We Remember

She is uneasy. I can smell it. The grey one is talking to her softly in the shrinking light. We will move soon, not away from the strange trees, but into them. This seems bad to me. They are older than the other trees and smell angry and strong. There is ample food, clean and rapid water, and there is a friendly bitch in a hut close to the ravine I would like to get to know. We do not need to go in order to live.

But once they are up on their hind legs, these ones take themselves far too seriously. They start making and building fancy things and places and ideas. She has fed me since I was very small, though. I will bite anything that threatens her. I understand how many meanings bark has.

“Seldom are hounds allowed to take part in the rite, Bridget. The elders have granted you this boon after lengthy deliberation. Do not make me look the fool by squandering it. Only three women have been welcomed into our midst before. If you do what you must, you will become the fourth. Do you understand what must be done?” Daffyd looked at me with the same cool skepticism that he showed when I asked him for more lamb than I ought to have had at a feast when I was a child. His beard was brown then, his back straight. Time eats everything and everyone with slow and deliberate care, from fruit to rind.

“I understand. Cuidiú cannot misbehave; he would be insulted by any suggestion to the contrary. He hears and smells things I cannot. I respect him. So will they.” Daffyd deplores careless, superfluous talk. I have learned to speak in a way that wins his respect. I want his respect because it will allow me to learn things few know, and fewer understand.

“He has acquitted himself well in war and in peace. He is no ordinary hound. We will await your return. There will be pain. There will be fear. You will learn. Go, now. If you return, you will be welcome. So will he.” Daffyd smiled. He has fewer teeth than he had when we met. I will count them, when next he affords me the chance. He whispers a blessing and hands me the bachall. It is as long and experienced as his femur. Walking among the roots can be tricky. It will be useful, and carrying it is mandated by tradition in any event. Rituals are coins with the faces rubbed off. It is foolish to underestimate their worth. Daffyd taught me that, before I became a woman and understood it, for both good and ill.

Here she comes. We are moving now. I smell the grey one. He will see his last winter soon. Something is rotting in his guts.

Squirrels never relax. They always taste exhausted. Two are arguing there, over the grey one’s head. Few of their kind venture further in, where she and I must. Are we not wiser than squirrels?

Cuidiú’s eyes hunt through mine for signs of distress, as always. They look like bowls of my grandmother’s broth, brimming with warm, brown, familiar comfort. Looking at him watching me is a recipe for courage. No one will ever love me as purely and simply as he does. I am glad of it.

I whistle and look into the trees. He huffs and canters around me in a quick, affectionate circle, then moves into their shadows. I envy his confidence.

The twilight is ordinary until it is not. I admire his coat, his determined musculature, the casual elegance of his limbs. I have always been a little clumsy. Cuidiú marches like a compact, auburn army.

The young trees are almost behind us now. Even the moles are few after they give way to their elders, and what birds there are seem asleep or pretending to be. I can smell one wolf and many deer. One fewer left than came. Wolves. Freedom sometimes stinks.

It is thick, the stillness among the eldest trees, like a pause before an ugly truth is told. Fitting. That is what Daffyd and the others told me to be prepared for. Here it is.

**We remember when you burned our kin. Some of our children are your father’s spears. Does it please you, when we die so you might kill?**