The Banks of the Liffey

Eblana, 137.

Faint music woke her in the early light of dawn—fog curling off the Liffey in gentle wisps. The water tugged at her small boat, like fabric snared on a thorn, pulling against the bank’s rocky shore.

A lilting rhythm of plucked strings carried over the taffrail, drifting through the shallow curve of the boat and nestling in the space between the crates.

Sleepily, she rubbed her face on the plush wool blanket she’d buried herself under.

Somewhere up the muddy slope, a lamb bleated, joining the percussion of soft strings. It sounded like the hills were singing, and she smiled into the morning. Blinking, she opened her eyes to a huff of clouded breath. The air smelled warmly of hearth smoke.

The melody didn’t stop as she came to consciousness.

For long minutes, she lay there, curled among her rigging, just listening.

She’d been to Eblana before—lugging salt wrapped in skins down the Liffey to villages. People in taverns had told stories about the hills singing in the early morning light, but she thought it mere lore. Had it really been truth?

Then, a voice.

It followed the music of the strings, barely a breath on the breeze.

Gooseflesh rose along her arms, even tucked under wool and wrapped in stiff fabrics as they were. The voice was deep, haunting in a way that belonged to tales.

She sat up, water splashing up the side of the boat with the suddenness of it.

All at once the music stopped, and she met the wide, surprised blue eyes of a man.

He was tall from what she could see. Sitting under a tree among the rushes and sedges, legs crossed in front of him with a block of wood in his lap. A lyre was cradled awkwardly on his forearms, a stick-like tool nestled in the crook of his fingers. All around him were scattered curls of wood, like fallen leaves, if they hadn’t been long pressed under boot by now.

His cheeks were flush from the cold.

“Good morning,” he said, an amused tilt to his lips. His accent rolled to her like a wave; she swore the boat pulled out with the tide under her. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She clutched at her chest, heart pounding under the press of her fingers. “I thought you were a kelpie.”

“Kelpie?” He tilted his head, questioning.

“Shapeshifting… horse—beast. A story.” She sucked in a steadying breath, knuckles coasting a soothing pattern over her sternum.

“I know it.” Raising an eyebrow at her, he asked, “And you thought I’d enchant you onto my back?”

“Forward,” she huffed. Shifting closer to the hull, she studied him—the mess. She pulled the blanket with her, shivering in the morning chill. Gesturing at the wood block in his lap she asked, “What is all that?”

“Forward,” he countered, wryly.

Then, when she rolled her eyes, he tipped it towards her so its face was visible in the rising dawn. Across it—markings; like writing.

Her heart pounded in her chest, a celebratory drum. Curled within the blanket, her fingers twitched, as if they’d reach for her wax tablet and show this stranger without a second thought. She curled them into fists.

Voice forcibly light, and a little breathless, she asked, “What are you writing?”

“Writing?” he barked a laugh, settling back into the rowan tree. “It won’t stay still long enough for that. I’m setting it to breath.”

Instinctively, she pushed her wax tablet further under her thwart, the bone stylus clattering as it hit the deck and rolled. Her cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of it.

The man scrubbed a hand over the stubble along his jaw, poorly hiding a smile. His gaze was far too watchful for her liking, and she fought the urge to wrap the blanket tighter over her shoulders.

“If not writing, then what are those markings?”

He glanced down. “I’m composing the poem to song.”

“A poet, then?” she asked, though her heart accused, writer, and traitorously thrummed with hope.

The man looked at her, and at that moment he looked so old. Not aged in face—because, for that, he looked boyish. It was the way his shoulders sank a little with the weight of things; he looked timeless.

He shrugged. “If you need a word for it.” His fingers drummed absently along the soundboard of his lyre. Finally, he settled on, “I keep stories from going thin.”

Even though his voice was soft, it still carried to her firmly—like a promise he refused to break.

Overhead, a critter stirred in the trees, and they both looked up. Dark berries still clung to bare branches, swaying as the creature settled inside a hole in the trunk.

After a long moment, her gaze drifted back down. She found he was already watching her.

Clearing her throat, she asked, “What do you call yourself?”

“Calder.” Briefly, his gaze flicked to the river at her back. His expression tightened fractionally—like he’d looked and hadn’t found what he was searching for.

She tried to make her tongue cooperate, to roll over his name and press it through her lips in the same way his had. Once, twice. With a frown, she gave up.

“Rocky water,” she murmured, heat crawling up her neck. She ran her tongue over her teeth.

His eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Whalen,” he said, then, and she gave him a quizzical look. “Traders call me Whalen.”

She smiled, relaxing back onto her heels. “Like the wolves?”

“Exactly.” He gestured in her direction, eyes trailing the salt stains on her dark clothes. “You carry winter with you.”

She looked down at herself—the fabric of her tunic peeking out from where the blanket settled over her; the salt stains marring the wool edges.

“That’s a useful thing,” he added, almost apologetic. “It’ll keep you welcome in most places.”

Wild grasses on the banks rustled in a breath of wind, their early winter-dry blades scratching against each other. She felt it in her teeth.

“Not safely,” she shrugged, “not simply.”

“No, but what is these days?” Again, his gaze traveled past her, this time settling somewhere in the bilge, where her stylus rolled.

Sitting up taller, she felt the need to defend it then, as if by doing that she’d build a wall between them on the bank. But, it wasn’t really between them she wanted to build that wall—this Whalen was a perfect stranger, he didn’t know her. She wanted to fortify against the judgement. Of what, though? She’d kept herself guarded; she hadn’t shown him.

And yet, his gaze was entirely too knowing.

She shifted under his attention, the boat rocking as she sat back on her thwart, readjusting the blanket.

“What’s it about?” she asked, nodding to the lyre.

He looked down, studying the wood block in his lap. “Conversation.” He plucked a string, then another, listening. “What happens when things meet long enough to be changed.”

She sat with that quietly for a moment, rolling it like a stone in her hands. Nearby, a great cormorant settled in the water with a flutter of wings, mist curling away from its dark body. It cocked its head at a flash of silver—a fish—under the water.

Thumb worrying the edge of the blanket, she sucked in a breath.

“That’s what the river does,” she said finally. “You linger anywhere too long and it’ll take something from you.”

His fingers stilled on the strings.

Just up the bank a dog barked and a cart lumbered over the uneven path. The village was waking up, the fog lifting.

She cleared her throat, stood. “I should go.”

He looked up, and she could have sworn his face flashed with something forlorn. A string twanged quietly in the brush as he set the instrument aside, rising to his feet. Curls of wood fell from where they’d settled in the folds of his clothes.

“Let me help you,” he said as she moved to climb over the taffrail to untie herself.

She stopped, mouth slightly parted as he crouched to pull at her ropes mooring her to the rock. His knee brushed along a meadowsweet nestled alongside the mossy stone, its brittle and dry seeds scattering to the earth like rain.

His fingers deftly worked apart the knot.

Straightening, he held it out to her, his eyes flicking back to the bilge, to what she’d pushed under her thwart—the bone stylus beyond. His eyes glimmered, mirroring the excitement she’d had earlier.

“That’s a careful hand you got,” he said, a quirk to his lips.

Her heartbeat was a riot in her chest.

He craned his neck, trying to get a better look. She fought the urge to put her body between him and her tablet, the story she’d been scribing still pressed into the wax—half finished.

Placing the rope into her waiting palm, he said, voice softening, “Stories that stay in one place start to silt.”

“What if—” her tongue darted out to wet her lips, fingers curling around the rope like it was her anchor, “—by pressing them there, they can be passed when you have no voice to sing?”

He ran a hand through the soft wave of his hair. “If I were to put it there,” he nodded to her tablet, “it stops needing me—and I stop needing it.”

The current tugged at her boat, and she swayed as the rocks beneath protested.

Hands firmly on the hull, he pushed her backwards into the river. He looked momentarily troubled as she started drifting.

“I never got your name,” he called, taking a step towards the water, walking with the slow crawl of her boat.

“Let it be lost in lore.” She held her hand up in farewell. “Good day, Whalen.”

His smile was bright in the golden morning light as he walked backward in the direction of his lyre.