3 Arrowshot
Just ahead of me, Yarrow walked beside Brightsong the rest of the way to the banquet hall, my brother’s hand continuing to rest lightly on my son’s shoulder. At the door, he squeezed Brightsong’s arm gently. "We'll have more time to talk at home," I heard him say. I could feel Brightsong’s flustered excitement. He’s adored my brother since he was old enough to walk; and Yarrow has not only loved the boy but been in love with him since the summer before he went up country. I’ve seen their bond grow all the stronger over the last years for the briefness of their reunions when Yarrow has come down from the hills. It was clear to me since before Yarrow himself took Refuge that Brightsong would almost certainly go up country in his turn.
The din in the banquet hall swelled as the whole town poured in. I saw Yarrow take Brightsong by the hand to lead him toward our places at a table near the far side, threading his way among families gathered around their sons, and young men and women mooning over one another at the prospect of First Beddings soon to come. Bloodroot already sat next to Rush, in the seat assigned him with our family now that their Bedding had been arranged. Next to Bloodroot in turn sat my wife Bracken.
Yarrow parted from my son to find his place among his fellow Refugetakers, the brothers whose kinship had replaced the blood ties he’d left behind. In their midst sat Firesong as eldest among them, flanked by the others in order of their Refugetaking. As Yarrow settled in his seat, I saw Yellowwood lean to whisper in his ear, and the two of them breaking into grins.
I moved through the hall receiving the congratulations of neighbours and took the seat waiting for me between Bracken and Brightsong. She took my hand and leaned toward me. “You must be as exhausted as I was yesterday,” she said.
“It’s not as long as whatever you all get up to in the Roundhouse,” I said. “But I’m ready for a good night’s rest.”
“If either of us will be able to sleep for the noise in the street,” she said. “Last year it was nearly cockcrow before everyone settled down.”
“It’s fewer new men this year,” I said.
“Don’t be too hopeful,” she answered. “ It’s the women teasing each other that will wake us past midnight.”
The servers came around with loaves and the first steaming bowls. She smiled and leaned in closer. “Next week won’t be much better, with Rush and Bloodroot likely awake till dawn in the next room.”
“It’s sweet to see them so excited about each other,” I said. “There are worse ways to be kept awake. Do you suppose they’ll stay so devoted?”
“I hope so,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather she was with. And they’ll make beautiful children, if they get that far. As beautful as the ones we made,” she smiled.
“Are you sorry they’re grown so soon?” I asked.
“Gods, no,” she laughed. “I’m ready for life without watching over them. As for Brightsong,” she went on, leaning in yet closer to keep him from hearing where he sat to my right, “if there were any doubts before today, seeing him with Yarrow ended them.”
I felt a rush of warmth in my heart, and a stirring in my loins, at the thought of the love we’d seen budding for years between my son and my brother.
“Will you take him up country with you at Full Moon?” Bracken asked, mischief in her eyes.
“Gladly, if he wants,” I said.
“He’s his father’s son. Of course he’ll want to,” she grinned.
I grinned back. Not every man is blessed to have a wife who feels so little jealousy over his trips up country. In the nineteen years since our First Bedding, she’s never made a fuss about Full Moon. She’s kept the house and watched the children on her own without complaint--just as I’ve done when she’s gone up country to Women’s Haven at New Moon--not as often, but when Shekinah and Rhiannon have called to her. The love we felt for one another from the start has thrived for how lightly and open-handedly we’ve held it. Forbidden though it is to tell her any more about what happens at the Refuge than she can tell me about Women’s Haven, the hints we drop to each other have become a game that excites us both when the fire between us needs fuel.
She glanced across to the tables of the Refugetakers. “Firesong looks frail,” she said.
“You notice it more for not seeing him since he came down last year,” I said. “I’ve seen it month to month. But yes. This may be his last visit. He’s said as much.”
“He’s the last of my grandmother’s generation,” she said. “Saying goodbye tomorrow will be hard.”
“It probably doesn’t help much to tell you how happy he is. And what good care Ashroot takes of him.”
“It does, and doesn’t,” she said. “You know he taught me to climb trees? I adored him almost the way Brightsong adores Yarrow.”
“You’re still the first in town he comes to greet when he’s arrived,” I said. “And the first he asks after when I see him at Full Moon.”
“Sometimes I wonder why we can’t all just be together, all the time,” she said.
“Think about what it would be like, after a few months or years,” I said. “Think about how our own lives would have been different. Maybe like the story of the Six repeating itself.”
She sighed, brushed my cheek with a kiss, and turned to Rush and Bloodroot as they sat giggling together, and beginning to tease them about it.
As she turned, I felt Brightsong’s hand on my arm. My beautiful son. And, I was sure, a son of the Staghorn Lord, waiting to be twice-born. “I want to go up with you this month,” he said.
“I imagined you would,” I said and then hesitated a moment. “And I know how happy Yarrow will be to see you again so soon.”
“I think I’m the only one this year who will,” he said, and blushed.
“I’m willing to wager others will find their way up country eventually. At least once or twice.” I paused and then went on. The lad seemed to need the encouragement. “Every man goes when he hears the call, if he hears the call. Some never hear it. I’ve gone every Full Moon since before your were born, save just before you came and the three months after.”
He looked across the hall. “Yarrow heard it early, and strong,” I went on. “As did your grandfather.”
It was time for him to hear. “Do your know your grandfather lived in Refuge for two years before Killian and Rashni called him back down across the river?”
The surprise in his face gave way to a broad smile.
I longed to protect him from the heartache he was likely bound for, learning what he had no way yet to know of the life up country. I couldn’t predict what he might feel when he saw for himself but could imagine pain and confusion, seeing the longing in his eyes as he gazed across the room toward Yarrow. But no way to avert it. It sent some men back down country, as eventually it had my father. “It’s in our line, Brightsong,” I said. “It’s your inheritance.”
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