The Moonshawl

by Storm Constantine

  I closed my eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It concerns the beansidhe,’ Rinawne said. ‘The banshee. It happened back in Erini... when I was a little harling.

  I settled myself again, the tightness releasing its clutch within me. Rinawne’s voice was jaunty as he began. I closed my eyes to listen.

  ‘My friend Gadda and I, we snuck out of our houses one night and met in the dark. Gadda had two bottles of shine he had stolen from his father’s store. We planned to find a barn and drink ourselves silly. It was an autumn night and the first frost was upon us. Some of the fields wore coats of mist. We followed an old rail track in a deep cutting, passing the first bottle between us. There was enough drink there to down a group of adult hara – gods knew what we were thinking.

  ‘But anyway, we walked on, already tipsy. Gadda said to me, “Rin, you hear that?” and I said “What’s that, Gad?” and he said, “just listen. Tell me you can hear that.” So we both stood quiet, just the sound of our breathing, and I heard a faint mewing sound, like an animal in pain. “Creature in a trap,” I said, taking a swig of shine. “Is it?” Gadda said. “Sounds like no creature to me.” But still, he shrugged and we carried on walking along that old cutting – nasty places in themselves, the human tracks.

  ‘As we walked, we were joking and pushing each other around, but then Gadda stopped and said, “Listen, Rin.” The sound had got louder, a terrible weeping it sounded like now. “Somehar in trouble,” Gadda said. He lurched to the side of the cutting and began to climb. I got watered up with this bad feeling and called out to him, “No, wait!” but he was gone like a rabbit, so I had to follow, him being my friend, and all.

  ‘We came out into Mawna’s Meadow, which was where we’d been heading anyway, there being a great old barn there, full of fresh hay. But in the middle of the field, we saw a figure with its back to us, letting out these awful sounds. Gadda said, “That’s no har”, and I knew what he meant. It was a human woman, her hair sticking out all over. I could just tell. There were still old humans sometimes who lived among the hara of the villages, looked after until the end. The woman before us gave off this air of being very ancient, and oh, the grief that came out of her; it was the most terrible thing I ever heard. It made you want to cry, and run away, and go to her to comfort her, all at the same time.

  ‘Gadda said, “We must help,” and started to trot forward, but I went after him then, quick as I could, and pulled his arm. “No! Don’t! Run!” He looked angry, but then he was looking back at me, and couldn’t see what was before us – the shape ahead slowly turning round. I knew we must not see her face. “Just run, you roon wit, run!” I dragged him back into the cutting and we ran so fast back the way we came it was like we were flying. And all the time that awful shrieking rang in our heads.

  ‘We ran till we got home, and then neither of us felt like drinking any more. “It was the banshee,” I said and Gadda nodded, his hands braced on his thighs, his head almost between his knees. We were too scared to part, so Gadda came to my bed and until morning we just hugged each other, and couldn’t sleep.’

  I had been almost hypnotised by Rinawne’s tale and had to shake myself out of it. ‘That’s an amazing story,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, it’s a good one. Not much use to you as it’s not of these parts, but I was never so feared in my life. She brings death, you know. She would’ve taken a soul, but maybe only a human one, I don’t know. We never found out, and we couldn’t tell our hara; we’d have been punished for sneaking out.’ He paused, chewing on a grass stem, then said, grinning, ‘But you know, to this day I wonder what her face was like.’

  ‘I’m wondering too,’ I said.

  Rinawne got to his feet. ‘Well, we have your forest glade, what else do you need?’

  ‘A field,’ I said. ‘Near to the house, so the festival can finish up there.’

  ‘There are plenty of those. Let’s pick Dôl Cartref, the Home Meadow, since there’s a path to the gardens from it. It’s used for the horses, so it’s grass not crops. We can shift the nags for a night, since a few of them have a hankering to eat harish flesh.’

  ‘I’ve known horses of that type,’ I said grimly.

  We both laughed.

  I stood up and Rinawne took me in his arms. I didn’t resist. ‘Don’t leave it too long,’ he murmured, kissing my brow. He was one of the few hara I’d met who was as tall as I am and didn’t have to stand on a box to kiss my brow. ‘I’m not being selfish,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve a feeling you need it.’

  I sighed and leaned against him. ‘It’s like another kingdom to me now.’

  ‘This I can tell.’ He hugged me. ‘Come on, let’s look at the meadow.’

  I’d expected an invitation to dinner at the Mynd as before, but after we’d walked round the field, deciding where the procession should pause and ritual actions performed, hidden from the house by towering elms at its border, Rinawne said, ‘So when do I get the pleasure of a meal cooked by you, Ysobi?’

  ‘I can’t match your board,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not the point. I’d like to sit in the tower at night and look over the land.’

  I gave him a stare to show him I wasn’t that stupid. He certainly wasn’t going to allow me to “leave it too long”, but how could I expect otherwise from an impulsive creature like Rinawne? Inwardly, I sighed, then came abruptly to a decision. ‘All right. It might not be as good as you think likely, but all right.’

  ‘You are a master of seduction,’ he said. ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Might as well get it over with then, eh?’ He grinned.

  ‘Might as well.’

  ‘I have things to do this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ll come over later, about eight o’clock. Is that OK?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re a wonder.’ Then he sauntered off towards the house.

  I stood in the field for a moment, staring at the grass, also mindful of the horses eyeing me from some distance away, some of whom yearned to be meat-eaters. Was this the right thing to do? I felt coerced, yet not. If anything, I felt like I’d tumbled into a stream and the current was carrying me; seemed best to go with it, see where it led.

  I went down to Ludda’s farm to order a chicken and to replenish my stock of vegetables; for the last day or so I’d been living on toast and eggs. I also requested a bottle of Ludda’s best honey and herb liqueur. I knew he made it for Wyva, who had a vast collection of locally-made liqueurs, and that it was probably supposed to be just for him, but Ludda only gave me a wry look and agreed to supply the bottle. After that, and making preliminary preparations for dinner, I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote up the stories Rinawne had told me. I couldn’t use them for anything at the moment, but I believe nothing that might be of use creatively should be thrown away or forgotten.

  I felt extremely nervous and considered that part of my punishment in Jesith had been a kind of ‘unharing’. Slowly and by degrees, the desire for aruna had faded away from me, almost as if I’d been given a drug to kill it. I didn’t for one moment think any of my friends and family in Jesith had done such a thing, but that’s what it felt like.

  This had happened, I realised, even before I’d visited Kyme and the last fateful episodes with my nemesis, whose name I don’t want to speak aloud or even write. And yet somehow I did want to write about what had happened, as if to purge some of it before Rinawne came to me. I wouldn’t tell him any of this to his face, but would imagine him now as I wrote; a silent listener with no memory. Out came my notebook. I sat at the kitchen table, put a title at the head of a blank page: My History.

  I’d had a towering reputation in Jesith once, and throughout the surrounding lands, but this had been destroyed, my character questioned. How? Through aruna, through love, or the emotion to which we give that name. I’d seduced one of my pupils... No, that’s wrong, we seduced one another. But anyway, I should have known better, because he wa
s mentally scarred by early life traumas. Without meaning to, I’d tormented him emotionally, because I hadn’t been in the position to care for him, only to roon him secretly behind my chesnari’s back. He had been, perhaps still was, indescribably beautiful, irresistible, an attribute with which his hurt psyche couldn’t cope, because of the attention it drew to him.

  Unfortunately, this har hadn’t wanted a casual relationship, such as many enjoy outside of their chesna bonds, and with their chesnari’s blessing. Like Rinawne, he had been relentless, but in this case he had been unswerving in his determination to have me completely, to remove Jass from the picture. Unhinged, of course. This ended with him trying to kill himself, messily, right at the time when my son’s pearl was being delivered. Out of feelings of guilt and responsibility, I chose the wrong bed to sit beside and things went from bad to worse.

  The young har, his mind battered, had been sent away in disgrace, to be educated in Kyme, to be disciplined and redesigned. The hara in Jesith saw him as a manipulative and selfish idiot, a soume shrew, who targeted weak, older hara who should know better. I’d been left behind to try and mend the mess, not at all successfully. You see, the worst thing about it was that my speciality in teaching was to enhance the arunic arts, to use aruna as magic and for self-development. Hara looked at me and saw an egotistic fool, who used his position to take his pick of young hara coming to him for education. It really wasn’t like that, but that’s how it looked. I was judged. They didn’t pelt me with stones, or have me whipped, or even make me stand before a jury of my peers to receive punishment. They simply avoided me, crowded round Jassenah, the pious martyr, and judged me with their eyes. Left me out in the cold on winter’s nights while they raised their Natalia cups to my chesnari and my son.

  That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Fate took me to Kyme a year or so later and of course the path of my nemesis crossed with mine in that small community. Within the cloistered, antique atmosphere of our city of scholars, I’d wanted him still, with a yearning that was so profound it was unnatural. But I was bound somehow. I couldn’t bring myself to initiate any physical intimacy between us, because I felt there was only a snow-blank void where once my sensuality had been. I could only torture him for my own loss and weakness. Even though the sparks took light once more, this was in an even more twisted and damaging way. The torture was suppressed desire; far more subtle and dark. We should never have met again, because our wounds from the earlier battle were still fresh. The skin could be reopened very easily.

  I went slightly mad; no other way to put it. I punished that har for the way he made me feel. At times, I wanted to break him, because I saw in his beauty the ruin of my life. Eventually, he broke me, using harish powers that he had been trained by me to use.

  Cursed and physically shrunken, I’d been taken back an invalid to Jesith by Jassenah, now regarded as High Martyr of All Martyrs by our neighbours. My life from that day forward had been that of the outsider. The other, I believe, came out of it better because he had made powerful friends in Kyme.

  Hideously cruel. All of it. Yet desire had created the situation and had lit the bonfires that had heated the iron. My nemesis and I had been branded to the bone, and much had been lost. Thinking of it now, I felt angry for both of us. No punishment should be so harsh. I was first generation, perhaps hag-ridden by demons hidden so deep I was unaware of them, and he, the young one, had been beaten by life before he even reached Jesith for his education. Two damaged beings do not make a whole. We’d learned that in the hardest of ways.

  Sighing, I closed my notebook and rubbed my eyes. Gwyllion had given me a new start. I hoped the same went for him, wherever he was. Part of that new start was standing before the mirror of what I was: har. We are told we need aruna, which is the current that sustains us, physically, mentally and spiritually. Without it, what am I? The truth was, I didn’t even miss it.

  I realised only a har like Rinawne was the right type to heal me in this regard. Irreverent, not particularly emotionally engaged with me, simply wanting a distraction. He didn’t come with a contract of demands and expectations I was forced to sign in blood. True, he’d seemed jealous when he’d thought Gen might be trying to elbow his way into my affections, but I thought that was only because he’d wanted to elbow in first. Truly passionate love can be a heavy mantle, its lining laden with gloom and despair, as well as ecstasy and longing. I believe only the healthiest of hara can handle it correctly and without causing harm to themselves or those they love. Looking in from outside, it’s like a disease that turns the brain to cheese. I didn’t ever want to feel that way again.

  Rinawne arrived around fifteen minutes late, during which time a part of me hoped he might not turn up. Perhaps my lack of eagerness had put him off. But no, at quarter past the hour I heard a thundering rap upon the door downstairs and seconds later Rinawne came bounding into the kitchen. I learned from then on that Rinawne would always let himself into my tower without waiting to be admitted. Well, I suppose it belonged to him more than it did to me, but I was used to the more restrained politeness found in Jesith.

  ‘Door was open,’ he announced, throwing himself onto a chair by the table.

  ‘Always is,’ I replied, stirring pots needlessly at the range. ‘Do you think it shouldn’t be?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s quite safe.’

  Over dinner, we both drank copious amounts of wine, and talked of harmless things, mainly Rinawne gossiping rather waspishly about the family, yet in an affectionate way. He made me laugh.

  After dinner, I suggested we move from the kitchen table. For the first time since I’d moved into the tower, I’d decided to make use of the living room, which seemed a more suitable venue for intimacy than downstairs. The day had been warm so there was no need to light a fire, although part of me wished we could have had one. That would have set the archetypal seduction scene: aruna in the light of a fire. Yet the living room held the warmth of the day and, once the lamps were lit, became a cosy and sensual chamber, where even the vainest of Wraeththu beauties would have felt proud to bring his conquests.

  Rinawne sprawled on the sofa. ‘Do you have incense?’ he asked.

  I had in fact found a drawer full of it in the upper room a couple of days before, so went to fetch some, debating which scent was the most appropriate. I discarded the loose incense as impractical – I couldn’t be bothered fiddling around with lighting charcoal. Some sticks of rather aged jasmine would have to do. I hoped they’d not gone musty.

  Downstairs, Rinawne helped me light the sticks, which he stuck into the soil of the various fern pots around the room. Silvery smoke slid into the air. ‘This reminds me of Rey,’ Rinawne said. ‘He always loved this scent.’

  ‘Did you come here often when he lived here?’

  Rinawne raised a brow at the hint of sharpness in my voice, smiled, but made no comment. Of course he’d come here often.

  ‘One thing I’d like to know,’ I said, sitting down on the sofa. ‘How did you come to be here in Gwyllion, Rin? I don’t get the feeling that once upon a time you met Wyva’s eyes across a room and fell in love. If you’re to be a visitor to my tower, I’d like to know the truth.’ I set our liqueur bottle and glasses on the low table between the sofa and the fire.

  Rinawne sat down again, next to me, and picked up his newly-filled glass. ‘The Wyvachi have dealings with my family in Erini,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘Don’t fill those words with dire meaning, by the way. When I was younger, it all seemed like an adventure – well, there was no seemed about it. I wanted to come. There were several young hara past feybraiha in our tribe. Wyva and Bronna, our phylarch, thought it would be a sign of loyalty and friendship to mingle our bloodlines, so a young har was chosen from Erini, and one here from Gwyllion, to be the consorts of the phylarchs. I believe the har from Gwyllion found more romance than I did!’ He laughed. ‘I don’t blame Wyva. He just doesn’t have it in him to be a moonstruck lover. He’s practical, and i
n many ways so am I. Therefore, we work well together.’

  ‘Yet you once told me yours was a chesna bond of the old-fashioned kind.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘And so it is, in some ways.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Let me put it this way. The har in Wyva accepts gracefully I should seek aruna with others; the human in him would not.’

  ‘He’s first generation?’

  ‘No, but then in this place they don’t need to be in order to carry around the worst baggage from the past, as you already know.’

  I exhaled through my nose, drank some liqueur. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘When we made Myv, I evoked a dehar. I didn’t take aruna with Wyva alone but the spirit of our race. I wanted to make a harling, have a son. I know we’re told only the highest and most spiritual of loves can facilitate that, but it’s not true. Dedicated will is just as effective.’

  This had told me more than I wanted to know and reminded me uncomfortably of how Zeph had been conceived – in the traditional, romanticised way. Or so Jass and I had fooled ourselves, perhaps. ‘I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘The making of harlings is seen as a rare and precious thing, with conditions having to be absolutely right, the moon in the right phase, all that. But this might only be a safeguard against Wraeththu flooding the world with harlings, among a race whose lifespans are perhaps five times greater than humanity’s were.’

  Rinawne laughed. ‘Yes or... No, perhaps I’m wrong, and Myv’s conception wasn’t as cold-blooded as I remember, but the safeguard is there, all the same. Who wants another crowded world? It did humanity no good and eventually helped kill it.’

  We grinned and clinked glasses. In that we were in accord.

  Rinawne laid a hand on my thigh. ‘Come, forget all this. Share breath with me. Share secrets, but not bad ones.’

  At this point, I felt as if a part of me left my body and hovered against the ceiling looking down. I could see myself performing adequately all that was required of me to share what were supposed to be special, almost divine, moments with another of my kind. Rinawne was patient and skilled – as I myself once had been, and had been renowned for it – but even so a piece of me still felt obliged to escape, to observe and not take part. There is no greater pleasure for the harish body than that stimulated by aruna – we have been blessed by our gods in that something that was often base and crude in humans has been lifted to this unique and exhilarating experience: a true sharing of being. And part of me did share, swooning pleasurably beneath Rinawne’s attentions. The ghost above the room could feel it, taste it, yet the experience was not truly his.