Heart's Blood (47 page)

“Old ruin full of freaks and monsters,” Cillian rumbled. “Never seen anything like it. Nobody could stay long in a place like that without running mad.You’ve got even less wit than your sister, Caitrin.At least she saw the sense in coming home.”

I saw Maraid flinch.

“How dare you!” I could have struck him for his thoughtless cruelty. I put my arm around my sister’s shoulders.“Maraid came back here because she lost her beloved husband. She came because she and her child had nowhere else to go. And now that I’m here, we’re going to make this house into a proper home again, not the travesty it’s become since you moved in and took what was rightly ours. Now listen to me, and listen well.You will be out of this house before dusk.The two of you will not show your faces to me or to my sister ever again.”

A wrenching sob from Maraid; it made my heart sick to hear her.

“Where’s the baby, Maraid?” I asked quietly, my hand on her shoulder. “Is she safe?”

My sister nodded. “She’s in the bedchamber with Fianait.” Fianait had been an indispensable member of our household when Father was alive. A sturdy, good-natured girl, she had done everything from killing and plucking chickens to polishing fine silverware. Ita had dismissed her. If Fianait had come back, it meant Maraid had not been entirely friendless.“Caitrin, is this really true?” my sister said now. “I can’t believe it . . .”

“Nor should you.” Ita was struggling for calm now. “As I said, it’s a pack of nonsense. When did Caitrin ever become an expert in legal matters? Cillian, I think Caitrin may be a danger to herself. You’d best help her to her chamber . . .”

Cillian moved towards me, arms outstretched. Memory welled up in me; sudden panic held me motionless, a rabbit under the fox’s stare.

Maraid rose to her feet. “Don’t you dare lay your hands on my sister,” she said, and though her voice was faint, her courage blazed in her eyes. As she slipped her arm through mine, I remembered that I had a plan, and that I had friends, and that I was not the same woman who had fled this house a season ago.

“I’m not here alone,” I said quietly. “I referred to a physician. He’s waiting just outside. As for the legal situation, I think you’ll find I have the backing of the administrator for the district. His name is Colum, and you can expect a visit from him very soon. I want you packed up and ready to leave within an hour, Ita, and Cillian with you. If anyone sets a hand on me, or on Maraid, or on the child or Fianait, that will be added to the charges you already face. Think carefully before you resort to physical violence. Colum knows all about what Cillian did to me, both here and at Whistling Tor.”

“This is outrageous!” Ita had gone pale. “A—a conspiracy! How dare you circulate foul lies about my son, how dare you poison folk’s minds . . . Don’t think you can get away with this, Caitrin.We have witnesses, reliable folk who will support us—”

Cillian had not understood quite as well as his mother had.“You can’t order us out of the house!” he shouted. “We live here! It’s ours by right!” He reached for me again.

“Aengus!” I called. “You can come in now!”

The wrestling champion of Stony Ford was quick for such a big man. He appeared, all sweet smile and bulging muscles, and behind him came Brendan in his physician’s robe, looking as if he wouldn’t mind a sparring match himself. Cillian took a step backwards. His hands fell to his sides.

“Shall I throw him out?” inquired Aengus.

I felt a profound desire to say yes, but that would be to reduce myself to Cillian’s level. “Not yet,” I said. “My kinsfolk need a little time to pack up their things and arrange a lift back to their home settlement. A little time, not a lot. I want the packing supervised; they’re to take only their personal belongings. We don’t know yet the full extent of what Father left, but if there’s a store of silver or anything else of value in the house, these people must not be given the opportunity to take it with them.”

“This is ridiculous!” spat Ita. “You can’t forbid me to take my own things—”

A discreet knock at the door.

“That will be the lawman, Colum,” I said. “I think he may have some bailiffs with him. No doubt he’ll be wanting a word with you both before you go. I can’t be sure when the hearing will be, but I am quite certain Colum will expect all of Father’s goods to remain in the keeping of Maraid and myself until due legal process has been carried out. Brendan, will you let him in, please?”

 

“I feel so hopeless, Caitrin,” my sister said.“I’ve tried to be brave, for Etain’s sake, but sometimes . . .” She sighed, as if her thoughts were too sad to be put into words.

“Tell me, Maraid.”

The two of us were at the kitchen table alone. It was night.An oil lamp hung from a hook; beyond the circle of warm light, the chamber seemed full of shadows. Maraid had made an effort at suppertime, appearing with her hair combed and her face washed, but she was not herself.

The lawman, Colum, and his bailiffs had seen Ita and Cillian off the premises after stern words. My kinsfolk would be subject to the full force of the law. Colum had been working on our behalf since Donal’s letter first reached him, and he had news for me: there were indeed funds available to us, silver carefully set away for the purpose of providing for Maraid and me on our father’s death.There was no need for me to earn a living, at least not right away. There would be time to set our house in order; time to come to terms with our losses.

I had offered the hospitality of the house to Brendan, Fidelma and Aengus. After a happy reunion, Fianait had helped me prepare beds while Fidelma cooked supper. Now our guests were all abed; it had been a long day. I had seen the look on Fidelma’s face as she watched my sister push her food around her platter, eating almost nothing. I had noticed Brendan scrutinizing little Etain. Even to my inexpert gaze, my niece looked scrawny and pallid.

“I can’t tell you,” Maraid said now. “You’ll despise me, Caitrin.”

“I won’t,” I told her.“I’m your sister and I’m here to help make things better. Ita and Cillian are gone. We have the house; we have resources, Maraid. We have our self-respect. Those things can’t bring Shea back, I know. But . . .” I stopped myself. I knew all too well how it felt, that empty, blank hopelessness. “You need to tell someone,” I said. “Please, Maraid.”

“Etain,” she whispered. “Sometimes I don’t even like her very much, Caitrin. Sometimes I wish she wasn’t here. She cries all the time, as if she hates me. I’m no good as a mother. I should never have had a child.”

Silently I cursed Ita, for her influence was written all over this.

“Is that all?” I asked.

Maraid turned bleak eyes on me. “Isn’t it enough?”

“I’m not shocked.” But I was, just a little. Etain was so small and innocent, so fragile. “Maraid, you should let Brendan examine you in the morning.You look ill, not just sad and tired, but . . . to be honest, you look half-starved. And although I don’t know much about these things, people do say that if you’re nursing an infant you should eat more than usual, not less. Etain doesn’t hate you.A little baby isn’t capable of hate. She’s probably just hungry.”

“Ita said I should stop trying to feed her. She said goat’s milk would be better. But I do want to nurse her, Caitrin. I always thought I’d be a good mother. I don’t want to be a failure.”

“Well, then.” My attempt at brisk confidence fell something short. Maraid was crying and so was I. “Let’s make a sisters’ pact right now.” I headed for the pantry, where I filled a small bowl with suppertime leftovers—a little pease pudding, a scoop of soft cheese, a handful of dried plums.

“What are you doing, Caitrin?”

I set the bowl before her, then poured two cups of ale. “This is the agreement. You eat, and while you’re eating—I mean properly, not just playing with your food—I’ll tell you a story. Tomorrow, the same, but I’ll tell some of the story each time you feed Etain too.” Fianait had taken the baby away to settle her for the night. I would enlist Fianait’s help in the morning.

“A story? What story?” Maraid eyed the little meal without enthusiasm.

“An exciting one about a girl who runs away from home and goes to . . .You’ll have to start eating to find out where.”

“All right.” She picked up a single dried plum; I did not speak until she put it in her mouth and began to chew. A fleeting smile crossed her face. “You never used to be so bossy, Caitrin.What happened to you?”

“This girl,” I said, holding my ale cup between my hands, “had been very frightened; so frightened that she had lost sight of what was real and what wasn’t. So frightened that people thought she was out of her wits. She felt all alone in the world; she thought everyone she loved had deserted her.Then one day, out of the blue, she found the courage to flee. She ran, she walked, she took rides, she slept under hedges and in the shelter of haystacks, until the day a carter dropped her off in the middle of nowhere and drove away without a word.”

Intent on the story, my sister had stopped eating. I waited, eyes on the bowl.

“Bully,” Maraid said, getting up to fetch herself a spoon. “And then what?”

I told her how the girl had met two friendly strangers who had vanished when they were most needed; how she had prayed her way into a fortified village; how she had raced off up a hill in pursuit of a man named Magnus, and had been helped by a gnomelike person and a giant hound.

“And then,” I said as my sister put a piece of cheese in her mouth,“she wandered into a lovely little garden, all overgrown but full of bright flowers and singing birds, with a birch tree in the center, and a bench on which lay a book. Nobody was in sight. She wandered about, seeing how cleverly the plants had been chosen, and there, in a corner under a comfrey bush, she saw a clump of heart’s blood.”

Maraid made a little sound; she knew what a treasure that herb was.

“She stooped to admire it, and at that moment a commanding voice rang out behind her:
Don’t touch that!
” I stopped to take a mouthful of my ale, Anluan’s image strong in my mind: pale as snow, red as fire, blue as speedwell, sad as a broken heart.

“Who was it?”

“That must wait until next time.” I wanted to be sure I had captured her or this experiment might be short-lived. Her grief was deep; it would not be easily healed.

“Was it an ogre? A beast? A handsome prince?”

I smiled. “Not exactly.”

“Is this a true story, Caitrin?” Maraid had eaten almost everything I had given her; now she was sipping her ale.

“I’ll let you make your own judgment. I haven’t told it to anyone else. If I did, most folk would think I really was mad.”

“That’s what Ita told me, Caitrin. She said that after I left here, you became completely unhinged. She said you couldn’t even keep yourself clean. She told me you bolted with only the clothes on your back. She said you were never coming home.”

“I don’t suppose she told you that Cillian came after me, and found me, and tried to force me back here.”

Her eyes went round. “He
found
you and they didn’t tell me? How could they do that? What happened, Caitrin?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “It’s a long story.”

 

As summer became autumn my sister began to mend, along with the house in which we had been raised with such love and hope. The milestones were small but each was cherished: the first time Maraid smiled; the first time she offered to help prepare a meal; the day when Fidelma and Brendan decided we could cope without them and returned home. They told us we would be welcome in their house any time we wished to pay them a visit, and I offered the same invitation. Their kindness had been a remarkable gift.

Fianait and I scrubbed the house from top to toe. We aired bedding and set flowers on windowsills.We baked bread, brewed ale and made preserves. I hired a boy to help with the outside work, and he whistled as he replenished the wood pile and dug over the vegetable patch. Slowly our old home began to get its heart back, and my sister hers.

As Maraid’s cheeks regained their rosy blush and her body began to fill out, Etain blossomed, turning before our eyes from a pale waif to a bonny, healthy babe. The fretful crying ceased. She bellowed for her meals, drank with enthusiasm, then slept in blissful silence. I liked to set her free of her swaddling cloths and see her kick her legs and stretch her arms as if eager for what the world might have to offer. I loved to watch her sleeping, for there was a tender mystery in the little face in repose, closed lids concealing secret thoughts beyond the comprehension of all but an infant new-minted. Looking at Etain, I longed for a child of my own.

There came a day when I passed the open doorway of the bedchamber and heard my sister talking to the baby as she fed her.

“He made the most beautiful music, Etain; he had a voice that would melt the heart of a stone statue, and his fingers on the harp were as light as swallows in the sky. He was the best papa you could ever have had, my love, the best in all the world. His eyes were just like yours, green as grass and bright as dewdrops. Never say he’s gone. Only that he’s nearby, and watching over us every moment of the day.”

I tiptoed away, eyes streaming, knowing a far greater milestone had been passed. As I stood in the courtyard trying to compose myself, the longing for Anluan stabbed sharp as glass in my breast. I would never hold his child in my arms; I would never lie with him and experience the joy Maraid had had in Shea. My body ached for that loss. My heart bled for it.

Maraid had heard my story in small instalments. Fianait, too, had listened with rapt attention as it gradually unfolded. I told of the dear, odd friends I had made at Whistling Tor, the folk I had had to leave behind. I described every part of that strange and eventful summer. Almost every part. I did not show Maraid Anluan’s book, though I had long ago turned the final page to find, not a grim decision to banish me, but this perfect reflection of my own feelings: