Seonagh wasn’t caught by surprise, recognizing that the too-proud girl would never take such a brutal lesson easily. Now, as Aoleyn came at her, Seonagh was not unprepared. As soon as she had shoved Aoleyn away, Seonagh had reached into a pocket of her loose-fitting tunic and grasped at the contents. Now as Aoleyn cocked her arm to swing, Seonagh brought her palm up, hand open, something small and glittering resting in her palm.
A bright flash filled the open tent with blinding, stunning light, and Aoleyn stumbled backward, dazed.
“You desire a lesson in the ways of the Coven, child?” Seonagh said, advancing. Another flash, more brilliant than the sun at midday, radiated with painful intensity from her upraised palm. “Very well, then. Here is your lesson. The witches are powerful. You are not.” A third flash, more brilliant than the last, left Aoleyn reeling, staggering to her knees, covering her head with her arms to try and find some shelter from the blinding, burning light.
Seonagh brought her hand forward, and Aoleyn whimpered. But another flash did not come.
It took several long minutes for Aoleyn’s eyesight to fully return, during which she stayed put, kneeling, covering her head. Once she had recovered her eyesight, many heartbeats later, she dared peek out at the older and much more powerful woman. She expected to see a crystal with diamond flecks in Seonagh’s hand, but instead, Seonagh was holding a small pinecone.
Aoleyn looked at her curiously.
“This is the cone of a blue spruce,” she said. “They are few about the higher spans of Fireach Speuer, but they are the first to go to seed. Even now, though spring is not old, the cones are falling. Go out into the woods and collect three large baskets full of them. Do not return without the cones, even if you must spend the night there.”
“But … why?” Aoleyn started to ask.
“And if you fail, then hide well and hide high, for the moon is full, and the Usgar-righinn whispers that Iseabal might show her red face this night.”
“But why?” Aoleyn asked again.
“If you ask why again, if you protest, if you do not do this task right now without question, I will blind you once more. And when you are helpless, you will know more pain than you have ever known. Might that you will live, might not. But that’s my price, for you have used up all of my patience.”
“The Crystal Maven—” Aoleyn started to reply, her voice wobbly.
“Will thank me for saving her the trouble of wasting her days on the likes of you,” Seonagh assured the young woman.
The threat shut Aoleyn up, though Seonagh could see the simmering anger lurking behind those large dark eyes.
But Seonagh also knew Aoleyn well enough to know that she would not try anything foolish. Aoleyn had been beaten here and was no match for Seonagh, and they both knew it.
“Take a slave woman to carry the cone baskets,” the old witch instructed. Aoleyn started to protest, but Seonagh had already turned away before a word left her mouth.
Aoleyn sniffed, turned up her nose, and spun on her heel, stomping off toward the slave grove with a very audible “harrumph.”
“And take your care to be back in camp and about the fire ere twilight,” the older woman said, contradicting her earlier demand. “Three full baskets or expect the switch, and before Iseabal looks on Fireach Speuer and wakes the deamhan fossa!”
* * *
“She is tamed?” Tay Aillig asked Seonagh, the two of them standing outside the man’s tent. He was into his late thirties now, but still carried the strength, spring, and passion of someone ten years his younger. In a way, those fires seemed to burn more intensely now, even though Tay Aillig’s days of leading raids had all but ended. He was too valuable to the tribe now, and had been named Usgar-laoch, the War Leader, the organizer and tactician for the tribe’s raids, but commanding from behind while others did the fighting. Only in a time of great desperation would he be sent down Fireach Speuer to do battle. More than once had Tay Aillig tried to persuade the elders to let him personally guide war parties, and his words had gained strength of late since the raids of the last few years, without the inspirational and powerful presence of Tay Aillig, had proven mostly unsuccessful.
Tay Aillig’s face bore several distinct scars now—he thought of them as tattoos of honor from that day three winters past when he had overthrown Feuerie, the tribe’s previous Laoch, and had thus claimed the position for himself. In her last act as a witch of the Coven, Seonagh herself had treated those wounds, and she remembered still Tay Aillig’s command to her to not heal the gashes too cleanly.
Tay Aillig welcomed the scars. He wanted all who looked upon him to be reminded of his conquest.
“She obeys,” Seonagh replied. “But with complaint, always. She is as headstrong as ever, and does not like to be commanded.”
“It is a woman’s place to be given orders,” the man said with casual and dismissive confidence, almost daring Seonagh to offer a snort of protest.
“Of course, Usgar-laoch,” she said, lowering her gaze. “But Aoleyn does not yet see it.”
Tay Aillig stood silently for a moment, looking out the tent flap to watch the young woman cross the village toward the pine grove that housed the uamhas. He noted a distinct bounce in Aoleyn’s step. She was a small one, but seemed larger somehow, a powerful presence even as she so beautifully seemed a part of the majestic landscape all about, a will-of-the-wisp flitting about the trees, her long black hair bouncing all about her like shadowy extensions of a life force too great to be confined in so small a coil.
“Does she accept the beatings?” he asked at last.
“Yes. Well…”
“Does her spirit break in them and so she will do as commanded?”
Seonagh winced. “Yes,” she replied, and she was surprised to hear that her voice was full of sadness.
“Then her husband will have to beat her,” Tay Aillig said callously. He might as well have been speaking of training a dog. “She is almost of age to be claimed, and will be promised when she takes the ritual.” There was no flexibility in Tay Aillig’s tone, no room to protest or comment, so Seonagh stayed silent. It scared her to think that Aoleyn was already a woman and would be claimed by a man, almost surely. But she was small, and didn’t look like most Usgar women and so that man would not be a warrior in great standing.
She thought of her sister, Elara, and Fionlagh. Fionlagh had a good heart and was kind to Elara, true, but he was no great warrior, and so he had failed, and his failure had dragged Elara to Ifrinn beside him.
Aoleyn wouldn’t likely be as fortunate as Elara, and surely not if she couldn’t tame herself enough to be called to the Coven. Then she would have a terrible mate, a man bullied and with no title or honor. Then the switches of Seonagh would very likely be replaced by a brutality born of frustration that young Aoleyn was not ready to withstand or accept.
Tay Aillig turned to face her. “Does she progress in the teachings of Usgar?” he asked. “I heard of magic in your tent this morning. Was that the girl?”
“That was me,” Seonagh explained. “Aoleyn has not yet learned the truth of the crystals or the crystal caves. She is not ready.”
“She must be ready,” he answered. “She crosses now her sixteenth summer, and so is able to bear children.”
“She is not ready,” Seonagh dared reply, but Tay Aillig’s icy glare cut her short.
“Then make her ready, witch,” said Tay Aillig. “She will be promised before we return to the winter plateau. She must learn her tasks. All of them.”
Seonagh swallowed hard, unable to hide her fears.
“You took her to the crystal caverns when she was very young,” Tay Aillig reminded. “Your predecessor placed an enchanted crystal into her hands, that she could measure her.”
“That was her task, yes.”
“Does Aoleyn not hear the magic of the crystals?”
Seonagh started to answer, but held her tongue. Was it possible that Tay Aillig eyed Aoleyn for himself?
It made no sense
to Seonagh. The man could have any woman in the tribe he desired—he was unchallenged as the Usgar-laoch, and everyone expected him to one day lead the Usgar wholly. But nearing the end of his third decade of life, he had never shown much interest in any woman to Seonagh’s knowledge. Oh, he went to the uamhas women every now and then, but not very often, and he had spent time in Mairen’s bed, so said the whispers, though he wouldn’t take it further than that, of course, since she was too old to bear him any children.
But Aoleyn? Tiny Aoleyn, with her black hair and black eyes?
She was never going to be tall, nor were her eyes ever going to reflect the blue of the daytime sky, but there was no denying the exotic beauty of her niece even with, or perhaps particularly because of, the darkness of her eyes and hair, blacker than any other Usgar. Although young, she was shapely, her body strong and able. She could work long hours without tiring, could spend the whole of the morning running gracefully along the steep mountain slopes, and could move her hands brilliantly in weaving, her fingers following her keen and discerning eye. Her baskets were not the best Seonagh had ever seen, not hardly, but if Aoleyn had actually cared about them, they likely would have been quite handsome and sturdy.
And the crystals! The affinity the girl had for the magic was strong and undeniable—too strong, perhaps one day a threat to the supremacy of Mairen herself!
Like her mother, Elara, Seonagh knew, and she had to increase the pressure on Aoleyn to perform. Elara had been claimed and wedded before her magical power had bloomed, and so she had become the wife of Fionlagh.
Fionlagh, who had failed.
And in that failure, Elara’s considerable affinity for the song of Usgar had, indeed, doomed her.
Aoleyn, too, had that gift, and could hear well Usgar’s song. But she had not found the place of calmness within herself to prove her worth. Not yet, perhaps not ever.
“She hears the magical song,” Seonagh replied. “I studied her with the stone of spirit and she is possessed of the power, I am sure.”
“Then teach her to be proper.”
“She lacks patience and discipline,” Seonagh protested, though she knew Tay Aillig would not hear it.
Indeed, he motioned toward the girl, now rounding a bend out of sight to the uamhas grove. She carried a short stack of pine-bark baskets, large and unwieldy.
“She obeys,” he said somewhat wickedly.
“She obeys when the switch makes her obey,” Seonagh corrected.
Tay Aillig cast her a knowing look. A shiver ran up Seonagh’s spine, and she was not surprised when the brutal man added, “Perhaps I’ll fashion a thicker switch.”
Seonagh nodded—what else could she do? She didn’t enjoy beating her fellow Usgar women, but reminded herself that sadder would it be if this one, Aoleyn, could not calm herself enough to find the beauty of the Crystal God’s magic, the great gift that gave Usgar women purpose and gave all the Usgar this perch in the heavens, far above the lesser peoples of the lake.
She didn’t much like the idea of Tay Aillig taking her as his own, even if his stature in the tribe could not be doubted. Seonagh remembered too keenly Tay Aillig’s role in Fionlagh’s shame, and the brutish man’s spiteful glee when Elara had gone into Craos’a’diad.…
Seonagh’s eyes opened wide and she looked to where Aoleyn had disappeared and painted an image of the young woman in her mind’s eye. So much like Elara!
She glanced over at Tay Aillig, who walked past her and out of the tent.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself, that there were dire implications for Seonagh here as well, should she fail. She nodded. She would soon begin Aoleyn’s lessons in magic in earnest.
In their earlier encounter, Aoleyn would have fought back against Seonagh if she could have—the image of the young woman’s clenched fists flashed in Seonagh’s mind. Certainly Aoleyn had known that she could not win such a fight against Seonagh alone. But how would the impetuous young woman respond when she opened the power of the crystals? When she was armed with the might of Usgar’s song?
How would Seonagh maintain her superiority over this child, this young woman, who made the crystals sing with her mere presence?
9
BAHDLAHN
Aoleyn tentatively approached the thick and tangled pine grove that harbored the slaves throughout the warmer months. She hated the slave grove as much as she hated the slave caves up atop the mountain beside the winter encampment—not because of the occupants, though, for Aoleyn held no particular grievances with the uamhas, other than their ugliness. In fact, of late it had been quite the opposite. All the Usgar, she felt, looked down on her because they thought her an irresponsible child, and also simply because of her sex.
The uamhas, though, had to show Aoleyn respect regardless of their age or gender. The greatest among the uamhas was far below Aoleyn and had to obey anything any Usgar, even a young Usgar woman, might command.
Perhaps because of that very fact and the security it afforded her, and although she never ordered any of them around, Aoleyn discovered that, to her surprise, she had come to actually like some of the slaves, especially the slave women. No, the slaves were not the problem with the slave camps.
Rather, Aoleyn hated the pines and the caves beside the winter encampment because she would often run into the Usgar men there. In the village, around the tents and trees and the open air, she could avoid the men when she was not in the mood to talk to them. The pine grove, though, was a maze of overlapping boughs, tighter and smaller and full of blind turns. In this grove, Aoleyn often could not avoid them.
She approached the pines cautiously, trying to figure her best way to get in, grab a helper for her pinecone hunt, and get out.
Aoleyn slowed as she neared the thick grove. These were towering trees compared with those up at the Coven’s meadow, and with thick branches, the lowest of which sagged down to the ground at their ends.
As she neared the grove this day, though, Aoleyn’s fears eased into a wide smile. One of the slave boys sat out in front of the pines, his back to her, holding a stick and doodling absently in the dirt. He was almost thirteen years old, Aoleyn knew and knew well, knew even his exact birthday, because she had watched him being born.
Seeing him sitting outside the sheltered areas all alone made Aoleyn believe that his mother was likely busy with an Usgar warrior. They all liked that one, she knew.
Looking upon the woman’s son, Aoleyn was reminded of why, for the woman, Innevah by name, did have a pretty face, despite her grotesquely elongated skull. She was the oldest of the slaves, but still young and strong. And this one, her son, resembled her and was quite the handsome boy, with pretty shining blue eyes and light brown hair, and a head that was perfectly shaped!
What a shock it had been to Aoleyn a few years earlier when she had asked the old crone about this child, about why his head was not long, or double-humped, or otherwise misshapen.
“Oh, she tried to wrap it,” the old crone had replied. “But to be sure that we stopped her.”
“Wrap it?” Aoleyn could hardly comprehend.
What a shock it had been, for Aoleyn had then learned that the people of the lake purposely shaped their skulls! And that their heads, without their intense meddling, would be perfectly normal.
Aoleyn remembered well that conversation. “They are not wise,” the old crone had told her. “They believe that making their heads larger will allow them to become less the fool, but no, dear, they remain quite stupid, all of them.”
Yes, Aoleyn remembered that conversation because she remembered, too, the words she had overheard this boy’s mother emphatically telling him.
“Stupid and ugly,” she whispered, and she shook her head, unable to come to terms with this craziness. Why would they make themselves so ugly?
But not this boy. He had escaped that half of the curse of the lake folk. He was pretty.
“Boy!” she called. “Ugly boy!”
The youngster didn’t stir. r />
Aoleyn walked over and kicked him lightly to get his attention. He turned his bright blue eyes up at her, but immediately cast them back down again, to some picture he was drawing in the dirt.
“I am talking to you,” she said more insistently. When the boy did not react, Aoleyn bent low, tucked her middle finger behind her thumb, and flicked him hard in the ear.
That got his attention! He jumped to his feet and spun to square himself to his assailant. Anger flashed in those blue eyes, but only for a moment. It seemed to Aoleyn that he only then had realized that she was not another slave, but a master from the tribe, for a look of utter terror replaced his anger. He dropped his stick, and dropped to his knees with a grunt.
“You remember me,” Aoleyn protested, trying to calm him. She hadn’t interacted with him in years, but on the last occasion, she had rescued him from a pair of bullies.
“Stand back up,” she ordered. When he did not quickly react, she tucked her middle finger behind her thumb again, readying for another flick, but the boy hopped to his feet before she could deliver the stinging blow. He kept his gaze cast down, though.
“The others still call you Thump, you know?” Aoleyn teased.
The boy swirled his foot in the dirt.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked.
No response.
Aoleyn grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look up at her.
“Of course you know,” she accused. “They make fun of you.”
She thought she saw a flash of pain in the boy’s blue eyes, but it passed quickly.
“Thump,” she repeated. “They call you stupid.”
He didn’t respond.
“Stupid!” she said, and she shoved him backward. He caught himself and glanced up and she was certain that he was going to cry.
Suddenly Aoleyn felt ashamed. He might be stupid, but he certainly understood the mocking, and it had wounded him. And she had just done that, had just inflicted pain upon him for no reason at all. Perhaps she was no better than the two boys she had beat up on Thump’s behalf.