Ana sat up in bed, arms around her knees, regarding her small visitor. She gave a soft whistle. The wren shifted a little; its eye did not leave her. Now that Ana thought about it, she had seen that look before, intent, watchful, as if the creature had some purpose of its own in seeking her out. Had not the hooded crow at the ford turned its penetrating eye on her with just such concentration? That had unsettled her. But the hoodie had proved a friend. Without its help, she would have lost Faolan.
“What are you?” she murmured, getting out of bed as slowly as she could, so as not to frighten the tiny bird away with a sudden movement. “Where have you come from?”
The wren hopped along the sill; not far, since the window was so narrow. Ana had not looked out before. She came closer. The wren stayed where it was. She could have reached out and touched its soft feathers. Ana wondered if it had once been a lady’s pet. The look in its bright eye could scarcely be called tame.
“Who sent you?” she whispered, looking out the window at the sliver of view it offered. The chamber was high; she had climbed stone steps to reach it. From here she could see a stretch of forest, oak and elm, a scrap of pale sky, and, if she edged to one side, part of the long, high wall that appeared to encircle the fortress. Ludha had said Briar Wood was very safe. This appeared inarguable; without Alpin’s say-so, there would be no coming in and there would be no getting out. Ana felt suddenly cold.
The wren gave a warble and, as quickly as it had appeared, launched itself out of the window and away. Ana craned her neck to watch as it flew along the wall, arrowstraight, and downward out of sight. Wherever it was headed, it had not gone into the wildwood, but to a place inside Alpin’s fortress.
“Odd,” Ana said to herself. “Very odd.” She wondered if Alpin had druids or wise women in his household. That could explain it. Such practitioners of the crafts of healing, divination, and magic could be very close to their creatures. Fola had once had a huge cat, Shade, which had not seemed particularly magical, but with whom the wise woman’s bond was clearly strong. If these birds were indeed the companions of Alpin’s druid or priestess, Ana hoped she would get an explanation of why they seemed to be seeking her out.
BY SUPPERTIME FAOLAN had acquainted himself with the layout of Alpin’s stronghold. The fortress at Briar Wood had three levels: cellars for storage, living and working areas at ground level, and a few higher chambers that included the chieftain’s own apartments. Ana had been housed next to Alpin. Faolan had been given a pallet in the serving men’s quarters. As soon as he’d been announced as a bard, Alpin’s men-at-arms had begun to treat him as an amusing novelty rather than a person of genuine interest. Sharing his quarters with grooms and cooks might prove useful; such company was often a source of good intelligence.
The central courtyard was fringed with buildings backing up against the huge wall around Alpin’s fortress. There was a smithy, a tannery, a bakehouse, a kennel packed with hunting hounds of fearsome appearance, a grain store, an armory. Farther down were barns and stables; it seemed little of this household’s business was conducted outside the protection of the wall. In his mind, Faolan made a new map: the run of the wall, the buildings each in its turn, the points where trees were tall enough to be seen above the barrier, reminding those inside that they were only a stone’s throw from the great wood. He looked for entrances and exits; somewhere there must be a lesser opening in the wall, a back door, so to speak. A drain, perhaps? A place where goods might be brought in without the need to heave open those great gates?
The questions he asked aloud did not concern such matters. His queries were carefully structured to seem innocuous, to be soon forgotten. They were designed to encourage people to give him what he needed without knowing they had done so. Faolan had been a spy a long time, and he was good at it.
It was not possible to go far afield that first day. They had reached Briar Wood in late afternoon, the last part of the ride having been quicker than he anticipated with Alpin’s escort showing the way, and by the time Faolan was settled and had visited the stables to check on his horse and exchange a word or two with the men who worked there, it was growing dark. He would save night explorations until these folk grew accustomed to his presence among them.
There was a corner of the fortress that caught his attention, a place where it seemed to him the wall doubled, creating a narrow space bordered on both sides by high stone barriers. There was no apparent entry point to this area, but the wall showed a slight curving inward for the length of perhaps fifteen strides; beyond it, Faolan judged, there might be sufficient room for a hidden courtyard or chamber. What might one value so highly that one set it away thus? A store of arms? A cargo of spices or silks that might be offered to a powerful enemy as a bribe? Or perhaps there was something of a different nature behind that odd contour of construction. Perhaps it was not a bulwark against intrusion but a barrier to keep something in, something too dangerous to be housed in ordinary confinement such as barn, kennels, cellars. A prison? Surely not. What captive requires such elaborate concealment? Shackles and a big guard or two were all a competent chieftain required to keep men confined. True, once or twice Faolan himself had made an escape from that kind of security, but he did not count himself as an ordinary prisoner. It was his job to be one step ahead, one level better; it was one of his codes for survival. Ah well, there was time to discover the truth about this and other matters of interest. There was time, as long as Ana could get the message across to her intended husband that he could have her only on Bridei’s terms. She must summon the strength to insist on a delay, and fend off any attempts by Alpin to bed her until Faolan could verify the fellow’s promises. As bard, he’d have no problem ferreting out information. In that respect Ana had done him a favor. He just hoped nobody would ask him to play.
What he could not do was step in to help Ana with the initial negotiations. Faolan had planned with Bridei exactly what information he would present in response to Alpin’s inevitable questions. Some of it would be false and misleading, designed to reinforce the intelligence he had already passed on at the Gaelic stronghold of Dunadd, before he met a man called Pedar and was obliged to silence him. Bridei wanted the Gaels to be aware of the likelihood of an early strike: he wanted them to believe the council with Drust of Circinn was called for the harvest festival of Gathering, and the advance itself planned for Maiden Dance, celebration of the first stirrings of spring. This rumor was to disguise the true timing of his venture, which was much earlier. Dalriada would feel the teeth of Fortriu the day the leaves turned to gold; the campaign would be over before Bone Mother fastened her icy grip on the hills of the Great Glen. The strategy had been good: there is nothing better designed to conceal the truth than intelligence that is very close to that truth, but inaccurate in one crucial particular. Faolan doubted greatly that King Gabhran of Dalriada had an inkling Bridei was almost ready to strike.
Ana was a dangerous player in this game, for she could not be relied upon to withhold information whose strategic importance she did not understand, the names of Bridei’s existing allies, for example, including the Caitt chieftain Umbrig. Faolan was glad they had kept the full truth from her; he was under no illusions as to the methods that might be applied to both men and women to extract information. She did have one advantage in the negotiations. It was clear from that wretch Alpin’s hot eyes and roaming hands that he wanted her. The thought of it made Faolan sick.
He had washed under a pump and dressed in the plain attire one of the kitchen men had found for him, homespun in dun and gray, coarse and serviceable. His own boots had been left in the forest; they gave him a pair of ancient shoes with cracking leather and ragged stitching, and he put them on without protest. Since the lie had been told and could not be withdrawn, he would use it to his advantage. The less he looked like a royal emissary the better. In these garments, he should blend in here without much difficulty. It would be good for him. It would remind him that women like Ana lived in a different wo
rld from men like himself.
At supper, they seated him near the opposite end of the long table from the place where Ana sat at Alpin’s right hand, wan and drawn-looking in her clean clothing. She had her hair plaited in a crown on top of her head, and was holding her neck straight, aiming for a regal carriage. Alpin hardly took his eyes off her. Faolan, who never drank ale when he was working, drained his goblet in one draught and allowed a woman to refill it. Alpin was laughing; he was patting Ana’s hand with his big, rough paw. Faolan saw her flinch. He focused his gaze on the platter of roast mutton before him; speared a slice with his borrowed knife and began to chew. He watched the folk around him; he observed, also, the corners of Alpin’s hall, the doorways covered by loose hangings, the broad hearths at each end. They said the winters were perishing cold in the realm of the Caitt.
These were loud folk and seemed to like their jests, many of which concerned their own exploits in the beds of buxom women or their besting of some other fellow in a brawl. They ate and drank with robust appetite and at first plied Faolan with questions: what was his name, where was he from, did he have a wife, and what was a Gael doing living at the court of Fortriu? He made his answers brief, polite, and entirely without interest, and was rewarded when the talk turned to other matters. He counted the number of men-at-arms present, estimated those who might be on watch, and compared the total with the capacity of the sleeping quarters set aside for warriors, a realm he had investigated quietly sometime earlier. There was room in Alpin’s house for a complement of eighty men. There were perhaps thirty present now, including those on guard. Alpin was known to have an outpost on the west coast, where his ships were maintained, but there was no current information as to its size or resources. This, Faolan needed to know. He would find a weak link somewhere at Briar Wood; he was expert at spotting them: a fellow with a grudge, a lonely woman with a loose tongue, a child who had overheard what should have been secret. He’d have it out of them all in good time.
He glanced up the table at Ana; at the same moment she looked at him, her eyes conveying an apology. He allowed himself a little nod of reassurance; saw her lips curve in the slightest of smiles.
Ana had turned back to Alpin now, gesturing, her expression serious. She was working hard on her own mission: to trade away her future for the sake of kings who had held her hostage for half her life. It was wrong, bitterly wrong. She was like a princess from an ancient tale, who surely should find her happiness in the gaining of her own kingdom or in a transcendent triumph over adversity. This was no triumph. With every tilt of her lovely head, with every gaze of her limpid gray eyes, with every expressive movement of her hands she moved one step closer to committing herself to that oaf sitting there beside her. Not one of these folk had the capacity to recognize her true worth …
“So,” someone said, “you’re a court bard? There’s an old harp around here somewhere; used to be a fellow played a bit, long while ago, what was his name? A few tunes after supper, that’d be good.”
A harp. Faolan turned cold. “Sometime, perhaps,” he said noncommittally. “I was injured on the journey here; my arm. It will be a while before I can play again. And I imagine the instrument will need attention if it’s been unused a while.”
“I’ll get a boy to hunt it out; you can take a look. Not much diversion here, you understand. Bards don’t make a habit of wandering this way. The women’d like a song or two.”
“I work for the lady,” Faolan said. “If she agrees, of course I will oblige. But it will take time. Some fellow in a blue headband winged me with an arrow. Thought I was a warrior, I suppose. Must’ve been shortsighted.”
His companions at the table guffawed with laughter.
“Show us your scar,” someone said.
“It’s bandaged.”
“Show us.”
There was no choice but to oblige. Faolan took care to roll up his sleeve only as far as the new wound, and not to reveal the other, older scar above it. For a musician to sustain one such injury was just about plausible as an unfortunate accident. To bear the marks of two must arouse suspicion.
“The Blues, huh?” commented an elderly man whose left cheek was adorned with row on row of faded warrior marks. “Folk are saying they attacked your lady’s party by the ford. Alpin won’t let such an affront go without retaliation.”
“The Blues?” Faolan feigned ignorance. “Who are they? Neighbors?”
“You could say that. Dendrist’s territory, Blue Lake, runs to the east of Briar Wood. He’s a man who never seems content with existing borders.”
“Ah.”
“Not the safest way to ride in here, over Breaking Ford,” commented a sharp-eyed man. “Whoever was leading your party must have been a fool. You’d have best gone down the lakes and up by the western tracks.”
“I know nothing of such matters,” said Faolan, whose constant scanning of the riotous hall for anything that might be of significance had at last been rewarded. There were serving dishes on a stone shelf at the side, and among the servants who bore platters to the table and away, a man was quietly loading items onto a small tray, enough food and drink for perhaps two. This in itself was nothing surprising; he was probably taking supplies to some of the fellows on watch, or tending to the elderly or infirm. It was the man himself who caught Faolan’s eye. He was shortish, with a powerful chest and extremely broad shoulders, his build accentuated by the ankle-length robe he wore. His head was completely bald and, unlike the hirsute Caitt warriors, he was clean-shaven, his face decorated with battle-counts but not with kin signs; a seasoned campaigner, then, and of Priteni blood, but not highborn. His stance breathed power. In that contained energy there was a control that stopped Faolan’s breath. What was such a man doing bearing little trays of roast meat and ale as if he were an ordinary servant? The bald head turned, and Faolan noticed a mark behind the right ear, a small, crudely executed tattoo in the shape of a star. A pair of light, inscrutable eyes met Faolan’s briefly, then the fellow took up his tray and went out. Faolan noted the exit he used; it was the doorway closest to Alpin’s private quarters.
“Bard!” the chieftain called.
With a pang of misgiving, Faolan got to his feet.
“Come here!”
He walked to the top of the table, bowing low and obsequiously as he reached Alpin. “My lord.”
“No music tonight?” Alpin asked with a grin. “No ditties to divert us?”
“My lord—” Ana began.
“Let the fellow speak for himself, my dear. He has a tongue; I’ve heard him use it.”
“I hope to entertain you in due course, my lord Alpin,” Faolan said, aiming for a subservient tone. “It would be little enough recompense for your consideration in riding out to meet us. Unfortunately, my arm is damaged and I cannot play. Besides, my instruments were lost in the accident that befell us.”
“You don’t need your instruments to sing, nor your arm,” Alpin growled.
“Indeed not, my lord. But I am weary tonight. I do not think the lady Ana will require music of me when our losses are so recent. It is hard to summon fair tunes when the heart is full of sorrow.”
“Of course you need not sing for us tonight, Faolan,” said Ana. “Later, perhaps.”
“Not planning to keep the fellow permanently, are you?” challenged Alpin. “I don’t have Gaels in my household; it only makes folk suspicious.”
Ana’s cheeks had turned pink. “Faolan is entirely reliable, my lord. A musician stands outside political loyalties. I’m hoping he will remain here for some time. At least until our negotiations are concluded. I had hoped he might play—”
“At the wedding,” Faolan said through gritted teeth. “After that I will return to White Hill.”
There was a brief silence, then Ana put a hand up to shield a yawn. “Will you excuse me, my lord? I am very weary, and wish to retire now.”
“By all means.” Alpin’s eyes were all over her; Faolan could read his mind, see the i
mage there of Ana lying on her bed, relaxed in a soft nightrobe, the curves of her body enticing, the candlelight playing on her pale skin and shimmering fall of hair. “Sweet dreams, my dear.”
“There’s just one thing,” Ana said, rising to her feet. “I need your assurance that we will have an early opportunity to discuss Bridei’s terms for the marriage. I wish to have that settled before I make any decisions. I would prefer to have Faolan present during our negotiations, since he is the only man left from my escort. While he has no expertise in such affairs, I imagine it is he who will bear the account of our dealings back to King Bridei. It would be foolish to send another messenger when Faolan will be traveling that way in any case.”
Alpin regarded her, full lips twisted in a sardonic smile. He seemed torn between amusement and irritation. “I’m not accustomed to women giving me orders,” he said.
“It’s not an order, my lord,” said Ana. “The flood robbed me of my skilled negotiator, along with many friends. You would not want King Bridei to hear that you took advantage of me in these dealings because of that unfortunate event, I am sure. Of course you will make some allowance for the very awkward position in which I find myself.”
Faolan suppressed the urge to applaud; it had been neatly done. She possessed an infinite capacity to surprise him. The conversation had drawn the attention of all the men and women seated close to Alpin; their heads were turning from one speaker to the other with the avid interest of folk watching a skilled combat. Faolan, still on his knees, made his expression blank.