Hearts Blood - Juliet Marillier

I was last to supper, and tonight of all nights Anluan had decided to make an appearance. He sat at the head of the table, Muirne at the foot, though she was seldom in her chair—it became clear that in her presence nobody else would serve his lordship. She ladled his food, filled and refilled his cup, cut his bread and sliced his meat. I watched with some fascination, wondering how long it would be before he lost his temper and told her to stop fussing. In fact, she might have been invisible for all the attention he paid her. Had the memory of our trip to the tower not been so fresh, I could almost have felt sorry for her.The chieftain of Whistling Tor had not changed for supper. His red hair was unkempt, his chin rough with stubble, and he wore the same clothing he had had on in the library earlier. His shirt had a fraying cuff and needed laundering. Muirne’s outfit was spotless, as always.

“How’s the work progressing, Caitrin?” Magnus asked with a smile. “You look a little tired.”

“I’m perfectly well,” I replied, before Anluan could seize the opportunity to suggest I was not up to the task. Honesty compelled me to add, “I had a little problem this morning; one of the doors stuck, and it meant I started work late.”

Muirne spoke up, surprising me.“I heard about that, Caitrin. I’m sorry I left you there on your own—if I’d realized . . .”

“It’s all right,” I said. Of course she hadn’t shut me in. It was this place, with its secrets and oddities. It was enough to make the sanest person think mad thoughts. “I managed to open the door eventually; I found a key.”

Anluan’s attention was on me instantly.“A key? I thought you said the door stuck.Where was this?”

Think fast, Caitrin.To tell the whole truth would cast Muirne in a bad light before the man she adored; at the very least, she would appear inconsiderate. “In the north tower,” I said. “I forgot where Muirne had put the key when she left, and I’m afraid I panicked.” A look of astonishment passed briefly over Muirne’s usually impassive features. “It was nothing really,” I went on. “After that I spent the day reading, but tomorrow I must do some more cleaning. Dusting the shelves wasn’t enough; they need a good scrub.”

“Don’t wear yourself out,” Magnus said, scrutinizing my face. “Olcan or I could maybe help with that part of things. Pity we can’t get serving folk to stay up here anymore. You shouldn’t be troubling yourself with mopping and dusting.” He glanced at Anluan, but the chieftain was studying his platter and did not appear to have heard.

“I couldn’t ask you to help, Magnus,” I told him. “You’ve got more to do than anyone. I’m not averse to physical work; I’m a craftswoman, not a pampered young lady. But it is unfortunate people won’t come here to work. I could get the scribing job done much more quickly with an assistant, someone who could read a little.” Since Anluan was not cutting me off as he often seemed wont to do, I asked a question that had been on my mind earlier, as I realized how slow the job was going to be on my own. “Have we reached the end of my trial period yet? I will be happier once I know my services will be retained for the summer.” I addressed this to a point halfway between Magnus and Anluan.

“It scarcely matters,”Anluan said, lifting his head to look at me.“There’s a familiar pattern here at Whistling Tor; it never changes.You have lasted a little longer than some of us expected, but you won’t stay.We’re all trapped in a net of consequences, condemned to paths outside our control. It’s the way of things.”

“Are you saying that we can’t escape our lot, whatever it is? Do you really believe that?” Not so long ago I might have agreed with him. But I had escaped the trap that was closing around me in Market Cross. If one could summon the will, it could be done.

“I cannot speak for you,” Anluan said. He had given up all pretense of eating; his knife and spoon lay on the table. “It is true for all of us sitting here tonight, and for all who live on Whistling Tor.”

I remembered something. “Including the village, if what Tomas and his wife told me is true,” I said. “The way they spoke about Whistling Tor, it seemed they both love and hate the place. They were shocked when I asked them why they didn’t pack up and go somewhere else.”

“It’s all they know,” said Magnus. “The demon at home, the familiar one, is always preferable to the one out in the unknown world.”

“That’s what I thought once,” I said, a shiver running through me. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

Anluan’s gaze was fixed on me; I could feel it even when my head was turned away. “You say you’ll stay,” he said. “You won’t. It runs against the grain of things.”

This remark was greeted with silence.Why did none of them contradict him? Patterns could be broken; paths could be changed.All it took was courage. I had to stand up to him. I could not accept this.“Rioghan,” I said, “I wish to make a wager. If I lose, I will repay you at the end of summer. Will you lend me a silver piece?”

The king’s councillor smiled. “Of course, lovely lady.” A shining coin flew across the table to me and I caught it, weighing it on my palm. “Your wager is not with me, I presume?”

“It’s with your chieftain here. He says I won’t stay. I wager I will stay until the scribing job is done. His lordship can put up whatever stake he pleases.”

There was a delicate silence. I hardly cared whether I had offended Anluan. It was time someone challenged him.

“I have nothing to offer,” he said flatly.

“Want to borrow—” began Eichri, but I cut him off.

“I’m not in the least interested in acquiring any finger bones or other items of that sort,” I said. “I’d settle for an apple from the garden; they should be ripening up by the time the job is done. Or perhaps Anluan could write something for me.”

Silence again; this time it felt as if all of them were holding their breath. Anluan’s face darkened. His lips tightened. His left hand, resting on the tabletop, became a fist.

“You mock me?” he asked, and in an instant my sudden surge of bravery was over. In his tone were all the times Cillian had hurt me, and the times Ita had hurled insults at me. I became the girl who had once crouched in a corner of her bedchamber weeping, unable to move. I had a good answer for him, but it refused to come out.

“Explain yourself!” demanded Anluan.

Trembling, craven, despising myself, I got to my feet and made for the door, a mumbled apology on my lips.

“Stop!” It was a command, and I obeyed. I was right by his chair. I kept my gaze on the stone floor. I counted the beats of my heart. “If you run from a simple question, why should anyone believe you will not run from Whistling Tor at the first difficulty?” Anluan’s tone was like a flail.

“I didn’t run,” I whispered, finding a last shred of courage hidden deep. “You know that.The day I looked in Nechtan’s mirror, you were there.”

Another silence, this time of a different quality. Magnus cleared his throat. I stood where I was, ready for another blast of angry words.

“If you require me to wager, my stake is heart’s blood,” Anluan said, his voice quieter. “Last out the summer and you’ll be here to see it bloom. You’ll be here to pluck the flowers and make ink. When the work is finished you can take it home with you.”

Olcan whistled. “That’s some wager,” he said.

My head was reeling. If I could work out how to make even one good pot of ink, I would not have to worry about money for years to come.Anluan must have no idea of how valuable the stuff was. “I can’t accept that,” I said shakily. “It would be worth a fabulous amount. It wouldn’t be right for me to take it.”

“It is what I offer,” said Anluan. “The argument about value is irrelevant. You won’t stay.”

“All right, I accept,” I retorted. “I will prove you wrong.”

He shrugged. It was an awkward gesture, emphasising the uneven set of his shoulders.

“Heart’s blood ink, eh?” Eichri chuckled.“Fine color; comes up beautifully on vellum.You know how to make the stuff, Caitrin?”

“I’ll know by the time the flowers are out,” I said. “With a whole library full of documents, there must be instructions somewhere.”

That night I had the bad dream again, the one in which Ita threw me down a well of tormenting demons. I woke drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time. Beyond my bedchamber door the moon shone down into the garden. Knowing I would not sleep again, I took off my clammy nightrobe, put on a shift and wrapped my shawl around me. I went out to stand on the gallery overlooking the courtyard, wondering how long it would be before I could hear an angry voice without turning from courageous, resourceful woman to powerless, hopeless child. Perhaps brave Caitrin was only a fantasy. Perhaps the cringing, whimpering girl who had failed to stand up to her abusers was the real me. If so, my parents must be looking down on me in shame.

In the courtyard Rioghan was pacing, the red of his cloak muted under the moon. In the stillness I heard snatches of his speech. “Go in from the west instead, splitting the force into three parties . . . No, devise a decoy, take the enemy by surprise with a flanking action, then strike with catapults . . . He would still have fallen. My lord would still have fallen . . .” He walked further down the garden and his voice was lost for a little.Then he turned on his heel, restless as a caged animal, and paced back. “We should have checked the signs . . . Why did I tell him it would work?”

My own troubles paled by comparison with such distress. It seemed he was revisiting, over and over, the circumstances of some terrible error of judgment that haunted him. Perhaps every single night was spent in this painful search for answers. I wondered if going down to talk to him would be any help at all. It would be a distraction, at least. I was about to do so when I had the sensation that someone was watching me. I glanced about, hugging the shawl around me more closely, aware that under it I was scantily clad. There was nobody on the gallery; nobody on the steps. While moonlight bathed the garden in an eerie glow, under the trees it was shadow dark. I imagined folk standing there, clad all in black; I could almost see them. Don’t be foolish, Caitrin. The rampaging host of Conan’s records would hardly be up here, inside the courtyard walls. Maybe there were creatures of some kind out in the forest beyond the fortress, but they couldn’t be the ones he had spoken of. It had been years and years ago—Anluan’s father had been a child. Besides, a host of hacking, stabbing warriors could hardly be living just out there without my having seen or heard something of it.

One thing I knew with certainty: I was not the only sad and troubled soul in this place. Perhaps I would never quite be free from the shadows of my own past, but that didn’t mean I must stand by in the face of other folk’s misery. I found my cloak and went down to talk to Rioghan. He was still muttering to himself.

“If I had put archers on the northern hill . . . Or perhaps taken action far earlier, set a permanent guard at the bridge, that might have delayed the onslaught . . . He would still have fallen . . .”

I was standing right beside him and he had not noticed me. His fists were clenched, his eyes full of shadows.

“Rioghan,” I said quietly.

He started. He had been far away.

“Caitrin! You’re up late.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“A familiar state for me, alas, but not so for a young thing like yourself. You have bad dreams?”

“Sometimes.Troubles and terrors grow stronger in the dark, when I’m alone. Then, when I sleep, the bad things from the past come flooding in. But it’s worse for you. It seems you have that even when you’re awake.”

“It is true, Caitrin. I cannot be bitter. This is my lot. My own action, or failure to act, earned it for me.” Rioghan settled himself on a bench that was damp with dew and motioned for me to sit beside him. I did so, feeling the chill as it seeped through cloak, shawl and shift to sink into my bones.

“Whatever you did, or think you did,” I said, “it’s in the past now. We all make mistakes. Sometimes we can compensate for them later. Or we can come to terms with our errors and move on.”

Rioghan gave a great sigh, spreading his pale hands in a gesture of helplessness. “My deed cannot be made good,” he said flatly. “My lord is gone. He is dead, long dead, and the sward green over his dear bones. I held him in my arms as his lifeblood ebbed away; I wear this cloak in token of that. I cannot bring him back. I cannot expiate my sin, yet I am compelled to try. My mind will not let me rest.There must be something I could have done, some way I could have acted, something I could have changed to snatch victory from bitter defeat. I was his most trusted adviser. How could I have got it so wrong?”

“What happened? Who was your lord?”

“Ah, Caitrin. A precious jewel, a man who blazed like a bright star in the firmament. His name was Breacán, and he was king of northern Connacht. Long ago, you understand. Long, long ago.This region was Breacán’s home territory. The kingship was his by force of arms, but he was a good man. He ruled with justice and compassion. Many was the encounter I planned for him, the strategy I devised for him, and all executed with the brilliant flair and perfect judgment that were part of his very being. As a team we were unbeatable. Until that day.”

“He fell in battle?” I knew little of the history of this region. I could not work out how many years had passed since the events he referred to. Rioghan’s age was hard to guess; it could have been anything from five-and-thirty to perhaps fifty.The curious pallor of his skin and the sorrowful lines of his expression gave him something of Anluan’s look. Perhaps the entire household was bonded by sorrow.

“Let me show you.” Rioghan squatted down and, by moonlight, proceeded to lay out a miniature battlefield with sticks, stones and little mounds of earth. Despite the lateness of the hour and the fact that I was cold and damp, I soon became fascinated. I watched Breacán’s forces advance down a broad valley, advance intelligence having told them their enemy would be encamped near the far end and ill prepared for their arrival. I saw, at the same time, how the enemy had secret lookouts high on the flanking hills and a message system involving the flashing of silver discs in the sunlight, something Breacán’s men did not detect until they were trapped between two parties of assailants, summoned by this method from hideouts at either end of the valley.

“It was a rout, Caitrin,” Rioghan said. “And I was the one who led them into it. Mine was the counsel that told my lord, This is safe; we have the numbers.When others advised casting an augury to determine the wisdom of the advance, or recommended desisting from the maneuver until we had obtained clearer information from certain captives, I insisted we continue. I was so sure my plan was right. I was duped. A man I had trusted had lied to me. That, I did not learn until my lord had been cut down before my eyes, and his loyal men, men who had been my friends, lay slain by his side. The enemy spared this wretched councillor. They wanted one left to tell the sad tale. I laid my lord over his saddle and conveyed him home. I was alive where so many better men had perished through my ineptitude. I wished with every breath that I, too, had been slain on that field of bloody sacrifice. But it was not yet my time.”