Hearts Blood - Juliet Marillier

“Caitrin?” Maraid’s gaze was shrewd.

“It’s a sensible suggestion. I will do it. Sometime.”

“Why not now? This is what you love.You used to spend all day over it, so engrossed in the next stroke of the pen that you forgot the rest of the world existed while there was a job to be done.”

I said nothing.The truth was, the future I had always wanted, the long days of peace and tranquillity, the perfect manuscripts evolving under my hands, the satisfaction of putting my craft into practice and earning a living at it, no longer seemed significant. And yet, I had a life here; I had my sister and my niece, I had a home and resources, I had the opportunity to go back to something resembling the old existence I had so cherished. But it was no longer enough.

“I see you don’t want to tell me, so I’m going to guess, Caitrin. No, don’t stop me, you made me talk about my troubles.You love this Anluan of yours, the monster in the garden. Even with the Normans at his gate, you’re longing to go back. That household, and one member of it in particular, is more important to you than anything else in the world.”

“Not more important than you and Etain! Don’t ever think that!”

Maraid smiled. “Maybe not, but important in a different way. Caitrin, it’s written all over you when you speak of him. Why are you so determined to put it behind you?”

“Anluan sent me away. Whatever his reasons were, he meant it to be forever.”

“Of course he wanted you to be somewhere safe when the Normans came. But it seemed to me from the way you told your story that he loves you as deeply as you love him. And he doesn’t sound like a man who would care much about the sort of convention that says a chieftain doesn’t marry a craftswoman.Why can’t you go back when the Normans are gone? Whether he wins or loses, he’ll need you.”

Tears stung my eyes. “That was what Gearróg said, the morning I left. You’re the one Anluan needs most. And maybe that’s true. But he won’t marry me.”

Maraid frowned. “Did he say why not?”

“It’s a bit awkward . . .”

“I’m your sister, Caitrin. If you don’t tell me, who can you tell? Come on now.”

I looked down at my hands, clasped on my lap.“He never said it plainly, only hinted at something amiss. He was concerned for my safety, I know that. But there was . . .” How could I possibly tell her about that vision, the one that had made Anluan smash a mirror with his bare fist? “He said . . . he implied that the palsy affected more than just his arm and leg, Maraid. And Muirne said Anluan would never . . . She said he would not be able to satisfy me. Or any woman. That if I wanted children, I must look elsewhere.” My cheeks were flaming.

Maraid did not speak for a while, but sat thinking, her arm curled around Etain, who had fallen asleep on the breast.“That’s very sad,” she said eventually. “If it’s true. Caitrin, does Anluan feel physical desire for you?”

My cheeks grew hotter still. “Yes,” I muttered. “I told you about the mirror of might-have-been, the one that showed him images of himself without the disability, riding, wrestling, enjoying the activities of a fit young leader. I didn’t mention that one of the images had me in it.” This was hard to get out, even to my own sister. “Anluan and me, together, doing what husbands and wives do. It was . . . it was quite clear that he felt desire, Maraid. Perfectly clear.”

“And the mirror showed what might have been. What he could have done, if he had not been stricken by the palsy. Caitrin, there are other ways a man can satisfy a woman, you know, without performing the act of love itself. Using his mouth, his hands.”

“But . . . I don’t think Anluan would be incapable . . . I know he can . . . can manifest the physical symptoms of desire.”

“Oh?” Maraid was smiling now.

I had not thought this could become any more embarrassing, but I was wrong. “I don’t mean that he and I . . . there was only one time we were close enough to tell . . . but . . . it was plain enough that he wanted me.”

“So the palsy may have weakened his right arm and leg, and altered his face, but it hasn’t had the same effect on his manhood? He has the equipment he needs, and it seems to be in working order?” Maraid’s voice was gentle; she understood me all too well.

I nodded. “He doesn’t seem to believe he can do it,” I said. “Muirne implied the same. If you want a real man, Caitrin, don’t look here. That was what she said.”

“Does that woman love Anluan or hate him?”

I could only grimace; I had no answer for that.

“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Maraid said.“If he wanted you back, but you could never have children with him, would you go?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “But . . . it’s not simple, is it? I’d marry him even if I knew we would be childless. I’d live with him even if we couldn’t marry. But I do want children of my own, Maraid. I want his children.The absence of them would be hard to set aside. In that, perhaps a little of the family curse would linger on. He would always feel that he had failed me. That’s the kind of man he is. I would always feel that there was something missing from my life.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t fall in love with Magnus instead,” my sister said dryly. “He sounds the kind of man who would father as many little gallóglaigh as you wanted, and look after you as well as any woman might need.”

“Not to speak of cooking supper every night,” I said, managing a smile. “Maraid, how could Anluan know whether he was able to father children or not? He’s hardly been off the hill since he was seven years old.”

“A man only knows something like that if he’s tried over a long time and failed,” Maraid said. “Perhaps it’s all in Anluan’s mind.When would he have had the opportunity to lie with a woman?”

I considered what I knew of Anluan’s past: Magnus nursing him back to health after the palsy, when Anluan was thirteen years old; the isolation of the household; the reluctance to leave the hill; the difficulty in getting folk to help. “He wouldn’t have had much opportunity at all,” I said. “I suppose there would have been serving girls up there for short periods. Or Magnus might have arranged . . .” This was so far beyond what I knew, I could hardly begin to imagine how it might have been.

“You know,” Maraid said, “for a boy with his past, and his disability, it might only take one bad experience to convince him that he was a complete failure. He does sound unduly prone to despair. Could it be only that, do you think?”

We considered that awhile, and I thought how impossible it would be, even if I did some day manage to return to Whistling Tor, to broach such a subject with Anluan.

“A boy might feel pretty awkward making love,” said my sister, “if he had limited use of an arm and a leg. If it was his first time and he was unsure of himself, and the woman didn’t understand his difficulty, it’s easy to see how it might go wrong. With the right woman, one who could help him a bit, that same man might find the experience quite different. As for children, they don’t come along if folk don’t try to make them.”

After a moment I said,“I’ve never lain with a man in my life.” My heart was thudding.

“He loves you,” said Maraid.“You love him. Who else will he manage this with, if not you?”

chapter thirteen

It was the first time I had seriously considered that I might return to Whistling Tor in defiance of Anluan’s decree of banishment.The idea sat uneasily with me, though my heart would have winged there like a homing swallow if it could. It was easy enough for Maraid to say these things. She could not understand the layers of history that sat so heavily over the place. Beside Nechtan’s dark legacy, the question of whether Anluan had been unmanned by the palsy or was merely beset by self-doubt dwindled into insignificance.

Unable to make a decision, I distracted myself by obtaining a fresh supply of materials for the workroom—not a great quantity, just sufficient to produce some samples that might be shown to potential customers. I could see that Maraid was pleased, though she made no comment.

I set out parchment, quills and ink on the familiar table. I would make three samples and I’d keep them simple.Time enough for embellishments, complicated scripts, gold leaf and rare inks once I’d established myself. First would be a passage of poetry rendered in minuscule, the kind of piece a noblewoman would appreciate as a courting gift. I began to score up the page, using the plummet and straight-edge from my writing box.

The empty desk beside me was eloquent. I found myself glancing across as if to check how Father was progressing with his own work. I recalled the gleam of his bald head under the light from the window; his habit of sucking in his bottom lip when particularly engrossed; his neat, square-tipped fingers placed precisely so, holding the parchment steady.

I had never said goodbye, not properly. On the day of his death I had been disbelieving, unable to accept that he was gone. At the burial rite I had been numb.

I set down the plummet and moved to kneel on the flagstoned floor, in the place where he had fallen. In this precise spot I had cradled him in my arms, begging death to change its mind, willing time to turn backwards. Here I had uttered the full-throated sobs of an abandoned child.

“Father,” I said now, “you have a beautiful new granddaughter. Maraid and I are together again, and the house is . . . cleansed.We’re making it a good place, as it was before. I hope you’re watching over us, you and Mother and Shea.That’s what Maraid believes. Father, I haven’t done very well since we lost you. I haven’t always been as brave as I wanted to be. But I’m trying. I want to make you proud of me. I want to use everything you taught me.”

I knelt awhile, and it seemed to me that beyond the window the sky grew a little brighter.The chamber was as quiet as a sleeping babe.“Goodbye, Father,” I whispered.Then I got up and went back to work.

I completed the poem, finishing it with a border of vines. The piece looked pleasing, if unadventurous. My eyes needed a rest. The next piece I planned, a legal document rendered in a common hand, must wait until the afternoon.

A shriek from somewhere in the house; something fell with a crash. I ran out into the passageway and almost bumped into Maraid, who was hastening towards our bedchamber.We reached the doorway together. Inside stood Fianait, linen-pale, with a shattered jug at her feet and water pooling. She was staring at the shelf before her as if it housed a demon. “That mirror,” she gasped. “There are things in it, things moving—”

I had forgotten to put the mirror away. “It’s all right,” I murmured, stepping across the debris to remove the artifact while Maraid went about reassuring the frightened girl.As I picked up the mirror, something dark and shadowy shifted within it: a chamber, the moon through a tall window, a face . . .

“Caitrin?” Maraid’s voice was a murmur. “What is it? What did she see?” And, when the silence drew out, “Caitrin? Are you all right?”

I stood frozen, the mirror clutched in my hands.There was Anluan in his chamber at Whistling Tor, lying on the pallet as still as death. His eyes were closed; his chest showed no rise and fall; his skin was a sickly gray. There was I, my face a mask of anguish, cradling him in my arms. “No,” I breathed, and “No!” I screamed.

“What is it, Caitrin? What can you see? Caitrin, speak to me!”

“He can’t be dead! He can’t be!”

My sister was peering over my shoulder at the polished metal. “Is that Anluan?” she asked. “Oh, God . . .”

Caitrin in the mirror laid her hand against Anluan’s cheek; she bent to kiss his pallid brow. Just for a moment, before the image faded, I saw a figure in the doorway of Anluan’s chamber: a slight, neat person in a demure gown and veil, her lustrous eyes fixed on the grieving woman, the motionless man. Her features showed not a trace of emotion.

“I must go to him,” I said. “Now, straightaway. Something’s terribly wrong, not this, since I was in the vision with him, but something . . . It’s a warning . . . I need to be there, Maraid.” I knew that whether or not Anluan could ever love me as a husband loves his wife, and whether or not I could ever bear his children, I was bound to him as tree is to earth or stars to sky, bound in a love that would transcend all obstacles. I must go. I would go. Nothing in the world was going to stop me.

I left next morning, my sister having prevailed upon me to wait while she arranged a ride with a reputable carter, and to get a good night’s sleep before I started off.We had talked things through after supper, more openly than before. For all my need to be on the road and heading towards Whistling Tor as quickly as possible, I’d felt torn. “I hate leaving you on your own,” I’d said. “It seems too soon.”

“I’ll be fine.” Maraid’s calm manner had reassured me. “I’m hardly on my own, with Fianait and Phadraig in the house, not to speak of Etain. Caitrin, I wasn’t here when you needed me after Father died. I was so desperate to get away, I didn’t think about what it would mean for you. I owe you the opportunity to do this. Don’t feel any guilt about leaving us. But please do send me a message, if you can. I’ll worry about you. Caitrin, I hope Anluan is all right. I hope you get there in time.”

Thank God for my sister’s readiness to accept even the strangest parts of my story, I thought as the cart rumbled along the road towards Stony Ford, where I would change conveyances for the westward part of the journey. I’d given her a full description of my visions in the obsidian mirror, and told her the dark details of the host’s past activities, including Mella’s death. I’d even shown her one or two pages of Anluan’s notebook. She had asked many questions; the curious mixture of folk making up Anluan’s inner circle clearly intrigued her. I wished she could have come with me.

As my various rides took me slowly, oh so painfully slowly, towards Whistling Tor, I considered what might await me there and prayed that I would find Anluan alive and well. The mirror came with me. I looked often into its dimly shining surface, to meet my own worried eyes gazing back. The weather was bleak. We traveled on under lowering skies, down tracks treacherous with mud, across flat lands where the wind whistled keenly, sharp and salty as we neared the western sea.

The further we went, the less ready carters were to linger.When each reached his destination he dropped off his load, left me at the nearest inn, then headed straight back. The inns were full of talk, and it set a new fear in me. A force of Norman soldiers had been spotted heading west. Rumor had it that they’d been sent to seize the territory of a local chieftain and establish one of their own in his place. Nobody was quite sure where this was happening, but they thought it was near the holding of a chieftain named Brión. I asked how many soldiers and was told too many for any Irish lord to prevail over. I asked how long ago they had passed and was told ten days or more. Nobody had heard of Stephen de Courcy, but they had no other name to offer in its place. As the men-at-arms had gone by on their fine warhorses, with their chain-link garments and their carts loaded with supplies, folk had withdrawn silently into their houses and barred the doors.