Blade of Fortriu

by Juliet Marillier

  “We’ll wait one more night,” Faolan told Ana as they sat in the shelter of a boulder, looking out over the hillside under the strange half-dark sky of the summer night. “If he’s not back by then, I can find a way for us. Head roughly southeast and we must strike the coast near Abertornie eventually.”

  “Faolan?”

  “Mmm?”

  “It’s going to take a long time, isn’t it? To walk all the way back, I mean.”

  Faolan considered all the things he hadn’t told her: the difficulty of providing food without bow or spear, the fact that the dried meat would last, at best, another seven days, the undeniable truth that, even in summer, there would be broad rivers to cross. “It will be slower than riding, of course,” he said. “But we’ll manage. How are your boots?”

  Ana showed him. The left was holed right through the sole; the right was splitting apart where the upper met the heel. No wonder her feet were sore. The wedding gown was stained and tattered to rags. His own garments were hardly better.

  “Mm,” he said. “A pretty picture we’ll make walking into White Hill, the two of us.”

  There was a silence, then the unmistakable sound of suppressed weeping. “Sorry,” Ana muttered.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Faolan asked flatly. “Drustan. You’re still crying over him. A pox on the man.”

  “I can’t help it, Faolan. I want him to be here, with us. With me. I hoped … I had so hoped … never mind.”

  Faolan observed that her belt was so loose on her now that she had to wind it several times through itself to keep it around her waist. Her lovely hair fell in lank, lifeless strands to her shoulders; she no longer held herself as straight as a queen. He ached to put his arms around her and hold her close.

  “I worry about him, Faolan,” she said in a small voice. “He’s so vulnerable. If he’s gone back to his own place, Dreaming Glen, he could be imprisoned again, even killed. Alpin’s men are in control there now. What if—”

  “Ana,” Faolan said, “we can’t do anything about that. Trust the man; he can sort out his own problems.” Privately, he was beginning to doubt this. He had no idea at all where Drustan was right now, or what he was playing at.

  “I wanted to help him.” She was staring up at the night sky as if it might provide answers. “I still want to. He’s terribly alone. Wherever he chose to go, whatever he chose to do, I wanted to be with him, by his side, so he need not be alone anymore. It must be both a blessing and a curse to be born different. His grandfather understood that. Nobody else seems to have done. Deord, maybe.”

  “Different?” Faolan wondered exactly what Drustan had told her.

  “Like a seer, I think. These spells he has, what Alpin called frenzies or fits, it seems that when they come upon him Drustan experiences a kind of vision; walks in a different world for a while. He had them even as a child. Some people can’t tolerate such oddity.”

  “Indeed,” Faolan said, thinking she had no idea of just how odd the man really was. How would she feel about the prospect of bearing children who might at any moment sprout beaks and feathers?

  “Faolan?”

  He waited.

  “Every day we travel, every step toward the east, I feel as if my heart’s being torn apart just a little bit more. I thought after a while it might start to dull, not to hurt so much. But it keeps on getting worse. How could I leave him behind? Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t have gone away without me. He was telling the truth when he said he loved me, I heard it in his voice. Why would he lie about something like that?”

  “Men do,” Faolan said. “They do it all the time.”

  “Not Drustan.”

  “A paragon.” He could not conceal his bitterness.

  “Stop it, Faolan. Anyone would think you were jealous.” There was a silence. The longer it drew out, the more intense was Ana’s scrutiny of his face and, at a certain point, he had to look away just to stop himself from some kind of foolish response, a lying denial, a self-revelatory declaration of his feelings, a withering riposte that would hurt her. There was no point in saying anything. It was quite plain to him that, at last, she understood what was in his heart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said eventually, her voice low and warm. “I’m so sorry, Faolan.”

  “Ah, well.” He attempted a smile. “I’m just a hired guard, after all. It’s not my place to entertain personal feelings. Forget it. Your life is complicated enough already.”

  “You are my dear friend,” Ana said, “and my loyal protector on the road. I should have seen this earlier; I can’t imagine how I missed it. You know I trust you, Faolan, and respect you, and rely on you … I never thought to find such a friend, and I thank the gods that you have been by my side through all this. But … what I feel for Drustan is quite different. It is too strong to be denied. It’s like a—a wave, a tide—”

  “Destructive, you mean.”

  “Maybe. He’s gone, and I feel as if I’m breaking apart. I’m sorry it’s making things difficult for you. When I spoke of him, and of how I felt … that must have hurt you terribly.”

  Faolan’s mood softened at her words. Even in such an extreme she remained a lady through and through. “I want you to try something for me,” he said.

  “What?”

  He reached for his bag; drew out the heavy leather glove. “Put this on and stand up.”

  “Why?” She did as he requested, expression mystified.

  “Now call him. The hawk. Call him to you.”

  “I don’t know how. I don’t know what kind of sound I should make.”

  “Can you whistle?”

  “Not very loudly. I can try; just don’t look at me or I won’t be able to do it.”

  The sound she made was tiny in the immensity of the folded hills that spread before them; a little two-note tune, falling, falling. It was the kind of call a lady might make to a beloved kitten or well-trained lapdog. She paused a while, listening, then tried it again. It was as if the night hushed around her, holding its breath.

  Then, a movement of wings in the half-dark, a subtle shifting of air, and the bird flew out of the night to her hand, talons gripping the glove, wild eye meeting Ana’s, bright, inscrutable. She held her arm strong, supporting the hawk’s weight; her own eyes were full of wonderment. “He came back,” she breathed. “How did you know he’d do that?”

  “Call it a hunch,” said Faolan, noting the change in her voice. Did she sense the truth? “Intuition.”

  Ana’s fingers came up to stroke the hawk’s plumage, the long, strong wing feathers, the downy covering on the chest. Her hand was perilously close to that rending beak; it did not seem to have occurred to her that the creature had the capacity to rip her hand apart. Faolan held his tongue. He wouldn’t be putting his own fingers in harm’s way if he could help it, but he knew this bird would never harm Ana.

  “This means we can go on,” she said. “We were running out of food, weren’t we?”

  “I would have provided for you, one way or another,” Faolan said, not looking at the bird in case the dislike was too evident in his eyes. Ana was right, of course; it was Drustan’s presence that would see them safe home.

  “I feel a little better,” Ana said, putting her cheek against the creature’s feathers for a moment. “If all three of them are with us, it means Drustan hasn’t quite forgotten me, even if he can’t be here. If they stay together, I think it must mean he’s still alive and safe. I’m going to try to sleep now, Faolan.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “May the Shining One give you good dreams.”

  “You wish the impossible for me. You, I suppose, will dream of one thing only.”

  She was settling herself on the ground under the rudimentary shelter of a small overhang, the blanket around her shoulders. The three birds stayed close to her, perched on the rocks, a trio of miniature custodians conjuring visions from some mythic tale of magic. There was silence for a while, and he thought she was asleep. T
hen she spoke again. “Don’t mock my dreams, Faolan,” she said. “Apart from the birds, they’re all I have left of him.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but Ana did not reply.

  Much later, when he knew she had fallen asleep, Faolan picked up a stone and weighed it in his hand. He listened to Ana’s breathing, slow and steady. Hoodie and crossbill were huddled by her, immobile, heads tucked under wings. The hawk kept watch, perched a handspan from her shoulder. Faolan considered the possible trajectory of his stone; judged speed and distance. If he was quick, it could be over in an instant. He’d never have to watch the two of them together; he’d never have to see the fellow’s hands on her, and stand by as if it were none of his business. Darkness welled in his heart; his fingers closed around the missile.

  Ana sighed, turning in her sleep.

  “Tell her,” Faolan said, dropping the stone to the ground. “Tell her the truth; let her make her own decision. You can’t leave things like this. You’ll break her heart.”

  The hawk regarded him, its eye unreadable.

  “Change back. Show her what you are. If you don’t have the courage for that, you don’t deserve her. You may as well fly off and leave us. We’ll cope. We did before and we can again.”

  No response save that unwavering stare, a look that seemed to Faolan profoundly dangerous. This man was a wild creature. He carried peril in his very nature.

  “What are you waiting for?” Faolan challenged. “She’s here, she loves you, she’s the most perfect woman any man could hope for. What’s holding you back?”

  There was no reaction; no sudden start of surprise, no transformation. The bird turned its head away.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Faolan said. “You’re afraid that once she knows, she’ll turn her back on you. So you punish her, you put her through torture worrying about your safety, your future, why you’ve abandoned her, even as she wears herself out walking and fades to skin and bone for want of proper nourishment. If you’re really a man, act like one. Trust her with the truth.”

  ALPIN WAS BUILT like a bear. Still, growing up at Briar Wood had given him a number of skills unusual in such a big man; the forest provided good hunting, and he had learned early to move in near-silence and to cover difficult territory quickly. He had learned to pick up a trail and not to lose it, though Deord’s solitary flight across the forest had diverted him a while from this particular scent. Now he had it again, and he moved after the fugitives quietly, efficiently, with deadly purpose. As he ran and climbed and waded to the northeast, his mind was not on the terrain or the weather or the signs of human passage; he absorbed these clues without thinking. Instead, within him, a fierce, furious anthem of vengeance played in his heart, a song of hatred, of lust, of the will to torment and to obliterate. He saw Ana spread-eagled with his brother on her, and then the Gael, and then wretched, deviant Drustan again. If she had a child in her belly when he got her home, it would have to be put down; his heir must be indisputably of his own blood. By all the gods, she’d better give him sons after all this trouble. He’d beat the defiance out of her soon enough. He’d make sure … On the other hand, he’d have to stay his hand a while. He’d need to moderate his anger after the initial punishment Ana would endure on their return to the fortress. He’d lost his temper with Erisa once too often, and look what had happened. The stupid woman had tried to run from him, and when she fell she’d killed his son as well as herself. If his freak of a brother hadn’t happened to be there to provide a neat alibi, he could have lost everything. Drustan … Gods, why had he been so generous to the man? He should have got rid of him straightaway, and not let the blood tie hold him back. Now Drustan was out, and if he remembered, if he told … No, that was fanciful. Folk knew Drustan as a madman; nobody would believe him. There was nobody left at Briar Wood who could give him support, nobody who remembered the time when he was rational. Old Bela had fled straightaway, after it happened. She was probably dead by now, and the rest of them were gone, all but Orna, who knew how to keep her mouth shut. Alpin had been thorough. All the same, he wouldn’t be content until he set his hands around his brother’s neck and heard the last breath gurgling out of him. As for the Gael … The Gael was not to be trusted. He could have been useful as a spy. All the same, it would be necessary to get rid of him now. Alpin pondered the exact manner in which he would do this as he made his way up across an exposed stretch of fell, stopping to examine signs of recent habitation in a ruined hut. Ashes from a small fire; strands of fair hair; the bones of a small creature, gnawed clean. They’d been here. Not long now. His hands were itching to inflict punishment. He would take the two men first. Then he’d have Ana where he found her; there was another part of him with an itch, and there was only one way it could be satisfied.

  BRIDEI HAD LEARNED caution early. The first attempt on his life had been made when he was a small child, and Donal had foiled it. Years later, when those who opposed his rise to kingship tried again, Donal had died in his place. The third time it had been Faolan who had pulled him back from the brink. He had learned not to trust too quickly, even when his instincts inclined him toward friendship.

  He liked Hargest. He could see something of himself in the boy’s uncertainty and in his constant striving to excel. Caught between a father who had been all too ready to send him away and a foster father who had perhaps been overcautious in his treatment, Hargest seemed to Bridei to be balancing on a narrow bridge to maturity and manhood. The lad was a mass of contradictions: the desire to please, the terror of appearing weak or inept, the will to prove himself superior. Under it, there was a desperate need for love: a father’s love.

  Bridei had Breth and the others include the young man in their daily combat practice and take him out on their sorties to the fringes of Dalriadan territory. Hargest was always closely supervised, although they did not let him know it. He was never alone with Bridei, but the king made a habit of including him in conversation and often asked after his progress. Gradually, over the time they stayed at Raven’s Well, Hargest became accepted among the men, and they ceased to speak of him as if he were an outsider. One or two of them observed that should Hargest march to war in their company, he’d be quite an asset. To start with, he’d be twice the size of any Gael in the field. And that sword arm of his was something to be reckoned with.

  Bridei had sent a message back with Orbenn, and in it he had asked the opinion of Hargest’s foster father as to the lad’s readiness to go to war. Umbrig’s answer, when at length it came, left the decision up to Bridei himself. If he thought the lad would be useful, he should take him. If not, he could dispatch Hargest back to Storm Crag to cool his heels. There was no mention of Hargest returning to his father at Briar Wood, even though he was a young man now.

  So it was that when summer was drawing to its end and they marched forth from Raven’s Well on the first stage of the long advance, Hargest took his place in the small personal force of the king of Fortriu, a proud, square-shouldered figure standing a head taller than most of the men and bearing his spear, his sword, his bow and quiver as if this were something he did every day and was quite at home with. Breth, riding by the king’s side, had an edgy look about him. He had never fully trusted the boy, and he made no secret of his unease at Hargest’s rapid acceptance into the ranks of Bridei’s men-at-arms. There were whispers that the king’s bodyguard felt threatened. Hargest, some folk said, was the obvious choice—young, fit, keen, strong—to step into the role of Bridei’s most trusted minder.

  Bridei had heard all of it and considered it nonsense. Breth knew his position was as secure as any man’s can be who is heading into armed combat. As for Hargest, Bridei had him on a tighter leash than anyone recognized. The boy’s desperate wish to please him was the most effective control he had; he would use it to stop the lad getting killed before he had a chance to grow up and learn what he was made of.

  So, at last they were in motion, traversing the selfsame territory through which Bridei had
marched as a lowly foot soldier in Talorgen’s army on his way to his first taste of what war does to men. He could expect Hargest to be deeply disturbed by it, for all his bravado. Bridei hoped he would have time to talk to the lad afterward, to listen as Hargest worked his way through what he had seen, what he had done. What he had been obliged to do. War could bring out the best in a man. Unfortunately, there were those in whom it awakened cruelty, and others who simply cracked under the terror of it. If this great venture went the way they’d planned it, perhaps there would be no need to put the men of Fortriu through it again for a while. Perhaps there would be long years of peace, the Gaels gone from Priteni shores, Circinn ready to talk sense, and men able to tend stock, plant crops, ply awl and tongs and hammer in the practice of their trades once more, not waiting for the rap on the door and the call to arms. He prayed it would be so, not for himself, not for his own glory, but for the good of his people. Defeat the Gaels, and he could turn his attention to the other great task the gods called him to: uniting Circinn and Fortriu in the practice of the old faith.

  As Bridei’s forces made their way westward to the fringes of Gabhran’s territory, from every side of Dalriada other bands of Priteni warriors were closing in on the Gaels. Gabhran and his chieftains could never have imagined such a massive and complex attack, such unity of purpose, such precision of timing.

  Bridei and his war leaders had taken measures to increase their chances of remaining undetected until the last moment. They had made allowances for delays: a sickness, inclement weather, an ambush. Each chieftain had another man who could step up to lead in his place, should he be slain or taken. The trap in which they planned to catch the Gaelic king was like a clawed hand closing around Dalriada. Each finger must be in place; each relied upon the others to leave no gap, no weak spot through which Gabhran and his chieftains might escape. Bridei’s leaders and their forces were days’ travel from one another, and yet each depended on the others, in the end, for the successful closing of the trap. Bridei had been fostering their bonds of friendship for five years now. They knew one another well; they were a band of brothers, each proudly independent, each very much his own self, from wild Fokel of Galany to levelheaded Talorgen, from flamboyant Ged to reserved Morleo, each part of a team dedicated to the future of Fortriu and to their king’s great purpose. They had been vanquished by Dalriada before; the older chieftains, Talorgen and Ged, had seen many battles over the years. This time it seemed to be different. Even as they spoke of fallbacks and contingencies, they had the light of sure victory in their eyes.