Paul Kearney - Corvus

Thus, day by day, his other life claimed him, and Rictus’s spirit began to attune itself to the quiet routine of the farm.

He and Fornyx chopped wood until their palms blistered, beat the last of the hazelnuts off the trees with long staves whilst the girls ran squealing around them, trying to catch them in with baskets, and dug in the hard clay plot beside the house for beet and turnip. They threw themselves into the work of the farm with such gusto that Aise complained the slaves were becoming lazy, but Rictus loved to come back into the house at dusk, stiff and filthy with the day’s labour, to find the fire blazing and the girls at the table and Aise baking flatbread on the griddle. He would seize his wife into his arms and kiss shut her protesting mouth until she put her flour-whitened hands on his shoulders to push him away.

More often than not Rictus and Fornyx would have wine after dinner, and Eunion would sing a song of his youth, or go over some past campaign from history that the two men had never heard of.

He had taught Rian to read, and was now doing the same for Ona, so every evening after they had eaten there would be his low singer’s voice in a murmur with Rictus’s youngest daughter, the two of them heads together in a corner with a single lamp, puzzling out the words on a scroll.

And then there would be bed, Aise and Rictus always the last to go. Sometimes Rictus held back to stand at the beehive hearth alone in the last red light of the fire, savouring the warmth of the flagstones under his bare feet, the smell of bread and wet dogs, the creaking of the roof beams over his head as the wind rushed down from the mountains to stir the thatch. On still nights he could hear the river trundling endlessly in its bed, and owls calling from the woods on the valley sides.

He did not think often of the gods as a rule, except when going into battle, but there were times when he stood there in the quiet house with all the people he loved most in the world sleeping about him within the broad stone walls, and he would raise his head to quietly thank Antimone, goddess of pity, for allowing him this.

He did not think on Antimone’s other face, or dwell upon the fact that when she donned her Veil, she was also the goddess of death.

The first real snows came, knee-deep in the space of a night, and along the margins of the river the ice fanned out in brilliant gem-bright pancakes. The goats were now down in the valley itself, Fornyx,

Funion and Garin herding them from the high pastures while the dogs trotted on the flanks of the flock and sniffed at wolf-tracks in the snow.

Now the wolf-watch would have to begin, the menfolk of the farm taking it in turns to stay out at nights beside the flock, huddled by a fire in the lean-to on the western valley slope with the dogs for company.

Rictus and Fornyx took the first night’s watch together, for while bringing the goats down from the highland pasture, Fornyx had found the tracks of an entire pack quartering the hills, and the tracks led south. So the two men set by a store of wood in the lean-to during the day and as darkness fell they donned their old scarlet cloaks, took up their spears and shouldered a skin of wine against the bitterness of the night. Rian’s demand to come along was firmly rebuffed, and Rictus kissed his womenfolk one by one before shutting the farmhouse door on them and standing by Fornyx’s side in the chill darkness underneath the stars.

“You have the most stupid grin on your face,” Fornyx said. “I can see it even in the dark. Didn’t I tell you how they would come round?”

“You’re short and ugly,” Rictus retorted, “but do you hear me bring it up? Come on, dogs.”

They crunched through the frozen snow, the two hounds padding beside them, transformed into lean, predatory shadows in the starlight. Once, Rictus held up a hand and they both paused to listen. The half-frozen river had been muffled and there was barely a breath of air moving in the valley. They could hear the creaking of their own bones, and the soft rush of blood in their throats as their hearts beat, like the sound of a panting dog.

There it was, far off: the faint sad song of the wolf. The hounds beside the two men growled, low in their chests.

“A bad sign, so early in the year,” Fornyx said in an undertone.

“Mark of a hard winter to come, my father always said. Phobos, it’s a heavy frost falling. Let’s get that damned fire lit before our feet freeze to the ground.”

They trekked through the brittle snow to the shelter and Fornyx set about lighting the fire; he was far and away the best of them with flint and tinder. The goats – twitchy, fey creatures up on the high pastures – seemed here almost pathetically glad to see their masters, and the flock gathered in front of the hut, a dark blot on the snow. Soon the firelight picked out the ranks of the nearest, and their cold eyes reflected the flames at the men and dogs in the lean-to.

Fornyx stood stamping his feet up and down in front of the fire. He and Rictus had stuffed their sandals with rabbit’s fur, which was singed by the flames as they stood there, an acrid, campaigning smell.

“You think the passes are still open?” Fornyx asked.

Rictus cocked his head to one side. “Maybe. It’ll be worse up there on the high ridge. It depends which way the wind blows the drifts.”

“I’ll bet Valerian and Kesero are still down at the sea in Hal Goshen, in some tavern with their bellies full of cheap wine and their laps full of some cheap tart’s arse.”

Rictus smiled. “If they’ve any sense.”

“You know that Valerian and Rian -”

“I know. I’m not blind.”

“She’s of an age now, Rictus, and Valerian’s a good man, for all his antics.”

Rictus opened his hands out to the firelight with a curt nod. “I know Valerian’s worth, as well as anyone.”

“But-”

“But he wears the scarlet.”

“He doesn’t have to wear it all his life.”

“He won’t be wearing it if he wants to marry Rian. I would not have her live the life her mother has led.”

“You have given Aise a good life, Rictus,” Fornyx said quietly.

“It would have been better, were I a man like my father was.”

Fornyx threw up his hands. He knew better than to pursue a matter once Rictus had invoked his father’s memory. “Reach me the wineskin, will you?”

They sat out the night, taking it in turns to doze once the middle part of it was past. They talked desultorily of old battles, old comrades, and the attractions of various women they had known. They hardly noticed when the snow began to fall again, a grey veil beyond the firelight that paled the sleeping goats and brought into the valley an absolute hush, as though the world was awake and aware, but waiting breathlessly for some happening.

The fire died down, and in the snowbound silence they heard again the high, distant call of the wolf.

The goats stirred uneasily at the sound, dislodging snow from their backs so they became piebald. Now that the flames were low, Rictus and Fornyx could see how bright was the light from the two moons. Cold Phobos, his face as pale as pewter, and warm Haukos his younger brother, whose light tinged the snow with a pink like watered wine. Both moons were full in the sky, and around them the ice crystals in the air arced in a double halo of rainbow light.

“Fear and Hope, both full in the sky together. It’s an omen, Rictus,” Fornyx murmured. They were both staring aloft, spellbound.

“I don’t believe in them,” Rictus growled, but he, too caught some of the sense of wonder, a feeling that they were standing on the threshold of some change in the world.

“I’ve seen it maybe four times in my life, and every time it was on the cusp of new things.”