Cleon woke to find himself lying on a sturdy table. Soft beams of the low morning sun spilled in by a single small window cut through the sod wall. A maiden tended to him, her braided hair was dark as midnight silk, her eyes gleamed with the umber hue of polished garnet. She cleansed his wound which he felt was tightly stitched.
“Thy wound is broad yet not mortal,” came a rough voice from the shadows.
“Where am I?” Cleon asked.
“This hamlet is called Canut,” replied the voice. “Thou didst sleep all night, even while ‘Marah, here, sewed thy flesh.”
Cleon strained to sit, and from the dimness emerged an elder man with a weathered face and a beard streaked in gray. His eyes were like ice on the winter sea.
“And who art thou?” Cleon asked.
“Who art thou?” the man answered.
“A warden,” Cleon said, offering nothing more.
The elder snorted. “You have the face of a brigand and I’d have taken you for one but for your mail and your gold brooch and your rings.” Cleon then knew the watchman guessed his station, and so he held his tongue. “Fear not, Gruen-rider,” the elder said. “We are not disloyal to Methundor in these parts.”
Cleon groaned as he shifted. “We were set upon by a host of rogues and bandits,” he said. “More than a hundred of them.”
“Aye, and we have suffered pillage by those same dogs,” spake the elder. “Thus have we raised those ramparts thou sawest outside.”
“Might I seek shelter within thy walls till my riders return?” Cleon asked, his tone weary.
“That depends,” answered the watchman, stepping fully into the light. “I might wonder what ye be worth to them.”
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Amarah flinched at the words while Cleon’s gaze locked with the elder’s, each measuring the other. Then the elder’s sternness softened into a grin.
“Heal thyself, Gruen-rider. Thou art safe here with us,” he said at last, before turning and leaving the hutch.
Cleon laid back on the table and turned his eyes to the maiden who was tending him. Her visage passed through the golden beam channeled by the portal and he found himself entranced by her visage.
“Thou art neither of this clan nor of this country,” Cleon murmured.
“I am not,” she answered.
“Thou hast the look of Aeonite blood,” he added, but she did not reply.
In the days that followed, Cleon felt the pain in his side soften, though each step still throbbed like a smith’s hammer striking iron. At every dawn he rose and walked among the sod huts and pine ramparts of Canut, his cloak trailing in the mud, building strength while the brook’s cold foam whispered around his boots. The villagers averted their eyes as he passed them, offering only curt nods or muttered breaths. Each afternoon, when Sol’s warmth had waned, he would watch as the grazing beasts were driven within the timber walls and shut fast in their pens. The women gathered their children and prepared their evening meals at twilight, while the men hoisted their mugs, their laughter clattering through the chill air.
Yet Cleon lingered each evening by the hearth where Amarah sat spinning wool— her fingers deftly weaving threads of ash and silver, the unfamiliar loom beside her humming like a placid, otherworldly song. Transfixed by her art that he could not name, he watched the soft rhythm of her hands and the quiet rise and fall of her breath. For an instant, as the fire’s glow flickered between them, it seemed their very spirits touched.
Yet the calm of village life weighed upon him like mourning shrouds: his riders feared slain, his expedition shattered by knaves, the crown of Methundor resting heavy upon his soul. Though fed, and sheltered, and tended, his heart was still astride wind-lashed ridges where ambition and wildness beckoned. He knew he must return to Gruen to restore his might, yet he lacked the will to depart.
Thus Cleon tarried in Canut, healing and waiting for any surviving rider who might bring his ransom, yet none came. He walked many days with Amarah and lent hand to her toils. He learned she had no husband nor child, though she was of years fit to bear sons of age who would hunt and daughters who would weave. She suggested the superstitions held by the Canut men kept them distant from her, as though sensing something unearthly in her essence.
At length, in the stillness of one moonless night, Amarah came to him bearing a flickering lamp. She set it softly upon the sill, and in its amber glow her skin shone pale and warm as woven silk. She loosed her braids, letting them fall like dark rivers down her breasts. Then she slipped from her gown and came to his bed. Their forms entwined in silent union, sharing warmth beneath the thatched roof while the wolves howled beyond the village walls.
