Ragnelle: A Hag's Tale

The Return

From that day, Dwyfor held itself as battle-ready.

The men began to trickle down from the hills, even as the messenger galloped over the road that passed from my kingdom, west towards Cameliard. Small, tough men. Hill-bred, with beards as dark as peat and arms corded with wiry strength.

Some carried picks, axes, battered swords and daggers, the edges pockmarked from battles fought generations before. A few carried better arms. They had been my mother's men. They came down to the fort with their shields repainted in Dwyfor's green and gold.

Their sons followed at their shoulder. Many were the same age as me. I greeted them, every one and hid my disquiet at the grim determination carving years into smooth faces. This was war, the skill I had studied for years. They personified it, those boys I remembered from playing truant down to the swimming pool at the edge of my fort. Every bowed head and mumbled promise of fealty felt like an iron ring being clipped into place on a mail-coat that hung heavy on my shoulders.

Women came too. Wives, sisters, daughters. They followed their men, as many as they could, leaving only the minimum behind to tend the ripening harvest. Small as their men, dark as their men and with the same grim determination that made rock from flesh. If they worried for the future, they hid it, as I did, behind a wall of chores and tasks that stretched from dawn to well beyond dusk.

Even in the greatest times of pilgrimage, Dwyfor was never so busy nor so crowded as in those few days before Rhys's return.

I worked hard for my people in those shorts weeks. I am not afraid to say it, nor was I ashamed of the calluses that reappeared on my hands. I spent my time among the men, overseeing the blacksmith forges and the training. The latter of hammer on blade rang in my heart like bird song and the whistle of arrows slicing through the air sent excitement firing through my blood. Much to Mairi's consternation and the men's amusement, I returned to my breeks and tunic within a day.

It pleased me that amusement made a swift turn to respect once they saw I not only had the strength to lift a sword but the skill to wield it as well as any one among them. What I lacked in force, I made up for in speed. By the third day, they no longer called me 'Scathach's pup' behind my back, a mockery of my desire to fight. Instead I was pennaeth, chieftain, and they addressed me to my face.

It was a pity I could not win over the women in so simple a manner.

Our fort had always had its share of female servants. Bondmaids, the wives of our household guard or old retainers like Mairi, who lived in the fort from my mother's time and knew no other life. But now the number of women bustling beneath our halls increased twofold.

Everywhere I turned there seemed to be women. Women sewing in the solar. Women bustling in the kitchen. Women counting cheeses or turning clothes and always, always, women sitting together. Twos, threes, groups, packs. Not one seemed to move alone or without another companion to hand, ready to comment and giggle over a shared joke.

Or to fall silent as soon as I walked by.

When I think on it now, I understand. As one of the children of Modron, I was already held apart. Regarded as more fae than mortal, people feared our powers as much as they sought its blessings. Though I knew in my heart that my power was weak, rumours had already spread from Leodegrance's court of my flash of temper... Rhys's flash of temper, though none but I knew of it.