As they neared home Malcolm’s brother fell silent for a while. For the sake of the smile on his lips Malcolm let him be, though their time together was dwindling like the daylight.
His brother and father were leaving at dawn, and already the sun was below the tops of the trees. The low-hanging, hazy smoke of the charcoal pits veiled its burning face, and Malcolm could stare straight at it as it flashed between the bare trunks, round and red-golden as the yolk of an egg.
“That Gwynn,” his brother said abruptly, still smiling in private amusement. “More like the mother of her every time I see her.”
“In the face,” Malcolm said. “Not in spirit. I’ve scarcely ever seen her lose her temper. Whereas her mother…”
“Ach! She’s having a fire in her, I wager,” Colban said, grinning suggestively. “A body must figure out how to get to it.” He twisted his hands before his face, as if prying open a clam. “All candy-sweet on the outside, aye, a-hiding a hot mustard center.” He paused and cocked his head. “Sounds like a recipe her father’s old cook would invent, for that matter.”
Malcolm laughed. He was glad his brother remembered Nothelm’s old cook. They had so few memories together that every one was precious.
“But I wasn’t meaning her personality,” Colban said, picking up his suggestive tone again. “Nor even her face, if you see what I mean.” He traced an hourglass curve with his two hands, in case Malcolm had not seen.
“I see, I see.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Colban sighed, tracing another hourglass from the bottom up, top-heavy this time. “Her mother! For a time there I was a-calling my right hand ‘Matilda.’”
Malcolm grimaced and laughed. “I did not want to know that.”
“She was being a revelation to me,” Colban protested, his hand pressed solemnly over his heart. “’Twas Her Grace made me understand that mothers may lie down for a plowing…”
“And how did you think we came to be, O Solomon? And all our dozen brothers and sisters?”
“I thought she prayed for us!”
Malcolm burst into such loud laughter that his dog galloped back from his scouting expedition a hundred yards down the path, tail waving in hope of joining the fun.
“Every time she started getting big,” Colban explained, “Mother always told us she’d prayed for a baby, and finally her prayers had been answered! What was I supposed to think? She left out the important part!”
Their laughter rang through the naked trees and echoed from the hills. Iylaine would surely hear it, but Malcolm could not bring himself to care. He was only a little saddened by the thought that he and his brother ought to have figured out “the important part” together.
“’Twas Matilda who taught me the truth about mothers,” Colban said. “Remember the time we closed that door and found her and Alred behind it?”
Malcolm howled with laughter, and Bear leapt and barked beside them with shared joy.
Colban went on in spite of his own spluttering. “The composure of the man! ‘Pardon us, boys,’” he said gruffly in English, imitating Alred’s lordliest tone, “‘but we were attempting to air that room.’”
Malcolm wiped his eyes and hung from his brother’s shoulder as they staggered down the path together. “And Matilda beating on his back and trying to stifle her laughter in his neck!”
“With her legs wrapped around his hips!” Colban added.
“I shall never forget the color of those garters!” Malcolm cried. “I already knew the truth about mothers, but that was the day I figured out why Alred and Matilda were always showing up late for dinners and things.”
“Can you blame the man? Ach! How I envy the lad who’ll have the airing out of her daughter!”
Colban grinned up at the sky with a distant look of dreamy awe in his eyes. Malcolm—father of a daughter and de facto guardian of a pretty young woman—grew uneasy. He trusted his brother, but Lugaid and Feradach were Sebdann’s brothers and Colban’s closest friends.
“Save your envy till he gets her, brother,” Malcolm said. “The horse who’ll have the carrying of her to her new home is not yet foaled, or I don’t know her father.”
“Ach!” Colban laughed knowingly. “The horse who’ll carry her off is already a sire, or I don’t know women. Or men!” Colban stuck his hand out across Malcolm’s chest, inviting a handshake. “Before another year has passed, I say. Will you wager?”
Malcolm did not like the direction this conversation was headed. He did not like his brother’s swaggering certitude about a girl he scarcely knew, and he did not know how far his brother would go to win a bet. He decided to change the subject.
“I won’t, but I’ve another wager for you. How long are you thinking before you’ll have to come back to Lothere to see Colin married?”
Colban laughed aloud. “He always did have a thing for red-headed women!”
“I never credited him with so much subtlety: pretending to have trouble sleeping so that Edris would keep coming back with new potions for him to try. When the old badger will sleep on his feet in the rain if you’ll kindly prop him up!”
“Tonight he’s pretending he has a sore throat so Edris will suggest a fucking tea!”
“Is he?” Malcolm laughed. “I hadn’t heard that! This is getting serious!”
“He’s worse than Congal pretending he can’t speak English to flirt with Eadie! Shall we get it up? Colin’s just working his way up to asking for a cure for his aching balls.”
“I’m certain Edris has a tea for that!”
“To be applied to the affected area: scalding hot!”
Malcolm howled. It felt good to laugh. Iylaine always frowned when he laughed too hard lately, for it meant he was not sufficiently guilt-stricken for all the sorrows he had caused her. It felt good to get a little drunk with his father and brother and friends, and laugh and carry on in the brisk evening air, and stop at home just long enough for Colban to take his leave of Condal but not so long that Iylaine’s mood would spoil theirs.
But it was all about to end. Tomorrow everything would be as it had been, except that Iylaine would be especially peevish for a week or two to punish him for the fun he had managed to have in spite of her.
This time Malcolm fell silent, and Colban let him be. Bear found an interesting trail of scent on the path and followed it off into the brush, nose-down. To the west the air shimmered with heat over the charcoal barrows, and flakes of ash danced like mayflies in the sun’s horizontal rays, giving the forest an air of summer in spite of the chill.
And then it occurred to Malcolm that his brother had said something impossible.
“How did you know about Congal and Eadie?”
They walked a few more paces in silence.
“You were telling me, to be sure,” Colban said.
“I don’t think I did. I’m certain I never told you he was faking it. I never told anyone that. I didn’t want to embarrass Eadie.”
“Ach, then Sigefrith must have told me. He’s clever enough to have figured it out.”
“He never heard Congal saying ‘get it up’ every time poor Eadie tried to teach him ‘get up.’ Sigefrith was sitting at the other end of the table. Brede and I were the only people who were hearing that. And you surely weren’t hearing it from Brede.”
“Fuck! I don’t know! Eadie told me, then!”
“Right. Eadie did.”
“Fuck! What do you want me to say?”
“Congal told you that.”
Colban waved his arm at Malcolm and picked up his pace, forcing Malcolm to hurry after him.
“So what?” Colban snapped. “Mayhap he did!”
Malcolm caught up with him and grabbed his sleeve. “So what? So since when are you swapping stories with the likes of Congal? He’s Young Aed’s closest friend.”
“And?”
“And does Father know you’ve been spending time with that crew?”
Colban threw off Malcolm’s hand. “I reckon he does, seeing as he fucking invited them.”
Malcolm blinked at him. “Invited whom?”
Colban turned his back on him and walked on, muttering, “That’s being none of your affair.”
Malcolm shouted, “Hold on!”
Bear’s head popped out of the brush. Colban stopped, but he did not turn back. Malcolm rushed around him.
“What do you mean, none of my affair? Did our father invite Congal? Nobody invites Congal! He invited Young Aed!”
Colban gave him a sullen glare. Bear crashed out onto the path and came loping up to the men, sensing trouble.
“He never told me that,” Malcolm said softly.
“He doesn’t tell you everything.”
Malcolm’s jaw shuddered, and he swallowed. “When was this?”
“If he wanted you to know, he would tell you. That is, if he wanted Sigefrith to know.”
Malcolm shook his head and blinked back tears. His heart was bleeding.
“Deal with it, Malcolm,” Colban said coldly. “You made your choice. You foreswore your own family.”
“I never foreswore my family!”
“You foreswore your own father and gave your oath to another man!”
“I cannot foreswear my own father if I never made him an oath in the first place! I made a man’s choice when I became a man!”
Colban howled, “You made an oath to me!”
Bear barked at him, sensing an attack against his master.
“When we were seven years old, on our new knives were we swearing! You swore you would return when you were a man! And we would stay together forever after!”
Colban was shaking. His scarf hung loose, and the cords on his neck were starkly lit by the grazing sunlight. Malcolm spoke softly in an attempt to soothe him.
“We were only boys…”
“They were men’s knives! They were our first men’s knives, and we knew it, and we were swearing on them as men! You swore you were coming back to me!”
Malcolm was wearing no scarf, but he felt something tightening around his throat, something like a knot forming at the base of his neck.
“And you never came to my wedding!” Colban wailed. “You’ve never even seen my son! You’ve never held your nephew!”
“Brother…”
“Don’t brother me! I’m not your brother! I’m your twin! I’m your double! I’m supposed to be your closest friend! Closer than any ordinary men! And you don’t even know me!” Colban sobbed. “You don’t even know me!”
Bear stopped barking and whined in distress.
Malcolm murmured, “Brother…” and put out a hand.
Colban whacked it away and lifted a glare as smoldering as the sun. “No, no, it’s too late now. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of the sound of your name. Malcolm! On the Cross I swear I will never name a son of mine Malcolm! Fuck you and fuck your godfather! The Golden Boys! Blithely breaking the heart of our father, and everyone who loves you, and yet you can do no wrong!”
Colban jabbed his finger into Malcolm’s breastbone and then flicked it up painfully beneath his chin, knocking Malcolm’s head back and making mockery of a caress.
“While those of us who do our duty are all too human, eh?” Colban growled. “And who’s left behind to watch our father going gray because that ass-rag has disappeared again without a word? And who’s left behind to see our mother crying on our birthday because I’m not good enough for her? Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm! I curse the sound of your name!”
He was shouting by the time he finished, and the last words of his curse echoed off the hills. Bear whined and butted his nose at the nearest legs, wagging his curving tail in the hope of brokering a peace by means of his own cuteness. And Malcolm dedicated all his strength to making himself breathe.
He could not believe that the man who had laughed with him only minutes before could loathe him so. It was not loathing, he told himself, but thwarted love. Still, this hot gush of hatred had come from somewhere. Something they had said had punctured a long-festering wound.
Malcolm laid his hand on his brother’s arm, and when Colban did not swat it away, he squeezed. “My brother…”
Colban whipped up his head.
“Here’s another thing our father didn’t want you to know. Don’t tell Malcolm,” he sneered, “’twill only trouble him. Aye, then, it’s about time you were troubled! Our mother—remember her? Our mother lost a baby last month, right after our birthday. She was already getting big with it. Another baby she prayed for, ha! Only this time her prayer wasn’t answered, brother. And when she was a-grieving it, do you know what she said to Sebdann? She told her: ‘If only I could see all my babies one more time all together!’ That means you, Malcolm! And that’s never going to happen on earth—because of that bitch!”
He pointed down the path in the direction of Malcolm’s house, in case the identity of the bitch was unclear. Bear perked his ears and stared off into the distance, with a doggish hope that the conflict could be solved if only he were a very good boy and fetched whatever his master’s brother wanted. But there was nothing for Bear to see, and Malcolm scowled and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Colban snorted. “Ach! Save your chivalry, Malcolm! I’m not insulting her! I’m a-calling her for what she is!”
“She is my wife.”
“And then? I owe her respect because she’s your wife? And do you ever remind her to show me some respect because I’m your brother? Eh? At least I’m hiding my disgust for her when she’s in the room, which is more than she’s ever done for me.”
Malcolm swallowed. He and Iylaine had fought every day of his father’s visit because of some new thing she had done to or said about his brother. It was jealousy, he knew. Iylaine could not bear that anyone on earth be more closely bound to him than she.
And yet he and she had not grown together in the darkness of the same womb. He and she had not nursed together on their mother’s breast, not slept cuddled together as babes. He and Colban shared blood and shared bone—far more than the mere drops of blood he and she had sloppily exchanged three years ago. Nevertheless, Iylaine kept him chained by those mere drops, and held him back from his mother and from his twin—flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.
Colban must have seen pain on Malcolm’s face, but he would spare no sympathy for him.
“You made your choice,” he said coldly. “I would wish you joy of her, but it’s plain she despises you almost as much as she despises me.”
Perhaps more, Malcolm thought. He hung his head to hide how close he was to tears.
“Ach!” his brother said, filling the sound to its brim with Gaelic disgust. “On second thought, I’m going back to the castle. I do not think I could see her just now without calling her a bitch to her face.”
Colban backed away, and like his dog Malcolm lifted his head in mute despair. He wanted to follow and did not think it would not be permitted. Nor could he appear to condone the insult to his wife.
“Kiss Connie for me,” Colban said, “and tell her I hope she’s feeling better soon. And tell her old Colin is thanking her tonight for giving him the excellent idea of a sore throat!”
Colban laughed harshly and turned to walk away.
Bear decided the fight had ended in a comfortable draw and trotted off towards home, but Malcolm did not move. The acrid smoke of the charcoal burn seared his throat and eyes, as if he needed another reason to swallow senselessly and blink away tears. To the west the red disk of the setting sun wavered with the heat of a summer noon.
Then Colban turned back, and for the space of one beat Malcolm’s heart was light. But the face visible through the haze was twisted into a snarl.
“No!” Colban shouted. “On second thought, don’t kiss Connie for me! Keep your hands off my baby cousin! Consider this your warning!”
This time he did not turn back.
After a while Bear came loping back to Malcolm’s side, disturbed at his master’s failure to follow. After licking Malcolm’s limp fingers, the dog trotted a few steps up the path to sniff at a mound of leaf litter that Colban had scraped up with his heel when he turned for the last time.
Bear lifted his head and looked back to Malcolm, his ears pricked and his tail waving, asking whether they were to follow Colban.
Malcolm shouted, “Bear, come! Let’s go home!”
Bear galloped down the path ahead of him, but Malcolm stood a moment longer in the smoky twilight and looked after the kilted shadow disappearing into the haze.
He loved his brother with all his heart. He felt the aching echo of his twin in his bones. But he had run to the end of his leash, and could only stand and watch him go.
Chapters
Oh Malcolm…