Thirteen
IT WAS UNLIKE anything Demairo had ever seen. A sea of red-brown broken by islands of green and sprinkles of yellow, flowing down and up the landscape like monstrous waves. And atop those waves like incredible boats, perched tumbles of grey granite rocks. He stood beneath one now that towered taller than ten men. The top looked smooth and rounded, but down here, where his hand touched the stone, it was rough and gritty, covered with green and yellow lichen that flaked away beneath his fingertips.
“Welcome to Dartmoor.” Uncle Pedar stood beside him, the two of them facing the west towards a distant ridge, where the sun was slowly sinking through silver clouds, turning them to golden rivers as it settled in its hot bed. “Welcome to my world.”
As the wind whistled across the brown bracken, rustling like a tiny forest and pushing the curls back from Demairo’s face, he breathed in the fresh, clean air and smiled.
While the other men set up camp in the shadow of the tor, Pedar rested his hand on Demairo’s shoulder and the two of them surveyed the land before them. A place of freedom, wildness, danger and reward.
It was open, it was empty, it was desolate and some might think it bleak. Demairo thought it beautiful, and couldn’t wait to explore. As the sun dipped down below the far hills and shadows crept out of the valleys to cover the world, Pedar brought Demairo back to the fire, where he sat and listened to his uncles comparing stories. Then, as he slipped towards sleep, an autumn moon floated over the horizon. A bright curve, it sailed across the sky, reaping its harvest of silver clouds. Then, as he hovered right on the edge of sleep, Demairo heard the wolves begin their nightly song.
When he sat up, half-excited, half-afraid, Uncle Elisud was there to grasp his shoulder. “They won’t approach the fire,” he promised. “You’re safe, Mairo. Sleep now.”
Though he lay back down, Demairo didn’t think he could ever sleep. Not in such a place, not when he would get to explore it all the next day. He’d never felt this excited before about anything, had never seen a place that felt so instantly like home.
Yet as the wolves continued to howl, their eerie voices drifting on the wind like mist in the valleys, the heat of the fire at Demairo’s back slowly made him relax. Added to the unfamiliar comfort of a hound curled close beside him, the warmth and companionship lulled him to sleep. In his dreams burning stars wheeled overhead and whispering shadows crept around the firelight, but he was safe and he was warm, and for the first time since he’d left the island his dreams were kind.
AFTER TAKING HIS turn on watch the night before, Elisud had gratefully tumbled into his blankets in the deep dark – only to be woken by an enthusiastic shake on the shoulder too early the next morning. Groaning at the aches he’d gathered from sleeping on the ground, Elisud blinked blearily at his disturber. A pair of glinting, grey-green eyes stared back.
“Hurry, Uncle Elis, or you’ll not get anything to eat.”
Having never heard that pitch of excitement in Demairo’s voice before, Elisud sat up and squinted in the firelight. It wasn’t even dawn yet; the sky was still a deep blue sprinkled with stars. He wanted to grumble about that, to lie back down and roll over in his warm blankets, but everyone else was already up, and Demairo was practically bouncing.
Elisud wasn’t used to such behaviour from his nephew. It was fascinating to watch Demairo hopping like a flea from one place to another. First he was packing up supplies, then checking the ponies, or over there asking Pedar what he should do next, and constantly running his hands over the enormous rock that had guarded their sleep, protecting them from the east wind.
But no matter how much Demairo ran around his other uncles, tussled with his cousins or turned to Pedar for advice, he always returned to Elisud. Sometimes it was little more than a glance from across the camp, other times he’d actually stop beside him for a few moments before dashing off again. If Elisud had been inclined to feel jealous over the way his boy hung on Pedar’s every word, then Demairo’s constant need for reassurance from him and him alone would have definitely laid that to rest. Not that Elisud was the jealous type, of course not, but neither was he used to his boy trusting another male adult.
Still, when their morning meal was over, the camp packed up and the sky finally beginning to pale down to more acceptable shades, Demairo came back to Elisud like a well-trained hound. As the hunting party moved out, however, Demairo tugged on his uncle’s hand until they walked right at the front of the line beside Pedar. There the boy helped with the pony, while tripping over his own feet, his wide eyes too busy trying to drink down the horizon to watch where he was going.
After Pedar reached out to steady Demairo for the fifth time, the older man caught Elisud’s eyes over the pony’s head. They both smiled.
“A good traveller watches where he’s walking, not just where he’d like to be,” Pedar chuckled.
Demairo barely even glanced at him. “I can’t help it,” he said, voice breathless with wonder. “It’s… I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
While Pedar laughed and started pointing out landmarks to the boy, sharing stories of how they’d come by their names, Elisud looked around for himself. He’d seen a little more of the world than his nephew. Not only had he not been born on the island, as Demairo had, he’d not even been raised in Dumnonia. In fact his home was many days north of here, over moor and wave. His long ago travels south, first by sea, then overland, crossed right over this place and its wilder, rougher sister beyond these hills and tucked up against the northern coast.
Elisud had been younger then, with Ceri just a sturdy babe strapped to his back. That journey had been about speed, undertaken in the first dark well of his grief, as if by leaving home and everything he’d known he could somehow outrun the memories and the pain. He’d not spent any time looking around, admiring the scenery. He did so now, trying to imagine the view as seen through Demairo’s innocent eyes.
It was impressive. Their path wound down the hill away from the giant tor, across a patch of boggy ground, that squished and squelched beneath their feet, then up another small rise between two spurs of rock. Beyond them the world unfolded; a steep, sharp hill rose to their left, a deep valley fell away to their right, and ahead was the open moor. It was green and grey and purple in the dawn haze, a mysterious land of shadows and silhouettes, with strange shapes unfolding from the mists that curled in the hollows. Granite outcrops cast long dark forms across the bracken, hiding secrets and stories.
Elisud looked out across the lonely expanse, stirred only by the restless wind, and felt a lift in his heart. It wasn’t the sea that he’d lived by and loved his whole life, but it was a different kind of freedom. One he could get used to, since he now lived so far inland.
“Uncle Elis, look.” A cold touch against his hand forced his eyes away from the distant view. He glanced down to find that Demairo wasn’t staring at the open moor stretching out before them. Instead his gaze fell back east, towards the rising sun.
Turning, Elisud’s stared at the land cupped between two tor-topped hills, his eyes skimming over the undulating waves of trees and valleys and green, green spaces. The sky filled almost his whole vision, until he followed the scant line of it down, down, down. His gaze caught on a silver flash and he followed the glow of the river all the way out to the horizon. The sun was a golden smudge burning upwards through piles of feathery clouds, but below that was the sea.
The sea. Elisud’s heart caught in his throat at so small a glimpse of so distant a thing. Once it had been his whole world, now he could cover it with his hand.
Home, an inner voice whispered with loss and longing. Elisud had to close his eyes as emotions rocked through him, filling him up with memories of shifting waves beneath him, a hard paddle in his hands, silver fish shining in his nets, the scent of salt thick in the air. Of storms and rain, the constant lap, lap, lap of the waters, the hush and sigh of the tide.
His memory was so deep, so rich that even now he imag
ined he could hear the waves across the sand, calling him in, calling him home, sinking into his sleep and filling his dreams.
Another cold touch against his hand had him opening his eyes to a horizon that wavered. Blinking rapidly, Elisud dispelled the tears before they could fall and looked down into Demairo’s worried face.
“Uncle Elis?”
Elisud smiled. “All well, Mairo?”
The boy opened his mouth, hesitated, then turned his back on the rising sun. “Everyone else has gone on.”
“Ah.” Glancing once more to the east, but unable to see anything past the bright light of the sun, Elisud finally turned his back on the sea. With a hand resting on Demairo’s shoulder, he shifted the weight of the pack on his shoulders and stared down the hill. The others were already at the bottom, gathered around a marker stone, likely paying their respects to the local gods. “Let’s not make them wait for us, hey?”
Demairo nodded and together they descended the hill, the sunlight warm against their backs until they dropped into the shadow beyond. As they walked Elisud let his mind drift and sink into the hush and sigh, not of the tide stroking the sand, but of wind over heather and gorse and bracken and stone. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was enough, and for now Elisud’s heart was content.
“HOW LONG WILL they be gone?” Ceri asked, grunting with strain as she lifted her bucket and staggered a few paces away from the river, before stopping for a rest.
Putting down her own two buckets to wait for her, Briallen wiped an arm across her forehead and sighed. “I don’t know, Ceri. No one knows. They’ll be out for as long as it takes them to catch lots of food. Or until the weather drives them down again.”
Brightening up at the heavy rain falling around them, Ceri lifted her bucket again. The weight of it swung between her staggering knees as she scuttled a few more paces closer to Briallen. “Will they be back today?” she asked, shaking water from her eyes.
Briallen glanced up at the dripping branches overhead, smiling ruefully at the grey, grey skies that seemed intent on tipping a river on them. “I doubt it, puffin,” she replied, having taken to using Elisud’s nickname for his daughter. It seemed to make Ceri feel better in her father’s absence – strangely it made Briallen feel better too. “It takes more than rain to drive off a hunt. And they probably have different weather up there anyway.”
Ceri scowled towards the northwest, where the land rose in ever increasing hills until it reached the moors. Or so Briallen had told her; it’s what she’d been told herself, since she’d never been further north or west than the farm. Her own childhood had been spent on the banks of this same river, where it flattened and widened out before flowing into the sea.
“They’ll be home soon, puffin.”
Saying nothing, Ceri hefted her bucket up and staggered determinedly along the path, making it almost halfway home before she had to drop it again. “I’m not a baby,” she said, once Briallen caught up with her.
“I never said you were.”
“I don’t need my Da watching me every moment. When we lived on the island, he would sometimes go out fishing for days and days. Or when he went to the mainland with Uncle Dewi, he might be gone for ages. So I’m used to my Da going away.”
“Of course, puffin,” Briallen agreed gently, hearing a wobble entering the little girl’s voice as she tried to be brave.
Ceri looked up at her now, big brown eyes swimming with tears, her lower lip trembling. “But did Mairo have to go too?” she asked pitifully. “They left me h-here, all a-alone. Why couldn’t I go t-t-too?”
“Oh, Ceri.” Putting her buckets aside, Briallen swept the girl into her arms. “Poor keresik, they haven’t left you alone. You’re with me, aren’t you?” She pulled back enough to dab at Ceri’s damp face.
The little girl’s lower lip continued to wobble, her eyes full of tears, but she nodded and buried her head against Briallen’s waist. “You won’t leave me, will you, Aunt Bria? Everyone else leaves me. I d-don’t want t-to be l-l-left anym-m-more.”
Briallen hugged her in close, stroking Ceri’s soft curls. “I’m not going anywhere,” she promised. “You can stay with me. Always. Anytime you want, as long as you want. I’m here, puffin. I’m always here.”
They stayed that way for a long time, their buckets abandoned on the path, the rain pouring down over their heads, but as long as Ceri needed her, nothing else mattered. Finally the girl stirred and moved far enough back to be able to see Briallen’s face where she was hunched over. Putting one small hand against Briallen’s cheek, she stretch up on tiptoe and kissed the other.
“I love you, Bria,” she whispered.
“I love you too, Ceri,” Briallen whispered back, barely able to talk over the lump in her throat and tightness in her chest.
Ceri smiled and turned away to lift her bucket again. “Last one home’s a rotten egg!” she cried, and away she scuttled as fast as her bandy legs could carry her.
“SO, DEM, HOW are you finding your first trip?”
Demairo looked up from the grouse he’d been carefully turning on a spit and darted a quick glance at Uncle Kensa’s face. He was a big man, loud, cheerful and kind, in a rough way. Everyone liked Uncle Kensa, but he made Demairo nervous. He was loud. Demairo’s father had been loud too, but he hadn’t smiled like Kensa did – at least not at Demairo. He knew they were nothing alike, but still, he never quite felt comfortable around Kensa.
“He likes it fine, don’t you, Mairo?” Uncle Elisud appeared from nowhere to rescue him, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Demairo relaxed, unaware that he’d tensed up so much.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he managed to murmur, shooting Uncle Kensa a shy smile. He didn’t want to be nervous of him, but he couldn’t help it.
Kensa gave him a gentle smile in return. “Certain sure, it must be different from that island of yours.” Though the man was clearly trying to soften his voice, he couldn’t keep it up for long and was soon booming again. “Different from the farm too.”
Demairo flinched slightly but managed another smile, while Elisud chuckled. “I don’t know, in some ways it reminds me of the island. Wide open spaces, nothing around for miles and miles, and a constant wind that cuts right down to the bone.”
“And the rain,” Demairo added.
“Certain sure,” Elisud agreed, shifting to shelter Demairo as a fierce gust of that same chilling wind threw a handful of cold drops beneath the shelter Pedar had stretched between some trees to protect the fire. “How’s the grouse doing?”
Demairo turned the roasting birds, reminded of his important task. “Nearly done.” Though he was one of the youngest members of this trip, Uncle Pedar had soon realised how good Demairo was at tasks like this. He might only have been freshly turned nine years old, but he could be trusted. Unlike Clemmo and Kitto, who were usually too busy arguing to stop the meat from burning, while Androw and his father Ors had already returned home to get back to work in the forge.
From the very first day of this trip, Demairo had found as many ways as possible to prove himself useful. He’d fallen in love with the moors and he wanted to do everything he could to make sure he’d be brought back, not just one distant day, but soon.
“Smells good, Dem.” Uncle Ruan pushed into the shelter, slicking his soaked hair back from his face. Demairo liked his youngest uncle, though he didn’t know the man well. He was quiet, worked hard and was almost as in tune with the land as Sira Wynn. It had surprised Demairo when the young farmer joined them on this trip – he seemed too close to his farm fields to ever want to leave – but this last hunting trip of the year was a family tradition, or so he’d been told.
“Did my boys manage to bring any water back this time?” Kensa asked, shifting aside so Ruan could get close to the fire and take the spit from Demairo.
Checking the nearest bird to see how well cooked it was, Ruan smiled. “They managed one waterskin.”
“Each?” Ken
sa asked hopefully.
Ruan’s lips twitched as he shook his head and put the spit back over the flames. “Between them.”
“Gods and ancestors,” Kensa growled, rolling his eyes to the drenched skies. “What was it over this time?”
“Fish,” Ruan remarked, patting Demairo on the shoulder and walking back out into the rain.
“Fish?” Kensa cried, following his brother-by-marriage, his indignant voice drifting back to the shelter. “We have a sack full of grouse, countless other different birds, I don’t know how many hares, not to mention the deer, and they wanted fish?”
Whatever reply Ruan made, Demairo didn’t hear it, and from then on his oldest uncle’s voice was little more than a distant shout.
“Poor Kensa. Those boys will turn him grey,” Elisud remarked to no one in particular.
Demairo just shrugged. He quite liked his cousins when they weren’t arguing, but Demairo knew he was too serious for them. After a childhood full of responsibilities and the weight of caring for his mother, Demairo wasn’t very good at pulling pranks and having fun. He wasn’t very good at mixing with other children. He much preferred to be alone, and his cousins didn’t understand that. They thought he was strange – which he was, so Demairo didn’t mind too much. Besides, he’d much rather sit in the shelter on a cold, rainy autumnal night and cook grouse, than stagger back and forth up the boggy hill with skins of water from the stream.
“Those smell done to me, Dem.” Pedar appeared out of the rain, swiping water from his face. “Shall we take them off now?”
Demairo stepped aside, knowing better than to interfere when it came to removing the meat. Instead he and Uncle Elisud watched Pedar expertly slide the birds from the spit and portion them out so everyone had a fair share. With four adults and three boys, the four grouse just about made a meal for them all, especially when added to some late autumn fruits they’d managed to forage in the woods that day.
By the time they were all finished, Demairo wasn’t the only one yawning and reaching for his bedroll. It was tiring work walking all day, stopping only for brief meal and water breaks, or when someone caught sight of some prey. So far Demairo and his cousins had done little more than practise their slinging, though Kitto had taken down a hare – by accident, despite what the boy tried to claim.
Most of the real work had been done by the adults, with the help of their pack of six hounds. Ruan and Pedar had proved to be absolute masters with the sling, while Uncle Elisud had surprised even himself at how good he was with a spear. By now their three ponies were piled high with their successes, and according to Pedar they were on their way home, before their four fresh deer kills attracted any wolf packs.
Demairo didn’t want to go. He loved it up here with the wild wind, the bleak rocks, the rolling hills clothed in crackling bracken, soft heather and fierce gorse. He could breathe up here, could forget the world he’d been born in and the grief that never quite left him. Up here there were so many secrets nestled away in the woods, under the stones, tucked inside the valleys, that there was no room to think of anything else. He’d never felt so alive in all his life as he did here, knowing wolves prowled the night and adders slumbered in the undergrowth.
It was dangerous on these moors, but so, so beautiful. It didn’t matter to him that the rocks were hard enough to break bones in the smallest of falls, or that the ground itself grew so hungry in places that it could swallow a pony without much effort. He wanted to run with the wild herds of deer and ponies, to howl with the wind and the wolves, to climb all the rocks he could see and to stare forever at the dancing mists. He never wanted to leave this place.
The next day as they climbed up between the twin spurs of granite again, catching a distant glimpse of the sea between rain showers, Demairo turned for one last look at the open moor and sighed with his whole heart. A warm hand squeezed his shoulder.
“I know, lad,” Pedar murmured, his blue eyes gazing at the dancing heather. “But it’s not going anywhere. It never does. We pass over its hills like clouds, but the moor doesn’t change. These stones weather all storms.” He looked down into Demairo’s eyes, but didn’t seem to see him. “We will return. They will wait for us, and all who come after, ‘til only the wind remembers us.” His hand slipped from Demairo’s shoulder and he descended the hill.
Leaving Demairo staring back at the first place he’d really felt at home. A rough caw drew his gaze upwards as two crows flew overhead. He smiled.
“Ready to go home, Mairo?”
Elisud’s voice made him turn and he nodded at his uncle. The farm wasn’t home, not really, not now he knew what a real home could feel like in his heart, but he couldn’t stay out here forever. Not yet. Besides, Ceri would be waiting.
So he caught up with his uncle and answered his smile with one of his own. “I’m ready,” he agreed, and they passed the last of the giant tors to walk steadily downwards into the little wooded valleys of the tamed and homely world.