Chapter 9 #2
“I know you left Lethra when you were a child, but did your father begin your warrior training?” he asked.
“No! My mother trained me—to fight and to swim. She and I created the feats I teach. My father taught me to ride; horses are an important part of Lethra’s culture.
” Her gaze was unfocused and her voice turned dreamy.
“Even when I was very young, I used to love driving a horse and sleigh through the snow. Father and I would go to his favorite ice fishing spot and we would spend the day fishing and talking, just the two of us and our favorite horses.”
When she said no more, he asked, “What did you two talk about?”
Scáthach blinked as if awakening from a dream and turned her gaze to Cuchulainn. “You really want to know what my father and I talked about when I was a child?”
Cuchulainn nodded. “I do. My father didn’t speak to me until I began training as a warrior, so I’m curious.”
Scáthach tilted her head as she thought back. “He spoke of my mother—her beauty and her strength and how much she loved us.” She smiled. “It helped me to feel close to Mother, even though she did not visit Lethra often after Father took a wife.”
“You didn’t resent the fact that he took a wife?”
“No! Even then I understood that a goddess couldn’t be restricted to the mortal world, especially one who rules the Underworld.
” Her voice softened. “I was happy. I was valued by my father and his people, and beloved by my mother. Lethra was a good place to be a child. Except for a brief time after Aife was born, I have nothing but happy memories of it.” She glanced at Cuchulainn.
“And Ulster? How was it to be a child there?”
“I believe it was happy for other children.” He spoke slowly, contemplatively. “I remember watching other boys play and laugh, especially as their fathers encouraged them and showed pride in them. But me?” He shrugged. “I did not have that experience.”
Scáthach studied his face, which lacked any expression. “What of your mother?”
Cuchulainn glanced down at the only ring he wore—a gold signet that formed the letter S. “My mother was proud she gave birth to the son of a god who could best anyone who challenged him.”
“Even when you were just a child?” she asked.
“I was never just a child,” said Cuchulainn.
* * *
A little after midday they ate their lunch on the wagon.
There was no need to stop. The trip to the south was slow because of the cows tied to the wagon, and Cuchulainn could easily eat and keep the horses plodding along at a pace that wouldn’t stress the cows.
They would be much faster on the return trip when they carried only barrels of mead with them.
“Is that it?” Cuchulainn straightened in his seat as the hilly road curved back to parallel the sea and they looked down on the white sand of a pristine beach. The golden rocks that surrounded it and the clear turquoise waters beckoned to swimmers. “Is that Rubha Shlèite?”
“It is. And the Aird of Sleat is not far from here. Stay here and swim while I go to the village and exchange the cows for mead. Then I’ll return to get you,” Scáthach said.
Cuchulainn frowned, though his gaze returned to the invitation of the sandy beach and the crystal water. “But should I not—”
“You should enjoy your boon. That is all you must do today. I won’t be too long, but you’ll have enough time to swim until you’re exhausted.”
He grinned, looking very boyish. “In truth, I already swam today, and the current put up quite a battle. It won’t take me long to be exhausted.”
“Perfect because it won’t take me long to get the mead loaded.
Leannan, stay with Cuchulainn,” Scáthach said after Cuchulainn hopped out of the cart and grabbed a woolen blanket he’d packed with their lunch.
As she clucked at the horses and drove the cart slowly away, she watched the warrior and the dog race to the beach in a rush of energy, laughter, and barking.
It made her smile, and that smile remained all the way to the village.
* * *
The Aird of Sleat was a fishing village tucked into the craggy hills that overlooked the southern sea.
It was a modest village, though the bounty from the waters kept them well fed.
The matriarch of the village, Lileas, was known throughout the isle and even the mainland for the sweet richness of her golden heather mead.
It hadn’t taken long for Lileas’s husband and sons to pasture the cows and then load the wagon with six barrels of precious mead. As a treat for the Queen of Shadow, Lileas filled a waterskin with mead and said, “Aye, for a wee nip on yur way home!”
Scáthach was happily sipping from the skin as the cart trotted around the bend that revealed the Rubha Shlèite. She didn’t see Cuchulainn, but Leannan was gamboling among the flat, golden rocks that ringed the beach as she chased brown crabs.
Scáthach hobbled the horses on the grass-covered hill above the beach so they could rest and graze and then, taking the skin of mead with her, picked her way down to the white sand.
Cuchulainn had put his clothes on one of the big flat rocks near the water and Scáthach headed there, taking off her leather boots and the soft leather pants she often wore, leaving on only her linen tunic dyed a vibrant red that reached to her mid-thighs.
The sun, a blazing ball of gold, was beginning to descend toward the sea.
Scáthach shaded her eyes with her hand as she tried to spot Cuchulainn.
Not seeing him, she walked to the waterline.
Leannan rushed up to her, barking and spraying sand and saltwater in welcome.
Becoming concerned about Cuchulainn, Scáthach quieted her.
“I will be very angry with him if his boon drowned him,” Scáthach grumbled.
She glanced at her dog. Leannan’s tongue lolled a doggy grin at her before she took off after another seabird.
“Surely were Cuchulainn in trouble, Leannan wouldn’t be acting as if all is well,” Scáthach mused as she tried to decide if she needed to worry or not.
She shifted her gaze to the water in time to see Cuchulainn erupt from the surface as if he were an arrow shot from a watery bow.
He swam toward the shore, slicing through the turquoise water with a swiftness Tabiti would be proud of, standing when he reached the shallows.
He flung back his wet hair and laughed. His gaze went first to Leannan, who barked furiously at the seabird diving at her, and then, as if Scáthach called his name, his eyes found her—they were light topaz, shining with joy.
His grin was radiant, and he waved as he plowed through the water toward shore.
Scáthach smiled and returned his wave. She watched him stride through the shallows, appreciating how the sunlight caressed his smooth skin, gilding it with gold.
He was naked. Gold illuminated every long, thick muscle, every chiseled plane, the broadness of his shoulders and the length of his legs.
He was too beautiful to be fully mortal.
Suddenly very thirsty, Scáthach took a long drink of mead.
Cuchulainn stopped a few yards from the beach. The water was just a little below his waist. “Did you get the mead?” he asked as he cleared his ears like Tabiti had taught him.
Scáthach lifted the waterskin and grinned.
His brows rose in appreciation, and he held his hands out. “Enough for two?”
“More than.” She capped the skin and tossed it to him.
Cuchulainn took a sip. He smiled at her in delight before taking several long drinks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That is the best mead I’ve ever tasted.” He tossed the skin back to her.
Scáthach caught it easily. “Exactly why I make this trip every summer. Imagine how delicious it will be after it’s cooled in the Dunscáith sea cave.”
“I hope I don’t have to imagine,” he said.
Then he made an expansive gesture at the sparkling sea around him.
“It feels so good on a hot day. Did you know that here even the floor of the sea is sand?” He shook his head as if in amazement.
Through the crystal water she could see him wriggling his toes.
“Much softer on the feet than the rocky beach around the castle.” He flashed a grin at her. “Come swim with me.”
“Haven’t you had enough swimming?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough swimming—not on a day like this.”
He threw his arms wide and tossed his head back. Scáthach thought he looked more sun god than mortal man.
“I think I’ll stay here at the waterline. We need to be heading back soon if we’re to make the castle by the evening meal. By now the Shadow Guard will all have heard I’ve gone to fetch the mead from Lileas and they will be watching eagerly for our return.”
“Stay at the waterline? The Queen of Shadow? How can that be?” Cuchulainn asked the questions in a sweet, innocent voice, and at the same time he bent, fisted his hand, squeezed, and shot a stream of water at Scáthach, hitting her forehead.
She sputtered and shook her head, wiping saltwater from her eyes as Cuchulainn laughed and laughed and—
With one swift movement Scáthach dropped the capped waterskin, pulled off her short tunic, and sprinted into the water, bumping the still-laughing warrior with her shoulder and knocking him backward onto his butt as she ran past him.
She shouted, “Race you to the rocky point and back!” before she dove into the sea.
He was up and after her in an instant. Scáthach didn’t look back at him.
She didn’t have to. She had been at home in the sea since she was five, and her strokes knifed the water silently and powerfully.
Cuchulainn was a strong swimmer. He was also a very loud swimmer. She knew exactly how far behind he was.