The Dark Mirror (59 page)

Bridei felt a deep shiver run through his body. “It is customary,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t sleep
much. It will pass.”

“Drugs. Distraction. Hard labor. Or a woman,” Faolan said, counting off the options on his fingers. “How long since you had a woman? That can be arranged.”

“No.” Bridei hoped very much that he would not have to explain his reasons for this. Faolan was the last man to whom he would choose to confide such a personal matter as his vow of celibacy, the vow he had sworn to adhere
to until the day he took a wife.

“Then I suppose we will stand here in awkward conversation until morning,” Faolan said. “Or sit, perhaps. The steps might be more comfortable. That’s it; sit there. How long have these headaches plagued you?”

The Gael sounded almost friendly. Of course, it was part of his job to win trust.

“Since the battle at Galany’s Reach. Maybe earlier.”

“And why is that,
do you think? Is it possible this, too, is the aftermath of poison? Something subtle and slow-working?”

“I doubt it. I suppose we will find out soon enough; Breth or Garth will come down with the same affliction.”

“You dislike showing weakness.”

There was a silence.

“I’ve been trained to reveal as little as possible,” Bridei said. “You’d understand how that can be useful, I imagine.”

“I read
you with no difficulty,” said Faolan quietly. “You have no one you can trust. Even your druid is not privy to your secrets. In that, you have learned already what it is to be a king.”

“Shh,” hissed Bridei.

“Would I speak thus if we could be overheard? In this, at least, you can trust me. I have no desire to hear your inmost thoughts, believe me. I am interested in banishing this malady. I bear
the responsibility of keeping you alive and capable at least until Midwinter; as long as it takes.”

“Then leave me alone,” Bridei said, unable to keep the weariness from his voice.

“Alone with the stars,” mused Faolan. “Will that cure the headache? I will retreat into the shadows where I belong, Bridei. Don’t leave this part of the wall-walk; I need you to remain in sight.”

“You intend to stay
awake all night?”

“The last thing that needs concern you is my sleep or lack of it. Pray, meditate, dream, do what you will. Just stay where I can protect you. As for the great wild places and the voices of the gods, perhaps those, too, will come in time. If not, I suppose it’s all been for nothing.”

T
HEY HAD TAKEN UP
residence in her tree. As summer turned to the cool, crisp sharpness of early autumn their forms could be spotted sometimes amidst its canopy of sheltering green, elusive as squirrels, a whisk of cobweb gray, a whirl of berry red and nut brown. Nobody else could see them. They came only for Tuala.

At night when she sat there under the moon, dreaming of home, they settled one
on either side, the girl spreading skirts of smoky silver, the young man merging into the shadows and textures of the tree, such was the form of his own body, the nature of his raiment, all bark and leaf and curling fern frond.

“Do you have names?” Tuala asked them one night, tired of calling them, in her mind, merely
she
and
he
, forest girl and leaf man.

“Not such names as human folk use,”
the girl said with a tinkling laugh. “Tuala, they called you. What kind of choice is that? It ill befits your beauty; they should have named you for the white owl, or the little flowers that cling tenaciously in cracks on the high tors. Tuala: that is a name for a woman of status, the wife of a king.”

Tuala did not say that perhaps that was why Bridei had chosen it. In the little songs of their
childhood, often he had called her princess. “I ask only to make things easier, so I can address you by name as you do me.”

“Human folk would likely choose names for us in keeping with what they see,” said the young man. “For my companion, Gossamer, Willow, Vapor. For myself, Woodbine, perhaps.”

“Gossamer. Woodbine. Those are fair names.”

“They’ll do,” the girl said. “Now tell us: what have
you learned today?”

“Kethra comes to my private lessons now. I showed her and Fola how I make things move without touching them. Kethra wanted me to do more; I have only ever used that for small objects, the pieces on a game board, perhaps a knife or comb I needed to reach. She asked if I could do it with objects I couldn’t see; if I could manipulate the pace at which things move. If it mattered
how big they were, or how heavy. She wanted me to try it outside, with barrels or lengths of iron.”

“And did you?”

“Fola said no.”

The young man, Woodbine, was frowning. “You didn’t learn a thing. You gave away your secrets.”

“This is no good for you,” said Gossamer. “You see why these folk are keeping you here. They are merely using you. One day you move barrels onto a cart, the next you
send an iron bar through the air to crush a man’s skull, or a woman’s. One day you create pretty images of butterflies and flowers from a beam of light, the next you send that light to dazzle a man while another man drives a spear through his heart. You’re foolish if you think they brought you here to learn.”

“There is learning in everything.”

“Ah. You repeat your druid’s favorite dictum. And
there is, I suppose; you should learn from today that our kind are easily exploited by the human folk, if we allow them to gain control.”

“I don’t think—”

“No,” said Woodbine. “You don’t; not as you should. This is no place for you. Your eyes have dark circles around them and you’re as skinny as a half-starved chicken.”

“You’re wasting away for Pitnochie,” Gossamer said softly. “Let us take
you home.”

Tuala would not allow herself to cry. “There is no home at Pitnochie any more,” she said. “At least Fola and Kethra want me here. I can make a contribution. I can serve the Shining One. My teaching is going well; the girls are starting to trust me. I can make a life at Banmerren.”

“Rubbish,” Woodbine said. “You hate it here. Besides, we don’t mean home to the druid’s house. Nobody
wants you there. Come home with us. We are not visited by sorrow or loneliness. We do not feel the touch of death.”

Tuala shivered, drawing her shawl closer around her. Not long ago, Ana had passed her a message. Bridei had given back the ribbon, the token he had worn next to his skin every moment of every day he was parted from her. The words that came with it were cool and courteous, the kind
of words one would expect from a young man who might soon be monarch of Fortriu. He respected her decision. He hoped she would be happy. It was meaningless, save to convey that he was prepared to let her go without protest. That must be taken as confirmation that her choice was right. Bridei did not need her; he would find another to take her place by his side.

The last part of the message was
different.
I did not expect the Shining One to call you thus
. Perhaps she was deluding herself, but this seemed to her to speak of unhappiness. If only she could see him, talk to him, look in his eyes and know what he really thought. Tuala longed for that as a starving woman longs for fresh bread or a thirsty one for clear water: the plain, simple truth seen in the eyes of a friend who cannot
lie. One chance to know his heart, and perhaps she could walk on more easily.

“I can’t come with you,” she whispered. “That would be to leave too many things behind. I can’t believe there is nothing at all for me in this world, a human world. Even if I cannot have . . . even if the life I’m granted is not what I thought it would be, to go with you, to cross over into a realm so different, a place
from which I cannot return . . . It would be too final. Like severing the last thread that ties me to the things I love.”

Gossamer laughed again, a high pealing. It was extraordinary that nobody else at Banmerren ever seemed to hear it. “Love,” the girl echoed. “You are overfond of that word, Tuala. There is much to enjoy in our own world, fine things, beautiful things. You would be loved by
all there; you’d be in every way the princess that you were named, so many years ago. The Shining One looks down on both our kingdoms with equal light, my sister. Step across, and you will continue to rejoice in her sweet benevolence eternally, living a life entirely free from cares such as those that beset you now. No more worrying about folk who want you to exhibit your tricks and give them your
secrets. No more watching the one you think you love getting close to a certain other girl, one with hair like a cascade of sunlight. That won’t bother you a jot once you cross over; you’ll wonder why you ever
cared. Did you know that when one of our kind weds a human she forfeits her immortality? Who would choose death over eternal life?”

“I don’t want to hear this. I’ve told you, over and over.
I will stay here at Banmerren. The goddess wants me as a wise woman. This must be the right choice.” With sinking heart Tuala realized that the more often she repeated these words, the less she was inclined to believe them.

“Why don’t you put it to the test?” Woodbine’s voice was sly; he reached a knotty hand to touch Tuala’s knee and she edged along the branch away from him.

“Don’t do that!
What do you mean, put it to the test?”

“He sent you a message.” Gossamer was standing now, her slender form outlined in moonlight, graceful arms stretched above her head to rest on an upper branch, gown of cobweb-fine fabric floating about her body, small, white feet confident on the high perch. “Send him one in return. If you are unhappy, tell him so. Test him. If he fails it, you will know
your doubts were right. Then accept the truth, and we will take you home to the forest. Don’t you miss it, the soft green and the silence?”

“It is forbidden,” Tuala said. “He took a risk, giving Ana the ribbon to bring to me; those of us being trained as priestesses are not supposed to have any contact with the world beyond these walls, unless Fola or Kethra sanctions it. I mustn’t get him in
trouble. And he can’t take me home. He has to be at Caer Pridne.”

“If he thinks you not worth the risk,” Gossamer said carelessly, “then he will not respond. Make it subtle. He knows you very well. Send something others cannot interpret. That should be safe enough.”

“Why would you suggest this?” These two were certainly not to be trusted; they followed their own impenetrable rules.

“Because
we know you will not come with us until your mind is satisfied,” said Woodbine, rising to his feet on the branch beside Tuala. “You must have it in black and white, in cruel, unadorned truth: that you are not first in his life; that he will go on without you. That, indeed, burdened with you, he would be unable to fulfill his destiny. When has a king of Fortriu ever taken one of the Good Folk as a
bride? And what else could you be? What wife would possibly tolerate your presence in her house, sapping her husband’s energy, distracting him at every turn? You’re surely not expecting Bridei to sacrifice his opportunity to seek the kingship just because of you? Of course,
being a kindly young man, Bridei will not express it so baldly. But you know him. You will comprehend his message. Better
do it and put us all out of our misery. Act boldly. King Drust has another chill; he won’t last long.”

They tended not to linger for farewells, these two. It would be one final remark, generally calculated to wound, and they would be off, dissipating among the moonlit leaves like wisps of smoke, leaving Tuala alone with her thoughts. So it was tonight; between one blink and another they were
gone. And in her mind, complete in an instant as if she had already planned for it, was the message, telling Bridei when and where to find her with perfect clarity, yet, she thought, in terms quite obscure to anyone else. She hoped so. Ana, for one, must be trusted. As for those cruel words of brides and kings, she would pretend she had not heard them. Heart thumping, Tuala plucked a single withered
leaf from the oak and returned to her tower.

BEFORE THE SEASON
began to darken toward Gateway, Drust sickened. The nights were chill; the men on watch shivered in their sheepskin jackets, their fur-lined cloaks and felt hats, and fires were kept burning in the drafty stone chambers of Caer Pridne. The king’s cough rattled
through the hallways like a hoarse cry of death, some emanation of Black Crow herself. Drust’s cheeks bore a rosy flush in a face drained of color; Queen Rhian, a permanent frown of worry on her amiable features, haunted the stillroom, setting her own hands to the making of draughts to ease her husband’s chest. It was whispered that only Broichan’s magic was keeping the king alive.