Swan Witch

by Betina Lindsey

  Eithne’s eyes widened and she swallowed back her disquiet. Unleashed passion was not her wont. This night she needed her hand held, her nose kissed, and her ears filled with gentle poems. She drew her hand away. This man was not safe. The others she could handle, but him…He disarmed her with his forthright demands…his desires.

  She thought to confess that it would be he who cried aloud. For when his blade did first enter her sheath he’d feel passion’s fire, truly. For it was the way with a swan maiden that the first man to cross the threshold of her virginity paid a price of pain.

  She gathered herself and her lips firmed. You ask too much and more. I cannot grant this wish…is there no other?

  He dropped his hand to his knee and shrugged with a half-disappointed laugh. “Arrah. A lad must dream, milady.”

  Leave off dreaming and forget the wishing.

  “Is it not the same?”

  No, I do not think so. With dreams you can do your own spinning, while wishes…wishes are granted by another…or by providence.

  “Hummm…Mayhap I am too slothful this night to do my own dream spinning. So what is left?”

  Magic.

  “And who will pay the price of the magic? Magic does not come free.”

  I will. Her mind was resigned. Had she not paid the price of magic all her life? The “wicked gurrul” could pay one time more.

  “Are you sure?” His voice was wary.

  I am sure as heather on the heath—

  “…And mud in the bog,” he finished, his own features lightening.

  What first?

  He pursed his lips. “Humph. I think I would have a silk pillow to cushion this cold seat…and a fire in your hearth…and”—he touched her hair just above her ear—“a white rose in your hair.”

  The words had barely passed his lips when all appeared. A silken pillow, a flaming fire, and…Eithne reached to discover a fragrant rose against her cheek. Her delight was only surpassed by her surprise. He could be safe after all…the night would not be lost.

  But now it will be you who pays the price of magic, she protested.

  “Aye, but what have I to lose?” he said, amused. “We will share the magic and the cost. Agreed?”

  Eithne studied his face and saw mischief there. She would not resist…she could not.

  Agreed.

  “Then it is your turn, milady. What wondrous pleasures can you conjure?” he challenged.

  She rubbed her hands together with anticipation. You must close your eyes.

  “I fear you will make me vanish,” said Bron, remembering Coup’s warning that he should not close his eyes in her presence.

  Nay, I will not. At least not yet.

  “Then you will vanish.”

  Eithne’s inward mirth nearly erupted in a giggle. For certain I will vanish, but only until you open your eyes again.

  Risking, he closed his eyes and grinned, a bit sheepishly. “Arrah. Do your deed and be hasty…the night will soon pass.”

  Like a breaking wave, the deep fragrance of flowers crested and saturated Bron’s senses. He could not only smell the air of high summer, but he heard the lilting trickle of water.

  Not yet. He received Eithne’s clear caution as she sensed his impatience. Suddenly something alighted on his head and he heard the lulling coo of a dove…then a nightingale trilled sweetly in answer. Had he been conveyed out-of-doors? Daringly, he slit one eye.

  You may not peek! scolded Eithne.

  Too late! He opened wide his eyes. His jaw fell askance.

  The rare, the exotic filled the expanse of his vision. Above on lattice bowers drooped purple wisteria, while rose and woodbine entwined over the door and hearth. In room center, fern and tall-topped plumes thick with flowers encircled a flowing fountain. Candlelit lanterns hung about, casting an ephemeral glow. In all his travels, he’d not seen the like of it.

  He shooed the dove off his shoulder and came to his feet with the intent of walking over to the fountain. There, water sprayed from the beak of a sculptured swan like flying diamonds. She was quite the magician herself.

  No. No. Eithne pointed to his boots.

  He saw the floor was strewn with rose petals, lavender buds, and sweet violets.

  “You want me to take off my boots?”

  Aye, indeed…you must experience the whole of it. And more is to come.

  “What more? ’Tis already beyond my humble imaginings.”

  We will commune…

  “And…?” Bron prompted hopefully.

  And you can speak sweet poetry.

  “But I am no poet.”

  You are a harper…of some renown.

  “How do you know this?”

  Gibbers. For the right bribe he tells me all.

  “And what is the right bribe that I might avail myself of his secrets?”

  I’ll not tell. You must discover his weakness for yourself.

  “Hummm…And what is your weakness?”

  ’Tis surely not nosy harpers.

  He laughed, deeply. “Then, milady, if you wish my boots off then I ask you to help me remove them.”

  Remove your own boots with your own magic. I do draw the line. I’m no peasant maid here to do menial bidding. Would you ask a castle builder to cook a Lammas Day cake?

  “Arrah. You make your point. But I am a simple man and need no magic to remove my boots…only the courteous use of a fair lady’s backside as leverage.”

  Beway! There is nothing simple about you. You insult me. You’d have me on my knees lapping rose petals. ’Tis much ado over taking off a pair of boots. Her lips twisted begrudgingly.

  Facing him she bent down, took firm hold of his boot, and pulled mightily. Off it slipped. The other came off just as slickly. ’Tis done! milord. Next time do it yourself, now you’ve seen how.

  Her head turned about. She sniffed the air and fanned it with her hand. When last did you remove your boots? ’Tis a fine effort I’ve made to scent this room. Now all seems lost. I will say it spoils the magic…and the sweet air of communion. I had such plans…

  “I’ll bet you did,” Bron said a bit mockingly. “Forgive me, milady. I fear the real tarnishes the unreal. ’Tis the lesson of life. Mayhap I should return to the stable and you find yourself a suitor without flaw.”

  No!

  He felt, not heard the initial vehemence of her answer.

  She clutched his arm. No. ’Tis not my wish to find the perfect knight in polished armor. My father’s court abounds with such as those. I seek for what is beneath the illusion.

  Bron studied her intently, deciding whether she was real or not. Could an illusion be so honest? She fascinated him and he enjoyed the mystery of wondering.

  He covered her hand with his own. “Then dismiss your night’s magic and lie in my arms without your false facades and fragrances. I will speak to you poetry, but poetry of my desire. We will commune…the communion of lust.”

  The mark of her dismay was in her eyes and they had the glaze of being lost.

  I cannot.

  And with those two words he knew she could not. He would no longer press it. He rose to his feet, keeping her hand within his.

  “Mayhap I can make amends by washing my feet in the fountain.”

  She smiled then and her eyes shone with vast relief. Aye, he thought, full-flesh intimacy would expose her as illusion…but then again maybe not. This was the challenge to unfold.

  There was something of the waif in her as well as the firebrand. He was beginning to understand that when she laughed she might be sobbing inwardly and when she cried, she was inwardly joyous. Nevertheless, he would flow with the night’s magic. Alas, for carnal desire. Tonight he would be monk, not lover.

  He seated himself on the fountain edge and rolled up his leggings to the knee. When he dipped his feet into the water a warm tingling rushed through him, refreshing and relaxing him.

  Lifting her skirts to display her shapely thighs, Eithne sat down beside him and lowered her own leg
s into the water. He must get used to her duality, the one aspect that announced wantonness and the other that denied it. Mayhap it was the fault of Sheelin’s sorcery…with the intent to better torment her suitors.

  Do you have a philosophy of love, milord?

  Her question was unexpected, one he could not directly answer. He watched an iridescent winged dragonfly sail past within inches of his nose. Somewhere in a dusty corner of his mind he remembered his father telling him that love was as illusory as a dragonfly’s wings and that it was never completely as it seemed. He snatched at a red blossom floating in the pool and twirled it in his fingers.

  Sheelin says love is an opiate. Gibbers says love is a fool’s folly.

  “Do you believe them?”

  I don’t know what to believe.

  Bron leaned over and tucked the flower behind Eithne’s ear and said, “Believe everything and nothing. Be aware that Gibbers has never loved and Sheelin…Aye, love does not serve dark sorcery…though it is the ultimate sorcery itself. You should have asked someone who knew something about love.”

  That is why I am asking you. She gave him the full force of her soft luminous eyes. The rainbow of colors spiraled like rare opals.

  “What makes you think I know any more than Sheelin and Gibbers?”

  Because you have loved.

  “How do you know this?”

  You have a soul. Those with souls, love.

  Bron smiled reluctantly. “Not always. I have a missing hand to prove it. Arrah, love…true love is a rare find.”

  And what is “true” love?

  Bron caught another flower from the pool. “I’m not so sure. I’m still looking. But I can tell you there are many kinds of love.”

  She gave him her full attention. What kinds?

  “One kind catches you unaware like the flash of gold in sunlight. Another starts out comfortably and wears through the years like a good pair of boots. Some kind of love is fanciful, illusory, like this…” He waved his hand in the air to include the whole of their surroundings. “’Tis poetry, song, communion, and sentimentality. It is like the enchanted kiss you honored me with the night of my arrival. It can carry you to heaven and beyond. This is the safest kind of love.”

  And what is the most dangerous?

  “Arrah, now that is true love.”

  But why?

  “Because, milady Eithne, true love hurts. True love is risk taking. It can be spit and venom. You can be cast off, betrayed, and exposed. It can rend your heart in two.”

  Why would anyone seek such a thing?

  “You don’t seek it…it finds you.”

  She grimaced. Beway, I hope it doesn’t find me. I’m content with fanciful love. She pulled her feet from the pool and turned about. Wiping her own legs with a silken scarf, she continued, Does nothing good come of true love?

  “All and everything.”

  The gaze she turned on Bron was one of bafflement.

  He shrugged. “’Tis one of life’s great riddles.”

  She rested her hands in her lap. Now I am very curious. You must tell me of the women you have loved, Bron mac Llyr.

  Bron managed to appear perfectly composed, even amused, but he was not sure that telling one woman about other women in his life was wise.

  At his hesitation she prompted, You have loved, haven’t you? Not true love, but the other sort you spoke of.

  He had lifted his own feet from the fountain. She leaned nearer and began wiping off the beading water that trickled in rivulets down his muscular calves. He was warmed by her attention. She did not stop with drying, but placed one of his feet upon the cradle of her lap. Pouring oil from a delicate glass beaker into the palm of her hand she began slowly and tenderly to massage his foot.

  He was content to close his eyes and revel in the experience of her touch until she prompted once more, You must answer or I shall stop my ministerings.

  “Nay, do not! I shall speak until dawn if need be. But let us move to a more comfortable place.” He had not finished speaking before a silk pillowed pallet appeared beneath the greenery bower. Even more quickly he was on his feet and sweeping her into his arms.

  Her surprise was upon her face. She caught the glass beaker in her hand just as he stepped across the crush of petals on the floor. Carefully, he set her down and arranged himself against the pillows. Cross-legged she sat opposite him, adjusted herself, and took his foot in hand.

  Now speak.

  The corner of his eyes played with a smile. “I’ve had so many loves, where shall I begin?”

  She was not smiling. In truth her lips seemed fairly crimped. At the beginning. The first. If you can remember that far back.

  For Bron the act of love had always been a feast of the senses. He had put little heart into it. There had never been the need or demand for it. He’d never waylaid long enough with one woman in one place. So of the fair faces that circled through his mind only that of Sarenn remained vivid.

  “I will confess that ’tis a rare man who forgets his first love. Mine was not only unforgettable but unforgivable. I was but fifteen summers old when I was out fishing off the rookery of Glynmere Isle. ’Tis somewhat of an enchanted place. I had been warned, but was young and bold and seeking adventure. A mermaid came up out of the sea as playful as a dolphin. Her hair was spun gold and her eyes…”

  He paused and looked at Eithne appreciatively.

  “But for your own eyes, Lady Eithne, I have not seen the like. Her song was sweet and cajoling…her bare, full breasts bobbed in the sea like ripe fruit prime for plucking. But ’twas I that was plucked. She lured me into the sea. I followed her down into her watery kingdom.”

  And why did you not drown? Eithne asked with curiosity.

  “I was enchanted. You yourself know such arts.”

  I suppose I do. But not that particular one, she added, as though it were worthy of her study.

  “She was a sea nymph. She taught me of love and the ways of the sea kingdoms. Time lost meaning…” His voice faded as he fell into momentary reverie.

  And?

  His gaze focused on Eithne. “And then my father came and rescued me. I was so smitten by her charms I raised my own sword against him. The instant my sword struck his, the enchantment was broken. ’Twas his own skill in sorcery that saved us both from drowning.”

  Completing her task, Eithne released his foot and moved beside him. What became of the sea nymph?

  Bron did not miss the opportunity to loop his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against him and he toyed with the copper strands idly.

  “She remained in her sea kingdom. I did see her again but was never so foolish as to leap into the sea after her. If I were to choose one woman I have loved, it would be her.”

  Then why did you not handfast with her?

  “I could not. She is not of my kith. My children would have scales and fins.”

  Unexpectedly, Eithne shifted, drawing her toes beneath her gown. Bron did not miss the significance of it. He had spoken thoughtlessly.

  He continued to hold her as if holding her would erase the blunder. Yet something else was happening between them. He discovered it was easy to sit in silence with her. To open his mind and accept the communion of her thoughts. In the ensuing quiet, he felt a relationship building based on mutual necessity, physical proximity, and irresistible attraction.

  I would love to live by the sea. ’Tis a wish of mine.

  “Arrah. You’ve missed life itself, but only if you’ve an affinity with water. Mayhap you are a land-lover bred.”

  I am that, but the sea has always called me. When I fl—go to the marshes and look beyond to the sea I feel such longing. Do you live in a rath?

  “Nay, there is no need for fortress walls. I live on an island. The sea is our moat.”

  Is it beautiful?

  “If stone is beautiful. Aye ’tis beautiful.”

  ’Tis an islet of stone?

  “Naught but stone…and sea.” He nest
led his nose in the concave behind her earlobe and inhaled lightly. “We all carry the ocean within us. You smell and taste of ocean. Tears taste of the sea and the blood that flows in your veins mirrors the tides. Did you know that?”

  She turned her face to him and his lips slipped across her cheek…the brush of his lips over her mouth startled open her half-closed eyelids. He made another tentative pass, feather light. The taste of her lips held a cinnamonlike tingle. His own eyes open, he gazed into hers. They swirled like eddying pools of bewitchment.

  The lantern light shone like hidden stars in the mass of her curls, and he pushed the locks aside to expose the ivory softness of her graceful neck. His fingers whispered over her shoulder, caressing the smooth round. His own heart pace quickened and his throat tightened. A mortal woman could not match her beauty. He feared he was falling in love with an illusion.

  He would tease her until she responded. Kissing was a form of communion and if her pursuit be communion the night long he would commune. His lips trailed down the warm arch of her throat to halt at the icy emerald choker. He dared go no lower.

  He halted and looked straight into her opalescent eyes to assess the waters. She gave him a round-eyed gaze that held every promise he could dream. She leaned to him and him to her. Together their lips met in a pleasure bonding of sweet reunion…and again the burst of cinnamon filled his senses.

  He buried his face against the fragrant skin of her neck, feeling the drowsy course of her pulse.

  Then he felt a wild dizziness.

  He was standing beside her in a copse, a little clearing in a wood. More magic, he thought. She was dressed in green velvet, her copper hair cascaded down her back to brush the ground. In her hands she held a large earthen chalice that was covered with moss and delicate flowers.

  “I have something for you,” she spoke aloud, her voice sweetly crystalline.

  He seemed unable to find his own voice to speak. She lifted up the chalice. He took the coolness of it in hand and drank. He knew he was drinking love…pure love.

  Light and color swirled around him. For a moment his awareness spiraled outward until it interlaced with the essence of Eithne. She stretched out her hands. He returned the chalice to her and she drank as well.