Daughter of Lir (2 page)

The wind wandered for a while through the grass. It came
round at length to Rhian and played with the loose strands of hair that were
always escaping from her plait. The priestess was looking for new priestesses,
it said. It was a Ninth Year. The priestesses always went questing then. And maybe
this year, it conceded, one of the young women chosen would be Mother when the
Mother died—since she had no daughter, only sons; and the Goddess had not given
her blessing to any priestess in Lir.

These were high matters, too high for a potter’s child. But
the wind had always expected her to understand things both lofty and strange.
Rhian was like a goddess sitting above the world, knowing what went on in it,
but having no part of it.

That was a dangerous thought. She lay down on the breast of
the earth and whispered her apology. Then she leaped up. She would go to her
work, bury herself in her duty. She would tend the kiln and keep the house and
forget it all: The wind’s gossip. The dream that had driven her out into the
sun. The priestess, the prince, everything that was higher or stronger or less
perfectly ordinary than Long Ford.

But as she paused, with the wind teasing her, plucking at
her gown and blowing her hair in her eyes, she saw through the dark curling
veil that the priestess’ boat had turned toward the bank. The horsemen were
pausing below the village. They were stopping after all. They were coming to
Long Ford.

Her heart hammered till surely it would leap from her
breast. Had they come for her, then? Would they make her a priestess in Lir?

She was a priestess’ daughter. She dreamed dreams. The wind
told her secrets. Surely they would take her. They would shatter the collar,
break down the cage. They would let her fly free.

She danced down the hill, but she was walking sedately by
the time she passed the outermost houses of the village. If she would be a
priestess, she must learn to walk with dignity, not run about like a hoyden
child.

But oh, it was difficult. If she could go to Lir—if—if—

All her life, when she was not dreaming of cages, she had
dreamed of Lir. City of bronze and gold. City of proud warrior princes. City of
the Goddess, the Lady of the Birds, and of her high and holy temple, and her
blessed priestesses.

Maybe now she would see it. Maybe she would be a priestess
in it, as her mother had been. Maybe even the dreams would stop, and she could
sleep in peace.

o0o

The priestess and her following stayed the night in Long
Ford. There was a feast, for the hunters had come back with their stag. The
village elders kept the guests to themselves, as was proper, but Rhian was a
bold bad creature when she wanted to be. She plucked a platter of venison from
the hands of the headwoman’s youngest daughter, smiled with utter sweetness,
and said, “You go and play. I’ll take your place for tonight.”

Kimi was none too reluctant to be freed of her duties. Her
eyes had already slid toward one of the younger and more toothsome of the
priestess’ warriors. She was gone almost before Rhian had finished speaking.

Rhian smiled to herself. Her own eyes were sliding, too, but
not toward any downy-cheeked boy.

The prince from Lir sat near the priestess at the feast. He
was even lovelier in the late sunlight than he had been in the morning by the
river. With his armor and his lionskin laid aside, he was still a fine figure
of a man. His shoulders were broad. His arms were strong. His hair was black
and thick and plaited behind him. It was like her own: it seemed determined to
burst out of its bonds and run riot down his back.

She made sure to serve him and the warriors and lesser
priestesses nearest to him. She did not quite dare to thrust herself in front
of the elders and the priestess, but she was close enough to hear what they
said, and to watch their faces as they spoke.

The wind told better secrets. This talk was all of food and
drink, the weather, the crops, the state of the river-trade. No one was
speaking of the Mother, of her living or dying.

The warriors and the acolytes were even less interesting.
They ate, mostly; eyed the young folk of the village, both male and female;
and, as the ale went round, boasted mightily of their wars and hunts. To this
the acolytes added tales of their journey downriver, gossip from the city, and
a long giggle over the prowess of certain young men of the city.

One of them was the prince. His name, Rhian had already
discovered, was Emry. He was the king’s son, and the Mother’s eldest child. He
ignored the banter—resolute, maybe, or simply oblivious to it. He had said very
little since he came to the village, only enough to assure Rhian that he was
not mute. His voice fit the rest of him, deep and sweet.

She picked out the choicest bits of venison from her platter
and set them in his bowl. He barely touched them. His eyes did not see anything
in that place. They were dark; it was not until he raised them by chance to
hers, that she realized they were not brown but deep blue.

He took no notice of her. That piqued her. She had had to
fend off a dozen half-drunken advances already. Men liked her; she had always
had her pick of them. They said she was beautiful. But this man, who was as
beautiful as she, seemed hardly to be aware that she existed.

Maybe he grieved for his mother. When he rose to go to the
privies, she followed.

He went on past the privies, as she had suspected he would,
and wandered up the hill. The sun was setting. It cast a light like blood
across the tumbled and broken stones.

He stood in the midst of them, wide shoulders hunched,
glowering at nothing. Rhian settled not far from him, squatting on her heels.
Gathering stalks of grass and a handful of pebbles, she began to build a fort
with them, no higher than her hand.

When the tower and the wall were laid out in stones and the
palisade of grass-stems had begun to go up, his shadow fell across her. He
straightened a corner of the wall, and braced it with a bit of twig.

“Your gate should face east,” he said. “That’s where the
enemy will come from.”

“More likely they’ll come from the south or the north, along
the road by the river,” she said.

He squatted beside her. He was not offended to be so
contradicted, which surprised her. “You think about war?” he asked.

“Why, shouldn’t we all?”

His eyes glinted on her. “Most villagers think about nothing
but the planting or the harvest. War is an intrusion—and a useless one at that.”

“Some people would tell you there’s no such thing; it’s been
driven right out of the world.”

“Well,” said the prince, “we’ve been free of it for a
hundred years and more. Maybe it will never come again.”

“You believe that?”

He shrugged and did not answer. The setting sun was in his
face. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She wanted to touch him,
to see if he was real. But she kept her hands to herself.

“Are you a lover of men?” she asked him.

He looked somewhat startled. “Why do you ask that?”

“Men notice me,” she said.

His eyes widened even further. He looked very young indeed
then, for all his height and his breadth and his black curly beard. “Would you
want me if I had?”

“Would I have had to ask?”

He looked her up and down. He did admire her then, but not
as she would have liked. “Tell me what you really want,” he said.

You
, she meant to
say. But while that was true, it was not all of the truth. “I want to go to
Lir,” she said.

He nodded as if he had expected that answer. But he said, “I’m
not going there. We’re traveling down the river, seeking out priestesses for
the temple.”

“That will do,” Rhian said. “Take me with you when you go.”

“Why? What can you do? Can you ride? Fight? Sail a boat?”

“I can stay on a horse,” she said. “I can throw a pot and
shear a sheep and hunt deer in the woods. I can cook. I can brew ale. I know a
little of smelting, and a little more of woodworking. I can make toys for
children. And,” she said last of all, “I can please a man greatly.”

“Toys,” he said, “for children.”

He was mocking her. She flashed back at him. “What can you
do besides ride and fight?”

“I can dance the warriors’ dances. I can sing. I can hunt
boar in the woods. And,” he said, “I can please a woman greatly. But I am not
going to do that tonight.”

“Are you grieving for your mother?”

She had surprised him again, but briefly this time. “So.
Word travels fast.”

It did, if one could speak with the wind. Rhian did not say
that. She had learned long ago that a potter’s child, even a potter’s child whose
mother had been a priestess, was not expected to hear more than the simplest
ears could hear.

“I’m sorry that she’s ill,” she said.

“She’s dying.” His voice was soft and seemed calm, but it
was deeply bitter. “She’ll be dead before this journey is over.”

“And you would have stayed at home if you could.”

“I have my duty,” he said. “I’m needed here.”

“More than there?”

“More than you can imagine.”

Maybe that was true. Maybe he was merely being a prince, and
indulging in arrogance. That was his right. Was he not the king’s son of Lir?

A proper villager would have bowed and effaced herself.
Rhian had never had much propriety in her. She narrowed her eyes. “The young
women your priestess chooses. Will they go with you? Or back to the city?”

“Back to the city,” he said.

“So,” said Rhian. “Who goes with them?”

“Not I,” he said. “Why don’t you simply go? Are you bound
here? Is there a geas on you?”

She shivered. The wind, that had been so still, had risen to
stroke her with cold fingers. “I want to go,” she heard herself say, “not as a
beggar at the door, but as a ruler in the house. I want my name to matter.”

“You are ambitious,” he said. She could not tell whether he
was mocking or admiring her.

“May not even a potter’s child dream of being more than she
is?” Rhian demanded.

“Anyone may dream,” said the prince of Lir.

Rhian shut her mouth with a snap. The wind had risen to a
keen. She refused to listen to it. She spun and stalked away from him,
half-running down the long hill.

Bran the smith would never need to know why Rhian pulled
him out of the dance round the fire, kissed him till he staggered, and dragged
him off to his house. He was not a prince from Lir, but he was hers. He was
nigh as big as Emry and fully as broad, and he knew her body as only a lover could.

He was happy to let her eat him alive. But though he was a
complaisant lover, he was not a stupid man. When they had worn each other out,
when she had cradled herself in his arms, he said, “You’re going to run off
with the prince.”

She blinked. She did not know why her eyes were pricking
with tears. “Not if he has anything to say about it.”

“Does he? The priestess will choose you. Everybody knows
that.”

“Nobody knows it,” she said testily, though her heart was
begging it to be true.

“I do.” He ran his hand down her back, waking little shivers
of pleasure. His fingers were big but delicate in their touch.

She lifted her head, peering at him in the light of the
lamp. He was not the beauty that the prince was, but he was a well-made man.
His face was pleasant to look at, his brown eyes quiet, resting on her with a
kind of patient sadness.

He looked like one of the sheep. She pulled him down and
kissed him hard. They were both gasping for breath when she let him go. “You
won’t forget me,” she said, “but you won’t sleep alone, either. I've seen how
Cara looks at you.”

“Maybe Cara will go, too,” he said.

“Not that one,” Rhian said with a curl of the lip. “She has
her feet sunk firmly in earth.”

“Isn’t that the breast of the Goddess?”

“Maybe they’ll pick
you
,”
Rhian said.

That made him laugh, though she had not meant it to. “And
wouldn’t I make a lovely woman,” said that bear of a man. “No, I’m a lesser
being. I’m content with it. I’ll watch you soar against the sun.”

“If I fly too high, I’ll singe my wings.” The words had
slipped out before she thought. They brought back the dream, so vivid and so
sudden that she caught her breath. She clung to Bran, to his solid and familiar
bulk. “What if I’m not meant—what if I’m not permitted—”

“There,” he said, rocking her. “There.”

But she was not to be comforted. He gave it up—too easily,
she thought crossly, but if he had not, that would have pricked her temper,
too. He slept. She lay awake far into the night, holding sleep at bay. In sleep
were dreams. And if she dreamed the cage again, she knew that she would die.

o0o

She was up at dawn, catching the first light in Bran’s
workshop where she kept a bench and tools and the toys that she made for the
children. She was making something new, something that she had seen in another
dream than the one that so tormented her.

It began as a wagon such as oxen drew, but smaller and
lighter. There were two wheels instead of four, and their shape and fashion had
defeated her. In the end she had carved them like cartwheels, but drawn on them
the image of her dream: four spokes that would turn and spin as the cart rolled
onward. She had been painting it red and gold, drawing shapes on it such as
suited her fancy: wheels and spirals and the rayed disk of the sun.

The sun rose as she surveyed her handiwork. The cart rolled
easily on its wheels, but teetered and tipped when she let go the pole. She
frowned. It needed horses to pull it—not oxen, of that she was sure. She would
carve those, but later. In Lir, if she was chosen, and if she went there.

A large and breathing presence came to stand behind her. She
looked up over her shoulder, expecting Bran. Her eyes widened.