“I don’t think the little one’s quite right, Mistress,” Ana said now, almost apologetic. “It’s that wheezy sound, like he can’t catch his breath. And he doesn’t feed long, though I’ve got enough milk. It’s like he gets tired of trying, but then he cries as if he’s still hungry. Maybe there’s something you can give him, a tonic? Something to get him strong again.” A pause, during which I listened to the rasp of the child’s breath, in, out, in, out. In the other room, Donncha was having a muted conversation with the old man. “He’s my only one,” Ana said. “My man’s gone.”
I did not ask what that meant. Her man wasn’t here to support her; that was all I needed to know. “What is your son’s name?” I asked.
“Fursa. Same as his dad. Born on Beltane night. My man never got to see him. They found him hanging from a tree, a few days before the little one was born. Do you want to hold him?”
Finding myself lost for words, I took the baby in my arms. Born at Beltane—so he was not quite two turnings of the moon old. So small. Surely too small. She’d said she had milk, but she looked half-starved. A child that was too weak to suckle for long was in immediate danger.
He’s my only one. “A beautiful boy,” I said. I could not banish the image of my Brennan at that age, rosy and content. No amount of robust good health could have saved him from Mathuin of Laois. Ana’s child would not even live the two years my son had. The blue-gray tinge to his skin was a sure sign of something seriously wrong. Add to that the rasping cry and the small size, and the odds were against him. “I’ll just have a listen to his chest, if I may?”
In my bag was a small wooden funnel I used on such occasions. Grim had made it for me, and its mirror-smooth surfaces and rounded edges were a testament to his understanding of the instrument’s purpose, not to speak of his woodworking skills. I parted the baby’s wrappings and set the narrower end against his scrawny chest, and my ear against the other end. For a while I listened, wondering what to tell Ana. Would I have wanted to know, as a very new mother, that my child would be dead before his second birthday? If I’d known, I could have taken Brennan away, out of harm’s reach. I could have saved him. For Ana’s child, the harm already lay within his tiny body, and there could be no rescue.
I looked across and met her tired eyes. Perhaps she already knew. Or guessed; a mother often knows these things by instinct. “Fursa’s heart is not strong,” I said. “I don’t have a tonic for a child so young, and I don’t think it would help him much anyway. But I do have a tonic for you, that will help you keep up your milk.” It was fortunate indeed that I’d brought a small supply of the most commonly sought remedies with me, thinking they might prove useful in unlocking folk’s tongues. With Midsummer Eve so close, I would not be coming back here. “Add three drops to your brew, morning and night. It doesn’t taste bad.” If Ana had been the wife of a well-to-do cottager, with her husband and family close by, I could have told her to eat well and rest well in order to do the best for her baby. But it seemed that when this household had lost its man, it had lost its heart. “Does Donncha bring you supplies often? Is there someone who can gather wood for you? A neighbor, a friend?”
“Donncha does what he can.” Ana lifted her chin. “We manage.”
“I can’t do much for you in a single visit, and I’ll be leaving this district in a few days. Ana, I think you need more help. There’s an infirmary at St. Olcan’s, isn’t there? There must be skilled healers there who tend to sick folk in the community.”
“A man?” It was as if I had suggested she consult a monster. “A monk? Such folk know nothing of women and babies and their ailments. How could they?”
It would be a lot better than nothing, I thought, but did not say it. “If your grandfather is unwell, they could at least help him. Take away some of your burden. I realize it’s a long way, but if they knew you were in need, they might send someone to visit.”
Ana said nothing. She took her son from me and wrapped his shawl back around him, her hands tender.
“As for supplies, and a hand with the heavy work, can’t Lady Geiléis arrange that for you?” I thought about the baskets going over to the tower, and wondered again if the lady’s loyal retainers were carrying out all manner of activities unnoticed, right under her nose. The fact remained that Geiléis was, in effect, the chieftain of Bann. It was surely her responsibility to ensure that all the folk who lived within her holdings were adequately provided for. Even if her mind was much occupied with other matters.
“We don’t see anything of the lady. Or her men, apart from Donncha. Fursa was good with horses. Helped Donncha with a difficult mare, a couple of years ago. Friends ever since, the two of them, though Lady Geiléis wasn’t happy with it. Doesn’t like her men to be out among folk much. Mostly they keep themselves to themselves. It was different with him and my man.”
“Oh?” I busied myself building up the fire, refilling the kettle, looking for herbs to make a brew.
“They were close. Fursa had work back then, helping folk with their stock. We weren’t . . .” Ana cast a helpless look around the room. “Things weren’t like they are now.”
I found a jar of dried peppermint leaves; they were past their best, but better than nothing. “Mm-hm,” I murmured in a manner I hoped was encouraging. No awkward questions. I’d wait for her to talk if she wanted to, and accept her silence if she did not.
“There’s something wrong in these parts,” Ana said. “Since that thing came to the tower, or even before. My man . . . he was all right. Got sad sometimes, sorry he couldn’t provide better for us, but . . . just sad, not . . . And then it was like a dark cloud came down over him. Couldn’t turn his hand to anything. Didn’t want to talk about it. He’d say he was going off to do a job for someone, and just wander around until it was time to come home. So, no pay.”
“That must have been hard for you.” I poured hot water over the peppermint; it seemed the herbs were still good, for a wholesome smell spread through the room.
“Oh, that smells nice,” Ana said. “Thank you, Mistress Blackthorn.”
“No trouble.” Exhausted, beaten down, full of sorrow, and yet so grateful for small things. Perhaps it was at just such times of hardship and sadness that folk noticed the little kindnesses; the brief moments of beauty. “If you wish, I’ll have a word to Lady Geiléis for you. I may not have much influence, but I can try at least.” I would suggest that someone—Donncha, Senach, Geiléis herself—approach the monks on the same issue. Ana might not be prepared to accept the services of monks as healers, but I did not think she would refuse a share of the good food St. Olcan’s still seemed to be producing. Hadn’t Geiléis said that most of what we were eating in her house came from the monastery farm?
The baby had fallen asleep. It was as we sat quietly over our brew that Ana spoke again. “Fursa was a good man. Don’t think he let us down, me and the babe. He wanted to be a father. Wanted it with all his heart. He wanted to be a good provider. Only . . . only he was just sad. Too sad to go on. Nothing helped. Nothing made him better. I tried, I did try—” Her tears flowed freely now, wetting the baby’s face as she held him close. “I did my best. But he—he—”
I moved over to sit beside her; put my arm around her. I thought that if she knew what an angry, broken soul I was, she would not have chosen my shoulder to weep on. Anger boiled up in me, that she was reduced to this pitiful state through no fault of her own. I struggled not to blame her husband, who had killed himself when she was close to giving birth to their only child. It seemed the most selfish of acts; a denial of his love for her. But I had seen enough such deaths before to know that when the cloud of sorrow hangs too heavily over a person, nothing helps; no love, no hope, no faith is strong enough to draw them back from the brink. In my mind I saw Grim, standing dark and still on the high bank overlooking Dreamer’s Pool. I remembered the chill of utter terror I’d felt when I’d realized I had only a m
oment to find the words that would stop him from jumping to his death. Because I knew him inside out, I had found them. Because he had not reached the point of complete despair, he had heard them. Not so Fursa. And now here was his wife, with a grievously sick son and a demanding old man to look after, and not even the most basic supplies in the house. With Geiléis’s household only an hour’s ride away. Without Donncha, who knew what would have happened here?
“Don’t ask Lady Geiléis,” Ana said, wiping her eyes on a corner of the baby’s shawl. “She’d find out about Donncha coming. She might be angry.”
And she might stop him from visiting again, which would be a disaster. It was not only the supplies; it was the friendly face. It was knowing that someone cared. “What about your neighbors?” I asked again. “Can’t they help you?”
Ana grimaced. “It’s a long way to the next house. And they’re all struggling, Mistress Blackthorn. It doesn’t seem right to ask.”
I wanted to promise I would see them looked after. But I couldn’t promise. In a few days I’d be gone. I might ask Geiléis for this as a payment or reward, I supposed, after I had banished her monster from the tower. But since I planned to leave with Flannan as soon as I’d done whatever was required on Midsummer Eve, I would have no way of holding her to it. It came to me with uncomfortable clarity that heading south would be a selfish decision. That I would be leaving unfinished business behind me, sorrows I could have eased, good work I could have done. I could only hope that the removal of the creature would restore this entire district to what it had been before. If these people were free from the curse, they might find the will to take control of their lives again. Not overnight, maybe, but in time.
Donncha and I did not ride back for a good while. He bathed the old man, settled him to rest again, then went outdoors to chop more wood. I told Ana I would watch the baby while she snatched some sleep. She looked at me as if I had just offered her riches beyond compare, and went off straightaway, leaving little Fursa asleep in his basket. There was a lot churning around inside me—I felt sad and powerless and angry. I hated the folly of humankind. There was cruelty and injustice everywhere. Deaths that were unnecessary; loneliness and deprivation where all that was needed, really, was for one person to hold out a helping hand. Ana reminded me of Mathuin’s victims, the women I had tried to help back in Laois after he had stamped roughshod over their lives and left a broken mess. Still, after everything, she was trying to keep going. Within that frail, tired body there was a spark of will, a flame of hope. Her son’s death, when it came, might be the chill wind that finally extinguished that flame. And there was nothing I could do. I knew no way to keep a child alive and well when his heart had most likely been failing from the moment he was born. Nobody could do that; not the most skilled physician in all Erin.
Since I could not rid myself of my furious thoughts by throwing things—in this house every item, however lowly, must be conserved with care—I set to with broom and cloth and bucket, and gave the place a good cleaning. When the woodpile was replenished, Donncha came inside and stopped short when I put a finger to my lips, signaling silence. He took off his boots and made himself useful, doing the jobs I could not reach such as getting the cobwebs out of the rafters. Fursa slept peacefully as we worked around him, a frail waif whose transparent pallor almost suggested fey blood. There’d been a child long ago in a time of my life I preferred to forget, a boy whom the other village children, and some men and women who should have known better, had called the changeling for his spindly limbs and white skin and for an invisible difference everybody felt, but nobody could quite put their finger on. He never talked much, so people thought him a dullard, a half-wit. Called him those names to his face. Teased and tormented him. I hadn’t thought about him for years. I hadn’t wanted to revisit that time. But I thought of it now as I mopped the floor of Ana’s cottage, then went outdoors to wash out a heap of soiled cloths in the water Donncha had heated for me. That long-ago boy had also been a son without a father; his mother was a woman who was rumored to be no better than she should be, and was generally shunned in the village. I’d heard folk say that the lad could have been sired by anyone, though at eight or nine I’d hardly understood the implications. One thing I’d had then that I still possessed now, and that was a fierce love of justice. I could see myself standing with legs apart and hands on hips, between the boy—what was his name?—and his tormentors, delivering a withering speech about tolerance while they gaped at me, dropping the stones from their hands as if they’d never had any intention of throwing them. I recalled threatening to set their hair alight, or send bees to torment them while they slept, if they did not cease persecuting my friend forthwith. Not that he was a friend, particularly; our paths had sometimes crossed, and when they had done we’d talked a bit, that was all. Thinking back on it, maybe I was the only person who ever talked to him. In a way we were both outcasts: he because of his odd appearance and his mother and his unwillingness to stand up for himself; I because I had been sent to live with my mentor, and she was the local wise woman. A proper wise woman, the kind with a wrinkled face and long white hair and frightening objects strung around her neck. The difference was that folk found me frightening too. If I told them to stop doing something, they did. Even when I was eight or nine years old. That was probably why my parents sent me away.
The afternoon was passing; the house was clean and tidy, the water barrel had been topped up and enough wood had been brought in and chopped to last the household a good while.
“We should be going,” said Donncha in an undertone, glancing toward the inner door.
I was reluctant to wake Ana, who so badly needed rest. But if we didn’t leave now, we had no chance of being back in time for Flannan and his news. “All right, I’ll—” I began, but Fursa did it for me, waking with a start, opening his little mouth and letting out a cry that sounded too big for his body. I barely had time to gather him up before Ana was there to take him from me. A careful mother and a loving one, despite everything.
The grandfather still slept. We made Ana another brew, leaving a cup to cool for her while she fed her son. She thanked us, sounding rather desperate. We told her it was nothing and made our farewells. Donncha did not make any promises to return, and Ana did not ask. I reminded her that monks were not ogres, and said again that she should consider seeking their help if she needed it.
And then we left. Donncha was wrapped in a somber silence. As for me, all that scrubbing and wringing had done little to quiet the army of furious thoughts that was marching around in my head. We rode on without talking until we were well into the forest. Then Donncha said out of the blue, “Mistress Blackthorn, I have a favor to ask.”
I waited. He was full of surprises today.
“Ana and her child . . . I know the boy is sick, perhaps very sick. I have done what I can but . . . I’m not sure what I will be able to manage after Midsummer Eve. None of us can say what will happen when you break the curse.”
“If I break the curse,” I said. “Right now I am so angry with the injustices humankind visits on itself that I feel disinclined to do anything for anyone.”
Donncha brought his horse to a sudden halt, forcing me to do the same. “I hope you will try,” he said, his voice full of feeling. “For all our sakes. We believe you can do it. We believe this is the time.”
Bitter words came to my lips, but I held them back. Donncha had shown exemplary kindness today, and he did not deserve my anger. “When we get home,” I said, “Flannan should be there with his translation. I hope that will tell us what it is that I have to do. It might be something impossible, Donncha. Something I’m not capable of. A task requiring the strength of a giant, or the use of advanced magic. There’s no point in attempting something I’m sure to fail at.”
“I do not believe the task will be impossible,” he said, though how he could know was anyone’s guess. “The nature of a curse . . . it cann
ot go on forever. In time there must come an end.”
“Who knows? Midsummer Eve is almost here and still I have almost nothing to go on. If this manuscript doesn’t yield any clues, I’d be plain stupid to walk into the tower not even knowing what I’m supposed to do when I get there. Get eaten, perhaps. The curse might only be broken if the creature dines on human flesh.”
Donncha made no reply, and we rode on. It was almost evening; the distant cries of the creature in the tower were growing fainter. I remembered something.
“You spoke of a favor,” I said. “What favor?”
“Two things,” said Donncha. “I don’t ask that you go ahead with the task on Midsummer Eve, regardless of what is in the manuscript; that is for Lady Geiléis to say. We all want the curse lifted, Mistress Blackthorn. We serve Lady Geiléis and we want her to be happy again. But . . . it’s Ana and the child. The old man too. After you’ve done it, after midsummer, will you go to the monks and ask them to help her? She won’t do it herself. But even if the curse changes everything, even if hope is restored to Bann, Ana’s going to need looking after. Little Fursa’s gravely ill, isn’t he?”
“I won’t shield you from the truth. He’s very ill indeed, and it’s not a malady that can be cured, even by the most skilled healers in all Erin. I think Ana knows, or guesses, what lies ahead.”
“She’ll need friends. Support. Practical help. I can’t be sure her neighbors will step in. Will you go to St. Olcan’s and ask them, Mistress Blackthorn? Not now, but afterward?”
I could not make sense of this. Nor could I say yes, since I planned to leave Bann straight after the deed—whatever it was—was done. And that was a detail I did not want anyone but Flannan to know, because the more folk were aware of it, the greater the likelihood of Grim finding out. “Why not now? And why me? Why can’t you ask them? Besides, you’ll be here—you’ll still be able to help her. Or are you thinking Lady Geiléis might order you to stop riding over there? If she does, she’s not doing a very good job as chieftain.” That was too blunt, perhaps; but it was time someone said it.
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