A/N: English is not my first language, but I guess everyone knows that by now. Eh…well, yes. This is just a short little story that will make sense to those who has read The Jesters’ Tale, but you can read it even if you haven’t. It’s not very exciting or anything, but it’s quite cute and I wrote it as a little thank you for everyone who has been kind enough to read and review TJT. Also, a great hug to all wonderful people who keep encouraging me to become a professional writer. (But then I’ll probably write in Swedish…)In the Mountain’s Shadow

By Zinnith

Some said that rocks had no life. Some said that mountains were just large masses of stone, silent, emotionless giants that towered up high over the heads of humans.

Roben Miner of Taikrat knew the truth.

He let his rough palm brush over the rock face outside the opening to his mine. The stone felt cold under his hand, but he could sense the life that lay inside, the great power of a mountain that had stood there since long before humans had ever set foot in the world. It stood there as a silent servant, willing to give what riches it had in form of iron and other metals, willing to help Roben make a living upon what he could get from the dark depths of the mine. In return, the mountain expected him to show it respect and gentleness, to take nothing more than what he needed, to use but not abuse. Roben might be a simple man, but he knew his place in the world, and it was right here, in the shadow of the great mountains he loved.

He turned around and let his eyes wander over the landscape. People from the rich green hills around Andalad, or those from the vast woodland area of Taural, or from the farming plains around the city of Kasvor, might have called the land around his village barren and unpleasant, and from their point of view, it might very well be that way. Taikrat had no great gardens flowering of beautiful exotic plants. The thin layer of earth on the bedrock was hardly enough to get a decent crop of wheat. There were no great herds of cattle grazing on the sparse pastures in the mountain valley. There were only the large mountains and the long cold winters.

But on the other hand, the people from Andalad and Kasvor and the Taural had probably never seen how beautiful the mountains were. They had never seen the windflowers on the alpine heaths in the summer. They had never seen the fire in the maples in the autumn, when you could stand on a plateau high over the village and see nothing but red and gold and orange. They had never seen the bright white snow on the mountainsides in the winter, or the frost that painted stars on the windows. They had never seen the brooks and streams in the spring when the snow and ice melted and returning birds of passing sang all over the mountains.

Roben had seen all those things, and he counted himself the luckiest man in the world.

  “My friend? It is time now.”

A firm hand on his knee woke Roben from his daydreaming. He looked down to meet the eyes of Brynn Berensson, his business partner, long time companion and not to forget, most trusty friend. The dwarf barely reached to his chest, but was nevertheless a valuable companion who understood the power of the mountains even better than him.

  “Already?” he asked, at once with a billion of butterflies fluttering around in his stomach. “Have you seen Caran?”

  “With the kittens the last time I saw her. She wouldn’t leave them.”

Roben nodded with a smile. Even if she was only three years old, Caran knew what she wanted and no one could change her mind if she had gotten an idea in her head.

  “I’ll go around and pick her up then. Thank you, Brynn.”

The dwarf grinned and took up a pickaxe someone had left on the ground in front of the entrance to the mine while he grunted something about people not being able to pick up after themselves. Roben went down the path that led to the village. Taikrat was not a large village. There were around thirty families that lived and worked there. Most of them were employed in the mine, and others were occupied with working up the iron ore that the miners took up from the mountain. There was also a smith, a carpenter and a family of farmers who tried hard to make the meagre earth give them what they needed to make a living.

He could hear clear voices from the shed outside the carpenter’s workshop. He peeked in through the open door and saw a group of children sitting around the heap of straw where five small kittens lay beside the mother cat. The kids were between two and eight years old, most of them with the blond hair of the mountains, but a few with darker hair, and one girl with flaming red tresses adorning her face.

  “Caran?”

The red-haired child looked up at him with deep brown eyes.

  “Hallo daddy.”

  “Don’t you want to see your new brother or sister?”

  “It’s a brother”, said Caran, like she was stating a fact.

  “You think so?”

  “I know.”

Roben laughed fondly and reached out his hand to the girl.

  “All right then, it’s a brother. Don’t you want to come and see him?”

Caran seemed to think about it for a moment, but then she nodded, got to his feet and took his hand, her fingers so small and thin in his large rough miner’s hand. She waved goodbye to the other children and followed him out of the shed and down the village street.

People came out from their houses as they passed by, waving and wishing them luck, but no one made them stop and talk. They all knew that Roben and Caran had somewhere else and more important to be.

The house was quite small with walls greyed from weather and wind. Outside was a little garden, enough to grow the vegetables that could withstand the cold climate, and also a small flowerbed. Anja had always loved flowers and she grew marigolds and cornflowers under the kitchen window, along with a sort of small sweet-smelling roses on a little bush, the only kind that could live this far up north.

Roben sat down on the bench by the door and took his daughter on his knee. Caran did not seem to be very anxious by the great thing that was happening, but Roben knew that she had been looking forward to get a little sibling, and had not talked about anything else for weeks. She was a strange child, Caran. Even at the age of three, she sometimes seemed to be much older that the other children in the village. She could run faster, climb higher and talk better than her playmates in the same age. And then of course, there was the hair and the eyes, the same bright red and dark brown as Roben’s own. He had secretly hoped that line would end with him, but now when he saw his little daughter he knew that he would not trade her for one of the fair-haired, blue-eyed mountain girls even if he were offered the world.    

The door to the house opened and Mirell, the midwife, stepped out on the large flat stone slab Roben had cut out himself and placed in front of the door to keep the threshold from getting too muddy. Mirell gave father and daughter a warm smile.

  “You can go in now. Congratulations, Roben, it’s a healthy child.”

Roben thanked the midwife and stepped inside, still holding Carans small hand in his big. A fire was burning in the iron stove in the kitchen and a pot of water was boiling merrily. He could smell herbs in the room. It was not a big house, more of a cottage actually, but still enough for a small family. A small bouquet of forget-me-nots stood in a water glass on the kitchen table. Caran had brought them to her mother the day before when Anja had felt to big and tired and ungainly to go out and pick fresh flowers to decorate their home with.

They went into the bedroom, with the large double bed Roben had built with his own hands, as a wedding present for Anja and himself. It was not a lavished bed with beautiful carvings on the headboard, like some of the beds the carpenter could make. Roben did not feel the same close familiarity with wood as he did with stone, but it was still a strong reliable bed that would hold for a long time. Caran had been born in that bed a little more than three years ago.

Anja was sitting up against the headboard, looking tired and a bit pale, but still the most beautiful woman Roben had ever seen. He had loved her since the day he had met her on the mountainside five years ago, where she had been watching her father’s goats. She was golden-haired and blue-eyed, like most of the other women in the village, but her smile made him feel warm inside, and her eyes shone like bright little flowers of their own. In her arms, she held something small wrapped in a blanket.

  “Come and see your son”, she said with that warm beautiful smile.

Caran laughed and ran up to the bed, trying to sneak a peek of the little baby boy inside the blaket.

  “I said it was a brother”, she said triumphantly.

Roben smiled and lifted the girl up on the bed so she could crawl up beside her mother and take a closer look at the little bundle in her arms.

  “Yes my girl, you did. Careful now, don’t wake him.”

The baby was asleep; exhausted from the hard work it had been to come into the world. When Caran was born, Roben had thought that there could be no more perfect child. He had been wrong, because this little boy was just as perfect, just as wonderful as her. Thin curls covered his head, the same flaming red colour as Caran’s and Roben’s, the same colour as the maple leaves in the autumn. Roben did not need for the child to open his eyes to know that they would be dark brown like the earth.

  “I was thinking of a name”, said Anja with a smile. “What do you think of Matthew? Mother would be so happy.”

  “Matthew is a good name”, answered Roben. It had been the name of Anja’s father, who had died only a few months earlier. He had been a good man, strong and caring, and not minding that his daughter had chosen to marry a man who looked so different from the others in the village and whose heritage was subject to whispered gossip all over the county of Heyde. Matthew would be a good name for the boy. Perhaps Anja’s father would find a way to live on in the grandchild he had never got the chance to see. 

  “He’s so small”, said Caran sounding a bit disappointed. “I wanted to play with him, but he’s just sleeping all the time.”

  “All children are so small when they are born”, said Anja and brushed a hand through the girl’s hair. “You were exactly that small once. But don’t worry, he’ll grow fast and you’ll be able to play with him before you know.” She turned serious with a worried little glance at Roben. “You’ll have to look after him, you know. He’s your little brother and you’ll have to take care of him whatever happens. Do you promise me that, Caran love?”

Caran nodded solemnly and reached out a hand to gently touch her brother’s pink cheek.

  “I promise I’ll look after him, mummy.”

Roben sat down on the bedside and smiled at his little daughter.

  “A promise made is a promise kept, remember that my girl.”

  “I’ll remember.”

The girl moved a little closer to her mother, so that Anja could wrap an arm around her as well. It was such a beautiful picture, the blond woman holding her two red-haired children tight against her. Roben smiled broadly and placed a kiss on his wife’s cheek. This was his place in the world, right here and now, with his beloved family, under the living, watching eyes of the mountain.

The End