Son of the Shadows (10 page)

and abundant cresses— and I thought to make a little pie with eggs and soft cheese, that might tempt my mother's failing appetite. So I took a basket and tied back my hair and set off alone into the forest, glad of some respite from the emotionally charged atmosphere of the house.

It was a warm day, and the herbs were plentiful. I picked steadily, humming under my breath, and soon enough my basket was full. I sat down to rest with my back against a willow. The woods were alive with little sounds: the rustle of squirrels in the undergrowth, the song of a thrush overhead, and stranger voices, too, subtle whispers in the air, whose words I could not comprehend. If there was a message in it, it could scarcely be for me. I sat very still and thought perhaps I could see them: faint, ethereal shapes passing between the branches, a scrap of floating veil, a wing transparent and fragile as a dragonfly's, hair that was shining filaments of gold and silver. Perhaps a slender hand, beckoning. And bell-like laughter. I blinked and looked again. The sun must have been making me foolish for now there was nothing. I must return to the house and make my pie and hope my family might become friends again.

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There was someone there. Down between the rowans, a flash of deep blue, gone again as quickly as it had appeared. Had I heard footsteps on the soft path? I got up, basket over my arm, and followed quietly. The track led down the hillside toward the sheltered pool, curving under the trees and between thick clumps of bushes. I did not call out. There was no telling if what I had seen was merely a trick of the light on the dark foliage or something more. And I had learned to move through the woods in silence.

It was an essential skill for self-preservation, Father said. There it was again, just ahead of me behind the rowans, a hint of blue like a fold of cloth, and a flash of white, a long, delicate hand.

This time the gesture was unmistakable. This way, it motioned. Come this way. I went on softly down the path.

Niamh would never believe, later, that I had not come there on purpose to find out her secret. I moved down quietly under the willows until the calm surface of the pool came into view. I halted, frozen with shock. She had not seen me. Nor had he. They had eyes only for each other, as they stood there waist deep, their bodies mirrored in the water under the tree canopy, their skin dappled with the sunlight through summer leaves. Her white arms were wrapped closely around his neck; his auburn head was bent to kiss her bare shoulder, and her back arched with a primitive grace as she responded to the touch of his lips. The long, bright curtain of her hair fell about her, echoing the gold of the sunlight and not quite concealing the fact that she was naked.

Feelings warred within me. Shock, fright, a fervent wish that I had gone elsewhere for my small harvest.

The knowledge that I should stop looking immediately. The complete inability to tear my eyes away. For what I saw, though deeply wrong, was also beautiful beyond my imaginings. The play of light on water, of shadow on pearly skin, the twining of their two bodies, the way they were so utterly lost in each other—to see this was as wondrous as it was deeply unsettling. If this was what I was supposed to feel for Eamonn, then I had done well to make him wait. There came a point, as the young druid's hands moved down my sister's body, and he lifted her, pulling her urgently toward him, when I knew I could watch no longer, and I retreated silently back under the willows and walked blindly in the direction of home, my mind in a turmoil. Of the strange guide who had beckoned me to find them, there was now no sign at all.

Bad luck. Bad timing. Or perhaps it was meant that the first person I should meet was my brother, that this should happen halfway across the home pastures while my mind was filled with the image of those two young bodies wrapped so closely together, as if they were but a single creature. Perhaps the Fair

Folk had had a hand in it, or maybe, as Niamh said later, it was all my fault for spying. I have spoken of how it was between my brother and me. When we were younger, we would often share our thoughts and secrets direct, mind to mind, with no need at all for speech. All twins are close, but the bond between us went far deeper; in an instant we could summon one another, almost as if we had shared some part of our spirit before ever the two of us saw the outside world. But lately we had, in unspoken agreement,

chosen to shut off that link. The secrets of a young man who courts his first sweetheart are too delicate to share with a sister. As for me, I had no wish to tell him of my fears for Niamh or my misgivings about the future. But now I could not prevent this. For it is the way of things for those who are as close as Sean and I that when one feels sharp distress, or pain, or an intense joy, it spills over so strongly that the other must share it. I had no way to keep him out at such times, no controls with which to set a shield on my mind. I could not block out the small, crystal-clear image of my sister and her druid, mirrored in still water, locked in each other's arms. And what I saw and felt, my brother saw also.

"What is this?" Sean exclaimed in horror. "Is this today? Is it now?"

I nodded miserably.

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"By the Dagda, I will kill this fellow with my own hands! How dare he defile my sister thus?"

It seemed to me he would rush into the woods that instant, bent on punishment.

"Stop. Stop it, Sean. Anger will achieve nothing here. This may not be so bad."

He took hold of my shoulders as we stood there in the middle of the field and made me look him straight in the eye. I saw on his face die reflection of what I read in his mind—shock, fury, outrage.

"I cannot believe this," he muttered. "How could Niamh be a willing partner in something so utterly foolish? Doesn't she know she's put the whole alliance at risk? Merciful gods, how could we have been so blind? Blind, all of us! Come, Liadan, we must return to the house and tell them."

"No! Don't tell, not yet. At least let me speak to Niamh first. I see—I see ill from this, a more terrible ill than you can imagine. Sean, stop."

"It's too late. Much too late." Sean's decision was made and he was not listening to me. He turned for the house, gesturing for me to follow him. "They must be told, and now. We may still salvage something from this mess if it is kept quiet. Why didn't you tell me? How long have you known of this?"

As we walked up to the house, a grim-faced Sean striding ahead and I reluctantly following in his wake, it seemed to me we brought a shadow with us, the deepest of shadows. "I did not know.

Not until now. I

guessed, but not that it had come so far. Sean, must you tell them?"

"There's no choice. She's to wed the Ui Neill. Our whole venture depends on that link. I dare not contemplate what this will do to Mother. How could Niamh have done such a thing? It's beyond all reason."

Father was out working on one of his plantations. Mother was resting. But Liam was there, and so it was he who got the news first. I was prepared for outraged disapproval, for anger. I was completely taken aback by the way my uncle's face changed as Sean told him what I had seen.

The look in his eyes was more than shock. I saw revulsion, and was it fear? Surely not. Liam, afraid?

When my uncle spoke at last, it was clear he was exercising the greatest control to keep his voice calm.

Nonetheless, it shook as he spoke.

"Sean, Liadan, I must ask you for your help. This matter must go no further than the family.

That's of the utmost importance. Sean, I want you to fetch Conor here. Go yourself, and go alone. Tell him it's urgent, but don't speak of the reason to anyone else. You'd better leave now.

And keep your anger in check for everyone's sake. Liadan, I am reluctant to involve you, for such matters are not fit for a young woman's eyes or ears. But you are family, and you are part of this now, like it or not. Thank the gods Eamonn and his sister are no longer at Sevenwaters.

Now I want you to go down and wait for Niamh; keep watch by your garden entry until you see her on her way home. Then bring her straight to me in the private chamber. Again, I cannot stress too strongly, no talk. Not to anyone. I will send for your father and break this news to him myself."

"What about Mother?" I had to ask.

"She must be told," he said soberly. "But not yet. Let her have a little more peace before she must know."

So I waited for Niamh; and as I waited, I watched Sean ride away under the trees in the direction of the place the druids had their dwelling, deep in the heart of the forest. The dust flew under his horse's feet.

I waited a long time, until it was nearly dusk. I was cold, and my head was aching, and there was a strange sort of fear in me that seemed quite out of proportion to the problem. I had been over
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and over it in my mind. Perhaps she really loved him and he her. It had certainly looked that way. Maybe he was the son of a good family, and maybe it didn't really matter whether he remained a druid or not, and—then I

remembered the look on Liam's face, and I knew that my thoughts were utterly futile. There was far more here than I could rightly understand.

It was very hard to tell Niamh. She was radiant with happiness, her skin glowing, her eyes bright as stars.

She wore a wreath of wildflowers on her shining hair, and her feet were bare beneath the hem of her white gown.

"Liadan! What on earth are you doing out here? It's nearly dark."

"They know," I said straight out, and watched her face change as the light went out of her eyes, quenched as quickly as a doused candle. "I—I was picking herbs, and I saw you, and—"

"You told! You told Sean! Liadan, how could you do such a thing?" She gripped my arms, digging her fingers in until I gasped with pain. "You've ruined everything! Everything! I hate you!"

"Niamh. Stop it. I said nothing, I swear. But you know how it is with me and Sean. I could not keep it from him," I said miserably.

"Spy! Snoop! You use your stupid mind-talk, whatever it is, as an excuse. You're just jealous because you can't get your own man! Well, I don't care. I love Ciaran, and he loves me; and nobody's going to stop us being together! You hear me? Nobody!"

"Liam told me to wait for you and bring you straight to see him," I managed, and now I found I had to make an effort not to cry. I swallowed my tears. They would help nobody. "He said we must keep this quiet, keep it in the family."

"Oh, yes, the family honor. Wonderful. Can't ruin the chance of an alliance with the Ui Neill, can we?

Never mind, Sister. Now that I've shamed the all-important family, maybe it's you who will wed the illustrious Fionn, chieftain of Tirconnell. It could be the making of you."

Liam's reaction had been deeply unsettling, and a fear had gripped me, a fear whose cause I did not understand. I had tried to be calm, to be strong for my sister. But Niamh's words hurt me, and I found I

could not hold back my anger.

"Brighid save us!" I snapped. "When will you learn that there are more folk in the world than just yourself? You're in real trouble, Niamh. Seems to me you're overeager to hurt those who would help you. Now come on. Let's get this over with."

I walked to the stillroom door. From here, it was possible to go up the back stairs to the chamber where

Liam waited and with luck be unobserved. Niamh had fallen silent. I turned, hoping I would not have to drag her after me forcibly. "Are you coming?"

There was a sound of hoofbeats beyond the garden wall, galloping up to the main entrance.

Boots crunched on gravel as men dismounted. There had been no way for Sean to return unobserved from his errand.

"Liadan." My sister spoke in a very small voice.

"What?"

"Promise me. Promise me you'll stay in there with me. Promise you'll speak up for me."

I walked straight back and put my arms around her. She was shivering in her light gown, and a tear glinted in one long-lashed, blue eye. "Of course I'll stay, Niamh. Now come on. They'll be waiting for us."

By the time we reached the upstairs room, they were all there. All but Mother. Liam, Conor, Sean, and my father, standing, the four of them, their faces made grimmer by the half-light, for
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only one small lamp burned on the table and outside it was dark. The air was thick with tension.

I could tell they had been talking and had fallen silent as we came in. If there was anything that really frightened me as I stood there beside my sister, it was Conor's face. The expression he wore mirrored that I had seen on his brother's features not long before. Not quite fear perhaps.

More like the memory of fear.

"Shut the door, Liadan." I did as Liam told me, and returned to my sister's side where she stood, head held high, like some tragic princess in an old story. Her hair was a glowing gold in the lamplight. Her eyes shone with unshed tears.

"She's your daughter," my uncle said bluntly. "Perhaps you'd better speak first."

Father stood at the back of the room, his face in shadow. "You know what this is about, Niamh." His voice was level enough.

Niamh said nothing, but I saw her straighten her back, lift her head a little higher.

"I have always expected my children to speak the truth, and I want the truth from you now. We had hoped for a good marriage for you. Perhaps I have allowed you more freedom than some thought wise, freedom to make your own choices. In return, I expected—honesty at least, common sense, some exercise of judgment."

Still she said nothing.

"You had better tell us, and tell us truly. Have you given yourself to this young man? Has he lain with you?"

I felt the tremor that ran through my sister's body and knew it for anger, not fear.

"What if I have?" she snapped.

There was a little silence, and then Liam said grimly, "Answer your father's question."

Niamh's eyes were bright with defiance as she glared back at him.

"What's it to you?" she demanded, voice going up a notch, and she gripped my hand so tight I thought she would break it. "I'm not your daughter and I never have been. I care nothing for your family honor and your stupid alliances. Ciaran is a good man, and he loves me, and that's all that matters. The rest of it