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“Look who I found,” Alwyn bellowed into the vast hall of his father’s longhouse. Emrys, slung over his shoulder, struggled to free himself but Alwyn had a grip like iron. He pushed against Alwyn’s back to keep his face from bouncing against his ass.
“Put me down,” Emrys hissed, his cloak falling over his head and hiding him from everyone gathered.
Laughter. All Emrys heard was laughter as the darkness of his cloak covered him.
“No, no,” Alwyn laughed as he swung Emrys around to cradle him like a baby. “Emy!”
Emrys ripped the cloak from his head. The first person he saw was Saoirse, his father’s wife. Her thick painted red lips and dark skin beneath braided red hair, and those eyes like molten gold. No smile from her. Not for Emrys. Her nostrils flared and she sipped at her mug of ale, watching him. Assessing. Judging.
Emrys pushed away from Alwyn and Alwyn let him fall. Thankfully, he got his feet under him and so didn’t hit the ground.
“A song!”
Emrys turned to the caller. Big Teddy, dark and wide, and Little Teddy, light and sinewy, smiled back at him, called out again, this time together. “A song, Birdie!”
The laughter came unexpected. Emrys couldn’t hold the anger for his father against his cousins. He raised his voice for all to hear. “Your Birdie’s been clipped, I’m afraid.”
Laughter responded with stomping of feet on the wooden floor and pounding of mugs on the wooden tables. Emrys shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the indignity of it, the imposition of it all, but he felt lighter than he had in days.
It was sweet when finally found, this belonging. A dream, the love of his cousins and even his love for them, but he needed to wake up.
He would wake up. He’d leave. Go to the University and learn all the mysteries of the world.
But not tonight.
Not yet.
“Sing anyway!” This from behind him, the voice of Wynne or Flur.
Emrys turned slowly, taking in the whole hall and allowing them to take him in. He wiped his hair out of his face and pulled it back behind his ears. “Am I to sing alone?”
Alwyn slapped him on the shoulder, “All birds sing alone, eh?”
Laughter and stomping and pounding, but as the laughter died away, the pounding remained. A slow rhythmic beat that filled the hall like the heartbeat of a mountain. Emrys looked from face to face, from cousin to cousin, his uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, and found them all happy. All taking in what joy could be taken from the night, from the world, from family.
The rhythm closed around him, seeped inside, and wrote the words he knew so well upon his lungs. When he breathed in, preparing to sing, Alwyn’s rich baritone swelled from behind him. Wordless and resonant. The voice from the depths of the earth, past stone and bone and deeper to the black belly of the world. Alwyn carried that melody over the pounding rhythm for a while before more voices joined. First a handful and then a dozen and then seemingly the entire hall, or at least all the men, filled the humid feasting air with the slow rising and falling melody. A tide of sound rolling in and out.
Emrys closed his eyes, felt their voices swell all around and inside him, and he swayed there before them all. Finally, he sang, his voice rising high and clear over the bassy resonance of the clan.
The queen and her ghouls Stole the king from his bed And bound him in her bones.
And on, as one, they sang of the Barrow Queen and her army of night that swallowed the lands of the Old Ones. Only old Matauc, their ancient ancestor, stood in the light to oppose her. Alone and in terror, he sought allies where they could be found.
Yo, ho, all as one. Drink their blood and break their bones. Oh ho, ghouls and lovers. Never shall we die.
Old Matauc sang to the sister moons to woo them to his cause. First came Croia, the heart of the night, largest of the sisters. Old Matauc’s song took her own heart and she, in all her godhood, descended to walk the skin of the earth for the first and only time. Then came Etain, smallest and most envious of the sisters, who would not be left behind while her sister found the love of a mortal man.
For many nights more, old Matauc sought the final sister, but she eluded him, shrouding herself in clouds. The sisters Croia and Etain told him to forget her, that they two were more than enough for the Barrow Queen, but old Matauc had fallen in love with the chase, with this freedom loving sister. Saoirse, the beautiful, the singular, whose weeping tears can still be seen on clear nights.
Old Matauc, night after night, sang to Saoirse until, at last, she spoke to him and took his hand.
By then, Croia and Etain, feeling betrayed and belittled, abandoned the fight. Croia to return to the night and nurse her stolen heart for all eternity but Etain to join the Barrow Queen.
And so it was that the love of old Matauc and brilliant Saoirse defeated the Barrow Queen and the bitter moon, Etain, who would remain forever faded in the night.
And after long years and many children, old Matauc at last gave up his spirit. When Saoirse wept, the earth wept with her, and when his kin went to take his body to burn, Saoirse wrapped him in lunar light and carried him off into the night to remain forever by her side.
When Emrys finished the song, the story, the deep melody carried on past him and Saoirse and Matauc, and Emrys danced there alone in the hall to the pounding, to the humming, until the tables were pushed away and all hoisted themselves from their seats to dance with their cousin, their little Birdie who, even as a boy, filled the halls with his voice.
Aeronwen grabbed his hand and yanked him into an embrace. She breathed into his ear, “Well sung, Emy.”
Emrys took hold of her and twirled, falling into the dancing all around them. The hall erupted in stomping feet and clapping hands, forming the beat and tempo to the dance they all danced together. Song broke out, but not like before. Not measured and controlled with deliberate beauty, but a wild shouting kind of singing where the words meant little but the melody meant everything.
And then there was mead in his hand, in his mouth, while Aeronwen laughed, smashing her own mug of ale into his fist. It stung and he wondered absently if she broke skin, but he only poured back more mead and continued dancing, continued shouting into the blackened rafters of the hall, held up by the ancient blackened ribs of the great skywhale whose corpse made Morfil home to clan Matauc.
The scent of the elk made him ravenous after his second cup of mead. He slipped between the bodies dancing and stomping and made his way to the remnants of the feast at the far end of the hall.
Roasted tomatoes and potatoes and apples prepared a dozen ways, but nearly no elk left. Only the bones and the head remained, the cheeks neatly sliced out. His neck prickled and when he turned to see who watched him, it was Saoirse, his father’s wife, from a dozen feet away. He swallowed and met her eyes, and she cocked her head to the side, swirled her wine.
Alwyn burst from the dancing, “Emy, there you are. Come on, Birdie. Told you I saved you some liver and kidney.” Alwyn wrapped a heavy arm around Emrys’ shoulder, forcing Emrys to crouch slightly as they walked away.
“Don’t like kidney,” Emrys said.
“Everyone loves kidney. Come on.”
Alwyn led him around the perimeter of the hall to a table now pressed against the wall. As they went, Emrys freed himself and looked back at Saoirse but she was no longer there. Alwyn climbed up on the table and walked towards two plates forming a clamshell. When Emrys got there, Alwyn lifted the top plate to reveal the liver and kidneys.
Emrys laughed, “Probably it looked better when you grabbed it.”
“Aye,” Alwyn giggled, “just so. Still good, anyway.” He handed the plate of meat to Emrys who dumped his own plate of tomatoes and potatoes and apples on top.
He had not eaten all day. Had not even considered his hunger when he planned to abandon all of this. Better to fill himself up and then leave in the night, while everyone slept off the feast. Easy enough to do, what with all the drinking.
He stared out over the clan, his family, and smiled. He would miss it. Despite everything, he would miss them.
“What?”
Emrys popped a tomato slice into his mouth to keep from explaining what he had no words for.
Alwyn nodded like he said something profound anyway. “One of those nights, is it?”
Emrys turned to him and spoke around his chewing. “What nights?”
Alwyn snorted the way his father snorted. “You’ll be off wandering the moors again.” He clapped his hand against his back. “Tonight, you won’t be alone, all right? You want to get to a wander? Aye, well, I’ll be there with you. We’ll walk to, uh, well, wherever our feet carry us, I suppose. How’s that sound, Birdie?”
Emrys finished chewing his tomato. He thought of ways to dissuade him, ways to convince him that he wasn’t going to go off by himself, that he was tired, but he let them all slide away.
He didn’t need to leave right away. The morning would do. Early. He’d rise early and be on his way before anyone bothered to look for him.
He smiled at his big cousin and slung his arm around his thick neck while they watched the clan chanting and dancing. Even the druids had arrived, dressed all in white, dancing with the rest of them and playing their lutes and drums.
“Be nice to have you with me, Al.”
“Aye, well,” Alwyn laughed, “just remember to take a bottle of that mead with.”