Daughter Of The Forest (68 page)

Red’s mouth tightened in an alarmingly familiar way, and I saw Ben’s hand hovering by the hilt of his dagger.

“This is my household,” said Red. “You want to leave in safety, do you not? With horses and a degree of protection? This I will provide; but first I will speak with Jenny alone.”

“Your arrogance astonishes me,” said Conor coldly. “It was your people who would have put my sister to death; your people who went about their business while she was shut away in the dark, while lice crawled in her hair and rats came out at night to feast on the filth of her cell, while she wept and toiled and waited for the end. How dare you demand anything of us?”

Red was very pale, but he was determined to speak. “For whom did she work, for whom did she keep her silence these three years, for whom did she choke back her laughter and her tears and her screams of pain? You accepted what she did for you. You are as guilty as I, all of you.” He had taken the support of Ben’s arm; gripping it, his hand was white at the knuckles.

It was as if they had forgotten I was there.

“Conor,” I said.

“What!?” snapped my brother in a tone he had never before used to me.

“This is my decision,” I said quietly. “I will be quite safe. I will not go far; just beyond the door.”

And I walked out, eyes straight ahead. Nobody tried to stop me. Outside the room, two men still stood on guard. The door closed behind me.

“You can go,” said Red to the guards. Ben had remained within; a gesture requiring some courage, under the circumstances.

We were alone. I stayed where I was, by the door. He was quite close, leaning back against the wall. Looking up into his eyes took all my strength. They were wintry cold, his face blank as an empty sheet of parchment.

“It seems I have fulfilled my purpose,” he said. “Clearly, you have no further need of my protection.”

“It’s better this way.” I forced the words out. “Better for you, and for your household. Better for everyone.” And I thought, if the doom the Fair Folk laid on you is not yet lifted, wait only until I leave these shores. The boat will carry me beyond the ninth wave, and you will begin to forget.

“I told you once,” said Red, “that I wanted to hear your voice. I did not think the first words I would hear would be these.”

It’s true, I thought. We have become adept at hurting each other. In a whole year, after everything, is this all we have learned?

“Those were not the first words,” I whispered, fighting tears. I would not weep.

“No,” he agreed. “They were not. You saved me; and I you. Perhaps that was what it was for. Perhaps that was the reason. And now that it’s over, you wish to return home.” Red’s tone was courteous. He might have spoken thus to any departing guest. “I will see to your safety as far as the coast. I have no doubt your brothers will guard you well for the journey home.”

I swallowed. The light was dim; one lamp burned low in a niche, casting deep shadows. But outside, it was nearly dawn. There was so much to say; and nothing I could say.

“I said that I would tell you about your brother,” I ventured. “About Simon.”

“Oh, yes. Our agreement. Safe conduct home, in return for information. I had almost forgotten.” He made an attempt at nonchalance, but I could see how his hand was shaking as he reached up to adjust the bandage.

“You’re bleeding,” I said. “Let me.”

“
No
.” Now it was he who shrank from my touch. “Leave it. It’s of no concern. You asked about my brother. Memory is a strange thing. Simon remembers little of this lost time. Of recent events he has a better recall, which returned to him piece by piece on our slow journey home. Enough to incriminate my uncle many times over.”

“I know,” I said. “When I was—your uncle spoke to me, unguardedly, at some length. He told me many things which he will now regret. He thought…he thought I would not tell you, he thought I would never…”

I could hear Red’s careful breathing, in, out, in, out, as if he could not trust himself to let go.

“My uncle—did he lay a hand on you, when—did he touch you, Jenny? I was prevented from—from—Ben stopped me, but if—”

“It’s all right,” I said with difficulty. “I am not hurt. He said to me, I don’t want my nephew’s leavings. I was not harmed.”

“I’ll kill him,” said Red softly, turning his face away from me.

“You’re a just man, and a fair one,” I said. “These people depend on you; you are the center of their world. Let your anger go, and then judge him. They look to you for their example. It will be easier, when I am gone.”

He turned his head toward me; let me see, for an instant, the deep loneliness of the eyes, the shadows and lines drawn stark on the white skin. How could a man who had so much, be so alone?

“My brother,” his tone was bleak, “has few memories of those lost years. So he says. But wherever it is that you fit in, he will not hear a word against you. I heard him talking to my mother tonight, when we returned. He spoke of you as if—as if of an angel. He said,
her hands are the gentlest in the world, and she tells such tales, tales you would not believe, and yet, when she speaks, you know every word is true
. He may have forgotten the rest, but you he remembers.”

“I—”

“Ssh,” he said, and he reached out his hand and touched his fingers very gently to my lips to silence my words. “Don’t tell me.” He touched me only for a moment; and yet I fought the urge to put my hand over his, to turn my lips to his palm. I made myself keep very still. Then he took his hand away, and I moved back a step. Unspoken words lay heavy between us. Unspoken words, and unmade gestures. With any other, I would have said farewell with a hug, a kiss, the touch of fingers to cheek, the clasp of hand in hand. With Red, I could do nothing.

“You have a circle,” he said, “that you draw tight around you; John, Ben, these feral brothers of yours. Simon is as fiercely protective as the rest of them, and yet he has little cause to love your kind. But once you touch us, our hearts are no longer our own.”

My lip quivered, and I sank my teeth into it, wincing with pain.
I will not cry. I have wept enough. I, too, can be strong
. I reached up and slipped the cord over my neck.

“You’ll be wanting this back,” I said, blinking rather hard. The ring lay on my open palm, light and warm. It took all my will not to close my fingers around it. I saw Red’s hand clench into a white-knuckled fist.

“If it means so little to you,” he said after a moment, “put it in the fire, or throw it on the dungheap. I have no use for it.” Then he turned and made his way down the hall, and I was reminded of the night of the rockfall, when he had walked as if blind, although his eyes were open.

The little mare bore me as sweetly as on the day we had journeyed to the bay of the seals. My brothers were quiet, as if the wonder of seeing the daylight world through their own eyes, after so long, was almost too much to bear. Red rode at the head of the column, his hair bright as the sycamore leaves that drifted down around us, catching the autumn sunlight. Ben was watchful at the rear.

It was hard to keep back the memories of the last time we had come this way, along the hidden track, under the trees, over the hills and away from the valley. I had not expected that Simon would come with us, but it seemed he had argued his case and convinced his brother. He rode close by me, and I told him what Richard had said to me, about Eamonn of the Marshes, and about bargains and deals, and about what had happened that night, when Simon had disappeared from the camp. He listened, and nodded, and let me talk. I did not tell quite all. Some of it was too close to our own story, too close to the part of it Red had waited so long to hear, and then, in the end, had not wanted to hear.

“My uncle took a risk, in telling you this,” said Simon thoughtfully. “A great risk. Once this becomes known, he will forfeit any influence he had left, and be cut off from his family and from his allies; I cannot think what future he could contemplate. I am concerned for Elaine. He has placed her in a very vulnerable position by his actions. And he has no sons. There will be kinsmen aplenty jostling to take his place at Northwoods.”

Elaine had been a good friend to Red, I thought. Maybe now she would get what she deserved. Maybe now she could choose as her heart prompted her, and not as her father ordered. Simon was a fine young man, and I wished them joy in each other.

“Richard thought I was going to die,” I said. “He believed that I would never speak again. How could he lose? Such a man loves to gloat, and cannot resist sharing his triumph. Had Red…had your brother not returned in time, it would have been as he intended.”

“My brother made sure he was here in time,” he said wryly. “I have never seen a man ride so, as if driven by demons. Good old reliable Hugh. So calm, so capable. So utterly predictable. But you have changed him.”

There was a smell of salt in the air, and I thought I heard a gull. Padriac’s face showed the ghost of a smile, as we headed steadily westward. Steadily homeward. He was young. Of us all, he seemed least hurt. I thought he would be able to make his life again, and make it a good one. For the rest of us, I was not so sure. Liam must face what lay ahead at Sevenwaters; must try to deal with our father, and our father’s wife, and mend the shattered pieces of a once strong holding. Diarmid seemed eaten up with bitterness, and Cormack was like some explosion waiting to happen. As for Conor, deep, wise, mysterious Conor, even he had shown me today he could be blinded by his own convictions. For he had not seen Red for what he was. And Finbar, who rode now as one in a dream, scarce seeming aware of what passed right by him, Finbar would live a life far removed from what might have been. I had brought them back; but each had lost a part of himself, in the long time away.

We made good progress, and now rode up between tall trees, our horses separated by the difficult terrain. Simon and I were somewhat apart from the others.

“You’re going home,” he said. “But you still have my brother’s ring.”

I was taken aback, and could think of nothing to say.

Then he said, “Why didn’t you wait for me, Sorcha?”

I gazed at him. Then I said carefully, “I could not stay. I told you that. I did not want to leave you, but my brothers made me go. I was only a child then.”

“I remember a tale you told me,” he said. “About a magical cup, from which only the pure in heart could drink. There was a man who waited and waited until he was old, and his patience was finally rewarded. I have waited far longer. I was gone a long time, Sorcha. Beyond the span of mortal man or woman. Nine times nine years, in that place you told of in your stories. Longer than my brother could ever imagine.”

Still I stared at him, as we crested the hill and our horses walked together across a clearing and on into the woods. Their feet trod softly on the carpet of fallen leaves. I was unwilling to believe what he was telling me, and yet I knew, as a teller of tales must know, that this was the truth.

“In the story, his sweetheart waited for him,” said Simon, fixing his bright blue eyes on me with a frightening intensity. “She waited until both of them were old. Years and years. For you, it was only three.
Why did you marry my brother? Why didn’t you wait for me?
”

“I—I—how could I know?” I whispered, shocked. “I didn’t know. I never even thought—”

He was silent.

“You were hurt,” I said. “Burned. What about—”

“There are those that can erase such scars, as if they have never been. There are those that can offer such sweet inducements, that a man might forget this world forever, and when he is cast back up, when they have no more use for him, be destroyed utterly by his longing for what he left behind in the land under the hills. They kept me a long time. I bear no scars, not outwardly. What injuries were done to me by your kind, belonged to another life. Long, long ago. But I am not out of my wits, Sorcha. I kept my mind clear and fixed of purpose, through all those long years. Through all that time of waiting, I thought only of returning to find you again. Prayed only that time would be kind, and pass more slowly in this world. When they cast me out at last, I had few memories of the old life; those that I had were like phantoms, nebulous and fleeting. But one remained bright and true.” He reached up and slipped a cord from around his own neck; passed me the small pouch of supple leather that hung there. “Open it, look.”

I loosened the fastenings, and felt inside. Something fine and soft, like a strand of silk. The little mare kept up her steady pace, needing no guidance. In front, Cormack and Conor rode together; behind, Padriac had engaged Ben in an animated debate on the principles of flight, and whether one might build a machine that would carry a man through the air. Finbar was there somewhere, silent behind them. I could not see Red, or Liam, or Diarmid. I drew the small thing out of the pouch. There in my hand was a lock of dark hair. The curl he had cut from my head that day long ago, with his sharp little knife.
Don’t leave me
. What cruel game had they been playing with all of us? What twisted path had we been following, like blindfold puppets in some wild dance? Had we no will? Had we no choice?

“So the Fair Folk took you,” I breathed. “Took you from the forest…”

“You know their ways,” he said. “How they cajole, and charm, and delight. How they bully, and play tricks, and terrify. But for this talisman, I would indeed have run mad. Would have lost myself many times over. Would have forgotten all. But I would not let them take it; and at last they gave up and released me, and sent me back. You should have waited, Sorcha. You should have waited just a little longer.”

What could I say? He took the lock of hair from my shaking fingers, and stowed it away again, and put the cord around his neck so that the pouch lay over his heart.

“I told you a story once,” he said. “Do you remember it?”

I nodded. “I remember it. A story of two brothers.”

“You said I could make it end in any way I chose. This path or that. I came to believe you. But you were wrong. I have waited, and waited to find you again. But you married my brother. This, too, he has taken from me.”