A Hero's Tale (16 page)

Then I understood that I had with me more than an escort, and although they had pledged themselves to help me, they were not mine to command. As we traveled I watched to see who the others looked to for direction. Finn was one. The other was a man they called Bru, which seemed to be, not a name, but a title of respect. He stood half a head above the others, and his mane of dark hair and bristling beard would have made him look quite fierce if he hadn't smiled so much.

That evening I invited both Finn and Bru to take counsel with me. In full hearing of the others as we sat around the fire, we made our plans.

"How soon can we expect to be there?" I asked.

"By the day after tomorrow," said Bru. "If all goes well."

"What is the country like?"

"Beautiful," Finn said. "A valley. Not like yours, not so big, but flat land between hills so steep that water falls in places almost straight down from top to bottom."

"And Elen's house?"

"A fortress within a fortress," said Bru. "First the hills, then the walls."

They told me that while Merin's house stood on a hilltop ringed by earthworks, Elen's house stood on flat land, ringed only by a palisade, but well guarded nonetheless by the steep hills all around.

"How will we get in?" I asked.

"We'll go in through the gate," said Finn. He tried not to smile at my look of surprise. "A friend of mine is a craftsman there. We'll go in on the pretext of paying him a visit."

"All of us?"

Two dozen armed men traveling together were seldom on the business of paying a friend a visit.

"I think not," said Bru. "Let Finn and one other man go first, to see if there is any news of your friend."

"I'll go with Finn," I said.

Bru shook his head. "They will suspect a woman."

When he saw that his objection made no sense to me, he said, "Our people are so few, and the world we live in is so dangerous, that we cannot risk our women. They stay at home, and even if we had brought a woman with us, she would not dress or conduct herself as you do."

I was determined not to stay behind while others risked themselves on my behalf.

"Then I'll go in alone," I said.

There was a moment's silence, while Bru tried to think of something else.

"They won't suspect my son," said Finn, and gave me a hearty thump on my shoulder. "Dirty his face a little and no one will know the difference."

I had to acknowledge the resemblance. Finn's hair was no more than a shade or two darker than mine. He too was small and slightly built. Even our deerskin clothing looked similar enough, and our weapons were almost identical.

"Are your people on good terms with the people of Elen's house?" I asked Bru.

"We are on no terms with them," he replied. "We leave them in peace. They leave us in peace."

"They need us now," said Finn. "We dread the day that is no longer so."

A somber mood descended over all of them, as Finn explained their situation. The people of Elen's house lived both by farming and by trade, but their wealth came from goods made by their craftsmen.

Finn's people kept animals and grew much of their own food. They also trapped and hunted, and traded game and furs for what they couldn't provide themselves. They traded both with the northern tribes and with the people of Elen's house, but they had entered into an alliance only once, and the failure of that alliance convinced them that the dangers far outweighed the benefits. Yet because they were so few in number, both their neighbors were encroaching on the forest they regarded as their own. It seemed to them inevitable that someday they would be forced to ally themselves with one against the other.

"It is a delicate balance," said Bru.

"Then we must not disturb it," I replied. "I would be a false friend to you if I put you in open conflict with either side."

Bru knit his brow. Though he knew that what I said was both true and wise, he would feel bound by honor as well as by obligation to help me in any way he could, regardless of the consequences.

Before he could protest, I said, "In any case we are too few for open conflict. We will achieve more and at less cost by stealth."

Bru laughed. "Finn's son is still a woman at heart. A woman counsels caution, while a man's heart burns to see justice done."

"Justice will be done," I told him, "as justice was done to you."

The countryside surrounding Elen's house was as beautiful as Finn had said. We traveled through a forest of young pines, following a stream that tumbled down the wild hillside. On the day when we expected to reach Elen's house, around midafternoon, I heard a roaring in the distance.

"The falls," said Bru.

Soon the roar grew so loud that we had to shout to make ourselves heard. At the forest's edge we stepped out from under the trees onto solid rock. The stream flowed gently by, then vanished into mist, as it fell from the rock into the abyss. I approached the edge and looked over. I must have wobbled a little. Finn took hold of my arm to steady me.

When I lifted my eyes from the dizzying drop, I saw mountains in the distance. All stone and ice, their cold breath made me shiver, and the mist that overhung the waterfall beaded in my hair. Below me lay a narrow valley. Sunlight sparkled on the waters of the stream that, after its violent fall, grew calm again as it meandered through fields and pastures. Green and golden, abloom with spring, the valley seemed as pleasant a place as any I had ever seen. Only a few farmsteads were visible from where we stood. No fortress was in sight.

"Where is Elen's house?" I asked Finn. I had to raise my voice and speak close to his ear to make myself heard above the thunder of the falls.

Finn gestured downstream. "Just around the bend," he shouted back. "We'll see it from trail."

Set between high cliffs of stone, frighteningly steep, the valley floor appeared unreachable by any creature that had not the power of flight.

"Where is the trail?" I asked.

Finn pointed to a place not far away, where I could just make out a faint path that zigzagged back and forth down the cliff face. I would have descended into the valley that afternoon, but Bru feared the dark would overtake us before we reached the valley floor.

"A little patience," he said, "or we may take you to your friend in pieces."

We withdrew into the forest until we were far enough from the falls to be able to carry on a conversation. There we made our camp. I thought about the bands of warriors who guarded the borders of Merin's land, and I worried that a band of Elen's warriors might find us there.

"They already know we're here," said Bru, when I spoke my fears aloud, "but they won't challenge us. Tomorrow, when you and Finn go down into the valley, they'll keep an eye on you until you walk openly through the gates of the fortress. The rest of us will travel south, as if we're bound for somewhere else. We'll wait for you below the Giant's Maw."

"What place is that, to have such a dreadful name?" I asked.

"Where the stream flows out of the valley," said Finn, "there is another waterfall, less than half as high as the one that flows into it, but much more terrifying. Rocks like sharp and broken teeth thrust up through the water everywhere. A few careless boatmen have gone over the high falls and lived, but anything that falls into the Giant's Maw is dashed to pieces."

"It seems that it's easier to get into the valley than to get out of it," I said. "Once I find my friend, how will we get safely away?"

"There's no getting out by the same way you go in," said Bru. "If you go by light of sun or moon, they'll see you on the trail, and if you try to go by dark of night, one misstep will be your death."

That much I had seen for myself.

"We know a thing or two about this place," Bru said, smiling a mysterious smile. "Luckily for you."

"Our fathers lived here once, many ages past," said Finn. "They left us their lore in grandfathers' tales."

Of times long unremembered, old stories long forgotten old men tell.

Totha, king in his great hall, welcomed his brothers and his mother's brothers, his sisters and his sisters' sons, to hear him name his heir. One of them it must be, as the custom always was, while Totha's wife made her own plans.

"Husband," she said, as she lay on his breast at night, caressing him with her long hair. "Husband," she said, "you have the son I bore you. Name him."

Every night she asked, and every night he answered, "I will do as the custom always was."

Until one night his wife withdrew herself from his embrace and said, "Make me understand. Why is the custom as it is?"

So he said, unthinking, "To be certain of the blood."

Totha's wife knew well the meaning of his words, but she pretended innocence. "Explain this to me," she said.

"From the mother's body comes the proof of kinship," said Totha, still unaware of his wife's design, while she laid the coils of her trap around his feet.

"Do you accuse me?" she said to him. "Do you doubt that your son is as much from your body as from mine?"

As every father takes pride to see in his son his own reflection, so Totha took great pride in the son his wife had borne him. "I claim him," he told his wife, "and every hair on his head. It is no doubt of mine that must be overcome, but the doubt of others."

Then Totha's wife had the way open to her.

"Where a great king leads," she said, "his people follow. What you believe, they will believe."

So she persuaded him, and before all his mother's kin, he named his own son his heir. At first no one dared to speak against him, for they were guests in his house, but the dispossessed seldom go quietly away. They met in secret, and among themselves they came to an agreement.

First they tried to persuade Totha of his foolishness. His mother's brother said to him, "From my mother came many sons. Where will your son find so many of his kin to fight for him?"

As a king must stand by his word, so Totha stood by his decision.

Next they tried to shame him. His brother said to him, "Does Totha leave men's counsels to counsel with his women?"

As a king must not be goaded, so Totha told his brother that his decision was his own.

Next they tried to threaten him. His sister's son said to him, "I have the loyalty of many. Name your heir as the custom always was."

As a king must draw his sword against a challenge, so Totha drew his sword against his sister's son. Then all his mother's kin, who had been waiting outside the door, rushed in and overcame him. They bound him and set him in a boat, giving him into the hands of fate, whose judgments are swift and just.

Down the stream went Totha in his little boat, down the stream and through the mist, over the falls into the Giant's Maw, where the boat struck a rock and burst apart. From above the falls his treacherous kin watched Totha disappear into a whirlpool, while below the falls others waited to take possession of his body. Though they kept a careful watch, none of them set eyes again on the body of the king.

Where he journeyed after the Giant's Maw devoured him not even Totha knew. In later years he sometimes dreamt of caverns in the rock, lit by the eyes of beasts glowing in the dark or by the fiery breath of a serpent who slept under the mountain. All he knew was that while his foes still celebrated his defeat, he woke on a ledge behind the falls.

There the story ended, though this must have been only the first of many tales of Totha the king, who I guessed to be the father many generations back of the men with whom I traveled. Before I could ask my questions about Totha's fate, the men began to speak together, reciting a verse each knew by heart.

Three sisters stir the cauldron,

Below the eagle's beak.

Stand by the eagle's eye and leap.

Three times they recited it. Then they let silence fall, while the power of their chant reverberated in the air and its meaning breathed fear into my heart. To leave the valley, would we have to leap into the Giant's Maw?

The men seemed to be waiting for me to speak. It crossed my mind that they might be having a joke at my expense. Surely there was another way to reach the ledge behind the falls. Or perhaps they meant to test my courage, as the men of the forest people would sometimes test each other. Before a hunt, no hunter of the forest people admits his fear. Fear feeds on fear, until it devours a hunter's heart. When they were afraid, the forest people found ways to make fear grow small again. As if I thought nothing of leaping into the abyss, I made my face grow thoughtful.

"What happened next?" I asked. "Did Totha escape the ledge behind the falls?"

"He must have done," said Finn, "or none of us would be here."

"Did he regain his throne?"

"If he had, we would not have lived all these years in exile."

"What became of Totha's wife?"

Finn shrugged. "I never heard," he said.

That evening my thoughts returned often to the story of Totha the king. It seemed to me a wicked tale, to blame a woman for men's folly. In other circumstances I would have debated its meaning with my companions. Instead I was content to accept the gift in it, the knowledge of a secret way by which we might escape from Elen's house.

In the morning Bru and his men made a show of preparing for a journey. Bru added the contents of my pack to his own, so that I could enter Elen's house unencumbered. Finn carried only what one would bring along when he expected to enjoy a friend's hospitality at journey's end. Finn and I took leave of the others by clasping each man's arm in turn, as if this were a true parting.

Both Finn and I kept our bows, though we carried them unstrung to show our good intentions. They came in handy as we picked our way down the trail into the valley. Finn had me take hold of the end of his bow over the steepest places, where more than once loose rock almost took my feet out from under me.

When we had descended halfway, Finn stopped and pointed.

"Look," he said.

Only when I had made certain that my feet were securely planted did I dare lift my eyes from the narrow trail to gaze for the first time on Elen's house. It was not what I expected. Less a fortress than a village, it covered several acres of flat land beside the stream that flowed through the valley. Within a palisade breached by many gates, most of which stood open, at least three score cottages surrounded a timber building twice the size of Merin's house.