by Annie Bellet
“What happened here? With Emyr and your husband? If it is not too forward to ask,” she added as the two women exchanged a sharp look.
“No, child. It is not too forward.” Hafwyn sighed and set aside her stitching. “I used to have two sons. Emyr had a twin, Idrys. They were nigh inseparable, those two.”
She smiled with the memory of her carefree, handsome boys. Her smile faded as she continued. “About seven years ago now, they went hunting. There was a rockslide, and only Emyr returned. I fear the pain of losing one of his sons was too much for my husband. Brychan was older than I anyway, and his heart full broke the day Emyr returned alone. He sickened that winter and could not hang on. Emyr keeps a nightly vigil for their spirits.” She told the story in a rush. Her lovely brown eyes, so similar to those of her son, lowered with remembered pain.
Áine had heard whispers of tragedy and seen the sorrow that rode like a comfortable mantle over Emyr’s shoulders, but she’d never heard the tale in full and so baldly spoken. She leaned forward and placed a hand over Hafwyn’s own.
“Thank you,” Áine said. “I’m glad I know. I can see the loss in Emyr, and it is good to finally see the source. There are days when I wish that I knew an herb to salve away the pains of grief and death, but I have no skill to heal the wounds of the heart.”
Hafwyn looked into the girl’s large green eyes and saw her deep sincerity and own loss painted within. A strange little smile curled her generous mouth. “Do not sell yourself short, wise one, for you may have ways beyond your own ken as yet.”
Áine opened her mouth to ask her what she meant by that but whatever she might have said was lost as the outer door was thrown open and a gust of cold air followed a distraught Maderun into the hall. She ran to Áine and threw herself at the woman’s feet, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, please forgive us. Just save my Gwir and Geneth. Please, wise one.” She looked up with desperate eyes.
“I do not know what you mean?” Áine said as she reached down to lift the smaller woman up.
“They took sick, two days ago. Moel would not let me bring you and even Adaf thought they’d be all right, for many have had small fevers. But they’re getting worse. Moel thinks you’ve cursed us.”
“And you?” Áine said, raising a brow. Her body was tense and she hated the verbal game she played. She knew no matter the woman’s answer she’d go and heal the children if she were able. But anger and remembered hurt held her still to hear the words.
“I saw you touch the cold iron, I’m satisfied. My mother always said no fairy could take the touch without burning. Please, help us.” She gripped Áine’s hands in her own.
Áine rose. “Of course. Now, tell me the symptoms that I can get what I need from the garden house.”
“No need, Áine. Go with her; Melita and I will come along. Once you’ve seen them for yourself I’ll fetch whatever you might need.”
“Thank you. Now, Maderun, talk as we walk, shall we?” Áine paused only to grab Emyr’s cloak from the peg by the door, figuring he’d hardly need it, sulking as he was in his chamber.
The women hurried across the courtyard and through the inner ring of buildings to Maderun’s home. It was simple stone and wood structure with a central hearth for cooking and three small sleeping rooms portioned off by slatted walls. The girls had been brought out to the main room and their straw-ticked mattresses placed on the floor beneath them.
Moel glared at Áine as she entered behind Maderun but Adaf looked up from his seat on a small bench near his girls with relief on his face.
Áine nodded to him, ignoring his father, and bent immediately to examine the children. Both were unconscious, which did not please her. She shook each gently and found them reluctant and slow to rouse. Prying open their eyes, she noticed a rheumy fluid and slight discoloration. Their gums were pale, their breathing labored and uneven, and their skin was flushed with fever.
“Have they been coughing?” she asked.
“Aye, when they are awake, which is less and less in the past day,” Adaf answered her.
“Any blood? What color is the phlegm?”
“No, no blood. No fluid at all. It’s a dry cough, though sometimes they are so overtaken they vomit. What does that mean?” Maderun shifted from foot to foot, her expression a rough mix of dread and hope.
“We’ll see. I think I’ve seen the like, years ago,” Áine said. “We need to keep them isolated from other children. You all as well. Everything will have to be washed in very hot water once they’re healed.”
“Then they’ll heal?” Adaf sighed with relief.
“Perhaps,” Áine replied. She hated to dash his hopes, but she didn’t wish to raise false ones either. “We have to get them breathing properly and get fluids into them as well.” She looked at Melita and Hafwyn. “I need mustard seeds, ground fine, hot water, and,” she paused, thinking, “cherry bark, wild lettuce, red clover flowers, coltsfoot, lavender, and that peppermint and marjoram tincture we made last week.”
The two women hurried to gather what she needed as Áine knelt quietly beside the girls and let her consciousness sink into each in turn. She felt the pain in their lungs, a strange burning itch that crawled like a living thing through the thin spongy tissue. The fevers were high as their bodies rebelled against the sickness. Both children were dehydrated and exhausted, too young and weak to put up a strong fight.
She pulled back into herself as Hafwyn returned with the first basket load of the requested items.
“Adaf, go with Hafwyn and fetch the copper bath. The children need to be bathed to reduce the fever.” He nodded and left.
To their surprise, Moel limped out behind them after grabbing a kitchen bucket, muttering that he’d start bringing in water.
Emyr, brought forth by his mother’s light knock, returned with the others, helping Adaf carry the bath. The little house was overcrowded and Áine calmly ordered everyone out except for the women once the bath was partially filled and two kettles and a pot set to heat on the hearth.
They undressed Gwir first, since Áine was more worried about the younger daughter’s condition. She did not wake or protest as they lowered her gently into the tepid bath, which Áine had steeped with mint and chamomile. They bathed her and then Maderun held her daughter’s head up as Áine coaxed a strong tea of garlic oil, honey, wild lettuce, and cherry bark down her throat. They returned her to the bed and covered her to the waist with the blankets. Áine showed Melita how to carefully massage the little girl’s bony chest with the peppermint and marjoram tincture.
They repeated the process with Geneth, who woke briefly and was overtaken for a moment by a deep dry coughing fit that left her weak and her skin red-purple in tone.
Maderun massaged her elder daughter’s chest gently as Áine had demonstrated while the wisewoman turned to making a paste of mustard using water as hot as she could stand to touch for a count of ten. She took strips of clean linen and soaked them in the mustard paste, then laid the compress onto the chests of the girls in turn until the mix cooled and hardened.
It was a long night. They repeated the forced feeding of the honeyed tea mix and the chest massage combined with the hot mustard compress every hour or so. Geneth’s fever broke before dawn, though she did not wake. Her breathing evened. It seemed to Áine they were through the worst with her at least.
Daylight was seeping in under the door and through the slatted casement when Gwir finally opened her eyes and asked for water. The sheets beneath her were soaked with sweat and Áine hugged Hafwyn with deep relief. The younger one’s breathing was still too ragged for her taste, but her cough brought up a little phlegm and subsided quickly as she sipped the lukewarm tea.
Áine looked at Maderun and nodded. “I think we’re out of the worst, though you’ll need to keep up the tea, as much as they can drink. And a broth made with fish oil wouldn’t hurt either, though they may not care for the taste much.”
“Thank you, Wise One.” Maderun rose and clasped Áine’s hand
s to her chest.
“Remember, wash everything, and no visits from children or people with children for at least three more days or ‘til all symptoms clear, whichever is later.” Áine smiled. Her back ached and she was suddenly aware of her own exhaustion. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed before I’m of no use to anyone. If the fever returns or they start to cough even after a sip of tea, send for me immediately.”
She turned and walked back to the hall with Hafwyn beside her. Emyr was up early as usual and greeted both as they entered.
“The children?” he asked.
“They’ll live, I think, thanks to Áine.” Hafwyn smiled. Her face was lined and her eyes sunk and dark with fatigue.
Áine waved a weary hand and stripped off Emyr’s cloak, hanging it back on its peg.
“Have to get you one of your own, I suppose, though you’re tall enough to wear that well.” Emyr grinned at her.
Cy came up and pressed his head under her hand. She smiled down at the hound and scratched his ears.
The memory of her dream the night before the flood crashed into her exhausted mind with unbidden vividness. The tall black hounds, the forest, Tesn, the flood. She looked down into the face of the large dog and felt a strange recognition surge through her.
Áine pulled away and fled quickly to her room. The three left in the hall watched her go with curious faces.
“This home is overfull with a bounty of mysteries,” Hafwyn said softly. “Good night, my heart. If anyone needs me before midday, come and wake me.”
Fourteen
“Ha. You sad, tallow-faced assassin of joy.” Áine grinned and shot Idrys a gleeful look as she moved a little blue peg and surrounded yet another of his defenders with her own men.
“Perhaps you should concede the game now and save a little pride, friend.” Llew said and Urien chuckled as he refilled their cups with the fizzing honey mead.
“Hush, you. I’ve not lost yet.” Idrys leaned over the board and considered his options as he fingered the small bone die.
Hafwyn smiled at the little group. With gentle prodding from her and not so gentle words from his twin, Idrys had finally emerged from his shell and seemed to be enjoying winter for once. She imagined it had no little to do with a certain red-haired young woman who grew more lively and comfortable by the day. As the season neared the longest night, Áine seemingly put aside her grief with more and more ease, the moments of hollow pain less frequent though no less sudden or troubling.
Áine was happy as she’d never been and part of her twisted with guilt over it. She told herself that Tesn would have wept to see her surrounded by such good people and making friends with men and women near her own age. There was no reason to feel shame in her happiness because her mentor and mother was dead. But knowing a thing with the mind and knowing it in the heart were different matters and Áine struggled with the latter.
Emyr helped. Áine had taken a couple lovers in her travels, though never for more than a night or three. Tesn had finally explained near Áine’s fifteenth birthday about how Áine might choose her own lovers for a time, though never to marry or settle with. She’d shown Áine the herbs to take before and after to help prevent unwanted children and told her gently that learning the full range of pleasures of the body would only help her understanding of her fellow humans and enable her to serve their needs with greater knowledge. There were, after all, many kinds of healing.
More and more, Áine eyed the handsome young chief and wondered how forward with her wishes she’d have to get before he noticed her. She’d done a little subtle asking around and knew that as far as anyone could tell, Emyr had never taken a lover or had a sweetheart. Certainly the chief had turned down a few offers of marriage, despite being the age when men usually looked for wives.
She’d wondered if he preferred the company of men, but the look that came into his eyes on occasion when he’d help her haul wood or water or caught him looking sidelong at her over the tallfwrdd board in the long evenings told her he felt desire.
She’d started making a point to brush her hand or hip against him by apparent accident whenever she had the chance. He often blushed, though Áine noted he rarely moved away. But still, frustratingly enough, he made no comment or overt show of interest and instead he’d glance aside with that distant sorrow filling his firelit eyes. She often found herself shaking her head, wondering what secret pain it was that kept them apart.
* * *
Emyr offered to teach Áine to ride, appalled that she’d never learned.
“A wisewoman walks,” Áine said dryly. “Occasionally we ride in carts.”
“Well then, you’ll have to expand your knowledge, won’t you? Be a shame to leave yourself so uneducated,” Emyr teased her.
“You just want to see me fall on my arse.” She narrowed her green eyes.
“I don’t know about him, but I’d like to see that.” Llew broke in.
“All right, scoundrels. But I’ll be borrowing a pair of your trousers, if you please, Emyr. I’ve no mind to have my skirts over my head with that shameless boy hanging around.” She made a sour face at Llew and set her hands on her hips.
Emyr laughed. And so it was that on a cold but clear day, Áine had her first riding lesson on a chestnut mare called Cloud. She did not, to Llew’s great disappointment, fall off. The horse liked her, staying calm and easy under Áine’s gentle leg. She felt an easy rapport with the creature, letting her breathing settle in to match the mare’s without thinking.
“They are marvelous creatures,” Áine sighed as she dismounted back in the courtyard.
“Very.” Emyr smiled at her. Her face was flushed with cold and the exertion and her eyes alight with simple joy. He remembered his first look at her lying half dead and filthy on the ground and wondered that he’d ever thought her anything but beautiful.
Áine caught the look in his eye and stepped in close, laying her own slender pale hand over his dark, calloused fingers that held Cloud’s reins. Her large leaf-and-sunlight eyes spoke a silent but clear invitation.
Emyr shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold and looked down at her. She was inches away from him and he felt the heat of her body seeping through the cold air to warm his own. Her full breasts brushed his chest and the layers of linen and wool seemed both too much and not thick enough all at once.
He froze, torn between wanting to claim her lips with his own and wanting to pull away for fear of where that might lead and what memories it might arouse.
Idrys butted his twin in the thigh with a bony head and saved him the decision. Emyr laughed, releasing the tension, and shoved at the hound.
“It’s well past midday. I think the black oaf is hungry, eh?” He turned a little too quickly and pulled Cloud behind him into the stable. “Go on, I’ll take care of her.”
Áine looked down at the huge black hound and gave him an exasperated look. “I certainly hope you’re happy,” she muttered. “Come on, mutt. Let’s see what sort of acceptable food we can poach for you before you waste away of neglect.”
* * *
Three days before the longest night, the holding bustled with earnest preparation for the midwinter feasting. Gethin had brought in one of the overlarge hogs he kept for routing acorns and truffles in the forest and they were all fattening the beast with table scraps for its imminent slaughter. Caron had taken over the cooking hearth and delicious smells of the food she was overseeing the preparation of filled the hall day and night.
Even the weather cooperated with the merry air of celebration. The days were generally sunny, though very cold. Small drifts of dry snow added their own sparkling decoration to the little houses.
Gwir and Geneth, now recovered from their sickness, joined the other children of the village in making winter garlands of holly and pine that the men then strung over every threshold and window.
Sunset neared and Emyr retired for his vigil with his hound. He stripped carefully in the chilly ro
om and looked at Idrys who sat expectantly on the sheepskin rug.
“I mean to court Áine. I may not have the experience to tell, but her interest seems plain enough to read and I find myself well disposed to her.” He shivered in the chill as he stood naked before his twin. “I cannot, for obvious reasons, do it without your help and consent, Idrys. I know you fear what we feel, because, well, because of Seren.” He shivered again for reasons unrelated to the temperature and forged ahead. The tingling in his blood grew and he had little time to say his piece. “But Áine is as far from that cold, selfish Lady as we’ll find I think. I don’t want to watch her leave or choose another; I’ve got loneliness and sorrow in my heart enough, and so do you. Think on it, Idrys. For us. Please.”
The change took him as the sun dropped below the rim of the world.
Idrys dressed quickly and then sat on the bed and took his brother’s narrow furry head between his hands.
“I don’t know, Emyr. My desires are what damned us. What further harm might I cause by unleashing them again?”
The hound whined and licked his brother’s arm.
“All right. I’ll think on it, though she’s a wisewoman, and we can hardly marry her. She’s going to leave someday, Emyr. Besides, what if we let down our guard and she finds out the truth? That might only invite further pain if she wisely chooses not to tie herself to ones so cursed.” He rose and paced to the door.
Emyr realized with a start that he’d never told his brother about Áine’s pearly tear. She might understand better than you know, Idrys. He resolved to speak of it the next morning.
* * *
That evening after a hurried supper, Idrys turned to carving and the women to cooking and preparations. Gethin burst into the hall and came to Idrys’s side.
“Emyr! It’s Dancer. She’s foaling I think,” Gethin said.
Idrys rose and nodded to the women as he made his way outside. Emyr raised his head and then stayed where he was next to the warm hearth. His twin hardly needed his company for the birth of a horse. Besides, the mare was all Idrys’s project.