Den of Wolves Read online

  ‘He doesn’t understand,’ Cara said. ‘He doesn’t know how much it hurts. I can’t be away. I should be there.’

  I sipped my tea. Waited.

  ‘I’m not –’ Cara said. ‘I just –’ She set the little hedgehog down on the table and put her head in her hands. ‘I can’t explain. It’s too hard. You’ll think I’m mad.’

  ‘Mad, no. But there is something about you that doesn’t add up.’

  Silence for a few breaths, then, ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re like two different girls, the one who stood quiet in the pool, so quiet that wild birds were unafraid to perch on her, and the girl wound up as tight as a bowstring, ready to run the moment she knew I was there.’

  Cara gazed at me, big-eyed.

  ‘They are the same girl, of course,’ I said. ‘And that intrigues me, Cara. I like a mystery.’

  She smiled. A watery, sad sort of smile it was this time.

  ‘Come back tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Grim can find some wood for you to work with – that’s if he says yes about the tools.’ He would, of course. Grim was generous to a fault. I just hoped Cara knew what she was doing and wouldn’t cut off any fingers. ‘Let the prince’s household give you an escort next time. I’d rather not upset Flidais by breaking the rules. I can promise you whoever it is will stay outside. They’ll do as I bid them.’

  ‘If only Father would say,’ Cara spoke under her breath, more to herself than to me. ‘He never said how long it was for, only that it might be until next autumn. That’s so long! And he didn’t tell me why. From one day to the next everything simply changed. If he’d warned me . . . If he’d explained properly . . . But he just said, You’re going to Winterfalls, and the next day we rode to the prince’s and he left me there. He didn’t even let my maid come with me. I think he dismissed her. Father knows, he knows I can’t live away from Wolf Glen. He knows I get sick if I can’t be near the trees. But he just . . .’

  I ordered myself not to leap to conclusions; not to judge. ‘What reasons did your father give for sending you to the prince’s house? Flidais said something about court manners.’ It was not hard to imagine what a trial that would be for a girl who liked standing barefoot in forest pools and communing with birds. If I’d told her the very first thing Flidais had done when she’d arrived in these parts as a new bride had been to strip down to her shift and go swimming in Dreamer’s Pool, Cara would not have believed me.

  ‘That’s what Father said. Meet a wider circle. Learn how to talk to people. Because I can’t, most times. The words get stuck. But I can do the things I’m supposed to. Aunt Della – that’s my father’s sister who brought me up – has taught me how to dance and sit nicely and make conversation and do embroidery. I don’t like any of it but I can do it if I have to. I don’t need practice.’

  ‘Have you told Flidais this? She’s quite understanding.’ But young, I thought; not so very many years this girl’s senior. No wonder she was struggling.

  ‘I can’t,’ Cara said. ‘I can’t talk to folk. I told you.’

  A moment’s pause; we regarded each other across the table.

  ‘You’re different,’ she said. Her cheeks had turned pink. ‘Like Gormán. And Alba. Alba’s my maid. Was my maid.’

  Plainly this loss had hurt, and I did not press her for explanations. ‘What would you rather be doing, instead of dancing and conversation and embroidery?’

  ‘Making things from wood. Walking in the forest. Climbing trees. Telling the trees’ stories, and listening to theirs.’ She flushed crimson, pressing her lips together as if to stop further words.

  Tread softly, Blackthorn. ‘Speaking of conversation,’ I said, refilling her cup, ‘that’s the most interesting thing you’ve said since we met.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I wish I had the same ability, Cara. I imagine trees have some very, very old stories to tell. Wise tales. The kind more folk should listen to. Only most people can’t hear them.’ I wanted to ask if she had told her father about this; whether he knew, as her only living parent, what she truly cared about. But I did not ask. From what she had said, and from what she had not said, I suspected her father was one of the folk who made her words dry up before she could get them out. A bully. I hadn’t liked the sound of him when Grim had told me what he knew, and now I liked it even less.

  ‘Do you actually mean that?’ Cara’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Or do you think I’m still a child who makes things up, someone you must be kind to so she doesn’t start screaming and throwing things?’

  That made me smile. ‘Grim would like you,’ I said. ‘Believe me, I do my own share of screaming and throwing things. As for children making things up, who is to say those things are not real? Perhaps only children can see them. The world is full of wonder. But . . . it’s full of danger, too, Cara. The bright and beautiful exist alongside the dark and shadowy, the evil and perilous. I know your father has hurt you with this decision. But you should abide by his rules for now. He may have some very good reason for doing what he’s done.’ Secrets; Wolf Glen seemed to be full of them.

  Cara bowed her head. What she had expected of me I could not guess, but it was clearly more than this.

  ‘You’d best be going,’ I said, mindful of the two men waiting. ‘I’m fairly sure Grim will agree about the tools. But I’d like a promise from you. Please don’t make another attempt to get home on your own without coming and talking to me first. I know from experience the dangers of rushing off on impulse, thinking you can make the world better.’

  Cara mumbled something.

  ‘Promise,’ I said.

  ‘Can I take this?’ She had picked up the little hedgehog again, curling her fingers protectively around it.

  I didn’t want to give it to her. I wanted to snatch it away, wrap it up in my red kerchief, stow it away in my apron pocket until she was gone. The feeling was so strong it startled me. The words, It’s mine! were on the tip of my tongue. I took a deep breath; governed my features. ‘You may borrow it,’ I said. ‘Please bring it back when you come to visit me tomorrow. The hedgehog was a gift from my friend. He made it especially for me.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was clutching it as if it were a talisman, as in a way it was; all of Grim’s makings had something of a charmed quality. But this was not her talisman.

  ‘You could make your own,’ I suggested. ‘Couldn’t you?’

  ‘I could try. I’ve only made birds before.’ Cara downed the rest of her tea, then rose to her feet. The little hedgehog had vanished into her pocket.

  ‘Farewell until tomorrow, Cara. Come in the morning, when Emer is here. If you bring Deirdre or one of the other ladies, Emer can keep her entertained while we talk. Just one more thing.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I don’t want to find you in Dreamer’s Pool again.’ Odd how the girl had seemed more at home there than anywhere else. ‘Please heed my warning about the place. Tomorrow I’ll tell you a story about two brothers and a prize boar, and what befell them at that very same pool.’

  ‘That sounds like an old tale. Something made up.’

  ‘You say that, after what we’ve just been talking about? Even the most made up of stories has its roots in the truth. That one more so than many. Hear it and you’ll never paddle in Dreamer’s Pool again. I’ll bid you farewell now, and thank you for talking to me.’

  Cara’s smile was like sudden sunlight on her cautious features. ‘I’m sorry I was rude,’ she said. ‘Aunt Della wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Aunt Della would be happy about you running away, either,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be telling her, or anyone else, about any of it.’ Grim excepted; but that was different. ‘Off you go now. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  8

  ~Bardán~

  It’s colder here. In that other place, where he was before, it was w
arm all the time. No need to burrow deep at night. No need for coverings like this rough sack of a blanket Gormán’s given him. He slept in a . . . It fades away, he can’t catch it in his thoughts. A green thing, like a pea pod . . . Was he smaller when he was there? Shrunk down by sorcery? That place was full of strange things, but he does not think the folk were giants. Did they give him the green bed? The little house in which it hung from the twisted withies of a roof thatched with living plants? Or was that little house only a feverish dream? How long was it, how long has he been away?

  He tosses and turns under the inadequate covering. Thinks of the man, Grim, riding home on his big horse, sleeping sound under a cottage roof, by a warm fire. Thinks of Gormán and the young fellow in the foresters’ quarters, tucked up snug and safe. And Tóla, Master Tóla, in his big grand house, under his fine linen sheets. Tóla the liar. Tóla the thief. Tóla the cheat. Tóla the killer. That smooth-faced man is evil to the core. One thing Bardán knows: he has not returned solely to build the heartwood house. He has other business with Tóla. Something happened here, long ago. Something vile and unjust. Something so wrong it is like a silent scream; like a shadow lying over trees and birds and animals and humankind. That wrong, unresolved, unpunished, has drawn him here. But when he tries to remember, the story fades away.

  ‘Come back! Come back!’ He beats his hands against his wretched skull, his head full of ghosts that dance out of sight before he can quite see them. A woman smiling. A hearth fire glowing. His own hands, steady, capable, a craftsman’s hands, smoothing a piece of fine beech wood. A smell of good food cooking. Never much to spare, but enough. Enough to make them happy. Someone singing in a low voice. Oh, hush-a-bye baby, and hush-a-bye lamb . . .

  Dagda’s bollocks, it’s cold! The dream vanishes, broken to smithereens by his shivering body. Ask the master for another blanket, you fool, says one of the voices in his head. In the morning, ask him. You can’t build the heartwood house if you’re dead of cold. But the other voice says, I asked that man for a favour once. Never again.

  9

  ~Grim~

  We’re caught, Blackthorn and me. Caught by the promises we’ve made. Just as well we share our secrets, the two of us, or we’d be in real trouble. The girl, Cara, turned up at last. Not to see Blackthorn the way she was meant to. No, she was running away from the prince’s place, heading home on her own. Blackthorn talked some sense into her. But she can’t tell Flidais. The things folk say to a wise woman, they’re in confidence, so she keeps her mouth shut. About trust, isn’t it? If you tell a wise woman you’re sick or sad or angry, and the reasons why, you don’t expect her to spread it all around the place.

  And me? I’ve made a lot of promises to Master Tóla, who’s Cara’s father. Don’t talk to anyone outside Wolf Glen about the heartwood house, or who’s building it, or anything about the work. Don’t talk to Bardán about anything but the work. Have to keep on reminding myself. Anyone I meet from the settlement, such as Scannal, I just say I’m doing a big building job up at Wolf Glen. Got to tell them something when they ask why I can’t shift flour bags or give someone a hand with some stock or help dig a drain. They’re used to me being around. Used to me saying yes. I don’t say what I’m building. Don’t want to tell lies. Not if I don’t have to.

  We talk about it, Blackthorn and me. Now we’ve only got that little bit of time between me getting home and me falling asleep. Funny; never used to sleep more than a short stretch at night. Mind too full of bad things. These days, I’m out as soon as my head hits the pillow. When I dream, I dream that rhyme Bardán says while I’m working: Stone on stone. Stone on stone on stone. Woke up once, and Blackthorn told me I’d been saying it out loud. Asked me if there was more of the rhyme and where it came from. Think there must be more. Maybe when we get to the wood part of the build, I’ll hear it. Something old. Old as the trees.

  Question is, should Blackthorn mention the heartwood house? To Cara, I mean. The girl’s been coming over to see her every few days. Doesn’t talk much. When she does, it’s all how unhappy she is and how she wants to go home. I asked Gormán about the girl, why she was at Winterfalls, and he wasn’t pleased. Said it was none of my business, and not to speak of her to Tóla or anyone else. But he did have an answer. The master wants her out of the way until the building work’s finished. Makes some sense. Girl’s got no mother, only that aunt I’ve seen around the place a couple of times. Tóla doesn’t want his daughter there while he’s got a couple of rough-looking fellows like Bardán and me working for him. Wants to keep his only child safe, which I understand. Might be a bit that way myself if I had a daughter. But I wouldn’t want my daughter unhappy. I wouldn’t want her not understanding why. Blackthorn says Cara doesn’t know that and it’s upsetting her.

  Maybe Tóla wants the heartwood house to be a surprise. Pretty big surprise, that’d be. Seems a bit mad. But aren’t I planning the same sort of surprise for Blackthorn? Tóla’s bags of silver are going to pay for another room in the cottage, somewhere she can spread out all her work things and not be cramped up with our stores and pots and pans and so on. I’m not telling her about that, not yet anyway, so maybe it’s fair enough that Tóla’s not telling his daughter about the heartwood house. Mind you, I plan to tell Blackthorn before I start building, not after I finish. Make sure she’s all right with it. And I’m not sending her away.

  Cara’s using my wood carving tools. Gormán’s been teaching her since she was a little thing. That’s what she said. No reason why a girl shouldn’t be handy with these things. She’s making a little bird. I left her a nice piece of pine, easy to work with. Knows what she’s doing, I can see that. Strong hands, fine touch. Blackthorn says it keeps the girl happy. Nothing like hard work for driving away the shadows.

  Weather’s been good. Got four courses of stones in place. Bardán’s shown me how to lay them. Need to cut a groove on some of the stones and line them up so the posts can be set in deep. Those have been shaped already, from when they tried to build this before. All stored away in the barn. Corner posts of oak. Different timbers for the ones in between. Beech, pine, elm, larch. Wattle will be ash, hazel, willow. That’ll need to be gathered fresh for the job. Crazy sort of house. Crazy or magical, depending on how you look at it. Wonder how many more kinds of trees there are in this forest, and how we’re going to know if we’ve left any of them out. And what happens if we do.

  The day we set the posts in place, three of Tóla’s farm lads come to help, as well as Gormán and Conn. Nobody talking much. I’ll be glad when this job is done, and not just because I’ll see more of Blackthorn. I miss the give and take, the jokes and tales the fellows tell when I’m working somewhere else. I miss the good fellowship. Not much of that at Wolf Glen. Meal times, if anyone else is around, Bardán’ll move away, crouch down over his rations like a dog that’s waiting to have his share snatched off him. Though if it’s just me and him and Ripple, he’ll talk a bit. Gormán and Conn, they’re friendly enough, but they don’t chat, not much, and when they do it’s to each other, about their work and what needs doing: cutting timber, carting logs, pruning or planting or clearing. Sounds a good life, out of doors, plenty of different jobs. They don’t talk about the master, unless it’s something about their work. They don’t talk about the past and they never mention Cara. Seems like they’re keeping to the same sort of rules Tóla’s set for us.

  When we’re on our own, just Bardán and me, I break those rules. Can’t help it. Man’s sad as sad. In pain, too, with those hands. Not going to pry for his story. Seems as if there’s something big there, but he can’t remember. I keep thinking of Mathuin’s lockup and how being in that place jumbled up people’s minds. Wasn’t just Blackthorn and me who got turned half-crazy, but every one of those poor bastards. Bardán could have been somewhere like that. Some place he couldn’t get out of. Until now. But why would he come here? Nobody’s kind to him here. Yes, he’s got a roof over his head and they’re
feeding him. But the rules, the way they look at him as if he’s more monster than man, the way they don’t talk to him, that’s its own sort of prison. It’s like the stone walls are still there, and the buckets of slops, and the other things. You just can’t see them.

  ‘About your hands,’ I say one day when we’re taking a break. ‘My friend’s a healer. A wise woman, one of the best. Would Master Tóla let her come up here and take a look? Blackthorn might be able to help you. Not to fix them up all new. But she’d have a salve or something that would ease the pain.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want her at Wolf Glen,’ he says. ‘The master. Doesn’t want anyone.’

  I know that, of course. But I like the idea of Blackthorn riding up here with me and Ripple one day, keeping me company on the way. ‘She could give me a salve to bring for you.’

  Bardán doesn’t say yes or no. Just looks at his hands.

  ‘No harm in trying,’ I say. ‘What do you think?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Only,’ I go on, ‘it would help if I knew a bit about how they got that way. You’re young to have your hands stiffen up like that. If I could tell Blackthorn . . .’

  Bardán turns those piercing eyes on me all of a sudden. ‘Breaking the rules, Grim,’ he says.

  ‘Doing the right thing,’ I say, lowering my voice, though I know there’s nobody within earshot. Gormán and Conn are out in the forest, and from where I’m standing I can see the track down to the house. ‘Nobody else needs to know.’

  ‘Old,’ Bardán says. ‘I think. Maybe . . . old.’

  Can’t make sense of this. ‘You don’t know how old you are?’ Could have forgotten, locked up somewhere or forced to do some cruel master’s work. Could have forgotten a lot. Or chosen to bury the past, the way I did. Some of mine’s well hidden away, even now. But I do know how old I am.

  ‘Don’t know how long,’ he says. ‘How long I was away. These . . .’ He holds up his misshapen hands. ‘They’re old man’s hands.’