The Dark Mirror (12 page)

She halted instantly, as he had known she would; stood quite still, perfectly balanced, grave and steady. It was Bridei who felt the churning anxiety, the reeling loss of equilibrium.

“What are you doing, anyway?” he asked her with practiced calm. “Trying to fly?”

Tuala stepped down from her pinnacle and seated herself at his side, cross-legged. She wore a long tunic of plain woolen cloth and
trousers beneath it for riding. The trousers had once been Bridei’s; it was hard to imagine that he had ever been so small.

“I would like to fly” Tuala said. “Sometimes I think I could.”

Bridei was unpacking the food he had brought: thick wedges of oaten bread and eggs boiled in the shell. He passed the water-skin to Tuala. “If you’re planning to try,” he said, “it might be better to stand on
a bench or a barrel, not a mountaintop.

Tuala gazed at him solemnly. “I wouldn’t just
fall
,” she told him. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You’re a girl, not a bird,” Bridei said.

“I am a bird sometimes.” She moved a small, white hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“What do you mean?”

“In dreams. The moon comes up, and it wakes me, and I fly out through the forest. Everything silver; everything
alive and waiting.”

Bridei did not answer. It was a long time since Tuala had come to Pitnochie, so long that sometimes he came close to forgetting that she was—different. Then she would say something like this, and his memory would bring it all back.

“Swooping, snatching, feeding,” Tuala said absently, taking a bite of the bread. “Gliding, hunting. Then the moon goes down, and the darkness
comes again.”

“Dreams are different.” It wasn’t much of an answer, and Bridei knew it. “You should be more careful. Just think if you fell down and—and broke your leg. You wouldn’t be able to ride Pearl all summer.” He would not tell her more than one man had died in a sudden descent from Eagle Scar. She was still only a baby compared with himself. “Promise me you’ll be sensible, Tuala.”

“I
promise.”

The answer came readily; unfortunately, Bridei thought, Tuala’s idea of what sensible meant was somewhat different from his own.

“What would you be?” Tuala asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“What bird would you be, if you could?”

“An eagle,” Bridei said straight away. “I’d glide the length of the Great Glen, looking down over everything, watching it all, guarding it all. You’d have
to be a crow, with hair that color.”

“Tuala shook her head. An owl,” she corrected gravely.

“You know they sick up pellets of all the bones and claws and beaks, don’t you? All the tails and whiskers and—”

Tuala gave him a shove, not very hard. “I’m eating,” she said. “Anyway, what about eagles stealing new lambs? They even took someone’s baby once, Mara told me.”

“It’s all part of the balance,”
Bridei said. “Some give up their lives so others can survive. As long as you respect that, everything makes sense.”

They ate awhile without talking, listening instead to the wild sounds of the Glen: the calling of birds high overhead, the cheeping and chirping of others in the woodland, the soughing of trees in the wind, the furtive rustle of something stirring in a rock crevice. Farther off
there was a more domestic
noise, Fidich calling the dogs, and a barking response. The farmer was checking ewes up on the fells.

“You know something, Tuala?” Bridei passed over the egg he had peeled for her and started on another. “Back when I was little like you, I wouldn’t have been allowed to come up here by myself. Broichan wouldn’t have let me.”

“I’m not by myself,” Tuala said. “I’ve got
you.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t have you then, nor any big brothers to look after me.”

Tuala opened her mouth. Bridei knew she was about to tell him she could look after herself, thank you very much.

“But it wasn’t because of that,” he went on quickly. “It was dangerous in the woods back then. There were enemies. They tried to kill me once. And they tried to kill Broichan. Back then, I wasn’t allowed
out without two guards.”

“How did they try to kill you?” Tuala’s eyes were round now, her neat mouth very solemn.

Bridei began to regret starting this topic of conversation. “Oh, it was nothing much,” he said, carefully offhand. “Maybe we should be going back—”

“With a sword? With a spell? Did they try to catch you in a trap?”

“With an arrow,” Bridei said.

“Did you kill them?”

“No. But Donal
did. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why did they try to kill you?”

“I don’t know. Nobody would tell me. Anyway, it’s all right now. That was a long time ago. Whatever the danger was, it’s past. There used to be five guards just for the dike on the northern side and now there’s only one. And we’re allowed out. So count yourself lucky.”

Tuala regarded him carefully. “You are lucky,” she corrected.
“Or you would be dead, and I wouldn’t be here.”

Bridei shivered. “It wasn’t luck that saved me that day,” he said, remembering. “It was something else.”

“Donal?”

“He certainly helped. But there was more. It was as if the earth opened up and let me hide: gave me shelter. Even Donal said it was odd.”

“She holds you safe,” Tuala said in her small, clear voice. “Safe in her hand. Safe to go on.”

Her words made the hair on the back of Bridei’s neck prickle. He gathered the eggshells together in a neat pile, saying nothing.

“It’s all right, Bridei,” Tuala said, as if she were the big one and he the child.

Back at the house, Bridei led the two ponies around to the stables and tended to Blaze, while Tuala made a passable job of rubbing Pearl down. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the
top of the pony’s mane; fortunately, Pearl seemed to understand this, and lowered her head obligingly while the child took a brush to the tangles.

“Pity she can’t do the same for you,” Bridei commented, eyeing Tuala’s wind-blown locks. When they set out for the ride her dark hair had been plaited neatly down her back, but it seemed to have a life of its own. The number of ribbons she lost was
a standing joke.

Tuala raised both hands to push the unruly mop back from her face.

“Want me to fix it?” Bridei asked.

Tuala came over to stand by him, her back turned. She fished in the pouch at her belt, brought out a small comb, put it in Bridei’s hand. No words were necessary; this was a ritual of long standing.

“Keep still now.” Bridei had a deft hand for this task, having practiced on
ponies. He knew how to comb out Tuala’s hair without pulling at all. As for the child, she stood completely still, almost as if she were frozen; it was a pose he himself had striven for through the control of breathing, through meditation, through sheer force of will, yet Tuala could manage it without even trying. His fingers worked systematically, weaving the long braid that hung down to her waist.

“Got a ribbon?” he asked, smiling.

Tuala shook her head, expression mournful. “I lost it.”

“Just as well I’ve got one, then.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a length of yellow braid, one of several he had put away for just such occasions. Tuala left them everywhere. He tied the ribbon in a neat, strong knot finished with a little bow like a butterfly. “There you are. Better try to stay
tidy for a bit, in case Broichan sees you.”

“Yes, Bridei.”

SINCE THE TIME
when Broichan went to a king’s council and nearly died, there had been some changes at Pitnochie. A sizeable complement of men at arms still dwelt there, patrolling the borders and providing an escort for the druid whenever he traveled abroad. But
there were fewer of them and more
other folk now. Brenna had stayed; her sweet temper and natural quietness provided an excellent balance to volatile Ferat and dour Mara. Fidich became a frequent visitor to the house, standing awkwardly in the kitchen and chatting to whomever might be close at hand about shearing or milking or laying drystone walls. It was quite out of character, for the farmer
had ever been one to retire to his small cottage when the day’s work was done, apparently happiest in his own company. Donal noted, drily, that Fidich’s visits generally included a brief talk with Brenna, a few words only, such as a hope that she was keeping well, and the exchange of the day’s small news.

It had taken a long time for Brenna to lose the sad look in her eyes. Tuala had helped;
the demands of a small infant had left the young widow little opportunity for dwelling on her own troubles. Of recent times it was increasingly evident that Fidich’s visits had the effect of bringing out the rose in Brenna’s cheeks. Both were awkward and shy. Perhaps, in time, it would come to something.

There was another new presence in the house. Not long after Broichan came home still sick
from poisoning, Bridei had entered the hall one night at suppertime to find the two old men, Erip and Wid, ensconced in a corner ruminating over a game board, just as they had been the very first night he’d come to Pitnochie. He’d greeted them with astonishment.

“I thought you were never coming back!”

Erip, the plump, bald one, had given a chuckle even as he moved a small warrior subtly on the
board, eliciting a hiss of annoyance from tall, white-bearded Wid.

“Who, us?” Erip had retorted. “It’d take more than a king’s druid to keep us away, lad. Been traveling, that’s all. Well, you’ve certainly grown apace. What’s Ferat been feeding you, bull’s—” The old man had broken off, perhaps catching Mara’s eye from across the room. “Ah well, no matter. We’re here to help with your education,
Bridei.”

“Oh.” Bridei had wondered what aspects of his education they were equipped to deal with beyond board games and drinking.

Wid’s fingers had hovered above a little priestess of soapstone. “Erip’s expertise is geography,” he’d said. “Territories, coastlines, tribes, and chieftains. My field is strategy: seeing into men’s minds; knowing what they want before they know it themselves. I hope
you’re prepared to work hard, Bridei.” He’d plucked the priestess from the board, set her down in another spot, and raised his brows at Erip, expression carefully bland.

“A pox on retired battle-leaders,” Erip had muttered, taking a long look at the board, then lifting his hands in helpless capitulation. “They’re always three steps ahead.”

Erip and Wid had settled in as if they’d never left.
Now, six years later, the two of them were still lodged down at the end of the men’s quarters and growing ever fatter on Ferat’s cooking. And they had indeed proved they had a great deal more to teach than how to get into trouble.

There was, in truth, very little in the way of spare time. Lessons commenced just after breakfast and continued until the sun went down; that was not counting the nighttime
vigils that were part of Broichan’s teaching, nor the occasional dawn rituals, nor the study and preparation required in Bridei’s own time.
Own time
was a joke, really. Some evenings after supper, all he could manage was Tuala’s bedtime story before he himself fell asleep exhausted. But he never neglected it. The tales were part of the promise he had made her long ago. Bridei knew what it was
to lie in bed in the dark, waiting for sleep to come, without a story to keep you company and follow you into your dreams. For him there had been many such nights, and he had grown used to it. But he swore to himself that Tuala should never have to endure that feeling of being utterly alone.

In the mornings he would work with Erip, then Wid. Increasingly, as Bridei’s knowledge of the realm of
Fortriu, its mountains and glens, its lakes and streams, its bays and islands developed, the two old men taught him together, their lectures growing into heated three-way discussions, for they encouraged Bridei’s own contributions. From Erip he learned the history of the Priteni, the patterns of kingship, the nature of neighbor and enemy. The folk of the north were descended from the seven sons of
the original ancestor, Pridne. It was from him that the name Priteni came, a name that embraced all the inhabitants of Fortriu, the folk of Circinn to the south, and in the untracked places of the far north, the wild tribe known as the Caitt. On the islands beyond that northern shore dwelt a people that called itself simply the Folk. The Folk, too, were of Priteni blood, and were powerful by virtue
of isolation, with their own king and their own governance.

Fortriu and Circinn had once been a single kingdom, united in its adherence to the old gods, strong and secure. That had changed the last time a king was elected, for the voting chieftains had been unable to reach agreement on a candidate. Now the kingdom was split, with the Christian Drust son of Girom, known as the Boar, ruling the
southern realm of Circinn and
their own king, Drust the Bull, maintaining the old traditions in Fortriu, which extended the length of the Great Glen from the king’s fortress of Caer Pridne in the northeast to the last line of defense against the Gaels in the southwest. Between these two realms and their kings there was a constant, simmering unrest.

Wid’s lessons dealt with power games and councils,
the reading of a man’s expressions and gestures, the things that might or might not be said in certain company. They dealt with the passing on of secret messages and with learning to listen for what was carefully not being said. Those skills were hard to try out here at Pitnochie. It was all too easy to guess what Fidich, for instance, was thinking as he clutched a beaker of ale and pretended
not to be looking at Brenna, or what Donal was dreaming of as he polished his sword and whistled an old marching song under his breath.