It was strange how life regained a certain normalcy, despite how many of those she knew so intimately had disappeared. Basic needs such as eating, trading to compensate for the food she had lost to her son’s accursed quest and weaving and knitting still needed doing. The shock of normalcy felt peculiar to her, just as the absence of her son and apprentice did.

  The worst part, Kenna decided after two days was the lack of conversation and company. The solitude which she had always claimed to so desperately want, was lain over her not as a gift from the gods, she thought but as a doom sent by demons.

  The absence of both Indulf and Cormac to converse with one another or with her was a blow she noticed almost immediately. It was one that filled her with desolation. The memory of their many conversations, of what they might have said or discussed on certain given days felt as real a loss to her then that the death of her husband was.

  The thought of Murchadh and how she had long since given up on him, struck her with almost equal force. Enough to send her reeling, staring at her loom lost in thought on the first day after her return, from dawn to dusk. It was only to the end of the day that she had realized that she had lost a whole day of work.

  Now that it was two days since her return, Kenna was determined to reclaim lost ground so to speak, as best she could. She had to, for by Khnum if she did not there would hardly be a house left standing for Cormac and Indulf to come home to.

  But is it the same home as that which Murchadh would have remembered? She asked herself full of regret, and a deep feeling of loss.

  It was with another start that Kenna came to another realisation; she was crying. The tears flowed thick as water does down the mouth of a river, such as the Firth of the Thern. Such was the sense of grief that overcame her then that she could hardly do much more than wipe futilely at them. She did not know how long she sat there for, her body racked with sobs that she could not understand the source of.

  She had thought herself stronger than this, Kenna told herself, that she had overcome the worst of her grief for Murchadh’s death. Was that what she was sobbing about? Or was it over that mooncalf Cormac, along with Daegan and Indulf, and the possibility of some unknown harm befalling them?

  Before she knew it though, the door was open and Ida was by her side, taking her into her arms, cooing and whispering comforting words and noises to her. “There, there lass, it is aright, all will be well! They will be back before long, so do take heart…”

  This went on for some time, until such a time as Kenna had calmed herself. At which time, she was handed a bit of cloth that her friend had brought with her to have sewn, and which the seamstress blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes with before throwing it into a pile in a corner, which was intended for cleaning in a few days.

  “There, there lass there is no reason for tears,” Ida said, as always at her finest when in the role of mother for another, or comforting those around her. “They will return soon.”

  “How can you know that?” Kenna sniffled, hating herself for being so weak at that moment.

  Ida shrugged in response, a wan smile on her lips, “Because Indulf has never lied. Not once since he was a wee lad, and I do not think he is about to start. What is more, is that they have Wulfnoth the paragon with them and Corin soon to join them.”

  These were all true statements. Much as she did not think a great deal of Corin, Kenna had to admit that he would never allow any harm to befall her son. What worried her most though, was something no one could cure or comfort away, or Corin could alter was to wake up one morn’, with him on her door’s step to tell her, her son was dead. Kenna could not bear the thought.

  She wished she could have her friend’s faith, in Indulf but faith was difficult for her at such a time. Especially when she thought of how she had lost it, in Murchadh’s safe return, certainly it had taken her a year before she had stopped hoping.

  “I hope Dae and Indulf also return safely,” She said hoarsely feeling as though her throat had somehow been torn and shredded, by a lynx.

  “Aye,” Ida agreed before she brightened, “But naught we can do about that, therefore why not stop on by for supper to-night?”

  “I-I should be fine.”

  “Nonsense, I came to enjoy lunch with you, and will not take no for an answer Kenna,” Ida insisted fiercely with her almost bear-like force of will.

  Normally a woman who never left her sheep untended, for fear that they may run amok the matronly shepherdess was quick to force some food she had brought from her own home, into her hands. The seamstress thereafter ate a rapid lunch composed of some bread dipped in wine, cheese and mutton, with Freygil’s wife promising stew that night for supper.

  It was as she was seeing her friend off that Kenna soon found herself wrapped up in another fierce bear-hug, “We must keep faith Kenna, you hear? Faith!”

  Those words in her ear, the taller woman waited for her blonde-haired friend to depart, before she turned those words about in her head.

  It was true that time and again, she had weighed the possibility of such a visit, the trouble lay in that she had avoided demonstrations of faith or visits. The only show of faith she had enjoyed, were the odd prayers before a meal or beginning a hard day of work. Certainly, she had given donations to the temple however those were done perfunctorily rather than out of sincere piety.

  I scolded Cormac and Corin ever so often, and always enforced such vigorous faith in Dae, She mused tartly unable to discern why she had stopped attending Temple Sessions once a month, or overt displays of faith.

  If only Murchadh had never left her! The thought was one that came upon her from the shadows, and yet she could have endured the absence of the children, if only he were present at her side, she thought. She had warned him not to go fishing that morn’, that she feared a storm and he had insisted.

  “Just for a bit Kenna,” He had said to her with a small booming laugh, as his voice had always been a deep one that brought to mind the depths of the seas themselves. As though he had sprung from the seas themselves, his next words had been ones that she had turned about over and over in her mind, for years. “It will only be for an hour, Cormac wants cod-fish for supper therefore cod-fish he shall have!”

  The memory of that night was enough to almost make her weep all over again.

  Kenna cursed her weakness then, just as she cursed Cormac’s departure, cursed Daegan’s impulsiveness, Indulf’s meekness along with Trygve’s foolhardiness. She cursed Corin’s arrival twenty years ago, cursed Olith for marrying such a man.

  Why not curse the long grass that surrounded her ankles also, for good measure? The notion appeared almost laughable, and yet Kenna could feel the old resentment towards those she had lost all the more keenly than before.

  This brought with it a maudlin question, of what it was that had been so horrible about her that her son, and his friends had abandoned her, as her father had when she was nary six years old.

  Kenna near leapt when she realized that the grass by her ankles was not that nearer to her own home. Tall, wild and stretching out all around her, with the alder-wood fence rebuilt twelve years ago after the previous fence had succumbed to decay, she had found herself in the cemetery courtyard next to Conn’s family’s ancestral temple.

  There were more than two hundred grave-markers there, with family tomb-markers and burial locations often reused over and over again for the same family. Due to a great many not being able to afford individual graves for themselves.

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  It was for this reason that Murchadh’s ashes were buried with those of his own father, grandfather and so on, going as far back into the mist of history that his kinsmen had inhabited Glasvhail.

  Kenna could still recall being eight, when her husband who was eleven then, had told her that his family’s ancestors had been there since before the Wars of Darkness, two hundred years ago. That they could trace their blood back to the age of Roma that so long as there have been men in Caledonia, they have fished off the shores of the land of the Caleds.

  Murchadh’s own father Waltigon who was already fifty years old, by the time Kenna had been abandoned before her master Eachann’s house had corroborated the story. Claiming in his gruff voice that they were descended from the storm-goddess herself.

  That he could feel in his bones, when there was to be a storm, and when there was to be calm weather. He had passed six years after her arrival in Glasvhail, and she still remembered how his blonde-grey hair had encircled his bearded, hard face and how kindly he had been. She recalled also, how close Waltigon and Murchadh had been. They were not only father and son, but the closest of friends, always rowing off to sea together, singing shanties together as though they were the only men in the world.

  As a lass this had impressed her, as an adult she had found herself doubtful of it at times. However, over the years she had returned somewhat to her original position, due to the fierce sea-longing she had witnessed in her son. Maybe had Waltigon lived, he could have taught Cormac much of the sea and talked Kenna into supporting her son more.

  Staring at the stone marker, which had Waltigon’s name and that of Murchadh carved into it (courtesy of Murchadh and Corin), along with that of Renala, Waltigon’s beloved wife (passed away three years before her own arrival in Glasvhail), Kenna felt more lost than ever before.

  The stone was an ugly slab of white marble, pulled from who knew where, about as tall as Ida was and was one of the more imposing stone-markers in the cemetery. At the center of it was carved the symbol of the sprig, the holy symbol of Orcus the light-laird. The symbol was one that Kenna had never much loved, not since her mother died when she was young and had to lay down a piece of sprig with her corpse, just before it was cremated.

  Is that what life amounts to, for me? Corpses and men leaving me? The thought was enough to almost make her weep, so profound was the sense of loss and bereavement that accompanied it.

  “Kenna?” The voice that interrupted her thoughts this time was by no means one she was well-accustomed to such as Ida. Leaping a few feet in the air, Kenna turned to stare at the lass who stood by the doors of the temple.

  At first she had difficulty recalling the name of the lass, but it was with another start that she found it somewhere in the fog that surrounded her mind since her return to Glasvhail. It was Helga. Daegan’s raven-haired rival for Cormac’s affections.

  Studying the lass now, it was a surprisingly unemotional Kenna who found herself, concluding that if there was anyone who might well have stolen Cormac from Corin’s daughter, it was this dark-haired lass. Pretty, with wide-hips and the sort of figure most young lads were prone to following everywhere with their eyes, and a heart-shaped face that bespoke of not only natural beauty but of innocence.

  She reminded Kenna, strikingly of how Olith had once appeared; sweet and innocent. The only thing was that where Daegan carried herself with the kind of supreme pride and confidence of a queen. Helga sauntered as though a gypsy dancer, even if she was almost wholly unaware of it. She was the sort of spoiled lass who had had everything given to her, so that she had come to expect it whereas Daegan demanded all, based on accomplishments. The difference between the lasses could not have been more apparent, to her than that between a summer morn’ and winter nights.

  In truth, Kenna had seen her more than a few times over the years she had been one of several lasses, who had so loved that accursed great oak by the Dyrkwoods. Always chasing after the likes of Daegan, Ida’s daughters Rosie and Olith, and Salmon’s granddaughters such as Inga, so as to join them in games by the woods, or at least this was the case ten years ago.

  By the time they had turned a decade old, Helga had become distant preferring to play with Trygve, Inga and Cormac when Daegan was not around. Quite why, had long remained a mystery to Kenna.

  “Yes?” She asked of the lass uncertainly.

  “What are you doing there?” Helga questioned her expression full of worry, “You look as though you were prepared to leap into the grave after your husband.”

  The latter comment worried Kenna. Did she really seem as utterly pitiful as to give outside observers such a weak impression?

  “It is hardly important lass, I must be going,” She replied keen to hurry back home.

  The widow of Murchadh the fisherman passed the daughter of Conn with nary a look in her direction, though the latter did not tear her gaze from her back for some time. Kenna could feel her eyes upon her, full of pity and compassion which while appreciated was hardly what she wished for at that moment.

  The question of what exactly she wished for from those still in Glasvhail, was one that she was not entirely certain of herself.

  *****

  The supper she enjoyed with Ida and Freygil, along with their children was pleasant though it passed her by, with nary a word torn from her lips. Kenna found during that meal that regardless of whom it was that she ate with, she still felt miserable and alone. Though the feeling was somewhat lessened, it did not mean that Kenna felt well by any measure of the term.

  Returning home to an empty house and waking up to the same home and desolation served only to worsen the fog of grief that hung over the house. Such was the force of her sentiments once again that when she awoke she dressed now in black.

  She knew then that short of death finding its way to her, she would not wear aught else until her son and Daegan’s return mourning-black. The dark wool dress was one that covered her from neck to toes, and had a dark linen bonnet to go along with it. One she coiffed her hair into and doffed with no great pleasure, before she set to work on the loom to complete the requested linen dress Ida had asked for her daughter Olith.

  She had managed to make it a little further, when there was a sudden noise at the door.

  Grumbling beneath her breath, Kenna rose to her feet to welcome what she expected to be Ida. It was not her, but to her surprise it was Helga.

  “Greetings lass, do come in,” Kenna said at last falling back onto her experience as a seamstress and merchant to see her through the awkward moment that had dawned, and stretched out between them.

  “Thank you.”

  Helga brushed past her, her orange linen dress of richer material than what Kenna ordinarily could afford to wear herself, the fine cloth must have come from as far as the Empire of Volkholant. That distant state lay past the eastern mountains of Gallia that cut that state off, from the rest of North-Agenor. Her hair was coiffed together in her own bonnet, one of a light pink colour that went along quite nicely with her black curls, dark eyes glancing about the interior of the house.

  It struck Kenna that it had been quite some time, since the lass had entered her shop. At least nigh on ten years, as the kindred of the druid had ceased to pay for her services, save for the buying of the actual cloth. The seamstress had suspected that it was due to his wishing for distance, between his daughters and that of Corin’s along with Cormac. What she also suspected was that the lady Ainsley had wished for her daughters to learn some weaving themselves, rather than always depending upon a seamstress.

  Judging by the quality of the dress, it is likely that the druid’s bride had given up at some point, or that Helga preferred not to wear too often dresses made by her own hands.

  “How may I assist you Helga?” Kenna queried politely, arching an eyebrow when the lass continued to stare at her in amazement.

  Likely she had not expected the mourning-black, and was still attempting to absorb the shock of such a sight. When she spoke it was with an uncharacteristic stutter, one of utter apprehension, “Has- has there been news? Is that why you are dressed in that manner?”

  “What? Nay, I just felt it appropriate until my son returns,” Kenna replied quietly before she repeated herself even more firmly, “Is there any way I can assist you? Mayhap you need a new linen dress? Or perhaps a silk one? I have little of that cloth, yet there should be enough left for a dress.”

  “N-nay,” Once again Helga stuttered her fair-skinned face reddened until it reminded Kenna of Daegan’s hair, “I came to offer my assistance to you, until such a time as Cormac and his friends have returned.”

  The offer was the greatest shock of the day. If someone had told her that Helga daughter of Conn intended to ere long offer her services to her, she would have laughed them out of her shop. So rare was any contact between the two despite how they lived in the same village, nary an hour from one another that they could have been excused for not being aware of the other’s existence.

  It was true that Kenna was in dire need of assistance, if she wished to reclaim lost time. However, the notion of accepting charity was one that did not sit well with her.

  “I am afraid, I will have to refuse,” Kenna said to her already annoyed by the conversation and how long it was taking, the more time she spent with Helga the less time it meant she was working. Seeing the stunned look turn to one of hurt, filled her with pity though which pushed her to hurriedly add, “It is a kindly offer, but I would need to speak to your father on this matter and that would solely be in the event of taking you on as an apprentice. I do not offer sewing lessons, as assisting others with becoming a proper bride, is I feel best left to one’s own mother.”

  There, she thought it was succinctly said with utter politeness that hopefully might serve to properly dissuade the lass from pushing the matter further.

  Little did she expect, but Helga had come to her prepared for such an argument, “But that is- my father wishes for me to learn this trade.”

  The suspicion that Helga wished to do so, so as to become Cormac’s bride hung in the air between them with Kenna remembering the night of the festival. The memory was a bitter one, as it was that night that Inga had died and all had begun to turn afoul.

  “And as Indulf, Cormac and Daegan are absent I suspect, you will need aid and I know a little about sewing and working a loom.” Helga persisted seeing her resolve begin to falter.

  A sigh was torn from the seamstress’s lips, so that at last she gave in.