Son of the Shadows (40 page)

Sevenwaters. Even I was guilty. I could have fought against her banishment, and I had not.

"Lie down, Niamh," I said gently. "I want you to rest, even if you cannot sleep. You are safe here. This place is so well guarded, the Painted Man himself could not hope to breach its defenses. Nobody can touch you here. And I promise you, you need never go back to your husband. You will be safe. I

promise, Niamh."

"How—how can you promise such a thing?" she whispered, resisting my hands as I tried to ease her down onto the pillow. "I am his wife; I must comply with his wishes. The alliance—Liam—there is no choice . . . Liadan, you said you would not tell—"

"Ssh," I said. "I will find a way. Trust me. Now rest."

"I can't," she said shakily, but she did lie down, wan cheek pillowed on one slender hand. "As soon as I

close my eyes, the things come back. I cannot shut them out."

"I'll stay with you." I was hard pressed to keep back my own tears. "I'll tell you a story, or talk,
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or whatever you like. I'll sing to you if you want."

"I don't think so," my sister said, with a shadow of her old asperity.

"I'll just talk then. I want you to listen to my voice and think about my words. Think only of the words, see only what I speak of. Here, let me hold your hand. That's good. We're in the forest, you and me and

Sean. Remember the broad path under the beech trees, where you can run and run, it seems forever?

You were always ahead, always the quickest. Sean would do his best to catch you, but he never quite could, until you decided you were too old for such things. I came last, because I was always stopping to look for berries or pick up a skeleton leaf, or listen to hedgehogs snuffling in the bracken, or try to hear the voices of the tree people high overhead."

"You and your tree people," she sniffed in disbelief, but at least she was listening.

"You're running barefoot, feeling the breeze in your hair, the soft, dry leaves under your feet, running through the shafts of light where the sun slants through the branches, where it catches the green and gold of the last leaves of autumn, keeping precarious hold. And suddenly you reach the lake shore. You're warm from running and you walk on into the water, feeling its coolness lap around your ankles, the soft mud under your feet. Later on, you lie on the rocks with Sean and me, and we put our fingers in the water and watch the fish slip by, silvery bodies half concealed by the glint of sunlight on the surface of the lake. We wait for the swans to fly down to the water, one leading, the others following, gliding down in the gold of late afternoon to land swish, swish, white wings folding neatly as the water receives them.

They float like great ghosts out on the ripples as dusk creeps across the sky."

I went on like this for a while, and Niamh lay quiet; but she was awake, and I saw enough of her mind to know despair was never far from the surface.

"Liadan," she said, as I paused for breath. Her eyes opened and they Were anything but calm.

"What is it, Niamh?"

"You tell of times past, of what was good and simple. Those times can never come back. Oh, Liadan, I'm so ashamed. I feel so—so dirty, so worthless. I have done everything wrong."

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

She curled herself up, one arm around her body, a fist against her mouth. "It's the truth," she whispered.

"I have to believe it."

There was a tap at the door. It was Aisling, come to see if all was well, for it was nearly supper time and we had put in no appearance. I spoke to her quietly, saying Niamh was very tired and asking for a little food and drink on a tray, if it was not too inconvenient. Soon after, a maidservant brought bread and meat and ale, and I took it and thanked her and shut the door firmly behind her.

Niamh would not eat or drink, but I did. I was hungry; the child was growing. I could see clearly the slight swelling of my belly now, could feel the increased heaviness of my breasts. Soon the changes would be visible to all. But Niamh did not know; perhaps nobody had thought to tell her.

"Liadan?" she said, so faintly I could hardly hear her.

"Mmm?"

"I upset Mother. I hurt her when she—when she—and I didn't even know. Oh, Liadan, how could I not see—"

"Hush," I said, struggling to hold back my own tears. "Mother loves you, Niamh. She'll always love us, no matter what happens."

"I—I wanted to talk to her; I wanted to, but I couldn't. I couldn't make myself do it. Father was so stern.

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He hated me for upsetting her, and—"

"Ssh. It will be all right in the end. See if it isn't." Foolish confidence, that was. How could I make it right if those who had been so strong now seemed cut adrift like leaves tossed helpless before the willful gales of Mean Fomhair? Perhaps that was part of the old evil they spoke of, something so bad and so powerful it set all awry. Still, I soothed her, and at length she lay quiet again, her fists still clenched. I

remembered what Finbar had shown me, how he had filled my mind with joyful images and peaceful thoughts, to make me better. He had said I must learn to use the healing gift. Perhaps it was for no more than this: to ease my sister's rest. So I did as I had before: imagined I were Niamh, lying there rigid on the bed, trying to shut out the world. I let my mind slip into hers; but this time I kept control, so that I

remained Liadan, able to find answers, able to heal.

It was not like that other night when Bran had gripped my arm fit to break it, and his mind had cried out to me like a frightened child's. But there were things I saw that I would have given much not to know. I

experienced with my sister the degradation, the ridicule, the violence. Before they were wed, Fionn had seen her beauty and heard of her virtues. She had indeed once possessed both in abundance. But he had not reckoned with Ciaran and the fact that Niamh's heart, and her body, had been given already when she wed him. With a little strategy, with a little flirting and play, she might have been able to start on the right footing. She might have been able to please her husband. It is cruel for any woman to have to deceive in order to protect herself. But many have done so, no doubt, and so made their own existence at least tolerable. Not my sister. She had not been capable of the playacting required for survival. And Fionn was not a patient man. I felt the blow of his hand, and of his belt, as she had. I felt the indignity of being used when I was unwilling, and I knew her shame, although the fault was not her own.

After a while, I started to make my own presence known in her tangled thoughts. I showed her a younger

Niamh: the flame-haired girl who had whirled around in her white dress and longed for a life of wild adventure. I showed her the child running fast as a deer on a carpet of fallen leaves. I showed her eyes as blue as the sky, and the warmth of the summer sun in her hair, and the look on Ciaran's face, as he gave me the little white stone, and said, Tell her

—

-give her Ms

. He loved her. Perhaps he had gone away, but he loved her. Of that I was sure. I could not show her the future, for that I could not see myself. But I

bathed her mind in love and light and warmth, and her hand relaxed in mine as the candle burned lower and lower.

She was asleep, snoring gently, relaxed as a small child. Very slowly, very carefully I withdrew my mind from hers and, tucking the blanket around her bony shoulders, stood and stretched, feeling the ache of utter exhaustion in every part of my body. Finbar had spoken true; one did not perform such work without a cost. I walked unsteadily to the narrow window and looked out over the courtyard, thinking I

must reassure myself that the real world was still there, for my mind was full of evil images and confused thoughts. I was drained of energy and very close to weeping.

The moon was waning, a thin crescent in a dark sky full of scudding clouds. Down in the courtyard there were torches burning, and I could see dimly the forms of the ever-present sentries on patrol, both below and high above on the walkway. All night they maintained their guard. It was enough to make you feel like a prisoner, and I wondered how Aisling and the rest
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of the household could stand it. I stared out into the night sky, and my mind reached beyond the stone walls of the fortress, beyond the marshes, beyond the lands to the north. I was bone weary, so tired I longed for someone to put strong arms around me, to hug me and tell me I had done my best and that everything was going to be all right. I must indeed have been exhausted to allow myself such weakness. I gazed into the dark and my mind pictured those men around their cooking fire, listening enraptured as I told the tale of Cu Chulainn and his son, Conlai, a tale of great sadness. And I thought, fianna they may be, but I would rather be there than here, that much I

know. I closed my eyes and felt hot tears begin to flow down my cheeks; and before I could tell myself to stop, my inner voice cried out:

Where are you'? I need you. I don't think I can manage without you

. And at that precise moment, I felt the child move for the first time inside me, a little flurry as if he were swimming, or dancing, or both. I laid a hand gently on the place where he had made himself known, smiling.

We're leaving here, Son

, I told him silently.

First we help Niamh. I don't know how, but I

have promised, and I must do it. Then we go home. I have had, enough of walk, and gates, and locks

.

Bold words. Not that I had imagined Niamh would come back to herself easily or quickly. If hope is gone, the future becomes barely worth contemplating. It was as well I carried my child within my body and felt his will for life with every fluttering movement, or I might myself have been drawn into the pit of her despair.

The days passed, and the time came nearer when Eamonn and Fionn would return to Sidhe Dubh and I

must go home. Niamh remained insubstantial as a wraith, eating and drinking barely enough for survival, speaking only when the demands of basic courtesy made it essential. But I could see small signs of change in her. She was able to sleep now, as long as I sat by her bed holding her hand until she drifted off; and these times on the margin of consciousness I found to be the best for slipping into her mind and gently pushing her thoughts toward the light.

She would not come out walking with me around the top of the wall where the guards were, but she did come down to the courtyard, well covered in long-sleeved gown and matronly veil, and went with me between armory and grain store, smithy and stables. She was very quiet. To go out among folk seemed an ordeal for her. I read in her thoughts how unclean she felt, how she believed they were all watching her and thinking her a slut and ugly. How they were whispering among themselves that it was just as well, after all, that Lord Eamonn had not wed her as they had once expected he would. Still, she walked with me and watched as I greeted this one and that, giving my opinion on their ailments, and the exercise brought a little more color into her pallid cheeks. On wet days we explored the inside of the fortress instead. Sometimes Aisling went with us, but more often than not she was occupied in kitchens or storerooms or deep in negotiation with household steward or lawman. She would be a good wife for Sean, a balanced, orderly complement to his bold energy.

Sidhe Dubh was indeed a strange dwelling. I wondered greatly at the character of Eamonn's ancestor who had chosen to settle here in the very center of the inhospitable marshlands. He had certainly been a man of imagination and subtlety, perhaps a little eccentric, for the place had many oddities. There were the carved pillars in the main hall, with their fanciful beasts grinning down, small dragon, sea serpent, and unicorn. And there was the construction of the fortress itself with its covered passage up from the gate, and the family's two-floored dwelling built
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against the inner wall. Never have I seen a house with more strange branching passageways, concealed openings, and false exits, more trapdoors and secret ways and sudden treacherous wells. I had a chance this time to discover places I had never seen before, for I had been a child when I had last visited Eamonn's home and forbidden to wander too far. In my desire to keep Niamh moving, for I knew the body must be healthy if the mind is to heal, I led my sister down the long, covered way that wound around the hill from the main gate, snaking beneath the earthen rampart and stone walls to emerge into the courtyard. This path was always torchlit and alive with shadows, and many smaller ways led off on either side. Some were lined with timbers and some with stone. These

Niamh was reluctant to explore, but my curiosity had been aroused, and I went back later in the afternoon when she was sleeping. It was necessary to use some tricks I had learned from my father, which were to do with getting past guards unobserved, to achieve this. I thought it best that nobody noticed my sudden interest in possible exits from the fortress and made a decision to forbid such expeditions. I took a lantern and followed the branching ways to discover a storeroom for cheese and butter, like the caves we used for such a purpose at home. I found a small room that simply had no floor;

there was, instead, a very long drop, and when I threw in a stone, I counted to five before I heard the splash. And farther down the same way there were lightless cells, each holding a bench and shackles fixed to the wall. There were no prisoners, not now. The place was choked with cobwebs, unused for many years. Perhaps Eamonn did not take captives. I was glad I had not brought Niamh here, for the very walls cried out with despair; there was a dark hopelessness about the place that set a cold hand on my spirit. I retreated quickly, vowing to myself to curb my curiosity next time. As I came up the covered way there was the slightest of sounds behind me, and a cat shot past, streaking up from farther down that dark, shadowy passageway with the disused cells, a black cat moving so fast I only just had time to see that it bore in its jaws a very large and very dead water rat. So there was a way to the outside. A narrow way, maybe too narrow for a person to squeeze in or out. But it was nonetheless a way. I was tempted to go back down and investigate, but it was close to suppertime and I did not wish to attract undue attention.