Song Of Unmaking. Caitlin Brennan

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      But first he had a thing he must do. The women’s rooms were away behind the men’s, well apart from the hall. They were much smaller and darker and more crowded, and they opened on either the kitchens or the long room where the looms stood, threaded with the plaids and war cloaks of the clan.

      His mother’s room lay on the other side of the weavers’ hall. He had to walk through the rows of weavers at their looms, aware of their stares and whispers. He was a man in women’s country. He had to pay the toll accordingly.

      She was not in the room, but he had not expected her to be. The bed was narrow and a little short, but it was warm and soft. He lay on it and drew up his knees. The smell of her wrapped around him, the clean scent of herbs with an undertone of musk and smoke.

      He did not exactly fall asleep. He was aware of the room around him and the voices of women outside, rising over the clacking of the looms.

      Still, he was not exactly awake, either. The bed had grown much wider. Someone else was lying with her back to him. Her breathing was deep and regular as if she slept, but her shoulders were tight.

      Her skin was smooth, like cream, and more golden than white. Her hair was blue-black, cropped into curls. He ran his hand from her nape down the track of her spine to the sweet curve of her buttocks. She never moved, but her breathing caught.

      He followed his hand with kisses. She was breathing more rapidly now. He willed her to turn and look into his face. Her name was on his lips, shaped without sound. Valeria.

      Five

      “You’re not Amma.”

      The voice most definitely was not Valeria’s, nor was it Murna’s. It was a child’s, sharp and imperious.

      The golden-skinned lover was gone. Euan’s mother’s bed was as narrow as ever. A child was standing over him, glowering.

      It was a young child but long-legged, with a mane of coppery hair imperfectly contained in a plait, and fierce yellow eyes. By the single plait and the half-outgrown breeks, it was male—too young yet for the warriors’ house, but old enough to be well weaned.

      Euan shook off the fog of the dream. “I’m not your amma,” he agreed. “I’m waiting for my mother.”

      “Wait somewhere else,” the child said. “This is Amma’s room.”

      “Not unless she shares it with my mother,” Euan said. His eyes narrowed. “My name is Euan. What is yours?”

      “No one’s named me yet,” the child said.

      Euan’s brows rose. A child without a name was a child without a father—because it was the father who raised the child before the clan, gave him his name and bound him to the people. This one seemed not to find any shame in it.

      “Who is your mother?” Euan asked him.

      “Mother’s dead,” the child said. “Where’s the other one?”

      “What—”

      “The lady. Where did she go?”

      Euan’s nape prickled. “You saw her?”

      “She’s pretty,” the child said.

      “Very pretty,” Euan said a little faintly.

      He was beginning to think this was a dream, too. A child of the people who saw the unseen was either fed to the wolves or handed over to the priesthood. Somehow he could not see this bright child as a priest.

      He seemed very solid, but then, so had Valeria. Maybe this was all a delusion, some sleight of Gothard’s to trap Euan in the starstone.

      If he let his mind run that way, he would turn as mad as Gothard. He sat up and breathed deep. The air smelled and tasted real. The child in front of him did not go away.

      He was real, then. So was Euan’s mother, coming up behind him. “Ah, wolfling,” she said, “there you are. Brigid’s looking for you.”

      The child shrugged that off. “There’s a man in your bed, Amma.”