Then, without a word, Broichan took the candle from his foster son and with it lit a small fire from the sticks the old druid had borne with him. In that haphazard bundle, Tuala knew all the trees of the forest would be represented; oak and ash, pine and elder, holly and rowan, each gave a little of itself to strengthen the magic kindled today. The oak wreath Broichan had worn was passed around the circle, crowning for a brief space the head of each man and woman present. This was the moment for each of them, silently, to renew a personal vow to the gods.
At last the wreath came back to the druid. Broichan held it aloft a moment then cast it into the flames. Tuala gulped; she had known this came next, yet it still shocked her, seeming as brutal as the death of dreams. But it was not. All joined hands now to speak the ancient prayer of peace. The flames bore their dreams high into the air above the Great Glen, higher than the tallest tree, higher than the eagle’s flight, beyond the clouds, up to the realms of the Shining One and, fire to fire, to the life-giving sun whose ascendancy this gathering celebrated.
Then bread and mead were blessed and shared, with Fola and Broichan offering the ritual foods first to each other, and Bridei then dividing loaf and pouring amber liquid for all there present. Donal clapped Bridei on the shoulder, making the flask of mead wobble. Erip and Wid were grinning as if they’d won a prize. Peering hard into the water of the reflective pool, Tuala observed that Broichan’s impassive features bore no trace of tears now. Perhaps she had imagined that. Perhaps this had not been is, but may be. Scrying was a tricky business. All the same, she saw the pride in the druid’s eyes as he watched his foster son’s progress around the circle, and she thought she saw the same look on many other faces there, the wise woman’s included.
“Tuala!”
Brenna was calling her. Tuala blocked out the sound, hunching closer over the water. Beside her, Mist was stone-still, gazing deep. Around the pool the invisible presences could still be discerned on the very edge of sight.
The feast was over, the circle unmade. Folk gathered their belongings and began the long walk down the hillside toward home. Atop the solitary oak, the pair of eagles had not moved since the moment of alighting there. But now, as Bridei stepped beyond the margin of the hilltop and onto the steep path downward, both birds arose once more into the air and, winging this way and that, crossing and passing with delicate precision, they shadowed the boy as he walked. The trees grew thickly on that hillside, clustering in ravines, blanketing slopes, swathing path and boundary with luxuriant summer growth of rich green foliage and dark piny needles, and beneath them flourished bracken, fern, and sharp-leaved holly. Still, eagles are keen-sighted birds, princes among hunters. It seemed to Tuala, as the picture before her changed and changed again, that these great creatures formed an escort, a guard for Bridei, proclaiming his journey as if he were an ancient mage of story or a new king coming into his power. They flew above as he came down through the high birch woods and into the heavy darkness of the pines; they danced their presence over him as he made his way under the venerable oaks and among the drooping elders that fringed beck and pool. Above the druid’s house they circled him once as he walked out of the forest by the drystone wall where Broichan’s guards kept their watch. Then, with a cry that made Tuala’s spine tingle, the eagles flew off to the west and out of the image on the water. She saw Bridei turn to his foster father and say something, smiling, but she could not hear the words.
“Tuala!”
Time to go. She did not want to upset Brenna, who had enough to trouble her already. Tuala rose to her feet, reaching to gather up the little cat. Around the pool there was a rustling and a stirring, and a sound that was like hissing, only perhaps there were words in it: usss . . . one of usss . . . Then, abruptly, they were gone.
That night, lying awake while Brenna slumbered alongside her, Tuala whispered a story. Mist was a good listener; her small, warm presence in the half-dark of the summer night made loneliness easier to bear. “You know how the Priteni have two kings, Mist? They’ve each got a different kin sign, carved on the stones of their big grand houses, so everybody knows which is which. There’s Drust the Bull and Drust the Boar.” Tuala’s fingers stroked the cat’s soft fur; snuggled deep in the thin blankets, Mist was purring so hard her whole body throbbed. “But I’m not going to tell you about them. I’m going to tell you about a different king. It’s a might be sort of story, like the pictures in the pool. This king was called Bridei, and his sign was the eagle . . .”
It was a good story, full of adventure and courage and hope. It was a story about destiny, and it seemed to Tuala to be deeply true in the way of the most ancient and best loved tales. The only thing that was wrong with it was that, try as she might, she could find no place in it for herself.
THEY WERE LUCKY, REALLY. Tuala remembered to tell herself that, season by season, year by year, as she watched Bridei ride away for another visit to Raven’s Well or another retreat to the nemetons with the wild druid, Uist, for this, too, was part of the education Broichan had determined for his foster son. It was more than six years since the time when she had been sent off to Oak Ridge, the time she thought of now as the summer of the eagles. She had watched Bridei grow from straightbacked, serious child to tall, keen-eyed young man, and she bid him farewell so many times she would have lost count, save for the talisman she kept hidden in her little chamber in the druid’s house at Pitnochie. It was a double cord fashioned from very strong thread, the two parts of it twined together in a special way. Their story, hers and Bridei’s, was captured in this object: the two strands had a small separation for every period of parting, a delicate knot for every wondrous reunion. The length of it bore the pattern of their lives, the two paths that diverged and came together once more and, for all their division, remained essentially one and the same. Although small, it was a powerful thing; Tuala made sure nobody saw it, not even Bridei himself. She had grown more cautious as the years passed, more watchful even as her privileges within Broichan’s household expanded, for she felt, always, the druid’s essential distrust of her. Broichan had never spoken of it, not since the first time he had sent her away. He did not need to. She could sense it in his closed expression, his cool tone, in the distance he kept between himself and this gift from the Shining One which he had never really wanted.
Yes, they were lucky. Broichan could have sent her away forever. He could have taken Bridei to court and stayed there. He could have denied her any learning save what little she could glean for herself. Instead, miraculously, the day she’d come back from Oak Ridge, she’d found that path suddenly open to her after all. Erip and Wid were to allow her to sit in on Bridei’s lessons, to set her suitable tasks and ensure she completed them. Tuala had grasped this unexpected bounty eagerly, not asking the reason for Broichan’s startling change of heart. It was enough that this door was no longer closed; she applied herself with the same intensity she gave to any new discovery.
As time passed, the balance of her life shifted. Brenna was married and moved into her new husband’s cottage. Now she and Fidich were the proud parents of two small children, and Brenna was kept busy between farm and family. As for Erip and Wid, they became not simply Tuala’s tutors in the disciplines of history and geography, kings and symbols, lore and tales, but also her firm friends. The lessons continued, informally, even when Bridei was away. Increasingly he moved in a wider circle and was gone from Rising to Midsummer, or from Gateway to Maiden Dance, the feast that heralded the arrival of early lambs. Had it not been for the patience and kindness of the two old men and the concessions Broichan made that allowed them and their small charge to establish themselves before the hall fire in the mornings with their scrolls and pens, life would have been bleak indeed. With Bridei gone, Tuala knew she was without an essential part of herself, a part as vital to her existence as eyes or ears or beating heart.
This winter would be particularly hard. Bridei was going to Raven’s Well to stay with Talorgen and his family and Tua
la knew, because she’d seen it on the water, that there might be fighting and deaths and grief. Her vision had shown Bridei with a look on his face that had never been there before, a look that meant he’d seen something he hoped never to see again, but knew he must confront over and over. She had seen shattered men and blood on the heather. She had heard, with the ears of the mind, a cry of unbearable pain, a sound that set the teeth on edge and made one beg the gods to end it, quickly, before one ran mad. But she did not tell him. Tuala understood that such visions could not be relied upon as a clear picture of what was to come. To use them as the basis for planning one’s actions was to take considerable risk. Bridei was a man now: eighteen years old. Undoubtedly he would face battles and losses as all men did, whether or not she had foreseen it. There was nothing she could do to hold back the moment when that terrible shadow entered his eyes; only be there when he came home, to listen and to comfort him, for she was the holder of his inmost fears and the guardian of his dreams.
They said good-bye on Eagle Scar. It had become more difficult to snatch time alone together now that Broichan allowed more visitors to Pitnochie, more comings and goings. Talorgen was at the house now with his son Gartnait, a lanky, freckled youth who had quickly become Bridei’s close friend, though never Tuala’s. Gartnait regarded her as a child, and a rather odd one at that. He teased her for her silences, for her solemnity, for the strange pallor of her skin and her big owl eyes. It was good-humored, but Tuala did not know how to answer such banter. There seemed to her no point in it; what did it serve, save to reinforce what made her most uneasy in the druid’s household: her difference? She did not wish to be singled out. She wanted to fit in. Erip and Wid never seemed bothered by what she was, and the things she did without thinking, such as moving the little kings and priestesses around the game board without touching them, or making the colored light that came in the round window into a dancing display of tiny, jewel-bright insects that dispersed in a shower of sparkling dust. Erip would clear his throat, ha-rumph, and Wid would stroke his white beard and nod sagely, and they’d just get on with the next part of the lesson, herb lore or astronomy or kings and queens. She remembered the kings and queens now, as she sat with Bridei on the flat stones at the top of the Scar. It was autumn. Today he was going away, and the year was turning to the dark.
“Bridei?”
“Mm?” He was gazing down the Glen to the west, perhaps looking for the eagles, perhaps searching out the track to Raven’s Well, where he’d be riding soon.
“If you had stayed back in Gwynedd, you could have been a king one day,” she said.
His attention was on her abruptly, the blue eyes piercingly bright. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said.
“Your father is king of Gwynedd,” observed Tuala. “The way they choose their kings is quite different there, Erip told me. They don’t elect them from the sons of the royal women the way the Priteni do, with candidates standing from each of the seven houses. In Gwynedd and Powys a man can be king after his father. So you could have, if you’d stayed. Could now if you went home.”
Bridei was silent for a little. “Pitnochie is home,” he said eventually. “It’s home for both of us, you and me. I used to think that was what Broichan intended: to educate me, then send me back to Gwynedd. But even if that were so, I would never be king there. I can’t remember my brothers, but I know I have two of them, both older. Their claim would be stronger; they have grown up at my father’s side. Besides, Broichan didn’t send me back.”
“So what does he intend for you?” It was an artless question. Tuala knew the answer already; the signs were quite clear to her and had been since that long-ago day when Bridei had borne the flame of Midsummer and the eagles had come. But she was not sure Bridei knew, even now. Broichan’s strategy was a deep and subtle one, spanning a period of many years. The druid was right, Tuala was forced to admit to herself, right to be covert, right to conceal his master plan from any who might seek to thwart him, right even to delay revealing the truth to the young man on whom his hopes rested. Ignorant of the weight of expectation he carried, Bridei had walked the path of his youth more lightly and learned more freely. Unburdened by the knowledge of his future, he had been better shielded against the machinations of those who sought power and position for themselves, those who had their own chosen pieces in play on the board.
“I could guess,” Bridei said. “Broichan will not speak of my mother. But I did discover that she’s kin to Talorgen’s wife, Lady Dreseida. And Lady Dreseida is King Drust’s cousin. Depending on the exact nature of the kinship, that could open certain possibilities; I’d be a poor scholar indeed if I did not recognize them after Wid’s and Erip’s lessons in genealogy. But I’m young and untried as a leader of men. I think it more likely Broichan wants me to play a part similar to what his own once was; to become an adviser to the king. Not as a druid, of course, but more in the way Aniel does, by traveling, negotiating, working to make truces and setting terms for agreements. A king’s councillor. Perhaps a warrior, too; a man must be many things.”
“You’re a bit young to be a councillor to King Drust,” Tuala said flatly. Bridei’s cheeks flushed, and she regretted her words instantly, although they had been the truth.
“There will be other kings after him. I’m a man, Tuala, not a child. I will play my part.”
Tuala held her tongue, though she sensed a silent message that hurt her: I am a man, and you are still a child. You cannot understand. That was unfair; she did understand, and had done since she was a little girl who could not even keep her hair neatly tied. And she was a woman now, for all her slight build and short stature. At Midwinter she would be thirteen years old. She had seen her monthly courses three times already and observed with wonder the other changes in her body, signs that meant the tides of the Shining One flowed within her pale Midwinter child as in the ocean’s deeps. But she could not tell Bridei this, of course. For all he was her dearest friend in the world, he was a boy, and there were some things you just did not discuss with a boy.
“Tuala?”
“Mm?”
“We may be gone all winter this time. There’s to be a spring campaign against the Gaels; it’s to win back the territory of Galany’s Reach, where the Mage Stone stands. Talorgen may let Gartnait and me ride with his warriors.” Bridei’s eyes were shining; it was as if he saw it already, a vision of banners, weapons glinting in the sunlight, thundering hooves, glorious victory. Tuala shivered.
“Don’t look like that,” Bridei said. “I have to go to battle some time. It would have been years ago, but for Broichan.”
“I’ll miss you. Spring’s a long way off.”
“And I’ll miss you, Tuala. I will come home as soon as I can, I promise. I’ll have a lot to tell you.”
Tuala nodded. This was undoubtedly true; Bridei could talk to her as she had never observed him doing with others, freely, from the heart, with no safeguards in place. And he would indeed have much to tell, news born of tears and fury, of grief and rage.
“What is it, Tuala? What’s worrying you? I will come back, you know. I always come back to Pitnochie.” Frowning with concern, he moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders. It felt strange to her; not the way it used to be, when she could lean against him and be comforted, when she could offer a ready hug of consolation in return. It felt awkward, different.
“Nothing.” She disengaged herself and rose to her feet. “How soon do you have to leave? I want to show you something.”
“I have some time left. Not long. What is it?”
“Come on, then. It’s a bit farther, up west. I need to show you.”
But when they reached the place, the special, secret place she had discovered one day out wandering in the forest alone, Bridei halted his horse on the brink but would not dismount.
“Not there,” he said, his face suddenly white. “That’s not a good place for you to go, Tuala. Not suitable. We should head for home now.”
&nb
sp; Tuala was quite taken aback. “Not suitable? What do you mean? I’ve been here lots of times. I have to come here. It’s where I can see . . .” Her voice trailed off as memories of treachery, of blood and death assailed her.
“Where you can see what?” Bridei got down from his horse. As was the pattern of things, Tuala now rode his old pony, Blaze, while he himself had Snowfire, long of mane and tail, stocky and sure, and palest gray, like shadow on winter hills. In fact Tuala was such a slight girl she could almost still have ridden the small, beloved Pearl, but Pearl was old and seemed content to dream away her days in stables or infield, watching the world go by.
“Where I can see you,” Tuala whispered, not meeting his eye. “So I can know where you are and what you’re doing when you’re gone.”
Bridei was silent a little. After a while he said, “There are terrible visions in that pool, Tuala. The Dark Mirror, Broichan calls it. I only went there once and that was more than enough. A girl your age shouldn’t be subject to such influences. Broichan wouldn’t want you to go down there, and I don’t either.”
“How old were you when you looked in the Dark Mirror?”
He did not answer.
“Anyway, it’s not just that. Not just knowing where you are and if you’re safe. There are . . . other things.”
“What things?” Bridei was growing increasingly uneasy; Tuala could see it in the grip of his hand on Snowfire’s bridle.
“I can’t tell you here. We have to go down there, into the little valley.”
“The Vale of the Fallen.” He supplied the name grimly. “There was a terrible massacre here, long ago. This place is full of the memory of death.”
“And life. Come on, Bridei.” Not waiting to see if he would follow, she plunged down the narrow pathway between the clinging fronds of undergrowth. The mists of the vale rose up to meet her. After a few moments she heard Bridei’s footsteps behind her.