to be so unfeeling towards his brother.
While Balor howled to high heaven Banac lay with his face to the wall, ignoring the drama. Normally he would have enjoyed seeing his brother get into trouble, but on that morning he barely noticed. He was distracted, restless. Maybe it was an ache in his limbs that had started during the night; maybe it was tiredness from staying up late with Balor; maybe it was the tangle of unsolved mysteries going round and round in the back of his head.
Whatever it was, Banac felt he could not care about such petty things any more, and he lay unmoving as he listened to the sounds of the village and his family getting up and ready for the day.
The men had finished repairing the boats as best they could late last night, and although one or two were still unserviceable the majority of the fleet was launching out that morning. Two days’ work had been lost in the aftermath of the storm, and the men were growing anxious, eager to make up for the lost time. Even Father was going out on the Sea, against all Mother’s protests.
“I am the head of this house,” he told her, gently but firmly, as he prepared himself to join them. “If I am to feed my family I must work. That is Cafan’s will, and Cafan will preserve me.” And he kissed her tenderly and left the house on one crutch, walking tall and straight.
Mother was in a bad mood for the rest of the morning, and Balor bore the brunt of it. He was sent out to sort and gut fish with the other children — a messy and smelly job that was generally considered to be even worse than school. Banac was left to himself in bed, and spent the morning dozing fitfully while Mother clattered round the house.
Outside, it was another clear, bright day, but inside the house the air quickly became humid and stifling. Under the cover of the furs Banac grew hot and sweaty, tossing and turning restlessly. The beremer was restless too, mumbling disjointed words to itself in its own language. Mother came to check on it from time to time, mopping its forehead with a cloth, but mostly she made sure it was well covered, and left it to mumble and sweat.
Banac tried to ignore it, but try as he might he could not block out its rambling, guttural voice. From time to time there slipped through a word he understood — ‘moon’, ‘afraid’, ‘dark’, ‘fire’ — but they were few and far between, and never of any significance. Once he thought he heard the word ‘galac’, and he turned over and watched the beremer with pounding heart, waiting for the word to come again; but the incoherent rambling yielded nothing.
“Pay no heed to it.”
He jumped at the voice, and turned to see Grandfather standing by the bed, his weathered face grim. Grandfather nodded towards the beremer. “Words and mad ramblings, that is all. You cannot trust it. You must not listen to anything it says.”
Banac sat up, strangely ashamed at being caught listening. “Why not?”
“Because it is beremer.” Grandfather sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes — you think it is a word from my stories, don’t you? But this thing is not a story, Banac. This is beremer, from across the Sea. It has no soul. It has no god. It has no reason, no laws, no king. It is less than an animal, for it walks about in the form of a man to deceive us. It has the power of speech, but every word it speaks is a lie. Do not go near it. Do not speak to it. It will deceive you and seek to harm you.”
“But why does Father let it stay here?” Banac asked.
Grandfather thought for a long time before answering. “Your father is under a delusion,” he said at last. “It is hard for you to hear these things, I know — I do not wish to speak ill of him in your ears, but I must tell you: he has been taken in by its arts; he believes it to be a man, and so he treats it as one. I have tried to open his eyes to the truth, but he will not listen to me. He is under a spell, and he puts his house in danger unwittingly. I fear a false sense of compassion has blinded him.”
Grandfather reached out a hand and placed it on Banac’s. His milky eyes were searching and earnest. “Promise me you will not speak to this thing,” he said. “Promise me you will not follow your father’s mistake. Swear it!”
His hand gripped Banac’s tightly, and suddenly Banac was reminded of the beremer’s hands grasping him in fear in the darkness of the woods, and the Scholar’s hand vice-like on his arm, and the way the Elder had spoken about the beremer, unfeeling and cruel. They were the same words Grandfather used now; and he knew he could not swear, nor could he believe what Grandfather was telling him. Whether man or beast, he had felt the beremer’s touch and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes so full of humanity. He could not believe that the person in the bed across the room was an animal. Animals did not have the depth of feeling he had seen in that gaze, nor had he ever felt with an animal such communion as he had in the hours they had spent together, in the dark and cold, lost, alone, and scared. He knew, more strongly than he had ever known anything in his life, that Grandfather was wrong.
“I swear,” he said. It was a lie, but the words satisfied Grandfather, and he released his grip and moved away to the other end of the house, leaving Banac to lie still and watch the beremer.
The rest of the day passed slowly. The beremer had fallen silent for the time being, save for the odd whimper or moan. Occasionally Banac dozed off, but never for very long, and he was always woken by the beremer’s wordless ramblings or Mother’s attentions as she boiled water, washed cloths, and prepared soup.
At midday Balor came in, scowling and stinking of fish. Mother gave him enough time to gulp down a bowl of soup before she hustled him out of the door again, making him promise to wash himself properly before he came home later. There was no chance for Banac to tell him what Grandfather had said.
That afternoon the beremer started talking in his sleep again. He was more agitated now, tossing and turning on the bed with increasing force. When Mother came to bathe his forehead he lashed out and knocked the bowl from her hands, scattering water across the room.
Banac watched in silence, trying to think who he could be and what he was doing so far from his country.
When the beremer had been mumbling for some time the words began to trail off, and Banac thought he must be drifting into deeper sleep. But then the beremer’s eyelids began to flicker, and he gasped and coughed, and suddenly he sat up, looking around in confusion. It happened so quickly that Banac had no time to think. He gave a strangled half-shout, more from shock than anything else, then several things happened at once:
The beremer tried to sit up and throw off the furs, but he was so weak that he tumbled to the floor with a great crash. As he fell Mother rushed in from outside, having heard Banac’s call. At the same time Grandfather sprang up from his seat, moving faster than Banac would have thought possible at his age, and bore down on the beremer as he tried to rise, knocking him to the floor in a violent struggle.
At first it was an even contest, for though Grandfather was old and frail and the beremer was young and lithe, the beremer had been in a fever for nearly two days and had not yet recovered. Even so, when the element of surprise had gone the beremer began to struggle back and quickly gained the advantage over Grandfather. It seemed that it would dash Grandfather to the floor, but then a shrill horn sounded from outside, loud and piercing, and everyone in the house froze as it cut through the air.
Everyone except Banac. As soon as the horn sounded he leapt out of bed. Something was happening, something important, something he knew was to do with the beremer and the torc, and he had to see what it was.
He charged outside, looking around wildly to see what was happening. Everyone in the village had stopped their work and was gathering together, murmuring in consternation, their eyes were fixed on a distant point on the road that led away down the shore. Banac looked with them.
A tall plume of dust was rising from the road. At the base of the plume, half hidden in the haze, Banac could see a column of riders on great war-horses, their mighty hooves tearing up the packed earth as they galloped towards the village. Proud banners snapped and furled above them, and the late afternoon sun glinted off burnished shields and bright mail. Already Banac could feel the shudder of their hooves on the ground and hear a low thundering that grew louder and louder as the column approached.
“Banac!” He heard Balor’s voice, and saw him break away from a group of children and came running towards him. “What’s happening? Who are they?”
Banac shook his head. There was no time to talk. This was something important, something to do with everything that had happened in the past few days. He thought of the beremer inside the house, and then, with a flash of panic, he remembered the torc hidden down beside the bed, but it was too late to go back now. He looked around again — and it was only then that he realised the Scholar was nowhere to be seen.
The column of riders had almost reached the village. Already the Stewards of the hall were rushing forwards, shouting at everyone to get back. They brandished their spears, but the weapons looked suddenly thin and puny against the mighty armoured figures descending upon them like ettemen come to war. In a swirl of dust and deafening noise the riders entered the village, tall horses neighing and rearing as the men leapt from their steeds and drew long swords from their belts.
* * *
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