Gytha was sure he was blushing beneath the grime. She pressed her lips tightly together to keep from grinning. Men, like dogs, hate to be laughed at. She held out her hand.
'If she's eaten from it, that'll do fine. Come back at sunset for the charm.'
Gytha knew that the affair was as doomed as the salmon and the swallow who fell in love. The lad was a creature of the forest; the girl belonged to the sea, so where would they build their nest? But the young foolishly believe love can overcome all obstacles.
'You'll not lose the shell?' the lad asked anxiously.
'I'll guard it like pearls.'
The boy carefully placed the oyster shell in her hand and bounded off.
Gytha turned the shell over in her hand, caressing the smooth iridescent lining. She tilted it to the sun, watching the silver, blue and pinks flash across its shining surface like minnows in the brook.
'You going to use the same charm as you used on Sir Gerard?' Madron called out. 'It'll not last. I told you to use Yadua then, but you wouldn't listen.'
Gytha rose angrily and crossed to the bothy, glaring down at the old woman who lay inside, propped up on a bed of dried bracken.
'I told you, I used no charm on him. He wanted me. He would have taken me as his wife, had it not been for his mother.'
Madron wheezed with laughter. She turned milk-blind eyes towards Gytha, sensing exactly where she was standing.
'He was happy enough to bed you, lass, but a man of his blood doesn't wed a cunning woman, not even a free-born one, less he's witched. I warned you, it'd take more of a snare than your spread legs to catch a stag like him.'
You never wanted me to have him,' Gytha spat at her. 'Afraid I'd leave you to rot alone in your cottage with no one to cook and tend to you.'
'You were too old to be mooning around like a love-sick maid. Besides, you were quick enough to get your own back when Lady Anne stopped him coming near you.'
Gytha's head whipped up. 'I only spoke the truth.'
You did that all right, but did the truth need to be spoken?'
Gytha turned away, striding out through the trees with little idea of where she was going except to get far away from Madron's words. But she knew she could never do that. Madron had used those same words twenty years ago and they had burrowed deep inside Gytha like a tapeworm and would not release their grip.
Gerard had loved her once. She was certain of that. She had been his first love, older than him by six years, but what did age matter, they told each other. She had led him in his first tentative fumblings, their bodies pressed close together in the warm damp grass on a hot summer's evening.
But after a few meetings it had been him who'd taken her with a frenzied wonderment, as she helped him discover every secret pleasure of her body and of his. When they rolled from each other exhausted and utterly satisfied, they had lain there staring up at the stars through the trees. He had taught her names for the constellations, names that were foreign and strange, that he'd learned from books: Virgo, Leo and Scorpio. She had taught him her names, handed down for generations, familiar, comforting names: The Path of the Dead, the Plough, the Swan. And they listened to the owl calling to its mate, the nightjar and the vixen screaming, until he took her in his arms again and they heard nothing and saw nothing but the fire in each other's hearts.
After his mother found out, he did not come to her for many weeks. When he finally appeared, Gytha had been overjoyed to see him, adoring him the more for defying his mother. She'd come running towards him and flung her arms about him, kissing his neck. But he had held her by the shoulders, thrusting her away from him.
'I cannot. I came only to tell you that I am to be wed as soon as my father returns from the Holy Wars. I thought you should know. I was betrothed when I was a child.'
'Betrothed?' she repeated, stunned. 'All this time you were whispering your love for me, you were promised to another woman?'
He'd had the grace to look uncomfortable. 'I barely know the girl. We haven't met since we were little children. I thought