The Well of Shades

  Good. A voice spoke from behind him. He recognized its nature, and did not turn. This is the first step.

  His bones ached for home. The longing tugged at his heart and weakened his limbs. He could not give in to it. He would not beg.

  Come, said the voice. It was melodious and deep. He thought it was a woman’s, but this was no earthly woman. You know what you must do.

  He did know. It was clear. He must finish Tuala’s journey; go to the lonely vale and seek his answers in the seer’s pool, the Dark Mirror. Seek the forgiveness of the goddess and, if the Shining One could not pardon his insult to her Midwinter child, could not overlook his refusal to recognize his own, he did not know what he could do.

  Broichan turned away from the valley and began to climb again, under the shelter of the forest fringe. A figure moved with him, a form cloaked and hooded, a shadowy outline. Walk, the voice said. With every step, remember. Remember your pride. Remember your ambition. Remember your cruelty.

  “All I have done,” Broichan said, “was done for love of the Shining One and of the Flamekeeper. I have been obedient. All my life I have followed the path of the gods and respected their laws.”

  Look in your heart, whispered the voice. Examine the past. Turn the sharp eye of scholarship on your own actions. Apply your own oft-stated dictum: there is learning in everything. Yes, even in the recognition that you have failed your own daughter. For how can you profess obedience to the gods’ will when you proved unable to recognize their most precious gift?

  THEY’D GIVEN FAOLAN two regular guards, one for day, one for night. He didn’t see them much. They brought food and water, took away his bucket and returned it sluiced. Neither was prepared to talk. Neither would tell him how long he’d have to wait, or what exactly it was he was waiting for. The big man, the one from that first day, had not come back. Faolan regretted that, for it had seemed to him there was something there he might work on, some spark of fellow feeling. These two were just plain dull.

  He hid his silver before anyone decided to take his clothes. He hid his loop of wire and his very small dagger, his spiked iron ball and his vial of poison. The other things, including sword, knife, and gear for the road, had all been taken away. He bore no written messages, nothing to identify him as a Priteni spy, a man who had turned against his own. What he needed to do for Bridei, the questions he must put concerning the influential cleric, Colmcille, he carried in his head.

  He was equipped to attempt an escape, but for now he judged it unwise to do so. The only way would be to overpower one of the guards, to take the second man he’d been told patrolled the hallway, then to fight whatever forces stood between him and the outer wall of this Widow’s compound. He’d seen, coming in, that the place was heavily fortified and solidly manned. Echen had always kept it that way, and it seemed his wife had not let standards slip. In Faolan’s estimation, his chances of getting clear did not outweigh the very real possibility of dying within moments of leaving this room that had become his cell.

  Besides, there was Eile. He was duty bound to survive long enough to find her, whatever had happened, wherever they had taken her. He had already broken his promise. He must not do so again. It was odd, Faolan mused as he paced out the endless hours from sunup to sundown, or scratched the mark of yet another day on the stone wall of his prison, that his promise should matter so much. Last autumn had changed him. Deord, dying in his arms, had laid a load on him. Now, his own vow was strong in his mind: I’ll look after you until I know you’re safe. I’ll stay with you until you don’t need me anymore. Eile hadn’t believed him, of course; her past had hardly prepared her to trust. He must find her and prove that those had not been empty words. He hoped it would not be too late.

  Each day he expected a summons; each day none came, only the two guards with their bread and meat and watery soups, and the sounds of the household faint outside the high window. The little row of scratches on the wall became a tree, a grove, a small bare-limbed forest. Thirty, forty, forty-five. By all the powers, what was this? Did this Widow plan to send him crazy, not from torture or hardship, but through sheer boredom and frustration? Fifty, he thought. At fifty he would take action if she did not call him. Let it go too much longer and the winter would be over. If he delayed until then, the vital mission, Bridei’s job in the north, could not be fulfilled in time. This Colm might act, and there would be nobody to warn the king of Fortriu. Fifty, then. He’d use the wire and take his chances with the guards.

  ANA HAD NOT realized quite how sick she would be. She had planned to keep her news from everyone except Drustan until the shape of the child in her belly became obvious, but between the constant retching and the exhaustion that went with it, both the housekeeper, Mara, and the farmer’s wife, Brenna, began plying her with cordials and herbal brews within the first turning of the moon.

  “This won’t last, my lady,” Brenna assured her, wiping Ana’s brow with a damp cloth. “By the time your belly starts to swell out, the sickness will have passed. I was just the same with my youngest.”

  Drustan was worried about the need to make the journey north in spring, and the risks to Ana and the unborn child in such a trip. Neither he nor Ana suggested she stay behind while he went on; they could not bear to be apart even for a day. But Drustan could not wait beyond the spring. Already, in his absence, unscrupulous chieftains might have tried to seize the territory left leaderless by the death of his brother last autumn. Bridei had sent a messenger on Drustan’s behalf, laying formal claim to Briar Wood and stating his intention to set things right there. Another messenger had gone to Dreaming Glen, with the news that once his brother’s business was settled, Drustan was coming home. But a whole winter was a long time. Anything could happen. As soon as he could go, he must.

  “We could travel the other way,” Ana suggested one day as they sat before the fire in the hall of Broichan’s house, a game board on a little table between them. “Down the lakes by boat and through the pass by Five Sisters. Folk say that’s far easier.”

  “It is still long and taxing,” Drustan said, moving a tiny bone druid on the board. He refrained from mentioning that, if he went alone, he could use his other form and be there in a day or two. “It won’t be safe for you to ride. We can’t risk our child, Ana.”

  She imagined a time when he and his son or daughter might soar into the sky together; that would be both wondrous and terrifying, for a bird faced dangers a man scarcely thought of. If their children were gifted with Drustan’s uncanny abilities, she thought she might spend a great part of their growing years paralyzed with fear. She did not tell Drustan this. “The baby won’t be born until next autumn,” she said. “By spring I should be able to ride safely, if we take care how we go. We should ask Broichan to conduct our handfasting soon. Folk here will expect it now the child is coming.”

  “I wonder if he would come to Pitnochie to perform the ritual.”

  Ana glanced at him. She knew his reluctance to go to court; he was uncomfortable among folk. Long periods within walls made him restless and wild. That was something that would probably never change, but when they reached Dreaming Glen he would be safe in his own place again. In that remote spot, her children would be free to exercise whatever skills the Shining One might choose to grant them. “We can ask,” Ana said.

  But events overtook this plan. A day or two later a rider came in from White Hill, one of the men-at-arms from Bridei’s court. His purpose was simple: to discover whether the king’s druid had made his way to Pitnochie. For Broichan was gone from court, gone suddenly and without explanation. Drustan and Ana offered the fellow a good meal and a bed for the night. Then he went back to tell the king that, wherever Broichan had taken himself, it was not home to the house under the oaks.

  THERE MUST BE something wrong with her, Eile thought. For so long, in Dalach’s house, she had dreamed of a place where Saraid could be warm and well fed and safe; a place where there would be no more fear. That vision, that hope had kept
her going through the dark times. Now they were at Blackthorn Rise and there was a proper bed, warm clothes, and two good meals a day. There was work to fill Eile’s time, work that was easy compared with her duties at Anda’s. There was no doubt they were safe, with guards constantly patrolling the walkways atop the walls and standing about the gates looking grim. She should be happy. Instead she was full of a restless discontent, a sense of wrongness that disturbed her sleep.

  Eile recognized, with mixed feelings, that the dream of warmth and safety had always included a cozy little house on a hill, with a garden full of herbs and vegetables. It did not belong in a highborn lady’s grand compound swarming with servants. The place of her vision was nobody’s but theirs: hers and Saraid’s. It was her childhood home made anew, complete with a small hearth fire and a striped cat and a savory smell of bread baking. There, the sun was always shining. There, she was answerable to no one but herself.

  Maeve was kind, of course; she didn’t scold folk unless they deserved it, and as Eile always got her work done promptly, she rarely incurred the housekeeper’s displeasure. The other serving women were different. Word had quickly got around about what Eile had done and why she was at Blackthorn Rise, and their attitude to her was at once wary and contemptuous. Maybe they thought she’d be all too ready to stick a knife into anyone she didn’t fancy. She tended to get jobs like washing, with nothing sharp involved. That suited Eile fine. The feel of a knife in her hand would bring it all back. Think too much about what she’d done, and about the years that came before, and she’d be curled up in a little ball in a corner and no use to anyone.

  So, it was all right here, on one level. But she was worried about Saraid. The child would crouch nearby watching as Eile worked, or she’d wander around the edges of the courtyard like a little shadow with the gray dog from Cloud Hill following after her. Occasionally the Widow’s terrier would come out with a ball in its mouth and Saraid would play a game of fetch with the creature. Sometimes the Widow’s sons, sturdy boys of eight or nine, would come out, too, and Saraid would slip away silently, pretending she was invisible.

  The daughter of a serving girl didn’t play with a chieftain’s sons, that was understood. Besides, these boys were intimidating with their forthright manner. Big for their age, they had an air of privilege, as if they owned the place and everyone in it. Eile had heard them giving orders to Maeve and Orlagh and the others, and had itched to deliver a few sharp words herself. Maybe the Widow was wealthy and powerful, but it was clear she didn’t know the first thing about raising children. The elder one, Fionn, would probably grow up just like his father, what was his name, Echen? The Widow’s husband had done something terrible to Faolan’s family; he’d been a cruel man. This lad had the same kind of disregard for people. Eile tried to stay out of his way.

  She’d kept a count of the days since they arrived here. She scratched them on a stone out by the clothesline, with an iron nail she had found. It was a long time. The feast of Midwinter was over. Here in the Widow’s house she had witnessed it with amazement: so much food, so much mead and ale, so many folk behaving the way Dalach did when he’d been drinking, as if all the rules in the world had been swept away. That night Eile had kept the rusty nail under her pillow, for lack of a better weapon, and avoided being where any of the men might corner her alone. Some of the other maidservants did not sleep on their own pallets that night, and most of the household yawned its way through the next day. Eile wrapped up the best part of her festive supper in a cloth and stored it in the box she’d been given for her meager possessions. Old habits were hard to break; she would never get used to waste.

  Now Midwinter was well past, and the record of days stood at almost fifty. She made Saraid count them, then collect pebbles to match. As she heaved the wet sheets over the line, fearing rain would come before suppertime, she tried to make the learning into a game. “Ten white ones, ten black ones, ten gray, and ten brown. Then six more, Saraid, any colors you like. How many does that make?”

  Saraid was engrossed in selecting her stones; Sorry sat propped against the pole that held the washing line.

  “Count them on your fingers. Ten, twenty…”

  “Thirty, forty, and six more,” Saraid said, holding up a white stone. “Little moon.” She began to set her pebbles out in rows, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

  Eile’s back was aching. The sheets were heavy, and the prop that ensured the hems did not drag in the dirt must be shifted across to hoist the line higher. She gritted her teeth and took hold of it with both hands.

  Splat! A clod of mud landed in the center of a freshly washed sheet, clung a moment, then fell, leaving a dark loamy residue. Eile gasped with outrage and released the prop. The line sagged; the edges of both sheets dropped to the muddy ground. As she cursed, another lump of mud sailed through the air to strike Saraid on the cheek, hard enough to knock the crouching child over. Saraid lay immobile a moment, hands to her face, then scrambled to her feet and bolted toward her mother. She made no sound, but Eile saw the look in her eyes and, all at once, muddy sheets were the least of her concerns.

  She’d learned to be quick, over the years. A dive into the bushes and she had Fionn by the right arm and his younger brother Fergus by the left.

  “Let me go!” shrieked the scion of Blackthorn Rise, surely loud enough to bring an army of folk running. “How dare you touch me, you filthy slut! My mother will have you whipped! Let go at once!”

  Eile hung on grimly.

  “I didn’t do anything!” screamed Fergus. “It was him that did it! It’s not fair!”

  Saraid had retreated to the shelter of the bushes as the two boys struggled and kicked and shouted in Eile’s grip.

  “Try that again and you’ll really be sorry!” Eile’s voice cut through both the children’s. “Now find something better to do with your time than picking on hardworking people and scaring little children!”

  “Take your filthy hands off me!” shouted Fionn, hitting her arm with his free hand. “You’re a whore and a killer, and she’s an idiot! She can’t even talk properly.” He made a ferocious face at Saraid.

  Fergus was crying. Eile let him go, and he bolted. She grasped hold of Fionn’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. “Maybe you think calling people names is funny,” she said. “Let me tell you something. I don’t care who your mother is. I don’t care how much of a little lord you think you are. Lay a hand on my daughter again and I’ll thrash you. I mean it.”

  The boy spat in her face. She felt the spittle running down her cheek, and a moment later she slapped him, hard enough to leave a red mark on his face. Folk would be coming; if the indignant Fergus didn’t fetch them, the noise surely would. “You only get one warning,” she hissed. “I’ll do it, believe me.” Then she let him go. Bolder than his brother, or more sure of his ground, he stood there glaring, hands on hips.

  Someone shouted. Not folk coming to investigate the hubbub; a voice from somewhere beyond the drying green, beyond the vegetable garden and washing area, over on the far side by the men’s quarters. Someone had called her name. She held her breath, straining to hear over a new sound of approaching footsteps from the other direction, accompanied by Fergus’s dramatic sobs. If the man called again, she did not hear him. Had she imagined it? She didn’t think so, and her heart went cold. She could have sworn the voice was Faolan’s. The welcoming house, the safe haven had been built on a lie.

  A high-pitched scream pierced her skull, and she whirled around. The boy had moved to the clothesline. He was bent over with Sony’s woolen hair in one hand and her rudimentary feet pinned beneath his boot. His free hand held a knife; he was sawing at the doll’s neck. At Saraid’s shriek, Fionn gave a little cold smile; in the time it took Eile to stride over to him, he had severed the small head and dropped it in the mud. His boot heel ground down.

  Somehow, Saraid was there before her mother, reaching, grasping, small hands wrenching at the boy’s leg. Fionn kicked out;
Saraid clung on grimly and used her teeth. As the figures of two maidservants and a guard appeared, with the weeping Fergus between them, Fionn gave a yelp of pain and fell to his knees, clutching his thigh. Saraid grabbed her prize and, hiccupping in distress, buried her muddy face in her mother’s apron.

  “She bit me!” Fionn’s finger pointed accusingly at Saraid. “The little savage bit me! And the whore struck me in the face! Tell my mother! Have them punished! Shut up, Fergus, stop being such a baby!”

  “He threw mud at my daughter and destroyed her doll. He spat at me. I don’t care whose son he is, he’s the one who deserves punishment—” But nobody was listening to Eile. Fionn, busily talking, was leading the guard away, righteous purpose in every corner of his nine-year-old being.

  “You’re a fool,” said one of the maidservants, eyeing Eile sideways. “You don’t cross Master Fionn, not unless you want a good beating. His mother’s convinced the sun shines out of him.”