A Dance with Fate Read online

  “If you want to shout and swear at me, go right ahead.”

  It’s quiet again for a while. Perhaps he’s got all his shouting and swearing done; I’ve been overhearing quite a lot of it. Then Dau says, “Can we walk around the stables? You might have to help me.”

  Oddly enough, it’s this perfectly ordinary-sounding request that puts tears in my eyes. “Of course. What’s easiest for you, a hand on my shoulder or arm in arm?”

  “Shoulder,” he says, getting up. “Warn me about steps or narrow places. Morrigan’s curse, this is like being suddenly sixty years old and frail with it.”

  Dau and I are close to the same height. He is tall for a man; I am very tall for a woman. We go side by side, his hand on my left shoulder. While I’m there he doesn’t need the stick, so I carry it. I can’t broach the subject of his future or what happens when his father’s representative gets here. That has to come from Dau. He must have been told what I’ve been told, though perhaps in different words. For now, I’m pleased that he’s prepared to talk about anything at all. Even more pleased that he trusts me enough to walk about with me.

  Once in the stables, Dau brightens a little. A dog comes over to him. He knows it’s there without my needing to tell him. He reaches down, offers his hand for it to sniff, then strokes its neck and scratches it behind the ears. A groom walks over to talk to us. We go around the stalls with him and admire the horses, fine riding animals, some trained for mounted combat. I pause beside each horse, and Dau, his hand on my shoulder, pauses with me. He asks the groom each horse’s name in turn and takes time to touch them and speak to them quietly. He asks questions about their care. They’re the sort of questions that come only from a person who has done the job himself. When we’re finished he thanks the groom, and the two of us go out to sit at the far end of the stables, on a seat near the tower-like structure where messenger pigeons are housed. It’s a quiet spot; there’s nobody around. I note it as a good place for future whistle practice or even singing, then wonder if that would unsettle the birds.

  Dau leans forward, elbows on knees. He’s calmer, I think. He loves animals. He’s a lot better with them than he is with people.

  “Liobhan?”

  “Mm?”

  “Would you agree that you owe me a favor?”

  I didn’t see that coming. “Because of what happened, you mean? You can’t think—” I shut my mouth before I say the wrong thing. Not that I’m sure what the right thing is.

  “Not that. You owe me a favor because I helped you over the wall, when you went searching for Brocc. I helped you break the rules.”

  This is true. When I needed to go and bring my brother home, when I needed to do exactly what Archu, as our mission leader, had told me not to do, Dau helped me perform an extremely risky exit from the royal fortress of Breifne—risky not only for me but for him as well, since that maneuver could have seen both of us lose our places on Swan Island. I’m not sure I want to hear whatever it is he wants me to do now. But I have no choice. “Is Archu going to regret telling us to talk to each other?” I ask.

  “I don’t care what he thinks. Liobhan, they’ve told me I’ll stay blind. Not in so many words, but I know what they mean. Unless a miracle cure comes my way, I’m never going to be any use to anyone again. Don’t interrupt!” He must have heard me draw a sharp breath, about to contradict him. “Do me the basic courtesy of waiting until I’m finished, will you? You know my father’s sending someone here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t wait for that. They should never have sent word to him. He didn’t care then, he doesn’t care now. All he wants is a fat payment for what’s happened to me. I’m not going back home. Not ever, Liobhan. When I left, I left for good. I can’t stay on Swan Island. I understand that.” Dau’s trying to put a calm argument to me, but with every word his voice is getting rougher and angrier. What is it he wants from me? “And Garalt is dead. I can’t go back to him.”

  Garalt was Dau’s mentor, a man with the courage and foresight to befriend the troubled youth and teach him how to be strong. He was Dau’s only friend in those dark times. “What is this favor?” I ask.

  Dau is silent for a while. “If we’d still been on the island,” he says eventually, “I’d have asked you to take me to the edge of the cliff, then turn your back and walk away.”

  I swallow a curse half-spoken. Make myself breathe.

  “But that can’t work here,” he goes on. “Will you lend me your knife? Or make me up a potion, you know the kind of thing I mean?”

  I’m so angry I could hit him. “You can’t just give up! Morrigan’s curse, Dau! It’s early days yet; you might get your vision back, or enough of it to do useful work on the island. Or here at the Barn for that matter, tending to horses. You know how good you are with animals. There must be other healers, other folk they could consult . . .”

  His shoulders are set rigidly. “I have nowhere else to go. I have no future. What you suggest is false comfort. False hope. I can’t be here when my father’s representative arrives. You’re the only person I can ask, Liobhan. The only person with the guts to help me.”

  “To help you kill yourself. Next thing you’ll be asking me to do it for you.”

  “Liobhan. Please.”

  A pox on the whole thing! I’ve got tears streaming down my face now, and my heart’s going like a galloping horse. Can he actually imagine I would say yes?

  “Dau. You’re a strong, fit, healthy man of nineteen. Except for your eyes, every part of you is still working perfectly well. There might be a cure. Fergus and Jabir don’t know everything. You have to give this a chance. You have to hold on to hope.”

  “That’s a no, then.”

  “It’s a no to that particular question. If you were dying in agony on the battlefield and there was no hope of saving you, I’d consider using my knife to put you out of your misery. But this? I wouldn’t dream of it. Has it occurred to you that if I helped you I’d be up on charges of unlawful killing? You may feel bitter toward me after what happened, but I think that would be quite out of proportion to the offense.”

  There’s a long silence, during which I try to work out how I can get a message to Dau’s carers about keeping sharp objects out of his reach while not divulging something so deeply private.

  “I want to go back in now.”

  In Dau’s voice I hear the child he was, the child beaten and tormented and terrified by his brothers right under his father’s eye. I want to wrap my arms around him in a hug of reassurance, but I don’t. I wish I could make promises of a better future, but I can’t. I think of a wager, the sort Dau and I have a habit of making when we’re in tight corners. I’d wager that he would regain his vision within, say, a year. He’d be quick to bet against me. The odds would be clear. A win for me would put everything right. A win for him would mean I had to do what I just refused to do: end his life as a farmer might that of a crippled sheep, with one strong, sure slash of the knife.

  As I guide his hand to my shoulder, ready for the walk back, I’m shivering hard, and Dau must feel it. But he says nothing at all, not until we reach the place where we met and he takes back his stick. “I can find my way from here. Archu said you’d talk some sense into me. I’m not sure what he meant.”

  “Seems I failed. I want to make an agreement, Dau.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I won’t tell Archu, or anyone else, about the conversation we just had. In return, you won’t take any action to harm yourself.”

  “If I break the agreement, you’ll have no comeback.” Dau’s tone is flat.

  “We’re friends, aren’t we? Even after this? Friends trust each other.”

  “How long am I supposed to comply with this agreement?”

  I swallow, wondering if I’ve reduced a matter of life and death to a macabre bargain, and what sort of person that makes
me. “Until after this representative has come here and we find out what your father intends. Dau, why don’t you tell Archu the full story about what happened when you were a boy? He would speak up for you. He would make sure you were safe. He could probably find you somewhere else to go. One of the safe houses, like Oschu and Maen’s, for instance. Swan Island looks after its people.”

  “You’re talking bollocks. Archu may be an elder here, but he’s hardly going to call out a chieftain over his past behavior. You haven’t met my family. They’re expert liars, the lot of them. Besides, you’re forgetting something vital.”

  “What?”

  “This is all about hushing up Swan Island’s involvement, isn’t it? Making sure my father’s people are so kindly treated and so generously compensated that they’ve no reason to spread stories about how and where I was injured. Archu may be a good man, but he’s not going to risk the continuing existence of Swan Island for the sake of one individual.”

  I can find nothing to say. As Dau heads back toward his quarters, feeling his way with the stick, I find myself without a single word of hope.

  7

  DAU

  They’re one day’s ride away,” Archu says, meaning the party from my father’s stronghold in Oakhill. He’s had observers out. Reports have come back in. He’s gathered us in the long room at the Barn, tactfully telling me who’s present so I don’t need to ask. Apart from him and me, there’s Fergus, Brigid, Liobhan, and a lawman named Master Saran, who’s arrived from the court of Dalriada to assist us. Cionnaola is also present. I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of that cliff I spoke of to Liobhan, only at the bottom there won’t be a short, sharp end to this wretched business, but a suffering that goes on for however long my family decides to extend it. Archu has told me to stay calm when they come. To answer questions courteously when they’re put to me. Not to fall silent. He has reminded me, yet again, that I’m still a Swan Island warrior, and that he expects me to act like one.

  This meeting, now, should be easy. I am among friends. But it is not easy. I’m clammy with cold sweat. My heart is racing.

  If I could see, I would look at Liobhan. I would look in her eyes and take heart from her strength. I would look at her fiery red-gold hair and think of a flame of courage, lighting up even the darkest times. But if I could see, we would be back on Swan Island and not in this nightmare.

  “I have a description of the party,” Archu goes on. “Seven of them in all. There is a lawman, as we expected. Four men-at-arms. One older fellow who looks like a councilor or similar. And they’re led by a youngish man who resembles you, Dau. Your brother, perhaps?”

  My head fills with an evil buzzing. My stomach churns. I’m going to faint. Or be sick. Fergus says, “Dau? Are you all right?” He’s beside me now, putting a cool hand on my brow. His robe smells of herbs.

  “Fair-haired or red?” I manage to ask. Then, before I can hear the answer, I blunder away from the table and bring up my breakfast in a corner. I retch and retch until there’s nothing left in my stomach. Around me are the sounds of folk moving quickly, and Fergus is there, steadying me, but the things in my head are screaming now, and I’m shaking, I can’t stop.

  “You need to lie down,” Fergus says. And to someone else, “Find Jabir, will you?”

  I drag myself up from whatever foul pit I’ve fallen into. Try to straighten my back, try to lift my chin. Someone puts a cup of water in my hand. Liobhan. Her hand wraps around mine for a few moments. She’s making sure I have a steady hold on the thing. I drink. I breathe. “Which brother?” I ask. With an effort, I make my voice steady. “Seanan or Ruarc?”

  “Fair,” says Archu. “Could almost be your twin, that’s what the informant told us. But older.”

  Seanan. Of course Ruarc wouldn’t come on his own, not with a decision like this to make. He always followed Seanan’s lead. Followed it in every act of cruelty; followed it like an obedient servant. “I need to sit down,” I say. Dagda’s bollocks, no wonder the two of them made sport of tormenting me. After all these years, I’m still weak as piss.

  “You’re unwell. You should rest—”

  “No.” I cut Fergus off. “I can do this.” We move to the table and sit again. “Archu, how many horses do they have?”

  “Eight,” says Archu.

  So they’ve brought a mount for me. Unless it’s a packhorse. I know deep down it isn’t. Seanan plans to take me home with him. My brother wants his old toy back, to tease and torment and oh so methodically reduce to a heap of worthless rubbish.

  “We won’t be accommodating them here at the Barn,” Brigid says. “We have some trusted people at a suitable place, an establishment that can pass for a wayside inn, a discreet distance away. Stabling for horses, good amenities, and a private chamber that will do for a meeting. I think their lawman will understand the advantages of discussing such a sensitive matter at a neutral venue.”

  “Could Master Saran explain what his role will be?” That’s Liobhan. It’s a good question, since we know the Swan Island elders don’t want this to become a formal hearing. Not officially, anyway. With two lawmen present it’s going to be pretty close.

  “Will you do that now, Master Saran?” This voice is Cionnaola’s. I see him in my mind: his long twists of gray hair, his face that shows the passage of years, his keen-eyed gaze. A strong man in all the ways that count. A leader.

  “Firstly, let me say that I have many years’ experience in the law and that I will be perfectly discreet on this matter.” Master Saran has an old man’s voice, but he sounds crisp and confident all the same. “Apart from the king and his senior councilor, nobody at court was told exactly where I was going, only that my services were required by a household a certain distance away. It happens often enough; my absence will not spark questions. Part of my role will be to ensure Lord Scannal’s lawman does not deviate from accepted practice in his questioning. The same will apply to Dau’s brother. I assume he’s here to look after Lord Scannal’s interests.”

  Make Seanan abide by the law? The man’s dreaming.

  “I’ve been provided with a detailed account of what occurred on the day Dau was injured, and I have also spoken to the healers about that injury, his treatment, and what is likely for the future. It’s important that all the relevant information is heard. I will make sure that happens. If Lord Scannal’s party does not call Fergus and Jabir to speak, I will do so—they have agreed to ride with us to the meeting place. That way we can not only hear their expert opinions but also ensure that Dau has appropriate care and support for the day. I trust it will be only one day, though these things do have a tendency to drag on. I’ll be wanting to talk to you later, Dau. And also to you, Liobhan.” There’s a pause; I imagine him looking around the room, assessing each of us in turn. I can smell my own vomit. Perhaps my shirt is stained with it. From that corner come discreet sounds of someone cleaning up.

  Can I sink any lower than this? Oh, yes. Tomorrow I most likely will. My shadows are only a hair’s breadth away: a boy dropped headfirst down a dark narrow hole; a boy lying in his own excrement behind a locked door; a boy with his arms around a dying dog, and his brothers’ laughter ringing in his ears. The blood soaking into my clothing; the little sounds Snow made as she tried so hard to stay with me. I dash a hand across my cheek and hope nobody sees.

  “Any further questions?” asks Brigid. “If not, we’ll leave this room to Master Saran. He’ll send someone to fetch each of you when he’s ready. Liobhan, you can make yourself useful by speaking to Illann in the stables—he’s come over to do some shoeing for us. Explain to him who’s riding to Hawthorn House, and let him know we’ll need our horses quite early tomorrow. I want us settled in there with everything ready before these folk arrive. Ask Illann if he’d be free to come with us. It’s always handy to have an extra guard, especially one who is good with horses.”

  I know Illann well. Las
t summer Liobhan and I were on a mission with him. We went under cover, Illann as a court farrier, I as his mute assistant. Liobhan, her brother, and Archu were traveling minstrels. Illann’s a good man. Quiet, capable. A friend. If I leave this place, I’ll go back to being the boy with no friends. I should have trusted my own judgment when I first came to Swan Island. I shouldn’t have lowered my guard, let people in. If you never make friends, you’re spared the pain of losing them. A question comes to me. I don’t need to ask it, because Liobhan gets in first.

  “Is it safe for Dau to ride? Won’t the movement be bad for his eyes?”

  Another charged silence. Don’t suggest a litter, I will them. Don’t say the word cart. I imagine Fergus telling us the damage is done now so a bit more shaking up won’t matter.

  “It’s an easy ride, flat all the way with good tracks,” says Archu. “We’ll put your horse on a leading rein if necessary, Dau. I did ask Illann about this. He confirmed that you’re a very capable rider. Provided you have someone riding alongside, and the right horse, he believes you can do it easily.”

  I send a silent thank-you to Illann. I’m not sure if what I feel is terror or excitement at the thought of such a challenge. Both, perhaps. I imagine a wager: Liobhan bets that I keep my seat the whole time without a leading rein; I bet that I fall off and make a fool of myself in front of everyone. The stake: one copper each way.

  “I believe that if Dau takes the ride carefully no further damage will be done,” says Fergus. “We’ll prepare an herbal draft for you to take before we leave, Dau, to dull any pain. We do have to be careful. The leading rein would be an excellent idea.”

  That’s the moment I decide there’s no way I’m going on a leading rein. What if Seanan got there before us and saw me coming in like a beast of burden? Saw me before I knew he was there, watched me with that expression on his face, the one that makes my flesh crawl?