‘Out in the woods, under an oak tree.’ I put a hand on his shoulder. He’s shaking with sobs. ‘It would’ve been cold.’
‘Wrapped up,’ he whispers. ‘Wrapped up snug and warm. Safe. She was safe. It’s a lie. It’s all a lie.’
‘You’ve been away a long time. In a strange place. They didn’t treat you kindly there. And when you first came back you didn’t remember any of that story.’
‘They’re lying! She’s not dead, she can’t be! They stole her, Grim. Stole her once, stole her twice, stole her right away . . .’
I get an odd feeling. An uncomfortable feeling. What he’s saying is nonsense. He’s lost in his old songs and rhymes. But I can’t help thinking, What if . . .
‘Do you mean the fey, Bardán?’ But no, it can’t be that, a human child snatched and a changeling left in its place. There’s no changeling in this story. There’d have been nobody to leave it with. Bardán’s wife was already dead. And that was the night he fell into the Otherworld. Anyway, it wasn’t only Tóla who gave me that story of finding the baby girl’s body, it was Gormán too. They can’t both be lying, can they? It’s some old tale, surely, that Bardán’s mixed up with his own story. Or he’s not ready to admit what happened even to himself. Seen that before. When a man’s done something so bad he tells himself it never happened. Tells himself over and over till he believes it.
‘I didn’t leave her,’ whispers Bardán. ‘I wouldn’t leave her. I love her. My little one, my dear one, my last sunshine.’
And here am I, all out of words. Because the way he says this, it sounds like deep-down truth.
‘Help me, Grim,’ he says. ‘Help me find my girl.’
27
~Blackthorn~
When I’d suggested that Cara look for the heartwood house story, I’d had two motives. The first was to keep her occupied. Maybe she’d find the tale and maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe it would be helpful in explaining what had happened at Wolf Glen and maybe it would provide no insights at all. But while she was searching, she wouldn’t be brooding over her father’s treatment of her, and she wouldn’t be hatching yet another plot to run away.
Then there was my own task. Prince Oran’s library housed an extensive collection of books and manuscripts, many of them quite precious. And it had an adjoining chamber set up as a scriptorium, with a glazed east-facing window and several writing desks. Shelves held a supply of quills, inks and good parchment. The household did not have its own scribe. Flidais did whatever writing was required for domestic arrangements – lists of supplies and so on – and both she and Oran wrote their own letters. They wrote poetry, too. Flidais had told me so. But I imagined that was set away somewhere private. Fíona, wife of Aedan the steward, cleaned the library herself. The place was spotless. And at present, with Oran and Flidais both away, we were the only people using it. It was a perfect opportunity for me to complete the statement I’d been scrawling in my notebook, then make a fair copy. Cara worked in the main part of the library. I worked in the scriptorium. If she had questions, I did my best to answer them. If she needed help with a Latin translation, we worked on it together. I only had to tell her once that my own work was private; after that, she was careful not to look at it.
Writing the document felt like putting my heart’s blood down on the page. Every sentence hurt; every word brought back the painful past. But I had to do it. Now that Mathuin had shown his hand against Flidais’s family, I felt compelled to record everything I knew about his crimes. I felt as if time might be running out.
We made a decision to work only in the mornings, since my duties as healer continued and I often had to travel some distance to visit folk. Fann and her baby in Longwater, for instance, were still under my care. Nor did I intend Emer’s progress with her reading and writing or her training as a healer to be halted by this diversion. Every few days she joined us in the library to labour over her letters for an hour or so. Poor Grim. By the time he came home he would be far behind her. A pox on Tóla! Didn’t the man understand folk’s need to see one other occasionally, to reassure themselves that their loved ones were alive and well? No building work could be so important that a person needed to give day and night to it. I told myself Grim’s absence meant the job would be done more quickly, allowing him to be home sooner. I missed him so much it was like a physical ache. Which was exactly what Cara had said, once, about how being away from Wolf Glen made her feel. And Cara was fifteen years old. I ordered myself to grow up and stop being foolish.
I had doubted Cara’s ability to concentrate on a task that would keep her indoors, seated at a table, for hours at a time. But she surprised me, working out a system to ensure she did not miss anything and maintaining a careful record of her progress. Washing her hands before she handled the books. Keeping our morning refreshments well away from anything precious. Staying quiet unless she really needed to ask me something. Not that it was easy for her. When our morning’s work was done, she would rush off outside as if set free from a prison cell. Not that she was free, exactly. Her father’s rules meant she could go no further than Flidais’s small private garden without both one of the handmaids and a guard in attendance. This arrangement was inconvenient for the household and irksome for Cara herself. Fíona confided in me that nobody had forgotten the tongue-lashing Tóla had delivered after his daughter went missing.
As for Oran and Flidais and their retainers, they remained at court. Still. I wished someone would tell me what was going on, but I could not ask. Start showing too much curiosity about Mathuin of Laois and I would reveal I had a special interest in that subject. I would make myself vulnerable. Folk would start asking me questions.
Surely the king’s council must be over by now. Had they decided to take action against Mathuin? They must do something. He’d committed an act of gross hostility against Lord Cadhan, Flidais’s father. He’d seized Cadhan’s land and killed many of his retainers. He’d driven Cadhan and his wife out. No leader worth his salt was going to say, Oh, how unfortunate. But there’s nothing we can do about it now.
The question was, what could they do? Laois was far away and Mathuin’s forces were formidable. The High King would not want war on his doorstep. Not even a petty war. This kind of thing was like a fire in dry grass. It started small, a flickering flame. If not quickly dealt with, it could grow into a huge blaze, spreading to destroy more and more ground. An attempt to topple Mathuin by force of arms seemed unlikely.
So why were those men from Swan Island here? There were more of them now, each with a different animal marking and a name to match. Cúan, Art, Earc. Hound, bear, salmon. Ségán, hawk. Caolchú, another hound. Cionnaola, wolf-head. Perhaps, when each joined the warrior band, he chose a name to suit his own appearance or his character. Cionnaola had long twists of grey-black hair and features that were almost noble – a prominent, straight nose and piercing dark eyes. Lonán – blackbird – was a stocky, dark-skinned man with a clever face. And so it went on.
The official story was that they’d been hired to supplement the household guard while Oran and his entourage were away. That was believable. But why so many? These were hard men, highly trained and ruthless. I could see it in their eyes and in the way they moved and in the weaponry they carried. Their nice manners – and they all proved to be like Cúan, courteous almost to a fault – could not disguise the fact that these were no ordinary men-at-arms.
While I worked on my document, Cara read story after story and rhyme after rhyme. So far she’d found nothing about a heartwood house. I asked Aedan whether the druid, Oisin, was expected to visit Winterfalls any time soon, and was told that Oisin came and went in his own time, which I knew already. Time passed and I grew more and more ill-tempered. I wished I had not promised to keep an eye on Cara. I wished I had never heard of Wolf Glen or Master Tóla or his poxy heartwood house. As for those so-called guards walking around the place, every time one of them said good day or gav
e me a polite smile, I thought of Mathuin’s henchmen coming to take me away. My dreams were full of unspeakable things.
‘Mistress Blackthorn?’
I started in fright, dropping my quill. Cara was standing right by my desk. I whipped a spare sheet of parchment over my work, even though the ink was still wet.
‘You look terrible,’ Cara said, blunt as always. ‘You should get up and walk around for a while. That’s what you’re always telling me.’
I felt weak and dizzy. My mind was half in the nightmare past. ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Forget about me, do your own work.’ I tried to stand up, but my knees refused to cooperate. My neck ached. How long had I been sitting here?
‘You look sick. Shall I fetch someone?’
‘No! I don’t want anyone!’ Only Grim, to make a brew and sit with me while we drank it, and wait until I was ready before he spoke. Morrigan’s curse, the big man had put up with a lot from me since the day we’d escaped the lockup.
‘It’s time to stop anyway,’ Cara said. ‘Let’s go outside. I’ll show you my favourite tree.’ She flashed a smile. ‘If you come with me, I won’t need Mhairi.’
‘I must put this away first.’
She busied herself with tidying away her own work, while I chose a new hiding place for my secret account. Now that it ran to many sheets of parchment, I could not conceal it in the pouch at my belt as I had done with the notebook. Since the cottage where Cara and I were housed could not be securely locked up, it seemed to me that the safest place to hide this document was among other documents. The testament against Mathuin resided between the pages of a different book every night. I chose volumes I thought an unexpected visitor, even a scholarly one such as Oisin the druid, would not be inclined to examine. This time I slipped it into a weighty volume with a worn, cracked cover. The book was in a tongue so foreign that the letters themselves had unfamiliar shapes. There was no making sense of it. As I closed the pages over my work, I whispered words of protection.
Cara’s favourite tree was a magnificent old yew standing on a rise. The trunk was massive, the bark a furrowed landscape of nooks and crannies.
‘The best thinking place is up there,’ Cara said, pointing to some spot entirely concealed by heavy branches and foliage. ‘But you needn’t try to climb up. It might be too much for you. At your age, I mean.’
I swallowed an oath. ‘I might need some help for the first bit,’ I said, eyeing the distance.
Cara grinned. ‘I’ll get up first, then I can help you.’
Not long after, the two of us were sitting side by side, high above Prince Oran’s farmlands. I could see why Cara liked being up in trees so much. This was a whole world, away from annoying handmaids and their snappy dogs, away from mysterious tattooed men, away from thoughts of old enemies and how they might strike again when least expected. The actual climbing I hadn’t enjoyed quite so much, though I’d been impressed by Cara’s strength as she’d helped me up. Her air of fragility was deceptive.
From up here I could see our cottage, stone grey against the many greens of Dreamer’s Wood. Further away lay the great dark mass of the Wolf Glen forest. No wonder Cara loved this perch. She could see nearly all the way home.
‘I promised your father some time ago that I’d do something for you,’ I said. ‘And I haven’t done it yet.’
‘What?’
‘He asked me to make you a protective talisman. Something to carry with you. I told him I’d need a piece of cloth from one of your mother’s garments, if there are any, and something of his too. I thought he’d be back down to visit you and would bring them.’ There had been no sign of Tóla since he’d left his daughter at Winterfalls for the second time. As fathers went, I considered him a pretty poor one, for all his protestations that he loved his daughter. He might be a landholder and busy, but he was the only father Cara had. And he’d known how unhappy she was to be sent away.
I became aware of how long Cara had been silent. When I glanced at her, she was leaning against the yew’s trunk with her eyes closed. Not asleep; not so quickly. I waited.
‘You could go up to Wolf Glen and ask him,’ she said eventually, opening her eyes and lifting her head. ‘It would be a perfect excuse. You could find out how things are going with the heartwood house. And you could visit Grim.’
‘Your father would be angry. He’d think I was being a busybody.’
‘Not if you reminded him about the talisman and needing the things. Aunt Della would find them for you.’
‘He might be angry that I’ve left it so long to remind him. Left you unprotected, as he would see it. He certainly would be if he knew what really happened the night you were missing.’
Cara went pale. ‘Don’t tell him! Not about those voices! He’d shut me away forever if he knew. Make me go to a nunnery or something.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of telling.’
‘Anyway,’ Cara said, ‘I’m not unprotected. Not now. I made my own talisman.’ She tugged at a cord around her neck and drew out from under her gown a bunch of feathers tied together with a length of green silk cord, the latter perhaps obtained from Mhairi’s embroidery supplies.
The thing was beautiful. I could feel the good magic in it without the need to touch. She had chosen only small feathers, so the talisman would lie flat against her chest, invisible beneath her clothing. The cord was elaborately knotted around them; I was fairly sure the knots themselves held a protective power. ‘That’s remarkable,’ I said. ‘Where did the feathers come from?’
‘Gifts,’ Cara said simply. ‘Some I find; some the birds bring to me. There are nine here. Nightjar, chiffchaff, bunting, goldcrest, warbler, thrush, jay, redpoll and siskin.’ She touched each gently as she reeled off the names.
My skin prickled. There was something odd about that list. Where had I heard it before – in an old rhyme?
‘This should keep me perfectly safe. Even if I do fall down into a place like that again. Birds saved me. And birds will protect me. So really there’s no need for you to make anything. But I thought you might like to visit Wolf Glen. I know I can’t go. But he never said you couldn’t.’
28
~Grim~
At first I think she’s only a dream. Been wanting to see her so bad, missing her so much, I’ve imagined this over and over. In the dream I look up and there she is, coming along the path from the big house. Red scarf on her head, red hair under it, basket over her arm. Not smiling or frowning, just looking at me like she knows me better than I do myself.
So when it happens I can’t believe it’s real. We’re having a break, me and Bardán sitting on the big stones near the heartwood house, the other fellows over by the barn. Someone’s made a brew, which is welcome. Platter of bread with fresh butter, brought over by Mistress Della, even more welcome. The lady didn’t stay to chat this time.
The ghost that’s Blackthorn casts her eye over the heartwood house, then over Bardán and me. ‘Got a spare cup, big man?’ she asks. Then smiles. Next thing, Ripple comes running from where she’s been with the crew, barking her head off. Blackthorn says ‘Down!’ Ripple sits and Blackthorn gives her a pat.
I’m on my feet, heart hammering. She’s here. She’s real. Know what I want to do, which is run forward and wrap my arms around her and never let go. But there’s Bardán. Also, she might curse and slap me in the face. ‘You’re here,’ I say like a stupid fool.
Bardán gets up too. Blackthorn’s giving him a long look, the kind that means she’s thinking hard. ‘You must be Bardán,’ she says. ‘I’m Grim’s friend, Blackthorn the healer. I hope the salve helped your hands.’ She looks back at me. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she says. ‘Been a while. I can’t stay long.’
There’s all sorts of things to ask. Why is she here? Why hasn’t Tóla come rushing out and ordered her to go home? What about Cara?
‘Brew?’ I ask.
/> She smiles wider. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’
I scrape together some of my wits. ‘Bardán, ask one of the men to bring another cup, will you? Say I’ve got a visitor.’ The Longwater fellows mind their manners around the wild man. They know they’ll answer to me otherwise. ‘Tell them there’s no need to rush back to work.’
Bardán goes and we’re on our own, though probably not for long. I look at Blackthorn. She looks at me.
‘I’ve missed you, big man.’
I nod. Still looking. Remembering those words I wrote for her. And the ones she wrote for me. ‘You come on horseback?’
‘Mm-hm. Eochu found me a placid mare. I’ve left her down by the big house. Grim, we’d better talk now, before anyone else comes. I don’t imagine Master Tóla’s going to leave me up here unsupervised for long; he seems keen to know every little thing that goes on in this place.’
So she’s come to Wolf Glen to see Tóla. ‘You here to report on Cara?’
‘You might invite me to sit down.’
‘Sit. Please.’ I wave a hand at the stone Bardán’s been sitting on.
‘I’m joking, Grim,’ she says as she sits down. ‘Or trying to. If I don’t I might disgrace myself and shed tears.’
‘Tears? Why?’
‘Why do you think?’ She reaches over and takes my hand. I can feel myself filling up with happiness. ‘You’re blushing,’ she says.
‘Better than crying.’
‘Look at us,’ Blackthorn says. She’s going to say something else, but one of the fellows comes over from the barn with a steaming cup in his hand. Passes it to her, smiles, introduces himself.
‘Mistress Blackthorn? I’m Corcrán, from Longwater. I was there the day you helped birth Fann’s boy.’
She greets him, has a little talk about Fann and how she’s faring – well, it seems – and all I can think about is precious time being wasted, our time, hers and mine. In a bit Corcrán takes himself off, and we sit a while without speaking. Don’t know what she’s thinking. She did say she’d missed me. But she let go my hand as soon as Corcrán came.