Emyr's Smile (4 page)

“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.

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 was 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!”

“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 practice, 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.