Dreamer's Pool (32 page)

26

~GRIM~

D
ay after the council, it’s cold but dry. Got no jobs on hand for anyone. I’m thinking I can put in a good day on the cottage, maybe find someone to help me get the roof beams up. Blackthorn’s not saying much. Spent the night muttering and cursing in her dreams. Sooner I can get the house weatherproof, sooner we can move back in. Fraoch’s place is comfortable enough and they’re good people. But Blackthorn can’t live long among folk.

We haven’t talked about the council much. Big day. Lot to take in. Too much to get my head around. Full of surprises. Hard to believe, but the judgement was fair. Didn’t think that happened anywhere. Didn’t think they’d listen to us, but they did.

I’m putting together a few things before I head off for the day, and Blackthorn says she’s coming with me. So I wait while she gets her basket and a knife, and Ornait packs up some food for us. Fraoch’s taking Emer back over to Silverlake to give Ness the news. He offers us a lift on the cart and we say no, we’ll walk.

We get as far as Iobhar’s brewery, where I’m planning to stop in and see if the lads are free to help. But before I can do that, up rides the prince’s man, Donagan. He says good morning and tells us Prince Oran wants to talk to us, now. What about, he doesn’t say. That’s a worry. Did we get something wrong without knowing? I don’t want to go, and I’m sure Blackthorn doesn’t. But you don’t say no to a prince. Not even one who seems like he might be a good man.

Blackthorn says what I’m not saying. ‘Can’t this wait? We need to put in a day at the cottage while the weather’s dry.’

Donagan gives her a look, and she stares right back at him.

‘Roof won’t mend itself,’ I say. ‘Want to be back in there as soon as we can.’

‘If it’ll help,’ Donagan says, ‘Niall can send a couple of our fellows across to give you a hand. But later, after you’ve spoken with the prince.’ And even though he’s the serving man, he’s got enough of that princely way about him to stop me from arguing. Maybe this won’t take too long. Whatever it is.

Blackthorn’s hugging her shawl around herself. She’s worried. After the council, seemed things might be good for a while. But if we’ve learned anything from the past, her and me, it’s this: good things don’t last. Soon as you think they might be here to stay, someone takes them away again. Freedom. Trust. Family. Love. All those and more.

‘I’ve got work to do,’ Blackthorn says. ‘Herbs to gather. Cures to prepare. Folk to tend to.’ Though I know she was planning to spend the whole day at the cottage, where she can gather the herbs but not do the other things. What she wants is not to have to talk to anyone for a while.

‘When the prince summons you to a meeting,’ says Donagan, and he’s trying hard not to snap, I hear it, ‘it’s usual to attend without question.’

‘Ah,’ says Blackthorn. ‘But we’re new to these parts. What’s usual for your folk doesn’t come naturally to us.’ He’s made her angry. ‘I don’t like doing things without question. Why does Prince Oran want to see us?’

‘In part, to thank you for your contribution yesterday.’

‘No need to do that twice over.’

Donagan’s holding on to his temper by a thread. ‘Prince Oran also has a private matter to discuss with you. It is you in particular, Blackthorn, whom he wishes to talk to. It’s not essential that Grim comes with you.’

A private matter. That’d be some kind of sickness, like poxy Branoc and his sore shoulders. Compared with the council, it should be easy. And Donagan’s right, Blackthorn doesn’t need me trailing along getting in the way. I open my mouth to say,
I’ll be heading off, then.

‘Grim comes with me,’ Blackthorn says. ‘And since we’ve got a day’s work to do afterwards, we’d best go now.’

It’s not like yesterday, when we went in the big gates with the crowd and there were guards everywhere. This time Donagan takes us down a long side path and in through a farm gate. There’s a few folk working in the fields, over the far side. Some cows turn their heads and have a look at us. Donagan leads his horse and we walk alongside. We’re headed away from the prince’s house, up a hill toward some birch trees. They look spindly and cold without their leaves. Puts me on edge, a bit. Keep expecting Slammer and his cronies to jump out of the bushes and slap us in shackles. Fact that Slammer’s dead makes no difference; there’s plenty more like him around.

‘What is this?’ I ask. ‘Where are you taking us?’

Before Donagan can answer, there’s the prince himself, coming out from under the trees and walking down the track to meet us with that little dog at his heels. He thanks Donagan, and Donagan gets on his horse and rides off back the way we came. Really is a private meeting; as private as it can be, just Prince Oran and the two of us, if you don’t count the dog. Must’ve decided he can trust us. That was quick.

‘Thank you for coming,’ the prince says. ‘I know you both have work to do, not only your daily work but rebuilding the cottage as well.’

I give him a nod. Blackthorn makes a sound meaning,
Yes, we’re busy, so get on with it.

‘Your help at the council, and your courage and wisdom in the matter of Branoc’s crimes, were invaluable,’ he says. ‘Please know that I appreciate your contribution deeply.’

One thing I do know. You don’t take folk to an out-of-the-way spot like this just to say thank you. Especially when you’ve already thanked them the day before. For a bit nobody says anything, then the prince clears his throat. He’s looking down, scuffing his shoe on the path. Nervous. Can’t think why.

‘I have a favour to ask,’ he says.

‘Ask it, then,’ says Blackthorn. Sounding edgy now.

‘It’s a little difficult,’ says the prince. ‘You may think it sounds foolish.’

We wait.

‘I need your help to solve a mystery. Something that has been troubling me for some time; something whose answer I cannot work out for myself. A dilemma I cannot take to anyone else.’

‘Why not?’ I ask. Blackthorn’s got enough to worry about without some prince dumping his problems on her shoulders.

‘Because anyone else would tell me I’m imagining things.’

From the way he says this, I guess he’s told someone the story already and got the answer that it’s rubbish. Though who says that to a prince, when he could lock them up if he wanted and throw away the key?

‘And you think I wouldn’t?’ says Blackthorn.

‘You seem . . . open to possibilities,’ the prince says. ‘You are a wise woman. That means – I understand it to mean that you see things differently from other folk. That you believe in the power of stories. That perhaps you do not dismiss the existence of . . . of the Other.’

He means the fey. Or maybe magic. I think of Conmael, but I don’t say the fellow’s been wandering around in Dreamer’s Wood. I don’t tell the prince one of the fey was at his council. Chances are Blackthorn and me were the only folk who could see him anyway.

‘Perhaps we could sit down somewhere.’ Blackthorn looks around. There’s a bench under the birches, beside the path. She sits at one end and the prince sits at the other. The dog jumps up on his knee. I lean on a tree trunk, close enough to hear but not too close. The prince is all knotted up with worry. Might be easier for him to talk if he can pretend it’s just him and her.

‘This is . . . private. Absolutely confidential. You understand?’

‘Mm-hm,’ says Blackthorn.

Maybe the prince has done something he shouldn’t and picked up a nasty ailment. Doesn’t want to pass it on to his new bride once they’re wed. Awkward for him to come out with. Still, it would take a lot to make Blackthorn blush.

‘It concerns Lady Flidais,’ the prince says, lowering his voice, though there are only the three of us here. ‘This is indeed difficult . . . I hardly . . .’

‘I know how to keep secrets,’ says Blackthorn. ‘Even the most sensitive ones. If you want someone who can hold her counsel, you could do worse than choose a wise woman.’

Oran takes in a big breath and lets it out again like a sigh. ‘The lady . . . she is afflicted by severe headaches. Crippling headaches that come without warning. They prevent her from pursuing many activities she formerly enjoyed such as . . . such as reading and writing.’

Blackthorn’s looking at him, waiting for more. After a while she says, ‘You didn’t bring the two of us up here to talk about your lady’s headaches. I don’t need to be clever at solving puzzles to work that out. If the problem concerned Lady Flidais’s health, you’d have invited me into your house to talk to her.’

‘Lady Flidais does not . . .’

‘Before I can offer a solution, a remedy, I must first examine a patient. Speak with her in person,’ Blackthorn says. ‘If Lady Flidais doesn’t care to make use of my services, why don’t you send for one of the royal physicians? Cahercorcan is not so very far away.’

You’d think they’d have called someone already, with the headaches so bad and all. But I’m not the healer, so I keep quiet. And so does the prince. He’s stroking the dog and looking as if he wants to be somewhere else. Which makes three of us, I’m guessing.

‘This is more than the headaches, isn’t it, my lord?’ Blackthorn’s sounding almost kindly, which is a surprise. ‘In my experience, sometimes it’s easier to get these things out if you make them into a tale. We’ll hold our counsel until you’re done.’

That’s what he needed, seems like. Out comes the story, and it’s nothing we would have expected. A tale like one of those old ones, true love, magic, tears and sorrow, everything. Seems Prince Oran fell in love with Lady Flidais’s picture. Then they wrote letters. Love letters. Only when he met the real lady she wasn’t what he expected. Or, she was in looks, but not in much else. One thing’s plain: the prince is deep-down unhappy.

‘You know what I’ll say,’ says Blackthorn when the story’s finished.

‘That it is all in my mind. That such disappointments are common in arranged marriages, which are made for reasons of strategy, not love. That I should be glad my betrothed is young, healthy and pleasant to look upon. I understand those arguments. I know I was foolish to expect more. But . . . her letters . . . I cannot believe they were not heartfelt. And I cannot believe that Flidais, as she is now, could have written them.’

‘Your lady is a chieftain’s daughter,’ Blackthorn says. I hear in her voice that she’s being careful. It’s awkward to talk about this without seeming to insult the lady, and folk get punished for a lot less than that. ‘Chieftains have scribes. Skilful ones.’

‘The letters were . . . poetic. And personal. Very personal.’

‘How long did you say it was until the hand-fasting?’

Oran holds the dog against his chest; it stretches up and gives him a lick on the chin. ‘Just over one turning of the moon.’

‘And what exactly are you hoping we can do? Are you suggesting the lady is here under false pretences? That this is an imposter?’

‘She cannot be.’ His voice is flat. ‘She is the image of her portrait, and that came from her father to mine. Besides, she travelled here with her own folk and none of them has mentioned anything amiss. The only oddity is . . .’ His face goes red.

‘What?’ If Blackthorn has noticed he’s embarrassed, she’s not showing it.

‘Bramble,’ says the prince, looking at the dog. I’m sure he was going to say something else and changed his mind. ‘In the portrait, and in the letters, Flidais was devoted to her little dog. Bramble went everywhere with her. Slept on her bed; loved to go for long walks in the woods. But Bramble’s behaviour changed from the day they arrived here. She seems in great fear of Flidais. She has bitten her more than once. And Flidais wants nothing to do with her. My aunt, Lady Sochla, has been caring for the dog.’

‘Bramble seems to like you well enough,’ Blackthorn says.

The prince doesn’t answer for a bit. He’s fondling the dog’s ears, looking at her, not at us. Then he says, ‘She reminds me of the dream. The dream that Flidais and I would be happy together. In the portrait, Flidais was holding Bramble so tenderly. It touched my heart from the first glance.’

I’m thinking this man’s far too soft to be a prince. But then I remember the council and how he spoke to Branoc, and I think, it takes a brave man to admit he’s got a weak spot.

‘My mother has been urging me to wed for several years now,’ he says. ‘I refused a number of suitable women who were suggested. I insisted on waiting for the right one; for someone I could love, someone I could be truly happy with. I loved the portrait, but I did exercise some caution. Hence the correspondence. Flidais’s letters won me over completely. So the marriage was agreed, and she came here. And from our first encounter I found myself . . . confused. Surprised. As time has passed, that confusion has become a deep and unsettling doubt. The hand-fasting is drawing ever closer. Lady Flidais’s parents are in a difficult situation, with a powerful neighbour threatening their holdings; she cannot be despatched home, and even if she could, I have no real grounds for taking such drastic action. I remind myself, daily, that if I had not been so insistent on marrying this particular woman, I would not be in such difficulty now. And neither would she.’

‘Have you spoken to Lady Flidais about your doubts?’ Blackthorn asks.

‘What could I possibly say?’

There’s a silence, then she says, ‘Prince Oran, are you asking me to spy on your betrothed?’

‘I don’t know,’ says the prince. ‘I don’t know what it will take to find the truth.’

‘The truth might be that you made a mistake.’ Blackthorn says it straight, not trying to sweeten things. ‘That your hopes and dreams didn’t match up with the reality.’

Prince Oran’s looking like a ghost. He’s looking like the saddest man in the world. Seems to me he’d be better off without the lady. From what I’ve seen of her, I’d be guessing they’re not much of a match.

‘Yes, that is possible,’ he says. ‘I almost believe it. But not quite. Something is wrong, Mistress Blackthorn. Deeply wrong. Lady Flidais . . . She does not behave at all like the woman I was expecting. Not at all.’

‘In what respects?’ Blackthorn asks.

The prince doesn’t answer. The silence goes on, and I’m wondering what the lady might be doing that isn’t very ladylike. Things her own folk must be keeping quiet about. Because he said they hadn’t mentioned anything being out of the usual.