Heart's Blood

chapter fourteen

Ehey assembled in the courtyard not long after. Still clad in my borrowed shirt and cloak, I stood on the steps with Orna on one side and a watchful Gearróg on the other.Around us were gathered the women and children of the host, and the women and children of the settlement, a far smaller group, along with a few very old men, those too frail to march into battle. Above us on the walkways were stationed men of the host, bows and quivers ready, eyes on the hillside beyond the wall. A hush lay over all; in the semi-dark of very early morning, a single bird could be heard uttering a sleepy chirp, more question than statement. Is it time yet?

It was an extraordinary army, the stuff of mad dreams. Anluan cut a somber figure. He wore black under his protective garments, and his bright hair was concealed by the leather helm. The only weapon he bore was a long knife at his belt. He looked pale. The lines around nose and mouth, those that had once made me believe him far older than his five-and-twenty years, were all too visible this morning. I made sure my anxiety did not show on my face.

By his side was Cathaír in his bloody shirt. He had a sword sheathed at his hip and a thrusting spear in his hand. It seemed to me his eyes were calmer today; indeed, there was a purpose about all this motley band that stilled my heart, letting hope in. Perhaps they could do it. Perhaps, even beyond the boundaries of the hill, they could hold strong against the frenzy if it came, and follow their chieftain to victory.

Olcan was on Anluan’s other side with Fianchu on a rope leash. They were formidable, the two of them, all harnessed strength. It was hard to believe this fearsome war hound had slept curled around a little child, warm against her eternal cold. Close by them was Rioghan, grim as death.

A rattling of bones preceded the appearance, from among the trees, of the skeletal horse and its monkish rider. Eichri looked in my direction, and he and his mount grinned. On the edges of the assembled force stood men of Whistling Tor settlement, Tomas among them. They had perhaps sufficient armor for half their number, but the pieces had been shared: one man had only a helm, another mismatched wrist guards; a third, luckier individual had a worn breast-piece. Some bore round shields, chipped and worn but freshly painted with the emblem of a golden sun on a field of blue. I recalled the mirror of might-have-been and the image of Anluan riding out with a band of fit young warriors under a banner with just such colors.The men from the settlement looked decidedly nervous.They had grown up on stories of the host, dark stories of murder and mayhem.To reach this point must have required a remarkable degree of leadership by both Anluan and Rioghan, and a great deal of courage from these ordinary folk.

“It’s time,” said Anluan, turning to include the entire assembly in his gaze.“You know the plan. Keep to it and we’ll drive these invaders off our land and into oblivion. Men of the settlement, you know what rides on this.We fight for our land, for our families, for the future. Men of the host, for you the stakes are still higher. Win today and you win us time to seek out the counterspell.Win me this battle and I swear to you that I will find it, if it takes all the years of my life.

“Men, you know what you must do. The first wave goes beyond the boundary of the hill, and beyond the line where I am certain I can keep you in check, whatever comes. If the frenzy touches your mind, you won’t be able to sing to hold it off, not until the moment of attack. Once outside the fortress walls we must maintain total silence or the enemy will be alerted. I will be there to lead you. I am your chieftain. If the frenzy comes, remember that mine is the only voice you must obey. If madness threatens to drive you off course, cling to that.You are my men; you are the men of the hill.We march to victory.When every last Norman soldier is gone from our territory, when Whistling Tor is ours again, we’ll march up here with our hearts high, singing fit to rattle the walls of this fortress.”

The urge to give this speech the resounding cheer it deserved showed on every face. That nobody uttered a word was testament to the transformation of this extraordinary band of frightened villagers and wayward specters into a disciplined fighting force. Anluan turned his head towards me. He smiled, and in that smile I saw his love for me, and his fear. I found a smile of my own and hoped it was full of confidence.

“Forward, men!” Anluan said, and they moved away, out through the gap in the wall and down into the dark forest.The men of the hill: young and old, dead and living, monk, councillor, warrior, craftsman, innkeeper, farmer. Hope shone in their eyes; pride held their bodies straight and tall. Above the trees the sky held the faintest hint of dawn.

“Well, then,” said Orna when the last in the line had vanished from sight. She wiped a hand across her cheek. “You’d best not stand about in your bare feet any longer, Caitrin, not to speak of that shirt that shows half your legs. Let’s see if we can find you a gown somewhere. Coming in?” This last was addressed to the wise woman.

“We will wait out of doors.” The woman with the moon tattoo had been joined by the others I had seen on the night of Anluan’s council, the village wife and the elegant creature with glittering jewelery and features of faded beauty. “Be wary, Caitrin,” the wise woman added. “If poison was in the jug, you, too, were an intended victim. If you are right, and the girl in the veil has done this, she is cleverer and more devious than any of us believed.We thought her harmless. Her devotion to the chieftains of Whistling Tor seemed of little consequence. She may have the ability to make others see in the way she wishes them to see. She is still here. She still watches you.Take care.”

I nodded, a frisson of unease passing through me. This rang true. It could explain the surprising blindness of all the men of the inner circle to just how odd Muirne’s behavior was.They thought her well meaning and harmless. Often they hardly seemed to notice her. And perhaps that was just the way she wanted it. How convenient to be so invisible that when bad things happened, nobody gave any thought to the possibility that she might be the one responsible.

Some time later, clad in a borrowed gown, shawl and slippers, I sat at the kitchen table with a group of women from the settlement. Gearróg stood guard at the outer door. At the inner one were stationed two village boys no more than thirteen years old, a sharpened stick apiece.

“I’ve a good carving knife within reach,” Orna murmured, following my dubious gaze. “And there are three pokers in the fire, red-hot every one.We won’t be sitting back and letting the Normans take this place, Caitrin. Whistling Tor is our home. Nobody’s going to drive us out.”

I hoped it would not come to that, since the enemy would only reach the fortress if Rioghan’s bold strategy failed and Anluan’s army was cut down. Or if that army was touched by the frenzy and turned on its own. “I wish we could see what’s happening,” I said, hugging the shawl around me and trying not to imagine the worst.They would be at the foot of the hill by now, dividing into their two groups, one to go forward across the boundary, one to wait under concealment of the trees. What I had not asked, because I did not want to think about it, was where Anluan planned to be when the first group manifested in the center of the Norman encampment. To keep them strong beyond the boundary, he would need to be close to them, to lead them.They were spectral in nature and could not be killed. Anluan was a living man.

“Cold out there,” commented Orna, speaking to fill the nervous silence.

I realized that I had left Gearróg’s cloak lying across a bench when I changed my clothes. I picked it up, intending to take it to him, and realized there was something in the pocket: the little book I had taken from Muirne’s secret hoard. I drew it out.

“What’s that?” Orna asked. And, when I did not answer, “Caitrin?”

I stood very still, the book in my hands, its front cover slightly open to reveal, scribed in neat minuscule, the name Aislinn. “She used a crow quill,” I murmured absently, turning the first page with fingers that were less than steady. “Orna, I must read this. Will you take the cloak to Gearróg, please?”

I set the book on the table beside Irial’s notebook. I could understand why the smaller book had been hidden away; not only did that name reveal Muirne’s identity, but I could see from a glance that the pages contained personal notes, formulas, diagrams suggesting this might be the very same work book in which she had been scribbling when I had first set eyes on her in the obsidian mirror. A diary of cruelty, of sorcery, of grand ambition gone terribly askew. But why had she put Irial’s notebook with it? That was just one of many. She might have wanted to stop me finding the antidote, but that book had been missing since I had first read Irial’s records: long before her jealousy had led Muirne to today’s evil act.Was there some further evidence of wrongdoing in Irial’s book? I leafed through the pages, looking for anything unusual, and glimpsed a heading: For the preparation of heart’s blood ink.The components and method were set out below.There was not a shred of excitement in me, only disappointment at yet another page with nothing I could use, no key, no clue.

Wait a moment.There was an essential difference here, something that made this particular volume stand out from Irial’s other notebooks. I leafed back to the beginning; checked the middle again; examined the last pages. There were no margin notes in this book, no record of Irial’s long time of sorrow. On the very first page, in Irish, not Latin, Anluan’s father had written this:

Farewell, my sunshine and my moonlight, my sweet rose, my love. Six hundred days have passed since I lost you, and I will shed no more tears, though my heart will mourn until we meet again in the place beyond death. Our son lives and grows. While I have been so sunk in grief I hardly knew myself, Magnus has nurtured him with such wisdom and tenderness that he might be a second father. In our boy I see all your good gifts, Emer: courage, wit, steadfastness, hope. Today, in the garden, Anluan fell and hurt his arm. It was not to me that he ran for reassurance, but to Magnus. I must start afresh. I must shut my ears to the voice of sorrow and despair if I would help our son grow to be a man.Though I write no more of my sadness, never believe I have forgotten you, beloved. Every day, you live on in him.

Mother of God. How cruel, how needlessly cruel to hide this book away so that Anluan would never know how much his father loved him; to keep it from Magnus, who bore a weight of guilt that he had not recognized the depth of his friend’s despair. These were not the thoughts of a man about to kill himself from grief. In my mind, I saw Muirne with the sorrowing Irial, the man whose garden she haunted, the man whose workroom she had made her own, her secret place. I saw her watching him with Emer; I saw the look on her face, twin to the one she had sometimes turned on me. I imagined her lighting the fire that took her rival’s life. I had no difficulty at all in believing that she had poisoned her beloved Irial solely because he loved his wife and son too much and had nothing left for her. She had believed Emer’s death would make him hers. She had been wrong. So she had killed him as well. And today she had almost killed his son.

With shaking hands I opened Aislinn’s little book. She was here in the house somewhere. She would come back, and when she did I must be ready for her. What to do—read from beginning to end, which would take some time, as there was Latin here as well as Irish, or skim through the book quickly? I began to turn the pages, glancing at numbers and figures that meant little to me, a pentagram within a perfect circle, the latter drawn in the form of a snake devouring its own tail. A list of unusual herbs, with notes as to precisely how each should be gathered. Goldenwood to be cut only on the sixth day of the moon, and with a sickle of bone; the harvest not to be allowed to touch the earth, but to be conveyed with great care to the place of preparation. Preparation for what? Here and there, observations that were not related to her work: Nechtan is a paragon of learning and courage. I can never hope to match him. And a few pages later: He watches me when he believes I am not looking. He confides his deepest secrets. He loves me. I am filled with happiness.

It made my skin crawl, and yet I felt a trace of pity for her, remembering Nechtan in the obsidian mirror, and how easily he set aside his lust for the girl in the interests of the work ahead. Love? Never that. Such an idea had been only in Aislinn’s mind.

Only three days until All Hallows’ night. My gown is almost ready; I will fashion the wreath on the last day, so it will be fresh. I can scarcely believe that he has entrusted me with the most vital task of all. When he has marked out the secret pattern, I will stand in its center. As he speaks the words of the invocation the beings will emerge, drawn by my essence. The army will form around me, between the points of the pentagram. I know the words of the charm; he rehearses them endlessly, muttering to himself as he attends to the tasks of preparation. I asked him to describe precisely how it works, but he will not tell me.To know more is to be at risk, Aislinn, he said, and I will not risk you, my dear. He tells me I will be like a priestess; like a queen.

And on another page:

He has not touched me yet. But he looks; oh, how he looks. He has said nothing of afterwards, yet I see a promise in his eyes.When this is over and Mella is gone, we will be together.

And then, at the foot of an untidy page on which various nonsense words—erappa, sinigilac, egruser—had been scrawled, crossed out, combined in various ways as if she were solving a puzzle, she wrote:

I have it at last.The secret.The key. I have it. So simple, too simple for a mind like his that seeks always for higher ground, for challenges beyond the limits of ordinary men. He scoffs at the very thought that we might ever need this; and perhaps he is right.After the great work is done, I will tell him that I have discovered what he could not. I cannot wait to see his look of pride.

“What is it?” Orna was staring at me. “What are you reading?”

“Sinigilac oigel,” I muttered, feverishly turning pages. “Legio caliginis . . . army of darkness . . .” I sprang to my feet, clutching Aislinn’s book in my hand.The other women stared.“I have to go to the library,” I said.“Now. I need the obsidian mirror. Gearróg!”

He came racing in, then halted abruptly, his hand halfway to his sword hilt.

“We’re going to the library. Bring a light.” My eyes fell on the two lads guarding the inner door, both of whom looked half asleep. They’d have trouble fending off anything bigger than a stray dog.

“I’ll come.” Orna was taking a lantern from a hook, picking up her warm shawl. I would feel far safer with her and her big carving knife next to me than these boys trying to be men. “Sionnach, keep an eye on this door. The rest of you, be ready to snatch one of those pokers and use it if need be. Lead the way, Gearróg.”

We ran, the three of us, through the house to the library door, unguarded now since Broc had left his post to join the march down the hill. Trembling from head to foot, I went to the desk where I had spent long hours with quill and inks restoring order to the chaos of Anluan’s collection. I drew a deep breath, reached down and opened the chest that had held Nechtan’s personal papers. I drew out the cloth-wrapped bundle; set it on the table; unveiled the obsidian mirror. Gearróg had stationed himself by the door to Irial’s garden, alert for danger. After placing the lantern for me, Orna had gone to stand just inside the other door. For all her pallor, there was a grim and capable look about her, and I knew I owed her a great debt for her courage.

I opened Aislinn’s notebook to the page where she had begun to describe the ritual: the secret pattern, the invocation, her role as a sort of conduit for the spirits. There was a chance, slight but real, that what had worked with Nechtan’s writings might also work with those of his devoted assistant. I must try, at least. A creeping dread was coming over me, a dark misgiving. I hoped very much that I was wrong. It seemed Aislinn had believed her scrambled Latin was a charm of power. A counterspell: she must have believed that, for why would one reverse the words in an invocation—warriors of darkness, come forth—save for the purpose of sending those demons back where they came from?

Aislinn had probably got it wrong. It did seem far too simple, something Nechtan must surely have tried once he discovered he could not make the host obey. Still, my heart was racing with fearful anticipation. If what she had written in her book was indeed the counterspell,Anluan possessed the means to banish the host. He could undo the family curse and end a hundred years of suffering. I had to know more; I must see the ritual to find out how they had done it and what had gone wrong.This must be more complicated than speaking a few Latin words backwards.“Show me,” I muttered, my gaze moving from mirror to book and back again. “Show me quickly.”When Muirne found her book missing, she would come after me to get it back. She would not lightly give up its hidden treasure, the tool of immense power she had kept to herself all these years. I must find out how to use the spell before Muirne found me.

Aislinn’s neat script looked up at me, its rows perfectly spaced, its letters round and careful, not a stroke out of place. I will be like a priestess; like a queen. The face of the obsidian mirror gleamed in the lantern light. Through the open door to Irial’s garden I thought I could hear a clamour down the hill, shouting, screaming, the clash of weaponry, the high, hysterical neighing of horses.

“It’s started,” said Gearróg. “Stand strong, lads.”

“God keep them,” murmured Orna. “You finding what you need, Caitrin?”

I did not reply, for the mirror’s surface had begun to swirl, to change, to darken and lighten and open up, and there before me was the courtyard within the fortress wall, not overgrown as now, but bare and open. The cold light of a full moon bathed the central space, but under the trees lay a profound darkness. At the foot of the steps stood Nechtan, clad in black. The light from a brazier transformed his bony features into a mask of fire and shadow. “The herbs, Aislinn,” he said.

“The herbs, Aislinn,” he says, and she passes over her small harvest, dry leaves reduced to powder, a mixture designed to aid the transition between worlds, to open portals.Tonight, of all nights, such doors may swing wide. At All Hallows, she muses, one would be a fool to expect anything but the unexpected. There is a tingling in her body, a sharp anticipation that makes her restless as she stands there waiting, knowing that if ever she was beautiful, it is now. The gown is of whitest linen, finer than any she has worn before, its borders embroidered with delicate flowers and vines. Nechtan has bade her wear her hair loose, and it cloaks her in pale silk. Aislinn can feel every thread of it against her skin. She can feel the weight of Nechtan’s gaze. His eyes devour her. Later, those eyes promise. Later.

He has marked out the pentagram in sand, its points touching the circle that encloses it, a circle fashioned in the form of a serpent, its tail between its jaws. Now he casts the herbs into the brazier. The fragrant smoke begins to pass across the place of ritual.There is a great magic afoot tonight, but Nechtan will keep her safe. He loves her.When this is over, she will be his wife. Mella does not deserve him. She is not fit for him. Mella understands nothing of this work; her mind is too small to encompass it. Mella has never been beautiful.

The moon hides behind a cloud; a shiver of wind crosses the courtyard. The brazier flares strangely, sparks dancing upward.“It’s time,Aislinn,” Nechtan says, his voice deep and soft. He comes towards her, an imposing figure in his ritual robe; he extends a hand. Aislinn takes it in hers. Ah, his touch! She feels it deep inside her; the secret parts of her body quiver and throb. Later . . . later. He leads her to the center.They have rehearsed this until it is perfect in every detail; not a grain of sand stirs as their careful feet pass over. Now they are in the middle of the pattern. Nechtan places her just so, arms by her sides, her face towards the place where he will stand for the invocation, on the second step leading to the main entry. He will be outside the circle.

The house is in darkness. If Mella knows what is unfolding here, she has closed herself off from it. Perhaps she’s putting cold compresses on her bruised face, or tending to her whining brat. More likely she’s abed. She’ll sleep alone. From this night forward, she’ll always sleep alone.

Nechtan bends to kiss Aislinn on the brow, a chaste touch. He makes his way across the circle to the foot of the steps. She sees him take several deep breaths, readying himself, summoning his strength.

Aislinn knows the rules she must obey tonight. Keep silent; do not speak. Stand as still as stone.Whatever you feel, whatever you see, remain in the center. Do not be afraid. I will control them; they cannot harm you. She can do it. She’s practiced standing still for far longer than she’ll need to tonight; she’s learned to conquer the dizziness. No need to practice being quiet. Often she and Nechtan work from dawn to dusk with scarcely a word between them, content in their silent companionship.That he has chosen her, that she is so honored . . . It makes her heart swell. It is a miracle, a wonder, a blessing.

She thinks of her secret, the charm she has discovered all by herself, with no need for Nechtan’s tutoring. She cannot wait to share it with him. As soon as this is over, she’ll tell him of the study she’s been doing in her own time, the things she’s learned, oh, many things, the secret knowledge she’s gained. Perhaps when they have lain together at last, and she has satisfied him, and he lies back to rest, she’ll say, quite casually, Guess what I discovered?

The capricious wind stirs dead leaves across the flagstones.The moon emerges, a pale, blank face staring down at them. Nechtan begins a solemn progress around the circle, starting in the north.

“By the enduring power of earth, I call you!” He walks to the east. “By the invisible power of air, I call you!” He moves sunwise, since this is a ritual of manifestation. “By the transformative power of fire, I call you!” And to the west: “By the fluid power of water, I call you!” He has cast the circle, and now begins a measured walk along the lines of the pentagram, making sure his feet do not disturb the pattern.

When the figure is complete he stands at the north point, closest to the steps. He turns to face the center. “By the all-ruling power of spirit, which knows neither beginning nor ending, I summon you! I call you out of shadow! Out of boundless darkness I conjure you!”

His voice is deep and powerful. It rings around the moonlit courtyard, making the trees shiver.The ancient words tug and pull, coax and beckon, cajole and command.Who could resist such a call?

A trembling courses through Aislinn’s body, a premonition of change, and for the first time she is anxious. What if . . . ? No; look at Nechtan, his dark eyes blazing with confidence, his pose triumphal. He is a master of this craft and he cannot fail.

Now comes the charm proper, the Latin words of power. Once, twice, three times he intones the spell: “Legio caliginis appare! Appare mihi statim! Resurge! Resurge!”

All is silence. As she waits, still as a statue in pale marble, Aislinn hardly dares breathe.

Around the circle, in the spaces between the star’s five points, wisps of vapor begin to rise. As she watches, her heart pounding, the threads and shreds form into shapes, figures of men in the clothing of ancient days, with weapons in hand and helms on their heads. There is a giant warrior with a club in his fist; there a young one with his shirt all bloody, clutching a spear, with his eyes darting to and fro, as if he is astonished to find himself here. Here a dark-skinned man with bow and quiver, there a thin fellow with a belt full of knives ...They are but half-formed, these spirit warriors, still more of mist than substance, their figures wavering as if inclined to vanish back to the realm of shadows from whence they have been summoned. Not strong enough yet . . .

“Resurge!” Nechtan calls again, a great shout.

Aislinn’s legs feel odd, numb and weak suddenly, as if she might collapse. She must not faint; she must not let him down. Stand still as stone. She takes a deep breath, fighting the weakness. But something’s wrong there too; she can’t seem to catch her breath properly. Remain in the center. She gasps, struggles, tries to suck in air, but her lungs aren’t working as they should. Her limbs feel leaden.

The figures are clearer now, manifesting in what seems almost fleshly form; there are colors, the blue of an ancient shield, the red of a bloody shirt, a man’s fair hair shining in the moonlight. Stand still . . . in the center . . .Aislinn’s head feels strange. She snatches a shallow breath. She must not faint. She will not fail him. More spectral forms appear, a dozen, twenty, fifty. The spaces between the points are full of them, packed shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed on Nechtan where he stands on the steps, his face incandescent with triumph.

It’s done. He has his army.Waves of nausea sweep through Aislinn, but now she can’t seem to move at all. Her head is swimming, she feels as if there’s an iron band around her chest. I can’t breathe, she wants to say, but her voice won’t work. Not just the lack of air, something else. The heavy stillness is creeping up her body, she cannot move so much as a finger. She tries again to speak but her tongue is frozen, her jaw stiff, her throat rigid. She tries desperately to show Nechtan with her eyes that something has gone wrong. Help me. Nechtan, help me.

At last Nechtan’s eyes meet hers.Thank God, now he will undo whatever fell charm has fallen on her, and save her. Help. Help.

He looks at her, and his face shows only the triumph of the experiment, the grand plan executed without flaw, the tool of his future greatness delivered into his hands. In a sudden moment of chill insight, Aislinn understands. Your essence will bring them forth, he told her. Her essence . . . her life . . . this is the price of the power he craves.The white robe, the wreath, his reluctance to touch her . . . A sacrificial victim, young, beautiful and pure. Her body still as if encased in stone, her labored breath rasping in her chest, Aislinn looks into Nechtan’s eyes and sees the bitter truth. He has known all along that she would die, and he doesn’t care. He has used her, and now he will discard her without a second thought.

But wait, the charm, the counterspell . . . she has it, she knows it, all she need do is speak the words and this can be undone . . . Through the fog fast filling her mind, Aislinn struggles to find what she needs, to whisper on a faltering breath the words that can save her: . . . sinigil . . . mitat . . . She almost has it . . . sigilin . . . oileg ...The fell warriors are becoming brighter, heavier, more solid: a formidable army. They stretch, regard their own limbs, stare at one another, perplexed. Erap . . . sinigla . . . egur . . . egrus . . . Too late. The charm has slipped away. Fixing her dying eyes on the man she has loved, the man she has worshiped with every fiber of her being, Aislinn speaks in her mind words her lips cannot form: I curse you! One hundred years of ill luck attend you, one hundred years of sorrow, one hundred years of failure! You think to discard me like rubbish to the midden, but you will not be rid of me. I will haunt you. I will shadow your steps and those of all you hold dear, I will torment your family for generation on generation. Let the army you so desired be a burden and a misery to you and yours! With my last breath I curse you!

As everything blurs and fades around her, as the last shreds of clarity leave her mind, Aislinn sees Nechtan’s expression change, his transcendent triumph muted by the first trace of doubt. Something . . . something wrong . . .

A scream, a crash, and I came back to myself. I dragged my gaze from the mirror, lifted my head, looked straight into her eyes. She stood facing me across the table, her veil slightly askew, her gown a touch less than immaculate.

“Give me my book.” Her voice was precise and clear; each word rang a warning bell.

Gearróg. Orna. Where were they? What had happened while I was absorbed in the vision? The chamber was bright with morning light. How long had I sat here, staring into the mirror, while down the hill the battle raged?

A moan from near the doorway. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gearróg curled up on the floor, his arms tight over his head. Just like last time; just like the day when Anluan left the hill, and the host went mad, and I nearly died. I looked the other way, and there was Orna, sprawled motionless on the flagstones near the inner door, one arm outstretched, the fingers limp. My mind filled with terror, for the three of us and for Anluan’s army, even now out beyond the safe boundary. I rose to my feet, clutching the little book against my breast.

“Give me my book.”

When I did not reply, Muirne turned toward the cowering Gearróg and lifted her hand, pointing. His whole body jerked, and a febrile trembling gripped him. “You killed them,” she said. So changed was her voice it might have been a different person’s, for the tone was that of a sorcerer pronouncing a fell charm. “Your wife, your children, you killed them in a fit of jealous rage, all gone, all drowned, your little boy, your baby, all gone under the water . . .”

“Nooo!” moaned Gearróg. “Lies, those are lies!”

“You did it.” Muirne was calm, calm and cold. “Why do you think you’re here with the rest of them? The stain of it’s on you forever.You’ll never—”

“Stop it!” I found my courage. “Leave him alone!” A moment later, the true significance of what I had just witnessed dawned on me and for a moment left me wordless with shock. “It’s you,” I breathed. “The whole thing, all of it, the voice, the frenzy . . . you used what he taught you, and then . . . Aislinn, this is truly evil!”

“Give me my book or I’ll break the host as I’ve broken your guard here. I’ll snap their minds like twigs! I can do it! Give me my book or I’ll make sure your precious Anluan never walks back up this hill.They’ll be carrying him home on a board, as dead as that woman on the floor there.”

My heart was cold. Orna dead, for the sole misdemeanor of standing up to this twisted spirit?

“You love Anluan,” I said.“Why would you want to kill him?Why would you kill Irial? Isn’t a hundred years of vengeance enough for you, Aislinn?”

Her eyes narrowed.“Give me what is mine, Caitrin,” she said.“You are a fool to doubt me. I can wreak utter havoc among the host. I’ve done it before. Clever reader that you are, you should know that already.”

Though I still stood frozen, my mind had begun to work very quickly indeed. With Gearróg crouched helpless on the floor, why didn’t she snatch the book from me? Stall for time, said the voice of common sense. Make her talk. I must distract her, delay the moment when she would set the frenzy on the host. Anluan must win his battle.This must not end, yet again, in mayhem, chaos, retreat, failure. Once Anluan stepped back within the boundary of the Tor, she would lose her ability to wreak such havoc. In Nechtan’s writings, in Conan’s, that had always been the pattern of it.

“How do you do it?” I asked, my voice shaking.“The—the frenzy, the voice? How can you control so many of them at once? Was it your doing every time the host disobeyed Nechtan, every time they ran amok under Conan’s leadership? How could you become so powerful, Aislinn?”

That little smile passed over her lips, the smile of superiority, of entitlement. “I’ve had a long time to perfect my craft,” she said, and I saw that I had chosen just the right turn of conversation to keep her talking. “I was always apt, quick, clever. He loved me for that.” The smile vanished. “He did not love me as he should have done.”

“But how can you speak to all of them at once, telling each one something different? You seem to know just what memories will most torment folk. Even I felt the touch of it, and I am a living woman.” I selected my words carefully. “It seems to me that you are as powerful as Nechtan was.”

Her lips curved again. “More powerful. Believe me, Caitrin, there is a way into any mind, if only one knows how to look for it. Here on the Tor, all bend to my will.”

Not quite all, I thought. While Anluan was within the boundary and in control of the host, his power outweighed hers.There was not a shred of doubt in my mind that if he had not been here to keep me safe she would long ago have ensured I was sent away, or worse. She would have pushed me from the tower, to die as Líoch had done. She would have left me shut in the library, to perish by fire as poor Emer had.

“Give me the book, Caitrin. Don’t keep me waiting.” Her voice had acquired a new edge; she was no longer calm and controlled. She lifted a hand, and in it was Orna’s carving knife.

My heart juddered in panic. I ran through the words of Nechtan’s invocation in my mind: Legio caliginis appare! Appare mihi statim! Resurge! I was fairly sure I could remember it correctly. I knew the image of the pentagram within its snake-formed circle. I could remember the words Nechtan had used at the beginning, addressing the elemental spirits. Even without the book, I might be able to give Anluan what he needed to end this. If I could stay alive long enough. “I don’t understand why you tried to kill Anluan,” I said, “but I do know I could just as easily have been the one who drank the poison first. There’d have been nobody to find Irial’s notebook and read the antidote if I’d been lying there unable to speak. I can’t give you back your book without a promise of good faith.”

I backed away from the table that stood between us, but I could not go far, for a set of shelves stood behind, effectively boxing me in. Chances were she’d still stick the knife into me, even if I gave up her treasure.What to do, with Orna lying there, perhaps dead, perhaps needing my help, and Gearróg now ominously silent? From down the hill noises still came to my ears, a great roaring as of many voices raised together in a war cry or perhaps a song; the thunder of hooves. “The Tor!” someone shouted, and “The Tor!” screamed a hundred voices in response. Cry of comradeship or call to retreat, I did not know which it might be.

I held Aislinn’s eye and spoke as calmly as my hammering heart would allow. I must keep her attention off the host.“You were cruelly wronged, I saw that in the mirror just now. Nechtan failed to recognize your strength, your ability, your potential. I understand why you punished him so. But Irial . . . he was a good man. He never sought to use the host for ill, and I don’t believe he was unkind to you.Why would you kill him? Why would you kill Anluan, who wants only the best for Whistling Tor? I thought you loved him.”

“Love, hate,” Aislinn said, and as she moved around the table towards me, knife in hand, she held my eyes with hers, “little divides them. Nechtan’s heirs are weak. They cannot match his lofty aspirations, his genius, his . . . his beauty.”

Holy Saint Patrick, after everything, after the callous betrayal, after the long, long time of suffering, she still had tender feelings for him. Even as she worked to perpetrate the curse she had laid on him and his, she cared for him. It was a notion of love so warped that it sickened me, and I could find nothing to say.

“I had hopes for Irial,” Aislinn said, taking another step towards me. The point of the knife was an arm’s length from my heart, and shaking. That icy calm was deserting her. “I learned much from him, and taught him in my turn—don’t look so startled, Caitrin, I know far more of herb lore than one man could learn in his lifetime. But in the end, Irial disappointed me. He loved unwisely. He dared to be happy. Irial wanted a future for Whistling Tor that was . . . not allowable. As for Anluan . . .” Her eyes softened, then as quickly turned to flint. “You sealed his fate when you opened his mind to hope,” she said. “At Whistling Tor, there can be no hope. The curse forbids it. He will lose his battle. He will know despair again. As for you, meddling scribe, you thought to change what had been sealed with a dying breath.Why should you survive?”

The slightest of sounds from the garden doorway. I looked past Aislinn and saw the ghost child standing there, her hair thistledown pale in the sunlight from beyond. Her eyes were wide with fright as she glanced from me to Aislinn to the prone Gearróg. She clutched her small bundle with both hands. “Catty?”The little voice wobbled with uncertainty.

Aislinn turned towards the child. I saw her freeze. “Where did you get that?” There was such venom in her tone that I shrank back as if from a blow. It was the embroidered kerchief that had done it, one of her trophies, taken from the secret place. The next leap of logic was lightning quick. “You, you puny wretch, you abomination, you told her where it was! I’ll make you sorry—”

“Here, take your book,” I said, and threw it high over Aislinn’s head.

It crashed to the flagstones near Irial’s corner. The child was gone in an instant, out into the garden. As Aislinn moved to recover her treasure a figure loomed up behind her, all bunched muscle and furious eyes.The knife clattered to the floor.They fell together, her wildly thrashing form pinned by Gearróg’s strong arms. Specters they might be, but the fight was violent and real, her desperation against his force.

“You killed them!”Aislinn screamed, her voice now ragged and hoarse.

“Your little boy, your baby—”

“Hold your filthy lying tongue!” Gearróg had one hand on her throat, the other holding her arms above her head as he knelt across her struggling body. “It was an accident! An accident! Don’t spit your poison in my ears!”

“Make him stop,” Aislinn gasped, and her eyes rolled towards me.“Call your brute off or I’ll see to it that the Normans come up the hill as easily as that kinsman of yours did, the one you weren’t sensible enough to go off with! I’ve done it before and I can do it again. All it needs is a word, a snap of the fingers—get your filthy hands off me, pig! Don’t just stare at me, do it, Caitrin!”

Perhaps I was staring; her veil had come off completely as Gearróg grappled with her, and her hair spread out across the library floor, long, shimmering, the hue of ripe wheat in sunshine. I recalled, uncomfortably, how Nechtan had longed to touch it.

“It was an accident,” Gearróg said again, and such was the difference in his tone that my heart skipped a beat.“I didn’t do it. It was an accident.” What had been furious denial had turned to stunned recognition. He remembered now, and knew this was true. Something had changed here, changed profoundly.

New figures in the doorway: the wise woman of the host, and behind her the two others who had gone with her to the garden to wait. They crossed the library to kneel by Orna. As Aislinn quieted in Gearróg’s grip, more and more folk came in to stand around us, watchful, expectant. There was no doubt, now, that what we could hear from down the hill was a song. It sounded out through the brightening air of morning, jubilant, strong, not quite in unison: “Swing your swords proudly, Hold your heads high, Brothers together, We live and we die!” Someone shouted: “Lord Anluan!” and many voices answered: “Lord Anluan! The Tor!”

“It’s over.” Gearróg might have been witnessing a miracle, such was the wonder in his voice. “They’ve done it.”

And at the same moment, the wise woman said,“I’m sorry; we cannot help her.” She laid Orna’s still form down and stood to face me.“Her neck is broken. A quick passing and a valiant one.”

It was too much to take in.The battle won. Orna killed. Perhaps, when the men came back up the hill, we would learn of more losses, more brave souls who had given their lives so that Anluan could win back his own ground and theirs. Strangest of all, Aislinn quiescent on the library floor, no longer spitting insults, no longer struggling.

“Tonight is All Hallows,” the wise woman said.“A hundred years since the accursed chieftain of Whistling Tor first called us forth.” She turned her shrewd gaze on me. “Did you find what you sought?”

“It’s in her book,” I said, and as I spoke, suddenly Aislinn moved, writhing like an eel, slipping from Gearróg’s grasp, diving across the library to seize her journal. She rose wild-eyed, with the book clutched in her hands. Her golden hair was dishevelled, her clothing disordered. Gearróg lunged towards her. “No!” I said, obeying some impulse I hardly understood, and he halted in his tracks.

“But—” Gearróg protested as Aislinn opened the little book and started, with feverish strength, to rip each parchment page from its stitching, tear it up and drop it onto the flagstones.

“Leave her be, Gearróg.” I could almost hear her thoughts. Though her face was a frozen mask, they were in her eyes as she wrenched apart what she had held close for a hundred years, the cherished repository of her secret knowledge. How dare you overlook me? How dare you speak as if I were invisible? I am a sorcerer. I am powerful. I will destroy you. I will destroy you all. And at the same time, the voice of a girl just come to womanhood, a voice of longing, yearning, promise: Look at me. See me. Love me. It seemed to me that she had been caught up in her own curse: she had loved, hated, lost each one of them in turn.

Tiny scraps of parchment, here two words, here only one . . .They lay all around her, scattered like the fallen leaves of autumn’s first gale. Aislinn took the empty covers of her book and tore them in two. “He can’t do it now,” she said with perfect clarity, her eyes on me. “There’s no banishing the host without the spell. You won’t end this so easily.” She turned and walked out into Irial’s garden, and the folk of the host moved back to let her pass.

I stood numb, watching her go. Gearróg was opening and closing his hands, as if he needed to do some damage with them. “Are you all right?” I asked him.

“Yes. No.You going to let her go, just like that?”

“For now.” It seemed Anluan had won his battle. Once he was back on the hill and learned the truth, he could hold her in check. And it was All Hallows’ Eve. “She’s wrong,” I said. I looked over at the wise woman, and she gazed calmly back at me. “It doesn’t matter that she tore up the book. I think Anluan can do this without it.”

Gearróg’s eyes widened. “You mean . . .”

“If what she wrote in her little book really is the counterspell, he can use it. I believe he can release you all.”

He sank to a crouch, his hands over his face.

I knelt down beside him. “You’ll be with them again, Gearróg,” I said quietly, laying my hand on his shoulder.“The ones you loved; the ones you lost. I truly believe it. Now come. I have another task for you.”

We did not go back by the inner door, but made a solemn procession through Irial’s garden. The women of the host went in front, and then came Gearróg with Orna in his arms. I walked last. Not alone; the ghost child crept in from a corner of the garden, embroidered bundle in hand, to walk close beside me, brushing against the skirt of my borrowed gown. Suddenly I felt the full weight of this. If the counterspell worked, we would be saying goodbye to all of them. Cathaír. Gearróg. The little girl. Eichri. Rioghan. A catalogue of tears.

As we went through the archway something made me turn to gaze back over the empty garden. The cool autumn sunlight lay on a drift of fallen leaves, the empty birdbath, a blanket of moss softening the stone seat. A lone bird sang in the bare branches of the birch. And down by the stillroom there was a shifting and a folding. I saw nothing moving, but I had the sense that someone had stepped back, set down a burden.This garden had always felt like a safe place. It came to me that someone had kept watch over it, someone who had loved all that grew here. He had lingered beyond his time, knowing there was a duty to be done, a guard to keep; after all, he had seen his son become a man.The unseen tenth in the circle: the invisible presence revered by all. Here, not by the compulsion of a fell charm, but by his own selfless choice. He had been a good man, deserving of eternal rest, but love had held him here until he knew his son would be safe. I fixed my eyes on the place where a rake rested against the stillroom wall, with a hat hooked over the top of it that surely had not been there when I first entered the garden, and I whispered,“Farewell, Irial. Go home to your Emer. I will watch over him now.”