‘You were there.’
‘Not at first. By the time I reached the pool she was lying dead on the shore. I want to know exactly how it happened. We’re missing something, and it’s not pigs and cheese.’
‘Couldn’t you ask Flidais’s ladies? Not Mhairi, the other ones?’
I remembered them weeping and wailing over Ciar’s body. ‘I don’t think they’d be very helpful. Besides, there’s always the chance one of them would tell Flidais or Mhairi that I’d been asking questions again.’
‘The guards,’ I say. ‘Lady Flidais’s men-at-arms. Not the friendliest bunch, but I know them now. Think I could get one of them to tell me the tale. Young Eoin, he talks about it sometimes. Scared him. He’s the one went into the water to fish Ciar out that day. Probably lucky he came out a man and not a newt or a frog.’ Morrigan’s britches, the more I think about this, the odder it gets.
‘That’s your job for tomorrow, then,’ Blackthorn says. ‘The start of a plan. Ask him, but don’t be too eager, we don’t want word to get back to Flidais that we’re poking around again.’
‘And your job?’
‘Convincing the lady that I still believe her lies. Playing for time, until you bring me an answer.’
Next morning we take Storm back to Scannal’s. I tell the miller I found his horse wandering over Silverlake way, and it was too late to bring him home safely. Scannal’s a bit surprised, as you’d expect, but he seems all right with it.
Turns out I can’t talk to Eoin that day, or the one after, because Domnall’s organised some kind of training to keep the lads from Cloud Hill busy, and they don’t come in from that until supper time. Can’t talk about it after supper in the men’s quarters. Too many of them around, no privacy, can’t take him aside without drawing attention. And then I’m on duty.
Stroke of luck on the third day. I’m working at the cottage, slapping limewash on the inside walls of the lean-to, when Eoin and Seanan – that’s the fellow whose skull I nearly broke for him – turn up asking if I want help. Seems Domnall’s given them the day off. Every time something useful happens now, I ask myself if Conmael’s behind it. Stupid. Luck, that’s all this is.
Seanan takes over the limewash, and I go outside with Eoin to start on a new drain. Planning to do most of the digging myself, and get him talking while I work. We mark out the spot with sticks and twine, fetch a couple of spades from the outhouse. Ground’s sodden. It’ll be a muddy job.
We chat about the training they’ve been doing with Domnall. It’s tired the men out but they’re happier. Keeping busy suits them. We talk about the weather, which is dry today, so far at least. Eoin says he’s noticed some big trees are down in the wood, must’ve fallen on that night of wind and heavy rain. He says it looks as if they might stay where they lie, if what he’s heard about Dreamer’s Wood is right. So, easy as easy, we get around to what I want him to talk about.
‘Why’s that?’ I ask.
He leans on his spade, takes a quick look over his shoulder, up toward the wood. ‘Nobody likes the place. Don’t know how you can live so close. There’s a strange feeling about it. As if anything might jump out and grab a fellow.’
‘Mm,’ I say, digging my spade in. ‘There’s a few old tales about the wood. That pool, too. Must’ve been hard for you when the girl – what was her name, Ciar? – had her accident. Heard you tried to save her. Bit of a hero.’
‘Just doing my job. Trying to keep the womenfolk safe. I can’t understand how she drowned so quick. Soon as we saw she was in trouble, I went straight in. And I swim fast. But she was gone by the time I reached her.’
‘Did your best.’ I wait a bit, then say, ‘Seems odd, Lady Flidais wanting to go swimming. Nearly at Winterfalls and all.’
‘Lady Flidais is not your usual sort of lady. Gets these odd ideas sometimes. Folk at Cloud Hill are used to it. For all her fancies, she’s a good lass, kind and thoughtful. Or was.’
I keep on digging.
‘Funny, she never said thank you. For me trying to save Ciar. Not a word. Not like her at all, she used to make a point of thanking us for every little thing, knew all our names and our wives’ names and how many children we have and where we all come from. Sweet girl, not what you’d think a chieftain’s daughter would be like. What happened that day – it’s sort of soured her. She doesn’t seem to care anymore.’ His cheeks go pink. He gives me a sideways look. ‘Shouldn’t have said that. Disrespectful. But . . . it can be hard here. The fellows are restless, you’ll have seen it. Worried about Lord Cadhan, wanting to get home. And not happy with . . . you know.’
‘How did it all happen, that day?’ I ask. ‘Wondered sometimes if there were, well, things in the wood, fey or the like. Wouldn’t mind hearing the story. Only if you want to tell it, of course. Why don’t you take a break, and I’ll do this next part?’
Eoin’s happy enough to sit on the wall and watch me working. And bit by bit the story comes out. How they had a choice of ways to Winterfalls, and Lady Flidais wanted to go through the wood because of something in a letter. How she bade them stop when they came to the pool; how she seemed entranced by it, saying it was so beautiful it was like a poem all in itself.
‘Then she said she’d like to bathe, and who was going in with her? The other ladies didn’t want to, but Ciar was always up for a challenge. Lady Flidais told us to get down and rest the horses a while, and turn our backs while she and Ciar had their swim. So we did, and there was some splashing and laughing, and then Deirdre screamed, and Nuala yelled out, “I can’t see them! They’ve gone under!” and when I turned around, there was nothing out there but some ripples. Got my cloak off, bent down to pull off my boots. When I stood up, there was Lady Flidais, swimming back, and there was the dog scrambling out on the other side. But no sign at all of Ciar.’
You know those times when you come out of a tunnel or a cave or a dark place, and suddenly there’s daylight and a view like you’ve never seen in your life before? This was like that. Sent my head into a real spin. Had to work hard not to let out an oath. ‘A dog went swimming too?’
‘Lady Flidais’s terrier, Bramble, you know the one. Wouldn’t be parted from her. Like a shadow. Back then, anyway.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I went in, being the strongest swimmer out of the escort. Ciar was under the water, couldn’t see her at all. Found her quite quick, though, dragged her out, laid her down on the shore. Domnall tried to squeeze out the water, get her breathing again, but no. Mistress Blackthorn came not long after that, had a look, said it was too late. Never seen anyone drown so fast.’
I’m full of wanting to rush back to Winterfalls and tell Blackthorn. This is the answer. That little dog, that scrap of a thing that sits on Prince Oran’s knee and toddles around after his aunt, it’s . . . Danu have mercy. All this time. Starts all kinds of questions in my mind, too many questions.
‘Sad story, Eoin,’ I say, putting my back into digging. ‘But you couldn’t have done any more for her.’
‘Weighs on me a bit,’ Eoin says. ‘Lovely girl, Ciar, a bit wild, not the sort you’d take home to meet your mother, but full of life. Too young to die.’
‘So you brought her back to Winterfalls, and she was buried there.’
‘Prince Oran arranged that. Ritual, prayers and so on. All of us were there to see her buried. All of us but Lady Flidais. Feeling poorly; a big shock.’
A big shock. Well, it would be. How would it feel, finding yourself in someone else’s body? I try to imagine myself as Donagan, or as the prince. Morrigan’s britches! Doesn’t bear thinking about. Worse than that, she’d be seeing her own body put in the grave. Enough to turn anyone a bit odd. I know one thing. If it was me I’d tell the truth, even if folk thought I was crazy.
We get the work done, then have some food and drink, and when the fellows need to go back to Winterfalls I pack up and go
with them. Forget sleep for today; I’ve got to see Blackthorn. Hoping she can think of a plan. Seems impossible to me. Why would Flidais – Ciar, I suppose she is – agree to take another swim in Dreamer’s Pool, when the weather’s cold enough to freeze a man’s bollocks off, and she knows Blackthorn’s suspicious, not to mention the prince? Can’t see Oran forcing her to go over there and throwing her in. And even if he does, what happens if it doesn’t work? Charges of murder, that’s what. But Blackthorn’s clever. She’ll find a way.
37
~ORAN~
Bramble. Flidais. I stared at Blackthorn, wordless. I saw on her face that she expected me to challenge the theory, to argue that such things simply weren’t possible. To tell her that although I’d suspected strangeness of some kind, this went beyond belief.
‘I knew it,’ I said when I had found my voice again. ‘I knew she wasn’t gone, I knew she was still here somewhere.’ I wanted to run out right away and find Bramble, to hold her close, to keep her safe until . . . What Blackthorn proposed was both wonderful and terrifying. I could barely bring myself to consider it.
‘It’s only a theory at this point,’ the wise woman said. We were in my council chamber, she and I, with the door closed behind us. Grim had been half-asleep when they came to find me; she’d sent him off to rest. ‘Acting on it would be extremely risky. If we were wrong, there could be most unfortunate consequences.’
I was shivering from head to toe, so full of feelings I thought I would burst apart. What if Flidais had retained her human understanding, what if she had understood every single thing I had said to her? ‘When can we do this?’ I asked, and my voice shook like a terrified child’s.
‘If we do it,’ Blackthorn said, ‘it must be done with great care. It must be carried out exactly to my instructions. You don’t dabble with magic carelessly, even if you’re a prince. And you need to be fully aware of what this could mean for everyone concerned.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘First, then, you must make peace with the lady. Be kinder to her; make believe you’ve accepted that she’s having a few difficulties, and that you’ve realised you should stop being so critical and help her through them. Don’t thaw too suddenly, though, or she’ll be suspicious. A smile here, a kind word there, no snubs or reprimands. Can you do that?’
My cheeks were hot with embarrassment. ‘I’ll do my best. Better than before.’
‘Good. Now I have a question for you, and you may not like it.’
‘Go on.’
She hesitated. ‘My lord, you and your betrothed – you have lain together already, yes?’
Now my face must be red as a strawberry. ‘Why would you ask that?’
‘Because Lady Flidais told me you had. And because the plan will not work if she is still untouched.’
‘We . . . well, yes, but . . . not since my aunt came to Winterfalls. You are not suggesting . . . ?’
‘That you do so again? Indeed not,’ Blackthorn said. ‘What you must do is convince her that should a good opportunity arise, you would not be averse to lying with her once more before you are hand-fasted.’
‘I don’t know if I . . .’ Shame overwhelmed me. How much had Flidais – the woman who was not really Flidais – told her? And who exactly had shared my bed on those nights of tangled passion? The beautiful, tantalising body had been that of my sweetheart; the fierce and determined person within had been Ciar. Gods, if only I could erase that time!
‘You must,’ Blackthorn said. ‘If you want Flidais back, you must do exactly as I say. Including this, difficult as it may be. Convince her, between now and the evening of your council, that you’ve realised you’ve been unfair to her. That you’ve judged her too harshly. That you still love and desire her, and that you’re eagerly awaiting the hand-fasting. I don’t care how you do it, but be subtle and be convincing.’
‘Very well. I will do my best.’
‘And one more thing,’ says Blackthorn. ‘She doesn’t know the story about the man and the pig. She doesn’t know this has happened before, or how the spell was undone. She has no reason to suspect Bramble was part of it. And she mustn’t find out. So you should treat Bramble just as you did before, my lord.’
‘I understand. The evening of the council, you said? We cannot do this any earlier? That would leave no time for a second attempt; we would be leaving for Cahercorcan the next day.’
‘It should be at full moon. A time of magic and mystery, tides and changes. There will only be one chance.’
‘How can I persuade her to go to Dreamer’s Wood? What if she refuses? I do not wish to have her conveyed there by force.’
‘You can leave that part of it to me,’ said Blackthorn. ‘Just be advised that, at some point between now and the council, the lady will put an unlikely suggestion to you. When she does, make sure you say yes.’
‘I see.’ That was a lie; I did not see at all, but I understood this was my only hope.
‘Take Donagan into your confidence,’ Blackthorn said. ‘Grim says he can be trusted, and Grim is a good judge of men. Tell him as much of the truth as you think he can stomach. In particular, make sure that when you do ride out to Dreamer’s Wood, the escort you take is Donagan and nobody else.’
‘Donagan is leaving my service after the council.’
‘You might prevail upon him to stay for one more night, my lord,’ said Blackthorn. ‘I wager he’ll have changed his mind by the morning.’
38
~BLACKTHORN~
I fed her the idea piece by piece. A sudden revelation, straight after I’d told her there was no sure way to conceive a boy, would surely have had her suspecting a trap. So, while I went to talk to her and Mhairi every evening, what I told them was that I was studying the lore, going over all the charms and spells I knew of, and speaking to the old folk of the district, one by one, in case there was something useful that I didn’t know. I hoped to have an answer for her soon. Soon.
She was impatient, just like the prince. I guessed that she feared discovery before they were wed, and knew that if she could say she was with child, or might be, Oran would feel obliged to stand by her even if the strange truth came out. As for what would happen to her if my plan succeeded, I shrank from it even as I knew that we must do this for Flidais’s sake. To pretend we did not know what Ciar had done, to let her continue as Flidais, marry the future king and condemn the real Flidais to remain in her current form would be a coward’s way forward. Besides, now that I had told the prince, there would be no doing that. I’d agreed to help Oran, and Oran wanted his true Flidais back. He’d hardly hesitated before he said yes to my proposal. He was a man of some intelligence; he must realise what it could mean for him, for all of us, if this went wrong. High stakes. My instincts, and Grim’s, had better be right.
I tried not to feel sorry for wretched Ciar, who had found herself in a terrifying situation and had lied to get through it. The first lie, that she was Flidais, I could almost understand, though I hoped that if it had happened to me, I would have been braver. But the later lie, about Oran abusing her – that I found unforgivable. So many women were hurt by men and found themselves powerless to make it stop. So many had no voice. Ciar had used me. She had heard me speak strongly at the council, when Branoc’s case came up, and she had found the key to turning me against the prince, so that I would cease spying. She must have believed I was close to finding out her perilous secret. I despised her for that lie. That did not stop my belly from churning at the thought of what lay ahead. I would add this to the burden of guilt I already carried.
Waiting until full moon to do it meant enduring more days of pretence, more days of anxiety. But full moon would best fit the story. And it would give Oran time to soften his attitude toward her. Besides, we had to wait until a few days, at least, after her moon-bleeding ended. So I went out every morning, in what I hoped was a convincing pretence of se
eking answers, and I came back to tell her I’d heard a whisper of a story, something that might possibly work, only I needed to talk to one more old woman, or perhaps two more, and they lived in a valley a long walk to the west . . .
Often I went no further than Dreamer’s Wood. Often I spent the morning helping Grim with the last touches on the house, or warming water on the new hearth to make a brew, or planning a tidier way to store my materials when we moved back in. The way the work was going, we’d be doing so around the time Oran and his bride rode off to Cahercorcan for their wedding. If they did. If this happened. If all of us were not charged with assault or murder or using dark magic for evil ends.
One morning I went right into the wood, taking Grim with me. Dreamer’s Pool lay quiet under the leafless trees. Pale mist wreathed the leaden water; no birds sang. The air was chill enough to freeze your bones.
‘Feels like the place is holding its breath,’ said Grim, who sometimes surprised me with his words.
‘Mm. As if we’re being watched. Never mind that. We need to walk through this; make sure we’ve got it all worked out.’ At the eastern end of the pool lay the level stretch of shore where Eoin had pulled Ciar out of the water. If the tale of the boar was true, that would be the spot where the animal had plunged in after the lump of cheese. It was surely also the place where Flidais and Ciar – and, I assumed, Bramble – had waded in to swim.
I imagined Grim and myself trying to drag a screaming woman into that uninviting water; trying to immerse her without ourselves risking a transformation. Impossible, even supposing Donagan and the prince were prepared to help. And what about Mhairi? Flidais was hardly likely to ride out here without an attendant. ‘We won’t be able to lead her in,’ I said. ‘She’ll have to be pushed.’
‘Up there,’ Grim said, pointing. ‘See where the bank rises along that side? Deep water below, I’d be guessing.’