The men crowding around burst into laughter. At last even the fighter grinned. ‘You’re a cocky little game-bird,’ he said.
‘I am indeed. Can I buy you a drink?’
‘Why not?’ replied the man.
Banouin could not duplicate Bane’s easy familiarity with the people they met, and would often find himself sitting alone in a corner, observing. He envied, with just a touch of bitterness, Bane’s ability to make friends. Banouin thought about the river crew. Hard men who would think nothing of killing a passenger and heaving his body over the side had warmed to Bane as if he were a blood relative. It was mystifying. Yet Bane was not always full of camaraderie. Often he would fall silent for long periods, his expression dark and brooding. Sometimes, when in such a mood, he would avoid settlements and the two travellers would go ashore and camp out in woods or hollows. He would talk then of his sadness for the life his mother had led, and how she had been shunned by the folk of Three Streams.
‘Not all of them,’ Banouin pointed out, as they sat in the moonlight beside a small fire. ‘She used to visit my mother. And the Big Man was good to you both.’
‘I don’t remember him,’ said Bane. ‘I was too young when he died. But my mother spoke of him often. She said she was sitting, cradling me, in grandfather’s forge three nights after her husband cast her out. Ruathain came to her there. He asked her if her husband had given me a soul-name. She said that he had not. The Big Man told her that he had been out walking on the night of my birth, and he had seen a falcon flying through the night sky. This was a rare thing, he said, and he felt that it was an omen. Whenever she told me this story my mother’s eyes would fill with tears. She said he put his arm round her and asked if she would accept Midnight Falcon as my soul-name.’ Bane sighed. ‘It was the first act of tenderness she had experienced following my birth. It was said that Ruathain’s wife was furious with him, and demanded he see no more of my mother. He refused, and often visited her, to see how we were faring. I wish I could remember him. He was a great man, by all accounts.’
‘Aye, he was,’ said Banouin. ‘My mother warned him not to go to that last battle. Told him he would die if he did. But he went anyway, to protect Connavar. Mother knew he would. Said it broke her heart.’
‘She was in love with him?’
‘I never asked her. Maybe she was. It’s not something you think about with old people, is it?’
Bane had laughed then, his good humour restored. ‘My grandparents used to make their bed creak most nights.’
‘Oh, that’s disgusting,’ said Banouin. ‘Thank you for putting that image in my mind before I sleep.’
On the day they left the boat to continue their journey overland Banouin had seen genuine regret in the eyes of the crew. They wished Bane good luck on his travels, and made him promise to seek them out when he returned, so they could hear of his adventures. Not one of them bade farewell to Banouin.
The journey south was slower now, as they entered the great Forest of Filair. Settlements were further apart, and the riders had to veer many miles east or west in order to purchase supplies and food. At each stop they enquired as to the location of the next village before moving on. Banouin purchased a pack pony in order to carry more supplies, and Bane traded in his old bronze sword to acquire a leaf-shaped iron blade and a short hunting bow with a quiver of twenty arrows.
It was pouring with rain when the riders reached the forest’s end. The plain of Cogden stretched out before them, flat and empty save for the four huge mounds erected above those fallen in the battle. Banouin shivered when he saw the Barrows. Twenty-eight thousand had died here on that terrible day. He had hoped to arrive at the battlefield much earlier in the day, so that they might ride through it in daylight. But Bane’s horse had thrown a shoe, and they had been forced to detour to a settlement where a blacksmith forged and fitted a new one.