Den of Wolves

by Juliet Marillier

  Grim, I thought. What if Grim came back? What if I had reason to go up to Wolf Glen within those few days? I couldn’t not tell Grim. Especially if this turned out to be what I thought it might be. And what about Conmael? ‘Ségán?’

  ‘Yes, Mistress Blackthorn?’

  ‘There’s a man mentioned in those papers. My friend, who came north with me.’

  ‘Safe at Wolf Glen, working, is that right?’

  He knew everything. ‘He’s there at present. What you said about keeping this secret – he should know. About what is planned. What might be planned.’

  ‘Safer, for now, if he does not know. When Prince Oran returns, you may ask him about it. Now I’d better let you go. Do not forget what I said. Not a word to anyone. Not even the most trusted members of the household. And if you need to go anywhere outside the walls, speak to me and I will arrange an escort. Anywhere, Mistress Blackthorn, you understand? Even a short trip to the settlement or back to your own house. What we have here is not only invaluable, it puts you at considerable risk.’

  ‘Really?’ My voice cracked. Now surely he was telling lies. ‘Crimes against ordinary folk, folk without a voice, folk without the means to stand up for themselves, weighing anything at all alongside the invasion of another man’s territory and the sacking of his household?’

  ‘In a council of the usual kind this might bear relatively little weight. But we are not speaking of such a council. Will you entrust these pages to me until tomorrow, Mistress Blackthorn? In the morning you and I should sit down with them and go through everything in detail. And then we will find a safer hiding place.’

  Morrigan’s curse. I must have blanched, because he said, ‘Cúan, take Mistress Blackthorn to the kitchen, will you, and ask Brid to find her some food and drink.’

  ‘I believe I’m still capable of walking along the hallway and getting my own food,’ I said, rising to my feet and finding the room was indeed swirling around me in a distinctly odd fashion. ‘And I don’t think you said anything about needing an escort inside the house.’

  ‘You’re white as a sheet, Mistress Blackthorn.’ Cúan was beside me, offering an arm to steady me. ‘Let me help you, please.’

  Rather than make a liar of myself by fainting away, I took his arm and let him escort me out. I sat quietly before the kitchen fire for a while, drank some ale and ate a wedge of mutton pie, then returned to the farm cottage I was sharing with Cara. I wasn’t entirely happy to leave my testament with Ségán. But if the Island men were all he had claimed, perhaps it would be safest in their custody.

  33

  ~Cara~

  Mistress Blackthorn came in looking pale and tired. But bright-eyed all the same. As if something had changed; something big. Maybe she’d been to see Grim. Maybe she’d even seen Father, and Cara could ask if he was well.

  She’d been lying on her shelf bed, thinking of home. She sat up, and Blackthorn started. ‘Oh. You’re here,’ the wise woman said. Her voice was cold and so, now, was her face. Cold and furious.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Cara tried to ask, only the words wouldn’t come out, not properly, and Blackthorn was too angry to hear anyway. Cara got up and wrapped her shawl around herself, tightly.

  Mistress Blackthorn didn’t say anything else. Only went to the storage chest and got out some clothes. The ones she was wearing were wet. It would be right to offer help. To build up their little fire. To make a brew. But Cara’s feet were putting down roots.

  Blackthorn slammed the lid shut.

  ‘Mistress Blackthorn?’ Cara whispered.

  She might as well not have been there. Blackthorn didn’t even bother to go out the back, just stripped off all her clothes and dropped them on the floor. There were scars on her body, old ones. As if she’d been beaten badly. Don’t stare, Cara, came the voice of Aunt Della, and Cara looked down at the floor instead. She thought about her aunt, because right now that felt safer than thinking about why Blackthorn was so angry. She thought of all those years Aunt Della had spent caring for her. What sort of life would her aunt have had if she had not come to help them after Cara’s mother died? Cara had never thought about this before, and now that felt rather shameful. Maybe Aunt Della would have married and had children of her own. Or maybe she would have done something quite different. Been an independent woman with her own household. Become a master of some craft. Bred dogs or sheep or pigs. Instead, she had given her life to Cara.

  Mistress Blackthorn was dressed now, warm in gown and shawl and soft slippers, with her hair making a bright, tangled halo around her face. She still looked stony as she took her wet garments out the back. Cara made herself move; filled the kettle from the bucket of clean water and set it on the fire. Fetched two cups and some herbs for a brew. Chamomile and lavender were what Blackthorn used when someone was upset.

  The wise woman sat down by the fire. Not relaxed. Tight in the body and dour in the face. She didn’t say a word until the brew was made and Cara had passed her a cup. Then she spoke at last. ‘You told them.’

  ‘W–wha . . .?’ Cara’s voice ran away like a rabbit before the fox.

  ‘You told them about my document. Ségán and his men. You told them where I’d hidden it.’

  ‘I –’ That look on her face, as if Cara were the lowest scum she’d ever seen in her life. It was a look to freeze a person’s insides. Her voice was hard as iron. Cara wanted to say, That isn’t fair. She wanted to say, I’m sorry, even though whatever had happened with the Island men was not her fault. She hadn’t told them. She’d done her best to explain that the notebook was private and so was any other writing Mistress Blackthorn might have been doing. But she was scared now, scared of her trusted friend, and that was so terrible she couldn’t speak a single word. She made a sort of gesture, trying to explain that she would talk if she could.

  ‘As it happens,’ Blackthorn said, studying the cup in her hands, ‘the Island men appear to be allies rather than enemies. But this could have led to disaster, Cara. It could have been the end for me and for Grim if that document had got into the wrong hands. As it is, it seems there is no lasting harm done, though this has put me in a very awkward position with Prince Oran. What I cannot forgive is your betrayal of my trust.’

  It was too much. She was supposed to be a friend. She had been a friend. And she was wrong to accuse Cara, quite wrong! All she’d done was tell those men Blackthorn had been writing her own notes, and she’d tried hard not to do even that. Besides, Blackthorn had never actually said her document was secret. And Cara had always looked away when she hid it.

  Blackthorn had her eyes on Cara again. She made her own gesture, as if she were writing. Ah. The wax tablet. When a person couldn’t speak, they could always write. And, fortunately, both tablet and stylus were here in their quarters.

  Cara fetched them and wrote: I did not betray a secret. I told Ségán you’d been making notes, but only when he pressed me for answers. I never said where they were or what they were. I didn’t know that myself. Please don’t be angry. It makes my chest hurt. It makes my words go away.

  For a long while, then, Mistress Blackthorn sat staring into the flames or studying her cup as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Cara sat too, thinking how often she had got things wrong. Why couldn’t she do something good, like discovering the heartwood house story hidden away in some obscure place? Then Mistress Blackthorn would tell her how clever she was, how good at solving puzzles.

  ‘Tell me what happened, Cara,’ Blackthorn said now, sounding tired and sad. ‘I’m not angry anymore. I didn’t mean to scare you. I believe I’ve misjudged you and if that is so I’m sorry. Take it slowly and don’t leave anything out. If you need to write, write.’

  Cara tried to speak. She still couldn’t get the words out. But she didn’t want to write this, she needed to say it out loud. She pointed to her cup, which was still half-full.

&nbs
p; ‘A good idea,’ said Mistress Blackthorn. ‘Let’s have this first, then talk. Oh, I have something to show you. I went up to Wolf Glen today. Had a word with Grim.’ Her face softened as she said this; thinking of him changed her. ‘And with your father.’

  ‘Oh! How is Father? Is he well?’ Cara spoke aloud without even thinking.

  Mistress Blackthorn gave her a funny look. ‘He looked well enough, though he didn’t have much time for me. I asked for the materials for a talisman and he sent your aunt to find them. She brought these. You can tell me if they’re suitable.’

  She must have laid the little items on her bed while she was changing her clothes. Now she fetched them and put them on the table near Cara.

  ‘That is from a tunic Father used to wear when high-born folk visited us,’ Cara said, picking up the scrap of dark blue silken fabric. ‘It got so worn out that Aunt Della couldn’t mend it anymore, and he was sad. It was his favourite. This is hers. Aunt Della’s.’ She remembered the woven edging, twisted wool of green and brown, on a cloak her aunt used to wear. ‘This one . . . I don’t recognise it. Was it my mother’s?’ This piece looked older than the others, the cloth so worn it was almost in holes. It would have been delicate even when new: a summer fabric in soft rose.

  ‘That’s what your aunt said. I didn’t ask her what the garment was. A shift, maybe. I wish I knew how the dyer obtained that colour. How about that one?’ Blackthorn pointed to the strip of leather that lay beside the other tokens.

  Cara felt a smile spread across her face. ‘Gormán?’

  ‘Correct.’ Blackthorn did not smile back at her. She wasn’t angry anymore. But she wasn’t happy either. What had happened with her manuscript had really upset her. If this had been someone else, Cara would have said it had frightened her. But Mistress Blackthorn wasn’t scared of anything.

  ‘Did you see Grim?’ Cara asked.

  ‘I saw him, yes. Not for as long as I’d have liked. Your father doesn’t give his workers much time off. And I visited some other people. In Longwater.’

  ‘That woman with the baby.’

  ‘Fann, yes, and her mother, and some other folk.’ A silence, as if she was thinking hard. ‘Cara?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know a young man called Fedach? A farmer’s son, from a place near Longwater?’

  ‘You mean that boy with the . . .’ There was only one farmer’s son Cara had ever spoken to in Longwater, and she remembered him well. But she didn’t know his name. Maybe he’d told her what it was, that first day when he’d come over to talk to her while Gormán was busy on the loading jetty. But if he had, she’d forgotten.

  ‘With the what? Sweet smile? Nice manners? Bright eyes?’

  Cara could feel a blush rising. Ridiculous, she hardly knew the boy. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I visited the household where he lives. Met his mother. He mentioned you.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Now Blackthorn did smile, a nice smile that lit up her face. ‘Only good things, Cara. He thinks a great deal of you. Did you know he once lived at Wolf Glen for a while?’

  ‘No! When?’

  ‘Let’s make another brew first, then I’ll tell you about it.’

  She made a point of showing Cara the right proportions for chamomile and lavender. ‘You could add a pinch of mint if you like,’ she said. ‘It livens up the flavour and helps give folk heart.’

  Cara wondered who needed heart most, herself or Mistress Blackthorn. ‘But at bed time, skip the mint?’

  ‘Correct. I’ll make a herbalist of you yet.’

  ‘That’s for Emer,’ Cara said. ‘While she’s being a wise woman, I suppose I’ll be at Wolf Glen, being a sort of farmer. Unless Father makes me marry someone who doesn’t want to live there.’

  ‘However your life unfolds,’ Blackthorn said after a bit, ‘I hope you will be happy, Cara. Now let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you something about this lad, Fedach. Who will one day be a farmer and a horse breeder like his own father, provided his life takes a straight path.’

  ‘I hardly know him,’ she said a bit too quickly. ‘I’ve only met him twice.’

  ‘You made a big impression, then.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘How could he have lived at Wolf Glen without my knowing? He’s only about the same age as me.’

  ‘He was a tiny baby. His mother went there as a wet-nurse. Your parents hired her.’

  ‘But . . .’ Cara tried to work it out. Tried to remember what she’d been told about her mother and the brief time when the two of them had both been alive. ‘I don’t think that can be right,’ she said. ‘How long does a baby need a wet-nurse? When do they start eating real food?’

  Mistress Blackthorn smiled. ‘There’s nothing more real than mother’s milk. A baby lives on that alone for maybe six turnings of the moon. Most women go on feeding their infants far longer, but at that age they can start on what you call real food as well, thin porridge and suchlike. And they can drink goat’s milk.’

  ‘Then the story must be wrong. I wasn’t born at Wolf Glen. My mother went away to her kinsfolk for the birth. We didn’t come home until I was getting on for a year old. So I couldn’t have been nursed along with Fedach.’

  ‘Cara.’ Blackthorn’s voice had gone really serious. Something bad was coming, Cara knew it. Some kind of secret, and not a nice one about a boy thinking kindly of her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have something to tell you. I wasn’t going to. Not yet, anyway. But I’m growing sick of lies and secrets and pretence. Especially after what’s happened today, with Ségán’s men and the wretched document. I misjudged you before. I treated you like a child. But you’re a grown woman now, and you need to hear this.’

  What could she be talking about? ‘All right,’ Cara said.

  ‘Before I start,’ said Blackthorn, ‘I want you to remember what I said about possibly getting other folk into trouble. Your father has made it very clear, for a long time now, that he doesn’t want his personal business spread abroad. He’s kept some other folk’s business secret too. As you’ve worked out for yourself, there’s something about the story of your first year that doesn’t add up. I don’t have the whole answer to that, but I do have some of it. If you decide to pursue it further you’ll need to tread carefully. A number of folk could be in serious trouble over it, including me and Grim.’

  ‘And Fedach?’ Cara’s voice was fading away. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘And his mother?’

  ‘His mother, certainly, since I made a guess at the truth after speaking with her. Probably not Fedach, since this was long ago.’ Blackthorn took a deep breath, as if she needed to pluck up courage before she could say whatever it was. ‘Cara, it’s to do with building the heartwood house.’

  ‘So what is it? What do you need to tell me?’ Her heart was thumping.

  ‘There was another baby. You know already that Bardán was hired by your father to build the heartwood house, the first time. He was a widower with an infant daughter. Fedach’s mother came up from Longwater to feed that child as well as her own.’

  ‘Oh. So it wasn’t me after all.’

  ‘It was Bardán’s daughter. But there’s another story. A story in which, after only three turnings of the moon, that little girl died. Suanach was by then with child herself, though not visibly so, and she chose to travel away to her kinsfolk for the pregnancy and confinement, returning home with her baby girl after, by my reckoning, about six turnings of the moon. Your mother died within a season of coming back to Wolf Glen.’

  Your father’s a liar, a liar, a liar. ‘Wait,’ Cara said, frantically trying to add it all up and failing. ‘But – no, but –’

  ‘If that were true,’ Blackthorn said, and the gentle tone of her voice scared Cara, ‘the story about Suanach
going away to give birth, I mean, you would have been a tiny babe in arms when you came home. And you might indeed have needed a wet-nurse. But I’ve heard, from someone who was present at the time, that on the day you arrived home you were starting to walk. That suggests to me a child getting on for a year old.’

  ‘No.’ What was Mistress Blackthorn saying, that Cara was not her parents’ daughter at all? That she had been switched with the builder’s daughter? ‘You mean that wild man? You’re saying he is my father? That can’t be true!’ She grasped at a possible lifeline. ‘Anyway, didn’t that baby die?’

  ‘That’s how the story goes, yes. They say he took her from the house and went out into the forest and abandoned her. But the only people who ever saw her body were your father and Gormán. I’m sorry, Cara. This is a lot for you to take in.’

  Ah. It was all right after all. ‘Gormán wouldn’t tell a lie,’ Cara said. ‘If he said that baby died it must be true. And my father wouldn’t lie.’ Your whole life is a lie. ‘Why would he?’

  ‘Only he could tell you that. I could put forward a theory, but it’s best if I don’t. In a matter as sensitive as this we need to stick to facts. Cara, experience has taught me that people do strange things for love, and these are two men who love you dearly. Both your father and Gormán want the best for you. They want to keep you safe, and perhaps shielding you from this story is part of that. You are Master Tóla’s only child and heir to a considerable holding. You have wealth, security, a good future ahead. You have people who care about you. Many folk would say it was foolish to risk that.’

  Cara felt sick. She couldn’t take it all in. This had to be wrong. She knew she was her father’s daughter, she just knew it. You’re a pretender, pretender, pretender. ‘If this was right, I wouldn’t – the forest, the trees – I couldn’t –’

  Blackthorn came over to sit beside her. She put her arm around Cara’s shoulders. ‘You need time to think about all this,’ she said. ‘It’s for you to choose what to do about it after that. You may decide to ignore the whole thing. You may discount it as wild speculation. I’m sure that’s what your father would want. He would be angry if he knew I had discovered this, and even more furious if he knew I had passed it on to you.’