The Well of Shades (54 page)

A polite cough from a short distance away. She straightened. There was Dovran, standing a few paces down the garden. Eile got to her feet, heart hammering foolishly.

“Good morning,” the bodyguard said.

“Good morning.” Best think of this simply as an opportunity to practice her new language. No reason for fear; none
at all.

“You are well?”

“Er—yes. You?”

Dovran smiled. It was possible to see how, to some other woman, he would appear charming, kindly, and handsome with his long brown hair and his good teeth.

“I have a message for you.” He was speaking slowly
so she could understand. “Lady Breda wants to see you. She sent a maid.”

“Lady Breda?” That didn’t sound likely; not at the very time of the funeral
the princess had been too unwell to attend. Eile sought for words to say,
Are you sure?
or,
That can’t be right
.

“She asked if you would go to her chamber now. I told her maid you were watching Derelei. She wishes to see you as soon as you are free.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He smiled, shuffling his feet a little. His awkwardness was incongruous with his impressive stature, his leather breast-piece
and array of weaponry, sword, knives, crossbow on his back. “Will you…” he began, then stopped to clear his throat. “Will you be at the feast tonight, Eile?”

It was the first time he had addressed her by name. For a moment she was too surprised to reply. Then she said, “Perhaps… be with children again. King and queen… must go feast.”

Dovran gave a nod that could have meant anything, then headed
off on his march around the garden. As Eile watched him go, she thought of Faolan, who had asked her not to put her proposition to any other man without speaking to him first. Well, he wasn’t here, was he? He showed no sign of coming back. If he never came, what was she supposed to do? She could see that Dovran was interested. She could see that he was eligible. He was precisely the kind of young
man she probably
should
ask, as he had revealed a reticent kindness that suggested he would not be a selfish lover. Eile grimaced. She’d never ask him; not in a hundred years. One touch of his hand had been enough to tell her how impossible that was.

She shivered, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Drustan and Ana were gone. They had left early, making no secret of their longing
to be away. It had been hard to say farewell. She had not known them long, but they had become dear friends. Before they left Ana
had asked her, in halting Gaelic, to tell Faolan she hoped he would be happy. Drustan had bid her remember she was her father’s daughter, and that Deord would be proud of her. He had added that they hoped to see both Eile and Faolan at Dreaming Glen some day; that Saraid
would like the garden and the two small lakes that lay by his house there, Cup of Sky and Cup of Dew. No words had seemed adequate to thank them for their kindness.

“We must go now,” Drustan had said. “Tell him…”

Ana had said something in the Priteni tongue, too difficult for Eile to follow.

Drustan had looked Eile straight in the eye; she would always remember the bright intensity of his gaze,
like that of a wild creature. “There will come a time when he must stop running,” he had said. “Every being has its need for shelter, every man his desire for home.”

“But,” Eile had asked, “what if you can’t find home? What if you don’t know what it looks like?”

“The search needs patience. Endurance. Keen eyes and a strong heart. He will recognize it before too long.”

Eile had offered no reply.
In her mind, still, was the response,
But what if
I
don’t?
The safe walls of White Hill, the comfortable chamber, the hand of friendship extended even by kings and queens, that was shelter, of course. But it was not home. It was not her own little house, Saraid with the striped cat on her knee, Eile cooking with her own pots and tending to vegetables in her own garden. It was not… Somehow it was
not complete.
You want too much
, she told herself. But this morning she had nodded to Drustan, blinking back her tears, and waved farewell as the two of them made their way out through the gates of the king’s stronghold with their modest escort, and off down the Glen.

“Eile?”

Her daughter’s voice broke into her reverie, and she moved over to the pond. Saraid was sitting up now, Sorry on her
lap, while Derelei did not seem to have stirred at all. His eyes were fixed on the still water.

“Derry’s sad,” said Saraid.

Perhaps he was; more alarming to Eile was his preternatural stillness, uncanny in so small a child. For a moment she wondered if the boy was in some kind of fit, and reached down to touch him, but something held back her hand. She perceived that he was finely balanced,
his energies entirely concentrated on what he saw, his ears deaf to the world that held herself and her daughter, the nursemaid, the baby, the bees buzzing in the garden. He was behind an invisible wall; he had one foot in another world.

“He’s fine, Saraid,” she said quietly. “We need to watch over him and wait.” She hoped she had got this right; Tuala had left her in charge, and the boy’s behavior
was quite odd. But then, Derelei and Anfreda were not like other children. With them, she supposed one must expect the unexpected.

Eile seated herself on the flagstones two paces from Derelei, and Saraid edged in closer. They waited. Saraid sang softly to Sorry, a little lullaby Eile had learned somewhere long ago, and had hummed in an undertone night after night in that wretched hut at Cloud
Hill, soothing her troubled child to sleep:

“That’s lovely singing, Saraid,” Eile said. “Is Sorry asleep now?”

Saraid shook her head solemnly. “Sorry’s sad. Crying.” She held the doll against her shoulder, patting its back.

“Oh. Why is she sad?”

“Sorry wants Feeler come
back.”

It was like a punch in the gut. She had thought Saraid had forgotten him; she had assumed new friends and a
safe haven would drive the memories of that long journey across country, just the three of them, from her daughter’s mind. Foolish. The images of that time were still bright and fresh in her own head; she dreamed of them every night. Why should Saraid be any different, just because
she was small? Eile wondered what else Saraid remembered.

She wanted to say,
Faolan will be back soon
, but that was to raise false hope. Saraid must not endure what she had, the endless years of waiting for a loved one who never came home. That was too cruel. “Faolan is on a journey,” she told her daughter.

“Feeler lost?” inquired Saraid.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where he is.”

“Feeler coming
soon, Sorry,” the child whispered to her doll, rocking it in her arms again.
“Cow in meadow, sheep in fold…”

“He
might
come.” Eile felt obliged to offer this correction.

Derelei stirred at last, blinking, stretching, getting up with such an odd expression in his big, pale blue eyes that Eile felt a prickling at the back of her neck. For a moment he looked quite Other. He put both hands up to
rub his eyes. A moment later his chin wobbled, his lips trembled and he began to cry.

“Derry’s sad.” Saraid clutched Sorry to her chest, staring.

The sobs were piteous, heart-wrenching. Eile gathered the small boy in her arms, hugging him close, her heart thumping. What might be the cause of such sudden, acute misery? “It’s all right, Derelei,” she said helplessly. “We’re here, you’re all right.”
It seemed to her this was the kind of crying that followed a nightmare, part confusion, part fright. After a while she could detect speech in Derelei’s weeping, though for his age he had few words. He kept repeating something that sounded like
border
, or
border loss
. What that meant, she had no idea.

“Eile sing,” Saraid suggested. “Dog song.” Her small
voice was shaky; she seemed on the verge
of bursting into tears herself out of sympathy.

It seemed a reasonable idea. The dog song had helped them out of a few tricky situations before.

Saraid put Sorry down and got to her feet, ready for action. Derelei still heaved and hiccupped in Eile’s arms.

“Ready?” Eile said. “Doggy’s got a—”
stamp!
“Doggy’s got a—”
stamp!
“Doggy’s going to eat it up and run back—”
stamp!
Very good, Saraid. Now Derelei and I will join in.” She stood up with the boy in her arms; the sobbing had died down a little. “Doggy’s got a—”
stamp, clap!
Managing this while supporting Derelei’s weight required a certain agility. “Doggy’s got a—”
stamp, clap!

After a little, when the number of required actions had grown
to five, Eile noticed that she had an audience: the nursemaid with Anfreda, now awake, in her arms and, more embarrassing, Dovran watching her from down the garden, a wide grin on his face. Ah well, at least Derelei was over the worst of his sudden sadness. He wriggled to be put down, then stood watching as Eile and Saraid finished the dog song with an energetic sequence of stamp, clap, turn around,
shake, jump, bow.

“Sorry’s better now,” said Saraid, who was not at all out of breath. “Derry all better now?”

Derelei said nothing. An occasional leftover sob shook his tiny frame, but his eyes no longer saw into that other world. Eile crouched down to wipe his nose with a handkerchief. It was hard to know how to comfort him; the simple words she would use with her own daughter, the hugs and
kisses seemed to help, but she sensed a depth in this scrap of a child that went far beyond anything in her own experience. There was no knowing what it was he had seen.

Tuala returned from the funeral rite looking sad and tired, and Eile felt some reluctance in reporting what had happened. She did so anyway, putting herself in Tuala’s place and recognizing that she would want to know. The queen
seemed to take it with equanimity.

“Yes,” Tuala said, “he sees things ordinary folk cannot. The water is a strong lure for him, and he is too young to know that he should look away. All you can do is make sure he does not fall in, and wait for him to return to himself. You’ve done well, Eile. I should have warned you about this.”

“He kept saying something. Border, I think it was. Border loss.
I couldn’t understand.”

Tuala was taking off her good shoes and settling on a bench to feed the baby. “Broichan,” the queen said. “He speaks often of his… his tutor and friend, the king’s druid. Broichan left court before the winter; nobody knows where he went. Derelei still misses him. Border loss… Broichan lost.”

“It seemed far worse than mere sadness. He was distraught. What does he see,
a vision of another place? Things to come?”

Tuala took Anfreda from the nursemaid’s arms and put her on the breast. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “For every seer it is different. I think Derelei sees Broichan, yes. He wants his teacher home. Whether the visions are random or whether my son can summon what he most wishes to be shown, only Derelei can tell you. Or could, if he had the words.”

Eile felt something cold run through her, like a breath of winter. “He’s so little,” she said. “So young to have such power. If I were his mother I would be so scared… I’m sorry, my lady, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Not at all, Eile. I appreciate your frankness. My son does scare me at times, but not as much as the thought that unscrupulous people might recognize his rare talent and seek to
exploit it. Derelei will have much to offer
Fortriu as a man, if he can be kept safe until he learns to harness his power.”

“Much to offer—as king, you mean?”

Tuala smiled. “My son can never be king of Fortriu, Eile. For the Priteni the royal succession runs through the female side of the family. Kings are selected from the sons of those women. Bridei’s mother was a cousin of the last king,
Drust the Bull. Ana’s sons would be eligible; so would Breda’s. And also those of my good friend Ferada, whose mother was another kinswoman of Drust. Of course, Ferada swears she will never marry or produce children, but I’m not convinced.”

“There was a man with her yesterday, at the handfasting,” Eile ventured. “They seemed… attached to each other, I thought.”

“Garvan, the royal stone carver,
yes. An unlikely pairing, you might think. They are friends, that’s all. Or so Ferada would have us believe. She’s a determined woman and is making up for lost time. Her own school; it’s her long-held dream to make a success of that, and to produce young women who know their own minds and are not afraid to speak out. It is a difficult path; she must swim against a strong tide, for many of our men
find her project odd, even threatening. I admire her greatly.”

Eile did not reply. A woman who had the strength to do such things against the opinion of powerful people was a figure of awe.

“Each of us has her strengths, Eile,” said Tuala. “Now I should let you go. Will you leave Saraid here with us awhile? Derelei has need of an understanding playmate today.”