Dreamer's Pool (33 page)

‘If you want me to investigate this,’ says Blackthorn, ‘you need to give me all the relevant information, my lord.’ And when he still doesn’t, she says, ‘I’m not asking these questions to embarrass or shame you or Lady Flidais. I have no reason to do that. Let’s start with something easy. You said the headaches are stopping her from reading and writing. But not all ladies enjoy scholarship.’

‘Flidais does. Did. The letters . . . She wrote poems, beautiful poems. And we shared a love of old tales. She has completely lost her interest in such things. I understand about the headaches. But the Flidais of the letters would still have wanted to talk about poetry and tales, and perhaps to have me read to her. And . . . there was a certain book, Lucian’s
Bestiary
, which we discussed at some length in our correspondence. A book held in her father’s library; a volume she particularly loved. I had a perfect copy made as her wedding gift. When I gave it to her, she did not know what it was.’

‘Odd,’ observed Blackthorn. ‘You’re convinced a scribe did not pen those letters for Lady Flidais, my lord?’

‘I’m not sure of anything. Her last letter was written when she was far from home, and far from her father’s scribe, and it was in the same mode and the same hand as the others. You may think I am clutching at straws.’ This fellow’s lost his dreams, and it’s broken his heart. Doesn’t know how lucky he’s been to keep them until he was a man grown. ‘But something’s wrong,’ he goes on. ‘I feel it in my bones. Something strange has happened. So strange it seems almost . . . uncanny. I owe it to . . . I owe it to what might have been, to seek out the truth.’

‘May I look at Lady Flidais’s letters?’ Blackthorn asks, straight out.

‘I burned them.’

That’s a surprise. Blackthorn gives him a look, as if she thinks he’s a silly boy, and he says, ‘All but one.’ And fishes it out of the pouch at his belt, which is not so easy with the dog lying on his knee. ‘Don’t ask me to read it,’ Prince Oran says. He sounds as if he might cry, but he doesn’t. He’s a prince, after all. Letter looks a bit the worse for wear. He passes it over.

‘Why did you burn the others?’ Blackthorn asks.

‘There was a time . . . a moment . . . when I . . .’

‘Never mind that.’ She’s reading the letter. The look on her face says she’s interested now.

‘Long walk for a little dog,’ I say to the prince, to fill in the silence.

He manages a smile. ‘Bramble loves her walks. My aunt says that is typical of terriers.’ Bramble lifts her head and takes a good look at me. Pretty little thing. I go over and squat down beside the prince. Could be useful to find out if Bramble’s a biter, or if the only person she snaps at is Lady Flidais. When the dog doesn’t growl, I reach out a hand, slowly, and she gives my fingers a good sniff. I tickle her behind the ears. She pushes her head against my hand, almost like a cat.

‘Seems friendly enough.’

Prince Oran nods. ‘To those whom she trusts, yes.’

‘My lord,’ says Blackthorn, with the letter in her hands, ‘you know I’ll have to talk to Lady Flidais. And to her women. And to many other folk in your household. Any reasonable person will be asking questions about why I’m in and out of your house every day, even if I say I’m trying to find a cure for the lady’s headaches. Besides, that’s not going to work if Lady Flidais doesn’t want me tending to her.’

‘Ah,’ said the prince. ‘But won’t the two of you be looking for somewhere to stay while your cottage is being rebuilt? I understand the arrangement with Fraoch is only for the short term. I can accommodate you here; it would be an appropriate gesture of thanks. And if you are here, in the house, you’ll be perfectly placed to . . .’

‘Spy?’ Blackthorn sounds the way I feel, very uncomfortable with this idea. Though it makes sense.

‘To talk, in a natural way, with those others you mentioned, Flidais’s waiting women, my own folk. That should give you time to win Flidais’s trust.’

‘Just over a turning of the moon, I think you said.’ Blackthorn’s frowning. ‘You expect a lot of us.’

‘It would not be necessary for Grim to be here all the time; he could continue his work on the cottage. Even stay elsewhere, if you prefer.’ Prince Oran gives me a glance, and looks a bit surprised. What I’m thinking must be written all over my face. If I’m not with her, I won’t sleep. If I can’t sleep how can I do a good job on the cottage? Anyway, I’d worry about her, is she all right, who’s looking out for her and so on. Not that I want to stay here either. But it’s not for me to say yes or no.

‘No,’ says Blackthorn. ‘If you want answers in one turning of the moon, you need both of us. I didn’t solve the puzzle of Ness’s disappearance on my own. Besides, we need to talk to the men of the household too, in particular the guards who rode here with Lady Flidais. That’s best done in casual conversation, and they’re more likely to talk to Grim than to me.’ She looks at me. ‘You can still go and work on the cottage some of the time. And it’s not as if we’ve had no offers of help.’

‘Niall has one of the farm cottages vacant,’ the prince says. ‘That would allow you some privacy.’

That’s good. A cottage to ourselves means we can shut the door on the prince’s folk when we’ve had enough.

‘I must clarify,’ he goes on. ‘Flidais and I will be expected to travel to court at least seven days before the hand-fasting, perhaps earlier. So we have something less than a full turning of the moon. After that it would be too late to . . . to change the plan.’

‘Just as long as you understand,’ says Blackthorn, ‘that the answers we give you might not be the ones you want.’

‘I accept that,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘I know you’ll do your best.’

‘About the offer of a cottage to stay in,’ Blackthorn says. ‘That won’t do. With so little time to solve the problem, I’ll need to be sleeping in the women’s quarters. And Grim will have to be somewhere he can talk to the guards when they’re off duty.’

Wish she wasn’t right, but she is. If we want to hear secrets we have to get in there next to the prince’s folk. Make friends of them. Blackthorn’s going to love that. It’s Fraoch’s place all over again, only with ten times more people and no getting away.

‘Of course,’ says the prince, putting Bramble down. ‘You can be accommodated; I’ll have a word to Aedan. It’s understood, is it not, that what we have just discussed will not be aired before anyone else? That includes not only my household but the wider community. And my family.’

‘It’s understood,’ Blackthorn says. ‘Though I might come close once or twice. To get answers, sometimes you have to take risks. Especially when time’s short, my lord.’

‘Very well. I appreciate your discretion. You’ll be wanting to go and collect your belongings from the smithy. Let me know if you need assistance. When you return, ask for Aedan.’

There’s been no more sign of Donagan. Seems his job was to go and fetch us then make himself scarce. Wonder if he’s been let into the secret, and if not why not.

Blackthorn looks at me. ‘Grim needs to work on the cottage today, to take advantage of the weather. And I must gather herbs in the wood. We’ll move here after supper. There’s nothing much to bring.’

‘We can find our own way out,’ I say. Got a heavy feeling in my chest.

‘I’ll bid you good morning, then. And I will speak with you again soon. Mistress Blackthorn, I understand that your work will sometimes take you out into the community during this period. Of course you must continue that. But I believe that once you are in residence here, the folk of my household will consult you more regularly. Opportunities to talk to them in confidence may be quite easy to find.’

‘Maybe so, maybe not,’ she says. ‘Best if you leave us to get on with the job, my lord, and if we have questions, or something to report, we’ll find a way to let you know. You might need to develop a mysterious ailment.’

It’s a joke, but the prince doesn’t smile. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘For believing in this enough to try.’

‘Just one question,’ I say.

‘Yes, Grim?’

‘Does anyone else know about this? Your problem, I mean, and why we’ll be here?’

Now he does smile, but it’s the sad smile of a man who’s all alone with his troubles.

‘Only Bramble,’ Prince Oran says. ‘And she can be relied upon not to tell.’

27

~BLACKTHORN~

I
cursed Conmael for the seven years of obedience he’d bound me to, and I cursed the prince for seeking my help. The mystery of Lady Flidais was all very well; I’d do my best to solve it, even if the whole thing ended with me telling the prince what he didn’t want to hear. I was even somewhat interested. The letter wasn’t the kind of thing any scribe would pen with ease; whoever had written it was at least half a poet. And if anything was sure, it was that the young woman I’d encountered that first day in Dreamer’s Wood, the woman I’d heard at the council suggesting Ness might have lied to Emer, could not have written such a letter. There was no pretence in it, no contrivance. It was sweet, romantic and a little tentative, the outpouring of a young girl who loved her dog and old tales and walks in the woods, a girl who was not yet quite sure whether to trust the man who seemed to be offering her not only a marriage that would one day make her a queen, but his heart along with it. If I were asked to say what sort of woman had written that letter, I’d have said a woman who believed in dreams; a woman who was very like Prince Oran himself. I had to admit that the whole thing was intriguing.

It was the way I’d have to go about it that I hated. Too many folk, too close, too loud. Prince Oran’s residence was swarming with them. I cursed myself for not accepting the farm cottage, even as I knew that if I wanted people to drop their guard with me – or with Grim – this was the only way. Especially with time so short. Pity I wasn’t a different person, one who liked mending and embroidery and wasting half the day gossiping. Pity I didn’t enjoy the company of fools.

The women’s quarters had a degree of comfort that was little short of ridiculous. The place was vast, almost another house in itself, with a long sleeping chamber for serving folk and attendants – this was where I had been allocated a bed – and a separate, private area for Lady Flidais and Lady Sochla. Flidais had her personal maid, Mhairi, sleeping in an alcove near her. Lady Sochla had brought a number of maidservants with her from court, including her own attendant, Sinead. Sinead slept in the communal area with the rest of us. Sometimes she walked, fed or brushed the dog, Bramble. Sometimes she helped Lady Sochla to dress, but the prince’s aunt was an early riser and fiercely independent. Like her mistress, Sinead seemed a sensible person, someone who might answer questions without leaping to all manner of conclusions. But since she and Lady Sochla had only known Flidais since her arrival at Winterfalls, they would not be much help to me.

It seemed sensible to start with the three handmaids Flidais had brought with her from Cloud Hill, if I could get them to talk. Mhairi had evidently become Flidais’s personal attendant after the other one, Ciar, drowned in Dreamer’s Pool. She and Flidais seemed very close. The other two were Deirdre, the woman who had spoken kindly to me on the day of the drowning, and the older Nuala. Between them they looked after the lady’s wardrobe, ran to fetch things when she asked for them, made conversation to keep her entertained during the long hours spent over handiwork, and generally made sure her day ran as smoothly as it could.

Nuala’s husband, Domnall, was leader of the men-at-arms who had travelled in Flidais’s party, but for now the two of them were sleeping apart. That was apparently quite usual in households such as the prince’s; you took your opportunities where you could, and hoped that in time a cottage or other married quarters might become available. The prince’s offer of private accommodation for me and Grim had been more generous than I’d realised. If we’d accepted, we’d no doubt have put a few folk’s noses out of joint.

There were levels of authority in the prince’s household, and they took me a while to work out. Him at the top, of course, though he didn’t go around giving orders – things ran smoothly without any need for that. Lady Flidais and Lady Sochla were family, folk of noble birth. Then came Donagan – both servant and friend, only a step away from the prince himself. Aedan the steward had responsibility for the smooth daily running of the entire household, and was assisted by his wife, Fíona. Brid ruled the kitchen; Niall was in charge of a great body of farm workers; the grooms and stable hands answered to the cantankerous Eochu. The guards were led by a big man called Lochlan, Prince Oran’s master-at-arms. At the bottom of the heap were ordinary servants such as kitchen workers, seamstresses, folk who scrubbed floors or dug the garden or looked after the cows. Lady Flidais’s waiting women seemed to believe themselves on much the same level as Donagan, superior to all but the prince’s blood kin. That made approaching them tricky.

I did not fit anywhere. A wise woman might have many folk coming in and out of her house, bringing gifts or bribes or payment, taking away herbs and draughts and good advice. But our kind generally lived alone. If I’d been attached permanently to a noble household – unlikely – I’d perhaps have been afforded the respect owed to, say, a druid. Perhaps. But at Winterfalls I was an oddity, and it was clear folk did not quite know what to make of me.

For all its smooth and seamless organisation, this was not a household in harmony. There was tension between the household guards and those who had come to Winterfalls in Lady Flidais’s escort. Nobody could fail to pick up on the unease when they were all gathered together at meal times. Maybe Grim could find the reason for this animosity, and whether it was important to us.

Something was going on between the prince and Donagan. If anyone had asked me, I’d have said the two of them were avoiding speaking to each other. Maybe they’d had a falling-out. And while I hadn’t been asked to investigate that, I was learning that the slightest oddity could prove important in hindsight.

The women’s days followed a pattern. First to rise was Lady Sochla, who would head out early for a walk with Bramble. Only a storm of the sleeting, tempestuous kind would keep the prince’s aunt indoors. If the day was inclement she would leave the dog behind and have Sinead take it into the garden instead. A pretty little garden. I heard from Brid the cook that Prince Oran had created it especially for Lady Flidais, but I didn’t once see her spend time in it. Nor did I ever see her walk her own dog. But in that first letter, the one the prince had let me read, Flidais had given a charming description of the woodland near her home; she had implied that she enjoyed walking in it with her maid and Bramble. I wondered which maid she meant, Ciar, who had drowned, or one of the others? I’d have to talk to all three of them: Deirdre, Nuala and Mhairi.

After breakfast, Lady Flidais and her attendants generally went to the sewing room, a long chamber with windows placed to let in morning light, and a hearth where a crackling fire would already be burning. That was unless Lady Flidais had some reason to ride out – a visit to the settlement, for instance. This did not occur often. At this time of year, I’d have expected the prince to be off hunting stag or boar, as princes and chieftains commonly did in autumn. But I already knew Oran was not like other princes, and it seemed he was more likely to be writing letters, inspecting his cattle or holding councils than engaging in blood sport. When I asked Brid about this, she told me Niall’s men took what game was necessary to sustain the household, and the cottagers had permission to provide for their own needs in the same manner. Meat and fish were salted away for the winter months. But the prince had declared there would be no wanton slaughter of wild creatures on his land, and since his folk held him in high respect, despite his unusual attitudes, they abided by his rules.

The headaches afflicted Lady Flidais severely. More often than not she retired to her bedchamber rather than attend the midday meal in the hall. This malady was surely the key to winning her trust. At eighteen years old she was living the life of an invalid. I could not understand why she had not asked me for help before, unless she was one of those folk who feared wise women, suspecting us of dark magic. The day I’d first met her, the day of the drowning, I could not recall doing or saying anything to earn her distrust. The headaches were alarming. If the story of Oran’s courtship was accurate, this young woman had been in good health at the time she left home.

I did not want to believe she was lying. An imposter would have an obvious reason for pretending to be indisposed. But Flidais was no imposter; not unless her entire escort was telling lies along with her. An imposter could have used the headaches to conceal the fact that she could not read and write. She might have been conveniently indisposed so she need not respond to questions she could not easily answer; so she need not make conversation with her future husband until they were safely hand-fasted. Oran was not a simple kind of man. He would not be content with a wife who looked decorative, said little and kept out of his way. No, Oran had expected a wife who was his equal. A wife who could converse on his own level. A wife who loved the things he loved, a wife who was in every respect the Lady Flidais of the letters. Whoever had written those letters had done Flidais no favours at all. If they were a trick, the perpetrator had vastly underestimated the prince of Dalriada.

I’d have to tread carefully, despite the short time we had left. No leaping right in with probing questions, no tests of the lady’s skill with the pen or her knowledge of strategy or scholarship. I was in this household as a guest, and I must keep the real reason for my presence among these women secret.

On one point at least, Prince Oran had been right. I was good at my craft, and I’d been in Winterfalls long enough for the local people to know they could trust me. Within three days of our arrival, the prince’s serving people started bringing their aches and pains to me in the little storeroom off the kitchen where, at Brid’s invitation, I had set up my healer’s equipment. A day or two later I strapped up a training injury suffered by a man-at-arms and gave a groom a curative wash for a nasty case of nettle rash. I went out to the village to attend to one or two folk with chronic complaints, people who were used to seeing me every few days. In the past I’d undertaken those visits grudgingly. Now they made me feel like a captive creature set free.

I made sure I was in the sewing room with Flidais and her attendants for a good part of each morning. It was necessary to find some sort of task for myself so my presence there did not draw suspicion. The choice was limited. Me, sewing? Hah! If anything at the cottage needed mending, Grim did it. I could sew up a wound just fine, but the hem of a garment was another matter. Once, in that long-ago life, I must have managed. But the skills were lost. They were part of what I had left behind.

The solution was to write. I had long maintained a record of my work. The healer’s craft was not static in nature. Each salve, each solution, each remedy changed and progressed and improved each time it was prepared and applied. It was like a story told and retold over the years, passed from grandmother to mother to daughter. A wise woman would not be worthy of that name if she could not learn from her mistakes; if she did not keep on striving to find new and better ways. It might be a matter of gathering a herb just a little later in the season, or taking only the leaves from the very tip of each branch. It might be a decision to bruise a root before chopping it, or to make the slightest change in the proportions of a salve. Small variations, small risks could lead to significant improvements.

Since Grim and I had taken up residence in the cottage I had been keeping a record of the preparations I made, the folk I tended to and the results. My notebook had survived the fire; it had been in the bag I’d carried over to Silverlake that day. My writing materials had burned with the house, but the prince had replaced them.

The other women did not know how much I loathed company. They were ignorant of the truth: that if I’d had a real choice in the matter, I’d have been out in the woods on my own, not shut within four walls listening to their silly chatter. No, that was not quite true. Given a real choice, I’d be back in Laois seeing justice done. Seven years. Seven interminable, suffocating years. Where would I get the strength?

I took pains to tell the women the place was ideal for writing. The same light that enabled them to do their fine embroidery, their weaving and spinning, would allow me to complete my day’s record neatly and read over my previous notes. It seemed to be convincing, for nobody challenged my presence there. That did not mean they went out of their way to welcome me, but I had not expected that. Seeking a wise woman’s advice over an ailment was one thing; making her your friend was quite another.

Alongside Flidais’s ladies and the prince’s formidable aunt, there was a pair of girls from the household whose job was plain sewing and an older woman who did fine mending, including work on what looked like Prince Oran’s clothing. Others came in and out. The household linen was stored in this chamber, in chests set against the walls, and this seemed to require daily attention by a number of serving women. There were always folk putting items away, taking others out, slipping lavender between the folds of aired sheets, rearranging the chests’ contents, debating whether something could be mended or was to be torn up for cleaning cloths. I could almost understand why Lady Flidais spent so much time in her bedchamber.

Fíona, wife of Aedan the steward, was a solidly built woman of middle years, who wore her hair pulled back under a neat veil. She was generally present in the chamber at some point of the morning, instructing the other serving folk or enquiring courteously as to whether any of the ladies wanted refreshments. At my request she’d cleared a small table of various objects so I could sit there to work. I liked the way she did her job without fuss, and the way she spoke to those under her authority – kindly but firmly, so they wanted to do well for her. I saw, too, that Lady Flidais did not care for her, finding fault with any number of little things, while Fíona listened without interrupting, and answered politely that of course the problem would be remedied right away. If I’d been her, I’d have told Lady Flidais she was a lazy, selfish cow who should make an effort to do things for herself. Which would, no doubt, have led to my being instantly dismissed from the prince’s service. Aedan and Fíona had been at Winterfalls since Prince Oran was a child. They’d had plenty of time to learn tolerance. I’d have to do so a lot more quickly.