A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) (11 page)

Áine cried aloud with wordless grief and, tearing free of Emyr’s strong arm, half crawled the last few feet to Tesn’s side on her own.

“Tesn,” she said over and over as she pulled the dead woman’s hand from the mud and held it to her chest. Áine tried to call upon any power in her body, but found no response. Death was a pain she could not touch and Tesn had long since passed beyond.

“Not like this, mother. You weren’t supposed to leave me like this. Mother!” She choked on her tears as they spilled onto the dead woman’s dress and some onto the ground where they turned to tiny pearls. She didn’t care if anyone noticed for it didn’t matter now if they named her Other or outcast or thought she was fey. Besides, one of them already knew.

Urien and Llew looked at the tall woman for a moment and then turned back to pull the tree trunk free. They’d hacked enough branches loose to provide places to grip. Emyr pulled Áine away as the other two men lifted and pivoted the tree away from the dead woman. Urien gallantly offered up his cloak to wrap her body in. They lifted Tesn to the back of the calmest mare. Áine’s pearl tears slipped unnoticed into the wet silt.

Áine looked at Emyr as he gently wrapped his cloak back around her and lifted her to his own horse. She sat staring out into the sunlit day with a grey, bleak expression, her green eyes dull with pain.

It was a long walk back to the holding. Llew walked as well out of respect for the others, though his horse danced at the end of the reins wanting to have its head again for the return to the stable.

Hafwyn, sitting in the courtyard spinning and carding wool with Caron and Melita, spied the men first with her sharp eyes. She saw them walking with a lone rider and that Urien’s horse carried a bundled burden.

“I think we’d best get the herbs and heat some water. It looks like they might have found some refugees of the storm.” She set aside her spindle and rose.

“Not one of the shepherds?” Caron rose as well, upsetting her pile of wool.

“I cannot say for sure.” Hafwyn turned and walked to the hall as the other two gathered up their projects and made to follow her.

A few minutes later the sad group rode into Clun Cadair. Emyr helped Áine down from his horse as Urien and Llew carefully lowered her adopted mother’s body. Áine leaned against Emyr as a beautiful middle-aged woman in a purple dress with a band of simple red and yellow embroidery decorating her neck and cuffs emerged from the hall. Her long dark hair was braided and pinned up with bone combs carved to look like birds diving. Áine recognized something kindred in the woman with the man upon whom she was currently leaning.

“I greet you, wisewoman. I am Hafwyn wreic Brychan. Be welcome to Clun Cadair,” Hafwyn said and Emyr flushed as he realized he’d not even introduced himself to the young woman.

Hafwyn looked at the bundle that Urien held and realized it was a woman. She stepped quickly closer and saw the look of death on the ancient, wrinkled face beneath the muddy and tangled white braids.

“My mother,” Áine choked out. She shivered against Emyr’s warm strength.

“I’m sorry. We’ll see her bathed and prepare her pyre. You must also bathe and do something about your injuries, yes?” Hafwyn recognized the lost, distracted look on Áine’s face and motioned for Emyr to bring her inside.

Caron and Melita were filling the copper tub in Hafwyn’s room. Áine barely protested as Emyr gently pressed her onto a bench and left the women alone.

“I did not get his name,” Áine said as Hafwyn helped her pull her torn dress over her head. She hissed with pain as the dress pulled on her hair which in turn caused her head wound to smart anew.

“Nor have you given yours,” Hafwyn said gently. “He’s Emyr ap Brychan, my son, and chief of Cantref Llynwg now that his father has passed on.”

“So young,” Áine said, and then she flushed as she processed the rest of what Hafwyn had said. “I am Áine. And she.” Áine paused and swallowed hard. “She, that is, outside, she’s my mother, Tesn.”

“Áine is not a usual name in Cymru, is it?” Hafwyn said keenly.

“No, it isn’t,” Áine replied.

Hafwyn pressed her no further; instead, she and Melita helped the young woman into the steaming bath. Áine sighed as the heat restored a measure of feeling to her flesh she hadn’t cared was missing. The water stung the various scrapes and cuts, especially when Melita used a horn cup to dump water over her tangled hair and the oozing lump on the back of her skull.

Both the older women exchanged a look as Áine’s hair came clean under their ministrations. They used a soap of lavender and tea rose. The bath water looked as though they’d filled it with mud, which technically they had. The woman under their hands, however, was revealed to be unusually fair of skin with strikingly red hair that flowed like dark blood over their hands and the back of the copper basin.

Hafwyn’s eyes narrowed as the red and white coloring was not lost on her. She’d heard her son’s descriptions of the Fair Lady who’d cursed them, however, and knew Áine’s coloring, while striking, didn’t quite live up to their fearful, reverent recounting. Besides, Idrys had told of the Lady’s ability to heal with a touch, so surely if she were one of the Others this girl would have closed her own scrapes and healed her numerous bruises. She was certainly a mystery, this wisewoman with a name and the green eyes of the Isles.

A small gasp of pain escaped Áine’s lips as the women helped her from the bath. Her ankle was swollen and the bruising, now revealed out of the filth, was quite awful.

“Is it broken?” Melita asked, looking at Hafwyn.

“I’m not sure,” Áine answered her. “If you’ll help me to sit, I can feel it out and see.” She leaned heavily on Hafwyn.

“Melita, fetch her one of Caron’s gown’s, she taller than I. And bring my bag of herbs from the garden workroom.” Hafwyn sat Áine on the bench again and helped her dry off with a soft white linen cloth.

“Thank you,” Áine said, flushing though she wasn’t sure why. Even in her haze of grief, she hadn’t missed the looks the women exchanged. She was so used to the questions and suspicions that she was grateful the woman was saving them for another time.

Then she remembered Emyr and her pearl tear.
They’ll have plenty of questions, won’t they? And I’m not sure how to answer.
She sighed. She’d deal with all that later.

Now, first her leg, and then. . .Áine took a shuddering breath and shoved the wave of sorrow away. Then she’d burn her mother and build the cairn to bury her properly. She wished that they’d thought to look for her pack, but she remembered it breaking in the flood and knew chances were faint that they’d have found it anyway.

Áine let her mind sink into her body. There was the pain of many scrapes and bruises, all of which she acknowledged and filed away. She felt her head, a dizzying throb under the weight of her drying hair. Then she moved to the pain in her leg.

It was two injuries, she realized. Her calf was bruised down to the bone, though thankfully the bone itself was unbroken if sore. Her ankle had been twisted somehow in the torrent and she felt fluid in the joint that was irritating and inflaming the rest. Nothing would heal that but a tight binding and a week or two off her leg.

She opened her eyes and looked up at Hafwyn. “Nothing’s broken, though the ankle is twisted and angry. I’ll need tight binding and I’m afraid I can’t travel for a week or two.”

“Of course not. You’re welcome here, wise one, as long as you wish to stay. Winter brings many ills and we’d be glad of your gifts.” Hafwyn smiled and her tone made it clear that she meant what she said fully.

Áine realized with a start that in her distraction she’d forgotten to make a show of prodding the injuries and had instead, to all appearances, just sat quietly for a few moments before pronouncing her diagnosis. She shook her head at her clumsiness. Tesn would chide her for her foolish trust.

The sucking hollow loss hit her like a fist as her heart jumped from her chest and into her throat again.
Tesn won’t be chiding me for anything, not anymore. I’d commit a hundred careless acts to hear her voice again.
Áine fiercely scrubbed at her eyes with her palms as Melita returned to the room.

The serving woman carried a soft woolen gown of deep blue with broad bands of red and yellow embroidery at the collar and down the sleeves. There were delicate bronze clasps at the cuffs and small bronze buttons decorating the front. It was beautiful and Áine sighed. She wasn’t supposed to wear dyed or decorated clothing. Wisewomen, Tesn had taught her, always travel with only what they need and give up the trappings of comfort for knowledge. This allowed them a freedom women rarely enjoyed and they trusted the Gods to provide and the world to yield up a few of her mysteries. The only color she’d worn her whole life was the red belt that denoted the wisewomen’s profession.

And where did that get us?
Áine shivered.
Tesn is dead and I’m alone.
She looked up at Hafwyn. “Thank you,” she said again, hating her slow mind.

The women helped her dress. Melita had scraped the mud from her red belt and offered it to her as well. Áine hesitated and then pulled the familiar leather around her hips and looped the trailing end through the simple bronze ring.

“We’ve no gowns of undyed wool, Wise One, I’m sorry. We’ll make you one as soon as we’re able,” Melita said, licking her lips nervously and looking away from Áine’s startling green gaze.

“I might be able to salvage mine, though I fear I’ve lost all our gear in that flood.” She hesitated and dropped her eyes down to her lap. “My gear,” she said softly.

Caron entered the room and noted the silent tension among the three women. Hafwyn stood by the filthy bath watching their guest who stared down at her folded pale hands. Melita was also standing, looking lost for once instead of her normal capable bustling self.

“I’ve got bindings and an assortment of herbs, plus an ointment for cuts, if it’s needed,” she said, taking in the fair skin and fresh-blood color of Aine’s drying hair.

Áine nodded and set about binding her ankle up with Melita’s capable assistance. The older woman gave herself a shake and returned to some measure of her usual self once given a task.

Gethin, now too old to spend much time with the flocks, though still strong enough for work, as he’d point out many times a day if questioned, came in with Urien to remove the copper tub.

Hafwyn helped Áine out into the hall where Caron had returned to fixing the midday meal of a simple bone broth thickened with soaked barley and a handful of small onions from the holding’s garden.

It was late autumn. The flocks were already coming in from the moors and going to the small crofts that lay within the radius of a half-day’s ride from the holding. Within a week or so, those who would winter in Clun Cadair from the mostly seasonal fishing villages down near the sea would straggle home to their now boarded and dormant dwellings within the berm.

Áine sat gratefully beside the hearth at the long table and accepted a bowl of rich broth. She sipped at it though to her it had no taste. Hafwyn and Melita sat across from her and spooned their own meal silently.

To break the awkward silence and distract from her lack of appetite, Áine asked them questions. “The holding seems empty. I saw boarded houses on the way in.”

“Aye,” Hafwyn replied. “The farming folk mostly will stay out for the winter, though some come in to the holding. The trappers will come home, as will our fishermen and their families. In a fortnight’s time, perhaps less, Clun Cadair will be full enough.”

Áine nodded. They were a little different in the south, where farming was more common and the land more clearly divided. There were other things different here as well.

“Your son, his men, they do not carry swords. Do you not worry about attack? You are not so far from the sea and that great wood must harbor some who bear ill will.”

“We’ve good relations with Arfon and Eifon to the north and east. The current flows quickly past our coastline with few places to land. The northmen prefer easier and richer points to plunder. Our men are quick with a knife or a bow, though we’ve had no banditry since my husband’s time.” Hafwyn smiled. “We’re peaceful folk here.”

Áine was glad to hear it. She’d be traveling on her own, after all.
Going where?
she thought bitterly. Then she shook herself mentally and took a deep breath.
Tesn did for decades before you came, did she not? Why should you be different and give up the life she’s taught you?
She balled her hands into fists below the table and closed her eyes. The women cleared her half-eaten meal and wisely left her in silence beside the fire.

* * *

Although he wasn’t sure of his motivations, Emyr avoided the hall until the preparations for the wisewoman’s pyre and cairn were complete. He tapped the belt pouch from time to time as he considered the mysterious green-eyed girl and her pearl tears.

She’d seemed mortal and human enough in her pain and her injuries. Oh, he acknowledged that if he hadn’t seen the true fey up close, she might have disturbed him more with her strange tears. Perhaps she, too, was cursed. He shivered at the thought, both wishing it were true and wondering what he should do if so. A curse could be dangerous, and he didn’t wish to bring any harm to his people. But turning her away for something she could not help was hardly compassionate either. Emyr struggled with his thoughts and lost himself to the easy work of chopping wood and collecting stones.

Caron brought out a bolt of clean sunbleached linen in which to wrap the dead woman. Emyr folded Tesn’s arms and with Llew’s solemn help gently encased the woman from head to foot in the clean cloth. Emyr scraped the mud from her bright red belt and coiled it carefully. He set it then on her chest and Llew helped him move her out into the courtyard and onto the waiting pyre.

It was late afternoon, the sun beginning to drop. Emyr knew from the tingle in his blood that sunset was coming quickly. He sighed and stepped into the hall.