IV
Thalo went down to the beach one day to lounge in the sun. While he was sitting on the grassy bank, he saw a boy walking along the pebbles, his eyes cast upon the ground. He did not recognise him. Thalo watched him for a while, wondering who he was and what he was doing, before his curiosity took hold and he made his approach. He asked the boy what he was up to.
‘I am looking for luck,’ said the boy, ‘but I have yet to find any. Trinkets, that is. A ship stuck itself against a skerry recently. I think, if fortune favours me, some nice things might have washed ashore.’
‘What have you found?’ asked Thalo.
‘Timber, mostly. And a foot, but that was no nice thing to find.’ The boy continued, ‘Who are you? I have not seen you before.’
‘I am Thalo. Who are you?’
‘I am Gaydeno. My mother was Gaydea. Her was father Ayrkene, and his was Gayvadho, whom you ought to know about. His wife was Eldea, who was once the earl. That is who I am. But they are all dead now, so my foremost kinsman is my uncle Gaylodho the Earl. What is your stock, Thalo?’
‘I am the son of Klage,’ said Thalo, ‘son of the river itself, and brother of the valley. My mother is Asfoa.’
‘The son of a god and a witch? How queer!’
‘She is no witch.’
‘I am told otherwise. Old Regnaga is clever, and she says so too.’
‘My mother says not to trust a word of hers.’
Gaydeno giggled to himself and said, ‘It would be best not to trust a witch’s word, either.’
‘My mother is not a witch, nor a liar.’
They stood silently for a moment, until, squinting in the sun, Gaydeno asked Thalo whether he would like to join his treasure hunt. Thalo agreed. The boys continued to speak with one another as they searched the beach, and many small things were said. Gaydeno showed Thalo the lost foot, blue and half-rotted, and they found nothing else besides scraps of timber and a friend each.
The pair would often meet in Klagenn and spend their days ambling about and being silly, jeering at the elderly and stoning the pigs and so on. When Thalo first told Asfoa about this, she shook her head.
She said, ‘He is one of Gaylodho’s lot.’
Thalo said, ‘Gaylodho is not around.’
‘No matter. He will come back eventually, and he will not be happy to hear what you have been up to when he does. He has it in for us, you see.’
When Thalo protested, Asfoa told him not to pout.
‘You need not forsake your friendship,’ she said, ‘but be careful how you treat him. I am not eager to suffer his uncle’s temper.’
Thalo heeded his mother’s words. When he went to meet Gaydeno the next day, he told him what Asfoa had said.
‘I will not defy a witch,’ said Gaydeno. ‘We need to be careful.’
Then they went about the day’s business, and were utterly careless.
Two years now passed, and it was as if Thalo and Gaydeno were bound together by rope and tar, so often was each at the other’s side. Just so, they went up the river one day until they passed Asfoa’s house. She was chopping some firewood when she saw them strolling up the valley, hand-in-hand.
‘Oy-oy!’ she called out to them, and then she approached, her axe upon her shoulder. ‘Where are you boys headed?’
‘Up to your waterfall,’ said Gaydeno. ‘I am most privileged to have been granted such a pleasure.’
Of course, Asfoa was not a tall woman, nor was she in any way big, but she bore herself proudly. Hers was quite the imposing figure, standing before the boys and posturing with her axe.
‘That is no good idea,’ she said.
‘Yes!’ said Gaydeno. ‘I am full of bad ideas, and I act on each and every one. No harm has yet befallen me.’
But though Gaydeno’s cheer was clear to see, Thalo, as was his manner, stood rather gloomier beside him. Asfoa said no more about it. She patted Thalo on the head and said, ‘Be careful.’
Thalo and Gaydeno went straight up to the waterfall and wasted the day, a right slothful pair, and there Thalo told Gaydeno how Asfoa had found him—at least as he knew it.
‘That is quite the tale,’ said Gaydeno. ‘A witch has a witch’s tongue.’
When they were done in the water, they lounged on the bank for a short while, until Gaydeno heard a small rustling in the bushes. He told Thalo to be quiet while he went to see what he might find there. Drawing close, he found a little chaffinch sat sadly in a holly bush.
‘A little chaffinch,’ he said, ‘but a sad one.’ The bird appeared to be injured. ‘Perhaps we can help it.’
Gaydeno grabbed the bird and stroked it with his finger, and it shivered with fright. And rightly so—there was much to fear among the trees, for a beast was prowling. The boys heard its first fearsome growl rolling out from the gloom. Gaydeno tightened his grip about the bird, while Thalo seized a nearby stick for a sword. Another low growl came from the bushes, this time closer, and fiercer, and then another closer still.
Thereupon a fox leapt before them, fangs bared and snarling. But this was no ordinary fox. It was longer and taller than others, with gleaming golden eyes, and its coat was a blackish-silver colour that shimmered in the light. This was a fox above all foxes, a most majestic creature, and a beautiful sight to behold, or it would have been, were its beauty not matched only by its sheer ferocity. It lunged at Gaydeno, still squatting on the floor, still clasping the chaffinch, and he tumbled backwards beneath it. Yet before it could grip his hands in its jaws, before it could tear them apart and devour the finch within, Thalo took up his stick and had at it, beating at the fox with all the might he could muster. With enough trying, it backed off, but it kept its gaze fastened unmoving upon Gaydeno’s hands.
‘Off with you, pratty fox!’ shouted Thalo, and he struck at it again.
The fox snarled once more before dashing away into the trees.
Thalo helped Gaydeno up. He had a nasty scratch down one leg and had taken a firm thump on the back of his head, but that was the full reckoning of his hurts. No, he was much more concerned for the poor little chaffinch. He uncupped his hands to examine the bird, and found its feathers all in disarray, ruffled up with fright. Only then did Gaydeno truly appreciate its beauty, its striking blue hood, its eyes as bright and brilliant as the sun—a finch above all finches. After a moment, he thrust it forth into Thalo’s face.
‘Behold him!’ he said. ‘A handsome fellow, is he not?’
But as Thalo admired the little chaffinch, it leapt flapping from Gaydeno’s hands and flew off into the woods. Its injuries were lesser than they seemed.
The boys then went home to think no more of this. Gaydeno trotted down the valley back to Klagenn, while Thalo came home to Asfoa. She stopped him at the door and asked him what they had been up to. Thalo said nothing very interesting had happened, but Asfoa did not believe him. She knew what was afoot, and she knew it would not end well. All the same, that ending came rather sooner than expected.
That very afternoon, in fact, Gaylodho came marching up the valley. Asfoa was surprised to see him coming. As far as she knew, he was still grovelling his way around Bealnew, but it turned out he had returned to Klagenn only earlier that day. He came to the door and nearly knocked it off its hinges, such was the fury in his fists.
‘Asfoa, you crone!’ he said, bursting into the room before anyone let him in. Gaylodho was ordinarily a large man, but he filled the room all the more completely when he was so minded.
Asfoa came to meet him. ‘Why is it, Gaylodho, that you have come into my house? And with such a mouth?’
‘Whyever! My nephew came home today, and he came bearing a grievous wound upon his shin. He said he got it in the woods by the waterfall. Now tell me this, sodswoman: what was he doing up here, where witches prowl and sweet things sour?’
‘How should I know? It would be better to ask Gaydeno himself, I think.’
‘Do not presume to belittle me. He has said everything I need him to say.’
Gaylodho strode towards Thalo, a little boy sat on his little bench, but Asfoa put herself between them. He stopped for a moment, glowering.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Thalo boy. If you have any sense at all, you will listen to me now and listen to me well. The utter disrespect with which you have treated me is nothing short of intolerable, yet I will nonetheless tolerate it, such is my graciousness. Understand, I am no violent man; I will not let come to blows that which need not. But I will not forget this grievance, this vile, wretched attempt to undermine me and my good standing, and that of my kin. How shameful it is that tender Gaydeno would let himself be beguiled by you and your sort. How it wounds my pride! You will not seduce him again. I will not let you.’
That was more than enough to rile Thalo, and violence blinded him. He leapt up from his bench and sprang full pelt towards Gaylodho, his eyes fixed fast upon his beltknife, hoping to snatch it from his waist and turn it against its master, that hateful man, his mortal foe. He was a boy who meant to kill, and he made it known.
‘Die!’ he cried.
But Asfoa was too well mannered to let Gaylodho be murdered in her house. She grabbed Thalo by the arm and thrust him back upon his bench.
Gaylodho laughed. ‘Oh? The baby means to kill me? Let him try! It will trouble me none to put this runt on his face.’
‘You cannot harm me,’ said Thalo. ‘I would lay you out like a blanket.’
‘Filth! The chance of it is fatter than your dunce-child head! What hope would such a cute little thing have against the likes of towering me?’
Thalo grinned. ‘I would need no hope at all. You are no threat to me. I am fluid like the water, born of the river, my glory guaranteed. How could a fat old pig kill the river itself?’
‘Let me show you!’
Now it was Gaylodho’s turn. He stepped towards Thalo, but before he could draw his beltknife, Asfoa had her hand on his wrist.
‘Get out of my house,’ she said, ‘before bad things happen.’
‘Yes,’ said Thalo. ‘Leave, if you are too frightened to face me.’
‘Fie! There is not a craven bone in my body. I have fought face-to-face, man-on-man, against the most warlike folk there are. I have borne spears and axes and kept my footing firm. I have suffered blood and strife and anguish, and not once has my heart wavered. My courage is beyond doubt! But what of yours? What trials have you endured that could demand anything approaching the boldness I bear? I will say the full measure of it: none.’
That was not far wrong. Thalo was yet but a boy, whereas Gaylodho was a war-weathered man. Thalo thusly found himself lost for words, shielded by his mother. But though his youth served him little in the art of boasting, Thalo was nothing if not a little git.
‘Oink-oink!’ he oinked.
That was enough to whip Gaylodho into a new fury. ‘You brat! You rogue, you sod, you cur! Born of the river? What is a river but the piss of the earth? A thousand deaths to you, piss-boy, and I shall deal the first!’
Thalo rose from his bench and stepped forth, eager to meet him, but once more, Asfoa sat him down.
She said, ‘You keep your bottom on that seat, or I will stake you to it.’
And once more, Asfoa’s intervention delighted Gaylodho. ‘Hah! See the spunky little lad jostled about by dear old mummy!’
But Asfoa had harsher words for him. ‘Gaylodho, if you put even a finger on my son, you will have none left for yours.’
‘You would put your words up against me?’
‘My words and my fists, if you ask for them. Get out of my house.’
Gaylodho grumbled, but he was yet calm enough to relent.
‘I will leave,’ he said, ‘but by my determination alone. Had I my sword, this would not have ended as it has.’
Asfoa said only, ‘Out.’
‘I have told you before, Asfoa, to keep your pet where you can see him. Collar him if you must. Do it, or I will have him. One more slight like this, and I will ensure this sorry hovel is burnt to the ground and the very floor stained with your blood. That is my promise to you; my promise to you both!’
Then Gaylodho left the room.
Asfoa was not remotely pleased with all this. She scolded Thalo for his carelessness, but he did not listen. No, he strolled straight down to Klagenn the following day, expecting to meet Gaydeno. He awaited him for a good long while, but he did not appear, so he went home. The next day, he went to meet with Gaydeno once more, and once more he found himself loitering alone in the town. He went home again. Then, on the third day since their parting, Thalo went down the valley with not a jot of sense in his head. He gave Gaydeno some time to appear, and for a third time, he did not. So it was that Thalo took himself to Gaylodho’s very own door. It was his elder son, Gaymono who came to meet him, and he said Gaydeno had been sent far away to a farm in the western reaches of the earldom.
‘And we expect,’ said Gaymono, ‘that he will not return here. Or not until my father will have him, at least.’
This was true. Gaydeno had been sent to live with his father’s kin on a farm called Gronn in the west. They would not meet again.
Thalo was not pleased to hear this.
‘Faithless liar!’ he said, and he slammed the door and ran away. At home, he told Asfoa what Gaymono had said, and he demanded she say otherwise.
‘I will not,’ said Asfoa. ‘Gaylodho has sent him off westwards, or so I hear. To where? I could not say, but any which way, he is certainly not here. I have no reasons to doubt it, and many to believe it, if you can imagine.’
Thalo’s anger now turned to despair, and he went wordlessly out of the house and made straight for the river.
‘I want no more of this,’ he said. ‘Let my father reclaim me! Let his spirit possess me and soothe my broken heart forevermore!’
Then he fell forwards into the water. Asfoa pulled him out, but Thalo would not be dissuaded. He wriggled out of his mother’s grasp and into his father’s, and he forced his head back beneath the surface. Asfoa pulled him out again and up onto the bank.
‘Foolish boy,’ she said. ‘Drowning will do no one any good, and least of all yourself.’
She dragged him home, sat him down with a hearty meal and hard words, and tried to put some sense into his head. This had little success, however, for Thalo clung to Gaydeno’s absence as once he had his presence. This grievance would not be forgotten.