Chapter Sixty Three – Harbour

Spring passed. As she had promised herself, Sheeta did pick lots of flowers and fill the house with their scent and colour and cheerfulness and she opened the windows and let the light and air in. They worked the farm together and Pazu began to do more work around the village; water and wind pumps, irrigation channels, sluices. He became quite good at working with water and his income from this allowed their life to become comfortable, despite the shorter growing season there would be this year and future years.

In late spring Pazu and Sheeta rode down over the border into Restormel and went to a port called Hormelle on the west coast. They stayed in an inn for a few days by the sea and simply relaxed, walking the beaches, strolling along the cliffs. Here they learned that the war was over. The politicians had begun talking again in the winter and throughout the spring. It had been decided to honour the fifty year old treaty drawn up between the royal houses but Marinaer would not relinquish Greycastle County to Restormel. It was agreed instead to create a new independent republic with open trading laws so that both nations could buy her coal. Greycastle Republic would officially exist from midsummer's day, and a provisional government was already in place drawn from local men but with a contingent of army officers from both warring nations overseeing the setting up of the new state.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

Summer came. The wheat and corn and oats grew tall and the strawberries in the patch by the orchard did well. Sheeta taught Pazu how to milk the yaoko and to draw cream from the standing wide low milk dishes with the big flat brass creaming spoon. She taught him how to churn butter and he tried to make cheese although this wasn't a great success, it came out rather pale and runny. But she thought that with a little more standing time and drawing off more of the whey to begin with it might work. He might, she said, given a bit more practice, even get something close to the soft white cheese her grandmother had once made. Pazu said nothing. It was this he was trying to make for her.

But the cream was good and Sheeta would sit in the orchard on summer afternoons in the cool shade and eat strawberries and cream. And Pazu? Well he was happy to just sit and watch her. There was something about the cream pouring smoothly and slowly over the red of the strawberries and seeing her spoon them into her mouth that led his mind to think of certain things. And even to recall another strawberry flavour from another time. And some days, he being a young man and very much in love, he would afterwards pick her up in his arms and carry her upstairs and demand that they once again celebrate their marriage.

"Again?" she would say, "We celebrated it this morning."
"It's important that we celebrate," he would reply with a smile, "and anyway, you vowed that you would obey me. Now, undress me."

And she found that no matter how often he wanted to celebrate their marriage like this, she always wanted to obey, it excited her to obey him.

Pazu's work got him quite well known as a man good at making windmills and even waterwheels. He began to travel further afield, building a windmill near the county town of Ryhennin a few miles up the river and even going to Penaerth for two weeks where he laid some drainage pipes and plumbing and installed a bathroom in a rich merchant's townhouse.

He wrote a letter to Okami at the Ravine and told her and her husband that he was well and happy and where he was living, and that he was married and had a beautiful wife. He apologized for leaving so suddenly and not saying goodbye and he said that if his cabin and possessions were still there could they be donated to the worker's council and sold off, the proceeds to please be used to set up an orphanage. With the letter Sheeta included a doll for Madge, a soft, squishy, cuddly little yaoko she had made herself.

And throughout Gondoa people were still carefully watching him, watching to see what he did, wondering if he would do something silly like build a flying machine. They watched and waited and became puzzled but relieved when he did no such thing. But those who were of the Sky also watched and wondered. And these men were more patient, what they desired need not happen quickly.

And through the spring and summer Sheeta also secretly wondered. When? When she wondered, would it happen? She and Pazu lay together often, and rejoiced in each other's bodies, danced to the touch of each others fingers and mouths, and many nights, in the warm dark of that long summer, when their windows were open to let in the cool night air, her delighted cries could be heard across the fields and the lake. But still she bled each month and still her belly remained obstinately flat.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

One morning, very early, before it was light, she came. In a woodland glade beside the river she appeared suddenly as though from nowhere. She walked slowly and gently and softly between the trees, for she was in no hurry, time meant nothing to her. It was the middle of the month of Hoemaeyanir(1) and in less than two weeks it would be the autumn equinox when once again day and night became of equal length and after that the shadows would lengthen and the sun would climb less high in the sky each day, and the forest animals would begin to gather in food for the long cold nights ahead.

But this morning promised a beautiful day, already warm even though the sun was not yet up, and the eastern sky was only just paling. The heat of the preceding days held onto the soil throughout the night and kept the land warm. As the young woman walked she would let her hands trail through the undergrowth, her slender white fingers would ruffle the green leaves and on the bushes where she touched, blossoms would instantly bloom and flower for a day. The foresters and hunters who knew the woods would sometimes come across these late summer or even autumn blossoms, these strange freaks of nature and they would know who had passed by. And they would be glad to know that she was nearby and walking in their world.

But today the white maiden didn't stay in the forest but came out of the trees and walked down to the lakeshore. Her impossible sky of fair hair trailing on the grass behind her, she moved like a young man's dream along the greensward between the dark still water and the gently flowing wheat, the tall wheat that would soon feel the harvester's scythe. Beyond the wheat field in the low meadow some yaoko were grazing and as she passed she turned her head and smiled at them. They in their turn, sensing her, began braying in their raw, deep voices. It was an ugly sound, harsh and tuneless but when the yaoko sang the villagers knew it was a good sign. Some yaoko could be mute their whole lives but from time to time, and only infrequently, several of them would unaccountably sing like this for a few minutes, for fifteen minutes and occasionally for an hour.

The villagers knew who the yaoko had seen, who had passed by, and like the foresters it made them glad that she who was Life was with them. To the villagers the yaoko's cries were coarse and unpleasant but to the maiden to whom they sang, their voices were as sweet as the songs of angels. For they were simple creatures, ignorant animals who knew little and understood less. But they understood the maiden, and she understood them. She found them easy to understand because they had simple needs and so the relationship she enjoyed with them was complete and uncluttered by the complex emotions such as those that filled and confused men.

The maiden found men puzzling. They were so contrary and would make her sad with their lying and hatred, their bitterness, their inability to be free and honest with themselves. But some men she loved. Young people, children and simple people with pure hearts. And lovers. She especially was drawn to lovers, because lovers were her crucible, her raw clay where she could do the task she was here to do. The sweet joining of lovers was another song she delighted to hear. And she would sometimes come to a place where they lay and be with them simply for the joy of feeling their experiences, their pure vibrant honest feelings. And sometimes, just to taste their pleasure.

There was one farm down on the lakeshore where, she felt almost guilty to admit, she had often been this spring and summer. In this simple stone farmhouse there was a very special union. The story that was being told here was one of the most pleasing she had tasted in many years. The love that filled this place was boundless, honest and had hidden in it no lies or deceit or darkness. It had no agenda but giving; it had no theme but devotion; it had no plot but growth. The girl and the boy whose lives combined to make this pleasing aroma held back nothing from each other, no secrets, no doubts, no fears. It was a pure relationship such as the maiden rarely saw in men. It was not just the delight she took in the physical union she found here, although these sharp peaks of powerful emotion drew her like a moth to a candle. No, below the brief hot meetings of these two souls, days and weeks would pass where there was a beautiful calm undercurrent of selflessness, trust and respect.

She knew these two young people very well. She had been with them before in a dark damp place in winter and had chosen then to give them a gift of two seasons in which the girl would not be fruitful. She had done this so that they might grow together, that they might learn more about each other and have an uncluttered pleasing life. And also, she was not ashamed to admit, so they could simply enjoy each other. Again and again she would come here and be delighted at how much purity and pleasure was in this place.

Being near this boy and this girl was like being near a tree and watching it grow from a healthy eager young sapling, devoid of all disease, into a tall straight strong mature thing, powerful with life and lacking all parasites and creepers and ivy. She felt this tree might one day become great and that she might be able to create many lives from it, branching and spreading down the years and the generations. But that was for the future, today she was here for just the now. For today was indeed a very special day.

For today, Hoemaeyanir 20, when summer was ending and autumn almost here, at the dawning of the day, she had come to withdraw her gift. She had good reason to and it had to do with a deal she had struck with Maerth-dhu. He and she had not had a good year, she had been in the ascendant for too many seasons and he had lost too many arguments, had been cheated too many times of his dues. The maiden had been called by Konuguen to a council that she knew Maerth-dhu would attend and she knew that a call was coming to redress the balance. The world was always about balance, about life and death, about what is given and what is taken away. There had been one particular deal where she knew Maerth-dhu had been furious and she felt that today he would demand of her, before Konuguen, that she relinquish the life she had, contrary to that deal, so unfairly reclaimed.

And it was this that brought her here. To take away one gift and in its place grant another. The timing was crucial; it had to be today and near the beginning of the day. And it had to be here, for here was the boy who prayed. She stopped on the lakeshore at the waters edge and choosing a rock she sat down. The rock was in the shallow water but her feet made no ripples. She had a while to wait, for dawn was a little time coming yet and the girl and the boy were sleeping. But they would come. She knew they would, and she was patient.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

Sheeta awoke and immediately knew that today would be special. She didn't know how she knew. She just knew. To begin with she was wide awake at once and earlier than usual. She went to the window and drew the curtain and looked out over the orchard. The sun was not yet up over the Solstice Hill, it was still below the ridge but probably lighting the southern valley. It must be about five.

She turned to the bed to wake him but was surprised to see him already sitting up.

"Pazu do you love me?"
"What a strange question. Of course I do."
"Come with me then, I want you to do something with me."
"Wait, let me get dressed."
"No, just as you are. I want you just like that."
"Where are we going?"
"Out."
"Is that a good idea? Remember what happened before?"
"It is a good idea, trust me."

She led him by the hand outside and across the yard to the gate. He was nervous, but she kept talking to him about how much he was going to like this and how much she felt this was important. She opened the gate.

"Outside? You want to go out, out? Where? Nowhere near the village I hope?"
"No, silly. Trust me. A little walk."

She opened the gate and went boldly out, not looking right or left to see if anyone was there. She knew they wouldn't be, she knew they were alone. How she knew was a mystery. She was filled with a happy anticipation and almost ran across the path to the wheat field. She opened the gate and then, this bubbling happy feeling almost bursting her open, she ran into the field, along the furrows. She felt the wheat ears scrape and scratch at her bare legs and between her legs and as she ran she held her arms out wide and laughed. She laughed aloud because the world was wonderful, life was wonderful, marriage was wonderful, love was wonderful and he was wonderful.

She had once walked in this very field and cried. Today she laughed. She more than laughed, she rejoiced.

Pazu stood at the edge of the field wondering if those stiff ears of wheat would do him any damage. Then the sun came up. It rose over Solstice Hill and flooded the field in golden light, the wheat suddenly became a swirling golden sea, waving and flowing. And Sheeta, in the middle of it, running in circles, her head thrown back and laughing and naked, was like a bird. A seabird wheeling over the ocean, calling and free. And Pazu knew he wanted to be like that. If people saw them, so what? They would be welcome to throw off their clothes and join them. He took a step, then another, then not caring if the crop cut him or not, he broke into a run and went chasing after her. She, laughing and crazy with happiness ran on ahead, he following and whooping with joy.

Even though the sun was only minutes old on this field she could feel it already on her skin, warming her, warming her senses, warming the land. He came after her at a run and squealing, avoiding him, she ran ahead down the slope, the yellow crop parting as she passed and bending a goodbye behind her. Pazu ran after her but didn't try too hard to catch her, he was enjoying the chase too much, enjoying the feel of the sun and breeze on his skin, enjoying the soft soil between his toes and the scraping of the crop on his naked body. And also, of course, enjoying the sight of her, happy and carefree and so much alive.

Suddenly he stopped. She was downslope of him and cutting quickly left to avoid a sudden turn he had made to close the gap between them, when he felt it. He looked at her running and turning, her arms spread back, her hair behind her like a cloud, her slim white form as pure as anything he could imagine. Watching her he knew that she was here. It was her, here, running in the wheat. Sheeta had become her. She had become Lucita, the mother of life who gives everything. He couldn't make sense of this sudden thought, it just popped up as thoughts do. He was married to the life spirit, the one who gave him life and created life. She was right here, almost taking Sheeta over, as though replacing her briefly for a time. She was still Sheeta, still the girl he knew, but she was also someone else. It was a confused strange thought but what it meant to Pazu was that if she were life and could create it then if they had a union now, she would bear a child. That was the complete train of his thinking, it was no more organized or clear than that. It was merely a string of beads, ideas, impressions. And no sooner had this thought come up in his mind than he suddenly wanted her and his body became immediately ready. He looked down at himself almost in surprise but feeling the sun on his face, the soil at his feet and the air on his skin he knew. Now was a good time. Now was the perfect time.

"Come on!" she called over her shoulder, "swim with me!"

She ran across the lowest slope of the field, out of the wheat and over the grass, the muddy foreshore and down the gentle gravel bank. Beside a cluster of rocks and bulrushes where there was a shallow area she ran into the water and it careened up in sheets as her pumping legs divided it, struck it and sent it tumbling to the sides. As she ran deeper, shin deep, knee deep, thigh deep, the water churned and boiled and its weight slowed her progress until she had to wade forward, swinging her hips and shoulders in order to find the force to keep her legs moving through the resisting water.

Then she dived, and Pazu stood seeing that perfect arc, dreaming that perfect sight, that perfect form. For a moment as she lunged, she drew from somewhere a great burst of energy and for an instant as she threw herself forward, arms together above her head, legs and feet tight together in a line behind her, she came completely out of the water. She was airborne, free of ground and water, in the sky, a flying fish, white and silver and flashing. Droplets of water frozen in space behind her. The most beautiful thing she was, pure like a slice of joy, still laughing and better than anything man deserved to look upon.

Pazu stood. If he lived a hundred years he knew he'd never see something like this again. It was as if a spirit were here and he was in heaven or given the gift of seeing the spirit world. This was his wife, yet it wasn't her, it was her with another life inside her, adding to her, making her new, different.

fertile

That was the word that came into Pazu's mind, he had no idea how it was happening but he was somehow seeing the outward shape and spirit of the internal readiness of his wife. He really had never thought such a thing happened. Did other husbands see this? He didn't know. All he knew was that here, in this field of wheat on this lakeshore on this late summer dawn something had come down to be with her to make her ready and had fallen on him also to show him she was this way. It made no sense at all yet it made perfect sense. For that beautiful frozen instant when she was the silver crescent moon he could see everything about her.

This all went through Pazu's mind in the instant of time after Sheeta's toes left the water and before her fingertips touched it.

She struck the water with hardly a ripple and went under and the lake surface became quiet, the waves of her passing flowing out in a wide expanding arrowhead. Then several yards further on she surfaced and turning, tossed her head and water cascaded away as her mane of hair arced like rain. She swam away backstroke into deeper water. Pazu found the thought in his head to join her. With a shout he sprinted out of the wheat and down the grassy bank, running with a happy yell into the shallows but churning through them into waist deep water with far less grace than she.

The maiden in the white robe sat on the rock and watched them. Her hair golden like the sun, golden like the summerbird's call, flowing and curling near the rippling water. It did not touch it but lay waving as the wheat a little above its surface, coiled about in thick entwining strands of life. She waited. Timing was everything. It would be soon.

He swam out to her but she would not let him catch her. He had swum little in the Ravine, his work there gave him few free days and those he did have he would rather spend working on his flying machine than walking the two miles down the cliffs to the sea and going swimming. So Sheeta was easily the stronger swimmer and as he approached with his clumsy but muscular front crawl, she would backstroke almost effortlessly away, her white arms pinwheeling around and teasing him with brief displays of her chest as she moved.

She would swim a little and then float on her back waiting for him to get close, showing him her breasts and pointing out to him how cold she was, before, as he noisily approached, she would laugh and again swim away. As always, as it was meant to be, she led and he followed.

They swam for a while but Pazu called her eventually into the shallows. He found his footing and waded in until he stood where it was chest high. She swam to him and came close, still smiling.

"Isn't it lovely."
"It is, we should do this more. It feels so good swimming with nothing on."
"Cold though, even in summer."
"Colder than last year?"
"Yes."
"Come to me," he called, arms open.

She waded to him and they held each other.

"Mmm… you're warm!" she said, hugging tight and laughing, "Oh, what's this?"

She reached down and held him where he was hard.

"When I was watching you run in the field. It just happened," he blushed, why he didn't know.
"You are impossible, you naughty boy! I can't take you anywhere!"
"Take me wherever you like, wife. Take me there now."
"Now? This is just an early morning swim. A run in the fields."
"Hm, I don't think so. This isn't about running or swimming is it? You brought me out here for something else, didn't you? Tell me."

He tickled her side and she wiggled and laughed.

"Don't! I can do some damage down here you know!"
"Go on then, only don't break it."
"Here? Now?"
"Yes."
"What if someone comes?"
"They won't, I just don't think they will."
"Me too. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole village, the whole valley is sleeping, and only we are awake."
"All alone in the world."
"Hm, and naked."
"Why?" he asked, he wanted to know her thinking.
"So we can be here. Undisturbed."
"Do you feel something?"
"Ooh, yes."
"No, not that, do you feel different?"

She stopped smiling and became serious. She did feel different. She had felt something was different about today from the instant her eyes had opened an hour ago.

"I do, like… I'm not sure. Like this is meant to happen."

He smiled at her. He knew exactly what she meant.

"It is meant to happen," he agreed, "And I want it to happen."

The laughter and the fun ceased, like a curtain falling, a comedy ending. There was a moment's quiet while she gripped him and squeezing, gave him her mouth. They kissed. His hands came upon her chest and held her where her nipples were painfully hard from the cold water. As his hot hands covered her she released a moan. The kiss continued, becoming deeper and more frantic. He dipped his head down, her breasts were floating, the water level across them. He put his face to her there and closed his mouth over the peak of one.

"Hmm… hot. Your mouth is hot."
"Shallow water," he said, breaking free.
"Yes."

Pulling her by the arm he waded into the shallows near the reeds and rocks. They came to a muddy place where the wavelets lapped and he threw her down. The ground was soft here and her back became coated at once with dark mud. He was on hands and knees over her, sinking a little into the ooze. From his hair and chin water dripped on her. She lay, her legs in the water, her shoulders and back slick from the smooth mud. Her face was expectant, eyes wide. She was a little breathless from running and swimming and her stomach and breasts rose and fell rapidly. He held himself over her and looked.

He was suddenly elsewhere. He was back again in winter when they had shared a horse and ridden across the fells deep under snow the day after leaving Thoma's inn. He gazed upon this beautiful land, white and clean and smooth. Drifts of snow were here, she was like the world, like the land, like the soil but clothed in soft white. He gazed upon the snowy hills, the ridges of collar bones, the lines of her ribs were like the furrows in the fields. Like a farmer he walked those furrows. His fingers became explorers of this pure land, they walked upon the high hills and rested on their peaks that were capped with rocks, hard and textured. Across the valleys he went, deep into them and over the flat plain of her belly and deeper into her bracken and ferns. And he knew all her land that day, he explored it all, every ridge and hill and furrow and cave and hollow and forest and stream. He walked her lakeshore where the water was warm and he refreshed himself, drinking at her life giving pool.

"I ask to be refreshed and to drink of you," he asked, recalling his marriage vow, cupping his hands under her, lifting her, readying her.
"Pazu, all I ever wanted was to be your harbour. Let me be that for you. Come into me and find a place of rest."
"I hold you in my hands. I will never let you go. We join together and will never be parted. Hold onto me and be with me."

She was the whole world to him, she was Lucita, the Earth Mother, child bearer and giver of life, she was the rich soil and he planted in her his seed. Her spine of land arched to receive it and the cries of children and of mothers were in her.

It was not a rough or vigorous moment but soft and quiet. The pleasure she felt was merely enough, enough to tell her it was over. She felt him pulse deep within her and slacken and reduce but after that, she felt something new. And near them, gently watching, the white maiden knew it was time. This was the reason she had come here today, now she could both create life and renew life. As the part of the boy that remained in the girl flowed within her she reached out the hand of her mind and held it, guided it, led it to the place it was needed. And waiting there in the hot dark of the girl's womb was the spark that it needed to meet. At the instant they joined, at the moment of meeting, Lucita dipped her face to that seed and that spark and kissed them and wished them well, happiness and a joyful life. She would be back soon to ensure the small new life grew true and strong but now her work here was over and she withdrew, leaving with this girl and boy a special blessing; one gift withdrawn, another given. She had a meeting to attend, and a very angry Maerth-dhu awaited her, angry because the stolen life she had taken back was now again set free and the wolf-man could not claim it until it had run its course of years. The little girl would live again.

Sheeta turned her head and among the bulrushes by a rock nearby she thought she saw something, something golden like a bird rise up and take flight. It passed over them and went away low across the wheat field where she could not turn her head to see it, and it was lost to view.

But she knew what it was. She knew exactly who that golden creature was. And as she lay there feeling the part of him he had left inside her, feeling him deep and draining down, she tilted her hips and felt that part of him come against a certain tiny part of her inside her womb. The part of him and the part of her met and joined and began. She knew the very instant of her daughter's beginning and she closed her eyes and hugging her sweating husband against her mud smeared body, she spoke a prayer of thanks.


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3 – 4 May 2007

(1) The month of Hoemaeyanir (pr. Hoe-may-yaneer) equates to around our late August to September time. As I've said there are 8 months in this year and this is the third I've named (Rhayadhirrin (pr. Rye-had-here-in) when the Engine scene took place is late winter and Umsennemar (pr. Um-sen-hem-ar with the 'Um' pronounced as the 'oo' sound in 'Room') when they were married is early spring). I will do a full calendar and timeline when I'm done as part of the closing notes, so if you're obsessive about chronology you can find all that stuff there).

For author notes about Chapter Sixty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)