Heir to Sevenwaters

by Juliet Marillier

  “You look tired,” Cathal said when we were settled by our fire once more. “You must sleep. Hold the child close to you and use my cloak. You should be warm enough. I’ll stay on watch and keep the fire going.”

  “All night?” I studied him, taking in the long face, the grave features now quite devoid of their customary look of derision. “I can’t let you do that. You must wake me after a few hours. I know I can’t defend us against an attack, but I can keep watch and alert you if I see or hear anyone coming.”

  The thin lips twisted into a smile. “If you insist.”

  “I do,” I told him. “I don’t want you staying heroically awake all night, then being too tired to make yourself useful in the morning. If there is a morning.” I shivered.

  “There will be, Clodagh.” As Cathal spoke, a silvery light began to steal across the forest floor, touching the boles of the great trees, where rich layers of moss glowed green, and revealing in the spaces above us a host of tiny flying creatures on iridescent wings, moving so quickly their exact shapes were unclear. Not insects. Not birds. Something else. “Morrigan’s britches,” murmured Cathal. “What are they?”

  “At least they’re small,” I said, remembering the attack at the river. “Cathal, promise you’ll wake me.”

  “My word on it, Clodagh. You know, you are not quite the girl I took you for when we first met.”

  “Oh, I’m exactly as I seemed then,” I said with some bitterness. “My chief strength is in household management. I’m the kind of girl who’ll make a nice little wife for someone one day. I have none of the skills required for an expedition like this. I can’t swim. I can’t fight. I’m not brave. I’m not persuasive when it counts. I wish I had the capacity to surprise you, Cathal, but I am no more than I appear to be.” Becan’s pebble eyes were open now and fixed on me as I rewrapped him, using lengths torn from a spare shirt Cathal had produced. The infant made little cooing sounds. His voice had softened; I wondered that I had at first thought it harsh as a crow’s.

  “I regret what I said to you when we first met,” Cathal said, putting his arms around his knees. “As Aidan has no doubt told you, I’ve always lacked the ability to summon the kind of conversation deemed acceptable in the halls of the nobly born. I am unable to play that game without sabotaging my own efforts; I cannot take it seriously. Clodagh, it seems to me you expend all your energy trying to make those around you happy. Do you care nothing for your own welfare? It is hard for me to understand that.”

  Abruptly, I was on the verge of tears. I must indeed be tired. I blinked them back, picking up the swaddled Becan and cradling him in my arms. “It’s hard not to worry about my family,” I said. “Mother especially. She’s waited all these years for a boy. She and Father had twin sons, a long time ago. The boys lived less than a day. I can remember Muirrin taking us up to the hawthorn—Deirdre, Maeve and me—when the boys were born, so we could say prayers for their good health.” Perhaps that was when I had started to lose my faith in the benign influence of the Otherworld. It had been a hard test for a little child. “Cathal, if we don’t get this right, if we don’t manage to bring Finbar back, I’m sure my mother won’t survive. She’ll just let herself . . . fade away. I wish I could know what’s happening at home.” The tears dripped down my cheeks. “A pox on it. I don’t want to cry,” I said, wiping my nose on the sleeve of the borrowed shirt. “They’ll know where I’ve gone, at least. I told Sibeal what I’m trying to do. She said she’d tell them.”

  Cathal took his time about answering. It was odd; a day or two ago I would never have spoken thus in his company. If I had, I would have expected him to respond with a cutting remark about my great capacity to feel sorry for myself. I was profoundly aware that on this side of the river everything was different, even him. “I know little of such matters,” he said eventually. “It does seem to me that this might be reasonable cause for tears. Does it embarrass you to shed them before me?”

  I looked at him curiously. “Wouldn’t it embarrass you to weep with me watching you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cathal said. “If I ever have reason to do so, I’ll be sure to tell you how it feels. Clodagh, did you say you can’t swim?”

  I nodded. “Somehow I could never learn.”

  “And you still got on the raft?”

  “At the time there wasn’t much choice.”

  Cathal made no comment. He had taken some strips of dried meat from his pack and added them to the pot. I was hungry enough to find the smell quite appealing. I rocked Becan again, singing him to sleep.

  When the child was tucked back into the cloak, Cathal passed me the cup, full of the meat and water brew. “We’ll run out of drinking water soon,” he said. “Does this rule about not eating Otherworld food really extend to the streams and ponds as well?”

  I tried to remember stories I had heard on the subject. “I don’t know. I do believe the Fair Folk intend me to do this. It must be possible for me to find Finbar and bring him back. Perhaps drinking the water will be safe. I mean, there’s no reason why the Fair Folk would want to trap me in the Otherworld.”

  After a silence that seemed slightly too long, Cathal said, “True. Well, if our journey lasts more than another day or two, we’ll have no choice but to put that to the test.”

  “Cathal?”

  “Yes?”

  “This cloak. It intrigues me.”

  “Uh-huh.” His tone was less than encouraging.

  “Aidan said the tokens sewn into it are from your past; that they’re memories. I’m wondering . . .”

  “What, Clodagh?” In his voice I heard the old Cathal, the one who would more likely snap at me for being a busybody than offer any kind of explanation. “You seek a confidence in exchange for the ones you have provided?”

  I waited a little, watching his expression. The unease was there again, the shadow of a deep-seated fear. I was certain of it. “I just thought you might be prepared to talk about it,” I said. “Especially now, when there’s nobody but me to hear you.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Cathal shifted uneasily, prodding the fire with a stick. “You mentioned that you were exactly the person I saw when I first met you: a paragon of the domestic arts with not much to her beneath the surface. I am precisely the man I was when you clapped eyes on me: a selfish, arrogant outsider even shorter on manners than he is on common sense. What more could you need to know?” He tossed the stick onto the fire.

  I sat silent. True, I’d said not long ago that my only potential was as a nice wife for someone. That didn’t mean I liked hearing Cathal confirm the fact.

  “I was wrong, of course,” he said. “You’re not that woman at all. But I, unfortunately, am that man. Peel away my layers and all you’ll find is more of the same. All dazzle and no substance.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I kept my voice level, holding his gaze. “If that were true you’d be happy to answer questions about your past, because you wouldn’t care about it. A man who doesn’t care doesn’t carry his memories around with him everywhere like charms of protection.”

  “Charms,” he said flatly. “The way other men carry rowan crosses, you mean. You know I don’t believe in such things.”

  “And you don’t believe in the Otherworld, isn’t that right?” I gazed at him across the fire. “You’ll have to do better than that, Cathal. I’m happy that you no longer think me a shallow, domesticated creature. If it’s of any interest to you, I’ve had cause to revise my opinion of you too. If that weren’t so, I wouldn’t dream of asking you about this. Actually, I thought mine was a fairly safe question. There are others that would be far more challenging.”

  “Such as?” His expression dared me to speak and face his scorn.

  I drew a deep breath. “I could ask who your father was,” I said. I recalled the way Aidan had tried to convince my father that Cathal was no traitor, as if it were desperately important to him. I remembered how kind Cathal had been to Aidan that morning i
n the stables, when I’d overheard their private conversation. I thought of the taunts they’d exchanged as they battled it out on the practice ground. I had a theory about Cathal’s parentage, one that I could not tell him. Two boys raised together, as close as brothers; the exceptional generosity shown by a chieftain to a low-born local lad; a mother who would not reveal the name of the man who had fathered her son . . .

  “But you won’t,” he said. Whether it was a statement or a warning I could not tell.

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate,” I said. “Though I have wondered if that is the key to your unhappiness, Cathal. I suppose if you decide to trust me as a friend, some day perhaps you’ll tell me of your own free will.”

  “As far as you’re concerned, I have no father,” Cathal said shortly. “You were unhappy that Lord Sean didn’t believe your story about the changeling, that he seemed to have stopped trusting you. That will pass. I predict with complete confidence that when you arrive back home your father will throw his arms around you and thank the gods for your safe return, whether or not you succeed in finding your brother. And then he will apologize and admit that he misjudged you. Be glad that you have such a father, Clodagh. He may seem hard to you at times, but he is the best of men.”

  “I know that,” I said, my throat tight. “This isn’t fair, Cathal. We weren’t talking about me.”

  “Ah, yes, the cloak. Well, it amuses me to collect bits and pieces, and it seems appropriate to carry them with me. Each has its own story, that is true. You might think of it as part of a carefully cultivated image: that of an eccentric man without a fixed abode. Hence my need to carry reminders of who I am and where I came from.”

  This was a most unsatisfactory answer. “When we were hiding under that rock, when Aidan nearly caught us with the dogs, you stuffed the cloak into the gap,” I said. “And the dogs ran straight past us. I know those dogs. They’re highly trained. They wouldn’t have missed us.”

  Cathal said nothing.

  “The cloak stayed dry when we crossed the river. Most of our other clothing ended up soaked,” I said. “When I’ve got it on I feel warm right through, not just because it’s made of thick felt but . . . something else as well. I feel safer, somehow. This will sound strange, Cathal, but I’ve wondered if those charms have some power beyond themselves. Don’t shrug like that, I’m serious. Uncle Conor told me once that hearth magic, like putting white stones under the doorstep to keep a house safe or weaving withies in a special way to protect stock in a pen, can be quite effective if it’s carried out with sincere belief. I am wondering if . . . if tokens of good times, symbols of love and friendship, for instance, may have a protective power in a garment such as this cloak. See, I’m not asking a difficult personal question now, merely posing a theoretical one for you.”

  “You’re setting a trap,” Cathal said.

  “I don’t set traps for friends.”

  A silence. Then he said, “Perhaps you misunderstand my reasons for being here.”

  “Perhaps you should tell me what they really are.” Suddenly the air between us was thick with something unspoken and dangerous. My skin prickled strangely.

  “I can’t talk about it,” he said. “I can’t give an explanation. Clodagh, I had a friend back on the other shore. Look what happened there. The last sight I got of him, he was trying to kill me.”

  I didn’t like the way this was going at all. We were deep in the forest, in this strange unknown country, and the only companion I had was pushing me away. Meanwhile, those small sparkling entities that had been swirling and twirling overhead were gone, and all of a sudden the forest felt very big and empty. “You didn’t have to come with me,” I said, trying not to sound as upset as I felt.

  Cathal sighed. “Go to sleep, Clodagh.” I heard in his words a curt dismissal. He didn’t want to talk to me. He didn’t want to listen. I’d been a fool to try to get any closer.

  I set aside my empty cup and lay down beside Becan, drawing the cloak around both of us. Something cool and smooth slid across my abraded cheek, and I put up a hand to touch it. The ring; green glass, plain and small. A woman’s size. It would fit me, I thought.

  “My mother’s,” said Cathal, who surely couldn’t see from where he sat. “The only thing of hers that I have. I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to talk about her. Or him. Not now, not ever. It’s better if you and I keep our distance. Anything else is . . . it’s just too dangerous. I’m not here because of a burning desire to be your friend and tell you all my secrets. I’m here because I think this whole sorry mess, every last bit of it, has happened because of me. I told Johnny I didn’t want to come to Sevenwaters. When he brought me, he brought disaster to his family. Now go to sleep. I suspect tomorrow will be a long day.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It was not Cathal who woke me before dawn, but Becan, shrilly requesting nourishment. I fed him, yawning. Cathal reported that he had seen nothing untoward, and agreed with some reluctance to sleep for a little while I kept watch. He refused to put on his cloak, insisting that I would be too cold without it. I waited until he had fallen asleep, then laid it over him, settling by the fire with Becan in my arms. The forest was quiet. Nothing stirred in the bracken; nothing cried out in the trees above me. The moonlight was gone, and the color of the sky suggested sunrise might not be far off, if the sun ever showed its face in this uncanny realm. Although the air was cool and fresh, there was something about the place that made me feel as if I were underground, a weight pressing down on me. I longed for my little bedchamber, the familiar halls and stairways of Sevenwaters, the comfort of my daily routines. I longed for clarity of mind. What had Cathal meant, that all of this was his doing? Was it, in fact, a confession of treachery? I found myself reluctant to believe that. Cathal had fled Sevenwaters just before the attack was reported. He had distracted me at the moment when Finbar was taken. And then he had hung about in the forest instead of escaping, and come with me all the way to the Otherworld. It made no sense at all.

  I regarded the sleeping Cathal, stretched out under the cloak with his head pillowed on one bent arm. In repose his features were pleasing: not handsome like Aidan’s or harmonious like Johnny’s, but grave and strong. The eyelids were shadowed with weariness; the bold strokes of the fox tattoo emphasized the dark, emphatic brows, the straight nose and prominent cheekbones. The contours of his face were all angular, with nothing soft about them, though his lips looked less severe in slumber. If he was actually Aidan’s half-brother, as I suspected, there was little physical evidence of it. It’s better if you and I keep our distance, he’d said. I wondered, again, why he had kissed me.

  “I don’t want him to be an enemy,” I whispered.

  There was a sound like a dry cough from low down in the undergrowth right by me. I started violently, clutching Becan to my chest. “Who’s there?” I hissed, telling myself it was probably only a hedgehog and knowing in my bones that it wasn’t.

  A patter of feet in the bushes. Not claws, not paws; feet in shoes. Crazily, I thought of clurichauns in little green boots.

  Cathal stirred, flinging an arm over his eyes, then rolled so his back was to me. I really didn’t want to wake him up, not unless I couldn’t cope alone. He’d looked so exhausted. In sleep, he seemed almost peaceful. If this thing, whatever it was, popped out armed to the teeth, I wouldn’t hesitate to scream. There wasn’t much point in having a warrior of Inis Eala by my side if I couldn’t make use of him in a crisis.

  “Show yourself,” I said as boldly as I could, my hand curling around the hilt of the little knife in my belt. “Friend or foe?”

  A low chuckle emanated from the ferns, and a moment later out stepped a small figure in a hooded cloak of gray fur. I could not see its face, for it held a mask before its features, a dog mask made of shining silver, wrought with stunning detail down to each tooth in the gaping mouth, each hair on the shining pelt. The ears were pricked like those of a hunting hound on alert. The creature behind this
concealment was child-sized. Its hand, holding the silver rod that supported the false face, was human in shape but covered in fur like the cloak. Maybe gloved; maybe not. Through holes in the mask I could see a hint of lustrous eyes. “A challenge!” The being’s voice was deep and strong; this was no child. “Friend or foe: I like that. Why are you traveling with him?” The creature jerked its head toward Cathal. “He smells wrong. Why did you bring him here? Best lose him as quick as you can.”

  “What?” I was shocked. The fact that I had just been considering whether my companion was a traitor seemed irrelevant. “Why? And what concern is that of yours?” This small entity did not seem particularly threatening, but I must be careful. Whatever this dog-person was, it surely wasn’t one of the Fair Folk.

  “Lose him!” the creature hissed. “Bad blood! Shadows and darkness!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cathal stir again. I did not turn my head. “Why should I listen to you?” I asked as calmly as I could, though the creature’s words had chilled me.

  “You want a guide, don’t you? I can guide you. But I won’t take him anywhere. Go on with him and you’ll be on the sure path to heartbreak. You must lose him tomorrow. Walk one way, let him walk the other. While he stays with you, you’ll be beset by difficulties. You’ll be attacked, hurt, scarred, damaged. You think your beauty marred by those cuts. Believe me, there’ll be far worse to come if you keep him by your side. You don’t need him, Clodagh. You don’t want him. His kind are scum.”

  “How do you know my name?” This was deeply unsettling.

  “We know. How doesn’t matter. Get rid of him, quickly.”

  “I’d never have got across the river without Cathal,” I said, keeping my voice quiet though I was becoming angry. “Without him, I’d never even have found it. Whatever he may have done in the human world, he’s here because he wants to help me. He said so and I believe him.”