by Erin O'Quinn
She surveyed me in turn, taking in the red-fox tunic I had worn that day. “Caylith, for a storied savior, you still look like an enchanted princess, one changed into a cunning fox by a fairy godmother.”
I blushed immediately at the mention of a “savior,” for I was still festering over the role of Deliverer of the Dwarves that I felt had been foisted upon me a few years ago. I was able to “save” the dwarves and other residents of Faerie, but only through the efforts of Jay and several other friends.
“Blame your daughter Magpie for the fox in your cook room.” I managed to laugh. “She thought I needed to shed my old deerskin tunic, although I cannot imagine why.”
“Yes,” Finch murmured, smiling. “I cannot imagine, either.” She, too, had evidently thought the old tunic had a few too many holes and jagged rips, too many testaments to the warrior’s life.
I loved this new tunic, for it fit me as though I were a very fox. I now wore the bushy tail around my hips just below my belt. I used to wear it pinned and tucked into my bodice, for Magpie had cut it a bit low and I felt that my breasts were too exposed. But now that I had grown out even a bit more, the top fit me like a second skin, and I was reluctant to hide the natural look that her handiwork gave.
“Finch, I wonder where I might find Mockingbird and your niece Swallow Feather.” I had not come here seeking either of them, but my conversation with Crowe had scratched at my curiosity.
“Then wonder no longer, my friend. Both of them are here in our own comfort room, along with my darling Magpie. Why not join them, and I will bring you some sun-petal tea.”
As soon as I entered the comfort room, two beautiful women stood, then rushed toward me. We all three hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks, laughing and murmuring honeyed words.
Magpie stood some three inches shorter than I, but except for her height and her dusting of freckles, she strongly resembled me. She had wild red hair and green eyes and a disposition given to mischievous teasing. Swallow was about my height, tall for a dwarf, and I sensed that somewhere her ancestry may have held a tall wanderer from the world of Britannia. Her long, soft hair was strawberry blonde. Her eyes were light brown with gold flecks, and her rosebud mouth was perfect.
Both my friends were extraordinary in their beauty. Once I had quickly gotten over the certainty of my own ugliness next to them, I never again felt anything but love and admiration for either of them.
Jay stood, and I broke free from my friends and embraced him warmly. As always, I delighted in looking at him—his ageless, luminous blue eyes, his gravely handsome face, covered with a medium-sized beard. It was a bit grizzled but more brown than gray. I was used to seeing him outdoors, where he invariably wore a small linen or woolen cap with a jaybird feather stuck in the brim behind one ear. His hair, unhidden by his cap, was a shining, dark brown dusted with gray at the temples.
Jay said, “Caylith, dear, how fortunate you have stopped by. For we were just talking about you. Please meet my indomitable sister Mockingbird.”
The woman rose from the deep cushions of her high-backed bench, seeming much taller than her almost-five-foot frame. Her eyes, deep blue like her brother’s, were alight with an adamant fire. Her hair was not so dark as Crowe’s, but it held steel-blue streaks and highlights. I imagined that in the real light of the sun it would look like a blue-and-black halo around her strong face.
Mockingbird was a rare exception to the rule that all dwarves were beautiful, for she clearly was not. If there was a quality called “beyond beautiful,” that would describe her. She astonished the viewer with a fierce inner light that shone from her face and from her lively, intelligent eyes.
“And this is the stout-hearted Caylith,” she said. Her voice, perhaps deliberately, took on the tone and cadence of her brother Jay. She gazed at me levelly, with no apparent approval—or disapproval, either.
I started to curtsey, not knowing exactly how to greet her. Then, in the middle of my curtsy, I changed to a bow. I realized that I must look ridiculous trying to do either a curtsy or a bow in my fox skin. “Ah, Mockingbird,” I murmured. “How astounding to meet you.” That was about as truthful as I could get without seeming rude.
“Sit, sit,” she waved at a bench as though the comfort room belonged to her and not her brother. Amused, I found a comfortable perch where I could gaze at all my friends, and she sat back down.
“Tell me, Caylith, about your deliverance of our clans.”
“Um, I am sure Jay has mentioned our immigration to Éire. Tell me about your own voyage here.”
“Waves and nausea,” she said shortly. “Sky and sea. I have had more enjoyable times. But I am not complaining, mind you.”
The more Mockingbird talked, the more strongly reminded was I of my larger-than-life aunt Marrie. I knew, with a sudden, brilliant insight, how Jay was able to charm Marrie when no one else had ever been able to do more than irritate her. He has learned to respect her, I thought. Then I settled back to watch them in action.
“We feared you would not join us, Moc,” said GoldenFinch, sailing into the room with teacups on a large metal tray.
“Do you mean here on this bench? Or here, along this great cold river?”
“Here in our new homeland, Auntie Moc,” said Magpie.
“The last of my family was gone. It is only natural that I would come here. Where was I to live?”
None of the company was foolish enough to argue with her, and her daughter deftly changed the subject. “Mother, tell Caylith of your new interest.”
“Hardly new,” Mockingbird said.
Swallow turned to me. “Mother has begun to fashion leather clothing for the people of Derry,” she said. “Cloaks, and hats, and breeches—you name it. She has pulled together a small army of tanners and sewers, and already her fame has begun to spread.”
I leaned forward, captivated. “That is marvelous, Mockingbird. I myself have found need for breeches for my husband. And leather hats for our cattle drovers, who need to ply their trade from horseback, often in the driving rain. I would gladly commission several articles of clothing right away.”
“Then we will draw up a list later,” said Mockingbird, looking a bit mollified. “I ask only skins in payment, enough for the commissioned work and ten percent more.”
“That is fair indeed.”
We sipped our tea for awhile, and Mockingbird asked for the story of the swans of Ravenscar. Jay ended up telling much of it, and everyone was hugely entertained.
“Swallow,” I said at last, “and Magpie. Two other friends of mine have started a small group of women. We are to meet each week at Brindl’s teach. I want you both to join us.”
“Surely it is not a sewing circle,” said Magpie, her eyes lit with teasing. She knew that I owned eight extra thumbs when it came to delicate handiwork.
“Ah, no…but it is handiwork of a kind,” I said. “More than anything, it is an excuse for me to be with people I love. Would you join us?”
“Count me in,” said Swallow immediately. “What time?”
“Two hours after sunup. Every Thursday. You must wear triús or briste, though.” I winked at her without letting Mockingbird see me, and Swallow caught my meaning right away.
“I will be there. What about you, cousin?”
Magpie regarded me for a long moment, her own eyes alight with understanding. “Triús? Perhaps I need to be there, too.”
“What is all this about, dear?” asked her mother, suddenly realizing that we were talking somewhere over her head.
“Mother, it is a way of escaping the enclaves for a while and being with friends. Worry not.”
“Escaping? I do not understand”
“I meant, um, a change of pace. A change of scenery.”
Mockingbird seemed to sniff. “As though you had not ‘escaped’ enough of late. I am not unaware of your growing interest, young lady.”
Swallow, now suffused with blushes, spoke abruptly to her mother. “Enough, Mother, pleas
e. Perhaps you forget I am quite old enough to make decisions for myself.”
“But perhaps not old enough to realize the consequences,” said Mockingbird, as though hinting of some great Greek tragedy.
Jay Feather had suffered long enough. “Yes, enough, Moc. And you, too, Swallow. Let us drink our tea in harmony and fellowship. Caylith, tell us what Liam is doing these days. And how is your new homestead coming along?”
After we finished our tea, I sat with Mockingbird discussing what leather articles I wanted and what size they should be. I told her I would send along Liam’s dimensions with Swallow next week when her daughter would be with me in our new group.
Jay accompanied me when I left, some hour later. He climbed the stairs behind me, and we stood looking at the great stone that now graced their clearing. “Jay, this reminds me of our first meeting,” I said.
Jay had brought me to the stone that covered the dwarf enclaves back in Faerie, and he had presented it as though it were the entrance to a royal palace. He told me then that I could move that stone, even though I stood incredulous, even irritated, by his insistence.
The old dwarf oracles had prophesied that a small, redheaded girl would move the portal stone and would deliver the dwarves from the nightfall of Faerie. And between the older dwarf and his mischievous daughter Magpie, the prophecy had come true.
“Yes, Cay. I feel a little lump in my throat when I remember you, kneeling at the great portal stone of our old, doomed enclave, caressing the soft moss and talking to the rock itself. From that moment forward, we were delivered.”
“From that moment forward, we were friends,” I corrected. “As I remember, you did most of the delivering. Come and visit Liam and me, Jay. I sorely miss you. We would both welcome you any evening for dinner.”
“That I will, Caylith. I promise.”
I left then, enjoying the clean, pine-scented air of a mild winter day. The pony, I thought, welcomed the shifting wind in his mane as much as I loved its careless touch in my own flying hair as we galloped for home.
Chapter 8:
The Bally Trench
Instead of riding directly home, I pointed NimbleFoot’s white mane to Michael and Brigid’s teach. Lately, I had begun to seek the company of my lady friends. I thought my recent interest had something to do with my new status as a married woman. My life seemed replete with responsibility as well as pleasure. I was full of questions and unsatisfied curiosity about this new, serious phase of my life.
Brigid welcomed me with great animation. She had been cleaning the wooden floors, I could see, and instead of sitting on a bench and drinking tea with her, I asked her for an extra cleaning cloth. Both of us talked and laughed on our hands and knees, bringing the oak planks back to a warm luster.
“Honestly, Cay,” she said after a while, “you need not expend your spirit on these soiled floors. We can sit and talk if you like.”
“First these floors, then my own.” I grinned. “Bree, I wonder if I could ask something that is, um, personal.” Brigid and Magpie were the only two people I could talk to about deeply personal matters. Talking to Mother was out of the question, for I could sense her natural restraint as soon as I even hinted about marital relations. Brindl, too, was deeply reluctant to talk about personal matters, in spite of our long years of shared confidence. It was as though her marriage to the shy Thom had honed her own sense of modesty.
“Talk away, my friend. I can scrub and listen at the same time.”
“Lately…ah, ever since a few nights ago when we drank the barley beer, Liam has begun to, um, take on a new dimension.”
“How so, Caylith?”
“It seems as though he wants very—oh, call it direct talking while we are making love. And not just the talking, but the acts themselves are, ah, more sensual. More down to earth.”
Her eyes were shining, a deep glow that seemed to say I know. “Go on.”
“I think he always wanted such—such rough language and new ways of exploring each other. But the beer finally broke down his reserves. I thought he had no reserves, Bree. But there are dimensions to Liam that I am only just beginning to discover.”
Bree kept her head to her task as she answered me. “I have known my Michael for many years. And all the time we were together, until we were married, I forbade the act of love, just as you did with Liam. Our lovemaking was satisfying, but something was missing. As soon as that barrier was down, as soon as Father Patrick blessed our union, everything changed. I mean everything, Cay. I am still amazed at the depths that marriage can hold. Not just in the bed, of course. But starting there.”
“So you think there is even more to come?”
“Yes. For what comes next are your own revelations to Liam.”
“I am beginning to show him, Bree. And tell him, too.”
“I mean not just about your body, little friend. I mean about your own dreams, and secrets, and yearnings. Those things will come with time.”
“Our language stands between us like a bally trench,” I said, still discouraged by my inability to learn his language.
“I know you will learn, Caylith. You have already learned more than most of your pilgrims—not just Gaelic but our culture, our ways of living and thinking. I am not ready to give you advice, except perhaps for one important bit of counsel. Do not rush it. Let it develop naturally. And do not forget that Liam is learning your language, too. He is starting to meet your friends, and that is truly a different experience for him. Between the two of you, a whole world, really, a cosmos, lies waiting to be discovered.”
I understood right away that Brigid was teaching me the meaning of kosmos, the Greek word Luke had used to me and Brigid one day when we were selecting her furniture. The meaning went beyond the usual sense of the world around me. It extended somehow to the sun and moon, the very stars, in the sense I had spoken it to Torin.
I sat on my bum on the glistening floor. “Thank you, Bree. You have helped me lose the lump that was starting to form in my throat.”
“I know just what you mean, a mo chara. Chew and swallow slowly, for the meal is delicious.”
On the way back home, I stopped at the work site where work crews were constructing the ingenious defenses of our new settlement. I saw Liam right away, working as usual next to Glaedwine. I also saw another familiar figure, the very short one belonging to Thom Stout, new husband of Brindl and a longtime friend of my own. I thought about what Bree had just said, how Liam was beginning to meet my friends, and I suddenly understood how important it was to our own relationship that he see me through their eyes as well as his own.
I had met Thom—or rather, Brindl and I both had met him—during an awards ceremony at the marine command center in Harborton in the doomed land of Faerie. Brindl had just been awarded the Jade Seagull by Harbor Master Joseph, the highest award given to a member of the Seagull Squadron. And when the commander announced the Ivory Eagle award, Thom had climbed to the high dais to share the accolades of the crowd. He was deeply crimson and very, very handsome. Both he and Brindl were speechless, and tears coursed down their cheeks as the commander praised their level of skill and depth of spirit.
Later that evening, both those beautiful people had seemed to dance the night away at the Commander’s Ball. And from that night onward, it seemed that Thom had not left her side. He was fully as tall, or as short, as his beautiful wife. Thom’s father, Graewith Stout, was a former marine captain himself, and back then he sailed a merchant vessel called The Enchanted Mermaid between Harborton and Britannia and lands beyond. His mother, the lovely BriarThorne, was herself a former marine captain and at present the newly selected mayor of Derry.
Thom had been an integral part of my triumphant return to Britannia to bring down the evil Duke of Deva. Later, he was part of the extensive campaign to save the people of Faerie and to warn those in Britannia as well. Thus our friendship was about three years old, and most of that time it had been replete with adventure and discovery. And Thom ha
d not always reacted to me with deep modesty. He just needed to be around me more often, as he was back then.
I dismounted and led NimbleFoot to a patch of tall oat grass. Thom was closest to me, and I stopped and proffered my hand. “Caylith,” he murmured, and of course his face turned red as he grasped my hand.
“Hello, my friend. It is a joy to see you,” I told him. I wanted to hug him, but I knew that act would invite disaster. Someday, I thought, he will get used to me again. Or at least he would not blush to see me.
Liam had walked up from the trench, taking a sure path where rocks had not yet been laid, and he greeted me with a close embrace. “Dia duit, a mo chroí.”
“Hello, I love you,” I told him, one of our old affectionate greetings. I lifted my face and he stooped to kiss me, a public kiss that did not involve his entire mouth and body.
The great hulking Glaedwine was a bit farther away, digging deep shovelfuls of sod and earth. I stood and watched him for a moment, feeling a deep affection. Our relationship was two pronged, for Glaed was on one level my sworn vassal, a former Saxon mercenary whom my own army had captured. And on quite another level, he shared the teach and the oversized bed of my own dear mama.
Glaed came from a family of trappers and fur traders along the mighty river Elbe, a place so far away in my imagination that it may as well be exotic Cathay. He had been lured to the soldier’s life by a ragtag group of Saxon soldiers. As soon as he traded his trapper’s skinning knife for a Langsax, he became a mercenary himself. In fact, of late I had taken to calling him Glaed Langsax after his Saxon long knife. After years of traveling about, helping village folks defend themselves against the cruelty of rapes and pillages, he had accrued his own army of fifty “Glaed Keepers,” soldiers who bravely fought for the rights of others less fortunate than themselves.
After years of roaming about the land of the Gauls and the Celts, Glaed and his men sailed their longship to what the defending Roman armies called the Saxon Shore, the long stretch of Britannia’s coast that lay across the narrow expanse of sea east to the continent. And so Glaed and his Keepers fought against their own people, those invading Saxons trying to roust the stalwart Britons.