And the legend grew.
Between campaigns Druss would return to his farm, but always he would listen for the siren call to battle and Rowena would bid him farewell as he set off, time and again, to fight, what he assured her, would be his last battle.
Faithful Pudri remained at Rowena’s side. Sieban continued to scandalise Drenai society and his travels with Druss were usually undertaken to escape the vengeance of outraged husbands.
In the east the Ventrian Emperor, Gorben, having conquered all his enemies, turned his attention to the fiercely independent Drenai.
Druss was forty five, and once more had promised Rowena there would be no more journeying to distant wars.
What he could not know was, this time, the war was coming to him.
The Battle of Skeln Pass
Druss sat in the sunshine, watching the clouds glide slowly across the mountains, and thought of his life. Love and friendship had been with him always, the first with Rowena, the latter with Sieben, Eskodas and Bodasen. But the greater part of his forty-five years had been filled with blood and death, the screams of the wounded and dying.
He sighed. A man ought to leave more behind him than corpses, he decided. The clouds thickened, the land falling into shadow, the grass of the hillside no longer gleaming with life, the flowers ceasing to blaze with colour. He shivered. It was going to rain. The soft, dull, arthritic ache had begun in his shoulder. ‘Getting old,’ he said.
‘Who are you talking to, my love?’ He turned and grinned. Rowena seated herself beside him on the wooden bench, slipping her arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. His huge hand stroked her hair, noting the grey at the temples.
‘I was talking to myself. It’s something that happens when you get old.’
She stared up into his grizzled face and smiled. ‘You’ll never get old. You’re the strongest man in the world.’
‘Once, princess. Once.’
‘Nonsense. You hefted that barrel of sand at the village fair right over your head. No one else could do that.’
‘That only makes me the strongest man in the village.’
Pulling away from him, Rowena shook her head, but her expression, as always, was gentle. ‘You miss the wars and the battles?’
‘No. I. . . I am happy here. With you. You give my soul peace.’
‘Then what is troubling you?’
‘The clouds. They move in front of the sun. They cast shadows. Then they are gone. Am I like that, Rowena? Will I leave nothing behind me?’
‘What would you wish to leave?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered, looking away.
‘You would have liked a son,’ she said, softly. ‘As would I. But it was not to be. Do you blame me for it?’
‘No! No! Never.’ His arms swept around her, drawing her to him. ‘I love you. I always have. I always will. You are my wife!’
‘I would have liked to have given you a son,’ she whispered.
‘I does not matter.’.
They sat in silence until the clouds darkened and the first drops of rain began to fall.
Druss stood, lifting Rowena into his arms, and began the long walk to the stone house. ‘Put me down,’ she commanded. ‘You’ll hurt your back.’
‘Nonsense. You are as light as a sparrow wing. And am I not the strongest man in the world?’
A fire was blazing in the hearth, and their Ventrian servant, Pudri, was preparing mulled wine for them. Druss lowered Rowena into a broad-backed leather armchair.
‘Your face is red with the effort,’ she chided him.
He smiled and did not argue. His shoulder was hurting, his lower back aching like the devil. The slender Pudri grinned at them both.
‘Such children you are,’ he said, and shuffled away into the kitchen.
‘He’s right,’ said Druss. ‘With you I am still the boy from the farm, standing below the Great Oak with the most beautiful woman in the Drenai lands.’
‘I was never beautiful,’ Rowena told him, ‘but it pleased me to hear you say it.’
‘You were – and are,’ he assured her.
The firelight sent dancing shadows on to the walls of the room as the light outside began to fail. Rowena fell asleep and Druss sat silently watching her. Four times in the last three years she had collapsed, the surgeons warning Druss of a weakness in her heart. The old warrior had listened to them without comment, his ice-blue eyes showing no expression. But within him a terrible fear had begun to grow. He had forsaken his battles and settled down to life in the mountains, believing that his presence nearby would hold Rowena to life.