Daughter Of The Forest (16 page)

“No,” I said, backing away, wrenching my hair from her grasp. “That is, no thank you. I’ll dress it myself, or Eilis will. And I will find something to wear—” I glanced longingly at the door.

“I am your mother now, Sorcha,” Oonagh said with a chilling finality. “Your father expects you to obey me. Your upbringing is in my charge from now on, and you will learn to do as you are told. So, you will wear the green. The woman will come tomorrow to fit your gown. Meantime, try to keep yourself clean. There are servants here to dig up carrots and turn the dungheap—henceforth your time will be better spent.”

I fled; but knew I could not escape her will. I would wear green for the wedding, like it or no, and I would stand by with my brothers and watch the lord Colum wed a—what was she? A witch woman? A sorceress like the ones in the old tales, with a fair face and an evil heart? There was a power about her, that was certain, but she was never one of Them. The Lady of the Forest, whom I believed I had seen in her cloak of blue, inspired more awe—but she was benign, though terrible. I thought Oonagh was of another kind, at once less powerful but more dangerous.

I stood in front of the mirror in my green gown, as she plaited ribbons into my hair and grilled me about my brothers. Again the strange creatures fixed their ruby eyes on me and I answered despite myself.

“Six brothers,” she murmured. “What a lucky girl you are, growing up in a houseful of fine men! No wonder you are unlike other girls of your age. The little Eilis, for instance. Sweet girl. Fine head of hair. She’ll breed well, and lose her bloom soon enough.” She dismissed poor Eilis with a flick of the fingers as she knotted the green ribbon and twisted the end tight. “Your brother could have done better. Much better. Serious boy, isn’t he? So intense.”

“He loves her!” I blurted out unwisely, rushing to Liam’s defense without thinking. I may once have resented his love for Eilis, but I would not stand by and listen to this woman criticizing my brother’s choice. “How can you do better than wed for love?”

This sally was greeted with cascades of laughter; even the dour maidservant smiled at my naïveté.

“How indeed?” said Oonagh lightly, fitting a short veil over my plaited and woven hair. The figure in the mirror was unrecognizable, a pale, distant girl with shadowy eyes, her elegant dress at odds with her haunted expression. “Oh, that looks much better, Sorcha. See how it softens the line of the cheek? I may yet be proud of you, my dear. Now tell me, it seems twins run in the family—and yet I have never seen a pair more different in character than young Cormack and Conor. Like peas in a pod, physically, of course. You are all alike, with your long faces and wide eyes. Cormack is a charming boy, and your father tells me he is shaping up to be a promising fighter. His twin is very—reserved. In some ways, almost like an old man.”

I made no comment. The maidservant was rolling up ribbons, her lips thin. Behind me, the seamstress from the village still worked on the fall of the skirt. It was a graceful gown; some other girl might have worn it with pride.

“Conor disapproves of me, I think,” said Oonagh. “He seems to throw himself into the affairs of the household with a single-mindedness unusual in one so young. Do you think perhaps he is jealous that his twin shines so? Does he really wish to be a warrior and excel in his father’s eyes?”

I stared at her. She saw so much, and yet so little. “Conor? Hardly. He follows a path of his own choice, always.”

“And what is that path, Sorcha? Does a virile young man really wish for a life as a scribe, as a manager of his father’s household? A glorified steward? What boy wouldn’t rather ride and fight, and live his life to the full?”

Her eyes met mine in the mirror; and the bronze creatures gained power from her gaze, and fixed their baleful glare on me. I was unable to stay silent.

“There is an inner life,” I whispered. “What you see is Conor’s surface, a tiny part of what is there. You’ll never know Conor if you only look at what he does. You need to find out what he is.”

There was a short silence, broken only by the rustle of Oonagh’s gown as she moved about behind me.

“Interesting. You’re an odd girl, Sorcha. Sometimes you seem such a child, and then you’ll come out with something that makes you sound like an old crone.”

“I—can I go now? Is this done?” I was suddenly wretched. What else would she make me say? Why could I not control my tongue before her? Her last words had reminded me of Simon, and I could not allow her to tap into my thoughts of him, for if she learned the truth she would not hesitate to tell Father, and then it would not just be Simon, but Finbar, and I, and Conor as well that would be at risk.

It seemed the fitting was over. The seamstress began to undo the pins, one by one. There were a lot of pins.

“I’ve seen very little of your youngest brother,” said Oonagh, smiling. She had retreated to perch on the end of the bed, swinging one foot slightly. In her white dress with her hair falling about her shoulders, she seemed about sixteen years old. Until you looked into her eyes. “Always away off doing things, is Padriac. You’d almost think he was trying to avoid me. What is it keeps him away from crack of dawn till after suppertime?”

This seemed safe enough.

“He loves creatures, and mending things,” I said. The seamstress eased the bodice down. It was cold in the chamber, despite the fire. “He keeps them in the old barn. If there’s ever a bird whose wing is broken, or a hound suffers an injury, Padriac will fix it. And he can build just about anything.”

“Mm,” she said. “So, another one who will not grow up a warrior.” Her tone was cool.

“My brothers are all adept with sword and bow,” I said defensively. “They may not all choose Father’s path, but they are not lacking in the skills of war.”

“Even Finbar?”

The eyes of the creatures glowed. I stared back at them and, gathering up every scrap of will, kept my mouth firmly shut. She was behind me again, suddenly, and the hairbrush was in her hand. She waited as the maidservant began, grimly, to unfasten the network of green ribbons that tamed my hair.

“You are reluctant to speak. But how can I be a good mother to these boys, if I do not know them?” She sighed expressively, her face sweetly rueful. “I’m afraid Colum has favored some of his sons and neglected others. I detect a very frosty atmosphere where young Finbar is concerned. What can he have done, to earn such censure? Is it simply a reluctance to participate in warlike pursuits? Or has he never really forgiven his mother for dying and leaving him alone?”

“That’s not fair!” I stood up and whirled around to face her, wrenching my hair from the servant’s grasp. I was oblivious to the pain. “Mother didn’t choose to die! Of course he misses her—we all do, nothing can ever fill the space she left. But we’re not alone, we never have been, we’ve got each other. Can’t you understand that? We are friends, and family, and part of each other, like leaves on the same branch, or pools in the same stream. The same life flows in us all. Talking of jealousy is just silly.”

“Sit down, dear.” Oonagh’s voice was quite calm; she did not react to my outburst. “You spring to your brother’s defense—that is natural, as you have had no other companionship, all these years. What grounds have you for comparison, so narrow is your little world? Not surprising, then, that you cannot see his limitations.”

I managed to escape, finally, but there was no way of blotting out her words, and I wondered again what it was she wanted from me, from us. I felt a strong desire to have all my brothers with me, to touch them and talk with them, to feel their strength and comforting sameness. So I looked for them; but Cormack was engaged in a bout with staves, grinning fiercely as he challenged Donal to find a way past his whirling weapon and fancy footwork. And Padriac was fully occupied with some contraption he was building. A raven perched on a rail above him, turning her head this way and that as his fingers went about their delicate task. “What is it?” I asked my youngest brother, eyeing the intricate folding framework of fine wooden slats and stretched linen.

“Not quite a wing, not quite a sail,” muttered Padriac as his deft fingers fastened another tiny joint. “With this, a small boat will travel very fast over the water; even in the lightest of winds. See how the panels turn, when I tighten this thread?” Indeed, it was ingenious; and I told him so. I patted the old donkey, and peered into the stalls, where a litter of brindled kittens nestled in a corner of the warm straw. The raven followed me, still limping a little from her injury (attacked by other birds, Padriac thought, but she was mending well). She gave the kittens a wide berth.

There was a long walk, straight between willows, and hedged by a late-flowering plant whose childhood name was angel-eyes, because its round blue blossoms seemed to echo the color of a spring sky. It was alive with blooms, but the heavens today were leaden; no angels would smile on this wedding. Down by the lake, Liam walked with Eilis. He held his cloak around her shoulders with his arm, careless as to who might be watching, and his head was bent as he spoke to her solemnly. Eilis had her face turned up to his, and she looked at him as if to shut out the rest of the world. For a moment, I felt a dark foreboding, a shadow over the two of them that spread its chill toward me. Then they were gone under the trees, and I went on toward the house.

There was much activity around the kitchen, with carts coming to and fro, and barrels of ale and sides of meat being hefted on shoulders and stowed away. Smells of baking and roasting drifted in the cold air, and horses stamped and snorted. Linn greeted me at the door, snuffling her wet nose into my hand, but she did not go in. It was then that I noticed, among the carts drawn up on the stones, a familiar vehicle of plain, serviceable kind, in whose shafts an old horse waited patiently for his turn to be unbridled and led away to warm stable and rest. And this was odd. Why would Father Brien be here now, with still a night to go before the wedding? I had been sure he would come down early in the morning and travel back before nightfall, for how could he leave Simon alone after dark?

I went in, but none of my brothers was there, and Fat Janis chased me straight out again, saying she had quite enough to worry about, what with all the fancy baking and the men coming in and helping themselves, without young ’uns underfoot. As she propelled me through the door, she slipped a warm honey cake into my hand with a wink.

I found them eventually back where I’d started, in my own herb garden. It was probably the most private place there was, with its high stone walls and its single door into the stillroom; barring the rooftop, that is, but only Finbar and I went up there. Father Brien was on the mossy stone seat, and Conor was leaning next to him, speaking earnestly, while Finbar sat cross-legged on the grass. As I creaked the stillroom door open wider, they fell silent and all three turned their heads in unison to look at me. It was as if they had been waiting for me, and there was clearly something very wrong. “What is it?” I said, “what’s the matter?” My two brothers looked at Father Brien, and he sighed and got up, taking my hands when I ran up to him.

“You won’t be happy with this news, Sorcha,” he said gravely. “I wish I had better for you.”

“What?” I demanded, not allowing myself to think.

“Your patient is gone,” Father Brien said bluntly. “The day I was away, I made haste to return by sundown, as we planned. When I reached home, the place was in darkness. At first I feared the worst for the two of you; but I could see your belongings were taken, and no apparent harm done, and the dog had neither remained nor, it seemed, come to any ill. I knew Linn would not have let you be taken without blood being shed. It was plain the horses whose hooves had marked the ground belonged to your brothers.”

“But Simon—I left him safe—he said he would wait for you—”

“There was no sign of him, child,” said Father Brien gently. “His outer garments were gone, and his ashen staff; though it seemed he took neither food nor water, nor a cloak against the cold, and he left his boots behind. I can hazard a guess at his intentions.”

For he cared not if he lived or died. But he had promised me.

“Didn’t you even look for him? Why didn’t you send for us?” I was beset with visions of Simon alone in the forest at night, surrounded by his personal demons, slowly weakening with pain and cold. Perhaps already he lay still and silent under the great oaks, with the mosses creeping over his lifeless body.

“Hush, daughter. Of course I searched; but he is a warrior, and though hampered by his injuries, knows how to disappear when he will. And how could I send for you or your brothers? I thought it most likely that he had been taken prisoner again, and brought back here by whoever came to fetch you. I have learnt from Finbar that this nearly did happen.”

“Indeed,” said Finbar. “Maybe, when he saw how easily he could be taken again, he chose this way, Sorcha. There is a breed of man that would rather die than be captive. And he was as pigheaded a fellow as I ever saw.”

“But he promised,” I said rather childishly, choking back tears. “How could he come so far, and then throw it all away?” I could not forget that I had broken my own promise. Now I knew how it felt.

Conor put a comforting arm around me. “What exactly did he promise you, little owl?”

I hiccupped. “To live, if he could.”

“You cannot know if he has broken this promise or not,” Conor said. “Probably you will never know. Hard though it is, you must put this behind you, for there is no way you can help your Briton now. Rest easy that you did for him all you could, and think of tomorrow, for we all have other tests and trials ahead of us.”

“Your brother speaks the truth,” said Father Brien. “We have no choice but to move on. There is a marriage to perform; it gives me no great pleasure to do so, but I am bidden by your father and have no grounds to refuse him. Will he speak with me alone, do you think?”

“You can try,” said Conor. “The last thing he wants just now is good advice, but coming from you it may be less unwelcome. Both Liam and myself have sought to speak with him privately, and have been refused.”