My audience likes this story, and now it’s finished they sit with ale cups in hand discussing what would have happened next. What would the price have been? Davan’s first child? A kiss from the new bride? Her weight in silver pieces? When they’ve finished debating these questions, the talk turns to other matters.
“Heard Ross of Fairwood’s heading this way,” Canagan says. “Him and his daughter, with a body of guards and attendants. They’re all talking about it up at the house.”
“Who is Ross of Fairwood?” I ask. “A local chieftain?”
“Mm-hm. His territory’s to the south of Lord Scannal’s. The two of them used to be on better terms, or so folk say. But Ross hasn’t been here in a long while.”
“I know a fellow who joined Lord Ross’s guards,” says Caol. “Maybe he’ll be in the escort. When are they expected?”
“Five or six days, I’ve been told,” says Mongan. “We’ll get a message when they’re one day out—they’ll stop a night at Underwood Bridge, not wanting to make the ride too taxing for the young lady. I suppose she’ll be keen to look her best.”
An awkward silence follows this. As it draws out, a horrible suspicion creeps into my mind. A young woman, riding all that way with her father. There’s only one noble son in this household whom Lord Scannal would consider marriageable, and I wouldn’t wish such a husband on my worst enemy. I don’t ask the question. I wait for someone else to speak.
“How big a party?” asks Torcan. “Might need to move things around in here if it’s a lot of horses.”
“I’d expect at least twelve,” says Mongan calmly. “Ross and his daughter, a couple of attendants for her, perhaps a councilor or companion for him, a good presence of men-at-arms. The Crow Folk have been seen in those parts, and we all know what that means. Ross is no fool; he’ll want good protection. I believe the son may be coming, too. Weather’s set fair; we can put some of our animals out in the field and give Ross’s mounts the stalls.”
“Kitchens will be busy,” says Caol. “Wanting to impress.”
Morrigan’s britches! I don’t know what question to ask first. “The Crow Folk. You have them here, too? On Lord Scannal’s land?” They were a curse back in Breifne, destructive, unpredictable, a menace to farmers and travelers with their fierce attacks. I’ve seen no sign of them here.
“Some,” says Mongan. “We’ve kept them at bay, more or less. It’s worse in other parts, folk say.”
“You use fire? Ordinary weapons?”
“Seen something of them, have you?” Mongan’s question is casual, but it occurs to me that I should consider my responses. My brushes with the Crow Folk took place while both Dau and I were under cover on a Swan Island mission.
“Once or twice,” I tell him. “They’re hard to get rid of, or so I’ve been told.” I can’t mention magic. I can’t talk about fighting the Crow Folk, and how Brocc used music as a weapon to save our lives. But I do want to know Oakhill’s answer to the scourge. We’ve kept them at bay. How?
“Master Seanan sets traps,” says Canagan. “Him and his men. Up in the woods. Seems to be working.”
What sort of trap could work on the Crow Folk? They’re big, they’re strong, they’re malign. Their beaks can stab your eyes out. Their claws can rip you to shreds. They can fly. I try to picture such a device and fail. A magical trap, maybe. But Master Seanan’s not likely to be dabbling in the uncanny. With questions threatening to spill out of me, I go back to the other matter, which may be equally important.
“This visit by Lord Ross. None of my business, I know, but is it to do with a possible alliance? Through marriage?”
A silence again. Seems all of them feel the same as I do, but nobody’s going to put that heavy feeling into words. They can’t; in every way that matters, this is Master Seanan’s household.
“From what I heard,” Canagan says, looking down at his hands, “that’s why they’re paying Lord Scannal a visit. They’ll be hoping my lord will think the girl a good match for Master Seanan.”
I bite back words I can’t let myself utter. I hope this girl takes one look at Seanan and tells her father she’d rather marry a pox-ridden beggar. Sadly, she probably won’t, even if she feels that way. She’ll be bound to do what daughters of noble families do: wed a man her father chooses for her, with no option to refuse. “The house will be full up,” I say. “What with the men from St. Padraig’s and their attendants, I mean, as well as these visitors.” Dau and I are accommodated in what is usually the harness room; a lot of equipment was moved out to make room for us. And there’s Corb’s pallet taking up even more space. “I suppose you need us to move.” But where? Is the hut by the cesspool the only option?
“We’ve got a few days,” Mongan says. “Might be better if you stay here, even if it’s tight.” Meaning, move anywhere else and I’ll be back under Berrach’s eye. “But I suppose Master Seanan may have ideas about that, too.”
“Mm.” Gods, the idea of Seanan with some young girl makes my guts curdle. Imagine that man as a father. I force myself to smile. “Well, I’d best say good night. You’ll have a busy few days ahead.”
“One last song?” Donn pleads, but I shake my head, then retreat to the quarters, nodding to Corb that he’s free to go. He slips away without a word.
Dau is awake. His supper is on the table, untouched. Our lamp is burning and the fire on our small hearth is still glowing, though it needs more wood. I busy myself with that, putting off the moment when I have to speak. Knowing that if I say something obvious, such as “Not hungry?” he’ll either snarl a bitter response or ignore me completely. How can I help him if he won’t help himself? He told me that I had relentless hope. Right now, my hope is feeling like a worn-out cloth, full of holes and fraying at the edges.
I make a brew. I pour a cup for each of us, set them on the table, push Dau’s platter to one side. Out in the stables it’s getting quiet as the lads give the horses one last check then head off to their beds. Danu’s mercy, how much I want to go home! Home to Swan Island, with the wild wind and the waves and the good fellowship, the tests of strength and endurance, the music and laughter, the understanding of comrades. I imagine myself on the practice ground, facing off against Hrothgar or Yann in unarmed combat. Will I be able to stand in that spot and keep my full attention on my next move, my opponent’s next move, staying one step ahead? Or will I forever be thinking of the moment when Dau fell and hit his head? Will I carry that memory inside me until the day I die?
“Liobhan,” he says.
I start as if struck. Just as well he can’t see. “Mm?”
“Those tales. The ones about folk being cured by magic. Is there any truth in them?”
I wanted him to talk to me. I wanted him to make an effort. I was going to ask him about Ross of Fairwood and his daughter, and whether he shared my horror at the thought of anyone marrying Seanan. But this? From Dau of all people? I scramble for the right response. “We can talk about that. Come and sit at the table with me. There’s food here. And a brew that’s especially designed to give us heart.”
“Hah!” Despite the derisive response, he gets up. Corb has made him a crutch, shaped wood padded with sheepskin and very nicely finished, but so far Dau has refused to use it. I haven’t bullied him about this; the ankle must still be quite sore. But it’s not broken, only twisted. I’ve strapped it up well, and it’s time he started exercising it a little. He needs to get over feeling humiliated and just do it.
Dau finds the cup, lifts it to his lips, takes a tentative sip. “Morrigan’s britches. What’s in this?”
“Chamomile. Lavender. Calamint. And a few other things, honey included. Tastes just fine to me.”
He sips again. “I’d prefer ale. But never mind that. Is there any truth in those tales of magic?”
Before Dau and I went on the mission to Breifne, before certain strange things happened, he
wouldn’t have dreamed of asking such a question. The old Dau would never have given credence to the possibility that magic existed in our time, or indeed ever. He didn’t go to the Otherworld with me and my brother. He waited for me outside the portal, waited for hours with stoic courage. He saw enough to give him pause for thought. But this? I weigh my answer: it needs the right balance between truth and hope.
“It’s a no, isn’t it?” Dau sets down his cup. “Or you’d answer straightaway.”
“The question can’t be answered with yes or no. Some things I can say yes to. The Otherworld exists: I’ve been there. Magic exists: I’ve seen it and so have you. When Brocc played the Harp of Kings. When the portal opened and I went in. When Brocc sang to keep the Crow Folk away.”
“But?” Dau picks up a piece of bread and takes a bite. He’s listening properly for the first time in days.
“As a bard, I have a theory about the old songs and tales. Some of the things that happen in them are truly odd. Remarkable. Impossible, you’d think. And probably a lot of those things are . . . just made up. Invented by a bard who needed something exciting for a special occasion. Or someone who had spare time and a wild imagination. But bards don’t pluck their ideas from thin air. They draw on an ancient fund of knowledge. Tales that have been told a thousand times before, tales that change a little with every telling. Stories that gain new parts and shed old ones, stories that mix the everyday and the deeply magical, the ordinary and the extraordinary. I believe every one of those old tales has its roots in something real, something true.”
For a while Dau says nothing. I think over my lengthy answer and wonder if I’ve boxed myself into a corner. I can’t promise a magical cure for his blindness, even if I were free to go off looking for such a thing. Yes, I know of a portal to the Otherworld, though it’s far from here. But Dau has seen with his own eyes how hard it is to make that door open. And if you ask for a favor once you’re in, they make you pay. If it’s a big favor, the price is high. I lost my brother. Brocc lost his life in the human world.
Dau’s still sitting there, silent. I can’t tell him any of this. If the hope of a cure has got him off his bed at last and swallowing a little food and drink, I’m damned if I’m going to point out how hard it would be to pursue such an idea and how slim the likely chance of success.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he says. “Are the things that happen in those tales possible?” There is such hope in his voice.
I feel like I’m balancing on a very narrow bridge. “When I was in that place, the fey queen showed Brocc and me visions in a scrying bowl—remember what I told you about that? They were of the future, or rather two possible futures, depending on how we acted with the Harp of Kings. I saw it clearly, and when things happened later on it all made sense. That could only be magic. And if magic exists, a lame man might have his leg healed by clurichauns. Perhaps at some time in the distant past, something resembling that may have really happened. Hence the tale.”
Silence.
“Dau, there are all sorts of obstacles—”
He thumps his fist on the table, making platter and cups rattle. “That place. That place where you went through the wall and I waited for you. A person could get there from here. We could go. We could find the doorway.” His voice is shaking. His fist is white-knuckled on the tabletop.
“Many days. Without weapons. Without horses, unless we steal them. Without supplies. With your father’s men on our tail, most likely. Have you forgotten the small matter of my debt bondage? Can you imagine how your brother would respond if you and I just vanished? Even supposing there was some way we could get out of here?”
He sits there tight-jawed, scowling.
“Not the most practical idea you’ve ever had,” I say. And when he does not respond, I add, “Needs some work.”
Dau brightens. The tight fist relaxes. “You would consider it, then?”
Oh, gods. “I’ll give it some thought. We couldn’t attempt it now. It would have to be later, after my year is up. And I’ll consider it on one condition only.”
“That I stop being an ass?”
“Correct. And you start looking after yourself properly. However we do this, it’s going to require the ability to walk, to run, to climb, and probably to fight, too. Work on getting well. Use the crutch when you need to, practice walking, and when you’re ready, we start the exercises again. And be civil to Corb.”
“Chief combat trainer of the future,” Dau says, lifting his cup in a mock toast.
“Unlikely, if I head off for the Otherworld right when I’m due back on Swan Island.”
He’s silent again, the cup cradled between his hands now. He has beautiful hands, long-fingered and elegant.
“But I will,” I say. “If that’s what you want.”
24
BROCC
We come to a halt, gazing in wonder. This is a place of true magic. The cliff stands strong and proud, the ferns and creepers drape a soft green garment over the weathered bones of the ancient rock. And the waterfall! I could write such a song about the music of its tumbling veil, its cloud of fine droplets, the glint of sunlight on the moving water, the calm pool below. This place is a haven of rest. The pool’s surface shows me patches of blue, a scudding cloudlet, a soaring lark. Its beauty robs me of breath.
True lets out a great sigh. “Old ones are here,” he says. “My eyes do not see them but my heart feels their presence.”
When I can speak, I murmur to Conmael, “What should we do? Are we to summon them?” This is not like the portal to Eirne’s realm, where a bard’s quick wit and tuneful voice provided the key. This is a place altogether older and more solemn, and I do not belong here.
“True,” says Conmael, “do as your heart bids you.”
After a long silence, True steps forward. He lumbers down to the place where the water is not dashing and splashing but lies tranquil and still. At the edge of the pool he stops. “Brocc,” he says quietly. “Will you sing?”
I go to stand beside him, following my own heart. An image of Liobhan and me as children comes to my mind, a brother and sister without a drop of blood in common, yet as tightly bonded as twins. True is my friend, my comrade. Here in the Otherworld, he and Rowan are my brothers. I draw in a breath, open my mouth, and sing for him. There are no words in it; to couch such a deeply solemn request in the rhyming verse I so often use would be an insult to the invisible elders. But as I sing my wordless melody, I think of True, so staunch, so patient, so strong, and I think of ancient times and how a people formed like stone might live so long they would watch kings and queens rise and fall, and see the land beaten by storm, starved by famine, and drowned by flood. They would witness the dwindling of magic in the age of humankind. I try to convey that True has been wounded while performing an act of kindness; how his sickness cannot be cured in the human world, or in Eirne’s realm, but only here.
I realize I am no longer singing alone. True has added his deep voice, chanting on a single note in a tongue unknown to me. His tiny passengers add a high descant, faint as the distant chirping of baby birds in a nest. Only Conmael is silent as our music rings out over the pool and across the open space, echoing back from the high walls of stone. I do not know who will answer or how. I do not know what will happen. But as we sing on, the cliff before us shifts and moves, and I see in it the shape of a huge being, something like True but many times taller and broader, a creature that dwarfs the tallest trees and looms so high his shadow darkens the clearing. It is as if dusk has come while the sun is still high.
The stone man steps out of the cliff to stand on his two enormous feet. The pool lies between him and us. He does not speak; I can only imagine how thunderous and deep such a creature’s voice might be. He gestures with a huge hand. It is a sign of invitation, graceful despite his bulk. He wants True to move forward into the water.
True turns to
me. He lays a fist against his heart and inclines his head, and I return the grave salute. I hope we are not saying farewell. I hope we are acknowledging the bond between us. Respect. Affection. Fellowship. I am not singing now; the voice of the waterfall is the only music he needs. “Be safe,” I say as True turns away and wades into the pool.
Is this water itself a source of magical healing? I do not know. I watch as True goes deeper; I wonder if the elder will ask him to immerse himself, and if so, what will happen to his tiny folk. But no. The deepest part of the pool comes only to my friend’s waist. The elder guides him up the stream toward the spot where falling water smashes down on the rocks from up above. Beside this ancient stone man my friend looks small. True is sick; he was growing too weak to walk. How can he withstand that fierce torrent? I glance at Conmael, wondering if I should rush in there to support my friend. Conmael appears unperturbed; his pale features are calm. He shakes his head slightly, as if to say, No cause for concern.
True walks forward, steady and sure now. He passes through the tumbling water and out of sight. My fists are clenched, thinking of the small ones. How can they not be scattered everywhere? I wonder if my friend is gone forever. I’ve done something foolish, I’ve made an error somewhere along the way, and now both True and his little ones will die. If I had not asked for compassion toward the Crow Folk . . . If I had not agreed to follow this path . . . If I had sung differently . . . I know nothing of True’s people. Perhaps I offended them.
Time passes and True does not reappear. The elder has melted back into the cliff face, becoming one with the rock. But I can see where he stands; my bard’s eye shows me the jut of his nose, the hollows that are his eyes, the swath of greenery that drapes itself across his massive body. If there is an expression on those monumental features, it is of grave acknowledgment.
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