Bane found some more wood close by and banked up the fire. ‘Did you know the ghost?’ he asked.
‘Aye, I knew her.’
‘Was it your wife?’
‘Wife? I never had a wife, boy. I was a soldier for ten years, then a gladiator. No time for wives. Whores, yes. Plenty of those. Good girls, most of them.’
‘Then how do you have a granddaughter?’
Rage lifted the jug and shook it. ‘All gone,’ he said. ‘Full and now empty.’ He chuckled. ‘Like life.’
‘You drank all of that?’ said Bane, worried now, for he had known of men who died after consuming that much uisge.
‘I think I’ll sleep now,’ mumbled Rage. He leaned back and fell from the log. Bane tried to rouse him, but the older man was unconscious. Bane took hold of his arms and tried to heave him upright, so that he could drape him over his shoulder and carry him home. But Rage was a big man, and too heavy to lift as a dead weight. Bane laid him down.
The temperature was below zero, the little fire making no impact on the cold. If he couldn’t get him back, Rage would die out here. Bane swore, then pulled Rage close to the fire, and covered him with his own cloak. He would have to go back to the house and wake Telors. Even as he thought it he knew Rage could die of cold before they returned. He cast around, gathering more fuel for the fire. It was growing colder and Bane shivered and huddled close to the flames.
Suddenly the cold eased away, and Bane felt the warmth of a spring breeze upon his back. A crow fluttered down to stalk around the unconscious Rage. Bane turned slowly.
An old woman, leaning on a staff, came walking from the edge of the trees.
‘Greetings, Rigante,’ she said, her voice muffled by the heavy veil she wore. Sitting down upon the log she stretched out her hand to the fire. Flames leapt up, circling her fingers, then danced upon the palm of her hand. Her fingers closed around the flames, and Bane saw her fist glowing like a lantern. He glanced back the way she had come. There were no footprints in the snow. Fear touched him then. All Rigante knew of the Seidh, the gods of the forest. But of them all the Morrigu was the most feared, and few among the Keltoi tribes ever spoke her name aloud. It was said to bring ill luck.
‘You are the Old Woman of the Forest,’ he said. ‘You came to Banouin at Cogden Field and made the ghosts appear.’
‘I did not make them appear,’ she said. Her veiled head tilted down to look at Rage.
‘He is a good man,’ said Bane. ‘And my friend. Do not seek to harm him.’
‘I have no wish to harm him, child.’ The crow hopped along the ground until it was alongside Rage’s head. Bane drew his knife.
‘If that foul bird pecks at him I shall cut its damned head off,’ he said.
‘How like your father you are,’ she told him. ‘Using anger to drown fear. You sit there, heart hammering, limbs trembling, and yet still you are defiant. Your knife, however, is useless here.’
‘What do you want? I need no gifts from you to torment me and see me die.’
‘Such is the arrogance of man,’ she said. ‘When the Seidh were first formed the world boiled and storms raged across the planet; storms of a ferocity you could not possibly imagine. Molten rock spewed from broken mountains, and the earth trembled and crashed against itself. The Seidh were there, Bane. We have seen the death of stars, and the birth of man. We watched your slug-eating ancestors creep from their caves, and slowly, oh so slowly, begin to learn. And we helped you, inspired you. We lifted you from the mud and showed you the sky, and the stars beyond. We fed your spirit. And so you grew. But your minds are small, and filled with pettiness. You make everything small to match your own lack of understanding. Torment you? See you die? Child, I saw your great-grandfather die, and his great-grandfather. And what torments could I offer that you do not already possess?’