by Annie Bellet
“You look like quite the Bean Sidhe,” Seren said. “Shall I finish this?”
She waved a slender hand in the air. The two crystalline stones, the strands of hair from March Cann, and the clasps Trahaearn had forged for Áine all manifested in the air, floating as if they balanced upon some invisible surface. “You have the tears?”
When Áine blinked at her and held out the bowl with a snarl, Seren took a half-step back. She shook her head, sending her hair rippling, and glared at the bloody woman. Áine didn’t care and glared back. She was exhausted, too tired for Seren’s games.
“Take it,” she said. “Give me what I need to break the curse. I just wish to go home.”
Seren took the bowl from her, avoiding touching her hands as she did so. Into the gleaming liquid went the stones, the clasps, and the fairy steed’s hairs. The contents of the bowl seemed to boil over as thick gold foam poured over the sides. As the foaming slowed and finally stopped, Seren reached within and drew forth two necklaces, each as alike as the other. The tail hairs of the March Cann had turned into a delicate cord of deepest purple; the two gems shone white and faceted; the claps closed each off with their delicate filigreed closures.
“This is your final task. You must place these over the heads of the twins, one for each. This must be done at sunset when they change.” She held them out.
Áine took the necklaces and nodded, then paused. “Any sunset?” she asked, having learnt to be suspicious and not so tired as to have forgotten that lesson easily.
“Sunset on the longest day, at midsummer.” Seren’s mouth tightened and then relaxed into a smile. “One more thing, Áine.”
Seren reached out and touched Áine’s shoulder. Áine had just long enough to wonder if this were the first time Seren had touched her or used her given name before she felt a strange tingle in her spine and then sharp pain.
She jerked away, clutching the necklaces. Her body twisted and bent and her clothing changed, becoming heavy and dull, like a beggars robe and rags.
“What have you done to me?” Áine cried out, or would have. Nary a sound came from her lips.
She touched her throat and then felt inside her mouth. She had nary a tooth and at her neck she felt the thin skin and thick wattles of an old woman. She hobbled to the pool, staring down into the calm waters.
A wrinkled old face peered back at her, distorted by the water but clear enough that her own familiar features had been wiped away. She turned back to Seren, aged eyes hurling accusation and hatred.
“Ah, halfling. You’ll not stay this way forever, well, not if your princes love you as you seem convinced. If they recognize you before you break the curse, your own body will be returned. A simple enough task for true love, is it not?” Seren laughed. “Come now, you’d not deny me all my sport.”
Áine slipped the necklaces over her head and advanced on Seren, her wrinkled, bony hands extended and violence in her mind. With another laugh, Seren disappeared but her words rang out across the clearing.
“Sunset, Áine. You’d best go; the journey will be longer on those legs.”
Silently screaming in rage and despair, Áine turned and hobbled from the clearing, Seren’s cold laughter echoing behind her.
She stumbled in the dark, her memory guiding her back toward the Ilswyn and Blodeuedd. Her newly old body wouldn’t hold her up anymore, exhausted as she’d already been, and finally Áine collapsed onto the ground and slept where she was.
Dawn’s light woke her, but no birds sang. It was as though Cymru-that-could-be held its collective breath. The eerie silence suited Áine’s black mood. She found a fallen branch that would serve as a walking stick and pressed onward. Her stomach complained about the lack of nourishment but Áine shoved the feelings aside. She didn’t want to think, to feel. She fixed the image of Idrys and Emyr’s faces in her mind and stumbled ahead, one foot after another.
As she walked she tried to look at the better side of the situation. She had the means to free her lovers now. It had been midwinter when she’d left, so that would leave at least a season between her return and midsummer. She’d found a way to free them, traveled to this strange land and done all that Seren had asked; she could find the means to make the twins recognize her. It was just another task, she told herself.
One more task.
You can free them.
You can have a home.
She entertained herself through the day by trying to guess their reactions and imagining their warm embrace. Idrys would lift her up and call out to the sky in his joy. It was his face she held the most dear in her heart, the guilt that lined his features, that unspoken burden of his secrets. It was Idrys she would confide the truth in, the terrible deed and choice she’d made. It was Idrys who would understand and take her in his arms and whisper his forgiveness. It was Idrys who, she was convinced, would have done the same and worse to set his brother free.
Emyr would smile; kiss her face, her lips. His joy would be contained, reserved. He would think of a good tale to tell about his brother’s miraculous return. And Áine would never tell him the truth of what she’d done. Not the whole of it. Emyr would be the one to look upon her with clear and loving eyes, no shadows or secrets clouding their love. After all this, she and Idrys would need his sweetness, his steadying presence.
I need each of them, each for his own ways and own gifts. I’ve missed them both so very much. They will know me. They must know me.
The trees gave way to meadow and Áine found it easier going. No swallows danced around her, and she saw no insects resting in the bent grasses. The sun was pleasantly warm on her back and with the use of her makeshift cane, she trudged over the silent wold.
It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d searched for the Ilswyn and emerged into Cymru-that-could-be. She recalled the pure white marble, the strange mists, and that Blodeuedd had told her the Ilswyn was only open when the veils between worlds grew thin. Áine hoped that only applied to passage from the world that is to the world that could be.
Despair rode her heart like a threatening storm cloud, hovering on her worst thoughts. What if the gate weren’t open until midsummer? How many months would she have to wait? How would she find the gate at all? Seren had said the curse must be broken on the longest day. Which longest day? The next? She’d certainly implied as much. Áine ran a dry tongue over her soft, bare gums and shuddered.
A soundless cry of relief broke from Áine’s lips as an opaque doorway appeared just in front of her as she crested a hill. Her heart beat painfully strong and forced her to stop and catch her breath, one hand pressed against her breastbone. She felt the hard stones of the cursebreaking pendants.
Grinding the end of her cane into the thick grass, Áine strode forward through the gate, leaving Cymru-that-could-be far behind.
* * *
This time things in the mists bumped against her and she heard voices crying out in a language she could almost understand. At one point, she nearly fell, stumbling over something in her path.
For a moment the terrifying visage of a dead child leered up at her, its neck a gaping wound from which colorless blood poured like a fountain. Áine recoiled and it was gone in the blink of an eye and she was alone again with the swirling mists.
A bright line pierced the gloom in front of her and Áine pushed her aching body toward it. The line thickened and formed into a doorway. Áine stepped through and fell to her creaking knees in relief. The valley of the Ilswyn spread out before her, the trees in their strange state of fruit and flower all at once. What had been strange before was comforting now and Áine choked down a sob.
“Áine, Áine, what has been done to you?” Blodeuedd’s voice sounded from beside her.
Áine turned her head and saw the fairy woman standing beside the huge marble slab where the gate had been. Her blue-violet eyes were dark with pity and pain. Áine raised one hand to her mouth and shook her head.
“You cannot speak? Did you find what you sought?”
<
br /> Áine nodded and pulled the pendants from underneath her ragged robe.
Blodeuedd smiled, some of the worry leaving her features. “Good. We must get you to the village. I fear that things are not as you left them.”
Áine raised her eyebrows and tried to communicate her need for information. She pointed to the sun, which rode low in the eastern sky and then pointed to the west and down.
Blodeuedd pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “Do you mean you need to be there by sunset? Or do you wish to know the time that has passed? It’s been a few years in Cymru-that-is, Áine.”
A few years? Áine jerked back and carefully rose to her feet, leaning hard on her makeshift cane. She pointed at the trees and willed her question be understood.
Blodeuedd read the question clearly enough. “It’s summer here, not just in the Ilswyn. Tonight is midsummer’s eve.”
No. No. I’ve arrived too late. I barely made the walk here in a full day on young and healthy legs. I have lost before I could even begin.
The vision of having months to convince the twins of her identity slipped away with this new knowledge. Blodeuedd said it had been a few years; did the twins even still love her? Or remember her? Despair swamped her and Áine would have crumpled to the ground again had not Blodeuedd’s strong arms caught her up. Áine wept into the fairy woman’s warm shoulder.
She had failed and her heart felt as though it would never stop dying. She couldn’t breathe, her throat choking closed on grief.
“Áine, no, do not give up hope. I can get you to the village if you’ll trust me? There is still time, Áine, still time.”
Áine raised her eyes, which were no longer the green of new leaves but a faded grey-green of old moss, and nodded.
If Blodeuedd could get her there before sunset, Áine would find a way to tell the twins what she needed. She’d communicated easily enough with Blodeuedd, and the fairy woman had recognized her, hadn’t she? There must still be a way.
Stop it, silly girl. Don’t give in so easily. You’ve come far too far for this weeping and wailing at the smallest hitch.
She dried her face on her sleeves and gave Blodeuedd a wan smile. The beautiful fairy woman stepped away from her and raised her arms to the sky. She shifted, her body sparkling like waves in sunlight and turned into a huge white owl. Before Áine could fully take in the change, the owl beat her wings and rose into the air. Áine put an arm up to block the dust from her eyes and soundlessly cried out as the owl snatched her up in her claws.
When she’d flown with Bran, Áine had been nauseated and disoriented. She’d have never thought she would wish for that kind of flying again. It was much worse clutched in the claws of the owl. Her bones screamed in protest at the heavy weight of the talons gripping her tightly and feathers tickled her face, which was crammed in close to the owl’s underbelly. Áine squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe shallow breaths.
It felt like an eternity before the owl dropped her as gently as it could to the soft grass beside a road. Blodeuedd appeared again, her body strangely transparent.
“I cannot stay here long, but down this road lies Clun Cadair. I wish you all luck and happiness, Áine. May your love bring to you more joy than mine brought me,” Blodeuedd said. “But if it does not bring the happy ending you might wish, return to me. I would gladly share the Ilswyn.” Then she shimmered back into a smaller owl and winged away toward the forest.
Áine dragged herself to her feet. Her body wanted to rest, to lie on the somewhat soft ground and settle, but there was not time for that. She still had a long way to walk and a lot of thinking to do about how she would tell Emyr what must be done. He’d likely be in the middle of a feast on this day, but at least in summer the llys would be more or less empty of people and Áine doubted she’d have trouble getting an audience with the chief.
Just have to decide how I’m going to tell him who I am and what I can do. I just have to hope he somehow knows me or find some familiar gesture or thing to show him.
She hobbled down the road, leaning heavily on her cane. The sun rose higher, beating down on her with the full force of its summer heat. Her robes grew damp with sweat and grit itched at her legs and wormed its way into her shoes. She thought she heard voices and wondered if she were hallucinating again in her exhaustion and worry.
She wasn’t going mad, for soon behind her came a little cart pulled by a dun mare with a man of middle years singing happily on the seat. He waved to her as she stepped to the edge of the road to let him pass. Áine waved back and the man pulled the cart to a halt.
“I greet you, old mother, do you make your way to Clun Cadair?” he asked.
Áine nodded, motioning to her mouth to show she could not speak.
“The day is hot, the road dusty. Please, hop into my cart and I’ll take you with me, for I too travel there and on this fine day I’d hate to have it said Aled Ap Aled let one of his elders walk in the heat.”
Áine smiled up at him, careful to keep her lips shut tight over her empty gums. She accepted his arm and sat herself in the back of the cart, her legs dangling off the end. The cart was loaded with three large casks and Áine motioned to them with a clear question on her face.
“Aye, that is my family’s specialty. We’re brewers, you see, and I’m bringing our finest for the Chief’s wedding feast tonight.”
Twenty-six
Emyr pulled his tunic to lay straight over the soft linen shirt beneath and sighed. He’d gone over and over the marriage contract with the lawgiver. He was clean and dressed in his finest clothing, despite the warmth of the summer day. Idrys stared up at him from his place on a sheepskin by the hearth in their room.
“You think you’re a sneaky one, don’t you? Scheduling the wedding for the daylight.” Emyr shook his head and glared at his brother. The hound’s dark eyes met his without expression. “Deal with none of the ceremony and reap all the rewards of the lovely bride.” He tried to keep his tone light and teasing.
Emyr knew Idrys was not looking forward to his wedding night. It had been a terrible battle of wills among Emyr, Idrys, and Hafwyn to get Idrys to agree to marry at all. But reason had won out in the end. The twins needed to produce an heir. Being cursed did not free them of this duty.
Idrys rose and paced to the door, whining in his throat.
“All right. You’re right; I can’t avoid the hall forever.” Emyr adjusted the beaten silver torque at his throat and opened the door, following his brother into the great hall.
The door to the courtyard was thrown wide, allowing sunlight and air to penetrate into the busy room. A fire burned in the great hearth despite the weather and women of both cantrefi worked around it. The tables were arranged both inside and out so that all might share in the feast. Much of Clun Cadair’s population was missing due to the season, however, with the addition of the people from Rhufon, the llys felt as full as it ever did in winter.
Emyr’s bride stood near one laden table, helping to arrange a last minute garland of flowers down the center. He paused and watched her, his heart lifting as she turned a gentle smile toward him. Eirian’s mother had been a Mercian. She was small like the people of Cymru, but fairer of skin, with golden-brown hair like good honey and eyes the color of a winter sky. Her blue wedding gown hugged her slender frame and pert breasts, the embroidery at the neck and cuffs done in gold and red thread, cleverly depicting little birds and flowers intertwined. Her hair was loose and long down her back, contained only by an etched silver circlet and a few summer blooms woven into her curls with silver wire.
Eirian was soft-spoken and loved hounds. It had not been so difficult to make her understand that her husband’s favorite hound would sleep in the room with them, nor had she said one word about Emyr and the hound disappearing at sunset thus far.
Who knows what she’ll think of me rising before dawn, but by then we’ll be wed and she’ll adjust. All husbands have oddities, I hope.
Emyr smiled back at her. This marr
iage was a good thing, he knew. Good for the cantref, good for the twins’ spirits. Idrys would not be unkind to Eirian, and Emyr hoped that in time her gentle ways would wear down his brother’s stubborn sorrow. The gods know I haven’t had the greatest luck.
A commotion in the courtyard drew many looks toward the door and Emyr followed his brother’s dark form outside into the bright sunlight. It was only an hour or so before the ceremony; Emyr hoped nothing had gone too horribly awry outside. He guessed that Llew or someone had dropped some of the meat roasting for the feast or somewhat like that.
He had not expected the cause to be a bent bundle of rags and dirty grey hair waving what looked very much like a fallen branch. The old woman poked her makeshift cane at Urien again as he tried to block her path into the great hall. The big man leapt back to a gale of laughter from the bystanders.
“Come now, Urien,” Llew called from by the pits of roasting meat, “one poor old woman isn’t going to topple you, is she?”
“She certainly seems determined,” Urien said and waved his hands at her. “Old mother, old mother, calm down. There’s a wedding today, you can’t disrupt the preparations so.”
“Easy, Urien,” Emyr came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll see to her.” He stepped forward and saw the muddy green eyes of the old woman light up. “I am Emyr ap Brychan, Chief of Llynwg, perhaps I can help you?”
The woman came right up to him and Emyr lifted his face away from her smell. She was filthy with road grit and her hair hung in thin greasy locks around a deeply wrinkled face. He had never seen a woman so old and wondered that she’d even made the journey here. She stared up at him with an intense familiarity, but he was sure he’d never met her before as he would have recalled such an ancient crone.
“Please, what is your name? Do I know you somehow?” he asked, catching her thin wrist in his fingers as she reached to touch his face.
Her eyes lit up and she nodded vigorously and then pointed to her throat as she opened a mouth long deprived of teeth. Emyr realized then that of course the poor woman could not speak.