“That is—evil,” I whispered, staring at him. Was this the man with whom I had once danced at Imbolc, a man I had once considered a good choice for a husband, if I had been able to teach him to smile? Was it indeed I who had changed him so completely, simply by saying no? My heart was cold. “Is not this bargain on my terms?”
“Not quite. You might decide to tell your secret now, to try to convince your brother of what you know, at a distance. You might do it, and destroy my life. But as soon as you took that step, the Painted Man would die. You would not save him that way. And your brother cares nothing for the outlaw. He is merely another piece on the board to be won or lost.”
I ran my tongue over lips suddenly parched. “Very well. We have reached agreement. Now send for Aisling.”
“You will not speak to my sister of this. That much must be understood.”
“It’s understood, Eamonn. Now send for her, and for my men at arms.”
Aisling looked sick and wretched. Her small, freckled face was ashen white, and I could see the bones beneath the skin. Her eyes were purple and swollen, and her curling red hair unkempt.
“Liadan,” she whispered, heedless of her brother’s grim looks and of the six men at arms waiting in the hall. “Oh, Liadan, you came! Where’s Sean?”
“Waiting for you at Sevenwaters,” I said calmly, though I could have wept to see the state my friend was in. “Your brother has given you permission to go. These men will see you safely there. I’ve asked the women to pack you a little bag, and your horse is ready. You’ll leave right away.”
“Oh, Liadan, thank you. Oh, thank you, Eamonn!”
It was just as well, I thought, that she was at such an extreme of distress and exhaustion that it did not occur to her to ask any questions. No doubt they would come to her later when she was already on her way.
“My lady—” The leader of my guards was frowning with concern.
“These are your orders,” I told him firmly. “Leave now, straightaway. Make your way back to Sevenwaters as quickly as you can; but remember the Lady Aisling has been ill, and will need to rest, as I did. Tell my brother I will come later.”
“Our orders were to guard you.” He sounded doubtful. “If we depart, you have no safe conduct.”
“Lord Eamonn can provide what protection I need,” I said. “I will remain here awhile longer. Tell my brother Lord Eamonn will be in touch. Now go, and you should be there by dusk tomorrow.”
“Very well, my lady.”
I climbed the steps to the place where the sentries paced. I looked out over the causeway and the long, straight track that was the only safe way out of Sídhe Dubh. I stood there watching until Aisling’s auburn hair and the leather helms of the men at arms had vanished into the distance. Then I went to the kitchens and reclaimed my son and fed him. I bound him to my back again, ready for travel. Out in the courtyard, Eamonn was waiting.
“I thought I’d watch this game,” he said. “But I find I haven’t the stomach for it. Don’t worry, my guards have instructions to let you wander about. If you need keys, or a strong man to loosen a bolt or two, just ask and they’ll help you. But you enjoy this kind of thing, don’t you, Liadan? I’m told you prowled about the place like a little cat in heat last time you were here. Off you go, then. There’s not so long till dusk after all. Oh, and do something about that bird of yours, will you? If it swoops down on my guards just one more time, its next appearance will be on the supper table, neatly enclosed in piecrust.”
We had walked across the courtyard as he spoke, and Fiacha flew over our heads to alight on the shafts of an empty cart that stood there.
“Off you go then,” Eamonn repeated, as if dismissing a troublesome child.
I had no doubt where this search must be undertaken, and I feared what it might reveal. I made a rapid decision and looked direct into Fiacha’s bright, knowing eye. Go, I told him. Fetch help. Go now. I need help before dusk.
He was gone, swift as an arrow from the bow, a dark streak soaring into the sky and away southward, ever southward. Then I picked up my skirts and walked down into the underground way, forward into the shadows.
It was difficult for the guards, I think. They had their orders, and they would obey them. Still they glanced at one another and muttered among themselves as I searched their underground domain, through one dark cell after another, gritting my teeth to keep back the tears, trying to still my drumming heart and quiet my breathing as I blundered into empty room after empty room.
“Where are they?” I demanded. “Tell me!” But they shuffled their boots and kept their mouths shut. The Painted Man could expect nothing from Eamonn’s folk, save fear and loathing.
Behind the small cells I already knew of, there was an iron-bolted door. I asked for assistance, and a big, gray-haired man with muscles like heavy knotted cords came forward to open it for me. There were rough steps leading downward.
“I need a lantern.” Johnny was wriggling on my back, now tired of the restriction to his movements. Having so recently learned to get about on his own, he was eager for fresh explorations and new adventures. I would not think of Johnny and the path across the swamp. I would think only of what came next, right now.
“Lord Eamonn said nothing about lanterns.”
“I need a light. It’s pitch-black down there. I could fall and break the child’s neck. Would you take that story back to your wife tonight?”
Nobody moved. Grimly, I gathered my skirts and went forward down the steps. One. Two. It was so dark I could not see my hand before my face.
“Here, my lady.”
Light flickered on the stone walls. The gray-haired guard was on the step behind me, a small lantern in his hand. I reached out for it.
“I’ll bear it for you. You take care for the child. These steps are old and uneven.”
There were ten steps, and a narrow passageway deep under the earth. It was very quiet. If rats or beetles made their home in this buried place, there was no sign of it. The dim light revealed iron rings, bolted to the cobweb-shrouded walls. At the end of the passage, another door, more of a grille, fastened with a loop of heavy chain. The place was airless, stifling.
“My lady.” The guard spoke under his breath, awkwardly. “These men are outlaws, scarce worth the trouble of tossing on the midden. You should leave this, and save yourself and the child. You’ll never get away across the marshes. Try it and you’re as good as dead, and your babe with you. Give it up. We’d see you got home safe. None of us wants this on his conscience.”
“Give me the key,” I said. He put it into my hand without another word.
Beyond the grilled door was another small space, and there I found Gull. I heard his breathing just before the light revealed his dark features, now a sickly gray, his staring eyes bright with fever, his clothing ripped and stained. His wrists were locked in iron shackles above his head, so that he could not move from where he was held, sagging, against his restraints. Filthy, bloodstained rags were roughly wrapped around his hands.
I moved forward, clenching my teeth.
“Unfasten this man’s hands and be quick about it!”
“Liadan,” Gull croaked, as the guard reached up to the shackles. Then he sucked in his breath as his wrists were suddenly released, and his arms fell by his sides as if there were no life left in them.
“You’ll be in a lot of pain while the feeling comes back,” I said, as he sank to the floor with a wheeze of agony. “But there’s no time. We must get out of here. Where’s Bran? Where’s the chief?”
Gull moved his head from side to side, weakly, to indicate he did not know.
“You must know! Somebody must know! We have only until dusk to get away from here!”
“Can … walk. Can … go.” Gull struggled to all fours, then to his knees, then stood up, swaying. “Ready … to go.”
“That’s good, Gull. That’s very good. See if you can put your arm around my shoulders—watch out for the boy—that’s it. I’
ll help you.” I turned to the guard. “Tell me where he is. Please tell me. Would you see all of us die before the sun sets?”
But the man was silent, his eyes chill as he watched Gull’s staggering, shivering efforts to walk. The air was thick and close around us, and each breath was a struggle. Johnny whimpered. If we left now, there would still be some daylight left. If we left now, there would be a chance to be out of sight before dusk. I might search and search until it was indeed too late and still not find him. Put the mongrel back in the dark where he belongs.
“Best to go back up,” muttered the guard.
“Not yet,” I said. “Stand still. Keep quiet.” For it was there, a small cry in the darkness, a feeling of dread, a summoning of will to endure what was beyond endurance. Where are you? I could not tell if it was my own imagination that conjured it or if I truly heard the cry of that lost child who had haunted my thoughts since first I began to learn the truth about the Painted Man.
The voice of my mind whispered into the darkness. I’m here. Stretch up your hand.
Silence. Helpless, shivering silence.
Reach out your hand to me, Johnny. I will help you. Show me where you are. It was not my son to whom I spoke, my son now blessedly silent, held warm and safe against me. Gull leaned on my shoulder, and I felt the trembling control he exercised over his damaged body to remain upright, to quiet his breathing so that I could listen. Where are you? Give me your hand. Reach up just a little farther.
There was no sound, not that I could hear. Not in the outer world, nor in the shadowy realm of the mind. But I knew. Suddenly, I knew. I walked out through the grilled door, with Gull stumbling beside me, and the guard following with the lantern and a scowl on his face. Halfway along the dim subterranean passage, I halted.
You could hardly see it. It was very neatly fashioned, flush with the floor, the only signs of its existence the faint line around the edges, and a small depression in the stone where the trapdoor might be lifted. Eamonn’s ancestor had indeed possessed an unusual and inventive mind.
“Open this trapdoor.”
“It’s not a job for a man on his own.”
“Open it, curse you! Fetch another man if you need one. And hurry!”
They were slow, painfully slow, as I waited, shivering. Hold on, I told him. I’m here. Not long now.
The trapdoor was heavy, a solid slab of rock a handspan thick. The mechanism seemed finely tuned and expertly maintained. But it took all the strength of the two guards to lift it. At last it stood open.
“Give me the lantern,” I said, and they put it into my hand. I placed it on the edge of the rectangular opening in the floor and looked in.
It was a small enough space. Just big enough to take a man who was not particularly tall, if his knees were doubled up to his chin, and his arms bent over his head. Air could get in, but not much. There would be no light. No space to move. A tomb, in which a man might stay alive for a time. How long would depend on what strength he could find deep inside himself. If you took him out occasionally, and fed him, and let him breathe before you put him back in, he might survive to entertain you for quite some time.
“Bran?” I was foolish indeed if I expected an answer. He appeared dead, his features ghastly pale, his curled-up form devoid of any movement. “Get this man out. Quickly.”
They did, for their orders were to help me, up to a certain point. But nobody had ordered them to be gentle, and by the time the limp figure had been dragged from the tiny hole where they had stowed him and deposited at my feet, still curled around himself, he bore a few more bruises than before. I knelt by him, and Gull, stifling a curse, squatted beside me.
“He’s alive,” I said, my fingers feeling the place at the base of the neck, where the blood flowed weakly, my ear catching his faint breathing, so slow, so slow. The lantern cast little light, but I could see the bruising was extensive, and blood was encrusted on his head, where a new, soft growth of brown hair crept over the bold markings of the skin.
“Blow to the head,” muttered Gull. “Deep. Hard. Came close … finish him. What now?”
“We get out of here,” I said firmly, while my tears banked up behind my eyes and my inner voice chanted over and over, Breathe, Liadan. Be strong. Be strong. “Then we’ll see.” I turned to the guards. “Pick this man up and carry him. And don’t hurt him. You’ve done enough damage. Take us outside.”
“Damage? No such thing as enough damage for the likes of him,” growled the second guard, and they were less than careful as they hoisted Bran’s helpless form from the ground and bore him away up the steps, leaving us to follow as best we could. I supported Gull and carried the lantern, and at length we emerged again into the underground way, where the torches burned bright, so bright they hurt my eyes, and Gull shielded his face with one damaged hand, while silent men stood watching our halting progress.
“Our orders are to take you down to the edge and leave you.”
“You’d better do it then,” I told them.
Bran’s body was as limp as a sack of grain, suspended between the guard who held his shoulders and the one who supported his knees. His head lolled to one side. There were bruises on bruises; no part of him seemed undamaged. What was left of his clothing was stiff with blood and filth. More entertained now there were lights and voices, Johnny babbled away cheerfully.
“Come on,” I said to Gull. “Down here. You know where. Then we’re on our own.”
“Own,” he echoed, and I wondered how much he had understood between the fever and the agony of his tortured hands. He had lost fingers from both, I could see that; how many were left, the bandages concealed. “Across,” he said. “Other side.”
As we stumbled down the underground way and out past the growling dogs and were led around the hill on a narrow track not far above the water’s edge, I made myself consider the possibilities. If Bran came to himself and could walk … if Gull could find the path, and the fever did not cloud his judgment … if Johnny kept still and quiet, and did not distract us … if help came before dark, then maybe we would live and not be shot down like fugitives escaping justice. If … there were altogether too many ifs. It came to me as we halted on the northern side of the hill, with the sun already low in the sky and the daylight beginning to fade, that this was the reality of Bran’s life and Gull’s, that their whole existence was made up of moments like this, when the odds appeared impossible, and one must indeed be the best, must find solutions to the most difficult problems, and discover inside oneself a strength almost Otherworldly, in order merely to survive.
“Sure about this?” They had dropped Bran unceremoniously at my feet again, and now the big guard took a step back, speaking quietly. High above on the fortress wall, men were gathered, watching. “Not too late, even now. Leave these carrion and make your way home with your little lad.”
“You’d better go.” I knelt and took Bran’s head on my lap. “Lord Eamonn will want to hear your report, no doubt.”
“At least save the child. You can’t survive such a crossing. That mongrel’s near dead, and the other can’t rightly walk a straight line. Try that path, and you’re all gone. You could leave the boy behind. There are folks here would care for him and see him safe home.”
Something flashed into my memory: my Uncle Finbar’s voice, long ago, saying to me, The child is yours. And you want the man as well … has it occurred to you that perhaps you cannot have both?
“We walk this way together,” I said, almost to myself, my hand moving gently over Bran’s shaven skull, where the new growth of curling hair softened the fierce, ravenlike pattern. “All of us together.”
The guard said no more; and soon Eamonn’s men had withdrawn within the fortress walls, save for two guards with a dog, who patrolled nearby. We were left there by the edge of the dark, quaking bog: Bran sprawled helpless on the stones, I seated by him with the child still on my back, and Gull standing, staring out across the wide expanse of marshland to the distant hil
ls in the north. He was swaying slightly.
“Snake,” he muttered. “Otter. Others. Other side.”
“You think they’ll be there if we can get across?”
“Others. Get across.” He staggered from one foot to the other and sat down suddenly. “Head. Sorry. Hands.”
“I would tend to them if I could. When we get there—when we reach a place of safety, I’ll be able to relieve the pain quite well for you, and give you an infusion to bring down the fever. I sent for help, but I cannot be sure that help will come, Gull. Do you understand?”
“Understand,” he echoed faintly.
“We have only until dusk to get away. As soon as the sun sinks, Eamonn’s archers will begin to shoot, and they will come down with torches. We have only one pathway to follow. If Bran—if the chief does not come to himself in time, I don’t know what we will do.”
At that moment Johnny decided to make his presence known, and there was no choice but to unfasten his bindings and open my dress to feed him. It seemed Gull was not entirely dazed by his fever, for he moved quickly enough to support Bran’s head and shoulders with his knees, while I busied myself with the child. And finally, with Johnny at the breast, and the light fading to the delicate shade of fresh lavender blooms all around us, and no sound but the harsh cry of herons out on the boglands; with Bran lying still and distant as some carven warrior on a tomb, I found I could no longer hold back my tears. What had I done? Why had I thought I could ignore the warnings of the Fair Folk themselves? I had believed, somehow, that I could save these men, could make a future for them, and for myself. Now it seemed we would all perish, and Johnny as well. Him I might have protected, but for my wretched pride.