4:8: Cedar and stone.

Midday hung suspended over Eagle Peak no longer than it did over Marsember or Suzail, but it often felt like it.  Instead of being filled with the bustle of city crowds, the training of soldiers, or the calling of fishermen's families, it was only gently caressed by dry, empty winds, the screeing of the marsh insects, and the working of the herders, farmers, and loggers. 

Few of the sons of Eagle Peak ever knew any life outside of the small settlement, but Finn MacCreigh- youngest of four siblings- had been different.  He was the unfortunate strong-and-quiet type that attracted giggling girls to himself like an open flame attracts moths, but never bought into their flighty affections.  Since his elder brothers split the logging business between themselves, and his father gave his elder sister the herding business as a wedding present, Finn decided to make his own fortune by joining caravans.  He traveled the length and breadth of Cormyr for a few years, then brought home a small sum of hard earned starting capitol for his own delivery business.  When he did, along with him came a tall, strong, slate grey-eyed city woman who seemed to rarely speak.  It had come as a great surprise to everyone- his family included- when he introduced the strange city woman as his wife.

The woman seemed to show no affection or emotion at all in public.  While she waved and nodded respectfully to all who spoke to her, it seemed physically difficult for her to even smile, let alone actually speak.  But over time, her work spoke for her.  Her tapestries were wonders to behold.  She repaired any broken furniture that other townsfolk brought to her, worked hard at harvest time, urged the temple ministers to teach the town children to read and write, and helped to forge a tenuous peace between the town, Orcs, and Lizardfolk through her consistent trade.  And as the years passed, the insular people of Eagle Peak came to accept the woman- Ielena MacCreigh- as though she had been born among them.  So when her manners all pointed toward an extended period of some sort of discomfort, the entire town openly prayed for the resolution of whatever the situation could have been without asking a single question. 

Erma, who had told Ielena firmly that she would gladly walk the mile to sit and do her mending work with her three times a week, shared the noontime peace of the hearth room.  Ielena sat straight and tall in the firm ladder back chair, working on a new wall covering for a neighbor whose home had been damaged by fire, and Erma sat in the rocker, pushing at the floor slowly with her one natural foot as she worked on a mending customer's good temple-going shirt.

This midday, Pelor was about the business of answering prayer.

"Hey-o, Mum!"

The sound of the elder of the Ielena's boys, a sharp cry to rival a crow's, stuck fast and firm, like an arrow in her heart.  The grey-eyed woman looked up immediately.

Finn?  Ori?

The dark haired boy slammed into the hearth room, closely followed by his sandy brown haired little brother. 

"From Suzail!" the smaller of the two boys whooped.

"Little Schrisa run it to Da, from the big mile-mark!" his elder brother added.  "On all fours, like I never seen!"

No...

And the woman arose, concern weighting her look.  Her first son stopped his mad rush, and his little brother, oblivious to the look on his mother's face, nearly slammed into him.

"Here, Mum-"

"Hah, Rhen; thee has me proper puckled," a deeper, richer version of the elder boy's voice called.  Moments later, Finn puffed his way into the house and snatched the letter that his first son was holding out of his little hands.  The woman lifted her eyes from it to her husband, then past him toward some other point on the wall.  "Ye're a lion due."

"Nae the whole; Ori were after me," the boy smiled slyly, thumping down to the floor.

"The birthday'll do thee both, eh?  A roar a piece." Finn replied as he scrubbed his hand through the first boy's hair first, then the younger brother's.  That done, he turned around and hung his axe on a set of four wooden tongues above the fireplace.  He looked across at his wife, who stood at an attention worthy of the Purple Dragons, then began reading, doing his best to imitate a delicate city-born woman's tone.

" 'My sweet sister,

The healing warmth of Pelor be upon you, and the comforting protection of Mother Chauntea guide you.  I pray daily for you, for Finn, and for your precious babies, who must by now be nearly grown men.' "

Finn paused and looked down at his sons, who had both sat down on the floor to listen with grins on their faces.  The elder of the two had gathered his younger brother to himself in his arms to keep him from bopping up and down.  With a smile of his own, their father looked back to the letter and continued.

" 'This day is dreary, and the heavens hurl down punishment upon the earth in the form of small stones that have, together with the cold rain, driven all but the judges and the criminals indoors.  As we are none of these, we, together with the retired Battlemage Ranclyffe, are bundled inside.  The honorably retired battlemage had been studying a companion of the other suspected accomplices, and his gracious wife, being full of mercy, brought that woman down to the Pillars to hear the judgement in person.  When the weather became too harsh for his soul to bear with his dear heart being outside in the chill and wet, the battlemage commissioned a messenger to collect her, along with her companion, and to bring word of the judgement, once rendered.  

Now, let it not be said that Battlemage Ranclyffe is without the brave spirit of a true husband, for in the messenger's delay, he did go out and collect his wife himself.  Being unable to withstand the weather, they did all three make their way to our home, which stands closer to the Pillars than does the College and its adjoining properties.  Some hours after their arrival, with a Dragon shield above his head to keep the weather off, the young child followed the trail of neighborly hearsay from the battlemage's home to ours.' "

Finn paused again, and looked up briefly at his wife, who was still standing at attention, as motionless as though she had been turned into a statue.  Off to her left, Erma had folded her hands tightly and pressed her lips together.

" 'To our joy, the glory of Lathander, and the great surprise of Iordyn himself, he is absolved, and nearly in higher standing than before.  The oversword has gone so far as to put his epithet, 'the Virtuous,' in writing, publicly crediting him with what we all hope is the start of that other wayward young woman's path toward righteous living.  While he is outwardly of good cheer, I sense that some distemper is gnawing at his inward being, and I therefore enjoin you to keep him in your prayers.

I will tax your spirit no further with flowery prose, but wish you and your household continued health and strength.  Do come, I earnestly pray you, and bring your 'prattling boys' with you; we are awash with visitors, but not so flooded that we could not brook four more.  Our children are well, and should see their dear cousins before they are apprenticed away.  Stephen claims that he will send you a print of a hot hammerhead burned into cloth, but I know he will not have any of my linen to do that!

Your loving sister,

Suze.' "

Erma gave a long, but quiet sigh of relief.  Finn looked up when he heard it, and saw that his wife's grey eyed gaze still rested on the blank wall over the wash basin.  Rhen, visible out of the corner of his eye, was rocking Ori from side to side with the weight of his own body.

"Rhen?"

"Aye, Da?" the boy replied, holding himself and his brother still again.

"Be a good lad and hae the priests to ring the high bells, for the answerin' of prayer, eh?"

The gleeful 'Aye, Da!' that echoed back to Finn's ears was scarce heard over the thundering of Rhen's rushing feet.

"And I, Da?  What do I, eh?" Ori enthused, getting to his feet.

"Hmm," Finn mused playfully.  " 'Twill take muscle."

"I's yer boy!" the little boy replied, jumping up and down.

"Ah-hah, so thee are!" Finn enthused, scrubbing the boy's light ringlets.  "Haul the wood o' the circuit for me, quick as foxes."

"Aye, Da!  Mum, bye!"

Ori surged forward and fearlessly hugged his mother around the waist.  Slowly, much more slowly than normal, Ielena picked up her hand and laid it on her son's back.  Her eyes never moved from their distant stare.  Ori, who didn't notice, grunted and purred his unbridled happiness before turning to run off the way his brother had done.  Finn nodded once, slowly, and Erma began to carefully get to her feet.

"I'll tak air, so I will.  Me puir bones're achin' me sore, wicked witches'  toys that they are," she said gently, beginning to gather her things.

"Dinnae be takin' yer stitchin', Ermie."

Erma nodded to Finn, briefly lifted the bottom of her skirt to check whether her wooden leg were fitting straight underneath her or not, then gave a nod to the still-staring Ielena and Finn before she left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Finn took his time folding the letter- three times, two times- and fitting it into the palm of his right hand.  In the tower of the small chapel at the center of town, a set of three high pitched bells began pealing.  The logger stretched out his hand to his wife, with the letter still in the palm, as though he were inviting her to dance.  Slowly, as though she were a golem whose enchantment were nearly insufficient to move her, Ielena raised her left hand and placed it in his hand.

"Real?" she whispered.

"Aye," Finn answered firmly, but gently.  "That we are."

"All?"

"The boys, the house- 'tis thee built the half of it."  Finn stepped slowly toward the empty rocking chair, took Ielena's right hand, and placed it on the back of it, pulling it back gently to rock it with her.

"Thee were married to me on a hillside, at night.  An auld priest travelling with me caravan done it.  He were drunk, at the time, and he wouldn't marry us, 'till thee agreed to take three drams of me stout.  That were the only time I ever seen thee drink at all."

"Finn," Ielena whispered as she looked down at the rocking chair, her tone still distant.  "My Finn."

"Aye, that I am.  Last o' four.  Nae a cent o' inheritance.  Thee gave me all o' thine, and twa strappin' laddies, too.  First's-"

"Rhen.  Midwinter.  Ori, early harvest.  Early, early harvest.  But it snowed the month after- didn't it?  Didn't it?"

Finn stepped closer to Ielena and turned her around, so that he could speak gently into her ear and let her feel the warmth of his body.  Outside, the bells of the chapel continued ringing, filling the air.  Ielena struggled to hear the bells as they were- high, clear, rapidly rung- instead of the low, pulsing bells of mourning that surged to her mind.  She shut her eyes.

No.  Not those.

"It did snow, me dearie; aye, that it did," Finn encouraged, bringing his cheek close to hers.  "Were the nastiest winter to me memory, though me pap yarns me of a worse, some ten odd years afore I were born.  I'm real.  Solid as a cedar."

"The bells," Ielena managed.

"Joy bells," Finn smiled.  "Good news; here's the letter of it between us.  Between thee and me, right here, in our hands."

For a few moments, Ielena simply allowed herself to feel Finn's heartbeat, thudding behind her shoulder blade.  She breathed evenly and purposefully, repeating Finn's words in her mind.  He waited in silence at first, but then began a very quiet hum- an strange and delicate air that sounded as though it should have some foreign words fitted to it.  But Ielena, having faithfully attended temple services since arriving at Eagle Peak, recognized it and began singing along quietly at once.

"Ah, wandring maiden,
Shining pure,
That guides the wheel
And keeps it sure;
Attend my way,
Be my guide,
And set my path by thine."

Ielena picked her right hand up off the back of the rocker, which had Finn's right hand on top of it.  Finn, in response, curled those fingers to hold his wife's hand, then wrapped their joined arms around her.  As though he were singing a love song to her instead of a prayer hymn to Tymora, he quietly finished where Ielena left off.  His gently crooning tenor soaked into the marrow of her bones, deepened her breathing and calmed her heart, and she closed her eyes to lose herself in it.

"All that there be,
Begged or bought,
Be thine, else it come to naught;
Though to thy child's naethin' due,
I pray thee for thy boon."

For a few blissful moments, there was quietness, and Ielena thought back to how it had been at the beginning.  When the two of them were alone, sleeping huddled together under the sky on the staked ground.  The cabin had been nothing but a shared dream between a young country man with more hope than inheritance and an intelligent city woman whose spirit had nearly been crushed completely.  The boys were imaginations, often spoken of with fondness, but not yet given flesh.  Yet even in those heady, youthful days, Ielena had often bolted straight up from sleep, accidentally let entire dinners fall heedlessly from her hands, or mindlessly sawed straight through a chosen piece of lumber, a icy fear suddenly crushing her lungs like the claws of a dragon.

Is it real?  Is this real?

Aye, that I am, Finn had always answered.  Solid as a cedar.

"I'll never understand why you won't sing at temple," Ielena whispered, her eyelids stinging.  "The rest of the congregation bumbles and warbles its way miserably through that tune, without you."

"Thee shepherds 'em close to't," Finn said sheepishly.  "They've no need o' me."

A few more quiet moments between the man and wife rewarded them with the echoes of the neighbors encouraging Ori and Rhen.  Finn couldn't suppress a proud father's smile, but quickly reigned himself back in to the most immediate issue.

"Me auld mates're takin' the road in a fortnight.  Shall I tell 'em that I were only funnin' 'em about the ride south?"

Ielena opened her eyes, and truly looked out of the window.  In the distance, she saw that Rhen had caught up with Ori, and the two had split Finn's last few deliveries between themselves.

"I was looking forward to seeing Stephen again... and Iordyn of course, but..."

Finn wrapped his other arm, still holding the letter between his hand and Ielena's, around her waist. "But we can write 'em, and keep home a mickle more."