by M. C. Elam
“Come,” said Griffin. “We have miles ahead of us, and I want to reach the village before dark.”
***
Wryth watched them mount and turn north along the narrow trail. His eyes drank in the boy beside Griffin. Terill was tall, close to King Ian in height, lean and well muscled. He wore thigh-length trail leathers and a simple vest. When he turned, Wryth noticed the tooling that decorated the vest. A beaded band came around his forehead and tied at the back. His hair, much longer than Hawks, hung below his shoulders, silvery beige, the color of wheat, just like Selene’s. Ian, he knew, would want an accounting.
10 - Selene
Long before the Sea of Shadall came into view, Hawk heard the rumble of rushing water. None of his imaginings about the look of the ocean prepared him for the wild freedom in the crest of each wave. The smell of salt in the air and the thunderous crash of the waves on the sandy beach exhilarated his consciousness. He did not remember dismounting from his horse. He did not remember shedding his cloak. He did not remember running across the sand or plunging into the great sea. He forgot Griffin and Terill. He forgot title and duty. Nothing mattered but the sea and the feel of her velvety arms closing about him. The sea took him slowly into the depths of her wonder, then lifted and carried him along. She called his name, and he answered, glad to be one with the rushing wave. Terill and Griffin stood on the shore and watched. Terill moved to join him, but Griffin put out a restraining arm.
“No, my son let the moment be his. Let Shadall know his heart.”
Hawk opened his mind to the wild beauty of the sea, and she filled him with energy. He felt the brutal force of the waves when he moved against her. He knew her tender caress when he surrendered control. Gentle yet demanding, she fondled his body with warm, liquid motion, engulfed him in the softness of her pulsating core. He found no logic in the sensations that filled him, only a passionate desire for the moment to continue.
Finally, when he stood once more upon the shore, her searching fingers moved across the sand seeking to embrace. The sea called to him, but the voice that rang inside his head belonged to another. His thoughts turned to Evangeline, and he gazed across the waves to the place where sky met water. Reluctant to go, he dressed in his trail leathers and turned to find Terill and Griffin watching.
“The sea is a wondrous thing,” he said. “She holds the beauty of a woman and the wild freedom of a mountain stallion.”
“You encountered more than the waves, Prince Hawk. You joined with Shadall,” said Griffin.
“Joined?”
“Shadall took you into her depths. No matter where you go in the world, Shadall will remain in your heart.”
Hawk recognized the truth in what Griffin said. He would never forget his first glimpse of the sea. He could taste her salty depths and found a treasure as precious as the dawn in the memory of the water flowing over him. He remembered the way Father Wryth described the great sea and wondered if the priest knew the same intense experience. Did his father know the sea?
“Yes, Prince Hawk. Shadall lives in the heart of your father as well,” said Griffin.
“You read my thoughts?” asked Hawk.
“No, my son, but I do read your expression. It is natural that you wonder about your father. Come, the village is just ahead.”
Hawk gathered his cloak from the place in the sand where it fell before he ran into the sea. He mounted Peruseus and rode along with Griffin and Terill. Swimming in the ocean had made him sleepy and the roll and glide of Peruseus’ gait found him nodding. He wiggled his toes inside his boots, a trick Evan taught him to stay awake when a lecture on Ascallan history droned on too long. It had worked then and worked now.
Finally, they rounded a great outcropping of rock, and Hawk saw the village. A sharp peninsula jutted into the sea and created a gentle cove where water and land made a natural harbor for the folk of Shadall. Vessels, of different sizes and shapes, floated peacefully on the calm swells. The small ones Hawk guessed would hold no more than one person. Others had enough capacity to accommodate several men. One large ship anchored farther into the harbor, looked to Hawk as if it would hold several hundred. Painted symbols decorated the sides. He saw star formations represented in relationship to the sun and the moon. The artisanship was beautiful, and he hoped to examine it more closely before he returned to Ascalla.
“Is that large ship for fishing as well?” he asked.
“No, Prince Hawk, the vessel is our funeral ship. She carries the loved ones of those of us who pass. When Shadall takes one of us, we place the body in a small craft fashioned from a single log and set it adrift upon the sea. Family and friends board the funeral ship, and she follows the log boat until Shadall sweeps the loved one into her waiting arms. When the log boat surfaces, empty, all aboard the funeral ship cheer with great joy. They know that Shadall welcomes her child home.”
Earlier, before his experience in the sea, Hawk might have wondered at a people that abandoned their dead to the water. He looked at the funeral ship and pictured the bereaved standing heavy on her decks as they followed the body. He tried to climb inside their skin and feel what they might feel when the sea covered the body and pulled it out of sight. Grieve? Yes, they would grieve, but when Shadall took the body, how would it be for them then? He remembered feeling as though the sea lifted him and carried him along. If these people knew that experience, they could only know comfort at sending a loved there.
A horn sounded overhead. Terill lifted a horn from his saddle and blew an answering call. Soon the bluff filled with people waving and calling. Children, dressed in shift-like garments of woven grass ran toward them. Hawk wondered if the garb felt scratchy against the skin. A boy of perhaps twelve ran beside Peruseus. The boy held up a drinking horn. Hawk looked at Terill.
“Take it, Prince Hawk. He brings wine to wash the trip from your throat and refresh you.”
Hawk took the horn from the smiling boy and drank deeply of the sweet wine. It was like velvet on his tongue, no bitter taste to remain when the last was gone. He handed the horn back to the boy and touched his shoulder in thanks. The grass cloth of the garment felt supple and smooth.
The boy reached for his horses reins. A quick glance at Griffin and Terill told him the gesture was another part of the welcoming. A small child led each of their horses as well. He relinquished the reins and allowed the boy to lead Peruseus along the steep path to the village. He wondered where Griffin lived. All of the buildings looked similar, round huts with a smoke hole in the center of the roof. They varied slightly in size but none seemed exceptionally large or grand. The stone walls, so well fitted, needed no clay to secure them, and the roof of each consisted of many layers of the tightly woven wild grasses that Hawk saw growing abundantly on the hillsides. The thatch was different, denser than the reed thatch used in Ascalla. Most of the huts looked small and cramped, the largest no bigger than Levon’s Tavern in Falmora. Not a single building looked like it sheltered a ranking leader. Perhaps Griffin and Terill lived somewhere beyond the village.
The boys stopped, and the horses halted in the center of the village. A woman came running from the open doorway of a nearby hut. Though no longer young, one could not mistake her deep beauty. Hawk knew at once that the woman was Griffin's wife, Selene. She ran to the side of his horse. He dismounted and swept her into his arms. Why, they behave like young lovers, thought Hawk.
“Well, so you have brought us the young prince,” she smiled. “Climb down, Prince Hawk. Climb down so that I might greet you. Come inside and sit. Tell me of Ascalla. Long has it been since I looked upon that sweet land.”
***
With the greetings ended and their bellies contented after a meal of fish stew, Griffin and Terill took leave to deal with village matters. Hawk lounged on a grass mat and watched Selene grind wheat into light flour. She held a large round bowl in her lap and sat cross-legged on a mat near him. She took a heavy round stone and worked it against the wheat. When each new mound of flou
r was smooth enough to satisfy her, she poured it into another bowl. A scoop of new wheat in the grinding bowl started the process over again.
Everything here was so different from Ascalla, he thought. In Ascalla, most farmers brought their wheat to the mill where an ass turned the grinding stone. They paid for their flour by contributing a bag or two to the mill store. Here, Selene, the bride of the High Man of Shadall, worked as a servant.
“Is there no one to free you from such chores, Selene?” he asked.
“Chores? Oh, you mean the grinding. Well, no. I have no daughter to bear the household chores with me. Terill is my only child, and he is deep in his lessons and training. One day he will be a High Man of Shadall. He has much to learn.”
“No, I did not mean a daughter. I meant a servant to do this work.”
Selene smiled. She placed another handful of wheat into the bowl and moved the stone against it. “No, Prince Hawk. There are no servants in Shadall. We are all equal here. The work is not too hard. Though at first I thought Griffin, addle brained to suggest I toil with the other women. My father was a high-ranking nobleman and my duty, according to him, lay in bringing wealth and honor to his house through a good marriage. He was a cruel man, difficult with my mother and determined his children would obey,” she sighed. “But all that lies in the past thank Shadall.”
Selene turned once more to the wheat and soon had a large bowl of fine powdery flour. Once ready, she added other ingredients and blended the mixture into soft dough that she turned onto a smooth slab of wood. She began kneading the dough and finally formed it into four short loaves that she covered with a small grass mat. She carried the loaves outside, placed them near the fire and called to Hawk from the doorway.
“Will you walk with me while my bread grows, Prince Hawk?”
They walked through the village and along the bluff. Selene chose the path, and though she did not speak, her step seemed purposeful. They reached a place beyond the village on higher ground. From here, Hawk could see across the harbor to the other side of the bluff. Below lay a rocky wall where the land dropped off cleanly to the sea. Giant waves pounded the shoreline. They smashed against the rocks and sent billows of white froth into the air. Sea birds circled overhead, and Hawk heard their high-pitched cries as they plummeted toward the water, caught the wind’s skyward updraft, gliding on the rising current.
“The birds,” he said. “Why do they behave so? Is it a game they play with the waves?”
“Yes, Prince Hawk. It is a game of sorts, I suppose. The gulls cast for fish. I have seen them dive through a wave and come up with a fat prize. All day they call and dive in their ceaseless game.”
“Birds that swim?”
“Aye, I suppose you could think of them as birds that swim. If you come to the beach early in the morning just before the sun breaks into the sky, you can find them by the thousands, camped like an army of small warriors. They awaken at sunrise and the sky turns black for a moment as they rise and begin the game of casting once more.”
Selene walked on along the high craggy cliff, and Hawk followed. She was bare-footed, and her long hair hung free. The wind caught at the gray-streaked tresses and lifted them to swirl about her face. Once when she turned and smiled at him, Hawk saw an amazing look of absolute freedom in her pale, gray eyes. Freedom, yes, that was it, and suddenly he began to understand the people of Shadall who called no man, servant. They did not encumber their lives with things of little worth. Minimal possessions, the land holdings of a single individual unimportant, together they held Shadall. The place belonged to all of them. From the sea, they took their life, and from the earth, only as much as they could use. No one told him. No one had to tell him. The story lay in her eyes.
After a little while, Selene stopped walking, sat down on the edge of the cliff and let her legs dangle over the side. She patted the place next to her and Hawk sat as well.
“In a week, you and Terill will enter the Caves of Shadall.”
“Caves? Griffin mentioned the caves but told me very little,” said Hawk.
“You will know more about it soon.”
“Where are the caves?”
“They lie below us. The sea covers the entrance. You cannot see it now. But in a week, when the moon grows full, the sea will ebb and reveal the opening. That is when Griffin will take you and Terill there.”
“What will I learn? All I know is that some test of will awaits us.”
“Nothing. Everything. I cannot say more, but Griffin and I will trust Terill to you as your father trusts your life to him,” she touched his hand.
“I wish I knew more,” he said.
“Come, no more talk now of the caves. I brought you here to ask about Wryth,” she said. “Is he well? Did he mention me at all?”
“Father Wryth is well indeed, Selene. But I am afraid I knew nothing about you until Griffin told me you were his sister.”
He hated saying the words that he knew might sting, but he could not lie to such a wondrous lady. A momentary sadness darkened her expression but disappeared when she smiled at him.
“I am glad he fairs well. And your father?”
“Father ails in his joints. Sometimes plagued by relentless pain, but his mind is keen. He seldom rides and that disappoints him. Most outings are from the seat of a carriage, but on good days, he takes a turn on horseback. He says the people must see a robust king. He need not worry for they revere him, and Ascalla flourishes by his hand.”
“I thought as much when he chose my brother to guide you instead of coming himself. Joint pain plagued him even as a young man, though not enough to keep him from his horse. Is your mother well?”
“My mother died when I was seven years old.” An odd expression came over him. “Has it been so long since you’ve had news from Ascalla?”
“I sorrow to know of your loss. The last of Ascalla that I knew was the day your father left for home after his trial in the caves. Oh, Prince Hawk. I did not mean to speak of sad things today. I brought you here, away from the eyes of the other villagers, because I must return something to Ascalla, something that I have long held. I meant to return it many years ago, on the day your father left, but a part of me wanted to keep it close to remember the past.”
Hawk looked puzzled.
“Something that belongs to Ascalla?”
“Yes.”
Selene reached into the fold of her flaxen robe and drew out a small silk pouch. The pouch, worn thin with age, barely seemed to hold together at all. The color had faded to a pinkish gray long ago.
“Cup your hand,” she said.
She opened the pouch and emptied the contents into his palm. The intake of his breath was audible. He looked upon the lustrous surface of a single, perfectly shaped black pearl. His fingers closed around the pearl.
“Where did you get this pearl?” he asked.
“You know about the black pearls?” said Selene. “Of course, you would know about them.”
“Yes, but why do you have one of the Queen's Pearls?”
“Your father gave it to me long ago. But the pearl belongs to Ascalla, and I wish to return it to its rightful place.”
“Father gave you the pearl?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why would my father give you one of the Queen's Pearls?”
“Prince Hawk,” her voice trembled. “Take it. It is rightfully yours. Don’t ask me to dig through old history.”
Hawk tightened his fingers around the pearl, his first reaction was to do as Selene asked, simply tuck it away. The black pearls did belong to Ascalla, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw a deep sadness for something lost. An odd suspicion started to form. He must know how Selene came to hold a pearl of Ascalla.
“I must know,” he said. “Why did Father give the pearl to you?”
“Any other tale I would tell you, Hawk. Something more to your liking might be the legend about the Pearls of Shadall. The story is a mirror of the Ascallan tale. Terill prot
ects them here. They are a different hue, pale rose and luminous, like a sunset.”
“Another time perhaps, dear lady, but now please tell me how came you by this pearl. Too many secrets shroud the black pearls of Ascalla,” he said. “I must know how you came to have one. Why did my father give it to you?”
Selene took a deep breath and turned her eyes to the sea. For a long time she sat that way. Hawk sensed that she searched for just the right way to answer him and gave her the distance she needed. On the surface, she looked composed, but he saw the way her fingers danced in and out, clasping releasing. They reminded him of butterflies, flitting willy-nilly from blossom to blossom never settling in one place over long. He guessed her thoughts moved much as her fingers, from old memory to old memory, picking and choosing those she would share with the Prince of Ascalla and those she would keep hidden and private for herself alone to know and treasure. He acknowledged that right and pressed no further.
When at last she turned to him, the faraway look was gone. She was back on the bluff beside him with the soft breeze from the Sea of Shadall blowing in her hair.
“I can’t tell half a story, Prince Hawk. What I reveal may disturb you.”
“I understand.”
“All of this took place a long time ago. Long before your birth and before your father’s coronation. Wryth and I came to Ascalla from another realm. We took flight from a vile place and a brutal ruler. You know the land of which I speak. Ascalla has long battled Lawrenzia and struggled to maintain her borders. Wryth sought the church and found a bearable existence. His love of God carried him above the political injustice of that land. As the third son, our father seemed satisfied enough by his choice. I found my lot less tolerable. King Peter Brenan cast eyes upon me and a betrothal agreement followed.”