Her throat hurt and she attempted to soothe it by drinking warm tea, but she knew the truth of it. Sheelin was pulling her voice from her little by little and with it would eventually go her very essence. It frightened her and she wished Bron was at her side, holding her in his strong arms.
She rose from the table and searched through the trunk for more clothing. She found a woolen hooded cape the deep green of yew leaves. She also found a pair of sealskin boots that she pulled upon her feet. Once dressed, she went outside and around to the stable at the croft’s rear. The door was already open and she peered inside, but discovered it to be empty.
She felt abandoned and tears glazed her eyes. Where had he gone? Would he come back? She turned and scanned the landscape. Under the vast sky was nothing but rocks and more rocks, rising and falling in and about the surrounding bogs. Even the swans were not in sight. Alas, she decided to go in search of Gibbers. Obnoxious as he was, he might prove to be her only companion. As she stepped round to the croft’s front, the old sheepdog padded up to her and with ears down and tail switching she knew she had one more friend.
Off she went, her cape flowing about her ankles. The air was fresh and as she breathed in deeply her head cleared and her sorriness dissipated. The turf was wet and squelchy under her feet and once she ended up to her knee in bog and almost lost her boot. After that the dog took the lead and she gladly followed its more canny trail over the land. Now she did not fear losing her way for she sensed the dog would lead her just as safely to the croft. She felt somewhat adventurous, especially when she came over a rise and saw the sea.
The dog ferreted out the easiest path down the wet dark cliffs and guided her to the mouth of an arching sea cave. Outside on the ledges broken driftwood lay splintered, and dead dogfish lay strewn about. Ever curious, she stepped inside. There was a deep lake inside, and seaweed hung limp and clammy and dark from the walls. It felt a queer and even dangerous place—her feet slipped on the treacherous weed, and she flung her arms upward, clutching against the rock. Her hands sank wrist-deep under the green slimy weed, and her fingers closed around a thick strong iron mooring ring. It had been driven into the rock. It was rusted and hung hidden by the dripping weeds.
The dog had run into the rear of the cave and began to bark. Eithne heard a woman’s chastening voice and saw a bevy of small stones rain through the air, pelting the head of the dog.
“Who has come?” came a bold voice. Who has come…who has come? sounded again and again in an echoing reverberation of the cave.
“’Tis I,” announced Eithne, and her own voice filled the cave with echoing. I…I…I.
She heard a splash and squinted down into the dark blue-green waters of the sea cave lake. Suddenly, right before her a woman’s golden head rose out of the water.
“And who is ‘I’?” she asked.
Eithne did not immediately speak for she was in the midst of surprise. The woman was a mermaid. Her golden hair fell in a flowing tangle of seaweed and tiny shells about her shoulders. At her throat was a starfish on a pearl string choker.
“I am Eithne,” she volunteered, and then too late thought it might not be wise to tell her name.
“And who is Eithne?” the mermaid asked, her eyes bright and blue as heaven.
“I’ve come to the island with a sea clansman.”
“Who is the sea clansman?” demanded the mermaid.
Eithne saw no harm in saying, “Bron mac Llyr.”
Upon hearing this, the mermaid’s face lifted and she said, “Bron mac Llyr, you say?”
“Aye, that…is…who…I…said.” Eithne tried to speak soft and slow to stop the echoing.
The mermaid turned and floated upon her back, a slow grin upon her lips. Her tail was a silver scaled shimmer and Eithne felt the urge to tell her she was beautiful. But at the moment the mermaid seemed quite uninterested in what she might think.
“Who are you?” Eithne finally asked.
Her attention refocused on Eithne and she said, “I am Sarenn.” And with a flip of her fin, she gave Eithne a drenching and disappeared under the water.
’Twas rude, thought Eithne, wiping the cold droplets from her face.
The dog came over and nosed her hand sympathetically. “Aye, friend, there’s no accounting for others’ bad manners.” She sighed, rubbing his furry head.
Watching the water creeping about her feet, she said, “Beway, the tide is rising and we best leave the cave and climb to higher ground. Maybe we will return another day, and maybe not. I should bring Gibbers. Sarenn and he might make great companions.”
She found herself not only chattering but singing away as she climbed up the cliffs. It had been so long since she could freely speak that the overflow bubbled out of her mouth like a new discovered wellspring.
That is how Bron came upon her as she and the dog skirted the cliffs. He was riding Samisen. He slipped off and leading the horse walked toward her.
She smiled fully. He appeared very bold and handsome. She did not miss that he still held the illusion of his hand. His own cape and his mass of long black hair flapped in the rising wind. She loved him she knew, but she was not sure if it was the true love of which he spoke and longed for.
He embraced her and said, “I was worried. When I returned you were gone.”
She drew back and looked at him, her eyes sparkling with relief. “I was trying to find you as well. You left me without a word.”
“Do not blame yourself. ’Twas my own foul mood and confusion. Though I am glad to return to these Blessed Isles. All has changed within me. I am not the man who left.”
“Then who are you?” Eithne asked gently.
Bron dropped his arms from her and turned away. For a long time he stared out to the sea and then he slowly shook his head in quandary. Turning to face Eithne, he said, “I do not know.”
She stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around the barrel of his broad chest. Her cheek pressed against him, she said, “Who are any of us? I do not know. Am I swan or woman? Gibbers tells me I am an ‘undesarvin’, wicked gurrul’.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I used to. Then when you loved me”—her voice quivered with emotion—“I knew it was not so. I thought to myself if a man like Bron mac Llyr loves me, then I must not be so ‘undesarvin’, and if I could in turn love him, I was not such a ‘wicked gurrul’. ’Tis simple enough.”
“And do you love me, Eithne?”
She looked up at him, seeing the fine lines trailing from the corners of his gemstone eyes; seeing the roughness and softness beneath the stubble of black beard.
“Aye, I love you. Why do you ask? Yesterday, I broke my silence to speak it. So soon do you doubt me?”
“Arrah…” He sighed deeply. “’Tis myself I doubt, not you.” His arms tightened around her and his lips kissed the crown of her head. “I fear, Eithne. I’ve been a hypocrite. I fear more than love.”
Eithne’s heart sunk. “You do not love me?”
“Oh…nay…do not think that!” His breath, a defeated exhalation, stirred the strands of hair on her forehead. “Without my hand, I have nothing to offer you. I fear your love, because I am not worthy of it. I cannot accept that I will never play my harp again…that I will never ride to battle with my clansmen. A man of the sea needs two hands to toss and gather his fishnet, to row his boat. I am no true man for you. All this brings me grief.”
A frown gathered on Eithne’s face. “Let go of it. You are more than man enough for me.”
With the utterance of this illumination, silence fell between them. She held him and he her, a pair of shadows in the chastening wind. As she stood on the cliffs above the sea in his strong embrace, she wondered why men thought as they did.
After a time, he released her. He touched his mouth in an assuring kiss to her forehead. “Look, the sun peers out from behind the clouds.”
She gave him a hopeful smile, “Aye, I would welcome the sun’s warmth.”
“Co
me, then,” he invited. “I can hardly wait to share my island with you.”
“Your island?”
“Aye, ’tis my birthright. Here I was born and here I hope to die.”
Leaving Samisen to find his own way, Bron caught her fingers in his own and, hand in hand, they set off together to explore.
“Does anyone else live here besides yourself?”
“No one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Did you meet someone?”
“I did. In the cave below. I met a mermaid named Sarenn.”
A curious sparkle filled his eyes and he laughed outright. “Sarenn!”
“Aye, Sarenn,” said Eithne, feeling a pang of jealousy. ’Twas no small pang either. It was enough to cause her to wish she’d repaid Sarenn’s rudeness with a little of her own.
His head lifted. “There. See?” He pointed to the nearby headland. “See the circle of standing stones? ’Tis like your own outside Rath Morna.”
Eithne looked, but she did so halfheartedly. She thought he was trying to distract her from questioning him more about Sarenn, and indeed she did have questions.
His pace hastened against the buffeting of the peat-scented wind. The turf was wet underfoot and Eithne’s toes were getting colder with each step.
“’Tis a hallowed circle of stones from where the spirits of my clansmen set sail along the sea-road of the dead. These are the most ancient rocks on earth. When we come nearer you’ll hear them speak. Within these stones as a child I learned to hear the voice of silence. Here spirit takes on form and form is hidden in spirit.”
The tall stones flashed in the sunlight like polished obelisks. Gray and striated with whirling loops of darker and lighter gray with white spots, each seemed like the endless circles of heaven. When Eithne stepped within its boundary, she immediately felt the undying throb of life itself.
Here the buffeting winds did not enter. She stood still and breathed in the gold of sunlight, the silence of stone, the pulse of the sea, and the smell of earth. Ketha’s words returned to her: “There is another world. It is hidden in this one.” In this moment she had found the other world.
The lilting sounds of a harp rippled the air. She turned her head this way and that to see from where the music came, but it came from nowhere.
Across from her Bron laughed. “’Tis the fairy folk of Tir nan Og. Come dance the dance of love with me, milady.”
Delight fountained through Eithne. She did not hang back when his strong arm circled her waist. Stepping toe-to-toe, they moved together, she with willowy languor and he with lightness of foot. Their feet traced patterns over the soft mossy earth and through space and air. Around and around, turning nimbly with springing steps, he caught her close to him. Their dancing became a brilliant, sweet harmony of sound, spirit, and motion. He lifted her high over his head and whirled her until she near swooned with dizziness. Life pulsed into her and the landscape glimmered with aliveness. The harp music began to fade and again the pulse of silence reigned within the stone circle.
Amid his laughter he dropped her gently upon the springy turf and collapsed beside her. When their eyes met they met fiercely.
Breasts heaving with breathlessness Eithne asked, “And do you know who you are now, Bron mac Llyr?”
“Aye, now I am your lover.” He sat back on his heels. One-handed, he stripped off his cloak and then, his tunic. His torso was lean, all muscle and bone. He loosened the lacings that held his braces and stepped out of them. Eithne’s senses raced, seeing the arching prow of his manhood tumescent with desire. Naked and virile, he came beside her.
Eithne’s face flushed at his boldness, yet inwardly she burned with a matching desire.
He brought her hand to his lips, turned it, and kissed the palm. She exhaled slowly, sinking farther into the soft earth at her back. Aligning his long length against hers, he lowered his head to her own and kissed her lips. The kiss raced through her flesh like fire. Her nipples began to tingle and lower; between her thighs, the hollow of her womb ached for filling.
He reached to undo her cloak and the shoulder ties of her gown and slipped it over her breasts and down off her hips so she lay naked before him. On her skin danced the warming rays of sunlight and inside she felt the gush of her own heat.
“You are very beautiful, my swan witch.” His voice was soft with passion.
“I feel so beneath your gaze. Your eyes say it…as does your heart. I love you, Bron mac Llyr. I will love no other but you. I will sing my love lilt to no other but you and we shall be bonded together as long as the fates so will. My words can now be spoken. My power is to open. My promise can never be broken.”
And upon the silence fell the sweet shimmer of Eithne’s voice upraised in song. The lilt of ecstasy was in her singing, and the gift of heart, and the promise of love whose true face is rarely seen.
In Bron’s emerald eyes Eithne saw moisture glitter. A slow delicious sweep of memory brought to her mind that first night of lovemaking between them. She reached to him and touched his cheek.
“Between us weaves the thread of seasons. I love you beyond all reason,” she sang softly.
She brushed aside the tangle of his long black hair and smoothed the fine lines that life and battle had graven into his brow. Where fingers had gone, lips could follow. Moving from brow to eyelids, down sculpted cheeks to lips that welcomed her own like a thirsty man in a barren land.
Drawing away from his lips she whispered, “Everything lost is found again. Everything hurt is healed in the end.”
The power of her love was filling her like a thousand blessings. She kissed his face and throat, lowered her face down to touch her mouth upon his shoulders and muscled chest. When her lips touched his nipples he moaned, and his arms went around her. She moved her head lower and her tongue traced the dark hairy furrow of his belly. Her breasts brushed against the bent bow of his manhood.
With heart and flesh she worshiped him from head to foot, adoring him, restoring him, invoking his passion. She could not withhold herself. And soon, his urgency met her own and he rolled her over onto the soft earth and claimed her mouth with a hard thrusting tongue. His fingers slipped gently between her thighs. She readily opened to his hands and all power of motion left her limbs, all awareness seemed centered toward the sweetness he was awakening in the hidden wellspring of her body. She arched to him and he mounted her. She felt his weight as his hard rod blazed into the secret space of her essence. He gripped her hips and she felt a rush of power. She pulled him against her, wanting all.
Not only was the power of love between them awakened, so was the power of the stones that flowed up from the earth beneath them. The warmth in the joining turned to fire. Eithne trembled as the fire moved upward, setting new fires in her belly and beneath her ribs, up to her crown where the very heavens seemed to burst open.
Moans escaped from her throat as his thrusts quickened with the ancient throb of earth and sea. He came like a great, swelling wave, crashing upon the ragged cliffs of Tir nan Og. In that instant, their eyes found each other in a joining of infinity.
She transformed into a swan, winging on to ecstasy…and then she was woman once again…full-fleshed, full-bodied with spirit free.
His eyes hooded, his mouth hovered above hers and her gaze fell into his green-fire depths. With heart-expanding slowness, she lingered in the radiance of their connection. His skin held the flush of erotic warmth and was moistly hot against her own. She felt his thoughts, his feelings, and his love.
“Aye,” she breathed softly. “Is this the true loving you told me of?”
He shifted and without breaking their connection, rolled to his back and cradled her gently in his arms. He stroked her hair and looked a long deep moment into her eyes.
“’Tis that, my swan witch.” He kissed her forehead and tightened his embrace.
His face held serenity. She’d not seen him so at peace before. Her gaze lowered to his sword hand.
The ill
usion was gone.
Had he at last accepted himself as he was? Aye, she sensed he had. And she loved him all the more for it.
Chapter 12
Standing on the cliffs, Eithne and Bron watched the sun sink into the sea in a welter of crimson and gold. From below they heard the waves crash and suck against the stones. With mewling cries, seabirds swooped and dove into the dark waters. A stiff breeze was whipping up the gray clouded sky, bringing the threat of rain. Eithne snuggled closer to Bron, shivering slightly. Gently, he caressed her hair and kissed the top of her head.
“Are you cold, my swan witch?”
She shook her head. “Nay…a feeling. I dreamed of Sheelin last night.” She turned and faced Bron, gazing up at him from wide eyes that glistened with unshed tears. “Bron, I’m afraid.”
His embrace tightened. “There is no need to be, you are here with me and safe.”
She ran her long fingers through his loose black hair, feeling it flow like raw silk in her hands. “I grow weaker each day. I do not only fear for myself but for you and your clansmen.”
“What did you see in your dream?” he asked gravely.
“Sheelin came here, to Tir nan Og. With him was a host of warriors. They appeared to be both man and beast…like those you told me of who cut off your hand.”
“Fomorians.” His voice held hardness. “’Tis not surprising to me he has found an ally in them.”
“How are we to stop him?”
“Do not fear. Neither Sheelin nor Fomorian will be able to harm you.”
Eithne sighed. “I wish that could be so…but I cannot believe it. Sheelin will rule Myr. Since my childhood he has plotted to that end. And now I fear he comes to Tir nan Og. Because of me, you and your clansmen will suffer. I have brought you nothing but trouble.”
Bron held her tightly. “No, never think that. You have brought me love.” He kissed her with a passion that matched the crashing of the waves against the wild, windswept cliffs of Tir nan Og.
Swan Witch Page 13