Description: CHAPTER ONE "You coward, Corban. Loose-strife! Changeling! No-Son! So I call you! You do no good, you only cause me trouble!" Corban stood, his jaw clenched, silent, enduring the pounding of his father''s wrath. He felt all their eyes on him--his mother, hunched at his towering father''s side, his brother like a mouse down by the table, his little sister and his grandmother at the hearth--but no one spoke out for him. They kept still, out of the way, while his father roared. "For the sake of your family, I order you to go! Find some shred of manhood in you and take up a sword with the High King!" "No," Corban said. He stood fast, staring at the floor, unable even to look his father in the face. If he obeyed he was nothing. If he went to the High King he would stand under the King as here he stood under his father, he would never have what he wanted. He had no idea what he wanted. "Damn you! You are not my son!" "Father, please!" That clear voice rang through the hall. Corban lifted his head. Behind him his sister Mav had come in the door. She walked swiftly up, her head high, and went by him and stood before their father, and laid her hand on his arm. "Sir, don''t speak so. Don''t say what cannot be unsaid." The old man turned his gaze on her, his shaggy grey hair wild around his head like the bursting of a sun, and smiled, as he always smiled for her. He said, "I wish you were the male, and he the female. I would have no doubt of you." "Father," she said. "I beg you. Make peace with him." He swung his gaze toward Corban, who lowered his eyes, unwilling to look his father in the face. "Peace? He gets no peace from me! You will do as I bid you, Corban, and go offer your service to the High King. Or leave this place and this family forever!" At the last word his voice cracked like a whip. Corban clenched his fist. "You give me no choice," he said, low, and turned, and went toward the door. Now suddenly his mother cried out, not words, not even his name, but a wail, rising above the sudden low rumble of voices. He caught a glimpse of his little sister, watching him open-mouthed. He reached the door and went out into the bright sunshine, and stood there, surprised at his own calm, looking around him at the farm yard, the stone wall of the byre, the mound of cut turf, the bondsmen walking away down toward the green meadow, where the cows were already grazing. Past everything the glitter of the sea dazzled his eyes. He drew a deep breath. He turned, and his gaze found the long path that led past the byre, past the bake oven and the pigsty, up over the hill and away. He started off. This part was easy enough, he had been going this way all his life. When he came to the place where the path turned up the hill Mav caught up with him. They walked along together a while, climbing the grassy treeless hill. He glanced at her, striding along beside him, with the wind blowing her long black hair back, her cheeks ruddy. She murmured as she walked, and turned, looking back, her lips moving. He went along a step ahead of her, toward the top of the hill. He began to think of the way ahead but could not. He was just going away. He had his cloak, and his sling in his belt, nothing else. His heart sank. He said, suddenly, "I''m not a coward." "What are you, then?" she said. Beside him she strode along, her long skirts whipping around her legs. Her words rang in his ears. He had no answer; he knew nothing of himself save what he would not be. She was watching him, her eyebrows raised, as if he might say something, but he could not. Her gaze jerked suddenly off around past him, back the way they had come, and a low moan burst from her. He looked; he saw nothing. They had come to the top of the hill, where a grey rock thrust up through the green sod, its surface rough with patches of lichen. He said, "What''s wrong, Mav?" She gave a shudder, as if something shook her from top to bottom, and lowered her eyes. She did not answer. From the belly of her cloak she drew forth a loaf of bread and a jug. "Take these." "You are good," he said, grateful, and took them, and set them on the rock. He took hold of her hand and looked into her face. "What is it?" "Ah, I don''t know," she said. She was staring away toward the sea. With her free hand she drew the cloak tight around her again, the wind buffeting her, plucking at her hair. The linen hem of her gown fluttered. "I think only that something is coming. Someone." Her long cold fingers tightened around his. He looked away back down the path, toward the farm. He doubted her somewhat. They saw few travellers, out here at the edge of the world. Still, what she said impressed him. She was long-sighted, his sister. She knew what happened before it did, she could find what was lost, she could see what was hidden. Whenever before he had seen her this way, generally then something did happen, not always evil, but often evil; he remembered especially how she had twitched and murmured like this for two days before a sudden storm off the sea wrecked their fishing boats and killed half their cattle. Some said she made the evil happen. He held tight to her hand. He knew that was not so. She was good, she was true as steel; his father was right about her. He wondered if she foresaw his banishment. He said, "Father will let me come back, maybe tomorrow. You know how he is." But he was not sure. The fury that had stiffened him had melted away and he knew nowhere to go. Off to the west the land rose toward the low hills in the distance, all turning brown now as the winter crept toward them. Suddenly his homefire seemed the only warm place in the world, his family the only people who would ever love him. Mav drew her hand from his grip; she gripped the cloak in her fist, her face staring fixed at the sea. "I will try, Corban. I will talk to him." She raked her hair away from her face. Then suddenly she flung her arms around his neck. "Corban. I''ll make him let you back, or we''ll go away together. Now, go into the woods and wait, and meet me here tomorrow, when the sun is well up." She pushed abruptly away from him. "Will you be hungry? Did I bring you enough?" Her eyes turned steadily away from him, toward the sea. He thought she looked beautiful, her hair flying in the wind, and her cheeks red and her eyes bright. He knew she would not leave their home, even to go with him. He said, "Tomorrow then." She came around to him again, leaning on him, and kissed his cheek. She looked deep into his eyes, their noses almost touching. "I think I shall bring you home again, Corban," she said. "But better it would be if you came home yourself, alone, and faced him, and made him take you as you are." She kissed him again and stood back, frowning, her gaze running suddenly over him, and she made as if to pull off her cloak and give it him. He laughed at that; he caught her hand. "No, no, I am warm enough." And she shrugged. Without a word, she turned, and went off back down the path to the farm. He watched her go, his mirth fading. They had been born on the same day, one-two out of the womb; folk said they were as alike in their looks as two eggs, and yet he saw nothing of himself in her. Mav was straight and clean, she thought long on everything, she had no fear, and cared for all of them. Corban was neither wise nor brave, his father wanted him to be wise and brave, and so, clutching always to himself that part of himself his father could not touch, he was foolish and slack. Whatever else he would be, whenever he began to form a thought of that, he saw his father there ahead of him. He took the bread from his wallet, and ate it. He went away over the hill, and down through the oak wood, hunting squirrels with his sling. Against them he was a brawny man, he knew their ways as they coiled around the oaks, and waited patiently and struck when they grew too curious or bold. He worked his way so along the edge of the great wood, where the going was easier, following the line of meadows and bogs where the red deer grazed. He watched for the bright splashes of nut trees and for berries. He flushed a covey of little marsh hens that fluttered up and away across the meadow, their wings buzzing. The grass was turning yellow, dying back for the winter, yet the day was warm and he had no use for his cloak and wore his shirt down around his waist. Going down a long brushy hill he came on fresh bear droppings full of seeds. Twice he killed squirrels in his hunting and hung the stripped bodies from his belt. The sun rolled away into the west and he was far from home. Ahead of him the forest lay thick and shadowy, and to his right, to the north, the hills sloped down and he could see the sheen of water in the distance and knew it to be the long lake. He walked that way across a bog, following an old path marked with stones, and went down a steep long slope toward the water. Coming around the flank of a hill, he reached the shore. Afar he could see men in a boat on the lake fishing. The curling water of the lake rippled along the shore. The sun was sinking down and he was tired suddenly and cold, and he pulled his shirt up, and wrapped his cloak around him. Against the face of a pocky grey boulder he made a little fire and spitted his squirrels. At home they would be gathered to eat, his father and mother sitting together, and his younger brother taking them their meat and bread and filling the cup between them. His sisters next beside them, waiting until they were done, and then the bondsmen and their wives and children, all around in a ring. His spirits drooped. He wished suddenly he were among them, in their shared warmth, waiting for the common meat

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