The Dark Mirror (29 page)

Bridei waited.

“For me, what it means is a very particular kind of marriage, since any sons I have will be potential claimants in their turn. I can’t wed just anyone. It has to be a chieftain or other man of high status, preferably from within the territories of the Priteni. Of course, if I receive a proposal from outside
the borders, it’s acceptable as long as he’s a king. That’s what happened with your mother.”

“You do know her story, then?”

Ferada tossed her well-groomed head. “Of course. Such matters are of prime importance to my mother; she speaks of them often. Indeed, I’m surprised she hasn’t seized the opportunity to explain it all to you herself.”

“She thought, perhaps, that I already knew Will you
tell me, Ferada?”

“Your mother is kin at one further remove. The link goes back to Drust’s grandmother. Anfreda is descended from that lady’s sister.”

He waited.

“Through the female line, Bridei. You, too, are a potential candidate for kingship. You guessed, of course.”

Bridei could not reply. Suspecting was one thing; having the knowledge, suddenly, that those suspicions were true was making
his head reel and his heart beat like a drum. He worked to steady his breathing.

“Anfreda was quite close to all of them once,” Ferada told him. “That’s what Mother said. She was a favorite with Drust and his wife; Father knew her, and so must Broichan have done, because he was at court in those days. Maelchon came to Caer Pridne to settle a matter of incursions in the north of his own domain;
soldiers of the Priteni had been hired as mercenaries by his enemy, and he wanted to put a stop to it. He stayed somewhat longer than he’d intended, and when he went back to Gwynedd he took a new wife with him. It’s quite acceptable, as I said. The royal women do wed outside the Priteni tribes sometimes. It’s considered a good idea because it strengthens the bloodline. So here you are, and I’m obliged
to say I consider you only marginally better as a potential monarch than I do Bedo.”

“Oh.” Bridei found himself a little put out by this. “And why is that?”

“You’re too much of a scholar,” Ferada said bluntly. “You think too much. And you’re too kindly”

“I see,” said Bridei.

“It seems to me,” Ferada said, “that to be king you’d need a very thick skin and not too much imagination. And you’d
need a lot of very clever advisers. Drust the Bull certainly has those.”

“Ah, well,” Bridei said, “the election may not be for years yet. And as you said, there could be many candidates.”

“Seven, if each of the houses of Pridne has one to put forward. The king of Circinn, Drust the Boar, will be seeking to add Fortriu to his own domain. He wants the whole of the two kingdoms to become Christian, that’s what Father says.”

Bridei felt a shiver run through him, a premonition of dark change. “The chieftains of Fortriu would never allow that to happen,” he said grimly. “The Flamekeeper
would not permit it.”

Ferada was regarding him curiously. “Mm-hm,” she said. “It depends, doesn’t it, on how divided we are among ourselves? That must be the key. One leader, one country, one faith. I expect that is what Circinn intends. Unless Fortriu can summon the same unity, we may not retain the kingship of our own realm, next time.”

Bridei smiled. “I think you should be a royal councillor,
Ferada.”

She startled him by jumping to her feet and scowling at him. “Don’t you dare patronize me!” she snapped.

“I didn’t mean—”

“That’s enough! Don’t try to explain yourself, you’re just like Father, let the conversation get to a certain point and then give that little look that says, oh well, you’re only a girl after all, what do your opinions matter?”

“Really, I—”

“Don’t even try, Brideil”

He watched her walk away, her back very straight, her head held high. “You misjudge me,” he said quietly, but whether Ferada heard him, there was no way of telling.

T
HE CHANCES WERE SO
slight at first that Tuala hardly noticed them. The winter of her thirteenth birthday was a particularly harsh season, and tempers were short in the isolated household of Pitnochie. When Ferat only grunted in response to her morning greeting, Tuala took it to mean his mind was on the difficulties of getting the fire going, what with the supply of dry wood at its lowest and
the wind whistling down the chimney in a determined effort to thwart him. When Cinioch didn’t seem to want to talk to her after supper she assumed he was worrying about the conflict to come, for Broichan had advised his men at arms that they’d be part of a challenge to Dalriada in the spring, and that would mean blood and loss. Mara’s manner was brusque and distant, but that was nothing out of the
usual. Broichan was the center of her world; others she’d little time for.

It was the day when Fidich barred Tuala from visiting the cottage where he lived with Brenna and the children that she realized the household’s frostiness was more than the general bad humor of a hard winter. That day she felt the touch of something far colder, the glimmer of an awareness that she had been placed outside
a barrier and would never be allowed to step back in. Why, she could not tell. She hadn’t done anything to offend anyone. Yet all of them had changed.

“I’m sorry,” Brenna whispered, catching Tuala on her way home after
Fidich had announced she was no longer welcome in their small dwelling. “He’s concerned for the children, that’s all it is.”

“The children? What do you mean?” Tuala was baffled.

“I’m sorry,” Brenna said again, her features creased with helpless apology. Fidich was already limping back along the path, eldest boy clutching his hand, dogs at foot. “I know you mean no harm, it’s just . . .”

“Just what?” A terrible calm descended on Tuala, a premonition of things to come.

“It’s the tales. The men are mindful of the tales: the owl-wife, and Amna of the White Shawl, and others
like those. They’re afraid, and fear breeds fear. I’ve tried to tell Fidich, he’s a good man, but he’s got it into his head, they all have . . .”

“What? Got what into his head?”

But Brenna only muttered. “I’m sorry, Tuala,” and was away off after her husband. When Tuala went back to the house it seemed to her that all of them were carefully avoiding her gaze, Ferat intently chopping herbs, his
two assistants busy with the fire—the hands of one moved to sketch a charm, the sign to ward off evil, as she passed—Mara folding linen, lips pursed in disapproval, eyes distant. Broichan was in his own chamber as usual. He did venture out sometimes, but with Bridei gone, his interactions with his household were terse in character and restricted to what was essential for the smooth running of Pitnochie.
Perhaps, Tuala thought, he was merely waiting for Bridei’s return, as she was. It was rare For Broichan to speak to her, and she was glad of that, for her fear of him had not diminished as she grew older. One glance from those dark eyes had still the power to render her mute; one word of criticism could fill her heart, on an instant, with a paralyzing blend of fury and terror.

Fidich’s decree
forced Tuala to take stock, and she realized this had been creeping up on her for some time. It manifested itself in different ways: a subtle separation of her own place at the table; the removal of a certain fine wool coverlet from her chamber without explanation and its replacement with a coarse thing like a horse blanket; a refusal to let her take Blaze out for a ride, even on a fine crisp day
that was entirely suitable, with the pony badly needing exercise. And there were the sudden silences as Tuala came into a room, as if others had been discussing her in her absence, not favorably.

She considered these things but could not make much sense of them. If Bridei were here, people would not dare to be so unkind. If Bridei were here,
Broichan would wear a contented look, and Ferat would
be smiling, and the men at arms would go back to exchanging tales of war and tales of wonder around the fire at night. Bridei made the household come alive. She longed for spring, for this battle to be over and Bridei home again.

There was one quarter to which she might still turn for reassurance. Her lessons continued. They were shorter now, for this winter Erip was ailing. He had a persistent
cough that rattled his chest, and he was getting thin, a startling phenomenon in a man ever characterized by his smiling rotundity. Broichan had made him a curative potion in which the scents of nutmeg and honey did not quite conceal an underlying trace of something acrid and potent, a druidic herb specific to the illness. It was to be hoped this might see the old man well again before winter’s
end. Erip sat before the hall fire with a capacious shawl around his now-frail shoulders; he refused to take to his bed, saying that was as good as admitting defeat, and that if he must die he would die teaching. Wid said the truth was that he’d die arguing, and Erip responded, coughing explosively, that it amounted to the same thing, and they may as well get on with it.

The talk of dying distressed
Tuala. The look in Wid’s eyes worried her still further, for as the bearded ancient coaxed his old friend to drink, or wrapped him more warmly, or exchanged a gentler form of their usual banter, she could see the unmistakable shadow of impending loss on his furrowed features. They were close, the two of them. She had never found out their stories, their origins, why they had settled here in
Broichan’s house, why they seemed to possess no kin or homes of their own. What was the basis of their huge fund of knowledge? What kind of young lives had they lived, to build up such a diverse wealth of learning? Erip and Wid never spoke of these things; questioned, each was adept at turning the conversation along more general lines. Tuala began to wonder if she would ever know.

Today Mist
was ensconced on Erip’s knee, her claws kneading the layers of soft wool that swathed him, her purr resonating deep. Even as an adult cat she was quite a small creature, her bristling gray body perhaps half the size of a normal farm cat’s. As a rat-hunter she had earned her place at Pitnochie many times over.

Tuala sat down by Wid on a bench. Winter lessons always took place by the fire; there
was nowhere else warm enough.

“What’s it to be today?” Wid stretched long, mottled hands toward the blaze; she could hear the creaking of his joints. It must be hard to be old in winter.

“Do you know a story about Amna of the White Shawl?” asked Tuala. “I heard it mentioned. And there’s another about an owl-wife. Can you tell me those?” She tried to sound casual, as if all she felt was mild
curiosity. The way both old men turned to stare at her, eyes suddenly sharp, told her they knew her too well to be so easily fooled.

“Harumph,” Erip rasped, settling into storytelling mode. “Sometimes a child will ask for a certain story, and it’ll be told, and she’ll realize there’s a truth in it she didn’t want to hear. You understand that, I’m sure.”

The chill came over Tuala again, the cold
breath of an unwelcome future. “This is something I need to know,” she said. Thank the gods for these two old men; with them, at least, there was never any need to pretend.

“I’ll begin it, then,” said Erip, “and my friend here will end it. Once there was a fellow called Conn, a brewer he was, maker of the best ale this side of Serpent Lake and very popular with the locals because of it. He didn’t
drink more than he should, just made sure other people got the best he could produce, and all in all he was known as a sensible, practical kind of man, one who could be relied on not to do anything foolish.” Erip stopped to cough; it was becoming harder for him to catch his breath after these spasms, and his hand shook as he took the cup of water Tuala gave him.

“Are you sure you want to go on?”
she asked. “Wid can tell it—”

“Rubbish,” retorted Erip in a voice like the rustling of dry reeds in autumn. “Stop telling tales and I may as well stop breathing. Now where was I?”

“A practical sort of man.”

“Yes, and being practical, he was all ready to wed and settle down; he’d found a sweetheart, the daughter of a farmer, and he had his own little house, and everything was looking rosy. The
girl’s father was well off. She would come to the marriage with a bag of silver and her own three fields to boot. Now it so happened that Conn was out late one night, visiting friends, and he walked back by a short cut, a wee track under hornbeams that passed by a pretty little stream fringed with ferns. It was full moon. He was a fool to go that way, any of the old folk could have told him. Conn
was happy, and maybe that made him overconfident, for he must have known the warnings that hang over such a place. So he walked blithely down the path, and there on the water’s edge he saw her.”

“Amna?” asked Tuala.

“Aye, but he didn’t know who she was. All he saw was the loveliest creature he could ever have imagined, a girl pale as pearl and shimmering in the
moonlight, with long hair like
a flow of soft shadow, and a white shawl the only thing she wore to clothe her nakedness. She had a hand lifted to her mouth as if in surprise that a man had ventured that way by night. One look at her, and his sweetheart vanished right out of Conn’s mind.”