The Well of Shades Page 4

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  SOON AFTER DAWN Eile heard them coming and the familiar feeling gripped her, cold and tight in her chest. Saraid was awake, sitting up on the pallet with her shapeless cloth doll in her arms, whispering to it. Fear gave speed to Eile’s limbs, though it was bitterly cold in the tiny lean-to where they slept. She was fully dressed already, that being the only way to stay at all warm at night, but she always made Saraid put on her nightrobe, giving her the second blanket to compensate. She encouraged Saraid to wash her face every day and sit up nicely to eat as well. If Saraid didn’t learn to be a lady she’d be doomed to a life like Eile’s own, an existence of squalor and slavery. Someone had to make sure Saraid escaped before she got too old. There was only Eile to do it.

  “Get dressed, Saraid. Can you manage by yourself? They’re home and I need to tend to the fire.”

  Saraid nodded, solemn and silent, as Eile put the little gown, the shawl, the apron, the stockings, the boots on the bed next to the child, then scraped her own hair back and tied it with a length of string. She pushed her feet into her worn boots, an old pair of Aunt Anda’s, and stumbled through to the main room. Fire; light; hot water. Quick. Never mind that it was cold enough to freeze a pig’s tail off and that she had spent more of the night crying than sleeping. If things weren’t ready, Dalach would be angry.

  Her hands were numb with cold. There was no wood left beyond a few sticks of kindling. The dog had crept out of the bedchamber after her and now stood by the ashes, staring up at her. He only stayed when Dalach and Anda were away. Those nights were better. The hound made a warm and undemanding third in the bed.

  The woodpile; everything would be soaked after last night’s downpour. A pox on it. There was no way to avoid a beating. She could hear them coming into the yard now, Dalach’s voice already raised, Anda’s barely audible.

  Eile pushed the door hanging aside. “Go,” she said, and the dog obeyed. It was more biddable than that man, Faolan, had been. Chances were he wouldn’t come back today. Men were like that: full of empty promises. Like Father.

  Eile closed her eyes a moment, feeling the banked-up tears behind the lids and knowing she must let no more fall, not now, not when Dalach could see. She had longed so for the day when Father would come home again, big and quiet and strong, and take her in his arms as he had the last time, after that place, Breakstone. She had dreamed she would whisper the truth to him, and he would take her away, her and Saraid, to somewhere safe where he could protect the two of them and the child could grow up happy and well-fed and unafraid. Where she herself would not have to endure the constant clutch of dread, nor the terror that, one day, she would no longer be able to keep Saraid safe. Father, oh Father, why couldn’t you have come home?

  Eile took a step outside the door and saw that someone had brought a small load of logs up from the saturated woodpile and placed them in a neat stack beside the doorway, where the overhanging thatch sheltered a dryish patch. The wood was still damp, but perhaps she could coax it to burn. A kindness; she wondered what Faolan had been after in return. She wondered if he had heard her crying, after she thought he was gone. She loaded the basket, heaved it inside, and was crouching to stir up last night’s embers when Dalach strode in, Anda a meek shadow in his wake.

  “What, no fire? Get moving, you scrawny sluggard, I’ve come a long way and I’m frozen to the marrow. Where’s my breakfast?”

  He expected, perhaps, that she would conjure it from nothing.

  “You didn’t leave us much, and it’s all gone, all but a handful of oats.” And please, please let Saraid have that, she needs it. Eile was shivering; it was a walk on eggshells whenever he was home, a constant guessing game. She felt anger, but could not let it show, for the child’s sake. If not for Saraid, she’d have done the man serious harm long ago and taken the consequences.

  “You should have managed better.” Anda put down her bundle and stood with her hands on the small of her back. She looked worn out, but Eile could not find a shred of sympathy. It seemed to her a person who stood by and let evil things happen was as guilty as the person who performed them. “You should have made it last.”

  Eile thought of the times she had not eaten, so that Saraid could be adequately fed. She said nothing.

  “You’re a slut and a wastrel,” Dalach said, walking over. He was a big man, tall and broad. Strong as an ox; Eile knew just how strong. She felt his fingers in her hair, then a fierce pain as he jerked her upright. She put her teeth through her lip, so as not to cry out. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Just as well there’s one thing you’re good for,” Dalach went on, “or you’d be out on your ear, and no two ways about it.” As abruptly as he had seized her, he let go, and she collapsed back beside the hearth. “That supposed to be a fire? Get on with it, wretch. I’m wet through.” He turned toward his wife. “You’ll have to go down to the settlement. See what you can scrounge. Here.” He took a handful of coppers from his pouch and gave them to Anda. “Don’t rush home.”

  His eyes were back on Eile; she felt his gaze on her as she fanned the embers and fed on the last sticks of kindling. Burn, please burn. “I can go, if you want,” she said, heart thudding. “I can take Saraid. The rain’s stopped. You’ve already had a long walk, Aunt Anda.”

  “Who asked you for your opinion?” snarled Dalach. “Go on, Anda, I’m hungry.”

  “There was a man here yesterday.” Eile had not planned to tell them until later, but the words came out in a rush. She so much didn’t want to be left with Dalach, especially not when Saraid was awake. The child was in the inner doorway now, a little shadow, staring. “He brought news of Father.”

  Instantly she had their attention.

  “A man?” asked Dalach, glowering. “What man?”

  “What news?” Anda’s voice was hesitant.

  Eile chanced a bigger branch on the fire; it hissed as the flames licked it. “Bad news. He’s not coming back. He was killed not long ago in some place over the water. A heroic death, that’s what the man said.”

  Anda sank down on a bench. She said not a word.

  “So he’s not coming back for you,” Dalach said heavily, subsiding on the bench, eyes fixed on Eile. “He’s leaving it to us to provide for you. Typical. He always was a fellow who walked out on his responsibilities. He’s left us with you and the brat both.” The eyes flicked across to the silent Saraid, and the child shrank back behind the door frame, thumb in mouth.

  “The brat, as you call her, is your own kin.” It was unwise to challenge him, but Eile could not keep the words in.

  “She’s another mouth to feed. A man can’t afford kin if they can’t earn their keep.”

  “She’s three years old,” Eile said as the fire began to crackle, defying the odds.

  “Three years old and growing.” Dalach’s lips stretched in a humorless smile. “She’ll have her uses before long.”

  In that moment, Eile knew it was time to act. Father was dead; there was no point in hoping and dreaming and wishing, not anymore. It was up to her now. She had run away before, in the days before Saraid, and Dalach had come after her and dragged her back every time. This time she was going to make sure he couldn’t follow.

  “Where is this man now?” asked Anda wanly. “Did he bring anything for us?”

  “Don’t be any more of a fool than you are already,” snapped Dalach. “When did Deord ever show generosity to us? As a provider he was worse than useless. He’d have died without a copper to his name. Got into a brawl at a drinking hall, is my guess, and fell foul of a bigger man than himself.”

  “The man—his name was Faolan—said he was coming back to see you today. He did mention silver. And it wasn’t a drunken brawl. My father died in battle. He sacrificed himself so others could live. And he was a provider.” Eile swallowed her tears. “Back before, we had a good house and food on the table. Maybe you think I can’t remember, but I can. We were happy then—”

  Dalach’s fist came out and struc
k her on the jaw. Her teeth rattled; a spear of pain went through her neck. She fell silent. It was true; a hundred blows wouldn’t alter that. Maybe she’d been only little, Saraid’s age, but she did remember. The house on the hill; the garden with vegetables and flowers, lavender, rosemary, some kind of tall lilies by the wall. A cat; she remembered the cat, a stripy one that brought in mice and laid them at Mother’s feet as if they were priceless gifts. Mother laughing; Mother spinning and singing. Father was not always there, for he used to go on voyages, but he always came home, and when he did the whole house lit up with his presence. Father telling her stories at bedtime, stories about the strange places he’d sailed to and the exotic folk who lived there. Father with that look in his eyes, the look that made her feel safe. Back then they had not lived with Anda and Dalach. Back then she had believed her life would be full of good things.

  “What’s this, tears?” Dalach scowled at her, and she scrubbed her cheeks, not knowing if she wept from the blow or because the past was gone and could never be remade. While she had knelt there dreaming, Anda had slipped out of the hut, and now she was alone with the person she hated most in the world.

  “Get that fire built up, then wash yourself,” Dalach said. “You stink like a midden. I don’t want that all over me. When you’ve cleaned yourself up, get in the back.”

  “Saraid’s there.”

  “The brat can watch. Not too soon for her to learn a few tips. Hurry up, Eile, I’ve been ten days on the road and I’m itching for it. You don’t think that dried-up stick I’m wed to is able to satisfy me, do you? It’s like rutting with a scarecrow.”

  It was only possible to make washing last so long before he would grow impatient and snatch the scrap of cloth from her, or kick over the bucket of bracingly cold water. Dalach didn’t wash. It was immaterial to him whether Eile cared for his smell, a rank, sweaty odor deepened by his days and nights on the road, coming home from the last horse trading of the season. The winters were the worst time. With nothing to set his hand to, he divided his days between drinking away his meager savings and tormenting the rest of them.

  She wiped her face and hands, then hitched up her skirt and sluiced between her legs. Beside her, Saraid stood silent. She had dipped her own cloth in the bucket first and washed her face, dabbing behind her ears and around her neck. She had washed her hands and dried them on her apron. I’m not having her in there with us. I’ll never, ever do that. “Saraid? Take my shawl, here, and go out the front. Sit on the step until I come out for you. Don’t go off anywhere. Aunt Anda will be home soon with something for breakfast. You can look out for her. I know it’s cold.”

  The child nodded and slipped away, as obedient as the dog. Eile wasn’t sure how much Saraid understood. She suspected it was more than such a little girl should, and she hardened her will against what she must do next. Just once, just one last time he’d do it to her, and she’d have to let him, and then…

  While he was grunting and thrusting inside her, off in some trance of his own, Eile had become accustomed to shutting off her mind. She would think of how it had been before: before Saraid, before Dalach’s house, before she found Mother hanging from a tree. Before the eve of her twelfth birthday, when her aunt’s husband had come in the dark, pinned her down and robbed her of her innocence. Now, as he satisfied himself in her with an urgency born of the days away, she thought of the time when her father had come back, after Breakstone Hollow. Eile had been eight years old. Perhaps she’d been too young to realize how much Deord had been changed by his imprisonment. He’d been quiet; but he’d always been quiet. There had been no bedtime stories. When she’d asked, he’d said he only knew sad ones now. So Eile had told him tales instead, the ones she could remember from before and some she made up. Sometimes her stories made him weep, and she would climb on his knee, put her arms around his neck, and press her warm cheek against his wet one. Yes, he had been different that time. But he’d still been Father. When he’d gone away again, she had seen the hope gradually leach out of her mother. Every day, every single day Eile had prayed that he would come home. After her mother died, after Dalach, the prayers had become no more than desperate, unformed longings. Now, even those were pointless. All that she had was this moment, the straining, red-faced Dalach with his ever-ready manhood deep inside her, and the knife Faolan had left behind clutched in her hand, under a fold of blanket. Her grip tightened; she drew a deep breath.

  Voices came from outside: her aunt’s, and, replying, a man’s. Faolan. He had come after all. He must have met Anda on the way, making it necessary for her to accompany him back empty-handed. Eile pushed the knife under the old sack that served as a pillow, and Dalach, unwilling to relinquish the opportunity his wife’s brief absence had provided, thrust hard and fast and spent himself inside her with a muffled groan before rolling off the pallet and hastily pulling up his trousers.

  “Make yourself decent, slut,” he hissed, and went out.

  Eile did not go out straightaway. Surely her father’s friend would smell Dalach on her. Surely he would hear her hammering heart, for she had been so close, a hair’s breadth from thrusting the weapon he had so conveniently left her deep inside her tormentor, giving Dalach a taste of his own medicine. The first time he’d done it to her, it had hurt a lot. It had never stopped hurting; she’d just become used to it, and learned that it was more bearable if she breathed slowly and let him get on with it. If she fought, it made him rougher, and got her a beating later. Dalach needed little excuse to use his fists; she and Anda both bore their share of bruises. Not Saraid; not yet. Saraid was so silent, so obedient. She had learned to make herself invisible.

  Eile straightened her clothing and spread the thin blanket neatly across the pallet, making sure the knife was quite hidden. She waited until her breathing was under better control. In the outer chamber they were talking.

  “I’ve brought a few supplies.” That was Faolan. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m heading across country as soon as I leave here, and I haven’t had breakfast. Some fresh bread, a little cheese, and there’s a handful of dried plums here; the child might like those. I’m happy to share.”

  “Eile!” It was his voice, shouting as if she were a servant; he who had just taken her with casual indifference. To him, she barely existed save as a receptacle for his lust. “Get out here and serve our guest! We need clean platters, and the fire’s smoking.”

  She did as she was told. There would be another time, another opportunity. Nothing was more certain than that. As long as Faolan did not ask for his knife back. Tomorrow, the next day, she would do it. Even servants got wages. She would take hers in blood.

  Faolan divided the bread. He cut the cheese, not with his own knife, but with a blunt one Eile passed him. Under his penetrating look she was aware of her chilblained hands, her gnawed nails, her unwashed hair and ill-mended gown. Saraid had come in to stand by Eile’s skirts, big eyes on the food. Faolan could not know that this was a feast such as none of them had seen in many turnings of the moon.

  “Can I give her some?” Eile asked Faolan direct.

  He said nothing, simply cut a slice of cheese, placed it on a portion of bread, and offered it to the child. Saraid had been taught to sit up; to eat slowly. Eile had tried her best. Now, overwhelmed by such bounty, the child snatched bread and cheese from Faolan’s hand and bolted for the inner chamber, clutching the food to her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Eile said. “She’s hungry.”

  “Your aunt tells me you’ve broken the news,” Faolan said. He watched as she served Dalach, putting a generous portion on his platter, as she then served the guest himself. The bread smelled like all the best things of summertime put together. Her mouth was watering. Eile cut cheese for Anda, then a sliver for herself. The crust was red as crab apples, the cheese itself as golden as the sun. She divided the last of the small loaf between her aunt and herself, glancing sidelong at Dalach. If Faolan hadn’t been there, she knew Dalach would have denied her s
o generous a portion. Now he simply tightened his lips. Eile took one blissful mouthful of bread; one salty, wonderful bite of cheese. Then, when nobody was looking, she slipped the remainder into the pocket of her apron. Saraid was little. She didn’t eat much. There were two good meals in this.

  “Not eating?” Faolan asked her.

  “I’m not very hungry. But thank you for bringing it.”

  “Forget the pleasantries,” Dalach said, wiping his mouth. “What about Deord? What provision did he make for his daughter here? You know we’ve been supporting her out of the goodness of our hearts these seven or eight years? We can’t keep the girl forever. Duty only carries a man so far. Times are hard. You’ll know. Or maybe you won’t.” He looked Faolan up and down. “What’s your trade?”

  “Dalach—” hissed Anda, but it was a halfhearted effort; she lived in fear of her husband’s sharp tongue and punishing hand, and seldom remonstrated with him.