Uncertain Magic

by Laura Kinsale

  Stay with me. He’d said those words before—somewhere else—where?

  But he could not remember; he only thought of how she’d lain warm and trusting in his arms, an heiress in a bed of straw. His wife…a sidhe gift, but there was more to her than moonbeams. There was what he’d come to love—plain stubborn guts and a lavender-scented pig, and faith enough to keep her with him through a countryside in flames.

  Roddy, Roddy. Little girl. Stay with me.

  “Leave him,” Senach said. “Stay here in the light, and leave him in the dark.”

  “No.” Roddy sobbed. “Faelan!”

  “’Twas your choice. He would hate you, you said.”

  “He loves me!”

  “He always loved you.” On Senach’s head a crown of budding green leaves shone bright in the mist. “Too late, Lassar. Too late to cling to that.”

  “It’s not too late!” She stared at Senach and Fionn, felt the world receding, slipping away and away in the mist, and Faelan…she could not even hear him now; it was all silence and white shimmer; it was sliding from her, everything she’d loved…

  “No,” she screamed, and squeezed her eyes shut to gather her talent, to draw into herself the gift she had despised. She did what she never done—called on all her power, the part of herself she’d been afraid to touch, deep and silent, that suddenly seemed to have been waiting for this day, this moment, when the discipline she’d learned from suffering cities and crowds made a focus and a forge, turning mist to weapon and bending it to her will.

  She sent it out, across the distance, and for a moment it was enough. For a moment she saw the house through the light, saw MacLassar on the steps and the dowager countess with her hand on her mouth and her eyes blank with horror. But the door—at the door the mist was too bright and thick, obscuring Faelan from Roddy’s sight.

  Fionn smiled at Roddy—friend and enemy—shining beautiful and terrible in the vapor. She always belonged to us, Fionn had said, and Roddy knew now what it meant. Her talent and her strangeness had been echoes from another world, a world that touched reality only in the green and empty places of the earth—the faint remnant of a dying song on the brooding moors of Yorkshire and a burst of living magic here at the edge of humanity’s reach, where the wild land swept down and fingered with the sea.

  She was a bridge between, belonging to neither, and to both.

  Faelan.

  She was losing him. A crowd of memories engulfed her—MacLassar with his bandaged foot, a mare with her newborn foal…Faelan’s hands, sweat-grimed on a pitchfork; his face in the firelight, and in an open field with the play of sun and shadow on his glistening chest…the funny half-wry twist to his mouth when he threw a morsel to MacLassar…“Damned pig,” he would say. “Worthless beast.” And throw another bite.

  Faelan, she thought in anguish. She would not lose him, not like this, as some fey punishment for an ancient crime. Whatever he had done—it did not matter. She put her whole self, her whole soul, into reaching him. All the love that had lit those winter days of work and laughter, all the dreams she had learned to share…

  The light grew blinding, but she felt him in it, touched him with her gift, drove deep, gathering all of him—everything, what he was now, what he had been—love and dreams and memories, and a dark place…

  Suddenly he fought her, resisting that, struggling away from the shadows she would bring to light. I don’t remember, his mind howled. I don’t want to remember. She felt his panic and overrode it, gathered him close as if something threatened and she could protect him…I’m here. I love you. No matter what…while the white dimmed to shadow and shape…

  Chapter 26

  It was dark in the hall. Mamá had told him to wait, and he waited, far too old at ten years to admit that the black shadows still scared him a little. But not as much as the voices—not nearly as much. He swallowed and shifted uneasily, hearing through the closed door his mother’s tone grow shrill.

  “I’ll not suffer it,” she cried. “I tell you, Francis, I won’t live like this—branded with your Popish ways. We might as well be animals, shut up in this godforsaken place while you mouth your mumbo jumbo and traffic with foreign priests. I live in fear, Francis. I lie awake at night and think of it, that any moment we’ll be informed upon and everything taken—the house, the land—the very rug wrenched from under our feet. Do you hate me? Do you hate me so, that you wish me cut off from every friend—”

  “I don’t hate you,” his father shouted, with that frightening tremor in his voice. “Don’t say that.”

  “Yes! I say it! You don’t care what I feel; you don’t care what I suffer for this. Married to a Papist. I daren’t touch my own fortune, daren’t show my face in a decent drawing room. I can’t go to the capital, or to London, or to any civilized place, for fear you’ll expose yourself—crawling off to some mass-house like a drunkard crawls off to a tavern. And why, Francis—”

  “Because it’s what I am,” his father roared. “Because this family has kept faith for six centuries, and I’ll not be forgetting that we’re Irish, or let my son forget. There’s change coming—we’ll live to see these damnable penal laws repealed. I’ll see it, and I’ll be certain that Faelan knows his father didn’t bend to every wind that blew. Not as my own did.” Disgust tinged the bitter words. “I’ll keep my family’s land, and my family’s honor before God.”

  “Honor,” his mother spat. “You call it honor, I suppose, that you no longer come to my bed for fear that I’ll conceive another child!”

  “Great God, Christina—”

  “Oh, yes—look shocked, if you will! I know your mind, Francis. One son, and you think to keep this miserable stretch of rock and mountain undivided under the law. Lord knows, you’re right enough—no more than one paltry country squire could make a living off of it. But the Dublin leaseholds—you’ve income enough to be adding to them, to be building something substantial for your precious son, so he won’t be scratching like a plowboy in the dirt. But you can’t do so, can you? A Papist,” she sneered. “You can’t purchase anything.”

  The sound of her footsteps made angry thumping toward the door. She flung it open and candlelight rushed into the shadowed hall.

  “Faelan,” she snapped, imperative, and waved him into the room.

  He went slowly, hating the violence in their voices, the way his mother breathed fast and uneven beneath the heavy braiding and shiny blue silk of her gown. His father looked tall and furious, barricaded behind the great polished width of his desk. He only glanced at Faelan and then back at her, his dark brows drawn down and his mouth fierce.

  “For God’s sake, woman, do you think I’ll have him subjected to our quarrels?” He came out from behind the desk and reached for the bellpull by the fire. In a kinder tone, he said, “To bed with you, son. ’Tis late—”

  “He has something to say.” His mother stepped between her husband and the dangling velvet, holding herself erect, trembling. “Listen to him, Francis.”

  His father’s hand dropped, a fall of white lace against his blue velvet coat. There was a look on his face that made Faelan’s fingers curl into nervous fists.

  “Faelan,” she said. “Tell your father what you told me this afternoon.”

  Faelan looked from her to his father, his throat too tense to manage words.

  “Go on,” his mother said. “The lines you bespoke me.” Her face was very white, her eyes bright and feverish as they had been that afternoon when she had consented to sing while he had practiced on his harp. She had even hugged him hard at the end of his performance—a thing she never did, a thing that made him feel hot and giddy with pleasure—though he knew she hated the instrument and his lessons, as she hated all of his father’s ideas. Faelan thought he must have played with particular excellence to deserve that attention, and in a burst of pride and confidence he had been eager to please her again by learning the catechism she’d brought him.

  In the Name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, he had memorized, I recant the Roman Catholic religion, for that is the way of damnation.

  It had been easy enough to learn. It sounded much like the things Father O’Coileain taught him—damnation being familiar enough, and “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” having the same awesome ring as “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” although “recant” was not a word he knew yet.

  He looked at his mother, and she smiled at him with that same quivering, nervous eagerness—that look that his fine new pony had when he restrained it before a challenging fence.

  He took a shaky breath, and began to recite.

  He faltered halfway into it, letting the huge silence swallow his thin voice as his father’s face grew flushed and terrible.

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” His father’s whisper was hoarse. Outraged. “Do you understand this?”

  Faelan blinked. He bit his lip, not knowing the right answer to that. To be ignorant—that was the first sin before his father, but it seemed now that knowledge was worse.

  His mother stepped behind Faelan, put her hands on his shoulders. He felt the brush of her stiff skirt against his back and legs. “He’s quite old enough to make his own decisions. Let him speak.”

  His father ignored her. In a low and frightening voice, he said, “You had best be sure you understand it, boy. Understand it well, for if you finish those lines, be certain that you’re no son of mine.”

  Faelan blinked, hearing the dire tone more than comprehending the words. He stood, caught between his parents, while his mother’s fingers hurt him, digging into his shoulders.

  “That’s not fair, Francis—”

  “Not fair!” His father made a furious move toward them. Faelan took a step back against his mother’s skirts, frightened of the wild look on his father’s face. He felt her accept that move, slide her hands across his body and forehead and pull him into her protectively.

  “Don’t touch us,” she hissed.

  “Not fair,” his father repeated with a sneer. “You speak of that, when ’tis you who taught him this abomination.”

  “I want what’s best for him!”

  “You want what’s best for yourself. ’Tis easy enough to see. You want your assemblies and your ball gowns and your theaters—”

  “Yes—I miss all that,” his mother cried. “Of course—when every happiness is denied me, when I’m locked in this great haunted prison, I wish for some small relief! I married you for love, Francis, in an Anglican church—against my parents, against my brother—against all those who knew best. I never thought you’d return to this Popish mummery and force me to waste away in a place that gives me nightmares—” She was weeping now, stroking and plucking at Faelan’s hair, her fingers shaking with her voice. “These strange servants and weird airs—’tis unchristian! ’Tis no work of God that makes music play in the dead of night—and the lights—that damned harp of yours—”

  His father glared. “Imagination,” he said sharply. “You let your nerves run away with you.”

  “I don’t! Oh, Francis—Come to me again, don’t make me stay alone.” She held out her hand. “I need you. I need you with me when it’s dark. It’s been so long, and I’m so afraid—”

  His father stared at her, the hard line of his mouth changing, weakening. He turned abruptly away. “I can’t. I know you, Christina. You’ll use it against me. You twist everything. Another child—How should I risk that, when already you bribe my son to damn what I teach him? How much worse if you had another pawn, to whisper in their ears that they might steal it all if they forswear their religion and their heritage?”

  “Francis—”

  “No.” His father gripped the curtain with white fingers.

  “All right,” his mother cried. “Live here like a monk, then! I’m taking him. My son won’t grow up in this place, surrounded by priestcraft and night hags.”

  “Your son!”

  “Mine. You said he was none of yours. The law will take him from you anyway, when he professes the Established Church.” She was pushing Faelan toward the door in a rush of stiff skirts. “My brother will be guardian—”

  His father cut off the words, grabbing her arm and dragging her around to face him. “By God, you forget yourself. You’re my wife—you won’t be stealing my own son from me.”

  “Freeing him! Look at him. Do you think he wants to stay with you? I’ve only given him the words to get away.”

  Backed into his mother’s skirts, Faelan looked up into his father’s eyes in a misery of confusion and fear. He hated it when they shouted, and this time was worse than ever before.

  “Is that true?” his father demanded. “Do you want to go away from here?”

  “No, sir,” he said quickly.

  “And that damned blasphemous oath she’s taught you—you won’t be mouthing that to any man?”

  Faelan swallowed and shook his head.

  “Faelan,” his mother wailed. “We can leave here. We can go away and be happy. He won’t be able to stop us. Just speak your lines to the vicar, and we’re free of this.”

  “Swear to me.” His father pulled him forward, both hands on his arms. “Swear to me you’ll never do so.”

  Faelan bobbed his head. “I swear, Papá.”

  “Oh, God!” His mother gave him a jerking shake. “You don’t know what you’re saying!”

  His father grabbed her wrists, shoving her hands away. For a moment they fought, his mother’s panting whimpers loud in the room’s quiet. But without effort, his father pulled her off and held her. Faelan saw her then, her face a mask of rage and frustration, like some cornered animal hissing in a trap.

  “Mamá,” he said, in muffled dismay.

  His father let her go, with an oath and a push, and swung away. And like an animal again she moved, reaching for the nearest thing, the heavy iron stand where the fire tongs hung. The tongs fell onto the hearth with a ringing clatter. Faelan watched in dumb fascination as she lifted the stand by its dragon-shaped head, looking dainty and small and impossibly weak against his father’s broad shoulder as he looked back. But her face—her face had nightmares in it, and the metal swung and his father fell, still turning, with a noise that went to Faelan’s bowels and wrenched them, and the black iron rose and came down again…

  He stood there, with his mouth slack and his mind blank. When it was finished she came to him and knelt, holding his face between her hands. “This is your fault. Do you hear me?” Her teeth showed as she spoke, like a vicious small dog’s, and there was nothing human, nothing of his mother in her voice. “You did this, Faelan. You should have listened to me.”

  Her fingers came away from his cheeks, sticky, darkening red. She looked down at her hands, and up at him. As if he were still a child, she tugged out his shirttail and wiped her fingers on it, and he stood there and let her, unable to move then, or later when she tipped the oil pot and spilled it across the floor and threw the candle down. Only when she grabbed his hand and dragged him from the rising flame did he move, tugged out the door and into the black hall.

  “Papá,” he whispered as the door slammed shut on the reddening glow. “Papá.”

  His mother yanked him behind her.

  Someone wept.

  He thought it should have been himself, but it was his mother, sitting on the ruin’s steps, curled and rocking like a child.

  Faelan looked at her, huddled and small and terrified, unwilling to look beyond to the bright figure that burned there.

  “I came,” the other said to him. “That night, when she left you—right there, at the edge of the drive. The fire she set was yet small. She went to Derrynane, to pretend she had not been here. Do you remember? I took you…elsewhere. I let you sleep in my arms.”

  Faelan raised his eyes. As if it were only a moment’s time, the memory came clear in his mind—a shining in the darkness, a voice like the wind. “Yes.” His man’s voice was hoarse, recalling a child’s anguish and a strange comfort. “I asked you to undo it
all.”

  She answered softly, “I did what I could. I made you forget.”

  “Kindness.” He leaned on the doorframe, seeking solidity, feeling the stone cold and hard against his spine. Still crazy, he thought. This is not real.

  But the memory of his father’s murder was a true one. That he knew.

  All those years, and finally he knew.

  He said, “Your kindness is a curse, sidhe.”

  She was sunlight and moonlight, and she shrugged like the blithest youth. “That is the way of it, sometimes.”

  He blinked at her, his eyes defeated by the taunting shimmer.

  Still crazy.

  “And the rest—” he said bitterly, to the threshold at his feet, because it was easier to look there. “All the other times. Have you been so kind as to make me forget every wickedness I’ve done in my life?”

  “That is another matter. Another trespass. Ask this one who weeps for it.”

  He looked up again, though his mother would not. She only curled tighter, moaning softly.

  Above her it seemed that the bright figure opened a palm, and a white blossom fell from it. Like a small wave breaking foam upon the shore, the luminous flowers sprang up from every crack in the pavement and spread across the hill. “Ask her what can be done with stolen perfume. She’s taken my flowers and made you sleep, my friend. Done murder in your name. The gentle things, the small creatures, grieve us most—tortured and sacrificed at her bidding. You were but a child then, and she would have you believe in your own madness.”

  He remembered those midnights, dragged up from sleep to stand in line before a hard-eyed master. Even now the sweat broke out on his palms, a child’s sick fear to see the blood on his nightclothes, to be sure that something hideous and alien lived inside his skin.

  Mamá, did you do that to me? Did you hate me so much?

  The bright one leaned on her horse’s shoulder, sliding her fingers through its shaggy mane. Where she combed, he thought strands of silver and gold grew in shining profusion, trailing out in the wind. “As for the rest…I cannot speak for human machinations. A draft of this to make you sleep, a note in your handwriting, a word of falsehood whispered to a foolish young girl…and when you wake, you wake miles from where you last remember. I think much evil can be done in such a way. But she can tell you.”