The Well of Shades (15 page)

Eile set her teeth in her lip. He kept on frightening her,
with his stupid names and his foolhardy questions. Her feet wanted to run; she could feel the same restlessness in Saraid’s small body. A sob of sheer panic was welling up in her; she fought to suppress it.

“Excuse us,” Faolan said. “My wife is quite unwell, as I said… Best you let us pass, unless you want her breakfast all over your boots.”

A joker as well. Gods, she felt so sick right now she
might do a very good imitation of an expectant woman, not that there was much in her stomach to bring up.

“You sure she’s your wife?” The leader of the group had motioned his men into the hut to search, while he himself moved closer to Eile, scrutinizing her face. “Looks the right age for what we’re seeking, and the child as well, three-year-old girl, dark hair… Where are you from? What’s your
business in these parts? Why is she wearing men’s clothing?”

The questions had been thrown at them like knives. Eile cleared her throat.

Faolan took a step back. His arm came around her shoulders and she felt him draw a long breath.

“I’m the son of the brithem from Fiddler’s Crossing, Conor Uí Néill,” he said. “The surviving son.”

The strangest thing happened. The man’s face changed before
her eyes, a look of fascinated horror crossing his features. He said not a word.

“I’ve been away a long time,” added Faolan quietly. “I had neither wife nor child when I left these parts. I made my home far from this shore. Folk who remember me will tell you I’m a bard, and a bard travels. I thought it was time to introduce Aoife here, and my daughter, to the family. Now we’ll be on our way,
if you please.”

They stepped aside and let him pass. She was certain, almost certain, that at least one of the men must recognize her. She’d been at the market now and then, though Dalach preferred Anda to go. He had his reasons for wanting Eile to stay at home. Besides, Anda refused to look after Saraid unless she absolutely must—“It’s the
girl’s by-blow, let her tend to it”—and Eile didn’t
trust her aunt to be kind to the child. Anda was jealous. So foolish, as if Dalach’s attentions were something to be coveted.

Well, it was over now, that part of it, at least, and it looked, incredibly, as if Faolan had just talked them out of trouble. She gripped Saraid’s hand, fixed her eyes on the ground and moved forward, keeping pace with him. No choice in that; he still had his arm around
her. His touch made her edgy and afraid; she wanted to break free, to push the arm away, to be her own self again. He’d better not think he was going to step into Dalach’s shoes, with his talk of wives. Given it up, huh! Men didn’t give it up. They took it when they wanted, they didn’t know how to go without. Faolan was a liar like the rest of them. Like Deord, who’d probably never intended to
come back.

“All right?” Faolan murmured as they reached the willows and the knot of men behind them broke into rapid, muted talk, of which nothing was clear enough to understand.

“Mm.”

“Keep moving. I’ll carry Saraid if you want.”

“No. You need your hands free. She can walk.”

“If you say so. Keep quiet until we’re over the bridge. We’ll have to wait until the wood’s in place. The child’s
not going over that rope, nor am I.”

They emerged from cover. There was a clear view of the rushing river and the broken span of the footbridge. On the other side a group of men was gathering, and materials had arrived on a cart: lengths of wood, coils of rope, tools. As Faolan and Eile walked along the river path, a party of riders appeared behind the laborers, a group of ten or so clad in tunics
and breeches of blue and black. Their clothing seemed of fine quality, their shirts of pale linen, their boots well polished. Here and there a silver chain, a hat with a plume or a bronze sword hilt showed their status as members of a great household.
They must be waiting to cross the other way; perhaps that explained the workers’ early start.

The wait was long. Faolan made play of finding somewhere
for her and Saraid to sit, and she swallowed a curt denial that she needed his help with anything so simple. They sat. Faolan coerced a couple of their pursuers to help with the bridge. It looked tricky, grabbing the planks as the men on the other side slid them out, lining them up, then fastening them with more ropes on this side. She watched her father’s friend as he leaned out over the
rushing water, and pondered what her next move would be if he fell in and drowned. She’d probably give herself away the moment she said anything; he was the one who could tell lies and make them sound like the truth. He was the one with authority. Maybe she could fall down screaming and weeping, as Anda might have done, and get them to take her to this brithem, somebody Uí Néill. That name she knew;
everyone did. They were big people, landowners, chieftains and kings. Eile could imagine the look in their eyes if she and Saraid turned up on the doorstep. Besides, what could she say? “I’m your son’s wife?” That was a joke. Anyway, she couldn’t scream and cry, even if Faolan drowned before her eyes. She couldn’t do that to Saraid, who was already like a little ghost, silent and scared.

The
rest of the men were talking. Two conversations: she could hear bits of both as she sat huddled in her cloak, with Saraid leaning up against her and the dog at her feet. One of them was about her.

“I’m sure it’s her.”

“But he said…”

“Take a look. You can see what he is: wealthy, highborn, speaks like he owns the place. She’s a scrawny bit of nothing; roadside rubbish. Wife? I hardly think so.”

Eile tried to scrunch up on herself; to make herself beneath any kind of notice. She prayed.
Let us get away. Please, oh, please.
She fought the urge to jump up, grab
Saraid and run. His plan; his rules. She’d probably been stupid to trust even for a moment.

The second conversation was about Faolan, and made her wonder.

“You know what he did, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t bear thinking about. Bet his
father never thought he’d come home.”

“Don’t know how the fellow can live with himself.”

“Looks normal enough.”

“You reckon?”

“Wonder where he went, all those years.”

For all the difficulty, the bridge was serviceable before morning was well advanced, and the men on the far side invited Faolan to be first across, since he had helped them while under no obligation to do so. The mounted party
had tethered their horses and waited at a distance while the work was done. Now they moved up, and Eile could see a cloaked and hooded figure among them, someone who seemed to be giving all the orders.

At last they could go. She put Saraid in the sling and lifted the child onto her back. Faolan came over to them, his hands bleeding, his good tunic somewhat the worse for wear.

“Ready?” he asked,
as if this were an everyday sort of journey, and the three of them a small family going to market or to visit kinsfolk. Those were the sorts of things ordinary families did together. Maybe she had done them with Father and Mother, long ago when she was little. She wished she could remember.

The rope remained as a handhold, but now the planks made a secure, though narrow, purchase for feet. Below,
the river coursed in frothy white around the bridge supports. Faolan stepped onto the timbers and turned back to face her, extending his hand. “One hand in mine, the other on the rope,” he said. “One step at a time.”

“Shut your eyes, Squirrel,” Eile said, pitching her voice above the noise of the rushing water. “Count up to
ten, as slowly as you can, and then again, and we’ll be on the other
side.” Clenching her teeth, she took the first step.

“You know,” Faolan observed, walking backward, “that child is the best behaved I’ve ever encountered. You’ve done a wonderful job with her. Where I come from, there are several little boys, and they seem to run about yelling quite a bit of the time. I think Squirrel there would be quite taken aback by it…” He kept on talking, and leading her
forward without once looking where he was going, and before he had finished they were on the other side. She had not once thought of falling.

Eile stepped down off the bridge and heard him say quietly, “Well done.” A moment later a sharp voice snapped out, “That is the man!” and, before Faolan could so much as turn around, a pair of the blue-and-black-clad fellows had his arms pinned behind his
back and were marching him away from her.

He fought. He fought quite well, in Eile’s estimation; the two men were joined by two more, and then by another, before they got him trussed up, a gag over his mouth, and threw him across one of the packhorses. One man’s nose was pouring blood; another was groaning, a hand to his head. A third lay sprawled on the ground, clutching his knee. Saraid had
started to cry. Eile could feel it. The child wept soundlessly, a skill she had learned from her mother.

My plan; my rules.
The plan had gone wrong now and the rules had to be broken.

“Let him go!” Eile shouted. “He hasn’t done anything!” But there was so much noise, what with the blue and black people cursing and shouting orders, and horses everywhere, and the voice of the river, that nobody
seemed to hear her. She was standing in the middle of someone else’s place, someone else’s business, and it seemed she was invisible at last, just when she didn’t want to be. “Listen to me!” she yelled. “You! Listen! He’s innocent, he didn’t do anything!”

Someone lifted a hand, and there was a sudden stillness. Voices hushed; animals were quieted. A horse moved up beside Eile, a big horse with
silver on its harness. The cloaked rider looked down.

“And who are you?” The voice was a woman’s, sharp, impatient. It was the same voice that had been giving the orders.

Eile drew a deep breath and looked up. The woman was straight-backed and proud, as she imagined a great queen might be. Her hair was entirely covered by a veil and neck-piece of deep blue, like the evening sky, in some gossamer-fine
stuff. Rich people’s clothing. The eyes were grayish blue and hard as iron below the elegant brows. The woman did not look angry; she looked as if she was in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered listening.

“Please,” Eile said, forcing her voice steady as her heart raced. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s just a traveler. Please let him go.”

“What concern is this of yours, girl?” The tone was
crisp. “Conal, deal with this person, will you?” The woman began to turn her horse away.

“Please! You’re in charge, make them release him! This isn’t fair—”

The poised head turned back a little. “What are you to him?” the woman asked.

I’m his wife.
No, not that; Faolan’s plan was for the other side of the river. “I’m his friend,” she said, wondering what it was that had made her stay and speak,
when it seemed she could have simply walked away amid the chaos and been free. “Where are you taking him?” She could see Faolan’s face, upside down over a horse’s back; she could glimpse his furious eyes, see the labored movement as he continued to struggle while tied at wrists and ankles. Then a man with a club came up and hit him on the head, and the eyes closed. “Stop hurting him!” Eile screamed.

A hand clapped itself over her mouth and a large arm came around her waist. She felt Saraid stiffen with fright.
Eile used her teeth. The hand let go. A moment later a searing pain went through her ear as the man cuffed her. Tears sprang to her eyes, tears of pain and of outrage, tears of sheer terror. No pitchfork; no knife; nothing but her bare hands.

“Gently, Conal,” the veiled woman said.
“There’s a child there.” Her voice held not a trace of softness. It was more the tone of someone who sees the wisdom of safeguarding a new possession until its value is properly assessed. “Girl! Where were you headed?”

“Fiddler’s Crossing.”

“Oh? For what purpose?”

None of your business.
“Visiting kin, my lady.” Torn between fear and fury, she forced the title out.

“And what kin would that
be?”

What now? An outright lie? Or tell the truth, the truth that had for some strange reason got them away from those first pursuers? “His kin, my lady. The family of the lawman in that settlement. My friend is his son.”

The woman regarded her. The air seemed to go chill. “And your name is…?”

Eile bobbed a curtsy, hating herself. “Aoife, my lady.”

“Aoife, I see. Like the fairy woman in the
ballad. How inappropriate.” The cold blue eyes raked Eile up and down; she saw herself reflected there, from lank hair to bitten nails, from grimy face to worn boots. Her too-large clothing, a man’s garments; the child’s small hands clutching her.

Eile squared her shoulders. “I suppose my mother and father thought me fair, as an infant,” she heard herself say. “We can’t all choose what we become.”
Wrong, all wrong; she sent a mute apology to the unconscious Faolan. Silent and submissive, he’d said. With those sharp eyes on her, she couldn’t manage that.

“This girl is of no interest to us,” the lady said. “Leave her; ride on.”

“No!” They were ignoring her; moving off, one man leading the packhorse with Faolan limp over the saddle.
“No! You can’t take him!” This wasn’t right. Someone had
to make them understand.

“My lady?” A man spoke from behind her.

“What now?” The woman halted her mount once more.

“I’ve had a word with those fellows on the other side. This girl—she’s under suspicion for an unlawful death. A man stabbed: her uncle, not two days since. They want to take her back to Cloud Hill, deal with it properly.”

“Then give her to them and let us be on our way. I’ve no
time for this.”

“The only thing is,” said the man, “the story the girl gave, and the fellow,” he nodded toward Faolan, “is that she’s his wife and the child his daughter. If not for that, they’d have taken her back straightaway. I thought you’d want to know, my lady.”

“It’s all right, Squirrel,” muttered Eile. “Don’t cry; it’ll be all right.” She had promised a new home; a nice one, if only
Saraid crossed the river. She had lied to her own daughter.

“Are you his wife?” The words were like drops of ice; Eile could not tell if the woman was angry or amused or playing some strange game beyond other people’s understanding.