The Tears of the Sun by S. M. Stirling Page B

outright died without my Sam!”
    Asgerd nodded. After courage and loyalty, a man’s pride was in the strength and skill of his hands, the work that fed his children and made strong his house and kindred. She knew that love of craft as well, and the kindred pride in keeping going uncomplaining when your bones groaned with weariness and all you wanted in the world was food and bed.
    â€œLovely,” she said again, and sat at the weaver’s bench.
    When Melissa nodded permission at her inquiring glance she ran her hands over the heddle and beater, touched her feet to the paddles that would shift the warp and weft and the cord and lever that would throw the shuttle, looked at the little wheeled baskets that held supplies out of the way and yet to hand.
    â€œThis would be a pleasure to work at,” she said. “I can feel how everything’s just where you want it.”
    â€œThat cloak you brought, was that your mother’s work? It’s well done,” Melissa said. “Only a little worn, and you must have used it fair hard on a journey like that.”
    â€œShe taught me but it’s my work, good mother,” Asgerd said, letting a little of her own pride of craft show. “That journey cloak, I sheared the sheep and cleaned and spun the wool and wove it; it’s a twin to one I made for Sigurd to use when he went in Viking to the dead cities. Just plain weaving, of course, nothing fancy like this, but it has worn well, and it’s kept me warm and dry many a time.”
    â€œIt must be nearly waterproof, done with the grease in that way,” Melissa said.
    Then she sighed and sat on the bench before the loom, beside the girl.
    â€œI’m . . . I know I’ve been less welcoming than I might. Than I should have been. I’ve been . . . anxious about things, sure and I have, and more things than one. And the Lady is taking me out from under the dominion of the Moon now, into the Wise One’s hands and near to my croning.”
    That puzzled Asgerd for an instant; her people didn’t have a formal ceremony for that, as they did for coming of age. Then she nodded understanding.
    â€œAll of which I offer as some poor excuse,” Melissa said.
    â€œGood mother, I didn’t expect a dance of joy when your son came home with a stranger, a foreign bride. You don’t know me or my kin or my very folk. I could have been an ill sort, one who did him no credit. I’m not like that, but I expected to have to prove . . . Well, if a man of my kindred, say one of my brothers, had come back with a Mackenzie maid for handfasting, it wouldn’t have been all hot mead and kisses at first from the women of my kindred either!”
    â€œIt’s been hard, with Edain away, hearing nothing but the odd letter, and those often of some battle or peril he’d been in and me not even knowing,” Melissa said softly, her eyes seeming to look beyond the wall.
    â€œI can see that. I’ve been frightened for him more than once myself, even there with him! Though it was a comfort to have Artos King on hand.”
    Melissa nodded. “Rudi . . . Artos . . . is a great hero, one whose song will live forever. Yet it’s perilous to stand too close to a hero in a tale! He’s been in and out of this house all his life, and I love him too; Lady Juniper was my sponsor in the Craft, and . . . But Edain is mine , my first son, the babe I bore beneath my heart and carried in my arms, new life in those years when it seemed death had swallowed all the world.”
    â€œAnd he always will be your son,” Asgerd said. “You and the good father raised him to be a fine man, strong and kind both. My man, the one I will walk beside all my days, shipmates through life, and who will be the father of my children. The grandchildren I will lay in your arms, good mother.”
    â€œI would like that, sure and I will like it very much indeed,” Melissa said.
    Then