Crossed Swords: A Tale of Maid Cordelia

Ch 2: Farrant's Visions

In the woodlands around Farrant's cottage, dawn rose with silent flames, and with gentle footsteps the forest came alive with movement. Inside it was warm, for Farrant had let the coals burn slowly all night, and Fira, Pierce and Cordelia slept soundly on the feather mattress he had made for them years before, when Pierce was born. The three lay together with their arms entwined, and it was almost as though, as they slept, Cordelia protected them all, her arm draped tenderly over her sisters' shoulders.

Farrant had risen with the first touch of light upon the air, and he had dressed, stirred the lambent embers, and moved towards the sleeping children, as he always did, to check upon their breathing. He gazed down at the three. "With that arm you shall raise a sword," he said to himself as he smoothed the crook of Cordelia's elbow. He saw that their breathing rose and fell steadily; soundlessly, he drew the coverlet over them. "Soon you will be a woman," he said softly so as not to be heard, but he meant his words for Cordelia. "I will find ways for you to meet the wolves' demands."

Now he spoke quietly to himself as he moved back to the fire and set water upon it for the strong drink they called terras, which in their language means a drink prepared from dried roots. "My tribe is very old," he began, as he stirred the liquid and took strong breaths from its rising steam. "For how many centuries have they flourished here by the lake, by the mountain, and in the forest. We have carved out a life for ourselves that rivals no tribe on our boundaries and has found none that can better it. We hunt without peer and fight without defeat. With what reluctance shall I see it go!" He poured from the terras-pot into a porcelain cup. "Yet maybe there is a way."

"Cordelia can be my life after I die," he thought, "and she can carry on what I have only started. She can build this homestead, which is now nothing but a humble tract of land by the edge of the forest, into the vast estates of a true chief. She can extend our clan to generations, and lead the tribal elders in fealty towards her. All these things I have tried to do, but have failed, and now that I am old, no elder will accept me as chief without an heir. But if I can pass on to Cordelia the skills she needs, and if she can prove herself, the Elders will see that only through her, will the ways of the clan survive. I will devise a system for her training, a discipline she can follow, if she is willing. She may not yet understand what is due her. She may not yet grasp the fullness of her duty to law and honor, but in time she will." And Farrant drank small sips of steaming terras.

As he did so, he seemed to have a vision. From the hearth the vapor rising from the terra-pot seemed to shape itself into human form. A glow burned within it and shed a glaring light into the corners of the cottage, as if a burning lamp had been set in each. Then, although the shape was white-hot, Farrant felt a piercing cold, and staring at the hearth, he saw that suddenly the fire had gone out. The veiled shape had no face, yet Farrant knew who it was. "It can be only you, Lady Lass," he said, "from the clan of Conurgh. Have you not graced my hearth before? But this time my children are yet asleep, and if you wake them you will frighten them with your presence." He saw that, where her eyes should have been, two coals from the fire glowed.

"They shall not be disturbed," said the form, "for time stops when I am here. Now ask me why I have come."

"I shall ask you nothing of the kind," said Farrant, "for you are but a specter, a shape made of glowing light, and you can neither fight nor hunt," he said, "nor swim nor climb, nor can you even think or plan. But from your being here" – and now he rose and strode across the room, shielding his eyes from the glare – "I can perhaps glean a message." And he put out his hand to touch the veiled phantom.

"You are Lady Lass of Conurgh," he said, "and you are the mother of my children. Except that when you rode next to me proudly on that wedding day long ago, your shape was human. Since then you disappeared, but I think you have returned many times, for the women I have loved in my life have been like you in all but name."