She sank against the wall, the fur of her mantle cushioning her, remembering the magic they’d made in that smoky little hut with nothing but a single blanket and their eager bodies to keep them warm.
“You were supposed to be the greatest healer in Ireland. I was told you could heal my affliction with the pass of your hands. Did you even try, Aileen?”
She opened her mouth but no words came out. She thought of all the mornings she’d pressed her palm against the hollow of his heart and suffered the pain that pierced her, in the hopes she’d heal him.
“This is what I get,” he said, “for listening to the words of tricksters who visit on pagan spirit nights.”
Her heart filled her throat, making her voice a husky whisper. “I warned you it may not work. I made no promises.”
“But I made you a promise.” He tossed the wood into the flames. “It’s spring. I’m sending you back to Inishmaan.”
Chapter Seventeen
Once, when she’d been searching for bird’s eggs on the cliffs of Inishmaan, she’d slipped and knocked her head against a rock. Her ears had rung and her senses had dimmed and the pain had throbbed until she could understand nothing.
Now she stood motionless while Rhys’s words rang in her head. She wondered if she’d even heard them or if she’d just imagined he’d said them. Just this morning she had woken dreamy–eyed to the thought of the garden she was going to plant by the kitchens. She’d spent the winter spinning and weaving cloth for the spring. Was he to sever this tie that bound them with the uttering of a few words, to relegate all those nights and mornings to the past?
No.
He stood as still as stone watching the fire consume the block of wood. The silence between them stretched. This didn’t make any sense. Men were odd creatures, but she understood something of this one. It was the affliction flaring up again, that was what was addling his mind. Aye, the affliction.
“Come now, Aileen.” He turned eyes of ice upon her. “Anyone would think you’d been expecting a marriage proposal.”
She’d never expected a marriage proposal. She’d known better than to wish for the moon when she’d been happy enough with the stars. And in Inishmaan, she’d buried that part of her that yearned for home and family, sure that she would never know it. But maybe, in the cold of this Welsh winter, in the warmth of this man’s bed, the seed she’d thought she’d buried had begun to bud nonetheless.
Now it began to bleed.
“I’m the son of Gruffydd,” he said, “who was the son of Owen, the son of Roderic, the son of Mervyn the Great. I can trace my blood back twelve generations.”
I am the daughter of Conor. She tilted her chin, but it was an empty motion, a reflex of pride. She didn’t know her grandfather’s name. It had always been enough to be the daughter of Conor.
“We made a bargain,” he repeated
She searched those hollow eyes of blue. The heat that had begun a slow burn in her chest rose over her neck to lose itself in her scalp. At that moment, more than any other time in her life, she hated the fairness of her skin which stole from her any chance of pride. She had half a mind to tell him she loved him, to tell him she didn’t want to leave. She had half a mind to beg him to let her stay.
A trembling began deep in the core of her. She felt the trembling as if she were not a part of it, as if she were floating somewhere above her body watching herself shake and knowing that there would come a time when she couldn’t protect herself like this. There would come a time when she would feel this pain.
“If there’s a child, send him to me.” Rhys headed toward his room. “In Wales, a man takes care of his bastards.”
***
Hidden alone amid the woods, Rhys peered through the trees toward the mountain pass. He stilled his horse so that not even the creak of saddle leather interrupted the silence. He strained his ears for sound … and heard it, the first crinkle of hooves in the spring litter as his own men approached from down the road.
He edged his horse into the light as Dafydd’s mount came into view. Dafydd, who led the procession of armed men, passed his gaze across the woods around until he caught sight of Rhys. A scowl still marred Dafydd’s face. They’d nearly come to blows about Rhys’s decision to send Aileen back to Ireland. But Dafydd didn’t understand.
Rhys wasn’t sure he understood himself.
Rhys watched the passing procession, the mounted men and the clutch of Irish workers returning to their homeland. Those Irishmen glanced warily into the forest around them, knowing the danger. Cattle had been stolen on the northern border again. With the coming of spring his brothers and half–brothers had emerged from their wintering places like moles blinking against the sun, and again took up arms.
All the more reason to send her back to Ireland, he told himself. She hated the killing. In these bloodstained mountains it was as inevitable as the coming of rain. She’d be better off with her family, where he should have left her all those months ago instead of dragging her into the hell of his own life.
Then she emerged from the pass, riding the mare he’d given her, as straight–backed as if she’d been born to the saddle. Her red hair sprung from the netting she’d tried to stuff it into, and his hands itched for the feel of it in his palms. The fur–lined cloak she’d taken to wearing—the only luxury she’d really embraced in all her time in Wales—swathed her figure. He wondered if she even knew she wore it, or if Marged had tossed it across her shoulders while Aileen wandered in the same silence that had gripped her since the day he’d ordered her gone.
He hated her silence. It wasn’t natural on a woman who never knew better when to speak and when to hold still. If she had narrowed her eyes at him, if she had lashed out with that razor of a tongue and stripped him bloody with anger—that, he could have suffered. That, he could have fought. But she’d remained silent as the arrangements were finalized for the journey. This morning, she had mounted the mare without a word.
Now his gaze clung to her hair, bright against the gold netting, bright against the gray fur. The first time he’d laid eyes on her, he’d wondered if she were human. Now he knew just how human—how fragile of bone and heart. A heart he had not even known he had held as his own until he’d felt it break.
In a deep, calm part of himself, he knew that this was for the best. In time, the pain of the parting would fade in both their memories. She’d forget the hut in the mountains. He’d forget the first day she laughed in their bed as he struggled with their clothes. He’d forget the kitchen and the sweet taste of honey. He’d forget the sight of her honest face, with that gleam in her eye that spoke of intimate knowledge—gasps of pleasure, hands reaching out and taking him, willingly, openly, fully.
This Irish lass had given him his manhood again. She’d stared him full in the face and seen beyond the mottling of his skin. She’d shown him the true face of friendship, not only in herself, but in the others around him. He’d seen that face in Dafydd, even as Dafydd cursed him and called him a fool for letting her go.
He watched her stiff back as the procession advanced into the next pass. The season of hope was over. He knew beyond question that there was no chance of ever returning to the man he was, or to the world he’d once lived in. This curse upon his face would never be cured.
Aileen would survive the pain. She’d find another lover, more worthy than himself.
But there would be no new lover for him.
Aileen was the last.
His horse pawed the stone, uneasy with the restraint. The smell of earth rose up from the valley, the green, fertile scent of spring. He sucked the air deep into his lungs and then released it. It had taken him five years but he’d finally stopped wrestling with ghosts. He knew the path of his life now. This land would remain his exile. The castle he was building would be his home. There, the years would pass and the mottling of his skin would grow, and he’d have larger and larger masks made, to cover the horror from the simple, the superstitious, and the children.
One day, the curse would cover him from scalp to toes. He’d be nothing but a monster of a man. The ogre in the cave. A mythical thing lurking in the castle. Mothers would whisper about him to keep children in their beds.
In his heart he would hold the memory of Aileen’s face. In his heart he’d remember those days when a woman had lain beneath him, hot–blooded and eager. But Aileen would be back on the island she loved. Beautiful Aileen would have her freedom.
He watched her retreating back until he could no longer see the brightness of her hair. Then he lifted his hand in a silent farewell.
I love her.
A quiet sound gurgled from his chest, a sound like a laugh, though he’d not heard such a noise for too long to remember. How incredibly simple it was to admit the truth.
He loved her, so he had to send her away.
The valley rang silent. Rhys kicked his horse to the edge of the crag and raised his face to the rare spring sunshine.
Funny, he thought. Not a cloud in the sky.
Yet his face ran with rain.
Chapter Eighteen
Aileen gripped the rail of the merchant ship as the island of Inishmaan loomed out of the sea. The wind filled Aileen’s head with the perfume of land, the first she’d smelled since the ship left Aberffraw. As they neared, the captain barked out orders to ease the ship around to the bay side of the island.
A softness brushed her cheek as someone draped a fur–lined cloak across her shoulders. She clutched the edges as Dafydd stood at the rail beside her.
She did not meet his eyes. She sensed the words quivering on his lips but she did not want to hear them. Not now, not ever. She wanted to hear the lilt of Irish on an islander’s tongue, to feel the coarse sands, the shore beneath her feet, to smell new–bloomed primroses upon a rock–pile fence. She wanted to see Ma.
She glimpsed a boat setting out from the island. Seamus, no doubt, looking to catch this ship before it sailed through to Galway for fresh food and water. The old salt had always been the first shipside. He profited well from his diligence. He’d be surprised to see her on board, swathed in furs, and more than willing to take her to the island for a chance at the first bit of gossip.
Dafydd leaned an elbow upon the rail and twisted toward her. “Aileen—”
She held up her hand. He’d lasted longer than usual this time. She knew he meant well, but each word he said about Rhys was another needle in her heart. Couldn’t he see that it took all her strength to keep her knees from giving out, to keep her body breathing and moving about? Or was he as blind to a woman’s pain as all other men?
She watched his good hand whiten against the splintered rail.
“I won’t go without saying my piece,” he said. “I could have prevented all of this. I helped wrestle you into that boat. Don’t listen if you can’t bear it, but I will speak.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. A voyage that should have taken a week had stretched to two as they had battled gales and unruly currents. He’d already said his piece a hundred thousand times during the journey.
“I’ve known the man all my life, Aileen. I like to think I know something of him. No, you’ll stand here, at least, and make a pretense of listening.”
She swallowed the lump growing in her throat.
“He’s not like me,” he said. “He was not born with that thing that crawls across his face, as I was born without a hand. This scourge attacked him when he was at his brightest. He watched it destroy his life.”
As if she don’t know what that scourge did to his heart. As if she didn’t feel the pain in her own body a hundred mornings as she placed her hands over his chest. Healing hands, indeed. The faeries gave her a gift and then snatched it away when she needed it most.
“Then you came,” he persisted. “You came and gave him hope. I saw it with my own eyes that night when he picked up the harp. I don’t know why he’s sent you away. But this I know: That man loves you. He’d deny it until his death, but he loves you.”
So you were fooled too, Dafydd. Rhys didn’t know how to love. He knew only how to hurt and kill and destroy, and any woman would be a fool for believing he could open himself to anything else.
She gripped the rail. She had no strength left, no pride, nothing. She didn’t know what kept her standing as the little curragh bobbed its way toward the ship, the curragh that would take her away from the man she loved.
Ma waited upon that island, probably weaving a new blanket from the spring wool–cuttings or chopping up the last of the salted meat for a stew. Aileen wanted to feel those battered old knives in her hands again. She wanted to smell onion rising to her nostrils while the sea breeze swept in through the open doorway.
Dafydd’s warmth receded. She heard the anxious rustling of his clothing, then the tap of his boots as he paced on the deck behind her.
“This ship is battered from the storms,” he said. “We’ll be anchoring near Galway for repairs. Before we head back to Wales, we’ll return to Inishmaan. You’ll see us in this bay. If you change your mind, I’ll be waiting for you.”
He forced her chin up. The sea–spray sparkled upon his dark hair. He had such sad hazel eyes. Something moved inside her, a memory of another tall man with dark hair, and she closed her eyes against the blurring that could so easily change Dafydd’s handsome features into those of his brother.
“He’s a damn fool, Aileen.”
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Dafydd’s chest. As he wrapped his arms around her, she thought of Shrovetide, when Dafydd had played some ball–game with the men in the yard. He’d later stumbled into the hall covered in mud and so full of mead he could hardly walk. Her heart ached anew. She was losing a lover in Rhys, and a good friend in Rhys’s brother.
“Remember,” he said, “that this ship will be waiting for you.”
Something bumped against the hull. A greeting rose from the water. Aileen leaned over the rail to call out to Seamus. His familiar sun–weathered face collapsed in disbelief at the sight of her. He muttered something to the gods.
After the commerce was done, Dafydd helped her over the rail onto the hemp rope. She felt his eyes upon her as she climbed down and settled in the wobbly curragh, turning her back to the ship as Seamus and his men dipped his oars into the water. The little nutshell of a boat reeked of mackerel. Seamus bubbled over with questions, but one look at her face and he kept his tongue. Out of respect for her, she supposed, and for the first time she blessed the capricious gift that kept her separate from the others.
She was home. She sucked air deep into her lungs, and it felt like the first breath she’d taken since Rhys had ordered her away. She coughed, and coughed again, clearing her lungs and filling them again and again with fresh ocean air, heaving as if she couldn’t get enough, heaving like a woman suffocating, welcoming the splash of sea–spray upon her cloak as they entered the rough surf, as they bobbed and waited for the ocean to give them leave to land.
Seamus called out a command and sent the curragh slicing through the surf, swift and clean, until its belly scraped the sand. Then the men jumped out and yanked the boat away from the waves crashing in its wake. She took his hand and eased up and out of the boat, waiting for the wobble to leave her limbs. When she heard a voice coming from the path, she looked up to see a woman racing down it, her blond hair flying and her arms outstretched.
Ma.
Stumbling on uncertain legs, Aileen lurched toward her. The tide came then, the swelling she’d held back for too many weeks. It rose too hard and too fast to hold back. She raced across the sand, clutching her cloak, staring at the woman racing toward her, those familiar green eyes clouded with tears, seeing in them all the knowledge of the world, all the sympathy only a mother could give. Then she was in her Ma’s arms, sobbing, clinging to her, wanting her to make the pain go away, and knowing deep in her heart that couldn’t be, that she would hold this pain in her heart for the rest of her life.
Aileen buried her face in her mother�
��s hair, breathing in the scent of stew and onions.
At least she was home.
***
With an empty egg–basket slung over her arm, Aileen set off for the cliffs as soon as the first light broke through the mist. She walked awkwardly, for despite three days of wear, the calfskin of her old pampooties were still stiff. The edges dug blisters into the backs of her heels.
The fog dissipated as she edged her way along the bird–cliffs. Below, the ocean crashed over the ledges. Terns and gannets hovered in the air, cawing in a great confusion of wings as they shot down to the surf to pluck dinner from ebbing pools. Gusts of salt–wind edged beneath her skirt. She caught sight of the first knot of weathered twigs and seaweed sagging off the ledges—a tern’s nest heavy with eggs. She plucked a few and placed them in her basket before edging along the cliff to the next.
The nests were still here and she knew the way to find them.
At least this hadn’t changed.
She hunkered down on a ledge and pressed her back against the smooth black limestone. She closed her eyes so all she could hear were the birds, the roar of the sea, and the howl of the wind around stone. She could hear them, too. She’d heard their swift tiny feet in the grass as she made her way across the island. She’d sensed their muted whispering amid the rocks as she’d collected eggs. Now, she sensed them hunkering down on a ledge just over her shoulder. In her mind’s eye she saw them leaning back and closing their eyes in an unwitting imitation of her own stance.
She was never alone on this island, not even with rock at her back and sea at her feet. Not that she minded the company of the Sídh. At least they didn’t chatter on about nothing and give her curious looks over dinner, or beg for stories about Wales at bedtime or try to get her alone like Cairenn and Niall to wheedle the true story of her travels out of her. Nay, the Sídh followed her as quiet as a breeze, as if they were waiting for her to do something or say something and in truth she didn’t know what to do or say. She didn’t know whether to be angry at them for dragging her into their schemes, or penitent for not being able to save that sacred place upon which Rhys built a castle. So she simply ignored their presence and took some measure of gratitude in their discreet company.
The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) Page 21