The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (12 page)

Rinawne sprawled on the sofa. ‘Do
you have incense?’ he asked.

I had in fact found a drawer
full of it in the upper room a couple of days before, so went to fetch some,
debating which scent was the most appropriate. I discarded the loose incense as
impractical – I couldn’t be bothered fiddling around with lighting charcoal.
Some sticks of rather aged jasmine would have to do. I hoped they’d not gone
musty.

Downstairs, Rinawne helped me
light the sticks, which he stuck into the soil of the various fern pots around
the room. Silvery smoke slid into the air. ‘This reminds me of Rey,’ Rinawne
said. ‘He always loved this scent.’

‘Did you come here often when he
lived here?’

Rinawne raised a brow at the
hint of sharpness in my voice, smiled, but made no comment. Of course he’d come
here often.

‘One thing I’d like to know,’ I
said, sitting down on the sofa. ‘How did you come to be here in Gwyllion, Rin?
I don’t get the feeling that once upon a time you met Wyva’s eyes across a room
and fell in love. If you’re to be a visitor to my tower, I’d like to know the
truth.’ I set our liqueur bottle and glasses on the low table between the sofa
and the fire.

Rinawne sat down again, next to
me, and picked up his newly-filled glass. ‘The Wyvachi have dealings with my
family in Erini,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘Don’t fill those words with
dire meaning, by the way. When I was younger, it all seemed like an adventure –
well, there was no
seemed
about it. I wanted to come. There were several
young hara past feybraiha in our tribe. Wyva and Bronna, our phylarch, thought
it would be a sign of loyalty and friendship to mingle our bloodlines, so a young
har was chosen from Erini, and one here from Gwyllion, to be the consorts of
the phylarchs. I believe the har from Gwyllion found more romance than I did!’
He laughed. ‘I don’t blame Wyva. He just doesn’t have it in him to be a
moonstruck lover. He’s practical, and in many ways so am I. Therefore, we work
well together.’

‘Yet you once told me yours was
a chesna bond of the old-fashioned kind.’

He nodded slowly. ‘And so it is,
in some ways.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Let me put it this way. The har in Wyva
accepts gracefully I should seek aruna with others; the human in him would
not.’

‘He’s first generation?’

‘No, but then in this place they
don’t need to be in order to carry around the worst baggage from the past, as
you already know.’

I exhaled through my nose, drank
some liqueur. ‘You could say that.’

‘When we made Myv, I evoked a
dehar. I didn’t take aruna with Wyva alone but the spirit of our race. I wanted
to make a harling, have a son. I know we’re told only the highest and most
spiritual of loves can facilitate that, but it’s not true. Dedicated will is
just as effective.’

This had told me more than I
wanted to know and reminded me uncomfortably of how Zeph had been conceived –
in the traditional, romanticised way. Or so Jass and I had fooled ourselves,
perhaps. ‘I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘The making of harlings is seen as a
rare and precious thing, with conditions having to be absolutely right, the
moon in the right phase, all that. But this might only be a safeguard against
Wraeththu flooding the world with harlings, among a race whose lifespans are
perhaps five times greater than humanity’s were.’

Rinawne laughed. ‘Yes or... No,
perhaps I’m wrong, and Myv’s conception wasn’t as cold-blooded as I remember,
but the safeguard is there, all the same. Who wants another crowded world? It
did humanity no good and eventually helped kill it.’

We grinned and clinked glasses.
In that we were in accord.

Rinawne laid a hand on my thigh.
‘Come, forget all this. Share breath with me. Share secrets, but not bad ones.’

At this point, I felt as if a
part of me left my body and hovered against the ceiling looking down. I could
see myself performing adequately all that was required of me to share what were
supposed to be special, almost divine, moments with another of my kind. Rinawne
was patient and skilled – as I myself once had been, and had been renowned for
it – but even so a piece of me still felt obliged to escape, to observe and not
take part. There is no greater pleasure for the harish body than that
stimulated by aruna – we have been blessed by our gods in that something that
was often base and crude in humans has been lifted to this unique and
exhilarating experience: a true sharing of being. And part of me did share,
swooning pleasurably beneath Rinawne’s attentions. The ghost above the room
could feel it, taste it, yet the experience was not truly his.

Rinawne did not appear to be
aware of this separation. Afterwards, he held me close, no doubt believing me
to have been exorcised of some kind of demon. He must’ve had glimpses into my
psyche, because aruna allows little to be kept utterly private. ‘You’re not
har-born,’ he murmured as we lay entwined on the sofa in the soft sunset aruna
leaves in the heart and mind. ‘I thought you were.’

‘No, hag-ridden,’ I replied
sleepily and buried my face in his hair, fragrant with wood smoke and the scent
of young leaves. I had felt his strength, both of mind and spirit. Rinawne was
a good ally to have and now, from the honesty of his breath and body, I knew he
was truly this, yet still I had no desire to open my past to him, or indeed
certain aspects of my present.

‘It has a taste to it,’ Rinawne
said. He kissed the top of my head. ‘It reminds me of walking into a
long-disused room, and outside it is summer, and there is a church bell
ringing, and birds in the air. Yet the room is so still, the cupboards shut
fast, and it smells of dust.’

‘Have you ever
heard
a
church bell?’ I enquired, somewhat scoffingly.

‘Yes, in Erini the bells still
ring as the twilight comes. Sometimes you can hear them here too, from some of
the other villages. You’ll hear them at Midsummer. The church in Gwyllion is a
ruin, though. I think in some way it’s connected with Wyva’s dark past. He went
peculiar on me once when I mentioned it.’

‘I’ve heard a bell,’ I said.
‘Twice.  Could it have been the Gwyllion bell?’

Rinawne shook his head. ‘No.
It’s fallen, no doubt buried under shrubs and tree roots. I’ve been to the
church. I didn’t see it there.’

‘Perhaps we should find and raise
the bell,’ I said. ‘I think they’re sacred. We could have a tower built for
it.’

Rinawne laughed. ‘Now there’s a
nice thought. Only aruna can make a har like you think of something like that.’

‘I half mean it, too.’

Rinawne hugged me. ‘I dare you
to suggest it to Wyva.’

I raised my head, grinning. ‘I
can see his reaction now. “Argh, no, the bells!
The bells
!”’

This prompted further Wyva
impersonations from Rinawne until my stomach began to hurt from laughing so
much. Then Rinawne sat up, wiping his eyes, and leaned towards the table to
pour us another drink.

‘Do you know Wyva’s dark past?’
I asked. If there was any time to interrogate him, now was it.

Rinawne glanced over his bare shoulder
and stared at me in silence for several seconds.

‘Don’t answer if you don’t want
to,’ I said, and reached out to touch him. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.
You
have to live here.’

‘It’s not that. The truth is,
no, I don’t really know at all. I have ideas, but...’ He sighed. ‘I believe
something happened here right at the start of harish history, something that
bound Wyva’s ancestors – harish, I mean – to that house and this area. It must
have been something so bad we can’t imagine it. Slaughter? Their beloved human
relatives tortured and mutilated by wandering hara, or other humans, or even incepted
family members? Perhaps the human ancestors shielded those who’d been incepted,
and were punished harshly for it. Perhaps a harish community existed alongside
the human one and it ended in tragedy. Or perhaps it was something else
entirely. The Wyvachi won’t say. They have a vow of silence about it.’

‘What about other hara around
Gwyllion? I assume some have lived here since the beginning too.’

Rinawne pulled a sour face. ‘Oh,
it’s the typical thing. They won’t speak to outsiders, as all newcomers will no
doubt be for another hundred years. All I know is that the secret is so bad and
dark it must never be spoken of, nor ever forgotten.’

‘It must have been hard for you,
living with that.’ I smiled. ‘You’re as curious as I am. It must have driven
you mad, not knowing.’

‘Still does,’ he said. ‘I’ve
scoured that house, its unused rooms full of dust, its empty attics, and I’ve
found no clue. If there was any evidence, it was removed long ago. Only this
generation live in the house. If there are harish ancestors they are dead or
vanished. And they are never spoken of. I do know that Wyva’s parents are dead,
but nothing more than the bare fact of it. There are hurakin in the next
county, but they don’t interact. I believe these are the Wyvachi who chose to
walk forward rather than stand in one place, and for that they were sort of
cast out.’ He leaned back against me. ‘I have this awful fear that when Myv
comes of age, Wyva will take him into some hidden, fusty room and chain the
millstone of the family secret to him. I think it’s passed down; that’s how
they remember it. And once it’s heard, it’s shut up inside like a canker.’

‘Have you ever confronted Wyva
about any of it?’

Rinawne grimaced. ‘Of course.
All I ever got was the hand to brow routine and “Oh, it is my terrible burden”.
Nothing will get them to speak, not even torture, I bet.’ He smiled. ‘Although
to be fair I’ve not tried that yet.’

‘You might reconsider that when
Myv reaches feybraiha.’

‘Myv is different,’ Rinawne said
simply. ‘I sometimes feel he’s the only one who can end this curse. Illogical,
I know, him being such a fey and flighty little thing, but he’s not like the
other Wyvachi.’

‘That’s his Erini heritage,’ I
said. ‘I hope you’re right about him.’ I leaned over to share breath with
Rinawne once more, and this time, when our breath took us further, I did not
feel as if part of me hovered outside. At least, not so much.

Chapter Seven

Cuttingtide crept ever closer and preparations for
the feast appeared to have conjured excitement and anticipation in both the
Wyvachi household and the community in general. Several times, when I went into
Gwyllion, hara stopped me to thank me for the festival, even though they hadn’t
experienced my efforts yet. One har asked if I would be available to perform a
blood bond between him and his chesnari. Looking into his face, full of hope
and a small amount of trepidation, as if he knew my inclination was to refuse,
it was in fact very difficult for me to say no. I knew the rite off by heart.
All I’d have to do, in the absence of Gwyllion having a dedicated nayati
building that might have to be prepared, was turn up at the designated site and
conduct the ceremony. An afternoon’s work at most. And yet, if I said yes to
this request, I’d find it even more difficult to refuse others thereafter. I
managed to stall the har by saying I was working very hard at the moment – despite
the fact the population must have seen me wandering about the town and
landscape a lot, apparently doing not much at all – but that after Cuttingtide
I’d see what I could do. I knew for certain I had to speak to Wyva about this
matter as soon as possible. His hara were crying out for a hienama and had
every right to do so. Rites of passage were important for any community,
especially close-knit ones like Gwyllion. I couldn’t really believe there
wasn’t a single har among them who didn’t have an interest in pursuing such an
occupation and who wasn’t suitable to be trained. Why had it been allowed to
lapse for so long? I was surprised the Whitemanes hadn’t started offering these
services themselves. Wyva was perhaps lucky that they hadn’t.

As I explored the town and small hamlets nearby, I
noticed that all hara set protective wards about their homes and farm
buildings, more so than would be done in Jesith, where such talismans would be
seen more as decoration than protection. Contraptions of woven sticks, straw
and feathers hung from every lintel. Sigils were painted across barn doors, and
even the brands on sheep and cattle were warding runes. That suggested to me an
overly superstitious, frightened community, yet in my conversations with hara,
I picked up none of that. If I asked about the marks and talismans, I was told
they were traditional, as if that was good reason enough. They were lying, of
course, and I was an outsider, no matter what my profession was. The local hara
didn’t think it was my business.

Once, as I strolled home to my
dinner, the weather changed suddenly. Summer storms generally creep up slowly,
but in this case the air turned green and heavy almost immediately. I was
walking through Gwyllion at the time, and saw hara come out their dwellings,
workshops and stores to draw the shutters over their windows. Doors were
slammed, and the gunfire report of bolts being shot rang out like artillery
across the town. The hara had gone to earth. As I walked, my skin prickled. What
walked with me? The smell of ozone filled my nose, but also a stench of burning
flesh. The clouds above looked putrid, almost purple, like livid infected
wounds. Needles of lightning pierced them, but weakly. There was no rain.
Within minutes, the sky cleared. I reached Ludda’s farm and saw he and his hara
were gathered in the main yard. They parted silently to let me pass.
Mossamber’s hounds began to lament. The flesh on my back crawled as I climbed
the hill. I was glad to shut the tower door behind me.

Rinawne had began to visit me a few evenings a
week, leaving the tower before dawn, just as the grey light crept over the
land. I felt he was taking too much of a risk staying with me so long through
the night, but he insisted he wasn’t. ‘Wyva wouldn’t really notice if I wasn’t
there for two days, never mind a night,’ he said. And perhaps that was true.
But what he didn’t consider was all the other eyes and ears in the house,
especially those of the staff who might be intrigued by gossip and speculation.
Anyhar rising around dawn for their work – and this is of course common among
farming communities – could see him coming home in the early morning, through
the trees and across the wide lawn. I felt anxious about it, as the last thing
I wanted was to live through any unpleasantness such as had happened to me
before. For all I knew, Wyva might not care what Rinawne got up to, but
appearances would mean more to him. If our liaisons became public knowledge, he
might feel he had to act.

‘Be careful,’ I said to Rinawne one
morning, as he put on his coat against the predawn chill. ‘Don’t let the staff
get whiff of... us.’

Rinawne shrugged, clearly not bothered
one bit about what the staff thought. ‘You’re as jumpy as a colt,’ he said.
‘Relax, will you? Nohar cares.’

He really didn’t know about the
attraction of gossip, or the harm it could do.

He came to me that night after
the peculiar storm, and of course I asked him about it.

‘There’s a local belief that
creatures walk in the storm light,’ he said. ‘There are similar beliefs in
Erini; it’s not that uncommon.’

‘Hmm, I’ve never seen it
before.’

He touched my face. ‘Well,
that’s because Jesith lies in the enchanted heart of Alba Sulh, where all is
the soft light of the otherworld, and bad things cannot dwell.’

‘I’ve travelled around a lot
over the years,’ I said. ‘The storm was
odd
. And I’ve not seen hara act
like that before, so swiftly and so... I don’t know... frightened?’

Rinawne shrugged. ‘Well, you’ve
seen it
now
. I told you hara here believe the land is cursed. They take
precautions, that’s all.’

I wasn’t convinced and wrote up
some notes after Rinawne went to sleep.
What
were the hara protecting
themselves against? I didn’t think it was simply storm spirits.

The following day, Aruhanisday, bloomed like a
perfect flower as I made my breakfast. I’d been unable to get back to sleep
after Rinawne had left, and the bed had felt cold, so thought I might as well
get up and begin my day. The dawn was magnificent, gilding the tall beeches and
oaks around the tower. I saw three deer come gracefully to the water trough
down in Hercules’s field, and drink there. Birds sounded intoxicated by the
approach of summer, and even when the hounds started up their racket down at
the farm, their voices had a softer note, so their cries too were more like a
song.

The day felt enchanted from the
start, and my heart was full of contentment as I prepared my meal. Perhaps
Rinawne was right and I was too jumpy and paranoid – traits I should work to
cast off. His presence in my life had given me comfort and had been healing; we
weren’t harming anyhar. We fulfilled a function for each other, finding
happiness in each other’s company. As long as we were discreet, no bad should
come of it. The only problem was whether Rinawne was capable of maintaining
discretion.

The Cuttingtide ritual was finished,
and had only to be performed. Already my thoughts were turning to the next one,
Reaptide. Some festivals have very powerful themes and images associated with
them, while others provide a kind of lull in between. Reaptide was one of
these. My main interest in it was the approach of what the old race used to
call the Dog Days, and the approach to Reaptide Eve and the day after, when
ghosts walked in the noon day sun. I wondered whether around here Reaptide
might not be as uneventful as in other places.

Verdiferel, the lone dehar of
the festival, being the transformed Shadolan, was rather a trickster god. At
Reaptide he was released somewhat from the wheel of the year, the inevitable
cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth; he could revel simply in his own
power. That was what made him dangerous.

While I couldn’t yet tune in to
the authentic feelings of Reaptide, I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to have a
long walk through the fields, mulling over ideas. As always, I was drawn to the
Llwybr Llwynog and the weeping birches around its foot. This was a light and
airy woodland in comparison to the heavy armies of ancient trees in other
areas; the atmosphere was sparkling. I always enjoyed walking through it, mostly
perhaps because I might glimpse a Whitemane, like a spectre through the trees.
Even the impish harlings would be a welcome sight, but since the incident on
the bridge I’d not met them on my walks. I had a feeling they’d been told to
avoid me, or perhaps just leave me alone. I had no idea what the Whitemane
sentiment was towards me, really. 

I saw movement through the slim
birch trunks, which soon revealed itself as the swish of a horse’s tail.
Another scene like a painted picture was revealed to me. Was this a
presentiment of Verdiferel? The horse was a grey, almost white, with thick mane
and tail that tumbled like a har’s hair. It was cropping the sweet grass of the
forest floor. On its back a har half-lay, a Whitemane without doubt. The animal
was unsaddled and the har’s torso was laid flat, his chin resting on his folded
arms, which lay on the animal’s withers. His legs dangled down to either side
of the horse’s flanks, his feet bare. He seemed to be daydreaming, staring out
at the fields and the silver river. His hair was a mane itself, the colour of
autumn leaves, surrounding him like a shawl. Sunlight came down in golden
spears about him, one striking his head to bring out the almost festive gleam
of his hair. Around and above him, leaves were in their acidic green finery of early
summer. He was a character in a story, waiting for something to happen, which inevitably
it would.

This seemed too good an
opportunity to miss. I would speak to him now, find out about his hara. He
seemed too drowsy to urge his horse away.

As I drew closer, I could see
more clearly what a beautiful creature he was. I considered he was like the
perfect archetype of a har, like a Tigron, how Pellaz would have been in his
early days. Such hara are the stuff of stories, hardly real, although I know
they exist, had even been cursed by one.  But such types are more common among
tribes like the Gelaming than here in Alba Sulh. The har before me was young,
and I thought he was the one who had stood at the Whitemane end of the bridge
that day, who had whistled to the feral harlings dragging me across it. But
then there might be many Whitemanes who looked like this. They seemed to me an
enchanted race.

I was almost at his side, and he
had not stirred, before I said, ‘Good day, tiahaar.’

At that, he turned his head
lazily and stared at me. ‘Day to you, har,’ he said and then turned back to gaze
at the fields beyond the trees.

I patted the horse’s neck. The
animal ignored me and did not stop grazing. ‘Beautiful creature,’ I said,
struggling for openings to a conversation.

The har on his back made a
grunting sound, perhaps assent.

‘I’m Ysobi har Jesith,’ I began,
but the har interrupted me.

‘I know who you are.’

The harlings might have told
him.

‘I think I saw you before,’ I
said, smiling.

‘When the lingies hauled you
across the Greyspan. Yes, I saw.’

‘Thank you for... calling them
off,’ I said.

‘They hungry beasts,’ the har
remarked, somewhat casually, although the words made me shiver.

‘Hungry?’

‘Never still,’ the har said, as
if that were explanation enough.

‘Are you of the Whitemanes?’ I
enquired tentatively.

The har laughed. ‘I am of them.’
He rose slowly to a sitting position and stretched his arms above his head. The
movement seemed calculated to me since it showed off the lines of his body to
splendid effect. ‘You making for the river?’ he asked, not looking at me.

‘Not particularly. I’m working.
Do you know why I’m here?’

‘You’re Wyvachi-called,’ said
the har. ‘We know that. They throw you into the land. Call it work? See how they
need to be told what they should know?’ He made a scornful sound. ‘How can you
tell them? Work!’

‘Well, they lost their
hienama...’

‘More than that. Lost what
should be in them. A hienama can’t lock it back in. You shouldn’t bother.
You’re not of this land. A rabbit could see that. Or even a fish.’

 ‘I’m not unaware,’ I said. ‘I
was sent here to do a job and I’ll do it. Beyond that, it’s not my affair.’ I
paused. ‘Perhaps you could talk to me about the land.’

‘I’ll not aid you, none of us
will,’ said the har.

A shiver of annoyance sliced
through me, but I strove to keep my voice even. ‘I’m not your enemy. If
anything, while I’m here, I’d prefer to try and heal the rift among the
community.  I don’t wish to sound presumptuous, but I can’t see how this feud
does anyhar any good. The hara in the village and countryside are divided,
aren’t they?’

The har looked me full in the
face, which almost stopped my heart. No living har could look so perfect,
surely?

‘Stay on
his
side of the
span,’ said the har. ‘Safer there. Leave what is not yours to own. Write pretty
words for them, so they sing and dance and believe all is well.’

‘Why are you hostile to me?’ I
persisted. ‘I knew nothing of these hara before I came here. Nor of you. I’m
impartial, like the land itself.’

‘
That
is never so,’
scoffed the har. ‘You think it is?’

‘Well, why don’t you
tell
me?’ I could hear the hard edge that had come into my voice.

‘Not your affair,’ he said,
grinning.

‘What happened to Rey, the last
hienama? You think I’m destined for the same fate, to be sucked right into the
land?’

The har laughed. ‘No danger of
that. For you.’

I also laughed. ‘You’re as rude
as your harlings. I’ll leave you to cuddle your secrets.’ I patted the horse
once more. ‘Nice meeting you. Will you give me a name?’

He considered. ‘One of them. You
may have that. Ember.’