Home From the Sea: An Elemental Masters Novel Read online

  Constable Ewynnog sat at the back of the church, looking as sour as Mari. It was easy enough for the entire congregation to know why he was here—him, who never set foot in the chapel before, choosing to bicycle all the way to Criccieth to go to the squire’s church of a Sunday. He was not a member of this congregation, although no one would have been so unchristian as to turn him out—for there was always the chance that he would see the light. But everyone knew he was not there to worship; he was there to watch with suspicion and disapproval.

  And it was common knowledge he’d done all he could to find out something about this Idwal fellow, preferably something bad, and had got nothing for his pains. He’d sent letters and even three telegrams from Criccieth, and got nothing back in return. He’d tried to find people inland who recognized Idwal—preferably as one of the agitating miners. He’d done everything short of journeying up to Stromness himself, and most people assumed he’d tried to get leave to do so but had been turned down by his superiors.

  Not that public sentiment was all that much in Idwal’s favor, for Idwal had remained silent and frowning every time he had gone into the village, waiting for Daffyd to do most of the talking. Most of the village was just glad that the wretched constable had found something to occupy him besides them, was sorry for Mari, and wondered if perhaps for once they ought to wish Constable Ewynnog luck, so that that ill-tempered stranger could get hauled away, leaving Mari to go back to her own life again.

  But no one in the village was going to interfere. Quite honestly, with sharp eyes on their own daughters, every father in the village felt it was important that they be seen to favor Daffyd in this business. It was a father’s right to tell his daughter what she would do with her life, up until the moment she got a husband. Then that right went to the husband. And with both father and husband-to-be hauling her to the altar, well, it was her Christian duty to go there and be content with it. Their own daughters could look on this and be properly grateful that their das were likely to approve their choice of a lad. Mari was serving as an example of what could happen if a father really exercised his rights. Too bad for Mari, but likely she’d soon resign herself and grow content. At least she wasn’t going to be turned out of her own house now if Daffyd came to a bad end on the sea, and for that she ought to be properly grateful.

  And for the third Sunday in a row, when the service was over, the surly man seized Mari’s hand, led her out of the church without a word of farewell to anyone, and hauled her back towards the seaside and the cottage, and no one raised his voice to object. Daffyd lagged behind, so that they were well out of sight by the time he had left the chapel grounds.

  Of course, they all would have been astonished if they could have heard what Mari was saying. They’d have been even more astonished to hear the laughter in her voice.

  “Oh come on, you lazy dog-seal! Can’t you pull me along any faster than that? No one is going to believe such a lackadaisical performance!” Mari shook her head and pretended to dig her heels in. Idwal gave a playful tug on her wrist.

  “Perhaps,” Idwal said, laughter brimming in his own voice, “If my darling betrothed would eat a little less of those fat herrings when we go a-swimming and lose a little weight, I might…”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence, as Mari interrupted him, first with a rude noise, and then with a mocking accusation of her own.

  “And who is the one who has been lolling about the beach, tossing down those fat herrings by day and eating entire loaves of my bread by night? And all the laver-bread that has been consumed has nearly run me out of bacon, and who is it that has eaten most of it! Hmm? My adorable husband-to-be might consider a little more exercise would prove to him that it isn’t my weight that is the problem here!” She was hard put to keep from laughing. “You are puffing like an old walrus, and here I am barely more weighty than a thistle!”

  “Alas, not only will I be saddled with a fat wife, but one with a shrewish temper as well!” Idwal mock-lamented. “I thought that plump women were supposed to be jolly!”

  It was a good thing that they were well out of the range of anyone from the village hearing them, because Mari burst out laughing, stopped resisting, and skipped up beside him. “Oh, you goose, I am never going to be able to have a serious moment around you! And I think you can stop pulling at me now, and I can stop digging my heels in. We’re far enough away no one can tell what we’re doing.”

  Idwal dropped back to a more normal walking pace, and shook his dark hair back out of his eyes. His broad smile made her feel warm inside. “That’s as well. You are exceedingly good at resisting being dragged along like a sheep at the end of a halter, my love; I was like to strain something. And it isn’t your weight, my heart. Haven’t you noticed how much stronger you are now?”

  “Actually, I had.” Now the two of them were walking at a brisk, but normal pace, side by side, fingers interlaced, and she longed to lay her head on his shoulder. Well soon enough they would be at the cottage and she could do just that. “Is it all the swimming? I used to struggle lifting the big bags of peas, and now it’s easy.”

  “Likely, it is,” Idwal agreed. “You have become a lovely swimmer in your sealskin.”

  She blushed, this time with pleasure. There was almost nothing she liked better than swimming as a seal. Though she would never want to give over being a human, either; there were plenty of good things about going on two legs. “I could not do that if it had not been for you being so clever,” she reminded him. “All that cleverness is what made me wish you as a husband!”

  He laughed happily. “Well, do you think you are ready for the wedding next Sunday?” He squeezed her hand, and she felt herself blushing, this time with… a little shyness as well as pleasure. Not that she and he hadn’t already anticipated the wedding by several weeks… that was common enough hereabouts. No one ever bothered to keep too accurate a count of months between a wedding and a birth, unless the bride had managed to make herself disliked, so long as the bride wasn’t about to give birth at the altar. But to put it all into words, well, it sounded both strange and lovely and made her feel things she had never anticipated feeling, ever.

  Then a little chill cooled her ardor, for there was something that could set everything awry.

  “Actually there is nothing saying we can’t have it done sooner than that, and I’d rather,” she replied, sobering. “Tomorrow, even. I’d rather not do it in front of the whole village, and we’ve satisfied the banns. The sooner we make the bond, the less opportunity for mischance.”

  “Well enough, I follow your lead,” he replied, as the cottage came in view. “When the ladies arrive, we can consult with them, if you like.”

  No one around here would ever consider not going to church, and Nan and Sarah had taken to going on alternate Sundays to the squire’s church. By now everyone in Clogwyn and half the people in Criccieth knew about the plague of measles that had allegedly lengthened their stay. Offers to make things “more comfortable” had poured in, and Lord Alderscroft had not needed to send anyone at all—the squire had happily accepted both the offers and his lordship’s financial aid in making the cottage a fit place to winter-over. It now boasted one brand new stove to replace an elderly one, a fine store of wood and coal in a brand new coalshed, every chink and draft had been found and stopped, and the Manor ransacked for additional rugs, blankets, comforters and two featherbeds. They had all needed airing and some had needed recovering, but the girls were now well-equipped for the worst winter. “Which Sunday is it now?” he asked, as they reached the cottage at last, with Daffyd taking his own much more leisurely time, and so lagging far behind them. “Is it the near-Sunday or the far-Sunday?”

  “The far one,” Mari told him. “They’ll not be down here until well near tea-time. They’ll be asked to dine with the squire, and so it will take them longer.”

  Mari privately felt there was a great deal to be said for the Selch way of doing things. The parson of Capel Cymme
r, while not a bad man, had certainly made it exceedingly plain that so far as he was concerned, God and all of his angels were firmly on the side of Idwal and Daffyd, and that Mari should simply bow her head and accept the husband her father had chosen with grace and resignation, and do all her wifely duties. This, of course, was quite good for their plan, but Mari couldn’t help but feel a good deal put-upon and a bit angry with him, and when Idwal compared him rather dryly to Gethin, she couldn’t help but agree. Mari thought about that story book that Sarah had. I would really like to hear that story some time, Mari thought. I wonder if I could get one of them to read it to me over-winter? While she could stumble through English, and read some, she despaired of making her way through a book meant for English adults.

  Idwal gave a whistle as they neared the door, and a pretty little head popped up out of the rain barrel. “Are we overlooked?” he asked the water-creature—which Mari recognized as the same mischievous one that had gloried in playing tricks on the constable.

  “Nay,” the water-girl said, pouting. “Yon fool has not come wandering this way in three days. It seems he got weary of ants in his trews and spiders in his hair.” She sighed. “And I had all manner of gifties for him, too!”

  Idwal chuckled. “Well, I am sorry you cannot work your tricks on him, but that’s all to the good for me.” He turned to Mari. “So, a swim? Soon it will be cold for you, and colder when coming out of the water and shedding your skin.”

  It was almost too cold now, but being able to fly through the water was so magical, she couldn’t bear giving it up until she had to. “Just let me put my Sunday gown up.”

  She had taken to swimming as Nan and Sarah did, in her underthings, since she was going to get wet regardless once the sealskin was off, and it was just as well not to have to deal with a soaked dress. She popped into the house, slipped off most of her clothing, and quickly ran down to the surf in little more than her bedgown (which Nan and Sarah called a “chemise”).

  Idwal was waiting for her with her skin, and with the ease of someone putting on an old, well-worn and well-loved dressing gown, she slipped not only into it, but into the form of the seal, and fell into the embrace of the waves.

  It was not only as humans that she and he had anticipated the wedding; it was in seal-form. In fact, it was rather more frequent in seal-form, since they had all of the wide sea to give them privacy, and the meeting of bodies was so effortless and so joyful in these shapes. Not that being with Idwal in human shape was unpleasant—at least not after the first fumbling couplings. In fact, it was rather wonderful. But there was none of the sweating and bumping and heaviness of human mating. Not to mention that no one accidentally bumped his head on the headboard and fell to cursing…

  It was clear from his frisking about and rubbing up against her that Idwal had that sort of fancy now, and so did Mari; what was it about being in chapel and pulling the wool over all those eyes that put them in such a mood? But they gave in to it, and then they went chasing the herring, and when they were both full and tired, and sated in all their senses, they hauled up on a bit of rock in the sun and basked, sometimes reaching over to nuzzle one another lazily.

  It was good to be a seal.

  When it looked, from the sun, to be near the time that the girls would come, Mari gave Idwal a good shove with her nose, and when he didn’t respond, dove into the sea and came up with a mouthful of cold water that she fountained all over him. He woke up with an indignant snort, and she dove away, him pursuing, all the way to the home shore.

  She came up out of the water and out of her skin with a laughing gasp—laughing because of the threats of retribution that had followed her, and a gasp for the cold of the surf. Without being asked, she handed him her skin; he carried both off to wherever it was he put them, and by the time he returned, already half dry by means of his own unconscious magic, she was dressed and had tea started, and one of his favorite things frying in a pan.

  “Ah, laver-bread,” he said, looking at the seaweed and oatmeal creation so beloved of all Welsh. “I forgive you for the dowsing.” Her da was already tucking into his with an expression of bliss.

  “You got none for breakfast, so it’s only fair you get some for tea,” she told him. The girls ate it as readily and happily as the Welsh did, though they had been skeptical at first. They often cooked it for themselves, though it was Mari who made the laver for them—making the stuff involved an all-day boiling that was best done out of doors. But since this was a church day, Nan and Sarah would have had breakfast with the squire, and nothing as low as laver-bread would be served at Squire’s table. Laver-bread was the food of the poor. Squire’s loss, Mari thought with amusement, as she fried more patties.

  “Laver-bread!” Nan cried as she and Sarah came in the door, birds riding on their shoulders and basket between them. “Oh, Mari, does this horrible, unnatural seal-man know what a treasure he has?”

  “This horrible, unnatural seal-man has asked Rhodri to bring back spider-crab especially for you, so you should mind your manners, witch,” Idwal chided.

  “I take it all back,” Nan said promptly, although Mari knew very well that all of them were going to greatly enjoy the spider-crab feast when Rhodri came in.

  Spider-crabs were terrifying creatures, some of them with an expanse of long (delicious!) legs as far as Daffyd could spread his arms. Most fishermen killed them and tossed them back in the sea when they caught them; partly because they cut up the nets, and partly because the horrible things were the only crabs that could reach to grab you anywhere you held them if you weren’t quick. It was hard to imagine that anything that looked that ugly could be edible. But after seeing a dead one, Rhodri had brought in just to show them, and recognizing it as a huge variant on something she and Sarah had eaten in Africa, Nan had suggested throwing it in with the cockles and mussels to boil. They chopped the thing up so it would fit in the cauldron, and they had discovered that the now-red legs were full of the sweetest meat any of them had ever tasted. Rhodri was the better of the two Selch at catching them; he’d never tell his secret, but he could bring back the smaller coracle that Daffyd usually used only for salmon fishing full of the things, quite enough to stuff everyone, and all of them somehow asleep. They stayed asleep just long enough for one of the girls to tip them all into a kettle of boiling water, and then after that, being caught with those claws was no longer an issue.

  “Idwal said he thought we should get wed sooner than Sunday,” Mari said, as she scooped laver-bread onto plates, with bacon and cockles, and the girls set to. Even Grey had her little piece of laver-bread, though Neville had eyes only for cockles, and was very clever at winkling them out of their shells. There was soon a small pile of shells under his perch.

  “I think that is a fine plan,” Daffyd said, setting his knife and fork atop his empty plate with a contented sigh. “I’ve no objections, none at all. I’d just as soon not have the wedding under the long faces of the congregation, truth to tell. So long as the minister is not busy, I expect I can go see him tonight and arrange for it tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Mari beamed at him. “I keep having nightmares of Gethin turning up and making me wed one of the others.” She did, too. She would wake up shivering, and Idwal would have to soothe her back to sleep. Even worse were the ones where Gethin made her marry him.

  Daffyd chuckled. “I was lagging because the old fool caught me by the elbow and advised me that now that the banns were read, if I didn’t want to have a runaway on my hands, I’d better get you wedded quick as possible. He’d even gone and gotten the license, if you can believe it.” He snorted. “Saved me a trip, so I’m grateful. He’ll be happy to get the two of you shackled up so long as we have the two witnesses.”

  “That will be us,” Sarah said merrily; Nan’s mouth was full, or she would have responded.

  “Done, then.” He shoved away from the table. “Now that my darling daughter has fed her old da proper, I’ll just take the coracle back in and make
the arrangements. Enjoy your last night of freedom, Idwal.”

  “Enjoy your sail, Daffyd Prothero,” Idwal countered. Daffyd laughed, waved at them all, and went out the door. Mari went out long enough to hang the kettle, fill it with water, and get the fire going under it. When the spider-crabs arrived, she wanted to be ready. Then she returned, and found that Nan had made her the last of the laver-cakes in her absence and fried up a last batch of cockles, and Sarah had begun the washing up, so she could sit down and eat at leisure.

  “Will Gethin know what we’ve done?” she asked, between bites. “Or will we have to tell him?”

  “Oh, he’ll know,” Idwal predicted. “A real wedding is a spell of binding, and though he’s no magician, he’s a thing of magic and he’s the clan chief. He’ll feel the addition to the clan, and he’ll feel the spell. He’ll be at our door by sunset, if not before.”

  “But there’s nothing he can do about it?” Mari asked, a question she had not dared before this.

  Idwal shook his head. “The spell is set, with or without his blessing. There is naught he can do to set it aside. And he agreed; the choice of mate was yours and yours alone, and if you did not take your mate from the ones he set before you, you still took a mate from our clan. The Bargain will be fulfilled. In fact, with the banns read, it is largely a matter of form. What is said three times in public is also a spell, and possibly even more powerful than the actual wedding vows.”

  Hardly had the words left his mouth, when the door burst open, and the doorway was filled with an outraged clan chief.

  Nan had never seen Gethin, but there was no question of who this could be. Idwal and Mari stood up together. Nan was scarcely a second behind them, and already she could feel the Celtic warrior rising in her, demanding to be unleashed. But she felt a restraining hand on her wrist, and reined in herself, glancing at Sarah.