Heart's Blood

chapter six

It felt distinctly odd to face the assembled household at the supper table in the knowledge that three of them were, if not exactly dead, most certainly less alive than Anluan, Olcan and I were. All eyes turned on me as I came in, last to arrive after falling asleep in my chamber and barely waking in time to brush my hair and make my way down. Muirne’s neat features gave nothing away. Anluan looked exhausted but managed a nod of acknowledgment. Olcan smiled, genial as ever, and Fianchu got up to give me his usual slobbery greeting.The pallid faces of Eichri and Rioghan wore guarded expressions; it was clear they did not know how I would respond to the startling revelations of the day.

“Recovered, Caitrin?” asked Magnus, who was carving a joint of mutton. “That was quite an experience. I hope you got a rest.”

“I fell asleep. I’m sorry if I’m late.” I took my place beside Eichri without fuss.

“Anluan tells us you gave some kind of undertaking to the host today,” said Rioghan. “I wish I’d been there to hear it.”

“I didn’t promise anything,” I said. “I’m hardly in a position to do that. But Whistling Tor is such a sad place. I know how it feels to be sad. If I can help anyone here, I believe I should try my best to do so. If we could uncover the whole of Nechtan’s story, we might find that matters are not as hopeless as they seem.” I glanced at Anluan. “It’s possible the Latin documents may contain a . . . solution. Something that could end the suffering of those folk out in the forest.” I looked down at my hands, suddenly embarrassed. “And yours, I suppose. Put that way, it sounds arrogant.”

“You can’t imagine you will find a counterspell.” I heard in Muirne’s tone how unlikely this was. “There can be no such spell, Caitrin, or it would have been put to use long ago.”

I felt my cheeks flush with mortification. It was with precisely this in mind that I had made the host my foolish offer of help.

“Arrogant, no,” Magnus said. “Ambitious, yes. If the rest of you want my opinion, Caitrin’s arrival amongst us has marked a big change, and maybe a change we all need. Speaking of which, Caitrin, Anluan has asked if I’ll go down to the settlement again in the morning. I’ll make sure your unpleasant friends are right out of the district, and at the same time I’ll inquire about how they knew where to find you. We don’t take kindly to folk who betray friends. But we won’t leap to judge, either. I’ll talk to Tomas and Orna, find out what’s been going on.”

“Thank you, Magnus,” I said.“It would set my mind at rest if I could be sure Cillian is gone.As for the host and a counterspell, I know it’s an unlikely chance. But what we need could be there among the documents. Perhaps it’s hidden in some way. Encoded.” I was bursting to ask them what they were, how they felt, where they had come from. Seated at the table by lamplight, with Magnus calmly serving supper as if everything was just as it had been, I found I could not quite get the words out. Instead I asked, “Do you believe Nechtan used dark magic of some kind when he brought forth the host?”

“It’s what folk say.” Eichri shifted in his seat; there was a grating sound, bone on bone. “But until you find a record spelling out exactly what he did, nobody can be quite sure. Saint Criodan’s is full of stories about him, though any monk who had personal dealings with him is long gone, of course. He was generous towards the foundation; he paid for a new building to house the library and scriptorium. Quite the scholar.”

The vision from the obsidian mirror came back to me, complete with every detail, and I set my knife down, finding I was not hungry after all. “He paid for knowledge,” I said. “A secret book, kept under lock and key. It contained something he needed, perhaps a spell, though it seems unlikely that a monastic foundation would have grimoires. He didn’t bring the book back here, but he got the information he wanted—he must have made a quick copy or memorized it. It would almost certainly be in Latin. Even if that’s not amongst the documents, there may at least be a description of the ... procedure. I don’t know quite how to say this, but ... it seems you were ... called back, as those others in the woods must have been.What can you remember?”

“We were somewhere else, and then we were here,” Eichri said. “My earthly life, such as it was, remains vivid in my memory. The moment of my death ... One does not forget that. But the time between then and my return is blurred. I recall being somewhat taken aback not to find myself sizzling in the flames of hellfire or condemned to some other dire punishment. That still awaits me, perhaps. It is possible Nechtan’s ill-executed experiment bought all of us time to make amends.To win ourselves a better conclusion when it is time to go once more.”

“It may never be time to go,” said Rioghan gravely. “Muirne is right, Caitrin. If Nechtan had possessed a charm of reversal, a form of words to banish the unruly host—I do not use the term unruly for myself or Muirne, you understand, but only for my clerical friend here and that rabble out in the woods—he would surely have used it as soon as he realized he hadn’t got what he wanted. We’ve already been on the hill for twice the natural lifespan of a man.We might be here forever, performing a good deed a day and getting no benefit at all from it.”

“So you were in some kind of middle realm, between this one and the next?” I queried. “A waiting place?”

“Hell’s antechamber,” observed Olcan dryly.

“Or heaven’s,” I said. “If it is possible to call folk back, as it seems Nechtan did, then Eichri may be right. Perhaps this second sojourn in the world of the living offers a chance to win a passage, not to perpetual suffering, but to eternal rest.”

“For me there can be no such reprieve,” muttered Rioghan.“Nor for him, I think.” He gazed at Eichri. “His crime was too obscene for such a second chance to be possible. Besides, in all the years he’s been hanging about here, I’ve never observed the least sign of contrition.There’s no hope for you, Brother.”

“Hope of what?” Eichri’s lips stretched in a mirthless smile. “A place in heaven? I never expected that, even when I was a living man, Councillor. At least I had the honesty to acknowledge that I was bad to the core. Hence the surprise when, on falling to the ground with such a pain in my chest that I knew I would never rise again, I did not find myself roasting nicely in the Devil’s flames, but ... well, as I said, we are not sure of that part.Whatever came next, it was evidently not memorable.”

“Interesting idea,” said Magnus.“For folk who are neither sinful enough to go straight to perdition nor saintly enough to rise to God’s right hand, there’s a future of utter tedium.A soul might work extremely hard to escape such a fate. Not being a godly man myself, I can’t say if it’s plausible. What would you have to do, Eichri, to be washed clean of your wrongdoing?”

A rattling shiver passed through the ghostly monk. Then Anluan said, “I do not know if it is true that a man can be absolved of any sin if he atones for it in some way.What is your opinion, Caitrin? Are you a woman of religious faith?”

“I was once,” I told him. “When my father died, it was a blow. What unfolded from that day almost destroyed my belief in God. But I believe we all have an inner goodness; a little flame that stays alight through the worst of trials. So perhaps my faith is not altogether gone. As for whether good deeds can cancel out wicked ones, I cannot say.” I thought of Ita’s biting tongue and Cillian’s cruel hands. I remembered Nechtan’s heartless act of torture, which he had believed perfectly justified. “Perhaps there are some evils that can never be erased,” I said.“As for religious faith, a lack of it shouldn’t stop us from doing good deeds for their own sake.”

Anluan had set down his knife with his meal barely touched.“If a man takes his own life,” he said, “that, surely, can never be acquitted. It is the ultimate sin, don’t you think? Such a person must go straight to hellfire, that’s if one believes in such a phenomenon. Or to oblivion. Or to be born again as the lowliest of creatures, a slug or marsh fly, perhaps.”

The others had gone unnaturally still. They were waiting for my response with a degree of interest that was suddenly intense. I did not like the look on Anluan’s face. His mood had changed abruptly. He seemed strung so tight that he would snap if I gave him an answer he did not care for.

“Slugs and marsh flies have their places in the great web of existence,” I said.“How should I answer, Anluan? As a devout Christian would, or as a person whose faith is, at best, shaky?”

“Answer honestly.”

“Very well.” My supper companions were all staring at me. “I do not view suicide as wicked, just terribly sad. There is only one death, but it is like a stone cast into a pond—the ripples stretch far. Such an act must leave a burden of sorrow, guilt, shame and confusion on an entire family.A natural death, such as my father suffered, is hard enough to deal with.A decision to end one’s life must be still more devastating for those left behind. I cannot imagine the degree of hopelessness someone must feel to contemplate such an act. Even in the darkest time, even when God was utterly silent, I never ... there was always something in my life, something I can’t even define for you, that stopped me from taking that step.The thought of such utter despair chills me. I hope that is honest enough for you.”

“Excuse me.” Anluan was on his feet and out the door almost before I had time to blink. His faithful shadow rose from the table and hastened after him.

Dismay must have been written all over my face. Magnus poured a cup of ale and set it in front of me, while Eichri wrapped his bony fingers around mine.

“I’ll have Muirne’s supper,” said Olcan.“Pass it up, Rioghan, will you?”

“If he didn’t want an honest answer he shouldn’t have asked for one,” I said, furious with myself for upsetting Anluan again, when he had been so open with me earlier.

The silence that followed was like the first ice of the season, brittle and dangerous.

“Anluan won’t tell you this,” Rioghan said, “but Irial died by his own hand. He used poison; we never found out exactly what kind. It must have been easy for him to concoct, since he was so knowledgeable about plants and their uses. Sixteen years ago, that was, and as clear in our minds as the day it happened. He was still alive when we found him out in the garden. It was . . .” He shivered. “It was bad. I’ll never forget his skin, all blue-gray like one huge bruise. His eyes went cloudy. Whatever it was that he took, it affected the lungs. He found it harder and harder to catch his breath. It seemed to me there was something he wanted to tell us, but his voice was gone.”

I could think of nothing to say. I probably should have guessed that this was the explanation for Irial’s outliving his beloved Emer by only two years.

“There’s more,” said Olcan. “On a dark day, long ago, I found Conan out in the woods with a very efficient stab wound to the heart and his hunting knife still in his hand. He may not have been the sort of fellow folk warmed to, but at least he waited until his son was a man. It’s a pattern those of us who are close to Anluan don’t much care for.”

Sixteen years. That meant Anluan was only five-and-twenty. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This must be distressing for all of you.”

“You’re one of us now,” Magnus said quietly.“It’s good that you know. We don’t like him upset, that’s true. But he did raise it, and he did ask you to be straight with him.That’s not a blunder, Caitrin, it’s two steps forwards. He’s trying hard. But you’ll have to go carefully. He bears a lot of scars.”

“I suppose Irial simply couldn’t go on without Emer. But it seems a terrible thing to do when his son was so young, only a child.” It had troubled me, reading his record of grief, that Irial had barely mentioned his boy. It was another reason not to draw the margin notes to Anluan’s attention.

Magnus sighed. “When she died, Irial’s whole world fell apart. He never got over the loss of her. Two years, he held on, but the world grew darker and darker for him. Not that I ever expected he’d act as he did. I thought he had the strength to endure it for Anluan’s sake. I’d give a lot to be able to turn time backwards. I’d like to talk to Irial, say all the things I should have found time to say while he was still here.”

“I should go and find Anluan,” I said, getting up. “I should apologize.”

“I wouldn’t.” Magnus’s gray eyes were somber.“Talk to him tomorrow, by daylight. He’s best alone tonight.”

“He’s not alone,” I pointed out. “He’s got Muirne.”

Perhaps there was something in my tone that revealed what I really thought about this: that Muirne’s presence was likely to make him more, rather than less, despondent.With Irial’s story fresh in my mind, and Conan’s, Anluan’s dark moods had begun to take on a troubling significance. I bitterly regretted upsetting him.

“Don’t much care for Muirne, do you?” Olcan asked with a smile.

“She doesn’t like my being here,” I said.“That makes it rather difficult to be friends. I understand a little better now that Anluan has told me more about the host. Muirne is devoted to him, that’s obvious. She thinks my presence will exhaust and weaken him, and perhaps there’s some truth in that. I suppose she fears that if he gets too tired, he may not be able to keep the host in check.”

“Take my advice,” Magnus said. “Give Anluan time to think this over. He respects your judgment, Caitrin. But it’s new to him, this talking openly about the past. He’s never dared hope for a different kind of future.”

“He did hire me.”

“True,” Eichri said,“though that may have been more act of desperation than act of hope. He thinks the world of you, Caitrin. Don’t doubt it, despite the way he snaps. But you’re an exotic creature to Anluan, a curiosity from a far-off land.You challenge him in more ways than you could imagine.”

I looked from one member of this inner circle to another. Their love for their chieftain shone in their words and on their faces.

“Very well,” I said. “I won’t trouble him tonight.” No doubt there would be a light burning in Anluan’s quarters, visible through the tangle of foliage in the courtyard as usual. I wondered if he wrote in his little book by lamplight or simply stared into the flame. Maybe, like Nechtan, he pursued branches of study that could not be carried out more openly. There were no grimoires in the library.That didn’t mean there were none in the house. I had been taking Irial’s notebooks to my bedchamber, a different one each evening. Anluan might have a whole private collection in his quarters. Might not such a collection include Nechtan’s books of magic?

I excused myself, lit my candle with a taper from the fire and went up to my bedchamber, wishing my mind had not traveled down this last path. Anluan had said he did not use sorcery to command the host, only a knack. I had believed him. But he had made the others conceal the truth from me so that I would stay at Whistling Tor. That was only one step from a lie. Perhaps he had lied about the sorcery. He’d seen how horrified I was by the mirror vision. If he were a practitioner of the same dark arts as Nechtan, he’d hardly be open about it.

My chamber door was ajar. Inside, a child in a white smock was sitting cross-legged on the floor, in the dark, with my little doll Róise on her lap.The girl’s hair was white, too, drifting in a pale cloud around her head and shoulders. She was crooning a wordless lullaby. The hairs on my neck rose. A glance around the chamber told me she’d been investigating all my things. Clothing spilled out of the storage chest, my comb lay on the floor and the bedding had been disordered with more violence than such a fragile being seemed capable of. I took two steps into the room.The child raised her head, fixing shadowy eyes on me.

“Hurt,” she whispered.“Baby’s hurt.” Her skinny hand moved tenderly to stroke the silken threads that formed Róise’s hair. Even by the fitful light of my candle I could see that the doll was the worse for wear. Some of her hair had been pulled right out and her skirt was in shreds. My stomach tight with unease, I cast my eyes around for knives, bodkins or other dangerous implements. “Oo-roo, baby, all better soon,” the child sang, rocking the doll in her arms.

A rustling sound behind me in the open doorway. I whirled around.

The young warrior in the bloody shirt stood there, the one from out in the woods. His arms were wrapped across his chest. A febrile trembling coursed through his body. Whatever it was that shook him so, rage, fear, a malady, it possessed him utterly. Brighid save me, what had I begun?

“Tell me the truth.” His voice was dry and scratchy, as if he’d been long out of the habit of using it. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Can you give us what we need? Or did you speak lies and false hope? We have waited long.”

I almost yelled for Magnus.The young man had a sword and a dagger at his belt. He sounded desperate. He looked poised on the brink of violent action. But I did not call out. I was the one who had set this in motion and I must be brave enough to deal with the consequences.

“I wasn’t lying,” I said, doing my best to hold his nervous, darting gaze. “I’ll do my best to help you.Tell me, what is it you need most?”

For a moment his eyes were full of whirling visions, images of pain and struggle.

“Sleep.” He spoke the word on a sigh.“Rest.That is what we long for. It is what we crave.Tell the lord of Whistling Tor to let us go.”

“He would if he knew how,” I said. “I’ll help him search for a way. But ... I must be plain with you. I am only a ... I am not ... I have no position of authority here at Whistling Tor. I cannot swear to you that there’s a remedy to be found. All I can promise is to do my very best for you.”

The young man bowed his head.With a sound like shivering leaves he faded away before my eyes. I turned my attention to the child and to my disturbed chamber. Since I could think of nothing appropriate to say to a small ghost girl—I could hardly tell her she should be tucked up in bed by now—I began methodically to set my belongings to rights. First the blankets; I gathered them and began to fold. A moment later the child had set Róise carefully down and was holding two corners for me, her sorrowful eyes intent on my face. We moved towards each other as in a dance; I gathered the top edges together, the girl took up the lower corners and we repeated our measure. I laid the folded blanket on the foot of the bed and picked up the second.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’re a good helper.”

“Baby’s hurt.” Her tone was mournful. She glanced at Róise, who now sat on the floor with her back to the storage chest, her embroidered eyes fixed on us.

“She’s only a doll,” I said cautiously. “I’ll mend her. But I’m sad that someone damaged her. My sister made her for me. Róise is my memory of good things.” It was hard to know how much to say. The girl seemed harmless. But she’d been in my chamber and the fact that she was helping me now didn’t make up for what she’d done to my belongings. “Please pick up the comb and put it on that chest.”

She did not put the comb away, but brought it to me, then turned her back in clear expectation that I would tidy her wispy pale hair for her. I set the second blanket down and began a careful combing.

“Where’s my mama?” the child asked suddenly.

My heart turned over.“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Her hair was as flya way as thistledown; the candlelight seemed to shine through it.

There was a long silence as I gently combed, and then she said,“I want Mama. I want to go home.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. I knelt down and put my arms around her. She was ice-cold, preternaturally cold, and although she had substance, she felt nothing like an ordinary child—she was far less solid in form than Rioghan or Eichri. I suppressed a horrified shudder. There was nothing I could say that would help; no promise I could make that a small child might understand. I could not send her home. She had no home. I could not find her mother. I could not offer her a place to stay, a bed to sleep in. She was a spirit child; she did not belong with me.

“Your hair looks lovely now,” I said. “My name is Caitrin. What is yours?”

Her voice was like the passing of a breeze in the grass. “I don’t remember.”

Down in the garden, Fianchu exploded into a fanfare of barking, seeing off some nighttime creature. In my arms, the child vanished. One moment she was there, the next I was holding nothing at all.

“Caitrin?” Olcan called from outside.

My skin in goose bumps, I went out to the gallery. He and the dog were coming up the steps.

“Thought I might leave Fianchu with you tonight,” Olcan said.“You’ll be nervous after what happened earlier with your unpleasant kinsman and his cronies. You needn’t have this fellow in the bedchamber with you, though that’d be his preference without a doubt.You can leave him out here when you bolt your door, and he’ll sleep across the threshold.”

“Thank you.” Fianchu’s presence would be more than welcome.“I had visitors just now. From the host.Will Fianchu keep them away as well?”

“You’ll be safe, Caitrin.You’re Anluan’s friend.They won’t harm you.”

I considered this as I lay in bed a little later with the door shut and bolted and Fianchu on my side of it, comfortable on one of the two blankets, for I had not had the heart to shut him out. If dogs had been able to smile, he’d have had a big grin on his brutish features. Everyone seemed sure that Anluan could protect me; that his mastery over the host meant the uncanny presences of Whistling Tor would not harm his household or the chieftain himself unless he crossed that invisible line he had shown me. I wondered about that. The young man in the bloody shirt had seemed almost inimical when he accused me of lying.There had been anger in his voice when he bade me tell Anluan to let the host go. Anluan was Nechtan’s descendant, and Nechtan was the one who had brought these folk forth and, I assumed, condemned them to their strange existence on the hill.Were we really safe from them? Or might it take only a wrong word or a trivial error of judgment to turn them into the chaotic, destructive horde of Conan’s account, a force that destroyed friend and foe alike? When they had confronted Cillian this morning, they had looked ravening, fearsome, malevolent.

My mind went to Anluan. I recalled his courage as he stepped out to face my attackers, all alone. Now he was alone once more, probably in his quarters brooding over his father’s sad end. Alone save for Muirne. Solici tous, protective, devoted Muirne. Even if she had been a living woman, as I had believed until this morning, she was wrong for him. “He needs someone as perfect for him as Emer was for Irial,” I told the enormous hound. “Someone who will be kind to him, but not too kind. Someone who won’t mind living in this strange place. Someone with the patience to help him learn.”

Fianchu made no comment, only lifted his head, sighed, and stretched out luxuriously on the blanket.

“Someone who respects him,” I added. “Someone who sees him as strong, not weak. Someone who needs him as much as he needs her.”

The dog was asleep. I blew out my candle and pulled the blanket up to my chin. “And no, I don’t mean myself,” I murmured. “I’m not so foolish as that.Though I’d surely do a better job of it than she does.”

Despite Fianchu’s protective presence I slept badly. I rose at dawn with the tangled remnants of my nightmares hanging close about me.When I opened my door to let the dog out there was a sudden movement along the gallery, a blur, as if a ghostly presence had kept its own watch outside the door.

Mist shrouded the garden, creeping into every corner.Within the shifting shapes of it I could see them: the wounded, the sorrowful, the furious, the desperate folk of the hill.Their eyes were fixed on me.There were no threats, no entreaties, indeed there was no sound from them at all as they passed, but I heard the unspoken words in my heart: Find it. Find a way.

“I will,” I muttered, more to myself than to the host. “If I can, I will.” But as I threaded my way through the maze of chambers and passages towards the kitchen, I reminded myself, uncomfortably, that I was here at Whistling Tor because I had run away from my own problems. The host had been on the hill for a hundred years. It had blighted the lives of four chieftains, their families and the folk of the region. Anluan had hired me to translate Latin for him, not to achieve what nobody else had been able to do in all that time.

Magnus was in the kitchen making up the fire.

“I’m off down to the settlement soon,” he said. “You sure you’re all right, Caitrin? You’re not looking well, even now. It’s not every day you discover all of a sudden that you’re living alongside—well, I’ve never been quite sure what to call them. Must have been unsettling, at the least.”

“I slept badly.That’s nothing new. Yes, it was a strange day. It wasn’t the host that most disturbed me, it was the way Cillian managed to find me, just when I was starting to feel safe. When Tomas and Orna first sheltered me, I told them I was running away and expected to be followed. It’s hard to believe they would tell him where I was.” Even in this quiet chamber, with this kindly man as my only company, the words did not come easily. “It had been quite bad, at home, before I came here,” I made myself say.“It took me a long time to be brave enough to leave. I was so terrified he’d drag me back, I hardly thought to be afraid of the host.”

The fire was blazing now. Magnus set the kettle on its hook. “If that fellow’s typical of your kinsfolk, you’re best off without them, in my opinion,” he said. “What is he to you, Caitrin? A cousin? How was he able to get away with those acts of violence?”

“His mother is a distant cousin of my father’s. Before Father died, I hardly knew them. And afterwards ... well, they came to look after me, at least that was what they said, and ... I don’t want to talk about it, Magnus.”

Magnus was frowning.“The situation sounds irregular at the very least, Caitrin. Why don’t you have a word with Rioghan? He knows all about the law. Explain it to him and ask what he thinks. Sounds like something’s wrong to me.”

I would never go back to Market Cross. Never. So it didn’t matter what advice Rioghan had, since I would not be acting on it. “I’ll talk to him some time,” I said. “Not today. After yesterday’s disruptions, I need to spend all day in the library.”

So early in the morning, the light was barely adequate for writing. I busied myself preparing a broad-tipped goose-feather quill and scoring a fresh sheet of parchment.As the sun rose higher and the chamber grew brighter, I set these items aside—they were not for my use. I got out my own quill and ink, and took up the task of copying my most recent document listing from wax tablet to parchment. I had filled the tablet five times over now, transcribing each list in turn when the wax surface was covered, then erasing and beginning again. It was a thankless, tedious task.All I wanted to do was plunge frantically into the Latin documents in the quest for spells and charms. Common sense prevailed. I must maintain the catalogue as I progressed, or as soon as I left Whistling Tor the library would descend into its old chaos. I wrote quickly, using a common hand. There was no need for this work to be finely executed; it just had to be legible.

From time to time I was aware of a whisper of feet on the flag-stoned floor, a shadowy movement at the corner of my eye, but when I glanced up there was nobody to be seen. I knew they were there watching me. “I’m working as fast as I can,” I muttered, acutely aware that the real work still lay before me. If the truth about Nechtan’s sorcery lay in this library, it would be in those Latin documents. I glanced at the chest that held the obsidian mirror. From within the squat form of the box I could feel the malign power of the artifact. Use me. If you want the answers, use me.

I completed the pen and ink list, wondering if I would see Anluan at all today. Yesterday had felt like a turning point, and I wished I had not upset him at supper. I remembered his fingers against my arm, when I had thought to leave him and Muirne in the kitchen, and the way I had responded as a harp string does to the touch of a bard.

I used the wooden handle of my stylus to erase the markings on the wax tablet, rubbing hard enough to melt the wax slightly, then smoothing over the surface. When it was done, I set stylus and tablet beside the quill I had readied earlier.The library felt very empty. I wished I had borrowed Fianchu for the day as well as the night.The big hound’s company would have been welcome.

I walked over to the window and peered out. Irial’s garden was deserted save for the usual bevy of small birds in the stone bowl.A stroll once around the path would get my thoughts under control; then I’d go back to work.

The day had warmed and the garden was full of soft colors: gray-green, muted violet, blushing rose, palest cream. It seemed to me that the man who had created this sanctuary with such care had left something of himself behind in its quiet corners. As I walked I felt tranquillity seeping into my bones. And yet, Irial himself had given in to despair. It didn’t seem right.

“Why would you do it?” I murmured.“Couldn’t you see what you still had?” His young son; his most loyal of friends; his adoring household; this garden where lovely things still grew and flourished, even though Emer was gone. Could a man love a woman so much that, without her, everything else in his world ceased to have meaning? That was extreme. How cruel to leave Anluan all alone to deal with everything, the Tor, the host, the curse ...

As if I had summoned him with my thoughts, the chieftain of Whistling Tor walked in through the garden archway and halted when he spotted me under the birch tree. He was freshly shaven and his hair had been combed, perhaps washed.The light caught the red of it, a dark flame amid the muted shades of the garden. He’d changed his clothes, too; the shirt he had on was one I had mended recently, using a thread that did not match.

“You were talking to someone.” Anluan glanced around the empty garden.

“Only to myself. Not that there haven’t been folk about, both last night and this morning. Folk from the forest, I mean.”

Anluan limped towards me, pausing by the clump of heart’s blood.“It’s put on new growth,” he observed, glancing down. “Caitrin, if you wish them to leave you alone, just tell me.”

“No, it’s fine. I made them an undertaking and it’s fair that they should keep an eye on me to be sure I carry it out as best I can.They don’t seem particularly monstrous.There was a child last night, no more than five years old ... Could you stay in the library awhile this morning? I need your help with something.”

“I’m at your disposal.After my abrupt departure last night, I can hardly offer less.”

“You are chieftain here,” I said. “You can do what you like. And last night was partly my fault. I spoke without thinking, and I’m sorry. I’m glad you came this morning. Shall we go in?”

There was a certain awkwardness when he saw the writing materials set out on one of the cleared tables. I saw a familiar tightening of the jaw, a flinty look in the eyes. I spoke before he could. “All you need to do is try something for me. Just a slightly different way of holding your quill. It’s not much to ask.” But it was; that was quite plain on his face.

“There is no need for me to write, poorly or otherwise,” he said, an edge in his voice. “You are the scribe; you are at Whistling Tor to do what I cannot.”

“Perhaps I can do what’s required here by the end of summer and perhaps I can’t,” I said quietly.“But after I’m gone you’ll still keep on studying, as it’s clear you’ve been doing for years.You’ll still need to make notes, to transcribe things, to prepare documents of your own. Think of this as an experiment, as much for my own interest as anything. Please sit down. It will help if you take off your cloak.”

He removed it awkwardly, fumbling with the clasp one-handed. I did not help him.

“I’ve seen left-handed scribes before,” I told him as he sat at the work table.“They all hold the pen the way you do, with the hand curved around. I’ve been wanting to try something like this.You need not change from your usual script, but we’re going to hold the stylus differently, like this.”

“But ...” Anluan began a protest, then fell silent as I moved to stand close behind him, leaning over his left shoulder to guide his arm and hand into the correct position. Teaching a person to write is a very particular task; it cannot be done without a high degree of physical closeness.This is especially so when the tutor is a small person like me and the student a tall, well-built one. The stance required to control the movement of Anluan’s arm and hand brought my cheek close to his and pressed my body against his back.The sensation that swept through me, warm and heady, was not at all appropriate to the situation of teacher and pupil. I felt the blood rush to my face, and was glad Anluan’s attention was on the tablet and stylus.

“It seems wrong, I know,” I told him. “But it feels more comfortable, doesn’t it? Now you’re holding the stylus just as I would with my right hand.”

“I cannot write this way. How can I form the letters?”

“Ah. Here’s where the simple trick comes in. We’re going to turn the tablet sideways.” I moved the wax tablet so that what would have been the top left-hand corner was now at the bottom left, nearest to his writing hand. “I hope you’ll prove my theory correct, Anluan. I want you to try writing from the bottom of the page to the top, instead of left to right. It will require some concentration. Write the letters o, t and g while I’m guiding your hand, and then I’ll leave you to experiment while I do some of my own work.”

Anluan clutched the stylus as if it might attack him.

“Gentler.” I eased his cramped fingers.“Looser. Imagine you’re touching something soft, a cat’s fur, a baby’s fine shawl.That’s it. Form the letters exactly as you usually do. See, your hand is out of the way, and there will be no smudging when you move on to pen and ink. Good! Try a whole word.”

“What should I write?” His jaw was clenched tight.There was a pink flush in his cheeks.

“Whatever you like.” I straightened up and moved back a step. My heart was thumping. That had felt altogether too pleasurable. “Keep practicing. Later you can try it on parchment.”

“That would be a waste of expensive materials.” He glanced at the sheet I had prepared for him, the new quill, the ink pot.

“Don’t tell me you never learned how to scrape down your parchment for reuse.”

“I know how. But—”

“I’ve given you a diluted ink.”

“All the same—”

“Please,” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his uneven mouth curve into a smile.“Very well,” he said.“I accept your challenge.” He applied himself to his work, but the smile hovered, softening his features.

Time passed. I translated a document in which Nechtan did nothing but rant about his neighbor, Maenach, and another in which he methodically listed the number of lambs, calves and piglets born on his home farm that spring.Then I spotted the name Aislinn.

A trying day.All Hallows draws close and time is short. Our preparations are almost in place. Aislinn came in with her apron full of goldenwood, which she had cut in the ritual manner required. No sooner had we begun the next stage when a hammering on the door disturbed our labors.

The dark mirror called me. I glanced at Anluan; he had set down the stylus and was trying ink and parchment, using the new quill to write from bottom to top along the lines I had scored for him. His hair fell forward, the deep red strands emphasising the pallor of his face.The blue eyes were intent on his work, and he was using his weak right hand to hold the parchment steady.The angle of the quill was good; not perfect, but good. I saw purpose and hope in every part of him, and for a moment it made my breath falter. What had I done here? How had I dared awaken something so fragile in this place of overwhelming sadness?

I turned Nechtan’s document face down without reading any further. I pushed it over to the far edge of my work table, beyond easy reach, then took up the next sheet of ancient parchment.

They have slain the cattle that were Whistling Tor’s livelihood. They have taken lives in the settlement and set fires.Why do they refuse to heed me beyond the border of the Tor? They should be obedient to my will. I revisit the procedure endlessly in my mind, but can find no fault in it.There was no error in the preparations, no omission, no deviation from the form of words. All was carried out exactly as required. But it is wrong. Unleashed, this is no powerful army but a wayward rabble. If I can command their obedience only while I remain on the Tor, I will be set apart from all the world.

And, further down the page, this:

Folk are saying that I am cursed. I will prove them wrong. I will learn how to harness this monster.

“But you didn’t,” I murmured, setting that leaf on top of the other. “You couldn’t.”

“What was that?” Anluan set his quill down and flexed the fingers of his writing hand.

“Nothing. May I look at your work?”

“Of course.You are the teacher.”

I did not insult him with exaggerated praise, though my heart lifted when I saw how well he had absorbed the lesson. As for the fact that he had chosen to practice his script by writing my name—it was on the page three times, each version slightly more regular—that set a warm glow in my heart quite out of proportion to its cause. “Does this feel easier?” I asked. “It’s much more pleasing to the eye.”

“It is better, yes, and my hand hurts less.”

There was something in his tone that made me look at him more closely, seeing what I had missed a moment ago: the smudges under his eyes, the pallor, the droop of the shoulders. “Good work,” I said, keeping my tone light. “That’s enough for now. Ideally, you’d write a page a day with this method, until it came to you without thinking.”

“I must go,” Anluan said abruptly, rising to his feet. “Since I’ve sent Magnus down the hill for the morning, I’ll need to help Olcan with some work on the farm.” He hesitated on the threshold, cloak over his arm.“You look astonished, Caitrin. Cripple as I am, I am not entirely incapable.” Before I could frame a reply, he was gone.

I worked on until hunger drew me to the kitchen, where I assembled a meal of bread and cheese and ate it at the table. I remembered a stray dog Maraid had taken in once, a cowering, wary animal whose past had obviously not been a happy one. My sister had befriended it, using food, warmth and kind words. After a little, the dog took to following her about slavishly; it plainly adored her. But it was never quite at ease. It would cringe at the sound of a spoon dropped on the floor or a sudden sneeze. It would burst into frenzied barking when strangers came to the door. After some months the creature fell foul of a passing cart and was killed; we never knew how long it might have taken to learn trust. If too much harm has been done, perhaps that lesson becomes impossible. Remembering, I saw something of both Anluan and myself in that sad creature.

My simple meal over, I took my cup, platter and knife out to the pump to wash them. As I bent over the bucket, cloth in hand, a familiar voice spoke from behind me.

“Caitrin?”

I straightened, turning to look at Muirne. She had Emer’s violet gown in her hands, the skirt draggling onto the muddy ground by the pump. I saw at a glance that it was in shreds.

“The child,” she said. “I suppose you tried to befriend her. Do not be fooled by what you see. The little one is outwardly angelic. Inside is pure malevolence. No doubt she tugged at your heartstrings as she did with those of Emer, and of Líoch before her. I expect she spoke of her mother, or of being cold.You were kind to her, and look how she’s rewarded you. I’m afraid this gown is fit only to be ripped up for cleaning cloths.”

“No!” I almost snatched the garment from her. “I’m sorry,” I added, forcing my voice to be calm, though my heart was beating fast. “Perhaps I can salvage it.” The child, so small and frail, so innocent ... But she had done her ill work on Róise. “Where did you find this, Muirne?” I was certain I had left my door closed.

“On the gallery, in a heap. Doors and walls will not keep out the host, Caitrin.” She moved closer, putting a hand on my shoulder. “May I offer you some advice?”

“Of course.” Her touch made me uncomfortable.

“You are blundering into a situation you will soon be unable to control. Each day it becomes more risky. I cannot understand you, Caitrin.You see the host rampaging down the hill; straight afterwards you speak to them as if they were your friends.You witness Anluan’s near collapse, brought about by his efforts on your behalf, because of a man who came here in search of you, and instead of allowing him the rest he so desperately needs, you ask him for explanations, then demand that he summon the host again.You are a skilled craftswoman, a person of some intelligence, I must assume. And yet you put yourself at risk. You put Anluan at risk. These are the actions of a fool. Forgive me if I am too blunt for you. Someone must speak. Do you care nothing for him?”

I took a few careful breaths, trying not to hug Emer’s gown too tightly to my breast. I would not lie to her. Nor could I tell her what I realized was the truth: that I was coming to care more than I had ever intended. As for the host, all I had done was try to understand, try to help those I thought were in trouble. All I had done was see them as real men and women.With the tatters of the violet gown in my hands, and the memory of Anluan’s waxen pallor and exhausted eyes fresh in my mind, I felt a chill deep inside me. “Of course I care,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Nothing is as it seems here,” Muirne said quietly. “I ask you, as a woman and an equal, to leave Anluan alone. You think to change him, perhaps; to mold him into a form that is more acceptable to you. Men do not change.They cannot.”

I struggled for an appropriate answer. “That’s true of some, I’m sure.” Cillian, for instance. “But not all. Muirne, I’m not trying to change Anluan, I just ...” This was impossible. Anything I said, she would take as a criticism of herself. “I think he could do more,” I said. “Be more. He’s so weighed down by all of this,” I waved an arm vaguely, “he can’t see a way forwards. But he’s perfectly capable of being a proper chieftain; he is not lacking in intelligence, and the fact that he can never excel at hunting, riding or swordsmanship doesn’t mean he can’t be a leader. He’s brave. He’s perceptive. He could do wonders if only he could believe in himself.”

“This is not an ordinary man, Caitrin.You cannot apply the rules of the outside world to Anluan. He is the chieftain of Whistling Tor.”

“He’s an ordinary man as well,” I felt obliged to point out. “To be a chieftain one must first be a man.What he needs is purpose.”

“This is nonsense!” Muirne said, losing some of her customary calm. “You endanger him and you cannot see it! You should have left this place when you had the opportunity.”

I was slow to understand.“What opportunity?You mean I should have gone down the hill with Magnus this morning?”

She made no reply, simply waited until I should summon the wit to grasp her meaning.When I did so I felt cold.

“You’re not telling me I should have let Cillian carry me away, trussed up with a gag over my mouth?You, a woman, think I should have accepted that?”

“At least that man wants you,” she said quietly.

Cold fury took hold of me. “I can’t believe you would condone what Cillian did yesterday. That sickens me. I understand your argument about Anluan, and I regret tiring him. I will be more careful in the future. But I’m not leaving Whistling Tor, Muirne; not until I finish the job I was hired for. I don’t believe my presence is dangerous to anyone.”

“Scribing is one thing.” She was angry too, but it showed only in her eyes. “I have some admiration for a woman who can do it with sufficient skill to earn her living. But you seek to do far more here than the transcription of a few documents.”

I had no answer to this, since she was right. I had made an undertaking to the host. I had promised to look for a counterspell. And what about Anluan, with his odd little smile, like a sudden burst of sunlight in a place full of shadows? This could not be neatly finished by the end of summer.

“You stirred up the host,” Muirne said, folding her arms. “The host is dangerous. Eventually, inevitably, it will turn against you.”

“How can you say that when you are part of the host yourself?” I asked, not caring whether I had overstepped the mark. “As for that little girl . . .” My fingers stroked the damaged cloth of the violet gown. “She’s too young to be fully responsible for her actions.”

Muirne’s eyes were cold. “You’re wrong,” she said. “You expose all of us to danger. Do your work if you must; write your copies. But Anluan should have nothing to do with the documents.Tell him you do not want his help.” She turned on her heel and was gone before I could say any more.

My mind was spinning. For a moment I could not remember why I was in the yard. I thought of Anluan, so relaxed, so happy after his success with the pen. I remembered the feeling of his body against mine as I guided his hand; the curious sense of loss as I stepped away, setting space between us. It was not the first time touching him had sent a flood of warmth through my body. Muirne had been right to warn me. I was letting myself feel too much. I was allowing natural sympathy to grow into something else, something with the power to cause real harm.

With a sigh, I finished rinsing the dishes, then poured out the washing water by the kitchen steps. Muirne had said Anluan should have nothing to do with the documents. But Anluan had hired me to translate the Latin so he could find out what Nechtan had written. He wanted to read the documents. Why was this dangerous? I could think of no reason but the one I had already considered myself: that Anluan might be inspired to attempt the same kind of work his great-grandfather had tried to such disastrous effect. He might believe that the only way the host could be banished was by sorcery. In walking down that path, he risked becoming Nechtan all over again. Muirne, who loved him, was quite reasonably taking steps to avoid what she knew would be catastrophic.

Back in the kitchen, I dried the dishes and set them in their places. I found myself wiping down the tabletop for the third time. I gathered Emer’s gown and went up to my quarters, expecting the worst. The door was ajar but nothing seemed to be out of place except for Róise. I had put her away in the storage chest this morning, but she was on the bed now, propped against my pillow with her torn skirt spread out around her.The child had ripped out far more of the silken hair than I had realized: one side of the doll’s head was almost completely bald.

I took a few deep breaths. There was work to be done; Nechtan’s documents awaited me in the library. But the encounter with Muirne had unsettled me, and the knowledge that someone had been in this chamber, tampering with my belongings even as I sat with Anluan in the library, set unease in my bones. Before I went back to work, I needed to put right the damaged memories of family.

I assembled my sewing materials and rolled Róise up in Emer’s gown. I stepped out of the bedchamber and almost walked into the young man in the bloody shirt. I gasped in shock; he took a step back as if equally disturbed.

“Oh—forgive me—” I fumbled for the right words.

“I mean no harm—I wish only to—”

Perhaps it was his hesitancy that put the strange idea into my head. “I need your help,” I said.“I need someone to guard my chamber for a while. I don’t want anyone to go in there before I return.Would you do this for me?” Foolish, perhaps; Muirne would most certainly have thought so. But I had not seen a host of evil presences, ready to turn on me at the least excuse. I had seen folk adrift without a purpose. I had seen men, women and children all together, yet each alone.They had nothing to do, nowhere to go.They were not wanted.They were not needed.They had nobody to touch them, to love them, to reassure them.They had lost themselves.

“What will you pay?” His voice was like the rattling of dry stalks in an autumn field.

“I will pay in work.While you keep watch, I will be searching for what I spoke of before, the key to setting you free. But I have other work to do first. Something has been broken, something precious.”

The young man sighed, reaching out a hand whose fingers were little more than bare bone. He touched the fabric of the tattered gown. “Hers ...”

Startled, I asked, “You knew her? Emer?”

“I cannot remember,” he said, but the memory was in those haunted eyes.They had changed when I spoke her name. I could have sworn there were tears glittering there.

“Will you keep watch for me? I will return before dusk.”

He bowed his head, a courteous indication of assent, and took up a position before the bedchamber door. His back was straight, his shoulders square, his booted feet planted apart. So stern was his expression, so formidable his stance that surely no one would dare challenge him.

“Thank you,” I said. “What is your name?”

There was a long pause, as if he had to dig deep to find the memory. “Cathaír, lady.”

“It is a fine name for a warrior. Farewell for now, Cathaír.”

I sat in Irial’s garden, under the birch tree, and stitched a new skirt for the doll, using remnants of Emer’s gown. I tried to weigh up hope against risk, purpose against peril. If it was too dangerous for Anluan to be exposed to Nechtan’s records—and Muirne had made a convincing case—I must reach the truth on my own. It must be done before summer’s end. Nobody had said what would happen if I failed to complete the job by then. Perhaps Anluan would let me stay on. But I could not assume so.That meant I must use whatever tools were at my disposal in the search for a counterspell. And there was one very powerful tool shut in a box by my work table, waiting to reveal more dark stories. Was I brave enough to set more of Nechtan’s writings on the table and look in the obsidian mirror again? Alone, without Anluan? I had given my word to the host. Perhaps I was already committed to this.

There was no way to fix Róise’s hair, not without a supply of silk thread. I made a little veil for her, using the same violet fabric, and sewed it securely to her head, concealing the damage. I murmured to the doll as I mended her, comforting stories of home and family: the warm kitchen, the orderly workroom, my sister singing as she cooked supper.When I came to Father, my voice faltered to a stop. One particular memory would stay with me always, no matter where I went. Blundering downstairs half-asleep, intending an early start on the important commission we were undertaking. Opening the workroom door. Finding that Father had risen even earlier than I had. He had begun work already; he had completed two lines before he died. The tall stool was tipped over. Father lay on his back on the floor, arms outstretched, eyes staring. The quill had fallen just beyond his reach; ink drops made a delicate pattern across the boards. His fingers, a craftsman’s long, graceful fingers, were open, relaxed, like those of a child sleeping. He was already gone.

“It was a good place, Róise,” I whispered, making a last neat stitch in her head-cloth and biting off the thread. “Until that day, it was the best place in the world. Then everything changed. Ita and Cillian came, and almost as soon as Father was buried, Maraid went away with Shea. I hope she’s all right. I hope they’re happy.” This thought surprised me. At the time, sorrow had claimed me so completely that I had hardly been capable of understanding that my sister was gone. Later, when I had begun to claw my way out of despair, I had felt bitter and angry towards her. Now, regarding the mended Róise and recalling the day of my seventh birthday, when Maraid had presented me with her creation and told me that since our mother was no longer in this world, Róise would keep an eye on me in her place, I realized that my resentment was fading at last. Perhaps Maraid had had no choice. Perhaps she had run away for the same reason I had: to save herself.

The violet gown was beyond repair.There was not enough of the skirt intact to furnish anything save this outfit for Róise. Perhaps I was foolishly sentimental to want to save it. I had not known Anluan’s mother, and she was long gone. But people had loved her. I rolled the gown up. Later, I would find a way to use it.

The sun was warm. The garden was peaceful. I could happily have stayed here all afternoon, doing nothing in particular. But the library door stood open and my work lay ready within. Practice being brave a little at a time, Anluan had suggested. This was not a little; it was almost overwhelming. But I must do it. If I were to have a chance of fulfilling the promise I had made to the host, I must go into the library and turn over those pages. I must open the box and take out the obsidian mirror. I must look into the darkness.