I watched her. She must have known. She didn’t show it, but even then people knew where I was, what I was doing, because of my father. She was strange. I saw her tending the beasts, weaving, plaiting her mother’s hair with no light to see by. Other girls would giggle and gossip, chattering even at their work, but not this one. She seemed apart from them. I watched her bathing at the river; she knew, or how could she have turned away from me so well? She walked alone in the woods and shadows, but I could find her. Or she could find me.

I learned she was Ulyen, of Hafgan’s kin. I think the Speaker fears them; they have dealings with outlanders and night travellers. He should fear me. I feared no one then, but it pleased me that my shadow-girl seemed unspoken for. My father would never approve an outland match but I wasn’t to care about that. Three short years ago I was very young.

“Ulyen,” I called to her. “What are you doing?” It was late and she was walking under the trees in the valley bottom. I’d never spoken to her before. I’d followed her out of my father’s house and through the palisade, curious about where she would go; a girl ought not to go about alone at nightfall and I was alarmed when she passed the gate. If I fancied myself as her protector then I had judged her poorly. She was surefooted and quick across the hillside and I was breathless reaching the woods just from keeping her in sight. I was angry perhaps. Anyway, she was not startled.

“Is that your concern, Dran Gheodran?”

“What? Come here!”

“Do you command me already?” She was standing still now. “Is your father not still first among us?” Her speech was not quite like ours, I realised.

“My father will not have girls out in the woods at night, Ulyen. Come back to the house.” She moved and I lost sight of her. “Darkness take you, do as I say!” I made to follow her into the trees but she stepped out before me, much closer. I drew back a step. She was smiling, which affronted me.

“I’m not afraid of darkness, Dran,” she said. “Are you?”

I grabbed for her. I might have hit her. Anyway, I only caught the breeze, so quick was she. I tried to follow her, but she kept always a little ahead of me, as I tripped in the dark, caught by thorns. I called to her, cursed her impudence, promised her harm. If I began in anger though, in a little while I was afraid. She moved through the tangle like a spirit. These were my woods, my hunting ground, but she owned them as I never had.

“Ulyen!” I called. “Wait. You will be lost. You will owe me for these pains, girl, and for the beating I’ll get if you’re hurt.” I stopped chasing her and tried to catch my breath. It seemed that she stopped too, for there was silence apart from the movement of the leaves.

I tried to calm myself, all the time looking into the shadows for a glimpse of her, “Look, I’m not angry now. Just let’s go back.” Then I said something I had not even been thinking. “I should not have followed you.”

She was at my side suddenly, and spoke into my ear. I could smell her breath, its sweetness. “But you must follow me, Dran,” she said, “…and often you will wish that you had not. But you will still follow.” I turned to her, my anger returning at having been spoken to like this, but she was already gone again. I think I reached for my knife. I was certain that I was lost, or made a fool of, or both. I see myself now, woodsman, hunter, my father’s son, crouching like a child in woods, and I see the beginning of it all, the wellspring of blood that has carried me here.

“This way,” off to my left. I turned and took a few steps, pushing through the undergrowth, all the while the back of my neck crawling. That was all it took to bring me to the edge of the wood and the sight of the torch burning at the gateway, and Ulyen, standing in the bracken, laughing.

I surprised Naht of the Shepherds dozing at the gate and thumped him. He said nobody had passed him. I thumped him some more. Naht went with the old man when the time came of course, and I think he sharpens his knife for me. I am the World’s whetstone.

*

Next day I did not speak to Ulyen. Nor the two after that. She had made a game of me. I looked for signs that others knew about it, and sometimes it seemed that they must, and sometimes I was sure they did not. She’d angered me and now went about as before, fearing no consequence of it. She had got the better of me, and I was on her hook.

My father had found a surplus in our granaries and gone, with his hoarded treasures, to trade among the villages of the hill country. In good years his direction of our labour and husbandry enriched us all and brought honour to our clan. None within a week’s march had not heard of the height of Ghadran Gheodran’s house. It was to be my seventeenth summer.

On the fourth day my father returned under the mantle of a rainstorm. These things I remember well. The Speaker stared out over the palisade, water running down his face.

“Speaker-to-the-Ancestors,” I said, “What are you looking at?”

“Crows, Dran Gheodran. Crows on the corn. See them peck, peck, peck?” It seemed he spoke as much to himself as to me. “And the Lord of the Crows is among them.”

I looked out across the furrows. Striding towards us was Ghadran Gheodran, my father, hooded against the rain as the black birds flapped aside. The earth clung to his feet but he was no more slowed by mire or slope than by the rain. The Speaker turned his pale eyes to me. “Best prepare a welcome.”

I honoured my father at the gateway, kneeling before him, and at the door of his house. I brought him bread and beer as he threw aside his cloak to warm himself by the fire. Those free from work crowded in to see him eat and drink. He complained that the ploughing was poorly done. He asked whose were the sheep he had seen untended in the high valley. Mother was there with her sisters, her smile weary already. The people wanted to know about his travels. He grinned and said they would all see soon enough.

The ponies came in a little later with Fath and Barnath. One, a sturdy roan, was loaded with two cloth sacks. “Salt!” cried my father. It is brought from the sea, a great water whose spirits are crueller even than those of the high lands, and is costly. There were other things, cloth, seed, a fine boar to put to our sows, wild-eyed at his halter.

And there was the blade. It was unhilted, but we had craftsmen as good as any for that. A beautiful blue-bright flame of metal with lines and patterns worked on either surface, as long as your forearm and hand together. My father held it above his head. “See this?” he said. “This is the hard iron from the east. Your skill and sweat has brought it to us. Its spirit will be our guardian and its brightness will stand against the shadows.” The people were proud then, and I too. We knew that we were strong in the World and favoured by the Ancestors when such riches came to us. I saw the Smiths eye the blade in wonder for they could not have made it, and I saw the Speaker purse his lips and make a sign.

There was a feast. A hog squealed out its life into Speaker’s bowls. The Brewers’ children scampered among us with beer and my father passed his cup freely. Sleyn and his gang made trouble for the girls, while I was my father’s son and stood apart. I saw my half-sister Magwen up-ended in the granary, and she got a child from that night. I should know whether or not it lived, but I don’t. Of Ulyen there was no sign and I was glad of that. I didn’t want their greasy paws on her.

In the firelight, hands slick with pigfat, my father said, “You should take a wife. Our girls don’t keep you busy, and I’ll not have my house cluttered up with bastards.” I had no bastards to my knowledge and said so. His eyes narrowed. He asked me how it stood between me my half-brother Rhandren, his firstborn.

“He is my brother. We stand side by side.”

“If he raised his hand against me where would you stand?”

“He wouldn’t.”

The old man laughed, low and bitter. “One of you will,” he said. When the Speaker prophesies he daubs himself with blood and thrashes on the ground. People come to watch. My father’s prophecy that night echoed only in his drinking cup; had I not heard it perhaps it would have failed.

Later he said to Mother, “Do you not think that Dran needs a wife? I was his age when we married.”

“You were older,” she said. “And you ought not to forget Emnerel, that gave you Rhandren and Barna, or the little ones that passed with her.” I don’t think he’d forgotten, we’d been speaking of Rhandren earlier. But my mother never spared a chance to remind him of his history. He had loved Emnerel of the Smiths but not married her because she had no family name. She bore him twin girls, an omen of riches, but the Ancestors were angered by his obstinacy and took them and her in a fever.

“Why do you think I want him wed? I went over to the second hills. Fathaf leads the people right down to the Red Forest. He is strong and his house is great. He has fine daughters and I would have peace with him. The way is clear.”

I was unhappy, spoken about as though I wasn’t there. “I may not like Fathaf’s daughters,” I said. “You can’t trade me like a hog.”

He looked at me. “It’s not a trade, fool.” He seemed sad, which I remember now because he was rarely anything but hard in his expression. “You may need the alliance in time. Or the opportunity. And you will like Fathaf’s girls. One is plain but three others have charms enough to stiffen you.” Mother swiped at him with a free hand. “Take my advice though, choose the plain one and enjoy her gratitude.” He covered his head to defend himself.

“What do you mean by ‘opportunity’?” I asked. Mother had gone to complain to her sisters.

He was silent again, looking into the fire, then spoke quietly. “Fathaf has no sons.” He bade me follow him through the draperies into his curtained room within the hall. He threw aside some rugs to find a roll of cloth bound with thongs, which he tossed to me, surprising me with its weight. “Open it.” I laid the bundle on a bearskin and loosened the ties, unrolling it.

Here first was the old sword of Ghadran’s father, its broad blade notched in two places, the engraved spirit-creatures curling up to the hilt. I had not seen it closely for years. It was a thing of power, and I touched it to my brow and laid it aside. Then came the new blade, still more marvellous in the dim firelight, with its writhing tracery and depthless lustre. I saw that it was blunt, awaiting its edge as it did the hilt and scabbard that Ghadran’s craftsmen would make for it. The old sword looked clumsy next to it.

“I will bear this and you the other,” my father said, taking the slender, wicked thing from me. I again took up his father’s sword, hefted it. He nodded. “It’s yours. Look further.”

My head spun from the beer and I remember thinking ‘who will teach me?’ I had no skill with a sword, only Ghadran did. And why bear arms? Did he expect Fathaf to make war on us? I put the thing aside and did as told, unrolling more cloth.

A third sword. It thumped from the cloth and lay upon the fur, short, dull, of even breadth along its length and square-pointed. There was no pattern on its blade, only rust like old blood. It was notched near the bronze crosspiece, its simple hilt bound with wire.

“Pick it up,” said Ghadran. I found it light and balanced, wieldy. “It looks a poor enough thing, but I would not care to meet the man who carried it.”

“Where is it from? It looks Outlandish.” I said.

“Aye, that it is.” He picked up his new blade again, turning it in the light. “See this? This is beauty, son,” he said. “A thing of honour. In a just cause a man of truth could do great things with this.” His eyes shone in the dimness. “That which you hold? That is a workman’s tool.”

I looked again at the short sword. “I don’t understand. Who would make a such a thing?”

“A dealer in death, son. Our smiths know that the spirit the fires bind within a blade will call any who wield it to account for their actions; such weapons are not made or carried lightly. A sword made like that?” He paused, a curl coming to his lip, “Nothing more than a ploughshare of men.”

He told me he’d known its meaning as soon as he’d seen it. It was from far away, many days’ travel beyond the sea, but that hadn’t stilled his fear. Somewhere just beyond knowledge, swords were made as tools for tradesmen of death and blood. “And they will come here, son. They’ll come.” And he took it from me and struck suddenly at his iron cap where it hung upon the roof-post, the blade biting through metal and leather, quivering in the wood. “They’ll cut us down.”

I went to Marpath in the morning and found him fitting heads to hunting arrows. Marpath understood more of the World than I did, but had not forgotten his own youth. When he’d offered me wisdom before he'd always laughed when I ignored him and came to grief. I asked him what my father had meant about Fathaf. He rubbed his beard, his eyes blinking in that way he has.

“Well, there’s no certainty that you’ll succeed your father as leader. Rhandren may stand forward. Or anyone.” He smiled. “You know how it works. In truth you are best placed, probably most able. Ghadran will not expect to die before he is challenged. Perhaps he wishes it to be you that he must stand aside for.”

I laughed. “He would knock me down.”

“That will not always be so certain. Well, you may look unhappy but you haven’t denied that you might attempt it.”

“Well…”

“Well nothing. I thought you might swear you could never raise your hand against him. I see you know the truth. Somebody will take his house, Dran. If you want it to be you, perhaps you should consider how it might be done.”

I thought this an ugly notion. “And Fathaf?”

“Well he may indeed come here. He’s strong. It's right to seek alliance. But also, if you are wed to Fathaf’s kin you might go to him if you fail here. He'd take you in and you would be well placed again.”

“No. I do not think like this, Marpath. I will not challenge my father. If anybody does they will find me at his side. He is cruel sometimes, never easy, but he has led us well. I will not see him thrown down.” Besides, it was absurd! “I am a shadow of him. The people would never follow me.”

But Marpath was smiling again. “He’s spent your whole life making certain that you think that. Now it may suit him to make a man of you.”

If manhood meant striking down my own father then I wanted none of it. Marpath knew this and never spoke of it again. But the air had changed about my father’s house. His new sword was finished with its ornate hilt and harness, and the Speaker commended it to the Ancestors in blood and firelight, although I saw he wouldn’t touch it. Ghadran now commonly wore it on his back as he went about, and gave orders that spears and bows be made and kept in readiness. He said we had become soft, and blind to the envy of those outside our clan. But even had I felt differently, work enough kept us from conspiracy in those spring days, and lengthening days dispelled dark thoughts.