Emyr's Smile

by Amy Rae Durreson

  Knowing what he now knew, he felt guilty, and it came out of his fingers, as most things did, and appeared on the paper as a caricature of himself looking grotesquely apologetic. It wasn’t much, but he scribbled, Sorry! Didn’t mean to rub salt in your wounds across the bottom and summoned the energy to go out.

  He was certain that Emyr didn’t want to see him, so he just slipped it under the front door and walked back down the lane. There were blackberries growing in the hedges, and after a while he started picking them as he passed, staining his fingers purple. That improved his mood a little, until he glanced back at Emyr’s house and saw again how all the seaward shutters were closed.

  He imagined walking into his parents’ kitchen and suddenly finding himself the only one there, everyone else lost to time and the sky, and shuddered.

  It was a gray day, with the light only breaking intermittently through the clouds, and his mind was still tangled in both Emyr and the painting of the meadow. He sat himself on the edge of the market wharf and spent the day sketching, trying to capture the lines of the ships at the quay and the ones coming in from the sky, their tiers of sails turning and sloping into the wind. He drew people in too, just odd curves and lines to suggest movement, trying to find a scene he could capture in full and finding nothing quite to his liking.

  A little before noon, Emyr arrived, emerging from the office beside the shop with a canvas wrapped painting under his arm. He stopped, and Heilyn could see him taking a deliberate breath from the other side of the market wharf. Then he strode towards Heilyn, his face grim with determination.

  “I got your note and brought your painting back,” he said abruptly.

  “Keep it,” Heilyn said, surprising himself. It felt right, though, so he didn’t change his mind.

  Emyr blinked at him. “But it’s your work. Your trade.”

  “Consider it thanks for the use of your field.”

  “But…” Emyr started and then trailed off, frowning down at him. There was no hint of a smile on his face today, but he was looking mildly less purposeful than he had a few moments ago. “Someone told you about everything and about Aneirin. That’s why you left the note.”

  “I didn’t ask,” Heilyn said, because that seemed important. “Some of the old men were gossiping in the pub. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Emyr’s expression went bleak again, and he looked like only dignity stopped him from bolting. Heilyn had never seen anyone who needed to be held so badly. “If I hug you,” he asked, “will you try to run away?”

  The corner of Emyr’s mouth twitched ruefully. “It’s quite possible. I don’t mean to. It’s just… I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”

  “Want lessons?” Heilyn asked, and waggled his eyebrows.

  Emyr’s mouth did an odd twist, and then he said, that ripple of amusement back in his voice, “You’re too kind.”

  “I just can’t help myself,” Heilyn said, grinning up at him. “It’s all about other people’s pleasure for me. It’s hard. My life, I mean, though other things could be.”

  Emyr blushed and took a nervous step back. “I have to get back to the office. There’s three trade ships in and I have packing manifests and things to sign and…Thank you for the painting.”

  “My pleasure,” Heilyn said and picked up his pen again. His mood was lifting, and he thought he could see the beginnings of something worth painting in these sketches.

  “Heilyn, are you planning on staying on Sirig long?” It was said with such careful nonchalance that Heilyn had to bite his laughter back.

  “Oh, a month or two, at least,” he said rashly, though he hadn’t thought about it until that moment.

  Emyr hesitated for another moment. Then he said, a little quickly, “You should talk to the hospice priest at Dwynwen’s shrine.” And, a little more slowly than he had approached, he went back to his office.

  Chapter 4

  HEILYN DIDN’T get to the shrine until that afternoon, when his curiosity finally drove him out of the village. It was about twenty minutes walk away, across the midsummer common, currently grazed by what looked like some of Pumpkin’s more placid sisters. The shrine itself was down in a hollow in the rock, next to a freshwater spring that was rumored to have healing qualities. Behind and above the shrine was a hostel which offered shelter and care to those sick pilgrims who came seeking a miracle from Dwynwen’s spring. From the newness of the wood, it was obvious that the hostel had been both repaired and extended recently.

  Heilyn wasn’t quite sure why Emyr had sent him here, unless he thought it might be cheaper than the inn’s attic. He went into the shrine anyway, to offer a quick prayer and greeting. Dwynwen was the Queen of Love, after all, and he could do with a bit of her help at the moment. Then he climbed up the shallow steps to the hospice.

  “A painter?” the priest repeated after Heilyn had introduced himself, his tired face lighting up. “And already staying on the island?”

  “For a while longer, I hope,” Heilyn said.

  “Wonderful. Oh, do you have some examples of your work, something I could look at? If you’re interested, of course, and I should really explain what the job is, shouldn’t I? Come and see!”

  He led Heilyn into the new wing of the hospice. Inside, it was clean and empty. There were no beds yet, and the walls had been plastered a plain white.

  “We get so many pilgrims in the winter,” the priest said, eyes sad, “and many of them are bedridden, you see, with nowhere else to go. They struggle to make it down to the shrine and anything further away is impossible. It’s such a miserable life that I thought they deserved something beautiful to look at.”

  “You want paintings for the walls?” Heilyn said, the idea catching his interest. “Something bold and bright, yes? The things they miss when they can’t see the sky.”

  “Yes, yes,” the priest said, nodding, “except not small paintings. I heard that in Ynys Llys, in the palace, they have painting that cover whole walls, straight onto the plaster.”

  “Murals,” Heilyn said, turning around on his heel to survey the bare plaster with interest. “Big skies and ships and islands, for a start. Scenes from different islands, to show all are welcome. A bit of humor and life in the detail work. You could have a bit of fun with the refectory, paint big rowdy pub tables on the walls so it looks like it just keeps going, and… Sorry, I’m running too far from the wind again. I have a tendency to do that.”

  But the priest was smiling and nodding. “That’s exactly it. I have paint donated and volunteers willing to help, but I need someone to do the designs and detail work. I don’t really know how they do it in the capital, but surely it’s more than one man’s job.”

  “Oh, they get their apprentices to do the backgrounds,” Heilyn said. “And then the apprentices need paying too, though at a reduced rate, and it all puts the price up.”

  “No wonder I couldn’t afford their fee, then,” the priest said with a sigh, and then looked anxious. “They all want the journey and their accommodation paid for, you see, and I can pay an honest wage, but it’s all from donations, so…”

  “I understand,” Heilyn said, a little amused by the honesty. “Well, I’m planning to stay on the island for a few months anyway, and all my rent is paid in washing up. It sounds like something I would love to do, but you’ll want to know I’m talented enough. If I run back to the inn for my portfolio, you can have a look through overnight and see if it’s the right style for what you want.”

  The priest nodded. “That sounds like the way to do it. I have a good feeling about this, Heilyn. I think Dwynwen may have blown you to our doors.”

  “I hope so,” Heilyn said and dashed back across the common in high spirits. A commission, a proper one, and one which suited him so well, would be a far better gift than he deserved from Emyr.

  BY THE NEXT DAY, he had a job and spent a blissful day sketching out possible designs, sticking the papers to the appropriate walls with little bits of putty. Father Cian w
as delighted, but he clearly had a firm idea of what he wanted, and not all of the sketches passed his scrutiny. That was fair enough. Heilyn knew, and he had more ideas than there were walls at the moment.

  By the end of the afternoon, he knew roughly what he’d be doing and that he was going to love the work. He carried his good mood all the way up the lane and in Emyr’s front door to babble thanks and excitement at him.

  Emyr blinked at him from where he was sitting at his kitchen table. “Did I ask you in?”

  “You would have done, but I didn’t knock,” Heilyn said. “How did you know there was such a wonderful job just waiting for me?”

  “I do live here, Heilyn,” Emyr reminded him. “That’s my local temple.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Heilyn told him. “The shrine is lovely, you know. I’m going to put a picture of it in the entrance way, and derwen blossoms on every doorframe to bless the threshold, if I can get the right paint. Father Cian says he knows a supplier and can stretch to that as an extra, though we couldn’t use it in any quantity. It’s horribly expensive to get the reflective stuff, and…”

  “I’m the local trade factor. Who do you think orders Father Cian’s paint?”

  “Then I know we’re getting a fair price for it,” Heilyn said and beamed at him. “I like Father Cian. Not as much as I like you, of course, because that would be a little sacrilegious and more than a little inappropriate…”

  “Not least because he’s married with five children.”

  “Five?” Heilyn asked, distracted. “Dwynwen really does favor her priests, doesn’t she? Unless they’re naughty, that is. You know what they say about priest’s children.”

  “They’re nice girls. Very quiet and polite.”

  “How boring,” Heilyn said. “I’m never quiet, except when I’m working.”

  “You surprise me,” Emyr observed.

  “That I talk too much?”

  “That you ever stop.”

  Heilyn clapped his hand to his heart, mock swooning across the table. “You wound me. Come and kiss it better?”

  “Kiss what, precisely? Your pride?”

  “If that’s the best I can hope for,” Heilyn said lightly.

  Emyr regarded him across the table, frustration, temptation and worry flitting across his face.

  “No?” Heilyn asked lightly, though it took some of the bright edge off his good mood. “Oh well. Whenever you like.”

  “You’re not going to push?” Emyr asked, sounding a little doubtful.

  “Oh, I’ll flirt,” Heilyn said, “because I couldn’t not, but you can choose when, or if, you want more. We’ve got time, haven’t we? Did I mention that I got a commission? My first commission! You should buy me a drink.”

  “How about dinner?”

  “You want to cook me dinner?”

  “I was about to start on my own when you arrived in my kitchen.”

  “Then I shall wash up afterward,” Heilyn offered. “I’m a professional when it comes to washing up, you know. Oh, do you think I should include a kitchen scene somewhere? I want it all to be familiar comforting things.”

  “One with a view out of its window, perhaps.”

  Emyr turned out to be a rather good cook. The food was simple, rather than the creative mess that Heilyn usually produced when allowed in a kitchen, but it tasted good and was filling: fish, samphire, and wedges of bannock bread. He got a cup of scrumpy too, which made him chatter all the more as he washed up. Emyr murmured the odd response, but seemed content to watch him with a quietly bemused expression.

  Heilyn went back to the inn without a goodnight kiss, to his disappointment, but given how well the rest of the day had gone, he was still whistling by the time he got back to the village.

  After that, his days suddenly fell into an easy routine. He worked breakfasts at the inn, then headed over to the shrine, and spent his evenings in Emyr’s kitchen. He still hadn’t been invited in as such, but Emyr never asked him to leave, so he was going to take that as a sign that he was welcome. The work turned out to be far more demanding than he’d expected, and he soon realized that it would only work if he planned every detail in advance. That suited him. He might be spontaneous in the way he lived his life, but he had always planned his art meticulously.

  By the end of the first week, he had produced scaled down versions of what every wall should look like and had started sketching the outlines straight onto the plaster. Once the first few were done, Father Cian’s volunteers set to work filling in the big blocks of sky and grass as Heilyn moved on to the next outline. Some of the volunteers he already knew from the inn, but even the strangers seemed friendly enough. They were a mixed group of craftsfolk between jobs, retired fishermen with stiff joints and quiet faith, and a bunch of young mothers who had been fast friends for years and obviously saw this as a chance to laugh together while their babies chuckled in the corner of the shrine with Father Cian and his youngest girls. Heilyn liked them all immensely, and they seemed to welcome him with the same wry amusement that Elin showed him when he stumbled down into the kitchen each morning.

  He told Emyr about everything he was doing, and Emyr listened with a look of slight bewilderment, as if he still couldn’t tell why Heilyn was there. He listened, though, and Heilyn surprised him one evening reading a book about portraiture. He set it down on the table as Heilyn commented on the title, and said softly, “My grandfather was an art-lover. You reminded me that I have his books.”

  In all, it seemed like things were going perfectly, until Elin stopped him as he came in one evening, and asked, with a chuckle, “So, what’s young Emyr doing these days?”

  If Elin knew where he was spending his evenings, the whole village did as well. Hopefully Emyr wouldn’t mind. Well, he couldn’t change that. Airily, he said, “Oh, he’s fine.”

  Elin snorted. “That boy hasn’t been fine for years.” She narrowed her eyes at Heilyn. “You be kind to him, hear me.”

  “Yes, Elin.”

  “So, is that old fright Berwen still trying to wheedle the house out of him? Oh, and what did he say to the captain of the Hwyad the other day. I’ve never seen the old bastard leave in such a temper. Mind you, young Emyr’s not as easily cheated as his father was, and we all know how much profit the Hwyad used to make on a copper run.”

  Heilyn blinked at her. He’d not heard any of those names or stories before, even though he’d been talking to Emyr every night. Or rather, he realized guiltily, he’d been talking at Emyr. At no point had Emyr shared anything about his own life or his day, and Heilyn had not even thought to ask.

  “You’re supposed to tell me when I’m being a selfish brat,” he blurted out as soon as he crossed the threshold the next evening. “People normally tell me!”

  Chapter 5

  “DID YOU start this conversation without me?” Emyr asked, looking puzzled.

  “You let me talk on and on about myself!”

  Emyr shrugged, not meeting Heilyn’s gaze. “It wasn’t a hardship to listen.”

  Heilyn couldn’t quite tell if that had been intended as a compliment or no, so he marched across to Emyr, and put his hands on his shoulders to stop him from running away. “You need to share. So, how was your day?”

  Emyr shrugged, blushing a little. “It was good.”

  “What made it good?”

  He was looking a little panicky. “I don’t really know. I made a profit on selling oats to Briallen and, um, I don’t know—er, Dilys brought me honeycakes for my lunch. There,” he finished, so triumphantly that Heilyn wanted to kiss him.

  “It does sounds like a good day,” he said instead. “We should do this again tomorrow. I want to know.”

  “I’m not very practiced at this, Heilyn,” Emyr confessed. “Talking about myself. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Anything you like,” Heilyn said and did kiss him, just a peck on the end of his nose. He’d never considered talking about himself something that actually required practi
ce, but he would make sure that Emyr got some now. How long had he been coming home to a silent house?

  Emyr was definitely blushing now. “I thought you weren’t going to do that sort of thing.”

  “I’m not going to seduce you without invitation,” Heilyn clarified, “but I’m still allowed to flirt, and that was flirting.”

  “I think you’re changing these rules as we go along.”

  “More fun that way, isn’t it?”

  “Heilyn.”

  For a moment, Heilyn really thought he was about to be kissed, and he was already turning his face up for it when Emyr stepped back, looking away. “I have some leftover honeycakes, and a hotpot in the oven, if you’d like to stay.”

  Heilyn stayed, of course, and after that he remembered to ask after Emyr’s day every night. Emyr himself slowly managed to choke out more than the odd strangled sentence about his life.

  Summer slipped slowly into autumn. The apples weighed heavy on the bough, and the common was wreathed with mist as Heilyn walked to the shrine every morning. Rain came, soft and quiet, and he took to timing his departure from the hospice so that he got back to the village just as Emyr locked up the trade office. Emyr had an oilcloth cloak which would cover both their heads if they walked close together, and it made the rain something that Heilyn could laugh about rather than a misery.

  Emyr still didn’t smile, but some of the ingrained sadness faded slowly from his face. It made him less compelling as an artistic subject, but Heilyn had discovered within himself an insatiable urge to make Emyr happy. He didn’t quite understand where it had come from, unless it had grown from that original desire to see Emyr’s smile, but every evening in Emyr’s kitchen and every time Emyr blushed or made a dry insightful comment just made it burn brighter.

  Heilyn didn’t get kissed, either. There had definitely been times when he had expected it, as Emyr had lingered right at his side a little too long, or stared at Heilyn’s mouth as he blushed. The closest they came was on a night when the storm came rolling in out of the west, tearing across the sky with crunches of thunder and sending the rain spitting down like broken glass. Father Cian brought Heilyn back to the village early, offering him a seat in the pony trap so that he didn’t have to slither across the common where it was already awash with mud.