“Why do you look like that, Faolan?”
“Like what?” He was squatting close to her, keeping an eye on her, for the shadow of drug-dreams still haunted her eyes, and he feared she might make a sudden bolt for freedom. Here, nowhere was safe; the cave itself was the best refuge they had. In front of them, where the water hid them, was a fall
to sudden death. Outside on the cliff they would be in full view of Alpin’s men when they emerged from the trees. They might be in range of his arrows.
“As if you could feel Bone Mother’s cold breath,” she said.
“I …” He hesitated, disturbed that she could read him so easily. “I can’t see how Deord could survive it,” he said, knowing she would want the truth. “Alpin’s out there with hunting
dogs. One man, however able, is not going to outrun his hounds and his mounted warriors. Eventually they must take him. Then they’ll kill him or they’ll try to extract information from him, which in the long run is the same thing. Why would he do it?”
He expected no answer and Ana did not offer one. She had her head bent now, her shoulders slumped in defeat. The crossbill flew from its perch
to alight on her shoulder, and she started violently. “Oh!” She glanced around the cave as if there were ghosts in its corners. One hand released its clutch on the blanket and came up to stroke the little bird; this seemed to calm her. All the same, Faolan maintained his watch on her. In this state, it seemed to him she might do anything.
“I’m sorry about your hair,” he said. “Deord cut it. I
couldn’t stop him.”
Ana’s fingers moved from the bird to the ragged ends of her shorn crop. She barely seemed to register the assault on her beauty. “Faolan, I need to go back,” she said, staring at the curtain of rushing water as if she would indeed leap out that way if it were her only choice. “I had such dreams … such cruel dreams … When I woke up, and we were here, I thought maybe …”
“What?”
he asked quietly.
“I—I thought maybe it was all a dream; that perhaps we were still in the days after the ford … Out here, sheltering where we could, and everything wet … I saw so much death, death and blood and cruelty … I can’t seem to remember what is dream and what is real, Faolan. It scares me”
“It’s the draught Deord gave you. It does that. The confusion will go away as the effect wears
off.”
“Why did Deord … Oh. Oh, yes, I remember. I wouldn’t … and you killed a guard … Faolan?”
“What?” Now she would ask, and he must swallow the hurt and find an answer.
“I can’t go with you,” she said flatly.
“Why not? Because you believe I would stab the king of Fortriu in the back?”
“No, I … Maybe for a moment I believed it. You did say it was true.”
“You must have a very low opinion
of me if you would so readily believe me a traitor.” He could hear the tight sound of his own voice.
There was a pause, then Ana said, “I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came to me, Faolan. I’m sure you have a good explanation for what you said.” She was holding the crossbill between her hands now; Faolan wondered if Drustan could feel it when her fingers caressed his creatures thus.
Of him, she had asked nothing at all.
“Bridei knows all about the work I do for Gabhran of Dalriada,” he said. “Gabhran, on the other hand, is not aware that I am Bridei’s man. To refuse Gabhran’s payment would be to arouse his suspicion. It’s been a useful arrangement for Fortriu. Now that Alpin’s found me out, it will have to cease.”
Ana regarded him gravely; her look was more like that he
was accustomed to from old, and made his heart beat more steadily. “I understand,” she said. “The need for such subterfuge and dishonesty is unfortunate, but my own position has made me all too aware of the games that must be played by kings and their powerful advisers. I would not want such an occupation as yours, Faolan. Bridei asks a great deal of you.”
She had surprised him again. “And of
you,” he said. “What did you mean, you must go back? You can’t be telling me you’d still consider marrying Alpin? After this?”
“I thought … I thought I could go back alone. I can tell him you abducted me. It’s the truth. You can go home to White Hill. I need to be at Briar Wood, Faolan. I told you before. I meant what I said.” A wave of shivering passed through her. The skirt of her gown was
dark with water; she must be freezing. The blanket she already wore was the only dry thing he could give her. If he couldn’t do better, she’d die of a chill before they got as far as the borders of Alpin’s land. Curse the Caitt. Curse this place.
A dark thought came to him. If he lied to her, he could make her give up this mad idea. All he had to say was that Drustan had decided not to join them;
that he had bid Faolan take Ana home, and had chosen to fly off to his holdings in the west when freedom was offered. No, not fly, he could not say that. Drustan had bound him not to tell her that particular truth and he would honor his promise. But if he could persuade Ana that the bird-man preferred to enjoy his newfound freedom alone, she’d have no reason to rush off on some ill-conceived
rescue mission. It might even be true. If Drustan had intended to come after them, why wasn’t he here? It did look as if the fellow had turned his back on her. If this had been another woman, that is what Faolan would have told her.
“Faolan?” Ana was regarding him closely; he’d been silent a while. “You understand, don’t you? I can’t leave Drustan. If Deord has abandoned him, he’s all alone now.
Drustan won’t leave Briar Wood. He’s convinced he’ll harm someone if he is set free. He has nobody, Faolan. Can you imagine how that feels?”
He heard the change in her voice when she spoke Drustan’s name; saw how she lifted the bird to touch its bright plumage to her cheek. At that moment he felt a murderous hate for Drustan. But he could not hate Ana. “Deord only left because Drustan told him
he should,” he said. “Both Deord and I tried to get him to come with us. He seemed to be finding it difficult to make up his mind. He said he would come later. He’s not so much of a fool that he would have stayed to face his brother’s wrath alone, surely. If you went back you’d walk straight into Alpin’s arms. Into Alpin’s bed. If that’s what you really want I’ve seriously misjudged you.” It was
crude, maybe; he had to shock her out of this somehow. “All for nothing, if Drustan is already gone.” There was no point in enumerating the other reasons why her scheme was foolish and ridiculous: that her clothing was wet, that she did not know the way, that it was late in the day. That the terrain had been a challenge even for Deord. He knew she would take no heed of such arguments.
“He might
not leave, even so,” Ana said slowly. “He believes in his own guilt. He’s afraid of what he might do. He lacks faith in himself.”
“But you don’t.”
“I don’t what?”
“Your faith in him is astonishing. Evidently. you’ve decided he is innocent, for all his own doubts on the matter.”
There was a silence.
“He’d be here by now, wouldn’t he?” Ana’s voice was small. “If he was coming, he’d be here.”
“Who knows? The decision was not ours but his. We left the way open.”
“And if he isn’t here, it’s because he didn’t want to come with us.”
Faolan said nothing. He watched as tears began to fall, dripping from her pale cheeks to the blanket. He remembered Drustan’s mouth against her hair, and hardened his heart. “I couldn’t say. I hardly know the man. I do know that if I’d been in his situation,
I’d have been out and away the moment I got the chance. I’ve no idea how Drustan’s mind works. They say he’s crazy. Maybe it’s true. Maybe he prefers being locked up.”
“No,” Ana said, sniffing. “He loves the sun. He loves the forest and the open air. Nobody could prefer a dark, damp place like that, and shackles. Why hasn’t he come?”
“Maybe he thought sending his creature was enough.”
She said
nothing. Her eyes were desolate.
“Ana?”
She looked at him.
“How did this come about? You and him? Deord told me you met the two of them. But that was only once. How—”
“There’s a place. A place where you can whisper and hear each other. I used to talk to him. We found it by accident, Ludha and I. Ludha … Faolan, we have to go back! Alpin punished her. She’s in danger and it’s my fault!”
Faolan
thought of Dovard lying senseless in the kennels, another innocent victim who would likely get a beating or worse for letting the prisoner escape. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “They’re all under Alpin’s thumb. Try to intervene now and he’ll just add you to his list of miscreants to be dealt with. I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“Use your wits, Ana. You can’t go back. What we must do is wait for
Deord, and then try to get home to Fortriu. Deord can help us; he’s strong and capable. Once we’re beyond Alpin’s reach it should be easier to procure supplies. It’s time to go home.” He thought of Bridei, who might by now be on his way to Dalriada; Bridei, who did not know that Alpin was already in league with the Gaels.
“On foot?” Ana asked. She took the crossbill on one hand and used the other,
as a child would, to scrub the tears from her cheeks.
“Now you know why I insisted on the boots,” Faolan said. “It’ll be slower, but easier in a way; we can use tracks Alpin wouldn’t think of.”
She said nothing. Perhaps she heard the truth behind his briskly confident words: that it was a long way over difficult terrain, and that the only path he knew was the one they could not take. That the
man who could be most help to them was the one he hoped would never come back.
“Ana?” He couldn’t hold his stupid tongue; he had to ask her.
“What?”
“You and Drustan; what did … how is it … how did you … ?” Gods, he sounded like a stumbling youth of fifteen, half out of his wits over some village sweetheart. He wished he had never clapped eyes on her. She had made him care about her; she had
made him feel again. She had left him exposed and wretched, weakened by the crack she had opened in his heart. She had woken his darkest memories and made him weep, and hate, and love. He wanted to be the old Faolan again, the one folk described as hard and heartless, a man incapable of emotion. “Forget it,” he said. “I’d better take a look outside. If anyone decided to come up, we wouldn’t hear
them over the water. Chances are Deord hasn’t fooled the whole of Alpin’s party; if they’ve split up, they won’t have much trouble following our tracks. I don’t suppose you still have that knife I gave you?”
Ana grimaced. “It wasn’t something I anticipated needing on my wedding day, Faolan.”
Despite all, he found himself smiling. “I can think of a few good uses you might have put it to. There’s
another here, smaller. Take it. With luck there’s nobody out there. But you need to be prepared.”
She eyed the little knife in its leather sheath, drawing it out to reveal an immaculately clean blade that looked, lethally sharp.
“Deord’s,” Faolan said. “Now don’t do anything stupid, I need your help with this.”
“Stupid,” she echoed. “Such as slashing my wrists, you mean?” There was a silence;
only the water gave voice. Then Ana said, “You don’t really know me very well, do you, Faolan? I honor life, even when it brings cruelty and sadness. Go on, then. If you must look outside, look. And try not to get yourself killed. It seems as if you’re the only friend I have left.”
IT SEEMED TO Broichan that he could feel a poison working its way through his body, devouring it as a canker
does a rose or a worm an apple, from the inside out. It was a long time since an enemy had struck at him with a clever dose of toxic ingredients, a brew even the king’s druid had not detected until the symptoms began: crushing headaches, a voiding of the bowels in watery flux, crippling pain in the joints. He had endured these privations without complaint, for he was strong in self-discipline.
It was the fogging of the wits that was the hardest. In those first days after that long-ago attempt on his life, his mind had been unable to hold its concentration for more than a snatch at a time. No sooner had he grasped a thought, an idea, than it was gone. He’d struggled to remember even the learning that lay deep in his bones, hard won over the nineteen years of the novitiate: the druidic
teaching, the tales, the prayers and ritual. Even tree lore had deserted him in that dark season when he’d fought the alien substances in his body and begged Bone Mother not to take him yet, not with Bridei’s education scarcely begun, and Fortriu’s very future dependent on it. The goddess had heard him; she had spared him to return to Pitnochie and his small foster son. Bridei was a man now, with
a son of his own. He was king of Fortriu. And Broichan knew Bone Mother had not revoked the sentence of death all those years ago, merely delayed it.
Death, of course, should not be feared, but awaited with a certain wonder. To die was to step across a threshold into a new world, unknown, unimaginable. There was a whole realm of learning to be had in the experience. This journey should be greeted
with hope and anticipation, especially by a druid. Broichan remembered the old man, Erip, who had tutored Bridei in more worldly matters than those covered by the druid’s own lessons. Erip had been ready to die; he had seemed to step through the doorway even before his last breath left his body. And Erip, though a scholar of some erudition, had been no druid. He had faced Bone Mother fearlessly;
she had taken him with kindness. His had been a gentle passing.