Seduction

Twenty-one

56 BCE

ISLE OF JERSEY

“Reports are that the Romans will be here in less than twenty days,” Owain said. “Can you gather some skins of mead? Some fruit?”

“You’re going on a retreat?” Gwenore asked.

He nodded. “I need to consult the gods and ask for visions for new insight.”

“I don’t understand. Aren’t we prepared for the Romans?”

“They say that this isn’t a small band of outlaws. These soldiers are traveling in a large group, ravaging everywhere they go.”

“But you and the warriors are prepared-”

Owain interrupted. “Not if we’re outnumbered.” He shook his head. “We need guidance.”

Gwenore nodded. His wife knew better than to argue. If he needed to go she would prepare his food and make do without him. He was well aware she was nervous. Even though she was a strong woman and afraid of nothing else, she had an unfounded fear of these retreats. Now he reminded her not to worry.

Outside the hut, their eleven-year-old son was working on his totem. Each novitiate had to complete this ritual task before being ordained. Brice was almost done carving the animal from the hazel tree stump.

Owain had been proud of how quickly Brice had understood his instructions.

“In the never-ending and age-old search to learn the secrets of creation, a priest needs more than wisdom; he needs to connect to the mystical realm where answers hide,” Owain had explained. “A totem will aid you in your quest for magical knowledge. It will be a bridge between the physical world and the metaphysical one.”

“The totem is the animal I’ll merge with?” Brice had asked.

“Yes, son. Each animal or bird offers different attributes. An owl gives insight. A wolf makes one more alert to dangers.”

Discovering what animal you needed help from and then creating one’s own meditation tool to call upon for strength and understanding during the tough life ahead was a process that in itself built strength. Brice had been working at his for over four months, and in that time Owain had seen his son becoming a man.

Owain was proud he would be the priest to initiate his son into the Druid class. He would have the privilege of taking Brice to the secret ceremony deep in the cave where light never penetrated, close to the center of the earth and the spirits of the animals. Aided by the incense made from stones, and a sacred drink made from macerated herbs, he would show Brice how to engage in a dance with his animal familiar until he found that ecstatic place of growth and understanding. Of otherworldly knowledge.

They had already visited the holy site once. During the winter, Brice had been taken blindfolded into the inner sanctum, where he’d inhaled the incense and drunk the liquor and talked through a dream incubation. A journey designed to help the boy discover his animal familiar.

Brice had seen a cat. He’d found his spirit guide. The creature whom he would forever after be able to communicate with during magic hours: dawn, twilight and midnight in the sacred cave or in the ancient woods.

The step after that was for the novitiate to give the spirit a physical form. And so Brice had been spending a period of time every day carving his cat.

It was a fitting animal for a priest. Cats guard the secrets of the otherworld and are liaisons with mystic realms. Protectors of esoteric knowledge, cats can open the gates through which a priest can see the future and gain insight.

Like his father, Brice was dark-skinned and tall. He was a smart boy with a gentle soul, who cared for people with a rare compassion. That he had inherited from his father. From his mother he’d inherited a sense of humor and mischievous ways, which could sometimes make Owain outwardly angry but, in private with Gwenore, always made him laugh.

And like Gwenore, the boy questioned everything.

As one of the elder priests of the tribe, Owain performed ceremonies and rituals that helped his people to live and prosper. Gwenore’s questions were not always welcome. They sometimes bordered on anarchy. Rules were meant to be blindly obeyed. She didn’t believe that. And Owain worried that her curiosity didn’t always set a good example for their son. Or for the other women who looked up to her. He couldn’t change her though. She was too strong-willed. And he wasn’t sure he would have wanted to. She was his heart. From the first time he beheld her, standing beside Roan, his brother, Owain wanted her. And for the first three years of that marriage, Owain had spent part of every day fighting just how much he wanted her and cursing the gods for the injustice of her having chosen his brother.

As Brice chipped away, Owain was lost in the even, measured beat of the mallet hitting the chisel. Thinking about Roan, he felt a familiar pang of longing mixed with guilt. As much as he missed his brother-and he did-every single day, if the fates hadn’t intervened, and if Roan hadn’t been killed in battle, Owain wouldn’t have inherited Gwenore. And she would not have given him this son.

“These last few months before Brice turns twelve are precious ones,” Owain said to Gwenore. “The last of his innocence.”

“We have to let him grow up no matter how hard it is for us to let him go,” Gwenore reminded him, and not for the first time.

“He’s worked so hard to prepare for his initiation.”

“And he’ll do fine.”

Owain nodded, but he alone knew how hard the initiation rituals were. Not every boy succeeded, and those who didn’t were demoralized and sometimes even demonized. Nervous for his son, Owain worried the ring on his forefinger. The copper alloy had a deep plum cast to it and its carved design was intricate. When he looked at it he saw only knots, but Gwenore said she saw a strange ghostlike face with hollow gaping eyes staring back at her. This was Owain’s initiation ring. In a few weeks he would be giving his son one just like it upon Brice’s entry into the priesthood.

“I know he will.” But his voice belied his words.

“If your brother had lived and if Brice were his son instead of yours, he’d be training to become a warrior. A far more dangerous way of life,” she reminded him. “You should think of that instead.”

“He’s just grown up so fast.” Owain was still watching Brice, unable to take his eyes off him.

“Roan isn’t in him, Owain.”

Everyone in the tribe believed in life after death and the spirit’s ability to be reborn and live again in a new body. The undying soul was unquestioned. Did not the leaves fall off the tree and become part of the soil that nourished the tree, which spouted new leaves?

Owain had wanted Roan’s soul to be reborn in Brice. He’d prayed for it and watched for it after the baby was born. For years he’d looked for proof, for a sign, for just one glimmer of recognition. And every time Gwenore caught him at it she told him what he was doing was pointless. He was never going to see Roan in their son. Because Roan was in him-in Owain.

As a witch, Gwenore knew things that remained mysteries to others. And she knew Roan had merged with Owain-with his brother-after his death. She had the mark of the witch on her too. That little star birthmark, right over her heart on her left breast. He loved the star and the fact that Brice had one too in almost the same place on his small body.

One dawn, a few months after Brice was born, Gwenore found Owain swinging a piece of metal in the shape of a star that he’d made for his son and the baby was fixated on it. Brice would reach for the star and laugh when Owain would pull it away.

“Did you sleep?” she had asked.

He didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. She knew what was obsessing him and why he sat and stared at their son for hours on end.

“I have something to tell you,” Gwenore said. She spoke hesitantly, as if she was unsure how he was going to accept the news.

“Something happened at your brother’s burial ceremony.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was an overcast day. Do you remember?”

Owain nodded.

“But during that sacred service, the clouds broke. Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“Well, it happened. Suddenly there was brightness where it had been gloom. It was a warm yellow light and it concentrated on you as you conducted the ceremony. I saw it shimmering all around you like a golden robe. So bright at first, I could barely look at you. While I watched, you seemed to absorb it. Soak it in. So that by the time the ceremony was over, it was gone. It was Roan. He was there. I could even smell him in the air. He was there, Owain, in the light, and the light was entering into you.”

Owain had listened. He didn’t believe what she said. If Gwenore had been speaking of someone else, he might have. But Roan-inside of him? He couldn’t help but wonder if she was saying all this because she wanted it to be true. If it was just her way of keeping Roan alive and not accepting that she had really lost him.

They had both been haunted by loss. Intellectually he could accept that if he still mourned his brother, she would too. You don’t stop loving someone because he ceases to take breaths. But no matter how hard Owain fought to understand his wife’s feelings, he was still jealous of what Roan had meant to her and resented it.

“You’ve been watching Brice for a long time,” Gwenore said, as she came back into the room and stood beside him. She handed him a cup of mead. He took it and drank. “He’s going to be working for quite a while more.” She took her husband’s hand.

Owain turned to Gwenore, trying not to think about how she’d loved Roan first. Trying not to wonder if she still wanted his brother. She had been Owain’s for fourteen years now. And she was here beside him offering him an escape from his worries.

Cupping her breasts through the fabric of her robe, her soft flesh through the rough material, he breathed her in. Her skin was scented with the oils she used to keep it supple. This was her secret scent. The smell no one but he could get drunk on. The unique combination of fertile woods, of blooming flowers and of ripe earth aroused him.

Owain pulled her robe open and caressed her thighs. Felt her shudder at his touch. A priest’s fingers weren’t coarse and calloused like other men’s. As his brother’s would have been. Roan’s fingertips would have rubbed her raw. He hoped at least she appreciated that about him.

Sometimes he did feel as if Roan was alive in him. In these moments, Owain felt as if he was having sex for both of them. That when he came into Gwenore like this, stiff with want, with need, with the desire to take her and have her shiver and moan beneath him, he was fulfilling more than one man’s lust.

Was it she who had put that thought into his mind? Or was it true?

Priests were taught and then taught others that intercourse was holy, procreation part of the ritual of life and death. And yet in his secret heart, Owain didn’t experience the act as holy. It was craven. Overwhelming. A drug stronger than the herbs he drank or the smoke he inhaled when it was time to speak to the gods.

Whom are you thinking of? he wanted to shout out to Gwenore as he plunged into her and felt her accept him, felt her welcome him into the slick crevice between her legs. It was like the opening to the sacred cave down on the beach. The entrance was so slight you barely noticed it, but inside. Ah, inside, it was deep and its darkness enveloped him.

Who am I to you now? Myself? My brother? Which one of us are you so eager to have inside you?

These questions were his personal torture, the mantra that echoed in his mind whenever he made love to Gwenore. These words repeated over and over in a rhythm that was in sync with his hips, with her hips, with his fingers stroking her hair, with her fingers stroking his back, with her lips moving on his, with her breath hot on his neck and his breath lost her hair, with the pattern of her heart beating in tandem with the pattern of his heart beating.

Who am I to you now? Who am I to you now? The living brother? The dead one?

Owain’s hand gripped Gwenore’s buttocks and pulled her even closer to him. Impossibly closer. As she gave herself up to him, as she yielded, she began to pant. Make small moaning sounds. Her fingers dug into his flesh. Waves of sensation surged in him. His blood burned in his veins. He breathed what felt like fire.

“Gwenore…” he whispered. “I want you.”

“You have me.”

“More. So there is no space between us. No distance. No air. Just us.”

The smell of a thousand flowers scented her hair, and her mouth tasted of honey from the bees. He inhaled. Tasted. Drank.

“You bewitch me,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Yes.” She laughed low in her throat.

And yes, yes, she had. She had bewitched him. His witch.

They had traveled to this place together, and now their blood rushed and blessings of warmth enfolded them. He thrust up. She bit the skin on his neck. Between her legs was a whole night sky. Stars burst around him.

“Owain, Owain…” She was chanting.

He was chasing his own explosion, not waiting for hers. She was gone from him now. Always in these last moments she was gone from him.

And then came his release. And then hers. And then the first moment of stillness.

They lay quiet. Immobile. Cooling. Now the scent of Gwenore’s skin was infused with the scent of their sex. Outside, the steady thumping of Brice’s tools continued as he carved the wood, as chips flew.

“Now I have to go to the caves,” Owain said.

“For how long this time?”

“You know better than to ask. For as long as it takes for me to learn what it is that I need to do.”

“It’s dangerous to go there tonight. The tides are rising,” she warned.

“I know.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. Her skin was damp. How long until he could lie with her again?

“I’ve been going to the caves since before we were together. Why are you anxious?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Why?”

“The herbs were bitter today.”

He knew how she interpreted the signs: when certain herbs were brewed and turned bitter, she foresaw doom.

Gwenore started to shiver. Strong breezes were coming off the sea.

“Winds of change,” she muttered.

It had been fifteen years since their tribe had faced a threat this bad. Fifteen years since the battle in which his brother died.

“At least Brice won’t have to fight,” he said to his wife. “At least you don’t have to fear that.”

As he listened to the sounds of Brice carving his totem, bringing his magic to life, Owain leaned down and kissed Gwenore on her damp forehead. “It’s time for me to go, to pray, to chant and receive the visions so we can prepare for the future. Will you walk down to the sea with me?”