The Romance of Eowain

Chapter Three Scene Six

Eithne's maid, Breda, gave Eowain a wink as she refilled his earthen cup with ôl. The fire pit in the center of the common room provided warmth. Smoke rose up to a hole at the peak of the thatched roof, through which not enough of it escaped. The day had been uncommonly warm and the roundhouse was steamy, close, and acrid.

Eowain and Eithne sat together on a bench in the common room of the tribe's old royal roundhouse.

Aunt Rathtyen had lived there ever since his father had gifted it to her, to compensate her for the loss of a husband, after his new stone house in the Aukrian-style under the tower was built.

The walls were made of stout oak logs, the roof of thatch. The floor beneath their feet had been paved with flag-stone and covered in fresh rushes.

Eowain sipped at the ôl to soothe his smoke-parched throat.

A fickle game lay between them. The square board was patterned with a round, chequered circle. Eithne played the white stones, and had control of the center and the king-stone.

He played the black side. His goal was to penetrate her defense or prevent her escape from the board.

Eowain told her of his day's business. "Of course, after last night, Lord Gluintír came back this morning to present his complaint—"

"You mean his wife's complaint?"

"Aye, one and the same. She was, as he put it, 'aggrieved' by the inhospitable treatment she received in my hall." He placed a black pawn stone on the board.

Eithne puckered her face. "Lady Gluintír should have considered that before treating me so inhospitably herself." She countered his stone with a white one. Another avenue to the center closed, but at least she'd been distracted from building a route of escape to the perimeter.

He couldn't help but agree. "Apparently, the satirists are on our side. I'm told the story of last night's feast is already told, and we are the heroes. If satirists have as much power as a-foretimes, perhaps she'll develop a festering boil on her nose." He appraised the board. Where should I move next?

Eithne laughed. "It could do nothing but improve her looks."

"And perhaps teach her to keep a civil tongue in her head, before someone cuts it out."

"They must not have gotten far if he was back this morning?" She sipped at her own cup of ôl. "It's a long day's ride to Gluintír, I know."

Eowain nodded and placed another black stone on the board.

"It would serve her right. She's as odious as a barnyard animal herself." She placed a white stone on the board, ignoring his last move.

What is she up to? If he could just control the center—

He was glad that matters between them had thawed. Since the feast, she had been in better humor.

The clack of knitting needles spoiled his concentration. The woman that had accompanied Eithne on her trip, Alva, was sitting on a bench across the fire. It would have been unseemly for Eowain to have been alone with his prospective bride, of course.

But she's an odd duck, isn't she? Eowain had it from Medyr that she was a reclusive ban-drymyn, one of his Order's priestesses. Medyr was surprised she'd come out of her mountain hermitage at all. The old woman was shortish, with a dark complexion, her face leathery with many fine wrinkles. Her robes were shapeless, and she was so lean as to be nearly lost within them. He wondered if they weren't borrowed from a woman twice her size. She had two long needles and was cable-knitting black, red, and gold woolen yarn together, into what he could not yet tell.