Fell had buried them both in the Loda resting place on the western slope of High Druin.
Sigarni returned to his side. ‘Flex the muscles of your arm,’ she ordered.
He did so and winced. ‘It’s damned sore.’
‘Good. I like to think of you in pain.’
‘I buried my son, woman. I know what pain is. And I’d not wish it on a friend.’
‘Neither would I,’ she said. ‘But you are no friend.’
‘Your mood is foul,’ he admonished her. ‘Had a falling-out with your black man, have you?’
‘Have you been spying on me Fell?’ It irritated him that she did not deny the association.
‘It is my work, Sigarni. I patrol the forest and I have seen you enter the castle, and I have seen you leave. How could you rut with such as he?’
She laughed then, and his anger rose. ‘Asmidir is a better man than you, Fell. In everyway.’ He wanted to strike her, to slap the smile from her face. But the growing nausea finally swamped him and with a groan he pushed himself from the chair, staggered to the door, and just made it to open ground before falling to earth and vomiting. Cold sweat shone upon his face in the moonlight, and he felt weak as a
day-old calf as he struggled to rise. Sigarni appeared alongside him, taking his arm and looping it over her shoulder. ‘Let’s get you to bed,’ she said, not unkindly.
Fell leaned in to her. The scent of her filled his nostrils. ‘I loved you,’ he said, as she half-carried him up the four steps to the doorway.
‘You left me,’ she said.
When he woke it was daylight, the rising sun shining through the open window. The sky was clear and Fell saw the hawk silhouetted briefly against the blue. With a groan he sat up. His shoulder was burning, and his ribs were badly bruised from the fight with the two Outland robbers.
Rising from the bed he moved to the window. Sigarni was standing in the sunlight, the hawk on her glove, the black hound lying at her feet. Fell’s mouth was dry, and all his long-suppressed emotions surged to the surface. Of all the women he had known – and there had been many – he had loved only one. And in that moment he knew, with a sickening certainty, that it would always be thus. Oh, he would marry again, and he would have sons, but his heart would remain with this enigmatic mountain woman until the daggers of time stopped its beat.
Though still weak from loss of blood, Fell knew he could stay no longer in sight of Sigarni. Gathering his cloak of black leather he pulled on his boots, took up his longbow and quiver and walked from the rear of the cabin, heading back on the long trail to Cilfallen. There was a maid there, of marriageable age, whose father had set a bride price Fell could afford.
‘I hate this place,’ said the Baron Ranulph Gottasson, leaning on the wide parapet and staring out over the distant mountains. Asmidir said nothing. It was cold up here on the Citadel’s high walls, the wind hissing down from the north, cutting through the warmest clothes. But the Baron seemed not to notice the inclemency of the weather. He was dressed in a simple shirt of black silk and a sleeveless jerkin of the finest black leather. He wore no adornments, no silver enhancements to his black leather leggings, no chains or ornate discs attached to his knee-length boots. As Asmidir stood shivering on the battlements, the Baron turned his pale hooded eyes on the black man. ‘Not like Kushir, eh? Too cold, too bleak. Ever wish you were back home?’
‘Sometimes,’ Asmidir admitted.
‘So do I. What is there here for a man like me? Where is the glory?’
‘The kingdom is at peace, my lord,’ said Asmidir softly. ‘Thanks mainly to your good self and the Earl of Jastey.’
The Baron’s lips thinned, the hooded eyes narrowing. ‘Don’t speak his name in my presence! I never met a man so gifted with luck. All his victories were hollow. Tell me what he has ever done to match my conquest of Ligia? Twenty-five thousand warriors against my two legions. Yet we crushed them, and took their capital. What can he offer against that? The Siege of Catium. Pah!’