Read Moonlight Online

Authors: Ann Hunter

Moonlight (2 page)

BOOK: Moonlight
8.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

Aowyn woke to the song of sparrows. Sunlight streamed in. Aowyn propped herself up on her elbow to peer outside over her mother’s shoulder. She became aware of soft crying. Aowyn glanced at the foot of the bed to see her nursemaid, Maeb, weeping. Aowyn’s brothers were there, save for Stór. Aodhagáin stood behind them. Heads bent in reverence. Maeb motioned to Aowyn to come toward her. Aowyn’s brow furrowed. She touched her mother’s shoulder. “Mother, why is everyone here?”

Sulwen did not answer.

Aowyn nudged her. “Mother?”

Maeb shook her head and moved toward Aowyn.

Aowyn knelt in the bed and peeled back a drape of black hair from Sulwen’s face. Her eyes widened as realization set in. Sulwen lay stiff and ashen. “Mother. Mother!”

Maeb grasped Aowyn’s arm. “She has gone to Mag Mell.”

Aowyn shrugged off Maeb. “No.”

Maeb attempted to pull her away.

Aowyn shook her head fiercely. “No!”

Maeb sought the aid of the king and his sons. Aowyn’s brothers gathered around her and embraced her before pulling her from the bed. Aowyn struggled. “No. No! Do not take me from her!”

Attendants closed in around Sulwen to prepare her for burial. Maeb followed behind, singing a soft song of mourning. Aowyn continued to struggle, reaching out behind her to the shell of her mother. “Mother! Sulwen!”

 

Six princes, a king, and Aowyn surrounded Sulwen on an altar near the Cairn of the Ancestors. A storm brewed on the horizon. Wind kicked up debris from the forest floor. The votive candles flickered in the gust. A vein of lightning bled the sky. The princes cringed, but Aowyn could not help notice how her father did not flinch. A silent tear slipped down his ruddy cheek into his crimson beard. The forest grew darker as they kept vigil. Thunder growled. Lightning cracked. No rain fell. When at last it settled, the sky gloomed black with evening. The candles cast an eerie glow. Sulwen’s hair spread out around her like rays of midnight. Aowyn turned her face skyward. Many stars glittered. A breeze picked up again. One by one the stars began to fall. The moon forsook itself. Aowyn shuddered. Aodhagáin raised his head, and a deep song of longing crested from his throat in rich baritone. A tear slipped down Aowyn’s face. Her brothers gathered around and lifted Sulwen on their shoulders. Her body had been bound in linen. She wore her favorite sapphire gown underneath with a small belt of gold about her waist. Her stiff hands clutched a ceremonial dagger over her chest. Her head had been crowned with wildflowers and tiny jewels. The princes raised their voices and joined in Aodhagáin’s song as they bore the queen down into the cairn.

The entrance to the burial mound opened only as wide as two men and as tall as one. The ground sloped steeply into it. Wisps of grass grew over the entrance. Flickering torches cast long shadows inside. Aowyn walked slowly behind her brothers with her head lowered. She stepped lightly so as not to rouse the ancestors. Stór whimpered behind her, and Maeb hoisted the young boy to the cradle of her hip. He buried his face in her shoulder. Aodhagáin’s song continued to flow from his throat like endless bolts of satin. The princes’ voices echoed in recourse. Their voices bounced off the walls as they wound deeper and deeper into the cairn. At first the pitch of the tunnel ceiling was oppressive. Aowyn wanted to crouch to avoid it. As they went deeper and deeper, the ceiling lifted. Aowyn breathed a sigh of relief. She had not ventured down here often, save for misadventures with mischievious Rógaire and Lorgaire. They turned a corner, and the cairn opened up into a grand stone hall. Images of Mag Mell and Tir na Nog were carved into the walls. They depicted lush lands of eternal bliss and paradisiacal glory where one never grew old, or ill, or downtrodden. Aodhagáin’s song filled the entire room. Aowyn chewed her lip. She rubbed her elbows and shivered. Aowyn recalled rumors that the Tuatha Dé Danann, kings and queens of ages past with supernatural powers, and the ghostly ban sídhe, dwelled in burial places such as these. The cairn endured the name
sídhe mound
for a reason.

The hall they carried Queen Sulwen through was clearly built for royalty. The open room had been decorated with a great feasting table and many chairs. Offerings of food and mead piled on empty plates as if awaiting a specter host. The walls narrowed around Aowyn and her family again as they descended further into the cairn. The walls widened into a passage guarded by two massive statues. The swords they clutched were as tall as a man and their points penetrated the earth. Crowns adorned their heads as they stared out through glassy, unseeing eyes. Aowyn gulped. The floor of the vast room was inlaid with precious stones. Alcoves in the walls hosted bodies bound in linen of varying ages. All wore stone masks of their once-living likeness. Aodhagáin’s voice stilled. He sank to one knee and bowed to his ancestors. He lifted his voice in invocation, asking that the ancestors accept Sulwen into their fold that her spirit might rest easy with the kings and queens before her. Aodhagáin lifted himself shakily. Though he helped carry his mother, Choróin reached for his father’s elbow and helped him stand. Aodhagáin lips trembled. A tear slipped down his high cheekbone.

The air in the room rushed. Small bits of rubble tumbled down. Stór gripped Maeb tighter. Aowyn couldn’t help but skitter toward her nursemaid as well. Aodhagáin motioned to his sons to follow as they made their final descent. Aowyn’s heart rate increased. Her eyes darted back and forth between the recesses filled with bodies. She jumped when Maeb placed her hand on the back of her neck. Aowyn’s hand went to her heart, and she took a deep breath. Maeb pulled Aowyn’s head down to her level and whispered that it helped to fix one’s line of sight on their feet in places like these. Aowyn watched her brothers’ heels shuffle until they reached Sulwen’s resting place.

Aodhagáin, Choróin, Eagnaí, Caoin Croí, Rógaire, and Lorgaire delicately moved the queen into the alcove. The princes stepped back as Aodhagáin knelt by his wife and stroked her hair. Aowyn took Stór from Maeb and held him close. Aodhagáin sniffled and whispered into Sulwen’s ear before kissing her cheek one last time. He turned slowly to his children. Aowyn leaned her head against Stór’s. Aodhagáin was silent. A tear slipped down his cheek. He moved between the princes. Aowyn reached for his hand, but he did not notice and continued back the way they had come.

 

The kingdom mourned Sulwen’s death. So sorrowful was the world that the moon refused to rise. Upon her passing, the stars fell, lamenting. Yet one soul’s countenance in the kingdom remained unchanged. When the moon had not ascended in three nights, she cloaked herself in the darkness and stole away to the Cairn of the Ancestors. A burst of green light shot from her hand and rolled back the stone guarding the entrance to the burial mound. She strode in, undeterred. Strange gusts of air blew around her as though trying to drive her out. She waved her hand, and they died down with a groan. She wound her way deeper and deeper into the sídhe mound. The spirits sought to turn her out, but she resisted with a wave of her hand, pushing the spirits back and aside. She forged onward to the ancestral burial chamber and made her way to Sulwen’s side. Torchlight shone on golden hair when the woman slipped back the hood of her black cloak embroidered with archaic rune symbols. Her cold smile twisted her mouth as she knelt beside the late queen. Druids had come to finish the work of the burial, and Sulwen now bore the stone mask of her living likeness. Her black hair had been dressed and wrapped under a wimple.

Ciatlllait’s hands hovered over Sulwen’s body and trembled. Her eyes searched the queen wildly as her smile grew. She pried the stone mask from the queen and gazed into the face of death.

“I win.”

Ciatlllait began to chuckle. She turned her face upward toward the orange glow of a torch. She focused on Sulwen and slapped the soft pile of furs the queen’s body lay upon. “Do you hear me, you bag of bones? I. Win.”

She rose quickly and paced in a circle. Her fingers rubbed her chin eagerly. She thought of the king and turned back to Sulwen. “Do you know what I shall do now? Aodhagáin will want to ease his sorrow in time. Guess who shall be there. Guess.” She leaned over Sulwen and whispered in her ear with giddy. “You’ll never guess.” Ciatlllait straightened and pressed her fingers together. “Well it certainly isn’t going to be you, is it?” She tipped her head back and laughed. She paced again and then paused. She gazed upwards as though the stars in the heavens swirled around them. “Mine, Sulwen. All mine.” She looked over her shoulder with ice in her eyes. “Your throne. Your husband. Your crown.
Mine
.”

She clasped her hands behind her back and paced. Her swan-like neck bent. She
tsked
softly. “Oh, but those children. What shall I ever do with those seven pesky brats? I suppose I could bed your eldest and succor your youngest. They are nineteen and five, are they not? No, that won’t do.” She glanced at the dead queen. “I have bigger plans.” She pivoted and held Sulwen’s mask. She raised it to her own face, gazing at the back of it. “And do you know what,” she glanced at Sulwen, “
Your Majesty
?” She knelt beside the queen, her fingers moving over the burial shroud like spiders. She leaned in close, her unnaturally perfect teeth glistening under a wide grin. “There’s not a thing you can do about it.” Ciatlllait’s laughter filled the chamber as she replaced the queen’s mask. She rounded so quickly that the rush of air from her cloak snuffed out the torchlight. Ciatlllait’s cackling and the rustle of her black rune cloak filled the darkness.

 

***

Aowyn watched the fire die away in her father’s eyes. Ciatlllait hung around him like a moth to a flame. She bore his wine and mead cup. She mantled him with furs when he shivered. Whenever Aodhagáin needed something, Ciatlllait got there before anyone else. Aowyn seethed. It wasn’t just with Aodhagáin, however. It was with Aowyn’s brothers as well. Ciatlllait was all honey, with sweet words that dripped from her silver tongue to all those who would eagerly lap it up. While her eyes dwelled upon Aodhagáin, the rest of her teased at Choróin and Caoin Croí, playing their ill-placed affections one against the other.

Aowyn’s stomach cramped with a sickness as she watched Ciatlllait leave Choróin’s room. Choróin leaned in the doorway to his quarters, half-dressed. His head tilted, eyes fixed on Ciatlllait’s backside swaying down the hall. Aowyn’s glare was daggers on her eldest brother.

“What are you doing with her, Choróin?” Aowyn growled.

Choróin’s stupid grin faded when he met her glower. “What concern is it of yours?”

Aowyn stepped forward. “I worry for you. She’s up to no good. She’s not worthy of you.”

Choróin straightened. “I am the Crown Prince. I can do as I wish. Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, Wyn.”

“Stop being so arrogant, Choróin. That woman is poison. Can you not see it? You are the Crown Prince. You should do what is
right
. Father is unwell since mother left us. Instead of stepping up and ruling like you should, you and Caoin Croí strut about like young bucks.”

“You sound like our mother.”

“Good. You could use a sound rebuke from her.”

“Gods, Wynnie. I had a mother. You are not her. Our mother is dead.” Choróin’s jaw set. He shut the door firmly behind him.

Aowyn kicked his door. “I wish you would listen to me, Choróin!”

Choróin’s voice was muffled on the other side. “I wish you would shut up. Go away, Aowyn.”

 

Aowyn headed to the training yard outside where her brothers practiced their fighting skills. She paused by the garden. It overlooked the vast, green countryside, lush with rolling hills, farms, and rivers. Ciatlllait cozied up to Caoin Croí on a marble bench. The prince strummed away on his lute, oblivious to his sister’s presence. Ciatlllait gave Aowyn her best twisted smirk. She leaned in on Caoin Croí and nibbled his earlobe and twirled one of his red curls. Caoin Croí laughed softly. Aowyn’s hands fisted. Caoin Croí lifted his voice in love songs and poetry to his “lady fair.”

Aowyn was powerless.

She picked up a wooden waster sword in the training yard and turned it over in her hands. Her chest and shoulders heaved. She ground her teeth. A practice dummy stood before her, stuffed fat with straw and padding. His puffy head drooped over the string that formed his neck. The stake in the ground ran up through him, and a cross-stake formed two arms. A target was painted on his belly. Aowyn roared and struck him in the shoulder. She spun and drove the sword point into his chest. Another swing flogged his side. She bashed the pommel into the dummy’s head.

“You got him.”

Aowyn turned quickly.

Eagnaí jumped back as the sword nearly struck him. He held his hands up defensively. “Easy, Wyn.”

Aowyn caught her breath. Every muscle in her was tense.

Eagnaí nodded at the dummy. “I think he’s dead.”

Aowyn shook her hair out of her face and gave the dummy a resounding smack with the sword for good measure.

Eagnaí gingerly took the practice sword from his sister. “What’s wrong?”

Aowyn’s hand fisted. Her fingers rubbed against one another irritably.

“You haven’t been the same since Mother died.”

BOOK: Moonlight
8.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Dare by Karin Tabke
A Perfect Husband by Fiona Brand
Let's Misbehave by Kate Perry
Payoff for the Banker by Frances and Richard Lockridge