Everyone said that Riamfada was a happy youth, always smiling despite his disability. Women prized the brooches and bangles he created, men marvelled at the sword hilts and belt buckles cast from bronze, or sometimes silver. His father, Gariapha the metalworker, was proud of the boy, and praised him constantly. Which said much for Gariapha, for not many men, seeing their sons outshine them, would have been so generous of spirit.
At seventeen years of age Riamfada’s talents had made his family almost wealthy. Banouin the Foreigner had taken his work and sold it across the water for what seemed to Riamfada fabulous prices. It was these profits which enabled him now to begin working in small amounts of gold.
The boy had been born in the Year of the Crippling, when two in three Rigante babes had entered the world paralysed or stillborn. As was the custom, the disabled babes were laid on a hillside to die in the night. Alone among the deformed and crippled, Riamfada had not died.
His mother, Wiocca, had gone to him at dawn, cuddled him close and held him to her breast, allowing him to suckle. Everyone thought she had lost her mind. She ignored them. The full council debated her actions, and called upon Gariapha to give evidence. The balding, round-shouldered metal crafter stood before them and defended his wife’s right to nurse her son. ‘He was placed in the hands of the gods,’ he said. ‘They did not take his life. Now his life is hers.’
‘How can he ever contribute to the Rigante?’ asked the Long Laird.
‘In the same way that I do,’ said Gariapha. ‘I do not need the use of legs to create brooches.’
At the request of the council the Long Laird sought out Vorna and asked for a prophecy. She refused to give one. ‘You may call upon me only when the people are threatened,’ she said. ‘This babe threatens no-one.’
The council debated long into the night. Never before had such a seriously crippled child been allowed to survive, and there was no precedent to call upon. Finally, as Riamfada’s second dawn approached, they made their judgement – by a vote of eleven to ten – in favour of Wiocca’s right to raise her son.
By the age of six Riamfada had shown great skills in the crafting of wax and the preparation of casting shells. He had a good eye, nimble fingers, and a creative talent his father could only envy. By the time he was ten he was designing complicated patterns and knots, creating brooches of exquisite beauty. Every day Gariapha would carry him to his workshop, and set him down in a high-backed chair. A woollen blanket would be placed over his stunted, useless legs and a long belt would be wrapped around his frail, emaciated body, holding him in place. Then he would lean forward and begin his work.
And, as everyone observed, Riamfada was always happy.
It was not true, of course. He seldom knew real joy – not even when he created delicate pieces that brought gasps of admiration from those who saw them. Riamfada was never truly content with any of his designs, which, in part, was the source of his genius.
But had any asked him what was his first great moment of joy, he would have told them of the day, one year ago, when he ran in the hills, and learned to swim in the pond below the Riguan Falls.
He had been working at his bench when a shadow fell across him. He turned to the window to see a wide-shouldered boy with strange eyes, one green, one tawny gold.
‘I am Connavar,’ he said. Riamfada had known who he was. On warm days Gariapha would carry him out onto the open ground beyond the workshop, and there father and son would eat their meals in the sunshine. Often Riamfada would see the village boys running and playing. None ever approached him.
‘I am Riamfada. What do you want?’
‘I was curious to see you,’ said Connavar. ‘Everyone talks about you.’
‘Well, you have seen me,’ said Riamfada, returning to his work, dipping his brush into the mixture and applying it to the crafted wax.