but great fellows – and I stopped over with them on the way back.” He laughed. “The best of friends.”
“But when is Gest coming?” everyone wanted to know.
“In a day or so,” said Banot, yawning. “If he comes at all. And he may be in a hurry.” With that, he laughed and yawned and staggered off to sleep, leaving no one much the wiser. Nor would he say any more the next day.
Gest arrived in the middle of the following night. The first anyone knew of it was when Gest turned and shouted the words that sealed the main door against enemies. Startled by the shout and the thump of the door, people scrambled from their beds. Someone had the sense to raise the light, whereupon everyone stared in amazement. Gest had brought with him a beautiful young woman, tall and pale, with hair as black as peat. Both of them were splashed with mud to the eyebrows and almost too much out of breath to speak. Gest no longer wore his golden collar. The woman, on the other hand, wore a collar richer and more intricate than anyone in Garholt had seen before in their lives.
“Speak the rest of the doors shut!” Gest panted to the first person to arrive.
The boy scampered to do as he was told. The rest crowded up, shouting, “Why? Is it Dorig?”
Gest had used up all his breath and could only shake his head. The young woman shyly answered instead. “It’s my brother, Orban. I’m Og’s daughter, Adara.”
This caused gasps and murmurs. It was well known that Og loved his daughter more than he loved himself. Adara was said to be the most beautiful woman on the Moor, and the wisest who ever lived. And it looked as if Gest had carried her off.
“War,” said the Beekeeper gloomily. “This means war.”
“Doesn’t,” said Gest, still very short of breath. “Did three tasks for her. Marry her tomorrow. Got to rest now. Get a feast ready.”
“Just like that!” Miri said indignantly, as she and Tille led Adara off to Tille’s house to rest. “Does he think we can have a feast ready in five minutes?”
“Of course you can’t,” said Adara. “I don’t suppose he thought. I’ll go back and tell him to put it off, shall I?”
This of course put both Tille and Miri on their mettle. “You’ll do no such thing!” said Tille. “We’ll manage.”
“Besides, if he’s carried you off, it’s not proper to wait,” said Miri.
“He didn’t carry me off. I came of my own accord,” Adara protested.
“What you thought of it doesn’t count,” Miri said severely. “Now you get to bed and get some rest. We’ll see to it.”
By the time she and Tille had put Adara to bed, they had both lost their hearts to her. Neither of them blamed Gest for losing his. “Or his head into the bargain,” Miri said sourly. Adara was gentle and sympathetic and not in the least proud. But the greatest point in her favour, Miri and Tille agreed, was that though she was supposed to be the Wisest Woman ever, you would never have known it from the way she talked. “I can’t abide Wise Women who are always letting you know what a fool you are,” said Miri, from bitter experience, being a Wise Woman herself. “I wish she’d told us what happened though. Now we’ll have to wait for brother Orban to tell us.”
Orban arrived as she spoke. Garholt quivered with the noise. From the shouts and thumps at the main door, it sounded as if half the men of Otmound had come with Orban.
Gest, refreshed with a long drink of beer, took all the men of Garholt out of the side doors. The two bands confronted one another under a full Moon and everyone inside the mound waited for the battle to begin.
Orban, who had grown into a lumpish, sulky man, stepped out in front of the massed Otmounders and scowled at Gest. “I want to speak to you alone,” he said.
The Garholters were beginning to get used to Gest. They were not surprised when he agreed. The Otmounders, however, were clearly very surprised. They stared uneasily after Orban and Gest as the two climbed to the top of the mound together. But Orban made no attempt to hit Gest. Instead, he spoke to him in an undertone, savagely and urgently. Nobody heard what he said. Once Gest, who had been shaking his head at Orban every so often, put both hands up to his neck, with the gesture of a man about to remove his collar. Then he seemed to remember his collar was gone, and took his hands away.
“No, the other one, you fool!” Orban was heard to say. “The one Kasta—” But then he realised other people could hear and lowered his voice again.
“Who’s Kasta?” the younger smith whispered to Banot.
“Orban’s wife,” whispered Banot. “Awful woman. She—”
He was interrupted by a roar from Orban. “GIANTS! You—!”
Gest said something loudly at the same time. Orban seemed to calm down. He stood under the Moon with his arms folded, growling sullenly at Gest, and Gest seemed to be watching him warily. One thing at least was clear: Orban did not like Gest and Gest did not much care for Orban. Gest said something. Then, to everyone’s surprise, the two of them shook hands. Orban turned and came jauntily down the mound, looking as if a weight was off his mind. He smiled, and waved airily to the seventy Otmounders waiting below Garholt.
“Right, everyone,” he said. “That’s it. We’re going.”
“Going? Without Adara?” one of them asked blankly.
“Yes. I’ve told Gest she can stay. He did three tasks for her after all,” Orban said gaily. He shepherded them back along the roadline. They went reluctantly, and it was plain they were very puzzled indeed.
So that was how Gest came to marry Adara. As to quite how he had managed it, the Garholters were mystified. But from what they had heard so far, it was clear to them that Gest was a hero and a Chief straight out of the old stories. Three tasks! They were agog with pride and curiosity. Though some people took the reasonable line that this kind of thing was well enough in the days of King Ban, but what was needed nowadays was a careful, steady Chief, nobody could wait to find out exactly what Gest had done to win Adara.
But neither Gest nor Adara would talk about it and if Banot knew, he was not saying either. People kept their eyes and ears open for hints all through the bustle of preparing the wedding feast, working a new gold collar for Gest, making clothes for Adara, and the hundred other things necessary, but no one learnt anything until the wedding feast was in full swing. Then Miri happened to come up with wine for Banot, just as Adara approached him from the other side.
Adara looked more beautiful than ever in her wedding dress, but she also looked troubled. “Banot,” she said, “what do you know of the Old Power, the Middle and the New?”
Banot, like all the Chanters, was working hard, playing for the dancing and singing. His face had been flushed and shiny. But Miri saw, when he looked up at Adara, his face was pale. “Those are Dorig things,” he said. “You shouldn’t talk of them at a time like this.”
“Just tell me if you know how to appease them,” Adara said coaxingly.
Banot would not look at her. He stared straight ahead, with his fingers ready on a chord. “I only know one way,” he said, “and that’s by sacrifice. And if I told you what kind and how made, we’d have to stop the feast and chant for luck until the new Moon.” Then he struck the chord and began playing to prevent Adara saying any more.
Adara turned away, looking appalled. It was some time before she seemed happy again. And Miri was equally upset. It was well known how the Dorig sacrificed. Sometimes hunting parties would come upon the corpses of their sacrifices hanging in the Sun to rot. If you had the bad luck to find one, the only thing to do was to stop and use the very strongest of the strong words, or the Dorig Powers would fasten on you. Giants sometimes sacrificed in the same way, but they only used moles, weasels and other small animals, whereas the Dorig used men, women and Dorig. Miri, not