Son of the Shadows. Juliet Marillier
south, should he face a threat from that quarter. For a short letter, it contains a great deal.’
‘What manner of man is this Fionn?’ put in Aisling rather boldly. ‘Is he young or old? Ill favoured or well made?’
‘He’d be of middle years,’ said Liam. ‘Thirty, perhaps. A warrior. I know nothing of his looks.’
‘Thirty!’ Aisling was clearly shocked at the thought one of us might wed so ancient a man.
Sean grinned. ‘A daughter of exceptional beauty,’ he murmured. ‘That’d be Niamh.’ He glanced at me, brows raised, and I made a face at him.
‘It would be Niamh for whom the offer was intended,’ agreed Liam, missing the point of our interchange entirely. ‘What do you say, niece?’
‘I …’ Niamh appeared quite incapable of speech, which was a very unusual state of affairs. She was suddenly extremely pale. ‘I …’ And yet, it can hardly have been such a shock. At seventeen, indeed, it was surprising that this was the first formal offer we had received for her.
‘This is too much for a young girl to take in at once, Liam,’ said my mother quickly. ‘Niamh needs time to consider it, and so do we. I might, perhaps, read this letter to her in private, if you have no objection.’
‘None whatever,’ said Liam.
‘We’ll want to discuss it.’ My father had been keeping quiet up to this point, but his tone said clearly that nobody else was going to make his decisions for him. ‘Does this Fionn intend to favour us with a visit in person, or must we assess his qualities solely from his penmanship?’ It was at moments such as this that one remembered who my father was, and had once been.
‘He wishes to hear first if we will consider the matter. If the answer is favourable, he will travel here before midsummer to present himself, and would hope to be wed without delay, if we are in agreement.’
‘There’s no need for haste,’ said Iubdan quietly. ‘Such matters are weighty, and should be given due consideration. What seems the best choice at first may not prove its worth in time.’
‘All the same,’ Liam said, ‘your daughter is in her eighteenth year. She could have been married these two or three summers past. Might I remind you that at her age Sorcha was wed and the mother of three children? And an offer from a chieftain of such standing comes but seldom.’
Niamh stood up abruptly, and now I could see that she had indeed been listening, and that she was quivering from head to toe.
‘You can stop discussing me as if I were some – some prize breeding cow you want to sell off to advantage,’ she said in a shaking voice. ‘I won’t marry this Uí Néill, I can’t. That’s – that’s just the way it is. It just can’t happen. Why don’t you ask him if he’ll take Liadan instead? It’s the best offer she’s likely to get. And now, if you’ll excuse me –’ She blundered to the door, and I could see the tears starting to flow as she stumbled out and away along the hall, leaving the family in stunned silence.
She wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t talk to Mother. She wouldn’t even talk to Iubdan, who was the best listener you could hope for. Liam she avoided altogether. Things began to get quite strained, as the days passed and Fionn’s letter remained unanswered. There was no sign of a compromise, and my uncle became edgy. Everyone recognised that Niamh’s reaction went beyond what might be expected (which was shocked but flattered surprise, followed by a show of maidenly reluctance, and eventually blushing acceptance). What they could not understand was why. My sister was, as Liam had pointed out, quite old to be still unwed, and her such a beauty. Why hadn’t she jumped at such an offer? The Uí Néill! And a future chieftain at that! The gossip was, it was Eamonn she really wanted, and she was holding out until he came back. I could have told them different, but I held my tongue. I had an idea what was in her head. I had a suspicion about where she went, those days she made herself vanish from sunrise to dusk. But my sister’s thoughts were impenetrable; I could only guess at the truth, and I hoped fervently that my misgivings were unfounded.
I tried to talk to her, but got nowhere. At first I was kind and tactful, for she cried a lot, lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling, or standing by the window with her tear-stained face bathed in moonlight, looking out over the forest. When kindness had no effect, I became more direct.
‘I don’t think you would make a very good druid, Niamh,’ I told her one night as we sat alone in our room, a small candle burning on the chest between our narrow beds.
‘What?’ I had certainly got her attention with that. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me. There are no warm blankets, no accommodating servants, no silken gowns in the nemetons. There is a lifetime of discipline and learning and self-deprivation. It is a life of the spirit, not the flesh.’
‘Hold your tongue!’ Her furious response told me I had come close to the truth. ‘What would you know? What would you know about anything? My plain little sister, wrapped up in her herbs and potions and her cosy domestic round! What man’s likely to want you, save a farmer with big hands and mud on his boots?’ She flung herself down on the bed, her face in her hands, and I suspected she was crying.
I took a deep breath and let it carefully out again. ‘Mother chose a farmer with big hands and mud on his boots,’ I said quietly. ‘There were more than a few women at Sevenwaters who thought him quite a catch when he was a young man. So they say.’
She did not move, did not make a sound. I sensed the deep misery that had given rise to her cruel words.
‘You can talk to me, Niamh,’ I said. ‘I’ll do my best to understand. You know it can’t go on like this. Everyone’s upset. I’ve never seen the household so divided. Why don’t you tell me? See if I can help?’
She lifted her head to look at me. I was shocked at her pallor, and the deep shadows under her eyes.
‘Oh, it’s all my fault now,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘Upset everyone, have I? Who was it decided to marry me off so they could win some stupid battle? That wasn’t my idea, I can tell you!’
‘Sometimes you can’t have what you want,’ I said levelly. ‘You might just have to accept that, hard as it might seem right now. This Fionn might not be so bad. You could at least meet the man.’
‘That’s good, coming from you! You wouldn’t know a real man if you saw one. Didn’t you suggest Eamonn as a likely choice for me? Eamonn?’
‘It did seem – possible.’
There was a long silence. I kept still, seated cross legged on my bed in my unadorned linen nightrobe. I supposed what she had said about me was true; and I wondered again if my father had been wrong about Eamonn. I tried to see myself as a man might, but it was pretty difficult. Too short, too thin. Too pale. Too quiet. You could say all these things about me. I was, however, not discontented with the face and body I had inherited from my mother. I was happy with what Niamh disparagingly called my small domestic round. I had no wish for adventures. A farmer would suit me just fine.
‘What are you smiling at?’ My sister glared across the room at me. The candle made her shadow huge and menacing on the wall behind her as she sat up, dashing the tears from her eyes. Swollen with weeping as it was, her face was still dazzling in its beauty.
‘Nothing much.’
‘How can you smile, Liadan? You don’t care at all, do you? How can you imagine I would ever tell you anything? Once you know, Sean knows, and then they all know.’
‘That’s not fair. Some things I keep from Sean, and him from me.’
‘Oh yes?’
I did not reply, and Niamh lay down again, her face to the wall. When she spoke, it was in a different tone of voice, wobbly and tearful.
‘Liadan?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m