Child of the Prophecy (53 page)

another message to be read behind these words. I would be established at Glencarnagh before summer, and accepted as his wife. There was every likelihood he would get me with child before his departure on the great campaign. If he were slain, he would at least have left an heir behind him. This unwritten message would be clear enough to Sean. As for me, I could see Eamonn's true intention. He wished to stamp the brand of ownership on me. Now that he knew what I could do, he wanted to be certain it was his will I worked, and not another's. Information; secrets; intelligence. With me by his side, no opportunity would be closed to him. Best establish that before the campaign began. It had occurred to him, perhaps, that there were possibilities in our union that went far beyond the elimination of one particular enemy.

Sean showed me the letter in private. That I appreciated, not wishing to have Aunt Liadan watching over such an encounter. I read the missive quickly and gave it back to him.

"Very formal," I commented.

My uncle raised his brows. "You're skilled at reading, I see," he said.

"My father taught me. Conor taught him. I suppose I might be called a scholar. Maybe, if you do not allow me to wed, I could seek employment as a household scribe."

Sean glanced at me quizzically. "I think not. Conor saw you as a druid. Would you consider such a calling?"

"My kind cannot do so." My tone was cold. "You should know that, Uncle. I am my father's daughter, after all."

"And your mother's, Fainne. She was my own sister. I owe it to her to make the right choices for you."

"You chose poorly for her," I said bitterly.

"Maybe; and maybe not. It is true that ill fortune befell her. Still, at the time the family did what seemed right. Nobody could have known how it would unfold. Don't think me heartless, Fainne, but in a way, Niamh brought what happened on herself. She chose a man she could not have."

I glared at him. "But for that, I would not exist, Uncle. I am the child of a forbidden liaison. Don't you think this marriage is my best chance to make something of myself?"

Sean sighed, and went to sit by the small table. "You should talk to Liadan about this," he said. "Some aspects of the matter are best discussed between women."

"No," I said quickly. "That should not be necessary. Just give me one good reason why Eamonn and I should not wed; one reason beyond the difference in our ages, for that should be of no import provided I am willing."

I thought I had backed him into a corner, where he must reveal to me the truth about whatever it was between Eamonn and Liadan, some secret they both guarded tightly, from which great bitterness had come. But he was too good a strategist for that.

"Very well," he said. "We need your father's permission. Liadan tells me she is certain he will not give it. But if you are set on this match, let us put it to the test. Tell me where Ciaran can be found, and I will send a messenger with this news, and ask for his blessing on the marriage."

"No!" I could not control my fear. "No, you can't do that!" Once the words were out, they could not be taken back.

Sean looked at me very shrewdly. "I see," he said. "However, we must respond to this letter one way or another, or Eamonn will be on the doorstep demanding answers. You've put me in a very awkward situation, niece."

"I'm sorry," I muttered.

"Never mind. Conor arrives in the morning to perform the solstice ritual; we'll discuss it with him, and with Liadan, before we decide how to word our response. Brighid save us, I think sometimes I've slipped back to a time when such an offer came for your mother, and she refused so much as to listen. Already, then, the sorceress who was our family's old enemy had her hand on us once more, moving us like pieces in some game of her own devising. Perhaps, when it came to it, poor Niamh didn't have a chance."

I turned cold. I thought of my mother, stepping off a ledge into nothingness, and of Liadan's words. That always seemed to me impossible. A terrible idea lodged itself in my mind and refused to go away. Perhaps Niamh had not given up. Perhaps her second chance had been snatched away from her.

"You need not be afraid of Liadan," Sean said with a little smile. "She loved her sister, and means you no harm."

"Afraid? Of course I'm not afraid." Even to me this sounded unconvincing. I looked at my uncle again. He sat relaxed, his fingers stroking the head of the great dog that sat by his side. The hound's eyes were half closed in sheer pleasure. At Sean's feet the other dog lay sleeping. "It's just—"

"Tell me, Fainne." His voice was kind. "I wish you to feel at home here, you know that. I want you to consider yourself no different from my own daughters, while you remain with us."

"It's just—the—the power, the ability to speak without words, to look into people's thoughts—she has that, I know. I am—I'm afraid of that, Uncle. Afraid that Aunt Liadan will look into my mind and see things that are—private." Why had I said such a thing? It could do nothing but arouse his suspicions. "A girl of my age does have secrets," I added hastily. "Things she might tell her best friend, maybe, but no one else."

"You should speak to her," Sean said again. "It is true, there are those of the family with this ability. Its strength varies in us; Liadan has a powerful gift, shared by only one other that I know of. But she never uses it to spy, or intrude where she is unwanted, Fainne. Such a gift brings with it great responsibility. It cannot be used lightly. It would, perhaps, be only at a time when she believed those she loved to be in mortal danger that she would be tempted to use it thus."

His words did nothing to reassure me. "I see. Perhaps I will talk to her. Must this be discussed in some—family forum, aired in front of all, Conor, and the others?"

My uncle nodded gravely. "I believe so, Fainne. We must choose our words with care when we frame a reply to Eamonn. He's an influential man; we cannot afford to anger him."

I had not seen Conor since the time of the fire. He had not seen me since he bore the ancient druid home to rest in the deep quiet under the great oaks. I did not know what I would say to Conor. It seemed to me my guilt must show plain on my features to one who knew how to read such things. It seemed to me the evil spirit I had inherited from my grandmother must show stark in my eyes to one as skilled as an archdruid.

I was sitting by Maeve, telling a story. Despite my best efforts to say no, I found I could not deny her repeated requests for me to visit her, and that once seated by her side, I was unable to refuse her a tale. This time I had begun a story of two small friends and how they nearly got trapped by the tide. Maeve and I were not alone; Muirrin was busy with a mortar and pestle, and the dark-skinned young man, Evan, was in the next room tending to a fellow with a nasty gash on the buttock. Wild pigs roamed the forest, and in his efforts to spear a fine specimen for the midwinter feast, this man had got more than he'd bargained for. The tusk had gone in and out cleanly enough; Evan was talking reassuringly as he stitched the wound. Before the small fire stood Johnny. He'd come in after I started, and I had thought to cease the tale, being unwilling to reveal myself thus before him. But Maeve said, "Go on, please, Fainne," in her polite little voice, and Johnny gave his wide, disarming grin, and I continued.

"Well, what were they to do? The waves were getting higher, and the day was growing darker, and all that was left of the beach was a tiny little strip of sand scarce wide enough for Fainne's two feet to stand on. She was scared, but she wouldn't let on to Darragh, so she didn't say a thing, just clutched Riona tight and looked at the water coming closer, and felt the rock wall steep behind her; too steep to climb up."

Maeve watched me solemnly. Her head was still bandaged; the eye, at least, had healed, the swelling gone down, the vision still intact. Her hands were swathed. I knew Muirrin took off the linen strips twice a day, and made Maeve move and bend her fingers. I had heard the child weeping with pain as she stretched the damaged skin. Muirrin herself tended to emerge from these sessions red-eyed.

'Then Darragh said, 'We'll have to swim. It's not so far—just to those rocks there, and then we can scramble to the jetty. Give Riona to me, I'll carry her.' And Fainne said in a little wee voice, 'I can't swim.' Darragh stared at her, with the water coming up around his ankles, and then he said, 'Don't suppose I can leave you to drown, can I? Think you can float on your back, and not panic? I'll swim for the two of us. Have to go out a way; the waves come up quick.' As he spoke, he was fastening Riona into his belt and wading into the sea. The waves were splashing onto the base of the cliff now; Fainne felt the water up to her knees, dragging at her skirt. The very thought of going in deeper made her tremble all over. But she would not show Darragh she was frightened. So she did as he bid: moved out into the frothing sea, and let it come all around her so she was chilled through; felt Darragh's arms under her own and across her chest, holding her safe, and then they were moving through the water, letting it carry them. Fainne had never been so scared. Sometimes the water splashed over her, into her mouth and up her nose, and once Darragh's grip slackened and she nearly went right under. It was cold as ice, and she felt the power of the ocean as it bore them up and down, up and down. Once, she dared to open her eyes and look back; but she closed them again quickly, for they were far, far out from shore, so far it seemed impossible that Darragh could ever swim back in again, not with her weighing him down. She screwed her eyes tight shut.

" 'Look, Fainne,' said Darragh. 'We've got company. Now that's a rare sight, that is.' He sounded quite like himself; not at all like a boy who was in danger of drowning. He was hardly even out of breath. Cautiously, she opened one eye just a bit. And there beside them, to right and to left, swam great sleek creatures of the deep, keeping pace like graceful guardians. Selkies they were, children of Manannan mac Lir, come to see them safe to shore. All the way across the bay they played, diving and circling, dancing in the water, and Fainne stared spellbound, quite forgetting to be afraid. And at length, there were the smooth rocks at the end of the bay, and Darragh and Fainne scrambled out of the water, shivering with cold and grinning from ear to ear. The two selkies swam away with never a look back, but for a while they could be seen playing a game of chase out beyond the waves.

" 'They do say,' said Darragh, watching, 'that the selkies are part human. Did you know that? Sometimes they come ashore and take off their skins, and become men and women again, for a while. But they have to go back. The sea calls them. It's an enchantment laid on them. That's what they say.'

"Fainne nodded, and the two of them walked home, cold, wet and tired, but not unhappy. As for Riona, she'd had a bath she didn't want, but she dried out soon enough before the hearth fire, and what she thought of the whole thing, nobody knew, for she wasn't saying."

Maeve gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and I looked up, and there in the doorway from the next room was Conor.

"A true story, no doubt," he observed gravely, coming forwardto greet Muirrin and Johnny, and to touch the child's head with a gentle hand.

"Oh, yes," said Maeve with certainty. "All of Fainne's stories are true. Well, maybe not the one about the clurichaun. But Darragh's real."

"Indeed?" Johnny was grinning, eyebrows raised as he looked at me. "Such a fine swimmer, too. I'd like to meet the lad myself, I think. Sounds a useful sort of fellow to have around."

"Well, you're unlikely to," I said repressively. "He lives far away, in the west. And the stories are not quite true, and not quite untrue."

"That's the way of it with all the best tales," said Conor. "You learned this art from your father, I think," he added quietly. "He'd the same ability to hold us all spellbound with his words."

"Excuse me." I jumped to my feet and fled, muttering something about things to do. When I was safe in my room, I willed myself to calm, and stood before the mirror, and summoned the craft. But my mind was jumbled and sad, and I could not escape my own haunted features staring grimly back at me. In the end I gave up. I opened my wooden chest and, rummaging deep, took out the silken shawl which once, long ago in another life, I had worn to ride to the fair. I sat on the floor with its drift of summertime colors around my shoulders, and I shut my eyes tight and rocked back and forth, and I whispered, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But whether I spoke to my father, or to Darragh, or simply to myself, there was no telling.

To give in to such weakness was dangerous. It showed a lamentable lack of self-control. My father had never let his feelings get the better of him thus. How disappointed he would be if he could see me. And yet—and yet there were those long times when he shut himself away in the workroom and would not let me near. Did he wrestle with the complex practice of the craft, or was it something else he fought? I had seen him emerge at the end of the day with just such an expression of confusion and self-loathing as I read on my own features now. Then, I had put it down to the great challenges he set himself as a master sorcerer. Now, suddenly I was not so sure. As a child, I would have done anything to take away his sadness, to bring that rare smile to his lips, and yet, when this mood was on him, he would shrug off touch, would cut short my anxious queries. Later he would do his best to make up for it, sharing a tale by the fire, listening