The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

autumn months were said to be either brave or dangerous, and the people retold many long stories about them; especially during the winters. He had no way of telling if their stories were true, as he knew no one born with that mark upon them.
    Further up from the Horseman came the Lovers. Two figures merged together, the sex of both indeterminate, allowing the Love Symbol’s followers freedom in sexual choice, should they have riches enough to be able to choose. Until Ralph, Simon had never paid much heed to the powers those stars could convey. And, with Ralph, he’d had no need of it. For a while.
    Damn him. He needed to shake the Lammas Master out of his thoughts, but Ralph would come to him every way, no matter how much Simon tried to block him. For a while, he concentrated instead on the final two star clusters. The Lone Man, and the Mountain. The latter was the furthest cluster, symbolising danger and threat. Those unlucky people born under the Mountain star were said to have a long journey to travel before the end of their lives was reached. Simon had known very few born in that season and those he did know, from the very distant past, always fought shy of admitting it. By the time he was a young boy, he had learned to not question anybody a second time about their birth season if the answer was not forthcoming on the first.
    Simon’s heart skittered over the Lone Man. Not a star group that could be seen regularly in the skies. He had never seen it in his lifetime and the legends spoke of how the heavens shifted and it was only visible once in every ten generations. Many times, as a boy, he had gazed up at the dark emptiness and wondered why something he would never see could be so fascinating. Perhaps the mystery of the unknown, although he thought that the mystery would be better played out in the head, not experienced, as now, in the reality of aching muscles and hunger.
    Not that he set much store by the power of the stars, or what they represented. They were only stories after all. Here and now in the loneliness of the night, he used them to distract his thoughts from his own sleeplessness and the dangers to come. Enough power existed in men’s lives; there was no need to allow the stars their sway also, although some believed in them.
    But still one shape remained in the skies. One the scribe hadn’t yet counted in his heart.
    The Elm.
    His mother’s star. Caught between the River and the Horseman, between refreshment and danger, her star-shape symbolised height and nourishment. Something which from the very beginning Simon had always associated with her.
    He blinked away tears and reached out his hand to touch the sleeping boy.
    Simon’s mother. The first thing he could remember about her was her hair. Long and golden, it sparkled in the sunlight like the corn. His own was darker but it still, in summer, tended to lighten in the sun to a shade that reminded him of hers. She had always kept it long and it was that, more than anything, which set her apart from the other women in the village of Hartstongue. His father, of course, was a native of the area and had lived all his life there. Perhaps he still lived there; Simon had no knowledge of whether his father was dead or alive, and he didn’t know whether or not he wanted to discover that truth. His father had always been a shadow in their small household, someone whose heart he was never able to reach. Besides, he had not found Simon’s mother; it was she who had sought out him. It was she who had been the traveller.
    Simon wondered why she’d stayed. Now it was too late to ask her. She’d died. She’d…
    No. Not now. This was neither the place nor the time for those kinds of thoughts. Before that had happened, there had been her life, and the part of it she’d shared with Simon. Her only child.
    He could remember the way she always rose early and prepared herself for the day, before the other women woke to knead dough, fetch water or walk to the fields with their menfolk to work. She would light a candle, take the smoothed copper plate she used as a makeshift mirror and hum while she brushed her hair, unknotting the tangles of the night and letting it fall untied, almost to her waist. She always wore something white. When she’d finished, she would smile at Simon. As far back as he could recall he’d loved to watch her. Afterwards, she would wake his father, and the three of them would share a breakfast of oats and barley water, and watch