Dreamer's Pool Read online

  About Dreamer’s Pool

  Embittered healer Blackthorn, wrongly condemned to death, is offered a lifeline by a mysterious stranger. In return, she must set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once loved. Not only that: for seven years she must agree to help anyone who asks for her aid. She and her companion Grim settle on the fringes of a mysterious forest in Dalriada, far from the place of their incarceration, and start a new life.

  Oran, the crown prince of Dalriada, is waiting for his bride-to-be, Lady Flidais. Her letters and sweet portrait have convinced him that she is his destined true love.

  But letters can lie.

  To save Oran from disaster, Blackthorn and Grim will need courage, ingenuity, and more than a little magic.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Dreamer’s Pool

  Dedication

  Character List

  1 Blackthorn

  2 Grim

  3 Oran

  4 Blackthorn

  5 Grim

  6 Oran

  7 Blackthorn

  8 Grim

  9 Oran

  10 Blackthorn

  11 Grim

  12 Oran

  13 Blackthorn

  14 Oran

  15 Blackthorn

  16 Oran

  17 Blackthorn

  18 Grim

  19 Oran

  20 Blackthorn

  21 Grim

  22 Oran

  23 Grim

  24 Blackthorn

  25 Oran

  26 Grim

  27 Blackthorn

  28 Grim

  29 Oran

  30 Blackthorn

  31 Grim

  32 Blackthorn

  33 Oran

  34 Grim

  35 Blackthorn

  36 Grim

  37 Oran

  38 Blackthorn

  39 Oran

  40 Grim

  41 Blackthorn

  Acknowledgments

  About Juliet Marillier

  Also by Juliet Marillier

  Copyright page

  To the daughters of Papatuanuku

  CHARACTER LIST

  Approximate pronunciations are given for the more difficult names.

  kh = soft guttural, as in Scottish ‘loch’

  LAOIS / LAIGIN (Leesh / Lain)

  Blackthorn

  a prisoner

  Grim

  a prisoner

  Poxy

  prisoners

  Dribbles

  Strangler

  Frog Spawn

  Slammer

  a prison guard

  Tiny

  a prison guard

  Mathuin

  chieftain of Laois in northern Laigin

  Conmael

  a fey nobleman

  ULAID

  Muadan

  chieftain of southern Ulaid

  Breda

  Muadan’s wife

  DALRIADA

  Oran

  Prince of Dalriada

  Ruairi

  (rua-ry)

  Oran’s father, King of Dalriada. His court is at Cahercorcan

  Eabha

  (eh-va)

  Oran’s mother, Queen of Dalriada

  Lady Sochla

  (sokh-la)

  Eabha’s sister, Oran’s aunt

  Sinead

  (shi-nehd)

  her personal maid

  Feabhal

  (fa-val)

  Ruairi’s chief councillor

  Master Cael

  a senior lawman

  Master Tassach

  a senior lawman

  Oisin

  (a-sheen)

  a druid

  Oran’s household at Winterfalls

  Donagan

  Oran’s body servant and friend

  Aedan

  steward

  Fíona

  his wife

  Eochu

  (och-u)

  stable master

  Niall

  head farmer

  Brid

  head cook

  Teafa

  (ta-fa)

  a young seamstress

  Lochlan

  head guard

  Garalt

  guard

  Fergal

  guard

  Winterfalls village

  Fraoch

  (frech)

  smith

  Ornait

  his mother

  Emer

  (eh-ver)

  his younger sister

  Iobhar

  (ee-var)

  brewer

  Eibhlin

  (ev-lin)

  his wife

  Scannal

  miller

  Deaman

  (da-maun)

  baker

  Luach

  (lokh)

  weaver

  Becca

  a friend of Emer

  Cathan

  Becca’s first love

  Brocc

  sheep farmer

  Cliona

  sheep farmer

  Pátraic

  lad from the brewery

  Silverlake village

  Branoc

  baker

  Ernan

  miller (deceased)

  Ness

  Ernan’s daughter

  Mór

  a villager

  CLOUD HILL / LAIGIN

  Lord Cadhan

 
chieftain of Cloud Hill in northern Laigin

  Flidais

  (flid-is)

  his daughter

  Domnall

  (don-al)

  senior man-at-arms, married to Nuala

  Eoin

  (ohn)

  man-at-arms

  Seanan

  (shan-aun)

  man-at-arms

  Ciar

  (keer)

  Flidais’s personal maid

  Mhairi

  (mah-ree)

  maidservant

  Deirdre

  (dee-dra)

  maidservant

  Nuala

  (noo-la)

  maidservant, married to Domnall

  OTHERS

  Lorcan mac Cellaig

  King of Mide (an historical figure, circa 848)

  Abhan

  (a-van)

  a travelling horse trader

  and not forgetting

  Snow

  Oran’s horse

  Star

  Donagan’s horse

  Apple

  Flidais’s horse

  Storm and Sturdy

  Scannal’s cart horses

  Tinker and Treasure

  Abhan’s cart horses

  Bramble

  Flidais’s dog

  1

  ~BLACKTHORN~

  I fished out the rusty nail from under my pallet and scratched another mark on the wall. Tomorrow would be midsummer, not that a person could tell rain from shine in this cesspit. I’d been here a year. A whole year of filth and abuse and being shoved back down the moment I lifted myself so much as an inch. Tomorrow, at last, I’d get my chance to speak out. Tomorrow I would tell my story.

  In the darkness of the cell opposite, Grim began muttering. A moment later the door down at the guard post creaked open. How Grim could tell the guards were coming before we heard them was a mystery, but he always knew. The muttering was a kind of shield. At night, when the place belonged to us prisoners, he spoke more sense.

  A jingle of metal; footsteps approaching. Long strides, heavy footed. Slammer. Usually, when he came, we’d shrink back into the shadows, hoping not to draw his attention. Today I stood by the bars waiting. My time in this place had broken me down. The person they’d locked up last summer was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. But tomorrow I’d speak for that woman, the one I had been. Tomorrow I’d tell the truth, and if the council had any sense of right and wrong, they’d make sure justice was done. The thought of that kept me on my feet even when Slammer went into his little routine, smashing his club into the bars of each cell in turn, liking the way it made us jump. Yelling his stupid names for us, names that had stuck like manure on a boot, so we even used them for one another, Grim and I being the only exceptions. Peering in to make sure we looked sufficiently cowed and beaten down.

  ‘Bonehead!’ The club crashed against Grim’s bars. ‘Stop your stupid drivelling!’

  At the back of his cell Grim was a dark bundle against the wall, head down on drawn-up knees, hands over ears, still muttering away. Funny thing was, if Slammer had opened that cell door just a crack, Grim could have killed him with his bare hands and not raised a sweat doing it. I’d seen him at night, pulling himself up on the bars, standing on his hands, keeping himself strong as if there might be giants to kill in the morning.

  The guard turned my way. ‘Slut!’ Crash!

  I wished I had the strength to keep quite still as the club thumped the bars right by my head, but the three hundred and fifty-odd days had taken their toll, and I couldn’t help wincing. Slammer didn’t move on to the cell next door as usual. He stopped on the other side of the bars, squinting through at me. Pig.

  ‘Got something to tell you, Slut.’ His voice was a confidential murmur now; it made my skin crawl.

  Slammer liked playing games. He was always teasing the men with talk of messages from home, or hinting at opportunities for getting out. He was a liar. They all were.

  ‘Something you won’t like,’ he said.

  ‘If I won’t like it, why would I want to hear it?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll want to hear this.’ He put his face right next to the bars, so close I could smell his foul breath. Not that it made much difference; the whole place stank of unwashed bodies and overflowing latrine buckets and plain despair. ‘It’s about tomorrow.’

  ‘If you’re here to tell me that tomorrow’s the midsummer council, don’t trouble yourself. I’ve been waiting for this since the day I was thrown into this festering dump.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Slammer in a voice I liked even less than the previous one. ‘That’s just it.’

  Meaning, I could tell, exactly the opposite. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Now you’re interested.’

  ‘What do you mean, that’s just it?’

  ‘What’ll you give me, if I tell you?’

  ‘This,’ I said, and spat in his face. He was asking for it.

  ‘Euch!’ He wiped a sleeve across his cheek. ‘Filthy whore!’

  Filthy was right; but not the other. I’d never given myself willingly in here, and I’d never been paid for the privilege. The guards had taken what they wanted in those first days, when I’d still been fresh; when I’d looked and felt and smelled like a woman. They didn’t bother me now. None of them was desperate enough to want the rank, skinny, lice-ridden creature I’d become. Which meant I had nothing at all to offer Slammer in return for whatever scrap of information he was teasing me with.

  ‘That’s the last time you’ll spit at me, Slut!’ hissed Slammer.

  ‘You’re right for once, since I’ll be out of this place tomorrow.’

  He smiled, but his eyes stayed cold. ‘Uh-huh.’ The way he said it meant I was wrong. But I wasn’t. I’d been told my name was on the list. The law said a chieftain couldn’t keep prisoners in custody more than a year without hearing their cases. And with all the chieftains of Laigin here, even a wretch like Mathuin, who didn’t deserve the title of chieftain, would abide by the rules.

  ‘You’ll be out, all right,’ Slammer said. ‘But not the way you think.’

  Oh, he was enjoying this, whatever it was. My mouth went dry. Over in the cell opposite, Grim had fallen silent. I couldn’t see him now; Slammer’s bulk took up all my space. I forced myself to keep quiet. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me beg.

  ‘You must have really got up Mathuin’s nose,’ he said. ‘What did you do to make him so angry?’ Perhaps knowing he wouldn’t get an answer, Slammer went right on. ‘Overheard a little exchange. Someone wants you out of the way before the hearing, not after.’

  ‘Out of the way?’

  ‘Someone wants to make sure your case never goes before the council. First thing in the morning, you’re to be disposed of. Quick, quiet, final. Name crossed off the list. No need to bother the chieftains with any of it.’ He was scrutinising me between the bars, waiting for me to weep, collapse, scream defiance.

  ‘Why have you told me this?’ A lie. A trick. He was full of them. I willed my heart to slow down, but it was hopping all over the place like a creature i
n a trap.

  ‘What, you’d sooner not know until I drag you out there in the morning and someone gives you a nasty surprise? Little knife in the heart, pair of thumbs to the throat?’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Better say your prayers, Slut.’ He moved off along the row. ‘Poxy!’ Smash! ‘Strangler!’ Crash! ‘Frog Spawn!’ Slam!

  Across the walkway, Grim was standing at the front of his cell, big hands wrapped around the bars.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ I snarled, turning away before my face could show him anything. The three hundred and fifty-odd marks stared back from the wall, mocking me. Not a count to freedom and justice after all; only a count to a swift and violent end. Because, deep down, I knew this must be true. Slammer didn’t have the imagination to play a trick like this.