“If I did that deed”—it was the first time she had ever heard him express the
slightest doubt on the matter—“I cannot go free again. If I killed one innocent, I could kill another. That is a risk I dare not take.”
“So it would not be love that held you close to me after all,” she said, “but fear. Fear of yourself.”
“Do not say that I do not love you. You are my moon and stars, my spring and my summertime, Ana. I knew that from the first moment we saw you by the ford,
so alone, so brave. You are the constant in my world of whirling chaos.”
“Is that how it feels?” she whispered. “Whirling chaos? And yet, when I asked you what it was like, the … the frenzy, you spoke of it not as a fit, but as a kind of journey, almost the same as druids undertake in deep trance, when they travel from one world to another. Are you so unhappy, every moment of the day? I’m sorry,
that’s a stupid question. Any man shut away as you are must be half out of his mind with frustration.”
“To stay sane under these conditions requires a certain strength of will. It helps to have a guard like Deord. Such men are rare. Ana?”
“Yes?”
“If you had found her—Bela—if you had found her and she had told you the tale was a lie, and that I was innocent, you would still be bound to wed my
brother. Does not this treaty hang on that?”
“Yes,” she said miserably. “But—”
“But what? Tell me. It cannot be long before Deord returns, he has only gone to fetch rushes and clean water.”
“I shouldn’t say it. But I will say it. If I thought there was the least possibility that you and I might—that there might be a different sort of future for us, someday, then I would do all I could to avoid
this marriage. You know I don’t want to marry him. From the first I have shrunk from his touch and been wary in his company. You know what I really want.”
“What you wanted,” he said softly, “until you found out what they say of me is true.”
“No!” Her denial was louder than she had intended, and she put her hand over her mouth; she’d been in danger of forgetting where she was. “No, Drustan. Even
if it’s true, even if you did what they say you did, it would not alter the fact that …”
“Say it.”
“That I love you. That, for me, you are the only man in the world.” She had said them at last, the sweet, the perilous words.
“Ahh …” His sharp intake of breath held more pain than delight.
“I want you to have hope, Drustan. Hope that you can be proven innocent. Hope that you can be out in the
world again. Trust your own goodness; it shines from you.”
“If you marry my brother I will never have hope again.”
“It’s too late to change that.” The rain drizzled down, wetting her shawl and her hair and beginning to pool by her skirts. “There’s no way out, not if Bridei’s treaty is to hold. And I don’t think I can come here and talk to you again, Drustan. I think this is good-bye. I will
keep trying to find out the truth for you, I swear it …”
“Ana, don’t … don’t do it …”
“Good-bye, my love. Have hope; don’t let go of that. Oh, gods, I can’t do this, it’s too cruel …”
“Ana …”
“You’ll always be in my heart, every moment … Good-bye …”
If he replied, she did not hear it, for she stumbled blindly to her feet and made for the steps, dashing the wet hair back from her face. A shadow
moved, a sudden dark flicker farther down as of a figure darting out of sight. Ana froze. A sound, perhaps a furtive foot on the stones. Was someone there?
“Ludha?” she called as the rain became heavier, not a shower now but a downpour, enough tears to drown a woman. “Is anyone there?”
The steps were empty. As Ana made her way, hurriedly now, along the path to the sewing room, she could see
no sign of life, though the door was ajar when she reached it and she was certain she had shut it behind her. Inside, Orna, Sorala, and two other women were at their work. A small heap of cats drowsed before the fire; the atmosphere was tranquil.
“Not the best day to be out of doors,” Orna commented, her gaze running over Ana’s saturated shawl, her bedraggled hair, the rain-darkened hem of her
skirt.
“It came on quite suddenly,” Ana said. “We had fine weather for our morning ride. That seems to be the way of it in these parts: smiles, then tears. I’d best go and change my things.”
“Left your workbasket behind.” Orna’s tone had an edge to it now.
“Oh—oh, dear, so I did, how silly—”
“Don’t worry, my lady, I’ll send a lad up for it. There was a boy here a moment ago, you might have
seen him? You go off and get out of those wet clothes. It wouldn’t do to catch a chill on the day before your wedding. You’ll need to be at your best; Alpin will be wanting that.”
The rest of them gave knowing smiles, and Ana felt cold run through her, a deep, icy sensation that had nothing at all to do with the rain. “Thank you,” she managed, and fled.
WHEN DRUSTAN’S BROTHER came to
visit, the rules had to be seen to be in place. At other times it was unusual for Deord to shackle his charge. Today there was no choice. Deord was a Breakstone survivor, and that bound him to provide the report Faolan had asked for, though he could see nothing coming from it but trouble. On a good day, he could have left Drustan for as long as it took to eavesdrop on a private meeting and bring
back the gist of it. Drustan, he suspected, had found a new way of amusing himself in the afternoons. Once or twice he had heard the sound of a whispered conversation hastily concluded as he approached; sometimes a thread of song had made its way down to their dark quarters. It seemed to Deord that, at such moments, Drustan was more than happy to be left alone.
Not today. Deord had been delayed
earlier, bringing back the rushes and their other supplies, by one of the men-at-arms wanting his opinion on a new bow, and when he’d got back Drustan had been working up to one of his wilder moods, thumping his fists bloody on the stones and shouting his need to change the way things were. It was garbled, but the name Ana was in it, and Deord cursed again the coming of this highborn bride and
her Gaelic henchman to stir the captive’s forlorn hopes. The fact was, Drustan was his own worst enemy. After seven years it was of no matter to Deord whether his charge was guilty or innocent. He saw only that, if the incarceration lasted much longer, there would come a point when even his care, his controlled breaking of the rules to allow those short times of sunlight and exercise and the rarer
opportunities for this strange creature to perform his transformations, would not be enough to hold Drustan back from the line between gifted oddity and complete madness. He should let him go. He should let him fly away and simply take the consequences, which would no doubt be dire, Alpin being the man he was.
He’d calmed Drustan down as well as he could, but it wasn’t easy. There’d be no going
out to use up some of that terrifying, pent-up energy in combat practice or in flight. There were visitors at Briar Wood and a wedding tomorrow; it was no time to risk attracting attention. Drustan was not beating his hands on the stone now, nor seeking to wrench the iron gate apart, but his eyes were bleak and his features pinched and lost-looking. There was a shivering in his body, rapid and
constant, and a sheen of sweat on his skin. Deord had seen something of the same look in wild creatures trapped and anticipating death. He had never left Drustan alone before unless he was at least reasonably calm.
He explained why he had to go out again, and Drustan submitted to the shackles without protest, holding out his wrist while looking in the opposite direction, as if it mattered little.
“You did not believe, surely, that she could ever have been for you,” Deord said quietly. “That’s a thing that could never happen.” Drustan swung toward him with the speed of a striking predator, his eyes bright with sudden fury, the fingers of his free hand curled clawlike, striking toward Deord’s face. The hand halted just in front of his eyes; Drustan lowered his arm.
“I’ve a modicum of common
sense, if you haven’t, lad,” Deord said, summoning his customary calm. “I’m concerned for you.” He studied the length of chain by which Drustan’s iron bracelet was attached to the stone bench. “Unfortunately I’m bound to the task I must undertake now; what we share makes that bardic fellow a kind of blood brother, and I must honor his request. Those who came out of Breakstone are few enough;
that place eats up men. We who survived it owe it to one another to help, if we can.”
“Go then.” Drustan was pacing now, jerking rhythmically on the chain. “You think me not fit for her; you ridicule the very notion. You and most of the world, no doubt. She bids me hope; you bid me hope. In the same breath, both of you condemn me to despair. Go on, don’t be late.”
“I’ll need to change this.”
Deord moved to unlock the bracelet again. “I won’t leave you with the full chain, not for so long. Do you want to be inside or out? The rain’s getting heavier.”
“I don’t care. Put it on if you must. You think I would slip this around my neck and somehow make an end of things?”
“You’ve given me a few frights before,” Deord said grimly, attaching the shackles in a different way so that his charge
was now held closer to the wall with the chain doubled up to reduce its length. Drustan could sit on the stone bench; he could see through the little window. He could not move far, nor could he loop the chain around his neck.
“I’m sorry, lad.” He left Drustan standing with his back turned, staring at the wall. Doing this kind of thing had been no easier the fiftieth time than the first, nor the
hundredth time than the fiftieth. But he could not take the risk of leaving his charge free in the enclosure, not when this mood was on him. The birds were in hiding, their huddled forms scarcely visible on their high ledge.
Alpin’s meeting with his Gaelic visitor took longer than Deord had anticipated and left him with a crick in the neck and a feeling of impending disaster in his belly. This
was trouble indeed: trouble for the bard, trouble for the lady, a trouble, he suspected, that would soon embroil everyone here at Briar Wood. The Breakstone code was hard. Once he brought this news to Faolan, the bard was sure to need another favor, one that would be a great deal more difficult to provide. Deord cursed silently as he made his soft-footed way back through the storehouses and along
the sunken pathway to the enclosure. The bard was in danger. If Faolan didn’t play this right his life would be worth no more than a scrap of straw on the midden. Of course, if what that fellow had told Alpin today was true, Faolan probably deserved whatever he got. But Deord was bound to help him. The pity of it was, there was no way to warn him. If Alpin did as Deord anticipated he would, the
bard would be under lock and key before suppertime.
Drustan was still standing by the wall. The iron bracelet was bordered, now, by a broad, oozing welt where he had chafed and jerked at the restraint, flaying the skin from the underlying flesh. There was blood everywhere. Drustan’s eyes were red, his face stained with furious tears. The birds were perched on his shoulders, the little sounds
they made eerie in the quiet shadows of the dim enclosure. Deord unlocked the restraints without comment.
“I think I’m going to need your help,” he said. “I need you to be yourself, Drustan: calm, clearheaded, quickthinking. If I tell you the lady and her bard may both be in danger, I suspect that will make it easier for you to listen to what I have to say.”
“Danger? Ana in danger? What?” Drustan
gripped Deord’s arm then, wincing, let go.
“Come inside, I’d better bandage that for you. You need to hear this story. I don’t know how we can warn him. But I do know the only place he’s going to be able to turn for help is here.”
THE HARP WOULD probably do more work in the next couple of days than it had for years, Faolan thought as he sat in a corner of the yard working his way through
the repertoire required for the festivities associated with a wedding: five or six ballads, ten or twelve drinking songs, an assortment of other narrative pieces, and a wide range of dances, though he suspected the instrument’s voice would hardly be heard in a hall full of Caitt warriors and their women making merry. Merry. It would hardly be so for Ana. Unless, on the very eve of the treaty’s
signing, Deord brought him news he could use to declare it a sham, she would marry that man tomorrow and he must spend the day making music for celebration, music for gladness, music for lovers. Poor harp, he thought as his fingers brushed across the strings, to tell such bitter lies when music should be for the deepest truths of all, the most profound of sorrows, the most inspiring acts of courage
and goodness. Well, soon enough this instrument would fall silent once again, and he would be gone from this place.
The easier way, of course, would be for Deord to come back with nothing of significance. Then the marriage and the treaty could be sealed forthwith and he would set off to take the news to White Hill. A success of sorts, if bitter on a personal level. The alternative was fraught
with difficulties. If Deord uncovered treachery, how would he take the next step? This chieftain wanted his royal bride. The look in his eyes, his roaming hands showed simple lust was part of it, the respectability she would confer no doubt a bigger part. They were in his fortress, guarded by his men, surrounded by a wilderness of forest whose paths, if one could call them that, were treacherous
and whose rivers would still be running high and fast. Beyond the wall there were neither horses nor supplies to be had. As he hummed his way through a repetitive drinking song, Faolan’s mind was working very quickly indeed. His concentration was intense; he did not see Alpin’s men-at-arms coming until they were right beside him and laying ungentle hands on his shoulders.