‘Doesn’t matter. You have to do it now. The animal must be more than two years old by now. If you wait much longer it won’t be masterable.’
‘I won’t be here. I…’
‘Listen. Once he’s yours he’s yours, but you need to do it while he’s young.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘And of course, when he’s young he’s got less chance of killing you.’
That went right over my head. I was too excited. ‘Tonight!’
He smiled, a little sadly. ‘When else?’
* * *
What a night it was, the sky so frosted with stars it hardly mattered there was no moon. I sat behind Conal on his black horse, holding onto his waist, and now that it was so close I was almost mad with the hunger for a horse like this one. Conal seemed in no hurry; I wanted to race at the gallop, but he kept his black to an easy canter. I craned my head back to look up into the Milky Way, dizzy with the distance and splendour of it. Night air is different; it tastes younger, newer, darker. Fill your lungs with it, and you fill your lungs with night. Riding to the Dubh Loch that night I felt my innards cold and keen and hungry for life, and I thought that perhaps after all a man could live forever.
The black slowed to a halt when we were still half a mile or so from the water’s dark lapping edge, hooves squelching in marshy ground. I slid off before Conal did, and he had to send a brusque order into my head to stop me charging ahead of him.
I paused reluctantly, looked back at him, and then towards the loch that glimmered between slopes of bleached scree and scrappy heather. I could hear the soft slap of tiny waves on a pebbled shore, the hiss and suck of water between rocks. As I drew closer it was a breath of wind in the rattling reeds I heard. And the scrape of a hoof on wet stone, and the scatter of silver droplets as a mane was shaken dry, and the questioning snort of fierce breath in the stillness.
Don’t know why Conal was so hesitant. The creature’s hide glowed like a pearl in the starlight, and I knew before it raised its head from its lochside grazing that it had heard us coming, but it was entirely unafraid. It looked unthreatening, unthreatened. Its jaws crunched round tough grass from the lochside, and as its tongue came out to lick its lips I glimpsed its canines. Eyes watched us, black and featureless. The empty stare might have been unnerving, but for the way it lowered its head and whickered, flicked its tail and shook its black mane once more, playful and confident. Its face was black too, and its long still-coltish legs. You couldn’t see its true colour in the night; its neck and shoulders and flanks were all starlight and phosphorescence. Beautiful. My horse was beautiful.
‘Careful,’ said Conal.
‘Yes.’ My fingers clutched the bridle so hard I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to unfreeze them. ~ What do I do?
‘You speak openly, for a start. It’ll hear your thoughts anyway.’
‘Not very straightforward, this, is it?’
‘Where would the fun be otherwise? Now give me the bridle. It’s no use to you yet. And don’t let the horse go into the water, that’s the main thing.’
‘Don’t let it go in the water,’ I echoed, as he eased the bridle from my fingers.
‘If you go into the water you’re dead. Now, listen. You’re not taming it, you’re offering it an exchange. You’re offering yourself and you’re taking its freedom.’
‘Like a binding,’ I said.
Conal suppressed his laughter. ‘Not unlike it. But different. It’s a horse, for gods’ sake.’
I glanced at him and grinned, but the horse can’t have liked me turning away from it. It gave an exasperated snort, shook its head, so that I looked back. Gently it tilted its head. It looked a bit like an invitation.
‘Find its mind, that’s the thing,’ said Conal. ‘Find its mind, stay there, stay on.’
‘Stay on?’
‘You have to get on it, of course.’
I swallowed hard. ‘I have to get on it.’ I knew how flat my voice sounded, and I was ashamed of myself. What had I expected? To bridle a water-horse and lead it back tame to a stall in the dun? I found Conal’s eyes again.
He smiled, swung the bridle lightly at his side. ‘There’s nothing like it,’ he said.
* * *
Smooth skin under my palm. The opalescent shine of its hide as I drew my hand across its neck and the hairs flattened, then sprang back. Warm blowing breath on my neck, the tickle of its muzzle as it nipped gently at my cropped hair. The cry of a night bird.
Its heartbeat beneath my hand as I slid my hand down its shoulder to rest against its chest. The ripple of muscle, the quiver of flesh as I touched its withers. Its heartbeat, fast and strong. Another heartbeat echoing. Mine.
Its warmth, leaning into me. My weight shifting, the sudden light spring and scramble, and then, for a moment, my arms around its powerful neck, loving the sheer strength and beauty of it.
And then insanity.
Nothing else on earth could have moved so fast. Night air swamped my lungs as it bolted forward, and I looped my fingers tightly through its silky mane, holding on in the sheer fear of death. I made myself pant out my breath, breathe in again. Impossibly powerful beneath me, the horse pelted for the hillside on the dark north shore of the black loch. If my heart beat any harder my chest would explode. Find its mind? I could barely find my own.
The angle of the slope seemed to slow it hardly at all. Its strong forelegs ate up the hillside like a racetrack, and I could feel the strength of its haunches driving us forward. Gods, even if I died tonight I wouldn’t have missed this, not for anything.
When the creature reached the crest of the hill, I saw the whole moor and the hills spread out beneath me, the jagged broken curve of the earth at the horizon. I couldn’t get off the horse. I didn’t want to. Plunging, swerving, it swivelled its head to enjoy my awe and my terror. Its jaws opened in a knowing grin, and the canines flashed again. And then, impossibly, it sprang down the precipitous slope, straight for the dark water and its lair.
~ Murlainn!
Conal’s cry came into my head, crystal clear as the night. An unfamiliar name, but I knew it, I’d always known it. The joy of recognition drove the panic straight from my head, and instead of fighting the horse I clamped my heels into its sides and drove it on.
I felt its utter surprise, its brief jolting hesitation. Then it was flying down the hill again and I was flying with it, both of us plummeting like a hawk towards oblivion. Its hooves scattered stones and earth and the scree rolled, but it kept its footing. For a wild moment I thought it had left the slithering, treacherous ground, that it was airborne. Tightening my grip on its mane I leaned forward to press my cheek to its muscled neck, and let my mind go. And in that instant I found the beast’s.
I found it. I knew it. I recognised it. So much hunger, so much violence. Such inchoate longing. I know you.
Its hooves slammed into the solid lochside ground and it lunged towards the silver line of the water, but I pressed my mind into the horse’s, turned it, slowly turned it. We swerved just as we reached the pebbled shore. It struck the stones like Raineach’s hammer on raw iron, noisy with sparks. Then we were back on the moor, and its hooves were dull thunder. I loved it. Its heart was mine. I was on its back outracing the wind and we were one.
* * *
‘I told you there was nothing like it.’ Conal held out the bridle to me.
I slid off the roan’s back, keeping my hand laced into its mane. I was shaking. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t let go of it. I didn’t want to let go of it, ever.
Overhearing, Conal guffawed. ‘You can’t, believe me. Now give it its bridle.’
I held my breath as I fumbled the straps over its black head, but it only snorted fondly, accepting the bit like a child’s well-schooled pony. I kept looking at it, taking my time buckling the throatlash, as I said, ‘Conal. My name.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know it before?’
‘Of course not. I’d have told you. Do you like it?’
I still didn’t look at him, but I grinned.
‘Me too,’ he said, and laughed. ‘I’m a bloody sheepdog. You’re a small if deadly falcon. Ya wee bandit.’
* * *
I had my name. I had my horse. Life could be no better. If it wasn’t for tomorrow…
Suddenly I needed to share it all. I needed Orach, I needed her to know my name, I was hungry for her and not just physically. I needed my friend, my lover, before we were separated for the gods knew how long. How long would Conal have to be Captain of his dun before Kate would trust him? How many years was I going to have to live underground like a worm?
Still, even that prospect couldn’t squash my spirits tonight. When Conal and I finally tired of racing one another’s horses along the lochside, I slipped the bridle off the roan and let it loose, and rode home at Conal’s back again. I couldn’t take the creature to Kate’s fortress, after all; it wouldn’t be fair on a wild thing. Besides, like all its kind it had the combination of savage loyalty, unpredictability and utter violence that would have got it shot within a week by any fighter of Kate’s who combined a lack of superstition with a latent deathwish.
In the courtyard, outside the stables, I hesitated. Conal’s footsteps faded, his door closed with a soft clunk, and I wondered if there was a woman waiting for him. Probably. I grinned to myself, thinking that if she’d waited up, she was going to be disappointed: when he left me he looked like a man who wanted to sleep for a week.
I didn’t, though. I felt high, as if I’d been drinking hard but it hadn’t hit my stomach or my limbs yet, only my head. Doubling back, I headed for the southern section of the dun, my feet silent on the bare stone of the passageways. In a star-silvered corner I gently pushed open an oak door, followed the flickering light of burned-down torches and turned the iron latch of Orach’s door without a thought.
‘Seth?’
She was awake.
I stopped, immobilised by the dull inevitability of it. Well, why should I expect her to be free just because I suddenly had to scratch an itch?
Feorag propped himself up on his elbows, blinking. As he focused he gave me a sleepy, friendly smile. Orach pulled a plaid around her nakedness, perhaps just to keep the chill of the small hours at bay. Slipping off the bed, she came to me and kissed my cheek, then drew back, surprised.
‘Murlainn,’ she whispered.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘It’s good. It’s you.’ She smiled, kissed me again, put arms round my neck that were floppy with sleepiness, and hugged me. Then her smile faded. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I thought you didn’t want me tonight,’ she said softly.
‘I know,’ I said. I tightened my fingers round her arm, then hesitated, glancing at the puzzled Feorag, and let her go. Detaching her arms, I kissed her back.
‘I’ll miss you,’ I said.
‘I hope so.’ Her fingertips caressed my cheekbone, and tears glinted on her lower lids. ‘Please come back.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Soon.’
‘Seth,’ she said. ‘Just come back.’
9
NINE
Being a hostage wasn’t intolerable. The three of us were left to our own devices; we were fed and treated well, and Sionnach’s father’s surviving men had come with us: Conal had insisted on that, and they were glad to do it, as loyal now to the twins as they’d been to Niall. So at least we had friends who knew and understood us, friends who could talk about the dun and the sea and the black cattle and the smell of the machair. We were even allowed to ride out or hunt with our escorts, so long as they included Kate’s fighters too. That’s what we did as often as we could, getting away from the dark beauty of the underground fortress, because the only thing I could not bear about my confinement was the absence of sky.
Well. The absence of sky, and the presence of my mother.
Lilith chose to ignore me, and I was happy with that. Had I ever loved her, I wondered? Had she ever given me the least opportunity or encouragement? Sometimes I looked at her and thought that I must have loved her once, when I was very small, but I couldn’t even recall an echo of a trace of a memory. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to love Lilith.
She was always with Kate, on the queen’s right hand, and she commanded the captains with the easy grace of someone who expects to be obeyed. I knew they didn’t respect her so much as fear her, but it certainly worked. Besides, her beauty was awe-inspiring; that had never struck me before. And I’d forgotten the loveliness of Kate NicNiven, but then I suppose it hadn’t mattered to me when I was seven, and the last time I’d seen her I’d been preoccupied with things I didn’t even want to understand. Now I had time to watch Kate, study her, absorb her. Be dazzled by her.
Our queen was the Daughter of the Snows, as beautiful and terrifying as her name, but there was no coldness about her. Her hair was a bolt of copper silk, her eyes warm amber, her skin under-earth-pale but luminous. The gods knew how old she was; no-one else did. Older than Lilith, even. Far older than any of us, except for Leonora. And don’t go thinking that extreme old age makes you good and far-seeing and wise. It makes you neurotic and cruel.
That was something I learned about my own race, there in that black labyrinth.
Several times Eili caught me gazing at Kate from the shadows, and she would tease me about it. We teased one another a lot, the three of us: it helped kill the dreadful wearing boredom.
‘You’re bewitched,’ she said one time. She’d caught me loitering behind the archway that led to Kate’s great hall. It was loud and crowded that day (or it might have been night; it was always hard to be certain), but Kate was very visible, relaxing on a chaise on a raised step where her people could see her and love her. It was one of her court days, and the great hall seethed with visitors and courtiers and captains. Eili nudged me. ‘She’s got you spell-bound.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ I reddened. ‘She’s lovely to look at, that’s all. Can’t I look?’
‘You’re in love with her,’ taunted Eili.
My throat tightened. ‘I am not.’ Though I can’t say I wasn’t affected. Perhaps I should have used it to try to make Eili jealous, but I was still young and a greenarse, and I didn’t know about love and deception the way I do now. I didn’t want to make her jealous, I never wanted to hurt her in the smallest degree, not even her undaunted pride. ‘She’s beautiful, that’s all. So’s my mother, and I’m not in love with her.’
‘Lilith?’ said Eili, dripping scorn. ‘Lilith? Beautiful?’
I stared at her. Her voice had grown suddenly loud and brash, and I was shocked at her defiance. The boredom, that’s what I blame, with hindsight. We were bored, she was bored, that was what was so fatal.
‘Well,’ I blustered, trying to calm her down and bring the conversation back to a comfortable place. ‘Don’t get stroppy. You’re beautiful too.’
‘I’m not beautiful,’ she said dismissively. ‘Sionnach, now. Sionnach is beautiful.’
That was perfectly true. A sharp-boned physical attractiveness was characteristic of our race, but somehow Sionnach’s looks were gentler and not so cold; beauty fitted him better than most. But I was uncomfortably aware that Eili had no block in her mind at that moment, and that voices around us were falling silent, that people were turning, homing in on her loud excited voice. She must have known it but she was bored, she was in a bloody mood, and she didn’t lower it.
‘Lilith abandoned you,’ she said bluntly. ‘Dumped you on your father, and she couldn’t even keep hold of him. What kind of a mother is that? Of course she’s pretty, I suppose. But my brother’s beautiful. That’s what I call beauty. And,’ she added the triumphant clincher: ‘he’s beautiful on the inside, too.’
There was silence now. The throng was parting, making a nervous corridor, and through it walked my mother, elegant as a viper. She was smiling, but no-one failed to get out of her way as she walked from Kate’s side right down the centre of the hall. She s
topped before Eili, who met her cool gaze with disinterest.
Into the terrible silence, Lilith said: ‘Bring her brother.’
Eili gave a little gasp of shock. I really don’t think it had occurred to her that Lilith might bring Sionnach into this. But Eili herself had done that, after all. I could see my mother’s terrible cruel logic and already I was terrified for Sionnach.
He didn’t look frightened, though, only mildly perplexed as one of his own father’s men shepherded him to the small clearing where Lilith stood. Sionnach glanced at me and at Eili, raising one eyebrow as if to ask what was going on. Eili stood, stunned; I could see she was too confused and guilty to let her brother see in her mind. That was so rare as to be unheard of, and he frowned.
The fighter with him was watching Lilith warily, one hand on Sionnach’s shoulder, but two of Lilith’s men came forward and took Sionnach from him. Our man looked at them mistrustfully, but he had no grounds for protest. He didn’t know, after all. He didn’t know what they’d be told to do.
‘He is beautiful, isn’t he?’ Lilith tilted Sionnach’s chin to gaze into his eyes. She was so tall she had to stoop a little. ‘And beautiful on the inside too. Of course, we only have his sister’s word for that.’
I found I couldn’t breathe.
My mother nodded to her men. ‘Let’s see this inner beauty. Open him up.’
Eili screamed and lunged for the guard, and if she hadn’t clung to the man’s sword arm he would have gutted Sionnach before anyone could recover their breath. The fighter who had escorted Sionnach forward drew his own blade, but was surrounded instantly by Lilith’s guards. I threw myself between Sionnach and his appointed killer, but it was my mother’s eyes I fixed on as I begged her. ‘Mother, no. Please. Please.’
I’d sworn never to ask her for anything again, and here I was begging her for mercy. It made me hate her more than ever, and she knew it, and laughed.
‘They are hostages!’ yelled one of Sionnach’s father’s men. ‘They are hostages for Cù Chaorach and they’re under protection!’
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