The Well of Shades Read online

  Bridei closed his eyes and began the ritual words.

  I breathe into the dark…

  IN THE FOREST above the druid’s house at Pitnochie, Ana, princess of the Light Isles, was sitting quietly on a fallen tree, waiting for her betrothed to come back. She was not alone; on a branch nearby a hooded crow perched, watchful, and a scarlet crossbill was investigating the leaf litter at her feet. A very large gray dog stood alert on the other side of the clearing, its formidable size and piercing gaze sufficient to deter the boldest of attackers. Concerned for Ana’s safety, Drustan had acquired Cloud from a farmer farther down the Glen, and the dog had soon fallen victim to her new owner’s seductive charm; she was as much his willing slave now as the birds were. No, thought Ana, slave was the wrong word. Drustan’s creatures were so close to him they seemed to be extensions of his own self; they knew instinctively what he wanted from them and what he could give them. It was a little the same for her. There was an inevitability about her love for him; her whole being had been tied up with his from the moment they first set eyes on each other.

  Drustan was still reluctant to display his unusual abilities before others, even now he and Ana had been staying at Broichan’s house for some time and knew the druid’s loyal retainers were entirely trustworthy. Hence the dog rather than a man-at-arms. Drustan was new to freedom. His last seven years had been spent under lock and key, the occasional times of release a gift from his selfless keeper, Deord. Now he could go out at will and exercise his special skills without fear of punishment, but he was still reluctant to share what he could do with anyone but Ana. In the autumn he had borne a message south to King Bridei in the heat of battle. That meant the household at Pitnochie already knew the truth about him, for two men who served as guards here had been present on the battlefield when Drustan had intervened to save the king’s life. Fortunately, Broichan’s folk understood discretion and simply got on with their business. Long years in a druid’s household had made them adaptable.

  Ana sighed, and the little sound brought the crossbill up to her hand, its weight almost nothing. The bird fussed over its plumage, preening busily. The hoodie hopped along its branch, turning its head to one side. Cloud whined. “He’ll be back soon,” Ana murmured. “I suppose it is a little tedious for you waiting here with me. He doesn’t like me to be completely alone in the forest.” She smiled at herself; probably none of them understood a thing she was saying. It was Drustan whose mind they knew, Drustan who could see through their eyes and give them instructions that they carried out flawlessly. She’d observed it all through the difficult journey she’d undertaken last summer, when the birds had watched over her and helped to find the way.

  Her thoughts went to Faolan, companion and friend of that journey, Faolan who was gone on a new mission now. She had broken his heart when she fell in love with Drustan. And she hadn’t even seen it, not until she’d forced him into an explanation during that desperate flight across the wild lands of the Caitt. Oh, Faolan; she missed him so much, and she knew Drustan did, too. His place in their lives was unique. There was no word to describe it.

  Her mind shied away from if only. She loved Drustan, and they were happy. She had some news for Drustan that would make him even happier. But Faolan was a constant regret. Walking out of White Hill, he had looked wretched, desperate, as if he might do anything at all. She prayed that his return home to his birthplace would help him find a path forward, but her heart was full of doubts. She knew the dark story of his past; she knew what might be waiting for him there.

  “The thing is,” she murmured to the birds, “I was the one who made him go. If it turns out badly, I’ll carry some of the responsibility. I hope he’s all right. I can’t bear him to be so unhappy.”

  If crossbill or hoodie thought anything of this, their attention did not stay on it long, for with a rustle of feathers and a disturbance of air a larger bird now swept into the clearing, coming down to land on a tree stump with a neat folding of its tawny wings. Ana caught her breath. She’d never get used to the wonder of this, not in all her living days. She sat quietly, waiting for the moment of changing, and between one blink and the next the hawk became a tall, bright-eyed man with curling hair the same shade as the bird’s glossy feathers. He staggered across and sat down beside her, long legs stretched out before him. Cloud crept closer, head lowered and tail cautiously wagging, her devotion not quite outweighing her uncertainty. Ana reached for Drustan’s hand. He was trembling violently; she could feel it. She said nothing, only waited, and after a while the shaking slowed and stopped. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, then got up and began to stretch his limbs, working to overcome the weariness and confusion that generally attended his return to human form. Color came gradually back to his face.

  “All right?” Ana asked him quietly.

  “I will be soon. I’m sorry if I was gone too long.”

  “I was fine. It’s good for me to have some thinking time, and Cloud keeps me perfectly safe out here; she’d see anyone off, I’m sure.”

  “What were you thinking about? Come, I can walk now; we should head back to the house.”

  “Faolan,” Ana said soberly. “I was wondering how far he’s gone and what he’s doing now. Feeling rather guilty for sending him home, even though I still believe he needs to go there and work things out.”

  Drustan’s fingers came up gently to brush a strand of fair hair back behind her ear. “You should not torment yourself with that, Ana. He’s gone. I miss him, too, but in the end this was Faolan’s own decision. He was the one who chose to leave because it hurt him too much to see you and me together. He was distressed, yes, and confused. But he’s a grown man and a highly capable one; more capable than most. He will not waste this journey.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Ana took Drustan’s proffered hand as she climbed across a stile between woods and pastureland. “I wasn’t only thinking of him, as it happens.”

  “Oh?” Drustan traversed the stile with two steps up and a jump down, and still managed to look graceful. He coaxed a wary Cloud over after him.

  “Yes, I have something interesting to tell you, dear heart.” Ana stopped walking and took both his hands in hers. “My moon-bleeding is ten days late. That’s very unusual. I think we may be going to have a child.”

  Drustan’s eyes warmed with hope and wonder, reflecting perfectly the feelings in her own heart. A moment later, a smile blazed across his face, reminding Ana of all the reasons she loved him. She set thoughts of Faolan aside. There was nothing she could do for her friend now, save wish him the strength to move on.

  3

  THE RAIN ACCOMPANIED Faolan as he traveled inland to the crossroads where he must at last make a choice of ways. He tried to fix his mind on the decision ahead, but thoughts of Deord intruded: Deord strong and serene as guard to a solitary, gifted captive; Deord devoting all he had left, after Breakstone, to keeping that wrongly imprisoned man safe from his own brother and from himself. Deord, at the end, fighting one last, heroic battle and dying so Faolan and Ana and the remarkable Drustan could go free. In a sense they had avenged his death. The cruel brother had been executed, covertly, in the forest. The manner of his passing would never be made public. It had owed a little to each of them: to Faolan himself, to Drustan, and to Ana. Ana whom Faolan had loved, Ana who would be wed to Drustan by the time King Bridei’s right-hand man made his way back to Fortriu.

  He trudged on, hood pulled low over his face, boots soaked through. The deluge continued. Make a decision, he ordered himself. West or north? Fiddler’s Crossing or Colmcille? But his mind darted from Deord to Deord’s daughter. There had been something badly awry there. It wasn’t just the grime and the poverty, Anda’s beaten-down look and Eile’s quivering defiance. There was something more, a sense of evil that made it hard to let go of this, even now he had paid them generously and told them as plainly as he could what he thought of Eile’s pitiable state. It was clear where their priorities lay: their own child, t
he tiny, silent girl, had been well-fed and neat compared with the half-starved young woman with her scraggy hair and filthy, gnawed nails. He could not set aside her frightened eyes and her fighting words, the love for her father achingly evident even as she derided Deord for his last, most cruel abandonment. Curse it! He’d given them the silver, probably more than was quite wise, for once he was gone they could squander it if they pleased, with not a single piece spent on Eile’s welfare. They’d made it plain enough they expected no more and would be glad to see the back of him. What else could he do?

  You should have tried harder. Faolan addressed Deord in his mind. You should have come home again before your wife gave up hope. You were strong. If anyone could cope, surely it was you. Unfair, of course. He, Faolan, was the last man who should chide another for a failure to face his demons. Wasn’t he the boy who had fled his home settlement long ago and never had the courage to come back? Now here he was, only a few days’ travel from Fiddler’s Crossing, and his mind full of excuses not to walk those last miles. He’d go all the way up to the north coast to find this Brother Colm first, rather than travel across a couple of valleys and a ford or two to visit the place of his birth; the place where, as a very young man, he had killed his beloved elder brother, and set a curse on his family that could never be lifted. Dubhán, ah, Dubhán… Even now, in Faolan’s mind, the blood flowed scarlet over his fingers. After all these years he could still feel the knife in his hands.

  Lost in the past, Faolan walked on, scarcely aware of his surroundings. At nightfall he sheltered in a ruined outhouse where straw lay damp and moldering. The rain continued. He could not make fire and he had given away the best part of his provisions, but he had a strip of dried meat and a hard bannock, and these he chewed absently, looking out of his rudimentary shelter and thinking of the river to be crossed and the bridge that was down. After last spring, Faolan had good reason to be cautious about fords. If he turned north at the crossroads, he need not negotiate the river. It was another reason not to go home.

  His sleep was fitful. He was used to rough conditions. He could keep going on scant supplies and minimal rest. Tonight was a different matter. His mind was turning in tight circles. Wretched Eile in that hovel; Fiddler’s Crossing, and so many unanswered questions. His appearance there must surely do nothing but add still more pain to that which his family already endured. Anything might have happened to them in the years of his absence. They might be dead. They might be gone, unable to live on in the place where the dark things had happened. Besides, his father and mother had sent him away. They had ordered him out of their house after what he had done. What Echen had made him do, to save the rest of them. No, that was wrong. Echen hadn’t forced him to do anything. He’d given him a choice. A man always has a choice. Go this way or that way. North or west. Kill your brother or watch the rest of your family die, and him with them. Echen had never believed the young bard would do it; had been as stunned as anyone when the boy had drawn the knife across his brother’s throat. The Uí Néill chieftain had not thought Faolan would have the courage for that.

  And then Echen had broken his promise. He had taken Áine, a child still, for the pleasure of himself and his men that night. She could not have survived it. Her death, too, lay on Faolan’s shoulders. His father had forbidden him to go after her, to attempt rescue. Faolan could have hated him for that, if his heart had not already been entirely numb. Perhaps it was not so surprising that, later, he had survived Breakstone Hollow. After that night, other cruelties faded into insignificance. And now it seemed Echen was dead. The opportunity for vengeance had been snatched away. What, then, was the point in coming back?

  Gods, this was intolerable. He shifted in the moldy straw, trying to ease his aching knee. His leg had never been quite the same since he was injured, in autumn, battling a wolf pack in Caitt territory. The long walk back to White Hill had taken its toll on the already damaged limb. It irritated him. He wanted to be himself again, quick, fit, and strong, with a mind sealed off from the past, a mind fixed only on Bridei’s mission and how to achieve it. It was Ana’s fault. She’d got the story of Fiddler’s Crossing out of him, the tale he’d never told a living soul. She’d softened his well-armored heart and opened him up to grief and love and impossible hope. Curse her for it; he’d never wanted this. It had been so much easier to play a part; to be a man without a past, devoid of feeling. If not for Ana’s urging, he’d never have considered coming near Fiddler’s Crossing again. The man he’d been before would have handed Deord’s kin the bag of silver and dismissed them instantly from his thoughts.

  Not now. His mind skipped between the image of his sister, dragged from the hall by Echen’s armed warriors, and that of Eile with her big eyes and her pitchfork. The dog; the child; her mother hanging from a tree, and Eile saying she’d been grown up since she was twelve. Something wrong; something badly wrong.

  Morning came, and a lull in the rain. Perhaps he would go as far as the priory and make a discreet inquiry as to the willingness of the sisters to take in an orphaned girl, should a generous gift come their way for purposes of improving the amenities of their house of prayer. The fact that he himself was not a man of faith would surely make no difference if the bribe was good enough. Of course, that would take him farther west than he was entirely happy with. The closer he got to Fiddler’s Crossing, the more likely someone he met would put two and two together. Once the word started to get about that he was in the area there would be no escape until he’d gone to the settlement and seen his father. If his father still lived there. If his father still lived at all. The prospect of facing him again made Faolan’s heart cold and his belly tight. He, spy and assassin to two kings of Fortriu, was as terrified as a little child before wild beasts. In all truth, he did not know if he could do it.

  On the afternoon of the next day he came to the crossroads. There were still some hours of light left; he could go on westward as far as the river, have a look at it, and decide on the basis of that whether to try for the priory or head north away from the province of Laigin. Taking a side trip to speak to the sisters on Eile’s behalf did not commit him to going all the way home.

  Faolan hitched up his pack and headed along the westward track. The farther he walked, the more familiar the landmarks. As a bard’s apprentice, in the early days, he had traveled widely, playing at fairs and weddings, in village square and chieftain’s hall. He knew this conical hill, this grove of elms, this winter-brown hedge of beech with a huddle of damp ewes sheltering in its lee. It was only a matter of time before someone knew him.

  The river was running high and fast. The footbridge had lost a span in the center, where the flow was at its most turbulent around the uprights. The gap was perhaps two long strides; a fit man could leap across if he liked risks, but a cautious one knew that would be the rash display of a fool. Two men stood on the far side of the gap, one holding a coil of rope.

  Faolan advanced as far as the last upright before the planks ended in a sudden jagged edge. “Need help?” he called.

  “Can’t get timbers until tomorrow,” one of them shouted. “Putting a rope across for now, if we can. Keep it together until we can do a proper job.”

  It was a simple enough matter, then, to make himself useful, since the presence of a man on the near side to catch and secure the rope was essential to the process. On Faolan’s advice they doubled the line, tying it to handrail and upright so that, if a man were especially keen to cross, he might essay the gap by edging his feet along the lower rope while gripping the upper. Faolan had no intention of doing so. His knots had been sound, but he didn’t trust the ancient timbers.

  “You coming over?” called one of the men, narrowing his eyes at Faolan across the angry water.

  “No hurry. I’ll wait till you get some boards across. Anywhere to shelter near here?”

  “Try the old ferryman’s hut, upriver under the willows. At least you’ll be dry. What’s your name and where are you bound?”


  Faolan pretended not to have heard the question. “Thank you. I’ll give you a hand with the boards in the morning,” he said.

  “Hey!” shouted the second man. “You wouldn’t be a kinsman of the brithem from Fiddler’s Crossing, would you? Conor Uí Néill? You’ve a look of a man who lived in these parts, long ago.”

  Faolan turned his head away so they could not see his expression. “Never heard of him,” he said, working hard to make his tone casual. “I’ll be off to find this hut, then.” He strode off quickly before they could probe further.

  Before he reached the ferryman’s hut sudden weariness, coupled with the news the man at the bridge had fortuitously given him, began to take a toll. His leg was aching again and his mind was flooded with an uncomfortable mixture of profound relief and unwelcome memories. There was time to return to the crossroads and make a start up the northward track. He had calculated carefully, his profession being one in which a man cannot afford errors. He could be on his way to Derry before dusk, and put both Fiddler’s Crossing and Deord’s kinsfolk behind him. He would never have to tell a living soul that the brithem, Conor Uí Néill, was his father, and that the darkest story in these parts was his own. He could leave, reassured by the news that his father still lived, without having to stand before him and see the desolation etched on his features. But suddenly the crossroads seemed a long way off, and the prospect of sleeping in a hut, where perhaps he could make fire and dry himself out, sounded remarkably appealing. Besides, he’d promised to give a hand with the bridge. Faolan turned his steps upriver toward the stand of willows.