Daughter Of The Forest (11 page)

“You forget that she is just a child,” said Father Brien.

“Child? Huh!” Simon gave a mirthless chuckle. “Outwardly, perhaps. But she’s like no child I’ve ever known. What child knows the properties of herbs, and a thousand stories each stranger than the last, and how to…” His voice faltered. Finbar glanced at Father Brien, who gazed back at him reflectively. My arm was starting to hurt a lot, where Simon’s fingers clutched it.

“It’s not up to you to decide,” I said as firmly as I could. I looked at each of them in turn—Finbar with his ashen face and clear gray eyes, the mild, penetrating gaze of Father Brien. Simon’s touch communicated his pain and despair. “I have a job to do here, and it’s not finished. Between you, you’ve already undone most of my good work this afternoon. Finbar, you must go home, and leave me to my proper task. Believe that I am safe here, and best left alone. I will call you when I am ready.”

He needs me, Finbar
.

I won’t leave you here
. He tried to keep me out of his thoughts, but he could not quite conceal his guilt and confusion. This worried me. Wasn’t Finbar the brother who was always so certain, who always knew what to do?

You must leave me. This is my choice
.

And so he did, eventually. It was fortunate that Father Brien trusted me and believed in what I was doing, for it was he who persuaded my brother to move back into the cottage and leave me alone awhile with my patient. Simon let them go, silent. It was only after they were out of sight, and the cottage door closed with a thud, that the restraining grip on my arm changed to a clutch for support, and he let out his breath in a long shuddering gasp. Between us, the dog and I got him back into the cave and lying down, and I broke all my rules and made up draft that would give him a reasonable sleep.

“You’d best drink this,” I said, holding out the cup.

Simon sniffed at it suspiciously. I had given him nothing but the infusion of goldenwood, since the day I came.

“What’s in it? It smells different. I suppose you’re trying to poison me now? Finish me off?”

“Isn’t that what you said you wanted?” It was beyond me to keep this retort back, for I was annoyed with his refusal to help himself.

Simon raised his brows at me. “It smells bad. I won’t drink it.”

I put the cup into his hand and curled his fingers around it. “You have a short memory,” I told him. “Didn’t you promise to do as I told you, as long as I agreed to look after you? I’ve kept my side of it. I’m staying here until you’re well again. Now drink this and stop talking. You’re not the only one who’s tired and out of sorts.”

He drank, scowling up at me the while, and lay back again, his eyes fever-bright. Then I sat by him, talking of nothing much, watching him grapple with the pain and fight to keep silent. After a while, the effects of the herbal infusion stole over him and his features began to relax, his eyes clouding. My arm was hurting quite a lot, and I went quietly over to Father Brien’s shelves to seek an ointment, perhaps mallow root or elderflower. I found what I wanted in a shallow lidded bowl, and returned to my stool to anoint my bruises. There was a ring of reddened flesh right around my upper arm. Massaging with the salve relieved the pain a little.

Something made me glance up as I placed the lid back on the bowl. Simon was still awake, just, heavy lids not quite masking the startling blue of his eyes. “You bruise too easily,” he said indistinctly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Then his lids dropped and he was asleep. The dog moved in closer, wedging herself alongside him on the narrow pallet.

There was a short spell, then, for explanations and decisions. I went to the cottage and we stayed there, but with the door open, for as I told the others, Linn would alert me if Simon wakened. Father Brien insisted that both Finbar and I ate and drank, although neither of us had the stomach for it.

It took a while to persuade Finbar to go home. He still believed me to be in danger, and swore that Conor would never agree to my staying. I used his old argument against him: You should not assume a Briton was evil just because of his golden hair, or his height, or his strange manner of speaking. He was a human being with strengths and weaknesses, just like us. Hadn’t Finbar said so himself many times, even to our father?

“But he threatened to kill you,” said Finbar, exasperated with me, “he held a knife at your throat. Does that mean nothing?”

“He’s sick,” I said. “He’s scared. And I’m here to help him. Besides, I was told…” I broke off.

Finbar’s gaze sharpened. “Told what?”

I could not lie. “Told that this was something I must do. Just the first step on a long and difficult path. I know I have to do it.”

“Who told you this, Sorcha?” asked Father Brien gently. They were both staring at me intently now. I chose my words with care.

“You remember Conor’s old story, the one about Deirdre, Lady of the Forest? I think it was her.”

Father Brien drew his breath in sharply. “You have seen Them?”

“I think so,” I said, surprised. Whatever reaction I had expected from him, it was not this. “She told me this was my path, and I must keep to it. I’m sorry, Finbar.”

“This Briton,” said Finbar slowly. “He is not the first I have met, or spoken with. The others, though, were older men, more hardened, and at the same time simpler. They were glad enough to take their freedom and go. This one plays games, he toys with us and relishes our confusion. If indeed you have received such an instruction, you have no choice but to obey; yet I can hardly believe this boy means you no harm. I am not happy to leave you here, and I think Conor would agree with me.” He twisted a lock of hair between his fingers. The color had returned to his face, but his mouth was grim.

I stared at him. “Why should Conor decide?” I asked. “He may be in charge, for now, but he’s only sixteen.”

“Conor is old beyond his years,” said Father Brien in his measured way. “In that, he resembles the two of you. He too has a path set out for him. You have, perhaps, taken this brother for granted; the quiet one, with his steady reliability, his kindness and fairness, his fund of knowledge. But you know him less well than you think.”

“He does seem to know a lot of odd things,” I said. “Things that surprise you.”

“Like the Ogham,” said Finbar quietly. “The signs, and where to find them, and how to read their meaning. What we know of that we learned from Conor.”

“But where did he learn it?” I said. “Not from any book, I know that much.”

“Conor is expert in a number of matters,” said Father Brien, gazing out of his small window. The late afternoon sun caught the wisps of graying hair that fringed his calm brow, turning them to a flaming aureole. “Some he learned from me, as the rest of you did. Some he taught himself from the manuscripts gathering dust in your father’s library; as did you, Sorcha, with your cures and your herb lore. You will find, as you grow older, that as well as this knowledge Conor has other, more subtle skills; he carries ancient crafts that belong to your line, but which have been largely forgotten in today’s world. You see the village people, how they revere him. It is true that in your father’s absence Conor is a good steward, and they acknowledge that with due thanks. But their recognition of him goes far deeper.”

I remembered something then. “The old man in the village, Old Tom who used to be the thatcher, he said something—he said that Conor was one of the wise ones, like Father, or like Father should have been. I didn’t understand him.”

“The family of Sevenwaters is an ancient one, one of the oldest in this land,” said Father Brien. “This lake and this forest are places where strange things come to pass, where the unexpected is commonplace. The coming of such as I, and our faith, may have changed things on the surface. But underneath, here and there, the magic runs as deep and as strong as in the days when the Fair Folk came out of the west. The threads of many beliefs can run side by side; from time to time they tangle, and mesh into a stronger rope. You have seen this for yourself, Sorcha; and you, Finbar, feel its power compelling you to action.”

“And Conor?” asked Finbar.

“Your brother has inherited a weighty legacy,” said Brien. “It chooses whom it will; and so it did not fall to the eldest, or even to the second, but to the one best able to bear it. Your father had the strength, but he let the burden pass him by. Conor will be the leader of the old faith, for these people, and he will do it quietly and with discretion, so that the ancient ways can still prosper and give guidance, hidden deep in the forest.”

“You mean Conor is—you mean he is a druid? How could he learn this from books?” I asked, confused. Had I known my own brother so ill?

Father Brien laughed softly. “He could not,” he said wryly. “This lore is never committed to the page; the tree script that he showed you is its only form of writing. He has learned, and learns, from others of his kind. They do not show themselves, not yet, for it has been a struggle for them to hold on. Their numbers are dwindling. Your brother has a long path to travel yet; he has barely begun his journey. Nineteen years, that is the allotted span for the learning of this wisdom. And it goes without saying that talk of this is not to be spread abroad.”

“I wondered, sometimes,” said Finbar. “One cannot listen, and move through the villages, without learning whom the people trust and why. It explains why he leaves us to follow our own ways.”

“What did you mean,” I said, still thinking hard, “about our father being the one, and giving it up?” For I could not imagine Father, with his tight, closed expression and his obsession with war, as the conduit for any kind of spiritual message. Surely that was wrong.

“You need to understand,” said Father Brien gently, “that your father was not always as he is now. As a young man, he was a different creature entirely, handsome and merry, a man who would sing and dance and tell tales with the best of them, as well as beating them all hollow at riding and archery and combats with sword or bare fists. He was, you’d have said, one favored by heaven with the full range of blessings.”

“So what changed him?” asked Finbar bleakly.

“When his father died, Lord Colum became master of Sevenwaters. There was, as yet, no call on him to be anything more, for there was one far older and wiser that kept the ancient ways alive in these parts. Your father met your mother; and, as it often is with your kin, he loved her instantly and passionately, so that to be without her was like death to him. They were blissfully happy; they rejoiced in one another, and watched their small sons grow. They were wise custodians of tuath and forest. Niamh loved her boys, but she longed for a daughter. At last you were born, Sorcha; and she died.”

His face had changed; I watched the light play over his calm features, and thought I detected a deep sorrow there, buried somewhere well within.

“Did you know her?” I asked.

Father Brien turned to me, his eyes showing no more than a faint sadness. Perhaps I had imagined what I saw.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I had been presented with a choice. They valued my skill with the pen, in the house of Kells, but my ideas caused—unrest. Conform, I was told, or live alone. I had known your father before I took holy orders, a long time ago when I was a fighting man. When I left the chapter house he offered me a place here, an act of some generosity, considering the differences between us. I met your mother. I saw their joy in each other, and how her death took all the light from him.”

“He had us,” said Finbar bitterly. “Another man might have thought that reason enough to live, and live well.”

“I think you are too harsh,” said Father Brien, but he spoke kindly. “You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bolt; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life. I would not wish such a love on anyone, man or woman, for it can make your life a paradise, or it can destroy you utterly. But it is in the nature of your kin to love this way. When your mother died, it took great strength of will for Colum to endure her loss. He survived; but he paid a high price. He has little left for you, or for anyone.”

“He had a choice, didn’t he?” said Finbar slowly. “He could have turned another way, after she died—taken another path, become the sort of leader you say Conor will be.”

“He could, for the Ancient was near the end of his days, and the wise ones came to Colum, seeking a man of his line to join their number. They must have wanted him very particularly, to make such an approach. Far better to begin the long years of learning as a child, or a very young man. Yet they asked him. But Colum was deep in despair. Had it not been for his duty to his tuath, and to his children, he might well have ended his own life. So he refused them.”

“And that’s how they came to choose Conor?”

“Not then. Conor was only a child; they waited, first, and watched you growing up, the seven of you. And the old one delayed his passing. They watched Conor as he learned to read and write, as he practiced his verses and his tales, as he taught the rest of you the wisdom of trees, and how to look after one another. In time, it became clear that he was the one, and they told him.”

We sat there in silence for a while, taking this in, as the sun’s rays slanted lower through the window and the air grew cool with early evening. No sound came from the cave. I hoped Simon’s sleep was dreamless.

“You can see,” said Father Brien eventually, “what drives your father so hard. Holding onto his lands, and winning back the islands that were lost so long ago, has taken her place as the sole purpose of his existence. By keeping that foremost in his mind, he holds the wolves of memory at bay. When they close in around him, he goes to war again and silences their howling with blood. This path takes a heavy toll on him. He has, however, rendered his lands and those of his neighbors very secure, and earned great respect throughout the north of this country with his campaigning. He has not won the islands back, not yet; this he plans to do, perhaps, when all his sons are grown.”