Heart's Blood (24 page)

My simple meal over, I took my cup, platter and knife out to the pump to wash them. As I bent over the bucket, cloth in hand, a familiar voice spoke from behind me.

“Caitrin?”

I straightened, turning to look at Muirne. She had Emer’s violet gown in her hands, the skirt draggling onto the muddy ground by the pump. I saw at a glance that it was in shreds.

“The child,” she said. “I suppose you tried to befriend her. Do not be fooled by what you see. The little one is outwardly angelic. Inside is pure malevolence. No doubt she tugged at your heartstrings as she did with those of Emer, and of Líoch before her. I expect she spoke of her mother, or of being cold.You were kind to her, and look how she’s rewarded you. I’m afraid this gown is fit only to be ripped up for cleaning cloths.”

“No!” I almost snatched the garment from her. “I’m sorry,” I added, forcing my voice to be calm, though my heart was beating fast. “Perhaps I can salvage it.” The child, so small and frail, so innocent ... But she had done her ill work on Róise. “Where did you find this, Muirne?” I was certain I had left my door closed.

“On the gallery, in a heap. Doors and walls will not keep out the host, Caitrin.” She moved closer, putting a hand on my shoulder. “May I offer you some advice?”

“Of course.” Her touch made me uncomfortable.

“You are blundering into a situation you will soon be unable to control. Each day it becomes more risky. I cannot understand you, Caitrin.You see the host rampaging down the hill; straight afterwards you speak to them as if they were your friends.You witness Anluan’s near collapse, brought about by his efforts on
your
behalf, because of a man who came here in search of
you
, and instead of allowing him the rest he so desperately needs, you ask him for explanations, then demand that he summon the host again.You are a skilled craftswoman, a person of some intelligence, I must assume. And yet you put yourself at risk. You put Anluan at risk. These are the actions of a fool. Forgive me if I am too blunt for you. Someone must speak. Do you care nothing for him?”

I took a few careful breaths, trying not to hug Emer’s gown too tightly to my breast. I would not lie to her. Nor could I tell her what I realized was the truth: that I was coming to care more than I had ever intended. As for the host, all I had done was try to understand, try to help those I thought were in trouble. All I had done was see them as real men and women.With the tatters of the violet gown in my hands, and the memory of Anluan’s waxen pallor and exhausted eyes fresh in my mind, I felt a chill deep inside me. “Of course I care,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Nothing is as it seems here,” Muirne said quietly. “I ask you, as a woman and an equal, to leave Anluan alone. You think to change him, perhaps; to mold him into a form that is more acceptable to you. Men do not change.They cannot.”

I struggled for an appropriate answer. “That’s true of some, I’m sure.” Cillian, for instance. “But not all. Muirne, I’m not trying to change Anluan, I just ...” This was impossible. Anything I said, she would take as a criticism of herself. “I think he could do more,” I said. “Be more. He’s so weighed down by all of this,” I waved an arm vaguely, “he can’t see a way forwards. But he’s perfectly capable of being a proper chieftain; he is not lacking in intelligence, and the fact that he can never excel at hunting, riding or swordsmanship doesn’t mean he can’t be a leader. He’s brave. He’s perceptive. He could do wonders if only he could believe in himself.”

“This is not an ordinary man, Caitrin.You cannot apply the rules of the outside world to Anluan. He is the chieftain of Whistling Tor.”

“He’s an ordinary man as well,” I felt obliged to point out. “To be a chieftain one must first be a man.What he needs is purpose.”

“This is nonsense!” Muirne said, losing some of her customary calm. “You endanger him and you cannot see it! You should have left this place when you had the opportunity.”

I was slow to understand.“What opportunity?You mean I should have gone down the hill with Magnus this morning?”

She made no reply, simply waited until I should summon the wit to grasp her meaning.When I did so I felt cold.

“You’re not telling me I should have let Cillian carry me away, trussed up with a gag over my mouth?You, a woman, think I should have accepted that?”

“At least that man wants you,” she said quietly.

Cold fury took hold of me. “I can’t believe you would condone what Cillian did yesterday. That sickens me. I understand your argument about Anluan, and I regret tiring him. I will be more careful in the future. But I’m not leaving Whistling Tor, Muirne; not until I finish the job I was hired for. I don’t believe my presence is dangerous to anyone.”

“Scribing is one thing.” She was angry too, but it showed only in her eyes. “I have some admiration for a woman who can do it with sufficient skill to earn her living. But you seek to do far more here than the transcription of a few documents.”

I had no answer to this, since she was right. I had made an undertaking to the host. I had promised to look for a counterspell. And what about Anluan, with his odd little smile, like a sudden burst of sunlight in a place full of shadows? This could not be neatly finished by the end of summer.

“You stirred up the host,” Muirne said, folding her arms. “The host is dangerous. Eventually, inevitably, it will turn against you.”

“How can you say that when you are part of the host yourself?” I asked, not caring whether I had overstepped the mark. “As for that little girl . . .” My fingers stroked the damaged cloth of the violet gown. “She’s too young to be fully responsible for her actions.”

Muirne’s eyes were cold. “You’re wrong,” she said. “You expose all of us to danger. Do your work if you must; write your copies. But Anluan should have nothing to do with the documents.Tell him you do not want his help.” She turned on her heel and was gone before I could say any more.

My mind was spinning. For a moment I could not remember why I was in the yard. I thought of Anluan, so relaxed, so happy after his success with the pen. I remembered the feeling of his body against mine as I guided his hand; the curious sense of loss as I stepped away, setting space between us. It was not the first time touching him had sent a flood of warmth through my body. Muirne had been right to warn me. I was letting myself feel too much. I was allowing natural sympathy to grow into something else, something with the power to cause real harm.

With a sigh, I finished rinsing the dishes, then poured out the washing water by the kitchen steps. Muirne had said Anluan should have nothing to do with the documents. But Anluan had hired me to translate the Latin so he could find out what Nechtan had written. He wanted to read the documents. Why was this dangerous? I could think of no reason but the one I had already considered myself: that Anluan might be inspired to attempt the same kind of work his great-grandfather had tried to such disastrous effect. He might believe that the only way the host could be banished was by sorcery. In walking down that path, he risked becoming Nechtan all over again. Muirne, who loved him, was quite reasonably taking steps to avoid what she knew would be catastrophic.

Back in the kitchen, I dried the dishes and set them in their places. I found myself wiping down the tabletop for the third time. I gathered Emer’s gown and went up to my quarters, expecting the worst. The door was ajar but nothing seemed to be out of place except for Róise. I had put her away in the storage chest this morning, but she was on the bed now, propped against my pillow with her torn skirt spread out around her.The child had ripped out far more of the silken hair than I had realized: one side of the doll’s head was almost completely bald.

I took a few deep breaths. There was work to be done; Nechtan’s documents awaited me in the library. But the encounter with Muirne had unsettled me, and the knowledge that someone had been in this chamber, tampering with my belongings even as I sat with Anluan in the library, set unease in my bones. Before I went back to work, I needed to put right the damaged memories of family.

I assembled my sewing materials and rolled Róise up in Emer’s gown. I stepped out of the bedchamber and almost walked into the young man in the bloody shirt. I gasped in shock; he took a step back as if equally disturbed.

“Oh—forgive me—” I fumbled for the right words.

“I mean no harm—I wish only to—”

Perhaps it was his hesitancy that put the strange idea into my head. “I need your help,” I said.“I need someone to guard my chamber for a while. I don’t want anyone to go in there before I return.Would you do this for me?” Foolish, perhaps; Muirne would most certainly have thought so. But I had not seen a host of evil presences, ready to turn on me at the least excuse. I had seen folk adrift without a purpose. I had seen men, women and children all together, yet each alone.They had nothing to do, nowhere to go.They were not wanted.They were not needed.They had nobody to touch them, to love them, to reassure them.They had lost themselves.

“What will you pay?” His voice was like the rattling of dry stalks in an autumn field.

“I will pay in work.While you keep watch, I will be searching for what I spoke of before, the key to setting you free. But I have other work to do first. Something has been broken, something precious.”

The young man sighed, reaching out a hand whose fingers were little more than bare bone. He touched the fabric of the tattered gown. “Hers ...”

Startled, I asked, “You knew her? Emer?”

“I cannot remember,” he said, but the memory was in those haunted eyes.They had changed when I spoke her name. I could have sworn there were tears glittering there.

“Will you keep watch for me? I will return before dusk.”

He bowed his head, a courteous indication of assent, and took up a position before the bedchamber door. His back was straight, his shoulders square, his booted feet planted apart. So stern was his expression, so formidable his stance that surely no one would dare challenge him.

“Thank you,” I said. “What is your name?”

There was a long pause, as if he had to dig deep to find the memory. “Cathaír, lady.”

“It is a fine name for a warrior. Farewell for now, Cathaír.”

 

I sat in Irial’s garden, under the birch tree, and stitched a new skirt for the doll, using remnants of Emer’s gown. I tried to weigh up hope against risk, purpose against peril. If it was too dangerous for Anluan to be exposed to Nechtan’s records—and Muirne had made a convincing case—I must reach the truth on my own. It must be done before summer’s end. Nobody had said what would happen if I failed to complete the job by then. Perhaps Anluan would let me stay on. But I could not assume so.That meant I must use whatever tools were at my disposal in the search for a counterspell. And there was one very powerful tool shut in a box by my work table, waiting to reveal more dark stories. Was I brave enough to set more of Nechtan’s writings on the table and look in the obsidian mirror again? Alone, without Anluan? I had given my word to the host. Perhaps I was already committed to this.

There was no way to fix Róise’s hair, not without a supply of silk thread. I made a little veil for her, using the same violet fabric, and sewed it securely to her head, concealing the damage. I murmured to the doll as I mended her, comforting stories of home and family: the warm kitchen, the orderly workroom, my sister singing as she cooked supper.When I came to Father, my voice faltered to a stop. One particular memory would stay with me always, no matter where I went. Blundering downstairs half-asleep, intending an early start on the important commission we were undertaking. Opening the workroom door. Finding that Father had risen even earlier than I had. He had begun work already; he had completed two lines before he died. The tall stool was tipped over. Father lay on his back on the floor, arms outstretched, eyes staring. The quill had fallen just beyond his reach; ink drops made a delicate pattern across the boards. His fingers, a craftsman’s long, graceful fingers, were open, relaxed, like those of a child sleeping. He was already gone.

“It was a good place, Róise,” I whispered, making a last neat stitch in her head-cloth and biting off the thread. “Until that day, it was the best place in the world. Then everything changed. Ita and Cillian came, and almost as soon as Father was buried, Maraid went away with Shea. I hope she’s all right. I hope they’re happy.” This thought surprised me. At the time, sorrow had claimed me so completely that I had hardly been capable of understanding that my sister was gone. Later, when I had begun to claw my way out of despair, I had felt bitter and angry towards her. Now, regarding the mended Róise and recalling the day of my seventh birthday, when Maraid had presented me with her creation and told me that since our mother was no longer in this world, Róise would keep an eye on me in her place, I realized that my resentment was fading at last. Perhaps Maraid had had no choice. Perhaps she had run away for the same reason I had: to save herself.

The violet gown was beyond repair.There was not enough of the skirt intact to furnish anything save this outfit for Róise. Perhaps I was foolishly sentimental to want to save it. I had not known Anluan’s mother, and she was long gone. But people had loved her. I rolled the gown up. Later, I would find a way to use it.

The sun was warm. The garden was peaceful. I could happily have stayed here all afternoon, doing nothing in particular. But the library door stood open and my work lay ready within.
Practice being brave a little at a time
, Anluan had suggested. This was not a little; it was almost overwhelming. But I must do it. If I were to have a chance of fulfilling the promise I had made to the host, I must go into the library and turn over those pages. I must open the box and take out the obsidian mirror. I must look into the darkness.