Emyr's Smile

  Emyr’s Smile

  Amy Rae Durreson

  Copyright © 2013 by Amy Rae Durreson

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  A Note From the Author

  This little novelette was written as a companion piece to my longer novella The Lodestar of Ys, as a thank you to my readers. Although it is set twenty years before The Lodestar of Ys, it assumes that you have read that book first. The most important thing you need to know is that the islands of Ys float in the sky just offshore, lifted by the magical derwen trees that grow on every island. The most low-lying of the islands is Sirig, which floats just above the sea. The islanders of Ys travel by flying ships, built of derwen wood and steered by lodestones. Emyr and Heilyn make a brief appearance in The Lodestar of Ys, but the main characters and plots of the two stories are quite distinct.

  Chapter 1

  HEILYN HAD just loaded up his brush with the most perfect shade of blue he’d ever mixed when he heard a very polite voice say, “I think you ought to know this field usually contains an awfully bad-tempered bull.”

  Heilyn laughed without looking aside from his canvas and the shimmering view before him: the sea, still hazy with early mist, and the islands floating above low-lying Sirig, the morning light catching on their undersides where the moss velveted the rocks and brushed against the interlocking brass pipes and cisterns, and the tumbling streams where the water fell like Dwynwen’s tears down the islands’ craggy cliffs, garlanded by misty rainbows . “I’ll take the chance, thanks.”

  “I only mention it because he broke the last artist’s arm and ate his canvas.” After a moment, the unseen stranger added thoughtfully, “Which in his case was no loss, but your work is much better.”

  Well, that was a new approach. “Thank you, but flattery won’t persuade me to move.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.” The stranger’s tone was a little frosty now. “Pumpkin is going to be in an even worse mood than usual when he gets back, so consider yourself fairly warned.”

  “If you really want me to believe in the bull,” Heilyn suggested, “you should choose a more likely name than Pumpkin.”

  “You don’t believe…?” the stranger said, sounding quite bewildered. “Why wouldn’t you believe in a bull?”

  Heilyn sighed and put his brush down. He would have believed it without question at the start of his trip around Ys. Travel, however, as he’d tried to explain to his protesting family as they gathered to wave him off from the wharf on Rhaedr, broadened the mind and taught new skills. Including cynicism.

  “You see,” he said now, “people like art.”

  “They do, yes, on the whole.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they like artists. Oh, people like to know what you’re doing, and they love looking over your shoulder to criticize, but after that they don’t really like you sitting around on their land, blocking their view, and making them feeling embarrassed to scratch their arses. But Dwynwen forbid they look like they don’t like art, so it’s all, “The light’s bad there,” and, “Oh, the view’s better in that other man’s field,” or “Mind the bull.” Heard them all.” There was silence from behind him, and he belatedly realized that might have been a bit much. “Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to go into that much detail.” He turned to offer up his most charming smile, the one which had gotten him out of trouble in more islands than not, and caught his breath sharply.

  The man on the other side of the hedge was lovely—no, not lovely. That sounded too pretty and delicate. This man was stunning. He was all lean clean lines, even his face long and high-boned. His hair was cut close enough to his head to display the perfect curve of his skull. It could have looked too austere, on someone even a shade paler, but there was just enough color to him: a hint of pink in his cheeks and the darker blush of his lips, the dark otter-pelt hue of his hair, and his eyes, the brightest thing in his face, blue as the sky and so sad. Heilyn wanted to put his hands on that face and feel the lines of it under the heels of his palms until he knew how to shape it in clay. He wanted to mix those colors in watercolor or ready to slide straight onto fine china.

  “You’re beautiful!” Heilyn blurted out, his heart in his words.

  The vision of perfection across the hedge looked a little disconcerted at that. “Oh. Um, thank you. That’s very… I still have to put the bull back in his field.”

  “The bull named Pumpkin?” Heilyn was slowly coming back to his senses, though he still couldn’t look away.

  “Is that a name I would make up?”

  That was a fair point, but Heilyn could refute it. “I’ve been painting here all week, and there are no pumpkins in this field.”

  “He’s been down at the east end of the island all week earning the price of his pasture in stud fees. Owen ap Owen Up-the-Hill is bringing him back this afternoon. He’ll be worn out and irritable, poor Pumpkin.”

  “And late,” Heilyn added, because he might only have been on Sirig a week, but that was still long enough to know that the only reason Owen Up-the-Hill was still in business was because he was the only carter on the island.

  The stranger’s long lips twitched, not enough to count as a smile, but enough to make him look smug. “He isn’t late for me. I pay him in whiskey, and take a tot off for every hour’s delay.”

  “Is that the secret, then?” Heilyn asked, smiling to see if he could get one back. He wanted to see a real smile on that solemn face.

  “Don’t share it, or I may lose my advantage.” His words were serious enough, but everything he said was tinged with a note of quiet irony, as if he was laughing at the world. Why wouldn’t he smile, if that was the case?

  “My lips are sealed,” Heilyn promised, and made a heroic effort not to add, “I’d like to seal them to yours.” A slightly more delicate approach was clearly needed here.

  Sighing, he turned back to his painting. There was at least two hours’ work still to do. “When’s the carter due?”

  “In an hour.”

  “Let’s hope he’s not too desperate for a drink, then,” Heilyn muttered, and picked up his brush again. “I’ll have to paint fast.”

  “Do you mind if I keep you company?”

  “Mind?” Heilyn repeated, perhaps a little too ecstatically for a casual acquaintance. “Not at all. That would be wonderful!”

  His beautiful stranger gave him a quizzical look and said very carefully, “I have to wait for the carter.”

  “Oh.”

  “I could wait in the opposite corner of the field, but that feels a little awkward. I promise I won’t offer any unwanted criticism, though.”

  “Much appreciated,” Heilyn said, and cleared his throat. “I’m Heilyn, since we’re keeping company now.”

  “Emyr.”

  “Emyr,” Heilyn repeated slowly, imagining ink, a brush, and this man’s naked back, lit by firelight. He’d paint the name across Emyr’s shoulders in round script, putting curls on the tails and swells of the letters. Would Emyr squirm beneath the caress of the brush? “Are you ticklish?”

  “What?” Emyr asked. “Not particularly, no. Why?”

  “No reason,” Heilyn said hurriedly, and made himself concentrate on his painting again. He hadn’t spent a week trying to capture those rainbows just to lose it all to an errant fantasy. Finish the painting first, and then flirt with the gorgeous man.

  Of course, after tha
t, he finished too soon, long before the bull showed up. In fact, Heilyn had almost forgotten about the bull, caught between the light and his awareness of Emyr’s presence at his shoulder, watching every stroke intently. Triumphantly, he put his brush down and said, “Done! Let’s get a drink.”

  “I have to wait for my bull,” Emyr reminded him.

  “I’ll wait with you,” Heilyn said at once.

  “No, go and get your drink. You’ve earned it.”

  “I was wrong. I’m really not quite finished.” He could add a little more mist up in the corner there, and redo the white curls of the starflowers in the the derwen grove so they stood out more clearly.

  “No, it’s beautiful,” Emyr said, clearly under the false impression that he needed reassurance. “Go and celebrate before Pumpkin gets here to ruin your day.”

  “But…” Heilyn started, trying to think of an excuse.

  “It was very interesting to meet you,” Emyr said gravely. “I hope we meet again before you leave Sirig.”

  Well, that was just pointed enough. Daunted, Heilyn retreated with his canvas held out before him. This, he promised himself, glancing back at where Emyr stood gazing up at the afternoon light on the cliffs of Briallen floating above them, was not the end. He’d paint that man yet, and only time and luck would tell whether it would be on canvas or whether he’d be tracing color onto smooth skin.

  HEILYN WAS woken the next dawn by the soft sigh of rain. It pattered down gently on the roof of the attic of the village inn, and plinked off the bedpan Heilyn had put under the leak. It drowned out the snores of the overnighting sailors in the other two bunks and made the air suddenly taste clean and cool. Strange, he thought sleepily, how rain sounded the same on every island. He had been traveling since the spring, island-hopping on the ropes, and the rain sounded the same tucked into a shepherd’s hut on the slopes of Callestr, high in the sky, or in a shrineside hostel below Luaith, where the priests of Dwynwen lived on actual searocks, lower than any island. Even on the mainland, where he’d spent a bewildered weekend, the rain sounded the same.

  Now summer was drawing to an end, and he would have to slow the pace of his travel, as the ferry services became less frequent in the face of winter storms. He wasn’t ready to plant his feet in the ground and grow roots, not yet, but it was time to start thinking about his route a little more. Winter wasn’t quite such a forgiving season for just jumping on the next boat out when you were bored of a place.

  He thought of Emyr, and smiled up at the scraps of paper pinned over his bed, all covered with charcoal attempts to capture Emyr’s face. Perhaps there was time for one last fling before summer was over.

  With that thought, he slipped back into sleep, and didn’t stir until he was woken by the clang of pots in the kitchen below. The rain was gone, and the sun shone through the open windows as he dashed down the stairs to the kitchen. He was traveling for the sake of his art, but art wasn’t as useful in getting cheap accommodation as a willingness to scrub dishes, so he was working for his stay.

  The sunshine came spilling in the window again as he splashed and scrubbed with goodwill, that amazing low island light that made his heart feel light and his fingers hungry for a brush. He whistled as he worked, the music spilling out of him as if he were a lark flitting across the base of a high island, loose and bright and happy.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Elin the innwife remarked, bustling in with more dirty plates. The crew of the Gylfinir, the trading ship that had docked overnight, were making a good breakfast while they waited for the wind and everyone in the kitchen was busy.

  “I’m in love,” Heilyn informed her happily.

  She snorted, dumping the plates beside him and picking up the clean stack. “Oh, yes? What is it you’re in love with today, boy? The flowers outside the window, is it? The birds in the trees? A handsome sailor?”

  “My heart is as wide as the ocean,” Heilyn told her.

  “Aye,” she said with a snort of derision. “And as shallow as a puddle.”

  He chose to ignore that. Slander! “For your information, I’m in love with a smile I haven’t seen yet.” He thought of Emyr’s mouth and his sad, sad eyes and sighed again.

  “Dwynwen save us, should I be telling my friends to lock up their daughters?”

  Heilyn wrinkled his nose at her. “Girls? No, thank you. This smile belongs to a man.” Emyr was definitely all grown-up, though he wasn’t old, Dwynwen forbid.

  “Does this lucky man have a name?” Elin asked, openly laughing at him now. It wasn’t his fault he approached his life with such enthusiasm, was it? Some people would think that was a good thing.

  Heilyn was about to answer when he realized that he knew nothing about Emyr except his first name. He clearly lived here, but beyond that he could be anyone. He could even, Dwynwen forbid, be married. Well, today would be for finding out more. To cover, he simply grinned at Elin. “He’s a mystery.”

  By the end of serving, everyone working in the inn was teasing him about his mystery man, but Heilyn just felt his mood bubble higher with every joke.

  It was mid-morning before he got back to the field, loitering his way along the lane in the hope he might bump into Emyr. He’d taken a little extra care with his appearance, combing his fair curls into a neat tail and for once actually shaving before he got shaggy. He’d deliberated over which of his three shirts to wear, eventually picking out the green one that made his gray eyes look deep and alluring, rather than the ever-so-slightly too tight one he wore when he was just trying to get into a man’s bed. His Emyr was clearly going to need a little courting.

  Besides, the tight one was paint-stained.

  When he got to the field, he glanced over the hedge, curious to see what Pumpkin actually looked like after all that fuss.

  There was no bull.

  Chapter 2

  AGHAST, HEILYN stopped and stared at the field, mapping every bit of it with his gaze to be sure. No bull. No pumpkins, either.

  Emyr had lied.

  Righteous anger carried him all the way back to the inn to get his painting, and back to the field again at a fast stomp. He scrambled over the chained gate and set up in the same spot as yesterday, scowling at the view. He’d been satisfied with what he had done, but it wasn’t perfect yet. So he’d make it perfect, and that might ease the sting of being taken for a fool by a handsome man who probably turned those tragic eyes on any gullible artists he happened to—

  There was a noise behind him.

  Heilyn turned round. Standing in a gap in the hedge, one which wasn’t at all visible from the lane, was the biggest, ugliest, and most vividly orange bull he had ever seen.

  “You must be Pumpkin,” he said to it, guilt surging through him. He should never have doubted Emyr.

  Pumpkin let out a noise. It wasn’t the kind of gentle lowing moo Heilyn expected of a cow. This noise was low and harsh and suggested a certain imminent violence.

  Gulping, Heilyn stared at the bull.

  The bull stared back.

  Then, rather delicately, it pawed at the ground beneath its feet and lowered its head.

  Heilyn grabbed his painting and ran.

  He almost made it. He managed to get one leg over the top of the head-high hedge before Pumpkin hit it like a ship without a lodestone. Yelping, Heilyn threw himself gracelessly over the hedge, painting first. He got halfway over before his legs, his elbow and the back of his shirt tangled in the branches and Pumpkin’s charges began shaking the hedge hard enough to send leaves falling in showers.

  If his hands had been free, he could have untangled himself in moments, but the morning’s rain had left a broad and muddy puddle right below where he was hanging, and he wasn’t going to drop this picture, of them all, into the mud, not after all this grief.

  Pumpkin’s next charge made the branches around his left foot snap, threatening to drop him in the puddle anyway, and Heilyn squirmed desperately. “Shit, shit, shit, shitting shit, shit!”

&
nbsp; Which was, of course, the moment when someone cleared their throat behind him and said, very politely, “Would you like some help there, Heilyn?”

  The best course was usually just to brazen it out. Brightly, Heilyn said, “Emyr! You were right. There is a bull in that field!”

  “How extraordinary,” Emyr commented, with a quaver of laughter in his voice he probably was entitled to. He also took the painting out of Heilyn’s hands and set it down gently on the dry side of the lane.

  Pumpkin rammed into the hedge again, shaking the branches. There was a creak and ripping noise, and Heilyn’s good green shirt came apart at the seams, dropping Heilyn headfirst towards a very large puddle. He flailed, managed to grab Emyr in time, and found himself, shirt left behind the hedge, caught in Emyr’s arms.

  Emyr had a strong grip, and there were muscles under his shirt sleeves. Mood suddenly soaring back up, Heilyn pressed in closer and grinned up at him. “Why, thank you.” He looked up to see a gratifying flush on Emyr’s cheeks, and then got transfixed by those blue eyes again. From close up, he could see that the irises were rimmed with a darker hue. He could see Emyr’s mouth properly too, and the faint red chapping which suggested he chewed his lips.

  Heilyn’s heart was just starting to beat faster in anticipation when Pumpkin rammed the hedge again, and Emyr said, a little stutter in his voice, “If you were to let go, we could get away and let the poor bull calm down.”

  “I need my shirt,” Heilyn pointed out, stepping back reluctantly.

  “I think it might be wise to come back for it later,” Emyr remarked, picking up the painting. “I can lend you one, and you’ve got some cuts which need cleaning.”

  Heilyn hadn’t even noticed, but now the excitement was starting to wear off and he was suddenly aware that he was scraped and battered and nowhere near as well-presented as he’d been when he left the inn. On the other hand, he’d just been issued with an invitation to Emyr’s home, which was probably more than he deserved, given Emyr had tried to warn him. “Thank you. You’re too kind.”