Blood on my face. Head throbbing a bit. Can’t tell if Bardán’s hurt. Can’t see a poxy thing down here. Only knew it was him from the smell. Got to stay awake. Drop off and I’ll be out of my mind before you can snap your fingers. Dreaming the bad things and waking up to the dark. I’d be a gibbering wreck.
What’s Tóla got over Gormán, to keep him dancing to the one tune? I know Gormán’s a good man underneath. Maybe Tóla’s told him he’ll be sent away if he doesn’t obey orders. Never get to see Cara again. Could be that. Like a grandfather to the girl, Gormán is. Friends since she was a little thing.
Hard to breathe in here. Head’s muzzy, hurting too. Don’t go to sleep, Grim. Wait. Only wait. Can’t hear anything from up there. If folk were looking for us, would we hear them? They can’t be going to leave us down here. Would they do that? Leave us and walk away?
Shit. Maybe they would. Not much of a way to die. More I think about it, the harder it is to breathe. Is Bardán still breathing? I give a sort of grunt, which is the only sound I can make with the gag on, and he grunts back at me. Funny, how happy that makes me. Not alone. I’m not alone.
I’m thinking about hope. Thinking it’s like a candle. New and bright at first, strong and steady. Then the draught creeps in, and the candle burns down, and it’s not so strong anymore. Flickering. Wavering. Struggling. Holding on as long as it can. Or hope’s like a song. A lullaby you’d sing to a new baby. None shall harm this child of mine. A promise you’ll keep your child safe. Or it’s like reaching out for someone’s hand, holding it in yours. It’s seeing the beauty in things. A thrush singing. Children splashing in a stream. A dog’s faithful eyes. Blackthorn’s red hair. Her own flame, that she carried through the living hell of Mathuin’s lockup. That’s hope. For Bardán here, I’m guessing hope is his daughter. Now he knows, that’ll get him through.
Holy Mother of God! I hear Ripple. Ripple barking up top, loud enough so we can hear it down under in the black. Means she went where I told her to and help’s come. If it was them, Tóla and Gormán, they’d have shut that noise up fast. Wolves, the two of them. No mercy. But she’s still barking, and now someone’s tramping around up there. The trapdoor creaks open, and Ripple’s voice is joy and pride and hope all rolled into one.
43
~Cara~
They brought the men out from the root cellar. There was blood all down Grim’s face from a cut on his head. Bardán was pale as a ghost and shaking. And her father – Tóla – was still telling lies. The two of them had been locked in to cool off, he said, because Bardán had flung wild accusations at him and physically attacked him, and Grim had got involved as well. They would have been let out in due course, when they’d had time to learn their lesson. As for the rest of it, it was a fanciful story with no substance at all. He told Cara, again, that her rightful place was with him, her father, at Wolf Glen. And none of it was anyone else’s business.
Maybe he thought they would all just go away. Even the five men from Longwater who had ridden over despite Cionnaola saying he didn’t need them. Didn’t Tóla realise those men had seen Bardán and Grim brought out of the barn? Did he really still believe life could go back to what it had been? It seemed so. It seemed he was in a world of his own, for he went on protesting while Aunt Della sent serving folk away to fetch clean water and salves and bandages, and Mistress Blackthorn washed and bandaged Grim’s wound then sat on the ground with his head in her lap and said absolutely nothing for a while. Tóla went on talking as Aunt Della herself wiped Bardán’s face and held a cup of water for him to drink. Cara waited and listened as Tóla talked himself to a stop while telling them nothing. Then she stepped forward to speak, finding her voice with no trouble at all, even with all those people looking on. Her new voice: Brígh’s voice.
‘It’s time for you to tell the true story, Father,’ she said, wondering if this might be the last time she called him that. ‘The whole story, from when Bardán came to Wolf Glen with his baby girl. Don’t lie this time. I see a man here who was nursed alongside Bardán’s daughter, in our – in your house.’ The young man, Fedach, had come up from Longwater with the others. Cara was glad he had done that. She liked the steady look of him. He was a man who would surely never tell lies. ‘You said that little girl died,’ she went on. ‘You said Bardán ran off with her into the forest and abandoned her to her fate. And then, after two seasons away, your wife came home with her own baby, though nobody had known she was with child when she left just after Bardán vanished. Her own baby: Cara, daughter of the house. Except that baby could already walk. She could sit upright on a horse. She was getting on for one year old. I was that baby. Not your daughter, or my moth– your wife’s. Bardán’s child, Brígh. If you did not steal me, if you did not lie to him, what happened?’
It seemed for a little that Tóla was not going to answer. The folk watching whispered among themselves while he stood tight-lipped, apart from everyone else. The men who had been acting as guards had melted away into the crowd; he was alone.
‘Must this matter be aired here, in front of all these folk?’ he asked. ‘Let us observe some small measure of propriety. A meeting behind closed doors, down at the house.’
‘That won’t suit anyone but yourself,’ said Cionnaola, who still stood in the doorway, blocking entry. ‘It appears you’ve incarcerated these two men on dubious grounds. That matter will be referred to Prince Oran, to be discussed at his next open council.’ When Tóla made to speak, the Island man went on, ‘I’m not finished. Your actions in that instance are for Prince Oran and his advisers to deal with. The other matter, the question of this young lady’s identity and the strange events surrounding her first year, might better be discussed in private, yes. But I don’t believe that will satisfy anyone present here. In particular, it will not satisfy Cara. And she deserves the truth. She’s waited fifteen years for it.’
‘We’re well beyond the point where any of this can be kept secret, Master Tóla,’ Mistress Blackthorn said.
‘What you suggested . . . It is partly true, Cara,’ Tóla said. A sigh went through the crowd. Cara held herself calm and still. She would do her best not to cry anymore. ‘But you are my daughter and my dear wife’s daughter in everything but blood,’ he went on. ‘That man, the man who fathered you . . . he’s out of his wits. He was unreliable from the first. He cared nothing for you. Couldn’t cope with you. Didn’t want you.’ A sound of outrage came from Bardán. Aunt Della hushed him, murmuring something about letting the story be told. ‘From the moment he passed you into our care, he showed no interest at all in you,’ Tóla said. ‘He was already known as a lone wolf, tainted by the fey blood of his mother. Such a man is not cut out to be a husband or father. He failed at both.’
Grim started to say something, and Blackthorn put her fingers against his lips to silence him.
‘As for what happened when you were an infant, it was more or less as folk know already. One night he took you from the cradle and ran off into the woods. He was seen leaving, but we could not track him down. We found you, almost too late, wrapped up and left between the roots of an oak tree. A tiny babe, cold, hungry, weak. But alive.’
‘Then you lied,’ said one of the Longwater men. ‘The story went out that the child was dead. You said she’d been attacked and mauled by wild beasts, the body so damaged it was best her kinsfolk did not see it.’
‘I acted for the child’s protection,’ said Tóla. ‘Her mother was dead. Her father had run off. Even if he returned, he could offer her nothing. He had no home and no future. He could not provide for her. As our daughter, as the daughter of Wolf Glen, she would live a life of security and comfort. She would be cared for. She would be loved. Don’t tell me that was the wrong choice.’
‘She had family,’ the Longwater man said. ‘Folk who would have taken her in. But you told them she was dead.’
‘And when folk saw young Cara, later,’ said one of the others
, ‘and remarked that she looked a lot like Bardán’s mother, you paid them to keep quiet. That’s what folk say, anyway.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Tóla. ‘Vicious rumours and poisonous lies. Besides, who’d be old enough to remember Bardán’s mother?’
‘One or two folk.’
‘How could you say I was dead?’ That was terrible. It was so cruel Cara could hardly believe it. ‘My kinsfolk, my mother’s people in Longwater – of course they would have wanted me.’
‘You misjudge village folk, my dear.’
‘Don’t call me your dear!’
He flinched, but went on. ‘They didn’t want you. Your fey blood was seen as unlucky. And Bardán was never one of them. Never had been. He, too, had the taint of the Otherworld about him.’
‘But you still wanted him to build the heartwood house.’
‘He was the only one who could. The only one with the knack of it. I had no choice.’
‘You used him!’ Cara could not stop her voice from rising. Her real father was sitting over there on the steps, gazing at her without a word, while Tóla spoke of him as if he were an outcast, a nothing. As if he were not even a real person. ‘You used him and you stole from him! Just like the rich man in the heartwood house story! Only in that tale, the mother got her child back while it was still small. My father would never have got me back. If Mistress Blackthorn hadn’t worked it out, you never would have told anyone.’
‘I say again, I had no choice. Besides, I believed Bardán was dead.’
‘There’s always a choice, Master Tóla.’ Mistress Blackthorn was on her feet now. Behind her, Grim was also standing, a little unsteady, but very stern in his gaze. ‘Good or evil. Lies or truth. I don’t believe what you just told us is the true story. Not all of it, anyway.’
‘What more do you want, witch?’ Tóla’s voice was a snarl. ‘A grovelling apology? Recompense in gold pieces? I did what was right! I acted out of love for my wife and the infant! How dare you, a childless unwed woman, accuse me of ill intent?’
‘You foul-mouthed scum!’ Grim made to lunge forward, but Blackthorn laid a hand on his arm and he halted at her touch.
‘Gormán,’ said Tóla, ‘confirm my account of events for Mistress Blackthorn, will you?’
Gormán had been standing in the shadows by the barn wall, keeping very quiet. Cara willed him to say that he had not known, that he had been misled, that if he had been aware of the truth he would have taken no part in it.
‘And while you are doing so,’ put in Mistress Blackthorn, ‘you might tell us what you were planning to do with those toadstools that are standing ready on your table in there. They’re screamers, did you realise? One mouthful would be sufficient to send a man raving mad. Two would kill him. It seems to me screamers might have played a part in this story before.’
Cara heard Grim draw in his breath. She realised she had sunk her teeth into her lip so hard it was bleeding.
‘Toadstools? What are you talking about?’ Tóla had his legs apart and his arms folded. He looked as if he was defying the world. ‘Gormán, it seems Mistress Blackthorn doubts the credibility of my story. Sadly, my daughter is so much under the witch’s influence that she, too, cannot believe it. You were there. You were there from the first. Speak up!’
Gormán’s face was all shadows and lines, as if he’d suddenly turned very old. Cara felt a pain in her chest, looking at him. Her friend. Her dear friend, the one person she’d always been able to go to, to talk to, to say anything to and know she would be heard. She had done this to him. She had brought that terrible look to his face by being discontent. By wanting answers. She knew before he opened his mouth that he was not going to say what Tóla wanted.
‘Mistress Della,’ Gormán said, ‘and Cara. My words will cause both of you pain, and for that I am truly sorry. But they must be said. Cara, you have been as dear to me as a daughter. Anything I have done, I have done out of love for you and in the belief that I was acting in your best interest.’
‘Now wait –’ began Tóla, outraged, then fell silent as Cúan stepped up beside him, his hand on his knife hilt. Several of the Longwater men had closed in around him. Fedach was among them, looking very serious.
‘Some of Master Tóla’s account is true,’ Gormán said, sounding like a ghost of himself. ‘Master Tóla hired Bardán to build the heartwood house, having learned that such a building brings many blessings on a family. Bardán’s wife had died, he had a newborn daughter, and his terms of employment included the child being looked after in Tóla’s household. A wet-nurse came from Longwater; her son stands among you now. She fed both infants. But . . . it was Mistress Suanach who loved the baby girl, who cared for her and sang to her and spent every waking hour with her. She wanted to do everything for the child herself.’ He looked at Tóla. ‘Mistress Suanach and Master Tóla had no children of their own, though they had been wed some years then. It was . . . Mistress Suanach was . . .’
‘How dare you!’
‘Let him speak, Master Tóla.’ Cionnaola was calm. ‘Best that it all comes out. Your wife is no longer here; this cannot hurt her now.’
‘Her need for a child was gnawing away at her,’ Gormán said. ‘When the little girl came into the household, it was as if Suanach had suddenly been granted a miracle. Within a matter of days she was treating the baby as her own. Then believing Brígh was her own. If that sounds strange, well, it was. But it was good to see her happy at last; it was a long time since she’d smiled so much. That made Master Tóla happy too.’
‘By all the gods,’ murmured Aunt Della. ‘I had no idea. No idea in the world.’
‘Bardán used to go over to the big house every day after work to see his daughter. Hold her, talk to her, sing her a lullaby. But Mistress Suanach didn’t like him anywhere near the baby. She started making rules, shutting him out. Bardán spoke to Master Tóla about it. Said he wouldn’t keep on with the building if he couldn’t have time with his child too. Said he’d walk away and get help from his wife’s kinsfolk instead.
‘Master Tóla didn’t want that. He wanted the heartwood house. He believed it would keep his family safe, healthy and prosperous for generations to come. He thought that in time it might grant them a child of their own. And only Bardán knew how to build it. But Master Tóla wanted his wife to stay happy and content, the way she’d been since the baby came. He feared that if Bardán took the child away, Suanach would become . . . unhinged. She was always . . . she was delicate in her temperament. Frail of body and fragile of mind. He truly feared the consequences of Bardán leaving. So he came to me with a proposition.’ Gormán’s voice faltered. ‘I am ashamed to tell you this. Bitterly ashamed.’
Nobody spoke. Even the crow, perched now on the roof of the barn and picking insects from the thatch, held back harsh comment.
‘Tóla suggested a way he could keep his builder and secure the baby for Suanach. It involved . . .’ He looked at Mistress Blackthorn.
‘Screamers,’ Blackthorn said. ‘Not in sufficient dose to kill the man, since he was needed for the building. But enough to muddle his memory. Enough to confuse him. Am I right?’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ exclaimed Grim. ‘That night when he ran away into the forest – you’re saying –’
‘Monsters.’ Bardán himself spoke. ‘Chasing me, sharp claws, spiky tails, running, running in the dark. All around me. Running, running. Falling. Down, down . . .’
‘It’s all right, brother,’ Grim said, moving to lay a hand on Bardán’s shoulder. ‘You’re safe now. You’re back. And she’s alive. What they said – you didn’t do it. You never hurt your baby.’
Gormán grimaced. ‘Screamers, yes. Mistress Blackthorn is a herbalist, and understands these things. But I got it wrong. We had intended to give him only sufficient of the toadstools to induce a waking nightmare. We would have locked him in somewhere safe until a reasonable time had pa
ssed. When he was recovered, we would have broken the terrible news that while in the grip of some ailment of the mind he had snatched his daughter and run off into the woods with her. That we had found him lying unconscious, and that much later we had discovered the baby dead. That because of injuries inflicted by wild creatures, we had buried her where she lay.’
‘But you gave him too much,’ Blackthorn said.
‘We gave him too much, and he did run off into the woods. We tried to find him. Without him, the heartwood house could not be finished. But search as we might, we never did track him down.’
‘Falling,’ muttered Bardán. ‘Down, down . . .’
Cara felt sick. ‘He fell down that hole. Into that place. The same place I would have been in if I had . . .’ She made herself meet Gormán’s eye. Gormán whom she had loved since she was one year old. Whom this crushing pain in her heart told her she still loved. ‘Tell me you didn’t know where he was,’ she said. ‘Or you.’ She looked at Tóla. ‘Tell me you didn’t just leave him there and walk away.’