Maeg enjoyed walking alone in the woods, listening to the bird-song and revelling in the solitude. It was here that she found tranquility. Caswallon, despite being the love of her life, was also the cause of great turmoil. His turbulent spirit would never be content with the simple life of a farmer and cattle-breeder. He needed the excitement and the danger that came from raiding the herds of neighbouring clans, stealing into their lands, ghosting past their sentries. One day they would catch and hang him.
You’ll not change him, Maeg, she thought.
Caswallon had been a child of the mountains, born out of wedlock to a flighty maid named Mira who had died soon after childbirth – supposedly of internal bleeding, though clan legend had it that her father poisoned her. She had never divulged the name of her lover. Caswallon had been raised in the house of the Hunt Lord, Padris, as foster-brother to Cambil. The two boys had never become friends.
At seventeen Caswallon left the home of Padris with a dagger, a cloak, and two gold pieces. Everyone had assumed he would become a crofter, eking out a slender existence to the north. Instead he had gone alone to Pallides land and stolen a bull and four cows. From the Haesten he stole six cows, selling three in Ateris. Within a year every out-clan huntsman watched for Caswallon of the Farlain.
Maggrig, the Pallides Hunt Lord, offered two prize bulls to the man who could kill him. Caswallon stole the bulls.
At first his fellow clansmen had been amused by his exploits. But as his wealth grew, so too did the jealousy. The women, Maeg knew, adored Caswallon. The men, quite naturally, detested him. Three years ago, following the death of Padris, Cambil was elected as Hunt Lord and Caswallon’s stock amongst the men plunged to fresh depths. For Cambil despised him, and many were those seeking favour with the new Lord.
This year, Caswallon had even declined to take part in the Games, though as defending champion he could have earned points for the clan. What was worse, he had given as his reason that he wished to stay home with his lady, who had a showing of blood in her pregnancy. He had put her to bed and undertaken the household chores himself- an unmanly action.
Yet, as his stock had fallen with the men, so it climbed in direct proportion with the women.
Now there was the business of the lowland boy, and the almost perverse use of clan law to accommodate the act. How could he invoke Cormoach for such a one? The old law – crafted to allow for the children of a fallen warrior to be adopted by relatives of the hero – had never been invoked to bring a lowlander into the clans.
Cambil had refused to speak publicly against Caswallon, but privately he had voiced his disgust in the Council. Yet Caswallon, as always, was impervious to criticism.
It was the same when he caught two Haesten hunters on Farlain lands. He had thrashed them with his quarterstaff, but he had not cut off their fingers. That and his marriage to Maeg had left the Council furious: a slight, they called it, on every Farlain maiden.
Against their fury Caswallon adopted indifference. And in some quarters this fanned the fury to hatred.
All of this Maeg knew, for there were few secrets among the Farlain, and yet Caswallon never spoke of it. Always he was courteous, even to his enemies, and rarely had anyone in the three valleys seen him lose his temper. This was read by many as a sign of weakness, but among the women, who often display greater insights in these matters, there was no doubt as to Caswallon’s manhood.
If he didn’t maim the hunters, there was a reason that had naught to do with cowardice. And Caswallon’s reasons, whatever they were, were good enough for his friends. Since no answer would justify his actions to those who hated him, Caswallon offered them exactly that – no answer.
It was a matter of sadness for Maeg that the result of the hatred would be the letting of blood and a death feud between Farlain houses. But that was a worry for tomorrow, and there were always more pressing problems of today to concern the women of the mountains.