Rinawne did not appear to be aware of this separation. Afterwards, he held me close, no doubt believing me to have been exorcised of some kind of demon. He must’ve had glimpses into my psyche, because aruna allows little to be kept utterly private. ‘You’re not har-born,’ he murmured as we lay entwined on the sofa in the soft sunset aruna leaves in the heart and mind. ‘I thought you were.’
‘No, hag-ridden,’ I replied sleepily and buried my face in his hair, fragrant with wood smoke and the scent of young leaves. I had felt his strength, both of mind and spirit. Rinawne was a good ally to have and now, from the honesty of his breath and body, I knew he was truly this, yet still I had no desire to open my past to him, or indeed certain aspects of my present.
‘It has a taste to it,’ Rinawne said. He kissed the top of my head. ‘It reminds me of walking into a long-disused room, and outside it is summer, and there is a church bell ringing, and birds in the air. Yet the room is so still, the cupboards shut fast, and it smells of dust.’
‘Have you ever heard a church bell?’ I enquired, somewhat scoffingly.
‘Yes, in Erini the bells still ring as the twilight comes. Sometimes you can hear them here too, from some of the other villages. You’ll hear them at Midsummer. The church in Gwyllion is a ruin, though. I think in some way it’s connected with Wyva’s dark past. He went peculiar on me once when I mentioned it.’
‘I’ve heard a bell,’ I said. ‘Twice. Could it have been the Gwyllion bell?’
Rinawne shook his head. ‘No. It’s fallen, no doubt buried under shrubs and tree roots. I’ve been to the church. I didn’t see it there.’
‘Perhaps we should find and raise the bell,’ I said. ‘I think they’re sacred. We could have a tower built for it.’
Rinawne laughed. ‘Now there’s a nice thought. Only aruna can make a har like you think of something like that.’
‘I half mean it, too.’
Rinawne hugged me. ‘I dare you to suggest it to Wyva.’
I raised my head, grinning. ‘I can see his reaction now. “Argh, no, the bells! The bells!”’
This prompted further Wyva impersonations from Rinawne until my stomach began to hurt from laughing so much. Then Rinawne sat up, wiping his eyes, and leaned towards the table to pour us another drink.
‘Do you know Wyva’s dark past?’ I asked. If there was any time to interrogate him, now was it.
Rinawne glanced over his bare shoulder and stared at me in silence for several seconds.
‘Don’t answer if you don’t want to,’ I said, and reached out to touch him. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. You have to live here.’
‘It’s not that. The truth is, no, I don’t really know at all. I have ideas, but...’ He sighed. ‘I believe something happened here right at the start of harish history, something that bound Wyva’s ancestors – harish, I mean – to that house and this area. It must have been something so bad we can’t imagine it. Slaughter? Their beloved human relatives tortured and mutilated by wandering hara, or other humans, or even incepted family members? Perhaps the human ancestors shielded those who’d been incepted, and were punished harshly for it. Perhaps a harish community existed alongside the human one and it ended in tragedy. Or perhaps it was something else entirely. The Wyvachi won’t say. They have a vow of silence about it.’
‘What about other hara around Gwyllion? I assume some have lived here since the beginning too.’
Rinawne pulled a sour face. ‘Oh, it’s the typical thing. They won’t speak to outsiders, as all newcomers will no doubt be for another hundred years. All I know is that the secret is so bad and dark it must never be spoken of, nor ever forgotten.’
‘It must have been hard for you, living with that.’ I smiled. ‘You’re as curious as I am. It must have driven you mad, not knowing.’
‘Still does,’ he said. ‘I’ve scoured that house, its unused rooms full of dust, its empty attics, and I’ve found no clue. If there was any evidence, it was removed long ago. Only this generation live in the house. If there are harish ancestors they are dead or vanished. And they are never spoken of. I do know that Wyva’s parents are dead, but nothing more than the bare fact of it. There are hurakin in the next county, but they don’t interact. I believe these are the Wyvachi who chose to walk forward rather than stand in one place, and for that they were sort of cast out.’ He leaned back against me. ‘I have this awful fear that when Myv comes of age, Wyva will take him into some hidden, fusty room and chain the millstone of the family secret to him. I think it’s passed down; that’s how they remember it. And once it’s heard, it’s shut up inside like a canker.’
‘Have you ever confronted Wyva about any of it?’
Rinawne grimaced. ‘Of course. All I ever got was the hand to brow routine and “Oh, it is my terrible burden”. Nothing will get them to speak, not even torture, I bet.’ He smiled. ‘Although to be fair I’ve not tried that yet.’
‘You might reconsider that when Myv reaches feybraiha.’
‘Myv is different,’ Rinawne said simply. ‘I sometimes feel he’s the only one who can end this curse. Illogical, I know, him being such a fey and flighty little thing, but he’s not like the other Wyvachi.’
‘That’s his Erini heritage,’ I said. ‘I hope you’re right about him.’ I leaned over to share breath with Rinawne once more, and this time, when our breath took us further, I did not feel as if part of me hovered outside. At least, not so much.
Chapter Seven
Cuttingtide crept ever closer and preparations for the feast appeared to have conjured excitement and anticipation in both the Wyvachi household and the community in general. Several times, when I went into Gwyllion, hara stopped me to thank me for the festival, even though they hadn’t experienced my efforts yet. One har asked if I would be available to perform a blood bond between him and his chesnari. Looking into his face, full of hope and a small amount of trepidation, as if he knew my inclination was to refuse, it was in fact very difficult for me to say no. I knew the rite off by heart. All I’d have to do, in the absence of Gwyllion having a dedicated nayati building that might have to be prepared, was turn up at the designated site and conduct the ceremony. An afternoon’s work at most. And yet, if I said yes to this request, I’d find it even more difficult to refuse others thereafter. I managed to stall the har by saying I was working very hard at the moment – despite the fact the population must have seen me wandering about the town and landscape a lot, apparently doing not much at all – but that after Cuttingtide I’d see what I could do. I knew for certain I had to speak to Wyva about this matter as soon as possible. His hara were crying out for a hienama and had every right to do so. Rites of passage were important for any community, especially close-knit ones like Gwyllion. I couldn’t really believe there wasn’t a single har among them who didn’t have an interest in pursuing such an occupation and who wasn’t suitable to be trained. Why had it been allowed to lapse for so long? I was surprised the Whitemanes hadn’t started offering these services themselves. Wyva was perhaps lucky that they hadn’t.
As I explored the town and small hamlets nearby, I noticed that all hara set protective wards about their homes and farm buildings, more so than would be done in Jesith, where such talismans would be seen more as decoration than protection. Contraptions of woven sticks, straw and feathers hung from every lintel. Sigils were painted across barn doors, and even the brands on sheep and cattle were warding runes. That suggested to me an overly superstitious, frightened community, yet in my conversations with hara, I picked up none of that. If I asked about the marks and talismans, I was told they were traditional, as if that was good reason enough. They were lying, of course, and I was an outsider, no matter what my profession was. The local hara didn’t think it was my business.
Once, as I strolled home to my dinner, the weather changed suddenly. Summer storms generally creep up slowly, but in this case the air turned green and heavy almost immediately. I was walking through Gwyllion at the time, and
saw hara come out their dwellings, workshops and stores to draw the shutters over their windows. Doors were slammed, and the gunfire report of bolts being shot rang out like artillery across the town. The hara had gone to earth. As I walked, my skin prickled. What walked with me? The smell of ozone filled my nose, but also a stench of burning flesh. The clouds above looked putrid, almost purple, like livid infected wounds. Needles of lightning pierced them, but weakly. There was no rain. Within minutes, the sky cleared. I reached Ludda’s farm and saw he and his hara were gathered in the main yard. They parted silently to let me pass. Mossamber’s hounds began to lament. The flesh on my back crawled as I climbed the hill. I was glad to shut the tower door behind me.
Rinawne had began to visit me a few evenings a week, leaving the tower before dawn, just as the grey light crept over the land. I felt he was taking too much of a risk staying with me so long through the night, but he insisted he wasn’t. ‘Wyva wouldn’t really notice if I wasn’t there for two days, never mind a night,’ he said. And perhaps that was true. But what he didn’t consider was all the other eyes and ears in the house, especially those of the staff who might be intrigued by gossip and speculation. Anyhar rising around dawn for their work – and this is of course common among farming communities – could see him coming home in the early morning, through the trees and across the wide lawn. I felt anxious about it, as the last thing I wanted was to live through any unpleasantness such as had happened to me before. For all I knew, Wyva might not care what Rinawne got up to, but appearances would mean more to him. If our liaisons became public knowledge, he might feel he had to act.
‘Be careful,’ I said to Rinawne one morning, as he put on his coat against the predawn chill. ‘Don’t let the staff get whiff of... us.’
Rinawne shrugged, clearly not bothered one bit about what the staff thought. ‘You’re as jumpy as a colt,’ he said. ‘Relax, will you? Nohar cares.’
He really didn’t know about the attraction of gossip, or the harm it could do.
He came to me that night after the peculiar storm, and of course I asked him about it.
‘There’s a local belief that creatures walk in the storm light,’ he said. ‘There are similar beliefs in Erini; it’s not that uncommon.’
‘Hmm, I’ve never seen it before.’
He touched my face. ‘Well, that’s because Jesith lies in the enchanted heart of Alba Sulh, where all is the soft light of the otherworld, and bad things cannot dwell.’
‘I’ve travelled around a lot over the years,’ I said. ‘The storm was odd. And I’ve not seen hara act like that before, so swiftly and so... I don’t know... frightened?’
Rinawne shrugged. ‘Well, you’ve seen it now. I told you hara here believe the land is cursed. They take precautions, that’s all.’
I wasn’t convinced and wrote up some notes after Rinawne went to sleep. What were the hara protecting themselves against? I didn’t think it was simply storm spirits.
The following day, Aruhanisday, bloomed like a perfect flower as I made my breakfast. I’d been unable to get back to sleep after Rinawne had left, and the bed had felt cold, so thought I might as well get up and begin my day. The dawn was magnificent, gilding the tall beeches and oaks around the tower. I saw three deer come gracefully to the water trough down in Hercules’s field, and drink there. Birds sounded intoxicated by the approach of summer, and even when the hounds started up their racket down at the farm, their voices had a softer note, so their cries too were more like a song.
The day felt enchanted from the start, and my heart was full of contentment as I prepared my meal. Perhaps Rinawne was right and I was too jumpy and paranoid – traits I should work to cast off. His presence in my life had given me comfort and had been healing; we weren’t harming anyhar. We fulfilled a function for each other, finding happiness in each other’s company. As long as we were discreet, no bad should come of it. The only problem was whether Rinawne was capable of maintaining discretion.
The Cuttingtide ritual was finished, and had only to be performed. Already my thoughts were turning to the next one, Reaptide. Some festivals have very powerful themes and images associated with them, while others provide a kind of lull in between. Reaptide was one of these. My main interest in it was the approach of what the old race used to call the Dog Days, and the approach to Reaptide Eve and the day after, when ghosts walked in the noon day sun. I wondered whether around here Reaptide might not be as uneventful as in other places.
Verdiferel, the lone dehar of the festival, being the transformed Shadolan, was rather a trickster god. At Reaptide he was released somewhat from the wheel of the year, the inevitable cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth; he could revel simply in his own power. That was what made him dangerous.
While I couldn’t yet tune in to the authentic feelings of Reaptide, I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to have a long walk through the fields, mulling over ideas. As always, I was drawn to the Llwybr Llwynog and the weeping birches around its foot. This was a light and airy woodland in comparison to the heavy armies of ancient trees in other areas; the atmosphere was sparkling. I always enjoyed walking through it, mostly perhaps because I might glimpse a Whitemane, like a spectre through the trees. Even the impish harlings would be a welcome sight, but since the incident on the bridge I’d not met them on my walks. I had a feeling they’d been told to avoid me, or perhaps just leave me alone. I had no idea what the Whitemane sentiment was towards me, really.
I saw movement through the slim birch trunks, which soon revealed itself as the swish of a horse’s tail. Another scene like a painted picture was revealed to me. Was this a presentiment of Verdiferel? The horse was a grey, almost white, with thick mane and tail that tumbled like a har’s hair. It was cropping the sweet grass of the forest floor. On its back a har half-lay, a Whitemane without doubt. The animal was unsaddled and the har’s torso was laid flat, his chin resting on his folded arms, which lay on the animal’s withers. His legs dangled down to either side of the horse’s flanks, his feet bare. He seemed to be daydreaming, staring out at the fields and the silver river. His hair was a mane itself, the colour of autumn leaves, surrounding him like a shawl. Sunlight came down in golden spears about him, one striking his head to bring out the almost festive gleam of his hair. Around and above him, leaves were in their acidic green finery of early summer. He was a character in a story, waiting for something to happen, which inevitably it would.
This seemed too good an opportunity to miss. I would speak to him now, find out about his hara. He seemed too drowsy to urge his horse away.
As I drew closer, I could see more clearly what a beautiful creature he was. I considered he was like the perfect archetype of a har, like a Tigron, how Pellaz would have been in his early days. Such hara are the stuff of stories, hardly real, although I know they exist, had even been cursed by one. But such types are more common among tribes like the Gelaming than here in Alba Sulh. The har before me was young, and I thought he was the one who had stood at the Whitemane end of the bridge that day, who had whistled to the feral harlings dragging me across it. But then there might be many Whitemanes who looked like this. They seemed to me an enchanted race.
I was almost at his side, and he had not stirred, before I said, ‘Good day, tiahaar.’
At that, he turned his head lazily and stared at me. ‘Day to you, har,’ he said and then turned back to gaze at the fields beyond the trees.
I patted the horse’s neck. The animal ignored me and did not stop grazing. ‘Beautiful creature,’ I said, struggling for openings to a conversation.
The har on his back made a grunting sound, perhaps assent.
‘I’m Ysobi har Jesith,’ I began, but the har interrupted me.
‘I know who you are.’
The harlings might have told him.
‘I think I saw you before,’ I said, smiling.
‘When the lingies hauled you across the Greyspan. Yes, I saw.’
‘Thank you for... calling them off,?
?? I said.
‘They hungry beasts,’ the har remarked, somewhat casually, although the words made me shiver.
‘Hungry?’
‘Never still,’ the har said, as if that were explanation enough.
‘Are you of the Whitemanes?’ I enquired tentatively.
The har laughed. ‘I am of them.’ He rose slowly to a sitting position and stretched his arms above his head. The movement seemed calculated to me since it showed off the lines of his body to splendid effect. ‘You making for the river?’ he asked, not looking at me.
‘Not particularly. I’m working. Do you know why I’m here?’
‘You’re Wyvachi-called,’ said the har. ‘We know that. They throw you into the land. Call it work? See how they need to be told what they should know?’ He made a scornful sound. ‘How can you tell them? Work!’
‘Well, they lost their hienama...’
‘More than that. Lost what should be in them. A hienama can’t lock it back in. You shouldn’t bother. You’re not of this land. A rabbit could see that. Or even a fish.’
‘I’m not unaware,’ I said. ‘I was sent here to do a job and I’ll do it. Beyond that, it’s not my affair.’ I paused. ‘Perhaps you could talk to me about the land.’
‘I’ll not aid you, none of us will,’ said the har.