(Originally posted on Discovering Diamonds)
Read the Story
Guess the Song
here's a clue...
He came to me when the
haze shone white upon the water, dazzling with bright summer radiance. Damsel
flies hovered iridescent, gliding in their dance then darting away when a perch
broke the surface. At first I did not see him, after staring so long at the
brightness, and had to blink to lose the blinding after-image.
All but falling off his
horse, he slumped forward over the pommel and one arm dangled, a trail of blood
snaking down his forearm and pooling on the parched grass. I stood up and
stepped forward, hoping that he was still conscious, for a dead weight would be
too much for me to drag from the saddle. He was, thankfully, awake enough to
ease his feet from the stirrups and, bending my knees to support my back, I was
able with his help to slide him to the ground.
As he lay on his back,
eyes closed and chest heaving, I took a brief survey. There were no tell-tale
dark patches on his torso, nothing to suggest his vitals were damaged. With the
lightest touch I could muster, I rolled up his sleeve to try to locate the
source of the bleeding and found a wound, serious but not deadly, halfway
between the elbow and shoulder. His lack of strength was due merely to
exhaustion, not hurt. I helped him inside the house, cleaned the injury as best
I could with some of father’s wine - a better use
for it than drinking the vinegary stuff - and packed the wound with moss. That
night, he told me his story.
The next night, I told
him mine.
And so I learned that he had
fought with his younger brother because he had inherited all of their father’s
lands, while I explained that I lived alone on my father’s estate because he
always suspected I was not his child – blonde and small in a family of brown-haired
giants – but could not prove it. My skills with herbs and simples made me
valuable to him, but my stepsister now ruled in my father’s hall.
Ours were tales as old as
time. He was not the first man to be hated by his brother, and I was not the
first woman to be rejected by her family. Yet that didn’t mean it couldn’t hurt.
We all bleed, but not always on the outside. He had wounds which took far
longer to heal, and so did I.
And so we clung to each
other.
Not at first. At first it
was tentative. Bathing his wound one morning, I let my fingertips work a trail
down his forearm. His other hand stopped mine, but then his hand curled
round my palm and he lifted my fingers to his lips, holding them there for a
brief moment.
“Thank you,” he said. And
I remember thinking then that it was no more than gratitude. I should not have
listened to myself, yet the gnawing thought burrowed into my brain and lodged
there.
Even so, I was lost. Lost
in the way his cheeky smile made his top lip disappear, lost in the warm smell
of his soft brown hair, in the laugh that was light, boyish, a giggle which enchanted
and excited me.
He helped me prepare
herbs, and often his hand would cover mine as we chopped and sliced. I grew
courageous and, laying down my knife turned into him, put my arms around his
neck and hugged him, as if I could draw strength, nay, immortality, from the
warmth of his body. They call it ‘falling’ in love. No, I plummeted.
But always, the little
thought persisted.
We sat by the water’s
edge, under the shade of the willow. Drawn together by grief and illness, we
spoke few words, our breathing synchronising. I laid my head against his chest
and savoured the tiny undulation of his beating heart, strong, rhythmic, calm.
I told him how this
hurrying water sometimes loses its own heartbeat in the winter, its very
essence caught in ice. “In really cold years, we used to tie planks to our
shoes and skid over it.”
“No!”
“Yes, really. We came
home covered in bruises, and once the ice cracked and my leg got stuck. See, I
have the scars.” I hitched up my skirts. His presence had somehow made me bold,
and I showed him the ugly criss-cross of white tissue which now laces my shin,
knee and thigh.
“You got that from
skating on the ice?”
“I did.”
He did not believe me.
He whispered, “My love”
and I so wanted to believe him.
But my father’s words
came into my head, louder, triumphing over the tenderness, a harsh call which
soured the warm breath that blew gently from my love’s mouth. “You are
worthless. I will never find a husband for you.”
And yet, against all laws
and expectations, this similarly broken man shared my house with me all summer.
His arm healed. We swam naked in the water. Selfish, my silent tormentor
scolded me. Wanton, it scoffed. But I had been cast out, so what did it
matter? Yet it did matter, to him. Or rather, his predicament mattered to me. I
was keeping him from his family, his inheritance, his life.
There is a tiny moment of
one day that I will remember all my life. We were lying on the grass, panting
from the exertion of racing each other to the far bank and back, when he
propped himself up on one elbow and laid a trail of kisses along my scars. The
breeze was cool on my wet skin yet we both knew I was not shivering from the
cold.
The sun burned our
bodies, and the fresh summer air had healed not only his wound but his spirit. Now,
surely, he would leave, now he’d seen what I truly was? Could I ever trust, and
be happy? Or would I fear always that one day he would leave, disgusted? By-blow,
marked, hideous…Could another human truly love me, and was I even worthy? More,
could I be the person who ensured that the rift with his family never mended?
One day my stepsister
came down to the cottage. She did not even try to hide her disgust, her brow
furrowing and her mouth down-turned. Ugly, I knew she was thinking.
“Father has found you a husband, can you believe it?” The shake of her pretty
head told me that she did not.
And I knew then what I
had to do.
The light began to turn
from white to yellow and the trees wrapped themselves in their red and golden
cloaks. Soon they would disrobe completely and the ground would render itself
too cold for barefoot dances. “Go back to your family,” I told him.
He looked at me, head to
one side like a faithful hound that does not understand why it is being sent
from the hearth.
My prospective husband
turned out to be a trader from the southern continent. He had won my father
over with soft exotic fruits and spices and the glint of cold hard coin. He cared
not whether I was my mother’s bastard lovechild, and he seemed to like my
colouring. I would be a novelty among his people, a prize to be paraded. I
would be miserable forever, I knew, but my love would be happy, at home, with
his land, and a worthy wife. And I, I would never have the worry of being
rejected.
Now I live in a palace so
grand that my stepsister would swoon in envy to see it. The walls are bleached
by the blistering sun and I must stay in the shade or wilt like a sun-scorched
rose. It was not until the day our ship departed that a message came. He had
tried to do the right thing, had gone back to his family, to his lands. But
love had been the louder call, and he had told his brother he could have it all.
His letter said he would be back at my waterside cottage before Michaelmas. But
I was bound now, and had no choice but to set sail, loaded onto the ship with
all the other purchases from my father’s stores.
The seasons do not change
here. The sweet pungency of the orange blossom already fills the space between
ground and rooftop, so cloying that at times I fear I will not find a clear
space of air to breathe. At home they will soon be pulling the yule log across
from the woods, and nailing evergreens to the mantel and around the doorframes.
The water outside my cottage might even be frozen.
Here, there is no
waterway for miles. Here, it does not snow. I lift my hand to shield my eyes as
I scan the horizon. The jangle of my golden bangles and the re-tre-tre-tre-tre-cheeche-tre-tre-tre
of the Barbary Partridges puncture the silence. I can hear no lapping of water
tickling the edges of the land as it flows by. There will be no frost, no
crispness to the morning air that robs breath, returning it in visible clouds.
And my love, the love I pushed away, will warm himself by the fire instead of
in my arms.
I was a fool. If only I
could stand by that frozen river now, I would throw away all this clanging gold,
tie planks to my shoes and make my way to his door.
NEXT: A NEW 'PART 2' >
© Annie Whitehead
Did you guess the song title?
Joni Mitchell River
(Official You Tube Video)
 |
| Annie's Website |
Annie is an author and historian, a member of the Royal Historical Society and of the Historical Writers’ Association.
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Note: There is copyright legislation for song lyrics
but no copyright in names, titles or ideas
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