Blade of Fortriu

by Juliet Marillier

  “I … that is …” The ready words she needed deserted her.

  “Answer me!” Alpin snapped, half-rising to his feet. He lifted a fist.

  Words came: the wrong ones. If you strike me, Faolan will kill you. “I’m obliged to say to you,” she fought for her most ladylike tone, “that if you raise a hand toward me you will have destroyed any chance you have of my agreeing to the marriage. I’ve no intention of being the butt of your anger at the injustices of the world. Please sit down.”

  “Tell me the truth!” Alpin shouted, but he had lowered his hand. “Who let you in there? You’ve seen him, haven’t you? You’ve been with him!”

  Unaccountably, Ana felt a warm blush rise to her face, perhaps the worst thing that could happen at such a moment. Blessed All-Flowers aid her, she was a hairsbreadth from destroying Bridei’s treaty and putting herself and Faolan in a still more precarious position, not to speak of poor Drustan and the loyal Deord. “I have not,” she said, “but I do have a small confession to make. I hope you will forgive me, my dear.” She managed not to choke on the words.

  “What?” Alpin snarled.

  “While you were gone, I did venture through the little door and along the way to the place where your brother is confined. I looked through the iron gate. Nobody was visible. Your brother and his guard must have been indoors that day. I retreated quickly, not wishing to go where I should not.”

  “You’re lying,” Alpin said flatly.

  “No, my lord.”

  “How could you get in? Deord keeps one key and I had the other one. Don’t tell me he left the door unlocked.”

  “N-no, my lord. It was very strange. A bird brought me a key. It came in my window and left it by my bed. I don’t expect you to believe that, but it is the truth.”

  Alpin picked up the meat knife and speared it violently into the oak tabletop. “That devious freak!” he muttered. “How dare he meddle?”

  “I left the key just by the iron gate,” Ana said, “where Deord would be sure to find it. I hope I did not do wrong.”

  Alpin looked at her. “Just as well it was Deord who found it,” he said, “and not my brother. It’s plain to me you have no conception of the danger involved here.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord. Blame feminine curiosity. I won’t do it again.”

  “What’s this my lord?” Alpin blustered. “Think I preferred the other.”

  It was becoming harder and harder to force a smile. “I need time to become accustomed to it, my dear. I have never addressed a man thus before. This is all new to me.”

  “Mm.” Alpin grunted. “You’ll need to curb your curiosity here at Briar Wood. This is not a game, it’s a tragedy, and the dangers are entirely real. Let me be quite open with you. If Drustan hadn’t been my blood kin, I’d have strung him up before the gates for what he did.”

  “Wh-what he did?” There was a prickling sensation in Ana’s spine. She felt the certain knowledge that she did not want to hear what was coming.

  “He killed them,” Alpin said in a voice that now sounded calm, numb, beyond anger or sorrow. “My wife, Erisa. My unborn son. In a fit of frenzy, he drove the two of them to their deaths. He pursued Erisa through the forest. She fell from a place where a cliff towers over a waterfall. She broke her neck. It took us three days to retrieve her body.”

  A chill ran through Ana. “But … why?” she whispered.

  “With a madman there is no why.”

  She struggled for words. “Were there any witnesses? Are you sure he—?”

  “Only one. An old woman was there, our childhood nurse. Bela’s no longer with us. But there was no doubt about it. He admitted what he’d done.”

  Ana was mute.

  “I locked him up the day we brought my wife’s body back. Our son would have been born within one turning of the moon. I wanted to drive my dagger through Drustan’s heart and make an end of him. But a man doesn’t kill his brother. Instead, I had the enclosure built and I hired Deord as keeper. The ties of blood are strong. I will bear this burden all my life.”

  Ana was horrified. She wanted to protest that it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be, Drustan was incapable of such an act of callous violence. But she remembered Deord’s words: ‘Given the circumstances, the arrangements are as generous as they can be.’ Deord’s veiled references to danger indicated this tale was true. And somewhere there was a witness. Alpin had been absolutely right, she had meddled where she should not have, and all she had done was stir up a tangled mess of anguish and loss.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. “I’m more sorry than I can tell you.” Over by the wall, Ludha sat transfixed. It was clear from her expression that she had never heard the full story before.

  “I imagine Bridei would not have dispatched you here so eagerly had he known our sad tale,” Alpin said. “I’m in no doubt you had plenty of better offers from chieftains with no such dark secrets.”

  “I did indeed,” Ana said. “However, I am here at Briar Wood and I suppose we must make the best of it. Thank you for telling me the truth. I prefer honesty, no matter how unpalatable the facts may be. I will not interfere in this matter, my lor—my dear. In return, I hope you will not keep secrets from me; not when I am your wife.” She spoke through gritted teeth. The fact that Alpin had at last been straight with her had done nothing to quell her physical revulsion. He had struck Ludha, and he would have hit Ana herself. The prospect of sharing his bed made her shudder.

  “Let’s drink to that,” Alpin said, pouring more mead. “To marriage; to the future. By next spring, if the gods smile on us, we’ll have a son.”

  Ana smiled and tried to ignore the image that would not leave her: Drustan in the forest, his fine, strong body, his exuberant flame of hair, his eyes bright with the joy of living. The birds nestled so trustingly close to him. His soft voice. That man was a frenzied murderer. She would give anything for it not to be true. But she could not make it a lie just by wishing. Alpin said his brother had confessed. Drustan had, in effect, done so again when Ana asked him why he was locked up, though at the time she had not understood. “To do otherwise is dangerous.” So it must be true. Her heart, all the same, shouted that it could not be so. Ferada had always said the heart was an unreliable guide, and that sensible people followed the dictates of the intellect. She wished Ferada were here now.

  “To marriage,” Ana said grimly, and raised her cup.

  8

  ON THE EVE of the festival of Rising, Drust the Boar, monarch of the southern kingdom of Circinn, came to White Hill with his advisers and a modest escort of men-at-arms to attend Bridei’s assembly. By the second day, everyone in the household knew that the negotiations had failed. Drust had no intention of providing support against Dalriada, either in the form of a significant fighting force or in some less practical, more symbolic way. Never mind that he had exchanged messages with Bridei over the course of the last two years, working slowly toward common ground. Someone had had a word in his ear, someone influential, and now the king of Circinn was immovable.

  The territorial disagreement with the Gaels was a local problem, he told the assembled chieftains of Fortriu. They needed to sort it out for themselves. His forces had more than enough to keep them occupied on home soil without being summoned to march all the way to the west. Besides, it was a fool’s errand. The Gaels were too well established to be moved. They were breeding a third generation in their settlements. Drust’s adviser, Bargoit, twisted the knife in the wound by offering the opinion that those inhabitants of the western regions who had ceased to resist and allowed the invaders to settle, to marry women of the Priteni and to father half-breed children, had shown sound common sense. It was time to accept that the Gaels were here for good, and the Christian faith with them.

  It was outrageous, and Bridei had been hard put to hold on to the composure his position demanded of him. Others had been more outspoken. Broichan had come close to pronouncing a curse; Talorgen had raised his voice a
nd his fist. The council was in effect concluded almost before it had begun.

  Drust the Boar would stay a while at Bridei’s court nonetheless. His gesture in making the long trip from Circinn must be recognized, even if the decision he brought them was unfavorable. His company must still be accommodated at White Hill and entertained, and there were other matters to discuss, issues of trade and borders. But the truth was, with their primary objective lost to them so quickly and so emphatically, Bridei’s councillors scarcely had the heart to continue the assembly’s business.

  By day, the representatives of the two kingdoms met at the council table and went through the motions of diplomacy. Other activities were organized: hunting, riding, sports. In the evenings there was feasting and music. At the same time, behind closed doors, the king of Fortriu met with his inner circle to make a crucial decision. The advance had been planned for the time of Gathering, the harvest ritual. The sheer scale of the undertaking meant the forces must soon begin to move. This was not to be a massed march down the Glen, nor yet a bold advance by boat. The Priteni army would be composed of several large forces, each with its own leaders, and when it was time for the assault, Dalriada would find itself attacked from many quarters at once and pressed ever westward toward the sea. It could not be set up quickly, even if secrecy were not an issue.

  To go ahead without Circinn’s support would be a gamble. Failure would not only cost Bridei in the lives of men and perhaps in more territory lost to Dalriada. It would set back his long-term cause, his dream: to see the Gaels swept out of Fortriu entirely, and all the lands of the Priteni united under the old gods. Failure must tarnish his shining image among his people, and so lessen the chance of future success. The question was whether, if they delayed a year, two years, Drust the Boar might be persuaded to change his mind and come to their support. With the armies of Circinn arrayed alongside those of Fortriu there would be a far greater promise of victory.

  “He won’t back down,” Talorgen said flatly. They were meeting in a small council room without windows; lamps were set about the chamber, showing the men’s faces as flickering masks, Bridei’s well governed, Talorgen’s angry, Aniel’s thoughtful. Broichan’s features were impassive, his eyes unreadable as always. Aniel’s fellow councillor, Tharan, was restless, folding his arms, crossing his knees, picking things up and putting them down again. Bridei’s war leader, Carnach, stood with hands on hips; for him, this decision meant a choice between a season on the march and a bloody confrontation at the end of it, or the disbanding of the forces he had put his heart into readying for Fortriu’s cause. Had matters been different five years before, Carnach might have been king now, and Bridei living a quiet existence as a scholar. The gods, however, had chosen to smile on Bridei in that season of change. What the gods were up to now was anyone’s guess.

  “Bargoit is behind this.” Tharan’s tone was bitter. “That weasel has long been able to swing Drust’s opinions one way or the other. Besides, there are Christian missionaries swarming all over Circinn now, if our intelligence is accurate. Drust’s religious advisers will have lent weight to Bargoit’s arguments. They’ll have put pressure on Drust to hold back from conflict with the Gaels, followers of the same misguided faith. I had hoped the king of Circinn might finally summon the strength to make his own judgments. Would that he might at last break free of the poisoned web of false council that draws ever tighter around him.”

  “Something has shifted,” said Bridei. “He was on the point of agreement not two seasons since; I had his message of provisional support. A verbal one only, I regret to say; it would be difficult to hold him to it now. Is a new influence come to bear on him, I wonder?”

  “We’d do well to look into that when there’s the opportunity,” Aniel said. “Meanwhile the question is, dare we risk going ahead without them? There is much to be lost here.”

  In Bridei’s mind were the shining eyes and eager, determined faces of those soldiers he had addressed at Caer Pridne, every one of them ready to fight and die in their king’s great cause. Some were little more than boys, some young fathers, some scarred veterans of many conflicts. If he calculated this wrong, he was asking them to pay the ultimate price for the sake of his own pride. But if he called off the advance he might be throwing away the best opportunity to secure the future of Fortriu. It was common knowledge that Gabhran of Dalriada aspired, in time, to conquest of all the lands of the north. Gabhran as king meant a foreign yoke around their necks. With the Christian faith spreading fast in Circinn under Drust’s weak rule, and the Gaels planting their crosses in the west, Fortriu was squeezed tight already. Let Gabhran encroach further, and it would not just be territory that was lost. Gaelic rule spelled the death of the old gods. “The season is passing,” he said. “We must make our decision quickly, one way or the other.”

  “If we call a halt now,” said Carnach, “not only do we lose the momentum gained by a season of dedicated preparation, we may also sacrifice the element of surprise that our spies and our tight security have ensured. Wait a year, and the enemy has a year of opportunities to glean information as to the timing, manner, and scale of our operation.”

  “True,” said Talorgen. “We can’t afford to keep the men on this knife edge much longer. They anticipate a move within one turning of the moon to take them to their various points of readiness. They expect the full assault by Gathering. They’re already straining at the leash. If we don’t move as planned, we’ve no real choice but to disband the armies and send the men back to their homes. It will be doubly difficult to sharpen the tools of war next time, if this ends in nothing.”

  “If we send them home, they live to plant crops, father children, ply a trade another year.” Bridei’s tone was calm; he had been well trained in the concealment of what he felt. “If we proceed and our great endeavor fails, how many of them will return whole to settlement or farm or chieftain’s hall? It is possible that the force we have assembled, impressive as it is, may not be sufficient to do its work.”

  “We have Caitt support,” Aniel pointed out. “Umbrig has promised a sizable force, and you know his reputation.”

  “I’m beginning to regret I didn’t ask Alpin of Briar Wood for a commitment in armed men instead of restricting my terms to an assurance of truce,” Bridei said. “It’s too late for that now, unless Faolan’s party gets back here with remarkable speed. We must simply hope the agreement’s been signed and sealed. If we delayed our move until next year or the year after we’d have time to secure practical help from that quarter. By then, gods willing, Ana will have given Alpin a son.”

  “I spoke to Ged this morning,” said Talorgen. “Morleo, too. Neither was overjoyed to be missing this meeting, but I pointed out that someone did need to keep Drust the Boar and his lackeys occupied while we consulted in private. I understand they’ve taken him fishing. Ged is in favor of proceeding as planned. He believes the men’s enthusiasm is our greatest strength, and that a delay would make it difficult to generate the same momentum. Morleo was more cautious, but he believes we have the numbers.”

  “I do not wish to lead them to certain death, whatever their enthusiasm,” Bridei said. “We know the strategic arguments; we’ve weighed them over and over during the long period of our preparation. We need something more now, some guidance beyond our own knowledge of risks and opportunities. Perhaps Broichan is the best one to advise us.”

  They looked at the druid, a tall, pale figure in his dark robes, with his graying hair falling to his shoulders in many small plaits threaded with fine cords of purple, red, green. He had been unusually quiet through their debate.

  “An augury should be performed.” Broichan’s voice, ever the deepest and most commanding at White Hill, was today almost hesitant. That in itself suggested omens that would be less than favorable. “We must seek the gods’ wisdom. Thus far their guidance has steered us toward this conflict; the Flamekeeper’s light has shone over Bridei and the whole endeavor. It is difficult to believe th
eir will would change direction merely because the king of Circinn has not the courage to stand with us.”

  “Will you cast the birch rods here?” Bridei asked him. “That way all of us can observe the pattern of their falling and be party to your interpretation at first hand.”

  Broichan did not answer for a moment. The others were nodding assent, for such an augury could generally be relied upon as a powerful means of understanding the intentions of the Flamekeeper and the Shining One, whose desires governed every step in the long history of the Priteni. “Not now,” the druid said. “This is too weighty a matter to be determined by one seer alone, king’s druid or no. It would be best performed under the gaze of the Shining One, with Fola in attendance. I believe the goddess will show the path more clearly if her senior priestess assists with the ritual. After supper, when Drust the Boar is occupied with White Hill’s best mead and finest music, we’ll cast the rods in the upper courtyard. Let us hope the gods show us clear answers, for we have sore need of them.”

  CLOUDS PASSED ACROSS the bright face of the Shining One, obscuring the pattern thrown out on the stone table. The goddess was taxing both druid and wise woman to the far reach of their considerable abilities. Broichan had served as personal druid to two kings and was known throughout all the lands of the Priteni as learned, adept, and dangerously powerful. Fola headed the school at Banmerren where women were taught all the skills required to serve the Shining One as priestesses. She was clever, subtle, and had a reputation for unswerving honesty. If these two old friends, between them, could not read a message from the gods, it must be assumed the gods were deliberately withholding their wisdom.