Lady of Weeds, page 24
part #2 of Lady Series
“It’s no trouble,” said Carys, since she couldn’t truthfully claim the polite phrase that it was a pleasure. “I was curious to know what you wanted of me.”
“I hope to convince you to allow me to speak with—” Clovis coughed a little, a ladylike sound, and resumed. “—with Eurion again.”
“Do you need a glass of water?” Carys asked. She was certain that the woman had coughed exactly when she meant to, and she was unsure what to make of that.
“There’s no need.”
“I’ll discuss it with Eurion,” she said shortly, though she agreed to that much only because it struck her that it would be good to have alternate matters of discussion with Eurion today. “I make no promises.”
“That is quite satisfactory,” said Clovis Ma, inclining her head. “I have some further questions that may prompt his memory.”
“Who else was lost aboard the ship?” Carys asked. She would have preferred not to ask such a question of the woman who had lost her half-brother to the sea, but Clovis didn’t look like she was suffering from any kind of sorrow. There was a placidity and quiet amusement to her that made Carys wish to prod at her to see if she was a person or a doll.
“The ship was lost,” said the woman, just as she might have said the teacup was lost. “My husband saw most of us to the seashore, but others washed up afterward, still alive. Only my brother and one of the Eppan attaches were lost. We mapped the currents and followed them as far as the village.”
More directly, Carys asked, “It wasn’t your brother’s overcoat that washed ashore, then?”
“It was,” said Clovis, her voice as unemotional as ever. “Thank you for that. It was very useful.”
“I’m glad I could be…useful,” said Carys, perplexed.
Unexpectedly, the other woman laughed, and the motion of it seemed to wake her a little. “Tell me, Carys—are there hidden passages in the cliffsides nearby?”
“Your husband would know better than I,” Carys said bluntly. She felt that she would like to shudder, but she was used to the selkies, and someone like Clovis Ma shouldn’t bother her so much. “I know they’re there, but I think he’s been inside them. The smugglers use them.”
“You weren’t curious to see them yourself,” said Clovis, and it wasn’t a question.
“Perhaps when I was younger,” said Carys, answering it regardless. “But there’s no time on the shore for exploring. Nor is it safe. The sea wells up in some of the caves and tunnels—even smugglers have been known to die in there. It’s a wonder Eurion wasn’t swept up in there himself.”
“Where did he wash up?” Clovis asked, and for the first time, there was a line between her brows.
Carys was surprised to see that this question was the one Clovis was truly curious about. She had expected, from Ma Yong Hwa’s reaction to the discovery of his brother-in-law’s overcoat, that his wife would still be keeping to her bed—or, if well enough to receive visitors, at least silent and sorrowful in her grief.
“In one of the pools,” she said. “I doubt he washed up, as such. He must have been sucked through the caves beneath the rocks. It’s a wonder he was kept alive.” And the wonder of that was twofold—the wonder that he hadn’t breathed in too much water as he came through the caves, and the wonder that the selkies hadn’t decided to play with him on his way through.
On the other hand, Eurion was a very beautiful boy, and they could have decided to leave him on her shore by way of a present. They had left rich presents before; huge pearls that had never seen the light of the airy world, water-swollen treasure boxes, and garments rich and waterlogged. It wasn’t out of the question that he was one more pretty thing left for her to make use of.
“I see,” said Clovis Ma, though whatever she saw, she didn’t elaborate on it. “My husband was, as always, correct. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I’m glad to have been of use,” Carys said again, dryly. She was no longer uncomfortable, but the amusement she felt now with Clovis had something of the same edge of irritation that she always felt with Enfys. “Then if you’ve no further use for me, I’ll go along to my stall now.”
She nodded to Ma Yong Hwa on her way through the front door; he was tracking in mud and slime that would turn the housemaid’s hair white when she saw the way it stained the carpet, and although he bowed to her, he didn’t attempt to stop her or speak with her. Carys was left wondering, as she stepped back out into the road, exactly why she had been summoned to see Clovis Ma. She was inclined to think it wasn’t entirely because the woman wished to plead her case to see Eurion again. If it had been so, her husband could have pled the case well enough.
No, the Mas had wished either to take or give some information through the meeting, and Carys sorely wished she knew what that information was.
* * *
It would have been too much to say that she mulled the matter over all afternoon, but Carys certainly found herself distracted when she got to her market stall. Eurion either noticed and respected her desire to be quiet, or he was afraid she would leave him alone again: he didn’t try to talk about anything worrisome or difficult, merely shared his lunch with her and chattered harmlessly about the magic in the seaweed.
When there remained no more seaweed to sell, and Enfys came along to poke her sharp nose in where it wasn’t wanted, he said, “I’ll be back, Lady!” and vanished into the thinning crowd.
Carys was too relieved to demand to know where he was going. Instead, she began to pack up her stall, leaving Enfys to linger without bothering to speak to her.
That seemed to amuse the old woman. “I suppose you’re annoyed with me.”
“I’m used to your tricks,” Carys told her. “Don’t play them on me. Don’t play them with Eurion, either.”
“Am I the child’s guardian? If he wants to go out and meet you, can I stop him?”
“You’re capable of stopping a bull in a gate,” said Carys shortly.
“A bull in a gate is easier to stop than a man in love,” Enfys remarked. “You should know that, with the experience you’ve had.”
Across the road, Eurion’s bright face reappeared. He trotted toward them, brandishing a bag of what were likely honeyed nuts, and Enfys snorted a laugh.
“You’ll have to tell him everything.”
“I don’t have to do anything of the sort,” said Carys, but although she said so, the thought stuck in her mind.
“Oh well, I suppose it’s too late now, anyway,” shrugged Enfys. “The child is determined to love you, more fool him. But if you’re as determined not to have him, you’d best tell him to take out the sting.”
“I’ll tell or not tell just as I choose!” Carys snapped, aware of Eurion watching them both, and snatched up the handles of her cart.
Enfys’ rude cackle of laughter followed her down the road, along with the sound of Eurion’s footsteps. Carys, very aware of the sound of them, was also aware that he wasn’t hurrying to keep up. Eurion stayed a comfortable distance behind her, in fact, until the cliffside path began to even into a gentle incline rather than the steeper, zigzagging line it took in the higher reaches. Then he drew even, smiling across at her as Carys looked doggedly into the bright sunset that spread across the sea.
Soon, he said, “Lady—”
“No,” said Carys. “Don’t talk.”
“Yes, but Lady—”
“I don’t wish to hear you talk!”
Reproachfully, he said, “Ah, Carys!” and that reproach in his voice made her stop without being able to help herself.
Exasperated with him, but most of all with herself, Carys dropped the handles of the cart, and said, “Sit.” Fitting the action to the word, she sat herself sat down on a smooth, hollowed stone where there was no space for Eurion. She felt that she would still prefer to keep some distance between them.
Eurion evidently didn’t feel the same way, because he sat beside her anyway, regardless of the fact that he sat in the sand and grit to do so.
“I see,” he said, sniffing a little. Not quite indignant, but perhaps slightly petulant. “You want to give me some excuses. Well, I talked this morning, so I suppose you should talk now.”
He settled against the rock and her side, shivering a little when his arm touched the cool rock, and Carys caught herself as she was about to settle her arm down across his shoulders, the first thought in her mind that he shouldn’t be allowed to be cold. She twitched that arm back tightly into her side.
“Aren’t I right, Lady?” Eurion said gloomily, but there was a kind of amusement to the gloom. “You want to give me some excuses about why I can’t love you.”
“Not excuses,” she said. “Explanation.”
“All right,” he said, and the amusement in his face grew. “I wasn’t going to talk about that. Didn’t I tell you I was going to go slowly? But if you’re going to talk about it, then I can listen.”
“I see,” said Carys. Even if it was true, it was too late to go back now. “You said you’d been to the village hall to see the laws written there.”
“Yes, Lady,” said Eurion, and although his mouth was solemn, his eyes danced. “I had a special reason for wanting to see them.”
Carys thought it good to ignore that. Tilting her chin at the sea, she said, “There are laws out there, too.”
“Laws for who?” Eurion asked in surprise. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it had not been this. “It’s just whales and eels and fish, isn’t it?”
“Whales, eels, fish, and other creatures,” Carys said. “Do you not have stories of the selkies in Eppa? Did Enfys mention nothing?”
“She only hinted and laughed up her sleeve at me,” said Eurion, somewhat aggrieved. “I would have paid attention if she’d talked about selkies.”
“It is for that reason I spend my mornings on the seashore.”
“Because of selkies, Lady?” If anything, Eurion seemed more surprised. “I was taught that they’re a myth! A relic from the old days when the sea took too many victims and too much magic ran along the shoreline. So there were guardians of the shore, and the mythos developed to keep people away.”
“Did it not occur to you that a guardian of the shore who could see no magic would be of no use?”
“There are selkies? Real selkies?”
“Every afternoon they come ashore to play.”
“Do you play with them? Is that what a guardian does?”
“No,” said Carys, and closed her eyes for a brief moment. “A guardian should not—a guardian should never allow the selkies to come too close. Their games and their laws are different.”
“I thought we were going to talk about your—” Eurion stopped, blinking, and Carys saw the thoughts flitting swiftly across his face. “And Enfys said that—she said you shouldn’t have taken in the first—the first stray—”
Carys gazed out on the sea because she didn’t want to see the understanding come into those brown eyes that looked up at her in astonishment, and waited for him to come to the right conclusion.
“Your husband was a selkie?”
“Things wash ashore after a storm,” Carys said, her eyes on the colour-washed waters so far away. “Sometimes rich things, sometimes flotsam. One morning there was a man on the beach, just past the rocky shoreline.”
She paused for a barely perceptible moment, but Eurion didn’t know the selkies—didn’t know the enormity of what she had done so many years ago—and he didn’t answer. He only leaned his head into her arm with his face tilted so he could keep his eyes on her face, and Carys felt the warmth of his fingers curl around her hand.
“He was past the rocky shoreline,” she said again. “So I knew he couldn’t be a selkie, and when I saw the wounds he bore, I took him in. He wouldn’t speak to me at first, but I knew he could understand me. While I tended his wounds, he would touch my hair as if he wondered exactly what it was.”
Eurion’s voice murmured, “Did he live with you for a long time, Lady?”
“Not then,” she said. “He still wouldn’t talk, but I had the feeling he thought it unsafe. Perhaps he didn’t like the roof above his head that stayed so still. He made his home beneath the moving boughs nearer the cliffs, and I left him food every day. He brought back the dishes every night.”
“When did you discover he was a selkie?”
“There was a day when he followed me to the seashore. He hadn’t done so before, so I hadn’t warned him away. It seemed as though he wished to stay away from the sea. But it was a stormy day, and the waves lashed at the rocks as though they would break them apart, and in my hurry to clear the shoreline, I didn’t see one of the selkies until there was a hand nearly about my ankle.”
Eurion, as pale as he complexion was capable of, said in a husky undertone, “All the old stories of them are true? They try to drown humans?”
“When they’re feeling playful,” Carys said. “They don’t think of it as drowning—they take someone to play beneath the waves and they can’t understand why their plaything ceases to move, because they can only understand breathing water into air.”
“Then—”
“That day, he called a warning to me. I saw the alarm in his eyes, and then the teeth in his mouth and I knew at once.”
“But you took him in, still,” said Eurion, and when she glanced down at him, there was almost a smile on his face. “Because you couldn’t leave him once you’d rescued him. Because your heart is too soft…and—and because everything that washes up on the shores is yours.”
“No,” said Carys. “I took him in because I loved him. It was already too late. I’d known him for months by then. I knew how the storms made his eyes darken with longing and wildness; I knew how the sight of me made them soften; I knew how hard he tried to keep his teeth hidden from me. Every morning he waited for me at the cottage door, and every afternoon he was there to catch me as I stepped onto the sand, though he knew the other selkies watched him and howled at him. And by then I knew what it had cost him to leave the sea—and what it was he wore around his finger.”
“Then it was his ring—”
“No,” said Carys. “It was his soul. The sea’s soul, perhaps. He paid a hefty price to get it, and he left behind him a kingdom to wear it.”
“So that’s why Enfys says you’re a part of the sea,” Eurion murmured. “I wondered about that, but she laughs up her sleeve at me all the time, so I thought it was a joke.”
“Enfys finds things amusing that it’s best not to laugh at,” Carys said, though she found herself smiling. “She laughed at our wedding, too. She was the only villager to attend.”
Eurion muttered into her sleeve. “Nosy old woman.”
“Still, she tried to warn me.” It was only fair to say it. No one else had known enough of her husband to know what he was, but for Enfys.
“What did she warn you about?”
“The old tales say it’s seven years, but some people say it’s three—when a selkie begins to pine to return to the sea, that is. The truth is that they have to go back every day unless they have a soul to walk on land. He worked hard for his soul, but we only got a year despite that.”
“Did he leave you and go back?”
“He never called me by my name,” Carys said, disregarding the question. “With him, it was always cariad. ‘Sit with me, cariad’, ‘Play with me, cariad’. I knew Enfys wasn’t right. Besides, he wouldn’t go near to the sea if he could help it. At first, I thought he kept away because he didn’t want to fall in. They can’t swim in their human forms, so they all stay away when they look human. But he always came to the shore when it was stormy, to see that I was well. And the more the others saw him, the more they howled. Then one day—”
Carys stopped, swallowed. The welling of the sea was around her once again, but the warmth of Eurion’s hands around hers seemed to anchor her, and with just a small pause, she went on.
“One day they caught him too close to the pools; three of them. He was playing with me, and not paying enough attention, and they caught him and threw him into one of the pools. I went in after him, and for a moment I had him—I had him. But others were waiting for him in their real forms below. They dragged him down and left me there while the others pulled me out by the hair. They didn’t—they didn’t even try to take me that day.”
Eurion, with sorrow in his voice, murmured, “They drowned him?”
“It’s not certain,” Carys said, with a sharpness to her voice. “He had the ring, and they took him to make an example of him.”
“But Lady—”
“I told you because I want you to understand,” she said. “You need to understand that it’s no use waiting and being slow, because I’m already waiting. I’ve been waiting for ten years, and I can’t—I can’t stop now. That’s all.”
She stood, all words and energy at an end suddenly, a pitcher emptied.
“Carys,” said Eurion, scrambling to his feet. “You should sit down. You’ll fall.”
“I won’t fall,” she said, and for the second time that day, she left him with the seaweed cart and strode on ahead. It was unfair of her—she knew he would bring it in without complaining—but Carys was weary of words and attention, and it seemed permissible to allow him to do something for her once again. She was certain she would regret it later, but now, striding across the sandy path toward the cottage and rest, Carys couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
Still, it seemed good to put the tea kettle over the fire and fetch out biscuits by way of some small payment, and by the time Eurion opened the door, the water was already boiling. She heard the scrape of a chair as he sat down, and gathered two cups to bring with the kettle. It wasn’t really a night for tea, but perhaps Eurion would be lulled to sleep by the warmth. Carys herself was strangely weary, but as she prepared the tea, she had thought of a little more she wanted to say before she went to bed. She turned to bring the tea to the table and speak those words in no uncertain terms, and everything she had planned to say flew right out of her mind.
