Read Dreaming the Eagle for Free Online Page A

pride. She had learned better than he had expected from her years of watching and this was as good as anything he could have made at starting. Then, turning it round, he saw the third thing and knew she had surpassed him. Like the best of craftsmen, she had caught life in simplicity, motion in stillness, and what he saw in front of him raised the hairs on his arms. Held one way, it was still a spear, a thing made for a warrior. Held differently, the curved arcs patterning the front face resolved themselves into something quite other. He turned it on his palm to catch the light from the fire. The bronze shimmered in the heat and on the surface, moulded in place, the red kite of the Coritani fell beneath the punishing claws of the small, fierce, yellow-eyed owl that hunts by day - the one that had been the dream of her mother. All winter he had dreamed his vengeance. His daughter had cast it in bronze.
    He stood for a long time in silence. The words of the elder grandmother echoed in his ears. She draws out her dream, as you should do. He raised his eyes. Breaca stood as she had before, her good hand still on the forging block, the other hanging loose at her side. The smile and the colour had drained from her face, leaving her grey with the morning. She would not ask; her pride would not allow it. He must give her what she needed, freely and with integrity, but it was hard to look at it critically, as he would the work of another smith. He forced his eye along the lines, matching and balancing the individual markings with the overall flow. Without thinking, he reached for his polishing sand and smoothed off a blemish on the surface. The involuntary movement of her arm brought him back to himself.
    He laid the piece down again. He owed her honesty; she would expect no less. ‘It is close to perfect,’ he said.
    ‘But … ?
    ‘But you didn’t use the drawing tool. The two arcs of the eyes are not quite balanced. This one here’ - his finger followed a line on the surface - ‘does not match the one over here.’
    She had known it. He could see the truth in the tilt of her head and the single vertical line of her frown. ‘I couldn’t take the tool without you noticing,’ she said. ‘I tried to make one of my own, but it didn’t work.’
    ‘But still, it is a remarkable piece. And very beautiful.’ He reached up to the top shelf for his workbox. The punch that lay in the centre, protected by wool, had as its end-piece the shape of a feeding shebear, the mark of his family. He held it out to her now. ‘If you want to use it,’ he offered, ‘it is well worth the mark.’
    It was the best gift he could have given her and she had not expected as much. Her eyes shone and he realized with shock that there were tears at the corners. ‘Do you think it is good enough?’ she asked.
    ‘I wouldn’t offer did I not.’
    He passed her his middle hammer. She took the stamp from him and placed it on the front face of the brooch, on a patch of bare metal left free of ornament. The sound rang out like a bell. With the mark in place, the shape of it balanced better so that he wondered if the asymmetry had been more deliberate than she had allowed. Outside, the sun broke over the horizon. A stray shard of sunlight angled in through the doorway and fell on the bench. Eburovic moved the new piece into the path of it so that the owl shone gold. They looked at it together. He said, ‘Would you wear it now?’
    ‘No.’ She shook her head. He saw her teeth shine white on her lower lip. In some ways she was still a child. ‘It is not for me.’
    For a moment he thought he was being offered a gift and pleasure welled within him. Then he saw the twin streaks of colour high on her cheekbones, stark against the white of her skin, and, crushingly, he understood. He stared at her in silence.
    With obvious effort she said, ‘It is a gift for … the one who knew the owl.’
    She was rigid, her voice a drawn thread. Her injured hand was