Heart's Blood

chapter two

I skirted the wall, telling myself to breathe slowly. Those voices, those creeping hands . . . I had been too quick to dismiss Tomas and Orna’s stories as fantasy. And afterwards, I’d been so alarmed by the appearance of Fianchu that I hadn’t even thought to ask Olcan what the mysteri ous presences were. I understood, now, why people never came up here. If Olcan hadn’t appeared at the right moment to rescue me, I’d probably have become so hopelessly lost I’d never have emerged from the woods again. I just hoped I would get the scribing job so I didn’t have to walk back down the hill today.

I paused to tidy my hair and straighten my clothing. I practiced what I would say to Lord Anluan or to whomever I met when I finally reached the front door. My name is Caitrin, daughter of Berach. My father trained me as a scribe. He was famous throughout our area for his fine calligraphy and undertook commissions for all the local chieftains. I can read and write both Latin and Irish, and I’m prepared to stay here all summer. I am certain I can do the job. Perhaps not that last bit—it implied a confidence I did not feel. Ita had told me often enough that women could never ply such crafts as penmanship as well as men could, and that I was deluding myself if I imagined I was any different. I knew she was expressing society’s view when she said that. Any commissions I had fulfilled had always been presented to customers as my father’s work. It had irked Father that such subterfuge was necessary if we wanted fair payment. Folk believed, generally, that all I did was mix inks, prepare quills and keep the workroom tidy.

Lord Anluan would likely be no different from others we had worked for. He might well find it hard to believe that anyone other than a monk could read and write, for secular scribes such as my father were a rare breed. As for convincing this chieftain to employ a young woman for such work, that might not be so hard, I thought, in the light of the difficulty Magnus seemed to be having in finding helpers who would stay.

Further around the wall there was an arched opening with the remnant of iron fastenings to either side. If there had been a gate to block this entry, it had long since crumbled away to nothing.The fortress would once have provided an impregnable refuge, a safe retreat for the inhabitants of local farms and settlements in time of war. The stone blocks that formed it were massive. I could not for the life of me imagine how they had been moved into place.

Everything was damp.The stones were covered with creeping mosses; small ferns had colonized every chink and crevice, and long-thorned briars clustered thickly around the base of the wall, a forbidding outer barrier. I looked up at the towers and was seized by dizziness. Fine day or not, their tips were lost in a misty shroud.

Narrow slit windows pierced these towers, designed for the shooting of arrows in defense. There were some larger openings lower down, and from the gateway where I stood I glimpsed someone moving about inside, perhaps a woman. Magnus is the most ordinary it gets up there, Tomas had said.

I advanced cautiously through the gap.The space enclosed by the wall was immense, far bigger than it had seemed from outside, and there were buildings of various kinds set up against the bastion, here on one level, there on two, with external steps of stone. In one place these went up to a high walkway, a place where fighting men might be stationed in time of siege. Not that such a presence could be effective now, when anyone could wander in without a by-your-leave. The high, round towers were situated at the corners of the wall and had their own entries.

I would have expected a chieftain’s stronghold to have a courtyard inside, a place where warriors on horseback and oxen drawing carts could be accommodated, and where all the bustle and activity of a noble household could unfold. There was nothing like that here. Instead, the whole place was grown over with trees of various kinds—I saw a plum, a hazel, a weeping willow—and under them were bushes and grasses alive with insects and birds. I advanced along a flagstone path, my skirt brushing the thick foliage of bordering plants, and saw that beneath this lush, undisciplined growth there were traces of old gardens, lavender and rosemary bushes, stakes for beans now leaning on drunken angles, patches where straw had been laid to shelter vegetables of some kind. On a weedy pond, two ducks swam in desultory circles.

The main door might have been anywhere. All was swathed in creepers and mosses, and every time I glanced across at the biggest of the buildings, the one I thought most likely to be the entry point, it seemed to be in a slightly different place. Use your common sense, I ordered myself grimly as I noted the position of the sun relative to the towers I had just passed. Towers and walls didn’t move. This place might be odd, but nowhere was as odd as that. I passed a hawthorn bush over which a lonely shirt had been laid to dry. The garment was sodden from last night’s rain. I still couldn’t see the front door.

A scarecrow stood amidst the ill-tended plants near the path, a crow perched on each shoulder. It was an odd thing in a voluminous black cloak and a silk-lined cap. I went closer and the sun broke through the mist above me, striking a glint from a decoration that circled the neck of the effigy. Saints preserve us, if those were real jewels the manikin was wearing a king’s ransom.

The scarecrow raised a long-fingered hand to cover its mouth politely, then gave a cough. I felt the blood drain from my face. I stepped back, and whatever it was stepped forward out of the garden, flinging its cloak around itself in an imperious gesture. The crows flew up in fright. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak.The thing fixed its dark, assessing eyes on me and smiled without showing its teeth. There was a greenish pallor about its skin, as if it had been left out too long in the rain.

“Excuse me,” I babbled stupidly, “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m looking for the chieftain, Lord Anluan. Or Magnus.”

The being lifted its hand, pointing towards a wall that seemed to enclose another garden. Through an archway mantled by a white-flowered creeper wafted a scent of familiar herbs: basil, thyme and wormwood.The inner wall was covered in honeysuckle.

“In there? Thank you.” I scuttled away, eyes averted. You need this job, Caitrin.You need this hiding place.You vowed you would be brave.

The walled garden was almost as unkempt and overgrown as the area outside, but I could see it had once been lovely. A birch tree stood in the center, and around it were the remnants of a circular path lined with stones, and beds of medicinal herbs hedged with bay. The bay was running riot and the herbs were sorely in need of a trimming, but it was clear that this little garden had been more recently tended than the wilderness beyond its walls. An ancient stone birdbath held its share of avian visitors; someone had cleaned and replenished it not long ago. A wooden bench stood under the tree, and on it lay an open book, face down. I froze. But there was nobody in sight; it seemed the reader had tired of study and left this sanctuary.

I put my bundle and writing box on the bench and walked slowly around the path, liking the methodical way the garden had been laid out. Its untidiness did not trouble me; it was only in the practice of my craft that my mind required complete order. This haven had been planted by a skilled herbalist. There was everything here for a wide range of uses, both culinary and medicinal. Belladonna for fever, sorrel for the liver. Figwort, meadowsweet, heart-of-the-earth. And over there . . .

Heart’s blood. In an unobtrusive corner, half hidden beneath the spreading silvery-gray leaves of a gigantic comfrey plant, grew a clump of this rarest of herbs. I’d never seen the real thing before, but I knew it from an illustrated treatise on inks and dyes.

I moved closer, crouching down to examine the leaves—they grew in characteristic groups of five, with neat serrations along each delicate edge—and the stem with its unusual mottled pattern. No buds yet; this rarity bloomed only in autumn, and then briefly. It was the flowers that made it an herb beyond price, for their crushed petals, when mixed in specific proportions with vinegar and oak ash, produced an ink of rich hue, a splendid deep purple favored by kings and princes for their most regal decrees and beloved of bishops for the illustrated capitals in missals and breviaries.The capacity to produce a supply of heart’s blood ink could make a man’s fortune. I brushed my fingers gently against the foliage.

“Don’t touch that!” roared a deep voice from behind me. I leaped to my feet, my heart thudding in fright.

A man stood on the pathway not three arms’ lengths from me, glaring. He had come from nowhere, and he looked not only angry, but somehow . . . wrong.

“I wasn’t—I was just—” Suddenly I was back in Market Cross, with Cillian’s cruel hands gripping my shoulders as he shook me, and Cillian’s abusive words ringing in my ears.“I—I—” Pull yourself together, Caitrin. Say something. I stood frozen, my stomach tying itself in knots.

The stranger stood over me, fist clenched in fury, eyes glowering. “What are you doing here? This place is forbidden!”

I struggled to find the words I had prepared. “I’m a ... I’ve come to . . .” Get a grip on yourself, Caitrin.You are not going back to that dark place. “I’m a . . . a ...” I forced the memory down, making myself look up at the man. His appearance was unsettling, for although his features were above the commonplace in beauty, they were at the same time somehow skewed, as if the two sides of his face were not a perfect match for each other. I noted the red hair, as ill tended and overgrown as his garden, and the fair complexion, flushed by anger. His eyes were of an intense dark blue and as inimical as his voice.

“You’re a what?” he snarled. “A thief? Why else would you be here? Nobody comes here!”

“I wasn’t trying to steal the heart’s blood plant,” I managed. “I’m here about the work. The position. Reading. Scribing. Latin.” I faltered to a halt, backing away. I could feel his rage quivering in the air of the peaceful garden.

He stood there a moment, staring at me as if I were the oddity and everything else here completely normal.Then he lurched towards me, one arm outstretched as if to seize hold of me.The cold fear washed through me again. “It doesn’t matter,” I squeaked. “I must have made a mistake . . .”

I backed further, then fled for the archway. Curse it! Curse this place, and curse Ita and her son, and most of all, a pox on me for daring to hope that I might have found sanctuary and for being wrong. And now I had to go all the way through that wretched forest again.

“Wait.” The man’s tone had changed. “You can read Latin?”

I halted with my back to him, my stomach churning. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. My lips refused to form the simple word yes, but I managed a nod.

“Magnus!” the man roared behind me, making my heart jolt with fright. I drew a shaky breath and turned to see him heading off towards a door at the other end of the garden, an entry direct into the most substantial of the buildings backing onto the fortress wall. Despite his height and strong build, the man’s gait was markedly uneven, and the odd slope of his shoulders was quite pronounced. Warped and twisted like thread gone awry on the loom. If that had been Anluan, neither of us had made a good first impression.

As I’d been told to wait, I waited, but not inside the forbidden area. I collected my belongings and went to stand just beyond the archway, one eye out for any further oddities.That was where Magnus found me a little later. He had shed his weaponry but still made a formidable figure with his twists of hair, his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms. One of the gallóglaigh,Tomas had called him.They were mercenary warriors, islanders descended from Norsemen and Dalriadans. I wondered how this one had ended up at Whistling Tor.

“A scribe,” the big man said flatly, fixing shrewd gray eyes on my face, which no doubt was unusually pale. “How did you know about the work we needed done?”

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset anyone,” I said. “My name is Caitrin, daughter of Berach. I stayed last night at the village inn. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Tomas.”

His gaze had sharpened as I spoke. “I’m told you were attempting to steal a precious plant from our garden,” he said.“That’s not the act of someone who’s seeking employment.”

“I told that man I wasn’t stealing! If you’re talking about heart’s blood, the time to steal it would be autumn, when it’s flowering.The value’s all in the blooms. For the ink, you know.”

There was a moment’s silence; then Magnus’s strong features creased into a smile. He looked like a man who didn’t smile much.“All right, maybe you are a scribe,” he said. “That doesn’t explain how you got here.”

“I walked. I did lose my way, but a man helped me. A man with a dog. Olcan and Fianchu.”

Magnus’s eyes widened.

“As you see, I got here safely,” I added.

“Mm. No fear of dogs, then. Well, I’ve been ordered to take you indoors, and I imagine he’ll want a sample of your writing.This way.”

“I’m not sure I want to stay.That was him in the garden, wasn’t it? Lord Anluan? He scared me. He was so angry.”

“You look cold,” Magnus said. “My name’s Magnus. I do everything here, more or less. Steward, guard, farmer, cook, cleaner . . . You may as well come in and have something to drink, since you’ve got this far. Don’t let Anluan upset you. He’s not used to folk, that’s all. We’re a bit out of practice.”

I drew a deep, unsteady breath. His manner was reassuring: blunt but kind. He seemed the sort of man who would be truthful.“All right,” I said. “If you’re sure it’s safe. There are some very odd-looking folk here. Not that looks should matter, but . . .”

“I’ll take that for you,” said Magnus, pointing to my bag. I passed it to him and we headed along the path.“If you’re planning on staying to do the job, you’ll need to learn not to let appearances upset you,” my companion added. “We’re all oddities here.”

“The folk in the settlement said you were the most ordinary person on the hill.”

Magnus gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Ordinary, what’s that?” he said grimly. “As it is, you may not be here long enough to meet us all. Once you see the job he wants doing, you’ll very likely change your mind. Anyway, you may not be up to the standard he requires.”

“I was trained by the best.”

“Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?” Now he sounded amused. “There’s one thing you need to remember.”

“Oh?” I fully expected the kind of instructions people got in dark tales;Whistling Tor seemed just the place for them. Don’t touch the little key third from the right. Don’t go into the chamber at the top of the tower. “What is that?”

“Stay out of Irial’s garden,” Magnus said. “Nobody goes in without Anluan’s invitation.You broke that rule.You upset him. He’s had enough people take one look at him and run off in disgust, without you adding yourself to the number.”

“I wasn’t disgusted, just scared. He came out of nowhere and he shouted at me. I’d already seen Olcan and the dog, and a scarecrow that walked around and showed me the way. And there were voices. And hands. They were all around me in the forest, trying to entice me off the path.”

“If you’re so easily frightened,” Magnus observed,“you won’t last here more than a day or two. Might be kinder to leave without getting his hopes up too much. I don’t want you to get started on the work, then bolt because you can’t cope. I’m surprised you plucked up the courage to come at all.”

“I can cope,” I said, stung by the criticism. “I didn’t know I was trespassing. I walked up intending to find you and ask you about the job.The folk in the village had plenty to say about this place, but I dismissed most of it as wild exaggeration. After Fianchu, and those voices, I realize I may have been wrong.”

“Ah. No doubt Tomas regaled you with stories about Anluan’s disfigurement and his general ineptitude as a leader?”

“More or less.” I was ashamed now. My parents had taught me not to judge on appearances. “They implied his—condition—was part of a family curse.”

“Make your own judgments—that’s always been my philosophy.” Magnus’s mouth was set in a tight line now. “Maybe that’s why I’m still here and nobody else is.”

When I had looked at Anluan’s curiously unbalanced features, had my own face shown a revulsion that was all too familiar to him? What must he have thought of me? “I heard that the scribing work will take the whole summer,” I said. “I know you experience some difficulty in getting people to stay here. I am available to work right through until autumn if that’s what is required. Provided you can assure me that I will be safe here, I won’t bolt. I’ll stay until the task is completed.”

“Mm-hm.” Magnus ushered me up some steps and into what was evidently the living area. I followed him along a dark hallway and then through a series of chambers of austere appearance.There were no rushes on the floor and the rooms were almost bare of furniture.The stone walls had a damp look about them. I spotted a tall bronze mirror propped in a corner, its surface partly covered by a cloth. Images moved in it, things that most certainly did not exist in this near-empty chamber. I hesitated, my gaze drawn towards it, my flesh crawling with unease. “We’ll go to the kitchen,” Magnus said. “You’ll be wanting to get warm.”

The kitchen was down another hallway and through a heavy oak door. A meager fire struggled on the hearth. On a well-scrubbed table lay the bundle of supplies Magnus had carried up from the village, its contents as yet unpacked. My companion hung a kettle from an iron support over the hearth and added wood to the fire. I watched him, my head full of awkward questions.

Magnus rummaged on a shelf, produced a little box and spooned something from it into an earthenware cup. As he worked I looked about me, noticing that this chamber, too, had its mirror, a three-sided, polished piece of some dark metal I could not identify. It seemed an ordinary one, the reflection showing a section of wall and roof, but the light was odd, as if the image within the metal showed the room at a different time of day or in a different season. It was hard not to stare at it.

“This is a restorative mix,” Magnus said, stirring. “Should put a bit of heart back into you.You look as if you need it.” When the kettle was steaming, he filled the cup and put it on the table beside me. “It’s safe to drink,” he added. “By the way, you might want to avoid looking in the mirrors for a while.They can be confusing.You’ll get used to them in time. If you stay, that is.”

“I see.” It was troubling how strongly the polished surface drew the eye, as if it might have enticing secrets to yield. I changed the subject.“Are you the one who tends the herb garden, Magnus?” I asked. “Irial’s garden, is that what it’s called? I noticed it’s quite well kept compared with . . .” My voice trailed away as I realized the implied insult in my words.

“That garden’s his domain,” Magnus said. “But I do everything else.” He glanced around the kitchen, plainly seeing it through my eyes. It was clean but remarkably bare, the shelves near empty, the cooking pans, platters and cups lined up neatly. My sister’s kitchen, at home in Market Cross, had been a place of warmth and light, savory smells and bustling activity. That was before Father died; before Maraid abandoned me to Ita and Cillian. Going into that kitchen had felt like being hugged against a mother’s heart.This chamber was cold, despite the fire.There was no heart here.

“I meant no criticism,” I said awkwardly.

“Not your fault, is it? At least, now you’re here, I can take looking for a scribe off my list of duties. That’s if he’ll have you. I’d best go and speak to him.”

I sat alone before the fire while he went off to find his master. I tried the herbal draft, which was bitter but not unpleasing. I imagined Maraid here, setting a jug of wildflowers on a shelf, hanging a bright weaving on a bare wall, singing as she chopped onions and leeks for a pie. But then Maraid would never be in my current situation. She was far too practical. All she had done was fall in love with a traveling musician and end up poor. She’s her mother all over again, I could hear Ita saying. A slut born and bred, can’t help herself. And you’ll be the same, mark my words.Your kind of looks attract the wrong sort of man, the sort with only one thing on his mind.

I was about halfway through the drink when my gaze crossed the mirror once again and I saw reflected in it the form of a woman standing very still in the doorway behind me. Somehow she had got there without a sound. I jumped up, spilling the contents of my cup. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking around for something to clean up with. “You startled me.” When she did not reply, I added, “My name is Caitrin, daughter of Berach. I’m here about the scribing job.”

She stood watching in silence as I found a cloth and wiped the tabletop. Under her scrutiny I straightened, turning to face her. This was no serving woman. Her manner was regal and her clothing, though plain to the point of severity, was expertly cut and fashioned of finest wool. The gown was dove grey, the overdress a slightly darker shade; her hair was concealed by a light veil. Under its neat folds her expression was coolly judgmental. Anluan’s wife? She was quite young, perhaps not much older than me. How old was the chieftain? Between the unkempt hair, the scowl and the oddity of his features, all I could say was that he was probably no more than thirty.

The woman clasped her hands together, gazing at me with lustrous gray eyes. Her features were neat and small. She held herself very straight. Anluan’s sister, perhaps? Could she be Magnus’s daughter?

“I’m just waiting for Magnus to come back,” I said, forcing a smile. “He said I could sit here.”

The woman did not smile. “I’m sorry,” she said crisply. “We won’t be needing you.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, I protested. “Magnus implied that I could have the job if I was able to do it. I should at least be given a trial—”

She took a step back, as if to allow me to pass her on my way out.“We won’t be needing you. It was a mistake.”

I stared at her. The promise of work, of funds, of safety from Cillian, the hope of a refuge for a whole summer, all dashed because of a mistake? “But Magnus came down to the settlement asking for someone who could read and write Latin,” I said, feeling my face flush. “I can do that. I should be given a chance to prove myself, my lady.” I considered telling her the truth and casting myself on her mercy. Somehow I didn’t think that would get me very far. “Even if there has been a mistake, I’m certain I can make myself useful here.” After all, Magnus had said they needed a boy for the farm and a woman for the house. If I could be safe, I’d be prepared to scrub floors all summer, even with this chilly woman giving the orders. “Please, my lady,” I said. Her intense, wide-eyed scrutiny unnerved me.“At least let me speak to Magnus again.”

“There is no need to speak to anyone else,” she said. After a moment she added, “You are disappointed. Understand that it is best that you do not stay.”

Tears stung my eyes. I was reaching for my belongings when Magnus strode in the back door and set a quill, an ink pot and a scrap of parchment on the table. “Write something,” he ordered. “Straightaway, he said, to prove you can work quickly as well as accurately. If it’s good enough, he’ll consider giving you a few days’ trial.”

I glanced over at the woman. Her lips were pressed tightly together; a little line had appeared between her brows. “I was told I wasn’t required,” I said quietly.

“It’s all right, Muirne,” said Magnus. “Anluan wants to see her work.”

I drew a shaky breath. “You said if it’s good enough. Good enough for what?” I asked, putting my writing box on the table and undoing the clasps. “Unless I know what this task is, how can I judge what sample to provide? Latin or Irish? What hand? What size?” I got out a medium goose quill and a pot of the black ink I had mixed myself. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll use my own things.”

Magnus waited, arms folded, as I produced Father’s special knife and refined the quill.

“What does he want me to write?” I asked, glancing up at him.

“He didn’t say. Just show what you can do.”

“But how can I—”

“Best get on with it or I’ll have to tell him you were slow.”

“Slow-witted, you mean, or slow at my craft? I am neither. But this is like sewing a coat for a man you’ve never seen, when you don’t know whether it’s for going fishing or parading around court to impress people.” The task was not made any easier by the silent watcher in the doorway.

“Do you want the position or don’t you?” Magnus asked flatly.

I could not tell them how desperately I did want it, ill-tempered chieftain, disapproving noblewoman, animated scarecrow and all. Anluan had scared me, true; but nothing could be as terrifying as what I had left behind me. A sample: what would he expect? Should I provide an apt Latin quotation? Draft a letter? In the end, the quill moved almost despite me, and what I wrote was this: I can read and write fluently in Latin and Irish. I’m sorry if I upset you. I would like to help you, if you will allow that. Caitrin.

My script was plain and neat; I had the knack of keeping it straight even when there was no time to score guidelines. At the top of my sample I added the name Anluan, and decorated the capital with a little garland of honeysuckle around which a few bees hovered. The C for Caitrin I made into a slender hound sleeping in a curled position, tail tucked over its legs. I dusted on some fine sand from the bag I kept with my supplies, and the piece was more or less ready.

“Was that quick enough?” I asked as I passed the parchment up to Magnus, surprising an unguarded smile on his lips.“Hold it flat, it won’t be completely dry yet. If he’s so particular, I imagine smeared ink will rule me straight out of contention.”

He bore my handiwork away and I waited again, uncomfortable under the eyes of the woman in the doorway. I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so I remained silent and, for a while, so did she. Then she advanced into the kitchen, moved some cups around on a shelf and said, with her back to me, “You won’t stay. Nobody stays. You will end up disappointing him.” Her tone was odd, constrained. Magnus had said something along the same lines: that it would be better to leave now than to get Anluan’s hopes up only to desert him later. I didn’t want to make an enemy of Muirne or Magnus. If I got the job, we’d be living in the same household all summer.

“If he wants me, I will stay,” I said, but as the time drew out I wondered whether it might be better if Anluan sent back a message that I wasn’t up to the job. Magnus would probably escort me down the hill if I asked him to. Tomas had said the village would shelter me. How likely was it, really, that Cillian would come so far west in his efforts to track me down?

I tried to weigh up Whistling Tor with all its peculiarities, including the curse Tomas and Orna had mentioned, and the situation I had run from. People in Market Cross had believed it fortunate that Ita and Cillian were there to tend to me in the helpless fog of grief that had followed my father’s death. Ita liked to make sure folk understood. Someone had come to the house asking for me; perhaps several people. I’d not been myself at the time, and I couldn’t remember clearly. I did recall Ita’s voice, sharp and confident. You can’t see her. She can’t see anyone. You know how highly strung Caitrin always was. Losing her father has turned her wits. She’s in no fit state to make her own decisions, nor is she likely to be for some time to come. I will nurse her and provide for her, of course; my son and I will be staying in this house to ensure Caitrin is properly looked after. And I’ll set my mark to any legal papers on her behalf. Poor Caitrin! She was such an accomplished girl. If people couldn’t see me, they couldn’t see the bruises. If people couldn’t hear me, it didn’t matter if I spoke sense or nonsense. Anyway, I wouldn’t have had the courage to speak up. Because the worst thing wasn’t Cillian’s fists or Ita’s cruel tongue. It was me. It was the way the two of them turned me into a helpless child, full of self-loathing and timidity. It would be a mistake to think I’d be safe in the village with Tomas and Orna. Cillian would pursue me. Ita was determined that he and I would marry. It’s best for you, Caitrin, she’d said, and I’d been too sad, too confused to ask for a proper explanation. It couldn’t be about worldly goods. Father had left Maraid and me almost nothing.

“A scribe,” said Muirne, turning to fix her large eyes on my face.“How did you learn to be a scribe?”

“My father taught me.” I had no intention of confiding in her; not before I found out if I was staying or going. “He was a master craftsman, much in demand around the region of Market Cross.”

“There are many papers. It’s dusty. Dirty. Hard work. Not a lady’s work.”

My smile was probably more of a grimace.“In this particular field, I am a very hard worker. I hope I will get the opportunity to prove it to you.”

Her neat brows lifted, and a little smile curved her lips.A moment later, she was gone as silently as she had arrived.

“Come with me. I’ll show you where you can put your things.” Magnus spoke from the other doorway.

I jumped to my feet. “Does that mean I’ve got the job?”

“A trial period. I’m to show you what needs to be done—you may change your mind once you see it—and you can work on it for a few days. He’ll assess your progress and decide if you’re up to completing the work by the end of summer. There’s a chamber on the upper floor where you can sleep.”

I hurried after him, questions tumbling over one another in my mind. “What exactly is it I’ll be working on?” I asked.

“Records. Family history. They’ve all been scholars after their own fashion, from Anluan’s great-grandfather down to him. He’s got all manner of documents in there, some of them not in the best condition. Needs sorting out, putting straight. It’s a mess, I warn you. Enough to dishearten the most orderly of scribes, in my opinion. But what do I know of such matters?”

As he talked, the steward led me along a hallway and up a precipitous flight of heavily worn steps to an upper floor, where several chambers opened off a long gallery. Large spiders tenanted each corner and crevice of the stonework. Leaves had blown in through the openings where the gallery overlooked the garden to gather in damp piles against the walls.There was a forlorn smell, the scent of decay.

“Here,” said Magnus, ushering me through a doorway.

The chamber was bare, cold and unwelcoming, just like the downstairs rooms I had seen. It was furnished with a narrow shelf bed and an old storage chest. I did not think anyone had slept here for a very long time. “I’ll bring you up some blankets,” my companion said.“It gets cold here at nights. There’s a pump outside the kitchen door; we use that for washing. And you’ll need a candle.”

“Has this door a bolt?”

“This may not be your run-of-the-mill household,” Magnus said,“but you’ll be quite safe here. Anluan looks after his own.”

On this particular point it was necessary to hold my ground. “Anluan can hardly be expected to patrol up and down this gallery all night making sure nobody disturbs us,” I said.

“No,” Magnus agreed. “Rioghan does that.”

“Rioghan!” I was surprised to hear a name I recognized. “I met him yesterday. At least, I think it must be the same man. A sad-looking person with a red cloak. I didn’t realize he lived here at the fortress.”

“He’s one of those who live in the house,” Magnus said.“I’ll introduce you to all of them at supper, when we generally gather. More live out in the woods, but you won’t see them so much.”

“Did you really mean that, about Rioghan walking up and down the gallery at night? I’m not sure I’d be very happy about that, even if it did make things safer.”

“Rioghan doesn’t sleep. He keeps watch. He may not be on the gallery—he prefers the garden—but he’ll be alert to anything unusual. As I said, it’s safe on Whistling Tor provided you belong.”

“I don’t belong, not yet.”

“If Anluan wants you here, you belong, Caitrin.”

“I still want a bolt for my door.”

“I’ll put it on my list of things to do.”

“Today, please, Magnus. I understand you are very busy, but this is a ... a requirement for me. Something I can’t do without. Perhaps I can return the favor in some way.” As soon as this was out I remembered the carter’s words: There’s other ways of paying. “For instance, I could chop vegetables or sweep floors,” I added.

“I’ll bear it in mind. Well, make yourself at home. There’s a privy out beyond the kitchen.When you’re ready, come down and I’ll show you the library. You’ll be wanting to make a start.”

Some time later, clad in the spare gown I had brought—a practical dark green—and with my hair brushed and replaited, I stood with Magnus on the threshold of the library and found myself lost for words.

I had always valued order. The skilled exercise of calligraphy depends in large measure on neatness, accuracy, uniformity. In our workroom at Market Cross, the tools had been meticulously maintained and the materials stored with careful attention to safety and efficiency. It had been a haven of discipline and control.

Anluan’s library was the most chaotic place I’d ever had the ill luck to stumble into. It was a sizable chamber. Several big tables would have made useful work surfaces had they not been heaped high with documents, scrolls and loose leaves of parchment. This fragile material was strewn about apparently at random. Around the walls stood sundry chests and smaller tables, their tops as heavily laden as those of their larger counterparts. I suspected every receptacle would reveal, on opening, a welter of entangled materials.

I walked in, not saying a word. There were glazed windows all along the western side of the chamber. In the afternoons the light would be excellent for writing.

“The things you’ll need are in that oak chest,” said Magnus, pointing to the far end of the chamber. “Pens, powders for ink and so on. He said even if you’ve brought your own, they’ll run out quickly. There’s a good stock of parchment, enough for the job, he thinks. If you need more of anything we can get it, but to be honest I’d rather not have the trouble.”

I eyed the disorder around me, trying hard to view it not as an obstacle but as a challenge.“What exactly is it I’m supposed to do here? Is Lord Anluan going to explain it to me himself?” A family of scholars, Magnus had said. I thought of the very detailed instructions Father and I had received for our commissions, the minute attention some of our customers had paid to the niceties of execution. “Where is the material I have to transcribe?”

And when Magnus just looked at me, then cast his gaze around to take in the entire chamber, long scrolls, thick bound books, tiny fragments, loose bundles of parchment sheets, I felt hysterical laughter welling up in my throat.

“All of this?” I choked.“In a single summer? What does this man think I am, a miracle worker?”

Magnus lifted a scrap of vellum by a corner and blew on it, setting dust motes dancing in the light from the window. “Trained by the best, didn’t you say?”

“I was. But this ... this is crazy. How do I know where to start?”

“You don’t have to write everything down. It’s only the Latin parts he wants, seeing as he was never taught that tongue. It’s Nechtan’s records, the oldest ones. There’s some in Irish, and he’s read those, but he thinks some of the Latin documents are his great-grandfather’s as well. He needs you to find those and put them into Irish so he can read them for himself.They’re mixed up with all sorts of other things.” Magnus glanced at a row of small bound books that had been set by themselves on a shelf, and his expression softened a trace. “Pictures, recipes for cures and so on. Notes, thoughts. Each of the chieftains of Whistling Tor made his own records. But the library’s never been organized. The oldest pieces are crumbling away. If it was me doing the job—not that I’m a reading man, myself—I’d see some merit in making a list of what’s here as you go through it, so you’ll know where to find things later. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Perfect sense, Magnus. Thank you for the suggestion.” I took one of the little bound books from the shelf and opened it flat on a table, revealing a charming illustration of some kind of medicinal herb. Beside it, in spidery writing, were instructions for preparing a tincture suitable for the treatment of warts and carbuncles. “I wish someone had done that before now. Made a list, I mean.You said Lord Anluan and his family were scholars.”

Perhaps I had sounded too critical.“He did make a start himself.” Magnus’s tone was forbidding. “Or tried to.”

“Tried to.” If what Tomas and Orna had told me was true, this chieftain must have a lot of time on his hands. They’d implied that he did not perform any of the duties a local leader might be expected to undertake, such as riding forth to make sure his folk were well, checking on his fields and settlements, establishing defenses against possible attack. “This is a big task, Magnus. It looks as if I’ll have to sort out the entire contents of the library before I start on the translation. Is there anyone here who could help me?”

“Shall I go and tell him you can’t do the job?”

“No!” I found that I was clutching the plant book to my chest, and set it down. “No, please don’t. I will do my best.”

Magnus’s gaze was assessing. “Is it the law you’re running from, with your need for a locked door and your wish to take on a job nobody else would want?”

He was too perceptive by half. “If you don’t ask awkward questions, I won’t,” I said.

“Fair enough.”

“But I must ask just one. Why doesn’t Lord Anluan come and talk to me about this himself?”

“Anluan doesn’t see folk from outside.”

This flat statement sounded remarkably final. How could I do a good job without talking to the man who wanted it done? No awkward questions. That meant I could take this line of conversation no further.

Magnus had moved over to the window and was staring out. The library overlooked the herb garden in which I had encountered the reclu sive chieftain of Whistling Tor earlier. From here I could not see the clump of heart’s blood, only the profusion of honeysuckle and the riotous growth of more common herbs.

“You shouldn’t judge him,” the steward said quietly. “He’s got his reasons. You’re our first visitor in a long time, and the first ever to come without some coercion. And you’re a woman. It was a shock.”

“To me, too,” I said, deciding not to point out that if one advertised for a scribe, one should not be surprised to see one turn up on the doorstep, so to speak. I was learning that the rules of this household bore little resemblance to those of the outside world. I moved to a small table by the window, which stood out for being the one tidy place in the chamber.The oak surface had been wiped clean, and on it stood a jar fashioned of an unusual green stone with a swirling pattern, containing several inexpertly trimmed quills and a knife. Perhaps Muirne was responsible for this little island of order. Beside the jar lay two sheets of good parchment, covered in writing. I picked one up. “Whose hand is this?” I asked.

“Anluan’s,” said Magnus. “Nobody else here can write.”

One look told me why Anluan had done no more than make a start on the daunting task. True, he could write, and if I really put my mind to it I could read what he had written. It was the worst hand I’d seen in my life, so undisciplined that the letters seemed to be trying to crawl right off the page.

“Don’t look like that,” Magnus said. “You’re a scribe, and he’s a fellow who’s lost the use of his right hand.”There was no judgment in his voice, only sorrow.

“I’m sorry . . .” My voice faded as I began to read.

Autumn begins to bite hard. I am in the final stages of preparation. With each new dawn, my mind and body are more fiercely driven by this. Knowledge beyond the earthly; a discovery to surpass any made hitherto by mortal man in this world. What if it is true? What if I can open this portal into the unknown? Where might I journey? What wondrous events might I witness? And when I return, how will I be changed?

I have dispatched Aislinn to gather wolfbane.

“I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve got things to do.”

I glanced up, one finger keeping my place on the page as I nodded to Magnus. He said something about supper, but his words faded into nothing as I was captured by the narrative before me.

Another day. Another step. As the time for the experiment draws closer, my helpers desert me, too blind to share my vision to the end, too feeble to bear the weight of my aspirations. They have allowed the superstitious tales of the local populace to influence them. My steward left me this morning. I can no longer serve you—those were his weakling words. No matter. I need no lackeys. I will do this alone, and when it is done I will have a parade of followers, a retinue of attendants, an army worthy of a king. They will be mine to lead, and those who doubted me, those who had not the stomach to stay the course, will choke on their cowardice. I will open this portal, and I will walk

I had reached the end of the second page. A dark and fascinating tale; I wanted more. But there was no more, not here at any rate. It couldn’t be Anluan’s account of his own experience, surely. He had not seemed at all the kind of man who would write thus, in an archaic and grandiose way, nor could I in my wildest imagination think of him commanding an army of any kind. This must be a partial transcription of some older document. To discover the rest of the story, I would have to hunt down Anluan’s source.

In the window embrasure beside the table where the chieftain had been working stood a little old chest. It was marginally less dust-coated than the others and seemed the obvious place to start looking. I reached out to see if it would open, then withdrew my hand.The box had a powerful aura, enticing and repellent at the same time. It made my skin prickle with unease and my heart race with anticipation.

The voice of reason told me there was no need to open it right now. There were small mountains of other documents to sort, not to speak of sweeping the floor, wiping away the dust that coated every surface, airing the room, establishing a storage system so I would know where to find things. I cleared a space on one of the bigger tables by the crude method of pushing everything else out of the way and got out the folding wax tablet I kept for making notes. It had seen good use over the years. I had learned my letters on it, my small hand wielding the stylus at first awkwardly, later with more control, as I formed the foundations of my craft. The tablet was shaped like a book, with a hinged wooden cover. A leather strap held it closed when not in use, and the stylus had its own pocket. The wax surfaces, protected thus, had remained clean and serviceable. I would use this to keep daily records of my work and to note down which documents were located where. Parchment and vellum were too costly to be squandered on such ephemeral writings. I opened the tablet, glanced around the library and sighed. I could feel that box calling to me. Read, it whispered. Read and weep.

I wouldn’t be able to set my mind to any other work until I dealt with this. I moved to the window and opened the box. No demons sprang forth. Inside, an assortment of items was neatly stowed. For the most part the contents were leaves of parchment, rolled in bundles and tied with disintegrating cords. Herbs had been sprinkled between the bundles long ago. These had dwindled to dust, but a faint sweet scent lingered on the pages, which were starting to crumble away at the edges. I reached for a bundle, then froze, gripped by a sense that someone was watching me. My skin prickling, I straightened and looked about me.The door to the garden stood ajar, but if someone had been there, he had vanished between one breath and the next. A faint scent of herbs lingered, sage and rosemary. I glanced out the window, but could see nobody. Get a grip on yourself, Caitrin. This place is odd enough without adding your own imaginings. I bent again to my task, lifting out each bundle of documents in turn and setting them side by side on the table. At the very bottom of the box was something wrapped in black cloth. I hesitated, then picked this up and placed it before me, unfolding its shroud with hands that were not entirely steady.

Perhaps I should have known it would be a mirror. This one was of obsidian, and something about it made me uneasy. The enigmatic black surface showed little reflection. I had read of such a mirror somewhere, I was certain. A dark mirror, used for divination. The artifact was in a silver frame crawling with eldritch creatures, each no bigger than a joint of my little finger, their eyes set with miniature stones of red or green. I blinked and stared anew. Hadn’t that gnomelike homunculus been at the bottom of the mirror last time I looked? And what about that being that was part sprite, part lizard? It had been curled up on itself and now it was looking right at me ...

I shook my head to clear it of such fancies. I would begin to sort these loose sheets, starting with the ones in the worst state of repair. If Anluan had any sense, that would be where he had begun his own somewhat limited attempt to do the job, so I would perhaps find the next part of that intriguing narrative somewhere amongst these deteriorating pages. So he’d lost the use of his right hand. I pondered this, wondering whether, if I tried using my left, my writing would be even more wayward than his. I had heard that a person could learn to use the other hand just as well, given time. Perhaps Anluan had not had time. Or perhaps he had lacked the will. He’d given up trying to talk to me quickly enough.

All of the documents from the little chest seemed to be in the same writing, a bold, regular hand.The style of script was antique and the penmanship was that of a scholar. The pages were so brittle there seemed a danger they would fall apart before I could get the job done, and the ink had faded badly. Little life remained in these records.

I skimmed the pages. One or two were in Latin, but most were in Irish and dealt with nothing more nefarious than an account of the daily life of house and farm:

... a good crop of new lambs, most of the ewes have dropped a pair, some three ... weather mild, fewer losses than last year ...

... dispute with Father Aidan, who considers my area of study perilous. Nothing new in that.

Fergus got an excellent price for our calves at this year’s market.

I have a son.They tell me he is healthy, though he appears red-faced and small. I am surprised, not at his fighting spirit, but that my wife has at last proven herself useful at something.

That jolted me. I had been beginning to warm to the writer, an ordinary man making a record of losses and gains on his farm—sheep, cattle, where had they been kept?—and debating issues with the local priest. But after that callous remark, I found I could not like him at all. My area of study. Likely the writer was one of the unusually scholarly chieftains of Whistling Tor.

He is to be named Conan, for my father.

I began on the second bundle of papers. For these the scribe had used Latin and a different style of script to go with it, a rounded half-uncial rather than the common hand of his Irish writings. Or perhaps this was a different writer.The pages seemed of similar age, the ink equally faded.

Autumn of the thirteenth year of the tenure of Glassan son of Eochaid as high king.We approach the time known as Ruis, in Christian nomenclature All Hallows. A time of transition, when we step into the dark. A time when end is beginning and beginning end.

Not only was this Latin, but the style of expression was more formal. I smoothed the page out carefully. The parchment had been scraped back and reused at least once, perhaps several times; it seemed there had not always been a ready supply of materials at Whistling Tor. I tried to guess the document’s age. Glassan son of Eochaid. A hundred years, give or take a little? Hadn’t Tomas or Orna said something about a hundred years of ill luck? I couldn’t find the writer’s name anywhere on the pages, but perhaps if I read on, it would be there.

The dark mirror flickered. I turned to look over my shoulder, half expecting to see Muirne there with her neat clothing and disapproving expression. But there was nobody; I was alone in the library. I turned back and my gaze caught a touch of red, not in the mirror but out in the garden. Had it been Anluan whose presence I had sensed before, standing in the doorway watching me without a word? He was seated on the bench now. He had his left elbow on his knee, his right arm across his lap, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. White face, red hair: snow and fire, like something from an old tale. The book I had noticed earlier was on the bench beside him, its covers shut. Around Anluan’s feet and in the birdbath, small visitors to the garden hopped and splashed and made the most of a day that was becoming fair and sunny. He did not seem to notice them. As for me, I found it difficult to take my eyes from him.There was an odd beauty in his isolation and his sadness, like that of a forlorn prince ensorcelled by a wicked enchantress, or a traveler lost forever in a world far from home.

I must stop being so fanciful. Less than a day here, and already I was inventing wild stories about the folk of the house.This was no enchanted prince, just an ill-tempered chieftain with no manners. If he’d been spying on me, that was his prerogative as my employer, I supposed; after all, I was on trial. I turned my attention back to the documents. The words on the page swirled and moved, and I rubbed my eyes, annoyed at my lack of concentration.

I have applied myself assiduously to the great work of preparation. I keep the door locked.That does not stop the ignorant from seeking my attention with intrusive knocking. The child was sick—some minor malady, a cough, a slight fever. It was inappropriate to call me; trivial domestic matters are for others to deal with. It is for precisely this reason that our principal place of experimentation is situated beneath the floor level of the house, guarded by bolts and key, and by charms and wards to keep out marauders of a less earthly kind. The minds of ordinary folk cannot comprehend the nature of our work ...

Something moved on the surface of the obsidian mirror. I glanced quickly, started with shock, stared deep, the hair standing up on my neck. Surely not ... but there it was. Within the dark stone was the image of a man standing in an underground chamber, a long, shadowy place lined with shelves on which stood crucibles, flasks, jars of powders and mixtures, books ... so many books in one place, their covers stained and worn as if from long and frequent handling. Anluan . . . No, this man was much older. In the uneven light from candles set around the chamber, his features became those of a carven saint: the eyes deep and penetrating; the mouth thin-lipped, disciplined; the bones of cheeks and jaw jutting beneath the pale skin.With long-fingered, dexterous hands he sorted implements on the bench before him, knives with odd-shaped blades, pincers, screws, other things whose uses I could only guess at. This one. He selected a gleaming instrument like a miniature scythe. I’ll get my answer from the old hag with this one.

A chill ran through me. I shut my eyes, opened them again in disbelief, my gaze moving between the lines of black script and the gleaming surface of the dark mirror. What was this? I could see the work chamber of the document as if I were standing right there opposite the writer. I could see his long, ascetic face as he pondered the dilemma facing him. And I knew his thoughts; knew them and felt the edge of a terrible darkness touching my mind. How could this be? I was here, in the library by full daylight, and yet I was in that underground place, my hands feeling the touch of cold metal as the man took up his blade; my mind knowing his evil purpose. The mirror ... the mirror held the memory of time past, and as my eyes fell on it once more I felt the man’s presence as if he and I were one. Now there was no looking away.

The old woman lies on the table, grimly silent. He’d been confident of achieving success before Aislinn got back with the herbs, but the crone is holding out beyond all expectations. She knows, of course. Of all the local women who dabble in a little white magic, this one has the reputation as the most experienced, the one who will understand without a doubt exactly what is meant in the grimoire by potent powders of summoning. But this wrinkled ancient with her parchment skin and her crooked fingers isn’t giving the secret up easily. Perhaps she is so old she no longer fears death; she may be using what arts she has to dull the pain. She’s already endured techniques that would make grown men soil themselves.

He’s conducted such interrogations before, though not often. They follow a logical sequence. If a person holds out to the point where one risks losing him without a result, it becomes more effective to transfer one’s attention to someone else, someone with whom one’s subject has a bond—the husband or wife, a child, an aged parent.There is a weak chink of that kind in the strongest armor. But this old woman has no family. She’s lived by herself in the woods for years.

He sighs. His hands are filthy. It will take vigorous scrubbing to get the blood out from under the nails.The crone’s breathing is a squeaking rustle, another irritant. He doesn’t look at her; such disorder offends his eye. And now Aislinn is coming back, he can hear her at the door.

“Are you done, my lord?” the girl asks politely, coming in and locking the door after her. She is thorough as always; he has trained her well.

“I haven’t got a thing.” There’s no need to pretend with Aislinn. She knows everything about him, to the extent that a simple village girl can understand a mind like his, a mind that soars above those of ordinary folk like a great eagle above the creeping, crawling creatures of the earth. His thoughts reach for the high, the impossible, the stuff of dreams and visions. “I don’t want to kill the witch before she’s given me the answer—I can’t understand why she would hold it back, she’s near death anyway, why take such valuable information to the grave?”

“I have something that may help,”Aislinn offers unexpectedly, her tone sweet.“I went back to her cottage after I gathered the herbs I needed. And I found this.” She holds up a bundle, and the woman strapped onto the table lets out a hissing sound, her reddened eyes rolling towards what the girl is carrying.

“Ah!” His breath comes out in a rush of triumph. He takes the little dog from Aislinn and carries it over to the tabletop, close to the woman, so she can see. A warmth floods through his body, the anticipation of success. “Aislinn, you may go out if you wish.”

“I’ll stay and watch, Lord Nechtan.”

The creature in his hands is quite small. It is not yet frightened—it has recognized its mistress and is straining to get close enough to lick her face. “I think we may be ready to talk,” says the chieftain of Whistling Tor. And when the woman replies only with a moan of horror, he gets out his thin-bladed knife, weighing it casually in his free hand.“I’m an artist at this. Watch me and learn.”

When it is over, he disposes of the debris while Aislinn cleans. The crone was all too ready to gasp out the names of the ingredients once he began to work on her creature. Aislinn has written them down in her little book, precise by measure, each in its turn. There was just time to get the last. Now he and the girl are the only living beings in the subterranean chamber, save things that scuttle and crawl in the corners and rustle in the walls. Not many of those: Aislinn keeps it spotless.

He watches her now as she scrubs the table.What a difference a year or two can make. Aislinn was a child when she first came to his notice; he did not expect a serving girl to show such intense interest in the maps and charts spread out in the chamber whose floor she was sweeping. He did not expect the orphaned daughter of humble villagers to be such a quick learner, thirsty to master reading, writing and numbers, then move into more esoteric branches of study. His protégé has been clever, eager to please and a great deal more patient than he is, which makes her an invaluable assistant. Time has passed, and Aislinn is no longer a child. Her hair is a fall of liquid gold; her pert buttocks move to and fro as she swings the brush. He’s suddenly hard for her, desire thrumming in his blood. No doubt she would be as quick to learn the arts of the bedchamber as she’s been with sorcery, and what pleasure he would take in the teaching.

But no. He cannot allow himself this; there are priorities. He must obey to the letter the information he got from Saint Criodan’s: the vital knowledge that was so astonishingly expensive to acquire. Let me show you the woeful state of our roof, Lord Nechtan; it will be quite costly to repair. Who would have believed Brother Gearalt would hold out for such a generous donation to the monastic funds before opening the doors to that secret collection within the foundation’s library? Oh, a dark collection it was, full of intriguing surprises.The good brother didn’t let him take the book away. He was given only long enough to find and read the one form of words. It was enough. He knew what he wanted.

“How quickly can you make up the mixture?” he asks Aislinn.

“It might take a number of days, Lord Nechtan.” The girl pushes her hair back from her brow. He imagines the pale strands drifting across his bare body; he thinks of her under him, yielding. “Goldenwood has to be gathered in a particular way. And some of the ingredients need grinding thrice over.” After a moment she adds, “I can stay on and work late. I can sleep in the corner there.”

There’s a pallet each of them has used from time to time when an experiment needs watching; they take turns to rest. Now that she’s older, that no longer seems wise. But time is of the essence, for All Hallows is drawing close. The pieces must be ready to slot in place by then or there will be a whole year more of waiting. Another whole year of Maenach stealing his cattle as if he has every right to do so. Another whole year of being ostra cised because nobody understands the significance of his work. A year of slights and offenses, injustices and dismissals. It is unthinkable. “So close,” he muses. “Less than a turning of the moon and then, such power . . . Power such as none of them can possibly dream of, Aislinn, the capacity to dominate not only wretched Maenach and the rest of my neighboring chieftains, but the whole district, the whole of Connacht, the whole of Erin if I want it.Against my army, none will stand. It will be a force worthy of a great hero of mythology, such as Cu Chulainn himself. I can hardly believe it is within my grasp . . . We must not waste a moment. This must be precise in every detail.”

They go back to work. Aislinn mixes powders, grinds dried berries, measures liquids with meticulous attention. He pores over his notes, though he has long since committed the charm to memory. He knows it deep in the bone, a potent, living thing. It is his future. It is his raising up and the doom of his enemies. It is, purely and simply, power.

The light in the underground chamber dimmed. The image wavered and faded, and with a shudder I came back to myself. Here in the library the sun was streaming in the window to set a brightness on the parchment before me. It was glinting off the surface of the obsidian mirror, on whose border the little creatures were now huddled or curled into postures of sorrow or fear, heads under wings, hands over eyes, arms around one another, as if what had been revealed were too piteous to behold.

Oh God, oh God . . . Tears spilled from my eyes. Foul thoughts and obscene images crowded my head. I felt filthy, soiled, wretched. Bile rose in my throat, bitter and urgent. Out! Out of this cursed place! I blundered across the chamber, bruising my hip on the sharp corner of a table, and stumbled out into the garden, where I sank to my knees and retched out the contents of my stomach under a lavender bush. My gut heaved and heaved again. Between the spasms I fought for breath.

A hand on my shoulder. I started violently, Nechtan looming in my mind, and the hand was withdrawn.

“What is it? You are ill.” A man’s voice. I had forgotten Anluan, in the garden. “I’ll call for Magnus,” I heard him say.

“No!” Through the paroxysms of my gut and the dark visions in my head, I had enough awareness to know I did not want the all-too-busy steward called away from whatever he was doing to tend to me.“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be in your garden. I’ll be all right in a moment—” As if to make me a liar, a new fit of choking and retching gripped me. My nose and eyes streamed.

Anluan crouched down beside me and, rather awkwardly, held out a handkerchief. “Muirne!” he called.

I looked up, mopping my face ineffectually, and saw that she was standing beyond the bench in the shadow of the birch tree. I had not seen her when I looked out before.

“Fetch water,” Anluan said. It was an order, and Muirne obeyed in silence, going out through the archway.

In time the spasms died down. I wiped my nose and eyes anew and rose shakily to my feet. Anluan got up too. He did not try to touch me again.

“I’m sorry,” I managed. “I’ll go now. I know you don’t like people to be in this garden . . .” I glanced over my shoulder towards the library door. There was no way in the world I was going back in with that thing lying uncovered on the table. I took a step or two along the path, thinking I would make my escape into the main part of the grounds where I could recover in private. Everything swirled and went hazy around me. “I need to sit down,” I said.

“Sit on the bench, here.” Then, after another awkward silence, “I do not know how to help you. Have you eaten something that disagrees with you?”

I looked at him properly then. It seemed quite the wrong question. “The mirror,” I said, shaking my head in a vain hope that the images might flee. “That mirror in the little chest, with the documents you were working on . . . How could you do that to me? How could you leave it there, knowing what power it had? It pulled me in; it made me feel . . .” That had been the worst part of it, the sensation that I actually was that evil man and was thinking those thoughts and doing those things myself, because I wanted to. Here in the garden birds were singing, plants were growing, the sun was shining. But a shadow had touched an inward part of me, and I did not think it would be easily banished. “It made me feel dirty,” I said in a whisper.

“What mirror?” asked Anluan. When I only gaped at him, he added, “This house is full of such artifacts. Magnus was supposed to warn you not to look in them.” He had seated himself on the other end of the bench, as far from me as he could manage, and was not meeting my eye but glaring across the garden at nothing in particular.There was neither sympathy nor apology in his expression. “You’ve been hired to read the documents,” he said, “not to meddle with what doesn’t concern you.”

His anger tied a new knot in my stomach. Be brave, Caitrin. Stand up for yourself. “The mirror was stored with the documents,” I said shakily. “I wasn’t meddling, simply being thorough. How could I possibly be prepared for what happened?”

He did not respond. I worked on my breathing, wondering how long it would take Muirne to bring the water.Then Anluan said coolly, “I need a scribe with fortitude. Perhaps you are not suited to Whistling Tor.”

A little flicker of anger awoke in me. “I have plenty of fortitude for reading, writing and translation, my lord. Magnus did warn me about the mirrors. But . . . perhaps he didn’t know about this one. It was . . .” I shuddered and put my hands over my face, but the sickening images still paraded before my eyes. “It showed me what was in the documents as if I were really there. It put someone else’s thoughts into my mind, as if he and I were the same . . . Lord Anluan, I’m not prepared to go back into the library while that mirror is there on the table. It would be unreasonable to expect that.What I saw was . . . disgusting. It was evil.”

After a silence, the chieftain of Whistling Tor said, “What are you telling me? That despite your claims of expertise, you do not wish to do this work after all? Hah!” It was a derisive bark, bitter and painful. “This is no surprise.You’re running away as everyone else has done. Nobody stays here.”

“Magnus stays,” I pointed out. Talking to Anluan was a little like reasoning with an angry child. “And I’m not running away. I didn’t say I was leaving.”

“If you will not enter the library, you cannot complete the task.” A silence. He glanced towards the archway, shifting restlessly on the bench.“I need the work done. There is nobody else to do it. Tell me what you saw in this mirror.What can be so horrifying that it turns a capable scribe—if that is indeed what you are—into a quivering, vomiting wretch?”

I swallowed the retort that sprang to my lips. “I’ve no wish to think about it, let alone talk about it. My lord,” I added belatedly, not wishing to provoke his anger further. “Could you arrange for the mirror to be removed before I continue with the work?”

“Ah. So you will go back into my library?”

An image of the future came to my mind. Say no, and I’d be on the road again with no money, no friends and pursuit getting closer every day. I would indeed be running away, for as long as it took Cillian to find me and drag me back to Market Cross. “I might consider it, under the right conditions,” I said.

“Tell me what you saw in this mirror,” Anluan said, and fixed his unusual blue eyes on me with some intensity. I returned his gaze, thinking that if there were not that lopsided quality to his face, he would be quite a fine-looking man, his features strong, his skin of the very fair kind that flushes easily. His mouth was well shaped, though more given to solemnity than smiles. But all was awry, as if frost had blighted him on one side only, leaving a creature who was two in one, strong and weak, sun and shadow. I was staring. Remembering what Magnus had said, I turned my eyes away.

“Did you really not know it was in the chest?” I asked him. “Magnus told me the transcription on the little table was yours.The documents you were working on were in that same box.”

“Would you accuse me of lying?” His tone was wintry. “Answer my question.What did the mirror show you?”

I forced myself to tell the tale of blood, death and vaunting ambition. Anluan listened in silence to my halting account, and when I was finished he said calmly, “You must continue the work. I will put this mirror away before tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I said, but I needed more than that. “What can you tell me about Nechtan? Magnus explained that his documents are the ones you want me to look at. It will be easier to pick them out if I know a little of his history. Magnus told me you are the only person here who can read, my lord. Otherwise I wouldn’t trouble you with my questions.”

“Nechtan was my great-grandfather. The oldest writings are his.You will find a few by my grandfather, Conan, and then there are my father’s notebooks.”

“What was your father’s name, my lord?”

“Irial.” His tone shut off further questions.“I will deal with the mirror now.You should take time to compose yourself. Start the work afresh tomorrow, and heed Magnus’s warnings in the future. Stick to the job you’ve been hired to do, and don’t interfere with what doesn’t concern you.You can’t expect to understand everything here at Whistling Tor, and there’s no need for you to do so. It’s a place unlike other places. Or so I’m told. I need you to stay. I need the work done.”

He rose and limped into the library, leaving me alone in the walled garden. Irial’s garden, Magnus had called it. My father’s notebooks. It seemed likely Irial had written those meticulous botanical notes I’d looked at earlier, and executed the tiny, exquisite drawings that accompanied them. I glanced at the little book Anluan had left on the seat, wondering if he had been reading his father’s work. It was bound in fine calf leather, tooled with a pattern of leaves, but when I lifted the cover to peep inside, the writing I saw crawling across the creamy parchment was not the spidery script of the gardener’s notebooks, but Anluan’s irregular, labored hand. Someone gave a little cough. I shut the book hastily, not wanting to be caught prying. Muirne was standing about four paces from me, a cup in her hand. She had a disturbing ability to move about with scarcely a sound.

“Thank you,” I said, getting up to take the water from her. Her fingers were cold. “I’m much better now.”

“You saw something that scared you.” It was a statement, not a question. “A mirror?” When I nodded, she said, “There are many stories here. Many memories.This is not an easy place.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” I said, glad that she was taking the time to speak to me, even if her manner was a little odd.“I suppose I’d better go; I know this is Lord Anluan’s private garden.Will someone call me when it’s suppertime?” I took a sip, then set the cup down on the bench.

“I suppose someone will,” Muirne said.

“Thank you.” Should I add my lady? I had no idea where she belonged in this unusual household, only that if I did not make an effort with her, the summer was going to seem very long. I had thought she might be Anluan’s wife, but he had treated her like a servant. I smiled at her, then walked out under the archway with my mind full of unanswered questions.