Heart's Blood (30 page)

“This might be very, very old. Why don’t you take it downstairs and show it to Olcan? He’s been here longer than any of us.”

I considered this idea as I stood up and tried walking around in the boots.They were a perfectly good fit; perhaps they, too, had been Emer’s. I stopped in front of the little mirror and looked straight into it.

“
Did you hear that?” Despite what had happened last time, I had not expected the artifact to speak again.

“What?” asked Eichri.

“A voice.The mirror.”

“Perhaps it only speaks to females. Ah, you’re going to take it. Need a hand?”

It seemed appropriate to carry the mirror myself, but I gave Eichri a pile of other items to bear downstairs for me.
Remember them all.
As far as I knew there had only been three: Mella, Líoch and Emer. There was a girdle of dark gray wool that seemed to match Mella’s ancient gowns, and this I passed to Eichri. I took a skirt that had likely been Líoch’s—it was much too small for me—thinking I might combine the fabric with that of Emer’s ruined gown to make a wearable garment. I folded this and passed it to my companion. “That’s all,” I said, closing the two chests and picking up the mirror again.

“Women’s magic?” Eichri queried with a grin.

“I haven’t a magical bone in my body, Eichri.”

“You don’t know your own power,” he chuckled. “You’ve worked some changes here, Caitrin; changes we never thought to see in this lonely old place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you brought a little doll with you to Whistling Tor, a treasure that contains the love of your family. And since you fashioned this poppet’s clothing anew, it holds Anluan’s family as well.”

“You seem to know rather a lot.” I was sure this was not what he had meant when he spoke of changes.

“As I said once before, word gets around.”

“Whatever it is, magic or only instinct, this feels right. You spoke of dangerous powers within the host, a force with ill intent. I’ll use anything I can to counter that. Women have suffered here at Whistling Tor because of Nechtan’s wrongdoing. It’s time someone remembered their strength. If that’s women’s magic, then it’s long overdue an airing.”

“If I were not so burdened, I would applaud you, Caitrin. Let us hope you can work a miracle.”

“You might ask those brethren of yours to offer up a prayer or two for good measure,” I said as we left the tower room.“A miracle is what Anluan needs.”

S
even days until full moon. I was sorely tempted to march over to Anluan’s quarters in the south tower, bang on his door and insist that he come out and talk to me. Of course I did nothing of the kind. His difficulties went far beyond any in my own experience, and I would not help him by losing control myself.

The oak-framed mirror hung on my wall now. The child loved it, examining her reflection with eager interest, making faces at herself, even uttering a hesitant laugh at the unaccustomed sight. For her this mirror seemed to function in quite the ordinary way. As for the mirror voice, I had not heard it again, but the artifact felt like a companion, and I was glad I had brought it down to my chamber. It seemed to me that the lonely shades of the departed women were no longer prisoners in the tower, but shared my own space, as if we were sisters.

I encountered Muirne in the kitchen as I was returning from a trip to the privy.

“I hear you have taken a mirror from the tower room, Caitrin.”

“That’s right,” I said, keeping my manner polite. Would it be worth trying to enlist her help? She was closer to Anluan than anyone, though of recent times it seemed he was shutting her out as well; on the rare occasions when I had seen her, she had been drifting about the gardens alone. “I hope you have no objections.”

“You are not free to help yourself to anything you want. That runs perilously close to stealing.”

The look in her eye worried me. In the light of the current crisis, this seemed a trivial matter.“My boots were leaking,” I said.“I needed another pair. That was what took me up to the tower. And you did say nobody wanted those old things.”

“Boots were not all you brought away.” She looked me up and down. I had dressed for courage today, in the new skirt I’d made by combining Emer’s shredded gown with Líoch’s rose pink garment. It was not an outfit I could have worn in the streets of Market Cross, but I felt I was carrying the other women with me, and that seemed right.

“You’ll remember how badly damaged the violet gown was, Muirne. I think I’ve made good use of materials that would otherwise have moldered away in the tower. As for the mirror, a woman needs one in her chamber.”

“These are not ordinary mirrors. They are ...” She gestured vaguely, as if there were no words adequate to describe the power of Nechtan’s creations.

“I know that, but this one seems benign. It will be helpful in the mornings when I’m getting dressed.”

“Why would your appearance matter?” She lifted her brows.

“You take a certain pride in yours.” My gaze traveled over the neatly pressed gown, the perfectly folded veil.

“Yes, but ...” She gave a delicate shrug.
Yes, but you are only a scribe.

“What I borrowed was taken in a spirit of respect,” I told her. “Those things in the tower are memories of the women of Whistling Tor. I don’t want those women to be forgotten.”

She looked baffled. “You are not one of the women of Whistling Tor, Caitrin.You’re going home at the end of the summer.”

“By the end of the summer we could all be gone,” I said.“Muirne, the Normans are coming in just a few days to talk to Anluan. I know you’re very close to him. Could you ask him if he’s prepared to listen to an idea I have?”

“An idea.What idea?”

“An idea for how he might handle this ... visit. A way it might be safe for him to go.”

“You think to tell Lord Anluan how he should conduct himself?”

I bit back my first response. “Of course not. He is the chieftain; he must make the decision. It’s a suggestion, that’s all. A good one, which he should listen to. Will you ask him, please? This threat is real, Muirne. It’s not going away.”

She seemed to shrink inside herself, her eyes narrowing, her lips tightening. Maybe she really did understand and was so afraid she denied the truth even to herself. “You’re wrong,” she said. “Push Anluan into this and you will bring down disaster on him and on all of us at Whistling Tor.”

“Muirne, I do know a little about the Normans, having lived in the outside world before I came here. Further east, they already rule wide stretches of territory.They’ve built strongholds and moved their own people in. And they have a different way of fighting, a way that is hard for our leaders to combat.They will come to Whistling Tor, and if Anluan doesn’t go down and speak to them, they’ll be back with an army. Then he really will lose everything.You can’t want that to happen.”

She looked me straight in the eye, and I knew I had miscalculated, for the expression I saw was the one that had frosted her features the very first time I met her, when she had tried to dismiss me before I was even hired. “You are not interested in these Normans, Caitrin. You care only about your own needs. Thanks to your interference, Anluan is exhausted, troubled, racked by doubt.Thanks to your foolish words of hope, he dreams of a future he cannot have.You have wrought untold damage here through sheer ignorance.You must not ask more of him. He has been wise to set himself apart, so he cannot be tempted by your voice, your foolish arguments, your ... Caitrin, I have lived here for a long time. I know Anluan. I know Whistling Tor. The chieftain must not step off the hill. That is the simple truth. As for your
suggestions,
he is better off without them, believe me. He bears sufficient burdens already.” She turned to go.

“Muirne, wait!”

“Yes, Caitrin?”

“I want the best for him,” I said quietly.“We all do. I don’t believe I’m being selfish.”

She smiled; her eyes remained cool.“Don’t let me keep you from your work,” she said, and walked away.

My work. Just as well she did not know the reason I had worn the motley garment made from women’s magic. Just as well she did not know what work awaited me in the library this morning. I needed answers, and time was short.Today I would use the obsidian mirror.

 

My heart raced. A clammy sweat of dread made my hand slip on the latch as I closed the inner door of the library. Which document to use? Did I really want to see the host unleashed, the bloody mayhem of that attack on Farannán’s household, with its rending and devouring? Try that, and I would no doubt learn once and for all that there was no taming the host. If there had been an account of the experiment itself, that would have been my choice, but thus far I had discovered no record of it, only accounts of the time leading up to that fateful All Hallows, the breathless anticipation and tense preparations, then Nechtan’s flat observations, set down considerably later, on the aftermath of his failure.

I walked across and shut the other door, the one that opened onto Irial’s garden. I stood at the window awhile looking out and trying to steady my breathing. I wanted to stay right where I was, gazing on the lovely place that Irial had made in the center of his dark world. But there was no time.

Back at the work table, I crouched to open the chest. There was only one item in it: the cloth-wrapped bundle that was Nechtan’s mirror. I lifted it out. It did not feel like a dead weight, but alive, vibrant, dangerous. I set it on the table beside me, still shrouded. My fingers refused to choose a document. I closed my eyes, took a leaf and turned it face up before me. I drew back the covering that concealed the dark mirror. In the light from the window, the creatures wrought on its rim blinked and stretched, waking to another revelation.

 

Something rouses him from his reverie. Not a sound, not a movement. He’s alone in the workroom with only the wretched grimoires for company. Nonetheless, his hackles rise; he’s alert suddenly, not to danger, to ... what? Something’s wrong; something’s happening that he must stop.
He’s gone
, a voice whispers in his ear.
She’s taken him away
.

He strides across the dim chamber to the door, wrenches uselessly at the handle, remembers the bolt, slams it open, takes the steps three at a time.Along the hallway, out the tower door, across the garden in the gloom of a wet autumn afternoon, slipping on fallen leaves, yelling for his serving people as he goes.

Down the hill
, whispers the voice.
Down the path.You may yet stop them
.

He’s quick on his feet, fit and strong despite all those years hunched over his books. It helps him now. He spots Mella from a vantage point halfway down. She’s moving slowly; she has the boy by the hand, and her maidservant walks in front with a bundle under her arm. Conan is hanging back, dawdling.

“Make haste, Conan! Quickly!” Mella’s voice trembles with fear.“Come, I’ll carry you.”

As she stoops to lift the boy, Nechtan gives a little cough. Mella turns, looks back up the hill. Her face blanches; her eyes go wide.

“Not another step,” says Nechtan. “Release my son’s hand. Do it, wife.”

As he hastens towards her down the winding track he clicks his fingers, and in his mind he summons what he needs.The dark forest darkens further. Swirling forms manifest beneath the trees.

Mella’s running, the child in her arms. The maidservant is almost out of sight, further down the path.

“Halt!” Nechtan roars, and Conan starts a thin wailing.Why hasn’t the boy’s mother taught him self-discipline? This is a future chieftain of Whistling Tor. “I said halt!”

Mella trips; she and Conan go sprawling on the wet path. The cries become shrieks. In a few long strides Nechtan is beside them. He reaches down, seizes his son by one arm, hauls him to his feet. “Be silent!” he orders, and when Conan does not seem to understand, he gives the child a shake. Conan clenches his jaw; the screams turn to stifled whimpers. The boy has some backbone, after all.

Mella rises to her knees. She clutches her son around the waist, holding on grimly. “Let him go, Nechtan!”

Nechtan’s grip tightens on the child’s shoulder. He eyes his wife with displeasure. Now she, too, is crying, ugly red eyes against skin pasty with fear.

“Where were you going?” he inquires.

“Away. Away from this cursed place! Nechtan, let Conan go!”

She seems unaware of the things that are gathering around them, the rustling, shadowy beings that people the woods on either side of the track.

“Answer me, Mella.Were you leaving me? Did you intend to quit your responsibility as lady of Whistling Tor without a backwards glance?”

Her lips tighten. “I’m taking my son to my mother’s home in the north. That such a visit seems impossible to you is an indication of how much is wrong here.”

“Ten days’ journey.With a single maidservant. On foot.”

Silence from Mella.

“This is no visit,” Nechtan says.“You’re leaving me.You have no intention of coming back. Confess it! Don’t lie to me!”

His wife lifts her chin, foolishly defiant.“No woman in her right mind would come back to this foul place, or to such a husband. God knows, I’ve done my best to stand by you, to keep things going while you let loose an evil you had no idea how to control, while you left your people and your lands to fall into ruin and made your neighbors one by one into enemies. I won’t see my son’s future blighted as well.”

“On one point you are correct,” he tells her, exerting considerable effort to make his tone cool.“You’ve outlived your usefulness here at Whistling Tor. Go, if that is your wish. I need no wife.” It’s been years since he took her to bed, and there are few servants left for her to manage. He’ll be glad to see the last of her dreary figure around the place. She can go to her mother’s and be done with it. He won’t set the host on her. He owes her something; she did give him his son.“As for Conan,” he adds, wanting to be quite sure she understands,“he’ll do perfectly well without you. It’s time I took a hand in his upbringing.”