Lady of Weeds, page 12
part #2 of Lady Series
“Do you always come to the seashore at this time?” he asked.
“I come to the seashore every morning,” she said, without answering the question precisely. There was no need for him to know exactly when she came here. “I’ve not seen you here before.”
“No,” he said, and hesitated. “I’m travelling. Perhaps you’ve heard about the Eppan shipwreck?”
“I heard something of it.”
“There were some family goods lost in the shipwreck, and I was told things often wash up here.”
“If it’s a claim you’re wanting to make, you’d best see Aled at the post office,” Carys told him. “Anything I pick up on these shores is mine by right, but if the item is described and hasn’t been sold I usually give it back.”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“I see,” said Carys. She was familiar with the kind of ruse that saw treasure hunters attempting to take the spoils of the beach from her, but this man didn’t seem like the type to loot and spoil—at least not in that fashion. “And what might your name be?”
A pause. He seemed to be genuinely taken aback, though Carys wasn’t entirely sure why—or how she knew he was taken aback when she couldn’t see his face.
She thought he might refuse to tell her, but after another moment’s thought, he said, “Steele. You can call me Steele.”
Carys gave him a nod that was close to a short bow of greeting, and said, “Carys. I don’t think I can help you, Steele. Not unless you can describe what you’re looking for. What family do these things belong to?”
“An Eppan family from the shipwreck I mentioned.”
“I see,” Carys said. She gathered the mass of seaweed she’d plucked from the pool and moved it away from the water, making the first of many piles.
Steele followed her as she moved to the next pool, his steps light and easy. “Perhaps bodies washed up after the storm? My employers lost a family member, and I’ve been tasked with finding them as well as any personal effects.”
Carys shook her head. “No bodies. Maybe over the next few days.”
“I see,” he said, and Carys wasn’t sure whether or not he believed her. “Perhaps I’ll come and check from time to time.”
“You shouldn’t spend too much time on the seashore,” Carys told him. “Not here. The sandy beach is safer.”
“I’ll remember that,” Steele said, but the slightly dry tone to his voice made her think she’d judged correctly; he did know about the selkies.
In that case, he was almost certainly Sunderman, whether or not he hid his features. And why, wondered Carys, moving on to the next pool, was a Sunderland man looking for the drowned bodies and effects of Eppan nobles? More importantly, was he looking for Eurion?
Hopefully it wouldn’t occur to the man to come by her cottage; she would prefer that he didn’t see Eurion. If it really was Eurion he was looking for, she wanted more time to think over whether Eurion’s memory would benefit from the jogging a familiar face might give him. She didn’t trust Steele—didn’t trust anyone whose face she couldn’t see—and the thought of him catching sight of Eurion made her uncomfortable.
Fortunately, her cottage was far enough away from the rocky shore not to be easily seen by a curious person, but the trail was well worn enough that he could follow her there if it occurred to him.
It was perhaps best if Steele thought she was trying to be helpful, for now. Perhaps she should be trying to be helpful, if it came to that, but Carys couldn’t bring herself to trust as much. Much to her relief, Steele wandered away as she worked, scanning the rocky shore for any sign of his ostensible plunder. By the time she had finished, he was so far down the shore that she could only just see his figure.
Carys hastily packed up her seaweed with the sound of selkie chatter in her ears. She had been so distracted by Steele that she had taken far longer with this morning’s work than she thought she had.
When she rounded the sandy bluffs that hid the rocky shore from view, Eurion was waiting for her, walking back and forth between them. Accusingly, he said, “You’re so late, Lady! I was worried!”
“There’s food in the cottage,” Carys said, without pausing her stride. If it came to that, she had been a little worried herself; and now that Eurion was out in the open, she was more worried. “Why did you come out?”
“I was worried, not hungry,” said Eurion, with unwonted emphasis. “And I thought I heard voices.”
Exactly how long had he been waiting there? Carys flicked him a quick, sharp look, and said, “I was speaking with someone on the rocky shore.”
“Why is someone else allowed there when I’m not?”
“I can’t stop people from coming to the beach,” Carys told him, her voice lower. She walked a little faster, too. She knew it was ridiculous to think that Steele could see Eurion from so far away, but she still felt an uncomfortable sense of urgency to be back at the cottage, Eurion safe and hidden again from that obscured face.
“What about me?”
“I can stop you,” said Carys, though she wasn’t entirely sure about that anymore.
Eurion seemed to sigh faintly. “Yes.”
“Don’t come this close to the shore again.”
“Who was the someone? Was it that old man again?”
“Don’t scowl at me. It wasn’t Aled.”
“You look cold, Lady.”
Carys was cold, which was odd. She didn’t usually feel the coolness of the days except as a normal, familiar constant—as life, in fact. She threw a troubled look over her shoulder at the rocky beach, but there was still no sign of the stranger Steele.
Eurion’s eyes were on her when she turned back to the path ahead, his mouth open to ask another question, and Carys braced herself for a series of uncomfortably piercing questions about what had happened on the rocky shore that morning, and why she was looking so troubled.
Instead, Eurion said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Lady. What are you hoping to get from my memories? Only I was thinking, if you told me a bit about what you need to know, maybe it would make me remember.”
“Enfys said not to force the memories,” Carys said, catching herself up in time. Relieved not to have to answer questions about Steele and the seashore, she had almost begun to tell him what he wanted to know without thinking about it.
“Does it have to do with that ring?” asked Eurion, passing by her remark with a sublime disregard. “Maybe if I could see it again—”
“No.”
“Well, but Lady, it was stuck in my head, and doesn’t that mean that—”
“No,” said Carys, amused in spite of herself. “It was stuck in the back of your head. I doubt you saw it before you hit it.”
Eurion made a small, inarticulate mumble that Carys took as a belated complaint that if it was so, why had she nearly killed him?
“About that,” she said, the amusement fading. “I apologise.”
Eurion seemed to struggle between two differing remarks. At last, he smiled sunnily at her and said, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill me? I’m much more fun alive.”
She couldn’t help the small hiss of laughter that escaped her. “I find myself regretting it every now and then.”
Eurion gave a delighted chuckle and launched himself at her sideways, wrapping his arms around her. “Lady, you made a joke!”
“What joke?” countered Carys, but she only shrugged his arms away without trying to box his ears. “Don’t jostle the cart while I’m pulling it.”
“You should let me pull it, Lady. I should be some use.”
“Don’t kick sand in my skirts.”
“Yes, Lady,” said Eurion dutifully, but his brown eyes glowed at her beneath his fringe of golden hair, and he was still smiling; a small, warm curve of the lips. “Did you find anything else on the shore this morning?”
“A few coins,” she said. “A piece of cloth or two. They’re in the cart if you want to look at them.”
“Oh,” he said.
Carys found herself once again battling amusement. “You expecting something else?”
“No—oo,” said Eurion slowly, “but I thought you might have found some knives. I seem to know how to use that sword, and I wanted to see if I knew how to throw knives. I thought it might be fun.”
“I’ll be sure to bring home any knives I find,” Carys told him, stopping her cart beside the cottage.
Eurion hefted down the first bundle without waiting for the cart to settle, and set it in place beside the cottage. Carys would have told him to go back into the cottage and leave her to her work, but he had put it in exactly the right place. There was no sense in making a fuss if he was going to do a good job of it, so she went on with the unloading herself.
They worked in silence for some time until the cart was nearly empty, then Carys left Eurion to finish the load and went in to put on the kettle. There was a coldness lingering that made her want a cup of tea to finish out her day, but she didn’t really feel warmer until Eurion was back inside, and the door closed against the sea breeze.
* * *
The man Steele was still working his way along the shore the next day; Carys saw him in the distance as she cleared seaweed, and he must have seen her, too, because he raised a hand in her direction an hour or so before the selkies were due to arrive. Carys didn’t respond, and when she looked in his direction again, he was gone.
His presence left a stiff coldness around her shoulders that was hard to shake, and when Carys returned to the cottage, hoping for the warmth of her fire, she found instead Miss Allen, sitting outside with Eurion in the afternoon sunlight.
Miss Allen gave a token bow as Carys drew her handcart close by the cottage, but Eurion would have leaped to his feet as usual if it wasn’t for Miss Allen’s brightly painted fingers gripping his arm. He said, “Lady! Miss Allen came to see you!”
Carys doubted that, but she acknowledged Miss Allen’s bow and said briefly, “I’ll make tea.”
The hem of her overdress was wet to well above her knee, and she had been gathering sand as she went. She felt gritty and irritated, and not at all willing to amuse company.
“Shall I help you? I’ll help you!” said Miss Allen, without budging from her seat by an inch.
“There’s no need,” Carys said, wondering if she had ever been so obviously young as Miss Allen seemed.
“I’ll help,” Eurion said, but Miss Allen’s fingers tightened.
“There’s no need,” said Carys again, but she did have the momentary, ill-natured urge to agree, if only to see how Eurion would have extricated himself from Miss Allen. She entered the cottage alone, and as she closed the door behind her she heard Miss Allen’s voice say carryingly, “Carys looks so tired lately! I suppose it’s no surprise, if she faces the elements every day; I do think she’s brave! It’s no wonder she looks worn, what with the sea breeze and the constant danger.”
“What danger?” asked Eurion sharply.
“Miss Allen,” said Carys, opening the window. “Perhaps you can help me with the goods you brought along.”
“It’s the baking I did this morning!” said Miss Allen, springing hastily to her feet. “It should be nice and fresh.”
It had probably, thought Carys, retreating back inside and plucking the cover from the well-laden basket, not been Miss Allen’s intention to draw attention to Carys’ bravery when she spoke.
“Come in with us, Eurion,” said the girl coaxingly. “You should try my speckled bread! Just fresh this morning. And there are scones, and a pot of jam. I thought you might like to have some sweet things, living with Carys.”
Carys grinned briefly, and put the lid on the kettle. She banished the grin before the children could come in and see it on her: Miss Allen would misunderstand and be affronted, and Eurion would be annoyingly curious.
Miss Allen came through first, bright eyes catching the light of the fire. Behind her came Eurion, a frown between his brows.
“You said I shouldn’t go on the shore,” he said. “If it’s dangerous, you shouldn’t go, either.”
“It would be more dangerous should I not go,” Carys said dryly. “Don’t chatter, Eurion. Take out the teacups—not the blue ones. The others.”
“I’ll do it,” Miss Allen said. “You should sit down, Eurion.”
Eurion’s eyes went to Carys’, a question in the tilt of his head, and she gave him a small nod. He sat down, leaving Carys to say with a little more sharpness to Miss Allen, who was reaching for the blue cups, “Not the blue ones, Miss Allen.”
“What a shame! The blue ones are much prettier.”
“The brown ones at the front of the cupboard,” Carys said. “There should be enough washed.”
“Enfys says you were very fond of blue once upon a time,” Miss Allen remarked, without either moving away from the cupboard or taking out the brown teacups. “That’s when you were married, wasn’t it?”
Carys seemed to feel the swell of the sea around her, dark and confusing, and flattened the hand that had been around the teapot handle against the benchtop instead.
From behind her, Eurion said, his voice startled, “Married? You were married? You didn’t tell me, Lady!”
“I don’t discuss it with every person who wanders through my life,” Carys said, fighting to see again in the cold blue of the sea that seemed to dance around her. If she hadn’t already been breathing, she would have been afraid she was going to suffocate.
“I don’t think you’ve discussed it with anyone,” Miss Allen said, with a thoughtful moue of her lips. “Even Enfys doesn’t seem to know much about it, and she knows everything. My mother says it’s like that when a woman’s husband leaves her: she doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“I’ll get the teacups if you’re not going to get them,” said Eurion abruptly, surprising both Carys and Miss Allen. He ducked around Miss Allen to fetch the cups, and said to Carys, “The kettle is boiling. You haven’t put tea in the pot, Lady. You should have told me you were tired; I know how to make the tea these days.”
Miss Allen sat down in Carys’ usual chair, slightly pink around the cheekbones, and watched Carys spoon tea into the pot. She accepted a cup of tea in much the same subdued manner, but by the time it was empty she was bright and animated again.
She didn’t show any signs of perturbation, in fact, until she was on the point of leaving some hours later. Then, rather anxiously, she said, “It’s quite dark out, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have stayed so long! Will it be dark along the path, do you think?”
“Eurion, walk Miss Allen to the base of the cliffs,” Carys said. She was weary of Miss Allen, weary of the movement of the sea around her, weary of life itself with its ebb and flow. “Further, if you want.”
Eurion hesitated for the briefest of moments, causing Miss Allen’s pretty mouth to fall a little, then opened the door for her. “I’ll be back soon, Lady,” he said over his shoulder as he followed Miss Allen.
“There’s no need to hurry,” said Carys, and it sounded as though her voice was very far away. The roar of water was back again, swirling around her as it drowned out sound and sight and life, her skirt damply tangling between her legs. She felt the grit of sand.
“I’ll be back soon,” said Eurion again.
The door closed behind him and Carys was left to the rocking, disorienting cold of the sea.
She forced herself to wash and remove her overdress, and changed the trews that were crusted with sand, but when she was dry and clean the world still seemed to shift around her.
Carys sat down abruptly on her chair and clutched the sides of the seat with both hands. It had been a long time since she’d felt this kind of overwhelming reaction, but she still remembered how it felt. Around her was the reality of the cottage kitchen, warm with firelight that reflected against the glass of the window, but more real still was the push and pull of the sea that had come so swiftly and suddenly to her memory, overwhelming and suffocating.
She was staring through the window with unseeing eyes when Eurion came back.
“You saw Miss Allen safely back?” she asked, and was happy to hear that her voice sounded just as it had always done; cool, distant, and steady.
“Her brother came to meet us,” said Eurion. “I wouldn’t have been gone for so long, but Miss Allen was worried that she’d offended you, and she kept apologising. She spoke without thinking and she wanted to make sure you knew she was sorry.”
Carys smiled faintly at the whisper of her reflection in the window. Miss Allen, she suspected, had been more concerned that Eurion knew she was sorry.
The reflection of Eurion’s eyes rested on her for a moment, but to her relief they didn’t stay there for long. Having looked, he crossed behind her to the fire, and Carys soon heard the splashing of water as he washed at the washstand.
She felt that she should go to bed, but she didn’t have the energy to do anything except sit as she was, frozen to her chair.
Carys was still sitting there when two warm arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders, and Eurion’s chin dug into her neck.
“You’re so cold, Lady,” he said, trailing wet hair against her cheek.
Carys found she didn’t have the will to shrug him away; she let him stay there, warm and weighty, until she didn’t feel so cold. Then she gently pulled his arms apart and went to bed, the sea banished for another day. It was never truly gone, but like the selkies, she had respite from it for a time.
She could still hear Eurion at the table when she closed her eyes; heard the scrape of the chair as he sat down in it, and the occasional soft movement as he shifted. When she went to sleep, finally warm again, he was still there.
Chapter Eight
Carys dressed behind her makeshift screen, aware of Eurion’s wakefulness despite the early morning, and emerged to find him gazing at her with his chin perched on his folded arms. He lay on his stomach, and she didn’t think he should be doing that so soon with his stitches still in.
