Across the Sea (Islands in the Mist Series Book 2)

by J. M. Hofer

  “Good evening, Neirin,” Bran replied. “How fares your mother? I’m sorry we didn’t have the pleasure of her company at the last feast.”

  “You know how she is.” Neirin smiled apologetically. “She prefers speaking to the stars.”

  “So do I!” Islwyn cried as he entered the motherhouse, leaning on Idris’ arm. “Great Mother, bless the woman, so…do…I.”

  Bran was quick to go to his side and take Idris’ place. “Come warm your bones, my friend.” He led him to a seat by the fire. “We’ve been talking of trade. Einon assures us we’ll have much gold to spend—discreetly, of course.”

  Islwyn nodded absently as he sat down and held out his drinking horn. The serving girl came and remembered to fill it with mead, his favorite.

  Gods, but he seems tired, Bran observed. “Perhaps we should hold Council in the Grove next month?”

  Islwyn brushed his hand in the air as if swatting a fly. “No, no, no…don’t be ridiculous. I’m old, that’s all. Not dead! The exercise does me good.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “As you wish.” Bran dismissed the idea, but remained concerned about Islwyn’s health. He then turned toward Idris with raised eyebrows. “And how goes the training?”

  Idris smiled. “Those boys are ready to carve out Saxon hearts already.” He flipped a thumb towards Maur. “His youngest nearly split a tree in two with his spear today.”

  Maur let out a hearty laugh. “Well, thank the gods you’re there to take him out tree-huntin’ and give his poor mother a rest! That boy is turnin’ her hair grey!”

  “I have no doubt. Tell Lady Buddug she can rest easy, though. Anyone who attacks your house will soon find your lad’s spear lodged in his heart.”

  “Ha! I’ll do that.”

  The men shared a few more stories from the village, and then proceeded to plod through all of the tedious matters that required their attention—the state of the crops and livestock, grievances of clan members, which clans to trade with that summer, the production and stockpiling of weapons—and on and on.

  When they were finally through, Bran proudly made an announcement. “I’ve decided to ask Lucia to be my queen at Beltane.” He was surprised to feel his stomach lurch as if he had just asked her that very moment. It was the first time he had spoken his intentions out loud.

  “Gods!” Maur burst out happily. “That’s a far stretch more interestin’ than all this dry talk! It’s about time you took a wife and started makin’ sons!”

  Einon smiled and nodded in agreement. “A good choice. A queen with the Sight, born of the highest blood of the Isle, and raised in a Roman household. If those wine-swilling dogs ever come back, she speaks their language and knows their ways. She’ll serve you well as wife.”

  “And she’s a beauty,” Maur added with a salacious wink. “Nothin’ like wakin’ up to a beautiful woman every mornin’ to heat your blood and ease your worries! Like breathin’ fresh sweet wind off the heath!”

  Idris laughed and shook his head at Maur’s appetite for women. “Congratulations, Pennaeth.”

  “Such a union the Great Mother will be pleased with,” Islwyn said, but not without a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

  “Islwyn, are you unwell?” Bran asked.

  Islwyn offered a half-smile as reassurance of his well-being. “As well as a man of my years can be, thank you—but there are matters I would like to discuss with you in private, if I might.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  After the congratulations died down and plenty of unsolicited advice was given, the others left Bran and Islwyn alone.

  Bran gave him an expectant look. “What is it you wish to speak to me about?”

  Islwyn leaned forward in response, as if wearing a heavy cloak around his shoulders. “We have a bit of a problem on our hands.” He let out a tired sigh. “It concerns Ula.”

  “Ula?” Bran felt a twinge of guilt in the pit of his stomach at the mention of her name, for she had willingly condemned herself to the watery realm of the lonely giant Tegid Voel in exchange for his life.

  “Somehow she convinced Tegid Voel to allow her to spend her winters as a seal in the open ocean, promising she would always return on the first day of spring and remain with him until winter came again.”

  Bran quickly deduced what had happened. “And this year she didn’t return.”

  “No,” Islwyn confirmed, “and Tegid Voel is furious. He sent spirits from the lake to search for her. Luckily, I have my friends among them who know how dear she is to me. They’ve told me she now lives beneath the roof of Gwythno Garanhir, Lord of the Cantre’r Gwaelod, the Lowland Hundred, where they say she nurses a babe of golden wonder.”

  Bran was surprised by this news. Although he knew Ula was of childbearing age, he found it hard to imagine her as a mother. She seemed so like an innocent child herself.

  “I must ask you an indelicate question,” Islwyn continued, interrupting Bran’s thoughts.

  Bran knew what he was about to be asked. “You wish to know if I am the father.”

  “Yes,” Islwyn said. “With the reports of the child’s golden hair, the question must be asked. Is it possible you have an heir?”

  Now, Bran understood why Islwyn had not shown more enthusiasm at his announcement to marry Lucia. “No, it’s not possible,” he assured him. “I’ve never lain with Ula.”

  Islwyn raised his eyebrows and let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good. We don’t need any more reasons for Tegid Voel to seek your head. However, if Ula doesn’t return to him, the pact she made in exchange for your life will be forfeit, and he may very well again seek vengeance.”

  “Yes, I imagine he would.” Most men’s insides would turn to water when considering the prospect of facing an enemy the likes of Tegid Voel, but not Bran. He saw it as an opportunity to free Ula from her obligation, as well as himself from his guilt over the matter. “What’s your counsel, old friend?”

  “I suggest we journey to Caer Gwythno and speak with Garanhir. I don’t know why Ula and her child are there, but we must find out. If she is being kept against her will, perhaps you can persuade him to release her with the coin you now have.”

  The thought of Ula being held prisoner turned Bran’s stomach. Worse yet, if that were true, she had likely been raped, and perhaps that was the unfortunate way she had come to motherhood. “We’ll leave for Caer Gwythno after Beltane. Either way, it looks as if we need to free her from someone.”

  Islwyn gave him a grave nod. “That it does.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Beltane

  As Beltane was foremost a fertility festival, only sisters of child-bearing age wishing to take lovers made the journey from the Isle to the Crossroads for the celebration. The older priestesses stayed behind, opting to attend the other festivals throughout the year if they so wished.

  Lucia and the other sisters choosing to make the journey numbered fourteen. They crowded into two boats and rowed to the eastern shore where they were pleased to find Oak riders waiting for them. The riders explained that Bran had refused to tolerate any possibility of danger befalling them, so had sent them as escorts. The riders had brought a horse for every sister, so that each of them could ride alone in comfort.

  To Lucia’s delight, Bran had sent Gethen specifically for her. As she approached his great black head to stroke him on the muzzle, she was struck with the fear that he might have forgotten her, but he nuzzled affectionately against her in response. Relieved, she swung herself astride his massive black body and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting out a deep, happy sigh. “Oh, I’ve missed you, sweet friend,” she whispered in his ear.

  The first day of the journey was grey and mildly rainy, but the meadows on either side of the road were defiantly full of color, resplendent with sprays of bluebells and heather. Slow-flying bees hovered over the swaying stalks of blooms, their feet heavy with pollen. We’ll soon have honey to collect, and mead to brew, she thought, picturing the beehives
back on the Isle.

  Over the past year, Lucia had come to know her fellow sisters well, but had grown closest to Creirwy and Llygoden, who now rode on either side of her. Llygoden was the youngest sister attending Beltane this year, having turned fifteen last November. Because the women of the Isle left their home but four times a year to attend the high feasts, they all subsequently bore children in the first few weeks of November, May, August, or, as would be the case with a baby conceived in the next few days, February. She wondered how many of them would be holding a child in their arms in nine moons, and smiled.

  “I wonder if Idris has taken a wife,” Creirwy said, interrupting Lucia’s thoughts.

  Idris was a young Southern warrior who had suffered terrible wounds in the fight against the cauldron-born, and Creirwy had spent many hours nursing him back to health in the southern battle camp. Naturally, he fell in love with her, and confessed it to her before leaving to fight in the Battle of the Crossroads. Like the other warriors who had managed to survive that battle, Idris chose to join the Oaks. In the past two years, he quickly earned himself a position of respect within the new clan. He was a formidable hunter, nearly always felling the boar or deer that fed the clan at their feasts, and just as good a warrior. Only Bran could best him at swordplay, and not every time.

  Creirwy shook her head. “Each time I see him, I feel my feelings for him have grown deeper—like tangled roots in my heart—roots I fear I won’t be able to pull out.” She grimaced. “It would be best if he would take a wife. Then I could forget him and be at peace again.”

  Lucia said nothing, knowing that was surely not what her friend wanted.

  “Sometimes I long to be a small girl again, for I was never distracted by such feelings. They make me weak, and I don’t like it.”

  Lucia understood Creirwy’s “weakness” all too well. It had been the reason she had chosen not to attend Beltane last year, or the other high feasts since. She had been too weak herself—too in love with Bran—and feared if she saw him, she would not have had the strength to return to the Isle. She was proud of her choice, for the Isle held glorious mysteries, and she had discovered deep places within herself that begged to be explored. Perhaps most importantly of all, she was learning to control her Sight to see what she willed to see, rather than what it terrorized her with, and fear had stopped ruling her gift. Aveta and Elayn promised her she had only begun, and that there would be much more for her to discover.

  Will Bran still have feelings for me? she wondered, but refused to delude herself. She knew he surely had his choice of many women to warm his bed, and that he might well have a favorite by now. After all, it had been over a year since they had last seen each other. She had already counseled herself with the following advice to prepare for the likely disappointment, so repeated it aloud for Creirwy’s benefit. “We must not forget the true reason we make this journey each year—to honor and celebrate the Great Mother and ask for her blessing upon the crops and livestock of the clan sworn to protect us. Besides, think of the dancing and feasting with our clan brothers and sisters, and the music and stories in the evenings!”

  Creirwy sighed in exasperation, as if she had not heard a word Lucia had said. “Perhaps I should take another lover to rid my mind of him.”

  Lucia smiled at her quandary. “You could do that. I’m not sure it would help, but you could certainly do it.” There was no doubt in Lucia’s mind that Creirwy could enchant any man she chose. It was blatantly apparent, for there was not one among Bran’s riders who had not stared at her beauty upon seeing her. “Creirwy, my love, ask yourself this question, instead—do you want to live among the Oaks with a husband and raise a family?”

  “Ugh. I would die from boredom,” Creirwy answered quickly, and then fell silent.

  Lucia nodded and left her to her thoughts, knowing that every woman must ultimately make peace with herself regarding such matters.

  “It won’t be much longer,” the rider in front of them announced, pointing toward some foothills in the distance. Lucia gazed in the direction of his finger and spied a high stone wall surrounding perhaps thirty houses cradled like children in the folds of their mountain mother’s rich green skirts. Tiny roaming dots of white sheep and brown cattle grazed not far outside the wall on the hills. The fortress tower the Oaks had built stood sentry over the valley, and she could also make out two long buildings, which she suspected were the motherhouse and the stable for the clan’s many fine horses.

  She felt her heart begin to pound as they drew nearer, betraying her true feelings. Her head had made one decision about what was right for her, but her heart was clearly pining for Bran.

  Soon they were riding through the gates, and Llygoden gasped in innocent delight. “Oh, look!”

  Every house had garlands of spring flowers strewn around its doorframe, and colorful strips of fabric flew in the breeze atop long poles positioned on the towers all around the wall. The entire clan was waiting to greet them, with Bran and Seren positioned prominently at the front of the crowd.

  Bran beamed at her as she rode in. His eyes pulled her into him, as if a strong river current had swept her up. Nothing else existed. She realized with a fearful shock that she had grossly miscalculated the strength of her feelings for him—like hidden colors on a dry stone that leap back to life when submerged in water, they had not faded in the slightest.

  Bran was no longer the battle-weary warrior he had been two years ago. He had put on quite a bit of muscle since she had last seen him, and coupled with his frame and height, had become formidably massive. He wore a fine linen tunic, cinched at the waist with a richly-tooled leather belt adorned with a fine buckle. A green wool cloak hung fastened at his shoulder with an ornate gold brooch, mated in style with a heavy neck torc that the sun found quickly whenever he turned his head. He looked like something out of a dream, and though she blinked against it, Lucia saw a light around the edges of his head and body, as if he had walked through liquid sunlight and it were still clinging to him.

  He came to her as she rode through the gates and then lifted her off Gethen. “Now it’s my turn to host you in my home, Lady,” he whispered in her ear as he embraced her.

  His voice sent chills down her spine. “I’m happy I’ve come,” she replied, her pulse quickening.

  He looked at her a moment more, gave her arms a strong and suggestive squeeze, and then commenced greeting the others.

  Soon, she and the sisters were swept away by Seren and the other young clanswomen. They were eager to show them their sleeping quarters as well as the bathhouse so that they could wash and prepare for the feast. Lucia was surprised to see that Seren had kept her head clean-shaven since the battle at the Crossroads. She must prefer it that way. Not so beautiful, but liberating, she thought, noting the time it took each day to tame her own unruly curls. Seren’s manner of dress was also more like that of a man than a woman, like the way she wore her hair, but even so, her fine features and bright blue eyes sung out with extraordinary beauty and femininity. There could be no mistaking her physical persuasion.

  The smell of roasted boar and wood smoke filled the air as they crossed the village, and Lucia’s mouth watered in anticipation. She was uncertain of what she desired more – a hot bath or a hot meal. They had not eaten since that morning, and that had only been a meager breakfast of hazelnuts and dried meat, but she ached just as much to get out of her traveling robes and soak her bones.

  The bathhouse was built upon a wooden platform and featured several individual tubs, surrounded by a stone wall. Designed to keep the heat in, there were no windows, only a small doorway and a hole in the center of the thatched roof to let the smoke escape. A deep fire pit glowed at its center, where a great many stones had been heated on its coals. Their hostesses carefully picked up the hot stones with long pincers and dropped them into the tubs that had already been filled with water, and then sprinkled primroses into them. There was a tray of soap and fragrant oils for Lucia and her companio
ns to share, as well as fresh linen, combs, and blades to shave with.

  “Sisters, we’re honored you’ve come to celebrate with us,” Seren said. “Please enjoy. We’ll feast when you’re refreshed.”

  Lucia undressed and eased herself into the warm water, eager to wash the dirt of the road from her hair and body. The soap she had chosen smelled of lavender, and she let out a long, grateful sigh, letting its fragrance calm her mind.

  The warm water and aromas of the bathhouse soon had them all relaxed, loosening their tongues.

  “So, Lucia, how do you find our noble host?” Creirwy asked languidly from the tub next to hers, a smile in her voice.

  Lucia tilted her head back into the water to soak her hair, looked up at the small sphere of blue sky in the center of the roof, and sighed in defeat.

  “I am undone, Creirwy.”

  Creirwy sat silent for some time. Lucia suspected what she was thinking.

  “What will you do if he asks you to stay?” she finally asked.

  Lucia sat up and splashed water on her face, rubbing it clean. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Creirwy asked, eyes wide. “Your words frighten me, Lucia. Please don’t leave us…”

  “They frighten me as well, but don’t worry. He’s sworn to protect his sister Seren, so he can’t marry.” Lucia sighed sadly, remembering Aveta’s words from so long ago. “One thing is certain, though.”

  “What?”

  “My heart will be tested in the days to come, and I must prepare myself for it.”

  Creirwy looked over at her. “You’ll know what to do.”

  Lucia let out a moan and leaned back into her bath, looking up at the patch of sky again. Her thoughts fluttered like butterflies and landed on many things, but mostly on Bran and the burning question Creirwy had asked.