The Night Of A Day's March
Cold as the northern winds in December mornings,
Cold is the cry that rings from this far distant shore.
Winter has come too late, too close beside me.
How can I chase away all these fears deep inside?
I'll wait the signs to come; I'll find a way.
I will wait the time to come; I'll find a way home.
--Enya, "Exile"
The child is sleeping now. He is only eight, and not accustomed to journeys like this, even after a year and more of uncertain moving about. Mercifully, though, the jolting of the wagon seems to lull him rather than keep him awake. He sleeps soundly, his dark head nestled against his foster-father's shoulder, and every now and then gives a faint snore.
Gwilym sighs, ruffling the child's hair, taking comfort in the weight rested so trustingly against him. The child is still with him, still tangible and real, proof that he did not dream the brief years of joy. He gazes over the side of the wagon, watching the dark mountains slide past, the glimmer of stars above them. A fair country enough. A place where three people could make a decent life for themselves. Gods, Meg, why didn't we stay here?
Nowhere seemed far enough, then, from the tensions of Waes. From the faint, very faint edge in the air when the brother was there, from the father's pained affection and muffled guilt and subsequent avoidance. Can't blame the man, nay; he was that devoted to his son, he couldn't quite bring himself to love a bastard daughter the same. 'T only made it worse his trying.
Couldn't blame him, but couldn't stay. No one's fault, no one to blame, but there'd been nothing there for them but each other. So they went, far as they could think to go -- to Betica, to make a new life.
Ha. Gwilym shifts, uncomfortably, against the hard wooden slats at his back. Aye, we had a good start, and then what happens but what I should have known would happen. Dear gods...
Dead in the dirt. Burnt to the ground.
Should have left while we could. My fault. Always my fault. Meg, love, ye should have had a man who deserved ye. Not a misbegotten soul with a curse on him for trouble.
Wrecked. Like Kate, like Anna. Like those whose names he never knew... Be damned, I'm not going to think on that!
As though in agreement with him the wagon jolts to a halt, jarring him out of his musings and the child out of sleep. Gwilym blinks, coming to himself, and realizes the mountainsides have given way to houses and lighted windows.
"Grendale," comes the driver's voice from up ahead, unnecessarily, as the child rubs his eyes and sits up a little. "You'll have to get out now."
Gwilym takes in a breath, unfolding himself gingerly. "Aye." There's a crick in his back from the slats, cramped muscles, extremities gone to sleep; he can't quite repress a groan. "Cyric, lad, up with ye, it's time to get out."
The child rubs his eyes again mournfully, and nods, one hand fisted in Gwilym's sleeve. With some difficulty he pries the boy's fingers loose and slides to the ground, pausing to steady himself. When he reaches back, Cyric half falls into his arms.
"Thanks," he calls quietly through the darkness to the wagon's owner, and receives a shadowy nod in acknowledgment. He drags the leather satchel that contains their worldly goods down after them, and with a final wave to their benefactor reaches down for Cyric's hand. The child clasps his fingers wearily, swaying sideways against him as the wagon rattles away towards home.
Just so did the boy lean on him that night, very long ago it seems, when they went to the fine brick house to say their farewells, before following Meg on the road, they thought, to freedom. It was past the child's bedtime; he had to be prompted, Say hello to yer uncle, lad.
The look on the man's face. The look of hurt, of chagrin. As though he'd ever really wanted them there.
But still... going off like this...
Like thieves in the night? Gwilym shot back -- defensive, always defensive then, always quick to draw blood before the rest of the world could draw his. Damn fool. He shrugs off the memory, and slings the satchel over his shoulder, tightening his grip on the boy's hand. The child is quivering, all his young nerves raw with fatigue and the dark of the unfamiliar place.
"Come on, lad, 't's just across the square. You can make it. --D'ye want me carry ye?" Cyric shakes his head, automatically, with an eight-year-old's stubborn pride. "That's my boy. That's my fine one, my brave one, just a little way. Here we are."
The door to the Arjunt Corrigaun swings open before them, spilling warmth and golden light over them like a blessing. Gwilym nudges the child over the threshold, and sidles in after him.
He nods to the barmaid's drowsy but amiable greeting, and guides the boy toward the fire. At this season it may be mild down the Castle way, but here amid mountains the air still holds an edge, and Cyric curls his small sturdy self up before the hearth with the urgency of a cat trying to catch as much of a sunbeam as possible. Gwilym kicks out a chair from the nearest table and drops into it with a sigh.
"Ye're tired, eh?" he asks softly. The boy nods glumly, or perhaps only sleepily, wrapping his arms around his knees.
"When can we go to bed, da?"
He can feel his mouth quirk up at the corner, despite himself, at the word; a remnant of cynical amusement. Me to be called 'da'.
Not soon, as it turns out. The cozy, the estimable, the renowned Arjunt Corrigaun doesn't rent rooms, the barmaid informs him -- meaning there's no rooms to rent, or they don't rent to the scruffy likes of him and his yawning brat, he cannot tell which from her bland tone of voice. But he can go to the inn across the square. That, she explains, as to a well-behaved halfwit, is what inns are for.
Except that they've no room either, even if Gwilym had the kind of silver to waste that they seem to expect, which he doesn't. He stands in the softly candlelit entry hall, staring darkly at the man who tells him this.
"Ye must be popular," he says slowly at last.
The man gives him a heartless, genial grin. "Only one in town."
"And ye've not a closet or a spot by the kitchen fire to spare for a fistful o' copper."
"We don't work that way, m'friend. Brings down the tone o' the place, you understand me?"
Cyric is dragging at his hand, fretful with exhaustion.
"I'm to take my boy out o' here and put him to bed in the alley, ye're telling me?" Gwilym says it coldly, colder than the night air outside, and holds the man's eyes, expressionless. He knows precisely how unnerving this tactic can be, knew it when he was as apt to violence and dead to shame as he knows he looks, and for Cyric's sake he has no qualms about employing it now. The innkeeper fidgets, then glances down at the boy.
"Ain't much I can do for you."
"Aye," drawls Gwilym, deadpan, "I can see that."
The man sighs. "Look, m'friend--"
"Spare me -- friend."
The broad, easygoing face hardens. "I was about to say I know where you can go. But mebbe I'll just keep that to myself."
"I don't think you will," says Gwilym flatly, willing himself to ignore, for now, the child's despairing whine. Damned hard to intimidate folk with a little one hanging on yer hand. He keeps the unreadable stare trained on his adversary. At last, worn down by pity on the one hand and discomfort on the other, the innkeeper surrenders.
"There's the stables. Ain't much but there's the loft, and nobody cares -- much -- if folks sleep there a night or two. You can try that."
And if ye'd said that in the first place, ye bastard... Gwilym touches his forehead in a parody of humility. "I thank yer honor kindly for the charitable suggestion. --Cyric, let's go."
"Just tryin' to be helpful!" the man calls after them indignantly.
"Aye." Gwilym shuts the fine, sturdy door on his tirade, and starts off across the square once more. "Like hell."
Despite his weariness the child snickers a little.
"And don't ye go repeating that. --Mind, lad, if yer mother were with us, she'd have given that son of a pox-ridden goat what for. She was never a one to suffer fools in silence. Ye know that? Before she was done with him he'd have had us in his own room and begging our pardon for the wait."
A moment of silence; then Cyric's small, sad, sleepy voice comes out of the darkness. "I wish she was."
It catches Gwilym all unawares, strikes him in the gut, so that he stops short, speechless, breathless. He tightens his hand fiercely over the child's.
"Aye," he murmurs when the knot in his throat loosens a little. "So do I, lad."