Lady of weeds, p.15
Lady of Weeds, page 15
part #2 of Lady Series
In the reflection of the room behind her, still Eurion hung off the back of the chair, tilting the legs up.
“Can I ask a question, Lady?”
Carys saw the brief gleam of rueful amusement in her eyes reflected in the window, and turned away from it, kettle in hand. “If I said no, would it stop you?”
He appeared to ponder this deeply. “Until I’m too interested to remember,” he said, at last. “Then I’ll forget and ask.”
“Then you might as well ask now,” Carys told him, settling the kettle on the hearth. “Speak quickly; I’ll go once I’ve fetched my shawl.”
“She said you were married.”
Carys didn’t pause in her movements: she had been expecting him to bring it up. Still, even if it didn’t startle her, she saw no reason why she should discuss the matter a great deal. She took her shawl down from its hook, saying, “I was married when I was younger.”
“The ring—”
“The ring is my own business,” Carys said sharply.
There was a thoughtful silence from Eurion. Then, as she wrapped her shawl about her shoulders, he tipped his head on one side and said, “I don’t think so, Lady.”
“Stir the pot once in a while,” she told him again.
“Because it was in my head, and perhaps if I was to see it again—”
“Don’t go outside tonight. It will get colder.”
“But maybe I can remember more if—”
“We’ll talk about what you remember when I get back,” said Carys.
* * *
Aled met her near the top of the bluffs as usual, but Carys couldn’t bring herself to take Eurion’s advice and allow him to help her. There was too much meaning to the acceptance when it came to Aled.
She made an effort to speak with him, at least, and thought he looked cheered when he went away again. Somewhere in her periphery she could see a flicker of bright clothing and sharpness that was certainly Enfys loitering, and felt a little cheered herself. If Enfys was seeking her out, then it was unlikely that Carys would need to pay for any information—Enfys must be seeking information herself, and thus willing to trade in the same.
The flutter of bright cloth and sharp eyes that was Enfys solidified beside Carys’ stall once Aled was gone, which made a wry smile twitch into being on Carys’ face. As much as Enfys might twit at Carys about accepting Aled’s overtures, she herself was distinctly disinclined to put up with his society more than she needed to.
Now, without preamble, she said to Carys, “There was a man asking about goods washed up on the shore. He came and bothered me at my shop.”
Carys nodded. “Steele. He spoke to me also.”
“That’s all well and good,” said Enfys grumpily, “but I’m not on the shore to be seen and talked with, and I’d like to know who it was who told him to search me out!”
“He knew a thought more than I’d expect a stranger to know,” agreed Carys.
Enfys considered that, her plump old face creased with residual annoyance, and said, “He’s likely one of those treasure hunters. They talk to one another.”
“He seems to be aware of the selkies,” said Carys. “I’ve left him to himself.”
“He’s not the sort to offer harm to them?” Enfys’ eyes were sharp. As well as Carys, did she understand the bloody death a single slip of the sword could bring down on their village.
“I don’t know,” Carys said. “There’s another one, too.”
“Ah!” said Enfys, her eyes glittering. “Ma Yong Hwa. There’s a pretty man!”
“You said as much about Eurion,” remarked Carys, rather dryly.
“At my age, all men are pretty,” Enfys retorted.
Carys said, “You should have married again, in that case,” and immediately knew she would regret having said so.
“Well, Miss Dour and Gloomy,” said Enfys at once, “here’s back at you! Of all the people who could have—”
“I couldn’t have.” Bitterly regretting that she had allowed herself to be drawn into exchanging remarks with Enfys, Carys didn’t soften the bluntness of her voice. “Do you have information on Ma Yong Hwa?”
Enfys’ brows rose in a sardonic manner, but she answered the question. “He’s here with his wife. They were aboard the vessel that sank, rescued some days ago. They’re looking for a boy who might have washed up—the wife’s brother, they said.”
Carys’ stomach twisted. “Did you tell them where he is?” It was too soon for Eurion to be going away. Those memories of his were still locked away, and she had no other place to find that knowledge.
Besides, Eurion wasn’t entirely better just yet; she had seen him swaying once or twice last night, as though he was still in the sea, and he still ran out of breath too quickly.
“I did not.” Enfys’ sharp old eyes were still on Carys. “The wife isn’t Eppan, so it’s likely the brother isn’t either. Why should it be your Eurion? If it’s not him, it’s none of their business.”
“Even so,” agreed Carys, and felt that she could breathe again. Still, perhaps she would talk with Ma Yong Hwa again, if the chance offered. He was certainly searching for something along the beach, and even if that thing wasn’t Eurion, it was still her business as far as the seashore went. “Who is putting them up?”
“They’re at the new inn just on the edge of the village,” Enfys said. “Eating biscuits and scones, and reclining on couches. Not short of money, them, shipwreck or no shipwreck!”
Enfys could have reclined at the new inn if she had wished to do so; she didn’t only because she had a dislike of spending money. Carys didn’t say so because that would only bring on one of Enfys’ sharp, vinegary moods and then she would refuse to share any information out of sheer spite, even if it meant she wouldn’t gain information in return.
“He’s not remembered anything, I suppose?” the old woman asked.
Carys shook her head. “Not yet. What does the village think?”
“They’re each too busy chattering about the fuss at the castle to be worrying themselves about the seashore,” Enfys scoffed. “There’s talk that there’ll be an investigation by the King’s men into how an heir vanished, but no one thinks it’ll come to anything.”
“I’m surprised they’re looking into it,” Carys said bluntly. As little as anyone else, did she think that anything except murder had happened. It was unlikely that anyone at the castle thought otherwise, either. “The man is certainly dead. There’s no interest in Eurion at all?”
“They’re of the mind that you’re training an apprentice,” said Enfys. “If you care.”
Carys refused that bait, too. “There are too many strangers around the village these days, and someone tried to kill the child. I’d rather talk gets about that I’ve an apprentice than that a boy washed ashore.”
Enfys gave a small, pleased humpf that made Carys think she had had a hand in creating the rumour herself, and asked, “And speaking of apprentices—”
“It’s too early for me to be speaking of apprentices,” Carys said. “I’ll be in service for some years yet, Enfys!”
“What if you should get married again?”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Both,” said Carys. “When the time has come for me to take an apprentice, the sea will send one.”
“Is that so?” muttered Enfys, her eyes inquisitive. “I’ve always wondered about that. Will you find another boy in the pools?”
Carys fervently hoped not. She had never seen a male apprentice along the shoreline, and the old woman who had trained her in the ways of the sea hadn’t met more than one in her own lifetime. Eurion was difficult enough to accommodate, and Carys had never expected to apprentice anyone but another female.
“I wasn’t found in the pools,” she reminded Enfys. “The sea calls who it wants, in the way it wants.”
“I’ve never been sure you weren’t,” Enfys said darkly. “With those eyes and that hair.”
Enfys had been there when Carys first found the village, which made Carys wonder if the old woman was teasing her, in her own way.
“I was born and raised inland.”
“You were a funny little thing when you arrived,” Enfys said unexpectedly. “So prim and quiet. The only time I saw your eyes light up was when you were by the sea. I doubted Aled could win you away from that, even before there was another pull. I told him not to pursue you.”
“It’s a pity he didn’t listen to you.”
“He’s not the only pig-headed one!” retorted Enfys, all at once vinegar and fire. “Didn’t I tell you the first time you fell into the sea that you shouldn’t meddle with it?”
A little bewildered to know what had caused the sudden change, Carys only said, “There’s your shop assistant waving at you.”
“Annoyance after annoyance!” snapped Enfys, and took herself off into the steadily growing bustle of the market toward her shop assistant.
* * *
Perhaps Enfys’ bad mood was a good omen—Carys sold her seaweed more quickly than usual that afternoon, and the bit of sun that was visible was still some way above the horizon when she folded her things and put them back in the handcart to go home. The clouds seemed a little greener than they had that morning, though it wasn’t quite snowing, and Carys wrapped herself more tightly in her shawl, securing the ends in a knot around her waist. Before long, it would be snowing again.
She nodded at the out of town traders who were still set up for the evening and picked her way through the crowd, trying to avoid treading on the heels of the most dilatory of them. It wasn’t until she was nearly free of the press that she noticed she was being watched from across the market street.
Carys lifted her eyes from the backs of the people in front of her and sought out the source of the attention. It was Ma Yong Hwa. He bowed at her, smiling, but didn’t approach, so Carys didn’t slow her cart. It wasn’t until she had passed him, her cart rolling along behind her, that she realised there had been a woman clinging to him as well. Carys looked back, frowning, and there she was: pale and difficult to see, with darkness smudged beneath her eyes and a look of exhaustion to her face.
Was that the wife Enfys had spoken of? It was oddly hard to make out her features—she was a non-descript sort of blob as soon as Carys wasn’t concentrating on her—but when Carys looked at her straight on, she was certain those features didn’t match Eurion’s. Even if one parent had been Eppan and the other Scandian, they couldn’t have been so dissimilar, surely?
Carys’ footsteps were slower than usual as she drew away from the village, and when she felt the frozen, unchecked draught of the sea breeze on her face she shook herself and stepped out more quickly. It was too cold an evening to be dawdling on the way home, whether or not there was food for thought.
She wouldn’t take Eurion to visit Ma Yong Hwa and his wife. She needed his memories before he was taken away from her—and Eurion himself no less needed those memories. Someone had tried their best to kill him, and if he was inclined to wander out into the world again, he should at least go out fully prepared.
On the other hand, if she took him to see the Mas, perhaps it would turn out that he was the lady’s brother, after all. And perhaps it was only the shock of seeing his sister again that would be needed to jog awake Eurion’s memories.
It wouldn’t be so dangerous if Carys was there with him, would it?
And then, what if Eurion was the lady’s brother but the sight of her didn’t recall his memories? Was it worth the risk of losing everything if that was the case?
Carys sighed; and then, finding her footsteps slowing again, set her shoulders and stepped out again with a more determined tread. There was a stinging sensation to the wind that made her think it would be sleeting before too much longer, and she would rather be in the cottage before it got much worse.
Eurion was waiting for her on the doorstep when she pulled the cart toward the cottage, dancing from foot to foot with the door half open and the quilt wrapped around his shoulders, but when he saw her, he dropped the blanket in a puddle of light and warmth and darted out to meet her.
Chilled to the bone, Carys didn’t protest when he took the cart, though it was light enough now that it was empty. She stooped for the quilt as she passed through the doorway, and heard the kettle bubbling away over the fire.
“I made tea!” said Eurion proudly. “Well, I put the leaves in and the kettle is boiling, so you can sit down, Lady.”
“The cawl—”
“I’ve been stirring it,” he said, demonstrating briefly before he lifted the tea kettle from the fire. “It didn’t stick. You should sit in front of the fire.”
This time, Carys did as he suggested. Much pleased, Eurion darted back into the kitchen, with the kettle, and after some rattling that made her wince, brought back a steaming cup of tea and two bowls.
“I have more questions, Lady,” he said, filling a bowl to pass to her. “Some of them might be ones you don’t want to answer, but if I don’t ask them I might burst. If you don’t want to answer them you can just keep drinking your tea and I’ll make up answers myself.”
He watched her as he spoke, eyes bright and expectant, and when Carys involuntarily laughed, he chuckled in delight.
“Will that satiate your curiosity?” asked Carys dryly, to make up for the laugh. “Answering your own questions?”
“It can satisfy my curiosity if I answer them well,” Eurion told her solemnly. “Those blue things, Lady; did your husband give you those?”
Carys sipped her tea, regarding the fire. There was no harm in that answer, at least. She said, “Yes.”
“Then why do you keep them?”
“Because he gave them to me.”
Eurion frowned into the fire. “Miss Allen said your husband left you.”
“Miss Allen says a lot of nonsense,” Carys said. There was a feeling of coldness to her, but if she cupped her hands around her tea it staved off the cold for a little; and Eurion, his face shaded with gold by the fire, was a warm, living presence that took away the chill beside her.
“Then is it not true?”
That question was less safe. Carys sipped her tea again, and didn’t answer.
“True but not true,” mused Eurion, startling her a little. “That’s a useful thing to know.”
Carys would have told him tartly that he knew nothing, if she hadn’t been reasonably certain that, like Enfys, he was baiting her. That startled her, too.
She preferred Eurion not to know that she was startled, so she settled herself more comfortably in front of the fire, still cupping her tea between her fingers.
“The place where I can’t sit,” said Eurion. He stirred the fire as he said it, adding another log with care. “I’m going to ask about that next.”
“I see,” said Carys. Was he warning her?
“Did your husband sit there?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. It was another safe question. If he continued to ask questions in such a vein—why do you keep that place, then? Or shouldn’t you take it away?—this questioning would be less worrisome than she’d initially thought.
Instead, unaccountably, Eurion asked, “Why did he sit there, Lady?”
His eyes were resting on her face as he asked it, and for a moment, in the surprise of the question, Carys almost opened her mouth to give a truthful answer to those bright, earnest eyes. She managed to turn her gaze on the fire again instead, and said a little huskily, “Why shouldn’t he sit there?”
“If I was married to you,” said Eurion slowly, “I don’t think I’d want you to sit where you could look at the sea instead of me. I’d be afraid you wouldn’t see me.”
“My husband didn’t think so.”
“Why don’t you sit there instead? Then your guests can sit across from you.”
“I don’t like guests,” she said.
“You’re not comfortable when you can’t look at the sea, are you, Lady?”
“The sea is always moving,” she told him. “If you lose sight of it for too long, you could find it on your doorstep when next you turn around.”
“That ring that was buried in my head,” he said. “Was that his?”
A dangerous question, but perhaps even more dangerous to leave unanswered. Carys said tersely, “No.”
“Was it yours, then, Lady?”
“No.”
Eurion’s lips pouted just slightly. “I don’t understand that,” he said, but he was talking to himself so Carys gazed back into the fire again.
After a long pause of softly playing firelight, he said, “But Lady, if the ring isn’t yours or his, what do you want my memories for?”
Carys didn’t look away from the fire, and she didn’t answer. There was nothing about the question that was safe.
Eurion huffed a soft sigh and said to himself, “Maybe it’s something you can’t talk about. Or maybe it’s something completely different.”
“I told you earlier,” she said.
“Yes,” said Eurion, “only I don’t think that’s all the truth. I’ll decide later.”
Carys gave a small sniff of laughter. “Will you?”
“I like to work things out,” he said. “I leave them in my cheek and then I chew on them every now and then. You’ll see, Lady. I’ll find out.”
“You’d do better to be finding your own memories,” Carys said, with a touch of impatience. “Look after your own mind first before you concern yourself with others!”
“But you’re more interesting, Lady,” said Eurion, leaning forward against his knees to beam at her.
“Whatever else you are, you’re certainly used to asking questions.”
“Don’t I do it well, Lady!”
“Looking for compliments again?”
“But you didn’t compliment me the first time, Lady!” Eurion pointed out disarmingly. “Never mind, I have more questions, anyway.”
Carys put her teacup down on the warmth of the outer hearth. She had run out of tea, and even if she had been comfortable gazing into the fire and refusing to answer any further questions, she felt that Eurion’s questions had the tendency to become more and more dangerous the longer they went on.
