“‘Then how . . . ?’
“‘Trust me, stone carver, and accept what I offer you. You will sleep the better for it.’
“Nechtan was silent. His mind was full of questions that could not be asked.
“‘You don’t believe me,’ Ela said, her long lashes drooping over her clear, light eyes, her lovely mouth sad. ‘Or you do not trust me. Stay tonight, only tonight, and I will show you this is true.’”
Tuala paused; around the table, the silence was absolute. “Tell me,” she said. “What would you have Nechtan do?”
Broichan offered nothing. She thought perhaps she had achieved the impossible and rendered him mute with surprise.
“He should never have got himself into that situation,” Mara said bluntly. “A craftsman, a person of substance, he knew what was what; he was a fool to follow the crone, a fool to drink from the woman’s cup, and he’d be even more of a fool to accept the offer. He should at least ask what the terms are; what she wants of him in return. I think he says no, thanks her politely, and gets on with his journey as quick as he can. There’s no time for secret sorrows and suchlike in a man’s life. He should just do what has to be done and be glad of what he has.”
“Can’t do that, though, can he?” ventured one of the men at arms.
“That’s right,” said another. “It’s not how the tales go. Take one look at such as her, and a fellow’s lost forever. He probably gets in her bed, and undoes the wrappings even though she told him not to, and finds she’s a monster waiting to gobble him up.”
There was another silence. Tuala waited.
“As an artist,” Garvan said, “he knows the paths of the gods are never straight and obvious. As a man who works with stone, he understands that beauty exists with the release of dreams from the forms that restrain them. He has no choice but to agree to what this woman offers him; it seems to him this might be what he has long searched for but never found.” He glanced sideways at Tuala, a question in his eyes.
“That’s good,” Tuala said, surprised that such a man would offer such a response. “He stayed, and it was exactly as Ela had promised. She shared her bed with him, but it was understood he might not hold her close, nor take off the many swathing garments with which she concealed her body. And she did indeed work magic; her skills and her sweetness awoke a fire in Nechtan that he had never known he possessed, not in all the years of his marriage nor in his casual encounters with women through the time of his widowhood. Ela’s soft voice, her listening ear, her gentleness and kindness soothed his spirit wondrously; he felt he could tell her anything and she would understand. By day he returned to the mortal world and continued to ply his trade. At night he hastened back to his Ela, his hunger for what she could offer undiminished by familiarity, for her presence seemed always fresh, always new, a wondrous world with ever more treasures to discover. There were no more nights plagued by shadows and desperation; now it was all sweet fulfillment and the profound sleep that follows it.
“A year and a day passed, and not a night of that time but Nechtan spent it in his new sweetheart’s bed, which proved difficult for his trade at times; a stone carver needs to be free to travel, to go where his commissions take him. But he had assistants, and he managed, for he could no longer bear to sleep without her.
“Then, when the time she had set him had passed, Ela asked Nechtan what he would do now. ‘For I see,’ she said, ‘that although we are happy together, and you are no longer troubled by loneliness, there is a new sadness in your eyes. What is it that troubles you, dear one?’”
Tuala glanced around her audience again. “What does he tell her?” she asked them.
“He wants to see what she looks like,” a man at arms offered, eyes averted. “It bothers him that she still has a secret from him. That’s in many tales; curiosity gets the better of folk, and then everything goes wrong for them.”
“That’s right,” said another. “If one of the—the Good Folk—sets a rule like that, you dare not go against it. That can only end in sorrow. But in the tales, that’s what people do, every time.”
“He probably unwraps her binding when she’s sleeping and takes a peep,” Mara said, “and after that Ela vanishes, her and the crone and the cozy little house, and he’s left just as he was before, beset by foolish longings for what can never be.”
Tuala waited.
“No,” Garvan said. He seemed to be considering his reply. “No, I don’t think that’s it. Of course he would have liked her to show him her body; if she could not do so, it meant she didn’t yet trust him. But that was not the cause of his unease. He told her that what he wanted above all was to be able to give her the same pleasure she had afforded him so generously, night after night, without seeking anything in return save his company. He longed to be able to heal her wounds as she had his. He wished she would tell him how he could do this; he wished she would say what she herself needed for true content.” He looked at Tuala, suddenly hesitant. At least, that is the way I would tell it, had I your gift for words.”
“A carefully crafted answer, friend,” Broichan commented with a twist of the lips.
“It seems an honest answer,” Tuala found herself saying. “Have you a better one, my lord?” Something had made her bold tonight, perhaps the inner voice that had conjured so unlikely a tale from nowhere.
“No,” said Broichan. “I simply wonder how this fellow found the time and the energy to maintain his trade when his head was so full of feelings and anxieties and sensitivities. I am inclined to concur with Mara, and say he should have left well alone when he had the chance. I suppose the tale works to a conclusion in which we discover this Ela was under some kind of enchantment, and her stone carver found out the secret for undoing it and made her straight and beautiful again. Simple tales for simple folk; the patterns are always the same.”
It seemed to Tuala there was a challenge in those eyes and in the cynical words. “The Shining One is not predictable,” she said. “Her cycles may be constant, but the tides she awakens in the minds and bodies of her creatures, she governs at her own will. When Ela heard Nechtan’s answer, tears spilled from her eyes. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he respected the limits she had set him. Far better, he had thought from the beginning, to accept this strange shadow of a marriage than to lose altogether the one who had become his best friend, his solace, his heart’s joy. So he only reached his hand to curve it around her cheek, and touched his lips to her face, kissing away the marks of her weeping.
“That night, at dark of the moon, she let him undress her. Whatever it was she revealed to him, it did not make the house disappear in a puff of smoke, nor Ela and old Anet vanish. It did not drive the stone carver away. Indeed, those who saw Nechtan in the years afterward commented that he was becoming dreamy with contentment. As for the images of his carvings, they grew stranger season by season, bull and boar and goose replaced by curious animals that were neither one thing nor another, and patterns so intricate they seemed to change even as you looked at them: spirals and mazes without beginning or ending. This story is a bit like those patterns. Nechtan took Ela to see the swans on Maiden Lake. She shared with him her deepest secrets. They had great and lifelong joy, each of the other. That is all I know, or all I choose to tell.”
Silence again. It was broken by the one of the men at arms protesting, “You mean that’s the end?” In his outrage at the tale’s abrupt conclusion, he seemed to have forgotten to be wary of the teller. “But what was her secret? What did she look like under the wrappings?”
“Maybe fair, maybe foul,” Tuala told him. “That’s not the point.”
“Without that, it’s not properly finished,” Mara said. “Such a tale, a tricky sort of tale, needs a conclusion. It needs to explain the secret of the thing.”
Tuala did not comment. Probably not a single one of them understood the meaning of the story. It made them uncomfortable that it did not conform to the accepted way of such tales.
>
“This is not a story about spells or about beauty” Broichan’s comment surprised Tuala; she had not expected his support in any form at all. “It concerns choices,” the druid added.
“True,” Garvan said. “We need not learn if Ela was a goddess or a monster; the point is that Nechtan showed he valued her needs as equal to his own. With that, he won her trust at last. And, of course, that was what he needed and wanted most of all.”
“It’s very possible,” Tuala said, “that under the wrappings her body was as fair and unblemished as her hands and her face, and always had been. She set him a test and he passed it.”
“What learning is to be derived from this?” Broichan never forgot what he was.
Tuala drew a deep breath. “The learning is that the Shining One expects her daughters to have freedom in their choices. Remarkably, Nechtan came to an understanding of that, and was rewarded. I am her daughter as Ela was, and I need the same freedom in my own choices. I sit here tonight and tell my story because it is expected of me; thus I show my gratitude for the hearth and home I have been given here. The weaving of tales is one thing; being sent away, being sold off once I become inconvenient is quite another.” Her voice shook; whether it was with anger or with sudden terror at what she had ventured, she herself could not tell. “I’ll bid you good night now; I would not wish to disrupt your gathering further. May the Shining One light your dreams.” She turned to Garvan. “You gave good answers,” she said. This was only fair; he had surprised her with the depth of his understanding. A pity she had not the slightest wish to marry him.
“Good night, Tuala,” said Broichan. What he thought of it all, there was no telling.
SHE FOUGHT SLEEP that night, knowing her dreams would bring again that dark vision, Bridei falling, dying, his dear features racked with unspeakable pain. She must trust Broichan to prevent it. He had seemed sure he could send warning in time. She must believe this was so. The images of the Dark Mirror could be changed when what they showed was still to come; a man or woman could act to forestall them. It must be so, for they had been contradictory already, showing her one future in which Bridei wed a red-haired woman and sired a son, another in which his life of promise was cut cruelly short. Perhaps these visions spoke of a choice. Her choice. If he were to live, she must accept that he would move away from her. Was the goddess telling her she must let him go?
There were tears waiting to fall, heavy behind her eyes. There was something else as well, the same something that had stirred within her the day she bid Bridei farewell. When he had touched her that day, his fingers gentle against her flesh, she had known, without really understanding, that what was between them had changed forever. Tuala sat up in bed, hugging her arms tight around her knees in the darkness. Garvan was a good man. He seemed kind, courteous, thoughtful. And she could not marry him. She had loved Bridei from the first, as a brother, a best friend, a wise companion, so familiar he had always seemed a part of herself. And now she loved him as a girl loves her sweetheart, as Nechtan loved Ela, with beating heart, with quickening of the blood, with anguish and tears and deepest joy in the knowing of it. It was right, after all. She really had changed, and when she did so, her world had changed with her.
BROICHAN SENT FOR HER next morning. Garvan was already gone; Tuala heard Mara telling Ferat that the stone carver’s precipitate departure was, without doubt, a response to the tale he had heard last night and the look on the face of the teller, “for you could see,” Mara said in a whisper, “that Otherworld glamour, the danger of it. I’d never have dreamed the lass had such a tale in her. You should’ve seen the look in the men’s eyes. And here’s me thinking she’s as innocent as any maid of her years should be.”
However, when Tuala came to Broichan’s chamber and stood before him, hands clasped behind her back, heart thumping, it was not to receive a reprimand for driving her suitor away, nor a punishment for attempting to seduce the men at arms with her tale.
“Garvan asked to speak with you privately.” Broichan stood in his customary spot, his back to the hearth. There was no fire today and the chamber was full of little eddying drafts. The druid’s tall frame was black-robed, his eyes fixed on Tuala, intent as a hawk’s. “I refused his request; it did not seem to me appropriate. Is it that you do not wish to marry him, or that you do not wish to wed at all?”
Tuala swallowed. “It is too soon,” she managed. “I am not ready for marriage.”
“You are of marriageable years, Tuala,” Broichan said. “Other girls are most certainly handfasted at your age, and are often mothers within the year. Perhaps all that is required is more explanation, more reassurance . . . You could speak to Mara about this. On the other hand, the remarkable tale you chose to tell my guest last night does suggest . . .” The druid’s manner was diffident now. His eyes had gone distant, as if the topic were somehow beneath him.
“I know what it means to share a man’s bed,” Tuala said bluntly. “One does not grow up on a farm without learning certain basic facts. My lord, I have no wish to wed Garvan or any other man. If that displeases you I regret it. You have given me a home here and I understand I am in your debt. I know you didn’t want to take me in. I haven’t forgotten what you said, long ago, about my place here at Pitnochie depending entirely upon you. But I want to stay. I need to stay” I need to be here when Bridei comes home.
“You cannot stay,” Broichan said. “You are no longer welcome among my people. This change has occurred despite me. Now I myself am moving on, indeed I must do so as soon as I can, for Bridei’s sake. And you must go.”
“Go where?” Tuala clenched her fists behind her back, trying to keep her voice calm. “Have you found another likely suitor?”
“I don’t need to. Garvan was concerned that you might misunderstand his reasons for leaving so soon. He explained to me before he rode off that his offer for you still stands, and that it is up to you to make the decision in your own time: a year, two if you need them. He’s a remarkably generous man; generous to the point of folly, some might say. He asked me to tell you that he wants no dowry, nor has he promised anything in return for your hand; your talk of ‘selling off’ was unfounded. He wished you to know this.”
“I see.”
“That choice, therefore, remains open to you. It seemed to me, last night, that there was a bond of sorts between you and Garvan, if only in your approach to the interpretation of tales.” Broichan regarded her, brows lifted; it seemed a comment was required.
“I don’t want to marry” Tuala felt cold all over. “I don’t want to be sent away.”
“In that, there is no choice. Whether or not you wish to consider the prospect of this marriage for some time in the future, I will not leave you at Pitnochie. However, there is another option, one that has become more possible with the advent of a messenger from Raven’s Well this morning.”
“From Raven’s Well? What is the message? Is Bridei safe?”
“It did not concern Bridei,” Broichan said, “but we can assume from the lack of news in that regard that all is well with him. The messenger brought a request that Pitnochie provide shelter for the lady Dreseida and her family for a night or two; they travel to Drust’s court, where they will remain until the time of conflict is past. The lady will be here as soon as the weather makes her journey practicable. I’ll be gone by the time her party arrives, but Mara will see to things.”
The lady Dreseida and her family. Fox Girl. And Broichan leaving for court in such a hurry after so long away . . . He must really be worried about Bridei’s safety, not just in the battle and the aftermath her vision had shown, but afterward as well. Tuala waited for more.
“This would provide a highly suitable escort for you,” Broichan said. “It means we can, if necessary, follow the other path that is open to you. It was not my preferred way, and the tale you chose to tell last night only strengthened my doubt as to whether it is a desirable course for you.”
“What path?”
&n
bsp; “Long ago the wise woman, Fola, offered a place in her establishment at Banmerren for you when you reached a certain age. She wanted you to receive your early education here; what Erip and Wid could provide was far superior to the training offered to most girls of high family. You do not realize, perhaps, how privileged you have been in that respect.”
“I know the debt I owe them.”
“Banmerren is on the north coast, around the bay from Caer Pridne,” Broichan said. “It’s a secluded establishment in keeping with the nature of the tuition. Whether a young woman of your origins can ever fulfill the sacred duties of a servant of the Shining One is for Fola and her fellow tutors to discover. Once accepted there, you need not return to Pitnochie. And you need not marry, of course. That should please you.”
A confusion of feelings gripped Tuala. She had no words at all.
“I have not mentioned this before,” the druid said, “because I have doubts, serious doubts, as to the desirability of it. Fola is a friend whose wisdom I value. I fear, nonetheless, that you may be at risk of . . . exploitation. Your skills and talents, coupled with your unusual education, will not win you friends in such an environment. And there’s a danger you carry with you: if your abilities are not guided wisely and strictly you could wreak havoc.”
Beneath the cold sense of impending loss, Tuala felt outrage. Words came to her lips, Then why didn’t you teach me? Who better to train me in the mysteries than a king’s druid? She bit them back. It was too late for this.
“Perhaps you were not aware of the impact of your tale last night,” Broichan said. “I think you lack awareness of many things, Tuala. To bring you into the mortal realm was less than wise.”
“Must I go away? Couldn’t I stay here and . . . ?” And what? Stay and get under Mara’s feet, stay and terrify every man at Pitnochie merely by existing? A memory came to Tuala: a small, lonely girl confiding in a crone not much taller than herself, a child with a desperate hope in her voice. I want an education, but he won’t let me. It seemed Fola had made a very long bargain.