“Shh!” I hiss. Want to say I’ve seen nothing, but too late now. Anyway, he’s Blackthorn’s friend. No reason to lie. “Don’t point—you’ll scare him away. And hold on to the dog.”
“Scare him? Who?”
“Shh.” I squat down closer to the wee man’s level, though still a bit too high up, and call out to him, not too loud. “Greetings to you! Fine morning.” Wouldn’t show himself if he didn’t want to talk to me, I’m guessing. Must’ve taken courage, with Ripple there.
Little fellow doesn’t come any closer. Stands right by the tree, like he’s pretending to be part of it.
“Greetings, Grim,” he says. “Friend all mended. We thank you again.”
“Friend—you mean the fellow that was trapped? All better? Glad to hear that. You must have good healers.”
“Crafty folk. Wood-crafty. Message for you. For your friend.”
I look sideways at Flannan, who’s standing there with his mouth open, staring. But the wee fellow doesn’t mean him.
“For your healer. Midsummer Eve soon. Tell her, true love’s tears. Do not forget.”
“True love’s tears.” Odd sort of message. “Is that an herb?” Got a feeling I’ve heard of it somewhere. Blackthorn’ll know.
“Remember,” says the small one. “Important.”
“I will. Thanks.”
And he’s gone, just like that. Quick as a snap of the fingers, before I remember the whistle they gave me. Would have liked to ask about that, what it’s for, what rules there might be about using it. Too late now.
“Best walk on,” I say. “Want to make an early start. Keep hold of Ripple’s collar for a bit.”
Flannan’s just staring at me. Dumbstruck, that’s the word.
“Fey folk,” I say. “In the woods around here. Seen them a couple of times. Harmless.” How much should I tell? Not too much, that’s for certain. “Blackthorn knows. But not Lady Geiléis. Blackthorn said not to tell her, or anyone.”
“Astonishing.” He shakes his head. Looks as if he’s testing to see if he’s lost his wits. “Incredible. I have never seen . . . I did not imagine . . .”
“That they’re real? Might not be. Might be the curse putting ideas in our heads. Making us see what isn’t there.” Making us doubt our own minds. Making us lose our good judgment. Seems best to keep this bit to myself. “Don’t know why you’re so surprised. Scholar and all. You must know hundreds of tales. And the tales are full of wee folk.”
“The work I do doesn’t require belief,” says Flannan, “only accuracy and a capable hand with the pen. I did not expect beings from ancient lore to step out of the woods and engage me in conversation. Allow me to be a little surprised, Grim.”
“Not up to me, is it?”
“Did you hear what he said? Midsummer Eve. So they know Lady Geiléis wants Blackthorn to do something that day. Did Blackthorn tell them? Did you?”
Trying to remember if I was like that, first time I saw the fey. So excited I was near jumping out of my skin. Don’t think so. With me, it was more of a slow wonder. Like a warmth spreading through. “The fey know all sorts of things,” I say. “Chances are they know the old story, the one that’s in your document. But they don’t always tell.”
“Couldn’t they be made to tell?”
I give him a straight look. “If that’s the way you like going about things, then maybe.”
“Why hasn’t Lady Geiléis asked them? She must know about them.”
“We should be getting on.”
“Why, Grim?” Flannan was insistent.
“You’d need to ask her. Lady Geiléis. Thing is, though, if you do that, she’ll know we’ve seen the wee folk. Talked to them. We promised them we wouldn’t tell.”
“But—”
“Speak to Lady Geiléis about this and you’ll make Blackthorn very, very angry. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
He runs out of words, which suits me perfectly. We walk on together, and the only sound is the sad voice of the monster. Didn’t have my ears stopped before, but I get the plugs out now and stuff them in; Flannan does the same. Damps the sound quite a bit. Helps, too, if I try to think about something good, block out the bad stuff. So, no thinking about what happened at St. Erc’s. Nor in Mathuin’s lockup. Nor early on, before St. Erc’s. No thinking of the red coming down and making me do bad things. No remembering the names folk have called me. Names don’t matter. Instead, I think about Blackthorn strapping up a farmer’s leg; I think of her by the fire, her hair as red as the crackling flames, her hands stretched out for warmth. She’s telling a story; it turns her face soft. I think about the night I was in the woods, all wet and shivering and hating myself, and how she yelled at me to stop being stupid and come up to dry off. How she let me come with her all the way to Winterfalls. How she stopped me from making an end of things, that night at Dreamer’s Pool when I thought she’d lied about being my friend. I think about her standing in a mess of broken crockery, beside herself with fury, and me talking quiet to her, calming her down. And the time she tried to run away south on her own, back to Laois to have it out with Mathuin, and how she listened when I told her she was wrong. How she came home. Think about the name that does matter: friend.
And before I know it, we’re at St. Olcan’s, where the bells are ringing for Prime.
“I’ll leave you now,” Flannan says once we’re in the gate. Ripple’s off across the garden already, and for once he doesn’t call her back. “I will observe the Hour with the others before I start the day’s work.”
“Fine with me,” I say, though he’s telling me, not asking. I’d like him to come and let me know if he finds out anything. Don’t ask, though. Chances are I’ll be up on the roof, and he’s hardly going to shout the news out so I can hear. “Good luck.”
“It might be more a matter of skill,” Flannan says, more or less to himself, then heads off toward the chapel. Don’t expect to see any more of him, at least until my working day’s over and I head back to Geiléis’s place. And from what he said, he won’t have anything to tell until tomorrow or the next day, and only then if he can work out first the code, then the translation from a language he doesn’t even know. Way I see it, luck’s going to play a big part.
Weather stays fair. Me and the lad they’ve given me to help, Tadhg, his name is, get on with the job, which today is mostly stripping off the last of the moldy old thatch and cleaning things up, ready for the new. We get sweaty and filthy, and we sneeze a lot, but he’s strong and willing and I’m glad to have work for my hands. Manage not to think too hard. Manage not to look at one thing and see another.
Middle of the day, they feed us. Glad nobody makes us go inside and sit down with the monks. That would be too much; couldn’t do it. Couple of fellows bring out a tray with bowls of broth, hunks of bread and wedges of cheese, and there’s a flask of good ale with it. Goes down a treat. While we eat and drink, I run through the next part with Tadhg, tell him the stages of getting the fresh thatch ready and putting it up. What he’ll be doing and what I’ll be doing. He’s a clever lad, listens well, asks good questions. Wonder if I was ever like that, eyes bright, mind clean and fresh, ready to take on the world? Or did that get beaten out of me before I even knew it was there?
Good view from up on the roof. Down over the forest one way; glimpse of Lady Geiléis’s house between the treetops. Farther off, the Tower of Thorns, though I can’t see much of it, only the top with the open window. Howling’s not so loud up here; don’t need the earplugs. I can almost forget the monster, listen to the bells and the singing and the quiet footsteps instead. The brothers have a bit of a farm, not far off. Cows. Chickens. Couple of sheep, for wool, not for the pot. Good place. I’m all wrong here. Bad luck. Bringer of trouble. Feel as if I should tell them the story, tell them the truth, so they can throw me out if they want. But here I am teaching the lad to thatch a
roof, making myself useful, and I can’t tell.
Forest spreading out to the west, and a strip of road going through it; that’s the Tirconnell side of the river. Road they can’t use because the ford’s not safe. Farmhouses dotted here and there, patches of cleared ground, a few cattle. Closer at hand there’s St. Olcan’s own bell tower, and a barn, and at one end of the barn the pigeon loft. They had one at St. Erc’s too. My mind shows me broken bodies, feathers everywhere, smears of blood on the stone floor, injured birds thrashing about. I had to pick the poor sods up and wring their necks, one after another. Said a prayer for each one, same as I did for the men. Would have been a miracle if God picked up the meaning, I was crying so hard. Fly safe to heaven. Sing with the angels. Only birds. Still. Brother Galen used to say, God knows what is in your heart. That day, my heart was saying, There is no God. Said the prayers anyway. Felt like the proper thing.
“You all right?” Tadhg’s looking at me, a bite of bread and cheese halfway to his mouth.
“Fine. Thanks.” I apply myself to my own meal. “Thinking of something sad, that’s all. Who looks after the pigeons here?”
“Brother Eoan. Only they don’t fly out much, not now. Not since we stopped using the ford. See, pigeons always fly back to their home loft. So if you want to exchange messages with, say, a monastery in Tirconnell, you have to get some pigeons that were bred there, and move them here. And they take some of yours in return. Then you can send as many messages as you’ve got birds, until they’ve all gone home. Then you start again.”
“Is that so?” I don’t tell him I know quite a bit about pigeons, from St. Erc’s. “Where did they send them before? Only to Tirconnell?”
“All over. It’s a good way for scholars to share their discoveries, or for a monastery to invite visitors. They keep the birds in marked cages, so they know where each one’s from and where it will fly when it’s set free.”
“Be safe to send them south,” I say. “No need to cross the ford, so you could still bring birds in from there, couldn’t you?”
“That’s right,” says Tadhg. “There’s a few birds from Dalriada in the loft, and some from Ulaid. Farther away, even. Long way to fly, but they can do it. Brother Eoan could tell you all about it. Knows everything about pigeons, that man. Ask him a question and he’ll still be talking when the sun’s down and everyone else is at supper.”
Tadhg is a talker too. I don’t mention that. He’s good at his work, doesn’t waste time, and he’s ready to learn. Don’t mind listening. He might even say something useful.
“Finished? We should get back to work.”
He doesn’t answer, because there’s a sound of raised voices from somewhere near the gate, and one of them’s a woman’s. Geiléis. I can tell even from over here that she’s angry. Seems wrong to listen in. But Blackthorn and me are at Bann to solve a mystery. That means doing some things we wouldn’t naturally do. So I’m listening hard and remembering so I can tell Blackthorn later, but at the same time I’m putting cups and bowls back on the tray and moving the ladder round so we can get to the next bit of roof. Old thatch should be all stripped away and the beams cleaned up today. Brothers have got the reeds tied in bundles, so they’re all ready to go up. The spars from the old roof are oak, and mostly good to use again. And there’s a fellow here, one of the monks, who’s said he’ll make replacements for the worn-out ones. Means I don’t have to carve them myself, which is good. Would have taken time we don’t have.
“I need to see it!” Think that’s what Geiléis is shouting. Whoever she’s talking to—Father Tomas, must be—answers in a deep, quiet voice. Could be saying anything. Monks don’t shout. Only when . . . No, won’t think about that.
“Careful!” I say, keeping a close eye on Tadhg. “Remember what I said—move slow, two hands and two feet on the beams whenever you can. Not a job you can rush. Unless you want a fast trip down and a few broken bones. Move like a spider.”
He’s more careful, then. A quick learner. Pity I can’t stay after midsummer, in a way. If I had longer, I could teach him to do the job properly. Other things I could do here too. The walls. The garden. The pigeons. But no. First there’s Blackthorn. Second there’s the past. Third there’s God. Don’t believe in him anymore, and if I did I’d hate him for letting bad things happen and not stopping them. Meaning there’s no place for me here, or in any house of prayer. All very well for Brother Fergal to say God forgives sinners, and Our Lord embraces those who have lost their way, by which he means me, plain as plain. But who could forgive him, God I mean, for standing by watching while Norsemen hacked a bunch of monks to death? Boys, old men, scholars, gardeners, peaceable folk? Not content with that, they butchered the livestock too. Not for the pot. Just for the pleasure of killing. If God’s so all-powerful, why would he just look on?
Worst thing is, in a way I understand why they did it. The red. Those fighters, those raiders, I saw their faces. Saw their crazy eyes. They didn’t see me, they didn’t see an old white-haired scholar and a cat, they didn’t see a sacristan and an infirmarian and a scribe; they had the red filling up their heads and coursing through their veins and pumping in their hearts, and it didn’t go away until they’d killed or maimed every living thing in the place. Except me. And they must have thought I was dead, or they’d have stuck an ax in my head as a parting gift.
“This is quite unsatisfactory!” shouts Lady Geiléis, not sounding much like a lady. “All I am asking of you . . .” Her voice goes quieter, so I can’t hear the rest. Sounds as if she didn’t stick to what Blackthorn told her to say last night. And sounds as if Father Tomas isn’t afraid to say no to her. Don’t know why she’d push to see this document, if she can’t read it. Could be I’m wrong. Could be she’s upset about something different.
Tadhg is perched on the beams with a hard brush in his hand, looking at me. “Lady sounds cross,” he says.
“None of our business. Right, we’ll clean off this end; then we’ll go down and give the inside a good sweeping. I don’t leave a mess behind for other folk to clean up. Weather seems set fair for a bit. But what if rain came? What would you do?”
“Me?”
“What would a fellow do if he was halfway through a thatching job?”
“Oh. If it’s reeds, you’d want to get something up over the work you’d done, keep it dry before you put on the next layer. And maybe cover up the rest of the roof too.”
“What with?”
“Hempen cloth? Maybe oiled?”
“Good. Might need to ask the brothers about that. Doubt if they’d have an old sail. But maybe they’ve got something we can use. Be a miracle if it doesn’t rain from now till midsummer.”
“Why midsummer?” Tadhg asks.
Ah. Walked right into that. “That’s when Blackthorn and me have to go back home. So unless you fancy finishing the job on your own, that’s when we need to get it done by.”
Can’t hear Geiléis anymore, only the monster, and birds singing, and Brother Fergal and his helpers talking down in the garden. The two novices are crouched down weeding, and Fergal’s harvesting runner beans and explaining something to the others as he moves along the row. Quiet spot, this. Good place. This’d be the sort of place where you could start thinking God was real. You could believe he did open his arms to everyone, like Fergal said.
“Grim?”
“What?”
“This is a lot of roof. And you said three layers.”
“All the more reason to work harder. Not just you—both of us. And yes, it’ll be three layers. At least. If the old thatch hadn’t been so moldy, we could have just put the new on top. But that wouldn’t have been a proper job.”
Not long after, from my high perch, I see Flannan walking across to the infirmary. A bit later I catch sight of Geiléis with Donncha, going down the track home. Can’t see her face. From the way she’s walking I’d guess she’s angry,
upset. Seems Father Tomas didn’t say yes to what she wanted—maybe to see the manuscript herself. Which is a surprise. Would’ve thought a lady like her could twist men around her little finger. Even monks.
26
Geiléis
Armorica. Brother Gwenneg. She had all but forgotten him. He was long dead by now, along with the brethren whose number he had traveled so far to join. Brother Gwenneg had been kind to her that night, when she’d returned, weeping, to find all the doors to her home wide-open and banging in the wind. When, soon after, she’d discovered her family, their servants and retainers, all wrapped in a sleep like death, as if this were some ancient tale. She had run all the way to St. Olcan’s for help, with only the moonlight to guide her steps. Gwenneg and three other monks had come back with her, bearing lanterns. That was when she’d discovered this was no magical trance. All those she had loved, all those who had loved her, were stone dead. All but one, and he was beyond her reach. Lily’s punishment, the long ordeal set down in the curse, was just beginning.
The monks of St. Olcan’s had become her friends. They’d provided for her until she’d been able to claw together a household—she’d been determined to stay at Bann, in her own house. Ten of her father’s men-at-arms, under the leadership of Onchú, had been over the border in Tirconnell the night it had happened. On return, all had chosen to stay on at Bann. Seven of the household servants had been given leave to attend a wedding in the south—the bride was Senach’s sister—and to stay overnight for the celebrations. They too had chosen loyalty over freedom, even knowing the truth.
The brothers had suggested it might be more appropriate for her, young as she was and all alone, to live with kinsmen or in the household of a neighboring chieftain. She’d been firm in her refusal. She hadn’t told them about the curse. She hadn’t offered any theories about what had happened. Everyone had understood, without quite saying so, that only the fey could wreak such a catastrophe. When, in early summer of that year, it had become evident that there was someone in the tower, and that the someone or something liked to scream from dawn until dusk, folk had not said much at all. The curse had been powerful indeed. Strong enough to last as long as it took. Clever enough to ensure nobody noticed that the Lady of Bann still walked the forest paths twenty years later, and fifty years later, and eighty years later and a hundred. That she was still young and lovely, with golden hair streaming down her back and a complexion like peaches and cream. That over all that time she had aged no more than another sixteen years. Her name varied with the generations, of course. She referred to her mother, her grandmother, her forebears, her ancestors. And if her household servants, too, did not seem to grow old, nobody made comment.
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