The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (20 page)

‘They did not lie to you. We all
heard
it, even if we didn’t see with our own eyes. And many things
happened afterwards to confirm the truth of that dark promise.’ Medoc leaned
down and again clasped Wyva’s shoulder. ‘Surakin, I know how badly you want
everything to be right, to live here as a family should, leader of your hara,
guardian of the land. But don’t goad fate.’

‘Your mistakes caused it all,’
Wyva said abruptly. ‘Peredur’s, Kinnard’s, yours. You turned on your human
family, who still loved you, for no other reason than a mindless lust for destruction,
the true curse of the incepted.’

Medoc sighed. ‘There is not one
creature who ever lived – human or har alike – who wouldn’t have rewritten part
of their history if they could. The early days were barbarous, Wyva. You’ll
never appreciate how much. The change was cathartic, terrible. Disgusting
things were done – on
both
sides, as you know only too well. But to my
mind, such things must be forgotten, left behind, and if that means leaving
Meadow Mynd too, this should happen. There will always be a place for you in
our home and for however many of your hara would follow you. Other than that, I
can do nothing.’

‘So this is it, then? You leave
our domain and we continue as before, as if we were strangers?’

‘No,’ Medoc said softly. ‘The
estrangement was wrong, but please don’t ask me to be part of what you’re doing
here. As I said, you’re always welcome in our home, at any time. If you really
can’t bear to leave Gwyllion, at least consider finding a new house nearby.
There are surely others that could be restored. That might be enough to protect
you all.’

‘I won’t leave here, Medoc,’
Wyva said. ‘This house loves us and we love it too. It’s the heart of our
community and protects us every day of our lives.’

Medoc straightened up and looked
around him. ‘That might be so. How can I argue against such strong, personal
conviction? I’m not you. But by the dehara, you can
feel
the resentment
here. Watchful, cruel, vengeful, prowling beyond the boundary of your wards.
The love among you keeps it at bay, but don’t make the mistake of believing it
weakened.’

Wyva said nothing, as if drained
of words.

‘Come,’ Medoc said, ‘let’s
return to the party. I hope you’ll think about what I’ve said, but neither will
we speak of it again.’

Wyva stood up, and he and Medoc
embraced. Then they walked away.

I waited for some minutes before rejoining the
party myself, thinking about what I’d heard. It sounded as if the Wyvachi
believed the
Whitemanes
had cursed them. The history between the two
families clearly went all the way back to the beginning. There had been at
least three of the former Wyvern family who’d been incepted – or so I
concluded. One had been Wyva’s hostling Kinnard, another was Medoc, but who was
Peredur, now dead? How had he died?
Mossamber thought he was liberating a
corpse...
Had that been Peredur or somehar else? And what had happened when
Wyva had hatched from his pearl? What had he seen, or been told he’d seen? How
did
it all fit together?

I felt strangely calm as I walked back across the
lawns. Meadow Mynd stood strong against the night and I could feel its aura of
protection as Wyva had described it. The hara dancing around the fire and who
were clustered, talking loudly, around the tables clearly did not sense
anything dangerous nearby, no prowling malice. Could Medoc be wrong, too
influenced by his own past?

I noticed a pale figure standing
a little apart from the others and saw it was Rinawne, his festival costume glowing
in the light of the fire. It was not like him to be away from the heart of a
gathering. I went to him and put a hand on his back. He jumped, startled, and
then laughed when he saw it was me. ‘Ysobi, don’t creep up on me in the dark!’

‘You seem thoughtful,’ I said.
‘Why are you here alone?’

He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I think
Wyva and Medoc might have had words. They went off together and now Wyva is
upset. He snapped at me when I asked what was wrong.’

‘They did argue,’ I said,
deciding on the spur of the moment to be honest, even though it was Rinawne I
was confiding in, hardly renowned for his discretion.

‘You were there?’

‘I just overheard them when I
was strolling past. I’d gone for a walk in the woods.’

‘What did you hear?’

I took a breath. ‘Rin, who’s
Peredur?’

Rinawne didn’t hesitate before
answering. He spoke the simple truth as he knew it. ‘He was Wyva’s hura, like
Medoc, but he died. This was long before Wyva’s parents did, or so I heard. I
think he was killed during the initial struggle between Wraeththu and humans in
this area.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me of him
before?’

Rinawne frowned a little. ‘There
was nothing to tell. He’s just a name, a dead name. Why?’

‘I heard Wyva and Medoc
discussing him. He’s somehow involved in this whole Wyvachi curse issue.’

‘Leave it, Ys,’ Rinawne said
sharply.

‘What?’

‘It’s just their stupid
obsessions about the family history.  Peredur’s dead.’

‘But perhaps not at rest.’

‘Oh, come
on
!’ Rinawne
said scornfully.

‘So says the har who once saw a
banshee,’ I said lightly. ‘Maybe they want to be haunted, Rin, and maybe it’s
that. Medoc fears for Myv.’

‘Well, he obviously fears a lot
of things, which was why he fled all those years ago. Now he’s feeding Wyva’s
fears. They should never have come here, and Wyva should not have visited them
last night.’

‘You’ve changed your tune since
earlier, then.’

‘And now you can say, all
smugly, “I told you so”. Gloat away!’

‘Rin...’ I put an arm around his
shoulders. ‘You’re unsettled yourself, aren’t you? Don’t shout at me. We’re
allies, remember?’

Rinawne sighed deeply, leaned
against me. ‘I don’t want any of it. I want us all to be normal, lead normal
lives, for Myv to grow up, be the hienama he wants to be. What’s wrong in
that?’

‘Nothing. But maybe some things
need to be sorted out first. I’ll help you. I promise.’

‘I can’t think what you could
possibly do. Their wills are like iron!’

I kissed the top of his head.
‘Don’t speak to Wyva about what I’ve told you. Trust me on that. I need to find
out what happened in the past to deal with it now, and we can’t risk him
becoming more defensive.’

‘All right.’

‘I take it Cawr and Gen are a
lot younger than Wyva so won’t know much, only what Wyva’s told them?’

‘I’d say so. You know...’ He
looked into my eyes. ‘I think the Whitemanes might be the only hara who can
tell you what happened. Perhaps you could simply go and ask them. Knock on the
door and interrogate whoever answers it.’

I laughed uncertainly to cover a
kind of embarrassment. ‘Why do you think they know?’ I agreed with him, of
course, but wanted to hear his thoughts on the matter.

‘Because I’m sure they were
mixed up in whatever happened. There’s no reason for the hostility between the
families, otherwise. And they’ve been here since the start, like Wyva’s hara
have.’

‘You think I’ll be safe just
going to their house and knocking on the door?’

Rinawne grinned. ‘Anyhar else,
I’d say no, but you’re different. Things just...
waft
over you somehow,
and you’re so down to earth, and tolerate no nonsense.’

He didn’t know me very well nor,
sadly, did he know the Whitemanes. ‘I’ll sleep on it,’ I said. ‘See what ideas
come to me.’

‘Can I come over tonight?’

I was torn. I could see he
needed company. ‘Not tonight. I need to be alone, not distracted. Tomorrow,
certainly. We can talk about things.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll head off now, it’s getting
late. I won’t be thought badly of if I don’t do the rounds of saying goodnight
to everyhar, will I?’

Rinawne put an arm about me,
kissed my cheek. ‘No, don’t worry. Just go. Everyhar knows you’re not a
partying kind of har. Wyva won’t think anything of it.’

I was glad I’d ridden over to the Mynd on Hercules,
since the idea of walking home alone through the forest unnerved me. Whitemanes
might still be lurking, and now I wondered about what else might be out there.
I rode at a canter back to the tower. At one point – and only for the briefest
of moments – a foolhardy part of me considered going to the Pwll Siôl Lleuad
and trying to communicate with whatever had visited me there. Thankfully, my
more sensible mind decided against this reckless idea. I must take this
operation slowly, carefully. It would be better to visit that site in daylight,
which clearly made no difference to whatever haunted that spot. Perhaps also I
should meditate in the breakfast room at Meadow Mynd, since Rinawne had once
seen something there. The house must retain memories of the past. I needed to
coax them out.

I stabled Hercules and gave him
a rub down, as the canter home had made him sweat. He munched contentedly on
sweet-smelling hay as I did so, occasionally nudging me with his head. I was
heartened to see how at ease he felt. If anything malevolent was around, an
animal would sense it.

The tower was as welcoming as
ever. I went to the kitchen to prepare myself some tea before bed and while the
kettle was boiling went up to the bathroom to relieve myself. The room was in
darkness and I did not turn on the light. When I’d finished, my back prickled
unaccountably and I turned quickly, stumbling against the toilet. There was a
dark shape standing between two of the windows.
Whitemanes!
I thought
angrily, ready to lash out with words and even defend myself physically if
required.

The figure stepped forward.

I stared at it mutely, unsure of
what I was really seeing. This was not a har, I could tell that at once. This
was a woman. She was dressed in shabby trousers and jacket, her dark hair drawn
back behind her head. She was perhaps in her late thirties, and her dark-skinned
face, though beautiful, was puffy with exhaustion.

‘Who are you?’ I demanded.

She frowned, spoke in a soft,
cultured voice. ‘Please... You must tell me... Is it still happening?’

‘What do you mean? Is
what
still happening?’

But then I was merely
interrogating starlight. There was no one in the room with me and the silence
was broken only by the ticking of the clocks.

Chapter Eleven

Three days passed. I took time to prepare myself
for what might be a battle to come. I worked in my nayati, avoided company as
much as possible, and wrote up notes of all that I had learned and the suppositions
I could make from that. Wyva was easily convinced that I needed a few days to
think about the next festival and start work on it. I said I’d begin teaching
Myv in a week’s time. Rinawne, of course was difficult to avoid. I sensed he too
was feeling the strain – a weird undercurrent that the solstice had brought
with it or else awakened.

The woman did not appear to me
again during this time. I was sure she must be connected to the Wyverns, simply
because she’d manifested in their tower, but her skin was dark where theirs
were fair, so perhaps not a blood relative. Also, for a ghost she’d
communicated in a straightforward way. I had felt the will behind her question,
her determination to
be
there to ask it. But she wasn’t powerful enough.
Not yet.

I put another clock into the
bathroom.

During this time, I also replied to Jassenah,
saying in the briefest of terms that I agreed with his assessment of our
relationship and we should call it a day. I said that when my work in Gwyllion
was done, I’d return to Jesith to retrieve any belongings he might not want
cluttering the house, and conclude my affairs in the town. I was surprised at
the anger I felt simmering inside me. I wanted to write
I’ll be glad to see
the back of the lot of you
, because that was how I felt. But I kept it
polite. I wasn’t the har the Jesithians thought they knew. They could carry on
looking down on this fantasy for the rest of their lives. I’d be out of it.

When Rinawne came to visit me on
the evening following the festival, I told him about my encounter in the
bathroom. ‘A ghost?’ Rinawne asked, and his tone was strangely miserable for
him. ‘You must be pleased. It’s all you’ve ever wanted since you came here.’ I
could tell he felt that life was turning in a way he didn’t like. Wild and
exciting tales were one thing; unsettling reality another.

‘She’s not a ghost in the
traditional sense,’ I replied, ‘but she’s a memory, certainly. For some time
I’ve been compelled to put clocks into the bathroom. Remember how I had a
strange feeling when I first came here about that room?’

Rinawne nodded. ‘Yes, I
remember.’

‘Well, I had a feeling about
clocks – time I suppose – and I’m sure this is meant, and will allow me to connect
with the woman. A link through time. She might have been reaching to
communicate for a while, hence my compulsion.’

‘She’ll be a Wyvern, of course,’
Rinawne said. ‘Connected by marriage, perhaps, given her appearance, but who
else could she be?’ He gazed about himself, shivered slightly. ‘This place has
always been theirs.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I think you’re
right. The tower will help me. Perhaps it too has had its fill of dark
secrets.’

Rinawne laughed softly and
touched my face. ‘You’re such a strange one, Ys. Most hara would find this
place spooky and disquieting, but no, you find its spookiness somehow a
comfort. Dŵr Alarch shares its ghosts with you.’

‘Perhaps, but I think it’s also
a case of the tower resenting psychic intrusions.’

‘What do you mean?’

I shrugged. ‘Just that sometimes
I feel and sense things that don’t belong here, and the tower does too.’

‘Does the woman belong here?’

‘Yes, she does. The tower felt
perfectly happy when I came home last night.’

Rinawne sighed deeply. ‘I wish
you wouldn’t look into the past,’ he said. ‘I wish we could just live
now
.
The Wyvachi’s gruesome history doesn’t belong here. Look at the summer
unfolding around us, the beauty of nature. Smell the intoxicating air. Why
should dark things have to exist in that?’

I hugged him. ‘Rin, I don’t have
a choice. I really believe that now. I
can’t
leave it – at the very
least, for Myv’s sake.’

Rinawne wriggled away from me. ‘Now
you make me sound like a bad parent, that I don’t care. But I do! I just don’t
want Myv sucked into this self-indulgent melodrama.’

‘I know how you feel, Rin. I’m
not judging you.’

‘Whatever’s happening I can’t
help feeling the Wyvachi are encouraging and feeding it.’

‘That might be true, but it
still has to be dealt with.’

He let me share breath with him
and felt vulnerable in my arms. I knew Rinawne was strong, so it was strange he
was crumbling now. I thought he’d be more like me, determined to get to the
bottom of it, sweep out the closet full of skeletons and put those bones to
rest.

After our lips parted, he rested
his head on my shoulder, and again expelled a deep sigh. Then he whispered,
‘It’s in the house, Ys.’

His words shocked me, but
outwardly I remained calm, knew I had to. ‘What is?’

‘Something came in with the
season. I can feel it. That room... it’s in the drapes there. You breathe it
into you even stepping into the room.’

‘The breakfast room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rin, I need to visit that room
again, but not yet. I’d also like you to show me the rest of the house, perhaps
before I open myself up to whatever’s lurking around.’

‘OK.’ He sighed. ‘I really don’t
want to, but I’m willing to trust you.’

I hoped he wasn’t misguided and
that I wasn’t about to embark on a venture both needless and dangerous. But my
instincts spoke clearly; I had to follow them. They knew the way.

On the fourth day after the
festival, Loitsday, I decided I must now move out from my thoughts into the
landscape. It was time for me to poke around more intrusively. Nytethorne had
advised me to be quiet, but perhaps noise would flush the enemy from its lair. Let
battle commence. I’d had time to gather my strengths. I felt ready.

I decided that I’d visit the Pwll
Siôl Lleuad in the afternoon as I’d done before. In the morning, I’d go into
Gwyllion, perhaps make some discreet enquiries. The Crowned Stag could
correctly be called a Wyvachi inn, since its keephar Selyf had been appointed
to the Gwyllion Assembly by Wyva and was an obvious supporter of his. The
family tended not to frequent The Rooting Boar. I’d not been back there since
my arrival in Gwyllion, but I remembered the keephar, Yoslyn, had been inclined
to talk.

I arrived at The Boar around
noon. Few hara appeared to visit it during the day, for as before there weren’t
many customers. Clearly, a couple were there simply to discuss business deals,
farming business. There was no sign of the keephar but a young har not long
past feybraiha was polishing the bar, humming to himself. He had a pixie-like
heart-shaped face and glossy yet rather thin black hair drawn into a ponytail.
I enquired whether his employer was available.

‘That would be my hostling,
Yoslyn,’ he said, ‘and no, he’s not here at the moment. Can I help you at all?’

‘Are you serving lunch?’

‘Of course. Today being Loitsday
we don’t have hot food until later, but plenty of cold fare.’

‘That will be fine. When will
your hostling be back?’

‘Not till sundown. He and my
father have gone to Hiyenton to barter. It’s market day there.’

Slightly disappointed, I found a
seat for myself in a fairly dark corner of the main bar room, and thought I
might as well enjoy a good lunch before heading off into the forest.

The young pothar brought me a
plate of cheese, ham, bread and dark pickles – typical country fare – and a
tankard of pungent ale. The other hara in the room, who were within my line of
sight, occasionally glanced up at me, but with no great interest. Some might be
from out of town, of course. I smiled to myself; already I expected to be
recognised. How many little conceits lurk within us?

The food was tasty and fresh,
and quickly consumed. I got out my notebook and, while I finished the ale,
jotted down a few ideas for the next festival. I always found Reaptide one of
the most difficult to dramatise, if that’s the word. Probably the most
appropriate ritual would simply be for everyhar to walk alone in summer hills
and see what thoughts and dreams might come to them. While most hara liked to
celebrate at night, it occurred to me that perhaps a daytime festival would be interesting
for a change. Festivities could carry on into the evening.

As I was pondering these
possibilities, the inn door opened and for a moment somehar was framed in
silhouette at the threshold. A jolt passed through me; it was Nytethorne
Whitemane. Instinctively, I edged back into my corner, hopefully out of sight. Nytethorne
went directly to the bar, where the pothar greeted him in an informal manner and
handed him a key, which the young har had taken down from a board among the
hanging tankards. I heard him say, ‘The usual lunch, tiahaar?’

Nytethorne nodded, did not
speak. He walked right past me, yet some distance away, and walked with odd
slowness up a flight of uncarpeted stairs behind where I sat. I could hear his
tread, which sounded tired. What was he doing here? Had he come for a secret
liaison with somehar? Was a meeting of Whitemanes and their allies planned in this
place?

I sat for some further minutes,
feeling quite disorientated. The pothar walked past me, whistling rather
tunelessly, a tray in his hands, a cloth over one arm. He went up the stairs,
and I heard him knock upon a door on the landing above, clearly right at the
top of the stairs, since it took him no time at all. The door opened, some
brief words were exchanged and the pothar scampered back downstairs, not even
giving me a glance as he passed. Nytethorne Whitemane was in a room above me,
so close. Had he come here only to enjoy a private lunch? This seemed unlikely.

I went to the bar and ordered a
half tankard of ale. I was almost bursting with the desire to question the pothar
but resisted this impulse. I returned to my corner table and drank half of the
ale quite swiftly. Thoughts thundered through my mind, so hectically I could
barely take heed of them. Then I got to my feet, drink in hand, and climbed the
stairs, knocked on the first door I came upon. The friendly tankard would make
my appearance less threatening, I felt.

Nytethorne opened the door and
stared at me in disbelief, said, ‘What?’

I bowed slightly. ‘Might I speak
with you, tiahaar?’ These words: as if I’d come to his home and knocked upon
his door, on an ordinary visit.

Nytethorne glanced past me
towards the stairs. ‘You
follow
me here?’

‘No, I was eating my lunch downstairs
and saw you pass.’ I didn’t intend to apologise for the intrusion, although it
was my instinct to do so. Let him think what he liked.

He looked directly at me again,
eyes wide. ‘There’s nothing to say.’

I smiled. ‘Of course. How silly
of me. You’re here waiting for somehar.’ Still, I didn’t turn away.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘But makes
no difference.’

I took a step closer. ‘You
sprang upon me in the Wyvachi gardens the other night. So now I spring upon
you. Talk to me.’

He regarded me so steadily for
some moments, I could almost see his mind working, wondering whether to admit
me or slam the door in my face. ‘What do you want?’

‘The quite usual things in the
face of mystery: answers.’

‘What will you do with answers?’

‘How can I tell until I know
what they are? May I come in?’

He really didn’t want me to
enter that room and yet I could tell he was torn. Something made him say,
‘Suppose so, but little I can tell you.’

Without further invitation, I
walked into the room and sat down in an upholstered chair beside an empty
hearth, cradling the tankard in my cupped hands. Nytethorne slunk past me and
took a seat at the table beneath the window, where his lunch was still on its
tray.

‘So,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to
waste your time. Let me tell you something. Rinawne har Wyvachi advised me to
go your house and knock upon the door, ask whoever answered it to tell me what
happened between the Wyvachi and the Whitemanes in the past. He’s a very direct
har, is Rinawne, although he knows even less about local history than I do.
Chance put you behind a door when I was close to it. We are both alone. What
happened?’

‘Is it your business, truly?’ Nytethorne
asked. He began to place the paraphernalia of his lunch upon the table, slowly
and deliberately

‘I have made it so, because of
the harling, because of Myv.’

He grimaced. ‘Don’t think so.
You’ve been curious from the start.’

‘As have your hara about me,’ I
said sharply.

Nytethorne paid particular
attention to a salt cellar he held in his hand. ‘Curious? No. Mossamber will
play games with Wyvachi toys, that’s all it is.’

‘Perhaps he fears me?’

Nytethorne laughed, in what
appeared to be genuine delighted shock and now looked at me. ‘Such proud
foolishness will do you ill,’ he said.

I shrugged. ‘Not at all. Perhaps
he knows an outsider could pry and find out all the secrets and point out to
everyhar involved what idiocy this feud is. Perhaps he doesn’t want you to
realise you’re being an idiot.’

‘You have a mouth on you,
Wyvachi-called.’

‘My name’s Ysobi. My friends
call me Ys. We’re not yet friends, so stick with the longer version.’

‘I know your name. As a har
earns to call me by name, so he must earn for me to call him by his.’

‘How delightfully medieval you
are! It’s as if your hara have read the most dramatic novels from human history
and modelled themselves on the most pungent villains.’

‘You know more of that than me,’
he retorted. ‘I’m pureborn.’

I put my head to one side. ‘Not
that...
recently
, however.’ I made a dismissive gesture. ‘But anyway,
fascinating though this sparring is, I would really like to know why there is
so much evil blood between the Whitemanes and the Wyvachi.’