“Don’t think this is over,” I said, and if he was a prince, in that moment I was a queen, my voice cold, hard and steady as a rock. “I’m not giving up. If you go against your word again, if harm comes to me or my brother on our way home, you will have destroyed all goodwill toward the Tuatha De Danann within the territory of Sevenwaters. Your kind will no longer have safe haven here. I swear it on the memory of my kinsman Finbar, the man with the swan’s wing, for whom this child was named. I swear it on the memory of my grandmother, Sorcha of Sevenwaters, whom the Tuatha De loved and aided. As for your son, he is more man than you can ever imagine. You will not defeat us. Nothing defeats love.”
Mac Dara’s lips twisted. After a moment he brought his hands together in slow, derisory applause.
I ignored him. The lamps seemed dimmer now; the cursed fire had died down. The others who had been with us in the pavilion, the two robed women, the all-too-obedient nursemaid, had vanished, and in their place were armed men of the Fair Folk standing in silent rank around the walls. So many. Did this prince fear his warrior son so much? I turned back to Cathal, who stood silent and pale by the fire. He had not tried to fight. He had remembered the tales better than I did; he had known all too well what it would mean if he entered his father’s hall. It was too late for resistance by arms. Set your foot inside the door, you’ll be mine forever more. If Willow’s story was accurate, he had no way out.
I held Finbar cradled in my left arm. I put up my right hand and laid it against Cathal’s wan cheek. I looked into his eyes. His face was wet with tears. “I love you,” I whispered. “I’m coming back for you, I swear it. I’ll find a way.”
He put his hand over mine, holding it against his face, then brought my fingers to his lips. “Beloved,” he whispered, and let go. “Goodbye.”
I walked away. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. I left the pavilion. The guards were no longer standing by the entry but lay bruised and bloodied on the ground outside. The courage drained from me; grief and shock flooded in. My moment of strength was over. A violent trembling seized my body. I clutched Finbar closer, fearful of more cruel tricks and traps.
As I moved further away, I heard Mac Dara speaking inside the pavilion. “She won’t come,” he said. “Once she gets home she’ll realize the utter folly of such an idea. Human women are not cut out to be heroes. All your Clodagh wants is a child of her own, and any man can put that in her belly.”
And Cathal’s voice, my dear one’s voice, raised in a ragged, furious challenge: “Don’t sully her name with your filthy lying tongue!”
The sound of a blow. “Restrain him,” Mac Dara said coolly. I imagined those ranks of fey warriors closing in. Cathal was a superb fighter, but there would be no point in putting those skills to use, not if the Lord of the Oak was as powerful in magic as he had claimed. I heard Mac Dara add, “As for her name, my son, you’ll soon have forgotten it. You’ll be amazed how quickly the memory will fade.”
I made myself walk on. I could be sure, at least, that Cathal would not die as Aidan had. His father loved him, to the extent that the Fair Folk can love. His father wanted him safe; safe under his control, to be molded into another like himself, cruel, callous, powerful, full of dark tricks. The seed of that person was in Cathal alongside the seed of the good man he was striving to be. The longer he stayed here, the more like his father he risked becoming. Because of me he was facing what he had feared most in all the world. As I stumbled across the clearing with my brother in my arms and a host of strange eyes watching me, I knew I would not abandon him to that. I owed it to Becan, whom I had not been able to save, to prove that a human woman could be a hero. Never mind that I was neither druid nor mage nor warrior. Never mind that the rhyme said forever more. I loved Cathal. I would not desert him. As surely as spring followed winter I would come back for him, and I would bring him home.
CHAPTER 14
Beyond the circle of white stones, up a rise and under the huge trees that bordered the ceremonial way, the Old Ones were waiting for me: seven of them in a silent line, with two bearing torches that cast a small pool of light around them in the shadowy forest. As I approached, the uncanny voice rang out, its wailing louder now, as if its owner were drawing ever closer.
“Come,” said Dog Mask, apparently impervious to the fact that I was shaking with sobs. “No time to waste. Follow me.” It turned and headed off along the path. Its companions, which now included not just the stony and watery entities but a being in a feathery cape and others with animal masks concealing their faces, padded along after their leader. “So he took the changeling after all,” Dog Mask added over its shoulder, as if it had known all along what was likely to happen.
“Becan’s dead,” I hiccupped. “And Cathal . . .” I could not continue. My lips refused to shape it: Becan falling, falling, and the flames coming up to take him. Cathal’s voice, so gentle, so insistent, telling me to go. The last tender word. The last sweet touch. Mac Dara telling his son, You’ll change. This place will change you. “He stepped inside the door, like in the rhyme,” I managed. “I screamed and he came to rescue me and now he’s trapped. Mac Dara has him. He’ll twist him and change him, he’ll try to turn his son into an evil man like himself, someone who kills for entertainment. This is my fault, all of it! I handed Becan over, I gave him up to be burned and I led Cathal straight into the trap—”
“Burned,” echoed Dog Mask, and all of them halted. “Burned to nothing?”
“Not quite,” I sobbed. “But he’s dead, he’s all scorched and broken . . . We must stop somewhere so I can . . .” The words bury him stuck in my throat. “So I can lay him to rest,” I whispered. Finbar gave a gurgle, then stuck his fist in his mouth. Soon he would be hungry and there would be nothing to give him.
“Where is he?” Dog Mask’s voice had lost its usual detachment; it was fierce and urgent. “Show us!”
“He’s in my bag,” I said, knowing I did not want to put Finbar down even for the few moments it would take to show them the pitiful remnants of my little one.
“Show us!” A chorus of voices now, all of them muted, for we were not so very far from the clearing with its crowd of gorgeously clad folk. We were only a stone’s throw from Mac Dara’s hall. They gathered around me, chittering, humming, rumbling anxiously. Strange fingers, furred, stony, watery, clawed or feathered, reached out toward the bag on my back.
“Give me your brother,” said Dog Mask.
“No!” I clutched Finbar closer.
Dog Mask sighed. “Pass him to me so I can hold him while you take off your bag.”
“We will help you, Clodagh,” said the watery one, and its voice made each word a little rippling melody.
“Trust us,” the rocky one rumbled. “Kindred aid kindred.”
“And you’re in sore need of help, believe me,” put in Dog Mask. “Come, time is short, and we are not yet in a place of safety.”
“All right,” I said after a moment. “But no tricks, you understand? Stay right there where I can see you.” I passed Finbar into Dog Mask’s arms, realizing how unheroic I must look with my eyes and nose streaming, my clothing spattered with vomit and my chest still heaving with distress. I reached to push my hair back out of my eyes.
“Ohhh,” murmured the being in the feather cape, whose mask gave it the appearance of an owl. “Poor hand, poor hand! Fire hurt you!”
“I tried to save him,” I said. “I really tried. But he . . . he . . .”
“Show us,” said Dog Mask.
I took off my pack gingerly—my burned hands did hurt—and set it on the ground. There had been no time to fasten it after I laid poor Becan inside. The Old Ones clustered around, peering in. I forced myself to look. My baby lay where I had placed him, his solitary pebble eye staring blankly up, his mouth twisted out of shape, the green leaves of his skin scorched to crisp brown. A little shriveled thing that could never have been alive. I reached in and lifted him out.
“Ahhh!” A great sigh
of shock and sorrow shuddered around the circle of Old Ones. I held Becan against my breast, wishing from the very core of my being that he would reach out and take hold of my clothing as he once had, grasping at security. I had failed him utterly.
A little silence. Then the stony creature said, “Quick! The hedge of thorn!” and all of them started walking again, much faster this time. Dog Mask still had Finbar.
“Wait!” I made to put Becan back, but Dog Mask turned its head toward me.
“No, no!” it said sharply. “Do not relegate him to your baggage. Carry him in your arms, next to your heart. Fold your shawl around him. Talk to him. Sing to him.”
I slung the bag awkwardly over one shoulder and hastened after them, the inert form of Becan cradled against me. Perhaps they were right; perhaps he deserved better than to be stowed away in the dark. As for singing, that would be more than I could bear. But I murmured as I stumbled up the path under the oaks. “There, there, my love, my baby . . . sleep sound, little dove . . .”
We reached the hedge of thorn. The gate creaked open to let us in and shut behind us with a determined snap. By the cold fire was Cathal’s pack. Perhaps he had intended to collect it on the way home. Or maybe he had known all along how this would end for him. A little further away there was a white nanny goat tethered to a post.
“Milk will nourish little thirsty one,” said the watery being.
“Work,” the stony one said crisply. “Work to be done!”
“Pull yourself together, girl,” added one of the others. “No time to lose!”
But I sank to my knees, rocking the lifeless child, my heart twisting in pain, my tears falling on his little burned face. Dog Mask settled beside me, holding my brother’s shawl-wrapped form with confident ease. The others gathered close. Even those with masks managed somehow to look expectant.
“What?” I asked wanly. “What is it I’m supposed to do? He’s dead. Becan’s dead. He’s not breathing. Anyone can see that. All I can do is dig a grave and . . .” I faltered to a halt, feeling the pressure of their strange eyes on me.
“Clodagh,” said a being that was a curious mixture of dwarf and hedgehog, “you are not required to be a hero right now. All you need to do is be yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fix!” said the stony one with a snap of its chinklike mouth. “Match! Patch!”
“Tending, mending, gathering, mothering . . .” murmured the watery one.
“You have a reputation as a model housewife,” said Dog Mask.
“Tell me, if a cooking pot develops rust, do you throw it away? Do you discard your sheets when they go into holes? If your sister’s favorite doll lost an arm or leg, would you tell her to throw it on the midden?”
“Of course not,” I said, not understanding what this had to do with anything. “In a well-run household nothing is wasted.”
“Since the changeling has not been entirely burned away, why do you speak of laying him to rest? Surely an enterprising young woman like you can do better than that?”
This was cruel. “You know quite well that Becan isn’t a doll or a sheet or a cooking pot, but a living being,” I said furiously. “When a child dies, it can’t be put together the way you’d fix a broken toy.”
“Ah!” said the hedgehog-dwarf, rippling its prickles with a sound like grains dropping into an iron pot. “But if someone other than yourself, Clodagh, someone such as your father, Sean of Sevenwaters, looked at this child, he might say: It is only a manikin of wood; of course it can be mended. In the eyes of such a person that task would be relatively simple. Do you not at least wish to try it before you consign this little being on whom you have lavished such love to a dark and lonely grave?”
“But he’s not breathing,” I said.
“He wasn’t breathing before, when you fished him out of the river,” pointed out Dog Mask. “What you have done once, you can do again.”
The cry rang out over the forest, a piercing lament that chilled my marrow. I had the uncanny sensation that the owner of that voice was watching us and could hear everything we said. As for the crazy idea that had just been suggested, I hardly dared hope it might be possible. “It would be risking the anger of the gods to try such a thing,” I whispered. But I wanted to do it. Oh, how I wanted to.
A creature in a cat mask spoke, its voice invoking warm hearths and cozy corners in the sun. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that old rhyme, Clodagh—Stitch and darn, patch and mend, a woman’s needle is her best friend? Did you bring sewing things on this quest of yours?”
“No,” I said as foolish hope began to rise in my heart. “But I think Cathal did.” The owner of that cloak was not going to travel far without the means to maintain its cargo of lucky charms. Besides, a warrior of Inis Eala was always prepared. He did his own mending on the run, so to speak. When Johnny had lived among the Painted Men as an infant, they had cut down garments of their own to make clothing for him. It was a tale Aunt Liadan enjoyed telling.
Dog Mask hissed its disapproval. “Cathal!” it said. “As if we would accept the help of his kind.”
“If you had told me before why it was that you distrusted him so,” I pointed out, “it might have helped him stay out of his father’s clutches. Why didn’t you explain? Why does everything need to be hints and symbols and puzzles?”
“When you face a crisis at home, Clodagh,” said the hedgehog-dwarf, “what is it you need, weeping and wailing or good common sense? If you would make this right, waste no more time.”
“Small, frail, broken, forsaken,” murmured the watery being.
“Quick!” the stony one growled. “Act!”
Treat this as a practical exercise in household mending, I told myself. Don’t doubt yourself, just get on with it.
As I had suspected, Cathal’s pack contained bone needles and a twist of sturdy thread. I could have patched a pair of trousers or mended the fastening of a shirt with ease. But this was a task such as I had never attempted in my life. I found Cathal’s second set of clothing and spread the tunic out on the grass. I put Becan down on it wrapped in my shawl. He lay stiffly, not moving so much as a finger. It was a fragile hope indeed that he could be brought back. But I must try. I rose to my feet, clearing my throat.
One of the Old Ones was milking the goat, the stream of creamy liquid spurting into a little shiny bucket. Another was laying wood on the fire. A third was filling a pannikin with water from the pond. Others had stationed themselves near the gate, perhaps on sentry duty. A torch had been placed close by us, but it was night now and sewing by such fitful light would not be easy.
Dog Mask sat cross-legged with Finbar in its arms. The mask stayed in place even when its owner could not spare a hand to hold it there. Dark eyes were fixed on me through the holes.
“Will you watch Becan while I gather what I need?” I asked. “Please?”
The creature inclined its head gravely. A moment later the hedgehog-dwarf was by my side with torch in hand, ready to light my way.
I made a picture in my mind of Becan as he had been before Mac Dara, before the fire. I would not be able to remake him exactly; certain berries, certain leaves were not present in the safe area within the hedge of thorn. But there was plenty to gather: fresh foliage from the trees and bushes, bark strips that could be taken with care, not too much from any one plant lest I wound it badly; twigs from the ground beneath. For every gift the earth gave me I murmured a prayer of thanks.
When I had gathered enough, I returned to the fire with my materials in my skirt and settled beside Dog Mask. The watery being was pouring milk into a dish; there was a cloth ready for feeding my brother. The Old Ones seemed to know what they were doing.
And then I went about mending my little one. Stitch by stitch, leaf by leaf, twig by twig I remade him, and if I watered him with my tears as I went, none of my companions uttered a word of criticism. Where I could weave or knot his pieces together without using my needle I did so, thinking th
at more natural. Besides, I was in danger of using up Cathal’s stock of thread too quickly. Cathal . . . He was just down there, a short walk from me . . . I yearned to run back, to find him now, straightaway, to get him out and safely home this very night, for I had not forgotten the quirks of time in this place. I might come back and find a hundred years had passed. He might be an old man; his human blood meant he would not live as long as his father’s kind did. He might be gone far away. I might search until the day I died and never find him. My heart shrank at the prospect.
I straightened Becan’s remaining eye as best I could, stitching a patch of moss in beside it to hold it firm. I took the other pebble from my pouch and set it in place. He did not look quite as he should.
Dog Mask was feeding Finbar from the bowl of milk. Suddenly the eldritch voice cried out, and this time it sounded as if it was right outside the gate, screaming a sorrow from deep in the bone. The sound turned my blood to ice. “What is that?” I whispered.
The eyes behind the silver mask turned toward me. “His mother,” said my companion. “She grieves.”
“His mother?”
“She is powerless against Mac Dara’s magic,” Dog Mask said, squeezing milk from the cloth into Finbar’s mouth. “She has followed us, watching, listening, racked with sorrow. Help her.”
The thought of it filled me with horror. My own grief over Becan paled beside hers. To have her own child taken away, sent to the human world, perhaps forever, and then brought back to be sacrificed so a selfish, cruel nobleman could get what he wanted . . . It was unthinkable. And then, to see Becan burned, disfigured, lying here still and helpless . . . I swallowed hard and returned to the task, and this time I sang as I worked. Not a lullaby; that, I knew I could not manage without falling apart. I sang Cathal’s song, the ballad about a man wandering lost, and as I sang I took out from my bag the stocking in which I had wrapped the items from Cathal’s cloak, his tokens of love. Into the body of my little one I wove one black hair and one brown from the twist Cathal had kept, and a red one plucked from my own head. I put in a snippet from Fleet’s collar and a tiny patch from the shimmering cloth that had once been worn by Aidan’s mother. I’ve been to the river, I’ve been to the well . . . I added a thread or two from the woolen blanket that had been almost burned away; a blanket that my mother had crafted with her own hands for her longed-for baby boy. I’ve run through the forest, I’ve climbed up the hill . . . I was crying again. I saw Cathal lifting Becan’s scorched and broken form out of the fire, his hands gentle even in such an extreme. I heard him saying, Beloved.
[Sevenwaters 04] Heir to Sevenwaters Page 34