by Annie Bellet
“They help with our orchard and garden here, and the livestock we keep around full time. He’s a good man,” Idrys said.
He lifted a leather satchel and laid it on the bench next to him. From it he removed a delicate set of carving tools and a few pieces of clean bone. One was already slowly forming into a comb like the one Hafwyn had in her braids. He set to work with his roughened rasp to smoothing out the tines.
“Did you make your mother’s?” Áine asked.
“Aye. It fills the nights. I picked it up from Llew’s father before he passed last winter.”
“Llew seems a good friend,” Áine said, her mind wandering. She’d never known more than Tesn, never really had friends besides her adopted mother.
“Oh he is, provided one has a thick skin.” Idrys smiled at her wryly.
“I never would have picked sweet Caron for him, though,” Hafwyn said with a shrug. “But they say the easiest way to a man’s heart is through his belly. And she had a fine gift with spices and flavors. Was our lucky day when she settled with Emyr’s right-hand man.”
“I always thought the quickest way to a man’s heart was straight through his chest,” Áine said, trying to pull another smile out of Idrys.
It worked. “And what would a wisewoman know of a man’s heart?” He leaned forward toward her.
“More than I could teach a cur like you in one evening,” she said and sniffed with mock indignation at his saucy tone.
To her surprise Idrys sat back and pain, deep and sudden, flickered through his face. “A cur like me, oh, indeed,” he muttered. He put down his carving and rose, walking out of the hall without a backward glance. His hound rose with what she would have sworn was a sigh and followed after.
Áine shivered, unsure how she’d given such offense so quickly. She looked at Hafwyn with a question on her lips but the older woman just shook her head and said only “he’s moody, my son. Takes after his father.”
Áine excused herself shortly after, not wishing to face Emyr again that night. She wasn’t sure what she’d said or why it had stung. It was a cold reminder that she was an outsider here, for all her strange ease around the handsome young chief. Áine knew from spending time in villages healing with her mother that adversity and loss often bred camaraderie where it might not have thrived otherwise. She wondered if she’d been too forward in her friendliness with Emyr. Perhaps she’d imagined the compassion in his gaze as he’d helped her home and cared for her after the ordeal.
Alone, she stripped off her dress and then rewrapped her ankle. The swelling was down; another week, perhaps two at most, and she’d be free of that annoyance at least. She blew out the little stone lamp and curled underneath the covers, alone with her grief.
Twelve
The second night was the hardest for her. Grief and memory tormented her with lonely dreams where she wandered lost and afraid searching for Tesn and always too far behind.
The next morning, Emyr acted as though he hadn’t stormed out the night before and greeted her warmly. Áine put his moods out of her mind and set herself to being as useful as possible. Together she and Hafwyn worked to preserve and prepare a healthy stock of herbs for any ailment and the older woman found herself very impressed with the sheer depth of knowledge the young wisewoman possessed.
The third night was easier; she cried herself into an exhausted sleep and dreamed again of birds and waves. When she awoke, Áine felt ready to stop crying and face the dawning day. She carded wool and chatted with Melita who was a wealth of funny anecdotes about the various residents, permanent and not, of the holding.
Áine had questions about the young chief, but held them back. Her healer’s instincts told her pain lurked there and she wasn’t ready for any more of that for now.
The days passed quickly. Emyr showed her his tallfwrdd board and, with Urien’s patient help, began to teach her to play. She enjoyed playing the attacker more than defending with the king, though defense did seem to carry with it a tactical advantage. The men were impressed with her agile mind and Urien joked that she’d be able to out-play Emyr in another fortnight at the pace she was learning.
“Try memorizing and categorizing all parts of a single plant for use in perhaps tens of ailments or pains, and then ask me again how I learn so easily.” Áine laughed, the sound thin but growing stronger with use.
A week passed before the first group arrived for the winter. Emyr had explained how here they would house those who came to pay their taxes and have any disputes heard by the chief. Taxes would get the little holding through the winter. Most residents stayed in the small stone houses for a month or so before moving back to their own outlying homes.
If it were a bad winter, they’d stay longer. The main flocks belonging directly to the chief were all now housed within a half-day’s ride and Gethin was out checking on the preparedness of his shepherds as Emyr’s proxy and master of flocks.
By the end of the second week the little holding had filled to capacity with the arrival of the fisherfolk. Some stayed in the little villages by the sea, but many migrated back with their families and salted catches to pay the year’s tax and visit relatives and friends. Áine had been in much larger holdings, but once the village swelled to nearly one hundred folk and family, she felt both more comfortable and strangely uneasy.
The mysterious, young wisewoman was the center of a great deal of gossip once the holding began to settle. Emyr and his men had their hands full sorting through the tithes and getting everyone settled for a winter that was already proving it would come early and hard. The rain had turned to sleet by the end of the third week and many gathered in the main hall seeking audience or diversion.
Áine was not oblivious to the whispers. She was used to speculation and faced it bravely. No one dared make open accusation of anything and she remained nearly glued to Hafwyn’s side as her ankle healed.
Her main respite from the dark nights full of grief and the days full of work and the speculative glances of strangers was Emyr. No matter how busy he got, he always seemed to steal a moment or two for light conversation with Áine during the days, and she looked forward to their intense but friendly games of tallfrwdd.
Emyr was quieter at night, his smile less easy, but when Áine did manage to coax it from him, it was as though a lamp lit in the handsome man’s face. She found herself looking more and more for those smiles, pushing through the day’s work in anticipation of sharing a late midday meal with Emyr or a night of games and gentle teasing.
Melita had helped her sew two plain white dresses, one of thick linen, the other of finely woven undyed wool. The wisewoman made a handsome figure sitting near the hearth dressed in red and white. Her sad smiles and gentle banter did little to quiet the speculations.
Moel and his daughter-in-law lay at the foundation of it. Their version of the events after the storm dropped responsibility for the death of the old wisewoman and indeed the storm itself firmly into Áine’s own lap. That the young, unwed chief seemed so friendly with her only fueled Moel’s strident accusations. Many shrugged and turned away from him when he spoke, but quite a few listened, especially when the normally quiet and reserved Maderun spoke up in the old man’s defense.
It came to a head on a windy night nearly a month after Áine had arrived in Clun Cadair. Old Gethin was out making the rounds of the crofts again, but Urien, Llew, and Emyr sat at the head of the main table talking with Áine and Hafwyn. Melita perched behind her large loom, humming a lullaby in the warm hall. A handful of the fisher folk sat further down the long table, playing tallfwrdd.
Moel had come into the hall that night with his son and their family. They kept to the far end of the hall, Adaf and his father conversing with one of the farmers who’d come to ask for help building an extra pen for some cattle he’d traded for in Arfon. The two young girls, joined by the young son of one of the fishermen, were playing with a leather ball on the floor with Cy.
Áine glanced their way and wondered again a
t how gentle the huge hound was with the young children. She smiled and looked back to her companions. Her sorrow was an older wound now, still there and throbbing but more easily ignored with each passing day. Hafwyn kept her blissfully busy, seeming to keenly understand Áine’s fear of idleness.
The leather ball fetched up against her leg and she bent to pick it up. Gwir, the younger of Maderun’s daughters, dashed up to her and held out her hand for Áine to return the ball. Áine smiled.
Her smile died as Maderun rose from her seat and screeched at Gwir to “get away from that woman!”
Everyone went silent in the hall and looked between the two women. Áine handed the ball back to the stunned, frightened child who backed away from her with wide eyes.
“I’d not do her any harm,” Áine said carefully. “I like children.”
“It’s ill luck for a child to be touched by the fey. Everyone knows this,” Maderun said, her voice high and thin.
“You believe me to be one of the Fair Folk, do you?” Áine’s green eyes snapped with annoyance. She’d felt this coming but had hoped that the easy respect her host’s family had for her would alleviate the superstitious nonsense.
Moel stood and looked at her with hard dark eyes. “Are you not? Red hair like that, and skin that looks to have never seen the sun despite the wandering you’ve said you’ve done.”
“She’s our guest.” Idrys stood as well, towering over the still-seated wisewoman.
He was unsure how to explain that she was not fey without giving away secrets he did not care to reveal. He was the chief; his word should have been enough. He could see by the faces around him that remained full of questions that it wasn’t near enough.
“Perhaps she’s witched you, how would we know?” Moel said stubbornly. “We know naught about her, though I’d eat this table if that woman we buried gave birth to your guest.”
Áine stood and held up a slender hand to forestall whatever reply Idrys might have made. She paused and met the gaze of every man and woman in the room, her new friends and host included. She noted even Cy watched her intently. Then she shifted her leaf-green eyes back to Moel and his family.
“Tesn,” she said, “was my adopted mother. I was given to her just after my birth.” Áine decided to leave out the part with the selkies.
Around her, many of the small crowd was nodding. Though unusual, it was not unheard of for a girl so young to be given to the wisewomen’s path when she was not born on it. It was a powerful calling.
“I never knew my birth family,” she continued. “Perhaps they thought that my unusual coloring meant I was born to the path of knowledge Tesn walked. I do not know. What I do know is that I’m a wisewoman now myself. I earned this belt and my knowledge and it would be far beyond my simple calling to dishonor my mother and teacher by breaking the cardinal rule of my profession.” She paused again and raised a crimson brow. “Do. No. Harm.”
Áine turned and hobbled around the table to the hearth where Caron sat dumbstruck by the tall wisewoman’s beautiful anger. Áine snatched up an iron poker and held it against her own flushed cheek.
“Cold iron, Madoc ap Madog, called Moel. If you know your stories so well, you’d know that no fey or even a half-blood foundling could stand its touch.” Moel flinched from her sparking green-gold gaze. “Are you satisfied? Or should I strip and rub the iron all over my skin?”
Idrys could not help but smile at that thought. His blood rose at the image of her milk-pale skin tinged pink with fury. She was glorious in her brave rage and he didn’t doubt for a minute that if Moel had demanded it, she just might have torn off her white gown and done as she’d offered.
The bald man did not demand it. Instead, he looked down and mumbled a soft apology to the hall. He walked as quickly as his old limbs would allow and left the hall. Maderun gave a little curtsey and gathered her girls. They left as well. Adaf stood and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said to the still-seething Áine, “she’s, well, they, well. You know. I’m sorry, we meant no offense.” He nodded as well to his chief and followed his family out the door.
The fisher folk returned to their game and calm settled over the room. Áine dropped the poker back onto the hearth and limped to her seat. Her ankle was mostly healed, but it still stung to put her full weight on her leg as yet.
Llew broke the tension with a leering smile. “You sure you don’t want to strip? I mean, it never hurts to be thorough where the tricky fey might be concerned.”
Caron moved swiftly and smacked the back of his head. Idrys laughed as Llew tossed his wife a jokingly hurt look.
“He has a point,” Idrys said as he looked at Áine with somewhat other than just humor in his dark eyes.
“Boys, leave the poor woman alone.” Hafwyn came to Áine’s rescue as she smiled at the young men. “I hope that little display will put an end to the strange looks, hmm?”
Áine sighed. “It might. I wish it were the first time I’d had to touch cold iron to prove my blood. Some days I curse my unknown parents that I’d be born so strange. But as Tesn always liked to remind me, they like as not shared the same coloring and could not have had it any easier.”
The dark wave of grief crashed into the empty space anger left behind as it fled her. She shuddered and put a hand up to her suddenly damp eyes. “I’m sorry. I think I’ll retire. Good night.”
Thirteen
A small rash of fevers and other complaints brought on by the worsening weather over the next few days kept Áine, Melita, and Hafwyn busy. Áine was thankful that Hafwyn had such a keen interest in gardening and kept an impressive variety of herbs, roots, and flowing plants in stock. Áine dealt with the sick in a calm and friendly manner.
Emyr found himself watching her often. She had a gentle yet firm way about her whether it was prescribing a warm bath of hawthorn flower, rosemary, and peppermint for a chilblain or brewing and administering willow bark, garlic, and honey for a fever. He liked how she was calm with the adults and warm and friendly with his mother and her serving woman. He knew his mother had lost a daughter to miscarriage before giving birth to her twin sons. Perhaps Hafwyn saw something of that lost child’s spirit reflected in the capable young woman.
Idrys, however, grew more distant as the week wore on. He always hated winter with the longer nights that forced him to wear his brother’s skin and manner for hours longer than was his want. There was a certain freedom in being a hound. It was easier to keep busy during the day as well, running about with Emyr and seeing that everything was in order with the people. No one talked to him save his brother, and certainly no one expected a response.
The winters also meant more people, with the complaints and concerns that brought. And of course, winter brought reminder of the cold night his father had finally given up on this life and passed beyond the veil.
Áine’s frequent smiles and teasing banter should have been a light in his darkening world. However, she somehow made it worse. He’d not even thought about a woman in a sexual way since Seren and had quickly if politely refused the few offers for marriage that had trickled in over the years.
Áine had reawakened his buried passion with her broad mouth, flashing eyes, and obvious strength. There was also the unspoken shared knowledge of deep anguish between them. She recognized his secret pain, though he was sure she didn’t know the cause, and although neither spoke of their grief to the other, the understanding lived in every gesture and every stolen glance.
Besides that, she was becoming a very vicious and cunning tallfwrdd opponent.
Idrys did not care for his growing feelings and so he pulled away from her as well. His brother did not, Idrys knew, and sorrowed that he was the cause of the confusion that tensed her gaze when he’d refuse a game after a long day and retire to sit alone in his room with only his hound.
“You’re an idiot,” Emyr told him one cold morning as he hastily dressed.
He didn’t even bother to explain what he was referr
ing to, for neither had missed yet another considering and closed-off look from Áine the night before.
“She’s neither inexperienced nor unwilling. But if you won’t touch her, I can hardly make a move, you know.” He sighed and sat beside his brother to pull on his heavy woolen stockings.
Idrys lay on the bed and dropped his narrow black head to the covers at his twin’s words.
This was the hardest time for both of them, in the moments after they shifted. They usually responded to things the other had said while they had a voice. It was a strangely delayed conversation. There was no banter or teasing between the brothers, no back and forth or quick exchange of ideas. And though each could physically touch the other and often did, it was not human contact and the loss always hung immediate and present between them in the early and late hours of the day.
“How much power will we give the Lady? How much of our lives will she destroy if we let this keep us from the normal things a man wants?” Emyr did not speak her name, but Seren’s curse lived between them always and needed no identifying. Idrys whined softly and dropped his head to his brother’s thigh, staring up at him with sad brown eyes. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s winter, it’s hard for you. I feel the darkness too, you know.” Emyr rose and they went side by side to face the day.
* * *
Áine was observant and finally her questions grew too many to hold in any longer. It was nearly six weeks after she’d come to Clun Cadair and she’d noted more and more that Emyr was always missing around sunset. She took the opportunity one quiet night in the hall to ask Hafwyn and Melita about it.
The women were sitting alone at the hearth, Melita and Hafwyn embroidering and Áine winding yarn. The younger woman looked up and took a deep breath.