Chapter 78. First Love

is last memory was of a strange soft voice singing an old lullaby, one that was warm and familiar and recalled holding his daughter by the window as dawn tiptoed over the horizon in skirts of rose and gold. He dreamed as he had not in a long time, of daylight and water shimmering in sunlight, of his mother holding him when he was just a boy. Helene with auburn hair drawn back and braided, the first woman he had loved with all of his being.

“Mama, do you still love me?”

“Of course I do,” she murmured into his crown, kissing him lightly and breathing him in as if he were a bouquet of flowers. Pendaran remembered that morning vividly. He had let the dogs out of the kennel to roam free into the forest so that he could chase after them like his father did on the hunt. After many hours, as the sky and forest grew dark, it occurred to him that he was lost and the dogs had tired themselves out and were now panting good naturedly around him. He sat down in exhaustion and called out, hoping his mother could hear him. He never called for his father; he would be cross. His older brother, Owain, never caused this kind of trouble. Pendaran was the fiery brat. His father called him that when he was displeased, as if bearing a resemblance to his mother were an insult.

Having not eaten since dawn, Pendaran decided to eat some berries that lurked on the low glossy green scrub. Though bitter, he swallowed a handful to take the edge off his hunger while casting about for signs of home. After that he grew very tired and cold. He lay down in a hollow at the foot of an old tree and curled into a ball. His stomach ached and his vision was splotchy with strange colors. The dogs thought he was amusing lying there and started licking his face. Pendaran thought they were going to eat him and screamed.

Someone responded to his panicked cries. A man picked him up and carried him, moving quietly. The darkening forest was no obstacle for his nimble feet. The dogs followed guiltily, as if it were their fault Pendaran were lost and frightened witless.

“What have you got there, Clay?”

Pendaran somehow managed to avoid vomiting over the front of the man’s leathers before he was set on the ground.

“A little lost boy,” said the man, “Probably wandered away and got too far before his people noticed he was gone.”

Pendaran coughed and trembled where he knelt beside a small fire in the depths of the woods. There were three of them, the tall man who had found him, a golden haired woman in leather brigandine, and a short, slight man with narrow, weasely features.

“Some noble’s brat, I’ll wager,” said the weasely one, his dark eyes flitting above his nose like a pair of eager flies.

“He’s adorable,” said the woman, “Let’s have a look at you then, little man.”

Dazed and frightened, he did as he was told. Her calloused hands were surprisingly gentle as she cupped his face in them and gazed into his face.

“What beautiful green eyes you have and what pretty red hair,” she said as she ran her fingers through it.

“I have my momma’s eyes,” he stammered, uncertain what to say, only that the servants were fond of reminding him of that. His fear settled a little, soothed by her maternal touch.

“Your momma have money?” asked the weasel man, “How much would she pay to get those emeralds back? I reckon Nel would pay for ‘em.”

“He’s a little kid, Karl. We don’t harm kids and we don’t ransom them,” said the woman.

“He’s seen us now, ain’t ‘e? Can’t very well give ‘im back.”

Clay cleared his throat. Pendaran noticed the dogs had gone. He did not remember seeing them leave. He began to cry. He wanted to go home.

“We don’t hurt kids,” Clay said angrily, repeating the words of the woman.

“Bandits with morals, who ‘da thunk it,” grumbled Karl.

“Leave before I feather you with arrows,” Clay said coldly, not raising his voice. Pendaran dropped onto his belly as the adults spun into motion. The woman was on her feet before Karl could reach down to snatch Pendaran’s arm. He was brought up short by the ring of steel. The woman’s sword tip rested at his throat. Karl uttered something foul and she spat into his eyes and told him to leave, which he did after seizing a battered pack.

“Come here, little man,” said the woman after passions had cooled and her sword was sheathed, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you. I have a son just about your age, and a wee daughter, too.”

He crawled back up into her lap and clung to her. She asked for his name and he gave it, both of them, and the two laughed. They filled his belly with stew and wrapped him in blankets. He drowsed in her arms like a babe as the two talked over the campfire.

“Sabina, you should have let me handle Karl. You know how he is.”

Pendaran gazed up into the woman’s face. She was strangely familiar. The man, too, with his lithe frame with long brown hair tied back in a tail.

“He knows better than to touch me, and he wouldn’t dare come after the guild leader’s brother. Anyway, what do you want to do with the baron’s welp? He’ll string us up for more than poaching if we’re caught with him.”

“Poaching,” Clay spat angrily, “This is the land of my people.”

“I don’t think Baron Lack wit will give a care either way. If we’re found with the boy we’re doubly damned.”

“We can’t very well abandon him, not with the likes of Karl around. He’ll sell the poor kid to Corsairs or that pervert Nel.”

“Let me keep him,” Sabina pouted, “He’s so cute and Murdi would love a little brother to play with.”

“No,” Clay barked but there was laughter in his voice, “He’s not a wolf cub, he’s a child.”

“We can go north where the law won’t find us. He’s young, he’ll adjust. In a few years we’ll be the only family he knows and his folks will have given him up for dead.”

“How would you feel if someone took your son away?” Clay asked, “I may not like Baron Caradec, but I don’t hate him enough to take away his kid.”

“If the Baron lets his kid wander around in the woods…”

“Sabina, that’s enough. Swyno would hit the roof if we added a foundling to the nest on top of the trouble we’re in with the law. Baron Caradec will not sit idle while his boy is missing. I wouldn’t.”

Pendaran awakened in the morning at the forest’s edge, the blocky walls of his father’s house some distance away. The baying of the hounds caused him to sit up and call for his family, the family he feared he would never see again. It was the first of the two times he would see his father weep, this time in joy and relief. The next would be thirteen years later when Owain’s decomposing head arrived home in a box.

That was how he came to be sitting on the lawn outside the forest in his mother’s arms. She had scolded him for running away and then relented when he began to cry. Now she simply held him and wept.

“I won’t run away again, Mama, I promise. Don’t cry.”

She rocked him gently and dried his tears.

“My precious little boy, you’re the Baron’s son, and a baron’s son is very brave and obedient and always does his duty.”

“Gods, I miss you,” he sobbed, “I want to go home.”

“One day,” she said, holding him now as a man.

“I never wanted this to happen. I can’t go on without Teleri.”

“Yes you can,” said Helene, kissing his temple, “Receive the love of those around you and let it carry you until brighter days return. Love my grandchildren as I love you.”