The first traces of dawn light were visible in the sky when there was a rustling close by. My fingers fastened around the ax. I rose silently to my feet.
A polite little cough to one side. A clearing of the throat to the other. I lowered my weapon as a group of small cloaked personages emerged from under the trees to come up to the fire. Grim slept on; Father Tomas’s mead was potent.
“Don’t wake him,” I whispered, indicating Grim. “He’s hurt.”
“We will mend him,” said one of the little ones.
“We will dig,” said another, who had a tiny spade over his shoulder.
I eyed the lifeless form of Flannan. He had been a tallish man. I looked at the crowd of very small folk.
“We are many,” pointed out one of them.
“You rest one day. Rest your horses. Rest the big man. One day, then go on.”
Their kindness was overwhelming. Once again I had to order myself not to shed tears. “We owe your folk many favors already,” I said. “This is . . .”
“Common sense,” put in someone briskly. I guessed her identity before she pushed back her hood, revealing her shock of curls. It was the little woman of the ogham message, the fey healer. “Now don’t be stubborn,” she said. “Say yes and let’s get on with things. Our clan owes you and your man a big, big debt.”
“Consider the debt acquitted,” I said, failing to stem the tears. “But yes, some help at this point would be welcome. Maybe I can cook you breakfast.”
For some reason they thought this hilarious. The gusts of laughter continued as they busied themselves around the place. While Grim slept on, oblivious, the firewood was replenished, the horses were fed and watered, the wet clothing was dried with a speed no ordinary fire could possibly have achieved, and Flannan was covered up with a blanket that had not been among our possessions earlier. Most surprising of all, four of the small men appeared leading a familiar creature on a rope. The dog dwarfed them.
“Ripple,” I breathed. “Where was she?” I hastened to fill a bowl with water, to find something she could eat.
“Tied up in the woods, not far off. Not making a sound. Sitting quiet, waiting.”
I would not cry again. Grim had commented more than once on what a perfectly obedient creature Ripple was. Through all of it, and she must surely have heard, or sensed, something of that struggle, she had done exactly what Flannan had bid her do: Sit. Wait. He could never have caught us by surprise if she’d been free to run about. “Good girl,” I told her. “Eat now. Drink. Rest.” Did she know he lay dead under that blanket over there? Had she sensed that he was not coming back for her? “Thank you,” I said to the little men. “I’ll take care of her now.”
A group of little folk was working at a discreet distance, digging away with miniature spades. A big group; the hole was growing quickly deeper.
As the sun climbed higher Grim stirred. It was obvious that his head was hurting him, but once he saw the small folk he sat up, entranced, and watched them with evident wonder. Ripple went over to him, shoulders hunched, tail down, hesitant now. He fondled her ears, murmuring, and she settled by his side. I could see where that was headed.
I’d been wondering how we were going to shift Flannan’s body to the grave. That, I was sure these folk could not manage, and I didn’t want Grim trying to do it. But he was quick with a solution.
“Got a rope, haven’t we?” he said, eyeing the shrouded body. “And horses? Just tie the right knots and it’s easy. Undignified, yes. But easy. Not planning to damage myself anymore. Not for a man who tried to kill you.”
“And you.”
“That too. I’ll show you the knots now if you want.”
• • •
One day of rest. After breakfast the fey healer inspected Grim’s shoulder wound and then the swelling on his head. He responded to her questions with a series of expressive grunts, since her presence seemed to render him mute. She told me I’d done good work, then opened her own healer’s bag and constructed her own dressing, complete with a mash of various powdered herbs.
While she was applying this I went off, at her suggestion, to gather herbs useful for controlling pain and banishing ill humors. Grim would need a headache draft. By the time I got back the little woman was in animated conversation with Grim. When I came close she waved me away. I was fairly sure they were talking about me.
The small folk finished digging the grave, and with the assistance of the rope, two horses and a lot of conflicting suggestions, we got Flannan into it. The fey ones formed a circle all around. Grim leaned against one of the horses, his arm across its back. Everyone seemed to be waiting.
I was the wise woman. This was my job. But I couldn’t find the right words, not this time. I’d lost my belief in gods long ago. And right now, I couldn’t think of one good thing to say about the dead man. The silence drew out.
“We give this man back to the earth.” It was Grim’s deep voice, steady and sure. “He did some bad things in his life. Some good too, maybe. But he lost his way. Could be he’ll just rot down and help something grow. Not such a bad end, that. Could be he’ll walk down a new path and find a better way.”
• • •
The wee folk stayed close for most of the day. Whatever the small healer had done to Grim’s injuries—I was sure that had been no ordinary dressing—he returned to something like his old self with truly astonishing speed. I made up enough of the headache draft to see us back to Cahercorcan and its well-stocked stillroom.
I snatched an opportunity, later, to speak with the fey healer on her own. Grim was at the center of a group of very small men. They were engrossed in some activity that involved tying knots in stalks of grass.
We were by the fire, she and I. I thanked her for her care of Grim. She observed that he seemed worth saving. I thanked her for the ogham messages and apologized for being so slow to understand. I asked if the king had survived his ordeal in the thorn hedge.
“He did. He’s being tended to, back home. Not quite himself yet, but he will be.”
“I’m not sure if I should ask this,” I said, “but I will. There was a man, one of your kind, who spoke to Grim, soon after we came to Bann. Grim helped lift something. The man gave him a warning. We heard later that there was a penalty if your kind spoke out about the one in the tower.”
“That is true. Our king suffered for every word.”
“Then we’re deeply sorry,” I said. “And I hope the one who did speak out, to Grim I mean, was not punished for it.”
“The king bore the punishment for us. A long curse, and a cruel one.”
“I have another question for you.”
“Ask away.”
“True love’s tears. The herb. You kept reminding me of it. I thought I needed it to break the curse that lay over the Tower of Thorns. So I gathered some and took it with me, but when I got there I didn’t use it, because . . .”
“Because you did the deed, and they were back to themselves without the need for it,” said the little healer, nodding. Her beady eyes had lost some of their combative look. “And then you were changed.”
“I tried to tell Grim about the herb, but I . . . my mouth was odd, deformed, and I couldn’t make him understand. And then . . . suddenly I was myself again, and he hadn’t used it either. I don’t know what undid the spell. Or why the woman who invented the curse didn’t make it end with Lily and Ash.”
“Her?” The little healer lifted her brows in scorn. “She wasn’t only bad; she was as mad as a half-witted dog at full moon. Did what she wanted and didn’t give a fig about anyone else. That’s why she was so angry when the girl, Lily, crossed her. Angry enough for two hundred years of sorrow and a bit more. Be glad your man broke the spell for you.”
“Grim broke it? But he never even touched the herb.”
She threw back her head and let out a hearty
laugh. Heads turned toward us from everywhere. “For a wise woman,” she said, “you’re a touch blind about some things. Tell me, did your man weep over you up there? Did he weep over the poor thing you’d become?”
I recalled Grim wiping my face with the red kerchief. Wiping his own. Saying he’d stand by me for two hundred years, if that was what it took. “Yes, but—”
“There you are, then,” she said. “Now it’s time we were on our way. Your fellow will be fit to ride by the morning. Trust me. And safe journey to you.”
“And to you.”
I thought about it later, when Grim was feeding the horses and I was readying our bedding for the night. What she’d said couldn’t possibly be right. True love’s tears? That was just nonsense. It wasn’t like that with him and me and it never would be. What we had was far too precious to be complicated by that kind of thing. Grim would have a good laugh when I told him.
He came back. We shared a brew and settled to sleep. I didn’t say a thing about true love’s tears. In the morning we struck camp and rode for Cahercorcan. I put the herb in the part of my mind reserved for too hard. It could wait for Winterfalls and Conmael. If indeed I decided to broach the topic at all. For now, there was court and a royal baby to deliver. I found, to my surprise, that I was almost looking forward to that.
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