The brushing soothed the horse more than it soothed me, though I suppose I pretended it did both. His coat, dark as a thundercloud, gleamed beneath my hand. He was a good creature. Strong. Still young, still restless. Much like another soul I’d been expecting. I heard the boots before the voice, quick, clipped steps that hadn’t yet learned to walk with patience. Then came the greeting, sharp with youthful pride. You’re slower than I remember, old man.
I didn’t turn. No need. The voice had changed in timbre, deeper now, but I would know it anywhere. Eomen. One of the few boys I’d seen grow taller between summers, though I’d never been asked to shape him. Not until now. Or perhaps you’re just faster, I murmured, brushing down the flank. The rhythm was steady, the silence afterward telling.
He stepped into view, golden-haired, strong-limbed, and already wearing the weight of expectation on his shoulders like mail. The way he stood told me everything. He had come for more than conversation. They say you vanished after Dunland, he said, arms crossed, trying not to look like a boy. Some thought you were dead.
I was not, I replied. I was simply where I belonged.
A strange place to belong, he said, glancing around. For a man like you. I looked at him then, properly. The fire was still there in his eyes. A good thing, that. But fire alone is not what lights the path. Sometimes it blinds. You’ve come for something, I said.
To be trained, he answered quickly, as if the words had been waiting in his mouth too long. By you. Not for games. Not for glory. For what’s real. He stood tall, though his voice betrayed the tension under his skin.
I turned back to the horse, picked a small burr from its mane. Then you’ve come late. Eomen stepped closer, clearly not expecting that. Too late? But I—
Too late to ask for swordplay first, I interrupted. If a man seeks only the swing, he’ll break before the blade ever does. What you ask is no gift. It’s weight. And once you carry it, you don’t put it down again.
I want that weight, he said. I need it. There are whispers again, Duncadda. Riders talk of shadows on the borders. If war finds us—
It will, I said simply. Eventually. It always does. He looked at me, uncertain for a moment, then added, Then help me be ready. And there it was, the shape of his fear, hidden behind bravado. He had not come for glory after all. He had come because he was afraid of being left unmade when the tide rose.I stepped back from the horse and faced him fully. I let the silence stretch. If he was to learn from me, he would learn to listen before he spoke.
Tomorrow, I said at last. At first light. You’ll help me split timber, tend hooves, mend the broken eaves. The things that teach rhythm, patience, and pain in the joints.
And the sword? he asked, voice tight. I shook my head. Not until you learn that the sword is not the beginning. It is the end. He didn’t speak. His pride fought with his understanding. I saw it pass across his face like a gust tugging at a banner. Then I’ll come, he said finally.
I nodded once. That was enough. He turned and left without another word. That was good. It meant he was already thinking.
The light had shifted by the time I returned to the stable. The peace of Bancross was not the peace of soft days or idle hours. It was the peace of those who had stayed, who had labored and endured until the land itself held them as one. It was a peace earned, weathered into the bones, and kept by those who knew that true quiet comes not from the absence of strife, but from the steady hands of those who remain. The sword still hung above the hearth, but its weight no longer pressed on me. Perhaps that was the mark of peace, when the past no longer demands your strength, and those who remain become the very tissue that makes it last.
