Silver's Lure

by Anne Kelleher

  “Where’re you going?” Ariene cocked her head.

  “Go put the bucket down before you spill it,” her mother said. “Here, Cwynn, sit. The man’s hungry. He’s not had his supper. Let him eat.”

  “They don’t feed you anymore up at the keep, then?” murmured Ariene as she strolled out of the room. Her eyes met Cwynn’s, her lips curled up in a half smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She blamed him for the loss of her brother and Sorley, Cwynn’s rival for her affections, but her grief didn’t stop her from choosing him again last Beltane, though afterward, she claimed to be under the influence of the goddess and not entirely in her own mind.

  “I’d no time to eat.”

  “Why?” she asked at once, her dark eyes shifting from Cwynn to her mother. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “He’s a guest, Ariene,” Asgre said sharply, surprising Cwynn. “He’s to eat before he answers.”

  “I’ll explain,” Cwynn mumbled as he was hustled to the place beside the fire. A dish of clams in milky broth, on top of a hunk of brown bread, was placed on his lap and a spoon thrust into his hand. Before he could dip the spoon in, however, the dish was momentarily whisked off his lap and a square of homespun linen laid across his knees.

  “There you are,” said Argael, smiling. She handed him back the dish. “Eat, now.”

  “Quickly,” said Ariene.

  Aware of the scrutiny, Cwynn gulped the food in between telling his story once more. Finally he handed his plate to Argael and waved it away when she would’ve filled it again. “That was plenty. Good, too,” he added.

  “Come see your sons,” said Ariene. She got up off the backless stool, her nightshift blousing around her body like a sail. She led him through a low doorway on the opposite side of the kitchen, into a storeroom. “Be careful, now, they’re up in the loft.” She pointed to a ladder.

  Cwynn fumbled his way between the baskets piled with provisions, the bunches of hanging herbs, the sacks of meal and barrels of ale. He felt for the rickety ladder and tested his weight, then carefully climbed up just high enough to see two dark downy heads nestled together on one pillow in the evening twilight, their little faces round and tan on the sunbleached linen. A pang went through him. There was no doubt they were his, conceived on one of those wild Beltane nights he’d shared with Ariene, in the bower he’d made in a cave underneath the cliffs. Beltane was the source of all the trouble, he thought. He’d left Ariene alone, once she’d made it clear she preferred Sorley. But why then, did she keep choosing him each Beltane?

  One of the twins sighed and turned on his side, hand beneath his cheek, and the other followed, their little bodies cupped together beneath the woolen blanket and patched quilt. He tucked the quilts higher beneath the little chins, and realized he had no idea which one was Duir and which Duirmuid. He touched the top of each head in turn, fingered identical black curls. “Stay safe,” he whispered. “Grow strong.” He leaned over to kiss each one in turn, and as he did so, the nearest twin awoke. His eyes widened, his mouth gaped and he started to scream, high-pitched, piercing wails that immediately woke the other twin.

  “Hush now, hush, hush,” cried Cwynn as the children screamed. The women rushed in from the kitchen. One twin cowered, while the other launched himself straight at Cwynn, small fists flailing. “Hey, now! No, stop that!” Cwynn was forced to throw up both arms to defend himself. Already rickety, the rung he was standing on cracked beneath his boots, and he fell into a pile a whirling skirts and swirling night-shawls. Somehow, Argael got them all untangled. She pushed Cwynn in the direction of the door, called, “It’s all right, boys, auntie’s coming up first,” as she boosted Asgre up the ladder.

  Ariene was standing by the fire in the kitchen, arms crossed over her breasts. Cwynn entered, feeling even more foolish and out of place than before. It was a mistake to come here, he thought. I should’ve gone down to sleep in the boat. He made as if to pick up his pack, but she stopped him with a swift touch on his arm. “It’s all right, Cwynn, that wasn’t your fault—I should’ve gone up first, woken them for you. I’m sorry.” She nodded at his pack. “Where’re you going?”

  He nodded at the door. “I’ll go sleep in the boat—it’ll be easier in the morning—”

  “To do what? Catch your death?”

  “Ariene, I shouldn’t have come.” He tried to think of something else to say, for the tension was palpable between them. It tied his tongue and stopped anything but the truth from running through his head. I wanted so badly to love you. He spread his hands helplessly, for those words didn’t seem to make much sense.

  “Of course, you should’ve come, Cwynn. You’ve every right to know the boys—soon they’ll be old enough to fish with you. They should know their father.”

  He narrowed his eyes. She sounded conciliatory, even friendly.

  She nodded at the door that led down to the beach. “Will you walk with me? The rain’s stopped.”

  “All right,” he said. From the loft, he could hear Argael crooning to the children. He wished either she or even Asgre would come in and break this awkwardness he felt filling the room.

  Ariene held the door open. He hesitated, then followed her down to the beach. The sand was wet and the rocks were slippery, but she didn’t stop until she reached the water’s edge. She let the ocean lap at her toes, her shawl flapping around her in the wind. The wind lifted her hair, blowing it in little tendrils around her pale face.

  “Are you sure you want to be out here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.” She glanced out to sea, then turned to look up at him. He was shocked to see tears like tiny pearls limning the edges of her dark eyes. “There’s part of me that’s telling me to keep my mouth shut. And then there’s part of me that needs to say it anyway.”

  “If it’s your truth you should speak it.” Cwynn shuffled his boots in the sand. From here, the keep looked like a giant mound of boulders, topped with thatch, a bigger version of the cottages clinging to the shore. The windows all glowed brightly, though, and he hoped it meant that Shane intended to drink long into the night. Thunder rumbled and a bolt of jagged lightning forked across the horizon from sky to sea. “But speak it quick—the storm’s not over yet. This is just a lull.”

  “The boys are getting older now—they’re lads now, not babies, anymore—soon they’ll be men at the rate they’re growing.”

  “Ariene.” He touched her shoulder. “You didn’t bring me down to the water in the middle of a storm to tell me the boys are growing, did you?”

  She gave a short little laugh. “No.” She shook her head. “No, of course not.” She pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, then said, “I wanted to tell you I’ve been thinking. That the boys need a man, they need their father. The sea took Sorley, and it’s not giving him back. My boys and I—we’re a burden on my mother, though she’ll never say—”

  “Ariene, my Gran-da will keep you fed, you know that. Since when has any suffered in this village more than any other?”

  Ariene shook her head and looked down at the waves rushing to cover her toes with white foam. “I don’t know how to say this, Cwynn. It’s coming out all wrong—”

  “What is?” he asked gently. The wind was picking up again, the waves were swelling as he watched.

  “I heard what you came to tell us, and I realized—” Again she broke off, her eyes fixed on the storm clouds massing on the horizon.

  “What?” He touched a finger under her chin and was stunned to see that she was crying. “What’s wrong, Ariene? What is it?”

  “After I heard your story, I realized I can’t say what I decided, what I’ve been thinking, what I wanted to tell you. Because now, no matter what I say, you won’t believe me. You’ll think it has to do with that you’re a queen’s son—the High Queen’s son, at that, and even if you can’t be High King, well—you’ll still be a great chief. And you’ll always wonder if what I had to say was because of what you told us tonight.”

&
nbsp; “What did you want to tell me?”

  She actually blushed. “I wanted to tell you I’ve been thinking—the boys need a father, and—”

  “Sorley’s not coming back.” He took a deep breath. Part of him did want to take her in his arms and part of him remembered every year on the morning after Beltane when she’d run away, sometimes before he himself was awake. “But I will.” He wrapped his arms around himself against the wind as sporadic raindrops stung his face. “I will come back.” He touched her arm. “We should go back inside. I can’t lie to you, Ariene, there’s part of me that—you were so mean when all I wanted—” He broke off. What was the point of telling her this? She was still the mother of his sons, no matter what else happened. And whatever else was to happen between the two of them had to wait while he took this unexpected turn.

  “Ah, look, Ariene. Maybe you won’t like me as a chief,” he said, trying to lighten her mood. “Maybe you’d rather I smelled of fish than horse or cow.” She eyed him, like a mare about to bolt. “But we used to be friends, you and I, before Sorley came between us. Maybe when I come back, we could go back to being friends. And see what happens next Beltane.”

  “Ariene! Ariene!” Argael called from the back door. “Come inside, the two of you—don’t you see those clouds?”

  As if on cue, the rain dropped out of the sky in a sudden sheet of water, drenching them to the skin almost instantaneously. For a moment, they stared at each other. Want, pure as the water and raging as the sea jolted through him. He stared at the outlines of her ample breasts thrusting through the sodden clinging fabric, topped by hard peaks. He could think of nothing but ripping the nightgown off her shoulders and suckling till they were both satisfied. Instead, he raised his cloak over both their heads and they ran together back to the house, where Argael handed both of them dry linen towels, clucking and fussing like a hen. Ariene strode purposefully through the kitchen, pausing only long enough to take a towel from her mother’s hands, then disappeared through the doorway into the dark front room.

  Argael gave him a questioning look, but he only shrugged. He understood Ariene’s dilemma. Part of him wanted to believe her, that she, too, had finally sensed the connection he had always felt with her. But so much more of him was wary, hurt, suspicious that he was merely being used, especially now she knew what he stood to gain.

  So he covered his head with the towel and dripped onto the mat in front of the door while Argael said, “I’ll get you a tunic and trews that were Aedwyr’s, Cwynn. There’s some in the chest in the storeroom. They may be a bit tight, but they’ll be dry.”

  “And you take my bed,” Ariene said, strolling back. She had changed into another, drier tunic, this one with long sleeves, tied high at the throat with a blue ribbon. Even her feet were encased in thick socks. She dragged a bone comb through her damp curls, deliberately avoiding his eyes. “I’ll sleep in the loft with the boys.”

  “I can stay on the hearth, Argael,” said Cwynn. “I don’t mind—”

  “Ah, but I do. That’s my place.” The midwife smiled and pointed him to the front of the house. “There’s something about storms and midnight that seems to bring babies. A night like this, I’m almost sure to be called. Just go up the steps off the front room. She’s got a little nook fixed under the eave, right opposite Asgre.”

  “I wanted to talk to you, Argael—about Shane—that’s why I came here, you see. It wasn’t just the boys or a place to sleep—”

  She stopped him with a quick pat on his cheek. “We’ll talk in the morning.” She held his eyes in a long look. “You rest now. You have a long ride ahead.”

  The front of the house was dank and chill and very dark and Cwynn stumbled more than once in the unfamiliar room. He managed to find his way up the steps and saw it was more of a nest than a bed. Ariene had a mattress and a couple of old quilts and a pillow that smelled like her. He lay down, listening to the rain pelting so hard on the roof, it sounded as if it wished it could pound its way through. The window beside it rattled in the wind, and now and then, a rain drop spat in his face. With a sigh, he turned on his side, pulled up a quilt and burrowed his face in her scent.

  It occurred to him that Ariene might come to him in the night, and he wondered what he would do if she did. Pride said reject her. But I’m not sure I could, he thought as he inhaled a great breath of her musky odor that immediately conjured the dark circles of her nipples jutting against the rain-soaked linen. She’d always made it clear she preferred Sorley. And now…he thought about what his grandfather said, about what Meeve could give him. You’ll be a chief in your own right, boy, of far grander fields than these.

  Then there was the woman with the honey-blonde hair, who’d been coming to him in dreams, both day and night now, since the turning of the year. Was she part of this new future that now stretched out before him? But already, it seemed, this future had raised a barrier between him and everything he thought of as home, including the mother of his sons.

  Eaven Raida, Dalraida

  The knight died at midnight without ever waking up. That he was a knight of Meeve’s Fiachna was obvious by the raven feathers he wore in his hair, in the tattoos twining his forearms and chest, in the pattern of his plaid and the crests on his sword. But he carried no written message. Morla rocked back on her heels beside the cooling corpse, her mind turning rapidly as she watched the old women begin to prepare the body for the charnel pits.

  There was on him no hint as to what news he might’ve been bringing. If they’d had a druid, they might’ve been able to follow his spirit into the Summerlands, where it most likely lingered still, on the edges. But they had no druid, and the time of year wasn’t conducive to contacting the dead, either. So she was left to guess.

  She paced the room as the old women worked, watching them peel off the rest of the knight’s clothing. The man’s big body was heavily muscled, without an ounce of excess flesh. But he looked well fed, thought Morla, as she moved in for a closer look. She crossed her arms over her own bony chest and surveyed the dead knight stretched out before her as if she were assessing a side of beef. She looked at the corded, muscled forearms, the now-flaccid chest. He looked very well fed. On a whim, she opened his mouth and probed his teeth. They were white and strong and they didn’t move against her finger, like hers did against her tongue.

  He was very well fed, indeed.

  She backed away, splashed water from a ewer into a basin and washed her hands. She looked up to see Colm watching her from the door. “This man doesn’t look like he’s starving.”

  One of the old women cackled beside the bed. “This one doesn’t look like he missed a meal a day in his life. Would you look at the length of his legs?”

  “That’s not his legs you’re pointing at, Moira. Have some respect for the dead, will you?”

  The women snickered. Sickened, Morla pushed past Colm into the corridor that led to the main hall, where the rest of the household huddled. She paused on the threshold and gazed over the lumpy shapes stretched out around the smoldering hearths. Most were already asleep. The rain had started up again, and the fires hissed and steamed. Somewhere a child called out and a woman hastened to hush him. A surge of pity swept through her for this dwindling flock of souls who depended on her. She heard Colm’s sandals tapping an uneven tattoo across the stones as he hurried to her side. “My lady, the sergeant—”

  “There’s only one thing to do, Colm,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “What’s that, my lady?”

  “The knight’s horse—it was unharmed?” In the orange rushlight, Colm’s face was very thin, the cheekbones prominent, skin stretched tight across his forehead. She felt as old and as tired as he looked.

  “The sergeant of the guard wishes to speak to you, my lady. I think you should hear what he has to say. This thing you’re thinking to do—it’s dangerous out there, my lady. You saw those brigands—”

  “Those weren’t brigands, Colm. They were starving people.
They won’t bother me. I’ll take an escort—I’ll ride under a white flag and Mother’s colors—”

  “Ride where?”

  “Where else? To Mother, wherever she is. I suspect that’s either Ardagh or Eaven Morna. I suppose I’ll find out.”

  “And how do you expect to find her? Get on the knight’s horse and tell him?”

  In spite of the situation, Morla had to grin. “That’s exactly what I intend to do. The horses of the Fiachna are trained to find their way home. Wherever he came from, they’ll give me a fresh ride, and tell me if Mother’s at Eaven Morna or somewhere else.”

  “But, my lady—”

  “It’s the only way, Colm. Clearly that knight was from my mother. What else is there to do?”

  “The roads aren’t safe, my lady. You saw that yourself.”

  “Then I’ll take guards with me.” She shook her head and shrugged. “If I set out at dawn, and ride straight through, I should be at Eaven Morna in four, maybe five days.” Morla wrapped her arms around herself, ignoring the maelstrom of emotion that name raised deep within. “It’s been ten years since I’ve been back.”

  “Do you think that’s why Meeve’s forgot us, lady?”

  Despite the lateness of the hour, the leaden weight of hunger in her belly and of fatigue in her head, Morla choked back a laugh. “Oh no, Colm, you’ve never met my mother, have you? Believe me, I don’t think she’s noticed I’ve been gone.”

  Eaven Morna, Mochmorna

  “Please tell me what I’ve just heard isn’t true.” Connla, ArchDruid of all Brynhyvar raised her chin and squared her shoulders as she stared up at Meeve across the food-laden board. Thunder rumbled in the distance and a flash of lightning flickered through the hall. She clenched her oak staff of office in her left fist and held her right arm against her side, trying to quell the palsy that shook it whenever she was in the grip of strong emotion. She wasn’t quite sure she could believe that she finally had proof of her suspicions: Meeve was stealing sacred silver. It should never have been able to happen, thought Connla. The earth elementals, the khouri-keen, should never have allowed such a thing, but she knew in her bones that somehow, it had.