'Oh no, not that again.'
Banouin ignored the protest. 'I often wonder if he might have changed as he grew older. He was very young, and the death of his father blinded him with hate.'
'You think too much,' Bane told him. 'You always have. He was a brute, and he died because he was a brute. End of story, my friend. What he might have been is irrelevant. He's dead and gone.'
'Perhaps he isn't gone,' said Banouin. He told Bane of the ghostly battle, and the arrival of the Morrigu. His friend listened in silence.
'Are you sure you didn't dream this?' he asked, as Banouin concluded his tale.
'I am sure.'
'And Valanus thought you were the ghost?'
'Yes.'
'So why did the Old Woman appear to you? What did she want?'
'I don't know, Bane. But the whole scene was so irredeemably sad. To spend eternity endlessly reliving scenes of carnage and death. Valanus still believes he can win the battle.'
'Well, there is nothing you can do about it. So let's concentrate on more important matters. I am hungry, and I need a woman.' With that Bane swung his horse and rode off towards the highest hill, to scan the countryside for signs of a settlement or village. Banouin watched him go, and wondered if his friend truly had no feelings for the tormented spirits of Cogden Field.
An hour later Bane rejoined him.
'There is a large, stockaded town around five miles to the southwest. Maybe two hundred dwellings, with two long halls.' Banouin nodded, but did not reply. Bane leaned across and thumped his friend on the shoulder. 'You are a strange one,' he said. 'When will you learn?'
'There is much for me to learn,' agreed Banouin, 'but what exactly do you think I need to learn the most?'
'To live! To understand what it means.' Bane halted his horse. 'Look around you, at the hills and the trees. See the way the sunlight dapples the oaks. Feel the breeze upon your face. This is life, Banouin. Last night, and the ghost army, is but a memory now. Tomorrow is yet to be born. Life is now! This very moment. But you never live in the now. You are always thinking back over some past tragedy, or looking ahead to some distant dream. Is Forvar still haunting the hillside? Will the ghosts of Cogden ever find peace? Will the city of Stone fulfil all my dreams? Why is the sun hot? Why is water wet? It is no way to spend one's life.'
Banouin shook his head, and felt his anger rise. 'Better that than to ride around the countryside looking for earth maidens to rut with, to get drunk and fight with strangers; to be a windblown leaf skittering across the countryside.'
'You think so?' asked Bane, with a smile. His expression grew suddenly more serious. 'We are all leaves, my friend. Against the mountains and the sea we are as fleeting as heartbeats. Nothing we build lasts. To the north of Old Oaks there is a buried city. I have been there. A farmer unearthed the remains of a great wall. There are blocks of stone weighing fifty, sixty tons, all laid one atop the other. Further on, in a sheltered valley, they found the head of a colossal statue. The nose alone was longer than a broadsword. What great man must this have been? A king perhaps. No-one knows his name, nor the name of his city. Perhaps he still walks the hills. Perhaps he and Forvar have become great friends.' Bane sighed. 'Ah, Banouin, you are a sweet and gentle soul. But, in an hour or two, while you are sitting somewhere pondering all the unfairness of life, I shall be naked with a soft and yielding woman.'
With that Bane heeled his horse forward. Banouin rode after him. 'Tell me about the statue they found,' he said.
Bane sighed. 'You didn't really hear a word I said, did you?'
'Of course. But tell me about the buried city.'
'Connavar ordered the wall excavated, but it was too large and too long. They think it extends for miles. According to Brother Solstice the men still working at the site are seeking treasure now. The Demon King needs gold to purchase weapons for his armies, and he hopes burial mounds will supply it.'
'I wonder how they raised blocks of such size? And why?' said Banouin.
That does it!' said Bane suddenly. 'You're off in the past again – so I'll see you in the near future.'
He galloped off towards the south-west and the stockaded town.
As with many Keltoi settlements the town of Sighing Water bore no sense of overall design or planning. The original Norvii settlement of some twenty homes had been built close to a stream that flowed from the hills, cascading over a series of white rocks and down to a pear-shaped lake. Positioned as it was less than twelve miles from the eastern coast and close to a river leading to a wide estuary it soon became a place of commerce. Timber was plentiful, the surrounding land rich and verdant, and soon the town began to grow. With the lowlands ideal for corn, the higher ground for cattle, sheep and goats, Sighing Water thrived. More and more houses were built. When iron ore and coal deposits were found less than two miles away the settlement swelled even further.
Now some three thousand people dwelt within the stockaded town, with more than four thousand more in the surrounding countryside. There were warehouses, shops, stalls, forges, clothing makers, leatherworkers, jewellers, and merchants of every kind. There were mills, tanneries, wagon makers, horse breeders, and a host of allied trades, including a fleet of horse-drawn barges to ferry goods to the coast.
At seventeen Bane had never seen such a sprawling town. He had thought Old Oaks large, but there were twice as many people here, and as he rode in through the open gates he felt uncomfortable, as if the sheer weight of multitudes was closing in on him. Pushing such thoughts aside he located a hostler and left his grey in the man's care, asking that the beast be rubbed down and grain-fed.
The hostler, a middle-aged, round-shouldered man, asked if he planned to sell the gelding. Bane told him no.
'You could get a fine sum, boy. He's powerful and keen of eye. Is he fast?'
'He likes to run,' said Bane. 'Tell me, where is the best earth maiden?'
'The best what?' queried the man.
The response surprised the youngster. 'Earth maiden,' he said more slowly, wondering if his Rigante accent had confused the man.
'I do not know the term, boy.'
'Young women who offer… company to a man.'
'Ah, whores you mean? Aye, there are plenty of those. But it is the week's end, and the coal and iron workers are here in force. You'll be lucky to find a whore who hasn't already got her legs locked around a man's hips. You'll have no luck in the taverns, I'll tell you that for free. You could try the northern quarter. The expensive ones are up there.'
'Expensive?'
'Ten silver pieces for an hour's pleasure, so they say. And a single night costs a gold.'
'I'll try the taverns. I need a bed for the night anyway.'
'Avoid the Green Ghost,' warned the man. 'It's a place of trouble and violence. The Swallow is a good tavern, and they give a man a fine breakfast.'
Bane thanked him, and asked directions. As he was doing so Banouin came riding up.
A short time later the two men were strolling through a packed marketplace, and heading up a wending hill path towards a group of buildings set round an open square. The first of the buildings, the Green Ghost tavern, was large, around a hundred feet long, with two storeys under a thatched roof. Several men were sitting in the fading sunshine outside, nursing pottery jugs of ale. They looked up as the newcomers approached.
'Just what we needed, now the women have run out,' said one, a sour-faced individual, his face seamed with dark coal scars. 'Two pretty boys fresh from the farm.'
Bane paused and laughed. 'Look, Banouin,' he said brightly. 'There's a sight you don't see very often – a man who can fart through his mouth.' He crouched down in front of the miner, and dipped his finger into the man's ale. Then he licked it. 'Good ale,' he said. The man's eyes opened wide. Bane laughed at him, then rose smoothly and moved inside the tavern. There were some thirty long bench tables, most of them filled by burly men, spooning stew or drinking ale.