Foxmask (51 page)

“He murdered his brother,” Creidhe said. “He was king, once, in my homeland. He was responsible for some very evil deeds. But you're right. He's living proof of how a man can change. Though Niall himself would deny that. He would say that underneath, he is the same man he always was . . . I've just thought of something.”

“What?”

“When we first heard of the Ruler, it was clear Thorvald thought Asgrim might be the father he was searching for. I thought that myself when I met him. He is of the right age and general appearance, and he's a man of authority as Somerled—Thorvald's father—was. If Thorvald has convinced himself the Ruler is indeed his father, that would explain why he stayed, why the
Sea Dove
is out there among Asgrim's fleet. Thorvald's trying to please him, and to prove himself.” Images of blood and death assailed her once more; she put her hands over her eyes, but failed to shut them out. “If only I'd had the chance to talk to him, to tell him he was wrong.”

“Why would he believe this?” Keeper's tone was puzzled. “As soon as he spoke of it, many men would tell him it could not be so. I am Asgrim's only
son; Sula was his only daughter. Any man of the islands could attest to that. I do not understand this.”

“No,” Creidhe said. “Thorvald is not the easiest man to understand, nor the easiest man to love. I don't know why Sam and I put up with him really. He wanted it kept secret. Wanted to find out what kind of a man his father was, before he told him. You see, Somerled left the Light Isles without knowing of this son. Thorvald himself only found out who his father was last spring, when his mother thought he was ready to know the truth.”

“His mother?”

“I call her Aunt Margaret, though she is not my blood kin. A fine, courageous woman, expert in all the crafts of needle and loom. She taught me all I know. A very lonely woman, who loves her son dearly, but finds it hard to tell him so.”

“It is a sad story,” Keeper said. “A man who might be a fine father now, but is deprived of the chance. A man who does not deserve to be a father, yet earns the loyalty of this son who is not his son. A twisted story much like my own. Yet I cannot pity this Thorvald. I dislike him greatly.”

Creidhe said nothing. There was a question she dearly wanted to ask, but she did not know how to put it; it was a delicate matter.

“I—” she began.

“I—” said Keeper at the same moment. Both fell silent; neither attempted to frame their words again. Creidhe moved to her side of the fire, arranging her bedding next to the sleeping child. Keeper unrolled his blanket on the other side, as was his habit. Between them the embers glowed, cradled by the stones; tonight the fire's warmth did not seem to offer a great deal of comfort, for there was a deeper chill in Creidhe's heart, the touch of approaching shadows.

She lay there awhile, looking up through the narrow opening to the gray-blue of the summer twilight. There was no need to turn her head to know that Keeper, too, lay wide-eyed and wakeful, not three strides away beyond the fire.

“Keeper?”

“Yes?”

“I have a question for you, but I don't know if I should ask it.”

A pause.

“And I have a question for you,” he said. “You must ask first. If I can, I will answer.”

“I was thinking—I was wondering if you would tell me about the time
you went to bring Small One back from the Unspoken. I know it would be hard to talk about. I was thinking perhaps you might tell me.”

“Are you sure you wish to know this?”

“Yes.”

“After they took her”—his voice was very low, but the words came quickly, almost as if he had wished to tell this a long time—“I would have gone right away, you understand. I thought I could fight them, could save my sister, if I followed swiftly enough. I had my weapons, I had a little boat, I ran to the shore. He stopped me. My father stopped me. He locked me up; I could not go.”

“Perhaps he feared to lose you as well. But didn't Asgrim go after them himself? He and his warriors?”

“Huh!” An explosion of scorn. “None followed the Unspoken. Asgrim held me prisoner a long time, in our own house. Would not let me out, though I raged against him, pleaded with him. By the time he set me free it was too late. They had put the seed of their child in her; they had destroyed her innocence.”

Careful, very careful here. “What about your mother? Didn't she try to do something?”

A little silence.

“My mother was gone long since. When we were very small, almost too young to remember.”

“Tell me the rest, Keeper.”

“It was winter; I could not go. The waters were wild, the winds whipped hard and cold. I waited; I held my silence. I hated him that season. My bitterness was like a poison in my veins. When I could, I went up the hill to Brother Niall. Sweet words and silence were there, kindness and open hearts. Every time, Asgrim brought me back. Then spring came, and I took my boat and went to find her.”

Creidhe heard what was in his voice, and longed with every corner of her body to get up, to take those few steps around the fire pit, to wrap him in her arms and offer what little she could in comfort. The power of her yearning astonished her; it silenced her completely. She lay still, heart pounding, pulse racing.

“I had learned a little wisdom over the time of waiting. I knew I could not rush in, a child with my small weapons, and hope to bring Sula home. So I sailed there, and walked up to their settlement, and spoke words of greeting, though the taste of them was sour in my mouth. I persuaded the Unspoken
that I was a friend, a youth merely, and no threat to them. So they let me stay, and I saw my sister.”

“You were there so early? Even before Small One was born?”

“Yes, Creidhe. I stayed with her, helpless to bring her away, for Sula was frightened and sick and full of despair. She was but one year my senior, and what they had done had hurt her, not just in the body but deep in the spirit. She would have taken a knife to her wrists or walked into the sea. I stayed close by her. She endured and bore her son. Once he was there, things changed. Sula was weak, she was sick, but she loved him from the first. No matter that he was the child of the Unspoken, the offspring of an unspeakable act of cruelty. He was hers; the moment she first looked into his eyes, he had his place in her heart. And in mine, Creidhe.”

“I understand,” she said softly. “It must have been very hard for you; so hard I can scarcely believe you endured it.”

“I wanted to bring her away, to bring the two of them to safety. But Sula was thin, pale, like a little shadow, scarce able to walk more than three steps. She flinched at every sound; she feared to leave the small hut they had allotted her. She knew that when the child ceased drinking her milk, when she could no longer feed him, they would take him away. She knew that if they tried that I would fight them, and that I could not prevail against so many. They would perform the ritual wounding, and Small One would become Fox-mask. If he survived it. We knew that before this day, we must take him away.”

“But she died,” Creidhe said in a whisper.

“She died. She had never been herself while I was there, not even before the child was born. She was like a dried-out husk of my sweet, merry sister. What girl of those tender years can endure such treatment and not go mad? She held on until her son was close to one year old; until, in secret, she had taught him to eat other foods, to nourish himself on what was provided for her, fish, eggs, vegetables. I helped her when I could, but it was no simple matter. For a young man to be in a woman's hut was unusual. Perhaps I seemed still a child; at any rate, they let me stay close by, close enough to recognize when she was deathly sick. Sula knew it was time; I spoke to her of escape, and she silenced me. She knew she would never escape. She made me plan it; she helped me work out what to do, she told me how to care for the infant, though she herself was little more than a child. I wept; I would not agree that she was dying. But I knew it, and the Unspoken knew it. They gathered, like carrion eaters around the still-warm corpse of a beast.”

Creidhe was close to tears. She waited in silence.

“It happened earlier than they had expected, in the night, after a day of
whale killing and a feast. All slept; all but Sula and me. She slipped away in the darkness; I saw the spirit creep out and the empty thing it left behind. I snipped a lock of my sister's hair and put it in my tunic. I set shells on her dead eyes. Then I took the child, and crept down to the shore, and sailed away in one of their boats before the early sun rose from the eastern sea. He lay quiet in the bows, watching the sky; even then, he knew what to do. We sailed to the Isle of Clouds. The Fool's Tide stilled to let us pass.”

Creidhe had known what happened: the bare bones of it. It was a different matter to hear it spoken thus. The simplicity of it, the sorrow, the stark courage wrung her heart.

“She entrusted him to me,” Keeper said. “I have kept my promise.”

“Why did you go to the Isle of Clouds? Why not back home, where there were folk who could help you? I know your father had been unkind to you, but—”

“You do not understand,” Keeper said. “He sold her; Asgrim sold her. Traded her for a promise of peace. Exactly the same as the bargain he made for you. I know this. The Unspoken told me.”

Creidhe was quite unable to speak.

“It is true.” Keeper's voice was level. “The Ruler cares nothing for the ties of kinship. It was our mother's blood that bound Sula and me together, the same blood that binds me to her child. It was our mother's blood that called me here to my island. Asgrim despised us, my sister and I. We were not the children he wanted: a biddable daughter, an obedient son. In Sula, he saw only a white-skinned, fair-haired girl, a treasure he could use to win a reprieve from the battles, the raids, the fell charms the Unspoken used against his people. No matter that she was his own daughter. In me, he saw a boy who dreamed, a son who would rather talk to Christian priests than wield worldly power, a child whose mother's blood was all too apparent in his strange eyes and his refusal to obey. He saw the one who would prevent him from achieving his goal. I could not take Small One home. Asgrim would simply have handed him straight back to the Unspoken.”

“He traded her, knowing what they would do to her? His own daughter? By all the ancestors, no wonder he thought nothing of using me the same way! Has the man no heart?”

“He chose unwisely,” Keeper said quietly. “All went awry for him. Another man could have made this right. Asgrim cannot. He treads a path into darkness. If I do not kill him, another will. This season, next season. None can trust such a man.”

“He chose unwisely? Chose what?”

“When he chose her. My mother. He could not hold her long. She went back to the sea.”

Creidhe had known it, perhaps. It was there in Keeper's eyes, his hands, the strangeness that could not quite be defined.

“I did not wish to tell you this.” His voice was hesitant.

“About your mother? Why not?”

“Because you will be afraid. What you said, about your family, about your brother who was drowned . . . now you will fear me. I did not intend to tell you.”

“I think I knew,” said Creidhe.

He was silent.

“Keeper?”

No reply.

“I am afraid of the hunt,” Creidhe said, “and of what may happen. But I could never be afraid of you.”

She heard his breath released in a rush, a great sigh. It became apparent to her that he had indeed dreaded this moment; that her trust was precious to him. And oh, how she wanted to be over there beside him, holding him, not here alone with her body on fire and her head spinning with feelings that thrilled and terrified her. To apply any sort of logic to the situation was an impossibility. They said the Seal Tribe could do that; they were supposed to be expert at seduction, at enthrallment. She would not believe it of Keeper, with his shy sweetness. There was no magic here, she thought, but the natural enchantment of a man and a woman who fitted together so perfectly that they might be the two halves of one whole. Some might say such a mating was solely a thing of story, invented just to dazzle. But Creidhe knew it was not so, for she had grown up alongside its very embodiment: Eyvind and Nessa, each the perfect completion of the other.

It wasn't going to be easy to sleep. She shifted restlessly, turning from one side to the other.

“Keeper?”

“Yes?”

“Didn't you have a question to ask me?”

“Yes. But I cannot ask. It is—I cannot—I do not seem to have the words for it. I know I will offend you. I cannot speak it . . .”

She heard him move as she had, rolling from back to front, rustling his bedding; she saw without needing to look how he lay open-eyed and wakeful, staring up at the sky. It was not so hard to guess the nature of the question.

“Your tale was a sad one,” she said softly, “too sad for a bedtime story,
though it is a tale of great courage. You saved him; you kept your promise. But I think we need another story tonight, and I will tell it, if you agree.”

“Please.”

Creidhe could hardly hear him. He was too far away; further than he should be. Still, she would not move.

“I spoke of Aunt Margaret, Thorvald's mother,” she began.

“I do not wish to hear a story of Thorvald. I am tired of him.”

Creidhe found that she was smiling. “It is not so much a tale of him, though he is in it. You should not interrupt me. This is a story you will like in the end. Aunt Margaret taught me to spin, to sew and to weave. I love weaving; I'm supposed to be quite good at it. My blankets and wall hangings get given away as wedding gifts or as offerings to visiting officials such as the chieftains of the Caitt or the Jarls of Rogaland. It makes me proud that my work is valued, but sad, too, because giving it away is like saying good-bye to a part of myself.”