The village was tucked in the sunny morning side of a mountain, tall cliffs rising above it. A narrow trail continued uphill, across a steep gorge, river rushing far below. Weyland paused at the edge of the narrow rope bridge crossing it, his heart thumping hard in his chest as he looked down. Cormoran came up beside him and looked down into the cleft himself. “I think we’ll want a better bridge. Man or giant, falling off that bit of string and sticks would likely kill.”
“Are you a good enough stonemason to keep us alive, building it?” Weyland asked, tucking his hands in his belt.
“Better than just us alive, I’m good enough to keep the wives and girls safe, crossing it. Grahme wants to build up there,” he pointed to the cliff above, a narrow deer track winding up the rocky slope, “a bridge will be good to keep the lasses safe when they go up the mountain to court him.”
“Really? Why would they do that?” Weyland looked over his shoulder at the youth who was building their fire. Like his brother, he was tall and broad, cheerful in teasing Avril as she brought him yet another stick from the underbrush. He exchanged the stick for a bit of smoked meat.
“Oh, you’ll see. They flock to him like little birds, and the little birds like him a lot, too. There’s a sort of bird, smaller than a hen, about the size of a starling, that will come back to him every time, no matter how far away he sends them. He’s got a way with birds, and girls, and wounded things. I can’t think of a better set of circumstances for courting.” Cormoran looked towards his brother, also. “That can’t be all bad, surely,” he grinned, turning back to consider the bridge again.
The village itself was nothing more than a cluster of houses across the road, three farmers and their families. There was a workshop, but no proper smithy, and the farmers shared the cowshed. Avril and the mare peered into the shed, watching one of the boys shovel manure. The dog looked up at the mare, and touched noses with her. The mare blew at her friend and turned back down the path, pausing to nibble at Weyland’s sleeve as she made her way towards the lowlands. Weyland watched her leave with a pang and a longing to wander with her, free of other folk. Grahme called him away from his thoughts, and the three men conferred with the farmers about what sort of building needed to be done.
By the time the workshop was expanded into a smithy, and a proper stable built beside it, two more families had come up the mountain to join the small group. They didn’t seem to fear the giants, and indeed, the wives and daughters seemed a bit intimidated by Cormoran, and quite fond of Grahme. Weyland was respected, but kept himself aloof from the people, guilt chasing his dreams of blood and death, frequently leaving the village altogether for a few days to walk the countryside. Sometimes the faces in his nightmares were strangers, but others, the faces of the farmers and their families were the ones under the teeth and claws of the beast.
When he worked with the villagers alongside the giants, the work went faster and smoother. Cormoran could break up boulders fast and clean, almost as if he were coaxing the granite blocks from the quarry. Weyland stood watch as the giant called the bones of the earth out of the walls of the gorge to meet in the middle, a stout bridge wide enough to drive a horse-cart across. Walking back to the growing village, Weyland found a place where the river rose close to the surface, uphill of the village, and they made plans to sink a well.
“How did you find the spot?” Grahme asked, holding a horse’s halter while Weyland pried its poorly made shoe off of a hind foot.
“Sometimes, the earth just speaks. You can find water in the earth, and metal in water, and stranger things as well, if only you know what to listen for.”
“You sound like my brother,” Grahme said suddenly.
“That’s not the worst that’s been said of me,” Weyland tossed the shoe into a bucket of scrap.
The next morning, Cormoran stepped across the bridge with a cheerful wave and climbed the deer path, disappearing for three days. When he returned, it was with an ugly mule, pulling a sledge piled high with granite. “Grahme, go look and see. It’s round, like you asked, but you get to roof it and put in the fittings.”
“What is it?” Weyland asked, the memory of slate roof-tiles rough against his hands.
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Cormoran laughed, watching his brother lope towards the bridge and the steep trail up the mountain beyond. “He’s been after me since he was as tall as you, to build him a proper tower, where he can write letters and send them out with his birds, and a garden full of flowers and sun-loving herbs. So I made him the tower, and he gets to do the rest.”
Weyland turned his eyes from the younger giant back to Cormoran. “Let’s build your cottage, then, so you can be ready for your own lady-love.” The giant smiled like sunlight breaking through clouds, thumping the cranky mule on the side.
“It will have the best hearth, and an herb garden with a stone wall, for shade-loving herbs and a few vegetables.” Cormoran continued on, waxing poetic about windows and a loft and the love that would fill the large, one-roomed cottage.
Weyland paused to think a moment, witnessing the brothers in their excitement and daydreams, grown men anticipating goodness. He tried on those thoughts. He thought that perhaps, some time later, he might find a place to build his own cottage, and that perhaps, some time later, a grey eye’d girl might find him again. The thought chased away the darkness for a moment, and as they left the village, he met the brown eyes of the miller’s son easily, without seeing blood or broken limbs. Weyland smiled slightly before taking his axe and fading into the forest in search of the warm woods that would be the frame and walls of the cottage, Avril flushing out small game and generally acting like she’d never been on a hunt before.
There were shadows in the wood that day, and he went about the process of finding trees fit for building, whispering to the trees as he went, talking to the ones who seemed to be healthiest, and the ones who seemed concerned about beetles, or fire, or storms. He found the tracks of bear, and foxes, and a few boar, along with birds and rabbits and voles.
He also found sign of other people in the forest. A tangle of vines and beanstalks grew at the base of Grahme’s precipice, the footprints of a single person attesting to regular visits from whoever tended them. They were fragilie things, and Weyland whispered strength to them, that they survive and nourish the unknown person, that perhaps that person find a safe home. Avril was unimpressed.
At midday, in the moment when the sun was at its zenith, the hound froze, alerting him. A stag with an immense spreading crown watched Weyland carefully as he moved through the beech, oak and ash, before walking away in graceful dignity. Weyland was overwhelmed with patchwork emotion, but knew beyond anything that he envied the stag his solitude.
He marked the trees they would use for the houses and Cormoran’s cottage, and brought back a clutch of eggs from the nest of a ground bird. When he returned, half of the village was coming back down across the hill, the men weary and the women flushed with excitement. Seeing them all together, twelve families, Weyland stepped off the wide path, steadying himself with a hand against an oak, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. The ghosts of dozens of families he’d known in the time before crowded around him, keening with terror and pain, dressed in shredded clothing. He closed his eyes against it all, trembling. Avril pressed her body against his legs, peering up at his face and licking his free hand. Cormoran and Grahme followed the villagers, and they paused for a moment with him.
“I can’t live here,” Weyland finally said, gathering the dapples of sunlight and leafshade around him for comfort. The brothers exchanged a glance.
“There’s a use for a man who can travel between villages, doing odd jobs and work, perhaps selling firewood or shoeing horses for places that don’t have a smith of their own,” Cormoran said. “There’s some places where a wise woman used to travel from place to place, healing or helping. That was long ago, but maybe you could make your way doing something akin to that? And then you wouldn’t have to stay away, even if you can’t live here.”
“You don’t understand,” Weyland clenched his jaw. “The things I did, the dreams,” he stopped, and turned abruptly to vomit off the path.
“Maybe you’re right,” Grahme said gently, silencing his brother with a glance. “You’ve left an incredible mark here, done a great deal of good. My oh so sentimental big brother is right, though. You will always be welcome here.”
“Let's make sure you have what you need, though,” Cormoran pressed. “Perhaps a pony, for your packs. Stay at least til morning, and travel with the full day ahead of you.” Weyland nodded, finally, restless.
The following morning, before daybreak, Weyland met the brothers at the smithy. He pulled the harp from his pack and gave it to Cormoran. “For your lady love, when she comes finally.” He pulled a leather-wrapped bundle from a basket under the workbench, and handed it to Grahme. Opened, Grahme reverently lifted out woodworking knives of different sizes. “Make toys, and bowls and spoons, maybe. You do good carpentry, the finer things will keep you busy when winter sets in and you’re stuck in your tower.”
They heard hooves on the path, and the mare strolled up to the smithy casually, rubbing her face against Weyland’s chest. Avril danced silently around them all, excited to see her friend. Weyland brushed wetness from his cheeks, leaning into the mare’s midnight mane.
Cormoran cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “Where will you go?”
Weyland straightened, pulling a halter out of his pack and gently fastening it around her head. “I’m going to retrace my steps a bit. I’ll come back. It may be a while, but I’ll come back.” He leapt up to her back with neither saddle nor rein, and Avril jumped up behind him.