Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 03

But it was to the better that he wanted more than anything.

The periods of silence remained and his thoughts were interrupted often enough by the people who always seemed to lurk just over every other blind hill or bend in the path. He didn't fume over the interruptions all that much. To his mind, out here, a proper man ought to be busy seeing to his harvest at this time of year. That left only brigands or thugs and he didn't mind thinning the crop a little.

What bothered him the most the past few days was the way that Louhi was also riding in some silence. Well more than she'd ever shown him up to that point. He wondered if he'd said or done anything wrong, or missed something that she'd said because he'd been too involved in his introspection or something. He hoped not and now he wondered about even asking about that. He eventually decided that it must be the cause, though he didn't know when it had happened. It couldn't be that she'd run out of things to say. He hadn't met a woman like that yet in his life if she was among friends.

He felt badly, thinking he'd done something wrong and yet not knowing what it might have been, but try as he might, he could get little out of her.

There were times when they'd just had to stop regardless, such as when the autumn winds finally organized themselves enough to blow a little coldly and the rains had begun. Cuilén said nothing, but Louhi stopped one day in a little place outside of the nearby town where there was a smith.

"Why do we stop here?" Cuilén asked, "We have hours in the day yet."

"A few things, my friend," Louhi smiled, "I have looked to see this place for a few days now. We found it on our way north. The smith is more than what he looks to be and he can help with some things that I need for you or his wife can. You would tell me nothing is wrong when I see that you are cold. So I want some better clothes on you."

She held up her hand when she saw that he was about to object – as she knew that he would.

"Cuilén," she said as she leaned on her saddle, "it has been long over a fortnight now that we have journeyed. Of the three of us, which one has been the warmest and kept the others a little less cold during these nights which can only grow colder the longer that we journey? Was it Annikki here, who kept your teeth from chattering then? Was it me who kept us all from our deaths?"

He blinked back and she laughed, "There is no creature alive who often feels cold more than a woman. Even though your two women come from a land known to be very unkind in winter, there are two of us, are there not? If it gives you trouble, think of it as an surety so that our man does not grow ill or shiver with ague from sitting on the cold earth while we huddle next to our little night fires on the way.

Where we go now is known to be a more troublesome for travelers sometimes also. I have no wish to see you sitting on your horse full of arrows because some thieves had the forethought to shoot at you to remove what they see as the only reason why they should hold back to rob us. I want more on you than just a cloak and I want more than just a thick shirt, since those things will not stop arrows.

This is a safe place to stay the night. They show no sign by the road, but if one asks, there are beds and rooms to rent."

"But," he began," I –"

"And you have no weapon, other than that badly nicked Northman's blade which you took from a Viking trader's corpse," she added.

"But Louhi," he said,"It is my lucky sword. I -"

"Lucky? ... How can you say that it is a lucky blade?" Louhi asked, a little incredulous.

"Well I am not dead," he shrugged, "But this – "

"And your horse needs his hooves trimmed a little," she went on.

He leaned out a little to try to see, "Trimmed?"

"Only your horse out of the three needs shoes," Louhi said without looking at him, "the smith can help with that."

Cuilén wondered if she'd lost her mind all of a sudden, "But that costs –"

Annikki chuckled and then spoke through her teeth in a musical lilt as she looked away with a little smile, "You should stop, Cuilén."

He eased his horse alongside Louhi's mare as she turned to dismount and tie up in front of the place.

"And I wish for you to shave," she said as she began to walk to the door.

"Shave?" he asked in bewilderment as he dismounted, "With the winter coming on? This makes the least sense out of anything that I have heard you say all day. I – MMMmmf!"

Cuilén stood in shock, his hands in the air a little and the reins held loosely in one of them while Louhi stood pressing herself tightly against him with her arms around his neck as she kissed him.

Annikki chuckled as she walked past, taking the reins from his slack grip to tie up his horse.

She looked over and giggled a little, "You should stop trying to discuss the cost of things and move forward in the talk to where you stand now."

She saw his eyeballs swivel over in her direction and she grinned as she said her thoughts in a resigned and slightly weary tone, "When you have the chance of it, just tell Louhi that you love her.

It would solve all of the difficulty because Louhi loves you, Cuilén. She just has trouble saying it."

Cuilén got it then and he put his arms around the white-haired girl to hold her. Louhi's next breath was a deep one because she couldn't help it. She pulled back and looked at him, hoping to see him with new eyes. She'd always liked seeing him from the first moment that she'd laid eyes on him, but there had been the foreshadowing of the darkness that he bore and the sadness of knowing that his heart was broken and the long process of his coming back from that to become the man that she now held so tightly.

She couldn't help it, she thought. It hadn't been a thought to her, but she heard her slight whimper when she dove in to kiss him again.

After several moments, Louhi broke the kiss and moved to turn away, but Cuilén held her a little longer.

"You, ... Louhi, you, ... love me?"

She looked down and nodded, "Yes. I do not mind fucking with you to keep the three friends close, but it, ..."

She drew a breath then and she looked up, "But it has become much more than that to me. I only did not say anything because you still grieved over Gretta and I did not know if, ... "

She faded out at that point and made to turn then, but she found his face seeking hers while she looked down.

"Louhi," he said softly, "If you love me, then stop looking away. I want to see the face of the girl I have had a slim hope for and was fearful to say what I held inside. I love you too, Louhi, but a fine pair of fools we would look when we hide our faces from each other. And I find that I hate to see you like this. The one who I would give my heart to should show that she is not shy or holds misgivings in any way.

It must be like this; otherwise it shows that you do not think that you hold my heart."

He dipped his head a little lower and he kissed her so that she had to look up at him. She found him there looking at her with a much more confident smile.

"Please tell me that we can speak of this soon. I have been trying to tell what was in me as my grief passed and I asked myself what I was doing loving with two women when I wanted none, really. But I get better now and had a hope but could not say it. I know how I feel now and I want to tell you that I love you, ... well, if it is what you wish to know."

He looked away for a moment, "And if it is not, then I am still the fool Taran and not Cuilén.

Taran, from my thinking never knew what he had when he had it. I always knew it when I had the very finest fortune to hold a woman's heart."

She nodded and then she looked up at him, right into his eyes. "Then I would say it, Cuilén. I love you."

"Well if you love me," he said, "and I know that I love you as well, there is only one thing which can stand between us,"

He looked ahead at Annikki who stood grinning by the door of the place. She was making as though she had an itchy face at the moment.

"What is that then?" Louhi asked, suddenly a little confused as she looked up.

He sighed, "I need to shave."

Louhi laughed in obvious relief then as she slapped the middle of his chest with a smirk. "Oh, I feel better," she said as they went inside and the door closed behind them, "I thought that you did not like "my skin or my hair, or, my eyes ..."

------------------------

They were met inside by a short woman who was a little plump and cheery and her smile carried a pleasant hint of the barest of buck teeth when she grinned. Cuilén found it impossible not to like her instantly as she bustled around at an amazing pace for a woman who seemed to have to manage a few hundred things at once.

Annikki and Louhi passed little smirks to Cuilén when they greeted the woman with joyful and friendly calls of "Hey, Moppy!" as they set the first of their baggage down.

"Hey now, Annikki, Louhi," the woman beamed "Good tae see ye again."

The place was a smithy and an inn, though small in terms of the number of guests which it could accommodate. They were shown to a table in what one might suppose would have been the common room, but it held more of an appearance of an overly large kitchen where a few guests could hold forth If they had a mind to. And the smells of the food, ...

One deep breath and Cuilén almost forgot his name again.

He did ask, though.

The only name that Cuilén got out of the proprietress for his use was Moppy and of course, he tried to ask politely because he thought that he knew the word but not as a name and so he wasn't sure.

"It's short for Peedie Moppy," the woman laughed in her lilting tone which gave him his next clue and then she was gone again looking after something else which needed doing right then.

The Pict stood thunderstruck.

Peedie Moppy.

She came back in to say that there were rooms available and ready and to only tell her of their needs this time and it would be done. Cuilén reached for her arm before she could vanish again.

"Wait. Please wait. You are truly called Moppy?"

She nodded, laughing again and letting her birth language slip out a little, "Nae so peedie anymaer, but Ah'm still a moppy."

She looked at him, seeing the marks that he bore on his face just under and at the edges of his beard and her eyebrows rose then, the humor replaced by wonder.

"Whaur ir ye fae, goodman?" she asked as she looked up.

He thought for a second and replied, "Hjaltland, an Ah'm Cuilén."

He bowed then and Moppy almost danced before him, saying that she had to bring her husband and then she was gone.

Louhi and Annikki laughed a little and then asked what it had all been about.

Cuilén laughed, "Because of you, I have found at least one person who I can talk with! 'Moppy' is not her name, I am sure, but it is something which she has been called by all of her life. A moppy is a rabbit and 'peedie' means little or small. I get many of her words, but I think she comes from, ... ah, Orkneyjar. The ones I heard there speak a little differently to what I remember, and they sing the words a little, especially the women."

Louhi turned to him and reached up. She kissed him softly and said, "Remember what I said. There is no danger here, but many things are not as they seem. Think this way and try to use the sight. You CAN trust your sight. You only need to use it more."

Moppy was back then, almost dragging a huge man by the hand. He looked slightly confounded at the way that she was pulling him, chattering the whole way. But once he was in the room, ...

He stared at Cuilén, running his hand back over his bald head in amazement. "A Cruthne by the look of you."

"An he's from the northa here, Hjaltland !" Moppy said. The man looked for a second longer and then his face split into a wide grin as Moppy ran to get plates, quite obviously meaning to set out a meal.

"Beuy, Ah'm fair blide tae see thee! Wilkommen and sit ye all. I am Leif."

He led them to a huge table and went back to help Moppy, but he kept looking back at Cuilén as though he didn't believe what he saw. When he spoke next, he tried to amend his speech so as not to leave the pair of women behind and the conversation took a turn back to a combination of Norn and Norse along with some of the speech of the Scotti as well.

"Yur a sight the way that ye are here, Pict," the smith nodded, "Ye look as though ye stepped from a mist. I've not seen a man such as you in my lifetime and what I learned of your kind came from my old grandfather. I have not been everywhere in the world, but, ... where have you been hiding?"

From his speech, it soon became clear that Cuilén was a Hjaltlander of some sort, but no one that Leif or Moppy had ever met bore markings on them at all, other than perhaps little things done as a way of adornment to pass a long winter. Cuilén was careful not to mention what had happened to him, and only said that he was from Unst and the pair said that they'd never met a soul from that island before.

"Here," Leif growled a little as he pointed at Cuilén's chest, "That says there's more te ye, Cuilén, but, ... there's been no Cruthnes anywhere for an age. I think they're all gone, beuy, and if there be no Cruthnes, well then there cannot be a Cruthne king a jumpit oot the heather."

He looked hard at the Pict for a moment, as though trying to see a reason for the man trying to deceive him.

"This was done fer me by man on Mainland, the bottom innse," Cuilén replied evenly, "The marks I had no choosin' of."

It seemed to settle Leif somewhat and he became more as he was in his greeting.

But while it had lasted, Cuilén had used the interval to do a little looking himself. Leif was huge man unless you had the second sight. He was bald unless you saw the fur on his face and head and had the ability to see the downturned horns. Cuilén saw it all as things which were to a degree transparent, but they were there all the same, the thick legs which ended in clawed feet and the thick fur which covered him.

He was a man unless you had the sight. If you did and you used it, ...

Leif was a troll.

A rather small one, Cuilén thought, given that he was able to move through the insides of a spacious building the way that he did. He wondered about it briefly, but seeing no threat and given what Louhi had said, he set it aside.

Louhi mentioned that they'd recalled their time there with the couple as they'd gone north and she said that Cuilén needed clothes and arms and that his horse needed shoes. Leif laughed and said that he could help with it all. They talked all through the long meal and Leif had a question.

"Ah can shoe yer horse and Moppy and get ye clothes, "he said in his deep and rumbling voice. "Ah can make ye something to keep arrows oot yer brest fer ye. But A'hm wondering noo. A've heard from me Grandda that Cruthnes were fair bowmen and Ah see you've brought no bow in with ye and no bowman leaves his bow in the damp evening. Have ye no got one?"

Cuilén shook his head and Leif laughed, saying that it was all wrong. He reached out and grasped Cuilénès bicep, saying that if they were staying or traveling in the area, then a bow would be a help at some point and he would see what he had.

No one moved much after the meal that Moppy laid out for them and as they sipped from their 'cogs', as the cups were known among islanders, the evening came on and grew dark as Leif took his leave of them to finish up the work that he'd been doing in the smithy. He said that now the forge had gone cold and he'd need to get it going again to finish up. After that, he said he'd go to his bed in order to be able to get up in the morning fairly early.

But first he picked Moppy up and sat her down on his knee to tickle her a little and ask her not to come to bed too late. She laughed and nodded, saying that she'd never dream of coming to their bed to only sleep. They nodded to each other with smiles and he set her down again and left.

"Where did ye find your fine man?" Moppy asked, "I can see that you've found one to stay close to ye as you travel."

Louhi told only of the chance meeting at the inn far behind them near a place called Nairn and then she and Annikki spoke of trying to get a little further south, looking for a more hospitable place to pass the winter.

"Well if it's important what I think," the woman said, "I think ye've done well, and I see that ye've gotten a little close," She turned to Annikki and asked, "I saw that ye were close to your friend and I see it still, Annikki. It leaves me to wonder a fair bit."

"We three are fast friends," Annikki smiled, "and I am happy for Louhi, so very happy. The secret came out just as we came to your door."

She raised her cog and sipped a little, "And I like what has happened, Moppy. Louhi – no matter what words she throws now seeks to have a man. We have always talked of it and one of us had to be the first. Now I can stay as I am, or I can try for a man too. But I am in no hurry," she chuckled as she raised her cog again, "Louhi shares him well."

Moppy grinned and nodded, "I thought as much from what I see."

"I did not know that you come from those islands, "Annikki said, "Why did you leave your home to come here?" she asked as the wind outside picked up a little.

"We're a little too close to the sea for Leif," Moppy said very quietly and the remark brought questioning looks from the others.

"Well he was a fisherman, besides a smith," she said, "He has his sad tale to tell and I have mine. Both of them have a touch of the otherworld about them." She got up to draw another pitcher of mead from the cask and came back, looking as though she was listening to hear something far off for a moment.

"Cuilén," she smiled, "do an auld girl a good thought and bank up the fire some. The wind's up and I'll want a bit of warmth afore I get a lot more in the bed with my man."

As he nodded and set to it, Moppy settled back into her chair with a pleased sigh and looked at the large man there in her kitchen and slapped her little belly with a laugh, "Noo that me puggy's fulla good maet, Ah'm in the mood to tell of it all."

She leaned forward, motioning the others to do likewise and she looked from one the next, "I don't want tae say it too loud. Do ye ken anything about Selkies?"

It took a few moments of her explanation before Louhi and Annikki nodded that they'd heard something of a sort of creature such as that, though it had a different name where they were from, and anyway, they didn't know much of it, not being from the northern coast.

Cuilén didn't need to say anything. Moppy saw the look of comprehension on his face.

"Those islands," she said as she pointed in the general direction, "Any of them, and it doesna matter which, whether Orkneyjar or the Hjaltland, nor even the Faeroes a bit wast and farther north. They've all got their tales of the beasties who live there or nearby, close enough – and they're all owned by the Norse now anyway.

That brings its own troubles and joys I think, and it gives a way for the Good Folk to travel."

She looked over at Cuilén as she spoke, "The people have learned that a little fear and respect can go a ways to keepin' yersel alive and unharmed. There's all manner of things there what don't fit with the world as ye can see it, but that doesna mean that they're nae there all the same.

Where Ah'm from, when a girl gets with child, it's best tae keep the fact as hidden as ye can. Girls are in a wee bit of danger anytime as it is. A bride more so, and a mother tae be, well, that needs tae be kept hidden from the Good Folk and others fer as long as it may be done."

"The Good Folk?" Annikki asked and Cuilén nodded, "Faeries, trolls, and draugs," he said quietly, "All of them are often mean-spirited to island people. The people there call them that so that it is known what is meant without saying the names, for fear of rousing them at all."