Son of the Shadows. Juliet Marillier
that was. Only – it was a child who had given up all hope. That is a terrible thing. Why I was shown this, there is no telling. In time, perhaps you will find out.’
I shivered again. ‘I’m not sure that I want to.’
Mother smiled and got up. ‘These things have a habit of finding you, whether you like it or not,’ she said. ‘Conor was right. There’s no point in feeling guilty, or worrying about what may come. Put one foot before the other, and follow your path. That’s all we can do.’
‘Hmm.’ I glanced at her. It sounded as if my own particular path might be rather more complicated than I would have wished. I didn’t ask for much. The security and peace of Sevenwaters, the chance to use my craft well, and be warmed by the love of my family. I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to do more than that. I could not see myself as one who might influence the course of destiny. How Sean would laugh at this notion, if I told him.
The season wore on, and Eamonn did not come back. The druids left us again, walking silent-footed into the forest at dusk. Niamh became unusually quiet, and took to sitting up on the roof slates, gazing out over the trees and humming softly to herself. Often, when I looked for her to help with a piece of sewing or the preparation of fruit for drying, she was nowhere to be found. In the evenings, she never wanted to talk any more, but lay on her bed smiling secretly, until her eyelids dropped over her beautiful eyes and she slept like a child. I slept less easily myself. We heard conflicting reports from the north. Eamonn was fighting on two fronts. He had advanced into his neighbour’s territory. He had retreated to his inner wall. The raiders were Norsemen, come back to harry a shore we had long thought safe. They had settlements far south, at the mouth of a great river, and they sought to expand their holding up along the coast, and even into the heart of our own lands. They were not Norsemen at all, but Britons. They were neither; but some more foreign breed, men who wore their identity on their skin in a secret, coded pattern. Men with faces like strange birds, and great fierce cats, and stag and boar; men who attacked in silence, and killed without mercy. One had a face as black as the night sky. Not even men, perhaps, but Otherworld warriors. Their weapons were as odd as their appearance: cunning pipes through which a dart with poison tip might be launched into the air; tiny metal balls studded with spikes, that travelled fast and bit hard. Clever use of a length of fine cord. No sword or spear, no honest weapons.
We did not know which of these stories to believe, though Sean and Liam favoured the theory about Norsemen as the most likely. After all, such invaders were best placed for a quick strike and retreat, for at sea they were as yet unmatched, employing both oar and sail to move faster than the wind over the water. Maybe their ornate helmets had given rise to the strange tales. And yet, said Liam, the Norsemen fought unsubtly, with broadsword, mace and axe. Nor were they known for their prowess in wooded terrain, preferring to keep their hold on the coastal margins rather than venture inland. The theory did not fit quite as neatly as one might have wished.
Eventually around the time when day and night were of equal length and Father was busy with planting, Eamonn sent for help, and Liam despatched a force of thirty well-armed men off to the north. Sean would have liked to go, and so, I think, would my uncle himself. But as it was, something stayed them both. There was Aisling, still dwelling in our house where she would be out of harm’s way, and anxious for her brother’s safety. That was enough to keep Sean at home, for now. And Liam said it was too risky, with the threat not fully understood, for either of them to be in the front line along with both Eamonn and his grandfather. They would wait until they got a report from Eamonn himself, or from Seamus. That would be fact and not fancy. Then would be time to decide whether to take further action.
I noticed, though, that they spoke long and seriously in the evenings, and studied their maps. Iubdan, too. My father might have sworn not to take up arms, not if the enemy might be his own kind, but Liam was enough of a strategist to recognise and make use of the skill his sister’s husband had with charts, and with the planning of offence and defence. I heard him remark that it was a pity Padriac had never come back, the last time he sailed off in search of new lands and fresh adventures. Now there was a man who knew how to build a boat and handle it better than any Norseman. There was a man who could think up ten different solutions to any problem. But it was three years now since Liam had last laid eyes on his youngest brother. Nobody held out much hope of a safe return, after so long. I remembered this uncle quite well. Who could forget him? He’d be home awhile, full of wonderful tales, and then off again on some new quest. He was tanned brown as a nut, with his hair plaited down his back, and he wore three rings in the one ear, and he had a strange many-coloured bird that sat on his shoulder and asked you politely if you wanted a roll in the hay, dear? I knew my mother no more believed him dead than she did Finbar. I wondered if she knew. I wondered if I would know, if Sean went away to battle and perished on the point of some stranger’s sword. Would I feel it in my own heart, that moment when the blood slows in the veins, and the breath stops, and a film covers the eyes as they gaze sightless into the wide expanse of the sky?
It was never my intention to spy on Niamh. What my sister did with her spare time was her own affair. I was concerned, that was all. She was so unlike herself, the way she retreated into silence, and spent so much time alone. Even Aisling commented on it, kindly.
‘Niamh seems very quiet,’ she remarked one afternoon as the two of us went up to the fields behind the house to pick wild endive for brewing. In some households it was thought inappropriate for the lord’s daughters to touch such menial work, and it would be left to those who served the family. It had never been so at Sevenwaters, not in my memory at least. Here, everyone worked. True, Janis and her women handled the heavier tasks, hefting the huge iron stew pot, cleaning floors, killing chickens. But both Niamh and I had our daily routine, and our seasonal tasks, and knew how to perform them capably. In this we followed our parents’ example, for Sorcha would spend her whole day between stillroom and village, tending to the sick, and my father, who had once been lord of Harrowfield, was not reluctant to set his own hand to the plough if the occasion demanded it. Niamh and I would make good wives, well able to order the domestic side of our husbands’ households. After all, how can you be a good mistress if you have no understanding of the work your folk must undertake? Just how Niamh did manage to acquire her skills I am not sure, since she never stayed long at one task. But she was a clever girl, and if she forgot something it did not take her long to charm Janis or me or someone else into helping her.
However, she was not here for the endive. Aisling picked carefully, stopping now and then to push her unruly bright curls back into the binding they sought to escape. Now the days were warmer, she was getting a light dusting of freckles on her nose.
‘Be sure you leave enough to make seed,’ I cautioned.
‘Yes, Mother,’ chuckled Aisling as she added a few more of the golden blooms to her willow basket. She was always willing to help with such tasks. Maybe she thought she was preparing herself to be the right sort of wife for Sean. I could have told her that side of it wouldn’t matter a bit, not to him. My brother’s mind was made up already.
‘But seriously, Liadan, do you think Niamh is all right? I wondered if – well, I wondered it was to do with Eamonn.’
‘Eamonn?’ I echoed rather stupidly.
‘Well,’ said Aisling thoughtfully, ‘he has been away a while now, and none of us knows what’s been happening. I’m not sure how things are between the two of them, but I did think she might be worried. I know I am.’
I gave her a reassuring hug. ‘I’m sure you need not be. If anyone knows how to look after himself, it’s Eamonn. Any day now we’ll see your brother riding up to the door as large as life, and no doubt victorious with it.’ And I’ll bet a silver piece to an old bobbin, I said to myself, that whatever is bothering my sister, it’s not him. I doubt if she’s given him a moment’s thought since he went away. He’s probably been in my thoughts more than he has hers.
We finished our picking, and we brewed the spring wine with honey and jasmine to counter the bitterness of the endive, and we put it away to work in darkness, and still there was no sign of Niamh. Aisling and I went upstairs and washed our hands and faces, and combed and braided each other’s hair, and took off our coarse