Heart's Blood (33 page)

Anluan frowned. “I know little about this Cathaír. And who would guard your chamber in his absence?”

“I know the young man.” A memory of past sorrow echoed in Rioghan’s tone. “He is trustworthy, my lord. A warrior who could have been a future leader, a fine one, had his life not been cut brutally short.”

Anluan and I looked at him. Neither of us asked for further explanations.

“Very well,” Anluan said. “Caitrin, please ask Cathaír if he will help us. Perhaps he will also find you another guard—by all the saints, this requires act after act of blind faith.We can’t have the entire host present at our council. That could quickly turn to chaos.What we need are representatives.”

“A sound idea, my lord.” I could almost see Rioghan making a list in his mind and crossing off items one by one. “Eight or ten would be a good number. They should be aware that they’ll be putting forwards the opinions of the others.There will be a need for some consultation before this evening.The unpalatable fact is that if this comes to war, the host is the only army Whistling Tor has.”

“We’d best get to work,” Anluan said.

“Of course.” Rioghan’s tone was level, controlled.“Just one more question, my lord.Where should we hold this? The great hall? The library?”

“Out of doors.” I had the impression that Anluan had already made these decisions, perhaps some time ago. “The host won’t be comfortable within four walls. We’ll gather in the courtyard. I’ll leave the practical arrangements to you, Rioghan. I doubt if they will be taxing to a man of your experience.”

 

Cathaír responded to the challenge, listening intently as I explained what was planned, though he could not still the restless movement of his eyes. He strode off into the forest, and very shortly afterwards a strapping, shaven-headed warrior appeared on the gallery outside my bedchamber to announce that he would take on Cathaír’s duties as guard while the younger man addressed the folk out in the woods.

“Not much of a thinker myself,” the warrior said, planting his legs apart and leaning on his spear. “The lad can speak for me, and I’ll do this job for him. Nobody will get past while Gearróg’s on guard, my lady.”

“Thank you, Gearróg. I’m not a lady, I’m a craftswoman. Please call me Caitrin.”

“You’re a lady to us.” The big warrior sounded a little awkward, but his tone was warm. “Young fellow says maybe his lordship’s going to take things in hand at last.That true?”

His eyes held the same desperate hope I had seen in Cathaír’s when first he came to speak with me. It was important not to lie. “Anluan will do his best. This is difficult for him. He can’t easily shake off the shadows of the past.”

“What about us? They’re saying maybe there’s something can be found that will let us go. Let us sleep at last. Something to silence that voice, the one that puts bad things in our heads. I’d give anything to make that happen, my lady.”

“Voice? What voice?”

“We don’t talk about it.” Gearróg’s eyes darted nervously from side to side, as if this entity might appear from nowhere to punish him if he said more. “It turns us wrong way up and inside out. When it’s there we don’t know what we’re doing. You never know when it’ll come.” Then, after a moment,“I don’t suppose it’s true, what they’re saying. Stands to reason. It’s our punishment, being here. If there was a way to stop it, someone would have done it before.”

“There might be a counterspell,” I said cautiously. “I’m looking for it in the old books. If there is one, Anluan can use it to let you all go. But I can’t make any promises about that, only that I’ll try my hardest to find it before the end of summer.”

“End of summer? Why then?”

“I was hired for the summer. I assume that when it’s over I will . . . leave.”
Go home
did not sound right. Increasingly, I was feeling as if this odd place, the place no person in her right mind wanted to come near, was my real home, and Market Cross an alien place, the stuff of nightmare.

“Leave? You’d leave, just like that?”

The warrior’s tone, shocked, sad, perfectly reflected my own feelings on the matter. “I can’t say. It depends on what Anluan does; on the Normans; on all sorts of things.” No matter what happened, I wanted to stay. Even if there was war; even if something went wrong and chaos descended on Whistling Tor. I wanted to be here with my friends. I wanted to stand by Anluan’s side as he faced this challenge. “I hope I won’t have to go,” I said. “But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Gearróg grinned, showing a mouthful of broken teeth, and made a gesture as if he were sealing his lips.“Best go and find his lordship, my lady. He’ll be needing you. Oh, and I’ll keep an eye on the wee girl. Cathaír says that’s part of the job up here. She’ll be safe with me.”

I had not even noticed the ghost girl crouched in a corner of the gallery, rocking Róise in her arms.

“I’m good with little ones,” Gearróg said.“Had a brood of my own once, I seem to remember. Gone. Long gone. Can’t quite recall their names.”

“I hope one day you’ll see them again.” I blinked back sudden tears.

His smile was sad now. “Me, go where they’ve gone? That’s not going to happen, my lady. Best I can hope for is the long night of no dreams. Never mind that. Off you go now. I’ll keep things safe for you.”

 

Anluan explained the plan to the rest of his household, with my help and Rioghan’s. Magnus’s broad features were transformed first with surprise, then with relief that at long last his chieftain had made the decision to act. Olcan listened intently. Muirne came in late. She did not speak until the discussion was finished, and then she said quietly, “This is insanity.You must know what will happen. Are you all fools, that you give credence to Caitrin’s misguided theories? The chieftain of Whistling Tor does not leave the hill. He cannot.”

“You’d best not be present for the council if you’re fixed in that opinion,” Rioghan told her.“Anluan will make a strong statement of his intention. As his household, we must be seen to stand behind him. If you can’t do that, it’s best if those present don’t hear from you.”

She turned her chilliest look on him. “
You
think to exclude me?” she asked. “You, the man whose wise advice sent his leader and all his fellow warriors straight to a bloody slaughter? Are you so carried away with this ridiculous plan that you have forgotten your beloved Breacán?”

Rioghan flinched visibly. Eichri got to his feet, putting a skeletal arm around his friend.“That was a low blow,” the monk said.“Let us not argue amongst ourselves, or we’ll never be ready in time.We’re not going to war tonight, only to a council.”

Anluan was seated at the head of the table. Now he got to his feet, his eyes on Muirne, who was in her usual place opposite him. “If you belong to my household, if you are loyal to me, then you are part of the plan.We do it all together. And we support one another. There are precious few of us.We must work as one.”

In answer, Muirne rose to her feet and left the room. It was the first time I had seen her treat Anluan with anything other than fawning adoration, and I found the change unsettling. The men, however, seemed to think little of it. Magnus was quizzing Anluan about exactly what he should be saying to Tomas and the other villagers during the brief visit that was all he had time for. Eichri was making an effort to divert Rioghan’s mind from the unthinkable words Muirne had hurled at him by offering a crew of monks to set things up for the council. I tried not to consider the possibility that Muirne was right, and that we were heading straight into disaster.

 

Anluan had said the council should take place after supper. With Magnus gone down the hill,there would be no supper unless someone else attempted to cook. Anluan and Rioghan paced together outside, working out exactly what should be said to this evening’s gathering. Olcan had gone down to the farm to tend to the animals. I put together a simple repast, vegetables and herbs in a kind of pie with a crust made from stale bread.

Eichri came into the kitchen in search of a cloth to drape over the bare wood of the council table.“Rioghan tells me this calls for a certain degree of ceremony. I wouldn’t know. It’s been a long time since there was a council held at Whistling Tor. More years than any of us can remember.”

“Not as long as that, surely.” I lifted the lid of the pie dish to examine my creation. It smelled surprisingly good. “There was the council where Irial met Emer.Twenty-seven years, thirty; a long while ago, but well within your memory and those of all who were part of Irial’s household. Eichri, don’t go yet, I need to ask you something.”

The monk hesitated on the threshold, his expression suddenly wary.

“Do you believe it’s true, the theory we spoke of earlier?” I wanted to ask him whether he could remember the time of blood, Nechtan’s time, and the terrible things the host had done. I wanted to know if he had felt a change in himself with the coming of each new chieftain. But how could I ask something so outrageously personal?

“Maybe.” It was clear this was not the question he had expected.

“Eichri, there’s an older warrior, Gearróg, guarding my bedchamber today. He spoke of a voice. A voice that whispers in the ears of the host all the time, speaking evil, tormenting them. Can you tell me what this voice is? Is it the same force Anluan fears so much, the dark entity that exists within the host?”

Eichri’s face closed up before my eyes.“I know nothing of that,” he said.

“Really?” It was obvious that he was lying to me.

“This fellow you mention should keep his mouth shut.”

“More secrets,” I said.

“Not secrets. Just things best left unsaid. I must go.” Eichri forced a smile. “That smells good.You’ll be taking over Magnus’s job next.”

“Nobody could ever do that,” I said as my companion went out. Magnus was the real heart of Whistling Tor. He held everything together.What if there was a battle and he was killed? No, I would not think of such things. I seized an onion, stripped off the skin and began to chop with more force than was really necessary.

“Smells tasty.” Olcan was at the door, Fianchu behind him.“I won’t come in, I’m all over dirt. Brought some greens for supper.” He held out a bunch of glossy dark leaves. “Everything all right? I thought you’d be holding Anluan’s hand, advising him about tonight, not in here slaving over the fire.”

“Olcan, may I ask you something?”

He waited, arms folded, bright eyes watchful. Fianchu had come in, his feet leaving a muddy pattern on the floor, and was busily cleaning up the breadcrumbs under the table.

“You were here in Nechtan’s time, weren’t you? Even before that.”

A wary nod.

As with Eichri, a question came out that was not the one I had intended to ask. “How did he die? Nechtan?”

“Peacefully in his bed. He outlived his wife by some years. Funny how things turn out.”

“Olcan, I know you are not part of the host, but something much older. Are there others like you on the Tor?”

A strange smile then, sad, accepting, proud.“I’m the last of my kind in these parts, Caitrin. I’ve heard tell of others far to the south, but that might only be a story.”

“That’s sad for you. Haven’t you been tempted to travel there, to seek them out?” I did not ask if he had ever had a wife and children, a family, or whether he had wanted one.There were so many stories in this place, and most of them sorrowful.

“You’d like to make things right for all of us, wouldn’t you, lass? I’m content enough here on the Tor; it’s my place, has been for far longer than you can imagine.The host, Nechtan’s spell, the whole sorry business, that’s only a bump in the road for me. Still, I’d like to see the lad happy. I’d like to see him make something good out of all this.”

“The lad—you mean Anluan?”

“He’s got a lot to contend with.We all need to stand by him, help him see this through.”

“I plan to do that, Olcan. Let me ask you—” But there was no asking about the voice Gearróg had mentioned, or about Muirne’s strange attitude to the current crisis, or about a number of other things that were exercising my mind, because Anluan was in the inner doorway, leaning against the frame, looking too weary to do so much as sit down at the table, let alone address a formal council in just a few hours.

“Caitrin?”

“I’ll be off,” muttered Olcan, and clicked his fingers. Fianchu snatched up a last crust and was away out the door after his master.

Anluan and I gazed at each other across the kitchen.
Don’t tell him how tired he looks. And don’t tell him one glance brings back the feeling of being in his arms, the lovely, safe feeling, the throbbing, delicious feeling . . .
“Finished with Rioghan?” I asked as calmly as I could, lifting one of Magnus’s herb jars down from its shelf and putting a pair of cups on the table.

“Finished for now, yes.” He came over and sat down on the bench, then put his elbow on the table and rested his brow on his hand. “He believes I can do this. But hope is such a tenuous quality.To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for . . .Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.”

I had stilled in the middle of putting the herbal mixture into the cups. I set the spoon down. Surely he wouldn’t turn back now, change his mind about this, after showing such strength? “No, Anluan,” I said, my heart thumping.“That is quite wrong.You must let hope in, then instead of simply waiting for good things to happen, work as hard as you can to achieve them.The goal someone hopes for can be anything: writing a line of perfect script, or baking a pie, or . . . or raising a child well, despite the odds. Or standing up for what is right.”

He had lifted his head. In this light, his eyes were the hue of ultramarine, an ink that rivalled heart’s blood for rarity. I could not read his expression. I only knew that from now on I would not look at him without wanting to touch. I wondered whether he could see this on my face. “I thought I’d make Magnus’s favorite restorative draft,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush. “This seems an appropriate time for it.”