remember details. Someone did try to kill him – but he went back and faced them out. In other words, yes, but I don’t know if it was here. He can make himself unpopular all over the place I am told.”
“Surely he wouldn’t have brought both of you back here if it was dangerous?”
“My mother is dead, my father is gone – end of story!”
Niav was stunned – all these years and he could have been harbouring doubts and terrors just the same as hers. “We are probably both being as daft as Estra,” she said, almost crying. “So that is that then. Is there anything I can give you to remember me by? I take it you won’t be back either.” Niav felt blank inside.
Fearn smiled, a smile like dark sunlight, and for her alone. “Now just imagine me,” he said. “With my hair the colour of honey, and, if you wish it, a crippled leg – though, as Aunty Grizzel pointed out, that wouldn’t notice if we were lying down. Or maybe think of me as him, reflected deep in jet – just to say goodbye to him, you understand – because, quite honestly, I don’t think he is going to come back this way, and I would like you to be happy for once, if only at second best.”
***
When Aunty Grizzel found them hard at work in her bed, she laughed till she wept. “Children, children, I do hope I am interrupting you before a truly delicate moment. Oh, but if you could see yourselves!” she cried. “A beast with two backs – and four wings! Really Niav, didn’t you think – couldn’t you guess? I hope nothing irretrievable has happened yet?”
“When would I get to see my back? Why did you never tell me?” screamed Niav in unbelieving shock.
“I’m going tomorrow,” laughed Fearn, who undoubtedly had been aware of the hidden interest of Niav’s back. “I don’t suppose there is anything that I can do for you, too, before I go?” He paused as he did up his belt.
“Arrogant bastard, like father like son!” yelled Grizzel. “We didn’t want my poor brother to know. So many years of marriage and no child – what else was your poor mother expected to do, Niav? Taunts of infertility get anyone down – men and women alike – and particularly when you are meant to be a healer.”
“Exactly – I’m sure that my father was merely trying to repay the hospitality that he had received – I’m told that it’s his way,” countered Fearn, still laughing as he laced up his right moccasin.
“Viper!” retorted Aunty Grizzel, flinging the nearest thing to hand – a wooden milk dipper, which Fearn avoided with a backward leap that took him smacking into the dresser and nearly dislodging Aunty Grizzel’s heavy scrying bowl. The drum and rattle bounced noisily across the earthen floor.
“Well, Niav,” Grizzel sighed, suddenly looking her age, “When I delivered you and saw that birthmark, your mother and I thanked our stars for you being a girl. For the normal reasons of decency, it would probably remain well hid, if we could only steer you past the baby stage. I know your mother had reassured Artin as much. I don’t know which one of them had had the bright idea in the first place – mutual lust is my suspicion, but then I’m over-suspicious by nature.
“Anyway, between us we were coping very well till one morning my brother Diarma popped his head into the hut just as we were bathing you. We didn’t think that he had noticed anything.
“That was the same day they had planned to go out testing that wretched boat. The whole village was there to see them off. At the last minute your mother decided to go too, and handed you to me to take home. But I went up to the west cliff so that we could watch. Even with them that far out, I noticed a tussle of some sort. Then the whole boat capsized and I thought them all gone forever. Who could have blamed my poor brother if he had seized a chance to push Artin in – but some people lead a charmed life. Abusing hospitality seems a family failing round here.”
“But it doesn’t make me the bastard!” hissed Fearn, now silhouetted in the doorway. “My mother loved him, you know, and she loved me, and once upon a time my father loved her! She was his wife! But you wouldn’t