Rainath, and Rogar's Ghosts

"Since there's just the two of us can be civil tonight, would ye like to come out back and have a cup of kaf w' me?" He asked Rainath, missing Rogar not for the first time since he'd disappeared.

Rainath nodded shyly, looking like a frightened deer. She followed Cathon out, unsure of what he typically did but mindful of Jade's stories from the woodpile.

He started the kaf brewing in a copper kettle on a workbench near the door to the house, and left Rainath standing awkwardly as he crossed the dooryard to claim the set of throwing axes from their target. He sunk them into a chopping block on the ground that marked the throw line, and etched it with his foot for her. Seeing that she was watching, he took up one of the axes and launched it end over end to demonstrate, the ax burying itself neatly in the round of the target at his behest. He gestured for Rainath to take a turn and stepped away to finish their kaf.

Her first throw went wild, and the second. The third ax struck the target crookedly and fell, the fourth hit it head first but bounced back toward her, and then she had to walk the length of the throw and collect them, to begin again. Cathon didn't mind drinking his kaf and letting her work through trial and error. Unlike his wife, thought Rainath, he didn't feel the need to bark suggestions after each failed throw, a contrast she appreciated just then.

"I know taking direction from her can be a bear," Cathon told her sympathetically, when Rainath was sipping her kaf beside him, "but you couldn't ask for a handier fighter to teach you, than Jade." Rainath stared down at her pants, where blood from her scraped knees had soaked through.

"She told me about fighting with her brother out here," Rainath jutted her chin at the clearing around them, realizing too late that she may not have told him. His chuckle suggested he knew.

"When I met Rogar, he was just a lad. All of twenty four," he paused to pour more kaf, "and his da gone already, working himself half to death at his mother's forge, and his wildling of a sister running them both ragged." He shook his head, recalling it with more pity than humor.

"Will you punish her?" Rainath weighed her stinging knees and asked herself whether she minded Jade being punished so much. Cathon looked her over, considering her a long time before he spoke.

"The punishment is the shame that comes from acting out, losing control. Jade brings that to herself." Rainath's mouth tightened skeptically. Cathon gave her a moment to absorb what he'd said, then continued.

"When ye set a forfeit, it gives the other person the chance to free themself of that. It isn't punishment that you're offering, but absolution."

Rainath tried to digest what he'd said, but she was unconvinced. Cathon walked away from the bench to fetch the five axes and throw them again, each one pinning itself to the target cooperatively at the easy snap of his wrist. Rainath struggled to suppress her envied frustration..

"Who is Karla?" She asked when he'd finished, feeling slightly petulant.

"Ah," answered Cathon uncomfortably, loading the pot to brew again. "I'd rather Rogar tell ye about that, himself." He waited an awkward moment, as though Rogar might appear to take over, and then sighed.

"I'll tell ye, but only because I know you'll have it from Jade, if I don't," he told her in dubious tones, readying his cup with a lump of sugar.

"Fighting happens a lot up here, I'm sure you can imagine. Everyone gets a little crazy after being snowed in for a few months, and most of the time fighting is just rowdiness and blowing steam. A grown man shouldn't be fighting boys, but her husband couldn't hold his drink, it was well known." He filled his cup and added some fresh kaf to warm hers.

"The poor lad was probably scared shitless," he went on, taking a careful drink from the steaming cup, "and it was not a proper challenge, or someone probably would have pointed out that he was fighting a cub, and put a stop to it."

Rainath didn't know what she was being told, but it began with intriguing perplexity. She wrapped her chilled hands around the mug to thaw them, and huddled against the cold. Cathon saw her discomfort and put the kaf things away, opening the back door to the house and holding it for her, leaving her to lead the way through to the den. There was no telling who had built the fire but Rainath blessed their soul, claiming Opal's usual chair right beside it.

She was afraid Cathon would lose the thread of his story, but he was a more honorable spinner than that. He took his chair gratefully, jutting his feet toward the fire and groaning with the relief of ending a long day.

"Something went wrong," he picked up, when they'd started to thaw. "A blow landed wrong or maybe a swing was miscalculated, and her husband was killed," he summarized shortly, looking into the fire. He took a quick sip from his flask and didn't offer it to her.

"I've seen it happen, and it's a shock. You'll see men beat each other until they're bloody and stupid, and be up for scouting in the morning, every day. But one ill-fated punch can drop a man dead, when ye think you're just having a bit of sport."

Silence interceded his story, as they contemplated the cruelties of fate.

"Man to man, it would have been one thing. But the kid was only sixteen. He hadn't made his rites, couldn't be married, and the first man he'd ever killed was a clanbrother." Cathon's face was grim as he loaded the pipe from the mantle. He offered it to Rainath, being inclined to think strong drink was worse for ladies than a little smoke, and when she took it he pulled his second from his pocket for himself, giving it the same treatment and leaning forward to light a twig.

"It bent him, badly," he said, puffing contentedly. Rainath held the second pipe in her hands, unlit, tracing the shape with her fingertips.

"He started get bad into the drink even though he was young for it, and that was what had begun the misery in the first place. He should have gone into battle training, especially since he'd been blooded, but he took up more... destructive pursuits for himself. Everyone knew he was having a hard time of it, and no one could tell how to help him."

Rainath's heart ached for the boy, and she carefully lit a splinter aflame for her pipe. She drew gently at it, stopping when her lungs began to sting, and was proud not to choke and wheeze with Cathon sitting in judgement.

"So what happened?"

"Well, he was eaten up w' the guilt, wasn't he? He couldn't make reparations in the traditional way, so his da marched him over to face the widow, and beg her pardon. They agreed he'd come round every day to stack firewood, do the fetching, help her w' what her husband would have done, had he not been a sorry waste of hide before he fell."

"That seems reasonable," murmured Rainath, letting her lungs recover before taking another puff from the pipe.

"Aye, and it helped a bit. Gave the lad a way to make amends, and a reason to stay sober for another hour every day."

"But they stipulated it would be so until she married again, which should have only been a season or two. Women don't stay unmarried when they're outnumbered five-to-one except that they want to, but she did, and I can't say it was because she was grieving deeply, having known the man she'd lost." Cathon stopped to reload his pipe, Rainath took a timid draw from hers.

"There was more'n a few said she let it go too long, got spoiled having a young buck to come and do her heavy lifting and her bed to herself, both. Some thought she was waiting for his rites so they could marry, and then she wed another man about the same time he came of age. There was a lot that said she'd strung him along, for four years by that point, and blamed her for his reckless youth."

He looked through the wall toward his room, making it clear his wife was one of them, and drew on his pipe slowly. Rainath imitated him.

"But she did marry someone else, and he'd made amends," Rainath concluded for him, wits gone fuzzy with the smoke and thinking they'd come round to the topic of punishment and absolution again.

"Aye, well. He still hated himself, didn't he? Takes a lot of firewood, to get a body off your mind. And life hadn't finished knocking him around, yet, wi' his da gone to the last battle."

Rainath was disappointed by the lack of conclusion, and Cathon gave her the smallest hint of a wry grin.

"I think she knew what she was about, that she was the only thing holding him grounded just then. So I don't grudge her for it. That's where my opinion differs, and why I wanted ye to hear my version of it, over Jade's." He grunted to emphasize his distaste for gossip. Rainath processed the story slowly, struggling to connect the salient points.

"So that woman was Karla?"

"Aye," agreed Cathon unhelpfully.

"I still don't understand," she admitted, confused. "What has that got to do with Rogar?" Cathon looked into the fire a long time, weighing his words.

"She forgave him for killing a brother, once. I don't think he knows how to do that for himself, yet."