Lady of Weeds, page 27
part #2 of Lady Series
Frowning, Carys took in the shaved head, the Eppan features, and the slender figure. For all that this man was as nearly as thin as Eurion, there was a war-like look to him. “Who is it?”
“The half-Eppan prince’s captain of the guard, it seems,” said Enfys. “He came through earlier today. He’d be a pretty thing if it wasn’t for that shaved head! What a shame!”
“It doesn’t do him any harm,” Carys said dryly. With Eurion’s mop of quickly darkening-hair before her, she liked to think that she preferred the short, manly cut of the soldier.
Eurion, somewhat indignantly, said, “He’s not as handsome as me! And I’m taller.”
“I prefer shorter men,” said Carys, for one mad, reckless moment unsure if she were baiting him, discouraging him, or teasing him.
“Oh,” Eurion said. He seemed disgruntled, but after a moment the emotion cleared away to a bright smile. “That’s all right, though, Lady! You’re a little bit taller than me anyway.”
“Just like fresh dough,” muttered Enfys. “Poke him, punch him, and up he rises again!”
The soldier scanned the street as he rode, and although Carys would rather not have thought so, it seemed to her that his eyes lighted on herself and Eurion for longer than they did on anyone else as he drew near.
Had the Mas called him? And to what purpose? Did they really think the lost prince was here, and not dead? She let her eyes drift away, wondering if it was just the Eppan features that made his direct gaze so unnervingly similar to Eurion’s, and said quietly to Enfys, “There’s more here than we’ve been told. They must really think he’s alive, to be looking for him here.”
Still, the man didn’t stay long. An unapologetic stranger to the village and village mores alike, he rode his horse through the middle of the street—slowly, to be sure, but he never dismounted, and Carys was quite certain he saw everyone and everything there was to see. And despite the slowness of his movements, and the ostensibly winding way he took, Carys was quite certain there was a deliberation to them. She wasn’t surprised when he continued up the road toward the inn that housed the Mas.
“Interesting,” murmured Enfys, her eyes following the man.
“Are we going home, Lady?” asked Eurion. She had the impression that he was trying his best not to be sulky, but it was unlikely that she had helped matters by watching the captain the length of the street.
Carys found within herself a small catch of regret, and squashed it ruthlessly. “Perhaps. You don’t want to speak with Mistress Ma today?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and she knew that he, too, had seen the direction in which the captain went. “I’ve finished with Enfys, Carys; let’s go home.”
Enfys sniffed, which made him grin.
“Yes, but I told you I’d finish it tomorrow! It needs to cure tonight: it will be ready tomorrow when I come back.”
“So you say,” Enfys said. “No, finish your scone, Miss! There’s no need to be rushing off because the boy doesn’t want you looking at anyone else.”
“That wasn’t my consideration,” Carys said dryly, but she finished her scone. It had occurred to her that in Enfys’ case, the scone was tantamount to one of Eurion’s hugs. The old woman’s eyes were sharp, and she still looked watchful. Carys said to her, “There’s nothing amiss. Clovis Ma gave me a gift that startled me, nothing more.”
“Oh, was that what it was?” said Enfys. She didn’t sound completely convinced. “Well, there’s some colour in your cheeks, at least. Will you come back again tomorrow?”
Carys dusted the crumbs from her fingers. “I think not. Tomorrow will be a busy day, and market day is not far off.”
Enfys nodded, and said to Eurion, “See her safely home. If she’s hurt because of you, I’ll salt your hide and display it above that fireplace you built.”
Carys would have protested both at the suggestion and the threat, but Eurion went into a peal of laughter and pulled her away down the road by the hand.
“Don’t do it, Lady!” he said, still laughing. “Can’t you see she’s telling you she’s worried about you? No, don’t look back, she’ll only pretend she’s not looking. My sand otter fell asleep a little while ago, and now it’s dead: let’s go home. We can find a place to bury it on the way.”
Chapter Sixteen
It had been many years since Carys buried a sand otter, but she hadn’t forgotten the sense of utter futility with which it left her. Eurion didn’t seem similarly affected. Warm and happy and surprisingly carefree, he dug a hole to bury the tiny creature, and then walked alongside Carys without trying to talk to her a great deal. Carys would have wondered what he was up to if she didn’t get the impression that he was quiet because he was happy, hugging his glee to himself.
What had happened to make him so happy? wondered Carys, losing a little of that feeling of futility as she looked curiously across at him.
He caught her eye the second time she glanced at him, and his face warmed with a smile. “It’s a nice night, Lady, isn’t it?”
Carys could have disagreed: there was a stillness to the night that had her contemplating what the morrow would bring along the seashore. But the clarity of the evening made it easy to see the moon reflecting jaggedly off the moving sea, the stars a million pricks of light all around it, and Carys found herself smiling despite the insecurity of tomorrow.
“The sea is always beautiful,” she said.
“Is that why you stayed here?”
“I stayed here because there was nowhere else to go,” said Carys, and the truth of it was two-edged. She had never known another life, it was true, but there was no other place she could go if she had no successor. The seashore required a sacrifice for the safety of the village, and here, that sacrifice was Carys. When it was time for her to retire, the sea would call another and Carys would be free to leave, or die, or make a home along the seashore in the only place she had really known.
Eurion accepted that without comment, continuing his unusual silence until they got back home, but his arm brushed warmly against hers as they walked and Carys thought she had never been so aware of his presence before.
It made her uncomfortable to think so, and when, back at the cottage, she hung the kettle over the fire, that discomfort caused her to ask abruptly, “Are you ill?”
“No,” he said, and added with an honesty that she felt she should have foreseen, “I’m happy.”
“I see,” Carys said, aware of mixed amounts of apprehension and amusement. “Then we should melt the cheese Enfys gave us and eat the last of the bread.”
* * *
Eurion fell asleep first, the firelight flickering across his curved lips, and Carys rose from beside him to sit on the edge of her bed, the sharpness of a paper corner digging into her hip through her pocket. She took them out and unfolded them on the bedspread, side by side. Both figures in the drawings looked absurdly young and helpless, but there the resemblance ended—Carys’ husband was all white skin and black hair that tangled like seaweed, long and wild, Eurion all dusky softness in the face and far too slender everywhere else. Face and figure were different, but Carys knew that the expression on each of those faces, like the youthfulness of their appearance, had always been the same when they looked at her.
She hastily shuffled the drawing of Eurion beneath that of her husband, and folded them together. She would dearly have loved to feel as sure of her husband’s life as she had always done, right at this moment. Or perhaps, she thought, her fingers curling around the wad of paper, she had always known that he was dead in truth. Perhaps she had never been able to admit it to herself because then there would have been no reason strong enough—duty to the village, duty to herself—not to join him in the sea. No reason not to take her revenge and die, and bring about the death of the rest of the village with her.
Those hidden urges had passed quietly into oblivion some time ago, though Carys wasn’t sure when they had gone. It could have been when she hooked a boy around the neck and drew him to safety with her seaweed hook, or it could have been when Carys found that a pair of slender human arms were somehow stronger than the cruel grip of the selkies, even if she could push their owner away.
The drawings, unheeded, fell to the floor as Carys stood. She passed through the cottage and silently went into the night, seeking the familiar salt of the air to settle her shifting thoughts. Since her earlier walk home with Eurion, it had become a dull night lacking in stars and moonlight, the clouds sullenly grouped to hide any speck of light. Tomorrow, the storm would certainly begin.
Carys knew it and allowed the thought to sink away, padding barefoot through the sand toward the rocky shore. It was too cold to be out without shoes, but Carys was still a creature of the sea and sand, and a night’s cold would do no harm to her, after all.
She walked until she came to the place where she had once left food for her husband each day, and sat in the sand beneath that tree, wondering at the peacefulness of it. She had also slept here for three nights without eating after the selkies took him, able to do no more than attend to the seashore and sleep. Then, it had been a bitter place, haunted with memories—now it was clear of ghosts and regrets alike.
Carys didn’t know how it was possible, but she was beginning to have some inkling of why it had become so. She had meant to send Eurion away once he remembered what she needed him to remember, but Carys was sure now, in the silent, sticky warmth of the night, that she already knew what she needed to know. She would send him away tomorrow. It was safer for him, and it would appear that it was safer for herself as well.
A small pain in her chest seemed to catch in the salty breath that she took in, and Carys smiled a little bitterly into the sea-touched night around her. The sound around her was all sea, in and out; the taste of it everywhere, the smell of it always in her nostrils. Eventually, the sea touched everything, took over everything. It was better if Eurion went away now, while it was still possible to send him away.
For a time, there had been sunshine and warmth, but the clouds were closing in overhead, and Carys knew the sea too well to think that there wouldn’t come a storm with it. She looked around once more at the darker, cool shadows that had once sheltered a selkie-turned-human, and rose. There would be enough work for tomorrow, but tonight was for sleeping. Tonight, the small ache in her chest would be relieved by the soft in and out of Eurion’s breath as he slept before the fire.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to send him away.
* * *
Carys slept uneasily, and woke to the howling of wind and the odd scatter of rain against the cottage as the wind hurled it against the walls. She was awake earlier than usual, so she prepared the evening meal with the idea that she would appreciate the warmth of cawl when she got back in later that day. She left it toward the front of the fire to come to a slow simmer in its own time, and went to face the day, wondering that Eurion should be out of the house on such a morning.
The door tore out of her hand as soon as she opened it, smashing a deeper dent in the cottage wall, and the wind curled around her, tugging her out into the wild, salty morning.
Eurion, practising his drill despite the weather, jumped and turned his head toward her.
“Do you think it’s safe to go on the seashore this morning, Lady?” he called. “It’s been like this since an hour ago.”
“The weeds will be there regardless of the weather,” Carys said. She had meant to tell him straight away that he would have to leave today, but it was easier to answer his question instead. “It’s nothing. I’ll be more worried when we’re in the eye of things. The selkies don’t like the chance of being swept from the rocks when it’s like this.”
Eurion nodded, but she felt his concerned eyes on her as she took her cart and moved down the path to the rocky shore, and was grateful again that he didn’t follow her. She would have to tell him tonight that his time at the cottage was ended. She would pack his things for him and send him away, because Carys was very well aware that there was a time coming when he wouldn’t be persuaded not to follow her.
What she had told him was no less than the truth, but it wasn’t quite all the truth. The selkies didn’t like the chance of being swept from the rocks, but that would only mean they would venture further toward the shore when they changed. They wouldn’t pass to the sandy side of the shore, of course, but they would group together more dangerously, and if they were in a playful mood Carys would have to move more quickly, were she to fail in clearing the shoreline before they arrived.
The cottage had seen a squall or two of rain while Carys dressed earlier, but she could see the real downpour approaching over the sea when she stepped onto the rocky shore. Barely lit by a dawn that would never fully glow with sunshine, it hung over the sea, curving around in every direction. With the full breeze in her face making tatters of her hair, Carys guessed that it would be a matter of hours before the bulk of the rain made landfall, and she set herself to work at a pace that was a little quicker than usual. The selkies wouldn’t care to be in the rain any more than she would, and although the fishermen would all be in soon, well aware of the dangers of the day themselves, Carys still preferred to give the selkies as little as possible to play with in the coming days.
Carys was at the far end of the rocky shore when she caught a flicker of movement along the coast behind her. Brown pelts gleamed dully in the stormy half-light as the selkies slipped up through the pools, avoiding the sharp, dangerous sea edge where waves thrashed against the rock. Lacking the promise of any later sunlight, they had decided to come ashore early and play regardless.
Carys hastily cleared away the worst of the weeds from the pool she was working on, grazing her palm as she jerked away from the uneasily swirling water’s edge at the first sign of seal eyes and climbed toward safety. She went on to the last two pools even more swiftly, flinging the weeds up high and far as the pools boiled beside her, and took a playful nip to one ankle as a couple of bickering selkies leapt from the water with the swell too quickly to avoid. She left the remainder of the weed where it was—it was little enough, and it was unlikely that the fishermen would be out for the next few days anyway.
The selkies laughed and called to her, showing their teeth, but they only made a half-hearted attempt to herd her toward danger as she moved the last of her seaweed beyond the tide line. They were too cautious of the waves themselves, and they had reason to beware of the reach of Carys’ seaweed hook. She heard them still calling as she drew her cart toward the cottage in the howling wind, grateful that the rain had held off so far.
It had not yet come when she reached the cottage, either, encouraging her to think that she could unload the seaweed beneath cover before the worst of it began. She found herself thinking that it was a shame Eurion wasn’t here to help her, and pushed away the thought. Eurion would have to be told tonight that he must leave. It was no use expecting him to help her with things any longer.
And yet, a familiar figure overshadowed her as she dropped the handles of her cart. Carys winced a little: she would have preferred to have tidied herself up a little before Eurion got back, now that he knew the dangers of the seashore. There were a couple of cuts on her ankle that were bleeding from the selkies’ teeth, and she had wanted to keep them from his too-sharp eyes.
Carys looked up, ready with excuses, but it was the Eppan captain instead of Eurion. The first relief she had felt diffused into a more familiar concern, then wariness.
She nodded to him, wondering if she would have to warn another outsider with gestures, that the rocky seashore was not safe, but when he spoke, it was in almost unaccented Sunderman.
“Are you alone?”
One of Carys’ brows rose, and she turned to unload the first bundle of seaweed from her cart. “What is your name, sir?”
“I am Joon Ha,” he said, looking perplexed. “Captain of the Eppan Heir’s guard.”
“And why would you wish to know why a woman is alone, Joon Ha of Eppa?” Carys asked him. She hadn’t entirely lost her sense of wariness, but she couldn’t help feeling amused to see his face go red. Like Eurion, Joon Ha was very obviously young.
“I didn’t—” Joon Ha, evidently perplexed to know how to address her while she was unloading her cart, moved around the side of the cart until he was speaking to her profile. “I mean, I’m looking for someone. I wondered if you had seen him.”
“No one has been along the rocky shore this morning,” Carys said. “I was busy, but not so busy I wouldn’t have seen them.”
“It wasn’t this morning,” he said, starting back out of the way when she dropped a bundle of seaweed a little too close for comfort. “He would have shown up before now—perhaps a few weeks ago.”
“You’re the third person to ask me about a missing man,” said Carys. “Perhaps you should speak with Ma Yong Hwa in the village. He is also searching for someone.”
“I spoke with Ma Yong Hwa yesterday,” said Joon Ha. His eyes ran over her face, and he added unexpectedly, “I think you already knew that, Lady.”
“My name is Carys,” she said, conscious of a discomfort in the way he addressed her. She stacked the last of the seaweed and folded her arms across her chest. “You can use that. I did suspect you’d already spoken with the Mas.”
“Then perhaps it won’t surprise you to know that I’m not looking for the same person as Ma Yong Hwa.”
“You’re looking for the prince, I think.”
He took a breath, but nodded. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else, la—Carys.”
“I’ve few enough people to tell,” Carys said to him, smiling a little.
“I was told as much,” Joon Ha said. “The Mas tell me that you have…other acquaintances along the shore instead.”
