“Mama,” he said, not loud enough to be heard; more for himself, a reminder, a grounding. And when he spoke, some relief blossomed in his chest. With a growing smile, he strode around the corner and found her shooing some chickens out of her sweet pea vines.
At his step, Brona spun, black hair loose, skirts twisting at her bare calves. She held two small dark plums, waxy and ripe. They’d been his favorite as a boy.
“Welcome home,” his mother said, offering the fruit.
Ban took one, but the moment his finger brushed hers, he dropped the plum, frozen.
She was as imposingly lovely as he remembered.
Brona wore her waves of black hair loose and only a thin sleeveless shift hanging off one tan shoulder as if she’d just been awakened, though it was very late in the morning. Her skirts clenched at a waist caught like a bridge between heavy breasts and heavy hips. Red flushed her cheeks and her mouth; her eyes were dark and wet as the mossy forest outside. Horn and amber beads hugged her wrists and bare ankles. The tops of her feet were mud-speckled, and her toes vanished into the grass. She was exactly as Ban remembered, unbound and free, made of the very earth; the memory was a visceral wave of delight followed by the hot awareness that he could see her now the way his father must have. When he left he’d only been a boy and had only a son’s eyes. Now he was a soldier, and understood the hunger of men.
“Ban,” Brona breathed in a thick sigh.
“Mama,” he said, just as full.
She closed the distance, and her hands found his rough cheeks. Brona slid thumbs along his jaw, toyed with the thick, uneven strands of his hair, tugged at the leather jacket he wore. She put her palms to his chest, and there were tears washing her eyes. “What a man you look.”
Swallowing, Ban touched his mother’s waist, wanting to pull her close and hug her until he forgot everything of the past month, or the past ten years, everything but whatever herby soap she put in her hair and the always-sharp smell of her, as if the dry flowers hanging from her ceiling and the herbs she grew and harvested, boiled, waxed, crushed, and turned to tinctures had permeated her skin and blood. Pretend she had kept him, chosen him. But instead he said, “I don’t onlylooklike a man.”
Her laugh was wry. “As irritable as ever. Ah, I’ve heard so much, so many things of my son, the Fox.”
Pride swelled, but Brona swiftly quashed it by adding, “Also, I’ve heard how long you’ve been on the island without attending to your mother.”
“I—I’m here now.”
“Not to stay.”
It wasn’t a question, and she did not sound sorrowful over it.
“Hartfare is not a place for me,” he muttered, wondering if his mother regretted her choices, or if they were worth the specific freedoms that came with her craft. She was respected, but only in the dark, and never by men concerned with stars, those who made their laws. Brona had never married, yet never seemed sorry or lonely—Ban could dredge up no memories of her angry, no matter how hard he tried, and she’d only been sad the day Errigal took him away. Sad, but not fighting to keep him.
“Is there any place for you, my Ban?”
He only could stare at her, feeling at the edge of some new understanding. It was too big to allow in without feeling all the corners and inspecting the angles. But at the center was his mother, once a girl like Elia, making choices. And having them madeforher by the world. Ban thought he might need to sit down, and he tried to mask his perception with another frown.
Brona’s eyes crinkled, and she kissed his lips. “Ever serious, ever dour, just as irritable. You get that from none of us! Perhaps some old man on your father’s side. Ah, I missed your sour face, but I would like to see a smile before you go again. Come inside.”
His mother took him by the hand and led him into her home.
Lit only by calm sunlight, the cottage was full of sweet smells. Ban’s vision adjusted quickly, but before he could relax, he saw a man sitting half up out of the bed in the far corner.
The Oak Earl, undressed and rumpled here in his mother’s house.
Ban felt his entire being jolt again. He gripped Brona’s hand too hard, and she bent her mouth in disapproval. “Ban,” she chided.
“What are you doing here?” he said, low and dangerous, to the Oak Earl. Kayo was handsome and famous, strong and by reputation a good man. But here he was, spoiling this place with his casual familiarity,andhe was supposed to be banished alongside Elia, fled to Aremoria.
Keeping his eyes on Ban, Kayo slowly pushed aside the blankets and stood. As he bent to get his trousers, he kept his movements deliberate, unthreatening. One leg then the other, and he fixed his trousers in place never having unlocked his gaze from Ban’s.
Brona made a snort of incredulity and pulled away from her son. “You, my boy, are gone too long and are too grown to pretend you have any place judging me.”
“Not…” Ban’s mouth was dry. He swallowed, painfully aware it was babyish hurt clogging his throat. “Not judging, Mama,” he rasped.
“Judging,” she said firmly, stressing it with a firm pat on his cheek. “Call it protecting if that makes it easier for you. Either way: don’t.”
He folded his arms over his chest, hiding the clench of his fists, and slid another glare at the Oak Earl.
Kayo ran hands over his puffed curls, forming them back from his face. “Thirsty, Ban?” he said.
