Celtic Mist Ch. 15

HE shall love my soul as though

Body were not at all,

He shall love your body

Untroubled by the soul,

Love cram love's two divisions

Yet keep his substance whole.

--- W.B. Yeats

Declan and Aoife fled Rossnalough Manor, skirting north round Enniscorthy town under the midnight sky. With their bloody clothes, they kept to the dark fields and pastures alongside the road, passing shadowed cottages and dim shapes of ploughs, carts, and ruminating animals. Only one person did they spy on the road at this hour: a man on horseback, galloping towards Enniscorthy. In the darkness, the man's garb --- uniform or civilian --- was not discernable. Aoife guessed him to be the courier of some urgent message.

Where the lane turned off towards Fleetwood's farm, they continued straight ahead in an easterly direction.

No words did they utter as they strode side by side across the dark countryside, each preoccupied by their own thoughts --- if 'thoughts' was the proper term. Ever since fleeing Rossnalough Manor, Aoife knew only an overwhelming giddy feeling --- a maelstrom of sensations that could scarce be deemed coherent 'thoughts'. Her heart was racing out of proportion to the exertion of their pace, her stomach was fluttering, and her hands were shaking --- all of which surged anew when images from the confrontation with Blaylock flashed before her.

In contradistinction to her mind, her body operated purposefully, and her senses tingled with heightened acuity. Her eyes darted about the dark landscape to pick out shapes and movement...the faint glow of a cat's eyes by a barn...the silhouette of a bird sweeping across the sky. Her ears perked to the sounds of crickets, owls, wind stirring leaves, the creak of a loose shutter. The metallic odor of blood and sulphur of gunpowder rose from their clothes, but above that were detectable the variable scents of earth, animals, and chimney smoke from cottages. As they scaled walls, her fingers skimmed the jagged, cool edges of stones and soft draping vines. The ends of the dagger sheath and pistol holster tapped against her thighs as she walked, and the unfamiliar weight of the cartridge belt shifted round her hips.

By such vivid details did Aoife dispel any doubts that the fateful events had indeed transpired --- together they had succeeded, so they had! 'Twas no dream! Beside her, Declan seemed to be in a like state, the alert glint of his eyes visible in the starlight as he scanned their surroundings.

Some two hours later, they arrived at the forest. In the adjacent field, Aoife found the landmark of a blackthorn tree and led them into the woods. Once among the tall trees, the canopy of leaves shut out the stars and they were in nigh complete blackness, frustrating Aoife's recognition of the sequence of landmarks that she had used previously to return to the waterfall.

Gnarled tree trunks emerged from the darkness before them as they advanced with slow steps. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. At length, she found the fallen tree she remembered...then a little further the odd-shaped knot in the trunk of an oak...then the strangely twisted branch of an ash...and finally the double trunks of a maple...at which point the burble of flowing water became audible.

At the marker of a small pile of stones, Aoife ducked under the boughs of pine trees and within minutes they were standing on the banks of the pool below the waterfall. A ribbon of night sky showed in the break in the foliage above the stream, and the stars dimly shone on the speckled stones and highlighted the cascading flow. For several moments they stood in silent contemplation, the rush of the water and the cool, mossy air enveloping them.

Declan cleared his throat. "I'll build a fire," he said in a low, rasping voice. He set aside his knapsack and began to search for sticks, soon disappearing in the darkness under the surrounding trees. Aoife retrieved the soap from her bag and moved downstream to the end of the pool where the water swirled and tumbled through a maze of stones.

A glance showed Declan still absent, and she kicked off her shoes and stripped, unsticking the blood-drenched garments from her skin and submerging them in an eddy of cold water among the rocks --- all of them, even the torn shirt and the soldier's confiscated breeches. Aoife knelt on the bank to scrub them.

By and by, Declan returned and began building a fire on the bank upstream from her, near the base of the falls, and she saw his quick look in her direction. Pragmatic instinct had prevailed when she had doffed her clothes, but now in his presence she felt shy of her nakedness. Reassuring herself that she was sufficiently shrouded in darkness to preserve her modesty, she finished her task. Even when he had kindled a decent blaze, she was still protected from the light by the distance and intervening boulders and plants between them.

As if such a thing mattered at this juncture! And yet...even after the trial they had endured together...even after teetering on the edge of her grave, she felt the involuntary nervous excitement in her body at the knowledge that she was alone with this young man...and she was stark naked.

It came to her that the last time she had seen him prior to this night was at the courthouse...when, hidden under the judges' bench, he had traced 'I love you' in her palm...and had ravished her cunny with his mouth...rousing the exquisite torment that had culminated in the astounding, rapturous release against his lips.

A warm throb grew deep in her belly.

Aoife wrung out the wet garments, then picked her way among the stones and ferns along the bank. Nearing the crackling fire, she peeped from the shelter a large boulder --- Declan was engrossed in loading the two pistols they had taken.

"Give me your clothes --- I'll wash them," she urged, her voice hoarse.

From the other side of the rock came the soft noises of him undressing, and she faced away, resisting her curiosity. Coat, shirt, breeches, drawers, and stockings one at a time flipped across the top of the stone.

Aoife split the piece of soap and stretched her arm over the barrier between them. "Soap."

"Ta."

Back at her washing station, she beheld him in the pool, vigorously splashing and ducking his head under the water as he bathed. For her own part, the congealing blood was sticky on the skin of her belly and thighs, and when at length she had wrung out the final item, she rejoiced to finally be able herself to slip into the invigorating embrace of the pool.

From the far end, she paddled her way upstream, pausing to scrub her skin everywhere with a fan of pine needles and soap, then she exhaled and upended herself in the water, diving to the pure blackness at the bottom.

'Twas even colder here --- she sat for a moment with her hands and hair waving slowly, feeling the ancient stone beneath her. The pulse that had been pounding in her ears ever since Blaylock had walked into his office was at last lulled to a slow, faraway thudding by the cold, sinuous current...purifying her...quenching her past wounds.

She burst through the surface gasping, her hair streaming back from her face. Her paddling hand inadvertently brushed against Declan's. He was a few feet away, the firelight touching upon the contours of his face above the rippling water...his teeth were chattering but his expression was otherwise unreadable as he looked at her.

"Pardon," she murmured and swam further upstream till the mist from the falls enveloped her.

A motion on the bank drew her attention, and she observed Declan standing by the fire, facing away from her, stripping the water from his skin with his hands. Her curious eyes followed his motions, observing in fascination his naked body in the restless illumination of the flames...his wide back, his taut, rounded buttocks, and his strong limbs. Aoife's belly fluttered...she ducked her head under the water again to cool her hot face.

When she surfaced, she considered the falls above her, then glanced back to the firepit. Declan was now seated upon a stone by the fire, his back courteously towards her.

Taking the offered opportunity, Aoife clambered up the wet stones to the flat rock that received the gushing plume and stood behind it to quickly soap her hair. Her head fully lathered, she peeked round the falls to assure herself he was yet facing away, then stepped under the water to rinse clean...the flowing water strumming over her breasts and mound as stirringly it had before, but this time she dallied not. Soon she dived into the pool below.

Declan, yet naked, was crouched by his knapsack when her head again broke the surface. Aoife swam to the side with her lips trembling from the chill, searching the bank uncertainly. He extracted a cloth bundle from the bag.

"Are ye finished?" he asked, standing with the bundle in front of his privates.

She nodded.

"Here's me cloak if ye want." He sat again, placing the garment on the stone behind him before presenting his back to her. As cold as she had grown, Aoife wasted no time climbing out of the pool, whisking the droplets of water from her skin, and wringing out her hair.

She unrolled the cloak and swung it round her shivering, bare body...the memory flooding her of the first time she had donned his coat...back in September after she had fallen into the river. Yet again his cloak was offered to cover her wet body...but how much had happened since then! This cloak was more like a cape --- sleeveless and fastening at the neck.

Thus clad, Aoife immediately went downstream to the rocks where she had left the wet clothes and gathered them up. Returning to the fire with her teeth chattering and the gooseflesh rising over her skin, she spread the garments over stones closer to the warmth of the flames. Declan was stirring the fire with a stick, but paused to help her, stretching his arms to drape items over the stones nearby his seat.

"Aoife, sit by the fire and warm yourself," he murmured, nodding at the moss-coated stone next to him.

She glanced round, avoiding looking at him. No other stones by the fire were the proper height for a seat, so she squelched her nervousness and sat next to him, adjusting the folds of the wool cloak so as to keep a few inches of space between their thighs.

They both gazed straight ahead at the fire.

In truth, Aoife's sporting side had to acknowledge that the awkward scene was not without humor: here they were sitting side by side --- he stark naked, she covered from neck to toe by the oversized cloak --- both silently staring at the flames. 'Twas beyond reason...the memory of his nakedness had haunted her for months, and now he was sitting right next to her, stripped to the skin! A shiver ran through her body, seemingly in the wake of departing lucid thought. She chanced a furtive side glance at the unclothed young man beside her...wicked lass that she was.

Notwithstanding the fantastical situation, Declan was clearly endeavoring to be tactful. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands --- his wet hair close to the heat --- and the position shielded his privates from a casual glance. No embarrassment did she sense on his part, but rather a chivalrous regard for her.

Did she have anything dry in her knapsack to offer him as clothing? Then she was ashamed to realize that 'twas only the long-engrained idea of propriety that had provoked the thought...not her own inclinations, for she could scarce smother the image of the first time she had seen him naked...when she had gaped at his...ahem...natural charm. Aye, now seated next to him on the stone, her wayward eyes could not stop peeking at the line of dark hair visible below his navel. Even when she forced her gaze forward upon the fire, she could still see from the corner of her eye his muscular arm and thigh with their dusting of hairs.

A different giddy feeling now overwhelmed her, and the pattering of her heart spiraled out to her belly and limbs. Averting her eyes, Aoife likewise leant forward with her elbows upon her knees and combed her fingers through her wet tresses as she meditated upon the crackling flames and watched the sparks that floated towards the heavens.

'Twas wonderfully warm sitting before the fire, and the shaking of her body presently eased. From the dark woodland about them, she heard the churring melody of a nightjar.

"How are ye fairing?" Declan said at length, his voice, like hers, raspy from Blaylock's attempted strangulation.

"Better...now."

His face turned towards hers, and she ventured a look in his direction. Both were leaning forward with their chins on their hands. In the flickering light, Aoife could see the bruises and lacerations upon his brow, nose, cheekbones, and among the bristles on his jaw. The lids of his right eye were swollen and red, and his lower lip had a beaded line of dried blood where it had split.

Those lips had been glued to her cunny at their last encounter...

The green of his eyes seemed to ebb and flow in the flames...his pupils were slightly dilated as his gaze rested upon her eyes then dropped to her lips. He cleared his throat...and they both turned back to the firepit.

A nightingale's chirp sounded above the crackling flames.

Declan's face spoke to the mighty battle that had evidently waged whilst she was unconscious. Aoife remembered Blaylock tossing her backwards onto the oak trunk and pinning her down by the throat. Her vision had clouded grey and white, and she remembered her final, fading feeling: despair at her failure...despair that she would never see Clodagh again for she had not had the goodness that would have assuredly elevated her sister to Heaven.

When she had regained consciousness clad only in the rags of her clothes, she quickly had become aware of the violent scuffle underway by the fireplace...the brutal smashing of fists into bone and flesh, grunts, and oaths...Blaylock and Declan in a death struggle.

Not so much at the time than after Declan and she had made their escape did she appreciate that, despite being helpless and essentially naked under Blaylock's hands, there was no alteration to her privates...no pain, no blood...to suggest that he had achieved his intended triumph in that regard. She could only surmise that Declan had once again rescued her.

In the moment, her attention had instead been fixed in horror upon the sight of Declan being felled by Blaylock slamming the crystal decanter over his head. Aoife had leapt atop the lid of the trunk and jerked her dagger from the wall where Blaylock had thrown it.

She shivered. 'Twas done! They had committed murder, so they had...if that was even the proper term for their act...but given all that had passed, no hint of remorse detracted from her present sensation of righteous exultation. Henceforth, no part of her mind need ever be occupied by that villainous man!

Now the thing to do was assess Declan's injuries, a last vestige of rational thought prompted her. In her bag she had a small pottery jar of the unguent she had made for Rory Redmond. Aye, Declan's being naked should only be regarded as advantageous in that light...to better tend to his injuries, she told herself.

In her peripheral vision, she sensed his face turning slightly towards her, felt his eyes upon her. Her knees fidgeted self-consciously.

The fire once again absorbed his attention.

After a few minutes, Aoife stealthily eased her knee furthest from him a few inches open, and parted the front of the cloak, draping the edges over each kneecap such that the warmth of the fire flowed up between her thighs under the cover of the cloth...her purpose hopefully undetected by the lad next to her. She did need to dry herself, she argued...she was only being discreet.

The heat was heavenly upon her bare skin, licking in waves between her legs...soon joining forces with the heat rushing down into her belly from her heart. 'Twas as if two rays were radiantly battering at her center from opposing directions, gamboling together upon the swelling spot that shamefully expanded and pulsed...naked under the cloak. Were he sitting opposite her, 'twould no doubt be quite visible to him.

The irony of her scruples at this point did not escape her --- a few days ago under the judges' bench, her limbs had been shockingly akimbo, and his breath, like the heat of the present fire, had wafted up betwixt them till his mouth buried itself at their juncture...aye...that mouth right there next to her...surrounded by the dark bristles on his upper lip and chin. Too real flashed the remembered spatter of his warm seed christening the insides of her thighs.

A faint sensation of fluid tickled between her secret lips...was it just the water from the stream, or ---?

'Twas merely the elation of the night that was reverberating in her body, she reasoned.

Once more Aoife sensed Declan's gaze directed at her. Was he too thinking on their last meeting? She blushed...then cupped her hands over her hot cheeks, striving to appear casual. A moment later she straightened and pushed back slightly from the heat, her fingers in the moist moss on the stone.

Declan seemed discomfited as well: he too shifted upon the stone, lifting and bending the leg closer to her to cross his ankle over his other knee. The muscles in his limbs flexed momentarily. Again he leant forward, his elbow on his raised thigh and his other arm folded across his lap with his hand dangling by his hip next to her. She stole a glance at him...she could see an ill-defined white scar upon his knee, his broad hand with the fresh lacerations round the knuckles, and the rope abrasions on his wrists...but his hunched posture now shrouded even the previously appreciable trail of dark hair below his navel.

Aoife strove to arrange her jumbled thoughts...to tame the volatile quavering in her belly with a sobering contemplation of practical considerations. What was next for them...for her? As soon as the clothes were dry enough, they could go to Fleetwood's farm...sleep the rest of the night...and be there to assist with the final preparations for the rising, which was now fewer than twenty-four hours away.

But she did not want to think sensibly...she did not want to think at all.

A rustling and cracking came from the direction of the trees next to them.

Declan lunged for a pistol and dagger. "Grab your weapons and hide," he muttered and, unmindful of his nakedness, ducked under the pine boughs.

Aoife did as instructed, crouching in the shadow of a large boulder. From the dark woods she briefly heard his footsteps on the twigs and leaves before the rush of the waterfall became the only sound in the night air.

By God, could the Yeomen have tracked them here?! Her heart thudded and she cocked the pistol, her ears straining.

Several minutes passed with naught but the flowing water to be heard.

Then a snapping sound.

She tensed and raised the pistol.

"Aoife, 'tis I," Declan called. "Dinna shoot!" He appeared from under the sweeping, dark greenery. Peering round the stone, she beheld him in the sphere of firelight, a few feet away, his bare privates level with her face. She turned abruptly back, her cheeks flaming and her lips parting.

"Aoife? Where are ye?"

She steadied herself with a deep breath and stood up from behind the stone. He was now directly before her, a couple of feet away, holding a leather belt and returning the weapons to their sheaths.

"'Twas just a deer."

"Oh?" She set her knife and pistol down atop the boulder next to them, keeping her line of sight above his waist...upon his wide, bare chest disconcertingly before her face...upon the lean muscles there and in his belly...