A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) (8 page)

Áine knelt beside her mentor, recognizing that look of deep concentration. Something was definitely wrong.

Wladus looked up at them both between painful contractions, her dark eyes full of worry and pain. Áine reached out and touched her knee, smiling in reassurance as she’d seen Tesn do many times.

A strange jolt went up her arm, almost like a muscle cramping. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe as her belly filled with pain and the blood rushed in her ears. She grabbed at her neck with both hands and tried to free herself from the phantom strangling cord she felt there.

The pain faded immediately and she could breathe again. Everyone, including the exhausted mother, stared at her.

“The baby,” Áine said with strange certainty, “the birthing cord is twisted around his neck. I felt it.”

One of the women backed away from the group, her fingers crossing in front of her heart to ward off evils. The other two looked at Áine with a mix of fear and awe on their faces.

“Could the child be right?” Dydgi asked as she looked to Tesn.

“Aye, more than right I think. The babe is crowning but going no further. It would make sense. Sometimes a women’s intuition begins early, it seems.” She smiled a wise and careful smile that disarmed much of the tension in the room.

Wladus’s half-gagged scream disarmed the rest as the focus shifted back to her.

“Áine, scrub your arm, my heart. We’ll need your capable little hands to free the baby.”

Áine nodded and dashed to the hearth. She gritted her teeth against the scalding heat of the water, but she knew that it must be as hot as she could stand to keep infection from opening a path to evil in the body.
I guess I get to free two babies today.
She turned back to Tesn with wide green eyes.

“Tell me what to do, mother.”

It was nothing like freeing the seal pup. Tesn guided her verbally as Áine slid her oiled hand inside Wladus’s body. She felt the soft crown of the head and gently pushed it back until she could slip her own slim hand into the womb. She felt the cord, letting her strange, double sense of being both the child and herself guide her to the right place. She closed her green eyes and slowly, so terribly slowly, loosened the birth cord until she could twist it free of the child’s head.

She let go and pulled her hand from the woman as soon as she felt that the baby had bloodflow again. Her hand was covered in blood and sticky fluids and a fresh rush of blood followed its removal from the womb. Áine went to rinse it off as Tesn had the women lift Wladus to crouch so she might push again.

Áine leaned against the hearth and watched. There was a lot of blood now, but births always had a lot of blood. The baby came, Tesn gently pulling the child free and hanging him upside-down as she expertly cleared the fluids from his tiny nose with her other hand. The boy’s first cry rang out through the lodge and broke the silence. The women laughed and patted their friend as Áine came forward with a sharp knife and soft cloth. The wisewoman and her assistant bathed the baby. He had the thick white cream coating his skin that newborns sometimes got when the birth was long or difficult.

Wladus slowly stopped bleeding as she drank down the special tea Tesn prepared for her. She was helped onto the bed they’d brought in for her and tucked in with a heavy quilt. Her son’s appetite whet with a little honey on his tongue, he settled in and drank his first meal with barely a complaint.

Deicws, Wladus’s husband, came in and greeted his wife with a broad smile. His first child was a son and a tiny perfect babe at that. He gave a necklace of beautiful shell beads to Tesn in thanks.

“We’ve lost the two before this, early in her time. Thank you for saving my son.” His front teeth were crooked when he smiled behind his thick beard.

“It be my assistant you’ll want to thank. It was her intuition and her small hands that saved your son’s life,” Tesn said, taking the necklace. Áine knew they’d trade it in a bigger village for supplies. A wisewoman carried only what she needed and had no use for baubles.

Deicws turned to the strange girl. If not for her large green eyes, he’d have wondered more if she were not a changeling or one of the Fair Folk what with her pale white skin and blood-red hair. She had a strangely brave and confident demeanor as well, rare in a girl so young.

“I thank you, Wise One’s apprentice.” He nodded solemnly to her.

Áine nodded to him as well, smiling at the appreciation and glowing with pride that Tesn approved of what she’d done.

They slept on the cot, Tesn rising at dawn to check on the sleeping mother and baby. Áine, bleary-eyed, sat up as her mother returned to the bed.

“I felt his pain, I felt her pain. How is that, Tesn?” she whispered.

“I don’t know, my heart.” Tesn had been thinking on that very thing since the others had left them. “I think perhaps it was the selkie’s gift.” She kissed the top of Áine’s head and drew her in close.

That made sense to Áine’s young mind. She was special, after all, so it was fitting that the selkie would give her such a gift. “I’ll make sure to use it well then,” she said seriously.

“What is our rule, love?” Tesn smiled into her child’s hair.

“Do no harm.” Áine said as she sank down sleepily in her foster mother’s arms. “Mother?”

“Yes dearest?”

“I think they should name him Moelrhon, after the seal.” Áine smiled and slipped into sleep.

The rain had let up early that morning, but the ground shifted and soaked through Áine’s shoes, giving her the sensation of walking on a wet blanket. Tesn, leaning heavily on her walking staff, wore a blank expression broken only by tiny smiles everytime Áine glanced back. Though the season turned toward spring, the days were still short and darkness came before they’d reached the next village.

Áine set about making a fire as best she could from the drier wood she found under the spreading oaks while Tesn rolled out an oiled cloth that would protect their bodies from the worst of the wet ground. The fire smoked and gave off little heat, barely enough to heat water for tea.

The wisewoman and her young apprentice ate a cold dinner of hard bread and little cakes of fruit and fat. After Áine stoked the fire as best she could, they curled up together and fell into a fitful sleep.

Áine woke abruptly from a dream of cobwebs and fire to the dim grey light of false dawn and a huge wolf stalking the edge of their camp. She jumped to her feet, scrabbling for her staff.

The huge beast, gaunt with hunger and scarred from a hard life, growled deep. His jaws dripped foul-smelling foam and his body twitched, eyes rheumy and full of promised death.

“Áine,” Tesn’s voice came from beside her ankle as the old woman rose very slowly to kneeling. “He’s sick, be careful. If we show him strength, he might leave.”

Áine nodded, not taking her eyes from the wolf. The creature growled again and leapt straight for her. She swung the staff but it was caught by the wolf. He ripped it from her grasp, sending her tumbling sideways, almost into the smoldering fire.

The wolf twisted with a snarl and darted for Tesn.

Áine, with adolescent bravery, grabbed a smoking brand from the fire and threw herself between the charging wolf and her mother. The brand smashed into the wolf’s face with a sickening crunch. The huge creature screamed and thrashed away, disappearing into the dark woods.

Áine half-crouched, shivering. It took her a moment to realize the pain in her hand and she released the charred branch with a tiny cry. Her skin was blackened and red from gripping the burning wood so tightly. Tesn’s cool fingers wrapped around her wrist, steadying her. She poured a little water over Áine’s hand.

“You are lucky, love. Is but a slight burn. I think it likely you gave that wolf far worse, my brave, beautiful child.” The old woman shook her head.

Áine took a couple deep breaths. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to sleep,” she said.

Tesn chuckled. “I, also. It’s light enough. Walking off the tension will be good for us both, I think.”

They arrived in a little village along the coast of Cantref Gowen near midday to find a wedding celebration in full swing. The wisewoman was greeted with much respect and kindness, though the chief and others looked at her young companion with the normal mix of curiosity and suspicion.

Bowls full of savory goose and mushrooms, Áine and Tesn settled a little apart from the main group. Áine ate slowly, watching the newly married couple. Something within her stirred as she saw the husband lift little tidbits and feed them to his new wife. There was a mystery there, lingering between the two young people. Something Áine desperately wanted to touch, to understand. They looked both shy and content at the same time.

Áine turned to Tesn. “Is it always so at weddings?”

Tesn, seeing the young couple, smiled sadly. “No, love, not always. Marriage is first a contract, usually to bind two families together or bring in fresh wealth and goods. That the two people care for each other is a good sign, but often that, too, comes with time. In a small village like this, it is more likely. The more important the family involved, the less likely such affection will exist before the marriage, for it is less likely the two would even know each other beforehand.”

Áine digested this information as she chewed. “What about wisewomen? We are freer than the village women, no? Can we marry who we wish?” She watched the couple, imagining a dark youth looking at her with such tenderness.

As her body had started awkward changes this last year, so had her mind it seemed. She found herself self-consciously brushing down her hair when around handsome youths her own age. This annoyed her; people always looked on her strangely, and she didn’t want to care even a bit what anyone besides Tesn thought.

“Áine, love.” The sorrow in Tesn’s voice made Áine turn her head. The old woman’s dark eyes looked at her, full of deep compassion. “Wisewomen do not marry. A wife belongs to her husband, a wisewoman belongs to all men, all people. We do not settle or raise families, though we do occasionally have children. The boys are fostered, the girls raised to follow our path as I have raised you.”

“I see. But if we do not marry, how do we have children?” Áine bit her lip. She knew the basics of how babies were made, but she’d not seen an unmarried woman give birth in all her thirteen years.

“Ah, that. You are a little young yet, my love, but just as there are many kinds of injury, not all of them physical, so, too, are there many ways to bring healing. In a few years, I’ll show you what I mean. There is joy in this healing too, you’ll see.”

Áine turned and looked back at the young couple. The woman bent her wreathed head close to hear something her husband murmured to her and then laughed, radiating joy.
But what if that’s what I want?
She shoved the uncomfortable feeling aside.

Tesn knew best, and anyway, Áine thought bitterly, who would want a girl marked by the fey as she was? She put her back to the happy scene and stared off over the rooftops into a deep-blue sky.

Áine put her back to the wind and pulled her cloak tighter against the autumn wind. She slipped the cloak pin back into it, knowing that nothing short of five more brooches could hold the cloak tight to her body in this wind. At least the soaking drizzle they’d walked through since morning had finally given way to a cloudy but drier afternoon.

Tesn, leaning heavily on her staff, plodded ahead of Áine on the slight path they followed along the cliffs overlooking the sea. Áine shook her head. Here she was struggling with the wind and cold, and Tesn, who had a good extra forty years in age over Áine, was moving along as though today were a sunny stroll in the loveliest day of summer. It didn’t help that Áine hadn’t quite gotten her land legs back after the rough two-day sea voyage.

Quit being such a lame goose,
she admonished herself.
Two days travel across the great bay is hardly a sea journey. You came further on the back of a seal when you were tiny.

She sighed. They’d landed at the tip of Cantref Llynwg, for Tesn wanted to travel up to Arfon for the winter. The boat had been Áine’s idea. Tesn was getting too old for so much walking, despite what her adoptive mother said about wisewomen and immortal legs.

The whole journey worried Áine. It had started last spring when Tesn gave Áine a red belt signifying her graduation from apprentice to full wisewoman status. At twenty-one, she was thrilled to achieve what she’d studied her whole life to become. However, instead of staying on their usual circuit of the southern cantrefi, Tesn had begun to migrate north along the coast.

It was a wet and uneasy summer. Everywhere they went people were sick with coughs and lung fevers, the damp getting into the livestock as well. Áine’s unique gift of knowing the pain in others tired her and their travel wasn’t nearly as quick as Tesn might have liked.

As the fall harvests approached and they’d only reached Cantref Cered, Tesn had finally told Áine that she feared she’d not too much longer to live in this life. She wanted to travel to Arfon where she had been born. Tesn had never gone back since a wisewoman took her as apprentice. She wished to return and see if her family lived. If so, Tesn wished to finish out her twilight years there. She wanted Áine to come with her and take a lover that she might have a daughter to apprentice someday.

“Your first shall be a girl. I’ve had the true dreaming of it,” Tesn had said to Áine.

Áine knew they’d never make Arfon by winter on foot, not with Tesn’s slowing pace and the horrible weather that seemed to persist through all seasons this year. So she’d engaged a fisherman to ferry them across the wide mouth of Cymru to the shore of Llynwg. He could not sail them up around the point and to Arfon due to the strong currents that flowed past Llynwg’s coast and the Gefell, the river that ran down to the sea from the great woods of Llynwg, Eifon, and Arfon, was too swollen with rain to navigate with any ease. But the boat had saved them weeks of walking, for all Áine’s seasickness.