There was a murmur around me; some in my audience had seen this coming, but all felt the sudden weight of such a horror.
“As soon as he had done this, Cú Chulainn came to himself. He wrenched the sword out, and Conlai’s lifeblood began to spill crimson on the ground. Cú Chulainn’s men came down and took off the stranger’s helmet, and there he was, just a boy, a youngster whose eyes already darkened with the shadow of death, whose face paled and paled as the sun sank behind the elms. Then Cú Chulainn loosened the boy’s garments, trying to make his end more comfortable. And he saw the little ring hanging on its chain around Conlai’s neck, the ring he had given Aoife nearly fifteen years before.”
Bran had a hand over his brow, concealing his eyes. Still he stared into the flames. What had I said?
“He killed his own son,” somebody whispered.
“His boy,” said someone. “His own boy.”
“It was too late,” I said soberly, “too late to make amends. Too late to say farewell, for at the moment Cú Chulainn recognized what he had done, the last breath of life left his son, and Conlai’s spirit fled from his body.”
“That’s terrible,” said Dog, in shocked tones.
“It is a sad story,” I agreed, wondering if even one of them might relate the tale in any way to their own activities. “They say Cú Chulainn carried the boy inside in his own arms and later buried him with full ceremony. Of how he felt, and what he said, the tale does not tell.”
“A man could not do such a deed and put it behind him,” said Gull very quietly. “It would be with him always, whether he wished it or no.”
“What about his mother?” asked Dog. “What did she have to say about it?”
“She was a woman,” I said dryly. “The tale does not concern itself further with her. I suppose she bore her loss and went on, as women do.”
“In a way it was her fault,” somebody offered. “If he’d been able to give his name, they’d have welcomed him instead of fighting.”
“It was a man’s hand that drove the sword through his body. It was a man’s pride that made Cú Chulainn strike. You cannot blame the mother. She sought but to protect her son, for she knew what men are.”
My words were greeted with silence. At least the tale had made them think. After the earlier jollity, the mood was somber indeed.
“You believe I judge you too harshly?” I asked, getting up.
“None of us has ever killed his own son,” said Spider, outraged.
“You have killed another man’s son,” I said quietly. “Every man that falls to your knife, or your hands, or your little loop of cord is some woman’s sweetheart, some woman’s son. Every one.”
No one said anything. I thought I had offended them. After a while somebody went around refilling cups with ale, and somebody threw more wood on the fire, but nobody was talking. I was waiting for Bran to speak, maybe to tell me I should shut my mouth and stop upsetting his fine band of warriors. Instead, he got up, turned on his heel, and went off with never a word. I stared after him, but he had disappeared like a shadow under the trees. The night was very dark. Slowly, the men began to talk again among themselves in low voices.
“Sit down awhile, Liadan,” said Gull kindly. “Have another cup of ale.”
I sat down slowly. “What’s wrong with him?” I whispered, looking beyond the circle. “What did I say?”
“Best left alone,” mumbled Dog, who had overheard.
“He’ll be standing guard tonight.”
“What?”
“Dark of the moon,” said Gull. “Always takes the watch, those nights. Told us both to get our rest. He’ll have gone up to relieve Snake now. Stands to reason. If he’s going to be awake anyhow, he may as well do it.”
“Why doesn’t he sleep? You’re not going to tell me he turns into some sort of monster with the quenching of the moon, I hope—half man, half wolf maybe?”
Gull chuckled. “Not him. Just doesn’t sleep. Can’t tell you why. Been like that as long as I’ve known him. Six, seven years. Keeps himself awake until the dawn comes.”
“Is he afraid to sleep?”
“Him? Afraid?” It seemed the very idea was laughable.
Gull walked back up to the shelter with me and left me there. Bran was inside, his hand on the smith’s brow, speaking quietly. There was one lantern lit, and it spread a golden glow over the rock walls and the man lying on the pallet there. It touched Bran’s patterned features with light and shadow, softening the grim set of the mouth.
“He’s awake,” he said, as I came in. “Is there anything you require help with before I go outside?”
“I’ll manage,” I said. Snake, on my instructions, had prepared a bowl of water with some of the dwindling stock of healing herbs, and I placed this on the stool by the bed.
“You’re a good lass,” Evan said weakly. “Told you that before, but I will again.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said, unbuttoning his sweat-soaked shirt.
“Don’t know about that.” He managed a crooked grin. “Not every day I find a fine woman like yourself undressing me. Almost worth losing an arm for, that is.”
“Get away with you!” I said, wiping the damp cloth over his body. He had lost flesh alarmingly; I could feel the ribs stark under the skin and see the deep hollows at the base of the neck. “You’re too skinny for my tastes, anyway,” I told him. “Have to fatten you up, I will. You know what that means. More broth, before I let you sleep.”
His eyes were as trusting as those of a faithful hound as I sponged his brow.
“Bran, Snake will have left the pot of broth to cool by the little brazier. Could you fetch me some in a cup?”
“Broth,” said Evan in disgust. “Broth! Can’t you give a man a proper meal?”
But in the event, it was hard enough for him to swallow even the mouthful or two he took. And I did have to ask Bran to help me, his arm lifting the smith’s head as I spooned the mixture little by little between his lips. Evan gagged, despite his best efforts.
“Breathe slowly, as I told you,” I said quietly. “You must try to keep this down. One more spoonful.”
He was soon exhausted. And he had swallowed so little. Beads of sweat were already breaking out on his brow. I would need to burn some aromatic herbs for there was no way I could get enough of a sleeping draft into him to give any relief. He never spoke of the pain, save in jest, but I knew it was extreme.
“Could you move the little brazier farther in?”
Bran said nothing, but carried out my orders. He watched me in silence as I got what I needed from my pack and sprinkled the mixture onto the still-glowing coals. There was not much left. But then, three days was not long. I did not allow myself to think beyond that point. The pungent smell rose into the night air: juniper, pine, hemp leaves. If only I could have gotten some tea into the man, for a mere half cup of lavender and birch-leaf infusion can give good relief from pain and bring healing sleep. But I had not the ingredients to make such a brew, nor would Evan have had the energy to swallow it. Besides, it was past midsummer. Birch leaves are only good for this purpose used fresh and plucked in spring. I wished my mother was there. She would have known what to do. The smith grew quiet, eyes closed to slits, but his breathing was labored. I wrung out the cloth and began to tidy up.
“What if Conlai had never learned his father’s name?” said Bran suddenly from the entrance. “What if he had grown up, say, in the family of a farmer, or with holy brothers in a house of prayer? What then?”
I was so surprised, I said nothing at all, my hands still working automatically as I emptied the bowl and wiped it out and unrolled my blanket on the hard earth.
“You said it was his father’s blood flowed in his veins, his father’s will to be a warrior that ran deep in him. But his mother trained him in the warlike arts, set him on that path, before ever he knew what Cú Chulainn was. Do you say that whatever his upbringing, this boy was destined to be another in his fath
er’s mold? Almost that the manner of his death was set out the moment he was born?”
“Oh no!” His words shocked me. “To say that is to say we have no choice at all in how our path unfolds. I do not say that. Only that we are made by our mothers and our fathers, and we bear something of them in our deepest selves, no matter what. If Conlai had grown up as a holy brother, it may have been much longer before his father’s courage and his wild, warlike spirit awoke in him. But he would have found it in himself, one way or another. That was the man he was, and nothing could change it.”
Bran leaned against the rock wall, his figure in shadow.
“What if … ,” he said, “the—the essence, the spark, whatever it is, the little part of his father that he bore within him—that could be lost, destroyed, before he knew it was there. It could be … it could be taken from him.”
I felt a strange sort of chill, and the little hairs rose on my neck. It was like a darkness stretching out over me, over the two of us. Images passed before my eyes so rapidly I could scarcely make them out before they were gone.
… dark, so dark. The door shuts. I cannot breathe. Keep quiet, choke back your tears, not a sound. Pain, cramp like fire. I have to move. I dare not move; they will hear me … Where are you? Where are you … where did you go?
I wrenched myself back to the real world, shaking. My heart was hammering.
“What is it?” Bran stepped out of the shadows, eyes fixed intently on my face, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “Nothing.” And I turned away, for I did not want to look into his eyes. Whatever the dark vision was, it was from him it had come. Beneath his surface there were deep, uncharted waters, realms strange and perilous.
“You’ll be needing your sleep,” he said, and when at length I turned around, he was gone. The brazier burned low. I made the lamp dim, but did not quench it, lest the smith should wake and need me. Then I lay down to rest.
Chapter Five
Something woke me. I sat up abruptly, heart thumping. The fire in the brazier had gone out; the lantern burned low, casting a circle of faint light. Outside, it was completely dark. Everything was still. I got up and went over to the pallet, lantern in hand. Evan was sleeping. I tucked the covers over him and turned to go back to bed. For a summer night, it was quite chill.
Then I heard it A sound like a stifled gasp, the merest indrawn breath. Could such a little thing have woken me so instantly? I went out, hesitant in my bare feet and the borrowed undershirt I wore for sleeping, shivering slightly and not just from cold. It was a deep, deep darkness, intense in its presence. Even the night birds were silent before it. With my small, dim lantern, I felt as if I were the only creature stirring in this black, impenetrable world.
I took a step forward, and another, and saw that Bran sat against the rocks at the entrance to the shelter, staring straight ahead of him into the darkness. Perhaps he, too, had heard something. I opened my mouth to ask him, and he shot out a hand and grabbed me violently by the arm, without looking at me, without saying a word. I bit back a scream of fright and struggled to keep the lantern from falling. The clutching hand gripped so tightly I thought my arm would break. Still he said nothing, but I heard it again in my mind, a voice like a terrified child’s, the voice of a boy who has wept so long he has no more tears in him. Don’t go. Don’t go away. And in the light from the lantern, which wobbled dangerously now in my free hand, I could tell that Bran did not really see me. He held me fast, but his eyes stared ahead, unfocused, blind in this night of no moon.
I felt the pain of his grip all the way up my arm. It no longer seemed to matter. I remembered that I was, after all, a healer. I lowered myself cautiously to the ground beside him. His breathing was fast and uneven; he was shivering. This seemed some kind of waking nightmare.
“All right,” I said quietly, not wishing to startle him and make things worse. I set the lantern down. “I’m here. It’s all right now.” I knew full well it was not me he wanted. That child I heard cried out for something that was long gone, but I was here. I wondered how many such nights he had endured, nights when he would not sleep lest these dark visions should engulf him.
I tried to loosen his fingers where they bit into my flesh, but the grip could not be slackened. Indeed, when I touched that hand it tightened still further, like that of a drowning man who, in panic, comes close to taking his rescuer down with him. Tears of pain came to my eyes.
“Bran,” I said softly, “you’re hurting me. It’s all right now; you can let go now.”
But he made no reply, simply gripped all the harder, so that despite myself I whimpered with the pain. I would not wake him from the trance that held him fast. Such intervention is unwise, for these visitations have a purpose and must be allowed to run their course. Still, he need not face them alone, though it seemed that was exactly what he had intended to do.
So I sat there and made my breathing slow and calm, and told myself what I had told others many a time: Breathe, Liadan, the pain will pass. The night was very quiet; the darkness like a living thing, creeping in around the two of us. I felt how tight strung his body was; I sensed his terror, and how he fought to conquer it. I could not hope to touch his mind, nor did I wish to see more of the dark images it held. But I could still speak, and it seemed to me words were the only tool I had for keeping out the dark.
“Dawn will come,” I told him quietly. “The night can be very dark, but I’ll stay by you until the sun rises. These shadows cannot touch you while I am here. Soon we’ll see the first hint of gray in the sky, the color of a pigeon’s coat, then the smallest touch of the sun’s finger, and one bird will be bold enough to wake first and sing of tall trees and open skies and freedom. Then all will brighten and color will wash across the earth, and it will be a new day. I will stay with you until then.”
Gradually, the grip of his fingers relaxed a little, and the pain in my arm became easier to bear. I was very cold, but there was no way I was going to move any closer to him. That would most certainly be against the code. He was going to find this extremely awkward in the morning. Time passed and I talked on and on, of harmless, safe things, images of light and warmth. I made with my words a bright web of protection to keep away the shadows. At length it grew so cold I admitted defeat and edged in to sit close beside him, leaning against his shoulder and laying my other hand over his fingers where they still clutched me. Inside the shelter, Evan had not stirred.
We were there a long time, I talking steadily, Bran quiet save for a shuddering, indrawn breath here and there, a muttered word. I wondered greatly. I could scarcely believe that somewhere inside this stern outlaw there was a small child afraid of being alone in the dark. I wanted badly to understand, but I would never be able to ask him.
At the moment I had described, when the sky showed the first, faintest traces of gray, he came back to himself abruptly. The shivering stopped, and he went extremely still, and his breathing was deliberately slowed. There was a short time in which he must have become aware that he was not alone. He must have felt the touch of my hand on his, the weight of my head on his shoulder, the warmth of my body against his own. The lantern stood before us on the ground, still dimly glowing in the dark before dawn. Neither of us said anything for a while. Neither of us moved. It was Bran who spoke first.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” he said, “or what you hope to achieve by this. I suggest you get up quietly and go back inside to your job and in future behave less like a cheap roadside slut and more like the healer you’re supposed to be.”
My teeth were chattering with cold. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. It would have been very satisfying to slap his face, but I couldn’t even do that.
“If you would let go of my arm,” I said, as politely as I could, and I could not stop my voice from shaking just a little, “I would be happy to oblige. It is rather cold out here.”
He looked down at his hand as if he had never seen it
before. Then, very slowly, he uncurled his fingers, releasing the vicelike grip he had maintained on me the whole night. My throat was parched with talking, my hand was numb, and a deep ache was spreading through my arm. Did he remember nothing? He turned his head, looking at me in the faint light of earliest daybreak as I sat there barefoot in my old shirt, moving and flexing my hand to bring it back to life. By Díancécht, it hurt. I got stiffly to my feet, for I did not wish to be in his presence one instant longer than I must.
“No, wait,” he said. And as the first bird sent its liquid call through the crisp, morning air, he rose and took off his coat and placed it around my shoulders. For a moment I lifted my face and looked straight into his eyes, and what I felt just then terrified me more than any of the demons I’d glimpsed lurking there. I turned without a sound and fled inside, and was just in time for the smith’s first waking. It was another day; the fourth day.
A busy morning. Dog helped me to lift the smith and wash his body again, strip off the sweat-soaked garments and replace them with fresh. Both of them remarked that I was yawning a lot. I did not respond. My arm hurt. My head was full of confusion. I tried to imagine how it would be when I finally went home. If I went home. The girl who returned to Sevenwaters, I thought, would be a different one from the girl who’d ridden out not so very long ago. What would Father and Mother and Sean say when they saw me? What would Eamonn say? I tried to picture Eamonn, striding around the garden nervously as he attempted to tell me what he felt. His face would not come clear into my thoughts. It was as if I had forgotten how he looked. My hand shook; water slopped over the sides of the bowl I was holding.
“Hey! Whoa!” Dog reached out quickly to grab it, his big hand bumping my arm as he did so. I let out a gasp of pain. Evan looked at me from where he lay, and Dog looked at me as he put the bowl carefully down.