Den of Wolves

by Juliet Marillier

  The cloak, the walk, I managed just fine. The tears, not quite so well.

  25

  ~Cara~

  He’d left her at Winterfalls again. And this time people hadn’t even pretended they were pleased to have her there. Mhairi had lifted her brows and tightened her lips. Aedan the steward had been perfectly polite, but had seemed to have his mind on other things. It hadn’t helped that Father had blamed them, blamed the entire household, for not noticing she’d run away until quite late in the day. She’d got them all in trouble. For nothing. Her plan had been a disaster. Father hadn’t wanted to listen to her, even though she’d done her very best to find the words and get them out. He wasn’t interested in why she had done it. He just wanted to get rid of her again, even though in the night time when Gormán and Grim had brought her home he had hugged her and wept over her and told her he loved her. By morning that softness was gone, and she had found herself mute again. He hadn’t even let her go to the barn to say goodbye to Gormán and to thank Grim.

  Then there was the other thing, the thing that had happened after she fell down that hole. An accident, people had said. But it wasn’t an accident. A tiny voice had led her in, made her take one step too many. She hadn’t even tried to tell Father about that. She might have said something when they’d hauled her out of the hole, something only Gormán or Grim would have heard. She’d been dazed and exhausted, not watching her words. She didn’t think she’d told about the truly scary part, when those things had swarmed toward her as she climbed the rope, tearing her skirt with their claws. She’d lived that over and over last night in her dreams. Those tales that pictured the Otherworld as a place of delectable treats, of flowery meadows and pretty beings with gossamer wings, had it all wrong. If it hadn’t been for the birds . . .

  ‘Cara?’

  She flinched. Mhairi was at the door. And the cross little dog. Cara could hear its claws tap-tapping along the floor. She’d thought she would be safe in the prince’s library. With Prince Oran and Lady Flidais both away, who else would be in here?

  ‘Mistress Blackthorn’s here to see you,’ Mhairi said. ‘Come, Bramble! No dogs in the library.’ The sound of the door closing.

  ‘So, you’re back.’ Mistress Blackthorn’s voice was a little strange. She sounded as if she had a cold. But at least she didn’t talk as if Cara were a wayward child. Nor was she all soft sympathy and foolishness like some of them: Oh, you poor thing, lost in the woods all by yourself, as if she was weak and useless.

  ‘I’m back.’ Cara lifted her head from her folded arms and looked at her visitor. Blackthorn’s eyes were red. Her face looked puffy. ‘Are you all right, Mistress Blackthorn?’

  The healer came to sit opposite Cara at the long work table. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she retorted. ‘You’re the one who’s been in trouble, or so I’m led to believe. I knew nothing about it until your father came knocking on my door not long ago.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I was in Longwater most of yesterday and all last night. I didn’t get home until this morning. I missed the whole thing.’ Blackthorn’s expression softened a little. ‘I’m glad you’re safe, Cara.’

  ‘Mm. It didn’t work, though. He brought me straight back. As you see. And I’m not allowed to go outside without Mhairi and a guard.’

  ‘I’d tell you I’m sorry, but it sounds as if he has his reasons. Perhaps good ones. May I ask you a question?’

  Cara nodded. She could imagine what it might be: Why did you do it when you’d promised me you wouldn’t? Where did you go, all that time? Didn’t you say you never got lost in the home forest? But Blackthorn didn’t ask any of those.

  ‘Did you see Grim?’

  Cara nodded.

  ‘Was he . . . No, never mind.’

  ‘Grim and Gormán found me. At least, the dog found me, Grim’s dog, and then they rescued me. With a rope.’

  ‘A rope! Where were you? What happened?’

  Cara had not thought she would tell all of it to anyone. Her father and Aunt Della had heard the part about falling down a deep hole and being trapped, and about climbing the rope to get out. But she hadn’t told them about the things down there, the voices, what they’d offered and the other things they’d said. Your whole life is a lie. How could she tell Father that? But she wanted to tell Blackthorn. Blackthorn would know what to do. She might even know what those things were.

  ‘If I tell you what happened will you promise not to say I was dreaming or making things up?’

  ‘You know me, Cara. You shouldn’t need to ask me that.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Her voice had shrunk down; the words were retreating down her throat, hiding away.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. Just tell the story. Take your time.’ Blackthorn fished in her pouch, brought something out. ‘Borrow this. Hold it while you’re talking, it might help. Not a charm exactly, but at the very least good luck. Remember that Grim made it, and Grim loves truth.’

  The little hedgehog. Cara wrapped her fingers around it. The oak warmed up in her hand. ‘I spoke to him,’ she whispered. ‘Grim, I mean. Just for a bit. When they got me out. I could talk to him.’

  Blackthorn smiled, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t tell Cara to hurry up and get on with it, simply sat quietly waiting.

  So Cara told the story. All of it, from being up in the yew and deciding to make a run for it, to this morning, when her father had brought her back to Winterfalls and left her, just like last time. All of it, including falling down the hole and being stuck there with those things tormenting her. Your whole life is a lie. It was a lie from the moment you were born. And something about the heartwood house, why he was building it. Your father’s a liar. You’re a pretender. She told about holding on to the oak roots and knowing the tree would protect her for long enough to get out. And then the rescue.

  ‘I can’t tell Father any of that part,’ she said. ‘What happened down there, I mean. I can’t tell anyone but you, Mistress Blackthorn. What could those folk have meant about a lie? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor do I, Cara.’ Blackthorn had a different look in her eye now, as if she were trying to work something out. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘Father did explain some things. About the men doing the building and why I can’t stay there. It made sense while he was saying it, sort of. Him wanting to keep me safe, and not liking me to be up there while the builders are working. He said he’d promised my mother he’d never let anything bad happen to me.’

  ‘Mm-hm. He told me that too.’

  ‘Only I’ve been thinking about it. He’s got Gormán there. Gormán’s big and strong and Father knows he’d protect me against anything. And now there’s Grim too. Even bigger and stronger. What sort of builders is he getting, trolls or giants?’

  Blackthorn grinned. Cara felt like smiling back, only her mouth wasn’t quite ready to do it yet. ‘I was wondering,’ she said, ‘if that wild man is one of them.’

  Blackthorn didn’t answer straight away. She seemed to be thinking. Then she said, ‘What wild man, Cara?’

  ‘I told you. Didn’t I? The day before Father sent me away the first time, I saw a wild man looking at the heartwood house. And then looking at me. Gormán made me go straight back to the house, the big house, I mean. I wondered if that had something to do with Father not wanting me at Wolf Glen. If that man stayed, if he was working for Father . . . I don’t know. I’m just guessing. Did Grim say anything about who was doing the building?’

  ‘Not much,’ Blackthorn said. ‘Your father put some rules on what could be said and what couldn’t. Unusually strict rules.’

  ‘Mistress Blackthorn?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Those were Otherworld beings, weren’t they? Those voices down the bottom of the hole?’

  ‘I don’t see what else they could have been, since I doubt very much that the whole thing existed only
in your mind. Though you’re right; if you told most folk this tale that is exactly the explanation they would offer. Not because they don’t believe in the uncanny, but because they are afraid of it. As it seems your father is.’

  ‘No, he isn’t! Father’s not afraid of anything!’

  ‘Stop and think for a moment, Cara. Why else is he so determined to build the heartwood house? Why is it so very important to him that it be finished quickly and completely? Why would he –’ Blackthorn stopped herself. ‘Never mind that.’

  ‘Why would he what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Tell me! I’m tired of folk holding things back! I thought you, of all people, would be honest with me.’

  ‘You are quick to defend your father from criticism, despite his unreasonable treatment of you. I do have some more to tell, but if I go ahead, it could make him angry. Not with you. With Grim, for betraying a secret. And with me, for passing it on.’

  ‘Something about the wild man.’

  ‘Something about him, yes. He has a name: Bardán.’

  ‘Bardán. Go on.’

  ‘This story does not show your father in a good light, Cara. I’m telling you in confidence, as Grim told me. And I would ask that you hear me out calmly.’

  ‘All right.’

  Mistress Blackthorn told how the wild man, Bardán, had been hired to build the heartwood house the first time. How he was the only person who knew how to do it. According to what Grim had heard, Bardán had been taught the skills by his father who, if rumour was to be believed, had grown up in the Otherworld and become a craftsman of almost uncanny talents. He’d fallen in love with a half-fey woman and the two of them had escaped that realm together. They’d had a son, and that was Bardán.

  It was possible, Blackthorn said, that the fey held a grudge against him and his. They might have felt they were owed something in exchange for those two going free.

  What had happened next, Blackthorn did not know. But it seemed Bardán had begun building the heartwood house, then gone away abruptly with the job half-finished. There was an old tale that said a heartwood house conferred a whole range of blessings, as long as it was built the right way. If not, it seemed the opposite might happen. Father had been angry.

  ‘How long ago was that?’ Cara asked, while a trickle of ice went down her spine. ‘Before or after my mother died?’

  ‘I must assume it was before,’ Blackthorn said. ‘I have heard that Master Tóla believed she might have survived if the heartwood house had been finished when he intended. If the builder had not suddenly downed tools and gone away.’

  ‘But –’ No, she could not say it. Would her father, so strong, such a leader, let superstition get the better of his good judgement?

  ‘It seems he came back. Bardán, I mean. Many years later. That day, when you saw him looking at the heartwood house and your father decided to send you away, was probably the first time Bardán had set eyes on the place in years. Where he’d been, why he went off and why he came back, I could only guess at. Grim knows more than I do, and he has a theory. But it’s only conjecture. What is fact, Cara, is that your father needs Bardán there to tell Grim how to build the heartwood house – Bardán can’t do the work himself as he has crippled hands now. But your father doesn’t trust him at all. I would say he fears Bardán, if I didn’t think it might spark an angry denial from you. I imagine it hurts to discover that your father is not the perfect man you have always believed him to be. The fact is, Tóla has been treating Bardán poorly. Unfairly. Sometimes cruelly.’

  ‘He wouldn’t –’

  ‘Grim has seen it. And Grim doesn’t lie.’

  Tears stung Cara’s eyes. She brushed them away, furious with herself, with her father, with Blackthorn for saying this, with the way everything had gone awry since the day that man, Bardán, had appeared at Wolf Glen. Why did he have to come back and turn everything upside down? It wasn’t fair.

  ‘I’ve found,’ Blackthorn said quietly, ‘that when I’m really angry, a brew helps. I might ask Fíona to send us something. And food with it. It feels like a long time since breakfast.’

  ‘How can that do any good?’ The words came out in a ferocious undertone, and Cara felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, Mistress Blackthorn. It’s just – it’s just –’

  Blackthorn went over to the door, stuck her head out, spoke to someone, came back in. ‘I’m not making light of your distress, Cara. The brew’s as much for me as for you. Your father’s just given me the news that Grim will be staying up there night and day until the building’s finished, and that upset me more than I’d have expected.’

  ‘Oh.’ How odd. Blackthorn was such a strong person, so confident and sure of herself. And old – more than thirty, Cara guessed. People of that age didn’t have tender feelings. Especially people like Blackthorn. Most folk were a bit scared of the wise woman. Everyone treated her with respect. It was hard to think of her being upset over a man. If that was what she meant. ‘I can come over to Dreamer’s Wood and keep you company,’ she said. ‘So you won’t be on your own. Maybe they’d let me stay over there.’ That would be so much better than being cooped up here. They weren’t letting her go anywhere outside on her own.

  ‘Most unlikely, I’m afraid,’ Blackthorn said. ‘I understand your father’s set new limits on your freedom. He did say he was happy for you to visit me. But I’m sure he’d want you safely within these walls at night.’ She went quiet for a bit, then said, ‘I didn’t get the chance to speak to Lady Flidais before she left. But she left me a message. An invitation to come and stay here for a while. She had in mind that I might be company for you, I think. Or that my presence might deter you from trying to run away.’ She grimaced.

  ‘Or that you might be safer,’ Cara said. ‘They have those other guards here now, did you know? Those men with the . . .’ She waved a hand around her face.

  ‘They do? Men from Swan Island?’

  ‘Them, yes. I’ve seen four of them today already. Standing watch with the ordinary guards or patrolling the boundaries.’

  Blackthorn had gone ashen white. She was not behaving like herself today at all.

  ‘It’s probably nothing much,’ Cara said. ‘It’s just because some of the prince’s guards have gone to court.’

  ‘What? Oh. Yes, I suppose so.’ Blackthorn sounded shaken.

  There was a knock at the door, and a maidservant came in with a tray. A jug of something, two cups, a small platter of honey cakes. Since Blackthorn didn’t seem to have seen the woman, Cara said, ‘Thank you. Please put it on the table.’ There was probably a rule about valuable books and sticky fingers, but nobody had said anything, and she had enough common sense to keep the two apart. She realised she had just spoken aloud to a stranger and managed to make herself understood.

  The maidservant went out. Cara poured what proved to be ale, passed Blackthorn a cake, considered what came next. She had hoped for an explanation of those strange voices; some wise guidance, maybe, for dealing with her father and the odd story of the heartwood house. But Blackthorn was just sitting there. She’d taken one bite of her food and one drink from her cup, and she hadn’t said anything for ages. And she was shivering. It was as if there was a storm all around her, but nobody else could see it.

  Cara got up. Took off her shawl, walked around the table and draped it over Blackthorn’s shoulders. ‘Something’s wrong,’ she said. ‘You can tell me, if it’ll help.’

  Blackthorn gave a kind of snorting sound. Cara could hear words in that sound: You, help me? How could you help? You’re only a child.

  It was like a slap in the face. A slap, and feeling the ground wobble under her feet at the same time. Cara wished she could roll up like a hedgehog, behind her defensive prickles, and forget the rest of the world. Nobody listened to her. Not even Blackthorn. Nobody cared. She didn’t fit at home and she didn’t fit her
e. She was a . . . In her mind, the voices chanted their cruel ditty. You’re a pretender, pretender, pretender.

  ‘Cara?’

  Her lips closed themselves together. Her words sank down deep.

  ‘Cara, I wasn’t laughing at you. I respect your offer of help. But there’s a lot of my story that you don’t know; things almost nobody knows. Things that are too dark and evil to tell anyone, let alone a young woman like yourself. I’m ill-tempered and out of sorts today, and I’m sorry. Even at good times I’m not the kindest and gentlest of folk. You know that already.’

  It was possible to nod. To take a sip of the ale. Not to speak; not yet.

  ‘I’ll consider moving over here for a bit,’ Blackthorn said. ‘I don’t enjoy living among a lot of folk, but I can do my work from this household, and if one of the farm cottages is empty, I’ll ask Aedan if I can have that. I draw the line at sleeping in the women’s quarters. You could stay with me or here in the main house. Provided Aedan agrees. I imagine he and Fíona are in charge of all the arrangements until the prince gets home.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cara managed. Her voice came out as a croak, but that was better than nothing. She took another mouthful of ale, thinking up the right words for a question she had to ask. ‘Mistress Blackthorn?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I’m sure there’s something more going on. Not just what Father said, about the men doing the building. Something complicated. Something old.’ She waited for Blackthorn to snort again, or laugh, or dismiss the idea.

  ‘Go on,’ Blackthorn said.

  ‘Only I can’t do anything about it. Not if I’m stuck here. But – Mistress Blackthorn – those voices I heard in that underground place – whatever those creatures were, they seemed to know all sorts of things. It’s as if they’ve been watching for ages, years and years. Not just all my life, but before that. Maybe not only watching but . . . meddling.’