Twixt Firelight and Water (2 page)

Yes, I was both selfish and a coward. I avoided the clearing where they were accustomed to work, an Otherworld place beyond the eyes of Ciáran’s human guardians. I tried to be blind to what she was doing to him. In the human world I found a master harper, a solitary man who made time for me, and I stayed long months with him, learning new skills and sharpening old ones. Ciarán was a prickle on my conscience, but I ignored him. Any attempt to intervene would see us both punished.

I was nearly seventeen; my brother would be four or five. I went to a Beltane fair and played my harp for dancing. At dusk a great fire was lit on the lakeshore. All knew the forest nearby held portals to the Otherworld. On such a night doors might be left ajar, and lovers who wandered into the woods for a little dalliance might find themselves on a longer journey than they’d anticipated. A perilous spot. Still, that was the traditional fair ground, and there we were, a little merry with good mead, a little dizzy from dancing, a little amorous, as befitted Beltane. At least, the human folk were — I remained detached, concentrating on playing and singing. I reached the end of a jig, looked up and across the throng, and there she was. The firelight glowed on the perfect curve of her cheek; it put a warm glint in her lovely eyes. The breeze blew strands of her dark hair over her brow, and she pushed them back with a graceful hand, smiling. Behind her, the moon shone on the trembling waters of the lake. She was looking at me.

In a heartbeat my life was changed.

With arms entwined, all summer long

We danced to our own secret song

We shone with love’s transforming flame

And then — oh, then — the autumn came.

I forgot my mother. I forgot the small shoulders that now carried the weight of the sorceress’s expectations. Lóch loved me, and I was new-made. We wandered the forest paths hand in hand. I made sure we kept away from portals to the Otherworld.

We were young, but we made plans. I could earn a living as a bard. Thanks to my maternal line — who would ever have believed I might gain some good from being
her
son? — my skills were already superior to those of human musicians, and I would have no trouble finding work. Lóch wanted a baby. We imagined her, a girl, always a little girl, with dark wisps of hair and eyes the colour of lake water. We would travel north. Lóch’s grandmother, who had looked after her since she was an infant, could come with us. We would be a family.

There was no need to spell out my ancestry. My sweetheart had sound instincts, and she saw from the first that I was something unusual. I would not talk about my mother. I would have spoken of my father, but I knew nothing about him. When I’d asked my mother, as a child, she’d said, ‘It doesn’t matter who he was. He fulfilled his purpose. Not especially well, as it turned out.’ I had seen in her eyes that I must not ask again.

‘We’ll live wherever you want,’ I told Lóch as we lay on the grass one warm afternoon. ‘Just not here.’ The tide of desire was strong between us, the denial of it a painful pleasure. Her fingers traced delicate patterns on my arm; mine rested against her stomach, the soft sweetness of her body only a thin layer of fabric away. We had sworn we would not lie together until we were married.

We planned to be hand-fasted at Lugnasad, after the prayers of thanks for the season’s bounty. Once wed, we would go, away, away, free of the burden of my mother, free of the anxiety and fear and pain she seemed to bring with her no matter how obedient I was to her commands. The freedom that beckoned was not only the opportunity to be with my love as her husband, and to tread a new path with her beside me. It was my chance to be unshackled from my mother’s dark ambition.

‘Conri,’ said Lóch, raising herself on one elbow to study my face. ‘You look so sad sometimes. So troubled. What is it, dear heart?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to remember the words of a ballad, but the rhyme’s eluding me.’ I sat up and tickled her nose with a blade of grass until she was helpless with laughter, and the shadow was forgotten.

* * * *

Lóch’s grandmother liked me, but she wanted us to wait. We were so young, she said, too young to see anything but an easy future. The prospect of leaving the cottage where she had brought up her orphaned granddaughter, and the friends she had in the district, and everything familiar, was frightening to her. Well, she was old by human standards, and I almost understood how she felt, but I knew we must leave. If we stayed close to this forest we would be within my mother’s reach for all of our lives.

My musical skill was not the only thing I had inherited from my mother’s line. I would live far longer than Lóch; I would continue to look young as she gradually aged. I dismissed this, certain my love for her was strong enough to withstand any test. Like many folk of mixed heritage, I had the ability to turn the minds of human folk one way or another — charm, one might call it, though not a charm in the sense of a spell, more a gift for choosing the right tone, the right words, the right look of the eyes to persuade a person to a certain way of thinking. I never used it on Lóch. She chose me for myself, for the man I was. I shied away from all magic, for I wanted to be human, not fey. But when Lóch’s grandmother put her foot down, determined that we should wait at least a year to be sure of our minds, I used it on her. It was not long before the old woman was saying the plan was a fine one, and of course we were old enough, at seventeen, to be wed and journeying and thinking of a baby. So the hand-fasting was set for Lugnasad. We’d be married as soon as the harvest ritual was over, and straight away we would head north to a place where there were some cousins of Lóch’s dead father. We packed up the cottage; there was little enough in it.

‘What about your things, Conri?’ Lóch asked. ‘Clothes, tools, all your possessions?’ She had never asked me where I lived. I thought perhaps she did not want to know. Of recent times I’d been sleeping at the cottage, chastely on a bench while Lóch and her grandmother shared the bed.

I was about to reply that the only possession that mattered was my harp, but I realised it was not quite true. I had a little box, back in the Otherworld, with objects I had collected through the uncomfortable years of my childhood, treasures I had taken out at night after the day’s failures and punishments were over. Holding and stroking each in turn, I had been comforted by their familiarity. I did not want to leave that box behind. Besides, Lóch was right about clothing. In the human world one had to consider such activities as washing and mending. Before I was quite done with the Otherworld, my mother’s world, I must make one last trip back.

* * * *

Ten days before Lugnasad, on a morning of bitter wind, I slipped across the margin and fetched my box from the cave where I had hidden it. I took a cloak, a pair of boots, a favourite hat. I spoke to one or two folk, not saying I was leaving, and discovered that my mother had gone away to the south. Nobody knew if it was a short trip or a long one. I breathed more easily. With luck, she would not return until Lóch and I were far away.

I emerged into the human world close by the cottage where Ciarán and his keepers lived, a low, secluded place nestled at the foot of the crag called Hag’s Head, and surrounded by rowans. Why did I choose that way? Who knows? As I passed the place I heard a sound that stopped me in my tracks. It could have been me weeping like that, in little tight sobs as I tried to hold the pain inside, so nobody would hear me and know how weak I truly was. I found that I could not walk on by.

He was scrunched into a hollow between the rocks, arms wrapped around himself, knees up, head down. The bones of his shoulder, fragile as a bird’s, showed under the white skin, through a rip in his tunic. His hair was longer now, and the hue of a dark flame. He heard me coming, soft-footed as I was, and every part of him tensed.

‘Ciarán?’ It was awkward; he did not know me.

The small head came up. The dark mulberry eyes, reddened with tears, fixed their stare on me. He was like a little wild animal at bay, quivering with the need for flight. And yet not like, for there was a knowledge in those sad eyes that chilled me. My brother was too young for this.

I squatted down at a short distance, putting my belongings on the ground. ‘Did she hurt you?’ I asked.

Not a word. She had threatened him, no doubt, to keep him from speaking to passers-by.

‘Ciarán,’ I said quietly, ‘my name is Conri. We both have the same mother. That makes us brothers.’

He understood; I saw an unlikely hope flame in his eyes. Impossibilities flooded through my mind:
we could take him with us, we could hide, perhaps she would never find us.
And then, cruellest of all:
I should not go away. I should stay for his sake.

‘Conri.’ Ciarán tried out the sound of it. ‘When is my father coming?’

The hairs on my neck rose. Surely he could not remember his father. I’d seen how little the boy was when she brought him here: too young to understand any of it. But then, this was no ordinary child.

‘I don’t know, Ciarán.’
Don’t ask if you can come with me.
Already, so quickly, he had a grip on my heart. Why in the Dagda’s name had I passed this way? ‘I have to go now.’

‘Will you come back?’

I drew a shaky breath. There would be no lying to this particular child. ‘I don’t know.’ It was woefully inadequate. ‘Ciarán, I have something for you.’ I reached across and picked up my treasure box. My brother edged closer as I opened the lid. It was a meagre enough collection, but each item was precious to me. What to give him?

‘Here,’ I said, picking out a stone with swirling patterns of red and grey, a secret language ancient as myth. ‘I found this up in the hills beyond the western end of the lake. Earth and fire.’

His fingers closed around it. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Goodbye, Conri.’

‘Goodbye, little brother.’ Morrigan’s curse, tears were starting in my eyes, and they trembled in my voice. The longer I stayed, the worse this would be for the two of us. I gathered my belongings, turned my back and walked away.

* * * *

Eight days until Lugnasad and our wedding. There was no point in looking backwards. I could not save Ciarán. Even if Lóch had not existed, even if I had been prepared to sacrifice my own life for my brother’s sake, and stay where she could find and torment me daily, the sorceress would never have allowed me a part in his future. If Ciarán was to be her tool, she would not want his edge blunted by weakness, or his true metal tarnished by love. I could do nothing for him.

So there was a thread of sorrow and regret in the shimmering garment of our happiness. All the same, Lóch prepared for the ritual with bright eyes, and both she and her grandmother professed themselves ready for the adventure that lay ahead. Lóch and I embraced under the shelter of the trees, our bodies pressed tight, desire making our breath falter. Our hearts hammered one against the other. Our wedding night could not come quickly enough.

* * * *

Six days until Lugnasad, and both Lóch and her grandmother had gone to the far side of the lake to bid farewell to an old friend, a crippled woman who would not be coming to the celebrations. They would be gone all day. I planned to spend the time practising the harp, for we’d been busy of late and I had neglected my craft. With the two of them to support, and perhaps soon a babe as well, I’d need to maintain my technique and keep on making new songs. Folk soon weary of a bard who repeats himself.

I worked all morning and by midday I was growing thirsty. I decided to go down to the local hostelry for a cup or two of ale. While I was sitting there minding my own business, a man came in. I looked at him once and I looked twice, for there was something familiar in that face. The fellow was quite old, with many white threads in his dark hair. His face was a map of experience. Despite his years, there was a strength in every part of him, like the tenacity of a wind-scourged tree. He was clad in plain traveller’s garb, a grey cloak, well-worn boots of best quality. A broad-brimmed hat; a dagger at his belt. No bag. I studied the face again, and this time knew where I had seen it before.

The traveller looked around, then approached the innkeeper.

‘Ale, my lord?’ The innkeeper had sized up the newcomer and was greeting him accordingly.

‘Share a jug with me,’ I put in quickly, indicating that the traveller should come to sit at my table. ‘I’ll pay.’

The traveller’s grey eyes narrowed, assessing me. My mother’s words came back to me, sharp and clear:
These are not your everyday human folk. They’ll be rather determined, I fear.
Then the man walked over and seated himself opposite me.

I waited for the ale to come. I did not ask any of the questions he might have been expecting, such as
Where are you headed?
and
Where are you from
? Instead, for the time it took for the innkeeper to bring the jug, I let myself dream. What if this strong, sad-looking stranger was
my
father, come to fetch me? What if he had been looking for me all these years, seventeen whole years, and now he was going to bring me home, and I would meet my family, and Lóch and I could live in a place where I truly belonged?

‘Are you from these parts?’ the man asked diffidently as I poured the ale.

‘Close by.’ I wondered if he glimpsed my mother in me. I wondered if he was as good at guesswork as I was.

‘Been here long?’