Chapter 2
The blade of Gareth’s wooden practice sword smacked against Urich’s knuckles and the man let out a sharp cry, dropping his weapon.
“Here, now! Have a care!”
Gareth laughed. “We’re meant tae be tryin’ tae hurt and disarm each other, ye bloody fool! Or did ye think we were practicin’ at dance?”
Urich picked up his sword again sullenly. “Even so, I shall not be able tae continue if ye break my damned fingers!”
“Then perhaps ye ought tae pay attention tae what ye’re doin’,” Gareth suggested wryly, taking up his stance once more and waiting for his half-brother to do likewise.
“Keep yer mind on the task at hand instead of allowin’ it tae wander wherever it has been fer the past hour…
as it has clearly not been here with me! ”
Urich barely took a stance at all before lunging toward Gareth again, swinging and slashing at him with unrelenting savagery, but, alas, with a complete lack of grace or precision, which Gareth was more than happy to turn to his advantage.
Gareth blocked the first three swings easily, then sidestepped the fourth. Urich overextended with his thrust, and Gareth gave him a smack across the backside with the flat of the wooden sword, sending him facedown on the ground. Urich promptly unleashed a string of bitter oaths and curses.
“Would ye care tae beg off and try again some other day?” Gareth asked pleasantly.
“Nay, I shall not stop until I see ye unarmed and on the ground,” Urich grunted, hauling himself up and dusting off his tunic.
“Then I fear we shall be at this until next summer.”
Urich leaped at him, swinging the practice sword at Gareth’s head.
Gareth blocked it, but this time it was quite a bit harder.
Urich’s fury was giving him added strength, and worse, he was obviously beginning to remember his own skills.
Urich feinted right, then swung the sword expertly and attacked from the left instead.
Gareth barely avoided being struck in the side, and when he responded with a thrust, it was parried neatly.
“If ye refuse tae admit defeat,” Gareth said, “then ye might at least tell me what vexes ye so grievously. Is it the news of our father’s illness?”
“Yer father’s illness,” Urich panted, launching another relentless assault. “Nae mine.”
“Oh, come now, don’t be so pigheaded!” Gareth protested, ducking the first swing of Urich’s sword and blocking the second. “He is yer father as well.”
“He has not denied me openly, so there’s that,” Urich growled, chopping down at Gareth’s legs. “But had he controlled himself a bit better with my mother, I might not have been born a bastard and condemned tae hear the whole clan whisper the word behind my back every time I pass.”
Gareth narrowly avoided the wooden blade, but he continued to defend himself without taking the offensive, hoping that in doing so, he might give Urich a better chance to exorcize the demons which currently had him in their grasp.
“Even so, he has told ye that ye are welcome tae live at the keep with the rest of us.”
Urich laughed darkly, pressing his advantage. “Aye. Nae so much a son tae him as a pet given shelter and scraps. I am fine out here on my own, thank ye very much.”
Gareth glanced at the small hut Urich had long since made his home, out at the edge of the clan’s territory.
It was a meager and depressing place, and Gareth sometimes wondered whether perhaps Urich preferred it that way—as though it was some external symbol of how much he loathed himself and his life and how little he felt he ultimately deserved.
He hunted his own food and grew a few scraggly crops in a small garden out back.
He still required certain supplies from the nearest village on a regular basis, and so he was exposed to the gossip of those townsfolk—though, Gareth suspected, not nearly as much as he imagined.
“You would be treated as an equal, Urich, as I’ve told ye many times before,” Gareth protested, avoiding another swing from the wooden sword.
“Outwardly, perhaps, but it would be a fraud nonetheless!” Urich snapped, aiming his next blow at Gareth’s head.
“Do ye think I don’t notice the look in the old man’s eyes when I am before him?
He is polite enough, aye, but he still regards me as little more than a mistake.
I am his livin’ regret, his own weakness made flesh!
Nay, I should sooner endure the elements out here.
At least the animals of the forest do not look at me with such scorn! Now fight back, damn ye!”
Gareth ducked under the swing at his head and planted the tip of his sword directly in the center of Urich’s chest.
“If ye insist, Brother.”
Urich howled with rage, throwing his own sword as far as he could.
“We both ken that ye are a more skilled swordsman than I, Urich,” Gareth said. “It is yer temper alone that keeps ye from victory. Control it, and ye would no doubt prevail against me almost every time.”
Urich stood, breathing heavily, for several moments. At last, he inquired, “How grave is his illness?”
Gareth sighed heavily. “Graver, I believe, than he dares tae let on. He claims that he will recover, but I have spoken privately with the healers, and they are not nearly so certain. In fact, the chief among them fears the worst.”
Urich looked him squarely in the eye and replied, “Good.”
Gareth was about to protest and say that he was sure his half brother couldn’t truly mean such a thing, that it was merely his temper getting the best of him once more, but before he could, he heard a horse approaching. When he turned to look, he saw his twin sister Elysa riding toward him.
“Is something amiss?” Gareth asked.
She nodded. “You are needed tae settle a dispute nearby! Father would do it, but…”
“Nay, nay, there’s no need tae trouble him unnecessarily.” Gareth turned to Urich. “Would ye care tae come along, then? Perhaps ye might be able tae lend a hand with whatever is transpirin’.”
Urich shook his head. “How could I assist? Ye are the rightful son of the laird, nae I. It is yer voice which carries weight in such matters.”
Gareth resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his half-brother’s stubbornness. He mounted his own horse and rode off, letting Elysa lead the way.
“Was he in his usual foul temper?” she asked.
“Aye,” Gareth answered wearily. “There’s never any shakin’ him from it.
If anything, his resentment seems tae burrow within him more deeply with each passin’ year.
How can I convince him that his disgrace exists largely in his own mind?
That our father would welcome his presence at the keep rather than frettin’ over him livin’ in that dilapidated mess? ”
Elysa shrugged. “Ye might as well ask me how tae catch the moon in a bucket, fer I have nay answer tae either. Urich will do as he pleases, as ever. Do ye feel that these visits help a little, at least?”
“I wish I knew,” Gareth fretted. “I cannot stop myself from checkin’ on him regularly, even though it galls me considerably tae hear him speak ill of our father. Nevertheless, I do not dare dispute him on those points fer fear of invokin’ his ire all the more.”
“Perhaps things with him might become a bit easier once…”
She didn’t need to complete her thought aloud for Gareth to know what she referred to. Neither of them liked to imagine their father’s death, but in recent days it had weighed heavily on their minds due to his sudden ill health. In that event, Gareth would be expected to lead the clan.
But am I ready for that? he worried inwardly. The task feels so impossibly large tae me, so dauntin’, even though our father has been preparin’ me fer it all my life. What if I am not up tae the task? What if I fail tae be the leader he was, and shame myself in the eyes of my clansmen?
The thought of his younger brother lying dead in the graveyard came to him unbidden, and he shuddered.
“Urich thinks that our father looks at him with disdain. Has he not seen the disappointment in the old man’s eyes when he looks at me? Ever since what happened tae Alex—”
“That was not yer fault,” she cut in sharply. “Ye imagine our father’s grief still clouds his view of ye, just as Urich imagines our father’s guilt still colors his view of him. The pair of ye are far more alike, I think, than either of ye would care tae admit.”
“You may be right about that,” Gareth conceded ruefully. “Is it much farther ahead? What sort of dispute am I meant tae resolve, anyway?”
“Nae much farther, nay.” She appeared to ignore the second part of his query.
At last, they reached the border between two farms, where the men who owned them stood in heated debate. Indeed, they appeared so full of wrath that they might come to blows at any moment.
“Calm yerselves, both of ye!” Gareth dismounted and strode over to them briskly. “What seems tae be the trouble here?”
The first farmer pointed at the other angrily. “This bloody scoundrel stole one of my goats last night! Broke into my paddock and made off with it, he did, bold as brass!”
“I did nay such damned thing!” the other retorted hotly. “There was a storm last night, and I’d wager yer goat was scared and took off on its own!”
“Oh, and broke the paddock gate into the bargain, did he?” the first sneered. “Was the creature suddenly imbued with the strength of the devil? Or do ye merely think me a fool tae make yer lies so senseless?”
“Ye are a fool if ye think I went out into that wind and rain tae steal one of yer proxy goats! I did not leave my house all night, and if ye doubt that I didn’t take the animal, I’ve told ye that ye’re welcome tae inspect my farm!”
“Ye’d like that, wouldn’t ye?” his detractor challenged. “Fer me tae tromp around in the mud makin’ an idiot of myself, while ye laugh all the while, knowin’ ye’ve hidden the beast elsewhere!”
Gareth gave Elysa a baleful look. “This is what ye summoned me here fer?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Even such small matters are tae be decided by the laird of the clan. Ye must grow accustomed tae dealin’ with such things if ye are tae lead someday soon, wouldn’t ye agree?”
So Gareth sighed and listened to both parties, and in the end, he was able to convince the first farmer that the second had not stolen the goat—as the evidence of the damaged gate confirmed that it had been broken from the inside, not the outside, showing that the goat had indeed managed its own escape.
Gareth promised to replace the lost animal in order to calm the farmer down and then rode back to the keep with Elysa.
“Well done,” she said with a smirk. “Ye’ll make a fine laird yet.”
Gareth wished he could be as sure of that as she seemed to be.