The Hanged Man: Part 8: Lithia
Post #74: In which you can go home, but it's changed ...
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RADULF
Evening sunlight rimmed a few summer clouds in the western sky with golden orange. The seaport streets were busy with people going home after a day’s work. Gulls circled over the harbor, where fishermen gutted the day’s catch. Radulf made his way through the familiar streets of his childhood, noting changes. He found new businesses and new buildings. He saw no faces he recognized. The streets widened and quieted as he approached the castle by the sea that had belonged to his family for generations. He felt worn out and not at all sure of his welcome. He marked several inns along the way, just in case. He wondered what he would find. Did his parents still live? What had become of his young wife after he left her? Not so young, now. They’d been of an age when they married.
A strange servant answered the door. Radulf gave his first name and asked to see his father.
“I’m sorry, sir, but he’s been dead for ten years.” The servant eyed Radulf’s travel-worn appearance warily. Radulf had a fleeting memory of the anxious wrinkle between his father’s eyes.
“I see. Does his wife live? Is she here?”
The servant bade him wait and disappeared.
It was quiet. Nothing had changed. Radulf felt as though he’d never left. A clock against one wall ticked ponderously, underlining silence. He was ferociously hungry.
“Radulf?”
His first thought was she’d sunk and compressed, like a feather bed in need of a good shaking. She looked shorter and fatter, but her bosom and body appeared hard rather than soft. Her scalp showed pink through carefully arranged silver hair and he felt a rush of pity.
She was an old woman.
“I can hardly believe it,” she said.
They stood looking at one another. He remembered she’d never been physically affectionate.
“I had to come back,” he said.
“I don’t know why. We never expected to see you again.”
“I want to try to explain and I wanted to know how you…all are.”
“It would have pleased your father to have seen you again,” she said, and summoned the servant.
He didn’t see her again that night. He was shown to a room in the guest wing. He wondered what had become of his old room. Food was brought on a tray. He ate, bathed and fell asleep as soon as he lay down on the comfortable bed.
A balcony off his room faced the sea. The next morning, he stood looking down at the marble steps descending to the water. The smell and sound of the sea entered him, waking memories. For years, the sea had haunted his dreams and thoughts. He wondered suddenly if the unformed, confused youth he’d been haunted the sea in return. Perhaps Marella’s hopeful, doomed love and his own careless immaturity were a story the place whispered to itself as waves rose and fell, and perhaps at night the echo of her singing as she held him in her arms above the water and floated him to land could still be heard.
He breakfasted with his mother. She was coldly polite. He thought she might dismiss the servants so they could talk, but she didn’t. When they finished eating, he asked for a private audience.
She took him to her own sitting room. He remembered it had always been her favorite place in the castle.
He felt defensive and about ten years old. He didn’t want to fence with her. She’d always been implacable when her will was thwarted, and he didn’t bother asking for forgiveness.
“Mother, I’ve come home to try to explain to you why I left. I don’t want anything or expect anything. You deserve to know what happened and I need to know I’ve done what I could to make amends.”
“Amends!” she snorted. “Amends for breaking your wife’s heart, and your father’s, and killing them both?”
His heart sank. “She…my wife is dead, too?”
“She is. Three years after you left, she took ill and died of a lung complaint.”
He looked away from the hard satisfaction in her eyes. “I’m truly sorry.”
She sniffed. “Are you?”
“Yes. She was a sweet girl and deserved a better husband.”
“Indeed.”
He felt his temper fraying and took tight hold of it.
“Mother, I need three minutes of your time to listen to what I’ve come to say.”
It took two minutes and forty seconds by the ornate clock on the round table at her elbow. She didn’t interrupt. He spoke of his youthful confusion and his feeling of living someone else’s life. He spoke of loneliness and emptiness and his desperate choice to abandon everything and search for his true self.
“I’ve come back to tell you I’m well. I’ve traveled, been a soldier and learned a great deal. I’ve never forgotten you and Father and my wife. All these years I’ve hated myself for leaving the way I did. I wish I’d been able to do it more gently and respectfully. It was never my intention to hurt or betray any of you. I know now I didn’t want the life you envisioned for me, but I didn’t know how to tell you. It was the right choice to leave, but I regret any hurt I caused.”
“It’s too late for an apology now.”
“Perhaps it is, but it’s the best I can do,” he said steadily. “Is there anything I can say or do to make things better?”
She looked away. “No. It’s too late.”
“It seems silly to waste any more time talking, then,” he said gently. “Where is my wife buried?”
That surprised her. “In her own family plot. It’s what her parents wanted.”
He rose to his feet. “Thank you for your time and the night’s hospitality,” he said. “I won’t trouble you again. Be well, Mother.”
He returned back to the room and retrieved his belongings. It didn’t take long. He took the back stairs and made his way down to a wide patio with an ornate rail that looked over the water. The marble steps led down from it. He stepped out, carefully and quietly closing the glass paneled door behind him. The morning sun glinted off the water and the patio felt warm and sheltered. He dropped his bundles and descended the wide, shallow steps.
He sat for a long time in the sun, waves at his feet, feeling unexpectedly peaceful. If the young pair in his memory haunted the place, they didn’t trouble him. No ghost of night sea song disturbed his ear. The marble underneath him felt smooth and hard and the breathing presence of the sea enfolded him. Sunlight shone gently on his skin but glittered in his eyes, making him squint.
After a time, he stood and made his way back up the steps.
***
He found a room at an inn. It was tiny but the bed was comfortable and it was private. He spent several days in the town, walking the streets, revisiting favorite places and shops, and remembering. He almost expected to catch sight of himself as a boy, running here and there, playing with friends, buying a handful of candy or food from a street vendor, watching the busy life in the harbor. Now and then he came across an aged version of a familiar face, but he didn’t attempt to talk to anyone. He spent a day at his father’s grave. It was a sunny summer day and he bought a meat pie on the street and sat cross legged in the warm grass, pulling up weeds and cleaning out a flower bed someone had planted.
He also visited his wife’s grave. A wreath of summer flowers lay on it, nearly fresh, and he felt comforted to think someone watched over her and loved her memory.
He liked to go out early in the morning and after dark and walk in the town. Everywhere he found vivid memories of his boyhood. Strangely, that version of himself was much better defined than his young adult self. He had a rueful affection for his childish self. Little did the boy who had snatched an apple while the fruit vender watched an altercation spilling out of a pub at lunchtime know what lay ahead of him and how far he’d travel from this harbor town. It was all dear and familiar and he said a slow good-bye as he wandered through the town, knowing there was no place in it for him now — and perhaps there never had been.
He found a stable and rented a horse for a day. The first morning he swung himself up into the saddle with pleasure. He loved to ride and the mare was alert and fresh, a perfect companion. She danced to see what he’d do, read calm authority in his handling of reins, his voice and his seat, and settled down.
He rode out of town, intending to follow the shoreline. The sea called to him and he wanted to be alone with it.
They cantered on a bluff above the sea for two or three miles. It was smooth going in the summer fields and Radulf let the mare run when she wanted. Below them, waves spread cream lace on rocks and shingle. The bluff gradually descended and a curve of land cupped a small harbor. He found white-walled buildings, low and weathered, and a church made of blocks of unadorned grey stone. A bell hung at the apex of the steeple, and Radulf wondered what it sounded like. There was something pleasing about the sound of a good sweet bell mingling with the sound of the sea. A creek ran down into the mouth of the harbor, cutting a corner out of the neat rectangular churchyard behind the church.
He turned the mare’s head inland, meaning to circumvent the town. He made a wide detour around it and came back to the shore behind a steep cliff that hid the town and harbor from view unless he waded out among a scatter of large rocks around which the waves foamed. He made the horse comfortable in the shade of the cliff on a patch of wiry beach grass and sand, shed his footwear and stood in the sea.
It was cold, of course. Rocks were hard and slippery underfoot. The tide sighed and lapped around his feet. He judged it was coming in and, to test this, stood in one place for a few minutes, watching the waves spray and spume around the rocks. He wondered if low tide uncovered them. A wave higher than the others wetted him to his knees. He laughed and moved up the shore a few steps.
He caught movement between the rocks. Seals! He stood still, watching. A sleek head broke the surface. He had a glimpse of seaweed floating around it and then it dove, in the graceful manner of seals, and he watched the smooth curve of a back follow the head down, and the flash of a tail, green and blue.
Not a seal. No seal ever had a tail like that. What was it? He racked his brain, trying to fit what he’d seen with a sea creature that dove and strayed so close to shore — and so close to people.
He moved up the shore again, escaping the deepening surf. He scanned the rocks, looking eagerly for movement or shape within the sunlit waves and spray.
There! A larger, more muscular wave rolled smoothly in and something surfed along its top, swimming effortlessly with a powerful tail. It was smaller than a seal, about half the size of a man…
The wave came in, weakening as it reached shallower water. The wave top collapsed and the figure skimmed towards the shingle, long dirty blonde hair tangled, and Radulf said to himself even as he disbelieved his eyes — it’s a child!
It was a child. A girl with wet hair draped over her shoulders, strange eyes like an abalone shell and a green and blue tail. The sea cast her, giggling, nearly at his feet. She looked up at him with a supple movement of her neck and her eyes became wary, though the giggle lingered on her lips.
“You’re not supposed to! I’ll tell on you!”
Radulf looked up from the little girl’s strange cold eyes and saw, clinging to the rock, a little boy, bobbing up and down comically in the wash of waves and looking absolutely furious.
“Children!”
Radulf found the source of the call just as the caller dove. The tail slapped the water in an aggravated manner as it followed the body beneath the waves. The figure resurfaced, swimming with powerful thrusts of its tail. Broad shoulders knotted with muscle moved effortlessly through the breakers.
The mermaid child at Radulf’s feet flopped onto her side and watched the swimmer coming. All trace of laughter was gone but Radulf didn’t see fear in her face, just a rather adult resignation. The small boy out near the rocks cast himself onto the crest of a passing wave and rode it in casually, but he stayed in the safety of shallow water beyond where the waves purled and hissed against the land.
“Clarissa, what do you think you’re doing?” The man had a booming voice. Radulf saw several scars on his broad upper body. He wore a gold ring in one ear and his hair and beard were plaited. He looked younger in years than Radulf, judging by the color of his hair. He sounded thoroughly exasperated and paid no attention to Radulf, though he stayed safely out of reach in shallow water.
“Daddy, he has a horse! I saw it!” Her cheeks bloomed with excitement.
“Oh, Clarissa,” said the man on a sigh. Radulf laughed.
Father and daughter looked at him warily.
“I’m called Radulf. I do have a horse, you’re quite right.” He looked down into the shining abalone eyes.
“You know you’re not supposed to be seen, child,” said the merman.
“But he has a horse!”
“It’s all right,” Radulf put in. “I used to know one of your people. I won’t do you any harm and I won’t tell anyone.”
The merman sighed again. His face relaxed and Radulf saw lines of sorrow in it. He was young to look so worn with care.
The little boy had edged his way to his father. Now he put his arms around the man’s neck and pressed himself against the strong scarred back. “I told her not to do it,” he said. “I told her and told her but she wouldn’t listen.”
“I want to see the horse!” said Clarissa.
Radulf squatted, careless of the fact that his rear end dipped into the surf. “Shall I bring the horse to you or carry you up to her?” he asked.
Clarissa glanced at her father.
“Do you want to see the horse, too?” Radulf asked the boy.
He nodded solemnly, his thin arms wound around the merman’s neck.
“I’ll bring her to you, then. Horses can be easily frightened by something they’ve never seen, and I don’t know if she’s ever seen…”
“Merfolk,” put in the merman quietly.
“…merfolk before. She might not like the water, either. I don’t know this horse. You must be quiet and make no sudden movements. Let her see she’s safe and get used to your smell.”
“We don’t smell bad!” said the boy indignantly.
His father laughed. “We smell like the sea, I expect,” he said. “Every creature has a scent, Chris. He didn’t mean we smell bad.”
The mare wasn’t frightened of either the sea or the merfolk. She stood in the surf up to her fetlocks, lowered her head and examined the little girl with a soft curious nose. Clarissa, holding still, whispered, “Can I touch her?”
“She’ll like that,” said Radulf. He ran his hand over the bay mare’s cheek in a brief caress. Clarissa reached out a hesitant hand and patted her nose.
Chris and his father let the waves carry them onto the shore and the mare inspected them as well, and allowed herself to be petted. Radulf dug into his bundle and found an apple. He cut it in half and gave each child a piece, showing them how to hold their palms flat and offer the fruit to the horse. She lipped the apple up out of their hands and crunched it in strong teeth.
“Why do people say waves are like white horses?” asked Clarissa. “They’re nothing like a real horse.”
“My people say that, too,” said Radulf. “I used to be a sailor. Being on a ship at sea is a bit like riding a horse. Riding a horse can be smooth and flowing, the way you looked riding in on the crest of that wave.” He grinned at Chris, who smiled back shyly. “Sometimes, though, a horse doesn’t like being ridden and then it bucks and kicks and jumps around, trying to get you off. Then it’s like being in heavy swell when there’s a storm. It’s hard to hang on. Everything’s moving in a different direction at once. I suppose people who’ve ridden horses and been on ships think the feeling is alike.”
“I want to…” began Clarissa.
Her father fixed her with a stern eye.
“No!” he said.
She was silenced, crestfallen.
Radulf said, “I wouldn’t put any child on a horse I didn’t know well. Perhaps one day when I bring a horse I trust and your father and I know one another better I can take you for a ride here along the shore, where no one will see. What do you think people would say if they saw a little mermaid riding a horse?” He pulled a face and she giggled.
“When there are white horses on the sea, we just dive under them,” said Chris, paying no attention to his sister’s disappointment. “We look up at them from underneath.”
“’A ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl,’” murmured the merman to himself.
Chris ignored this as well. “When the horse doesn’t want to be ridden why don’t people get off?”
“That’s a good question,” said Radulf. “Some people want what they want no matter what.”
“Like Clarissa,” said Chris.
Radulf stifled a smile and looked at the merman, whose eyes gleamed with momentary amusement.
“I’m Irvin,” he said, extending a callused hand.