The Well of Shades (51 page)

He opened his eyes. There was a spear point not far from his face, and an armed man behind it. “Can’t you understand a simple instruction?” asked the man with the spear. “Get up! Come on, step out where we can see you, and keep your hands open. Move!”

He moved. There
was not just one man but a whole group, seven or eight at least. No time to snatch his weapons; the small knife was on his person, but the assailants were too many. Getting himself killed was not going to help anyone. As they dragged him forward, pulling his hands behind his back and binding his wrists together, he observed that they were not a rabble of wayside thugs but a disciplined team, clearly
sent on a mission to apprehend him. “Who are you? What am I supposed to have done?” he ventured, and was silenced immediately by a gag, slipped on from behind and promptly tightened. This wasn’t looking good. Never mind that; he would get information from this one way or another, and then he would give them the slip. He still had his knife.

“Search him,” someone said. “Be quick. We’re too near
the road here.”

They took the knife, as well as his bag of traveler’s supplies. His other weapons and his silver, concealed in the straw, they did not find. Then he was marched along the edge of the field, through a gate, and into the darkness of a shadowy wood.

T
HERE WAS ONLY
one thought in the druid’s mind:
Home
. What it meant was hazy still: a house wrapped in
oaks, a whisper-quiet chamber of stone, objects set out in orderly fashion… He ran, his bare feet knowing the changeable nature of the forest floor as part of himself, his breathing at long last strong and easy, his body bursting with the joy of freedom.
I’m going home
. The trees
made a wondrous, changing tapestry as he passed, bright beech, silvery birch, dark pine, the soft fronds of ferns beneath,
the spiky guardian hollies. His feet touched the crunching softness of fallen leaves; they trod on needles of pine, releasing a pungent aroma; they slid over gravel and splashed through streams, knowing each rolling pebble, each great lichen-crusted stone, each touch of sun or shade. From his high throne in the sky, the Flamekeeper smiled down on him.

As he drew close to the margin of the great
forest, his pace slowed. Memory stirred, seeping into the great bright spaces his winter journey had opened in his mind. One by one they came back: a child, his pupil, his dear one… brown curls, blue eyes, a tiny, solemn boy who spoke like a sage… his son… no, not his son, but dearer than any bond of kinship could make him. Bridei. But Bridei was a man now; a king. Yet still he saw the child… a
different child, a boy of exceptional talent, of prodigious promise, an eldritch, precious child… the child of his own blood…

“Derelei,” whispered the druid, his voice harsh and strange after a season’s silence. Once he had given a name to the image, others flowed after it: Bridei the man, strong and grave, and Tuala… Tuala, the daughter he had wronged, the daughter whom he must learn to know
all over again, this time with love and trust and an open heart. He thought that he could do it; he thought that he could try.

He halted in a clearing fringed by drooping willows and spreading elders: a place of the Shining One. Here the streamlet whose course he had been following flowed into a round, deep pool edged by moss-cloaked stones; small fish darted there, hiding in the fronds of underwater
plants, and above the surface dragonflies made zigzag paths, their wings a wonder of transparent grace.

The druid knelt on the rocks by the pool.
Home
. It had a wealth of meanings. Perhaps, after all, for him home
was not a place, but a state of mind. Perhaps it was forgiveness; acceptance; belonging. Was that simple message the sum of his winter’s hard-won learning?

He looked into the water.
For a man long practiced in the arts of divination, augury, and prophecy, to do so was instinctive. If the Shining One had some final wisdom for him before this journey was ended, she might reveal it to him here in this still place, his last resting place before he walked out of the wildwood and returned to the realms of men.

A face looked up at him. At first he thought it a vision, an image
from beyond death, for surely this was his old friend Uist, a solitary druid of the forest, who had long been considered half-crazed; the hair was wild, its long strands thick with scraps of foliage, twigs, and mosses; the eyes were mad, seeing and unseeing; the figure was smeared with filth, and underneath, completely naked. The druid lifted a hand, and the madman in the pond lifted his own as if
in ironic greeting.

He made himself look again; struggled to analyze. The unkempt hair was of every shade between black and white; it was not Uist’s, but that of a younger man. The eyes were dark as polished obsidian; they had not the pale clarity of the ancient sage’s. The body… He did not want to look down, to recognize that wrinkled, pallid, scrawny nudity as his own.
But I feel young
, he
thought.
I feel sound. I feel more alive than I have ever been. I want to run, to shout, to sing, to work marvels
. And heard an inner voice reply:
So did he
. It was true; Uist had been rich in both a young man’s vision and an old man’s wisdom even to the moment he slipped away from this world.

The druid did not look down. He laid a hand on his ribs, feeling the prominence of the bones and how
the flesh had shrunk away during his time of privation. He touched his elbow, his knee; he touched his neck and cheek and looked again into the water. He tried to see the image as a child might, or a woman, or a shepherd grazing
his flock at the forest’s edge, glancing up to see a figure walking out under the oaks.

“Is this the sum of my learning?” he whispered. “That in the space of one season,
I am shrunk to a shadow of myself?” The figure in the water looked up, eyes bright with madness, hair like a rat’s nest, body exposed in all its gaunt and filthy wretchedness. The druid stepped back from the forest pool, retreating into the shadows under the sheltering trees. “What are you telling me?” he asked the Shining One, and sat down on a mossy rock to reflect on the answers already beginning
to unfold in his thoughts. He reminded himself that outward appearances did not necessarily signify truth; that oftentimes the meanings of things lay deep within. Perhaps the journey must be slower; perhaps he must walk, not run.

“I am reborn,” he murmured, not sure if the words were his own or those of another voice. “An infant. I must learn it all again; how to walk, how to speak, how to listen.”
He saw himself back at Pitnochie, long ago, with a small, grave boy by his side, and a lesson to teach.
Step with care upon the path
, that younger man said.
Let your feet be part of the earth they tread. Know the thoughts of owl and otter, beetle and salmon. Speak the truths of the heart
. It came to him that he had lost touch with the simple wisdom he had imparted to the child Bridei. There was
another child to teach now, a perilously able child who needed him still more than that fledgling king had done. So, he would go on, but slowly. He would walk each step of the way with the love of the Shining One in his heart and his senses awake to the winter’s great lesson. That lesson was a beacon to show him the way forward. He thought its name was love.

“I
WANT…
SAY
a thing, Eile,” Ana said in her halting Gaelic. The wedding would be tomorrow. Despite the tragic death of Breda’s handmaid, it had been decided
not to delay the ceremony. Eile was helping the bride with some final adjustments to the outfit she would wear, a plain tunic and skirt in fine cream wool with little birds embroidered in a band around the hem. “The handfasting… I wish you… with me…
not sister. Sounds bad, but true. You… at ritual… for Faolan. We… very fond…”

Eile did not reply; there seemed no right response. Very probably she had misunderstood, though if Ana did indeed mean she would prefer that Breda not attend the ceremony, she thought she knew why. Breda’s behavior was decidedly odd at times, and one could never be sure what outrageous statement she would come out with
next. The young noblewoman had sought Eile out on many occasions since their first meeting, as if to make a special friend of her, but Eile had not been able to warm to her. Breda could be amusing in an edgy, barbed sort of way but, beyond their age, they had nothing at all in common. Yet Ana was such a good person, so wise and gentle; it seemed possible she had not meant the words in the way
Eile understood them.

Saraid had made herself at home on the bed, surrounded by the contents of Ana’s sewing box. She held up one scrap of fabric after another against the shapeless form of Sorry, who was still clad in the pink dress Faolan’s sister had made for her. “New clothes?” the child inquired hopefully.

“One piece,” Ana told the child. “You choose. Eile sew for Sorry.”

“There’s no need.
She shouldn’t ask—”

Ana put a hand on Eile’s shoulder. “I want to,” she said. “So little… how can she know? A gift. A farewell. Sad… we will miss you… Sad you not come with us.” Then, seeing Eile’s expression, “You stay here. Faolan needs… you wait. You here when he comes home.”

Again, Eile wondered if she had misunderstood. “Waiting is not a happy thing,” she said carefully in her new language.
“My mother… she stopped waiting. I
would not… be my mother…” The words began to spill out in Gaelic, “Father never came home. We waited and he never came.” She struggled with sudden tears; perhaps she would be an old woman before she could tell this tale without weeping.

Ana crouched beside her and hugged her. It felt good, but made the tears come more quickly. Aware of Saraid’s big eyes and
trembling chin, Eile made herself draw breath and be calm again.

“Forgive,” Ana said. “You must forgive him. Your father. A good man. He tried. And… Faolan is not Deord.”

“I know that.” Eile got up and began to help Ana out of the wedding clothes. “I’ll just put in a stitch or two and this will be ready. What will Breda be wearing?”

Ana grimaced. “I do not know. She is… not interested. I wish…”

“Blue.” Saraid had chosen her piece of fabric, a sweet, warm color like the sky on a hot summer’s morning. “Make clothes now.” Then after a little, “Please.”

“Later,” Eile said. “Fold it up neatly as I showed you. Maybe we can find a strip of braid for the hem, so it’s like Ana’s pretty skirt.” She moved to collect the discarded wedding clothes as Ana got back into her everyday outfit. She thought
about Breda, Breda who waited for her often in the outer garden, Breda who was not allowed to visit the queen although she herself was of royal blood and Tuala was not. For all her bevy of attendants and her place at the king’s table, Breda seemed lonely. “Maybe your sister is missing home.”

“I… hostage… eight years,” Ana said softly. “Breda… maybe next.”

“Yes, Drustan explained it to me.” It
seemed odd to Eile that Ana, so plainly an honored guest here, so clearly one of Tuala’s closest friends, had only come to court in the first place as surety of her cousin’s compliance with Bridei’s rule. She felt a new surge of sympathy for Breda, odd girl as she was. Perhaps there was not so much difference between a bondwoman, bought with the
payment of an
éraic
, and a hostage held as political
leverage. Each had sacrificed her freedom; each had been robbed of the power to determine her own future. And yet, of the two, Eile was certain she was the better off. Maybe the
éraic
did make her a kind of slave. In some people’s eyes, perhaps she would always be one. But she wasn’t restless and discontent like Breda. There were so many good things here: warmth, safety, friendship, learning…
It felt like the beginning of something new and fine. She must be careful. She must remember how easily things could change.

“Come, Saraid,” she said, reaching out a hand. “You can tell me what kind of gown Sorry wants, and I’ll make a start on it.”

“Wedding gown,” said Saraid. “Blue. Bray. Pretty, like Ana.”

“Braid,” Eile corrected, grinning.

Ana smiled and held out a length of ribbon embroidered
with butterflies in gold thread and tiny amber beads.