“In fact,” Tuala said, “there have been some developments on that front.
Faolan’s back, and Bridei wants to speak to you later today, Ana. I understand it’s to do with this chieftain, Alpin. I didn’t press him for details; he wanted to talk to Faolan alone.”
Ana shivered. “That man! I always wonder, looking at him, whose blood he has on his hands this time; what dark corner he’s been lurking in. I don’t know how Bridei can trust him.”
Tuala gazed at her. “I’ve never
known Bridei’s judgment to be faulty,” she said quietly. “Misinformation, deception, sudden death, those are the essence of Faolan’s work. He is of great value principally because he does those things so expertly, and without qualms.”
“He turned against his own people,” Ana said. “I don’t know how anyone could do that.”
“No?” Ferada lifted her brows. “What about you, living contentedly at the
court of the folk who took you hostage when you were too young to know what it meant? Making yourself at home among people who have denied you the chance to grow up among your family? That’s not so different from Faolan gathering information among the Gaels.”
“Shh,” Tuala said. “Ferada, I admire your outspokenness, I always did. But you’re at White Hill now; you should moderate your speech a
little, even among friends. Ana should not judge the king’s assassin, and you should not judge Ana. A great deal has changed at court since Drust the Bull took her hostage. Indeed, she can hardly be called that anymore; I view her as something more like a sister.”
“All the same,” Ferada said, “I notice Bridei hasn’t sent her home.”
Home, Ana thought, as a cloud of misery settled over her. The
Light Isles. In the early days she had longed to go back to that realm where the lakes held the pale light of the open sky and the green hills folded gently down to pastureland. The place of her childhood was full of ancient cairns and mysterious stone towers, sudden cliffs and drifts of wheeling seabirds. Yet now, if Bridei sent her there, she thought it would seem like another exile. As for the
other option, the one that now loomed as real and immediate, it made her cold with misgiving. The Caitt were of Priteni blood, as were her own island people. She thought of the only Caitt chieftain she had seen since her childhood: Umbrig of Storm Crag, a man like a big bear, fierce and uncouth. Umbrig had appeared unexpectedly at the election for kingship and had cast his vote for Bridei, helping
him win out over Drust the Boar, monarch of the southern Priteni realm of Circinn. Folk said the Caitt were all like that, huge and ferocious. Ana shrank from the notion of sharing such a wild man’s bed.
“Derelei walked all the way along the path today, holding my hands,” she said, changing the subject. “He’ll be doing it on his own soon. He’s a credit to you, Tuala.”
“I catch Broichan looking
at him from time to time, no doubt searching for eldritch talents; seeking to discover how much of my own blood our son bears and how much of Bridei’s.”
“Broichan doesn’t fool me,” Ana said. “He dotes on the child, to the extent that a king’s druid may unbend enough to show affection. You watch him sometime when he thinks you’re not looking. Derelei’s like his own grandchild.”
“And does he?”
Ferada asked, scrutinizing the infant, who was sitting quietly on his mother’s knee, examining his fingers. “Have any eldritch talents, I mean?”
Ana opened her mouth to answer, but Tuala was quicker. “I would be happy if he could conjure a charm to alleviate the pangs of teething,” she said. “We’re all short of sleep. Ferada, I see a look in your eye that tells me you have more news. I did hear
a rumor that Talorgen has made the acquaintance of a certain comely widow. Or is that merely gossip?”
It was interesting, Ana thought, how deftly Tuala managed to avoid discussion of any special abilities her son might exhibit, and indeed, of her own talents in certain branches of the magical arts. As queen, she seemed determined to avoid those matters, as if they might be in some way dangerous.
Ana knew Tuala’s power at scrying; it had become the stuff of legend at Banmerren, the school for wise women. And there was a very strange tale of a time when Tuala had run away, and what had befallen both her and Bridei in the forest of Pitnochie, a tale neither of them had ever told in full. Still, one must abide by the queen’s wishes. If she wanted to be ordinary, if she preferred her son to
be unexceptional, one must pretend, outwardly at least, that this was so.
Ferada shifted a little on the bench. “Father plans to seek permission to dissolve his marriage,” she said grimly. “We don’t know if Mother is still alive, or where she is, only that she traveled beyond the borders of Fortriu. Father has good grounds to do this. I understand it’s the king’s druid who makes such decisions.
I think Broichan will allow it.”
“And?” Ana prompted.
“Father wishes to remarry. The widow’s name is Brethana; she’s quite young. I like her, inasmuch as a girl can like her father’s second wife. The boys don’t care one way or another. At that age their own activities are all that matters in the world. Once Father marries, there’ll be nothing to keep me at Raven’s Well.”
There was a pause,
during which Tuala and Ana exchanged a meaningful glance.
“You know,” Tuala said, “I feel quite certain the next thing Ferada wants to tell us has nothing to do with suitors and marriages. I see a certain look on her face.”
“Mm,” Ana mused, “the look she always used to get just before coming out with something outrageous.”
“I’m not sure if I should tell you yet,” Ferada said. “I need to talk
to Fola.”
“Fola! You mean you’re going to return to Banmerren and become a wise woman?” Tuala’s tone expressed the incredulity Ana felt; whatever their friend’s abilities, and these were many, Ferada had never seemed destined for a future in the service of the goddess.
Ferada’s cheeks reddened. “I am going to Banmerren. Or, if Fola comes for the assembly, I will speak to her here at White Hill.
And no, of course I’m not planning to become a priestess. I have a proposition for Fola. It troubles me that so many young women of noble blood receive, at best, half an education, and more commonly none at all save in the domestic arts. I know Fola provides places for them at Banmerren, as she did for Ana and me. But what’s offered is lacking in structure and depth; no sooner does a student start
to get interested than she’s whisked off back home, or to court to be paraded before the men, or into some fellow’s bed to have his heirs put in her belly. Don’t look like that, Tuala; I know your own experience has been somewhat different but, believe me, for most girls it’s a brutal and arbitrary business. If there was a place where young women could stay just a little longer, learn a little
more, gain some wisdom before they are thrust out into that world of men, I think we might equip them better to stand up for themselves and play a real part in affairs. So that’s what I want to do. Start a school; or rather, expand the one Fola has already to include a whole branch for girls who are not to become priestesses, but live their lives in the world. I plan to ask Fola if she will let
me organize it; let me be in charge of it. I have done quite well with Uric and Bedo. And I learn quickly. What do you think?”
Tuala was smiling. “A bold idea, entirely typical of you, Ferada,” she said. “I’d be surprised if Fola were not interested. What about your father?”
“He’s not entirely comfortable with it, but his new marriage is foremost in his mind. Besides, he owes me. I’ve done a
good job of managing his household and the boys; I’ve given five years to it.”
“You will encounter some opposition, that is certain,” said Tuala. “Broichan is unlikely to support such an idea; he does not believe in education for women, save for those destined to serve the goddess. Many of the men will think it unnecessary, a waste of time. Some will consider it dangerous. Not all men are as
open-minded as your father, who always encouraged you to express your opinions.”
“What of your own marriage?” Ana asked. “How would you achieve this plan if you had a husband and family to look after? Surely you don’t intend to sacrifice that—”
“Sacrifice?” Ferada’s tone was scathing. “Oh, Ana. Can’t you entertain the possibility that a woman might reach deeper fulfillment in her life without
a man?”
Ana felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “I—” she began.
“I’m sorry,” Ferada said in a different tone. “I’ve upset you; I didn’t mean to. It’s been so long since I was able to speak openly, and my head is so full of ideas. I want to teach. I want to make a difference. I want to be sure I don’t waste my life.”
“I don’t intend to waste mine,” Ana said, unable to ignore the implication.
“Then you must hope whatever suitor Bridei has in mind for you is a paragon of male virtue,” Ferada said. “Tuala, will you speak to Bridei about my intentions? His support for the general idea of it would help me immensely.”
“Of course,” Tuala said. “And you should ask him yourself, as well. I feel certain he will approve. He admires you, Ferada.”
Ferada fell unaccountably silent, and at that
moment the baby began to squirm, drawing several deep breaths that seemed to presage a storm of some kind.
“We should go in,” Tuala said, rising and hitching the child expertly to her hip. “He’s getting hungry; it must be all that walking. You’re good with him, Ana.”
“I like it,” said Ana. “Seeing him grow; watching all the little changes.”
“All very well when it’s someone else’s,” Ferada observed,
“and you can give it back when it yells or dirties itself or gets a fit of the midnight terrors. Count yourselves lucky you don’t have five or six of them milling around your ankles. If they’d married us off when they first started speaking of suitors, we’d each have a brood by now.”
“I’d love another child,” Tuala said with a smile. “If the Shining One blesses me with a daughter, Ferada, I’ll
be sure to send her to you for her education.”
“That’s if Fola doesn’t get in first,” Ferada said.
THE KING’S COURT at White Hill was built on the site of an ancient fortress fashioned of stone laced with fired wood. Traces of those walls still remained deep in the undergrowth that clad the steep slopes of the hill. Here and there under the shade of tall pines a crumbling fragment of
shaped stone would suggest a rampart, a wellhead, a stretch of paved way; the stream that made its circuitous course down the flanks of White Hill flowed into basins and pools both natural and constructed. The place was considered impregnable. The steep pitch of the hill itself, the sheer, strongly built fortress walls, the views allowed by strategic gaps in the screening cover of the trees gave
the occupants great advantage in defense. From here, one could see both northward to the ocean and southward to the changeable waters of Serpent Lake and the dark hills of the Great Glen. The natural supply of fresh water and the broad expanse of level ground at the summit of White Hill, now covered with the halls and dwellings, the gardens and workshops of Bridei’s establishment, all within the
massive new walls, would allow the occupants to withstand a siege for as long as it took for attackers to tire of it, or for reinforcements to arrive.
To the east, along the coast, lay the old defensive fort of Caer Pridne, which had housed the royal court of Fortriu under Bridei’s predecessor and many other kings before him. Bridei had been young when he came to the throne, but possessed of
a powerful will for change. At one and twenty, two years into his reign, he had completed the construction of White Hill and shifted his headquarters there, breaking with tradition. The first celebration in his new court was his marriage to Tuala, then barely sixteen years of age. Other changes followed. The most risky was Bridei’s decision to alter the practice of a certain ritual that marked the
year’s descent into the dark. The last time that had been attempted, the offended god had exacted a terrible retribution. But the chieftains and elders accepted Bridei’s decision. It was known that both he and his druid, Broichan, enacted personal rites in place of the old observance, and that these were demanding in nature. Folk did not ask for details. Their trust in their new young king was strong
indeed. There was a quality in the man that swept others along, a passionate dedication and blazing energy, tempered by caution, subtlety, and cleverness. After all, Bridei had grown up as Broichan’s foster son, and Broichan was a powerful mage, chief adviser to both the old king and the new.
There had been whispers in the early days. Broichan was not well liked; many feared his power and distrusted
the esoteric nature of his knowledge. Some had said that having Broichan’s foster son as king would be just the same as having the druid himself on the throne. Was not this his carefully created puppet, set up to conduct the affairs of Fortriu to Broichan’s plan? From the first day of his kingship it was clear Bridei had a mind of his own and intended to make his decisions independently. He
formed a council composed of a clever balance of the older, more experienced men and those younger chieftains who were prepared to countenance new ideas and consider calculated risks. He weighed druids against war leaders, scholars against men of action. On occasion he included women in his group of advisers: not only the senior priestess, Fola, who ran the establishment where girls were trained
in the service of the Shining One, but also the old king’s widow, Rhian of Powys, and sometimes his own wife, Tuala.