Title: Lovers’ Song
Author: Dice
Pairings: Seirian/Eilir
Warnings: Sex and bloody noses… not necessarily at the same time ;-)
Author’s note: Fantasy setting, flowery language, I like to write it, so sue me. Eilir’s age is a bit iffy, because let’s face it; medieval fantasy setting = realism out the window, but I count him an adult in this world and somewhere around 17 or 18. Ongoing.
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The echo of strings, tampered gently in the mellow evening light, drifted up to where we lay in the grass, my head on his lap, his hand in my hair.
Such pleasure had never before been mine. To linger like this at my leisure, beside one who would not ask me to go, nor find reason to hastily leave. Soft sounds, singing and laughter, travelled on the breeze from the camp and up to us, but it didn’t call us away from our moment, our time.
“Love, do you sleep?” his whisper was still, not meant to wake me if indeed I was asleep, but I was not, and yet far too languid to stir.
“No,” I breathed when at length I found my voice.
He said nothing more, only touched the back of my neck and twirled his fingers around the tendrils that I found so boyish, but that he loved too much for me to cut them. Then he leant forward to caress my back, his lips touching my face briefly, feathery.
I did stir then; a hand trailing the length of his leg and finding the leather at his waist, the metal buckle unclasping beneath eager fingers. I fondled the coarse hair within, reaching inside for his straining member and freeing it. He gasped when I deftly gripped the shaft and let my tongue lap against the tip, knowing what to give him from what he’d taught me.
His hand grasped my shirt and dug into my back and I laughed softly, sliding the hardness into my mouth, waiting a fleeting moment for his groan before I took him down into my throat.
Gently he moved to stroke my hair and set me at his pace. Slowly and yet urgently I tasted his skin with my tongue and a tickling sensation filled my mouth each time I let his limb glide into it. I knew when his trembles meant he was close to the edge of where passion would take him and I moved away from him, licking my lips and looking deep into his burning, heavy lidded eyes.
Tentatively I shifted and came to rest across his thighs, a leg to each side, my knees brushing against his hips. I teased him with a look filled with mirth.
Raising a hand and beckoning me with a finger, he compelled me to move higher until our lips touched and I drank in the tastes and scents of him, the spices of the food he’d eaten, the grass and dirt he had lain in, the vague trace of smoke in his hair from the campfires.
He pulled my tunic up around my waist and held me tightly with strong hands resting on my hips, kissing my neck and collarbone, breathing in my scents and tasting my skin with the tip of his tongue. With one hand I quietly undid the sash that kept my breeches up, while the other caressed his nape.
Without taking his mouth from mine he grabbed my cheeks and pulled them firmly apart, lifting me up. I arched my back, all but pulling away from him and bit down hard on my lip as he came into me, the sweet, sharp pain fading only slowly as he began to push me up and down in a steady rhythm. A moment later I moved on my own and his hands left my bottom to cup my face.
Increasingly faster I moved, my breath catching when pain broke through the pleasure a time or two before I was completely lost in the rhythm and motion. He panted heavily, though he barely moved. He didn’t let go of my face, but caressed my jaw, a thumb trailing down my jaw and levelling our eyes.
“Look at me!” a hissed demand I obeyed without thought and then I drowned in the depth of his smouldering eyes and was lost in a moment of perfect stillness before the storm swept me away and I came in a torrent of pleasure, shuddering and shaking in his arms.
He followed soon after as I clung to his sweat soaked shirt, my hair falling in my eyes. Then he rolled me over on my back in the grass, resting on his elbows and panting. He kissed me only once more before he pushed up and rose. I remained lying as he straightened his clothes and buckled his belt, our time coming to an end as always it did.
Don’t go! Never leave me! I wanted to plead. But the words died on a suddenly parched tongue and I couldn’t ask what I knew would not be granted. However yearning his eyes, his face was set and I knew he must return to his place as I must to mine.
“It’s early yet…” I murmured, a hint of the plea I would not utter still clear enough.
“True, but those rain clouds will see you soaked by the time you’re across the hill,” he said, a faint grin playing on his lips and fading as soon as it had appeared.
I struggled to sit up, my body mellow and heavy, and stared at the horizon, the clouds had not been there when I came to him, but sure enough now they loomed dark and foreboding at the edge of the forest and rolling towards us on the wind. Still, they were far off and I lay back down smiling up at him, too lazy to go and still longing for his touch.
“Love?” he asked softly, crouching down beside me, fondling the sash that was still untied, and then grabbed my shirt, yanking me to him with a swiftness that startled me.
He kissed me fiercely and I forgot for a moment to breathe before I clutched at him with wanton desire. Then, as if quenching a thirst, he let me go again and turned to go. I watched after him as he went, my own thirst far from sated.
“May I come on the morrow?” I called, out of breath and pining.
“Come if you will, but the wind is changing, tomorrow is our last day here…” his voice trailed off and if there was more he wished to say he didn’t say it.
The glade seemed suddenly cold and the breeze that had before felt soothing now chilled me. I could go after him; could run and embrace him and be held in return like so many times before during the past summer. But I could not change the words, nor make them untrue.
I stayed where I was, despite my discomfort. Or perhaps because of it. As if by moving, the spell of our love would be broken and I would have this dream no longer.
And such was the truth. A dream it had always been, fleeting as the summer months. For when the northern winds brought autumn they would break camp and they would journey to the south where summer reigned eternal. The way they always had, since long before I was born and as they would long after I was buried beneath the sacred oaks and my children’s children were the ones who ran beside their wagons to catch a peek of a brightly coloured costume, or hear a word from a ballad and a note from those same strings that now played for me.
The music resonated in my heart and I knew he had picked up his harp, for this was the same quiet melody he had played on that warm, late spring day when I had first met him and I’d heard no one play it but him since. It had drawn me towards it as I aimlessly wandered the fair grounds and as the crowds parted he had looked up at me and smiled as if he had been waiting for me.
I must’ve lingered longer than I though for suddenly a cold drop fell on my face and I looked up at the sky, it’s depressing bleakness so unlike the honeyed hue it had had only an hour ago when I’d come to him.
I took the time to search for his form among the people seated around the campfires, while straightening and refastening my clothing, but I couldn’t find him. I quelled the surge of regret that welled up and gritted my teeth.
They might come this way again, in half a year or less. I’d be an adult then by law, though by the old ways I had been a man for over two years already. I doubted the law would force my uncle to see me different when custom had not, in his eyes I was a child yet and would be until the crows hatched hawks.
Would all be changed then, if they returned? Would his eyes still linger on me with warmth and longing as he sang to the crowds or would he forget me in favour of more present charms – I knew of many a girl in their midst who wished me to the netherworld.
The thoughts swirled uselessly in my head as I threaded my way over the hill and through the golden wheat fields, rain now falling in heavy drops on my face and dousing hair and clothes.
By the time I reached my uncle’s cottage the weather had made my love’s words true and I was soaked through and through. Slipping inside the hut where our mule stood asleep and the goats rested in the hay I was shuddering with cold and all I yearned for was the warmth of my bed next to my sister and cousin. But I dreaded going inside lest my uncle was home already.
He would meet his friends at the tavern down the road, join in a game of dice with the travellers or listen to the news and gossip of our neighbours at the end of each day’s labour, and though his was not the way of some men to drink until their limbs were weak and their minds feeble, he would find a pig-headed resolve in the ale and none of my usual excuses would sway him when in that mindset.
I had no doubt that a thorough thrashing was to be expected if he were home before me and if I knew him right he’d foreseen this weather long before it was mentioned to me and I had further to go from the camp in the glade than he had from the tavern.
After a moment’s consideration I resigned myself to sleeping in the shed with the animals rather than face his wrath and I curled up on a clean patch of straw and wrapped my arms around myself for some semblance of protection from the bitter chill the rain had brought.
Teeth clattering notwithstanding, I drowsed off and slept fitfully there by the wall, to the sound of hooves scraping on the dirt and the dismal bleating of our goats and their shoving at me to seek through my pockets for the bread I used to keep there.
Then I woke.
For a moment I thought that perhaps I had not slept at all, but in my heavy limbs there was still a sense of numbness as if I had been floating. As I forced the sleep from my eyes I became aware of someone standing within the shed and the mule tugging eagerly at the rope she was tied with.
My uncle bent down and heaved me to my feet, strong hands gripping both my shoulders as I shied away from him.
“I’ll have your hide for this my lad, you’d better believe it!” he hissed, his gruff voice not veiling any of the threat.
I staggered as he shoved me forward, over the yard and into the cottage. Still weary with sleep I made no resistance, except shrinking from his rough handling. My cousin fled as we entered, his limp leg hindering him some as he stumbled past us and outside.
“You nuisance, what’ve you been up to, gone all night?” my aunt pitched in before my uncle could lay into me. “Just like your father – you’ll hang like him one day, you mark my word, Eilir! Gone all night! Not knowing what mischief you’re up to!”
“Bet!” my uncle barked. “You leave the boy to me!”
I didn’t care to be left to him, I’d rather withstand a thousand rebukes from my aunt than even one beating from him. He let me go and moved to take up the thin stick I used to drive the goats. Fear was like biting ice in my stomach and I couldn’t bear to face the pain I knew would come.
He cuffed me round the ear as I made for the corner behind the stove – a familiar refuge from childhood that still I could take cover in, though not as fully as I once had – I was spun around and a first stroke landed on my upper thigh.
A cry escaped me as I crashed down on my knees, his relentless grip not leaving my upper arm. The second of the furious stream of blows landed higher across my backside and I whimpered like a pup pulled away from its mother.
Crawling forward did little good as he merely followed, letting the stick whip through the air again and again. My voice seemed shrill like never before and the strokes would not stop falling. Pain filled all my senses, shutting out even thoughts of escape, so, miserably, I surrendered.
I had my eyes clenched shut and my forehead against the hard packed dirt floor when he at length relented and let me go.
I heard the rattle when he tossed the stick aside, but dared not move. A sob broke free. Yell and shriek I’d do for him, but damn him if he’d see my tears! I swallowed the next betraying sob and rolled up onto one hip as I sat up as proudly as my soreness would allow. I glared at him from behind the curtain of hair that had fallen down around my face.
“Get that scowl off your face and get up from the floor!” he muttered as he stared right back at me.
I ordered my face to a meeker sulk and dragged myself off the floor. I stood before him – as tall as he, but barely, my grandfather had granted me his length as he had both his eldest children – I held my head high, but knew he saw my wariness and believed it to be respect.
“Have you done with me now?” I asked, trying to sound both brash and uncurbed, but my voice was still shrill.
“I’ve done with you, when I tell you I’ve done with you!” he barked and I flinched, he glowered at me, a look of contempt suddenly blending with the anger. “You’re your mother’s child,” he hissed at last.
I felt as if he’d knocked the wind out of me. I knew how they saw her, knew what people said, what gossip traced me as I walked through the village square. But I’d been taught to hold my head high, for her mistakes weren’t mine, her dishonour was her own. Or so he’d told me, this uncle of mine, who now stood here saying I was no better than her.
“I thought it a child’s folly, that stories and songs drew you from our hearth in the evenings, but it wasn’t…” he trailed off, pure disgust marring his features. “Was it?”
I’d never seen such a look on his face, or heard such disdain in his tone. Wretchedly I wondered from where he’d heard the full truth and the fear seeped in as I grasped what his knowing might mean. I’d lie, there was nothing for it.
“What was?” I mumbled, making my voice childishly bright and my pout that of a boy far younger than myself.
“Don’t you dare stand there and pretend you don’t understand!” he grabbed me then, and shook me with a force that rattled my teeth. I twisted without coming free and his face was inches from mine when he roared at me next. “You’re every bit like her! And you’re sure to have a fair bit of that worthless seed she drank down from your no good father!”
“Sawel!” my aunt drew closer, her voice pitched high with fright.
“Stay out of it, Bet, it doesn’t concern you, woman! This is my honour! My failure!” he turned on me with eyes like black coals. “I knew your mother’s love for that hound and I never told, for I believed she’d protect her own honour! And now you follow her down the same foul path! Well, I’ll not let you bring shame on us with bad blood!!”
His fist came up and that was all I saw before black light flashed before my eyes. When I looked up again, blood flowed from my nose and I shook so hard I could hardly move my hands in front of it. He’d struck me down like a brawler in a tavern. I stared in disbelief not even frightened; too stunned to take it in.
“Oh, misery!” my aunt bemoaned us, her eyes as huge as I felt mine were. “Take this away from my hearth! Out with you if you’ll beat him bloody! I’ll not watch this!” she shouted, anger warring with fear – fear that he’d do what she said, or fear that he wouldn’t? I felt my numbness burst like a boil and ooze dread.
I trembled and cowered, praying softly to every god the priests had named for me that I’d be spared this. Then my sister’s skirt hid my view of my uncle. Her voice rang clear in the deepening silence.
“If Eilir is to be beaten you may well start with me for I’ll not let you harm him!” she stood there grimly waiting for him to speak. Her face was turned from me and all I saw was the stance – like a guard, hands on hips and head tilted back to look up at her uncle, our mother’s brother.
“Don’t meddle, girl!” he growled, but he did not touch her.
“I’ll meddle all I care to!”
And with that she turned her blazing gaze on me and reached out her slender hand, as brown and callused by hard work as mine was and with the same curve of her palm that mine would get when I held out my hand to let the goats lap at it.
I took it tentatively, wiping blood on my trousers first. She pulled me to my feet and I shrank from my uncle’s glare to hide behind her.
“Oh, it’s a fine man you’ll make, cringing behind womenfolk and spreading your legs to a rambler like a whore! Not even your faithless, thieving father would’ve felt pride when he looked at you!” my uncle spat the words at me as my sister latched onto my arm and pulled me outside with her. I stared in front of me, eyes dimming and disbelief warring with hurt.
My sister led me to the well, her strides rigid and mine stumbling. A faint queasiness had come over me and as I swallowed more blood I knew I’d be sick. I unhinged myself from her arm and leaning heavily on the moss clad stones of the well I retched, spitting clotted blood. It still ran freely from my nose and did not seem likely to stop soon.
My sister pulled up a bucket and I gratefully ducked hands and face into it, trying to wash away the gnawing guilt and bitterness with the blood. Her hands came up to hold my hair from my face, but I shoved them away in annoyance – it reminded me too keenly of kneeling by the creek together, her hands around my hair as I washed away the traces of fighting the miller’s son.
My uncle’s words had torn open old wounds gained from children’s cruel mocking. Words that I’d battled against with all my boyhood strength only to be viciously chastised by any adult who came our way and my uncle above all had made me rue the scuffles and the fights. He’d tell me to prove I was better than that, that I was more than what they believed me.
Only one had ever stood by me – as she did now.
I looked up at her where she stood, her back partially to me. Water dripped from my face and hair and I dried off on my shirt. It smelled of straw and earth and faintly, all too faintly, of him and the passion we’d shared the night before.
She hitched up her shoulders and glanced at me, turning quickly away when she saw me watching her. Her poise became tauter and I heard her breath catch.
“Mair?” I asked quietly.
“What did he mean?” she countered, her voice betraying hurt and mistrust.
“Meant by what?” I said, feigning casualness I could not bring myself to feel.
A fear was growing inside me. I had lived in our dream, safe in our lovers’ song all summer, somehow not believing anyone would ever know or care. As time had passed I’d become bolder. I’d gone to him at times when I knew we might be seen. I’d flouted all I knew to be right and proper and I’d defied my uncle’s rules to amble by my love’s side in the moonlight.
Mair snorted a laugh and turned to fetter me with eyes that for once saw through me like they did others. Unbeknownst to herself she had been my accomplice all through the past summer, shielding my shirking and sneaking from our aunt and uncle. It had been easy to fool her and yet the hardest thing I’d ever done. To not tell her of the wonder within me and hide the elation and the thrill every time I glimpsed his face in the sun’s reflection in a puddle or saw his smile in the foliage.
Now she was looking at me as if I was a stranger and I suddenly knew that I was.
“I… I wouldn’t know what he meant… some drunkard’s tale…” I swallowed the words, the lie tasting as vile as rotten fruit in my mouth.
She glared accusingly at me, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe I’d tell her a lie to her face and shame made my own cheeks burn.
“He came home last night well before the rain! He’d not drunk more than a mug of ale! He said nothing to anyone and only sat and stared into the fire,” my sister advanced on me, eyes clouded and face set in an outraged mask. “I heard them later, when he went to look for you!”
“He looked for me?!” I gasped before I could stop myself.
“Oh, yes! Hours he searched before he came back, drenched through and through!” she glared openly hostile now. “I want to know what he meant, what have you done that he’d wish to beat you bloody?!”
I didn’t say anything. Was this what love brought you? If so my mother had had the right of it when she went into the lake. I spat at the ground, still tasting blood and seeing it in the spit where it landed in the mud.
“Answer me, brother!” my head whipped up when our kinship was uttered with such venom.
“If it’s an answer you want, sister,” I bit back with the same tone, “ask whatever helpful soul who told our uncle!” I turned to walk away from her, but a mere five feet from her I gave a scream as she hurled the water over me.
I turned and glared, my not long ago dried clothes now soaked again with filthy water. She gave a harsh laugh and dropped the bucket on the ground. My anger spurred me on as I stalked back towards her, my breathing quickening.
“Eilir!” my uncle’s voice carried down to us and a shiver ran up my back. I spun around to see how far off he was.
Far enough for me to run, close enough to catch me if he realised I would. I hated myself for the fear that welled up like bile.
“You come here boy!” he called, tone sharp and eyes on me like on a skittish colt – he would know before I bolted which way I’d go, but I’d be damned if I would meekly totter up and face his fist again.
My feet dragged behind me as I slowly made my way up the slope towards him, the cold rills down my back could be merely water, but they reminded me keenly of my own fear. I could see my own revulsion of myself mirrored in his expression and turned down my eyes, no doubt giving him cause to believe me as cowed as I felt.
I stopped, still out of reach letting my gaze fall anywhere but on him, my eyes drifted across the muddy ground where the rain had left water in every stony crease and over the beaten down grass towards the hill and the trees. Were they still there? Had he wanted me to come, to say farewell, or beg him to stay? Did I wish I was there now?
Oh, yes, oh how I longed for his gentle eyes and loving hands.
“You’re an ungrateful cur! Is that the thanks she gets for risking her own hide for yours?” my uncle’s voice was a low mutter, but it pulled me back to reality as smartly as a slap to the face.
“I didn’t ask her to!” I regretted my words even as I uttered them.
He crossed the short distance between us and while I shrank from his grip I still quelled the desire to turn and run from him. I was not a child and I didn’t wish to deserve his scorn. There was no stroke and no hurtful word, but only a shake of my arm before he gave me a push that sent me stumbling towards the shed.
“See to the goats, you feckless runt! Before I…” his threat trailed off, but still sounded with certainty within me.
As I herded the lively critters down the lane towards the usual meadow I turned my head only once to see my sister’s shape as she fed the chickens, her apron clutched tightly in one hand to form a bag for the seed and the other scattering them over the ground. Her neck was bent and she was silent, so wholly unlike her usual way of calling for the birds to come for their feed.
Her sadness was due to my lies. How she must think me miserable and wretched. Had we not shared everything? All our pains and sorrows? All our happiness and all our wishes? But were I to tell her it all she would hate me for that even more than she did now and I could not bare that, not from her.
Lost in thought I sank down below a low apple tree on the upper part of the meadow. The goats fell into the familiar pace of grazing. The sun was on my face, gone was every trace of the night’s rainfall apart from the dampness of the ground and the odd drip from the leaves above me.
“You’re a fool, Eilir, a fool indeed,” I whispered to myself. I stared into the foliage above me, an abandoned bird’s nest rested forlornly between two branches, I smiled despite myself, I’d seen that nest built, kept my distance and watched the two colourless birds flit back and forth to feed their young all through summer and then one morning gone they were, flown away.
A chilly breeze moved the branches above me and I ducked my head from the water that drizzled down over me; something slightly heavier landed in my hair and when I moved my hand to pick it away I found it was a leaf, a single yellow leaf.
My heart fell apart in my chest and a shuddering sob was all I could hold back before the tears fell unhindered down my face. I drew up my knees and hid behind my arms, swaying slightly while the grief ripped through me.
“Is it me you cry so over?” his voice was filled with mirth as always when he came up on me unawares. My breathing hitched and I stared at him, he stood veiled in the shadow of the trees, the goats not seeing him or not caring.
“Yes,” I mumbled and then recalled the danger. “You should not be here!”
“And why not? Don’t you wish me to be here?” he smiled and walked closer, a teasing glimmer in his brown eyes.
I stood up and met him halfway, my hands pushing him away when he bowed his head to kiss me, his hand fondling the nape of neck, as familiar to its shape as mine were to the feel of his taut muscles underneath his shirt. I gasped when his hand caught in my hair as I pulled away. He stopped me, a hand around my elbow that held tight and I stayed because he willed it.
“You’ve blood on you,” he said thoughtfully and stroke my face with a gentle finger, “I know your uncle knows, he came upon us in the night, shouting himself hoarse… he was looking for you and when I didn’t see you with the sun I reckoned he might’ve found you, so I came…”
I bent my head back at his touch and let him search my features. Hopelessness and anger warred within my mind and I swallowed hard the tears that welled up in my eyes. He kissed me then, lightly first, my mouth, my jaw and then harder down my throat and his hands gave into their wandering while I stood still and lifeless.
“Love? Don’t deny me, if it is the last time…” he touched me gently and I shook my head. Better to remember him from the night before than to be found out now and have it all be turned to sin in the words of others. He pulled me to him and held on as if afraid I’d blow away like a leaf on the breeze, his breath was warm on my neck. “If I loved you more my soul would burst,” he whispered.
As he stood back I untangled myself from his hands and he nodded slowly, knowing that he only caused me pain.
“We go by the coast, to Witherwyth and then to Caern Roahn,” he said and then he left with one last, chaste kiss on my cheek.
TBC